Behind Tomorrow Never Knows

Time for a post on the inspirations for series 8 of Listen with Other, TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS.

The title, obvs, is from the song where The Beatles invented The Chemical Brothers, but the story itself was inspired by a trip to Alnwick in 2013. The bookshop is based on Barter Books, of course.

The island, its causeway, castle and upturned boats are, naturally, based on Lindisfarne.

The idea for the story about a dystopian Luddite near-future has been hanging around as an unfinished YAF (young adult fiction) novel for years, originally set in far-off... 2025. It was at one time about Brexit but when I came to rewrite it, I realised it was now also about AI. Ah yes the computers... it's peppered with references....

Housekeeper Mrs Hopper is named after Rear Admiral and computer scientist Grace Hopper (1906-1992).

Kim herself is named after the first computer I ever used, the MOS Technologies / Commodore Kim-1. Here is that very computer which I still have. It powers on but has a memory fault. I know how it feels. Probably has a terrible pain in all the diodes down its left-hand side.

When Kim is looking at old books: 'Once a hand-made card fell out of one, a huge red felt heart on the front and inside the inscription ‘don’t forget you are awesome.’ This happened to me in 2010. The missing rectangles on the backs of books are barcodes, now-forbidden digital technology.

The rotting family car with the missing dashboard was inspired by our awful Renault Grand Scenic whose gas discharge display failed with ruinously expensive consequences.

The town mechanic Mr Tramiel is named after Jack, the founder of Commodore.

Mean Dr Jamieson, however, drives my old 2CV. Perhaps it was her mother's car?

Various characters on the island are named after the author of and characters in the 1950s girls' comic strip The Silent Three, which in turn inspired Posy Simmonds.

Fearsome island schoolteacher Miss Henfrey is named after Janet Henfrey who played a similar role in both Dennis Potter's Stand-up Nigel Barton (1965) AND The Singing Detective (1986). Amazingly it seems, at the time of writing, that Janet is still with us.

Various goings on on the island are, of course, inspired by Children of the Stones and The Prisoner, I'll leave you to spot those to avoid spoilers, sweetie. And the computers are back! The Kim-1 had at its heart the 6502 processor, hence grandad's book, door code and 'what a year 2056 will be...'

The Britten of 'Britten's faction' is named after Kathleen Booth, née Britten, who wrote - I believe - the first published book on computer programming (1953).

The computer screen menu was inspired by early 90s newsroom systems. The BBC World Service used one called EDiT, a variant of BASYS, which has an area called BUSH.GRAFFITI and a mode to connect to other systems, and the NPR one had a Lynx text web browser.

TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS would never have been finished without the inspiration of @leesparey.bsky.social's brilliant music.

If any of this has piqued your interest, you can find it as series 8 of LISTEN WITH OTHER on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and here.