Yesterday, as advertised, I had a day out in Bristol with Feòrag. One of the highlights was getting to travel on the Bristol Harbour Railway, which was in steam over the weekend. Feòrag has some video, which hopefully she’ll post to YouTube later. The service has no enclosed coaches, just open wagons with seats in them, so there’s nothing to protect you from the locomotive’s smoke. I now know why steampunk characters wear goggles all the time. I suspect that we both smelled of coal for the rest of the day.
Two important things to know about Feòrag are that she’s an expert on beer, and a vegan. This poses challenges for a tour guide who knows little about beer and is a carnivore. Thankfully Feòrag had come well prepared, including with an impressive iPhone app for the beer connoisseur. Of course being so close to Somerset we ended up drinking in The Apple, a pub specializing in cider located on a canal barge. Over dinner I was pleased to hear Feòrag give the thumbs up to the Bristol Beer Factory. I have been happily drinking their wheat beer at the Arnolfini for some time, but it is good to have my preferences supported by expert opinion.
Talking of dinner, we took ourselves out to Clifton to visit one of Bristol’s best known Indian restaurants: the Thali Cafe. I’m pleased to report that their vegan options got the thumbs up, and from my point of view the meat-based food was fine too.
In the evening we joined my friend Marjorie at the Colston Hall for a concert by Jonathan Coulton and his regular support band, Paul and Storm. Fortunately for the musicians, the stars were not right and we were unable to wake Fluff Cthulhu in time to get him to the gig. However, here’s Jonathan performing a song that I think Fluff would approve of (well, apart from the bit about compromise — Elder Gods don’t do compromise).
By the way, I asked Jonathan if he’d consider playing Worldcon. He said there were scheduling issues as PAX is generally held over Labour Day weekend, but he’d love to do it. Were Kevin and I running Events for 2014 as we did for 2005, I’d be working out how to get him over, though I suspect he’d need to do it as part of a tour to make it possible.