Mechanical Memories Magazine

Editorial
'
Hello again, and here it is at long last - issue 16. As the July issue didn ' t go in the
post till August, it seemed only right that this should be late also! To be honest, the
school holidays have really taken their toll this year. Perhaps I'm just getting old, but
12 hour days 7 days a week have proved a bit too much this time, and it has been
extremely difficult to muster the energy and enthusiasm for the magazine; I really
needed to put my feet up for a week.
The situation hasn ' t been helped by the printer acquiring a new machine to
replace the one he normally uses for this magazine. For reasons totally beyond my
comprehension, I now have to produce each page in A4 and save the entire magazine
on disc as one document. The wondrous new machine then reduces everything to AS.
Although this isn't rocket science, I could have done without having to reformat
everything; change font sizes; adjust margins and columns etc. at this time. Anyway,
I've no idea what the end result will look like - if it's crap, blame the new machine!
Many thanks to those who have made contributions for this issue (and a couple
of articles I have ' in stock' for next month). I do appreciate your efforts, and it has
certainly helped.
Now, I have an apology to make. Last month I reported that Ivan Farrow has
two bagatelles from his collection on display at the House of Marbles, Devon. The
number is actually seventy - yes seven zero. I really don't know how I got that
wrong. After speaking to Ivan recently, I checked his original letter (just in case I
was able to blame his appalling handwriting), but unfortunately, there was nothing
wrong with Ivan's writing, it clearly said '70'. Anyway, this is a venue clearly worth
a visit, and one which I hope to feature in the magazine sometime in the future.
And finally, a special thankyou to my wife Sharron. I desperately wanted to take a
day off from Brighton during August, so that we could visit Carters' Steam fair at
Battersea Park. Unfortunately, John Hayward was unable to cover for me on the days
I wanted, which left only one day - Sharron's birthday. Anything 'steam' or 'slottie'
would not be Sharron's ideal way of spending a birthday, so it was a most
magnanimous gesture to allow me to ' drag' her up to Battersea Park in the afternoon.
And all it cost me was an ice cream and a hamburger. .. . .. . .. .. so far!
Till next time, all the best
Jerry