Forty Two

Hmm... I wonder what I could use as a tag-line for that number. Not!

1 2 _Life

From time to time, I find that people's general perception of life, and in particular, its geography, a trifle strange³ . Glasgow is actually a surprisingly compact city (at least, compared to London; compared to , say, Brechin, it is positively sprawling), with a large number of areas, many of which are famous. Kelvinside, for instance, where sex is what the coal comes in, and there are no rates ⁴ . Mount Florida, on the other hand, does not seem to have captured the public's imagination to quite the same degree. So here are a few pointers⁵ : Douglas Adams once wrote about the "Shoe Event Horizon", where every shop would become a shoe shop, to the exclusion of all other kinds, leading eventually to a collapse in society. No doubt, this is liable to happen in certain parts of London, where imagination seems to have dried up⁶ . Our local gravity well will be much more practical: the "late night convenience foodstore event horizon". Even those shops which are not yet multi-purpose general stores are heading towards becoming one. Take for example, the purchase of a few staple items for lunch, such as Scotch pies and rolls. These could be purchased in the bakery. Or the butcher. Or the dairy. Or the newsagent. Or one of the late night convenience stores⁷ ... However, tucked into all this amorphous mass of comestible retailing, are a few shops whose existence owes more to late night brainstorming sessions with possibly illicit (or at least inadvisable) substances⁸than to anything dull like planning. How else would it be possible to have a jewellers that doubles as a second hand book shop⁹ , and a Chinese take-away¹⁰ that eschews all the traditional trappings, such as the flock wallpaper¹¹ ?
And then, of course, there is the local pub, where the owner apologised for only having 7 real ales and 30 malts ¹² .

Of course, just so that we blend in, we live in and end of terrace house - in the middle of the road ¹³ ...

The Universe

A few years back, it was decided that what the country really needed was some more Universities. Since it is rather hard to knock one up in a couple of minutes ¹⁴ , it was felt that the next best thing would be a quick renaming job of existing polytechnics. In many towns and cities, naming these new institutions did not cause much hassle. Glasgow wasn't one of them. And so, when the time came to rename Glasgow Polytechnic, the obvious names were tried, and rejected ("How about... University of Glasgow?" "Got one" "I know, it's in Strathclyde, so how about --" "Got that one too" "Well, it was built on land occupied by a railway station ¹⁵ ..." "Yes, but somehow 'University of Buchanan Street' doesn't have quite the same impact." "All right then, what about the company who built the station?" "Done"), which is almost as likely a story as why it really called Glasgow Caledonian¹⁶
        All that is just a little diversion on the motorway of life. What is far more relevant is the amount of fannish activity that has been going on.
        Fandom seems to be like the proverbial watched pot. Gets easily heated, and will eventually bubble over. Nothing happens until you turn your back for a minute. And so it was when we swung south for Jacky and Oliver's summer champagne breakfast¹⁷. In the intervening months, it seemed as though large chunks of fandom had sprogged ^{18 19}. This meant that their front room had become an improvised crèche, which was a little disturbing for those who thought that they'd manage a bit of piece and quiet. Despite this, it was still possible to catch the occasional slumbering form...

The main reason for turning up, however, was for the champagne the breakfast²⁰ , which was ably provided by Jacky. While most people might be content with a couple of slices of toast and think yourself lucky, what we got (apart from copious quantities of alcohol) was enough to feed a couple of armies. Or a couple of dozen fans... Bring on the blueberry pancake queen...

Late arrivals found that the breakfast was rapidly turning into a barbecue lunch; the early arrivals took this as an excuse to grab some more food... Apparently, the real reason for the party was Jacky finishing her exams for her Masters, but hey, any excuse for a party.

In a similar vein, congratulations should also go to Hitch, who also successfully completed his degree course. Libraries may never be the same again...

Everything

Television news seems to be geared towards those with limited attention spans^{21 22} . For example, 2 minutes into a half hour bulletin, there is a short "And still to come..." However, it seems to pull in the ratings, so:

And still to come, before the end of the page looms up, more of the same ²³.

Babylon 5 seems to be going from strength to strength. First it beats of a host of big cinema releases to win a Hugo, and now it does the same again. Wow! Well done JMS. Judith and Glyn Jackson , also big fans of B5, came for a short visit. Because the weather was sunny²⁴ , it seemed like a good idea to have a barbecue . The wasps thought so too. However, they clearly had reckoned without Glyn. After sending several wasps to consider whether reincarnation as something less like a target wouldn't actually be a good idea, it occurred to me that, from their point of view, it could all be part of the global challenge against a superior foe; pretty much like the league of non-aligned worlds against the Shadows. Somewhere, in Babylon hive, a famous Koshism is being reenacted: "If you go to Glyn Jackson, you will die" Except that this time, it was Shadows several, wasps nil...

Much has been written about The Fifth Element ²⁵ , mostly by those who wouldn't know a decent story line if it hit them in the face. So here is a new angle: Gary Oldman worked with Luc Besson in Leon . He met the exactly the same kind of fate there ²⁶ , which would tend to suggest that Oldman should choose another director if he wants to avoid an overdose of plastique.

The wonders of modern technology are such that I received a copy of my own fanzine in the post ²⁷. Is this an alternative reality leaking through to our own, or is there another, altogether more sinister explanation? Pat McMurray, acting under the authority of the MiBs²⁸will investigate, and then, in true Mulder fashion, will deny everything. The truth is...over yonder.

a) a futile gesture, as the particular fans it was directed at were, by and large, single, male and, er, large;

b) out of date, as the invasion of the babies had already started, at least down in London.

However, the trickle had become a flood (Hmm... can you have a 'flood of babies'? Best not to dwell on it. No, really. It'll only put you off your pint...) É

A: Of course, in the printed version, I had the full range of fonts available. I mean, even my 5 year old laptop has more typefaces than you could shake several sticks at. To make up for this disappointment, this footnote has been carefully bolted on crafted in a special limited edition, available only to those on line. No longer need you feel inadequate when someone gloats that they saw all the visual gags in print. Now you can gloat about all the active links^B, extra footnotes and other wonerous goodies. Or something. É