Saturday, August 31, 2002



posted by Ian at 5:50 PM

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The BBC finally brings the X Games and mountain biking to its flagship sports programme today. Please let it be a grown up treatment, showing full runs as well as the obligatory music video of crash clips.
posted by Ian at 12:28 PM

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Friday, August 30, 2002

Sixty years after Pearl Harbour, one of theJapanese submarines sunk at Pearl Harbor has been found, almost by accident. I've been reading a bit about marine archeology recently, one of the inspirations behind threads in the Seeds storyline.

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posted by Ian at 6:38 PM
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Seeds-

The low, barn-like structure the tri-motor had been wheeled into was a sham. The rear opened onto an old quarry working which had been roofed over to create a huge hangar. There were another two of Horse�s supply fleet and an old Albo that had been refitted with an arsenal of defensive autoguns. There were other shapes, twin boomed and vaguely familiar, in shadows beyond.
An officer approached Horse and Reed, saluted them and made the sign of the Silver Tower. �Welcome back sir. You must be commander Reed.�
�Yes. This,� Reed had felt her appear at his elbow, �is my bombardier, Jay.�
The officer saluted Jay. �If you will come this way sir, madam. The rest of your flight will be settled into their billets.�
�We are getting a tour of Dreamland?� Jay squeaked. �Are we cleared for that?�
�This complex is currently locked down. You cannot leave to tell anyone about it. And your next posting is,� he smirked, �remote, shall we say.�
Lights were coming on in the far end of the hangar, randomly revealing details. �Those are Slender Wasps.� Reed was disappointed.
�No. Those are larger than Slender Wasps.� Jay wanted to rush ahead and investigate.
�Killer Wasps. Not the most imaginative name, I admit. We have built upon the original�s strengths- the strong backbone and excellent handling characteristics- and fitted supercharged V12 engines and pressurised the cabin. It can fly higher and faster, and still negotiate narrow valleys just as well. You shall be taking this flight to your new posting.�
Up close, Reed studied his new plane. The shoulder where wings met fuselage was familiar, and the tail was long and thin. The crew section was undoubtedly larger, and he could make out the double thick glass. It was painted a light blue grey on the underside and a broken darker blue- grey on top. This was not any mountain camouflage that Reed knew. �Where is our posting?�
�I�m afraid I can�t tell you that, sir. Come this way and I shall show some more of the �toys� we have been working on.� A tunnel ran to the next hangar quarry. Cabling and lights hung from nails hammered into the rock. �These will be your escorts on combat missions.� The strange beast was a single seater, painted in a similar scheme to the Killer Wasps. The engine, and a pusher propeller, were behind the pilot, twin tails sprouted from the wing and were joined by a large rear flap. The long nose housed a six barrel rotating autogun and there were mountings under the wing for bombs, rockets or drop tanks. �It�s a Ciccile.�
�Cheecheel?� Jay reddened at her poor pronunciation.
�It�s a ten legged hunting insect which can jump great distances, is very agile and has a deadly bite. When the Southern army broke through onto the plains, some of the designers flew the prototypes over the mountains and demanded sanctuary on our side. It was better than any interceptors we were working on at the time.�
There were other planes on display, single examples. �Our rogues gallery.� The officer commented. There was a battered metal thing which looked like an arrow head and had no landing gear, a stubby prop plane with short deep wings and a huge engine, a box with no wings but horizontal windmill blades and a model of a bomber with twin fuselages and eight engines. �Some of them will see production yet.�
Jay had taken Reed�s hand, �I feel quite excited.�
�Military hardware turns you on? I�ll have to remember that.�

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posted by Ian at 6:12 PM

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Thursday, August 29, 2002




Changes to the front page, hopefully you'll be able to see them. One that's less obvious is the ability to link directly to posts, in case I ever write something really insightful and funny (might happen!) Also, some of the Eliza Effect subchaps have been collected up and put in the right place, and Seeds chapter 2 is up.
Seeds-

One of the sealed reports covered what little had been determined from the destruction of a training camp in the mountains. It was supposed that an air raid had levelled the complex, though no aeroplanes had been seen before or after the attack and analysis of the pattern of explosions and burn was inconclusive. Boran put the report aside after skim reading. If requested, he would consider designing camps to reduce the risk from such attacks.
Eventually, Janssen called. Boran picked up some paperwork which required initialling and went upstairs to his superior�s office. Janssen was in the ante-chamber, contemplating the large model of the fjord and great lake beyond it. He pointed at the large island that choked the sea�s entry to the great lake. �They want to move command of my district to the naval base on Stran Island. Can you imagine that?�
�No sir.�
�I told them. It does not have the infrastructure, I told them. How can I hope to manage the logistics of the supply line if I can�t visit the marshalling yards or the docks.� Or the pross houses, his mistresses and the store of steadily increasing plunder he was accumulating, Boran completed silently.
�About the marshalling yards sir. They are having problems coping with the increased traffic. It would be advantageous to build new through tracks.�
�With what? I don�t have the budget since they insisted I build defences for an attack that will not come. Of course, they shall blame me for their own short sightedness. Enough of this, what about the sabotage on the Plains. What are you doing about it?�
�I have just received the report sir. It suggests a lack of maintenance rather than deliberate damage.�
�Never. Nook is one of my most trusted deputies. A supply train derailed, that doesn�t just happen by accident. Have some troops sent out there.�
�We don�t have many troops to spare sir.�
�Nonsense. The seaward batteries are even less use than the glacier ones. Send a few of them before they get too fat to fit their gunnery seats.�
�Yes sir. Is there anything else?�
�No. No. Just go and see to these things.�

Needle In The Groove- Fatboy Slim- Halfway Between The Gutter and The Stars, Pixies - Surfer Rosa/ Come On Pilgrim, Coldplay - Parachutes.
And that's it, apart from the CDs I've lost somewhere. If anyone has my copies of Hives - Your New Favourite Band and Carter USM - Live, can you give me them back please.

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posted by Ian at 7:11 PM
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Wednesday, August 28, 2002

It's been a long time since I checked out my visitor logs, so off I went. Intriguing is this listing, which seems to have crawled my site and come back with a list of all external links. So next time, it lists the page listing me, and things get a bit recursive.
Also interesting were some google searches- hard wood doors, New Bohemians pics and the hidden empire middle management. If I mention sex more often, or Britney Spears naked, will I get listed more often?

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posted by Ian at 11:58 PM
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Seeds-

Boran shuffled paper across his desk. Production reports, intelligence reports, statistics for port usage. Lots of things he could look at but not change without permission. The door opened and his assistant bore another armful of documents. �I thought you were going down to the docks?�
�Janssen. Commander Janssen has something more important to see me about. He just has not called for me yet.� The young man smiled at his boss. There could only be a few years difference in their ages- when he still lived in the city Boran could have played in the municipal park with Aylo. Now he had to be guarded in what he said, for both their sakes. A shame, Aylo was a handsome man. �What do you have for me?�
�Traffic reports from the railroad. There is a bottleneck becoming evident in the southern marshalling yards. A report of possible sabotage on the Plains, though it looks to me as if someone is trying to cover for failing in their routine maintenance duties. And these, which are eyes only sealed.� Aylo dropped the last three bundles with a hint of anger. So hard, in fact, that the seal on the top one popped off.
�How are conditions in the city?�
�Sir?�
�Not the propaganda about the people of Cora and Munss welcoming their liberation. How are people coping, really? I know that the amount of food coming into the cities- and staying- is a lot lower for the civilian population than it was last season. It will be the long nights soon enough, and if we have been starving people through the fat season that is when they will start dying.�
�There are those who would benefit from more food, sir. That is always true.�
�The young, the old and the sick?�
�Sir.�
�I will suggest to Commander Janssen that too many deaths amongst the citizenry would have an adverse effect upon the workers and consequently production. He may respond.�
�Thank you sir.� Aylo turned to leave, �If I may say so sir, you are certainly more considerate than many in the command.�
�Thank you Aylo. Do not tell anyone else that though.�
�Sir.�

Hang the DJ, hang the DJ, hang the DJ- Oasis - (What's The Story) Morning Glory?

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posted by Ian at 10:13 PM

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Tuesday, August 27, 2002




I've been trying to think of titles for what I'm currently calling Seeds. So far I've come up with Silver Tower (already a book by Dale Brown and only referring to one aspect of the story) or Islands in Time (or Space. I might as well go the hwole hog and call it Islands in the Stream so Dolly and Kenny can sing the movie adaptation's theme tune.)

They had marched hard for two days, making the most of the pack animals to speed their movements, then discarded them and cut over into another valley on foot. Now they were approaching their planned camp. Mov had scouted and reported the road was so overgrown it couldn�t have been used for several seasons.
The construction had collapsed in several places, where it clung to the steepest cliff face, but a way could always be found in single file. Near the head of the valley, it found its way back onto firm ground. There was machinery now- old, steam driven things rusting in overgrown parks. Ahead, a great scar in the mountain face was just visible behind screens of trees.
The scar was a great arched tunnel mouth. There was more machinery here, steam driven tracked trucks and a large conveyor bearing rocks from the darkness. Halfway through a shift, everyone had downed tools and left. �What is this place?� Rey asked.
�The Karr tunnel.� Lensman told him, �One of the greatest engineering failures of all time. It was supposed to join the east and west sides of the range far to the south of the Arril pass. They broke countless machines, killed a hundred or so workers and then just ran out of money. It bankrupted my mother�s side of the family.�
�This is to be our base of operations? Do the southerners know of its existence?�
�Everyone knows of it, but very few think about it. Besides, it is a very defensible position. We rest here for a few days and then start expeditions.�
Kess and Mov were already marking out fire zones for defence. They had found a steam shovel, the bucket resting on an outcrop. �This ferrous must be two or three digits thick. We could mount an autogun in here and catch them as they come up the road.�
Mov nodded, �It would be very hard to get above us as well. On the nearside here, they would have to cross our field of fire before they could even start climbing. And on the far side, it is hardly to their advantage.�
�We can set up trip mines and calibrate the bomb lobbers to hit the far side of that rise. Unless they send an army after us it will be another unfair fight.�
�You say that like it is a bad thing, youngster.�

Radio Ass Kiss- Elastica- The Menace, The Wannadies - Bagsy Me.

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posted by Ian at 7:41 PM

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