Australia

Adelaide – Lazy Sunday

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

The con is now in full swing, but to be honest that’s not a lot of action. The number of people here appear to be quite low – probably not a lot more than were in Auckland. Many of the big name Australian authors are not here. And the con is mostly strolling along on the “she’ll be right” principle (which is Australian for “no further effort required”). We are having a fun time anyway.

Lunch yesterday was courtesy of the Central Market. Medge & Bean, Paul Ewins and I bought some bread, cheese and olives and ate them. Adelaide really is a very good place to eat.

In the afternoon I was on a panel about SF awards, and attended the GoH presentation for Steve and Catherine Scholz. Both were quite good events, and both had very small audiences – less than 20 in both cases, I think.

The masked ball last night was rather better attended, but it did prove the point that if you have a “masked ball” rather than a formal masquerade then hardly anyone will actually come in costume – a mask is seen as being quite sufficient. Sean Williams is an excellent DJ. Sadly, having been up since 5:30am, I was not really in a fit state to dance the night away. However, I did mange to give the French dress an outing, and I got some very kind comments.

This evening, all being well, I will be covering the Ditmar Awards live at SF Awards Watch.

Talking of the Ditmars, quite a bit of the discussion on the awards panel revolved around lack of participation. If you have less than 100 people voting it becomes much easier for people to stuff the ballot. There is, I’m afraid, no solution to this other than getting more people to attend the convention. The Australians have tried some creative solutions, including once trying to shame people into participating by adding a character of Best Fannish Cat. The idea was that people would be so outraged at the awards being trivialized that they would all want to get involved, but I don’t think it worked. Given that I’m now wondering how I could win an award for Best Fannish Cat, I can see why.

Aboriginal Astronomy

~ Cheryl

As I’m in Australia at the moment it seems entirely appropriate to link to this post by Jennifer Ouellette which suggests that some Aboriginal people created a astronomical observatory at Wurdi Youang, a stone circle near to Melbourne. Obviously a lot can happen in an investigation in a year, and the whole thing may have been disproved by August 2010, but when I get back to the con today I shall seek out Sue Ann Barber and suggest to her that an email to the Melbourne Planetarium might be a good idea. I’d love to see some discussion of this at Worldcon.

Dudcon 3

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

What do you do with your Natcon when Worldcon comes to town? Why, fold it in with the Worldcon, of course. Everyone but the UK does that. But Natcon things still have to be done. For Australia there are Ditmars to be given out, and site selection to be done. So the Aussies are having a con within a con. It will consist of a Business Meeting and the Ditmars Ceremony, and possibly a barbecue if it doesn’t rain (but this is Melbourne we are talking about). It will also raise money for the Ditmars by the time-honored fannish method of being silly.

So, they are offering GoH positions to the highest bidder, possibly at auction if there is enough interest. And they have a variety of different membership categories, all of which gain you nothing but a warm glow for having done something good for fandom. I’m rather tempted by the AU$40 Protector of Kittens membership myself.

Paul Ewins and Dave Cake appear to be responsible for this. I shall report more as and when they have a web site. In the meantime I leave you with this important information:

If you have experience with registration, programming, masquerades, volunteer coordination, hotel liaison or security you probably have the wrong con. On the other hand if you have access to lots of free booze we may be able to use you.

Good to see that they have their priorities right.

Adelaide In Progress

~ Cheryl

So far so good. I have kindly allowed Jonathan Strahan to laugh at me over the cricket, and I have been shopping.

I have, of course, done other stuff too. I have talked to Perry Middlemiss and Rose Mitchell about the Melbourne convention center, and I now have a much better idea of which bits of the vast building we are going to use. There will be more later when I have had a chance to look at maps. In the meantime, for the benefit of Stephen Boucher, I’d like to confirm that the distance from the door of the Hilton to the door of the convention center is precisely zero Standlee units. (You do have to choose the right doors, but it is seriously convenient.)

The other good news is that the one thing that was lacking on site – additional places to eat besides the hotel – is exactly what is is going to get built in the area over the next year. It is looking like being a very good site indeed.

I’ve also been talking costuming with Fan GoH, Steve Scholz. I’m now looking forward to both tonight’s masked ball and the masquerade in Melbourne next year.

And finally the good news is that the convention has promised me Internet access for the Ditmar Awards coverage, so we will be going out live tomorrow night over on SF Awards Watch.

I’m on a panel about awards this afternoon, so I need to get back to the con. See you later.

Adelaide

~ Cheryl

As reported on Twitter, my flight to Adelaide was a little delayed, but nothing serious. I am now safely settled in to the Adelaide Hilton where I have once again been granted an upgrade to the Executive Club. More free breakfasts. Yay!

The convention hotel is the Holiday Inn. It is a few blocks walk away, but there is a tram service that is free within the city center that goes most of the way. That’s just as well as it has been raining fairly heavily here today and that is apparently set to continue throughout the weekend.

I have caught up with a number of Australian fans (including Janice Gelb who is now officially an Australian resident). Julie has made it here from New Zealand, as has Russell who has clearly got the taste for conventions. For this evening, however, I have returned to the Hilton where I plan to take things easy and try to get my body onto Adelaide time.

Trudy arrived after I did. She’s apparently in the middle of deadline hell at the moment and doesn’t have time to tour chocolate factories. I’ll therefore have to find someone else to steal samples from. In the meantime, however, I have discovered the Central Market. Just outside my hotel is a vast underground market. There are over 250 shops, most of which sell food. There are several butchers (several specializing in sausages), several fishmongers (one with a fine selection of fish heads), and more cheese shops that I could count. I found at least one chocolate shop, and also managed to invest in some new Tim Tam varieties. More on that after I have done some tasting.

Sydney

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

I am here, briefly.

The good news is that there is now a hotel shuttle from Sydney airport to the downtown hotels. It only cost me AU$24 for a return, which is about half what a single cab fare would have been. But it does mean I’ll have less time this morning as I have to fit with the shuttle’s schedule, not mine. I was hoping to get an hour or so in the QVB (that’s the Queen Victoria Building – Sydney’s splendid Victorian shopping mall), but I may not have time.

The Hilton here is very luxurious. Thank you again, reward points. As with Melbourne they have upgraded me to the executive floor. The Internet connection is fine (and indeed I could have had it for free in the executive lounge if I hadn’t needed to download all that email). I’d love to stay here for a few days and just relax, but I have a con to go to and the program officially starts this evening.

Sadly I’m missing the early-bird chocolate factory tours. I may have to mug Trudy Canavan when I get there to get some samples. I don’t appear to be listed on any program items as yet, so for the most part I expect you will find me in the bar with Sean Williams and Jonathan Strahan consuming those famous pink drinks and watching the Twenty20 World Cup. Thankfully England are only scheduled to lose two games while I am here, and neither of them to Australia.

Melbourne Convention Center

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

I haven’t said much yet about the convention facilities in Melbourne that I had promised to survey, so as I’m awake in the middle of the night with jet lag it is time to put that right.

The new convention center is on the South Bank of the Yarra river, almost opposite the old facilities. When we were in Melbourne in 1999 it was just a giant shed, but now it has been transformed into a fully-fledged convention center complete with meeting rooms, auditorium and an on-site Hilton. Some building work is still going on, and according to the local newspaper, The Age, there is an opening ceremony of some sort happening this weekend for the new buildings, but conventions are already happening in the older parts of the site.

I stayed for one night in the Hilton and it is very nice indeed. I admit to having been swayed by a free upgrade to the executive floor, but the whole hotel looked good and the only problem I had with it was the AU$30/day Internet access charge – something that seems ridiculously cheap now that I am in New Zealand. There is direct access from the hotel to the convention center from the 1st floor (US numbering). I didn’t do a Standlee Unit measurement but I shot video and I don’t think it can be more than about 30 Standlees (yards, metres, whatever) or so from the elevator exit in the Hilton to the convention center entrance.

What is less clear is how far it will be from there to the parts of the convention center that we are using, because it is a vast building. I shot some video of the shed and it took me the best part of 10 minutes to walk from one end to the other. Admittedly I was stopping to look at things along the way, but that should give you an idea of just how big it is. And as far as I can make out, that whole ground floor area is one huge hall. You could park a cruise liner in there.

The one part of the facilities I know that we will be using is the hotel bar. Unlike in Montréal, I had no trouble finding this. The Hilton has a collection of Spanish-themed eateries on the ground floor including a wine/tapas bar that is only about 20 yards from an entrance to the convention center. It could hardly be more convenient if it tried. I haven’t actually checked out the beer there, but I trust my Australian friends to produce something very drinkable; wine too.

Aside from the hotel, restaurant facilities are little sparse in the convention center, but from the city end of the shed (that is the opposite end from the Hilton) you cross the road directly onto the south bank river walk that leads all the way from the Crown Casino to the far end of the city center and is lined with restaurants all the way. There will be no shortage of places to eat. If you need shopping instead, there is a tram stop outside of the city end entrance to the shed, and that takes you right down Collins Street where the best of Melbourne’s shops can be found. For the more adventurous the 112 tram actually continues on to Brunswick Street where there are lots of small, alternative shops and cheap restaurants. It is about half an hour’s journey, but worth doing.

One thing I didn’t get a good handle on was where you would stay if the Hilton was outside of your price range. Obviously all of the hotels we used in 1999 are still there. They are just a little bit further away from the facilities. There may be some new hotels as well. I’ll be talking to some of the Aussiecon 4 people while I’m in Adelaide to see if I can get a better handle on that.

Farewell Melbourne, I’ll Be Back

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Well, that’s my day in Melbourne done. Many thanks to Terry and Sal for recommending a great restaurant in Brunswick Street (which is actually very easy to get to by tram from the convention center), and to Alan Stewart whose presence was a lovely surprise.

I’d happily stay here another week, but tomorrow morning I’m flying out to Auckland. I shall have to be very careful not to pick up any sniffles there, because given the level of swine flu paranoia around here I doubt that I’d get back in. Let’s see, I’m going to a convention and I somehow have to avoid getting a cold…

Oh dear.

Greetings from Melbourne

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Well, here I am on the other side of the world.

The flight from London to Melbourne is interestingly managed. You leave Heathrow late in the evening and spend much of the trip to Singapore asleep. (Or at least you do if you have my amazing “fall asleep in moving vehicles” superpower.) There is then a very short “day” that comprises breakfast on the plane, a short walk around Changi and supper on the plane. After that there is a short “night”, and you get dumped out in Melbourne at around 5:00am. I’m surprisingly awake.

For the benefit of those of you planning a trip next year, there is an ANZ bank ATM right opposite the customs exit at Melbourne airport. I put my US card in it and got AU$, no problem at all, though obviously there will be a fee.

One thing I hope people won’t have to cope with next year is flu panics. Australia is still deep in medical paranoia and there is an extra form you have to fill out. Like most such forms, it is stupid. You are supposed to tick “yes” if you have had any cold-like symptoms recently, including a headache or sniffles or a cough. I talked to the cabin crew in case this was like the stupid question on the immigration form about “animal products” (why yes, I am wearing a leather jacket and a woolen sweater, but those don’t count). Their advice was to confess to “symptoms” even though they were due to pollen allergies and recycled air, and I took their advice because I figured I had no chance of making it through immigration without coughing or sneezing.

So I spent 10 minutes or so talking to the nice doctor and nurse on duty. They were fine, and very sympathetic. I suspect I probably made their morning because I actually gave them something to do, which made it seem less bad having to be up and about for a 5:00am arrival.

A cab from the airport to the convention center is AU$51. You have been warned. There are no trains or trams.

The new Hilton is gorgeous. I admit to being biased as they gave me a room and a free upgrade to the executive floor despite the fact that I was arriving at 6:00am, but it is a very nice hotel. I’m not entirely happy with the AU$30/day for Internet access, but as I got a free breakfast I’m not going to complain.

My job for today is to explore the convention facilities. Hopefully that won’t take too long as I also want to visit my bank and go shopping. After that I’ll be having dinner with Terry.

If you have any questions about Melbourne as a Worldcon venue, please ask in the comments. I’ll do my best to answer them.

Travel Preparation

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Today I have been busy getting ready to head out to Heathrow. I have a 10:00pm flight to Melbourne. This trip is turning into a bit of a nightmare – no one’s fault, just the way the world is right now. I’ll be glad to be on my way.

Of course the trip to Melboune is very long, so I can’t sleep all the way, much as I feel I need it. I have books, I have the Hugo-nominated fiction on my Asus, and I have METAtropolis on my iPhone. Hopefully I shall be well read by the time I get to Australia.

It looks like I’ll be at Joe’s Garage in Brunswick Street from about 7:00pm on Thursday (28th). Many thanks to Terry for organizing things. Contact him if you want to come along – I’ll be in the air and offline.

I’ve also booked my flight to Montreal. I’m flying Air Canada from London, but I decided not to wait for the discount coupon from Anticipation and I was afraid the flights I wanted would sell out quickly once those were available. I think I was right to do so, as there were not a lot of seats available when I booked. Obviously people who can jump in and book as soon as they get the coupon will be better placed to take advantage, but I have no idea what my email access will be over the next 2 weeks.

Anyway, time for lunch, and then off to Paddington.

Melbourne Meet-Up

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

In less than a week’s time I shall be in Melbourne! May 28th to be precise. Anyone up for dinner? Suggestions for a restaurant to meet at? I am staying in the Hilton over by the new convention center so that I can check out the facilities for 2010, but I know how to catch a tram.

NZ/Aus Tour – Taking the Plunge

~ Cheryl

Thanks to a kind offer of crash space in Auckland, and discovering a whole pile of Hilton points I didn’t know I had, I have taken the plunge and booked hotels and convention memberships for the trip Down Under. The dates are still as listed here.

For May 28th I have booked into the Hilton next to the new Melbourne convention center so that I can check the area out and hopefully shoot some video. The facilities are all brand new since 1999 and I’m looking forward to seeing them. I’m also looking for recommendations for a restaurant for that night where I can catch up with any Melbourne fans who won’t be going to Adelaide.

Talking of Adelaide, I have booked into the Hilton in Victoria Square. It is roughly the same price as the con hotel, and it not that far away according to Google Maps. I have a twin room, and am still hoping to find a room share.

Aus/NZ Tour Update

~ Cheryl

Things are sort of looking up on this front. No news on the business venture, so I’m still very worried about my pals out in NZ, but I have found a possibility of somewhere to stay in Auckland, and it appears that I have rather more Hilton points than I thought I had, so I’m feeling a lot more confident about the trip.

I could still do with a room share in Adelaide though. Is anyone reading this going to Conjecture?

NZ/Aus Tour Update

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

One of the less fun things that happened on the trip to Montreal was discovering that the business reason that I had for doing the New Zealand and Australia trip had fallen victim to the credit crunch. It isn’t officially dead yet, and a great deal of talking to venture capitalists is going on. More importantly two very good friends of mine are now suffering serious financial viability worries.

My problem is less serious, but none the less still a problem. I have paid for the plane tickets and they are non-refundable. I want to go. But I no longer have a good business reason for going and there are still convention memberships, hotel bills and the like to pay for. Without the business reason for making the trip I don’t think I can justify the extra expense. But the venture capitalists probably won’t make up their minds for a week or two, if that. It is all a bit complicated.

Right now I’m not sure what to do, but if anyone in New Zealand or Australia has any good excuses for me going, or is able to help with hotel bills (for example a room share for either convention) I’d be very pleased to hear from you.

What Are They Thinking?

~ Cheryl ~ 5 Comments

Reuters reports that the Australian government intends to remove knowledge of cricket from its citizenship test. Good grief! What sort of people are they planning to let into the country? Americans?

(Note to Aussie authorities: Mr. Obama won the election. You are not going to be swamped by disappointed Democrat supporters seeking political asylum. And the Republicans are not leaving, they are just holing up in bunkers in Montana.)

Ian Gunn Memorial

~ Cheryl

Via Mike Glyer I discover that the Melbourne Science Fiction Club is hosting a “Tribute to Ian Gunn” on November 28th. I have no idea what this involves, but I certainly remember Gunny very fondly (he and K’rin often gave me a lift to club meetings). Hopefully someone will tell me more.

A TV Trailer

~ Cheryl

As you probably know, I don’t watch much TV drama, but here’s a series I very much hope gets made. It is called Resistance, and a movie-length pilot is currently being worked on in Australia. Why am I so interested in it? Because, as Mike Glyer reveals, the scriptwriter is a guy called Craig Miller.

Back in 1984 Craig was chair of L.A.Con II, the largest Worldcon ever held. More recently Kevin and I worked with him on the Hugo Marketing Committee, which he chaired for its first year. But he is perhaps best known as “the guy who accepts Dramatic Presentation Hugos.” Because he works in Hollywood, Craig is the regular go-to guy when it comes to getting Hugos to movie people. He has probably accepted more Hugos than anyone except Charles Brown and Martin Hoare (who accepts for Dave Langford). I’d love to see Craig make a success of script writing and be able to accept a Hugo in his own right for once.

Craig’s blog has a long photo-filled report of a recent trip to Australia than made me homesick for the place all over again.

Stephen Boucher Interview

~ Cheryl

Here is the first of my podcasts from Worldcon. It is an interview with Stephen Boucher, the man who started the whole Australia in 2010 bid by foolishly saying “I’d rather chair a Worldcon than…” in the hearing of a bunch of SMOFs. Despite the hail of $20 bills that descended upon him, Stephen won’t be chairing Aussiecon 4. That honor goes to Perry Middlemiss and Rose Mitchell. But Stephen is heading up the Facilities Division, and he has a lot of interesting things to day about the new convention center in Melbourne.

There is a fair amount of background noise on the recording, and that’s despite us going off to a relatively quiet part of the convention center. Hopefully you can still make out what is being said fairly clearly.

By the way, the reason I say I’m “again” looking at future Worldcons is because I recorded an interview with Farah Mendlesohn just before this one. I must bear in mind that I may not upload recordings in the order in which I make them.

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