How did it get so late so soon?

Where has July gone? It seems to have just disappeared. So much to write about, and none of it written. I’m not even sure I can remember enough to write about anything in detail so I’ll just do a quick précis of the rest of June then try to recall July.

I went to see Hobson’s Choice at the Crucible with my sister, Sue, in mid-June. I think this was her O’ level play. Certainly she studied it at school. Wikipedia tells me it was first performed in 1916. It was jolly well done in Sheffield. Mr Hobson was a pitiable monster but Maggie, the strong willed and sensible oldest daughter was, as always, the star of the show. I’d like to go to the theatre more often but with the prices at the Crucible I will not be buying anything in the interval. I used to collect programmes. I used to buy a beer. Someone else can fund the expense of supporting live theatre. All I can afford is the ticket to the play.

The weekend after was Tony Berry’s BBQ which was, as expected rainy, chilly and breezy; typical British BBQ weather. It was, of course, lovely to see Tony, Julian Headlong, the Harveys and Laura Wheatly, Paul and Aiden. I was very grateful to the Lawsons for giving Sally a lift down and for the chance to catch up with Dave Cox and Simon Dearn. I’m sure there is a reason for the propensity of middle-aged men to barbeque but I have never been able to fathom quite what the attraction is. Still, it's lovely to see the fans out of their natural environment of hotel bars.

A week later I went to see Paul Simon at the Armadillo in Glasgow. Take That were playing the same night but I think I got the better deal. Paul Simon seems always to have been in my listening selection, first as part of Simon & Garfunkel then on his own. When I look on iTunes I have 98 songs under Paul Simon. Admittedly one is David Essex singing, ‘For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her’. And one seems to be Jussi Björling and Robert Merrill singing the duet from the Pearl Fishers although it is labelled as 'One Trick Pony'. No idea how that happened. One of the things I have always appreciated, as well as the wonderful lyrics, is the lovely complexity of the music though I speak, of course, as a musical illiterate. Simon had eight fabulously accomplished musicians playing with him who all seemed to play many multiple instruments. I loved every minute of the show and for days afterwards ‘The Only Living Boy In New York’ played through my dreams. The songs seem to have grown over the years and, after the show, listening to the originals is a little pale in comparison.

Gosh, what a gadabout I am. The next weekend we were down in London to see Rita Rudner. Julia and Dougs gave us a lift down and back and we spent Sunday morning with Julian, admiring his new bookcases. We met up with Julian Saturday afternoon in the middle of Leicester Square. He was waiting patiently for us, buffeted but basically unmoved by the colourful and exuberant crowds of Gay Priders. I’ve long admired Rita as one of the finest comedians I’ve seen. The jokes are packed in, terrifically funny and nothing sexist, racist or anything else objectionable. You can see some of her quotable lines here. We had to bring Julian, who is a passionate Rita fan, as it seems unlikely he will ever fly again (due to extreme decrepitude) and she has pretty much taken up residence in Las Vegas while they raise their child. Some years ago, while I was still flying, we (Julia, Ian and I) saw her performing in Vegas without Julian and I have a slight suspicion that he never forgave us. Perhaps the cruel gloating and incessant teasing hasn’t helped. 

Strictly speaking that brings me to the beginning of July. How these months merge together. Sigh 

Roach Road Carnival

The MetOffice lies. Damn them. The last time I had looked Saturday dsiplayed cheerful little suns all through the day. That’s not how it turned out. To be fair, on the day the MetOff did fess up that there was going to be some fairly heavy rain approximately when we were scheduled to set up.

The lead up to this, our third street party, had involved a few desultory beer soaked chats at the Psalter over the last six months, organised by Laura and Aine. As ever little actually appeared to be happening until quite recently, other than Lydia producing yet another glorious poster. Laura is the centre of the organisation for two reasons, other than her relentless drive and enthusiasm. One is that she has access to four capacious if fragile gazebos, the other is that she has the patience to deal with the council; getting the road closure notice, the requisite insurance and the performing rights licence. This year Aine has abandoned the road to move into her very own house but happily she came back for the meetings, the set up and to bring her own quite terrifying enthusiasm to the event.

Saturday morning dawned, sunny but breezy. It looked good. I’d bought my ingredients at Waitrose on Friday so didn’t feel I had to dash around in my usual disorganised manner, until I measured my cake tins. Augh! I own two seven inch and one 9 inch but no eight inch. I looked at the nearest potential shop, the Aga Shop on Ecclesall Road. Luckily given the huge cost, they didn’t have the size I needed. I called Waitrose but no-one from that department was available. Before setting out on my bike on the off chance of finding a suitable tin somewhere I asked Lydia. Hurrah! She kindly lent me one of her many cake tins to avert the first potential disaster of the day.

I reverted to relaxed cooking, Ian continued reading the internet and Sally gathered her strength for the gazebo raising. She and I had discussed bake-off tactics. The options I was prepared to bake were cherry cake (my choice) or chocolate cake. Sally asked if I wanted to win or just make something for us to eat. She suggested that cherry cake would never win; chocolate was the way to go in competitive baking. We settled on cherry cake.

I made chilled tomato and orange soup then made a start on the cake. I’m a lazy baker. I like to minimise the amount of washing up as I go along so first I weighed out the caster sugar then carefully placed the butter on top of that. I creamed them together, added the beaten eggs, sifted in the flour and then added the quartered glace cherries, which I’d coated in ground almonds. As I put the completed cake into the oven, the top sprinkled with Demerara, I could hear a commotion around the front of the house.

Aine and Laura had listened to my stupid suggestion of the day before and were stringing bunting across the street from their upstairs window to ours and then over to the top of a streetlight higher up the road. The commotion seemed the be generated by a H&S disaster waiting to happen. Ian and Sally were reaching out of the window, over a heavily overloaded desk, trying to catch the end of the bunting that the girls were throwing up to them, somewhat ineffectually. Once that was finally done without anyone falling headfirst into the street we geared up for the great set-up. The last cars were ushered out and the road closed signs erected.

Inevitably the first drops of rain began to fall as we opened the gazebo bags. Last year, very sensibly, the poles had been separated so that each gazebo had its own set. Less sensibly, the instructions had disintegrated and been thrown away. We divided the first lot into different types of poles (1, 1a, 1b, 2, 2a, 2b, 3, 4) and then stood for a comically long time trying to work out what went where. Sally has a fairly good spatial awareness and seemed to grasp the layout quicker than the rest of us. It took ages to get the first one up, almost as long with the second but then the third and fourth went up much quicker. The rain abated just as the last one was put in place. Whilst we struggled with the first one Richard and his friend had strolled along and put their sound-tent up in about five minutes. They filled it with PA stuff and were just hanging the walls on the back when the whole interlinked tent structure tried to take of sending us scurrying for buckets and bricks to weigh the legs down whilst a few doughty chaps served as anchors, stopping the thing kiting off into the stormy sky.

As always after this massive effort there was a quiet time whilst we slowly furnished the place with folding chairs and tables, populated them with plates of food, bottles of drink, & tat and treasures for the free tombola as people started trickling down to see what was going on. The Morris Side had arrived and colonised Laura’s house as they got ready and then suddenly, without any real organisation, it was Party On! Dancing, music, eating, drinking, talking, the usual stuff happened. Julia and Doug turned up with more chairs. Catherine drove up on her motorbike and watched the Morris. The cakes were judged. Mine had burnt slightly whilst we put up the gazabos, it was the only one not iced and, predictably, it didn’t win anything (Lydia’s fabulous carrot cake won) though half of it had already been devoured before I’d got it out of the kitchen to the judging table. Catherine went away. We drank tea/coffee to warm ourselves up. Amanda arrived. A very, very wonderful subset of the Everly Pregnant Brothers played a short but perfect set and had us belting out ‘No Oven, No Pie’ and clamouring for more. And then all the food was gone, it was an hour until we had to reopen the road and the welly whanging competition waited in the wings. We quickly and carefully tore down our lovely structure, packed it away for next year then drew a chalk line on the road.

What can I say about welly whanging? Surely it is the quintessential community game. All it needs is a welly and some enthusiasm. The candidates face away from their throw, bend over and chuck the welly up the road between their legs. Some wellies slithered a few feet, some achieved tremendous trajectories. It was a long a tense hour and at the end somebody had won the coveted rosette. The rosettes were presented, and then we, grudgingly, reopened the road. The festivities didn’t stop for quite some time. Anna and Paul had prepared a lovely game where Paul dropped a ‘rat’ (old sock stuffed with sand with a tail and ears sewn on) down a piece of drain pipe and the player had to hit the rat as it emerged. This turned out to be fairly difficult although a few people did finally manage to squash the rat.

It was getting really quite chilly. Ian, Sally and I went in and watched the young people continue to party for another hour or so, stepping onto the pavement as cars wanted to go past.

Today, sadly, the cars have re-colonised the road. It’s rained so persistently all day that most of the chalk marks from the welly whanging have washed away. Sally and Laura have just reclaimed the bunting. All the remains are some very full recycling bins, a red mug and a bowl of strawberries on the wall next door and the beautiful posters still decorating most of our windows.

The trailer, masterfully produced by Ian Sorensen, is here. 

Illustrious

Eastercon, despite my anxiety beforehand, turned out to be a qualified success. This was good because I'd feared a disaster. The 'History of SF' theme seems to have been replaced at the last moment by 'Women in SF', something that I am very interested in and the only one of the 'themes' that I went to. As someone pointed out, in the History of SF, apart from Mary Shelley there would have been few women until Monday, assuming chronological items. The other programme items I attended were, as always, items with friends on.


What went right? Many, though not all, of my friends were there. June & Nick, Christina & Doug, Sue & Roo, Tim & Clarrie MacGuire, Julian Headlong, Tony Berry, Lilian and, for half a day only, Meredith MacArdle who I met at my first Eastercon. All the Sheffield crew were there too of course, the reason I moved to Sheffield. Swimming with Julia was one of my highlights. 
As Eastercon many years ago stopped being, for me, an event to learn about SF and became a place to meet and party with friends, this immediately made it a good Eastercon. On these grounds this makes the Heathrow Eastercons the best because the lazy, good-for-nothing London fans turn up (this means you Joseph & Judith) but I prefer not to trek down to Heathrow at Easter if I can avoid it, unless Neil Gaiman is a Guest. Other than geographical considerations, to make a good con there has to be a good enough programme to move people around the hotel. Toucon is an example of this not working. The movement, even if you are not a big programme attender, means that you meet other people and often have something to discuss or argue about. Without this the whole con stagnates. 
The programme, seemingly cobbled together at the last moment, was good enough for this. As I noted, the Women in SF theme gave me the opportunity to always find June and Christina and was interesting, although slightly superficial and over reliant on the same panellists. The Diana Wynne Jones memorial was lovely and reminded me of how wonderful her work is, and that I must check that I've got all of her books whilst the getting is good. It also reminded me that I like panels that talk about books, which were noticeably lacking. I missed 'Not the Clarkes' and 'Read this Novel' was cancelled. There were a series of items called 'Best Books & Lego' but I assumed they were not aimed at me.
Other than these I went to the audio books panel, the only place I saw David Weber who seemed to be a fine guest, the mirror universe panel which was fun but had been secretly set up so that all Ian's preparation (a full quarter of an hour) was useless, and Never Mind the Buzz Aldrins which was even more fun even if all the movie themes sound the same to me. Oh yes, and the permanent Fan Lounge/Real Ale bar with an excellent and changing range of beers was the programme item I frequented most enthusiastically.
The book room seemed to be suffering from Julian having bought a Kindle but was still humming although, due to miscalculation of this month's budget, I could only find the money to buy two books, a new Guy Gavriel Kaye and Engineman which I suspect I have already but Rog insisted.
The hotel was great. The staff were universally friendly and helpful, the bedrooms were comfortable (once the windows were opened), the swimming pool and jacuzzi were light & airy and just right, and the breakfasts were excellent, I mean, really excellent. Vast choice and omelettes cooked for you while you waited. The toast queue provided another opportunity to meet large numbers of fans you were not acquainted with. 


So what was not good? The hotel mainly. The bedrooms were over hot, the room rates were horribly high with no option to find a sharer from the convention, the coffee came from the Hitchhiker universe, and the cost of the cheapest bottle of wine was over £26. Two large glasses of wine would set you back enough to buy three, maybe four, bottles of drinkable wine from the Spar at the airport if you fancied a ten minute walk. The con food was unexciting to say the least. Cheese and tomato baguette twice in a weekend is more than enough. If motorway service stations can produce a better selection for vegetarians surely a decent hotel can. We didn't find the actual cheap con food area until the Monday. My baked potato was barely edible but the pizzas would have made unattractively glazed bathroom tiles. For this type of operation to work there must be a fairly fast turn over of food and there obviously wasn't. Perhaps we were not the only ones to fail to find it. 
The setting of the hotel was surprisingly nice, in the Birmingham International/NEC park, but that meant that there was nowhere worth eating within walking distance and the taxis, like at Heathrow, are decidedly expesive. Still, pack enough people into the taxi and you can get a very nice meal and reasonably priced wine to go with it at The Bull at Meriden, cheaper than the hotel even with the taxi fares included.


So overall, I enjoyed it far more than I expected to. If the programme was a little skimpy it worked well enough and perhaps the best thing they did was to allow hour and a half time slots for the programme. This meant that interesting items could overrun slightly, that people had time for a comfort break or to buy a beer between items, and that we did not repeat the embarrassment and audience annoyance caused by bundling Ben Goldacre off stage midflight. Well done Illustrious!

A jolly nice weekend

Ian was back from America this weekend and drove down to see me. Hurrah! We’d had tickets booked for this weekend away for months. It was Eve’s 60^th birthday and she was having a party. I like parties. However, a drive from Motherwell to Sheffield then Sheffield to Ware seemed like too much driving for Ian so we decided to let the train take the strain.

Which was all well and good, but having missed lunch at FFW (Food & Fine Wine) for weeks we went there first, Ian dragging our little red trundley bag on wheels and me carrying my knitting and Dune in my new Ecorotic (because sex should be sustainable) bag, a gift from Good Vibrations in San Francisco. Sally came with us and we arrived in good time, a little damp from the grey Sheffield drizzle. The food was excellent, as always, and the Shiraz/Grenache red wine was lovely. And, of course, there was lots to talk about; winery visits and French versus Californian wines and etc. So much so, that we forgot the time a little.

We tumbled out of the door with half an hour to catch our train. On any ordinary day we’d have made it in time but when it’s wet in Sheffield the people who normally walk huddle under bus shelters and catch buses. At every stop it seemed to take forever to load the passengers aboard, the traffic was reluctant to let us out, the lights were against us. To cut a long story to its sad conclusion, despite running we missed the train, bought as an advanced (non-transferrable) ticket. Damn! Two new singles to London would have cost over £120. Oh. I suggested we just ditched the party and went home. Ian was coming round to that way of thinking when he had a thought. How much would it cost on a coach?

We trundled to the bus station where it turned out we could get to London for under £40. We climbed on board and sat in the front seats. As the coach meandered through Sheffield I started to worry about travel sickness but once we got onto the M1 I was fine. It was a revelation. Comfortable, speedy and so cheap! Our fellow passengers were from a very different demographic from those on the train. Other than one small family and the driver we were the only white faces on the bus. Wonderfully, the constant irritating iPhone tones were not heard during the journey, not even ours. I shall be looking at this travel option in the future. We got off at Golders Green and dived Underground heading for Tottenham Hale to pick up the rest of our train journey. We arrived an hour and a half later than planned but otherwise in good order.

Julia and Dougs were already at the hotel so we met to stroll to the Drill Hall together. As we walked other fans emerged from the dark and we converged on the party en masse. The Drill Hall is an interesting place. A huge cavernous space with scattered tables and vast quantities of food laid out on one side, drink on the other. The consensus was to camp out by the wine and so we did, a rowdy fannish table. Luckily the other friends and family members were up for dancing and having a good time. Most of us remained determinedly rooted at our tables, gossiping delightfully.  Despite this I didn’t catch up with Joe and Judith or Rob and Avedon. We need more parties! John’s band was enjoyable, as always and if I hadn’t been so busy chatting I might have danced. Another time. We need more parties! Again, the food was wonderful and I ate more than I should so that at midnight I was ready for my bed. Luckily there were fun activities to keep me going for a little longer. The clearing up, performed as a group activity, didn’t take very long and then Claire and I ganged up on Nolly to get a lift back to the hotel, there to keep the bar open in the traditional fannish manner. Julia arrived a little later, thoughtfully carrying wet wipes so I could divest myself of the makeup I’d put on without thinking how to get it off. A good sized group gradually gathered in the debris of someone else’s party but we gave up by 2am due to a decided lack of stamina. We’re getting old. However, I still maintain, we need more parties.

At breakfast the next morning we heard about the top-of-the-voice argument that had kept Julia awake for much of the night and had disturbed Eve and John as well. What a joy. Nothing could have kept me awake by bedtime but I counted myself lucky that we had been on the floor above. Eve was continuing the celebrations at her local pub but Ian and I thought that one missed train in a weekend was enough and decided to give lunch a miss, heading back to London after checking out.

The problem with this decision, of course, was that we had originally planned to go to the pub so we arrived back in London at 12.30 and our train back to Sheffield wasn’t due until 16.25. That left us with a dilemma. What do you do in London for almost four hours when you don’t want to spend lots of money and you’re dragging a suitcase? Ian found a website on his iPhone that said we could leave the bag at Left Luggage at St Pancras for £6.50. This seemed a bit steep but better than being encumbered. We balked at the £8 it turned out to be when we finally found the place though but, turning away despondent, Ian noticed a sign for the British Library. What a marvellous idea! And so convenient. And open on a Sunday. We scurried over the road and entered paradise.

I know there is a lot to choose from but the very nicest thing about the place is that you can leave your luggage locked up for nothing. The bags were dumped with relief and we headed for the exhibition, Evolving English. This was a fascinating interactive display. My favourite bits were the wall displaying phrases from speeches (‘the Lady’s not for turning’ turned my stomach briefly) and lists of word origins (we’ve borrowed a lot of words over the years) and the dialect machine. Only one of the two machines were working and lots of people gravitated towards it so I didn’t have long to explore it but it was fascinating to listen to recordings of dialect from all over the country. I was disappointed that they didn’t have the Stoke on Trent dialect of my beloved grandparents. My dad commented once that it was strange in Knutton how an ash tray grew leaves and an ash tree was for putting cigarettes out in.

I could have spent hours in the exhibition but my feet were hurting and I get weary of queuing quickly so we ascended into the Sir John Ritblat Gallery to see the ‘Treasures of the British Library’; displays of the most beautiful books, maps and illuminated manuscripts. When we tired of the subdued lighting, presumably needed to protect the displayed material, we went to the café for yummy cake and coffee. My lemon curd swiss roll was nice but Ian’s coffee & walnut was better. We shared. As with all such places there was a gift shop. I was fairly restrained. Or at least I walked round picking up everything that I wanted and then walked round again and put most of it back again.

I feel we’ve only just begun to explore this marvellous place and envisage many more train-related visits. I have, in fact, planned an ideal visit for our friend Spike. She should arrive in the UK, maybe spend a day tidying Ian’s kitchen then come to Sheffield to go to FFW and sort out cataloguing and ordering my books before we take her to Sheffield station, gateway to St Pancras, the loveliest station in London. On arrival she could stay in the soon to be completed station hotel at night and live in the library during the day. What could be better? I’m guessing the hotel won’t be cheap though.

So, exhausted, we retrieved our bags and adjourned to the John Betjeman pub at St Pancras for an early lunch before sprinting for our train and heading back for Sheffield. We bickered gently about what to listen to on our shared earbuds, beginning with an ELO genius playlist, sliding off into depression with Justin Currie and ending up with jolly songs and Eliza Doolittle.

It just remains for me to thank Eve for a great party, Claire for some useful advice, Nolly for the lift, Julia for the wet wipes, Dave Hicks for the promise of a fanzine cover, the British Library for being wonderful and Ian for coming back despite the lure of Californian wineries. We need more parties!

PS Have a look at the British Library podcasts

We usher in another new year

I'm feeling a little doomy this morning but that may be a combination of the tenacious hangover and having spent an hour washing up and not even got half way through the party detritus. The perceptive may have noticed that it is the 2nd today and traditionally the New Year's Eve party is held on the 31st. Yes, well, we sat in among the debris all yesterday, browsing on the leftovers and very slowly moving the empties out into the recycling bin. It was a jolly fine party.


So, to backtrack slightly, Christmas caught me all unawares. Yes, I know it turns up every year but this year a combination of heavy work load, heavy snow and my traditional shopping weekend spent in London meant that I was shocked to arrive at Christmas day almost totally unprepared. I'd knitted a rather nice sweater for Jack that he accepted with good grace and provided him and Sally with a set of silk long johns and a vest. Sally, used to living in the cold, was pleased. Jack, Tucked up in overheated university accommodation, tactfully hid his conjectures about my madness. I got some rather splendid work clothes, four excellent books and some stickers to pimp my wheelie bins; fine gifts.


We drove to Leeds where my sister had cooked a wonderful meal and a chocolate birthday cake for Jack's 21st. I am very sorry to have lumbered the poor guy with a Christmas Day birthday which means he always ends up sharing his celebrations. He seems fairly resigned to it now and realises it could have been worse; I could have named him Noel. And at least he gets to have a special Doctor Who every birthday. This year's special was silly but rather lovely. What a very robust meme the Christmas Carol has turned out to be. And I loved the little fishes of the atmosphere.


So anyway, we've had over a week of holiday now and I've achieved very little. I'd thought that having a small party on New Year's Eve would encourage me to clean and tidy the house but we made the mistake of going to FFW (Food & Fine Wine) for lunch on Friday instead to cleaning the kitchen floor. I did spend the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen making soup (spiced butternut squash without onions), a range of dips (pesto, hummus, fresh herb dip - all very garlicky- and pink grapefruit and cream cheese which was both easy and yummy), a a big tray of cheesejacks. Julia and Dougs arrived with five baking trays of filo pastry delicacies and a huge bowl of chocolate mousse and Fran brought  a plate of spiced beef and marmalade ham together with flavoured vodkas and a rather nice jar of chutney. And then there was the wine. We ate and drank, drank and ate and still there was loads left. The most important thing though, was that we had a lovely fannish new year with Julia & Dougs, and Fran & John from Sheffield and Laura & Paul imported from Birmingham to provide the proper party embellishment (Laura only goes to the best parties). 


So now I think I've indulged myself enough and I'd better think about the next shift in the kitchen of doom.   

A very English barbecue

We had a barbecue after work on Friday. Follwing a sunny intervals kind of week, Friday had a glowering look. Inevitably, as packing up time approached, the drizzle settled in. Cunningly I had failed to finish my presentation (BREEAM* awareness and rather a struggle) so I let the more efficient people faff. As the rain intensified and the light levels diminished (heading for dreach) a flurry of emails drifted into the right hand corner of my screen. Should we cancel? I hacked away at my presentation, reducing the 187 slides to 80 (still too many I know), whilst the bodging began. When I finally left the post-operative remnants of my presentation the building was eerily empty but there was a substantial jolly racket outside. The double doors of the garage had been opened and a huge blue tarpaulin stretched over the yard, held in place by straining bungee cords. Two barbecues were tended by the inevitable men; Tom, one of our ecologists sported a woman in underwear and stockings type of apron (sartorial elegance for BBQs) and John, Shona's chap, was togged out most attractively in a red and white spotty pinny with layers of ruffles. At the back of the garage, among the accumulated rubbish, a tiny MP3 player was attached to a set of speakers and pumped cheerful music out into the gloom whilst geoscience's coolboxes, only slightly grubby from carrying soil samples, had been filled with ice and beer. 


You can probably imagine the rest. Billows of smoke, burnt sausages, toddlers splashing in the puddles, increasingly loud chatter, intensifying rainfall, darkness gathering and a huge amount of fun. Oh, and someone, usually Catherine, occasionally emptying the accumulated rainfall off the tarp to avoid collapse. The beginning of the break-up came as toddlers got increasingly grumpy and were carted off to their beds. We stacked chairs, let barbecues cool, finished up all the open bottles and wandered off into the night. Ed and Ali kindly gave Sally and me a lift home through the deluge. The young ecologists set off for the pub and then probably the clubs.


Would it have been so much fun if it had been a sunny evening? Well yes, probably. But the adversity was fun too. We're quite good at that.


* BREEAM - building research establishment environmental assessment method


Now with additional apron photo - sorry about the blurriness - it was taken on Catherine's phone.