Please pass me some aspirin

Everyone in Ireland has known for quite some time that the Celtic Tiger party is long over. Property prices are down c.50% on the peak, unemployment has risen from under 5% to just under 13%, public sector take home pay is down 15-20%, etc. What we weren't sure about is the size of the banking hangover and how long its going its going to give us a financial headache. The picture is starting to become a little clearer, although its still a little hazy and will probably stay that way for some time yet.

Yesterday turned into a 'Super Tuesday' where one big headline followed another, and opposition politicians and the general public were sent reeling at the scale of the banking problem (see here for an overview and also the blogs Irisheconomy.ie, progressive-economy.ie and IrelandAfterNAMA). Not only is NAMA (the new toxic bank) taking €81 billion euros of property loans off the banks for a cost of c.€46b (c.47% haircut), but a huge programme of recapitalisation is taking place, which in effect is nationalising the banks. So far over €33b has been committed to recapitalisation, and the need for another €10b already flagged. That's c.€89b in bailout monies in a country consisting of 4.5m people (c.€20,000 per person). The US bank bailout was $700b (€517b) with a population of 340m people (c.€1,520 per person).

The taxpayer is now footing the bill for the excess of the bankers and property developers, and it's going to take a generation to pay off (even if NAMA does manage to recover its debts). Someone please pass me some aspirin, we're suffering from one hell of a collective hangover.

There has to be a few good crime stories to written about this mess.

Review of The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain (Alfred Knopf, 1934)

Frank Chambers drifts through life, hustling here and there, always moving on from trouble. And he finds it with Cora Papadakis, a woman’s who dream of a good life in Hollywood has ended with her being married to a Greek garage and roadside cafe owner, Nick. Nick hires Frank as a mechanic and it doesn’t take long for Frank and Cora to start a torrid affair, and not much longer for them to start plotting the perfect murder of Nick. But committing murder is not as straightforward as it seems in theory …

The Postman Always Rings Twice is the second of the classic crime fiction curriculum challenge books I’ve read. While the story is quite short (89 pages in the edition I read), it packs a powerful punch. It’s a long time since I’ve read a novel, where my first action on finishing it is to go back to the beginning and start again. It really is that good and certainly one the best stories I’ve read since Hans Fallada’s, Alone in Berlin (my favourite read last year). And it has much in common with Fallada’s masterpiece, having a small cast of principal characters, a very well plotted, credible and clever story, and a noir sensibility that leaves the reader emotionally drained by the end. The writing is tight, thin on thick description, and proceeding through a series of nicely judged scenes that documents a fatal attraction and its consequences. And it’s clear as to why readers of this blog voted it an essential classic crime fiction read. A powerful book, that’s worth reading twice.

Well if you could see the stars, then ...

I'm a regular visitor to Armagh, as it's home to the International Centre for Local and Regional Development. I'm here today and tomorrow discussing cross-border spatial planning (the coordination and planning of shared infrastructure and services for mutual benefit). Armagh is a very nice small town, with two cathedrals, a lovely Georgian square, and a worldclass observatory where 25 scientists work studying the heavens. It has to be one of the oddest places to site an observatory. As I write it is lashing rain. There are clear skies suitable for star gazing about 30 days a year. It doesn't seem to hamper the work much. The observatory has been here since 1790 and seems to be going strong. If you're ever passing through, it's well worth a visit. (There would be an image to accompany this post, but blogger is refusing to unload one - click on the link to take a tour).

The Lazy Sunday Service

The final version of the proofs for The White Gallows will be sent back to the publisher this evening and the manuscript should be forwarded to the printers tomorrow. It's going to be tight to get copies for the London Book Fair, April 19-21, but hopefully it'll all go to plan. I've now also booked my flights to attend the LBF. I'm looking forward to having a nose around and seeing what's going on in the industry at the minute.

My posts this week:
Representative democracy is breaking down?
The mirror's this way
Review of The Complaints by Ian Rankin
It's very good, but it's not good enough
Finding the floor
Review of Pies and Prejudice by Stuart Maconie

Review of Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North by Stuart Maconie (Ebury Press, 2007)

I bought Pies and Prejudice as an impulse buy when travelling through Manchester Airport a week ago. Like Maconie I’m a northern exile and the opening few pages were entertaining enough. The basic premise is that Macione heads north from his new southern life of sun-dried tomatoes and his cappuccino machine to discover what makes the north what it is, why it differs from the south of Britain, and to rediscover his inner northerner. He starts by stating that he’d ‘like to think that it could be enjoyed by the fine people of the south too’ and then launches into a broadside against the south and its people. It’s a curious way to start a book about the north – the first 30 pages discussing the shortcomings of the south. It then moves onto Crewe, a kind of frontier town, not quite the midlands, not quite the north, before finally arriving at the north proper. And when he does arrive, what we get are his observational notes describing the place he’s visiting, a couple of anecdotes, and one or two abbreviated historical stories.

One can get a sense of a place through its geography and history, but what is crucially missing from the narrative are people. There are a couple of thin anecdotes, but one never meets the people of the north. Maconie describes the people he sees, but we barely get a snippet of a conversation (mainly because he doesn’t actually talk to them – he sits in a pub or café or wanders a street, but doesn’t engage those around him other than when he is served), and of the very few voices reported (often people he already knows) none of them are asked what makes the north, the north, or what makes them a northerner or a Geordie or Scouser, or what it is like to live in a place, etc. Surely one of the key things that makes the north, the north, is its people? It’s as if he’s wandered around, often visiting a place for just a couple of hours, and that was enough to form a coherent impression. It leads to a strangely anaemic read. Having waded to the end, I’m no wiser about the north than when I started, although I know Maconie likes pies and is happy to dole out his prejudices. Travel writing is about people and place. It’s a shame we never met the people.

It's very good, but its not quite good enough

I'm having one of those weeks. I've been slaving away trying to get a large European Research Council grant application completed. It's taken me an absolute age to put the thing together as it really needs to be spot on given the chances of being awarded it are 2-5 percent. I had some feedback on the preliminary draft this morning. The verdict, 'it's very good, but its not quite good enough'. Rather than a bit of tweaking, the proffered solution (and unfortunately I agree with the assessment), is a fundamental rewrite and restructing. I've spent all day at it. I suspect it is becoming poorer with each draft. I had this problem with a story once. In striving for perfection it just got worse and worse and ended up in the bin. I'd have been better off leaving it alone. I'd be happy with very good, but its not the top 2-5%, is it? So, once again, it's back to a clean sheet.

Does anybody have any top tips for dealing with this kind of issue? All advice gratefully received ...

Review of The Complaints by Ian Rankin (Orion, 2009)

Malcolm Fox works for the Conduct and Complaints section, the police unit that investigates other cops. Almost universally disliked, Fox and his colleagues run a small, tight ship, and expect little help or friendliness from the colleagues of those they investigate. Having just managed to wrap-up a case against Glenn Heaton, a cop who bends the rules to get results, Fox is asked to start an investigation into the conduct of Jamie Breck, a cop in the same team as Heaton suspected of purchasing online child porn. Almost immediately the partner of his sister, a man who has recently broken her arm in a row, is found beaten to death, and to complicate things Breck is part of the team investigating his murder, with Heaton’s boss in overall command. Fox starts to bend the rules himself, befriending Breck, unable to trust the other cops to do a good job, especially as they seem to be using the case to get at him. Soon, Fox has the tables turned on him, suspended from duty, along with Breck, and subject of a conduct investigation. Unsure who to trust, Fox needs to clear his name and find the killer of his sister’s partner.

Rankin is a skilled author, who seems to write effortlessly. Well plotted and structured, with workmanlike prose, the pages flip past. Very quickly, the reader is immersed in Fox’s world, his backstory, his relationships with family and key actors, and the city he lives and works in. As with Rankin’s previous books, Edinburgh is a character in itself – its geography, history and sense of place. The Complaints is an entertaining read, engaging with the present economic crisis and the downturn in the property market. As I posted a couple of days ago, my only real quibble was the core characters; I didn’t really take to any of them, especially in the first half of the book. I slightly warmed to Fox in the final quarter, but I didn’t find myself rooting for him in the same way as Rebus and Siobhan Clarke. That said, I will almost certainly read the next Rankin novel to feature Fox and ‘the complaints’ section.