Len Wanner’s book Dead Sharp (Two Ravens Press, 2011) contains nine informative, and entertaining interviews with Scottish crime writers, and a Ten Commandments for successful interviewing. In his Ten Commandments Wanner asks “Am I a good enough interviewer to tell you how to become a better one?” On the evidence of the interviews here, he is. He picks his questions well, is friendly without being gushing, presses his point to get an answer, and manages to bring a lightness and humour even to such glum and serious subjects as gender politics.

It is probably inevitable that the book begins with Ian Rankin, and that his name, and the description “Tartan Noir” should turn up more than once, even in interviews with other writers. Wanner’s interview with Rankin sets the tone for the questioning throughout the book; that is, unexpected, and revealing. The question “If Rebus is an ‘Old Testament sort of guy’, what kind of God are you?” elicits the response from Rankin that “I’m a much more forgiving God than Rebus would accept”, which tells us something about Rankin, and Rebus, but also leads to a discussion about Presbyterianism and guilt in Scottish crime writing that brings in Christopher Brookmyre and Stuart MacBride, both subjects of later interviews.

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On the whole this is a useful app, but it has some drawbacks. For one thing, it forces the iPad into portrait mode, rather than allowing the orientation to switch as the device is rotated. And for another, the formatting of the text is crude. While some attention has been given to the way the app looks, it does not seem very polished. In fact, apart from the convenience of having an app on the home screen, there is nothing this offers that wouldn’t have been possible in an ebook. This feels very much like version 1.0, and doesn’t really take advantage of what the iPad has to offer. For example, a landscape mode might show the menu and the information page side by side, while links within pages might make the information more usable. A further improvement might be to do away with the Back button, so that switching between pages could be done by swiping across the screen, which, on the iPad at least, seems the natural way to do it. Back buttons are for web browsers. I hope there is more development, because a general note taking, scoring, and sharing app for beer reviewers would be extremely useful.

As far as the quality of the information goes, the handful of facts I checked seemed to be accurate, but I am neither a brewer, nor a chemist. I will certainly refer to this during ‘Baron ratings’ and will no doubt learn quite a lot from it.

The Beer Defects app is available for iPad, iPhone, and Android devices. There are more screenshots, and links, on the Applied Sensory apps page.

Like the blog that inspired it this book is essential reading for anyone considering setting up to become a shedworker; if you are already a shedworker you’ll want it on the shelf too. It contains a history of shedworking and famous shedworkers, from Pliny, to Gustav Mahler and Roald Dahl, musician Peter Gabriel, human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, and journalist Andrew Marr. There are many, many marvellous pictures of sheds and garden offices, shedworkers’ stories (a lovely surprise was finding my own shed on page 56), advice on building your own, what you might do there, on green shedworking and possibilities beyond the shed: canal boats, railway carriages, airstream caravans and treehouses. What comes across most of all is the happiness shedworking brings to the lives of those who have arranged to be able to do it.

A preview of the first chapter is here. More on sheds and shedworking on Alex’s Shedworking blog, and at Uncle Wilco’s Readersheds where you can vote for Shed of the Year 2010 and follow the build up to National Shed Week 2010, which begins on July 5th.

In the mean time, why not buy Shedworking: The Alternative Workplace Revolution

Spymonkey’s Moby Dick is at the Liverpool Playhouse until Saturday October 24th.

The Calder Valley in West Yorkshire (just in West Yorkshire … although it flirts dangerously with Lancashire) was carved from the local millstone grit  by ice, wind and rain.  When man first arrived in the area he inhabited the higher ground, along the spring lines.  With the coming of the Industrial Revolution -  and the industries that needed water – he migrated downwards, leaving the old villages deserted and the old dwellings decaying on the hillsides.  The valley bottom filled with people, mills, chimneys, and cramped, overcrowded  housing  – all fighting for space between the canal, the river, the road and the railway that weave through it.