David Langford

30 April 2008 Thanks to a lingering cold (this one will run and run!) I've been feeling wretched for some while. At least recovery has been achieved in time for the Arthur C. Clarke Award ceremony tonight. • One of the things I've been putting off while under the weather is deciding what to do about the Insidious Temptation of John Scalzi, who invites the other 2008 fan writer Hugo nominees to make fools of themselves display their skills at "Whatever, my blog, [which] gets between 30,000 and 40,000 unique visitors daily". A nice gesture which gave me a terrific attack of the dithers. Blimey, Ansible and I don't get that many visitors in a month.... This goaded me to compile a page of links to my 2007 fan writing (obviously excluding paid work like the SFX columns, but with one substantial article not previously on-line) and to stare at it gloomily.

18 April 2008 More silence here. Yesterday I woke up with a foul cold and couldn't stir myself to any effort beyond fiddling with an oldish computer that needed things installed. (The epic saga of searching for missing video drivers is omitted by popular request.) By eerie coincidence, just as the snivels were at their worst and there wasn't a dry hanky in the house, a bottle of single malt arrived in the mail -- brother Jon's delayed birthday present. Enormous restraint was exercised, so today I have only the continuing cold and not a hangover as well. Bleah.

12 April 2008 Yesterday was the Brasenose College Gaudy. No filthy anonymous graffiti were slipped into my gown, no doubt because the dress code was Black Tie and No Gowns. Martin Hoare and I went along together in a mutual-support pact which the college tried its best to undermine with copious free drinks. By special request of hardly any readers of this page, here are some pictures.

10 April 2008 Another birthday! Besides the cards and greetings, extra cheer in the mail comes from the new issue of Nature Physics with my short-short story "The Cold Truth" -- carefully balanced, thanks to some arcane law of conservation, by HMRC tax forms and a credit card bill. I miss the bizarre birthday messages I used to swap with John M. Ford, born on the same day (though younger), but there's still synchronicity with famous Welsh artist Jim Burns (who's older, ha ha). Now Hazel and I are off for for a fortifying lunch at Sweeney & Todd's pub and pieshop in Castle Street, Reading. Yes, there's a barber next door.

6 April 2008 I tend to get vague about how many people visit the Ansible site, since research in this area conflicts with major lifestyle choices like sloth and apathy. Today, though, I took a look: Ansible 248 (March 2008), which is no longer the latest visible issue and should have settled down a bit, has reportedly had something over 3,900 visitors. The email list membership, as usual, is running at slightly above 3,500. Adding these figures may not be a sensible exercise -- for all I know, most email recipients follow the web link to see the pretty version -- but feel free to work out the total and marvel at its insignificance compared to the daily visitor count at any popular blog. Ansible: the elitist newsletter!

5 April 2008 It has been pointed out to me (thanks, Michael Walsh) that horrid foreigners aren't allowed to see the BBC video linked below, but that YouTube came to the rescue. Also, The Making Of ... • I'm plotting another nonfiction collection with Cosmos Books, tentatively titled Starcombing. No, it probably won't contain 5,271,009 essays and reviews, but there should be quite a lot. • Why do I feel this strange urge to visit Spitalfields Market for no reason but to take photographs? (Here's an official poster. Here's a counter-poster.)

1 April 2008 It's always a pleasure to be fooled by the BBC. • Ansible 249 appeared today, with no intentional foolery. • My thanks to everyone who pointed out that the Langford basilisks are continuing to manifest in real life.

25 March 2008 Orbital (Eastercon 2008) is over and a fine time was had by all. I took a tiny computer so I could show people the current state of play on the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (third edition), tinker with a review in progress, and write the tribute to Arthur C. Clarke which SFX wanted by noon today -- now delivered and approved, which is a relief. Thanks to hero chauffeurs Martin Hoare and Keith Freeman for getting me to Heathrow and back again without any need to face the horrors of Bank Holiday public transport. • Here are the BSFA Awards. Apparently we're returning to the same venue, the Radisson Edwardian at Heathrow Airport, for Eastercon 2010. This year I was in the overflow hotel, the Renaissance, not having realized until I saw the place that it was a rebranding of the old Heathrow Hotel where I and others ran Skycon over the Easter weekend of (dot dot dot ominous and doom-laden pause) 1978. Some dim Langfordian recollections of this appear in the instant fanzine Journey Planet produced by James Bacon and Chris Garcia during Orbital -- although they somehow managed to lose all my italics.

21 March 2008 No time to say a word about the 2008 Hugo Nominations (except that, obviously, I'm pleased) -- I'm off to Eastercon and will hope to see some of you in, most probably, the bar.

19 March 2008 Goodbye, Arthur C. Clarke. I don't have an obituary waiting on file, but who inside or outside the science fiction world needs to be told about Sir Arthur? He was one of the last surviving stars of what John Clute has called First SF. "Overhead, without any fuss ..." When honoured by Thog in Ansible 178 a few years ago, he sent delighted email: "Now I can die happy -- finally made it to MASTERCLASS!" It's time for my umpteenth rereading of (no hesitation about this choice) his seminal sense-of-wonder novel The City and the Stars.

18 March 2008 Since all the best pundits say you absolutely must have permalinks on your web page, I've installed a home-made system here. (The Plain People of the Web: Why not just use blog software that does it all for you? Myself: Sheer perversity.) The entry dates are now supposed to be permalinks that take you to the relevant entry, whether it's still on the front page or has been deported to the archives. Maybe the front-page handling is a bit too flashy. Maybe, for some of you, it won't work at all. Let me know.

17 March 2008 Suddenly, Eastercon 2008 seems awfully close: I'm supposed to be there from Friday to Sunday. At least I've just had some convention pocket money from ALCS, which -- reflecting my unhealthy focus on book and magazine nonfiction rather than proper sf stories -- paid me some 15 times what I got from library loans via this year's Public Lending Right handout. • The fan initiative to equal Terry Pratchett's $1m donation to Alzheimer's research now has its own website: Match It For Pratchett, with a handy PayPal donation option.

14 March 2008 Would you believe yet another computer disaster? Not an important one, but quite challenging in a fantastically tedious way. The great Arthur D. Hlavaty's fanzines used to issue the dread "neep-neep warning" when computer geekery impended: I think that at this point I should say neep-neep and hide the horrors behind a link.

13 March 2008 In goes the latest SFX column. Number 170! I wonder if they'll tolerate me long enough to reach 200.

8 March 2008 Panic in the morning when Hazel's computer monitor failed. Swift rescue thanks to our friendly local shop, which is getting a lot of business from the Langford household this year. Then, with arms aching from carrying heavy CRT units to and fro, it was time to fling together this month's issue of Ansible....

7 March 2008 For many years I've avoided Oxford college reunions, largely because I'm too mean (Hazel: "Thrifty, dear, you mean thrifty") to buy or hire a dinner jacket for the occasion. However, this year I've been seduced by curiosity and the discovery of an outfit approximately my size in a Reading charity shop. Will anybody who reads this be attending the Brasenose Gaudy on 11 April? No, I didn't think so. And I suspect BNC events are rather less exciting than described in Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy Night.

5 March 2008 Slight diversion: PDF proof of my story "The Cold Truth", another short-short sf contribution to "Futures" in Nature or (this time) Nature Physics. No idea when this will appear.

28 February 2008 A long, long drive with Martin Hoare to Ken Slater's humanist funeral far out in the lonely fenlands (actually on the outskirts of King's Lynn). Martin's new GPS kit, running on a Windows Vista laptop and never before used in anger, provided an interesting challenge for his passenger -- especially when, with 20 miles to go, the battery ran down. Besides Ken's daughter Susie and other family members, the turnout included Brian Ameringen, Erik Arthur, Simon Bradshaw, Claire Brialey, Jim Campbell, David Eggleton (who used to keep the market bookstall with Ken long ago, and helped organize a 1960s Peterborough Eastercon), Martin Hoare, Tim Illingworth and Marcia, me, Rog Peyton, Mark Plummer, Chris Priest, Doreen Rogers, Peter Weston (carrying the latest issue of his fanzine Prolapse for Susie), and Bridget Wilkinson. It's hard to believe that Ken is gone.

23 February 2008 Picocon at Imperial College in London. I always enjoy the walk from Paddington across Hyde Park, with a pause to giggle at the Albert Memorial. Had a few drinks, bought books from Brian Ameringen, talked crosswords with Roger Robinson, chatted with various other greying fans, and that was it. I'm getting shockingly lazy about attending programme items (especially when held several streets away from the main venue) that I probably won't be able to hear.

21 February 2008 Recently I drafted some brief reminiscences of growing up in South Wales, for a coming project of brother Jon's. Urban legends about Welshmen, wellies and sheep were fleetingly touched upon, and now I find there's a old legal tradition of linking the Welsh to certain activities. The long title of one 16th-century bill goes: "An Acte for the contynuyng of the Statutes for Beggars and Vacabundes; and ayenst conveyaunce of Horses and Mares out of this realme; ayenst Wellsshemen making affraies in the Countyes of Hereford Gloucestre and Salop; and ayenst the vice of Buggery." (18 Hen. 8, c. 6, 1536.) Luckily for all concerned this was repealed in 1863.

19 February 2008 UK-resident authors are urged to sign this petition against reduction of the never all that generous PLR funding.

15 February 2008 On the 11th, at Orion's typically lavish champagne party in the Royal Opera House, I saw a few of the usual author suspects (Chris Priest, Rob Holdstock, Robert Rankin, Adam Roberts) and met a couple of new ones (Joe Abercrombie, Alex Bell) but have nothing edifying to report. • At an SF Encyclopedia meeting with John Clute, Darren Nash of Orbit dropped heavy hints about drollery in their packaging of Charlie Stross's Halting State. Aha: the little pixel-people on the jacket are mostly story characters, but this extra one from the back cover would appear to be the author himself....

2 February 2008 A slight change of pace as I put aside mere computers to sign a pile of sheets for PS Publishing -- not my own book, alas, but a novella by John Grant (Paul Barnett) to which I was allowed to write the introduction. The author suffered the hard slog of having to sign all 726 sheets (plus extras) to cover the entire hardback print run of The City In These Pages; the introducer merely has to deal with the 200 numbered- and 26 lettered-edition copies. So the introducer is rarer and more special than the mere author, and rarer still is the illustrator whose sought-after scrawl will appear only on the fantastically expensive lettered run of 26. I know my place.

31 January 2008 At last there's a working computer on my favourite desk with the comfy chair, and I can stop perching at the awkwardly placed backup machine. Lots and lots of software still to be reinstalled, though, and one or two bits of hardware for which no modern drivers are to be had. Bear with me. • A small surprise: the dear old Necronomicon, which celebrates its thirtieth anniversary this year, has come out in a smart new Japanese hardback translation.

25 January 2008 Let's have some links. Marion Pitman, local sf fan, book dealer and good egg, is currently going through a difficult patch. Take a look at her ABEbooks offerings? • Paul Barnett was amazed to discover Thog: The Movie. • What to do with your old computers. • The Guardian continues to discover sf. • A typically politicized South Wales sheep.

23 January 2008 Another tiresome and gloom-ridden week. The regular SFX column was unusually difficult to write, for some reason. Computers still in disarray -- today I found time to get back to the shop, where the replacement had allegedly been fixed, but at home it fails in precisely the same way: although simple stuff works, there are consistent browser errors, browser crashes, or even sudden reboots whenever I go to a script-heavy website like Gmail.com. My guess is something memory-related on the motherboard. The nice people at the shop are now offering to exchange the machine. We shall see. • Meanwhile, a moment of culinary cheer....

16 January 2008 Good news: on Monday I acquired a new computer to fill the gap (as it were) in the house network. Bad news: it's developed a problem and is back at our local shop, being tinkered with by experts. However, I've now steeled myself to instal an assortment of utility software on another machine so I can at least update a few web pages. The usual email address is also active once more. • It was hard to focus on the computer worries since I also had to deliver an sf review by noon today, a task which owing to my unusual conscientiousness entails reading the book. This was The Margarets by Sheri S. Tepper: a good read to which Gollancz had added the cruel new twist of invisible page numbers. Presumably they were light grey in the US edition and failed to reproduce well. Imagine the fun of taking notes when close study of adjacent pages is needed to work out what each Rorschach cluster of pale dots is supposed to represent.... • Good news again: that nice Henry Gee of Nature has smiled upon my one fiction submission of 2007, which will appear in Nature Physics. • Almost too good to be true: although many printed variants have been reported over the years, is this the first such announcement on line?

13 January 2008 Unlucky thirteen. The motherboard of my usual working computer went up in smoke this morning -- very nearly literally: the office reeks of something that got far too hot. Of course there are plenty of backups, and the hard drive (currently linked to another system) seems to have survived intact. But, for a day or three, I probably won't be picking up email from my usual address. Please CC any urgent or important messages to d e a f m a n at Gmail.com. Normal service will be.

9 January 2008 It's been a sluggish month so far. Ansible 246 failed to astonish the world on 7 January, and I caught up with some correspondence. That's about the sum total of Langfordian achievement since New Year's. Must try harder. Must stop being distracted by the lure of cryptic crosswords: "Harry Potter and a genie have early discussions (12)."

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

2007 Fan Writing
The Apricot Files
The SEX Column
Different Kinds of Darkness

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Langford Bibliography
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Other Stuff
Ansible Information (software)
Ansible E-ditions (POD books)
SF Encyclopedia CD-ROM
Checkpoint on-line archive project
Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997) updates and corrections
Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993) updates and corrections
The TransAtlantic Fan Fund
The Runcible Ansible (now in limbo)
Amazon Reviews (also in limbo)

About David Langford
Facebook • Fantastic Fiction • Fictionwise • Gollancz • Infinity Plus • ISFDB • Christopher Priest • Wikipedia • Wildside Press

since July 2004

Selected Weblogs
BoingBoing
Hooting Yard (Frank Key)
Making Light (the Nielsen Haydens)
The Sideshow (Avedon Carol)

Past Entries from This Page
2007 • 2006 • 2005 • 2004 • 2003 • 2002 • 2001

Family Links
Jon Langford on MySpace
Jon Langford: Art and Music
Jon's Paintings
[Jon] The Mekons
[Jon] Waco Brothers fan site
Cousin Susan, Dog Fancier

Random Links
For topical SF links, see the Ansible Links Page. Those below are mostly pretty ancient.
Codpiece: Supervillain
Plagiary: Cross-Disciplinary Studies in Plagiarism, Fabrication and Falsification
Max Ernst: The Eye of Silence
National Secular Society
Squid Bear
Chris Priest's Worldcon GoH Speech
Have fun with 419 fraudsters
Useful ways to destroy the Earth
The Uncyclopedia explains science fiction, fantasy, and Isaac Asimov
John Varley: "Iceland: Threat or Menace?"
Tolkien synopsized for lazy students
Weird Food
The Gallery Of "Misused" Quotation Marks
The future as it used to be
Anthony Earnshaw (co-author of Musrum)
Beachcomber (J.B. Morton)
Thog's period typography in films
The two Christopher Priests
Against Transcendence
Private Eye covers archive
Lorem Ipsum
Preditors & Editors
Quest for the perfect font (argh)
Dear old L. Ron
Virus hoax warnings
Gmail account as PC network drive