16 August 2014 at Worldcon London


     Started a couple of days ago from Little Rock aboard American Eagle (AE) to Chicago.  Typical commuter flight and the TSA was unstressed and not busy.  When I hit Ohare, there was a pleasant surprise.  British Airlines (BA) ran a shuttle from American Airlines (AA) terminal to their own in international.  The BA flight was a delight.  Business class offers enough room for legs and when the seat is dropped to level with the foot rest raised, it is a comfortable, if short bed.

     Where BA fell down badly was in their "expedited arrivals".  As we left the plane, we were given tickets that were supposed to get us into a short line.  It did, but there were not enough immigration agents to process the "expedited" passengers as fast as they could have gone through the regular process.  Several passengers mentioned that BA had been notified of this problem several times.  So far nothing has been done.

    I arrived in London rested and ready to go.  Advised to take the Heathrow Express train to Paddington Station, I took a taxi to the Excel 65 pounds,  Ouch!

     My hotel, the Fox Connaught is about a kilometer from the Excel Center.  It's a lovely walk along the Thames.  But the Excel is HUGE, it too is about a kilometer long.  It's filled with meeting rooms and even though membership in Loncon 3 is 11,000+, we have not filled it.  There are eating stands along the concours and an office work depot in the middle.  I still had to walk the length of the place to visit a restaurant or buy electronics.

     Several old friends are here.  I've had dinner with Eve and Howard Ackerman and the Furlongs.  The Furlong dinner was in the Fo bar.  Most people think it is only a pub, a nice one, but the hotel (sans lift) is above.  Since my room is on the fourth floor, there is no noise.  Actually, my days have ended in the early mornings and the pub has been closed.

     I was amazed when I arrived at the con.  Registration was steering people away because "their IT was down."  Three IT people were working on the problem.  The registration were clustered around them and could not be bothered to look through the previously made badges of the volunteers.  Ops was scheduled to be in a "yurt."  What we got was a black pavilion with no lights.

     The con is a con.  There are many lines of programming, some of them interesting others not in my bailiwick.

     This morning, the "Rat Race" was held in the hotel space around the Excel.   It is a 10km race at the end of which the runners climb a large platform and jump into the Thames.  I saw them jump in, but no one climbed out.   Could this have been a race for human lemmings?

Jumping into the Thames

 

The Thames

























Warehouse on a Thames backwater.






Anatoli Arsebarski is a Russian Cosmonaut.  He is one of the con guests of honor.   After he arrived with his son as an interpreter, we lost him and Operations ran frantically around the Excel, trying to find him.

It turned out that he was told he was to sign autographs and pose for pictures tomorrow.  He graciously changed his plans and told us that he would sign today and tomorrow after his talk.  He is in London for a private get-together with some other cosmonauts.