jewelsong, which was a wonderful way to start Easter morning. Although it made me realise, a bit negatively, how long it is since I've last been to any kind of church service. I admired johncoxon's top (with "God said...<insert complex scientific formula here>...and there was light", which appealed to my geeky nature, as did one I'd seen on Friday - "2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2").I noticed that
multiclassgeek was absent, which was a shame, but it was only later that I learned he'd been taken ill and was in fact in the local hospital. :o(Back up to the Winchester for "Writing Bad Blake's 7 Slash". There were only about five people present, including m'self,
elfinessy, and Sue, but it was utterly utterly hysterical and more'n a bit cheeky and great fun. The results of our hour of subversion are here. Caution, may cause loss of sanity.I then had fun finding the Tetworth room (which wasn't actually difficult as such, but it involved quite a convoluted and long route to get there) for a panel nominally entitled Was Sam Tyler really the Master? but which ended up being a totally rambling discourse on Doctor Who mainly, with occasional bits of Life on Mars, and some interesting theories on Primeval and Torchwood and the possibilities of some sort of crossover between the two. I think. I sort of lost track.
Over to McDonald's for lunch, then the dealer's room where I managed to join ZZ9 without really meaning to and also to sign up for next year's EasterCon also without really meaning to and to acquire a (thus far nameless) Beeblebear. Also without really meaning to. I'm spotting a pattern emerging here. And indeed have been since yesterday. (Broadly speaking: don't let me loose in the dealer's room at a convention).
Back to the Winchester for more fun and games this time involving a remote controlled K9 (which, despite battery issues, proved a lot more mobile than my one) and an obstacle course. It was mostly children taking part, but on the basis that I'm a big kid at heart I joined in and lost gracefully but competitively.
There was a rather fun music quiz called Deface the Music III in the Royal: George which was my idea of a good quiz, actually testing our knowledge (although it was mainly being played by a three teams at the front, the audience was invited to contribute). It was also, due to some inadequacies of the sound set-up (the laptop was hooked up directly to a speaker, from what I could tell) a test of our hearing.
After that, down to the main hall for the Why is Blake's 7 Still Popular? panel, which was pleasantly informative (James Swallow revealed that plans are afoot for a live action reboot of the series, which is Good News in my humble opinion), and enjoyable. And I can only hope that if the reboot goes ahead, Tanith Lee (who was also on the panel) might be asked to write for it.
Physics Mistakes in SF upstairs in the Royal: Edward was another panel beset by sound problems - more than most other panels there was sound bleeding through from the neighbouring room, and this was exacerbated by the fact that some members of the audience (well, one at least) seemed determined to pre-empt, interrupt and talk across Mark Sinclair, who was presenting the panel, which I found rather irritating. Not to mention rude. Aside from that, though, it was quite an entertaining and fun little ride through the times when SF is more F than S.
More food at McDonald's (and some more time spent on the hotel's internet, which I'd been doing on and off all weekend) before going to the packed main hall (where I briefly met an old school friend of mine,
aeglefinus and his wife) for the item entitled in the programme Mitch Benn Entertains, in which...well, it did what it said on the tin, frankly, and you can't ask for more than that. It was a bit of a shame that he did more between-song talking than he did actually playing songs, at least for the first half hour or so, and also there were several songs that he didn't play that I wish he had - (My name is) Macbeth for one, although how well that would have worked as an acoustic number I'm not sure... On the bright side, it was lovely seeing Mitch and Neil Gaiman fanboying each other.Oh, and if anyone knows anywhere I can get a copy of Crap Shag, which he played in the set, please let me know!
I was a bit late for the next programme item I wanted to go to - Clanger Physics and Ecology, which was ...positively surreal. I couldn't quite tell whether everyone was being terribly sincere about our favourite knitted alien rodents, or whether their tongues were so far in their cheeks they'd come out the other side. Still, it was a pleasant little discussion, and was followed by...
...Oh yes. Martha Jones - Most Heroic Companion?, which...well, the panel (consisting of
calapine, teawith, selenay936, and some guy called paulcornell2) did sort of vaguely try to discuss the subject, but it ended up being a rambling discourse on whose arse is better, Zoe's or Martha's. It was one of the most delightfully silly and random hours of the entire convention, and even when the lights magically dimmed our enthusiasm didn't. So. Yeah. More.Went to the disco. Didn't dance as I can't on account of having three left feet (which is, obviously, worse than having two left feet), but enjoyed soaking up the vibes and then chatting with
blazingskies, emperor_zhark and inflatablefish until about 3:00am again. Erk. So back to the Ibis, where fortunately inflatablefish was staying, so despite the lateness at least I had company for the walk back.David.
