Redemption '09

by Bottom Pineapple

Friday 20th

Did the usual last minute packing, and having given our final instructions to our cat sitter, we set off later than I'd have liked, but not too bad. A short way down the road, Cath pointed out that she'd not put one of the bags in the car, and had I? Well, no. We were short the bag with the quiz buttons in, so a quick turn around was called for which rather confused our cat sitter. Setting off again, we travelled by the time machine known as the em-six (at least it seemed like an infinitely long tube of negative mass...) Getting from the motorway to the hotel seemed to consist of navigating round an unending series of roundabouts, without much by way of lane information, but since I had a reasonable idea of where to go, and Cath with a map next to me, it wasn't actually all that difficult to find the right exit from the ring road, and the hotel after that.

I did the booking in, while Cath dealt with registration, then it was our introduction to the wonders of the Sirius Cybernetics lifts up to our room. The decor could be better, but after what I've heard about the Manchester Britannia Hotels, it was something of a relief to find it was actually quite reasonable. Anything posher, and we'd have to be paying through the nose for it.

Heading down into the con, we met Richard Proctor on his way to the Galaxy Zoo talk. I'd have liked to go to this, but half way through it was the stewards' meeting, and I'd not had chance to volunteer for any slots before the con. After this, it was time for the opening ceremony. Chris's material never gets any better, does it? It wouldn't be Redemption without it though! The introduction to the Ruler of the Universe candidates went well, with the vigorous political debate being one of my favourite memories to take away from this year's con.

The Pub Quiz came next. Cath nipped out for a loo break before it started, but I'm not sure where the loos were that she went to as she didn't return in time for the quiz. With the other people on my table though, we made a credible team, with at least two teams scoring less than us! I had a personal best of knowing at least three of the answers, and two of those no one else on the team knew. After the quiz, I headed out, to find Cath chatting with friends outside the door. This seemed like a good idea, so we headed into the bar and chatted for most of the rest of the evening, only interrupted by the unexpected provision of sausage butties at 11 o'clock. (We really should pay more attention to the Programme Book.)

After a quick drop in to the Scary Stories panel where we discovered that we should have come armed with something to read (we really should pay more attention to the Programme Book, but having said that, we'd have had to do so with the electronic version before setting off to the con.) Back to the bar, then a look in at the Ceilidh - it looked like too much energy would be required to do more than look - before calling it a night.

Saturday 21st

Woke up early, but feeling very rough. Managed to drag myself to breakfast though, and felt much better for it. Off to the Chaos Costuming via a gentle mooch around the dealer rooms. I succumbed to a book and a couple of CDs, but managed to tear myself away from the Houthe of Igor Beathties. Damn their cute fuzzy faces. When we got to the Chaos costuming, neither myself nor Cath had any ideas of what we'd like to attempt, never mind how to achieve it. I've never been much good at improvisation, I think I need a couple of years run up to any sort of costume. We did however manage to make a few suggestions for getting other people's costumes to work, so it wasn't an entirely wasted effort.

Quiz time again, as we went to the It's a Knockout Quiz, teaming up with a few others, to form Avon's Avengers. This is obviously my year for quiz success, as we did much better than I thought we would have done whilst playing the quiz - we only came next to last!

After a quick lunch in the Jubilee bar, it was the Zocalo, so a quick trip to our room to pick up the box of goodies, then to Three Spires to set up for cake selling. Once Cath was up and running, I took a photo of the finished result, and headed off to Ops to offer it (and a pic of the auction items) to them for the newsletter. For some reason or other, the Ops computer wasn't interested in opening the pictures, so I went back to my room to try my laptop. This worked, so back I went with suitably re-sized versions. Back to the cake stall, and I actually managed to try some of the cakes before they'd all been snaffled.

After clearing up the remains (and giving Ops a chance to try the few remnants) we headed for dinner. Having been used to Hinckley's standards of catering, it came as something of a surprise to find edible food, and good sized portions too.

Nicely stuffed, we caught the end of the Fairies: cute or evil panel in Cavendish, followed by the introduction to Steam punk. This brought us to Fancy Dress and Caberet time. As usual, there were some outstanding costumes, and it was good to see the ones from the chaos session in their full glory. Yet another highlight of the con was Kev F Sutherland's sock theatre. I felt the rest of the cabaret had a tough act to follow, but they made an excellent job of it.

Time for another trip to the bar before the Blake's 7 Wobblevision. It's hard to believe they're over now. Ok there's the Holmes and Torchwood ones still, but B7 was so perfect for it. It was rather over-subscribed though, so (by the clever expedient of shooting the last scene first,) we were able to get out of the way, and give in to our tiredness with a not too late night.

Sunday 22nd

Another morning where we were up early enough to have a relaxed breakfast before the restaurant got too crowded. Then it was off to have a look at the auction items, and point out to Cath which ones I was interested in, before I took her place on stewarding duty outside. This was immediately followed by my own stint of duty in the same place. Since we had the whole hotel to ourselves, it was relatively easy job, particularly for the post outside the Cavendish, by the lifts, which mostly consisted of telling people (mostly Dexter's campaign team) that they were on floor two. I was kept amused for my stint watching the lifts. They really were like something out of the Hitch-Hiker's Guide. They would appear at random, with no one in, and not having been called on my floor, quite frequently claiming to be going both up and down. When someone had called them, one would arrive, often followed by the others, which presumably thought they were competing in a race.

Once freed from my position, I re-joined Cath for a mooch around the dealers rooms, then a quick lunch before heading for the Ruler of the Universe hustings. The final election addresses were up to the usual standard, with virtually no threats, intimidation or violence. After casting our votes I had a final visit to the dealer rooms where I joined Cath in succumbing to the charms of the Houthe of Igor Beathties, then off to our room to change into Arthur Dent.

On to what has become a staple of Redemption - Man of Iron! This year, I progressed from being a lesser robot to reading the stage directions. Lots more lines, but far less energy required (and given how hot it had become in Cavendish by this point, despite several air conditioners going full blast, I think it was a good choice.) My improvised Scorpio seemed to work well enough, and Servalan and Algor gave sterling performances, but I think Vila and Avon stole the show this year with their proposal.

Time for the Closing Ceremony next, with the usual banter, and it was made clear that it was definitely my year for success at the con as glorious GREEN were declared winners of the Drazi war. If I remember correctly, this is the first time I've been on the winning side. As for the RotU, despite the very persuasive vigorous political debate offered by the Brigade Leader, which obviously was a successful tactic, it was nice to see that a couple of others agreed with my view that we still can't do better than Og!

On to the raffle draw next (for the first time in years, I actually won something in a raffle,) then to the stewards de-brief (and not just for the promise of chocolate.) Our final panel was the suggestions for Redemption '11, lots of promising ideas there.

Time for dinner, where got chatting with friends, gathered round their table, drinking coffee, before heading back up to find space for our usual session of Witch Trial. This kept us going for the rest of the evening, breaking off for more sausage baps and drinks from the bar, until we had to give in and admit that it was time to call it a night.

Monday 23rd

Another early start, and another trouble free breakfast. This year however we didn't have the flexibility to stay as long as we wanted, so we had to make our farewells, and head off to relieve our cat sitter. There was a brief delay as the car park claimed we still owed £6-odd despite having validated our ticket. A quick trip back to the hotel reception sorted it out though, and we were on our way home.

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More photos can be found on Flickr.