A weekend, um, not quite entirely off...
Sep. 28th, 2008 05:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceI really was trying not to work this weekend. Woke up yesterday morning in Another City (okay, Durham, it's only fifteen minutes by train, but nevertheless...), and came home with my eye on two separate parties, starting at three o'clock, so why would I...?
And yet, I sorta kinda couldn't think of anything else to do, or anything I wanted to do more than I wanted to knock out a few hundred words of novel. So I did that, before pulling on my glad rags (they're black) and heading off.
Took the Metro to the coast, stepped off at Tynemouth and walked along the seafront from there to Whitley Bay, thinking I really shoulda thought to take the camera; located party, and committed partying. Feeling not terribly well by then, but hey: red wine is like red paint, it coats a great many feelings well enough. And there were old friends there and newer ones, and it's all good.
And thence eventually to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
samarcand's rival party, which I probably ought to stop doing this because being drunk already when you turn up is graceless and leads to confusions and fallings out, but what's a man to do when people have parties on the same day...?
Anyway,shewhomust and durham_rambler were there, and so was Gail but she left before I could talk to her; and there was more drinking and so forth, and like that.
And this morning I was out to the coast again, for a lunch date; but I have a story I have to write, in concert with the knowledge of a man who knows about global warming and such; and I did fling the title and a first line onto the computer before I set out, and I thought that would probably do for the day, because, y'know, what use am I after a lunch date...?
But now I am home and here at the computer, all unexpectedly, because...
D'you remember a few months ago, I was talking about shaving Half-Emperor Cyrrhenius? Well, I seem to have started writing. Not actually that story, because I still haven't got him figured out; but it was always meant to be a sequence, so this is the way in: it's about a steampunk archaeological dig, and at the moment it's called "The Matter of the Metal Detective", and I'm just jotting down the opening page or so, honest, it isn't really working...
If anyone out there knows how metal detectors work: would it be possible to make one that was either steam-powered or - preferably - clockwork?
And yet, I sorta kinda couldn't think of anything else to do, or anything I wanted to do more than I wanted to knock out a few hundred words of novel. So I did that, before pulling on my glad rags (they're black) and heading off.
Took the Metro to the coast, stepped off at Tynemouth and walked along the seafront from there to Whitley Bay, thinking I really shoulda thought to take the camera; located party, and committed partying. Feeling not terribly well by then, but hey: red wine is like red paint, it coats a great many feelings well enough. And there were old friends there and newer ones, and it's all good.
And thence eventually to
samarcand's rival party, which I probably ought to stop doing this because being drunk already when you turn up is graceless and leads to confusions and fallings out, but what's a man to do when people have parties on the same day...?Anyway,
shewhomust and durham_rambler were there, and so was Gail but she left before I could talk to her; and there was more drinking and so forth, and like that.And this morning I was out to the coast again, for a lunch date; but I have a story I have to write, in concert with the knowledge of a man who knows about global warming and such; and I did fling the title and a first line onto the computer before I set out, and I thought that would probably do for the day, because, y'know, what use am I after a lunch date...?
But now I am home and here at the computer, all unexpectedly, because...
D'you remember a few months ago, I was talking about shaving Half-Emperor Cyrrhenius? Well, I seem to have started writing. Not actually that story, because I still haven't got him figured out; but it was always meant to be a sequence, so this is the way in: it's about a steampunk archaeological dig, and at the moment it's called "The Matter of the Metal Detective", and I'm just jotting down the opening page or so, honest, it isn't really working...
If anyone out there knows how metal detectors work: would it be possible to make one that was either steam-powered or - preferably - clockwork?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-28 05:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-28 05:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-28 05:40 pm (UTC)May be easier to use an Inventium device.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-29 09:13 am (UTC)Compare the two signals, and Robert is your parent's brother.
Bell (of telephone fame) had a go with them in the 1880's.
Simon M
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-29 10:08 am (UTC)Dept of Weird Coincidence - I heard this on the radio just last night. Apparently he tried to use one to locate the bullet that killed President Garfield, but failed...
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-29 11:33 am (UTC)The good thing about a steampunk metal detector is that you could use valves! These didn't really get invented until the early 1900s, but they were playing with the idea back in the 1880s.
I'd suggest a three-man team: one to handcrank an AC dynamo, one to carry the electrics, and a third to hold the emitter/detector. The signal could be heard through Mr Bell's electric loudspeaker.
Huzzah for science!
Simon M