memory a swingin' door

[freckles_and_doubt]

I woke up this morning with a very vivid memory of the department store in the town in which we lived when I was in lower junior school - I think I must have dreamed about it. It was one of those old-fashioned, faintly larney stores with umpteen floors with clothes and fabric and household goods and what have you, and a lift attendant, and also one of those weird old cash systems where receipts and money were put into little brass capsules and shot away through a complicated series of tubes by air pressure. (The same system I was, in fact, discussing with James only last weekend, in the context of the bizarre note-sending system in a velvet-lined Berlin nightclub frequented by Brian Eno and David Bowie. James was told about it by Brian Eno. Strange but true).

I remember the department store with pleasure, but in fact what I mostly remember were the tills, about which I obsessed as a child. They were those huge, chunky, old-fashioned ones with the numbers which popped up on cards, and the buttons were little metal cylinders with a concave end, ranked with different banks of colour, and they depressed with a satisfying click. I used to lust after those buttons to a quite unreasonable extent - I'd actually have vivid dreams in which I was almost, but not quite, allowed to press them. I have no idea why. Something about the tactile pleasure of that "click", I think. I suspect I was an odd child.

Dept. of Random YouTube: courtesy of sf writer Elizabeth Bear, a new bit of viral wossname, this time directed against Scientology. Spread the word! this is one viral campaign behind which I can, so to speak, get.

Watch on YouTube

Off now to consume vast and unnecessary quantities of food at the Hussar, by way of celebrating My First Paycheck. Possibly it's all worth it.

Comments

pneumatic tubes in shops

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

Goodness me! I'd never heard of such a thing, then read about it in the last couple of days in Bill Bryson's The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid. Now you mention it. P also mentioned some herb today that I'd read about for the first time in the same book just half an hour earlier. Freaky stuff ...

[nimnod.livejournal.com]

Barbours?

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

God, I'd forgotten about Barbours, they had a wonderful pneumatic system. Plus those old-fashioned lifts with the concertina doors. No, it wasn't Barbours I was remembering, it was a much smaller store in what at the time was Fort Victoria (now Masvingo). There's actually a reasonable facsimile of the cash register I remember here (http://www.fotosearch.com/clt003/ks2621/).

[nimnod.livejournal.com]

I recall, with some fondness, their tea-room... (Barbours, that is).

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Yes! In fact, I was going to make some such comment above, and then got side-tracked. It was slightly genteel, and had good food and a rather dark ambience. I remember it being a high treat to have tea there, mostly because it was expensive and we weren't well off.

[egadfly.livejournal.com]

As abominable as the Clut of Scientology may be, I cannot agree with the idea of DDoS attacks on them. Mob rule is all very well when you agree with the mob.

If you don't like the way strong, organised loonies prey on weak, vulnerable loonies, 'tis better to fight the lunacy with reason than with a net version of violence.

From these comments on the Reg article, I wish to quote the 2nd one: "Freedom of Speech has to be the worst enemy of Scientology. Let 'em say what they want. Anyone listening would have to be a right proper wingnut to take any of it seriously. Having all the real hardcore teapots in one handy ignorable place is actually quite a sensible idea."

On the other hand, I did also enjoy "If you live by the sword, make sure that you get a really nice sword."

On a completely separate topic: Hooray for paycheck! I hope it was a good Hussarification.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Eep! That'll teach me to read properly, I missed the DoS attack bit. I agree: not on. The thing I like about the campaign is that it's just Anonymous spouting its mouth off in exactly the same veiled, threatening terms that Scientology itself does. It doesn't have to do anything other than spread the videos saying "Scientology is bad." In a sense, something like a DoS attack spoils the elegance of the concept. Phooey. Disappointed.

It was an excellent Hussarification. I have now consumed my allocated red meat portion for the next six months.

Super suction

[(Anonymous)]

The cashiers in my local Tesco in Hammersmith dispatch wads of cash in plastic capsules through these in-store pneumatic tubes. Whooosh, they go, to destinations unknown.

pinK.

[bronchitikat.livejournal.com]

I remember department stores, & cash registers like that, but thought it was only cos I'm so old! Think the pneumatic cash/note systems may be making a comeback though. Saves having to have staff walking around with large sums of money & thus rendering them attractive to muggers.