The latest episode of my History podcast, Historyzine is now available.
This is show number 15, entitled, Winter Diplomacy in 1705.
In this show we have a Podcast review of The Jefferson Hour and a review of the book, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher which those people here on Live Journal will have seen in text form some time ago.
The last section of the show features the winter round of diplomacy by the Duke of Marlborough as he covers 2000 miles by boat and carriage meeting with a multitude of monarchs to soothe their fears and allay their worries. Then he has to persuade them all to pledge troops for the next year's campaigning.
You'll find the show either by searching for Historyzine on Itunes or by going to http://historyzine.com/

I've just been told I'm being made redundant.
Feeling a bit shell shocked at the moment.
It's a fairly crummy job and I intended to leave as soon as I could find something else but I haven't been able to find anything despite sending off a mountain of application forms.
It's a bad time to be looking for a job with umpty millions of other people also searching for employment.
Bleakness abounds.
Oh well, maybe there'll be lots of exciting new possibilities open up.
Maybe I'll find something I enjoy doing and which stretches me a little.
Unlikely I know but I've got to try and go into this with a degree of optimism.
Job searching can be a depressing business and I should at least start the process all bright eyed and hopeful.

Tomorrow morning the ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha slouch train will surface in Southend (now there's a couple of entangled metaphors).
We'll be meeting up at the Central train station in Southend at 1300. After that there are no set plans (as is customary for a slouch).
However I figure it would be nice to have a few ideas for fun things to do in Southend (apart from the pier of course).
Does anyone have any recommendations?

Saturday 11th July
Beeblebears' Picnic
Meeting at St James' Park tube station at 1pm.
From there we shall venture on to St James' Park armed with bears, sandwiches, beers and a satchel or two of jollity. It's quite likely we shall picnic in sight of the bandstand.
If you're going to be a few minutes late you can let us know on the meetings phone 07527 072155

I thought I wasn't going to be able to come along cos of wedding arrangement stuff but it looks very likely that I will be there now at least for a short time.

The ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Towel Picnic will be in Glasgow next Saturday (13th June) at 13:00 hrs.
We'll be meeting at 'The Shell' sculpture type thing in Glasgow Central Train Station and then moving off to find a picnicky spot. I'll be wearing a Don't Panic tee shirt and my partner Carrie (Mostly Harmless editor) will quite likely have her Don't Panic towel.
If you're going to be late then please call the meetings phone (the Raprod) on 07527072155.
Hope to see lots of you there accompanied by Beeblebears, towels and anything else you want to bring along.
This event isn't just limited to members so feel free to pop along and see us even if your membership has lapsed, been eaten by a mutant star goat, or hasn't swum into existence yet.
Hope to see some of the more northerly HitchHiker fans up there.
Jim

The year is 1860. Britain is riding the wave of the industrial revolution and enjoying the benefits of empire.
The emergent middle classes are wrapping themselves in swathes of morality and good manners.
In a village called Road there is a fine upstanding member of the Victorian middle classes known as Samuel Kent inhabiting a large 3 storey Georgian house with his wife, 5 children and servants. It all seems very respectable but when his youngest child is found mutilated and murdered upside down in the privy it opens the door wide on this very private little family group and it's revealed as far from respectable.
The author then introduces her (and she hopes he will be our) hero, Mr Whicher to the proceedings. The detective section of the Metropolitan police was started in 1842 and Mr Whicher was one of the original 8 detectives. By 1860 the department was well established and Whicher had earned a fine reputation for almost miraculous powers of detection
We watch the bumbling investigation of the local police. We watch the attempts at deduction by every amateur sleuth in the country. We watch Mr Whicher's progress through this case and see him come to a conclusion and then bring it before a court.
The author holds up the different elements of the case before us. She offers tantalising glimpses of the evidence and the various theories as we progress step by step toward a resolution. She styles it in the way of a detective novel but also adds many fascinating glimpses of police work in the 1860's. Kate Summerscales has done a fair amount of research into the period and throws in a few lively accounts of celebrated detection and arrests. There's quite an exciting feel to the early police work. It's immensely dangerous but also a grand experiment which attracts mad adventurers and strange eccentrics. If you imagine Vimes and Carrot from The Watch in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels then you'll find two people who would be very much at home in the London police force of the 1860's.
This book is a fine piece of entertainment. It's fun and playful and gives some fascinating insights into the development of 'detective mania' and our fascination for horrific crimes.There are intriguing glimpses of mid 19th century life in England. There's also some feeling for the class tensions of the time but this book is in no way a comprehensive coverage of the period. You'll have to delve into the bibliography at the back of the book for that.
Finally I would warn that there is no definite conclusion to the case. This is unsatisfying, although much more faithful to life's realities than most detective fiction. The author does offer some interesting conclusions and has dug out some of Mr Whicher's own private notes that tell more of his suspicions than were produced at the time.
This book is a terrific read. I had a million other things I needed to be doing which all got pushed aside as I sat and read every page (even the notes and bibliography).
I would recommend it.

This is thefirst draft of my review of this book.
The finished version will appear in episode 15 of the podcast Historyzine which should be finished before the end of this month.

At the Eastercon, LX2009, Eoin Colfer did some of this standing at the front of the room speaking to people stuff and I took along a voice recorder and a video recorder to capture the event.
Well, it was my first attempt at recording video and it was pretty appalling so that's on the scrap heap for now and I'll have a play with it to see if I can make any of the bits watchable.
.
The voice recording, however, came out pretty well and it's posted up now on the ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha web site.
You can find it at http://zz9.org/media
Lots of good stuff, particularly in the second half where he tells the tale of Jane Belson specifically requesting that he be the one to undertake a new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book.

This Eastercon (LX2009) I had a jolly time producing a daily fanzine http://historyzine.com/lx2009/lostinaspace.html
but I did have the luxury of having hired a car so could take computers, printers and masses of paper.
For Odyssey in 2010 I shall, quite likely, be travelling there by train and so am unlikely to be able to take along the printer and paper.
Soooooooooo
I'd still like to do a fanzine at the convention so may do it in audio which will only require me to take a laptop and a voice recorder. This could be a lot of fun but I'm not sure anyone would actually listen to it. I know we will have free wifi at the Radisson but I've met very few fans who listen to podcasts.
Is there anyone out there who does listen to podcasts and is there anyone who might be likely to listen to one at Odyssey if I produced such a thing?
For anyone who has never heard of a podcast I've linked to a nifty little introduction here:
http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/230/what-is-a-podcast/

I've just arrived home from Eastercon and am, of course, feeling dreadfully tired.
As many of the con-goers will know I was distributing a daily zine at the convention and have now converted them all to PDF and shoved them on to a web page.
The address is:
http://historyzine.com/lx2009/lostinaspace.html

There's a bit of a shortage of committee members there this year (only 4 of us I believe) so we're looking for people to lend a hand with manning the dealers table. Come and see us at the table if you'd like to help.
As many people who have manned the table before will be able to tell you it's a lot of fun and many people drop around to tell us about their own Beeblebears or bring their Beeblebears to the table to choose a partner.
You meet some fascinating people and generally have a pretty good time.
Shifts are an hour long and as far as I can tell there may be groats available for volunteers.

Finally don't forget Beeblebear picnic in the Foyer Bar at 15:30 on Saturday.

Look forward to meeting folk there - all welcome.

Having decided I shall splash out on the luxury of hiring a car to get to Eastercon I've also decided to take my printer and do something over the weekend that could either be called an unofficial newsletter or a daily fanzine.
The name of the publication will be 'Lost in a Space'.
I've cheated a little in that Friday's edition is already done but it gives me a flying start and it does mean I have something to hand out when I get there.
Looking forward to seeing everyone at Eastercon.

If you go down to the real ale bar today you're in for a big surprise.

Well actually you're probably not.
I doubt any fan would  look twice at a bunch of three armed and two headed bears having a picnic in the bar.

At Eastercon, 15:30 on Saturday afternoon the two headed bears and a bunch of ZZ9 peeps will be gathering in the real ale bar near the dealers room.

Be there or be in one of the other places - it's your choice.

We'll be there though and we have the bears and the alcohol.

I was cycling to work at 05:30 this morning and crossed over the bridge on the river Cam.
The early morning mist hung over the water and I found myself wishing I had one of those fancy cameras which will take a decent picture in low light so I could capture this heart rendingly beautiful image.
But maybe, even then, it would be poor rendition of something which looked so magical.

I'm always a little apprehensive every time anything I create gets the critical treatment. For a short time after it's completed I get quite precious and protective about it as if it's some fragile thing which needs to be coddled.
After about a month this feeling fades away and I can step back and worry much less about it almost like a parent who realises it's now time for their offspring to stand on their own and face the world.
This is foolish, I know and I try to bite down hard on the unthinking emotional response knowing there's no difference between criticism in a month's time or criticism the same day.
Why do I mention this now?
Well, my Historyzine podcast was recently reviewed by those people at 'Edgy Reviews from That Podcast Show' and I had no need to worry. The review was very favourable indeed so I'm a happy podcaster.
Review over here tinyurl.com/azgz48

Dan Dare is in the Air

OK, he's actually at the Science Museum in London.
The exhibition is called 'Dan Dare and the Birth of Hi-Tech Britain.'
We have a slouch arranged for 1pm this Saturday (10th January) and will quite likely be wandering aimlessly around this exhibition.
If you are also so inclined then please feel free to come along.
We'll be meeting at 1pm by the exit barriers at South Kensington tube station (the ones that lead to the tunnel you walk along to get to the science museum).
Hope to see you there.

I'll have the meetings phone with me and just to remind you of the number:
07527 072155

I found this scribbled on the back of an envelope, in a car park, this morning:

A jolly time at the Cambridge Slouch
There was a bookshop, then there was beer, then there were more bookshops, a museum and then more beer, then an ex castle, then food and wine.
Yum!

Dinner party guests

I was recently helping someone fill out a dating agency form and it did the fantasy dinner party thing about who would you invite to dinner party if you could pick anyone from past or present.
I reckon this is actually going to be quite good for profiling matches.
Many of the people on there seemed to be putting on an act but if they're putting on a similar act to you then maybe they're quite similar.
Anyways - got me thinking who I might invite
Let's see
Peter Cook - an irritating man in some ways as he was very protective of his personality and was forever putting on a show so no-one got too close but also an astoundingly funny man with a very rich and fertile imagination.
Elizabeth Tudor - a real enigma - was she just a ditherer or was there a great scheming mind behind her machinations and was that mind hers or was it Walsinghams. I'd love to ask her these questions but not sure I would get a straight answer.
John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough - I am a big fan of this chap - he was a brilliant statesman and general in the late 17th and early 18th century and there are so many of his decisions he made during the 'War of the Spanish Succession' that I would like to ask him about.
Madame de Maintenon
for the fascinating (I hope) insights into the court of Louis XIV. She also seems to be a remarkably resourceful woman who had more sense than the rest of the court put together.

I'm not sure this is a good mix plus if I'm to attend my own dinner part it would make an odd number.
However - this is a selfish thing and I invite all these people because there are things I want to ask them.