Season's Greetings
There was no 1999 "Christmas extra" issue of Ansible. Instead, for those of you who like to wallow in old news and timeless bad taste, here's a millennial special. I've converted the entire first series of Ansible (issues 1-50, 1979-1987) from ASCII to more readable HTML, including very nearly all the artwork, and it's all on view at ...
The current series remains at the Glasgow site [but has since moved to the above site; link duly updated]:
And now a bit of seasonal glitter with Thog's Retro Masterclass, featuring one of the naughty passages from Amanda M. Ros's surely immortal Delina Delaney (1935). Addressing the adored lady of the title, noble young Lord Gifford discusses the fashion sense of the cousin his mother would prefer him to marry. Is he perhaps too knowledgable about intimate female accessories? Thog admires the finesse of the closing sentences which deal with this question....
"... She stands almost a six-footer, with her treadles thrust into shoes you'd swear once long ago belonged to a Chinese madman; her long, thin wallopy legs enveloped in silken hose, with birds, fish, fowl, cabbage leaves, ay, by Jove, with every species of animal, vegetable and mineral rainbowed in coloured fashion over their flimsy fronts.
"Then her garters! Ah, ha!
"How I remember one fine day finding a lost one that at a time had fastened itself, I presume, above or below the knee, and, thirsting probably for a dash of fresh air, broke loose, and there it lay. That garter! Composed of every colour, resembling the amethyst, opal, emerald, jasper, garnet, onyx, pearl, and sapphire, terminating in a cat's face studded with diamonds. I remember perfectly examining the article at first, wondering under heaven what it was. I concluded it must be a necklet, and proceeded to carefully roll it up. As I coiled it, I couldn't fail seeing the word 'garter' worked in emeralds about its centre ..."
May your millennium be unbugged –
Dave Langford