Thank God for Jamie Oliver

I'm not a big fan of celebrities of any kind, but sometimes, one person with a passion can make a difference.

Nutrition is something I feel pretty strongly about (my main gripe about my daughter outlaw is that she doesn't eat enough decent food, especially vegetables)

I watched his school dinners programme right through and was appalled at some of the stuff being fed to children who never get a decent meal at home either. And as for the resulting health problems, not to mention inability to concentrate in class...

I've never watched his cookery programmes and probably never will, but I'd cheerfully nominate Jamie Oliver for a knighthood.
Jamie Oliver wins fight

Eastercon snippets

I shan't try and write a full con report as it would take forever; I'll just try and pick out a few highlights from what was a highly enjoyable convention.

Tolkien reading panel. I enjoyed listening to other people's favourite bits of LOTR and having a chance to read some of the poems that I like best (Boromir's death poem for example). We finished off by taking parts, sending Saruman higher up the Rotunda and playing out the scene where Gandalf tries to persuade him to come out. It strained my voice a bit, but it was still fun.

Adult filking. Fun, but it's a good thing I'd brought a set of printouts as only Runesmith and I knew any words. Fortunately dougs was able to sing some of the ones I brought as my voice was getting pretty rough by the end of the session.

Adult Just a Minute. This was enormous fun, and judging by how many people came up afterwards and told me how much they'd enjoyed it, I wasn't alone in this sentiment. Subjects ranged from 'My favourite slash pairing' to 'Golden Showers'. Forewarned of the latter, I decided to take a leaf from dougs's book. (he managed the entire 'realism in slash' panel at Redemption with only one use of a four letter word - and that had been in the question.

Golden showers were defined first as a well known kind of firework, and secondly as a variety of chrysanthemum. It seems to be the latter that everyone remembers - I was just getting onto a loving description of the incurving petals when we ran out of time.

I won - gaining a hollow chocolate bunny of the apocylapse as my prize (I choose 'war'), but dougs added greatly to everyone's enjoyment of the session by interrupting people in order to give them a point when they were saying something amusing.

Games with James - I know my son left the games room on at least one occasion, because I met him here playing quidditch. I think explanation is probably impossible. You had to be there. If you know James Bacon, then you can probably imagine.

It was mayhem, but fun.

Belly dancing - this was an extra programme item courtesy of katlinel and fifitrix. I had to leave part way through owing to a problem with my Achilles tendon (it's been playing up for a couple of month's now), but I still enjoyed the part I was there for.

Crisis management. A workshop run by the Furlongs. Both educational and enjoyable. We, the management of a nuclear power plant, had to cope with a group of protestors who had managed to gain access to our test reactor. Phone calls (on the internal phone network and two radios) were flying thick and fast as we had to deal with everyone from the police, newspapers, nutcaeses, the Environment Agency, etc.

More filking - clean this time. we were short on numbers as some of the regular suspects weren't at the convention, but we had some good songs and I got to play with Christo's theramin.

Moral relativism in a heroic tradition. This turned out to be a very interesting discussion on the nature of heroism and how it looks when viewed from different historical periods and different cultures.

God's Thugs. dougs was the only panellist who turned up for this and thus it drifted slightly off topic after a while. (the idea was to discuss those who have done evil while claiming to act in the name of God) HOwever, it was none the worse for the digression. dougs is always worth listening to when talking about religion and I found it interesting how the initially hostile audience were getting more supportive over time. (being a Christian at an SF con can be a bit like being thrown to the lions)

dougs has the guts to say "I don't know" in answer to a lot of tough theological questions. It might sound like a cop out, but it isn't. (Or it doesn't come across like that to me at any rate) It takes a lot of faith to believe that there is a rationale even when you don't know what it is.

Con table - I spent some time on the Redemption table and I think we gained 7 members altoghether, which isn't bad at all.

Zombies - James Bacon strikes again. I met them on my way back from breakfast, all dressed in rags and moaning 'brains'.

Beyond Cyberdrome. Always interesting to watch SMS make a spectacle out of what is essentially a number of small, chaos-built robots running around in circles. I enjoyed watching it and cheered and booed at apropriate moments.

Dr Who!! I'm not much of a Who fan, but I loved it, and seeing it with around 300 fans led to a great atmosphere.

Charades - When the person running the session said she had 15 charades for the 3 teams to solve (between us, not each), I knew she'd run out way way before the end of the session. The audience were busy before long writing out many (and often harder ones) as all the early ones were managed with ease. We came second, but it was all good fun. I always love playing charades.

Easter bonnet parade - there were some pretty good hats here. I was leaning towards Sabine's "The Moon is a harsh Mistress" (black dress, lunar landscape on the hat) until I saw the 'angel of the North'. She pulled a cord and the angel started spinning, rose several feet into the air and won outright.

Hitchikers remake - a detailed and informative discussion of things relating to the new movie.

Slash discussion - what it says on the label.

SF pornography. This was actually very interesting, even though I could only hear half of what was said and the discussion seemed to end up as a list of porn movies I'd never seen. I'm not actually sure why I found it interesting, but lproven kept the ball rolling rather well.

There were other bits and pieces and good times with friends and I got waveney a beeblebear (now named Phil) and actually found a new Tarot deck that I liked (most have either naff art or naff symbolism).

When the worst thing I can find to say about a convention is that I hated the way the programme book was laid out, that should give you an idea what a good weekend it was.

Thanks to everyone involved.