First Books, Last Books

One of my enduring pleasures as a reader is discovering a new author.
Better yet, finding the first book by a new author.

First novels are interesting.  Sometimes, if you're lucky, they're glimpses behind the curtain.  You can see the author at work, collecting ideas together and building the story as he or she goes.  From time to time, that first novel arrives like the classic Frankenstein's Monster - stitched together from stories that have already appeared elsewhere, given a new form and new purpose.  Other times, the book is more hesitant and a bit more like a first date - neither of you are sure you're all that into one another, but you're both hoping it will turn out well and end in that amazing tingly feeling of a first kiss to carry with you as you go home.

Or back to the book shop.  Whichever.

This is the glory of reading.  Although you might never speak with the author, by writing something like a novel the author shares something amazing with their readers.  Each book is an open door into that writer's mind - Stephen King talks about it like telepathy, for example - and while anyone can pick up and read the book, only you are going to form the relationship with it that you do.  That's why books, even ones we don't like, even ones that are pretty awful, are art.

If you're lucky, the author you've just developed Readership for is relatively prolific and you'll get to spend a fair amount of time with them.  But there are other authors who rarely seem to publish but who leave you absolutely breathless when they do create something.  And there are the one-book-stands where you're secretly glad that they don't do more than one novel every few decades because you're not really sure you could take that sort of experience more than once in a blue moon.  Or because that one time was so good you know there'll never be anything they can do to quite match it.

I'm lucky.  A lot of my favourite authors would have to be physically restrained from writing, so I've been rather spoiled over the years.  Michael Moorcock, Terry Pratchett, Harry Harrison, Charles Stross, Iain M. Banks - and Iain Banks, of course - Jim Butcher...every couple of months there's something new to explore.

Lately, I've discovered the Johannes Cabal books.  Jonathan Howard seemed to spend most of Johannes Cabal the Necromancer not quite sure he was going to get away with it, and then becoming more confident and impressive with each successful chapter.  The second book in the series has revealed itself to have a bit of a swagger, which I like in an author.  He knows what he's doing, he knows his audience have turned up to see him and he's realised that he might be able to take a few more risks.  

Ben Aaronovich has hit a similar stride with the PC Grant novels, which not only have excellent stories and characters I want to spend the next however long with, but they have the best covers ever and I want to own very large copies of them and cover the walls with them.  Ben isn't new to authorship - he wrote two of my favourite Doctor Who New Adventures (I'm re-reading The Also People whenever I get five minutes and plan to move on to Transit, which I know is reading them out of chronological order but they're Doctor Who books.  Wibbly-wobbly-timey-so sue me) and Remembrance of the Daleks.  The PC Grant books are a joy to read.

Paul Cornell did something in a similar vein with London Falling, which if you like coppers beset by the supernatural is pretty much a must read.  And if you don't like coppers vs. the Supernatural, it's still worth your time just for the differences between the way two old Doctor Who alumni handle similar material.  It's another great read for many, many reasons so you should buy it.

So there are things to read.  There are always things to read.  Ben "Yahtzee" Crowshaw's book Jam is currently occupying my solo reading hours and I might have to go find a copy of his first novel Mogworld to see where he started.

Because you never know how long these things will last.

I'm getting older, and one of the unhappy things about ageing is that sooner or later the people I know and like start to die off.

It's happened to some authors - Arthur C. Clarke, Harry Harrison, John M. Ford - and then a couple of years ago Terry Pratchett announced that he had early onset Alzheimers. All of a sudden, you're looking at last books instead of first books.  And in some cases you're really hoping that the most recent book wasn't the last.

Fans of George RR Martin are worried that he'll die before he completes A Song of Fire and Ice and now so is a TV audience who, like me, are a bit hooked on Game of Thrones.  Fans of Robert Jordan know what happens when the original author doesn't get to finish his story.

It seems mercenary to worry about someone's well being because of a book.

The thing is, if the author doesn't get to finish then you'll never get to the end of the conversation that you're in the middle of.  And there's the sadness, too.

If you like books, the loss of an author before they've had the chance to run out of things to say is like a bright light going out.  There's a peculiarity to it, too, because with an author something of the characters they created dies with them.  All those people you knew well might reappear under the pen of another writer, and they might walk and talk like the characters you knew but would they be quite the same?  Mind you, some characters are authorproof - yes, I'm looking at you Conan - but nevertheless there's never going to be a writer who works with him like Robert E Howard.  

If you've had the chance to really get to know an author, the stilling of their words is a bleak reminder that one day we have to face the abrupt end of our own story; we know the world goes on, we might hope there's another story to be a part of after this one or we might accept the final closing of the cover with equanimity but it's still a hard thing, to lose a friend.  Even a friend you've never met or spoken with.

So today's news, that Iain Banks has cancer and isn't likely to live much longer, is awful.  There are lots of people who knew him far better than I ever will - who actually knew him, for example, and will mourn the passing of a man rather than loss of a source of fiction.  He's announced that his most recent novel will be his last.  

All I can think of is the first time I read The Wasp Factory and the feeling of amazement  - the same one I had when I finally wrapped my head around Waiting for Godot - that people were actually allowed to do things like this with literature.  Encouraged to do it, even.   I was young, the book was amazing, and if other books have been like first dates then The Wasp Factory took me out, got me shamefully drunk and then stood by sniggering while I got myself an ill-advised tattoo, ate a kebab, made a slurred and incomprehensible pass at a random woman and woke up in my own flower bed.

I hope there's some form of afterlife.  I hope that all the authors who have opened their imaginations to us get to be told how well they did, how much they were appreciated.  And I hope it happens every time someone picks up their first novel and starts on the journey to their last book.

As usual, Bill says it best.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little live is rounded with a sleep.

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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

I think everyone who has seen this movie has questioned the wisdom of splitting a book up into three movies, and has really questioned the wisdom of making the first of those movies three hours long.

After having sat through The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey I think I've worked out what Peter Jackson is up to.

I think he's trying to film the book.

Not all of it.  I'm not quite sure of the order of events in The Hobbit, because it's been at least ten years since I read it, but I'm pretty sure there will be things left out and other things added in.  

But nevertheless.  I think he's trying to get as much of the book onto the screen as he can.

This is an unexpected undertaking.  Audiences are used to adaptations; we're used to the idea that you can't have the entire book up there on screen.  I don't think it's something we will see too often either.  Imagine the number of films involved in the Harry Potter series if the screenplay had tried to place the book on the screen!  Still...with The Hobbit it might be possible.  And it's one heck of an opportunity.

The thing about adaptations is that, inevitably, it's a translation and in the manner of all translations it betrays some part of the author's intent.  I don't imagine we're seeing Tolkien's version of his book, but one reader's interpretation of it.  Given the amount of time that we spend looking at the landscape, assuming Peter Jackson's intent wasn't to create the longest advert for New Zealand tourism possible, we're actually seeing him try to put the journey up there for us to see.  We can also experience it.  Yes, three hours is a long film...but I grew up on Hamlet and three hours is honestly nothing.  It flies by, too.

I don't want to do a review, because everyone and their dog is doing a review.  Instead, it occurs to me that this is one of those rare times when a movie that makes a lot of money will actually do something artistic.

Text being what it is, one of the first things a reader does with any text is form a relationship with it.  There's the intentional one that the author wants you to experience, an experience the author has spent however long crafting.  Then there's the reader's version of that experience, which is where we sit with a text and react to it, or decide how the characters look, or what they sound like.  For the imaginative reader, this is the payoff and also the hook.  This is the bit where you decide that there's more to Bilbo than a chummy fuzzy footed foodie, that the Virgin New Adventures Doctor really is more than just a Time Lord, where you start flipping back page after page to experience Tyrion snarking at his friends and foes alike.  There's also the bit where you decide whether you want more (as in a re-read) or whether you want to see the next novel from this artist right now!

I think it's clear that Peter Jackson wants you to understand how much sheer scale the novel has.  I think what's going up on the screen is as clear a view of his relationship with the material as he can manage.  Stephen King once said that writing was the closest thing a human can get to telepathy...I think Peter Jackson wants to take that a step further.

It's a position only a director can really be in.  If they can get the studio to keep their hands off the print, if they can negotiate the various slings and arrows, they get to show us what they were imagining.  

Peter Jackson's version of The Hobbit is likely never going to be as good as the version going on in the heads of the people who read it before seeing his film(s).  No matter how enthralling and personal his vision, it's not MY version.  Even if his Gollum is better than the one I imagined.  But it will stamp his vision over the imaginations of all the people who see the films and then never read the book.  This isn't as bad as it sounds.  If I'm right about his intentions it places him in an oddly vulnerable position, but it also shows us the sort of honesty that we don't often see in movies of this type.

Three hours is a long movie.  But perhaps more movies should show us what the director enjoyed so much about the books they were based on, and maybe more movies should try to somehow put the whole book on the screen.

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A Doctor Who thing

Doctor Who has a problem.

Doctor Who has lots of problems, but the specific issue I noticed during the recent Xmas special has actually prompted me to think about it and then to write about it.  This is unusual.  The Moffat Era Who is happy and bouncy enough that, for the most part, I don't want to think about it much.  I watch it, generally enjoy it a lot, and move on.  

However, the plight of a specific character moved me to words because it's symptomatic of a something Doctor Who does often.  It can be summed up in the single phrase "Poor bloody Strax".

Remember Strax?  At some point in the past he ran into the Doctor and incurred his wrath to the point where the Doctor engineered a humiliating punishment for the Sontaran warrior - Strax became a nurse.  Since the Doctor isn't normally one to carve out a specific situation to punish a foe, we have to assume that Strax caught his attention in the same way that The Family of Blood did.  So Strax must have been an effective Sontaran.  Probably a cruel one too.  When we catch up with Strax during The Snowmen, there's no sign of this.  Moffat writes him as a clown.  Even in the trailers and teasers, Strax is an idiot who wants to invade the moon in order to pre-empt an invasion by Moonites.  He's Baldrick to the Doctor's Blackadder.

Not all the time, of course.  Strax turns out to be perfectly capable of thinking and planning, as long as the situation is military and tactical.  The Doctor even approves of this  situationally correct thinking.

Why is this a problem?  Two reasons.  Firstly, it seems clear that outside of military SF - a subculture of it's own - writers don't like portraying the military as competent.  It seems there's a real issue with recognising that a warrior culture can be anything other than limited and blunt.  Secondly, the portrayal of Strax sucks the threat out of the Sontarans.

Let's deal with that in reverse order.

The Sontarans are a clone warrior species.  They're short, but massively strong because they evolved on a high-gravity planet.  In the past, the Doctor has been really quite worried about going toe to toe with one because he knows full well that a Sontaran can cheerfully beat the bejebus out of him.  They've been at war for 50,000 years and have developed a quite terrifying level of technology.  Forget the guns and so forth, they've got a system of teleportation that doesn't rely on reducing a person to energy and re-assembling them at the other end.  How do I know?  They clone themselves in tanks of goo.  If they had a Star Trek transporter they could pump energy in one end and produce copies of the same Sontaran from the other.  That means they've got something like a point to point wormhole generator and they use this for short range transport.

At this point, I have to assume that they still use personal firearms because dropping one end of a wormhole onto the battlefield and anchoring the other end in the photosphere of the local star is simply no fun.

If you look at the Doctor's other foes, then the one species that could give the Sontarans a bad day would have to be the Daleks.

Have we had a comedy Dalek?

No.  But we've got comedy Sontarans.  Since the Sontaran Haka wasn't quite enough to devalue them as a threat (don't worry, lads, we've got about two minutes while the bad guys have a bit of a dance), we've now got Strax the Clown.

Why?

Doctor Who doesn't glorify violence, generally.  Well...there was that brief interlude in the 80s when Doctor Who tried to embrace nihilism and the Doctor shot some Cybermen but the less said about that the better.

If the show doesn't like to glorify violence and the hero is expected to solve the problem of the week without picking up a weapon and laying waste to the enemy then you can't really show it as being a viable solution to anything.  Therefore any warriors who appear in the show can only serve a limited number of purposes: they can die - possibly buying the hero time to implement a solution; they can redeem their earlier warlike behaviour by sacrificing themselves; they can be the foil that allows the hero to show how intelligent he or she is; they can show how rigid adherence to authority is a generally limiting thing; they can make any situation worse by shooting at it or trying to blow it up; they can cause the problem in the first place by being all aggressive or just causing a misunderstanding.

The problem here, as anyone who's worked with serving soldiers or veterans will tell you, is that the military doesn't tend to produce unidimensional cannon-fodder, because soldiers who can't think or solve problems simply aren't very useful.

Of course, the biggest problem the show has is time.  Currently, Doctor Who has no time for character development outside the regular cast because it has about 45 minutes to tell a story.  Even Moffat acknowledged the need to have shorthand characters when he introduced us to the Gay Anglican Marines stationed at Demons Run.  Had that story been developed over another episode or two we might have found out more about them, but instead the writer chose to throw them in to make a point about characterisation (and a particular fandom tendency).  Given that this is the case, Doctor Who writers don't really get a chance to develop things.  Sontaran culture, for example, should have produced a race of pragmatic tacticians and forward thinking strategists.  We have no time to explore what this might mean for them, or anyone encountering them, because if we get to know them they either become the Klingons - who we now understand perhaps a little too well - or we have to realise that there's no sensible reason for the Doctor to ever beat them. 

Within the time constraints, the best the show can do is rely on stereotypes to get major details across and allow the imaginations of the viewer to fill in the blanks.  Occasionally, this is really annoying because the show tells me a story I'm not interested in when it could be devoting time to expanding on a hint I've found particularly engaging but - oh well - that's what fanfic is for.  

So we end up with Poor Bloody Strax.  The comedy Sontaran, who exists for the Doctor to bully - despite the fact that if Strax got sufficiently irritated with the Doctor, he could reach out and slap him into his 12th incarnation.  The comic relief who takes the spot normally occupied by the Doctor himself.  The useless warrior, a fish out of water unless people are shooting at him.  I'm not really surprised, because the Classic show did this to the Brigadier.

Perhaps it's unsurprising.  We're a war-weary culture.  While we're happy to support troops who defend us, we're not happy identifying with conquerors.  The weight of colonialism is still heavy on Britain's shoulders - which is why Argentina loves to remind us about our colonial past and why Middle Eastern detractors refer to us as Crusaders.  Mocking warriors is safer than agreeing with them, politically and culturally.  It's possibly why Britain doesn't do military SciFi.  Can you imagine if Stargate SG1 had been a Brit show?

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An Olympic Opening Ceremony to be proud of.

If you saw it, you already have an opinion.

If you didn't see it, you missed out.

Danny Boyle crafted an experience that, in these days of internet hyperbole, was actually worthy of the word Epic.  We saw the transformation of Britain from a pastoral landscape to the Workshop of the World, and on to the future.  We saw The Actual Queen on screen with James Bond, and then apparently saw her parachute into the stadium from a helicopter accompanied by 007.  We saw Children's Literature from Harry Potter to Peter Pan celebrated.  We saw the NHS celebrated.  And it was eccentric, slightly baffling and completely wonderful.

Just like Britain, really.

Not everyone sees it that way.  The Daily Mail and a couple of other people on the right of centre have decried the nods to modern Britain and the NHS that were present.  To these people, I have quite a lot to say.  I apologise in advance for any swearing.

The creation of the NHS was a triumph.  It is in a state now because generations of politicians were determined to use it as a political point scoring mechanism instead of working out who best should run it - and here's a hint, it's neither Business nor Parliament and both groups need to shut up and back off - but originally it was a moment that Britain could and should be proud of.  A nation should care about it's people, and the fact that a government was motivated enough to realise this and then make it happen is one of the few glorious things British politicians have done.

I know multiculturalism is a worrying topic.  I've had my doubts about whether English culture could survive wave after wave of new arrivals to these damp little islands.

And then I remembered that English culture is almost entirely the result of wave after wave of immigration.  The very language I'm typing in is a Germanic import.  And I'd forgotten what this country does to people.  I should have remembered The Goon Show (The Histories of Pliny the Elder), which explores the Roman occupation, in which there is the following exchange:

Moriaritus:
I see that ten years in Britain have not changed your imperial Roman outlook, Caesar. 
Caesar:
True, Moriaritus, always a Roman eye. 
Moriaritus:
Will you take wine? 
Caesar:
No, I'll have a half of mild and a packet of crisps.


The contention seems to be that Danny Boyle showed Britain as it increasingly is, not as some people believe it should be.  It is incredibly annoying that in a country which owes any lasting world influence it wields to the hangover of Empire, people still believe that Englishness is something to be defended, when it's always been a patchwork identity put together from the influences of other cultures.  And it's always been this way. Always.  Even pre-Roman invasion, the people of this island have been influenced by - and in turn have influenced - any part of the world they had contact with.  I believe that this is because it's how people work.


Anyway, enough of the Daily Fail and other idiots.  My culture is stronger and more vital than they think and is never harmed by regular infusions of interesting ideas from elsewhere.


So, the ceremony.  Apparently we were forced to miss a tiny celebration-ette of Doctor Who because the entrance of the athletes went on for a while.  Fair enough.  This is their time and they deserved our patience and our appreciation.  Over and above the usual commercial bollocks surrounding the Olympics and the money machine it's become, it was nice to remember that this is really about the dedication, skill and courage of the men and women who will be competing.  Besides, there was a nod to the show when the distinctive sound of the TARDIS made an appearance in the 60's musical medley.  Even if it wasn't about the show and was a nod to Delia Derbyshire more or less inventing electronic music, it was a very cool moment.  In all honesty I was still squeeing about Bond and Her Majesty.


A couple of last thoughts - Ken Brannagh as IK Brunell quoting Shakespeare: lovely.  The transformation of Britain from pastoral to industrial and the forging of the Olympic rings: inspired.  The appearance of the Child Catcher (from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) and a towering Voldemort: squee!


Thank you, Danny Boyle.
And to the decryers and complainers: go and have a word with yourselves, before it's too late? Please?

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Customer Service

I work in Customer Service.  I think service is important.


I've had two spectacular Customer Service Failures this week, from people connected with my finances.


They're connected too.  Here's the tale of woe.


For a little while, I played a popular MMO game.  Then I went about a month without really thinking too much about the game, so I decided to cancel my subscription.  When I made the decision I thought I might sign into the game and give away in character gold to deserving causes.  When I tried to sign in, I couldn't.  My account had been hacked.  I went through the recommended processes of recovering my account, including an exhaustive clearing of my PC - which turned out to not be at fault.  I reset the passwords for everything that I do online.  It took a week to sort out.  After that, I played with the account for a few days and then got bored and let it idle for another month.


When I tried to cancel the subscription - because I decided to donate that money to a charity instead of a service I'm not using - I discovered the account had been hacked again and now I can't recover it.  I called the company.


Their phone line informed me it was too busy, and hung up on me.


I called again.  This time, the call centre was closed due to unspecified emergency conditions.


The third time I called, I was told that the line was once more too busy.


I tried using the website.  There's no option to cancel your subscription without having an active account. 


I called my bank.  I asked to cancel the payment.  They told me in order to cancel the payment I needed to cancel my entire card.  Replacing the card would take about a week and if I needed to make any purchases in that week I could call them and they'd authorise access to my money.


Of course, this means I need to go through everything I do online and change my card details anywhere that's got a regular payment going out of it.  And it's likely to come to that, because I can't reach the game company, who have the worst customer service ethic I've ever seen.  So, just after payday this month, I'm going to bin my card and ask the bank to send me a new one.  Then there will be a complaint made to the game company, in which I'll ask how they intend to make this right.  It'll be interesting to see how they respond.  


One thing's for certain.  I'm looking into changing banks, and the game company will never, ever see another penny of my cash.

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A Crocodile Dundee Moment

Edit: For some odd reason, this post gets more regular hits than any other.  I'm wondering why.  It occurred to me that some people might think this is a post about knives.  It's not.  They might think it's about Paul Hogan.  Or the Crocodile Dundee films.  It's not.  But thank you for coming to my blog.  Stay a while and read.



News International have been hacked.

Some might say that it was only a matter of time, and possibly timing, because Lulzsec hacked The Sun website. It's a "That's not a knife..." moment. According to claims made by Lulz, who were reported to have disbanded, they not only replaced the website's main page and later diverted it to their twitter feed, they also have emails. Lots of emails. Which they may choose to release.

News International are in so much of a mess right now - what with the arrest, the possibilities that James and Rupert might be asked to step away from the corporation, the possible FBI investigation in the USA and perhaps whispers of one in Australia too- that this hack might well be their smallest concern right now.

On the other hand, they have rather poked the internet with a stick.

In the US, Fox has apparently been playing up the angle that one little incident of less than moral journalists listening to voicemail is not as bad as, say, the cyber record of China. True, that. On the other hand, the PRC is doing what every other nation state is doing: conducting espionage operations against powers and states who threaten their interests. It's only scary because we don't understand it. So let's have a little perspective.

If people from outside the USA hack the Pentagon and steal information, it's almost exactly the same as if they had turned a member of the defense department and got that person to steal and sell secrets. The scary part of it is that they used technology and didn't need to get anywhere near the Pentagon. Of course, the CIA and the NSA have been conducting operations against enemies of the USA. It's a safe bet that these operations have always been going on, and we never get to hear about them. It's National Security, and even if you believe fervently that no one should be doing this sort of thing at all, you can understand why they don't tell you it's going on.

The good news is that the cyberspies of China, or North Korea, or Iran, don't give a tinker's cuss about you. You, as an individual, are not interesting to them. They do not need to go grubbing about in your email for salacious details of your private life.

News International, on the other hand, might. All that needs to happen for News International to invade your privacy is for you to be involved in a 'news' story. Even peripherally. What sort of stories? Let's compare front pages.

The Sun

The Guardian

I could have linked to The Telegraph or The Independent and you'd have seen different approaches to much the same story. The thing is, while News International might have fancied a rummage around in your hard drive or your voicemail, the broadsheet papers aren't interested in you either.

The larger story remains, and will likely get lost in the kerfuffle.

The Murdoch papers and media empire have set themselves up as Kingmakers. All of a sudden, we are aware that politicians owe this company favours...not minor politicians, the actual Prime Minister of the UK is effectively in the Murdoch pocket. The price for delivering assistance in securing an election victory was a Downing Street blessing over News International owning BSkyb and increasing pressure on the BBC.

It seems strange that one can talk about an organisation that is effectively a state broadcaster, set up by Royal Commission, as being a bastion of freedom of speech. But in the last decade, as the power of News International grew, that's what the BBC effectively came to represent.

Having lived in the USA and spent some time around Fox News broadcasts (and the assorted Talk Radio broadcasters), I came to value the surprisingly even handed approach of the BBC. Yes, it leans to the left. It leans to the left like a learner biker on his first attempt at a roundabout. Which is to say "not very hard". But, and this is important, you know it's there. The BBC has often been critical of whichever government is in power, because it's had the access to ask questions of those in Downing Street. Obviously, no sitting government likes that and both Labour and the Conservatives have taken issue with things the Beeb has said.

They've been able to because there are ways to take the BBC to task. But up until very recently, there was no effective way to do the same to News International.

There may not be. It depends what the outcome of all this turns out to be. But it's important we not take our eyes off this story, because it's about one organisation's attempts to own significant parts of the English speaking world's media.

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Begun, the media snark has

The News of the World is dead, and no sooner has it gone than The Sun believes it has identified the foul conspirators who sealed the doom of this bastion of journalistic integrity and honour.

It's blaming the BBC, the Guardian and a smattering of others. But mostly the BBC and the Guardian.

It's worth remembering that the reason the BBC is roundly loathed by some of the press is because the BBC is a public service broadcaster and a major news outlet. It also makes some rather excellent television programmes. But mostly the reason News International and the Daily Mail hate the BBC is the news output.

There's quite a lot more. I've linked to one item from Paul Mason, which explains something about why this whole story is a lot more interesting than just an expose of shoddy journalism.

He notes that the broadcast media in the UK - notably BBC News, ITN News and even Sky News (which is part of BSkyb, the organisation that News International has bits of and wants to buy outright) have all played a part in keeping the whole mess in the public eye.

The Sun is attempting to remind people that the BBC is funded by the Licence Fee and that 'fat cats' waste public money. If you want to know how that money is spent, click here. A News International publication is attempting to motivate it's readers to feel incensed that the BBC could participate in taking out a rival.

Of course, now that people are aware that News International wasn't beyond lawbreaking and bribing police, they're looking at how other News International publications have behaved, and there's the possibility that they may have played less than fair.

Some of the questions this issue asks are huge.

How far can the press go in finding information to substantiate stories?

Should the freedom of the press be limited by government?

What is the Public Interest?

Should one organisation ever be allowed to become so powerful that it is capable of manufacturing consent?

How comfortable are we with our politicians owing favours to companies or organisations that do not represent the population as a whole? - because let's not forget that although Dave Cameron is most likely in hock to Murdock, generations of Labour politicians ad close ties to the Trade Union movement and it's alleged that Ed Milliband still does. Is that actually OK?

It's all worth thinking about, in an assortment of serious and careful ways. Because however nice it is to see "your side" win one, this story is more than just two media organisations going to Handbags at Dawn...it actually affects how the last election was fought, how much power people are allowed to have and how this country is run. It's like lifting up a stone to catch a glimpse of what scuttles away.

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