K42

---

K42, an APAzine for PoE March 1994 from A. Vincent Clarke, 16 Wendover Way, Welling, Kent, DA16 2BN.

---

UPDATE

The end of the 28 day month kinda crept up on me when I wasn't looking, so this effort may be much curtailed.

February was another blank sort of month, tho' odd fanzines seemed to appear in ever-increasing numbers not matching my loccing speed. Got the November CRITICAL WAVE at last – the Birmingham boys must have big problems.

Heard (via ANSIBLE) of the death of Ella Parker. She was a major force in London fandom in the late '50s to mid-'60s, and spanned all our 'disciplines' – her own fanzine, sercon stuff in the BSFA, APAzining in OMPA, Convention holding, subject of a special fund to take her across to the US, publisher of the first Atom Anthology and, possibly most important, helper of youngsters by holding virtually an open-house in her London flat. The last activity turned sour – she quarrelled with other fans in the late '60s and gafiated, never, as far as I know, to enter our playground again. A complex lady but a good fan.

* * * * *

COMMENTS ON FEBRUARY MAILING

PIECES OF EIGHT – Cap'n Kincaid

Sorry about trouble with our Eunice. Sub. may be a bit dodgy after her recent resettlement in Wales, but she should have communicated.

COTTAGE PIE IN THE SKY – Bambro

RYCT Mike: You're spot on with your criticism of Russell's WASP; it's always made me a bit uneasy. I think EFR's mistake was in making the aliens stupid humanoids, for whom one can always dredge up a smidgin of sympathy ('there for the grace of Ghu' etc.). E.E. (Doc) Smith, a few years before, made his enemy aliens in the Galactic Patrol series entirely evil, however improbable this was, so you could assimilate the use of planet busters without blinking.

Above leads on to a disquisition on 'innocent bystanders' which I haven't time to inflict on you at present.

Duper seems to be working well. Are you cutting stencils directly with the dot-matrix printer?

MARAUDER 48 – Ken Cheslin

Sympathies (as you already know) on your troubles. Life is a bitch.

RYCT Andy: note on 'when story about to end' comment, remember Lionel Fanthorpe, hack-writer of the '50s/'60s? He used to dictate his PBs, and when warned that he was nearing the allotted number of pages wound up all of his plot in the last few lines.

Agree with virtually all your comments and adding my own seems a bit superfluous. I'll add to your 'it's only when you have a wheelchair that you notice cracks....' etc., that it's only when you have a bicycle that you notice the horrible state of some roads.

Your spotting of the possiblities of Milligan and Hogwash in PRIVATE EYE was a stroke of genius.

K41 – self

Had further information from Steve Sneyd on the haiku. Apparently all haiku must contain seasonal references. Steve notes some say haiku-form poems using SFnal content should be called 'senryu' instead. IT DOESN'T MATTER. (Steve's caps.)

Steve also mentions other exotic poetic forms, which I'll go into when I have more time.

SILVER PENNIES – Helen Gould

That's a very good explanation of your unwillingness to adopt, and perfectly logical enough to convince me, anyway. Wish you the all the best.

What's 'going to the pictures' (is it still called that?) like these days? I'm wedded to the small screen and it's years since I visited a cinema.

LITTLE BITS OF ZERO – Carol Ann Green

Your trouble with the computer gets my sympathy – my faithful old Amstrad is showing signs of acting up – the other day a 'Scrabble' disc I've used for 6 years was refused on the grounds that it was an unauthorised copy. I got through that OK, but it made me a bit apprehensive.

That novel you describe a bit too gruesome for me!

ROPE OF SAND etc etc. – Brian Jordan

Re. 'de-booking of libraries', I have from my Local Library The Strange Rise of Semi-Literate England by W.J. West, Duckworth '91, which describes in its small volume (no pun intended, it's 93 pages long) a lot of infighting amongst the Librarians due to cash shortages, politics, etc. He quotes a letter from the Library Association Record – "It cannot be easy to explain away the disappearance of 105,070 books from the stock of Brent Central Library..".

Unfortunately, about a third of this monograph is taken up with a list of Libraries and a further list of book titles of which they've been deprived, and the illos are almost all of 'Withdrawn' stamps, so it's a wee bit eccentric, but, as they say, its heart is in the right place.

RAEBNC balance of 'zines.

AND MORE AGAIN – Paul Kincaid

Hey, your reaction a bit OTT, but I apologise for not asking permission to copy your APAzine. I've become so used, in the last few years, to copiering scores of fanzines to send to RH because of their historical content that I did it without thinking.

As for the GP piece therein, I admired this as being honest and straight from the heart; sorry if I embarrassed you.

TIS HALF LATIN etc. – Kev McVeigh

Marvellous piece on the Quiz. Will look forward to seeing the TV.

Agree with you re. Torvill & Dean – an artform has no reference to sport. Same goes for all ice-skating which lists 'Artistic Impression' amongst its criteria. I suppose you could include ski-jumping, as subjective impressions are included, and high-diving in the summer. Could one make a case against gymnastics as well? Interesting.

THE MOON-DRENCHED SHORES – Darroll Pardoe

Pass on the title. Sounds vaguely Keatsian.

Apropos of virtually nothing except your mention of the word (used, of course, in the Pickwickian or fannish sense), did you know that a dictionary definition of a 'typo' is a beetle that bores letter-like tunnels in the bark of pine and other trees ?

THE ARACHNO FILE – John D. Rickett

Practically perfect APAzine, from the Josie/mouse anecdote to the pleasant gent on the bacover. RYCT me; thanks for back-up on Tiger Tim's Weekly. I'd no idea that syllabification (nice word!) in kid's papers still occurred in the mid-'50s.

Although I don't think that I was ever a hapless reader of Tiger Tim's Weekly, I've been digging into the gloomy vaults of memory, trying to recall the earliest stuff I read. It's OK for most of you disgusting crew, with only a mere 30 years or so to excavate, but I've got twice as much territory to cover.

And to my dismay, before the age of ten years it's mostly blank. In fact, I can't definitely date anything before Passing Show, a mundane weekly magazine with numerous topics, which started to serialise Burroughs' Venusian stories when I was aged 11. I'm certain about this, because we didn't get the magazine at home – I used to visit a local barber and hurriedly leaf through the old copies left on chairs for the delectation of the customers. As memorable to me as these adventures were, they were matched by their (almost) unforgettable illos. of slobbering bug-eyed monstrosities by one Fortunino Matania. If anyone knows anything about this gent. I'd be pleased to hear details. I've only come across one illo. of his in 50 years or so – a cover for an otherwise undistinguished paperback on Roman circuses called We Who Are About to Die or something similar.

THE STRUTHIAN PERSPECTIVE – Theo Ross

You mention in your comment to Darroll The Journal of Irreproducible Results. Is it still going? I came across half-a-dozen copies once, but eventually gave them to Jonathan Cowie, who's a Real Scientist. To anyone this leaves blank the JoIR is an American humorous journal written by scientists, conducted along the lines of Nature. Never seen a second-hand copy for sale.

DANS LE PAYS..etc. – Maureen Speller

Too long for the amount of time/space available. More next time (which may not be until May).

LA TORTUGA..etc. – Brian Stovold

RYCT Ian, I thought kit bookcases for fans were generally considered inadequate – don't go up to the ceiling.

No note on the PGWs – still a few left. And no one but no one interested in J.D. MacDonald!

The TRICH – Barry & Tara

Agree on many things, especially economic factors in fanning. Your reproduction is readable and admirable. Re. Micromania, the Platt book, Langford says "At first he dressed for dinner each night..." but eventually Americanisation overtook him; DL altered money values, etc. etc., to suit Brit. readers. This book very dated now but extremely readable.

SORRY RE LENGTH, HURRIEDNESS, ETC. 27/2/94