http://nhw.livejournal.com/949191.html

As a fan of Shaw's writing who never actually met him, I remember reading David Langford's obituary back in 1996 with sadness, but also with considerable curiosity; I deeply regretted never having heard him give one of his "Serious Scientific Talks". It's good that the then Eastercon got this collection of ten of his talks published in time for him to read, less than a year before he died. And they are pretty funny even on the printed page; the jokes are laboured, some of them are repeated, but they are hilarious, especially read out loud. One can well believe Alison Scott, the Eastercon chair of the day who contributes a foreword, that in the transcription process she sometimes found herself laughing so hard that she was physically unable to type. ( )