From: Lee Staniforth <lee@roogna.demon.co.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: [FAN] Manchester beta 2.0 review
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 1996 19:55:17 +0000
Organization: Limbo
Lines: 148
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <jgpjfIAl6LMxEwrw@roogna.demon.co.uk>
References: <312fdaec.1575084@news.ftech.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0

In article <312fdaec.1575084@news.ftech.net>, "Lee Staniforth, Andy
(Tap) Fawcett, Bjorn (Ursus), Murky & Monica Banerjee."
<mark@monark.ftech.co.uk> writes
>Hi AFP
>
Hello, you/us lot!
>Manchester 2.0 is over, and after much wailing an gnashing of teeth it
>went rather well (even if I, Mark, did fall asleep in the restaurant).

"Gnashing of teeth" ?  Shirley, 'grimacing of teeth' would be more
afpropriate - certainly in YOUR case, you drunken sod!
>
>Lee, Andy and Bjorn arrived at our flat just in time to watch
>Superman, but they talked all through it.

We played the usual 'take the piss out of the plot' game - I mean WHY
was that guy in a huge box...
We left Mark's place, caught the bus, and attempted to pronounce Bjorn's
name properly (in the hope of winning the #5.00 prize he offered some
months ago.) Needless to say, the prize was not claimed (8^(
>
>Upon arriving at Scruffy Murphy's we met an assortment of people
>including Dave Le Good, D. Ottery and the Mighty Lowes. 

Yep - shows how pissed you were Mark (;^)
We first found ourselves a little alcove near the log fire, and away
>from  the general rabble of the pub.  We had arrived a little later than
the appointed time, so it was up to me to scout around the pub trying to
spot afpers that I'd met before.  I came upon (oo-er!) a cabal also in a
booth consisting of the Righteous Dave Le Good, the Honorable Martin
O'Nions, the Un-named Steve, the Dashing JJ and the Dasterdly Scrofula.

My mistake was to drag them across to our booth, which (through a twist
in dimensions - or was it the effect of alcohol ? ) I believed to be
larger than theirs. I was wrong.

Anyway, we did find a much greater area to plonk ourselves down and
introduce each other, which as someone remarked was similar to an AA
meeting "My name's Mark, and I have a problem."

A kitty (nope - not Smeg OR Toast) was created, into which several notes
were placed, and the drinking began!

>
>Much alcohol was imbibed - especially by my good self, the speciality
>of the house was Guinness and Kilkenny. 

It's at around this point where the ex-Warwickers (for want of a better
term) turned up: The Holy Lowes, Angela Thingy (sorry, I never did catch
your surname), The Singular Darrell, The Impressive MPK, and The Blond
Rob Collier [1].  This brought the total (count 'em) to 15, and another
attempt by this unworthy High Prophet to get everyone to introduce
themselves failed miserably.

For some reason, most of the people who hadn't met me KNEW who I was ?
What gave it away ? The humour ? The suave and sophistication ? Or was
it the beard >
>
>JJ, myself, Lee, Bjorn and Dave Le Good took it upon ourselves to sing
>the Hedgehog song to the pub as a whole, we were joined by various
>others. The wizard's knob song didn't go down too well.

I cannot believe I actually joined in!
I must say "well done" to Dave for producing the Song Sheets (which
included music), and I'm saddened not to have heard the cassette of the
music which he had brought!
>
>We also sang "Ilkley Moor bar tat" and had an attempt at "Oh Sir
>Jasper do not touch me".
>
>Bjorn refrained from these songs.
>
>Darrell was kind enough to bring lots of chocolates and Rob Collier
>bought some nice choccy sweets - with coffee beans in.

Hmm.. you have refrained from mentioning the caffeine content of said
choccy delights... I'll leave that up to Darrell - he being the man who
knows!

Several pints later - SOME of us regulated our alcohol intake, whilst
others didn't... - we retired to the nearby restaurant, with me taking
charge of the #20.00-odd left over from the kitty to be used to pay for
the restaurant meal.
>
>After the pub we went to the Greek restaurant - Kosmos, where most of
>us ordered the meat "mezze" - tons of food. I actually felt a little
>worse for wear by this point and found it very hard to actually avoid
>falling asleep. The waitress was very understanding and bought me some
>tea.

I don't remeber you actually avoided sleeping!  The people at the far
end complained of your snoring!

One thing I didn't like about the restaurant, which I'm sure we all
agree with, was the wait between courses and actually getting a place in
the first instance!
That said, the food (the mountain of food!) was delicious!
>
>The food was very good, and included hummous, various dips, pitta
>breads, calamari, salads, olives, rice, kebabs, meatballs, lamb,
>basically the whole menu. 
>
>I am sure Andy will appreciate some of the recipes! (He complained
>that not everyone had sent a recipe[1])

I'm sure you appreciated your 'doggy bag' of foodstuffs Monica got for
you!
>
>After the Kosmos Bjorn, Lee and Andy came to Mon and my place where we
>played "Scruples". We found that Lee did not have any[2]. I won by the
>simple process of lying in a convincing manner.

Scruples is a very dangerous game for couples to play...
It turned out that everyone knew my character almost to a tea, but Mark
& Mon (even after going together for THREE years) still didn't know that
much about each other!  Fights would have broken out if we hadn't let
Mark win...
>
>It is now half past three in the morning, and after playing with
>Forbes[3] for a while all five of us are composing this message.
>
>This is very much a preliminary report, and we're sure that Darrell
>will produce a much more detailed effort as he was tapping away at his
>Psion 3a all night.

I forgot to mention the Psion count: sadly only 2 were brought, though
The Holy Lowes gets extra points for bringing his in a Utility Pouch!

I'm sure I express everyone's feelings that it was a good night, and I
can't wait for Manchester V3.0 (aka DWCon 96!)

PS The only quote of the night (although I'm sure DO collected FAR
more), was "Darrell has a bendy spikey thing."  I leave that up to your
personal dirty minds!
-- 
Lee Staniforth, Chairman
MancheXter '96 - The UK X-Files Convention
  +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
  [ ** Parody Play, Briefing Rooms, Round Table Discussion, Singles Bar,   ]
  [  FBI Entrance Exam, Men In Black, Fancy Dress, Banquet, Merchandise ** ]
  +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
  [           http://www.keele.ac.uk/socs/ks26/conv/xfconv.html            ]
  [  or send 'dir' in the body of an e-mail to: XFiles@roogna.demon.co.uk  ]
  +------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[1] I don't know why, but his posts to the newsgroup made him look dark haired -
well to me at least.

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