Computer Buyer 1997 January/dpcb197.iso/business/a1share/41411.ZIP/REAL03.OLD

Text File | 1993-09-07 | 76KB | 1,502 lines

*
* ARCHIVE: REAL03.NEW
*
* DATE: 09/07/93
*
* EDITOR(S):
*
*        Editor   1 : Paul J. Clegg  ([e-mail])
*        Editor   2 : Steve Baker  ([e-mail])
*
* NUMBER OF ARTICLES: 9
*


*
*
*   2R36   -- Technical University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany, Earth
*   2R37   -- Tourists
*   2R38   -- Jargon in British Science Fiction Fandom
*   2R39   -- Cuisine Unauthentique
*   2R40   -- Gruenau, Namibia, Africa, Earth
*   2R41   -- Dingle, Liverpool, England, Earth
*   2R43   -- Park Road Sports Centre
*   2R44   -- UseNet and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Known Galaxy
*   2R45   -- Terran Cricket
*
*


%t Technical University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany, Earth
%n 2R36
%s Spending the best years of your life at a place that doesn't deserve it
%a Sven Muencheberg  ([e-mail])
%d 19930609
%x Earth
%x Berlin, Germany, Earth
%e
The Technical University of Berlin (TUB) was recently ranked the 7th worst
university in Germany.  The TUB is also one of the ten largest universities
in Germany.  The coexistence of these facts could be explained by one of the
following reasons :

          1. Students don't care about the quality of their education.
          2. Students don't care about rankings.
          3. Students don't care about anything.

Answer three is the most possible selection, because thinking about the
studying conditions at German universities is regarded as extremely
dangerous to your mental health.

Responsible for this (as well as for most of our problems which won't be
discussed here) is, of course, money.  Since the end of the '70's (meant are
the 1970's, but due to the short life span of humans no living person really
remembers what the 1870's (or 1770's...) were like, thus we can save these
two digits) the number of students grew enormously, while the financial and
material equipment of the universities remained practically unchanged.

Today the universities are so crowded that two students have to share one
seat; well, they are not really sitting on top of each other, that's just
to illustrate the numbers.

The Big Strike of '88:

Due to this fact, many students were unhappy and in the autumn of 1988 the
TUB students went on strike.  You may ask: "Why should anybody care if
people who don't produce anything go on strike?"  But the majority of
students were too busy being creative strikers to notice, while some didn't
dare ask such a heretical question, and the rest weren't convinced of the
whole thing anyway.

So, they went on with demonstrations and meetings until the end of the winter
term, in February 1989.  When there were no more lectures to stay away from,
they couldn't keep on striking and the whole affair died quietly.

The year 1989 was then renamed into 1988b, so they could forever refer to
the "Big Strike of 88."

The Situation Today:

Like it was said before, nothing changed (well, not really nothing, but
nothing that is worth mentioning here).  The TUB grew and grew, and has
recently reached the 40,000 students mark.  The male/female ratio is 2:1
(overall), but in some divisions, especially engineering and other technical
disciplines the ratio leaps up to 16:1!

BEWARE FEMALE HITCHHIKERS!  Don't wear short skirts or high heels if you
visit one of these divisions, except if you like to receive the same
attention the earth population would pay to an alien invasion.

Remember, when the TUB was founded in 1879 the ratio was infinite to one,
so not everything got worse, and if a male student knows where the
biologists or the elementary school teachers have their parties, he can get
through quite well.

TUBSAT:

A really remarkable thing is the TUBSAT-A, the university's own satellite
(you'll never guess what the abbreviation stands for).  It was carried to
orbit with the ERS-1 launch in '91, where it was used as ballast.  Right now
it is used as ballast for the aerospace students, who have to calculate its
position.  By watching the satellite's flight path you can also prove that
Newton's law of gravity is right, if your head hitting the table after your
10th beer isn't proof enough to you.

Anyway, the little sputnik (yes, it makes beep noises) will complete its
10,000th revolution soon and in September '93 the second TUBSAT, TUBSAT-B,
will be launched with a Russian rocket (boy, the times are changin').
%e
*EOA*


%t Tourists
%n 2R37
%s How to behave in foreign places
%a Michael Bleyer  ([e-mail])
%d 19930506
%x Travel Necessities
%x How To Avoid Being Mugged In New York
%i Travel
%i Sightseeing
%i Behaving In Foreign Places
%e
Being one of the worst habits of modern societies, tourism is something
you don't want to be identified with.  After all, no one in his right
mind would admit to spending lots of money, travelling around the galaxy
to other places just to find out they are five times more boring than home
(which they are never really), or, which is even worse, five times better
than home (realizing what a dump they lived in the past 30 years).  No way.
People are not that stupid.  Well, they are somewhat, but not _that_ much.

If you belong to the latter kind, here are some hints on avoiding to get
recognized as a tourist, which is the only way to get in touch with the
local scene and really get to know the place, enabling you to find out if
the place is actually that good or bad and feel real shitty for a change
(see above).  Enjoy the feeling while it lasts.

Your major goal will be to get as close to the locals as possible, and as
far away from the other "typical" tourists, which you are not of course,
since you're an exception, which you are, because you want to have some
real fun on this trip since that is precisely what you came for.

Some main hints to start with:

          1) Avoid people with cameras and/or hawaii shirts, especially if
             they come in larger groups, which is not really difficult,
             since they usually do.

          2) Buy the best tourist guide book known and avoid all the places
             it mentions as definitely worth a visit.  In fact, avoid all
             places it mentions at all.

          3) Follow people that do not talk in the local language, because
             it's most likely locals trying to disguise themselves or making
             fun of tourists.

Finding your way around:

Never ask anyone for directions.  If you do, you will probably be sent to
the rubbish dump (for the sheer fun of it, or because it's actually an
interesting experience), or the airport where you just came from.
When asking a tourist, you risk meeting someone from your hometown, which
in most cases is highly embarrassing, so we'll advise you not to take any
chances here.  So use your intuition to get to wherever you think your
presence is so utterly needed, just to find out that having finally arrived
at some location, somehow you forgot why you wanted to be there (this is a
most adventurous and fun technique, and hey - as a tough hitchhiker, you
don't want to miss that extra bit of excitement).

Weather:

Adjusting yourself to the weather is quite easy, for there are two simple
rules to follow.  If the weather is awesome, don't go down to the beach;
all the tourists will be there.  Go shopping.  The hotter and stickier
the air, the better to go shopping.  This will give you an idea of what
a walk through the Sahara desert feels like, only with the Sahara being
somewhat more quiet and calm, besides some live adventures to tell at home.

If the weather is bad, go down to the beach; you'll have it all to yourself
since the other tourists will definitely be shopping for three reasons.
First, running around in a crowded city is less stressful at a cool
temperature.  Second, they've been at the beach for so long now, time for
some shopping.  Third, the beach is not really nice during bad weather, and
fourth, "all the others are here too, it _must_ be good!".

If the weather has been good or bad several days in a row before it changes,
the rules are even more true, for tourists are simple-minded people and a
more obvious change of weather will make their decisions easier.

Foreign Language(s):

If you can't speak one, or speak so bad that you are easily recognized,
then don't.  Not at all.  Don't even try to.  If you do, prices in the
nearby shops and marketstands will immediately triple, and people
with hats and long dark coats will try to sell you real gold watches
("stolen from the rich") or homegrown Ganja ("it's all natural").
Instead, try to use gestures to communicate (pretend you're too cool to
talk at the moment).  If you actually speak well enough to pass as a local,
don't say a word either.  The result of trying to make an impression is
being immediately surrounded by tourists who ask for directions and steal
your soul with little gadgets called cameras.

Sightseeing Tours:

Definitely skip this.  It's a rip-off anyway, and all you'll be learning
about are things like: how many stairs all the churchtowers in town have;
with the weather being so terrific it would be a good idea to go down to
the beach after the tour; that the city had been a really nice and
prosperous place several hundred years ago, which makes it a real pity
that you could not have seen it back then.  And to top it off, you'll
be told all this by some young female student from your home country,
who happens to be doing this only for monetary reasons and not being a
local at all, which explains why she speaks your language so well in the
first place.

Enjoying Yourself:

In the evening hours, find some people who you definitely know are locals
that look like they are in a party mood and follow them to their usual
hangout.  If you travel by car, look for local number plates, but don't be
fooled by hired cars.  Do not even try to get a taxi driver to drop you off
at an "in" place, for this will get you even further away from the real
action.  Taxi drivers get paid by the tourist attraction owners to drop you
off there, and the mafia money they make through this is much higher than
the tip you'll give them, so just forget about that taxi idea.

After you find a local hangout, enter the place and order some national
drink, even if you don't like it.  This will immediately make everyone else
notice you are a tourist, and they'll be so excited that a tourist has
actually popped up in this remote corner of town that they'll like your face
just because it's a different one for once.  If you then tell them that
their country is really beautiful and you really like it, they'll absolutely
love you, invite you for one round after another of that national drink you
don't even like, and generally have a great time all night long.
%e
*EOA*


%t Jargon in British Science Fiction Fandom
%n 2R38
%a Dave Langford  (not available via Internet)
*
* Author is available via Alexander Lachlan McLintock
*   ([e-mail])
*
%d 19920701
%i Science Fiction, British, Jargon in
%e
[ Submitter's Note: Written for an updated 1993 edition of the SF Neofans'
Guide, published in the USA.  Will probably not be used there in any
recognizable form, since a very long time after requesting articles the SF
Neofans' Guide editors revealed that they didn't want articles, just little
snippets which their own infinitely superior literary powers would stick
together. ]

So you're interested in this thing called British science fiction fandom,
but have certain reservations?  Ah, it's the _jargon_ that bothers you!
I know the feeling: I dislike most of it myself, but the good news is that
most of the really silly terms invented by easily amused fans of yesteryear
have fallen into welcome disuse.

`Real' fan parlance in 1990s Britain centres on a few functional
abbreviations (con for convention; fanzine for fan magazine; fandom for the
community of SF fans) or acronyms (APA... see below).  If someone comes up
to you and starts babbling on about `femmefans' or `crifanac' or `Ghu' you
may be sure that he (it is always a he) is young, has overdosed on old
fanzines, and will regret this one day.

All the same, British fan conversation is larded with strange terms, mostly
proper names, and some of the printable ones appear below.  This glossary is
avowedly incomplete, because (a) a large part of the fun is finding out more
for yourself; (b) although the network of British fandom is tatty and full
of large holes, any one point of contact will eventually lead you to all the
others; and (c) I am extremely lazy (see Omissions, Flagrant).


           ---------- Jargon in British Science Fiction ----------

Albacons: Glasgow Eastercons (name also given to smaller summer conventions
  up there).

Ansible: intermittent SF/fan newsletter produced by reprobate Dave Langford.
  May or may not be in existence at any given time, but a stamped self-
  addressed envelope (where can I buy these envelopes that address
  themselves?) will get you the latest issue and/or information on current
  convention addresses.  I promise.  Contact: 94 London Road, Reading,
  Berkshire, RG1 5AU.  In England, like all the other addresses mentioned.

APAs: Amateur Press Associations, closed-shop fanzine distribution outfits
  too numerous to list.  They resemble paper versions of discussion groups
  on more or less anything you can imagine.  One British APA is or was
  allegedly produced by fans' soft toys.  `Tonstant Weader Fwowed Up.'

Armageddon Enterprises: dedicated team of detonation-loving fans responsible
  for apocalyptic firework displays at conventions and elsewhere.  Said to
  be negotiating for the former Soviet Union's stocks of SS-20s.  Contact:
  any large and suspiciously smoking hole in the ground.

The Astral Leauge [sic]: dubious cosmic cult invented by Leeds Group fan
  D. West in the mid-1970s.  All rituals, initiations and hymns are strictly
  optional, the central dogma being that neophytes must give 50p to D. West.
  Exerts vast yet mythical influence over practically everything.

Astral Pole: fiendish initiation of The Astral Leauge, involving entangling
  oneself in a complex way with a broomstick and rotating one's spine and
  limbs through dimensions not convenient to describe.  I did however
  attempt to describe it in my TAFF trip report The Transatlantic Hearing
  Aid -- still in print.  (Advertisement.)

Bar: the functional and social centre of almost all British conventions.
  Hence the traditional versicle and response at the opening ceremony:
  `And now I'd like to introduce Pel Torro, our Guest of Honour this
  weekend....' All: `He's In The Bar!'

Beer: more copiously consumed at British conventions than at any other
  country's.  New fans should however note that drunkenness remains fairly
  rare; distrust those con reports in fanzines which imply colossal but
  untrue drinking feats as a sort of metaphor for the general euphoria of
  being at a good convention.

BFS: British Fantasy Society, which once upon a time split off from the BSFA
  because the BSFA tended to ignore fantasy in favour of sf.  The whirligig
  of time brings in its revenges: nowadays the BSFA has plentiful coverage
  of fantasy, while the BFS tends to ignore both fantasy and sf in favour of
  horror.  Contact: David J. Howe, 61 Elgar Avenue, Tolworth, Surbiton,
  Surrey, KT5 9JP.

Birmingham SF Group: perhaps Britain's longest-running local society, this
  feat ascribed by co-founder Peter Weston to his having based the
  constitution on that of the Young Conservatives.  (Jesus Christ.)  Runs
  Novacon every year and holds monthly meetings of semi-formal character,
  i.e. admission fee and guest speaker or panel rather than the British norm
  of a rabble in a pub.  After the semi-formal bit, the BSFG reverts to
  being a rabble in a pub.  Contact: Bernie Evans, 121 Cape Hill, Smethwick,
  Warley, West Midlands, B66 4SH.

BSFA: British Science Fiction Association.  Produces six hefty mailings each
  year, with news, commentary, criticism and reviews (and more reviews, and
  capsule reviews, and reviews duplicating other reviews in the same
  mailing, etc).  The quality of BSFA magazines varies wildly as editors
  burn out from over-exposure to Piers Anthony sequels and give way to more
  or less untalented replacements.  Overall, good stuff if you like reading
  about SF.  Also organizes its own monthly pub meetings in London; these
  are rather a moveable feast, but at present seem to have settled in The
  Conservatory (a pub formerly called the Cafe Munchen in St Giles High
  Street, near Tottenham Court Road tube station) on the second Wednesday of
  each month.  It's best to enquire first.  Contact: Alison Cook,
  27 Albemarle Drive, Grove, Wantage, OX12 0NB.

COA: Change Of Address, a handy abbreviation in fanzines.  Fans are nomadic
  and love to falsify address lists by hopping around the country (or out of
  it) like demented fleas.  Some percentage of the addresses even in this
  frighteningly authoritative piece will doubtless have changed when you
  read it: do not despair, but try another suggested contact, however
  seemingly unrelated.  They're all in it together, you know.

COFF: Concrete Overcoat Fan Fund, a joke unpopularity award presented at
  Novacons during the 1980s; raised trifling sums for genuine causes but was
  dropped owing to unpopularity (some had taken it seriously).

Conspiracy '87: British Worldcon, deeply traumatic for most of those
  concerned.  `Young fan, you know not the unwritten law.  You spoke of
  _that convention_.  Here in this land, men do not utter that name.' See
  Malcolm Edwards.  Do not see Scientology.

Critical Wave: news and reviews fanzine, trying determinedly to be the
  British Locus.  Initially plagued by dire reproduction, worse design and
  a fearful hack-journalistic style, but has improved a great deal despite
  persistent money trouble and British publishers' deep-rooted horror of
  placing ads which might tell unauthorized personnel about their books.
  Contact Martin Tudor, 845 Alum Rock Road, Birmingham, B28 2AG.

Doc Weir Award: presented by popular vote at Eastercons to some fan whose
  all-round efforts and/or niceness fall outside the scope of more specific
  awards.  How the voting works: `Psst, who's the fix in for this year?'
  `Oh, a few of us think XXXX really deserves it....' If uninterested in the
  victory of XXXX, you might as well not bother to vote.  (Seriously,
  there's an element of realism in this procedure: award eligibility is so
  widespread and nebulous that without `a few of us' in their smoke-filled
  room, every single vote is likely to be for someone different.)

Eastercon: the British national convention, held by decades-old tradition
  over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend.  (See, you're beginning to
  understand this arcane jargon already.)  Something for everyone, including
  those who like to complain a lot, those who actually want to talk SF, and
  those preferring to lurk in the bar.  With a new committee and site
  (chosen by vote two years in advance) each year, Eastercon organization
  wavers between total shambles and the hyperefficient marshalling of 57
  simultaneous programme streams in a desperate effort to ensure that you
  can't possibly see more than one-57th of what's happening.  Goes under
  different confusing names each year: thus `Illumination' in 1992,
  `Helicon' in 1993 (see Tim Illingworth), `Sou'Wester' in 1994,
  `Confabulation' in 1995...  but titles can recur, as with the numerous
  Albacons (Glasgow) and Yorcons (Leeds).

  [ I don't know what the sell-by date of the Guide is intended to
  be, but here for the record are contact addresses for the 1994 and 1995
  Eastercons: Sou'Wester, 3 West Shrubbery, Redland, Bristol, BS6 6SZ;
  Confabulation, 3 York Street, Altrincham, Cheshire, WA15 9QH. ]

Malcolm Edwards: alleged chairman of Conspiracy '87, which see.  Now too
  awesomely famous in Real Publishing to bother with the likes of us.

Eurocon: the pan-European convention, normally merged with the national
  event of the current host country.  British Eastercons doubling as
  Eurocons: Seacon '84 and Helicon in 1993.

Fan Funds: see COFF, GUFF, MAFF, OWFF, and (in particular) TAFF.

Fannish: one of those tricky terms whose meaning depends on the speaker.
  (a) having to do with fans; (b) neutral term describing those fans,
  fanzines, groups and conventions centered on the fan community itself
  rather than, or as well as, SF; (c) abusive term describing anyone even
  less SF-centered than one's own sub-fandom.

Fans Across The World: deeply earnest and worthy organization dedicated to
  improving links between countries... e.g., arranging visas and assisted
  travel to western European cons for eastern and former-Soviet fans lacking
  hard currency.  A frequent newsletter lists cons in unpronounceable places.
  Not to be confused with Fans Across The World Alliance, the international
  Salman Rushdie appreciation society founded by A. Khomeini.  Contact
  Bridget Wilkinson, 17 Mimosa, 29 Avenue Road, Tottenham, N15 5JF.

FOKT: Friends of Kilgore Trout, the local group of Glasgow and environs.

Foundation: much-respected SF critical journal, published since 1972 by the
  SF Foundation.

Friends of Foundation: fan group dedicated to the funding and preservation
  of the SF Foundation, which see.  Suggested contact: Roger Robinson, 75
  Rosslyn Avenue, Harold Wood, Essex, RM3 0RG.

Globe: site of monthly London SF pub meetings until they moved to the One
  Tun, which see.  Older fans sometimes confuse everyone by referring to
  present-day meetings as `the Globe'.

GUFF: a fan fund (see TAFF) which conveys popular fans between Europe and
  Australia.  Invented by Chris Priest with a little help from yours truly.
  Having been first set up to bring an Australian to Seacon '79 in Britain,
  it began life as the `Get Up-and-over Fan Fund': this name perforce
  changes to `Going Under Fan Fund' or something of the sort for the
  alternate, southbound trips.

Hamilton Hall: a pub on London's Liverpool Street Station which housed the
  monthly SF meetings for a brief while (late 1992 to early 1993) while the
  Wellington was being overhauled by builders.  Thoughts of making the HH a
  permanent venue were firmly quashed by its massive and life-threatening
  crowds of commuters in suits.

History of British Fandom: there is no room.  In 1937 we held the first ever
  SF convention (all right, there's a rival 1936 claim from America, but
  British fandom chauvinistically doesn't accept a gathering in a private
  house as a convention, especially when it wasn't announced as such
  beforehand.  Hear those axes grinding?).  Fan historian Rob Hansen has
  published several hefty compilations of British fan history: contact 144
  Plashet Grove, East Ham, London, E6 1AB.

Tim Illingworth: awesome and inarguable guru of British convention runners.
  Always involved with some convention or other, so propaganda should be
  available from 63 Drake Road, Chessington, Surrey, KT9 1LQ.

Intersection: 1995 Worldcon, to be held in Glasgow, Scotland.  Contact 121
  Cape Hill, Smethwick, Warley, West Midlands, B66 4SH.

Interzone: long-running (since 1982) British SF magazine, wittily known to
  its fannish detractors as Interzonk or Internoze.  These dissidents
  refuse to forgive its initial funding, being the profits of the 1981
  Eastercon (Yorcon II, perceived as having made said profit by not spending
  money on the convention; guests of honour were requested to skip breakfast
  as the budget was so tight, etc).  It's a good magazine nowadays, and gets
  a regular Hugo nomination in the `Best Locus' category.  Contact 217
  Preston Drove, Brighton, BN1 6FL.

KTF: short for Kill The Fuckers, a legendary style of strongly negative
  fanzine reviewing supposed to have flourished in Britain early in the 80s.
  It's not a very helpful critical term, having grown over the years into a
  too-diffuse phrase of condemnation covering a wide range of material from
  the merely abusive and inept (relatively rare) all the way across to
  balanced commentary which expresses negative views even in passing.

LCFI: `London Convention Fandom Inc', a regular or semi-regular meeting of
  con-runners, believed to happen in a pub called the Royal Oak in Pimlico.
  This pub has been selected with infinite care as being one of the remotest
  from a tube station in the whole of central London.  It is, however, dead
  convenient for Tim Illingworth (see Illingworth, Tim); his office is just
  round the corner.

Leeds Group: centre of all fannish evil in the UK (according to certain
  factions), this deep corruption manifesting largely as hanging round in
  bars doing very little indeed, producing rare but offensively literate
  fanzines, and winning too many of the Nova Awards (which see).

London Circle or London SF Circle... older name for the regular monthly
  London pub gathering.  See White Horse and Wellington.

MAFF: Mid-Atlantic Fan Fund, like TAFF but dropping its unpopular winners
  halfway across.  Hilarious and original suggestion made by 49.5% of new
  fans who first hear about the funds.

Matrix: news, gossip, media-review and general discussion fanzine of the
  BSFA.

Mexicon: biennial convention whose ostensible Prime Directives are `a focus
  on _written_ SF' and `a single programme stream' -- both these in reaction
  to the multimedia sprawl of the Eastercons.  The directives have been
  bent considerably since Mexicon's zealous early days, but it's still
  regarded as fearfully ideologically unsound by habitual runners of multi-
  streamed and multimedia events.  What is so Mexican about all this remains
  shrouded in mystery and tequila fumes.

Nova Awards: British fanzine awards organized by the Birmingham SF Group and
  presented at Novacon.  Up to 1976, winners were determined by an `expert'
  committee and the award was decried as fallible and elitist.  Since then,
  voting has been open to any convention member who claims to have seen a
  few fanzines, and the awards are therefore scorned as fallible (what do
  these voters know?) and elitist (how _dare_ this self-appointed minority
  set itself above others by bothering to vote?).

Novacon: for a long while (since 1971) this small event was Britain's second
  annual convention after the Eastercon.  It is always held in November
  (which in awkward years has sometimes been deemed to fall late in
  October), in Birmingham (occasionally deemed to fall in Coventry or out
  amid the wastes of the local airport).  Contact address: as for BSFG.

Omissions, Flagrant: this thing will swell and expand and take over the
  universe if I try to cover every topic.  Thus nothing on SF awards, nor
  most fanzines and small-press SF magazines (too many and too ephemeral --
  Ansible is mentioned only out of blatant nepotism), most smaller or one-
  off conventions (get hold of the cited news publications for an up-to-date
  list), `filksinging' (fan folk-singing, a very active sub-fandom in 1990s
  Britain -- but me, I'm tone-deaf), smaller local groups (they keep getting
  thrown out of their chosen pubs and moving on, so recent information is
  vital)....

One Tun: site of monthly London SF pub meetings until driven by the
  landlord's rampant homophobia to the Wellington, which see.  Rather too
  many fans who were used to speaking of the Tun meetings now get all twee
  and call (and spell) the new place the 'Ton.

OWFF: One-Way Fan Fund, like TAFF or GUFF but without the customary return
  trip.  Hilarious and original suggestion made by a different 49.5% of
  new fans who first hear about the funds.

Greg Pickersgill: a Famous Monster of Fandom (retired).

Scientology: do not, under any circumstances, see Conspiracy '87.

Seacons: a pseudo-series with no two alike.  Seacon (Coventry, 1975) was a
  legendary Eastercon meant to be held by the sea but shifted by
  circumstances to about as far as you can get from the sea in Britain
  (`Er, South East Area con,' the committee said unconvincingly).  Seacon
  '79 was a British Worldcon run by much the same people, several of whom
  later bid to hold the 1984 Eastercon only to be defeated by the opposing
  Eastercon/Eurocon bid called -- to their huge annoyance -- Seacon '84.
  Such are the ironies of fandom.

Serious Scientific Talks: a sequence of convention speeches by Bob Shaw,
  each subjecting the word `scientific' to hellish extremes of redefinition.
  The `serious' applies solely to Bob's own mournful face and tone of voice,
  his vast audiences normally being in hysterics.

Bob Shaw: popular SF novelist and Irish fan from way back; see serious
  scientific talks.  Never wears gorilla suits.

Bob Shaw (Fake): Scots fan, a founder of FOKT and the Albacons; can be told
  from the real Bob Shaw by his tendency to megalomania and gorilla suits.

SF Foundation: research and academic contact centre; book, magazine, and
  fanzine library, etc.  Long resident at the Polytechnic of East London but
  recently (1992) cast adrift thanks to vicious cuts in education funding,
  the British government distrusting expense on non-commercial fripperies
  like science fiction, science, research, cultural exchange or books.  It
  is now located at the University of Liverpool.  See Friends of Foundation.

Small Mammal: very long-running (even editors Martin'n'Margaret have lost
  track of how many issues) news sheet distributed more often than not at
  London SF meetings (see Wellington)...  features upcoming events and
  sense-shattering typos.

TAFF: TransAtlantic Fan Fund, a splendid and laudable fan institution which
  arranges free trips to North American Worldcons for popular European fans,
  and vice-versa.  As with Fans Across The World, GUFF and Friends of
  Foundation, the money comes from fandom itself: auctions of memorabilia,
  donations of convention profits, etc.  Small fees are paid by the voters
  who choose the lucky winner.  Active since the early 1950s.  Interest
  declared: TAFF wafted me to Boston for the 1980 Worldcon.  Contact Abigail
  Frost, 95 Wilmot Street, London, E2 0BP.

Unicon: a traditionally small and low-budget convention held each summer in
  some austere university/college site, by a student and not-too-long-ex-
  student committee.

Vector: chief critical magazine of the BSFA.

The Wellington: as I write, the current site of the monthly London SF pub
  meetings.  Fan presence guaranteed from 6pm or earlier on the first
  Thursday evening of each month (with heavy depletion if this falls on
  Maundy Thursday -- see Eastercon).  By closing time at 11pm we have
  usually attained a fair approximation to climactic conditions on the
  surface of Venus.  How to find it: follow the `Old Vic' subway exit signs
  from the central concourse of Waterloo Station; when you reach the street
  the pub can be seen immediately opposite.  Key phrases for gaining
  immediate fannish acceptance are: `You are Dave Langford and I wish to
  buy you many drinks,' or `Luckily I have on my person an atomic-field
  depressor kit which will silence that bloody awful juke-box.' See also
  Hamilton Hall, but not for long.

D. West: a Famous Monster of Fandom, usually described in contemporary
  accounts in such terms as `eldritch', `batrachian', `mephitic' or `drunk'.
  His almost legendary fanzine article `Performance' was dramatized by noted
  author/thespian Geoff Ryman, to general acclaim and alarm.

The White Hart: Arthur C. Clarke's fictional version of the pub where the
  London SF Circle once met.  See White Horse.

The White Horse: London SF pub venue superseded by the Globe (which see).

Walt Willis: living legend of Irish fandom.  Chiefly responsible for one of
  the all-time notable fanzines (Hyphen), producer of much nifty writing in
  many fanzines, the original inspiration for what became TAFF, and modest
  with it.

Worldcon: the World SF Convention has come to Britain roughly every decade
  since Loncon I (London) in 1957.  Seacon '79 (Brighton) was a great
  success.  Conspiracy '87 (Brighton again) was, er, um.  Next comes
  Intersection in 1995....

Zymurgy: traditionally, the last word.  It goes like this: `Hope you'll get
  to one of these conventions... I'll see you in the bar.'
%e
*EOA*


%t Cuisine Unauthentique
%n 2R39
%s Food From Fans
%a Dave Langford  (not available via Internet)
* Author is available via [e-mail] (Alex McLintock)
%d 19930607
%i Fannish Food
%e
"Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are," said famous food
junkie Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in 1825 (only I gather he said it in
French).  Looking at my friends, I doubt that this means of psychoanalysis
is reliable.

Chris Priest, for example, used to moan to me about his local Chinese
restaurants, on the ground that they're too good.  "I like Chinese _junk
food_," he wailed, "the sort of dishes they never actually made in China,
things like instant chop suey...." I daren't ask if he's also addicted to
those greasy chunks of fried pork coated in bullet-proof layers of calorific
batter with thin red sugary slime drooled all over the starch-laden result,
the whole mess whimsically called "sweet and sour".

This came to mind when the 1987 World SF Convention asked for a contribution
to its planned fannish cookbook.  A little essay on unauthentic cuisine
sounded just the thing, and if a few other things hadn't got in the way
(like putting together a 40,000 word fan room booklet all by myself -- more
fool I for volunteering) I'd probably have contributed more than the recipe
for "Sinister Langford Apple Chutney" therein.

For example, when Hazel and I feel all upmarket and sufficiently demented to
have more than one course at dinner, it's usually the work of a moment to
nip round to the local Asian grocer's (mysteriously called "Eurofoods") for
some big squidgy avocado pears.  This fruit is almost my sole concession to
the weird notion that raw green vegetable things are in fact suitable for
human consumption.

Well, everyone knows how to cut them up (an axe is not advised), to balance
the hard bit in a bottle of water, and to overrun the house with tall weedy
avocado plants each having exactly two leaves at the end of a long naked
bumpy stem... but the eating part involves decisions.  Hotels usually fill
the unfortunate avocado with a curdled pink mess, studded with shrimp which
have not led cleanly lives.  The alternative tends to be some species of
French dressing, which as far as this picky household is concerned Does Not
Quite Work in the unique post-structural context of the avocado.  Hence the
development in our mighty research laboratories of...

       _Hazel's Stupendously Unauthentic Non-Vinaigrette For Avocados_

Ingredients:

          A lot of soy sauce.
          A lot of sesame oil.
          About one-sixth of a lot of vinegar.
          About one-fifteenth of a lot of Lea & Perrin's Worcester Sauce.

Mix together in any order and with any variations suggested by prejudice or
experience... shaken, not stirred.  Put in a bottle or something, and give
one last vigorous shake at the table.  (This offers incentives for good
discipline in the careful replacement of bottle tops.  Either that or it
offers an interestingly brown-spotted ceiling, like ours.)

Pour quite a lot into the hollow of your half-avocado.  Sensuously carve out
drenched gobbets of avocado flesh with a spoon.  Put in mouth, masticate,
etc.  (Why do recipes always stop just before the interesting bit?  You
never even get three asterisks and a new paragraph starting with
"Afterwards".)

The stuff stays usable for strange aeons, except when avocados are in
season, and can even seem to improve with time.  Try with various grades of
soy sauce, from Dilute Tea to Creosote.  There is probably no real
substitute for the Worcester sauce, but fans with cosmic minds might prove
me wrong.

My thoughts on green things remind me of the conceptual salad which my old
pal Martin Hoare and I have elaborated from time to time, when we're in
pubs far away from the potential threat of a kitchen.  Never actually
created in cold blood, the Langford/Hoare salad is a thought experiment in
the avoidance of "rabbit food."  Both of us were heavily conditioned against
this at the university, thanks to a college chef who believed that limp
lettuce had inadequate protein value and preferred to beef it up with some
nice meaty slugs and greenfly.

If it were ever to emerge from its ideal niche among the Platonic Forms,
this salad would very probably include grated cheese, cold boiled new
potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, sliced red and green peppers, lumps of avocado
(a hot point of contention -- Martin suspects this of being rabbit food),
chopped onions of various kinds, radishes, sweet corn, garlic, chives, and
some suitable admixture of cold cooked meat or fish....  Perhaps it would
be easier to list the items which would _not_ feature, such as lettuce,
tomato, cucumber, olives, mayonnaise of any description, vinegar in greater
than homeopathic doses, or any of the horrible sticky proprietary messes
which are called salad dressing.  ("Aye," said a skeptical Macbeth, "in the
catalogue ye go for salad dressing....")

STOP PRESS: Martin now claims to have consumed the ideal salad, but carping
critics (me) suspect that there is a degree of unauthenticity which violates
even our fuzzy definition of salad.  "It was great," Martin enthuses.  "We
made it from a pound of beef and a lot of onions and nothing else."

Sometimes one does need to abandon these dizzy theoretical speculations,
narrow one's focus from its habitual cosmos-wide scope, and tackle the
problem of giving visitors some actual food.  Hazel usually falls back on
the all-purpose roast recipe whereby you take a chicken (or equivalent mass
of pork, beef, lamb or honey-smeared peacock stuffed with larks' tongues
and fattened dormice) and put it in the oven for hours and hours, while I
try to remember dear old Professor Kurti's differential equation which
gives the precise cooking time provided only that you have a perfectly
spherical joint.  But occasionally my excuses about inability to cook fail
me, and I sulkily try to remember the formula for...

              _Chris Priest Memorial Chinese Casseroled Thing_
     (as never actually thrust upon Chris, but see my opening paragraphs)

This is guaranteed to be as authentically Oriental as Charlie Chan, the
insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, or my pal Martin when he had jaundice.  You need
something suitable for lengthy cooking, e.g. quite a lot of cheap nasty
belly pork (remove any fat, curly tails or nose-rings), or a similar amount
of better pork when you feel solvent, modulating into stringy chicken
should you feel bored with pork, or kosher, or whatever.  The last time I
cooked this, some 2-1/2 pounds of pork filled four people very full.  You
also need:

         1 enormous onion (actually optional).
         1-1/2 cups of Unauthentic Sauce.  This is made by looking up
           Kenneth Lo's classic sweet-sour recipe in one of his cookbooks,
           which then reminds me of all the ways in which I do it
           differently (i.e. wrong).  In the following, a "tbsp" is a
           tablespoon and a "tsp" a teaspoon.  These are not exactly SI
           units: for the rigorous, I've consulted Katharine Whitehorn's
           deeply cheering book of desperate improvisations, _How To Survive
           In The Kitchen_, and she says that 1 tbsp equals 4 tsp, while 1
           cup equals 5 tbsp of flour, sugar etc. but 10 tbsp of liquid
           (since flour protrudes obscenely to form a "rounded tablespoon"
           while liquids are perforce confined to a humble "level
           tablespoon" unless possessing staggering viscosity or amazing
           surface tension).  1 cup is about a quarter of a pint, a pint
           being 20 fluid ounces (if you wish to use the puny short measure
           on non-Imperial pints, do your own conversion), and can I please
           skip the metric equivalents of all these?  Thank you for this
           small kindness.

          Where was I? Ah, the sauce....

          2 tbsp brown sugar.
          1 tbsp cornflour (or less, and it's optional anyway).
          4 tbsp water or, better, chicken stock.
          2 tbsp orange or pineapple juice (in juiceless times I have been
            known to throw in some crushed pineapple instead).
          2 tbsp soy sauce.
          2 tbsp medium-dry sherry.  The technical term for this variety
            is, "For the love of God, Montresor!"
          2 tbsp vinegar.
          2 tbsp tomato puree.  Tomato sauce may be substituted, but don't
            let the People's Republic hear about it.  If you compromise by
            whizzing a tomato in the electric blender, the result will be
            more dilute than real puree -- reduce the water/stock content
            as suggested by sheer guesswork.  NB: I'm switching to tsp units
            now.  This warning might seem needless and fussy, but _I_
            remember the chutney I made using tablespoons rather than
            teaspoons of powdered cloves.  It was good for applying to
            hollow teeth.
          1 tsp sesame oil.
          1/2 tsp chili powder.  (Or more.  Or lots more.)
          1/2 tsp five-spice powder.

Stir all sauce ingredients together until Godot arrives or obvious lumps
have departed, whichever occurs first.  Put meat in a suitable casserole
with a lid, together with the chopped huge onion, which I have just decided
is probably optional too.  Pour on sauce, thrust into a coolish oven
(Eminent authority in the form of K.Whitehorn says this means 225F or 110C,
but I doubt that it's necessary for you to check this to 0.5 degree
precision with a pyrometer) and leave to its own devices for say 4 hours.

As the moment of truth approaches, have a look under the lid and -- if the
gooey parts seem a bit thin and runny -- add more cornflour stirred into
sherry.  (Add some sherry anyway.  Have fun.)  Wait a few minutes more,
serve with rice, and be sure to use a washable tablecloth.

One of the great secrets of unauthentic cooking is that most ingredients,
all proportions and all cooking times are negotiable... so don't fret about
precise chronology and amounts.  This is one of those squidgy dishes which
anyway never turn out the same twice running -- largely because in spite of
those frighteningly scientific tbsps and tsps, one ends up (a) judging half
the quantities by eye, and (b) throwing in interesting-looking extras for
luck.  Water chestnuts and cashews were both Good Ideas.  Sugar-coated
fennel seeds, Asian style, were agreed to be a mistake.  (I'd actually been
reaching for the next jar along.  This sort of thing used to happen all the
time when I worked with nuclear explosives.)

I think I'll skip the Langford pear wine recipe, since it may only work with
the peculiarly vile and maggot-ridden pears produced by our garden, and
winemaking technicalities are even more tedious than tbsps, and -- the
clinching argument -- I've lost the bloody recipe anyway.  It would,
however, be unBritish to close without some vaguely booze-related items.

The following have been tested on recent overnight visitors, and provide
ideal conversation pieces at breakfast.  They can also be eaten, on
toast....

             _Really Quite Authentic Post-Party Welsh Rarebit_

This comes with an epigraph from Don Marquis ("the bilge and belch of the
glutton welsh as they smelted their warlock cheese / surged to and fro where
the grinding floe wrenched at the headlands knees") and shows how Britons
can bring themselves to consume beer even for breakfast, with the aid of:

          Cheese, the delicate variety known here as "mousetrap", i.e.
            case-hardened old cheddar from the fridge, and any and all
            wizened, dried-up bits left over from last night's party food.
            Only good cheese is _verboten_.
          Black pepper, to taste.
          An egg.  Maybe two if you're making an awful lot.
          Bread.
          A little bitter beer (if none is available fresh, there are the
            dregs of glasses and bottles from that party, and after that
            you can start shaking and smelling abandoned cans to verify
            that they contain some stale beer but have not been adapted as
            impromptu ashtrays.  As you see, we're talking real sleaze here).

Grate all the cheese and moisten the resulting flakes with the quantity of
beer considered to be "enough", producing muck of sufficiently stiff
consistency that it can be spread on toast but will not flow off it while
cold.  (Think "slime mould".)  Stir in either the tediously separated yolk
of the egg -- which is marginally more authentic -- or the egg's entire
contents: in either case, this is what keeps the spread from flowing merrily
off the toast when it _is_ cooked.  Slice and toast some bread; spread with
goop; sprinkle with pepper etc. as desired; grill until brown and bubbly;
eat.

The first stage of this recipe will always produce more of the gooey mixture
than you expect, even when you know what to expect; but people are generally
happy to carry on eating the result until supplies fail.  "God help us, for
we knew the worst too young."

It was famous Aussie fan Judith Hanna who forced the invention of this
succulent slime, one groan-laden morning after a Langford party.  She
started converting odd remnants of cheese, milk and things into a sort of
breakfast fondue.  After long stirring and perspiring comments of "I'm sure
this is the right way to do it," she found herself with a revolting viscous
mass which squatted sullenly in the pan and refused point-blank to dissolve
in an orderly fashion into the thin steaming pus which surrounded it.

Before starting again and coming up with unauthentic rarebit as above, we
poured the results of Judith's alchemy into an unloved tree-stump which had
persistently refused to stop sending up shoots.  It died within a month.

Meanwhile, for those with a sweet tooth, there is always...

          _Langford Patent Juniper And Quinine Lemon Marmalade_

The ingredients are even less rigorously quantitative than before:

          Many lemons.
          Quite a lot of white sugar.
          Some water.
          Some more water (solid phase).
          The all-important MARINADE.

This is not a recipe for the faint-hearted.  Our most recent batch of this
marmalade was two years in the making.  (You will need a spare corner in
the freezer, by the way.) It is the marinade which makes the process such
a prolonged one, since only a small amount of lemon can be properly treated
at one time.

The marinade should be prepared in the six- or eight-ounce liquor glass of
your choice; it consists of approximately one part of gin to four (or two,
or six, or one; who am I to cramp your culinary style?) of a good
proprietary tonic water.  "Diet" tonic water will completely ruin the
flavour, although the marmalade will probably turn out OK.  Ice may be
added, and one slice of lemon is then slid delicately into the glass.

(Americans sometimes seem puzzled by subtle allusions to tonic water.  Soda
water might be good enough for T. S. Eliot's foot-bath, but is _not_ the
same: you want the stuff which is or used to be flavoured with quinine.
Throw away those malaria chills, and walk again.)

It is a well-known phenomenon, extensively documented by Charles Fort,
that this marinade evaporates with startling swiftness.  Quite soon the
prepared lemon slice can be removed from your suddenly empty glass and
dropped into a plastic bag in the freezer.  It is now permissible to treat
another slice...  and so on while supplies of marinade ingredients hold out
and the cook can remain upright.

An admixture of non-marinated lemon is permissible: our 1987 batch of this
fine preserve gained additional, subtle flavour from the inclusion of
(a) partially mildewed half-lemons discovered in the fridge after periods
of slackness in marinade treatments; (b) lemon slices included with
takeaway Indian meals, and thus interestingly flavoured with a soupon of
tandoori sauce; (c) country-of-origin labels accidentally left sticking to
the occasional lemon rind.

When "enough" has been accumulated -- meaning that the plastic bag is full,
the previous batch has run out, or one's spouse is complaining loudly about
lack of space in the freezer -- the final preparations are easy.  All the
lemon shards are thawed, pips and things (especially moving things) removed,
and the whole lot chopped thinly (perfectionist method) or shoved brutally
through a mincer (my method).

It all goes in a big pan with the amount of water indicated above, being as
little as will see you through the next stage.  Bring to the boil and simmer
for an hour or two, stirring with lackadaisical grace, until the bits are
soft.  During this period you are free to realize that you should have shut
the doors and windows, since the penetrating smell acts as a long-range lure
for enormous kamikaze wasps.  Add _exactly_ the amount of sugar specified
above... no, I tell a lie, we just tip in more sugar until it tastes
"right", meaning not too bitter to be eaten thinly spread on the substrate
of your choice.  Another half-hour of simmering and it can be ladled via a
large jam funnel into previously heated jars.  Put on the lids before too
many loathsome spores drift in, hoping to surprise Sir Alexander Fleming.

(Our 1987 batch behaved in a semi-miraculous way: on the third day, instead
of rising, it finally condescended to set.)

Certain aspects of the procedure are sufficiently boring -- especially the
long simmering and the even longer wait for the stuff to set firmly enough
to be tried -- that to pass the time one finds oneself irresistibly impelled
to start work anew, marinating lemons for the next batch.  Any fan wishing
to drop in and help, thus cutting down that two-year preparation time, will
be very welcome.  Bring your own marinade ingredients.

Scholarly References:

Kingsley Amis: _On Drink_, 1972; _Every Day Drinking_, 1983.
M.F.K.Fisher: anything and everything.
Maurice Healy: _Stay me with Flagons_, 1940.
George Saintsbury: _Notes on a Cellar-Book_, 1920.
Katherine Whitehorn: _How to Survive in the Kitchen_, 1979.
Colin Wilson: _A Book of Booze_, 1974.
%e
*EOA*


%t Gruenau, Namibia, Africa, Earth
%n 2R40
%s Relax.  Have another sandwich.
%a Michael Bleyer  ([e-mail])
%d 19930713
%x Earth
%i Sandwiches
%e
So you actually ended up in this place, hmm?  Well, otherwise you would
hardly be reading this article.  You don't know how it happened?  Well,
rest assured that this is the first thought that comes to everyone's mind
passing through there.   While trying to figure it out you can check out
some of the features it has to offer.

This is where we get to the point.  Not much.  That is, unless you are
a geologist and interested in the wide variety of stones and sand.
Besides some houses and about 200 inhabitants, there is also a road and
a gas station.  While waiting for a ride, try some of the sandwiches they
offer.  By far the best sandwiches you'll find on the continent.  If you
enjoy such delicacies as dried Kudu and Springbok meat (homemade), there
is a little hut beside the road some miles north of the gas station where
they offer this in exchange for money.  I have been told it is pretty good
as well.

If you get lucky, you can watch some giraffes roller-skating down the road
with large trucks tied to their feet.  Not that this sport is allowed
anywhere in Africa, but the local cops are pretty cool, so this is
tolerated.

Other things that are not available are rides to other places.  In such a
desperate situation, do not be tempted to ride with german tourists, which
travel in khaki-coloured Land Rovers.  They are obviously in pursuit of
adventure, and driving fast on these sand roads is suicidal.

Relax.  Have another sandwich.
%e
*EOA*


%t Dingle, Liverpool, England, Earth
%n 2R41
%s A BTEC National Diploma In Comp Studies Essay Extract
%a Roy Anthony McPartland  ([e-mail])
%d 19920322
%x Park Road Sports Centre
%x Earth
%e
INTRODUCING THE DINGLE

This is the area of Liverpool where I, Roy McPartland, live and thus
seemed to be a logical place to conduct my research.  The Dingle is a
densely packed urban area of roughly one square mile with few work places
apart from commercial premises.  Its population is expanding reasonably
quickly, which adds to the problem of its housing shortage.  An added
problem is that a high proportion of the population of the area are
unemployed.  As this area is not a district of the city, but a community,
it is extremely hard to show on a map.  A rough guide to the
parts of the city know as the Dingle would be from Upper Warwick Street
to Aigburth Road, and from Grafton Street to Princes Road.

This text has been taken from my part of a group assignment the aim
of which was to define what constitutes leisure, and highlight the
leisure facilities in three areas of Liverpool.  I decided to set about
finding as much information as I could about the leisure facilities in
the Dingle; this is a summation of this research.

I felt that I needed to use one such facility as an example of the best
that the Dingle had to offer.  The Park Road Centre for Sport seemed an
ideal opportunity to do this.  Mrs. Mary Hill, the receptionist, helped
me considerably when I asked her about the range of activities at the
centre.

FINDINGS

Sport in the Dingle is quite well catered for with two council-run
sports centres not to far for each other (the Toxteth Sports Centre and
the Park Road Centre for Sport, which will be focused on later).  There
are also numerous places where it is possible top play "footie," a local
variation of the well regarded pastime of soccer, but without as many
rules.  One of these places is adjacent the Toxteth Sports Centre and is
frequently uses by local amateur teams, as it was built by the City
council for local use.  But it's not only the organized groups who can
use it; anyone can at any time, but it is mostly uses by children,
young(ish) adults, and people (usually male) in their 20s to 30s.  The
local police have even set up a sports club association, with the aim to
bring sport, the police, and the community together.

Not everyone is fond of physical exertion, and for these people there are
twenty nine pubs to choose from, catering for everyone over eighteen.  The
older females of the community seem to make a beeline for the eight
privately owned clubs (four of these offer bingo halls), while most of the
men just want to be left alone for a couple of hours in the area's six
betting offices.

Those people who wish to broaden their minds have a choice of two council-
run adult education centres, or there is the Toxteth Library, with easy
access for the disabled, and even easier access for the able-bodied.
Failing that, they can just select a stimulating video from one of the
area's four commercial video hire shops (although access for the wheelchair
bound, as with pubs, is less than perfect).

The Dingle's children are able to participate in various activities in
youth associations (church, charity, and council run), ranging from table
tennis to indoor five-a-side football, and the vary young can be supervised
in numerous day centres and playgroups, helping young parents find time to
do other things, such as working or studying.

I would now like to give an example of one of the best leisure facilities
the Dingle can provide: the Park Road Centre for Sport.  The Park Road
Centre for Sport is an average size, local council run, leisure centre
providing for the local community.  It is built around an eighty-four year
old wash house and swimming pool, with a sports hall added in 1984 (which
has just recently been enlarged) and it is in the process of fitting ramps
for the disabled.  Its size, however, conceals the fact that there is only a
limited amount of sports facilities to offer for able-bodied people, and
even less for the not.  See the article _Park Road Sports Centre_ for more
information.

The sports that are strongly catered for at the centre are swimming and
gymnastics.  The enlarged sports hall is dedicated to gymnastics, and the
training provided by the centre is of a world class nature; indeed, many of
the junior English champions have attended and trained there.  This may or
may not be a good thing for the Dingle.

CONCLUSIONS

In general, there are quite a lot of "pubs" and clubs, which cater to
customers of any gender from eighteen and over, and you receive what you
want (for an exuberant price) but access for the disabled is poor and
children are either not allowed in or are bored rigid.  There is also the
fact that alcohol is a large causing factor in many violent acts, which
are detrimental to the neighbourhood.

The three bingo clubs (populated by 45+ year olds) are well used.  Although
bingo is a form of gambling, the stakes are low (but so are the prizes),
and the people who play the game use it as an excuse to meet friends, talk,
etc.  The value for money for the game is low, but for the socializing it
is not too bad.

There is a reasonable, busy library which caters to all the community,
young, old, male and female.  No question of value for money here as the
lending of a book costs nothing.

Sports facilities and opportunities are abundant, which is good for the
physically active (male and female between 2 and 70 years old, usually
able-bodied) but not much use for those people who can not or do no want
to take up sports such as aquaerobics, football, etc.

The profusion of bookmakers is a sad sign of the times, being frequented
by the bored, the unemployed (this includes the 16-18 year olds), and
basically anyone who hopes to win a large amount of money.  These places
give an extremely low amount of value for money, and unlike bingo games,
people do not socialize in these establishments.  Also they offer no
entertainment value for the young or the disabled.

There is hope, however, as there are two adult education centres, for
those that wish to get out of the unemployment rut, or any one else who
wants to learn something new (except people under 16, who are still in
compulsory education).  For the unemployed courses are free, and for the
working the course fees are very reasonable, giving a fair amount of
value for money.

The youth clubs in the Dingle are well used and appreciated buy the
children and young adults of the area, with a small entrance fee.  Apart
from these clubs there is not many facilities on offer for the young,
apart from the aforementioned sports centres (and even) bookmakers.  This
may point to the reason for the emigration from the Dingle to other parts
of the city by young people.

In my opinion, the Dingle is quite poorly provided for in the leisure
sector, with only a limited rang of facilities on offer to the various
social groups being targeted, the young and the disabled of the community
are the people being the least targeted.

The following is a leisure index of the Dingle area of Liverpool:

ADULT EDUCATION CENTRES

    City of Liverpool Community College, Windsor Street Site,
      Windsor Street 8
    Shorefields Community School and Adult Education Centre,
      Dingle Vale 8

BOOKMAKERS

    Dick Brown Racing, 122 Mill Street 8
    Mersey Racing, 478 Mill Street 8
    Oakfield Racing, 442 Mill Street 8
    Reliant Racing, 60 Park Road 8
    Stanley Racing, 115 Windsor Street 8
    William Hills, 204 Park Road 8

CLUBS AND BINGO HALLS

    Beresford Social Club, 125 Parkhill Road 8
    East & West Toxteth Social Club, Park Road 8
    Mount Carmel Social Club, 33 High Park Street 8
    St Malachy's Social Club, Beauford Street 8
    St Patrick's Memorial Hall, Park Place 8
    Top Rank Ltd., Park Road 8
    United Services Club, Hawkstone Street 8

LIBRARIES

    Toxteth Library, Windsor Street 8

PLAYGOUPS AND DAY CENTRES

    The Elms Day Nursery, 1 The Elms 8
    Shiela Kay Day Centre, High Park Street 8

PUBLIC HOUSES AND BARS

    The Alexandra, 135 Upper Hill Street 8
    The Angelsea, 94 Beresford Road 8
    Angel Vaults, 29 Stanhope Street 8
    The Bankhouse, 144 Windsor Street 8
    Bleakhouse, 131 Parkhill Road 8
    Clancey's, 102 Mill Street 8
    The Crown, 120 Park Road 8
    The Derby Arms, 365 Mill Street 8
    The Dingle, 268 Park Road 8
    The Empress, 93 High Park Street 8
    The Farmer Arms, 64 Park Road 8
    The Globe, 44 Park Road 8
    The Grapes, Windsor Street 8
    The Great Eastern, 102 Mill Street 8
    The High Park, 187 Park Road 8
    The Jolly, Hawkstone Street 8
    Peter Kavanagh's, 2-6 Egerton Street 8
    The Pheonix, 125 Cockburn Street 8
    The Pineapple Hotel, 258 Park Road 8
    Poet's Corner, 27 Parkhill Road 8
    The Prince, 2 Bessemer Street 8
    The Queen's Arms, 100 Admiral Street 8
    The Queen's Head Hotel, North Hill Street 8
    The Royal Oak, 1 Upper Warwick Street 8
    The Showboat, 6 Mill Street 8
    The South Hill, 2 Menzies Street 8
    The Star, 22 Warwick Street 8
    The Toxteth, 141 Park Street 8
    The Volunteer, Park Place 8
    The Wellington, Mill Street 8
    The Windsor Castle, Windsor Street 8

SPORTS CENTRES AND ASSOCIATIONS

    Merseyside Police Sports & Social Club,
      F Division  Admiral Street Station 8
    Park Road Centre for Sport, Steble Street 8
    Toxteth Sports Centre, Upper Hill Street 8

VIDEO HIRE SHOPS

    A.H.F Video, 236 Park Road 8
    Videoland, 168 North Hill Street 8
    Warwick Video World, 43 Warwick Street 8
    Windsor Video, 121 Winsor Street 8

YOUTH CLUBS AND ASSOCIATIONS

    Belvidere Youth & Community Centre, Miles Street 8
    David Lewis Association, Upper Stanhope Street 8
    Toxteth Tabernacle, Baptist Church  Park Road 8
%e
*EOA*


%t Park Road Sports Centre
%n 2R43
%s Details of available sports, including swimming and gymnastics
%a Roy Anthony McPartland  ([e-mail])
%d 19920322
%x Dingle, Liverpool, England, Earth
%e
The following are details on the sports to be found at the Park Road
Sports Centre, in alphabetical order:

AQUAFIT

Water-based keep-fit classes for a hour on a Monday from 7.00pm and
8.00pm for #1.40.

AQUANATAL

A hour-long session of movement and music in the small pool from 10.00am on
a Monday for mothers and babies (#1.85 or for leisure pass holders 75p).

GYMNASTICS

The Park Road sports centre is the city's premier location for gymnastic
training, churning out gold medal winners like a sausage machine.  Its
sports hall is entirely devoted to this cause.  So many young hopefuls have
been trying to attend the gymnastics classes that the hall has had to be
enlarged by 67 percent.  The training sessions with the coaches themselves
are quite cheap (#1.40 youngsters, #2.20 adults), but have to be arranged by
appointment.  There are organized sessions for beginners (under 8s) on
Saturday mornings, and for "over the hills" on Wednesdays (7.30-9.00pm ).

GYMTOTS

This is a basic introduction to movement and dance in a fun environment for
under 5s costing #1.85.  It takes place on a Monday (10.00-11.00am)
(11.00-12.00pm) (12.00-1.00pm) (1.00-2.00pm) and on a Friday (11.00-12.00pm)
(12.00-1.00pm) (1.00-2.00pm).

HEALTH SUITE

Over 18s can use the centre's sauna, sun beds (for 30 minutes), steam
and spa baths (which are all incorporated within the lounge area) for
#1.20, if you're a non-leisure pass holder, and for free if you hold on or
you're an O.A.P.

KEEP-FIT

Land-based aerobics (with female dance instructor) for an hour, costing
#1.40.  Available on a Tuesday (7.00pm-8.00pm), Thursday (7.30pm-8.30pm)
and Sunday (3.00pm-4.00pm).

LADIES-ONLY WEIGHT TRAINING

Adults only for #1.40 a Monday (7.30pm-8.15pm), Tuesday (1.30pm-2.15pm),
Wednesday and on a Friday at (7.30pm-8.15pm).

PUBLIC WEIGHT TRAINING

For #1.40, adults and juniors (14-16 year olds) on a Monday to Wednesday
(9.00am-7.00pm), Thursday (9.00am-9.00pm) and on a Friday (9.00am-7.00pm).

SWIMMING, OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

This takes place in either of the centre's two pools (one small, one
large), costing #1.40 for adults, and 85p for children and O.A.Ps.  The
times are :

    LARGE POOL                             SMALL POOL
         MON    9.00am-6.00pm                   9.00am-9.00pm
         TUE    9.00am-6.00pm                   9.00am-9.00pm
         WED    8.30am-7.00pm                   9.00am-9.00pm
         THU    9.00am-7.00pm                   9.00am-9.00pm
         FRI    8.30am-7.00pm                   9.00am-9.00pm
         SAT    9.00am-4.00pm                   9.00am-4.00pm
         SUN    9.00am-4.00pm                   9.00am-4.00pm

For swimmers with disabilities, special hours are between 7.00pm and 8.00pm
on a Tuesday (in the large pool) for the same price as the public swimming.
%e
*EOA*


%t UseNet and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Known Galaxy
%n 2R44
%s ST News Magazine, Issue 1, Volume 7, 11 January 1992
%a Stefan Posthuma  ([e-mail])
%d 19920111
%i ST News Magazine article on the UseNet
%x Earth
*
* Article submitted by Roy McPartland ([e-mail])
*
%e
Every morning when I walk into the office of SPC, I sit down at my
console terminal, log in and start a program called 'nn'.  This program
gives me access to the about 80 Megabytes of Network News that is stored
somewhere on the 1.2 Gigabytes hard disk of the main host in our little
network.

The Network News is a part of the Usenet or Internet.  This is a global
network that has thousands and thousands of computers connected to it at
thousands of sites, ranging from individual users to big companies like
IBM and Microsoft (and Atari for that matter.)

This Network News is a collection of articles of which there are
thousands being sent every day by a LOT of people.  If I post (send) a
message, it is sent to the central machine for Holland in Amsterdam.
This machine collects all the messages from all machines in Holland that
are attached to the Usenet.  Every hour or so, this machine sends its
collected messages to a lot of machines abroad, typically to every central
machine in every country that is in the network.

At night, our computer calls the one in Amsterdam and collects all the
messages that have arrived there during the day.  They are then processed
and divided into groups and formatted, etc.  The next morning, they will
be waiting for me, ready to be read.

Every night, a couple of thousand messages come in, and it is of course
impossible for me to read them all.  So they are divided into groups,
each group discussing a certain subject.  Groups are divided into
sub-groups and so on.  Take for example the group 'alt'.  Alt contains
all 'alternative' things, items that do not have to relate to computers.
So there is an 'alt.tv' subgroup that deals with TV.  This one is
subdivided into groups like 'alt.tv.simpsons' and 'alt.tv.twin-peaks,'
the latter being at the top of my list of groups to read; it is very
interesting to see what people have to say about this remarkable program.

But it goes a lot further. I mean there is an 'alt.sex' group, and even
an 'alt.sex.bestiality' where people actually discuss the sexual
attractions of ponies and other animals.  And how about 'alt.satanism'
or 'alt.evil'?

There are also more serious groups about religion, philosophy, and of
course computer things.  Groups about C programming, modems, printers,
X windows, networks etc.  The 'comp' group is one of the biggest around.
So if I have problem getting my TCP sockets to work, I post a message
to 'comp.networks.tcpip' and a few dozen to a few thousand people
(depending on the popularity of the newsgroup) will read it and one of
them will surely have the answer.

It is a great way to reach a lot of people with the same interests.  It
was originally intended for computer topics, but it has stretched way
beyond that.

Another part of the Network is the Email facilities.  Using a program
like 'elm' (ELectronic Mail), I can send personal messages to people
that are 'on the net'.  So if there is a person called 'godzilla' and he
is on a machine called 'nirvana' and that machine is on a network called
'dreamscape' in the USA, his address would be:
'[e-mail]'.  So I can type any message and send it
to him.  It will then travel to Amsterdam, be queued there and sent to a
central machine in the US.  This machine will then send it to the
dreamscape network where the mailhost will then route it to the machine
nirvana and the local mailer there would put it in godzilla's mailbox.
Godzilla reads my message and replies to me ([e-mail]).  The whole
process will take no more than one or two days.  If I mail to people in
Holland, I have a reply the same day.

Now you are probably wondering why the hell the Hitchhiker's Guide is in
the title of this article.

Well, recently the group 'alt.fan.douglas-adams' has been created.  In
this group, people chat about the absurd books that Mr. Adams has written
and one of them had the idea to create a kind of Hitchhiker's Guide to
Earth or something.  It will be a database filled with descriptions of
things to be found on Earth - descriptions of people, things, countries,
religions, whatever.  This group is called 'alt.galactic-guide.'

I could submit messages about Holland, Amsterdam, the Coffee shops,
Windmills, Dykes, whatever!  There are already countless people interested,
and it is expected that this database will grow to be at least a couple of
Megabytes.  Ideally, you could request any subject and the Guide would
give you a description.

They have devised a way of submitting entries for this real Guide, and
they want as many people to contribute as possible.  So if you think you
can describe something in an interesting and/or funny way, feel free to do
so and send them to me.  I will see to it that they get sent to the right
person on the Usenet.  Of course if you have access to the Usenet you can
check it out for yourself.

Entries have to be in a certain format, available at various FTP sites and
frequently posted to the 'alt.galactic-guide' group.  So get writing, think
up funny entries and send them to me!

[ Articles and requests for info may be sent to any of the following:

  Editor   1 : Paul J. Clegg  ([e-mail])
  Editor   2 : Steve Baker    ([e-mail])

  The Project Galactic-Guide FTP site is:

  vela.acs.oakland.edu (141.210.10.2) in /pub/galactic-guide       - SWB ]
%e
*EOA*


%t Terran Cricket
%n 2R45
%s Cricket and why aliens really should attack it
%a Craig Hill  ([e-mail])
%d 19930823
%i Sports, Cricket
%e
After much bureaucracy, red tape, smuggling, cheating, and innuendo, cricket
has evolved into the two forms we know today.  The classical test match is
the ultimate test of one's stamina, resolve, and stupidity, while the one-
day match is the ultimate test of ones stamina, impatience, and stupidity.

Test matches are five-day affairs during which the players wander around in
surgical gowns, drinking cups of tea and waiting for the umpires to declare
a draw.  During this time the fielding team may occasionally bowl a ball at
members of the opposing team (this is now discouraged with the one bouncer
per batsman per over rule).  Most of the time, however, the ball will be
gently delivered to the batsman, who will simply block it back to the bowler
while the rest of the teams get their well deserved sleep.

Surgical gowns are replaced with pajamas for the more modern one-day cricket
and the red ball is replaced with a far more exciting white one.  More
importantly than this, the whole philosophy of the game changes: Nodoze are
no longer the primary sponsor.  The batsman go out into the middle and try
to hit the ball at the spectators in an attempt to keep them awake (this was
attempted at test level but abandoned when it was realized that the only
remaining spectators were all either dead or MCC members).  Rumour has it
that there were actually more spectators at one of the international one-day
matches than there were players - a world first for cricket.

If you ever have the misfortune to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to a
cricket match, the following terms should allow you to bluff and maybe even
survive the experience:

umpire             - a stupid moron who wouldn't even notice an attack from
                     an alien space ship (unless the decision goes your way)
duck               - turning into one would be less embarrassing
century            - they take about this long to score
four               - a word commonly associated with the only known sport
                     more boring than cricket
six                - the number of spectators at the average game
leather            - the outer coating of the ball
willow             - a tree outside the ground
bowler             - bowls over, round, under and through the wicket trying
                     to take a wicket
wicket keeper      - presumably the bowler is trying to take the wicket from
                     the keeper, who is actually on his side
batsman            - defends the wicket; nobody knows why or from what
12th man           - drinks waiter
13th man           - spare drinks waiter
1st, 2nd, 3rd slip - fielders who dive, slip, and fall in vain attempts to
                     catch the ball
silly mid off      - the silliest player in the team; nobody else would
                     field here
in the deep        - a good position if you are in need of deep,
                     uninterrupted sleep
gully              - see: hole, boring, cricket.
square             - anywhere but actually square of the wicket
triangle           - a shape totally unrelated to cricket
lots of others     - see: somebody else

Note: Contrary to the reports of other versions of HHGTTG, England has not
      defeated Australia at Lords in an ashes test since the early 1930's,
      although it may be this reality which is actually incorrect.
%e
*EOA*


*
* End of file:  REAL03.NEW
*