Richard Strauss’s tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra is considered one of his best orchestral works but in 1969 it was hijacked by Stanley Kubrick

Richard Strauss’s tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra is considered one of his best orchestral works but in 1969 it was hijacked by Stanley Kubrick for 2001: A Space Odyssey.Surprisingly, it wasn’t the director’s original choice: a score had already been commissioned from Alex North and the Strauss piece was only intended to give a sense of pace and atmosphere during editing.”Kubrick was right to go with it because there’s a tremendous sense of passion and power with Richard Strauss,” says the composer Francis Shaw, “and the language of classical music is relevant to almost any situation.”Despite using existing music, 2001 is considered by many to be the first classic SF score. “One rumour has it that the sound effects on the front of Telstar were created by him flushing the lavatory,” Meek’s biographer, John Repsch, offers gleefully. “He suspended a microphone down the loo while it was flushing. Then he would overdub this sound, speed it up, play it backwards, compress and limit it.”Although Meek’s best-selling instrumental was inspired by a communications satellite, SF music doesn’t have to redefine recording techniques. “Consequently you have this feel of it snapping at you with every phrase.”Technical innovation is often associated with science fiction. The recording pioneer Joe Meek, for instance, literally used anything he could lay his hands to produce Telstar. “If you copy that phrase on to a tape in echo, then turn the tape over and play it backwards, you have the echo approaching you,” explains Howell.

Techniques included an early form of multi-tracking, placing echo on individual notes and using reverse white noise for the effects of hissing steam.
In the 1970s, the composer Peter Howell put his own stamp on the incidental music with a new arrangement. It took six weeks to complete – four days spent on the bass line alone. “It was just a signal for terror.”

Appropriately, for a science fiction series, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop used the latest technology to transform Ron Grainer’s original composition into an original piece of music. “I didn’t think of the Dr Who theme as music,” recalls the science fiction writer Neil Gaiman. The Internet magazine Britannia has compiled a fairly comprehensive Mad Cow Disease collection, with a selection of articles and links ( http:// www.britannia. com/news/madcow.html).. A combination of electronic sounds in 1963 produced a generation of children’s nightmares.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries has established a BSE information page ( http:// www.open.gov.uk/ maff/bse/seindex.htm). It includes all government statements, background information and publications, and a chronology. “Why not add us to your bookmark or hotlist in your browser for faster access in the future.” Why not?Mad Cow Site: The only thing I did not find on the Web about Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and all matters barking beef was the sound of a mad cow going moo! In other words, if you are investigating this most British of fiascos, there are a lot of sites to choose from.But hear it from the horse’s mouth – or the cow’s – first. Perhaps it is time you paid a visit to Steel Web, the iron and steel industry’s very own Web Server ( http:// www.indconnect / steelweb/). Steel yourself – sorry – for the excitement of a service featuring major steel corporations, steel news, steel products and services, information on steel exhibitions and conferences and links to other steel organisations around the world.”SteelWeb will keep you informed regarding the activities and developments in the industry,” says the site. Nor is there any mention of the Arab quarter in East Jerusalem or the Dome of the Rock, the third-holiest shrine in Islam.Solid Site: Building a girder bridge? Maybe you just need a good, solid RSJ (rolled steel joist to those in the know).

It offers a busy mixture of tourism information, events listings, a daily Israel news service and a letter from the mayor, although it was not the easiest site to get around.But this site is more interesting for what it leaves out than for what it includes. Incredibly, for a place that is central to both Islam and Christianity, there is little mention of this side of its heritage, except for a page attacking Palestinian claims on the city. Each week, Envirolink’s ‘What Soars, What Snores’ section reviews the latest green sites and events in cyberspace.Holy City Site: Virtual Jerusalem ( http:// www.jer1.co.il/index. html) has been established to mark the city’s 3,000th anniversary. There is also a Green Marketplace, where companies with acceptable green credentials can sell their wares and an environmental news service. But because there are so many green sites, it is not always easy for this audience to find its way round.

The Envirolink Network ( http:// www.envirolink. org/) provides a map.It has links to hundreds of environmental groups across the world, including a large number of British sites. For those who want to climb elsewhere, there are links to climbing sites covering the rest of the British Isles and Europe.
Green Site: Hundreds of environmental organisations now have their own Web sites, because they believe they are reaching out to an especially sympathetic audience. They are still adding material to the site, so it is worth checking again if you don’t find the information you need. It also has links to a whole range of useful Scottish sites, including an avalanche warning service. If you want to know about conditions and routes on these and other popular Scottish ranges, check the Scottish Climbing pages ( http:// www.tardis.ed.ac. uk/mikedlr/climbing/). Climbers’ Site: Planning some hardcore climbing in Scotland? Despite, or perhaps because of, the number of people who have perished on its unpredictable crags, climbers still flock to places like Glencoe. But overall, the channel is an interesting idea: whether it will be as lucrative a seam as the Internet cafes have been, only time and the advertisers will tell.Channel Cyberia is at http://channel.cyberiacafe /. You will need either Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 preview, Netscape 3.0 preview or Netscape 3.0 for Apple Macs and Global Chat (windows/ Mac) to use the Channel Cyberia site..