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Discworld Convention 2018
Aug. 9th, 2018 12:32 amDiscworld Convention 2018 Report
Not many people do these any more, but I’m a longtime afper[1] and it’s an old afp tradition I’d like to keep going...
Friday
I got picked up early by Hannah Wright and her fiancé Frankie Ash Denny, both of whom were sporting beautiful rainbow hair :-) Just the first two of many multi-coloured hairstyles at the con, as it turned out! It was great of them to give me a lift.
We arrived at the convention around 10.30 (Warwick is not really that far from Leicester unless you’re on a train....) where I started as I meant to go on by spotting friends and hugging them – in this case Peter/Winterbay and his brother Cole, who was at his first Discworld Convention.
After that, I spent some time looking around for more people to hug and catch up with…and, as last time, made straight for someone I had only seen a month ago, namely AdrianO. I caught up with Random_C (that makes it sound as if I was chasing her...), and we went outside to watch her recording of Oscar Isaacs singing The Man Who Sold The World. I visited Chaos Costuming, simply because I hadn’t really ever been in there in eight cons, and greeted and hugged Jan and Kadin Uzzell on the way there (I had seen Alex Uzzell earlier but hadn’t had the opportunity to say hi).
Around midday I wandered along to the tuck shop, where I had one of the few disappointing moments of the con – the bacon baps weren’t available after 11 am. I enjoyed them last time! Eating my baked potato out in the sun in the garden was very pleasant.
I visited Sator Square and admired the wares. Charles Braham, Charmain Dibben and Debbie Whissen in particular had beautiful jewellery, as did Sharon Haddock. I didn’t buy any due to budget restrictions, but I wanted to! I bought a fan, which came in very handy indeed and also matched most of the skirts I had with me (I like blue).
I went along to Werewolf - The Big One, but the Pseudopolis Yard building was way too hot at that point so I came away before the game started. I hear it was really good fun! Pat Harkin’s ‘Uses of Dragons’ talk was great, but I wish my brain hadn’t reacted in the way it often does to sitting and listening to someone explaining stuff for a long time – namely, by going “Hey, time for a nap!” This happened several times during the con, and was very frustrating.
The Opening Ceremony was great. Good to see Tamara as Chairperson :-)
Evening meal was at the hotel restaurant. The food at the restaurant (which last time had been good enough but not amazing) was really good this time.
In the Bedtime Stories event, I enjoyed three of them and then wandered off in the direction of the bar and friends :-)
Just A Minute After Midnight was great. A well chosen panel including Dave Trace and Treehugger. Andrew/Torak makes a great compere too. For those unaware, ‘After Midnight’ means adults only, and there was a good selection of double-entendres and jokes of the adult variety around – yaay!
After that, more friends, more chatting, more fun until going to bed at around half past two.
Sleep, unfortunately, didn’t happen until 5am, when I got a couple of hours. This was after resorting to music to help me sleep (didn’t work at all) and a cup of tea (neither did that). Still, never mind, that’s practically a con tradition, so it didn’t bother me unduly.
Saturday
Hotel breakfast! But first I had to remove a wasp from my room, getting onto a hotel guidebook and covering it with a glass, then walking rather ceremoniously downstairs with it. “Stand aside, everyone, for I have a wasp!”
This was followed by a swim. I had been planning to go to Nice Boots, Shame About The Bustle and Unsecret Societies, but I hadn’t swum since the last Discworld Convention.
Million To One Chances was an event I hadn’t originally intended to go to, but I went along when I heard Aquarion was running it. I was glad I did, it was great fun to watch. Particularly funny when some of the arrows hit the target sideways.
I had lunch with Dom, who I hadn’t seen for six years apart from very briefly at Gaz Hunter’s funeral, so it was great to catch up with him. His wife Gemma, who I also hadn’t seen for a long time, was upstairs resting at the time. They were at their first con since 2012 and having a great time. While we were talking, I noticed one of the best costumes of the con, a bogeyman carrying his own door to leap out from.
I went to Back To The Drawing Board, but wasn’t particularly good at it! It was fun though. The read-through of Men At Arms was really good fun, with a well-chosen cast including Jan Uzzell, Alex Uzzell, Brian Wakeling (whose ‘gargoyle voice’ got a round of applause), Adrian Ogden, and Ga Lok who I remembered from playing Landlady’s Werewolf online.
After food I went along the Behind The Scenes Of Good Omens, and had the same effect as with the Dragons talk, namely nodding off. This was a shame as I was interested to hear about Good Omens, but never mind.
Maskerade was excellent! A very high standard this year, no “What was that all about?” bits. I particularly liked Sarah Forbes/Drunken Hedgehog’s ‘The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered At All’ song which was funny and very easy to join in with.
And then my favourite event of every Discworld Convention, The Hedgehog Party! Great turn-out, good selection of food and unusual flavours of alcohol in finest Hedgehog Party tradition. And best of all, music and dancing. I don’t get many opportunities to have a dance, so I always look forward to that. Brian Wakeling is a great DJ, he knows you can’t just whip the Time Warp and YMCA out straightaway, you’ve got to wait until everyone’s ready for it. Being surrounded by friends who are all in high spirits and want to dance and sing is probably the best part of the convention for me.
At one point, Mr Blue Sky was played. Anyone who knew Gaz Hunter might know that this kind of became his theme tune after his death earlier this year, so some of us had a toast to him. Me, Random, Gideon and AdrianO shared a group hug. This was thankfully one of only two “I miss Gaz like hell” moments I had at the con (the other being just before setting off on Friday), but thankfully I shook it off and got on with partying. I expect many people had similar moments during the con.
Apparently the ‘tread carefully’ food table included freeze dried Durian fruit. If I’d known those were there I’d have given them a go! But the Hedgehog Party is always about dancing and singing for me, so the food didn’t get my attention quite as much.
While clearing up, I found a bottle of Habanero sauce that I would have been very tempted to take home and inflict upon either one of two chilli loving friends, but it had already been opened (but not used very much, even in a room full of drunk people ready to try anything once!)
Afterwards, I wandered to the bar to see if any friends were available for a late night chat, and soon found Ali, Ailbhe, Aquarion, AdrianO, Gideon, Deborah-the-tech-lady (who is also a Distraction Club goer), Marco and some other good fun people (Lucy and Kat?) in one of the nooks of the bar. We stayed up till half past three reminiscing about previous conventions and CCDEs[2] and had a really good time.
Sunday
Slept well, yaay!
First event I went to was the Church of Om, the first time I’ve been to this event in eight cons. I was amused to see that this time they had a ‘Shame Nun’ in full Septa costume just like in Game of Thrones. Good fun all round, but perhaps not for those people who ended up having their figgins toasted upon a spike! :-)
There was a fair bit of chilling out with friends, some of whom were shattered from Hedgehog Partying the night before. I wandered out to the gardens and had one of my many mocktails (they were lovely). Then there was Just A Minute, the cleaner but equally funny version.
I usually have a bit of a nap on convention Sunday afternoons. This was the first time in eight cons that I didn’t do so. I went along to The Watch, to hear about the hopefully forthcoming series based on the Watch books. How To Buckle A Swash was good, with Peter Morwood narrating and Gideon, Marco, Heather and Orjan demonstrating the swordplay.
Whilst out in the gardens, I came across Corrinne, Sander and Ladylark sunbathing. I joined them and asked if they knew what they were doing for dinner yet, as I wasn’t sure about the barbecue and didn’t want to eat in the restaurant again if something else was available. Getting fish and chips was suggested. Kincaid joined us and agreed that fish and chips sounded great, so Sander ordered, we moved to a table, and were quickly joined by Rosemary, Dan and Aquarion and then Ruthi and Ccooke. Mole joined us after a while too. Afterwards some of us agreed that this felt like the most CCDE moment since the CCDEs themselves. Certainly a lovely moment with good friends :-)
Afterwards, Corrinne went to get changed into her Sybil Ramkin/Daenarys Targareyan costume and I went to get very quickly changed into evening wear, and gold sandals as I was determined to wear them at least once!
Toast and Jam was great. Lots of people took part and there didn’t seem to be any flat moments. Matthew Holland was in charge, and his general calmness helped, I think. AdrianO was on drums, and after a while Jonathan Ellis joined them on keyboards. Possibly my favourite bit was a lady whose name I didn’t know, who had some good comedy songs to sing along to.
After that, I wandered off in search of friends to chat to, and found Ali, Ailbhe and Ruthi chatting to Orjan and Marco. Peter Morwood joined us for a while. Conversation included the number of insects Peter had to deal with in his thatched roof home, and for some reason the idea of lovable children’s book character Miffy (the rabbit) in a chainmail bikini. Gideon wandered by several times, each time saying he was definitely going to bed now. The third time, he had gained a kind of ‘necklace’ of balloons which I think were supposed to be orbiting planets. Alibhe shared her fruit loaf and some crisps, and we had a lot of good laughs in the small hours, in the finest tradition of the con!
After a bit I got up, intending to go to bed, but quickly came across Mole and AdrianO amongst others, who were also indulging in a fine con tradition, singing in the bar. They were joined by Gideon who clearly hadn’t ‘definitely gone to bed now’ yet, and Matthew joined us too. After a while I reluctantly did go to bed, leaving Mole, AdrianO and Lucy trying to reunite Aquarion’s jacket with its owner (apparently successfully).
Monday
I woke up somewhat hoarse from the amount of singing along I had been doing over the last few nights. After breakfast, I went to sit outdoors with Rosemary, Dan and AdrianO. Rosemary and Dan told us a few larping tales and Dan was getting to grips with knitting under Rosemary’s more expert guidance. We had heard that the long awaited adaptation of Troll Bridge was going to be reshown that morning (it was shown on the Sunday too), so some of us went off to watch that – it was excellent, highly recommended and I hope it’ll be shown a bit more widely soon.
I had lunch with Ruthi, and then wandered around chatting and having another look at the dealers’ room, where I got a fan for my friend Kim who wasn’t at the con this time round (hopefully next time). When the Night Watch play started, I decided I didn’t want to be a darkened room for a couple of hours and instead joined Andrew/Torak, AdrianO and Brian in the bar. Torak produced a card game called Red Flags, which was great fun. A game of Bears versus Babies was going on next to us, and Completely Batty was having a nap, under the watchful eye of Tiko.
I did the hugging thing before the Closing Ceremony, knowing that I would have to shoot off afterwards. Closing Ceremony saw a well-earned Discworld Damehood for chairperson Tamara, and a Discworld Knighthood for Daniel Knight of Snowgum Films who were responsible for Troll Bridge. It was also revealed that next convention’s chairperson will be Taz Shanahan :-)
And then it was time to collect my luggage and go home. What an excellent convention! Let’s hope there’ll be many more :-)
[1] Afper – a member of alt.fan.pratchett from Usenet
[2] CCDE – Clarecraft Discworld Event
Not many people do these any more, but I’m a longtime afper[1] and it’s an old afp tradition I’d like to keep going...
Friday
I got picked up early by Hannah Wright and her fiancé Frankie Ash Denny, both of whom were sporting beautiful rainbow hair :-) Just the first two of many multi-coloured hairstyles at the con, as it turned out! It was great of them to give me a lift.
We arrived at the convention around 10.30 (Warwick is not really that far from Leicester unless you’re on a train....) where I started as I meant to go on by spotting friends and hugging them – in this case Peter/Winterbay and his brother Cole, who was at his first Discworld Convention.
After that, I spent some time looking around for more people to hug and catch up with…and, as last time, made straight for someone I had only seen a month ago, namely AdrianO. I caught up with Random_C (that makes it sound as if I was chasing her...), and we went outside to watch her recording of Oscar Isaacs singing The Man Who Sold The World. I visited Chaos Costuming, simply because I hadn’t really ever been in there in eight cons, and greeted and hugged Jan and Kadin Uzzell on the way there (I had seen Alex Uzzell earlier but hadn’t had the opportunity to say hi).
Around midday I wandered along to the tuck shop, where I had one of the few disappointing moments of the con – the bacon baps weren’t available after 11 am. I enjoyed them last time! Eating my baked potato out in the sun in the garden was very pleasant.
I visited Sator Square and admired the wares. Charles Braham, Charmain Dibben and Debbie Whissen in particular had beautiful jewellery, as did Sharon Haddock. I didn’t buy any due to budget restrictions, but I wanted to! I bought a fan, which came in very handy indeed and also matched most of the skirts I had with me (I like blue).
I went along to Werewolf - The Big One, but the Pseudopolis Yard building was way too hot at that point so I came away before the game started. I hear it was really good fun! Pat Harkin’s ‘Uses of Dragons’ talk was great, but I wish my brain hadn’t reacted in the way it often does to sitting and listening to someone explaining stuff for a long time – namely, by going “Hey, time for a nap!” This happened several times during the con, and was very frustrating.
The Opening Ceremony was great. Good to see Tamara as Chairperson :-)
Evening meal was at the hotel restaurant. The food at the restaurant (which last time had been good enough but not amazing) was really good this time.
In the Bedtime Stories event, I enjoyed three of them and then wandered off in the direction of the bar and friends :-)
Just A Minute After Midnight was great. A well chosen panel including Dave Trace and Treehugger. Andrew/Torak makes a great compere too. For those unaware, ‘After Midnight’ means adults only, and there was a good selection of double-entendres and jokes of the adult variety around – yaay!
After that, more friends, more chatting, more fun until going to bed at around half past two.
Sleep, unfortunately, didn’t happen until 5am, when I got a couple of hours. This was after resorting to music to help me sleep (didn’t work at all) and a cup of tea (neither did that). Still, never mind, that’s practically a con tradition, so it didn’t bother me unduly.
Saturday
Hotel breakfast! But first I had to remove a wasp from my room, getting onto a hotel guidebook and covering it with a glass, then walking rather ceremoniously downstairs with it. “Stand aside, everyone, for I have a wasp!”
This was followed by a swim. I had been planning to go to Nice Boots, Shame About The Bustle and Unsecret Societies, but I hadn’t swum since the last Discworld Convention.
Million To One Chances was an event I hadn’t originally intended to go to, but I went along when I heard Aquarion was running it. I was glad I did, it was great fun to watch. Particularly funny when some of the arrows hit the target sideways.
I had lunch with Dom, who I hadn’t seen for six years apart from very briefly at Gaz Hunter’s funeral, so it was great to catch up with him. His wife Gemma, who I also hadn’t seen for a long time, was upstairs resting at the time. They were at their first con since 2012 and having a great time. While we were talking, I noticed one of the best costumes of the con, a bogeyman carrying his own door to leap out from.
I went to Back To The Drawing Board, but wasn’t particularly good at it! It was fun though. The read-through of Men At Arms was really good fun, with a well-chosen cast including Jan Uzzell, Alex Uzzell, Brian Wakeling (whose ‘gargoyle voice’ got a round of applause), Adrian Ogden, and Ga Lok who I remembered from playing Landlady’s Werewolf online.
After food I went along the Behind The Scenes Of Good Omens, and had the same effect as with the Dragons talk, namely nodding off. This was a shame as I was interested to hear about Good Omens, but never mind.
Maskerade was excellent! A very high standard this year, no “What was that all about?” bits. I particularly liked Sarah Forbes/Drunken Hedgehog’s ‘The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered At All’ song which was funny and very easy to join in with.
And then my favourite event of every Discworld Convention, The Hedgehog Party! Great turn-out, good selection of food and unusual flavours of alcohol in finest Hedgehog Party tradition. And best of all, music and dancing. I don’t get many opportunities to have a dance, so I always look forward to that. Brian Wakeling is a great DJ, he knows you can’t just whip the Time Warp and YMCA out straightaway, you’ve got to wait until everyone’s ready for it. Being surrounded by friends who are all in high spirits and want to dance and sing is probably the best part of the convention for me.
At one point, Mr Blue Sky was played. Anyone who knew Gaz Hunter might know that this kind of became his theme tune after his death earlier this year, so some of us had a toast to him. Me, Random, Gideon and AdrianO shared a group hug. This was thankfully one of only two “I miss Gaz like hell” moments I had at the con (the other being just before setting off on Friday), but thankfully I shook it off and got on with partying. I expect many people had similar moments during the con.
Apparently the ‘tread carefully’ food table included freeze dried Durian fruit. If I’d known those were there I’d have given them a go! But the Hedgehog Party is always about dancing and singing for me, so the food didn’t get my attention quite as much.
While clearing up, I found a bottle of Habanero sauce that I would have been very tempted to take home and inflict upon either one of two chilli loving friends, but it had already been opened (but not used very much, even in a room full of drunk people ready to try anything once!)
Afterwards, I wandered to the bar to see if any friends were available for a late night chat, and soon found Ali, Ailbhe, Aquarion, AdrianO, Gideon, Deborah-the-tech-lady (who is also a Distraction Club goer), Marco and some other good fun people (Lucy and Kat?) in one of the nooks of the bar. We stayed up till half past three reminiscing about previous conventions and CCDEs[2] and had a really good time.
Sunday
Slept well, yaay!
First event I went to was the Church of Om, the first time I’ve been to this event in eight cons. I was amused to see that this time they had a ‘Shame Nun’ in full Septa costume just like in Game of Thrones. Good fun all round, but perhaps not for those people who ended up having their figgins toasted upon a spike! :-)
There was a fair bit of chilling out with friends, some of whom were shattered from Hedgehog Partying the night before. I wandered out to the gardens and had one of my many mocktails (they were lovely). Then there was Just A Minute, the cleaner but equally funny version.
I usually have a bit of a nap on convention Sunday afternoons. This was the first time in eight cons that I didn’t do so. I went along to The Watch, to hear about the hopefully forthcoming series based on the Watch books. How To Buckle A Swash was good, with Peter Morwood narrating and Gideon, Marco, Heather and Orjan demonstrating the swordplay.
Whilst out in the gardens, I came across Corrinne, Sander and Ladylark sunbathing. I joined them and asked if they knew what they were doing for dinner yet, as I wasn’t sure about the barbecue and didn’t want to eat in the restaurant again if something else was available. Getting fish and chips was suggested. Kincaid joined us and agreed that fish and chips sounded great, so Sander ordered, we moved to a table, and were quickly joined by Rosemary, Dan and Aquarion and then Ruthi and Ccooke. Mole joined us after a while too. Afterwards some of us agreed that this felt like the most CCDE moment since the CCDEs themselves. Certainly a lovely moment with good friends :-)
Afterwards, Corrinne went to get changed into her Sybil Ramkin/Daenarys Targareyan costume and I went to get very quickly changed into evening wear, and gold sandals as I was determined to wear them at least once!
Toast and Jam was great. Lots of people took part and there didn’t seem to be any flat moments. Matthew Holland was in charge, and his general calmness helped, I think. AdrianO was on drums, and after a while Jonathan Ellis joined them on keyboards. Possibly my favourite bit was a lady whose name I didn’t know, who had some good comedy songs to sing along to.
After that, I wandered off in search of friends to chat to, and found Ali, Ailbhe and Ruthi chatting to Orjan and Marco. Peter Morwood joined us for a while. Conversation included the number of insects Peter had to deal with in his thatched roof home, and for some reason the idea of lovable children’s book character Miffy (the rabbit) in a chainmail bikini. Gideon wandered by several times, each time saying he was definitely going to bed now. The third time, he had gained a kind of ‘necklace’ of balloons which I think were supposed to be orbiting planets. Alibhe shared her fruit loaf and some crisps, and we had a lot of good laughs in the small hours, in the finest tradition of the con!
After a bit I got up, intending to go to bed, but quickly came across Mole and AdrianO amongst others, who were also indulging in a fine con tradition, singing in the bar. They were joined by Gideon who clearly hadn’t ‘definitely gone to bed now’ yet, and Matthew joined us too. After a while I reluctantly did go to bed, leaving Mole, AdrianO and Lucy trying to reunite Aquarion’s jacket with its owner (apparently successfully).
Monday
I woke up somewhat hoarse from the amount of singing along I had been doing over the last few nights. After breakfast, I went to sit outdoors with Rosemary, Dan and AdrianO. Rosemary and Dan told us a few larping tales and Dan was getting to grips with knitting under Rosemary’s more expert guidance. We had heard that the long awaited adaptation of Troll Bridge was going to be reshown that morning (it was shown on the Sunday too), so some of us went off to watch that – it was excellent, highly recommended and I hope it’ll be shown a bit more widely soon.
I had lunch with Ruthi, and then wandered around chatting and having another look at the dealers’ room, where I got a fan for my friend Kim who wasn’t at the con this time round (hopefully next time). When the Night Watch play started, I decided I didn’t want to be a darkened room for a couple of hours and instead joined Andrew/Torak, AdrianO and Brian in the bar. Torak produced a card game called Red Flags, which was great fun. A game of Bears versus Babies was going on next to us, and Completely Batty was having a nap, under the watchful eye of Tiko.
I did the hugging thing before the Closing Ceremony, knowing that I would have to shoot off afterwards. Closing Ceremony saw a well-earned Discworld Damehood for chairperson Tamara, and a Discworld Knighthood for Daniel Knight of Snowgum Films who were responsible for Troll Bridge. It was also revealed that next convention’s chairperson will be Taz Shanahan :-)
And then it was time to collect my luggage and go home. What an excellent convention! Let’s hope there’ll be many more :-)
[1] Afper – a member of alt.fan.pratchett from Usenet
[2] CCDE – Clarecraft Discworld Event
