Sunday began with the e-publishing panel. It was timed for noon, but even so most of the audience drifted in late looking a little the worse for wear after the previous night’s party. I think we did reasonably well, and I was pleased to get in an explanation of Amazon’s predatory pricing tactics, but there was so much more I would have liked to talk about.

That was followed by the steampunk panel, in which Charlie pointed out that you can generate steam with the heat from a nuclear reactor, and actually that’s a lot more efficient than burning coal, so if he ever does steampunk I think you know what to expect.

John Berlyne and Bella Pagan gave an excellent talk on how the (UK) publishing industry works. Hopefully a few more people will have gone away disabused of the notion that all it takes to publish a book is sending the author’s text to a printer.

Next up I stumbled by chance into the “build a cow-chucking catapult” contest, which was about to go to the testing stage. Fans of Junkyard Wars will know the sort of event I’m talking about, only for us the junk was paper cups, plastic spoons and elastic bands, and the “cows” were plastic models. Most of the catapults were fairly unimpressive, but one pair of lads built a magnificent device that succeeded in hitting the target with their second shot, and overflew it by a long way on the third. They were passed aviator helmets as part of their prize. I gather it has something to do with an Italian comic. There was also a prize for the most impressive-looking device, which I was pleased to see go to a young man and his girlfriend (who was wearing a sailor scout uniform).

There was an official guests & committee photo later in the day. Dmitry had gone to the hotel for a nap, and Charlie had headed into town where, if Twitter reports can be believed, he consumed an enormous plate of sausages. The rest of us died in the baking sun while we were photographed by a very steampunk camera. The results should be interesting, but Powers and I were reminded of walking between the two hotels at an Anaheim Worldcon, or possibly even the legendary Phoenix Anvil of God.

After a quick break to inhale some food I headed back to the convention for the dead dog party. My offering of Irish chocolates and Jura Prophecy whisky went down very well. Indeed, I have never seen a bottle of whisky vanish so quickly. Finnish friends, please do not take this as a challenge. The Croats had some honey schnapps, which Charlie, Feòrag and Fluff Cthulhu were very partial to, and it was nice but they hadn’t had the mistletoe schnapps. There was also a sweet red wine from Dalmatia which is apparently made by leaving the grapes until they are almost shriveled, but does not involve botrytis. It reminded a bit of ruby port.

Later in the evening I did one final interview with some young people from a fantasy fan website. We were all a little drunk, so I’m a bit nervous about how it will turn out, but I was very impressed with their professionalism. You don’t expect a fan website interview to involve a crew with two video cameras. Also I got to do it sitting in the Best Chair Evah! (well, maybe except for the Iron Throne). My thanks to the enterprising Czech fans who had managed to hide a bottle of Tullamore Dew away from the hordes and provided me with a liquid prop for the interview.

I’m doing some packing now, while Mihaela takes Charlie and Feòrag to the airport. If all goes well I’ll be in London around 7:00pm tonight.

There will be a full con report later when I have had a time to reflect on things and chat to Petra, the con chair.