It’s hot. Too hot. That’s only been one week of ‘summer’ temperatures, and already, things like slush and frost have taken on a nostalgia value right up there with Frank Sinatra. Coming, as I do, from the far North of Scotland, I think that my hatred of the sun is possibly genetic in some way. Though, to be strictly accurate, it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity. I’m pretty sure it was warmer last weekend in Hamburg (don’t worry, full report will follow later, when the photos return — I’m damned if I’m going to get less than two weeks’ worth of editorials out of that trip!), but it was a dry heat, and so was not too unbearable. London, however, seems to specialise in the sort of heat where you can feel the moisture condensing on the insides of your lungs.

Of course, other factors did come into account. The fact that we were never more than fifty yards from a pub probably helped, as did wandering round in the lightest T-shirt I could find, as opposed to the nightmare which is a suit in a London summer. This is especially true when you have to get on a crowded train, with people for whom the concept of personal hygiene is apparently a bit tricky. But at least that does go above ground, rather than descending into the bowels of the Earth for a brief glimpse of what life after death will be like, if you’re not good.

This, so far, is but a mere precursor — after all, it’s only mid-May, and things will get a LOT worse before they get better, I can confidently state. Still to come, we have those hot summer nights, where you lie there on the bed, with the blankets thrown off, and the windows wide open, praying alternately for unconsciousness and a breath of air, but being disappointed on both counts. These are the sort of days where the slightest movement leaves you sweating like a bad dose of flu, ruling out any activity more energetic than getting another cold drink. [I would just like to record that during the creation of the above paragraph, I disposed of a pint of lemon Tango, and a chocolate and cream trifle. It’s 23:30, and it is still FAR TOO WARM]

Part of the problem is that air-conditioning is still often viewed as an optional extra, because it’s something that will only be of use for two or three months in the summer. If you go somewhere like, oh, Arizona, then you’ll find that everywhere has it as a matter of course. Instead, about the best option here is to chuck all the food out of the fridge, clamber in yourself and pull the door shut. Though I imagine the imbecilic chief executive who abolished our dress-down days at work, is no doubt comfortable in his carefully climate-controlled office, rather than having to endure a mutual agreement between thirty co-workers with differing metabolisms — the end result being a sort of tepid compromise which pleases no-one.

But no matter how bitterly we complain, it ain’t gonna make any difference. The weather will probably keep getting hotter — blame El Nino, or global warming, the Earth falling into the Sun, or the Sun falling into the Earth, or whatever. And so, when a pretty girl, in summer-inspired minimal clothing, walks past lasciviously sucking on an ice-lolly, it is a fact of life that I just can’t help drooling — but it’s a sad reflection on what this weather does, that I’m probably thinking about the lolly…

Amazing scientific find! Neanderthal man located!

Scientists today announced the discovery of the so-called “missing link”, a primitive form of human closely resembling a giant ape, showing a very limited level of intelligence. The creature was found working as a bouncer in the Sussex pub near Leicester Square.

There are times when it seems to me that the sole purpose of bouncers is to give something to do, to jumped-up shits with an overblown sense of their own importance. I have *never* been grateful for their presence – not once – but their idiotic lack of common sense has caused aggravation on more than one occasion.

One evening, a dozen or so of us were out on a stag night, and were refused entrance because one (1) of the party was wearing training shoes. Luckily, he’d come up from Bristol for the event and had a change in his bag; he switched them over, and the same bouncer who’d blocked his way in a totally unremitting way, now welcomed him like a long-lost friend. Now, some of the blame for such idiotic rules has to lie with the owners — you are either a fit person to enter their establishment, or you’re not, what freakin’ difference does your choice of FOOTWEAR make? But, I guess, it’s necessary to keep the rules as simple as possible, because anything which requires intelligence beyond the level of pond-scum, will be too complex for your average bouncer to handle.

Witness last Monday [scarcely a peak night]. Myself and Simon Moore, keeper of the enormous and recommended Emmanuelle Beart site, visited the Cinema Store for a browse, and opted to go on for a pint or five afterwards, in the nearby Sussex pub. Several beers later, we were approached by a sloping-foreheaded goon, the archetypal bouncer, wearing a long coat despite the mild weather — presumably underneath it was a bone with which to brain members of other tribes. He asked me to put my jacket on.

“Excuse me?” was my first, fairly obvious, reaction. “No colours” was the grunted reply. I looked down at my shirt. New York Mets. I looked up at the gorilla to see if he was joking. He wasn’t, but then, I should have known that — both bouncers and Customs officers seem to require a sense of humour bypass as a condition of employment. I looked around for hordes of rampaging Yankees fans, and was disappointed. I enquired politely if he was aware that the Mets were a baseball team and that the “no colours” rule was clearly there to stop football fans. I mentioned the two hours we’d been there already, without the SLIGHTEST HINT of trouble.

However, needless to say, the thug in front of me would brook no argument, and I put the jacket on, simply because I couldn’t be bothered to argue with someone whose sole line of reasoning was physical intimidation. Even though anyone could still see very clearly that I was wearing a Mets shirt under the jacket, this mollified Mr. I.Q.Lukewarm and he shuffled off, presumably to bother another peacefully drinking customer.

The only bright spot, which might stop me from crossing the place off the list of viable drinking establishments, was that the staff’s opinion of their “security” was just as low. Though since the bouncers have apparently thrown people out for no other reason than being male [I’m not making this up, it came directly from a barman], I think I’ll find somewhere else to drink. It’s not as if there are any shortage of places in the West End!

I could get used to this. Between Easter, May Day, and Whitsun bank holidays, and a couple of actual days of holiday, I am currently in the middle of a seven-week spell when six of the seven weeks are only four days long. If I spread my holiday very thinly, I could get through most of the year like this, though it would mean that I wouldn’t get anything more than a long weekend. But it might be worth the price, simply to avoid the sheer hell which is Monday mornings.

This is especially true when you’re on the early shift. For reasons too historical to go in to, someone at work decided it would be a good idea if there was someone in the office to deal with queries from 7 a.m. — even if I’d have said that anyone dumb enough to be in work at that hour deserved whatever problems they might get. For a long time, I managed to avoid this particular honour, but just after Christmas, due to a (somewhat unsurprising) “staff shortage”, I was dragged, kicking and screaming, onto the rota.

I am not a morning person. In fact, I amn’t really an afternoon person either, and only really start to perk up at, oh, whatever time I get to go home. But it’s true to say that 7 a.m. is, as far as I’m concerned, an infernal hour at which everyone should still be curled up in bed having pleasant dreams about…well, never you mind, but you get the drift. The problem is that as the week goes on, and you get further and further behind in sleep terms (for really, who wants to go to bed at 9:30 pm?), you start to resemble an extra from ‘Carnival of Souls’. You finally reach Friday, and your mind can think of nothing more exciting than moist towelettes.

There are, admittedly, a couple of plusses. 95% of the time, nothing goes wrong, and you are left to your own devices — let’s just say that one week in four sees significantly more progress on the next issue of TC. It is probably also a good job that things are so quiet, since while my body may be in the office, my brain at that time of day is still curled up in bed having the aforementioned pleasant dreams. On a good day, I don’t actually hit consciousness till lunchtime — by which point, it’s almost time to go home, since the nominal hours are 7 a.m till 3 p.m.

Except, of course, the standard pattern is to skip lunch and piss off home at 2 o’clock. Ah, sorry, we’re not allowed to do that. What we are allowed to do, however, is to take our lunch at 2 — and no-one seems to mind whether you come back or not. It’s a small, bureaucratic device that fools no-one at all, but if it oils the wheels of life a little bit, hey, who cares.

Despite this, being on earlies sucks, and is a major reason why, when I was offered the chance to move to another area of the department — one that works far more civilised hours, my response time could be measured using the lifespan of some of the shorter-lived subatomic particles. I thus have only one more week of crawling from bed while larks are still snoozing, before I can (hopefully) leave it all behind me for ever. Let’s just hope that’s enough time to get the rest of TC sorted out…

To TC, things like “schedules” are a nebulous concept difficult to grasp — as any of our subscribers will tell you. Thus, having shifted the editorial updates to the weekend, I am once again wildly inaccurate. At least this one has appeared AHEAD of when it should, simply because I didn’t write it. This week, I hand you across to Chris Fata, for:

THE STAR TREK EXPERIENCE

LAS VEGAS HILTON
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
11 APRIL 1998

This American Ambassador drove to Las Vegas, the desert Oasis only 5 1/2 hours away, owned by most of the Mafia (sorry, Cosa Nostra) to spend a weekend doing some silicone research for your editor, as well as satisfy my mild TREKKER obsession and take in the new STAR TREK EXPERIENCE at the Las Vegas Hilton. Firstly I would like to say that it was slightly relieving to be staying at the Las Vegas Hilton, not only cause I got a smokin’ room rate of $49 per night, not only cause the LV Hilton is a really pretty and clean place, still a classic casino and maintained beautifully, but also, the LV Hilton is a little off the beaten path, away from the main strip on Las Vegas Blvd. LV Hilton is on Paradise Road and Riviera.. a little ways north of the STRATOSPHERE hotel, so there is not too much vehicle traffic on that street.. I had gone through such a serious ass traffic jam on my way there, because the sun was just going down and the BIG HOTELS had just put their lights on, so I wanted to see the strip at night.. The Pyramid shaped LUXOR, the cartoonly royal EXCALIBUR, the stately NEW YORK, NEW YORK with it’s miniaturized (yet still HUGE) New York city skyline including the Brooklyn Bridge and Coney Island Amusement Park outside..etc…etc..BIG MISTAKE, especially after you’ve been driving with the sun in your eyes for the last 6 hours and your head was pounding… Traffic was at a virtual stand-still with everyone and their mother doing the exact same thing I was doing.. LOOKING AT THE LIGHTS. – what was I thinking? Well.. regardless of my ignorance, I made it to the Las Vegas Hilton without murdering anyone.

Many facets make the STAR TREK EXPERIENCE complete. All the foreplay goes into action here.. You are bombarded with visuals, the likes of which start your sci fi juices flowing, you begin drooling as you walk past the front desk (after receiving my room key – which is a magnetic strip containing a STAR TREK SCENE – as if they think I am gonna return that key to them!) and find yourself inside the SPACEQUEST Casino.. where the slot machines work if you interrupt a light beam with your hand.. motion sensors! It’s all very techno, silver and space like. Including all the music piped in. It’s either Jan Hammer (Beyond the Minds Eye) or other out-worldly type tunes.. As you leave the SPACEQUEST CASINO you encounter the SCI-FI ZONE a gift shop containing all manner of really cool things you positively cannot live without. I found LUNAR PHASIC CLOCKS, ALIEN AUTOPSY – THE BOARD GAME, GALILEAN THERMOMETERS, GLOW IN THE DARK EVERYTHING and of course, STAR TREK MEMORABILIA including Barbie and Ken dressed as original cast Star Trek personnel. Stepped up to the ticket booth and bought my ticket – $15.00 gets you inside the STAR TREK EXPERIENCE.. However, the Promenade Retail Shops (recreated from the Promenade at Deep Space 9) and QUARK’S BAR are free to roam and gawk at, but I shall share them with you in a moment.

For $15.00 you are allowed as much time as you need to gaze, wonder, learn and absorb a TIME LINE that starts with Galileo and ends with the destruction of the BORG in the 25th century, including graphics, video clips from all the tv shows, movies and spin-offs involved with STAR TREK. That is one side.. on the other side, you are also allowed as much time as you will ever need to look at, read about and study intricately almost hands-on all the clothing, weapons, scanning instruments, accessories and last-minute built weapons and problem solvers also from all the tv shows, movies, and spin-offs associated with the show.

The mistake that most people made, I noticed, is that they were in such a hurry to get on the actual ride that they by-passed all this universe of information, memorabilia, technology described not in a *prop* sense, but in a very real scenario… how it was designed, what it’s use was for and why… not why they needed it for this episode, but why it was necessary for the Federation or for this planet or this species’ survival… I found the summaries for every item fascinating in themselves. A lot of love went into the archival treatment of all the objects.

The ride? I would like to say what it was about, but about 50 million TREKKERS who didn’t see it, and even some who did, would probably seek me out and vaporize me with a phaser on *10*. Let’s just say that the EXPERIENCE is just that. Interesting, amusing, exciting, nostalgic, and more fun than the DeLorean at Universal (I’ll say no more). *Wow* is one of the adjectives you would use at many of the turns before the actual ride itself… The actual ride itself is turbulent, and fun, and depending on who is riding the shuttle, may be a cheering, screaming gas… but all in all… a true experience that you will remember.

Upon leaving the EXPERIENCE, one is escorted into the PROMENADE… a recreation of the Promenade on Deep Space Nine, with shops selling everything STAR TREK, Bajoran photographers ready to take your photo and *morph* it into a picture with other STAR TREK characters in it with you, clothing shops ready to tailor you, collectibles shops that sell everything from shot glasses to the actual CAPTAIN’S CHAIR on the original tv series. There are also neat working gadgets all over the PROMENADE that allow you to play them. For example a working *Replicator*, a DATA ACCESS COMPUTER port just like the ones on the ENTERPRISE BRIDGE, giving you complete personnel information on all the characters.

Sitting at QUARK’S BAR gives one the sense that one is indeed on a space station with all it’s furniture and glassware of the future. This American Ambassador had, at the suggestion of someone she thought was her friend, a drink entitled *WARP CORE BREACH*, served in something the size of a kitchen sink with two straws in it.. Apparently seven different types of liquors mixed with several juices.. a sort of Otherworldly Long Island Iced Tea. Let’s just say that I was lucky to be staying at the same hotel I drank said drink at. Crawling seemed to be the only option afterwards.

Before I close I want to say that the biggest *WOW* issued from this Ambassador’s mouth came as I happened to look up whilst sitting at my table (and BEFORE my drink came, thank you) and saw that on the very very high ceilings there was an entire universe of stars and several Federation and Non Federation Vessels floating there. The models were huge and lit up.. I was breathless. I must’ve looked like a complete fool staring up at the ceiling for twenty minutes like that. My neck is still throbbing and I can’t get the drool stains out of my shirt…..

Do I recommend the STAR TREK EXPERIENCE?? I think so…

It was my birthday earlier in the week — I’d just like to say thank you for all the cards, presents and good wishes that I received. That is I’d *like* to, but I am now at the age where I am more inclined to regard birthdays as another nail in my coffin, rather than any occasion for celebration. This is because there are pretty much no new milestones left to reach: 16, 18 and 21 are all markers, but once you get past those…well, reaching 26 and no longer being regarded as the spawn of Satan by car insurance companies is scarcely worth cracking open a can of Stella.

It is somewhat startling to realise that, by the time he was my age, my father had completed National Service and was married with two kids. I think it’s probably a generational thing, with people tending both to get married later, or even not get married at all — the concept of “living in sin” is now seen less as one step up from being a serial killer, and more as a perfectly sensible idea to discover whether a more permanent arrangement would work. Indeed, the prospect of marrying someone with whom I *hadn’t* lived together, seems highly strange. [Though, let’s face it, words 7-12 in that sentence are largely superfluous, and as for the prospect of kids, I’m firmly with Amanda Donohoe in ‘Lair of the White Worm’ on THAT topic]

I do, of course, remain deeply immature, and am proud of it — especially when I look around at the alternative. I still consider myself as a delayed teenager; the town where I grew up was not what anyone would describe as wild, and so I missed out on all the usual pursuits such as goofing off school. Now, I am making up for lost time, and goofing off work as much as possible. I can’t really gripe, as looking back over the past year with its ups and downs, I’m probably in a better state than at the same point last year, in the majority of areas. No new TC out, admittedly, but hey, everybody’s life has got static…

And the award for “most misguided attempt to cheer me up” goes to the friend who came out with: “Well, you ARE only half-way to being sixty-four”. Those former doyens of Sarf London pop (and thus local heroes) Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine sang about “growing old disgracefully”, and it’s an approach which I personally intend to take to heart. Though I’ve certainly crossed a few things off my “to do” list over the past few years, I’m sure there are plenty of places, experiences, and novel sexual practices yet to be tried. You’re only as young as you feel — and the morning after my birthday night out, sixty-four was not far from the truth. I have vague memories of ending the night in a curry house, and me waving my credit card around and saying, “No, I’ll pay for everything”, but I’m sure this is just a beer-fuelled hallucination…