Be Excellent To Each Other

there we go.

I don't think I've read a single one of his books, but y'know, someone might have, but I did quite like ER.

They should preserve some of his DNA in amber!


(I can't take credit for this gag, sadly.)

Clever girl

Blimey, that's a surprise.

I rather enjoyed what books of his I've read... Congo was rather good, as were the first two Geriatric Parks.

But his spirit lives on, it seems.

Like a 5 year old can even say "palaeontologist". I hate kids.

Nobody had heard of velociraptors before Jurassic Park. And now they're fucking everywhere (in games and such, natch)

I think Prey was his best book, and Timeline the worst. I've read them all, I believe.

And of course he gave us Westworld. Which was Jurassic Park - But in the 70s.

Rising Sun was the only one I've read as I got it free from work and is one of the handful of books I've read since leaving school. It's also the only time I can actually comment on whether the book is better than the film, which it is.

Oh no! I usd to love Michael Crichton. His stuff was what got me into the (somewhat better) HG Wells and John Wyndham classics, and at his best he was really brilliant. Damn, that's so sad, he was one of my favourite authorsl all through my teens.

The Andromeda Strain is excellent, as were the JP books (the Lost World was great, far better than the awful film), and Rising Sun, and Congo wasn't too bad (shit film, again). Most of his books had interesting concepts at least, even when they were a bit ropey. Sphere was great, and Eaters of the Dead was a pretty neat idea and an interesting way of mixing historical fact with myth and legend. The film was a bit silly though, but kind of watchable in a dumb way.

Damn, that's so sad.

Timeline was a bit shit, though. I never got round to reading State of Fear or Next - I stopped after Prey, and didn't fill in all the blanks (The Terminal man was pretty interesting. His habit of slipping interesting asides in is what got me hooked, I suspect. I still remember going to get it from Yeading Library. I always wanted to read A Case of Need, since it was more skulduggery like Rising Sun and not just experiment X gone awry. Now's the time, I suppose.

I love a lot of the films based on his books, but it's mostly. "Man dabbles with science/nature and thinks he is in charge, but oh no, the science/nature wasn't under your control after all, and now look what's happened"

Malc

Quite. Mary Shelley, in fact.

He was an average writer, but a great storyteller. Stuff like JP and Rising Sun are real page-turners. The Andromeda Strain is brilliant and stuff like Westworld and The First Great Train Robbery are underappreciated classics.

I know State of Fear gets knocked, but I liked it. I didn't agree with bits of it, but I thought that the concept hit home a lot harder than many would like to admit.

What, seriously? The way he had characters stop in the middle of gun fights to expound on why global warming is bunkum? The endless fucking graphs?

It was, by far, his worst book, and I'm a big Crichton fan. It just wasn't a Crichton book. I actually had to check the cover to make sure I hadn't picked up a book by some twat called "Michel Crickton" or something by mistake. It was one long rant badly hidden behind a half-thought out plot that seemed to be there only so he could have a whinge about climate change but still pretend it was a novel.

I'm a sucker for ideas. The idea that some people are so hellbent on saving the planet, or at least giving the pretence of saving the planet that they don't give a shit about killing others to further their goals hit home. See the antics of Greenpeace, or animal rights protestors.

I'm not saying it was a good piece of literature or even particularly well plotted or scientifically realistic but I thought the actual concept was sound.

What "antics of Greeenpeace" involve deliberately killing people? Come on, he clearly bought into some bitter reactionary meme trying to depict environmentalists as the new turrrists, and it sounds like you're doing the same.

It's a load of crap.

It's a shame he went there too, I love West World and The Andromeda Strain and so on.

None, but they are hardly whiter than white. Brent Spar, breaking and entering power stations.

Let's just say I'm not a fan of direct action.

Property damage is bad, m'kay.

Climate-change-caused property damage is fine, though.

Lying to people is bad, m'kay.

Lying to people in order to get them to support your cause is fine, though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Spar#Aftermath.

So it's not the "direct action" you have a problem, with, then, but the dishonesty?

Or do you really think the people who scaled up parliament recently were cunts for doing so?

They lied or they got it wrong?

"Although Greenpeace quoted Shell's own estimate of the amount of heavy metals and other chemicals on board, they claimed there were more than 5,500 tonnes of oil on the Spar — far more than Shell's estimate of 50 tonnes."

But I take your point - a multinational corporation would never lie or conceal the truth to support their cause, would they. Or indulge in corruption, or have people killed, say.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controvers ... utch_Shell

Yes, I do.

I know it isn't a popular view, but to use Mark Thomas as an example. I love Mark Thomas, I agree wtih a lot of what he says, but I don't agree with him harassing some poor receptionist/copper/security guard who is just trying to earn a crust and calling it "making a political point".

"Raising awareness" is bullshit. Greenpeace spent a lot of time and money (donated by ordinary people) to pull these stupid, stupid stunts that achieve the square root of fuck all. I used to be a member of Greenpeace, but I was totally disheartened by the Brent Spar thing and when I saw that my donation was being used to help a bunch of fuckwits run around a power station dressed as bright yellow toxic waste barrels, I cancelled it and give to Amnesty instead.

My awareness is raised, thanks very much. You have my support, fucking do something with it.

You want to make a point - talk to your MP, work in the process - Liberty do that. Amnesty do that. No2ID do that. Scaling a building an hanging a fucking banner off it achieves precisely nothing, except to annoy a whole bunch of people just trying to do a job.

I wrote a whole bunch of stuff that I intended to do on stage - basically about how I was giving to Greenpeace and had a mate who worked for them and was always off in a protest or other. When he came back from the South Pacific where he was saving sea turtles and was about to fly off to Japan to stop whale hunting, I realised I was the idiot paying for his fucking holidays.

Minus the bit where someone was stupid enough to actually give money to eco-terrorists

They lied and cheerfully admitted to it.



Irrelevant. If it is fair to criticise a big evil SupaGlobalMegaCorp for lying to suit its ends, then it is right to criticise Greenpeace for doing the same.

And crucially, Shell were telling the truth.

I give my money to Donkeys instead (amoungst other things, but donkeys is the most recent).

Directly?

No (obv), it goes to The Brooke, sensible people who look after donkeys in third world countries. Rather than saving donkeys by simply removing them from their owner (who then just goes and buys another one or starves to death because someone has stolen his only source of income), Brooke will teach the owner how to look after his donkey and provide veterinary aid.
I like sensible charities.

I love donkeys.

So do I, and it makes me sad to think that they're being worked to death, because a donkey is so trusting it will literally keep on trying to work until it drops dead.
"Maybe if I pull this cart up the hill one more time, then I can have a drink."

Do they still chuck them off towers in Spain?

Don't think so.
I wouldn't want to try and catch them if they do