Volume 7 No. 4 PLOKTA November 2002 This is issue 28 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 to each of our addresses if possible, please), contribution, editorial 3 Editorial 8 A Second Chance At Eden whim, or for an advance DVD of The Cabal Mike Scott Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. In which we discuss why this Mike has also been exploring Steve Davies issue should have been late National Lottery Millennium Fund projects, with a trip to Cornwall to 4 That Walthamstow see the Eden Project. Earthquake Explained Alison Scott Alison Scott 9 Lokta Plokta Enterprises Alison explains her new fitness A bumper crop of locs this time, regime. With photos. No, we’re due to their non-appearance last not kidding. Although we can issue. We even tried to do a scarcely believe it ourselves. thorough search of Alison’s Mike Scott study, but gave up when our native bearers quit. 6 Protecting Flat Surfaces From The Weather 14 Carters Steam Fair [email protected] Steve Davies Steve Davies & Sue Mason www.plokta.com Steve continues his cultural tour The Cabal paid a visit to Britain’s of London with a visit to the Tate most traditional fun-fair. The Plokta News Network is at Modern gallery. www.plokta.com/pnn/

The cabal also includes Giulia De Cesare, Sue Mason, George the cat, Steven, Marianne and Jonathan Cain Art by Alison Scott & Sue Mason (cover), Sue Mason & Joe Siclari (8), Steve Kyte (2), Sue Mason (3, 4, 5, 7), Steve Jeffery (10), Kurt Erichsen (13) Photos by Steve Kyte (2), Alison Scott (3), Steve Davies (5, 14), Mike Scott (8), SMS (10), Tom Womack (12) Addresses of Contributors Sue Mason

Giulia de Cesare, as for Steve Davies Kurt Erichsen

Steve Kyte

Others, see Lokta Plokta Cover inspired by the very wonderful Carters Steam Fair.

Still in glorious PLOKTACOLOR™ Steve Kyte can use Photoshop too

2 November 2002 PLOKTA Volume 7 No. 4 Editorial BOLLOCKS

SO here we are again with the traditional it’s- in fanzine production except for beer, the Bowled A Googlie too-late-to-be-technically-eligible-for-the- Internet, large meals, Dance , As alluded to in the editorial, Novas-so-it-can’t-be-a-desperate-last-minute- more large meals, more beer, Giulia’s heavy Alison was searching for suitable bid-to-curry-favour-with-the-voters-honest- elf-slash addiction, Have I Got News For You fonts to use in composing the guv November issue of Plokta. But frankly, and Alison’s usual habit of spending 95% of cover of this issue. So, of course, it’ll be a miracle if this is actually being passed the available time in selecting the fonts to use she did a web search for “Victorian font”. It’s just a shame around at Novacon (Novacon 2002, at any on the cover. So, business as usual then. that the first result started “The rate), due to our complete lack of task Alas, Giulia has joined Steve in the Victorian font can be found to the orientation and goal focus at the past couple increased leisure society, and the Cabal are left of the nave…”. of Plokta weekends. Many of you may be now less than 50% employed (indeed, less thinking “surely it’s not been long since the than 20% employed if you don’t count Fanzine Articles last issue of Plokta. Or even, in extreme cases, government work). So she’s going to need to the last two issues of Plokta. You may have find a new excuse to give her physiotherapist We’d Like To See received the last two issues out of order, for spending all day hunched over a hot together, or not at all. OK, time to come Tobes and Max Hit The Road by, keyboard. well, Max and Tobes clean; we’ve had a bit of a cockup on the mailing front. Far be it for us to lay the blame “Elrond is my wallpaper, but Haldir My Trip Report by almost any TAFF delegate where it’s due, but Alison failed to post out is my screensaver” issue 26 for months on end, and Mike Why We Resigned by the decided that everyone who’d been at the con London fandom is looking for a new pub Interaction board could wait for issue 27 until after he’d got again, following the Sparkler Affair, the Why I want to run a Worldcon by back from his secret tryst in Cornwall (see Secret Policemen’s Piss-Up, the Murine Stephen Boucher elsewhere in the issue). So no need to worry, Infestation, the Gaseous Débâcle and other Anything at all by George Dave, we haven’t gone monthly. incidents too unsavoury to mention in a family fanzine. Despite cries of “we’re happy Personals Column here, we don’t want to move again!” from the electorate, Mike has been joining the pub It is a truth universally crawls organised by Paul Treadaway to try to acknowledged that a single fan in find a replacement venue—how we suffer for possession of all his goolies faculties should get in touch with fandom—and we hope that we might have Lilian Edwards. somewhere by Novacon. But updated details of the seemingly endless quest can be found on the Plokta News Network web-site Cute Cat Story (www.plokta.com/pnn/), which we haven’t It’s the time of year when our plugged since the previous page. feline friends begin to leave We’ve not got very far with the fanzine presents on the back lawn. We on previous weekends. In fact, our only hope “Don’t get noodles on the moose” think they’re trying to encourage us to store up birds and rats for for getting the fanzine out for Novacon is the winter. Of course, Spookie that this weekend we are (pause for dramatic This may be the last issue of Plokta for has a bad habit of eating the chord (or, as Douglas Adams might have put some time. Not only will The Two Towers be whole thing except for the beak it, “Shrubbery!”)) childless (if you don’t count released in December, but just after Novacon and the feet before presenting his Alison, of course). Yes, Marianne and we’re getting the extended edition of gift to his loving mum. Anyone Jonathan are staying with their grandparents, Fellowship of the Ring, containing four have an idea of what to do with a pair of ostrich feet? the cat is sulking in a garden somewhere in commentaries, 28 minutes more footage of Berkshire, and there is nothing standing in Aragorn, and apparently three more words the way of our relentless pursuit of perfection from Haldir. Cattle Mutilators Strike Again

Remember, remember the fifth of November Storybook girls Dorothy, Alice & Pippa Bull Gunpowder, Novas and Plokta

3 Volume 7 No. 4 PLOKTA November 2002 BOLLOCKS That Walthamstow All-Electric Bollocks Earthquake Explained Hey, do you remember those great ads back in the fifties and sixties showing how you’d have “We’re having a Dance Dance cycling along a real road. And these machines an all-electric home one day? Revolution—just as soon as we figure out cost thousands of pounds. There were those lovely, sleek, what dance dancing is.”—.sig on DDR But then I discovered Dance Dance custom-built houses with lime and forum Revolution, or DDR to its friends. We were yellow colour schemes and furnished entirely in formica with IT WAS all Max’s fault. She mentioned, in a on holiday, back in Pensarn again, and added tailfins. They were sort of off the cuff way, that she’d been playing pinball in the beach arcade. Right populated by trim little playing dancing games on her Playstation. I next to the pinball machine was a dancing housewives with Doris Day hair, had a vague memory of seeing one such game. We had a go. We did very badly. We who wore aprons with unfeasibly game, in Namco Station—what will those looked very stupid. But I’d hatched a plan. nipped-in waists and perhaps a zany Japanese think of next—and it looked One bout of instant gratification later, I was few discreet tailfins even, as they like fun. Fun in an embarrassing sort of way. the proud owner of a Playstation, a dance glided about pushing a button here and a button there to But also, it reminded me of a theory I’d had mat, and a dancing game. “In your living activate the automatic duster, for a while. room nobody knows you’re a twit.” vacuum cleaner, sweeper and so If you want to get fit, you go to a gym, Of course, there was a SCART problem. on. All would be electric-powered, right? And there you do all sorts of It’s like this. How was I to know that I air-conditioned and remote- fundamentally boring things, along to cheesy needed three SCART sockets? My TV is controlled. dance music. Then you go home and play quite new, and so has two. The DVD player video games all night. So wouldn’t it be much plugs into one, and the cable box plugs into better if you could play a completely the other. And the Playstation? Well, I never obsessive video game that required you to be thought I was the sort of person who would physically active in order to excel? Play video own a Playstation. So the Playstation plugs games, get sweaty, get tired, get that into the video, which plugs into the cable overwhelming desire to play just one more box, which plugs into the television. And it’s game. But for some reason, I appeared to be simplicity itself to use the Playstation; you the only person who thought this. I mean, just make sure that the video is on, and tuned stepping machines have little LED displays to L3, and the amplifier is on, and turned to to show you the terrain you’re walking over; TV. And all of these things have different surely that’s a rudimentary video game? remote controls, none of which are labelled, The Aibo always seems Wouldn’t there be a market for something a and Jonathan has hidden most of them. to come out worse bit more like “Quake—the exercise Once you’ve got the telly set up, there’s Well, it didn’t quite work out machine”? Tone your body while blasting the question of the actual game. It’s like this. that way, but we are getting close aliens into so much strawberry jam, that sort Arrows appear on the screen, and you step to the all-electric house. Steve of thing. on them, in time to the music. Demonstrate and I have a house that is getting Over the intervening ten years, things sufficient foot-eye co-ordination and you’ll on for at least 60% electric. have improved. Steven fondly remembers a progress to harder, more exciting songs, Instead of being sleek and custom-built, it’s a bit grungy and rowing machine in which you are aided by a while the game remarks how fabulous you retro-fitted, more Blade Runner shark who helpfully eats your opponents. are. Try a song a bit harder than you can than Doris Day. And an all- And we saw a machine at a cycle show that manage, and it starts to slag you off, booing electric vacuum cleaner, though it let you cycle along a virtual road—but and asking rude questions before is still Giulia-powered as far as without the game element, it was hard to see unceremoniously dumping you at the Game locomotion goes. But we do have how this would be more fun than, well, Over screen. It’s basically a cross between something that those sleek little housewives never dreamt of. We have wireless networking! I can push a button here and a button there and look at elf-smut anywhere in the house. I even went outside and did it but it was too bright to see the screen. Oh, well, you can’t have everything. We use the webcam while jet- setting about the globe to re- assure ourselves that the house is still standing. So far I have refused to let Steve replace George with an Aibo, but ask me again after the next dead rat. And now we even have an in-house chat room, so we never have to actually meet as we live our parallel lives. And not a tailfin in sight. —Giulia De Cesare

4 November 2002 PLOKTA Volume 7 No. 4 Saturday Night Fever and Whack-a-Rat. After a few BOLLOCKS songs, thousands of arrows have been brutally smashed, The Wonky and you’re wringing sweat Wong-Kei out of your hair. You never got this tired playing I was in Chinatown recently. I Civilisation. went into London for the monthly SF pub meeting, and decided to What it isn’t, of course, try my old haunt of the Wong Kei is dancing. If you got up on where I’ve been eating on and off the dancefloor and acted for more than twenty years. The like a DDR player, you’d be food is fine and it’s pretty cheap; laughed out of the place. the service though is something Like in Riverdance, your arms else. Alas, it’s awfully changed. The WK used to be famous for stay rooted to your sides as having the rudest staff around. you move your feet in ever Basically, you’d go in the door, decreasing circles. In an look around and be immediately effort to prevent spectators set upon by a pack of attack from noticing this, the fans waiters demanding, in broken have developed “freestyle” English, to know how many people are in your party. “How dancing, where hitting the many? How many? One? Sit right arrows is almost here. Two? Downstairs, incidental. But the simple downstairs! Three? Upstairs, fact of the matter is this: you please.” I’ve seen would-be always look stupid when playing Steve wishes he’d brought along his super wide-angle lens diners storm out in a towering this game. Yeah, and we rage at this point, but if you looked dead cool playing Neverwinter Nights. pseudonyms than Lionel Fanthorpe, notably meekly sit where you’re told, the including “Naoki M” and “Naomi K”. Of waiter slams down a pot of tea, a I discovered I was behind the times and cup and a pair of chopsticks, and these games had been around for years; course, as these are not so much dancing demands to know what you want obvious really, given that there was one in the games as Arrow Smashing games, the specific to eat. Asking for a menu is arcade on Pensarn beach. The most famous music doesn’t really matter. considered very infra dig, though is , but the one we’d Each song comes in a variety of they can usually find an old battered copy which they throw been playing was its competitor, Pump it Up. difficulties, resulting in dance routines ranked on the table with a sneer. They started as beat-tapping games or ; from one to ten feet. After a month of fairly Personally, I usually just stick to only later did work out that it would solid practice, I can now do all of the fours the Singapore noodles, though I be more fun to attach a dance mat to them, and most of the fives. I’ve even managed a have been known to be more so you could tap out the beat with your feet couple of sevens, downhill and with a adventurous when the choi sum rather than your hands. This clever idea has following wind. I’ve also picked up Jungle is in season. netted Konami so much money that they’ve Book Groove Party, a game which allows you Unfortunately, the modern now started a subsidiary company to develop to sing karaoke while also dancing along to concept of customer service has gym machines with video game such classics as The Bear Necessities. cast its malign influence over the elements—just what I was looking for in the Wong Kei. The waiters have Oh, yes, and the floor bounces. It’s all been taking English lessons and first place. too hard on the feet if you play on a solid they’re even trying to be polite DDR is a global hit, but much to the floor, so I use the nice springy floor of the (when they remember). This time disgust of its fans, it’s known by the living room. Steven has started refusing to go I actually heard one ask a diner if undeniably naff name of “Dancing Stage into the cellar without a hard hat, and the he knew what he had asked for Euromix” in the UK. Another interesting mice have taken to cowering in the corner and did he really want to order whenever I play. I’ve even tried to teach the congee? And they even called feature of these games is that, broadly somebody Sir while demanding speaking, all the music is crap. This isn’t a Plokta cabal. Dr P wasn’t bad, but thought it he sit at the long tables with the problem inherent in the system; it’s that it’s would be easier with an ordinary rest of us rabble. What’s very expensive to license music to put in controller, and Sue was fine until more, the Singapore rice video games and play at home, even though she had to distinguish left from noodles looked as if they the sound samples are only 90 seconds long right. She reckons it’s a lot less had been made up from (you’re knackered after that). So most DDR fun than bellydancing with real ingredients instead of using whatever was songs are original compositions by a Japanese thirty other women, but lying around the expert in writing rotten dance music. I’m not at all sure what that kitchen at the time. Working in a variety of styles, this would do to the house. Inconceivable! The end anonymous Konami employee uses more —Alison Scott of an ancient tradition. I don’t know what the world’s coming to. —Steve Davies

5 Volume 7 No. 4 PLOKTA November 2002 Protecting Flat Surfaces From The Weather

I spent a recent Sunday in London with serious disagreement. The piece consists a great many have done better. Given my Phil, an old friend of mine. We decided of a small shelf, out of reach of the plebs, choice of rooms in which to place a we’d go visit the Tate Modern together. with a glass of water on it. Notes explain substantial quantity of gelignite, this Neither of us is greatly educated in the how the author has actually changed the would be it. labyrinthine complexities of modern art glass of water (through his secret Escaping from the desolation of theory, but we think we can recognise superpower of Art) into an oak tree. I Lucas brought us to two small rooms the difference between something good guess it’s on a high shelf in case anyone devoted to Eduardo Paolozzi. I have and somebody taking the piss. We got to accidentally swallows the oak tree (or some time for Paolozzi. He is erratic, exercise this uncommon skill repeatedly. even drinks it maliciously, in a philistine with bursts of inspired artistry giving way The great engine hall was a act of art criticism). This is the Humpty- to leaden kitsch. Naturally these are all disappointment. It’s a huge space, crying Dumpty school of art, where a word displayed with equal loving care. After out for something big and dramatic. It means whatever you want it to mean. all, what matters is not the quality of the contained a small number of vertical Phil felt that the artist should be strung art but who it’s by. No? Anyway, one of forms (sculptures to you and me), no up. My grip on reality has never been his signature dishes is the repurposing of more than six feet high. Some of the that good anyway so I just got the rubbish and ephemera. If anyone wants a individual works were reasonable (there giggles. It was a great temptation (which copy of the October 1938 issue of was a Giacometti, a Gormley and a you’ll be glad to hear we resisted) to Wonder Stories, tough, it’s now officially number of minor pieces) but there spend the rest of the day redefining an artwork. Or part of an artwork. Or appeared to be little rationale for them arbitrary objects as oak trees and leaving something. It’s in a glass cabinet, it must being there. There were three groups: it at that. In fact, some of the later be art! galleries would have been a lot better if one of traditional human-body And while we’re on the subject of they’d been just been defined as oak trees sculptures, one of modern human-body glass cabinets, next door to Paolozzi we to start with and sent to be pulped. This pieces and one of semi-abstracted found Damien Hirst’s installation would doubtless have saved some human-body pieces. They seemed to ‘Pharmacy’. This was one of the most rainforest somewhere for a good 30 have been assembled with no regard enjoyable experiences I’ve had in any seconds. either to the space they were in or to gallery of modern art. Not because of anything other than following the theme. There were a couple of other pieces any aesthetic aspect of ‘Pharmacy’ which This turned out to be a consistent feature in the room, but we had some trouble consists of a room lined with glass cases of the gallery. A room full of unrelated finding them. We eventually realised that full of pills (or at least the packaging for works involving collections of similar the floor tiles were actually a work by pills), plus 4 kick stools in the middle of objects, a room full of unrelated works Carl Andre, an artist who deserves to be the floor, each of which bears a bowl having something to do with the concept turned into IKEA flatpack furniture if containing a honeycomb. Oh and there’s of dissonance, and so on. But I’m getting ever I saw one. The other was either the an insect-killing light but that might just ahead of myself. emergency exit or a ventilation shaft. We be to keep bugs out of the honey… So I At this point, Phil expressed some finally decided it had to be the ventilation spent several minutes dashing round the concern about us taking the piss out of unit because it wasn’t as well made as the room going “I’ve been on that”, “I’ve something that might be a great work of door. Creating a piece that looks like a just stopped taking that”, “I’m on that at art. My feeling was that if it was good art, ventilation duct, in a building full of real the moment” “I hear that’s got really then taking the piss out of it wouldn’t ventilation ducts strikes me as… well, cool side-effects…” If ever there was a hurt it. And if it was crap then it superfluous. No, I’d go further, complete Victor Gonzalez memorial artwork, this deserved to have the piss taken out of it. crap. Or possibly scrap. is it. Great fun, I haven’t laughed so Having agreed on this as a strategy, A very large room was devoted to the much in ages. See, you knew modern art we proceeded to a room called “Virtual oeuvre of one Sarah Lucas, purchased at had to be good for something. and Real.” Immediately by the door was vast expense for the national collection. Further on, we came to a favourite a piece called “Light Switch” by Ceal Hmmm. Let’s be diplomatic. Ms Lucas is room, “Landscape Encoded.” I liked Floyer, a Karachi-born artist who a manufacturer of utterly talentless Simon Patterson’s “The Great Bear” “invites us to reconsider the nature of drivel. Her artistic ability is completely when I first saw the original some years visual perception through an engagement non-existent. Her works bear about the ago, hanging in the foyer of London with everyday, ephemeral objects and same relationship to art as a single Underground’s offices at Canary Wharf. situations.” The piece consisted of a slide molecule of hydrogen does to the The tube map is reproduced, except with projector, projecting the image of a light Magellanic Clouds. The only piece with the names of the stations replaced by switch onto the wall at exactly the any spirit to it was a garden gnome people, so that for instance the Jubilee position you might expect to find a constructed of cigarettes. She must have Line are all famous footballers, the physical switch. You get it? Light switch? been having an off day when she created Bakerloo line are great thinkers and so A switch made out of light? Well, we it. The majority of her creations consist on. Where it falls down is at the were amused. Not impressed, engaged, of smuttily symbolic arrangements of intersections. Baker Street is represented intrigued, confounded or even disturbed. household objects (two melons on a by Charles Darwin which is OK for the Just amused. It was a nice little joke, sofa, two light bulbs and a fluorescent Bakerloo line, but old Charles wasn’t worth no more than 5 seconds of tube sticking out of a futon… that kind much cop as the centre-forward for anyone’s time. of thing) or cut-up pages from the Galapagos United (“The Finches”) and Sunday Sport. I’ll come back to this, but Next to the light switch was a piece so the whole thing lacks that ultimate I’d like to say that any sufficiently dirty- entitled “Oak Tree” by Michael Craig- spark of brilliance. minded ten year old could do better, and Martin. Here we had our first, and only, 6 November 2002 PLOKTA Volume 7 No. 4 Also in “Landscape Encoded”, we have the incorporates a large proportion of found largest ant farm in… I was going to say in the material, in this case newspapers. BOLLOCKS world, but I’ll settle for the largest ant farm in When the piece was new, these would have A Treat For One Eye any modern art gallery I’ve been around. 47 been white and the general appearance of the national flags (mostly South Pacific nations piece would have been very different. So Tibs wrote to let us know that Lilo but including the UK and USA) made from much for the guide’s street-cred. He also and Stitch includes references to coloured sand were connected by plastic completely misrepresented the political Viewmasters. On Friday, tubes and ants allowed to run around inside. background of socialist realism, but there you Marianne and Jonathan were delighted to discover that the Now as far as I could tell, all the ants have go. since died and the piece is now a static work. current Happy Meal toy is a Reflecting on all of this, I was struck with genuine Lilo and Stitch If we assume that it was originally a dramatic realisation about the nature of art. Viewmaster. Look through it to performance art, carried out by a cast of ants, No, honestly, this is really significant. We’re see stills from the film. Except which I think was the intention, is this strictly talking a major turning point in the field of that, in a blow for monocular now an artwork? Or merely the dead remains equality, these fine stereoptical art criticism. Given a substantial Arts Council of an artwork that should have been tidied devices seem to have been grant we could be cooking with gas here. away and donated to some small child’s manufactured by someone who Anyhow, here it is: has Missed the Point in a most sandpit? My vote is for the sandpit. The one unifying theme to absolutely comprehensive way, since they Performance art. You know, I’ve got only have one eye-piece. every single piece of modern art is that the nothing against it as an art form. It’s often artist is trying to make you see things in a fun for both artists/participants and different way. Basically, as an ignorant peon, onlookers (actually in most performance art the way you perceive the universe is naturally the distinction is pretty blurred anyway). But inferior to the rarefied perception of the the heart of it is the performance. When it’s artist and so he/she condescends to invest over, it’s over. The thing that utterly subverts objects with some hint of what they claim to performance art is displaying props or films see. This way you can marvel at the from the performance as if they were art in superiority of these wondrous beings and themselves. The Tate has a number of these. accept your true place, grovelling at their feet. There’s a Mark Wallinger exhibit on the 5th There’s just one problem with this. Your floor with a video showing him standing on average modern artist has the imagination of Primrose Hill, breathing balloon gas and a gerbil. What are the great emotions, reciting a Victorian children’s hymn in a Torture Garden luminescent thoughts and lofty ideals that squeaky voice. Not art. Not any more. It they fossilise into art? Well, so far it looks like Last Plokta weekend, it seemed might have been art while he was doing it food, drink, drugs, sex, more sex, as if every LiveJournalling fan in (personally I’m not convinced, but I’m defecation… oh and an addiction to puns the country was parting at the willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, Torture Garden fetish club in and trivial toys which doesn’t say much for just this once), but now it’s just the London on Saturday night. their sense of humour either. Look at some reanimated corpse of dead art. I’ve got this Except for us, who were too busy of the great works of art of the past. Many of mental image of the Tate’s curators as mad eating vast amounts of food and them (obviously not all) are actually trying to getting pissed producing our scientists in a bad Hollywood monster B get across very complex ideas. You can see finely crafted fanzine. Sulk. But movie. They pull the switch, lightning real hunger in those bowls of fruit, real pain we let Sue put her over-active crackles, and zombies rise from the slab imagination to work: in those crucifixions, real lust, real… crying out “brains! braaaaains!” experience. Unfortunately they eat the curator’s brain first, leaving us suffering the Tate Museum of That’s the heart of it. How can artists the Mediocre. produce great art when they haven’t suffered for it? I mean, it’s almost a cliché “I suffered But it’s not all bad. Barbara Hepworth’s for my art” except these days they don’t. sculpture is excellent. The Rothko room is Nobby, the gnome made out of cigarettes, pleasant enough and Rebecca Horn’s upside- presumably portrays the artist’s terrible down exploding piano is always good for a experience of having to cut back to 5 packs a laugh. We learned that Mondriaan once went day so she could afford to buy another off in a huff when someone suggested the couple of melons and a banana. What we concept of diagonal lines to him and the need is a movement to improve the quality of extraordinary mural on the 5th floor is modern art. Naturally, to do this we need to actually made of mud. Then, while leaving persecute artists. We should get the National the “Socialist Realism” room we bumped Lottery to put a bounty on the heads of into an official gallery guide, giving his spiel artists, forcing them underground, painting to a crowd of sheep. He led them round in on the run, sculpting guerrilla art while front of “The Discussion” by Gussano, a looking over their shoulders, listening for the superb piece which, to my mind, almost mob. Any artist captured would be makes up for the appalling wastelands decapitated on prime-time TV and their head elsewhere. He discoursed knowledgeably on placed on a spike at the Tate (or, in Damien the striking composition of the picture, the Hirst’s case, in a tank of formalin) as an relationships between the figures, the installation with real immediacy. None of significance of the brown colours in the your namby-pamby smutty stuff here. Blood, overall colour balance… There’s a problem gore and dead artists. And good riddance. here. You see, “The Discussion” —Steve Davies 7 Volume 7 No. 4 PLOKTA November 2002 BOLLOCKS A Second Chance at Eden Boucher for TAFF (YES, I know that Peter F Hamilton has It seems that a Worldcon bid for already used that title. Isn’t he an appalling Australia in 2010 was spontaneously generated at reverse plagiarist?) ConJosé, and took something like In September, I was in Cornwall on $4,000 in pre-supports. Always in another secret assignation. Not, I hasten to favour of Worldcon bids for add, in any way related to the ZZ9 excursion somewhere that’s 10,000 miles away, this fanzine supports to Magrathea, which I later discovered was Australia in 2010. there a few days after me. Talk about narrow escapes. So, as one does in Cornwall, I decided to visit the Eden Project, a hole in the ground that the National Lottery poured a few tens of millions of pounds into with better effect The Corn Dolly of Doom than in Greenwich. This is actually easier said than done, even in September. It really is a compulsory attraction for all visitors to Cornwall, and it’s getting 2 million visitors per year against planned numbers of 700,000. This means that it tends to fill up, and then they post an angel with a flaming sword to keep people out for the rest of the day. But on the second attempt I turn up at opening time and there’s only a fifteen minute queue to park in the Marianne’s Choice unfortunately named Strawberry car park. We discover from the At first sight, the complex looks Independent that pop-psychiatrist considerably more alien than it ever did when Oliver James says “If you they were filming Doctor Who episodes in the seriously want your child to grow same quarry, thirty years ago. It’s all up a genius, then I’m afraid you’ll glistening translucent domes and coloured An eagle made from 250,000 wine corks have to die before the child is 15.” contributed by RSPB members Apparently “an astonishingly banners waving in the breeze, and could high” percentage of US perfectly well be a domed colony on another presidents have had one parent planet. Except for all the tourists, that is. die before they reach 15. So the question is, will it be Steven or Alison who voluntarily discorporates in nine years’ time? Guess who we’re betting on. Fame At Last D West wrote to chastise us for not sending him #26, and added “Is this any way to treat a contributor? (Let alone a Hollywood star)”. He helpfully included a picture There are two domes. The larger one, of Don West, a character in the pictured above, is the tropical biome. You recent movie Ivansxtc. We can’t could allegedly fit the Tower of London see the resemblance ourselves. inside, although I wouldn’t want to be on the M4 stuck behind the lorry that was That’s a nasty fungal infection you’ve got transporting it to Cornwall to test the hypothesis. The smaller dome is a temperate biome—you might wonder why temperate plants need a dome in Cornwall, but they seem in practice to be mostly Mediterranean. It’s supposed to be a habitat and showcase for endangered plants. But frankly, Kew Gardens has more plants better displayed, and they’re not the main attraction of the Eden Project. No, it’s much more worthwhile visiting for the domes themselves, and the wide variety of daffy sculptures. The Minoan skin for Dance Dance Revolution —Mike Scott

8 November 2002 PLOKTA Volume 7 No. 4 Lokta Plokta

infestation? Maybe the stairs cost 4d, i.e. one groat, and the up helping to run the thing Chris Bell nobody@dev/null.com will vanish one night? So the Reconvene Groat was after I have finished the next thing will have to be its theoretically worth a pint (or degree it will be entirely enlisting next door to slide a lunch) before the Adelphi coincidence. There is good You are collectively a Bad down the hill and push the decided it was just a unit of precedent for landing Influence, but don’t go entire edifice into the house currency and they would give everyone else with running a resting on your laurels on that on the other side. change for the Groat note. convention and then wandering off into the groves account. Whence else am I My advice to all prospective Something tells me that this of Academe, after all. going to get not one but two mature students would be explanation needs to be made guaranteed distractors that “don’t do it”, on the basis of as public as possible before Back to the washing. Or even cause the Tall Naval events since I signed up for the Groat turns out to have Tristram Shandy. I wonder Youth of Doom to read them this degree, went to Freshers’ been a fannish thing since which is the less enthralling when he is meant to be doing Week and became 1958, originating in Leeds, or prospect? A shaggy-dog story Something Important like bewildered, and opened the proto-Croydon, or told backwards at enormous finishing the washing he’d put first (anglo-saxon) text. Two somewhere suitably fannish. length or a detergent-slimy into the machine untutored weeks after the beginning of Surely at least one of the shirt. I really do know how to and on completely the wrong my first term my mother died. Plokta Cabal remembers the live, don’t I. cycle, whilst failing to make Of the immediate family, one Groat Decision for Actually I am an example of sure all the powder left the in- developed a malfunctioning Reconvene? iron will-power. Steve’s bit on tray at the right moment and thyroid, and another got A complaint. You have fallen computer games means I am thus that everything being tonsils bad enough eventually victim to the Curse Of The bound to mention this. I have rinsed didn’t merely get to require surgical removal, Smart Quote. When you use a Mac, you see—no, not a washed again and again in over the next year and a half. smart quotes, the single quote new super-triffic all-singing decreasingly powerful soap Meantime the house got before a word, aka the etc, just a small Mac. It came solution over several washes, dryrot in five rooms at the apostrophe, comes out the with one game on it. The before vanishing to Oxford back and the front began to wrong way round for its game was/is the SuperTetris leaving me to sort out the drift away from the rest, and function, and words such as sampler: play up to 3000 bubbles from all over and my front teeth all began to ’50s and ’60s in Brad Foster’s points or two whole levels hang up three shirts and some come apart, so that for the LoC look silly. This is not just to see how triffic it is, underwear but nothing like a past eighteen months the something you do often, I then buy the CD, is the idea. full washload? Not to implants have been gradually grant you, but it’s a growing Unfortunately this was out mention stopping me from brought into play, which, trend; two books I have read for sale several weeks before I getting on with the since whilst one waits for recently, each from a small got the computer, so the CD emergency re-read of Tristram them to happen finally publishing house, have been was no longer all that Shandy before the beginning everything dental is held bedevilled by this particular available by the time I wanted of term, a date on which together with dental blutac, typo, and it’s surprisingly it and I never made the effort coincidentally the builders means no solid food whilst irritating after the first couple to find a copy; I just became arrive to spend three or four it’s going on. (What a waste of times it makes one look for the world’s greatest expert on months reconstructing the of a convention on Jersey, all the other end of the scoring under 2000 points for house again—the front is that food and no way to quotation and then realise two whole levels (1 and 5) of falling off this time, the back chew….) we already have under control there isn’t going to be one. Be SuperTetris. (My record-low by inserting a metre of That will be enough aware of it, it looks dead score is 1756 and an empty concrete under the whingeing. amateur and naff. well, which is very impressive to anyone who has the foundations, and one side It is very satisfactory to the [Aaaaaaargh! I cringe and cower faintest idea what I’m talking isn’t going anywhere because ego to note that a childhood in the corner. Alison trips over me about, so there.) And now next door is in the way and joke of mine, gleaned almost and drops the baby on George, who somebody who shall remain anyhow that side is uphill certainly from the Very Old starts clawing at everything in nameless (but lives in from here. There really isn’t Wall in The Perishers, has reach. All die. Oh the Birmingham and indulges anything much else it can do become part of fandom’s embarrassment.—Proofreader] himself in Random Acts Of solo after this: the front fell consciousness. “Bring back Reading Plokta and Ansible Mindless Kindness and keeps off, the back fell off, the the Groat”, the slogan said, and going to three cons a year a moose who distributes other side-wall is held on with and I had it as an ambition seems to be the only fannish chocolate at conventions) has large metal strips cunningly for many years, and I finally activity I get at the moment, found the CD for me and incorporated into the floors convinced someone else that having sworn off conrunning given it to me for my after half of it fell off, the it would be a good idea and until I have done this degree. birthday. roof has been replaced as an we did it for the gopher- Hence the LoC: I need to emergency, the kitchen tickets at Reconvene. Now I am not going to install it make sure I get the occasional collapsed, and we don’t have you’ve invented an acronym until I have got this degree. fix of fandom. Rumours that a cellar for the whole lot to to explain it, and everything. I am involved in Bindweed And I’m not on any concoms fall into…. Dry-rot we’ve Gosh. And really it was all are erroneous, I’m not until then either. done, rewiring we’ve done, because a pint of ale back in involved at all, it’s only a what’s left? Coypu the dim-and-distant used to Really. rumour. If I happen to end 9 Volume 7 No. 4 PLOKTA November 2002 (I was planning to eschew (I’m listening to someone Kim Huett (again) them was that the film went LoCs as well as concoms and talking on the radio about Avast ye Ploklubbers, through on a slanting path so SuperTetris, but luckily I Extreme Ironing. Is there that the images were above didn’t say so in public, so this Extreme Fanac?) I saw a really neat segment on each other but offset by bit of not-reading-Tristram- cooking last week and I several frames on the film. Shandy-or-Clarissa is understand you all have some It’s difficult to describe in Claire Brialey legitimate. Phew. Slogan: affinity with food. Basically words—basically when you [email protected] “Plokta! better than the chef Ian Parmenter took a picture the left eye washing for wasting time demonstrated how best to view was on the top half of constructively!”) cook in your hotel room with the 35mm film, the right eye Alan Sullivan’s February Jird the sort of appliances found view was on the bottom half Chris Bell (about to find out attributed to you the there. Some tips, such as that and several frames to the whether the shirts have been following advice on how to croissants can be easily right (or possibly right at the eaten by coypu in her become an award-winning reheated by putting them in a top and left underneath, it’s absence) trufan: “Be witty, funny and bag and blasting them with a been a long time since I saw shag Claire”. In case the hair dryer, were a bit obvious. one). You had to use a special veracity of last year’s Novas is Jerry Kaufman Using an electric jug to boil cutting jig (which was [email protected] in doubt, I’d like to quash any assorted vegetables while extremely expensive) and possible rumours about me steaming asparagus stuck in Viewmaster film frames and Dave Hicks or Doug & the spout was clever though. (ditto) to put the thing Being in Seattle means that Christina—individually or Even better he wrapped a fish together and view it. one is exposed to much of collectively. And I’d like not to in non-stick paper and Dale Chihuly’s work in the quash any possible rumours cooked it by resting a hot iron area, and many stories in local about me and Alison SMS on each side. Call me a [email protected] media. He’s quite the Freebairn, because if Jim de vapulater but isn’t this the character, looking broad and Liscard’s going to take five sort of practical information squatty, with wildly curly hair months off work we’ve got to that Plokta should be and an eyepatch. He’s had make him think he’s missing delivering to its audience? major shows or installations something. in places like Jerusalem and I suggest nobody takes the Venice, as well as London, idea of Valois coffee any and there’s now a Museum of Kim Huett damn further! I’m sure I’m [email protected] Glass in Tacoma, our “sister” not the only one who doesn’t city to the south. (Seattle and want to imagine a warm rush Tacoma are actually great of Tobes gurgling down their I trust that by now you have rivals in many ways, and we throat. [Obvious editorial your copies of the Lucy delight in putting Tacoma comment withheld for reasons of Huntzinger collection. Time I down. At one time, when the taste and discretion. And, may we asked if you would be so kind city had more active paper just add, Eeeeeurgh!] as to mention its availability mills, Seattleites made many in the next Plokta. If you references to “the aroma of Jan Stinson could do so I’d be most Tacoma.”) [We only know [email protected] Snodders now officially has grateful. The collection is Tacoma for its Narrows.] names: Cuilliann Jacob what you would call POD so Erasmus Kenneth Kepler… there’s no rush about this. Steve Jeffery Do you know whether there Short. Just so long as you mention [email protected] are copies of Strange Delusions that anybody who’s interested available on the Web or via e- I’m sure that will entertain should send me their mail? I did a search someone. equivalent of a couple of Here’s something on an idea (admittedly a brief one) and dollars to cover postage. I’ll that’s been brewing for some didn’t get any solid hits. I then happily send them a time, but your covers finally hope that if I write to Tobes copy. persuaded me to try it out in and ask if he has extra copies Photoshop. (and include some filthy lucre, postage being so horrendous), he’ll send a few. I’d love to read more. Ghu, listen to me, I sound like a fan already….

Marcus L Rowland [email protected]. co.uk

Something you very rarely PS: hear about is the Viewmaster cameras. There were two or Eira says: “In the shower, you three different models, all can’t hear your baby scream”. fairly primitive 35mm designs. The odd thing about 10 November 2002 PLOKTA Volume 7 No. 4 Brin-Marie McLaughlin Does it count that I spent 8 cocoa and/or coke and there In the 20th century the [email protected] years on Jackson Square back is no record of them ever fashion began to die out, but in the 60’s and am addicted to using the chocolate teapot from the 1980s onwards it coffee with chicory and the method, using chocolate was revived almost single- Apparently, there seems to smell of mule piss? (That’s burial urns instead. Shouts of handedly by Professor occasionally be some New Orleans for those of you “This is some damn good Seymour Rabinovitch, a confusion over the deceased who haven’t left their rooms shit!,” usually accompany the distinguished American SF fan Aubrey Vincent in 5 years.) ceremony. scientist who has Clarke, whose obit and commissioned new work Brother, can you spare an E- Antique chocolate teapots are subsequent tributes appear on from leading silversmiths in zine? highly prized as collectibles the PNN, and the living Britain and the US. Slice and fetch astounding prices musician Vince Clarke, of shows what they have been Granny Lala (again) on E-bay. The price is directly Depeche Mode and now able to do. The fish is the related to who used them last Erasure. Today, I happened [Commenting on the chocolate main source of inspiration and if any cannabis powder to be in a chat room here on teapot.] and the slices slither and residue is still there, or if a AOL with the living Vince writhe across the surfaces SheesH! packet of it is included. The Clarke, when he happened to they rest on, some staring at chocolate saucers are much see the obit of the other Vince Just let some intellectuals the viewer and others rarer and accordingly fetch Clarke. At first he loose and they miss the entire threatening to bite. experienced what my mother lawn while blowing on greater prices. Some slight used to refer to as a ‘modified dandelion fluff and declaring melting damage is tolerated. stationary panic’, because he the wind to be from the thought somebody was South when they were really Kim Huett (yet again) posting a satirical obituary looking for 4 leaf clovers. That is simply the cutest about him, but then I drawing of D. on the top It all starts with false explained who Vin¢ was. right hand corner of page assumptions and having your seven. I hadn’t realised this But he was still curious to mind stuck in the narrows of before Sue stepped in but know a couple of things, a pot-de-chambre, er, now I can’t imagine him as though, so I said I’d look up chocolate teapot. anything but a disgruntled your email and ask you for Chocolate tea pots have and chain-smoking winged him. always been meant to be used mouse. 1. Does PNN ever get for instant powdered teas and A mouse, it must be noted Erasure-related email? [No.] cold liquids such as water, however, who can pack a wine, etc. The tea may be any 2. Has anybody else ever been punch when you manage to dried leaf or herb. If spirits focus him on the right topic. seriously confused over the are used this creates a identity of the two Vince I wasn’t impressed by medicinal extract. The most Alison’s defence of Glenn Charles Hitchcock Clarkes? (e.g. seeing the common being powdered header “TRIBUTES TO Brown either but couldn’t [email protected] cannabis. The chocolate shell VINCE CLARKE” and never have explained why giving it a subtle bouquet instantly assuming the worst.) with sort of detailed much appreciated by arguments D. used. I’m entirely in sympathy with connoisseurs. The tea is then Alison about camping; as a Granny Lala held in the mouth until warm [email protected] Debra.Kerr proto-fan I spent two or approaching body summers travel-camping temperature, and then it is around Europe, including the spit directly into the palm My life is so narrow it looks Slice is a show of fish slices wettest Scandinavian summer from whence it is wiped on like an alley full of trashcans and cake slices not just as on record. After dripping our the trousers, or alternatively that haven’t been cleaned for humble domestic objects but way down the Norwegian spit into a chocolate teacup. 20 years. The only interesting as major works of coast, my parents finally (See notes on Winetasting things in there are the dent contemporary art. damned the budget and Parties, or How to Drink and patterns in the lids I’ve used rented a campsite and space in Still Stand up in a Wine Slices were first created in the to suppress the memories. a dorm; we pitched Cellar.) If the tea is powdered early 1700s when fashionable I’ve got my back up to the everything and slept in cannabis, the spitting is eating habits required that bricks and am covered with comfort until we could stand omitted and swallowing is fish and cake be served at the outdated newspapers that the smell of it’s-really-almost- recommended. There is also table with utensils appropriate read like toilet paper in a dry canvas. (We also another technique which to the high status of their privy. discovered that while the involves snuffling the owners. legendary English breakfast I’ve saved you a place back in solution into the nostrils from Silversmiths were required to may have been fading even 40 the corner where a dim ray a chocolate saucer, which was make the servers into objects years ago, the Norwegian breaks through the roofs at practiced in Mayan culture in of beauty as well as use and version was still at the let’s- precisely 5PM. Just step into ancient times, but it has been some very highly wrought skip-lunch-and-walk-instead- the light and I’ll recognize abandoned for centuries. artefacts resulted, ornamented of-taking-the-bus stage.) you since you will be the only There are practitioners of with a great deal of piercing thing there on 2 legs. snufflers in pockets in Peru, and chasing. but they have gone straight to

11 Volume 7 No. 4 PLOKTA November 2002 Colin Greenland fountain of fire at the V&A; Meanwhile, the Pink Pound fledglings will lose their (with a CD of maybe it wasn’t there in issue was much enjoyed. I wariness of Spooks, having comment—Honeybee by January, though I remember may not get a namecheck on been brought up in nests of Moose) the chandelier. I’m sure it the front page, but I see my his hair. That’s one of the writhes squamously to elude mantelpiece does. Please many clever advantages of all efforts to trap it on CCD; don’t tell Alison that Hazel our feline masters. Hi there and thanks for all the Giulia tells me the Plokta and I giggled at inordinate Ploktas. Ploktae. Ploktata. photo was borrowed from length over the picture of the Martin Morse Wooster (again) Whatever they are. Here’s some outfit with the scantily clad bathing belle on, I was quite pleased to see the some moosic never played on wherewithal to sedate it first. or rather facing, Page Three. article by Rob Jackson. The the wireless. Searched the All I was able to get in Steve’s mention of the Elite first British fanzine I ever saw credits for Durrphhorn but January were photos of Vicki space-combat computer game was Maya. There I was, a couldn’t find it. Rosenzweig in plate-mail brought back memories. I callow college student, gauntlets, and the Greatest You’re quite right about Late saw the original BBC version learning about all the fun Chair On Earth. Junction, though. Last time I briefly at some show, but the things that happened at tuned in they were playing 1991 PC Elite Plus was the British conventions. The Tom Heasley. Ambient tuba. subject of intense Langford drinking of pint after pint of True. research because there were real ale, the dinner actually plans for spinoff expeditions to Indian Martin Morse Wooster novels. If Doom, why not restaurants, the massive Elite? These books, it was consumption of vindaloo, the madly fantasized, would be frenzied run to the toilet! It Knowing about your love of written by various SF evoked the sense of wonder. I things Japanese, I thought Encyclopedia hacks such as still have most of those issues you would like to know about Paul “John Grant” Barnett, of Maya, which I understand Chindogu, the ancient Japanese myself, and John Clute. I are quite collectible … well, art of “unuselessness.” Learn Bend over, Tom explored and recorded mine would be collectible the Ten tenets of Chindogu, various byways of the were they not partially and how you will obtain SMS (again) game—“special missions” encrusted with souvenirs of enlightenment by wearing youthful overconsumption of Particularly flattered that Sue awaiting in odd corners of toilet paper on your head! I one or another galaxy, and alcohol. But I still have them. also pass on a Japanese not only remembered the details of Eira’s Pregnancy the way hyperspace jumps I’m sorry, but I have to ask a noodle dish consumed by Wardrobe with such accuracy could very rarely go wrong clueless American question: space aliens. but that she gave me a and dump you into “Witch why Croydon? Is it the center hairline I’ve not seen in over Space” (or whatever it was) of the UK fan universe, the five years. amid millions of attacking British Seattle or Madison? purple Thargs. Eventually the Where can I find the Slan (Snodders/Moose insists that whole project faded away, Shack of Croydon? he took up far more tummy though not before various space and that we “Look space-operatic synopses had Alison Scott finds surprises funnier than that”) been drafted, including one on Radio 3. There are no bizarre Clutean extravaganza surprises on American radio. Dave Langford which after many Everything here is precisely [email protected] transformations and programmed by marketers. contortuplications became his I’ve taken part in these very first skiffy novel surveys; for $60, you spend I’d heard some distant Appleseed. Not a lot of people two hours in a hotel room Tom Womack rumour of a pink FT issue, wanted to know that. with a wireless device that has but was taken unawares when a dial you can turn from 0- this practically glossy Joseph T Major 100, or, for some questions, I enjoyed Game On more publication arrived. There [email protected] from 1-10. (No, it doesn’t go than Steve did; too involved was a long blank pause before to 11.) You then get five- with Real Computers (RIP I joined the chorus heard at second snippets of songs, Acorn Archimedes) to have breakfast tables up and down Bollocks p. 3: Installing the which you then rate by met the consoles when they the nation: “Bloody HELL, CD-RW drive in my twisting the dial. The last one were new, and I spent far too it’s Plokta!” computer was made of these I did, for an “oldies” (pre-1980) rock station, was much of my rationed time I’m sorry about the Hugo. interesting by the discovery interesting because of the upstairs playing the specially- Have taken measures to when we opened the case. large amount of rock history imported Pikmin; I have to ensure that Ansible is Large quantities of loose gray that was left out. I think the remind myself roughly weekly henceforth placed in the fur resembling the pelt of Beatles were down to six that I don’t need and can’t Semiprozine category. They Elfling filled the case. We had acceptable songs, the Rolling afford a Gamecube. Couldn’t thought I was joking when I to vacuum it out. No yellow Stones had three, and Janis escape the bulldozer, let alone suggested this, even though I fur from Sulla. No white fur Joplin hung in with one. reach the Vogon fleet. chose the immensely from C’Mell. Just Elfling fur. However, every song from dignified Tobes as my I admit that I too failed to Incidentally, it’s C’Mell who the early 1960s about surfing, mouthpiece, but the SMOFs notice the twenty-foot glass sits atop the computer fast cars, the beach, having a are going to hold me to it. monitor. Of course the little 12 November 2002 PLOKTA Volume 7 No. 4 milk shake with your sweetie, going to suck…” watched Greg Hills sew up Australia. Yet Britain and driving your GTO into the seams in his pants, Giulia continues to leave its borders This … (Giulia de Cesare): the surf was included. went on to explain an even open to Australian soap I can’t wait to find someone more bizarre event: the operas, cricketer teams, and As for our classical stations willing to try and talk Wag mysterious disappearance of a even myself. You only have here, the commercial one (our into trying this—he works in baby at Ayers Rock. The yourselves to blame if such a version of Classic FM) has IT, does far too much distraught mother had naive attitude results in you decided that all their listeners Intemet and computer game blamed dingoes (wild dogs) having to endure the like of are either a) stressed out stuck stuff and has a gyppy back. … It led, inevitably in Shane Warne or Kylie in traffic jams driving to and He’s probably got the gaffa Australia, to books of dingo Minogue. For a small fee from the office or b) stressed tape already and is likely to be jokes and bad fanzines like however I can be persuaded out at the office. So they offer up for it, given that he once Dingo Vomit” to never repeat the act of music that is designed either dealt with his own bladder- visiting the ‘mother country’. to perk you up or relax you. stone (a most unsavoury tale Now I have met Giulia, and Unmarked bills please. During the late afternoon, involving pliers, WD40, an she is obviously too young they found that half their electric drill, a very steady and debonair to have been an WAHF audience wanted perky music hand and more nerve than is actifan in 1983. So how did and half wanted relaxing entirely Human). this passage appear? Then it John Dallman (pointing us music, so they alternate. And came to me: the Cabal have at a Usenet posting about of course, both stations excise Martin Morse Wooster (yet mastered the art of time chocolate moose), Michelle anything bothersome, again) travel, and turned into Hiley (“We’re the fourth including all organ music, all I like reading TAFF and chrononauts, sailing the time fannish generation”), Tom vocal music, and nearly DUFF reports, and since streams to insert themselves Feller (“Thanks for leaving anything written in the 20th there aren’t any new ones into crucial moments in copies in the ConJosé fan lounge”), Kurt Erichsen century. Only three overtures (*koff* *koff*) I buy the old fanhistory! Coming up: (enclosing some illos), of Shostakovich, for example, ones and read them. So George the cat seizes control are now allowed. All in all, I’d having bought Jerry Kaufman’s of the 1939 Worldcon and Robert Lichtman (who rather listen to a symphony 1983 DUFF report Kaufman expels fans who fail to give suffered from Alison’s for Durrphhom. Coast to Coast, imagine my him treats. crapness about mailing #26), Terry Jeeves (“The real surprise when I turned to page At what point did advances in Alan Sullivan world is fantastic enough to eight, and, in a description of technology make you feel the Natcon, came across the baffle anyone”), D West (also old? For me, the first time a victim of the great non- following passage: this happened was in the early Covers (Sue Mason, Alison mailing of #26), Douglas 1980s, when I saw an exhibit Scott): I take it the next CD “I flung myself down on the Spencer (breaking our strict of old train cars that included ROM and the web site have bed nearest the door, and was “no doggerel” policy), Brian the commuter car I rode now acquired a certain Asian soon talking to a small dark Ameringen (“Arthur every day in 1977 downtown flavour—including big woman exotically named Cruttenden has a double”), to my first job More recently, musical number and wet-sari Giulia de Cesara (sic). Giulia Pamela Boal (“Perhaps a I felt aged by an article in scene (apparently it is an old was from Tasmania. At last, I little unfair to Viewmaster”), Wired that reported that Bollywood tradition or an thought, I can get an Geri Sullivan (“Walking into young people today don’t use ancient charter or something explanation for that the Dead Corgi party after watches, since if they want to like that). Probably in a Peter mysterious headline in The Sparks & Geri’s not quite know the time, they look at Sellers accent. As the great National Times (a weekly excellent adventure truly their cellphones… sage Lobsang Robert Rankin Aussie paper) I had seen on made my weekend”), Andrea once said: “Politically the plane: Spy Planes Over Dale, Christoph Meyer Kim Huett (still again) incorrect, but who gives a Tasmania.” She explained it (asking to trade), James R toss.” I don’t believe the as being part of a dispute Steve seems rather surprised Cunningham, Kathy “Worldcon Disaster’ bit, by between the Tasmanian at how bizarre many USian Chamberlin (requesting the way. Just because you government and beliefs are. I am in turn submission guidelines and missed everything after the environmentalists over the surprised at the way subscription rates), Pam comment “This convention is placement of a new dam…. Europeans are bemused by Wells, Henry Welch (“Our As we leaned back and the acronym to their west. I titles are quite boring in would have thought it was comparison to Kip’s fine obvious that transporting so collection”), Tibs many of the undesirable (mentioning Lilo and Stitch across the Atlantic would Viewmasters), Paul result in a cultural stew with Campbell (“Any address in some very suspect lumpy bits Clacton-on-Sea is as good as floating in it. It’s like Britain any other”), Bridget sending a selection of its most Bradshaw (“I dove into the vile and degenerate pieces of cover with hoots of genetic flotsam to a series of laughter”), Teddy Harvia mandatory detention centres (“What I once considered on the far side of the planet. superfluous technology is Who could be surprised when now an integral part of my the result of that piece of life”) and Annie Olsen (with housekeeping resulted in coffee of comment). 13 Volume 7 No. 4 PLOKTA November 2002 Carters Steam Fair

Steve: We wandered up the hill and took a Scream (or, if you are eight, gaze with There we were in Reading, desperately look around. If you had a pair of small admiration) at the Terrible Rack! trying to avoid making a start on Plokta. children, or if you were older than about The dioramas were old, from the Giulia had already disappeared off up to 28, this is the fair that you’d really want early part of the 20th century and were London for a bead fair, along with the to go to. All the rides are perfectly within beautifully made, of wood and papier ravaging hordes of the Berkshire the capabilities of normal people, the maché and cloth. The little man in the Beaders. It was beginning to look as if emphasis seems to be on fun rather than Iron Maiden was there, in his loin cloth, there was no option except to knuckle separating people from their cash, and the doors, with their impressive spikes down and begin editing the LoC column. everybody in sight seemed to be having a were shut on him and then, voila, they Fortunately, Alison had left all the LoCs good time. open again to reveal his perforated body, in Walthamstow, so we decided to go to with really good red blood and an agonised the fair instead. We don’t usually go expression on his poor face. The poor because they’re mostly video games and man on the rack was rent limb from limb, loud music, with hordes of teenagers with blood in the form of red silk ribbons drinking and being generally unpleasant. attaching his arms and legs to his body. This time it was slightly different. Hours of entertainment and very Carters Steam Fair is the world’s only ingenious. touring antique fair. All the attractions They were, of course, terribly are genuine restored rides, some dating valuable and eventually the owner of the back to the 19th century and many arcade found this out and they actually powered by steam. The story disappeared into some museum goes that John Carter was a collector somewhere far from Pensarn. who acquired a decrepit set of antique The old slot machines gradually gallopers (a merry-go-round with horses). followed and I never thought I’d see In 1976 he took them on the road in an them again. attempt to defray the cost of restoration. Until the Steam Fair. There, in all They’ve now got a full range, from their tarnished glory, were the slot Victorian swing boats to a 1950s machines of my childhood. The garish dodgems complete with music played on colours were somewhat faded, but the the original 45s. Even all the lorries and brass and wood fittings were lovingly living-vehicles are authentic. polished and well cared for, some of them the exact same ones I played with Sue: as a kid. So this was where they ended up. I like slot machines. Sign of a mis-spent youth. When I was a kid, my parents had a caravan in the seething fannish metropolis of Pensarn (see Ploktas passim) and I spent many a happy hour in the arcade on the beach, sheltering from the driving rain of a Welsh summer playing with slot machines. As well as the new models, there was a fair selection of vintage machines too. The two-headed child from hell These only took old pennies; they were antiques even in the 70’s, most of them The Penny Arcade, where you could buy from the twenties to the forties with 3_ p-worth of old pennies for only £1 garish panels in pink and green and And the old skills haven’t atrophied; I yellow promising all kinds of wonders won a packet of candy sticks (candy and marvels and fun. cigarettes without the red blob at their Ball bearings racing about a track, tip, swizz) and had a good hour of fun wobbly tin horses plodding along as you spinning wheels and working handles twisted the wheel and driving a and reliving more innocent times. wolloping gert big huge ball bearing No sign of the dioramas though; they along a track to win a Nestlé chocolate are probably in a museum, unplayed and bar, they were delightful. unloved, even though they might be There were also the dioramas, about much admired and very valuable. the size of a shower cubicle, with such I think the slot machines got the edifying themes as The Haunted better deal. They might be abused by Graveyard, Henry the Eighth’s Wives sticky fingers and heavy-handed players and, my absolute ghoulish favourite, The but they are at least still in use and still Chamber of Horrors. Shock at the red Sue on the steam gallopers hot poker! Shudder at the Iron Maiden! giving enjoyment.

14