David Langford

4 December 2008 Following my warning of 2 December, I've just been told by the Eastercon committee that they've had a rethink and are delaying the price rise until midnight on 29 December. Until then, you can still join for £50 (full adult rate). A good PR move, I think.

3 December 2008 Some accumulated links. A very British panacea; Bookshop signage; Genuinely charming insect animation; Shed signage; Giles Coren's email about being subbed provokes a suitable YouTube response; Underground signage. (Thanks to CIX, BoingBing, Inthebar.)

2 December 2008 The time is out of joint, O cursèd spite.... Here's a rare public service announcement. Before going to press with the December Ansible, I checked the 2009 Eastercon website and (some days earlier) asked the committee if any price rise was on the way. Ansible went out yesterday and today they helpfully tell me that -- although as I write their website still says nothing about this -- adult membership is rising to £55 and supporting to £30 on Friday 5 December. Better get a move on if you want to go and haven't yet joined. [Later: a stay of execution! See 4 December entry.]

28 November 2008 Not a lot has been happening. I missed the one and only BSFA 50th-anniversary party in London two days ago, because of a hole in my foot. (Small, unspectacular, not much bigger than the original blister, but tiresomely failing to heal. The resources of medical science were invoked today. Fingers are crossed, but not -- because it's just too painful -- toes.) • Amazing Chris Priest revelations! • David Malki's Wondermark is a very silly artefact. Browsing the archive, I've linked to some examples.

21 November 2008 Early copies received of John Grant's The City in These Pages (PS Publishing), with an introduction by me me me! Also here: Interzone 219 with another of those strange Langford photos (taken, as usual, by Hazel).

19 November 2008 A few photos from Novacon.

14 November 2008 I feel the distant siren call of Novacon. • Just received New Scientist with the special sf feature containing my all too short Incandescence review. Meanwhile, SFX wants a quickie appreciation of Michael Crichton ... so I'd better take the palmtop to Novacon. • Hubble sense of wonder • The future of warfare, 1916

4 November 2008 Yesterday was another Ansible publication day. Following the mention of Paul Krugman, Nobel laureate and sf fan, readers are reminding me of his 1978 paper on The Theory of Interstellar Trade: "This paper extends interplanetary trade theory to an interstellar setting. It is chiefly concerned with the following question: how should interest charges on goods in transit be computed when the goods travel at close to the speed of light? A solution is derived from economic theory, and two useless but true theorems are proved." • Remember Rover in The Prisoner?

1 November 2008 Just when I thought I'd finished adding photos to the Welsh signage album, hordes of friends are sending links to this fine specimen which I wish I dared steal from the BBC. Later: here's another one, via Fran Dowd. • Things I ought to be doing: finishing Ansible 256, reading and reviewing Robert Rankin's latest novel for SFX, helping Hazel pickle her vast crop of radish pods, and making heaps of notes for the Terrifying New Project Whose Contract Has Yet To Be Signed. But, frankly, I feel lazy today. Instead, here's a castle visible (admittedly in the distance) from our North Wales retreat:

27 October 2008 The old, old story: we were away from home and email, returning to find a ton of post and 1,700+ messages in the inbox. Then came deadline panic with the SFX column and a great deal of agonizing about whether to accept the commission for a proposed nonfiction tome which will bring in some welcome cash but has a terrifyingly tight schedule. You may hear more of this. • Meanwhile, here's a slightly eccentric selection of holiday photos showing signage in North Wales!

15 October 2008 Things are crowding in on me right now; expect no further postings here for a week or so.

11 October 2008 It's Brother Jon's birthday. I'll drink to that.

10 October 2008 It took me a little while to recover from Kettering (a small but intense event) and Greg Egan (a small but intense review, already sent in and accepted by New Scientist). Next, er, something else. Updates here will be infrequent for much of October. • Signage. • An alternative to garden gnomes. • I never thought I'd feel nostalgic for the Millennium Bug.

3 October 2008 Another month, another Ansible. Please imagine a tremendously witty posting here: I haven't time to write it because I'm off to a mini-convention in Kettering. Homework en route: reading Greg Egan's latest novel Incandescence, review to appear in a New Scientist special planned for mid-November.

24 September 2008 I've been posting occasional links to photos uploaded to Facebook -- as on 21 September, below -- and have now put a backdated list of these links on the Photographs page. This, as usual, was done because I should be doing something else.

21 September 2008 "Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms in Your Cellar!"

13 September 2008 A useful product in the Viking stationery catalogue: "niceday HAZARD WARNING TAPE". I imagine this as carrying a bold black-and-yellow design of smiley faces, to be stuck across the doors of shops where there's a hazard of being told with hideous insincerity to have a nice day. (Please don't anyone spoil this by revealing that "niceday" is just a brand name.)

9 September 2008 Paul Barnett points out that Thog has got me into trouble again. • Another Tom Disch memorial (via carl juarez); and a very late Algis Budrys obit (Guardian).

5 September 2008 The glass is half full: my latest short story "Gigatech" is in this week's issue of Nature rather than the slightly more obscure sister magazine Nature Physics! But there's a half-empty side to things too: once again I have no new fiction forthcoming, which means the titanic effort of actually ... • Thanks to Dave Lally and others who sent a scenic postcard from Parcon (the Czech/Slovak national convention) in Plzen or Pilsen -- with fervent if slightly wobbly endorsements of the very great wonderfulness of Pilsner Urquell beer, clearly the essential primum mobile of this event.

1 September 2008 Can such things be? Publisher admits errors in 'damaging' age banding row (Guardian). • The brave little tortoise (YouTube). • Hazel's purple potato crop (first instalment):

23 August 2008 An exchange with Diana Wynne Jones about the Notoagebanding campaign. Diana: "My agent kept trying to call this site Notoa Gebanding and couldn't decide whether it was German or Japanese." Me: "I think Notoa Gebanding must be a magical realist working in Botswana." Diana: "Of COURSE he/she is!" So now you know.

19 August 2008 The traditional newspaper distrust for new-fangled electronic media goes back further than I thought. Once upon a time, complimentary theatre tickets would come with a covering note like this: "Dear Sir, The Management of the ------ Theatre will be much obliged if you will very kindly co-operate with them in safeguarding the enclosed invitation from being used for the purpose of broadcasting a notice of the play from any station of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The invitation is intended to meet the convenience of legitimate journalism, exclusive of broadcasting." Dated 10 October 1929 and quoted in Ego: The Autobiography of James Agate (1935) -- where Agate added, "The quarrel is dead and buried, largely owing to a letter to The Times signed by a dozen of the best-known theatre-managers who gallantly came forward to uphold wireless dramatic criticism, and to The Times's leading article on the subject." But in 1929, there was a fearful social gulf between "legitimate journalism" and anything involving electrons.

12 August 2008 One Worldcon programme item was to be a demonstration of the forgotten art of mimeographing a fanzine, and they asked me (among others) for a one-page PDF contribution. Here it is.

10 August 2008 Here are the Hugo results, and it is even as I predicted! After so many years of my weird lucky streak, this is actually something of a relief. Congratulations to that nice Mr Scalzi and all the other winners.

6 August 2008 Well, here I am not attending the World SF Convention. The official Langford party line is that I can't afford it, but costs -- while terrifying -- aren't the whole story. Alas, the only part of any convention that I still enjoy is one-to-one socializing, since it's too much of a strain (thanks to my lousy hearing) to follow programme items. Even informal conversation gets difficult when a comfortable group of, say, two to six people expands to a dozen or more. Throw in the extraordinary feeling of dread that overcame me in the run-up to my last appearance at a Hugo ceremony, and the staunch efforts of the War On Tourism to remove any trace of enjoyability from flying, and ... well, I'm really very happy to let Martin Hoare represent me in the year when I probably lose a Hugo to John Scalzi. Still I hope everyone who makes it to Denver enjoys desperate fun, even John Scalzi. • No To Age Banding: Diana Wynne Jones pushed this campaign in a response to Ansible 253 (to appear in the September issue), and incidentally persuaded me to sign up. • Roger Ebert: "Fanzines beget blogs" (via Moshe Feder) • Boy Scout Atomic Energy Merit Badge (via Bruce Townley) -- I don't think this was on offer when I was a Scout in old South Wales long, long ago. [Later: this proved inspirational.]

Archive of older entries
2008 • 2007 • 2006 • 2005 • 2004 • 2003 • 2002 • 2001

The Apricot Files
The SEX Column
Different Kinds of Darkness

Site Update Log
Ansible Newsletter • SF Links • Latest issue • Thog.org
Langford Writing: Free Reads Here
SFX columns • Cloud Chamber
Books Received • Reviews Index
Contact David Langford