Once More With Footnotes

That's because I was trying to find out where I was.
     
                  Because the sky tells me I'm around 500 AD. So why is the architecture Norman and the armour fifteenth century? Hold on ... here comes another one ...
     
                  Well, not your actual Einstein, but it could be ... oh, no, look at that grip, look at that rage . .. no. He's not the one. Not him. Sorry about that.
     
                  So ... right ... where was I? Memory like a sieve these days.
     
                  Yeah, the architecture. And everyone speaking a sort of Middle English, which was okay a s it turned out because I can get by in that, having accidentally grounded in 1479 once. That was where I met John Gutenberg, father of modern printing. Tall man, bushy whiskers. Still owes me tuppence.
     
                  Anyway. Back to this trip. It was obvious from the start that things weren't quite right. This time they were supposed to be sending me to observe the crowning of Charlemagne in 800 AD, and here I was in the wrong country and, according to the sky, about three centuries too soon. That's the kind of thing t hat happens, like I said; it's going to be at least fifty years before we get it right. Fifty-three years, actually, because I met this man in a bar in 1875 who's from a hundred years in our future, and he told me. I told them at Base we might as well sav e a lot of effort by just, you know, bribing one of the future guys for the plans of the next model. They said if we violated the laws of Cause-and-Effect like that there's a good chance the whole universe would suddenly catastrophically collapse into this tiny bubble .005 Angstroms across, but I say it's got to be worth a try.
     
                  Anyway, the copper wire gave me a load of trouble.
     
                  That's not to say I'm an incompetent. I'm just an average guy in every respect except that I'm the one in ten thousand who can t ime travel and still end up with all his marbles. It just gives me a slight headache. And I'm good at languages and I'm a very good observer, and you'd better believe I've observed some strange things. The Charlemagne coronation was going to be a vacation. It was my second visit, paid for by a bunch of historians in some university somewhere. I was going to check a few things that the guys who commissioned the first trip had raised after reading my report. I had it all worked out where I was going to stand so I wouldn't see myself. I could probably have talked my way out of it even if I had met myself, at that. One thing you learn in this trade is the gift of the gab.
     
                  And then a diode blew or a one turned out to be a zero and here I am, whenever this is.
     
                  And I can't get back. Anyway ... what was I saying ...
     
                  Incidentally, the other problem with the copper wire is getting the insulation. In the end I wrapped it up in fine cloth and we painted every layer with some sort of varnish they use on their shield s, which seems to have done the trick.
     
                  And ... hmm ... you know, I think time travelling affects the memory. Like, your memory subconsciously knows the things you're remembering haven't happened yet, and this upsets it in some way. There's whole bits of history I can't remember. Wish I knew what they were.
     
                  Excuse me a moment. Here's another one. An oldish guy. Quite bright, by the look of him. Why, I bet he can probably write his own name. But, oh, I don't know, he hasn't got the ...
     
                  Hasn't got the ...
     
                  Wish I knew what it was he hasn't got ... charisma. Knew it was there somewhere.
     
                  So. Anyway. Yeah. So there I was, three centuries adrift, and nothing working. Ever seen a time machine? Probably not. The bit you move around is very, very hard to see, unless the light catches it just right. The actual works are back at Base and at the same time in the machine, so you travel in something like a mechanical ghost, something like what's left of a machine when you take all the parts away. An idea of a machi ne.
     
                  Think of it as a big crystal. That's what it'd look like to you if, as I said, the light was right.
     
                  Woke up in what I suppose I've got