posted by
jemck at 04:25pm on 17/09/2007
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If you're wondering where last Friday's update was, I was sitting in stupidly slow traffic on the M40 on the way to Birmingham. Well, between Oxford and Banbury anyway. Then it all cleared, with no obvious explanation of why we'd been crawling along nose to tail, and the rest of the run was smooth as silk.
A good evening with the Brum SF Group on Friday and then at the BFS open evening on Saturday. And it was great to spend time with
desperance and
gaspode_girl and Stan Nicholls and his wife Anne. Who is a fabulous cook and fed and entertained us royally. Because beloved as families are, there are some things you can only talk about with other writers. Editors, their vagaries and foibles. The joy of 'stet's. The state of the business. The latest from the rumour mill. And life, the universe, families, all that kind of thing.
We spent a fair amount of time wondering why UK conventions can't draw bigger attendances, given
gaspode_girl is just back from DragonCon(30,000), Stan has done various European events like Trolls et Legendes, Elf Fantasy Fair and others which draw anything from 5,000 to 20,000. And when I was in Croatia, Istrakon drew around 550, bearing in mind that's one of three annual conventions in a country with a population of 3 million or so. Not that we came up with any definitive answers or conclusions though.
We also had a walk in one of south Birmingham's leafy parks and scoped out a potential venue for a TWF gig next year. Fingers crossed.
The redevelopment of central Brum continues apace, btw. Looking very good, and so different from the grimy dourness that I recall from work-related fifteen or so years ago.
Then I came back late Saturday night so as to have Sunday at home. We cracked open the second series of Stargate Atlantis and caught up with last week's Heroes.
Anyway, I did make last week's targets before I hit the motorway on Friday. And I had better crack on if I'm going to do the same this week, before leaving for FantasyCon!
So I had better resist the temptation to write up a full report on Istrakon which I have been meaning to do since, er, March... Because the con deserves it! Seeing Michael Palin on the telly last night was one big fat cosmic hint that I still need to do this. Reinforced this morning with an email from a pal who's just off for a week's holiday there. OK, universe, I am listening. If I can get the required wordsmithing done by Friday morning and nothing else has come up, we'll see. OK?
A good evening with the Brum SF Group on Friday and then at the BFS open evening on Saturday. And it was great to spend time with
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We spent a fair amount of time wondering why UK conventions can't draw bigger attendances, given
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
We also had a walk in one of south Birmingham's leafy parks and scoped out a potential venue for a TWF gig next year. Fingers crossed.
The redevelopment of central Brum continues apace, btw. Looking very good, and so different from the grimy dourness that I recall from work-related fifteen or so years ago.
Then I came back late Saturday night so as to have Sunday at home. We cracked open the second series of Stargate Atlantis and caught up with last week's Heroes.
Anyway, I did make last week's targets before I hit the motorway on Friday. And I had better crack on if I'm going to do the same this week, before leaving for FantasyCon!
So I had better resist the temptation to write up a full report on Istrakon which I have been meaning to do since, er, March... Because the con deserves it! Seeing Michael Palin on the telly last night was one big fat cosmic hint that I still need to do this. Reinforced this morning with an email from a pal who's just off for a week's holiday there. OK, universe, I am listening. If I can get the required wordsmithing done by Friday morning and nothing else has come up, we'll see. OK?
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