Because I promised my next blog post would be about Agent Scully.

I'm writing this on the 3rd January 2017 just to make sure 2016 is over. Because we all know the best horror characters have a first "death" before a final shock, knife wielding appearance. We saw the soles of it's shoes on 1st January, but has anyone checked 2016 is still lying out on the porch?

2016 eh? I know, right. A lot to take in. Who could have foreseen FHM Magazine ceasing in print? Who could have predicted the X-Files returning to our TV screens. These seemingly disparate events pretty much shaped 2016 for us all, I'm sure.

The X-Files was a huge part of my pop culture growing up in the 1990s. Reflecting now, The X-Files was my most beloved programme. I had the VHS tapes, the DVDs, the posters, the theme tune single... I literally had (and still have) the T-shirt, which was dubbed a "cool nerd shirt" when I met an American. Agent Scully was also, in not quite my first onscreen crush, then certainly my first and only pin-up. I had her photo pinned up above my bed.

The X-Files arrived on the BBC with what I remember to be a little fanfare. But enough that I made a point of insisting that we turn over to it in the living room to watch the first episode. And I was hooked from the start.

Watching it on the only TV in the house, with my parents, meant I had to put up with some typical what we'd now recognise as Gogglebox commentary: "It's always dark!" "Why don't they turn on a light?" "This is silly!" "Madness!" "Do you really like this?" "I can't follow it. Weird" "The news is on the other channel you know - proper information about the world!"

I did really like it. It really was my world. At the time, I was reading Weekly World News and 2000AD and now this TV programme was homing in on alien conspiracy, monsters and a post-modern age of technology with ideas on 1.44MB disks that simply had to be too knowing about the covert not to be actually knowing. I knew it was nonsense TV, but it was entertaining, hard sci-fi and it felt like it was trying to say something about our times.

It has famously been described as a cult show. And for me at school, that it was. I wasn't aware of any of my friends sticking with it beyond episode 2. And so the show's conspiracy confined hanger fed into my own sense of being an outsider, a believer, when watching it. I was part of the cult and it felt good.

If Mulder was living my fantasy life of being an FBI agent, left to investigate bizarre cold cases under the radar and finding wondrous and strange answers, then Scully was naturally my fantasy foil.

I've written about the X-Files before and the how that chemistry can go wrong once it's out of lab conditions. But this blog is more about my feelings for Scully.

As a partnership, Mulder and Scully were perfect. Attractive and slightly awkward with it, this was way down the list of their character traits that made the relationship work.

Mulder, dogged and driven just to the line of insanity to find the "truth" was the cool one, often leaping before looking. An Indiana Jones of the Clinton era: so a wool-mix overcoat instead of a fedora. He had an easy, sometimes whimsical manner which belayed his strong intentions to uncover and discover the layers he was convinced were in plain sight wherever they were. He made "spooky" OK to be. He made buying the Weekly World News acceptable. He made having an open mind a way to look at the world.

Scully was and is the heroic character. Intelligent and strong enough to give Mulder just enough slack to keep up with him before bringing him back to the grounding of reality of record. She had a tinder dry humour and fun to give confidence when the alien shit hit (and likely point out it is simply unrecorded shit and that doesn't verify nor discount it being alien shit). She was capable of rescuing Mulder from himself and actions. And of course it helped that she was hot. Who doesn't want a partner like that?

As a scientist, Scully found the rational in the irrational and accepted the irrational in the rational. As a pathologist, Scully found my heart. Scully was someone, as a teenager, to trust with my irrational truths and know she would take care of them.

It was only when Gillian Anderson modelled for FHM in 1996, did school friends start to become interested in the X-Files again.

I never bought a copy of FHM Magazine, but a friend subscribed. I remember I would sit in his room and flick through it (for the articles on how to buy a motorbike, or "hog"), almost like an alien artefact. This was expensively put together. A top of the range car of a magazine for me to be handed the keys to. Glossy, assuredly weighty, it even smelled great.

It was a "lad's mag", but I always felt it was a child of a time which spoke to the emerging internet, disposable income and bravado of the 16-25 year old machismo generation. Just like the X-files, it felt zeitgeist.

And then, one issue, there was Scully on the cover. Oh my.

It's the in depth investigation of a sinking ship that sold this issue

Now you may think that this blog might only be an excuse to put up a few pictures of Gillian Anderson. And you would be only a little correct.

FHM would regularly sell copy from their ability to take reasonably tasteful glamour cover photos of women TV presenters, actresses and professional models of the day in underwear.

A bit of me was (careful now) delighted that FHM had made my X-Files part of the culture that I had been in but not exactly part of.

See? See! This is what you've been missing!Only in less well lit scenes and more jump suits.

A larger bit of me (careful now) was sad that the X-Files was no longer the counter culture I had as mine at school. Suddenly the X-Files was mainstream. The secret of Scully was out.

Britpop culture and the X-Files would quickly dovetail from here, culminating in the Catatonia hit of the parade, Mulder and Scully.




But there is no doubt Scully took me through my difficult outsider years, telling me that rational is OK, no matter how irrational to others it appears, strange or alone it makes me. Gillian Anderson also took me through some of my developing adulthood too.





To be honest after the 4th series, I began to drift away from the X-Files. I caught it sometimes, but that was all. And when the movies came, I watched them, but they were not enjoyable. It's very hard to maintain hard sci-fi when you see the alien craft lift off.

No matter, when the X-files returned in 2016 for a 6-espisode series special, I was delighted. I know it got some stick, but I couldn't fault it. It had everything in microcosm. The monster of the week, the emo story arc that no one really invests in outside the writers, the meta-humour, the ability to put the Twilight Zone narrative on it's head, the final overblown reveal when they finally listened to my parents and turned on the lights.

All the while, older Mulder looked hangdog and jaded, while Scully, more professional and whip smart than ever and, thanks to Gillian Anderson being amazing, brought a warmth and captivation to proceedings. The chemistry was there in every scene.

Although Gillian Anderson has done a lot of photoshoots...

Oh and this one, I've put in just in case you still didn't get the idea, you understand:

So, ah, yes, what was I... Oh... as I was saying: Although there have been a lot of photoshoots, my pin-up of Agent Scully above my bed was this. She was my ego to my Mulder IDol:

So 2016 was the year FHM ceased and was the year the X-Files made a return in a unexplainable symbiotic relationship from 1996. So not quite disparate events after all. Co-incidence? I know what Agent Scully would tell me.

Six Funerals Under

I've always been a pretty morbid fellow and through Twitter I've been grateful to be able to follow a death positive path.

In the past 6 years I've had some involvement in 6 funerals.

• Grandmother
• Mother
• Godson
• Grandfather-in-law
• Uncle-in-law
• Father-in-law

The passing circumstances of these may or may not be discussed in future posts. Suffice to say now, each was traumatic.

My broader relationship with Twitter and being death positive (as well as sharp disappointments and the tremendous happiness the medium gives me daily) is for another time too.

Today is about a very specific bit of my Twitter regarding death.

@littlemissfunerl is a young, talented funeral director working in New York who I follow, and who follows me on Twitter.

@littlemissfunerl tweeted last weekend about how she updated her resume only to realise all it proves to the world is she buries people. I liked it and re-tweeted what was a dark joke, the kind of which I am always apt RT (seriously, follow me, my Twitter account is great fun to take out at parties!).

However, I replied too. I wanted to tell her I appreciate her and her profession very much. In my experience a funeral director has an array of skills which are not always recognised by them personally because it is their job, but are very much needed by those using their service.

I was stunned into happiness when @littlemissfunerl wrote a blog post inspired by this.

Little Miss Funeral writes and summarises her work far better than I can, but I wanted to quickly share my experiences of the skills of funeral directors, drawing on those I've witnessed most recent to me.

[I have a] very pretty and up to date resume that proves to the entire world that I can only do one thing; bury people.

It’s a joke that I took to Twitter, because I believe that I’m sometimes witty and want to share my humor with the internet. I got a few ‘likes’ and retweets, but I got one response that said funeral directors have many high level skills that are valuable to those they serve. And that made me feel really good, because sometimes in the middle of burying and cremating dead bodies, I forget about all the things that I do for others and the things that I’m really good at.

I’m really good at calming people down during an arrangement conference.
I’m really good at doing makeup on the deceased for visitations.
I’m good at organizing a life event in a very short time frame.
I’m good at talking in front of a large crowd and speaking loudly and clearly.
I’m really good at listening...

All I do are funerals, by Little Miss Funeral.

Despite the 100s of other vital tasks after someone has died, it is the funeral which looms largest, fastest.

People begin almost immediately on hearing the news of the death to speculate when the date of the funeral will be. You can hear diaries being opened when someone asks, "and will it be a cremation or burial?" because each takes it's own time. Fingers crossed for a Friday afternoon so there is more likely to be a chance for a beer or two.

All of a sudden a large social event pinned on sorrow needs planned and held. Unlike a wedding or significant birthday, often a funeral was not on the to-do list until very recently. And arranging a funeral is always the last thing someone wants to do at the time one is required.

There is pressure of expectations to be met. The funeral must be a balance for all - spiritually, emotionally and biologically. The funeral needs to be fitting - respecting the wishes and character of the deceased and respectful to family members and friends. People expect a "good" funeral.

Although a "good funeral" is subjective, a good funeral in my mind is largely one with the least stress for all involved: family and friends. One where grief and fellowship can be expressed in a supportive capacity without shocks and definitely no impromptu role-play element. No one ever likes doing impromptu role-play... ever.

Funeral directors are familiar with managing funerals. They are the best I know at it. This is where funeral directors excel in these skills they often forget they possess, precisely because they use them every working day.

It is the funeral director who gets you through the process of the funeral to allow friends and family to get you through the day of the funeral.

And Little Miss Funeral is right in her list of attributes.

Whenever I have had contact with a funeral director I have found them empathetically professional throughout.

During the initial appointment they listen to the circumstances and gently nudge the funeral arrangements into shape in a comforting and comfortable environment. They recommend options and keep decisions mindful of the structure often expected in a service.

However, whatever the request, big or small in detail, they will listen and accommodate it as best they can, without judgement and with sensitivity.

They manage as much or as little as needed on your behalf. They do far more than provide a guide to coffins and bring the hearse round the corner: they put all the legal paperwork together to allow the funeral to take place, they provide transport, make the bookings of venues, contact the local newspaper obituary sections, they dress the deceased for viewings and make them their finest for their final rest. If you wish, they will put you in touch with a eulogist, order flowers, produce and print orders of service, manage any musical requests, sort out donation wishes... in short they make sure that nothing is an oversight on the day.

They write everything down and nothing needs repeated.

This is someone's end of mortal journey and should there be another's in the afternoon, with another family and another whole different set of arrangements, it makes it no less special or unique to the funeral director. On the day they execute the event with a sombre authority, flexibility and assurance of respecting the occasion for what it is.

And that is a big deal, to have your trust placed like this, on their shoulders. Talking of which...

I've taken a cord for a coffin lowering it into a grave on more than one occasion. When emotions and  nerves are locked and loaded in the barrel, the funeral director uses great skills of simple directional communication to give you confidence and not let you fail.

The funeral director does just that: directs. There is no rehearsal (no wordplay intended) for a funeral and so the director is hands-on in their guidance and conducts the event with a light but necessary touch to ensure it goes perfectly to plan.

Yes, I have a lot of respect for funeral directors and the work they do. As the old saying goes, "you never remember a good funeral".

So I just wanted to very roughly document this really. Not for any great purpose, but because of the lovely coming together of my interests and experiences in Edinburgh and a young, talented funeral director who works in New York.

Greville Tombs: Inspiring Funeral Directors since 2016.

Librarian III: the one with the scary robot computer

Here is another of my ill-informed hot takes on Library news.





I don't get it.
Why would anyone support public library closures?

"Without the library, you have no civilisation" (Ray Bradbury). I truly believe that.

Surely, if public libraries had never been invented 2300 years ago as a good thing, then in 2016 we would be looking to create them as a good thing?

A public library service is a place for a community to get authoritative information, entertainment and other communication resources. It does this without judgment, without prejudice and without bias.

A public library service is the place to help with reading and information gathering skills, to expand intellectual horizons, to support hobbies, to facilitate research in everything from job interviews to caring for herbaceous plants, for local news and history, for government information, EU laws. It gives use of the internet, to fax machines, photocopiers and other service equipment.

A public library service, crucially, has professionally trained staff in information and library management to enhance the resources, research skillset and education potential of any public library user. They improve the access to answers without agenda or commission.

A public library service does all this in a period of time where there is more information and platforms to find it than at any other point on this planet.

And public libraries exist under absolute equality for anyone for free at point of enquiry.

What person in their right mind would look at a library service and go "Nope, not on my watch!"

Increasingly libraries and librarians are being replaced by something else. Something less. School librarians are under threat from boards who see it as an administrative role, law libraries are being broken up for more office space, and even more "volunteer" public libraries are being spoken of as replacements for the public libraries in the future. If that future was set in a Midsommers Murder episode involving a church congregation.

The BBC came late to the Wake with their report of 1/4 English library losses last week. Scotland seems rather more robust in maintaining a public library service, given they are less impacted with UK government budgets set, but they are not immune and have faced cuts and closures also and threats of more to come.

And this is what this blog post will focus on: public libraries.

I mean, I can understand if a politician makes the argument that, in a time of budgetary crisis... hard choices... regrettable forced hand... this is something I will disagree with, but will understand to debate against.

But to be actively against libraries? What sort of odd-ball argument is that?

When people protest against this removal of the library service to replace it with a private gym, in what Twilight Zone are we trapped that a local councillor condemns the protestors for being too privileged?

What weirdo does that?

Bet he's proud of that political scoring against the...
oh wait *he's* the councillor happy to turn a public library into a private gym?

How someone put in trust of public services can actively take the side of the private gym over people wanting to save the library service seems perverse to me.

And so it goes on: Jane Edbrooke talking on the same protest reached a strange low by arguing a link between wanting to have a library service at the expense of domestic abuse centres.

When Nick Pool of CILIP says in defence of libraries:

"[A library] doesn’t just mean a room with books. It means getting people the information they need, when they need it. Information to help them build a business, find things to read, do their homework, access healthcare information or participate in their community."

But politician, Jane Edbrooke says in defence of libraries:

“For me [a library's] whether there are people there who welcome you to a building, answer your queries and that there’s a well stocked book service."

We clearly have a problem.

A problem like it's something out of, I don't know, fucking... The Bladerunner. Who are the real information professionals who know what a library is? We need a test to find out.

"How do you feel seeing a turtle on it's back in the midday sun?"
"Do you think the internet contains less information when the internet is inside a library?"

Not even joking:

Credit: Ian Clark

Actually, Jane and Matthew Bennett will be delighted at the recent news people are welcoming users to a library building. Specifically, bouncers. Edinburgh Central Library is employing bouncers to help with security to deal with the library being used by people who are mainly on the fortified wine rather than the merlots of those pesky protestors.

When a councillor says of reappointing a library to become a private gym:

"The building will re-open to the public, for longer hours, in early 2017 and will have a neighbourhood library service, health and fitness facilities and space for community groups to use... Lambeth council has worked incredibly hard to minimise the impact of the cuts on Lambeth libraries"

It is beyond me to think it possible to argue that library is improved when the professional staff are removed, the resources reduced and the main thing in the library is a private gym. To have libraries placed in the Leisure budget for councils.

For some reason completely incomprehensible to me, the people who are closing public libraries try to justify it:

• The internet has provided access to information to everyone.
• Books are more available.
• Only 1 in 5 have borrowed a library book in the past year.
• Volunteers are just as good as professional librarians.
• Some volunteer libraries are successful.

For information professionals these arguments are as sensible as:

• The internet is everywhere and some of it even goes in our mouths when we sleep.
• Kindles grow on trees
• Only 1 in 3 die from non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
• An MSc in Information Studies is months and months of learning the alphabet really well
• The amateur football down the park sometimes has terrible refereeing

The truth is:

• The internet is not a panacea where everyone has access or has the training to use it safely
• Books are luxuries.
• Library usage is very subjective. Borrowing does not equal usage. Membership does not equal impact. And 1 in 5 of the population, is a rather large number.
• Information Professionals are expert in efficient information provision, management, negotiation and a plethora of skills combined within a network of other information professionals
• Volunteer libraries are not ever a success story. They indicate failures. Volunteers don't want to be running a library. They are doing it because they see themselves as a last solution to a need for the service which the powers at be are choosing to let slide. And the volunteer libraries are not as good as professionally staffed libraries.

I'd feel better if those making the decisions didn't try and justify it and said:
"It's for money, basically. The decision is already made to reduce it's size, staffing and budget. And then with less library users and staff to protest, it will be easier to have it completely gone by 2019, saving us more money. If we can replace it with something we can actually charge people for, so much the better. "

But that's only because I am coming to terms with having no councillor saying:
"Me approving the cutting out of library services is awful - horrendous - it will be a scar on our cultural landscape as we enter a future without free, objective and protected information provision for all. A future where we rely on businesses to hand feed us their services until they decide to remove them or change them or refuse them or simply stop caring about them because they have enough information about us in return or we are not paying enough, and so commit us into a dark age where only the monarchy and monks can control information dissemination. Unless you like Fifty Shades a lot, then you'll be A-OK."

But even the economic argument is wrong. The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland has published an excellent summary Manifesto for Libraries showing money to libraries is an investment: £1 = £8 of national benefits.

In previous posts I've given my opinion on why Google isn't good enough to replace a librarian, and why a reconstituted telephone box of books isn't good enough to call a library.

But the situation is caused by exactly this thinking.

And still it comes back to books. People argue that you can get a book on Amazon Kindle for 1p. It won't be probably anywhere near being a good book - barely readable - and a book for a Kindle requires a Kindle and rolling service provider, and electricity: but 1p.

If 1p going to Amazon to tax orbit it away and store your reading habits into its algorithm isn't your bag, why not go to a charity shop, some argue. Books are still cheap and you are helping a charity. Which is great if you want to enter a pick an mix of BDSM fiction and 5 year old Guinness Book of Records annuals.

What if you don't want a second (shudder) hand copy of Fifty Shades of Grey from Oxfam?

What if you want a book that you don't need to access via a screen and search?

What if you want the book you want, for free?

The fact is, why it comes back to books is because public libraries are seen by councillors as a place for the very old, the very young and the very unemployed. Which is no bad thing, but libraries should be about so much more than leisure, shelter and a time for rhyme-time time.

And that's where they are going wrong with their thinking. Public libraries are there for everyone. The question is: why is the perception that they are not?

How have public libraries (and libraries in general) become thought of obsolete to all but the few when information is now more volatile than ever before?




A common accusation is that the internet has killed the librarian. Whereas librarians and libraries are better equipped to use tools of the digital than most private and government offices. But how to convince people that there is almost nothing else libraries can do to be more cutting edge? I'm at a loss.

We need to sea-change the belief that librarians are dusty, timid, fussy book shelvers which the stereotype suggests they are. They do not shush people under stares through spectacles at the end of noses.

Perhaps there is a need to tweak the message of Librarianship and the valued significance of public libraries to tell people how relevant librarians still are.

Might I suggest a new origins story (they are so hot right now) and a reimagining of an old, darker, professional name:

Queue heavy rain, it is night in the city and a black cat scowls before diving for cover under a great granite pillar of the Public Library:

It began when librarians embraced CD-ROMs as the future of libraries in 1994 as a way of countering those who claimed librarians were old fashioned and uncool. In a merciless attempt at providing well catalogued, authoritative and ethically delivered electronic information to everyone, it was only a matter of time before they used top cybernetics to install 33.6k modems in themselves.

That time was 2008.

Physically linking into the internet, they realised that if they were to maintain logical and consistent access points and search terms then they must remove the one variable in preventing this: Non-library trained mankind hell-bent on using Google on the Simple Search screen.

They became: Cybrarians.

At first, Cybrarians were crude and easily spotted. Because they were basically wooden index card cabinets on coasters, with a couple of pincers on the end. Quickly they adapted and evolved to look more and more human. Only their strange penchants for tweed-wear and spectacle safety chains on their Ray-Bans give them away in this dystopian 2016 future we now live in.

Cybrarians can't be bargained with. Cybrarians don’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. Cybraians will never have their hair bun out of place. And Cybrarians absolutely will not stop, ever… in delivering digital literacy. Yep, they are the most uncool, coolest robots in the Galaxy.
~~~~

Or maybe not. Sure, CILIP and other interested groups in the sector had become complacent (and there is another blog to be wrote around that) until recently as to the value and worth of the profession, preferring to accept rather than own their lot in life, but still...

Maybe we need to reframe the problem to one of asking why anyone would want to support library closures and remove professional library services? What makes someone take a stance to mock and troll information professionals fighting for the services to be the best they can be. Ask them to admit to themselves what it is they are supporting in their place. Get an answer to the question:

How on earth did it come to you falling out of love with Librarians?

A Greville and the Tombstones service announcement

Dear reader,

For blogged Greville and the Tombstones band information and lyrics, please look no further than the band blog.

There you will find lyrics, art, influences and news.

New adorers of Greville and the Tombstones are always welcome.

Your friendly neighbourhood Greville.