Today, I went on a mighty journey to the distant land of Chester for the final day of Eastercon. Unfortunately, rail work expanded the normally 45 minute travel time to about two hours. My trek began just before 9:00am when I made my way down the hill to Liverpool Central train station. While I was purchasing my ticket, the attendant told me that I’d have to catch a bus from in front of St. George’s Hall to Birkenhead, and then I’d take a train from there to Chester. Okay, so I walk a quarter of a mile to St. George’s Hall and hop on a double decker bus bound for the Queens Way Tunnel. It deposited me at Birkenhead, but I had to walk another ten minutes through Wirral to Birkenhead Central train station. Once I got there, I had to wait about thirty minutes for the next Chester bound train.
Eventually, I made it to Chester, fought off the shopping hordes, and located the Crown Plaza Hotel. I checked in, paid my £10 membership fee, and walked down to the Dealers Room. I didn’t see anything that I couldn’t live without, so I walked back to the Edward Room for the “Politics and Ethics in Battlestar Galactica” panel. It was a lively panel with folks making great observations, and the comments got me thinking about some things that I had not yet considered.
After the BSG panel, I stayed in the Edward room, because there was only a short gap before the next panel began. However, I realized something was up pretty quickly when the panelists were clearly not Farah and several authors included in her anthology, Glorifying Terrorism. I hopped up and went to the conference check-in to ask if the panel had been moved. It had been. Yesterday. So, I completely missed the main panel that I went to Chester to hear. Additionally, everyone that I knew at the convention had already cut out.
However, I determined a solution to my dilemma. I settled in at the bar, ordered an outrageously overpriced White Russian, and looked out the window at the countryside and hills surrounding Chester.
With my drink emptied, I made my way back through Chester to the train station, because I knew that it would be an equally tedious journey getting back to Liverpool as it was getting to Chester. During my protracted rail riding, I was able to edit my Le Guin paper some, and I listened to A LOT of Ween. If you’re not familiar with the musician’s musician that is Ween, you should check out Ween Radio. It’s 24 hour/7 days a week streaming audio of Ween.
A bit of advice for convention planners: update your website if there are changes made at the last minute. I realize this kind of thing might not effect many people, but it’s a really big deal to those folks who go to a lot of trouble to attend the convention on a particular day for a special panel.
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