Current mood:	tired
Entry tags:	afp, dwcon, gigs

I didn't know you could do that with a ukulele!
I am now back from a weekend at the Diskworld convention. Well, not back home, as I am now staying with saintmaryuk until her birthday this weekend.


The hotel has changed management recently, and a lot of changes were still ongoing. The new computer booking system was only a week old; you'd think they might've decided to replace that after they had to deal with around 700 people arriving for a convention on the same day, but no. I'm glad I arrived fairly early on friday and only had to queue for 20 mins to check in. The restaurant was also the source of many complaints, as the discount-negotiated evening meals left a lot to be desired. In fairness the breakfasts were actually the best we've had at this hotel in the last three cons. The bar had also been refurbished, being completed only a day or two before the Con; impressive looking and clean, modern and shiny, but lacking the friendly nooks and alcoves which made the old bar so warm and inviting. The aircon was a welcome addition though, as was the coffee bar with WiFi. And whatever we may have felt about some of the management decisions (the strict no smoking policy was a source of stress for many) the staff were nothing but helpful.

By arrangement of the con team, the opening ceremony was accompanied by the Guild of Musicians, so that each guild head got a fanfare to welcome them to the stage. Performed by Aquarion, Eric, Edmund, Al and myself on kazoos. This came as a surprise to them, and they were as amused as the audience at their chosen themes, which were: Alchemists - Lily The Pink; Conjurers - Magical Mystery Tour; Lawyers - If I Were A Rich Man; Musicians - Take Five; Priests - Song Of Souls (theme from Father Ted); Fools - Liberty Bell March (theme from Monty Python); Unseen university - We're Off To See The Wizard; Assassins - James Bond Theme; and Seamstresses - Like A Virgin.

(The original plan was for the head of musicians to be greeted Thank You For The Music, but as self-respecting musicians this was immediately vetoed as being too lame and not enough fun to play, so we substituted Dave Brubeck.)

While there were many events throughout the weekend I missed most of them owing to guild activities. The guilds were competing to gain the most tokens throughout the weekend, which they obtained by many devious means. The seamstresses charged men a token for a 1-day licence to ogle, and non-seamstress women to have their cleavages approved for viewing. The assassins carried out contract hits to order, but also made a killing (sorry) when they copyrighted black, on the grounds that anyone wearing only black was impersonating an assassin. The fools wielded custard pies with menaces, and thereafter also arranged contract hits. Etc. Etc.

Unlike some of the other guilds the musicians hadn't made any plans in advance, so we just busked it. Literally, at one point. The Guild Of Musicians Close-but-no-cigar-Harmony Singers busked a collection of really annoying songs really badly on guitar and kazoo, and charged people 5 tokens to make us change song. The wizards tried to get around this by turning the buskers into frogs, but after we started singing the Frog Chorus they had to give in and change us back.

The alchemists shot and edited together some video footage of the con, and screened it as sepia-tinted silent film with piano and subtitles. Very entertaining and impressively done, but the musicians promptly took out a contract to assassinate the head of the alchemists on the grounds that video killed the radio star.

We also took the opportunity to strike a symbolic blow for musicians everywhere by having the head of the Guild of Lawyers assassinated. To add insult to inhumation, Peter Morwood was then asked to fill out a customer satisfaction survey to rate his death from 1-5.

(I couldn't remember whether assassin had three "s"s or 4, so I just checked it with predictive text on my phobile. Who writes the lexicon for these things anyway? Kirk and Spock are in it, so is Dalek although it doesn't come up as a first choice. Oh, while I'm on the subject, try typing Smirnoff into your phone and see what comes out.)

Saturday evening saw an unexpected visit from anejo, who wasn't attending the Con but was smuggled into the hotel for the evening by da_pol, and there were many cries of "eeeeee!" from people who hadn't seen her in over a year.

And sunday was the Toast & Jam, which went off much more smoothly than the last one two years ago. We didn't try to micro-manage this time, though we did try to assemble a list of songs most of us roughly knew so we had something to fall back on. The two highlights were the rendition of Free's All Right Now for vocals, drums, bass and ukulele, and Brian Wakeling's appearance during Monster Mash, dressed in full Dracula outfit and wandering vaguely onto the stage just at the right moment to deliver the line "Votever happened to my Trrransylvanian Tvist?"

It was noticeable that AFPers are a very nice crowd. After both the party on saturday night and the T&J on sunday the room was left scrupulously tidy, with all the glassware gathered together on one table for the staff. Pterry, commenting on the good temperament of his fans, apparently described us as "they drink like a rugby club, but fight like a chess club."

Monday I managed to catch the Reduced Diskworld Company performance of Pyramids, and was very glad I did. And then there was the closing ceremony, in which Pterry gets to treat us all with the same affectionate healthy irreverence which we tend to treat him.

Helped briefly to clear the main hall of stage gear, then joined everyone else to chill out and wind down. Eventually said my goodbyes to as many people as possible (sadly Gid, Suzi and MEG had gone off somewhere for dinner and hadn't yet returned; sorry I missed you, guys) and set off around 9.30. Made it to Chez Mary inside 2hrs, to find that not only had they closed off a section of lounge to make me a bedroom for the week, but timpootle had set me up a linux box there to surf and IRC from, so I've just spent some of this morning improvising a comfortable workspace around it using 2 chairs, a piece of hardboard, a pile of books and an old supermarket trolley.

What nice friends I have!