The Voice of Fate

JOHN CLUTE tergiversates: 'Text is terrifying!'

BANQUET. Those who have not collected or not paid for their tickets must do so before 1100 on Sunday, at Registration.

CARCINOGEN BAN: Please note that the Skyline bar is NON-SMOKING.

BSFA AWARDS. Mexicon speaks: 'We refute the foul and pernicious rumours. We may once have been asked if we'd host the awards. We have been asked to (and are) hosting the BSFA AGM, but have heard nothing about the awards. Our degree of willingness is a figment of your correspondent's [Jenny Glover's] imagination.'

QUOTE 1/2 R UNQUOTE: the saga continues. 1/2 r is #2 in Millennium's members list -- the computer sorts 'quotes', then numbers, then letters.... Bernie Evans uses alphabetical order, so 1/2 r will be under C in her Mexicon list, E for Novacon.

REAL ALE SURVEY: 'I've found out why the new Mary Ann beer is called "Old Jersey Ale". They keep it in the brewery until it's past its best.'

LOST! Parris's black leather wallet and passport. Before trying to gain residence in Jersey she issues the usual pitiful pleas for return of passport, wallet and contents, including a rare photo of her taken during her run-away-from-fandom-to-join-the-circus days, and several maxed-out credit cards. Finder will be most kindly rewarded. [Not Jan Howard specifically -- Ed.]

BID RUMOUR! Rock Con, a 1995 Eastercon in or on Gibraltar, has just been whispered.... (The logo is a traditional Gibraltar moose.)

COSTUMERS' NEWSLETTER Would you like to receive, contribute to or even wear such an organ? Giulia De Cesare wants to produce trial issues: what follows depends on the level of interest. Contact Information to learn more.

FORBIDDEN PLANET is pleased to announce an informal signing with Katharine Kerr at 1300 hrs Sunday in the Dealers' Room.

WANTED. Russian fan Anton Sviridenko seeks a lift to Paris on Monday/Tuesday. Contact in Dealers' Room or via Voodoo Board.

NOW HEAR THIS. Convention Killer players are reminded that the back sticker 'I've got a life' means something rather different from 'I'm alive'. (Our editor asked: 'Why not Pre-Dead?')

do se cinri pei? lo rutni bangu ('Are you interested in constructed languages?'): Lojban is a language being created, written and spoken by linguists, logicians, computer scientists and people with an interest in the mechanics of the languages they speak. It is the latest implementation of the ideas of Loglan, first described by James Cooke Brown in Scientific American in 1960. If interested, come to the Colony Room at 1600 on Sunday, or contact Colin Fine or Iain Alexander via the voodoo board. There will be a further session on Monday (1000, Basement).

IT'S INCONCEIVABLE! This is not a spoof Easter -- con bid but the sequel to Inconsequential. 'We didn't feel like calling it Inconvenient or Incontinent. Now stop telling us it's a spoof and join.'

Pink Fluffy Bunnies on Elm Street has been resurrected. Past, present or future members should please contact Tom Abba (Voodoo Board).

TSAR OF THE RINGS. Want to join Hobbit Games in Kazan (Russia) in August? Addresses to Ann and/or Mikhail at their Dealers' Room table.

Intersection reminds its 'friend' members and presupporters that their membership discounts expire on 30th April. Get the cheaper rate now at the Intersection table, Dealers' Room.

WORLDCON: IRELAND. The 2001 1/2 Worldcon bid (also bidding for the 2002 Eastercon and Eurocon) is around again. Its committee will be at the proposed SFCD party, seeking support. The use of 8 inch punched cards means that all membership lists are now unreadable and can no longer be used. Presupporters should indicate continuing interest by inscribing their name and address on the top of a pint of Guinness and passing it to a committee member, who will file it appropriately.

AD SPACE for sale in the biggest Ukrainian sf series! Contact Boris Sidyuk, Dealers' Room.

CHOCOLATE JUNKIE EXPLODES! These 5Kg chocolate bars contain over 50,000 kilojoules -- enough to sustain an average human for 6 days or melt 154kg of ice at 0°C.

Reality Check

LATE MOVIES (i.e. early morning): tonight, Slither; Sunday, Young Einstein.

JACK COHEN's talk is at 1030 Sunday, not 1100.

Lionel Fanthorpe: Justly Neglected Author (1500 Sunday) ... cancelled through lack of courage.

TVSF: What Is A Cult And How To Make One. Be Seeing You? (Basement, Sunday 1600.)

JOINT FAN FUNDS AUCTION -- proceeds to TAFF, GUFF and Fans Across The World -- will now be at 2330 not 2200 (Sunday, Golden Lounge). Please come and buy books and Other Items for these worthy causes. Further donations of material for sale are most welcome: see Pam Wells (TAFF), Roelof Goudriaan (GUFF) or Bridget Wilkinson (FATW), or bring material to the auction.Pam Wells

XENOBIOLOGY: quiz deadline extended from Sunday noon to Monday noon. Exam papers from Robert Sneddon; fee £2.00, all proceeds to Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust. A score of 75%+ will earn valuable research books including Dougal Dixon's Man after Man (signed), Durrell in Russia by the Trust's founder Gerald Durrell, and Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials. Put completed papers in the box at the Information desk.

The Golden Helix

OVERHEARD. Jack Cohen: 'I'm not going to move very far for a free drink.' Chorus: 'Boo! Fakefan!' • 'I'm desperately shy.' (D.Langford, very loudly, in bar.) • 'I want to be dipped in chocolate and thrown to the Klingons.' • 'I know that you're female, because your badge says "Nina"' • Terry Hunt: 'It's a good thing humanity doesn't depend on explosive dispersal for reproduction.' Hugh Mascetti: 'What an interesting idea....'

WEATHER NOTE. An unexpected heavy fall of copies of Concatenation afflicted fans in the hotel forecourt today. The prognosis is uncertain.

ER Delivered to the Heliograph offices: ZOMBIES: Ari (the one with the nosering pissed on the floor), Marko (the one with pony hair) passed out, Danne (the king zombie) went to sleep early, Eta (the Dutch zombie) pissed of everyone, Tom (the Rock zombie) drank too much and didn't understand science-fiction fans who believed in UFOs or horror fans who believed in supernatural. (Sic. Will anyone owning this message please take it back to Finland?)

CENTENNIAL SCIENCE! In 1893, Wilhelm Wien anticipated later findings at crowded room parties with his Nobel-winning work on the radiation of hot bodies. Charles Steinmetz prepared the way for a later Frederik Pohl collection title by completing the mathematical analysis of Alternating Currents. And Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer published their seminal The Psychic Mechanism of Hysterical Phenomena -- the first known study of Eastercon bidding sessions.

FAMOUS MUMBLERS OF FILMLAND. At Visual Images 2 presentation: 'As you can see, there's quite a bit of information in just the first three pages of this script [Aliens]. If you were to just read this the way you would a book, "Wuh wuh wuh," you'd miss it all.' Is this why novels rarely make a smooth transition to the screen?

JERSEY RADIO: the ace reporter found time to interview one or two con members during brief gaps in his demanding schedule of Killer....

HELICON STATISTICS! We have filled 7 Jersey hotels and drunk 1,600 pints of real ale, as at 1300 Saturday. Chocolate count: 2,500 champagne truffles, 55 of the 5kg blocks, 7 large rabbits, 82 Easter eggs, 1 lifesize Tim Illingworth, and 20 people have taken the behind-the-scenes tour. (Still 3,000 truffles and 8,500 other chocs to go. Must Try Harder.)

BEAR HORROR SHOCK. A copy of Eon was sold! Sorry, start again.... Overheard: 'I've been asked to tell you the bear in the box is getting loose.' Is it stalking the Art Show seeking vengeance? Should John Harold be WARNED? Chris Bell

IF I RULED ... Urgent! Wanted for maleficence, ballot rigging, brigandage, small furry animal molestation, breaking and entering, and self-effacement: Stupendous Man, Boadicea, Ming the Merciless, Genghis Khan, Sir Edmund Blackadder. • The Lido cinema has a special screening of The Sound of Music by request of Mr G.Khan. • Thog the Mighty doesn't want to rule the world.

TECH OPS were disappointed that the Intersection coverage in #4 was not by Ian Sorensen, but wish to insert a token death threat anyway.

MODESTY forbids a cackling John Grant to say whether or not it was his team (M.Scott, M.Cule, V.Brown) that trounced that of fellow-Encyclopaedist John Clute (R.Robinson, B.Ameringen, M.Rowland) by 365 to 220 in the FoF Official Battle of the Titans Quiz. At one stage tech staff were called to check whether JC's team's buzzers were actually functional. Alas ... they were.

VOX POP (on Heliograph): 'It's all done with mirrors.' 'Well, it's a pity they don't have a page three, innit?' 'Is that the Spiegel catalogue?' 'You could have made that 365 a bit bigger, Dave....'

Heliograph 5, 10/4/93. Autarch: Dave Langford. Hierodules: Dave Clements, Caroline MullÃn, Chris Suslowicz, Bob Webber. Arctother: John Dallman. Smilodon: John Grant. Picture Restorer: Harry Bell. Group of Seventeen: Chris O'Shea.