PLOKTA

Issue 25
Volume 7 Number 1
January 2002

In This Issue

 •  Contents
 •  Cover Illustration
 •  Editorial
 •  Five Go Mad In Mordor
 •  Recapturing My Flaming Youth
 •  Decking The Halls With Thorazine
 •  Lokta Plokta
 •  Does Your Gut Wobble When I Do This?

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The Plokta News Network. News and views for SF fandom

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Editorial

We have been dilatory. Not only is this issue of the fanzine late (for reasons that we shan't explain here, obviously), but we have not yet procured a hotel for <plokta.con> Release 2.0. However, the con is still happening from 1-3 June 2002, membership £25, cheques payable to Plokta, and we'll let you all know about the venue Real Soon Now.

"It's that difficult twenty-fifth issue"

Mike has finally, definitively, moved, and is now ensconced in Croydon—unlike certain other fans who claim to produce a Croydon fanzine, but actually live in darkest Addiscombe Actually. Please note new address (in the colophon).

Steve has followed the Dr Plokta career path blazed by Mike and has taken up redundancy as a way of making money. As you may have heard, Cap Gemini sent all employees a friendly voicemail asking them to consider leaving. Well, the rest of the process was equally ham-fisted and they eventually got back with a decision ten minutes after going home time on the last possible day (Steve's last working day before Christmas). At least this means we're going to be able to put the ducks article from issue 8 back on the website.

The Plokta News Network is back, at http://www.plokta.com/pnn/, providing news and views for SF fans, along with links to fine fanwriting online and a bit of a weblog. In an Oroborean triumph, we've produced two paper issues of a monthly summary of PNN, entitled PNNewt. The PNNewts are downloadable from PNN, or you might find one enclosed if we have reason to believe you don't have web access.

The Cabal have all been through the Sorting Hat (which can be found at http://hogwarts.7dragons.net). Mike and Steve came out as Gryffindor, but Alison was disgusted by being outed as a closet Hufflepuff instead of being in Slytherin with Dr Plokta where she wanted to be. Fortunately, Giulia, Steven and Sue were also Hufflepuffs, so she'll have company. Jonathan's assignment came as a particular surprise—we didn't even know there was a Hogwarts House called Droolmonster.

So now it's New Year and we're all cooped up in Alison's house, going stir crazy and writing Plokta while Alison slaves over Photoshop. Unfortunately, Marianne is cooped up in here with us which seems like cruel and unnatural punishment. For us.

Incidentally, we'd just like to say that we're very very sorry about the cover. We regret if we have accidentally violated any copyrights. Or deeply-held religious beliefs. If your cover-mounted magnifying glass is missing, please complain to the usual address. If you are reading this on the website, there's a good chance the cover won't be there at all.

Also in this issue, we have the first piece of fan-writing by Rob Jackson since the Neolithic. No, we don't know why either.

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BOLLOCKS

Weird Science

Giulia has fallen under the evil spell of Ian Sauronsen and Julian Headlong, and embarked upon a low-carbohydrate diet. So she's no longer consuming traditional Plokta foodstuffs like chocolate and alcohol, sticking instead to healthy alternatives such as eating half a pint of double cream out of the tub with a spoon.

Butterfly Mark II

Plokta fans of old might recall my butterfly dilemma. For those who don't, a couple of winters ago, a hibernating butterfly woke in my house and I boxed it up with a small supply of honey water in the hopes that it would survive until spring and then fly off into the everlasting sun of a Manchester spring. The little thing was most unsatisfactory and curled up and died on me.

But now I have a brand spanking new butterfly. Spooky found it for me (The mighty hunter is reduced to catching sleepy fluttery things, it's sad.) I caught it before Spooks had managed to damage it and boxed it up.

If this one goes the way of all flesh, I will be most dischuffed and will leave all future butterflies to the cat's tender mercies. Watch this space.

—Sue Mason