some quick questions

[tamaranth]

answer by noon on Monday and you'll be awarded a prize!* I'll probably add to this post as I go ...

- what was approximate Novacon attendance? and last year's?
- what happened with the British Fantasy Society open night on Friday?
- why does the cat only jump on my lap once I've opened up Word and started writing article, as opposed to collating notes? feline bloody-mindedness

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*not a very exciting one. Possibly not a very actual one. Namecheck in magazine column, if you like

Comments

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

what happened with the British Fantasy Society open night on Friday?

There appears to have been a private party in the designated room during the afternoon. By the time 18:30 came around, they were still eating dessert, and the pub management chose not to honour the time of the BFS booking. A significantly number of people turned up for the BFS event between 18:30 and 19:30 but left because the downstairs room and entryway were so crowded and the pub were giving dishonest indications of when the upstairs room would be available. It is possible that some of the BFS committee were comfortably seated during this time.

[fastfwd.livejournal.com]

Well, if they were, they weren't comfortably seated upstairs.

Three of us attempted to sit comfortably upstairs. Management forced us to leave. Some of us objected and were thrown out altogether.

This is the first time I have ever been thrown out of a pub. I'm really excited.:)

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

Egads :-(

Apparently, the committee were sitting in the downstairs bar, getting ongoing mis-estimates of how long until the room would be ready. To be honest, I think they might have been a bit more pro-active, both in pressurising the pub, and re-assuring the people who were turning up for the event...

BTW I'd rather not have my name in print :-)

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

oooh, who were the other two? They love it when I drop names, though I won't if you'd rather not. You will be in Heroic Role, though.

[fastfwd.livejournal.com]

Well, I will disclose that one of the other people with me was Chris. The third person was a publishing professional (not a writer or an editor) who was far less than thrilled at the state of things.

When we made ourselves comfortable in the upstairs room on the sidelines of the Other Party, one of the Other Party came over and asked us what we were doing there. We told him it was time for the BFS party (actually, it was past time at that point). The Other Party quickly complained to a waitress, who insisted that we go back downstairs and wait in the bar until such time as the BFS party got started. The third person said no, she had asthma and she couldn't breathe down there, and she certainly didn't want to wait outside in the cold. The waitress told us that we were very rude and went to get help.

A larger, male employee came upstairs and boy, he was already angry. He told us that if we didn't leave the room immediately, they would refuse to serve us at all. Chris took issue with him and the guy told us that if we kept on, he would refuse to serve the entire BFS. Chris and I told him this was really unprofessional; we were told to leave the premises altogether asap.

That's our whole sordid story. Third person's name withheld for the sake of privacy.

And not terribly heroic. In fact, I felt sorry for the guy who threw us out. He had probably been dealing with demanding pub patrons and bitchy party-goers all afternoon and well into the evening.

If I still had the iron constitution and the leathery lungs of my youth that enabled me to sit for hours in smoke-filled bars without open ill effects, I wouldn't have thought twice about sitting around in the main room, drinking and talking too loud to make myself heard over the din. But I can't survive outside of earth's atmosphere any more.