Next Two weeks

I had planned to post my biweekly update last weekend, but Duple Time happened and I didn't, and then I was thinking about a filkcon post and...

Anyway since my last post....
The day after I saw The Artist (A modern Black and White silent movie) was the last Wednesday in the month and so was the evening for a Science Museum Lates opening. Due to finances I haven't been to one of these evenings in a while but left straight from work and got the 16:38 train from Gatwick to Victoria (£14.40 off peak return). Had a BK meal at the station then to South Kensington. I got to the museum at 6:00 and was in the first 3 in the queue (by the time the doors opened I was 9th!) Exhibition Road has now been redeveloped to a more pedestrian friendly location and the street lighting is very bright. The theme for the evening was Space, hence my high interest. The biggest problem with the Lates format of short presentation is that due to timing considerations it's almost impossible to get to more than two events in the three hours the museum is open. I did get to hear Dr Stuart Clark on Isaac Newton (who was more of an alchemist than a scientist, but provided the scientific method). My Second talk was by Caroline Crawford on the stars of Orion. I did see the working model of the Astrium Mars Rover but it wasn't running at the time.

I managed to forget my keys at work a couple of times, fortunately they were still in the drawer lock when I got back to work in the morning. I am now more rigorous in making sure I take them with me!

I've gone through the next stage of training at work, entering data from written reports. The example I had already completed was used as an example for the other trainees! I've also been given responsibility for managing some of the workflow ie ensuring that the priority work gets done first and no-one is twiddling their thumbs.

And then we get to the first week end in February and filkcon 2012

Duple Time 2/4

So the weather has been very cold, and there forecast was that there would be snow during the weekend. Despite this I packed my bag on Thursday night and took it with me to work so I could go directly (saving over an hour). I got an off peak saver return to Grantham (£59.70) and caught the 17:08 to St Pancras International, bought a pastie, and then a BK burger while I waited to get on a train going north. The first one I tried was SRO so I had to wait for the 18:56 before I could get a seat. Lucky I did as I discovered Smitty was on the same train and we shared a taxi to the hotel. It had already snowed in Grantham so there were small patches of white here and there.

Checked in and got membership badges and programs, the con officially started at 19:00 so I manages to miss and hour and a half. I did manage to catch Steffi, Some Guy Called Doug (friend of Talis) and Jackie Mitchell before crashing for the night.

Woke up in the morning to discover I was sharing with Master of Ceremonies realfranklin. Though we weren't in the room at the same time (and awake) very often.

In the morning I had breakfast with filklore_on_lj and had an interesting talk on ebooks, smoking (food) among other things. As a result I downloaded the Wen Spencer Tinker/Elfhome series to my ipod and started to re-read them in order.

Talis was in fine form as the first set of the day. I then went to see Roger in the dealers room to buy a couple of CDs Talis - Queen of Spindles, and Play it With Moxie Live! Left CDs in my room and then caught the end of the Seb Kinder (footloose filker) set. The business meeting follow and didn't quite finish when the fire alarm went off! So we all left the main room to wait outside in the snow. Fortunately it was a false alarm and we were let back in to defrost after a short while. After a reasonably priced curry for lunch and some reading the main concert started. This only allowed a single song per performer to allow the greatest number of people to sing, but while setup was occurring, the Filk Fund Auction ran in parallel (raising over £1000 in the end).

The last set of the afternoon was US GoH Mary Crowell which had more gaming related songs than I would have liked but the if you didn't listen to the words too much...

For dinner I had a nutloaf with vegetables followed by chocolate cake and cream, not the most brilliant meal I've had but not the worst for the money either.

The n'Early Music Consort started the evening (and keristor was sorely missed). And finally UK GoH Lissa Allcock with Phoenix, with the last time that Phoenix will perform.

As I left to go to bed I noticed it was lightly snowing so I went out to discover 2 inches had fallen that evening.

Sunday morning I was up early and was the first filer in the breakfast room! I wasn't sure if, with the snow, I should leave as planned in the afternoon, or stay an extra day and leave Monday morning. In the event I checked out, but did ask if I could check back in if the weather got worse.

I then read until Sponge fingers started, this was Zander and friends, including Chris, Valerie and Silke. This was followed by the bid session which was won by Quarter Tone with GoH Tom Nanson and Cat Faber triumphing over a spoof bid from Paul Bristow. The convention returns to the Ramada Grantham (and why not).

Castrophony was the last set before lunch (which was a steak bagette and chips). I had started on the third Tinker story by then. After lunch was Lissa's solo GoH set. It was actually very nice to hear her voice on it's own, as she normally sings as part of a group effort.

The Sams Awards were then presented. Seb Kinder (footloose filker) was surprised to win one.

Mary Crowell followed with a second set then the Sams Concert and closing. Since trains appears to be running on time I left and caught the 18:02 to London where I discovered that the Victoria line was closed, so travelled via South Kensington. Then a train to Gatwick where only 3 of 5 platforms were open, on to Haywards Heath and finally home by 9:45. I then discovered that the Bedford to Brighton trains were running at the week end and I could have got on at Kings Cross!