So how do you time travel? Mr Benn walks from his home at 52 Festive Road to the costume shop, Doctor Who relies on his Police Box and Captain Kirk just says 'Beam Me Up Scotty.' But surely the best way to travel through time is when it happens by accident: remember Gary Sparrow in Goodnight Sweetheart? He was just minding his own business one day, asking directions in the East End, and, before you can say Fight Them On The Beaches, our intrepid TV repair man is back in wartime London. Sam Tyler's method should not be tried at home i.e. being totalled by a speeding car - but the outcome was pretty much the same.
However, my favourite was dreamed up by Jack Finney in his 1950 short story The Third Level: Charley gets lost in New York's Grand Central Station and finds himself on a strange third level; somehow he's travelled back to 1894 complete with steam engines and spitoons - think Marty McFly without the DeLorean (or ZZ Top).
So where would you go if time was on your side? Or do I mean when? I'd love to see The Who tear up The Marquee in '64, stand behind the goal at Wembley in '66 (I'd sort the Geoff Hurst was it/wasn't it debate once and for all) and then, after a quick pint with Mick Jagger in The Speakeasy, it'd be time to come home. Scotty, beam me up.
Uriah Heep: Traveller In Time
Where do you start - a King's Road shopping spree to stock up on Sex/Seditionaries gear for future use. Catching the Pistols live, Bowie in his Ziggy period, any Faces gig. And then there's Beatles events..
ReplyDeleteA trip to 1950's America would be lovely..rockabilly, crooners, great hair and diners.
ReplyDeleteWhilst on my travels I wouldn't mind popping along to see myself back in 1984, 89 & 97 for a quiet word!
Mondo - The 100 Club gig, per chance?
ReplyDeleteJ&T - I'm sure there's something in the time travel rule book that says you're not allowed to meet yourself (something about the space-time continuum) - but if you were able to, dare I ask why those years in particular?!
I didn't know there was a rule book, dont you just hate those things?
ReplyDeleteThinking about it..that would be a doppleganger situation which I do believe is an omen of bad luck, such as death! which surely is the worst kind of luck??
I wouldn't want to change anything much in those years, just give myself a little bit of 'I'm much older and a little wiser now' advice.
Mmm, as Mondo says 'Where do you start?'
ReplyDeleteGeorgian London would be good - I'd like to see how decadent it really was and just what the general streetscape was like.
60s Vegas to see Sinatra.
And maybe also around 30AD - I'd like to see what the fuss with Jesus was about!!!
My first stop would be Elvis 1970 in Vegas
ReplyDelete(My knees go weak just thinking about it!)
I like Cocktails Sinatra idea for my second go.
What a cool game...
Mr Benn always came back with a momento: a medal, a parrot's feather, a seashell. I'd like to come back with John Lennon's autograph (but without the stalker connotations).
ReplyDeleteI had some idea for a time travelling something or other which was an aborted concept album plan.... I lost the idea now but it was a good one I'm sure.
ReplyDeleteI realise that this post dates from April 2010 but consider it as though I have travelled back in time from January 2011 just to add my tuppence worth.
ReplyDeleteIf it were a one trip deal I'd just have to ride that clock right back to Hawkwind's A Space Ritual in December 1972.