Nick Frost!  Simon Pegg!  No, I'm not talking about Shaun Of The Dead or Hot Fuzz (though I've been known to talk about both films at length), I'm talking about The Sofa Of Time, Frost's fantasy parody written with Matt King (both pictured on the right).

Per Wiki:

"Milford (King) and Parker (Frost) get sacked from their jobs in a soft furnishings factory in Crouch End. As they are clearing out their lockers, they fall into the magical world of Gravy. Frost described Gravy as an "Tolkien-esque world with supermarkets and banks".

"There they meet Marmite the Dwarf, (Mark Heap), who believes that Milford is "the chosen one", who has come at last to save the people from the evil emperor warlock Raamen Bod, (Peter Serafinowicz), who plans to find the Sofa of Time, the most magical and powerful item of furniture in the entire universe, and use it for evil purposes.

"The series featured Spaced regulars Mark Heap, Julia Deakin, Peter Serafinowicz, and Simon Pegg as well as Kevin Eldon, Daisy Jones and Joseph Marcell. The series was produced by Mario Stylianides, for Talkback.

"The BBC offered King and Frost a second series, but they declined as King had moved back to Australia.  The series has never been made commercially available."

Ah, parenthood.  The cryogenic cabinets, the baby's cerebral boost with just the right Sleep/Learn package...  visit a future where children can be frozen when it's not convenient to care for them.

As many of you know by now, I'm incredibly pleased whenever I'm given an opportunity to post anything here that Bill Nighy has anything to do with, and thanks to a reading of George Orwell's Animal Farm, I can do just that.

For a little info behind the classic novel, let's go back to our old pal Wikipedia:

"Animal Farm is a dystopian novel by George Orwell. Published in England on 17 August 1945, the book reflects events leading up to and during the Stalin era before World War II. Orwell, a democratic socialist and a member of the Independent Labour Party for many years, was a critic of Joseph Stalin and was suspicious of Moscow-directed Stalinism after his experiences with the NKVD during the Spanish Civil War. In a letter to Yvonne Davet, Orwell described Animal Farm as his novel 'contre Stalin'.

"The original title was Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, but A Fairy Story was dropped by the US publishers for its 1946 publication. Of all the translations during Orwell's lifetime, only Telugu kept the original title. Other variations in the title include: A Satire and A Contemporary Satire.  Orwell suggested for the French translation the title Union des républiques socialistes animales or URSA, which means 'bear' in Latin.

"Time Magazine chose the book as one of the 100 best English-language novels (1923 to 2005), at number 31 on the Modern Library List of Best 20th-Century Novels. It won a Retrospective Hugo Award in 1996 and is also included in the Great Books of the Western World."

"Rendezvous with Rama is a novel by Arthur C. Clarke first published in 1972. Set in the 22nd century, the story involves a fifty-kilometer-long cylindrical alien starship that enters Earth's solar system. The story is told from the point of view of a group of human explorers, who intercept the ship in an attempt to unlock its mysteries.

"This novel won both the Hugo and Nebula awards upon its release, and is widely regarded as one of the cornerstones in Clarke's bibliography. It is considered a science fiction classic, and is particularly seen as a key hard science fiction text."

...and here's an unabridged reading of Rendezvous With Rama.

Chapter One
(4.76 mb; 5:10 min.)

Chapter Two
(11.4 mb; 12:25 min.)

Chapter Three
(5.45 mb; 5:55 min.)

Chapter Four
(10.7 mb; 11:40 min.)

Chapter Five
(6.48 mb; 7:02 min.)

Chapter Six, Pt. 1
(6.43 mb; 6:59 min.)

Chapter Six, Pt. 2
(6.88 mb; 7:29 min.)

Chapter Seven
(5.33 mb; 5:47 min.)

Chapter Eight
(8.41 mb; 9:09 min.)

Chapter Nine, Pt. 1
(7.95 mb; 8:38 min.)

Chapter Nine, Pt. 2
(7.04 mb; 7:39 min.)

Chapter Ten, Pt. 1
(7.46 mb; 8:06 min.)

Chapter Ten, Pt. 2
(7.81 mb; 8:29 min.)

Chapter Ten, Pt. 3
(7.83 mb; 8:31 min.)

Chapter Eleven, Pt. 1
(7.31 mb; 7:57 min.)

Chapter Eleven, Pt. 2
(4.96 mb; 5:23 min.)

Chapter Twelve
(11.5 mb; 12:32 min.)

Chapter Thirteen
(11.7 mb; 12:46 min.)

Chapter Fourteen
(9.07 mb; 9:52 min.)

Chapter Fifteen
(11.6 mb; 12:42 min.)

Chapter Sixteen, Pt. 1
(7.34 mb; 7:58 min.)

Chapter Sixteen, Pt. 2
(7.63 mb; 8:18 min.)

Chapter Seventeen
(11.1 mb; 12:09 min.)

Chapter Eighteen, Pt. 1
(6.44 mb; 7:00 min.)

Chapter Eighteen, Pt. 2
(6.55 mb; 7:07 min.)

Chapter Nineteen, Pt. 1
(7.84 mb; 8:31 min.)

Chapter Nineteen, Pt. 2
(8 mb; 8:42 min.)

Chapter Twenty
(7.37 mb; 8:01 min.)

Chapter Twenty-One
(11.8 mb; 12:51 min.)

Chapter Twenty-Two, Pt. 1
(7.38 mb; 8:01 min.)

Chapter Twenty-Two, Pt. 2
(6.88 mb; 7:28 min.)

Chapter Twenty-Three
(7.21 mb; 7:51 min.)

Chapter Twenty-Four
(6 mb; 6:31 min.)

Chapter Twenty-Five
(9.45 mb; 10:17 min.)

Chapter Twenty-Six, Pt. 1
(7.82 mb; 8:30 min.)

Chapter Twenty-Six, Pt. 2
(7.18 mb; 7:48 min.)

Chapter Twenty-Seven
(10 mb; 10:56 min.)

Chapter Twenty-Eight
(6.3 mb; 6:51 min.)

Chapter Twenty-Nine, Pt. 1
(7.93 mb; 8:37 min.)

Chapter Twenty-Nine, Pt. 2
(7.65 mb; 8:19 min.)

Chapter Thirty, Pt. 1
(7.81 mb; 8:30 min.)

Chapter Thirty, Pt. 2
(7.64 mb; 8:19 min.)

Chapter Thirty-One, Pt. 1
(7.09 mb; 7:42 min.)

Chapter Thirty-One, Pt. 2
(7.5 mb; 8:09 min.)

Chapter Thirty-two
(11.7 mb; 12:44 min.)

Chapter Thirty-Three, Pt. 1
(6.98 mb; 7:35 min.)

Chapter Thirty-Three, Pt. 2
(7.02 mb; 7:38 min.)

Chapter Thirty-Four
(9.78 mb; 10:38 min.)

Chapter Thirty-Five
(3.87 mb; 4:11 min.)

Chapter Thirty-Six
(12 mb; 13:06 min.)

Chapter Thirty-Seven
(7.5 mb; 8:09 min.)

Chapter Thirty-Eight, Pt. 1
(7.01 mb; 7:37 min.)

Chapter Thirty-Eight, Pt. 2
(6.09 mb; 6:37 min.)

Chapter Thirty-Nine
(6.75 mb; 7:20 min.)

Chapter Forty, Pt. 1
(9.45 mb; 10:17 min.)

Chapter Forty, Pt. 2
(8.56 mb; 9:19 min.)

Chapter Forty-One
(2.91 mb; 3:08 min.)

Chapter Forty-Two, Pt. 1
(6.66 mb; 7:15 min.)

Chapter Forty-Two, Pt. 2
(6.99 mb; 7:36 min.)

Chapter Forty-Three, Pt. 1
(7.97 mb; 8:40 min.)

Chapter Forty-Three, Pt. 2
(7.21 mb; 7:50 min.)

Chapter Forty-Four
(8.88 mb; 9:40 min.)

Chapter Forty-Five
(5.67 mb; 6:09 min.)

Chapter Forty-Six
(6.72 mb; 7:18 min.)

Whew!!   And though this means fast-forwarding through two sequels to the last co-written by Gentry Lee, here's Rama Revealed...

Rama Revealed

Part One
(38.6 mb; 1:24:29 min.)

Part Two
(38.5 mb; 1:24:12 min)

Part Three
(38.6 mb; 1:24:25 min)

Part Four
(38.4 mb; 1:24:04 min)

Part Five
(38.6 mb; 1:24:24 min)

Part Six
(38.4 mb; 1:24:01 min)

Part Seven
(38.6 mb; 1:24:25 min)

Part Eight
(38.4 mb; 1:23:57 min)

Part Nine
(38.6 mb; 1:24:24 min)

Part Ten
(38.5 mb; 1:24:15 min)

Part Eleven
(38.7 mb; 1:24:35 min)

Part Twelve
(38.3 mb; 1:24:52 min)

Part Thirteen
(38.2 mb; 1:23:31 min)

Part Fourteen
(30.3 mb; 1:06:18 min)



Having thoroughly enjoyed Gerry Jones' Time After Time, Astronaut Barbara E wanted to hear The Fiend, All Through The Night, Snake and/or Jack In The Box. I would like to hear any Gerry Jones, really, so if anyone might have a Gerry Jones tale not mentioned here, please let me know.

Astronaut James S would love to hear the KPVK series The Graveyard Shift.

I just realized I'm missing the BBC series The Gothic Tales Of Edgar Allan Poe, the first Christopher Lee series for BBC 4.

We now have seven episodes of Deep Night and 43 of the 79 episodes of Johnny Chase: Secret Agent Of Space - if you can provide us with episodes not posted, please e-mail me.

Astronaut Mike is looking for the four-part series The Radio Arcade, as well as Bill Morelock's Proposition Four.

Astronaut Bruce would like to find copies of Blood Flowers, Alien Bait, and The Gliding.

If anyone would care to donate the aforementioned radio shows, please contact me at zombieastronaut@gmail.com.



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