Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke died today. He was 90.
As a teenager, and in common with many young men of a geeky disposition, my reading was almost exclusively fantasy or (more often) science-fiction based, and Clarke was one of my favourite authors. He dealt mainly in "hard" sci-fi, where accuracy or at least credibility was key, and though recent re-readings of his work have left me a little cold, finding his prose style a little dry, it was the sense of wonder it installed that kept me hooked back then. He wrote about the amazing and otherworldly, but there was always the sense that everything you were reading about was possible, which made it far more exciting than that of authors who worked in the more fantastic realms where grand ideas were be plucked out of thin air and could be enjoyed for what they were, but were ultimately disposable and forgotten when the book was over.
His work rate had slowed in recent years and his latter books were more often than not "collaborations" with other writers that read as though they had simply paid to have his name on the cover, but of course it's still saddening to hear of his death.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Loft
The house in which I grew up was a bungalow, but it did have a small loft. Although not big enough for a grown man to stand up in, my dad installed flooring and lights, and began construction of a model railway which became the most sustained creative project I can remember him ever embarking on, even constructing a false "sky" with painted clouds to cover the bare beams of the roof. That it was intended for his me was a fairly tissue-thin excuse. I was much too young to appreciate it when he started work on it, though I did get a lot of pleasure from it over the years, and it became one of the few activities we could enjoy together. But what sticks in my memory, and has bubbled up tonight, is not so much the train set itself, large and exceptionally detailed as it was, but the ambience of the loft.
Access to it was by a rickety wooden stepladder, and for much of the time during which I had any interest in model trains, I was too small, or at least too timid to climb it myself, requiring my dad's to carry me up, or, later on, at least to lift me through the hole in the ceiling once I had reached the top. Unaccompanied access to the loft was, therefore, impossible, even if I had been allowed. This was fine by me. I think I would have been too scared to go up there alone anyway. There was something very unnerving about that cramped secret room above the house. The sounds of the plumbing that ran from the water tank, the lack of windows and the odd way that sounds from downstairs or outdoors were muffled by the roof or the insulation beneath the flooring, plus the dusty relics in that dark half that was given over to storage, gave it an almost mystical air. Going up to the loft was like stepping out of the real world for a while. Slipping off the stage and behind the scenes where old props lay discarded, having served their use for now and waiting for the next performance. Though I had only been a baby a few years previously, because that time was unremembered, it felt like ancient history, but here that time still existed, contemporaneously with our own, like a ghost.
A few years ago I went round to my parents' house when they were away on holiday, got out the stepladder - a more modern aluminium one rather than the wooden deathtrap that I was rightly scared to climb as a child - and went up there. The model railway was still there. I plugged it in, tried to get some trains going, but dust or corrosion of their contacts made them sluggish and unreliable, though I dare say that some care and attention could restore them to full working order again. Most of the same junk, including that old pram, was still there, as well as the black bin-bag full of decorations and its unique and permanent smell of ancient Christmasses. It still gave me a little shiver.
Recently my parents had a bit of a clear out. Most of the contents of the loft have gone to the tip now, but I reckon the trains are still there, under their blue painted sky gone dark.
Labels: memories
link | 0 comment(s) | links to this postTuesday, October 10, 2006
What's big, black and hard and makes Alex happy?
My new desk, of course!
It might seem pretty sad to be so excited about a something as prosaic as a desk, but when I sit at it, in my new comfy chair, I feel quite... well... empowered, I suppose. Not that there is anything I can do at it that I couldn't at my old desk, but it was rickety and tiny, impossible to declutter, impossible to clean, shoved in a corner behind the sort of chair that looks reasonably comfortable - all padded and adjustable - but actually numbs both cheeks in a matter of minutes. My new chair has a straight back, no padding, and the only adjustment you can make to it is to pick it up and move it somewhere else, but it's a million times more pleasant to sit on. At first I thought I had made a bit of a mistake with the chair, having tried it only in front of a completely different desk at the shop. At home it seemed a bit too low initially, but in fact it's working out quite well, and has the added bonus of forcing me to sit up straight for once. The desk itself is just a big slab of laminated wood on a pair of trestles. No drawers, no cd-rack, no slidey-out keyboard shelf, no nonsense. Perfect.
With the exception of that ill-advised year of hell in which I moved back into my parent's house in order to save up cash to buy a place (my advice to anyone considering a similar move: nooooooooooo!) I've always had a desk at home, ever since my dad mounted a blue-painted piece of wood to a corner of my bedroom for me to stick my portable telly and ZX Spectrum on, and as a result I don't see it as one of the shackles of working life. It's a place to both be creative and have fun, to tinker with programs and write stories and make music. The desk has been my garden shed and the cockpit of my Cobra Mk III, so it's important that I be comfortable there.
The other night I dragged my old chair, a knackered bookcase and the old desk out onto the pavement for the bulk refuse collection. In the morning they were all gone, except the desk, which they apparently don't want, and is just getting rained on. I don't feel particularly sorry for it.
Labels: diary, games, memories
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