Dublin 2.0: Announce

From: Colm Buckley <colm@lspace.org>
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: *F* DUBLIN 2.0 meet report
Date: 12 Oct 1996 12:29:46 GMT
Message-ID: <53o2vq$gu6@synge.maths.tcd.ie>

> == fanf2@cam.ac.uk (Tony Finch)
>> == Colm Buckley <colm@lspace.org>

>> Oo!  Two *simultaneous* AFP meetings going on; one here in Dublin,
>> one in Cambridge...  if anyone at the Cantabrigian meet wants to
>> phone the Dublin meet for that cybervirtualmultimediainternetworking
>> experience, try +353 87 469146.

> I would have done, but I don't think 1am is a civilised time even for
> an afp meet. Ours finished rather early for transport reasons. No time
> for a full report now, because I have to be up at an abnormal hour
> tomorrow.

1am...  sheesh.  We were only getting into our stride at 1am; well,
those who were left, anyhow...

Okay, okay...  here's the meet report.  It's probably going to be very
confused, because I'm still somewhat hung over, and the afpmeet sort of
merged into the general pre-Octocon revels, so some characters may be
unfamiliar.

Claire and I arrived at the Royal Marine at about 7:20.  As we headed
into the bar, we were greeted by an enthusiastic "oh, hello" from
Darrell who, for very good INTJ reasons, was sitting on his own waiting
for a familiar face to appear.  So we dragged him into the main bar,
made some introductions, and settled down for a good night's drinking.

Already present at this stage was Brian Nisbet (or is that Nesbit...),
plus lots of regular Octocon attendees...  authors in evidence from a
cursory glance around the room included Maggie Furey, Freda Warrington,
and a totally unmissable Robert Rankin, resplendent in an extremely loud
ensemble which included a shirt of stunning tastelessness, white pointy
leather shoes, and gold sparkly socks...  Kim Newman turned up later,
having reportedly been going around Dublin looking at mummies in crypts,
which I suppose is a very Kim Newmanny sort of thing to do.

Alan and Colette turned up a little later, full of vim and vigour,
bearing gifts (thank you very much!), cameras and the enormous AFP photo
archive, which we hope was added to substantially during the evening...
more introductions, a few surprise meetings and lots more alcohol
ensued.

It was then that the meet started to take on a truly international
flavour, as my cellphone started to ring; and whose voice should I hear
on the other end but the lovely Michelena, calling from Canada to join
Rocky in the illustrious list of intercontinental virtual meet
attendees...  so the phone was passed around to all and sundry (all on
Sunday?) and the rumour has it that Michelena used her virtual presence
to the full by proposing to Colette who, sadly, now seems to have an
unshakeable commitment to hitch herself to Alan in December.  (Joann's
comment from the DWCon springs to mind...  "Colette, why do you hang
around with him?  Is it just because he buys you nice rings?")  No phone
calls were received from Cantab., despite my heartfelt plea
yesterday...  I'm sure it's part of the general "Stop Colm and Rocky
from ever meeting" conspiracy.

Dónal Cunningham arrived, bearing all sorts of strange equipment for the
manufacture of badges and, more importantly for those present, a large
box of his wonderful chocolate truffles, which were received and
devoured with typical enthusiasm by the company.

Howling gales in the Irish Sea had delayed Paul and Karen's arrival, but
they turned up eventually, looking none the worse for their ordeal.  Joy
was unconfined...

At around this stage, the coherence of the meet started to decrease
somewhat, partially due to the large amounts of alcohol being consumed,
and partially because of the general merging and mingling of the
conversations...

At this point let us introduce some other characters into the dramatis
personae.  Primus inter pares is definitely Ms Elli Winpenny, a visitor
from Glasgow and a very definite object of desire for many of those
present - in her own words : "a breeze wouldn't come between my dress
and me, and I can pour myself over a man like molasses".  Ms Winpenny
took a liking to my hair (which is very short) and proceeded to engage
in some pretty vigourous caressing of my scalp...  which I have to say
was rather pleasant (not least because of the jealousy it induced in
Robert Rankin).  Not to be outdone, Claire decided that this would be
the perfect time to plait Kim Newman's hair, which he bore with good
grace; watching Kim pretend to be merely tolerating something when in
fact he's having the time of his life is quite entertaining.

Others who engaged us in conversation during the evening included Maura
McHugh, the Con Chairperson, Martin Feeney, the Treasurer of the Con
(and SO of Maura (and, in the words of (I think) Storm Constantine, "the
finest piece of man-flesh you're likely to see at any Con")), Robert
Rankin (of the sparkly socks), Terry's editor at Gollancz Jo Fletcher,
and many others.  We drank long into the night, enjoyed ourselves in a
most raucous fashion, and generally had a good time.  At some stage (I
think it was around 2:45am) I decided that it would be a good idea to
telephone Joann, so I did...  and was promptly grossly flattered as she
cut Bryan off to talk to me; despite a very poor line (why is it that,
when the conversation was carried almost entirely by radio waves, is it
still called a "line"), I managed to give her some of the "flavour" of
the event (ie : that we were all totally pissed), and to promise that I
would be less delinquent in replying to E-mail in future...  and she
sent her best wishes to the company (most of whom had actually left by
this stage, but you don't expect little details like that to derail
me)...

Eventually, even the fabled Buckley Party Spirit began to wane, so we
headed off to our beds at around the 3:30 mark...  I can most definitely
say that a good time was had by me, and presumably all.

Looking forward to the next one already...

           Colm

-- 
Colm Buckley B.F. | EMail : Colm.Buckley@tcd.ie or colm@lspace.org
Computer Science  | WWW   : http://isg.cs.tcd.ie/cbuckley/
Trinity College   | Phone : +353 87 469146 (087-469146 within Ireland)
Dublin 2, Ireland | "Microsoft : Where do you want to crash today?"

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