con questions and rumors & reports

[Davieboy]

Although I'd met up with a few of the boarders before, I'm more of a "lurker" than a poster, so I'm not exactly high-profile. Plus it was all going to be totally new to my wife, who bravely came along to protect me! So we were both grateful that friendly faces immediately came over to us, (that's you Fillipa, and you Mormont) to make us feel welcome and comfortable. The choice of venue "the George", complete with welcoming knight inn-sign, was exactly right. For us it was a simple trip down the Northern Line, hardly an effort compared to those others from more exotic locations in Europe and the U.S.

I felt a great sense of "belonging", as if I was in the right place, almost as if I'd found a small part of Westeros, and the fantasy-land I guess many of us are seeking, whether consciously or not. Although I did not get the chance to have an in-depth conversation with everyone present, I really enjoyed speaking with and putting faces to so many people whose thoughts I"d been reading for so long. Special mentions must go to Ser Paddy, who went "above and beyond" to keep us royally entertained and to Parris for bestowing legitimacy and grace to the event. And of course, thanks, kudos and respect to the organisers Chaldanya, and Ser Sean & Ser Barry who more than confirmed the good impressions they'd created on Wednesday evening - please forgive me if I've left anybody out. Thanks too to GRRM, without whom..

Personal highlights for me were forming a shield-wall with Derfel Cadarn, something I never thought I'd be able to boast of, and discussing the Polish translations of the novels with "The Bastard of Godsgrace", who to me looked more like Ser Ilyn Payne, than the real Ser Ilyn, who was of course actually present.

To all that were there, I say "well-met" and I look forward to the next occasion - and I may even start posting more regularly.

Thundersummoner

[Werthead]

I agree with that. Usually meeting up with 30+ people you've never met before would sound a bit intimidating, but everyone seemed to feel at home instantly, even with people they've never even spoken to on the board. It was coolness.

[zakalwe7]

Back up in Scotland. Ms Zak and I had a fantastic time. I'm knackered now and looking forward to my bed. I'll write something fuller when i've got a moment so I'll just quickly thank Sean, Barry and Chal for now. You were legends. It was great to meet people both new and old. There's never enough time to speak to everyone you want to and I still think it would be better just to go with our plan of establishing a BWB commune in Montana.

I'm crying tears of emo-ness now :cry:

More to come later ...

[Paddy]

Paddy wins

Why thank you, man. I'd like to think so too

You know you all rock.

Natalie, Barry and Sean: the effort and organisation you put into making this weekend go so well will take some unbelievable effort to repay. I love you guys.

The rest of you rock to high heaven too. That was some of the best craic I've had in a long time.

How great a surprise was Parris turning up too?

Legend

Got to get my photos uploaded and maybe get around to writing myself up a report (not too great on the writing thing).

To bed now.

[Xray the Enforcer]

LINKS!!!

[Slick Mongoose]

Seriously, a pub called George serving beer called George. How cool is that?

Got to get my photos uploaded and maybe get around to writing myself up a report (not too great on the writing thing).

To bed now.

You got home OK then, Paddy? I felt bad after you left. :cry:

Chaldanya, Sean and Barry do indeed rock. Thanks, guys.

I felt a great sense of "belonging", as if I was in the right place, almost as if I'd found a small part of Westeros, and the fantasy-land I guess many of us are seeking, whether consciously or not.

Careful, or Private Eye will put you in pseuds corner.

[Davieboy]

You're right....in future I'll stick to "you guys rock....."

Thundersummoner

[Slick Mongoose]

[Werthead]

Hmm, I had to send Isis a detailed report on the party night and it kind of just occurred to me that with some judicious editing (to protect the innocent) it could stand as a general overview of the party night, so:

I arrived about 3pm, rendezvousing with the BwB at a pub called the Goat (no evidence that this goat had been fed manhoods any time recently) in Kensington High Street. We spent a lot of time in the pub listening to an interesting conversation between Vestrit, Zak and Iceman about racial groupings in New Zealand (oddly enough, this was whilst there was no girls about). By this point Paddy seemed to have lost any faith in finding a half-decent pint of Guinness anywhere in London, but manfully drank on. Mrs. Zak, Mo and Filippa soon turned up from an epic shopping trip and we returned to the hostel through the pouring rain.

There was a serious nerd moment in the hostel when a bunch of us logged into the board to see what was going down, but the hostel computers refused to let us into any threads with swearing, which effectively ruled out most of the board (including all threads created by Zak).

Then we had food in the party room of the pub before most people showed up. Sean was on the door but apparently wasn't harsh enough in dealing with interlopers, so Ghost of Nymeria took over and dealt ruthlessly with any interlopers. Seriously, some of them ran in terror. Sean and Barry had put some of Zak's amazing MS Paint artwork up over the fireplace in the party room (including the legendary 'Salma Hayek naked on a tractor holding the rugby world cup' picture) and there were huge banners and balloons with '10' on them for the anniversary. Ztem set up his laptop to DJ but the party room didn't have any speakers and obviously a laptop's aren't going to reach a whole room of people, so that didn't work out as well as might have been hoped. Paddy pulled out the guitar later on for some musical interludes, including the BwB Theme Song (Karma Police by Radiohead), Hello Kitten, and a rousing chorus of Wonderwall by Oasis and Fuck Her Gently by Tenacious D.

There were a few posters who could only make it for one night, so came to the party only - Dark Clad Stranger, Thundersummoner and his wife and a few others who I may have forgotten about. A guy named Prod turned up who'd only done a few posts here and there and he was a big hit with the ladies. If he makes a report of the evening, it will no doubt be very interesting

Dajamieson proved his infinite knowledge of all things GRRM, and possibly may be the first human to actually qualify as a Mentat. Lyanna Stark had a great many (and I mean many) slash Harry Potter stories on tap which were both interesting and entertaining.

"WWRTD?" became the dominant theme of the evening, helped by balloons to that effect everywhere. Conclusions were varied and possibly quite nerdish (RT as the Captain of the Enterprise: Scotty - "I canna change the laws of physics!". Randyll Tarly - "I can").

Parris turned up and held court outside on various subjects, including her and George moving house and the greatness of Jack Vance, as well as George's gratitude to Robert Jordan (among others) for putting a rec on the front cover of A Game of Thrones. Very cool. She recommended Walter Jon Williams' Dread Empire's Fall series and Daniel Abraham's A Shadow in Summer and its sequel (which she and George have already read). Williamjm campaigned to get WWRTD? put into a forthcoming novel, but Parris seemed to feel it was unlikely. Parris also (exclusively?) revealed that George wants to put together a new anthology along the lines of Legends, both as a place to put Dunk & Egg III and also to give some greater exposure some younger and up-and-coming authors.

By the time I headed home I was feeling emo, replaced by confusion as the bloody subways were closed for repairs. Eventually I got to Moorgate and ran across to Liverpool Street (thankfully I could kind of remember the route from the way in). The train then terminated a stop before where I live and I then had to bus it in to Colchester and then get a taxi home. So aside from the 2 hours+ to get home, it was a great night.

As I said a few posts up, great meeting everyone and apologies to anyone I didn't get a chance to speak to. Roll on the next party night!

[zakalwe7]

Nice report on the party Wert.

I’m not enjoying being back at work today. Busy replying and dealing with 75 emails that seem to have appeared over Thursday and Friday. Luckily the meeting I had organised for today has been cancelled so that’s freed up some more time.

Can’t wait to see everyone’s photos!

[zakalwe7]

Ok. Con-write up then

Thursday – The Meet Up

Up early and leave the flat at 7.15am. Quick pint at Edinburgh airport then on the plane. Tried to read Focus magazine but instead fell asleep and drooled on myself.

Met Sean and GoN at the airport. Very kind of them and they had thoughtfully done a sign for me at the Arrivals section – ‘The Gobshite’. Cheers. Unfortunately we got stuck in traffic for 3 hours – bleh. But it did give us time to hear GoN’s Barbie story which is a beautiful allegorical feminist tale (or perhaps a National Enquirer front page story).

Dropped in at Sean’s lovely house (in a very nice street and with a lovely DVD collection). Sean’s SO had gone AWOL for the weekend – something about ‘going to Blackpool to get away from the geeks …?’. Picked up the handsome Ilyn Payne and got the Tube to Borough.

The afternoon was spent drinking in the pub with those BWBers who’d arrived already. Great to see everyone – some I’d seen recently, some who I’d not met since Glasgow. It was highly enjoyable and good to catch up. Funnily my memory begins to give out fairly early – 3 days drinking in a row and it all begins to merge into 1. I’ve actually forgotten what we did that evening. I guess Ms Zak must have turned up at some point and a selection of other Boarders. I do remember that Thursday was the night that me and Paddy were up with a couple of the others until 6am, singing emo songs with a bunch of American and Canadian backpackers. Paddy PWNed their guitarists – 1 of whom I seem to remember was a nice enough guy.

Friday – Sun and Singing

Ok, Friday was the day that we walked down the water front and ended up doing Karaoke in the evening. It was gorgeous weather and it was most enjoyable exploring London as a group and meeting up with various Boarders along the way. After walking along the Thames, we went to the Imperial War Museum where I enjoyed geeking over the military hardware.

After that we headed to a nice wee pub where we got to sit outside and bask in the sun. Mmmmmm – beer, sun and good company. What fun. We also got our whistle-stop visit from Sophie, who was sadly unable to make it for more than a couple of hours.

I’m not entirely sure what we did then. I think we went into town somewhere? The pubs were pretty crowded (it being a Friday evening) but we managed to find somewhere. Before moving on to the next pub, the karaoke bar, we did also manage to lose Ms Zak, Mo and Kama who had wandered off for some sushi. I was beginning to get a wee bit worried (picturing Ms Zak getting lost and ending up in France by mistake).

Then we were off for the karaoke. Despite Ms Zak moaning at me, I did manage to avoid singing – I get a wee bit shy singing ever since having to do the lead in Oklahoma at school *shudders*. But everyone else was mightly impressive though and I remember feeling very proud of the BWBers. Ms Zak loved it as karaoke is probably one of her all time favourite things to do (excepting shoe shopping). It was great to see many of the Bwbers who I hadn’t met before – Hereward, Werthead, Maid Sansa, Isis, William, Lady Wes, Slick Mongoose, etc. Some I spoke to a fair bit, some I sadly didn’t really manage to. Next time hopefully. A great evening though and nice to have Parris accompanied by Mel’s Twisted Sister turning up.

Saturday – A Perfect Party

After a sluggish start on Saturday – sore heads - we split into a couple of groups. A crowd of us decided to go and see the Pixar exhibition at the Science Museum. It had a lot of the original artwork, a series of their short films and a pretty cool zoetrope. Probably not worth £7.20 but good all the same.

Then we planned to go off to Kensington Park for a kick-around and to feed Pod to the ducks. Unfortunately though the dreaded UK weather kicked in and it started to piss it down. So after thinking about stealing some Cubs’ football, we decided to (surprise surprise) go to the pub. The one we went to was called the The Goat and proved to be a great place to spend the afternoon. The conversation did have a veneer of sensibility and intelligence, but underneath we knew that it was mainly just drunken bollocks.

We then returned to the hostel to briefly recover before heading off to the party. This was in a lovely pub called the George owned (pwned?) by the National Trust. It was a fantastic setting and as someone remarked it had the feel of the Inn by the Crossroads from the books. Barry and Sean had done a great job, and I was embarrassed to see some of my artwork on the walls. Fortunately these were only copies and the originals are sealed up down at Momart.

The evening went well and I had a whole range of fascinatingly drunk discussions with various boarders. To think that I never had seen the parallels between the Prince that was Promised, the Great Other and Randyll Tarly. We finished off the evening with a sing-along with Paddy, in which we could all howl and wail emo-ly along.

Then it was back to the hostel and the neighbouring bar for much dancing, shots, arguing, a near fight and an orgy until 6am. We were just missing out on the finger-dance and a joust.

Sunday

Crawled out of bed. Ms Zak had kindly packed all our stuff and so we just tottered out the hostel, said our goodbyes to those we saw and headed off to the airport. The journey went fine but needed a constant supply of water to keep us going. And I have to say I was very happy to collapse on the sofa for the re-run of Dr Who. I’m now on detox for the next couple of days.

Hideous In-jokes and other nonsense that I can remember

Yet more Panthro speaking Norwegian hilarity

stfu-n00b! :mad:

EMO – Evil Multinational Organisation – as in ‘I’m so EMO about the starving children in Africa’ :cry:

‘Respect the Zock’

Barbie Dolls :cool:

More sweet BWB lovin - you all know who you are

The Tower of Joy is Randyll Tarly’s cock :sick:

Yet I again I thought of half hundred new sigs and avatars, but I have forgotten almost every one of them.

Summary

As always great to see everyone. Nice to meet old friends and new friends. Those of you who couldn't make it - next time eh? Those who i didn't get to speak to for long - you're lucky, there wasn't much of interest.

[Werthead]

Cool report. I forgot that Sophie turned up (doh!). I recall a brief discussion about how my board name gets misspelt (Wethead, Weatherhead) on occasion.

That pub near the Imperial War Museum was pretty cool, especially as they didn't bat an eyelid at 20 people just turning up simultaneously. There was another pub after that we couldn't fit into, but the one after that was pretty good as well. That's where I think Paddy first held court on the Guiness-in-Britain situation and me and Williamjm had a Steven Erikson chat. The main memory of that pub is Lyanna talking about "Pwning n00bs!" a bit (whether in real life, or in WoW, or both, I can't remember).

Karaoke was cool. I was too far gone to get up and sing (and the board will remain forever grateful for that) but lots of people had a good go at it. I think we can say Mrs. Zak walked away with top honours though, although Paddy's Bohemian Rhapsody and Gon's Toxic should be given honourable mentions.

One of my main regrets is that Pod said something on the Friday that would have made a killer sig but I cannot remember what the hell it was. Damnit!

[Maltaran]

OK, just got home so it must be time for a write-up of what happened.

Thursday - arrived at Euston and almost immediately ran into Chal and Mr Chal. We then headed down to the pub by London Bridge, where we sat around drinking while people drifted in. In fact, Thursday was just one long boozing session from start to finish, just moving between pubs every so often. We also had to stop Zak eating nuts a few times, but then Mrs Zak turned up and took charge of that.

Friday - We started off with a walk done by the Thames before visiting the Imperial War Museum. This was followed by sitting around outside a pub and drinking, before going back into London to sit inside a pub and drink. This was when Hereward turned up, and so we had to congratulate him on coming second in the election. We then adjourned to the karaoke bar, and were pleasantly surprised when Parris turned up. As for the karaoke itself, Paddy led off with a stirring rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody, Ztem and Mrs Zak pwned us all singing Summer Nights, GoN twanging her way through Toxic was pretty good, but everyone else (including myself) seemed to have more enthusiasm than talent. After being thrown out when the bar closed, we then returned to the hostel for more drinking before passing out.

Saturday - started off with a visit to the Science Museum and the Pixar exhibition, which as Zak said was good, but probably not worth £7.20. At this point I discovered Barry had given my number to various BwBers, as he was busy with setting up the party, so I had to direct a few people to meet us. The great British weather destroyed our notion of playing football in Hyde Park, so we adjourned to the Goat (oldest pub in Kensington, apparently), where Vestrit enlightened us about the racial politics of New Zealand. We then returned to the hostel to prepare for the party.

Saturday evening - party

What can I say? Zak's gallery was so inspiring that we're going to enter him for the Turner Prize. The WWRTD? balloons were a great touch, Paddy's singing was totally emo, and we got to hear from the lovely Parris about how George is getting on with the books. He has the idea of starting a new anthology series, similar to Legends, to publish future Dunk & Egg works as well as short stories from younger writers who he likes. We also had many drunken discussions, mainly centring on Randyll Tarly (I think we decided that the Tower of Joy was his cock, among other things). After the George closed, we went back to the hostel bar which was open till 4am. Vestrit provided one of the best quotes of the weekend by introducing himself to strangers with the line "I'm from the internet". Barry managed to clear the bar of shooters, and GoN, Chal and Lyanna snogged every BwBer in sight.

Sunday - Once everyone had surfaced from drunken stupors, we got a boat down the Thames to Greenwich. Football in the park caused Flip to complain that we were trying to kill her, but it's her own fault for sitting directly behind the goal . After the football, we adjourned to a pub, and then to another pub. Eventually we came back into the centre of London for a curry, and then we sat around in the hostel bar being emo because it was the last night.

Monday - not much happened. People started leaving fairly early, and those of us who were left went up to Euston station and sat in the pub there. By the time I left, it was just Sean, Barry, Mo, Daj, Chal and Mr Chal left.

To summarise, it was great to meet everyone, both those I met in Glasgow and the n00bs. Best quote of the weekend has to be Vestrit's "I'm from the Internet", but there were plenty more amusing moments, such as when Barry persuaded one of Chal's RL friends who turned up to the party (yes, strange as it may seem, Chal has RL friends ) to introduce herself as Anathema7. And of course, there were plenty of new in-jokes that we can use to feel superior to those of you who didn't come. We pwn you, n00bs.

[zakalwe7]

aw i'm getting emo now :cry:

good to hear how things went on sunday and today. And glad to hear you got to play football.

[GoN]

I'm home and too emo to write a report yet

love you guys!

[zakalwe7]

Love your new title there V.

[mormont]

Give me a few minutes... I can get the Thursday pics up, I think.

[zakalwe7]

I can get the Thursday pics up, I think.

*drums fingers impatiently*

Don't think you had time for taking pictures on Friday or Saturday evening anyway

ps - mormont, can you mod the title of this thread to London Meet Reports and Photos or something? It's irritating me for some reason

[mormont]

I would hate for you to be irritated, Zak.

And I have plenty of pics of each day, so nyah.

[zakalwe7]

And I have plenty of pics of each day, so nyah

Just the days and not the nights then?

ps - can we get a heart smilie in the title too?