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The Plainclothes Clown LJ Community Centre

[ website | The Plainclothes Clown - the Original Blog ]
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Just Posting [Apr. 29th, 2008|07:29 am]

fiat_knox
[Current Location |home]
[mood | contemplative]
[music |nowt]

Please refer to [info]fiat_knox for the latest news regards my relationship. It's all rather sad.
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Just Posting ... [May. 31st, 2007|09:19 am]

fiat_knox
[Current Location |home]
[mood | contemplative]
[music |nowt]

... to make sure my community's alive. :)
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Votage - It's Local Erection Day! [May. 3rd, 2007|11:11 am]

fiat_knox
[Current Location |library]
[mood |accomplished]
[music |nowt]

Here in the UK, it's time for the local elections. I got two sets of ballots - one for the truly local crowd, and one for the Welsh Assembly.

Hilariously, the Conservative Party's candidate is based in Llandudno. This is for a Wrexham constituency seat. I don't think they're expecting many votes. Well, actually I hope they're after a huge number of votes, and they get bitterly disappointed.

Or maybe I'll be disappointed if they romped it. I dunno.

So anyway ... I voted. After all, this is what all your taxes are meant to pay for.

Ukarians - pay attention. If you registered and got your ballot forms, now is the time for you to go and cast that vital vote. If nothing else, this is one time you can do something to really contribute to society.

Be a citizen. Not a civilian. Vote.
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Interesting ... [Apr. 26th, 2007|07:23 am]

fiat_knox
[Current Location |home]
[mood | contemplative]
[music |nowt]

Just looking through my mobile phone's little electronic black book, and it's dawned on me.

I have a clientele.

There are regulars who have called me pretty frequently, over the months and years. They've had their problems, and they've all found that what they've really, really needed was to talk to someone about them. Someone they know won't come back and, well, spill the beans to their loved ones.

I'm always going to try and listen. Sometimes, I think that listening is probably the only thing I can do, and possibly the only thing they need of me. Which is fine, because these are a regular clientele, so I must be doing something right.

I only hope I'm of help to them.

Perhaps I ought to try a job as an Agony Clown ...
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The BoggleIt Saga - A Cautionary Tale ... [Apr. 23rd, 2007|06:09 pm]

fiat_knox
[Current Location |home]
[mood | annoyed]
[music |Nowt so far]

This story comes from a freelancer, [info]alexdecampi. Read it. Then do her a favour. Post a link to the article on your own blog.

I caught the story from Warren Ellis' warrenelliswire. It needs to be spread virally, all over the web, as far as possible.

Get to it, you Panspermics!

X - posted on [info]fiat_knox.
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Feng Shui THIS ... [Apr. 21st, 2007|07:33 am]

fiat_knox
[Current Location |home]
[mood | contemplative]
[music |nowt]

I Am In The Wrong Damn Business


Behind this cut ... )
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Architect Dream I Had [Apr. 18th, 2007|05:38 pm]

fiat_knox
[Current Location |home]
[mood |accomplished]
[music |nowt]

I had a dream this morning, the like of which I can't remember ever having. It felt so real.

The dream began not long after my rescue by a benefactor, a very rich man, who pulled me out of a dire predicament which I can't remember - it was early in the dream, and the details are fuzzy, but for some reason I had no clothes, my rings and talisman were missing and I was only wearing what looked like a set of standard issue white socks, underpants and a vest.

The man was immaculately dressed in a dark suit that looked like it cost him more than I get from benefits in a year. He sat in the back of a helicopter with me as we flew over this city, which looked like it went on forever.

"This is a Mega City," I said. "And you and your people are Megacitizens."

There were huge buildings looming over the rest of the buildings, including one incredibly thin, flat one. I told him "You built that one along a north - south alignment." He looked shocked, and I told him that since it was exactly noon, the light of the sun cast its thinnest shadow across the city from the building at that moment.

I then said "You've been to Australia." And again, he didn't know why I'd say that; even less when I said "It's marvellous, isn't it, the beauty of those structures; none of them built by human hand, yet erected with such precision."

Then he asked me how I knew about the structures in Australia - that I was talking about Compass or Magnetic Termites, insects that build these mounds twenty feet tall, like blades or fins, all aligned with magnetic north, or maybe like tombstones. My reply, as always with such things: "The image of what you have seen is still in your mind."

I even freak people out in my dreams.

So, anyway, we got into his limo; and we drove to the structure he'd built, like a giant glass fin, water cascading down the sides and all glass inside. Once inside the atrium of this immense structure, I got down on my hands and knees on the bare earth and began to erect the figures of Western Geomancy, casting the lots with the metal dice from my kit which he'd retrieved when he'd rescued me. I drew him a full geomantic shield, and showed him how his success was sadly going to be bought with blood; also, that "blood" could also mean "kin", and that either way, the sign meant "thicker than water," meaning that this was a tide which was going to be very hard to resist.

I showed him a figure called the Reconciler, though, which read "The Major Fortune," which was an ultimate good sign, a beneficial final judgement. He'd sited this huge structure in the right place, and in the right alignment. But I urged caution, rather than haste, because his ambition would cost someone dear if this project was rushed, or costs were skimped or similar rash behaviour indulged in "to prove a point".

I drew an I Ching hexagram in the ground, something like "Ultimate Harmony", to signal that all would be well, and to quiet the earth which actually started trembling like a lover in orgasm.

A panel fell from the roof, at this point. It was a big square, and it landed point first right on the spot where I'd drawn the hexagram. Sunlight came in and illuminated the square, "like a diamond in the dirt, illumination surrounded by darkness." I told the architect these exact words; he got a call in from a contact, saying that his contract for a geodesic dome in some other part of the world had gone through, and he had a green light on it. He turned to me, and as he did so, his contact said the exact same words over the mobile phone to the architect.

Finally, as we arrived at the hotel where I'd been put up (one of his buildings - a vast edifice, with one huge plaza in front that'd take ten, fifteen minutes to cross at least), the architect shook my hand, and gave me a funny handshake. I told him that, to his surprise, I did not wear the apron - but that I'd honour those who did for their sense of solidarity and brotherhood.

Then I told him it'd be raining before I got to the entrance of the hotel, so he shouldn't stay outside the limo for too long or he'd get drenched.

I got out, finally retrieving the rest of my stuff - my rings, my talisman, my clothes - and, as I donned my (always slightly shabby) duty black shoes, trousers and sweater, the architect asked me: 'How can someone like you live so small?'

I turned to him and said the following.

'Consider the size of one of your largest buildings. The one you built like a glass needle in Tokyo, soaring so high into the sky nobody can see where it ends. Now see it in comparison to the magnetosphere of the Earth in all its glory.

'Now compare that to the magnetosphere of Jupiter - easily the largest phenomenon in the solar system, bigger even than the Sun. Now extend your perceptions outwards until you can see the whole of the solar system, right up to the Kuiper Belt and the Heliopause.

'Further, now; out past the local neighbourhood, to see the galaxy as a whole. Now further and further, until the galaxy itself is just a bright point, a mote of dust, in the local galactic supercluster, which itself becomes a tiny filament, a streak of light, a tiny thread, and gone, amidst the huge clouds of galaxies in our universe. Further still, until you run out of galaxies; and all you have is the universe itself, which shrinks all around you until all you can see of it is just a tiny, tiny black dot, surrounded by a blue - grey chaos.

'And now look at it again. You have been looking at the iris and pupil of my eye. We are back to where you started on this journey. I may look small, live smaller; but my eyes, my soul, encompasses universes.'
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Photos from Chester 001 [Apr. 17th, 2007|12:46 pm]

fiat_knox
[Current Location |library]
[mood |accomplished]
[music |nowt]

I've only uploaded a handful of the photos I took from my little trip to Eastercon so far.

Here's some of what I saw:

Behind this cut )

More to come, soon.
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My Favourite Browser - Top 10 Images [Apr. 16th, 2007|11:49 pm]

fiat_knox
[Current Location |home]
[mood | amused]
[music |nowt]

Top 10 Firefox Images


Ironically, I am posting this on an Opera browser today.

Yoinked from [info]cosmicjohn.

One of my favourites is this one:

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New Term [Apr. 14th, 2007|12:56 pm]

fiat_knox
[Current Location |library]
[mood | amused]
[music |nowt]

Coined, a scant few minutes ago on the Shadownessence forum, by [info]zenten:

Clue - by - Four

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Weekends [Apr. 13th, 2007|03:46 pm]

fiat_knox
[Current Location |library]
[mood |accomplished]
[music |nowt]

I often like to post something about something, rather than merely to report some personal experience. After all, a diary is as much about recording one's philosophy as about reportage.

I feel that last week's Eastercon in Chester was like a watershed for me. This time last week, I was ensconced in the Crowne Plaza hotel, enjoying a bit of a sub in the company of an old friend of mine, one Rodney Milton. For some reason, poor old Rodders always feels a little nervous around me, as if I was going to pick him to bits if he got a fact wrong. If he only knew I only wanted his company, rather than have to eat alone.

Anyway, this week the weather has been nothing short of wonderful, all week long. The weekend just gone was the watershed I mentioned above; it is now Spring, with Beltane and Summer just around the corner.

I can't have imagined a nicer start to the warm weather than the one I had last weekend.

And now, no conventions sadly, but the weather's even better outside and to my amazement, my f'list doubled overnight. I've been riding along on a high all week long. And now, here comes another weekend, and I feel like a little patrol somewhere. Manchester or Liverpool, maybe, or even back to Chester, one week on.

I know, I've gone back to reportage of events; but I felt the need to post this, to give you peeps an insight into my little life.

Within the range of my tiny budget, I do a lot of wandering, and in my patrols I bump into one hell of a lot of people.

I can only imagine what my life would be like, the range of my patrols, the people I'd know on a first name basis, if I were loaded.
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The Interview Meme [Apr. 13th, 2007|03:06 pm]

fiat_knox
This comes from [info]nyghtshayde, who ported it from [info]nice_girls_play:-

Interview Meme thing -
1. If you want to be interviewed, leave a comment here.
2. I'll ask you five questions.
3. You'll post the answers on your own blog or lj, along with these rules.
4. If anyone replies, asking you for five questions, you'll ask them.
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Post - Eastercon Recollections: Favourite Panels [Apr. 13th, 2007|12:17 am]

fiat_knox
[Current Location |home]
[mood |accomplished]
[music |nowt]

The panels I attended during the Eastercon included the following:-

Friday

The Great Clomping Foot of Nerdism in Charles Suite

Continuity of Identity in Edward Suite

Current SF - A Fireside Chat (Dave Bradley of SFX and Paul Cornell's panel that basically turned into a discussion of SFX magazine, which was also brilliant)


Saturday

GMTV - where everybody discovered that The Times had come up with a brand new literary category, namely Scifi and Fanatsy

Flash Fiction Workshop, where I chuntered away writing a short story, Misology - coming soon to this very blog ...

LJ Isn't Just A Blog

Universal Donor

Transitional Comics

and, briefly, Bad People Bad Sex Bad Wolf


Sunday

Morning Feedback

Fireworks Lecture (included a presentation)

Is UK publishing overtly masculine?

and the Bid Session for LX 2009 Eastercon in Bradford, which passed

Adamist or Edenist?

But That's Not SF!

Hey, Dude, Where's My Ice Age?


Monday

Flash Fiction Workshop, Part 2

Professionals in Publishing

Other Kinds of Conventions

Going Japanese

If the Swan had Sunk - a Shakespeare-themed recital of a wonderful piece of speculative fiction, namely how the world might have looked had William Shakespeare not existed

and finally, before the closing ceremony, Why I Want to Gafiate.


There were loads of other panels, but these were the ones I attended - and, when I get the time, I'll probably touch on each one, and more in further postings.

And don't worry about it all being a week old by now. I remember things from the first conventions I attended. One benefit of being tee total: you might not get to do anything daft, but at least you get to remember every waking moment you weren't daft ...
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Meme from [info]nyghtshayde [Apr. 12th, 2007|01:54 pm]

fiat_knox
[Current Location |library]
[mood |accomplished]
[music |nowt]

1. I'll post usernames of those friends I care about, people who are dear to me.
2. If you see your username in this post, do the same thing in your journal.
3. If you don't see your username in this post, it doesn't mean that I don't care about you at all.
4. The order of the usernames doesn't mean a thing. Even if you're the last in the list, it doesn't mean I care any less about you.

198505
arborophile
chechtlhutlh
deimos_masque
drplokta
eclective
elanor_isolda
fanficauthor
fomorian
hawkida
heyokah49
innocent_man
jagash
jesshartley
johncoxon
kleenexwoman
kris_ether
lady_gaslight
lemuria
lucien_soulban
matsuo_kumiko
morland
nice_girls_play
niuserre
nyghtshayde
owlkeeper
pete23
prettyarbitrary
raven611
renfield286
sandchigger
the_magician
thewingsofisis
uncut_diamond
zenten
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Eastercon Post - Con Tasks: Just One Thing ... [Apr. 11th, 2007|05:05 pm]

fiat_knox
[Current Location |library]
[mood |Just doing my civic duty]
[music |nowt]

I swore that, despite my having no funding during the last day of Eastercon to buy the following book, that I'd not forget it, and that in partial recompense for my inability to buy it back then, I would freely and happily promote it now.

Everyone who went to Eastercon will have remembered the Famous Shifting Topic, that caused the George Hay Spinoff lecture to be swapped with the "Glorifying Terrorism" panel discussion.

Well, Farah Mendlesohn has published a book, Glorifying Terrorism, available to buy through Paypal.

Everyone who's not been to Eastercon, but who's reading this on either of my blogs, please consider (a) buying it; (b) going to your local bookstore and ordering it with the ISBN number.

All the details, including where to send cheques if you want to pay by snailmail, are there behind this link. As soon as I get my budget back up and running again at ahealthy level, I promise I'm going to get the book, too, if only because

(a) books on "damned" topics are a special joy;

(b) I aim to wander through the public library, past a school, past my local police station, and in front of the local government's City Hall and, publicly, open up the book and read it in plain view of them all.

And have photos taken of the whole thing.
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Eastercon: Post - Con Reports etc [Apr. 11th, 2007|04:38 pm]

fiat_knox
[Current Location |library]
[mood |accomplished]
[music |nowt]

I shot the last frame of a single use camera today, just random shots of where I live. The weather looked good, so I thought: why not?

That camera contained photos of some of the scenery in and around Chester, so hopefully if they come out, I ought to be able to upload them onto Flickr and, thence, post the images somewhere here. Photos taken from within the con are in another camera, and I will finish that one off as well, pretty soon. :)

Meanwhile, my reports on the programme items, as well as feedback regards Eastercon, are still being drawn up. These include the Flash Fiction item, "Misology: A Hatred of Logic XOR Reason".

It's all go, and it wasn't helped by the inspired idea I'd had to create the [info]fiat_knox_com community blog, not to mention the resumption of my work on The Fourth Rewrite of my novel.

Just bear with me. You'll see stuff here soon enough. :)
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Members Roll Call [Apr. 11th, 2007|11:44 am]

fiat_knox
Everyone who's on the community members list so far as I can tell, as of today:

[info]frandowdsofa

[info]jagash

[info]kleenexwoman

[info]lady_gaslight

[info]lemuria

[info]nyghtshayde

[info]pete23

[info]sandchigger

Welcome, one and all. :) Hope there'll be more joining you soon.
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Life On Mars Finale [Apr. 11th, 2007|10:04 am]

fiat_knox
[Current Location |home]
[mood | peaceful]
[music |nowt]

No, I am not going to spoil the ending for those few of you who haven't even seen the series yet, let alone who want to know how it ends.

If you've never heard of this BBC TV series, here's the BBC's Life on Mars page. It says it all, really. A Manchester copper, Sam Tyler (John Simm), is involved in an accident and wakes up to find that he's a detective back in the year 1973. A year that taste and political correctness forgot.

His associates include DCI Gene Hunt (Phil Glenister), who took his schoolin' straight from the Carter and Regan The Sweeney textbook that defined "police brutality" for generations to come; and WPC Annie Cartwright (Liz White), his love interest - "A female in the police at a time when women were often undermined, underused, ignored, and taken for granted."

It's only two series long, the BBC only went and cancelled it, and it became a cult hit before the end credits of the pilot episode even aired. Its premature cancellation, like that of Firefly, only sealed what fate had already been set for it.

I can tell you that, as the final scene drew to a close, it was one of those moments where, if you'd been watching it with mates in a convention hall, say, you'd have been standing up and applauding. Life on Mars is cult TV at its finest, and a tribute to the very heyday of old skool cult television back when life as portrayed on TV was so much more innocent.
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Welcome, [info]kleenexwoman! [Apr. 11th, 2007|09:17 am]

fiat_knox
[Current Location |home]
[mood | pleased]
[music |nowt]

Thanks for accepting the invitation, [info]kleenexwoman. Welcome to the community Plainclothes Clown blog. Make yourself at home.

You can post to this blog yourself, now, and initiate conversations rather than have to wait for me to make a pronouncement and comment on that.

I'll try and grab more of my f'list from the one-way Plainclothes Clown blog and plonk them down here. You'll be in good company soon. I hope. :)

I'll be posting Eastercon stuff onto this and t'other blog soon as I can get myself sorted out, including some photos, as soon as I've come to the end of the film in the camera. :) So bear with me, and thanks for joining.
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Welcome! :) [Apr. 10th, 2007|05:42 pm]

fiat_knox
[Tags|, , ]
[Current Location |home]
[mood | amused]
[music |nowt]

Fiat Knox,

The Plainclothes Clown:-


Who Am I, and What Do I Stand For?



The image, left, has been linked to its page of origin on Wikipedia, in gratitude to the Wikipedian who put it there.

Quotes I Live By


"Vita hominum altos recessus magnasque latebras habet" - Pliny the Younger (Trals.: "A man's life contains hidden depths and large secret spaces."
"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate" - Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy - words inscribed upon the very gates of Hell
"This is as real as your so-called life gets." - Q
"To learn about you is frankly provocative ... but you're next of kin to chaos." - Capt. Picard to Q
"It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Q
"We are dreamers, shapers, singers and makers." - Elric, technomage, Babylon 5
"Y’know, when you’re a kid, they tell you it’s all “grow up, get a job, get married, get a house, have a kid”, and that’s it. But the truth is, the world is so much stranger than that. It’s so much darker ... and so much madder ... and so ... much ... better."
- Doctor Who

"You know what scares me? Is that when it happens ... when it comes over me and I totally lose control ... I like it." - Bruce Banner, Hulk
"I'd only told them the truth. Was that so selfish? Our integrity sells for so little, but it is all we really have. It is the very last inch of us, but within that inch, we are free." - Valerie, V For Vendetta

Lines from The Bard Quoted In V For Vendetta:


"We are oft to blame in this. 'Tis too much proved that with devotion's visage and pious action we do sugar o'er the devil himself." (Hamlet 3.1.46-49)
"And thus I clothe my naked villainy/With old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ;/And seem a saint, when most I play the devil" (Richard III (play) 1.3.336-38)
"I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none." (Macbeth 1.7.17-18)


Basically, this si the same profile information I keep on my main profile page, "The Plainclothes Clown" (linkage below), but here, I'm allowing you, my beloved f'list, to be able to initiate conversation threads with me, rather than wait for me to make a pronouncement and have to comment on what I've just said.

You know this makes sense. But I am genuinely sorry for the advertisements. I just wanted more options of userpics with this one.

Now, let the festivities commence! :)
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