Partially on topic : Thursday in Bristol.
- From: "Rik Shepherd" <RikShepherd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 01:06:39 +0100
Thursday: In which LCC starts while we're lunching elsewhere, we do actually
go to a panel, and mysteriously win valuable prizes.
So we have some breakfast, and stroll down to the harbour, cross the bridge,
slope past the Industrial Museum, and keep going until we get to the SS
Great Britain. We pay our money and start the tour.
Anyway, The SS Great Britain. One of IKB's wizard wheezes; big metal ship,
was going to be a paddle steamer until Brunel saw a propeller and thought he
could use one. It was born in Bristol - in the very dry dock it's in today,
which was purpose built for it - sailed about a bit, until it was abandoned
in the Falklands. And then restored and brought home.
First thing we tour is the hull of the ship. They have a glass (or perspex)
artificial 'sea' at waterline level; we take some steps down into the dry
dock, which a big machine called Deep Thought to maintain the correct
humidity to stop the iron hull decaying even more than it has already.
Interestingly, the hull is clinker The propeller and rudder are replicas,
built to Brunel's original design. In real life it turned out that while
Brunel's design was incredibly efficient, the materials couldn't cope with
the efficiency, and the blades tended to fall off mid-journey, so most of
the time the Great Britain used a propeller that was less efficient but less
inclined to break. This part of the tour would have been a little less
stressful if there hadn't been Great Britain staff tramping around on the
'sea' above us.
Back on dry land, we scamper into a big shed which tells the history of the
Great Britain backwards, starting with it being beached in Falklands in
1970, having it's engines ripped out and used as a windjammer in 1862, being
converted to an emigrant ship in 1852, and finally being born as an ocean
liner in 1843. The museum has a wide range of artefacts and information
panels. There's also a "steer the Great Britain in aimless circles while
trying to find West" thing involving a ships wheel and a very large video
screen, and another thing where you get to whirl a couple of wheels to
simulate a cunning mechanism that was but into the ship to allow the
propeller to be disconnected from the engine and lifted out of the water.
This apparently made the whole thing work better when they were pretending
it was a sailing ship.
Having learnt all about the ship, and seen the holes in its hull, we're
finally ready to go aboard. We scamper along a gangway onto the weather deck
(which just looks like the top deck to me), and pick up an audio tour each.
Yup, there's an audio tour, which leads to the ship being full of people
vacantly trying to work out what they're supposed to be looking at (that
might just be me, though). You get to choose whether you want the technical
explanation, or a narrative from a steerage or first class passenger. I go
for the technical, Carol takes first class. And then we wander around the
ship on different routes. I inspect the fold-down masts (for when they're
not using the sails); wander around the steerage area, not part of the
original arrangement, which is a warren of double bunks allegedly for entire
families and large cupboards for their luggage; inspect the space where
there ought to be an engine but isn't; look at the first and second class
cabins which are about the same size as the steerage bunks, but have doors,
and handbasins, and even portholes. There's also a ladies retiring room for
ladies wishing to avoid 'unwelcome attentions' and saloons for the first and
second class people to promenade in when the weather's not good enough to go
up on deck (which used to have a line beyond which only first class
passengers could venture. A series of greenhouse sort of skylights take
light down from the weather deck to the saloon and then to the dining room.
Everywhere's been restored as much as possible, with all the cabins full of
passenger sort of stuff, and a few mannequins representing people known from
passenger accounts of voyages aboard the ship.
When we've finished we set off back along the dock, realising that we've got
a choice between eating and going to the first LCC panels. Showing an
appalling lack of dedication, we stop at the Arnolfini for hummus and bread
and garlic and courgette soup.
And this means the first panel we get to is:
Why Did I Do That? Mistakes I Wished I Had Never Made
Paula Gosling, Marianne McDonald, Barbara Cleverley, Judith Cutler;
moderator Mary Jane Maffini.
MMcD starts by explaining that she has to explain Dido Hoare's name to
American audiences; JC claims that her major mistake was making her
character come from Birmingham: and BC and PG's opening aren't about
mistakes at all. Starting to write a CWA Debut Dagger winner to entertain a
dying husband isn't a mistake. Asked what's caused the most grief we get :
MMcD - blowing up an interesting character and thus not becoming Patricia
Highsmith's younger sister; BC - there aren't any mistakes in crime
writing*, but she regrets killing a 12 year old Indian princeling; JC
setting too many books in Birmingham - 16(?), all out of print; PG - almost
killed a cat, only regrets not being rich or famous, and, possibly, moving
to England because of the Beatles. Bad advice (which turns into good advice,
really) to give to an aspiring writer: JC - don't study English at Uni
"David Lodge gave me 16 years of writer's block"; MMcD counters this by
claiming that it's no bad thing to spend a life in literature**; BC warns
not to expect to make any money, and suggests that every author should kill
the hero once, and ask the publisher to count the complaining letters. When
asked if they had anything they didn't want anyone to know PG admitted that
she changed the killer in Zero Trap four times, and McD said, deadpan,
"There is one thing I don't want you to know".
Then we wander off doing something or other - leaving things in the
book-swap boxes and buying books, probably - which involves missing the
third and final panel strand of the day, and suddenly it's time to go and
find some food. We start out as part of a minor horde of 4MAers which
suffers from the minor problem of not fitting into any restaurant and breaks
up into smaller groups. Well, we think it must do. Carol and I, and Bridget
and Yvonne and Luci (and later, Karen and a friend whose name I didn't
catch) end up in a bitroish place which is possibly called Three (to go with
a nightclub and a bar numbered One and Two). I have carrot and coriander
soup then roasted vegetables and goats cheese (ie, the only part of the menu
devoid of dead things) and Carol has a mozzarella-avocado-tomato salad then
steak and chips.
This all gives us just enough time to scamper back to the hotel and buy a
drink before they open the door to let the eager masses in for the LCC
Thursday Night Pub Quiz. To make things altogether more random everyone
going in is supposed to take a number out of a bucket, and go be part of the
team on that table. In theory, this will lead to a selection of teams of 8
people. I begin to suspect there's too many tables when no-one else turns up
at table 18 but me. Luckily, Myles and Adrian notice this and suggest that
anyone who feels outnumbered goes and joins another table. I scoot across to
Carol's table, which hasn't got that many people on (I'm briefly lured away
by Mary Reagan and Ayo, but go back to Carol's table when (a) Peter Lovesey
turns up waving a ticket with the right table number and (b) Carol starts
looking at me. We're now a team of me, Carol, a Scottish-sounding bloke
called Callum, an American lady whose name I never got, and Bill Moody, who
has just flown in from San Francisco and is massively jet-lagged. That's
five people, and it's table 5, so as soon as we're told to make up team
names I declare that we're The Five Orange Monkeys (this is my one moment of
almost inspiration of the evening, and is in no way connected to the Conan
Doyle story about pips***). While we're waiting for something to happen I
get mildly fannish with Mr Moody, largely because we'd found reprints of his
second and third Evan Horne books in the dealers room and I was very pleased
indeed. Then Peter Gutteridge and Laura Wilson ask a series of bizarre
questions, during which Mr Lovesey is required to remember his son's name,
and Anne Perry expected to know the names of her characters, and the name of
one of her books. I suspect my main contribution here is to point out that
Seven Dials isn't The Seven Dials Mystery and can't have been written by
Dame Agatha. One of the rounds must have been name the author, then. And
there was match the author and character, and calculate how many units of
alcohol Marlowe drank in one book, and some other questions too. When they
run out of questions, we suddenly realise that we're supposed to have
written one set of answers down neatly, and demand extra scribbling time.
Luckily, so do Ayo's table, so we don't feel totally obstructive, whatever
our hosts say. There's a break while Liz gets lumbered with collating the
results, during which Bill decides that he really needs to get some sleep
and leaves. The second half of the quiz is a spot the film and author of the
book it's based on, only for some reason Mr Gutteridge obtained clips that
were, in parts, dubbed in Greek, and had random bits of Lee Marvin floating
about. Anyway, Callum knows his movies. Except for Riffifi, which no-one at
the table knows. Because everything's taken long then expected, they abandon
the following rounds, we go through the marking process. And the scores are
collected and while Liz does the calculations Peter and Laura go through all
the questions that haven't been asked (which I reckon were easier than the
one that were).
And then they announce the winners, in reverse order, and by some bizarre
twist of fate the Five Orange Monkeys are the winners. Hurrah for us, Callum
mostly. We get a couple of books (all translated, mostly Scandinavians), an
audio CD and a pair of DVDs (ITV Marples/Frosts) each. We promise that we'll
let Bill Moody have his winnings tomorrow, and stash the goodies about our
persons.
And then we probably spend some time in the drawing room, or the bar. Or the
drawing room with drinks from the bar.
* This strikes me as insanely optimistic.
** For one thing, you can be David Lodge and give writer's block to
students.
*** Largely because I only just remembered that bit.
.
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