The spaceship 'Poke it with a stick' featured in the novel 'Look to Windward', first published in 2000. The ship is a General Contact Unit (GCU). This novel's title is taken from the T S Eliot poem 'The Wasteland', as is the title of another of Banks' novels 'Consider Phlebas'. This ship was mentioned in a humorous conversation about spaceship names in Chapter 11 of the book.
Iain Banks was an author renowned for his mainstream fiction novels, as well as science fiction, and one book, 'The Crow Road', was adapted for television some years ago. He used the middle initial M to distinguish between his science fiction work and other fiction. I was fortunate to meet Iain Banks at the Literary Festival a couple of years ago. He was a very nice man. He died in June 2013 of cancer.
I also have another cache based on another of Ian M Banks' science fiction novels. This is Feersum Endjinn ( GC3MP23 ), one of the Cheltenham Circular Caching Challenge (CCCC) series. The CCCC is a 26 mile circuit around Cheltenham, following Cheltenham Circular Path. Some of the series pass close by in Shurdington.
If you have climbed up the escarpment to the top, you might consider some of the caches nearby, such as Glorious Gloucestershire ( GC18FA ), which last year celebrated 10 years as a geocache, making it one of the oldest caches around.
Greenway Lane is impassable to motor vehicles beyond the cattle grid, unless you have a quad bike or Land Rover. The Lane is steep, rocky and muddy, and was virtually a stream when I last walked up it. It can be slippery underfoot. It is possible to access the Lane from the top, joining the circuit at SOTC#4. There are livestock in the fields, usually cattle out on the Common, with horses in the fields by the farm. Please keep geodogs under control. Some of the paths on the Common can be welly-boot sticky. Please observe the Country Code, closing all gates behind you.
Congratulations FTF!
Razorfishy
28th July 2012