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The Alternative Fortean Times
(beware of imitations) http://www.combat-diaries.co.uk Part of The Why Files Network Panzerben's Combat Diary 19 for May 2004
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A new viewing experience from Gestalt Electronics
The Research Team at Gestalt Electronics show here a typical modern techno-consumer couple enjoying the benefits of our latest product, the Apocalypse Engine, now on offer at all our high street stores. In the photograph above, we see a typical newly-married couple enjoying the social-scientific benefits of our sample software, a piece of newly purchased factual reality, verified by rationalised evidence and logical argument. Note the new high-definition screen and the sophisticated control panel in front of our purchaser-Hero. Acting on the very best scientific advice, we have designed this image to changes once a month, thus avoiding the risk of over-stimulation of the proletariat and accusations of exploitation and corruption of minors. This has been judged scientifically to be the right for the right of penetration of the image without stress. The neat control panel (available in different colours) with its sets of impressive controls and winking lights, is empty. This simulation is there to assure the viewer that all is well and that scientific Authority (in terms of the dials and switches) is in full charge of this total viewing experience. This scientific approach also eliminates the need for control, since all control here is almost virtual, as in the future, all control will become an impression of what some are indeed calling already consumer ideology. The array of inactive dials and switches has also quite another purpose. With technological developments proceeding at a greater rate, the psychologists at Gestalt Electronics (by far our largest team) have realized that some connection to the past is an essential part of the product-customer psychosocial relationship. Therefore most customers understand that a switch that does not work provides nevertheless a comforting vestigial level of mind when there were such old analogue things such as kitchen mangles and wheelbarrows. Of course, as a scientific provider for a very complex and changing society, Gestalt Electronics offers more expensive versions of our Control Panel, which come with small viewing windows. These enable our young newly married Hero and Heroine to see wires, power supplies and boards full of microchips. Though all this is pure bioplastic simulation, nevertheless this more expensive version allows for further developments as regards levels of imaginative reassurance. The class of purchasers in the higher income brackets are often in need of such more advanced confidence-building exercises. But the innocent maid and youth depicted above can rest assured that if they work hard and do their very best to absorb completely the images (and their future work will consist surely of nothing but image-absorption for which we will need quite word an concept for “work.”) such more detailed and powerful belief-quanta could indeed be theirs as a gift for their children to remember for many future years of the scientific development of yet more effective product scenarios. You’ll all come to love your collective hallucinations. Get an unreality check today! Meantime enjoy your Apocalypse Machine! Sincerely yours, Mr. Harold “Get it Together” Muscoid
Harold before (left) and (right) after only two injections of Reality TV microchips Hello! Allow me to introduce myself. I am Joss Frogbeeton Barton, one of Mr. Muscoid’s Departmental Managers. That’s me at work on the right, with some of Gestalt Electronic’s consumer-viewing coverts. They are receiving TV microchips that eliminate the need for a set, although (see above) passive mock-ups of TV sets (of the best quality wood) may be needed for a while whilst understandable adjustments are made to changes in perception. The fully converted Viewer in the foreground to the left is a typical channel-surfing peasant convert after receiving only some five programmable nano-engine soap opera implants from Gestalt Electronics free of charge. Now let me show you all some more scenes of early 21st century family life from the Gestalt Electronics Bumper Holiday Book of Viewing Remembrance. These photographs are of low-income families who have bought equipment from us in the past through our Happy Voucher scheme.
Of course being a scrupulously honest firm, we present a grainy shot by of the Corps of Viewers Social Workers (who happened to be passing by the supervisory catwalk connecting the living rooms at the time ) photograph of the sad day when something went wrong in our Complete “Cheaper Happiness” Environmental Plasma Package. Though creatively designed though it was by our very own psycho social scientific objective factual Big Viewing Deal. Make no mistake - this is not what happens if you don’t keep up the payments. It is what happens when viewers stop getting the message and doubt the stream of images.
Of course we have our very own LAN (Local Area Network) where Viewers may undergo the time-honoured process called Community Participation. Below is shown a typical meeting in progress Meantime, if there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to let us know at Gestalt Electronics.
FLASH NEWSFROM BRENTFORD
Here are some photographs obtained by the Combat Diaries Covert Team of the scene in the editorial office of our sister paper, The Fortean Times, when it was ordered by the new Him Upstairs (Felix Dennis) to carry features about UFOs and abductions. Prod is on the bagpipes
Dennis Publications Accounts department
Advertising Department Publicity Department
Meanwhile on the back pages all is ever as it was:
FLASH NEWS
Fortean Times UFO Revolution is over!! Read all about it!
Patricia (the Bad Girl) Farson reports.
Like all British Revolutions, the Fortean Times UFO revolution finished between a closed-down Dixon’s Supermart and a Local Tandoori and was not worth a spew in Woolworth’s doorway, if you ask me. Above (left) Felix Dennis (seated left) comforts a distraught and crestfallen Brentford Polonius, assuring him that the new Fortean Times UFO honeymoon won’t last for long (ED: it didn’t – see FT 183!). In the background can be seen tired Magonian sceptics queuing up for most welcome tea & fruitcake at the YMCA in Brentford Leisure Centre. Prod and Tonto, the Fortean Times UFO correspondents are in the front of the queue, taking a brief rest before they resume spreading their lies, disinformation and propaganda. Peter Brookesmith (the Magonian specialist in Rational Explanations, who turns the utterly fantastic into the utterly mundane with somewhat predictable regularity and metaphysical precision of those Protestant sermons that only he can deliver) can be seen just behind our famous pair getting his free Eccles cake, for which he has travelled far. The witless editor himself (whose name no one can remember, still less his track record) cannot, as usual, be seen anywhere. If this faceless transparency exists at all, no doubt he is in some bunker with the equally witless Hierophant (straight out of Well’s novel Kipps) writing up another Bouncing Bunter editorial about Bouncing British Bohemian Quaintness, circa 1890. The Fortean Times mob belong to this era. I always imagine the more well-heeled and better-bred of them wearing deerstalker hats and crying “jolly good fun” as leaping like junior dons, they hunt what they think are “fortean” specimens with butterfly nets and jam-jars. Although they would deny it, unhealthy non-muscular Christianity never appears to be far away. Spiffing fun, but definitely pre-electric and probably fading fast, it is as good a celebration of chronic British intellectual amateurism as any. It will be remembered as being hesitant, rational, but nice as honey for tea with Rupert Brooke. They all live in Ladbroke Grove, love Black Adder jokes, and hunt for old Peter Sellers 45 rpms in Camden Market. Wearing trainers by Agnes B, tee shirts by Joseph, knickers and bras by Eddy of the King's Road. In time, most will migrate to the better-paid Time Out magazine and write about unheard-of directors of low-budget film and video collectives. After that, they will go back to mum on the outskirts of the inferno and never be heard or seen again. Jolly hockey sticks all round lads and lasses, but where Charles Fort has disappeared to, the devil only knows, chaps! End of Term Report: Middle aged, a bit worn, and about as hip as a left wing Alternative Comedian, this magazine is as square as Doris Day’s pyjamas and its brain remains as clean as Carol Vorderman’s kitchen top. I suspect myself the yuppie influence of CDs of ColdPlay (“music for bed wetters”) and the religion that came from Henry VIII’s codpiece, with a touch of John Pilger’s blushing social-scientific democracy. As such, you can wrap up the Fortean Times and take it home to mum, although tear out the back pages first, or she’ll have a fit. She’ll be real proud that you are respectable and behaving yourself.
But beneath the smiling exterio of FT, the agendas move quietly to their targets. As a profoundly sceptical magazine, the contribution of the so-called “Fortean” Times as regards the attack on all things transcendental, mystical, and indeed truly fortean has been destructive, wilful, and profoundly conspiratorial. This is the one and only reason why our Alternative Fortean Times was created.
Yours sincerely, Patricia “Arson” Farson (the Jewish Princess of the Combat Diaries).
Meantime, back in Ladbroke Grove...
Panzerben briefs his assault squad prior to yet another a raid on the Skeptical HQ at Brentford Leisure Center
Your Editor Squeaks
Editorial
We thank all our contributors, be they pseudo, virtual, quasi, intermediate, or partial; be they reluctant, unaware, dead, or (in certain cases) quite dead. We thank also our public for their non co-operation, their anger, their curses, their letters of complaint, their litigations, and their carefully disguised boxes of excreta, of which it is said, we receive even more than the Windsor Family. On the negative side, we have received offers of money. But one was a large amount contingent upon us shutting down, and the other was an equally sizable amount offered in “sympathy,” not praise. We took the money but sent her an even larger amount in sympathy for her own fallen condition. There were other offers of medical advice, psychiatric treatment, and offers of assisted Euthanasia from our very own Neighbourhood Watch. We were offered also subsidised healing from the Salvation Army Last Chance Depot in Campden town at a Bun For Prayer Meet. This month alone we have survived blackmail, attempted arson, and attempts to poison our rain barrel. These things, plus many direct acts of violence and intimidation against this month chiefly by sceptics and leftish and democratic cadre, have been dealt by the tactical squad, Team 1,
Many ask if we have faces and names and addresses, shoe sizes, passports and insurance stamps here in the House of Panzerben. but many here don’t have names and addresses; they lost them somewhere back in the snows of the 20th century, along with most of their names and faces They are all survivors of affluence. They arrive at King’s Cross and snuggle together in alleys and squats, if only to avoid buying anything for the rest of their lives. Many do not make it that far to our cottage in the Western night. They lie buried under the British TV permafrost between Glasgow and Leeds, Newcastle and Oxford. A few get ripped off, murdered, raped; some disappear completely, others are found floating face down in the Thames, or shattered like a dropped egg from 23 floors of the TV-screaming tower blocks. Others, drugged by the 3-foot Nikon screen get knocked down in the British cultural traffic stream and became directors of low-budget video production companies trembling on the knife-edge between the real and the unreal. Many more were jailed, and others disappeared into “special” state hospitals. Quite separate parts of others were found in alleys, dustbins and even where the vultures gather in distant climes, and not a few are said to have been abducted by aliens.
But to our offerings this month. Patricia Farson has edited Ufology and the Outsider, a block-busting feature on Stanton Friedman, the MJ-12 ufologist. Mr Friedman has of late got into the habit of applying a marks out of ten “reality” test to ufological thinkers who do not behave like an East German Commissar of the 1950s, or indeed like a Gauleiter of an earlier epoch. She includes a recent rapid-fire e-mail sequence between Stanton Friedman and our very own Colin Bennett that might prove to be very interesting to all Combat Viewers. Betty Baxter weighs with a description of Dan Burische, the first web golem, George Mensche sums up the grey areas around Laithwaite, and we have an exciting and detailed report about psychotronics in Russia and Burische-like characters. We have Colin Bennett’s review of Nick Cook’s book, The Hunt or Zero Point, and Bennett’ Postscript to Zero Point, and also Jesus Christ Escapes, an illustrated cartoon adventure. Finally, Steven Greer gives us an impassioned plea for press freedom concerning UFOs.
We thank our tireless staff, be they invented, conjured up, grown like crystals in a jar, formed in an alchemical furnace, or born in a Faraday Cage. The Editor
FLASH NEWS!!!
Betty Baxter travels yet again into Chaos and Complexity!
Betty Baxter (the Good Girl) reports
In yet another superb essay in her continuing drama of cyberspace, our brainy heroin encounters a cyber golem in the form of one Dan Burisch. In The Metaphysics of Imposture, she says:
“... like the MJ-12 papers, Dan Burische, is a set of impostures moving slowly towards us out of the mental haze thickening and solidifying. Each piece of imposture will have a different label, and soon, wearing the labels as his only clothes, he will no doubt cross that threshold of belief called the “real,” and become a Star. In the sense that Stars are constructed of people’s expectations (their “real” personalities being of absolutely no interest to anyone at all), he will become a part construct of urban legend.
His remains will not be bones, but faltering memories, some leaves torn from a lost notebook, a few addresses that have been demolished, a few acquaintances that recall him with difficulty, and web sites that are no longer maintained. His final form will be a version of all those lost letters and parcels that drove mad Melville’s character, Bartleby, who spent his entire life in a lost property office.”
Contents of current Combat Diary 19 for May 2004
Chapter 1: Ufology and the Outsider Patricia Farson Chapter 2: The Metaphysics of Imposture Betty Baxter Chapter 3: Laithwaite: Nearly, Almost, but Not Quite George Mensche Chapter 4: Akimov’s Engine George Shenston Chapter 5: Zero Point Decoded The Bad Man Chapter 6: Jesus Christ Escapes Film Review Chapter 7: Postscript to Zero Point The Bad Man Chapter 8: Media Play Steven Greer
Meet the Team of Panzerben:
I have not repeated the staff biogs because of the pressure on bandwidth. The biogs are available on the previous Combat Diaries. They are fascinating, so surf back and have your life changed.
FORTWATCH
Patricia Farson Bobo ‘Tang’ Guitane
Some day soon Sister Patricia intends to take time off from writing her novel Memoirs of a Fallen Programmer to build an alchemical furnace on the third floor of the House of Panzerben. That’s the good news. The bad news is that her new boy friend, Bobo “Tang” Gitane is soon coming out of his six-month social confinement in Pentonville. Since the said Bobo (alias Joe Priml of California, alias Sid Thatcher out of Barnsley South Estate) is a complete ****wipe who has a ufological mendacity record as long as your proverbial arm, we look forward to his arrival at Panzerben HQ and his inevitable requests for food, clothing, money and accommodation. There are no prizes for guessing what our combined reply will be to such requests from someone who has been called one of the prime conspiracy-mongers of the Western world. For his straw palliasse and ship’s biscuit he will have to tell us more than a tale or two. Warning: approach with caution. She is a serious woman.
INVESTIGATIONS
Dr. Betty “Shackster” Baxter from Darkest Knightsbridge, said to be the greatest computer hacker since the great Fred Klaxon of Wakefield (RIP), who disappeared in mysterious circumstances. She is now hard at work in her Faraday cage on the next episode of The Great UFO Crash/Retrieval Syndrome, whose title is Journey Into MJ12. Warning: being fifth on the CIA kill-on-sight list, she is well protected.
DEFENCE AND SECURITY
Team 1
Sidney and Cyril our two previous Security guards, have now left us and have been replaced by Team 1. Sidney is taking time off to complete his book on Samuel Johnson, and Cyril the Psychopath, after taking our advice, has decided to go into deep and thorough detox as a voluntary patient at the house of David “Foxter” Johnson, a super-psychiatric friend, (though unlicensed) of ours in Ladbroke Grove. Their replacements, Team One (as we call them) arrived one night under mysterious circumstances asking for water in Scottish accents not heard by any Scotsman on this earth. The vowels alone sounded as if they had been constructed by a cross between an old kitchen mangle and a super-computer. Other than that, we have hardly heard them speak at all. They refused a straw palliasse, and therefore we did not know where they slept, if indeed they slept at all. However, Patricia discovered them both hanging upside down quite naked, like bats from a roof rafter of the top attic. But since their eyes were open, we assumed that they were not sleeping. We did ask them their names, but they appeared not to know what we were talking about, so we call them Mo and Jo. Payment appears to them to be as obscure an idea as a name. Since they do not appear to eat, this matters little. As a protection team, they are perfect. Already they have caught and ejected various sceptical individuals who have tried to gain entrance to the house of Panzerben without permission. They appear to sense scepticism like dogs discover corpses under collapsed buildings. Their constant night patrolling has caught several other intruders from various sceptical organizations.
Roving Reporter
A retired private detective, the proud boast of George Mensche is that with his lavatory-attendant looks and appearance he has been able to penetrate many a suspicious corporation and Intelligence front. He operates on what he calls the anti- James Bond effect. Put simply, this means that if you look like nothing, people see nothing. His two recurring nightmares are (a) being banished to the North of England and (b) being on a BBC executive committee that is deciding whether something called The News is to be on at Ten or Ten past Ten. His memoirs Still on the Trail are in preparation. In his youth he was the crooner Cliff Dorn who sang with the Harry Bence and Don Smith bands (both RIP). He had the fabled privilege of making one of the the very last 78rpm vocal titles ever produced, Twistin’ in Newcastle. In between several UFO abductions (of which we will hear more later), Georgepursued yet another subsequent career as what in the 1970s could be called a prototype Alternative Comedian. With the stage name of The Dregs, he was often injured, chucked out of pubs, beaten in alley ways, and thrown into duckponds many times for asking questions which some say should never have been asked. Here are some of them, culled from his 1980s scrapbook. He is all in all a nice man, even if we have to force him into the hot tub at gunpoint.
Domestic
Elmon Siedlitz
There have been yet further serious developments on the kitchen front. After Elmon decided to form a rock group with his partner Siedlitz, the pair became quickly dissatisfied with their tricky agent, David “varmint” Voortrekker (alias Connie Spitzer, alias Carl Burrell-Morton and others too numerous to mention), seen here below. The left image is from a rather grainy Security Services shot from a hidden camera. The second was sketched by one Albert, a dying alcoholic in Brentwood just before he was shot and killed by one John Thorpe, his drug-dealing nephew. Strangely, this rather arch picture has served as a valid entry into many covert organization. Such appear not to notice the Boer War rifle, the Guevara beret, and leather “wireless straps” of the old Condor Legion. These were taken from bankrupt stock of Albert’s estranged film company (MBU, or Massive Bears Unlimited) whose assets were seized by his son, later jailed for killing his girlfriend, a previous Director of MBU. All in all, we think Vootrekker did well for £1.50, which he took back (with other things) from the top of a tea chest after Albert fell asleep just before the entry of John Thorpe. Hearing gun shots, Vootrekker sped on his way, as was his wont.
Voortrekker laid claim to have been a South African mercenary soldier, a Legionnaire, and a Wall Street banker amidst many other things. What he did not tell anyone was that he was on the run from the police and security services of no less than ten countries, not to mention his three wives and two girl friends. Of course such a fascinating history would have been a prime asset in rock n’ roll, but it was his ideas on what he called concept development that led to his downfall. On the left below is his first sketch of a suggested form for Elmon’s possible transformation into a Star. Centre is his similar suggestion for Siedlitz. It was reckoned that not even Camden Train Shed Venue on its wildest nights would accept such images. Our valiant pair did however, keep Voortrekker’s suggested name for the group, an action which drenched our two valued house cooks in suspicious litigation from equally suspicious countries, some of which grew melons under flags of convenience and could not be traced on any map. This name is RCubed, or Retro Rock Revival. Both our heroes are extremely excited about the possibilities, which usually means trouble. We are all tense and expectant in the House of Panzerben. This pair serve three fine meals a day in our house to 8 people, assisted by Deaf Meg and her alcoholic daughter, ex-lance corporal Kathleen, late of 4th Armoured Brigade domestic staff, amongst other things. Watch this space as the promotion tour of Retro Rock Revival gets under way, and we are all down to fish and chips in the House of Panzerben.
Since the suggested operations were judged to be illegal, our future stars have have now, under the direction of their new agent the New Super Retro Man (above, right) christened Vortexion, changed their image, illustrated by the gig shot below:
Elmon is on the right, Siedlitz is on the left (padded out with Latex injections which were later removed by liposuction.) This first date was marred by several unfortunate events. A clutch of drunken lesbian railway carriage cleaners (all of vast girth) taking objection to the whole affair on principle alone, shot firework rockets at the UFO balloon suspended from the roof. This caught fire and exploded, cascading down a thousand alien dolls that had been inside it. All these in turn burst with loud reports. This caused a panic-surge to the doors, which like all British escape doors (mentally and physically) were profoundly locked, barred, and bolted. The hall being only one third full saved lives, but not dignities. And thereby hangs a tale. For cheapness, the “free” catering had been entrusted by Vortexion to Dogbox Johnson, an ex-circus nazi, who lived in a trailer-trash park by the Grand Union Canal just by the old Ladbroke Grove Charnel House. Johnson himself worked for Southern Outfall Drainage Ltd, and was a caterer for local organizations in his spare time. However, his reputation was not founded on his slightly out of date sandwiches and cakes, bought from his friend, Ephraim the Blackmailer, who stole them in the first place. No, Dogbox was renowned for his clever avoidance of the amount of litigation generated concerning the removal of his family’s septic tank. Suffice it to say that all these things combined caused yet more trouble. A good number of the audience. reeling back from the locked doors, were obliged to go through all their natural motions simultaneously as Elmon launched his signature song I’ve Got Something for You. It did not help at this point that a man laid down his EAT LENTILS FOR LESS LUST placard and produced a gun. The man (one Peter “foul” Thomson, a well known agitator) mounted the stage, and headed towards a terrified Seidlitz. He then made a clumsy attempt to rape poor Seidlitz at gunpoint, only to be wrestled down by Team 1 (see above) who had been hired for the night. The gun of course was from Woolworths. All in all, the events were not exactly what could be called a proper introduction to good society. After a thorough scrub down in our hot tub, this pair were thankfully put back in the kitchen and they duly prepared an excellent cooked pheasant with herbs, and an excellent sillabub, curdled with wine and whipped to a stiff froth. Needless to say, all our motions remained quite stable.
RETREAT, COUNSELLING AND CONFESSIONS
Another unique facility of the House of Panzerben.
George Shenston, and his assistant, Mavis Powell (middle, above) are in charge of all Pelican Rescue Duties. They have been joined recently by sister Margot Fontez (right, above) who came originally as a belief-casualty. She is a dropped-out professional shrink from Nottingham, and will no doubt have a lot to contribute. We do hope that this splendid trio will continue to run the Panzerben Rescue & Reform Scheme for UFO & Parnormal Unbelievers (environmental grant applied for). Margot Fontez will specialize in taking good care of our unique collection of fallen manic-depressive nail-biting po-faced pelicans, dazed and confused rationalists, and all those who suffer from exposure to deadly fundamentalist doll-radiation from the wide-screen Nikon, this being the only alien invasion that counts. The full story of this community-conscious unit will be told eventually in the Combat Diaries of 2004. 24-hour emergency service for Confessions from casualties from all the sceptical chapels is available. Camp beds are reserved for difficult moments of doubt about the Real. Cold Turkey isolation, hot cocoa and sick bowls are available free of charge for all crises of belief in Fact and “concrete evidence.” Special care facilities are available to treat the nightmares of garage-rationalists, boot-and-barn skeptics, and the fear of the over-educated, fallen left-liberals, and any other suchlike who come to the House of Panzerben for holistic relief. George and Mavis have now proved that they are strong enough to cope when crises of Belief occur and Magonians try to snatch back fallen pelicans, as Christians try to snatch back converts who have wandered into infamous "cults" and have to be replugged into the wide-screen Nikon immediately, as if it were a life-support machine. Our thanks and greetings go also to others too numerous to mention who pour in and out of the House of Panzerben seeking comfort, shelter, and what little treatment and advice is ours to offer. These faces cannot be shown due to many issues and considerations and mishaps extraordinary. These mainly involve Social Security, Probation officers, Social workers, the banks, the police, the judiciary, psychiatrists, the Law, alien abductors, Men in Black, the Security Services, and in certain cases Parents, film & TV producers and parents. Many of these young escapees are suffering from bad liberal burn from the everlasting idiot’s lantern, and conversations about gear boxes, DIY, sport, and something called the Economy. Unfortunately we have to hand back many of those who have made it successfully over the perimeter wire, if only for a moment to see living screens that offer better viewing and in most case at least, have no license fee. All live within a square mile of the Martyr's Memorial, Portobello Road, and only leave it on pain of death. Come night, and we all pull the beautiful devastation over us like a magical cloak of forgetting. Books SectionThe general enquiries address is sharkley1@panzerben1.fsworld.co.uk
The Entertainment Bomb Memories of the Irish Israeli War by Colin Bennett by Phil O’Brien
Politics of the Imagination (the life, work, and Ideas of Charles Fort) was given Anomalist Award for Best Biography, 2002. The Foreword is by John Keel, the author of The Mothman Prophecies. Looking for Orthon (the life of George Adamski, UFO visionary extraordinary) “Bennett probes the innards of 20th century society with an intellectual and literary dexterity seldom encountered in popular works on UFOs.” Foreword by John Michell, the author The Flying Saucer Vision.
Dr. Jack Sarfatti, the author of Super Cosmos, is a PhD in Physics (University of California) and the author of Destiny Matrix and Space-Time and Beyond II. He appears in Time Travel: the Art of the Possible on Disk 2 of the DVD Special Collector’s Edition of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home talking about “metric engineering” with “dark energy.” He appears also with Oxford’s David Deutsch on the Learning Channel’s “Ultra Science” program on Time Travel. Available in November, 2004. Counter Culture from Head Press is a book of reviews. It is a fascinating look at the tiny fraction of the material bubbling beneath the surface of popular culture. There is coverage of Beat authors alongside S&M erotica, luminary artists alongside the production-line superheroes of DC and Marvel, hand produced booklets of severely limited numbers alongside full colour oversize coffee table tomes, tie-in books on Hollywood blockbusters alongside biographies of no-budget renegade filmmakers. Most of these reviews were published in the last decade, and the book is a marvellous reminder that under the rubble of the sterile TV permafrost of both British and American straight “official” culture the human spirit is still alive and well, though, as usual, with holes in its pants and no means of paying the rent.
Obituary for a Genius
Jeffrey Nuttall, polymath, born July 8 1933; died January 4 2004 Michael Horowitz wrote in the Observer: “Jeff Nuttall, who has died aged 70, was a catalyst, perpetrator, and champion of rebellion and experiment in the arts and society. Bomb Culture, his 1968 chronicle of the emergence of internationalist counter-culture in Britain remains a primary source and manifesto for the post-Hiroshima generation. At his soul’s incarnation in Elysium it will surely come to pass, as Jeff once dreamed, that “Spiflicate water-water-buffalodrunk on rainbow fish will snore beside the oval father where he basks.” For the rest of us, as long as global politics fester in lies and pea-brained Hollywood mega-violence it is bollocks to them, and long live Jeff Nuttall.
This book and this CD are available from New Departures PO Box 9819 London W 11 2GQ United Kingdom bricolage92@hotmail.com www.connectotel.com/PoetryOlympics
The Combat Diaries of The Alternative Fortean Times is supporting also Headpress Publications Manchester, who are the leaders in cutting-edge avant-garde publications in Britain. Here are some of their current titles, and we will be keeping their List up to date. Check out their full catalogue at their web site: |
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After all that, you will all be ready for your Combat Diaries Archive Box Number 1. Press HERE to download this box, which includes selections from previous Combat Diaries:
1. Deconstructing the B-29 Colin Bennett2. The Latex Princess Colin Bennett3. Another One that Never Were Alan Goss-Custard4. Fortean Times and the New Cromwellians Patricia Farson5. New Criteria of Diagnosis Carole Smith6. Roswell Reverse Engineering Bill Sherman7. Memetics Jack Hardy8. The Great UFO/Crash Retrieval Syndrome Betty Baxter9. Microchip Implants Luukanen-Kilde
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