K33

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K33, an APAzine for PIECES OF EIGHT, Apl. '93, from A. Vincent Clarke, 16 Wendover Way, Welling, Kent, DA16 2BN. The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good. R. GRAVES

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UPDATE

Sorry for the appearance of some 'K's last time; the copier was being awkward. Even now there's a semi-failed component which may lead to poor results. Trouble is, copier parts seem to become obsolete even quicker than computer parts, and at present this particular one is unavailable.

Late reading comprised, amongst other items, NEW WRITINGS IN SF & FANTASY: BERKELY SHOWCASE No.3 ('81), (which I may keep because it has a 24p. appreciation of Theodore Sturgeon in it), and RED DWARF ('89) by 'Grant Naylor'. I never did get around to watching the TV series, but found the book unexpectedly humorous. Also, IMAGINARY PEOPLE by David Pringle, a marvellous Who's Who of fictional folk – 'our' Kimball Kinnison, the Gray Lensman, is sandwiched between King Kong and Wells's Kipps.

Otherwise

COMMENTS ON MARCH '93 MAILING

THROUGH THE SPEAKING TRUMPET – JDR

You've done wonderfully well on your spider-webbed forecastle, Cap'n. No complaints from me on the two-year stint or your replacement. I went through it myself in the early days of OMPA and it's left me with this twitch....

Hope the energy comes back soon.

As usual, TTST was superb.

THE SCHIZOPHRENIC'S BALL – Andy Butler

There's been a fair amount written about P.K. Dick in fanzines, of course, mostly in the classier sercon type. Want me to do any digging for you, eg. 5 pages on Schizophrenia by Dick in a '65 NIEKAS (US fanzine), or Peter Nicholls on him in Malcolm Edwards' TAPPEN No.4, or article on him in CRYSTAL SHIP ('78), or tributes to him in MATRIX 41 ('82)? Personally, I always get the uneasy feeling that he's reeling off to get a fix between chapters of his longer books. His short stories are OK, but never seem to linger in my memory.

Marauder – Ken Cheslin

Good and funny cover. Will this lead to a whole series of the sea-dogs confronting each other? RYCT me: Interesting on comics. Of course, I was reading them pre-war, when they were purely story papers, except that one of

them, I think Wizard, had a double page in the middle which was cartoon strips. I used to get orange-juice stains and dandruff over the Magnet, which as George Orwell later pointed out in a famous essay, was a curious choice for a pleb. But thousands of boys who had no earthly chance of going to a Public School lapped up the adventures of Harry Wharton & Co. at Greyfriars every week. Looking back on it now, I recall that a central character, Billy Bunter, nowadays thought of amongst old boy's paper enthusiasts as the star turn, used to annoy me. I wonder if, to a lonely kid, it was just the sense of belonging that was the attraction, however far from reality this was?

You and your memory! Yes, the '65 Brumcon badge was roughly playing-card size – the very item is featured on the cover of THEN 3, which is why I asked you in a letter if you had all of them!

Before some war-story buff jumps forward, let me say that the idea of a sea-going iceberg being used as an air-field was considered seriously during the war – feasibility studies were made, etc. I seem to remember that towing an iceberg down to African latitudes was eventually considered to be too – er – far-fetched.

RYCT to Sue (remarks re. education greeted by enthusiastic nodding) – were you thinking in that note of Psmith, the P.G. Wodehouse character? Incidentally, PGW had a nice fantastic streak – aside from LAUGHING GAS and the very early (and rare) THE SWOOP (German invasion of England written before WW1), many of his 'Mulliner' stories have the characters taking draughts of 'Buck-U-Uppo' and similar potions with unusual side-effects. I wonder if P.K. Dick ever read 'em?

RYCT Paul – that it would be interesting to make 'an Arthur film sticking...to historical facts', I reckon it would certainly not be box-office-y enough; as far as my knowledge goes, there would be about ten-minutes worth of speculation about some Anglo-Saxon war lord, not named 'Arthur', and that would be that.

Your comments are so full of hooks that I find it difficult to leave 'em, especially the two lines of Holmes-Watson dialogue which are chock-full of opportunities. Something to work on.

A DOPPELGÄNGER DELECTATION – Dop

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA with Fred Astaire? Either you're recording some episodes that weren't in the film (my Authority says film was from cut-down 1st and 5th. episodes) or your video has intercut scenes from ON THE BEACH.

A really marvellous example of Desk Top Publishing – would it be indiscreet to ask how long it took?

ONE G & S IS RELAXATION... – Jenny G.

Yes, I also saw most of PIRATES OF PENZANCE on TV, and shuddered somewhat...in fact, I remember just listening to the dialogue and music and ignoring the action. The Keystone Cops stuff was too silly for words. But this leads us down the byways of historical cultural difference, and the producers may have been truer to the original than we'd like. . In Victorian times (P of P was first produced in 1880), the policeman was a public servant, with the emphasis on the servant. Servants were low on the social scale, fit only to be figures of fun, especially to the nobs who went to the operetta.

Which leads on to your central question, even though it's tacked on to the end of a fascinating review. Does everything have to be rigidly done according to tradition? Do we want Ibsen in modern (well, 1930's) dress, Carmen the love of a coloured GI?

And I'd say there's no clear answer, except that it's obviously impossible for the audience to get into the mind-set of those for which it was originally written, so there'll always be the niggling feeling that you're missing something.

But I must say that Swan Lake with male cygnets strikes me as an unnecessary.

LITTLE BITS OF ZERO – Carol Ann Green

RAEBNC except that I totally agree on the virtue of printing out a rough draft when using a W/P...amazing what you miss on screen.

DAY FOR NIGHT:EVER – Paul Kincaid

Excellent slice of nostalgia. One little word on which I'll hang a hook was 'Giles'. Yes, a great recorder of the 20th. century; his cartoons of British life since the mid-'40s, with that careful attention to clothes, architecture, etc., are a continual joy.

(Just been looking at an annual or two, to see if it would be possible to reproduce a detail in this column, but it wouldn't give the setting which counts for so much.)

Interesting the radio script; pity the age limit for the children couldn't be squeezed in.

THE ONE PER CENT FREE – Darroll Pardoe

Read and enjoyed but no comment occurs except that to a deep dyed southerner the place names are just names. Distances? A local train would do about 9 miles in 20 minutes (station about every 3 minutes) so 2 hours is a wee bit excessive for that distance.

GALANTY – Derek Pickles

RYCT John, am now a teeny bit sorry that I explained NIRVANA, its origin and its history in the last 'K', in view of your comment re. NIRVANA anthology (hardcover '82, wasn't it? You missed it??).

Actually, the thing was 'exposed' in FANCYCLOPEDIA 2 in '59, but of course that's ancient history now.

RYCT Theo, Linwood got into touch with Rob Hansen after THEN 3 was published – can't remember the circumstances – but doesn't seem to be interested in coming back to the fold. A few more decades, possibly. And Jansen (RYCT Paul) made a brief re-appearance in the '70s, but has vanished again.

Plug on!

THE ARACHNO FILE – John D. Rickett

Maybe Ghod was trying to tell you something re. the ineffective lighter?

RYCT Kev: Mars looks a bit pinkish to me, but all the rest are shades of white. I've more or less given up on star gazing now, having finally had too much of London light-scatter (and lousy weather)...and disappointment re comets.

RYCT Theo: About 35 years ago, give or take a year or so, I remember discovering – somehow – that the Chinese for chips was 'Chow Yung Fan'. I wonder if one of you bloody experts in the Orient can verify this, or not? Are you reading this, Theo?

No more luck with Zeller's Congruence, but I would remark that it's also a heck of a job trying to discover the date of Easter for some long-past year. I was trying to pin down the time of an ancient EasterCon a couple of years ago, and was reduced to going to the library and scratching around.

RYCT Maureen: Tho' I don't imagine for a moment that you're quoting Josie direct, what does "Well, he's a bleeding iron, isn't he?" mean? Don't understand you youngsters.

Intruding a more serious note – and chunks of TAF were seriously thought-provoking and thought-provokingly serious – 'Full employment' is, of course, a myth, as there'll always be people leaving work for various reasons, and technological improvement making some industries adjust their work force. But if I may quote Lord Beveridge, he considered that the nation could be said to be in a state of full employment when (somewhat paradoxically) a maximum of 3% were unemployed. This may seem like an ideal, but in fact from wartime until the early '70s it happened.

We are now, of course, in the science-fictional age foretold in so many stories, where the worker goes to a factory and presses a few buttons (keys) and the work gets done. Well, more or less. What is so frustrating is that no government, of whatever political colour, seems to have foreseen this and made provision for it.

That's a funny view of economics during war time, though. "Buy shares in armaments: sell 'em when victory is on the cards". Who buys? Who sells to whom? Certainly not the chap on the 49 omnibus.

But on the "human history is filled with violence" theme, why should this be an excuse for not trying to improve the quality of life?

Call me an optimistic idealist if you will....

You may remember that I was expressing doubts that I'd correctly identified your butterfly story, and that your mention of two mounds seemed to ring a (slightly macabre) echo in my mind? Have now found the story I was remembering – Our Feathered Friends by Phillip Macdonald. Really gruesome stuff – two people getting pecked and smothered to death by li'l birds in a forest, ending with two feebly heaving mounds. Like Bixby's It's a Good Life, a yarn I'd just as soon not have read.

THE STRUTHIAN PERSPECTIVE – Theo Ross

Good anecdote with the beggar, tho' you had a woeful title. Why not Esprit de l'escalator?

Nice comment to Maureen, and while we're giving Shakespeare a metaphysical hotfoot, has everyone read No Bed For Bacon by Brahms and Simon? And if not why not?

Viola pointed to a white wall capped with thatch in the homely Dorset manner.

"What goes on there?" she asked Lady Meanwell.

Lady Meanwell pursed her lips. "The Theatre," she said. "Not a nice place. Players," she explained. "They are not for you."

Viola's father, guileless though he had been, could have told Lady Meanwell that this was not the way to curb his daughter's curiosity. "Educative and instructive," he would have said. "You should visit if frequently," and returned to his supervision of his Warwickshire pommage, secure in the knowledge that his daughter would not gallop within a mile of it. Marvellous, breathless stuff the rest of it, Theo, but nothing to 'ang me comment 'ook on that I can find.

TRAVELS IN HYPER@REALITY – Maureen Speller

I was asked this morning if I had a hobby. I hesitated, throwing aside a 1,500 word explanation of sf fandom, and simply said "Reading". Still got an odd look. Funny thing was, this was at a hospital which I'm going into for a minor operation in a couple of days. Why did a hospital want to know my hobby? If I'd said DIY, would they have had me painting the tattered walls of the wards and corridors?

Crop circles. I've read CROP CIRCLES: A MYSTERY SOLVED, by Jenny Randles and P. Fuller (Jenny was the lady whose cause Dave Langford was championing some months ago – she was landed with legal costs in some horrendous case whose details I've forgotten), which if I remember the book correctly gave some credence to the vortices explanation with an assist from hoaxers.

The Skeptic, Nov./Dec. '91 had a 7-page article from one of those hoaxers, a member of the Wessex Sceptics, where he somewhat unfairly has a go at the media – My heart sinks when I think of the damage that I fear has been done to the public understanding of science by media coverage of the crop circle fiasco. Pretty cool when you consider he was one of those who nudged the media along.

But the following Skeptic has a letter I like better, from one John Clarke (no relation). He says that besides 10,000 air sorties during the War with no sightings, "our Victorian forebears spent decades tramping Britain, enthusiastically nosing out unusual phenomena..." and "soon after the War, the 'flying saucer' craze sent hordes of people, worldwide, hunting down evidence that 'flying saucers have landed'. Crop circles, being saucer-shaped and sized, would have really hit the headlines. But it was a couple of decades later that they were apparently first noticed.

Nobody has thought of the obvious explanation – that they're nesting sites for the Loch Ness monster, who apparently circles like a dog before resting for the night.

Er...in passing, sez he seizing on a casual aside, Jack the Ripper was an actual person, Springheel Jack was (a) a fictional character from old boy's Penny Dreadfuls and (b) a rocket propelled torpedo.

But I agree that sf fans are better balanced than horse mutilators. Just.

Interesting, the APA listing, and even more interesting the analysis of the word 'friendly'. My family moved when I was 14 (the general school-leaving age before the War), so I left whatever friends I'd made. My daughter in turn made no school friends that lasted, as far as I know. But her husband, my son-in-law, in his mid-thirties, still has half-a-dozen old school pals. Odd, humans.

That's good, the way you discovered fandom. But even then you were lucky (lucky?). I've spoken to people selling stacks of sf at boot sales and they just couldn't care less. Pure readers only. Spit.

Thanks for comments to me, tho' I would direct you to a dictionary definition of 'nostalgia' – "home-sickness: sentimental longing for past times". I think we were both making the automatic assumption that I thought that All Past Times Were Better, which of course, put in those words, would need extensive modifying.

I was delighted to see the Incy-Wincy Spider verse you quoted to Jenny. I heard daughter (aforementioned) reciting it to her toddler for the first time recently, meaning I've never heard it before. Is this what might be termed a modern 'classic'? It's a charming thing, anyway, even tho' it deals with horrendous crawlers. (I suppose I can say that now that there's imminent changes above? If not, it was a joke.)

TRICHINOPOLY Barry & Tara

In spite of stray thoughts about pig's disease, wasn't T. a type of cigar? Seem to recall something in Sherlock Holmes....

If you don't like abbreviations, what's 'Contrib' doing in your heading? he rapped suddenly. "Don't try to leave the room. The door is locked."

Anyway, such acronyms as gafia, gafiation, and similar have been around for yonks. Like other hobbies, fandom & APAs have accumulated their own shorthand. Some people find enjoyment in finding out what they mean, tho' in the last few years fans, luxuriating in finding themselves regarded as (almost) normal, have been inclined to treat the old hobbyist esoteric language with disdain.

Agree on Dunsany – atmosphere is all – and amongst modern writers Jack Vance has a similar ambience. And, come to think of it, Terry Pratchett, tho' he marvellously marries a strong story to a fey environment.

RYCT Maureen – "I have mainly come into contact with fans who do tend to write". Me too, but surely this is how one defines the term. If he/she doesn't write, even a humble LoC, then I find it very hard to regard the person as a fan.

Re. comment on Henry VIII, ah – I realised as soon as I re-read my remark that I'd picked a bad example (of small stature due to poor nutrition), and hoped no one would notice. But as no one is likely to be brought up on the diet that 16th. century royalty enjoyed these days, it's not the sort of thing one can prove. But good point.

'Barry's Cat' nice – surely this wasn't done on a computer/word processor? Must have taken hours.

Some small confusion on first page; can one of you write in italics or something distinctive? But nice first entry.

POSTMAILINGS

A BRIDGE TOO FAR – Brian Stovold

A pleasant read, and trouble with the printer has my sympathy. Have just looked at mine, which has suddenly become covered with dust – or possibly I haven't looked closely at it since late '86. I wish I could say something of cosmic significance about this offering, but it's just the sort of thing I'd write myself if I had the brains – cheerful but cogent in spots.

K32 – Vince Clarke

Something I should have added to the description of OFF TRAILS, the OMPA official zine, was that each issue had a list not only of member's addresses but their status, both in terms of any pages owed and in monies due. This latter would have stymied our dear Cap'n's softheartedness as shown in THROUGH THE SPEAKING TRUMPET, of course. Just as well?

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While typing the above, I had some audible wallpaper on the radio. Well, it should have been, but I'd turned from my usual music station to Radio 4 and was too rushed to turn it back. So about 5% of my attention was on various verbal felicities (is there such a word?), but my brain caught up with my ears slightly late on one item of interest. It appears that in Cheshire the police were getting pissed off at mundane citizens listening in to police broadcasts – I didn't quite catch if this was illegal, but certainly they (and we) don't want possible baddies overhearing the movements of the constabulary.

So the Cheshire police broadcast a startling news item. A flying saucer had crashed in a local field, and various fantastic details were added.

Then they went along to the field and rounded up citizens who'd listened in to the police radio and wanted in on this history-making event.

I don't know if the above is at all true, distracted as I was by the traumas of winkling out relevant thoughts about PoE, but it makes a good story – or the kernel of one.

AVC.