The Chronicle Live

Breaking the Ice - A newbie writes of their first DWCon

2010-09-05T15:39:00.006+01:00

--by Brian Skelton

Last Thursday I was a Discworld Convention virgin.

Today I am a happier person.

I’m a shy person, well on the introspective side of the old introvert-extrovert scale. As a toddler, I would hide under the table, whenever my parents had visitors. When I started school, I refused to talk to anyone, teachers or kids, for the first fortnight.

I’m also a tiny bit geeky. I was watched Star Trek whenever it came on the TV. I was taken all the way to Manchester, queuing for hours, to see Star Wars when it first came out (and, yes, Hans did shoot first). I cried when the Blake’s crew were gunned down by the Federation and lusted after Sapphire.

By the age of thirteen, I’d exhausted the local library’s stock of SF and fantasy and was haunting the Bookmen, a second hand book stall in Rochdale’s indoor market. They priced their stock at half the cover price, so my paper-round money bought a lot of old seventies paperbacks. In 1985, when my mate Gerrold Singleton told me about this great new author he’d found and his book, ‘The Colour of Magic’, I’d read enough Leiber, Asprin and McCaffery to understand exactly what it was poking fun at.

So, conventions, are a problem, but also strangely attractive.

I went to my first, a role playing one, when I was sixteen – about the time I started reading Discworld. I was poor back then and could only scrape together enough money for the convention fees and transport. Staying in a hotel room was beyond imagination and I only had a fiver to pay for food throughout the weekend. I think I managed one meal over the three days and what sleep I snatched happened in the gaming hall, in the small hours of the morning. I hadn’t talked to many people outside of the games, but I’d had a weekend of D&D, Car Wars and En Garde, surrounded by fellow enthusiasts. I was exhausted and hungry, but definitely happier for having been there.

A few years later I was doing a post graduate year at Leicester University. I was in a strange town, I had nowhere to live and my girlfriend was a hundred miles away. All the defence mechanisms that shy people build up had been abandoned. I was quite prepared to sit in my room and attend classes and nothing else; I was only there for a year after all, not nearly enough time to make friends.

I managed to overrule my fears, and found myself in a lecture room one evening, waiting for a guy from the ‘Labry’ branch of ‘Fools and Heroes’ live role-playing group to turn up. I don’t know how I managed to trick my brain into allowing me to do this. I attended several committee meetings during the time I was in Leicester, and didn’t say more than ten words in all of them. In costume though, out in the woods, with my character firmly in mind, I could be outgoing and entertaining. I had fun and think I helped others enjoy themselves.

We had conventions too, called Gatherings. Groups from around the country would come together for a weekend of in character fun, feasting, quaffing and adventure. I still didn’t have much money so I went as a cast member, trading a reduced fee for the privilege of helping everyone else have a good time. I didn’t have a tent or sleeping bag, so I was still snatching sleep where I could, wrapped in my cloak by the campfire. The weekends would end with me tired, dirty, wet (I once set fire to my boots whilst trying to dry them), though not hungry, as food was part of the entertainment.

Despite the aches and pains I was a happy person; having spent the weekend surrounded by my people, people with the imagination and passion to make this fantasy become real for a short while.

That was twenty years ago. I’ve got better since then. I usually hide in the kitchen when we have guests now and, if forced to spend time with strangers, will usually find something to say after only an hour or two… I’ve also learned to hide, to an extent, the nerdiness. I don’t automatically tell everyone who my favourite Enterprise captain is (Picard, of course) or brag about the number of times I’ve read Lord of the Rings. I can pass, almost, for a normal person.

Twenty years of work and unemployment, family, children, houses, cooking and all the rest. They were good years, filled with happiness and love, but some of the stuff that made me who I am fell by the wayside. I still read the books and watch the shows, but the role playing and get togethers didn’t happen any more. I have friends, but they’re normal people. They’re into music, cooking, travel, reality TV, Barbie dolls and train spotting. All good things (well, mostly) but relatively normal. I had lost something.

It’s just after New Year and my daughter is chatting on the PC. Someone had mentioned the Discworld convention and she wanted to go. The fear, and attraction, returned and we said we’d think about it. We hesitated almost too long, our badge numbers were in the eight nineties, but we went.

We were unprepared; my daughter left half her costume behind and we forgot to scour the shelves for our Discworld books. A rain drenched bike ride home fixed this and there we were, on Friday morning, heading to Lancre Forge for to pick up our goodie bags. I could feel myself starting to enjoy myself…

We all had a wonderful time. Here we are at the Rat Race (My wife Octarine, Wincerind my son, Cocoa my daughter and me). This is a rare thing, a picture of me smiling and relaxed, in a public place.

It’s over now. I had plenty to eat and place to sleep, but I’m still exhausted, this time from trying to do everything and be everywhere. Once again though, I’m a happier person knowing I’m not alone in my strange and wonderful interests.

For the people who helped me regain this feeling, some thanks:

To all of you fellow attendees, for being the people you are. The kind of people I can enjoy spending four whole days with. I wish I’d spoken with more of you, gone to the parties and joined in more – but you can only push your psyche so much before it breaks. Next time, if I can fool my brain into thinking that you’re all old friends, will be better.

The committee and crew are next. The sheer complexity of keeping nine hundred people entertained for four days staggers me. Many, many, thanks to them all.

The wonderful guilds for getting us all involved. Special thanks to Lady Sta for her constant mantra of ‘Be Lovely’. It got me on stage, as one of Sir Joshua’s groupies, to the great surprise of me and my family.

The mysterious Dark Clerks in general, and Lady Twatterby in particular, for welcoming my daughter into their strange and sinister ranks.

The guests, and others, who entertained and delighted us all

Terry, for writing the brilliant stories and being the person who can inspire his fans to get together and make something as wonderful as this convention.

Octarine and Wincerind for throwing themselves into this so full heartedly. They are lovely, lovely people.

Finally, my daughter, Cocoa, for persuading me to do this, and reminding me where the best people can be found. I won’t forget again.

I’ll see you all next time.

MoreMoreMore - Links to groups, guests and much more

2010-09-04T17:37:00.002+01:00

For those of you who wish to keep in touch with fellow fans, find information on the guests, find more Discworld and Pratchett related Artwork I have put together a list of handy links here:

http://groups.google.com/group/dwcon_org_2010/web/moremoremore

DWCon 2010 - The View From Tech

2010-09-04T17:25:00.003+01:00

-by Bodo Bellut

it's 3pm on Wednesday and everything is unpacked and sorted. emails and newsgroups are read, some pictures and Con Reports consumed as well as 12 hours sleep.

My brain's slowly adjusting to reality, random thoughts[1] becoming German again[2] -- so that's it, the Con is finally over and real life is starting again.

It was nice to see so many new faces, meeting with old friends was nice, too, of course.

I was sticking to Tech this time so didn't really see anything outside of the Dysk apart from the Scone & Jam, therefore this report will be somewhat tech centred.

Empty

We took an early flight into Birmingham, arriving at about 07:00 on Thursday morning. Fortunately the distance between airport and hotel is very short as it was raining.

Even though check-in at the hotel officially is 10:00 we had no trouble checking into our room so we dropped our luggage and explored what's going on already.

Interestingly, there was nothing going on at all, the Dysk was empty apart from some chairs, all other rooms were locked.

While walking around I found Xris who arrived on Wednesday already and was an his way to get breakfast. So I joined him and the both of us were soon joined by a relaxed looking Brian. Over the next hour or so most of the Committee appeared and soon setup began.

I stuffed a couple hundred envelopes with Guild Tokens and Rat Race Money until the truck with the stage and tech kit appeared. The big surprise was the six professional riggers who set up the complete stage.

At the end of the day the stage was completed showing the second surprise: The stage was _big_ and it was tiered. There also were moving spots and not one but two fog machines.

So much to do

I don't remember when I went to bed that night, but I rose at 08:00, had a lovely full English breakfast and entered the Dysk at 09:00, this would be a fixed appointment for the next days.

The Dysk was already busy with techs setting up things so I joined in running cables, moving stuff and whatever had to be done.

We played a bit with the lighting desk and before anyone noticed it was already time for Teach Yourself Tech which I missed while running some cables, I believe.

I can't remember seeing so many interested people at Teach Yourself Tech at the past Cons, there were more volunteers than open positions in all events combined.

Afterwards came the setup for the Opening Ceremony; time flew and suddenly people started pouring into the room, the Con was about to start officially.

The very good Opening Ceremony was quickly followed by Terry & Rob's Bedtime Stories and that ended the programme for that day.

For some reason it was 04:00 when I finally went to bed; again, this would be my time for the rest of the Con.

Who needs rehearsal

The time slot from 09:00 to 12:00 was scheduled for the Maskerade Technical Rehearsal, unfortunately only a minority of the attendees used this opportunity to discuss their technical requirements. The cue sheets were promised for 17:00 that day which left us with plenty of time to program the equipment for the entries we already knew about and program some generic settings for all other entries.

Then followed The Man in the Hat and Going Postal in Technicolour the later event being cut short somewhat to make sure we had the full two hours needed for Maskerade setup.

Only some light effects like the rising moon, the lightning storm, the Phoenix Fire and the disco effect had been programmed so the event was run manually for most of the time, it went very well. After the Maskerade I left tech for the day and went to the Hedgehog Party. I again missed Graham's panel on the interesting uses of leather and turned in at 04:00.

Full programme

The Sunday started with the Rocky Horror Discworld(TM) Show rehearsal quickly followed by the Charity Auction. I was in charge of the lights for this event which we all thought would involve lighting the big items on stage and setting up a spot in front of the stage for the regular items.

As it turned out many of the regular items were packed in plastic and were glaring heavily so I ended up permanently adjusting the lights so the cameras would get the best possible pictures.

Then followed the setup for The Coronation of the Low King. This was scheduled with two hours which was plenty of time given the lights should only involve a white spot centre stage and nothing else.

Unfortunately, these requirements were adjusted a couple of times end we ended up with a well lit stage.

I left the Coronation a bit early to get a good seat in the Scone and Jam which turned out to be unnecessary as not only the Gala Dinner but also the Rat Race was running in parallel and people wandered between them.

This ended the day for me.

Science Fiction/Double Feature

Monday brought six hours of Rocky Horror Discworld(TM) Show, four hours rehearsal and two hours show. For some reason the microphones started heaving issues after the first rehearsal run and never again returned completely to their formerly good reliability so the show suffered from some sound drops. Nevertheless the show was brilliant and given the short rehearsal and setup times also a technical masterpiece. It was easily the highlight of the Con.

Then followed the Closing Ceremony and the tear down.

This was also very well organised, in just two hours stage and tech tower as well as all tech equipment in Dysk, Odium and Ankh had been disassembled, stowed into crates and hauled onto a truck.

Speaking of the tear down, this just felt wrong. It is one thing having the Con end but a completely different one to actively be involved in this. After the tear down had started, after the first cables had been

disconnected, the first bolts had been loosened it was obvious the Con had ended for good, there was no way to get this back together and continue just for even the slightest time. The tear down felt like ripping apart the dream the Con was, leaving nothing but wonderful memories (and thousands of photos).

To sum it up

The whole Con was running very smoothly, of course not everything worked as planned but that's to be expected for events like this where there's limited time for planning, setup, and rehearsal.

All of the hotel staff was very accommodating the only problem being the air conditioning which seemed to only have two settings: full or off.

Again it showed that 4 hours sleep a night and living from breakfast and tech snacks alone worked very well. ^_^

The distance between Lancre Forge where Hedgehog Party and Dead Monkey Party happened and the bar was a bit unfortunate as people wandered between both locations.

Being a dry chocoholic at a Discworld Convention is as hard as being a dry alcoholic. ^_^

There's nothing else to say, see you in two year's time -- oh, and Don't dream it, be it.

cu, Bodo

[1] those types of thoughts that just happen when doing unrelated stuff like when brushing your teeth

[2] It was interesting reading a German text while thinking English, usually it's the other way around.

What I did on my holiday - Andrew's musings

2010-09-04T15:27:00.003+01:00

--by Andrew Nevill

Friday

The fun, for certain values of fun started before the Convention. I wanted to wear my Mort Maskerade costume from 2 years ago as a hall costume. A friend had lent the short red wig, I used, so I’d asked them at the beginning of August to lend it me again. Unfortunately, they let me down. I called into a proper wig shop on the way to the rail station but they had nothing suitable in stock. So, I went to the fancy dress shop in the Andale and bought a neon orange fancy dress wig that would be acceptable. Any port in a storm as they say.

Arrived about 3pm and even as I walked through the corridors to reception, I was seeing familiar faces and being met with warm greetings. I was sharing again with Vince and the booking was in his name so I’d been worried that the hotel would have no record of me. But they were unfounded as I got checked into my room straight away

Dropped off my bags, went to register and mingled for a spell, saying hello to old friends. It was wonderful. It felt almost like coming home.

Then I attended my first event, An Audience with Stephen Briggs. He was feeling kinda pleased as he had a sword that had been used on The Princess Bride. It wasn’t quite Inigo Montoya’s sword as Terry said later, but Cary Elwes had practiced with it – which made it pretty darn close.

Around 7pm, I met up with Brian (sabremeister) and Roy (gemini) for dinner. We all wanted the chicken and it had run out and so we waited for around 20 minutes for new supplies. By this time it was getting perilously close to the opening ceremony and I found myself unable to just relax and enjoy my food – which although tasty was not I considered, worth waiting 20 minutes and paying over £10 for.

I was maybe precipitous in this judgement and perhaps things did get better over the weekend but I decided at that point I would be eating out.

And then it was the Opening Ceremony. Terry one-upped Stephen entering with Death’s sword, announcing that although Briggs had Inigio Montoya’s sword, he had this one. To a heartfelt cheer, he announced the PCA wasn’t any worse and that the writing was going well, his dictation software so good that he could dictate 20,000 words easily - oh, and it understood Nac Mac Feegle!

I hadn’t bought a costume for the Bedtime Stories, but as part of the Executive room upgrade, the hotel had provided a bathrobe and slippers. These were pressed into service and I went down, clutching Speedbump (a plush hedgehog) to the Bedtime Stories.

Rob entered and was about to read I Shall Midnight when Terry interrupted saying he couldn’t do the Feegle voices so Rob pulled out a folder containing the draft of Snuff and to applause, started reading that instead.

I must admit that I left Bedtime Stories before it finished. As it tends to, it overran and I wanted very much to attend Once More With Feeling. Under the bathrobe were a red shirt, black T-shirt and black jeans. My leather duster and Doc Martens were in my bag. Yes, Spike had places to be, and so I excused myself.

OMWF was great fun. The episode was screened in the Odium with the subtitles and everyone was singing along.

And then I retired to the bar. I tried to buy Brian Nesbit, the Chairman a drink but was told by the bar staff they’d run out of Hobgoblin. On relating this news, Hotel Liaison went and had Words with the bar staff as Arrangements had been made so This Would Not Happen. I stood by, feeling Slightly Evil and Pleased With Myself for having Gotten People Into Trouble.

I then started chatting with Heather (burntcopper)and Taz. The conversation took several interesting turns that resulted in me Getting Myself Into Trouble – but, given the company I was in, that wasn’t necessarily a Bad Thing.

At 3am, I went to bed.

Saturday

I don’t sleep well in hotel beds. The only beds I really sleep well in are my own and the one in my parents’ spare room. So, despite the late night (or is that early morning), it was an involuntary early start at 7am.

I woke feeling Less Than Human and with a Massive Headache. A shower and hearty breakfast helped with the Humanity but nothing was going to help the headache.

Retail therapy happened as I decided to lighten the heavy wallet I was carrying. I adopted a dragon, courtesy of the Cunning Artificer (I’m wondering if I really need to fill in and send in the certificate) and bought a Convention T-shirt plus a mini Anthill inside T-shirt for Speedbump.

Then if it was off to Ian Stewart’s talk on the Deterministic Monkey Theorem. It’s hard to take in maths and science when your head is pounding but I managed to understand a good portion of an entertaining talk. .

Following this was Elves: Nasty or Nice. Jacqueline Simpson regaled us with wonderful stories from folklore all around Europe in which the Elves were by turns Nasty and Nice. Unfortunately, the Queen of the Elves did not like what she was hearing and threatened Jacqueline. However, Dr Simpson rallied magnificently brandishing an iron poker that put Her Majesty to flight.

Deciding to take advantage of one of the Executive upgrade perks, I went up to the executive lounge for a coffee and a snack before going to see a round of Unseen University Challenge.

Following this, it was time for The Man in the Hat, otherwise known as the guest of honour interview. Things became very interesting when Stephen Baxter came onstage and we were treated to a live brainstorming session as the two threw ideas and discussed the Long Earth project as we watched. It was a fascinating insight into how the authorial mind thinks and how books get written.

By now, I was really tired and the headache was still throbbing away. There was nothing for it but to scrounge a Nurofen and go and get some kip. And I must admit that on waking 90 minutes later to go out for dinner, I felt a whole world better.

And so to the Maskerade. It was hosted by Pat Harkin. For some reason, last time around people started quacking at him. As anyone who’s been to a convention knows, if something is done once it’s a tradition and so we carried on the traditional quacking. (I was in the Maskerade last time so don’t know the Origin of this custom. I’d be grateful to anyone who could elucidate). The standard was very high, a sit always is but I felt this year was particularly good. Special mentions from me go to Brian Dale as Lord Vetinari Retiring (winner of the Master class) and ssirienna who won the whole thing with her traditionally built opera singer performing the Departure aria

The Hedgehog Party was as usual brilliant fun. Lots of dancing, unusual sweets to sample and a very nice after-eight flavoured vodka. Oh, and Gideon (gmh) wore Silver Trousers of Doom. We will not talk of them.

Sunday

The first half of the day had, as Sundays should, a religious theme.

It began with the, as ever, extremely spiritual and uplifting Church of Om Service with Brother Mole and Reverend Fanthorpe officiating – and with my friend Bev as Mrs Grubb providing distractions. During the Periwinkle and Butcher had their marriage blessed to much applause.

Then it was, for me an event that I think I may look forward to more than any other - Create Your Own Religion. Once again Brian Nesbit, employed his cat-herding skills and together we founded the world’s next Great Religion (maybe). This time around, we decided to venerate clichés.

Another item I’ve always looked forward to but unlike CYOM, always seemed to miss was How to Buckle a Swash. It was pleased to be able to set that oversight right and found out that I’ve been missing an excellent, entertaining and informative event. Over the course of (just slightly more than) a hour Orjan together with his glamorous assistants (and Heather (burntcopper) [Sorry! Couldn’t resist] demonstrated how Hollywood got swordfighting completely wrong. (For the record glmaourous assistant credit goes to marco_villalta and gmh)

In between these events I managed to grab my trucks and hit the pool with Tal (tinkerbell1980 ) and after Buckle a Swash, several friends and I repaired to the Executive lounge for a nice cup of coffee. Sometimes, just taking time out with friends is the nicest event you can attend.

After some relaxing down time followed by dinner, I put on the Mort costume and went down for the Coronation of the Low King, the precursor to the Gala dinner. I was worried that I was actually a bit overdressed as I didn’t attend the dinner this year but it seemed everyone, dinner attendee or not, was in their finery so I was in good company. As usual, some of the costumes and ballgowns on display were breathtaking and there was a definite Steampunk vibe in the air.

To much cheering Jennifer Delaney (clanwilliam )was crowned Low King. She probably got in through her election pledge to given everyone the answers to the 2012 pre-con pub quiz. Now the hoopla has died down, it can be safely pointed that she a) didn’t promise to give the correct answers, and b) that she always gives the answers in any case – at the end of the quiz. However, she thoroughly deserved to win for Jen is without doubt the lowest person I know.

The Rat race entertainer was excellent with all manner of activities. I took part an even won a game of Nugganite Twister (Abominations instead of coloured spots). I spent the evening drifting back and forth between it and the Scone and Jam .

Monday

First event on the agenda was The Science of Discworld, a wonderfully entertaining talk by Jack Stewart and Ian Cohen on just how the science of Discworld books came about.

I then drifted into the Dealer’s room and had a lovely chat with MEG (djelibeybi_meg ), and relieved her of a Graham Higgins print.

On my way to have lunch, I encountered a crowd of people filing into the Odium for a viewing of Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog. This had been suggested the screening of Once More With Feeling and happily David (medium_jock ) had his DVD with him. If you show it, they will come. And indeed sing along.

Following a pleasant (slightly postponed) lunch by the lake, I the drifted up to see the Seamstresses attempt to set the World Record for number of people fitted under a crinoline skirt. This was highly diverting. I myself was disqualified as my bum was sticking out

Unfortunately, I had to leave before proceedings ended, as I needed to don my costume in which to attend the Rocky Horror Discworld Show. The effect of the costume was all I could have hoped. My dark soul revelled as the mere sight of my ensemble Broke People. I received numerous double takes and several tortured souls, including the indomitable Heather (burntcopper), were heard to exclaim ‘Oh My God!’ (There are photos but such is their potential to Warp Fragile Minds that they are not posted online and are available on request only)

The RHDS itself was wonderful a production on a scale I don’t think has been before at a Convention. No-one who saw Vetinari portrayed, as Frank’n’Furter will ever quite forget it.

Shortly after, it was time for the Closing Ceremony. The Seamstresses Guild won and were quite pleased about this. Brian Nesbit, stated that he believed there were things he could do that would make the Convention even better and so he was going to stay on as Chairman in order to try. Foolish Mortal!

And then it was time to go home. Hugs were exchanged, emotional goodbyes were said.

Another wonderful convention. Perhaps the best yet. Thank you to all my friends who were there to share it with me and helped make it as enjoyable as it was. We’ll do it all again in two years.

Photos at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=77457&id=1191235286&l=bc6b0e4442

Fashion Contest!

2010-09-03T23:12:00.004+01:00

-artwork by Jyrki Vainio

Every Discworld Convention has its share of spectacular costumes. They range from the simpler productions of Chaos Costuming to stunning bejewelled crinolines, exquisite tailored dresses with exploding bustles, elaborate cloaks, hand tooled watch outfits and leather - all to rival any theatrical production.

This time however there was competition in the guise of not one but two spectacular Indian weddings held in the hotel. Cloth of Gold, embroidered scarlet wedding saris, glittering jewels and every colour under the sun paraded through the hotel foyer.

This caused some confusion on both sides as Holywood met Bollywood. The result was reciprocal invitations to parties and inspiration for Jyrki Vainio (A705) to draw:

The Alternative 2010 Discworld Convention Survival Guide

2010-09-03T22:17:00.004+01:00

or How Best To Avoid Random Causes of Death, Despair and Dismemberment

by Marie Kirby

1. Be aware of fast-moving hazards at ground level. These may or may not include dwarves,b small children and mini remote-control Luggages.

2. If something squishy and/or pointy pokes you from behind in a busy corridor or queue; before screaming, consider the possibility that it may be an inflatable kangaroo.

3. Don't boast about your sword within earshot of Terry, no matter which cult fantasy film it was featured in. He WILL go one better. In style. In front of a considerably large crowd of witnesses.

4. The law of sod is in force where elevators are concerned. The one you're standing directly in front of will never be the one that comes.

5. Helping feegles to touch up their body paint attracts very good karma. They might even decide you're too nice to rob.

6. If you ever meet our distinguished compère Pat Harkin, DO say quack. DO run away very fast. He knows how to dispose of bodies.

7. However many iconographs you may have seen prior to attending the convention, be warned that nothing will prepare you for the spectacle that is Davina's half-time Maskerade performance.

8. Be nice to the other guests at the hotel who stare openly at your exuberant PussyCat Club staff costume. By the end of Day Two they'll be wishing they were at the more interesting party.

9. No matter how many different character costumes you see going to the Gala Dinner or Rat Race, you can be sure that in the morning there will be approximately 900 very convincing Reg Shoes.

10. There are four stages of 'being' at the Discworld convention:
i) OMG costumes!
ii) OMG that's Terry in the bar!
iii) OMG it's 4am! and;
iv) OMG I don't want to go home!

Yeth Marthter!

2010-09-03T22:05:00.003+01:00

- by Siobhan Greaney

The Athothiation of Thurgeonth, Igorth and Igorinath was one of the guilds for this year's convention. A big thank you must go to the ConCom, the Monks of Cool, my fellow deputy Xris (who did most of the pre-con preparation for guild activities) and to all our wonderful members who helped make our guild extra thpethial.

Below is a day by day account of our main activites:

Friday night at the Guild Meeting we kicked off our weekend-long Scavenger Hunt, letting our own members form teams and suggesting to other guilds that they get a team to compete.

On Saturday, we were honoured to host the programme item: Igor's Bestiary. Nearly all day was spent helping people rip teddy bears to shreds and glueing, taping and stiching them back together in new and interesting ways in Lancre Forge. A huge thank you is due to Hailey for organising this event in the first place and for relinquishing it to us when she realised she had tripple booked herself that afternoon. Barry V was the winner of the 'motht monthtrouth beathty' with his creation:

(Photo by Gideon Hallett)

We also held the first round of the 'Make Your Own Thcrapth' which involved cutting out various dog limbs and attaching them to balloons. Some people chose to take theirs away, others left them to our 'Scrap Pile'.

Sunday morning saw us hosting the 'Igor Games' in Morpork. We had another round of 'Make Your Own Thcrapth' as well as an 'Ubervaldian Thcrabble' board (no 's' or 'w' - extra 't', 'h' and 'v's) for people to play with. The most popular game by far was Human Operation. The "patient" was covered with a sheet of tin foil with spaces cut out to sellotape the organs to them. Xris had rigged up a buzzer that went off if the tin foil was touched with the surgical implement (bbq tongs). Many thanks to those who played the part of patient for more than one turn so that everyone who wanted to play got a chance.

Sunday night at the Rat Races, the Igor's stall was offering 'Retro-Phrenology' - change your personality with the bump of a (weapons-checked) mallet! Thanks are due to not only our own members but to some of the Historians guild who had both made our mallets and performed some retrophenological procedures on the night. Also on offer were wipes and lotions to kill your invisible demons (ritual excorism optional). We also had a volunteer Igor participant in the drag races, thanks are due to him and to the wonderful Igorinas who spent their afternoon making his outfit and doing his make-up.

Monday morning, we wound down with the hand in of the Scavenger Hunt - one interprid team had taken the cheating ideas to heart and managed to get all of the items due to some fudgery, a catalogue and blackmail. A stirling example of Igor Scavaging at its best.

I'm sure there are some things I've forgotten to mention and specific people I've neglected to thank so apologies if so.

Some people went all out with their costumes, scars, lisping and general 'Igor-ness' for at least part of the con. Others helped quietly in the background preparing for or supervising guild activities. I sincerely hope that all guild members had a good time, that all those who took part in our activities enjoyed them, and that however much or little you encountered us - that the guild made the con thpethial for you too!

Thiverth

The Rocky Horror Discworld Show

2010-09-03T20:54:00.004+01:00

by Jessica Yates

The Dysk was, inevitably, packed with an audience trembling with anticipation. Many of us had seen the original Rocky Horror Show on stage or film and had certain expectations, some of which would be fulfilled, others completely overturned. Convention members had all received the invitation to take part and we knew that the final cast had prepared their roles in isolation, only meeting for an intensive four days of rehearsal at the Convention itself. The regulars of the Reduced Discworld Company are used to performing Terry’s works as plays, so a musical with dance moves would be a new challenge! However, the professionalism of the cast and backstage team produced a triumphant hour of magic and won Terry’s acclaim.

From the start, when the Vampire Candy Girl crooned Science Fiction/Double Feature in her sweet dumb blonde voice, we knew it would be all right. Then Tim and Jacqui as Carrot/Brad and Angua/Janet – two experienced performers in great City Watch costumes, did their proposal scene. Pat Harkin appeared as Narrator, and you could not expect the audience, in a show which invites heckling, to forgo the occasional quack!

They somehow travelled to a mysterious castle, shown on the screen, and soon Igor/Riff Raff appeared. John Hicks was suitably grotesque and introduced the Time Warp for which a third of the audience were already on their feet for dancing. Next came the big reveal. We knew from the special booklet that Vetinari would play Frank N Furter but the big surprise was Richard Atha-Nicholls coming on with the beard and moustache looking just like the drawings and very like Briggsy himself. Vetinari first wore a cloak, but gradually the well-known costume was revealed, to screams! He then performed Sweet Ubervestite with his backing group, while Carrot and Angua looked suitably bemused.

Next came the unveiling of Rocky. I, and presumably some of the audience, were expecting to see a handsome body-builder. However his name was Rocky so of course he had to be a troll and his song was therefore Club of Damocles. Good costume and worn with panache by Mark Burilin!

About now we had some exposition about how Carrot, Angua and Vetinari had fallen through a dimensional warp, and the wizards were asked to get them back, all recounted by Pat Harkin who produced a duck-quacking device to deal with the hecklers. Death (Tony Perkins) made his appearance to sing Hot Patootie, with BORN TO RUNE on the back of his cloak.

Somehow Ridcully appeared in the castle, somehow he got the missing folk back to their own world. After several more songs adapted from the score and all too soon the show was over with the finale Don’t Dream It. Then there was a rousing Time Warp which had everyone on their feet to Pat’s direction: “It’s just a jump widdershins...” Nobody wanted it to stop, and eventually, after the curtain call, applause and the special thanks to Elizabeth MacMichael, John Hicks’ writer and co-director, we let the cast retire and all went to the bar. We then found that Richard was so pleased with his outfit that he came out into the bar wearing still in costume, and posed for photos alongside Briggsy!

Members of the convention all received a special programme for the show listing all the cast and crew, with the story of how the show came to be, and so I end with the words on the back cover “If you missed it – you missed out.”

Latest interview with Terry - New Book and Living with Alzheimers

2010-09-03T11:35:00.003+01:00

Guardian interview:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/01/terry-pratchett-alzheimers-assisted-suicide

Compact Disk and Order of Service, Church of Om

2010-09-03T00:00:00.003+01:00

For those of you wanting to print off your own copies of the Order of Service from the Church of Om or the Compact Disc issue 1 and 2 (aka the special editions of the Chronicle Live in hard copy) the files can be downloaded from the files section of the discussion group:

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/dwcon_org_2010/files?pli=1

All are in .pdf format.

You will also find new sets of pictures on the page next door at:

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/dwcon_org_2010/web/pictures-from-dwcon-2010

Many new articles have gone live today, more articles and pictures are still welcome!

Reports from the Convention Livejournal Community:

2010-09-02T17:12:00.005+01:00

by members of Discworld_2010

A couple of these appear here in modified form but are included in the list for completeness:

The Closing Ceremony

2010-09-02T17:05:00.001+01:00

by Jessica Yates

This was a series of thank-yous, with relief that everything had gone so well. Terry thanked Ops who managed his timetable saying that it was the best-organised convention he had attended. We had the results of the Guild Competition which Jacqueline and her deputies accepted for the Seamstresses (loud cheers).

Before presenting the certificates for the Maskerade, there were two special awards; the first to Davina for her exhibitionism (you had to be there, or maybe not) and the second to Dr. Pat Harkin for his compèring.

Terry praised the Rocky Horror Discworld Show. He had personally obtained the permission from Richard O’Brien for this one-off. “You are the best bunch of loonies there has ever been,” he declared. It was beautifully done, and he would always buy his ice-cream from Beth Warner in future!

Next came a surprise – a non-signed book (joke) from the whole Convention, which Terry vowed not to read! More good news, the charity auction raised over £18,000! After thanking the Hotel staff, and the Guests, Brian requested all his Committee members to parade on stage for their well-deserved applause, which seemed to go on for ever.

Now the announcement we had been waiting for, about the next U.K. Convention! First, we would not have to wait two years for another Discworld Convention as five had already been arranged for 2011: Australia, the Netherlands, North America, Germany and Ireland. But what of our own Convention in 2012? Yes, provisional arrangements had been made for late August to avoid a certain sporting event taking place a little earlier...and maybe in this very hotel. Brian had decided to reprise the role of Chairman (cheers) and Terry had agreed to be Guest of Honour (loud cheers).

And so gradually and reluctantly we began to return to the Roundworld, though there were compensations in my case and probably for everyone else, the DVD of Going Postal and the launch of I shall wear Midnight to keep us cheerful through September.

The Gala Dinner Speeches

2010-09-02T16:53:00.003+01:00

by Jessica Yates

As the guests took their seats on Sunday night, they were intrigued to find what looked like a bread roll on their side plates – but it was inscribed with the word IRONCRUSTS and bore a Discworld Emporium stamp on the base. This unique piece of Dwarf Bread will make a fine paperweight. We also found dwarf beards by our plates, which improved the looks of some of us, but others were beyond hope.

After we had been thoroughly wined and dined it was time for the speeches, but first Brian called us to order. A member of his Committee (Michael Hunter-Jones) had just turned 20, and hotel staff brought out a surprise birthday cake and champers while we sang Happy Birthday!

Bernard proposed a toast to the Committee, very well deserved. Brian then paid tribute to the hotel staff and to the two ladies on the Committee who had originated and carried through the whole concept of the Low King’s Coronation – Mandy and Karen! He then handed over to Lady Margolotta (in whose castle we were dining) so that she could welcome us formally and introduce the Guest of Honour. Lady Margolotta (Jacqueline Simpson) took up the baton and ran with it in a tour de force of role-play and literary allusion – all in an Uberwald accent!

She began by addressing the “Low King, Knights of the Realm, werewolves [howls from the audience], vampires, elves, trolls, Igors, orcs, dwarfs and any other species of sentient life within the walls [audience cry of Bernard!]”. “I have many names” she continued “from my ancestors, and we must not forget them, or they will come back and bite us!” She owned up to her vampire nature but asserted that it was 422 years, 6 months and 5 days since she last tasted BLOOD! “I can say ze vord, I vill say ze word!”

She went on to tell us that in a special way we have all tasted blood. She related how through infinite Lspace she had heard of the great Roundworld poet John, the man who in Areopagitica (a defence of free speech) had written that “A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit”.* She concluded triumphantly that “Ve have all supped on ze life-blood of a master spirit –it it gives me enormous pleasure to introduce the source of our intellectual life – SIR TERENCE PRATCHETT!”(Wild applause)

Terry rose and acknowledged the tribute. He welcomed the newbies in particular and spoke of the craic which hung in the air. “As a vampire myself I enjoy your enjoyment ....” He had loved the Crowning of the Low King and the Maskerade. Thanks again to the Committee....Discworld fandom has evolved, fans bring their children – it matures – You don’t mature! (laughter).

The last third of Snuff (a new Discworld novel) had come to him as he was preparing for the Convention; and a final word to Bernard – “After that ‘bread’ you’re going to get my dentist’s bill!”

*(the text of John Milton’s Areopagitica is available on the Internet)

The Coronation Of The Low King

2010-09-02T16:51:00.002+01:00

by Jessica Yates

The votes were in, and of the seven dwarfs running in the election, the winner was Jennifer Delaney. Jennifer had campaigned in dwarf-costume and impressed the audience with her quick wit and good sense at the hustings which had been held during the Maskerade.

She sat on the Scone of Stone, made the ritual answers to the ceremonial questions and was handed a series of traditional symbols by Lady Margolotta von Uberwald. These were: an axe, a ruby, a witch’s broom, a wizard’s staff, a troll’s club, the owl and hippo of Ankh-Morpork, and a cabbage from the Sto Plains. By the end of this she resembled less a pharoah, and more a contestant in Crackerjack.

Crowned with a miner’s helmet and making her first speech as King, s/he commanded a regal presence as s/he thanked her campaign manager, supporters and her rivals, who had fought a clean campaign – the fools!

Well done to those Committee members who had prepared the order of coronation, and the symbolic objects to provide a really professional piece of role-play for our entertainment.

DWCon - catching old friends, making new friends.

2010-09-02T16:37:00.009+01:00

by Gemma

*_Friday_*

We arrived at the Birmingham Hilton round about midday, checked in and found our room, which was much nicer than the one we were given last time, and since that visit (the one In Which Gemma Broke Her Ribs Getting Out Of The Bath) the bathroom has aquired a rubber slipmat! Yay!

On heading back out of Registration (where I was given a sticker for my name badge meaning I could whack people with my cane if they got in my way jump queues) we found a Ssirienna, who was walking with a crutch after falling in the shower and badly spraining her leg. Ouch, that looked colourful and the bruising hadn't even started to come out properly! We joined her in the bar and chatted, watching wonderful costumes drifting by on numerous amazing people. Well, in the case of Butcher and Heather it was more *lack* of clothing, but they still both looked wonderful.

As the evening went on, our little table became The Table Of Cool, with Gid stopping by to serenade us, an Eric joining us for a drink and an Adrian, among others. We met a Taz, who turned out to be very sweet and funny, and then Tiggsybabes finally had the chance to join us and stayed for most of the evening until she had to get the kids to bed and rest up herself before the Opening Ceremony. Some Bloke In A Hat Who Writes Books was drifting around talking to various folks and Gid made me sing Summertime.. When I was done I discovered that I'd gathered a highly appreciative audience, and Gid had attracted a telling-off about public performance from the main organiser - oops! But how can you have a Convention without a bit of impromptu caterwauling singing?

I didn't make it to the Opening Ceremony; I had to go to bed early. Bah.

*_Saturday_*

We woke up nice and early and headed downstairs to the dining room, where we enjoyed a lovely fry-up in the company of Jan and Eric, before I headed off for a swim. I was joined by Ciciaye a little while after Dom decided to hop out.

I hadn't banked on just how out of practice and unfit I've become. I swam like a demon for two solid hours and am still paying for it! I still want to start going once a week though, after I've recovered from this whole weekend!

After the swim I found Jan and Eric in the bar, and Eric joked that all three "shower victims" were sat together (at the last Con he fell getting out of the shower on the same evening that I fractured my ribs getting out of the bath - thank heaven they've improved bathroom safety). Dom eventually joined us, and Anna texted to ask if I was downstairs before joining us herself. Tessa and MP also arrived for a little while, along with Adrian and Lisa.

A lady in the Dealer's Room decided that I needed to have a procedure to remove some unwanted money as a matter of emergency, and I swapped the annoying bits of paper in my purse for a cute little Orang-Utan. On seeing him Jan had to have one too, and returned with one that looked extremely shy compared to mine, who has a cheeky grin. I later went up to our room and discovered him humping my bedside lamp...

In the evening there were three events that we wanted to go to, which clashed with each other! So, we decided to do the Hedgehog Party first, then go to Affordable Graham's talk, and then I could do the music thing. As we were making these decisions a Kian bounced into a vacant armchair at our table and declared that he'd like to borrow one of my ukes, please! So this is how I met Kian.

On my way to get the ukes I bumped into Jan in the foyer, who was resplendant in an enormous but beautiful gown ready to take part in the Maskerade. I later discovered that she won!

Mary came down from her room to say hello, catch up and Share Gossip (very interesting Gossip it was too). She barely left her room, as she and Stu were amongst those lucky enough to recieve a free upgrade to an executive room - and so they had a lounge and a free bar. I think that next time we shall make use of the opportunity for a discounted upgrade too!

The Hedgehog Party was in full swing when we got there... as were Gideon's pants. The only way to describe Gideon's pants is... indescribable. Lurid is an understatement and they apparently broke The_Hunter's camera! There was also the Mysterious Case Of The Migrating Beard, which was sometimes a beard, sometimes a merkin and sometimes a wig. Mary and Anna reappeared, both on their umpteenth Pimms and both extremely giggly, which was fun and made me grin.

Dom, Kelly, Cat and I made a break for Graham's talk in a bid to try to unsee Gideon's shiny pants (not happening) and afterwards we went to the music thing. I eventually ended up in the bar with lots of other people, and Gideon's pants followed me! After a while I went back to the music thing - which wasn't anywhere near as much fun when organised as it was in the bar when it just sort of happened, and dragged myself to bed round about 2.30am. The Hedgehog Party was still going strong, but even Anna (who was tiddled and making everyone try a sip of this drink that tasted like After Eights!) had had enough by then.

*_Sunday_*

If you're an AFPer then it's a given that you were hung over. Dom, Lisa and I were sat in the bar after breakfast sipping tap water, when Gid swung in at about 10am. The conversation with the nice young lady on duty went like this:

Her: Good morning sir, may I help you?
Gid: *Grins broadly* Want beer!

How does he do it? How???

Had a text from Anna saying that she was feeling a bit fragile and tried desperately not to laugh. Then I went into the Dealer's Room, where I was divested of yet more annoying bits of paper which were replaced with a Greebo mug and fridge magnets of Nanny, The Librarian and Susan. Good trade!

Everybody was rather subdued today; I spent my whole time in the bar, quietly sipping white wine spritzers, sewing and watching the world go by. I also went back into the Dealer's Room to meet the lovely Gaspodia, who was running a stall and had *the* most adorable interactive Dinosaur! Frank The LJ Bear was officially handed over to Anna for further adventures too. Countertony turned up for T&J, but unfortunately I was in bed long before T&J happened!

*_Monday_*

Lady Kayla swapped me some funny looking round gold things for a pretty little choker, and another lady swapped me some other pieces of useless metal for two lovely, delicate pairs of earrings.

Came home. We're already suffering from SPWS (Shiny People Withdrawal Syndrome) and we're not enjoying the peace!

Desert Island Books

2010-09-02T16:35:00.004+01:00

by Ross Younger

(or, "books we think you might care to read whilst marooned on the Nation or waiting for Terry's next work").

Rachel began the discussion by telling us about the "Laundry" series by Charles Stross (The Atrocity Archives, The Jennifer Morgue and The Fuller Memorandum to date) and the "Sharing Knife" series by Lois McMaster Bujold (Beguilement, Legacy and more). She went on to pitch the "Jenny Casey" trilogy by Elizabeth Bear and the "Harry Dresden" series by Jim Butcher.

Mole spoke on two themes, worlds like ours (Guy Gavriel Kay - The Fionavar Tapestry, The Sarantine Mosaic and others) and completely alien worlds (Robert Silverberg - Majipoor series, A Time of Changes, Sailing to Byzantium and more).

Judith cited John Forrest's "The History of Morris Dancing" as a particularly good book to have on a desert island - not only for its in-depth coverage of the subject matter, but also a good example of how to research and write up a topic. She pitched "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein and Lois McMaster Bujold's "Vorkosigan" saga before recommending another fascinating reference book, "The Universal History of Numbers" by Georges Ifrah.

Ross concluded the session with three pitches covering past, present and future. He began by returning to Charles Stross, for the present-day (very near future) "Halting State", then journeyed far into the future with Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon The Deep". He wrapped up with a brief pitch for the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik (first book entitled "Temeraire" or "His Majesty's Dragon" in different editions).

Boring breakfasts? Not at a Discworld convention.

2010-09-02T16:20:00.004+01:00

by Marie Kirby

This year approximately half the attendees were first-time con-goers, myself included. The sheer amount of people milling around the hotel lobby on Day One is enough to send even the most brave of us con virgins running for the dried frog pills. Even with the assistance of the ingenious Voodoo* board, it's difficult to locate the small group of people you met on the first day; especially at breakfast**.

However, the often quoted 'come to the convention and leave with fifty friends for life' has truth to it. I soon discovered the best way to avoid looking incredibly lost and lonely with your breakfast tray is to gravitate towards the table with only one person on it and introduce yourself.

Finding myself in this particular predicament on Saturday morning, I made a bee-line for the back of the room where sat an intriguing lady by the name of Siobhan. You may have seen Siobhan gliding serenely around the lobby carrying an intricately-carved goat staff. The staff has mythical powers. No really, it has. Siobhan has many interesting tales to tell about the sceptics and the simply curious who have questioned it; including one Sir Terry.

As Siobhan tells it, Mr. Pratchett approached her in the lobby on Friday, at first innately curious and then sceptical about said staff. Terry made no secret of the fact that he had no belief in the spiritual, but when invited to, held the staff for just a moment. According to Siobhan, he went quiet then said, "I don't believe in this. But something unexplainable definitely happened there."

Funnily enough, inflatable kangaroo-wielder Sue (Weatherwax) then joined our table and made her own addition to the story: she had held the staff some time before Terry and had a similarly strange experience. Then she told us that she had just been speaking to Rob and Terry had spontaneously confirmed his attendance at the 2011 Australian convention!

Stranger things*** have happened!

* Because the best way to get someone's attention is to stick a pin in them.
** Regularly attended by Bilious, Oh God of hangovers and his zombie contingent.
*** Mostly also at the Discworld convention, but we're not admitting to that.

One AFPer's Memories

2010-09-02T16:05:00.007+01:00

by CCA (Lisa Williams)

Friday

Set off for Convention. Saw some guy clipping his nails at the wheel on the journey – yes, that’s right, clipping his nails, no hands on the steering wheel and looking down at his lap. On the motorway. Eeep.

Anyway, go to the Convention and checked in to what looked like the same single room as last time (good). Did the usual rounds of saying hello to friends I hadn’t seen for a year, or in some cases two. (Or, in the case of Supermouse, MP and Tessa, six years). Hugged quite a few of them :-) Went to the Guild room where I caught up with and hugged Hunter, Loriba/Lottie and Ssirienna/Jan. Jan had had a bit of a nasty fall in the shower that morning and was hobbling around painfully on a stick with Lottie as her helper/gopher. Said hi to Winterbay (Assassin’s Guild Leader with Kincaid)

Sessifet and I got together in the bar (good place to get together for most purposes!) to make little bags of ‘Dwarf Bread Ingredients’ (ie cat litter) to give to people along with recipes for Dwarf Bread, complete with ‘Contents not to be eaten’ disclaimers that Supermouse pointed out we might need in case people were confused/drunk and gave them a try. After this my brain started saying "You need tea, you really do…" so I wandered up to my room to wash, change and chill.

Opening Ceremony was fun. Terry seemed in fine spirits, and I think at one point he mentioned that his Alzheimer’s hadn’t progressed an awful lot in the past year or so, for which he got a deserved round of applause. Guild meeting afterwards featured a chap in a ‘Team Angua’ t-shirt he’d had made, and Davina, who I didn’t recognise as she was still a he, complete with menswear and a beard. Both of these came off during the Convention :-)

‘A Time and A Place’ for music was good fun. I sang Tom Lehrer’s ‘I Hold Your Hand In Mine’ with Ssirienna and Runesmith, and also joined in ‘Cool For Cats’ for Squeeze. I make no apology for the stupid mockney accent I affected… *g* Other notable moment included Heather wearing Eric Jarvis’s hat, and Mole’s rendition of his and Adrian Ogden’s filk ‘Mary Sue’, to the tune of ‘A Boy Named Sue’

A couple of people admired my long swishy skirt with loud swirly patterns, which was nice as it was getting its first outing.

Saturday

After the traditional huge Convention breakfast I visited the Dealers’ Room, which was a good opportunity to say hello to and hug Barry R who I hadn’t previously seen as he was busy guarding the Dealer’s Room door most of the time. (I went on to be ‘mugged’ by Dealer’s Room a couple of times during the weekend – chocolate hedgehogs for my parents and Steelcat, a badge with ‘Ask Again, I’m Shy’ and a lovely necklace from the dealer I shall call the wire wrapping lady. (Who I hope didn’t mind me geeking jewellery-making with her a few times!))

After this I went for a swim and saw Gemma from #afp who’d been in there for a good couple of hours or so! The swimming pool was lovely, and overlooked the lake. Even nicer when the sun was shining through the glass roof.

Martinoh arrived that afternoon, just in time for ‘The Man In The Hat’. As usual, Terry’s interview was funny and interesting. They had Steven Baxter up on stage at one point to talk about his and Terry’s forthcoming project ‘The Long Earth’. I won’t say anything about this as I’m not at all sure I remember the details, but it does sound promising. After this I went up to the Executive Lounge with SaintMaryUK who had an Executive Suite, so was allowed to use it. Lovely place, full of little canapés and cakes and free drink :-) Me and Mary had a nice time up there catching up (I haven’t seen any of her gang for a long time).

Maskerade can mainly be summed up by “Yaay, Ssirienna won!” She was dressed as Dame Gigli from ‘Maskerade’ and was singing what was known as ‘The Departure Aria’ (ie, ‘This damn door sticks, It sticks no matter what the hell I do…’) Min Lacey was her partner-in-sketch, holding up placards with the translations as they were sung. Other noteworthy entries include Richard Arkeley as Johsua Lavish, complete with quite a few of the Seamstresses’ Guild to help out; two women playing Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg as young women; and Brian Dale as the Patrician considering retirement. Oh yes, and Davina’s act was probably one of the most memorable *g*

Hedgehog Party! Probably one of my favourite events of the whole Convention, as it means surrounded by afpers and other Discworldians in the mood to party! I brought some of the world’s crappest modeling balloons (and they really were crap, but also very cheap), watched people blowing them up and having balloon fights, then danced like no-one’s watching for as long as the music lasts :-) By something like about 3.30 am, there were a group of about twenty hardcore dancers left (although most of the other probably had the benefit of alcohol, which I didn’t), as the general feeling was ‘Keep going till Shevek’s too knackered to play any more music…” (This did not happen for ages *g*)

Oh yes. Gideon Hallet’s leggings. Silver, tight, and worn with t-shirt that had a chain mail shirt over the top. I believe they were supposed to be micromail (hence the false beard too). I did at one point comment that, with the holding-a-balloon-posing he was doing, it looked bordering on obscene (by the way, this was a compliment) and he grinned and said he’d got the point where he didn’t really give a shit. Which I think kind of sums up the whole Hedgehog Party feeling, really. Like I said, dance like no-one’s watching :-)

I think I got to bed at about four am, and then didn’t get much sleep after that. I’d completely forgotten about the bottle of Bailey’s I’d brought along for visits by the insomnia fairy, and was too tired to go and pour any out anyway.

Sunday

Knackered. Had breakfast, chatted briefly to Dom, Gemma and Barry in the bar, and then went upstairs, had lunch at 11 am and went to bed for the rest of the afternoon. (Some sleep, but mostly lying down quietly). I missed the Swashbuckling, but from Heather’s photographs it looked good.

Got changed into my Gala Dinner clothes and met up with Loriba and Ssirienna downstairs. Both of these were wearing corsets and looked beautiful. Made me wonder about getting one. We were entertained by an artist called Mr B the Gentleman Rhymer, doing genteel versions of rap and hip-hop stuff. I sung along, but not too loudly.

The meal was lovely :-) Spending it with my friends made it even more so. There were speeches afterwards, and Terry seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. After dinner entertainment included ‘Drag Races’, for which Hamish had dressed up in appropriate gear *g* I went along to the Toast and Jam but there weren’t many people left in there, although I did get to see Plum42 reprise her version of Avenue Q’s ‘The Internet Is For Porn’ which I remember she did in 2008 too.

Once Loriba and Ssirienna had gone to bed, I wandered around looking for more chatting-with-afpers opportunities, but there weren’t any available, so I decided on an ‘early’ night at 2 am *g*

Monday

The usual Monday stuff of ‘Oh no, the Con’s nearly finished, buggerit’. The Rocky Horror Discworld Show was excellent, and then at the Closing Ceremony it was announced that Chairman Brian Nisbet would be Chairman again next time. Well, he did a great job this time, so why not? :-)

Did the rounds of hugging good friends who I know I won’t see again for another year or two, although I missed some as they were busy helping out with tech. I didn’t have the energy for the Hedgehog Party, and went home at about nine-ish, completely knackered and on a Convention high :-)

Same time in 2012, then? Excellent :-)

A Song and Dance - Ssrienna's Story Part 5

2010-09-02T15:49:00.009+01:00

by Jan Uzzell (Ssrienna)

Monday

All too soon the fateful day dawns – the end of the DW Con 2010!

I spent most of the morning nattering with more friends and trying to take Donal’s advice of trying to rest the leg (the bruises are still fairly flamboyant but the knee is really stiff and sore – sigh) Then off to Rocky Horror Discworld Show...what can I say that hasn’t already been said in other Con reports!

They were BRILLIANT! The cast, the sets, the narrator (Pat again!), the songs – all wonderful. I think my favourite bit is when Carrot (“dwarf”) is doing the Brad bit having just met an unusual Patrician and he says “Can we use your phone?” followed by “Go back to our car” and after each time he turns to Angua (“werewolf”) to mouth in complete confusion “phone” and “car”! Priceless again! Then they did the time warp with the ENTIRE con joining in (I tried from my seat ;)

They retired to Biers where they allowed people to take photos!!

After some more gossiping with old friends and new, it was then time for the closing ceremony. The first part went in a bit of a blur! All I could remember was “Oh God! We’ve got to go up and collect a trophy again” I still can’t believe it and yet I can turn my head and see it in my cabinet behind me!

I believe the Guild of Seamstresses won the Guild competition. As I was part of the Bonk Operatic Society, a non-competing guild so technically we couldn’t lose, I hadn’t kept up with all the guild activities, although I did hear of the “how many people can you stuff under a crinoline?”[1]

Then Brian had the stage and called up all the wonderful people who made up the Committee this year. A lot of thoroughly well deserved cheering and clapping followed all the people who’d given up seeing programme items, sleep, food and (almost) alcohol to make this, in Terry’s words, the BEST CONVENTION EVER!

We did speculate whether there would be another (Terry said there would be!) and who would Chair it … the photo says it all!

Here’s a HUGE thank you to all the committee members for a wonderful time and am looking forward to the next one in 2012. Who knows, I may even make some of the other ones! I’m definitely getting the habit!! How do I end this … Oh I know!

Fat Lady Has Sung!

[1] Apparently 15 – I’ve seen the photos!

The Day of Rest - Ssrienna's Story Part 4

2010-09-02T15:44:00.004+01:00

by Jan Uzzell (Ssrienna)

Sunday

I was woken at 0650 and decided, far too early, so thought I’d snooze. I finally woke at 1041 (sigh) having missed the Church of OM (again!) at 0900 and the Character Borrowing at 1100. What a good start!

I did, however, make the Headology and Psychology lecture, which was fabulous and the Charity Auction (in between going to Sator Square to buy things I could afford!!). There were some AMAZING things being sold and some unbelievable prices being paid … I wonder what it’s like in a rich man’s world (sigh)

Then it was back to my room to get changed, with Lottie’s help again (I really couldn’t have coped this weekend if not for her help and Donal’s assistance in Ops) for the Low King’s Coronation and the Gala Dinner at Lady Margolotta’s palace (Ankh). I managed to find a sofa near to the entrance of the Dysk, where I had great pleasure in photographing the wonderful costumes.

After the Low King’s Coronation (Jenny Delaney as Her Lowness), which I couldn’t see much of unfortunately, we moved through to the Gala Dinner. Lottie and Lisa were my table companions and we were enchanted to find beards and dwarven rolls ready for us! How thoughtful of Her Ladyship to ensure that the guests, who did not have beards, were able to fit in thanks to their completely realistic Boffo beards!

The food was delicious, the wine matching the witty repartee in its sparkle and the speeches were great. I did feel like falling through the floor again when Terry mentioned the Maskerade winner (me!) in his speech!! Talk about your surreal memories of a Con!! I floated out of there back into the Rat Races, which were still going. Listened again to Mr B the Gentleman Rhymer (mind bogglingly good) and then went on to Scone and Jam, before heading room wards again at 0200 (ish). I’m sensing a pattern here!

Triumph - Ssrienna's Story Part 3

2010-09-02T15:29:00.007+01:00

by Jan Uzzell (Ssrienna)

Saturday
This was crunch day! I’d spent most of the last 2 years planning a Maskerade entry, having enjoyed watching the 2006 and 2008 shows. I’d not felt confident enough to try a main character so was looking for a minor one or even a pen picture and, as I love music, I thought I’d try the musically themed ones first.
That’s when I re-read Maskerade and had the eureka moment on reading the Departure Aria description again. It’s always made me smile – the 17 stone lady pretending to be the 17-year-old consumptive in those sorts of opera and I was more than qualified to do that!! The bits of information about Dame Violetta Gigli in the book say that she originally sang the aria (well enough to inspire Dr Undershaft into a career of music) and that she once squashed a tenor.
I asked my music teacher to write me a piece of music suitable for the 6 lines we get in the book, having explained the background first and he produced a wonderfully bittersweet track, Lottie very kindly made me the hooped underskirt and another friend made the overskirt and shawl. I then wrote out the subtitles and created my 2D tenor to attach to the back of me! That’s when 1 month before the Con, I realised I needed someone to turn the cards, and my good friend Min volunteered. We did wonder about making her a dwarf, in honour of the Low King, but ended up with Walter Plinge, as it was more in keeping with the story.
So Saturday was spent being nice to the lovely people in the Maskerade Tech rehearsal – many thanks to Pam and Miss Treason, not to mention Shadow Dave and the wonderful people in the Green Room.
I did manage to do other things too! I caught (by accident) The Deterministic Monkey Theorem by Ian Stewart (having got the room wrong and thought I was in CSI: Ankh-Morpork) but it was fascinating and I’m glad I made the mistake! I was also then in the right place for Jaqueline Simpson’s spellbinding talk on “Elves: Nasty or Nice?” which was spiced up by the attendance of Periwinkle in her Queen of the Elves persona.

She “froze” Jaqueline and said she would be sat amongst us to listen to this mortal’s speech and that there would be retribution if she didn’t like what she heard! Jaqueline then “awoke” and apologised for being dizzy. It was a wonderful talk but, of course, towards the end she mentioned something that Her Elvish Majesty took exception to. However, Jaqueline was ready with a steel poker, having talked to Susan Sto-Helit! Most enjoyable!
I managed to catch “The Man in the Hat” interview with Terry which was lovely and even got into Sator Square, where the lovely people relieved me of some of the bothersome cash I had on me (thanks Gemma for that lovely image – pinched from her Con report!) Then it was show time!
Lottie very kindly helped me dress – laced me into corset, hoops and lastly the huge skirt. Then with other props in hand, we made our way downstairs. I had wanted OTT opera and by the Gods, I think I achieved it! In fact, on the way to the Green Room, several lovely people stopped me for photos and even gave me some hall tokens!!
Once in the Green Room the nerves started, but there were so many other lovely costumes and people in there that I soon got too interested nattering to others to worry. The only annoyance was, with Herr Kartoffelpuffer on my skirt, I couldn’t sit down and the hoops were so temperamental, I couldn’t use the crutch – sigh! We checked where our duo act was so Min could check how much time she had to change. She was helping me but also had her own routine as Lady Margolotta at a Temperance meeting (a la Joyce Grenfell Nursery School sketch – wonderful ;)
Soon we were on! I hobbled slowly to the back of the stage and was wired for sound! We couldn’t see “Davina” and the warm up sketch but it sounded fun! Then the 2 mins per contestant was whizzing through and we were on! I could hear Pat doing his usual superlative MC bit and suddenly he was reading out my speech:
“Ladies and Gentlemen, the management of this year's Maskerade are proud to announce a moment of culture from Ankh-Morpork.
We present part of the Departure Aria between the tragic lovers Iodine and Peccadillo, as sung by Dame Violetta Gigli (Ankh-Morpork) and Herr Flach wie ein Kartoffelpuffer (Uberwald)”
Min made her way across the stage as Walter, clutching a broom and the cards, to a ripple of recognition and applause. Then it was me! Shadow Dave had kindly agreed to be the other half of the off stage argument (and he did a wonderful job):
SM: That's your cue, Diva!

Me: But where's Herr Kartoffelpuffer, this is supposed to be a duet!

SM: We don't know! Just start and we'll send him on when we find him.
The show must go on!

Me: Very well!

On stage I went (slowly) to another ripple (I think for the costume ;), made it to centre stage and cued the tech tower with “Maestro!” The music started and I remember singing – I think I got to the end (it’s a bit of a blur) but I do know that Min was doing a wonderful job of turning the cards as the level of laughter was growing steadily (I can remember thinking “Yes! They get the joke!How wonderful!).

I got to the end note, held it, let it dramatically waiver and then turned to look for my tenor, then (as planned) both Min and I look at each other, shrug, I curtsey as best I can and turn to go. Now, Pam had already suggested to get the best view of the tenor, that I move as close to front of stage as I can before making the turn. This I do and the roar that greets me, as I turn round was most gratifying. More thoughts of “Yes!” internally and I then staggered off (the wrong side – apologies again Miss Treason)

Shaking like a leaf, I then hobble through to the Green Room, where I’m finally able to sit, and watch the rest of the show. There are SO many wonderful acts – we had a wonderful time, except when the sound went! We then come through to watch the Low King nominees being interviewed by Pat, while the judges (Brian, Terry, Bernard and Jaqueline) go off for their holy huddle.

Suddenly they’re back! All is attention as Brian reads out the judges’ decisions. There’s a special award for Poohcarrot as Lao Tzu for best surprise (he went “Boo!” before even starting the sketch!), a special junior winner Brighid Hurtubise as Concussia, Best Rookies were a couple of new con members Norbert Servant of Nuggan and Kevin an acolyte (they were great – I actually caught their at in the Green Room), Best Novice one of the Anguas, Best Journeyman was Brian (Bri Tze) as the Patrician (wonderful) and Best Master was Richard as Sir Joshua Lavish with, as Pat put it, the first ever pitch invasion of a Maskerade (30 seamstresses!).

So I’m stood at the back thinking that was great, then Brian does the build-up to Best in Show (and the silver trophy). Apparently, there’s usually an argument at this point with everyone trying to put his or her favourite forward. I’m thinking, it must be the Norwegians cos their sketch was brilliant! When Brian reads out “The Departure Aria”!!

Evidently the sharp intake of breath I took got Davina (who was nearby) wondering how I’d managed it (very tightly laced!) and also where’s the camera cos the photo if she keels over would be unbelievable! I’m swamped with lots of wonderful people all congratulating me, while I’m still trying to believe what’s been read out! But I manage to join Terry and Brian on stage, where I get a kiss from Terry (woo hoo!) and then the trophy itself!

I then ask what now and am told I have to do it again!! Which means people racing for props and Lottie having to re-pin the tenor to his previous position! As I have to back up to the curtains, I come out with “I’m sorry dear hearts, I don’t have reversing music” at which the entire auditorium goes “beep, beep, beep”! Priceless! I then improvise a bit more and we launch, finally, into “Questa maledetta” again. And everyone sings along! It was quite magical.

I have vague memories of LOTS of photos being taken, of my arms getting longer holding the trophy, of being interviewed by a lovely lady from the Chronicle (Nitta), of champagne (well a glass at least), of more singing and watching people at the Hedgehog party and finally bed at 0200 (ish).

Adversity - Ssrienna's Story Part 2

2010-09-02T15:26:00.007+01:00

By Jan Uzzel (Ssrienna)

Friday

And the Con changed! It started normally. I actually got up at 0700 and went swimming (as I promised my self I’d try to do for all of the on!). Then went back up to shower and go for breakfast. I thought I’d put the bath mat close enough to the shower door, but as I put my left foot out, my wet heel touched tile and – whoosh - I was on the floor!

I think the only reason I didn’t do more damage, is that I’m cautious getting out of strange showers and had hold of the shower frame. So instead of hitting my head, I clipped my right shin on the upright (very colourful bruising), banged & wrenched knee on shower step, wrenched hip and hit left side (another colourful bruise, which I didn’t discover until Sat morning) and clipped left elbow.

After teaching the bathroom a few choice Anglo-Saxon phrases (some of which I’d forgotten I knew), I checked that there was nothing broken, crawled upright, got dressed and “Went to Ops” … very slowly!

Donal was on duty and, Angel of Mercy that he is, swooped and made satisfactorily impressed noises of concern. Unfortunately his 1^st Aid bags were on a side trip of their own, having decided to pay the extra to see the luggage fleshpots of Gatwick airport, so he was with out cold packs. One call to the Hotel 1^st Aiders later and I had ice in a napkin on the bruising.

Donal was just trying to work out how to do his job, while holding an ice pack to my leg, when the 2^nd Angel of Mercy appeared. Henry Proctor had arrived and, discovering that Registration wasn’t open yet, had come to Ops to volunteer his services as a gopher. Donal recruited him gleefully as my “Ice Pack Holder”. They then discovered that I had not had breakfast, at which 3 Committee members asked what I wanted!

So one of the more surreal memories I have from this Con is being served a full English breakfast, with orange juice and tea, in Ops with a young man holding an ice pack to my leg!

Donal had also recommended that I go to A&E just to check that the knee and hip weren’t damaged more than just wrenched. The hotel paid for a taxi there & back again and Henry kindly accompanied me there (Solihull A&E). We were in and out in about 2 hours, clutching some heavy-duty painkillers – nothing broken or dislocated - huzzah!

I also had a crutch to use – which was a lifesaver. Although, I threatened so many people at the Guild Fayre, where I was the Stunt Double for my illustrious and talented Guild Deputy (Essy) who was at RHDS rehearsals, that the Watch made me have a Watch tag (i.e. “This crutch is harmless. It’s owner, however, we make no promises regarding” – thanks Jenny!)

What I remember about the rest of Friday, apart from the opening Ceremony, which was fun, is catching up with a lot of friends – Lottie (who became my personal gopher for the Con – thanks again!), Gemma, Dom, Mole, Lisa (CCA), Gideon, Jenny, Rgemini, Eric, Adrian, Gid & Suzi, Ali from #afp, Kerry Ann, Essy, Xris and lots more and making new friends – all of whom were considerate and kind about the injury and suitably impressed with the bruises and description!

I also made sure that I was registered for Maskerade, got to see the Audience with Stephen Briggs (complete with the Princess Bride sword – drool!) which was wonderful, and attended the afternoon at the Ankh-Morpork Palladium (which I was unable to participate in as I’d stupidly left the words to Lisa’s filk in my room) but the ladies who did take part were FABULOUS (Jacqui, Lady Pinque, Essy, and someone who did Magrat, whose name I didn’t catch).

I also hobbled to Once More with Feeling, where I met Eric, Stu, Edmund, Gid and other talented musicians whose names I didn’t catch for a most enjoyable singing session. Runesmith sang a brilliant D&D inspired song “My gods’ better than your gods” and they indulged my requests to sing “Bonny Black Hare” and a Tom Leherer song “I hold your hand in mine”. Off to bed at gone 0200, tired but very happy!

The Seventh Discworld Convention

2010-09-02T15:12:00.005+01:00

by Russell Landy

Seemingly I was one of the 50% newbies that were mentioned so often over the course of the weekend. I will ignore how hidebound this comment was for the purposes of this article as I had attended the amazing first ever Irish con the previous year.

I don't want to make assumptions for the other 899 attendees but I had an absolutely brilliant time and this was mainly due to the other 899 people there. Despite having been to the amazing first ever Irish con in 2009, I was not really sure what to expect in Birmingham. I knew that it would be bigger of course but size does not always matter. And in the same way that expanding an eagle by an order of four will not make it fly higher, faster or longer, quadrupling the number of attendees will not necessarily make for a better convention.

But just to ensure that I kept an open mind on this, I decided to arrive in Birmingham on Thursday evening so as to have the opportunity to see and experience as much as possible. I arrived just in time to miss the food that was available in the quiz - which was fiendishly hard. But luckily the bar was open and it was not the first time I have had to take my calories in liquid form.

Wandering around the room and spotting some familiar faces (from the amazing first ever Irish con in 2009) helped me to quickly discard the roundworld mindset and settle down in to what would eventually turn out to be one of the best weekends in a long time. Even only getting 1 question right in the quiz was not enough to dampen my enthusiasm; I just accepted the fact that I am obviously an illiterate, blinkered idiot who shouldn't be allowed out without an aide and moved on to enjoying myself.

Advice Interlude: Do not stay up drinking until 4:00 am in the bar if you have not eaten anything. You may regret it the next day.

Friday started bright and cheerful, and after breakfast I moseyed along to The Lancre Forge to register and receive the goodie bag. I also found out where Ops was (just in case) and because I am that sort of person, did a quick walk around of the hotel to make sure that I knew where all of the rooms were. You may laugh now, but you never knew when figuring out the quickest/easiest route from Ankh to the Cavern could come in handy. Obviously I was working out the routes from all the rooms back to Biers - because that would definitely come in handy over the weekend.

Fully awake and in DW mode, I jumped straight in and joined a team in the UU challenge. The less said the better, but at least we finished with a positive number of points which is something. This was quickly followed up by some games of werewolf which as an icebreaker is always a good laugh.

At the opening ceremony I got to see (and feel) exactly how much body heat could be generated by 900 people. I think I can sum up Brian's speech with 3 little words "go to ops". I am sure there was other stuff, but it was probably unimportant. Hearing Terry speak was, as ever, well worthwhile and it was good to see him in such fine form as it boded well for the rest of the con.

Back in the main room after the guild meetings, I was surprised to see how empty it was for the Bedtime Stories. For anyone out there who missed it - you fools. The first 50 pages of Snuff were read out by Rob (luckily without the need for him to attempt a Feegle accent) and I for one was on the edge of my seat waiting to hear where the story was going. Afterwards the conversation in the bar turned towards where we thought the plot was going and despite being told later on by both Colin and Rob that Tim and I were a million miles away, I am not convinced. Friday night ended up more or less like Thursday " no Hobgoblins left"1 with another 4:00 am finish.

Advice Interlude: See previous advice.

Saturday rolled in and I was desperately trying to decide what to do, find out about the history of money, or elves. Should I attend the talk on criminal minds or deterministic monkeys? How useful would it be to hear Donal tell the newbies what to expect and do (go to ops) at the con for a second time or listen to some unexplained mysteries. Did I want to embarrass myself in another UU challenge or the hedgehog race? And then of course there was the age old question regarding lunch and whether it is worthwhile missing something just to eat. Having read the readme, and the pre-con blogs and listened to Brian I realised that until cloning was perfected I was going to have to miss out on some stuff. But what I did get to (mysteries, criminal minds, elves, hedgehog, no lunch) was very informative and obviously fun.

I decided to take it easy in after Terry's interview in expectation of a great maskerade. I was not disappointed. Pat was, as expected, in fine fettle and managed to ignore the cacophony of barnyard noises aimed in his direction to run the event. While I may not have fully agreed with the judges decisions regarding the winners, I assume that they had their reasons. Far be it for me to suggest that they would be anything but infallible. The end of another great day, and it seemed like I had been there for weeks at that stage.

As with all discworld events (according to Brian), if it happens once it is a tradition, if it happens twice it is a long standing tradition. I therefore traditionally ended up in the bar after the maskerade until around 4:00 am. I am nothing if not consistent. That evening the talk turned to whether the chairman really is immortal and therefore immune to (successful) assassination attempts, how Stephen Briggs had succumbed to poisoned popcorn and the advisability of shaking hands with assassins in general.

Sunday started more or less just like Saturday. There was lots to do, various places to be, people to see (if only for just long enough to slip a venomous snake in to their pocket) and food to eat.

Advice Interlude: If attending the story telling competition try and not allow yourself to be volunteered unless you have something prepared.

Of course when it comes to telling stories, Bernard is unparalleled and can always be relied upon to be politically correct, brief, child friendly and keep on topic. All that remained afterwards was relax and wait for the evening's entertainment to commence. Yes it was the moment we were all waiting for.... the coronation of the low king. I do not want to use the words "fix", "gerrymandering" or even "cheating" so I won't. Suffice to say that politics in any form is always interesting.

I had an inkling that the gala dinner would be fun when I saw the small loaf of dwarf bread provided to all of the guests. During Terry's (short) speech I found my attention was diverted by the only staff member still in the room and who was trying (and failing) to not laugh convulsively. I got the feeling that if he wasn't a fan before the weekend he was definitely one by then. Returning to the Dysk afterwards for the Rat Race events was the perfect end to yet another long and awesome day. The only possible improvement would have been if Pat had shown up for his inhumation. Next time though.

Advice Interlude: Never bypass the opportunity to receive some reverse phrenology from a lovely (if mad) Irish girl.

Monday dawned (at around 6:00 am) and I realised that this was it, the end of my first ever DWCon (not withstanding my attendance at the amazing first ever Irish con in 2009). If I had one complaint, it would be that holding the Great Hedgehog Race at 9:00am was slightly biased in favour of any non-drinkers. It is all about the taking part and not blowing anything up. I was suitably embarrassed, and have already been in discussions with some engineer friends of mine for advice on the hedgehog for the 2012 con.

It was nearly time for the highlight of the whole weekend - not the RHDS , the "So You Think You Can Do It Better". How could I resist the opportunity to tell the committee about all of their blunders, goofs, mistakes, errors, bloopers, and cock-ups. I was a bit concerned that there was only an hour put aside for this event and that it was being held in the Odium. I did believe that an event of this magnitude should be scheduled over two-three hours in the Dysk. But seriously both the committee and the hotel staff had done an amazing job to ensure that everything ran as smoothly as possible. I was surprised to hear that we had drunk 10,000 bottles of beer and can see some sort of song being sung concerning walls, ales and bottles falling at future cons.

A late addition to the programme was the talk by various representatives regarding all of the upcoming cons in 2011. It was poorly attended - probably because not everyone knew about it, and most people seemed to have spent the hour queuing for the RHDS. So for those of you who were not aware, we heard about five (yes five) discworld conventions that will take place in 2011. So for anyone who has not already planned their holidays yet, I suggest you make sure your passport is up to date.

Australia (April), Netherlands (May), USA (July), Germany (September/October) and Ireland (November). I have not been to any of the others but I can say that the first Irish con in 2009 was amazing.

As I left the room, I realised that the person I had thought was queuing for me was there as she had a reserved seat. I envisaged sitting so far back from the stage that I would be in the bar and was not (like Vimes) a happy camper. But thanks to the luck of the Irish there was one door in that despite having both gophers and watchmen at it, had no queue. So at 13:00 I sauntered in and found a seat almost at the front where I had a wonderful view of a great production. Congratulations to everyone who gave their time to put on such an amazing show for our benefit.

All that remained was the closing ceremony, the dead monkey party and farewells to new and old friends. I am trying to juggle my schedule to make it to as many cons next year as possible and hope to see many of you there as well. With any luck they will all be as amazing as the second Irish con in November.

I would just like to say a huge thank you to everyone involved in making a brilliant weekend; the chairman, committee, volunteers (gophers, watch, crew), guests, hotel staff and all of the other attendees. I am only sorry that I didn't get a chance to speak to more of you.

How To Make a Charmander Costume for the Children’s Maskerade in 30 Steps (Thank You Chaos Costuming!)

2010-09-02T14:51:00.020+01:00

by Louisa Bird

1. First, love your child enough (or be insane enough) to consider it A Good Thing when, after claiming no interest in the event, she suddenly, at 7pm the night before, demands a costume to take part in theChildren’s Maskerade at 11am the next morning. Also love your child enough (or be insane enough) to say “OK!” with a big smile when she further insists that the costume she wants is neither simple nor Discworld in nature.

If these two conditions do not apply, avoid wandering in to Chaos Costuming and letting said child rummage through the glorious pile materials. This is how they Get Ideas.

2. While child is racing back and forth bringing various material to you that she deems suitable for the costume, demand child’s other parent finds you a picture of Charmander on his Blackberry so you can actually try to make the costume look vaguely like what it is supposed to be. On production of picture, frantically turn mental wheels to work out how the %&**!”* you are supposed to achieve this given your limited time and skills. Refrain from mentioning that Pokemon are not usually considered denizens of the Discworld and concentrate on the joyous grin on beloved child’s sticky mush to aid your ability to rise to challenge.

3. Look through materials your child has brought you. Realise you need to help her in selecting appropriate bits as her 6 year old brain apparently has no clue about the sort of things relevant to costume making, such as: is it the right size to do the job? or: is the colour an accurate representation of the thing you are copying as well as pretty? Etc.

4. Find, and get child’s approval of, what appears to be the only large bit of suitably orange material left. Thank some minor god. Then curse same god as it dawns on you that you are Really Going To Do This.

5. Study material and try to work out best way of using it to make a costume that looks reasonably Charmaner-like in the simplest and quickest way possible. Decide a tunic with arms would work best after puzzling for a while. Avoid thinking yet about the tail or head to prevent panic causing mind to go blank. Also avoid asking anyone the time.

6. Fold material in half and hold against child. Cut off anything that is roughly below the knee. Wrap these pieces round child’s arms to check your desperate hope that they will go all the way round with enough room to sew them together while still allowing child to actually bend her arms. Discover that you are in luck and this is in fact the case. Also discover you need to cut a bit off the end so she can see her own hands.

7. Cut sleeve material down to size, then take material for tunic folded in half and, hoping you have halfway accurately figured out where the middle of the fold is, cut a semi circle across the fold to create a ‘head hole’, then cut a slit along the fold going out from either side of the head hole. Stick the thing over unsuspecting child’s head to ensure it neither refuses to move past the ears nor keeps going down until the whole thing is a pile on the floor. Be pleased with yourself when it sits neatly on shoulders like it’s supposed to. Do not yet give in to impulse to cheer wildly – the problems of head and tail are still lurking in background ready to flummox.

8. Wrap sleeve pieces around child’s arms again while tunic is on to work out the best way of fixing them on. Decide optimistically that you can do without pins as they will Slow Things Down. Eye sewing machine in corner with some trepidation. Previous experience of the things is that while they are faster than hand sewing (and easier on the fingers) they are also possessed by mischievous demons that ensure the thread will break and/or get hopelessly tangled, the needle will shatter, something will jam, the wrong bits of material will end up sewn together or, as on one memorable occasion with my mother’s sewing machine, the foot pedal will take on a life of its own before smoking and catching fire. They are also a pain to rethread.

9. Take deep breath and ask nice Chaos Costuming person for help with sewing machine. Nice Chaos Costuming person is very willing to help despite being busy with last minute preparations for the Proper Maskerade which is due to start in an hour. Even when you manage to de-thread the “**&!* machine after the very first seam.

10. Tentatively use sewing machine to stitch sleeve together. Realise this was a mistake when then attempting to attach the now tubular piece of material to the flat tunic using sewing machine. Learn from this and attach second sleeve as flat piece THEN stitch sleeve seam. Hope that you have worked out which bits need to be inside out and which don’t correctly so that no bit is inside out, upside down or the wrong way round once sewn together. Breathe small sigh of relief when it becomes obvious you managed to do so correctly.

11. Look at wobbly, extremely obvious stitching around shoulders which proclaims your lack of expertise with a sewing machine to the world. Decide that if child had wanted something better she should have given more warning and determine Not To Worry and that child should be Thankful For What They Have. Pretend the stitching is invisible and turn mind reluctantly to problem of the TAIL.

12. Look at material you have available. Realise that child has brought some material that is surprisingly suitable for the flame at the end of the tail if scrunched up. Also realise that there is enough orange stuff left to make reasonably long tail and still have some left over to completely cover child’s head (in anticipation of you eventually figuring out what the head is going to look like). Quickly banish all thoughts of the head from the mind in order to avoid panic attack. Foolishly ask someone the time. Learn you have 20 mins left before Chaos Costuming closes. Panic in a mild but philosophical way.

13. Look hopefully about to see if anything that resembles stuffing is lying around. Spot bag of stuff hiding on table behind large boxes of needles, threads and other such useful goodies and sag comfortably in relief. Cut very long, vaguely triangular piece of orange stuff. Consider the sewing machine suspiciously and decide hand-stitching will work better for this bit. Hunt around, and find, a needle and some thread that is miraculously the right sort of colour (orange). Sew away happily while chatting to other people, mainly about how sweet/active/loveable/evil your respective children are. Learn that this is not the first Pokemon to ever grace the Discworld Convention and that precedent was set by a Jigglypuff some years earlier. Remember to sew in a tuck about halfway along so the tail will look curvy in a poor light with a bit of imagination. Remember not to stitch over the very tip of the tail so when/if you get around to making the flame you can insert it and sew it in.

14. Get stuffing and, aware a losing battle is about to be fought, attempt to force a wad of it along a narrow tube of fabric with a bend in the middle. Fail hopelessly. Look about for stick. Spot an unsuspecting Sir Joshua Lavish holding a riding crop .....

15. After the judicious application of borrowed riding crop, tail should look pretty well stuffed. Return implement to owner before he panics that it is lost forever minutes before he is supposed to use it onstage. Forget to thank him profusely (but do it later in article for Chronicle – Thank You Sir Joshua!) Hear someone call out “5 mins before Chaos Costuming closes”. Panic wildly until given the affirmative answer to the question; “CAN I TAKE SOME STUFF TO FINISH THIS IN MY ROOM?”

16. Go to room. Attempt to put children to bed. Think wishfully of the times long past when it was considered acceptable practice to drug children with Opium extracts to get them to sleep. Consider outright murder. Think unkind thoughts of husband who has nipped out to enjoy the evening activities without you. Realise around 9.30pm that they are actually asleep at last. Wish you could join them. Get out needle and orange stuff instead. Try not to think about missing the ‘official’ Maskerade too much. Put nose to grindstone.

17. Think for a few mins about the head. Come up with absolutely no solution that will work when you only have a few hours and limited materials to hand. Give up and move on to creating flame for tail. Get out yellow material to cut and think in passing that the material looks like a headscarf. Have Lightbulb Moment.

18. Check orange stuff and determine there is enough to make a headscarf. Feel relief when there obviously is plenty. Cut a triangle out and stealthily place it across head of sleeping child to check it will approximately fit. Feel like genius when it seems to. Move away quickly when child shows alarming tendency to wake up. Decide not to do that again if you can help it. Put to one side with lightening of heart as next major problem has been solved. Turn back to Tail.

19. Scrunch up a strip of yellow material. Sew quickly, and badly, to hold together. Scrunch up and sew on as you go a bit of red material around the outside. Sew newly made flame to end of tail. Realise stitching is undoubtedly not permanent, but ignore on basis that at this time of night anything that lasts until tomorrow is Brilliant.

20. Hold up tail. Realise it looks very sad and floppy as flame is too heavy for end. Take deep breath, look round hotel room for inspiration and light on empty sausage roll packet containing plastic tray. Sparing no thought for room carpet, cut plastic into strips as quietly as possible (under the covers quite good for muffling sound likely to wake sleeping children).

21. Take bull by horns (or Charmander by tail) and cut stitching a short way from flame end of tail. Insert plastic strips and rearrange stuffing with fingers, then fight with material and cotton to sew the whole thing back up again. Extra hands would be useful here. If only 2 available, mentally cursing the costume, child, bedside clock and absent husband may assist in staving off desire to give up and go to sleep.

22. Hold up tail. See It Is Good. Realise it is unlikely to stick up tall and proud once attached to unsupportive tunic. Decide not to care right now. Place tail on back of tunic to find best looking position and consider best methods of attachment. Decide to cut slit in back of tunic and two slits up base of tail where there is a lack of stuffing. Hope slit is reasonably central and feed base of tail through. Secure with very poor ‘its 11pm at night, I’m knackered and frankly don’t care about anything but speed anymore’ stitches.

23. Hold up tunic. Watch tail droop to floor. Study for a moment or two and decide that a long length of cotton attached between the top of the tunic and tail, to be got from Chaos Costuming on the morrow, would probably keep it upright without being too difficult or time-consuming to achieve. Stop thinking of more elaborate and unachievable/silly solutions and move on to the headscarf.

24. Make two eyes and stitch either side of the headscarf. Two circles of yellow stuff with two half circles of black quickly stitched together work quite well even though not totally accurate according to what you remember from earlier glance at picture. Ignore the obvious and awful stitching. The child Won’t Notice.

25. Think about making big pointy teeth and claws to stick to sleeves. Decide to leave that til morning and collapse into bed.

26. After breakfast, settle in to sewing again. Get child to stand still long enough to try on outfit and check position of headscarf fastening and teeth. In lieu of actual fastening, decide to sew headscarf together where fastening should be. Think about making teeth.

27. Decide teeth need to be reinforced to stay upright, and hunt down the only bit of cardboard in the room which is already earmarked for other child’s wizard’s hat. Cut out base of hat and use scraps to produce small triangles. Place against yellow material and cut out triangles twice the size. Fold the yellow material triangles and sew along the opposite edge to make triangular pockets. Insert cardboard triangles, fold bottom up and sew along the fold through the cardboard to the ‘mouth’ part of the headscarf. Costume is now resplendent with big pointy fangs. Child is ecstatic.

28. Do bits to other child’s costume, cutting out material for hat and cloak (the original reason for visiting Chaos Chostuming in the first place) then get down to Chaos Costuming for 10am opening. There is now 1 hour remaining to finish both outfits. Charmander gets a large piece of cotton sewn between top of tunic and end of tail to hold tail up and claws cut out of yellow material attached with glue (Tip, PVA is not the most inspired choice with only minutes to go before official wearing of costume. For future reference, the glue gun glue dries much faster)

29. Madly finish other child’s costume while daughter shows off Charmander costume to a warm reception. Try sewing machine, struggle valiantly with one seam then resort to glue gun. Use lots of glue and pester nice Chaos Costuming people for miscellaneous items such as long strips of Velcro, more glue sticks, glitter glue and a working sewing machine. Finish with nothing to spare and run to join the Maskerade. Once you arrive, send husband straight back to Chaos Costumes for a couple of safety pins when it becomes obvious child’s pants are on show to everyone, you having taken the decision not to sew up the sides of tunic.

30. Sit back and bask in child’s pleasure in costume as she prances about accidentally hitting people and things with her gently waving tail. Refrain from mentioning that the hasty nature of the creative process means the costume is likely to have the lifespan of a demented mayfly but feel pleased it is complete and will at least last out the hour. Listen with concern and suspicion as child proclaims that “I love my FIRST Charmander costume!”..........

Day 3

2010-09-02T13:58:00.003+01:00

by Darrock, Guild of Seamstresses

I am sorry to report that my poor psyche is in shock. I have discovered that the seamstresses provide a lot more to society than I ever imagined. It has taken much effort to hide my shock from my fellow seamstresses, but for the time being I believe they are still unaware.

It is becoming harder to hide my deceptions from the guild however. I have had to reduce the amount of clothes that I wear and push forward my wife and children in the hopes of deflecting any awkward questions.

Today for instance, I managed to get both my children into a fancy dress competition. This competition had many wonderful costumes and performances that put my efforts to shame. Nevertheless, this provided some camouflage to hide behind while wondering how I could extricate myself from this difficult situation without incriminating myself (oh, erm, and the UU, yes, them too).

It worries me to think that “hugs” and “cuddles” might turn to “thugs” and “cudgels” if I do not manage to keep up appearances. I believe I have arranged a way out for tomorrow so that I can return to Ankh Morpork and my former life, report to the Arch Chancellor and hopefully put the shameful events with Sir Joshua and his friends behind me.

If this turns out to be my last report, let it be known that I have gone lower than any wizard has ever been known to go and definitely above and beyond the call of duty in order to discover the truth behind the seamstress guild.

Day 2

2010-09-02T13:52:00.002+01:00

by Darrock, Guild of Seamstresses

The guild still has no idea of the depth of my deceit. It would seem that they are being hired by Sir Joshua for some kind of “display”. Judging from the conversations whispered on the street corners, there is nothing that the Seamstresses will not do for Sir Joshua, though I have no idea quite what they mean by that.

As far as I can tell, the Seamstresses do not have enough work to do. They spend much of their time away from their houses, looking for commissions. Since there are a large number of Seamstresses, I can only assume that the commissions they take are worth considerably more money than I can warrant. The seamstresses seem to follow a similar sleeping pattern to your average UU student, sleeping through to early afternoon and staying up very late, and indeed sometimes into the early hours.

I have been asked to join in with the events around Sir Joshua. No-one seems to be able to tell me what to do. There appears to be some singing and standing around and more than anything it reminds me of a night down the Mended Drum. We will see what happens later.

Blood, Guts and Misdirection - The Werewolf Report

2010-09-02T13:46:00.006+01:00

by Darrock, Guild of Seamstresses

I was stumbling around, feeling somewhat lost, when I came across a village. It seemed a pleasant enough village to me, with sprawling vineyards (which made very pleasant wine), meandering apple orchards with trees seemingly straight from the garden of Eden itself (which made a very pleasant cider) and some farming bits so you wouldn’t starve.

Suffice to say, I decided to stay overnight at the local inn, so that I could continue my wanderings the following day. The innkeeper looked somewhat nervously at me, but could not say no to the cash I brandished and so he let me stay. He did give warnings to close and lock the doors and windows at night and I wondered idly at the sincerity in his voice since there did not seem a reason to block out the warm summer air.

The following morning, I woke to cries of alarm and concern. The villagers wailed and a great ruckus ensued. I dressed and packed, unsure of what was happening, but certain that the villagers were in distress. As I ventured downstairs, I noticed a group of four burly farmers in quiet conversation with the innkeeper, who was gesticulating frantically but keeping his voice low.

As they saw me come down the stairs, one of the farmers accosted me and demanded to know what the farmer had told me last night. I told them that he had warned me to lock doors and windows and for some reason they seemed satisfied by this and left.

As I was preparing to leave the town, I saw a large crowd gathered round an old yew tree. Being inquisitive by nature, I strolled across to enquire of the happenings and discovered, to my horror, that a young lady was being hung. In morbid fascination, I spoke to various people to discover that a small child had been savaged and killed overnight and that the townspeople blamed this poor lady of the crime, believing her to be a werewolf.

After this, I left the village hastily, feeling that perhaps I should avoid such insane retributions in case the finger of blame should shift my way. After all, the meal last night had been very nice, but there were always other villages, less aware of the dangers than this one...

Werewolf was a very enjoyable game, held in over this weekend and it was great fun. If you have not had a chance to join in a game, do try to make the time and see what the fuss is all about.

And so it ends, and The Hunter

2010-09-02T13:43:00.003+01:00

by Gary Webber, The Hunter

So. That's it. Two years of planning, preparation, work, investment in time and effort and energy. Gone. Done. Finished. Thanks. It was fun.

No, that's not right. Rewind, rethink, replay.

So. That's it. Two years of planning, preperation, work, investment in time and effort and energy. Not gone, not done, and not finished. Invested in the future. Shared equally between the hearts and minds of all who attended. Attendees, guests and committee alike have taken with them a small percentage of what went in to the event. Not the money, not the planning, not the preparation, although these things were huge investments in and of themselves. They've gone away with just a little bit of Discworld in their hearts. And this bit of Discworld is better than any other investment they will ever make. The value of Discworld will only ever go up. Disclaimers need not apply.

I attended the Hedgehog Party, and as is my wont I observed, and I saw this investment first-hand. Shevek was doing his usual faultless job of providing music that seamlessly slid from the 1960s (my era) to the here and now (probably your era) and in the middle of the floor, balloons flying and occasionally popping, was Distilled Discworld Fandom.

For those who don't know, a brief history lesson. Many years ago, when I still had dark hair and some of my own teeth, there existed on the internet something called newsgroups, which were basically publically accessible emails. Like an online noticeboard with feedback. One such group was called Alt.Fan.Pratchett. In this group people posted stuff. It was occasionally about Terry Pratchett. He posted too, for a while. More often it was about cake, chocolate, music, chicken, computers, Star Trek, underwear, more chocolate...It was filled with people from all over the globe. It was filled with people from all different ethnic groups. It was filled with people from almost all political perspective, religeous affiliations...it was a people soup. There were, however, two constants. An affection for Terry Pratchett, and a total acceptance of people for who and what they were. It had no choice. It was, as I say, a people soup. People had disagreements, certainly. But they were, for the most part, resolved. Yes, there were the occasional falling-out, but these too were, for the most part, resolved. It may have been a people soup, but it was made out of people, and they have a habit of being human...And you can see for yourself, It still exits. (The actual history of Alt.Fan.Pratchett is even more bizarre, the reason for its existance a fairy-tale, and the result of this fairy tale is a story for another day)

A group of AFPers, as they called themselves, organised meets, where they got to...well...meet. They got kinda out of hand, and before you knew it, a Convention was born. And once something has been done once, it is a tradition...And it grew. People got together. People did the things people do once they have got together. And having done the things people do, new people were born. And they were infused and enthused with Discworld, and the AFP mindset and philosophy.

And this is the investment.

I sat and watched, and I got a bit of a lump in my throat. There were young people dancing happily, un-self-consciously, totally secure with themselves, and totally comfortable in a diverse company of ages and orientation. They were unjudgemental, they were unbiassed, they were the Next Generation of AFPers. They were the legacy of the old guard. We had passed on to them the security, the open-mindedness that we had developed. And it is an investment to nurture. Our planet, this roundworld, needs people like them for our future, and for theirs.

Terry mentioned in the closing ceremony the cohesiveness of Discworld fandom. The ability to pull together, whether for our own or other people's benefit. He's the person who invests the most, but I hope we're returning that investment with interest.

So. That's it. Two years, four, ten fourteen years of planning, of preparation, of investment in time, energy...
If you are one of the many people brought together by Terry Pratchett and Discworld, and your kids are now following in your footsteps, take a moment to look at them. Your investment in our future. Be proud of them. Be extra proud of them. Oh, and take the time to feel a little smug. Your love of the Discworld genre means you get an extra percentage interest on your investment.

So. That's it. Two years of planning, preparation, work, investment in time and effort and energy.Gone. Done. Finished? Is it heck! Brian just pressed *Pause*...

See you in 2 years

And now it really starts, and The Hunter

2010-09-02T13:37:00.003+01:00

by Gary Webber, The Hunter

And so, now it really start

There is a moment. A define-able, pinpointable moment in any Discworld con, when the day goes from a collection of friends having a drink to a convention. For me it is usually when the first guitar is produced, the first chord struck, the first quavering voices raised in ribald song. It is usually co-incidental with the point at which the proportion of costume to casual dress tips in favour of the costume. Therefore I am now technically at the convention since about 3pm yesterday!

However, there is a dark side to conventions. A negativity. Not, you understand, in the way it is run. Nor in the attendees, who are to a member brilliant, Nor in any way shape or form is the organisation anything less than remarkable. A 900 piece chess set, a 3 dimensional game, wherein the idea is not checkmate, but check-out. In fact, everything is positive except the nomenclature.

Consider. I am staying at home and commuting to the event daily. As a result at 8am I am con-descending. Other people stay in the hotel for the whole time, in the wonderful selection of rooms, which is definitively in-con-venient. However, a Landrover camper lurks outside and the users are of course con-tent. The whole thing is a conspiracy!

At the end of the day (or early the next morning, to be honest) I head home. I am, at that time, un-conventional. But at the end of the weekend the whole of the group will depart for their own homes across the planet, hearts heavy at the loss, the finality. They are to a member Miss-con-strewed. And you're reading this with an air of cynicism. Un-convinced?

Gaz Hunter

Discworld musings, and The Hunter

2010-09-02T13:36:00.003+01:00

by Gary Webber, The Hunter

It exists in the head of a child in Mumbai. it exists in the head of an old man in Anuppur.
In Nyíregyháza it is being constructed, the building blocks of words placed brick by brick on the foundations of a fertile imagination. In Evandale and Blagoveshchensk, Baltimore and Phuthaditjhaba its geography is firmly established in the minds and hearts of readers. Yet were you to ask your GPS, your TOMTOM or Garmin to take you there it would fail. No such place exists.

And yet...

In 1983 a most extraordinary man with the power to turn sentences into space, words into worlds, paragraphs into people and places wrote *The Colour of Magic* . Just a book. Just an idea. Yet in 27 years the book, and its 36 sequels have reached across the world. Translated into numerous languages, made into audiobooks, films, radio plays, comics, they have actively touched the lives of millions, drawing them into a world-wide web of Discworld fandom. You are reading this now because a man with a hat and a love of carnivorous plants put down his fork 27 years ago and thought *Ooh, that's an idea!* In the hands of most writers the idea could have worked, it could have been a bit of a giggle, it may have sold quite well.

And yet...

I'm sure that when Rincewind and Twoflower caused the first insurance fraud that nearly wiped out Ankh Morpork Terry had no idea of the uniting influence his words would have. it was an amusing idea that might have legs.

And yet...

The Dysk. Sator Square. Biers, Ankh, Morpork. Not real. We all know them because of The Books. They exist in our heads, because we know the geography of this ridiculous place, The Discworld. A flat world, perched preposterously on Pachyderms, carried on a chitinous Chelonian carapace. How on earth could this be real?

And yet...

People have drawn maps so we can identify and locate with absolute precision somewhere that cannot possibly occupy the same physical space as ourselves. Ankh Morpork is no more real than Utopia or Atlantis, yet because you are reading this you *know* that is is a citly bisected by a river that can, in the summer, be ploughed. You know that at its head is the One Man with One Vote. However, you also know, in your head, that these places, these names exist only between the pages of a book, and in the heads of millions of people. They have no physical presence. Nobody in their right mind would tell you otherwise.

And yet...

Yesterday I went to The Dysk. Really, I did! I visited Biers and The Pit. I carried boxes from Lancre Forge to The Odium. I poked my head into Harga's House of Ribs and peeped into Ankh Morpork. Because whilst Terry's mind made theses places in the imagination, the magic that his words wove, the joy that they brought and continue to bring has had the most amazing effect. It brought together like minded people from around the globe. It united us. The Colour of Magic is real. It consists of the Black of a hat, the silver of a beard, the sparkle of eyes and the smile of real pleasure. And it is this magic that has caused a Hotel in Birmingham to become, just briefly, the REAL Discworld.

And yet...

The power of the mind is incredible. But, we are many. We, the fans, created a real Discworld. In our hearts, in our heads, in a Hotel in Birmingham. Maybe, just maybe, we created Terry as well...

Early Arrival - Ssrienna's Story Part 1

2010-09-02T12:22:00.000+01:00

by Jan Uzzell (Ssrienna)

Being the impatient person that I am, I had to arrive on Thursday!

My husband agreed to drive me up, so that he could have the car. I was hoping to have introduced him to people, but with the parking charges at 0 to 30 mins - free and 30 mins to next time slot - £5, we decided not (L). However, he was able to see my room before he left.

I decided to be a good con person and “Go To Ops” to see if I could help. That’s where I got my Gopher badge and followed the other gophers to Registration, having helped unload a large white van with LOTS of boxes. All of which were books ready to give out at Registration on Fri and Sat.

I then joined the people in the room setting stuff up for Registration on the afore mentioned days. Managed to get my envelope early (as I was helping) so with “Ssirienna” in place I felt much more real! We then started a huge circular treadmill stuffing goodie bags ready for the masses. So children, how do we stuff a DW Goodie Bag? Grab bag and put one of everything from a long table (pens, bookmarks, programmes, booklets, balloons, etc), hand to the nice people on the end and repeat!

As we were obviously a chain gang, Xris (Chris Boote) started us singing to pass the time away. I think we got all the way through the Rocky Horror sound track, but we may have made it only as far as “Creature of the Night”

Then it was a flurry of meeting people as they arrived – Lottie for the main and I started thanking her for making my hooped skirt to go with my Maskerade costume (I think I stopped thanking her on Monday?). My apologies if I missed people’s names but we heard that over 400 people had arrived on Thursday!!

Then there was the insanity of the “Unofficial Fiendishly Difficult Pub Quiz” where I was on a table with Winterbay, Marlies, Goofgiant, Red Head, Torak and his wife (whose name escapes me now – I blame the alcohol!), Fi and others – we called ourselves “Smwgrttf” (or something like that) with (bless you) in brackets. Our idea being that when it was read out we’d all shout “Bless You” unfortunately we’d added that at the top so it was read out at the same time as we shouted it – so the joke got lost a bit – but we laughed!

The winners of the Quiz, who cheated as they had Min Lacey on their team, got 24 points! Um… we didn’t but I don’t think we were last on 16, which we thought was rather good! Then there was Biers and drinking and some singing and I got to bed somewhere round midnight.

Go To Ops!

2010-09-01T21:45:00.003+01:00

By popular demand, here is the filk from the Opening Ceremony:

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Discworld Convention 2010.

Go to Ops.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, Ops would be it. The long-term benefits of going to Ops have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the opportunities to relax this weekend. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the opportunities to relax this weekend until you've walked out the door at the end. But trust me, in 2 weeks, you'll look back at iconography of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how worthwhile it is now and again to just stop and absorb what's going on around us all. The Programme isn't as packed as you imagine.

Don't worry about returning to the real world. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to outrun a werewolf over uneven terrain. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you just as you're trying to make a tricky move in Thud.

Do one thing every day that gets you Guild points.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's ReadMes. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Queue.

Don't waste your time counting hall costume tokens. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember drinks others buy for you. Forget the ones you buy for people. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old convention badges. Throw away your old hotel bills.

Have Breakfast.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your weekend. The most interesting people I know won't know by Saturday lunchtime what they want to do with their weekends. Some of the most
interesting con veterans I know never will.

Get plenty of liquid. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when you can't walk on Monday.

Maybe you'll join a Guild, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll Create a Religion, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll stay up all night, maybe you'll get lots of sleep and be energetic every day. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So says the Lady.

Enjoy your costume. Wear it whenever you want. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It probably looks fantastic.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but at the Hedgehog party.

Read the directions, please follow them.

Do not worry about wedding parties. We will only make them feel less special.

Get to know the Committee. You never know when they'll retire for good. Be nice to your Guildmates. They're your best chance of winning the competition and the people most likely to remember you next time.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because really, we're all here to have fun and, sadly, a whole bunch of other people think we're weird.

Volunteer to be Committee once, but… no wait, keep volunteering. Gopher.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Weapons aren't allowed. You will miss events you want to see. You, too, will get tired. And when you do, you'll try desperately to persuade yourself you can sing one last
song, have one more pint, meet one more new person and still get up in the morning.

Get up in the morning.

Don't expect everyone to instantly befriend you. Maybe they're tired. Maybe they aren't in the mood. But you never know when surprise conversations and friendships will appear.

Don't put on too much bodypaint or you won't be allowed to sit on the chairs.

Be careful what events you go to, but really take part in those you do. The Convention is a moment in time, a weekend that will all too soon turn into memory, but it is your moment, so make sure its worth it.

But trust me on Ops.

--Brian Nisbet

And for the younglings amongst you, here is the original:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI

Reminder and Request - Discussion and Feedback From the Convention

2010-09-01T13:28:00.001+01:00

If you have any specific feedback or comments on the Convention and you want to be sure that the ConCom pick them up for future inputs/responses then you can mail them direct to:

info@dwcon.org

Or you can discuss them with the wider membership on the Google Group/Convention Mail list:

http://groups.google.com/group/dwcon_org_2010?hl=en

email to:

dwcon_org_2010@googlegroups.com

Since not all the Committee have second lives on Facebook, Twitter, LJ or the million other places the official Convention groups and lists are the only place which where points are sure to be picked up for reference or action and we are keen to capture as much feedback as possible.

You are of course, also welcome to continue using the Congroups to chatter away as normal about the event, experiences and meeting up etc!

Karen/hypatia Karen@lspace.org

Links to picture pages

2010-08-31T22:23:00.000+01:00

The first links are coming in, the page has an RSS feed for notifications.

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/dwcon_org_2010/web/pictures-from-dwcon-2010

Calling for submissions and links!

2010-08-31T20:10:00.004+01:00

The Chronicle Live is still open for business and we are compiling a page of links to picture collections and individual posts and reports.

If you have a set of pictures online and you are happy for us to link to them please send the link to me at:

Pictures@dwcon.org

If you use flickr for you pictures, please add the DWCon2010 tag as this will be one of the links we list.

Links to reports, plus any content/reports/articles you have for the Chronicle Live can be sent to me at:

blog@dwcon.org

We can upload reports for you to the main Chronicle for current and future members to enjoy, just as we did last time. Don't be shy - the bigger the range of people and articles the more interesting it is for our members and those who are tentatively considering dipping a toe in convention waters.

It also acts as an aide memoire for those who had brief moments of being tired and emotional :-)

Why Ian Stewart Goes to Discworld

2010-08-31T20:04:00.002+01:00

Just a reminder of the Ian Stewart's great article on The Guardian blog for those of you who missed it by being en route to the Convention:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/aug/26/discworld-convention-terry-pratchett

The Lady with the Inflatable Kangaroo

2010-08-30T12:45:00.001+01:00

by Nitta
I’ve been chasing her around the halls for two days and finally met her when she was on Watch duty at the Sunday morning booksignings. I wanted to know a bit more about the inflatable kangaroo (as well).
On closer examination she proved to be Sue Weatherwax (some relation of Granny’s, no doubt), and although the kangaroo was not within sight, she had a small white kitten under her pointy hat.

- What is the name of your kangaroo – and which part of Fourecks is he from?
- He’s called Flipper and is from Sydney, like me. It took me 30 hours to get her – but Flipper was not allowed on the plane, so he was smuggled in the country and we arranged a mmeting here, by the Google forum.
- Does he have a special diet?
- Oh, he’s a very light eater – practically lives on air.

Next I wanted to know whether Flipper knew a certain wizard named Rincewind – and he did; moreover, was impressed by his ability to run at high speed.

Talking about future plans Sue mentioned that Flipper would very much like to attend Nullus Anxietas III, the Australian Discworld Convention (to be held in Penrith, NSW, from 8 to 10 April 2011), only it’s difficult to get in live animals. But who knows, he might get in.
Hop over and visit him Down under!

7 – 4 – 1: Mort. A quick chat with the Chairman

2010-08-30T12:44:00.000+01:00

by Nitta
When I asked Brian about when he could give me 5 minutes of his time he flipped through the Convention programme, asked someone not to remove the flipchart paper with the day’s schedules, glanced at his watch and said “yes, about now would be the best time”.

I asked what his second most frequently used phrase was (after “Go to Ops!”). He laughed and said. “It’s all good!”
When I asked whether it was true that the next con was going to be held in a desert to fit in all the fans he laughed again and said 900 was a good number. At the last Con the sign-up closed at 800 members – to this one they consulted Terry whether it was OK to add an extra 100 and he agreed, but this really seems to be the outer limit. It’s not easy to find a space that can accommodate so many people, has adequate-sized halls etc.

When I asked who was to be praised or blamed for selecting the Convention’s theme he answered that allegedly that was the chairman’s privilege but in reality it was a joint decision. They pick a book with a strong central theme and build the con around it. Originally Going Postal was picked (“my 2nd favourite book, and also related to my day job”, says Brian), but then they had several meetings discussing the Con theme and came up with The Fifth Elephant instead which had much clearer themes and elements, and it was easier to structure a Convention around it.

I wanted to know how much time he had for his own life between the Conventions. He laughed again and said it varied – the closer the con, the less time for anything else. As everyone among the organisers does this as a voluntary job, time needs to be structured. In the last month before the opening everything revolves around the Con.

I wanted to know whether he read the Discworld novels in hardback or waited until the paperback editions came out. He said he didn’t rush to the books as before, in his teenage years – and as he’s got a limited shelf space, he preferred the smaller, paperback books.
His favourite character is tied with his favourite book: Mort. He has read it first as a teenager and was very much in it; he liked the idea of the boy who goes and gets offered a job by Death, does all those things, nearly rescues a princess, is at the point of beating Death but realises it would be really lonesome afterwards – to Brian this is an awesome story of growing up. He says what was written in 7 volumes in the Harry Potter series and 4 in the Tiffany Aching novels it’s condensed in 1 novel here.
Brian thinks Mort is a greatly underrated character – and what we all remember is his daughter.

Gods and P.E.

2010-08-30T12:43:00.002+01:00

by Nitta
Brighid Hurtubise won the Junior Award at the 2010 Maskerade. I talked to her and her dad Josef while queuing for Sunday’s booksignings.

- How did you find the idea?
- I was thinking about gods – and people who don’t like P.E.
- Are you one of them?
- Yes.
- But she’s never been concussed – says her dad.

Brighid has been a Discworld fan since she’s been 6 or 7 years old (do you remember not being a DW-fan – asks Josef). Brighid is also a veteran conventioneer: she attended the 2008 Convention, and also a New Zealand convention. At the last Maskerade they were the Lancre Royal Family, and she was dressed as Esmerelda Margaret Note Spelling of Lancre.

Her favourite Discworld character is Death – because he likes kittens.

The case of the stuck door (The Departure Aria, winners of the Best in Show Award

2010-08-30T12:42:00.002+01:00

by Nitta
Jan Uzzell and Min Lacey won the Best in Show Award at the 2010 Maskerade in a dazzling double act, performing the Departure Aria (“Questa maladetta...”) from Maskerade!
I talked to them after the photo call, in a corner of the hall, with conventioneers still coming over to congratulate them and take more pictures.

- It was Jan’s idea – says Min -, she and her music teacher put the character together. We wanted to fit me in as well, and first we thought of a dwarf, then we settled by Walter Plinge.
- The idea came after the last Con – continues Jan – when we saw how much fun the Maskerade was, and we thought: what could we do? We tried to find a minor character and build on that. Because I sing we chose Maskerade as theme, and we were carrying on Terry’s idea: a 17-stone female pretending to be a 17-year-old girl. We wanted the costume to be as over the top as possible.

I asked whether she was a professional singer.
- No, I enjoy singing but I’ll not be a professional. I did singing at school, then I found myself a teacher and now I am a grade 8 singer at the London College of Music.
- Where did you find a fitting music for your act?
- the song was purpose-written by my music teacher who is also a composer on his own right – but he never heard about Terry before, so we had to explain him about the character and the novel.

The pair are both long-time Discworld fans (about 20 years in Min’s and 16 years in Jan’s case); it’s Jan’s 3rd and Min’s 6th Convention. Among Min’s favourite characters are Death, Gaspode, the Librarian – “the standard ones I think” she says. Jan’s favourite is Granny as “she’s so true to form, a beautifully written character, she does everything right”. Oh, and Min was on Mastermind recently, answering Discworld questions.

At this point two fans came up to congratulate them and were discussing the lyrics. They thought the captions held up by Walter were an own translation – whereas they were from the novel, word by word. Jan started to quote the Italian version, and to help her memory she did so singing softly– giving a second encore to the surrounding people.

I asked how they felt about their success. Jan: “It doesn’t feel real yet. I have to phone my husband to tell him about it.”

And so it continues

2010-08-30T12:40:00.003+01:00

by Gaz Webber

Wow!

Yeah...wow! I'm in the Metropole Hotel in Birmingham, still at the convention...this is almost certainly going to become the traditional all-nighter...but what a day!

3:40 AM,
This is why I love Discworld above all other conventions.

This morning started with a quick pit-stop at Tesco for a teapot (don't ask) and some food for the journey, and a hat. Especially a hat. Journalists need a hat, it is their raison detre. I purchased a tasteful trilby and asked my style guru and better half, Random_C, about just how much gravitas it provided my already inspiring frame.

After she'd finished laughing we set off for the Con.

The first hour or so consisted of looking around for and at other conventioneers. At any convention the costumes are impressive. At this one they are incredible. Spectacular. Some soar and tower, confections of cloth and creativity. Mightly magnificent milinary tops coiffure. Glitter and glitz vie against bangles and bling for attention. Polar opposites, costumes consisting of flesh and flair, dimples and daring. Low-and-behold versus *You'll have somebody's eye out!*

I was actually heading for the Cavern when I literally bumped into Peter Morwood and Diane Duane. Now, those of you with long memories (or those who have read the foreword in my second book) know that these two people were instrumental in my having the nerve to write a *proper* book at all. And that I have been trying since them to buy them a drink. Yesterday I succeeded ! However...

Peter and Diane are time-sinks. On their own they can fascinate, charm, entertain, amuse and eductate. Together they draw you in to their lives, spinning anecdote after anecdote, story after story, picture of food after picture of food. I have to report that watching the culinary pornography on Peter's laptop caused me to gain nearly a stone in weight. Affable and wonderfully friendly, you are greeted like a long-lost friend, especially if you offer wine and beer, and I would suggest that if you finally drag yourselves reluctantly away you are guaranteed to be ligher of heart, more free of spirit, and in danger of a cholesterol crash...

However...as I was about to leave Jack Cohen arrived.

Jack is, in case you don't know, a young man who has reached the early middle-age of 70. And goodness, what a mind! There are people in who's company you enjoy sitting and listening. There are people in who's company you sit and listen and you struggle to understand, and there are people in who's company you get educated. Jack (and I was specifically informed that he was Jack, not Mr, Dr or Professor Cohen) is firmly in the third group. The line *Put it in the microwave, it will warm it up. Trust me, I'm a physicist* is one that I will dine out with for possibly the rest of my life.

From there I met MEG. Now, some of you again may know that our one-time Con chairman is a little poorly. However, she's here in the dealer room, and in the bar, and enjoying the con. She is also one of my dearest friends. Someone I see so seldom that when we *do* meet we tend to talk. Sadly she also brought her husband....and *he* is possibly my favourite raconteur. And there went the evening. Tim finally retired to bed, and MEG said she'd follow when she finished her wine...

At 4am we left the Hedgehog Party, MEG having boogied and chatted and, I am pleased to report, had a whale of a time. If she's reading this I'd like to thank her for looking after me so well.

So...Discworld conventions. The people are fabulous to a man, woman, child and small radio-controlled luggage. Multi-talented and affable, drunk and sober. You will be drawn in to a circle of old friends you've never met before, and really old friends you talk to all the time. You will be entertained and educated, you will in turn educate and entertain. You may dance and sing, play instruments or sit on the sideline. You may dress up. You may dress down. You may forget to dress at all. You will, however, have a great time. You can't help it.

And there are still two days to go!

Death is a Woman

2010-08-29T18:09:00.000+01:00

By Zetty Abbott

On my first day here I went right to registration like a good little newbie and was told I was entitled to take two Discworld books. They were in different languages and it got me thinking about translation and whether non-English speakers read in their native language or in English.

I spoke with people here from Germany, Denmark, Belgium and Spain and heard some interesting things. In Spanish the concept of Death is feminine so in the early books Death was a woman, until Reaper Man, when that got changed. Apparently the later translations are improving and this is because the Spanish publishers have hired the person who runs the Discworld fan website to assist or supervisor the new translations and the fans are able to put in their two bits as well. It's a testament to the devotion of the fans and a smart move on the part of the publishers.

In German a trunk is called Truhe and is a feminine noun but I think we know our Discworld Luggage is male. Nothing that destructive could be female, except maybe in Greek mythology. So in the German versions of the book the definite article is avoided and the noun becomes a proper name. Gee, that seems familiar.

I had heard that the Dutch translator has won awards for his work but the one Dutchman I met reads the books in English.

I myself picked up a French version of The Light Fantastic and a Greek version of Wyrd Sisters. The latter goes to my aunt who gave my Winnie-the-Pooh in Latin when I was ten years old.

It's clear that there are fans everywhere in Roundworld and even better that we all get to meet at conventions like this one. I look forward to coming back to this magical world.

Elves – nasty or nice? A lecture by Jacqueline Simpson

2010-08-29T17:28:00.000+01:00

By Jessica Yates

Just after Dr. Simpson began lecturing to over 200 fans, her discourse was interrupted by the Queen of the Fairies, who “froze” her, then announced that she had heard a human was discussing Elves and would be keeping a close eye on the proceedings. Now she would take the spell off our lecturer – and watch from the back.

Jacqueline recovered from her dizzy spell and continued her lecture, speaking mainly by heart with readings from her booklet which contained an expanded version of the talk (just published by Bernard, with a foreword by Terry Pratchett, it is now available in the Dealers’ Room.

Near the end of the fascinating lecture, which there is no need to summarise, the Fairy Queen (Periwinkle) returned and went on the attack, but Jacqueline boldly brandished a silver poker and forced her to retreat!

Maskerade!

2010-08-29T17:20:00.000+01:00

by Jessica Yates

Pat was our compère for the second time, and as we learned, had also done the commentary for the North American Discworld Convention.

After a pep talk punctuated by quacking (a traditional heckle begun in 2008) the show began! To the music of Carl Orff’s O Fortuna the professional judging panel paraded: Terry! Brian! Jacqueline! Bernard!
Then came the maskeraders to strut their stuff. All were distinctive, covered a range of Discworld characters and were enthusiastically applauded. In my humble opinion Glenda Sugarbean advising on make-up for trolls delivered an excellent patter, and another lady presenting the Goddes of Lightning to the music of Night on a Bare mountain had a fabulous costume and speech. The “Going Mental” undercover assassins had a fine concept and so did the unseen university cheerleader.

Part-way through, the performance of “Death of Sheep” added baa-ing to the heckling, but Pat kept his cool! During the interval Pat interviewed the seven candidates for Low King – another unique piece of role-play.

The results:

Special award for Best Surprise: PoohCarrot – as Lu-Tze

Junior award: Bridget Hurtebise – as Concussia, goddess of not paying attention in P.E.

Rookie category award: “No you can’t” - Gill Bowler and Ann Thorold as priest and acolyte of Nuggan

Novice category award: “A girl in wolf’s clothing” – Liz McMichael

Journeyman category award: Brian Date – as Lord Vetinari

Master category award: Richard Artley – as Sir Joshua Lavish

Best in Show award went to Jan Uzzell who performed the Departure Aria “Questa Maladetta” from Maskerade, and Min Lacey as Welter Plinge who held up the captions “This damn door sticks” etc. Jan wore a gigantic looped skirt, sang beautifully and agreed to encore it after her award.

We must also thank Pam Hicks, Maskerade organiser.

The Man in the Hat

2010-08-29T17:16:00.000+01:00

By Jessica Yates

Terry, later joined by Stephen Baxter, was interviewed by Brian with some questions submitted by the members.

Q: Why does Ankh-Morpork have dollars and not pounds?
A: Many countries use or have used dollars – pounds are too English. Mark Twain introduced dollars in Connecticut Yankee – most people know the film not the book – TP praised the book highly for its exploration the too sudden introduction of technology into a medieval culture.

Q: We heard the extract from Snuff. Country versus city – which are you?
A: My ideal is to be a country man living just beyond easy reach to a city. Cities are where civilization comes from.
He then talked about the freedom of the individual, “your house is your castle” and so on.

The talk then moved to Terry’s sword.
Q: Does it have a name?
A: Albion, and I’m going to get Lionel to christen it.
They talked about the remote possibility of using a sword for a zombie Apocalypse.

TP said that he was not the Discworld chronicler, for example he didn’t know what was happening to Rincewind. Snuff or Midnight reference some of the same places. the important thing is to get the book started.

In answer to a question about why he didn’t save his drafts for literary researchers, unlike other writers, he said he didn’t see it as his job, the finished book was what mattered.

Stephen Baxter came on stage and we were treated to a semi-private conversation in which he and Terry batted ideas about the Long Earth project back and forth. Much needs to be developed before they can start. terry wanted Stephen on board because he wanted science and science fiction but no magic.

With reference to the collaboration Stephen said that to work with Terry was like jamming with Paul McCartney.

Church of Om

2010-08-29T17:08:00.000+01:00

by Jessica Yates

This ever-popular event was supervised by Lionel and Mole under their Omnian soubriquets and was so well attended the leaflets ran out (and could not be caught – sorry!).

After Mole’s introduction explaining why the Church had sent him to preach in Bonk (you had to be there!) we sang the usual hymn “Om is trampling the unrighteous”. Lionel performed the (real and sincere) Blessing of Sister Periwinkle and Brother Butcher. We accepted our theological instruction and heard the parish notices, especially tailored for Bonk, such as Count von Sturmunddrang invites young ladies to meet for the embroidery circle at midnight – virgins only.
There would be a werewolf awareness meeting, Igor’s Bring and Buy Sale, and the Dwarf Outreach Group had organised a Dwarf speed-dating event – wear leather gear and hoods.
Our final hymn was based on Abide with me, emended to request Om to shield us from vampires and werewolves.

The service was held in the presence of a very fine image of Om, with the guest appearance of Offler and the goddess Libertina and as always, contained a genuine spiritual and ecumenical uplift.

Thanks to Mole for planning the service and organising the A3 leaflets, and Lionel for co-officiating, and Sister torture on the organ.

Going Postal in Technicolor: Behind the scenes of Going Postal with Ian Sharples from Mob Films

2010-08-29T17:06:00.000+01:00

By Jessica Yates

Going Postal was filmed in Budapest, Hungary because it was cheaper and the city had a fantastic architecture which fitted Ankh-Morpork. There was a good local tech, the crew had already shot Eragon and Robin Hood for example. The studio already has a fantastic back lot to which they added new sets. They were in regular contact with Terry over the set design.

We were shown drawings of clacks towers and an operator, and photos of the constructing the clacks towers.

The background folk all read the book as well as the script to get the art direction right. We then saw stills interspersed with short videos.

Terry entered and opened the theme of what the next Discworld movie is going to be. Currently it is rumoured to be Sourcery, but there’s a change of heart, going with the cast we have, e.g. Vetinari, Ridcully...
A cast with lots of spectators. Is it going to be the Wee Free Men? But Terry had a football-like ball on the table...

TP complimented Mob on doing Discworld as Discworld should be done. “We know where to get the best extras” he added.
As it’s difficult to get audience on Sky at Christmastime, the next possible showing time is Easter 2012 – that means filming in 2011.

After watching the scene with Moist on the horse, the session closed with a showing of the hilarious DVD extra “Return to Sender”.

So it will be Unseen Academicals – you heard it first!

And so it begins:-

2010-08-29T16:57:00.000+01:00

by GazHunter
The tweet, from our steamed Vice Chair read So, the day dawns on #dwcon set-up. Now: coffee and Internets. Soon: get up, shower, breakfast. Then: hunt gophers to unload car.

Well. I am HuntGopher, so clearly this was addressed to me, and as I was about 1/2 hour away by car, and I had planned to Goph...what was a man to do? Casting caution, pyjamas and 2 days growth of beard to the wind I decided to goph forth, then went back, got dressed and went forth again

My timing was perfect. I arrived just in time for the Vice Chair to have almost emptied his car, so had but a small box to take to Ops, a duty I performed with skill and dexterity, and only got lost the once. Once there I quickly signed up as Gopher and suchlike, and after a quick round of musical tables, musical boxes, musical stationary and musical printers, as Ops was transformed from a base, characterless hotel room into a magical fairy grotto [1] my co-gophers and I were herded, cat-like, onto our first mission-critical job. Envelope-stuffing. There are 900 of you. Each have an envelope with *stuff* in it. These are not magical self-stuffing envelopes. 4500 money notes, 1800 sheets of guild appreciation tokens and a sticky label were adhered and stuffed in and on the blessed things. By hand. Now...you may like to try this at home. Count out 600 lots of 2 sheets of paper, one after the other. Then change to counting out lots of 5 sheets. Your brain will rebel, and you will fail to remember how to count to five...

Ops opened, and I wandered, heading for the bar, and coffee. And a wireless connection for the laptop. I geeked, and people happened. Music was played. And then The Management turned up and forbade the playing of musical instruments because of Licencing Laws. Which is really annoying. Part of the 'con tradition is playing and group song-murdering in the bar. This year it seems this is not to be...

I was called upon to move a load of boxes from a van to Ops. Then having just bought a coffee I was called upon again to move some boxes from Sator Square to Lord-Knows Where. Then, just as the coffee cup reached my lips I was called again to move some more boxes. Hypothetical, metaphysical boxes. When I arrived the boxes were gone. Not there. Having no physical existance. So I went back to my coffee. At the point the cup touched my lips the boxes, out of sheer spite, recorporialised, and off I went to Registration with them, wherein I was caught in a weird dance...collect a bag, proceed down the table adding a pen, a balloon, a notepad, a magazine, a lanyard, a bookmark...all done, amidst many MANY more people, and set, weirdly, to music. At which point my caffeine-starved braincells rebelled, and forced me back to reclaim my now cold beverage...

Once again many wonderful people were arriving, and before many minutes a group of strangers became old friends. Rolf and Uwe, Bjorn, Edmund, Suzi, Gid, Eric, old friends all, mixed and chatted with new faces, people I have never met yet through the magic of Discworld have known all my life. The conversation flowed from Henry VIII to Edward I, lyrical poetry through the age, erotic symbolism in Warehouse 13 and Eureka...yes, this was a Convention.

Sadly I'd forgotten that I was merely mortal. Worse, I am having to rely more and more on Pharmaceuticals to keep bits from dropping off. And in my hurry to renew old friendships and forge new ones I'd managed to leave the most important ones behind, so had to flee before the pub quiz. Again...

However, energy and Miscelaneous deities willing, tomorrow is another day. See you there!

[1] I hadn't had much coffee, and they had My Little Ponies[2]. That's close enough...
[2] Don't ask, okay? Just don't ask!

Musings

2010-08-29T16:37:00.000+01:00

by Gaz Hunter
It exists in the head of a child in Mumbai. it exists in the head of an old man in Anuppur.
In Nyíregyháza it is being constructed, the building blocks of words placed brick by brick on the foundations of a fertile imagination. In Evandale and Blagoveshchensk, Baltimore and Phuthaditjhaba its geography is firmly established in the minds and hearts of readers. Yet were you to ask your GPS, your TOMTOM or Garmin to take you there it would fail. No such place exists.

And yet...

In 1983 a most extraordinary man with the power to turn sentences into space, words into worlds, paragraphs into people and places wrote *The Colour of Magic* . Just a book. Just an idea. Yet in 27 years the book, and its 36 sequels have reached across the world. Translated into numerous languages, made into audiobooks, films, radio plays, comics, they have actively touched the lives of millions, drawing them into a world-wide web of Discworld fandom. You are reading this now because a man with a hat and a love of carnivorous plants put down his fork 27 years ago and thought *Ooh, that's an idea!* In the hands of most writers the idea could have worked, it could have been a bit of a giggle, it may have sold quite well.

And yet...

I'm sure that when Rincewind and Twoflower caused the first insurance fraud that nearly wiped out Ankh Morpork Terry had no idea of the uniting influence his words would have. it was an amusing idea that might have legs.

And yet...

The Dysk. Sator Square. Biers, Ankh, Morpork. Not real. We all know them because of The Books. They exist in our heads, because we know the geography of this ridiculous place, The Discworld. A flat world, perched preposterously on Pachyderms, carried on a chitinous Chelonian carapace. How on earth could this be real?

And yet...

People have drawn maps so we can identify and locate with absolute precision somewhere that cannot possibly occupy the same physical space as ourselves. Ankh Morpork is no more real than Utopia or Atlantis, yet because you are reading this you *know* that is is a citly bisected by a river that can, in the summer, be ploughed. You know that at its head is the One Man with One Vote. However, you also know, in your head, that these places, these names exist only between the pages of a book, and in the heads of millions of people. They have no physical presence. Nobody in their right mind would tell you otherwise.

And yet...

Yesterday I went to The Dysk. Really, I did! I visited Biers and The Pit. I carried boxes from Lancre Forge to The Odium. I poked my head into Harga's House of Ribs and peeped into Ankh Morpork. Because whilst Terry's mind made theses places in the imagination, the magic that his words wove, the joy that they brought and continue to bring has had the most amazing effect. It brought together like minded people from around the globe. It united us. The Colour of Magic is real. It consists of the Black of a hat, the silver of a beard, the sparkle of eyes and the smile of real pleasure. And it is this magic that has caused a Hotel in Birmingham to become, just briefly, the REAL Discworld.

And yet...

The power of the mind is incredible. But, we are many. We, the fans, created a real Discworld. In our hearts, in our heads, in a Hotel in Birmingham. Maybe, just maybe, we created Terry as well...

Worbelook is in hospital

2010-08-29T16:35:00.000+01:00

Jean Guittet (Worbelook) was taken to hospital yesterday with a chest infection. The hospital kept him overnight, and at the time of writing, he was still in hospital.
Worbelook is a French member of the convention, and a frequent poster on the Discworld stamp forum.
Araby has a get-well card that people can sign - see him if you would like to be part of the well-wishing for this member of the convention.

Choice morsels from the “Man with no hat” interview

2010-08-29T12:30:00.000+01:00

by Elias Helfer
Displaying a noticeable lack of male figures in headwear, this year’s Guest of Honor interview failed miserably to live up to its name: “The Man with the Hat.” Chairman Brian Nisbet interviewed Terry on subjects ranging from how to come up with names to the possible future of Tiffany Aching, before bringing Stephen Baxter on stage to discuss Terry’s and his coming collaboration, The Long Earth.

Why Dollars?
The first question dealt with the currency of the Disc: why did Terry choose to name the Ankh Morpork currency Dollars instead of pounds?
To this, Terry countered that there are more countries in the world using dollars than pounds, going into the origins of the word dollar from the original word “Joachimsthaler.” Apart from that, he wanted to mix things up a little, not making things too British.
“Besides, they have pennies instead of cents.”

The poor literary historians…
Brian then quoted Terry saying how he saved a number of drafts on his computer, then, when the book was done, shouting “Get a real job, literary historians of the future,” deleting everything but the finished thing. One literary historian had handed in a question citing this quote, adding: “Why?”
Terry quibbed that he’d inherited a certain disregard for literary historians from his father. Though the quote was also made in a time where the technical realities were quite different.
“Back then, I saved my files on floppy discs that were actually floppy,” Terry remembers.
“Nowadays, each new computer has more capacity than all the computers I had before it put together.”
Back then, the limited storage space necessitated weeding out excess files ever so often. Nowadays, saving every draft of a book barely makes a dent in the available space on the hard drive. That means that nowadays, a lot more gets saved.
But that doesn’t mean that Terry would be happy to let people delve into his drafts.
“It’s about craftsmanship.”
And just as a master swordsmith throws away the shards and ashes that have gone into the crafting of a fine swords, the drafts that Terry make are just tools used in the process of writing the book.
“The book that is printed is the book I wanted to write. The rest is just steps on the way.”

Coming up with names
One congoer had wanted to know how Terry comes up with names. In many different ways, it turned out.
One good source is lists of old names
“It’s amazing how few names I actually have to come up with.”
Other names come to more as a matter of inspiration – like Bestiality Carter
“It occurred to me, that if people name their daughters after virtues, they might name their boys after sins. Some people might actually do that.”
Other names have no basis in anything in Roundworld.
“When coming up for the name for Angua, I was just playing around with sounds,” Terry recalls.
Sometimes, of course, a name proves to have unanticipated connotations.
“When I came up with Tiffany Aching, I wanted a name that didn’t sound anything like the name of a witch. Which is a bit ironic, since the name Tiffany comes from the word ‘epiphany.’”
Tifffany also proves the difficulties involved in translating books:
“I know that in some other languages, Tiffany is used to refer to either hairdressers, or women who you bring with you to your hotel room at night.”

I Shall Wear Midnight
On the topic of Tiffany, Brian and Terry continued on to talk about the book I shall wear midnight, which is set to release this coming Wednesday at midnight (when else?).
Terry explained that one American fan of The Boy That We Shan’t Mention had seen the Tiffany books as an attack on J.K. Rowling’s books.
“Which is ridiculous, since Granny were saying those things all the way back in Equal Rites,” Terry exclaimed
“The thing is, magic is hard. And it isn’t sparkly. The only thing you’re allowed – your only right – is your broomstick.”
Terry went on to say that a life as a witch was not glamorous, but rather very hard work.
“It’s a tough life with only a few satisfactions.”
Being a witch is “a dirty job, doing the things society needs someone to do.”

Stephen Baxter and the Long Earth
After talking to Terry alone for some 45 minutes, Brian called Stephen Baxter up to join them on the stage.
First they talked discussed how Terry had gotten into writing fantasy.
“I’ve done two not very good sci-fi novels,” Terry started.
After that, Terry wrote The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic as a spoof of bad copies of Tolkien.
"I thought: let’s treat all these creatures as if they were real people. Now real people are sometime being rational, sometimes being stupid.”
Then, around the time of Equal Rites, Terry found that the Discworld had started making him money. And so, one book took another, and he never returned to sci-fi.
The idea that lead to The Long Earth came to Terry around this time. Seeing a man seemingly pushing a horse into a pub, he started imagining a man who found an entire world, devoid of human life, the man taking livestock etc. with him to this world to live.
This evolved into the basic idea for The Long Earth: What if mankind found a way to go to all the earths that could have been – and found that only one of them contained Homo sapiens? Suddenly, scarcity of land would not be a problem – every man could get a galaxy of earths to himself!
Of course, the fact that the other worlds contain no human life doesn’t mean they provide no obstacles to human settlement. First of all, with no human civilization, most of the earth will be covered in woods. So provided the explorers manage to avoid materializing inside a tree, they will be in the middle of acres and acres of forest with a visibility of 15 feet. Secondly, “no humans” doesn’t mean “no threatening creatures,” or indeed, “no intelligent life” (Terry and Stephen were trying to keep quiet about much of the plot of the book, but some things were hinted at).
Another thing that was implied was that there will be at least two strands in the story: the story of someone who goes down the line of the many different Earths, going out to explore alone – and the story of those who stay behind, suddenly finding a world being left behind by everyone else. The phrase used was something of the lines of: “What would happen to the ruling classes if all the workers suddenly disappeared?”
Without promising anything, the two authors indicated that there might well be one or more sequels to The Long Earth, Terry saying that he had a perfect title for the final book set in the world.
Brian ended the interview by asking the authors what they’d say to, say, Discworld fans who were worried about Terry writing a sci-fi book. Stephen answered by saying that “this is Terry going back to his roots!”
Terry followed up on that saying that when writing in the real world, you must follow the rules of the real world, and those rules include science – so it helps to have someone who understands science. But when writing Discworlds, there are rules to follow just the same – only difference is, that those rules were set up by Terry.
And with that, Brian ended the interview, commenting that if one of his guests had run as much over time as he had, he would have been angry with them.

Scandal: Granny Weatherwax Sleeps with Lord Vetinari

2010-08-29T12:21:00.000+01:00

By Clerk Domino

Yes, the all powerful Tyrant of Ankh-Morpork has been rumoured for many years not to be entirely human and our reporter can confirm that Granny Weatherwax sleeps with a plushy doll of the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork.

As you can see, the attached iconography proves that Weatherwax, highly esteemed Ramtops Witch, sleeps with Lord Vetinari (the identity of the bear under her other arm is not known).

How the disclosure of this shocking relationship between the all powerful Tyrant and the all powerful Witch will affect how Ankh-Morpork citizens view their ruler, we can only speculate. When asked for more details of the relationship the Patrician’s assistant, Drumknott seccy PP, refused to comment.

It is well known that Weatherwax does not give interviews, and as this reporter does not wish to be turned into a frog, I did not press the matter.

Has Weatherwax used headology or witch wisdom on Vetinari? We can only wonder, but Vetinari is the longest serving Patrician of Ankh-Morpork in recent history, what is the secret of his longevity? We look forward to developments.

The Opening Ceremony

2010-08-29T11:49:00.002+01:00

By Jessica Yates
The ceremony opened with an evocation of the “knockermen” tradition of the dwarf mines. A knockerman in his working uniform made his way through the fog as the story was told.
Then with a crash, bang and aspotlight, on came Terry, wielding a large sword. “I am so angry! Stephen Briggs has got Inigo Montoya’s sword! Well, I have the Sword of Death!
This is the 7th Discworld Convention!
Journalists say we are a bunch of weirdos – yes we are!
Thank you for your fanmail about my health – it’s OK at the moment.”

Terry praised the new software which allows him to dictate his books with Rob’s help. He has the only computer which can say Crivens! and have a Nac Mac Feegle vocabulary.

“I’ve done 20,000 words in the last few weeks, and if it wasn’t for me having to waste my time with you lot...
There is a streak of madness in the British monarchy – I was tapped on the shoulder by the Queen. I think she said, “Can we have another one with Rincewind in it?”

Terry has made himself a real sword – with help – from digging out the iron ore, smelting, to the finish. Didn’t bring it along though – could have been done for “knife crime”.

He hoped his dad and granddad are proud to see him a knight, he knows they would have been proud he is a millionaire.
“A knighthood is worth nothing and everything – it’s a pass to start speaking up and making a nuisance of yourself. You can bully the bullies.”

His diagnosis 3 years ago has led him to a different kind of life – hopes to meet all (!) of us this weekend. (Prolonged applause).

Brian then came on to do the boring stuff.

Granny Shocks!

2010-08-29T11:44:00.002+01:00

by Nitta

At the opening ceremony of the Discworld Convention 2010 Mistress Weatherwax was reportedly seen taking a seat in the middle of the ceremony hall, then looking around and taking her hat off (unasked) – revealing a small white kitten underneath. What might she be up to?

Interview with Stephen Baxter

2010-08-29T11:43:00.000+01:00

by Jessica Yates
Stephen Baxter is one of Britain’s leading novelists of hard SF, and also a veteran conventioneer. Having previously collaborated with Arthur C. Clarke, and being a long-term professional colleague of Terry’s, he developed an interest in Terry’s unpublished writings of the Long Earth (see Convention souvenir book page 23). The pair have now announced they will collaborate on at least two novels to open the series.
This is not about alternative worlds where human history has run a different course, it’s about exploring Earth-type worlds where no humans have evolved. (For example, Britain would be one big forest.)

Mr. Baxter had read many, but not all Discworld books, and among his favourites are Mort, Monstrous Regiment and Feet of Clay. He feels that although they write in different genres, they have plenty in common under the surface to do with the serious purpose of their work.

Would Baxter be fazed by the large number of fans in costume? Not at all, he enjoys the spectacle, and has also attended Fanderson conventions!

As a member of the Guild of Journalists, Stephen Baxter, welcome to Discworld!

Terry and Rob’s Bedtime Stories

2010-08-29T11:42:00.000+01:00

by Jessica Yates
First Roba came on, and after some jokes, Terry came on and Robe proposed to read from I Shall Wear Midnight. Terry objected to Rob doing the Feegles – he couldn’t get the accent right. So Rob put away his proof copy of Midnight, and produced a typescript of Snuff – work in progress. (Applause!)

Since nearly everyone at the Convention was at the Dysk, I need not tell you whar we heard, but for those who weren’t we shall meet a newish species and explore a new part of Discworld. Oh – and it’s about Vimes – and Vetinari makes an appearance.

Thanks to Terry for sharing his draft with us, and to Rob for reading it.

Simpson debates the role of fairies

2010-08-29T11:38:00.002+01:00

by Cheresse
Jacqueline Simpson risked the wrath of the Queen of the Fairies at 12:00 Saturday afternoon with a bold dive into the history of Man's interaction with the Lords and Ladies, and the differing interpretations of elves and their actions.

Her treatise was entitled Elves: Nasty or Nice? and examines the developing perceptions that men have had of elves. She began by describing elves as many listeners are most familiar with them—through authors J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, and T. Pratchett. Rowling writes elves as oppressed servants, Tolkien's elves are seen as angelic or saintly beings, and Terry's are vicious folk.

Simpson continued with a history of the word elf, which predates the Norman invasion of England. The word from which it was derived means 'white,' indicating that elves were initially seen as bright people. She cited the Icelandic Edda as the sole non-Christian source for information on Elves in Northern Europe, and linked them with the gods rather than men. She further divided the elves into two parts—the Bright elves, who live in the beautiful, light places of the world, and the Dark elves, who are as black as pitch and live underground.
Later Anglo-Saxon texts and customs give more of an indication of how men regarded the Fair Folk. Many names used derivations of the word elf, such as Alfred or Elfric, which suggests that elves were regarded as benign. However, medical texts from the same period have several terms for certain ailments that imply elves as the cause of maladies. There is also the concept of 'elf-shot,' in which a human, a cow or another animal that has provoked the wrath of an elf experiences a sudden, sharp pain.
The Normans introduced the words fey and fairy, and the word elf fell out of common usage (although Simpson tells us they are interchangeable words). They also introduced the tradition of avoiding the use of the name fey, and titles such as 'the Fair Folk' and 'the Little People' became common.
Simpson also discussed the view of the Church towards fairies. The official stance of the Church was that elves were demons, although laymen did not always maintain this point of view. However, for every story of an elf that bestowed good luck or brought prosperity, there is one to describe the wrath of an insulted fairy or an unprovoked kidnapping of some young woman or child.
Simpson's information on the elves is often contradictory—a point she was sure to make in her lecture. Depending on the folklore of the region, their size ranges from three feet to average human height, their appearance can be beautiful or flawed, their wealth is highly debated and it is not even known whether elves reside in some far-off land or close to us, as neighbours.
Simpson's lecture was peppered with interesting and entertaining anecdotes on what to do when encountering the Fair Folk. She suggested that much may be accomplished through being a good, polite neighbour and making sure not to insult the elves in some way. The man who followed the instructions or advice of his little neighbours might find himself full of wealth and luck, while he who insulted the fairies might find that all his luck had fled. In some cases, an insulted fairy might even hit the man upon the head; if so, he would take ill and die a year and a day from the date of insult.
Simpson's view of elves was none too kind at times, a fact which rubbed raw with the Lords and Ladies. The Queen herself arrived to monitor Simpson's lecture, and was none too pleased with what she heard. Simpson, fortunately, was well-prepared with a poker of cold iron and so fended off the Queen's advance. This reporter may safely say that many in the hall seemed frozen with terror; one lady swooned, and many looked stricken as though elf-shot in the peculiar manner which Simpson described. Simpson, however, seemed unaffected both by the Queen's curse and her promise that the score would soon be settled.
Simpson's full treatise, Elves: Nasty or Nice is available from the stall of Cunning Artificers at Sator Square.

Pat Harkins is reporting from the convention

2010-08-29T11:28:00.000+01:00

In this day and age, it can come as no surprise that the Chronicle Live is not the only place you can go to read reports on all the things that are going on at the convention. And whenever we find someone, we shall point you to them, so you can read about the con to your heart's content.

One of the people writing about the con is Pat Harkin.. no, not that Pat Harkin, it's his son [QUACK].

At the time of writing, he's posted two items, the fist being a quick report on Terry's cooperation with Stephen Baxter, the second being a non-report of no non-items concerning Discworld films that Pat never heard at a klatch he didn't attend. No interesting rumours there, I'm afraid.

An Audience with Stephen Briggs

2010-08-29T11:15:00.000+01:00

By Jessica Yates
The room was nearly full, and Stephen opened by wondering if he’d come to the right place!

He announced he wouldn’t make a speech, he’d turn the session into a giant Q&A Klatch.
Before he started he showed us a wonderful replica sword, which had come into his possession via his am-dram connections and had originally been a rehearsal sword for The Princess Bride, which he had hoped to adapt for the stage. He draw it and posed as Inigo Montoya with “Hello!” (murmurs of admiration)

The Qs and As began with “Will you marry my mum?”
A: I’m here on my partner’s birthday, every 2 years it clashes with Discworld.

Q: When you read a new Terry Pratchett novel, do you lose yourself into the story or do you think about adapting it straight away?
A: Yes, I start thinking about the play from the outset. A book can change a lot from first idea to publication. The football game in Unseen Academicals was a problem, but most games in drama are off-stage anyway.
The the National Theatre staged Nation, and he saw how the professionals adapted Terry’s work – even more than he does. He saw the cinema version in Oxford and noted big changes.

Q: Is your favourite book the same as your favourite play?
A: Recently we redid Wyrd Sisters which was very well on stage. Mort is my favourite book – it got me into Discworld. It’s where Terry moved from parody into creating his world.

Q: Why don’t we see you on Sky1 as Vetinari?
A: Not for want of asking – a long story but they had decided to go for professional and well-known actors – Charles Dance especially – “out of my league”.
Comment: “Maybe they’ll run out of other people to ask!”
SB: I am on the Colour of Magic DVD as an extra.

Q: What’s it like to play Vetinari?
A: I like it – I wear black, I know everything. It’s been a weird journey. He started out not looking like me, and now he does. I had Ian Richardson in House of Cards in mind – Terry thought the guy who played the villain in Die Hard – he had a beard so I grew one. [that’s Alan Rickman, JY]. Also, TP suggested an Elizabethan feel, Blackadder 2, SB felt like the Cardinal in Amadeus.

Q: What are you doing now?
A: TP’s new books coming out more slowly so I am redoing his canon. Planning to redo Carpe Jugulum, but this November doing Shakespeare’s Dream.

Q: Have you any tips for adapters?
A: Be prepared to throw away stuff you really like.

Q: What scene do you regret dumping most?
A: I cut Death out of Wyrd Sisters first time, second time – he still didn’t fit, he shows up too late. In general, concepts rather than technicalities (e.g. Thief of Time) make it harder to stage some novels. Effects can be done with imagination.

Finally he talked about reading Terry’s books for audio CDs, which he does for American and British companies. The Nac Mac Feegles are hard to differentiate. He is about to read I Shall Wear Midnight – twice!

Juicy tidbits of gossip

2010-08-29T11:13:00.001+01:00

The Gossipmongering part (Wolffie, with a helping hand from Nitta) of the Honourable Company of Journalists, Clackspersons and Gossipmongers have been out digging up some juicy tidbits of gossip, which we bring here for your reading pleasure.

Sir Terry denies rumours of Zombie Apocalypse.

****

Sir Terry tells future PhD candidates: “Tough shit!”

***

Confidential source reports seeing Detritus knitting.

****

Last night in Biers the gravitational pull of Pat Harkin caused the consumption of several tables-worth of chairs and was set to take over the entire bar.

***

Our confidential informant reports seeing Granny Weatherwax wearing a red petticoat.

****

Amulets and magic charms that Magrat threw off the Lancre Bridge were eventually caught on the Circumfence become the basis for a new religion among the water trolls.

***

Another confidential informant reports Lord Vetinari has sent Lady Margolotta a pair of black silk stockings embroidered with bats.

****

The Oh God of Hangovers is definitely planning a career change after

the 2010 Discworld Convention.

Interview with Al from the Watch

2010-08-29T10:56:00.000+01:00

by Nitta
You remind me of Officer Gotcha from Jamie and the Magic Torch. Where does the idea to wear a helmet* comes from?
- It started about 4 or 5 Cons ago: I signed up for the Watch then. Next time I came up with the squeaky truncheon, and then next time again with a policeman’s helmet. At the 2008 con I had a flashing light fitted on it and then I thought this time I’d come up with something more silly, so I put a siren on it – it’s actually meant for bicycles. It seems to amuse peple – and that’s the main thing.

Which was the firs convention you went to?
- It was about 13 years ago – at that time not all of them were called cons, there were some yearly events as well, more like big camping events. I’ve been doing the Watch for a couple of cons, and when 2 years ago Dónal couldn’t do it I joined in as Commander of the Watch with Gabe.

Who’s your favourite character on the Discworld?
- That’s a tricky one. Probably Archchancellor Ridcully.

And here the interview ended as Terry’s Saturday booksigning began, and the Watch had a lot to do all at once.

*: Editor's note: Al had, as official watch head-wear acquired a "Bobby" style helmet with a loudspeaker on top, permitting him to sound a divers number of alarums. We were all terribly amused.

Mystick Minnie's Houriscopes for Saturday, August 28

2010-08-29T10:50:00.000+01:00

PROBOSCIS, the Anteater: you will experience a deep sense of dread and foreboding just before opening your closet. It's probably nothing.

AMBIGUA, the drag queen: the Moon is ascending in your Cusp of Qualor, but it's just being friendly. The lid on your jar of jam will be unusually stiff. Hit it with a knife handle.

TRIANGULUM, the triangle: Extra cash brings bad luck. Buy your nearest astrologer a pint to restore your spiritual balance.

FLEDERMUS FRUCTOSE, the Fruitbat: You are invincible. Nothing can stop you. All undertakings begun today will meet with guaranteed 100% success. Want proof? Jump in front of a rolling cart!

DENARIUS, the Lawmaker: Find a Canis Calientus and stand behind them while grinning unnervingly. Guaranteed laughs.

TRIANGULUM ALTERNIMUS, the other triangle: the eye is the window of the soul. Consider getting new curtains.

EPHEBORASTOS, the Priest: the Sun in opposition to A'tuin's left eye drives change. Begin a new relationship today. Him over there, he'll do.

CANIS CALIENTUS, the Sausage: Look behind you.

ARENA LAMIA, the Sandwich: worrying about the End Times so much won't make them come any later, or for that matter any sooner. Enjoy your life even though your days are numbered...very numbered.

HABEAS CORPUS, the Igor: exthpect the unexthpected. Give yourthelf the chanthe you detherve and you will thuctheed on your own meritth. Your employer'th lothth ith your gain!

TRIANGULUM ALTERNISSIMUS, the other other triangle: Nox descending in trine with the Black Sun leaving the cusp of Io's sceptre trailing a blessed reverse syzygy. Hope that clears things up!

VISITOR CONFUSUS, the Perplexed Guest: Go to Ops.

IF TODAY IS YOUR BIRTHDAY: nobody knows what you did last year, don't worry. Double check that all the evidence is well hidden and do your best to carry on as normal. Sheep cannot legally be called to testify, except in Llamedos.

The entries of the Masquerade

2010-08-28T22:05:00.000+01:00

It is currently halftime in the Masquerade. Below follows some notes on all the entries. They are not spell checked, not read through, many of the names are missing or wrong - in short, I have been writing as the Masquerade unfolded, and now, I am posting it in halftime. Results, and report from interviews for Low King, will follow later.
I may correct this mess later, but no promises.

A bunch of seamstresses run up on stage. Someone performs the rite of Ashk Ente.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, your host for tonight. Heeer’s Pat!”
Pat arrives, flanked by two lovely ladies.
Two journalists
“Is it true sir, that you are a duck-o-phobe?”
I have a policy of never addressing my duck-ular orientation.”
Pat turns to go on.
Otto sets up his camera
“Excuse me sir, a photo?”
Otto flashes – and turn into dust. Luckily, the journalist has “first aid,” and Otto rematerializes. Journalists out.
Pat continues explaining the rules. Finally

This years judges:
Brian Nisbet, Chairman
Bernhard Pearson, the Cunning Articifer (Unfortunately, his biography will not be published, as there is no market for a book about a hairy potter)
Jacqueline simpson (has exchanged the world of Academia with the world of macademia, spending the weekend with a bunch of nuts)
Terry Pratchett (this time wearing hat for the first time at an official function this convention)
20:31 The first entrance… is a bit slow in coming onto the stage. This seems to be because Pat has forgotten this paper. A man in black clothes with a beard arrives saing: “Owing to circumstances beyond my control, Davina won’t appear tonight.”
A telephone rings.
“Get davina to appear within ”
Que Mission impossible.
People coming to shave, make up, take off trouser, bring tea, put on wig and dress the bearded gentleman – and there, we have Davina, forgetting, though, Davina.
Unfortunately, Mission Control is not satisfied:
“shouldn’t you find a costume?”
Nod
“Do you think you can get one before the end of the evening”?
Nod
A good one?
Shrug
20 Hana Borum: Mommy trouble – a newbie.
A witch is mumnbling something, then saying a spell.
No result.
Uh, oh – what’s wrong? Let’s try the spell again?
Witch out

20:40 Vincent Oberheim – a “Master” Sergant Colon.
Sergant colon is on watch on a quiet night with Nobby.
Colon in in centurion uniform.
Colon is talking to Nobby. Some trolls are apparently playing football with something – or rather somebody, a dwarf.
It is very nice, Colon thinks, that the trolls and the dwarfs are playing together like that.
Colon out.
20:43 Everybody quacks as Pat admits his phone
20:44 Ross, newbie, as lady Margolotta: “Mantroubles”
Lady Margolotta appears, looking troubled, scouting for someone.
“Havelock, Havelock – where are you Havelock [Adressing Pat] My good man, have you seen Lord Vetinari”
He hasn’t.

20:47 Rooks: “Departure aria:” Aria between Iodine and Picadillo
Hazzled looking man in coat enters.
Offstage – the diva enters.
The man in coat holds up the translation as the diva starts singing:
“This door sticks (repeat) it sticks no matter what I do. It’s ,arked “pull” and I am pulling. Perhaps it should be marked…Push”
Unfortunately, the male lead isn’t there to sing – he seems to have been sat on by the diva:
Brian Dale, Journey man: Lord vetinary announces his retirement (It wasn’t his idea (Hicks made me doit)
Que Imperial March.
An aged Vetinary walks on.
He starts taking, addresses the audience, including various illustrious people.
He announces his retirement. He wants them to argue. And he will let them know his decision when he’s reached it.
20:55: Pat is handed a mysterious package. Within, one of the rubber duckies the hotel sells, in RAF paint. Pat puts it on the railing.
20:56Christine Racickot, rookie. Angua: Lady lavish is dead. The chairman has been taking to his new abode.
Angua enters. Steps on the dogs squeky toy. Starts playing with it.
“Corporal – are you coming?”
“Ehm, coming!”
20:59; apparent Pat can’t go back to Germany.
Michell armoro, rookie: death of sheep. Susan introduces a friend – the death of sheep. The death of rats has gone on holiday – along with Death himself.
Glenda: Telling us about a new makeup for trolls.
A woman in a dress with a white bonnet. Looking for sellers of Trollon, a series of makeup for trolls. Troll sized makeup. Including lip stick (The bigger the lips, the bigger the stick) and the fragrance, Hugo Moss.
21:06 Mike Brennon. The witches Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax- First time in witches hats.
Two young ladies in witches hats.
Nanny thinks Bernhard is looking after her.
The witches are showing off their different personalities – though with a slighty more teenage bend.
Tammy Peters & Pete Haddock: Haddock of the Pseudopolis Yard.
Haddock enters and stands in a cone of light.
“It’s a funny old life in the guard…”
Someone runs in and hides behind a Hippo with a crest.
Haddock in again. Women’s clothes coming flying out.
It appears to be a young werewolf changing.
Minn Lacy, Novice. Black Ribonners meeting. With Lady Margolotta residing.
Apparently, the vampires are a bit on edge, not to mention unruly.
21:16 Act 7 part two: Lord Vetinari the decision. Imperial march, Vetinari in.
“I have decided, after watching your machination, that there is only one person fit to rule. Don’t let me detain you.”
MA8: summer lightning. The goddess of lightning and ruler of the storm, Alohura, comes in, wearing black clothes and a silver mask.
A long and somber speech about storms and wars, etc. follows. Very dramatic (no, really, it is).
Group performance: The Norwegian. No names – Pat can’t pronounce it. “Going Mental”
More Imperial March.
Two twin assassin students want to go undercover. They were told they were not ready, but want to do it.
But it is difficult, you must be one with the item. So it is dangerous. One assassin has become a lamp, one a drinks cabinet – and the Uberwaldian psychiatrist wasn’t a Uberwaldian psychiatrist, but went undercover as one.
Next act: A warp. No wolf in sheeps clothing, but something else.
A… mouse? Wolf? Spitting feathers. A dance.
A werewolf changing into a young lady, apparently.
21:32. Someone who is 12: Bridget Hertabes? A goddess: concussia: the Fgoddess of not paying attention in PE.
The goddess comes in, plays around, but is then called off by a teacher.
Bridget is entering as a journeyman, not a junior.
21:35 Elaine Mine: A member of the UU staff musing about football.
A woman enters. She’s very pale. Opens a note book. An order for the uni.
A buyer at a shop, talking about Jules. She doesn’t understand – until – last Saturday – it happed to her.
A note: the crewman in charge of clearing the stage seems a bit exasperated at the amount of clothes he has to clear up.
21:40 MA19: Poo Carrot (Rookie)
A monk in saffron robes comes in. Wearing glasses and a beard. “Bo!” he says.
He quotes from “The Book of Mrs. Cosmopolite.” Ends with a “Namaste.”
MA20: Ann thorald and… Rookie: “No You can’t”
Norbert, the servant of Noggan.
Two priests arrive. Representatives of Noggan.
They will be handing out paperclips, and doing there SOGOF abomination scheme (Suggest one, get one free.) They will be handing out their magazine “No, you can’t”. Oh, and they are both, allegedly, male.
This, of course, is the act after which Pat goes into a rant about the punctuation and spelling of youn’uns.
Next act: Phoenix fire. A song, acapella.
A figure in red light. She stands up, in a red and yellow dress.
The last competitor:
Richard Archley. Joshua Lavish. The best customer of the seamstresses. Joshua Lavish doing a song in full regalia, with the seamstresses in the back. He throws out money.
And thus, the last act ends.
Or rather…. We miss something…. Remember the start? Did you think Davina wouldn’t find a costume? Haha, you feel.
Here she enters in a wizards robe. We all have Terries in our head (Davina’s got a terry costume on) – but who’s in terry’s head…?

And now, interviews with the candidates for Low King.

Morris Dancing

2010-08-28T14:18:00.000+01:00

Written by Darrock
Jumping about, waving and bashing sticks together. Certainly not the sort of activity that a wizard should be involved in. However, in order to keep up my disguise, I was forced into attending this most bizarre of events so that my daughter could enjoy herself.

In we went, with my excuse in hand so that I could just sit and watch (my son who was by this stage ready for a snooze). The delightful lady and gent running this piece politely asked for volunteers to join in with the dancing and were met by hundreds... well tens... well, ok then 4, brave individuals keen to leap about a bit.
Having introduced them to a bit of the dance that they were to learn, there were enough volunteers available to make up another team of 4, one of whom was my daughter. Since the large wooden poles were a bit large and heavy for her, she was generously provided with a much more suitable (i.e. light) alternative.
Before I go any further I would like to apologise to the instructors since they carefully informed the various individuals of the correct terms for the various bits of the dance that they learnt as they progressed. I did not listen to this useful information, so I will make up my own.
The groups started with a bit of whacking and bashing where it would appear that each individual attempted to knock their opponents head or knees off whilst avoiding having the same done to them. Due to some kind of incompetence all round, all they achieved was to bash the sticks into each other.
The next bit was that they then did this weird game of interception, where the trick was to guess which way your opponent was going to move and to try and block them from reaching the end of the line. Again, thanks to some fluke, no-one seemed to quite get this right most of the time and the four people weaved in and out of each other, almost as if they did not understand the game.
The next part of the game returned to trying to bash your opponent’s skull with the big stick again. This was done with much more vigour than the earlier attempts and everyone had decided that the knee feint was no longer worthwhile. Again, no-one was seriously injured, so as a spectator I was most disappointed.
The final part of the competition that I saw involved some good old fashioned jousting. The pair would start in the centre, perform some kind of ceremonial circuit (presumably to show everyone in the crowd who it was that was about to duel each other) separate and head down to opposite ends of the field and then charge back at each other with great vehemence, spin each other round and round and attempt to throw each other onto the floor. I assume that due to this being a beginners class the combatants had not quite got the hang of the killing move yet and perhaps this would come later with practise.
Anyway, all in all it seemed a promising start and not at all what I had expected from the class. With any luck there will be some blood and carnage over the course of the weekend as I believe there is at least one more chance to go along and try it.

Signed,

Darrock (Guild of Seamstresses)

Chronicles of Darrock - Day 1

2010-08-28T13:43:00.003+01:00

I have successfully infiltrated the guild with the able assistance of my wife and children. They suspect nothing! We had a meeting, during which it was suggested that we should supply “love” to the people and that the people would then provide us with recompense... This seems like a very odd arrangement to me. In Ankh, if you provide someone with something and ask for a “voluntary donation” they’ll take what you give ‘em and run for the hills (well, the Shades anyway).
As for this “love” thing, it does not seem to have much to do with darning socks... Some of the others did mention corsetry and offering assistance to those finding this item of clothing difficult. This seems like much firmer territory and I offered to assist, although the offer was turned down for some reason (they obviously do not believe that I am sufficiently high ranking in the guild).
Since then, I have tried to follow the guidance of the guild as allowed, providing hugs to tired denizens when requested and generally spreading the message of love (very reasonably priced apparently) to one and all.
Tomorrow, I hope to find out more about the dubious activities going on and discover the secret of how they have managed to infiltrate the area so completely. I will have to sacrifice myself to the cause in the hopes of getting away from all this quicker.

Signed,

Darrock (Guild of Seamstresses)

Chronicles of Darrock - The Assignment

2010-08-28T13:43:00.000+01:00

Have you ever had one of those days where your world hangs in the balance and you’re not sure whether anything will be the same again? Yes? Me too.
I have been on an investigative trip into the Roundworld for the UU. The place is... weird. Anyway, the other day, I got pulled out of the Roundworld and to my surprise was sent to see the Archchancellor. He offered me a “rare opportunity” and the “chance of a lifetime”. I was, of course, suspicious, but refusing the Archchancellor might lead to “words”.
My “opportunity” was that the Seamstresses were active in elsewhere in the world (no point in trying to get into the Seamstresses in Ankh, they know all the wizards anyway) and the Archchancellor was very keen that I should discover what they actually did. He had heard rumours that darning socks was not their only service.
Anyway, after some travelling and a cunning disguise (the Archchancellor even changed my hat!) I have managed to infiltrate the guild and am now in a unique position to report on activities back to UU.
As such, I will be writing pieces for the Chronicle with the intention of providing much needed information to the Archchancellor on these activities. With any luck, I can obtain enough to satisfy the Archchancellor and return to UU (and my fellow students) soon.

Signed,

Darrock (Guild of Seamstresses)

Babies at the Con

2010-08-28T13:31:00.000+01:00

Terry posing alongside a junior member of the con. Where the baby came from, we don't know.

I have never been to a convention for Discworld or any other world for that matter. Neither have 50% of the other attendees. Fifty percent is pretty significant. Why so many newbies? Well I did a little looking around and a fair few of these are in nappies; with one notable exception they don't have hair on their backs. In the under 2 set there is a 16 month old, a 15 month old one who is 4 ½ months old, 3 months and I think the youngest is 5 weeks. So, there are people at the convention who weren't even born when the planning stages were started.

They aren't in fancy costumes but get loads of attention. I doubt many of them have read the books. They seem to be having as much fun as the rest of us though they are managing to have naps.

/Zetty Abbott

The Honourable Company supports Jennifer Delaney for Low King!

2010-08-28T13:00:00.000+01:00

The Honourable Company of Journalists, Clackspersons and Gossipmongers is, of course, taking the upcoming election for Low King very seriously. Who sits on the Scone has wide implications for all of us in the short term as well as in the long perspective. The Company has been evaluating the candidates for a considerable period and has made its decision. We need a strong Low King, we need a firm Low King, and above all, we need a media-friendly Low King. A free and unintimidated press is essential for Uberwald.

The Honourable Company of Journalists, Clackspersons and Gossipmongers is delighted to announce that it endorses the candidacy of Jennifer Delaney (A89) as Low King. Jennifer Delaney is a dwarf of many years' stooping with a long and proud record of serving the mines in many capacities. We believe that Jennifer Delaney is the best dwarf for the role of Low King. If Jennifer Delaney is elected, there will be more gold for all dwarves and we will get the answers to the pub quiz in two years' time!

As for the other candidates, we have heard some sad tales. Our crack team of investigative journalists is still investigating, and we are gathering evidence of shameful scandals. Rumour has it that at least one candidate is not a dwarf and that some may even be female and proud of it. Rest assured that we will do our utmost to keep you updated on these shocking revelations.

Remember, in the election for the Low King, vote Jennifer Delaney (A89) – high standards for the Low King!

On behalf of the Honourable Company of Journalists, Clackspersons and Gossipmongers,

Elias Helfer, Deputy.

The Officially-Non-Official Pub Quizz

2010-08-28T12:36:00.001+01:00

On Thursday evening, the con didn't start with the traditional, not-at-all part of the convention pub quizz hosted and designed by Jennifer Delaney. The quizz featured 32 Roundworld related questions, each loosely based on a Discworld book. For those of you who weren't there, we bring here the questions, including the book it was based upon, the number of points the question potentially provides and, last but certainly not least, the answer, appearing in white after the question (highlight it to see the answer).

The Colour of Magic (4) In print production, what do the letters CMYK stand for? Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black
The Light Fantastic (1) In which Shakespeare play is the character Lucio described in the Dramatis Personae as a “fantastic”?Measure for Measure
Equal Rites (2) There are two countries in the world where women do not have the right to vote but men do. Name them.Vatican City and Saudi Arabia.
Mort (2) In California, there is a house which was continuously built onto by its owner in the belief that this would appease the ghosts of those killed by the source of the family fortune. Name the house and the source of the family fortune. Winchester Mystery House, guns.
Sourcery (1) Name the man who was nicknamed “Emperor of Chefs” and credited with introducing the saucier as a defined role in restaurant kitchens.Georges Auguste Escoffier
Wyrd Sisters (1) In Scottish history, which king succeeded Macbeth? Lulach
Pyramids (1) I’d like the formula for determining the volume of a pyramid, please. 1/3 the area of the base multiplied by the height.
Guards! Guards! (1) What breed of horse, famous for its use in haute ecole dressage at the Spanish Riding School, was developed under the supervision of the Hapsburgs in the sixteenth century? Lipizzaners.
Eric (1) What was the alternate title of the 1858 book Eric by Frederic W Farrar? Little by Little
Moving Pictures (2) Which film was the first to win Best Picture or equivalent thereof at the Academy Awards, and in which year?Wings, 1929
Reaper Man (1) The name of the band who released “Don’t Fear the Reaper” in 1976. Blue Oyster Cult.
Witches Abroad (2) In Japanese tradition, what are the two most common familiars for witches?Snake and fox.
Small Gods (1) Founded in 1747 by Ann Lee, which religious group at the most recent count has only three members left? The Shakers
Lords and Ladies (1) Name the directory that tracked European royal houses and their branches, first published in 1763? Almanach de Gotha
Men at Arms (1) The earliest documented mention of the word “gonne” for a gun was in a Latin manuscript. But what century does the manuscript date from? 14th century
Soul Music (1) Name the album, first released in 1968 by Booker T and the MGs, which includes the track “Soul Limbo”, best known in the UK as the theme tune to “Test Match Special”. (I shall now invite the audience to tap along to it...)Soul Limbo
Interesting Times (1) Which historian’s autobiography is called “Interesting Times”? Eric Hobsbawm
Maskerade (1) Name the artist who painted the ceiling of the Palais Garnier, the Paris opera house. Marc Chagall
Feet of Clay (1) What pottery uses crossed swords as its logo? Meissen (Dresden china)
Hogfather How many toes does a pig have? 16
Jingo (1) We don't want to fight but by Jingo if we do, We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too, Which war did this 1879 song refer to? The Russo-Turkish War
The Last Continent (1) Name the supercontinent that existed about 250 million years ago. Pangea
Carpe Jugulum (1) What was the name of the lab assistant who appeared in James Whale’s 1931 film Frankenstein? Fritz
The Fifth Elephant (1) In the elephant family, African and Asian elephants are classified in two different genuses: Loxodonta and Elephas. But which is which? Loxodonta is African; Elephas is Asian.
The Truth (1) What do the names of the typefaces Frutiger, Johnston and Baskerville all have in common? All named for their creators - Adrian Frutiger, Edward Johnston, John Baskerville.
Thief of Time (1) In the British Empire, what date immediately followed 2 September 1752? 14 September 1752
Night Watch (1) Who recorded the 1978 album “Nightwatch”? Kenny Loggins
Monstrous Regiment (1) For what crime was Joan of Arc burned at the stake? Heresy
Going Postal (1) What famous postal service began in 1860, ended in 1861 and was founded by William Russell, Alexander Majors and William Waddell? The Pony Express
Thud! (2) In the game Monopoly, what are the usual colours of the three property squares, immediately before and after Free Parking? Orange and red
Making Money (1) What country has the oldest continuously running central bank in the world?Sweden
Unseen Academicals (2) What country has won the world cup more often than anyone else, and how many times has it won? Brazil, five.

The winning team got 27 points out of a possible 40 - can you do better?

If you're lucky, you get to take Nanny Ogg home with you...

2010-08-28T12:08:00.000+01:00

...cause Nanny has become a painted lady... made of lead:

Becky of Ecclectic Games is raffling off an expertly hand-crafted miniature Nanny Ogg figurine for charity - see the Ecclectic Games stall for details and raffle tickets. Tickets will be available until shortly before the Dealer's room closes on Monday.

Have you got news for us?

2010-08-24T19:31:00.006+01:00

Welcome to The Chronicle Live. This is the journal we produced day by day not just for the inmates^Wmembers but also to share the event with our fellow fans stuck outside in the
Roundworld as well as to enjoy as part of the retrospective.

This year, the chair of the Editor in Chief of this glorious news medium has been taken over by us, the deputies of The Honourable Company of Journalists, Clackspersons and Gossipmongers (luckily, the chair is quite wide, so we're not too squished).

THIS SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN TO MEAN THAT WE ONLY WANT GUILD MEMBERS WRITING FOR IT!

Quite the contrary, in fact. We want as many conventioneers as possible to take part. And we eagerly accept any and all kinds of contributions[1]: text, pictures, videos, sound recordings... we want it all!
So if too few people were at that amazingly interesting panel you were at, or if something mindblowingly astonishing happened on your way to Terry's Bedtime Story? Write a piece about it and let everybody know!

Don't have an electronic device on which to write your piece? Borrow one from us, or write your piece on paper - we'll type it up (within reason; no three part novels).
Have an urge to write, but no ideas? Come see us - we're bound to have ideas for things you can write!
Have an idea for what you want to read, but no time to write it? Swing by to tell us, and we'll see if we can find someone else who wants to write it.
Want to help out, but don't want to write anything? Swing by, and you can help us type up, edit, or otherwise make the operation run smoothly.
Good at layout? Come and help select pieces for printing up to the noticeboards!

We hope many of you will provide us with material to publish, and that all of you will enjoy this years' Chronicle Live,

Otto and Elias (eds.)

[1] That we can legally and technically publish on the blog. Sorry, no
"interesting" anatomical sculptures.

2010-08-24T19:19:00.005+01:00

An Introduction to the Guilds of the 2010 Convention.

A number of Ankh-Morpork's Guilds, both great and small, are present in Bonk for the delegation; where they are to be welcomed by a number of Bonk's own local associations.

They are:

From Ankh-Morpork:

• The Guild of Assassins
• The Guild of Seamstresses
• The Honorable Company of Journalists, Clackspersons and Gossipmongers
• The Guild of Historians, Teachers and Archaeological Knowitalls

From Bonk:

• The Reformed Athothiation of Thurgeonth, Igorth and Igorinath
• The Missionaries, Proselytes and Botherers of Om
• The Überwald League of Temperance
There is also a (non-competitive) Guild for people who have a yearning to display their skills at performing:
• The Bonk Operatic Society (twinned with the Dolly Sisters Players).
Between them, they possess a power for chaos, mayhem and (we hope) a very large amount of fun!

Guild membership

...Is voluntary. No-one is expected to join a Guild if they don't wish to; and you should have a wonderful time here regardless. You won't miss any events by not being part of a Guild.

That said, the Guilds are the source of all sorts of insanely fun and creative ideas, as well as being a great icebreaker. We'd certainly recommend them and you can join the discussions about Guilds here.

(Admittedly, we're biased.)

Although members will generally be assigned to a Guild at random, you *can* change to another Guild when you arrive at the Convention. We'd encourage you to do this at the Guild Fair, which takes place on the first day of the Convention.

We do also take efforts to ensure that all children will be placed in a Guild with at least one of their parents.

Nothing that happens before the Convention is absolutely final (or we'd be History Monks!).
The Monks of Cool (a.k.a. the Guilds Team).
The great and wise in the Committee called upon us as part of their sage deliberations two years ago. The Monks of Cool are a roaming team of Very Mellow Individuals headed up by the Abbot of Cool himself. Our way is to promote cosmic harmony through the application of relaxation; to smooth troubled waters, to unfurrow Guild brows, to help the Guilds get what they need to get to do what they want to do.

(Within reason. Since the Thieves Guild ran off with our I.W.I.N. button, we do have to say no on the odd occasion. But we don't like saying no and would much rather say 'Wow! cool!')

We will assign deputies, handle transfers, answer your questions, advise on the feasibility of Guild plans, assist where we can, and keep track of the score during the Guild Competition.

Each guild will have two deputies who will be in charge of their day-to-day activities. We are currently in the process of recruiting these. Should they encounter any problems, or be uncertain as to whether it's a good idea to, say, paint the hotel black to match their clothes, we will be at hand to help with friendly advice and blunt instruments.

The Rules
There are one rule and two recommendations, handed down from the timeless wisdom of the Abbot himself. If you stick to these, all will have an excellent convention, and we'll have less to do, leaving us more time to, well, be cool.

* Be excellent unto one another.
* Have fun
* Make fun for others

We look forward to helping you make things incredibly groovy.

The Monks of Cool.

Nearly there!

2010-08-24T18:38:00.002+01:00

Looking forward to seeing you all on the 27th!

Closed for Submissions

2008-09-07T20:12:00.008+01:00

The Chronicle Live is now closed for submissions. There will, however, be a little bit of polishing going on in the corners to make this a nicer place for people to (re)visit the memories. :-)

For the photo fans, the photo links page is still going! Check it out and please drop them a line if you've got a collection that you'd like linked.

Photo: Ingo Korb

In which Igorina removes her hair...

2008-09-04T14:28:00.002+01:00

Hello All,

You may remember me from the con as 'the Igorina with the really long plaits.'

If you don't remember me, "Hi! I'm Essy, the Igorina with the really long plaits."

But I'm going to have to come up with a new costume idea for 2010, since I'm about to shave my head to raise money for Alzheimer's Research Trust.

And you're going to sponsor me.

Yes, you are.

Okay, you're going to recover from all that cash you spent in the dealers' room, then you're going to sponsor me.

Remember the more money you raise, the less silly I will feel in a month's time when I've got no hair!

You can sponsor me online at http://www.justgiving.com/blondiegoesbald secure in the knowledge that your cash is going direct to the charity. (Don't forget to tick the Gift Aid box if you're a UK taxpayer!)

Thanks!

Essy

(Beware of) The Alchemists Corner

2008-09-02T22:24:00.007+01:00

Unidentified Flying Objects
Many reports from the local area have been arriving of UFO sightings.
Some people have suggested that there was just an unusually high volume of witch activity overhead but other eye-witnesses were convinced that what they saw was even more unusual. Reports of children, Feegles, Wizards and even Alchemists on broomsticks have been received. The Alchemist Boughtdaughter was out with her iconograph, with imps at the ready, hoping to capture pictures of the next sightings. These pictures are truly amazing.....

Dragon-Powered Custard Server
The winner of the Swamp-Dragon-Powered-Invention Competition received her reward. The prize for this Alchemist-devised competition was presented to Adele, the inventor of the favourite entry, avoiding too much of a bang. Her contraption is a Swamp Dagon Powered Custard Server (please place your orders now!).

The prize consisted of variously coloured, squidgy, ingredients for alchemy, ingots of (fool's) gold, and a tome called Darwin’s Watch signed by the Alchemists’ Head, Jack Cohen; by UU Head, Ian Stewart, and by the other author.

There were no runners-up prizes but two other entrants are worth a mention. Firstly Len Oil with a Dragon-Powered Sprinkler System and then Liz with 5 separate ideas, mostly good, but she may have lost our vote by suggesting that we use Swamp Dragon residue to flavour crisps!

Alchemists Caught Hunting for Magic Wave-Heating Box
The Alchemists also caused dismay in Harga’s House of Ribs when they caused a multi-layered reaction in a drinking vessel.

Soon after this, Alchemists were caught hunting for a magic wave-heating box. The alchemists insisted that they only wanted the ‘microwave’ to provide tasty ‘popped corn’ snacks, or banged grains. This caused much hilarity (once the panic had died down).

Alchemy Breakthrough
A recent experiment by alchemists was deemed a success although two of the Guild were lost in the explosion. One of the deceased came to terms with her untimely demise by expressing herself in song with a surviving alchemist and seemed to fully accept that she died for a good cause.

RavenousJo, Co-Deputy of the Alchemists Guild

Chronicle Live Says Thanks

2008-09-01T20:42:00.001+01:00

Thanks to all the con-goers who submitted articles via USB stick, e-mail and even paper! In particular, I'd like to thank the following people:

Darrock
Jesca Yates
Sarah Ganderton
Elias Helfer
Nik from Iceland
The Hunter
Robert "Otto" Flach

I hope I haven't forgotten anyone, the 2010 ConCom wants to know. ;-)

A Con Report - at last - from a tired Guild Deputy

2008-08-29T18:00:00.005+01:00

Well, I'm finally in a fit state to write something! It's only taken 3 days to recover from the bone-weary sense of fatigue. But I wouldn't have changed a SINGLE THING ... except maybe to have ensured that the Procrastinators were fully charged. I was painfully aware as the Con got into full swing that there were many, many clashes in my own personal schedule

However, I'm getting ahead of myself!

I arrived at the Hilton about teatime on Thursday (and definitely agree with other people's thoughts on the hotel! Gosh, it was BIG!) I made it through Registration in one piece and, attempting to get the trolley to obey, staggered off to find my room (4227). Not a bad size, with an en-suite bathroom and a sofa - mind you, I didn't get to see much of the room except in the early hours of the morning, when I went to bed!

I headed downstairs and decided to get a drink at the "The Bunch of Grapes". I was pounced on by Beth (a con newbie all the way from Delhi, although born in Houston). She'd seen my Con T-shirt and had taken the plunge, as she didn't know anyone. That soon stopped, as she threw herself into the Convention spirit with gusto. She'd joined the Seamstresses Guild and I have the photos to prove that she filled a corset VERY well. :-))

I soon caught up with my other Guild Deputy, Loriba, and the 3 of us enjoyed some rather pleasant nachos. It set the tone for the rest of the Con - good food, good friends and a LOT of fun. Loriba and I realised that we had a LOT to do and started planning and plotting.

The next few days are a bit more of a blur - I can remember getting up anywhere between 0700 and 0830 most mornings (Friday morning I actually made it to the Hotel's pool, which was very nice). But for the most part it was Loriba and I meeting for breakfast and trying to plan what we were going to do for the day, creating posters, putting them up, talking with the Monks of Cool (who were AWESOME - thanks to Abbot Orjan, Leo, Gideon and Drachii), liaising with the other Deputies to try and ensure we were all co-operating (Many thanks to the ones who I pestered and cajoled - Periwinkle, Marlies, Winterbay, Snow, Eelco, Eric, Kary-Ann and Viv, Judith and Marco - you were wonderful to work with), and getting to Guild events to ensure that our members had some moral support. (Huge thanks to Davina, Xris, Torak, Flexor, Sabremeister, Kirsten, Richard, Thomas, Yoo, Dave, and especially Kai who all performed so brilliantly. I know there were many others - the couple in Maskerade who did the Agnes/Ghost duet and all the people who turned up to support the Conjurors' Guild, but I can't remember any more names).

We produced some interesting games, as a Guild, which a lot of lovely people turned up to and seemed to enjoy:

"Where's the Mime, MiLord?" - a Discworld variant on "What's the Time Mister Wolf". We were completely floored when Stephen Briggs actually agreed to play Lord Vetinari for us and the Dark Clerks (thanks to Drumknott and Yoo) provided a Portable Scorpion Kit (every tyrant should have one!) Everyone (including Stephen) appeared to enjoy themselves, we even had volunteers to be Guards to drag the helpless or maybe hapless victims to the PSP - very silly and a LOT of fun! (Sorry to Pat's talk next door - we did try to whisper "Pit, pit, pit" at the appropriate times!)

A Live Thud Match! - Loriba was a complete STAR here! She (and her lovely Mum) created the board out of lining paper and some little flags of Red (D for Dwarf) and Blue (T for Troll). She even had a pin board mapped out for the players to use and plan their moves. We were worried that we wouldn't get the people for this (after all - 32 dwarves, 8 trolls and 2 players!) but we needn't have worried! Bernard Pearson (our lovely Guild Leader) said that he'd make a special badge for everyone who played (or was a piece) and the Con turned up trumps!! We even had an audience and an Assassin for a ref (how appropriate). Many thanks to ALL who turned up and agreed to stand around on a board in the evening - you were all WONDERFUL, but special thanks to Pieter and Ynte our players (congratulations again to Pieter for winning) and to Kural Kushi - our ref at short notice!

The Condensed Discworld Competition - which ran for the whole Con. The task was to reduce the plot of a DW novel to a single sentence (Brevity is Best) and pop it in the box at Ops. A HUGE thank you to the 4 lovely people who agreed to be our judges Monday morning - Judith "Lady Vanessa" Proctor, Lisa "CCA" Williams, Pat "the Compere" Harkin and Bernard "the Cunning Artificer" Pearson. They had a LOT of entries to go through but they finally whittled their way down to 4 that were the cream and Bernard picked the Overall Winner

Maskerade "Ahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!" by Carolyn (M.O.P.P)
Xris got an Honourable Mention as he'd created a limerick of ALL the novels!!

The Trolls' Dress-Tease - this was very silly but seemed to go OK. Xris and Butcher very kindly agreed to be our Trolls and even allowed RJW76 to paint them grey! We then had two Seamstresses (actually the two Deputies, Essy and Periwinkle) race to dress them. Essy & Xris appeared to be going for total body coverage and speed, whereas Periwinkle and Butcher were going for the artistic look. We allowed the audience to judge and they chose Essy and Xris! Worthy winners!

Just A Minute - There were two sessions - I only managed to make one - Torak as host and Davina, Judith, Alison (Mrs Davina) and Periwinkle started - but I've written about this already. I wish I'd seen the Post Watershed one - it was apparently excellent, with an extra rule of "unnecessary cleanliness" joining the more traditional "hesitation, repetition and deviation."

I know there were more things. I actually saw the How to Buckle a Swash this time, took part in Walk the Walk with Kai (who was BRILLIANT), attended A Time and Place for Music (ahh! the Unholy Round with Mole - magic) and also Toast & Jam where a lot of wonderful musicians covered up my singing :-) (thanks Eric, Edmund and the rest of you all for making me sound reasonable), there were some awesome voices there.

Got to see Maskerade again (well done, all the participants - you were ALL great); attend the Gala Dinner (and wear a posh frock); ride a winning dragon (even if the other riders were inhumed around me. ;-) Watched the Reduced Discworld Production (masterfully done guys! Loved the 50 ft woman), and adored the HolyWood ending (Congratulations to you both!!).

Missed the Charity Auction this year (sigh), both the gophering and the watching, although it was lovely to hear that the Beastiary made £40 (woo hoo) -- there's an animal of mine in there (nice warm fuzzy feeling).

I got to see LOADS of people and talk with at least half, run around like the proverbial fly, eat, drink, HAVE FUN and occasionally (very occasionally) sleep! Biggest thanks must go to the Guild of Conjurors, Thespians and Associated Trades members, but the BIGGEST must go to Loriba who was absolutely wonderful and put up with me the whole weekend!

*rubs hands together*
So - how long til 2010?

*grin*

Ssirienna
(Guild Deputy - Guild of Conjurors, Thespians and Associated Trades)

2008-08-28T17:21:00.002+01:00

Sator Square was, as you will all know, filled almost to the brim with tables. Most were covered by divers items pertaining to this thing you might call Terrymania.
The table right across from the entrance, however, whas not. Instead, it was manned by a man known as Jonny Nexus, and stacked high with copies of his first bookthe man himself, and portray a divine r0leplaying game - divine

Con Report The Third, and The Hunter

2008-08-28T17:03:00.002+01:00

The last report of a Convention is always the hardest, because by nature it talks of the end, a finality, a closing.

But Discworld Conventions are not like that. They don't end, they merely sleep for a while, until the next time. And while they rest other Discworld things happen.
People who met at the Convention get to know each other more. Events get organised. Con members find the IRC chat channel, and join in and become involved in more Discworld-related things. Discworld children grow to become Discworld adults. Life becomes one long, slowed down Convention, taking place the whole world over.
So, mourn not the Convention. Rumours of its death were greatly exaggerated!

I worried about how to write this. I delayed, because I couldn't think how I could express my feelings. I could have extemporised on the superbness of the Hotel (It was very good, but with a little tweak or two it could be better).
I could have praised the ConCom (But why bother? They were brilliant. They are *always* brilliant. And so many people have told them in ways I never could.)
I could waffle on about how happy I was to meet new friends, to remeet old friends, to discover new Very Close Friends...but no...actually the best way I can finish the Con report is to quote two people who said it so much better than I ever could.

Sessifet: *My inner five-year-old is yelling "I don't wanna wanna GO HOME! I wanna wanna stay with the shiny people!"*

And Bruce, our esteemed ConCom chairman, who put into moving words my thoughts of oh so many years and so many conventions.

*When people hear I'm involved in Discworld, they say to me "For Gods sake, get a life!" Oh, if only they knew what a life I had, and it is all here, in this room!*
His voice broke, just a little, when he said that. And so did mine. For it is true. Whether or not The Man With The Hat intended to do so, he has drawn together a huge disparate group of people, from different countries, faiths, colours, social groups, and turned them all into a group of friends, a family. And that, to me, is the Discworld Fandom. My family. My friends. And long may it be so.

So, until the sleeping goliath that is The Discworld Convention wakes from its slumber next time, Thank you Terry. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

The Hunter

Seamstresses' Prizes

2008-08-28T16:19:00.004+01:00

The Guild of Seamstresses awarded two prizes at the end of the con.

Richard of the Conjurers Guild won the 'Best Customer' prize. (A shopping bag with the words 'I've been stitched up by the Ankh-Morpork Guild of Seamstresses' on it.)

Judith of the Teachers Guild won the prize at the Double Entendre Olympics. (A tapestry of the Seamstress Guild's logo with the word WINNER above it in red.)

Thanks to everybody who took part!

Photo links

2008-08-27T16:17:00.004+01:00

A quick and dirty list of links to sets of photographs - this will be cleaned up and categorised over the next couple of weeks as more links come in (you can subscribe to the RSS feed for the group/pages and get notifications if you wish).

You can additionally send links in to pictures@dwcon.org for adding here now until we have a
more structured page:

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/dwcon_org_2008/web/photo-links

Karen/hypatia

Prizes!

2008-08-27T15:21:00.001+01:00

A quick list of the main prize winners as announced at the Closing Ceremony - more prizes and links to follow!

Prizes, Prizes, Prizes!

Karen/hypatia, still half asleep...

Reasons to be Cool

2008-08-27T13:36:00.007+01:00

As part of this year's Guild effort, all members of the Convention were supplied with a number of Tokens of Appreciation (or TOAs) that they could fill out and present to a deserving fellow attendee.

Many big and high-profile cool things happening at the Convention but we wanted to find a way to allow recognition and "rewarding" of the smaller, more personal cool things that are also a big part of what makes Discworld Conventions so much fun - the TOAs were a way of achieving this.

So, if another convention member did something cool that made your day just that little bit more happy, even (especially!) if it was only something simple like making you smile at the right moment or being a creative participant in some event, you could fill in a TOA and let them know one-to-one.

If the receiver was actively participating in the Guilds they could then hand in the TOAs they had collected to the Monks of Cool and earn their Guild a (small) number of points in the Guild competition.

An unexpected advantage of this setup was that with a couple of hundred of TOAs thus ending up in the Monks' Inbox, we were able to get a pretty good idea of the sort of things that people had found worthy of Appreciation.

Here is a small selection of representative TOA quotes:

"For... dancing the Flamenco"
"For... an enlightening bathunt"
"For... doing the Beastiary"
"For... being blue"
"For... education on the subject of mathematics"
"For... babysitting my stuff while I went to get a power cable"
"For... Orangogram"
"For... violence and pushing"
"For... good singing of songs"
"For... making me laugh so much; loved my 1st con"
"For... nice dress"
"For... 'name the dragon'"
"For... room 3b"
"For... feeding the queue"
"For... gallantry in extreme circumstances"
"For... cursing the ATM"
"For... wonderful Toast and Jam"
"For... one of the most vampish costumes I've ever seen"
"For... bringing me to the DW con again cos it's so much fun"
"For... walking around with a sack with a foot sticking out"
"For... serenading me"
"For... refereeing the live Thud match"
"For... great singing and oooking"
"For... anti-Nac Mac Feegle charm"
"For... blanket for pet snake"
"For... making an alchemist explode"
"For... wish stones and helicopter"
"For... persuasive recruiting"
"For... tupenny upright"
"For... sociability & general kindness"
"For... death by chocolate"
"For... assassination contract - fulfilled"
"For... knowing his hymenoptera"
"For... buying me a drink"
"For... bananas!"
"For... double entendre olympics"
"For... a very exciting massage"
"For... spontaneous tap dancing"
"For... trying to fix my camera"
"For... the funky broom piccie"
"For... handing out chocolate goodies. yum."

Death by Chocolate - Take 2

2008-08-26T23:22:00.003+01:00

After some conventioneers were struck down by food poisoning attributed to the Chocolate Tasting Competition* Terry was heard to say,
"You poisoned four out of eighty? That's just not even trying."

To those who were unwell, all my sympathies, to those who survived unscathed, the scores ranged from two to 11 successful identifications, with the most common being six.

The only chocolate successfully identified by all entrants was the Lindt Chilli, the only one never identified correctly was Harrods Belgian Chocolate

Many thanks to all who took part, and left enough chocolate to give presents to the wonderful hotel staff.

Chris Boote

*Now renamed the Lady Lucrezia da Quirm Memorial Wine and Arsenic Party

Limericks

2008-08-26T22:27:00.002+01:00

Lots of people asked about my limericks after they were mentioned in the closing ceremony so;

The Reduced Discworld

The Colour of Magic

A tourist in Ankh is at risk
With Rincewind as guide it's quite brisk
To travel the world
Until they are hurled
In a bronze fish-shaped ship off the disk

The Light Fantastic

Rincewind's got a spell in his head
So others now all want him dead
The spell knows what it's doing
And gets cast so A'Tuin's
baby turtles hatch from the star red

Equal Rites

Eskarina's a wizard, AND witch
So as trainee to Granny she's hitched
She runs off to UU
And staves off the hoodoo
By NOT doing magic (neat switch!)

Mort

Apprenticed to Death (with his scythe)
Is an odd way to work out your life
After a major disaster
He makes up with his master
And takes Ysabella to wife

Sourcery

Coin is a sourcerous lad
Though ruled by his death-cheating Dad
Wizards make a great din
Even Rincewind joins in
But we're saved when Coin's dad calls him bad

Wyrd Sisters

It's Shakespeare, with witches and kings
And a play with Death in the wings
Granny flies (despite fears)
The kingdom sleeps for years
And the Jester steps into the ring

Pyramids

Pteppic's called back to his home
Where the customs make him feel alone
But twisted up time
Puts his life on the line
'Til he kills a great tomb made of stone

Guards! Guards!

A dragon swoops down from above
The Guards, led by Vimes, get the shove
But Carrot arrests it
After young Errol bests it
Then they fly off together, in love!

~~Faust~~Eric

With a Bang, our Rincewind is back
Taking Eric to see all he lacks
From Creation to End
Then Hell's steps descend
But they escape through a door in the back

Moving Pictures

Holywood magic's in town
Turning UU upside down
Victor's a new star
Gaspode will go far
And the Girl and Beast tumble down

Reaper Man

To Death Windle Poons cannot pass
'Cos Death is out mowing the grass
While the Auditors try
To make our Death die
The wizards go out and kick arse!

Witches Abroad

The witches are all in a tizz
They're off on some Creole-based biz
There's trouble about
It's the stories, no doubt
Then Lilly knows not who she is

Small Gods

Brutha thinks he's going to hell
His god has come back – with a shell
After a torturing session
Om learns a lesson
Belief must bind the Gods as well

Lords and Ladies

The Fair Folk are back with a plan
To capture a small bit of land
They antagonise Nanny
Infuriate Granny
And Magrat stands up for her man

Men At Arms

Edward De'ath was quite mad
And stole the Gonne, what a lad!
Then he went round the bend
But we find out in the end
The worst King would be Good, and not Bad

Soul Music

The music took over Imp Y
To channel its strange mystery
After seeing the coach burnt
Susan has now learnt
That some things must be left to be

Interesting Times

For Cohen and Rincewind it's rough
To take Agatea is tough
It all seems to go wrong
They're threatened by Hong
Then the Barking Dog coughs, that's enough

Maskerade

Poor Agnes must stand in the wings
While the Phantom applies deadly stings
To Opera folk at whim
Only Granny can stop him
And at last, the fat lady sings

Feet of Clay

The golems created a King
Vetinari near death's hovering.
What was the reason?
A lamp made of poison!
Vimes sheds the light on some things

Hogfather

The Fat Man is suddenly gone
Death and Albert their red robes must don
Teatime's the man
For the Auditors plan
But Susan makes sure life goes on

Jingo

Those Klatchian bounders, egad!
Run by their Sultan, the Cad
We set sail for Klatch
It ends in a match
When the island sinks no one is sad

The Last Continent

We're all off to Oz, Oh my Gawd!
The Faculty chaps are aboard
It's all rather tragic
But after Rain Magic
Rincewind finally gets his reward

Carpe Jugulum

The King has invited a bunch
Of Vampires for a christening lunch
The Magpyres are canny
But no match for Granny
They won't be back, I've a hunch

The Fifth Elephant

Werewolves want to rule by fang
The dwarves have elected their King
Vimes must solve mysteries
Of thefts and old histories
And a game of fetch ends with a bang

The Truth

Movable print has arrived
How will Ankh-Morpork ever survive
Against Vetinari, a plot
By the papers is shot
And a free press continues to thrive

Thief of Time

A clock made of glass isn't good
So off must go sweeper and Ludd
To rebuild the continuum
Susan flirts with Time's son
And you know that she would, if she could!

Night Watch

Poor Vimes was in a bad fight
Now he's dropped back 30 years out of sight
A quick substitution,
In the Glorious revolution
He still manages to do what is right

Monstrous Regiment

The girlies are all off to war
But just what are they fighting for?
Jackrum's a rascal
And makes a truce in the castle
But can they make sure that peace reigns once more?

Going Postal

The Ankh Morpork post is not great
(some letters are 40 years late)
A con man is knowing
How to get it all going
And the Clacks are now owned by the State

Thud!

A dwarf has been killed in the mud
A Troll teaches Vimes to play Thud
The Dark is all raged up
But Vimes keeps it caged up
A watchman right down to his blood

Making Money

Lipwig's got bored with his job
So with bankers he must now hob nob
But what's to be done
When the gold is all gone?
Golems will now do the job!

Chris Boote, Gopher, Watchman, dressed troll and no longer a Dyskhead (hooray!)

Random Quotes

2008-08-26T20:40:00.005+01:00

"The coffee is not a substitute for sheep." -- Gabe of the Watch

"You'll have to step over the recumbent goth." -- the Brian half of Ops

"Toast and Jam, the most fun you can have with your cassock on." -- Countertony

During games of Werewolf:

"First you're wanting me to go away, now you're arguing that I'm cute." -- Snow

"Only Leo would ask for reasoned argument from a lynch mob." -- Jennifer

"I think the Werewolves are trying to put suspicion on me." -- a player
"That's a good place for it!" -- Esmeraldus

Moving Pictures by the Reduced Discworld Company

2008-08-26T16:35:00.007+01:00

Directed by John Hicks, this production was able to use some costumes and props from his recent production for KATS, and one could tell a lot of work had gone into practising different accents and magnifying certain voices.

As ever, Tim Williams was a reliable leading man, capturing the naivety and dashing heroism of Victor, while Jacqui Lawrence as Ginger had the right standoffishness together with the glamour - in several clinging dresses.

They were ably backed by a large cast of whom I shall mention Kate Oldroyd as Gaspode, Richard Atha-Nicholls as CMOT Dibbler, Tony Perkins as Silverfish and Josh Mace doubling as Death and Oswald. Detritus' rocky grey costume was outstanding.

The adaptation cleverly reduced the text to a core of key scenes, and some of the action had to be narrated when it couldn't be shown, especially Nobby and Colon describing the 50-foot woman and the librarian - which we also briefly saw.

The play ended with a clinch between Ginger and Victor, and that Holy Wood magic lingered even longer for a marriage proposal and acceptance between two of the supporting cast during the curtain call!

Jesca Yates

Photo: Robert "Otto" Flach

The Folklore of Discworld

2008-08-26T16:24:00.004+01:00

Jacqueline Simpson, who with Terry is co-author of The Folklore of Discworld, selected some major examples of the connection between Roundworld and Discworld folklore.

Discworld often takes literally what in our world is regarded as superstition. Terry and Jackie have both expressed regret that so much British folklore is disappearing from our culture and Terry has found via fan mail that people don't always understand his folklore references. This new book sets out to explain some of them.

Jacqueline spoke of Whinny Moor, and the connection between the gnarly ground in Carpe Jugulum and the old ballad The Lyke-Wake Dirge. She spoke of narrativium and how a strong idea on Earth penetrates to Discworld, for example, Hwel receives particles of plays by Shakespeare and others.

Jacqueline told us that the traditional witch's garb of pointy hat and black robe came in very late. In early modern woodcuts they wear ordinary peasant clothes. In 1762 Hogarth drew a cartoon on Superstition in which a preacher holds a model of a witch with hat and broomstick. So where did he get the idea? From Discworld, perhaps...

She then spoke of good or white witches and cunning men, who were real village people.
Terry and Jackie had discovered additional links of which they were previously unaware such as in the case of the witch's "shamble" or magical cat's cradle. In Germany a cat's cradle is called Das Hexenspiel or "The Witch's Game".

We heard that the story of Leshp is based on sailors' stories about landing on a whale and thinking it's an island. Jacqueline had also found a reference to the whale in a medieval bestiary, described as aspido chelone or aspido testudo, thus equating the whale with a turtle!

Waterstones had secured agreement to bring along pre-release copies of Jacqueline's book to Sator Square. These sold like hotcakes and many members have left with a whole new collection of annotations signed by a very engaging author.

Jesca Yates

A Wizard's Report - Monday

2008-08-25T22:33:00.004+01:00

Junior Klatch: Ah, that most wonderful event, the Junior Klatch. I have had the privilege of sitting through two of these now due to having kids (this is not a reason to have kids by the way, it is merely a very nice bonus).

For those not in the know, the kids ask questions which Terry then answers, displaying his impressive repertoire of stories and anecdotes. All too soon, the time vanished and indeed, we overran a little, but it was worth it for all concerned.

Professor Stewart's Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities: When not being a Wizard of Unseen University, I am, at heart, a pure mathematician with a penchant for messing about with computers and a comic twist of mind. Having this essential background, I have a love for all things daft and otherwise related to that most fabulous of subjects. I was, therefore, looking forward to this talk more than almost any other within the convention as it tugs at things within me that usually stay buried beneath a thin veneer of sanity and real life. I was not disappointed. Stewart presented many fabulous items rapidly, some of which I recognised, others that made me wonder whether I should actually look into them at some point in the future.

Reduced Discworld Company: Ah, yes. There were some very twitchy watchmen by the time the company were ready for us to get into the Dysk and watch the play. There had been some last minute items that needed to be sorted and this meant that it was running a touch late. In fairness to the people waiting, they were very patient and understanding and mostly figured that there was no way they could miss the closing ceremony since it was being held in the same room.

Once everyone was in and the lights went down we were treated to a rendition of Moving Pictures, done with the style and panache we have come to expect from this item in the schedule.

At the end of this piece, there was a surprise item for one of the ladies in the cast which was roundly applauded from all concerned. Our congratulations go to the both of them and we wish them all the best for their future.

Closing Ceremony: No!!! It cannot be the end!!! As with all good things (this is an odd phrase, since surely it should be "all things" rather than just the good ones) it must eventually come to an end. The speeches from the various people were moving and touching and it gives me great pleasure to bear witness to the various awards and mentions for those involved in making such an event happen. In amongst all of this, special mention must be made to the Unseen University Guild (WE WON!!!! As if this had ever been in doubt). Once the ceremony was over, we left, leaving Terry to clean up the stage behind us.

After a quiet period of contemplation over a pint (or less alcoholic beverages for Darpebble and Darwife), we finally left the convention with a song in our hearts, safe in the knowledge that there would be another convention in 2010.

Now the hard work of trying to return to normal life is required. I can put aside my pointy hat and hope that next time I am once again in the winning guild (2 out of 2 is pretty good by my reckoning). The Wizards of UU have agreed to try and stay in touch over the intervening period, so the hat may be off, but it certainly will not be forgotten and may just sneak out for an airing from time to time.

I hope your convention was as enjoyable an experience as mine has been. It is the people that make it what it is and they are simply brilliant.

Signing off for now,
Darrock (Wizard, 1st Class – Unseen University Guild)

Crossing the Newbiecon - a First Timer's View

2008-08-25T18:06:00.003+01:00

I've been a Pratchett fan for years but I've never been to a Convention before, so it was with some nervousness that I approached the Birmingham Hilton on Friday afternoon. Would there be enough to do? Would I be bored? Would I end up sitting in a corner on my own?

As it turned out, of course, the answer to all these questions was a resounding: "No." The main problem I had wasn't finding something to do, it was choosing which events to go to. Candle making or discussion of Terry Pratchett's literary merits? 'Create Your Own Religion' or 'How to Buckle a Swash'? The Folklore Society or Alfred Russell Wallace? Next time I'm going to have to bring a procrastinator so I can fit everything in. As to sitting alone, I've met friends I haven't seen for years, friends I've never met face to face before and friends I didn't know existed until this weekend.

Highlights of my weekend were Terry's Bedtime Stories, alt.fan.pratchett's Hedgehog Party on Saturday night (and Sunday morning), the Maskerade, the Church of Om, Jaqueline Simpson's talk on the folklore of the Discworld and the short but interesting (and hilarious) history of the Vikings in Britain (How To Buckle A Swash). But the thing I'll remember most is the sheer amount of fun being had by everyone I saw.

As a final note, I'd like to thank the Con committee and the staff of the Hilton hotel, who made it a memorable and enjoyable experience for this particular convention newbie.

Diane L.
Guild of Explorers, Librarians and Wandering Teachers