Saving Bletchley Park | Links & Press

Saving Bletchley Park Links & Press

Come on my steampunk friends, link up with Bletchley park to save the heritage and honour the women and men who worked there.

The Airship song

Original sheet music at http://libraries.mit.edu/music-files/cometakeatrip.pdf
And mpg version so you can singalong at http://libraries.mit.edu/music-files/sound/cometakeatrip.mp3

"Come take a trip in my airship"
by Ren Shields and George Evans

I love a sailor, the sailor loves me,
And sails every night to my home
He's not a sailor that sails oer the sea
or over the wild briny foam
For he owns an airship and sails upon high
He's just like a bird on the wing
And when the shadows of evening draw nigh
He'll sail to my windon and sing

Chorus:
Come take a trip in my airship
Come take a sail 'mong the stars
Come have a ride around Venus
Come have a spin around Mars
No one to watch while we're kissing
No one to see while we spoon
Come take a trip in my airship
And we'll visit the man in the moon


One night while sailing away from the crowds
We passed thought the milky white way
Just idly sailing and watching the clouds
He asked me if I'll name the day
And right near the dipper I gave him my heart
The sun shines on our honeymoon
We swore from each other we never would part
And teach all the babies this tune

Chorus

Dreams of Steam, Edinburgh event

Dreams of steam organised Edinburgh's first ever steampunk event, during the Edinburgh fringe festival. Themed on the arrival of the R1001 airship, the evening was a sell out success, with wonderfully accoutred audience crammed in to hear a fantastic evening of variety entertainment, from the Imperial Broadcasting Service's output to Thomas Truax, Amanda Palmer and others.

You can see pix and clips at http://www.flickr.com/photos/8946321@N07/sets/72157622111459682

Glasgow by Gaslight event

Scotland's first steampunk event was the GUeSS event, Glasgow by Gaslight, in the Britannia Panopticon. A great day of public entertainment, stalls to buy paraphenalia and food. We raised lots of money for the Panopticon's renovation fund and even some for the GUeSS.

As if I had nothing to do, I have now signed up to the Retrofuturist Society's Blog http://forum.retrofuturist.org . Quite small compared to, say Brassgoggles, but of good taste and interest. From there I quickly found myself at a site of amazing fascination which I can reccommend to anyone with an afternoon to spare:
http://davidszondy.com/future/futurepast.htm This site takes us through a host of categories of what the future was predicted to turn out like and compares it with what actually happened. Food for instance was predicted to be generally horribly even more processed than it already is. Some other pages had me weeping with laughter.

Paleofuture

The future that never was - a great blog where the host has lovingly assembled over a century of predictions that fell at the first hurdle.
http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/category/1880s

Loads of great illustrations including many from Albert Robida of whom I had not previously heard but whom I shall seek out forthwith.

White Mischief Steampunk event: Journey to the centre of the earth

I went down to London for the White Mischief steampunk event at the Scala, Kings cross. The theme was Vernian again: Journey to the centre of the Earth. I didnt take many pix but there are some other people's pix on Flickr if you search for White Mischief.

Another great event with the usual eclectic mixture of audience and performers. I particularly liked The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing: http://www.myspace.com/blamedfornothing as I had missed seeing their History of British Industry at the Edinburgh festival. They really put the punk into steampunk and also the steam - a great song about the famous Stephenson and Stevenson families and also a funny one about Charles darwin.

Other features were trapeze artists, the Illumini, an escapologist (but not as good as the old guy who used to be at Tower Hill doing such things), some amazingly unerotic burlesquers, and the Correspondents - I dont know how it is possible to dance and sing so fast for so long - surely chemical help must be involved. Costumes of the audience lots of fun as always.