Mozart's Last Aria

Matt Rees is one of the most stylish crime writers around at the moment, and his latest novel has just been published in the UK (the US edition will be out in November). In the past, Matt's work has all been set in the contemporary Middle East, where he lives. This time he's taken a journey back to 18th century Vienna and to the mystery surrounding the death of Mozart. (If you think Salieri did it, think again.) Where many historical novelists are concerned, this would be a cue for endless descriptions of fashion or lots of painfully anachronistic dialogue: the kind that always reminds me of a bad school play. Fortunately Matt is of the hard-boiled school of writing: he does his research, and makes every word count. So that's my summer holiday reading sorted.

Here's the rather gorgeous trailer...

And here's the long version. Wonderful  music .... but then, it is Mozart!

The Einstein girl in Poland

The Polish translation of The Einstein Girl was published last month, with this rather elegant (and historically authentic) cover. The title in Polish is actually The Einstein Case, because to translate the original title word-for-word produces something indistinguishable from Einstein’s Girlfriend – which is definitely not what was intended. My polish publishers, Książnice, originally suggested Einstein’s Daughter, but for me that was too on-the-nose – as well as being the title of a non-fiction book published a few years ago in America.

In terms of the number of titles published, Poland has been my most faithful market to date. In all, seven out of eight of my books have been published there. That’s more even than the UK. Perhaps there is some faint Slavic strain running through my prose ... or maybe that's just the luck of the draw!

Should maths be taught in our schools?

It's about time this thorny issue was properly and openly debated, just as it is here. The egg-heads in their ivory towers have had us in their thrall for too long...



Now watch the real thing... Can you spot the difference?



The contest was won by Miss California, a self-confessed 'science geek'. So there is hope.

When brains freeze over...

If you thought the video I posted earlier this month exaggerated the failings of the mainstream media to get science stories even remotely right, just take a look at the latest nonsense running in print and (especially) on-line about the coming 'mini ice age'.
Below, this media fabrication is admirably dissected by an ex-New Scientist editor known as 'Potholer'. When it comes to stories about climate, I'm afraid, the kind of pig-headed idiocy he examines here is absolutely par for the course.

A culture of gullibility?

Did you know that if you leave a tooth in a glass of Coca-Cola overnight it doesn't dissolve? No, neither did I. This excellent video, the first in a series, demonstrates how silly 'scientific' claims are now swiftly disseminated via the Internet - and how to spot them without the need for a PhD...

Laughing all the way to the bank?

Richard Lewinsohn's near-contemporary analysis of the 1929 Wall Street crash - a classic account that nobody interested in economic history or economic theory should miss - has recently been translated into English by Peter Bild. (Amazon link http://www.amazon.com/Financial-Contagion-Lessons-Great-Depression/dp/1446136426). At the back there are some rather witty verses on our own 21st century financial crisis, penned by the translator. With his kind permission, I append this exclusive extract:

Rhymes for our Times
(Dead and buried, out of fashion,

Sodden Ogden’s teeth are Nashn’)

Three years since the fall of Lehman.

Politicians still are schemin’.

Printing cash for junking clunkers.

Hunkered down in marbled bunkers,

Bankers, what’s your latest news?

No more blues, just one more ruse

To use the cash you can’t refuse:

Taxpayers’ cash, let’s call it  TARP -

That’s what makes you rich and sharp.

A year along, your bank seems strong.

Nothing that you did seems wrong.

You’re a banker: and you hanker

For a margin without rancour.

Don‘t treat me like a trading chip.

So get a grip before we slip

Into a bubbly double dip.

Now masters of the universe

Tell me please, what could be worse
Than bankers heading for a fall.

Let them grovel, let them crawl!
Schadenfreude? Not at all!

Hear the honest realtor.

Buy a home! Buy three or four!

Soon they will be worth much more.

You’re the broker who espouses

That’s what borrowed money’s for.

Why, the market’s safe as houses.

And should you feel acquisitive

Then buy my new derivative.

Indisputably financial,

It makes trades more influential,

And your profits exponential.

That’s how you fulfil potential:

Trading on the differential.

You’re so smart, well who’d have thought it?

Sold some stock before you bought it.
Savvy bears just love to short it,

Leaving markets all distorted.

Though it’s rarely well reported,

That is how, with falling prices

You make money from the crisis.

Lions of the money jungle

Brainy bankers never bungle.

But I’m uncouth, a simple youth,

I’m telling you the naked truth:

(The sort of truth a banker loathes)

The Emperor-banker’s got no clothes!

I’m with Warren: in the Buff- it

Is low tide! No time to bluff it.

When you signed that trading chitty

Did you grasp the nitty gritty?

No you didn’t, more’s the pity.

In New York or London City,

Alter-ids of Walter Mitty

Think this ditty’s pretty shitty.

For, when traders tell their bosses,

Those weren’t profits, those were losses,
Other folks will bear the onus.

You make sure you keep your bonus,
Those  fine champagnes can addle brains.

With your ill-begotten gains.

Lots of loot down lots of drains.

Where wert thou, John Maynard Keynes?

Some banks trembled, others crumbled

Arrogant until they tumbled.

Some believe they should be humbled

Jumbled on a victims tumbril.

Regulators Messrs Bumble

Fiscal fingers all a-fumble

Mumble, but they rarely rumble

In advance before you stumble.

Afterwards, they merely grumble.

After all that speculation.

For the banks: Administration?
Bottom line defenestration?

Too big to fail, resuscitation.
Main Street, meanwhile, feels frustration 

Suffering in desperation
From financial constipation.

Who picks up the tab? The nation!

Somewhere, there must be a trade-off

For the money Bernie Madoff.

Now here’s a twist you may have missed.

The rating agencies insist,

Like the alchemists of old,

This ain’t sub-prime shit. It’s GOLD!

Care-packaged in the USA

These housing loans are A OKAY,
We’re PAID to rate them Triple A.

Wrapped up neat they look a treat,

As shysters on the New York street
Sell CDOs a dime a bunch.
“So find the lady, play your hunch.

And get one free." A sucker punch.
Please don’t fret if you don't get it.
Trust us bankers. Give us credit:
Credit for the credit crunch.

Meanwhile, please enjoy your lunch.

Hail to Henry Paulson. Hank!

Who came to Treasury from a bank,

Sheltered from financial blizzard,

As our ranking, banking wizard.

Hail to Hank whose banking wisdom
Sought to save the sinking system.
Was it greed? Or just stupidity,

Feeding on our mass cupidity,

To inject more cheap liquidity?

Now what’s it worth,  our glorious greenback?

90 cents that won’t be seen back.

Chinamen can hold our dollar.
When it falls, just hear them holler.

Let them work, while we just lean back.

And so with Wall Street’s contribution
Watch the dollar's dire dilution:

Uncle Sam wins absolution
For his post-war dissolution.
All in all, a neat solution.

B’fore the dollar, we all knelt down

Till it caused financial meltdown.

A library education

I must admit to not knowing very much about public libraries. Until a few years ago I didn’t go to them all that often, partly because there wasn’t one on my doorstep, and partly because having to return the books in time felt like a nuisance I could do without. And yes, I suffered from the common prejudice that libraries were essentially musty places where the books, like the customers, were rather too well-worn.

All that has changed. My son Leo, though, who is four in August, is a big consumer of pre-school and early years literature. He requires a constantly renewed diet of the stuff, which Uta or I are required to read aloud before lights out – and often (less delightfully) very early in the morning. My local library has an excellent children’s section, and without it we’d be very hard put to maintain Leo’s interest. We take out about ten books at a time, changing them about once a fortnight. On top of that we buy books, because we know now exactly what our son likes best: evidence, if any were needed, that Waterstone’s has no better friend in the high street than the public lending library.

Jan Bild, my hostess at the Berlin Intercultural Reading Groups, turns out to know a thing or two libraries, having spent most of her professional life as a librarian. She is what you might call a campaigning librarian, having successfully fought to keep open a number of libraries that short-sighted (one might say philistine) councils have sought to close at one time or another, including libraries in my own borough of Wandsworth. She has also been instrumental in bringing library and self-teaching facilities to Wandsworth Prison – in the face of institutional obstruction and bottomless cynicism – with measurably beneficial results for all concerned.

And it doesn’t end there. Her reading group network in Berlin, which began life under the auspices of the British Council, is widely recognised as a model. Jonathan Coe, Georgina Harding and Debbie Moggach have been among the authors recently accepting invitations to its ‘meet the author’ events in the German capital. In my case, this involved a Q&A with Jan, and lots of questions from the audience (the latter being rather an un-German element; reading events in Germany being simply that, for the most part). The evening, which was held at an extraordinarily large, airy and modern library in the district of Steglitz-Zehlendorf, was very well attended and very lively.

Jan has strong views about where British libraries are going wrong. It isn’t just that they’re starved of money. It’s also that the management in many cases have got it into their heads that what they need to pull the punters in is lots of current bestsellers. That means lots of books about vampires and the latest recommendations from Richard and Judy. In other words, as Jan puts it, that they should try to compete head-on with Tesco. This is a mistake. The limitation of Tesco, even of most specialist book shop branches, is the limited range of titles it carries. If you are in the market for an Edith Wharton, for example, even a decent sized Waterstone’s is unlikely to carry anything except The Age of Innocence. Public libraries should be places where you go for the classics, for good books that may never have been on a bestseller list, or which haven't been near one for years. They should be places of range and depth – not simply places were you can get hold of the latest fast seller for £3.99 less than it costs at the supermarket.  I agree with this analysis – but then, I have to admit, I’ve never been much drawn to what’s current in fiction anyway.

The Ingeborg-Drewitz Library in Berlin