The railings of rusting metal frame the peaceful scene of the water.
Well, I headed back to the hotel to see a movie. I ran into Dale and Jo doing their last sightseeing along the beach. Said goodbye and continued on to our hotel to see the film THE WHIP HAND. It has to do with a reporter who stumbles onto a Soviet plan to loose germ warfare on the United States. The film was made in the early 1950s. They don't make films like this any more. Today the hero would be teenaged, the music would be rock, and it would be in color. Otherwise, it could be almost identical.
At the film I met up with Chuck, Evelyn, Kate, Dave, and Cynthia. We went out for fish and chips. I had haddock and 'choclate' ice cream (as the menu misspelled it). Afterward, Cynthia, Kate, Dave, and I walked out on the pier so that they could see what I saw earlier. We also rode the ghost train (Dave didn't). Cynthia got candy floss (a.k.a. cotton candy).
After that we went to our last con activity, a play made up of four short stories by Alfred Bester. One of the stories, 'They Don't Make Life Like They Used To,' I recently spent a half-hour trying to find because I did not remember the title or the author. I only vaguely remembered where I had read the story. That didn't work. Well, now I can find it when I get home. As this finishes the England part of our trip, let me make a few short random observations:
POTATO CHIPS: Here called potato crisps. For some reason, most of the chips you get in the United States taste burnt. Lays also has some coating that seems to coat the teeth and make them feel like I've been sucking lemons. British potato crisps are much better.
DRINKING: There is a lot more beer drinking in England than I remember from the last trip. Most British males seem to drink gallons a week. In the cities everyone seems to pub-crawl. I hop this isn't a sign of things to come.
CARNIVAL: In England, held Banque Holiday weekend. It seems to attract people from all over the world. Not as big as Brazil's yet, but getting bigger. It was in London while we were in Brighton. Each year there is a crime wave with it. This year it was also the occasion for a riot and drinking (q.v.).
WALKMAN RADIOS: Jeez. They're everywhere over here. Perhaps more than you see in the United States. And the batteries cost about a dollar apiece.
CHOCOLATE BARS: Everyone knows the Brits cannot make hamburgers and the United States can't make chocolate. No point in repeating that. Instead, what I am commenting on is the odd agreement between Cadbury and Nestle. Every Underground tunnel has a Cadbury machine. Every train station has a Nestle machine. And they each stay off the other's turf.
JAPAN SF: The Japanese are becoming a major presence at international science fiction conventions. Dave asked one when they would be having their own World Science Fiction Convention. They said they hoped they wouldn't. There would be too many rules 'like this convention.' The Americans don't have so many rules and they (the Japanese) feel they can cut loose at an American con. That is just the sort of thing American cons are trying to avoid. I think this guy will discover the Americans will have more rules in times to come. A book I was reading said the Japanese like to lead double lives, being tame and respectable at home, but when the family cannot them they can be pretty wild. Supposedly this principle explains how such a civilized people did some pretty uncivilized things in World War II.
SURFACE CURRENT: Cynthia knows what I am talking about and has the same odd talent. So does her mother. What is this all about? It seems I have a very rare power, or perhaps the correct word is 'sensitivity,' though that seems to make it sound occult. I can feel if some appliances are plugged in or not by running my hand on them and feeling some kind of surface current. I can't really explain it. At one time I thought everybody could do this. Take our electric fan at home. Leave it turned off but plug it in. If I run my hand down the side, I can feel something that almost feels like it is vibrating. Unplug it and the vibrating stops. I have tried to explain it to other people, assuming that they could feel it too. Nobody has ever known what I was talking about. I slowly began to realize that almost nobody could feel this surface current. At the L5 Society I could even feel the current in a metal table that had a plugged-in television on it. I had Chuck Divine plug and unplug the television and without looking, only by feeling, I could tell him when he had the television plugged in. Evelyn still assumed I was playing some sort of clever trick. Admittedly that is a very reasonable suspicion but, in fact, she was wrong. I shortly thereafter discovered the electric fan in our den also gets a surface current. I had Ev plug it in and unplug it and that fairly quickly convinced her I really could feel something different when there was power to the fan. I mentioned to Cynthia that I have this ability and she at least claimed to know what I was talking about and that she could feel it too. It may be that the appliance has a small short in it and you get very small shocks when you rub your hand over it. Perhaps some people feel these shocks and some do not.
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September 2 (7:31 AM): Well, we are now halfway into our trip, or will be today. We are in Scotland and I'd hoped that I would be caught up on this log by now. I am still 24 hours behind in spite of writing through the train ride yesterday. We got up earlier yesterday. Had our last Brighton breakfast and had a cab called and went to the train station.
We caught a train for Victoria Station. On the way we talked to a local fan, a security guard, who is a fan of hard scientific science fiction. There are a lot of these people who are just making ends meet and who travel the cheapest way possible to get to the few local science fiction conventions. I talked about BBC science fiction plays we get in the United States which he also liked, but when we told him the best we'd seen was AN ENGLISHMAN'S CASTLE, he'd never heard of it. The problem, apparently, was that it didn't sound like science fiction so he probably didn't watch it. Subtlety has its problems. In the United States you know what is science fiction on television because it gets names like BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. Of course, you also get science fiction of the quality of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, which is much worse.
At Victoria Station we caught the Underground for King's Cross and there caught the train for Edinburgh. As you travel you see a sort of movement backward in time. You see a city built high with brown bricks and homes with laundry hanging in the back yards. This eventually gives way to smaller towns placed one against another. Then smaller towns with field land between them. The fields get wider. Soon you have rolling grassy hills with sheep grazing. It becomes serenely pastoral. The sky becomes very blue, the grass very green. (The two colors really don't go very well together; someone will have to manage it better next time.) There is one stretch where you see a beautiful blue vista of the North Sea with a giant rock island jutting out from the green fields and the sheep. Fantastic! We did have some grey weather on the way, but by the time we got to Edinburgh the sky was clear again. I spent most of the time writing this log and looking out the window.
At the train station in Edinburgh there is classical music playing in a pleasant arrangement. There is a queue for taxis. We waited about ten minutes and got to the head of the queue. The cab afforded our first view of the city. It is a combination of modern-looking stores and older architecture. Spires seem to be very popular. At the end of town where our hotel is, the most notable landmark is the Scott Monument. There is not much to it but spires. It has spires on the four corners, leaving the center section open where there is a statue of Sir Walter Scott. To keep the statue dry there is a bigger spire in the center.
One thing that I suppose was a little unexpected: plaid patterns are rarer than I'd have thought. Plaid seems to be mostly reserved for things connected with tourism. I guess if you don't have claim to some tartan, you don't wear it. Very rarely but occasionally you do see someone wearing a kilt on the street.
We were taken to the hotel by our taxi. As we opened the door, a large round grey and white head with two different colored eyes popped out of the door. It was a sheepdog whose weight, I'd guess, is closer to mine than to Evelyn's. He seemed friendly enough (and it was a darn good thing!) and like most dogs I found him very likable. The Scots, I must say, like no other people, understand the relative merits of dogs and cats. Cats are household parasites that can be good company. I have seen no sign that they are particularly popular as pets. Dogs too seem to be recognized for what they are, creatures who live in a close symbiosis with humans- -a sort of partnership in which neither expects something for nothing.
This is the city that erected a (small) statue to a dog, Greyfriar's Bobby. Bobby guarded the grave of his master for twelve years in the hopes, presumably, that his master would one day return. Dogs seem to exhibit very human virtues, often unrestrained by what we would consider common sense or self-interest. Bobby spent almost all his life mourning a master who it is hard to imagine warranted or even would have wanted such loyalty. The military museum (I have yet to describe it) honors a dog who was given the Victoria Cross, but allowed to wear it only once a year. I don't remember the full story but Paddy was honored for his courage in bringing humans to safety under the fire of enemy bullets. It is difficult to imagine that Paddy benefited much in terms he understood except for perhaps a little extra affection from his master and maybe a nice meal or two. As you can tell, I have a lot of respect for dogs. And canines in general.
Well, that was an extensive digression. At any rate, we went to the desk of the hotel and the woman asked us 'Leeper?' This is not a fancy hotel; it is really just a converted house, but it appears that we are the only guests. We got our room key and went up to our room. I'd say the windows in our room are six feet wide and must be ten feet high. The room has a single bed, a double bed, and a pre-fab shower stall stuck in a closet. There is also a sink but the toilet is public, though just outside our door. The room may be twice the size of a room in Brighton and it was larger than our London room.
We dropped off our stuff and at 6 in the evening, we set out to see the city. One of the first interesting things I saw was their variation on the parking meter. There is a machine on the street that sells adhesive tickets with a time on them. For 20 pence, say, it will give you a ticket with a time one hour in the future. That makes parking a real pain in the rain, particularly if your car is some distance from the ticket machine. Feeding the meter is probably a pain too, since the tickets are not additive.
So, off we went. We saw the Burns Memorial and puzzled over what it might be until I read it with binoculars. Continuing to Princes Street, we puzzled over what turned out to be the Scott Monument. Then we looked at some shops, went into a bookstore but didn't buy. Then we set off looking for dinner and finally went to a pizza restaurant, one of a chain that seem to be all over Edinburgh. The pizza was expensive and mediocre by United States standards. We then went back to sit under the Scott Monument and write in our logs. After half an hour we went back to our hotel and claimed one more day under our belt. Evelyn dropped off to sleep early and I (guess what?) wrote in my log. |
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