It could be said that cloud cover began as far back as 1898, when Marie Curie discovered radium, or in 1904, when Frederick Soddy talked about controlling the energy contained within the atom. Maybe even when Ernest Rutherford "split" the atom in 1919. Closer would be when Nazi Germany began to procure Uranium supplies for their (thankfully unsuccessful) atom bomb program, and the UK and the US project began with the idea of being a deterrent. Even closer still would be the successful test of a Plutonium implosion device at Trinity in New Mexico, and the world-changing uses of atom bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, (the primary target for that run was actually Kokura, but resistance for Japanese fighter planes and fuel concerns, meant that the closer, secondary target of Nagasaki would be used). That would be getting nearer to the heart of it, the use of the bomb on the Japanese people was as much about making a point to the Soviet Union as it claimed to be about ending the war, this could be argued was the birth of the cold war. Also there was the testing of the first Soviet Atom bomb (codenamed Joe1 by the US.), and the development of the Hydrogen bomb on both sides, amid the ever-present terror of the cold war, now we're really close. But these are all philosophical musings, background and the foundations. Cloud Cover really began in 1990 when I was fifteen, as a result of an English project on the subject of nuclear war. I was fortunate enough to have a fairly progressive -thinking English teacher - earlier in the year, we had a discussion on fox hunting, and also studied Barry Hines' Kes. But it was the nuclear war project that really opened my eyes. The only real literary contribution to the project, was a play written for and about teens, i for get the title, and it's just as well, the only memorable part was the cartoon villainy of the invading Soviet troops (the writer clearly new very little about radioactive half-life). Of course the piece had some of the staples of the apocalypse genre, the one fool who leaves the safety of the shelter (at the beginning a class of teenagers are being shown around a nuclear shelter when the alert is raised) and returns only to die of radiation sickness, and there's also the baby born into the new world. Next, we viewed some films that treated the subject much better. First of all, the film that created the most impact in my mind, once again written by Barry Hines, (1990 was clearly a good year for him as far as English lessons go) and made for the BBC in 1984; Threads was a gritty and realistic drama based upon a full thermonuclear attack on Britain. The story revolved principally around two families - the title coming from the theory that society is held together by a series of delicate threads, remove them, and society collapses, which in this story it does. Set in Sheffield, against the backdrop of a fictional Soviet invasion of Iran, Threads used a quasi docu-drama style, with teleprompter-style facts to illustrate and instruct. The special effects could be a little sketchy in parts in comparison to its American counterpart, The Day after, (more on that one later.) in nevertheless drew what would be an accurate picture of post-nuclear Britain, the radiation-sickness, and cancers, and birth-defects, the collapse of order, summary executions, starvation, the rapid decline to a pre-mediaeval existence. This was the file that terrified people, even more so than the War game (which we didn't watch, maybe it was still banned at that time. We also watched the Day after, most notable for it's stunning effects during the attack sequence that horrified U.S viewers, and reportedly, President of the day, Ronald Reagan. The film's main flaw, is that the director bowed to network pressure to tone down the aftermath, there were only a couple of instances of radiation sickness that were discussed, there was even some form of healthcare (as one of the places depicted was a hospital) they were even able to talk about growing next years crops, (due to the unusual absence of nuclear winter) and go to church, (the American way goes on.) But the seed was planted, in more ways than one, (the nightmares afterwards were awful), but beyond sketches and random doodling, not much came artistically until I began my collages, and then the subject in, creeping at first, there have been heavy outpourings, then back to creeping again, it depends on what mood takes me, but I do still cling perversely to the subject, and it now pollutes my DVD collection, (the War game, When the wind blows and Testament have all joined my collection, alongside Threads and the Day after, and Stanley Kubrick’s dark comedic masterpiece, Doctor Strangelove) and it still guides me today, only recently, I was surprised to see a computer game where you, and another player simulate a strategic nuclear war, from Defcon 5 through to Defcon 1 (the game is predictably called Defcon by the way.) I have one last comment to make, this body of work can be dedicated to Edward Teller, without his constant pushing of nuclear weapons research; the cold war, the deaths from radiation sickness and cancers due to weapons testing, the escalating tension of the threat of annihilation, and my nightmares that inspired this collection could not have happened – enjoy hell Edward.