Alan Garner Q&A: â?oAs we ran, Alan Turing asked me whether AI was possibleâ??

Alan Garner Q&A: â?oAs we ran, Alan Turing asked me whether AI was possibleâ??

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Culture 8 August 2018updated 01 Jul 2021 5:36am Alan Garner Q&A: “As we ran, Alan Turing asked me whether AI was possible“ The author talks Alcibiadesk, his portraits, and lifelong advice from his grandad. By New Statesman Alan Garner was born in Cheshire in 1934. A childhood interest in local folklore inspired a suite of fantasy novels and fairy tales, including the Weirdstone trilogy. He lives near the Jodrell Bank radio telescope.What’s your earliest memory? Choosing a blue and white soap dish for my mother at Woolworths. I was with three teenage girls, Eileen, Margaret and Sheila, who regularly took me out. They lifted me up above the slippery wood of the counter so that I could see. I was 15 months old; early for a memory to be retained. But the relationship did not last. While out for a walk I fell into a disused cesspit. The girls wouldn’t touch me and I had to walk downwind of them all the way home.Who are your heroes?My childhood hero was Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan. I was always Tarzan, because no one else could do his war cry. But I was too scared to climb anything, so the baddies went up the trees.I met Alan Turing when on training runs. We were both athletes at a time before joggers clogged the roads, so to see anyone out running was unusual. We were friends from 1951 to 1953. He once asked for my opinion as a classicist on whether artificial intelligence was theoretically possible. It was merely one of the wild thoughts we bandied about as we ran; and I was silent for two miles before I said: no, it wasn’t. He didn’t argue. Then the police ordered me not to associate with him. I was in the army when he killed himself, and the sense of guilt stayed with me until I read Andrew Hodge’s Alan Turing: the Enigma, and realised that there was nothing I could have done to prevent what happened.What was the last book that changed your thinking?Jay Appleton’s The Experience of Landscape interacting with An Archaeology of Natural Places by Richard Bradley.Which political figure, past or present, do you look up to?  Alcibiades.What would be your Mastermind specialist subject?I know too little of any one subject. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe In which time and place, other than your own, would you like to live?  May I take my dentist and doctor with me?Who would paint your portrait?Andrew Tift already has. It hangs in the Grosvenor Museum, Chester. Tift is a figurative realist and the result is both sympathetic and ruthless. There are also photographic portraits by Sefton Samuels and Mariana Cook. What’s your theme tune?“Show Me the Way to Go Home”.What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received? Have you followed it?“If the other feller can do it, let him.” This was from my grandad, a smith, and I’ve followed it since the age of seven. He also said, “Always take as long as the job tells you. It’ll be there when you’re not, and you don’t want folk asking ‘What fool made that codge?’”What single thing would make your life better?Respite from persons from Porlock.When were you happiest?Happiness is in the present, not the past.In another life what job might you have chosen?My first ambition, at the age of four, was to be “a man that works down drains”. Psychiatry would be a natural progression.Are we all doomed?The only certainty is death.“Where Shall We Run To? A Memoir” by Alan Garner is published by 4th Estate Content from our partners The Hidden Cost of Poor Lung Health Dr John Forni Labour’s historic opportunity Spotlight Those in power need to listen to children and young people. We’re the key to their future Spotlight Related Book of the Day How Russia became a franchise of the Wagner Group Books We are all Mrs Dalloway now Sport Football for the KSI generation This article appears in the 08 Aug 2018 issue of the New Statesman, The rise and fall of Islamic State New Statesman

Culture 8 August 2018updated 01 Jul 2021 5:36am Alan Garner Q&A: “As we ran, Alan Turing asked me whether AI was possible“ The author talks Alcibiadesk, his portraits, and lifelong advice


from his grandad.


By New Statesman


Alan Garner was born in Cheshire in 1934. A childhood interest in local folklore inspired a suite of fantasy novels and fairy tales, including the Weirdstone trilogy. He lives near the


Jodrell Bank radio telescope.

What’s your earliest memory? 


Choosing a blue and white soap dish for my mother at Woolworths. I was with three teenage girls, Eileen, Margaret and Sheila, who regularly took me out. They lifted me up above the slippery


wood of the counter so that I could see. I was 15 months old; early for a memory to be retained. But the relationship did not last. While out for a walk I fell into a disused cesspit. The


girls wouldn’t touch me and I had to walk downwind of them all the way home.

Who are your heroes?


My childhood hero was Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan. I was always Tarzan, because no one else could do his war cry. But I was too scared to climb anything, so the baddies went up the trees.


I met Alan Turing when on training runs. We were both athletes at a time before joggers clogged the roads, so to see anyone out running was unusual. We were friends from 1951 to 1953. He


once asked for my opinion as a classicist on whether artificial intelligence was theoretically possible. It was merely one of the wild thoughts we bandied about as we ran; and I was silent


for two miles before I said: no, it wasn’t. He didn’t argue. Then the police ordered me not to associate with him. I was in the army when he killed himself, and the sense of guilt stayed


with me until I read Andrew Hodge’s Alan Turing: the Enigma, and realised that there was nothing I could have done to prevent what happened.

What was the last book that changed your


thinking?


Jay Appleton’s The Experience of Landscape interacting with An Archaeology of Natural Places by Richard Bradley.

Which political figure, past or present, do you look up to?  


Alcibiades.

What would be your Mastermind specialist subject?


I know too little of any one subject.

Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe In which time and place, other than your own, would you like to live?  


May I take my dentist and doctor with me?

Who would paint your portrait?


Andrew Tift already has. It hangs in the Grosvenor Museum, Chester. Tift is a figurative realist and the result is both sympathetic and ruthless. There are also photographic portraits by


Sefton Samuels and Mariana Cook. 

What’s your theme tune?


“Show Me the Way to Go Home”.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received? Have you followed it?


“If the other feller can do it, let him.” This was from my grandad, a smith, and I’ve followed it since the age of seven. He also said, “Always take as long as the job tells you. It’ll be


there when you’re not, and you don’t want folk asking ‘What fool made that codge?’”

What single thing would make your life better?


Respite from persons from Porlock.

When were you happiest?


Happiness is in the present, not the past.

In another life what job might you have chosen?


My first ambition, at the age of four, was to be “a man that works down drains”. Psychiatry would be a natural progression.

Are we all doomed?


The only certainty is death.


“Where Shall We Run To? A Memoir” by Alan Garner is published by 4th Estate


Content from our partners The Hidden Cost of Poor Lung Health Dr John Forni Labour’s historic opportunity Spotlight Those in power need to listen to children and young people. We’re the key


to their future Spotlight Related

Book of the Day How Russia became a franchise of the Wagner Group Books We are all Mrs Dalloway now Sport Football for the KSI generation


This article appears in the 08 Aug 2018 issue of the New Statesman, The rise and fall of Islamic State


New Statesman