Putin’s Cover Girl
Posted by Chris Niblock in life/humour on October 24, 2011
In the year since she was deported from America in the biggest spy swap since the end of the Cold War, Anna Vasil’yevna Kushchyenko: aka Anna Chapman, has gone from undercover spy to pin-up cover girl. On her return to Russia, she was toasted by Putin at a private gathering and invited to join a pro-Putin youth group; her job to provide leadership advice to Russian youth. So far, so good, but then she posed half-naked for a men’s magazine holding a gun. Somewhat surprisingly, this embarrassed the former KGB agent Mr. Putin who has not only posed topless with a gun, but with horses and a fishing rod.
Then in an incident more reminiscent of a Carry On film than John Le Carre, the Bondski girl took to the catwalk during a fashion show brandishing a pistol, which, much to the delight of her detractors, she proceeded to drop in front of the attendant press corps. Now ‘the spy who came in from the cold’ could find herself back out in it. Given the scanty clothing she’s been wearing lately and with the harsh Moscow winter just around the corner, things could prove very cold indeed for the failed spy.
I don’t know if British Intelligence has someone like Anna working undercover in Moscow but I’m betting her choice of underwear will be far more sensible than Chapman’s: a nice warm thermal vest from M & S and some thick woolly tights. Let’s hope that like the Americans, would be Russian traitors will just love her English accent!
Featured Painting: ‘Cosmic Collision’
Posted by Chris Niblock in spaceflight/art on September 26, 2011
This painting was inspired by a still from the movie The Right Stuff. Based on the book of the same name by Tom Wolfe, it tells the story of test pilot Chuck Yeager‘s attempts to break the sound barrier in a rocket powered plane and of the seven astronauts of NASA’s Project Mercury. The Cold War was at it’s height and America and Russia were locked in the Space Race, the original impetus for which was the desire to build bigger and more powerful intercontinental missiles to carry the atomic warheads they were both stockpiling.
Project Mercury was something of a stop-gap. The Americans had talked of building a small winged vehicle along the lines of what would eventually become the much larger space shuttle, however the launch of Sputnik 1 by the Russians in October 1957 convinced the Americans that the soviets were way ahead of them in terms of lifting power. If they were to put a man into space before the Russians they would have to rely on their existing rocketry. The Mercury spacecraft was basically ‘a man in a can’ which would be shot into space atop a Redstone missile. The original design called for the craft to be ‘flown by wire’ from the team on the ground, but the Mercury astronauts – all test pilots – baulked at this and the capsule was fitted with a manual override.
In the event, the Russians beat them to it when on the 12th April 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the earth. Ten months later John Glen would become the first American to do the same in the Mercury capsule ‘Freedom 7’.
Original oil painting on canvas copyright Chris Niblock
Why men should be afraid of these mice . . .
Posted by Chris Niblock in science/humour on August 15, 2011
‘Are you a man or a mouse?’ was given new meaning this week, with the announcement that scientists have created sperm in the laboratory and succeeded in using it to produce healthy offspring. True the ‘babies’ in this instance were mice not men, but the ultimate aim of the experiment is to aid fertility in humans.
Researchers at Kyoto University took embryonic stem cells from the mice and by adding growth factors, created ‘primordial germ cells’. These cells were then inserted into the testes of infertile mice – I wonder where they got them from – infertile mice must be as rare as rocking horse shit, given the rodents’ prodigious ability to reproduce themselves!
The techniques used in this research would have to be modified somewhat if they are to be used in humans, as men don’t have embryonic stem cells which could be used to generate sperm in the same way. However, scientists are said to be working on a method which involves reprogramming adult cells so that they become embryonic cells.
This experiment and others like it, could eventually lead to a man’s role in the reproductive process becoming redundant. The sperm count has been dropping for years anyway, and along with it, the male’s traditional role in society. Some scientists believe that it will eventually be possible to create sperm from female stem cells, thus eliminating the need for men altogether.
I explore this last scenario in my debut novel Back Dated. Following a visit from a strange young woman, Sci-fi writer Ray Flaxman is pitched headlong into a dystopian future, where women rule the new Britannia and men are facing extinction. Feminists often claim that the world would be a better place if women were running things but I wonder . . .
In 1971, the then Education Secretary and mother, Margaret Thatcher abolished school milk, leaving many children without their daily pinta. Later, as Prime Minister she became known as the Iron Lady. It was often said of her that she was more of a man than any of the men in her cabinet. Under her premiership we saw the rise of the politics of greed and the me,me,me society which is with us still today.
The man who invented the Time Machine
Posted by Chris Niblock in science fiction on August 1, 2011
Herbert George Wells (1866-1946), along with Jules Verne (1828-1905) is generally regarded as the father of science fiction, though it could be argued that the young Mary Shelley beat them both to it with the publication in 1818 of her novel Frankenstein.
The novel came to be written as the result of a competition between herself, her lover, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, to see who could write the best horror story. Frankenstein nevertheless has at its core some of the basic elements of science fiction: the fanatical scientist who pushes science too far and in doing so, creates a monster he cannot control.
But it was H.G. Wells more than anyone else, who in four of his best known novels established the basic ingredients of the science fiction genre, though he preferred to call them scientific romances.*
Time travel and the dystopian future: The Time Machine (1895).
The egotistical scientist who overreaches himself: The Invisible Man (1897).
Alien Invasions: The War of the Worlds (1898).
Space Travel: The First Men in the Moon (1901).
H.G. Wells wasn’t the first writer to feature time travel in a story but he was the first to use the term Time Machine. In a career spanning sixty years, he was a prolific and sometimes prophetic writer of both fiction and non fiction, novels, short stories and articles. But it is for these four novels that he will be most remembered.
All four have been adapted for the cinema but it was another Wells – American actor and director Orson Welles, and his radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds which had the greatest impact on an audience. On the 30th October 1938, Halloween night, Welles directed and performed an updated version of the work as a series of simulated news bulletins, which had a section of the audience convinced that America was being invaded by Martians. Following the broadcast, Welles was castigated for cruelly deceiving his listeners but it made him famous.
*The term science fiction was coined in 1851 but didn’t really catch on until the 1930’s when it was popularised by the American editor Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the first science fiction magazine Amazing Stories in 1926. The Annual Science Fiction Achievement Awards, the ‘Hugo’s’ are named after him.
If you enjoy reading about Time Travel check out my novel Back Dated. Just click on the links to the right of this page and they will take you to my amazon home page, where you can read the first three chapters for FREE!
Start screaming Kate – Hammer Horror is back!
Posted by Chris Niblock in Movies on July 25, 2011
I was amused to read that Hammer Films is back in business with the news that Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe is to star in ‘The Woman in Black‘ for them. Rather like most of the characters featured in their movies, I’d assumed that the company was long since dead. But it seems they simply became the undead and were just biding their time until a fresh crop of victims came along. In their heyday (1955 to 1959) the films were considered quite scary, but compared to later shockers like’ The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ and’ Nightmare on Elm Street’, there was more ‘ham’ than horror in classics like ‘Dracula’ and ‘The Curse of Frankenstein’. These films made stars of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee and much later Ingrid Pitt, most fondly remembered for her role in ‘Virgin Vampires’ alongside Kate O’Mara.
As a teenager, singer/songwriter Kate Bush dubbed the screams for Hammer, and featured a song entitled ‘Hammer Horror’ on her second album ‘Lionheart’.
But what I found even more interesting is the news that Hammer have gone into the publishing business with a series of gothic horror novels. Award winning author of ‘Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit’, Jeanette Winterson is to pen a novella for them. Imagine the creative possibilities this opens up for the audio book versions of these horror stories. Let’s hope they can persuade Kate Bush to provide the screams . . . we haven’t heard much from her lately and as a big fan, I’d welcome any new sounds from her even if it is just a blood curdling scream of terror.
In Memoriam: Amy Winehouse
Posted by Chris Niblock in art/music on July 24, 2011
AMY WINEHOUSE
1983 – 2011
Original Painting: Oils on canvas copyright Chris Niblock 2009
Serena and Back Dated get a makeover.
Posted by Chris Niblock in writing fiction/humour on July 18, 2011
It would have been neat to get it right first time, but having lived with it for three months, I’ve decided that my orignal cover design for Back Dated was a little too subtle. So, I’ve re-designed it and now feel it accurately reflects the novel’s content and storyline. I think you’ll agree Serena’s looking a lot better for it. Hope you like it. In fact, I’m hoping you’ll like it enough to buy it.
I’ve made it easy for you: just click on the links below the smaller pic of the book’s cover on the right and it will take you straight to Back Dated’s page on Amazon. For just £0.86 ($1.34 if you’re buying from Amazon.com), it’s yours.
Don’t have a Kindle? No problem, Amazon thoughtfully provide FREE App’s which enable you to download my eBook onto an iPad, iPhone and similar devices, or onto your laptop or PC. You can even download the first couple of chapters for Free before buying! So, what have you got to lose?
Still worried you might not like it. Well if you enjoyed TV series like ‘Life on Mars‘ and ‘Ashes to Ashes‘, or books and movies like ‘Logan’s Run‘ and ‘The Time Travelers Wife’, I think you’ll enjoy Back Dated.
Featured Painting: ‘The girl got the blues’
Posted by Chris Niblock in art/music on July 9, 2011
This recently completed painting is based on a photograph of Taylor Swift, the American country pop singer/songwriter, musician and actress. In order to give it a ‘bluesy’ feel I changed the colour palette, substituting the colder shades of blue and purple for the original’s much warmer tones.
Original oil on canvas copyright Chris Niblock 2011
Why E.T. shouldn’t call home anytime soon.
Posted by Chris Niblock in science/humour on July 4, 2011
still from E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
Our first contact with intelligent life forms elsewhere in the universe may not come in the form of an announcement along the lines of, ‘that’s one small step for man, one giant leap for all life forms’, but a complaint to ofcom. This follows the announcement by astronomers working on the square kilometre array or SKA for short, that when the radio-telescope is completed it will be sensitive enough to detect mobile telephone systems up to 50 light years from earth. The astronomers plan to scan distant stars for artificial radio waves by linking together 3000 separate radio dishes and other antennae to form one vast machine. It’s planned to site the array in either the outback of Western Australia or the Karoo of South Africa, which will give a direct line of sight into the heart of The Milky Way.
Setting aside the legality of ‘hacking’ into an alien’s private phone calls, what are we likely to learn from this galactic eavesdropping? Not much, judging by most of the calls one is forced to overhear whilst travelling on a train or a bus here on earth.
That being the case we can look forward to gems like: ‘Me? I’m on the 9.10 Pan-Galactic Starcruiser to Andromeda. Yeah, I know, it’s a bloody disgrace. I’m going to be late for work again. We’ve been creeping along at Warp factor 5 for the last 300,000 miles.’
Of course if E.T. turns out to be a mega rich, Pan-galactic superstar, he may well take us to the Galactic equivalent of the European Court of Human Rights, and sue the collective arse off the entire human race for violation of his alien rights!’
Dead Sharks and Unmade Beds
Posted by Chris Niblock in art/humour on June 27, 2011
'Man Eater' copyright chris niblock 2010
In all the controversy over the availability or lack of it, of tickets for the London Olympics, the cultural festival that runs alongside it, seems to have been largely overlooked by the media. This could be set to change with the announcement that Tracey Emin, of ‘My Bed’ fame, has recently been named as one of twelve artists who are to design posters for the Olympic and Paralympic games. Miss Emin has a way with words certainly but judging by her artworks at least, has a somewhat limited vocabulary. When it comes to posters four letter words do have one advantage in so far as they are short and to the point, but unless the organisers want to add to the controversy which already surrounds the games, she’ll have to come up with some longer words. She also misspelled Picasso on one of them which doesn’t bode well.
For many of us, modern art is a bit like marmite– you either love it or you hate it. And the work of Britart artists in particular, has in recent years aroused a great deal of heated debate about the nature of art. Can a dead shark suspended in formaldehyde or a rumpled bed be art? I get out of bed every morning and leave the bed-clothes in a state of disarray: have I just created a piece of art or am I simply being a lazy slob? When I go back later to remake it, I often find myself agonising over the destruction of this masterwork of mine.
French playwright Yasmina Retza wrote a very clever and wonderfully funny play about modern art. Entitled ‘Art’, its plot is a deceptively simple one: three friends, Serge, Marc, and Yvan, are forced to reassess the nature of their long running friendship when Serge pays a huge sum for an abstract painting which consists of barely visible white lines on a white canvas. Serge and Marc fall out in a big way when Marc describes the painting as a ‘piece of sh*t’. Yvan’s attempt to reconcile his two friends succeeds only in widening the chasm that has opened up between them. It could be argued that the play is more about the nature of friendship than about art, but it provides plenty to chew over on both subjects.
Perhaps in the end, it comes down to this: it’s not what you see when you look at a work of art that makes it art for you, but what you think you see.
Chris Niblock
A Stirring in the Blood
Buy it from amazon.co.uk
A Kyndle in the Mynd 