Time once again for my occasional series "Women with great hair fleeing gothic houses." And today we visit Germany.
This may involve compound nouns...
Germany is of course the land of the spooky schloß, but there are many other domiciles that Frauen mit Tollen Haaren can flee from...
They can flee a handsome Hanoverian crescent...
They can flee the haunted beach house of Heringsdorf Mecklenburg-Vorpommern...
They can flee across the Spree from the bust of Nefertiti on Berlin's Museum Island...
They can flee the God-awful medieval banquet they put on for tourists at Marksburg Castle, before the jesters appear and everyone throws up their rotisserie chicken and beans...
They can flee the dismal dungeons of the Aachen Grashaus...
They can flee round and round the fachwerk facades of Dornstetten's Altstadt until they're dizzy...
Or they can just go to the cafés of the Black Forest and scream at the prices.
Germany is of course a land of rules, and no fleeing is allowed unless gowns are ankle length.
Many German towns now frown upon women with great hair turning up unannounced at local historic monuments and demanding to flee them. These are now routinely locked after 5pm to stop such goings on, although you can apply for a municipal 'erlaubnis zu fliehen' in certain Länder.
Some German women are experimenting with cross-genre fleeing; for example fleeing an Aztec castle in the manner of Lara Croft. I doubt it will catch on, but well done for trying.
German men are also trying to get in on the gothic fleeing scene nowadays, but German women quite frankly aren't putting up with it!
And that's it for tonight's Germanic gothic fleeing guide. Kümmere dich darum, wie du fliehst...
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In the shadowy corners of the shortwave spectrum lurk the Numbers Stations: strange radio broadcasts of mysterious blocks of numbers in creepy monotone voices!
It's actually an old form of spycraft which is still in use today. Let's take a listen...
A Numbers Station is a type of one-way voice link for sending information to spies in foreign countries. Operating on Short Wave radio bands they transmit a secret code of spoken numbers.
Use of Numbers Stations peaked during the Cold War, but some are still operating today.
Numbers Stations are operated by various national intelligence agencies. At set times on a pre-arranged frequency a musical tone is played, followed by a speech synthesised voice reading out blocks of numbers. To most listeners it sounds both creepy and meaningless.
Today in pulp I revisit a mystery of the recent past: did ‘John Titor’ really travel back in time from 2038 to the year 2000 to warn us about an apocalyptic future? And why was he so keen on getting his hands on a 1975 IBM 5100 computer?
Let’s find out...
In 1998, US radio talk-show host Art Bell read out a fax from a man claiming to be from the future. Two years later the same man, calling himself Time_Traveler_0, left similar messages on the Time Travel Instutute’s internet forum.
They told a strange tale…
“Greetings. I am a time traveler from the year 2036. I am on my way home after getting an IBM 5100 computer system from the year 1975.”
For the next two years Time_Traveler_0, now calling himself John Titor, would leave many similar messages on internet forums.
The Bawdyguard, by John Dexter. Nightstand Books, 1971.
'John Dexter' didn't actually exist. It was a house alias - along with J X Williams - for a range of writers knocking out cheesy sex pulp for Greenleaf publishing. At least 20% of each novel had to be sex scenes with the other 80% titillation, voyeurism or padding. Not much space for character arcs or a hero's journey...
Greenleaf initially specialized in sci-fi magazines, until they discovered sex was selling better. A number of writers were quietly supplying novels for both scenes. Robert Silverberg, Harlan Ellison and Donald E Westlake all provides pseudonymous sex novels for the publisher.
Case 32: High Marks For Malice (1989). Nordic knits always work and they're great for detectives. Pastels are very flattering but you'll need a good lint roller if it's a long case you're investigating. This is a clear fashion win.
Case 51: A Model Crime (1990). Gold is a hard colour to pull off, but the details are on point here: single button and shoulder pads make it a power look and Nancy has sensibly avoided the '90s waitcoat trend. Another win.