S. Worthen | Weblog

One of the projects I have been working on lately is a certain amount of organization for today's Science Fiction Foundation (SFF) and British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) mini-convention and AGM, complete with two excellent Guest of Honours, two panels, two AGMs, and a wonderful venue, the Royal Astronomical Society at Burlington House.

The venue was particularly good for acoustics, which means that, unlike my attempt to hear her speak at Newcon, I got to actually hear altariel be interesting and insightful this time. It also had toilets so good that I several times found myself having conversations about the glories of a waterfall-like faucet, and admiring the design of having coat hooks/umbrella hooks positioned directly over a long radiator. It also had an elevator with a glass wall looking out onto a series of photos from outer space, worth a touristic trip up to the second floor and back with purplecthulhu just to see them.

It also had a quintessentially ideal library, complete with incunabula and an early book (Ratdolt's) with numerous intact volvelles. What fun! (Volvelles are circles which are attached to books and can be turned in circles. In astronomical texts, they can be used for building up working models of circle-based world systems.) They also have a copy of the Margherita Philosophica ("The philosophical pearl"), complete with its woodcut of an abacus user. And a decent impression of really lovely Mellan full moon engraving, although its edition is not known since the paper was cut down to circular at some point in the past.

My particular thanks to clanwilliam who nobly sacrificed her time earlier this week to try out a couple of pubs for us in the neighborhood and pick the best one for our needs.

I am now officially the secretary of the SFF, not just the acting secretary, and really will be taking over as editor of Vector beginning next year.

Really, my proudest accomplishment was being able to share with everyone the map I drew to show where everything that mattered - the designated pub, coffee shops - was in relationship to where we were. It was a very nice little map if I do say so myself.

I went off to Oxford for most of Saturday for the Write Fantastic fifth anniversary event on Saturday, held at St. Hilda's College. I would say it was nice to be near the water, since it's along the river, but with the drizzle, there was lots of ambient water anyways.

• I had a hunch that there would be people I knew on the train over. I found clanwilliam and major_clanger towards the end of the train and joined them for politics, an Guardian Independent picture quiz, and looking at the landscape. There were steam engines outside.


• How lovely it was to see so many people, both on stage and off! I spent the debut authors panel thinking of how editors and authors might relate to my friend-the-literary-agent. la_marquise_de_ spent the first part of the panel pretending she was "just" the moderator; totally a coincidence that her first novel came out in the last year too. Sarah Ash did an even more convincing job of being purely a moderator; only just now, looking at the group's website, do I realize that of course she was there as a novelist, stealthily. The "Reflections on a Life in Writing" panel shared with us how many people they knew that they'd killed in their books. It also somewhat indirectly led to my discovery, inspired by the name of the session, that at least two of the people there are vampires. (See mirror post for explanation.)


• The pub-across-the-street was not prepared for 40+ people arriving all at once for lunch. They were very good-natured about it, and delighted with the business, but since we - pennski, A, and C. - foolishly chose our table and food before ordering it, our food arrived after the first afternoon session was scheduled to begin. Once we'd finally eaten and returned, we discovered that they'd waited just for us. Or at least for the time at which we coincidentally returned.


• The event was attended by several very tall people. I realized that I'm not used to talking to several tall people at once. It gives me neck ache.


• Business, of sorts, happened too, with an extended SHMTS* discussion with a fellow board member who was present, and a more focused BSFA one.

* The next SHMTS meeting will be in Oxford and deals with medieval maps! I'll post more details at the end of the week.

Dear Picocon attendees who I asked about balloons (and people in need of balloons):

I'd resigned myself to flowers (which are really not much like balloons at all), and so went around to the south side of South Kensington station, where the nice flower stand is. There, in front of me, on the south side of the street, was a much, much larger flower shop, La Jolie Fleur, which had opened just in time* for me to go in and ask if they did balloons. None were obvious, but they did! They do! So if you need balloons in the South Kensington area, now you know where you can go too.

The store wasn't there the last time I was in the area, which was several months ago, and the staff all seemed fairly new to the enterprise.

P.S. Picocon itself was my favorite edition of the con yet. Two good short stories readings from Michael Marshall Smith and Pat Cadigan; Robert Rankin being silly and playing the ukelele poorly-by-intent (and being impatient with how long the sessions) were; a largely-topical discussion on ray guns from the three guests of honor (the sort of panel where, by design, staying on topic is entirely optional); and thus usually silliness and fundraising with liquid nitrogen and bad writing, and visits with friends I don't see nearly often enough. Also, it didn't rain.

In late February, pennski proposed bringing a typical British cake to Eastercon to explore the hypothesis that British cakes, while dry, are redeemed by being consumed with tea. It seemed only fair that I bring a cake too, one representative of American cakes.

Thus it was that we, along with bookzombie, settled down with cups of tea (camomile in my case), improvised plates, and two cakes to investigate this pressing matter in the middle of Eastercon. Her madeira cake was dry, but flavored with lovely delicacy - and having it with a cup of hot tea made all the difference. The dryness really didn't bother me as much - but the tea was a necessity to compensate. They agreed that the apple cake I brought was much moister, suitable for consumption with drinks regardless of temperatures. It did not depend on a drink for completion.

Having proved we were both right about our respective cakes, pennski mentioned that friends of hers had been surprised that she was going to bring along a madeira cake. Surely semminel cake [sp?] simnel or seed cake would be more appropriate. Because there is never too much to know about cake, I turn to you: what do you consider the most typical British cake to eat with tea? Be specific.

(Also, relatedly, which is the best British cake to eat with tea?)

Here's what I saw en route to Picocon on Saturday when passing by the Science Museum....



The three-or-so hours I managed at Picocon were well-worth the time for seeing friends, less worth the time for the bits of programming I happened to catch. It failed to engage me the way it usually does. Also, the guest of honor about which I knew the least (and was thus the most interested in) as on first, in the morning, before I could be there. After a lovely dinner with makyo, coth, and co. at Chez Jules, C. and I were off to see the ENO's revival production of The Mikado.

I don't remember ever having seen the operetta performed live, although I'm certain I'd seen a movie version years ago. I'd completely forgotten quite how many very famous G&S songs are in it, and, in this production, there were very good singers to sing them. The set design was fun and effective, a large club drawing room primarily in white, with oddball extra objects in it which were sometimes merely thematic - musical instruments - and sometimes useful - such as globes which eventually proved representational in "The Sun and I". Ko-ko was brilliantly acted, and his "I've got a little list" wasn't the only song updated for modern references. The whole thing is just so wonderfully silly!

I went back to Glasgow again last weekend, the second time in a year, both times with events held in the same time, both times for science fiction conventions. The world of British SF fandom doesn't actually revolve exclusively around Glasgow; there was simply efficiency in organized both WorldCon and Eastercon in the same place. The British National Science Fiction Convention is called Eastercon - a good thing, when the alternative is the ungainly acronym BNSFC. The name doubles as a handy date mnemonic.

Eastercon was dense and good. I went to lots of panels. Guest of Honor and special guest slots were particularly good. I loved the corset panel - comparative corset history with all the corsets under discussion being worn by models/volunteers. I bought books, I coveted a lovely etching in the art show, and I networked. (A German historian of science at the con recognized me from the Halifax conference.) I ran into long-lost friends (makyo), long-misplaced friends (guyelfkin, paul_skevington, and S.), and met lovely new people (including wishus). Thanks to London pub meets, I also knew a decent swathe of other attendees.

( Excessive detail... )