Floppyshop 2/Floppyshop - 2.zip/Floppyshop - 2.iso/diskmags/4671-5.790/dmg-4674/news.txt/rainbox4.asc

Text File | 1993-11-09 | 20KB | 355 lines

                         ∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°∙°
                         ∙  JUST A BOX OF RAIN  ∙
                         ∙                      ∙
                         ∙   from John Weller   ∙
                         ∙                      ∙
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                           Love in a Major Key
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Sometimes you get what you want,  and sometimes you get what you need. Liz
and I got lucky and found each other.

I was 36 and marriage was the last thing on my mind.   I was playing in  a
postal game called 'Delenda Est Carthago',  a serious game that  simulated
a  mediaeval  world,  complete  with  customs,  religions,  diplomacy  and
warfare.   You  controlled  three characters in  an  aristocratic  family.
There  were no set periods for turns,  but the way it worked was that  you
sent  in  a  list of instructions for each of  your  characters,  and  the
umpires,  or Games Masters (GMs),  would try to carry out as many of  them
as  were  possible or legal.   The game had about eighty players  at  that
time (it's been running for eight years) and three GMs.

Liz  was one of the GMs and she decided she liked my style.   I  wrote  my
turns  as  a  narrative  and  my real  interest  in  the  game  wasn't  in
interacting  with the other characters or players,  but  in  collaborating
with  a  GM to make my own characters believable.   With the right  GM  it
could  be  like writing a novel,  and Liz and I soon found that we  had  a
similar  sense  of earthiness and romance.   She enjoyed my  turns  and  I
looked forward to her replies.

Even  though I wasn't interested in the diplomatic and power-playing  side
of the game,  I still had a lot of contact with other players.  We'd write
to  each other and exchange gossip over the 'phone,  so it  wasn't  really
a surprise when Liz rang me up one night.   We talked about the game, then
we  talked  about ourselves,  and the call that started at 10  o'clock  at
night finished at 3 in the morning.

What  I  learnt  about her intrigued me.   She was  half  Iranian  on  her
father's side,  an American citizen and,  as if this wasn't exotic enough,
she  was also a falconer.   But there was also a down side:  her  politics
were "somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan" and she wasn't as  well-read
as I thought I was.   If I'd had to define myself then I would have called
myself  a "working class intellectual,  Anarchist by  nature".   Whatever,
the middle class and the political Right were high on my hit list.

Don't  let  anyone tell you that Life doesn't have a sense  of  humour....
We'd  'phone  each other every couple of months  and  have  long,  intense
conversations.   One  night  she  called while she was  in  the  bath;  my
imagination  overflowed.   We'd start out talking about the game,  but  it
soon  went on to what we wanted from life,  and what made us  tick.   We'd
been  brought  up in very different ways,  but  there  were  similarities.
We'd  both been kicked out of school,  we'd both come near to  breakdowns,
and we were both individualists.

We hadn't planned to meet,  but every so often Judith,  the woman who  ran
the game, would hold a weekend meeting at her house and invite any players
who  wanted  to attend.   I was going through a  particularly  bad  period
(stress  and the tail end of an addiction),  but I decided to make the  80
mile  journey  with a couple of other players.   It  was  a  mistake.   My
nerves were so jagged that I was terrified of the activity all around  me.
It  was an effort to talk to anyone,  let alone Liz.   We managed to  talk
for a few minutes on the Sunday, just before I fled.

The game continued and I sent in my turns.  And then Liz 'phoned me again.
We talked,  and talked,  and after a few hours she said,  "You know,  it'd
cost  less  to come and see you - what are you doing  this  weekend?"   We
arranged  to meet at Richmond station - "you can't miss me,  I'll  be  the
one in the crewcut and the red jacket" - and I spent the rest of the  week
wondering what would happen.

Friday came,  and my stress level was at an all-time high.   I left at the
very last minute and waited anxiously for a bus.   No bus.   "Hell!  Where
have they moved the cab rank!"  No cab.   "The train!"  Ten people queuing
at  the one window.   I finally caught a bus and arrived 30 minutes  late.
dash through the station - no sign of Liz.   Wait outside.   Wait  inside.
Walk  around the station.   Wait outside.   Phone home:  "She rang to  ask
where  you  were.   I  told her you were on your way."   Walk  around  the
station,  looking at every face, doubting your memory.  And wait.  Someone
on the other side of the entrance hall is waiting as well.   That can't be
Liz - surely not!   She's larger than I remembered,  and surely she  isn't
that  short?   We eyed each other and looked away.   She was  looking  for
someone with a moustache (which I'd shaved off a week before),  and I  was
looking for someone I could only half-remember.

It was an hour after we'd arranged to meet and at the point when I  either
had to do something,  or leave.  I went over to the short, plump woman and
said, "Liz?"  "John?  Where's your moustache?  You had a moustache!"  "You
look different..."  Think fast,  John,  you can do it.  "Do you want a cup
of coffee?  There's an Italian restaurant over the road..."  Neither of us
was  comfortable;  Liz  was thinking,  "who's this nerd in the  awful  red
jacket?, and I was wrapped up in my doubts and hesitations.

But we drank our coffee and started to talk.   Neither of us was what  the
other had expected,  but we talked and talked, and finally it seemed right
again.   The crowd from next door's theatre Pub spilled onto the  pavement
and, "What the hell!", a middle-aged bagpiper in kilt and regalia piped up
and  down the street.   We drank coffee and ate ice cream and left for  my
place.

Talking,  talking,  talking until the early hours.   Walking by the river.
Telling  Liz  that this was the local gay  pick-up  point.   "It's  called
Queen's Promenade,  and believe me,  darling, they do..."  Up and down the
promenade,  looking at the stars and watching the river flow.  A flurry of
laughter  when we heard grunts and yelps from the bushes.   Sitting  on  a
wall at 3am, talking about life.  Perfect.

We  talked  away  the Saturday morning and went to Hampton  Court  in  the
afternoon.   I was on edge but Liz knew it was just stress,  and we sat in
the very centre of the maze,  watching the tourists and playing 'guess the
nationality'.   It was very peaceful and both of us were happy.   I  found
out that Liz was,  like myself, a Dylan enthusiast.  We swapped quotes and
favourite  songs.   The day passed quickly and then Liz had to  leave  for
Bournemouth.

A week passed and I was with her again.   I took the train to  Bournemouth
and then we drove to Gloucester for a day's hawking.   Biff and Jess,  two
women who were happy with each other,  welcomed us and we set out over the
stubble.   Liz  wanted me to photograph Camilla,  her redtailed  hawk,  in
action,  but  what  I  wanted was to fix Liz's  image  onto  film;  golden
evening light,  rosewood hair, and that smile!  This was the woman I knew.
We  drove back through the night and there was that certain  feeling,  the
feeling that something was happening,  something that that was beyond  our
control.   As  we  drove  into  Bournemouth Liz  was  singing  quietly  to
herself,  Lou Reed's  "Oh, such a perfect day, I'm so glad I spent it with
you."  I was touched to my heart.

A week later and Liz called me from a phone box in North Wales;  "I'm at a
falconry  meet,  do  you want to join me?"  I had a long  weekend's  leave
coming up,  free rail travel....   I hesitated.   "I'll be there on Friday
night!"  I was so happy;  this strong and beautiful woman wanted me to  be
with  her.   Friday  finally  came and I was on  a  crowded  Intercity  to
Shrewsbury,  and  then the long local journey to Pwllheli.   And  Liz.   I
photographed  her  flying Camilla.   I tried to capture  the  scenery  and
strangeness of the place,  the sand dunes stretching for miles, the light,
the mountains on the horizon,  but above all,  Liz.   The next day we went
to  Portmeirion and wondered at seeing an Italianate village on the  Welsh
coastline.   My  diary  entry for that  day  reads,  "Beautiful!  The  sun
shining over the estuary,  very few people,  very happy.   Portmeirion has
been the best day that I can remember for so long now.   Whenever I looked
at  Liz (who was content,  laughing and very beautiful) I was  overwhelmed
by  surges  of tenderness and pure happiness.  I'm so lucky  to  have  met
her."

Friendship was deepening into love,  but neither of us was sure that  that
was we wanted.   We drove back to London and I told Liz about my obsession
with   Sir   Richard   Francis  Burton,   the   Victorian   explorer   and
anthropologist,  who "spoke twenty-five languages, including pornography."
I'd  tried  to find his grave several times (he was buried in  a  Catholic
cemetery  at Mortlake),  and had come to the conclusion that it  had  been
overwhelmed by the modern world.   But Liz insisted on looking for it that
very  night.   We drove around and around at one in the  morning,  looking
for  churches and cemeteries.   Liz grinned at me and said,  "You know  we
ought to celebrate when we find it.  How about a quick boff on the grave?"
How seriously can you take a joke?  As seriously as you want to.

I'd  spent days searching for the grave before and hadn't even  found  the
churchyard,  but Liz tracked it down within an hour.  It was hidden behind
tall  walls,  but  we  found  a  way in  and  felt  our  way  through  the
undergrowth  in the dark.  And there it was...  exactly as I'd read  about
it;  a  twelve  foot  high  Bedouin tent carved  out  of  Portland  stone.
Synchronicity,  serendipity,  call  it what you will,  but it was  another
sign that something magical was happening to us.

Another week passed and I was in Bournemouth again.   We talked and talked
and  late that night,  when we were lying on Liz'  bed,  it  happened.   I
couldn't  stand the intensity any more and reached out to touch  her.   We
looked at each other and turned out the lights.

That  was three years ago,  and we've been married for two of  them.   And
perhaps  the strangest moment of all was when I checked with the  Registry
Office and was told that October 12th was their first free Saturday.  That
was the date when we'd first met,and that was the date we were married on.
Neither  of  us  had  known it,  we lived 80 miles  apart  and  were  very
different from each other, but we were given what we needed.



                         The Germans do it better
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I  know  I'm not meant to say this,  but I like  GEM.   It's  clean,  it's
simple,  and it lets you get on with the job.  There's a lot that could be
improved  in it,  but when you compare it with that overblown  monstrosity
called Windows ®™, you realise just how lucky we are.

And  that's  why I'm so glad to be running TOS  3,  the  operating  system
that  was developed for the TT.   It's a disc-based version that was  sent
by a German contact and is,  naturally enough, triumphantly Germanic!  The
copyright position of it is 'vague',  but as it's not something that Atari
are  ever  likely to sell then I've got no qualms about  using  it.   It's
presumably  a beta-test version that was sent to developers in  the  early
days of the TT.

The  first thing you notice about it is the  icons.   Any  drive,  device,
programme  or  data file can be given its own own icon,  which  you  chose
from a set of sixty stored in the Resource file.   Any file can be dragged
from a window and installed automatically on the desktop.  Window bars can
be  scrolled by pressing the up and down cursor keys,  and a keypress  can
be  assigned to any drop-down menu option.   Files can be 'moved',  as  on
the  Macintosh  and PC (a copy operation that erases the  original  file),
and up to 20 programmes can be run simply by pressing a function key.   Do
you see now why I'm excited about it?

TOS  3  has less functions or options than Neodesk 3,  but it has  a  much
cleaner  and less cluttered feel about it.   It also has a  feature  which
I've  never  seen before in a desktop;  the ability to load  a  previously
saved  set-up  *without rebooting*.   Think about it,  you  can  have  one
desktop  layout  for working with graphics (with all your  art  programmes
running  from icons or function keys),  another for DTP,  another for  WP,
and you can then chop and change between them at any time.

If you can find a copy of TOS 3 then I'd recommend that you try it. It has
the virtues of GEM without the bugs,  and most of the options of  Neodesk,
but without the fussiness.



                        The Squirrel and the Mouse
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Squig the squirrel is seven months old and in the rudest of  health.   She
(we  were wrong when we first sexed her) now lives in an enclosure in  the
garden and is brought in for an hour's excercise and company every  night.
This  is serious fun!   She runs up and down us as if we were  trees,  and
leaps  between  us  as she races around  the  room.   But  there's  always
drawbacks.... a squirrel isn't the kind of animal you can let go about its
business;  it's like having a permanently hyperactive child in the  house,
and  you have to keep an eye on her all the time to make sure she  doesn't
harm herself.

I remember waking up one morning and stumbling blearily over to the ST.  I
fired it up,  watched everything load,  and then went to move the  cursor.
Nothing happened.   "Damn it,  it's unplugged again."  But it  wasn't.   I
checked again,  everything was plugged in,  the trackerball switch was  in
the right position,  the lead...  the lead had been almost bitten through.
All the wires were severed but there was just enough plastic left to  hide
the damage.  Who said that animals don't have a sense of humour?

Our  original  plan was to release Squig just as soon as  she  could  cope
with the wild life,  but she's become so imprinted on people that she'd be
a  danger if we released her.   She's lost most of her fear of people  and
is  just  as likely to leap onto a stranger as avoid them.   She's  now  a
permanent resident with the same rights and obligations as the rest of the
beasts;  you entertain us,  and we'll care for you and make sure that  you
have a good life.



                       DTP Makes Bad Layout Easier
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The  problem with even the most sophisticated DTP programmes is that  they
don't teach good design.   They can have options for everything under  the
sun,  they can have manuals an inch thick,  but they still can't stop  the
determined philistine from choosing a display font for the text,  and  the
most cliched clip art as illustrations.   It sometimes seems that the  one
effect of DTP has been to make bad layout easier.

Let's  take an example.   Liz and I belong to the National Ferret  Welfare
Society (this is not a joke) and receive a copy of their newsletter  every
quarter.   When  we first joined it was uninspired  but  competent.   Now,
after  having had £1,200's worth of DTP system thrown at  it,  it's  badly
designed,  impossible to follow, and looks as if it's been put together by
a  bunch  of  not very bright five year-olds  on  their  first  technology
project.  Value for money?  I think not.

Perhaps what's needed is a programme that will enforce the basic rules  of
good page layout and design.  A programme that will refuse to let you, for
example,  set  the main text in Broadway,  and assign 5mm margins  to  the
page.   A programme that knows when to say "No!",  instead of "look at  my
million options!   I can set Aramaic!   I can wind your headline around  a
bezier  curve!   Buy  me!"  The sad and overlooked truth  is  that  owning
£250's worth of DTP programme doesn't make you a graphic  designer.   Only
hard work and thought can do that.



                   Tales from the Bournemouth Bestiary
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Our local radio station, 2CR, has us listed as being willing to rescue any
lost bird or ferret that their listeners might 'phone in about.  It can be
a  lot of fun (and you get to meet some very strange people),  but it  has
its bizarre side.  Let me explain...

It  was  a wet and a windy afternoon when Liz and I heard  the  call,  and
headed  out  for  suburban East Howe.   A buzzard  had  escaped  from  its
aviary and was rumoured to be hanging around.   We stopped,  we  listened,
we scanned the rooftops and looked for a big bird.   "Holy  Mackerel!   Do
you hear the crows,  John?"  "I hear them,  O sister of the soil."   "Then
follow  them crows!"  And sure enough,  there she was,  perched in an  oak
tree behind some bungalows, and being mobbed by corvids.

Now,  the  first lesson in catching an escaped bird is,  'Show no  Shame'.
Just pretend that it's the most natural thing in the world to be  standing
there,  unshaven,  scuzzy,  in  the  pouring rain,  on  a  suburban  road,
squinting through a pair of binoculars.   Look innocent and the neighbours
might not 'phone the police.

We'd sighted her,  but we now had to get closer.   And there our  troubles
began...   We rang all the doorbells,  but no-one was home.   "To the next
road,  Ferretman!"  "Shit!   Do I really have to?"  "You can stand here on
your own,  if you want to..."  Time passes and we're now at the foot of  a
garden,  still in the pouring rain, but with all the family staring at us.
But  it's fractionally better than standing in the street and waiting  for
the police to arrive.

We look up at the buzzard,  and she looks down at us:  impasse.  Liz waves
a chick at her.  She ignores it. I clean the rain off my glasses and think
about hot soup.   The buzzard doesn't fancy hot soup either.   Off to  the
nearest phone,  to tell her owner that we've 'found' her,  and please will
he  come  and  collect her before she buggers  off  again.   Time  passes,
slowly.

The owner's at work,  so his wife turns up to help us.   The only  problem
is that she's deaf....  and knows very little about hawks.  To cut a long,
and very wet story short,  we left the bird to roost when it got dark, and
her  owner called her down first thing in the morning.   And if I had a  £
for every suspicious look I'd been given,  then I wouldn't be claiming the
dole.



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Why  is this column called 'Just A Box of Rain'?   I'm glad you  asked  me
that.   It's a quote from an old Grateful Dead song ('Box of  Rain',  from
the album 'American Beauty', 1970 or thereabouts):

       "For it's just a box of rain, I don't know who put it there.
           Believe it if you need it, Or leave it if you dare,
         For it's just a box of rain, Or a ribbon for your hair,
        Such a long time to be gone, Such a short time to be here."


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And  that just about sums it up.   I've had a lot fun writing Rainbox  and
somehow I can't see myself giving it up.   I'll see you soon, not in STEN,
but maybe in Evelyn Mills' planned 'PD Zine',  or maybe Jake of  Caledonia
PDL's mag?   Or maybe in (God, I'm a sucker!) my own rag.  Take care, keep
well, and be good to each other.  You know it makes scents.



                              ~~~~~eof~~~~~