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. As for the Kindle, I'm down to fewer than 20 books waiting to be read and think I might also get a Kindle or something similar by the end of this year.

I'm confused. Possibly I have forgotten something that you or Pat wrote previously. Are you saying that when you have read the twenty books awaiting your attention, then you might get a Kindle? If you already have a tablet computer, you only need the software. Or you may not have either.

Regarding Janice on THANK YOUR LUCKY STARS, and her non-standard Brummie accent, you say that "you have all these regional accents [in Britain]." Of course I know that, and I presume you know we have quite a few regional accents in the US, too. New York City and environs, for example, has distinctly different accents in several of its boroughs (Brooklyn and the Bronx), Boston is quite obvious, and different parts of the South have different sounds. I remember one New York comedian impressionist who could do New Yorkers of Irish and Italian descent - they don't have Irish or Italian accents, but their speech patterns still show the communities they grew up in.

I'm not sure I could tell a Boston accent, but I have always been able to tell who was from the South. Though I'm not sure I could tell exactly whereabouts.

We do watch INSPECTOR MORSE (and his younger self in ENDEAVOR), but we've also watched MIDSOMER MURDERS (which I assume is a fictional county in the Home counties), VERA and even HINTERLAND set in Wales, all of which show farmlands and vast wastelands. They really give a impression of a thinly settled country, unlike shows primarily set in the large cities.

HINTERLAND manages to make a part of Wales widely regarded as a beauty spot look like a post- apocalyptic wasteland. Its enough to make residents of the other three nations thank heavens they live where they do. Curt wont like it. Have they re-spelt ENDEAVOUR for your benefit over there? You assume right about Midsomer. In terms of actual locations its mainly Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire.

The word that Keith Freeman was looking for is "synchronicity." I hope your on-going misadventures with your Range Rover have been resolved.

They have indeed chief. It starts and goes like a dream now. I'm thinking of improvements to it now.

I've read several of the Murderbot books (the first two or three novellas) and enjoyed them, though I thought they went into action mode a bit too quickly. The element in them that intrigued me is the idea of a robot/AI with feelings and the ability to lie to itself about them.

I've seen many mentions of Tade Thompson's work - reviews, short lists for awards, etc. - and expect I'll get around to reading his books sometime. Your enthusiasm has added to my resolve.

I have not seen PICARD because we don't subscribe to the streaming service that provides it (CBS All Access, in the US). If anyone we know (like Andy Hooper and Carrie Root, who lent us two seasons of ST: DISCOVERY) buys the DVD's, we'll borrow them.

We saw 1917 in a theater very early this year, and liked it a lot. One thing about it that most impressed me was its apparently continuous single shot. Of course, I know there were a few inconspicuous cuts, but if I hadn't read about the filming, I could well have been fooled. There had to have been a great deal of moving props and scenery around to allow the camera to follow the action.

Except for a scene near the end, I wasnt aware of extended continuous shots. Maybe I would have been had I seen it on the big screen instead of my TV. I only read about the filming after I had seen the movie. I'm not sure this current vogue for long continuous shots, which, I think, began with ATONEMENT, adds much to the filmic experience. The art of film editing grew precisely because of the effort needed in moving equipment, props etc. around, back in the early days. Why is it thought more desirable now? Does it save money on the production budget? You moan a bit in the entry for May 29 about "how long exactly" will shielding be required. I'll bet you're still wondering, but you will also know no one can say.

Well, we actually do. The cut off is the 26th of this month, about when this issue will be out. After that, I have to take the same precautions as everybody else, when I go out. Which I interpret to mean I will be wearing my mask, but need not worry about gloves so long as I use hand sanitizer or wash my hands at every opportunity. I have been going out anyway, but masked and gloved, and I will be able to eat out if I want to, removing even the mask to facilitate same.

VT #6: Pat C again is your lead letter, and talks about signing up for food parcels. We've been able to get to supermarkets and do our own shopping, though all the grocery stores offer home delivery. However, I have not heard of any government agency in the US or in our state or city that arranges for regular deliveries the way Pat and others In The Bar have described.

Pat, like myself, has been shielding because of her medical condition(s) and at the start of the lock down we registered on a Government website, which also entitled us to these free food parcels. Heaven knows what happened to anyone who was going to be actually dependent on them, because they didn't arrive until weeks later. But Pat and I were getting deliveries, by one means or another, from the supermarkets, and I think we both decided independently that we didn't need the food parcels really and opted out, hoping, probably in vain, that they would give them to people who were actually in need thereof. It made me think of the war, when the Red Cross delivered parcels of food and treats to P.O.W.'s.

Keith Freeman nitpicks your small errors and mentions finding a "space comma." I assume he means a comma with an unneeded space between a phrase or word and a following comma. But my immediate thought was that it was something stfnal - a comma of some kind hanging in orbit around our planet or wandering solitary through the cosmos.

I'm glad you've become less desperate for RESPONSE.

Thanks to you and others, Jerry

In the US, Crown Vic's used to be not only the vehicle of choice for taxis, but also for police cars. Now it's Toyota's - not only Camrys like Nic talks about, but also Priuses. And the cops drive SUV s, though I haven't clocked the make or model.

We also liked THE AERONAUTS despite my own fear of heights. But I figure that whole sequence of Jones climbing the balloon rigging was just impossible, as well as being fictional. Redmayne's character was based on a real scientist who proved that weather prediction was possible, while Jones' daredevil character was completely made up - but fun to watch.

Yeah, I know, as I said, its not real. But I am such an idiot, I couldnt stop the fear kicking in. Even some commercials can do it to me. I have no self control.

THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN is based on a book of the same name by Simon Winchester (who writes entertaining popular non fiction books on many subjects). The Madman of the title was William Chester Minor, and he was in that hospital from 1872 to 1910, so quite a long time. Here's the Wikipedia article about him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Chester_Minor. (The article shows he had a family connection to Seattle, of all things.) I hope this improves the movies credibility for you.

It wasnt the character that rendered the movie less credible for me, Jerry, it was the lack of attention to historical detail. As the Wiki makes clear the civil war had been over for some time before Minor was committed and though he was in Broadmoor for an incredibly long time, nonetheless, the siege of Sidney Street took place in 1911, when he would have been released and back in Boston, not at an earlier time when he was still incarcerated and Winston Churchill was probably not yet Home Secretary.

You make Andrew Taylor's writing sound appealing, so I will have to add his work to my mental list of things to read. (I'd do well to make a physical list, wouldn't I?)

I haven't been listening to much music lately, but I do enjoy some modern classical as well as some current pop/rock. A few years ago, I heard about a composer named Eric Whitacre who assembled a virtual choir to sing his material. Have you heard his work? I liked it enough to buy a CD collecting a nice selection of his choral works.

Tune your internet to BBC Radio 3, Jerry. You are bound to hear some Eric Whitacre sooner or later. So far, he hasn't done anything for me, probably because, as I indicated, I am a bit iffy about choral works.

VT #7: I have neither read nor watched THE HANDMAIDS TALE. I thought it would be too much of a downer. I haven't read any of Atwood's fiction, so far as I can recall, but I did like her poetry and her book about Canadian fiction decades ago. (This was in part because our friend Susan Wood wrote about Canadian fiction and thus introduced me to a number of writers in Canada.)

If you want to read some of Margaret Atwood's fiction ( and that may be a big if) I recommend THE BLIND ASSASSIN, probably her best work. Not SF in any sense, but really good just the same. Her SF ( which she insists it is not) includes THE HANDMAIDS TALE of course, and ORYX AND CRAKE, which has a sequel, which she insists is not a sequel. She is a contrary woman, but a pretty good writer.

I do remember WOOLY BULLY and Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs. Shall I hum a few bars?

Only in the privacy of your own home, please Jerry.

I'd say that Curt Phillips' many suggested alternative names for VT are not so much "cracking fanzine names" as "cracked fanzine names." But they might be good heavy metal or death metal band names.

You mention THE WHITE AND THE GOLD by Thomas Costain.

No, I think it was Murray who mentioned that.

This sounds like good companion reading for the book and TV show BARKSKINS. This program is set in the 17th century, in French Canadian territory and follows the conflict between French colonists, the encroaching English Hudson Bay Company, and the native North Americans (Wendat and Iroquois). The series of eight episodes covers about half of the book. I've watched the show and Carrie Root has kindly lent me the book. I can recommend the TV series, even though the action and individual subplots are all left hanging. Nic mentions the A-Cab Company in Las Vegas. Here's a funny thing: the insurance agency I used to work for handled their commercial auto insurance, along with three or four other cab companies owned by them. I had to learn to compile the monthly driving records in order to charge monthly insurance fees based on hours each cab was driven. After three years we had to cancel the insurance because of their enormous frequency and cost of claims. Even with the really large premiums we charged, the insurance company could not make money.

Now for issue #8.

Claire Brialey speaks of many things, including, if I recall correctly, ships and shoes and ceiling wax. (Or is that sealing wax?) I understand her fury at your government over its responses to the pandemic because I've felt the same at ours. For some reason this fury boiled over a few weeks ago when our local television news reported that a shipment of plastic vials for use in Covid testing consisted of unpackaged blanks originally created to be blown up into soda bottles. The suppliers had received a Federal contract for this!

I envy Claire (and Mark) for that row of small family shops within walking distance. In Seattle, and probably in much of the US, big supermarkets have driven those shops out of business. I know of one bakery in walking distance, a purveyor mostly of sweets, and none of the other specialties.

On your third page, you wonder if ST: DISCOVERY is the one with Captain Janeway. No, that was ST:VOYAGER. DISCOVERY is much newer. It has been available only on CBS All Access or by purchase.

As you will have seen from my response to Claire, I had a senior moment about this and committed it to print. I'm very sorry.

Claire mentions Alison Scott's Virtual GUFF Trip. We joined a Zoom meetup during her Seattle "Stopover" and have watched one of her Facebooked diary entries (also available on YouTube) and have enjoyed her experiment.

I pronounce Murray's city as Missy-saw-gwa, but I'm far from certain I'm right.

Standby. There will be a master class in a little while.

Ted Chiang wrote the story on which ARRIVAL was based; STORY OF YOUR LIFE is the name of the novella. I liked both, but the film has some significant differences. (Not that I can recall at this remove what they are.) If you can find the collection STORY OF YOUR LIFE AND OTHER STORIES you'll find good stuff in addition to the title tale.

We've been watching MIDSOMER MURDERS through a free streaming service, starting from the first series. We're up to series 7. Our local PBS station is also running episodes from much later, when Neil Barnaby has taken over from Tom Barnaby. We were confused by the different Barnaby's at first, but looked up the series to find that one is the nephew of the other. We were amused to see Neil Dudgeon in an early episode, playing a randy gardener. As Ian Maule says, Tom's wife and daughter have come to play much larger roles in season 7; Joyce always participates in Midsomer events and Cully always gets temporary work that puts her in the action. Suspicious! We've watched seasons 1 and 3 of Fargo, but don't remember any UFOs. What do you recall?

Well, I have worked out that the series you need is Season 2. The UFO appears and to some extent is the causation of the plot, but nobody pays it any attention at all, carrying on as if it simply isn't there.

You say, (No, Murray sez) "Zombies are poor swimmers, perhaps the explanation why I have not seen a zombie in a samurai movie." I've seen a fair number of samurai movies myself, but don't recall any with swimming scenes, much less such a number of swimming scenes that they would cause a universal absence of poorly swimming zombies. My guess is rather that Japanese film distributors simply don't send zombie/samurai mashups to the west in the mistaken idea that they would not be popular.

You are so mean to Michael Chabon. I still don't know what his work on PICARD is like, but I've read and enjoyed a number of his novels, including THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN'S UNION, THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY and others. I've seen you comment that you thought he has no credibility as an sf writer, but I disagree with that. I believe he's well-versed in the genre as well as related genres like comics. Aside from the Hugo and Nebula he won for TYPU, and the in-depth look at Golden Age comics and comic creators in TAAOKAC, there's also his collections of essays that cover many genre and genre-adjacent subjects. I have his MAPS AND LEGENDS, which has essays on Sherlock Holmes fan fiction, Philip Pullman's HIS DARK MATERIALS trilogy, Howard Chaykins' AMERICAN FLAGG! comix, M.R. James, and Will Eisner. That's plenty of sf cred for me.

What I said was that he didn't have any credibility, that I knew of, as a writer of SF screenplays and, in this case, TREK screenplays in particular. I accept that when I wrote that, I was ignorant of the other work you mention. I would say that I would give THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN'S UNION a go, as Claire has recommended that as well, but PICARD makes me think that I would find it an uphill task.

Nic Farey and I have a small difference of opinion on the PERRY MASON series, which we recently discovered in a Zoom Pub Meet. We agree that the series is very well written and acted. He thinks the writers are creating a great back-story where none existed before. I think they wrote a very good noir PI series and just slapped on the names of Perry Mason, Della Street, and Paul Drake to the characters as a way to get production money and viewers. But we'll see how they move these characters to be the ones in the novels. I would expect a couple of years of Mason sleuthing while taking law courses. But when would he have the time?

I kind of agree with you, but I think the writers may surprise us. Last episode I saw, EB was committing suicide. No, don't tell me whether he succeeds, but maybe we are going to find out real soon now.

Cheers, Jerry.

Murray Moore , Miss-is-saw-guh, Ontario

I continue to be amazed when someone does not have a problem saying ‘Mississippi’ but stumbles saying ‘Mississauga’. Phonetically, with even syllabic emphasis, I live in Miss-is-saw-guh. Slowly. Again. Again. You got it! A shade tree mechanic would have been as useful as a witch doctor when the engine of our ancient Prius, last February, far from anywhere, between Cooperstown, N.Y. and the interstate, lost power until our car slowed to a stop. Two lanes each way but traffic either way was scarce on a mid-February Friday morning.

A tow truck driver took us and our car to a Toyota dealership. And the cause? A tiny piece of wood sucked into open space under the engine, touching a sensor, was the reason why my foot depressing the accelerator had no effect.

North Bay, Ontario, is real. Algonquin Bay, Ontario, is fictional, the invented place name by Giles Blunt in his first Cardinal-character novel, FORTY WORDS FOR SORROW. The TV version of the FORTY WORDS FOR SORROW is season one of CARDINAL. Season 2 I have not seen. Mississippi. Mississauga.

Miss-is-saw-guh. Yes, sir. I think I have seen three seasons of CARDINAL. Am I wrong? Whichever one I saw last, and it must be 2 or 3, was said by the BBC to be the last.

The season of FARGO I just finished watching is the season in which David Thewlis’ character is the villain from abroad representing very bad people who take over a North Dakota parking lot company owned by Ewan McGregor’s character. McGregor also played his character’s brother. I wonder, did McGregor’s agent ensure that his client was paid twice?

Yes that is Season 3. Thewlis is excellent, and I think rather outshines Ewan McGregor who admittedly has a demanding twin set of roles. As I said to Jerry, Season 2 has the UFO. It doesn't matter which order you see them, so I do recommend you get your hands on it.

FARGO seasons 1-3 were filmed in Alberta, not in North Dakota. CARDINAL season 1 was filmed in Northern Ontario, in Sudbury and in North Bay, season 2 in North Bay. My current TV show viewing is TREME season 4, TREME a creation of David Simon, he of THE WIRE. Describing TREME as a music video with a plot and a big cast of characters would be only mostly wrong.

Well, in your own words, what is TREME supposed to be about?

North Bay makes a rare appearance today in the Globe & Mail, in a news story headlined POLICE ARREST KEY SUSPECT IN ONTARIO KILLING OF ALLEGED LIBERIAN WARLORD. The killing of Bill Horrace occurred not in North Bay but in London (ours not yours), apparently not because Horrace was a war criminal in his native country, but because he cheated the wrong people in Canada.

I have finished reading MAGAZINE OF HORROR 4, May 1964, editor Robert A.W. Lowndes. Probably Curt is the only other member of your readership who owns a copy, and maybe not even Curt, Curt being a SF magazine completist. Table of contents: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?59475 . I bought a set of the run recently. I am being introduced to writers who I know only as names.

Be honest, you are attempting to challenge Curt. Not a good strategy. There's some bloke called Kettle too, who, if he ever bothered to read this rag, might also find he has a copy in his loft for him to trip over the next time he goes up there. My fiction reading has a moderate range. Today’s mail brought THE BEST OF R.A. LAFFERTY, a purchase because of the individual story introductions plus three afterwords. And yesterday evening I decided to re-read an Adam Hall QUILLER thriller, the second in the series; I find I do not own a copy of the first QUILLER title.

I finished THE 9th DIRECTIVE (1966) by Adam Hall (really, Elleston Trevor) before going to sleep last night. I would not be surprised if Trevor had not been to Bangkok. It’s 2020 and I have not been to Bangkok. However in 2020 writing a thriller set in Bangkok is easier than doing so in 1965, because, you know, internet.

I like to believe that Trevor had sufficient information that if I had been in Bangkok in the year in which THE 9th DIRECTIVE was set that I could go where Quiller went, on the named streets, seeing what Quiller saw, without finding I can’t get from here to there. I could ask Pete Young if he has read THE 9th DIRECTIVE.

You could, but he's not ITB, and last I heard he was marooned back here in Flighty. Thanks Murray . Miss-is-saw-guh. I must remember.

Nic Farey, and we can all pronounce Las Vegas. Cant we?

I've got an unexpected day off, so let's have a go at the eminent VT8, then...

Let me first, though, explain the provenance of this idleness: I've been getting COVID tested on a monthly basis, by my own choice, since getting the call back to work, as a precautionary measure - given that University Medical Center (UMC) here is doing these for free, and now in four locations, it's no hardship except for the general unpleasantness of having a stick shoved down your throat, though I'm told the up-the-nose option is painfully worse. I went for a test mid-May immediately before going back to work, and another mid-June (both fairly obviously having come back negative), and having had a bit of an addition to the symptoms list lately (sore throat, increased fatigue), scheduled another one for yesterday after my shift. Steve the cab manager and his boss Desiree were parked on the little bleacher seats outside the office as I left (break time for them, I suppose), and, stopping for a minute's chat, I mentioned that I was off to get tested, getting a "Whoa! Why are you getting tested?" from Steve.

I was understandably a bit startled by this, return volleying with the question "What is it that I'm doing all fuckin' day?", mentioning the symptoms with the caveat that I've had nearly all of them for the last five years anyway and arguing that it seemed a sensible thing to do, given the asymptomatic nature of a lot of carriers.

I got a couple of nods, but I'm told that company policy is that if you're having a test, you can't come back to work until you get the (negative) result. Well, OK, since my previous test results have come back in 24 hours, I'll have a day off, then, even as Steve tells me he's got drivers who've been waiting over a week to get theirs. "That's what they tell you", I said, getting a rueful knowing nod in return. The company posted a notice asserting their right to take anyone's temperature, and you'll get sent home if it's over 100, though I haven't seen any temperature-taking happening at all yet. The typically insane method to this is the Trumpian assertion that if there's no test, then ignorance is bliss. I imagined an extremis scenario of a driver whose arms were covered with seeping pustules disgorging evil spoo, but since they were wearing long sleeves, off to work you go... There's nothing I can say to that except “Blimey!”

It's very nice indeed to see you getting the backlog of response, even if it's three Croydon trams at once. There isn't much I can respond to off Claire, though, other than to note the realization that I'm nowhere near as au fait with British politics as I used to be, and I think that's a function of while the UK is being shat upon from the usual heights of Etonian maleficence, the current USA equivalent is unending torrents of toxic diarrhea which makes the anal output of Doris Boris look like a couple of squits and a skidmark by comparison. I can well clock that it's different when you're on top of (or in this analogy, under) it - inevitably peoples' concerns are going to be focused on their own doorsteps, and not so much on what might be occurring in Monaco.

Monaco? Who mentioned Monaco?

I can, however, remark upon the car debate. Having lived most of my life in rural settings, although the proportion is changing since I moved to Las Vegas (a rough count suggests 20 years of "city" living during my lifetime so far), I'm well acquainted with transportation issues. The dear old 89 bus (I wonder if it still exists) ran Hitchin - Holwell - Pirton - Shillington 10 or 12 times a day and long, long ago even had a late Saturday evening run for people who'd been to the pictures (when Hitchin had a cinema). If push came to shove, Pirton was only 4 or 5 miles, doable by pushbike or even Shanks' pony, and I did that enough times an'all. Southern Maryland, on the other hand, wasn't so well served. Two buses a day on the one route I needed to use, more by walking a couple of miles to the main road. I don't know how it is these days, but one especially doctrinaire county commissioner made it her life's work to eliminate the service altogether, with the straight-faced argument that "only poor people use it". Them and other scum such as myself who'd had their drivers' licenses revoked, of course. Vegas does have mostly reliable buses (as wonky as the circumstances might be in the Plague Days), but what's a 25 minute or so drive to work for me might be anything up to 2 hours plus at the mercies of Stan Butler, plus a bit of walking which at the moment I'm not spectacularly good at.

Again, our telly watching isn't much the same (and anyway I might be saving some unkind remarks on TWILIGHT ZONE and DOOM PATROL for a column in This Here...), but since Claire mentions STAR TREK: DISCOVERY cast, I will say that my absolute favorite character is Ensign Tilly played by Mary Wiseman.

Most of the rest is about stuff I'm not watching and/or not reading, but I do note your concurring opinion on the new PERRY MASON, which came up as a topic at the Seattle Second Sunday "pub meet" on Zoom into which I managed to insert my dishevelled self. Having forcefully ranted about almost none of the show violating "canon" I'm going to have to recant some of that, but it's all good.

Yeah, Jerry told us about that. Have to see what happens, certainly before you do any recanting.

More HBO-mandated willies, boobs, sex etc. for me to claim as having been an improper distraction.

I was also advised (in a little specificity) about the ongoing medical issues afflicting the Mighty Robt Lichtman, of which I hadn't been aware except in very general terms over the last, what, year or two? Andy Hooper stated that another issue of Trap Door is unlikely, which is a shame. One hopes Robt will get through it all, but you have to wonder about what quality of life there is when medical stuff dominates. Not a lot, mate. I speak from some experience, though I suspect Robert is having a tougher time than I did. What kept me going was the belief that it would all be over one day, and I hope Robert feels the same.

And finally ("Was that a 'Thank Fuck!' from the back" - C Connor) someone also suggested that your distribution of this fine publication is limited to ITB and - er - me? I wasn't sure whether to be flattered or horrified, since VT deserves to be widely read, but then I considered that Fred Lerner, for example, closely controls who gets Lofgeornost outside of its APA, and fundamentally there isn't anything wrong with that. Your zine, your rules mate...

Basically, that characterisation of the distribution of VT is correct, but only because I thought you were ITB. I don't know why you're not. Have a word with that nice Mrs Charnock, she'll see you right. As to rules, its not really that, its just easier this way. Soon however, I shall be pestering the sainted Burns of Long Island.

And that's that. WAHF? I should have done it to G Charnock once more, but there's no one else. No Rich Coad. No Roy Kettle.

Monday 20th July

LE CHANT DU LOUP or THE WOLFS CRY is a quite good French nuclear near-catastrophe movie featuring nuclear subs. Claire might be reassured to know that present day nuclear submarines are about ten times bigger than WW2 U-Boats and such, but she may well know that already and still not be tempted. It claims to have been filmed with the cooperation of the French navy but I'm not utterly convinced by the procedures etc. shown in the film, since I doubt that the French or any other state wants people to know how signals are verified, and orders to launch missiles are carried out. All the same, all this rigmarole and the analysis of sound patterns of other subs and so on builds tension. The Toulon submarine base shown is said to be the real thing. It all adds verisimilitude and it needs to because the premise of France being attacked by an apparently Russian sub which has actually fallen into the hands of Islamic terrorists is a bit thin. How the Islamic terrorists learned to sail and operate a nuclear submarine takes some explaining, and the graphic of the missiles track coming from the Bering Strait to France is laughable. Even Islamic terrorists might know that since the planet is round the shortest route would be over the Arctic circle. And wouldn't the Russians notice a missile flying through their airspace? But you must put such things to the back of your mind. Its an okay bit of entertainment. It's subtitled, of course.

Tuesday 21st July

Its a nice warm day, and I have just returned from an excursion outside. Those woodpeckers are back. I don't think I have ever been able to get so close to woodpeckers. There were three of them lined up on a branch. Mummy, Daddy and the Offspring, who is big enough to be leaving, I would have thought. He/she is only slightly smaller than the adult birds. I stopped and gave them Good Afternoon but they only looked at me very dubiously, the white and black and red of their plumage almost iridescent in the sun. After a while of us staring at each other, I decided to walk on. I think they were preparing to raid the Manor's bird feeder. Paul next door is still putting food out, I think just for the pleasure of watching birds. If I spent less time glued to this screen, or the screen of my tablet reading books, let alone the TV (although I do that mainly in the evening), I could do the same. Then I could tell you lot about real birds instead of those lurking in my subconscious. Wednesday, 22nd July

Last night, Radio 3 repeated a Proms concert from 1989, which included the first performance of THE PROTECTING VEIL by John Tavener who died in 2013 (not to be confused with the 16th Century composer John Taverner). This is such a powerful piece of music, written for solo cello and string orchestra, that you cant help but be affected by it. It is essentially just one continuous line for the cello which is mostly playing in a high register then swoops down to a doleful processional figure, which apparently is based on a Russian Orthodox hymn. Tavener himself was of the Orthodox faith, and most of his output was religious in a very general way. THE PROTECTING VEIL is not so much religious as spiritual, transcending any belief system,it just goes directly to your soul. The cellist was Stephen Isserlis, and I have his later recording of the piece with the LSO and Gennady Rozhdestvensky. Its just mind blowing. If you have never heard it, you really should. The whole 44 minutes is available on YouTube -listen on headphones if you can.

Thursday, 23rd July

Saw a very strange film last night. MIDNIGHT SPECIAL stars the great Michael Shannon, who was the reason I watched it, but it was a very strange sort of watch. There is a child, who, it turns out, has strange powers; he can hear radio signals without benefit of a radio, even those coming from satellites, his eyes shine and mini-earthquakes take place and explosions occur. To a cult living on a Texas ranch (a la Waco) he is some sort of messiah and will bring about Judgement Day. To the FBI and the NSA he is some sort of spy who must be stopped. A man, his friend and a woman, none of them biologically related, act as the child's surrogate family. The man and the woman are ex- members of the Ranch, and are taking the boy to a location known only by a grid reference. Other members of the Ranch are tasked with catching up to them and taking the kid back. The FBI and the NSA know only that the grid references have been stolen from data on a secret satellite, and whoever did that is going to jail forever, and must be caught. So basically its a long chase movie. People get shot, an entire filling station is destroyed by what the Government explains is a crashed Canadian satellite, but actually its something the kid did. Is the kid an alien? Who are his real birth parents? None of this really gets answered. At the end, some sort of city from another dimension materialises in the Florida pan-handle, which is where everybody is just about converging amid gunfire and spectacular car crashes,and the kid goes off to join other people who all have shiny eyes, and the city disappears again. I've forgotten to mention that the lead NSA agent seems to have been studying this kid and while the boy is (temporarily) in Government custody finds that the kid knows who he is too. Why this is, I could not work out, but it enables the kid to escape from the Governments clutches. ( Toyota Prius owners should note that the model is vulnerable to children with the like powers, because they can unlock and start the car remotely, just by thinking about it. Another argument in favour of conventional gas powered vehicles.) The film is directed and written by Jeff Nicholls. What he was on, I can only vaguely guess. If you like films where nothing is really explained and you are just watching a long succession of ever stranger scenes, this is for you. I might be being unkind, and if I watched the thing another couple of times, I might begin to understand. But then again, I might not, and its hard to work up the enthusiasm.

Thursday, 24th July

Yesterday and today have been days for testy emails with people who are supposed to be doing things which they need a professional qualification for, and are making stupid and almost unforgivable basic errors that amount to sheer bloody carelessness. So I'm grumpy and cross, and not fit company. Sorry. Please talk among yourselves until tomorrow.

Saturday 25th July

Well, I've seen another episode of PERRY MASON, and though its a bit thin and unconvincing, we now know how he becomes a lawyer. I don't think Mr Farey needs to do any recanting. The Season 2 Finale of DAS BOOT has been watched as well. A grim watch, but still very good. I hope there will be a third season.

It would be good to know what other people think of things like PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS , which I kind of think is going to be vampires or some such, and therefore not for me. There's a new French series starting tonight,THE LAST WAVE. I think this will turn out to be from the same outfit that gave us that stupid thing about a crashed Mars expedition which I never finished watching. It was about two years ago now, I think, and I cant remember the title. It was pure hokum. How long does it take to get to Mars? Just a few days, it seems, and who or what is knocking on the outside of the spacecraft? Similarly, I suspect a tidal wave is going to hit the south of France, probably in Episode 1, and then we will find at inordinate length, that it was all an evil plot by someone, or something, perhaps in revenge for polluting the Med. In short, I don't hold out much hope.

But some good news: I've downloaded a new David Mitchell novel to my tablet. I'm in the middle of the last Tade Thompson Wormwood book at the moment, but I'll let you know when I get to it. Apparently a few more reincarnations of characters that first appeared in THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET are going to turn up in the British music industry. Can't wait.

Poor News: Peter Green died today. The good die young and the evil bastards go on forever, as someone said about someone else. He will be missed.

Sunday 26th July

Today is the Day. I can today officially rejoin the human race. What it's all been about, I'm not sure. Some “shielders” are saying they are going to carry on. Many feel that they cannot come out until the day dawns when they can have a vaccination. Well, I understand, but I'm not sure I can sympathise. We've all got to die of something. When a vaccine does come along, you could fall under a bus the day you have it. According to the Government, the risk of my contracting Covid now is much less. But I could still catch it. From my point of view, that has always been true.

I think the answer is I should make the most of it. The dreaded “second wave”could be along any minute and I'll be back indoors, not able to come out to play once more. It looks like its happening again in Spain, as I write.

So, BIG NEWS !!!!! This will be the last bi-monthly VT. I think it will carry on, but I wont start another issue until Monday 24th August. That when all your mammoth LoC's have to be in. I am also going to dispense with the Journal section and just do reviews of TV, Films ( Just think! I could maybe go the cinema!) and Books interspersed with anecdotes and observations in my usual inimitable style, ho ho. A Big Thank You to all my readers and Loccers, even that miserable git in a Haringey attic.

See you next month. Not'arf. UNCLE JOHNNY