Saturday con thoughts...

BOREDOM WARNING: This is a personal view! It’ll ramble on, you may get
bored.

So...
On arrival, passing through the hotel reception, getting my bearings, I
heard a happy, bouncy Scottish accent coming from a woman on one of the
sofas. I trotted over and enquired if she was Lesley from the SHADO eGroups
list. She was, so that was Lesley and me sorted. Lesley, being Convention
Queen (ie, expert) was extremely good at telling me what was what and where
was what. Thank you Lesley.

I hadn’t been to a Convention before. And really didn’t think it would be so
expertly and professionally organised – but still happily informal. Okay,so
stuff overran, but if a panel session is going brilliantly with an audience
hanging off every word being said on stage, the organisers would have been
mad to cut stuff off in its prime. So the schedule did go to pieces a bit.
But apart from that, I really thought the whole organisation and set up was
excellent. Thank you FAnderson.

I went to the “Opening Ceremony” and Chris Bentley (Chairman or similarof
Fanderson) did the welcome and he was good and it was fun. He didn’t want
people using flash photography during the panel sessions. As he said
(paraphrased!) “If we have guests up on stage trying to remember the details
of a day’s work from 30 years ago… a flash in their face at the wrong time
could result in the information being lost to us forever.” Hmmmm. I probably
shouldn’t have laughed quite so out loud!

There was a Space:1999 episode for which Zienia Merton (Sandra Benes)
provided alive commentary. I found it fascinating. I did watch Space:1999
when it was first broadcast. Did notice at the time the sets resembled
Moonbase but until I found Marc’s FAB-UFO list and his web site, had no idea
of the history behind the proposed second series of UFO vs the arrival of
Space:1999. So it was fun to scrutinise the set on the big screen.

Zienia Merton’s commentary was fascinating (for me, anyway) because she
commented on production / direction stuff – like the programs two main stars
did no outside location work. The rest of the cast were shunted to cold
woods to run around in leopard skin vests, getting bitten by midges, but
Barbara Bain and Martin Landau stuck resolutely to the studio. And details
like an episode not breaking (for commercials) on a freeze frame of a junior
cast member – needed to be a star – etc. Having no knowledge of drama,
television etc, having all this explained was very enlightening.

About 6 or 7 of us had a group photo taken at the SHADO@eGroups meeting up
in the screening room. Which was very cool! The backdrop was a painting –on
canvas I think – of Straker’s office.

It was lunchtime, so I went looking for food that didn’t require queuing for
30 minutes (I may be British, but nothing’s worth queueing for!) Lesley
joined me and we got filled rolls (no queue!) and looked around for a table
to sit down at. Lesley is Queen so I followed Lesley… who was muttering some
incantation under her breath about “shall we… should we… yes we can…” and
sounding a bit… hyper! So she chose a table and we sat down and I assembled
my napkin and cheese salad roll and beamed happily (probably inanely) round
the table and thought, good grief, Carly, you’re slow. *Of course* Lesley
chose this table. Err… hello Mr Bishop! As I said, Lesley knows exactly what
she’s doing at Conventions!!!

As mentioned in other posts, Charles and Lorraine from the List were at the
table and Lesley and I introduced ourselves to them. Mr B was chatting to…
someone. Another official guest. Might have been Alan Perry. EB was
(predictably) a magnet for the convention guests (I mean official guests
like David Graham and Shane Rimmer etc) so while I was there, he was
occupied talking to people who came up. Gerry Anderson came over to say hi
too. I scoffed my lunch left Lesley and the others at the table so I could
go to one of the sessions.

Later, the guest panel with Ed and Gabrielle Drake was very entertaining. I
don’t know how much of the stuff they said was new but I – and I reckonthe
rest of the audience – really enjoyed it. There was a distinct buzz from the
male members of the audience when Gabrielle made her entrance. She did look
fantastic.

Ed commented on how he and Gita Santano (spelling?) and he used to sit and
have lunch together on filming days. Straker and the resident alien sitting
down together, eating and discussing actor stuff. Shame no photos seem to be
around of that scenario.

Questions from the floor were good. One guy – who was dressed in a
Strakeresque costume… the turquoise one with the brown banding only his
recreated version wasn’t quite so… bright! asked of Ed and Gabrielle: how
does it feel to be immortalised as the coolest man and most beautiful woman
in television? (something like that!). Chuckles from the audience and
amused replies from Gabrielle and Ed.

The UFO episode Identified, which was to have been run with a live
commentary by Gabrielle, Ed and Peter Gordeno as I think he had turned up by
then, was postponed to the next day as everything had dramatically overrun
by then. This was my one disappointment as I wasn't going to be there on
Sunday to see it. There followed an autograph session - for about 2 hours.
Sitting signing your name for that length of time is definitely a labour of
love!

I had a brilliant time. Bloody well run convention – even if my judgementis
based on no prior experience. Great meeting List People. I think I’d go to a
con again because I enjoyed the screenings and guest panels and stuff so
much. Dealers room was of no interest to me personally, but the model /
costume / marionette room was amazing and I did take photos.

That’s it. My view of Saturday’s events.
I liked it. I liked it!!

Carly







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Hey Carly,

Not boring at all! I've loved every comment from all of you that
managed to attend - special thanks to those of you that went, and have
posted their thoughts and feelings at their first opportunity - it's
been an almost vicarious experience. I'm simply jealous, now.. <g>.
Thanks, once again!
--
Rob

Hi All,

I've been having extreme difficulties getting an Internet connection
in my Ukrainian hotel, so perhaps you won't be hearing much from me
during the next 2 weeks.

In response to the question on what Ed was wearing when I met him &
Jane in the hotel lobby before the costume ball, he was wearing
a black tuxedo without a tie. And also in response to your question
about Jane, she looked very nice indeed!

--
Marc Martin, [hidden email]

Rob wrote :

> Not boring at all! I've loved every comment from all of you that
> managed to attend - special thanks to those of you that went, and have
> posted their thoughts and feelings at their first opportunity - it's
> been an almost vicarious experience. I'm simply jealous, now.. <g>.
> Thanks, once again!