This christmas my brother got me DVDs of the first season of StarBlazers (known as Space Battleship Yamato in Nippon). I used to watch this in the early 80s on Greek television, and it was probably my introduction to sci-fi universes, along with Star Trek TOS. Although this series has a cult following, with a huge number of fansites and spin-offs, I had not watched it for 20 years or so. The animation technique is fairly crude (we are talking very scratched cels), and there are several continuity errors and inconsistencies, but the story and the universe are rigorously well-defined. It is obvious that the interest of the animators lay with the vessels (a passion reflected in current fans, who invent updated versions of the ships and model them in 3D software). I recognise now that this series was highly influential to me, and probably others: the battleship has a holodeck! If you are are a Star Wars fan, look into Yamato.

I didn’t mention that I have been in London since the 30th of December. I had dinner with Dion (who is too busy to have a website) and Fiona (who unexpectedly flew in from Kuala Lumpur) on new year’s eve. For the past two days I have been enjoying sales. The lower the prices the more I get depressed about the amount of markup I pay during non-sale periods.

This morning I visited the ICA bookshop (where I noticed that I have met a fair number of the the authors respresented in the design and theory sections) and spent some time getting inspired. Among other reading material, I got myself copies of the two issues of Deliciæ Vitæ.