Where the South Downs thing comes from:
Iβve awakened to a lot of posts on the tag wherein people are wondering where this assumption originated, and itβs a fairly straightforward story.Β Back in early 2005, Neil made this post on his blog.Β I wasnβt the only person who was idly curious as to what Neil and Terry had decided Aziraphale and Crowley were up to βon the South Downsβ (see linked entry), so, given I knew both of them would be doing readings/signings within a week of each other in Cambridge, MA that autumn and that I planned on attending both events if I could, I was determined to ask both of them the same question if I was fortunate enough to be called on at both events (which I highly doubted would happen; Iβm not good at making myself stand out in a crowd).Β I had no particular motive.Β I just wanted to know, and so did a number of my friends (both online and offline) at the time.Β Terryβs event was first, and he did, in fact, call on me at the Q&A.Β I explained that Iβd read a reference on Neilβs blog to a conversation between the two of them regarding what Aziraphale and Crowley were doing on the South Downs, but that Neil hadnβt said precisely what.Β Strangely, Terryβs answer had everything to do with the sequel-that-was-not-to-be and nothing to do with what I actually asked, so, while it was an entertaining answer regarding the rest of the conversation theyβd had that day about the ill-fated sequel, he wasnβt forthcoming.Β At Neilβs event a week later, which was held in a much bigger venue and attended by at least three times as many people, the Q&A had got down to the wire; I hadnβt been called on, and they could only take two or three more questions.Β I donβt really know what happened, but I ended up being the second-to-last person called on.Β I asked him the same question Iβd asked Terry, almost verbatim.Β Neilβs answer started out very much like Terryβs: how theyβd been catching up with each other, reminiscing about the idea of a sequel (thatβs where the whole pornography joke came up, which somebody did badly misremember in how they represented it on Wikipedia, and, actually, I have no bloody idea why somebody felt the need to put any of the information from his answer in a Wikipedia entry on Aziraphale in the first place), and generally chatting about the novel.Β This is where Neilβs answer finally diverged from Terryβs, for which I was pretty grateful, because I was beginning to get the sense that neither one of them really wanted to fess up to what theyβd decided.Β Neil ended his answer with, βWell, what theyβre doing on the South Downs is sharing a cottage.Β Next question?"Β I donβt even remember what the last question was at this point, because I couldnβt get it through my head that the answer was something so simple, yet so momentous.Β I understand that it annoys the authors that itβs broadly interpreted as support for slash in canon, but thatβs the domain of fandom: interpreting information in such a way that results in further exploration and character growth (just perhaps not in the way that the original creators intended).
