Richard Dawkins -- wizard or ogre?

 How does one enter into the mindset of Professor Richard Dawkins? His recent sally against all that is "supernatural", speaking at the Cheltenham Science Festival, would have us believe that children must be raised as sceptics, trained in scientific rigour, and that childish things such as fairy tales with their dose of improbability, must be "put away". He himself successfully achieved this rigour at an early age, he tells us.

Scientists, of course, have always believed in their own brand of magic, and not just because of its older roots in alchemy. Innumerable wizards populate the world of modern IT and we can be sure that the mood at NASA or at CERN when hitting the target can be described as nothing less than magical.

Here Dawkins misses the point, surely. All these highly successful scientists were children once. Where and how did they learn to open their imaginations to visions and dreams soaring high above daily routines, if not in that wondrous hour of storytelling which leads them into sleep?

A prince turning into a frog is too improbable, says the wise professor. Just as improbable as oxygen and hydrogen turning into water? Or iron filings arranging themselves in sonar fields? Plants and organisms tracking the lunar cycle? Surely what matters to the growing child is to learn to open the imagination so that the mind can fly across boundaries, whether on magic carpets or in school laboratories.

To impose what is "correct" for the imagination to play with, and deny what is "incorrect", is a tyranny that serves no purpose. The expansive dimension of the creative, imaginative mind, proclaims that there are no boundaries. And yes, magic carpets will still get you there.

CJM June 2014

The absurdity of modern football

 I just bought a Ming vase for a few million. It's a beautiful thing and a delight to watch. But I want it to make money for me, so I'm going to throw it into an arena and allow a bunch of (usually eleven) less than beautiful ruffians to hack it about, kick it to the ground, stand on it, and treat it with unspeakable violence. There will be a lot of vociferous protesting, hands raised in indignation, claims of innocence from the most guilty, but basically, it seems, this is what people will pay to see.

Don't get me wrong ... I enjoy watching football, I marvel at the skill of players at FC Barcelona, for instance, and love the drama of a cliffhanger as much as anyone. Even without Barca, Messi and Iniesta,  the Lisbon UEFA cup final had its moments ... But the run up to the final matches of the cup spoke for itself. The number of highly paid players on the doubtful list, potentially unfit to play, was an illustration of the absurdity of the modern game.

What I find senseless is, on the one hand, the huge sums of  money invested in the best players, and on the other the general permissiveness towards dirty play, the shirt-grabbing, the pushing over from behind, the hacking down of the superskilled by the less skilled. Is that really an acceptable way to treat expensively acquired and wonderfully crafted Ming vases?

Wouldn't we prefer to see these artists playing in better regulated games, and at less risk to themselves? A thought for the World Cup games about to open in Brazil. May there be less violence both inside and outside the stadiums.

CJM
May 2014

Footballers: Spit without polish

I've been intrigued by a couple of recent reports of footballers being investigated for spitting at other players. My concern is that the output of spit in professional football is so copious that it must be hard for investigators to distinguish between spitting at others and, well, just spitting.

No other sport that I can think of has this peculiar non-stop habit,  though Nadal briefly added spitting on clay one year to his Tourette-like gestures before serving .. I guess he was dissuaded from continuing by Uncle Tony. "No es bonito, hijo ..."

So where do footballers get this special licence from? The occasional trainer has been seen to spit on the touchline, for no obvious reason other than solidarity, though in the majority of their cases it must be hard to spit and chew gum at the same time.

Adding spit to your boot polish has been a long established tradition in the army, and boy scouts indulged in spitting competitions with cherry stones a century ago, even while campaigning for the general public to use spittoons and not the floor. But purely gratuitous spitting is against hygiene and good manners. Sadly, boys today must be all too keen to spit efficiently as they learn the streetwise tricks of the sport. After all, their heroes are expert at it.

CJM

Apologies

My apologies to those unable to access the current Amazon.com Countdown discount for Behind the Mountain. I had thought amazon.com was a global market but it seems the discount can only be accessed from within US territory. I can't even see it myself to check it is active though Amazon assures me that it is.

There was no prior notice of this limitation and I think Amazon needs to go back and look at its program design.

In the meantime the book is still a bargain at 3 pounds sterling (5 dollars). So go for it!

 See my brief introduction to the book at wp.me/p11Bag-1hg #storytelling


See also Philip Franses' review of the book at http://wp.me/p11Bag-1hn

CJM

Launch offer for Behind the Mountain

To mark the launch of the new ebook sequel, Behind the Mountain, an Amazon Countdown offer will apply starting Friday March 21, available on amazon.com. This promotion runs over five days with the biggest discount (81 percent) on the first day, reducing daily to the smallest discount (21 percent) on Day 4. The available discount will be posted on the Kindle Store page as each day goes by.

CJM

Behind the Mountain: Living with your book characters

The news is good. The royal children Fion and Dream, rescued from the downfall of the European royal court, are alive and well and being cared for by Margaret, the mysterious wise woman who belongs to the condemned Heretics movement. And where are they off to? They are going:

Behind the Mountain

Yes, the first sequel to King Abba (see www.kingabba.com) is finally available after a long wait.

There's a scene in Chapter 2 where the book really began for me, over ten years ago. I had gone to the Pyrenees for a month to do some writing and I remember standing on a bridge in a peaceful valley, watching the house martins fly up and down the stream. I was completely engaged with the peace and beauty of the valley, and maybe even saw it as a kind of refuge from millennial madness, the threat of which around then was quite in vogue.

I don't know that millennial madness has gone away. If anything it seems more and more threatening as we watch our absurd politicians and governments squabbling beside the rising waters. I write in a week where it seems that half of southern England is under water. The sea which for centuries lapped at the foot of Glastonbury tor (how else could Joseph of Arimathea sailed there...?) is now reclaiming its own. How did we let things get so bad? Surely through sheer stupidity and short term gain. Shouldn't we tear up the blueprint and start again? That is the message of my series The Seven Songs, which starts with King Abba and now Behind the Mountain.

Princess Dream is the character who can't see nature without wanting to take out her sketchbook and paintbox. She is not skilful with words, at least not in the beginning, but she grows in strength as her character develops, and takes a quite unexpected and adventurous path in this book.

Prince Fion has equally forced surprises on me. At one point I had a real struggle with him and, in paratrooper terms, almost had to shove him out of the plane so he would get back on his hero's journey. He is assailed by doubts and also, poor lad, thinks he has problems with relationships. Who doesn't? Especially at age fifteen.

It's quite a difficulty when your character won't do what you had planned for them and in this regard Fion has perhaps been the most problematic. However, an awful lot is being asked of him, to save the world amongst other things, so we have to be patient with him. His greatest tests are to follow, as his mentor Adhemar tells him. We shall see as the series develops.

Enjoy the read.

CJM

To mark the launch of the new ebook sequel, Behind the Mountain, an Amazon Countdown offer will apply starting Friday March 21, available on amazon.com. This promotion runs over five days with the biggest discount (81 percent) on the first day, reducing daily to the smallest discount (21 percent) on Day 4. The available discount will be posted on the Kindle Store page as each day goes by.