… except that today the person who knows how their setup works is away. Spend an engrossing hour until I find out that their printer switch box is wired back to front. Oh, and the default printer on the network is not, in fact, the one next to this machine. I find this out when someone rings down and says, “There’s some rather odd stuff coming out of the LaserJet in the manager’s office. Who is Captain Vimes, mate?”
Day 11
Fly to Purdeigh Island.
Noon: Busy signing at general bookshop; foreign authors don’t often come here, so everyone’s got everything.
And down the length of the island to:
Evening talk/signing organized by local bookshop in the Country Comfort Hotel. What a lovely name for a hotel.
And then a real early night because:
Day 12
Up at 4:30 a.m. for flight to Crowtown. Aargh! There’d been a much more sensibly timed flight, which got cancelled. This isn’t life in the fast lane, it’s life in the oncoming traffic.
Crash out for an hour or so at hotel. Today we’re going to try four signing sessions with bits of media in between, just so no shop feels hard done by. This means starting signing at a couple of shops a few doors from one another, splitting about two hours of queue between them. Then down to some mall for sushi fast food, which Eckians have really taken to. That’s something you don’t see in England—ladies who look like your great-grandmother scarfing California roll and sashimi off a fork.
Then round the corner to a Small Specialist Bookstore, which is another one that makes an effort. They got someone to ride his Harley into the shop on the Soul Music tour, and for the Feet of Clay one they built a 180 kilogram golem in the shop. This guy knows his stuff—he’s provided a bucket of ice cubes to combat wrist ache, too.
6:00 p.m.: Off to a talk organized by one of the morning’s shops, which has managed to browbeat enough people to fit a large hall. And more signing. A few MSS dumpers, but one guy has brought in a flask of Wow-wow Sauce, made to the recipe in The Discworld Companion.
And then off with the shop manager to a meat-pie floater wagon to sample this most famous local delicacy. Forgoing, for reasons of economy, the Gourmet Pie Floater (containing named meat) at $3.60, I opted for the basic variety at $3.30.
It was piquant. No worries.
Day 13
Long flight to Sand City. Got a suite in the hotel, wow. But it’s sort of odd. There’s this huge room but the furniture is arranged as if it’s a small room, so there’s the sofa and chairs and table and stuff and then an acre of carpet all around.
Off to a signing in a mall. People say, hey, you must see a lot of the world on your travels, but what you mainly see is malls. This is a good mall.
The shop reported a huge crowd when we were on the way, although it was easily dealt with in under forty-five minutes, which just goes to show.
Back to the hotel for an interview. Journo and I take a taxi across the carpet to the distant sofa.
6:30 p.m.: Talk/signing.
One of the most enjoyable events of this tour. A full house—about 250 people—and I was fairly relaxed so it felt as if it was going well, and it seemed that everyone had a book/books to be signed.
On the way home, the captain of the 747 came over the speaker and said, “Good evening, I am your captain, Roger Rogers,” and in a cabin full of sweaty business types getting pie-eyed on free booze I was the only one who noticed.…
CONVENTIONAL WISDOM
Introduction to the Third Australian Discworld Convention Programme Book, April 2011
The 2011 Australian Discworld Convention was perfectly wonderful. It wasn’t a large convention, but it was crowded, somehow, with so many things going on. It set the benchmark for every subsequent Discworld convention.
However, I still remember fondly the first Discworld Convention, held in a (badly) converted department store in Manchester back in 1995. I watched the fans shuffle in, looking at each other in amazement and realizing they were not alone. They’re a loveable lot who drink like the rugby club and fight like the chess club.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Welcome to the Third Australian Discworld Convention!
It may well be that this is the first ever convention for some of you; I know that in the U.K. about one half of attendees are first timers. When the first ever Discworld Convention took place in Manchester, England, back in 1996 nearly a thousand people turned up, each one expecting to be the only one there. Nevertheless, this fledgling convention boasted several panels, drinking, an extremely good maskerade, drinking, a gala dinner (which included quite possibly the last ever appearance of the genuine preimmigration English curry made from swede, sultanas, and urine) and, of course, drinking. At the end of the three-day event people were quite genuinely in tears at having to leave and certainly there were many friendships made that still endure; something that’s unusual in the general world of fandom.
Discworld conventions (there are five worldwide this year) are now limited to the size of the biggest hall that can be realistically hired; in the U.K. and U.S. that means an attendance of around a thousand people. I attended my first Antipodean convention in New Zealand only a couple of years after my first ever signing tour down under in August 1990 and made certain that I came again at frequent intervals. The publishers were so pleased that I actually liked spending twenty-four hours in an aeroplane that until not long ago I was turning up probably every other year. Quite often my wife joined me and that meant that at one stage, when I was alternately coming down for a big signing tour and going back for a holiday later in the same year, I ordered some trousers in Perth which had to be altered and so I simply collected them when I next went past three months later. Yes, I actually do like the journey, especially since I have been upgrading myself to First Class!
Frankly, I’m looking forward to enjoying myself at this convention and hope that you are, too. I am sufficiently keen on talking to people that I often have to get dragged away to do the more formal events, but I always welcome a keen fan who knows the magic words, “What would you like to drink?”
A small embarrassing detail: I am over sixty and, as above, people will be buying me drinks and drinks have this terrible problem of being temporary. And so if you see me heading purposefully in the general direction of the dunny, do not try to engage me in conversation if you want to live. Yes, it’s actually true; once I was communing with nature and somebody actually pushed a book under the door for me to sign.