Volume 14 No. 3 PLOKTA MAY 2009
Colophon This is issue 40 of Plokta, CONTENTS edited by Steve Davies, Alison Scott and Mike Scott. It is available for letter of 3. Editorial 16. Eating Around Sunningdale comment (one copy to Mike’s address is fine, we Plokta hits 40. Ouch! We also mention Park pass them over to each
Dr Plokta: Chemistry Master
Steve Davies
Alison Scott
Mike Scott
[email protected] www.plokta.com
The cabal also includes Flick, Giulia De Cesare, Sue Mason, Steven, Marianne and Jonathan Cain. Art by D West (3) & Sue Mason (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) Cover assembled by Mike Scott from original covers by Sue Mason, Alison Scott, Mike Scott & SMS. Miss Wynne Jones: Head Girl
2 MAY 2009 PLOKTA Volume 14 No. 3
Editorial
We’ve been trying to put it off as long as press, we’re sorry to hear that Diana is possible, but have finally faced up to it; unwell and won’t be able to attend the this is the fortieth issue of Plokta and we convention. We send her our best wishes have officially reached middle age. Life for a speedy recovery. begins at 40, or so they tell us. We know Plokta has a tendency to look The cover is dedicated to Dave Hicks, like a round-robin Christmas newsletter, who while reviewing our very first issue but we still thought you’d like to know back in Critical Wave #46 said, “…there's that Steven has just won the British less likelihood of there being a Plokta #2, Shogi Championship. What's shogi, we 3, 4 and so on in the same vein…”. hear you ask. It’s Japanese chess, distinguished because when you take an For those of you getting this at the con, opponent’s piece, you can turn it round welcome to Sunningdale Park, home of and use it on your side. Cool, huh? what was for many years known as the Anyway, this game is played by millions Civil Service College for many years, but of people in Japan, and a couple of is now called the National School of dozen in the UK, and Steven's prize, as Master Cornell: Head Boy Government. Our theme this time is well as a laughably small trophy, is a free children’s literature. We’re hoping that it trip to New York to play in the World will be a lovely weekend and we can Amateur Championship. Wish him luck. Lawson and James Bacon, and the rest of move several of the sillier programme And apologies to those of you who the committee spots are being filled with items out onto one of the many lawns. receive Alison’s round-robin Christmas a variety of people who combine We have the normal
No locs this time, as the previous issue wasn’t long ago, but we have an Illo of Comment from D West.
3 Volume 14 No. 3 PLOKTA MAY 2009
Samanthaʼs Diary By Diana Wynne Jones
Recorded on BSQ SpeekEasi Series to drape himself over me, and a weird food. ‘Sorry, dear customer, but there 2/89887BQ and discovered in a skip in millionaire from goodness knows where will be no deliveries until the start of the London’s Regent Street. with diamante teeth. But there were Sales on December 27th, when our full others. I was wearing my new Stiltskins range of luxury avian foods will again be December 25th 2233 which caused me to tower over them. A available at bargain prices.’ Yes, but what Tired today and having a lazy time. Got mistake. They always knew where I was. do I do now? back late from Paris last night from In the end I got tired of being stalked Oh hooray. Housebot has solved the Mother’s party. My sister is pregnant and and left. I just caught the midnight bullet problem by producing a bowl of tinned couldn’t go (besides, she lives in Sweden) train to London, which did not live up to sweetcorn. I shoved it under the sofa and and Mother insisted that one of her its name. It was late and crowded out and the creature stopped its noise. daughters was there to meet our latest I had to stand all the way. stepfather. Not that I did meet him Do trees need feeding? My feet are killing me today. particularly. Mother kept introducing me December 26th 2233 to a load of men and telling me how rich Anyway I have instructed Housebot that each of them were: I think she’s trying to I am Not At Home to anyone or I do not believe this! Another tree has start me on her own career which is, anything and hope for a peaceful day. arrived with another partridge in a cage basically, marrying for money. Thanks, Funny to think that Christmas Day used tied to it. This time I went haring to the Mother, but I earn quite enough on the to be a time when everyone got together front door to make them take it away catwalk to be happy as I am. Besides, I’m and gave each other presents. Shudder. again, or at least make whoever was having a rest from men since I split up Today we think of it as the most delivering it tell me where the things with Liam.The gems of Mother’s peaceful day of the year. I sit in peace in were coming from. But all the man did collection were a French philosopher, my all-white living room—a by-product was to shove a birdcage into my hands who followed me around saying ‘La vide of Mother’s career, come to think of it, with two pretty white pigeons in it and ce n’est pas le neant,’ (clever French since my lovely flat was given to me by go away. The van he drove off in was nonsense meaning ‘The void is not my last-stepfather-but-one—no, last-but- unlabelled. I raged at Housebot for nothing,’ I think), a cross-eyed two now, I forgot. opening the door, but that does no good. Columbian film director, who kept trying Housebot only has sixty sentences in its Oh damn! Someone rang the doorbell repertoire and just kept saying, ‘Madam and Housebot answered it. I know I told you have a delivery,’ until I turned its it not to. voice off. Did I say we don’t give Christmas We have had a partridge fight under the presents now? Talk about famous last sofa. words. Housebot trundled back in here with a tree of all things balanced on its I took the pigeon cage outside into the flat top. Impossible to tell what kind of patio and opened it. But will those birds tree, as it has no leaves, no label to say fly away! I seem to be stuck with them who sent it, nothing but a small wicker too. At least they will eat porridge oats. cage tied to a branch with a fairly large The partridges won’t. We have run out of brown bird in it. The damn bird pecked tinned sweetcorn. me when I let it out. It was not happy. It I give up. I’m going to spend the rest of has gone to earth under the small sofa the day watching old movies. and left droppings on the carpet as it ran. Liam called. I asked him if he had had I thought Christmas trees were supposed the nerve to send me four birds and two to be green. I made Housebot put the trees. He said, ‘What are you talking thing outside in the patio, beside the about? I only rang to see if you’d still got pool, where it sits looking bare. The bird my wristwatch.’ I hung up on him. Oaf. is hungry. It has been trying to eat the carpet. I went on the net to see what December 27th 2233 kind of bird it is. After an hour of trying, The Sales start today! I was late getting I got a visual that suggests the creature is off to them because of the beastly bird a partridge. A game bird apparently. Am food. When I brought up Avian I supposed to eat it? I know they used to Foodstuffs, I found to my disgust that eat birds at Christmas in the old days. the smallest amount they deliver is in Madame Flick: French Mistress Yuk. I got on the net again for partridge
4 MAY 2009 PLOKTA Volume 14 No. 3 twenty kilo bags. Where would I put all ‘Are you sure it isn’t one of Liam’s I put on my most austerely beautiful that birdseed? I turned the computer off practical jokes?’ Carla asked. Shrewd clothes and my Stiltskins and stormed and went out to the corner shop. It was point. It does. He probably rang with round to Liam’s flat. He looked terrible. still closed. I had to walk all the way to that nonsense about his watch just to He was in his nightclothes. He hadn’t Carnaby Street before I found anything make sure I was home. ‘And haven’t you shaved or combed his curls and I think open and then all the way back carrying told your Housebot thingy not to let any he was drunk. His flat was just as ten tins of sweetcorn. I had promised to of this livestock in?’ Carla said. terrible. I saw it because as soon as he meet Carla and Sabrina in Harrods for opened the door I marched in with Liam ‘I have, I have!’ I cried out. ‘But the darn coffee and I was so late that I missed backing in front of me, shouting at the thing takes not the blindest bit of them. top of my voice. I admit that the notice!’ nightclothes made me angrier still Not a good day. And I couldn’t find a ‘Reprogramme it,’ Carla advised. ‘It must because it was obvious to me he had a single thing I wanted in the Sales. have slipped a cog or something.’ woman in there. But he hadn’t actually. I came home—my Stiltskins were killing He was just lying about. He said, ‘Just Or Liam reprogrammed it, I thought. So me—to find, dumped in the middle of shut up and tell me what you’re yelling I spent an hour with the manual, pushing my living room, yet another tree with a about.’ So I did. And he laughed. This buttons, by which time I was so livid that partridge tied to it, a second cage of two made me furious. I yelled, ‘You are I rang Liam. Got his answering service. white pigeons and a large coop with stalking me with birds!’ and to my great Typical! I left an abusive message— three different birds in it. It took me a surprise I burst into tears. which he probably won’t hear because of while to place these last, until I Housebot trying to clean up feathers and To my further surprise, Liam was almost remembered a picture book my second making the howling noise it does when it nice about it. He said, ‘Now look, stepfather had given me when I was chokes—but it relieved my feelings Sammy, have you any idea how much small. Under H for Hen there was a bird anyway. parrots cost?’ I hadn’t. He told me. It something like these, except that one was was a lot. ‘And before you get suspicious round and brown and gentle looking. December 28th 2233 that I know,’ he said, ‘I only know Not these. Hens they may be, but they I spent a glorious morning at the Sales because I did an article on them last have mean witchy faces, ugly speckled and came back with six bags of month. Right? Since when did I have feathers and floppy red bit on top that Wonderful Bargains, to find I have four enough money for four parrots? And I makes them look like some kind of alien. parrots now. Plus one more partridge don’t even know where you buy hens, let When I got home, they were engaged in (and tree), two more pigeons,and three alone partridges. So it’s somebody else trying to peck one another naked. The more of those unspeakable hens. doing this to you, not me. He has to be a room was full of ugly little feathers. I Housebot has ignored my attempt at rich practical joker, and he has to know shrieked at Housebot and then made it programming as if I’d never tried. The take the lot out into the patio, where I patio is now a small forest full of made haste to let the beastly hens out. droppings. The pigeons sit on the trees They ran around cackling and pecking and the hens rush about below. Indoors the partridges, the potted plants and the are four scuttling partridges and four of three trees. They were obviously hungry. those large rings on sticks where parrots I sighed and got on to Avian Foodstuffs are suposed to perch. Not that they do. again. Problems there. Food for which The red one has taken a liking to my kind of bird? they queried. Hens, I bedroom. The green one flies about all tapped in. Pigeons. Partridges. They have the time, shouting swearwords, and the just delivered three twenty kilo sacks. multicoloured two perch anywhere so They are labelled differently, but they long as it isn’t their official perches. I look suspiciusly the same inside to me. I have put those in the closet because know because I opened all three and Housebot stops whenever it runs into scattered a heap from each around the one. I have ordered a twenty kilo sack of patio—and another heap indoors Avian Feed (parrots), which is actually because I have had to rescue the different from the others and which the partridges. They all eat all kinds. parrots mostly consume from saucers on Exhausted after this. I phoned Carla and the kitchen table. I walk about giving a Sabrina. Sabrina was useless. She had just mad laugh from time to time. I am found some Stiltskins half price in pink inured. I am resigned. and couldn’t think of anything else No I am NOT! except should she buy them. ‘Toss a coin,’ I told her. Carla was at least Someone has taught those damn parrots sympathetic. ‘Help!’ I told her. ‘I’m being to shout, ‘Samantha! I love you!’ They do stalked by a nutter that keeps sending me it all the time now. Mr Cain: Zen Master birds.’
5 Volume 14 No. 3 PLOKTA MAY 2009
December 29th 2233 real. I could buy five more pairs of Stiltskins if I sold them. Well! Whatever idea Liam had, he was quite right! The usual tree and avians started I meant to tell Liam, but I met Carla in arriving, one more partridge, more hens, Oxford Street and I forgot. When I told more pigeons and four more parrots, her, she wanted to know if I was noisy ones. I left Housebot, who had thinking of marrying the unknown traitorously let them in, to deal with the stalker. ‘No way!’ I told her. ‘My mother darn creatures—although I have to feed probably would, though.’ the things because I can’t get Housebot December 30th 2233 to get it through its circuitry that living things have to eat: Housebot simply goes Oh my God! I have six geese now. As round clearing up the piles of birdseed well as another tree, another partridge, unless I order it to stop. Anyway, I left it further pigeons, more hens, and four shunting coops and the latest tree into extra parrots (making twelve of them the patio and set off for the Sales. I was and bedlam). I couldn’t believe these halfway down the steps outside, when a geese. I got to the door just as a whole courier arrived and made me sign for a team of men finished handing them smallish package. indoors. The last one rode in on top of Housebot. They are big birds and not Someone’s sent me a book now! I Miss Mason: Matron friendly. At least they are too large to thought disgustedly as I went back attack the partridges under the sofa, but indoors. I nearly didn’t open it, but, five of them went out into the patio and because of what Liam had said, I how to get at your Housebot to make it started subduing the hens at once. The thought I might as well. What are ignore your orders and let these birds in. shrieks and cackling out there actually valuable books? I thought as I tore off So think around all the rich men you drowned out the yells from the parrots. wrapping. Antique Bibles? First editions know and then go and yell at the likely But one goose stayed indoors and seems of Winnie the Pooh? But it wasn’t a ones. Not me.’ to have gone broody on the sofa book. A book-sized jewel case fell on the cushions. She stretched out a long angry I gave in. ‘So I’ve walked all this way for floor. I picked that up quickly before neck and tried to peck me when I made nothing,’ I said. ‘And my feet hurt.’ Housebot could clear it away. I gasped a an effort to persuade her to join the rest bit when I opened it. There were five ‘That’s because you wear such silly outside. So there she sits, large, rings in it, all of them very flashy and shoes,’ he said. boatshaped and white, with her yellow valuable-looking. One bulged with beak swivelling about to make sure I ‘I’ll have you know,’ I said, ‘that these are diamonds—or what looked like don’t disturb her and her shoebutton the very latest Stiltskins. They cost me diamonds—and the rest looked like eyes glaring unnervingly. thousands.’ sapphires, emeralds and equally valuable He laughed, to my further indignation, stones, all in gold settings. And there was The only good thing about this morning and told me, ‘Then go home in a taxi.’ a note on top, not in real handwriting, if was that the same courier turned up with you see what I mean, but in that kind of another parcel of rings. He is a nice While I was waiting for the taxi, Liam round, careful writing that shop young man. He seems awed by me. He put his arm round me—in an absent- assistants use when you ask them to said hesitatingly while I was signing for minded way, as if he had forgotten we include a message. It said: the delivery, ‘Excuse me, miss, but aren’t weren’t still together—and said, ‘Poor you on that media clothes show? From your ardent admirer. Sammy. I’ve had a thought. What kind of Catwalk?’ I saud yes, I was, but we Marry me. trees are they?’ weren’t filming at the moment. He sort ‘How should I know?’ I said. ‘They ‘Blowed if I will!’ I said aloud. of staggered away, thoroughly impressed. haven’t any leaves.’ The rings are all too small. I think that The rings today are all antique fancy ‘That is a problem,’ Liam said. ‘Can you proves it wasn’t Liam. He once bought gold. With the same message as do me a favour and let me know if what me an engagement ring, after all, and he yesterday. Liam couldn’t have afforded your stalker sends next is something knows that my fingers are rather wide at any of this, even if he mortgaged his quite valuable?’ the base. Unless he’s being very cunning, flat, his pay and his soul. I forgive him. of course. Whoever sent the rings seems And I supposed I should feed the geese. ‘I might,’ I said, and then the taxi came. I to have very flashy taste. They all I got on to Avian Foodstuffs again and don’t like these latest taxis. A mechanical reminded me so much of the kind of they sent round a waterproof sack of tab comes out of the meter that says TIP glass and plastic rings that people give slimy green nibbles. The geese don’t and it’s always huge. But it was probably you when you are a little girl that I took seem to care for them. They ate all the worth it to know that Liam hasn’t been the whole case of them with me when I henfood instead. The hens protested and doing this to me. went out to the Sales and had them got gone for again. To shut them all up, I checked out by a jeweller. And they are
6 MAY 2009 PLOKTA Volume 14 No. 3 tipped out one whole sack of henfood in I had been trying to think. But you try the corner of the patio and this just thinking with a row of parrots sitting on caused another furious battle. Then it the rail of your bed and the rest rained and the geese all came indoors. swooping about shouting that they love The beam that opens and shuts the you. I had made no progress. I sat and sliding doors to the patio is set low so watched raindrops plop into my coffee that Housebot can get out there to clean and thought hard. I do know a lot of the pool, and it turns out to be just rich men. You do, in my trade. But they goose height. were all mostly mediamen and those are not romantic. A more cynical lot you can’t I then discovered that geese are the most imagine. Unless I had annoyed one of incontinent creatures in the universe. My them of course... And most of the living space is now covered with lumps clothes designers are gay. of excrement, and the geese waddle through it tramping it about with their ‘Oh,’ said Liam. ‘My other conjecture is large triangular feet. You interfere with that he’s thoroughly unattractive. I them at your peril. I cracked and phoned suspect he’s used to having to pay a lot to Liam. get women interested. Rather pathetic really.’ He said, ‘ Don’t call me. Your phone is probably bugged, if your Housebot is. I instantly thought of the truly Mr Davies: Fencing Master Meet me at the cafe on the corner.’ unattractive set of fellows Mother had introduced me to on Christmas Eve. How unwelcoming can you get? To make ‘Not freaks, darling,’ she said ‘That’s it!’ I cried out. ‘Bless you, Liam! it worse, that cafe is the one where we reproachfully. ‘He was the one with the I’ll phone Mother this evening.’ always used to meet when we were charming diamante teeth.’ together. But I ground my teeth, got into ‘I don’t think it’s your mother doing it,’ I thought grimly of this Dodeca, a short rainwear and went. he said. fat man in an unbecoming pinstriped He was sitting outside in the rain. He ‘No, no,’ I said and explained. He agreed suit. A pale freckled creature, I recalled, looks rather good in rainwear. He had that I might be on the right track and we with thin reddish hair scraped back over even got me the right kind of coffee. He talked it over for a while. Then he said, his freckled scalp. He kept baring those said, ‘What is it now? Geese?’ ‘By the way, the trees will be pear trees,’ dreadful glittering teeth at me in creepy and handed me a list. ‘So you’ll know smiles. And this idiot owns my diary, my I was flabbergasted. ‘How did you what to expect next,’ he told me and got phone and my Housebot! I hoped he know?’ up and left. Just like that. swallowed one of his teeth and choked. ‘And five gold rings yesterday and today?’ ‘Tell him,’ I said to Mother, ‘to stop I was too angry to look at the list. I wish he said. sending me birds. Tell him he hasn’t got a I had. chance. Tell him he’s destroyed his ‘Yes, but all too small,’ I said. December 31st 2233 New Year’s Eve already non-existent chances by stalking ‘Ah,’ he said, looking pleased with me this way. Tell him no and go away!’ I’m going to three parties today, so I’m himself. ‘Then you have an admirer who getting out of my bird infested flat as Mother demurred. I could tell she was is not only rich but mindlessly romantic. soon as I can. But I did ring Mother. I reluctant to pass up the chance of all that He is sending you items from an old raved at her rather. She may have money in the family. But after I had told song—it used to be very popular two thought I was insane at first, but when I her at least ten times that there was hundred years ago—called The Twelve calmed down and described the geese— absolutely no chance of my marrying this Days of Christmas.’ by the way, the one on the sofa had laid idiot, even if he owned the universe, she ‘Then whoever he is, he hasn’t a notion an egg when I got back—she began to said, ‘Well, darling, I’ll phone him and try how angry he’s making me!’ I said. see I might be having real trouble. She to put it tactfully.’ said, in the cautious, respectful way she ‘The idiot thinks he’s wooing you,’ Liam If she did phone dear Franz, she has had always talks about money, ‘Well, you said. ‘He probably belongs to one of no effect. The swans arrived this might be talking about Franz Dodeca, I those societies where they trail about in morning, seven of them. Along with six suppose. Not that he would do a thing medieval clothes, or armour and so more geese etcetera, etcetera. At least I like that, of course. He owns forth. But he’s also up to date enough to got five more gold rings. They came with Multiphones and SpeekEasi and tamper with your Housebot and a note of dreadful pleading, signed ‘Your Household Robotics and he’s a multi- probably bug your phone. So think of eternally loving Franz,’ which looked odd millionaire and he’s naturally very much any of the rich men you know who fit in round shop-assistant writing. I respected.’ this description and then you’ll have him. suppose Mother must have phoned the Come on. Think.’ ‘Which is he?’ I asked. ‘Of the freaks you man, since he seems to know that his introduced to me.’
7 Volume 14 No. 3 PLOKTA MAY 2009 cover is now blown. But it doesn’t seem was, I dimly remember, insistent that I whole herd of cows. Eight of them to have stopped him throw away my phone and scrap anyway. They were being driven by eight Housebot. The man has no idea! young women who, to do them justice, The swans had obviously been drugged. were looking a bit self-conscious about The delivery crew carried them in big But this memory has made me realise it. People in cars and on the pavements drooping armfuls, through the living that I will almost certainly get more were stopping to stare. Some folk had room and into the patio, where they swans and more geese tomorrow. I can’t followed them from Picadilly, apparently. carefully wedged them into the pool. The rely on Mother to stop them. There is no You don’t often see cows in London geese waddled in after. There are now more room in the patio pool. But it has these days. twelve of them and they’re laying eggs occurred to me that the big house next everywhere. As if it wasn’t enough to be door, which belongs to my last— My stomach felt queer. I knew they were overrun with hens—also laying—and a stepfather-but-two, has a large garden for me. And they were. Honestly, how new set of green screaming parrots. The with an ornamental as-it-were lake in it. I can this Dodeca even imagine I might swans were just waking up when I left. shall phone Stepdaddy Five. As far as I want eight cows? Cows are not in the Housebot tried to make me an omelette know, he’s still in a hut in Bali, recovering least romantic. Their noses run and they before I went and I nearly threw up. from having been married to Mother. drop cowpats all the time as they walk. They dropped more cowpats through January 1st 2234 New Year’s Day I got through to him eventually. He was, Stepdaddy Five’s nice hallway as I as ever, sweet about it all. ‘Isn’t that just Thank heavens! Even the Dodeca showed the lot of them out into his like your mother!’ he said. ‘I know Franz millions can’t make anyone in this garden. I said to the girls, ‘If you want to Dodeca slightly. He’s a total obsessive, country work on New Year’s Day. No stay, this house has fourteen bedrooms too rich for his own good. Come here to further birds arrived. Nothing came. and there’s a pizza takeaway down the Bali and I’ll undertake to keep him off Relief! Or it would be if the swans didn’t road. Feel free.’ I was feeling more than a you.’ fight the geese all the time. And I realised little light-headed by then. The parrots when I got in around four this morning Well, I couldn’t do that. It strikes me as don’t help. that the place smells. Horribly. Of bird incest. Instead I asked him to lend me Now it’s got worse. Mr Wikinson arrived droppings, rotting seeds and old feathers. the garden of his house next door. He half an hour after the cows and bawled Housebot can’t keep up with the agreed like a shot and gave me the entry me out for allowing a herd of cows to cleaning. code at once. But he warned me that his trample his lawn. I said I would get rid of caretaker gardener might not be pleased. I shall have to stop wearing my Stiltskins. them as soon as I could. I was going to He said he would phone this Mr My feet are killing me after last night. phone Mother and extract this Dodeca’s Wilkinson and explain. ‘And keep me One of my big toes has gone kind of phone number from her and then phone posted,’ he said. ‘Nothing happens here twisted. I have very hazy memories of him and tell him to come and take his in Bali. It suits me, but I like a bit of the fun, though I do recall that I ran into livestock away. And see how he liked it. distant action from time to time.’ Liam at the Markham’s firework party Before I could, though, a severe woman and, besides jeering at my Stiltskins, he January 2nd 2234 with a mighty bosom turned up on the wanted to know if I’d consulted his list doorstep, saying she was from the Bird Just as well I made that arrangement with yet. I said I didn’t want to know. I told Protection Trust and that my neighbours Stepdaddy Five. They brought yesterday’s him about dear Franz too—I think. He across the street had reported me for swans etcetera today, plus today’s lot. cruelty to birds. They had, she said, Making fourteen inert, heavy floppy counted one hundred and seven various swans and twelve more geese. I showed birds being delivered to my flat— the lot through Stepdaddy Five’s front busybodies!—where they were certainly door and out to the lake in his garden. overcrowded. I was to release them to The geese seemed to like it there. When better quarters, she said, or be liable for the trees and the pigeons and the hens prosecution. came, I showed them out there too. But the parrots had to stay with me because After Mr Wilkinson, she was the last they were not hardy enough, they said. straw. I told her to get the hell out. At least I got ten more gold rings. January 3rd 2234 We are getting seriously short of No, the last straw was today. I did phone birdfood. I went round to the corner Mother last night and she did, after a lot shop, but they don’t open till tomorrow. of squirming, give me Dodeca’s private Avian Foodstuffs are on holiday for the number. The trouble was that I didn’t week. Again. know what to say, and all these parrots I don’t believe this! The swans were not make it so difficult to think—not to speak all. I was just about to cross the road of yet another swan versus goose fight Miss Scott: Headmistress from the corner shop when I saw, erupting every five minutes. My God trudging and bawling down the street, a those birds can be vicious! Then I sat on
8 MAY 2009 PLOKTA Volume 14 No. 3 an egg when I started to phone Dodeca ‘Liam,’ I said, ‘I’ve got nine trampolines beep. ‘I’m so grateful for all the things and gave up. I said I’d do it today. now. Is it really true that I’m going to get you’ve been sending me. You’ve really ballet dancers and skirling Scotsmen next?’ gone to my heart. Why don’t you come Today started with those cowgirls here and join me in my flat? Come soon. coming round here whining and ‘Pretty certainly,’ he said, ‘if you got And then we’ll see.’ And I rang off, with whingeing. There were beds, but no milkmaids yesterday. Did you?’ the delightful thought of dear Franz sheets or blankets next door, they said, ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Liam, I have had enough.’ arriving and the traitor Housebot letting and it was not what they were used to. him in among all this. And where did they put the twenty ‘What do you expect me to do about it?’ gallons of milk? I said pour it away, why he said. More than all this it would be, I discovered not? And they said it was a waste. as I left. Another herd of cows was ‘Marry me,’ I said. ‘Take me away from Anyway, I got rid of them in the end, but coming down the street, lowing and cow- all this.’ only by ordering a stack of sheets and patting as it came. From the other blankets online, which cost a bomb. There was a dreadful, long silence. I direction, I could see the big lady from thought he had hung up on me. I the Birds Protection or whatever it was, Then the bird deliveries began. By then wouldn’t have blamed him. But at length advancing. She seemed to have a police- we were almost out of birdfeed, so I he said, ‘Only if you can assure me that man with her. And Mr Wilkinson was ushered this lot, swans included, into I’m not just an escape for you.’ just storming out of Stepdaddy Five’s Stepdaddy’s Five’s garden and raced off front door. I ran the other way, past the to the corner shop. They only had canary I assured him, hand on heart. I told him herd of cows. And who should I see but food, so I bought all they had of that. I that the mere thought of Franz Dodeca the nice courier lad just getting out of his was staggering towards my flat with it had made me realise that Liam was the van with a fifth parcel of rings. when I saw an entirely new sort of van only man for me. ‘Otherwise I’d get on a drawing up and Housebot, that traitor, plane and go to my sister in Sweden,’ I said. I stopped him. ‘You know me, don’t blandly opening my front door to it. The ‘Or maybe to Bali, to Stepdaddy Five.’ you?’ I said. ‘Can I sign for them now men in it began unloading and putting and save you coming to my door?’ He ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Are you coming round together a large number of frameworks. innocently did let me and I raced away here at once?’ I crossed the road and asked them what with the parcel. ‘I’ve brought you a the hell they were doing. ‘Quite soon,’ I said. ‘I have to fix Dodeca dowry!’ I said to Liam as I arrived— first.’ We then exchanged a surprising They said, ‘Out of the way, miss. We ‘No, Liam, don’t! I haven’t finished yet!’ number of endearments before I rang have to get all these into this flat here.’ off and raced back to my flat for what I A male voice: ‘Don’t be stupid, Sam. You know I said, ‘But what are they?’ sincerely hope was the last time. he’ll be listening in. Do you want him to know where we are? I’m going to throw this away ‘Trampolines, miss,’ they said. I got back just as a minibus drove up and before you tell him any more.’ unloaded half a dozen fit-looking young This caused me to bolt into my flat and men in scarlet robes and coronets and The diary ends here race about scattering canary food and three more middle-aged ones, who looking for that list Liam gave me. I looked equally fit. Most of them were found it just as they manoeuvered the carrying bottles of champagne first trampoline in. There were supposed and clearly looking forward to to be nine of them. How they thought some fun. They all poured into they were going to fit them in I have no my flat ahead of me. I had to idea. As I opened the list, one of the sidle among them and past the men got attacked by the broody goose men squeezing the last on the sofa and they all went outside to trampoline in and past several let it settle down. Liam had written, enraged geese and terrified ‘Ninth day: Nine lords a-leaping; Tenth partridges to get to my phone— day: Ten ladies dancing; Eleventh Day: a phone dear Franz was Eleven pipers piping...’ certainly bugging. While I I didn’t read any more. I gave a wild wail punched in his number, the and raced into my bedroom, where all chaps all climbed on the the parrots seemed to have congregated, trampolines and began solemnly and to shrieks of ‘I love you, Samantha,’ I bouncing up and down. One of packed all the parcels of rings into my the geese accidentally joined handbag for safety and raced out again to them. I had to put my hand over the nearest public phone, praying it one ear to detect that I had got wouldn’t have been vandalised. Dodeca’s answering service. Good. It wasn’t. I got through to Liam. ‘What is it now?’ he said grumpily. ‘Franz, dear,’ I said after the Signora De Cesare: Home Economics
9 Volume 14 No. 3 PLOKTA MAY 2009
A Virginʼs Guide to Toilet Etiquette By Phil Bradley
This is in the word of advice column to Contest (Midlands Division). Then stop you looking like a total idiot, should things start to slow down, as time plays there be any danger of this happening— funny tricks on your brain. I say as if you’re travelling on Virgin Trains calmly as I can ‘push the button! push (which is probably about as sane as the button!’. However, the designers of sitting in a car going no-where on the the super dooper hi tech loo have M25), but if you are, and you decide to arranged matters so that it’s not possible go to the loo, there are three buttons for you to sit on the loo AND push the when you get inside their superdooper buttons at the same time. Oh no. So you water closets. Button one, marked ‘close have to stand up, which isn’t easy with door’ closes the door. Button two, your knickers around your ankles. marked ‘lock door’, locks the door. So then I’m poised... do I try and turn Button three, marked ‘open door’ opens around and block the view? This won’t the door. 3 buttons. 3 simple operations work because that sucker of a door is that even a retarded monkey on prozac large , and growing larger at every could manage on a bad day blindfold. Cain Major: Head Girl (Lower School) second. There’s probably a camera crew Take note of these buttons and use Cain Minor: Bad Example down the aisle somewhere rushing to get them. it all on video for the 8 o’clock news scream. Eventually you are able to reach If you don’t, it’s entirely likely that summary. So that is a nonstarter. Do I up, and push the button, but by now, I’ve someone like me, who wants to use the reach into the loo, and try and push the decided that dithering isn’t what it’s loo is going to come up to the door of button myself? The trouble with this cracked up to be, and have made a move the hi-tech hole in the ground and press approach is that the bastard thing is to reach in, across your prostrate body ‘open’. When this happens, several things going to know, it IS going to know I’ve and push the bloody thing myself. will occur, almost simultaneously. You’ll just done that, and it’ll shut quicker than look up from where you’re sitting on the a trap on a mouses neck. And then god Again, things happen all at once. I reach loo, doing your business. You’ll see the help me I’ll be stuck inside the loo, with in, you push the button and the door door opening, people struggling to get a total stranger sitting on it, screaming. A decides to imitate one of the more past on their way to the buffet car, and car in a blizzard on the M25 would be wicked traps from Indiana Jones and the other people generally milling around preferable. Toilet of Doom and snaps shut on my doing nothing because there isn’t a seat wrist. Of course, you breath a sigh of So I dither. I’m not usually a ditherer. for them, and you’ll realise that you’re relief, since your part of the ordeal is Dithering is not what I do. But I bloody about to spend the rest of your life with over. But not so fast my friend with a well do this time. Eventually, you stagger this horror etched deeply into your brain. face hotter than the sun. Because the to your feet, clothes around your ankles, That’s the first thing. The second thing is door, sensing an obstruction, leaps open and make a stab for the button. Relief is that you’ll scream. The third thing is that again. This time however, things go a at hand. Well, it would be. Except.. I’ll scream. After that, the door will little better, since I dive out of the way, except that at this precise moment, the continue to open, wider and wider, like a and you hit the button again. train driver decides to put his brakes on. masochists mouth at the dentist, because Hard. Which sends you, you poor The door closes, with you safely on the the high tech super dooper loo doesn’t humiliated bastard thudding across the inside, me safely on the outside and realise what’s going on. Your scream of cubicle, unable to get your balance, given peace can once again reign supreme. The horror, mingled with my scream of that your underwear is trying to get you good news is that you have now suffered surprise is going to make people look in a grip a large python would be pleased the most embarassing thing that will ever around. And they’re going to see, as God with. You fall to the ground. Meanwhile happen to you in your entire life. is my witness, you sitting on the loo. I’m still outside the door, my dilemma Nothing will ever be able to match it. Which makes you scream again. Louder even worse now—do I come in and help, Meanwhile, I have to go off and find this time. or stay outside? What IS the correct another loo, since there is no way you’re Meanwhile I jump back and stamp on thing to do here? I’ll bet that it’s not in going to open it again are you? In fact, someone’s foot, which doesn’t actually Mrs Fotheringdales Book of Etiquette I you’re going to stay there for the rest of impress them too much, and they’ll spill can assure you. So I stand by the door, the journey, and will only emerge when their cup of napalm everywhere, and pointing desperately at the buttons, you are sure that everyone has got off at they’ll scream as well. By now the Virgin almost hopping up and down in rage, Euston. train looks as though it’s playing host to frustration and embarassement on your Traveling anywhere? Trust me, don’t do the UK All comers National Screaming behalf ‘the button! push the button!’ I it. It’s a Bad Idea.
10 MAY 2009 PLOKTA Volume 14 No. 3
Science Fiction By Paul Cornell
Empt tried to ignore the horrible thing depressives, and were they all now having interaction between these factions, and that Shant had just said to him. He didn’t the best time, a home to go to. the contempt they felt for each other, want to think about it. So he sat there, seemed to keep the whole genre going. He especially seemed to like to have watching the windows buckle. The light Reading a text, reviewing it, not reading Empt come over and pitch him hopeless in Shant’s office was playing in and out in another one, had all become political tales. ‘Like’ not in a kindly, avuncular, a slow breathing motion as the glass acts. There were some things all the way, but in a sadistic, some small stretched back and forth. It felt like they readerships agreed upon: Doctor Who was satisfaction derived from the timeful men were all lightly springing up and down in not in any way a children’s genre, but left drowning in timelessness sort of way. a piano chord that had just been struck. there could be no depiction of, or even Exactly that sort of way. mention of, sexual practices in genre The effect wasn’t visible everywhere, just works; the work of previous authors in places with a particular sort of If only Empt could have come up with a established a template, a fixed form window. better way to say what that sort of way which it was acceptable to simply repeat was. Then he’d know himself, and be And of course, Shant always wanted to elements from, but deviation from which able to write Science Fiction. have a particular sort of everything. introduced the possibility that a new Empt had his arms full of the soft toys, faction might be developed. There was a Empt liked to think that the warp of the with the big warm rug wrapped around complexity of rules behind when that windows was caused by the weight of him and a hot drink in his hand. Shant might happen, and when change was the 2050s bearing down on this end of provided these things to make his sadism acceptable, that Empt suspected had the Corridor. But that was because he’d all the more precise. He’d taken a sip of been invented just to keep outsiders in lived through the 2050s back in Time the drink and asked what it was, but that the dark. Classic, and that decade was a similar had made Shant go into a long weight on his own shoulders. Several of the factions had established explanation of farming practices, import communities at the absolute lower end of Being with Shant always made him think duties and global trade, and Empt had the Corridor, living near the Time Ring, about what caused things. Why he did had to slurp louder and louder until he in order to be as close to the 1970s as what he did. Why he couldn’t do certain stopped. Empt hadn’t even heard what possible. A more radical group had sent things. the drink was called. an expedition back in time—that is, He hated being with Shant. He took another sip of it now, and they’d taken their bicycles back down the gathered his confidence to return to the Corridor—to assassinate Margaret Westerns were popular. Stories about the matter at hand. To that horrible phrase Atwood before she invented Doctor Who provenance of antiques were popular. Shant had just used. ‘They don’t suit your for herself. All it came to was some Stories set during the short reign of present needs,’ he repeated, boggled. shouting at her gate and a sinister Phelandeer in North West India were ‘Don’t tell me they don’t suit your package left on her step, which turned popular, as every culture shouted itself present needs when there isn’t a present!’ out to contain some warm milk in small from up and down the Corridor. bottles and was marked with a return Genres died. Even now people didn’t. Whatever the Tall Men from the other address. Melodrama. Kitchen sink. Some, like end of the Corridor liked would be pantomime, kept the name going Empt envied that life from such a popular, if they’d ever stop from their through many deaths. The genres that distance. He did not have the right stuff walking and find some money in there died after the Time Ring came online to be a Doctor Who writer, and thus was and purchase something so we could were now just what played in those barred from the only popular market for know what that might be. places way down the Corridor where his fantasies. Attempting to write Science But what Empt wanted to write wasn’t nobody fashionable went. Fiction was a poor substitute. popular. Empt wished he hadn’t thought of He would love to have had the aut.fan Shant was the editor of a Science Fiction pantomime. The way it died and geneset. He loved what he saw of those magazine. resurrected all the time. superior people who wanted justice and fairness and the rules to dominate Shant wasn’t going to go out of business, That had taken his thoughts back to human life, and not frail chaos. The way obviously, not unless he put in a request Doctor bloody Who. they cut through social convention to get to the analogue supervisors for a change Nine different flourishing ranges, each to the point, to the truth, thrilled him. to be made. And why would he do that? with a different audience and continuity. Their humour was based on dissonance, He was the saint of lost causes. He The readership was factionalised, divided on things not being as they should be. seemed to like to give a bunch of into communities that each emphasised There was another strand that took huge, one particular aspect of the Canon. The cosmic, concepts and compared them in
11 Volume 14 No. 3 PLOKTA MAY 2009 absurd splendour to the everyday things whether it was true or not, and wouldn’t real world now. And for some reason, in of home and hearth. do it if he hadn’t. order to do that, we’ve elected to write about anything but the thing we’re Aren’t we still far from the pompous business of Empt had written many stories about a writing about. But there’s something, I the interstellar? the jokes asked. Aren’t we different eccentric with some sort of time don’t know, imprinted in the genre itself still so far from perfection? Why can’t we tell the machine that wasn’t the Time Ring. that means that the science has to be truth? There were markets for those. Like there possibly right, has to give you that feeling were markets for tribute bands. So near Even now the Corridor had come, it was of ooh, it might be true! Even though it and yet so far. They made him want to funny because it was true. It was a subtle never is.’ shake the money off his fingers. wit, an editor’s wit, and he tried to ‘I understand that. I have male genes, emulate it, but he wasn’t made the right So Empt was writing Science Fiction even if they’re not aut!’ way, so he couldn’t. Ironically. because he couldn’t write Doctor Who. Or even Doctor Who Light. He had fallen that ‘Your problem is that you’re just not The Doctor Whos also had the Canon, in far. And even down here, they wouldn’t confident enough to bullshit your readers all their varying editions of it, their final buy his stories. into thinking that the science –‘ arbiter of all life. It was said that the Canon contained a reference to ‘Listen,’ said Shant, oh so gently. ‘SF is ‘Which isn’t real-‘ everything that could ever happen or had the hardest possible genre. Look at what ‘Could be.’ ever happened. Empt had found in you’ve brought me. This first story, quite Science Fiction only a distant echo of retro, which is good… hey, maybe there’s ‘But they and I both know it isn’t.’ the comforts of the Canon: an urge an audience for SF that could be the SF ‘Pretend! Be a magician!’ towards completeness, to creating of the past… the one you wrote about universes for comfort. But for some the people marooned on the asteroid… ‘Write about a magician?’ reason these SF universes insisted at the They don’t get out of their problem. ‘No!’ Shant roared. ‘Absolutely not! Be a same time that they were possible, and They just sit there. They talk about magician! It’s a metaphor.’ realistic, and a word was often used that “making it go with some sort of mirror, he didn’t understand: ‘edgy’. because mirrors reflect sunlight, don’t ‘Like my pieces of paper.’ they?” and then they all die.’ ‘Edgy but comfy’ Shant had once said to ‘Only this one,’ Shant growled, bending him. ‘That’s what I’m after.’ ‘Well. They would. None of them are to stare into Empt’s eyes, ‘is being scientists or engineers.’ described with considerably more force.’ Empt felt then that now he should be able to understand Canon completely, Shant shook his head as if Empt was He broke off the glaring after a moment because now he’d heard everything. missing some vital point. ‘And turning to and sighed back to his desk. ‘It’s because The Shift…’ The Shift was a story Empt of time,’ he muttered. ‘Now there isn’t Empt had tried to change his geneset by had written about the transformation of any, genres have fixed around specific the ‘taxi driver’ method. He’d tried to current physics into another set of events and locations from before the change his physical brain by changing physical laws. ‘There isn’t really any Time Ring went online. Which leaves us how his mind worked, as taxi drivers science here, is there? As far as I can where? SF, after all, is historical fiction added new detail to their hippocampus make out, your heroine keeps moving about things that never happened.’ by memorising the streets of cities. He pieces of paper over each other. A had taken the Vaj, the watchthrough, the ‘But that’s a thriving genre. There are metaphor, I see that. Then she mentions journey of viewing one episode a day, hundreds of books like that.’ the names of some subatomic particles, every day, from the First Story to the there’s quite a bit of science mentioned, ‘No, no, you’re thinking of Literature. Last Certain Canonical Story (very much but none of it seems to actually do Stories about history that went a a misnomer, actually, because it was anything—’ different way. Alternate universes, they suggested in some quarters that nothing is used to be called. I should be more Canon and everyone else disagreed about ‘I am sorry about that. It’s just that there precise. SF is historical fiction about where the Canon ended). But the rosy isn’t really any actual science that would things that never will happen. Or it was. circle on his chart had stayed rosy. do that. I just wanted to imply there was.’ When we didn’t know what never would It was said that if you went to the other ‘No, no, that’s fine. SF is like that. We’re happen and what would. Now we do end of the Corridor, to the Heat Death meant to know things that might happen know, SF has become historical fiction of the Universe, and drove back one of in science, but of course we don’t, none about… nothing.’ the hire cars that tended to end up there, of this stuff ever actually comes true. ‘Tough call.’ you moved your set towards aut.fan for And with the Corridor, now it never will. some reason. But Empt wouldn’t hear of We’re really talking, as everyone who’s ‘Indeed. As I said, the hardest possible doing that. A Doctor Who, or even a written SF has always said, over and over, genre. It’s awful to have to do this Science Fiction reader, he maintained, in every possible publication, but has without a dogma like Doctor Who to help would have a Consensus to hand never been listened to by anyone in the you.’ concerning why that should work, mainstream and why the hell is that anyway?… about what’s happening in the
12 MAY 2009 PLOKTA Volume 14 No. 3
Empt got to his feet, determined. ‘I’ll They had created a whole genre as their He wondered if any of them had find something to write about.’ home, and knew it. A corner for thought that the Corridor might sustain themselves to stand in. that standing wave, that time might ‘Don’t find it. If it can be found, it’s not somehow be intimately tied in with SF.’ He ran through their drug slang in his human consciousness… with the head: A, story A, 100,000 BC or An ‘I’m a good writer.’ depression of being a writer. Unearthly Child depending on which of ‘You’ve certainly got a great imagination.’ the two most popular interpretations one Erm… somehow. followed: that stood for amphetamines, Empt glared at him, shocked. ‘And your Empt was sure he had it in him to be one speed, not huge with the Doctor Whos mother was a whore.’ of the Doctor Whos. He recalled a because they were inclined to paranoia defining event from his childhood. This and nervous tension anyway. Similarly for had been in the 2050s. You weren’t C, coke, Beyond the Sun or Inside the supposed to know about your own Spaceship. Their favourite drug was The Empt drove home in his car. defining events, really, not in real life. But Keys of Marinus, just a half being halfway he framed such things, and then found The vehicle worked by a process called through the story, The Screaming Jungle. that knowing what made you didn’t help internal combustion. Fuel was forced ‘Broton,’ he whispered to himself. you rewrite it. Or even, actually, write it. into a compressed cylinder where it was ‘Warlord of the Zygons. Yartek, Leader ignited by an electrical spark. The It had been at junior school. A huge gang of the Alien Voord.’ That had a kind of cylinder was then forced to expand, of children, himself included, all aged poetry to it. You could sing that to the providing motive power. around seven, had been picking sides for tune of I’m Into Something Good. a fight. (They’d decided, all of them, in Discuss. Only Empt wasn’t. that infinite time of a couple of days, The Doctor Whos called it ‘a sprightly that they didn’t like one particular little yellow roadster’. One of their most girl. They were all girls and boys together famous topoi. They had a topos for then, and it was all the same hitting and every occasion. No realism could exist, or The pathetic fallacy is a problem for name calling, before that got separated even be conceived to exist, that was not writers, because it tells you that when out into gender with age and gritty. The Doctor Whos didn’t have the bad things happen to you it’s because awkwardness.) obsession with reduction that the SFs you’ve been bad. Sometimes the fallacy So they chose and chose, and it soon did, so Empt felt naturally more at home coincides with the chaos of the universe, looked like everyone would be fighting with them, but they had all these other and you get on a run: good things the little girl. There must have been rules of mind that he couldn’t make happen because you’re a good person. twenty on one side, ganging around a himself right for. ‘Curate’s egg…’ he Empt entered his house, a dwelling made boy called Martin. And there was just the muttered to himself as he drove. ‘Good of ceramic bricks, arranged around a little girl on the other side. They were all in parts.’ One could never just leave the ventilation and heating system, where he going to fight her. first part of that quotation hanging and and his pet cat, a small feline predator of expect the world to get the meaning. And last to choose was Empt. limited intelligence, made their home. He One had to demonstrate which side one made himself a cup of strong, sweet tea He was going to join the big side. Of was on. One had to be sure the world and sat down. course he was. That was the only un- got the meaning. stupid thing to do. He remembered What if, he thought, the pathetic fallacy It was as if all the Doctor Whos, even if taking a step towards them. sets up a kind of harmonic, a standing they were just readers, knew what it was wave between events and one’s mental But then he stepped back, and went to to be a writer. As if their culture had attitude that produces a kind of stand beside the little girl. been waiting to make writers. emergent behaviour? You might call that His motives had been complicated. He It was like they’d invented a new language God in the world. had wondered, he remembered, if a not to liberate themselves—though the He wondered if they’d considered that teacher might come along. He had references back to their Canons and when they set up the Corridor. Whoever thought even then that there was story codes made communication they had been. Everyone had woken up something dodgy about being one of between them very swift—but to confine one day and realised time was over, and it twenty all attacking a girl. He hadn’t been themselves. To limit thought that might was only in the chaos of the next few old enough to fancy her, though otherwise run amok. To focus ‘days’ that people realised that things like everyone on the other side had told him themselves on creation. To make a the analogue, a big new device which he loved her. Then that he was her. civilisation, a culture that at first nobody created ‘days’, were open to individuals, knew about, and when it was known More than anything else, he remembered to organisations, to governments. about it was derided, and then… that he’d had a romantic notion inside Whoever had made this toy had left it for him. Or perhaps he’d put that in there everyone to play with. with age and remembering. That that was his hero thing, when all the other little
13 Volume 14 No. 3 PLOKTA MAY 2009 boys had had hero things about shooting wasn’t sure why there still was money, something. A divine power. A being. At loads of people or blowing up jungles except that he’d die without it. People the very least an artefact created or with their planes. said there wasn’t, further up the found by whoever had made the tunnel. Corridor, but who could afford to move The latter would be unknowable in SF, He would defend the bullied. And not be there? but meaningful nonetheless, the author one of the bullies. of time and space having known but He would be never cruel or cowardly. concealed the meaning. It wouldn’t be just one of those things that nobody The big gang had hit them both a lot, That weekend, he started a new story, knew. But in Doctor Who, there would be which wasn’t so bad, in the way of fights and tried to keep all fantasy out of it character and comfort to that mystery. when you’re that age, just a lot of completely. Beings in robes, according to the Doctor grabbing and useless thumping, Whos, were in control of time, black armoured by pullovers. It was about someone who rode his holes, death, evil, order and chaos. All bicycle from one end of time to the The little girl hadn’t even been really that the major pantheistic roles had been other. pleased with him, or at least he couldn’t assigned to portly British men with remember her being. It had just been Halfway, Empt put down his pen and upper class accents. something that happened. He didn’t even wept. And so they should be. remember her name. Which was weird, because the hero at the But that was why, he felt, he was a Doctor centre of that pantheon, the Prometheus Who inside. He found himself walking out of his who the Doctor Whos followed (all the That was why he deserved to be. door before he knew what he was doing. Canons had him giving fire to mankind in the first story) was a very absurd, very He knew there was no dramatic existentialist hero, who couldn’t find imperative for him to do so, but even anything inside himself to take seriously. though he was living a story now, he left Empt worked at one of the installations a note with his next door neighbour, and Somehow, they’d made comfort out of that maintained the stability of the his keys, and all his money, so she could that. Out of this absurd world. Corridor. One of the Props. It wasn’t a look after his cat. skilled job. He and his fellow workers That was yet another reason Empt had to enter code from a read out into a And then he left, to walk forever. wanted to be a Doctor Who. keyboard. Nobody knew why. There He walked through the mean streets of were surely computers that could have the near future, and then into the done all this on their own. Perhaps complicated realms of the not quite so nobody had asked them nicely enough. He was heading into the sunlit uplands near future, where nobody really knew Perhaps human random error had to be of the far future, a world where what they were doing and sometimes you part of the process. Or perhaps not. teleportation was possible, and everyone saw spaceships launching from tattered They were all told, when they joined, that walked around in what looked like old camps of rebels, and everything their work was vital, and that doing what leather nappies, but still carried missed everything else and it all got a bit they did kept the Corridor going. briefcases, when he heard the squeaking Star Trek. He liked those bits, where sound of hard-pedalled bicycles coming Empt was sure that, if he read up in the there was no real textual authority, where up the road behind him. technical journals, he could have found Canons disagreed. They reminded him of out the answer. Well, if he’d first home. They were all around him in a moment, managed to get a degree in mathematics. the gallant boys. They were dressed in He walked, feeling hungry now, night Anyhow, it wasn’t a big mystery, but like jaunty waistcoats and long coats. A after night, day after day, day after night, so many things, that still meant that number of them were trying to keep hats through polluted futures with sprawling nobody really knew what it was all about. on their heads. Their bicycles surrounded cities, federations rising and falling, him and forced him to stop. Hundreds of them worked at the Prop, empires replacing them and then being and nobody lasted more than a couple of replaced themselves. Nobody stopped They looked at him with their fierce eyes. weeks. They moved the big numbers from him. He saw Surrey invaded, many times, He raised his hands above his head and the display to the boards and kept them in but everything was always okay again in a shouted. ‘Doesn’t anybody care about their heads with the nursery rhymes as they couple of weeks. Still, he decided to walk history?!’ walked across the running floor. After only through Cornwall instead for a while, a few days, Empt had started to find and that worked out fine, no aliens in The looks became quizzical. certain big numbers funny, or fond, or sight. annoying, a process which was called He was walking, he decided, quite a long getting your head on. time after he’d started, to the end of the They put him to the test. He knew the The job meant he got money, which he Corridor. He wanted to see what was at answers better than they did. Which used to purchase goods and services. He the end of time. Obviously, there’d be
14 MAY 2009 PLOKTA Volume 14 No. 3 nearly got him disqualified, because they One of the leaders began, in little The others knew what was there. They wondered for a while if he was making moments of veracity between a rolling just liked to go and see it, to worship up new ones. mass of jokes and wordplays that Empt, themselves and what they had done. It hesitantly, began to join in with, to cast a great shadow, across the silvery They were so afraid of being mocked. explain. He talked about how the Doctor plains. The shadow was what had been Empt understood. The parodies had Whos had gone, in Time Classic, from entropy. The first bad and undoing thing: been so wide of the mark, never loving something at a distance to owning stopped in its tracks. Comfort had been captured how strange these new people it. They’d taken it to pieces. And then found in the shadow of death. were, what odd and functional they’d taken it, in pieces. communities they made. And yet the The Doctor Whos had long accepted a parodies were also exactly true, by the ‘First we take Manhattan, then we take future where the Earth would die and be standards of those who did the mocking. Berlin,’ the leader quoted, but Empt resurrected, many times. But there was didn’t know from what. They’d taken an end to the Corridor, because they They didn’t threaten him, because they over their own primary text as a mob were also in love with endings. Endings were never cruel or cowardly. But he felt invading a building, a revolution with no and beginnings, all at once. threatened from inside himself. He felt real thought or leader, the only idea he was crawling through a maze in the Here they became the Tall Men, and being that they just wanted it. dark, a fogou of information. What they sometimes they walked back down into asked him turned from information to And when they had it, they didn’t know time, and had nothing to do with money. matters of taste, turned into the what to do. They couldn’t find a single At the end of the Corridor there was of worrying area of subjectivity. But he was passion amongst themselves. course, a being. A portly, English being, pleased. That meant he was accepted as But then some of them had started to whose job it was to give everyone who someone who knew what they were meet and talk about the way their passed here a new body and resurrect talking about, and could be confronted continuity ate itself. They’d all lived every sentient in a time capsule of their with matters of Canon. through, by then, years the content of own. The mass it would take to do that To his shame, he chose a Canon. When which their own fictions had predicted. boggled Empt’s physics. But then it Canon is supposed to choose you. He The fiction had talked about the arrival didn’t: he’d got his physics from the very chose the first, central, basic one, that of Earth’s twin planet, Mondas, in 1985, thing that was doing it. The mass driver Canon ended with Survival and rose again and then still been there in 1985 to see it at the end of the universe had a grin on with Rose. It was a hard choice. not happen. his face and a shock of wild, curly hair, and wore a multicoloured costume. They might have just gotten back on They had found themselves living their bicycles and gone away. through their own imaginative territory. ‘Oh,’ said Empt. ‘I was hoping for Tom.’ But instead they nodded, and started to It gave them the idea that history needn’t The Doctor Whos all laughed. And that laugh at him and at each other. be a circle. It could be a straight line. was when they felt the first rumble Time and space could be made bigger on underneath their feet. Empt felt hope in him. He had been the inside than the outside. accepted. He had found his home. They finally decided to make the Time Ring on November 23rd, 2063. Shant was talking to another writer when ‘The best the previous geneset could do he saw his windows start buckling. They took him with them. was global warming,’ said the leader. He was listening to the writer explain a They didn’t need to eat, they explained, ‘They had to make way for homo very promising idea: what if the universe this far down the Corridor. Life had superior,’ said another leader. was a different shape to what we’ve been become separated from commerce here. told, not just one shape, but a different Empt understood now. The Doctor Whos Almost every member of the group of shape for everyone? had finally decided to bully reality like lads was the leader of it in some way. reality had bullied them. Thanks to them, They just had time to fall from one side They all followed some other, distant, the human race would now be running of Shant’s office to the other, and then leaders. They couldn’t agree. But they up and down one Corridor. back. were not afraid. They said they had been, in Time Classic, but not now, in the Excellent! And then the office, the block it was in, Corridor. and all the streets and homes and businesses and anchors of the past They cycled along with a new bike for started to slide. Empt, plucked from the side of the road How long did it take them to get to the where its last user had left it. They went Against their will, the whole of the end of the Corridor? How long is a piece on. The land around them changed, human race went running down the of string? Empt found himself in a became shiny and pristine, glorious Corridor. sexual relationship with one of the lads, bridges and silver cities filling the space. but it didn’t last. They kept cycling. Towards the future.
15 Volume 14 No. 3 PLOKTA MAY 2009 Eating Around Sunningdale Park By Steve Davies
There are three main areas with 4. Bluebells (01344 622722, www.bluebells- 8. North of the railway bridge in restaurants in the vicinity of the site: restaurant.co.uk) is probably the best Sunninghill can be found perhaps the Sunningdale, Sunninghill and Ascot. In restaurant in the area, with aspirations most promising concentration of general, the restaurants are moderately to Michelin star status. restaurants in the area including The expensive and we don’t recommend just Sun Cafe (01344 638832), the Jade 5. Sunningdale is divided into two halves. wandering around hoping to find a cheap Fountain Chinese Restaurant North of the railway crossing can be Indian. You may want to get a taxi (01344 627070, recommended by local found Pizza Express (01344 628277), (01344 297297 for A to Z Cars in residents), the Viceroy Indian and Chatts gastropub (0871 9170007). Sunninghill) or drive to the area you’re Restaurant (01344 873062) and the There are also a coffee bar and heading for. If in doubt, we recommend Rajvoog Indian Restaurant (01344 Hamiltons Tea Rooms. If you prefer you try Sunninghill. 873636). The Rajvoog does a Sunday takeway, there is a Dominos Pizza buffet menu as well as a selection of The map above shows the location of (01344 870000) who will deliver to the thalis (including a vegetarian thali). The the site, marked with a star. hotel. Jade Fountain is a large Chinese 1. The nearest restaurant to the site is the 6. Just south of Sunningdale railway restaurant with a reasonable selection Pazzia Italian Restaurant (01344 622 crossing, by the station, are a large of vegetarian options. 038, www.pazzia.co.uk) on the London branch of Waitrose, the Amaro 9. Sunninghill also has a couple of pubs Road, about 10 minutes’ walk from Italian Restaurant (01344 873333) that we recommend, The Carpenters Sunningdale Park (depending which and Tigers Pad Indian Restaurant Arms (01344 622763), and the Dog route you take). Pazzia offers an (01344 621215 ) as well as a takeway and Partridge (0871 9170007). interesting selection of pizzas in kebab shop. We ate at the Amaro and addition to the more standard Italian weren’t especially impressed. The 10.The final concentration of restaurants restaurant fare. Tigers Pad looks interesting though. in the area is around Ascot High Street. Because this is next to the race 2. Ascot Oriental (01344 621877, www. 7. Sunninghill is more compact than course, prices in this area tend to be a ascotoriental.com) is a very up-market Sunningdale, but is also split by the bit on the pricy side. Restaurants oriental restaurant, taking in Chinese, railway. South of the railway bridge around here include Ascot Spices Thai and Japanese elements. can be found the Mezzaluna Italian Indian Restaurant (01344 623000) Restaurant (01344 876200, 3. The nearest pub to the hotel is the and Ciao Ninety Italian Restaurant recommended by local residents), Royal Oak (01344 623625) in (01344 622285). There is supposed to Crazy Chicks Cafe (01344 628600) Sunningdale itself. According to be a Thai restaurant somewhere in the and an Indian takeway. reports, it’s pretty variable but it does centre of Ascot, but we haven’t been serve food. able to track it down as yet.
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