Worldcon report
Aug. 14th, 2005 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizwilliamsI'm ensconced in Snowdonia at Milford at the moment, so posts will continue to be sporadic...however, here's Worldcon....
WORLDCON
Drove up to Derby for an overnight stop, to stay with my Druidic friends P and A, always a lot of fun. P showed me the delights of Derby (best summed up by the old Victorian ironwork market, with a note on the door reminding people that hand guns are still illegal). In the evening, A (who is a blues musician) had a gig at a local pub, so we went there and did that.
On Thursday, I drove up to Glasgow, which took about 5 hours – not a bad run. I checked in at the hall of residence, which contrary to expectations was pretty nice – a clean room overlooking rowan trees, en suite and costing about £20 a night, which frankly is all I want to shell out for a con room given that I spend so little time in it.
Then the con itself, and I immediately ran into Esther Friesner and family, in company with Mr Pratchett. Somehow, during a conversational sleight, Witchcraft Ltd has become the chief supplier of woad to Terry, assuming we can actually get hold of enough of it in bulk to make the dye. I feel that we’re sort of by Royal appointment, only grander.
Then I encountered a whole other set of folk and fell into bad drinking company for a bit (heh), and after that, Esther, E’s family, Mel and her husband, plus Jules Lee and some of the Brighton mob, went out to dinner at the Ubiquitous Chip. I haven’t been here for so long that it then really was the ubiquitous chip – ie chips with everything. Charles’ old friend, artist Kay Scott, did the batiks on the walls and they’re still there along with her murals, but the rest has changed and it is a rather classy menu, thank you. I had a black pudding starter followed by mutton with mussels, and before you all gasp with horror, it was delicious.
Friday: a fruitless attempt to find a fry-up breakfast. You’d think Glasgow, home of the deep fried meat pie, should of all places be able to rustle up a decent fry up. But no, all around the hall of res was a wasteland of dinky cappuccino bars. Eventually we trekked into town on the bus and discovered, finally, a ‘big breakfast’ in an Indian restaurant. What is it, we asked, and were told that it was eggs, sausages and ‘things.’ Fine, we thought, and duly ordered what turned out to be three skinless frankfurters, 2 fried eggs and a bowl of glutinous tinned vegetable soup. When the waitress came back to ask if everything was all right, I suddenly stopped being a British person and replied “Actually, no,” then told her (politely) why.
In the taxi back we asked the driver where the nearest greasy spoon café was and he said “Och NOOOOOO! You don’t want tae be eating THAT stuff. That’s tairrible for ye! It’ll raise your blood pressure! It’ll increase your hairrrt rate!” Glasgow: healthy eating capital of Europe. Who knew?
Then more con: bar, dealer’s room, bar, lunch – and then a panel on the difference between arts and sciences research, which went very well and which people kept complimenting us on. But thank you, to a very lively and very smart audience- a theme of this weekend. I had a swift dinner, then went to the Tor Macmillan party in town and talked to my editor at Bantam, various agents, and then came back almost immediately to the Lambshead reading, which as always was a hoot, with Claire Weaver in a PVC nurse’s outfit, handing out ‘pills’. Some people even took them. What a foolishly trusting bunch. I’ve got tired of reading my own entry, by the way, so I read Richard Calder’s notes on ‘Black Orgasm’, complete with vocal FX.
And then the bar – a reasonable single malt selection – and then the Asimov’s party, during which I got to talk to Greer Gilman at last – one of the things that made this con for me. I admire her work a lot.
Then the bar, again, and a highly amusing session with the Brighton mob and others.
Saturday: did a reading of the short story ADVENTURES IN THE GHOST TRADE to a packed room: thank you all for coming. On the chair in the interrogation cell – sorry, I mean the reading room – was a sad note from the previous reader, that said “Dear Reader. I tarried yet you did not come. So I went.”
Oh dear! You could almost hear the sigh. Writing is so bloody ungratifying sometimes.
Met up for lunch with two extremely nice women who are running Clarion South and the Australian National con. I’ve been asked to go, and probably will if I can get the money together. Then an autograph session, which went pretty well, and more panels.
In the evening, Sheila Williams of Asimov’s and I went out to dinner and ended up at the Chip again (scallops and steak this time) and subsequently to the Harper Collins party on a tall ship in the harbour – this was lovely, and we all got a pirate hat and an eye patch, which I’m afraid I milked mercilessly for smart-arse remarks. Stayed talking to the SFX editorial team for some time and then went back to the bar.
Sunday: met Karen (Bob Silverberg’s wife) for coffee, which is always a pleasure, and then more panels on feminist SF, colonialist SF, Vampires, and European characters in fiction. With fellow panellists like Kim Newman, Jeff Ford and Susannah Clarke, it’s hard to go wrong and all of them went well. As I’ve said before, it was a smart audience in Glasgow and it kept me on my toes. In the evening, we just had dinner at the Moat House and stayed in the bar – I didn’t go to the Hugos, but I was pleased by the results, and huge congrats to [Bad username or unknown identity: “fjm”].
Monday: met [Bad username or unknown identity: “sdn”] for breakfast, which was a great pleasure, and then did my final kaffeeklastch, which was fun. And then off! – with Jules Lee to the Highlands.
Over the sea to Skye
J and I had lunch in a nice restaurant on Loch Lomond, then hit the road again up through the Highlands. All went well until we reached Glencoe, whereupon a traffic jam of epic proportions appeared: two trucks had got stuck on a bridge and would take hours to clear. As I was running down the road to see what was going on, something rippled strangely within my calf muscle and then twanged. I think I sprained it somehow a few weeks ago and now it has gone again, but I’m able to walk so I’m not too worried. Muttering, we drove round in a massive detour and stopped in Fort William (still spotting convention attendees, we may note) for dinner. At this point I thought it politic to call our landlady on Skye and let her know we’d be a little late. She was extremely uptight about this, said she wanted to have a bath (we’re stopping you?) and threatened to re-let the room. So we had the swiftest dinner on record in a pub, and then it was pedal to the metal all the way to Skye. [Bad username or unknown identity: “vincam”] remarked, rightly, that Highland roads are not best appreciated at 70 mph, to which I replied “Who said anything about 70? We’ve been hitting 90.” “Thanks for sharing that,” she remarked, very dryly.
I opined that our landlady might be elderly, and wanting an early night.
“She didn’t sound elderly,” J retorted.
“If she’s younger than me,” I said, “I shall have no option but to smack her.”
Someone even stopped to let me go past, probably catching sight of the mad staring eyes in his rear view mirror. Eilean Donan – fabulous island castle on a sunset loch – went by in a blur. J started to tell me about it, but then it was gone, whoosh, and finally we hurtled over the Skye road bridge and came to a trembling halt.
Our landlady was younger than me. I didn’t smack her, but went into a series of deeply insincere apologies and she was quite cheerful about it, probably glad that we’d actually appeared and hadn’t been winding her up for the past 4 hours.
I slept well, but dreamed of road.
Tuesday: a more leisurely morning. [Bad username or unknown identity: “vincam”] drove the car and did brilliantly, given that Skye’s main roads are single track and it was misty. We stopped at a ruined church against a great grey backdrop of cloudy mountain, then found the wonderful swordsmith’s. They do jewellery (shiny!) and swords and knives (pointy!). Swordage has been committed, by J, and by me when I get back. Gorgeous damascene blades on sgians, dirks and swords. We met the bloke who makes them, who’s not half bad either if you like them tall, dark and good looking. Then we had tea in the Elgol post office and went back up to Portree, which is a very nice little town. We had lunch in a local pub (fabulous venison stew with parmesan and herb dumplings) and raided the local specialist Gaelic books and music shop. J learned to speak Gaelic on Skye; I don’t, but there were a lot of local English language editions and I now have a book on Scots herbal medicine, a bio of Gavin Maxwell, and much else besides. Poorer but richer, if you know what I mean.
After this we headed up round the coast, past the Mordor-esque rock formation of the Old Man of Storr, to Uig, where we were to catch the Tarbert ferry. We made this in good time, only to get a text from our landlady demanding to know whether we’d gone off with the key. Er, that would be a yes. I was so terrified she’d insist we come back that I waited until the ferry had actually sailed before texting her to confess all. Which was better than my initial suggestion of throwing the key in the harbour and denying all knowledge of it.
It’s a short trip to Harris, and a grey, churning sea. Smooth crossing, though, and I often go to sleep on boats. This was no exception until I woke myself, and probably everyone else, up with a loud snort. And we were in the Outer Hebrides.
Harris was bleak. Lewis is just as bleak – vast tracts of peat bog and mountain, expanses of machair and thin grass, and a lot of derelict houses. They’re trying to revitalise the island – installing high speed broadband connections by satellite, and encouraging people to move back. They might just succeed, too. I hope so. There’s not much for people up here.
We had dinner in a Chinese restaurant in Stornaway (very good) and then hit the guest house, which was lovely.
Wednesday: visited Callanish stone circle this morning. It’s a 5000 year old site, older than Stonehenge, although its mystical qualities were somewhat diminished by a bloke talking loudly on his cellphone about some business deal. In the middle of a sodding stone circle! Why bother to go? The visitors’ centre is nice, though, and the stones themselves are impressive: graceful curves of rock, glittering with striations of quartz. In some lights, they shine and gleam.
Later we went to see a blackhouse settlement – these are the drystone houses built under a thatch, with the byre or the weaving shed at one end and the living quarters at the other. It was cosy. Most of them are restored self catering accommodation and one is a museum, as the house was in the 50s. At the back, a loom was being operated by a gent speaking Gaelic to his wife.
More later!
WORLDCON
Drove up to Derby for an overnight stop, to stay with my Druidic friends P and A, always a lot of fun. P showed me the delights of Derby (best summed up by the old Victorian ironwork market, with a note on the door reminding people that hand guns are still illegal). In the evening, A (who is a blues musician) had a gig at a local pub, so we went there and did that.
On Thursday, I drove up to Glasgow, which took about 5 hours – not a bad run. I checked in at the hall of residence, which contrary to expectations was pretty nice – a clean room overlooking rowan trees, en suite and costing about £20 a night, which frankly is all I want to shell out for a con room given that I spend so little time in it.
Then the con itself, and I immediately ran into Esther Friesner and family, in company with Mr Pratchett. Somehow, during a conversational sleight, Witchcraft Ltd has become the chief supplier of woad to Terry, assuming we can actually get hold of enough of it in bulk to make the dye. I feel that we’re sort of by Royal appointment, only grander.
Then I encountered a whole other set of folk and fell into bad drinking company for a bit (heh), and after that, Esther, E’s family, Mel and her husband, plus Jules Lee and some of the Brighton mob, went out to dinner at the Ubiquitous Chip. I haven’t been here for so long that it then really was the ubiquitous chip – ie chips with everything. Charles’ old friend, artist Kay Scott, did the batiks on the walls and they’re still there along with her murals, but the rest has changed and it is a rather classy menu, thank you. I had a black pudding starter followed by mutton with mussels, and before you all gasp with horror, it was delicious.
Friday: a fruitless attempt to find a fry-up breakfast. You’d think Glasgow, home of the deep fried meat pie, should of all places be able to rustle up a decent fry up. But no, all around the hall of res was a wasteland of dinky cappuccino bars. Eventually we trekked into town on the bus and discovered, finally, a ‘big breakfast’ in an Indian restaurant. What is it, we asked, and were told that it was eggs, sausages and ‘things.’ Fine, we thought, and duly ordered what turned out to be three skinless frankfurters, 2 fried eggs and a bowl of glutinous tinned vegetable soup. When the waitress came back to ask if everything was all right, I suddenly stopped being a British person and replied “Actually, no,” then told her (politely) why.
In the taxi back we asked the driver where the nearest greasy spoon café was and he said “Och NOOOOOO! You don’t want tae be eating THAT stuff. That’s tairrible for ye! It’ll raise your blood pressure! It’ll increase your hairrrt rate!” Glasgow: healthy eating capital of Europe. Who knew?
Then more con: bar, dealer’s room, bar, lunch – and then a panel on the difference between arts and sciences research, which went very well and which people kept complimenting us on. But thank you, to a very lively and very smart audience- a theme of this weekend. I had a swift dinner, then went to the Tor Macmillan party in town and talked to my editor at Bantam, various agents, and then came back almost immediately to the Lambshead reading, which as always was a hoot, with Claire Weaver in a PVC nurse’s outfit, handing out ‘pills’. Some people even took them. What a foolishly trusting bunch. I’ve got tired of reading my own entry, by the way, so I read Richard Calder’s notes on ‘Black Orgasm’, complete with vocal FX.
And then the bar – a reasonable single malt selection – and then the Asimov’s party, during which I got to talk to Greer Gilman at last – one of the things that made this con for me. I admire her work a lot.
Then the bar, again, and a highly amusing session with the Brighton mob and others.
Saturday: did a reading of the short story ADVENTURES IN THE GHOST TRADE to a packed room: thank you all for coming. On the chair in the interrogation cell – sorry, I mean the reading room – was a sad note from the previous reader, that said “Dear Reader. I tarried yet you did not come. So I went.”
Oh dear! You could almost hear the sigh. Writing is so bloody ungratifying sometimes.
Met up for lunch with two extremely nice women who are running Clarion South and the Australian National con. I’ve been asked to go, and probably will if I can get the money together. Then an autograph session, which went pretty well, and more panels.
In the evening, Sheila Williams of Asimov’s and I went out to dinner and ended up at the Chip again (scallops and steak this time) and subsequently to the Harper Collins party on a tall ship in the harbour – this was lovely, and we all got a pirate hat and an eye patch, which I’m afraid I milked mercilessly for smart-arse remarks. Stayed talking to the SFX editorial team for some time and then went back to the bar.
Sunday: met Karen (Bob Silverberg’s wife) for coffee, which is always a pleasure, and then more panels on feminist SF, colonialist SF, Vampires, and European characters in fiction. With fellow panellists like Kim Newman, Jeff Ford and Susannah Clarke, it’s hard to go wrong and all of them went well. As I’ve said before, it was a smart audience in Glasgow and it kept me on my toes. In the evening, we just had dinner at the Moat House and stayed in the bar – I didn’t go to the Hugos, but I was pleased by the results, and huge congrats to [Bad username or unknown identity: “fjm”].
Monday: met [Bad username or unknown identity: “sdn”] for breakfast, which was a great pleasure, and then did my final kaffeeklastch, which was fun. And then off! – with Jules Lee to the Highlands.
Over the sea to Skye
J and I had lunch in a nice restaurant on Loch Lomond, then hit the road again up through the Highlands. All went well until we reached Glencoe, whereupon a traffic jam of epic proportions appeared: two trucks had got stuck on a bridge and would take hours to clear. As I was running down the road to see what was going on, something rippled strangely within my calf muscle and then twanged. I think I sprained it somehow a few weeks ago and now it has gone again, but I’m able to walk so I’m not too worried. Muttering, we drove round in a massive detour and stopped in Fort William (still spotting convention attendees, we may note) for dinner. At this point I thought it politic to call our landlady on Skye and let her know we’d be a little late. She was extremely uptight about this, said she wanted to have a bath (we’re stopping you?) and threatened to re-let the room. So we had the swiftest dinner on record in a pub, and then it was pedal to the metal all the way to Skye. [Bad username or unknown identity: “vincam”] remarked, rightly, that Highland roads are not best appreciated at 70 mph, to which I replied “Who said anything about 70? We’ve been hitting 90.” “Thanks for sharing that,” she remarked, very dryly.
I opined that our landlady might be elderly, and wanting an early night.
“She didn’t sound elderly,” J retorted.
“If she’s younger than me,” I said, “I shall have no option but to smack her.”
Someone even stopped to let me go past, probably catching sight of the mad staring eyes in his rear view mirror. Eilean Donan – fabulous island castle on a sunset loch – went by in a blur. J started to tell me about it, but then it was gone, whoosh, and finally we hurtled over the Skye road bridge and came to a trembling halt.
Our landlady was younger than me. I didn’t smack her, but went into a series of deeply insincere apologies and she was quite cheerful about it, probably glad that we’d actually appeared and hadn’t been winding her up for the past 4 hours.
I slept well, but dreamed of road.
Tuesday: a more leisurely morning. [Bad username or unknown identity: “vincam”] drove the car and did brilliantly, given that Skye’s main roads are single track and it was misty. We stopped at a ruined church against a great grey backdrop of cloudy mountain, then found the wonderful swordsmith’s. They do jewellery (shiny!) and swords and knives (pointy!). Swordage has been committed, by J, and by me when I get back. Gorgeous damascene blades on sgians, dirks and swords. We met the bloke who makes them, who’s not half bad either if you like them tall, dark and good looking. Then we had tea in the Elgol post office and went back up to Portree, which is a very nice little town. We had lunch in a local pub (fabulous venison stew with parmesan and herb dumplings) and raided the local specialist Gaelic books and music shop. J learned to speak Gaelic on Skye; I don’t, but there were a lot of local English language editions and I now have a book on Scots herbal medicine, a bio of Gavin Maxwell, and much else besides. Poorer but richer, if you know what I mean.
After this we headed up round the coast, past the Mordor-esque rock formation of the Old Man of Storr, to Uig, where we were to catch the Tarbert ferry. We made this in good time, only to get a text from our landlady demanding to know whether we’d gone off with the key. Er, that would be a yes. I was so terrified she’d insist we come back that I waited until the ferry had actually sailed before texting her to confess all. Which was better than my initial suggestion of throwing the key in the harbour and denying all knowledge of it.
It’s a short trip to Harris, and a grey, churning sea. Smooth crossing, though, and I often go to sleep on boats. This was no exception until I woke myself, and probably everyone else, up with a loud snort. And we were in the Outer Hebrides.
Harris was bleak. Lewis is just as bleak – vast tracts of peat bog and mountain, expanses of machair and thin grass, and a lot of derelict houses. They’re trying to revitalise the island – installing high speed broadband connections by satellite, and encouraging people to move back. They might just succeed, too. I hope so. There’s not much for people up here.
We had dinner in a Chinese restaurant in Stornaway (very good) and then hit the guest house, which was lovely.
Wednesday: visited Callanish stone circle this morning. It’s a 5000 year old site, older than Stonehenge, although its mystical qualities were somewhat diminished by a bloke talking loudly on his cellphone about some business deal. In the middle of a sodding stone circle! Why bother to go? The visitors’ centre is nice, though, and the stones themselves are impressive: graceful curves of rock, glittering with striations of quartz. In some lights, they shine and gleam.
Later we went to see a blackhouse settlement – these are the drystone houses built under a thatch, with the byre or the weaving shed at one end and the living quarters at the other. It was cosy. Most of them are restored self catering accommodation and one is a museum, as the house was in the 50s. At the back, a loom was being operated by a gent speaking Gaelic to his wife.
More later!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
wot no Scottish breakfast?
Date: 2005-08-15 04:01 am (UTC)Skye
Date: 2005-08-15 04:42 am (UTC)I know the very church - and Castle Keep. Absolutely beautiful swords. Not cheap, but excellent quality.
>
Strange. Did you get the chance to visit Fairy Glen, on Skye? Beautiful, and utterly weird - like being on the set for a Tim Burton movie.
Hope Milford goes well.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-15 08:57 am (UTC)Sounds wonderful, but I take it you don't recommend the landlady at Skye? ;^)
Not sure I could have eaten on this trip, with the food in-tolerances. Imagine no more greasy spoons in Glasgow...
no subject
Date: 2005-08-15 10:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-16 01:19 am (UTC)Sorry about the username tags - I'll correct this when I have a bit more time!
We didn't see the Fairy Glen, but it's a mkost atmospheric island...
no subject
Date: 2005-08-16 12:38 pm (UTC)Oooh! I'm envious. I've not been on Harris or Lewis, but the boat G and I took to Barra many years ago stopped there on en route, so I've glimpsed them in passing. I'd love to go there again sometime.
no subject
Date: 2005-08-21 12:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-22 02:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-22 04:49 am (UTC)