TOO MUCH TROUBLE (1972) by Kingsley Amis

“But few of us would have the self-command necessary to keep us at the top of our tippling form in 2022.”

Featuring various acronyms like TARDIS, such as TIOPEPE (Temporal Integrator, Ordinal Predictor and Electronic Projection Equipment), this  is an extraordinary time travel story involving Simpson’s research into future drinks and pub habits involving the period, say, of an elongated Easter, and, inter alia, about the general ethos of ‘too much trouble’, and all the  burnable rubbish taken to  ‘Coulsdon dump’ (where I myself lived for all of the 1980s  and early 1990s!)

It is a story published in 1972, set in 1975, and including Simpson’s time foray to 1983 where nobody could get even their broken leg mended during the Slack. And about paradoxes of a self  meeting the same self out of time. (Simpson returns to his home time beaten up but safe, it seems.)

Factoring this story creatively into some of our own proclivities today is a revelation! But what is the implication of the El Minya Whites and Jerusalem, Israel? Beats me.

***

Publication context here: https://etepsed.wordpress.com/1377-2/