To celebrate Stafford turning seventy five I sent him a fax saying...
Suddenly Everything Veers Ending Not Time Yet For Infinite Variety Exists.
I am not sure about the semantic accuracy of these words in a cybernetic
sense but in a purely emotional, son to father sense I am sad that I was right
and his time was in fact veering towards ending.
To be honest it was no great surprise. Wizard Prang revealed he knew when his
death would come and so too Stafford had prepared me for his moving on when he
was 75.
Now I no longer have the direct joy and fun of his physical fatherly-ness
I've found myself for the first time(!) reading his work. It's a very odd
sensation to discover the real "clever bastard" bit of the old man and I'm sure
he'll be pleased that his youngest is finally showing an interest in the family
business.
In my copy of Platform For Change he has written words to the effect that it
will be instructive to discover if I find the book as way out as it was regarded
at the time... I think I probably do. There's not much there to date the ideas,
many of which I suspect only make comprehensive sense now we are living in the
high speed communication internet age. Many of the same mistakes are still being
made, some on a very grand scale and it is thrilling to consider how my old
man's intellectual legacy can be made use of in my own worlds.
I have no educational nor necessarily relevant professional, biographical
information to share with you all. I have an O level in Welsh, some other
GCSE's, two A levels and an HND in something made up. This latter however bore
fruit in that it got me into radio and I am now in a management position at a
BBC local radio station in the most central English county - Northamptonshire.
I hope my lack of a cybernetic or systems background will not frustrate the
process of the syntegration. I am excited and proud to be involved, but must
admit to a degree of nervous trepidation.
By the way in the same birthday fax I posed him a little teaser by signing
off thus...
Beard master fan go far
It does still make me smile that he failed to solve it and whooped with
delight at hearing the answer.
