The forty-first, and last, issue of a sortof letter substitute, kinda thing, maybe weekly, maybe not, from:
40 Deramore Avenue, Belfast, BT7 3ER, Northern Ireland
E-mail: tferg@dial.pipex.com Phone: (01232) 293275
Web Site: http://members.tripod.com/~Tommyworld/index.htm
Available only via the net at the moment. See the colophon for the usual disclaimer. Thanks to Mark McCann for computer usage. Supporting Toronto in '03 for the 2003 WorldCon. This issue dated, already, 27/6/98. Web site now updated, with photos.
News and Views.
Well, as you can all imagine (but apparently not me) I received a lot of copies of TW39 in reply to my request last time. Thank you, one all. And, as Geri Sullivan requested, I received 17 copies in reply. I know, I know. All of which preamble is to gently lead you into the fact that this will be the last TommyWorld of Volume 2. A brief recap may therefore be in order for those of you who joined the conversation a bit late, or in the middle. Volume One, as I now call it somewhat pretentiously, was started in Canada, essentially as a way to keep in touch with friends and family back home in the UK. It mainly had stuff about myself, what was happening in my life and a few articles here and there. It developed rather haphazardly into a sorta fannish personal newsletter of sorts.
Upon returning to the UK in October of 1997 I sought to develop this aspect more and leave myself out of the focus somewhat and this continued on for 19 issues now. Problems with formatting however has meant that only people accessing TW on my web site have seen the volume/issue numbers that I print in a tasty WordArt title to the thing. So for all you archivists out there Volume One had 22 issues, Volume Two is finishing off at 19 issues, making forty one in all.
Volume three is still under consideration, and I do have a few ideas. A new computer of my own is leaving me a bit more room to manoeuvre. James McKee is upgrading and I'm getting his old machine plus some new bits and bobs, including a 56K modem (Whoa Ho!) At the moment I am loath to continue with the email format. First because I don't like the simple text files, which loses all the layout, formatting and any pictures or images that I would like to include (including the title header). I was never very happy with this, as I'm sure you could tell, but in order to have continuity over many different platforms and reach as many people as wanted to read the thing, I had to come down to basics. It was never really very satisfying.
So the next instalment of this ‘thing' (suggestions of what TW represents: e-zine, newsletter, personal journalism -I dunno - are welcome at the usual addresses) will be web based. I know quite a lot of you don't have access to the web and, well, sorry.
I'm also looking at my paper-based zines and sorting them out. The response to two issues of Design For Life, and the stuff I was trying to do in there, wasn't what I 'd expected. That whole project was something that I wanted to do, I'm glad I tried it and gave it a go, but I think that it is now over. Götterdämmerung continues apace and issue 12 is now being put together, although very slowly, and should definitely be out in time for Novacon!
Which leaves me with a more irregular web based personal/fannish zine, TommyWorld and a lot of ideas. I know, another zine, perfect. So expect to see a new project in the works over the summer and going out to a much larger distribution. I've nicked both the Corflu UK and Attitude mailing lists, merged them with the existing Götter and Design For Life lists to produce a new list. I don't know if the Götter boys are up for it, but the new zine will have a distribution in the region of 500, although even that doesn't allow for some of the people I know only as names and email addresses. So, if you want to be on the distribution list and I haven't sent you any snail mail in the past, drop me a line with your details and I'll include you.
That's it. Thanks to all those who wrote in to this emailed version, and I'll see you at the web site for more madness from the world of Tommy. Address, again:
http://members.tripod.com/~Tommyworld/
Just because I like it (thanks to Julia Daly)
After the Great Britain Beer Festival, in London, all the brewery presidents decided to go out for a beer. The guy from Corona sits down and says, "Hey Senor, I would like the world's best beer, a Corona." The bartender dusts off a bottle from the shelf and gives it to him. The guy from Budweiser says, "I'd like the best beer in the world, give me 'The King Of Beers', a Budweiser." The bartender gives him one. The guy from Coors says, "I'd like the only beer made with Rocky Mountain spring water, give me a Coors." He gets it. The guy from Guinness sits down and says, "Give me a Coke." The bartender is a little taken aback, but gives him what he ordered. The other brewery presidents look over at him and ask "Why aren't you drinking a Guinness?" The Guinness president replies, "Well, I figured if you guys aren't drinking beer, neither would I."
And finally, all who replied to issue 40, yes you.
Julia Daly, Steve Jeffrey, Jack Weaver, Pamela Boal, Don Fitch, Cherly Morgan, Marc Ortlieb, Henry L. Welch, Linda Krawecke, Bill Bridget, Vincent Doherty, Debbi Kerr, Eugene Doherty, Diane Duane, Greg Pickersgill, Murray Moore, Peter Halasz, Joyce Worley Katz, Karen Kelso, John Fairleigh, Valerie Westwood, Larry Hancock, Vicki Rosenzweig, Geri Sullivan, Bridget Bradshaw (Nee Hardcastle -- congrats!), Alison Scott, Mike Scott, Bridget Wilkinson.
A good list to round off the issue and no need for the final filip. Forget the skies, watch those mailboxes around the end of August.
Best wishes to one and all.
Tommy.