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FT330

GNC

GNC

King-Sized Canary
Joined
Aug 25, 2001
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A new FT arrived today, but I haven't had time to look at it yet. Lightning strikes is the main story, though (topical for the current weather).
 
By some weird quirk of fate, mine too was dropped from the claws of some ravening monster earlier today, through the bars of my cell. I caught it before the rats had a chance to shred it, and even now am reading it by the last flickering light of a candle-stub.

Did FT always get posted-out with it's backside showing, and the subs/address sheet covering-up the lurid unspeakable front cover? (I talk in hyperbole for reasons of dramatic clarification and because our time here is too short for boring teminological inexactitudes). I had a notion that originally it used to be dispatched by Dennis with it's scary bits showing....unless that is a false memory. Maybe postal workers were becoming traumatised by the front covers...
 
My copy always arrives with the back cover showing through the clingfilm, yes. Got a chance to have a better look before the tennis, and though I haven't started on the articles the letters page was impressive for having one letter taking up two entire pages! And O how I laughed at that Mythconceptions illustration, I don't know how else it could have been depicted. I feel a thread coming on...
 
Haven't got my copy yet, but I've been looking forward to the Yew Tree Article!
 
Got to grips with this issue, very fine articles, the yew one was indeed interesting, to think there's life that was around at the dawn of Christianity that's still around now makes you feel a bit funny. The lightning article was a really good compilation of electrical weirdness, remind me not to get struck, and the Idi Amin talking tortoise tale, well, it was a bit of a debunk, but the details were excellent.

And who among didn't get misty eyed when we read of the tiny, lonely dog who walked two miles alone to reach the hospital its owner was staying in, even though it wouldn't have known the route?

Jenny Randles' timeslip column, definitely a promising area of research there if it's experienced five times a year on average, maybe more.

I suppose we should be glad the woman who eats toilet rolls doesn't wait till... let's just leave that thought hanging.
 
Ermintrude said:
By some weird quirk of fate, mine too was dropped from the claws of some ravening monster earlier today, through the bars of my cell. I caught it before the rats had a chance to shred it, and even now am reading it by the last flickering light of a candle-stub.

Did FT always get posted-out with it's backside showing, and the subs/address sheet covering-up the lurid unspeakable front cover? (I talk in hyperbole for reasons of dramatic clarification and because our time here is too short for boring teminological inexactitudes). I had a notion that originally it used to be dispatched by Dennis with it's scary bits showing....unless that is a false memory. Maybe postal workers were becoming traumatised by the front covers...
Click to expand...

I'm sure it occasionally used to come with the cover showing.
I don't understand why they reverse it, it makes no sense to me. Free advertising to dozens of postmen, right? Why not use it?
 
XEPER_ said:
I'm sure it occasionally used to come with the cover showing.
I don't understand why they reverse it, it makes no sense to me. Free advertising to dozens of postmen, right? Why not use it?
Click to expand...


Im pretty glad the cover doesnt get shown so much anymore, it seemed like whenever the cover was visible and had a particularly...exotic...cover story the magazine used to arrive damaged- my guess was that it was some religious postal worker taking exception and slashing it - it happened far to consistently to be coincidence and the postman always denied knowledge.
 
searinglight said:
Im pretty glad the cover doesnt get shown so much anymore, it seemed like whenever the cover was visible and had a particularly...exotic...cover story the magazine used to arrive damaged- my guess was that it was some religious postal worker taking exception and slashing it - it happened far to consistently to be coincidence and the postman always denied knowledge.
Click to expand...
That sounds bad, searinglight.
You should have reported that to the post office.
 
It's been a few years since I had to let my subscription lapse due to cost, but I don't recall the front cover ever showing. If it had, our very judgmental mail-carrier would surely have had something to say about it.

ETA- Fate magazine used to arrive uncovered and unmolested, but the covers were much, much tamer. Usually something cheerful about Star Trek or angels. :D
 
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I wonder if porn mags come in see-through wrappers. If they don't they should.
 
Mythopoeika said:
That sounds bad, searinglight.
You should have reported that to the post office.
Click to expand...

problem is theres no way to prove he did it - it could have happened further up the supply chain, after the second or third time when i confronted him he denied it, and said maybe it was someone at the shipping company slashing the top plastic strip of the bundle, the following month was a relativity innocuous cover and no slash, month after that was something slightly riskier and more slashes....but since then the cover has been obscured by the sub sheet/address page so no more problems touch wood.
 
XEPER_ said:
I'm sure it occasionally used to come with the cover showing.
I don't understand why they reverse it, it makes no sense to me. Free advertising to dozens of postmen, right? Why not use it?
Click to expand...

I seem to remember quite a few people complaining about the cover of an issue with a Nazi theme that was visible through the wrapper. I think it's since then.
Mine arrived and was face down on the doormat, and I left it there for ages thinking it was my OU student mag, cos the ad on the back was quite dull for the FT....
 
Mine arrived yesterday, and I am still reading last months issue (I am also reading a lot of astronomy magazines at the moment, since Pluto seems to be quite popular!)
 
Some good stuff in this issue.

Letters: Great 2 page letter on culture shock suffered by anthropologists. Great whites off UK also covesr Irish islands and references some of the island memoirs lampooned by Flann O'Brien in The Poor Mouth.

Films: Loved Antman as well. Would give Maggie 7/10, film is darker than the review suggests imho.

The Fortean Archives article should be an eye-opener, Archives are always the poor cousins when it comes to funding.

Necrolog: Alexander Imich, Fortean lived to 111!
 
Glad to hear that you liked Maggie, Ramon. It was directed by my cousin FACT!

I like the item about the Hobs. A good mix of articles in this issue.
 
liveinabin1 said:
Glad to hear that you liked Maggie, Ramon. It was directed by my cousin FACT!

I like the item about the Hobs. A good mix of articles in this issue.
Click to expand...

Maggie wasn't marketed properly. Only ran for a week in Dublin.

Its much more of a Zombie film than the reviews suggested.
 
I will confess that I've not seen it.
I'm hoping it will be a sleeper hit. Still, even if it tanks, he made a godamn film and got in on general release.
 
liveinabin1 said:
I will confess that I've not seen it.
I'm hoping it will be a sleeper hit. Still, even if it tanks, he made a godamn film and got in on general release.
Click to expand...

Hell of a good film considering the budget and the competing rather than complementary themes. Theres a lot going on in it and I think I need to see it again.

My compliments to your cousin.

Heres a short review I wrote:

Maggie: A dark film, far darker than I expected. Two films struggling with each other, a father/daughter flick infected with a Zombie movie. .Theres the sensitive Arnie caring for his daughter and the real Arnie who kills a Zombie with his bare hands in the first ten minutes of the film.and shortly afterward axes his zombie neighbours; one of them a four year old girl.

The city looks wrecked, abandoned buned out cars, derelict buildings, the hospitals can't cope so infected patients are sent home until they reach "quarantine" stage. Much of the story of the plague is accessed through the background radio, a shock-jock wants all of the infected killed. We learn that crops are also failing and farmers are advised to burn the diseased crops.

We see fields burning and Arnie later burns his own infected crops. The countryside is also desolate. Power cuts occur continuously, things are far worse than the authorities pretend.

Maybe not as many Zombies as some would like but the darker aspects of the Zombie Outbreak seem to have been missed by some critics.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1881002/
 
an ok issue, made very good by the immortal yew article, i have ordered "yew a history" from foyles on the back of the article.
 
I'm only part of the way through but the last thing I read was the article about people being gassed and a burglary taking place. This morning I woke up the news of the Jenson Button burglary where allegations of 'anaesthetic gas' being pumped through the air-conditioning. Life imitating art?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33814823
 
The anaesthetic gas aspect is interesting as no such thing exists, or at least in a form that can be used for sedating burglary victims. It has been discussed elsewhere on here.
 
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