Monday morning- the latter hours of the con. One thing that has been a constant for the last week or so is not getting enough sleep- I got to bed at a much more reasonable hour last night, but still only managed about five hours. As a result, my decision to stick around until about 2.30ish and then head for home is now feeling even more sensible than before (the fact that my throat feels somewhat appalling certainly helps). Yesterday was another good day, and I managed to catch more panels- the GoH speech from Charlie Stross (where, to nobody’s surprise, the words “computers” and “Open source” were used quite frequently) which was very interesting and info-heavy, the GoH speech from Neil Gaiman which was incredibly different in style (readings and an informal chat about Eastercons past, including one very entertaining tale about John Jarrold and a 48 hour stay in a bar…), one about politics in YA novels (with some great input from China Mieville and Cory Doctorow), one about writing gritty fantasy, one about collaboration in comics, plus a very entertaining music quiz. I was one of the contestants on a three-man team (we were ‘The Atonals’), and it was a kind of odd mix of Name That Tune and Never Mind The Buzzcocks (although they tried to do the ‘intros’ round without actually checking if the people doing the intros knew the tune. I mean- could you hum the seriously nondescript theme tune to Life on Mars just from memory?) which went well, even though there were technical hitches, with many of the clips either being too quiet, or sounding like they were emanating from some distant underwater kingdom. Anyway, our team won by a serious majority, so all ended well, and I finished the night taking it easy in the bar, chatting about comics and bonding with China Mieville over the joys and tribulations of having an odd name. There’s a couple more panels to go, and a chance to do a final crash dive on the Dealer’s Room, but leaving mid-afternoon will give me the chance to spend some of the evening recovering, before I have to hurl myself back out to do another three days subbing.

At some point, I’m actually going to get some rest…

Sunday morning. Just the right time for a hangover.

The con’s going very well so far- I just have to consider whether the red wine strategy last night was really that wise, especially when I know how dehydrated it leaves me (and how utterly non-fantastic I end up feeling when I’m dehydrated). Anyhow, my two panels yesterday (Adapting Tolkien for Film, and What Books do and don’t make Good Films) went very well- the second one was a little more fun than the first, and I was generally left wishing I’d actually ended up on more. After a certain amount of fretting, it turns out that speaking in front of groups like this really isn’t too much of a problem. The day progressed with plenty of time in the Dealer’s Room (nabbing me various books,including some Asimov and a J.G. Ballard collection) and a major chat with Dave Bradley from SFX, all of which led up to the BSFA awards (which was won by Ian McDonald’s BRASYL). I then spent the rest of the night in the bar drunkenly chatting with people like Simon Kavanagh, Paul Cornell and China Mieville, before proceeding to dance my ass off in the disco (although I drew the line at dancing to Bon Jovi. I have some standards…) Not much sleep thanks to the dehydration- I might try and get a doze later, or just save it up for tonight. I’m aiming to go to more panels today, and also make certain that I’m still having fun.

Onwards….