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Introductions First. The Liverpool AA are:-
Me:- Alison, Official Scouse Ambassador, Preacher of the Gospel of Richie (UK
Northwest) and Distributor of Videos to those Inflicted With Terrestrial TV.
The Journey: Well, considering we didn’t actually have that far to go to get to Chronicles, the journey was a *nightmare*. It was absolutely lashing it down with rain, we had the misfortune to hit all the rush hour tail backs on the M62 *and* there were two crashes on the way (both nothing to do with us, honest!). I *knew* we should’ve got the train. We managed to control ourselves and not eat all the cherry and kirsch truffles while we were waiting. Thoughts of Alis’s wrath if we did probably helped!
Eventually, after navigating the horrendous Manchester one-way system without too much
difficulty (a relative term, but having some knowledge of the roads *really* does help!)
we managed to dump Anne’s car in the car park outside Sacha’s Hotel. The car is small,
cute and very red. More of that later.
 We’re Here!
We wandered in, probably looking very lost and forlorn. In less than two minutes we had
been spotted by Alis, Andi and Sylvia. Not surprising, I suppose, as we were both wearing
red, and our Clan Denial T-shirts. Lots of hugs and general cries of 'it’s really good to
meet you at last' ensued. I think we got one or two strange looks, but they were off the
hotel staff so I ignored them. I can do 'belligerent scouser' (don't tell me you’ve never
seen 'Brookside'?) really well, but decided not to inflict that on anyone over the weekend.
(Alexi Sayle and Craig Charles are the only other relatively famous Scousers that come to
mind at present. Is the fact that they’re both comedians significant? Hmmm.) Badges, T-
shirts and the like were duly exchanged... Bonding had begun in true Clan Denial Fashion!
What Next? Registration of course. Red dots were stuck onto the Official badges with pride (my personal favourite on the badge front being ‘Clan Denial: Home of Real Butt-Kicking Chicks’ as well as my Clan title badge). We then wandered into the video room and ended up watching part of the Kalas arc. It was *supposed* to be the blooper reel. Midway through the videos (on small screen TV!), Anne and I decided we’d better get to my sisters and dump our stuff, after all we were officially staying there; but before we went, we introduced everyone to Anne’s car (it could be seen from Alis and Sylvia’s room, the Official Clan Denial Suite). It was then decided that this car deserved to be the Official car of Clan Denial Europe, at least for this weekend. After dumping our stuff, we got back in time to see Methos and Finale I and II. I went to the bar, coming back with a bottle of mule which Silvia immediately wanted to try. I think it set a precedent. Every time Silvia saw me with a remotely unusual looking drink in my hand, she asked me for a bit! Much to our horror, after this it was decided to show To Be/ Not to Be instead of the blooper reel. Of course Clan Denial boycotted this, deciding that preparing for our Richie party was much more important. It was at this point that we properly had the chance to speak to the Horsegirls of the Apocalypse. Tasha, Sophie, Tracey and Olwyn all looked bloody brilliant. It just so happened that while I was off with Andi getting the cherry nibbles sorted out, Valentine Pelka emerged from his meeting with the VPFC, so I missed the immortal (Alison ducks in case anyone starts throwing things) words... "Kronos, meet Kronos."
Not Fair!
The Party: (or In the Midnight Hour) We all settled in for some serious video watching (What do you mean, drooling? Who said that?) Give us Chivalry to watch and *then* we’ll drool. By common consensus (what executive decision, Alis?) we started with End of Innocence seeing as *somebody* hadn’t seen it. I take what I said before back... we *did* drool. SK rolling round on a bed? Come on, we’re only human. There were myriad comments about how we’d prefer him to be wearing a few less clothes. Ah well, wishful thinking is a wonderful thing. We watched the rest of the ep in a relatively sensible fashion (I said *relatively* , we’re talking about Clan members here, remember). Counterfeit I & II came next as Andi had never seen either. A few other people started arriving then (To Be/ Not to Be having finished. I managed to miss it for the entire weekend, no mean feat as it was on about 4 times! In fact, I *still* haven’t seen NTB), just in time to get a taste of how the Clan Denial mind works (Perverted? Who said that?!). Olwyn (one of the Horsegirls) was nominated as keeper of the Holy remote and did a sterling job in aiding our obsession. So what did we do? *Only* watched that amazing swagger *five times*. It probably would have been more, but some of the natives were getting restless, not to mention tired (remember, this was about half one in the morning). I’d forgotten just how many wonderful Richie moments, and quotes, there were in Counterfeit... "Hands up everyone who’s immortal."
"Stick around, I’ll be right back." (my personal fave) "You just couldn’t be wrong."
It was nearly three by the end of Counterfeit and we were flagging. Needless to say we left
the rest of the videos, and packed up the remaining cherry nibbles for a later day. Look at it
this way, there was *no* way we *weren’t* going to find the time to eat the cherries in
kirsch with squirty cream. That was a necessity.
It also became something of a bad joke that whenever we were standing (or sitting) still for longer than two minutes, I got out this large bag and asked,
"Anyone want some cherry lips?" My dog (under my somewhat dubious influence) finally
finished off those cherry lips at the beginning of May. This dog also drinks McKewan’s
export beer, white wine, and goes rock-climbing. He’s a border collie called
Harvey (not my choice of name, but he already had it when we got him).
Exodus: Picture this; it’s ten to three, Anne and I are waiting for a taxi at the entrance to the hotel and what do we end up with? A Manchester specialty... a taxi driver who can’t speak English and has no earthly idea of where we wanted to go. AARGH! Now we’re only going to Moss Side, a journey of less than ten minutes. Guess how long it took us?.. Half an hour!! You know taxi drivers *always* carry an A-Z? Right? WRONG! (For those who don’t know, an A-Z is a street atlas. There’s one for every major town in Britain.) I decided to carry my Manchester A-Z round for the rest of the con. We eventually got to my sisters at twenty five past three and just had enough energy to fall into bed, wondering how the hell we were going to manage to wake up in the morning (me especially as I’d just done a week of night duty and had been up since 8pm on the Thursday evening). I needn’t have worried as it turned out, but I obviously didn’t realise that at the time...
Morning:
Question: What do you call someone who has hardly had any sleep for a week and wakes
up 2 hours before the alarm is due to go off? Besides very, very annoyed and tired, that is... The worst thing was not being able to go back to sleep. I couldn’t wash my hair or racket round the house like I would in my own place as all the sensible people like Anne, my sister and brother in law and, most importantly, my niece (only about 8 months old at this time) were all asleep. Grrr. Instead I had a nice cup of strawberry tea and tried to get down what I remembered of Friday. Not as easy as it should have been as I think I was one of the few people out of CDE doing any amount of drinking (of alcohol) that night... Eventually my wonderful niece decided to wake her mum and dad, whereupon I nicked the bathroom for 20 minutes, emerging much refreshed and ready to face the world. Anne wasn’t. I couldn’t help but laugh. God, I’m cruel sometimes but I’m so used to functioning on virtually no sleep that I’m always surprised at the difficulties other, more 'normal', people have. We jumped the bus into town, arriving at Sacha’s about 9:30 am, loaded down with our stuff for that night. Alis and Silvia had given us the OK for using their room as a dumping ground, and to get changed in later. First of all we had to find them... Silvia wasn’t the only one who kept on getting lost in that place. Sacha’s had definite similarities to the Tardis.
We just about managed to get our stuff dropped off and us into position in time for the opening ceremony. I’ve never been to a con before and wasn’t really sure what to expect. There was some nice polite, typically restrained British sounding applause for the non acting guests, a bit more for Marcus Testory (who looked very fetching in black leather and a *very* nice chain belt. Mmmm. More on the belt later.), and then Peter Hudson came in. The place went wild. I think he was rather surprised. He certainly looked it.
After picking myself up off the floor a couple of times I was clapping and yelling with the best of them. One thing I will say; Peter Hudson has *presence*. I think its those eyes. Charismatic, compelling and commanding are just a few of the words that come to mind. Wooh! That man’s imposing, no wonder he’s managed to breathe such life into Horton over the years. I was still totally enthralled by him and Marcus both when they introduced Valentine Pelka. The going wild continued, although one of my first impressions, once he took the shades off, was 'doesn’t he look like Peter Wingfield?' Then I cleaned my glasses. After all the introductions had been made the guests trooped back out, all except for Rebecca Neason. I stayed to listen to her talk, being interested in just how she had started writing, and what she thought of Highlander in general. She was a very quietly spoken lady and I struggled a bit at times to hear everything, being somewhat aurally challenged (a bit deaf!) but it was interesting. She said it was easier to write for the Star Trek people than the Highlander people, and gave us a couple of reasons why, mostly relating to rewrites and the pressure they put the writers under. I decided to get her to sign my book, seeing as I’d brought it with me. Being a fanfic writer may not be the way to get into professional writing, but then I don’t think I’d *want* to be a professional writer after listening to Rebecca. Besides, I’ve already got a job I like, and one that lets me have some weird time off too, even if it does give me grief occasionally (literally, but we won’t go into that).
After Rebecca’s talk we (Anne and I) hit the dealers room, bumping into, surprise surprise,
Alis, Andi and Sylvia. I *think* at least one of them was on duty, but I couldn’t tell you
which! I was told I wouldn’t be allowed out of the dealers room unless I produced evidence
of being a Clan Denial-er (in other words, plenty of Richie merchandise). I was most
dischuffed when I discovered all the Richie key-rings had gone, but I bought some very nice
photos. I deigned to buy a Methos photo (in all honesty, I couldn’t actually resist it!). I
even managed to find some Voyager stuff. This meant I was very happy, and had severely
depleted my funds. Needless to say, they let me out of the dealers room.
Afternoon: At this point we decided it would be a good idea to venture out and get some fortification for later. I’m telling you, a gang of women in red t-shirts and literally clanking with badges does draw the odd strange look. We got cherry yoghurts amongst other things; once spotted they were a necessary purchase. I also managed to get some more cash out. I love the old hole in the wall. I love my overdraft limit even more! Once back we all trooped back to the main hall to make sure we were in position for Marcus’ talk. Gillian and Donna were still doing their bit, which was surprisingly funny. I found myself really enjoying it. One thing that I couldn’t get my head round the whole weekend was the fact that Gillian Horvath pronounces her first name with a hard 'G' not a 'J' sound. Weird! Once they were finishing off they said they were continuing in the video room with, and this is the important bit, *previously unseen footage* from Comes a Horseman and various other things. I was torn. I waited for Marcus to arrive, and stayed long enough to realise that he is one *hell* of a guy, and then took myself off to see just what G & D had from one of my favourite episodes *ever*. It was worth it. The best bit though, was when the window fell out of the car as Methos jumped in after the really heavy scene with Duncan. God, I laughed. I dived back to the main room to catch the end of Marcus’ talk, and ended up laughing even more. I also told the girls that they *had* to take the opportunity the next day to see G & D’s stuff.
Anne and I took the opportunity to hit the dealers room again and relieve ourselves of
*more* cash. After that we found a quiet spot on a chaise-long (they were everywhere) and
ate our butties. We also managed to do a fair bit of mingling by just being obviously *red*.
The horsegirls stopped by for a chat, as did various other people *none* of whom I’d ever
met before. That’s one thing that will always stick in my mind... *everyone* was so friendly,
even the confirmed non-Denial people. It seems that when put together at this con, it was
the overall fandom that mattered, and not the factions. I know CDE were high profile, but
we did our best to convince everyone that although we may be slightly obsessed, we are just
*relatively* normal people at heart who appreciate that the actors have a *life* outside of
Highlander... Anyway, we arrived in good time for Valentine’s Q&A, of which I remember very little apart from the horse anecdotes and Sylvia going wild, and then red, when someone asked Valentine what his favourite country was (or something like that) and he said Italy. The icing on the cake was when he said,
"We obviously have someone from Italy here..." He is a very funny and accomplished
speaker, and I know I enjoyed the talk tremendously. As did Sylvia once she’d recovered.
The Auction, and Later: Andi and I ended up sitting next to each other for the auction. We both bid for Kronos’s sword but backed down once the price got to £100. It eventually went for £370 or something like that. What made me laugh was the t-shirt that fetched approx £200. Still, that’s what auctions are all about I suppose. Soon the only Stan item in the auction came up. It just happened to be my *favourite* picture. Signed. You know the one, Richie in his shades and nice brown leather jacket. I’d already bought the photo, but this, like I said was *signed*. Andi had the same thoughts as me, and we both ended up bidding for it. At £30 it was between me and her and no-one else. There was no way I was going to push the price up further than that... Andi’s a Clan Sib! We sort of looked at each other and I said, "Oh go on, you can have it." At which I swear she squeaked. Honest! Finding out that there were no more Stan items, we kind of lost interest and Andi asked me if there was anywhere she could get a studded belt to go with her outfit for that night. "Of course," I said. "I know just the place." And proceeded to drag her off to Afflecks Palace, which is situated next door to Sacha’s. The best way to describe Affleck’s is as an 'Alternative Shopping experience'. It’s in an old warehouse kind of place and full of stalls/shops selling all sorts of things. I was looking for one place in particular that I’d noticed last time I was there. It was a stall that sold corsets, handcuffs, chains, whips, boots, belts and fluorescent pink afro wigs. Could I find it? Could I hell. Affleck’s is like that sometimes. Intradimensional, I think. Eventually we found Andi a belt and got back in time for the end of the auction so she could claim her Richie. Anne had very kindly been saving all our places so we could get a good view of the next item on the agenda, namely Peter Hudson.
That man is wonderful. And funny. And oh so compelling. The first thing he did was to
stand on the table, roll up his trouser leg, and try to auction himself off. I think he
got offered a fiver. Shame. Again, I remember very little of the talk but this is because
I was too busy staring mesmerised at Peter. I remember him doing some funny voices, and
saying he’d *love* to play a good guy for a change, and how much he enjoyed doing Highlander
and how he’d love to do something with Horton that was totally out of character, like save
Duncan! I sat there and drooled. So did Anne.
Marcus and the Autographs: We all retired to the Clan Denial suite after that for drinks and black cherry yoghurt.
Eventually we decided to go down and see what the autograph queue was doing, and ended up standing in it. It was then that we noticed Marcus, sitting there and bouncing his feet like a kid. He noticed us noticing and gave us a big grin and a wave. So we all gave him big grins and waves back. This carried on for as long as we were in easy visual range. Grin-wave-grin-wave-face pulling-laugh etc, etc. I think we made an impression. He certainly made one on me. Once we were in autograph range I got Rebecca to sign my book, G&D to sign my program and then we got to Marcus. God, that man is sooo sexy. He had some CDs with him of his group M.E.L.T. and we spoke briefly about that. I bought one, but refused to pay £15 for another as a matter of principle (I *never* pay more than £13 for a CD.) I also bought a photo to get signed as he wasn’t in the program. Mind you, I would have bought a photo anyway. I said something like that, and he laughed. My knees went all trembly and all I could think of was '*Wow* what a laugh!' I didn’t have time to recover as Peter was next. Oh God. Peter. After a long pause where I just stared at him, I told him what a pleasure it was to meet him at last, and how Horton was my favourite bad guy *ever* in Highlander, and the fact that *he* was a guest was the main reason for me going to the con (and yes, that last fact is true, so I wasn’t *that* disappointed when PW pulled out, especially not when it gave me the opportunity to meet Marcus). Peter smiled at me and said it was very kind of me to say that and promptly *gave* me a photo, which he signed (the woman with him tried to get me to pay, but he wasn’t having any of it!). I belatedly remembered at that point that I was on photo duty (in other words the others nagged at me) which is why you’ll see no photos of me in the autograph session. I took some piccies, and then got Valentine to sign my program. I was about to start snapping my Clan-sibs getting their t-shirts signed when Valentine asked me not to use the flash as his eyes were hurting. With purely professional curiosity (of course), I peered at his eyes and noticed they were a bit blood shot.
"No problem," says I, "I can take the pictures from behind you if that’s all right?" He
agreed, though again the woman next to him frowned at me, and I merrily started snapping
away. This is why all you can see of Valentine in the pictures is the back of his head! I
can tell you, juggling three cameras ain’t easy!
Preparation and the Party: After the signing had finished, late of course, there was a mad dash to get ready for the party. Literally. Up the stairs (I was not very happy about braving the sadistic lifts). Okay now, picture this... there’s me, Anne Sylvia and Alis all getting ready in one room. What fun... Not! Alis dithered about whether to wear red or not, but ended up wearing blue, so she could go as Ceirdwyn and pinch the horsegirl’s face paint, Sylvia went as Mei-ling and borrowed a horsegirl’s kimono (red, natch). I knew what I was wearing (also red, natch) but the problem was my hair! I didn’t know what the hell to do with it as I’d been wearing it back all day, so I’m prancing round the room, getting in everybody’s way waving a can of hairspray in one hand and a brush in the other. Eventually we were sorted out, hair and all and began to wonder where Andi had got to. So we opened the door and... Well. Andi was there, and met with stunned silence at first and then a chorus of 'Bloody Hells'. I’m still not one hundred percent certain she could breathe, but she sure as hell looked the part of Clan Denial Dungeon Mistress. She certainly made an impression that night. On everyone. The party itself was great. The horsegirls were wonderful, and the music was really good. There were an awful lot of Queen songs played (apparently Sophie or Tasha had brought the 'Greatest Hits' CD with them), including 'Princes of the Universe'. The DJ didn’t want to play it at first, but after being threatened by a horsegirl or two and having it explained that this was a *Highlander* convention and 'Princes' is the *Highlander* theme tune, he got the picture. In fact I think it was played about three times in total as he couldn’t believe the reaction he got the first time he put it on. *Total* audience participation. In other words, near enough everyone got on the dance floor. I found the DJ to be very amenable, and ended up nicking Alis’s pen off her at frequent intervals to write more requests out. I was on the dance floor, strutting my stuff quite merrily with Anne, a Mel Gibson lookalike (a la Braveheart, he *was* in costume) and a bunch of Gothic types to the Cult when one guy said to me, "I didn’t expect them to play this." I’d requested it. Then the Cure came on, and he said exactly the same thing. I’d requested that, too. Funny old world. I even got the DJ to agree to play 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' by Joy Division, but he ran out of time... (probably a good thing in hindsight).
We did lots of group dancing... the Macarena, Star Trekkin’, Doctorin’ the Tardis and, most importantly, the YMCA! Why most importantly? Because Peter Hudson decided it looked fun, and he wanted to have a go. This was probably one of my best memories of the party; Peter’s there, getting his arms all mixed up, and there’s a big gang of us showing him how do the YMCA right. Brill! I think he thought we were all nuts!
It was a good night for meeting the guests; in my frequent trips to the bar I think I must have chatted to all of them, briefly. At one point in particular Peter was having his photo taken with people so I dived back to our table and grabbed Anne and my camera before hot-footing it back again. We both got a photo taken with him, unfortunately, I look like hell on mine as I’d just been dancing! He remembered us both from the autograph queue, and was very polite and charming. He also commented on how kind and friendly everyone had been to him. I spent a good ten minutes propping the bar up at one point, trying to teach the bar staff to make cocktails because I’d promised Alis a B52 (via e-mail), the reason for which now escapes me! Now a B52 consists of Kahula, Baileys and Grand Marnier layered. First problem... no Kahula. Solution...substitute Tia Maria. Second problem... no shot glasses. Okay, use the smallest one you’ve got. Third problem... the bar staff have no idea how to layer things. I even offered to do it for them at one point, curiously enough they refused... I ended up drinking two of the damn things, and they didn’t even look right! While all this was going on, I noticed that they *did* have Midori behind the bar. Midori is a melon liqueur and, as it’s name suggests, is green (midori is Japanese for green). This prompted me to have one last attempt on the cocktail front, and I asked for a Hitman which consists of Kahula (in this case Tia Maria), Midori and Baileys layered. They *still* couldn’t do it, so I got a midori and lemonade and wended my way back to the table, drinks in hand. In the process I was stopped by one of the Gothic types, who asked what I was drinking. I told him, and found out he was curious as the Midori looked like the poor relation of a drink he and his friends invented called a Komodo Dragon. I of course asked what was in it (for research purposes of course) and just got told ‘Lots’. Hmmm. I did find out it was green, though. Back at home base I think everyone sampled the midori as they’d never seen anything quite that shade of green before. General consensus was that it was very nice! No-one dared the mixed up Hitman, not even Sylvia, especially when I told them what was in it!
The party ended with 'Who Wants to Live Forever' and us all standing in a big circle. Peter
was still there, but I think Valentine and Marcus had disappeared. The girls decided they
were ready to call it a night at that point, but I was still raring to go, so I invited
myself to another party in the main bar, courtesy of the Gothic types. Anne and I eventually
left the hotel about four in the morning! Getting home to Moss Side was another foreign taxi-
driver experience, and this time I ended up pointing on the map to where we wanted to go.
Praise be for the A-Z! We hit bed by half four, thoroughly exhausted, but very happy.
Getting There: Okay, it’s Sunday. No buses early in the morning, this meant we had to brave the taxis again after only four hours sleep. Gulp. We rang for one and even the guy on the other end of the phone had an Indian type accent. We eventually managed to get him to understand where we were and where we wanted to be, (I’ve since been told I looked really funny waving my arms around to try to get across to the man what I wanted while holding onto the phone) and we were asked to wait outside, which we duly did. The taxi was prompt; but it wasn’t a taxi, it was a minibus. For twelve people! Anne and I nearly died laughing as we climbed in, this was the icing on the cake of our taxi experiences.
More Fun and Games: We did get to the hotel in plenty of time for Marcus’ talk/Q&A, which I certainly didn’t want to miss and, as it happens, neither did Anne despite having been there for the whole of the previous days session (unlike me). She said she couldn’t get enough of him... I must admit I do have to agree with her. He was apparently much quieter than Saturday, probably because he had a slight hangover! Once again, I can’t remember what was said. Typical. After Marcus disappeared we hit the dealers room *again*. This time I don’t think I actually bought anything... We also just mooched around in general for a bit. It was at this point that we bumped into a couple of the horsegirls in the lobby frantically wondering what they were going to do for money. I told them the cash machine was up the road but neither of them were happy about going out as it was cold and they didn’t fancy running the gauntlet of stares. In the end I took pity on them and went the cash machine for them. As they say... a friend in need...
 We were back in good time for Peter Hudson’s Q&A, and pretty well placed too. The highlight of the hour for me was when I let my mouth run away with me before my brain got into gear. Basically someone asked Peter what he felt the main difference was between him and Horton to which I merrily piped up, "I can’t see Horton doing the YMCA!" To which Peter replied, "I’m sure he would have learnt it faster." I went scarlet... he actually *stared* at me with the Horton glare. Brrrr. I was too flustered to remember much else of what was said after that though something that Peter reiterated a few times was that he felt Horton was a very military person, and had tried to bring that across in the series. I think he succeeded, Horton’s precision and bearing shout at a military background, not to mention that flaming buff coloured coat! I can’t think of two more dissimilar people than Peter Hudson and James Horton. Not only would Horton not do the YMCA, he wouldn’t do all the funny voices either! When Peter finished his talk he was joined by Marcus, Valentine and Val’s half eaten ham sandwich (which was given it’s own place...). Marcus and Val reverted to type so they could get another chair as there were only two on the stage. Once everyone had sat down the drinks were brought in. Was this Marcus’ influence? After a couple of rounds of questions, Andi got everyone’s attention by dint of near jumping up and down and waving. Seems she had pressies for them. Heather ale (from a 2000 year old recipe) for Marcus and Valentine and ‘Wicked’ ale for Peter. The question then went round about bottle openers. No-one had one of those, but Marcus produced a pair of pliers from thin air (the same place as immortals keep their swords?) Needless to say the bottles were left til later... There were quite a few funny things that went on during this hour (an hour was *not* long enough); some witty repartee courtesy of Val and Peter; Peter winning the day with the following answer to a perfectly sensible question...
Q: "What do you look for in a role?" We all fell about laughing. I was totally creased and couldn’t do anything for about five minutes. Val and Marcus were laughing too (ooh, that laugh!). Another funny thing was the fact that Marcus’ microphone had brewers droop... Val and Peter have these little dinky table top mikes, Marcus ends up with one on a dirty great big stand, supposedly positioned correctly. Well it wasn’t. It kept on keeling over, near as dammit hitting Marcus on the arm. It was moved, and carried on keeling over, eventually crash landing on the table. While all this was going on Marcus was eyeing the mike, looking over at us and pulling faces with a long suffering ‘Why me?’ expression on his face. Despite all the trouble with the mike, we still got treated to Marcus’ (short) rendition of ‘I was born under a Wandering Star’, there was lots of applause for that. At the end they all got their presents; Peter a wooden thingy (looked like a chopping board to me) emblazoned with the Chronicles logo; Marcus got a bottle of whisky (a single malt, Glenfiddich, I think) to which he replied, "You know me so well," and someone shouted ‘Party in Marcus’ room!’; Val was totally gobsmacked by his present - he got a Leeds United jersey and a signed football (I was just glad he wasn’t a Man U supporter). They all trooped off clutching onto their presents as if they were afraid someone was going to nick ‘em. I wonder why?
Peter Diamond was next, demonstrating some of the basic points of stage fighting. He’d already supplied himself with the dummy Connor MacLeod, but needed a live volunteer for the sword fighting bit. So who did he end up with? Val, of course. That man must have been knackered by the end of the weekend, he seemed to turn up everywhere. Watching Val with a sword was very, very nice. He can’t half move. I paid great attention, I can tell you! He disappeared for a bit, only to return in his Leeds jersey for another talk. More horse anecdotes ensued, seems they have more personality than a lot of the actors that are knocking around in this day and age. The one about the horse that spit was hilarious (you *really* had to be there). Mr. Pelka is a very funny man... G&D were doing a panel with Rebecca after that, we sneaked off, only to return for the closing ceremony. Marcus wasn’t there for the closing ceremony, but apparently he was present in spirit(s). Sylvia’s mobile phone went off at one point which made me laugh, but Sylvia was *so* embarrassed and I also was a bit miffed that the Horsegirls never even got a mention for going round in costume for the whole weekend. Mel Gibson got a prize for his costume, which was nice, as I’d found out he’d made the whole thing, including the leather armour, himself. During all the prize giving etc. one of the American girls actually got back in time to pick up her raffle prize. Seems the plane she was on almost blew up, and they had to do an emergency bail out while said plane was still on runway. Frightening. She seemed pretty damn calm about the whole thing...
After watching the blooper tape again, me and Anne disappeared back to my sister’s to
pick up our stuff. We said Thanks, and Goodbye and sped our way back to the hotel to say
Thanks and Goodbye to our Clan Sibs. We congregated in the Official Suite, trying to get
down what we remembered of the weekend (I never took any notes, which is why this is a
tad disjointed), and finally got out the cherries in kirsch and the squirty cream. Yay!
Alis has the photos to prove it... Or maybe I shouldn’t be telling you that...
Big Oaks From Little Acorns Grow: It was during this final wind down that a small seed was sown. We all realised we felt Marcus was wonderful; a lovely man not to mention talented, and good looking to boot. He deserved some recognition amongst the Highlander fraternity, we thought; so how about a subsect of Clan Denial? From these humble beginnings, MTAS was born. And we of Chronicles ’98 were it’s Founding Sisters... Saying goodbye was horrible, but we had to get back to Liverpool that night. Still, we were hopeful that we’d meet up with everyone again at Homeland in Scotland in September. I was already suffering from post con depression, and I hadn’t even left!
This was my first con, and more than lived up to my expectations. I immediately registered for ‘The Dominion’, a Trek con, also in Manchester (in May) and volunteered as a steward! Not to mention 'Homeland' in September... Much to my joy, I’ve recently found out there’s a Chronicles '99 with *All Four* of the Horsemen as guests (provisionally)!
See you there!!! And a Final Note: For those who are curious, it was at The Dominion that I finally found out what goes into a Komodo Dragon. Yes, it's green (a very fetching shade of jade, actually) and yes, there's 'Lots'. There're seven ingredients, and six of them are alcoholic - you have to make it up in a pint glass... Veeery nice, I can tell you and you don't need many to get you dancing! I wasn't sober until Monday afternoon (from Friday!). If you want the recipe, or you want to try one... find me at either Homeland or Chronicles '99 and I will make you one; otherwise, just ask!
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