Travel

Tax Comparison

~ Cheryl

I’m somewhat more in the land of the living today. I still can’t breath through my nose, but at least I have a semi-operational brain. So of course one of the first things I’ve done is book my flights to another convention (Finncon in July). This, again, is on points, but these days “points” doesn’t excuse you from paying large sums of money in airport taxes. Here’s what I have been stung with for Lufthansa flights to Helsinki with plane changes in Germany.

UK – $60.10
Germany – $32.80
Finland – $15.10

Hmm.

By the way, with regard to Finncon, I’m delighted to be able to have my dear friend Irma Hirsjärvi announcing the winners of the Translation Awards both as a member of the jury and a Guest of Honor at the convention.

Still in Finland

~ Cheryl

My apologies about the lack of bloggage over the past few days. I have been kept very busy: with Ã…con, with the Translation Awards, and with clients wanting me to do work. I’ll be back home tomorrow and can start catching up then.

In the meantime, a few quick notes. The convention was excellent (as I have come to expect from the Finns). I have eaten very well, and seen lots of beautiful places. The weather has been great (and not as screamingly hot as Zagreb). All is well except with my waistline, and lack of sleep.

In The Islands

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Hello again. I am safely arrived in Mariehamn. Ã…con 5 is due to start in a few hours. But I owe you a couple of days of blog posts, so let’s go back a day.

Otto, Paula and I drove to Turku yesterday afternoon. It is a holiday weekend in Finland, and the entire population of Helsinki appeared to be trying to leave the city. Thankfully Paula had some ideas about alternate routes. It only took us an hour to escape. Another car that left before us arrived after us.

We found Cat and Dmitri in Harald (where else). They had already been persuaded to try the tar ice cream. I got them onto cinnamon beer as well. I’m pleased to report that a branch of Harald will be opening in Helsinki soon, so all of the major Finncon venues are now covered.

I had perch in nettles for dinner. Perch have lots of little bones, but are otherwise lovely.

After dinner some of us repaired to the Cosmic Comics Cafe, a thoroughly geeky establishment funded by local comics creators. It has good beer too. But we couldn’t stay long as we needed to be up early to catch the ferry. I almost wrote “at the crack of dawn” then, but that would have been about 3:00am in Turku at this time of year.

There are two ferry services between Turku and Stockholm: Viking and Silja. We traveled on Silja, because Hanna works for them so arranging block bookings is nice and easy. Our ship was the MS Galaxy, which is a large ro-ro vessel. As with any such thing, it is a floating mechanism for relieving the resident humans of their money. There’s a casino, several bars, several restaurants, duty free shopping and so on. But it was very comfortable, and you didn’t need to spend money if you didn’t want to. Also, the lunch buffet was very good value – €12 for all you can eat.

Of course the usual ferry rules applied. There were plenty of young Swedes on board who had no intention of getting off in Turku. They were just there to drink themselves insensible for the best part of a day. Doubtless many of the young Finns who boarded with us were doing the same thing in the other direction.

Ã…land is a lengthy archipelago of small, granite islands that stretches out from Turku. It was foggy for much of the trip, but when we could see we were never out of sight of at least one island. It looked like a great place for a sailing holiday, or indeed for a pirate hideout. Aside from the more northerly vegetation, and the separation into islands, I found it very like Cornwall. Cat and Dmitri, of course, found it very like Maine.

I am now safely in the con hotel and listening to Test Match Special. Opening ceremonies are in 2.5 hours, and the main event of this evening is a trip to the local cinema for a special showing of Iron Sky. But first, a nap and a shower.

Oh, and the convention program is online here.

Reporting In

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Hello from Helsinki. I am here. The weather is good. Cat is apparently in Copenhagen changing planes. All is well. Today Otto, Paula and I will be on the road to Turku. There’s some sort of pub meet tonight, but we’ll want to be early to bed as the ferry leaves at stupid-o-clock tomorrow.

On the plane over I read Ishtar, a collection of stories by Kaaron Warren, Deb Biancotti and Cat Sparks. It’s wonderful. Review to follow.

Ã…con Here I Come

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

Lots of bloggery today, because tomorrow I am heading for Finland and my first ever Ã…con.

In US con terms, Ã…con is a literary relaxacon. Rather like SMOFcon, it is as much a holiday for Finnish con-runners as a convention, but it is a holiday that they take in the company of a favourite writer. This year that writer is Catherynne M. Valente.

There will be some programming. I’m on two panels. The first is on post-modernist fantasy. The other is on kick-ass heroines. I shall be referencing this.

Tiara

But I’ll also reference the blog post on which I found it.

There may also be beer, chocolate and sauna. And doubtless mosquitoes.

I’ll try to blog when I can, but I understand that the hotel only has wifi in the lobby, so tweetage will be limited.

Greeting From Zagreb

~ Cheryl

I’m here, it is late, I’m tired, and I have to be up early tomorrow. In future blog posts I hope to tell you about the convention, about Croatian fairy tales, about the origins of the vampire myth, about Etruscan manuscripts, and about why Croatia is the center of the world. And the food, of course.

Always assuming I survive the alcohol tastings I have been promised.

The Bad News: No World Fantasy For Me

~ Cheryl ~ 17 Comments

The thing I have been looking forward to most this year is World Fantasy in Toronto. It was going to cost more than I can afford to get there (including most of my remaining United frequent flier points), but it is an event that Kevin can get to relatively cheaply and I haven’t seen him for almost a year now. Also my friends Liz Hand, John Clute and Gary K. Wolfe are all on the Guest of Honor list. But now it looks like I can’t risk trying to go.

Via this article in the Independent I have discovered that the USA is insisting that its “no fly” list be enforced for all flights to North America, not just ones to or transiting the USA. Having been denied entry to the US, I am almost certainly on that list. But even if I am not, I can’t afford to find out. That’s because the only way to know for certain whether I’m on the list is to buy a ticket and turn up at the airport hoping to travel. I have already wasted the cost of a trans-Atlantic air ticket once, and that was when my business was doing reasonably well. I can’t afford to do so again, especially now.

Kevin has already fulminated about this on his LiveJournal, with predictable immediate results in the comments. I’m sure that there are very many people in the USA who believe that any measure, no matter how draconian, is justified in order to protect their borders. What I don’t accept is that you can be convicted of being a danger to the US simply because one immigration officer deems you “suspicious”, and that there should be no way of clearing your name without recourse to the sort of money you need a lottery win to obtain.

A Trip to Manchester

~ Cheryl

Yesterday afternoon I headed up to Manchester, and in the evening gave a talk to the local trans group. Manchester has a very well-organized and active LGBT community. It is a very inclusive group as well, as far as I can see. The city is the host to the annual Sparkle festival, the UK’s national trans festival. And the organization I went to see, the Trans Resource and Empowerment Centre, has space in the Lesbian & Gay Foundation‘s offices in the city center.

As befits an organization whose name abbreviates to TREC, the Manchester folks took kindly to a talk about science fiction. I was made extremely welcome, and even the folks there who said they didn’t read SF were very polite about the talk. Afterwards we went off to a nearby pub called, rather appropriately, The Molly House, where I discovered lots of beers I’d never heard of before.

Anyone from Manchester looking for the list of books mentioned, you can find it here. I also added the following:

The Schrödinger’s Cat trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson.

The Drowning Girl by Caitlín R. Kiernan.

Also if the lady who asked about Marxist SF writers should happen to drop by, I recommend China Miéville, Ken MacLeod and Kim Stanley Robinson.

This morning I did a quick tour around the city center taking photos. They turned out to be mainly graffiti, statuary and trains.

[shashin type=”album” id=”53″ size=”medium”]

The Giant Hand of Stoke-on-Trent

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

On my way up to Manchester yesterday I was tweeting about the journey, mainly for the benefit of Kevin who likes to hear about train rides. Passing through Stoke-on-Trent I mentioned that I had seen a creepy giant hand on the platform. This was met with some curiosity by my followers on Twitter and Facebook and I promised to try to provide evidence. Unfortunately I slept through Stoke on the way back, but Google is my friend, so here is the giant hand in all of it’s, er, glory.

Giant Hand with Chronos

You can see a large version, and several other shots of the hand, at this local area website. The sculpture is by Vincent Woropay and was originally created for the 1990 National Garden Festival at Gateshead. It was commissioned by British Rail, though why they chose to relocate it to Stoke is a mystery to me. The small figure in the palm of the hand is supposed to represent Chronos, the Greek god of Time.

SF & Malt Whisky: A Perfect Blend

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

As many of you will know, one of my current favorite whiskies is Jura Prophecy. I had no idea that the Jura distillery also owns a writer’s retreat. I should be paying more attention to what Ken MacLeod writes about. Still, thanks to SFX, I know now. And I also know that you (if you are a UK resident) can enter one of those ridiculously simple competitions that is really a prize draw, the prize for which is a free stay at that very place.

It occurs to me that if I win it I won’t be able to afford to get to Jura, but maybe they’d send me some free whisky instead.

Canada Air Travel Update

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

The Canada air travel thing has been getting a lot of traction around the Internet since I posted yesterday, even reaching the pages of Jezebel. The issue is getting a lot of attention from feminists, because it could so easily be used to target cis women. If you have short hair, don’t wear make-up, and for comfort have decided to travel in jeans, a baggy t-shirt and sneakers, you could, under these regulations, be denied boarding. Airline and security officials should not be given the power to police how people dress.

As far as we know, that isn’t happening, and it seems it would probably be OK for me to travel. However, it is certainly a badly worded regulation that could easily be mis-used, and it is a very real issue for many trans people who are barred from using air travel as a result.

There is, as usual, an online petition. If you are Canadian you might also consider writing to the Minister for Transport:

Hon. Denis Lebel, Ministre des Transports | Minister of Transport
Courriel | E-mail: denis.lebel@parl.gc.ca
Phone: 613-996-6236
Fax: 613-996-6252
Adresse postale (sans timbre) | Mailing Address (postage free) : Hon. Denis Lebel, Chambre des communes/House of Commons, Ottawa ON K1A 0A6

Canadian Travel Regulations

~ Cheryl ~ 8 Comments

Hello Canada. I think this one is probably a false alarm, but I’d appreciate some feedback all the same.

It began this morning when I found an alarming note in my Twitter feed about the Canadian government banning trans people from flying into or out of the country. These days, of course, I am way too suspicious to take any alarms on Twitter at face value, so I researched the story. As far as I can see, this is largely a question of sloppily worded regulations and, given that they have been in force for 5 months now, if they were being implemented in a problematic way then I think we’d have heard about it. At the very least, Mercedes Allen would have written about the issue. But all is quiet, so I’m guessing that Canadian officials are being sensible about the whole thing.

The regulations in question are those pertaining to identity screening at airports. You can read the whole thing on the Department of Justice website, but the salient sections are as follows:

5.2 (1) An air carrier shall not transport a passenger if

(c) the passenger does not appear to be of the gender indicated on the identification he or she presents;

I don’t think that this was deliberately drafted to target trans people. I suspect it is a product of that fashionable Western conservative paranoia about those Muslim women with the all-encompassing clothing actually being male terrorists in disguise. Because that’s totally what they’d do in a James Bond movie, or an episode of 24, right? Quite why any sane terrorist would dress as a woman and then present his own passport is a mystery me to, but there you go.

I note also that, under the regulations, airlines should deny boarding to anyone who doesn’t look like they do in their passport. So Canadian women, be very wary about getting your hair re-styled or colored. And men, try not to go bald in a hurry. (Yes, I know I’ve just been gender essentialist there. Please add suitable exceptions.)

The problem, as I’m sure that you are all aware, is that people undergoing gender transition, people who have transitioned but elected not to have surgery, and people who are not binary-identified, can appear of indeterminate gender, or of a different gender to that of their passport. And with the new fashion for perv scanners and security groping such people are liable to be detected even if their outward gender presentation matches their ID. As there haven’t been any high profile cases, I suspect that the authorities are being understanding.

The main reason I took an interest is that, as I have a pile of frequent flier points left, I am hoping to go to Toronto for World Fantasy this year. I don’t want to end up being denied permission to board. Given that I’m post-op, hopelessly girly, and have both a passport and a birth certificate stating that I’m female, I don’t think I’ll have a problem. But I’m writing about the issue anyway, partly to highlight how thoughtlessly such regulations get drafted, and partly just in case things are worse and I just haven’t heard about them.

Update: As if by magic, Mercedes posted today. She’s likely to be the best source of information on this issue.

Now That’s What I Call A Train

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

As many of you will know, one of Kevin’s ambitions is to own a private railway car. So this morning, when I saw Nick Harkaway tweet excitedly about one such thing, I immediately forwarded the link to Kevin. The link is question was not just about any old train, it was about a train belonging to Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and it served as a mobile Imperial palace. Check it out.

Of course luxury is only one option. There are other ways to make a train seriously cool. For example, you could add artillery. I found out about armoured trains during the opening day talk at Hydro Books. Andrew McKie forwarded me a link to some of the trains used by the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. Take a look.

However, I still think that the coolest armoured train is the “Orlik”, captured from the Russians by the Czech Legion. I found this picture on a Czech website.

The Orlik

Train Tales

~ Cheryl ~ 5 Comments

As those of you who follow me on Twitter will know, First Great Western did not exactly cover themselves in glory yesterday. For me things all turned out right in the end, but I was lucky. Other invitees to the Gollancz party did not fare so well.

I was a nervous about the journey anyway as FGW have been having a bad week, which I think started with over-running engineering works between Bristol and Cardiff. I know the line had a planned closure on Sunday, and there were angry tweets from Bristol folks on Monday morning.

The first problem, however, was nothing to do with that. The train I was planning to catch from Trowbridge was reported running half an hour late before I had even left home. Fortunately there is a regular service, and I ended up on one of the South West Trains services. SWT run about 4 trains a day from Waterloo to Bristol. Their rolling stock is much more modern and comfortable than FGW’s, and they seem very reliable, but the frequency leaves a lot to be desired.

As is depressingly usual these days, the Trowbridge ticket office was closed. I have come to the conclusion that “staff shortages” is an FGW euphemism for “we can’t be bothered to employ enough staff”. When I first moved here we had an electronic ticket machine, but that has been removed, apparently due to vandalism. So I had to buy a ticket when I got to Bath, which meant a long queue for the one guy they had selling them, hidden away by the back entrance where you wouldn’t expect him to be because no one goes out that way.

Anyway, I got to London in good time. We were 12 minutes late, including being held at Reading to allow another service to overtake us, but I had allowed plenty of time. I was, however, very worried about being on the last train home. Little did I know that by planning to get to London a little early I had dodged a bullet.

One of the people I wanted to talk to at the party was Dave Bradley of SFX. I have a short article to deliver to them today (after I’ve done these blog posts, Dave, OK?). He and Joe Abercrombie were on a later train. They didn’t manage to get as far as Chippenham, despite spending over 3 hours sat on the train. Dave’s tweets reported faults with both the front and rear power cars, and eventually the train limped back into Bath and everyone went home.

I left the party in good time to get back to Paddington and grab a bite to eat, but when I arrived it was clear that things were not well. I had just missed the last-but-one train, which departed 14 minutes late. The rolling stock to form my train had not arrived, and indeed did not arrive until just before our scheduled departure time. We left about 15 minutes late, and I had a 15-minute connection to make at Bath. It did not look good.

From there, things got worse. The problems on the system were supposedly due to signaling problems between Swansea and Bristol, but we limped into Reading further behind schedule than when we had left Paddington, and spent a long time sat outside Didcot, apparently due to other signaling problems. I have come to believe that “signaling problems” is an FGW euphemism for “once we get one or two trains off schedule our computers can’t cope and the whole system collapses.”

By the time we got to Bath my connection was long gone. The conductor on the train had promised that road transport would be made available to get me home. I just had to find the station staff at Bath and ask. That proved to be easier said than done.

To some extent I have sympathy. Our train was due to stop at Weston-Super-Mare, but there was an announcement that passengers for that station would have to change to road transport at Bristol. The station had apparently been closed down due to an “incident with a member of staff”. I have an awful feeling that an angry passenger had taken his frustration out on the local staff and the police had got involved.

Anyway, one of the other passengers stranded at Bath with me managed to find some station staff, and they duly ordered us a free cab as promised. I got home maybe 20 minutes later than I expected, which was actually very good.

Earlier in the evening my taxi driver had picked up someone off the same train that Dave and Joe were on. She’d had tickets for a show in Oxford, and was not at all happy.

This morning, I suspect, Joe is having a quiet word with Monza Murcatto and suggesting that she pay a visit to FGW’s HQ. Before you do that, Joe, please note that they did get me home eventually, albeit with a certain amount of confusion and worry along the way.

SLF Gulliver Award

~ Cheryl

The Speculative Literature Foundation is seeking applicants for their 2011 Gulliver Travel Research Grant. The successful applicant will receive $800 towards the costs of a research trip for a writing project. Full details of the application process and requirements are available here.

Travel: Slows the Mind

~ Cheryl

Yeah, I know, travel is supposed to be good for the mind, but I’m getting old.

So I had a great time in London last night with China and various other friends, and a very productive meeting at 8:00am this morning, which involved getting up at 6:00am. Combine that with lots of time on trains, and I was pretty much wiped when I got back home. Then I had lots of email to attend to.

I am finally getting started on finishing Salon Futura #9, and there’s not much left to do, but it will be tomorrow morning before it goes live.

So Much for Security

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

Well, that was the vacation that was. Kevin is back home in California, and I am back in my little cottage, which seems a lot bigger now there is only me in it. I would still rather Kevin was here, though.

Of course these days any long-distance travel causes worries about security theatre. What would the “authorities” find to complain about this time? Kevin was understandably concerned. In his suitcase for his flight from San Francisco to London he had a “knife”, a “gun” and a “bomb”.

The knife was a very fine (and very sharp) cheese knife that he had got me for my birthday. The gun was the toy ray gun I use with my space pirate outfit (see my Twitter avatar). And the bomb was a Hugo trophy which, as we now know, can cause all sorts of trouble.

The TSA did not even open the suitcase.

The Royal Family Hates Me

~ Cheryl ~ 10 Comments

I don’t suppose it was deliberate, but damn! Couldn’t they have picked a different date?

I haven’t seen Kevin since our trip to Australia for Worldcon. I won’t be seeing him over the holidays. The plan was that he’d come over to the UK for Eastercon, and we’d spend a bit of time together then. So what happens? Some damn fool decides to have a Royal Wedding that week.

In consequence I expect air fares around that date will go through the roof, hotels will be booked solid, and the country will close down for the week. Not to mention that there will be a massive outpouring of jingoistic nonsense and a flood of crappy souvenirs. Sigh.

Maybe we’ll just arrange to meet up in some other country, except we do want to go to Eastercon, what with Vincent Docherty and Roz Kaveney being Guests of Honour, and the convention having laid on an Admiralty Ball especially for Captain Standlee and his favorite space pirate.

Benefits of Globalization

~ Cheryl

Colin Harvey has a new post up at Suite 101 in which he catalogs all of the British Hugo winners in the written fiction categories. There are quite a few (though nowhere near as many as there would be had he included the fan categories). Towards the end he makes this observation: “The reader will notice a distinct surge in winners since 2001.”

And he’s right, there is a definite upswing in the number of British winners, especially in Best Novel where the frequency has gone up from around one a decade to every other year. What is the explanation for this? Have British writers suddenly got heaps better?

No, I don’t think so. Nor do I think that Emerald City had anything to do with it. What I think we are seeing here is the effect of the Internet, email and cheap air travel. It is now much easier for British writers to get published in the USA, and for them to travel to North America to meet their fans. In the next decade I look forward to seeing a sudden rise in winners from places other than the US, Canada and UK.