The High Wood

We have just lobbed into Southern California after several days at a SF Convention in Madison, Wisconsin. Upon leaving New York I predicted Madison would be a bit different to that city. Well, I called that right.

Madison is a beautiful town located between two lakes. It is a university town with that special kind of energy that university towns always have. It is also the state capital and doesn’t seem to be short of a quid. The people are warm and friendly and seem to have enough time that they can spend some talking to you.

In short, I really liked the place. Locals tell me that it freezes solid in winter but in late May is was very pleasant. If it wasn’t for the winters I could live there. I understand why the people of Madison are proud of their town and are more than happy to tell you why.

The title of this post relates to the statue atop the capitol building. The capitol is exactly what a capitol should be – a big dome in the middle and faced with marble. The statue on top is of a woman and we are reliably informed that she has a badger on her head. The badger is apparently Wisonsin’s totem animal.

The SF Convention (Wiscon) was much like a lot of others except that it was far better run than most. It has been held annually at the same hotel for the last thirty or so years so the kinks have been pretty much ironed out. During the day they have activities for kids so Robert was kept occupied for several hours without effort on our part.

I’d like to see something a bit different being done at Cons. The whole panel discussion thing seems to be exactly the same as when I was at uni which is some time ago now. Given the startling advances in science of the last twenty years it would be nice to have a Science strand where experts could provide some hard data. Just what is the state of the art in, say, AI and how far away is HAL?

The Con was hit by a nasty gastro bug which bit Pamela. Because she was there in a professional capacity she struggled through it personfully but it can’t have been fun. I say this because it followed us to California and has laid me low today. Pamela and Robert have been doing Disneyland while I have spent most of the day lying on the bed. We have another day here so hopefully I can catch Uncle Walt’s vision tomorrow.

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Sitting in LaGuardia airport waiting to leave New York for Chicago and thence Madison WI. I’m not altogether sorry to be gone. I don’t think I’m a New York sort of person although there are a number of things I enjoyed.

The Empire State Building was great. There’s something about the crypto-fascist nature of 1930′s architecture which continues to fascinate me although God forbid that I’d actually have to live with it. We elected to pay the extra money to get up to the 102nd floor (rather than the standard 86th floor). The building is very small up there – sort of like being at the top of a lighthouse – but the view is fabulous. You can see Robert’s take on it here. Oh yes, and it is very, very tall. For a building as early as it is the height is extraordinary.

The Natural History Museum is the best I have ever seen. We didn’t have anything like enough time to see it all but the planetarium was great and the ‘scale of the universe’ display is both clever and informative. There is a huge suspended sphere maybe 20 metres across which is also the planetarium. Outside it are a series of ‘if this sphere is the size of X then this is the size of Y’. An example is the sphere as the sun with smaller spheres representing the planets. It goes from the largest scales (superclusters of galaxies in the observable universe) down to the smallest (a proton in a hydrogen atom).

The dinosaurs were much better than London and there were whole galleries we had to walk past because we just didn’t have time to explore them. I’d like to go back there some time.

Other good bits – we went to see the Lion King on Broadway. A spectacular production although the actual musical/story is not especially exciting. We had fun afterwards taking a little motorised trishaw back to the hotel. This seems typical of New York to me – a small niche market of people coming out of theatres who can’t find taxis filled by an inventive idea.

Robert and I managed a spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to visit the Statue of Liberty. As we were queuing up for tickets in Battery Park they announced that it would be an hour and a half wait and there were no more tickets for the statue itself – all you would be able to do was walk around the outside. These things we declined to do.

F.A.O. Schwartz, the largest toy shop in the world or so they say, was worth seeing. They have turned stuff toys into an art form and this was by far and away the best part. Although I have to say the giant piano was pretty good as well – you can dance on the keyboard to make tunes.

On the whole however New York was too nervy and fast for me. I know a lot of people enjoy it for just those qualities and the fact that I was on antibiotics probably didn’t help but I can do without that sort of tension. Especially when I am on holiday. I notice I have used a lot of superlatives. That’s New York for you.

I have a feeling that Madison WI is going to be very different…

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It’s been over a week since I last blogged and we have been very busy. You can pick up a lot of the details via Robert’s pages.

The flat threw another little surprise at us a few days ago. The hot water heater in the bathroom started making noises like it was going to explode. Hurriedly I flicked the switch on the front that said On-Off into the Off position. This had absolutely no effect. I traced the power cable back to some inaccessible point behind the unit but couldn’t find any actual power switch.

We closed the bathroom door on the principle of containing the boiler explosion if it happened and thought harder. We couldn’t find the powerboard for the flat so, in some desperation, I went down to the ground floor and turned off the entire power to the flat. This worked but had some undesirable side effects such as everything else being useless.

Fortunately Pamela immediately discovered the instructions covering just this eventuality and I was able to turn the power straight back on. A quick check of all devices indicated no damage except for having to reset the clocks.

Anyway, there were detailed instructions on what to do if the boiler making odd noises which seemed to cover the situation. The power board for the flat, we were interested to read, was behind a secret panel in the downstairs toilet. Yep, fell for the old secret-panel-in-the-downstairs-toilet trick.

Armed with the instructions we were able to first disable the by now very distressed heater by cutting its power supply. We then, as per instructions, adjusted the pressure and turned it back on. Voilà! Aside from this the flat has been remarkably incident-free.

We have been kept pretty busy visiting. Besides sundry museums we paid a visit to Legoland which was a huge success. We went to visit my sister Jane in East Anglia and had a good time. Check the menu on the front page for links.

Yesterday both Robert and I were pretty tired and I had a bad cough. I went to see a doctor but she said there was no sign of anything but a cold. When I described the unfortunate series of events leading to my being in hospital last year she decided some pre-emptive antibiotics would be a good idea. I think this is a good idea too.

Robert and I spent the day quietly at home while Pamela went into town. Her expedition included a visit to the Globe theatre where she saw a production of Midsummer Night’s Dream. I would have liked to have gone but I needed the rest and Robert would probably have been bored silly.

Robert has discovered the ‘Challenge’ channel on Sky. He is now a complete devotee of Gladiators and the Ninja Warrior programme from Japan where would-be ‘Ninjas’ compete on ludicrous and difficult obstacle courses. We now have to devise Ninja Challenges for him which isn’t easy in a flat this size.

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Tuesday was a total write-off for me as I came down with the heavy cold that Robert has been suffering from. I spent most of the day either sleeping or wandering around in a daze. Robert wasn’t much better.

Wednesday was an improvement. Mostly we pottered around the flat and Pamela took Robert out to the park at Coram’s Fields. In the afternoon Pamela delivered her manuscript to Orbit and I took Robert to the park again.

That was about it really apart from me doing some updates on the website. Feeling better today so I am planning to visit the Victoria and Albert. We will take Robert with us but I suspect he will prefer to be at the Science Museum again.

Pamela has to meet another set of publishers this afternoon. That should be all the actual work she has to do until she has a publishers lunch at the end of next week. Robert and I may well have another easy afternoon.

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Pamela has some copy editing to do on her latest book and it has to be finished by Wednesday so Robert and I went out to give her some quiet time. I wanted to see some dinosaurs so we went to the Natural History Museum.

Today was Bank Holiday in England. If I had realised this we would have gone another day. The dinosaur hall was absolutely packed and all you could do was inch your way around. It wasn’t very pleasant.

The animatronic Tyrannosaurus was fun but again there were huge numbers of people and the museum staff kept moving you along so you couldn’t really stand and watch.

We found an activity room which Robert was keen to see. He has a very much hands on appreciation of museums. It wasn’t bad – certainly not crowded – but the one in Sydney is just as good. There were things to handle and microscopes to look through but there wasn’t a lot else.

We stayed for a while then came home. Both of us are suffering from colds – Robert’s is on the way out, mine is on the way in. Quiet afternoon. Pamela took Robert to the park later where I gather he got involved in an impromtu game of soccer.

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For the first time in about ten years we are leaving Australia and taking Robert with us. London, then New York, then Madison Wisconsin (!) then Disneyland then home. Madison is for a science fiction/fantasy convention where Pamela plans to spruik her books.

We had a few glitches in the morning. I tried to get global roaming turned on for my phone. You would think this would be a maximum five minute job. However the annoying voice recognition system took me through a long sequence of finding out about me, asking for numbers and passwords, then dumped me with a “sorry, we aren’t open today” message. I assumed I had done something wrong and tried again but no, I was dumped again.

Finally, Pamela cracked it by simply saying “blah-de-blah-de-blah” at it until a human being picked up the phone. Even then, the first human being left us on hold for fifteen minutes then cut the connection without activating global roaming. A second person, when we went through the “blah-de-blah” process again finally did the deed.

At the airport duty free we had arranged to pick up a “Super Mario” game for Robert’s Nintendo. Pamela had, foolishly in retrospect, decided to save some money and had placed the order for it with these people. We turned up with their documentation but, oh dear, we found after about half-an-hour of stuffing around, there had been a stuff up and it was out of stock.

Robert handled it remarkably well, considering. We got a substitute Mario game but it wasn’t anything like as good and he eventually went back to his Star War’s Lego.

This is a seriously long flight, especially as we had only a very short break in Bangkok to break the twenty-odd hour trip. Bangkok was a bit of enforced exercise. The plane docked at the end of a long terminal building. We had to walk all the way down the building so that we could go through a security check at the other end and then walk back.

This was probably actually a good thing in terms of us stretching our muscles after the flight. The building was kind of interesting as well – a sort of ribbed arch reminding me of the inside of a dirigible (or more accurately, what I imagine the inside of a dirigible would look like).

The eleven plus hour Bangkok to London flight is not good. I have to say that Robert handled it extremely well for a six year old. He had his new nintendo but you can’t play that all the time. British Airways did their best to entertain us and their food was surprisingly good except for breakfast which wasn’t but we all coped.

Got into Heathrow just after 6 am which turned out to be a good time because we got through immigration and customs in record time. I have never seen so few people in any one place in Britain. As we emerged I saw a lot of miserable-looking people and I had a bad feeling about the English but, upon consideration, I realised I would look pretty miserable if I had to be at Heathrow at 6:30 am.

Took the tube to Russell Square where we are staying. We decided collapsing on the floor would probably not be a good idea as we were totally time-zoned out and didn’t want to compound it. We took the tube down to South Kensington and spent a couple of hours at the Science Museum.

Robert isn’t much into hanging around Museums as such but he likes the interactive stuff. It took us a while to find it but the Museum does have a decent hands-on section and we spent the time without too much trauma. Then a bus trip to Marble Arch, a bite of lunch and a bus back along Oxford Street to Russell Square again.

Mid-afternoon we all climbed into bed for a nap and didn’t wake up again until six o’clock the next morning. Probably an excellent thing.

Robert’s take on Plane to London and the Science Museum.

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