Dreamlog: Backpack Balloon
I am flying, in Brazil. I have a backpack flight device of some kind: I think it is a balloon plus some kind of propulsion mechanism. I pull the lever to go up, down or move. It is slow like a balloon; movements takes several seconds to react and I have to watch out for shifting winds. But it is otherwise quite safe.
The flying is easy. The hard part is avoiding the power lines. I skim one by metres and there is a high-voltage arc; fortunately it misses me.
Dreamlog: Yellow Slugs
I am in a house much like my childhood home. It's night. Across the linoleum floor a strange species of yellow slugs are crawling: they are the size of Twinkies and look square as if they are made from sponge rubber. I have the impression that the slime they exude is actually antibacterial floor polish and the things are cleaning the floor for me.
My neighbour comes in to say there's an infestation of them all around. She's a bit spooked by them, but I don't think they mean us any harm. Perhaps it's the result of a genetic industrial accident somewhere. Or perhaps ecosystem change has made this species seek out a new habitat, our dirty kitchen floors. It could be the start of a beautiful partnership.
Later I am in the same house, and it's been bought by new owners, a rich retired couple. They've remodelled extensively, removing walls and making it a second holiday home. The bathroom has a designer full-length window and the bedroom next to it is a fashionable changing room; the hallway is gone completely; the living room and bedroom are now one studio space. The whole house seems to have moved too, out into the country.
Dan Dare, Fascism and Punk
These are things that I think we've lost, Prime Minister. That Britain has lost. And ever since Space Fleet and the UN fell apart, and the very idea of international cooperation went under, that's exactly what our nation has done: lost.
I first encountered the British space comic icon Dan Dare briefly and late in its Eagle incarnation, the 1967 and 68 Eagle Annuals to be exact, when the stories were atypically short and both the writing and artwork poor quality (the 1968 Annual has one of the worst storylines ever committed to paper: space microbes destroy Earth's entire space fleet with invisible ships. They're invisible because they're so tiny! buttheyhavefullsizelaserbeamsohnevermind.) I never read either the 1950s Frank Hampton version, with the long storylines and the Mekon, or the 1977 2000AD version, or the 1980s Eagle version, or the 1990 Grant Morrison political spoof or ...
(Warning: spoilers for the Garth Ennis 2008 Dan Dare graphic novel)
