I drove up on Wednesday of last week, arriving a little earlier than I anticipated, and found my room all in order. I plugged in the firewall, the laptop, the printer ... and discovered that the print server's IP address was right in the middle of the DHCP range used by the segment on the red side of the firewall. And I don't have the print server's password to hand ... so I dug out a USB network card to give the laptop a second Ethernet segment ... you know, life would have been easier if I'd had a plain old USB cable to print through. Ah well.
It seems that the Internet connection hardware in the room had Ethernet presentation, which was fine, but took USB power, which was really very very stupid indeed. Never mind, it works.
Down to Reception, where I found
Down to the newsletter department, where I got my second ribbon ("Volunteer") and a badge addon (a little cardboard "Newsletter" flash). One of the computers had a very large printer attached, but none of the other computers would talk to it. That was a little bit disabling, so my first job on the newsletter team was setting up shared printing properly, something that the repeatedly-incompetent contractors had failed to do. Four Gopher Tokens. I showed Fran the first version of the Distraction flyer and discussed its content. Went for a meal with
Towards the end of the drive up, I'd taken a phone call from a client. So my last job before bed, at about 1am, was to rebuild their Exchange server. Me in Glasgow, Scotland; server in Petts Wood, Kent. The Internet is a wonderful thing.
Phoned
On Thursday I wandered down to breakfast at about half past nine, and was told that my room rate didn't include breakfast. D'oh! Well, it'll save me waking up early later in the week. Breakfast was okay, standard convention-hotel fare with Scots supplement. Took the Beeblebears and MHs into the ZZ9 sales table, and picked up my third ribbon ("Dealer"). Made some changes to the Distraction flyer and had further discussions with Fran. Discovered
Chaired the Sexual Just A Minute panel game, with
There were some other panels that I attended, including
Friday dawned bright and clear ... but I didn't. Not if Breakfast was going to cost me extra. I made a PDF from the flyer and uploaded it, and wrote a proper placeholder for the Distraction website. I stumbled downstairs for early lunchtime, and then put in another shift on the newsletter team. Three Gopher Tokens. Then Al WINOLJ and I retrieved a few hundred quidsworth of alcohol from
It was an extraordinarily good party. I didn't see much of it, because I was refereeing the Towel Fu, but there was lots of interesting and entertaining stuff to drink, and knowledgeable people like

Phoned
Saturday started later than Friday, but I was at least awake for lunch. Went to see a panel featuring

A spell in the bar once more, and then on to the party hotel again. A very good party, with lots of toys to play with (balloons, aeroplanes, miniature castanets, glowsticks) and lots of things to eat and drink. We had excellent attendance from members and friends including much of the Third Row. Our only failure was my fault -- I'd been sent to find tonic to put in our trolley earlier, and I'd inadvertently got soda water instead, so we had to offer
I left the party early (before 2am) and I found myself back in the real ale bar, where I talked long into the night with
Got to bed at about quarter to five. Failed to phone
Sunday started with me descending the escalator into the SECC to the sound of

I'd arranged the ribbons round my badge in the form of a sporran. My sixth ribbon had left the badge looking asymmetrical, and I was bemoaning the fact to a random bystander, and he gave me my eighth ribbon ("Friend of UK2005"). Not quite half an hour later,
We went to the bar afterwards. Phoned
On Monday, I went to a panel! It was before lunch! It was the "future of fandom" panel, where people earnestly engaged in debate about who would be running conventions in years to come were rudely interrupted by YAFA, wielding foam hammers and the like. The panel, forewarned, had equipped themselves with waterpistols and battle ensued. Some members of the audience did sterling work, wresting weaponry from the invaders and in due course we drove them off. The panel then walked away, members of the audience who wished to continue the discussion took over, and the room was reinvaded once more. I sustained some slight foaming, but was otherwise unharmed.
The fanroom closing ceremony was excellent with Hugos, prizegiving, and an interpretative-dance summary of the convention. I'd lost my eighth ribbon, since I'd attached it to my badge in difficult circumstances, with second-hand sticky stuff. I was given a replacement eighth ribbon ("YAFA"). Symmetry restored.
The main closing ceremony was exceedingly naff, with bad acoustics, bad scripts and bad acting (partly rescued by some bit-parts from Sparks).
I was supposed to be helping to dismantle newsletter IT, but the circumstances alluded to elsewhere, coupled with the fact that no-one had told anyone on the newsletter team that we (with badges, ribbons and everything) wouldn't be allowed in to the department without move-out badges, meant that we had to queue for an entirely unnecessary 40 minutes to get a badge before we could go in and unplug anything. Absolutely insane.
After clearing up the newsletter department and securing my ninth ribbon ("Newsletter", not the same as the badge addon from Wednesday) and helping empty the ZZ9 sales table, I suppose I must have eaten something ... no, wait, I decided to wait until the staff/volunteer party, which had all the leftovers donated from all the other parties, together with extra stuff donated for the purpose. That was mayhem, but very good mayhem. Well done everybody.
Oh, and then the Dead Dog party. In the bar. We'd been told that over the five days we'd consumed three full weeks production from the brewery, including their entire stock of some lines. See, we're used to drinking the hotel dry, but we think this is the first time we've been able to drink the brewery dry.
Phoned
And then, on Tuesday, I drove home.
I'll link to some photos in a few days.