Sitting alone in this unfamiliar coffee shop, watching the clock tick by as The Benefaktor makes prostate-based excuses by text message, I speculate that the clock might strike 13 by the time he re-appears. A more familiar signal marks the hour across Edinburgh and The Benefaktor returns. He has obviously been dabbing the food stains on his fleece. Clean clothes, virtuous life presumably. They simply reinforce the character blemishes.m

We lift and replace our cups like chess pieces, but so exposed on a bare wooden table I cannot see any smart moves for The Benefaktor to gain an advantage. I feel virtuous, powerful. It’s an unfamiliar sensation.

“The blog seems to be….., um, progressing”, he offers.

I sit stony-faced, silent.

“You’ll need to meet The Foundation Doktor”.

Sip.

“I think you’d like her”.

“Anyway, cheers”. He raises his cup.

I make my move. “I thought you were in hospital”.

“Ah, well, that’s my karakter”, he answers, annotating the Ks with his fingers.

“How long were you in for?”

“Me or The Benefaktor?”

“You”.

“That would be telling”, raising an eyebrow that makes me want to give him a proper black eye.  It’s easy to forget that he’s an old man.

I pull out my phone and show him the photo of the most recent delivery, in its snipped chaos. He gazes at it blankly. “And?”

“No idea”, he replies brusquely, without apparent recognition. Poker time.

“And The Foundation Doktor – would she know?”

This time little fluffy clouds appear across his cheeks, reddened by the evening sun. We’ve been sitting for hours, circling. “Ah yes”, he mutters, “I see”.

I wipe my mouth to conceal the bitterness of the end of my matcha tea, ordered to try something different after my earlier drinks. My grimace could be misconstrued. I try to shift the cloying paste between my tongue and roof of my mouth. The travel, caffeine, heat and proximity to The Benefaktor add up to a powerful dyspepsia. I take a slurp of water from the bottle in my bag and resume negotiations.

It is towards the end of these discussions, when it is completely dark outside, that I become aware of the young woman sitting at the end of our communal table. She is holding a book, but does not appear to be reading. She is listening. And she looks vaguely familiar. We finish up and I hurriedly excuse myself.

GANTOB

4 NOVEMBER 2023

Lots has changed in the landscape between Badenoch and Edinburgh in the weeks since my last visit. I have plenty of time to daydream in the bus journey along the A9, from the Dalwhinnie bareness now imposed on the Highlands by another approaching winter, to the end of the autumnal glory of Perthshire. The bus is, as usual, too warm. I manage to take a few notes in my notepad, but my phone is off limits.

Edinburgh is busy. It has also changed. Several phone shops have left Princes Street, and I think about the tech giants who feature so prominently in 2023: A trilogy. Thinks have moved on in the period between that book’s publication (2017) and the year it was attempting to predict: The Old Five, The New Big Five and Nicola Sturgeon. I wouldn’t want to predict next week at the moment. I rack my brains for mention of Elon Musk in 2023: A trilogy, but can’t be sure. He’s something even more unknowable.

As we have seen from the blogs posted around his birthday, The Benefaktor is nothing if not predictable. I sit in the Starbucks at the junction leading down to Carlton Road. The Benefaktor strides past, a curious mix of upright propriety and scruffiness (today he’s wearing jobby catchers and trainers and a food-stained fleece). I have to make two steps to each of his, but I keep up, along Princes Street, preparing to cross and turn up towards the Mound and The Benefaktor’s favoured cultural institutions. He’s clearly not avoiding the Playfair Steps.

I intercept him on the island in the middle, no escape between two trams. Catching sight of me he looks pale but alert. Up close I can see some yellow bruising to his face, but otherwise he appears unharmed. There is no sling or plaster cast, and he holds himself normally. If there is any contrition, he hides it well. We talk above the electric buzz from the trams and agree to head to a coffee shop. I lead him towards one of my favourites the next block along, but it has changed hands. I accept his offer to buy the drinks, and we head upstairs to a quiet corner away from the students and tourists. He asks if I would excuse him for a moment and heads to the toilet. He says that I can trust him to return.

GANTOB

3 NOVEMBER 2023

I am reading about Beastie Boys, looking for a reason why “Curt Finks” might have referenced them in a short story. Perhaps just a signifier of loud noise for an elderly gentleman.

I’m not sure that The KLF sampled Beastie Boys, but The JAMs appear to have been influenced by their sound. A Google search takes me down some blind alleys, but also into some interesting and uncharted (for me anyway) territory. I knew about The JAMs’ use of Beatles samples, and The Beatles themselves splicing their own material up to create new sounds, but not about the Beastie Boys sampling the Fab Four on The Sounds of Science. They end with “Eat a chicken gizzard with a girl named Lizzy”.

My thoughts slip around on connections, landing in unexpected places. I am left with an earworm from the White Album: “Her name was Magill and she called herself Lil/ But everyone knew her as Nancy”.

Ali comes in for lunch and we knock about my current preoccupations. I put on Rocky Raccoon to scratch the Magill-shaped itch, and we talk about nagging doubts about The Foundation Doktor and the trees around Ely Cathedral. Who can we ask to double check the state of their foliage?

Ali starts talking about Bronwyn from Kings Lynn. You may remember her from Curt Finks’ story “Brent Goose Rock”. She is the only person in GANTOB (the book), or associated writing, whose name has been unchanged (with her permission). Ali recalls that Bronwyn’s nickname at school was “The Pig”, on account of the blues band Blodwyn Pig, and her father’s occupation (farmer). But this concealed a more obvious piece of nominal determinism, her maiden name being Gosling, suiting her fulltime job with a bird protection charity on the East Anglian fens. Paul McCartney would no doubt have had a field day with that one.

Ali phones Bronwyn after lunch, and they talk about the recent arrival of thousands of migrating geese, and how much his Dad loved this time of year. Ali explains the reason for his call and settles down for a long chat. A few minutes in, he jots down a note and slides it across the table. “She says the trees locally are in full leaf, though autumnal!!!”. We have the evidence we need to confront The Benefaktor and The Foundation Doktor’s lies. I ready myself for a trip to Edinburgh.

GANTOB

2 NOVEMBER 2023

I have wasted my extra hour today, the end of British Summer Time. Waking at my usual hour, 06:00, I meandered down to my study, doing a couple of the word puzzles that The Benefaktor mentioned in a previous post, and popping on my tea kettle to 80^oC. This far north (Badenoch), dawn is half an hour later than say London at this time of the year. The extra hour gained by putting the clocks back is important, and I relished the ability to do some preparation for this week’s blogs. The Foundation Doktor’s posts on alternate days are also taking the pressure off.

Half the way through my mug (and midway through typing up my planned blog) I heard a noise from the porch. I wondered initially if we had shut one the cats in the porch, but quickly discounted that because I had both on my knee after their competitively gobbled breakfast. They shifted grudgingly in anticipation as I moved to go through to investigate. On the flagstone floor lay a long thin white letter envelope. It was not stamped or franked, but had the following words typed directly onto the paper:

‘Newly discovered Curt Finks story.

292 words in story (including title).

107 words in covering “letter”.

Use in any order you like (all 399 words) to create your own short story.’

I felt the envelope, noting the characteristic bulge at the bottom corner. I opened it carefully, with tray at the ready, to catch the neatly chopped pieces of paper. Each snip had a word on one side, but no number on the reverse. I sifted through them looking for a pattern, noting some apparently highlighted snips. This was going to take some reconstructing.

After breakfast, Ali joined me. He mansplained the lack of a postal service on a Sunday (as I knew he would) and attempted to find a quick answer to the puzzle (which I knew he wouldn’t). He sauntered off, defeated, to ready himself for the day’s service. I tinkered around, blog forgotten, until around 10:40 GMT (service forgotten). I would be in trouble. I had established that there were indeed 399 snips, and took a photo.

I’m posting this under my pew, and set you this challenge:

Produce a coherent story from these 399 words, by 23:23 on 19 November for a chance to win a related original artwork by yours truly.

GANTOB

29 October 2023

Help me find the most plausible use of these words. Email your entry (one per household) to 100percentvinyl2@gmail.com or direct message me on Instagram or Twitter(X): @GANTOB2023. Entries must be typed, in the body of the message or in a standard word processor format. No late entries accepted – closes at 23:23 on 19 November (your timezone). Use all 399 words and no more. Choose your own punctuation and add or drop capitals as required. Please include your full name and postal address. The artwork sent to the winner (one prize only, winner chosen by GANTOB) will be unframed, A4 size, produced from printer paper and Pritt stick on 300g/m² hot pressed grain satine paper. A stop-motion animation of the artwork will also be dedicated to the winner in due course.

*** CHECK OUT THE UPDATED RULES (AFTER THE FOUNDATION DOKTOR’S APOLOGY 5 NOVEMBER 2023) ***

I would like to clarify a few points before I take on the task of writing a few blogs.

I have been bringing myself up to speed with the GANTOB project, reading the pamphlets that are available from KLFRS.COM, the emails to which GANTOB and The Benefaktor both have access via a shared gmail account (after turning off the confusing “conversation” view), and the GANTOB2023 social media posts and messages. This has not felt like an intrusion. It has been research, or at very least audit. I have found out some interesting details, such as where Curt Finks originally came from. This was revealed in the first version of pamphlet 11, which was originally called Konversion Factor, issued in an edition of one.

I am way out of my depth with many of the cultural references in both GANTOB and The Benefaktor’s writing. These are not things that are usually covered in the podcasts or playlists that I listen to. And Instagram and YouTube do little to diversify your knowledge, though over the years I have become something of an expert in how puppies wake up their owners, who always seem to be asleep in broad daylight, meticulously groomed, in perfect sheets.

I have plenty of time to read on the train. I change at Peterborough and again at Ely, with time to walk around the town and have a meal. I grab another book from Toppings and catch the train to Norwich in the nick of time. In Norwich I visit the library and a local newspaper office, before limping back to the family home in time for a predictably saccharine homecoming and bed as quickly as possible. The following day I head to Suffolk for further research, using my Mum’s car.

But that is a convoluted way to reach my clarifications, which are not, you may be disappointed to hear, about Curt Finks. My discussion with GANTOB before I headed on my trip did not go well. GANTOB listened to my story of meeting The Benefaktor, my “retrieval” of his phone and plans to join the team. She had read my blog. She snippily said: “You’re Chas to The Benefaktor’s Morph” and rang off.

I need to say here and now that I will not accept the criticism. I am not “amoral, narcissistic, and dimwitted” and neither am I a friend of The Benefaktor. I have other plans.

FOUNDATION DOKTOR

28 October 2023

No characters shall be harmed in this post. The death referred to in the title is Roland Barthes’ theory of “La mort de l’auteur”. He wrote that the reader’s interpretation of a book is more important than the author’s intention, and that each reading brings new insights. As a minor author now myself, I have been reflecting on this concept recently.

Wikipedia notes that Barthes’ idea was developed by the school of New Criticism in the US (1940-1970). The ‘”intentional fallacy” declares that a poem does not belong to its author; rather, “it is detached from the author at birth and goes about the world beyond his power to intend about it or control it. The poem belongs to the public.”’ That sounds very grand, but also democratic.

I am asked a lot about the identity of GANTOB and The Benefaktor. That is not important. I am a former travelling salesperson, but not The Travelling Salesman. There are probably unintentional clues about the types of things that I have sold in my 30 years in the job, in my book, blog and videos. That is also unimportant. I could also say that I have written a book, pamphlets and a blog, but I am not a writer. Indeed, what makes a writer?

The start of part two of 2023: A trilogy by The JAMs – the page by Roberta Antonia Wilson, channelling George Orwell or whoever else – is, for me, the most important part of the book. She writes:

“Reading back through [book 1]… it feels like it has been written for an audience of less than half a dozen. It feels like I was just trying to layer the whole thing with all sorts of reference points to impress… well, whoever it is, I don’t know”.

Well, if this blog is intended as a re-enactment or re-positioning of 2023: A trilogy, then it appears to be on the right track. The readership numbers are carefully monitored by WordPress, and hover at around 10 people a day. And layers of characters and references? Tick.

Curt Finks died twenty years ago and was never published. Today his writing may, or may not, be about to be hung on the wall of four GANTOB readers. 2023: A trilogy has been re-read by at least one person this morning. In part two of this blog you will be invited to make your own kontributions.

GANTOB 27 October 2023