Forbidden Planet 2: Report

From: Darrell Ottery <Darrell@toreador.demon.co.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: *F* FP 2 - The Revenge
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 95 23:38:14 GMT
Message-ID: <817342694snz@toreador.demon.co.uk>

Earlier today I had the great pleasure in attending the afp meet held at
the Forbidden Planet signing. Your humble scribe will now attempt to
recall the day's proceedings. Any errors in this report can be
attributed to

(i)   Too little sleep
(ii)  Alcohol
(iii) The selectiveness of my memory
(iv)  Alternate realities.

Bearing these points in mind, as I recall things, the day progressed
something like this:

I arrived at FP just after 11am, where I met up with Tony 'Reliable
Witness' Miller and Andrew Pritchard, an occasional lurker and known
associate of the aforementioned Tony. Having not found what I was
looking for in the store, we harassed a member of staff by the main
entrance and received directions to the Conservatory. So off we went.
There were already some half-dozen people sitting outside, cluthcing
their books and eagerly awaiting the arrival of Terry. No other afpers
were noticed at this point.

At approximately 11:45, Alan and everyone's favourite net goddess showed
up, so we went over and hassled them for a while and let the queue grow
to vast proportions. A copy of the afp Rogues' Gallery was produced and
perused, as was a copy of Nanny Ogg's latest publication, though
evidently censored by the editors, as certain recipes were missing.

Time passed. Subjects debated included the origins of last year's FP
meet - the first proto-meet, and the events thereof, including
proposals, duels and other such behaviour, as well as the architecture
of PCs, Spectrums and BBC micros. Kat and Peter showed up and
immediately headed for the nearest bar, obviously only to get out of the
cold...

Time passed. The queue grew in length. Terry arrived, stopping his cab
right beside us. A comment was made to the effect of "And you lot can
stay out here and get rained on." Charmed I'm sure :)

Time passed. The queue grew in length even more. The queue was asked to
move round to the fire exit, as this would be where it would be entering
the building. Alan and Colette carried out the drinks run and returned
with hot beverages for the six of us, for by this time Simon Callan had
arrived. Many thanks for the drink. Shortly afterwards Adrian Wragg
showed up, claiming to have come 'from the office', and who were we to
doubt him?

Alan and myself wandered down the queue, looking for other afpers and
distributing convention flyers respectively. Ben Chalmers was in
evidence, but lacking in hamsters, or at least any that were visible...

Alex The Eternally Harassed showed up soon after this, and before long
most of the afpers that were to show during the day had turned up. These
included all those previously mentioned, the ever-cuddly Emmet, Kirsty
Dammerell sporting both the hair and SO, Alien, Andrew "Keyboard
Destroyer" Mobbs, the esteemed [1] Paul Rood, Karen "Chicken" Kruzycka,
and a couple of other whose names I can't recall just now.

At this point the doors had opened and people piled in. Claiming some
form of authority Paul dragged myself and Karen inside towards the head of
the queue, despite the fact that barely 5 minutes before I had been down
the entire queue unloading flyers. Still, I'm not complaining - I got to
sit in the warm and have some breakfast, of the liquid variety. :)

Having claimed the area behind Terry and Stephen as the afp meeting
place, much beer was consumed, and as the queue slowly shrank the
meeting proper got underway. Peter chose the sensible option of coming
inside to the bar, having left Kat in the queue to get cold. Topics that
I remember being discussed included Doom, previous afp meets, Heretic,
the joys of the internet, Hexen, and the convention, but there were
probably more.

Soon Jimmy Brokaw arrived, complete with both his high priest Daniel
Smart and signed photographs of Rincewind the hedgehog. The topic
of the Grand Salamander somehow appeared in the conversation, and
everyone denied knowledge of it being them. The afp secret society
<holyhorns> was also discussed, along with the correct method for
performing <holyhorns>.

Time passed. The queue reduced in size slowly, and more afpers turned up
at the tables. We stayed here until about 4pm, when departure to the
Tottenham Court Road Burger King was decided to be a good idea. paul and
I hung around for a few minutes discussing the convention with Terry and
Stephen before acquiring some advanced food substitute. There must have
been almost 20 of us at this point for the whole of one side of BK was
taken up with afpers.

Emmet missed (to his mind at least) an interesting discussion on strip
D&D, strip CoC, and perhaps more worrying, strip Nuclear War, whilst
engaged elsewhere - an area we perhaps do not need to detail at this
juncture. I was referred to as a 'gentleman' by Emmet at least twice
during this part of the meet, as no doubt Tony "Reliable Witness" will
confirm, but the accuracy of Emmet's claims might be in dispute owing to
a copious intake of cider on an empty stomach...

Shortly afterwards people chose to leave, with some quite pathetic
excuses. "Got to get home to the wife" indeed!. It was around this point
the hug war started, and I missed a good photo opportunity.

When the numbers had thinned somewhat, five of us were left - myself,
Emmet, Dan, Jimmy, and Andrew. A public house was sought, and the
Tottenham Court ("The only public house on Oxford Street") proved
sufficient. Topics discussed included Robert Jordan, other newsgroups
and their traffic, the concept of GURPS Scooby Doo, and the sex lives of
Smurfs. "Blutack" indeed. You know who you are. :)

Dan left a little later, and the four of us wandered off to Tower
Records, where I failed to find an unusual All About Eve CD, Emmet
failed to find an Incubus/Succubus CD, Jimmy failed to find the 'From
the Discworld' CD, and Andrew achieved the task of purchasing a Bauhaus
CD. Emmet left at this point.

And then there were three. Much wandering around other record stores was
carried out, still to no avail, and about 8:30 Jimmy and I left Andrew
with time to kill before he left for Kings Cross. A short trip on the
tube later, and Jimmy and I parted company.

All in all, a very pleasant day. A delight to speak with both those
afpers I had met before, and with those I hadn't. We must do it again
sometime. Sometime soon, as well.

The chronicle ends here, bar for the fact that this will get followed
up.
-- 
Darrell
  _____
 /__,__\   The Discworld Convention 1996 - 'Non id inscite agito'
 [_____]   http://isg.cs.tcd.ie/cbuckley/DWCon96   June 28th-30th
  LLLLL    email: discworld@cmacloed.demon.co.uk   Manchester, UK
I have a train of thought.  You have a tricycle...

[1] Esteeming pile of something, anyway.

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