World Fantasycon

[paulkincaid]

Yesterday morning, Mort decided that I needed to wake up at 4am. This was rather earlier than I had planned. The advantage was that I was able to catch an earlier train than anticipated; the disadvantage was that I spent my one day at World Fantasy Con struggling to keep my eyes open and feeling as if I had been pummelled with a sledgehammer. Though I suppose the latter wasn't helped by the dreadfully uncomfortable seats on the Thameslink train from Blackfriars to Brighton. The hotel, which was once the Metropole and is now apparently a Hilton, is not exactly as I remembered it. The owners seem to be working on the principle that guests don't really need anywhere to relax, so where I remember a large lounge and a separate if not quite so spacious bar, now there is simply a lounge bar that might just about be adequate so long as the hotel is never more than half full. When I turned up at the bar just after 10am it was nearly empty, but it didn't take long for it to start filling up and by mid-afternoon there were people milling about looking forlornly for any available seat. Anyway, I got myself a pot of tea, put a post on Facebook, and settled down to see what might happen. It wasn't long before John Clute showed up with Gary Wolfe, Dale Weatherwax Hanes, and Julie Phillips (whom I had never met before). We managed to commandeer one of the larger tables even though these were all marked "Reserved", and I found myself staying there for the next several hours. People drifted away, and new people joined the group (hi Kev McVeigh and Dev Agarwal), others said hi as they passed the table (hat tip to Geoff Ryman), and still others I failed to attract the attention of (next time, Jonathan Strahan?). At some point the hotel decided that our table was reserved from 4pm, and then announced that they had to have it by 3pm, (presumably for the arduous task of wiping it down), so Kev and Dev and I wandered off to a pub, The Cricketers, which is one of several that seems to have declared itself the oldest pub in Brighton. There we were joined by Leigh Kennedy and Simon Priest, and a convivial time was had until I decided I was too knackered to continue and went off to catch my train. I managed (just) to stay awake until I got home, fed the cats, and collapsed onto the bed. And Mort decided to wake me up at 4am again this morning.