Personal

Don’t Want My Business

~ Cheryl ~ 10 Comments

I had something of a fright this morning. I tried to buy an App for my iPhone and my credit card was declined. This can’t have been any sort of data entry error as I’d bought many Apps before, and the card was good until May, so I figured there might have been a fraud problem and fired up a computer check my account.

Worryingly, my credit card account was missing from my online banking details. I eventually worked out that RBS has set up a new and entirely separate online banking system for credit cards and I needed to open an account in that as well, but when I tried to I was told that my card didn’t exist.

Very worried now, I tried to call customer services. Skype told me that the phone number I was using, which I got from the RBS web site, did not exist.

At this point I was beginning to think that I had accidentally fallen into an episode of The Twilight Zone, but I checked my last statement and found that RBS had the wrong number for their customer support service on their web site. I called the right number, and after a long time on hold (at 18c/min) I eventually got through to a human being.

“Oh,” said the nice lady, “your account has been canceled. We don’t do that sort of card any more.”

This was, of course, news to me. It eventually transpired that notice of the termination of the account had been given in one of those “variation of terms” notices that banks send out at regular intervals to tell you that your APR has gone up and all of the benefits they promised you when you signed up for the card are gradually being withdrawn. There was nothing on the statements themselves, and I know they have the technology to add special messages. Conclusion: RBS does not want me as a credit card customer any more.

And to be honest, I’m not surprised. I am, after all, one of those annoying people who pay off their bills on time and don’t run up massive debts that cost me a fortune in interest payments. For a UK bank, that makes me a very bad customer.

At the risk of sounding like an old fogey, this sort of thing worries me. We have got so used, as a society, to having everything very cheap or free that for businesses to make money out of us they have to resort to subterfuge. That might mean banks offering very cheap credit in the hope you’ll get into debt; it might mean utility companies having direct debit deals under which they always take more money that you owe so that they are getting free loans from you; it might mean RyanAir offering ludicrously cheap flights but then nickel-and-diming you for everything thereafter; and it might mean electronics companies trying to con you into very expensive and worthless extended warranties when you buy new equipment. It is a daft way to be doing business, and it thoroughly destroys any trust between business and consumer.

Anyway, I now need a new UK credit card. I don’t want to have one, because UK banks have no real fraud protection (they claim that they do, but if you read the small print you find that they can get out of any claim). I would much rather use my US cards. But many UK retailers either won’t accept a card that doesn’t have the chip-and-pin security theater system, or in the case of online purchases won’t accept a card that isn’t registered at a UK address, so UK card is pretty much a necessity.

I’m thinking I might go to Amex. I know there are stores than don’t accept them, but I’ve been very impressed with their service in the US and they do appear to be still in the business of providing credit cards, not in the business of encouraging consumer debt.

Snowed In?

~ Cheryl ~ 7 Comments

“Temperatures -22C Overnight!” screamed the BBC news this morning. Well, they were if you lived in a particular, remote part of Scotland. Here, near the coast of Darkest Somerset they were more like -6, though I suspect that Liz and Liyi, who are much further inland, had it a lot colder.

Nevertheless I am sort of snowed in. The snow isn’t very thick outside, but it is still there and by now it will be very icy. The school is closed, and we haven’t had mail for a couple of days. If need be I could go out, but I am a very poorly manufactured human being, and one of the many shortcomings of my body is dreadful balance. If I slip, it is pretty much guaranteed that I will fall, and fall awkwardly thereby damaging something. I’d rather avoid that if I can.

Also I don’t really have appropriate footwear. I don’t need boots in California, and as I’m living out of a suitcase most of the rest of the time boots are not high on my priority list.

Fortunately I did see this coming and have enough food to last at least another week. I’ve used the last of the fresh meat, and I’ll run out of bread, fruit juice and fresh fruit earlier than that, but I have plenty of dried and tinned food, and things like biscuits and cheese.

The 10-day forecast on weather.com suggests we’ll finally get a thaw a week from Sunday.

Not Dead

~ Cheryl ~ 12 Comments

Hi folks, I just wanted to let you know that I have been (relatively) quiet today because of a panic at the day job, not because I have frozen to death, been crushed by an avalanche, been eaten by a polar bear, or starved to death due to inability to get food. Regardless of what you might hear on the news, or on Twitter, most people in southern Britain are still alive. And it is not nearly as snowy, or as cold, as it is in Finland or Canada or even Manchester.

The Year Ahead

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

If I’m going to do the seasonal posts thing I might as well go the whole hog and try to look forward to 2010. Right now I do not have any sekrit projekts, which is probably just as well after last year. A little consolidation is probably required.

My main priority for the year will be to get the translation awards safely off the ground, and hopefully into the hands of a large and enthusiastic group of people who will carry them through far into the future.

I’ll also be putting a fair amount of effort into chasing articles for Clarkesworld because it has become obvious over the past year that even paying 10c/word is not enough to encourage people to write non-fiction. I’m actually going to have to hold a few folks down and beat them over the head with the money. You have been warned.

I want to work with Kevin and others to help get the Hugo Awards Logo widely used. The first book with the logo on the cover should be in bookstores in the USA this week. Here’s hoping for many more.

ConReporter.com was always intended as a stop gap that would show Worldcons what they could be doing. At some point they will start doing it all themselves, but I suspect that there will be a pretty large demand for reporting from Australia and we’ll be there if no one else is.

SF Awards Watch has been pretty badly neglected by me over the past year. I need to do a lot of work on it to get it into a state in which I can hand it over to other people if I’m unable to carry on doing it. I’m also hoping to use it to test a few ideas about how online conventions could run panels.

The only conventions that I’m actively involved in running are BristolCon 2010 and SMOFcon 28. I’m hoping to be able to make an announcement about the BristolCon guests in a couple of weeks.

Of course I will be attending some conventions as well. Here is a preliminary schedule.

Update: convention list edited to include Bristol ComicCon.

It’s A Wrap

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

I don’t normally go for “end of year” posts, let alone “end of decade”, but thinking back over 2009 I have realized that it was fairly interesting in many ways and therefore probably deserves a retrospective.

The year began in a very worrying way with a real possibility that I might never be allowed back into the USA. Having been advised that I ought to get a visa, and having spent around $2000 on an immigration lawyer, I took myself off to the US embassy in London only to be laughed at and told that I had no chance. The only good thing about it was that my application was apparently so risible that they didn’t bother to turn it down (which would definitely have meant no further travel); they just said they’d forget they ever saw it. As it turns out, I didn’t actually need a visa at all. It is all very strange.

Had things gone according to plan, I might have been spending more time in New Zealand and Australia, but what originally appeared to be a very promising business opportunity turned to dust thanks to the credit crunch and I was left holding some rather expensive plane tickets. I went anyway, and enjoyed a couple of conventions (here and here).

Talking of which, if you are ever in need of a hard working guest for a convention, try Julie Czerneda. I had the pleasure of watching her at three different cons this year and I can’t remember seeing anyone, not even Neil, put more energy into being a guest.

On the subject of Mr. Gaiman, I went to see him do a reading in Dublin, and to see a gig by someone called Amanda Palmer whom Neil seemed to think was rather talented. They did seem very friendly at the time, but I had no idea quite how things would blossom over the coming year.

I started working with Clarkesworld from the first of January and had my first involvement in the February issue. I think we’ve published some interesting non-fiction through the year, but I have been very disappointed at the low level of submissions. I need to start nagging you folks.

Being nervous about my prospects for US travel, I made a point of going to more events in Europe. In particular I attended my first convention in France. Imaginales was a lot of fun and I intend to go back again next year. Finland was awesome as always. It was great to see Finncon have space to expand into.

Of course I’m still very much interested in Worldcon, which led me to write this. And as just talking doesn’t generally get you anywhere I produced ConReporter.com. As a piece of software it wasn’t really up to much. Had I had time, and more skill with PHP, I could have produced something much better. But it got a lot of interest, and a lot of help from famous people, as a result of which over the 5 days of Worldcon it was visited by 1,950 people from 59 different countries. I call that a win. That’s more than half the number of people who attended the convention. Next year hopefully we can do even better, and start to make Worldcon a truly international event.

At Worldcon I won a Hugo, which was very nice indeed. I also beat Dave Langford in a straight contest, which still hasn’t really sunk in. Thank you, again, everyone.

On a very much smaller scale I helped found BristolCon. Huge thanks are due to our GoHs, Al Reynolds and Charlie Butler, and to people like Paul Cornell and Juliet McKenna who came along to support us. We only got just over 50 people, but it was a solid start and we hope to do better in 2010. Congratulations are due to Jo Hall and her team for a job well done.

The last big event on my convention calendar was World Fantasy, in which I was closely involved as I’m a director of SFSFC, the fan group that staged the event. As far as I have heard from most of the attendees it was a huge success (and apologies once again for the art show, which we know was well below par). The World Fantasy Board appears to think the convention was a total disaster run by a bunch of greedy incompetents, but apparently they say that about almost every year. They were sufficiently rude that I, for one, won’t be attending World Fantasy again. And if you happen to be a member of a fan group that is thinking of bidding to stage the event I have one word for you: don’t.

It was at World Fantasy that I helped launch something that is going to be taking up most of my time during 2010. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Awards are long overdue and will hopefully help bring many talented writers to the attention of English language fandom. I’ll be writing a lot more about them in the New Year.

2009 has, of course, been the year of Twitter. I happen to find it enormously useful. I appreciate that’s not the case for everyone. If it is not for you, don’t use it. It is just a communication platform, after all.

And finally, a decade into the 21st Century, technology has started to come good. Obviously there is broadband internet, without which my life would be very different indeed. But 2009 also saw my discovery of the iPhone and Wii – two bits of technology that have rapidly become indispensable to me. Yes, of course life is possible without them, but in their different ways I find them both very valuable. Being someone who is well versed in the concept of superfluous technology, I find that rather remarkable.

All Gone Quiet

~ Cheryl ~ 9 Comments

Today is a day much like any other, except that teh intrawebs are much quieter than usual. Kevin is 5,000 miles away, and most of my friends are pretty far off too. If I was in California I’d be going to the SF in SF party, but I’m not so I’ll probably be spending most of the day online. It is, after all, a good time to get work done.

I am, of course, very lucky to be warm and dry with a roof over my head and an opportunity to over-eat. So one of the things I’ll be doing today is dropping some PayPal funds into various charities. In the meantime, if you happen to be reading this because you’ve gone online in search of companionship today, hello, and welcome. I’m here too.

Cold, Tired & Grumpy

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Yes, I’m back in England, how did you guess?

I’ll be less cold when I’m less exhausted, and hopefully then I’ll be less grumpy. And maybe I’ll have fewer things to be grumpy about.

Grump source #1 most of you will be familiar with by now as it has been all over our corner of the Twittersphere today. But for the benefit of those of you who shun such spaces here’s Cory with the tale of how author Peter Watts was beaten, arrested and charged with assault while driving home to Canada from the USA. Scalzi has the same story with some news about fund raising efforts, while Patrick muses on some of the issues raised by the incident and Emma Bull has a good rant. Peter’s version of the incident is here (though it may not stay there because if I was his lawyer I’d be advising him to say nothing at all).

I’ve never actually met Peter Watts, though I’m sure we have been at the same convention from time to time. However, I have a great deal of sympathy with his plight as that so easily could have been me. Fortunately I have learned to cringe well when being bullied by border guards. Even so this year I ended up spending over $2000 and a great deal of time and worry trying to get a visa I was told to apply for but which I didn’t need and never had any chance of getting. Peter’s case, if it does come to trial, will cost him a lot more than that. Please help him out if you can.

Grump reason #2 is an article in the local paper here about how a transvestite who got tired on the way home, parked his car and fell asleep was found by the police, arrested and sentenced to jail time for “a serious sexual offence”, i.e. wearing women’s clothes. Other material in the article suggested that the person in question had what we Brits call “previous”, some of which may have genuinely been of a more serious nature. However, the article clearly gave the impression that men dressed in women’s clothes were likely to harm others and deserved both jail time and being placed on a register of sex offenders.

Reason #3 has me so angry that I’m going to allow myself some cooling off time before writing about it. I was going to direct you to Roz but apparently she’s doing the same thing. More bad temper tomorrow, I’m afraid.

Slow Progess

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Well I appear to have escaped from SMOFcom without contracting any con crud, but I’m still very tired. I’m glad I decided to have a day of recuperation before having to head off to the UK. I’m not sure I have achieved much today except get to the end of it. What I need now is a hot tub. My apologies for the useless bloggery.

Two Deaths

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

It has not been a good week for people dying.

Despite having been around UK fandom for 25 years or so, I never got to know Rob Holdstock very well. I have, however, read many of his books, and I continue to maintain that Mythago Wood is one of the finest fantasy books ever written. On the few occasions our paths crossed he always struck me as a very amiable man. Today’s Guardian has a tribute to him. Obituaries will doubtless follow. E coli is a nasty little bug. My uncle had a serious infection earlier this year, but fortunately he survived. Rob was not so lucky. Best wishes to all of my friends who knew him much better than I did.

In contrast I never met Mike Penner at all, but his transition to Christine Daniels, and subsequent reversion back to Mike, while working as a sports writer at the LA Times made headlines the world over. Life in the media spotlight is never easy, especially when you are there for a reason that causes you to be a target for hatred and ridicule. If, as the LA police currently suspect, Penner’s death turns out to be a suicide, it will be by no means the first occasion on which person unhappy with their gender has taken their own life. A recent EU study found that around 30% of adult trans people surveyed had attempted suicide at least once.

Penner’s motivations are now beyond our ken, but if you would like to get some idea of the pressures on trans people I recommend this article by a relatively successful trans woman: concert pianist Sara Davis Buechner.

On a slightly happier note, Pink News reports that the Irish Green Party is to introduce trans rights legislation to the Dail shortly. It is about time. Ireland is rather behind most of Western Europe in this area. Finna Fail is apparently opposing the move on the grounds that, “some people may try to change their gender in order to seek more financial entitlements, such as welfare payments.” So, read what Ms. Buechner has to say about the life of people post-transition, and then tell me how many people you think will opt for a sex change in the hope of getting a few Euros a week more in welfare payments.

The Giving Thanks Post

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

This is a rather nice American tradition, and you don’t have to be religious to be thankful so I have no issues with it on those ground. Here goes.

Firstly, of course, I am very thankful for having won another Hugo this year. I thanked a few special people that day, and should once again thank them and everyone who voted for me. I really can’t thank Kevin enough.

In addition I am very thankful to have been let back into the USA, and I’m especially thankful to have got to spend Thanksgiving with Kevin’s family, who are lovely people.

And finally, I am very thankful that my friend Jay Lake made it through cancer surgery yesterday. Here’s hoping he has a full recovery and many happy years of writing to come.

Of Intelligent Fungi and Zombies

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

Yesterday’s trip into San Francisco went very well. Kevin and I picked up a lot of good books and some good food, and had a lovely evening with friends.

Mary Robinette Kowal managed to turn up for the pre-reading dinner event before having to rush off into the Mission for Writers with Drinks. We went to a very nice Chinese restaurant called Henry’s Hunan just off 2nd where we ate very well for $14 each. The very low price was in part due to us ordering fewer entrees than we had diners and sharing, but even so we all had plenty to eat. Mary demonstrated her awesome organizational abilities by handling the ordering and payment with an ease I have rarely seen at a big group meal.

This SF in SF was special because yesterday was Rina Weisman’s birthday. The reading series is very much her creation and I’m in awe of how hard she works to make it happen. I was delighted to see that we had a full house for the event.

The first reader was S.G. (Scott) Browne who I had seen briefly on the zombie panel at World Fantasy but otherwise didn’t know. His novel, Breathers, is very funny. It also does something very interesting with zombies. By writing the book from the point of view of a zombie, and making his zombies sentient, Browne has found a good way of writing about social discrimination issues without having to negotiate the minefield of talking about actual minority groups. I was impressed, and bought the book on the strength of the reading.

Jeff VanderMeer read from Finch rather than Booklife, though we did talk about the latter during the Q&A. Jeff made a point of assuring us that the grey caps are not intelligent fungi, they just use fungal technology. I would tell you more, but that might be a spoiler for Finch, which you should read.

I got to talk to Jeff quite a bit and I’m pleased to discover that he has a very interesting project lined up that I can’t talk to you about yet. It will be awesome, I promise. He also mentioned the possibility that there might be another Ambergris book after all. I hope so, because the idea he floated is just the book I thought needed to be written after I had finished Finch.

I also got to chat with Andrew Wheeler, who is in San Francisco on business, and Jeff Prucher, the creator of the awesome (and Hugo-winning) Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction.

Fellow hamtrax survivor, Kevin Roche, was also at the reading. He and his husband, Andy Trembley, had taken a room in the Marriott for the night, and after the reading all trooped off to the View Bar with Jeff in tow. I know it is an expensive bar, but the views of the city really are awesome and that makes it a great place to take visitors to The City.

Health Report

~ Cheryl ~ 6 Comments

Bleagh. We are both still sick. Indeed, both of us appear to have had relapses. Very odd.

Elsewhere various people returning home from WFC are reporting being diagnosed with H1N1 (or hamthrax if you prefer). I suppose we could have it too. Certainly we are going to avoid BASFA tonight just in case. But it isn’t at all serious, just annoying.

I do hope it clears up by next weekend. In the meantime it would be good to have my head de-fugged enough to be able to do some serious work.

Wii Have Too Much Fun

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Lack of bloggery today is at least in part due to Kevin and I playing with the Wii. Bowling and tennis are great fun, even though we are not that good. Baseball seemed a bit random, which is doubtless how I managed to win. The golf game did not seem at all natural. What we really need now is a bigger living room, because playing tennis together in a confined space is a bit difficult.

But it is fun, and exercise.

Next up, the Wii Fit thing with the exercise mat.

We Fit?

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

As I’m not able to stay in the US too long, Christmas has come early here. I have bought Kevin a Wii, and the Wii Fit package to go with it. We could both do with the exercise. Of course this probably means that we’ll soon both be laid up with exercise-related injuries.

The cunning people at Target were also running a promotion on Wii games. Given how bad I am at Rock Band on the iPhone, I decided not to waste any money on a grown up version of the game, even though they did have Lego Rock Band on offer, which seemed kind of cool. We got sports-related stuff instead. Not that we are any good at sport either, but we might possibly be equally as bad as each other.

Health Update

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

I have passed from the stage of needing to spend all day asleep to the stage of spending all day coughing my guts up and blowing my brains out. This is not glamorous or interesting. I mention it only because I am unable to think clearly and need to apologize for getting way behind on various projects.

Crazy People

~ Cheryl ~ 9 Comments

On Monday evening I caught up with Jeff and Ann VanderMeer to check that they had enjoyed the convention and let Jeff know I’d be at his reading in San Francisco on the 14th. Jeff mentioned, with some amusement, that he had overheard people at the convention talking about me as someone who could make or break writing careers.

*splutter!*

No. Just, no.

Whoever those people are, they are crazy. But sadly this is very similar to the nonsense that I got over Octocon, so I guess I should make another attempt to stomp on the meme.

To start with, I write very few reviews these days. Also I have nothing to do with the selection of fiction for Clarkesworld. I repeat: nothing, zero input. I don’t even see the stories before they are published. Indeed, I read very little short fiction, and as that’s the area in which careers tend to be made or broken I don’t see how I can have any influence over such things.

If you wanted to know how important I am in the SF&F industry all you needed to do was keep your eyes open at World Fantasy. You will have noticed that when Kevin and I went out for dinner we generally did so alone. And our table at the banquet comprised us plus Ron and Val Ontell who wanted to pick our brains because they are running the 2011 World Fantasy in San Diego. No one else wanted to sit with us. That’s how low in the pecking order we are.

So please, if you hear anyone spreading this nonsense, stop them. I have quite enough problems in my life as it is without having people afraid of me because they think I have influence over publishers.

Aching All Over

~ Cheryl

The good news is that today I am awake. I spent most of yesterday asleep. I’m clearly not fully fit yet, because I feel like I have just played a full 80 minutes against the All Blacks. Also my head is full of mush. That’s probably an ideal state to be in while reading Finch, because it gives you a certain feeling of solidarity with those suffering fungal infections, but it doesn’t help when you are trying to be intelligent.

Anyway, the even better news is that Kevin has not been so badly hit by the dreaded lurgy, and is actually intending to head into his office today. Also by avoiding the Borderlands events I have hopefully avoided infecting anyone else.

My next job is a hot shower and emotibomb. After that I may be in a fit state to start scouring the web for reactions to WFC.

Back to Reality

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Kevin and I are back home from World Fantasy. We are both busy on the day job. In addition I appear to have contracted some sort of Con Crud because my sinuses are complaining at me. If I have this may explain why I am so desperately tired. It seems unwise of me to attend a mass signing event at Borderlands under the circumstances, so I am not going. Apologies to everyone who will be there.