unforum

[Besot]

Will a moderator please delete the duplicate post... was not meant to be.

Thank you.

[Shane]

[Mountain Girl]

Just to make sure I'm catching up correctly (after, much to my chagrin, being away a couple days):

1. Westbound Northernline

2. Constitution=Pbafgvghgvba

3. Thomas Paine

4. Rights of Man

5. The Old Red Lion (Theatre and pub?)

6. 1970

anything else I'm missing?

EDIT***By the way, anyone notice this, yet?

http://www.angelwalks.co.uk/pages/pictures.htm

http://www.angelwalks.co.uk/images/dickenswalk/DSCF0010.JPG




It's called George Orwell's Islington!

Am I a day late and a dollar short? I could have sworn I read nothing about these sites in earlier posts.


OOPS Sorry, found it....Yes I should have known I was late with the discovery.

[Besot]

Please explain how Constitution=Pbafgvghgvba.

I am just not getting it.

[jillah pie]

i googled Pbafgvghgvba and got all kinds of hints, but there was a page about this one guy named isaac asimov who appears to be an author http://www.9types.com/movieboard/messages/7036.html[/url]. sorry if this thing was already explained, but i looked through the posts and didnt find anything, so this is my contribution to the matter

[Law of Five]

Re: Pbafgvghgvba

Rot-13 is a common cypher used to encrypt senstive/offensive material. It's a rotation cypher where each letter is 'rotated' with that one 13 places forwards in the alphabet. You could use a rot-7 cypher and rotate with the letter 7 places on, but rot-13 is the most common. Go to: http://www.rot13.com/ and see if you can decrpyt 'Pbafgvghgv' - just paste in the text and hit 'cypher'. (Kudos to Morphium for spotting this!) If you hit cypher again, you get back to the original phrase, as there are 26 (=13x2) letters in the alphabet. Cool, eh?

<here endeth the lesson in basic cryptography>

Law of Five

[hlpr]

The answer is here:

http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=193307&highlight=pbafgvghgvba#193307

Even though it's been answered, keep on looking for clues!

[hlpr]

Cool explaination, Law. Thanks for the lesson.

[Besot]

Yes, thank you. I don't know how I missed that.

Game on!

[jillah pie]

you guys are my heroes

[Law of Five]

Been thinking about our problem on and off most of the day. I agree with most people that the Kathy Burke connection is not the correct one, even though the Mr Thomas and Old Red Lion Theatre connections are tempting... I think there's much more to be gained from focusing our attentions on Islington (the place).

More to follow

Law

[Law of Five]

Islington Links

Here is a list of the various ways that the London borough of Islington keeps cropping up in our quest for Book Zero. Please feel free to add any I have missed:

Sources: http://www.angelwalks.co.uk/pages/pictures.htm + all the people who have contributed to this thread so far (you know who you are!)

1. Tom Paine is considered to have written part of "The Rights of Man" in The Angel Islington, a local pub which used to be located on Islington High Street. Both the French and American constitutions were based upon it.
He lived in Gosswell Road, Islington.
A Monument to Tom Paine is in Angel Square, Islington, across the High Street from the Cooperative Bank, which is where the Angel pub used to be.
http://www.angelwalks.co.uk/images/dickenswalk/DSCF0003.JPG. According to http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/sc%5Csc.nsf/pages/santow_1, its base reads: "Lay then the axe to the roots and teach governments humanity." (Thx to Greyling for this)

More on the Angel, Islington, which is also on the Monopoly board:
From Wikipedia:
The Angel was originally an inn near a toll gate on the Great North Road (at what is now the corner of Islington High Street and Pentonville Road), but now refers to this part of Islington in London. The corner itself is actually in Finsbury which was a separate borough until 1965 when the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury merged with the Metropolitan Borough of Islington to form the London Borough of Islington.
Thomas Paine may have stayed at the inn after he returned from France in 1790 and it is believed that he wrote passages of the Rights of Man whilst staying at the nearby Red Lion, now Old Red Lion, in St. John Street. The original building was rebuilt in 1819 and became a coaching inn; the first staging post outside of City of London. It became a local landmark and was mentioned in Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens "The coach rattled away and, turning when it reached the Angel at Islington, stopped at length before a neat house in Pentonville". A new building in pale terracotta stone with a corner cupola replaced the old building in 1899. From 1921 to 1959 the building was used as a Lyons Corner House and is now a Co-operative Bank.

2. The Angel of the North was sculpted at the Candid Arts Trust, Islington. The creator of the Angel, Anthony Gormley, was also responsible for the granite boulders which surround Isaac Newton's statue at the British Library. This sculpture is based on Blake's 'Newton as Divine Geometer' painting. (Thanks to kitkatgirl for spotting this truly creepy connection)

3. Old Red Lion Theatre and Public House in Islington. The pub appears to be on the ground floor. Dickens and Lenin were reputed to drink here. Kathy Burke was born and lives in Islington and her play 'Mr Thomas' debuted at this theatre. At the top of the building's facade, it bears the legend 1415-1899 with a word in between the dates that I can't quite read - is it 'Revue'? http://www.angelwalks.co.uk/images/dickenswalk/DSCF0010.JPG

Going to the modern website of the Old Red Lion Theatre, 2 things strike me:
- they have a special Monday night program (Monday 17th is the full moon). Ring 020 7837 7816 for details.
- on Monday the 17th, the following event is listed: MORALITY BITES: _4 rehearsed readings of new plays by 4 new but experienced playwrights
7.30 pm @ The Old Red Lion Theatre

4. The Angel Tube station in Islington, specifically the westbound platform or westbound trains on the Northern Line. Or maybe the west exit of the station.Did you know that this tube station has the longest escalator in London and possibly Europe?

5. George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh both lived in Canonbury Square, Islington. For other famous types, check here: http://www.bmh54.freeuk.com/places/islington/famous_people.htm

6. William Blake is buried in Bunhill Fields cemetery, within the boundaries of Islington borough. Blake mentions Islington in the very first line of part II of his poem 'Jerusalem' which was published in 1820.

7. William Upcott lived in Islington from 1834. William Blake visited him in January 1826 and wrote / drew in his autograph book. This image forms the lower part of the "Tube" picture on 13books.

Check here http://www.jbutler.org.uk/London/Islington/index.shtml for the shape and various subdivisions of Islington.

OK, I think that's enough Islington stuff for now. If this sparks any more ideas, please let us all know! And shylilembrace, feel free to put this and my map summary from page 5 of this thread wherever you feel it would be helpful!

Law of Five

[Law of Five]

Just tidying up a little detail: the Asimov connection to Pbafgvghgvba is a bit of a red herring, as it's just an example of someone using rot-13 to conceal a spoiler which contains the word 'constitution'. It's a good example of rot-13 in action, but (disappointingly) it's not connected to the 13books.

Off to bed now at the start of a nice long Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, but I'll be back tomorrow sometime. I think we need to crack the '1970' thing next unless another update comes, but I'm damned if I can figure out how to do it. Maybe we need some Local Knowledge - any Londoners out there?

Cheers

Law of Five

[kitkatgirl]

Im at my wits end.....cant for the life of me work out what the link between Thomas Paine and 1970 is...!

Anyone any further on? I think we have been clutching at straws thus far.

[Besot]

When I searched for, Rights Islington 1970, I found that this was the date and location of Britain's first gay protest (tis probably nothing):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/gayrights/story/0,12592,1427069,00.html