Picocon and party.

Still haven't done a decent sized Redemption report.

Picocon

Robert Rankin is a bit of a nut.  His wife had a nice steampunk hat with a vacuum tube on it.  Also saw a laser-pointer cane. 

Pat Cadogan read most of a story but refused to tell us how it ended. It's almost like she wanted us to buy the book. 

Panel talk was on Ray Guns.  Well, nominally.  There wasn't exactly the cut and thrust of debate.  There was more of Robert Rankin spinning around on his stool.  Also am somewhat sceptical about the quality of physics tuition at Imperial college since I'm sure the guy said the swivel stool was to demonstrate centrifugal motion rather than conservation of angular momentum.

Acquired 3 new (well, old really) books.  Wonder if I'll have time to read them this year. 

Destruction of Dodgy merchandise* seemed to go well.  lemming_man's kind donation of a Harry Potter 20 questions went down well.  It managed to sell itself simply be our compere reading out the questions it asked.  He was offended that it accused him of being Cedric Diggory.

Met a new friend.  scotiva  must be cool because omylouse  already knew her. 

Turkey reading** went well, with a choice reading from The Carrot Of Doom.  Also "Anal Planet" managed to frighten scotiva 's friend out of the room.

Party

Not being one to say "no", also went to a birthday party in Oxford.  Theme was Mad Science...  We had a Dr. Manhattan and (emo) Icarus and Daedelus, and The Fly, and an assortment of other mad scientists and people not in costume.  There was some very fine wine.  And mead.  And nibbles.  And too little space.  And everyone was lovely:)

*For those not in the loop, the idea is that the committee find rubbish tie-in products, and auction off the right to dump them in liquid nitrogen and smash them with a mallet.

**Bad science fiction and fantasy stories - people get to bid on whether to stop or continue.