I’ve finally stopped rushing around the world and can start catching up on last week.

Sunday at Finncon was a little more relaxed for me. I spent the morning happily sorting through some of the reaction to the launch of Wizard’s Tower Press, then headed off to the con. At noon I interviewed Pat Cadigan for her Guest of Honour slot. That was very easy. I just fed Pat some simple questions and she talked happily about them at length.

Next up was lunch with Irma, during which I ate moose stew and chatted about possibilities for fund-raising for the translation awards. Then it was back to the con for a panel on “Building Your Dream Convention.” There were some interesting things discussed, but I’m always a bit unhappy when I hear fans saying that their ideal convention is one that appeals only to themselves and people just like them. A “broad church” event such as Worldcon is always harder to run, and can be frustrating if some of the groups being catered for don’t pull their weight. Ultimately, however, we are all the poorer if we stick in our own little ghettos. My dream convention is one at which a wide range of different fannish interests is represented, and everyone has a good time. Sadly it seems you can only do that if some of the groups are able to pretend that they are the only ones there.

I had an hour free between 15:00 and 16:00 during which I was planning to work on ideas for the final panel. All I knew was that I was moderating it, that Ellen and Pat would be on it, and the topic was “Dreaming of Reality.” I found Jukka Halme and moaned half-heartedly about the difficulty of handling such panels. Jukka put on his best mournful face and asked, “Didn’t they give you my brilliant panel description?” Oops…

So, after 10 minutes or so with Jukka I at least had some ideas going in, and as it turned out both Pat and Ellen were more than able to talk about anything I threw at them, and make it interesting. I think the discussion went very well.

The result of the site selection vote was an overwhelming victory for Tampere. I’m delighted to say that the Moon bid came second. As Eemeli wasn’t there, I’m assuming that was entirely down to me (and possibly the Moon Nazis).

The dead dog party was, as usual, at a sauna. I handed out samples of Death Whisky and Illuminati Whisky. (Click through on the links and you’ll see where the names came from.) I must say that Illuminati Whisky has fast become a favorite of mine.

Many thanks to all of the Finncon crew for a wonderful time, especially Otto, Paula, Tero and Kati for some excellent guest-wrangling and Irma for staging a wonderful event. I have some follow-up posts to do, which I’ll get to as soon as I can.