Michael's Meanderings

My little sister H, was visiting my parents in the first week, so I visited them and got to see her. (She lives in Somerset near Glastonbury), we got to chat, and hang out.
The second Monday was Brighton SF Book Club and this month was Random Asimov, we each needed to discuss any SF work by the author. I found a novelette called “It’s a Beautiful Day” and discussed this.
First weekend in February is the UK Filkcon, and this year was the 30th anniversary - and I've been to 27 of them. Guests were Betsy Tinney, The Crookletts & Omega (not a musician).
Ate my meals at the bungalow diner, except for breakfast, which was included in the room rate.
The following week I was a Picocon 35 at Imperial College – The guests were Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell (illustrator), Emma Newman (of Tea & Jeopardy podcast), with a late appearance by Ben Aaronovich.
Due to school schedules the social dance was on the same day so had to take my dance shoes to London and get back to Crawley for 7:00. J still unable to dance, so I only danced a few ballroom dances. I did get to dance all the sequence dances with different partners though.
Had to go to the dentist to get a filling repaired. It was fairly painless and quick. (i did have to leave work early though).
I finally found a new Line Dance Class (nearer work than home) and went for my first class, even though it was touted as Beginner / Improver it was hard work, if I hadn't done this before I would have given up. I will however continue.
Toward the end of the month we hit a cold spell, with a little snow, despite the forecast for blizzard condition and piles of snow. I only got about 2cm locally, other parts of the country were less lucky.
The worst of the weather was due on Wed 28th, the day I'd booked to go to London to see ABBA: Super Trooper - The Exhibition! Despite blizzard predictions I got to London without too much trouble, and first went to Forbidden Planet to get a few books. (The latest Seanan McGuie inCrypted novel).
Then caught the tube to Festival Hall at the South Bank Centre, (got covered in snow while walking from the tube) arrived very early so ate lunch, had a hot chocolate, before making my way to the exhibit.
This was not an exhibit of items behind glass with nicely printed labels providing background (though there were a few of these). But it was more of an interactive immersive experience.
It was made up of eight "rooms" which attempted to evoke a particulate location, which was important to the evolution of ABBA. Unfortunately photography was not allowed & and no souvenir booklet was available (and I forgot to make notes - phones all off - until afterwards) so I'm not 100% of the order of the rooms.
So the first room we entered was dark and when the door slid closed it was pitched black. Then the lights came on to show a Super Trouper spot light, we then played name that tune with ABBA tracks (the same lady got all of them correct!)
We then went into a 70's style living room, it felt like my Great Aunts' lounge. We saw TV clips on an old style TV (including questioning if we should enter the EU!)
From there we entered a Brighton hotel bedroom, used by Benny & Agnetha after their Eurovision win, there was a replica of Benny's guitar and Agnetha's original skull cap.
The exit, through the wardrobe was to a Swedish forest where they sang together for the first time (at a folk festival).
From this point on I'm not certain of the order in which we passed from room to room. So in no particular order we visited the Polar recording studio with the original mixing desk and multitrack recorders. I was able to mix together the various parts into a recognisable tune. All of the group then did a singalong in the recording booth.
We entered the toilet of a club from the early 80s, with graffiti and posters peppering the walls.
Then to Australia in the pouring rain and the caravans used for changing rooms
the penultimate room was Lasse Hallström's apartment, which was used as a stand in for Agnetha's apartment in "One of Us", I was asked to open the door to the final room, a first class section of an 80s airplane, with video windows showing take off and some videos, we also did a sing along!
And then we exited the experience and left in the snow, with only our tickets and external photos as aid to our memories.
Next stop was the Science Museum as there were two illuminating India exhibits, exploring 5000 years of Indian science & technology, and a photographic record of Indian history.
I was intending to stay on for the Lates opening in the evening, but the weather and my exhaustion from being on me feet all day meant I left earlier than originally planned.

Saw Rogue One (A Star Wars story) on Bank Holiday. Rather dark, but much better that the earlier trilogy.
Renewed my season ticked and got a 26% discount, and used a lot of delay repay vouchers.
Yoga class has had reduced numbers, down to 2 of us at the lowest numbers, but regularly 4 students.
D paying for Amazon Prime as he wants to watch The Grand Tour - so we are sharing the account.
Had first Personal Development Review, since becoming full time. Need to complete additional training, (before upgrading to Band 4)
Have also been trying to complete some online training - for work, but have had significant issues, not least test scres not being saved.
Due to the rail strike, I had to take the bus to work, this took over an hour longer than by train! and fortunately i only had to resort to this once.
I've been able to take all the other days when trains were not running as Leave, but this time too many others had booked the day off!
On one of these days off saw Passengers (12A) at the Orion Cinema Golden years showing (for over 55 years) for only £2.50 inc tea and biscuits!
Had to move desks at work second time in 2 months!) now well practised in moving!
Booked ticket to Marks Tey (for this year's filkcon - Quoi de Neuf) using Delay Repay eVouchers.
Continued with Ballroom Dance class with J each week. New Samba steps! End of month social dance didn't manage to use the new steps though

This was a very busy month for me. On the first Sunday in the month J collected me to go to Ralli Hall in Hove for a free Argentine Tango class, it was interesting and fun, but not really my style.
I have started listening to audible books for an hour a day, recording the times in a spreadsheet. It forcing me to actually listen to stuff I bought and haven't got around to "reading".
This month's SF Book Club meeting at the Earth & Stars was a bit different as Amanda Hemingway came to the meeting as a guest author of our chosen book "The Devil's Apprentice" by Jan Siegel and was very interesting, we didn't actually discuss the book as much as usual as a result.
Dancing every Tuesday (except for the last Tuesday in the month due to a school play) with J. Started learning new steps in Rumba, and revised most other dances.
Social Dance was very early in the month, as the last Saturday was 22nd! the numbers were down from usual suspects, which did mean that there was more room on the floor.
Applied for a number of train delay refunds, due to poor performance as a result of the rain! Including my ticket to Grantham for 2emi6reve filkcon. This weekend I was more sociable than previously. I was joined for almost every meal and chatted in the bar area (also begged use of apple charger as mine failed!)
I got confirmation from Baldwin's that I had passed my English Functional Skill (now I'm waiting for the paper certificate).
Went to London for Picocon 31 at Imperial College, I had to leave a bit earlier than I really wanted as I had to get to Crawley for the Social Dance. It turned out to be a good thing I did as South Kensington was closed due to a demonstration.
On my last weekend I went to visit my family (my dad turned 81 earlier this week). Used my season ticked to get there for the first time, sister collected me and collected pizza and cider, which was added to fish and chips for supper.

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!

Back to the Ramada Grantham, was a good thing for lots of reasons. 1) Not getting lost / knowing where everything is (including the back stairs shortcuts). 2) The hotel knows us, maybe not as well as they should (beer ran out again!) 3) Knowing how to get there. Though since it wasn't snowing, I could have walked from the station, rather than getting a taxi.

After the official opening at 7pm Bill and Brenda Sutton started the ball rolling, in fine form.

This was followed by Piers in fine folkish style, followed by Silke then a themed circle led delightfully by Heather Dale (GoH) and then to bed before midnight. I'm just getting to old to stay up so long!

Saturday started nicely with a well balanced set by Cristo followed by an amazing performance / lecture by Clare on the history of musical instruments. From the earliest found, a bone flute from the time of the neanderthals! to the rivalry between harp and lute through the ages.

Lunch followed, Leek & Potato soup and Beef & Horseradish sandwich for £5, having cheaper meals available in the hotel was a major plus.

The nMC concert followed and was it's usual choral wonderment.

The Canadian GoHs followed them and Heather Dale does seem to smile all the time and has a real enthusiasm for music. She has a wonderful voice to and Ben and Mike's accompaniment supported this well.

The Business meeting and bid session were concluded rapidly and then the UK GoH Marilisa had her concert, she was joined by various other filkers and was wonderful (If I recall correctly she sang 1000 ships in the original Greek ;-))

Dinner was a main course followed by desert for £10 I joined Peter and Gwen, with Sue E which was very sociable of me !

There was a change to the main concert and auction format as they were combined. The auction ran while the techs were setting up the next set. This had two benefits, there wasn't any dead time between acts, and it forced anyone wanting to listen to the concert to stay for the auction.

There was a half hour tech setup gap before "From the Ashes" which was Phoenix reborn! A wonderful set of rocking filk, seeing Heather Dale while her Joan was rocked up was lovely.

And then to bed.

I popped in to the Ecumenifilk first thing but there weren't many there, and despite my christian background I felt there were too many hymns being sung for a filkcon, If I could have found a few alternatives I might have stayed but...

The second half of the main concert and auction continued and then before lunch Kamen Footloose Filker had her spot (mostly in german)

Lunch this time was a massive baked potato with beans and various other bits once again for £5.

Then in a tour de force Marilisa wrote, directed and performed in a one hour musical (whose title I can't find/remember!). Kudos to all involved, it has the makings of a studio album!

Now we are coming to the end of the con with the Sams Awards, the last GoH performance from Heather and Ben, with the Sams concert (after a break for setup) and then closing.

Dinner followed, and again I was able to join Gwen and Peter. Roger joined us be for to long and some interesting conversation occurred.

After dinner I read and kept an ear out for the Dead Mouse filk off and on til I left for bed.

Up early to catch my scheduled train to King's Cross at 10:37 only to find it delayed by 40 minutes!

And so we await next year in Grantham!

Up at eight and was one of the first in for breakfast. The eggs were less solid and the mushrooms in cut.

Updated LJ for Friday and Saturday. Ordered charger for my iPod, so I won't have to take my note book, if I don't want too.

Went to echumenifilk for half an hour but it was cold and I was feeling less than 100% so back to bed!

Dragged myself to Songbird's set at 11:25. This was followed by Soir and then the one shots.

This was followed by lunch, a large baked potato with stuff of various kinds filling it.

Had another snooze, this cold is really taking it out of me (energy that is).

Gwen's second concert was followed by the Sams awards.

Vixy and Tony's secon set had more tech problems than the rest of the w/e. The 40 minute delay mean the games started at 17:00. Only 3 of the Sams winners got sung, Talis had left.

Then closing, gifts to GoHs etc

Dinner was a third steak sandwich and potato wedges. And then to to bed to listen to filk fm on my iPod until bedtime.

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Up for full english breakfast by 9:00. This included muesli, followed by pork sausages and bacon, with beans, scrambled eggs and chopped mushrooms. With tea, and juice, finished off with toast and marmalade. This took about half an hour to enjoy.

The main program started with a critiquing session with Cristo, Gwen, Vixey and val H. I should have gone to the other stream where a discussion on rescuing tapes occurred!

Three sets followed from Tom N, Chris S, and Lawrence D (the latter showed his folk influences but still good songs). The lunch, which was soup and a sandwich, the price was the same as last year, as were the descriptive flyers (inc date!). I had one ham and one egg sandwich, and the vegetable soup was hot and spicy.

After lunch the nMC launched into a mostly new set including a half hour of G&S via Mordor and LotR!, Talis followed this and was in very good voice. Next year's con is once again here in Grantham. I've booked my place at cre2c3ndo already. Must remember to bok the hotel a bit earlier. During the auction I went to bed for a nap! I bought Talis' new CD (out on Friday) "The Hearth and the Hive" in a thin cardboard case.

The final two sets before dinner were the footloose filker; Lastalda, from Germany, and Steve Mac.

Dinner was once again a steak sandwich, one of the cheaper entries on the bar food menu, and since I have this stinking cold I can hardly taste anything anyway.

I was a bit late for Gwen's concert, but then I've heard her many times before!
This was followed by Vixy and Tony's first concert which was so good I bought their CD straight after "Thirteen". This was followed by Cosmic Trifle - Zander, Magician and Val H a mix of silly and serious stuff.

Made myself a cup of hot chocolate then returned to the circle at midnight. Stayed till nearly one, and managed to be there when Bill S and Steve M managed to mangle "When I was a Boy" between them to hilarious results.

Did some LJ updating and then to bed.

So I got up at my normal time for Friday intending to go shopping but had to pack and tidy up so didn't.

Left just after 11 and caught the train to St Pancras, crossed the road to Kings Cross, used 2 refund vouchers (from delay on season ticket) to get a super saver ticket (leave London before 15:00) for less money than expected.

I caught the 13:33 to Hull via Grantham and arrived about an hour later and shared a cab (with snowdrop?), getting to the Ramada and checked in by 15:00, unpacked, and made myself a cup of tea, then I had a 2 hour doze.

Had an early dinner of a steak sandwich and a massive pile of chips, with a half of cider.

Discovered that the hotel had freed the WiFi, so you no longer have to take out a mortgage for internet access. Unfortunately Puppy Linux didn't want to talk to the router, so I had to boot my eeepc from an SD card ubuntu instead.

I've been using my iPod a lot more than I should, using my eeepc as a charger. I need to stop playing! While I was playing Toobz Laurence came over to give me a hug and we chatted about the merits of Avatar - the movie.
A second hug then arrived from Miki and we learned her left arm now works properly!

The opening was at 19:30 and four concerts followed see the Read Me for program details. The Programme book should also appear online after the con.,

Heather B (Canadian filker) first up
Snowdrop Explodes
Nat T
Wike W (pulled out some oldies but goldies)

I decided to pumpkin early and so to bed.

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The internet connection supplied by the convention expired before I could update yesterday, so this is from home.

So Sunday started with breakfast, but I'd left my brain behind and was in the the dining room when I realised I'd left my breakfast voucher in my room! Anyway after eating a full english breakfast back to my room for a while. Then the first panel item of the day was a fascinating discussion of the unreported jobs in fantasy. The one you don't hear about except when the hero comes from them.

Then to the Filking track where Sib Machat had her second GoH concert this time with less LotR filk.

A really interesting discussion of cutting edge science, ie the stuff that wasn't even published yet, with some great stories from Henry Gee and Dave Clement (the story about the second set of jaws in moray eels acting like the Geiger Alien was chilling)

Back to filk for the main concert, mostly only one song per person, but it was an hour and a half of solid performances.

The official close was at 16:00 but it was followed at 16:45 by "I'm sorry I haven't an SFing, Filking, LARPing Clue". Two teams made up of three out of four GoHs competed for points, in the style of a certain radio game show, including Mornington Crescent, Charades, Just a minute, which continued to 18:00 when everyone remaining disappeared to find dinner.

I found mine at the Castle Inn, where a steak and chips, with plum tart and ice cream was a not unreasonable £5. A similar meal at the university (with more veg) was £9.

Tried to update blog and discovered the account had expired ;-( read a bit the at 20:00 lurked around the filk room to see who would turn up, Ju, Rika and Valerie arrived but we adjourned to the bar for a while. Then decided to go down the the Froud Room and setup. So about six of us started a circle, and as time passed the numbers went past twenty! I did start dropping to sleep so left at 23:00 and was in bed by 23:10! This was the first night I'd actually stay up for filking! The circle did close at 00:15

Monday morning I finished packing off for breakfast the checked out before 9:00 (as instructed) and ordered a taxi which I shared with two others, reducing the cost per person to £2.60.

Bob was also traveling to King's Cross before going on to Montreal for Worldcon. So we took photos at platform 9 and 3/4 which is now no longer located in the correct geographical position (being not at platform 8 and 3/4)! Thence to the tube station where we split. And I was home by 12:30.

I packed my new back pack, and watched some TV recoded while I was away. I hope there is enough space for the weeks recording. D had replaced the porch roofing while I was away and is to due the drain tomorrow.

Since I'm going to be up at 4:30 tomorrow, as I have to catch the 9:25 from City Airport to Amsterdam and thence to Montreal I'm be going to bed soon. Next posting from Canada (or possibly Holland!)

A month since my last post and I only just got back from the US! My first 2 days back at work were spent in VMWare training. I wish I've had time to actually do some hands on since I finished.

I got a new Palm TX, this was my third and according to Amazon the most expensive! It's probably due to Palm not creating a new device, and stock running out. But I've been using Palms for 7 years and I think I'll continue to.

While staying with filkferengi I was introduced to Leverage and I've been grabbing them off the net over the last month or so a bit silly but fun.

Farringdon station is in the middle of being rebuilt as part of the Thameslink Programme and so far the most visible change is a re-built bridge across the tracks. (Photos may appear at some future date).

On the first of February it started snowing, and it kept snowing all night such that on Monday morning the country was covered. Being the good drone I am I walked carefully to the railway station, only to discover that no trains had run that morning and that none were expected. So I decided that I'd return to the warm and Work from Home. This turned out to be a good idea as no-one in my team did manage to get in to the office, and neither did most of the rest of the London workforce, as both the Underground and buses didn't run.

Apart from testing out remote working, successfully, I managed to build a small snowman during lunch (it survived nearly a week). I did get back in to work on Tuesday!

The next / first weekend in February was the uk filkcon AXXIdental in Grantham and they still had inches of snow everywhere. While there was a risk of further snow on Sunday, the light dusting we did get meant there were no traveling problems, when I left on Monday.

Guests were Ookla the Mok and Richard "Hitch" Wheatley with double concerts from each. Hitch' sax triplet was eye opening.

The High light of the con, for me at least was the live performance of the Before the Dawn filk musical. 2 hours of musical theatre.

Next year Van Der Filk returns to Grantham.

My actual ECDL certificate finally arrived, It will be hung on the kitchen wall when I get around to it! The wreck that had been sitting next to my garage for the last few years has now been removed.

And now I'm only just over a week behind real time, more later?