Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [240]
Speeches. Motions. Voting.
HOUR 15. Lunch. Lobbying.
HOUR 17. World Food Debate.
Chairman, Lord Monboddo.
Opening speech: “Excrement into Aliment.” The Bohemian delegate and Volstat research scholar Dick Otoman explains how organic pollutions can be pre-processed to revitalize each other within the human body.
Speeches. Motions. Voting.
HOUR 22. Dinner. Lobbying.
THIRD DAY
HOUR 8.50. Breakfast. Lobbying.
HOUR 10. Public Order Debate.
Chairman, Lord Monboddo.
Opening speech: “Revolutionary Stasis.” Kado Motnic, sociometrist and delegate of the People’s Republic of Paphlogonia describes the application of short-nerve-circuitry to libido-canalization in the infra-supra-25-40 spectrum.
Speeches. Motions. Voting.
HOUR 15. Lunch. Lobbying.
HOUR 17. World Energy Debate.
Chairman, Lord Monboddo.
Opening speech: “Biowarp.” South Atlantis delegate and Algolagnics director Timon Kodac presents gene-warping as the solution to the fossil-fuel failure.
Speeches. Motions. Voting.
HOUR 22. Dinner. Lobbying.
FOURTH DAY
HOUR 8.50. Breakfast. Lobbying.
HOUR 10. World Health Debate.
Chairman, Lord Monboddo.
Opening speech: “Kindness, Kin and Capacity.” Hanseatic delegate and sociopathist Moo Dackin explains why healthy norms must be preserved by destroying other healthy norms.
Speeches. Motions. Voting.
HOUR 15. Lunch, social and informal.
HOUR 17. The Subcommittees report. Voting.
HOUR 21. Press conference.
HOUR 22. Dinner. Speeches.
Master of Ceremonies, Trevor Weems.
Opening speech: “Then, Now and Tomorrow.” Six millennia of achievement will be outlined by the Chairman of the Assembly, Moderator of the Expansion Project Director of the Institute and President of the Council, the Lord Monboddo. Trevor Weems, Chief Executive Officer of the Provan Basin, will propose a vote of thanks. Toadi Monk, Satrap of Troy and Trebizond, will move the vote of thanks to the hosts.
HOUR 25. The delegates depart.
Before reading all this Lanark had been gripped by a large undirected excitement. Since wakening to sunlight in his aircraft that morning he had felt himself nearing the centre of a great event, approaching a place where he would utter, publicly, a word that would change the world. The sight of Wilkins, the catalyst and Ozenfant-Monboddo had not damaged this feeling. He had been startled, but so had they, which was satisfying. But the assembly programme disconcerted him. It was like seeing the plans of a vast engine he meant to drive and finding he knew nothing about engineering. What did “Speeches. Motions. Voting” mean? What was “Lobbying” and why did it happen at mealtimes? Did the other delegates understand these things?
The gallery was very crowded now and two men sat at the other end of the sofa sipping pint glasses of black beer and gazing at the active little figures on the sunlit sports field below. One of them said cheerfully, “It’s great to see all this happening in Provan.”
“Is it?”
“Oh, come now, Odin, you’ve worked as hard as anyone to bring the assembly here.”
The other said morosely, “Bread and circuses. Bread and circuses. A short spell of reasonable wages and long holidays while they plunder us and then wham! The chopper. Provan will be turned into another Greater Unmentionable Region.”
Lanark said eagerly, “Excuse me, are you complaining about the condition of this city?”
The morose man had thick white hair, a body like a wrestler’s and a pinkish battered face like a boxer’s. He looked at Lanark balefully for a moment, then said, “I think I’ve a right to do that. I live here.”
“Then you don’t know how lucky you are! I’m from a region with an unusually dangerous sanitary problem, and Provan strikes me as the most splendidly situated—”
“Are you a delegate?”
“Yes.”
“So you’ve just arrived by air.”
“Yes.”
“Then don’t talk to me about Provan. You’re in the early stages of a Gulliver complex.”
Lanark said coldly, “I don’t understand you.”
“The first recorded