Ten Things about Jasper

True. And I still use the same typewriter to this day. Mostly just addressing envelopes as it's quicker than reloading the printer and going through all that printer-reset-to-envelope malarkey. Purchased in 1981 for the princely sum (then) of £20 and at a time when the last word in word processing power was an electric typewriter, I used the Adler to type out my first full-length film script of The Sword and the Salesman. It was a mixture of Brazil, Hitchhikers, Star Wars, Dragonslayer and Mad Max II, I think, with a bit of homespun nonsense thrown in.

The story begins when a nebulous cloud of interstellar base-rate increases threatens to destabilise Mujualproffidant, a small planet that is the life insurance cover centre of the universe, and whilst admittedly possessing a 'dullness unrivalled in a thousand star systems', is essential to the smooth running of the galaxy's financial affairs. The elders of Cortinasville decide that someone must make the difficult trip beyond the boundaries of the city (a medieval walled town with a thousand acres of identical estate housing within it) to a vicious post-apolyptic land of danger and anarchy to discover the secret of the mythical interest-free credit. Unfortunately, everyone's life is so well covered by insurance that an accidental death would also spell disaster, so a lone, uninsured, poor and slightly stupid youth named Sidney Arkwright is instructed on this bold mission.

Reading it twenty-five years later it's pretty awful, but the premise seems to work. Mind you, with good characters and a spiffy joke or two, what premise doesn't? The story also featured a beautiful princess, a failed enchanter, a very expensive sword named Exhorbitus and a mysterious beast known only as Mynid.

Ten Things You Never Knew About Jasper: (and never thought to ask)

He wrote his first semi-serious attempt at writing on an old Adler typewriter. An old and dear friend True. And I still use the same typewriter to this day. Mostly just addressing envelopes as it's quicker than reloading the printer and going through all that printer-reset-to-envelope malarkey. Purchased in 1981 for the princely sum (then) of £20 and at a time when the last word in word processing power was an electric typewriter, I used the Adler to type out my first full-length film script of The Sword and the Salesman. It was a mixture of Brazil, Hitchhikers, Star Wars, Dragonslayer and Mad Max II, I think, with a bit of homespun nonsense thrown in. The story begins when a nebulous cloud of interstellar base-rate increases threatens to destabilise Mujualproffidant, a small planet that is the life insurance cover centre of the universe, and whilst admittedly possessing a 'dullness unrivalled in a thousand star systems', is essential to the smooth running of the galaxy's financial affairs. The elders of Cortinasville decide that someone must make the difficult trip beyond the boundaries of the city (a medieval walled town with a thousand acres of identical estate housing within it) to a vicious post-apolyptic land of danger and anarchy to discover the secret of the mythical interest-free credit. Unfortunately, everyone's life is so well covered by insurance that an accidental death would also spell disaster, so a lone, uninsured, poor and slightly stupid youth named Sidney Arkwright is instructed on this bold mission. Reading it twenty-five years later it's pretty awful, but the premise seems to work. Mind you, with good characters and a spiffy joke or two, what premise doesn't? The story also featured a beautiful princess, a failed enchanter, a very expensive sword named Exhorbitus and a mysterious beast known only as Mynid.