N o t   T h e   L e t t e r   L e t t e r   R o u n d

	The only letter I had this month that looked even vaguely like it was
intended for publication was a flimsy, pretty picture postcard from Kim Head. Which
I appreciated very much. It touched on issues discussed on the first page and said
some kind things about how GIT had been going so far. Other than that I have had
correspondence from Colin Hobbs re: the results of the Rebel Zine Poll at OxCon and
David Oya kindly sent me a copy of Wimm? because he'd quoted me in the lettercol.
	So I'll touch on some other matters instead. OxCon past gets better the
longer after the event I think about it. I'm not sure if it's still being thought
of as just a Dip tournament; whilst the Dip's expansion is good to see, it's nice to
get non-Dip players there as well. It has had an effect on the Diplomacy Society;
there's a Diplomacy renaissance movement within the society, and people are talking
about playing Dip again, so that they don't get similarly embarrassed by more poor
performances next year. Another matter touched upon was how similar certain DipSoc
people look to certain other members of the hobby. One doppelganger pairing noted
was Neil Duncan and Matt Barratt (he said hoping that Matt won't see this, now he's
dropped out of all his games in OMR). This has its advantages; if anyone playing the
ALOS trading card game wants a card that they can pass off as having a young-looking
picture of Speccy on it, get in touch...
	And I did like the review of the event in issue 1 of Carpe Diem. making
mention of the non-Dip events as it did. Come to think of it, I liked the whole of
Carpe Diem. So did a certain other subeditor of this zine (whose initials aren't TR,
if you need prodding) when I discussed it with him. The conversation turned (as it
would in its nutty subeditor-to-subeditor way) to betting on the results of the Zine
Poll. You can tell that this was a strictly hypothetical question; had it been based
in real life the obvious question would be "Which one?", but treating the subject
theoretically, I wonder how people envisage this year's Zine Poll results going, and
if they're prepared to pick a winner. Out of interest, would people be prepared to
bet at even money on, say, 3 zines of their choice against The Field on who will win
this year's poll? Would people need more than 3 zines to justify even money odds?
	While we're on the subject of polls (if you haven't seen this link coming
then you haven't been paying attention) I'd like to thank everyone who voted for GIT        
in the Subzine Poll, with the result that GIT came in an extremely satisfactory
position. Mind you, thus far, I haven't really been trying. You should see what I've
got lined up for the second half of the year, after I've got my degree over and done!
	On Friday 21st March at 8pm I watched Babylon 5 for 24 hours (with only
minimal toilet breaks) in association with the new society established within the
university dedicated to fandom of that show, not that I had ever seen it before.
It was an interesting experiment in the endurance of the human body, and the effect
of stimulants such as Coca-Cola and chocolate thereupon. 8 cans of the former and
200g or so of the latter and I was feeling sick rather than anything else. The worst
times were the wee hours of Saturday night and 9am-1pm on Saturday morning, but I
stayed awake throughout (bar a few sleepless eyelid-rest breaks) and even managed
to follow a bit of the plot. 32 consecutive episodes with no time for them to sink
in meant I missed a lot of the subtleties but my co-viewers, mostly immense fans of
the show, patiently explained how it all interlinked and why it was so brilliantly
written. Although I superficially enjoyed it, I'm not a screaming convert. More to
the point, I raised close to œ50 in sponsorship for Amnesty and Cancer Research.
	Since then, the only thing keeping me awake at night has been this little
vexation. Suppose a man goes to sleep alone in a double bed at night, and wakes next
morning to find his exact clone in bed with him. Both are convinced they are the
original, and both are identical in every way, in particular sexual preferences and
beliefs. Now given that one's ideal sexual partner is one who wants to do exactly the
same things as you (is that a reasonable assumption?), the hypothetical man has one
here. Would the man fulfil his deepest, darkest (practicable) sexual fantasies with
the aid of his partner, who will, by definition, enjoy it just the same (immense)
amount that he does? Would this be homosexual behaviour... or given that the only
person to benefit from it is you yourself, would it be masturbation?
	Dolly the cloned sheep has nothing to do with this, in case you were
wondering, but it hasn't half set my mind wondering... and my Kinsey number (for the
benefit of non-Wimm? readers, this is the '90s version of The Purity Test, in that
it aims to sum ones sexuality and practices in one convenient number) soaring!
Why, it must be as high as... ooh... 0.15 by now!