1979:
The trivia:
- Elvita Adams, a 29-year-old woman from the Bronx, was facing severe personal hardship. She had recently lost her job and was surviving on welfare, her landlord was threatening eviction, and she was struggling to support her 10-year-old son. In a state of deep despair, she made her way to the Empire State Building and jumped from the 86th-floor observation deck. Miraculously, instead of falling to the street below, a freak gust of wind blew her sideways, causing her to land on a narrow ledge just one story down. She was rescued by security guards and taken to Bellevue Hospital, having suffered only a fractured pelvis.
- On 14th June 1979, Anna Williams, a 63-year-old widow, received a package in the mail containing some of her personal items which she thought had been taken in a break-in a few months earlier. Accompanying the valuables was a bizarre poem titled “Oh, Anna, Why Didn’t You Appear”. It was deeply unsettling - full of menace, and lamenting the fact that she had not been home on the night of 28th April. It turned out to be from the notorious "BTK" serial killer, Dennis Radar, who had broken into her home, disabled the phone lines, and waited in her bedroom wardrobe for hours - before abandoning his murder attempt.
- NASA’s exploratory craft Voyager 1 reached Jupiter in March 1979, capturing nearly 19,000 images of the planet, its complex cloud systems, and its many moons. Among the most surprising discoveries was the detection of a faint ring system, a phenomenon previously thought to be exclusive to Saturn. In addition, when specialists noticed an unusual plume on Io, Jupiter’s largest innermost moon, it ultimately revealed the presence of hundreds of volcanoes.
The memory:
The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke
In the 22nd century, structural engineer Vannevar Morgan dreams of building the world's first "space elevator" - a giant tower rising from Earth and tethered via a 'hyperfilament' cable to a structure in geostationary orbit 22,000 miles above the surface. Vehicles will be able to "climb" the cable to take payloads to orbit without the need for expensive rockets - greatly speeding up the colonisation of space. The only problem is, the one suitable point for the base station of the elevator is at the top of Sri Kanda - a mountain on the equatorial island of Taprobane, which is home to an ancient order of Buddhist monks. They are one of the few holy orders left on the planet, after contact with an robotic alien probe known as "Starglider" several decades ago shook the foundations of all religious faith - and they do *not* want to move.
Morgan's struggles with the engineering, political and religious obstacles to his 'Orbital Tower' are contrasted with the story of Taprobane's ancient monarch, Kalidasa. Two thousand years ago the king built his immense palace on the nearby mountain of Yakkagala. Setting himself up as a god he adorned the peak with beautiful images and constructed a vast garden full of fountains - feats that were centuries ahead of their time. The monks of Sri Kanda were vehemently opposed to Kalidasa's works, seeing them as an affront to their philosophy - and they have the same strong outrage towards Morgan and his project. Both men were / are trying to "challenge the gods".
To demonstrate that his technology works, Morgan attempts to run a thin cable from orbit down to ground level on Taprobane , but the test is disrupted by one of the monks (the Venerable Parakarma) , who hijacks a weather-control satellite to create an artificial hurricane in the area. Unfortunately although the sabotage succeeds, it also has the side effect of sweeping huge numbers of butterflies to the top of the mountain - thus fulfilling an ancient Buddhist prophecy - and the monks have no choice but to abandon their monastery.
The novel then subsequently deals with the construction of the base tower on Sri Panda and the initial trials of the space elevator, which proceed well until an accident strands a group several hundred miles up. Despite failing health, Morgan makes a one man trip up the cable to provide emergency supplies and oxygen until they can be rescued. On the way back down he has a vision of a series of interconnected orbital stations all serviced by elevators - with Earth as the hub of a gigantic "wheel" in space. But before he can return to Earth and tell others of his ideas and guarantee his place in the history of space engineering, Morgan suffers a heart attack and dies.
Far in the future, the builders of "Starglider" arrive at Earth and admire the construction of the artificial wheel surrounding the planet. Morgan's vision has come to pass - but in a twist of fate he is not the one immortalised, but his engineering antecedent - the marvel of the space elevator is known as "Kalidasa's Tower "...
You see, many of the places that Clarke describes in his book are real. Taprobane really exists - it's the historical name for his beloved Sri Lanka (albeit the island's position has been moved for story purposes). King Kalidasa? Well the name may be taken from a 5th Century Sanskrit writer, but the monarch himself ruled between 477 and 495 A.D. as Kashyapa I of Anuradhapura. His fabulous frescoed palace full of painted maidens on a mountain surrounded by gardens and fountains? Yes that's also a genuine locale - and halfway up he built a grand entrance in the shape of a lion - just like the one in the cover above. The mountain is not named "Yakkagala" though. In the island language of Sinhalese it’s called "Sigiriya" - literally "Lion Rock"...
As for the Buddhist temple on the mountain of "Sri Kanda" - you guessed it - Clarke also drew on what he knew about the holy sites of his adopted home. In central Sri Lanka lies "Sri Pada", the 'Butterfly Mountain' which has long been considered a very important religious region, mainly due to the monastery halfway up - and most importantly the shrine near the summit which contains a large rock formation. This is held to be the footprint of Buddha (or the Hindu god Shiva or the Islamic / Christian "first man" Adam). It’s therefore also known as "Adam's Peak".
The existence of all these locations outside the fictional construct of the novel blew my mind. For several years afterwards I dreamt of travelling to Sri Lanka and climbing Adam's Peak to see the sunrise from the top and gaze upon the footprint. Of walking up the steps of Sigirya through the lion's mouth. Of stepping through history but at the same time imagining myself in the future...
But as with many dreams, it fell by the wayside as everyday life took hold. School work, exams, work, relationships, getting married, children, divorce - the time went by in a virtual blur and before I knew it twenty-odd years had passed - and dreams of visiting a teardrop-shaped island more than 5,000 miles away were a distant memory.
Then in the early years of the 21st Century, I found myself in a new relationship and engaged to be married for the second time. Talking to my bride-to be about our honeymoon plans, I asked her where on the globe she would like to go. "Well, there was always one place I wanted to visit, after reading about it in a book by Arthur C. Clarke..." she said. Fate really had dealt in my favour! Here was possibly one of the few other people in the world who shared that dream of going to Sri Lanka. It was meant to be !
So that's how in early September of 2004 we found ourselves flying across the oceans for eleven hours and then on a ten day tour around the most fascinating parts of the island in a minibus. There were two other couples and a single guy on his own with us, plus the tour guide Dharmin, the driver and a young man acting as general "Passepartout".
Starting and ending in the capital Colombo (no sign of dear Arthur C. sadly), we travelled over 1,000 kilometres (620+ miles) through some of the most beautiful scenery known to man. Along the way we fed baby elephants at a special orphanage in Pinnawala, gazed in awe at 2,700 year old paintings in the Golden Temple caves of Dhambulla, experienced fire walking and the temple of the sacred tooth of Buddha in Kandy, drank tea in the mountainous plantations of Nuwara Eliya, and came face to face with a leopard in the Yala National park - I could write a whole series of posts about the tour and the numerous wonderful parts of a very special holiday.
But of course the highlight was a visit to Sigiriya - the "Lion Rock".
As you approach the site and walk through the endless series of lush gardens with their still working fountains, the rock starts to loom larger and larger. It looks impressive, but it's not until you get much closer that you realise the sheer size of this outcrop and the manpower that would have been needed to build the Sky Palace on the summit.
Approaching the foot of the mountain, we reached the Bolder Gardens, where the steps were relatively easy to climb. Vast shapes may look like they are falling together, but were used carefully to create spaces for contemplation.
Then things started to become more difficult. The stairs through the Terraced Gardens were wide, but as we began to climb the grand zig-zag up to the next level, the going became much steeper. Hugging the side of the cliff face, we reached the Mirror Wall. Once this had been painted a glowing white, so polished that you could see your reflection. Now it was a glorious orange, the surface pitted and marked with the graffiti of travellers from millennia ago.
From here we ascended a very narrow spiral staircase to a sheltered indentation in the rock. Here are the only surviving examples of the painted frescoes that once covered the face of Sigiriya. The graffiti on the Mirror Wall suggests that there may have been over five hundred at one point. Bare breasted with golden skin and elaborate headpieces, our guide told us that they may have been members of the harem of Kashyapa and were painted to show the opulence and grandeur of the home of the god-king.
Descending back down the spiral to the Mirror Wall we continued our trek. The marble stairs at this point were very steep and it took a good 20 minutes before we reached the first half-way plateau - and the part I had been looking forward to the most. This was the start of the Lion Staircase!
At one point there *was* a colossal gatehouse here in the form of a crouching lion, which you had to pass through to gain access to the private sanctum of the king. Unlike that memorable image on the front cover of "The Fountains of Paradise", the stairs did not go through the mouth of the beast, but via a hidden set of doors in the chest, which then went back and forth inside the head before emerging at the back.
The ravages of time have not been kind to the once magnificent beast however, and all that remain are the paws and the staircase. As you can see from the picture below (and yes, that is me standing at the foot of the steps), the giant feet give you an idea of the scale of what was once there. It must truly have been magnificent. At last, years after I had read about it, there I was walking in the footsteps of the real King Kashyapa - and the fictional King Kalidasa upon his mountain of Yakkagala. It was a spine-tingling moment
The final climb to the ruins of the Sky Palace was via a set of vertiginous narrow metal walkways that grip onto the side of the rock face. The original steps had long since vanished, but I could see the grooves carved into the rock surface where the builders had set the foundations. We had to wait for a few tense minutes before starting, because there was a large hornets next fixed to the wall and our guide had to determine if it was safe to creep past. This was definitely not an ascent to make if you were scared of heights!
At last we reached the top and the remains of the Sky Palace were all around us. It was thankfully quite cool after the hard climb and the view across the countryside and down to the Fountains of Paradise in the garden far below was spectacular. It was a journey which I will never forget.
But what about that other important location from Arthur C. Clarke' novel - the holy mountain of "Sri Pada" or "Adam's Peak"? Well sadly as wide ranging as our tour was, it didn't go close enough for us to visit the site, let alone make the pilgrimage to the top. In reality it is over 100 miles from Sigiriya, and the closest we got was a view from the distance while on the road to Ratnapura. Apparently you have to start at 2 am to get to the temple in time for the sunrise. It was a shame that we couldn't do it, but I fully intend to go back to Sri Lanka again, so one day...
It's incredible to think that a mere two hundred-odd page science fiction story led to me visiting one of the most amazing countries in the world. Who knows where the next book I read will take me?
Honourable mentions:
- Not The Nine O'Clock News - The first comedy show that I really got into, having missed the whole thing about "Monty Python". It felt like I’d discovered something grown-up - sharp, fast, and just the right side of outrageous. I loved the satirical solo pieces, the fake news reports, the anarchic sarcasm and of course the songs and sketches. Who can forget "Gerald the Gorilla", "Constable Savage", "The Ayatollah Song ", the "TV closedown" sketch, "Nice Video Shame About The Song", the drunk darts players, "I Like Trucking", etc, etc. etc. I had all the BBC LP compilations and listened to them so much I could recite the sketches verbatim. It wasn’t just funny. It was formative. It taught me that comedy could be smart and subversive - and in Pamela Stephenson, Mel Smith, Griff Rhys Jones and especially Rowan Atkinson, I found my first comedy heroes.
- Tornado - Another short lived companion comic to 2000 AD, most memorable for artist Dave Gibbons posing as superhero editor "Big E". It was an eclectic mix of strips - from World War II escape thrillers to pulp detectives, from swaggering secret agents to Highland wild boys with a mysterious past. When it was cancelled after a mere 22 issues, only retooled Nubian slave turned alien gladiator "Blackhawk" and teenager with psi-powers "Wolfie Smith" made the transition to 2000 AD. Okay so “Captain Klep” moved too, but that was a one page joke. It’s a shame as I do have fond memories of Martian rebellion story "The Angry Planet" - with art from the always brilliant Massimo Bellardinelli.
- Sapphire And Steel - The adventures of the inter-dimensional agents who battled strange occurrences throughout time (which itself was a malignant force) was one of the best SF / fantasy TV shows of the era. I avidly watched each week, even if I didn't always understand what was going on. What made "Sapphire and Steel" so compelling wasn’t just the eerie atmosphere - it was the sense that anything could happen, and often did, in ways that defied conventional storytelling. The show had a dreamlike quality, and the performances by Joanna Lumley and David McCallum were perfectly pitched - cool, enigmatic, and just a little unsettling. I remember being fascinated by these mysterious figures and their element friends. The stories lingered in the mind long after the credits rolled - especially "Assignment Two", set in an old railway station, which still gives me chills (although it didn't help that an industrial strike caused ITV to go off air for several weeks mid-way through). For some reason I missed the final story with the infamous cliffhanger on first transmission, and didn't get to see it until years later when I bought the box set on DVD. I was struck then by how well the whole show holds up as a genuinely bold and original piece of television. It’s a shame it ended so abruptly, but maybe that’s part of its longevity. Hopefully, Sapphire and Steel are still out there somewhere, suspended in time, waiting to come back...
- Micronauts - outside of 2000 AD, this is probably one of the most important and personal comics series I own. Sure I'd dabbled in the Marvel universe before, mainly through back issues of the UK black and white reprints found at jumble sales - and odd random US colour issues found in seaside newsagents (back when that was a real thing). But after stumbling across issue 4 while on holiday, I was immediately hooked. The "Micronauts" name was familiar to me from the toys that had started appearing a couple of years earlier, but here was a comic that took the basic ideas and characters and spun them into a whole incredible cosmic universe of their own. It helped that the stories were by industry legends Bill Mantlo and Michael Golden, two masters of their craft. I was so captivated that I spent the rest of the two-week trip scouring every corner shop, and dusty rack I could find, desperately searching for the earlier issues. My determination to collect the whole series also led me to dedicated comics shops - and a whole new world of titles opened up to me. Along with "Rom: Spaceknight" and "Shogun Warriors" (also based on toy lines), this was the title that made me a collector rather than just a reader. I still have every issue, and although thousands of other comics have come and gone over the intervening decades, I can't imagine I'll ever part with them.
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