SATURDAY
More bacon sandwiches and Green & Blacks hot chocolate that is the stuff of awesomeness – what a way to face the day!
Is Doctor Who still for children? This was the subject of day’s first panel containing Paul Cornell, James Moran, Toby Whithouse and Ben Aaronovitch.
There was some rescheduling and a 2000AD came on first, so Hannah and I popped back to the chalet to inform our other trip members.
After the allotted hour we headed back to the main void to watch the Doctor Who panel, it was very interesting for me especially as a great ‘whovian’ if you will. It contained great writers for both the TV show and novels which tie into that universe. The conclusion that I (and I think they) came to, is that Doctor Who is both a children’s show and for adults at the same time, it is not one without the other.
Again I went back to the Forbidden Planet stall as another favourite author was signing – Paul Cornell. I had only really gained knowledge of his work after he opened my local comic store Proud Lion, (http://www.proudlion.co.uk) but he was very jovial and pleasant to speak to and he even let my wife take an impromptu picture.
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| Cheese! |
With my mind on signings I thought about the ‘headliners’ signing area as we had brought signing passes for an extra £20 and the queue was increasing. We joined it, hoping that it wouldn’t take long – we ended up watching the next three Q&A’s while still in the queue!
These Q&A’s ironically contained the people we were queuing to get signatures from!
Keeley Hawes
Craig Charles
Russell Tovey (Replacing Tony Head)
Keeley was lovely and I think slightly overwhelmed by geekyness at the event, Craig Charles had a pint in has already and was raring to go ready for his DJ set later and finally Russell Tovey seemed almost shy and completely down to earth.
At this point we were nearing the actual signing area (only about two and half hours later!) and to our discovery they had split the queue for the different stars in order to speed things up. Much to our disappointment this meant we had to decide who we wanted to meet most. We tried to separate and grab Keeleys signature first but as she started signing first her queue actually got shut off, in a way this decided things for us and we stayed in the queue for Craig Charles. (Sorry Russell but I just have been watching Red Dwarf longer)
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| Alright Babe? |
Craig seemed like a laugh (still a pint next to him) and a bit of a sleaze when it came to the ladies, but I feel that has almost become expected of him.
After the signing we sat in the bar with a pint while probably my favourite author of all time came on stage Sir Terry Pratchett. There was complete love for him in the room, I felt it was a shame that I found it difficult to hear him (not sure if that was because of the mic or the pitch of his voice in general) but after the signing queue I was knackered and had to sit down for a bit. After a while a friend actually forced me to get closer to hear and I shuffled to the side of the stage and actually was quite close at that point. I felt Stephen Baxter was only on stage with him to assist, as there were a few moments where Terry was struggling with his sentences (in 2007 he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease). Seeing this made me very depressed, a great person and amazing writer stuck with a disease that makes it more and more difficult to do what he loves and which will eventually a life not worth living. I know he has mentioned before that he would like to commit ‘assisted suicide’ before it gets to this point and in my personally opinion I completely agree with that choice.
(For more information - http://alzheimers.org.uk/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_pratchett )
We then had a massive break where there was nothing going on in the main area and not much we wanted to see elsewhere, so we headed back to the chalet and cooked brinner (breakfast for dinner!). By a strange coincidence we switched the TV on and Robert Llewelyn’s Carpool show was on, guest starring Craig Charles!
We then headed back for the SFX Sci-Fi awards and Richard Sandling; a stand up comedian. The awards were quite funny even though not much was happening, no-one really turned up to accept the coveted awards – apart from one surprise guest (Steven Moffat!). Robert Rankin and his wife were hosting the awards, he was very fun and friendly which made the proceedings much more entertaining.
We then had a massive break where there was nothing going on in the main area and not much we wanted to see elsewhere, so we headed back to the chalet and cooked brinner (breakfast for dinner!). By a strange coincidence we switched the TV on and Robert Llewelyn’s Carpool show was on, guest starring Craig Charles!
We then headed back for the SFX Sci-Fi awards and Richard Sandling; a stand up comedian. The awards were quite funny even though not much was happening, no-one really turned up to accept the coveted awards – apart from one surprise guest (Steven Moffat!). Robert Rankin and his wife were hosting the awards, he was very fun and friendly which made the proceedings much more entertaining.
I found the comedian Richard Sandling alright, I enjoyed his YouTube style sketch videos but I wouldn’t venture out of my way to see him again.
Next up was the late night entertainment in the form of Craig Charles DJ, I not a massive dancer so my wife and I headed back for a chill out eve with music (My Iphone4 is louder than I expected on its own) and some cider.
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