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Thought you were talking about the labour leader for a moment there
Labour? That's being Commie! Dirty, filthy thing, if you ask me.
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Indeed it does. This, along with your discovery of Citizen Smith in Echoes has also reminded me of a blindspot of this work - the pop-culture stuff which probably has changed but I feel eminently unqualified to say how.
I would hope for a bit less George Formby and a bit more award winning Olivier and Leigh, but who knows. Also, did you know the League of Nations had a committee for films (the International Educational Cinematographic Institute) which handed out Cinematic Medals of Honour?
Also also, 1930s 'entertainment' was really weird. It was in 1937 that the ventriloquist Edgar Bergen started his massively successful radio show in the US, it would run for two decades. A ventriloquist. On the Radio. For Decades. I struggle to express my bafflement in mere words.
This is wise. The unpaid PhD students who do the marking for their professors rarely like to stray far from the mark scheme and textbook answers.
India and Rhodesia will get wildly different outcomes, so they probably are more interesting.
It is as good an explanation as any for recent events.
The Catalan Empire being one of the many less well known titles claimed by the Queen and British crown.
Thought you were talking about the labour leader for a moment there
It is this kind of wisdom that marks you out as being entirely qualified and deserving of many awards and titles.
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In the Thirties, the cinemas were still so new that people would literally go to see anything, just because it was a novelty in itself. So you could say that just about any old films were being made and people would still queue up to watch them, but obviously in the main you still have your box office stars who draw in the most cash, and they are usually playing stock characters rotating around a few standard plots. There's also a control and censorship system in place which involves basically a form of protectionism for the British film industry and this (from memory) doesn't leave until the Fifties – maybe even the early Sixties.
But in general there's a reason why in Echoes I mostly left pop culture until the the Fifties. In the Thirties you can talk a bit about jazz (but that was as despised generally as, say, grime is today) and in the Forties you'll have Powell and maybe Pressburger, but in the main everything is still very paternalistic and Reithian and dour. I have a few papers on early British cinema saved from writing the second Echoes book, which you're welcome to.
I did not, although that sounds like exactly the sort of worthwhile yet utterly useless thing the League of Nations was set up to encourage.
Oh yeah. And to be honest that doesn't really begin to disappear appreciably until the Sixties. Vaudeville cast a very long shadow.
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I've spent a relaxing evening fixing the pictures in Butterfly, it was surprisingly therapeutic and I now have a lovely sense of wellbeing and achievement. Yes I probably should have been doing new writing, but sometimes you just need to do something pleasant and short and this was one of those times.
Admittedly I've only sorted out the ImageShack problem, the ones that are on Photobucket still have the big watermark. But they work (for now) which is probably good enough for the moment.
Admittedly I've only sorted out the ImageShack problem, the ones that are on Photobucket still have the big watermark. But they work (for now) which is probably good enough for the moment.
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“Admin” like this can be very satisfying indeed when done in the service of a labour of love, I find. The number of times I’ve sat down with the intention of writing Echoes only to, say, update a spreadsheet or rearrange some folders, or compile some notes in a new way. Very nice often just to be able to sit with work, and having been through a “creative” education (what education isn’t?) I know from experience how valuable it can be, even in more evidently productive terms.
In the same way that most of the work of making a painting is actually not painting but looking, for example, I find that most of the work of writing is actually doing all of the other peripheral tasks which, on their own, you would hardly think worth the effort. But it all adds up to a certain level of care, and a certain dedication, and really that’s everything.
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“Admin” like this can be very satisfying indeed when done in the service of a labour of love, I find. The number of times I’ve sat down with the intention of writing Echoes only to, say, update a spreadsheet or rearrange some folders, or compile some notes in a new way. Very nice often just to be able to sit with work, and having been through a “creative” education (what education isn’t?) I know from experience how valuable it can be, even in more evidently productive terms.
In the same way that most of the work of making a painting is actually not painting but looking, for example, I find that most of the work of writing is actually doing all of the other peripheral tasks which, on their own, you would hardly think worth the effort. But it all adds up to a certain level of care, and a certain dedication, and really that’s everything.
I absolutely despise uploading and fixing images and its the main reason why updates don't come out quicker for me. When I just have to write something and send it in, those projects move much faster and more satisfyingly for me. The one thing I really didn't like in the shift to more images from Lancaster was the amount of time putting them online and then onto the document. And the one thing I hate about GEN is doing that 30 times per chapter. It's awful and the only reason why there isn't an update every few days.
I do like non writing busy work though. Thinking about the AAR universe. Writing notes for me about the universe no one else will see (especially for Little Dux. Timelineing that was a joy).
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Images in particular I have to agree: I’m never that satisfied with how they turn out, I spend very little time and effort sorting them, and the large part of me that is “visually trained” cringes every single time.
I think it would be better if I had screenshots to rely on, because then there would be more of a unified visual language. But that’s the trade off for writing in a period I enjoy, so no matter really. So long as the writing holds up I don’t especially mind.
This is the real joy. The number of ledgers and such that I have detailing things which no one will ever see, but which I absolutely cannot imagine the universe without, is pretty sizeable. At this point Echoes stretches across hundreds of pages documents, a dozen or so spreadsheet tables, a folder on my notes app with dozens of notes in it, hundreds of saved links and biographical sketches… I tell myself all of this will be useful in time, but lord alone knows.
My one big mistake with this sort of thing happened, expectedly enough perhaps, in my first AAR, which was for CK2. It started out as a narrative, but then I ran away with the world building and the narrative couldn’t keep up with what interested me about the universe. So I ended up having to contrive all of these really clunky structural shifts that let me do things like shoehorn 16th century dynastic wars into an 11th century murder plot. Bags of fun, but quite beyond my abilities then (and probably now), and predictably the project burnt out pretty quickly after this started to happen.
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The real thing stopping a Little Dux reboot is the loss of the timeliness where I figured out the timeline of Venice and the Boi Family in that universe. Without that and all the images and the game save gone (and ck2 having changed 5 times since then), I'd have to play the whole game again, and then redo the timeline and background research (because paradox really got Venice wrong in CK2 and I had to fix it), and then write it up.
And honestly, the only reason I'd do it now is if it was either going to be my last ck2 aar before switching to ck3 full time, or a ck3 aar whenever the Republican dlc comes out.
Research can also be the deathbed of aars, true. My first ck2 aar died cos of that, plus the pile up of working on better things.
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Very true again. With Echoes vol. 2 I’m trying to prepare it so that I can keep the balance between research and fiction. Because yeah, I find that getting too obsessed can be paralysing. Frequent reminders that what we do is in fact fiction are always useful after I find myself, say, spending a little too long figuring out what a BOP crisis looks like in a world with no WWII and no EEC. The further I get from the divergence, the more the fiction should be able to come out. Which is exciting.
Mind you, talking about the perils of too much research feels pretty blasphemous in this of all threads.
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Having read the whole aar a couple of times, I know that this threads stands several examples of when to stop research because its wasting your time. We do rabbit holes here, but sometimes an area just gets ridiculous and we all back away slowly from the topic.
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Dear Sirs
I wish to express my alarm and consternation at the rate at which the author, Messr L Pip, is progressing this AAR. I am certain that it has been not more than 12 months since I last checked the progress of this opus, and yet I find that there have been numerous updates, or at least more than allotted one progression, since the last cricket season. Whilst I understand the yearnings of modern chaps to keep occupied during the intermittent lockdowns, the velocity of the storytelling is most out of character. Fortunately the contents remain suitably obscurantist and loquacious. However, it is somewhat trying on the soul to have to look back more than one page of entries per annum to gather up the threads again. And there seems to be a distinct lack of tanks.
Yours in Christie,
LN Davout, Esq
I wish to express my alarm and consternation at the rate at which the author, Messr L Pip, is progressing this AAR. I am certain that it has been not more than 12 months since I last checked the progress of this opus, and yet I find that there have been numerous updates, or at least more than allotted one progression, since the last cricket season. Whilst I understand the yearnings of modern chaps to keep occupied during the intermittent lockdowns, the velocity of the storytelling is most out of character. Fortunately the contents remain suitably obscurantist and loquacious. However, it is somewhat trying on the soul to have to look back more than one page of entries per annum to gather up the threads again. And there seems to be a distinct lack of tanks.
Yours in Christie,
LN Davout, Esq
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I really thought I'd responded to this, but clearly I have not. Apologies about that, it has not been the best of festive seasons in Pip Mansions for a variety of reasons. Nothing serious, but enough that I am somewhat off my writing and comment responding game.
I also try to remind myself that at times history doesn't seem 'plausible'; very improbable events occur, extremes of good/bad luck happen and bafflingly bad decisions are made by people who really should know better. Not something to use too often, but a reassurance that fretting too much over things is just as bad as not even trying at all.
This is something I too am looking forward to, as I inch forward I feel I have more 'permission' (if only from myself) to diverge more.
I also try to remind myself that at times history doesn't seem 'plausible'; very improbable events occur, extremes of good/bad luck happen and bafflingly bad decisions are made by people who really should know better. Not something to use too often, but a reassurance that fretting too much over things is just as bad as not even trying at all.
Truth.
I disassociate myself almost entirely from that last sentence. Almost everything here is relevant to the grand master plot, even the rabbit holes. Especially the rabbit holes. I admit they may not be strictly necessary to achieve the bare minimum plot, they are possibly in far more detail than is required, but all things are fundamentally interconnected and thus related. It just can take a while for those inter-connections to become apparent (or for me to remember quite what Past Pip was thinking when he failed to keep adequate notes back in the 2000s).
Welcome back Davout. I can well understand your concerns, things have been accelerating at a quite alarming rate. In 2018 and 2019 Butterfly managed half dozen new chapters a year, resulting in a sedate (average) bimonthly schedule. But 2020, that year of shocks and radical change, has seen 7 updates. I can well understand this being quite a shock to the constitution.
That is sadly true. Unfortunately I fear 2021 will not rectify that situation. There will be ships, planes, engines, trains and various other things, but (probably) not any tanks.
That is a situation I would not wish on anyone, inside a tank with Christie suspension. */shudder/*
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I'm sorry to hear about your Christmas Pip. I hope things pick up for you and yours in the new year.
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I agree that this is a very useful thing to bear in mind. Far too often I think these sorts of divergent histories can assume a surfeit of rational actors. (Or maybe not so much in HOI where Neville chamberlain invariably shows up.) Good to recall that every now and then total whackjobs and dripping idiots alike do sometimes end up in a position to influence things.
More seriously, I hope the post-xmas season is a little better for Pip Manor. My own festive season has been quite flat also, so (if it's not too dirty a word) my solidarity to you.
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It wasn't that bad, just not what I had hoped for and been looking forward to. Plus I somehow managed to catch a nasty cold, despite being in a region under Tier 4 lockdown and wearing my mask as required whenever I ventured out. That was quite annoying.
Indeed. And of course a 'rational' actor can still make an incredibly bad decision for irrational reasons, like really hating a rival politician/general or indeed being far too keen on something out of personal enthusiasm and not any realistic assessment of it.
We may perhaps differ on what it means when applied to an entire nation, but at a personal level solidarity is always appreciated so thank you for that.
Good News! I've written a good chunk of a the next update.
Bad News! It is probably too dull to inflict on innocent people.
I thought I could do something interesting with inter-war industrial financing and the Macmillan Gap, sadly it turns out I probably can't. Well not unless you were already interested in it, but frankly it's a bit niche so I'd be surprised if people were. Chunks look salvageable, so I'll see what can be reused and what must be cast into the fire.
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Not so bad as it sounded then, that's good.
If we do indeed miss out on a update filled with red hot economic action, what do you think the next update might be about?
If we do indeed miss out on a update filled with red hot economic action, what do you think the next update might be about?
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We may perhaps differ on what it means when applied to an entire nation, but at a personal level solidarity is always appreciated so thank you for that.
I’m far too interested in anarchism to go dealing with such things as nations.
Incidentally, I found the New Year strangely uplifting in a way which it usually isn’t, and much more so than Xmas, which I think suffered a under the weight of expectation. Having had my festive season salvaged a little at the last, I hope you were perhaps able to find something of the same.
Nonsense. Nothing worse than fear of audience response to stifle good work. Write you want to write and we’ll all get from it what we get from it. Not like you’re going to scare any of us off this far in.
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Industrial financing seems very interesting to me. I don't see much of it online and I don't have specialized books.
I also hope this year improves for you. And for all of us too.
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