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"I am tomorrow- or some future day- what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day."- James Joyce, "It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves." - William Shakespeare, "it is now as gone from me as a coin dropped in a river." - DM, All around me are familiar faces, Everybody wants to rule the world, Nothing succeeds like a budgie with no teeth, Que sera sera, You keep your distance with a system of touch And gentle persuasion, You shouldn't have to sell your soul In black and white
Margaret Atwood and David Mitchell have offered up their latest novels to the future, for they shall only be read in one hundred years. . . To know what I’m on about follow these two links –
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/05/margaret-atwood-new-work-unseen-century-future-library
These are nice quotes from them both on the whole shebang –
“What a pleasure, you don’t have to be around for the part when if it’s a good review the publisher takes credit for it and if it’s a bad review it’s all your fault. And why would I believe them anyway?” – Margaret Atwood
“How vain to suppose the scribblings of little old me will be of enduring interest to future generations. Yet how low-key and understated, to slave over a manuscript that nobody will ever pat you on the back for and say: ‘Nice one’, or ‘God, I loved the bit where she did that and he did this …’” – David Mitchell
Two of my favourite writers as well. I’m intrigued to see who else makes the grade.
Tis a fascinating idea and an exciting one too! You could the next Van Gogh in literary form (esme is clearly too lazy to search for the literary equivalent – poor show tsk), minus the poverty and generally grim life – unless you already have a poverty stricken and grim life, and if so, well at least in the future you’ll be lauded by trillions! Or ridiculed for being bloody awful, but that makes not one jot of difference because you won’t be around to feel like poo on a stick, your offspring’s offspring and on-wards shall, but you’ll be flying about the universe in motes being all existential, or possibly a chicken, so it doesn’t matter really. Any of it. However I still think it’s a brilliant idea – a time capsule full of wanted words! Well they are wanted if they Margaret Atwood’s, or David’s, but probably not so much esme’s – no, no really – fends off the crowds disagreeing wildly with this statement. Margaret and David don’t need to know how their work will be received as much as your average. (or peculiar) Joe, Jim, Josephine or Josaphatta you see. (This is not to say that successful authors don’t need to know at all, no, no, no, for tis a drug such fine feedback as they get, one which becomes all the more a beguiling one with each successive success) (esme is enjoying the word a bit much there but tis her Cloud so she can) Budding authors need their first break at least you see, they need to know that all those years, all those tears and fears (esme knows a song (technically a band) about that), weren’t in vain, and they deserve to find out too. So don’t bury your first one, wait until you’re flying high on the winds of success and then bury one, m’kay?
Unless your ego won’t let you that is.
Hahahahahaha.
Esme's Cloud 
Someone recently suggested I shouldn’t post again on my blogsite for 100 years! 🙂
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Hahahaha, outrageous Hariod! Surely it was a disgruntled reader who secretly wants more posts and if they can’t have more, no-one else shall do either! maniacal laughter follows – MWAHAHAHAHAHA. . .etc. Once a month has the reader looking forward a post from a writer they enjoy, but I prefer them at least every one to two weeks, and no more than every two to three days myself.
KW – “Matron,I was once a weak man”
HJ – “Once a week’s enough for any man!”
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Ding dong!
But seriously, I think it’s an interesting concept, this deferred publication. I wonder if Prince was thinking along similar lines with his vault of a great many stored works? There’s something to do with taking the artist out of the equation, it seems to me. In the example you give with Atwood and Mitchell, they’re removed by virtue of them being dead in the presence of the art, of course. And the art is removed from the cultural paradigm that existed at the point of its creation. So it stands more squarely on its own merits, distanced from fandom and the bulk of a priori influences.
There’s perhaps a parallel with Generative Art, and Aleatoricism, where again there’s the idea of the artist setting something in motion and then getting out of the way to see what happens. Bach’s Fugues have something of this about them, and then there’s the work of Eno in ambient music and Ellsworth Kelly’s semi-randomised visual art. Jazz improvisation in its purest form could be said to be an attempt to remove the player’s conditioning from the played. These links to your main theme are perhaps tenuous, and in my head alone, but I am interested in this wider theme of how art is created free from the pressures of personhood and expectation.
A House of Dust
In Michigan
Using Natural Light
Inhabited by Vegetarians
A House of Roots
By a River
Using Natural Light
Inhabited by People Who Sleep
Very Little
A House of Sand
Among Other Houses
Using Electricity
Inhabited by People Who Love to Read
A House of Leaves
In a Metropolis
Using All Available Lighting
Inhabited by All Races of Men
Represented Wearing Predominantly
Red Clothing
Alison Knowles, selection from A House of Dust 1967. The total computer generated poem runs to a quarter a mile of printout.
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“So it stands more squarely on its own merits, distanced from fandom and the bulk of a priori influences.” – This is an excellent point Hariod, and yet another reason it shall be interesting for those alive when the publications come out – to see how well they stand alone in that sense.
Thinking upon it, I wonder if some authors may actually do better, be more successful for the experiment, than if they’d published their work when alive? Barring the publicity and curiosity element that is. But then again one can’t bar that, for it will always be the case…and some will undoubtedly do worse an all I’m sure. As Alastair says, some authors may lose fans in that century and be considered to have lost their ‘knack’ by the end of their present career say. Another may turn out to be a murderer, or cunning plagiarist, (esme is in no way suggesting David Mitchell or Margaret Atwood are either, she obviously means all the rest who have yet to be chosen – doffs her cap several times and curtsies with a winning smile).
There’s a possibility, that some future authors may see a link to extra success through such an experiment and then choose to exclusively publish their every work on-wards after their death. To what end?! (I hear you cry – hands out the Kleenex (for their eyes Professor) – rolls her own ). For this end – everlasting fame, or at least knowing their name shall go down in history. They might be truly shite mind you, so it’s a hell of a gamble, however publishers might see fit to pay in advance upon a potential hit, the company making eventual bucks rather than any one specific person. – ponders
The subject matter might end up an unfortunate choice an all…let’s say a famous figure of some kind is woven into the book, portrayed in a hugely favourable light, a saintly figure who adores children and said figure turns out to be a ‘Jimmy Saville’ or ‘Rolf Harris’. That would ruin both the tome, and smear the author’s reputation. They’d be dead of course, but as I say, their families would not be, and tis a dire way to go down in literary history. On the other hand, one could actually get away with smearing the good names of some people who are alive at present, presenting them (esme presently enjoying her presents there clearly), in ways that could only get them sued to the gills today, but as those named would be dead as a doughnut in one hundred years, only their ghosts could be peeved. All worth bearing in mind.
There’s a novel in all this you know…the aspects of such a venture resulting in all manner of dramas, horrors and joys. If I had a hundred years to spare myself I’d start it now. – nods. As it is I’m fully booked until 6104. (If anyone steals this idea I’d like ten percent of the sales and my weight in solid gold please – starts stuffing her face with cake)
“These links to your main theme are perhaps tenuous, and in my head alone” – Yes but what fabulous links they are, and what a pretty head you have miss. Hahahahaha. You’re right re the links though and tis an interesting weaving of threads into the discussion you’ve proposed.
I absolutely love this!! –
http://zachwhalen.net/pg/dust/
What a marvellous idea, I find it quite captivating. Random poetry in its most literal sense, and it works! Ha!
To explain ‘A House of Dust’, (do click on the link above folks), it is the poem pasted above by Hariod, but appears in an apt way considering its conception, written by Allison Knowles, James Tenney and a Siemens 4004 computer in 1967. Stanzas were created through “iterations of lines with changing words from a finite vocabulary list.”
And this ties in with one of my favourite novels – ‘House of Leaves’ by Mark Z Danielewski. I wonder if he may have been influenced in some way by the above. I hope so anyway. The text is very unusual, and the form the narrative takes also. – esme wonders
And now this gives me the great pleasure and excuse to pop a few of my favourite quotes from said tome before (your very) eyes, thank you immensely Hariod for such a superb and thought provoking comment!
“Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, and no body. The only clue might be the shadows beneath your eyes or a terribly thin line near the corner of your mouth indicating something has been suffered, that in the privacy of your life you have lost something and the loss is too empty to share.”
“Little solace comes
to those who grieve
when thoughts keep drifting
as walls keep shifting
and this great blue world of ours
seems a house of leaves
moments before the wind.”
“Her smile, I’m sure, burnt Rome to the ground.”
– esme getting her teeth out for the boys/girls/platypuses from upon the Cloud
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All incredibly interesting and exciting thoughts, Esme, and I can see that there is indeed a novel in there somewhere – for you? A story within a story perhaps, like McEwan’s Atonement? I think there are some biographies that have publication restrictions placed upon them such as constrain their release ’til 30 years, or whatever, after the demise of the subject. I believe Margret Thatcher may have had one like that, and which is yet to see the light of day. There, we’re of course outside of this central idea of abstracting any work of art from its cultural milieu and prior influencing, so let’s back to that.
J.K. Rowling tried something vaguely along the lines we’re contemplating recently, using the pen name Robert Galbraith, but the cat was let out of the bag and she ended up selling bucket loads, of course. Before Rowling’s identity as the book’s author was revealed, 1,500 copies of the printed book had been sold since its release in April 2013, plus another 7,000 copies of the eBook, audiobook, and library editions. But the book surged from 4,709th to the best-selling novel on Amazon after it was revealed on 14 July 2013 that the book was written by Rowling under the pseudonym.
One thing we’ve not touched on is the idea of whether art is validated as such (rather than validated by its mere success) by its very presence within a particular cultural milieu, outside of which its central imperative or artistic authority is lost. Perhaps some things hold an imaginative or creative power only within certain contexts? I haven’t ever thought that through, but it strikes me it may be possible. And this again links into the Atwood/Mitchell idea of testing their art on its own terms – does it stand as art decontextualised from their oeuvre and current day sensibilities? I imagine part of their excitement in participating was just this. I don’t suppose either imagine they’ll be household names a hundred years hence; so can their current creative powers be, in effect, immortal, standing on their own terms and all but totally absenting others’ knowledge of their creator? On this point, I’m reminded of Woody Allen’s response when being asked in an interview if he thought his work might make him immortal: “I’m not looking to become immortal through my work; I’m looking to do it through not dying!” Brilliant.
The link to Zach Whalen is utterly fantastic! You’ve got to put that up as post in its own right, Esme. Get everyone to check it out, grab a verse they like, and post it back here, or something. Then we’ll have an Esme mash-up. I was mesmerised on there, and couldn’t take my eyes away to see what the algorithm would come up with next.
Beautiful writing by Danielewski. I’ll explore the link.
Thankyou Esme, for indulging me and also for provoking much thought. H ❤
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(Start another fresh comment thread in reply to this Hariod, should you wish to, my damn theme turns long comments into threads eventually and ‘ain’t nobody got time for that!’.)
“and I can see that there is indeed a novel in there somewhere – for you?” – Pour moi? Oh yes. Quite possibly. That and two others that bud in fact; one a tale already told, another which skulks along the bottom of a dank, humming tank, scowling at me, refusing to be tucked tight enough to make the grade as a short story, or bloat into the saga it deserves to be. I return the favour often, and shall be the victor in time, one way or another, (esme knows a song about that), if I have enough of it, time that is, which takes me back to the beginning, for I have not enough of it to wrestle a novel into being, and also acknowledge my own limitations well enough to save the humongous amount of anguish and soul tearing that would occur along that path. Esme is a poet. And she know it. Yo. – bows.
Having said that, I could probably collaborate on one, but that sounds like a fine way to come to blows with one’s peers, so perhaps not. I’d rather illustrate a novel than write one anyway.
I see the main subject of your comment is high-tailing it off into the distance Hariod, so bear with me as I peg it now and catch up. – does so
I didn’t know that wee nugget re some biographies. . . interesting. What are they afraid of when telling the tale of their lives eh? Libel, yes, but also dark dealings perhaps. There’s no come back for the dead. Apart from their reputation (which was touched on above but is yet to ask for a restraining order).
J.K.Rowling was not the first author to publish under another name, as I’m sure you know, and when reading about her pen-name Stephen King immediately sprang to mind as he wrote some books under a pseudonym too – Richard Bachman. And I quote (wiki-tastic) –
‘In his introduction to The Bachman Books, King states that adopting the nom de plume Bachman was also an attempt to make sense out of his career and try to answer the question of whether his success was due to talent or luck. He says he deliberately released the Bachman novels with as little marketing presence as possible and did his best to “load the dice against” Bachman. King concludes that he has yet to find an answer to the “talent versus luck” question, as he felt he was outed as Bachman too early to know. The Bachman book Thinner (1984) sold 28,000 copies during its initial run—and then ten times as many when it was revealed that Bachman was, in fact, King.’
Now I read all of ‘The Bachman Books’ without knowing twas Stephen King, of whom I was a great fan at the time, (and I still to this day believe ‘The Stand’ to be one of the finest stories ever caught and pinned down onto paper. Tis epic. the film is paisley pants on a stinky stick mind you, so please do not judge the book on its lack of merits), and I thought them all to be fine stories, in particular ‘The Long Walk’, and I even said at the time that that book was on a par with Stephen’s work, a true sign of his talent I’d say.
“Perhaps some things hold an imaginative or creative power only within certain contexts?” – Undoubtedly – the right time at the right place will make some authors legends and others paupers. . . And then take the tale out of its time, set it apart, make it as a toilet bowl in the centre of an art gallery, (this made me fall about, have a click – here), how does it fare out of sync with its present day milieu? Some might say that any novel that has stood the test of time over many decades must prove its capability to succeed were it removed at its conception and hoisted a century ahead for publication, yet, there’s no way of being sure that’s true, for generations will have written reviews, both favourable and negative, discussions had in thousands upon thousands of schools, colleges, universities, sqabbles engaged in upon living room sofas. Bias trickling down, influence bouncing back and forth, shaping and melding how the tome is received, year by year.
The best way will be to wait, and see if there’s any clues to the answers to these questions when Margaret (not the horror Thatch) and David’s (and the other folks), work is finally revealed to the world. Course we’ll be dead by then, so fuck it.
Hahahahaha.
I’ll take you up on the post idea Hariod, when I found that page I too was entranced. How many will join in I know not, but I like the concept a lot – nods.
“Then we’ll have an Esme mash-up” – Yo, esme in da house, scratchin’ like a mouse, (shut up, it’s the best I had), mashin’ up da tomes, right ear in ya home(ys?).
Awful. hangs her head and leaves.
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Y’all break it down cold, deep sistah. Shoot me yo digits ‘n holla ’bout dat together thing fasho, but keep it down low, ya feel me? Esme da fly girl got mad flava, forreals!
Gotta dip, but check this girl, I’m ya dawg. Be easy – I’m ghost. One love.
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Stunning.
Hahahahahaha.
You do crack me up Hariod. I’ll take that as a sign off from the gibber, which is quite understandable. nods and smiles
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Tight, shorty. Peace out.
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checks her shorts and admits they are a bit tight and puts the cake back in the fridge, though refutes any claims that she has pissed herself (of late)
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John Kennedy Toole is my nominee for literary equivalent to Van Gogh.
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Oooh smashing, thank you good sir! I encourage others to find more nods a lot. – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kennedy_Toole
There’s a link folks, have a ganderoo.
esme looking him up upon the Cloud
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It’s very probable that no one will care. There’s already an information overload from our era for future generations to wade through. Who’ll care about more fiction from 2016?
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WOW. esme gets up from the floor and puts her boots back on which she was knocked out of with surprise.
Think of it like this Alastair; Charles Dickens has written a novel that no-one has ever read, and it was written at the time his writing was at it’s most revered. Maybe not Dickens, say, maybe George Orwell, or Aldous Huxley, Franz Kafka, or Edgar Allan Poe, Rainer Maria Rilke (smiles broadly at the thought) and how about H.G.Wells?! These works have been ensconced away for 100 years. It means that a whole new century of people will get that which we shall never see. Will they care? I’m one hundred percent sure that those of our ilk – true word lovers, of which I am also sure there’ll be thousands upon thousands will. Margaret Atwood is an incredible writer renown for her work, and David is right up there too, I’d put him in for Cloud Atlas alone myself. At present the web is full of absolute tosh-filled, utterly shite fiction, this is true, and there will be more to come I agree, but do we who love reading the cream of the cream out there decide we can’t be arsed to get excited when a favourite author brings out a new novel or book of poems?! Of course not! There are many fine writers long dead whom I enjoy immensely, adn so it shall be for readers of the future. Also, the digitized word will never take the place of holding an actual book in your hands, feeling the pages, leaving sticky fingerprints upon them – eyes a few shifty sorts at the back – holding the weight of the damn thing in one hand even, and these works that are being hidden away which I link to shall be printed in 100 years upon paper, perhaps they’ll be very few others books that are (looks sad at the thought), and if that is so then they shall be antiques too!! They might not be the writer’s best work, that’s quite possible, but then again, they might be the kind of novels and poems that stay with you all your life, permeate the core of your being, make you see the world in a whole different light, or resonate so much they bring forth tears in the sunshine or laughter on the very darkest of our days, and as such are an incredible gift for those who shall live after us. I could go on, but the Cloud is threatening to drag me off-stage with a big hook on a stick.
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But the thing is, not all writers remain as popular 100 years in the future as in their heyday. Many of the bestselling authors of 100 years ago, people whose words were revered respected and loved at the time fall out of fashion with the passing of the years. So what I’m saying is that it’s highly unlikely that the unearthing of the works of these authors will create much excitement.
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I know what you mean. But I very much disagree, especially as the rise in popularity for ‘nostalgia’ continues to build, and shall continue to. We don’t know who all the participants shall be yet, but even the Blue Peter garden had folks over-excited about it’s meager time capsule in the eighties – waggles a badge about. Time is being caught, being manipulated, and many will find that alone exciting, but as I say, the book lovers shall remain, and it will like as not introduce some to authors they knew little of.
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“THE FUTURE”
Ah, yes, a time of love, a time of hate, a time of war, a time of peace a time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing. For me (personally), just thinkin’ abut tomorrow clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow, but, I may be unique in that regard, though, I did once hear tell of a young girl with a most annoying singing voice who may have felt similarly. I guess, I was just a “weird kid”. Heck, my Grandmother said so herself more times than I can recall, however, she also, on numerous occasions, threatened to “shoot me” if I refused to get my ass into the front room and rattle off some Bible verses for her guests. Thankfully, that’s all in the past.
The President and Founder
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“I may be unique in that regard” – I think that’s a given in any situation to be honest. Hahahahaha. Your Grandmother sounds a delightful terror and this all explains a lot.
Thank you for all those words in that specific order President and Founder, it is always a pleasure to have you upon the Cloud.
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Your posts bring joy to my heart, Esme. If ever I need a dose of the clever, the profane, and the deft, I need only but visit here and mingle briefly with yourself and the other very fine wordsmiths who appear in these skies.
At first I was a little negative on this idea, but then I read that the authors had been invited to participate, and it changed my view a bit. And then I realized like many intriguing works of art, I have no idea what to say about it. The fact that it produces lots of interesting questions inside of me, right this moment, on a great many topics, suggests it is already a very fine piece of art… Or that I need to get out more… 🙂
Peace
Michael
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That first paragraph of yours has brought joy to my heart too Michael beams, I’m quite proud of this rowdy bunch I’ve collected here (yourself included), with their eclectic comments and wild imaginations.
“At first I was a little negative on this idea” – I’m curious now, why weren’t you so keen? You’re right about the questions, it set me off like a firecracker hahahaha. Art within art locked away in a treasure chest that only future generations will ever have the key to, so you’re doing really well staying in so much I’d say laughs some more.
Pardon my own tardiness re your fine posts, I’m getting there slowly, suspicious these days that esme is turning into an old lady on the Cloud looking for that award winning marble collection she once owned tsk.
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Well, Esme, I think honestly my reaction was a little knee-jerk in nature. Knowing, for instance, how challenging it is for many writers to become published at all, and to the point you and Hariod discussed about the capriciousness of the popular audience, it seemed this project hinged upon leveraging that notoriety, if you will, in a grand way. So if the project hinges upon including authors well-known today, is it a grand extension of a present myopia in any way? I don’t mean to suggest anything negative about these two fantastic writers, for I do think they are great choices really, and exceptional at their craft. But how is the circle of inclusion drawn? The first two authors chosen were award-winning and I would say quite successful in terms of the population of authors out there. I wondered if they could afford, for instance, to take the time to write a novel and not sell it, whereas other working authors might find it much more difficult to participate? Would essays or novels of young people or not so well established authors be included? Would this project be undermined in any way if 100 unpublished authors banded together to seal their works away? What if as many authors sealed a book away as published presently– it would surely water down the future, so to speak? So what is this really about? It just raised a lot of thoughts, as you can see– about inclusion and exclusion, the use of resources, the use of fame and notoriety, the value of art to shape the future by living in the present versus arriving in the future to provide a glimpse backwards, and this all happened in the blink of an eye, before I really examined them… My own capriciousness being shown to me, I’m afraid. Ha!
That all said and out of the way, I think it is beautiful to think of our link to future generations, to care for them as we might our very own who live today, and to do what we can to leave them with a world they can enjoy and share in relative peace and prosperity. So if this is undertaken in that spirit of generosity to future generations, I have an altogether different feeling about it. Meaning… it is such a fickle and personal litmus test to apply to a thing, so much so as to be altogether useless in the evaluation of art… 🙂
Peace
Michael
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That’s so interesting. This whole project has stirred a great deal of cogitations on esme’s part, and others it seems.
Thinking on this – “I wondered if they could afford, for instance, to take the time to write a novel and not sell it, whereas other working authors might find it much more difficult to participate?” – You may well have a point here, because although I’m sure they will be paid a sum for the effort, it cannot possibly be anything like the profits they would usually accrue; however, the said fee is most likely to be as much cash as a fledgling writer might make at best within a good few years, and would be in the ‘here and now’, ‘cash in ‘and mate, put it in yer pocket and get yerself summat pretty and beard trimmer while you’re there’ and all that. Not knowing the fee makes this all supposition, in fact the whole malarkey is riddled with it, and uncertainty, as you have recently written upon yourself, can be quite freeing with it’s lack of boundaries at times.
Here’s another thought that has led from some cogs whirring up here – raps her skull with her knuckles and a loud ‘ticking’ begins – Imagine how interesting it would be to choose a job lot of writers, some incredibly well known, others having never actually had the book they’ve written published, (including online), and then, you shove them all into the box (esme always views this project in the form of a huge wooden chest that will be filled with words and buried in a secret location deep underground) and you don’t label them. You give titles, but no author’s name. The books would have to be good, but by the gods they would be, for there are hundreds of excellent writers who’s work has barely ever seen daylight, who hold within their grasp works of absolute brilliance. This is a given for the odds of the universe decree it. (That and common sense.) It would set things on a rather more even keel methinks, and yes, I know some writers are instantly recognisable, but not all well known ones are, as a case in point I refer back to Stephen King aka Richard Bachman. Of course people would be told eventually, but I’d have these works released at the set hundred years, and then wait another twenty until the author’s names are revealed! (This plan won’t be very appealing to your average impatient sort methinks hahahahaha.)
“My own capriciousness being shown to me, I’m afraid. “ – I think its more a case of thinking rather more broadly than some of us actually, and you did come round after hearing all the other back and forths on the matter after all – beams. Art is only that which we choose it to be.
Or something like that. – grins with teeth and pegs it
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I do like that, Esme! I particularly loved the way you tolchocked your head to get the gears spinning. brings the heel of his palm to the left side of his head as if to knock loose some fluid retained after the daily swim through life I might even suggest that the works of written art be nameless on the way into the box, (yes I agree, it is obviously a chest, and will be buried), meaning that some committee– as after all, some poor collective soul must choose one bit of beauty over another– reads anonymous works, and selects some to fill the box. This then levels the writing field, as most authors work speculatively anyway I believe. Cash prizes are not given to the winners, but invested on behalf of their heirs, who will receive them when the lucky winners are announced! The committee never finds out whose works were chosen, though. It is only a century later that the world finds out, with the delay you suggest.
It will be interesting to see who the paper-makers of 2114 are, what stocks they are using, and whether or not rooms the size of aircraft hangers still shudder and spit and sway and hiss beneath the watchful gaze of man in the effort to cajole life’s very well-ordered wooden fibers into a chaotic, razor thin, steam-dried parchment. Very interesting!
Michael
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Nameless too. Why not?! I’m tempted to suggest having them all communicated through the medium of dance as well now. Hahahahaha.
As to conjecture about the state of the future – when I was a small childling in the aether I was promised flying cars and everyone clad in tin foil by 2016 so I bet nothing has changed barring their being some new flavours of tea and the ability to virtually swap bodies with each other. laughs
Lovely comment to read Michael, thank you for the time taken, it’s always a pleasure to read you. And a special nod goes out to the Clockwork Orange connection – grins
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