Timestream Navigation for CG Cadets Module IV by Bendix Scintilla

 

Thanks to Country and Town House 

Title: Timestream Navigation for CG Cadets Module IV

Author: Bendix Scintilla 

Publisher: Not known 

Source book: Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde 

Bendix Scintilla is a colleague of Thursday Next’s father who, you will probably remember, does not exist.  However, despite having been eradicated completely Colonel Next usually manages to get home for breakfast every day, and sometimes takes Thursday for trips through time. I think it is when they attend the premiere of King Lear at the Globe Theatre in 1602, that they come across Bendix Scintilla; he has been lurking in Elizabethan England to avoid the machinations of the ChronoGuard.

Presumably Bendix writes this textbook on time travel before he falls out with the ChronoGuard.

His Module points out that minor changes in soft furnishings may be the first indication of a timeslip. Curtains, cushion covers and lampshades are all good litmus indicators for a slight diversion in the timestream - the way canaries are used down the mines or goldfishes to predict earthquakes. There’s a lot more detail, obviously, because ChronoGuard cadets need to be experts.

He’s right of course, and probably knows to check the pattern on his curtains from personal experience. And I’m sure I remember a book, was it by Robert Heinlein?, where our space/time travellers think they have returned to their own home because everything seems to be the same, and only discover they’re wrong when one of them picks up a dictionary and finds there’s no J. Or was it a telephone directory? People don’t have telephone directories these days do they? 

So everyone, always check your curtains and cushions, and if in doubt try a dictionary.

Thanks to Elle Decor