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I'll bet you hoped thought ORION had folded. *I* may have but ORION? No!
I am just about settled back into the usual routine. Exchanging information
on our conventions as compared with yours in America, finding out why this
sudden rash of marriages in Britfandom as soon as my back was turned,
discovering what the SFCoL and the BSFA have been doing since I left home,
and so on. Also, I've been catching up on some of the fanzines that came while
I was away plus those that I've received since I came home. I don't know what's
got into all you faneds lately but, there have been so many items on which I've
felt compelled to comment.... if only I had the time! Once I got my mail
straightened out I felt I had to get on with this so, though I haven't written,
I've had the idea of answering some of the more pungent items here.
Joe Gibson had some things to say about leeches and the like in fandom. I read
what he had to say with mixed feelings. The first thing that occurred to me was,
that if Joe himself has suffered at the hands of these people, why didn't he do
as he urges us to do, and name names? Laybe I am particularly naive but, I often
think the offenders do what they do from sheer thoughtlessness. Don't laugh! Just
because you wash your hands prior to sitting down to a meal and wouldn't dream of
eating without having done sot you will probably think that any visitor to your
house who doesn't do so is a savage. I am a heavy smoker so, I have lots of
ashtrays round the place. There is one fan I know who seldom, if ever, uses them.
Always I have a pile of ash to sweep up when he's been here. Putting an ashtray
at his elbow is a waste of time; maybe I always put it on his blind side, I
wouldn't know. I don't even know if he has a blind side.
Maybe things are different in the States but, there's one thing that really annoys
me and that is when an uninvited fan comes to stay, expecting food as well as a
bed and, instead of offering money or groceries, he stays for a week or more and
thinks he's done his bit when he buys me a box of chocolates or cigarettes on
leaving. If only they'd buy me the chocolates when they first come I could offer
those for supper instead of my meal I was going to have myself. That sounds
horrid, but it has happened so often it's no longer funny. I still say it's
thoughtlessness, but it's my own fault. If I won't tell them I want them to help
provide their own food I can't expect them to read my mind. It strikes me we are
stupidly proud or afraid to talk money among our fan friends and I'm damned if I
know why.
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