No Fly Zone

In a future world without aeroplanes, children would gather at the feet of old men, and hear extraordinary tales of a mythic time when vast and complicated machines the size of several houses used to take to the skies and fly high over the Himalayas and the Tasman Sea. ... The wise elders would explain that inside the aircraft, passengers, who had only paid the price of a few books for the privilege, would impatiently and ungratefully shut their window blinds to the views, would sit in silence next to strangers while watching films about love and friendship - and would complain that the food in miniature plastic beakers before them was not quite as tasty as the sort they could prepare in their own kitchens.

A delightfully whimsical piece by philospher/author Alain de Botton, A World Without Planes, on the BBC website. Sometimes one does just want to turn the clock back to a time when things were simpler ...

Postscript :

And Carol Ann Duffy also sees a silver lining in an ash-cloud.

More Christmas Fiction

Here are some very nice Christmas related reads for you to enjoy.

You all know the story of Scrooge in Dickens' A Christmas Carol, but did you know that he had a wife? Poet Carol Ann Duffy tells the story of Mrs Scrooge, and Posy Simmonds adds the charming illustrations.

The Times has a couple of very nice Christmas short stories, Arvind Adiga's Last Christmas in Bandra, while Rachel Johnson writes about a Notting Hill yummy mummy who unwraps the truth in Severely Gifted.

In the Telegraph Justine Picardie tells the tale of The Little Cigarette Girl, and Jane Gardam the story of The Virgins of Bruges.

But any thoughts of fiction at Christmas lead back to Dickens, the man who invented the holiday in the form in which we know it (with turkeys and trees and all that marvellous good will and merriment floating around). Michel Kenny in the Boston Globe looks at the circumstances which lead Dickens to create his Christmas classic (and in just six weeks!). You can read the full thing here and listen to it here. (Another nice piece about Dickens and Christmas by John Walsh appears in the Independent.)

Meanwhile Edward Champion at the Guardian has some great online reading suggestions to save you from an overdose on Christmas kitsch.

A very happy Christmas to you all!

Postscript (26/12/08) :

Let me add one more story : A House by the Sea by Helen Dumore appears in the Independent.

Twit for Twat

It seems political correctness is being taken to silly new levels in the UK. First there was children's writer Jacqueline Wilson who decided to remove "an offensive" word from her latest novel My Sister Jodie.

Daphne Lee writes about it in this morning's Starmag but is too polite to tell you that the excised word is "twat" which has now been replaced by "twit".

In a recent interview, Wilson said she didn't know what "twat" meant. Honestly, neither did I! I think most British people use it quite innocently as stronger form of "twit", a nice little insult for a complete idiot. Why can't we all accept that the word has two meanings - one of them vulgar, one of them not?

The woman who complained in my opinion is the twat for not bothering to open a dictionary. If she had looked in the OED she would have seen that there are two distinct meanings of the word.

If you are going to ban "twat" then you should also take the word "pussy" out of children's books next, because (shock! horror!) it doesn't always refer to cats, y'know. And don't get me started on Fun with Dick and Jane!

The other case Britain's biggest exam deciding to pulp a collection of poems by poet Carole Ann Duffy ... because it contained a poem with a reference to a bread knife! By the same token Shakespeare should suffer the same fate, of course, as he has knives and swords all over the place : Duffy gets the last word in, in a rhyming ripost.

I am worried that the UK which I have always considered much more rational in these things is getting as bad as the US, where the smallest complaint gets a book pulled from syllabuses and library shelves.

By the way, on the subject of silly censorship, I read The Freedom Writer's Diary. Didn't find too much in the way of swear words but something there shocked me far more and I wonder whether it was the real reason for the censorship. The book shows just how kids with great potential can be written off as failures in the US education system (and lets not stop there - probably in all education systems). To suggest that teachers have the power to redress things by giving learners a voice is dangerously revolutionary. (The film is showing on Astro later this month.)

Valentine

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.

Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

Carol Ann Duffy