falls over.
Still it’s not too bad. I can put a pretty good edge on a flint, even if I say it myself, and next week it’s our turn to go hunting. There’s been a bit of a stink over this hunting business ever since the Granada lot came back with a side of best beef and three chickens with their giblets in a plastic bag. I thought that was a bit odd, and I said as much to Sid.
Mind you, Sid’s an old hand at this business. He did a year on the Sussex University Ancient Farm, then he wangled a place on the Radio Three Celtic Living Experiment, and then he did nine months being paid to reconstruct Silbury Hill. He can knock out a copper bracelet quick as a wink, can Sid, and when it comes to hunting, he just nips over to the nearest farm and pinches a cow.
The TV types have never rumbled him; we hardly see them now, what with there being no bathrooms in the Paleolithic and the midden right outside the hut and everything – they just stay on the main road and use a long lens.
Where I disagree with Sid, though, is over this flogging of fags to the other villages. I looked at his straw mattress the other day and it’s stuffed with Benson and Hedges, toothpaste, shampoos, and rolls of soft toilet paper. I don’t think it’s in the spirit of the thing, but Sid said trading was very important in the olden days, and anyway, he can get a quid for a roll of Andrex down at the Bronze Lake Village.
What? Oh, that was just that lot next door again. They’ve found 27 different ways Stonehenge couldn’t possibly have been built. No, I shouldn’t go and look, if I was you. They’ve already lost fifteen villagers, three cameramen, and the
Blue Peter
outside broadcast unit.
That site over there? The empty one with the pond? Oh, that’s the Irish Television’s Jurassic Experiment. Yes, I know it’s pretty difficult to find actors 30 foot tall with scaly skins – I suppose they’ll have to, you know, rig up some sort of pantomime horses, only dinosaurs, if you see what I mean. They
had
to go back to the Jurassic, all the other periods have already been pinched by other companies—
My word! That was a heavy one! Nearly brought the hut down!
It was a whole trilithon went over that time. Oh – it’s okay, all it got was a sociologist. Last winter, when we couldn’t go hunting, a whole research team from Keele University disappeared in very mysterious circumstances, nudge nudge, so take my tip and refuse any sausages you get offered by the Bronze Age lot.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve just got to do a bit of pottery …
NOTE: This was followed by a photograph of an ancient-style tent village with arrows and the following captions:
‘Anyone see what I did with my library book?’
‘Gosh, rat soup, my favourite.’
‘Of course the goat is angry. You’re sitting in her seat.’
‘Hey, I’ve invented a druid-yourself kit.’
‘Only another five months, three weeks, four days to go.’
‘After you with the midden.’
‘What I miss most is
Points West
.’
THE HIGH MEGGAS
1986
The short story evolved into
The Long Earth. The High Meggas
was rather a doodle at first, something to do after I had sent
The Colour of Magic
to my then publishers, Colin Smythe. I could visualize it minutely and wanted to begin with a series of short stories. I was still playing with the ideas when
The Colour of Magic
was published and inexplicably became very popular, far more successful than any of my previous books
.
And in those circumstances, what is a humble jobbing author supposed to do? The basis of
The Light Fantastic
was already dancing in my mind and gathering momentum and so with some reluctance I put
The High Meggas,
which I had previously thought would one day make the foundation to a great series, under wraps until it was unearthed a few years ago over quail’s eggs at a literary dinner attended by Ralph Vicinanza, my American agent, and Rob Wilkins. My enthusiasm was rekindled and after discussing the ideas
Still it’s not too bad. I can put a pretty good edge on a flint, even if I say it myself, and next week it’s our turn to go hunting. There’s been a bit of a stink over this hunting business ever since the Granada lot came back with a side of best beef and three chickens with their giblets in a plastic bag. I thought that was a bit odd, and I said as much to Sid.
Mind you, Sid’s an old hand at this business. He did a year on the Sussex University Ancient Farm, then he wangled a place on the Radio Three Celtic Living Experiment, and then he did nine months being paid to reconstruct Silbury Hill. He can knock out a copper bracelet quick as a wink, can Sid, and when it comes to hunting, he just nips over to the nearest farm and pinches a cow.
The TV types have never rumbled him; we hardly see them now, what with there being no bathrooms in the Paleolithic and the midden right outside the hut and everything – they just stay on the main road and use a long lens.
Where I disagree with Sid, though, is over this flogging of fags to the other villages. I looked at his straw mattress the other day and it’s stuffed with Benson and Hedges, toothpaste, shampoos, and rolls of soft toilet paper. I don’t think it’s in the spirit of the thing, but Sid said trading was very important in the olden days, and anyway, he can get a quid for a roll of Andrex down at the Bronze Lake Village.
What? Oh, that was just that lot next door again. They’ve found 27 different ways Stonehenge couldn’t possibly have been built. No, I shouldn’t go and look, if I was you. They’ve already lost fifteen villagers, three cameramen, and the
Blue Peter
outside broadcast unit.
That site over there? The empty one with the pond? Oh, that’s the Irish Television’s Jurassic Experiment. Yes, I know it’s pretty difficult to find actors 30 foot tall with scaly skins – I suppose they’ll have to, you know, rig up some sort of pantomime horses, only dinosaurs, if you see what I mean. They
had
to go back to the Jurassic, all the other periods have already been pinched by other companies—
My word! That was a heavy one! Nearly brought the hut down!
It was a whole trilithon went over that time. Oh – it’s okay, all it got was a sociologist. Last winter, when we couldn’t go hunting, a whole research team from Keele University disappeared in very mysterious circumstances, nudge nudge, so take my tip and refuse any sausages you get offered by the Bronze Age lot.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve just got to do a bit of pottery …
NOTE: This was followed by a photograph of an ancient-style tent village with arrows and the following captions:
‘Anyone see what I did with my library book?’
‘Gosh, rat soup, my favourite.’
‘Of course the goat is angry. You’re sitting in her seat.’
‘Hey, I’ve invented a druid-yourself kit.’
‘Only another five months, three weeks, four days to go.’
‘After you with the midden.’
‘What I miss most is
Points West
.’
THE HIGH MEGGAS
1986
The short story evolved into
The Long Earth. The High Meggas
was rather a doodle at first, something to do after I had sent
The Colour of Magic
to my then publishers, Colin Smythe. I could visualize it minutely and wanted to begin with a series of short stories. I was still playing with the ideas when
The Colour of Magic
was published and inexplicably became very popular, far more successful than any of my previous books
.
And in those circumstances, what is a humble jobbing author supposed to do? The basis of
The Light Fantastic
was already dancing in my mind and gathering momentum and so with some reluctance I put
The High Meggas,
which I had previously thought would one day make the foundation to a great series, under wraps until it was unearthed a few years ago over quail’s eggs at a literary dinner attended by Ralph Vicinanza, my American agent, and Rob Wilkins. My enthusiasm was rekindled and after discussing the ideas
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