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Follycon report
7/4/18 16:28Follycon was last weekend but I've only just gathered enough wits and free time to do this report.
Travel there was trouble free, though the first train (of 2) was packed. Fortunately I had booked a seat. As she was checking tickets the conductor remarked that Maundy Thursday is the busiest day of the year on the rail network. I chatted to Rosie Oliver and other fans on the 2nd train.
I was in the Majestic, which is old enough NOT to have air conditioning (yippee!), to have windows which open (yippee!), and a radiator which remains off when you turn it off (yippee!). So finally an Eastercon without me coming down with con crud! Thew downside of the room was:
(1) The only decently bright light was in the bathroom. I had to read my con programme by standing at the window using daylight, and thank Grud the kindle has an illuminated screen.
(2) My room was above main programming, which meant my Cunning Plan to get an early night on Friday was scuppered by the dum-dum-dum of bass from the band. Ah well, they quit about 23.00 and neither the Ceilidh nor the Disco was as loud as the band.
Went out to eat at a very nice Chinese on the Thurs evening. I stuck to hotel food the rest of the time, mainly because there weren't big enough gaps between panels I wanted to see to do a restaurant meal. The method by which you obtained and paid for con food seemed to vary every time I was in the dining area (pay first, pay afterwards, table service, self service). Quality varied from terrible to really very nice. All the staff were lovely. I was a bit bemused by the warning signs which said things like "Pork - contains meat" or "Eggs - contains eggs".
Lots of fun chats with folk I hadn't seen for ages and with some people I'd never met before.
Stuff I went to:
- The Future of Cities
- Games: Story vs Mechanics
- Transgressive Sexuality
- Generations: Bioscience
- Generations: Ecology
- Putting Science in Your Story
- Nnedi Okorafor GOH interview
- Christina Lake GOH talk - Utopianism & Eugenics in Fiction
- BSFA Awards (I failed to vote because I didn't find the BSFA desk in the dealers' room. I realised later it had been hidden behind a gaggle of people every time I'd been there).
- Economics of Terraforming
- Eastercon bid session
- How to Finish Your Novel (where David Wake finished his live on stage by typing 'The End' and hitting Save).
- Christina Lake GOH talk on her early years in fandom
- Negotiating the Otherworldly
- Reproductive Technologies. It was great that they had an anthropologist as well as scientists on the panel.
I was busy fretting about snow, floods and train cancellations on Monday (Andy Bigwood of Bristolcon was texting me with tales of reversing trains and replacement buses) so I didn't go to any panels prior to giving my talk: Aliens Ate My Baby.
The speaker giving the talk prior to mine didn't stop at 11.50 like she was supposed to. And she didn't stop at 11.55 ish when the gopher waved the Stop sign or at 12.00 when the gopher came back and waved it more vigorously. As a result, the laptop which tech had loaned me wasn't set up on time... and the only tech guy who knew the password to it had dashed off to do tech in another room. I started without pictures, whilst the room tech sped off in search of John-Who-Knew-The-Password. Note to previous speaker REHEARSE YOUR TALK and TIME IT. It isn't rocket science.
Fortunately I HAD rehearsed my talk and knew it was 36 minutes long in a 50 minute slot, so Ms I'm Too Pretty & Special To Stick To My Allocated Slot wasn't the complete disaster it could have been. I did, however, only have time for 3 questions, and that was only by finishing at 12.53 instead of 12.50. The audience laughed and cringed in all the right places, so it went well.
Grabbed a quick lunch, toured round saying bye to people and then left a couple of hours earlier than I had originally planned, in case there was more weather chaos on the railways. Met Ian Millsted on train 1 of 2 and had a nice chat there and while we waited for connections at Leeds.
Travel there was trouble free, though the first train (of 2) was packed. Fortunately I had booked a seat. As she was checking tickets the conductor remarked that Maundy Thursday is the busiest day of the year on the rail network. I chatted to Rosie Oliver and other fans on the 2nd train.
I was in the Majestic, which is old enough NOT to have air conditioning (yippee!), to have windows which open (yippee!), and a radiator which remains off when you turn it off (yippee!). So finally an Eastercon without me coming down with con crud! Thew downside of the room was:
(1) The only decently bright light was in the bathroom. I had to read my con programme by standing at the window using daylight, and thank Grud the kindle has an illuminated screen.
(2) My room was above main programming, which meant my Cunning Plan to get an early night on Friday was scuppered by the dum-dum-dum of bass from the band. Ah well, they quit about 23.00 and neither the Ceilidh nor the Disco was as loud as the band.
Went out to eat at a very nice Chinese on the Thurs evening. I stuck to hotel food the rest of the time, mainly because there weren't big enough gaps between panels I wanted to see to do a restaurant meal. The method by which you obtained and paid for con food seemed to vary every time I was in the dining area (pay first, pay afterwards, table service, self service). Quality varied from terrible to really very nice. All the staff were lovely. I was a bit bemused by the warning signs which said things like "Pork - contains meat" or "Eggs - contains eggs".
Lots of fun chats with folk I hadn't seen for ages and with some people I'd never met before.
Stuff I went to:
- The Future of Cities
- Games: Story vs Mechanics
- Transgressive Sexuality
- Generations: Bioscience
- Generations: Ecology
- Putting Science in Your Story
- Nnedi Okorafor GOH interview
- Christina Lake GOH talk - Utopianism & Eugenics in Fiction
- BSFA Awards (I failed to vote because I didn't find the BSFA desk in the dealers' room. I realised later it had been hidden behind a gaggle of people every time I'd been there).
- Economics of Terraforming
- Eastercon bid session
- How to Finish Your Novel (where David Wake finished his live on stage by typing 'The End' and hitting Save).
- Christina Lake GOH talk on her early years in fandom
- Negotiating the Otherworldly
- Reproductive Technologies. It was great that they had an anthropologist as well as scientists on the panel.
I was busy fretting about snow, floods and train cancellations on Monday (Andy Bigwood of Bristolcon was texting me with tales of reversing trains and replacement buses) so I didn't go to any panels prior to giving my talk: Aliens Ate My Baby.
The speaker giving the talk prior to mine didn't stop at 11.50 like she was supposed to. And she didn't stop at 11.55 ish when the gopher waved the Stop sign or at 12.00 when the gopher came back and waved it more vigorously. As a result, the laptop which tech had loaned me wasn't set up on time... and the only tech guy who knew the password to it had dashed off to do tech in another room. I started without pictures, whilst the room tech sped off in search of John-Who-Knew-The-Password. Note to previous speaker REHEARSE YOUR TALK and TIME IT. It isn't rocket science.
Fortunately I HAD rehearsed my talk and knew it was 36 minutes long in a 50 minute slot, so Ms I'm Too Pretty & Special To Stick To My Allocated Slot wasn't the complete disaster it could have been. I did, however, only have time for 3 questions, and that was only by finishing at 12.53 instead of 12.50. The audience laughed and cringed in all the right places, so it went well.
Grabbed a quick lunch, toured round saying bye to people and then left a couple of hours earlier than I had originally planned, in case there was more weather chaos on the railways. Met Ian Millsted on train 1 of 2 and had a nice chat there and while we waited for connections at Leeds.
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