You're probably wondering by now, if you've been following Bold As Love at all, why I rarely give an Islamic date with precision. Well, good luck. Islam doesn't have a Mccalendar like ours, theirs is unreformed by the dead hand: knotty, intellectually satisfying and unashamedly difficult. What day is it today, in Kent? Try this, and see how you get on.

CELTIC EMPIRE

La Tène art is named after a place in Switzerland, where the defining metal finds were made. I don't think a hound like the one I described has ever been found in England, but she'd be a sacred object. Here's a link to some boars from Middlesex anyway, so you can get the idea. Barry Cunliffe's "Ancient Celts" was my best research text. As I've said before: no blame to the ancient masters of europe intended, (tho' no doubt no better than they should be & those groves very suspicious); my green nazis are a modern development. Straight from green to rotten.

SET THE CONTROLS

   "Over the last winter the weird science cabal had reformed, the scanners were up and running. They were not pursuing the Zen Self quest..."

    What's going on in the annexe under Battersea Reach? Everything is made of information, and the units are the same everywhere. The human body is constructed from common and readily available "elements" -as we describe them. Therefore, if you can send a signal (first position your receiver?) it's only a matter of orders of complexity before you can "send" the information that makes up a human being to any point in the simultaneity (preferably somewhere with air and pressure etc, but refining the search for extrasolar planets takes care of that). What would cause a new body to accrete at the other end? Er, something to do with consciousness, that I haven't quite worked it out yet. I first started playing with this version of long-haul space travel in a story called Gravegoods (1986/1989 Interzone; I'll post it here soon), thus joining the ranks of those sf writers who can't believe in the good ship Nostromo, that kite won't fly for me, there has to be another way... Revised it somewhat in White Queen, related it to games engines in North Wind and Phoenix Cafe; sfwise the Bold As Love sequence is a prequel, a figuring out of how "we" got to Peenemundi Buonarotti's device from here. Don't try to make them add up, they don't. Nor does the simultanaeity, of course; it's a paradox. Bi-location (also known as neurological division) is one of the missing links, "mind" not being "made" of chemicals.

Air for Mars, Sah!

 

SMALL AXE

So if you are the big tree
We are the small axe
Ready to cut you down (well sharp)
To cut you down.

When we saw Bob Marley at the Rainbow in 1977, dancing in those precipitous tiers, we did not know that he was singing and playing with one shoe filling up with blood; already dying. It was a terrific show. Much later I read Timothy White's biography, Catch a Fire, and that's why this chapter about the messianic artist trying to work with the mob is called Small Ax. You think you're going to cut them down, you think at least you won't become corrupt, you're above that, so you get your hands a little dirty, like everyone else: but there are compromises that are relatively harmless to minor artists, just making a living, that will destroy you, send you straight to delusionville, messiah man. Damned unfair. Doesn't matter. Live forever.

 

              HOBART'S FUNNIES

"Apart from the factor of tactical surprise, the  comparatively light casualties which we sustained on all beaches, except OMAHA, were in large measure due to the success of the novel mechanical contrivances which we employed, and to the staggering moral and material effect of the mass of armor landed in the leading waves of the assault. It is doubtful if the assault forces could have firmly established themselves without the assistance of these weapons." General Eisenhower

  What's WWII got to do with a fantasy about environmental meltdown?

There are two reasons for the WWII references in Bold As Love. One is personal: for better or for worse that war was the heart and centre of my parents' life together, which means to an extent it will always be the story that I tell. Our children are born from the memories on which we base ourselves. From the high endeavour and the horror to the tarnished daydream: my son is a devoted fan of Hendrix, Bob Marley, The Grateful Dead. Jon Grimwood knows. The other reason should be obvious. We will fight them on the beaches, eh? We made all the wrong moves, we are utterly screwed, ah well, let's get a few Spitfires up there and see if we save the world... Also highly relevant for the story Hobart's career tells.When all else fails (NOT UNTIL THEN!), try thinking. And never do nothing, just because you only have piecemeal little solutions.

  But Ivywood, Lord Ivywood,
He rots the tree as ivy would...

Jack Vries was openly called "Lord Ivywood" in draft. Ironically, he stands for English tradition, organic capitalism, in Band of Gypsys. But not in a good way.

"I see the breaking of barriers. Beyond that, I see nothing..."