hazelchaz | 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