*the adventure today was getting my clothes washed. I didn’t get out much.

TL;DR: This one isn’t TL, so just R it, dammit!!!

ed: I know, I know, two in one day. I didn’t want to get to the point where I’m updating my trip two weeks after I got home…

Today was the first full day of the con! I’ve had programming from 10 am! I didn’t go for a walk, obviously. I accounted for that yesterday with my double walk. I was intending on doing that tomorrow as well, but I don’t think I’ll be able to, unless I bite the bullet and pay for the Boris bike. The main problem there is the lack of stations, the word that is actually used, on the south bank. Boo! Anyway back to today…

The day started with an ISBW meetup with Mur. I always assume there’s going to be more people at these things than there are, so I arrived early to get a seat. About a dozen other people joined me and we had a convivial chat with Mur. Lucy, another of the Secret Society of Ink Splattered Fabulists, and I made custom t-shirts to help us stand out. I’ve had many compliments on the final product.

Next, I went to “The Pleasures of a Good, Long Info-Dump”, partly because the name made my laugh, mostly because I wanted to hear Cory Doctorow and Kim Stanley Robinson’s opinions on the topic. I’m glad I went because it was both enlightening, and quite silly at times.

From there to Religion in Fantasy, which was interesting enough but I did bail early as I had a talk I was quite looking forward to in a room furthest from where I was. I needn’t have bothered though, as that talk “Pulling the Trigger” ended up starting 10 minutes late due to audio/visual technical problems.

The talk, a backgrounder, and justification, I guess, of the adaptation and staging of Cosmic Trigger (yes, seriously!). The talk gave me another book to read, about the KLF, and the desire to reread Cosmic Trigger, which I’m pretty sure I have, wait a second, I’ll check. Hmm, it says I have all three, but that doesn’t seem right. I’ve emailed Boj though and she said I thrust it into her hands at some point, so I guess I must have it.

Alas, the talk was awesome, the talk started late, and the talk finished late. This meant that when I reached my next panel, there weren’t any seats, and an ExCel employee came in and kicked out everyone who was standing/sitting on the floor. A good thing that came of this was that Michaela, aka Rantilica was also kicked out. We had met in Croatia, and we renewed our acquaintance over mutual outrage. She brought me to where most of the rest of the Croatian contingent were hanging out, and we chatted for a bit.

Andrew found me there and we eventually went off to get me a cider and to check out the art exhibit. Man, there was a lot of good stuff there. If only I: a) weren’t flying; and b) had already hung up our other art in order to justify getting something else to put up… I guess I know what I’m doing when I get back…

Untitled

I picked up my laundry and headed back for a talk entitled “The Girls Who Waited” the thesis of which was that female characters in time travel-films and television are never portrayed as the character with agency, and if they are, the time travel aspects are not at the forefront, instead romantic interests are more prominent. And women get a narrower focus and life in time travel depictions. The panel and the audience did find a few counter examples, but they were few and far between.

After that it was “Beyond the Bechdel Test”. I try to ensure my fiction passes this test whenever I can. The panelists had a great conversation about it, and only had to deal with one bout of mansplaining during the question period.

Then there were parties.

Then I went to Universally Challenged, a new radio quiz show loosely based on all the old radio quiz shows. Actually it’s based on University Challenge, kind of like Reach For the Top. It was a grudge match, pitting science fiction authors against scientists. The scientists won. It was tragic. Though, I understand, the scientists had won the last time this game was contested, and they were only trying to prove the repeatability of the experiment.

Then I stumbled home.