David Langford

1 November 2026 It's a Sunday, and the tradition of not publishing Ansible on weekends or bank holidays continues. Instead, this is the official publication day for another learned exploration of the history of science fiction fandom by Rob Hansen, OMPA: The Rise and Fall of the First UK APA. If you don't know what OMPA was or what an APA still is, just click the link for illumination.

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1 October 2026 One of the excitements of late September was the day of three mains power outages. During the first and longest, since immediate neighbours were unaffected, we called an engineer who expensively reported that the problem wasn't in our house. (Strangely enough, when our power first came back a neighbour lost theirs, understood to be something to do with the three-phase setup.) Big holes were dug in the street overnight, and all was then well despite slight residual jitters which may or may not have affected the reliability of Ansible 471, dated October 2026.

1 September 2026 Ansible 470 very nearly didn’t happen, since I spent about a week in late August feeling too ill to complete it. But I got better. I think.

26 August 2026 A happy memory found while chucking out old paperwork. Can it really have been 25 years?

31 July 2026 Arising phoenix-like from the ashes of widespread UK grass fires, here is the August issue of that thing I do: Ansible 469.

14 July 2026 Notes from the decluttering department.... Sometimes we get a twofer in the small-electricals recycling collection when some unofficial scavenger swipes the bag of bits and we notice in time to put out another. Slightly more complicated version today: went out shopping before the collection and halfway found the largest and presumably most worthless item from Bag 1 dumped in disgust on the pavement. Retrieved it on the way home, where Bag 2 had been partially plundered, making room for Large Worthless Item. Bag 2 duly taken by official binmen.

7 July 2026 I mentioned in the July Ansible (below) that one world-famous contributor to Steve Jones’s anthology Shadows over Innsmouth is mysteriously not listed on the cover though all the others are. Now a correspondent informs me that the distributor’s web page at Penguin Random House has disappeared a couple more contributors and misspelt another two: Ramsay Campbell, David Lanford. Who will tell Steve Jokes?

4 July 2026 Just a note to reassure Langford-watchers that the upgraded phone and broadband connection is working well. Hazel’s family video-conferencing sessions are vastly improved, and even the largest of SF Encyclopedia updates whizzes through in seconds.

1 July 2026 And now the July issue: Ansible 468. I hope there won’t soon be a disruption to our online presence when (we weren’t given any choice in the matter) BT turns off our landline phone/internet service on 3 July and replaces it with a fibre connection. Various mysterious boxes have already arrived by post.

26 June 2026 Weird sighting outside our house. Hazel was worried that an indeterminate flattish furry thing on top of next door’s wheelie bin might be a dead cat that had been run over (we live on the A4, after all), a prospect she did not relish. I investigated and found that my Heinlein-based knowledge of flat cats didn’t need to be called into play. It was a monkey – either a fake-fur toy that had lost its stuffing or a party costume for a small child. Even close up it looked pretty disconcerting. I would post a photo, but the thing has since vanished. • Of course if this were an M.R. James story the horror would repeatedly manifest, briefly but each time more monstrously furry, closer and closer to the old (1878 we think) house at 94 London Road that conceals so many terrible secrets, until at last the editor of Ansible is found in a dreadful state with the only recorded last word "Ook!" Sorry, the hot weather is getting to me again.

6 June 2026 Today is the SFWA Nebula Awards presentation, something I never thought would concern me personally; but this year (to my utter astonisment when the SFWA President Kate Ristau told me back in February) they chose me for the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award for general services to the SF community – largely the SF Encyclopedia but also a little bit for Ansible. Gay Haldeman, also honoured on the same occasion, kindly accepted for me and read out the following (which I’m also including in the July Ansible):

“There’s a famous story about a perpetual motion machine exhibited to awestruck crowds in New York in 1813. Unfortunately, one visitor was an engineer who noticed that the great wheel that turned forever seemed a little bit jerky in its motion. He started removing bits of woodwork, to reveal that the miracle of science was driven by an endless belt leading to a back attic, where an old man with a long beard was found turning a crank. Speaking as the cranky old guy in the back room of the SF Encyclopedia, I must say I’m thrilled to be exposed and outed like this. It’s a huge and unexpected honour to join the ranks of past Solstice winners. I even have connections with a few of them. My small press has published lots of uncollected criticism by Algis Budrys, who was remembered in this award’s first year. I was beta reader for many Discworld novels by my friend Terry Pratchett. Another old friend, John Clute, is co-editor of the Encyclopedia and patiently puts up with the jerky motions of the crank in the back room. Thank you all very much!”

1 June 2026 The paralysing (by wimpish UK standards) heat has left me feeling deeply uncreative, which may or may not be self-evident from this month’s Ansible 467. • Today is also publication day for a just-for-the-hell-of-it reissue of Charles Platt’s humorous Micromania: The Whole Truth about Home Computer (1984), as adapted by me for UK readers. Now with additional corrections and clarifications (though not updates), a new foreword by Charles and a new afterword by myself. Free ebook download plus trade paperback with all proceeds to TAFF. [Later: both authors were pleased and surprised by 500 downloads in the first few days.]

1 May 2026 Onward with the May Day issue: Ansible 466.

1 April 2026 And now here’s the April issue of Ansible. Considering the date, I suspect many readers will laugh sardonically at the obvious foolery of the Solstice Award item (see below).

31 March 2026 I thought my award-winning days were safely over, but (gulp) here is the announcement of the SFWA Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award. I’m still finding this hard to believe.

2 March 2026 Here we go again with the March issue of Ansible.

2 February 2026 I suspect that Ansible is becoming less cheerful as time goes by, because the traditional task of scanning online news for offbeat and comic stories has been poisoned by the ever increasing flood of depressing, rage-inducing and despair-compelling reports. Readers are urged to help by sending funny items and contributions to Thog’s Masterclass. I hope there are still a few such bits in Ansible 463 for February 2026.

24 January 2026 Another era ends. Goodness knows how many Ansibles I’ve fed into this traditional red pillar-box, the nearest to our house and the only one in quite some distance that was emptied at 5pm rather than some stupid time like 9am only.

2 January 2026 To adapt a bit of doggerel from a very old Private Eye:

The New Year dawns! The gurgling babe

Is ushered in with bells;

The old man with his astrolabe

Now hears his tolling knells.

So welcome 2026,

From all who still survive,

And hope that through some magic fix

It will not be as bad as 2025.

Meanwhile here’s Ansible 462.