“Yugoslavia, and the Balkans in general, are one of the world centers of tallness. The great physical anthropologist Carleton Coon’s study of the Ghegs of North Albania is entitled ‘The Mountain of Giants’. Jerry Pournelle tol[…]

dateline angel: just spent half an hour wandering round wonderin WHAT STARTED ME on SF at all? some possibilities…
i. dr duck and the duckleks (sole ref on web = mex10000000) — i remember only the climax of one ep (bcz i wz bein babysat a[…]

lincoln’s gettysburg powerpoint[…]

51 years old, and more widely known in the UK as A Hundred Million Francs, this rereads as potently as ever, despite the by-now somewhat clunky translation (the always tricky problem of slang). Gaby’s is I think the BEST KID GANG EVER — t[…]

Mark’s post on twins poses an interesting question – where did kid-lit twins vanish to? – and then lets it tantalisingly hang. So here’s two half-baked explanations!
i. A shift in the idea of kid-ness. When the heroes of child[…]

The slightly redundant twins in THE RUNNERS raised the entire historical question of TWINS IN KID-LIT: whence it came and where it went — A.Ransom’s various gangs and combos delivered one early set: Port and Starboard in Coot Club and The[…]

Joan Tate was a friend of the family: her lovely husband Clive worked closely with my dad on wildlife stuff; her kids babysat me and my sister when we were very wee and mum and dad wanted to go off and do young ppl’s dancing and that; and she w[…]

“KINGDOM OF NOT (5.26): This is not about a kingdom which is in the past, but it is about a kingdom called Not, which although it is not, yet is.” — Sun Ra, rec.1956, released as Saturn 204; rereleased as Super-Sonic Sounds, abc/impulse[…]

For reasons i won’t bore you with, i needed to examine STORM THORGERSON‘s website, he of front-rank 70s sleeve designhouse HIPGNOSIS. I am immediately confronted with the following rubric: “To view this site, you’ll need the F[…]

My most eagerly-awaited comic of the year came out this week: Grant Morrison and JH Williams’ Seven Soldiers #1. The ‘awaited’ bit had come to carry a bit more stress than the ‘eager’: the comic had been delayed for seve[…]