Fringe is underway as well. We don’t quite have 24-hour programming, but there is now something for people in Europe to watch. And you can too. Claire Rousseau has created a YouTube playlist of the panels we have had thus far. You can find it here.
I only had time to watch the Modern Fanzines panel, which I thought was excellent. Here it is.
By the way, links for watching future panels are not all available yet. They will go up in good time.
The first ever virtual Worldcon is now fully underway and fans all around the world are getting to grips with the technology. It is a massive learning curve for all involved, but it seems to be working quite well, and certainly much better than many people feared.
The big issue is that there simply isn’t a suitable software package to do the whole thing. It needs Grenadine to run the programme, it needs Zoom to run the actual meetings, it needs Discord for the social side, and a few other things as well. But we are learning. Hopefully I will be able to report back in more detail when the dust has settled.
In the meantime, we have had opening ceremonies, which Kelly and Norm did a fine job of hosting. That included the Hugo base reveals. I’m not sure if they are public yet, but they are gorgeous. New Zealand has done the Worldcon community proud there.
I have also watched a few panels, and attended a party. So far so good.
Worldcon is underway. So far so good.
The new Salon Futura is almost ready to go.
Today was also my weekly shop day, the first one since masks became obligatory in England. Much to my surprise, all of the customers were wearing them, and no one was making a huge fuss about it. Quite a few of the Tesco staff did not have masks, but I’m assuming that they are all getting regular testing so the only people they are putting at risk is themselves. It isn’t ideal, but it is so much better than I’m hearing about from the USA, and ever elsewhere in the UK.
As promised, here’s details of the other thing I am doing for Worldcon. This year it has a Fringe. This is not organised by CoNZealand itself. Rather there is a bunch of European fans who offered to put on something in our daytime.
I got involved with this because I am very keen on developing online conventions so that we can make Worldcon truly international. I totally understand why CoNZealand isn’t doing 24-hour programming, but if people can help them do that then why not? Also Claire Rousseau, who is one of the organisers, has a lot of experience of streaming and has introduced us to some software I wish I had known about before I did the One25 fundraiser.
I gather than there has been some fulminating on File 770 about how WSFS and CoNZealand are going to sue us into oblivion for violating their trademarks. Kevin and I have had a good laugh about this. And given that the Fringe team have been in regular contact with CoNZealand’s programming team, I don’t expect Norm & Kelly to be upset either.
Anyway, the panel I am definitely doing is on sensitivity reading. That’s on Sunday at 3-4am NZST (next day); 4-5pm BST; 11am-12pm EDT; 8-9am PDT, with Mike Carey, iori Kusano, Yvonne Lin, Corinne Duyvis. I think that will be great.
I am also currently down for a panel on awards, but I will probably be making way for a PoC panelist because we are trying hard to have really diverse programming.
The full list of panels is here. Please note that panel line-ups may change.
I am now definitely into Worldcon mode. I might be still in the UK, but most of what I am doing is either online with New Zealand or doing prep of some sort.
That does incude the new Salon Futura, which I hope to get online tomorrow or Wednesday. It will probably ruffle a few feathers.
Combine that with the fact that there’s a silence protest on Twitter today and tomorrow, as a result of which I haven’t been checking it much, and I have no idea what is going on in the outside world. I can’t even comment on the cricket as today’s play was washed out.
But hey, Worldcon! Have at it.
Here we are again. Well, here we are virtually. I am signed into the CoNZealand web presence and Discord sever. Other people are arriving from all over the world, so I am doing the British thing of complaining about our weather.
But what will I be up to at Worldcon? Well, I am not on any panels. Huge thanks to Kalin from Bulgaria for heroic attempts to get me into a translations panel, but I entirely understand that with a virtual con people can’t easily be added to a panel at the last minute.
However, I am running a party. Believe it or not Wizard’s Tower Press is 10 years old. Also we have stuff to promote. The party will be in Band #2 on Thursday, which is 7:00-10:00 in the morning on Thursday in New Zealand. That means it is 20:00-23:00 on Wednesday in the UK. For my own sanity I’m going to use UK times from now on. Apologies to people elsewhere.
There will be entertainment. Here’s the approximate schedule:
There should be plenty of time for general chat as well.
Pre-orders for The Green Man’s Silence should go live sometime this week, after the cover reveal.
There will be more Worldcon news soon, but lots of stuff is still in the works so I can’t post yet.
Cricket, accounts, Worldcon prep.
Oh, and I binge-watched the final four episodes of Doom Patrol season 1. Wow was that good.
I’m trying to avoid the news because all of the hand-wringing over poor, oppressed people being forced to wear masks and dying as a result is getting a bit much. Before we know it, masks will have killed more people than the virus. You heard it first in the Daily Malice.
Talking of the virus, the official government stats has had the number of new cases per day at under a thousand since early June. Whereas this medical study group has the current number at almost 2,000 per day. I have no idea who or what to believe any more. The only thing that is hard to fudge is the actual number of people who die (of all causes) and that data runs at several weeks in arrears for obvious reasons.
Doing your accounts is boring. Thankfully I had plenty of distractions in the form of email and social media stuff needing addressing. Worldcon stuff is taking shape nicely.
Talking of Worldcon, there has been a lot of discussion of late regarding the unsuitability of the sites for current bids. Lots of people no longer want to travel to the USA, and the likes of Saudi Arabia and China are not warm and friendly alternatives. It is all moot to me. I couldn’t even go to New Zealand. But this is a serious problem, and not one that can be solved by insisting that Worldcon only be held in nice countries. Anyone with a Muslim-sounding name can tell you how silly that is. There has to be another solution, though I suspect that people won’t like it.
Also there is cricket. No rain in Manchester today. I can’t see that lasting for 5 days, but you never know.
Doom Patrol continues to be excellent.
I forgot to post again yesterday, didn’t I. In my defence, I was rather enjoying myself. I finally got to see the Danny the Street episode of Doom Patrol. If that means nothing to you, well Google is your friend. Or you can wait for the new Salon Futura in which I shall explain all. In any case, it was fabulous, and that rather distraced me from anything else last evening.
Things are happening with Worldcon. Announcements soon.
Apparently Bozo went to Scotland today. The SNP were celebrating like it was all of their birthdays rolled into one.
We got a first peek at the Worldcon schedule today. Most of it is on New Zealand time, which is entirely understandble, but a bit of a pain if you are on the opposite side of the planet. I’m hoping I can get to catch up with the likes of Glenda Larke and Catherine McMullen anyway.
What I can say is that I will be providing some entertainment in the evening UK time on the 30th. Wizard’s Tower is holding a party. There will be things happening. I’ll let you know more when I have a firm schedule.
Also I have finished my Hugo voting, which is a good job to have out of the way. Tomorrow is the last day, if you haven’t done yours yet.
I did my weekly shop at Tesco today, and also went into town as I had a couple of things to do at the Post Office. There are a few more people wearing masks these days, but still a minority and social distancing has pretty much disappeared, especially in coffee shops. This is a fairly low risk area of the country in which to live, but if someone infectious were to visit then the virus would rip through the town pretty quickly.
Lots of politics news in the UK today. Yesterday evening the House of Commons was voting on a trade bill. They voting for selling the NHS off to foreign corportations, for allowing foreign companies to import food that doesn’t meet UK environmental standards, and against the devolved assemblies, or even themselves, having any say in approving trade agreements. So much for “taking back control”.
Also the much hyped Russia Report was finally published. This was supposedly the in depth investigation into Russian influence on UK politics. Except it wasn’t. Basically what it said was that our glorious intelligence services are well aware that the Russians are targeting the UK, but they decided not to check on what they were doing because that might upset our government.
Which of course it would. The entire point of the current government is to sell off bits of the UK to the highest bidder and earn ministers enough money so that they can go and live elsewhere when the economy collapses.
There was no need to do any Day Job work today, so I have been able to get on with other things, including doing some planning for Wizard’s Tower’s presence at Worldcon and the cover reveal for The Green Man’s Silence.
Also the cricket was quite exciting.
Elsewhere Bozo has apparently announced that no announcement will be made on trans rights issues until the start of the next Parliamentary session in September. This does not surpise me. Announcing a hugely controversial new policy at the start of the summer recess and giving those affected the whole summer to campaign against it is so monumentally stupid that only this shambles of a government would ever have thought of it.
Of course this does mean that trans people in the UK have at least another 6 weeks to wait before we find out if we all have to start seeking political asylum elsewhere, which is not great for the mental health, but I will try to use the time constructively.
One of the other things I have done today is add a new section to this site about booking me for various types of speaking engagements. You can find it here. Let me know if there’s anything you think I should add.
Another full day of Day Job today, punctuated by a Grand Prix.
I had hope to spend much of the weekend doing Hugo reading. I have finally made a start.
We have fairly clear skies at the moment. Bet it clouds over before it gets dark.
Well, I seem to have spent most of today doing Day Job stuff. That wasn’t exactly the plan, but so it goes.
I gather it rained all day in Manchester anyway, though we did get a bit of F1.
We’ve had cloudy skies for days here, so no comet watching.
Today I finally managed to dig myself far enough out of urgent work to be able to start doing my accounts for last year. Huzzah! I think.
Never mind, there’s cricket and F1 on the TV, and I have the new Lianne La Havas album.
Having spent all day yesterday on the Day Job, I was able to spend a bit of time today on other things, including Wizard’s Tower, a history article, and a couple of book reviews for the next Salon Futura. Variety is good.
There has been a whole lot of nonsense going on in social media about Bristol. I do wish that concerned left wing people would try to find out a little bit about the city before launching into denounciations. It is hard enough for Black people to get into positions of political power in this country, without them being denounced as Evil White Folks by people who haven’t got a clue what they are talking about.
Also, of course, one thing guaranteed to get people’s backs up in Bristol is people from London telling them how to run their city.
Today has been all Day Job, because sometimes I get an urgent request for help and need to respond.
Meanwhile the farce that is British politics keeps on giving. Remember what I said yesterday about face masks becoming mandatory next week? Well apparently Wormtongue was spotted in a sandwich shop without one today, and the government hastily issued a clarification that take-away food establishments were exempt. Apparently all it takes for a change of policy these days is for someone in the Cabinet with more power than Bozo to disobey him.
Meanwhile Bozo had annointed the serial failure, Chris Grayling, to be head of the important Intelligence & Security Committee (with oversight of MI5, etc.) Grayling, of course, has no experience of this sort of thing, and a track record of incompetence longer than the River Nile. So one of the far-right Tories, Julian Lewis (who does at least have a lot of Defence experience) cooked up a plan with Labour to have himself put forward as an alternate candidate and he got the job. That’s yet another embarrassing failure to add to Grayling’s record.
A furious Bozo has expelled Mr. Lewis from the Tory party. It would be nice to say that this reduces the Tory majority to 78, but given that Lewis is very far right I don’t think that his explusion will make any difference in most cases.
What is does mean is that the Intelligence & Security Committee might actually be able to release the long-delayed report into Russian meddling in UK politics, which is expected to be deeply embarrassing for a certain person in the White House, and quite possibly for the chap in 10 Downing Street as well.
Masks. Some have them, some don’t. They have been mandatory in shops in Scotland for some time. Over the weekend Michael ‘Wormtongue’ Gove said on TV that he didn’t think that masks were necessary. So obviously yesterday the government he is one of the leaders of decided to make them mandatory. That’s how government works here.
Oh, and it won’t be mandatory until the 24th, so there is plenty of time for a u-turn yet.
The assembled snowflakes of the right wing media are all having fits of the vapours and whining about how they won’t be able to breathe and will look ugly and their right to bodily autonomy has been compromised. This is, of course, nonsense. What they mean by this is that fewer poor, non-white, disabled, aged and queer people will die if we wear masks, and what point is a pandemic if it doesn’t kill off undesirables?
I made my weekly trip to Tesco today. There was a slight uptick in the number of mask wearers, but we were still a tiny minority. Also they have stopped queuing for entry and the one-way system. They had yeast, for the first time since the pandemic started.
According to the informed leaks from Westminister, today was to be the day that Liz Truss announced her rollback of trans rights. It had been planned for International Non-Binary People’s Day for maximum trolling effect. It did not happen. The announcement is now scheduled for probably next week and no later than the morning of the 22nd. Someone, it seems, got cold feet.
So what has been happening. I mean, apart from a supermajority of the GRA consultantion respondents supporting reform, and an opinion poll last week confirming this, and the Welsh and Scottish governments backing reform, and the massive letter-writing campaign that crashed the Downing Street servers, and LGBT+ MPs from all parties getting together the complain to Bozo. Maybe it was because the LibDems introduced two bills addressing non-binary rights issues today (one on passports, the other on school uniforms). And maybe it was because Bozo got a letter from a group of media companies, including Disney, the Financial Times, Warner Media, Discovery and, of course, Diva Media Group (who publish the UK’s leading lesbian magazine) urging him to support trans rights.
You are all doing incredibly well. Thank you! Please keep up the pressure.
Today is International Non-Binary People’s Day (neatly positioned half way between International Men’s Day, which does exist, and International Women’s Day). I am rather pleased that today is also publication day for volume 49 of the CUCD Bulletin, in which I have an article.
CUCD stands for Council of University Classics Deparments, which is a professional forum for all teachers of classical Greek and Roman subjects in British Universities. That makes the Bulletin a pretty serious academic venue, albeit one that will cover issues of pedagogy as well as research. My article is titled “Queering the Classics”, and it is primarily a review of this book, Exploring Gender Diversity in the Ancient World.
However, in order to explain the importance of the book, I had to do the whole thing of talking about understanding gender and sexuality in the ancient world. And it is this that makes publication on International Non-Binary People’s Day so appropriate. The short version is that gender is a social construct, and every society constructs it differently.
Huge thanks are due to the Bulletin‘s editor, Professor Susan Deacy, who has been very supportive of my baby steps in the Classics world.
It is Monday. Work happened. I’m very much settled in to a routine now. As the phrase goes, this is the new normal. Personally I’m OK with that.
Today I had the last of my possible in-person events for 2020 cancelled. It was something that had been due to happen in late March, and got postponed to October. Now it is planned for April next year. Goodness only knows if it will happen then.
If you missed Virtual Finncon, the panel that Mike Carey and I did will be available in due course, but July is holiday season in Finland and they are mostly out of Lockdown so I don’t expect anything to happen for a few weeks.
It is nice to have a weekend again. I know I shouldn’t. I have way too much to catch up on. But every so often it is good to just collapse in front of the TV and be entertained. The F1 was entertaining, and Lewis won. The cricket was also entertaining, and West Indies won. As far as I can tell, the Black Lives Matter protest in Bristol went well. And I got some laundry done.
Next week the shit hits the fan as the government is due to announce its plans for rolling back trans rights.