Early Arrival - Ssrienna's Story Part 1

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.

The Officially-Non-Official Pub Quizz

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).

Reigning Champions Whipped By Seamstresses

Amazing scenes in Ankh today as a team of seamstresses beat the reigning champions of the Dyskheads trivia challenge. They are now to defend their title at nine on Monday. Not to be missed!

Rumours that their win was achieved by offering favours to the quizmaster and blowing kisses to the audience are entirely unfounded. They won through a wax talisman and a thorough knowledge of Men At Arms.

Guild of Seamstresses

Thursday night pub quiz

Well, we’re back!

A lot of conventioneers show up on the Thursday night before the Convention and it has become traditional to hold a pub quiz to keep them entertained that night. After all, we’ll be spending a lot of time over the next few days making our own entertainment.

But the problem is that Discworld fans tend to be very very good at quizzes and so the pub quiz was handed over to a warped soul who dug deep into the twisted recesses of her mind (and Wikipedia) to produce a work of torture that was greeted with loud groans, death threats and much gratuitous heckling.

With that in mind, it’s time to share the pain. This year, there was a Roundworld question loosely based on each Discworld book, excluding the Young Adults and spin-offs. The maximum number of points varied and are listed in brackets after the book title. The answers will appear in a couple of days.

This is no ordinary pub quiz. This is the Discworld Convention 2008 Pub Quiz.


1. The Colour of Magic (7)
Name the colours of the rainbow.

2. The Light Fantastic (4)
Name the four planets that the Voyager probes have done fly-bys of.

3. Equal Rites (1)
Who was the first woman to be elected to the UK House of Commons?

4. Mort (1)
In Greek Mythology, what was the name of the ferryman on the Styx?

5. Sourcery (1)
What city has the tallest completed freestanding building in the world?

6. Wyrd Sisters (1)
In Hamlet, what is the name of the play performed by the Players?

7. Pyramids (1)
What was the original name of jelly babies?

8. Guards! Guards! (2)
Name the magistrate brothers who founded the Bow Street Runners

9. Eric (1)
Who was Dante's guide through hell?

10. Moving Pictures (1)
Who has won the most number of Oscars ever?

11. Reaper Man (3)
What band recorded the song "Combine Harvester", in what year was it released, and what was its highest point in the UK charts?

12. Witches Abroad (1)
Name the man commonly credited with inventing the package holiday, which began with an 11-mile journey in 1841.

13. Small Gods (2)
How many Theses were there in "The Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences" and what door did he nail them to?

14. Lords and Ladies (1)
In the town of Kilorglin, Kerry, what is a puck?

15. Men at Arms (1)
Which police force, still in existence, is commonly reckoned to be the UK's first organised police force and has been based on the same site since 1798?

16. Soul Music (1)
What was Kirsty MacColl’s first single to reach the charts in the UK?

17. Interesting Times (1)
How many World Heritage Sites does Unesco list as being in China?

18. Maskerade (1)
Which opera, first performed in 1728, was said to have made its writer rich and its producer gay?

19. Feet of Clay (1)
Which English monarch founded the College of Arms?

20. Hogfather (1)
Who was a frequent visitor to Number Seventeen, Cherry Tree Lane?

21. Jingo (1)
Which novel, adapted into a film starring Peter Sellers, described the war between the USA and the Duchy of Grand Fenwick?

22. The Last Continent (2)
What pet did Matthew Flinders take with him on his circumnavigation of Australia, and what was its name?

23. Carpe Jugulum (1)
Name the eponymous vampire in Sheridan Le Fanu's 1872 novel.

24. The Fifth Elephant (2)
Which British politician said: "Only three people understood the Schleswig-Holstein Question. The first was Albert, the Prince consort and he is dead; the second is a German professor, and he is in an asylum: and the third was myself - and I..." How did he complete the sentence?

25. The Truth (1)
Which UK national newspaper was founded to campaign against the Duke of Cambridge becoming commander in chief of the British Army?

26. Thief of Time (1)
Who invented the marine chronometer?

27. The Last Hero (1)
What was the name of the 1902 film commonly reckoned to be the first science-fiction film ever?

28. Night Watch (2)
What were "Winchester Geese" and where would you find them?

29. Monstrous Regiment (2)
When was the most recent FIFA Womens' World Cup and who won it?

30. Going Postal (1)
"It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day’s journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed". Herodotus said that of the postal service of which country?

31. Thud! (1)
What is the rank below Grandmaster as awarded by the Federation Internationale des Echecs?

32. Making Money (1)
In what year were women first admitted as members of the London Stock Exchange?