In an item on today’s Reporting Scotland on BBC 1 Scotland I immediately recognised this building:-

I had posted about it here.

It seems this is one of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s designs and the building has now been refurbished and it is intended to turn it into an art gallery.

Tonight’s episode featuring the building will be available for a short time only on the iPlayer here.

Again abominably named. Phones 4 U:-

King’s Lynn Bus Station. Too “boxy” and modern to be deco?

Norfolk Constabulary Building. Definitely 1930s in style:-

RBS. Glass bricks, balcony railings and round tower:-

Corner Deco. WMS Recruitment:-

A shop called CSS:-

McDonald’s:-

Debenham’s. (Maybe not deco):-

The abominably named Cash 4 Clothes (again maybe not deco):-

There’s a lovely curved frontage to Burton’s, King’s Lynn:-

Detailing round window:-

Column detail:-

Roofline detail. Odd Cadbury’s Smash-like figure stencilled to right here:-

Almost the first thing I noticed on getting out of the car in King’s Lynn was a blocky Art Deco building with typical deco glazing. (Note Greyfriar’s Tower behind):-

It wasn’t till working round the town that I discovered it was the former Ritz Cinema, now a bingo hall:-

Note “rule of three” in the doors and the columns and windows above them. View from main street (again you can glimpse Greyfriars Tower behind):-

Other side view (from the War Memorial and in front of Greyfriars Tower):-

Two months seem to come round very quickly.

This time it’s back to Chinese SF with Invisible Planets: 13 visions of the future from China, edited and translated by Ken Liu. I’m looking forward to it. The cover shown on the page on the link above is the US one from Tor. I’ve got the UK publication from Head of Zeus.

I’ve been given a bit more leeway with this one. 1400 words instead of the usual 800.

Jo Fletcher, 2014, 345 p, plus i p acknowledgements and v p bonus content.

Humans are spread over five extraterrestrial planets, Saraldi, Zhinu, Punartam, Cygnus Beta and Ntshune with Earth embargoed. Psionic abilities necessary for swift transit between solar systems are frowned upon in Cygnus Beta where Rafi lives. Since he may follow his father in being be so endowed he is administered a cap to monitor his urges/proclivities. However, Rafi swiftly moves on to Punartam where his abilities are encouraged and developed in a wall-running game which – like the similar task in Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game – has much more significance than at first appears. Third person narration is interspersed with first person sections from one of Rafi’s friends; which seemed to me rather an odd authorial decision.

Unfortunately I found out too late that The Galaxy Game seems to be a sequel to one of Lord’s previous novels, The Best of All Possible Worlds, which I have not read and knowledge of which may have improved my appreciation of this one. As it is, two weeks on from reading this I can barely recall what it was about except that too many things were reported rather than narrated, even in the first person sections.

I enjoyed Lord’s first novel, Redemption in Indigo, which was set in Africa, much more than this even though it was more of a fantasy rather than the straightforward SF of The Galaxy Game.

Pedant’s corner:- directed a student (at a student,) “‘are you in love with Rafi,'” (question mark rather than comma,) “he was staring a collection of shapes, colours and textures that coalesced … under the identity Naraldi,” (staring at a collection,) “a handful of Uplanders were (a handful was,) a skilled team who knows (team who know,) must have showed (shown,) practise (practice? practise is USian?) “anything that the worlds ….. has seen (have seen,) mentions an ice-bound world that nevertheless has a stable and favourable atmosphere (what produces the oxygen that makes it breathable? On our world it is plants and photosynthetic algae. Is that going to be true for an ice-covered world?) “She quickly reached in and detached the upper casing from their pod.” (Only one person was in the pod; so his, not their,) by slight increase in gravity (by a slight increase,) hovercrafts (hovercraft’s plural is hovercraft,) “according whatever terms were agreeable to us” (according to whatever terms) tumbling out thin air (out of thin air,) paid with their pilots lives (pilots’.)
Plus points for the “fewer” in “fewer drugs and less malaise” though.

The obituary of flamboyant front man of Dead or Alive, Pete Burns, appeared on the same page of the Guardian as that of Bobby Vee.

1980s music wasn’t generally to my taste, especially the output overseen by Stock, Aitken and Waterman under whom Burns’s band Dead or Alive had their biggest hit but Burns himself was certainly distinctive. He apparently claimed that Boy George modelled himself on him.

Burns’s career as a pop star was relatively brief and he later became more famous for being Pete Burns and less than an ideal advert for plastic surgery.

Dead or Alive: You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)

Peter Jozzeppi Burns, 5/8/1959-23/10/2016. So it goes.

In the early 1960s it seemed that all you needed to be a successful North American male singer was to be called Bobby. Bobby Darin, Bobby Vee, Bobby Rydell all had hits then. The middle one of those, Bobby Vee, died this week.

Singer of the outrageously catchy Rubber Ball, and teen ballads like More Than I Can Say and Run to Him, the admonitory The Night has a Thousand Eyes and the yearning Take Good Care of My Baby, Vee’s star fell along with that style of recording once the Beatles came along.

Take Good Care of my Baby was a typically breezy sounding song written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King with an attendant less than breezy lyric. Note those plucked strings fixing its vintage.

Bobby Vee: Take Good Care of My Baby

Robert Thomas Velline (Bobby Vee): 30/4/1943–24/10/2016. So it goes.

This stands in Greyfriars Gardens opposite the headquarters of Norfolk Police and near to Greyfriars Tower.

The Memorial itself is a simple cross surmounting a pillar on an octagonal base and plinth. The inscription is for the Great War though the Memorial contains the names of the dead from both World Wars.

Each of the slimmer hexagonal elements of the base lists battles/campaigns of the Great War.

Engagements at sea:-

Overseas campaigns:-

Western Front battles:-

Mainly Middle-East campaigns but not exclusively so:-

Dedication to post 1945 conflicts:-

There is a separate Memorial Stone dedicated to the Burma campaign 1941-45:-

There is a further Memorial stone table, flanked by two inscribed tablets:-

This photograph of the inscription on the top comes from King’s Lynn Roll-of-Honour:-

Memorial tablet laid by various commemorative organisations:-

Tablet dedicated to 50th anniversary of end of World War 2:-