I’m struck by how striking the similarities are between the global warming debate and that surrounding HIV/AIDS. Yesterday I watched this trailer for a documentary called ‘House of Numbers’ – http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/houseofnumbers/, which calls into doubt not only the link between HIV and AIDs, but also the very existence of HIV. It looks quite fair and balanced, while challenging the orthodoxy presented in the mainstream media.

Reading this assessment of the film sheds a rather different light on the views presented: http://www.badscience.net/2009/09/house-of-numbers/.

What’s striking about the HIV/AIDS debate is how strongly it echoes the smoking/cancer ‘debate’ that raged for forty years. A fine summary of this can be found here:

http://lightbucket.wordpress.com/2008/04/07/doubt-is-our-product-pr-versus-science/

With more detail available here:

http://lightbucket.wordpress.com/category/public-relations/tobacco-public-relations/

With regard to global warming, I see the cause of it as being something of red herring in any case. As you suggest in your post, there are plenty of compelling reasons to reduce dependency on foreign oil, switch to renewable sources of energy and invest in new technology that taking action on all of the above shouldn’t hinge on the possibility of climate change.

Comment by Vincent — January 11, 2010 @ 10:16 am

In fairness, the weather/climate distinction isn’t doublespeak. Weather is local and medium term at longest. Climate is continental at rough minimum, and long-term. Organisations like the Met Office have had years of people saying: “Global warming? How can they make that prediction with such certainty when they can’t even get the weather right tomorrow?” Consequently they’ve also spent years trying to explain that with weather they can make very specific predictions in the short term (and wobblier ones in the medium), but that climate operates on a whole different timespan and remains extremely vague – in general, the world will get warmer and local weather will get more extreme (apart from anything else because a warmer atmosphere and warmer oceans mean more energy at play), but that has no specific bearing on local weather beyond providing context in which such things happen.

Vincent and you are right that the cause is more or less irrelevant given that the solutions are advantageous/necessary anyway. However, arguing about the cause and/or existence of a changing climate is used in the vast majority not by people saying “but we might as well change anyway” but by people saying “it’s all fine, carry on, drill, baby, drill”. People whose opinions are given equal weight in mainstream media ‘debates’ to, say, the IPCC despite the fact that one has a position based on evidence (one can argue the implications and the quality, but it does at least exist) and one has a position based on pixie dust and rainbows.

Distortions of the truth are far more common on the latter side, too; trash like ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ continues to be made and fed as counterpoint to the scientific consensus, despite the fact it’s full of shit we just made up, rather like those who continue to insist that glaciers are advancing or there’s more sea ice now than ever before. It’s not presenting new evidence for the reverse argument, it’s just lies and garbage. I keep half an eye on realclimate.org and I don’t remember seeing anything coming out that suggests an actual genuine challenge to anthropogenic climate change. Plenty which tweaks a prediction this way or that, changes an assumption made here or alters a theory there, but little or nothing to suggest a real body of evidence on the other side of the argument.

In the main – not here, I hasten to add, but online and in the newspapers – I don’t find arguments over global warming similar to the old smoking debate (“doubt” aside) or the wildly inventive AIDS “controversy” so much as the argument between creationism and evolution. One side has a fairly large, albeit not 100% complete (as it never will be), body of evidence on its side, the other just resorts to “nonsense some guy made up that happens to tally with what I think is right”. The bulk of the anti-climate change arguments I see are the rough equivalent of Kirk Cameron’s wonderfully deranged banana.

Comment by John R — January 11, 2010 @ 11:35 am

Incidentally, on the topic of “doubt” and Vince’s link, where it points out that doubt bought the tobacco companies 40 years of wiggle room, when I did my dissertation on climate change (yea or nay) 11 years ago, I was working from published data some of which was 10 or more years old, and the evidence was solid even then. It was firm enough for the UNFCCC to be signed at the time of Rio in ‘92. Despite that, doubt persists (to be fair, it’s a more complex, less firm-sounding message this time compared to “SMOKING KILLS YOU”) and we’ve done (and, I predict, will continue to do) pretty much fuck all for getting on 20 years now, halfway to what tobacco eked out already.

Comment by John R — January 11, 2010 @ 12:06 pm

I think the thing that really concerns me, and you haven’t allayed those fears, is that much of the language and many of the arguments used by the warming lobby are so unscientific. I’m afraid many of the claims made by this lobby are as extraordinary as those made by the oil-funded lobbyists. I’ve also seen a number of scientists producing evidence that any warming that might be taking place isn’t anthropogenic, but they’re shouted down in slightly hysterical fashion, which once again makes the lay observer suspicious.

Again, as a lay observer, I see sites like – http://wattsupwiththat.com/ – and they seem more rational and methodical than much of the alarmist stuff I’m seeing from the warmist lobby.

Finally, John, weather is surely the result of climate? And my point really is that the warmist lobby has continually sold us climate change in terms of the weather we can expect to experience. They can’t use that tool and then dismiss it as soon as the weather plays to the other side.

Seriously, if there is a problem we need to address, the scientific community needs to stop pointing the finger and getting hysterical, and start acting and talking like scientists.

Comment by Kevin Wignall — January 11, 2010 @ 1:43 pm

Sorry, forgot to mention the other point. As I said in my post, the warmist bandwagon has also been jumped on by a lot of people who dream of us returning to some sort of self-sufficient agrarian society. These are the people who refuse to accept that there’s any solution except drastically cutting carbon emissions, the people who believe we should deny the developing world the chance to enjoy the luxuries we take for granted. The scientists would also do well to distance themselves from these people, no matter how useful the association currently seems, not least because a lot of these people are actually anti-science.

Just as science proved the solution to the Malthusian scaremongering of centuries past, so science will be the solution this time (if indeed, there is a problem that needs “solving”). But the result will be a planet on which man has a greater impact, not a lesser one – if the net result of this is developing the technology we need to control the climate into the future, all well and good. But I doubt that’s what many of the most vociferous climate protesters want to see.

Comment by Kevin Wignall — January 11, 2010 @ 4:44 pm

Oh yes, heartily agree about the “let us return to the trees, my brothers!” types. People who genuinely believe that we can somehow support 7bn people and rising with organic farming and no machinery.

Weather is a result of climate, but it’s not a clear, direct “Global Variable A will cause Local Variable B” type relationship, which so many people seem to think (the prime example being localised cold spells), nor does it take place over anything like a nice, clear everyday timespan. In the same way that I don’t get a cavity every day I eat a bag of sweets, every month the world creeps another tenth of a percent of a degree warmer doesn’t mean it won’t snow in June or never get into double figures all summer. Look at the same picture over 20 years and we’ll see my teeth slowly falling out and distinct changes in local weather, but we can’t really point to a moment in either process when it ‘happens’ (equally, I might never get a cavity, but that doesn’t mean anything; you take a hundred sweet-eaters and most of them will, etc. etc.). Anything that happens – or doesn’t happen – in single short periods of time really doesn’t mean anything either way (likewise, anyone pointing to one particular hot summer, as they do, and saying, “There you go. Proof of global warming.”).

(The current snow burst, IIRC from another link of Vince’s was, as you alluded to, due to unseasonal heat in the Arctic temporarily diverting the Gulf Stream away from us.)

Looking at Watts Up With That? they’re not doing too good a job of digging into some of the things they’re covering, because, I’d suggest from reading around the site, of their innate biases. The Mojab Latif business, for instance, is total guff, misrepresentations of actual science, and has been for a long time. The words “published in the Daily Mail” would probably have alerted Watts if he’d been a Brit. (On a cursory read, he also seems to fall foul of several fairly well refuted myths.)

As for the lingo used by lobby groups, I’d merrily ignore all from either side, and the same with every mainstream media outlet. Very few of them do more than engage in Chinese Whispers with ideas that seem to mesh with their own preconceptions, not necessarily because they’re all monsters, but largely because they don’t really understand the subject. I continually prod people in the direction of realclimate.org if only because it remains the most propaganda-free, accessible – and free to question – stepping off point that I know for what is a very broad and at times counter-intuitive subject.

The language used in the debate may be a factor of the media it takes place in. Science comes across very poorly in mass media; the news productions of the day don’t like lengthy, considered quotes which say things like “probably” or “could”. They want “will definitely” and “OMG we’re all going to die!” Some papers, in particular, have a long and proud record of either twisting quotes or completely inventing things to make a livelier story.

Comment by John R — January 11, 2010 @ 10:39 pm

“The Mousetrap” is set at a snowbound inn. What’s nice about snow is that it is not only transitory but clean; floods leave a horrible mess behind, and a lot of residual damage, but generally once the snow melts, everything goes back to the illusion of normal.

I was once snowed in for two days at a hotel in Jefferson City, Missouri, and nothing exciting happened to me. In fact, toward the end of the second day the restaurant started to run out of food and the bar started to run out of liquor, and things might have gotten ugly if the roads hadn’t opened back up the next morning.

Comment by Clair Lamb — January 6, 2010 @ 8:37 pm

I never knew that about “The Mousetrap”! I’ve never seen it and now I’m wondering why not. It’s permanently on in London, of course, but why isn’t it shown regionally, or on TV? Hmm.

I forgot to say in my post that revellers attending the New Year’s party at the Tan Hill Inn, Britain’s highest pub, were snowed in for three days last week and all seemed to have a whale of a time.

Comment by Kevin Wignall — January 6, 2010 @ 8:42 pm

Interesting observation. Snow seems much more isolating. It throws the characters into a tiny universe where they’re forced to look inward and confront issues.

A tropical storm is loud and chaotic. Trapped characters are constantly reminded the outside world could collapse on them at any moment.

Comment by Todd — January 6, 2010 @ 11:56 pm

I think snow is relatively safe, as far as weather catastrophes go. Floods can be environmentally disastrous and there’s the automatic possibility of house damage and the need to sandbag and such. Tornadoes and hurricanes speak for themselves. The level of damage they do is so vast it’s not about simple isolation, but about the need to be rescued.

However, you can be snowed in and 99.9% of the time, in no need of rescue. We had a bad storm forecasted just before Christmas. I went to the store the day before to pick up something basic and was stunned: whole sections of food were sold out. No milk, no eggs, no bread… I was more shocked by that than anything. Yes, it was a record snowfall, but as a Canadian the idea of being cut off from the world physically for a day is no big deal. We could have gone four or five days without it becoming an emergency, and at that point, what would have been pressing would have been Christmas wrapping paper and tape. But then, I lived on an island, and I knew what it was to go without power for three days and have to take a 35 minute ferry ride to a grocery store.

Snow is also rather romantic, so it has the added bonus of being deceptive. As much as I love the snow I’m aware of the dangers, of being exposed, of playing too close to the road and being run over by a snowplow. Saw that happen to our neighbour’s dog as a kid. Snow is, initially, pretty. Therefore, it sets a nice stage, and a deceptive stage is an ideal one for murder.

Comment by Sandra Ruttan — January 7, 2010 @ 3:14 am

Connected to what Sandra says about the romance of it, a snowbound landscape can also be deafeningly quiet. Almost profoundly so, sometimes. It can feel like the sound of someone standing very still.

And blood, of course. Blood looks great in the snow: splashes of red on white.

Comment by stevemosby — January 7, 2010 @ 2:52 pm

Good point about it holding the world at bay, Todd. And about the romance of it, Sandra (so now you know why it appeals to me!).

And Steve, I’d forgotten about that, not only the silence, but the strange accoustic that comes with it. Particularly in the Alps or similar, it’s deafeningly quiet but sound carries a long way in the hollow air.

Having seen these responses, I’m now wondering why there aren’t “more” stories set in the snow and snowbound settings.

Comment by Kevin Wignall — January 7, 2010 @ 4:29 pm

I always thought the appeal had to do with the fact that everything is hidden, covered in white. All the usual details of your life are obliterated, replaced by “clean” white. And for mysteries/crime stories the metaphor of something pristine hiding horrors beneath is as common as bread and butter.

Like Kevin, I’m also wondering why I don’t see more of them, and further wondering why I haven’t written one myself. We had a big storm nearly a week ago here in Leipzig and because the temperature has remained below freezing most of it around our place is still new-looking, still loose, and we’re always making fresh footprints in it when we venture out.

Comment by Olen Steinhauer — January 8, 2010 @ 3:14 pm

Olen, I certainly hear you on this, especially since you live outside the states these days, an e-reader definitely sounds more convenient than a massive pile of books – and I appreciate that you acknowledge the fact that the kindle is slowly sucking the life out of the indie bookstore, but it doesn’t make me feel any better about it. And I know that you’ve heard it all before, but to me, the fact is, we independent booksellers are the ones recommending your books to their customers & friends, not amazon. If the soulless, computerized bookseller is what we’re looking for, then I suppose that’s what we’re gonna get. I guess that reality just bums me out.
I’m still going to handsell The Tourist though. :)

Comment by Seth — December 22, 2009 @ 9:20 pm

Seth, don’t give up yet. I’m not going to explain why I think the e-book will be a short-lived development and why it has a built-in obsolescence because I’ve done that before in a post on this site.

I’m also not going to dispute that there will be blood spilled by the brief flowering of the e-book – unlike Olen, I think publishers will suffer as much as booksellers.

But real books work for most people. They work for the people who read one book a year on vacation (Lee Child has argued convincingly that most bestsellers are sold to people like this). They also work for people who like the tactile reality of books.

Indie bookshops might have to change, and publishers will certainly have to change. And to me the obvious direction is in the quality of the volumes they produce. As I once pointed out to someone in the industry, if you read a great but cheaply produced book you’ll give it to your friend, but if you read a great and beautifully produced book, you’ll put it on your shelf and recommend it to your friend, even if you know you’ll never read it again. This is how publishers have to respond to e-books, by making books better, making them collectable. A book is a beautiful object that does a simple yet amazing job, and it will continue to do it long after e-books have morphed into countless hybird forms of entertainment.

Comment by Kevin Wignall — December 22, 2009 @ 10:00 pm

Seth, it’s folks like you I’m thinking about when I want to mitigate damage. But I brought up those earlier fears about indies getting wiped out by B&N and Amazon because while I know I’m probably guilty of living with too much hope, I really don’t think something like the Kindle will ruin the independent bookstore–or at least most of them. Two reasons:

1) Ebooks aren’t for everyone. That feeling of reading a novel on Word certainly isn’t for most people, and I don’t think it ever will be. I mention the fetish of the physical book, but I don’t mean it in any condescending way; it’s a major part of the reading experience, one that most people won’t relinquish easily.

And most importantly, 2) an independent bookstore offers community, which any form of wireless purchasing can’t offer. Part of that’s the booksellers helping guide customers through the labyrinth of titles, the other part is the customers themselves interacting and discovering new reading pleasures.

To me, #2 is something that’s crucially important to cultural life in the States, and it’s a lovely and unexpected surprise if you find it living overseas (or, like me, you live overseas and then find yourself moving for 5 months to yet another country without an English-language bookstore).

Am I being too naively optimistic? I speak of these things entirely from the outside, as I don’t visit the States nearly often enough to really know. You tell me.

One thing that does annoy me (and I should have mentioned it above) is that Amazon produces books in their own format. It doesn’t force, but it does manipulate Kindle owners into buying their ebooks from Amazon. However, since I’m techy enough to know how to reformat these things, from the 250+ ebooks I now have, only a tiny fraction were actually purchased from Amazon.

But if physical books want to survive in the long run (and we really are talking about a long run here), I think Kevin makes an excellent point about them needing to be produced as beautiful objects.

There was an interesting editorial in the Guardian a year or more ago about how one reader’s UK paperbacks were falling apart after a few years, while his US paperbacks were still flexible and sound–it led to a realization that, as a general rule, UK paperbacks were being produced more cheaply (something I’ve noticed myself). With an attitude like that, UK publishers may reap larger profits in the short run, but will lose out in the long run. Not to attack UK publishers with this, just to point out that publishers in general may be shooting themselves in the foot sometimes with shortsighted thinking.

And who’s stuck in the middle? The independents, of course.

Which reminds me of a lovely French law I learned about during my last tour there–the government regulates the prices of books, so that big booksellers cannot undercut prices. Thus, independents flourish. It will be interesting to see what they do once ebooks start making waves there, and to take notes.

Oh, and thanks for keeping up the handselling despite my obnoxious gadget purchases!

Comment by Olen Steinhauer — December 23, 2009 @ 12:56 am

Olen, we too had the Net Book Agreement which was abolished some ten years ago. It does mean some books are cheaper now, but where one “uncompetitive practice” has been abolished, another has been allowed to flourish, in that Amazon and some supermarkets are able to sell at a lower price than is offered to the indies by the publishers or wholesalers. Okay, it’s normal economics to offer lower prices to bulk buyers (though there’s a question about how much of a bulk buyer Amazon really is, and also suggestions that many of its books are dispatched by wholesalers or even directly by the publishers, but STILL at the massively discounted rate) but I don’t think it would be uncompetitive to legislate on the size of discount margin allowed. For example, most people will pay an extra pound/dollar or two for the chance to buy in an indie, but even I balk at paying £18.99 for a book that can be bought on Amazon for £8.

Incidentally, there was another article recently about the difference in quality between UK and US editions, something most of us authors have noted. The S&S “POD” version of “For the Dogs” is of a better quality than most UK paperbacks. I’m also a sucker for the US rough-cut pages. That’s a hint of the way to go, as would be occasional special editions of backlist titles, etc. etc..

Comment by Kevin Wignall — December 23, 2009 @ 1:44 pm

Was thinking further on this (it’s been on my mind ever since posting), and I’m wondering why indies can’t sell ebooks too, while keeping their community connection. Use IndieBound as a central repository of ebooks (in some cross-platform format, like mobi). Sell them directly via the IndieBound site, wherein you choose which independent in your zip code will benefit from the profits. Simultaneously, the indies who can do so set up wi-fi in the store so that people can come in, interact and discuss books with the staff, and order using their computer or wireless device (again from the IndieBound central repository). In most cases, if the book’s in stock, they’ll likely buy the physical copy, but if it’s not in stock then they can still have an e-copy in a minute. Obviously the indie community needs to make a deal with publishers to get such a thing moving, but from my experience publishers do not like the monopoly of B&N and Amazon, because of the absurd power they wield over publishers. I think publishers (at least the forward-looking ones) would jump at the chance to help keep indies alive.

It also occurs to me that bookstores don’t need wifi to make this work. If I buy an ebook from my local indie bookstore, the book can simply be emailed to me, or to whatever email address I’ve set up my reader with. Which is just a way to say that upgrade costs for individual stores doesn’t have to be much at all.

Anyway, I’m sure there’s plenty of reasons to argue against this, but I can’t think of them.

Comment by Olen Steinhauer — December 24, 2009 @ 12:00 pm

I think the e-book thing is a genie that can’t be put back in the bottle. If you travel regularly, or have a longish commute, the Kindle (or Nook or whatever) is a lifesaver. You can carry hundreds of books in the size of a trade paperback.

Plus, if you are an avid reader you can carry around a small library with you where ever you go. If a book comes out – you can have it in sixty-seconds.

There are just too many conveniences involved to have it be a flash-in-the-pan. I can’t imagine giving my Kindle up and going without e-books.

This doesn’t mean books qua books go away. We still have radio even after TV, TIVO, etc. Heck I still listen to tapes for my kids and I have a friend who still buys LPs.

I don’t know how the technology will sort out or how the market will play out but e-books are here to stay.

Comment by Kevin Holtsberry — December 26, 2009 @ 3:55 am

Olen –
Indies with ABA-run sites (like http://warwicks.indiebound.com) do have the ability to sell e-books, just not Kindle-compatible ones. So far, it’s great that we have the ability to theoretically be in the market, but the reality is that no one uses readers other than the Kindle yet. We’ve yet to sell an e-book at Warwick’s since they were made available in the Fall.

My problem with e-books has never been the item itself, but rather that Amazon has managed to put a stranglehold on the market, squeezing out independents and chains alike. Granted, B&N has managed to tap in with The Nook, but it remains to be seen if they can stave off bankruptcy, let alone keep competing with the massive online retailers like Amazon. My bitterness lies with the economic impossibility of the local store being able to compete, not just with e-books, but with the massive discounting happening at all the big box stores that Kevin mentioned. When Target sells the $29 Stephen King hardback for $8.99, where does that leave the indie? It’s madness.

Maybe the big guys will price themselves out of the market eventually, I’m not sure. I’m lucky enough to work for an independent that has a solid community without big box stores and chain booksellers within shouting distance, so we’re able to not just survive, but thrive. We make a big point of promoting shopping locally – not for the deep discounts, but for the personal connections, author events, and hands-on bookselling that you can’t get from a stonecold website and an ebook retailer.

And Kevin (W), I couldn’t agree with you more about the movement to beautify the book as something special, a work of art, as a way to preserve the printed, bound book. Look at the magnificent edition of Carl Jung’s “Red Book” published by Norton this winter or Reif Larsen’s novel, “The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet” created by Putnam. These are the way to go.

Oh, and sorry Olen, neither are available as e-books. :)

Comment by Seth — December 27, 2009 @ 11:33 pm

I’m trying to imagine the Red Book as an ebook, and the vision makes me cringe…

See? I didn’t even realize bookstores on IndieBound had the option of selling ebooks. Shows how poorly informed I am. I’m glad to see they’re available, but I wonder if the interface could be streamlined a little–when I click on a book I don’t know if there’s an ebook option. To find out that I have to do a separate search, and most people won’t think to do it. However, if on the initial book page they saw an e-option was available they might pursue it. Just a thought.

But I hear you. Those steep discounts have always been brutal, and I remember when B&N ruled the world all the hate was directed at them; now, it seems as if they’re a potential ally for the indies against Amazon and Target.

Color me stupidly optimistic (and yes, I do have a naive blind spot where technology is concerned), but I think this new format is just getting going. Amazon is certainly trying to lock up the market in its infancy, but the Kindle has limitations that will make other machines (hello, Apple?) a more attractive option. I have faith that, in a year or so, Amazon will have to open its machine up to a larger variety of formats, thus opening it to a larger variety of sellers.

And as I hope I’ve made clear, none of these developments will ever be able to supplant the local connection the indies have always had. Which is why Warwick’s and places like it may take a gut-punch but will come back kicking ass.

Comment by Olen Steinhauer — December 28, 2009 @ 4:57 pm

You’ve probably figured this out by now, but a lot of the “problems” with the Kindle (and with e-books in general), are problems with the publisher’s markup of the document. Once you’ve read 50 or so books bought from Amazon you’ll notice that the way that books are converted to the Kindle really varies. When the e-book becomes the primary format, a lot of the problems that now exist will be fixed.

Your problem with “flipping through books” would be helped by proper chapter markup, which puts the little black dots on the location bar at the bottom of the display. The 5-way can then be used to jump back and forth through chapters. So far only a minority of publishers are doing this.

Another trick is to pop the font to the smallest size, minimum leading, no margins, which puts a lot more content on the page, and you can page through faster. Change it back with you want to get back to reading. And of course searching can be used to track stuff down. You can even generate an impromptu table of contents by searching for “chapter.”

These guys complaining about dying “indie book stores.” I mean, seriously, do they really think that this wave can be stopped, that paper books are going to be around forever, other than as fetish articles like vinyl LPs are? The paper book is under attack from all sides. Dictionaries were done in by spellcheckers and various computer OS support of dictionary programs. Reference books by the internet. Computer programming books by the internet online language references, as well as by better programming environments with built in reference. Photography books are largely dead because you can find what you want on the internet. Are there niches and corner cases that these replacements don’t serve? Sure. Are they important enough that there will be a significant market to serve them. No. Get used to it. Books are moribund.

Comment by Mike — December 29, 2009 @ 5:08 pm

Olen, and commenters, interesting food for thought–thanks. One quick note to add, though–e-books do not cost “pretty much nothing” to produce. No, there’s no paper and ink, true, but there are a lot of other costs–author’s advance, for one thing; publisher overhead (salaries and equipment for all the people who work to edit, design, market, and sell the thing); marketing costs; and the infrastructure to make and supply the e-book itself, which is not small, given that the technology is new and publishers are big corporate machines who don’t turn on a dime. Their unpredictability will also bring costs up–we are still printing books at the same levels because it is impossible to account for the number of electronic sales. So although there is a lot of excitement and potential in this new format, there is a lot to figure out before we are all rolling in green…

Comment by Kelley — January 4, 2010 @ 5:04 pm

For me, the chief benefits of music on an ipod (extreme portability, and the ability to instantly access my entire record collection) came to outweigh the negatives (mainly the loss of tangible artwork, liner notes, and a little sonic fidelity).

Along those lines, I don’t see how the benefits of the Kindle outweigh the pleasures of a physical book. I don’t need to access my book collection like I access my whole record collection.

However, as much as I like my ipod, it helped turn consumers (back) into people who bought singles, rather than albums. And the technology made it possible for the record industry to commit suicide, thanks to file sharing.

And are there already blogs where the mp3 equivalent of novels can be illegally shared?…

Comment by GMinNJ — January 4, 2010 @ 11:11 pm

Interesting story on Kindle:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/books/23kindle.html

Comment by Todd — January 23, 2010 @ 4:02 pm

Hi Olen,

This is really random. Chris and I were talking about you the other night and wondering how you are doing. We feel bad that we’ve lost touch. I googled you to see if you were still in Hungary and it seems that you are. I am sorry to post this on your blog, but I can’t seem to find contact info for you anywhere else. We would love to hear from you. Hope you are well.

Sincerely,

Marissa Racht Ryan (Chris Ryan’s wife)

Comment by Marissa Racht Ryan — February 1, 2010 @ 3:47 pm

Interesting about the response to Greene. Worth noting that when I first read the novel it was one of the set books on my Politics & Government of Sout-East Asia course, so maybe it does help to know the context. I’m assuming, also, that these are German students reading in English, in which case the subtleties of Greene’s writing might have been lost. That would also explain why the book written in the form of various documents was easier for them to appreciate. Food for thought.

Comment by Kevin Wignall — December 21, 2009 @ 1:42 pm

I think it does help to know the context. But to be honest I don’t know a lot of the Vietnam context but the details in the book helped paint a clear enough picture for the purposes of the story. I believe the larger issue was, as you say, reading in a second language and thus missing the subtleties–and, really, the super-dry humor–that Greene was trying to get across.

As for the documents in Miernik Dossier–many of them are written in a literary style, however they’re overall more earnest than Greene’s voice. There’s not much “under the surface” for you to uncover, except for the nuances of the story itself, though even those are spelled out usually. Also, it works as a metafiction because those writing the documents are observing people (observing the “story”) and making comments and interpretations along the way. It’s a fascinating book that way.

Comment by Olen Steinhauer — December 22, 2009 @ 3:42 pm

Kevin, thanks for doing the heavy lifting around here. I’m just about to fly back to Budapest for another Nomad’s (John’s) wedding and should have time to finally report around here.

In the meantime, though, I noticed your two “What was it all about?” awards. I have to admit, I quite liked Dragon Tattoo; it got me interested long before page 150, and as a writer I appreciated that I was absorbed despite the fact that nothing was really going on.

And that’s bad news about Cloud Atlas, as it’s one of the few books I’ve bought for my spankin new Kindle (more on that later).

As for my awards, I’m not really qualified to hand them out as I’ve been, as usual, reading mostly older stuff. However, rereading The Miernik Dossier by Charles McCarry (and seeing my class’s enthusiastic reception of it, far in excess of their reaction to our other readings) reminded me what an absolute gem it is. Not just the plot device of telling a story solely through documents, but the sentence-by-sentence writing of it. Amazingly good.

Comment by Olen Steinhauer — December 9, 2009 @ 8:57 am

Actually, Olen, it’s unfair to say I “persevered” through the first 150 pages – it wasn’t difficult, even though nothing happened. And as I say, I can’t say I disliked the book… a strange one.

As for “Cloud Atlas”, I do appear to be in the minority on this, so you may well disagree with me.

Will check out Charles McCarry – haven’t read him before.

Comment by Kevin Wignall — December 9, 2009 @ 1:53 pm

McCarry’s Tears of Autumn. Wow

Comment by Dennis — December 9, 2009 @ 6:18 pm

Charles McCarry will definitely be on your list next year. One of my favorites. Amazing spy stories but so much more. I’ve chased down film rights to “Miernik Dossier” but because his books follow the saga of Paul Christopher and his family it’s incredibly complicated to the point of being undoable.

Trying to translate the “Dossier” structure to film could be fascinating and it’s a great spy road movie too.!

Comment by Kathleen McLaughlin — December 9, 2009 @ 8:00 pm

Thanks, Dennis and Kathleen, and yes, I’ll definitely have to read him now. In addition, the fact that I hadn’t heard of him (and nor have many other people, I suspect) ties in nicely with a post I plan to write in the next few days on the fickle subject of posterity.

Comment by Kevin Wignall — December 9, 2009 @ 9:32 pm

Kathleen, it’s funny — I was trying to get Gary to option “The Secret Lovers” years ago, and he found the same problem. LOVE McCarry; Kevin, I can’t believe you haven’t read him.

This was a year where I read way too much for work, and way too little for pleasure, but I too felt baffled by the enthusiasm for “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” which I found clunky to the point of tedium. Most impressed by “Ghosts of Belfast” and “The Secret at the Bottom of the Pie,” two debuts which could not have been more dissimilar.

Comment by Clair Lamb — December 10, 2009 @ 3:59 am

Duh, I meant “Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie,” of course.

Comment by Clair Lamb — December 10, 2009 @ 4:38 am

girl with the dragon tattoo and its other two volumes, fabulous, frankly, i believe outlines of another seven (!!) novels have been left behind by the late author on his laptop…am waiting..
also, i think larsson’s success has a lot to do with his biography, i cant seem to be able to delink that from the trilogy..

Comment by Seema — December 16, 2009 @ 8:57 pm

Thanks, Seema, and as I suggested to Olen, many people have told me they loved it. Also a really interesting point about your enjoyment being influenced by the writer’s biography – I’m sure that’s also true for a lot of people.

Comment by Kevin Wignall — December 17, 2009 @ 2:43 am

Agree that dragon is badly in need of an editor. amazed by the wild popularity of sophisticated readers I’d otherwise think would show no interest. I liked it, but the follow-up was much better done. anything by charles cumming. best book this year definitely the “tourist”. Great forum for reader junkies.

Comment by steve allen — February 6, 2010 @ 8:53 pm

I am biased but I enjoy reading the perspectives you bring to this blog. I don’t care to know what is in your fridge but I enjoy your discussion of culture, literature, the book industry, etc.

I get the over-exposure danger but I don’t think writing Nomads is in that territory.

But if no blogging means more books from Nomads I will deal with the tradeoff. :-)

As the the publicity question, I think it depends. I read books that I find from practically every possible venue. Publishers send them to me or contact me about them; I read reviews on blogs, magazines, and papers; I hear about it from a friend; I see it at the bookstore or library; or hear about it on the radio.

I think you have to work with people whose job it is to put together a plan based on what venues will work and what is financially workable, etc. Does this mean marketing and publicity people always know what they are talking about? Obviously not. But I guess you have to have people you trust in this area.

Be interesting to see if an “professionals” will weigh in on this question.

Comment by Kevin Holtsberry — December 5, 2009 @ 7:34 pm

You raise some excellent points in this post, which I’d like to address:

–What kind of publicity is best for books? Publicity that reaches the target audience most likely to buy the book. Time and again, I see authors stumbling on this one. They try to spread their publicity far and wide and target too broad an audience. They end up competing in a noisy marketplace where everybody else is targeting those same people. Targeting smaller niches, where there is less competition and the people within those niches need exactly what the author is writing can often be much more effective.

–If I am wildly enthusiastic about certain authors, you’re darn right I want to know what they ate for lunch, what kinds of cars they drive and how they spend a typical Saturday night. So why can’t authors address those topics in a blog post? Blogs are the perfect place for sharing this kind of personal information without boring people to death on Twitter or looking amateurish by sharing these kinds of details during a traditional publicity campaign.

–A publicity campaign must go to where the typical readers are. If you’re in a tight niche, find the blogs and discussion forums devoted to that niche, instead of trying to get onto Oprah.

–Speaking of Twitter, there’s no good reason I can think of why most authors shouldn’t be Twittering. It’s a great way to build a loyal following.

Comment by Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound — December 5, 2009 @ 8:46 pm

“There’s no good reason I can think of why most authors shouldn’t be Twittering.”

Really? I can think of three without even trying.

1. Twitter is the opposite of book reading: instant gratification for a short attention span. The people who follow strangers (celebrities, writers, etc.) are spending time on Twitter that they used to spend reading. Granted, most of those people probably weren’t reading books before; but they’re spending even less time on books now, because they’re distracted by Twitter.

2. Twitter is the opposite of book writing: it’s unfiltered, unedited haiku that bears no resemblance whatever to words on a page. Someone’s ability to be clever in 140 characters has zero correlation to his or her ability to entertain for 250 page.

3. The “instant response” nature of Twitter is a PR nightmare with an almost unlimited downside. Jokes that might be funny in the haze of a drunken hour are offensive in the cold LED display of morning. You can’t take a tweet back, and you can’t convey tone of voice in a Twitter — and if you spend too much time worrying about composing your tweets, you’re wasting time when you should be writing.

I can’t think of anything more destructive to an author’s goals than Twitter. Seriously.

Comment by Clair Lamb — December 6, 2009 @ 9:34 am

@ Clair: You can’t take them back, but you can always apologise. In most respects (tone aside) it’s no different to having a verbal conversation in the presence of strangers. Including the sort of half-cut ones we all end up having places like Harrogate. The problem people have with Twitter and its ilk is when they think of it as a publicity tool. It’s not; it’s a social thing, nothing more. Constantly trying to big up yourself or your work/product/Nigerian oil millions is just as boorish there as it is in person. It’s a digitised conversation in a public place where anyone can hear you and the social standard is to welcome anyone else joining in. That’s all.

(Like any conversation, of course, if you get to know someone and/or are interested in what they have to say/share, maybe you’ll be more inclined to look at the things they produce or tell your friends. But chances are, only if you’re not relying on them doing it.)

@ in general…

The same applies to over-familiarity. If you share it, online or in person, because you’re generally like that, it’s probably fine; at the very least it won’t seem forced, and people tend to be more forgiving of things that seem genuine. If you do it because, as a famous author, you expect people to naturally give a shit about what you had for breakfast or what underpants you favour, well, you’re a bit of an arse.

Comment by John R — December 6, 2009 @ 10:23 am

Or, more succinctly, it’s easy to overthink these things.

Comment by John R — December 6, 2009 @ 10:24 am

I’d second what John says, and I always cringe slightly when I hear authors advised they should be doing a specific form of publicity like blogging or twittering. I can see why it makes sense, but if a writer isn’t comfortable with it, and is only doing it for publicity it can come across as very unnatural and awkward – and ultimately self-defeating.

In terms of receiving publicity, I hate feeling I’m being sold to. If I’m interacting with someone, I want to get something out of it that isn’t just a hand grasping for my wallet. Good publicity – an effective reading; an interesting article; and so on – gives you something extra. Bad publicity just attempts, often transparently, to take: your money, your time … your will to live.

Perhaps it just means I’m lazy, but the social media ‘publicity’ I do – blogging, twittering, facebooking – is generally stuff I’d be doing anyway, regardless of being a writer. And I don’t worry at all about what people might think of the things I say, because they tend to be honest. Although I probably should…

Comment by stevemosby — December 6, 2009 @ 10:48 am

Thanks, all. I think we all accept that social sites are publicity only in the eyes of publicity departments. They’re each fun in their own way, but they don’t generally sell books.

Steve hits on the real point. Both the articles I cite above are interesting and you certainly wouldn’t feel you were being over-sold something. They might also help build a general media profile if that’s what you’re after. But I wonder if they add anything at all to sales.

If I read a profile of a writer, see a TV profile, possibly if I see a film adaptation, I might be tempted to buy a book. As Steve says, there’s enough depth of content to intrigue (if they’re writing the kind of thing you might want to read).

Good example. Yesterday’s “Telegraph” had an article by Philip Hensher about the reissuing of all of Nevil Shute’s novels. He’s someone I’ve never read and never considered reading, but it made me think I should check out “On the Beach” or one of the other novels.

This type of publicity is rare and hard to get, and what I’m wondering is if all the other publicity – the newspaper filler columns et al – is ineffective white noise designed to convince the author they’re being publicized, and if it can simultaneously run the risk of boring people.

You see Joan, if it turns out Steve Mosby fought with Columbian rebels in his gap year, or John Rickards was briefly engaged to a Swedish princess, yes, that’s interesting in an old style Byron-Hemingway writerly fame kind of way. But the cars they might drive? Might be interesting to a car enthusiast, but not to me.

Comment by Kevin Wignall — December 6, 2009 @ 1:33 pm

Good god, man – Anneke’s family still has an injunction on even mentioning our little dalliance! You can’t go talking about it in public!

Comment by John R — December 7, 2009 @ 12:48 am

I had a number of long conversations over the weekend about building a readership, much of which was centred around creating a loyal following for the writer and whether not actively building such a community and engaging with the public will seriously disadvantage a writer in the publishing landscape just over the horizon.

Now, I was playing Devil’s advocate a bit, because, as always, the truth of things isn’t black and white and its particular shade of grey can vary from person to person, but I did argue the case that the story’s the thing, not the person wot wrote it.

This isn’t to say that authors shouldn’t engage in promotion, but I believe a book or series of books can be marketed effectively through advertising, reviews, trailers, etc. without the writer facing questions about either themselves or the work.

I also have a slight concern that when the author becomes the brand that’s being sold, this has a greater of risk of setting expectations about the type of book they produce. For example, everyone expects McVities to produce cakes and biscuits, but what happens if they produce a bathroom loofah?

“Dear McVities, I tried your new ‘loofah’ and found it patently unsuitable for dunking in my tea, with a dry and unpleasant taste. As a long-time buyer of McVities, I have to say I shall think twice before buying your supposed biscuits again in future.”

And yes, I am aware that the likes of Iain (M) Banks work in multiple genres, but I’d argue he maintains two brands, differentiated by both that middle initial and jacket design. He may do author interviews in both spheres, but when it comes to marketing, I doubt his publishers would target ads for his literary novels toward science fiction media or vice versa.

Plus, when it comes right down to it, readers don’t buy the writer, they buy the books. However, this might change if the margins on books become so slim that writers have to resort to the strategy employed Dickens when the Americans pirated his novels; he charged for public appearances and readings instead. That would be a case where the writer really does become the product, though I’d be surprised if that ever becomes the norm.

Comment by Vincent — December 7, 2009 @ 10:42 am

I may have to write my own blog post about this, because while I’m ill-disposed to say anything is right or wrong, this certainly makes me feel uncomfortable:

http://twitition.com/gpbgj

Comment by Vincent — December 7, 2009 @ 1:46 pm

I just took a look at it, Vincent, and it’s a strange one – she’s well-connected, clearly desperate to succeed, full of self-confidence, AND she’s a coma survivor! If she still can’t get published you can only draw one conclusion…

Comment by Kevin Wignall — December 7, 2009 @ 5:24 pm

For better or worse, I’m sure she will get published eventually, though I suspect it may be off the back of her self-promotion rather than her writing, which I suppose goes back to the heart of the original post. It’s almost like saying that if celebrity sells books, then if a writer becomes a celebrity, that’ll help sales, either to a publisher or to the public.

In this particular case, I can’t find a sample of her stories on any of her various websites. I would guess this suggests a healthy proportion of those who’ve signed the petition have never read a word of her fiction, yet through a curious kind of faith, they’re each willing to pledge their name to a drive to get her published.

While I’ve nothing against her, until she gives the world a sample of her writing to judge, I can’t help but see this as a cry of “publish me because I’m me!” instead of “publish this story because it’s good”.

Comment by Vincent — December 7, 2009 @ 11:29 pm

Knock yourself out…

http://rebeccawoodhead.blogspot.com/2009/05/village-alchemist-by-rebecca-woodhead.html

http://rebeccawoodhead.blogspot.com/2009/03/bees-on-earth-first-published-in-write.html

Comment by John R — December 8, 2009 @ 1:41 am

They were a bit of a bugger to find, but only because she has the longest sidebar known to humankind.

Comment by John R — December 8, 2009 @ 1:43 am

Oh dear, I suspect a petition may not be enough.

Comment by Kevin Wignall — December 8, 2009 @ 1:53 am

I read the bee one – right to the sting at the end of the tale – and have no sensible comment to make. Though I can quite understand why there’s such a buzz around this writer.

Comment by stevemosby — December 8, 2009 @ 10:41 am

Well then. I have to retract my “publish me because I’m me” comment. Beyond that, having read ‘The Village Alchemist’ I feel unqualified to say anything except that it’s really not my sort of thing.

However, I do feel qualified to lament the terrible quality of Steve’s puns. I can’t bee-lieve he would stoop so low.

Comment by Vincent — December 8, 2009 @ 11:20 am

I’ve never taught anything, but I think that you really should teach one of your own spy novels. For example, I loved 36 Yalta Blvd. Great in-depth characters. Fabulous local color. Complex, page-turning story. Just enough Eastern European phrases sprinkled through the dialogue. Interesting betrayals.

Comment by Linda — September 23, 2009 @ 1:06 pm

I have only taught history and government but I would try to bring as much material as you can. Have a much longer list of discussion topics than necessary. That way you won’t run out of material and you will feel less nervous and more prepared; and you remove the possibility of awkward silence.

Early on you can often get a sense of what gets people talking and participating so you can return to those types of issues moving forward.

Of course, I never seem to run out of things to say so this is rarely a problem for me. :-)

Comment by Kevin Holtsberry — September 23, 2009 @ 2:21 pm

Those sound great — I would love to be able to audit the spy novel class, in particular.

Spy novels emerge from their underlying cultures’ deepest fears, so it might be interesting to spend a little time talking about contemporary political events that framed each of these books — and look at how focus shifts over time between fascism and communism, public enemies and private ones, and between attacks on individuals and symbols and attacks on larger groups or organizations.

It’s also very interesting to look at the way the portrayal of women in espionage novels has changed over time, or hasn’t.

Comment by Clair Lamb — September 23, 2009 @ 5:54 pm

As a matter of interest, is there any Western novel prior to “The Quiet American” that paints American interests in such a murky light? Maybe there’s something I’m missing, but I can’t think of any.

Comment by Kevin Wignall — September 23, 2009 @ 7:05 pm

Thanks for the input, all.

Clair, I’d had something along those lines in mind, though the female angle hadn’t occurred to me entirely. I really think it’s only in Berlin Game that you have a female character who significantly changes the entire story and becomes its focus, which is really very notable.

Kevin H, hopefully for the first class I can get them all to introduce themselves, give me their family backgrounds, and tell me what they did for their summer vacations. That’ll leave me with only 20 minutes of talking time… Seriously, though, that’s great advice. I really need to start making lists.

Linda, you’re making me blush. Honestly, a little part of me would love to teach one of my books because I would at least know what to say about it. But then the students would eat me alive, and for good reason.

Sir Wignall, I dunno. I’ll lay odds it’s the first–that was only 1955, after all. Before WWII no one gave much of a damn about the US, during the war we were on the correct side, and in the immediate few postwar years I don’t think there was much to complain about (except drunk GIs). I’d say Greene started the great wave…

Comment by Olen Steinhauer — September 23, 2009 @ 9:27 pm

I’d love to just sit in the back of the room and listen to how that class writes a novel together. I’d also love to read the book that comes out of it.

You mentioned being worried about the class eating you alive if you taught one of you own books. I had an English professor once use our baseball in writing class to essentially proof his non-fiction book analyzing baseball in American literature. The class was interesting, but I am a baseball fan. It did rub me the wrong way, however,that he essentially used us as his proofreaders.

You avoid a situation like that and you should be fine teaching your own books.

Comment by Jarrett — September 26, 2009 @ 6:42 am

I assume there will be discussion of the finished assignments? Don’t for God’s sake have the author read it out loud. That wastes time and goes right past the average person’s attention span. Make sure that the students have the chapter to be discussed in hand and read prior to class. (And then you start worrying about people’s feelings getting hurt.)

Comment by I.J.Parker — September 27, 2009 @ 10:25 pm

Jarrett, I wish I could just sit in the back of the room too! Seriously, it should be interesting. And I like the cut of your English prof’s jib–or at least his gall.

Ingrid, you’re right. There’s no point us reading stuff together in class, if only because it’s a huge waste of time. Everyone’s supposed to be well wired to the internet, so I’m thinking a couple days before each class the student will email out the chapter and we’ll be ready to hack at it as soon as we get together.

The other issue of feelings getting hurt…well, that comes with the territory to a certain extent. My metaphor will be that the class is one writer’s brain, and to that end I’ll encourage all ideas, even seemingly ludicrous ones, since that’s how most writers work. The trick, of course, is knowing which ones to nix.

Comment by Olen Steinhauer — September 28, 2009 @ 12:27 pm

Thanks for these post…

i think it´s such a great idea to leave the well-organized and boring class. The students got the chance to work creative.

I´m not a fan of structured working.:-P

So have you plans for the next project… let me know. I´m tautly :-)

Which you all an nice Week.

Comment by john Kontaktanzeige — September 29, 2009 @ 7:37 am

I should have added that Leipzig was my father’s alma mater. No doubt it’s a venerable pile. (Unless it was destroyed during the war and rebuilt by Communist East Germany, in which case it will look like a military barracks.)

Comment by I.J.Parker — September 29, 2009 @ 10:32 pm

@Parker
Actually, Leipzig University was destroyed during the war indeed. But though, it looks quite different:

Library Albertina:
http://www.uni-leipzig.de/2009/download/Uni_Leipzig_Lesesaal.jpg

Geisteswissenschaftliches Zentrum:
http://www.uni-leipzig.de/2009/download/Uni_Leipzig_Beethovenstr.jpg

New Leipzig University to be inaugurated in 2010:
http://www.erickvanegeraat.com/#/projects/leipzig_university

Beste Grüße:-)
Stefan (Leipzig student)

Comment by Stefan — October 9, 2009 @ 11:53 pm

Thanks, Stefan. Supermodern! And I like all the bikes. My guess is then that East Germany did nothing to rebuild. Not really surprising.

Comment by I.J.Parker — October 11, 2009 @ 7:08 pm

I’ve been here about a week now, with only a few trips to the center. My impressions are largely green–we’re in a very leafy neighborhood on the corner of Friedenspark. As you travel around you find a LOT of construction going on, but it doesn’t get in your way. The buildings are an interesting (which I mean in a good way) mix of almost Austro-Hungarian architecture (reminding me of Budapest) and archly modern, some of it clearly renovated from communist modernist buildings. I happen to love a lot of the communist stuff, particularly when it’s this clean…because that’s the thing that really strikes me when I walk through the center–it’s CLEAN like no European town I’ve lived in. Traffic in the center is kept to a minimum, too–and as has been mentioned, there’s a hell of a lot of bikes. It really has a terrific feel here; it’s good.

I’ll do an actual post on my impressions once I’ve dealt with my initial classes…tomorrow!

Comment by Olen Steinhauer — October 11, 2009 @ 7:41 pm

Olen, on a completely different note..am awaiting your posts on your classes, of course, but as a fan of your marvellous east european series, I am really put off by the non-availability of your books in India where I am based. I dont think I need to emphasise or sell to you the charms of the large Indian market..but could you please ask the distributor of The Tourist why it isn’t available here ? Ordering from Amazon as thats the only option – burns a big hole in the pocket and restricts readership..please do seriously push this…thanks.

Comment by Seema — November 19, 2009 @ 8:14 pm

Seema, you don’t have to remind me what a wonderful market India is–I recently saw this lovely piece

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/The-Fall–Brick-by-Brick/538281

from The Indian Express. That the novels aren’t available there…now, that’s worrying. Thanks for drawing my attention to it, and I’ll see what’s going on. This might be my UK publisher’s responsibility, but I don’t know for sure. Anyway, I’ll pass your comments on to my agent and get her opinion. We should certainly get this straightened out!

Best, and thanks again.

Comment by Olen Steinhauer — November 19, 2009 @ 10:49 pm

hey…am glad you saw the review, was wanting to stick the link on your blog…yes, i had to amazon the books as my extremely resourceful book seller failed after 3 copies of The Victory Square whichhe managed to get and we presented them to friends..awaiting The Tourist, as the plot on the planet is getting thicker and murkier by the day. Thanks and cheers.

Comment by Seema — November 20, 2009 @ 3:43 pm

(I smack my own head) I didn’t connect your name to the name on the article…sorry…but the article really made my day. I haven’t had that sort of thing–a full-scale overview of the books–before, and it was a real thrill. So, thanks. I’m still waiting to hear from my agent about who’s responsible for what…

Cheers.

Comment by Olen Steinhauer — November 21, 2009 @ 12:02 am

well? Have all the nomads ceased their blogging ways? Or are they so nomadic that internet access is not possible?

Comment by Kevin Holtsberry — December 3, 2009 @ 1:39 am

Hi, Olen – in case you’re still planning the collaborative book, here are some thoughts. I set up Medieval Murderers eight or so years ago, and one thing I was keen on was a collaborative book. It was a good seller, so our publisher asked for another . . . and another. Now we’re working on book seven in the series.

The main thing for us was, to keep each author’s parts discrete. There was a general agreement on the themes, on the flow of the book roughly, but no detailed outline. Instead each author wrote a novella of twenty-five thousand words or so, and the real effort came in when linking each story together. That was, occasionally, a bastard! But all did come good in the end, with the use of extensive emails and quite a lot of beer. And whisky.

Good luck with the project!

Comment by Mike Jecks — December 4, 2009 @ 10:28 am