Vita Transplantare A diary and a journal of opinion, speculation and diatribes as pertaining to the thought process of John Nielsen Hall Produced in July of the plague year of 2020 , Vol. 1 Number 9 Not quite so many LoC's this time, but they are all good: Claire Brialey, no friend of Boris she Thanks for the latest, and the one before that. You and others can breathe a huge sigh of relief that this won’t be another truly mammoth missive, but I find myself moved to emphasise at sufficient volume that you might have heard it from where you are that Boris Johnson did very little, as Mayor of London or in any other respect, of long-term benefit for public transport here. I’ve cut out four paragraphs of elaboration covering the past twenty years on that subject – plus government (in)action on the plague into the bargain – because I’ve decided not to let politics pollute fan writing as well as everything else. And you did say yourself that you don’t want VT ‘to become riven with argument’ – which is a bit of a tall order given some of the views you choose to express yourself, although that’s your privilege since it’s your fanzine. But to address a specific point you made, the trams in Croydon started running in 2000 and Johnson became London mayor in 2008. Nothing whatsoever to do with him, and I wish that were true of more in life. I’m always sorry to see people buying into his personal mythology. The argument I had in mind not to let VT become riven with was not actually political. Since I know perfectly well that I am on the losing side, in terms of our fandom's particular political orientation, if I go off on one, as I freely admit I did in the last ish though it was supposed to be about economics really, I know what I'm in for. Mind you, even if you have had trams for twenty years now, I find it very hard to believe that Ken Livingstone had anything to do with it. Who you fancy is of course entirely up to you – or possibly quite involuntary – but when it comes to some politicians I have to hope it’s for wholly superficial reasons of physical attraction. Well, as you know Claire, I am a wholly superficial sort of person. I wasn’t a fan of Vera Lynn’s work either, though, or of how it’s been used. Meanwhile, I can only echo the enthusiasm from Curt Phillips (and you!) about Ted Chiang and specifically his collection EXHALATION which I finished last month. I’d read a novella, two novelettes and the titular story before, when they were on various years’ Hugo shortlists, and another novella and novelette in the collection are Hugo finalists this year. Another three (slighter) pieces make up the collection, which is generally well worth a read. The STAR TREK series with Captain Janeway was VOYAGER at the back end of the twentieth century; I didn’t watch that one although must have seen enough about it to eventually recognise Kate Mulgrew when she turned up – and was excellent, I thought – in ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK. STAR TREK DISCOVERY is the newest one. I must confess to being a bloody idiot. I did actually know about DISCOVERY, but so far I have not watched it. Brain fart, so sorry. What channel /service do you watch it on? We are people who’ve carried on watching THE HANDMAIDS TALE, although the episodes at the beginning of the second season were sufficiently gruelling that I wasn’t sure for a while. I also intend to read the new book at some stage, when it meets my cheapskate approach to buying books these days (it’s not as if we haven’t got a few to be getting on with). I felt that we were progressing through the themes of the original novel at so glacial a pace, that by the end of Season 1 I was already in doubt about the actual worth of the TV version. The start of Season 2 finished me off, but I'm glad I wasn't alone in that. And now you tell me there's to be a new book? Why? As a remedy for those who have trouble sleeping? You know, it is a sort of female abuse porn. We might be cut off from THE EXPANSE now, and I really must get back to those books too; cost considerations, again, have meant that I paused after four or five novels and several shorter works just before the TV version started. We both enjoyed all three seasons of FARGO, about which I could remember nothing of the film version. Unlike you I’m too claustrophobic to enjoy anything set inside submarines (cf. DAS BOOT), but maybe that’s cosmic balance for the thing about heights. I have now worked out that I stopped reading the books at the end of CIBOLLA BURN. THE EXPANSE TV seasons don't exactly correspond to the start and finish of each book and many were righteously annoyed that the whole business about Anderson Station that is a sort of prologue to the books was dealt within a ten minute or less sequence slotted randomly into the first season. If submarines are too claustrophobic for you, how do you manage with films about actual space flight, like APOLLO 13 or FIRST MAN? I’ve been trying to work out your standards about presentation of titles; I use italics for titles of longer works and single quotes for shorter ones – which I can see doesn’t accord with your preferences, although if you are aiming to use full capitals for everything that looks quite odd too – so I’m sorry to be messing you up again by using so many titles again here. Please do it however you like, and I will translate to my own standard as we go along. You are not messing me up. The cat-herding element of an ITB Zoom session would be about agreeing a date and time, which seems necessary if not to accidentally pick something that’s inconvenient and excluding for most people. And, since I only have a regular account rather than Alison Scott’s professional capability, it might cut out after 40 minutes and need everyone to rejoin and once more go through the whole am-I-on-can-you-hear-me-why-can’t-I-see-anyone-now rigmarole that seems to afflict the first few minutes of all video calls. Yes, I agree about the limitation of the free version of Zoom. I would buy the professional version, but am I going to use it after this lock down ends? The distant voices we occasionally hear are either because we share a wall with another house – where luckily we can’t make out actual words either – or because we live on a busy road; even double glazing isn’t enough to contend with noisy people walking past, and since some of them appear to think the plague is over there’s unfortunately been a bit more of that again recently. I take Skel’s point about most days and indeed many weeks being the same at the moment, although we had some variation last week when we went to donate blood. All very odd, both in respect of the physically distanced layout and the necessary lack of distancing by the people – LOOK AWAY, IAN MAULE – actually sticking the needles in. And a couple of weeks ago we had a technician round to fit our smart meters. I’m vaguely hoping that with nothing at all novel planned for this coming week I might finally manage to read the Hugo-shortlisted novels in time to vote on them – but it’s a bit of a tall order given how much my reading speed has slowed down compared to twenty years ago. I gather you’ll be about to lower your shields as you finish the next issue. Yeah, I'll be forming an away team to transport down to the planet. I find it all a bit alarming right now so I can imagine why it’s even worse for you. But who knows what twists and turns of fate and idiot decisions will have occurred by then? In the meantime, if you find your owl, please do feed it. I’ve been worrying. Its been pointed out to me that people who actually do keep owls feed them frozen mouse halves. I've got none in at the moment, and I cant find any on the Waitrose web site. Graham Charnock, not a happy bunny You call it editing. I call it censoring. If it refers to my insults directed at Murray Moore it seems especially stupid since they will already have been read and noted, and probably ignored, by anyone who is interested, on ITB. This is the argument VT is not riven by. As I have already said, that you have been rude to Murray ITB is not a reason why I should let you be rude here. So when will they let you back on Facebook? Jerry Kaufman, sunny Seattle VT #5: Pat Charnock talks about charity shops and her Kindle on page 1. The three books I've read most recently were all found at a Value Village shop in our neighborhood (since closed). This is a thrift-like chain of shops - they are for-profit but pass on a portion of their receipts to several charities.