Table of Contents

How Did I get There From Here?

My TAFF Platform

Why I Wish To Be The TAFF Delegate For 2013

TAFF News

Jacq & Kylie Visit Cambridge

To Staple Or Not To Staple

Wish I Could Write Like David Langford

1492 And All That

Jim,The Universe & Everything

Tiny TAFFzine Collection for E-Readers

How Did I get There From Here?

So, you’re thinking, “I want to vote in this TAFF race but first I want to know a little more about the candidates.”

Jim thinks, “Aha, an excellent opportunity to talk about myself and possibly bag a vote into the bargain.” So here goes:

I was born, or so I am told, into the smoking fumes that clouded the industrial heartlands of the North of England in 1964. A thick pall of smoke hung permanently over Leeds, being belched forth from the copper works, brass moulders and other products of the industrial age. I lived in a tiny back-to-back terraced house, choking daily as I edged closer and closer to the final oblivion that claimed so many children of the time. The doctor gave dire warnings that I would be likely to kick the bucket, run down the curtain and join the choir invisible or shuffle off this mortal coil if I were not taken away somewhere warm, nice and sunny. He probably meant the South of France or the Mediterranean but my parents, being of modest means, could manage nothing more than a dash for the edge of the city to what was then a semi-agricultural area known as Tingley (near Morley in the rhubarb triangle). Despite not being a rhubarb plant or even made of rhubarb I thrived, grew, and left all that choking and potential mortal coil shuffling behind. I left school at the time of the largest unemployment figures in living memory. I bummed around for a while but eventually got a job as a bus driver. I met a girl in a nightclub, got married, had a child, discovered fandom, and got divorced. All pretty standard stuff.

So, you’ll notice that I slipped in a mention of fandom there. I met Steve and Jenny Glover either in 1993 or 1994. I think it may have been through a bulletin board I was running called Chaos. The internet had not yet taken ahold in the UK and I ran a system on my BBC computer that people could call on a phone line and play games and leave messages upon. I was part of a store-and-forward network called Fidonet at that time, and was heavily promoting Science Fiction discussion forums. When I met the Glovers it just so happened that Jenny was editor of Matrix, the British Science Fiction Association newsletter. She soon saw that I had been previously unsullied by fanzines and figured I was the perfect person to write a fresh and bright review of them. Mercifully I don’t have a copy of that review column now and so don’t have to be confronted with my own naivety, but the process was enough to pique my curiosity as regards fanzines and I began LoCing several of them under the name of Jim Trash.

I went to several Glover parties and a couple of friends that I met there (Nesa Sivagnanam and Julie Faith) persuaded me to attend Sou’Wester, the UK Eastercon that was being held in Liverpool at a hotel called the Adelphi. I did attend and met all sorts of people including one of my current nominators, Rob Hansen, and had an incredibly good time. It was, of course, very strange and overwhelming but there were a lot of nice people, a fabulous hotel, some great books in the dealers’ room and some splendid real ales. I loved it to bits. I delved into fandom more and more. I joined an APA called The Organisation. I put out a fanzine called Pips, and started attending the Leeds fandom monthly meets in a pub called the Adelphi which included such remarkably talented folks as D. West, Dave Mooring, Michael Ashley, Simon Ounsley, Mike Ford, Chris Terran, the Ashworths, and Debra Kerr. We would get regular visits from Ian Sorensen, and TAFF and GUFF delegates often made a point of coming along to see us. They were usually quite lively nights, and a bunch of us also used to meet for a quiz night at a pub called The Bridge Inn in Leeds city centre. The other drinkers were furious with us as we won the prize week after week after week. It was most gratifying.

I drifted away from fandom a little then and it was probably Eastercon and the woman who is now my wife that drew me back. I met a Science Fiction Fan (Carrie) who was a member of her university science fiction society and was contemplating running a small convention at Heriot-Watt. Pure grit and determination got her through and she managed to make it happen. She was keen to see other conventions so we started to attend Eastercons together. It was unfortunate that one of these was 2Kon in Glasgow but she was still keen e’en so. She finished her degree and moved to Cambridge for her doctorate. I followed soon after and we have since immersed ourselves more and more in fandom. We have been involved in ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Appreciation Society, for many years. We regularly attend several conventions and I have begun publishing my fanzine, Pips, once more. Carrie is regularly involved in official con newsletters and I am more likely to be burrowing myself away producing my own guerilla newsletters and podcasts instead. I started reading Nic Farey’s publication, Beam, and was so impressed by it that I wanted to get more involved. Nic and I talked about it for some time and then I suddenly found that I was a co-editor and was expected to do stuff. He’s a tricky one that Nic. I like and enjoy fandom and find it a great place to play. I now want to play a little in North America and need a whole bunch of votes from you guys to get me there. I adore the TAFF ethos and wish to be more involved. Vote for my enthusiasm. Vote for my love of fandom. Vote for me!

My TAFF Platform

“Jim Mowatt came of age in the fiery fannishness of Leeds and burst upon the scene as Jim Trash at the Sou’wester Eastercon in 1994. Few noticed. He retreated into the shadows like a bewildered ninja. Since then he has made a number of friends, produced fanzines (e.g. Pips and Beam) and decided that fandom is a wonderful place to be(eblebear). He has produced a prodigious number of podcasts, and has a great face for radio. Jim followed a woman to Cambridge in 2002. She didn’t call the police so he moved in. San Antonio needs to know why.”

I thank my nominators whom I specifically asked because they represent who I am in fandom and who I would like to be:

Randy Byers, Fran Dowd, Rob Hansen, Curt Phillips and Mark Plummer

Why I Wish To Be The TAFF Delegate For 2013

Lets make a list:

1) It’ll be fun – this is usually the best reason for doing anything and I can see a few raised eyebrows out there from some of you folks who may beg to differ with my hasty assumption. We’ll possibly come back to that later.

2) I want to push myself to engage more with fandom – I’ve been around fans now for approximately 18 years and there are huge numbers of people that I have never met or interacted with in any way. It’s about time I put some more effort into getting to know a lot more people in fandom. As with any hobby, the enjoyment you obtain from it is often proportional to the effort you put into it. The campaign and (hopefully) the TAFF trip will help give me the momentum to engage much more fully with the fannish community.

3) I’d like to go to one of those mega-sized North American Worldcons. At the time of writing I have never yet been to any Worldcon but have a membership for London in 2014.

4) Over recent years I’ve considered many of the TAFF campaigns to be a bit of a missed opportunity. I had hoped they would be more playful and vibrant. If my opponent is willing I would like to engage in some electioneering style banter. Some of it could be in fanzines but there’s also the opportunity to do online debates, swingometers, and all that election night wibble.

5) If I win I will get the opportunity to help run the TAFF race for 2014. I think that one will be very hotly contested indeed and I hope that I can assist in some way to make it an engaging and fun experience for everyone. Lots of razzamatazz and all that jazz.

6) I feel that I can put together a fun and interesting TAFF report. I’ve been thinking about the style I might like to use. Would I like to do it Kerouac road trip style, or Hobbit quest style? I thought of Gangnam style but that hasn’t really got legs (so to speak). Whatever style, even if I just wrote it as ‘what I did on my holidays’, it would be an extraordinary thing to do and I am intrigued and delighted by the challenge of it.

7) The trip should help me to grow, in that I hope it could make me more confident and open my eyes to different ways of being and different folks and different cultures. Past TAFF winners have often commented upon this and so I similarly would be fascinated to see what effects such a trip might have upon me.

8) TAFF itself is an extraordinary institution. It just keeps going and going and always attracts quite a variety of opinions on fan funds and their value to fandom. I’ve supported it already in some ways through doing the TAFF interviews over the last couple of years and, of course, voting in it many times over. I feel I want to get right in amongst it now to really understand TAFF and then help promote it as much as possible over the coming years.

9) There are many places in North America that I would like to visit. It won’t be possible for me to visit them all in one TAFF trip but it would be nice to visit at least some of them. Ever since I started receiving the fanzine Wild Heirs way back when, I have wanted to meet the fan community in Vegas. Since I’ve been co-editing Beam with Nic Farey and met the wonderful Jacq Monahan when she stayed with us on her TAFF tour, this has increased my desire to visit Vegas even more. I’d love to visit Toronto, and, of course, Seattle has a huge fannish force that pulls everything towards it. There are many other places I would like to go to and many other people I would like to meet but there’s the vast distances and the strain on TAFF’s pocket to consider, so any thoughts or comments upon possible destinations will be gratefully received.

10) Repeat of point 1 – It’ll be fun. I’ve read so much about past TAFF races. There’s the fun of the campaign. There will be playfulness and banter. There will be panels and electioneering at Eastercon. There’s the tension and excitement as votes are counted. There’s the sheer joy of the trip. The fun and challenge of producing the trip report, and finally the raising of funds and promoting the next race for 2014 in London. It’ll be great, so I see your raised eyebrows and raise you a great big grin at the prospect of a remarkable experience.

Let the race commence!

I have a plan. It's a plan so cunning that even Brian Cox wouldn't be able to find the words to say how amaaazing it is. I intend to go to North America and steal the Grand Canyon. I will remove the spaces from between the pieces with my zap-o space removal spray, recording the positions of those spaces with my jigsaw rememberer quantum calculator. I will then bag up all the bits (in a bag) and bring them back to Cambridge (which is at the moment entirely flat) and reassemble them as an absurdist Fen tourist attraction. To do this I need your help. I am campaigning to be sent to North America as the TAFF delegate for Europe. Please take the time to vote for me and send me on this mission. For details of how to vote please do visit http://taff.org.uk If there's anything around here more important than voting Jim Mowatt for TAFF, I want it caught and shot now!

TAFF News

Beware good people for there are two events I wish to attend before the final TAFF votes are cast. The first is Picocon #30 on the 16th and 17th of February in Imperial College Union. This Picocon ain't as pico as it would usually be and is spreading itself out over two days. I’m not sure I can be there for both but definitely intend to be around for the Saturday. It should be a fun con with Peter F Hamilton attending on Saturday. I shall also be very much available at Eastercon from 29th March to the 1st April. I shall have TAFF ballots and will happily lead you through the process of voting Jim for TAFF. Theresa and I have been talking about some joint events at Eastercon including a Pythonesque election night special. In the near future both Theresa and I have been threatened by a visit from Alan Dorey. He’s going to be doing the TAFF interviews this year. More news as it happens.

Jacq & Kylie Visit Cambridge

Carrie looks at me despairingly. We’re at Cambridge train station waiting for TAFF delegate Jacq Monahan and I haven’t brought the mobile number so carefully arranged and distributed by the various people who’ve been organising her trip. I come up with a long complicated plan to check my email on Carrie’s phone to search for the number. I then notice someone sitting on a bench, hiding behind a large suitcase. I question her closely – ‘Are you Jacq?’ She replies in the affirmative so I grab her suitcase and we are all whisked away on a magic taxi ride to ye olde quaint village of Milton. We go to pay homage to the mighty Tesco and I question her again. 'What would you like to eat?' She’s ready for me though and picks up Scotch eggs. Apparently these cost 4 million dollars (or thereabouts) back home so she’s thrilled to find a two for 95 p deal going on. We whisk away the foodstuffs and some drinkstuffs to Milton Country Park for consumption. We find a bench, a view of a bridge, some water, and a few geese. We make the food and drink disappear, enjoy the view, and stare at the bridge. We then continue our wander through the park and I try to cover up the fact that we’re lost. I accidentally give the game away by uttering the words 'we’re lost'. I’m not very good at this cover-up business. I find a cat and distract them with that for a while until, as if by magic, an exit from the park appears.

A long straight road beckons us towards the river. We’re amenable to being beckoned and continue onwards. There are, as ever, rowers on the river Cam. Jacq whips out her camera and steals their souls takes their photograph. There’s more aimless wandering highly organised sightseeing, a pub (there’s always a pub), and then back home to begin preparing dinner.

In the evening there is Haddock – two Haddocks in fact, David and Sarah. Carrie and I cook traditional hearty British food but don’t manage to produce anything new to Jacq (she has investigated Anglo noms exhaustively). It is pretty authentic though, in that the starter is Yorkshire puddings made by a Yorkshireman (me) and the dessert is shortbread made by a Scot (Carrie). The conversation somehow turns to Eurovision songs and we discover that Dave and Sarah are enthusiasts and make quite a night of it every time the Eurovision Song Contest is on. Much fun is had looking up the weird stuff that has emerged from Eurovision over the years and inflicting it on poor Jacq.

The following day is for sightseeing and fanmeet revels at the Cambridge Blue; there are many sights in Cambridge and they are all crying out to be seen. We behold many things, including King's College Chapel, Great St Mary's church, The Eagle pub, and the Corpus Clock, before going punting. I demonstrate my expertise by entangling us in several trees and getting caught up with a large number of boats. 'It’s all right,' I shout to Carrie and Jacq. 'I’ve a good feeling that we may survive this.'

Later in the year I find myself saying exactly the same to visiting GUFF delegate Kylie Ding. We are entangled in the very same trees and I am assuring Kylie, Norah, Julie and Carrie that I can certainly punt us out of here eventually. Kylie has come to see us with her daughter Nora and her friend Julie McMurray. We escape the waters of the Cam and crawl back onto dry land in need of cake. Immediately a cafe appears advertising special deals on coffee and cake. It seems too good to be true, as if the Dark Lord has read our minds and produced this place to give us exactly what we wanted at less than extortionate prices. Then when we are settled and comfortable the trap will close and the orcs will drag us away and do unspeakable things to our tender fleshy bits. We consider this possibility but go in anyway. We want cake. Later we visit the All Saints Garden Art and Craft Market, which occurs every Saturday in Cambridge and is quite an attraction. There are leather goods, steampunk jewellery, and remarkable cupcakes. Their motto is ‘We Make What We Sell’. Julie buys a leather bound journal for LARPing and Kylie buys a splendid leather belt. Then onto The First and Last for food, where Nora tries to buy the owner's dog and manages to negotiate him down to 10 p. Finally we head to the Town and Country Show on Parker’s Piece where we spot Kate Solomon browsing the exhibits. Conversation flows and toot is talked but time’s tiny fingers are tapping at the window pane reminding us all we need to be elsewhere. So elsewhere we go.

To Staple Or Not To Staple

To staple, or not to staple: that is the question:

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to store away the staples

And leave thy zine bereft,

Or to take up the arm, driving iron into the yielding sheets beneath? To fasten: to hold;

No more this folio to wander.

Though a thousand misfortunes it may suffer, ‘tis a state of permanence.

To hold, to stay;

To stay: perchance to be read: sans fortune that the pages may presently disperse.

For in that state what glory may come.

When the fan awards come around.

Wish I Could Write Like David Langford

It all started with a fanzine. Many things start with fanzines: conventions, fanwars, mild disapproval. This time it was a heated discussion on Facebook about the Jacq Monahan opinions. There were a few lines slipped in at the end of the article about LosCon that directed a little ire toward some convention people who were trying to annex all the elevators by eating and continuing to eat until they occupied all the available space. A cunning ploy indeed but one can see how a fellow elevator occupier might object to this sort of thing. Ulrika O'Brien objected strongly to Jacq’s depiction of these people and felt it a vicious attack upon large people, up with which she would not put. So far, just another day on Facebook. However among the Ulrika comments was one that insinuated itself inside my head and filled it with angst and bothersome thoughts. “Yeah, this is what differentiates the Ugly American from the Ugly Briton. Britons are just as virulently bigoted, but they're actually funny about it.” Hang on thinks I, there’s a lot of expectation there. Then I began to quake as I realised that there’s a very strong possibility that this sheer cliff face of expectation could shortly rise up in front of my own person. What if I win this TAFF thing? They will expect me to write a trip report brimming with devastating quips and choc-a-bloc full of super zingers of astounding wit and incisive perception. Twas then that I realised whose fault it all was. It’s that bloody Langford again. Many years ago, when dinosaurs were pubbing their ish, Dave Langford won TAFF, went to several places in North America, came home and then had the audacity to write an incredibly funny and interesting trip report. Not the most heinous crime in the universe, you might be thinking, but it does set a standard that we mere mortals can only step back and gaze up at.

North American fanzine fandom now blithely wanders around assuming all British fan writers are devastatingly witty and so we British writhe in terror as the expectant gaze of North America turns its focus upon us expecting wit and satire to vomit forth from each and every one of us.

Damn you David Langford. Damn you to hell.

So what shall I do if I win and need to write a TAFF report? I suppose I could just copy The Transatlantic Hearing Aid and pretend I wrote it. Unfortunately there are a number of places there which may not feature in my fan report. Most prominent of these is the Worldcon itself which is scheduled for San Antonio in Texas. I’m not sure the Langford description of Boston (which apparently isn’t in Lincolnshire) would translate to Texas. Hmmm, a dilemma indeed.

Could I learn to write like Langford? Let’s take a look at a couple of the opening lines from his TAFF trip report:

"I shall be sick," Hazel told me with a sort of satisfied determination. "I was sick in France and sick in Germany and sick in Austria and ... well, every country in Europe except Liechtenstein."

"You need good aim to be sick in Liechtenstein," I agreed.

Well, I suppose I could make jokes about Liechtenstein but maybe that isn’t the point. Pointing out the size inadequacies of small countries does not a trip report make.

Can I reduce the expectation somehow? Perhaps I can reprint vast numbers of the more tedious tomes of Britfandom in an attempt to convince North American fandom that we are almost human and not always brilliantly witty and satirical. Hmm, maybe a little cruel to inflict this upon people who may well have voted for me in the TAFF race.

I wonder - as it is all David Langford's fault, is there any  way I could nobble him? Possibly I could go back in time and break all his fingers, so preventing him from producing wonder and merriment with his typing digits. No good. The talented git would probably still manage to manufacture his magic with the pen clutched between his toes. Could I break his toes also? This is all getting a bit gruesome and there’s the possibility that he might not allow me to break his toes. There’s also the slight technical problem that when H.G. Wells wrote his documentary on time travel he forgot to include the detailed technical drawings that would help me at least to embark upon my mission.And so here I am, being violently pitched from trough to crest in this sea of anguished despair. In my head there are the words, Wish I Could Write Like David Langford to the tune of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band number, Sgt Fury. Unfortunately I can’t think of anything, remotely relevant to rhyme with Langford so I’m stuck with the same line over and over and over again.

1492 And All That

So, I’ve been swotting up on the history of America and I think I’ve got it all sorted now.

America was conjured into being in 1492 by a chap called Columbus. He was so desperate to find land that he invented a whole continent so that he had somewhere to dock his ships. Unfortunately he accidentally invented lots of native peoples who roamed about the place getting in the way and bumping into folks. As a health and safety measure lots of these native peoples were removed from the continent and this made it much safer as there were fewer trip hazards. Later someone decided that they didn’t like tyrants and they said George was one. George the Turd (for twas he) got cross and sent lots of people in red coats to remonstrate with the tyrant haters. The haters refused to stand still and be shot at so it all got a bit messy and George decided it was a silly game and he didn’t want to play anyway. To celebrate the people decided it was their inalienable right to draft a constitution and so they did. In 1848 there were rumblings in the not so United States. Some of them thought that slavery was a jolly super idea and others thought it not quite the thing. Everyone got a bit cross with each other but someone looked up Gettysburg’s address and they calmed down again and tried to pretend they were all friends. Since then they have made cowboy films, hamburgers and Lenny Bruce. God Bless America.