Editorial

SO, WHAT have we been doing? Well, Mike's cancelled move to Croydon from last year is back on, and he hopes to be safely ensconced in the fannish epicentre of the United Kingdom by the end of September. Provided his current dot.com can hold out for another six weeks, that is.

We were all delighted to hear that Pam Wells has received her BA in English Language & Linguistics from York University.

Summer is, as any fule kno, the season of festivals. Alison and Steven have been going to the Cropredy festival for many years, drinking beer, listening to pleasant music, watching their babies playing on the rug, that sort of thing. But they've never properly entered into the Cropredy spirit, because they've always left the festival at the end of each day and driven back to a nice, warm, guest house with comfy beds, lovely hot baths, and full English breakfasts. But this year, it all went wrong. They forgot to book, they couldn't sort anywhere out. And besides, really good B&B costs quite a lot of money when there are four of you.

Steven came up with the solution. "We'll get a tent! And camp. I won't have to drive, and it will be much cheaper." Alison went on many, many camping holidays as a child, and once she was grown up, she resolved that she would never, ever go camping again. Steven argued that technology had much improved and it wouldn't be as cold and wet as she remembered, and besides, the children ought to have the camping experience. What's more, they would only have to spend six nights under canvas (or, to be more precise, under weird artificial weatherweave polyester tent fabric) to defray the entire cost of the tent and all the equipment.

They ended up buying a pop-up tent. Much like the pop-up house Marianne plays with, only slightly more secure and rigid. And they went camping. And it was at least as cold and wet as Alison remembered, if not slightly more so.

The tent is laid out

However, the tent has proved to have other uses. Due to an ongoing no-room-at-the-inn situation in Plokta Towers, they've also spent the most recent Plokta weekend camping in the back garden. But they have a highly superfluous exploding pop-up tent, so that's all right then.

Lifting and separating

Suddenly, a miracle occurs

We'd have printed a picture of Marianne's psychedelic multicoloured satellite tent, but unfortunately this editorial is too monochrome to contain it. Look out for the web version.

<Plokta.con> Release 2.0 now has the following members: George, Jonathan, Marianne & Steven Cain, Del Cotter, John Dallman, Steve Davies, Giulia De Cesare, Susan Francis, Gwen Funnell, Ann & Steve Green, Tony Keen, Sue Mason, Bernie Peek, Mike Scott, Alison Scott, Tobes and Paul Treadaway.

We don't have a hotel yet, but Dr Plokta is engaged in top secret negotiations.

However, there's still plenty of time to send us £25 for membership to Alison's address as given in the colophon.

Apologies to cat lovers, but this issue doesn't contain a single solitary picture of George. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

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