The Con Report - Thursday

[awmperry]

The Con Report - Thursday

Thursday

 “I don’t want to goooo,” I moaned[1], dragging the pillow over my head and screwing my eyes shut against the early-morning sunlight. Bloody mornings.

It was, oh, about six thirty. I had to catch the 1017 from Dumfries, so I had to be there by quarter to, which meant I had to leave home no later than quarter past. And I was still trying to persuade the rest of the world that it was still night.

Oh, and I hadn’t packed yet.

Eventually I dragged myself into the land of the living, and started piling my mostly pre-selected stuff into my suitcase.

I’m not sure how, but eventually I ended up getting off the local train at Carlisle and changing to the direct train to Birmingham New Str... what?

It’s cancelled? Wrong kind of water on the tracks, you say? I’ll have to change at Crewe? Oh, bollocks.

As it turned out I needn’t have worried. The alternative train left from the same platform less than half an hour later, I found a seat in a relatively empty carriage, and the change at Crewe was nice and relaxed. Another change at New Street, and soon enough I was walking at my usual briskish pace through the NEC. There I bumped into Kai and his adults, so we joined forces for the rather pleasant little walk to the hotel.

Now, I was dreading checkin. At the Hinckley, I – and everybody else, as far as I could tell – had to queue for easily half an hour at checkin, and even at the desk it took a while. But at the Metropole, there wasn’t even a line. I asked about the refurbished rooms; they didn’t have any refurbished single rooms free, so they bumped me up to a refurbished twin room. There was a bit of a hiccough in that they couldn’t take Switch/Maestro[2], but the staff were very helpful and arranged for me to be able to pay cash over the course of the Con, as my daily withdrawal limit allowed. Not ideal, but it worked without a hitch. And whatever the technical problems a hotel might have, helpful and flexible staff go a long way to making things work.

Anyway, up to the room – smaller and less comfortable than the Hinckley, but perfectly acceptable. Could have done with cleaner linen, though, a theme which seemed to continue throughout the hotel; sheets, towels, pillowcases, napkins all tended to be rather grubby. But again, nothing that can’t be fixed.

A suitcase and computer bag lighter, I headed down to registration. Again, I’d managed to beat the rush, and was registered and done in moments. And ooh, I’d got a programme with a double cover. Hmm, better find something to do with that.

Anyway, the afternoon drifted on, and I ended up chatting about guns with someone I suspect I know but whose name I never caught. If you’re reading this, let me know.

Then I reconnoitred a bit, made my feet learn where everything was; I suspect that by Saturday afternoon I could have navigated the Con areas of the hotel with my eyes closed. There aren’t many things I have a good memory for, but places are one of them.

By the time I’d finished my recce, chatted to whoever I stumbled across, and got myself a bottle of water in the shop, I heard rumours of a pub quiz in Harga’s. So I teamed up with my gun nut friend from earlier and went to sign up. In the process we got recruited by three delightful Irish sisters (who insisted on teaching me to pronounce “bodhran” properly. It didn’t work.) to form Team McGuffin or some such. With the addition of Essy, we were ready to go.

After the first question (“Name the colours of the rainbow”) it could have gone either way, but then it turned out that it was a Roundworld quiz with questions inspired by Discworld. And there was much wailing and scribbling out of “octarine”.

And so the evening progressed. We weren’t doing terribly well[3], and I was being particularly useless. I’m told I was getting ever so slightly delirious, which may have had something to do with going the whole day on a swig of Irn-Bru when I left home and a pack of crisps at Carlisle. Anyway, that meant an expedition in search of food; there were rumours of an ancient vending machine, deep in the Temple of Dubious Nourishment.

And so there was, in fact. A vending machine stocked with wonders, chocolate, crisps, high-sugar drinks. But it was inside the then locked fitness centre. Bugger.

Fortunately, the staff came to the rescue once again, and the guy at the reception desk very helpfully went to the machine in the staff canteen and got me a couple of Twixes. They weren’t a full meal, of course, but at least the walls stopped spinning and the ceiling sat down and shut up.

The pub quiz continued, to the laments of those who had been swotting up on Disc trivia. But we were confident. We’d known most of the answers pretty much as they’d come up, and so we knew as we handed over our paper for marking that we were probably in for a podium finish; at least second, we reckoned.

And we were second. From the wrong end, admittedly, but second. It takes real skill to be penultimate.

The quiz finished, we retired to the bar; in true DWCon tradition, this became standard procedure every night later on, but I digress. Within moments we found ourselves gravitating to the singalong in the corner, where I ended up thumping a bodhran for the next hour or two. I may have mentioned this once or twice before, but if the D’Arcy sisters turn up for the next Con, give Irene a guitar and set her going on Me And Bobby McGee. A definite highlight of the first few days, if not the Con as a whole.

Eventually I glanced at my mobile and found it had ticked over to three AM; deciding to get an early night[4] I left the remaining singalongers in the bar and retired to my room.

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[1] I’ve spent most of my life travelling. Some people get brilliant at packing and end up being really calm and prepared. I ended up hating travelling – or at least the expectation of travelling. A sort of packing-phobia; I don’t mind it so much once I actually get going, but the preparation is an absolute pain.

[2] An international hotel chain like Hilton not being able to take arguably the most common debit card in Britain? Definitely something for the hotel to sort out for next time.

[3] By the way, I still hold that the play in Hamlet was called The Murder of Gonzago, even if Hamlet himself called it The Mousetrap. So really, we should have had one more point. We’d still have come second to last, but that’s beside the point.

[4] I know, I’d already started running on Con Time.