Wednesday 23 January 2008

Lost Property













A classified ad posted by a stay-at-home dad in Los Angeles saying he found H.G. Wells’ infamous time machine in Helena appeared in Saturday’s paper to the amusement of people as far away as Europe.

Julian Lee Hobbs, who works by his alias Rory Emerald, posted the ad suggesting he had found the time machine from the 1960s-era movie in Helena’s mansion district.


A suburb of LA? Like, it had wheels or tracks or something? Pfui.

I found the original Time Machine a couple of decades ago in the basement of a garden flat I was renting in Richmond. It took one back to the time a few seconds or so before one had pulled the control lever. The risks of a recursive error seemed high.

After much fruitless tinkering, I left it where I had found it. Perhaps the current resident is looping helplessly forever in tight temporal circles. Maybe and more likely it is now hidden again behind dusty piles of packing crates, cast-away furniture, &c.

HG Wells made the rest of it up.

2 comments:

YesBut said...

Time Machine - do you mean Rail Track.

Board a train and your lost in both time & space.

They have the secret of expanding time - 60 minute journeys always last at least 70 minutes.

Chertiozhnik said...

At least the buffet doesn't serve the Sandwiches From The Dawn of Time that British Rail did - along with all the "who ate all the pies and died" Miller's meat pies, and the amazingly fresh al dente cockroaches.

Ah yes, I remember it well.