Jules Jones

It's forty years tonight since Blake's 7 fans got an early Christmas present...

I and many of my friends can remember *exactly* what we were doing in the early evening 40 years ago today. :-) Thank you, Chris Boucher, for one of the most memorable pieces of television ever shown in the UK. 

And a festive Gauda Prime Day greeting to my fellow members of the Church of Boucher. :-)

I spent a chunk of the afternoon rummaging through my hard drive looking for my copies of some of Predatrix's stories that she wants to put on AO3 and/or submit to a New Zine. (I never thought I'd be typing that last phrase again.) Stuff that was only ever in my email spool courtesy of beta-reading may be beyond practical reach now that I've finally abandoned Turnpike, but I should have had copies of everything that was published in one of my zines. You will note the word "should".

I have all the Tales zines on my hard drive, with the emails, in-progress files and final proofs neatly arrayed in their individual folders. I have Endless Farce 2. I do not have Endless Farce 1, which is the thing she most particularly wanted, on account of having completely lost any trace of it on her own machine.

What I do have is a box full of CDs, with assorted backups from over the years. I grabbed a handful and started working my way through. And on the CD I burned on 25 April 2000 I found the missing sub-directory. A fifteen year old CD, and the data is still perfectly readable. I wasn't really expecting that.

I should probably think about putting some of my own stuff on AO3, or at least more of other people's stuff from the zines, but the thought of fighting with AO3's horrible interface wearies me, even though I am assured that it has improved since the last time I did battle with it. I'm not that desperate for opportunities to cat-vacuum on the profic WIP.

I know which DVD *I'm* watching tonight. :-)

And a very happy Gauda Prime Day to you all, troopers. Alas, I have no presents to leave under the tree farm today, but fear not, I intend to continue with the zine upload as soon as my hands are recovered enough for that amount of mousing.

I regret to inform you that I will not be taking part in the annual Blake wake on Twitter tonight, owing to being geographically challenged. :-(

I was very sorry to hear of the death of Janet Lees Price on 22 May 2012 (currently at the top of the news page at http://www.avon-paul-darrow.co.uk/news.htm ). I never had the opportunity to meet her, but I know from friends how much she gave to Blake's 7 fandom.

Kalypso_v has a nice tribute to her.

Peter Anghelides, former B7 fanzine editor and current pro novelist, talks about his visit to the set on the penultimate shooting day for "Blake". Good times. :-)

http://peteranghelides.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/return-to-gauda-prime/

Thirty years ago tonight, the BBC broadcast the last episode of Blake's 7. Yes, that episode, the one that even non-fans remember. Thirty years since Chris Boucher ruined everyone's Christmas. Or, looked at from another perspective, gave angst fans their best Christmas present ever.

And it was the gift that just kept on giving, as far as fanfic was concerned. It's still inspiring stories. But the ones I've got under the G-P tree farm are from the 20th Anniversary Wake. Tales 5 and 6 are now available for your reading pleasure at the zine website on WordPress.