From the rocket fields of the academy to the far-flung stars of outer space...

[hazelchaz]

Monday, last day of the convention, part 1 of 2.

My left foot started swelling up again by Monday. We went back to taping it up with the compression bandage. On my way to the Exhibition Centre I saw an official red van go by. It wasn't fire, or ambulance; it was marked Royal Mail.

People I saw and photographed on Monday included: Justin Ackroyd, Fatima Ahad, Alison Barton, Kris Bauer-Exline (glittercat13), Amelia Beamer, Anders Berghegen, Mike Bird, Alasdair Boyd, Bridget "Bug" Bradshaw (bugshaw), Cindi Somebody Cabal, Anne Campbell, David Campbell, Kate Churcher, Dave Clemens (purplecthulhu), Sandra Coleman, Stephen R. Cooper, Catherine Crockett, Dennis Danvers, Genny Dazzo, Scott Dennis, Vincent Docherty, Paul Dormer, Fran Dowd (frandowdsofa), A.G. England, Darrel L. Exline (darrelx), Naomi Fisher, Anders Frihagen, Cenk Gökçl;e, Roy Gray, Kelly Green, Simon R. Green, John Gullidge, Shouichi Hachiya, David Haddock, Sarah Haddock, Colin Harris, Kezia Hepden, Tal Hilevitz, Colin Hinz, Martin Hoare, Andrew Hook, Sidsel Horvei, Warren Hudson, Marcia Illingworth, Wilf James, Kim Kofmel, Lisa Konrad, Jocelyn Konrad-Lee, Grant Kruger, Fred Lerner, Judith Lewis, Tony Lewis, Mike Llewellyn, Kjon Lund, Karin Lundwall, Adrian Lynn, Robert J. Macintosh, David Mackie, Sue Mason (frostfox), Elise Matthesen, Craig Miller, Patrick Molloy, Alan Morison, Henry Morris, Michael Nolan, Silva Paine, Rog Peyton, Andy Porter, Terry Pratchett, Christopher Priest, Danielle Ray, Michelle Reid, "Sparks" Rennie, Julie Faith Rigby, Madeline E. Robins, Roger Robinson, David Row, Ann Rudolph, Kathy Sands, Leo Sands, Sharon Sbarsky, Mike Scott, Ken Slater, Cindy Smith, Samuel A. Smith, J.A. Stelnicki, David Stewart, Erwin "Filthy Pierre" Strauss, Patryk Strzelwicz, Alf Sund, Bjørn Tore Sund, Inigo Surguy, Bill Sutton, Brenda Sutton, Anton Sviridenko, Megan Totusek, Brian Turner, Tobes Valois, Ray Van Tilburg, Jetse de Vries, Gail Walker, Jacob Weisman, Malgorzata Wilk, Sally Woehrle, Andrev Zakharchenko, Liz Zitzow, Blindpew, and Judes.

I took a bottle of Whalers Rum over to the Fan Lounge for the Plokta Cabal. Mike Scott accepted it on behalf of the group; miramon and Giulia de Cesare drove up, so they'll be the ones to take it back. It's my "bottle of comment" and should keep me on the mailing list for a while even if I wasn't pubbing A BEAR WENT OVER THE MOUNTAIN. I pointed out to Mike that it wasn't a dark brown bottle, the glass itself is clear -- the rum itself is so dark that you can't see through the bottle.

While in the Fan Lounge, I saw they'd put up a sign: "Now will you bloody shut up about bloody awards!" Not sure who it was directed at, but I could assume it was coming from the triumphant Plokta Cabal. The room had various pirate-themed decorations and art. The "Pirates of Plokta" had hosted a Pirate Night on Thursday (which, sadly, I missed; I'll have to read back through my notes to figure out what I was doing instead), and invited fans to draw appropriate room decorations.

They had fanzines for free, and donation cans for the Fan Funds. They also had the Great Tat Tombola. I'd never heard of a Tombola before this trip. It turns out it's like a raffle with immediate results. You give them a pound, you take 5 tickets at random from the basket. In this case, if it was a number ending in 0 or 5, it was a winner, you just had to find the item with the matching number on it. And one of the rules was you had to take it away, you couldn't re-donate it if you didn't want ot keep it. library_lynn ended up with a little tin of Shrek 2 sweets.

I'd promised to shoot the exhibits for Ewan Chrystal, and had made it through about half of Hall 2 the day before. I wanted to get the rest of it, and see if I could cover Hall 3 (Dealers Room, Art Show, Fan Gallery, Pro Gallery) before it all got torn down.

I ran into Brian Turner, who has volunteered to help with the website. I told him to find access to the inter_action staff website, and see what they had there, and we'd talk further online after I got back home. Scott Beckstead is lead webmaster for content for the main website; we've got to find someone who can do as good a job on the staff website as laconvi as Bjørn Tore Sund did for this year's convention.

Megan Totusek showed me her Interaction t-shirt: "Operations Team -- We're Radio-Active."

Ken Slater introduced me to Malgorzata Wilk. Ken gave me his e-mail address, so I can get bio info for his Fan Gallery entry. Malgorzata told me the two biggest Polish fans are Piotr Cholewa and Elzbieta Gepfert. Lucky for me I'd taken their pictures the day before yesterday, if we decide to include them.

Monday I went around the dealers room and snapped pictures of every dealer. While I was in there, Tony Lewis intercepted me, to talk about how little he knew about Scratch Buchanan's contributions to fandom.

The Moniack winery was recommended to me, especially their mead. They're northwest of Inverness, not too far, might be a good side trip when we make it into the Highlands.

Kim Kofmel didn't have her "Friend of Kim" ribbons, but she gave me a "FoK SIG Cons" ribbon. We talked about ribbon printers; she said ConFusion isn't using Parker Systems anymore, but didn't know who they were. I looked at the ribbon she gave me and it didn't quite match up to the printing RV Awards uses either. Maybe Hodges, or someone else.

APC had a table there -- they have an overnight shipping business in UK, and I understand they're the same shipping company that used to be called APL, American Presidents Lines. So if you needed something sent back to your country, they could pack it up for you and get it there.

I got some pictures of Adrian Lynn and his dog Davros and his wheelchair with the Scottish Lion flag. I promised I'd print them out and send them to him in East Kilbride.

Sandra Coleman from Elastic Press wants her own set of fuzzy ears. I got her e-mail address, and told her I'd talk to the Yaoi-Con people about ears that might match her strawberry blonde/red hair.

When I got to the NESFA Press table, Seth Breidbart came up to me, and just kind of breathed heavily. Not even a full-strength sigh. I said to him, "Scratch asked you to talk to me, didn't he" and Seth said, "I didn't say anything, did I?" He neither confirmed nor denied my guess. But it did seem like an expressive sigh to me.

Comments

[flick.livejournal.com]

While in the Fan Lounge, I saw they'd put up a sign: "Now will you bloody shut up about bloody awards!" Not sure who it was directed at, but I could assume it was coming from the triumphant Plokta Cabal.

I believe that pmcmurray was responsible for it, as we left him in charge of the fan room when we were at the Hugos, and it was there when we got back.

Definitely aimed at the Cabal!

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Though in truth we shut up about never winning an award after we won the Nova, nearly five years ago. So it's kinda out of date.