Good Times! #20 Blue Box 4 and Battlefield 6 2001

Blue Box 4(first published in Fringeworld 2001)

Bristol is not Mars but for the country's beleaguered public transport system it may as well be. Why else would I have to board the 9.13 train (itself a journey up to town from where I live) a full 24 hours before the event began? Arriving at 12.30, I had to wait two hours to meet Neil Hutchings from his London train and, after exploring the city for a while, the moment came to find the venue. Most conventions are within a stone's throw of a town or city centre but the Aztec Hotel is approximately 15 miles away in a bleak, deserted industrial park served by one bus; the only option as a taxi fare would have been prohibitive. Tallying all this up with the registration fee for the weekend, £45 and the (admittedly very favourable for a 4 star hotel) £30 per night room fees, something like £125 has been spent before a single person asks Wendy Padbury what its like in space. The real bone cruncher, however, comes as it gradually becomes clear that the Aztec holds a monopoly on all food and drink in the area. There is a lovely country pub opposite owned by them which has marginally lower prices, but check these out - a pot of tea £2.50. Sandwiches £6.95, buffet £10. Any money saved on the room rates is soon clawed back because there is nowhere else to eat or drink; even the alcohol is higher than London prices. So, let's face it, overpriced photos of Sylvester gurning with a stuffed ferret are the least of our worries!That said the Aztec is an excellent hotel full of wooden floors, beams, low ceilings and faux Tudor decoration. The staff are tremendously helpful and friendly more so than in any convention hotel I've been in. Hopefully they get a fair cut of all that cash flowing in. 

Good Times! #16 PanoptiCon 98 (1998)

(first published in Faze 1998)

Have you noticed how Doctor Who gives great clips? More and more, the only really new things we can see are artfully collated sequences with suitably powerful music that give the impression of wonder. Conventions too are increasingly about celebrating 'bits' of the show. Close on a decade after the last regular story, time inevitably moves on and while hard core fans and, increasingly, professional writers delve into ever more trivial and miniscule territory the people who made and appeared in the show recall less and less detail and much of what they do remember is anecdotal and samey. Thus the success or otherwise of guests depends increasingly on their strength of personality. Some things don't change though; if it's PanoptiCon, it must be the Leofric Hotel in Coventry, a city that this very weekend celebrated the arrival of Sunday shopping with Morris dancing and clangey rock groups. Yes, that's the Sunday shopping everywhere else started two years or more ago but at least we can look forward to a right knees up, in honour of Labour's election win, next year!