Gentlemen it is my duty to inform you of one beauty, though I'd ask you of a favor...

Part 1 of 3

Program notice: Sunday morning, 1130, in "Forth" just after the WSFS business meeting session: the Worldcon Chairs Photo Session. It's been officially scheduled as part of the convention. This is a traditional event that for many years has been held at the Old Pharts Dead Dog Party, after Closing Ceremonies and teardown; this time we're changing the tradition, and with any luck all of the former and future Worldcon Chairs attending inter_action will find it on their program schedule. (If anyone from the newszine is listening, can you print it somewhere please?)

Or, at least, those who are on other program items... Registration does not have a mechanism to tell which members should check in at the Program desk, which is further back in the same room behind badge pick-up, and not all of the Worldcon chairs are on program items, so I'm trying to get the word out via various means! I hope to have a sign printed up, to put next to the 2004 Worldcon Chairs photo in the Fan Gallery, because I have the suspicion that each attending Worldcon Chair will check the Fan Gallery to make sure they haven't been removed from it. (Maybe I'll print it on little slips of paper and park a tiny notice next to each of their photos.)

More notes about Birmingham: we saw place with a sign that says "Buffalo Bills - Fish & Chips - Burgers - Kebabs - Pizza - S F Chicken." Shows a cowboy riding a cow (a longhorn). We didn't stop in to find out what "S F" stood for -- science fictional? stir fired? sinn fein?

Tuesday morning, we ate up our first breakfast, confident that we'd be served another one on the train. We went out to King's Cross, found our platform, had someone tag and put the three big suitcases and the folding trolley onto the right train. GNER (Great North Eastern Railway), Route of the Flying Scotsman. Livery is navy blue with red. Another really good looking train. (Another Alstom trainset, although equipped slightly differently.)

Now, why were we on GNER this time, when we were on Virgin Trains the day before? Simple. We asked the reservations people to put us on a train from London King's Cross to Glasgow. Had we asked for London Euston Station to Glasgow, they probably would have put us on Virgin again. (Not sure who operates out of St. Pancras to Glasgow, if anyone does.) GNER treats its First Class passengers differently. To put it directly: Meals aren't included. They came 'round to top off our coffee or tea anytime we wanted, but meals were separately charged, either in the dining car (Restaurant Carriage) or off the trolley full of snacks and sandwiches they kept wheeling by. We were too lazy to get up and go to the restaurant car, and the pre-made sandwiches on the trolley didn't appeal. We ended up not eating anything other than the biscuits they gave us for free. Including some very good shortbread. Interestingly enough, the sweeteners available for the coffee and tea were: white sugar, brown sugar, and Splenda. No "pink stuff" or "blue stuff", and the sucralose wasn't color-coded yellow either.

The GNER, like Virgin, like the passenger trains of yore, has its own china pattern. Its china is made by Dudson Fine China, in Stoke-on-Trent, England.

We'd been given a tip when we got on, which was to take seats on the righthand side of the train (facing the direction of travel). As the train headed north, we'd have the view of the east side. This is considered the better view -- when we go up the coast, we have a view of the ocean instead of just more fields and cows and stuff.

On our way, I kept trying my phone to see if I could get a good signal. It didn't say "Searching...", it says "Emergency Only." When it's working properly, it says "UK Vodafone." There's something wrong with it. Perhaps the guy on ebay sold me a "tri-band" phone that doesn't have three working bands. Don't know, I'll look into it Thursday. We also kept trying library_lynn's phone, to try to reach Maria in India, but kept getting the "Temporarily disconnected" message. (That means she's out of range or turned off her phone.) Maria, keep trying Lynn's number please (country code 44) 7767 741314, we'll connect eventually... We used up the pre-paid time on the phones, and decided we'd top-up in Glasgow.

I slept a good portion of the ride, and finished one of the Tom Holt books we'd bought the day before. ("Nothing but Blue Skies.") When we arrived Glasgow Central Station, about 16:30, I was reminded that I'd worn my summar holiday clothes -- that is, I was in short pants. And it was a chilly, drizzly day. We got out and headed up to the baggage carriage to oversee the unloading of our luggage.

There wasn't anyone up there. We got to the car, looked in the windows, couldn't see any luggage. Meanwhile library_lynn notices someone purposefully striding up the platform towards us; we start heading towards him. Before we can ask him to open up the baggage car so we can find out bags, he asks "Is your name Baden or Beden?" Apparently, the entire baggage car had been emptied at Edinburgh. (Our luggage had identifying tags, but they didn't code them for final destination.) He was very apologetic, the people in Edinburgh had called the train after it had left to ask about the extra suitcases that nobody there claimed, and they'd be up on the next train following in 2 hours. He promised that when they arrived he'd pay for a taxi to deliver them to our hotel, and that we'd have them by 7 o'clock.

Well, so, finally we're having adventures! He apologized again, we told him it was quite all right, and he showed us the way to the local mini-market that handled top-up payments for mobile phones. While there we saw some mints with the "Rennie's" brand name and talked about getting some for Sparks. (But we didn't have enough small change for a pack.) We came back in, library_lynn got an ice cream at Thorntons which sells ice cream and chocolates (katt1028, you never told us about the Scottish branch of your family!). I got a pasty from the West Cornwall Pasty Company, and we made our way to the lower platform for the quasi-Metro SPT train to take us to Exhibition Centre. When we went down the stairs, we congratulated ourselves on the deal we'd made, because this meant we didn't have to hump the heavy suitcases down the stairs! We couldn't figure out how we'd get a similar deal going home, and figured we'd probably have to take a taxi. The SPT train ride was free, all we had to do is show them our rail passes. While waiting for the train, we ran into Michael Dann and Kathy Ray. I could tell Michael was a fan, the vest gave it away; Lynn saw that Kathy was reading her last issue of "Armadillo Dreams" and came to a similar conclusion.

We arrived at Exhibition Centre station, took the lift up to street level, went out, came back in, looked at our Glasgow A-to-Z, talked to the station agent, and finally figured out how to get to St. Vincent Crescent. It's not far; just a couple of short blocks. It was drizzly, as I mentioned, and we dragged our carry-on bags down the street.

..no to seek her for awhile. Though I own she is a creature of character and feature...

Part 2 of 3

When we got to Number 36 on Tuesday afternoon, we were delighted to find what a lovely room we'd been assigned. We're in room 4, downstairs from the front door, and the room is very large. It's bigger than we need, which is nice. I've got a little desk I can use for composing my LJ messages (not sure if I'll get to internet service tonight, but I'm hopeful, depending on when the bars close), there's a generous chest of drawers, the heat works, the furniture's good looking, both beds are comfortable enough. I'm still kicking myself for leaving my "chocolate" pillow home; colleency made me this pillow from some candy bar print fabric, which is a great traveling pillow because it's soft and smushy the way I like my pillows. But that's my own fault... I should figure out a way to keep it with my travelling toothbrush, toothpaste, and deodorant.

We decided to go by the SECC before dinner, and ran into a number of fans including Andrew A. Adams, Dirk Bontes, Elaine Brennan, Genny Dazzo, Vincent Docherty, Paul Dormer, Deb Geisler, Arwen Grune, Ilana Grune, Colin Hinz, Alice Lawson, Steve Lawson, Craig Miller, Sara Paul, Larry van der Putte, Jean Thompson Paul Treadaway, DC, and various others I didn't get a name for when I snapped their pictures. Deb and Elaine were sitting at the "MIMO" desk ("Move In/Move Out") issuing set-up badges. I got one and checked out Hall 3, where the Fan Gallery would go. The fixtures were up, but the shipping cases were nowhere to be seen, and they were running behind in the Art Show set-up. They told me that the stuff from the North Carolina sea container was here in Glasgow, and it was safe, and to come back in the morning.

Walking down the halls, we learned that Rammstein was playing at the SECC recently. Had we but known...

Lynn went into Registration, to arranged for her Wednesday morning volunteer shift at Reg. (0900 to 1100.) We saw their complicated and almost complete flowchart for the Reg workers to follow, which included having the pre-reg member sign for their badge twice, and were told to come back the next day to get our badges because they had closed at 6 o'clock. We went away, and by the time we got back to our room, our luggage was there.

A little worse for the wear, though; one of the handles has broken off. On the whole I'm not thrilled with the performance of my suitcases, and I just hope they keep their structural integrity long enough for me to get them home. I'm happy with their capacity, incidentally; any larger and I wouldn't be able to manage them fully-loaded, and a not-overstuffed load is about the right amount for the domestic air luggage allowance.

We headed out for dinner. Lynn was famished; I'd had the pasty, but she hadn't even had a proper lunch. We had managed to get one of the Program Guides (too big to fit in a pocket, but it was smaller than last year's not-pocket program), which had the restaurant guide, and it matched the instructions we had -- the close restaurants to our room were all on Argyle Street. Location #1 on the map was "Little Mexico" listed on page 114 of the inter_action Program Guide, and we decided that if we hadn't seen something we liked better by the time we made our way up to it (it was the furthest, going northwest on Argyle), we'd eat there.

On our way up Argyle, we saw "The Goat" -- a pub that advertised "free internet, free wi-fi." I resolved that it was probably worth the price of a pint to be able to post to my LJ there and ready my e-mail. (Net Station, back in London near King's Cross, charges a pound an hour, for use of their terminals or to plug in your own computer; free is even nicer than that.) My only concern is a rumor that the pubs close at 2300, so I need to check that out.

We went all the way out to the Kelvingrove Art Museum & Gallery. This is a great castle of a place. It might even be a real castle. It looks too good-looking to be a real castle -- but on the other hand, it's obviously old and authentic, and it's on top of a hill which is traditionally a good place to put your castle. Anyone know the Kelvingrove's history? What was it before it was a museum?

We didn't find Little Mexico. We backtracked to a gourmet burger place we'd seen, and learned that it was on the site of the Little Mexico restaurant which had closed in February; "WEST" the new place had been in business about four weeks. We have to say, they have very nice burgers. You pick among beef (100% scottish cows, 10 oz. patties), chicken, vegan (broccoli, spinch, soya bean), or veggie (mushroom, pepper, pineapple, and we hear it might have egg as a binder). Then there are 14 combos listed. Lynn tried the Guacamole Burger. Note to anyone trying this place: the menu uses "Avocado Relish" as a synonym for "Guacamole," but it's the same thing. Lynnn liked it, says was "Very big, very messy, and very goold." Another note for Americans eating in UK: "Lemonade" is a synonym for a "Sprite/Seven-up" type of beverage. Also, at one point I said to Lynn, "there's ice in your milkshake" -- she says she thinks it was made with ice cream, but it was also made with ice. I enjoyed the ginger beer they had on offer. They also have bheer, wine, and a long mixed drinks menu. Like too many restaurants we've seen, there was no physically separate non-smoking section; in this instance, there was not even an attempt at separate sections, although the waitress promised not to seat any smokers near us. As a precautionary measure, I hid the ashtrays that had been placed on the two other tables in our little section. By the time we'd finished dinner, the smoke from another patron 3 meters way had started to bother me, and it was a good time to head home. Burgers were listed on the menu for 4.95 to 6.75 pounds each.

Wednesday morning, the Number 36 Guest House (that's the name on the bill, anyway)'s housekeeper brought us a continental breakfast. It was delicious; next time we need to tell them no coffee, no yogurt, but the stuff that we ate was just fine. There were these almond-glazed shortcake/scone-like things, very nice. Lynn didn't want hers, so I got it. The banana wasn't spotty yet, so she ate that, and the nectarine too. There was cereral, and cold toast, which I ate with the "Silver Shred" lemon marmalade. Maybe one or two other items, I forget... Not a cooked breakfast like we'd enjoyed at Belgrove, but that's okay. Or at leasy, Lynn's okay with it.

Walking to the SECC, the day was sunny and bright, with some clouds that were dumping rain on us. Whilst it was raining, mind you.

There's a mini market at the SECC that has all manner of things -- it's more than just a news agent, it's like a 7-Eleven but maybe a bit better. And its prices seem to be comparable to a regular convenience store -- they don't seem to be jacked up through the roof the way you'd expect at a convention center.

When we saw Deb at the MIMO desk Wednesday morning, someone had decided that MIMO sounded like a place to host a Worldcon (or at least a bid) and wrote "in 2011" so that the sign now reads "MIMO in 2011." Someone may have even handed Mark Olson a twenty for a pre-support...so remember to support MIMO in 2011. We saw many people Wednesday, and I didn't photograph all of them, but I snapped shots of Lisa Adler-Golden, Sandra Battye, miramon, Giulia De Cesare, Deb Geisler, Glenn Glazer, John Harold, Colin Hinz, timill (who now has the "Old Phart" ribbons), Christian McGuire (he has the "9,000 Iced Teas No Lemon" ribbons to remember Michael Mason by), pmcmurray (I handed him the "LiveJournal" ribbons to hand out), Suford Lewis, Tony Lewis, "Sparks" Rennie (who now has "Sparks for TAFF" ribbons), Kevin Roche, Ann Totusek, Andy Trembley, l_zinkiewicz (she's got the "Squib" ribbons), Cuddles, and Rincewind.

...No words can paint the picture of the Queen of all Argyll.

Part 3 of 3

[I'm posting this using the free Wi-Fi service available at The Goat, at Argyle & Haugh. They're open 11 am to midnight; they kindly allowed me to come in and do my net stuff while they set up. They don't start serving food until noon, though..]

On Wednesday afternoon, Sandra Battye, library_lynn, Colin Hinz, Christian McGuire, and Rincewind were all very helpful in setting up the Fan Gallery. It was an all-day affair. We learned from Ops that Art Show had All The Pegboard Hooks, so we took 400 hooks from them. I set the first hook for each panel -- each photo area was 4 feet wide, using two of three 2' wide boards. So I had to decide whether the leftmost or the middle board would be where the "first hook" would go. library_lynn helped set hooks in their planned positions. Losing the server in July meant I'd lost the latest version of my software to chart the photo locations, as well as the latest version of the list of photos. I got most of it working, but I didn't re-invent the inch-to-metric hole conversion, so I did that by hand by writing up a conversion chart: if it says [5] (meaning 5") count 7 holes, [6] = 8 holes, [7] = 10 holes, and so forth. Lynn did an excellent job while she could, but her brain got fuzzy after doing a third of the display.

Meanwhile, Christian worked on assembling photos, frames, and captions, and was a great help; Lynn worked with him when she got burned out on the hook-setting. There was a fair amount of work, because I'd added a number of photos to the collection immediately after the exhibit cases had shipped in June. The server crash meant that I didn't have any captions for them, so I've printed the names of them on a mostly blank sheet of paper, with a note saying -"Help us fill in their bio captions"- and I've handwritten in what little I had on them from their original "Wanted" entries.

Colin Hinz came along and got us tape from Ops, and started hanging up the actual photos. Mark Olson turned up and told us that the photo enlargements that Sharon Sbarsky had printed back at NESFA were around somewhere, and eventually he and Lynn fetched them back so we could figure them out. Lynn also brought me lunch -- a cold cornish pasty from the mini market. (They don't have a microwave there.) I was dubious, but ate it cold anyway, and found that it was tasty that way, too, even if it was a little different from my expectations. I'm going to go through a lot of meat pies this week...

Sandra Battye and Rincewind came by late in the day, after I'd started placing all the enlargements up. I have 28 places (28 boards) where the blowups can be placed, and more than 28 blowups. Christian had helped by going around and marking where I had two or three or more blowups in the same spot, and Sandra Battye and Rincewind took care of rearranging them to make it convenient to flip some of them over throughout the convention. By the way, thanks to Sharon for the work back home to make this possible; we had blowups printed and mounted from Noreascon, but didn't want to deal with shipping them to and from the convention. I elected not to worry about obtaining foamcore and mounting them, because that would cost us both time and money ("dollar points and people points"). So by the end of the day, about 1800 or 1900, the whole exhibit was up, blowups included, a few signs posted explaining the exhibit, and my "as built" chart checked to make sure that I had an accurate record of what photos we've hung. We have 389 pictures of 419 fans in this display, our largest yet I believe.

Sandra Battye, Rincewind, miramon, Giulia De Cesare, library_lynn and I went to dinner at "Yen" which is in the round "Casino" building at the far end of the car park. Go out past the Armadillo and keep walking, you'll find it. Be careful, though, it can be very windy. The Campanile hotel is almost as far (it's the closest hotel that isn't the Moat House), and has some sort of bistro -- we'll try that tomorrow. They have Chinese food upstairs and Teppanyaki downstairs. (If you've been to "Benihana" you've seen teppanyaki.) Same problem as the other restaurants, the cigarette smoke from other tables kept spilling over, but it was a fine dinner. They were extra solicitous of library_lynn's particular needs -- i.e., no soy sauce, no marinated meats, no alcohol -- and served up a fine 8 course meal with her dishes tailored for her. She doesn't care for seaweed, so the seaweed-wrapped cone of sticky rice didn't appeal to her, and we might not have told them about no soup and no tofu. But these were minor inconveniences, and the food itself was fine. Dinner for the two of us was 57 pounds (which included at 10% service charge), and we threw in an extra 3 pounds because they did so well with the food. Which included dessert: a "drop scone" -- essentially a big fluffy pancake -- cooked on the grill, wrapped around a chunk of vanilla ice cream, put on a plate with strawberry/kiwi/orange slices and a bunch of chocolate sauce swirled on the plate, and then ignited with flaming brandy (except Lynn's). It was delightful and delicious, and Lynn was happy to get her daily ration of ice cream.

Steve recommended that we look for Iain Banks's book "Raw Spirit", a Scotland travelog that covers many of the distilleries including, likely, the ones we might visit later in our trip...

And then home, to go to bed, or in my case to write up our adventures for eventual posting on-line. And plug our phones into the charger. I tried going back to The Goat, but they closed at midnight. They open again at 1100, I'll come back and try them in the morning. I found that out by asking; most of the businesses in these parts don't seem to post when they open or close, so I still don't know when the nearby laundrette opens in the morning. library_lynn is starting to run out of shirts, so she wants to get some laundry done on Thursday before she goes down to visit the Tenement House.

Both in London and hear in Glasgow, our lodging has been within walking distance of halal butchers. Not sure if that's relevant; I haven't seen any kosher places yet.

Did I post about the traffic lights? The traffic lights here go like this: green, yellow, red, red+yellow, green again. Some of them also go to flashing yellow at one point. Not sure what they mean! We've also seen zig-zag lane markings in the streets, what are they for? A mystery, glad I'm not driving. I remember how surprised I was by flashing green in Michigan, where it means that you can make a protected left turn. Comparable to having a green arrow light up. I don't remember whether it means that you can go straight if you want to as well. And a flashing green in Boston means, I think, all pedestrians can go anywhere and traffic should stop. A dangerous signal aspect, methinks; what if the flasher breaks but the light doesn't? I would have felt a lot safer on foot if the signal was a flashing red, or red plus something else. Something to look into if I make it back to Boston some time. Boston USA, that is; there's a Boston here, too, which I suspect is the original one.

(If you haven't figured it out by now, this is my first trip to the UK, and my first time overseas even. So a lot of this is strange and new. For example I'd heard Eddie Izzard mention "Jammy Dodgers" in his act -- we have some of his CDs -- but didn't know that they were a vanilla sandwich cookie with a fruit-flavored jam filling. (Excuse me, I mean a biscuit.)

And did I mention the address numbering? Apparently our system of even numbers on one side of the street, odd on the other, isn't followed here. Our number 36 is between 35 and 37. Also parking your car on the side of the street you're allowed to drive on -- not followed much here. Both sides of St. Vincent Crescent, you'll see cars parked facing both directions. And on Minerva, there's a parking lane in the middle of the street!

Another thing: our room's lock works with these old-fashioned style keys. The long skinny kind with a little blade on the end, that you leave in the keyhole? I guess they never saw any reason to upgrade the locks on the rooms. (The main door to the house uses a modern style key, though.) Wonder how old this brick thing is...

Update: Majestic Laundrette, on Argyle at the corner of Argyle and Corunna, will do a load of laundry, wash and dry it and fold it for you, for 5 pounds a washer load. We're going to dump our dirty laundry so far on them Friday morning and pick it up Saturday, I think. They're open 9 am to 5 pm M-F, 9-4 weekends.

Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand. I don’t care, I’m still free.

Thursday, first day of five convention days.

We've been told that everyone staying in our little B&B is here for the convention. We've also run into other people staying in the same street. I told somebody about The Goat; I also wrote up a little piece about it for the newsletter, where it was typoed as The Groat. This newsletter ("Port Authority") uses the multiple-team ideas -- they have four editor teams, each assigned a color. This means that every issue that's lilac in color is produced by the same team, the Lilac Team. The newszine isn't crediting articles submitted. A shame, as I'd signed one of the pieces "Florence Ambrose," who is the uplifted wolf starship engineer from the s.f. comic Freefall.

library_lynn and I decided we'd split up today; we'd go to Majestic Laundrette first and scope out their hours and prices, and then I'd go to The Goat and she'd go sightseeing, to meet up again at the SECC. It took me about two hours to catch up on my e-mail and do my LJ posts this morning, and I hope I can get done a little more quickly tonight to give me a little time to go party-hopping down at the Hilton.

On the way down to the bridge, I noticed a trailer that said "Wee Jo's Hot and Cold Sandwiches." It was like a catering truck, only smaller. I stopped and bought a hot bacon and fried egg sandwich and a 500 mL Coca-Cola, for 2.20 pounds. A good follow-up to my little continental breakfast in the morning. Their posted hours are 7;45 am to 1:30 pm Mon-Fri, but I hope they get a good enough business to extend their hours.

Today at the convention I saw and photographed Mary Ann Anthony, Margene Bahm, Alison Barton, Sandra Battye, Zara Baxter (zarabee, I gave her "Pervy" ribbons), Alex Bear, Square Bear, Mickey Blake (quaryn_dk), Claire Brialey (fishlifter), Bill Burns, Joni Dashoff, Todd Dashoff, Gay Ellen Dennett, Fran Dowd (frandowdsofa), Gary Keith Feldbaum, Naomi Fisher and her babe-in-tow Grace Keiko Eloise Molloy, Dean Gahlon, David Gallaher, Tom Galloway, Glenn Glazer, Lynn Gold (figmo), John Harold, Julian Headlong, Allison Hershey, Tal Hilevitz (who'll be handing out "Pretty Boy" ribbons), Martin Hoare, Anders Holmström, Cathy Holroyd (miniosiris), Joyce Hooper, Marcia Kelly Illingworth (who, with library_lynn is handing out "Clan Thyngye" ribbons), Keith Kato (who invited me to his after-Hugos chili party), Tony Keen (swisstone), Elizabeth Klein-Lebbink, Elspeth Kovar (who asked for a "Hot Bi-Polar Babe" ribbon), Alice Lawson (and gave her the "Sunnydale Visitors Bureau" ribbons), Allan McBain (who'll be helping with my photo sessions), Sue Mason, Jim Murray, Paula Helm Murray, Mike Nelson, Barry Newton, Judith J. Newton, Priscilla Olson, Elayne Pelz, Rog Peyton (I think he's on our Fan Gallery shortlist), Mark Plummer (fishlifter), Ted Poovey, Kevin Roche (kproche), Andy Sawyer, Jerome Scott, Ina Shorrock, Kevin Standlee (in his WSFS ship's captain uniform), David Stweart, Andy Trembley (bovil), Joy Ward, Dave Weddell, David Weingart (filkerdave), Eileen Weston, Peter Weston, Nik Whitehead (sharikkamur, who'll hand out "Excessively Preoccupied" ribbons), Doug S. (dougs), Elvis, and flickgc (who's doing "Party Host" ribbons because she's reviewing parties).

I'd never seen Kevin and Andy's LiveJournal Commandos costumes before -- they're camo uniforms, with berets, and LJ insignia with their LJ handles where the names would go. (I should tell them where to find the authentic nametapes...)

Today was Opening Ceremonies. The WSFS (White Star Federated Spaceways) "Armadillo" is the name that has been given to the convention center, and the convention badges have art showing the Armadillo lifting off from Spaceport Glasgow. Captain Kevin Standlee has a spiffy uniform. Sparks read off important safety announcements, including the important note that in case of atmosphere loss, be sure to grab the right kind of breathing mask. The ceremony was entertaining and also got the convention officially opened. One of the city councillors gave a speech, which mentioned James Doohan (a Canadian, but an honorary Scot), and definitely got into the spirit of the convention being held at "Spaceport Glasgow."

Cathy Holroyd had an entry in the costume exhibit: the dress (you know the one) from the Firefly episode "Shindig." When I catch up to her again, I'll issue the "Browncoat" ribbons to her.

Sparks rapidly ran out of the "Sparks for TAFF" ribbons -- people keep coming up to him and asking for a ribbon, so he asked me to give me the rest of them. I gave him a bunch, I think I have a few still here but I've given him at least the first 100 I believe.

While wandering Hall 2 a tv crew -- "Scotland Today", I think -- stopped and interviewed me, asking how my teddy bears tied into science fiction. I explained that I'd started making a costume by hand, and this is as far as I'd gotten. I told them that I kept them on during conventions, until the convention was over for myself, and that at the Baltimore Worldcon I'd been handed a flamingo on a stick. A pink plastic lawn flamingo. I wore the teddy bear ears, and held the flamingo by the dowel, all through the airport on my plane and home, and nobody ever said a word or asked a question... But I do get a lot of smiles from the kids.

Keith Kato has been hosting parties at Worldcons for years and years; they're invitation-only, but they've been a staple of the Worldcon party story for a long, long time. It makes it difficult to decide whether he should be on the radar for the Fan Gallery...

I was on a panel at 19:00 or so, on preserving fan history. With me were Andy Sawyer, Bill Burns, Tony Keens, and Pat McMurray. One of them's preserving fanzines, one of them collects convention (especially Eastercon) materials, and so forth. When I got there (I was late) they were talking about the missing Eastercon; apparently the 1957 Eastercon got forgotten, as it was the same year as a British Worldcon. And there is no surviving primary evidence; the strongest evidence that it happened consists of articles in several fanzines. Conceivably, the faneds might have all gotten together and committed a hoax; they've had difficulty finding people who remember that specific Eastercon. The evidence points to it having occurred, but it points up a problem with recording history (that is, recording the present, before it vanishes into the past) if you don't hang onto the primary source materials! When it got around to my turn, I talked too long, because I had two things to expound on -- my personal picture collection (which I will rebuild!) and the concept of writing down your captions when you've got the person in front of you; and the history and current status of the Fan Gallery, which is another fan history project of course.

Other meals today: I grabbed a Scotch Egg at McColl's (the mini market at the SECC), which is a hardboiled egg inside of a pork mixture shell. They were all out of almost everything and it looked edible. It was sustenance, but not a world-beater. And library_lynn and I stopped by the Caffé in the SECC lobby and got what we could -- which was pastries, and orange juice, to eat while we talked to Sue Mason, Dave Weddell, and Square Bear. We talked about medical stories, starting with Sue's cat bite that put her in hospital, and touching on my going-blind-in-one-eye adventure from 1995.

There are many other people I talked to, including galtine1 who had apparently called someone to have my candy report read to her over the phone. I've dropped off the red chocolates -- the many little Chomps in red wrappers, and the five 200g Turkish Delight bars with the red jelly filling. The other candy, and a couple of red sparkly tableclothes I'll drop off at the laconiv table tomorrow.

That's all for now from Spaceport Glasgow...