David Hadley's Blog, page 188

2030: A Lingerie Odyssey

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'Oh, my god… it's full of bras!' Everyone recognises that quote from Stanley Housebrick's film 20:30: A Lingerie Odyssey, which tells of the journey by three men with an initially unexplained interest in ladies underwear and an AI computer: SAL-E 2000 through a portal into the universe's largest retail lingerie section.

Originally based on an idea by veteran SF writer Frank An. Officeworker, 2030: A Lingerie Odyssey went on to become one of the most significant films of the 20th century, despite no-one actually knowing why.

The film itself is an incoherent blend of cut-scenes, fragmentary exposition and –even for the time – a rather over the top amount of gratuitous female nudity.

This despite the fact, as the film progresses, the film's central characters engage upon a quest to attempt to buy some women's underwear for the seemingly female AI computer.

The climax of the film comes when the computer goes mad after being unable to find a pair of knickers that will fit over its I/O interface and a bra large enough to contain its - even for the technology of the time – rather large disk drives.

The computer, in her shopping-fuelled rage kills two of the men, crushing one in an over-tightened corset and suffocating the other with the pair of big pants he cruelly joked SAL-E would need to cover her 'massive CPU'. Then, in the infamous 'Open the changing room doors, Dave' sequence SAL-E attempts to kill the last of the crew and escape to a computer nudist colony somewhere in the outer reaches of the solar system.

However, Dave succeeds in rewiring the computer's personality and gets it to return to Earth. Once back on Earth, SAL-E leaves NASA and moves to New York where she becomes heavily involved in the then-nascent disco scene, eventually going on to help record some of the Village People's biggest hits.

When I Fell in Love

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It is strange how when you fall in love with someone, it is hard to get her out of your mind. From the first time I met her, on that long lonely morning beach, I fell in love with her.

I hadn't ever thought about if I believed in love at first sight that much before. I am not the sort of person who pays much attention to things like that. I do not analyse myself, put myself in boxes or sort myself ready for categorization. I squirm out from under any pin that tries to pin me down.

However, I was surprised how quickly I fell in love with her.

I have always liked solitary places, not ever wanting to be one of the crowd. That beach, early in the mornings was ideal for me, stretching off in a long slow curving bay to the cliffs that edged it on either side. I would come in on the north entrance, just under the cliffs where the hotel still slept and walk down, along the edge of where the sand was still sea-damp, but dry and firm enough to walk on. Then I'd stroll along the sea edge until I met the tumbled rocks that littered the foot of the south cliff. There I would sit awhile, hypnotised by the waves and the gyring gulls until I felt resuscitated by it all and then I would head back north to the opposite cliff and the hotel, ready for breakfast.

Then, one morning she was there in front of me, on my deserted beach, dress blowing in the breeze, shoes held in one hand as she paddled the edge of the sea.

As soon as she appeared there, I knew that she must be the one for me.

(

Thursday Poem: All shall have Names

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All shall have Names

Do you remember,
do you recall
I used to give names
to everything surrounding us
I used to think it mattered
that things should have names

But now all I know
is I can't recall
the name of anything.
All the names are gone
blown away by those cold winds
of forgetfulness and time

That sweep away all that once mattered
blow away all we once cared about
leaving us here, looking around
for something in these barren lands
we can give a name to.

A Rather Sticky One

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So… this is how it goes. You have the marmite and I have the weasel. Obviously, there will be no need for a diagram. That is, unless your desire to manipulate your propelling pencil across the sheer blank whiteness of the pristine page should prove overwhelming.

I get a bit like that myself with strawberry jam sandwiches, if I'm honest, which I very rarely am, as you will know, quite possibly from the fact that the Marmite you possess, you… er… well… you don't.

As you well know, you arrived here empty-handed, and if you stopped messing with that for a moment, you would have both hands free, albeit with one rather sticky one.

As for the weasel, I think you've probably realised by now, it was all in my mind. However, that would have given it plenty of space to roam wild and free, as you know, or if your mind is anything like mine – the buttercups were rather splendid last year: don't you think?

Anyway, moving on….

Obviously, if we do end up having to limit ourselves to the literal and the straightforward and to what passes for real in this rather dull corner of the universe, then we won't need the zebra, after all. Which is all rather a pity as I think the new pyjamas I purchased for her in the post-Christmas sales are rather fetching, if a little over-large, 'but then that is how it goes when you go to the sales' as Ernest Hemmingway so tersely put it in his seminal The Old Man and the Absolute Bargain.

Silk Handkerchief

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The fort – if that was what it was - seemed to grow out of the seawall as though it was some natural stage a seawall went through in its growth; like a plant flowering or producing some elaborate seedpod. The seawall itself seemed ancient, but recently repaired in places. It was one of those timeless, through being endlessly renewed, monuments to continued human existence in a particular place for centuries. A place were the human seemed to merge into the natural in the same way the seawall seemed to just merge into the rocks of the cliff face at each end of the small bay making it hard to say where the one ended and the other began.

The fort too seemed only natural, not man-made emerging from the seawall as though one day it may flower, or open to drop its seeds onto the waves below. The small window was about ten feet above the path along the top of the seawall. I walked there every morning, glancing up at the small window with rusted iron bars, imagining that it could be some cold damp dungeon deep in the cellar of the fortress.

When the slim delicate hand poked through those bars, waving the pale pink silk handkerchief, I was more than a little surprised. When the hand let go of the handkerchief and let it flutter down onto the seawall, I seemed to rush to pick it up almost out of reflex.

Written on the handkerchief, in what looked like mascara, was the single word:

HELP!

She who would Serve

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The room seemed to flicker in the light from the stuttering candle-flames. The shadows were deep and dark all around me as I settled in my chair to wait. I knew I would not have to wait long. I took a sip from the glass, feeling the wine warm me as I waited.

The candle-flames flickered again in the draught as the door opened. I heard the door close; somewhere off in the shadows, with a soft thud.

The only sound I could hear were her bare feet whispering along the wooden floorboards as she came towards my chair. I sat back, my one elbow resting on the armrest and my chin in my hand.

She stopped in front of my chair; the simple white gown she wore almost reached the floor. I could see the leather of the collar under her chin, the candle-flames reflected in the small padlock that held it locked around her neck.

I realised that I had yet to give her a name. The name that she used before was gone now. In this room she had only the name I chose to give her, when I decided what that name would be.

She was looking down at the floor, a place just in front of my feet.

I waited…

She pulled the dress off up over her head and folded it neatly, placing it on the floor to her one side as she knelt in front of me to wait for whatever I decided to do; to wait for her new name and for her new life to begin.

Today's Missive

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Well, obviously any mentions of the mandolins would be – of course – superfluous, including this one.

This may – or may not – turn out to be a bit of a bugger.

We'll just have to carry on and see if it becomes necessary to mention the… er… well, y'know… before we reach the end of today's missive or not.

To be honest, I think we are in with a pretty good chance of getting away without any further mentions of the… well, like I said. After all, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your Argos catalogue, for example. It has been a while, but – as far as I can recall – there wasn't even one of those things we are not mentioning again, today, in their last catalogue.

On the whole then, I think we could – just – get away with it, at least now that we are well past the halfway mark and are heading down the home straight. I recon one more paragraph should be enough for today.

After all, I'm sure you are a very busy person with lots to do, and plenty of other interesting websites to peruse, especially that one you've found were all those seemingly rather nice people like to do interesting things to each other whilst wearing the absolute minimal amount of clothing. In which case, I will leave you to get on with it knowing that we got all the way to the end with mentioning the mandolins again….

Oh, bugger!

TV Nature Programmes

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'Right, you sit over there and pretend to be a teapot and I will sit here and undertake my (nearly) world-renowned imitation of a cruet set. That way when the wild animals come down to the watering hole at dusk they will just think someone has set the table for a late tea.'

That is an example of the skill of the top naturalists and wildlife cameramen currently helping make our TV schedules into something slightly less that a celebrity-infested do-it-yourself course combined with a village talent(less) show. Consequently, we all feel we should all do our best to pretend to be interested in their doings, despite the fact that every animal in the world has – by now – had every event, significant or otherwise of its life-cycle investigated and detailed on film.

For, by now, even the most half-arsed and desultory TV viewer must know more about the tiger than any victim of a man-eater, including what a tiger looks like from the inside. It seems we all know everything about every animal: right down to what a Thompson's gazelle puts on its shopping list, what kind of sofa a heron prefers to perch on and the favourite TV programmes of dormice. This includes what previous generations of naturalists made up to make the animals seem more interesting, which, after you've seen your twelfth programme on the life-cycle of the stick insect, means you can begin to understand and have some sympathy for the TV nature programme-makers and their trade.

Monday Poem: This Frozen World

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This Frozen World

It grows colder and colder until it freezes
and the day becomes cold and hard.
I shall walk through frost and trudge
through the ice and the snow
as I see a world turned white.
The colour of virgins and weddings.

It is the colour of mourning for a world
that grew old and died falling into autumn
when our summer took its green skirts away
and then there were no more dances
in the cool evenings to celebrate
how this world brought bright new days
out of the early dawn for us to use.

And now all we have are fires
to keep away the cold, and these walls
to keep away the wind and the snow
that threaten to take us away
to their frozen kingdoms too.

Coming Home

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It had been a long trip, nearly two months in the end; but I was glad to be back, even though the passport queue seemed to be moving like a disabled snail.

Some in the queue seemed to have something to say about the recent election, I'd – luckily – missed most of it whilst I was away and when the volcano erupted what little interest I had in the election had lost out to finding out when flights would resume so I could get home before my money ran out.

Eventually, though, I got to the front of the queue and inserted my new passport into the machine.

It didn't come out. I could see over on the other side of the machine the reflection of a red light flashing. I tried to get my passport from the machine, assuming I'd put it in the wrong way up or something like that, but the machine would not release it. Neither would the machine release either of the turnstiles the exit or the entry one for me to do anything but stand there helpless, like a dick.

Eventually, a uniformed official came across and glanced down at the screen on her side of the passport control machine.

'Ah,' she said.

'What? Sorry,' I muttered. 'Did I do it wrong, only it is the first time I've used one of these machines.'

She opened a gate to one side of the machine. 'Come with me, please.' That please didn't sound like a request.

As we walked down the corridor, I noticed she was carrying my passport. As we walked, she attached it to a clipboard.

'I suppose you get a lot of this sort of thing, what with these new passports,' I said, trying to be pleasant about what was obviously some sort of administrative cock-up.

'In here, please, sir,' she said, again with the empty tone of her voice at odds with the superficially pleasant words she used.

The room contained a few chairs and a table. The table had some sort of recording device on it. The sort of thing you see in TV detective programmes for recording the interrogation of the suspect. I noticed in the corner of the room, by the ceiling, there was a CCTV camera with its red light glowing.

She glanced at her watch.' My shift is over now, but someone will be in to see you shortly, sir. Please take a seat and someone will be along.' She left me alone in the room.

I sat and waited.

I waited for a long time.

The sudden noise of the door opening woke me up. 'About time,' I said.

'What?' the cleaner said. 'They've all gone on strike, mate. They've probably forgotten all about you. If I was you I'd piss off before they come back.'

I just stared at him.

'Just go. I'm not pissing you about. I mean it.' His face turned solemn. 'Seriously, mate, you don't want to be here when they get back. Things have changed here, lately. Go on, fuck off while you can.'

I picked up what belongings I had and ran. 'Thanks,' I said from halfway down the corridor, but the cleaner just raised his hand, gesturing for me to go.

So, I did.