THE WOLD NEWTON CONNECTION 1

Lord Cardigan who blogs on  Precipitation with Insight has been speculating that the Demi-Monde has a Wold Newton connection. So I suppose I have to 'fess up: there is but it's quite tenuous (or maybe not!). Much of it revolves around the discovery of Cavorite. So (with dutiful acknowledgement of the genius of Philip Jose Farmer) I thought some readers might find it interesting to learn how the Cavors came to discover Cavorite and (some) of the ramifications this had on the world. To begin ...

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

A Statement made by Professor Thomas Cavor and written on the 1st January 1947

To my unseen Reader...salutations!


A New Year dawns but rather than heralding hope and a belief in better times to come I sense that 1947 will bring misery and hardship unprecedented in human history. These are dark days. We are only a scant five months on from the rude announcement of the dawning of the Age of the Atom but already I feel the heavy hand of dread destiny gripping the world.


But is not the threat of such a fearful and uncertain future that renders me so pessimistic, rather it is the knowledge that my disagreements with Sir Roderick Bole grow ever more vehement and, as a consequence, that this will be my last year on this earth. A somewhat melodramatic statement some of you might judge, but of my imminent demise I have little doubt. Sir Roderick is a man who deals with those who oppose him in a decisive fashion and I have opposed him in the matter closest to his black heart: power.


This being the case, and having no use for the proposition that Paradise awaits me, I have devised my own way of unburdening my soul and of alerting you, Dear Reader, to the strange events that have so wilfully shaped history since 1795 and which now conspire to make Bole (and ParaDigm Enterprises) the pre-eminent power on earth. More, I do this in the hope that being forewarned you might be forearmed and careful of those such as the Boles, the Kentons and the Jekylls who would seek to subjugate Mankind and to deny us free-will.


My story will, I suspect, astonish and alarm those of you of a more hysterical disposition, and many will consider it to be nothing more than a fanciful product of a mischievous and malevolent imagination. My claims, I have no doubt, will be mocked.


So be it.


But being mocked does not alter the veracity of what I will relate. I pledge to you that the events related below are facts, but being advised by Laplace that ‘the weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness’ as proof I have appended faithfully rendered and apostilled facsimiles of the pertinent diary entries of my ancestors. These I trust, with just a modest alleviation of the narrow-mindedness of which we British are prone, will speak persuasively, such that those reading this letter and its addendums will be moved to believe. To these, the more fair-minded members of my putative audience, I say look around and if you see a congruity of your history and mine, then beware, for death and destruction walk behind you!


To begin.


Overleaf you will find the diary entry made by my great-great grandfather on that fateful day in December 1795 when he was invited to attend a scientific soiree in Bole Manor situated in Wold Newton.


Read … and prepare to be amazed.