Discworld Con 2010.
Um. Er. where to start.
Friday: Turned up, hugged many people, went off to get changed, did a bit of orientation, popped into Chaos and five minutes later found self making a cape for someone, hugs, more hugs, even more hugs, my wallet making whimpering noises in the dealer's room when I found the viking/saxon/celtic jewellery stall had affordable bronze torcs (that weren't solid silver or over £200), starting the nekkidness league on meeting Liessa Dragonlady.
#1 - Butcher.
#2 - Me, Liessa and Elf girl, all of whom were in varying states of leather miniskirt and tiny top.
#3 - Pteppic and Ginger. who may have had less up top but were wearing knee-length skirts. It was pointed out that you could've made any of #2's costumes from the skirt and had fabric left over.
Cabin crew in the bar going 'oooo, is that Going Postal bloke? Can I have a photo? The wife and kids are going to be so jealous, and I'm so getting a ticket for 2 years' time.'
Drooling commenced over the gorgeous saris and outfits on parade of the first of 2 Indian weddings that weekend. (which was returned - several 'ooo, corset!' 'OMG, Terry Pratchett!' '...is that a Watch outfit?') We contemplated stealing one utter stunner in a black sari with bronze edging and jewellery for the Dark Clerks. it's not like Stephen would've minded, and she'd have had fun, right?
Mini-Me Laura is now 16 and taller than me. Dammit. But I have taught her well.
Opening Ceremony, it was proved that this is such a family convention that if one baby starts wailing, and a baby starts up on the other side of the room, the only comment will be a cry of 'stereo!'. oh, and Terry's sword is called Albion and there's been no further degeneration. Brian did a version of 'Wear Sunscreen' known as 'Go to Ops'.
Terry's Bedtime Stories was read by Rob as Terry can no longer do it, so we got a reading from draft 2/3 of Snuff with added commentary from Terry about Rob and Briggsy's inability to do Feegle voices.
Saturday : at brekkies, could not believe Beth was in full Herrena the Henna Haired Harridan outfit already, complete with snow leopard cape and MANY accessories. That's preparation.
And yay verily, if you are there for a business conference and have dressed up in your very best short pinstripe skirt and heels to get attention, you will be completely ignored if there is a vast proliferation of gorgeous saris and corsets. Especially when the cry goes up of 'Kelly, hold still a minute, need to stuff you back in'.
The Crinoline beats all other hall costumes into submission. Special mentions to the many fabulous dwarves and their gorgeous beards, The Duke from Wyrd Sisters who'd come in full Ian Mckellen-as-Richard-III, Constable Haddock's flask of such large proportions that a bottle of whisky only fills it by a third, Offler, Pteppic ('Pteppic?' 'He's very pretty and shirtless.' 'Oooo.'), the Four Ecks inflatable kangaroo, the assassin with bows and arrows, and the Pyramid Builder who came with hard hat and high-vis vest.
CSI discworld talks completely over-stuffed - managed to get into the first profiling one, didn't attempt the later headology or forensics/poisons ones, but was informed the queue was out the door. Next time, needs to be held somewhere bigger than the Odium.
Talk with Terry and Stephen Baxter, who he will be collaborating with on sci-fi books. Rather fascinating. And Transworld not quite believing that plotting can be done by two authors arguing over each other for half an hour and deeming that successful plot-wise.
Jen started her campaign for Low King with press interviews, getting photos taken with the barbarian community, the showgirl community (Shevek) and yelling 'I need babies to kiss!'
Masquerade won by a rendition of the Departure Aria with subtitles. Pat duly tormented by duck noises in his role as compere. Special mention to the Nuggan priests, the Trollon saleswoman and the rhyming description of a foot the ball convertee. Seamstresses roped in to provide entrance for Pat and to be the backing dancers for the final act.
Interval was the party Manifestos of the Low King candidates, where it was gleefully proved that Jen's campaign of bribery and smear tactics was in full swing, with her avoiding the questions before they'd even been asked. Pat was most impressed.
Hedgehog Party: attack of the spicy beef jerky, After Eight vodka and caramel waffles. And Gideon unleashed the sparkly leggings. Plus stuffing The Crinoline with balloons and bundling Michael. Didn't stay for long, adjourned to the singalonga jamming session.
Bar, 2am-ish. Occasional counting of Stephen's harem. 'I count 7 Dark Clerks. And Conina. Something here is not like the others.'
Stephen: 'She's decorative.'
Elderflower liqueur deemed fecking gorgeous by most of con. Suspect Rob drank more than most.
Sunday : Omnian Church Service. Got a few stares from the fact that I can belt the hymns. And queries on why I was doing my hair. (those who were forced into regular church service: 'Just be glad she wasn't playing nintendo or reading a book.') Church notices included dwarf speed-dating and Igors offering their services.
Adjourned to Chaos to turn Taz' Adipose into Death of Adipose.
How to Buckle a Swash. We'd done a bit of practicing beforehand, (my role was glamorous assistant since I have no sword training whatsoever) which included Orjan yelling 'Pose' as we flowed into the many silly film poster classic sword poses. Which got much cheering and laughter. Then came the 'How easy it is to avoid someone charging at you with a sword over their head' which is first 'run away', then side-stepping and hamstringing, whacking, taking them out at the knees, etc. I was doing side-kick to midriff on Marco, but, er, missed and got him in the appendix which did at least provide a comedy spin motion. After that, was on 'handing over weapons/getting them into/out of armour' duty while Marco, Orjan and Gideon demonstrated swashbuckling and how fencing wiped it out of existence. Turns out historical swashbucklers were the young lads who used to go round with a buckler on their hip, swaggering and yelling 'come and have a go if you think you're hard enough'. As usual, Hollywood gets it wrong. and has sport fencers applying their techniques to battle with big swords. :snicker:
Lissy won Death's Sword in the auction and is now very happy as it accessorises perfectly with her Susan outfit.
Chatted outside with one lad from the Cunning Artificer's stall, first time he'd been let out from behind the booth all weekend, and his first convention. Much glee from him at seeing everyone's costumes and being able to put faces to the various names on the order forms. and, of course, our devotion to the important things in life. (the bar)
Went for a Klatchian with several others, as organised by Diane and Peter, overstuffed ourselves 'oh god, next time, no starters!' to the point where we had to be carefully rolled out of the taxi, groaning (turns out I have more muscle this time and it's infinitely more painful as your belly has no space to contract or swell in). Yes, Peter did make siren noises on the way there, and told tales of his childhood, where one makes a ballista out of the best silver service salad spoons so one may fire flaming cotton balls at soldiers.
Got changed into red dress, wandered into the Dysk to see what was going on, and got grabbed by Kristy. 'You'll fit the rat costume better than I will, go see Essy.' 'Er...what?' Translation: Rat Race is essentially croquet/crazy golf through and over various Bonk landmarks such as the Cherry Orchard and Uncle Vanya's Mysterious and Unmentionable Trousers, to end up in the Dwarf Mines. Complete with commentary, cheating encouraged. There'd already been an invisible rat, and Essy was planning to do a Pied Piper. Yours truly got stuck into a rat costume, dress over top, witch casts spell, dress comes off to reveal costume, I raced round it, hurdling all the landmarks, pausing to kick Uncle Vanya's trousers in the unmentionables, and bounced into the Dwarf Mines on one foot with a winning time of 15s. And in the process nearly killed Davina with laughter.
Drag Race was won by Mad Hamish in full Gypsy Rose Lee outfit for style and fabulousness.
Got snared by Shevek to try on a skating outfit which was immensely cute but boiling due to being stretch velvet, then got him in and out of corsets for a new outfit and good lord that boy can do fabulous make up.
Limoncello? Only drinkable if you add a lot of lemonade. oh, and liberated a a bowl of grapes and kiwis and one of onion bhajis from the wreckage of Indian Wedding #2.
Monday, woke up, threw up twice at brekkies - several people going 'er, I saw you running out of breakfast with your hand over your mouth, are you okay?' which pretty much continued throughout day. Combo of 3-day hangover and limoncello, methinks. Fortunately Roisin went 'Limoncello? Really?' when I sighed about having 2/3 of a bottle to get rid of somehow, so I know it's gone to a good home.
Noon, there was the great 'How many people can you fit under a crinoline'. The answer appears to be 6 and one small child if the seamstress has her feet on the floor. We then adjourned to the bar with its higher ceilings, did it again, then stuck Kristy on first Davina's then Butcher's shoulders after Terry turned up. First count: 14. 2nd, 23 and a Cthulhu toy. Terry nearly choked on the sheer amount of filthy punnes that were trying to get out at once. There are plans for crinoline extensions...
Rocky Horror Discworld : We will never get the image of Richard as Vetinari cast as Frank-n-Furter out of our heads. EVER. Of course, this also means that images of Stephen Briggs in corset, feather boa, stockings and heels are now stuck there... Brain bleach, STAT. Mind you, Butcher confessed to having 50% shares in the brain bleach company.
Post Rocky, curled up on couch for doze. Woke to find various items covering/around me - post-it notes, beer bottles, empty sherbert sticks. Rather puzzled until I sat up and saw the sign of 'Conina Dormiens Nunquam Titallandus - Human Buckaroo Banzai!'
Closing Ceremony : Brian is foolish enough to have enjoyed himself so much and having too many ideas on how to improve it to volunteer himself for Con Chair next time... Oh, and Seamstresses won the Guild Competition. to say there is a bit of a grudge match between us and the Assassins is an understatement.
So, a glorious, fun, silly convention. I missed a lot of program items - Werewolf, How to Draw Dragons, Elf History just being some of them. Mostly due to this thing called 'The Bar'. Only bad point? Really fecking awful bar service during the day, especially serving early dinner, where they appeared to hide and I got one of the few competent bar staff on saturday. felt rather guilty about this.
Friday: Turned up, hugged many people, went off to get changed, did a bit of orientation, popped into Chaos and five minutes later found self making a cape for someone, hugs, more hugs, even more hugs, my wallet making whimpering noises in the dealer's room when I found the viking/saxon/celtic jewellery stall had affordable bronze torcs (that weren't solid silver or over £200), starting the nekkidness league on meeting Liessa Dragonlady.
#1 - Butcher.
#2 - Me, Liessa and Elf girl, all of whom were in varying states of leather miniskirt and tiny top.
#3 - Pteppic and Ginger. who may have had less up top but were wearing knee-length skirts. It was pointed out that you could've made any of #2's costumes from the skirt and had fabric left over.
Cabin crew in the bar going 'oooo, is that Going Postal bloke? Can I have a photo? The wife and kids are going to be so jealous, and I'm so getting a ticket for 2 years' time.'
Drooling commenced over the gorgeous saris and outfits on parade of the first of 2 Indian weddings that weekend. (which was returned - several 'ooo, corset!' 'OMG, Terry Pratchett!' '...is that a Watch outfit?') We contemplated stealing one utter stunner in a black sari with bronze edging and jewellery for the Dark Clerks. it's not like Stephen would've minded, and she'd have had fun, right?
Mini-Me Laura is now 16 and taller than me. Dammit. But I have taught her well.
Opening Ceremony, it was proved that this is such a family convention that if one baby starts wailing, and a baby starts up on the other side of the room, the only comment will be a cry of 'stereo!'. oh, and Terry's sword is called Albion and there's been no further degeneration. Brian did a version of 'Wear Sunscreen' known as 'Go to Ops'.
Terry's Bedtime Stories was read by Rob as Terry can no longer do it, so we got a reading from draft 2/3 of Snuff with added commentary from Terry about Rob and Briggsy's inability to do Feegle voices.
Saturday : at brekkies, could not believe Beth was in full Herrena the Henna Haired Harridan outfit already, complete with snow leopard cape and MANY accessories. That's preparation.
And yay verily, if you are there for a business conference and have dressed up in your very best short pinstripe skirt and heels to get attention, you will be completely ignored if there is a vast proliferation of gorgeous saris and corsets. Especially when the cry goes up of 'Kelly, hold still a minute, need to stuff you back in'.
The Crinoline beats all other hall costumes into submission. Special mentions to the many fabulous dwarves and their gorgeous beards, The Duke from Wyrd Sisters who'd come in full Ian Mckellen-as-Richard-III, Constable Haddock's flask of such large proportions that a bottle of whisky only fills it by a third, Offler, Pteppic ('Pteppic?' 'He's very pretty and shirtless.' 'Oooo.'), the Four Ecks inflatable kangaroo, the assassin with bows and arrows, and the Pyramid Builder who came with hard hat and high-vis vest.
CSI discworld talks completely over-stuffed - managed to get into the first profiling one, didn't attempt the later headology or forensics/poisons ones, but was informed the queue was out the door. Next time, needs to be held somewhere bigger than the Odium.
Talk with Terry and Stephen Baxter, who he will be collaborating with on sci-fi books. Rather fascinating. And Transworld not quite believing that plotting can be done by two authors arguing over each other for half an hour and deeming that successful plot-wise.
Jen started her campaign for Low King with press interviews, getting photos taken with the barbarian community, the showgirl community (Shevek) and yelling 'I need babies to kiss!'
Masquerade won by a rendition of the Departure Aria with subtitles. Pat duly tormented by duck noises in his role as compere. Special mention to the Nuggan priests, the Trollon saleswoman and the rhyming description of a foot the ball convertee. Seamstresses roped in to provide entrance for Pat and to be the backing dancers for the final act.
Interval was the party Manifestos of the Low King candidates, where it was gleefully proved that Jen's campaign of bribery and smear tactics was in full swing, with her avoiding the questions before they'd even been asked. Pat was most impressed.
Hedgehog Party: attack of the spicy beef jerky, After Eight vodka and caramel waffles. And Gideon unleashed the sparkly leggings. Plus stuffing The Crinoline with balloons and bundling Michael. Didn't stay for long, adjourned to the singalonga jamming session.
Bar, 2am-ish. Occasional counting of Stephen's harem. 'I count 7 Dark Clerks. And Conina. Something here is not like the others.'
Stephen: 'She's decorative.'
Elderflower liqueur deemed fecking gorgeous by most of con. Suspect Rob drank more than most.
Sunday : Omnian Church Service. Got a few stares from the fact that I can belt the hymns. And queries on why I was doing my hair. (those who were forced into regular church service: 'Just be glad she wasn't playing nintendo or reading a book.') Church notices included dwarf speed-dating and Igors offering their services.
Adjourned to Chaos to turn Taz' Adipose into Death of Adipose.
How to Buckle a Swash. We'd done a bit of practicing beforehand, (my role was glamorous assistant since I have no sword training whatsoever) which included Orjan yelling 'Pose' as we flowed into the many silly film poster classic sword poses. Which got much cheering and laughter. Then came the 'How easy it is to avoid someone charging at you with a sword over their head' which is first 'run away', then side-stepping and hamstringing, whacking, taking them out at the knees, etc. I was doing side-kick to midriff on Marco, but, er, missed and got him in the appendix which did at least provide a comedy spin motion. After that, was on 'handing over weapons/getting them into/out of armour' duty while Marco, Orjan and Gideon demonstrated swashbuckling and how fencing wiped it out of existence. Turns out historical swashbucklers were the young lads who used to go round with a buckler on their hip, swaggering and yelling 'come and have a go if you think you're hard enough'. As usual, Hollywood gets it wrong. and has sport fencers applying their techniques to battle with big swords. :snicker:
Lissy won Death's Sword in the auction and is now very happy as it accessorises perfectly with her Susan outfit.
Chatted outside with one lad from the Cunning Artificer's stall, first time he'd been let out from behind the booth all weekend, and his first convention. Much glee from him at seeing everyone's costumes and being able to put faces to the various names on the order forms. and, of course, our devotion to the important things in life. (the bar)
Went for a Klatchian with several others, as organised by Diane and Peter, overstuffed ourselves 'oh god, next time, no starters!' to the point where we had to be carefully rolled out of the taxi, groaning (turns out I have more muscle this time and it's infinitely more painful as your belly has no space to contract or swell in). Yes, Peter did make siren noises on the way there, and told tales of his childhood, where one makes a ballista out of the best silver service salad spoons so one may fire flaming cotton balls at soldiers.
Got changed into red dress, wandered into the Dysk to see what was going on, and got grabbed by Kristy. 'You'll fit the rat costume better than I will, go see Essy.' 'Er...what?' Translation: Rat Race is essentially croquet/crazy golf through and over various Bonk landmarks such as the Cherry Orchard and Uncle Vanya's Mysterious and Unmentionable Trousers, to end up in the Dwarf Mines. Complete with commentary, cheating encouraged. There'd already been an invisible rat, and Essy was planning to do a Pied Piper. Yours truly got stuck into a rat costume, dress over top, witch casts spell, dress comes off to reveal costume, I raced round it, hurdling all the landmarks, pausing to kick Uncle Vanya's trousers in the unmentionables, and bounced into the Dwarf Mines on one foot with a winning time of 15s. And in the process nearly killed Davina with laughter.
Drag Race was won by Mad Hamish in full Gypsy Rose Lee outfit for style and fabulousness.
Got snared by Shevek to try on a skating outfit which was immensely cute but boiling due to being stretch velvet, then got him in and out of corsets for a new outfit and good lord that boy can do fabulous make up.
Limoncello? Only drinkable if you add a lot of lemonade. oh, and liberated a a bowl of grapes and kiwis and one of onion bhajis from the wreckage of Indian Wedding #2.
Monday, woke up, threw up twice at brekkies - several people going 'er, I saw you running out of breakfast with your hand over your mouth, are you okay?' which pretty much continued throughout day. Combo of 3-day hangover and limoncello, methinks. Fortunately Roisin went 'Limoncello? Really?' when I sighed about having 2/3 of a bottle to get rid of somehow, so I know it's gone to a good home.
Noon, there was the great 'How many people can you fit under a crinoline'. The answer appears to be 6 and one small child if the seamstress has her feet on the floor. We then adjourned to the bar with its higher ceilings, did it again, then stuck Kristy on first Davina's then Butcher's shoulders after Terry turned up. First count: 14. 2nd, 23 and a Cthulhu toy. Terry nearly choked on the sheer amount of filthy punnes that were trying to get out at once. There are plans for crinoline extensions...
Rocky Horror Discworld : We will never get the image of Richard as Vetinari cast as Frank-n-Furter out of our heads. EVER. Of course, this also means that images of Stephen Briggs in corset, feather boa, stockings and heels are now stuck there... Brain bleach, STAT. Mind you, Butcher confessed to having 50% shares in the brain bleach company.
Post Rocky, curled up on couch for doze. Woke to find various items covering/around me - post-it notes, beer bottles, empty sherbert sticks. Rather puzzled until I sat up and saw the sign of 'Conina Dormiens Nunquam Titallandus - Human Buckaroo Banzai!'
Closing Ceremony : Brian is foolish enough to have enjoyed himself so much and having too many ideas on how to improve it to volunteer himself for Con Chair next time... Oh, and Seamstresses won the Guild Competition. to say there is a bit of a grudge match between us and the Assassins is an understatement.
So, a glorious, fun, silly convention. I missed a lot of program items - Werewolf, How to Draw Dragons, Elf History just being some of them. Mostly due to this thing called 'The Bar'. Only bad point? Really fecking awful bar service during the day, especially serving early dinner, where they appeared to hide and I got one of the few competent bar staff on saturday. felt rather guilty about this.