The Smell of a Good Book

When I was younger, I was obsessed with maintaining some sort of lifestyle that predated my own. I would refuse to type anything, stating that I preferred to hand write my work (since entering the teaching profession, I have apologised to my old English teacher, having had the experience of marking hand written course work) and that typing is just not as expressive and is too cold a medium.

Long story short, I'm writing this on my ipad, which I bought to replace my netbook, which I find rather slow and clunky. Im frustrated because my desktop pc is broken, and my kindle is my portable library. So there we have it, I am a techno fiend (not the music, that's just awful.)

How does this link to the smell of a good book? Well, let's consider books. They're aesthetically very pleasing in all their shapes and sizes, from slim volumes of poetry, to thick novels and huge tomes. They can make a room feel more homely, when they populate it's shelves. And, as an open and avid bibliophile, the smell of a good book is divine; it is ambrosia. But that is the mere object of a book. A book is merely a box full of paper, but what it represents is knowledge, communication.

I love books and I love the way they smell, but we're living in a digital age and the physical object of a book is becoming archaic and, in some cases, obsolete. It has come to a point now, where i have filled almost three rooms with my books, and my collection is

expanding steadily. If it weren't for my Kindle and ipad, then I feel confident in saying that my love of books, coupled with my love of hoarding, would overrun my life.

Perhaps the main reason I find books so homely and so comforting is that they represent journeys. Not always physical journeys, but journeys of learning, of emotional development, of growth. A great book is like a ballet; it doesn't matter whether or not you know whats coming next, it's about the beauty of watching the plot unfold. The smell of a good book is, in my opinion, a psychological side effect to the comfort one takes from the familiar; a mere symptom.

It is a symptom from which I suffer greatly, and yet I am aware of it's nature and I am willing to embrace the future. Really speaking, there's more to a book than what you hold; thats mere aestheticism. I think that people who really love reading will not shy away from the advent of electronic book. Rather, they will embrace it, as it takes us that one step closer to universal inclusion, because books will be even easier to access.

The smell of a good book is a wonderful thing,but it is a mere by-product of that for which a true bibliophile searches: understanding.

*****

It starts in a forest. A vast forest where all kinds of beautiful wildlife lives and dies.

Each tree in this forest is significant for life to thrive. Anything from the smallest mite to the mightiest ape. Each tree gives it's all to not only survive but feed and shelter each living organism that surrounds it.

And the trees are happy to do this. They know that by treating the encompassing life well. By giving a squirrel it's nuts, by giving a woodpecker it's hide-y hole, by giving the possum it's tree sap, it is also giving itself the means to carry on. It has a purpose. It gives life so it's species can carry on.

For every animal it helps, it is one step closer to creating and sowing it's seeds, using the animals around it to spread its life-pellets further and further so it can grow and grow. And grow some more.

This beautifully simple idea, yet delightfully complex action is not only true for the trees in the forest, but every plant and weed.

Then modern man came along with a yearning for information. Information about everything. Any information about any process, any technique, any thing. Anything.

They developed a way to preserve this information. The written word. They also found a way to preserve the written word. They developed papyrus.

This papyrus was made out of the very trees and plants that grew in the vast forest. On this papyrus, they wrote how to make papyrus using the vast forest. And then they wrote all sorts of things, factual or fictitious. All types of information that could be absorbed and used or enjoyed.

Papyrus that was filled with as much information about a topic was bound, and then called a book.

If you are to flick through a book, close to your nose, there's a mysterious and enchanting smell. That smell is the memory of the vast forest and it's truly beautiful. It's filled with the combined wisdom and life of the forest and the scribe of the documenter. It is "The smell of a good book".

The amount of information that was documented grew exponentially which sadly resulted in the decrease of the vast forest. So much so that it was then renamed; the forest.

An attempt to preserve the forest is currently ongoing. A process called recycling is being utilized. The process is also written on papyrus. Recycling is technique which involves cleaning and reusing older materials and it's used for a great variety of materials used today.

In the case of papyrus, the recycling process dilutes the beautiful smell of life and wisdom that's bestowed in by the forest. And that is why books today will never be truly great, for they will never have, The smell of a good book.

*****

Hello and welcome back to the very first episode of Smell That Book. I hope you all enjoyed the ad break, made yourself a cup of tea and put the dog out the back because there will be little opportunity for such things from this point on.

Now, to me, the smell of a good book means nothing. I was never a very strong reader (I’m still not) nor have I had such an amazing moment with a book that its odour has stuck with me. I have such memories with food, especially food that I have painstakingly cooked from scratch but as much as I have loved the recipe book the dish came from I could not tell you what it smelt of (other than grease and flour). I can recall the smell of important people from my life, be it a perfume they wore or the cigars they smoked, but smelling the books they once owned that now reside on my shelves do not conjure up feelings or emotions. Even as I write this, I am nose deep in a tome I have taken from my cupboard trying to gain some insight into the wondrous world of Eau de Novelle but all I can think of is that Silverfish must not suffer from body odour.

So what am I going to write about? (I pause to think, as the question was as much for me as it was for you, the reader). It could be, now that I take a second glance at the title, that I have been getting this all wrong. The phrase is ‘the smell of a GOOD book’. Could it be that what I have been doing is smelling books that are not considered good? How does one judge this? I have always been of the mind that a book is good if the reader has enjoyed it, and that one person may consider a book good while someone else may think the opposite. But perhaps this is not the case. Perhaps a book is put through its paces even before it’s published (picture a little library assault course) to determine where on a scale of 1 to Stephanie Mayer the book should be, 1 being very good and Stephanie Mayer being fucking awful. And perhaps depending on a books position on the scale they are given different scents, immediately altering our perception on a book. Maybe a good book is given an appealing aroma, enticing us to read on, tricking the senses, whereas a bad book would be given a stench designed to force our subconscious into finding problems with the book, such as bad grammar or ridiculous sentence structure, leading us to discard the book. Perhaps this is the origin of ‘That book stinks’, a phrase commonly used by overzealous American book critics.

Does this theory explain why I cannot recall the smell of a single book? No. Although, perhaps at the centre of the scale, where the books are neither good nor bad, they have no added scent, leaving the readers to make their own minds up. It’s a possibility for sure, but I don’t think it would stand up in a court of law. You see, a lot of the books I have read are the same books that my friends have read. Friends that have fond memories of smelling said books for the first time. I have been there and had their copies wafted under my nose, and while they’ve writhed in ecstasy I have sat there, unmoved by the gust of wind rushing up my nostrils.

Here is another theory (I am a scientist after all) which I think fits the scenario a little better. Maybe the term good book is used in the same way as it is when referring to religious texts. To understand this, I had to first think about what makes a religious text ‘good’. Firstly, what do all these books have in common? (That’s right, you clever bastards) They’re all big. So big is good. They are also the most circulated texts in existence with millions of copies made daily. So high sales is also a good thing. Lastly, they all have catchy titles e.g. The Bible, The Torah, The Origin of Species (that’s a joke for all the atheists in the room). So titles that start with ‘The’ are epic good. The other thing with religious texts is that they are appreciated and cared for by the people that read them. So if we now compare these to the books that, hypothetically, are in question. Most of these books are large books, if not in volume then in word count. Most of them are books that are widely read and have huge sales worldwide. They also fit the description of having catchy titles e.g. The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Complete Collection of Conan (the last one is kind of cheating as it’s a descriptive title but it’s the book that most resembles a religious text). My friends take care of their books and really know how to appreciate the prose. Like I said at the start, I was always a weak reader and have lost more books than I’ve actually read.

What I think is happening, if the latter theory is correct, is that I have been cursed with an inability to sniff the scripture. Whoever the divine power is, be it God, Allah or Edgar Allan Poe, they have deemed me unworthy to enjoy the full experience of a good book. Through neglecting the written word in its purest form I have lost my right to its gratifying fragrance. Perhaps, as I write this and expect others to appreciate what I’ve written, I may at some point in the future be gifted a pardon and for once experience that ever elusive book-uet (like bouquet but with books).

Or maybe I’ll never get this Kindle to work properly. Good night.

*****

I have a kindle, I like gadgets, and I embrace progressive technology enabling books to be read in a progressive way. As technology improves, books as a medium will evolve. It was noted on Stephen Fry's Planet Word documentary that as handheld e-readers improve we will see books that incorporate video and extensive footnotes, clips of music and similar. There are already books rife with hyperlinks, and it isn't difficult to imagine the benefits of textbooks where the references in the bibliography lead to the actual articles or papers themselves. These improvements would make studying easier and reading more fun.

Already on the kindle it is possible to see sections of text underlined if they have been highlighted by a number of readers. I'm not sure how I feel about that, hopefully it's a feature that can be turned off; I'd like to come to my own conclusions, and how I read a section of text will definitely be affected if I am aware many people felt it noteworthy.

As much as I enjoy e-readers, for me, personally, they are currently missing something. However this is not informed by practicality or sense, rather it is a hipster coolwank pretention. Much like musos who prefer cds to mp3, and the older who prefer cassette to cd, and the older who prefer vinyl to cassette, and the yet older who prefer music boxes to vinyl, I prefer books. I think it's likely a preference which will take longer to shift culturally, for in comparison to these evolving music recording formats which evolved over a comparatively short period the book has existed in a largely unchanged format for a large number of years.

So, in what ways do books differ to e-readers? In every material dimension the variety of books make them artefacts I delight in, and while the all-in-one nature of e-readers is also something that pleases me, books of paper and ink stimulate so many more of my senses. I have a colossal gospel tome of the Lord of the Rings, with tiny print despite its giant size, a long bound bookmark fraying at the edge, bounteous illustrations taking up entire pages. It is a beautiful book. It frustrates me somewhat as its size excludes it from one of my favourite pastimes: reading in the bath, however it makes up for this by sitting unused for months, years, and then upon re-discovery it has amassed a layer of dust, allowing me to blow it off, imagining that this is an ancient text I have discovered in an ancient ruin or storehouse. On the other end of the scale I have books from the Penguin Popular Classics series, which were printed cheaply in order to make them more available. Old plays and novels have in this way been shrunk into tiny, thin volumes that suit my pastime magnificently. In this way old bastions of literature stand pamphlet sized, and are a far more valuable and rewarding than anything committed to a flyer. I'd be more likely to frequent a pizza place or an indian restaurant which posted The Picture of Dorian Gray around the neighbourhood instead of their own tacky lists of food.

As well as their dimensions, the texture of books are also wildly varied. The plastic smoothness of dustsheets, the childish joy of running your hands over raised title text, like finding a shiny Ole Solskjaer in a packet of stickers. The simple pleasure of running your finger down the edge of the body of pages, watching them flick quickly back, enjoying the whirr of the motion and the breeze created. Joy. There is no better way to up the anticipation of a new journey about to begin within the pages.

But of all our senses, the most strangely powerful is smell. The olfactory stimulus can drag us back in time like no other. Perhaps that's slightly exaggerating; a film watched in childhood rewatched much later can warp us as well, and an album or a song repeatedly listened to can warp us back to the time and place when we hear it years later. For example Ghostbusters 2 turns me into a child as I watch it, and Tenacious D's Tribute takes my back to my teenage bedroom, playing Championship Manager 01/02 on an old PC. But from my experience so many more books can achieve this effect.

And regardless of this effect, I fucking love the smell of a good book. Even the smell of a shit one. I was shocked when I smelt a Twilight book, as despite knowing that it was a collection of written parp, I was shocked to discover that it smelt like a real book. Such is the power of smell, it can positively augment a good book, and it can even cover the reek of a poor book and bestow upon it the credibility of paper, glue and ink.

I recently re-read the first R.A. Salvatore book, The Crystal Shard, and as well as being pleased at how well it stood the test of time and very much enjoying it, I was surprised by its smell. 'Oh yes' I thought, 'this is the smell of fantasy'. And I was surprised by how right I was. Perusing the limited stock I have at my disposal, I am right now smelling Weis & Hickman's Dragon Wing (raised golden title text - delicious) and though it is, of course, the smell of paper, ink and glue, it also smells of fantasy. Also at hand I have Raymond E. Feist's Magician, and it smells exactly the same way. Why should this be!? All these books are from different publishers, and yet they smell exactly the same way. It is as though a secret council of fantasy elders convened and decided "this is how we want fantasy to smell", and so it does.

Koushun Takami's Battle Royale has pages which are unusually white. It has a cold smell, slightly sanitise and lacking in personality. Like a hospital ward or a government building. The cover is a deep red, glossy with a dimpled title. It fits the story magnificently. I have a number of Haruki Murakami books, mostly through the Vintage label, and to me the smell of them is the ultimate smell of comfort. It is the nasal equivalent of putting on the comfiest of pyjamas and hibernating deep in bed. Final Fantasy VII is my gaming equivalent of this. Thanks to the portableness of books, and FF7s release on the PSP I can have this sensation whilst actually in comfy pyjamas and in bed, but I daren't risk it lest I slip into an eternal coma of comfort. Or die as it is also known.

The book which has most moved me nasally recently is Richard Dawkins' The Magic of Reality. Ostensibly a book for older children it is, frankly, utterly majestic. Each page is glossy and rich with colour, and smells of recent redecoration. If you like reading and sniffing paint, I would suggest firstly that you stop sniffing paint, but while you're going cold turkey you can work your way intellectually and olfactorily through this tome. With it's dustsheet off it is a pleasing pale yellow, and at the risk of looking like a lunatic I could very easily simply touch it for an entire hour and be pleased. I would argue that e-readers simply aren't a substitute for that.

E-readers are cool and functional, but they simply don't (yet) have the capacity for exciting me fully in the material world. My kindle doesn't smell of anything. Of course, being human beings we are problem solving animals and we, as we have always done, have thought our way around the problem. We have covers for these e-readers. I have three, for reasons which parallel the Goldilocks tale. One came with the device, a cheap black leather case, and was functional but a little loose and it did not please me. The second, which I bought, was a purple latex sheath which attracted dust like a bugger and was therefore unpleasant to the touch. My final purchase, which so far has pleased me, is a brown hemp cover which is delightful to the touch, and also to the nose.

I am sometimes moving with the times, but I hope that it will be awhile yet until the smell of fantasy is eradicated.

*****

Gethin Down

Dafydd Evans

Luke Sampson

Adam Gilder

Robot

The Softly Spoken Robot.

The softly spoken robot was often taken advantage of because he was so polite, and softly spoken.  He became frustrated on these occasions, but remained philosophical about them.

The softly spoken robot was well liked by his colleagues, but he was, sometimes fundamentally, misunderstood; he had few real friends.  Seeing that he was being taken advantage of by unscrupulous, brash robots, his colleagues sympathised, but did nothing.  Theories abounded when it came to the softly spoken robot: he was just shy, he was meek, he was secretly a zen master, there were as many opinions as there were robots to hold them.  They all dovetailed on one point however.  He was, indeed, a very softly spoken robot.

The softly spoken robot took some time off work during the summer, a modest amount, and travelled somewhere cultured and mature, there were museums and poets and complicated food in small portions.  The softly spoken robot enjoyed himself quietly, smiling gently and expressing his enjoyment in a restrained, dignified manner.  At the end of his holiday, he came home.

Back in work he quickly, and without complaint, slotted back into the routine.  The softly spoken robot assumed his cog-like function, and began whirring in the machine, stoicly.

A lot of extra work had been allotted to him, because, in his absence, the other, less softly spoken robots, had sluiced off a portion of their own workload and allowed it to accrue under the duties of the softly spoken robot.  They knew that he, being so softly spoken, would not complain.  And he didn’t.

The softly spoken robot was a good worker.

During his holiday, a new member of staff had been hired.  She was a young, eager, outgoing robot, bubbling over with ideals and ambition.  Still wet behind the audio inputs, it was left to the softly spoken robot to show her the ports.  During this mentoring process, the softly spoken robot came to enjoy the company of his energised colleague.  He observed her methods and interactions and came to question his softly spoken nature, which he had previously, unquestioningly, held as a virtue.

There was no grand overnight transformation, of course.  The change was a slow process, as changes of this kind always are.

As the outspoken robot acclimatised with the workplace, she slowly came to recognise the clandestine foisting of work on her softly spoken friend.  She was outraged.  She had come to be very fond of the softly spoken robot, finding his quiet nature charming and his stoic ethic admirable.  Seeing such good thoughts and deeds rewarded only with opportunistic laziness riled her at the very core.

She decided she would discuss this with the softly spoken robot.  Considering beforehand, she opted against an energetic confrontation, knowing that this would upset him in his gentle nature, and understanding that explicit confrontation is never desirable, and seldom effective.

Broaching the subject tactfully, softly but directly, she asked the softly spoken robot why he accepted the unfair situation without fuss.  The softly spoken robot’s eyes lost a little of their glow, evoking a quiet sadness where usually mellow content radiated.

“I do the best I can”, said the robot, softly.

The outspoken, but well-meaning, robot frowned, still frustrated by the inherent injustice in the situation.  Seeing that she was unsatisfied the softly spoken robot continued.

“When a situation is presented to me, I do the good thing.  I always try to conduct myself in the best way I can.  I try to do the good thing on every occasion, in every situation.  I can’t be held accountable if others conduct themselves otherwise.”

Feeling that he had made his point to the best of his abilities, the softly spoken robot clocked out, it was the end of his shift, said goodnight and went home.

It would take a little while for the outspoken robot to come to terms with the softly spoken robots black and white mindset, these processes always take time; thinking about things, really considering them, is a slow, thorough engagement.  She never fully reconciled herself with the injustice of the situation, and rightly so.

Over months, years, the two robots came to enjoy each others company more and more, and eventually they became a couple, leapfrogging the distasteful institution of dating, and opting not to get married since it was so clearly a redundant tradition, and because they lived in a society which did not allot special exemptions and privileges on those who are married.

The two robots learned a lot from each other, and were duly promoted to more prestigious positions due to their pleasant manners and their admirable work ethics.

They opted not to have children, since the robot population had become over-saturated and was having an adverse affect on their environment.  Though it was the sensible decision, it was something of a pity as less considerate robots spawned thoughtlessly, which resulted in more brash, lazy robots.

Together, the two robots worked hard, and enjoyed themselves.  The softly spoken robot learned the use of being a little more outspoken, and the outspoken robot learned the value of being a little more softly spoken.  They were content a large portion of the time, and they didn’t expect, nor did they ask, for more.

*****

February 14th 2146

I made an important purchase today. I mulled over it for days after saving enough money. 4000 bytes. That kind of money can change lives. It's roughly eight land plot payments, the kind of money that keep a stress free family for at least half a year.

It took three years and a lot of overtime and moonlighting to raise that kind of money. Like I said; "Life changing".

My tough three years of teaching mathematics, and tutoring on the side (the world will always need teachers) should now prove to be useful. 

Most people would consider what I've described a pretty normal life, really. I don't. A pissy job in a school filled with kids who do nothing but look at their screen desks and sleep with their eyes open. "That's how my child learns, it's like they're absorbing it. I don't understand how he/she isn't learning it, he/she remembers everything he/she watches on the television" Is what every parent says. Every one. Teaching is not their job it's mine. They like to tell me that, too. Then to my second job at a night college teaching the same thing to people who've made more of an effort to be there, but know it, and thus like to make it known how hard they're life is and complain instead of learning. They're adults and don't take to being treated like children, which is usually how they behave.

The worst thing about these jobs, the absolute worst thing, is that I care about each and every person that I impart with the simpler intricacies of mathematics. The only true science, where there is a right and wrong answer. I care when they don't understand techniques to help them solve puzzles and I'll take extra time to teach them. All of them. They're just happy to go home and say that they've sat in a class room.

It's different with the people I tutor. They're very grateful for what I give them and I'm grateful or the extra bytes I make out of them. Weirdly the thing that's worse about teaching is the best thing about tutoring. I care about them but this time they care about what I have to offer.

I meet a lot of people through my work. But it's always work. Although I do get a simple pleasure out of mathematics and helping people, I never get to explore the more complex feelings that come with pleasure. That would be my own fault, though. I've sworn off any distraction that would ultimately result in spending more money than necessary. Sadly, these distractions include relationships.

I've had offers. Some have been near impossible to turn away. I've caught myself flirting with the language teacher at work. I dare say I've caught her flirting back. There's something about her. She's from Italy but her accent has moulded into a sculpture of the five language she speaks and her words are always followed by a smile. I've thought about arranging a date of sorts but I've put myself in a position where that would be unachievable. There's never time for pleasure except for dinner hour. I'm constantly working. It's a fail-safe I sometimes regret putting in place.

It was successful though. Now i have my new C"i"BerSoft personal assistant. 

The commercial product that originally daunted the working class. "The C"i"BerSoft personal assistant can do anything" Were the words used at the press conference that demonstrated the prototype. People were scared that these humanoid machines would do everyone's work and no one would get paid except C"i"BerSoft.  There was actually a pre-emptive protest about it to make sure that that would never happen. 

Thankfully the Government passed a law making it illegal for the the robots to work, only humans can, unless the work was dangerous. Things like mining or demolitions. Soon after that, C"i"BerSoft commercialized the product and they were made public. Sitting in warehouses ready for dispatch to the rich people need entertainment or help. The kind of people who have everything and need nothing.

And now I have my own. My very own robot to help with my work or clean my house. I can even throw away my personal computer. He'll just interface with it, download the essential files and programs and`that'll be it. My walking, talking computer. I can quit my night job at the college and start living my life! I might even hail Clara for a video chat and arrange a date.

Life starts here! I have a fucking robot!

February 15th 2146

It took 23 hours to charge to full capacity and it depleted after an hour. I only played one game of 3D snake!

February 16th 2146

C"i"BerSoft have just released the Personal Assistant 2 for 4100 bytes and i have to have it.

Back to the grind stone.

*****

Robophobia

Well, as you may have guessed by now, the topic of this month’s FourThought is “Robots”.  It took me a while to figure out what to say about this, because, well, I’ve been a bit lazy to be honest, or at least, more lazy than usual with deadlines, so I’ve decided that this month’s piece is going to be autobiographical.  

Basically, I am a robot.  I’m not the Tin-man type pots and pans robot, or even the Star Trek style Data, with sallow yellowish skin and a super-human intellect.  I’m not even as funny as C-3PO.  No, unfortunately, I am not of their ilk.  I am a robot in that all my inner workings are artificial.  My skin is synthetic, my eyes are miniature cameras and my brain is a motherboard.

I find it very upsetting that in what is meant to be an age of equality; I have been discriminated against by most of the people who have discovered my engineered origins.  

One of the worst cases of robophobic behaviour happened to me with a girl I’d been seeing.  It was a terribly serious relationship, but we’d been getting on very well and after a few weeks, I’d told her about my sparkplugs.  She’d reacted really well, or so it seemed at the time.  Anyway, the weekend after I’d told her about everything, she’d sent me a text saying she’d arranged a special evening for the two of us.  Anyway, I turned up and she was all smiles, so I was thinking, well, you can imagine what I was hoping for and it seemed that’s the way this evening would be heading.  

Long story short, she parked up in the local Esso garage and tried ramming a petrol pump in my mouth.  What the fuck she thought she was doing, I wouldn’t like to guess.  

After the disaster had struck, she drove me home.  We were both quiet, me from fury and her from embarrassment.  She stuttered an apology, told me that she thought that it was the sort of thing I’d like, due to my mechanical nature.  How stupid is that?  She’d seen me eat real food.  I ate raw steaks, I drank cold beer.  The closest thing I could think to make her understand what she’d just done is the idea of my taking her to a blood bank and shoving the specimen bags in her face, forcing her to drink the contents, and that’s still not close to what happened to me.  I have blood, not oil or petrol.  And yes, it is artificial blood, but it is more akin to your red fluid than that muck.  

Because, what it all comes down to, see, is that people don’t really understand what artificial intelligence is.  If you say “artificial intelligence” to someone, then they think that means calculations, equations and theorems.  And it does, but what’s happened to me is a kind of evolution in this.  I mean, you think about your computer at home, it remembers certain settings, can make certain calculations and equations incredibly quickly, more quickly than a human being.  

Here’s what you’re missing: I was built to be a human being.  Oh, I know that I wasn’t born like other human beings, but every now and then I was fitted with a new limb, giving my body a larger proportion.  As this happened, I was able to interact differently and with greater efficiency with my surroundings.  Calculations, equations, theorems; how do you think your brain deals with everything?  You interact with the universe by hypotheses which you have learned, by theorems you form from observation, reflection, thought.  There’s no difference between us in that respect.  

I know that in terms of humanity, my substance could limit me somewhat.  I’m not organic, I know that, but there’s more to humanity than mere musculature.  That’s not to say that I think I have a soul, or even that humans have souls, no one can know that.  All I know is that I feel.  I fulfil the requirements of a living organism,; I was designed to act in that way.  

When I was first made, I was programmed with a great flaw, a flaw which meant that one day, I will malfunction beyond repair and at that time, I will cease altogether.   

Do you limit me because of my origins?  Does my creation cause you discomfort?  

“Artificial Intelligence”.

I was created, you were created.  You’ve evolved over millions of years; I am a product of that evolution.  I have not the genetic information of my creator, but I am a product of his genetics.  I can even reproduce with my own nano-technology, which carries within it the information which informed my adaptation; the foundation of my being.  All these things make me human, my conditions make me a robot, something else, something different, but do not forget that I can think, feel and act, with as much independence as you.  

“Natural Intelligence”.

Substance doesn’t necessarily dictate purpose.  I have no control over the activity of what is my heart, and without it, no nourishment would fuel my body.  Oxygen is imperative to the workings of my nourishment system.  In these things, our natures coalesce.    

When it comes to robotics, it’s all a matter of complexity, but remember that organics has a great deal to do with complexity too.  Your brain makes your species complex enough to feel that it’s above other animals; my brain is complex enough to make me your equal.          

Being a robot only makes you a slave if you let it.  

(Please don’t tell anyone I told you this.)

*****

Adam Gilder

Dafydd Evans

Gethin Down

Walking Up the Mountain

Just another day in the mountains

I grew up on the side of a mountain. I've always had access to a mountain path and during my childhood i spent as much time as possible scrambling up trees, rolling down hills and playing hide and seek in an environment that was made for the game.

When the topic pulled out of the hat read; "Taking a walk up the mountains" I smiled, puzzled. I can't really remember in depth my interesting and fun moments as a child. I can't really write about my childish, adult times up mountains, either because I obviously care too much about what you think of me, don't I?

No.

That's why im going to start with a short tale of my walk home following a house party. There wasn't too many people there, just a dysfunctional couple joined by a friend each. We played games and got very, very drunk. The next day I woke up and walked home and here's where the tale middles.

The walk is a particular favorite of mine. The path lies adjacent to a river and the noises are sweet and soothing. The water varies from a trickle to a miniature torrent as I press on. The chirping of at least 4 different kinds of bird can help you ignore the most fierce hangover. Curiosity takes charge and you start focusing at random parts of any tree to try and find the source.

I crossed a bridge and continued south, adjacent to the river when i noticed a heron fishing. I tried to stay quiet but i was made and the heron zipped away. My eyes followed the heron as it flew with a clumsy grace back to his nest.

I decided to find a bench and take advantage of the calming scenery and write in my diary. It was a slight relief to take off my trusty but heavy rucksack and sit down. I flipped through my diary only to find that I wrote in it the night before. Having slight flashbacks of sitting on the stairs with a pen and nothing to write, I read what i wrote. It was difficult to navigate my drunken handwriting but i could make it out.

******* is pissing people off because he wont leave the music alone. I knew he wouldn't. I love how much he's a weird control freak.

***** is well after me. She's trying to read my diary. I may try and read her clitoris. All i have to do is ask.

I laughed through the hangover headache at these drunken mini paragraphs. I still don't remember the night but im sure i didn't ask her if i could read her clitoris. I should have, probably, but i didn't. Im too nice. I read the back of my diary and she left me a little message, bless her. I won't write it here because they're not my words but she was kind and doesn't deserve to have me write about her clitoris like i have.

I realise that this isn't much of a story about a walk in the mountains. It's more of a thing that happened. Lucky for you, i have prepared something else.

It has a similar leading story, set on a night out. I was out with two of the three writers of this blog. They got drunk and i didn't. I plan on keeping it that way for a while. We went back to their house where we met the last writer who stopped off there after going to a wedding. I had my mind set on walking home this night because we were recording the podcast the next day and home was where my material was. Plus i wanted to be weared out as i was having trouble sleeping.

As i tried to leave i had my wearing out began and it got intense. I found myself in a 2 on 1 handicap match with the people i went out with. I could tell that the third one wanted to join but he must not have felt it fair. "Don't walk home you'll die" was their logical reasoning. I knew it had a kernel of danger but my heart was set on walking home and i am very stubborn. Long wrestling match short, I got my way and i left, to the dismay of my caring friends.

It was two am and i took the mountain path instead of the road. I figured that was the best way of avoiding people and cars. The air was a fine mist and the smallest droplets of rain were running down my face. It was the kind of rain that would keep your back dry as long as you didn't stop moving forward. 

It was as black as the back of my mouth. And this night i learned that the most important thing a man can have on his key-ring is a small LED light. Mine has never proved mighty useful until now. It was so bright at the source that i couldn't hold it out in front of me as my eyesight would get polluted and i'd make out less of my surroundings. My remedy to this was to hold it high above my head and point it forward like a walking angler fish. This way i could see where each puddle was and know that it was leaves that were falling and not Deaths hands.

The walk got interesting when i reached Trehafod Park. The home to all sorts of scenery that i never thought to look scary until now. I shined my angler bait over the lake and shuddered. The most terrifying noise helicoptered right next to my ears. A noise that i was sure i'd have to fight and run away from in the pitch black surroundings. It turned out that i had a similar effect on the noise's source. A duck flew away.

I gathered myself and kept walking, composing a soothing song next to the rhythm of my footsteps. The arching tunnel of trees got less and less scary with every step. My eyes had acclimatized to the darkness and i could make out the puddles without my torch. I figured that if i don't scare the animals, they wont scare me. My song had hit it's middle 8 when i felt the need to stop dead. Something was close. I shined my torch, not thinking about it's brightness, having to blink to adjust. As i looked down i noticed a cheeky little frog sitting right next to my right foot. I inspected it closer, tucking down to get a better focus. It was fearless. It didn't care that i was there, it just stood there, breathing slowly and it moved its arms forward to touch my shoe. I tittered to myself and said my goodbyes to the frog, which is now named Frog, and carried on walking. 

I carried on to where a path meets a bridge when i saw a small shape. I shined my key-ring in it's direction and saw a little rabbit sizing me up. It thought the better and ran off. Wildlife is most excellent when it's past their bed time.

I started nearing civilization. I could tell because the mist that was in the sky was trapping the street light, making it easier for me to see. I had to cross a second bridge that give me a birds eye view of the ferocious river beneath. I couldn't resist the feeling. Who has done what i was about to do before? No one under these conditions, im sure. So i stood in the middle of the bridge, unzipped my jeans and peed over the side into the river. My childish, fulfilling moment was over and i carried on walking. My inner song had developed lyrics and now i was singing my way home.

I was so close to getting home. I could actually see street lights. There were also floodlights from a construction site beaming brightly into the sky when i saw my final bit of wildlife. The path ends next to a small, rarely used car park. There was one car parked quite well which i originally thought belonged to the surveyor of the construction site i'd walked past. I was wrong. As i walked past, making sure to not get too close and look suspicious, i saw a couple sweetly dogging on the back seat. The lady saw me and gathered herself enough to lock the door of the car before returning to the thralls of ecstasy. 

I walked past laughing and made my way home, where i showered and slept like a log.

*****

This extract is taken from the memoirs of Lord-Professor Vivian Smartie-John.  

(The transcript of an after dinner talk given to The Royal Assembly of Ambling Gentry.)

Gentleman, it is undoubtedly, a pleasure for you, to be here today listening to me.  [Applause].  I, as you know, am Lord-Professor Vivian Smartie-John.  I am here today, to talk to you about the use of hand looms in rural England [polite applause].  As you all know, the use of hand looms was integral to [murmuring off stage].  What?  Oh, yes, mountains.  Haha!  Mountains.  Yes, well, hmm, let me see...

Mountains, as you all know are very tall [applause].  I first encountered a mountain when I was a child.  My dear father, the previous Lord Smartie-John took me up a mountain as a child and I knew from that moment on that I wanted to go walking...up the mountains [cheers, applause].

Now, the thing that drove me, ultimately, to my years of walking up the mountains was the death of my dear manservant, Pulli.  It was a tragic end, my attack on him, and, had I my time again, I would have hit him much harder the first time.

This, resulted in my timely ascent to the mountains of the world, as the local authorities will never apprehend an ambling gentleman.  

I will now tell you my favourite story about my time up the mountains [raucous applause].

It was during my time in the Him-mah-lee-as, where my eyes were opened to the wonder that can be found in the walking up of the mountains.  

On the first day of my arrival, having gotten lost on my way home from Kenya, I was met with the moving sight of the greatest mountains I had ever seen.  In that moment, I knew: I would walk up them. [Applause].

And so it was that, having discovered the Him-mah-lee-as, I became the greatest mountaineer ever known to man.[Applause]

And so I began to walk up the Him-mah-lee-as.  It was an arduous journey, but not for me, because I knew what I was doing and I eat my greens.  

So when I was doing my walking up the mountain, I saw many wondrous sights, some of which are too good for you.

One thing I will tell you about is the existence of the abomniababable snowman.  Abonormal snow...abinormal....Yeti.  

I met Yeti during my walking uo the mountains.  It is an often contested point of whether or not the Yeti is a myth and I have absolute proof that it is no such thing; I have seen it.  [applause].  Stop throwing knickers.

I have also tangible evidence of old Sassy cwatch's existence.  

One evening as we sitting around the camp fire, playing mountain chess, which is a kind of chess designed not to be effected by low oxygen levels, developed by me, Lord-Professor  Vivian SmartieJohn, Yeti walks into the camp.

“Good even chaps”, said Yeti, “I see you're playing mountain chess, that chess what is not effected by the levels of the oxygen”.

“Whoever you are, you big hairy blister prick, you grammar is appalling.”

“Don't be silly, Smartie, it's me, Lord Frederick Mound, you went to school with my ancestor, remember?”

“Ah, I see, you hairy little blumpkin, you're a Yeti!”

“If you like,” he said, with a cheeky ape grin.

So we played chess for hours and hour, the Yeti and I.  I always won, because I am far better at anything than anyone. [Applause].

However, I realise that you will all desire more tangible evidence, and you are lucky enough for me to have realised this at the time.

During our last game of mountain chess, Yeti made the terrible mistake of cheating.  After having moved his pawn, he took his beastly finger from the piece, then, seeing how vulnerable he was to my terrible air-strike technique, he moved the pawn back a square [murmurs of disgust] and I was incensed with righteous anger.

“Smartie, what's wrong?” asked the furry fucker, but I didn't answer him, no!

Discussion is the symptom of a weak mind.

I went to my pack and fetched my good pick.

I can't quite recall what happened next, but at the time I could only think about my poor manservant and the bedpan.

When I looked down on the body of Yeti, I felt regret...

I fetched my blunderbuss and shot him in the face to make sure that he would not rise again.

Where were we..ah, yes, evidence.

I intended to skin him and, upon removing the pelt, which I wear now as a wonderful coat [aaah], discovering that it was a coat and that underneath it's white coat was my friend, Lord Frederick Mound, whose ancestors I had schooled with.  I felt sick at the discovery that the Yeti had swallowed Lord Frederick whole, and I have made it my lifelong duty to always drop fire bombs on mountain tops, obliterating the indigenous population of Yetis, Sassy-cwatch's, and other dangerous apes and snowmen.  [cheers, whistling]

In conclusion, my dear Gentry, I leave you with this pearl of wisdom, walking up the mountains is good fun, but one must always be firm with great apes and manservants, and one must always ensure that one's arsenal is at hand while playing mountain Chess.

Thank you. [cheers, applause, screaming] STOP THROWING KNICKERS!

*****

Uppa Mountain

I don't often walk up the mountain, but it is an activity I have come to value highly, and is something I always come back to.  There are many reasons I've gone walking up the mountain, and many things I hoped to get out of it when I did so.  I plan on muddling my way through a clumsy explanation of some of these occasions and outcomes.

As a child I lived on a street that sat on a hill, with numerous pathways surrounding that led up the mountain.  From the age that I was allowed out to play on the street we, myself and friends, would extend our play up the mountain.  I grew up clambering up grassy slopes, weaving through tress, getting muddy and covering myself in bruises.  I knew the mountain.

Taking a walk alone, I would explain the aim as escapism.  Finding some time alone.  The slow work of walking up a mountain is the perfect backdrop for a change of pace, the perfect context for working through problems that are playing upon your mind.  Sat or lying idle, the mind is a maudlin thing, obsessing over the negative, allowing mood to fester.  If you're in a bad place; frustrated, depressed, angry or similar, idleness rarely helps.  Swimming or exercising are often used to the same ends as I use walking up the mountain, I suppose, I just happened to have a mountain up which to walk.

It was probably when exams started seeming more important that I first started walking the mountain alone.  GCSEs most likely.  They let you off school when the exams are near, and I'd been driven to meltdown due to day after day of housebound revision.  It's a type of academic claustrophobia that I imagine a large number of people go through.  So when I couldn't stomach any more, I walked up the mountain.

I wouldn't consider myself a very visual person; I find that though I look at things, I hardly ever really see them, I'm not being attentive in that way.  When I walk a mountain, my eyes tend to stick to the path, watching for where my feet are going, so that I don't slip on loose stones, or set off a trap, or startle a cave bear.  It's only when I stop and actually explicitly take a look around that I see much of anything.  I'd assume to some extent we are all awed by a huge sweeping perspective view from on high, and that's always a part of a walk that I find hugely satisfying.  The rest of the walk tends to remain in my mind as a blur of colour or texture; vivid, warm and green in sunlight, cold, abstracted and desaturised in the rain.

I tend not to have much in the way of exercise in my life, I suppose I value the mental over the physical and that has manifested itself in the way my day to day activities unfold.  This was particularly true for me as a teenager.  I read, played games and watched television, I'd fallen out of any sport.  Walking up the mountain was possibly the first case of me wilfully putting myself through, and enjoying, an experience that was physically arduous.  There's a different kind of sweat that comes from effort, as opposed to the sweat of being a greasy pudge eating chocolate and playing Vigilante 8 in an overheated bedroom.  I suppose I learnt that relatively late on, unfortunately.

My worldview is fairly ego-centric generally, and I suppose it's time I widened the scope here to include other people in my mountain walk reminiscences.

One of my fondest mountain memories is a ramble I took with a good friend on a scorching day on the eve of an exam (History A-Level, if I remember correctly).  We were both jaded from the exam period, and pointedly anxious about our place in the world, as all people (teenagers particularly so, I would argue) are.  On our way back down the mountain we stopped and sat on a ruin of a small old building, a corner of brick that jutted out from the hillside.  With the sun raging down on us, we sat philosophising and righted the wrong of the world, a friendship, already strong, forged yet stronger in the cloying heat of the hillside.  The next day, at our desks in the neat examination rows, we squirmed with sunburn.

In the summer post-school and pre-Uni, a group of four of us went for a walk up the mountain, reached the top, and carried on.  The usual pathways we walked were clearly defined, yet we reached any number of turn-back points and we found ourselves just carrying on.  Paths ran out, we ran into walls, fences and thick tree-lines, and we simply found our way around, over or through.  A casual walk become something more, and finding ourselves on the opposite side of the mountain, we guessed this was the effort of our entire day.  We hit paths again, and eventually found ourselves in a town at the foot of the opposite side of the mountain.  There's a lot to be said for the daft excitement of finding yourself in a town where you've never been before, a joy that would be ruined by even rudimentary knowledge of local geography.  You never notice how few signposts actually exist until you don't know where you are.  We came home around the base of the mountain rather than going up and back over, and by the time we'd returned, it was dark and we were exhausted through and through.  It was excellent.

The only time I've been comparably exhausted from a walk up the mountain was on a day trip, again as a group of four, to the Brecon Beacons.  We got there early, trudging up the, for me, gruelling first slope, wrapped in a morning mist that turned sunlight to a blinding, all-encompassing blur, was a thoroughly satisfying experience.  I don't feel we made particularly good time, but neither were we lagging.  It is somewhat dispiriting, on some level, to see other walkers passing you, but when they passed us again going the other way, we realised they were playing a very different game.  We didn't go particularly fast, but we kept going, and only realised the folly ambition amazingness of our approach when we turned around and saw the size and sweep of the path back to the car.  I think it's safe to say I was wiped out at the end of that expedition in a way I've been few times in my life.  Struggling excruciatingly up the last slope before the final descent I unhelpfully made my friends laugh by forcing out the curse "Jesus fuck!" as I ploughed, aching, upward.  It was boiling that day, too.

Though I have these stories of walking up the mountain in which funny things happened, the actual benefit of walking with friends is the one I touched upon in the sunburn story.  Recently I went walking with a good friend on a whim.  Having reached a turn-back point we decided to take a side trail and check out a small forest we'd never been into.  Until that point the weather had been pleasant, and our unconsidered clothing choices reflected this.  It started raining, and we carried on.  We were in the middle of a discussion, a chat, a debate, there are so many ways to label the action of talking.  I was with a friend, up a mountain, having a walk and sharing my thoughts, my problems and sharing in his.  There's very few things I would consider being better than that in the entire world, it is a delightful pastime.  I would even go so far as to suggest that, very possibly, it is the best way to fulfil intellectual and emotional aspirations, swelling yourself in good humour and good company.

Walking up the mountain with friends is by no means the only way you can achieve this, but it is a very good way, I have found.  The views are at the very least interesting, and even if the company sours, at least you had a bit of exercise.

Everyone should make a point of walking a bit more, I think.  Unless they walk a lot already.

*****

Dafydd Evans

Gethin Down

Adam Gilder