From K??

[Comments only, unidentified issue]

intended to help underground magazine publishers and has a quick once-over of all the standard methods of producing small-press zines...typewriters, relief printing, photocopying, spirit and stencil duplicating, offset litho, etc etc. It casually says Instead of a five-year apprenticeship to become a printer you can go on a five-day course. You don't even need a five minute course for several techniques. I'd cast a certain skeptical eye on this as on the cost comparisons – they say in '86 you could duplicate 250 sides A4 for £3.60, photocopy them for £6.00 and offset litho for £12. I don't think photocopying worked out at 2½p each even in '86.

I found the old magazine mentioned ( see back page) but there was less about fabricated monsters than I remembered. Guess the picture stuck in my mind.

THE GARRET – Tommy Ferguson – One of my grandfathers was in Income Tax, tho' I don't remember as what. Don't recall much about him except that he gave me my first typewriter (which is why my handwriting didn't evolve after 14 years old) and he seemed to live on rice and whiskey. How's your digestion?

RYCT me – oh yes, I have to distinguish between myself and the pop-singer Vincent Clarke who was burbling in the early '80s. Absolutely no relation.

When I mentioned intrusive music, I meant just that. There're bits of music, ranging from FANTASIA to the skating of Torvil & Dean, which are perfectly suited to what you're seeing, but when it competes with dialogue for your ear's attention....

RYCT Ken; when the BSFA was started, it was as a means of recruiting people from ordinary fandom into trufandom – social fandom, where people talk about themselves like wot this is instead of literary (book and magazine) science-fiction, tho' you know the background's there and handy for reference. Once upon a time that was all there was. Now you're talking about a third stage, like a paleontologist probing further backward...TV sf fans. Ghod, I can feel elitism creeping over me.

Hoorah for those sentiments expressed to Maureen – dislike of blatant arguments, etc.

Re. the comment to Theo on mis-directed post, I once had a letter from a very young US fanzine editor addressed to Wellington which landed up in New Zealand. Handy – I was able to write an article about it for his fanzine.

Pity about you going to EasterCon – if I can afford one Con in the year, it'll be the MexiCon this year. Second favorite's the NovaCon, but the Easter do's an also-ran.

SOMETHING IS ROTTEN ETC. – Kev McVeigh – 12 'O' levels and 5 'A' levels sound like suitable qualifications for any number of jobs. I think you should examine your motives – what is it about a job (aside from a lower salary than you'd like) which makes you shy away from it? A little self-examination on strictly practical lines is often useful. And, incidentally, instead of waiting for the 'phone to ring, it might help things along if you did a bit of dialling yourself.

The most interesting part of your Con report was the preliminary skirmishes with the snow. The rest of it was, to an outsider, a fairly uneventful account of meeting Names (that's all they were – no personal details), the odd drinking, etc. I'll send you a copy or two of old-time Con reports to show you how other people have handled the job.

The story was interestingly low-key, slow starting but ending smoothly. Certain amount of wish fulfillment, I guess, but then most romances are.

RYCT self, that you feel as tho' you're living in an intellectual no-man's land, what sort of place is Milnethorpe, fevvens sake? No debating societies, no MENSA, no local writer's courses being run?

Thanks for all the book recommendations, tho' I'll give the records a miss!

SNOWDRIFTS OF SHAOLIN – Darroll Pardoe – That's continuing to be interesting about Buddhism, but I'm afraid that knowing it was expounded upon in FRANK'S APA doesn't help unless I can get a copy. Peter-Fred?

RYCT to Ken. There's something not quite kosher about those figures. If you deduct 25 holiday days, why don't you deduct 104 days total Saturday and Sunday?

RYCT Maureen. I'm afraid that kite-flying is one of those sports that don't appeal, probably because on a gusty day (which is what is needed) my few strands of hair get whipped about and it's uncomfortable. When the wind is steady it's a 'so what' situation. I remember taking daughter down to one of those popular Kentish cold-breeze-all-the-time seaside resorts and after playing with a kite for 20 minutes just tied the line to a deck-chair and let it fly by itself. We went on to more interesting things like trying to construct a rampart against the incoming tide. Didn't work. After a time I reeled the kite in – I was afraid the deck-chair would take off. Ah, the English seaside in summer!

SHADES OF CANVAS etc. – Eunice Pearson – A quiet beginning – except that it contains one of the most astonishing statements I've read in a fanzine: over 100 penpals! Where on earth do you find the time to eat and sleep? How regularly do you correspond? And – what do you find to write about? Very intriguing, Eunice.

TRAVELS IN HYPERREALITY – Maureen Porter – I do wish you'd do something about the reproduction problem on TiH, Maureen. Makes it very difficult to read. Can I help? War poetry always seems almost a contradiction in terms to me – war associated with an attempt to beautify ordinary language and perceptions. Aside from Owen, the only 'war-poet' I have any time for is Henry Reed – I've been looking for his Leaves From Verona from which came 'Naming of Names' (and at least one other that escapes my memory) for years, hoping that there'd be more of the same.

RYCT Sarah, on radio, I mentioned GLR a few months ago because Brian Hayes was moving to it but I've quickly grown out of it, partly because it's difficult to remember to turn it on at 10pm when there's TV and a couple of hundred books waiting to be read, but mostly because of the appalling music (I think they're '60s not-quite-hits) which blast you now and again. I've turned it on during the day-time once or twice and it seems to be run by amateurs then.

RYCT Ken, I'd be interested to hear more on Spanish and Portugese names, but what's faintly interested me for years is Spanish proverbs, ever since I heard that sf author Eric Frank Russell was collecting them (shows you how long ago it was). I don't know what it is but there's always a piquant flavour to them quite unlike the home-grown variety. I've never come across a book/pamphlet on them, tho.

THE ARACHNO FILE – John Rickett – So the jenny hanniver mystery is unveiled – and isn't it curious that no one was able to find anything, and pity Theo didn't have an eidetic memory! No one's come up with my own lost article yet, but I live in hope.

Very nice take-off on such short acquaintance with the foibles and fetishes of the PoE members. And a very smooth transition into the palpitating actuality.

RYCT Ken, I'd always do photocopying, but the cost of petrol and/or post in you getting stuff over here is a bit off-putting. With all due respect to Chuck, I think that the computer graphics are a bit limited – and limiting – from a fan's viewpoint. Of course, you can get a scanner at something approaching £100 which would enable you to insert any artwork whatsoever providing you have a DTP.

RYCT self. Yes, on reflection I agree – gallows humour is an understandably selfish celebration that one isn't taking the lead part in some tragedy. How much interval you get between death and joke is I suppose a matter of one's personal sensitivity to the feelings of mourners/survivors.

Can't find as much to comment on as I'd like – you're stuff's so polished it's difficult to find 'hooks'.

THE STRUTHIAN PERSPECTIVE – Theo Ross – Once again a nice bit of collage for the illo. Liked the inclusion of TOOTHMARKS in the address...mice or postmen? And as I said, your stuff on the 'Gone for a Burton' admirable – I suppose you haven't any idea on that pseudo-Woolcott essay? Your own quotation ("The noblest fate..") still checking, but you surprise me by praise for Starship Troopers...it's pretty well derided by the sf fan community – will comment on this some other time as I'm rather short of space. Your stuff is always a pleasure to read.

A STRANGE KIND OF SENSE – Brian Stovold – Those are lovely quotes – Fanthorpe, I presume? You can usually tell his stories under whatever pseudonym, as he used to dictate the yarns and, as I've heard it, one of the stenographers would say "Only three more pages to go, Mr. Fanthorpe" so he'd have to wind up quickly, tying all the loose ends in a couple of pages. Like the bit on radio comedies; LBC, a commercial London station, has been doing an hour each Sunday lunchtime, ranging over the years from Hancock to American-Jewish monologues. Terrible interference with whatever you're doing.

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Ummm – I overran a bit – I meant to leave myself a full page to reproduce the LILLIPUT picture. I could go back and eliminate 5 lines here and there but it's too time-consuming, so I'll leave you with the picture only. Relevant text only said the Thing had been made of a monkey, bird and fish, c. 1560 in Venice. "Many thousands of lire must have been paid out by the curious and credulous to take a peep at him." Ancestors of SUN readers, no doubt. Vin¢ signing off and clear.............................................