#John Grant

[aviel]

“White Cyclamen” from my “Pie In The Sky” series by John Grant (2018)

[scrapironflotilla]

Under the conditions of this campaign no attack has any chance of succeeding without a large numerical superiority. At least 4 or 5 to 1, and one must also have the effective support of a large number of guns, provided with a great quantity of ammunition of the right kind. With these conditions it is possible to gain ground at any given place but that is not sufficient to break the line, force the Germans to withdraw, or obtain a decisive victory. Unless the attack succeeds on a large front at once, the subsequent fighting develops into a desperate struggle for villages, networks of trenches, fortified points, and so on, and the progress made is so slow that the Germans are able to bring up local reserves, and even reserves from forces in front of other parts of the line many miles away, by train, and by motor transport. The attack in the same way is obliged to bring up every available man to attack and to relieve the men who have been attacking. In consequence a situation is produced by which you have a great assembly of troops in the immediate area where the attacks are being made, and a line held comparatively lightly in other places. This would produce a favourable opportunity for the Allies to attack on a large scale elsewhere, and two or three such attacks delivered simultaneously at the present time would probably achieve the object of “breaking the line” and forcing the Germans to retire. An extract from a letter Major John Grant, a staff officer on the headquarters of the British 36 Corps, wrote to his father in law Lord Rosebury 11 June 1915.

This is really interesting to me because what we've got here, less than a year into the war, is Grant clearly identifying the military problem facing everyone in the war, and then explaining how the allies ended up solving in it in 1918.

Grant clearly had good insight and in letters as early as March 1915 is already saying the war was one defined by attrition and would thus go on for years. Prescient ideas, but as a major it's not easy to push them up the chain of command. And there's the whole issue of not having an army or industry capable of carrying out those ideas.

[shockyhorror]

C M A T ↳ Where Are Your Kids Tonight? (ft. John Grant)

[punk-chicken-radio]

Smelly’s Song Of The Week…..

CMAT ft. John Grant - Where Are Your Kids Tonight?

TOS……with a bit of an explanation…..

[eatingjewels]

In a fucking withnail and I mode rn. I feel like this song captures a lot of what I think makes up withnail armoured narcissism protecting his actually deeply insecure self.

"I am not who you think I am

I am quite angry which I barely can conceal

You think I hate myself, it's you I hate

Because you have the nerve to make me feel"

Also it's just a great song.

[americanprimitives]

The Czars | Song to the Siren | 2006

[dalesramblingsblog]

Brief Thoughts on Judge Dredd Novels, Part VII: The Hundredfold Problem by John Grant

The Hundredfold Problem is in many respects the odd one out when it comes to Virgin's Dredd novels. It's the only book in the series not to be written by an author who went on to cross over to their Doctor Who line, and the only one to later be republished as a standalone novel with the Dredd/2000 AD elements taken out.

As you might expect, it's a rather strange beast of a book. I certainly didn't actively hate reading it, and it rarely outright bored me; in fact, there's an appealing number of appropriately gonzo ideas crammed into the novel's pages, not least of which is the Big Dunkin Donut, a Dyson sphere populated by transported Neanderthals millions of years ago.

As a certified enjoyer of The Also People, I'm always a sucker for Dyson spheres, and Grant captures the BDD in enough detail that it makes for a suitable first off-world excursion for the novels - and, depending on how Silencer and Wetworks shape up, possibly the only such excursion. The culture of the Skysouls is fascinating, and doesn't really feel derivative of the People at all. The exploration of colonialism is perhaps not as elegant as it could be, but it's basically functional. And, well, as far as nineties explorations of a hypothetical "War in Heaven" go, I suppose I've got to give it points for originality in being the only such piece of media where the solution to said War is to get involved in a lesbian polycule with a deity.

So y'know. It's got that going for it?

But equally, there are numerous little things that don't quite annoy, but definitely make for an odd reading experience. Petula McTavish is a reasonably solid character with a good arc, but the way the novel consistently sexualises her left me feeling more than a little uncomfortable.

The exploration of faith - a perennial nineties theme, this being the decade of "I Want to Believe" - through a heated theological conflict between two rival atheist sects named after Oliver North and Margaret Thatcher of all people is an amusing premise, but the decision to give all the preachers comically thick Southern accents really starts to grate after a while, even if it makes sense for 1994 and the era of Pat Robertson's ascendance.

Similarly, the idea of Heidegger's possession by a force opposed to Korax fades completely into the background for much of the novel, rendering its eventual importance to the climax borderline incoherent until the final chapter just relentlessly infodumps to explain everything with a handful of pages left to go.

So ultimately, thinking about it, we're left with a deeply mixed bag. It's more coherent than something like The Medusa Seed - though coherence never seemed to be Stone's primary goal with that book, or arguably ever - and fleshes out its setting better than Dread Dominion, while its ideas are far more adventurous than anything in Cursed Earth Asylum.

And yet, thinking back on it, the various little annoyances really do start to pile up and colour my perception of the book, so I can't really put this above second-last. There's still a pretty sizeable gap between this and The Savage Amusement, as barring the climax it was generally pretty easy to keep track of the plot's motion from point A to point B, though Grant does have a tendency to elide what would seem to be rather crucial details in the timejumps between chapters.

So yeah, ranking so far looks like this:

Dreddlocked

Deathmasques

The Medusa Seed

Dread Dominion

Cursed Earth Asylum

The Hundredfold Problem

The Savage Amusement

[underachievers-please-try-harder]

Track of the day // CMAT - Where Are Your Kids Tonight ft. John Grant

From the album Crazymad, For Me out October 13th.

[crazydiscomadness]

MY NEW FAVORITE THING!!!

[snigskitchen]

John Grant's 1980s playlist

Singer songwriter John Grant presented a Radio 6 show where he chose his favourite music from the 1980s. With a strong synth pop showing, this is a selection of classics, and some unexpected gems.

On YouTube:

Track list:

Dominatrix - The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight

Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft - Brothers

Soft Cell - Memorabillia (Non Stop Ecstatic Dancing Version)

Pseudo Echo - Listening

Vicious Pink - Fetish

Blancmange - Feel Me

Depeche Mode - Photographic

Janet Jackson - What Have You Done For Me Lately

Sade - Your Love Is King

Culture Club - Time (Clock Of The Heart)

The Psychedelic Furs - The Ghost In You

Ultravox - Dancing With Tears in My Eyes

Visage - The Damned Don't Cry

Talk Talk - Talk Talk

Dead or Alive - Misty Circles

Thompson Twins - Love on Your Side

The Human League - Love Action (I Believe In Love)

Severed Heads - Dead Eyes Opened

Eurythmics - Paint A Rumour

New Order - This Time Of Night

Naked Eyes - I Could Show You How

Bananarama - Cruel Summer

Madonna - Lucky Star

DEVO - Jerkin' Back 'n' Forth

Shannon - Let The Music Play

Lene Lovich - Blue Hotel

Nina Hagen - New York New York

The Motels - Only The Lonely

David Bowie - Let's Dance

The Flirts - Calling All Boys

Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy

Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls

Erasure - The Circus

Frankie Goes to Hollywood - War

Divine - You Think You're A Man

Tom Robinson - Glad To Be Gay

[nofatclips]

Cordelia by Lost Horizons (featuring John Grant) from the album In Quiet Moments - Written, directed, and edited by Jonathan Caouette

[maaarine]

John Grant — Day is Done

[punk-chicken-radio]

Smelly’s Song Of The Week…..

Blancmange - Reduced Voltage

TOS…..or this remix by John Grant…..