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
3 Volume 10 No. 1 PLOKTA March 2005 Before They Were Famous
“YOU guys need to check out Vienna now-closed public toilets on Shepherd’s her songs, and her live set, and looked Teng”, said Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Bush Green. Small then. I don’t think forward to hearing her live. electronically popping up on screen and I’ve ever been to a concert in a WC “I’ve just discovered Vienna Teng,” I then disappearing. Turns out she’s a before. said to Lucy Huntzinger over the aether, singer/songwriter/pianist from the Bay Now, the thing about me is that club just before Christmas. “One of her songs Area. Got a name for herself as a student culture passed me by. I know, because I is The Atheist Christmas Carol. Patrick at Stanford, singing in bars; took a job read newspapers, that not all clubs are told me about her”. “Excellent!” declared with Cisco Systems. As she says, when hot, dark, smoky places where the music eLucy. “I was the one who put him onto that dream of being a computer is too loud. But I haven’t really her”. programmer just didn’t work out for her, experienced it first hand. London has We finally got to go to she had to fall back on singing. clubs of all kinds. Ginglik has good Ginglik, but not without Now, luckily we live in a world where reviews, which talk about its laid back difficulty. Clearly years ago it’s easy to check out new music if artists nature and friendly vibe. They it was possible to walk have their act together, because they’ll also talk about how it’s full from the tube station to put sample tracks on their website. Not of beautiful people. Shepherd’s Bush just 30 seconds, the whole thing. And Perhaps they Green, across a road Vienna Teng has a website, viennateng.com, wouldn’t let and onto the grass. and has half a dozen sample tracks. So I us in. And no doubt if downloaded them, and I thought they you needed to were pretty good. relieve So next I checked out eMusic, the yourself, the independent online music store that public works out much cheaper than iTunes toilets were provided you don’t buy as many tracks as conveniently I do. I was delighted to find that they situated. Not any more. had both of Vienna Teng’s albums and a There are railings live set. everywhere, designed to stop you She sings nicely, and she plays piano from turning yourself into roadkill but Maybe terribly well, and her songs are good. coincidentally preventing you from if I took Melodic, somewhere in that area between getting onto the Green. my pop and folk. And you know, you’ll do We looked out for the beautiful beautiful better to download the songs than try to people, and finally spotted a couple brother and work out what the music’s like from a finding their way to the club by his beautiful wife as camouflage it would fanzine article. Her first album was jaywalking spectacularly. We followed work? written and recorded while she was a suit. Strings of fairy lights in the railings student, and then re-recorded when she As well as featuring US singer and the trees and the sign that used to got her record deal. The second one has songwriters, the club has DJ nights, open say ‘Public Convenience’ helped show lusher arrangements and slightly more mic nights, comedy nights, film nights, complex songs that move further away and kung fu nights. from the experience of a California Right. Apparently “Ginglik” is a student. martial arts term meaning ‘explosive “She’s playing a couple of shows in power’. London next month”, said ePatrick. “We I rang them, to find out if I could get went to see her in New York last month tickets in advance (no) or if I needed to and were Blown Away”. I went to see do anything special to become a member where those London gigs were, and (no). So all I could do was wait. found she was playing Ginglik, a club in Meanwhile I put all the songs on my Shepherd’s Bush. We seem to go to iPod on rotation, along with other pre- Shepherd’s Bush a lot. My brother lives Christmas acquisitions like the new there, and it has several venues, in Steeleye Span album Winter and Barney’s particular the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, Happy Holidays. OK, that last one was a an old theatre with seats upstairs that’s mistake. just right for bands that aren’t quite big I was delighted to discover that enough for the Brixton Academy. But Vienna Teng had written a Christmas Ginglik was new to us. song, “The Atheist Christmas Carol”. It’s I looked it up on the internet. The actually a much less cynical song than the internet is way cool. I want one when I title would lead you to believe. So I had grow up. It turns out that Ginglik is a that in my Christmas mix, and had all the members-only club converted from the rest in my new music mix, and heard all 4 March 2005 PLOKTA Volume 10 No. 1 Realising we were fans, someone next to us offered to send us a CD-R of the other London gig—he’d gone along to the other gig on spec, and concluded he had to hear this one as well. I observed that Galen’s pics just went into a pile and formed a plan to grab the one of “Harbor”, Teng’s standard finisher. But when I looked for it afterwards it had gone, and I realised I would have to be content with grabbing a photo of Vienna and Galen with the picture, which he’d signed for her to take home. Meanwhile, I explained that I was planning to write this article, and he gave me the picture of “The Tower”. So, hey, I can’t tell you what the music’s like, but The Tower by Galen Wainwright I can at least print pictures of it. We were well pleased with our the way. We descended to the subterrain interesting idea; one I’ve never seen evening in a culture we don’t normally and completed the various formalities. before. inhabit at all. We’ll go back to the highly We both liked the club instantly; three I enjoyed seeing the way that agreeable Ginglik, forcing the local small rooms, one with a tiny stage and different artists inspired Galen in relatives with whatever inducements are one with a bar, loads of unmatched different ways, and the way that his required to prise them out of their living comfy chairs and sofas, yummy organic interpretation of songs was often room. Would that all London’s discarded hamburgers and free monkey nuts. No different, sometimes radically different underground toilets were repurposed so real beer, sadly; hard to think how you’d from mine. excellently. cellar it in a converted loo. But plenty of Meanwhile of course, those five yummy quaffing wine. The third room And here in the future, our electronic Vienna Teng songs—Gravity, the Tower, had red walls and a wall full of Carom networks mean that word of mouth can Unwritten Letter Number One, Green boards and other games to play. We had travel thousands of miles, and a singer Island Serenade and Harbor—were a meal and chatted, and tried and failed from the far side of the world can arrive sublime. She had a cellist with her to to persuade my brother and sister-in-law to play in a country where she has no complement the piano, and I’m sure if I to join us, and fell into conversation with records available, to find that fans were a little more organised I’d have the people at the next table, and drank familiar with her work have appeared noted the name. She was completely more wine, and waited for the music. ahead of her. assured and note-perfect, and we loved —Alison Scott It turned out to be several singer- every second of the all too short set. songwriters, not just Vienna Teng. Which was a bit of a shame, particularly when we discovered that on the other night, which we missed, she’d done a full set, whereas we just got five songs. But the other singers were pretty listenable too and we had several interesting conversations. And we discovered that it wasn’t just a singers’ night; Ginglik has an artist-in-residence on these nights. Galen Wainwright drew pictures of the music as he heard it, in white chalk on black paper. He’d sit listening intently and not moving, and then suddenly, perhaps half way through the song, burst into a frenzy of drawing ready to have a finished sketch by the end of the music. The club supported this with superfluous technology; a suspended webcam recorded the artist’s hands and drawings and the pictures were projected onto the walls of the room. Of course, every few minutes its associated laptop went to sleep and they had to nudge it back into life. But it was still an Galen Wainwright & Vienna Teng
5 Volume 10 No. 1 PLOKTA March 2005 BOLLOCKS Spending Money For Dummies New Career! I BUY quite a lot of computer books. Not, So. Eventually I stopped reading the Flick’s recent abandoning of her like, heaps of books you understand. Just books all the way through. Actually, I promising accountancy career for considerably more than I can read, given that stopped reading the beginnings first. I found the isolated backwoods of academe, coupled with Steven’s I also have a job and a computer game habit was having to skip the first three or four departing the National Audit to keep. Not to mention the SF and comics. chapters because they were too basic. Then Office for pastures new, have led Thank goodness I don’t watch television, I I’d skip the last bit because it was too boring us to wonder what we might all don’t know where I’d find the time. and I’d generally got fed up with the subject have been doing if we hadn’t Anyway, I buy a lot of computer books. by then. I’d still buy the books though. adopted the rich and exciting Sometimes I’d buy books that I didn’t want careers we actually did. My study walls are carpeted with a reasonable proportion of the consolidated outputs of immediately, but just because they looked Alison, for instance, could have O’Reilly, APress and several others. It’s a bit interesting and might come in useful been one of the world’s great someday. I picked up a number of Java and ninjas with her quiet and stealthy like an addiction, go into a bookshop, start to nature, whilst Steven could have feel panicky at the numbers of books I don’t Python books that way. Then for a while been an exemplary short-order have, come out with ‘The Web Performance there didn’t seem to be any books in the chef. Steve’s sunny nature and Tuning Cookbook for Mac OS X with Java areas I was working in, so a colleague and I early morning chirpiness would Swing’ or something like that, as a palliative talked to a publisher about us writing one make him an ideal holiday camp treatment. Usually several somethings. Come together. Unfortunately everybody else was redcoat. on, everyone’s had that problem of going thinking the same thing and we were beaten It’s always possible that, in into a bookshop on the way to pick up a to it. None of this stopped me buying books some alternate universe, Mike pound of apples and ending up eating soup on other areas and then not getting around to doesn’t limit his bids for global reading them though. dictatorship to LiveJournal. And, for the next two weeks. No? Sure? of course, Sue’s natural talent for Now there was a time when I actually Not long after, I changed specialities spelling and ability to tell left from read all these books. This was back in the again and found myself in an area where not right would have made her a only were there not any books, but everyone world-class audio typist. days when I was buying things like ‘Object Oriented Programming using 8086 seemed to be making it up from first Unfortunately, Giulia’s previous Assembler’. The sort of meaty subject that principles. I still kept buying technical books. career as an educational They might not be immediately useful, but psychologist already crashed and took some getting through without plentiful burned, leaving her attitude to supplies of intravenous caffeine, but then they’d come in useful someday. Just having children (and some of the there wasn’t much else to read. Well, apart them around meant that the problems would children) scarred for life. from trying to get to Vol 2 of Knuth, a series magically not happen. Why, I didn’t have to which has a place in my personal mythology solve any Java problems for years. All I had “Steve’s isn’t as long as he somewhat akin to dwarf bread in the works to do was hold up the unread textbook, thought it was.” of Terry Pratchett. invoking the sacred Sun, and the forces of evil instantly headed for the hills. And that Of course many of these were big, thick remaindered edition of ‘Disaster Recovery books. For some unknown reason, certain Planning for SQL Server 7’ turned out to sorts of computer books apparently need to have a whole useful chapter… be at least 2 inches thick and preferably 3 inches or more. Some of them make it to 6 Of course, it didn’t solve problems with inches and require innovative new binding lack of space or money, but you can’t have technology to stop them exploding in a everything. Although we no longer had our shower of pages as the glue reaches its Roche wonderful branch of Blackwells that had limit and begins to break up. Not to mention more computer books than most universities, coming with a free block and tackle and a someone had noticed the local concentration Mu-shusushi course of hernia treatment suppositories. of addicts and had opened a half-price Since a lot of subjects can actually be covered computer bookshop in town. My expenditure Healthy Eating in a few well-chosen paragraphs, a tradition on books halved, even if the rate of bookcase has developed of using 72-point type with depletion stayed the same. Anyway, by now We note recent press coverage of lots and lots of screenshots. The excuse is all I needed was to be able to convince unrelated pieces of research people that I was an expert in everything indicating that beer, chocolate that geeks generally have bad eyesight and and turmeric all help to prevent sometimes need a nose job in order to get the except their own speciality. This works cancer. And of course, it’s well books close enough to their eyes to be able surprisingly well, by the way. I tell people established that red wine fights to make out the text. Unfortunately, that sort “I’m the next best thing to an expert until heart disease. Given the amount of person is more likely to be reading the sort one comes along”. They believe me. of booze, chocolate and curry of book that is actually worth the effort and Occasionally, it’s true. And if I need to know that we consume, each Plokta tends to be smaller and more concentrated. A more about something, well either I’ve got a weekend probably adds six book on the shelf that’ll teach me, or else it’s months to our life expectancies. bit like the computer book version of espresso compared to the 3 litre coffee- back to Google. flavour QuikShake which constitutes the —Steve Davies majority of computer books.
6 March 2005 PLOKTA Volume 10 No. 1 Redemption Con Report
[Eddie Cochrane has kindly allowed us to them whispered. “Yes”, I said, “What going to Britain”. “But isn’t that just reprint his … unusual … Redemption con Mao said of Lei Feng then is true today. another Capitalist country?” one of my report from LiveJournal.] You should live to serve the People and comrade lanyards wailed. “Fear not”, I MY earliest memories are of the Communist Party of China. You are said. “The workers and revolutionary Wenzhou Light Industrial Factory No. 2 setting off on a great journey for a great masses threw off the reactionary shackles in Ningbo. I and my fellow comrade task. Do you see the destination of their conservative government in 1997 lanyards were part of the record-breaking stencilled on your crate?” Of course, they and put in place a socialist government total production for the 10th Five Year could not, they were in the crate. “It says under the wise leadership of Premier plan period produced that day by the Wal-Mart. Yes, you are to be taken into Tony Blair. With luck we will be sent to a heroic workers of that Ningbo factory. the heart of American Imperialism, union conference, or some fraternal We lay in great piles, debating among where your cheap price and good quality organisation.” Before long we were in ourselves how we might best put into will lead to the inevitable destruction of the hold of an aircraft and heading across practice the spirit and purpose of a pure Western manufacturing industry”. My the Atlantic. As the aircraft climbed it communist party lanyard. Those of us fellow lanyards cheered, and we heard no grew colder, and we huddled together for manufactured earlier in the day more from the MP3 players on the warmth. “How will we survive this counselled the younger, more reckless remainder of our long journey across the cold?” a frightened lanyard said. Despite lanyards from the afternoon shift on Pacific, except for occasional bars of The the cold I put on a jaunty voice: “This is adherence to the principles laid down in East Is Red. nothing comrade. On the Long March the latest Circular On Strengthening Landfall came after many Mao’s First Front Red Army had to climb Management of Engineering Quality of uncomfortable days. We were in America, the Great Snow Mountain (Chiachinshan). Garment Accessories. Within hours our and we bid goodbye to most of our Blanketed in its eternal snow, over patient wait was over and we were comrade products from Ningbo, while chasms and glaciers, pierced with the batched into cadres of 100, crated and my crate of fellow lanyards was loaded cold of three million white jade dragons began our bumpy journey from the onto a train which headed east. “Where as the Great Helmsman wrote, yet they factory. After a brief discussion amongst are we headed?” my cadre asked me, but crossed it, and joined up with the Fourth the cadre, it was my honour to be I did not know. “It matters not”, I told Front Army for the battle to come.” This selected as cadre leader for the journey, them, “As long as we carry out our heartened them, particularly as I did not and so, to keep spirits raised I led them duties with resolution and discipline and mention that we know this from Lin in a song, in accordance with communist principles Piao, the official historian of the Long March, who had both of his legs The noble spirit of Taihang we will prevail.” After many hours we amputated due to frostbite on that climb. Mountain is forever, were unloaded, and I could see we had reached the town of Branford, This journey at least was short, and The brave warriors, like the clouds, Connecticut, and the warehouse of a within hours we were landing at are singing in the gale… company called Just Lanyards. Over the Heathrow airport, and scant days after As my comrades took up the song, I weeks, bag by bag, our comrade lanyards that, completed the 28 kilometers to our caught the scent of the sea upon the air were sent off, some to sales meetings, destination. We lay in our bags, pensive, and knew that our destiny would lie far some to colleges, some unlucky fellows waiting. What would the event be? from the shores of our native China. to an IBM marketing event, until there Another journey by car though snow The hold of the ship seemed were only six bags left, my cadre and five followed, and finally my comrades and I cavernous, filled with crates from all over others. The day came when it was our were taken from our bags. As we were Ningbo. We were stacked next to a crate turn, and all six hundred of us were handed out, one-by-one I could scarcely of generic flash MP3 players. Already scooped up, packed and posted. believe my eyes. It was if we had fallen they were playing decadent, pirated Through a loose corner of the package I among some alien race, and my discipline Western pop music to each other, spied where we were going: Rochester, wavered, but among the strangeness I speculating on the size of the homes they New York. “What is in Rochester?” my saw people of many backgrounds would end up in, and the wealth of their comrade lanyards asked me. “It is a large greeting each other fraternally, and new owners. manufacturing city, home of Kodak, and workers who toiled not for gain, but for “You should be ashamed of many other optics companies on the their comrades, and I recalled the motto yourselves!” I cried, “You were not bank of Lake Ontario”. One of the other of Lei Feng, “To live is to serve the manufactured to enjoy yourselves, you lanyards piped up, “That is near to people—live to make others happy.” were manufactured for a purpose.” But Canada, perhaps we will be sent there. It Clearly the revolutionary spirit of Lei they jeered, “You are just a common is almost a communist country.” “Only Feng lived here, despite the strangeness black lanyard, a simple piece of braided comparatively”, I replied drily. of the people, and so I became the happy nylon”. Quietly I said, “And Lei Feng Surprisingly we were not delivered to worker lanyard of a Redemption was just a simple man”. There was a a business, but to a modest family home, member. Now we are off to an shamed silence from them as they and more surprisingly still, we were re- educational item called “Realism in recalled the story of the peasant hero Lei packaged and posted again in separate Slash.” I do hope slash is something that Feng, the revolutionary screw that never packets. I strained to read the address is true to the spirit of a rustless rusts. “Xiang Lei Feng tongzhi xuexi” before we were packed. “We are leaving revolutionary screw. (Learn from Comrade Lei Feng), one of America!” I told my comrades, “We are —Eddie Cochrane 7 Volume 10 No. 1 PLOKTA March 2005 Maximum Damage Don’t Do That Mason
I HAVE a new cat. So I ended up going home with an 18 from work. The ER nurse took one look This radical step came about as I had month old grey male tabby. As anyone and said “sit here for three hours” Which Spookie, the previous incumbent, put to with any whit of sense could have I did. I was then seen by a general ER sleep in the Autumn at the grand old age guessed. doc who sent for the plastic surgeon, of 22, not a bad innings for a saggy old He came with his own bed. And who sent for his boss, The Big Plastic bagpuss. scratching post. And cat loo (with lid, the Surgeon. Who said “Don’t eat or drink anything, you’re having an operation.” I didn’t set out to get another cat, I person who invented the cat loo with lid was just browsing. and little door gets my utter adoration So I sat there, from 12.30 till 8pm, for cutting down the crunch of litter with little side trips for blood tests, X- The web is a wonderful thing, type in underfoot by about 90%). And Beany rays and the like, while my bum grew cats/Cheshire/home and it pulls up all Bear—his teddy, apparently big tough progressively numb and the red patch on manner of shelters and societies with hot cats can’t go to sleep at night without my finger crept ominously down my and cold running cats on tap, you can Beany Bear. He looks very much like hand. Best friend Annie came by to pick browse for an adorable bundle of fluff Spooky, which is in part why I chose up keys and go get overnight stuff from from the comfort of your armchair (or him, very handsome, bright orange eyes, home—and to feed cat before he ate desk at work). spots down his flanks, cream tummy. anyone else; she took her husband along For example I could have adopted:— Beautiful plumage. as a decoy. Muffit And he is a big cat. Huge. Bigger 8pm they admitted me to the acute She was one of nine cats that than Spooky. It’s rather like living with a plastic ward and The Big Plastic Surgeon belonged to an old lady. In 1995 we grey spotted tiger, he’s also very long, came and poked my hand a few times. were asked by a national rescue society makes a great draft excluder. I think he’s They decided to do the op on Friday and if we could rescue nine cats that had stopped growing, I hope he has because hooked me up to an IV antibiotic and belonged to an old lady who had died he’s big enough to make two cats out of, fed me a cheese sandwich. and had not been found for a week. It the idea of him expanding anymore is would not be appropriate to say what So there I am, one hand with the the cats had been feeding on since the scary. antibiotic drip, the other trussed up in a old lady had died but they were quite He’s also a little git, way, way too fetching blue foam affair which held my emaciated. One of Muffit’s kittens was bright for his own good. There is a scary hand at a 45% angle. Great. dead and partially eaten but all the amount of intelligence behind those In the bed opposite was another Sue, other cats were alive though orange eyes. Spooks might have been my trussed up just like me. She had been traumatized. baby and the sweetest tempered cat (with bitten on the same hand, on the same Well, that certainly made me want to people at least) but no one ever accused day but she’d been bitten by a dog. So adopt her! Obviously not a very large old him of being the sharpest pencil in the instantly, she was Sue the Dog and I was lady, if the cats had been eating her but tin. Max is so bright he’s the pencil Sue the Cat, to the amusement of the were still emaciated. As I live alone, I sharpener. nurses. decided to pass on Muffit in case she had He also bites. developed a taste for white meat. One cat bite equals: We also have:— • Two nights in hospital Marty • One operation under general It soon became apparent that Marty anaesthetic was not feral but the victim of abuse. To this day he remains frightened of • Two weeks off work women. The strange thing is that he his • Six weeks of physiotherapy. nervous of anyone during daylight hours but after dark he will wait for me to go to He bit me on his first night in the the toilet and then he becomes friendly house. I was petting him in the bathroom with me. When I go to bed I can do and the combi boiler fired up with a anything with him. whoosh. Whoosh goes the boiler, Lucky old Marty… and while I whoosh goes the cat. fancied a bedroom companion, Marty The bite was deep into my middle was not quite what I had in mind. finger, right at the base. Didn’t bleed But instead I went for:— much, always a bad sign with a cat bite. I went straight to the Doc’s for oral Jake, affectionate 18 Month old grey antibiotics, cat’s mouths are horrid, male tabby. almost as bad as humans. Needs good home. Next day at work, the health and I called the number, just to see safety bod took one look at the festering whether he was still there, if no one else digit and said “Get thee to the had taken him, just on the off chance, emergency room” so I did. The local you understand… hospital is only 100 yards up the road 8 March 2005 PLOKTA Volume 10 No. 1 In the bed next to me was the Evil Joy of joys, Evil Woman From Hell had Woman from Hell. Or Wythenshawe, same been thrown down a lift shaft moved to a BOLLOCKS difference. private room to the rejoicing of staff and Protest Group Annie had my important supplies, patients alike. nightwear, toothbrush, book (note to self, Everyone else seemed to wake from the The group Fathers for Justice has never, ever, ever leave home without a anaesthetic feeling sick or being sick. I woke been getting a lot of publicity book—I spent all those hours in casualty up fine, no queasy tummy, no aches pains or recently in the UK, with stunts without anything to read—there was a folder anything, and hand, even in huge great involving people in superhero costumes climbing onto London of fan fiction in the car but it wasn’t stuff bandage, felt much better. landmarks. They’re campaigning suitable to be read anywhere someone could Then I got bored. for divorced fathers to have more be reading over your shoulder) and I had the parental rights. The main entertainment (Evil Woman fun task of getting into a nightdress while From Hell) dethroned. Most other people Mike, on the other hand, is tied up like an extra in a low budget bondage considered TV to be distraction—day time planning to launch Ex-Husbands show. Sue the Dog did her best not to laugh. Against Parenthood. Next TV… shudder—but it was damnably hard to As we settled down to sleep, Evil Woman weekend, he’ll be climbing Big read with the constant mumble of other Ben dressed as King Kong in from Hell started. She’d had a rhinoplasty people and with one hand suspended in sling order to demand that he has to and had been loud and aggressive when and other with drip. I managed, but it was an have no contact at all with his ex- coming out of the anaesthetic but Sue and I effort. wife’s children. put it down to the drugs and disorientation. Worse of all, no computer. Even if I’d Her (long-suffering) partner left about 11pm had the iBook, I would have been dependant and we had to put up with her. She wanted a on its battery power and there was no private room and was going to be loud, internet, not even an internet cafe. Oh, the obnoxious and irritating until she got one. despondency of the fan cut off from She started every complaint with the line “I everything for a couple of days. don’t want to be any trouble but…” ’til Sue and I were at screaming point. The nurses They released me after two days and I were dreadful, they treated her awfully, she spent the next two weeks struggling to live couldn’t sleep (neither could we), she kept one handed—and finding out how very left phoning poor long suffering hubby (every handed I am. I couldn’t even blow my nose hour, on the hour, all night) her face hurt, her properly for a fortnight. arm hurt, she was hungry, she felt sick, she And is Max suitably chastised? wanted a private room. To the point where No, he had new mummy home for a Cthulhu-Nigiri Sue and I were planning murder. Neither of couple of weeks to be at his beck and call. He us felt up to just telling her to “Shut the hell now has the cat flap conquered (he only just up!” which is what we should have done. fits through it), allowing him access to the “Alison was going to write Next morning I was whisked down to the back alleys of Northwich; the local cat about Getting Things Done, operating room, where I had to tell the OR population is traumatised. We have a running but she didn’t get round to it.” nurses the whole ‘cat ate my finger’ story book on what the first gift is going to be, again. I was getting it down pat by this stage. bird, mouse, newt, frog, goose or bullock; my Then we discussed if the oxygen mask smelt bet is on bullock. He bit the neighbour (but New IKEA! of strawberries or vanilla. Then I woke up the neighbour is a macho twit—how many with a bloody great bandage round my hand We tried very hard to avoid times did I have to say “Don’t do that, he’ll having an IKEA story in this issue and a new antibiotic drip. bite you.”) and now has a little dangly thing of Plokta, if only because talking on his collar with his name and address and about IKEA gives Flick MAX—He Bites. Which lets people get just nightmares about giant wasps. close enough to read it to put them in his However, now that a new branch range. My floor is strewn with numerous cat of IKEA has opened up only toys, including Beany Bear, who I found on seconds from Steven and Alison’s front door, their house my bed when I came home from work the has become merely an outpost of other day, big tough pussy cats needing their the IKEA warehouse. teddy, obviously. As you may have heard, the There was considerable discussion over new IKEA opened with his name. He spent at least a week known as ceremonial riots as the furniture- EllBee, short for Little Bastard, but, after deprived masses threw off the some perusal of The Campaign for Real Cats imperialist yoke and demanded stylish bookcases for all. book (T. Pratchett), I decided that I couldn’t Fortunately, the fighting seems to stand on the back doorstep late at night have missed Walthamstow, calling for the Little Bastard without although a large number of worrying the neighbours so he is Maximum blood-spattered flat-pack Damage Mason. Mad Max for short. I’ve wardrobes mysteriously never had a real cat before… appeared in Alison’s bedroom shortly after. —Sue Mason
9 Volume 10 No. 1 PLOKTA March 2005 BOLLOCKS Fütspa! New Plokta! I SPEND a lot of time listening to the radio they’d had two slow cookers, I’d have bought Plokta Enterprises Inc. announce while half asleep. Drifting at the edge of my one. Except, of course, that the web tells me their new models, the Plokta Mini, consciousness, I learnt that life in the 21st about the other 23, so I’m doomed. the Aluminium PowerPlokta and century is full of electric mathoms. Nearly the cinema size iMax Plokta. In So we hadn’t bought a slow cooker. every household in the UK has gadgets in the accordance with our long- I formed an idea. Posting on LiveJournal, cupboard that they don’t ever use but won’t standing tradition of charging too I said ‘Does anyone have a slow cooker get rid of. Things that are theoretically useful. much money for a perfectly they’re not using that I could borrow, or fanzine with a very trendy style, Bread machines, electric carving knives, slow indeed keep? If this works I’m holding out we’re going to make the zine cookers, sandwich toasters, juicers. You for a footspa…’. 24 hours later I had a either too large to read, too small know the sort of thing. And footspas. to read, or just engraved on promise of both a slow cooker and a footspa. “What’s a footspa?” asked Phill Jupitus, aluminium sheets so you haven’t We collected them at Novacon. First I got a hope of reading it unless somewhere at the edge of my psyche. He’s a tracked down the fishlifters. Mark handed me you’re blind. comedian who likes music, does what is a large heavy carrier bag. I peered in and saw Next month we plan to theoretically known as the breakfast show a neatly wrapped slow cooker. “Why are you introduce the Plokta Shuffle. For but, in my house at least, is the hiding-under- getting rid of it? We never use it, it’s just only exorbitant amounts of money the-duvet-failing-go-get-up show. we will send you a random taking up space.” “Any instructions?” “Er, I selection of unnumbered pages, “Footspa? Footspa! Fütspa!” said the DJ. couldn’t find them.” Oh, well. How hard can each one the size of a piece of “It sounds like something Eastern European it be? Meanwhile, Max handed me a large chewing gum, that you can read football teams shout when they score a goal. light carrier bag. I peered in and saw a in any order you want. Fütspa!” They were quite enthusiastic. And I footspa. “Futspa!” I declared. “Why are you was forming an idea. “I remember when Meriol getting rid of it?” Apparently her other Now, we don’t have many of these footspa is a Porsche has bubbles. Mmm. was conceived.” gadgets. We do have plenty of junk, but most Bubbles. “Any instructions?” “Er, I couldn’t of it is paper. But as it happened, we were find them.” Oh, well. How hard can it be? I New Cat! looking for a slow cooker. peered at the futspa. A line inside was The problem with choice is that it makes marked ‘Max’. Bloody hell, she didn’t Sue’s new cat seems to prove the you unhappy. I mean, a little choice is good. mention that it was personalised. law of preservation of Plokta cats. “Would you like your iPod Mini in green or We tried them out. The slow cooker was Not many years ago, Steve and blue?” That’s fine. But here in this modern straightforward enough. Fill with hot Giulia owned the worst-tempered world, we’re paralysed by choice. I knew I uncooked stew, go out for one of those cat in the world, George. Meanwhile, Sue’s Spooky was a wanted a slow cooker, but did I want a big exciting family days out they only have in the pleasant and placid old puss-cat. one (slow cook a whole chicken!) or a little fifties, come back, cold, tired and hungry to Now, the situations are reversed one (fit it in the kitchen!). Did I want one find yummy ready-to-eat stew. Wow. with Shadow being gentle and with a timer, or an auto setting, or that would Normally we have to rely on the Red Fort affectionate, while Max is a man- steam? Stainless steel or traditional-looking? Tandoori for that sort of thing. eating demon in feline form. So Removable crockpot? Dishwasher safe? So I much for evolution. So after tucking into the stew, I tried out kept wandering into John Lewis, looking the footspa. I placed it under the computer, disconsolately at a row of 25 slow cookers, poured in water gingerly, as Steven wrung his Coffee Disaster none of which had anything like enough hands and pointed out the 19 power sockets Alison recently went to the technical info, becoming paralysed by choice, within splash distance of the footspa. Monmouth Street Coffee and wandering out again. I’m sure that if Nonsense! I said, and turned it on. The water Company, and as well as getting shimmered. The footspa vibrated. The floor a couple of hundredweight of vibrated. The desk vibrated. the computer coffee to get the Cabal through vibrated. The screen vibrated. Steven’s the weekend, she got some estate-grown black peppercorns mouth formed the words ‘I told you so’, but at a price suggesting that pepper I couldn’t hear him properly over the noise is once more worth its weight in of the footspa. gold. They came in a nice Luckily, when I put my feet in, the Monmouth Street Coffee Company paper bag, with a vibrations died away. It was quite nice. discreet little label saying what My feet felt nice. The study filled up the contents were. So you may with an aromatherapy fog. I took my be able to guess what happened feet out and then dried them off. And this morning when Steven was then picked up the footspa, drained it putting the first batch of coffee in carefully, and put it away in a the coffee grinder in a normal cupboard next to the slow cooker. first-thing-in-the-morning-and- half-asleep mode. Now. About that deep fat fryer. —Alison Scott
10 March 2005 PLOKTA Volume 10 No. 1 Lokta Plokta
on, balance it with the two By now I have spotted the went to Switzerland. There he Stop Press: who seem to be on the fringe joker of the bunch, definitely was recruited by British Sue reports that her evil of the group. “Right you two, freckle face. “You first Cadet, Intelligence to blow the monster new cat Max come in pick up a bench and two-footed jump from the occasional thing up in France. place it on the serving line of top of the benches, land roll When the Swiss wouldn’t let (see pages 8-9) has taken the badminton court, if you and release just as we have him back in one night, he to bringing home his kills. don’t know what that is hold demonstrated.” I thought as stayed in France and worked The score so far is two it until I can show you. You much, a star jump and an for the Resistance. His tales Beanie Babies, acquired two pick up another bench exaggerated crumpled heap were a little different from the from a neighbour who and place it on top of theirs, on the mat. “Oh dear Cadet war films. They tried to put really shouldn’t have a make sure it is square to and you have just broken your off any French person from cat-flap. firm. You two drag some of back. Too bad there are no joining as they were generally those landing mats and pile medics standing by at this a liability. And instead of them in front of the benches. field, you will have to stay having the weapons/ [Not many locs this time, as we’ve been Rest of you line up over there until the session has ammunition dropped in by crap about mailing the previous issue, there. ended. No don’t try to move, plane, they bought them all and we gave out a lot of copies at you will make your injuries from corrupt German Novacon—giving out fanzines at “Now before we let you in to worse.” He looks in a suitably soldiers. conventions always ensures that you one of our aircraft you have uncomfortable position. will receive no locs.] to learn the parachute landing “Right, the four of you Gail Courtney drill. What’s that you are Pamela Boal detailed to the benches take [email protected]. holding Cadet?” pamelajboal@westfieldway. them up to the other end of co.uk fsnet.co.uk “A fag Corps, want one?” the court, and you put two Giulia, you are not alone. My Grins all round. more mats by the benches.” Kiki gives me ‘cat kisses’, and even tries to shove her nose “Corporal if you please, I’m They are not bad lads when I only have time to give the up my nostrils. Okay I’ve not dead, though I’m not sure they put their minds to it. In other side of the story put by usually been eating smoked fact they are all making a John Berry. about you, at least from the haddock soup, but…. neck up. I’m sure you didn’t good effort at what probably Thorns in a WRAF PTI expect me to allow smoking seems to them a pretty silly I have gathered anecdotes rose bed in my gym but I’ll make an exercise. Just one more from several cat owners Deep rumbling voices exception for you. Here’s an interruption. “Excuse me about the unhealthy punctuated by high pitched ash tray, stand by the door Corporal, John doesn’t look obsession our felines have squeaks outside the and smoke every cigarette in very well.” Yes, the smoker with earwax. Especially when gymnasium door. I look at my that packet. You should does look decidedly seedy. hungry—no Q Tip is safe, (or wall chart. “Oh hell I forgot manage to finish them before “Help him to the toilet, it’s even reclining, sleeping about them!” Open the door your sergeant comes to through that door on the human). to view a gangling, spotty and collect you. right.” even giggling youths. Sarah Prince I try not to hold my breath As far as I know the ATC [email protected] Needless to say the sergeant while the Cadet decides groups that came to our camp supposedly in charge of this between defying me or were not connected, but I Inspired by Sue’s gut ATC group had dumped the showing that he could chain never had a moment’s trouble wobbling in Volume 7 No. 2 boys and skived off. He knew smoke if he wanted to. Ignore with the next group. I thought I should only too well that the lads him as he picks up the ash photograph the Wobbly (some of whom were away tray and ambles to the door. Cardinal Cox Moose when I drive by it on from home for the first time Pick the most sensible Wednesday, but then to my surprise found that it has a and anxious to assert looking chap and use him to rudimentary web site: themselves) did not take demonstrate the landing kindly to orders from a position of feet together, My father was a commando http://www.thewobblymoose.com/ WRAF only a few years older knees bent, chin on chest and in WW2, judo instructor. In than themselves. He also elbows tucked in. Gather the same bunch/brigade/ I couldn’t find the Canadian knew I wouldn’t drop him in them round the mat, get the unit/thingy that John trucking company with a it. Cadet to show how easily he Gardner (sometime Bond moose logo that I’d seen on author) was in. Dad don’t the highways and found once First thing to do is identify can roll from a correct remember him, but there was on the web, but in searching and separate out the leaders. landing position. Then finish another 900+ blokes there as turned up these: Young Adonis (or so he with a mime of striking the well. When I lived in Bedford, thought) was definitely one harness box to release and “This is a Volvo with the bloke in flat downstairs was a and that one’s face was too slip out of the harness before moose bars on the front” Pole. At the start of WW2 innocent to be true. Those the parachute drags them over the ground. he’d walked to Italy, then http://www.hankstruckpictures. two, definitely first hangers com/grellis_eastern_cdn.htm 11 Volume 10 No. 1 PLOKTA March 2005 Flick Lloyd Penney and I bring copies of Plokta, Colin Greenland [email protected] [email protected] File 770, Mimosa and more, Miss Clarke is delighted to see Max wrote a letter—and the usual Hugo-nominated her portrait in your periodical, someone else replied—about stuff on paper, and I hold if a little disconcerted that them up, and say, “These are mishearing the lyrics to some I am a typical fan in that the you've beheaded her mother samples of fanzines.” And song or other as “loc to Dr amount of exercise I get in a and her sister while putting it other, bring out solid reams Plokta”. Unfortunately, it year is about the same as there. Her agent will be in of paper Cerlox-punched and being something heard of the what an athlete might get in a touch about the jokes you song she was talking about. bound, full of sordid fanfic, busy morning. That’s not pinched from Chapter Five. And the only tune that my and say, “No they’re not, going to improve with the brain could come up with to these are.” My measly little WAHF: John Berry, state of my knees. The car zines are traded back and Captain Ed Owen (“I fit those words was: accident we were in is now forth, while the big zines are stumbled onto your site by two years past, and my left Loc to Dr Plokta $25 or more. Obviously, what accident while doing a knee feels like it’s going to He’s an evil man of mystery I have to offer are third-rate, Google search for ‘This Is collapse. It has gotten better there’s not even any fanfic in Your Captain Speaking’”), From his base in London with judicious sampling of them! Discussions? Articles, Terry Jeeves (“The Jeeves He’s plotting to change history glucosamine-chondroitin artwork and letters? Who’d piece had me puzzled. Can I capsules, but still doesn’t feel Some day, maybe Mike will with want that stuff when you can sue?”) and Jackie quite right. the fight have all the Cerlox-bound Duckworth (“My mother Then the time streams will not be This is Spinal Crap…Ooo, MarySues you could ever renewed one library book alright Giulia, have we been want? I don’t do those panels continuously for about fifteen years.”). So when you’re reading Plokta introduced? We sure have any more, and it’s mostly Keep an evil genius happy been now… I’ve been on because few local fans know fanzine panels at local cons, what a fanzine is any more. Treacle Sandwiches
“WELL, you didn’t eat your dinner that treacle sandwiches weren’t her although that did once have the so you can’t have any ice cream. If idea of a treat, or at least her attempt unfortunate side effect of causing my you’re hungry, have a treacle to recreate something that she used mother (after she, slightly surprised, sandwich.” to get as a child in lieu of a treat. said “You like kidney?” and got an Everyone looked at me blankly, Granny Rat Bag was, in my affirmative reply) to one day present except Jonathan, who was clinging to considered opinion, a far inferior me with an entire plate of kidney for Steven and, in an attempt to be grandmother. One only had to dinner. Nice. appealing, muttering “I’m hungry! I compare the number of times that Granny Rat Bag did, also, have didn’t like dinner!” she had been convinced to play on the advantage of having sweets in the “Yes, you did, dear,” Alison the climbing frame in her local park house. Lots and lots of sweets. And replied, “It was one of your (none, in living memory. Plus it was a biscuits. And home made cakes, and favourites. Wouldn’t a Golden Syrup far inferior park, mostly consisting of pasties. And about twice as many sandwich be a rather nice treat?” a near-vertical hill with formal regular meals as anyone else, including (The last addressed to me, rather gardens in it, surrounded by mills and tea, dinner and supper. Omar’s stock than Jonathan….) depressing terrace houses) with the of treats and cooking abilities very frequency with which Omar could be much reflected being brought up to No, not Golden Syrup. Treacle. convinced to do the same (at least be a good pioneer wife. Although she The black stuff. twice a week, once at each of the could occasionally be persuaded to That’s what I used to get if I’d local parks, each of which contained make fudge, or coconut ice, her usual refused to eat my dinner at Omar’s near-infinite areas of woodland, full idea of a sweet treat was a date scone, house and then complained of being of places to play hide and seek). No which was just about the only thing hungry. It always struck me as being contest. that she could cook, and hot drinks perfectly logical, possibly because I’d On the other hand, she was a for children only went as far as hot been exposed to the idea at a young much better cook, provided that you water with a spoon full of honey in. age, or possibly because it was understood that you would get the This is why I remain uncertain about Omar’s suggestion, and she was by same daily menu each week and, if whether a treacle sandwich was far my favourite grand parent. Much you didn’t like it, you didn’t even get meant to be a treat or a punishment. better than Granny Rat Bag, at least, the offer of treacle sandwiches. After all, they are sweet. although I will concede that she was About the only concession was that, Having considered his options, a better cook. if you were me, you could have Jonathan decided that perhaps he But I was very rarely stuck with potato hash instead of pie and, if you wasn’t, on balance, all that hungry. treacle sandwiches, mainly because were my sister, you could pick the —Flick Omar used to cook whatever I told bits of kidney out of the potato pie. I her to. In fact, I was so thoroughly never really minded the kidney, spoiled by her that I wouldn’t swear 12