More Travels in Showbiz

I'm on holiday this week! In true frugal fashion, we've made it a bit of a working holiday and taken in a couple of gigs round the country. Very utilitarian! If it was work, work, proper work though, it wouldn't work. That is, we'd be bankrupt as with the money earned these gigs wouldn't even cover the cost of travel. Hence making them a 'holiday' has given me the opportunity to do these things I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise, but also made the holiday recoup some of its own costs. Mad, crazy...

It sort of works for me anyway.

On Tuesday, I had a gig in Oakengates in Shropshire. Nice little town, surrounded by lovely countryside. Isn't all countryside lovely? I don't know, some of it is quite dull, isn't it? Anyway, this trip gave me the chance to go and visit my sister at her new house in Baschurch, which was fab, as I don't think I have seen her in a year. 

Lovely gig for Roger Swift with Alex Hylton, Dan Collins, Kevin Hudson, Tom Little and Chris Phillips. I had a couple of very nice ciders at the Crown, which I think  may have been slightly strong, but I swear I didn't have any before my set, though Dan told the crowd I was on drugs. Alex did a run through of his Edinburgh show 'Everybody's Different And I'm The Same', which was really good!

The next day took us traveling proper. Kahn Johnson invited me to Treehouse Comedy at the Walnut Tree Shades in Norwich. I prepared for the journey with a picnic of blueberry muffins, squash, and chicken legs, which we were very glad of when traffic crawled to a halt. A lovely traffic jam picnic! I generally try to take my own food and drink on these journeys as it saves money. We were also entertained on our journey by an audio book from the library of Christopher Brookmyre's Bedlam, which was funny and highly entertaining. The jam meant we didn't have very long to do much in Norwich before dinner, but we  saw the Royal Arcade and 'Children's Doctor Tim' from MasterChef's shop!

Dinner was in Jamie's Italian, taking advantage of the early bird special and the vintage crappers (oh my life, you need to see the loos!!!). Might as well, eh? The real extravagance of our holiday (and still pretty cheap). I had truffle tagliatelle to start and smoked salmon cassarece -- both beautiful pasta dishes -- and my husband had the pate followed by tagliatelle carbonara. Yum!

Thence to the Walnut Tree Shades. This is another lovely gig, and I opened for John Mann with -- as Kahn described -- a million comics in the middle as he'd overbooked. I'm afraid I didn't grab everyone's names and have tried retro-searching to no avail, but I met Olly Neve, Susanna Jones, Martin Westgate, and others including a Laurence, but they were all very good. There were a couple only on gig # 2, and they were both very promising. Great storytelling and callbacks. 

As soon as we arrived in the pub, it seemed the local 'character' found us and told my husband he was going to show the comedians he was funnier than any of them. He was inebriated and possibly a little challenged in other ways, but others at the bar said he was "NFN", which apparently means "normal for Norfolk". The pub filled up with loads of people for the comedy, but as Kahn began compering this fella's voice was heard rising above everybody and everything with nuggets like "There are 80,000 pigs in Norfolk" and he not only resisted any attempts to be shushed, he took up the invitation that was issued generally to the more behaved non-seated members of the crowd and went and plonked himself in an empty seat in the front row. I crossed myself, I was up next!

Anyway, I dealt with him, no problem and after my set he tried to shake my hand and tell me I was "going places", but what actually happened was that I stayed there and he was the one that slunk off, and thus I was carried somewhat metaphorically on the shoulders of the newer comedians for a moment as he wasn't going to bother them. Huzzah!

I'd booked a hotel for the night in town, so me and Neil lingered a while after the other comics had gone. Neil has recently learned he is allergic to spirits, but they were doing a scratch card promo with Jack Daniels to try to win a guitar that at the very least meant you got a free plectrum, so he diced with his health and got a couple of plectrums. On the way back to the hotel, we took in the sights of the posh shops, the resplendent Ivy Restaurant, all the jewellery shops with their displays of gold and diamonds removed for the night, except for this...

Normal for Norfolk?

Our hotel was on what locals called 'the food mile', not quite as posh as the Ivy. More the chips and cheese joints next to the nightclubs, strip joints and massage parlours. Our hotel was somewhat conveniently located and priced for its surrounds. We had a perfectly nice stay, though wished we had realised the window was open a bit earlier. Raucous! We thought the biscuits on the tea and coffee making facilities were a nice touch, but there was no way we were actually making a cup of tea. 

With a bit of time to explore Norwich before we left in the morning, we climbed up to the castle. I was hoping to show Neil the Victorian mourning jewellery full of dead people's hair that I remembered from my last visit in 1992, but at £9.75 each to go in, we decided against going in.

Instead we ventured back down the hill, our eye caught by St George's Tombland church just before we got to the cathedral. The vergers inside seemed delighted to have visitors, and we got the amazing whistle-stop tour. I was a bit hesitant to go in, I must admit, as the "art project" Jesus visible from the doorway was a bit creepy, but it really is a fascinating building if you go in, and the people there know so much about it. In fact it was a lucky day as with the bright sunshine, they were able to point out bits of the décor to each other that weren't normally visible, so it was like everyone was learning something. Fans of Pre-Raphaelites should goin and see the Burne-Jones designed window. And fans of comedy should go and see the figure of St George on the font, which due to a choirboy/football mishap is killing the dragon with a No. 8 knitting needle.

Then we went on to the cathedral, stopping in the crypt to the side to see a fascinating art exhibition about Charles Bonnet Syndrome (it's a proper surreal hallucinatory condition affecting people whose eyesight is failing). The cathedral is of course a very beautiful Romanesque/Gothic building, and has a cloisters that reminds me of Hogwarts. We had a proper explore, climbing up to the reliquary, and having a gander at all the tombs. Anyway, Google has helpfully made this lovely video of our time in Norwich with all that in.

Adventures in Leicester

I was having a bit of a panic earlier in the week, as I had two gigs booked for Leicester and we still have no car. Public transport was fine for getting to both gigs, but getting back from one of them was going to be a bit tricky.

Frugalistas out there may raise an eyebrow... why do I 'need' to do gigs? No one needs to perform, true... but I love it, and this time round I seem to be making a bit of progress, getting through to the finals of a prestigious national competition a month ago (even if the critics hated me!), and getting some amazing opportunities to perform with my heroes. I'm moving slightly away from silly absurdism to more personal, thought-provoking material. My newer material is, I hope, good, and I would like it very much if it could do some good too.

Travelling to gigs is an opportunity for adventure and discovery. You can get to have a mini-explore of somewhere new, and whilst it's great to do that with OH, sometimes it's nice to have a wander by myself.

Leicester might not seem like far enough away to make an adventure of, but I think it is.

I got to go to my first gig on Wednesday by train, £19.40 return (couldn't find how to get it cheaper except by 20p with less flexibility). My little exploration took me past the Art Deco Turkey Café, isn't it pretty?

And of course, the clock tower, where I got my bearings...

Past the pretty shops of The Lanes...

And I paused by this beautiful gilding... and found myself outside an amazing chocolate shop. Just take a look inside. All of a sudden, I was Dame Judi Dench, as I found myself enticed inside for a hot chocolate and found it was the best, best chocolate ever! And had I been Dame Judi, I'd have hung around every day. I mean, look at this... I chose the house dark hot chocolate (£2.50), and it comes on a tray with the chocolate in a pot (one for the milk, one for my mouth...) and you whisk it up how you like it, plus you get a chocolate on the side. I chose Chinese Five Spice. A-ma-zing.

Perfect place for me to sit and scribble prepping for my gig.

Another really old place on Silver Street... a bar called Taps, which one of the Amore lads recommended.

And here is where my gig was... just the other side of the Cathedral, that Tudor building - that's the Guildhall.

And this is me, in front of the performance area in the Lord Mayor's Parlour. Look at that beautiful fireplace! And I don't mean my face.

That gig was to a small and bijou crowd, and was with organiser Ben Ennis, Smurf, Gary O'Donnell and Gareth Richards. I had to leave halfway through Gareth's preview show which was a shame as I was really enjoying it. There was a really lovely atmosphere and lots of joviality. We comics had a great time too.

Three trains home, but managed to make the last train an hour early, so I got to bed at a reasonable hour. This commonly counts as a comedy 'win'.

Last night's gig was out in the wilds of Newbold Verdon. I managed to get there by bus (single X7 £8.40 + 153 £3.10). Who doesn't love a bus adventure!

The bus journey went through Market Harborough and past lots of beautiful countryside.

Finally I arrived in Newbold Verdon and went for a stroll in it's 'Conservation area'... a part of the village that is chocolate box pretty. It's not all like that, but I loved this street, which ends in a farm.

And at that farm there were some cows. Ee-i-ee-i-oooh!

I'm not sure what kind of cows they are... they looked all white, with black noses, and long, curved horns... so I'm thinking White Park??? And yes, that is a cow, not a bull.

Anyway yesterday's gig was in the library, and was me, Smurf, Gary and Ben again, with the fantastic Annette Fagon headlining. It's a lovely place, and the community clearly value it... and yet it was one of the libraries that was 'closed' by the cuts and is now entirely staffed by volunteers. The volunteers I met are all lovely people with big hearts, and they made us feel very welcome indeed, but it absolutely broke my heart that if it weren't for these lovely people (mostly retired ladies and gentlemen) dedicating their time, and occasionally money, to keeping the place going there would be no library. During the comedy, MC Ben chatted about quaint-sounding local villages with only one bus a week, but after the gig one lady was almost in tears as she told me of another village nearby that had no library of its own was going to get its bus service cut... so that's another lot of people going to be totally disenfranchised from opportunities to leave the village to go shopping, or use the library. This makes me so angry.

A beautiful mural

Oh, Micthell... is that your name? I never believe anything on a bus these days.

These wonderful people, they gave us wine and pizza, they organised the room, they put up a stage with a glittery curtain, and then they laughed at our jokes as well. I felt I wanted to contribute something back, so I bought a book from their sale stand... and isn't it awesome?

Golden hands!

It's full of awesome patterns... including stuff I definitely remember wearing in the 70s.

I'd still wear it now.

I'm definitely going to make something from this!

Thank you Ben for the lovely gigs, and to our friend who lent OH a car so he could come and pick me up from here.

The Cost of Public Transport

James Cook of VoucherCloud has sent me another interesting infographic.

I do a lot of travel by train, especially for jobs 2 and 3, and though the figures below look like you can make amazing savings, I need more tricks than this because:

a) I may need to wait until payday to fund the trip.
b) Notice of when you need to travel is sometimes a luxury too.
c) I may not have the option to travel at the cheapest times of day (this is why I've never managed to use Megabus).
d) You may find super-off peak tickets are cheaper anyway!

Despite many restrictions to a recent journey to the West Mids, I managed to save money anyway by splitting my ticket and using the tram instead of the train for one leg of my journey.

Alternative to Northampton to Wolverhampton off-peak - £25.90
Northampton to Birmingham Stations off-peak - £18.30
Birmingham to Wolverhampton super off-peak £2.30
Wolverhampton to Birmingham plus bus £3.10
Total: £23.70

And if you wanted to go by train for that return from Wolverhampton, Virgin do a cheaper ticket for just £3.40. Painlessly saving £1.90 instead of £2.20 for a slightly longer journey. You need to weigh up the pros and cons.

So, before we get into the infographic, here are my tips on getting the most out of frequent non-commuter train travel.

1. Sure, check what the advance prices are. You have to stick to your travel times with those, though.
2. Check if National Express  can do the trip at a reasonable price, journey duration and travelling time.
3. Check Megabus, but don't expect much. I know a performer who always travels by Megabus to save money, but he's happy to wait four hours in a bus station after a gig and I'm not.
4. Check if Amazon Voucher deals have one of those amazing sales where you can spend £5 to get £10 off.
5. London Midland do Great Escapes every now and then. Can that help at all?
6. See if you can get it cheaper through Tickety Split.
7. Link your Nectar Card to as many sites as possible such as First Hull, East Midlands etc.
8. Use a cashback site to book through such as Quidco. You can't use separate voucher codes with that, but you can collect Nectar points.
9. Travelling off-peak in the South East. A Network Railcard gets you 1/3 off travel, and you can use that solo or with another traveller too.
10. Two Together can be used anywhere off-peak, advanced  and  anytime and also save 1/3. They also send you lots of deals. I've just got 4 months of Gourmet Society membership for £1 through them. Paid for itself more than once over on its first outing with me. Buy online though, it's cheaper.
11. Unless you have a voucher code, the Trainline can't save you any more money than anywhere else, and they charge a booking fee. No need!
12. Remember plus bus, save on taxis. Check Traveline to see what services you can get from a station on the way.

Oh and always take a drink with you!
(and nibbles :))


Train Fares - How Much Can we Save by Booking in Advance? - An infographic by the team at vouchercloud

Embed Train Fares - How Much Can we Save by Booking in Advance? on Your Site: Copy and Paste the Code Below

<img src="http://vouchercloud-blog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/trainfares600px-2.jpg" width="540"> <p> Train Fares - How Much Can we Save by Booking in Advance? - An infographic by the team at <a href="http://www.vouchercloud.com/">vouchercloud</a></p>

I am Rubbish at Staycations

If you read my last post, you will know that OH did a triathlon on Sunday, then had a whiskey for his birthday.

What happened next completely changed our plans for the week.

Swimming, cycling, running? Pah - they're nothing compared to the challenge that is 'stepping off a pavement'.

Somehow, OH injured his ankle. We were worried he might have sprained it, putting paid to his next challenge - a 100 mile cycle ride from Holborn House on Sunday. Fingers crossed he can still do that if he has recovered sufficiently, but on Tuesday, it looked bad.

So, we had a plan to jump  on a bus, travel to the gorgeous village of Oundle, visit a bike shop there, and walk the hour's walk to Fotheringay Castle. Not with a potential sprain we weren't!

I had high hopes of maybe writing a frugal travelog: Have Bus Pass Will Travel.

...perhaps  there was something else we could do. Where could we go that wouldn't involve a lot of walking about? We settled on Market Harborough.

The X7 bus ride to Market Harborough is undoubtedly very pretty; it goes through the Northamptonshire and Leicestershire countryside. We noticed that every bus stop was at an inviting-looking pub, intersecting with cycle routes and the Jurassic way footpath. Plans were sprung for later walkabouts/pubcrawls.

On alighting, our day trip to Market Harborough started pleasantly enough with tea in the town's oldest bakery: Emerson West.

I did say tea. That's clearly a raspberry 'pressé', But we also had tea.

On strolling into town, we were looking forward to being proper tourists and gazing upon the pretty architecture an ancient market hall, later converted to a Grammar School. Only this is what we saw:

This is what it normally looks like:

Well, how about that church? They're normally good for a look round!

As we approached the doors, we saw a man standing in the aisle of the church playing a trombone. In fact the precise tune was Bette Midler's "Wind Beneath My Wings".

"Hey, must be one of those lunchtime concerts," I said, before OH noticed how formal and sombre the audience looked. Thus, we narrowly avoided walking in on someone's funeral.

Where else can tourists go. The museum! Actually, we did enjoy looking at the Hallerton treasure. This is us trying on helmets. As you do.

It's as fun as it looks.

The rest of the museum is decidedly weird. Built in the old Symingtons Corset Factory, you can go there to see things that make as much sense as silver teapot spouts next to Egyptian mummified cat heads with no explanation as to what or why they are there.

Come - see our old stuff! Also some packet soup from the 90s.

Market Harborough has some cool old-fashioned shops. If we wanted to buy candles, or a brace of pheasants, or some pork pie, we could have filled our boots. Or some bags. Yes, bags would be better.  But we didn't.

So, to the pub. Now that was freaky. We inadvertently walked into the 70s. Or earlier. We couldn't decide. The jukebox had about 25 records - actual records.

And the till was a proper Arkwright's number. It said things like 2D and 6D, even though the pints were actually £3.30. How mad!

Unfortunately the beer tasted like from a previous decade too, so we called Tom Young - our comedy friend who lives there - to come and rescue us and spent the rest of the afternoon drinking better beer elsewhere and wondering why we had done this.


Tourism on a bus! What do we remind you of?

It's Sightseers, if you didn't get it.

Eastercon Happened!

Dear readers, apologies for my absence. There has been a lot going on in Frugal Wenchdom - lots of doing fun stuff for very little, a  lot of saving.. and a bit of spaving and spending too.

One of the major things that happened was going to Eastercon in Glasgow. I had meant to write about this on my website but the software keeps rejecting my photos, which is very annoying. It would make more sense to write there as it has more to do with my writing/creative life - this blog looks at all that stuff too, but through a certain lens. So please bear with me while I attempt to convey both aspects of a lovely science fictional weekend...

I traveled to Glasgow by train on Thursday with OH. It is unusual for me to get to a con early, as I normally have my frugal head on and compromise being organized and unflustered for a night less hotel expenditure, but with several birthdays to celebrate Thursday was the best night to do this - and I'm so glad I went as this was a fantastic night. We had curry in a great value restaurant, and it was very nice indeed, and then popped next door to a proper whiskey bar. They had the world's oldest whiskey on sale at £900 a dram. Fortunately, the cider was pretty cheap! I took homemade cards for the birthday peeps. One of the pressies was a telescope bought from the antiques market. I accidentally broke the glass top of the box, so we had fixed it with genuine Northampton recycled shoe leather, and it looked pretty good.

First up con-wise, on the Friday was a book launch. This included several titles by Newcon Press and PS Publishing, including two PS collections of Ian Watson's work and also a poetry collection by him which he can be seen brandishing here.

Newcon Press was also launching Neil Williamson's novel, The Moon King (which I have read and it's awesome), an Imaginings novella by Eric Brown, and two anthologies - Femme and Noir, the latter featuring a story by me!

On Saturday, I had my first panel: Future Representation. "The panel explores SF literature in the context of what stories actually are, or are not, being told. Who gets to be in the future; what happens to everyone else; and who gets to decide?" This was moderated by Fran Dowd and included myself and novelists Ian Whates, Laura Lam and Stephanie Saulter. It was a great discussion!

 Saturday night, the entertainment was a swing band at the Space Admiral's Ball. I did my best Lindy hopping, which is not very good at all, but still managed to wear myself out completely.

Later, I noticed that one of the musicians was masquerading as author Juliet E. McKenna. I think it might have been the trumpet player.

I had a panel on Sunday, too: Poetic License - Does poetry allow exploration of challenging issues concerning gender, race and identity in ways that prose cannot? The panel was moderated by Ian Hunter and included Susan Bartholomew and Amal El-Mohtar as well as myself. Jo Fletcher was also due to have taken part, but she had a very sore throat and was unable to speak, which was a shame. Nonetheless it was a really fun panel, though an impromptu request to perform one of my poems had the old adrenalin going a bit.

In the evening it was the BSFA Award Ceremony. I got to present the James White Award.
This is an annual short story competition open to non-professional writers and the winner is chosen by a panel of judges made up of professional authors and editors. The James White Award was instituted to honour the memory of one of Ireland’s most successful science fiction authors, James White. The winner of the £200 first prize was “Beside the Dammed River” by DJ Cockburn, his story will be published in a future issue of Interzone. The judges also awarded a special recommendation to Vina Jin-Mae Prasad for her story “Flesh and Bone.” Neither of them were there to make a speech, so it was on with the ceremony for the BSFA Awards.

These lovely awards were made by Dan Brodie and Lauren Hubbard of Northampton's Skulls and Robots.The ray-gun shaped awards apparently caused one of the winners a bit of hassle at airport security... but all worth it, I hope!

The ceremony was hosted by Alice Lawson and Steve Lawson with guest presenters Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Jim Burns, Andrew J. Wilson and Stephanie Saulter. And these were the winners...

Best Non-Fiction: Wonderbook by Jeff Vandermeer.
Best Art: cover of Tony Ballantyne’s Dream London by Joey Hi-Fi.
Best Short Fiction: Spin by Nina Allan
Best Novel: ties between Gareth L. Powell for Ack Ack Macaque and Ann Leckie for Ancillary Justice.

M'friend Gareth L. Powell with his award, some champers and his stick. Aw!

Thanks to the wonderful crew at Satellite4, administrator Farah Mendelsohn, Claire Briarley, who helped with the awards, and John Meaney who lent us his laptop and saved our bacon!

After that we went to the disco and danced like frickin' demons.

I have to say this was one of the best conventions I have been to. It had interesting panels and things to do, it was well organized, friendly, and lovely Glasgow was within easy walking access. And yes, I do mean lovely. It's a great city. I was with wonderful friends and my husband - it couldn't have been better. A lot of the time I was stuck behind the BSFA desk, but that can give you a different perspective and a chance to chill. And knit...

One thing I really learned that weekend is that I need to be kinder to myself. I have been beyond tired lately, and it really caught up with me at the weekend. I wish I'd been more able to put this knowledge into practice recently, mind...

Frugalwise, here are my tips for keeping the spending down at cons:

Graffiti by the Clyde

1. Shop around for the best deals on hotels. Staying at the convention hotel is the most convenient option, but we chose to stay at the hotel next door. We had stayed at the other next door hotel before which was £30 a night cheaper this time round. The hotel we stayed at this time was only £10 cheaper per night than the main hotel, but we knew it would be comfy and have the all-important good breakfast included in the price. Oh, and there were special convention rates too! I checked to see if I could do better elsewhere, and no... it was a good deal.
2. Check facilities in advance. I checked and found there was a gym we could use, so we brought exercise clothes with us. I also found there was a mini-fridge in the room, so we bought things for sandwiches and made our own lunches.
3. Book transport early. We missed out on cheap flights and had to get the train. We used the Two Together card and Quidco to maximize what we could get for the money, but if we'd just been a bit earlier, maybe we could have reserved seats on what was a very crowded train.
4. Don't be lazy. £1.50 for a can of pop? Or walk out of the door to the shop and not spend half that? Of course, not advocating drinking that in the bar, where you should buy the drinks you consume. Bar spend is a crucial factor for conventions. We do our best...
5. Lovely free fresh air. A walk into the city centre was free. We saw great architecture, listened to music and enjoyed the riverside. Glasgow is full of graffiti art ahead of the Commonwealth games. It's like a big, open art gallery.
6.  The Best Things in Life: we limited our book spend budget to £30, which went in one book and a couple of comics. But then on the last day, the freeby tables had some awesome free books on them. My favourite freeby - a beautiful fabric-bound edition of Terry Pratchett's Men at Arms.
7. Launch parties: great places to bag those fast-selling limited edition books, nab authors for signatures, and grab a free wine.

We also took along vouchers for restaurants and pubs just in case. We didn't use them, but they were nice to have.

Make the most of your conventions.  There's always something new to try, somewhere new to go.

What I did Instead of Going to Wales

So this weekend I could have gone to Sci fi Weekender in North Wales.  Some of my friends did and had a jolly good time.

I spent Friday night helping a friend celebrate their birthday.  My helpfulness extended beyond the point where he had actually gone home, so my Parkrun time on Saturday morning was a shocking 33 minutes.

But it was a nice day and all, so I went to town to do a bit of protesting.  As you do.

 The council intends to bring cars back to Abington Street.   It's going to mess up access, damage the local cafes who have had their open air licenses revoked and generally make being in town less pleasant.  Also they will have to borrow money for the conversion. Not cheap. So this chalkupy protest was brought about to show the council that people are opposed to these plans.  I added my contribution,  but to be honest couldn't hang about too long: I'm an editor and some of the spelling was making me twitch.

So I went to the library - and joy, one of the BSFA shortlisted books I'd not read yet was in.  Halfway through that one now.

On Sunday, I decided to make the most of the gorgeous spring weather and headed out with OH for an epic bike ride.  I saw at least five different types of butterfly,  and the air floated with the first scatterings of blossom.  Wild pansies in the hedgerows.  What season is this?

Our ride took us to Brampton Halt. The steam trains were going up and down the track and we waved enthusiastically at the passengers and driver.

Honestly, they were smiling...

 I decided to treat OH to a wee drinkie at the local. Which was a bit pricey. I contented myself with reading the BBQ menu, which is apparently "the most unique." I've heard the food is nice, though.

Clearly written by a fantasy writer... I mean, look at those capitalized nouns. And adjectives...

We decided to cycle on to the Brixworth Country Park. OH was ogling some bikes in the bike shop when a couple of our friends turned up, and they rode back with us along the gruelling Merry Tom Way, or as I call it Miserable Bastard Tom Way. It's all hills, holes and gravel. Nasty!

I didn't half ache after, but I felt dead proud of myself. That was about 14 miles in all. I want to get a bit more active, and cycling helps me to see some cool stuff nearby without splashing the cash.

On Monday, I treated OH to a night out at the flicks. Yet again we took advantage of the free movie night at one of the local bars, The Picturedrome. Anchorman 2 is not as bad as everyone says it is... honest. Okay... a lot of the same points of humour are massively over-laboured. But I love Brick Tamland. And lamp. I love lamp. I LOVE LAMP!

We are saving the pennies to go to another convention, but the pennies only come gradually. Having missed the super cheap flights that we saw last month, it is now making much more sense to take the train. Just 2 trains, 5 hours, easy. To make it as cheap as possible, we have bought the Two Together card, which will save us 1/3 off train travel all over the UK for a year. There's also an offer on the Gourmet society that we can use, which I might look into.

A word of advice... if you are looking to get the Two Together card yourself, don't do what I did and go to the station. You can order it online, load up any digital photo of yourself you like (so, it can be a nice one, taken for free, not a horrid photobooth one) so long as you are facing the camera, and for a short while you can get £3 discount too.

However, I also used Quidco to get 3% cashback. So what I didn't manage to save on buying online, I'll get back.

Planning ahead, I've made a note of where the supermarkets are for supplies, and got a list of all the pubs where we can use our CAMRA discount sorted. I'm a bit disappointed that the local Parkrun seems to be a taxi ride away, so I'm probably not going to be a Parkrun tourist this time.

World Fantasy Convention and Brighton - Part Two

I hope you enjoyed part one of Things that Should Have Stayed in Brighton. I'm sad that some of the books we bought and had signed ended up staying in Brighton... there's a very, very slight chance that they will turn up and the hotel's Lost Property will call today... but, of course, with so many free books lying around the most likely scenario is that they were collected up and donated to raise funds for a cancer charity. At least I can console myself that they were lost in a good cause.

 

And so, we begin part deux. Readers of the previous blog may recall there was mention of booze and people and we finished on Sunday night, sometime around 4ish. Actually, I think I'd sobered up by then... my conversations with Lavie Tidhar, Neil Williamson, Jetse de Vries and Simon Bestwick happened at some point; Ian Sales, Liam Proven and David Tallerman were giggling at me like schoolboys; Hal Duncan was singing "Born Free"  and talking about Dunoon to me... I can't remember when I arm-wrestled Ruth Booth...

 

At more sober times during the con, I kept saying "hello" to Liz Williams en route to places, and was often walking behind the fabulous coat of Emma Newman. I chatted a fair bit to Jonathon Oliver, especially at the Solaris desk, when he was there with Guy Adams.

 

But I cannot capture anywhere near all the good times that were had and all the lovely people I spoke to... I had a great time. My only downside was that with all the stairs my knee started hurting, so I decided to avoid joining Parkrun in Preston Park on Saturday. Next week I go unfit and unprepared into my 10km. Can't be helped.

 

Is it any surprise then that on Sunday, not having any tickets for the Banquet and subsequent World Fantasy Awards, and being a little, erm, tired, we didn't go back to the con hotel? Instead we wandered around the famous Lanes and down the seafront.

 

And the London-Brighton Vintage car rally was on. There were some beautiful cars:







 



 

It's clearly a rich man's hobby, though... every person interviewed when they finished their run sounded like a BBC/Pathé news broadcaster.

 



 

 

 

And could this be my favourite shop in Brighton? Choccywoccydoodah sells chocolate - expensive, arty chocolate. I liked the chocolate mugs - mugs made out of chocolate - with a silver spoon melted to the side. The impressive window display was full of skulls, cobwebs and giant displays of phantasmagoria. No, I didn't buy any... OH only had eyes for cycle shops, and other people's cycles.

 

Going to a convention like WFC is, admittedly, a bit of a jolly, but few of us would go to so many if there were nothing to be gained but an opportunity to meet friends and have a good time (I have a house, and a kettle, and nice  pubs nearby, thanks). It's an investment of time and resources to get your face known within the industry. Because it's an outlay, you need to carefully consider whether a convention is worth going to, and consider your budget even more carefully. And spending will happen - so belts must be tightened before and after... see my next blog about that grim reality. As with every investment, there is a risk that the return will not be as good as you hoped. But if that's the case, at least you still get a nice break from it. And see your friends, too!

 

Here are my financial yays and woahs for a con like WFC:

 

Books

 

Most of the books we picked up were free. Some of those are gorgeous publications, too. Books are treasures that I love to read... and give. We also supported the industry by buying some books we really wanted, and saved money by buying direct. Shame we lost some books, though. 

 

Booze

 

The bar in the hotel was expensive, but most of what we drank was free, given away at signings and launch parties. Trouble is, when the free stuff runs out, so do your financial inhibitions! We also took along some decent red wine acquired for 50p, but didn't get round to cracking that open. Ah well, it'll last.

 

Food

 

If I were a novelist, perhaps I'd have an agent whisk me off for an expenses-paid meal somewhere nice, but I'm not... yet. We got by on bargain express lunches, sandwiches, free cake and bar snacks from the parties and launches, and food we'd brought with us, and just got ripped off that once hunting for breakfast. I wish we'd stuck to Wetherspoons. I know it's not terribly exciting, but it's decent fodder, tea and beer at a reasonable price.

 

Freebies

 

Bags, wallets, promotional shot glasses... and I'm unlikely to run out of pens for a while!

 

Another time, I will try to stock up on soft drinks at the supermarket (time/organization) and will be a bit more insistent on going to Spoons. Probably go to more panels too, but then I think everyone says that...