XPost: alt.books.iain-banks, alt.culture.usenet, alt.cyberpunk   
   XPost: alt.drugs.psychedelics, alt.journalism.gonzo, alt.religion.kibology   
   XPost: alt.society.neutopia, alt.society.zeitgeist, alt.surrealism   
   From: __schwann__@_webtrance.co.za   
      
   Edinburgh. Met Iain M. Banks as planned, handed him over a copy of the   
   Headspace movie and told him to stay in touch, which was a lot better   
   than the day before when we got thrown out of the book festival because   
   we honed in on Stephanie Turner, the so-called  'Press Officer' who was   
   mostly out to lunch, even when doing her job,   
   (stephanie@edbookfest.co.uk), and lets not forget about the pasty   
   looking youth serving books who told me to 'hang on just a second'   
   before calling security because I'd pointed my cam at him. Muttering   
   something about; "invading my privacy", he comes back with Jaws who not   
   so politely asks me to switch my cam off, which I'd already done five   
   minutes before, then follows us like a dog around the book festival in   
   case I switch it on again. This irritated me enough to launch a full   
   broadside which resulted in telephone calls to South Africa, faxes and   
   emails to Edinburgh, none of which were returned by Steph, who has an   
   irritating habit of talking to you like you're in kindergarten, your   
   mother dressed you funny and is now two hours late picking you up, but   
   let's be fair, she was probably having a bad hair year so I recommend   
   keeping her out of the system for at least that long, but, i digress..to   
   start off with, we arrived at the Banks reading and handed over tickets   
   which were only valid for Edinburgh Castle due to some mixup in my   
   pocket, but this was settled by me begging a new set of tickets from the   
   booking office, which was much better staffed than the press   
   office...the hall was packed....maybe 500 people...   
      
   Banksie talks well, and, happily for me, seems to prefer his sci-fi   
   incarnation, even though the heavyweight from the BBC was clearly not up   
   to gabbing about 'the Culture', and preferred to associate him with   
   'kicking the caPitalists'..in any event, he read from his latest book,   
   to be launched in October/November; "This construct does not contain the   
   information you require"! afterwards, I stood in a queue and when my   
   turn came for him to autograph the copy of 'Consider Phlebas' I'd   
   bought, I barely had time to hand over the DVD and tell him who I was   
   plus tell him I liked his idea of being an incredibly well armed hippy   
   x'd with Hunter S. Thomson. He promised to view the DVD, and if you're   
   reading this Banksie, did you enjoy it? :) I've even got a picture of   
   this which I'll post at sometime when I get back to the studio, in the   
   not too distant future..   
      
   Afterwards we did a few drams of verious malt whiskeys, then a bloody   
   mary, which knocked me sideways for a few hours, during which I stumbled   
   up and down Edinburgh's crowded streets...   
      
   schwann   
      
   23rd August 2004   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)