here be gorynich

Today I hear gravitas laden suits talking about 'hitting back at Russia'. Cyber attacks. Eviction of diplomats. Freezes on money laundering.

The catalyst is the recent attempted assassination in Britain with a 1970's nerve agent approximating Novichok-6. The UK government are being tight-lipped about detail and not openly joining dots with any of the other Russian deaths in London.

I remember the Litvinenko polonium murder because I received a letter from British Airways afterwards. Turns out I'd been in the same seat as Litvinenko on a different flight. In 2013 there was Putin opposer Boris Berezovsky, found hanged in London. As recently as Monday there was Russian exile Nikolai Glushkov, found dead with apparent strangulation marks in a house in New Malden.

Putin isn't saying anything about the specifics, although his view of defectors is well-reported. He uses these situations to amplify his 'dark power' ahead of the upcoming elections.

If a nerve agent was used in Salisbury, it is despite the 1990 Chemical Weapons Convention. Russia continued experiments and production, often under the guise of insecticides.

The nerve agents use binary combinations, amalgamating the main agent with phosphorus derivatives or iso-propyl alcohol to drastically increase the potency of these so-called newcomer weapons. The Russian Khimprom plant in Volgograd is a potential manufacturing site, although such a tiny amount was apparently deployed in Salisbury that it could have come out of a freezer cabinet.

Frederick Forsyth used a fictional equivalent in his Devil's Apprentice novel and there's similarities this time with the murder of Kim Jong-nam at Kuala-Lumpur airport around a year ago. A spray and a separate handkerchief. That was described non-specifically as a VX nerve agent.

The whole situation is wrapped up in spy defections, friends of Putin and the free-ranging oligarchs who have sliced money from every state-owned industry in Russia and deposited the huge proceeds in a blend of laundered and generally tax free situations. It's all companies within companies and houses within houses, like Russian dolls stretched to infinity. The finance industry has been only to pleased to help. My own guidance is that offices of banks in Mayfair instead of Canary Wharf may give a quick clue to the kind of business being conducted.

And meanwhile, Russia is having a competition to name their latest weapons. Gorynich seems to be leading the way at the moment. I think it means Dragon. Then there's the crucian carp. I wonder if Trump wishes he'd had that idea?

a slight return, via the adverts

I can feel like a trailblazer this week. Time Out has a two-pager about Tauern Spa in Kaprun, near Salzburg.

Our spot a few weeks ago.

The pictures in Time Out seem to be green fields and spring, although when we were there it was very snowy. As well as the vast indoor spa areas, there's other areas to explore.

Including the steamy outdoor pools, conveniently heated to 36C, and featuring one of those swim-to bar areas.

A fun way to relax after spending time on the glacier slopes.

music delivery via sonos

I considered re-installing the various sound systems since the move but instead have gone for a major simplification. I decided to use the network as the signal carrier for general music. I had the new place installed with an ethernet backbone in the walls and it's time to start using it. A simple wireless access point per floor, plus enough signal to reach the garage and I can then use it to piggyback a music stream.

I'm using Sonos for the main rooms, via a simple wifi connection. Initialise the speaker, then plug it into the mains in the required room and go. The controller application integrates my music library (which is the Sonos re-index of my iTunes) and a bunch of streaming services, as well as radio and delivers the same or different signals to varied speakers. So far it all works from Mac client or iPhone.

There's also voice control along the lines of "Alexa, play Monday Coffee Playlist", "Alexa, play Sia This is Acting", "Alexa, play BBC Radio 6" which all seems quite effective and recognises the correct room/speaker set. It's good to get the music flowing again, and after the initial set-up, it's all pretty easy to use and modify.

elsa

Along to a talk about the Baroness Elsa (1874-1927), sometimes described as a proto-punk, or as the Mama of Dada.

Born Else Hildegard Plötz, she became the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven through marriage. She adopted her most idiosyncratic profile after her post World War I move from Germany to New York. Before that she'd lived close to the Baltic and then moved to become a Berlin chorus girl, like an early and even more outrageous Sally Bowles character.

Elsa's story was related by Dr Maggie Irving, who adopted one of the Baroness personas, whilst describing her in the context of Irving's own work on female clowns.

Irving's talk could only skim the breadth of Baroness Elsa's worldview. The Baroness painted her shaved head red. She wore extravagantly odd clothes, including a bird cage with live canaries. By the time she inhabited Greenwich Village, it had become her theatre, featuring Dada-ist acts.

Alongside her three marriages, she had many partners, as well as ongoing friendships with Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp. To the extent that the famous Duchamp 'fountain' ready-made art is sometimes attributed to her. The nom-de-plume R.Mutt was said to be one of hers, and 'armut', her punned German word for poverty.

Maggie Irving had her own protest about Elsa's lack of feature in Dada exhibitions. She had visited the Tate dressed as Elsa, partly to feature and partly to protest about exclusions.

I've separately looked at Baroness Elsa's fractured poetry. Experimental and sometimes staccato streams of consciousness. Ornately written, in multiple colours, I'd say the original handwritten is the best way to see it and get a better insight into the character of the Baroness. That of a determined loner, fearless but ultimately trapped in a time period that wouldn't move as fast as she could. Her influence persists. Check out these modern cover shots.

Sweetwater and various Masques

I notice that this year at SWSX in Austin they are trialling a scaled back recreation of Westworld. Normal folk can take a bus to a small wild west town of Sweetwater populated by faux robots similar to the automation of the Westworld made famous first in the 70s movie and then later in the HBO TV series. Yep, Season 2 is on its way next month.

Sweetwater reminds me of that PunchDrunk show - The Drowned Man, which was set in Temple Studios Hollywood and featured a whole floor of Wild West theme. If you could get past the casting gate, of course.

I was one of the lucky ones to experience it more than once - each time very different. There were 'home, home on the range' style cowboy camp fires and a small town to walk around in, including secret routes to other 'worlds', sometimes though the back of a cupboard hung with clothes or through a fireplace.

The huge wild west area was only one of a selection, including a mad scientist laboratory, a dark band playing the walk of terror, a huge and rowdy bar, a theatre out of a David Lynch Blue Velvet experience and a deserted motel, where things were not quite what they seemed.

I loved the idea of the experience it provided and of a preceding vast PunchDrunk experience at the BAC, which was based upon Edgar Allan Poe, and called The Masque of the Red Death. There are echoes of that idea in the Raven hotel in Altered Carbon, although I'd say the first hand Masque variant was altogether more creepy and mysterious.

And yes, Punchdrunk know how to throw an afterparty.

when to hit the mute switch

I restarted watching Altered Carbon after a gap to watch a couple of other shows. My head was telling me that this high budget sci-fi should really be my thing. This time there was a pleasant surprise, when, during one of the new episodes it almost felt as if the series had properly taken off.

All too suddenly it came crashing down again, with some complicated exposition which just didn't seem to work. Almost an inadvertent laugh out loud moment. I reached for the little button to tell me how far I was through the series. Okay, I let the next episode start automatically and suddenly realised I was on what seemed to be the wrap up of the original storyline. I'd tough it out to the end.

My guess is that the show was running behind schedule or something, because quite a lot of 'show don't tell' has been replaced with 'explain to static camera'. Sure, we get some Wachowski-like sequences, and lots of brooding camera angles, but I still couldn't properly engage with the lead characters. And then, after the main point had resolved, instead if it being the end, it juddered into a new story arc. I decided I've done enough miles and have moved along.

Contrast that with my next watch, which was Mute. That's another dystopian future - see the picture at the top of the post.

This is a 'find a missing person' noir and in this one they have actually dispensed with dialogue completely for the lead protagonist. Yep, he loses his voice in EXT. LAKE. right at the start of the show.

Netflix bothered to make a quite special placard advertisement for the movie, which also, to me, illustrates that, with a few exceptions, this could have been shot in a different era seedy Berlin.

Movieland must have huge stocks of spare dystopia, to make all these shows. This one riffs off of Berlin 2052, and being made by Duncan Jones (David Bowie's son), we get an almost entirely night-time Berlin. There's a main story and a fairly tangential secondary one, with a couple of jeopardised kooks running an sideline business.

Considering that this show has a mute lead character, I still found the characterisations more interesting than many of those in Altered Carbon, with some truly unhinged moments.

This gave the story some existential moments where the absurd and authentic collided. Like some kind of difficult self-assembly project, which parts would be left over at the end?

I could envisage at least a couple of different conclusions for this Saturday Morning picture and I suppose that is good, because at least it shows this one engaged me. That's in a way that the Altered Carbon series didn't, despite a much longer viewing.

unsuitable for turbo viewing?

I've been watching Altered Carbon. It's another series dystopia, and perhaps revision for post-Brexit Britain and post-Trump world?

I've paused after about four episodes. I like the scene/staging, but I'm struggling with the generally bleak characterisations. Well, maybe not with Poe, who is the embodiment of an Artificial Intelligence hotel called the Raven. Bizarrely the AI persona seems to have more humour and character than many of the main players.

The main premise is of a disk thingy containing personality and memory, which can be inserted into an available body/clone to reboot a human. Science fiction has a few versions of this type of thing, including a couple in recent Black Mirror episodes.

The series based on a 2002 novel by Richard K. Morgan uses a Bladerunner/Philip K.Dick/Neuromancer/William Gibson cyberpunk-noir setting, with a rainy Bay City, comprising the remnants of San Francisco at its epicentre. It's a lavish Sprawl type visualisation which should bode well for the rest of the production.

Many style cues are from the original Bladerunner, yet I really wanted an even more challenging future view. The often understated Black Mirror and most Philip K.Dick does this quite well.

Our main Altered Carbon protagonist has a brutal past and has been offered the kind of deal that Vin Diesel or Bruce Willis get when they are asked to save something significant.

We've also got some stiction moments, with commercially engineered scenes designed to encourage onward viewing. It's like the next step along from those short segments in old sitcoms, designed to slot between ad-breaks and retain audiences.

But I did stop. I flipped to an old series of Homeland, which immediately felt more characterful.

Maybe with all the snow I shouldn't have used sci-fi for bike turbo viewing? As another dystopian character remarked, I'll be back.

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

postcard

After its light sprinkling, the snow increased in volume. A couple of hours later I was walking around in 20cm of snow. I'd moved the palm to the garage. The pond was frozen over and the stream had disappeared under snow.

a sprinkle of that snow has arrived. #uksnow #topsham

Despite yesterday's sun-soaked mini palm, today we can see the same one with traces of snow. Yes, the snow flakes here may be falling slow enough to count individually, but they have arrived. Red alert for Storm Emma, they are saying on the radio.

Meanwhile, the main road is still closed because of (a) the burst water main and (b) the subsequent fractured gas main.

Brexitopia, Brexitropolis and the Fury Road

After that David Davis speech, my own revision for dystopian futures has to include Bladerunner, RoboCop, Minority Report and so on. Which ever of these movies one views, the actual cityscapes are like an intrinsic character in the plot. Witty, well observed and really quite clever.

Unlike that David Davis, who is trying more snake oil in an attempt to be more interesting.

Meanwhile, the dystopias which he renounces all have a darkness and a separation between a Hunger Games style elite and a kind of Just About Managing underclass. Hmm.

A pre-Bladerunner depiction of this would be Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

Even in that 1927 movie, we get the towers to house the industrialist super-rich, the dangerous and deadly working conditions of the poor, a mad looking scientist and the deadly False (Maybot) Maria robot.

It makes me wonder about a recent addition to the dystopian canon in the form of Altered Carbon. A lavish Netflix derived from Richard Morgan's 21st century sci-fi novels. I was hoping, because it is more recent than many of the other adaptations, that it would offer some new thinking about futures. So far it seems to have forgotten that it could add some fresh social commentary. Even my crazy favourite The Fifth Element adds plenty of worldview.

Admittedly in Altered Carbon, the plot thematic elements like spun-up disk-based personalities, tycoons who can live forever and criminals given one last chance to get a pardon are all pretty much staples of the genre. Maybe that's for comment another day.

In Fifth Element, like Bladerunner, they built the worlds. Then think of the fun adding the detailing. Which they did, so the whole idea of the multi-level car lanes, sidewalk advertising and the Thai Food Flying Junk all had a chance to breathe.

The same with Bladerunner 2048. A chance for the envisioners to walk around in the city. To see the backs of things and how they interact. A chance to add ideas, even to the already formed Bladerunner universe.

That seems to be missing from Altered Carbon. But not as much as it's missing from the current government worldview.

Big Fat Lie - request stop

It's been well reported that any Brexit Stoppers have no chance. Request Stop is not a known term. People are saying that the referendum rules were agreed by 'everyone' in advance. Pah. Not even Mr Farage was able to agree the rules, preferring to hedge in case the ballot went slightly against his position.

Now, many people are saying to the politicians 'just get on with it' and popular search terms revert to football teams and gossip. Saturation Brexit coverage has become 'boring', whilst UK perfunctorily casts itself adrift.

Let's recap.

First we lethargically populated the EU with well-paid politicians whose self-appointed purpose was to undermine it. Then we set up a simplistic vote which was strewn with lies from both sides about the EU was and what would happen if we left. Then we voted to leave, without any plan. Then we dithered before appointing a group of titular heads to shuffle around ineffectively.

There's still no plan. We are being dished out reheated sound bites, not truths about what will happen. Many career politicians are distancing themselves whilst waiting for whatever fudge will solidify before making their next bids to take over.

Here's some outcomes:

1) Adrift. No Plan. More extensions
2) Parallel working for years
3) Keep paying the EU but no voice (Norway/Canada/Switzerland etc)
4) Hard Brexit. No extensions. We blame Brexit instead of Brussels for everything going wrong.

Gosh, which to choose?

Surely this is a moment for an opposition to rally? Not just a gesture, a radical plan.

5) Opposition led revolt. Why are we where we are when it seems so wrong?
6) Youth led revolt. Whose future is it?
6) Demographic suasion. After an age of non-resolution we must change the game.
7) Call out the big fat lies. Reset.
8) Admit it is a big failed project. Revoke Article 50.

Then scrap the well-paid EU faux-politicians and replace them with some people in that actually care.

Don't be tempted to let Brexit just drift into being in order to see what will happen next. Too much like a definition of madness.

No triptych in the three baskets case (ceteris paribus)?

A few days ago Barnier's EU27 paper said "No" to a continued customs union, no interventions by UK in EU decision making, along with no de-facto mirroring of EU conditions.

It puts the kibosh on a simple solution to customs management, messes up UK financial services passporting and potentially even puts a Cork cabáiste on the border question for Ireland.

There's no sign of a Garden of Earthly Delights and even the buzzword compliant 'Managed Divergence' has been blocked by the bloc.

Aside from the Guinness soaked beef and the lemon tart, it's all gone secret again at the self-named 'war Cabinet'. At least until Theresa May gives her Next Big Speech.

Meanwhile, Jeremy's lot have a short time to regroup, perhaps involving some of the Tory stragglers. No doubt there will be extreme Tory whippery over the next few days, to attempt to ensure that the government doesn't lose a House of Commons vote.

Failing that, we'd better start identifying the next group of stooges waiting to take over because we sure enough won't be getting a crystal sphere of clarity any time soon.

Weakness and instability? No, wait a minute, that wasn't the slogan? I'll have to see what it says on the side of the next red bus.