In the lead up to the two great wars of the 20th century, anyone with any awareness of the world around them knew that violence was coming. It must have felt as though the planet was moving inexorably towards the precipice and that no one could stop it. It must have seemed to those living in 1913 and 1938 that whatever anyone did just made matters worse. The leaders of the world were all, perhaps subconsciously, conspiring to open up the cracks in the earth and to let Hell bubble up like lava. Does this sound at all familiar? We do not face war. Not many people believe that within the foreseeable future there will be a world war such as the ones through which past generations lived and suffered. But, economic ruin, Depression is every bit as devastating as a physical war. Bombs are replaced with bonds and unstoppable bullets by unpayable bills. But the outcome is not that different…people suffer, children starve, lives are ruined, many are snuffed out altogether. Just as in 1913 and 1938, we seem to be talking ourselves into global ruin. It’s almost as though we want the worse to happen. Perhaps it’s all about some sort of collective subconscious guilt…we’ve had it good for a while, now it’s time to lacerate ourselves, flagellate our bodies like those who exist on the outer limits of some religions. Every day the news gets worse, but I try to find some indication that intelligence will prevail, that for once humanity will pull together to avert a disaster that will damage all of us, especially the weakest. But, each day, I find this hope receding. And you know why? The most complicit in this lead up to a virtual Third World War is the global media machine. Within their bounds you will find no good news, for only the bad stuff sells….Hack that! Michael White December 2011.
Like many people, I’ve been thinking back to the events of September 11, 2001, and I began to wonder how future historians would view it. That dreadful day was a significant milestone, not just in our lives, but in the history of civilisation. It’s up there with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand as a pivotal moment in history. Could it be that historians a thousand years from now will point to September 11, 2001 and say that was the moment America began to decline? Might they even confuse the date with the start of the GFC? After all, today, historians argue over the details of what happened in say Tudor times – who did what, where and when; and often there is no consensus. But actually, unless we destroy ourselves (in which case there won’t be any historians, just exoanthopologists from another planet perhaps) future students of our era should have no excuse for getting the slightest thing wrong. The reason is that humans have never before documented their own existence so thoroughly, widely and frequently as they do now. Now, we are all archivists. You don’t have to be an academic or a writer, a film-maker or a recording artist to leave some sort of mark for the future. Every tweet is stored somewhere, every blog, every Facebook remark or You Tube comment is there in cyberspace. And okay, most of this will one day vanish into the ether, some will survive on the billions of hard drives, USBs and in the files of Internet Providers. The question is of course: Will anyone in a thousand years time care that nine thousand people a second tweeted the ‘news’ that Beyonce was pregnant?
WHO’S CRYING NOW? This is a song I recorded a few years ago with a great singer, Vivienne Glance. I made this clip a few days ago. The film is a montage of new footage and clips from a Sergei Eisenstein short from 1930 called ‘Romance Sentimentale’ starring Mara Griy. Hope you enjoy.
It’s not only Hindus who have sacred cows - we all do. But, as I get older (and I hope, wiser) I’m beginning to question the value of some of today’s icons, the cows that are so sacred their contribution to culture cannot be reasonably questioned…apparently.
In my mind this has manifested itself most clearly in my increasingly cynical, indeed, hostile view of some of the great figures of pop and rock.
Now, let me warn you in advance… these conclusions (nay - these wildly opinionated proclamations) may offend many readers, but I have to get them out there, or I’ll burst. Here, for me, are the six worst offenders, so please, those of a nervous disposition…Stop Reading Now!
1. The Rolling Stones. Once great song writers and performers. Now just a very profitable freak show. Their musicianship has become so sloppy I can’t allow my ears to be punished by it.
2. A lot of John Lennon’s solo stuff. Yes, he was a Beatle, yes, some of his solo material is ahem…fab, but Life with the Lions or Two Virgins anyone?
3. The xx. Okay, they won the Mercury Prize this year - a major accolade in the UK, but to me they sound like a very lame Joy Division, thirty-years too late. Can anyone tell me the point?
4. Any New York band of the past five years. Boy, am I tired of all the Talking Heads wannabes, especially as TH are my favourite band in the entire history of the Universe. And, yes… you know who I mean…stand up Vampire Weekend, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, to name but three.
5. Bob Dylan’s last album Together Through Life. Love His Bobness to death, but not this one.
6. Anything by U2 after Achtung Baby (one of my all-time favourite albums). How could a band go so wrong? Today, they are the supreme self-parodists. Aggghh! No…worse, they’re the new Rolling Stones. Lord help us!
One of the great thrills of being a writer is receiving finished copies of your latest book. The buzz I get from this never diminishes, even after writing thirty-six books. Aligned with this is the pleasure of receiving translated editions. My record for having one of my books published in foreign languages stands at thirty-three, for my first novel, Equinox, and on my shelves I have some three hundred editions of my books in such unlikely languages as Mongolian and Hebrew.
A running joke I had with a foreign rights agent who used to represent me was that I had checked the translation of the Icelandic edition or the Ukrainian edition and found an error on page 45, paragraph 2. My foreign rights agent knew very well that my linguistic skills are limited to…well, English.
The nicest part about receiving foreign copies is that every country treats the book differently and you never know what to expect. Each has an idiosyncratic cover - some wonderful, some truly hideous. My favourites are editions from Germany, Italy and Scandinavia. But, the idea that: ‘you never know what to expect’ does have its charm limits. The other day, I received a Turkish edition of one of my non-fiction books called The Fruits of War. On the back, the publishers had thoughtfully included an author photo, but it wasn’t a picture of me. Instead, it was a random member of the public, a man much older than me, with a beard, and worst of all by far, he was wearing a really horrible tie.
My brother once told me that he sometimes imagines me working on a book and pictures me putting on a smoking jacket and cravat before spilling a few finely-tuned words onto the page each day. Sounds like fun. Machiavelli used to dress up in his finery to write, but that was after he had been exiled from the Medici court and was writing about the days when, as an ambassador, he really did dress up in his finery. I’ve never worn a smoking jacket.
People often wonder how my day goes and they’re usually surprised when I tell them I try to be as disciplined as any other person at work. At the moment, I’m writing the third book in the E-Force Trilogy, called NANO, working flat-out at a rate of fifteen-hundred words a day, everyday, which, I have to admit is a bit much. But it’s all about markers, targets, deadlines. I know I have to meet a certain daily word count or else I won’t make my deadline some way off in the future, a date arrived at by mutual agreement between my publisher and me.
Another FAQ is: Do you find it lonely work? And again, most people are surprised by my reply. The lonely times, I always say, are when I’m having breaks between stretches of writing, because, when I’m in full-flow and the story is coming together, I’m with my characters in their world and they keep me company. And, although some of those characters are despicable and the situations in which they find themselves might be horrible, for me, there’s never a dull moment when they’re around.
