little bits of everything

This particular Worldcon is called Loncon3 as it's the third one to be held in London. On the morning before I went I put a photo of my Star Wars T-shirt on Facebook and commented how it would make me fit in. Not that I needed to fit in. I saw: a large green cat like figure several top hats, some with brass goggles several Terry Pratchett hats a spoon headdress (worn by a space scientist) a Tardis dress a dragon on someone's shoulder just the one fez The breadth of the programme is amazing. It runs from Thursday to Monday. There are 600 items which means at any given time there are about ten things to choose from. All sorts of types of SF are represented: literary, film, graphic, TV, young adult, music and science too.  As well as all those items there was an art show, dealers stalls, a games tent, a library and a fan area. What I was looking forward to was seeing some authors I've read or certainly heard of, in the flesh. Like a twitcher I ticked off Cory...

A couple of hours ago I booked a day ticket (or "membership" as it's called) for the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention. I've spent the time since digging around on the internet into my past. Let me explain. I went to University in York between 1984 and 1988. From my early teens my reading material was almost exclusively SF. When I went to University I joined the British Science Fiction Association. (A while back when I was doing some vanity searching I came across an index of letters to the BSFA journal. Someone dutifully recorded that I written two letters.) I was also invited to join an Amateur Press Association , or APA, called The Organisation. If you're read the article I've linked to you'll understand how they work. What it doesn't do is explain how things were before the internet, for those who haven't experienced it. In the 80s there were three or four TV channels. There were books and magazines. There was Doctor Who and Blakes 7, and...