A Reckoning of the Damage: Loncon3 After Action Report (post your own!)

[Buckwheat]

Buckwheat, me too! Those few days seemed to fly by. I'm glad we met though, and we'll see each other again :D

I do hope so. :)

- Yes the Jawas actually DID play quidditch

- Theda and Lessthanluke admirably tried to convince us Wales actually exists. A for effort, but ultimately doomed to failure!

***both comments are authentic

You can believe that the Jawas played quidditch, but cannot believe in Wales? That is ... I have no words. :eek: I for one am a firm believer in Wales just because a certain person just sent me a fb friendship request from there, which she could not possibly do if Wales did not exist. It must be true, it is the Internet!

[john]

I feel like Sam the fake orchestra man has been unfairly maligned by the cackling coven of BWB feminists. Thought he made a great point about how easy it is to google Shae's minge. :lol:

And Jaime Lannister - long hair or short hair? Don't pretend you girls haven't lost sleep over that.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

I believe that it's true, it's exceptionally easy. And I can only think of one non-prosthetic penis that made it into the show, which puts it well behind Black Sails. But we're all men here, so we can admit to being overwhelmed by Peter Andre's abs.

[Maltaran]

Malts 1 & 2,

Malt 1+2,

Malt 2 is now on the board, although under a different name

[lessthanluke]

At least, in years to come, I can say I saw Tom Jones...

Exactly. You are a winner.

[Ran]

Fantastic times. We fairly rushed to get our Archipelacon membership in large part because of how cool it was to be at a con again. We're going to have to try and get to these more often.

So, lets see. Wednesday is when Linda and I arrived in London, flying from Landvetter airport to Heathrow. Went smooth... but an hour and a half in transit via the subway and DLR carrying a couple of bags proved quite exhausting and unpleasant! We wandered around a little bit to see if we could spot some BwB, failed to realize that we could have gone in to get registered, and retired to the Ramada bar to have dinner. I did post that we were going to hang out for an hour or so, which proved necessary after all because it took half an hour for our order to be delivered (on the whole, the Ramada was really pretty good; a little frayed around the edges, a little bland, but comfortable... BUT the slowness of food was annoying) and then we went to bed to get up bright and early, to have breakfast (where I believe Mormont and his lovely daughter were also dining... or was that the next day? Hrm) ...

... to an ENORMOUS line for registration. Gosh. I recall going in and Linda remarking on it, and I said, "Oh, look, it ends right there at the stair so it's not THAT bad..." Only to then be informed by security that in fact the line continued on the second level. Erk. We spent half an hour at least in line, chatting briefly with neighbors, and then Yolkboy spotted us and introduced himself and we chatted a fair bit with him regarding Radio Westeros, an interview (which we later did), and matter ASoIaf related.

After that, we wandered a bit -- maybe we spotted some other BwB then? Can't recall -- and then we parted ways, as Linda went to the We Can Imagine It For You Wholesale panel while I attended the Opening Ceremony, which was modestly amusing and played around with the idea that a professor at the former Hugowarts School for Wizards was insisting that the audience were in fact pupils and not in fact attendees at a Science Fiction convention; this included a gloriously unharmonious effort to get the crowd to hum the Doctor Who theme song. The guests of honor were presented, with Iain Banks' chair being left empty.

Linda says her panel was pretty solid -- not spectacular, but solid, as it explored worldbuilding in various genres and texts.

Of course, we did attend the George and Connie panel, moderated by Paul Cornell. Brilliant, as expected -- Willis is a deeply funny person, and George is no slouch either. Best of all, I know for certain by that time we became acquainted with a lot of the BwBers who were hanging out at the con. Good times.

After that, Linda and I headed back to the Ramada to dress up in fancier clothes and had a car (BTW, the Kabbee app is pretty handy!) take us to the Gherkin where HarperCollins Voyager was hosting a cocktail party at the Searcy's bar right at the very top of the building. It had a 360 degree view of London (dampened, literally, by occasionally torrential rain that went on and off for awhile) and was spectacular... and spectacularly LOUD once the place got crowded enough (we were, apparently, the very first guests to arrive; bonus to this, besides a chance to take in the view, was that we got first taste at the selection of canapés). The acoustics of the place are terrible when it's crowded, the glass and curved lens that's basically the roof bouncing sound around. So of course everyone starts talking louder and louder, until you have to shout....

Lots of people to see and meet there -- we had chats with Anne Groell (US editor) and Jane Johnson (UK editor, who wore a lovely outfit made for her by the costumers behind LotR using a beautiful iridescent fabric she joked was a "leftover from Rivendell"), various other important people at HarperCollins in the editorial, publishing, and marketing arms (including some interesting discussions with one of the guys in charge of the Tolkien line, and a chat with Harper's CEO where he professed to be amazed at the traffic the site gets during the show), a rep from bookseller W.H. Smith who sounded quite enthusiastic about the prospects for The World of Ice and Fire, Robin Hobb (who, with George, was the marquee guest; she is very, very modest!) and her "minder" Caroline who elucidated a bit when we discussed the view of St. Paul's Cathedral in light of Connie Willis's remarks on the fire watch that had protected it during the Blitz. Many other authors were present, including the very popular Joe Abercrombie (so popular we couldn't get to him during the event, but did finally meet and have a chat the next day), Peter V. Brett, Myke Cole, uhm... and quite a few more that I fear I can't remember. Also met Jackie Morris, the artist responsible for the covers of Robin's latest books from Voyager.

Of course, the highlight was the arrival of George and Parris, using the open lift to slowly rise from the floor. Lots of photos were taken, applause, and the like. Speeches were made, first by Charlie Redmayne (aforementioned CEO) in honor of Jane's 30th year at the company (sort of), and then by Jane thanking everyone, talking a bit about her career, and seguing into how fantastic the previous year had been for the company, with particular reference to George and his successes. So, we got a chance to get reacquainted with Raya (who we'd last seen lo, these many years ago, in Anaheim; our drive in the midst of crushing traffic is an to the Chateau Marmont for a party George's agent was throwing remains an indelible memory), and of course Parris and George. Also with them were the Silverbergs, Robert Silverberg and Karen Silverberg. At LA Con I recall having seen Silverberg walking to the convention center while we were going the other way, and I always kicked myself that I didn't run up and just introduce myself briefly and thank him for all his work, and generally just fanboy over him... but I corrected that. He was very gracious, as was his wife Karen, and both seemed benevolently amused at my enthusiasm. If you haven't read Silverberg before -- well, first, you must live under a rock, but second, try and get one of the collections of his best short stories, because he's an absolute legend of SF. AND someone who was there pretty closely from the start of the Golden Age... but whose work stretches over decades, evolved with the times, and is full of interesting stuff from world building to complex themes and fascinating characters.

Anyways, yeah, fantastic time. When the party wrapped up (but not before Linda and I were asked to contribute a few words to a video being put together to celebrate Voyager's years in business), we moseyed on down with George and co. to await a cab while the car ordered up for him and the entourage arrived... and spent about 25 minutes waiting in the cool London evening, noticing very few cabs passing by (fewer still in service), and no car at all for George (turns out there was an accident and the car was delayed). So we had a great chance to catch up and chat. In the course of it, George mentioned Archipelacon, a Finnish convention on Åland at which he was the then-unannounced Guest of Honor (suffice it to say, Linda and I are now members). Eventually Voyager sorted out the car issue for George, and we parted ways, finding a cab to take us home and to bed.

And... gosh, I'll leave it there. Three more days to cover.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Malt,

Malt 2 is now on the board, although under a different name

He should have gone with "TreebeardSuperMcAwesompants".

[Denvek]

You all know I'm really number 1.

LonCon was awesome. I now have photos of two awesome chairs (although the Use of Weapons chair was cordoned off, so no one was allowed to sit on it) and some Jawas playing Quidditch.

My panel highlights would be the one I went to on Thursday about how YouTube is affecting video games, where half way through the moderator phoned up Simon from the Yogscast and got him to

with the kids in the panel, and the Monday morning panel about swearing. Hugo winner Charles Stross got a particularly nice introduction from the non-winner panelists. Joe Abercrombie's panel about why fantasy likes bringing back kings was also fun (a cabal of evil advisers, and a bank).

Mistaken for Malt count topped was more than 5 but less than 10 (I don't know for certain how many people thought it was Malt who joined Jonpot and Targh for Bob the Builder at karaoke, but I know it was some), while the best freak-out award goes to Turlough. I didn't know eyes could get that wide.

Thanks to all of the BwBers for making me feel welcome even though I knew none of you prior to this. I won't be naming names, because I don't know what most of you call yourselves on here, but you're all awesome.

[Darian Frey]

I went to an alternative con, KidCon 2014. It was hell.

[Maltaran]

You all know I'm really number 1.

The board says you're number 40202. :p

One thing I haven't mentioned yet was the I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue game on Thursday evening, which was hilarious - Paul Cornell was particularly good at mixing the traditional ISIHAC jokes with genre references, "One does not simply walk into Mornington Crescent!"

[williamjm]

I arrived at the Excel on Thursday about noon. First mistake was to get off at the wrong DLR station and then having to walk the entire length of the Excel, I wouldn’t make that mistake again although there would be plenty of other reasons to make that long walk. Once I got to the correct end of the Excel I found that the registration queue was estimated to take about an hour and a half. I saw my first BWBers in the form of Jon, Filippa and Peregrinus who were half an hour ahead of me in another portion of the queue. Also bumped into a couple of friends I went to Edinburgh University with who I hadn’t seen much in recent years, I did find it nice to be able to randomly meet people I knew (mostly but not entirely BWBers) at regular intervals while wandering around.

After registration and lunch I noticed that Patrick Rothfuss was almost at the end of his signing and the queue (which had been very long earlier) was non-existent so was able to get my copy of Name of the Wind signed. Then went to GRRM and Connie Willis’ panel, which I thought was entertaining, they’ve obviously known each other a long time and were both interesting panellists, Paul Cornell also did a good of moderating. After that I wandered round the dealer’s room managing to avoid the temptation to buy lots of books I don’t have time to read. Then went to the Fox for dinner for one of the first of many visits to there, the food was decent even if they did have ridiculously inefficient bar staff. Due to poor advance planning I only had a hotel booked for Friday-Monday so after hanging around in the fan village for a bit had to go back to Cambridge.

On Friday I got there just in time for GRRM’s signing. I liked it and thought it was appropriate that he had too much material to fit in and had to end on a cliffhanger. I then went to the Scott Lynch booksigning with Malt#1. The queue didn’t initially look too bad, but ended up taking an hour and a half to get through (fortunately there were some seats halfway along). Scott was taking time to talk to people and write individual dedications (in mine he wrote ‘May you always have shadows to hide in when other plans go awry!’), which I think is better than authors just signing their name but it did make the queue slow moving. I then got Anne Leckie to sign Ancillary Justice, fortunately that didn’t involve queuing. Later on Friday there was the BWB party which was good fun, I think this one of the best opportunities to talk to people, including meeting a number of people I hadn’t met before. The oddest bit was after deciding that my legs had had enough of queuing, standing and talking the length of the Excel centre multiple times and noticing a vacant chair. Too late I found out that I’d wandered into the tail end of the discussion (already mentioned several times in previous posts) where someone from the Orchestra was demanding that the female members of the BWB had to convince him of the validity of feminism. He seemed to think that being a man I’d automatically be on his side and tried to quiz me on my opinions of Jaime Lannister’s hair (I don’t know why, but he told me my opinion was more important than any women’s opinions) and demanding to know where he could find the Admin (Ran, you’ve no idea what a lucky escape you had that we didn’t point you out to him). I tried to avoid talking to him as much as possible and fortunately he eventually wandered off, with a final cryptic declaration that ‘We’re all Men here, right?’.

On Saturday I had intended to go to a panel on Orphan Black in the morning, but I think I’ve come up with a WorldCon rule that the first interesting panel of the day always has to be sacrificed in favour of extra sleep. I did make it to a discussion on the Hugo TV shortlist which was quite interesting, even if the panel unanimously decided that The Day of the Doctor was inevitably going to win, I did agree with them at the time. I then went to Wert’s Wheel of Time panel which I thought was very interesting, particularly hearing Harriet’s (Robert Jordan’s widow and editor) thoughts on it. I think Wert did a good job of moderating considering that he apparently only found out he was the moderator 15 minutes before the panel started. I then went to see the stage play adaptation of Tim Powers’ The Anubis Gates. This did involve another epic queue to get in. I thought it was a good play. The acting was excellent and I think it was a good adaptation. Some of the later parts of the story did get a bit

rushed compared to the book, but I think that's inevitable when condensing such a complex novel into two and a half hours. The biggest downside was something that I imagine also irritated the performers a lot, the Excel centre apparently wouldn't allow them to dim the lights in the stage so the whole thing was brightly illuminated which did nothing for the atmosphere especially when the Excel centre generally feels like an airport terminal. In the opening scene people are searching for Doyle with torches, which doesn't work so well when there's no darkness.

The play overran which met I was late for Luga’s panel on Travel in Fantasy and couldn’t get in, so I went to X-Ray’s panel on illustrating GRRM’s work instead which was interesting. The final panel of the day was on the trope of focusing on Kings in fantasy which was reasonably entertaining but suffered a bit because unsurprisingly none of the panellists were defending hereditary monarchy so there wasn’t really much debate. After that went to a nice Chinese restaurant for dinner. After that met up with the two friends from Edinburgh I mentioned earlier, was nice to catch up with them although it meant unfortunately I missed the Hardbitten Fleabottom Swingtime Band.

On Sunday went to a panel on comedy in fantasy featuring Connie Willis, Simon R. Green and others. It was a fun panel, aside from a slightly racist joke from one of the panel members about what food they might serve in Lebanese restaurants. The other panel I went to was on book covers, which was OK but the panel description did promise more in the way of exposing bad covers, the art professionals were too diplomatic with only Joe Abercrombie willing to criticise anything. After that went to dinner and then the Hugo Awards ceremony. I thought the awards seemed generally reasonable even if only one thing I voted for actually won (Ancillary Justice). Nice to see David and Dan collecting the award for The Rains of Castamere. They went through the ceremony reasonably quickly (I get the impression this isn’t always the case). Most of the speeches were decent (I guess that’s advantage of having lots of writers), highlights were Kameron Hurley taking the opportunity to give some extra criticism of the misogyny of some parts of the genre and XKCD’s author getting Cory Doctorow to dress up in a cape to accept the award. There are some questions about how much the Hugos matter, but they definitely seem to matter to the winners. After that I went to now-legendary BWB karaoke party. Usually I’d do my best to avoid karaoke, but having been to a few BWB events in the past I know that the BWB do actually tend to be good at it, and this time was no exception. I’m still a bit disappointed I missed the Malt twins doing their version of 500 Miles.

On Monday went to one final panel given by someone from WETA digital which was interesting. After that hung around with the remaining BWBers where we found out how many BWBers can fit in a TARDIS (9, apparently) and had a very nice meal at an Italian restaurant. I then had to head home and therefore missed the Dead Dog party.

I’m not going to list all the people I met because this post is already ridiculously long, but it was nice to meet you all whether again or the first time and I hope to see you all again soon.

[Maltaran]

I’m still a bit disappointed I missed the Malt twins doing their version of 500 Miles.

I've been asked a number of times by work colleagues who saw the FB photo if there is any video of this. Did anyone record it, or were you all overcome by the awesomeness?

[Peadar]

I've been asked a number of times by work colleagues who saw the FB photo if there is any video of this. Did anyone record it, or were you all overcome by the awesomeness?

Don't worry -- that performance is indelibly etched in my memory, and as soon as the technology becomes available, it will be the first thing I transfer into the cloud for all the world to enjoy.

[williamjm]

I've been asked a number of times by work colleagues who saw the FB photo if there is any video of this. Did anyone record it, or were you all overcome by the awesomeness?

I think this means you'll have to do a repeat performance for the next BWB karaoke.

[Slick Mongoose]

I really regret having to leave on Sunday, sounds like I missed a ton of fun.

I had a wonderful time, and it was great meeting everyone. Special mentions to Isis for the homebrew, Wert for running a great WoT panel and to LugaJetBoyGirl for convincing me that there should be a YA Hugo award.

[Werthead]

CON REPORT!

I headed down to London on Friday morning. Due to a total failure to read the con schedule, I didn't realise that George had a reading at 11am. Due to my pre-purchased train tickets being off-peak only, I couldn't get a train before 9am. With reports of the registration lines taking anything up to an hour to process on the Thursday I did not think highly of my chances of making it. However, thanks to a fortuitous train leaving at just after 9am, a happy quirk of geography (I was able to get off my main line train directly onto a DLR station just a couple of stops from the ExCel) and no lines at all at registration I was able to make it in time. I got a seat next to Williamjm and listened to George speak for an hour or so.

The rest of Friday was spent bumping into various BwBers (and George, who dubbed me "Vurt!") and preparing for the party in the evening. In the middle I had to shoot off to my first panel on Comparative Criticism which started off a little dry, but was much-improved by the input of Mahvesh Murad, a Pakistani radio host who filled us in on the state of SFF fandom in Karachi (GoT is fricking huge there as well, apparently). I also got a chance to sit down for half an hour with blogger Foz Meadows and writer Kate Elliott, one of my favourite fantasy writers who turned out to be even sharper and funnier in real life than she appears online.

The Friday night party was pretty good and there was plenty of reunions with old friends, introductions to new friends and the cool experience of finally meeting people in the flesh whom I'd known online for a decade. Much superb punch was drunk but I must admit that I peaked too early and had to retire at midnight. The next day there were reports of an exclusive late-night party on GRRM's boat (GRRM was staying on a boat-turned-hotel, or hotel-shaped-like-a-boat, I never found out which) which made even the most hardened party-goers quiver with fear.

On the Saturday I had a midday panel on the Wheel of Time with Harriet McDougall (Robert Jordan's widow), Maria Simons (RJ's assistant) and fantasy authors Peter V. Brett and Wesley Chu. I found out I was moderating the panel 15 minutes early, which I have to say I was less than impressed by. Still, eighteen years of reading the books stood me in good stead and the panel turned out to be fairly enjoyable. On the way out I met the Hugo-nominated Aidan 'A Dribble of Ink' Moher who'd just flown in from Vancouver and we wound up having lunch with Peter Brett, Myke Cole, Justin Landon (from the Staffer's Book Review blog and one of the most unexpectedly tall people I've ever met) and several others. After that I ended up in a conversation with SFF editor Gillian Redfearn, French fantasy authors Pierre Pevel and Antoine Rouaud, before Tobias Buckell also showed up. I wound up having a three-hour nap on the Saturday afternoon which felt a bit like poor form (especially as I missed the infamous GoT clusterfuck panel) but meant I actually ended the night still feeling relatively fresh. The evening saw me flitting from the Gollancz Party in the hotel next door (where Peter F. Hamilton learned early on that the alcohol was running on, so spent the evening walking around with several bottles of wine tucked under his arms) to the con to the BwB musical event, where Lord Jo's band entertained the collective before we all crashed out.

Sunday was probably the best day overall. Lots of time in the dealer's room, where I was unexpectedly hijacked by the HarperCollins team and forced to help prepare goodie bags for authors before being able to escape. I met up with Isabel/Emma, a well-known WoT superfan, and we spent a good hour chatting with Skylark in the fan village. I then went off to my final panel, on blogging. This turned out to be terrific fun, with Aidan, Justin, Foz Meadows and Thea from the Book Smugglers all talking about the good and bad parts of blogging. KCF (Nethspace) got a shout-out from Justin and I embarrassed blogger-turned-corporate-publishing-shrill ( :) ) James from Speculative Horizons who was hiding at the back of the room. Stanek was mentioned (and elicited many WTFs) and I got to say thank you to the BwB, many of whom had encouraged me to start blogging eight years ago (!) and several of whom were in the room. As we were leaving we started talking about the karaoke party and Foz Meadows immediately wanted to know when and where, as it turns out that nothing - not even a possible Hugo win - can stand between an Australian blogger and karaoke.

I debated going to the Hugos and nearly skipped it, before discovering that the karaoke party was actually going to be fairly late and also that the ceremony's start had been delayed by a few minutes to let more people in. Reasoning it might be years before I got the chance to go again, I decided to attend and was pleasantly surprised at how fast they got through it. Nightmare stories of Hugo ceremonies lasting days (okay, four or more hours) had been circulating but hosts Justina Robson and Geoff Ryman kept things moving at a very breezy clip and it was good fun to cheer the nominees and the winners.

The karaoke party then kicked off and a raucous good time was had by all, despite my ill-advised take on Guns and Roses (there are songs I can do and songs I cannot do and then there's the ones that I should never attempt, and GNR fall squarely into the last category). Highlights were a BwB collective doing Run to the Hills by Iron Maiden and our final attack on Bohemian Rhapsody when the whole place blew up. Afterwards a group of us lingered and chatted, with the realisation it was almost all over hanging over us.

On Monday morning I made the final long trek of the 900-metre (I'm not even joking) convention centre concourse to meet up with the Bros. We had an impromptu breakfast and I said my final goodbyes. In the middle of this it was pointed out that I could combine my trip to San Franciso next year (for Wikia and the GoT Wiki) with Worldcon in Spokane, as apparently by American standards 720 miles is nothing. A quite glance on travel sites seemed to indicate this should be very doable, so fingers crossed this can happen.

Then it was time for me to shoot off. I could and probably should have stayed a bit longer but I was way too tired and wanted some decent rest at home before getting back to work. Lightweight, I know :)

It was an awesome weekend with too many highlights to relate. The karaoke party was particularly special, the work put into the organisation of the parties was amazing (MAJOR props to X-Ray and Mr. X) and the heroism of the BwBers who went to the godawful business meetings (missing far more interesting panels and signings in the process) and helped get the YA Hugo back firmly on the agenda cannot be overstated.

The BwB is a very special group of awesome people that I don't think other fandoms have in quite the same way, and I was very heartened to see newcomers and some of the younger board members getting in on the act and representing as well. Best weekend I've had in a long, long, long time.

[Theda Baratheon]

Got in to London thursday morning, then with a bit of checking Google maps and finding my way through London I arrived around 12pm at my hostel; as I couldn't sign in until 2 and at this point I had no idea how easy it was to get to the ExCel (bus from straight outside my hostel directly to the ExCel) and I didn't want to lug around my heavy rucksack, I waited until 2, at which point there was a storm / terrible weather; I took one look outside and thought 'nah' (again, had I known how easy it was to get to the con, I'd have gone) waited for luke and we set off to the con. Met up with karaddin and brook who really are just the most wonderful, lovely people. Had a few drinks in the evening and also met many other boarders for the first time. Was a little tipsy so didn't introduce myself proper to a few. :blushing: Was very pleasantly surprised at the amount of people who recognised me/my username who didn't already have me on facebook. (Hey - I guess my over-enthusiastic, embarrassingly excessive early posting counted for something!) karaddin, brook, luke, xray, lyanna, regina, liffguard and all the rest of the lovely people I first met on thursday instantly made me feel comfortable and I enjoyed meeting and talking with every single one of you.

Friday, went to a few panels, had a bit of a wander around and followed brook and karaddin around again :P

Oooooh - I also got to sit on the Iron Throne and completely forgot all the poses I had ever rehearsed in my head ever so ended up just flailing around for 10 seconds and in the evening the party was great fun!!! Laughed when my love for Blade Runner was brought up but was very, very pleased it had been properly noticed. Met even more wonderful people; Min, Aoife, Chaldanya and along with karaddin, brook, fillipa, john, malt, williamjm and lyanna had to endure Sam the Fake Orchestra Guy proclaiming his love for ''George Tolkein'' and his disdain for women watching sex scenes without the ''OK! THUMBS UP!'' from their boyfriends (because we're all straight, right? also...we're all men here...) and also had to endure the ''Jaime's hair - long or short?'' question about 7 times.

It was worth it for how hilarious it was though.

Then we all found some awesome little maps and graphs and scribblings on the table, hidden amongst the leaflets and excerpts. I distinctly remember ''NERDS'' and 'Clever, Short, Oddly Attractive' making be chuckle.

Saturday, much of the same, went to a few panels, met with people, followed around karaddin and brook and luke. THEN THE GAME OF THRONES PANEL. Much hilarity ensued as Lyanna, brook, karaddin, Chaldanya and I became increasingly more bemused and outraged at the clear lack of knowledge of the panel. Lyanna highlights it better than I do. Safe to say, a cheeky drink was needed after and we all had a good, hearty laugh at the ridiculousness of it all and came to the conclusion we would have made for a much better panel.Then went back to the hostel for a bit to get ready for the 80S NIGHT DANCE. Was super excited and got to the room to find out it was...VERY, VERY brightly lit (usually, I can't see myself when I'm dancing, here; you could see EVERYTHING and EVERYONE) saw an amazing Robb Stark costume -complete with Grey wolf head- an old punk giving it welly on the dance floor with some impressive and tireless movies. Danced with Regina and wolfgang for a bit and we all agreed it was MUCH too bright, after awhile the lights were dimmed slightly, ever so slightly (met with enthusiastic cheers from everybody) and I perfected my art of dancing until I got tired and then standing still and moving my arms in a ''goth like fashion'' with the pretence of dancing. Much fun was had dancing with others. Particularly enjoyed dancing with Min at the end of my 80s Night Dance experience and ''Blister in the Sun'' by Violent Femmes will forever remind me of that fun and awesome time. Regina and Min make awesome dance partners, let it be known!!!!

Sunday; I bought some stuff, perused the stalls, had a wander, and enjoyed some panels.

AND THEN...THE KARAOKE...really, really, REALLY good fun. The Proclaimers, Iron Maiden, Aqua, The Smiths, Rocky Horror, Tom Jones, Mungo Jerry, Nick Cave, Avril Lavigne, Abba, Pulp all came together to create a fucking hilarious, wonderful karaoke experience. I think I sang, or rather screamed along to every single song and initiated a fair few of the ''WOOOO!!!!!!''s. Was laughing, smiling, having a great time. Loved it. Me and luke made a VALIANT effort to prove to everyone that Wales does exist by screaming (o my end anyway, v sorry about that, I'm not a good singer but I'm a very enthusiastic one) Tom Jones' Delilah which was just about the Welshest song on the karaoke list, but to no avail! I am sure we convinced no one!!!

Saying goodbye to people was really hard and I'm terrible at it. I loved meeting every single one of you, Baita, Fragile Bird, Elder Sister, Buckwheat - all lovely people and wish I'd had to a chance to talk more with you all!

Thanks for making this experience of my first con so amazing, memorable, happy and comfortable. Not once did I feel out of place, or like I had to pretend to be someone I'm not/hide someone I am. I laughed loudly, freely and often. Really amazed at the variety of wonderful, interesting, lovely people. Was so surprised a lot of people actually knew who I was lol. :P Many more than expected.

And shout out to luke, karaddin and brook for having to put up with me for most of the time!!!

I am sure I am forgetting LOADS but I went straight back to work and am very tired the past few days (plus...it's half 2 in the morning here!!!!)

BWB ROCKS.

ETA: My name badge is forever hanging on my wall. *fondly looks over at it and tries not to be sad*

[deleted01]

My name badge is also pinned to one of my shelves :D

I was standing behind a guy in the registration line, who I somehow seemed to recognise. He was wearing a shirt with some kind of cycling event on it. I wasn't sure if he was a BwB member or anything, but he looked familiar.

I also wanted to mention how bloody nice everyone there was (apart from you lovely people, of course). All the security people (especially those who let me sit down at intervals during long queues), the people handing out the badges, everyone on the stalls, the smokers I stood with outside, and of course all the authors I met. It was refreshing to see.

[Buckwheat]

Still looking for a place to put my name badge. My "hugged by Pebble" badge I will probably just pin on my bag and carry it around for some time to confuse friends and acquaintances. ;)

Saying goodbye to people was really hard and I'm terrible at it. I loved meeting every single one of you, Baita, Fragile Bird, Elder Sister, Buckwheat - all lovely people and wish I'd had to a chance to talk more with you all!

Well there is always "next time" I guess? :wacko:

I also wanted to mention how bloody nice everyone there was (apart from you lovely people, of course). All the security people (especially those who let me sit down at intervals during long queues), the people handing out the badges, everyone on the stalls, the smokers I stood with outside, and of course all the authors I met. It was refreshing to see.

Oh yes, I agree with that. Everybody I talked to was really polite and kind, I was really pleasantly surprised by that.

[brook]

bought myself a medieval chicken pin,

We could start a club! :p