Eastercon!

[tamaranth]

A long and (no doubt) irrelevant account of My Weekend In Glamorous Downtown Hinkley. With many photographs.

All pictjres are captioned via mouseover, if you're using IE...



Good Friday. Apart from abandoning cardboard_buffy in the carpark chez swisstone to tout for trade, the journey was event-free. We stopped for lunch in the countryside, and spent much of the afternoon sitting by the lake at the hotel, waiting for the check-in queue to disappear.



Went to a programme item! Mike Harrison won the Tiptree Award for Light (which I'm still halfway through, but am enjoying). He was rewarded with his very own song (sung by an assortment of Tiptree jury, administrators etc, as well as the audience): a cheque for £667: a box of chocolates: and a tiara, which is traditionally worn by the Tiptree winner. Pat Murphy and Ellen Klages represented the Tiptree Motherboard.


I caught Mike later in the wonderfully baroque hotel foyer. I think the tiara suits him.

Friday night was Buffy disco night. After about half an hour the DJ was persuaded to play music that people would dance to, so we did. It was just like B Movie, a bit.





Saturday:
Programme item! Julian Headlong's entertaining 'I am Spike's Liver', on vampire physiology. Despite only having watched the first three episodes of season 1 of Buffy, this was most interesting. I was especially taken with the notion that vampires are powered by a special class of cold fusion, and that some are able to fly due to excess helium produced by this process. Never, ever believe anything this man tells you. He is horribly convincing.

What else? Ah. Hinckley, shopping. Rather like a trip to the 1950s. You cannot get same-day reheeling in Hinckley. But you can get pink drink.

Also went to another programme item on Romantic SF. Had never realised that Ken Macleod was a Bujold fan.

Saturday evening: the usual suspects. Missed the play due to lack of advertised room service -- the duty manager was scared of us apologetic but we still had to eat in the Proper Restaurant. Later, swisstone chaired "I'm sorry, I haven't an SFing
Clue" -- the laser display was operated by the delightful flickgc, although it was interesting to watch sneerpout and squaddie attempting to convey The Scar by means of charades while the 'mystery title' on display was The Separation.

We checked out the 'Nuns on the Run' event (having successfully resisted SMS's attempts to persuade us into wimples) but ran away when they noticed us. And the infamous LiveJournal party began so very quietly -- perhaps due to the mysterious absence of the mysterious green_amber -- that we retreated to the bar in search of comfortable seating, alcohol and convivial company. Two out of three ain't bad. A late night was had by all, though not at the same time.


Sunday was Easter, so we ate chocolate. (Thanks, ladymoonray, for my chocolate egg!) Sat in the bar and distributed Kinder Eggs. We talked about science fiction, a shocking and almost unheard-of event at an SF convention.

Sunday evening, and many people dressed up:

The Awards Ceremony was very ably coordinated by John Jarrold. The Doc Weir Award went to Bill Burns. SMS awarded the Phlosque (for most utterly nauseatingly unnecessary fantasy art) to Saddam Hussein's in-house mural painters, for their charming pulp-style SF illustrations ("these display a deep-rooted insecurity and sexual deviance") in a flat he kept for entertaining mistresses. This may be the first time that the Phlosque has been awarded on the basis of a Daily Mail centre-spread. SMS also pointed out that most of the photos showed artwork ripped off from (slightly) more reputable artists, who had produced them as book covers. He doubted that the original artists had received any credit or payment, either.


BSFA Awards: the results seemed to go down well and three out of four winners were present (Chris Bell stood in for Neil Gaiman).

Spent Sunday evening being stared at by SMS & Eira's charming offspring, Cuileann. I am afraid that people might have noticed it smiling at me, and me smiling back. I was drunk, OK? Cuileann has a remarkably solemn and intelligent gaze for a child under a year old: an old soul, as they say. Like his father, he shows an uncanny tendency to focus on cleavage. I had my revenge by leading father and son on a voyage of discovery which culminated in the Duck Sausage Clock. (Please let somebody have photographed this!) They were also very impressed (in a negative sort of way) by the pregnant bluebell fairy. Both generations were successfully traumatised and will probably never recover.

Got some fresh air on the way back. Looked at some medieval earth. And slept a lot when I got home.

An enjoyable convention, on the whole. I didn't buy any books (as I already have some), and I spent a good deal of time in the spa and the pool. ladymoonray seemed to enjoy herself, and was excellent company, though we didn't drink as much pink drink as originally planned. And I could have done without the bout of Mystery Illness that surfaced again on Saturday evening, preventing my attendance at a perfectly good publishers' party with free drink. But I had fun. Must do it again some time. Except the Duck Sausage Clock.

Comments

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

You're a cruel, cruel woman ...

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

No she isn't. She didn't post any pictures of me...

Now that would have been cruelty!

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

I am cruel, but I like you you didn't attract the attention of my camera ...

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

Uh-huh.

Your point?

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

Ah, good!

That's the outfit I won the "Ooooh! look at those" prize for....

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

I still can't understand how we weren't at the disco at the same time. Let's try aide memoires. Were you still there when I accidentally snogged lproven?
Ooh, that was a good disco. If that's what B Movie's like I'm definitely up for it.

[lproven.livejournal.com]

"Accidentally?"

*Flounces offstage*

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

If I were you I'd find out who she'd mistaken me for ...

(Sorry, green_amber, but I definitely missed that. Otherwise, could have told you which one was lproven. Eye test? Was he sitting down?)

[drpete.livejournal.com]

Great pics!

Quite how I won the "cutest guy in leather" prize is beyond me, since I'm not wearing any...

Ah well. Great con.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

er, perhaps they were unable to see where you ended and marypcb began?

Or perhaps they were blinded by the dazzle of Perv-o-Shine?

[marypcb.livejournal.com]

1. if they're mistaking me for any kind of guy...
2. I won't go anywhere near the connotations of me, drpete and in leather
3. he should have got a prize as best fairground ride!
4. I should stop while he's still talking to me!

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

where's the animated phone-pic?

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

Phone? I'll have you know it was me full-blown Canon S40...

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

Yes, but *where*is*it*?

[blufive.livejournal.com]

Ta for sharing the Piccies. Despite carrying a camera all weekend, I somehow managed to take far too few pictures of PEOPLE.

[start saddo web geek bit]

All pictures are captioned via mouseover, if you're using IE...

If you do this:

<img src="..." title="your text here">

instead of this:

<img src="..." alt="your text here">

Then you gain compatibility with Mozilla & siblings, Opera, and Safari/Konquerer (and probably a few more) in exchange for losing IE4. A good trade, IMO, but it's your call.

[end saddo web geek bit]

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

Oooh, thanks! Shall bear in mind (= 'shall forget until next time I have photos to post, and then spend 40 minutes trying to remember who told me, and when')

Shall be using your presence as incentive to lure on potential new LJer, who emailed to say "Still: Intruiged to see 'Blue Five' there.". Watch my LJ for Poll. Bwa ha ha ha.

[blufive.livejournal.com]

Glad to help on the web stuff.

I'll be puzzled for aaaaaaages now, trying to work out who you're talking about. Harrumph (etc.)

[serendipoz.livejournal.com]

Great photos! More, more!

[sigh]

[elinor.livejournal.com]

It's far too long since I've been to a con. In fact, the last one was Novacon 26!

But I am going to Grissecon (http://www.gothland.wox.org/bast/gris/grismain.html) in October. Anyone else?