No one ever mentions Robert Duvall.

One of my clients told me that apparently it has been calculated that a massive asteroid will hit our planet in 25 years.  Heard about that?

Text from Laurie Smith, Personal Trainer

Asteroid With Chance of Hitting Earth in 2029 Now Being Watched 'Very Carefully'.

Apophis: The Asteroid That Could Smash Into the Earth on April 13th, 2036.

Asteroid Could Hit Earth In 172 Years.

New Potentially Hazardous Asteroid Discovered!

Chance, could, potentially - based on those headlines, it sounds to me like it's too early to start packing for the end of the world, or at least the end of the world that involves asteroid collisions.  But the prevalence of the meme suggests that the topic is worth more of a look.

Okay, what if - which is the name of the game, after all - what if the scientific community was able to determine without any doubt at all that an asteroid was going to hit the Earth in 25 years?  Let's assume that this is the real deal:  maybe not a planet cracker, but definitely an Extinction Level Event.

Okay, what should we do?  Hmmm…..right now, nothing.

What?  Sorry, but I'm unwilling to believe that the scientific community could predict 25 years in advance exactly where the point of impact would be.  As such, building any sort of last stand redoubt to shelter a remnant of humanity would be premature - it would be more than a little embarrassing to find out that said refuge had been constructed at ground zero. 

And yes, a remnant of humanity.  I gather that we've recently hit the seven billion population point*, I can't imagine that we can come up with a solution that allows all of us to survive a real species ender.  (Just for the record, I realize full well that I won't be on the short list - the new world will not need 75-year-old graphic artist/geeks, which is where I'd stand in 25 years.)

Well, maybe "nothing" is a bit extreme.  What I'd suggest is very quietly doing research to determine the best solution for survivability, and perhaps judiciously starting to stockpile resources.

Hmmm...would I put Mars on that list of solutions?

I'd like to colonize Mars regardless, but as a solution for an extinction level event, 25 years doesn't sound like enough time to create a self-sufficient haven on Mars.  The advantage of trying to survive here is that we can already survive here.  An asteroid impact, followed by all the various collateral damage effects like tsunamis, earthquakes, and nuclear winter, or its asteroid equivalent, will permanently change the face of the planet.  However, I don't think it will be bad enough to make the air completely unbreatheable and get rid of all the water, which is what we'd be facing on Mars.

But if it is a planet cracker, something big enough to actually destroy Earth, Mars it is. In this scenario, our survival as a species is in serious doubt, but it does raise an interesting question:  how would our approach to space travel change if we only had to worry about one-way trips?

However, statistics suggest that being hit by something that large is extremely unlikely compared to a piece of cosmic debris that would just kill everyone who isn't in some form of extreme shelter. For that scenario, I actually don't mind the 2012 option - the movie, that is, not the Mayan-calendar end of the world thing.  Building floating refuges, which will immediately be called arks by everyone involved, is not a bad idea.  I don't know if we can building something on solid ground that would withstand all the primary and secondary effects, but I could see a properly designed ark making it through.

Arks have a second advantage:  mobility. (Something that 2012 didn't add to the equation until after the disaster had taken place.) When the impact point has been accurately calculated, floating refuges can be shifted to a point as far away as possible.

The other option, as we all know, is to send Bruce Willis to blow up the offending chunk of rock.  Actually, we probably don't need to blow it up, we just need to change its vector a bit, although blowing it up would seem to be a longer term solution.  I wonder how practical that solution actually is?  The asteroid that may (or may not, opinions vary) have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs was probably about 10 kilometers long - how many megatons would it take to break down that much rock to the point where the pieces would burn up in the atmosphere?

And then all we'd have to worry about is trillions and trillions of cubic feet of dust...

- Sid

* I gather that there's some debate about whether or not we've crossed the seven billion line or not, but I suspect that another 25 years will take care of it.

And more about tricks than treats.

I'm confident that I paid my debt to society by shaving my beard off and plastering my face with glue and makeup for last year's workplace Hallowe'en celebration, so I decided to go a bit easier on myself this year.  My 2011 costume was nothing more than an oversized version of my workplace ID card with an appropriate hole where the picture goes - said hole to be occupied by my actual face.

However, after last year's prize-winning zombie look, people at work have been curious as to what I was planning for a follow-up. Agatha, a member of our labour relations group, asked what I was going as this year, and I replied, "Myself."  Before I could explain further, she replied, "That's not very scary!" *

Frankly, I was surprised to get that response, but I was also somewhat pleased as well. It's good to find someone who still remembers that Hallowe'en is supposed to be about fear.

Yes, fear.  October 31st used to be a celebration of fear, where we went out, long after our usual bedtimes, into a night that youthful imagination peopled with a myriad of monsters.  But it was also an education in some ways, because it taught children that the monsters were just that, imaginary creations, with the comforting presence of a parental hand to hold onto as proof that it really was safe.

In recent years, Hallowe'en has transitioned into much more of an adult holiday (in both senses of the word).  Gone are the days of Hallowe'en being nothing but parents tolerantly marching their children door-to-door in search of goodies - today's Hallowe'en is more of a bacchanalian event, an event that provides license for costumes that are more about sex than candy.  What a terrible loss!  As strange as it sounds, I sincerely hope that lots of small children go out tonight and have the most frightening time of their lives.

Oh, and P.S. - Agatha won the prize at work this year for Scariest Costume.

- Sid

* Thank you, Agatha, that's the nicest thing that an attractive woman has said to me for quite some time. 

The introductory comic is by Randy Milholland.  http://www.somethingpositive.net/index.html

Gnomic statements II.

Don't forget, the only water in the forest is the river.

- Sid

Some are born geek, some achieve geekness, and some have geekness thrust upon them.

Observant readers will have already noticed that I've added a Geek tag to the page, announcing to the world that I'm a Major Geek.  Sadly, this isn't as positive an announcement as you might think - as the screen grab from the quiz demonstrates, being a Major Geek only required a mark of 37 percent. (37.26937, to be exact.)

The Geek Quiz was created by Yvette Beaudoin, and a full description of the origin of the test can be found on her site at innergeek.us, along with an analysis of the word "geek" itself.

Okay, enough small talk, let's cut to the chase.  ONLY 37 PER CENT?  I was mortified - how could the test so completely have underestimated my Geek Quotient, or at least the GQ that I see myself as possessing?  The answer is simple:  as per the final question (see above), I can think of other things that should have gotten me points on the test.

I mean, come on, I've got TWO sets of original series Enterprise blueprints! (And one set of Next Generation.)  Come to think of it, I've also got two sets of the original Star Fleet Technical Manual, for that matter. (Yes, and one copy of the Next Generation Technical Manual - there's obviously some kind of trend here.) I own the first Tom Swift book!  I know that Analog used to be Astounding!  I kept issue one of WIRED!  I'm on my third replacement copy of Dune! I celebrate Towel Day!  I saw William Gibson on the street when I first moved to Vancouver, and first, I knew who it was, and second, I was really excited!  I have a toy robot collection!  Hell, I own a Space Marine, a Dalek, a Scopedog, a Master Chief, a Destroid Defender (AND a Destroid Monster), a Super Gobot, a Gundam, and a blue stripe Major Matt Mason! I'm outraged that they want to make a live action version of Akira!  I could go on forever - there are so many things that the test didn't ask!

I'm even a Second Gen geek - my mother was a geek, which I think is a far more impressive achievement than any of us being geeks!  (Honestly, any geek whose date of birth falls before World War II deserves special recognition.)  My sister is a geek, and her daughter is a geek. 

That final comment is actually the key to this whole problem.  My niece is certainly a geek, but she's a very different geek than her mother or my mother.  Over time, the geek gene has mutated - which is actually a very geek comment to make.  The growth of geek chic has resulted in a plethora of geek subgroupings:  gamer geeks, hacker geeks, action figure geeks, Star Wars geeks, cosplay geeks, and so on, with new geek phylae being added every day.

Regardless, I think that there's a shared kinship among geeks, a recognition that we've all decided to dedicate a portion of our lives to something a bit more intellectual than, say, hockey, Dancing with the Stars, or monster trucks, and it's that kinship that provides the real basis for the Geek Test.  In fact, the desire to write the test is probably the most significant factor of all. We know that we're geeks, we just want to know what our score is.

But the final joke for me was that version 3.14 (insert pi joke here)  of the Geek Test missed the most important  - and obvious - question of all:   

Do you run a geek oriented blog?

- Sid

 

January 18 2024 update:  for absolutely no reason I can think of, this post has received over 400 hits today.  On the outside chance that it's actual people rather than Russian bots (or in case the bots are interested) I am pleased to announce that, having revisited the innergeek.com Geek Test in December 2023, I went from being a Major Geek (greater than or equal to 35%) to being a Super Geek (greater than or equal to 45%).  It just goes to show that it's always possible to improve your place in life.

Uncomfortable parallels.

This piece is a clear nod to a favourite childhood movie. I felt it was a great metaphor for the subject matter at hand: Is treaty really black and white or shades of grey? Do the “good guys” always wear white? Will there be a treaty empire and am I part of the rebel alliance? Ha Ha! I did insert a glimmer of hope in the chin of the mask--a small cedar tree seedling that represents a rekindling of awareness and growth. “A new hope,” so to speak....

Andy Everson, artist

My workplace is located near Vancouver's Gastown community, and my regular lunchtime walks with my co-worker Bill offer many opportunities to see what's on display for window-shoppers from cruise ships. Generally I don't pay a lot of attention to the merchandise, but a recent addition caught my attention immediately.

My first thought was that I had found nothing more than another strategy for relieving tourists of their money. To my surprise and pleasure, a little online research revealed that this particular print, created by K'omoks artist Andy Everson, is a deliberate, multi-level comment on the treaty system that still underlies Canada's relationship with the First Nations.

To be honest, along with that surprise and pleasure came a little discomfort - not easy to find out that you're part of the evil Empire.

- Sid

"Don't even blink."

The Doctor: They have taken the blue box, haven't they? The angels have the phonebox.

Laurence Nightingale: "The angels have the phonebox", that's my favourite, I've got that on a T-shirt.

 Doctor Who:  Blink

Well, it's probably a good thing that I spent nine months planning a trip to Europe to ensure a  memorable fiftieth birthday, because frankly - and sadly - I've been underwhelmed by the contributions made by others in terms of marking the milestone. The people in question probably know who they are, and I'm just trying to decide if they're going to be removed from the guest list, so to speak.

However, I do feel that I should acknowledge the contribution of my friend and Friday night drinking companion Chris, who quite carefully chose one of the great gnomic statements from Doctor Who, and who also chose a brilliant t-shirt quoting it out of the vast lexicon available online.

And then bought me a couple of pints and a good meal at a pub when he gave it to me.

The multiple award-winning Season Three Doctor Who episode Blink is widely considered to be one of the best episodes of the series - which is a bit odd, considering that the Doctor only appears a few times.  That aside, it contains some of the best time-travel related moments of the series, including a fabulous conversation between the Doctor and Sally Sparrow, played by Carey Mulligan.

This conversation is a bit odd, given that one of the participants is being videotaped in 1969 reading a teleprompter version of the conversation he's having via DVD with someone in 2007. (This is the infamous wibbly-wobbly timey-whimey conversation.)

Looking back, I have to be fair regarding the blanket condemnation in the first paragraph. One or two people haven't logged in yet due to geography and scheduling, but it will require some serious work to outdo Chris' contribution.  Thanks, Chris - as I said on Friday, it means a lot to me.

- Sid

"Do you remember what you asked for?"

And to be honest, I didn't remember until I opened the wrapping, and as such was a bit nervous.  If memory serves, I said that I'd rather receive a toy robot as a gift than an expensive pen - which is quite correct and still holds true.

Much thanks to the staff at the BCMEA, and specifically to Suki, our company's Employee Engagement Manager, for my 50th birthday gift, which I gather involved a substantial amount of effort to obtain.  And thank god I live alone, that noise is a LOT louder in person.

- Sid

P.S. And a final thank-you to David for his evocative comment:  "Hey look, laser tits!"

Thud and blunder.

Due to my recent European adventure, I didn’t go to see the recent movie reboot of Conan the Barbarian, but then, apparently neither did anyone else.  In fact, it seems to have come and gone in surprisingly short order for an epic big-budget heroic fantasy summer release.

So what went wrong?

Personally, I think that there’s some kind of fundamental barrier which can prevent an author’s work from being successfully adapted. The continued interest in Robert E. Howard’s barbarian hero would seem to indicate that there's some merit to the character, but as with Frank Herbert’s Dune and apparently everything by William Gibson, it may not be all that easy to transfer that obvious merit to another medium.

The barrier in all three of these examples is the same: style. Howard’s prose may be a bit extreme, but it paints a detailed tapestry, loaded with visual and sensory clues, placing Conan - and the reader - in a world which is rich, tactile, and real. 

Howard described the genesis of his Cimmerian warrior in similar terms:

It may sound fantastic to link the term "realism" with Conan; but as a matter of fact - his supernatural adventures aside - he is the most realistic character I ever evolved.  He is simply a combination of a number of men I have known, and I think that's why he seemed to step full-grown into my consciousness when I wrote the first yarn of the series.  Some mechanism in my sub-conscious took the dominant characteristics of various prize-fighters, gunmen, bootleggers, oil field bullies, gamblers and honest workmen I have come in contact with, and combining them all, produced the amalgamation I call Conan the Cimmerian.

For a true look at the character of Conan and the manner in which Howard describes him and his world, I strongly recommend reading a couple of the original stories featuring the character. Please note the word “original” – as I’ve already discussed, Conan has travelled quite a long way from home over the years since Robert E. Howard’s creation of the character.

Fortunately, much of Howard's work is now available as free downloads on Project Gutenberg.  Recommended reading would be the short stories Red Nails, Across the Black River, or A Witch Shall Be Born. If you're looking for a longer experience, try The Hour of the Dragon, a book-length work originally published as a five-part serial in the pulp magazine Weird Tales.

The bottom line is that any attempt at adaptation ends up being a second-hand description, someone trying to find a way to evoke through imitation the same degree of creative depth that they see in the original work. I suppose it's like a band doing cover songs: regardless of the quality of the performance, it's always going to be based upon - and compared to - someone else's unique genius.  Let's face it - imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but that doesn't make it the best form.

- Sid

Still a standard for tuba players?

When I received this battered postcard from ex-Printing House employee Paul Levesque, who has undertaken a bike trip across North America, I laughed out loud – the subsequent details on the back about playing G, A, F, (octave lower) F,  and C were unnecessary but a nice bit of icing on the cake.

However, the identification may not be as immediate for others. Does everyone remember that the Devil’s Tower, immortalized in mashed potatoes by Richard Dreyfuss, is where the climactic action of Close Encounters of the Third Kind took place?

The funny thing is that I’ve never seen the movie. As per my previous comments, I’m completely sceptical about every sort of cryptid phenomenon, and frankly CE3K had too much of that about it. Sadly, when you come right down to it, it's a geek version of the Rapture, with aliens substituting for angels. And, honestly - mashed potatoes?

- Sid

He drew a deep breath. "Well, I'm back," he said.

 “Then let’s look on the bright side: we’re having an adventure, Fezzik, and most people live and die without being as lucky as we are.”

Inigo Montoya: WIlliam Goldman, The Princess Bride

And so, as with all good things, the 2011 European Tour comes to an end.  Damn, I should have sold t-shirts...

How was it? As with any experience in life, there were pros and cons.  Three weeks is a long haul away from home, I had a period of intense discomfort due to extreme blisters caused by extensive walking in wet shoes, I was nervous about language issues for my entire stay in Paris, and it’s taken me over a week to get back in sync with west coast time.

However, as far as I'm concerned, those are minor inconveniences.  For me, the perfect vacation is more about having a memorable, interesting adventure than being comfortable.  Those three weeks of travel took me to nine cities in four countries, and let me see landscapes and locations that I'd only ever read about or seen on TV.  Getting lost in the rain in London allowed me to find a fantastic graveyard that I returned to photograph after the Doctor Who Experience.  And I wouldn't have missed the view from the Eiffel Tower even if you'd told me there was going to be a pop quiz on verbs afterward.  (Although I might have done some more studying in advance if that had been the case.)

And it's wasn't all just the standards of the Eiffel Tower, St. Paul's and the Colosseum, I was able to indulge my own unique interests as well, what with graveyards, Doctor Who, medieval armour, castles and towers, men walking through walls, alien architecture, and all the other little grace notes that surrounded my visits to the legends of European sightseeing.

When you think about it, it's not at all surprising that I'd enjoy a trip like this.  Science fiction and fantasy fans are impelled by many of the same factors that motivate people to visit foreign countries when on vacation. There’s a shared desire to see exotic, unfamiliar locations, to experience new things*, to seek out new worlds and new civilizations, TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE….

Oops, sorry about that, got a bit carried away. But, there we go, I’ve just cracked the code on Star Trek – they’re really just tourists.

- Sid

* Sorry, Laurie, this is less applicable for those of you that just want to get on the spaceship, visit the zero-g spa, and spend some time in suspended animation, without any need to take the shuttlecraft down to Mars to see the canals.

It's the little things.

Final night in England, Gatwick Airport Hotel, room service, BBC One, Doctor Who - booyah, baby!

- Sid

"Guell Park. After a fashion. Barcelona, if you like."

 As her fingers closed around the cool brass knob, it seemed to squirm, sliding along a touch spectrum of texture and temperature in the first second of contact.Then it became metal again, green-​painted iron, sweeping out and down, along a line of perspective, an old railing she grasped now in wonder.

A few drops of rain blew into her face.

Smell of rain and wet earth.

A confusion of small details, her own memory of a drunken art school picnic warring with the perfection of Virek's illusion.

Below her lay the unmistakable panorama of Barcelona, smoke hazing the strange spires of the Church of the Sagrada Familia. She caught the railing with her other hand as well, fighting vertigo. She knew this place. She was in the Guell Park, Antonio Gaudi's tatty fairyland, on its barren rise behind the center of the city. To her left, a giant lizard of crazy-​quilt ceramic was frozen in midslide down a ramp of rough stone. Its fountain-​grin watered a bed of tired flowers.

William Gibson, Count Zero

There's a long list of places that I know only as fictional settings, and Barcelona's Parc Güell is one of them, thanks to its appearance in Gibson’s Count Zero. Other than that, I didn’t really have any sort of impression as to the reality that lay behind its use as a virtual setting in the novel, but I was curious enough to add it to my list of places to go when the cruise ship docked in Spain.

I was astonished to discover that behind the ceramic dragon that has become the icon for the park, there's a fantastic array of rough-hewn promenades and viaducts threading the grounds together like the underpinnings of an alien metropolis.

Has no one ever thought of using the Parc Güell as the backdrop for a science fiction or fantasy film? It's easy to imagine some race of giant alien arthropods à la The Dark Crystal making their solemn way through the irregular semi-organic buttresses and past the peculiar colonnades spawned by Gaudi’s imagination, or faery folk duelling in front of the gingerbread curves and swells of his buildings.

A bit of research online reveals that some movies have been shot at the park, but with the best will in the world, Vicky Cristina Barcelona isn't really what I have in mind.

- Sid

Le Passe-Muraille.

Fly to Paris.  Make your way to Montmartre, and go to the Basilica of Sacré-Coeur, high atop its hill, north and west from the infamous Moulin Rouge.  Leave the Basilica and make your way through the narrow, winding streets of the old village, past the café Le Consulat, and down the Rue Norvin to the Place Marcel Aymé.  There you will find a peculiar thing:  a statue of a man, but not a complete statue.  Instead, it shows the man as if he were walking through the wall - and in fact he is.

The statue is of the titular character in Le Passe-Muraille - in English, The Walker-Through-Walls, a 1943 short story by the Marcel Aymé after whom the square is named.  As you might imagine, the story deals with a man who discovers that he has the ability to move through solid matter:

Dutilleul discovered his power shortly after he turned forty-two. One evening, the electricity went out briefly while he was standing in the front hall of his small bachelor apartment. He groped around for a moment in the dark, and when the power came back on, he found himself standing on his fourth floor landing. Since the door to his apartment was locked from the inside, this gave him pause for thought. Despite the objections of his common sense, he decided to return home in the same way he left—by passing through the wall. This strange ability seemed to have no bearing on any of his aspirations, and he could not help feeling rather vexed about it.

Dutilleul visits his doctor, who prescribes:

...two doses a year of tetravalent pirette powder containing a mixture of rice flour and centaur hormone. Dutilleul took one dose, then put the medicine in the back of a drawer and forgot about it.

Astonishingly, Dutilleul does nothing with his ability, even though he retains it after only taking one dose of the medicine rather than the prescribed two.  However, when he has trouble with his workplace supervisor, Dutilleul uses his ability to drive the supervisor crazy.  Pleased by this success, he looks for other outlets, and turns to a life of crime.

His career as a criminal is a phenomenal success, and all Paris stands in awe of this mysterious, miraculous thief, from whom no treasure is safe.  However, when Dutilleul attempts to take credit for his actions and announces to his co-workers that he is in fact the mystery man, he is laughed out of the office.  As a result, he allows the police to capture him, in order to prove to the scoffers at work that he really is the amazing thief that they all admire.

It would seem insane to allow the authorities to arrest him just to gain the respect of his fellow workers (which he does), but then, think - what prison can hold him?  He proceeds to steal the warden's gold watch and hang it in his cell, borrow books from the warden's library, and finally announces the time and date of his departure from prison, at which point he vanishes completely from the public eye, living off his plunder and quietly working on his stamp collection.

Sadly, as you might guess, Dutilleul's downfall comes in the form of a woman.  (This is, after all, a French story.)  Tempted by a blonde beauty whose jealous husband keeps her under lock and key, he walks through the walls of their apartment and repeatedly makes mad passionate love to the captive goddess.  However, one night he feels the pangs of a headache, and rather than disappoint his innamorata, he finds what he thinks to be aspirin tablets in a drawer, takes two and goes to see his beloved.

As he is making his exit, he finds to his horror that he is trapped within the garden wall, unable to come or go through the masonry.  The pills which he thought were pain killers were of course the forgotten medication from his doctor, and his ability has left him at the worst possible moment.

Dutilleul was immobilized inside the wall. He is there to this very day, imprisoned in the stone. When people go walking down the Rue Norvins late at night after the bustle of Paris has died down, they hear a muffled voice which seems to come from beyond the grave; they think it’s the sound of the wind whistling through the streets of Montmartre. It’s Lone Wolf Dutilleul lamenting the end of his glorious career and mourning his all too brief love affair.

So, it is in fact on the Rue Norvin that Dutilleul meets his Waterloo, although perhaps not at the exact location of the statue.  The thing about that statue that most captures my attention is the expression on the Passe-Muraille's face. It reminds me of the ambiguous smile of the Mona Lisa - what is he thinking as he smiles that slight smile?  Is it smug?  Is it satisfied?  Is it contemplative?  Or perhaps is it simply pleasure in his unusual talent - the ability to walk through walls...

- Sid

"I listened!"

My mother .... was a pure woman .... from a noble family. And I, at least, know who my father is, ..... you pig-eating son of a whore!

Antonio Banderas, The Thirteenth Warrior

Remember the sequence in The Thirteenth Warrior where a reluctant Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan, played by Antonio Banderas, is making his way north with the Vikings?  Every night he sits by the fire, ignored by his fellow travellers as they speak in their own language.  However, as he sits and listens, night after night, he begins to pick up a word here and there, then another, and is finally able to respond to a chance comment about his mother, to the amazement and suspicion of the Vikings.

I've been in Paris for a few days now, and sadly I'm still in the "word here and there" phase.  However, I think I'm taking the right approach in just trying to get the concept of what I'm hearing, rather than do a word for word translation in my head, and so far this has worked pretty well.  And, to the best of my knowledge, no one has been offended by anything I've said - at least, I'm pretty sure they haven't made any comments about my mother.

- Sid

"So where was I? Oh, that's right - Barcelona!"

Rose Tyler...I was gonna take you to so many places...Barcelona. Not the city Barcelona, the planet Barcelona. You'll love it, fantastic place, they've got dogs with no noses! Imagine how many times a day you end up telling that joke, and it's still funny!

Doctor Who, The Parting of the Ways

One guess what port we're visiting today...*

- Sid

* Bit of an inside joke - cheers, Chris! 

Practicality Over Concept.

Every fantasy fan should visit England - specifically, the Tower of London.  Forget the overly ornate accoutrements of World of Warcraft, forget the impossible weaponry of Final Fantasy - completely forget chain mail bikinis - this is the real deal, from the various points in history when men buckled on steel plate and went out to kill each other with axe and sword.

As such, there's a harsh practicality to most of the armour that's on display.  When it has been ornamented, as in the images above, the various etchings and inlays decorate without reducing that practicality, without detracting from the armour's basic task of efficient protection.  Which makes perfect sense to me - after all, when this sort of harness was being worn, GAME OVER was a much more terminal statement than it is today.

- Sid

London Melancholy.

"London-of-the-sorrows," said Malice Priest

"London Misery," said Two Jane.

"London Melancholy," insisted Thin Molder.

M. John Harrison, London Melancholy:  The Machine In Shaft Ten

Day Five of the 2011 European Tour, and in spite of the title for this posting I'm in a pretty good mood.  However, it's been raining for the last couple of days, and I have to admit that rainy days when you're on vacation do make it a bit more difficult to be really happy about things.

But it seems oddly fitting to walk the streets of London in the rain; rain is part of the London mythos, a mythos based on over 2000 years of history as a city.  In spite of that extended pre-Roman origin, London is most notably the seat of Empire, and one sees a constant struggle between that Victorian legacy of bolted iron and crumbling red brick versus the modern marvels of geometric architecture, sheathed in mirrored glass.

It may be that state of conflict between the old and the new that has made London such a frequent setting for urban fantasies.  Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere is very definitely the exemplar for this, a dark novel that presents readers with a London of grim enchantments and legendary monsters, where Earl's Court Station has an earl, Blackfriars Station has black monks, and Angel Station has...yes, an Angel. 

China Mieville seems to have a particular interest in London as a setting.  His young adult novel Un Lun Dun shows us a mirror London, an Un-London, as the title would suggest, filled with the things that the other London no longer uses.  And, of course, as would make perfect sense for an un-city, it isn't saved from destruction by the Chosen One, but rather the Un-Chosen.

Kraken, his somewhat tongue-in-cheek end-of-the-world piece, fills London with cultists and worshippers of obscure gods and demons, all of whom are predicting an apocalypse - just not the same one. And his short story The Tain turns London into a war zone in the conflict between humans and their mirrored avatars.

The interesting thing about these various fantasy Londons is that they exist as separate entities, where travel between everyday London and its alternates is a struggle, fraught with dangers and difficulties.  In actuality, London represents exactly the same sort of unreal combination of worlds - where but in London would you see a combination of architecture like this?

- Sid