Book review: the War against the Rull

Another A. E. van Vogt. And - now I've seen a few the pattern is obvious - another fixer-up paste of several short stories into one semi-coherent novel. See wiki for details.

I first read this oh so many years ago and have owned this copy, with its lovely cover picture, for many years.

I think there's no need to detain you with any detailed analysis, it won't stand up to any such. The charm, now, if any remains is perhaps more in how things were portrayed in the 1940s.

I like the-lines-that-hold-men's-minds; a nice concept. I like "the sound", that whole chapter has an odd fairy-land touch to it, an aura of unreality far removed from sci-fi, more like growing up as a child in a machine town in the old rust belt perhaps.

And in the end the moral, if there is one, is of the virtues of cooperation.

Book review: the Nicomachean Ethics

The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle. You may have heard of it. My Pingouin edition calls it just "The Ethics of Aristotle". The word "Nicomachus" is merely the name of his father; or perhaps his son; either way it is just a label. To put my prejudices up front: I didn't like it. Unlike Aristotle's physics it isn't total junk; but it also isn't good, and shares much of the discursive unedited nature of the Physics and I presume all his writings. He is also incorrigibly inclined to divide things up into types and make lists of them, and unable to restrain his pedantry in pursuing the most unimportant and uninteresting quibbles. More than anything else the book needs to be boiled down, perhaps to as little as one fifth of its present word-count.

Leaving all that aside, I shall try to make some sense of it. My main complaint is that it is very "flat" and hard to summarise; try reading wiki's article, for example. My own reference is The Foundations of Morality, which provides a correct theory of morality. Big A, I think, doesn't have a correct theory. One problem he has is that the only morality he knows of, or can conceive of as being right, is the Greek one he knows. He does know that the fundamentals underdetermine any given moral code - he is aware of the difference between areas where there are fundamental rules, like though shalt not kill, and mere conventional morality. But he makes little of that.

Quite often, he takes "the good" as semi-assumed, and so his account becomes circular. Towards the end - but alas I cannot be bothered to look up exactly where - he does say that the good is what a good man would want and do. FFS. There is some discussion of, well, effectively whether a "good man" is a thing, or whether a good man is merely a bundle of choices-of-doing-good-things, if you see what I mean. Big A doesn't state it any more clearly, if I recall correctly, though I think is very much on the side of there being "good men". Some of the value is in the discussion around this; effectively, excellence is a habit, not a virtue. By repeatedly doing good deeds, we form ourselves into the sort of people that do good deeds, for the right reasons, because we want to.

From nowhere, he derives an ultimate good, and this must be what moral actions are aiming for. Since this is wrong, it gets in the way, but I don't think he uses it much, except to muddy his thinking.

There's a long discussion of continence and incontience - the moral sort, obvs, not the affair of bladders - and the old Socratic puzzle of how people can intentionally do what is wrong. Totally missing from this is the economic insight of time-preference: incontinent folk have a strong preference for immeadiate gratification and strongly discount the future.

Big A is keen on moderation. I think at one point he discovers that virtue is a mean: you must neither want too much, or too little. Whilst this is an excellent principle for life, I don't think it fits ethics well.

In the end, he drifts from morality to politics. This could be interesting, but in his hands it isn't. To what extent is the law intended to provide merely a framework for free citizens to live their lives in peace and security - without the state forcing them to also be "good" in the ways that morality extends beyond the law - and to what extend should the state try to enforce what-it-considers-moral on its citizens? Big A touches on these questions, but he doesn't really formulate them clearly or have any answers, other than education.

Russell

Uneasily sensing that I haven't been entirely fair to Big A, I bolster my case with some quotes from Russell:

The views of Aristotle on ethics represents, in the main, the prevailing opinions of educated and experienced men of his day. They are not, like Plato's, impregnated with mystical religion; nor do they countenance such unorthodox theories as are to be found in the Republic concerning property and the family. Those who neither fall below nor rise above the level of decent, well-behaved citizens will find in the Ethics a systematic account of the principles by which they hold that their conduct should be regulated. Those who demand anything more will be disappointed. The book appeals to the respectable middle-aged, and has been used by them, especially since the seventeenth century, to repress the ardours and enthusiasms of the young. But to a man with any depth of feeling it is likely to be repulsive. 

and

There is in Aristotle an almost complete absence of what may be called benevolence or philanthropy. The sufferings of mankind, in so far as he is aware of them, do not move him emotionally; he holds them, intellectually, to be an evil, but there is no evidence that they cause him unhappiness except when the sufferers happen to be his friends. More generally, there is an emotional poverty in the Ethics, which is not found in the earlier philosophers. There is something unduly smug and comfortable about Aristotle's speculations on human affairs; everything that makes men feel a passionate interest in each other seems to be forgotten. Even his account of friendship is tepid. He shows no sign of having had any of those experiences which make it difficult to preserve sanity; all the more profound aspects of the moral life are apparently unknown to him. He leaves out, one may say, the whole sphere of human experience with which religion is concerned. What he has to say is what will be useful to comfortable men of weak passions; but he has nothing to say to those who are possessed by a god or a devil, or whom outward misfortune drives to despair. For these reasons, in my judgment, his Ethics, in spite of its fame, is lacking in intrinsic importance.

Refs

* ethos anthropoi daimon.

* Aristotle's politics.

* Spinoza, Ethics.

* The burden of thought.

* They call her Natasha when she looks like Elsie.

Book review: Dumb Witness

Dumb Witness is a detective fiction novel by British writer Agatha Christie. It is yet another fun-enough spirt-of-the-times type of thing; as usual the plot is driven by money, inheritance, within one of her fading English families, this time in the countryside: a worthless son, an elegant but profligate daughter, another dowdy daughter who has - horrors - married a foreigner, some greasy Greek; faithful servants and of course M. Hercule Poirot. And all narrated by the faithful Hastings.

Of the plot I got one Key Element and you'll probably want to look away now if you haven't read it; that is, that the brooch seen in the mirror is of course reversed, and so TA becomes AT and of course Bella is really Arabella. This fixes her as heavily involved; but early on the book has carefully poisionned our minds against her husband - she is weak and would do anything for him, etc - so I wasn't sure Shedunnit. In fact I went for Shedun the nail, but that someone else did the poisonning; I think you could have made a perfectly acceptable story out of two murderers. The brooch, though, feels very heavy; like an externally constructed item dropped fully formed into the story, and it doesn't quite fit. Poirot, for example, discusses her brooch with Theresa in detail, including the yeah-I-had-mine-new-but-now-any-fool-has-one and yet at no point does T say "oh yes Bella had one", as she most naturally would have.

The it-was-phosphorous and you can tell because her breath during the seance was luminous I consider rather dodgy.

Nicely, Bella goes off to a hotel, reads HP's summary, and is found dead the next day. With - ta da - no suicide note, so how can it be suicide. This puzzled me, I take too much at face value, I was trying to work out who could have come for her: my working theory was that she must have contacted someone she trusted. I now realise that I should have read the book pushing "but there was no suicide note" at me as confirmation that it was suicide.

Newsletter 2024

Some people are kind enough to send us newsletters. This is a return. Mostly, it is pointers to my blog posts.

We start with Christmas 2023, at Mother's for the usual festive relaxation, and then Mfd+J for New Year.

Early in January I bought a drone and now have 293+ rowing videoes of which Mays may be the most interesting.

At the end of February the Event of the Year happened: Miriam retired. In celebration of that, and my 60th, Mfd+J gave us a weekend in London. She had been four days a week for a few years; now she is none; it seems to suit her well; she keeps busy with her Piano and her Buddha.

In March we went up to Stanage and Froggatt for some climbing. We should do more of this (actually we got up to Stanage and Birchens in April, too). Following Daniel, I've started bouldering a lot more, to the detriment of my running. We also visited Oxford to see E, aware that her time there was growing short.

Since I was 60, in May Mother was inevitably 90; we had a weekend away to celebrate.

I continued my rowing; we went down one in the Town Bumps but this was a success.

For our summer holidays we went to the Ecrins to walk, climb rocks and mountains, play cards and Go, eat and be together. The top pic of this post is from then, just in case you've forgotten what we look like. After that the others went home and I wandered around for a bit.

When we got home I wrote up our uninspiring election.

Chronologically before that, but I'll put it here as it makes a nice ending, was Miranda graduating from Magdalen in Maths+Stats, and <sniffs away a tear> departing for the frozen North - Edinburgh - to take up a job with Natwest as a Data Scientist, or something like that; she is most recently doing prompt engineering. Daniel remains in Cambridge working for Darktrace, newly acquired by an Evil American private equity megacorp. I remain at Roku writing C++ in aid of televisions.

Happy Christmas and Best Wishes for the New Year to All.

Book review: Quest for the Future

Part of the A. E. van Vogt cache in Oxfam from which I got Empire of the Atom was this, Quest for the Future.

This one is more blatantly a fix-up; but even beyond that, blatantly makes no sense at all. Even having finished it, I have no idea why Selanie and her father were selling gadgets from the future as trinkets on a train.

But even then the characters appear to have emotions and thoughts and are more human beings than, say, Greg Bear's people.

The "Far Centaurus" thread probably made sense on its own; but as a means of time-travelling to the future, going in a spaceship to get cold-sleep seems like waay overkill; and the way he just happens to fall into friendship with the richest man on the planet is weird.

I'm kinda split on whether VV's introduction of incomprehensible tech and events is good or bad. Sometimes, with other authors, this can work. I think in this case it doesn't; the entire thing is just so arbitrary and disconnected.

Book review: Empire of the Atom

As wiki puts it, Empire of the Atom is a science fiction novel by Canadian-American writer A. E. van Vogt. It was first published in 1957 by Shasta Publishers in an edition of 2,000 copies. The novel is a fix-up of the first five of van Vogt's Gods stories, which originally appeared in the magazine Astounding.

The fix-up nature isn't obvious; the various chapters fit together fairly well. What was obvious was that this was Romans-in-space, in that the people, whilst flying around in spaceships, (a) have no idea how they work; and (b) fight with Roman-level weapons; and (c) have a rather blatantly Roman-type civil structure. After a bit I realised that it was "worse" than that; that the Great Leader was really like... Augustus? (My Roman history is not good) and the evil empress is even called Livia. Then it turns out that it is pretty well ripped off from I, Claudius and everything falls into place; the Mutant is then Claudius.

Despite all that - and despite the cover, which isn't really what Our Hero looks like in the book - this is, as a Van Vogt, worth reading in a way that a Greg Bear isn't (I say this as having put down GB's Strength of Stones in favour of EotA). It's kinda interesting how VV's writing is just better.

Having said that, this is a mere potboiler, and I doubt I keep it.

VV's "concept" for their tech is Roman-level, but somehow with metallurgy capable of refining the "god metals" and using them to propel spaceships via some kind of explosive-reaction-in-chambers. This is all nonsense, and he sensibly declines to give any details. But the spaceships, whilst able to travel between planets (navigation is just waved away) are able to "float" in a wy totally incompatible with the rocket concept. Which is to say, he completely hasn't thought this out: his ship behave rather like the ones in the early Flash Gordon movies.

Lord Edgeware dies

Lord Edgware Dies is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie and so on. I enjoyed reading it; it feels like yet another piece of lightweight fluff, but is quite engaging.

It is a Poirot and is of that world: upper class folk with money, and those who serve that world or engage with it; this is a pleasant environment, there is no grime. And everyone lives near each other and the traffic is never bad; when Poirot asks a maid to come and visit him, she can arrive within ten minutes, London in those days was a small place it seems.

Now on to spoilers.

I managed to guess the central "swap", and once you've done that things become fairly clear. Since I was reading this over several sessions and not paying close attention I missed several minor details, having forgotten who Mrs van Deusen was for example. I also guessed the (s)he clue: and now I've seen that, I know that if ever you're in a detective story and someone sends you a telegram copy of a letter, rather than the actual thing, that means that inevitably there is a physical clue on the real thing.

Doubts: Lord E was cleanly killed by a knife to the back of the neck into the head. This doesn't sound like an easy kill; in a "confession" the killer says that she talked about it on-set with <medical person> sometime; but I really don't buy that. Nor is there any discussion, which I think you'd expect, about how the killer got that close; they were not an affectionate married pair. Also, our double is offered $10k to impersonate "for a bet". $10k is represented as a life-changing amount and therefore she jumped at it; but it should also have been such a large amount that she should have had very strong suspicions about what was going on.

Oh yeah and the bit about Lord E having a troubled marriage, and being somewhat odd, and having a rather attractive butler, would be said somewhat differently nowadays I suppose.

New gloves / mitts

Following the wild excitement of my New Boots, I bought some new gloves. These are likely to end up as cycling-around-town-in-the-cold gloves (well, mitts) and what I really wanted was a thicker pair of fleece gloves, but so it goes.

From Cotswold, £60. Sadly they had no pure-fleece gloves on offer.

Rather similar to my existing down pair, but I'll try to reserve those for the mountains so they don't get ground down.

See also

* Climbing: lightweight rope / rap cord pondering.

* New boots.

* New coat.

Book review: the Magician's Nephew

This is the prequel to Narnia; its origin story. The writing style is very much in line with TLTW&TW. As I noted there, the junction isn't entirely smooth; Narnia is conjured into existence but where Jadis-aka-the-Witch goes at the end is unclear; how she ends up with say a castle, or even why she wants one just for herself ditto, other than of-course-she-has-a-castle. Although naturally the story is all from the viewpoint of those opposed to her.

In his treatment of the uncle, and the cabbie, CSL would appear to be teaching us to have faith in ordinary as opposed to educated people, at least when those people can "be themselves" out of the narrow confines of the modern world. I'm somewhat doubtful this is a good idea; but then I'm one of the educated folk so I would say that.

But did I like it? Did I enjoy reading it? Yes, even though I can remember much of the storyline.

Book review: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

I've just - perhaps unwisely - re-read my review of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader which reminds me of "pale" thoughts from there. So: it is a charming book, well suited to children, but the style of the telling lacks a little the way that the Hobbit, say, doesn't.

A good bit: Edmund getting trapped by the magic Turkish delight.

In a number of slight ways, that are not too desperately intrusive, the book doesn't quite fit together, or with the prequel, the Magician's Nephew. Most obviously Cair Paravel has no obvious reason for already existing, in this book; or when combined with tMN's, it isn't clear where the kings and queens have gone. Aslan is effectively all-powerful, and so has no real need of the childrens' help; except perhaps for the commented-upon "he is often away" so maybe he is not so much using their help as teaching them how to be kings and queens; an allegory then of free will. Neatly leaving the witch's spell as the problem of evil.

Refs

* The book was written for Lucy, the daughter of Owen Saving the Appearances Barfield.

* The White Witch as Tragic Figure.

* The Silver Chair.

Book review: the Mote in God's Eye

This is wham-bam-thankyou-ma'am classic space-opera style SciFi. Ignoring the unsparkling prose and some minor quibbles, it is one of the classics of the genre and mostly survives this my first re-reading since my youth.

The characters are all stereotypes and the social setting about as advanced as in Asimov's "Foundation" series (though there's a plausible excuse for that: society has collapsed, and rebuilt itself). The spaceships are run like WWII battleships, or possibly more like Napoleonic era ships.

But no-one who cares about that kind of thing should be reading this kind of book in the first place; space-opera SciFi is the place for ideas, not subtle characterisation, and this does have a nice setup and nice aliens.

But having said that, let's play the fun game of what's wrong with the ideas.

The first and usual, but excusable, one is that the motley crowd of characters gets rushed off to the job, instead of people sitting down carefully and working out what to do. Secondly, I think it is odd how little attempt at stealth they make, and how quick they are to engage with the aliens. Thirdly, there's their lack of caution, and the improbable competence / intelligence of the aliens, but I'm descending into trivia now; let me claw my way back into the light.

I think it unlikely that a solar-system wide civilisation would collapse all together at once; the advantage of being un-collapsed when everyone else has reverted to barbarism is too high, people would scheme to be in that position. More likely would be waves or patterns of collapse.

I think the sketched alien civilisation is too "flat": having individual Masters as the top level, and nothing beneath it, would be unlikely to work. Coalitions would be necessary, but then the alien shock at people who both look up and down would make no sense.

Refs

* The Moat Around Murcheson's Eye.

Book review: Children of Earth and Sky

Children of Earth and Sky is a historical fantasy novel by Guy Gavriel Kay, also author of the Stoats of al-Rassan. This one is much in the same mould, except he has switched from Spain to Venice, the Adriatic, and lands East. Like tSoaR places and peoples are semi-disguised (the city of Dubrova is an analogue of Dubrovnik) in a way that might be irritating if I cared, but I don't.

The story is decent and pleasantly told and I think lacks the poison in tSoaR.

On reflection I think it is a bit weird that sea-faring people chose to go to Constantinople on foot, just in order to allow the books story-lines to intersect.

The main... problem, perhaps I might put it, is that despite the author's attempts to be gritty, or provide realistic colour, it all comes out a bit pallid; perhaps because all the nice people get nice endings.

The novel emphasises - for storyline purposes - the way the Ottomans rigidly enforce obedience by drastic punishment: death, torture, mutilation. This has some advantages in enforcing honesty. But it is a very centralised system with disadvantages: if you've fucked up somehow and can only forsee a terrible death if you return, you're no longer motivated to return. This isn't explored.

Old B+W speakers

Many years ago - perhaps dating back to 1991 - we bought some B+W DM570 speakers (S/N), because in those days that was how you listened to music. And over the years we had a variety of Amps, Tuners (even Mfd+J's lovingly-preserved valve-based system) and CDs. 

But time passes, and for about the past decade they've been unused.

Recently, D decided to go Retro, and so we delivered him the speakers. Wired in and powered up they sound perfect; no trace of aging; good. They are pretty good visually too, with only a little scuffing.

Nowadays, I never listen to music of an evening. I have a playlist for "daytime at work" (here) and one for "erging" (here) and that's it. There is a poem I remember from school, or rather a fragment thereof, something like "sound to cover the broken bone, the sunken ship" and I think about that sometimes.

Post-election thoughts, 2024

I see that in 2015 I wrote up my post election thoughts. Now it is 2024, and another election has happened, with a Labour landslide. In 2015 I voted Green, "as I always do". I'm pretty sure I did the same in 2017 and 2019 too. But this time I could not bring myself to; their policies were too obviously stupid; a doomed hand towards the LibDems seemed the best I could offer; I seriously considered abstaining.

Let me expand on that a little; I've intended to write this down properly for a while, and this is an excuse to write it improperly, informally. Increasingly I see govt as a band of incompetents at best. I say "at best" because their policies seem increasing stupid, and only their incompetence sees those policies from being fully and disastrously implemented. The only thing that keeps society getting increasingly well off is science and tech, which continues to progress, and when the govt doesn't fuck it up by over-regulation, manages to deliver improvements to prosperity. The USAnian system of divided govt, by putting barriers in the way of govt actually doing anything, seems more and more sensible; and there seems to be some hope of the Supremes reining in the much-abused Executive Authority somewhat.

I would recommend ukfoundations.co; this shows part of what I mean: in that the analysis isn't party-political; the problem they diagnose is just schlerosis.

Overall, the problem is that all the parties are too interventionist; none represent Classical Liberalism aka Free Market Democracy aka bring back Thatcher all is forgiven. Note: while the pols get the proximate blame, because it is they who are the clowns doing and saying stupid things, the electorate are ultimately responsible: the pols after all are merely responding to Darwinian selection pressure.

Looking back at the disastrously stupid Tory govt of the past few years makes the Tory 2015 election choices seem even more stupid: throwing the referendum bone to UKIP to buy a little more temporary power and preserve the party unity for a little longer.

Refs

* Brexit, again (2018).

Book review: Gridlinked

By Neal Asher. Bought from Oxfam (along with Hull Zero Three) and read fairly quickly over the weekend. Goodreads says "Gridlinked is a science fiction adventure in the classic, fast-paced, action-packed tradition of Harry Harrison and Poul Anderson, with a dash of cyberpunk and a splash of Ian Fleming added to spice the mix. Cormac is a legendary Earth Central Security agent, the James Bond of a wealthy future" and yeah its rather like that.

There are two main problems with the book (I mean plot-type problems; I'm discounting writing style and so on). The first is the elevation of a minor local gangster / seperatist into a major villain because he owns an Awesome Killer Robot that is implausibly invulnerable and invicible (until it becomes inconvenient and is suddenly vinced). And which for unclear reasons he wasn't using before. The "invulnerable bad guy" trope is annoying; Mrs Coulter is that in The Subtle Knife. The second is that this is really two plots, intwined as far as the author can force them, but really they don't link at all. Plot one is the revenge of the alluded-to ganster; two and more interesting is the extra-galactic influence of Strange Beings.

The good thing about the dual-plot, though, is that he gets through at least half, and possibly two thirds, of the book before plot two gets explored in any kind of detail and we discover that it isn't very well constructed or thought out.

I should give him credit for one political thing: in this, the over-arching political entity really is benign; and the local separatists really are little more than gangsters; local bigwigs who would like relatively more of the pie than their neighbours.

Oh, and reading some of the Goodreads reviews: I thought the characters were better drawn than they get credit for. Stanton is quite likeable, as a bad-guy slowly realising he has chosen the wrong side. Cormac keeps wrestling with his total lack of empathy. Pelter is a caricature of a fanatic, but who again has brief flashes of self-awareness. And so on.

Book review: Hull Zero Three

When even Goodreads only gives it three stars you know you're in for a clunker. But this is Greg "Blood Music / Forge of God" Bear, so I knew that anyway. And being honest, the middle third or so is a reasonable page-turner. But...

The book is a traditional "waking up on a generation starship and having to work out what has gone wrong" kind of thing. One nice feature of the writing - or possibly a flaw that becomes a good feature - is that what is there is described in terms of what is seen, without the layer of interpretation that our minds usually put onto things, thus neatly flowing with the lack of knowledge of The Protagonist. On the other hand it rapidly becomes clear that none of it matters, for similar reasons, so I found myself skipping forwards in the early parts looking for something to happen.

Eventually things do happen, and Our Heroes get chased from one hull to the next. At some point his editor tells him "Greg, no-one has any idea what this starship you're mis-describing looks like" so TP serendipitously finds a rough drawing of the ship.

About three quarters of the way through Our Author realises that (a) he's run out of hulls and (b) the book has to end somehow, so he rapidly pulls us into an implausible conclusion (which has the possibility of some quasi-interesting moral questions, but since those questions are all in the past they lose their force) and we're done, whew.

There are major plot problems around celestial dynamics: this ship has nominally been accelerating outwards for centuries (the book is tolerably vague on this point), turned round and decelerated, but somehow changed course. This isn't really plausible. Nor is the "whoops, supernova" plotline. It all gives the impression of "keep writing it will make sense eventually oh dear it doesn't".

I could complain more: the arbitrary unexplained heating / cooling; spin up / down (and also I'm pretty sure his physics is wrong there; he's thinking of spin == gravity but of course it isn't); the arbitrary damage; even the simple improbability of making so large a ship when it clearly isn't required; but that would be pointless.

One last thing: is this ship unique, or one of many? If unique, why is it going so far; there are many nearer targets; also, it seems too technologically perfect to be a one-off. If one of many... well, you might expect some learning-from-experience.

France 2024: Orsay, Chamonix, Argeles, Canal du Midi

Summary: from Laon to Paris to Chamonix to attempt Mont Blanc; then to Argeles; then a bit of Canal du Midi; then home. Preceeded by: the family holiday in the Ecrins.

Weds 21st [Pix]

Up 7:30 preceded by rumbles on the cobbled streets. Sun! Get myself going and kiss M; to cath which appears shut so to car and repack. This isn't hard; sac is mostly done select clothes and... it fits, just. 8 am bells ring and other cath door open so quietly in. No one else. Stash pac and wander. Appears empty at first but no; glass and gravestones and side chapels.

M appears. Admire outside briefly then cherche b'fast but hotel on sq not till 10:30. DE arrive, mill, M finds cafe I do food bag and we all converge at les Chenizelles. Which does cafe but their viennoiserie hasn't arrived today so M kindly to nearby patisserie.

Whew. I have train to catch so say our goodbyes and hugs and drink up and off. Down long staircase and gare at bottom. Look up to town on hill and cath. Gare, like Briancon, is vast and mostly empty. Muse on passing of time; Laon is fading. Once, you could get b'fast at many small cafes at any time of morning.

Train pulls out into the flatlands. Some lovely bits between Soissons and Villers-Cotterets. Screaming infants and loud krauts mysteriously don't disturb me. Gare du Nord monumental. One of the statues is Laon. Really these are modern caths (he said, with great originality). Allonge in Terminus Nord so I can appreciate it. Tuilleries have beehives and traces of Olympics are around.

Then walk to Orsay [GPS]. It is an ex gare, hence decently architected. There's a cafe up top with views over the river and close-ups of the monumental statues.

It is, as MED told me, excellent. Never have I seen so dense a collection of quality. Endless pix taken. Here's one example, which I rather like for the rowing (obvs) but also for that "gay bar" feel.

Kinda finish, and they close, at 5:30. So mooch slowly to Bercy via ND and several cafes. GPS. ND is coming along nicely and there's a viewing deck at front so you can see over barriers.

Now in cafe du Pont Neuf with v correctly waist coated but most disdainful and unshaven waiter ever.

Bercy as sky goes pink 9:15 ish; repack bag; loo; and discover Cham is a mere step on the way to Milan. Off 10.

Thurs 22nd [Pix]

Night journey is tolerable. I'm not sure I slept much but comfort improved after Dijon when some got off and I got two seats to self.

Arrive on time at 7, with some light and mountais from 6:30. Where… find centre and the Isabelle and have b’fast: €16 but worth it: good buffet. Somehow Ch is not quite the shape I thought it was. Linger, but then time to go. Decide… to buy food and head up via les Houches. GPS.

1:30 walk, initially quite green - Vert Lodge and little hotel and ecole d’escalade and lakes. Then more road-y - I didn't try to find a path instead - but always views up to snow: Dome du Gouter?

LesH 10:30; quick look at little church; la Chavane cafe croiss orange pressé.

Wx is sun, and I think I’m not in a hurry: I want to get up to TeteR by end of day. But I need to avoid the bloke that checks reservations.

Hang around Bellevue or rather la Chalette, sadly Bv itself is only open in the winter. Try several times to get drink but defeated by queue and eventually realise I don't need one.

For comparison, 2019's summit started at Le Fayet via tramway to Nid d'Aigle; see here.

Discover Salle Hors Sac (its at the top of the telepherique) has two power points so charge phone and headtorch. Read more Burke but he's kinda ranting on the unjust usurpation of clergy property. Realise that I could do with more water... realise there's probably an empty bottle in the bin... there is!

Try to phone TeteR but need to top up giff gaff credit, and then TeteR doesn't answer. Oh well back to plan A: sneak. Decide that heading round via Plat de l'Are is subtlest, I will go up to NidA via the back way. There are signs... many signs.

Off 3 [GPS] rest in shade in Plat de l'Are 3:30 which is quite lovely. Distant cows. I have time to kill. Above - v straight above - can see crane at work and indeed signs said stuff about works up there. I did see Gouter hut at one point but not now; snow is aig du Bionassy I think.

Up the “difficult” path, which has a welcome stream. View back to Plat; and across to glacier; at one point the path comes to the top of the moraine. At end, sneak round NidA at 6:45, harder because of travaux. Not sure if this is necessary. Head up, always nervous anyone I meet might be the check chap; there are perhaps two or three people floating about, probably also trying to avoid me. View down from above of signs directing you around travaux. Though I'm assuming they don't work this late. Here we are with only a few hundred m to go; Gouter peers from its perch; Tete Rousse isn't visible but it is behind that little white tower. As you see, Plat de l'Are is verdant; Nid d'Aigle is still quite grassy, but as one then heads up the veg thins out; by the time we're at the pic below, at about 3000 m, it's a moonscape.

And so up around sunset and for irony points bivvy in their little kiosk which has sympa wooden platform (pic, from on the way down).

Fri 23rd [Pix]

Overnight sleep / doze ok. A bit windy and a bit chilly but I'm fine inside sac. There is a headlight on the route up, oddly. Around minuit a vast white light briefly confuses me before I realise its the moon rising. A party comes past, brief torches, gone. Stars not so crisp, perhaps v thin haze.

[GPS]. Up 2 pack to Ref quiet. Water and bread and cheese. A bit confusing because the hut is "upside down"; boots and sacs is upstairs. Leave 3. Follow tracks at first annoyingly in hard snow then rock then couloir. Slow party of 4 first across then I pass them. But I am feeling yesterday. Below, the bright lights of the valley.

To RefG 5:45 slooww oh dear and I really feel it. Boots off then go upstairs a bit but salle not open so just sit on broad stairs. Note one tops out at old ref but then there's icky traverse to get to new: better to put crampons on and go over the hard snow bank. Oddly quite a few parties coming down.

Just sit around 1h then salle opens 7 and sit there. Decide that I'll go on at 8 and see where I get to. First a bowl of coffee. While I've been dozing dawn has come. Anyway, head up. Views are gorgeous, Midi is magical, the day could not be better. And since I've left later, it isn't even cold; or at least, not as cold as last time.

11: to Vallot. Views on the way gorgeous. Wx sun and some wind but less than last time. But I'm empty. Time to stop rest and then desc. Ah well. In theory I have perhaps 5 hours in hand because descent will be quick and only ~400 m to do but it would be such a slog I can't bear the thought.

I'm still unsure if I should have gone on. Trying to recreate now in my comfortable chair how I felt then is impossible. I did have lots of time in hand. Perhaps I should have gone on another hour, or two, and see how it went? I really don't know. Next year, either acclimatise better, or be fitter, or take the cable up to Bellevue / Nid d'Aigle.

Above: at Vallot. Descent back to G is indeed quick. View from above of Gouter, with some kind of extension (are those water or fuel tanks?) in progress.

Sit inside over coffee and doze for an hour.

Head back to top of descent, this time not following the rocks but going on the snow. Pic: the old huts. Then the GC desc [GPS]. Manage not to forget skistick. Rocks in GC during desc but not when I cross.

Options are desc, to valley or bivvy in Plat, or… ask if they have a place? They do. Good. Sit and watch mountains and rocks falling down the GC all afternoon.

Read Agatha Christie By the pricking nice lightweight tosh. Move to dortoir Bonatti, great view big windows, people trying to sleep v early like 6 pm.

Tete Rousse: it's ok. But it's €58 a night or €53 with reciprocal rights card, and €19 for b’fast, which the traffic will bear - indeed they're constantly full - but they're a monopoly. Salle has lovely picture windows and terrasse has stupendous view of glacier and GC for pm rockfall. Lack of water for washing grates: I’ve been two nights without and a long day. But then again my light greasiness is tolerable.

Sat 24th [Pix]

Sleep well which is unsurprising after two rough nights. Up 7 b’fast and net access in this corner. Linger. Update diary.

10: down to NidA (via a look at the Cabane des Rognons; could bivvy there though where I was, higher, is probably better unless its cold) 1:30 not rushing. GPS. Cafe. Chantier round the corner. View from below.

12: down to Bellevue la Chalette, via Plat de l'Are again (view from above; in case you're in doubt, no you can't bivvy there either). Allonge. Even a little place like this lets you pay on carte. Sign by tele about the redirection of route up during the works.

Experimentally take tele down, €18. Well it works. Now what? Bus to Cham. I find I don't have a plan… and all the hotels I want (Isabelle, Chamonix, Lacs) are full. I think the place is full of UTMBers. And, it's hot. Buy oj yog melon and find small shade in centre to eat and plan.

Decide: it's seaside time: Argeles. Trains weirdly thin on ground so BlaBlaCar bus to Lyon. It's ok but Flix was better: weak a/c, no usb power, toilet not operational. And you turn up in some hideous central giant oily smelly concrete monstrosity, gare Lyon Perrache. Hotel des Savoies is ok - small room but meh. Shower. Little evening stroll but still over warm; biere.

Sun 25th [Pix]

Catch 11:06 to Montpellier with 6 mins to spare, whew. All was well under control until I walked into a giant concrete cul de sac and found that Lyon Part Dieu isn't the same as Gare LPD. Cue 10 min forced march. And when I'm there finding platform "L" isn't easy.

Before that: alarm 7 snooze up :10 DuoL etc b’fast good off 8:30. To Cath. GPS. Which? Umm… first turns out to be Eglise St George, orange-green glass a bold experiment and produces stunning warm light at this hour but perhaps a little sickly? Up, more than I expected, twisty interesting streets, to Basilisque which is massive and striking ~1870, Empire style? Mosaics. Service in prog so be respectful. Down find the real Cath but it's a bit heavy and undeco. Vieux Lyon is the place to be not Perrache. And so to station over rivers. Pic above shows the Saone, from the presqu'ile, looking towards the Basilisque up on the hill, with the spire of the Eglise St Georges, and the Cathedral just visible on the extreme right.

Train to Montpellier is fine. 20 mins there so walk round little park (monument to America rootstock reviving French vines against phylloxera); then TGV to Narbonne chosen cos unknown. GPS to Cath: “complex” is great, stunning; see pix starting here. Also on Canal du Midi: should I walk some of it? (Spoiler: yes).

TER to Portbou goes via Argeles; food on train. And so I arrive. Busier than before; it's still August. Walk - fail to find bikes - to seafront and checkin and shower. Room ok; Maritime was better. Wander. Busy. Drink and read.

Mon 26th [Pix]

Sleep well up 8 DuoL b’fast decent. Now what? Not a lot is the plan. Stroll. Coffee and watch the sea before it gets too hot.

Realise I can send stuff home. Comedy finding bureau de poste since old building is gutted. Then pack up boots crampons down coat gloves new skistick in nice box and then have looong session where poor madame has to fill in customs form and I have to give a Fr address (use hotel). Cost: €35, not cheap but makes life much easier.

Pm: I ought to plan return. Would be nice to see E before she heads up north. So… oh. Who could have guessed trains from S Fr would be so full at end Aug? But end up with plan alas no sleeper. Takes ~1h.

Rest of day quiet: lunch supermarket walk to port crepe and citron presse. Stomach a bit upset? Perhaps need more real food. Le Monde has some GW stuff, and even a pic of Pelvoux from Gl Blanc.

Tues 27th [Pix]

NB has noted that POB is buried in Collioure and I lacking in clear plans fall in with this… so after morning 5k and b’fast head to port for navette to C, leaving 10. I'm forced to choose a return time so pick 14:35. Day is sun, trip is sparkling, C remains chocolate-box-y.

Head up and discover that New Cim is further than I thought about 4k out. Oh well. With Maps, find it, and grave. GPS. Pix. It is simple. No deep thoughts arise; I leave him a flower. Pano for context.

And so down (view from top), on a path that appears. GPS. I have 2+h to bum around and do, getting a biere, wandering streets, wondering why no-one sells a t-shirt I want. C is crowded, but there are indications it would be a nice place to stay if you picked the right place, and perhaps right time of year.

And then, back. Afternoon: quiet. Little swim. Soir: also quiet. Apart from my guts: diarrhea continues which isn't nice. Hmm.

Wed 28th [Pix]

Last morning here. I've realised that my room feels to inward-looking; my view is mostly roof albeit with distant hills but to keep it cool the shutters need to be mostly shut; a lesson for any future booking. Mostly, that I need to pay more at this time of year. Shower, B’fast-n-web, pack and head off. Sticking to shadows the walk is ok. Via church: maybe ok but full of proles and doesn't fit my mood. Photo of placemat for Miranda. Station.

The coastal lakes from Fitou to Narbonne look worth exploring in a cooler season. Looong delay :30+ at Port-la-Nouvelle because Narbonne is full. And so to Beziers. Through plateau des poetes (statue: Riquet, who did the canals) to cafe by church for coca; then find the Basilisque but not the entrance thereof ; then to Cath; fairly plain (interior); most exciting feature: you can climb tower. Pic: looking to the old bridge (R) and the canal viaduct (far L).

And so back to gare. Overall Beziers mildly disappoints: good old bones but lacking flesh. But the gare cafe has a/c and fresh pressed orange. Now I get to sit for a bit before heading out.

Off. GPS. Round the back of the gare: the tedious bit. To canal and big ecluse / basin. Over river on viaduct, nice (though sadly hard to photo, and no boat came along at the right moment). Then in shade of cypress or the like, good.

To “sept ecluses” which are nice but annoying because the ecluse-ile forces you to a stupid path so cross back, then find they rather block you from getting too close to the actual ecluses. Nonetheless the signs are keen for you to know how wonderful it all is. 1h / 3.5k.

Stop for eau gazeuse at top and watch the gin palaces float by. Meanwhile Swann is deeply tediously in love with Odette and I skip page after page. Plaque to Jefferson.

2:30 to Colombieres. Last few km badly overgrown on towpath and eventually switch to road. There's nothing dramatically exciting, just pleasant walking.

Malpas tunnel: fun. Closer. It isn't long. There's a path inside. Swap sides.

Stop before 9 at bridge, 2k before Poilhes. Quick dip but not swim in canal to get rid of the stickiness. Bit o’ food. Stretch carry mat in flat bit in angle of bridge and hope for peace.

Thurs 29th [Pix]

Alarm 6 snooze up :30 off :40 cool early morning. Slept well faint plopping noises suggested ?something fishing? 

Distant grinding of combine harvesters. Through Poilhes nothing terribly interesting. It's a misty cool morning early on before the demon sun comes up.

Past various moorings and to Capestang just before 9. GPS. This may be my destination: I could go further but there's nothing obvious before Argelieres 20+k off (Carcassone is 83 km away).

Cafe de la Paix in sq containing the absurd archeveque’s palace. Drag that out rather pleasantly for much of 2h; go look at the church / palace: v good. Lots of stained glass to look at. Has been truncated so now is absurdly tall and square. To campsite (pic: looks like a park; map), partly as recce but also in case… yes… I can sneak in - recep is ferme during the day - and have a shower. Better! A cycle-touring guy turns up. To Lidl (juice, fruit, yog, choc) then return to main sq; admire ch again. Nearly 2 now.

Looking, I now realise I failed to take a good pix of the church. So instead, here's a picture, from inside, showing the building and Capestang's other beauty, the canal and it's bridge and some trees; but which removes all the trees, or irritating buildings that get in the way of pix.

And so, quietly, the afternoon. Kinda sitting around, on a bench eating lunch then in le Paix again, until 5, face on to the ch, with the shade of the planes. There are a few cyclists coming through so not all is indolence. But I see no signs of other walkers.

Move all of 0.5k to the canal side resto, which is at least trying to look posher. It is still hot; I’m not striding out for an hour or so. Mineralwasser. Quiet on the canal: a few boats pass gently.

GPS out of Capestang. Poilhes, 8pm. Sun now declining, more shade. They are planting lots of trees so should be better in 5+ years, not that that does me any good now.

To “my” bridge :30 but there is noise from moorwd boat 100m off. Perhaps sleep next to unoccupied house? They have a nice flat marble path.

Fri 30th [Pix]

Slept better since I've bother to inflate the blowup. Here's the deserted house I camped against. Ag noises at 6 up :20 off :40 having taken pix. And so back; through tunnel and so on. Nice spiderwebs.

9: to Sept ecluses, and a seat. There are few seats along most of the way; more would be nice, I realise.

10 ish: to gare, after somewhat circuitous route over vieux pont: there is no good way. In cafe a/c and allonge, then find a nice spacious temporary loo that allows me to restore myself to a largely non sweaty state.

1:55 catch TGV to gdL. Trip goes painlessly, I have a big seat since I was forced to pay premier just to get a place. But I can almost feel wtf, why not, it is but money. And then recall I bivvied out two nights on the CdM for… hard to write down reasons. Habit? Dislike of booking? Love of the stars. Certainly, it was beautiful.

Face confusion of metro, inc buying a ticket, it seems they aren't up to London ‘s just-use-phone. End up going roughly the right way to St D Pleyet, from which its a 1h walk to St D universitaire, but I have time and to spare, and I go past and briefly in St D. Then to what turns out to be bus station with 1:30 to spare. Fine; there's a Flixbus sign. It isn't a very appealling area.

Go off in search of cafe / loo, have to go ~500m and then its a bit rough. But they serve a decent espresso. Then back, kill some time, and bus “in association with Flixbus” turns up, hmm, not quite the full Flix quality.

Sat 31st [Pix]

Bus is ok, but yeah not up to full quality: no wifi, suspension and general quality not so good. And my neighbour snores even when awake. At Calais, move to a vacant seat pair. Long wait for ferry but I sleep; passports urgh as usual. Ferry ok some sleep and then just the drive to London.

Out 7 have coffee by Buck house. Realise museums don't open till 10 so… meh, let's go home. At least it spares you a zillion photos. Back around 10, hello Marbles and M, shower.

I find that the weight of my stuff is: sac: 7.7 kg; box (that I posted home): 3.7 kg; me: 65.5 kg! Here's what was in the sac (yes, due to space limitations, the helmet and axe wouldn't fit in the box so I carried them; this was no big thing but I should just have got the box one size bigger):

Here's the contents of the black "Petzl" and net ("bandages") bags: 1.3 kg. Really I should get that lighter. I didn't need the keys, or (for this phase) the sunglasses.

Here ends the lesson.

Refs

* List of holidays.