In
the last week I've read "Jem"
by Fred Pohl and "The
Songs of Distant Earth"
by Arthur C Clarke. Both classics, both favourites of mine. Yesterday
I started reading "Stand
on Zanzibar" by John
Brunner; a classic I've been meaning to read for years. Today I gave
up with it. I couldn't figure out what on Earth was going on. Having
been looking forward to this (supposed)
treat for many years I was disappointed, and felt somewhat cheated.
Which
got me thinking. Many years ago I wrote a "Top
Ten sci-fi Novels"
list for a particularly wonderful magazine I once had the honour
(ahem!)
to edit. I might just see if I can find a back issue of that
magazine, see what I wrote, and see if my top ten list has changed
over the years.
If
any of my loyal readers would care to come up with a top ten list of
sci-fi novels, I'd be very interested to see it.
I
spent a little while applying for more jobs. It occurs to me that the
new-look svelte me might look better at interview than the old-look
lardy version once did. However my interview suit will probably now
be somewhat baggy. I'm reluctant to shell out megabucks for a new
suit: I wonder if anyone might have a suit I might borrow (should I
get short-listed).
And then it was off to
Park Farm for a committee meeting of the astro club. We went over
the plans for the next meeting, and then made serious plans for the
future. There is a humungouos telescope being decommissioned in a few
weeks time: did we want it? Well, yes we do (dur!) But (and
there is always an "but", isn't there?) there are one
or two drawbacks to the idea.
Firstly the thing is in
Scotland and needs to be collected. It's a huge scope: far too big to
go in a car, and would need to come down on a lorry.
Secondly it would need a
dome to go into. It's currently in one which is five metres across;
we'd need to build a dome for it.
Thirdly we don't have a
five mete dome, so the scope would have to go into storage whilst we
fund raised the money for a dome and found somewhere to build it.
Fourthly the scope is
older than me, so should it go west, spare parts wouldn't be easy to
find.
So the original idea
might be a non-starter. But if we can scare up some land on which we
could build a dome, all the rest could be done at our leisure with a
more modern scope. Do any of my loyal readers have some spare land
where there's no nearby street lights?
I've got an M&S suit that would probably fit you now. Let us know if you need one.
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