Oxford 1.0: Report

From: Darrell Ottery <Darrell@lspace.org>
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: *F* Oxford 1.0 report
Date: Sun, 04 Aug 96 11:17:00 GMT
Message-ID: <839157420snz@lspace.org>

And it came to pass that on the evening of August 3rd 1996 a small
horde (hordette?) of afpers descended upon the centre of Oxford and
proceeded to cause the traditional amounts of havoc.

But our story begins a little earlier that same evening. Suffering from
intense traffic I was late in collecting Simes from Wokingham, and a mad
dash up the A34 ensued to attempt to get to Oxford station where a
pre-meet was to be held, the purpose of which being to collect enough
afpers together in one place to be able to descend upon the pub en
masse.

The trip itself was fairly uneventful, bar for a brief incident with a
Volvo. We were amazed to see an indicator actually being used correctly,
and I suppose that this meant that the use of mirrors was considered
very optional. Anyway, I digress.

Arriving at the station at about 7pm, the three of us - myself, Simes,
and Martin, who I'd also given a lift to, hung about waiting for Kat
(Knight, not the One True Kat) to turn up. A few minutes passed before
the orange t-shirt of Kat's SO was noticed, and we headed over to meet
the pair of them.

Declaring the meet so far quorate, a few introductions were made, some
chocolate things inspected, and then our very own merchant adventurer
Stephen 'CMOT' Briggs turned up.

Shortly after this, just to add to the confusion, Rob the Ergonomist and
the One True Kat showed up, followed swiftly by Mike 'the moderate'
Knell and Nick, a friend.

When it was made public that the only reason we were still hanging
around the station was to wait for Bjorn to arrive it was decided that
the word of the evening was *not* to be Iceland...

At this point some photos of mine were waved around, mainly to point out
other afpers to Kat (not the One True). Hmmm - this is going to get
confusing so for the purposes of this report I shall refer to the two
Kats as TOTK and !TOTK. The few photos I took at the con were also
perused, albeit briefly.

A move to the pub was suggested and indeed acted upon, with Stephen
leading the way, a brief pause being in order so that Mike could collect
more chocolate things from his car en route.

Upon entering the pub, and not requiring the sack for Plan B to smuggle
!TOTK in, several tables were seized and drinks ordered. TOTK was
somewhat suprised to find that she was owed a pint from yhn, as
mentioned in a previous post - she had brought along photos from the
con. See what you miss if you don't stay awake? :)

And whilst I was at the bar trying to remember the drinks order,
glancing back at the table in an attempt to jog my memory, TFC appeared,
having come in from the garden (more a bunch of tables on a flat piece
of ground, really) around the back, and dragged everyone else off. This
didn't make task any easier, but I managed everyone *else's* oreder just
fine. A return trip secured a drink for myself.

At some point in the drinks-ordering phase a couple of others turned up
- Tim Arnot (I think, yes?) - one of Stephen's crowd of actors at any
rate, and a lurker - one Claire-Louise Ruffle IIRC. I never did find
out.

Once out the back it was found that a similar number of afpers were
already present, the total being some number greater than 20, making
this almost as large a meet as last week's Ealing 3.141592654. Not a bad
turnout at all.

And in no particular order the meet involved myself, Stephen Briggs, Tim
Arnot, Martin O'Nions, Simon 'Simes' Brown, Kat Knight, Kat's SO - Matt
(not Bob) Hoskins, Mike Knell and his friend Nick, Alan and Colette,
Victoria Martin plus husband and youngster, TOT Kat, Rob the Ergonomist,
Rob Collier, Richard Kettlewell and Pingpong the Beeblebear, Bjorn,
FTony, and Claire-Louise. I don't think I've left anyone out, but no
doubt if I have someone will point this out...

And the meet proceeded much as any other, really. Bits that I can recall
include:

A small abp splinter group formed - I don't know what they were
discussing.

A beta test version of the Official 100 question Afpurity test wandered
around, which I'll post in full very shortly. This spawned purity test
discussions at which point Kat tried to shock me. It didn't work, but
then she was being nice to me. This might have been merely due to the
supply of chocolate that was provided.

Alan, myself, Rob Collier and Martin were talking about a.b.r-r, and the
pronounciation of the great Hugo Rune's surname. It was about at this
point that some avian decided to show it's appreciation and Rob's head
suffered. Photographs were taken.

Rob TE and I plotted a Bristol meet at some future point, potentially
September some time. More of this in a future thread.

TOTK and !TOTK had something of a fight to decide the true owner of the
title. The weapons for this little war were determined to be cameras,
and I believe it was resolved reasonably amicably, the net result being
TOTK was to be referred to as Kat, and the pretender to the throne as
Kitten. I'm just glad that neither of them chose to go round and mark
the territory as their own...

Stephen demanded that all present turn up to his production of The Life
of Brian in December, and a call for more actors was also placed. That
plug OK? :) *I'll* be along for sure, but I'll speak to you about that
later.

Victoria brutalised everyone present into taking parts for a production
of Wired Sisters to be performed at the megameet next year. Wired
Sisters, since it is going to be the first play rehearsed over the
net.

This led to yhn being cast as Wxrthltl-jwlpklz. Obvious choice really, I
guess... Others that I recall being cast were TFC as Granny Weatherwax,
Kat as Magrat, having decided that a fifteen year kiss with Rob Collier
as the Fool was a great prospect, Kitten as Magrat as well, Rob TE as
the Fool as well - geez this gets confusing! Some substantial rehearsing
of this important scene ensued. Oh, and photos were taken. >:)

A group wandered off to their own corner and discussed IP addresses and
other such things. I missed that conversation entirely.

Many photo collections were passed around and comment made. A good one
of Mike was selected for the Rogues' Gallery. We saw a great need. >:)

It was determined that the quickest way to get a message to Claire [*&)]
was to post to news. Or at least, the quickest way to get a response.

Mark Lowes was spared a phone call to check soething in the dafptabank
for us, if only because Oxford is an Orange-free zone.

I'm sure an awful lot more went on and no doubt someone will fill in the
gaps. I seem to have spent most of my time moving from group to group
and not having much in the way of conversations. I think it's something
to do with a critical mass of afpers triggering convention 'headless
chicken' mode myself.

And then at the demand of a lot of hungry people we trekked off to
Burger King, where they didn't have any crowns, but did have the very
odd tray inserts.

Apologies to anyone who spoke to me - I'm suprised my voice lasted as
long as it did - it's now pretty much gone.

And to round things off in a traditional manner, a few memorable quotes:

"I've been fingering your interesting ports." - Rob Collier to Mike.

"No, that's too bony." - Kat, after sitting on the frumious Kettlewell's
lap...

"It's everything I could have wanted... in public." - Kitten to yhn,
after being asked her thoughts on her first meet.

"Moosehead - good beer, and an experience for the moose too." - I don't
remember the source of this one. Anyone like to claim it? I think it
came about after a discussion of I**land.

-- 
Darrell   There must be something in the blood we share,
[INTJ]    Fermented over centuries, or something in the air,
          Our mood is scenery / It won't stop bruising me,
          I've had enough of grey skies raining tears.

Addams family Thing dies - wrists in peace.

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