“Seal The Mountain! Seal The Mountain!”
Leafing through my hotel-provided New York Times on Saturday, I was filled with gloom at the loss of an iconic location from my film and TV watching earlier years. The North American Aerospace Defence Command (come on - you all know NORAD) is to leave its home in Cheyenne Mountain, and move to what the NYT describes as 'an ordinary building'.
The print version of the Times, unlike the online story, used a photo of the entrance tunnel to depict the facility, and that seems right, given that at various times, the same shot was used as a visual shorthand for the 'impregnable' centre of US military operations in the case of a nuclear attack (and indeed for the facility housing an interdimensional gateway capable of taking humans to the far reaches of space in mere seconds). One way or another, that tunnel (and secondarily the monstrous twenty five ton doors) have been lodged in my mind ever since I saw Wargames,, absolutely one of the seminal movies of my youth and for me at least the defining Matthew Broderick film. How many parents across the world saw that film and proclaimed to their offspring; "No you certainly can't have a computer!"? I love that film above many that even I will categorically acknowledge to be 'better'.
And then the Stargate was moved there, and a whole new generation found out that there was a community inside that mountain ready and willing to sit out the end of the world. What are the SG-1 team going to do now?
Do you think that one of these days the whole complex will become a tourist attraction? I'd put money on it. And if so, I want to book my tickets right now.
An American Wedding
It's a curious thing, but for all that around four hours went by between arriving at Nora and Chad's wedding and leaving it, it felt like everything happened very quickly.
It was a lovely event, with Nora's mother actually officiating, which made the whole thing seem even more personal. David and I were sharing a table mostly with the happy couple's neighbours, and had much fun throughout by mentioning to various people that we'd never actually met either the bride or groom before the wedding.
It goes without saying of course that Nora and Chad made a truly beautiful couple.
One of the neighbours had managed to forget where the event was taking place, and so did a Google search for Chad, hoping to find the site they'd set up with the relevant details, only to find Chad's Blog, which she said had certainly opened her eyes to a few things she didn't know he was interested in. It only seems fair to share...
Not Sleepless In…
You know, something's only just occurred to me. My body/system is either extremely adaptable or has been completely fucked up. The reason for this thought: well, here we are in Seattle, and generally speaking I've adapted to the time difference pretty straightforwardly, but My Beloved is having real trouble. This is the first time he's done this kind of a journey, and we're only here four days, so he doesn't really have time to adjust.
But I do trips to the West Coast of the US pretty regularly - last week I was on Pacific time for only slightly more than 48 hours, for instance. So I'm handling things slightly better.
But now I wonder if this is actually a good thing or a bad one. Is it actually good for me in the long term to have a system that's so generally out-of-whack that it doesn't care when I move halfway round the planet?
Topical
So this afternoon we fly to Seattle for Nora and Chad's wedding, and this therefore is the start of slightly over two weeks off work for me. You can tell I'm officially on holiday because I've been awake since 5am, emailing work since 5.30, and fretting about what I've inevitably forgotten to do.
In the meantime, I've also been catching up on the news, and discovering that the very state to which we're travelling has had its 'Defense of Marriage' act upheld as constitutional by the state supreme court. It's easy, being caught up in preparations for our own impending civil partnership as we are, to overlook the fact that 45 of the 50 US states have this kind of statute on their books, and even though Dubya's proposed constitutional amendment to enshrine bigotry against lesbians and gay men has come to naught, it's still all-but-impossible for lesbian and gay couples in the US to take a step anything like the one that we'll take in October. And we're not even officially talking about 'gay marriage'.
But: there is something approaching a glimmer of positivity to be gleaned from the Washington state ruling. The judges make it clear that they're not ruling that there's anything inherently wrong with gay marriage as a concept, simply that one particular state law is not against that state's constitution:
"Given the clear hardship faced by same-sex couples evidenced in this lawsuit, the Legislature may want to re-examine the impact of the marriage laws on all citizens of this state," wrote Justice Barbara Madsen.
By the way - because I'll shortly be Sleepless In Seattle rather than Sleepless in South East London, updates between now and Monday will probably be sporadic.
The Novel In Everyone
It's been remarked that everyone thinks they have a novel in them. It's an odd fact that I know more than what might be supposed to be my fair share of people who've got theirs out of them. More than one in many cases.
At root, it's a side effect of the Virgin Publishing and then BBC Books' programmes of Doctor Who books and the fact that I know a number of people who benefited by getting their work published in those ranges. And of course a number of them know others, who I've then been introduced onwards to.
And I freely admit that I'm far from immune to the creative urge. It used to get its outlet in TV and radio programmes, which while hardly 'creative' the way that a novel or a painting can be, nevertheless required creative thought in terms of their assembly, scripting, editing, etc. And my word but I was an ideas factory for new series pitches back in those days. At one point I was running out several a week, not all of which were terribly good, and some of which were utterly dreadful, but some of which at least got serious consideration by people whose serious consideration was worth having.
And then I went all 'new media' and it all went away.
Well, not completely away. Last time my friend Simon and I got together for instance, as well as talking about his book on Jimmy Perry and David Croft, we also discussed the plots of our respective Doctor Who novels. Yes, we'd been out of touch on separate continents for *years*, but along the way we'd both written a Doctor Who novel in our heads. Small world.
I'm still quite certain I could write one, and it actually be quite good; all I need is the time and focus to move from conceived plot to written reality. But then I'm sure that's what everyone thinks, and let's face it, some truly diabolical stuff does get into print, so what's the stuff that gets trashed like?
Anyway - despite appearances, all of this is in fact a propos of something, and that's that My Beloved gave up full time work last Friday, in order that alongside freelancing he should have time to do that thing he most wants to, which is, you've guessed it, write.
Significantly, he actually is good at it, and has been published and everything, so in his case he really does just need to make the time to focus on it.
He's started a blog too, which is partly to encourage him to exercise his writing muscles. Once I get round to reinstating the blogroll he'll obviously have pride of place, but in the meantime, those of a literary bent will find him here.
Wha? Bu…? WHA?
Not once, but twice today, I have seen people riding (driving?) Segways.
Yes, that's right - those things that were going to revolutionise transport/social interaction/human life as we know it.
Twice. On London's streets. Of a Tuesday afternoon.
Someone is having a laugh.
Belt And Braces
On the offchance you pass by - Gert, Cath and Owen, I've emailed each of you with a question - using the email addresses on your blogs, so if you don't check those addresses regularly, please do so.
End of belt and braces announcement.
Travel Hell
Spent most of yesterday on planes, and not always going anywhere. My flight into London was delayed horribly before take off and then hit nightmare air traffic delays coming into Heathrow, so I missed my onward connection, and the flight I was rebooked onto ended up sitting on the tarmac at Heathrow for over an hour in a combination of start-up delays and then taxiing delays. By the time I got off at the other end, I was hot, tired, grimy, grumpy and on the verge of doing murder.
How Hot?
I'm missing the worst of the UK heatwave by being out of the country, which is working well for me I can assure you, given how badly I deal with heat at the best of times.
Disussions with the folks back home are curiously flat, and I'm picturing them all slumped in their seats, fanning them selves with anything handy with their non-phone-holding hands. What's passing for a heatwave here is actually relatively manageable.
The Man From Planet Cameron
I'm late spotting this - had it pointed out to me by someone - but last week the Telegraph ran a Simon Heffer opinion piece on the increasingly deranged and impossible-to-take-seriously David Cameron.
The line in bold particularly appealed to me:
On Sunday, hours after "hug a hoodie" headlines had appeared in newspapers, preceding a speech on social problems by the Leader of the Opposition the next day, I found myself chatting with a seasoned observer of the political scene. He argued, and I did not dissent, that there is now no soundbite so ludicrous, or no opinion so bizarre, that David Cameron will not utter it, or have his minions encourage us to think he has uttered or might utter it.