Brief Eastercon report

[philbradley]

This was always going to be a slightly less than brilliant Eastercon for us, since Jill had chemo on the Tuesday, which means that the weekend itself was going to be her ‘bad’ weekend. She got unplugged and sorted on Thursday afternoon and we set off from Essex at about 2ish. 7 hours later we finally arrived at the Cedar Court.

Let’s get the hotel

Comments

[rhionnach]

I had a very enjoyable Eastercon as well but I would have to agree with you about the food.

The vegetarian options were poor and did not change from one meal to the next all weekend. I got really fed up of endless pasta! The meat eaters could get really good platefuls of food and their options were changed regularly.

I am one of the many who came down with a stomach upset and I do recall seeing badly washed plates in the stacks. I think that may have been the source and, if not, then it didn't help.

[nmg]

The meat options were also pretty poor. In particular, the chilli con carne had the consistency of dogfood (very cheap mince) and no noticeable chilli.

That said, the chicken curry was reasonable, if institutional. Sadly, the rice varied from undercooked to rice pudding in consistency.

[la_marquise_de_]

It was lovely to see you both there, even though it was mainly in passing -- I really really wanted to be at the urban exploration talk but it was my shift. Sigh.
Take care and love to Jill.

Ah well,

[philbradley]

Not to worry, these things happen. I can provide you with links and images if you want to take a look at the photographs themselves?

Re: Ah well,

[la_marquise_de_]

That would be lovely, thank you.
Incidentally, given your mutual interest in architecture and its quirks, have you or J tried Sarah Monette's Doctrine of Labyrinth books (they start with Melusine)? they are a bit slow starting, but she does interesting things with thaumaturgical architecture as part of the plot.

Re: Ah well,

[philbradley]

Jill has read the first. I have now put them on my reading list. Thanks for the recommendation! :)

I will sort out links for the urban exploring and send to you.

[nmg]

I managed to miss the ebook panel due to child-wrangling responsibilities, so it's interesting to hear a report on it (the only one I've seen so far). What were the other options that the panellists were failing to see?

[philbradley]

Well, 'book' really. If you can have something in an electronic format, the concept of a book, which is bounded by a physical entity doesn't need to be that any longer. So you can have instant updating. Which means you can forget about 2nd editions etc. Which then raises the problem of authority checking, referencing content at a particular point in time, and so on.

There was much chat about how an electronic book needed to be priced about the same as a print version, for no good reason that I could see, and the publisher was really flailing around at this point. There was also some squirming on the part of the bookseller, who seemed to think that his important role in the future would be to recommend stuff, and that we'd pay them for the priviledge.

Also discussion by librarians on what their role would be in the future. Which was 'we don't really know'. I'd have liked to have had an author on the panel as well, for their perspective.

Interesting panel though, and really enjoyable!

[crazyscot]

It was a low-tech con compared with some of the past techgasms. Flamage for the veggie food does seem to have been pretty widespread, but (having chatted about it with watervole) we've got good reason to look forward to better things at Odyssey.

Loved the chocolate workshop, with not one, but three chocolate teapots, all of which failed one way

[badriya]

In what way did they fail? They were edible? That would be all I'd need :).