Brian Aldiss

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

Speaker 20:05

For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1982, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Brian Aldiss0:31

Our Castaway this week is the novelist short story writer.

Presenter0:34

Author and critic Brian Aldiss. How well do you think you could endure loneliness?

Brian Aldiss0:37

You're

Presenter0:39

Well, I've been rather a solitary person in many ways, so I suppose I would put up with it.

Presenter0:44

Um

Presenter0:45

I would miss my family and all the adjuncts of civilization that I suppose all your castaways say they would miss. How much do you think music would help? It would help more than the books, I think. Just to have the sound other than your own voice would be

Presenter1:01

Extremely necessary.

Presenter1:04

Unfortunately not, no. No. At one time I had an ambition to be uh a honky-tonk pianist, but it never came to anything. Do you use music while you're working as background? Yes, to a certain extent I do. I I used to do a lot more when one could get radio three more easily. Mm-hmm. So on the whole, now silence.

Presenter1:28

Well, I think we'll begin with Boradin's Symphony No. two, for its superb romantic melancholy plus challenge plus Oriental landscapes.

Brian Aldiss2:37

The opening of Borodine's second symphony, Nicolai Malko conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Presenter2:43

What part of the country do you come from? Well, I come from Norfolk, you know, that uh still almost undiscovered part of southern England, I suppose you'd say. From East Dearham. Were there a lot of books in your home? Did you read a lot as a boy? Yes, I read a great deal as a boy, and there were books there, but my mother was rather an expert story teller, s some of which she would tell ad norciam, which the family had by heart.

Speaker 13:03

So some

Presenter3:07

I think that was probably good training. She was very deft with a story. Where were you at school?

Presenter3:12

Well, I was at school first of all in Framingham College in Suffolk.

Presenter3:17

And then we removed to Devon.

Presenter3:19

And then I went to a school that I liked a great deal more, West Buckland School, which is on the edge of Exmore. It's terribly primitive. The place was built about half an hour after the Jurassic ended, I think. But very nice place to be, really. Very healthy. What were you good at at school? Well, subversion and humour is my general idea. I wasn't very good at anything much, except. Well, I'll tell you one thing I did, really.

Presenter3:47

A writer always looks back to numerous beginnings to his career, but I think one of my true beginnings was.

Presenter3:53

When dormitory lights were out, you see, there was a strictly enforced no-talking rule.

Presenter4:00

But to while away those beak hours we used to tell stories round the dormitory.

Presenter4:06

And uh it was a sort of knockout competition. Those who were no good sort of fell away into silence and darkness.

Presenter4:12

Gradually fewer and fewer were left, and eventually the the champion storytellers in the dormitory were a friend of mine, B.B. Jingel, and I.

Presenter4:22

And uh really I triumphed because his were nice little nature stories and mine were always terribly bloodthirsty and often took place on other planets.

Presenter4:30

which had a certain popular appeal.

Presenter4:32

And every now and then the housemaster would burst in and say, Right, who was talking? I heard someone talking.

Presenter4:37

And so I would sort of

Presenter4:39

sheepishly put my hand up, they'd be taken out in my pyjamas and given six.

Presenter4:44

Now that's very good training for a writer, you see, Roy. My first payment were kicks and not halfpens. But ever since then I've been grateful for the fact that however rude the reviewers were, they never actually beat me like my old housemaster.

Presenter5:00

Now, you were due to be called up, of course, when you left school. What did you opt for? Well, I got tired of ten years at various boarding schools, and so I I volunteered to go in the army and went into the Royal Signals. Communications again, you see. Was that your idea or theirs?

Presenter5:23

So I was called up and then

Presenter5:26

As it happened, uh

Presenter5:27

I went in the Royal Signals. And that took you to the Far East? Yes. You were in the Burma campaign? The tail end of it. I mean, one mustn't be too glorious about this. I I missed all the uh bad days in the Arakan and the awful defeats that the Fourteenth Army suffered, and I was in at the finish. Lucky to be in at the finish, really. And after Burma? Well, we then went and rested in India, and I was going to form part of an ill-fated Operation Zipper, I believe it was called, which was to invade Singapore from the sea.

Presenter6:00

Liberate it from the Japanese.

Presenter6:03

But at that time the A bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese stopped what they were doing and went back to their homelands.

Presenter6:12

and I then got shipped to Sumatra for a year, helping to get the Japanese back into their right place.

Presenter6:18

Let's have your second record. What'd that be? Oh, well, this has got a story which is connected with the Far East, really. It's a Johnny Mercer number. It's called The Waiter and the Porter and the Upstairs Maid.

Presenter6:30

It's sung by Jack Teegarten, Bing Crosby and Mary Martin. It's extremely cheery, and I heard it once when I was in Calcutta crossing the Hooghly River in a rowing boat to get to the other side of the Hooghly, where there was a beautiful botanical garden.

Presenter6:46

in which was, and I suppose still is, the world's largest tree. It's not large in altitude, but in diameter. It's a banyan which slowly spreads across the face of India.

Presenter6:58

Later to feature in one of my science fiction stories.

Presenter7:02

And as we were crossing this muddy and degenerate river I wasn't rowing, there was an Indian chap rowing we passed by a luxury cruiser.

Presenter7:12

And on the deck of this cruiser were two chaps in white ducks, with a smashing looking blond, sipping their chota pegs, and playing their wind up gramophone, and they were playing this record.

Presenter7:27

And I can remember thinking at the time

Presenter7:29

My gosh, that must be the life up there not down here in the rowing boat.

Presenter7:34

But now I get older and wiser, I think that on the whole I preferred it in the rowing boat.

Presenter7:41

Anyhow, listen to the song, it's very nice.

Brian Aldiss7:43

The people in the ballroom were stuffy and arty, so I began to get just a little bit afraid. I sneaked into the kitchen, I dug me a party.

Presenter7:53

Uh

Brian Aldiss7:53

Uh

Presenter7:53

The waiter and the porter and the second story made

Brian Aldiss7:57

I peeked into the parlor to see what was a hatching in time to hear the hostess suggest a charade. But who was in the pantry a laughing and scratching? Old waiter and the porter and the upstairs maid. Bing Crosby, Jack Keygarden, and Mary Martin.

Brian Aldiss8:14

Uh

Presenter8:14

Now all the time You had been sweating it out in the Far East. What plans had you been making for the days when you were demobilized?

Presenter8:22

Well, I didn't really know what exactly would happen when I came back. I mean, I'd left it more or less as a child, and had then discovered this marvellous, rather seedy, world of the Far East.

Presenter8:33

And when I got back to England I found that that too had disappeared.

Presenter8:37

the England that I had known, and that a new one had grown up, post-war England. So I I really lost two worlds at once, as it were, the the Far East and the world of my childhood.

Presenter8:47

And this uh

Presenter8:50

put one into what our American friends would call a sort of no win situation. I really didn't know exactly what to do, except that I didn't want to go back to anything that would um entail passing exams and that kind of thing, anything like um a a school position again.

Presenter9:07

But I did want to write well for one thing, I wanted to write a novel about my Sumatran experiences.

Presenter9:14

And so every

Presenter9:15

Every so often in the years that followed I would sit down and write about seven abortive chapters of various unpublishable novels about Sumatra.

Presenter9:25

And I suppose that was part of my um

Presenter9:28

rehearsal for becoming a a proper sort of writer.

Presenter9:31

And in that time I got a job in a bookshop in Oxford. Why, Oxford? Well, we were living down in Devon, and really the only employment open to you there was ploughboy, which I didn't quite see was my style of thing.

Presenter9:45

And so I came up to Oxford and got a job. Mhm. It was rather nice really. I've stayed ever since. Did you begin writing science fiction?

Presenter9:53

No, I didn't begin. My first novel was a a social comedy set, astoundingly enough, in a bookshop.

Brian Aldiss10:00

Yeah.

Presenter10:01

But I I'd always been interested in science fiction and it was natural for me to turn to it then. Everyone said, Oh, don't, there's no sale for the stuff, you know. The Americans like it, the English don't.

Presenter10:13

Another no-win situation, you might say. But it worked out quite well as it happened. Well, science fiction, of course, has to have some sort of base in in reality. Where had you studied all the basic elements of science?

Presenter10:25

Well, I mean, I think you'd have to say I was a science fan, although I was no good at maths. I liked popular science. I was mad about astronomy, for instance, and would read um all the astronomical books and people like Sir Arthur Eddington and so on and so on. So I gave myself a fair grounding in that.

Speaker 110:32

Agree.

Brian Aldiss10:32

Yeah.

Speaker 110:32

Mm.

Presenter10:39

Did you start with short stories?

Speaker 110:40

Auto

Presenter10:41

I did both really. I I thought I was better at short stories. What was your first full-length book?

Speaker 110:45

What would

Presenter10:47

It was a thing called Nonstop, which happily was very well received.

Presenter10:52

That was in nineteen fifty eight.

Presenter10:54

And that's remained in print, and it was a an encouraging start.

Presenter10:59

Another record, please.

Presenter11:00

Yes. Well, from the fore east you're going to Yugoslavia now.

Presenter11:04

And this is a Macedonian folk song called Kaji Vaska. In case you wonder what it's about, I should say that it's like all folk songs, it's about trivia.

Presenter11:15

And it sort of says Oh, by the way, Gladys, you left your scarf in the supermarket yesterday. Did I really? Oh, ta Yes, and Ivo's wearing it and he talks about you all the time. Oh, dear, I must go and tell my mother, etcetera, etcetera. But it's very lively. Kaji Vaska.

Brian Aldiss11:41

Kajivaske Evgova, Koiti Veshesinokia Nani naninana nina nina blah

Brian Aldiss11:56

Yeah.

Speaker 112:01

Uh

Presenter12:02

Yeah.

Brian Aldiss12:31

Kaji Vaska sung by Bronislav Simonovich and Danika Obrenich.

Presenter12:36

Yeah.

Brian Aldiss12:37

Yeah.

Presenter12:37

Now as you started to write books, you gave up selling them.

Presenter12:40

Well, really I made my position uh a bit difficult because booksellers really don't like booksellers' assistants who write books. They're supposed to be there to sell them, you see. So um I I moved on, yes. You became literary editor o of the Oxford newspaper. Yes, that's right, the Oxford Mail. That was an evening paper. That that was a part-time job, which of course fitted in very well with writing.

Presenter13:06

While I was struggling I had this relief where for three half days a week I would go into the newspaper and work and uh have all the new books at my disposal. Yes, that was useful. That was a very agreeable interlude in life.

Brian Aldiss13:16

Thanks.

Presenter13:20

Although you're not exclusively a science fiction writer, and I'm sure you don't like labels, the majority of your books have been science fiction. Yes, that's right. Which are you happiest with?

Presenter13:30

Well, it's very hard to say really. Um it's always a good idea not to go back and reread your novels, I think, not to keep travelling the same ground. But in fact the one that I

Presenter13:40

Remember With Affection is hardly science fiction, it's a thing called Report on Probability A.

Presenter13:45

which people either find vilely boring and don't care for at all, or else in some cases think it's uh something resembling the cat's whiskers.

Presenter13:56

It has a clarity, I think, about it that is attractive to some people. Is that a philosophical work or or a novel? Well, it's a novel of a certain sort, but it's a novel with almost no characters and hardly any resolution.

Presenter14:10

Um

Presenter14:11

It does sound a bit difficult, doesn't it? It has atmosphere, that's what it has.

Speaker 114:13

That's what it has.

Presenter14:15

It certainly has atmosphere, and it does have a sort of philosophical problem, which is about really the paralysis of time, which I suppose one would equate to.

Presenter14:32

You've written a history of science fiction. How far did you track it back?

Presenter14:37

Well, you see this book Berlini esprit was designed really as a as an argument.

Presenter14:43

About the nature of science fiction.

Presenter14:45

And I believe that science fiction should be regarded as.

Presenter14:50

The literature, as it were, of the Industrial Revolution and after.

Presenter14:55

From the time when mankind was.

Presenter14:59

Becoming increasingly in command of his natural environment without necessarily being any more in command of his natural self.

Presenter15:08

And conveniently to hand was Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, published in 1818. Yes. So I start with that.

Presenter15:16

I think the argument is a good one. It's no good saying that there are elements of science fiction in.

Presenter15:21

the Odyssey or something in far antiquity. If you spread the net so wide, then you're left with no definition at all and it doesn't help you.

Presenter15:32

Another record, please. Well, this time what I regard as a piece of pure music, it's not programme music or anything special. It's just a violin and a piano talking to each other. It's Schubert's sonata in A major.

Brian Aldiss16:47

The opening of Schubert's sonata in A major for violin.

Presenter16:50

Yeah.

Brian Aldiss16:50

Yeah.

Presenter16:51

David Oistrack with Lev Oberin.

Presenter16:55

You've had considerable success with three novels based on your war experiences, Brown. Very funny books, rather bawdy, and I should imagine very accurately observed.

Presenter17:06

It's what they call tilling it as it was. But uh yes, they've they've been very popular.

Presenter17:12

I've got one more to write. It was going to be six volumes. You're going to settle for four. That was a moment of madness, which unfortunately my publishers took down and used in evidence against me. But four one can't really write the hand read pensioner.

Speaker 117:15

To settle

Presenter17:26

Four is to be the limit. And I've got one more to go, where Horatio Stubbs comes back from the Far East and settles down into uh

Presenter17:35

The rather seedy post war England.

Presenter17:39

Another record. We've got to number five. Yes. Well, we're going over to Jazz Now.

Presenter17:45

I should say that I think I cracked your code. This was a great problem of how to choose simply eight when there were so many I wanted to take. And so I chose eight hierarchies of things that were important to me in my life.

Presenter18:02

And so that the ones that came out top each represent a hierarchy. And this bit of jazz represents all the jazz and blues and black music that uh I ever listened to and enjoyed. What to choose from it? Well,

Presenter18:16

I've settled for Benny Moten's Kansas City Jazz Band playing Kansas City Breakdown and listen to the brass bass by Vernon Page.

Presenter19:22

Benny Moten and his Kansas City Orchestra.

Presenter19:25

Recorded Kansas City breakdown in 1928.

Presenter19:29

Brown, your latest book, and we're back with science fiction here, is the beginning of an epic.

Presenter19:36

Three long novels for which you've devised an entire new solar system. With a little help from my friends, yes. How do you mean?

Presenter19:45

Well, I had a simple scheme to begin with.

Presenter19:49

And I had the sense to uh check it with some uh

Presenter19:53

Friends of mine, scientists, astronomers, and found that I had actually got it wrong and that I should start again.

Presenter20:00

and with their help and advice I finally

Presenter20:03

Developed rather a grand system.

Presenter20:06

which immediately filled me with all sorts of ideas that I hadn't had before.

Presenter20:10

It makes me wish that I had thought of this kind of thing long ago.

Presenter20:15

But uh since I live in Oxford

Presenter20:17

I can go and as it were knock on any door, and behind there is an expert uh on archaeology or history or whatever.

Presenter20:26

So I went to see quite a lot of people who are in Oxford and said, well, now look, can I tell you about Heliconia? What do you think would happen to the culture if so-and-so and so and so? One of the things that happened, of course, is that the length of a year on this particular planet in this new solar system lasts for two or three thousand years. Yes, that's right. Two thousand five hundred and ninety two to be precise. And it does mean that a whole season can pass away and a whole family with it, and possibly a whole culture, and it can still be spring or summer or whatever.

Presenter21:04

Do the characters, do the the people who live on Heliconia, resemble us? Oh, very much so, yes. You really can't introduce a number of strange effects into the books and hope to retain the reader's sympathy if

Presenter21:18

You're talking about uh

Presenter21:20

A civilization of intelligent slugs, let's say. I think you have to have humankind there to hold their interests. And indeed, it's what interests all of us.

Presenter21:29

So that really what I'm telling is a grand saga of various tribes.

Presenter21:36

Who are really very much like us, except for this one major.

Presenter21:42

difference that the year is so much longer. Also, Heliconia has two suns instead of one, and this leads to all kinds of dichotomies in life. And in particular, it means that there are two major species competing for survival and dominance on the planet.

Presenter22:02

The Humans and the Vagals.

Presenter22:04

Which are, let's say, a human, they are neither beast nor human.

Presenter22:09

Although they have evolved from a bovine species.

Presenter22:14

And really the three volumes, two of which I have yet to write, I may say.

Presenter22:20

Involve the complex interrelationship between the known and the unknown, or the humans and the vagals.

Presenter22:28

Very complex books. How long are they going to take you to write? How long did the first one take you to write? Well, that that I was four years on that, but that was mainly because I was trying to spur my learned friends into action. Now that they have in the main delivered, from now on I'm on my own, and as a result

Speaker 122:33

What

Presenter22:45

One travels faster who travels alone, etcetera. So in two more years no, in one more year I will have finished uh volume two, and in two more years I will have finished volume three, and then I shall be out of work, Royal. I shan't know what to do. What's your writing discipline? Do you write regular hours in the day? Do you write early mornings, late at night? Oh, I wish I knew the answer to that question. When you have children, you become very middle class, and you settle down to a routine of getting up at five past seven and uh, you know, going to bed at eleven and being terribly respectable.

Brian Aldiss22:58

I shan't know what to do.

Presenter23:16

So that I you know, I sort of write within

Presenter23:19

ordinary hours in a way, except that there are long periods when I'm not actually writing, but I'm doing something else. I am answering letters. That's one of the things that we do. But uh then at other times I'm seized up by the novel and I'm just writing all the time and

Speaker 123:30

Yeah.

Presenter23:36

much quieter about the house, as it were.

Presenter23:39

Then there's other periods.

Presenter23:41

Being in the world of soils, do you use word processors or lead pencils or or what? Well, I went to see my optician recently and I said, How's business? And he said, Oh, it's marvellous, you know, we've got a lot of new diseases these days. All these chaps using word processors coming in and he said they've got a lot of interesting new eye diseases. So I stick to an electric typewriter and a file card system.

Brian Aldiss24:04

You can't go wrong.

Presenter24:05

I haven't gone wrong so far. I mean a a friend of mine has a word processor and he pressed the wrong button and lost chapters thirteen through sixteen of his new novel.

Presenter24:19

Let's have record number six. Well, record number six is really a great favourite.

Presenter24:24

It's Vittoria de Los Angeles singing the Easter hymn from Cavallera Rusticana. It's supposed, of course, to be a sacred song, but I obstinately persist in hearing all sorts of delightful carnal overtones to it.

Speaker 224:44

Always in your love and all we met you always in your interest.

Speaker 224:54

Oh Jesus, she's a

Speaker 224:58

Oh dear

Brian Aldiss25:21

Oh my god, it is a restaurant!

Brian Aldiss25:41

The Easter hymn from Cavaleria Rosticana, sung by Victoria de Los Angeles.

Presenter25:46

Yeah.

Brian Aldiss25:46

with the chorus and orchestra of the Rome Opera House. Oh d

Presenter25:50

Despite this prolific amount of creative writing that you do, Brown, you still find time or you write critical pieces.

Presenter25:57

From time to time have you any regular critical job?

Presenter26:00

I haven't now, no, not since I left the Oxford Mail. But, um, I don't think there's really much distinction or I don't like making much distinction between

Presenter26:09

Uh the critical pieces and the fiction. Both are in a sense criticisms of life. But then I hate making distinctions anyway. I don't like to distinguish easily between science fiction and fantasy and uh the ordinary novel. That's uh up to my publishers or the critics or or whoever.

Presenter26:29

You've taken on various voluntary posts, some very time-consuming. You've been chairman of the Committee of Management of the Society of Authors. Yes, well, that certainly ate up a year rather rather swiftly. Fighting valiantly for the public lending right for authors, which at long last is going to happen. Well, apparently, sir, yes, I'm expecting a cheque for thirty-six pence at almost any moment now. We'll believe it when we see it. Well, it was a good fight. And you are, or have been, President of the British Science Fiction Association.

Presenter26:57

And you've been on the Arts Council literary panel?

Presenter27:00

And a judge for the prestigious Booker Prize for Fiction. That must be a daunting job. Well, I I've always said that it's rather like being force fed strawberries and cream. You know, up to a point it's delicious.

Presenter27:14

How many novels do you have to read to be a judge? Well, last year I forget, it was about sixty that one read, either in proof or in finished form. That's a lot of reading.

Presenter27:26

It means that you spend a summer and an autumn at it, and your own fiction has to be shelved. It's washed away by this spate of other people's words. But it's very exciting, very very exciting to do. Would you do it again? No.

Speaker 127:32

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 227:32

It was

Speaker 127:32

Uh

Presenter27:40

Right.

Presenter27:42

Record number seven.

Presenter27:43

Well, this is by an Englishman. I realized belatedly that I hadn't got anything by any English composer. It seemed uh awful to dart about round the world. Uh and even Gustav Holste doesn't sound very English, but I believe he was. Uh this is um a movement from the planets.

Presenter28:02

And it's Saturn, the bringer of old age.

Brian Aldiss29:03

Yeah.

Presenter29:03

Saturn from Holst's The planet, sweet.

Presenter29:07

The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Caria.

Presenter29:11

Bran, your army years in the Far East should have given you some ideas for survival on a desert island.

Presenter29:17

Yes, they made me think that the best way you could survive would be to have the rest of the Fourteenth Army with you, really. But I suppose that's not allowed. Not allowed, no.

Brian Aldiss29:24

Not allowed, no.

Presenter29:25

But you can put up a shelter of some sort.

Speaker 129:26

Uh

Presenter29:27

Oh yes, I think I'd be quite good at that. Yes. I don't know if I could make a boat. Do you know anything about navigation?

Presenter29:34

Well, I think I'd be able to work it out from a few stars. If one was desperate, you know, I could make an astrolabe or something like that. Might get by. Yes. I'd do my best. Right. Are you a reasonable cook? Could you look after yourself from a practical point of view while you're on the island? Well, I I've never known where exactly your island was. I think like most of your castaways I'd rely rather heavily on a diet of raw fish and cocoanut. Yes. Be another reason for escaping And of course you could brew yourself palm toddy wine. Yes be rather cheery in the evening. Where would you like your island to be?

Brian Aldiss30:08

Yeah, the

Presenter30:13

Well, I think just off the east coast of Sumatra, rather near where Krakatoa used to be. I don't think there's any chance of a further explosion. Somewhere there would be quite nice.

Brian Aldiss30:25

Last record.

Presenter30:26

Yeah.

Presenter30:27

This is one that would stand for all the the fun and satire and whoopee of life, really. And it's the inimitable, as they say, Tom Lehrer, playing the Vatican rag.

Speaker 130:41

First you get down on your knees, fiddle with your rosaries, bow your head with great respect, and chiny fleck, chiny fleck, chiny fleck.

Speaker 130:54

Do whatever steps you want if you have cleared them with the pontiff Everybody say is on Kyrie Laison doing the Vatican right

Speaker 231:01

Yeah.

Brian Aldiss31:07

Yeah.

Presenter31:07

Tom Lehrer

Presenter31:09

If you could take only one disk out of your eight, which would it be?

Presenter31:13

Oh, I'd take the Schubert, the sonata in A, the pure music, as it were.

Presenter31:18

And one luxury to take to the island with you any one object of no practical use that would give you pleasure to have about? That rules out my wife? It does, I fear. All right.

Presenter31:28

A Time Machine.

Presenter31:30

Time machine. Am I allowed that?

Speaker 131:31

Am I allowed?

Presenter31:32

It wouldn't get me off the island, you see. No. But I could travel freely to the uh past of the island and the and the future of the island. Of course, over the ages it might join on to the mainland, and then I could walk off.

Presenter31:47

Yes, but then you'd find yourself in nine hundred thousand AD or something and the whole system would be different. Yes, you'd be stuck. And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare.

Speaker 131:55

Yeah, you'd

Presenter32:00

After running through all the nineteenth-century novels and Byron's poems and things like that, I thought that I would settle for the complete works of Samuel Johnson. There's a lot of reading there. I'm not sure about the complete works. Oh. A portable Samuel Johnson, would you believe? Your three or four favourite Samuel Johnsons together. Which are your favourites? Well, Rasselas would have to be there. Some of the lives of the poets. And I suppose a few extracts from Boswell could be thrown in as introductory material. Right, we'll bind those three together. And thank you, Brian Aldiss, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. A great pleasure. Thank you. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 232:47

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Speaker 233:18

Uh