Guardians of the Galaxy

We were too tired to do much at the end of the last day of Dysprosium. Our brains were full! So the Young Man sent out for a Chinese (the Blossom Garden in Abbey Wood is quick to deliver, and very tasty), and we slumped in front of the DVD of Guardians of the Galaxy.
What a fun film. Lots of special effects, of course, and action sequences, but also those quiet little character moments that make the audience sympathetic to the characters, especially from Rocket, whose cynical wise-cracking exterior hides a good heart.
I have to say, when I first heard that this movie was being made, my first thought (not following the comics at all) was: "A talking racoon with a big gun? Riiiight!" But Rocket was great, and his friendship with Groot was lovely. And StarLord had just the right amount of character development from irresponsibility at the start of the film that you believed he really would risk almost certain death to save the galaxy by the end.
And though it was nice to see Zoe Saldana and Karen Gillan in action roles, I did kind of get the feeling that they were only there so that the two girls could fight together at the end - and if that's the case, we haven't really moved on from the days of The (British) Avengers in the 1960s, when the bad guys nearly always included one woman so Emma Peel would have someone to fight at the climax.
I'm looking forward to the second film, though.

Dysprosium - Day 4

The first thing to do after breakfast was to check out, which went very smoothly and we were able to leave our luggage in the store room by reception. Then we were free to go to the last day of panels.
And - squeeee! I sold one of my embroideries! I picked up the other one, and the lady at the art show said that there had been some interest in the Green Man, which didn't sell, and if I put it in another Con's Art Show, she thought it would sell. Big cheesy grin for the rest of the day!

So then we went down to Bleriot for the Fencing for Writers: Swashbucklers and Bravoes talk. The people doing this had flyers, which we'd seen around the Con - and they train very close to where the Young Man works! He said he'd go along and have a try, but I haven't heard back from him yet to find out what it was like. The two ladies were demonstrating mainly 16thC sword and buckler, or two swords, or sword and dagger fighting, and making the point that this was like modern gangs, and the people swaggering around armed to the teeth were not training in the salons like the nobility, but learning a few moves from their friends and hoping for the best.
We were sitting just behind Russell Smith, and chatting to him about sword fighting and re-enactment. He does Tudor re-enactment, and said he's done quite a bit in the armoury in his group.
The nice thing about Bleriot is that there is a large mirror on one wall, so when the time came for the audience to handle the weaponry, we could pose and see how we looked.
The talk over-ran, unsurprisingly.

And was followed, in the same room, by a panel about Ten Years of Doctor Who, including the possibility of having a woman Doctor in the future. Herr Doktor was on this panel, and early on he said that he had correctly predicted the return of Doctor Who, on the grounds that the children who had grown up with the programme were now in important positions in the BBC and able to commission programmes themselves. And, yes, he did predict a female Doctor in the not too distant future.

And finally, the Closing Ceremony, in which the committee handed over the hat with the duck on it to the brave souls who had come forward to organise Mancunicon next year. The chap from the new committee wore the hat for about three seconds, and then said: "You'll never see me wear that again!"
Thanks were also given to the Guests of Honour - Seanan MacGuire said; "I haven't slept! Everything is lizards!" - and to the tech crew, and everyone who had helped the Con to run smoothly.
A cup was awarded to a long-serving fan volunteer, something which has been going on since the 1960s - the cup is named after a chap who came late to fandom, and threw himself into the organising of Cons and the whole fan community, so that when he died, people got together to make an award in his memory (and I'm really sorry I have completely forgotten his name).
The hotel was thanked, and a collection was made as we went out for the staff, who worked really hard over the weekend.

And that was it. We stumbled out into the spring sunshine, straight onto the airport shuttle bus that took us to the underground station, and home.

It was the most brilliant fun.

Dysprosium - Day 3

When we went down to breakfast (me as Steampunk Alice in Wonderland, with white dress and pale blue corset, and the Young Man as Cutter Conway, Steampunk adventurer) there was a chap in the lounge bar playing a small harp. I paused to look, and he said; "Would you like a go?" As I hesitated, he added; "I wouldn't be sitting here if I didn't want people to join in."
So I had a quick impromtu lesson, which was brilliant, and I managed to make a reasonable sound, if not a tune.
After breakfast, we ambled through the dealers' rooms we hadn't seen yet, and got our photos taken and turned into sepia by the chap from Gearhearts. There's a possibility we may even appear in the magazine!

The first panel we attended was Truth, Justice and the Home Office, which was a discussion about how the law would have to change to accommodate paranormal beings. For instance, how would one deal with the requirement that a prisoner had to have a cell with access to natural daylight when the prisoner was a vampire? Would a selkie come under Fisheries? And how would the Dangerous Dogs Act apply to werewolves?
I forgot to say, for the Jim Butcher panel yesterday, what a good double act he and Charles Stross (who was interviewing him) are. Charles Stross writes the Laundry Files series, which deals with this sort of problem. Today the panel was Jim Butcher, Charles Stross and a lady who works for the police in real life. Seanan MacGuire was supposed to be there, but hadn't surfaced, so they kept an empty chair for her.

The Psychology of Doctor Who was more Real Science - Dr Sarita Robinson was talking about how we can extrapolate human knowledge of how the brain works onto a Time Lord, and mentioned some research she had been doing where volunteers were asked to draw a common everyday object (in this case the heads side of a 10p piece) and a Dalek. They found that more people could accurately draw a Dalek than a 10p, and there were various theories about why this should be so. "Daleks are scarier," said one little girl in the audience.

This was followed by Herr Doktor, who talked about his model making and Doctor Who and the pleasures of trawling through charity shops for smart clothes. Amongst other things.

And by that time, we were feeling ravenous, so we went off to buy a lunch voucher and eventually tracked down a baguette and a ham sandwich at the lounge bar. Every time we passed the lounge bar, we seemed to see a chap called Pietro (by his name badge) there. By the end of the Con, I was beginning to suspect he was an android - he never seemed to sleep! Or maybe he was just getting overtime in while he could.

The Runesmith held a talk in the dealers' room he was sharing on how to make a sword. Seven or eight people turned up, about half and half male and female, to discover that it is possible to make a sword or knife without access to the full blacksmith's forge - it can be cold forged, which basically means hitting the metal with a hammer for several hours. He also gave tips on how to make a mini-anvil from the head of an old sledgehammer, showed some knives he had made earlier, and talked about metal working in general.

We changed for the Masquerade Ball. I wore my crinoline skirt and black corset, with a purple blouse, and the Young Man was back in his frock coat with piratical accessories, and we both wore masks.
The fancy dress parade was great fun, and was run by the people who are bidding to hold WorldCon in Dublin in 2019. There were two child entries, Medieval Girl and a beautiful Rainette from The Girl in the Fireplace Doctor Who episode. They both got prizes. They were followed by Dr Sanguis (a mad scientist), Jenna from Blakes' Seven, a dashing Pirate King, a lady dressed as Angel from the novels of Jaine Fenn (I think that was the flapper) - about a dozen fine costumes. These were the winning entries, cribbed from Clickety Click, the Con newsletter.

And then there was dancing. The Young Man has always maintained that he can't dance - he just does slow martial arts moves at the back of the dance floor. However, some music came on that could be waltzed to - and he swept me round the dance floor like something off Strictly Come Dancing! And then muttered something about his half turns being sloppy! I was amazed, and delighted, and only just managed to keep up!

However, after that, people drifted off, leaving small children in charge of the dance floor. It seemed that everyone was in the lounge bar and Real Ale bars, talking, which must have been a bit discouraging for the DJ.

Late that evening (we had gone to bed by that stage) there was a performance of Spock in Manacles, which was first performed at Beccon in 1985. I wasn't at Beccon, but I do have a dim memory of hearing about it.
This is how it was reported on in Clickety Click the next morning:
"Teenage Nightmare: Going to EasterCon and discovering your English teacher is there - worrying
Going to EasterCon and realising you are running tech for your English teacher's programme item - seriously disturbing
Discovering your English teacher wrote Spock in Manacles and you are in charge of the video - priceless"
and on the other side of the sheet:
"Teacher Nightmare: Play you put on thirty years ago anonymously being remembered - nice
Being on a panel with all your old pals from those days - very nice
One of your sixth-formers is the tech gopher for your sci-fi goat slash orgy musical - priceless"

Dysprosium - Day Two

I dressed up for the day in a blue silk jumpsuit with a tool belt - as a Tardis engineer. Anyone seen an old Type 40? I hear the chameleon circuit needs fixing, and every time I get somewhere it seems I've just missed it!
The Young Man, in cream frock coat, was a Time Agent.
The longest queue of the convention was for breakfast, due to a misunderstanding between the committee and the hotel that breakfast was between 9am and 11am, when in fact it could be taken earlier.
The first panel of the day for us was The Return of the Great British Eccentric, Huzzah!
Two Great British Ecentrics, Professor Elemental and Herr Doktor, were on the panel - I didn't catch the names of the other panelists. There was some discussion about whether eccentrics had to be British (Huzzah!), and about half way through it was realised that all the examples of eccentrics given so far had been male - and posh (poor people tend to be labelled mad, like poor John Clare the poet). So a good few women eccentrics were mentioned, like Gertrude Bell. One member of the audience said that talking about class was a load of rubbish - he had members of the Establishment on one side of his family and penniless refugees on the other side, so we shouldn't take any notice of the traditional class divisions.
Then on to Unseen London in Bleriot, which started off by talking about the Tube, and then branched off in interesting ways. One of the panellists here was Russell Smith, who spoke on some interesting panels on urban fantasy and London at LonCon. There was quite a bit of discussion of obscure engineering works, which was quite fascinating. The chap who'd talked about class (or the lack of it) in the previous panel was there too, and turned out to be extremely knowledgeable about Tube lines and tunnels under the Thames and so on.

Pause for a bit of gentle shopping, combined with chatting to people like Dr Geof, the lovely couple from Gearhearts magazine, the lady selling Beeblebears (with two heads) for ZZ9 the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy fan club, Runesmith, Major Tinker, and others. And lunch. I think we had lunch.
We were also looking out for Clickety Click!, the Con newsletter, which was being put together over the weekend at a room off the Real Ale Bar, marked by the moose and crossbones flag. By this time the committee were appealing for more gophers (I'm afraid I wasn't about to volunteer, as I wanted to spend all the time I could with the Young Man, who I don't see very often. If I was on my own, I probably would have done.)

At three we were back in Discovery for Jim Butcher. He has started another series of books which are not at all like the Dresden Files, with cities inside huge spires, ruled by Spirearchs, connected by airships. Albion Spire is about to make war on Aurora Spire and the main characters are caught up in it. However, he was reconciled to the thought that the main thing that people would remember about the series was not the airships or the world building or any of that - it was the fact it had talking cats in it!
He also talked a bit about how he became a writer, and the writers' course he'd been on (and the terrible novels he'd written) until he decided he would prove his teacher wrong by doing exactly what she said he should do (thinking that it would fail and then he could say he told her so). And that was the first of the Dresden Files.

Later that afternoon, we were in Endeavour, across from the big hall, for Trowelblazers, which is an initiative to give recognition to all those women archaeologists whose contributions have been glossed over and forgotten. The speaker was Brenna Hassett, herself an archaeologist. I knew about a few of them, like Kathleen Kenyon - but there was plenty I didn't know, like seeing a picture of Gertrude Bell posing with Lawrence of Arabia and Winston Churchill, on camels, which just goes to show how influential she was (she was at some Middle East peace talks).
There was also a delightful film made in the 1930s at an Egyptian dig run by John Pendlebury, archaeologist and (later) war hero. There were women in the background, holding the high jump for the "Olympic Games" he put on for the children of the local labourers (who seemed to be having a great time), or sitting at tables illustrating the finds, but they were never mentioned or named. There were women labourers, too, walking, or sometimes running, around with baskets of dirt on their heads. Their names were never recorded, either.
I discovered, too, that there was an all female dig at Great Zimbabwe in 1929. It was run by Gertrude Caton-Thompson, who was a student of Margaret Murray (who I knew better as a writer on witchcraft), and one of the diggers was Kathleen Kenyon. Gertrude seriously annoyed the South African government by saying publically that there was no evidence at all that Europeans had come in and built Great Zimbabwe (as was widely believed, because of course the natives couldn't build anything in stone like this) and of course Africans had built it. It was such a fascinating talk that I started taking notes, and there is a website, too (link in the side bar).

And then it was back to Bleriot for the announcement of the Hugo shortlist, with a live video link to the committee of Sasquan.
Which was - interesting. It seems the Sad Puppies have been at it again. After the total failure last year to get their preferred right wing, white male candidates chosen, they have been much more organised this year. Voting is going to be a minefield. There was a meeting the following night, which we didn't get to, for concerned people who wanted to work out what to do about the voting.

Dysprosium Day One

For which I wore my LonCon tshirt, of course.
I put myself in the hands of my native guide (who lives in London so understands things like Oystercards and the map of the Underground) and we reached Heathrow without any problem. Then it was a short, free, bus ride to the hotel, Park Inn, in the company of several other fans.
It's a very nice hotel. Our room was huge, with a view of aircraft taking off nearby (but quiet), and the staff were friendly.
The first thing I needed to do after Registration was to find the Art Room. I brought two emboideries along - thinking that it would just be an art show of fan work. It was a bit overwhelming to find that there were a lot of professional artists, including Jim Burns, Anne Sudworth and Fangorn, all of whose work I'd seen and admired at LonCon. In one corner was an exhibition of Herr Doktor's work, including a magnificent Martian fighting machine from HG Wells (he grew up close to where the Martians landed) and a piece that had been exhibited at the Longitude Exhibition at Greenwich, which was (he explained in a panel later) the most intricate doll's house he could manage, depicting a beacon which would be 50 miles above the Earth's surface to enable shipping to work out exactly where they were. And how were they going to get the beacon and crew fifty miles up? "That is a job for engineers - I am a visionary!" it said on the card.
There was quite a queue for the Opening Ceremony in the corridor - this was also the area where there were tables for various WorldCon bids and the Registration Desk, and the British Interplanetary Society (and another real space society whose name I can't remember).
So we were welcomed to the Con, informed that the person with the duck on top of their hat was in charge (whichever member of the committee that might be) and the location of the Real Ale Bar, and introduced to the guests of honour. Herr Doktor was very dapper (I think he was wearing his top hat on that occasion) and introduced himself as a mad scientist. Jim Butcher looked out over the audience like a rabbit caught in the headlights - due to jetlag; he'd had problems with flights. Seanan McGuire was suffering from jetlag too. "Everything is lizards!" she announced cheerfully. Caroline Mullen was the fourth Guest of Honour, but I'm afraid I know nothing about her, as we didn't manage to get to any of the panels she was on. Professor Elemental was also on stage, in his pith helmet - he was doing the entertainment that evening. There was also a short slide show commemorating all the SF people who had died over the last year, starting with Terry Pratchett and finishing with Leonard Nimoy.
We stayed in Discovery, the biggest room, with the proper stage, for the first panel; The Things We Learned from Pratchett.
Incidentally, I was impressed to see the wheelchair lift to the stage, and the wheelchair parking spots along the aisles. There were quite a few people at the Con getting about on mobility scooters and there were also ribbons available to wear which said "Invisible Disability" so that others were made aware.
Anyway, an enjoyable hour of discussion about Sir Terry's work followed - interestingly, both the Americans came to Discworld via Soul Music, which was apparently the first Discworld novel to really make it in the States.
Then it was down to the other end of the Conference Suite to the panel on The Marvel Cinematic Universe. The organisers had left plenty of time to get from one panel to the next, as there was a long corridor between the two areas, which was being used as the dealers' rooms. The Real Ale bar was in the central space of the Aviator Suite, of which Bleriot was the biggest room. An hour of talking about Marvel superheroes was followed in the same room by A Joy of Steampunk, where the panel was formed of Herr Doktor, Dr Geof (who also had a dealers' table), Sydney Padua (who has a web comic), Professor Elemental (who performs chap hop), and Major Tinker (one of the organisers of Lincoln Asylum - I recognised him from the burlesque show when we went up there. He wasn't performing burlesque - he was acting as the innocent Scout Master behind whose back all sorts of naughty things were going on.
I think the consensus was that everyone has their own definition of Steampunk, and that's fine, because it's all about being creative with history and costume and making things and writing and art.
We decided to splash out and go for a dinner voucher. To make it easier for the staff, money was only changing hands at the hotel reception, and then you took a voucher for lunch or dinner and handed it in. It was £18 for three courses, which that night were Chinese dishes. It was all self service from the buffet, and a very fine meal.
In the evening, we were in a Dark Room.
This was a show put on by John Robertson, based around the idea of the old-fashioned text based computer games where you choose options - in this case, all options seemed to lead to DEATH!
A volunteer from the audience (called Darren - they were all called Darren whether they liked it or not) chose the options, and after a few goes the rest of the audience was able to chant along: "You awake to find yourself in a Dark Room," and some of the options, which got steadily more bizarre the further it went.
John Robertson is performing the Dark Room at the Udderbelly Festival - the purple tent thing that looks like an upside down cow on the riverbank at Southwark. We were quoting bits of the show and giggling for the rest of the weekend.
And to round the evening off was Professor Elemental, getting everyone dancing as he performed his songs. He also stars in a comic, copies of which were available, along with CDs, at the end of the show.

What I did on my Holidays

I spent the Easter weekend at Dysprosium, the 66th EasterCon, which this year was held at the Park Inn, Heathrow.

I went down the day before the Con, to stay with my Young Man, who lives in the Great Metropolis. I was very lucky - the train ticket cost £10.50 when I booked it, including a reserved seat from Birmingham New Street to London Euston. And everything went smoothly.
The railway line passes lots of canals, and a lovely little motte and bailey castle at Berkhampstead.

This is more or less the view from the train, taken from English Heritage.

Euston was a lot more packed than I remembered it - I used to go through there about twenty years ago - but when we got outside the sun was shining, and it was a short bus ride to Forbidden Planet. I was very pleased to get the next installment of the Green Arrow story I first read in the 1980s, and the new Ms Marvel - but no Captain Marvel figure, which was disappointing.
The Young Man took me to a Craft Beer pub nearby - on the way we passed the oldest pub in London, the White Hart, and a little later we met another friend at the Angel, a wonderful Victorian pub covered in green tiles, with an open fire. The beer was Samuel Smiths. She was on her way to an evening Vampire Group meeting, and had come into the centre of the city early to meet us.
So then it was round the corner to Patisserie Valerie. They have a very nice savoury menu - the Young Man had eggs Benedict and Becky had Croque Monsieur - but I was there for cake! Which made me very happy. The Peter Grant table (as mentioned in Ben Aaronovitch's novel Moon Over Soho) was taken, so we sat upstairs.
And then it was back to the Young Man's flat for the most gorgeous venison, which had been slowly cooking all day, and a documentary about the making of the new Thunderbirds series. Weta, in New Zealand, are doing the model work, and the head of Weta is a big Thunderbirds fan, so it was looking pretty good - and they have the original Parker back! I watched all the Gerry Anderson puppet shows back in the 60s, just at the right age for them to imprint themselves on my brain, and I was so hoping that the reboot would be done right. The first episode was broadcast on Saturday at 5pm, when we were at the Con....

Dysprosium EasterCon

I'm just back from Dysprosium, the 66th EasterCon, held this year at Park Inn, Heathrow.
Just over a thousand people were there, attending talks, gaming, wearing costumes, shopping for cool stuff, drinking real ale - and talking, endlessly. As Seanan Maguire, one of the Guests of Honour, said: "I haven't slept. Everything is lizards!"

I will be blogging about what happened there, and how much fun it was, shortly, but now I'm off to soak in a hot bath....