Lesley McIntee's Redemption'05

Wednesday

Wake up early with sigh of relief that the footsteps padding around my downstairs room are not in fact a burglar but David McIntee Senior, who sensibly set off ahead of the weather. Pack, clean house, leave note for cat sitters- one neurotic, one serene, one Borg one Klingon ( cats not sitters), feed twice daily or when surrounded, in case of emergency break cat flap.( Dave's dad did). Panic about the weather and frantically look for the con insurance policy to check exclusion clauses. Repack and check for crest, coat, hair gel, Rygel etc. Phone Judith who reminds me to pack the important things eg underwear. Finally stand three feet away while David prises Londo's boots off the Drakh sized mottled grey Arachnid, aka Shelob, who has taken up residence in the shed. Daves dad tries Brivari, declares it "lovely" and immediately packs the bottle in his own rucksack.

Thursday

White knuckle ride down motorway - Dave senior is a very safe driver but the owner of the somewhat flat sportscar causing a queue on the opposite carriageway wasn't. I still hate motorways after nearly getting killed on one in 02 but manage to hide the nascent panic attack. Make it to a service station in a blizzard and just get my hands round an extra large latte to be phoned on the mobile by my boss, who wants me to work overtime on the day I reserved for crashing after the con. Remembering that the dealers room contains a stall by Kathy Sands, I say yes. Dave senior muses about the con and whether his badge name ( "Dykes", a family nickname ) will cause unintentional trouble. Arrive at Hinckley, immediately followed by about three other committee members ( synchronicity??),shortly followed by Mellissa Arnold carrying a stack of pictures of Messrs neurotic, serene, Borg and Klingon. Judith changes into costume so Londo has to appear immediately to save face. Hang around the hotel desk for booking problems of which there are blessedly few. Want to go with Dave to meet Jason but wonder if Londo is what you really want to see at 6pm on a freezing station when you're jetlagged. Delighted by the size and layout of the huge room we trash it by spreading costumes, boots, Morrisons carriers , Psi Judge badges and what passes for the Treasurer's office, liberally around it. I put the Do Not Disturb notice on the door now to save the maid's sanity later. On to the meal which turns out to be extremely good though I have to rush my pudding to collect all the cash. Jason has got seated next to Dave senior which makes for some interesting comedy turns and has the most unbelievably funny mucky mind I have ever encountered after Dave junior. God help us all if they are on a panel together .Dave senior has still got my Brivari so he gets Centauri-fied with Damians old wig and loves it, happily scaring Mundanes.

Intend to get to bed early but don't make it to sleep due to:

1. being in bar with Dave senior.
2. discovering the mirror above the bed
3. trying to filk Hotel California at 2am.
4. the damn noisy hotel heater which Dave junior threatens to dismantle.

Finally get to sleep around 4am. Also wonder how Steve K thought the temperature in here was suitable for short sleeves, or maybe it wasn't snowing at Eastercon - but the room size and wardrobe space covers a multitude of sins, my last Ashford room at 03 was tiny in comparison.

Friday

Spent most of this morning on the reg desk - thank you everyone, Morag, Paul, Laurie, SJ,Ann, Craig, David Curry, Sam all of whom coped with my redone almost rota. Have the chance to talk a lot to Craig about Australian cons and resolve to do one one day, especially since Kathyrn Andersen assures me that the largest hairiest Antipodean arachnids aren't the poisonous ones. Escape for five mins on a pretence of going to the ladies and buy a big shirt from the dealers room.Enjoy putting names to faces and John and Ritas reaction at being opposing Drazi leaders. Londo enjoys all the ladies in tight clothes recognising him and is delighted when one young lady ( Carrie Seal) ask shyly if next con she can play Vir. Especially when I learn she cant drink without keeling over and has been practicing the mannerisms. Oh my. Whisked Back To the room and from 0 to Centauri in 6 seconds ( bet you didn't realise I always have spare costumes, yes?). Get into Dave's panel in time to hear the bird flu bit and John Ross Wilson's whistle stop tour of ecology 50 billion years hence. Must get the book.Meet Carol Naylor and Lucas T Bear and see her fantastic Londo campaign posters. Londo bribes her with paper ducats from Gallifrey con in the US. The time for getting Rygel ready for the elections seems to have vanished so I'm left running around half an hour to the ceremonies with a maskless polar bear in Londo's spare waistcoat and a silver galabeya. Colin Milnes suggests gelling him up ( Rygel's aquatic, right?) , Carol adds Vulcan ears, Londo decides to make him an ally based on the drinking gambling thing and somehow it all works. Feel faint on stage ( Chris is quite worried but I assume it's lack of liquid and down some Brivari), recover by the ruler bit and completely fail to maintain Londo's disapproving demeanour during Og's brilliant speech, though Londo seizes power once the Doctor is dead. (Thanks for that idea, Harriet!) And I even get an evil laugh in. Several hotel staff pat Rygel, then spend ages getting gel off their hands. Do the Starbuck panel and admit to preferences in the female Starbuck direction ( I don't like pretty men). Feel sorry for Vicky who seems beleagured in defence of BG original series. On to Steve K's historical swordplay panel where despite destroying the light fittings he manages to choreograph several rapier scenes and Dave and I reenact the duel from " Knives" me being miraculously sober due to Londo being unable to find the official Keeper of the Drink who is, apparently, participating in panels for all he's worth . Afterwards I talked to Roger Fishwick for ages about lack of sleep and creativity in authors and programmers, causing me to stay awake later considering some of his more philosophical points.

Make it to the ceilidh in time for the Treasurer to pay the band. Duty done, to bed and laptop to add in today's accounts. Wonder about where Dave's dad and remember vaguely seeing him on the way to a panel, waving the programme book and confidently directing other attendees.

Saturday

Make it to breakfast only shortly before Jason feeling shattered-Londo has my migraine and I have his lack of hangover. ( Experience has taught me that the drinking thing works with my version of Londo like it works with Vimes in the Pratchett novels). Since Eddie and Chris are still in there, decide to give myself some leeway on the reg desk opening times and three Hedex.Come out of breakfast fortified by fry-up to find Laurie and SJ have set the desk up, bless 'em. Cheered up even further by John lending me the ecology book and finding the future evolution of the cat in it - half feline, half monkey with a prehensile tail. Must be careful not to win the lottery as I've always wanted to breed/clone the world's biggest tabby cat. I have Morag down for kidnapping for the role of chief mad scientist and I' ll add John as the geneticist. Made it to some of stage fighting and my Battlestar panel only to be dragged out by Dave on "official business" which turns out to be a guilt trip for what he's about to buy in the dealers room. Reassure him that his bum looks fine in all of it, and that beans on toast a la carte is fine for the rest of the month and go back in the panel . Try to look official but lose thread of discussion fantasising about Dave as Aragorn in the blue cloak. Note, through a face temporarily full of Alien facehugger that all the Londo posters have appeared, including a huge one in the rotunda with reference to Londo's sexual organs - which the hotel has left up as they don't understand it,and that the Og posters have disappeared due to having the word "orgasm" in them, which they evidently do understand.Shame , er I mean, Vengeance is Mine. Track down Dave senior who is now officially describing himself as Londo's batman/barman, and try the Zocalo under the influence of considerable to drink. Which leads to considerable hanky panky with Og. My Brivari was obviously drugged. Can remember about half of the conversation I/Londo had with Loretta Merry about runes and ( luckily) all of the conversation with Pen Robinson who paints my eyebrows and turns out to be my panel partner for tonight. Then I do something I hardly ever do at cons - eat dinner but at £5.50 its worth it.Dave has the same idea and is late for his own book launch and causing Jason to exclaim "expletive deletive [guess which expletive] authors". I really enjoy Ken Ludden's account of the many strings to his creative bow ( professional ballet dancer and direct artistic descendant of Margot Fonteyn as well as writer ) and sincerely wish I hadn't been programmed against his talks. Still, maybe he'll come back next time. 10pm sees the heroes panel, for which I have to thank Dave for diving in when I crash on 3 hours' sleep. I get changed for the Vampires disco into a dress which causes more comment than the Londo costume does ( yikes, am I so seldom me at cons????). Suffice to say Steve Kilbane staggers a foot backwards and makes me stand still while he fetches the camera. And Mark Rudling, bless him, gets the costume reference.

I drag myself awake for Bondage workshop then become wide awake when I realise how much fun it is, though with me being spatially and geographically challenged the all important element of communication with your partner that Douglas keeps emphasising seems to consist of "er, what the heck is an overhand knot anyway" and " do you think you could do this bit yourself". Dave has to rope ( sorry) the nearest pair of female attendees in to help complete the job.Still he seems to be enjoying it..My con highlight is when, post- panel, Dave directs the discussion to stage fighting/military themes and Douglas and Louise conduct a scientific experiment in how to tie a Centauri Ambassador, complete with other folk's arms standing in for attributes, in order to prevent escape from custody. You have to have a special kind of mind to think of that ...

Sunday

Make it to the murder game at 11 and wish I had a convenient Vorlon to enhance my telepath abilities to see where the hell Dave is going with all this. He thanks me afterwards for inspired role playing so maybe I am a P10 after all. Then a Jason/ Dave/Jane Killick panel on Rangers where Dave gets revenge for the book panel comment, Jason gets revenge by corpsing him and Dave gets revenge back when Jason claims Marcus was " successful in all he did" ."Er, says Dave " you mean, like picking up women?" Unfortunately I cant reach the stage, even with the attributes, to stick my hand over DM's mouth so I leave them to it.

The hustings are a scream. Og is presented a paternity suit for Lucas Bear ( the good looks are from my side of the family). I hired Adrian Flitcroft as lawyer for this, partly to apologise for the impromptu demo he got dragged into in the last minute of the stage fighting when he raised a self defence point. He wrote a splendid legal treatise which Rita ripped up before we had a chance to read it out but I still had to pay full fees. Londo was the only one with the imagination to use the balcony, but not the imagination to rig the ballot box, and challenged Jack Sparrow to a ( prearranged)duel. Jack won and Vir leapt, entirely unscripted, to avenge Londo and save the Republic. Nice one, Carrie, you'll make emperor yet (but remember, first you have to kill Melissa.). Bender is way cool too, drinking Brivari through the visor and becoming one with his inner programming.However, Og wins ruler and Londo, ever the opportunist, declares allegiance with an unfortunate comment about Og's head, then goes from bad to worse in forgetting that the lovely Kathy Sands sold him a see through black shirt, and stripping down to it on stage on Jason's encouragement, removing the crest as the folkloric unofficial end to the con. David has since suggested that I should raise the deposit and stand in the General Elections as Londo as I could give the lot of them a run for their money on sleaze. And Mollari at least knows his WMDs from his nether regions..

I still have two panels to do ( thank you Steve R and I'll kill you if you do that to me next time).First Tolkien which I cant remember much of except the Campaign for Real Elves seems to have made a stand there as well, and the Egyptian gods panel. Where I wish Id had hours to just go through them and tell their stories( the rest of the panellists probably don't).Some really interesting and controversial stuff in there too from Roger about using figures of world religions as Tokra, like to continue that discussion some time. Then finally the bar, the rotunda and at special request of Laurel ( Lady Mollari), Melissa,Cartagia et al I'm back in the costume. A mad moment when Laurie Sj, John Wilson, Colm McMurray and I rush out in the snowstorm and feed the ducks. John tells me Shelob, Stealer of the Londo boots, is probably a Marsh spider. I wonder if he means like in the Dr Who episode "Full Circle". Then a gentle moment when I go filking for the first time since 01 and Judith sings a song about the spirit of a fan wandering the con in search of their old friends which completely sends me into tears. We also have a raucous chorus of Gilbert and Sullivan inspired Ambassador Mollari filk and then its nearly over.

I try to make last Centauri standing but with packing not even started I call it a day at 3am, wandering from group to group in the Rotunda and being eaten by sofas. Off I go, not before Robin and Vicky and I have a discussion of Battlestar and their experiences at cons that turns me to into a serious old series fan.I knew they'd get me eventually. Dave can keep his naked Boomers. What would he do with 12 of them anyway?

So that's 05 - simply the best of the lot, and certainly the best in balance of committee duties and fun. I know a lot more of you by sight now ( watch out, so does Londo) and look forward to seeing you all next time. You're all cute ( especially Lucas)and very many of you are stunning in purple. Or Black . Or Multicoloured.

BTW I should point out before I go that I put the crest back on after the closing ceremony so in Redemption lore, technically you got two cons for one and o7 has already started. Judging by the pre- regs, that aint far wrong.

See you in the bar, then..