Issue 33 (PDF)

Volume 10 No. 1 PLOKTA March 2005 This is issue 331/3 of Plokta, edited by Steve Davies, Alison Scott and Mike Scott. It is available for letter of comment (one copy to Alison’s address is fine, we pass them over to each other), trade (copies 3 Editorial 8 Maximum Damage Don’t to each of our addresses if The Cabal Do That Mason possible, please), We seem to be working on this contribution, editorial Sue Mason convention in Glasgow in August Sue has accidentally acquired a whim, or for MP3 versions that you may have heard about. of all our vinyl records. new cat. Our lack of surprise knows no bounds. Steve Davies 4 Before They Were Famous Alison Scott 10 Fütspa! Alison describes an evening Alison Scott spent in a disused public lavatory Alison has adopted a new in Shepherd’s Bush. Alison Scott approach to acquiring superfluous technology, and now 6 Spending Money gets people to give it to her for For Dummies nothing. Mike Scott (COA) Steve Davies Steve’s spending on superfluous 11 Lokta Plokta technology is not restricted Our postbag is a little lighter than merely to buying hardware and usual, thanks to our now- software, alas. traditional delay in posting the [email protected] previous issue. www.plokta.com 7 Redemption Con Report The Plokta News Eddie Cochrane 12 Treacle Sandwiches Network is at We think it safe to say that Flick www.plokta.com/pnn/ you’ve never read a con report The second in our occasional quite like this one. series of treacle-related articles. The cabal also includes Giulia De Cesare, Sue Mason, Steven, Record Collector's Corner Marianne and Jonathan Vinyl-lovers should keep an eye out for the Plokta Cabal's rare 3-sided LP. This classic amongst albums is hard to get Cain. And not Flick. So hold of in your local record store, and copies in good nick fetch implausible amounts on eBay. Of course, our copy she insists. is in unplayed condition—not because we don't want to listen to the music, but rather because none of us own anything that plays these things any more. If you're interested in hearing the music, I suggest you seek out the tracks Cover by Alison Scott on the internet using reputable file sharing software such as Acquisition. Art by Brad Foster (3), For Our Younger Readers Galen Wainwright (5), You might have thought that the big black plastic things on the cover were weirdly shaped iPods. But no; Feòrag NicBhrìde (6, 9), astonishingly enough, it used to be possible to get rudimentary musical sounds out of the plastic by jogging a needle Sue Mason (8, 9, 10) up and down on the pitted, grooved surface. I know, it sounds pretty implausible, doesn't it? But there you have it. Just to put it into perspective, a typical 12” long playing album with its sleeve and cover weighed about ten times as Photos by Mike Scott much as an iPod Shuffle, and could store as many as a dozen songs. Provided they were short. They were called (Cover), Alison Scott (4, 5) ‘long playing’ because you could listen to 20 minutes of music all at once, before getting to perform a little ritual of taking the needle off the record, taking the record off the turntable, turning it over, putting it back on, carefully Contributors wiping off every last speck of dust, and setting the needle down again. Eddie Cochrane, 72 St Ah, those were the days. Dr Plokta's Big Band Sound: A Flock of Gophers: The Bonzo Moose Doo Dah Band: Flick, as for Mike Scott Issue 33 1/3: The Long Player Glasgow Calling Sticky Antlers Sue Mason 1. Living Next Door to Pat 1. I'd Do Anything for Vince (But 1. The Most Beautiful Moose in 2. Stand By Your Moose I Won't Do That) the World 3. Moose in White Satin 2. Sitting on the Dock of the 2. Livin' La Vida Plokta 4. When I'm Running Worldcons Clyde 3. The Devil Went Down to 5. My Old Man's a Conrunner 3. Back in the S.E.C.C. Croydon Feòrag NicBhrìde, 6. 1952 Vin¢ Clark Gestetner 4. Another Quiet Night in 4. Who Let The Moose Out? Glasgow 5. Smells Like Bombay Sapphire www.antipope.org/feorag/ 5. Won't Get Fooled Again 6. Walthamstow Sunset 6. Glaswegian Rhapsody 7. (Don't Fear) the Worldcon 2 March 2005 PLOKTA Volume 10 No. 1 Editorial BOLLOCKS They Smof For You AS we move into the tenth year of Plokta Our main headache at the moment, (and doesn’t that make us all feel old), there though, is that we’ve foolishly agreed to run http://www.theyworkforyou.com/ is a website set up to allow is a certain reluctance to make forecasts the Fan Lounge at the 2005 Worldcon in people in the UK to keep tabs on about the future. We definitely never Glasgow. We’re basically planning to make the politicians who are supposed anticipated being here, writing this editorial this as much like <plokta.con> as we can to represent them—you can surrounded by Apple computers and the possibly manage. We do expect all of you to check their voting and attendance debris of small children. Unfortunately, this is turn up and have desperate fun for the cause. records, what they’ve said in made up of debris left by small children, not We’ve therefore announced that Friday night Parliament, and so on. It’s all based on Hansard, the official debris made up of them. Fortunately for our is Space Pirate Night. Come as your favourite record of Parliamentary collective sanity, Caroline has agreed to take buccaneer, parrot, black pirate of Barsoom or proceedings. We plan to take the under-age contingent of Plokta out to the whatever. Anyone who doesn’t show up in their source code and set up theatre for the day. Order of Soviet costume will be given a suitably piratical http://www.theysmofforyou.com/ Motherhood First Class (with sticky treacle headscarf and forced to either walk a plank —we’ll feed WSFS Business cluster) that woman. or jump out of the airlock. If anyone has any Meeting minutes into it to allow suitably space piratical props, they’d also be everyone in fandom to check up With this thirty-three-and-a-third issue we on their local smof. Now you too can definitely declare ourselves to be a long- appreciated. can be emailed whenever Kevin playing fanzine (eat your heart out, Steve Alison is currently having a weird Stanley refers to Section 117 of Green). As a result we will doubtless all Kafkaesque experience in which she has Roberts Rules of Order or any gafiate before next Tuesday. In the mean woken up to discover that she’s turning into time someone mentions the time though, here are a few things by which a cockroach accountant. This will bring the eligibility criteria for the Dramatic Presentation Hugo. RSS feeds to remember us. number of accountants in the Cabal to three will be available as soon as we We have in this issue a con report from (if we ignore Flick’s feeble protestations of can get a motion passed by Eddie Cochrane. Unfortunately, as is so often non-Caballitude—I suppose we may have to WSFS on what version to use. the case with conreps these days, this does put it to a vote). Will we fall into the rather dwell on the problems of getting to the Accountancy Event Horizon? Is finance the “We do still have the bath, convention instead of the convention itself, new IT? Will we have to subtitle Plokta as the but it’s getting a bit dented” but we still think it’s well worth publishing. Journal of Superfluous Accountancy? Will our accountants take one look at the P&L In other news, Sue has acquired a new cat account for Plokta and forbid us ever to pub through the internet. The good side of this is Mind Hacks another ish? Find out in the next exciting that she somehow failed to adopt the issue. Mike recently acquired a copy of houseful of cannibal kittens that had eaten the new O’Reilly book ‘Mind their owner. Unfortunately, the cat she did This fanzine schizophrenically supports Hacks’ which explains how you adopt, Max, appears to be trying to eat her. Suzle Tompkins, Chaz Boston-Baden and can take advantage of the way Meanwhile, Steve and Giulia are now into the Curt Phillips for TAFF. But Suzle was the your mind works. You know, because we evolved a revulsion 10th month of trying to move house and are only one to send us a cool Brad Foster promotional fillo. However, Chaz was the for poisonous molds, you’re beginning to wish that they’d never had the naturally repelled by blue foods. idea in the first place. If we’re lucky, maybe only one to send us campaign ribbons to This means you can stop there’ll be a change of address next issue. Or hand out at Eastercon. members of the Plokta cabal from maybe not. nicking your chips by careful application of blue food colouring. Anyone coming up with possible mind hacks for keeping children quiet and well behaved (those pain receptors must be good for something) should apply to the editorial address. On a similar note, Alison is currently trying to become a member of the “Getting Things Done” cult.

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