A Visit to Cambridge Steampunk

“Cambridge Steampunk” said Facebook event page. I was curiously attracted, registered for the event, and found myself looking forward to its due date.

Armed with my trusty camera and accompanied by my chaperone, I made my way to the Cambridge Union Society, on Saturday, 14 June.

Close to the old round church, we slipped into an alley I’ve never traversed before and entered a very different world. Ladies in corsets and bussles, men in top hats or Victorian gentlemen adventurers outfits were already lounging outside at the tables in the early summer sun.

Inside the building was a veritable panopticon of tables and displays, where the well-dressed and piratical alternative Victorians intermingled. I felt singularly underdressed.

What is steampunk? For me it is conjured up in books such as the early science fiction by HG Wells and Jules Verne. But if you’ve watched the film “Stardust”, or read Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy; or perhaps even laughed at the troglodytes in the French film “Delicatessen”, then you begin to get a glimpse of the subject matter.
Steampunk is a sub genre of science fiction, dealing with alternative realities where steam power still prevails, dirigibles ply the skies and adventures are still to be had.

The things I enjoyed about the day, was the imagination, the fantasy, and the sheer good spirits of the event and the people attending. My chaperone was amused, bemused and confused, especially by the near ubiquitous use of the round goggles.

I returned home with a sudden need to acquire an Alethiometer (a sort of clockwork Oracle, from the book by Philip Pullman, “Northern lights”, also known in America as “The Golden Compass”. A few bespoke ones had been created back in 2008. They were instructions on how to make one yourself on the web.

However, I succumbed to the modern steam punk version, I downloaded the app!



Picture album accessible here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/107595387761034666575/CambridgeSteampunkJune2014