Gallifrey 2015

Home from Gallifrey 2015 for over a week now. A nice quiet week as I recover from a hectic weekend of friends, panels, drinking, talking, and flailing at amazing costumes, but no con crud! I blame the fact I’ve been forcing myself to eat broccoli this year.

Here are some of the things that brought me joy at this year’s con:

– Despite my, um, less than excellent view of Torchwood, I went along to rather a lot of the interviews and they were fantastic. Funny, charming, entertaining, all those good things. And I saw about twenty seconds of John Barrowman on his first…supposedly an interview but, no, it’s more like an hour long show – The Barrowman Show obv – and it was a bit scary (and overwhelming), but then going back and seeing his whole schtick from start to finish the next day? He’s kind of amazing. The energy and charisma of the man is astonishing. I think the fear came from going into the atmosphere of the room cold, but when you’re there from the start and it builds up, you’re like that frog in the slowly heated up water and you’re okay that you’re boiling to death…and that is clearly the wrong metaphor, but, yes, Barrowman! Impressive. Though I am slightly glad there were numerous children in the audience because I am slightly British sometimes.

– Interviewing is a fascinating skill where, if you’re good at it, no-one should really notice, but if you’re terrible, it’s like stabbing the audience in the face. Sort of. And ma lovely Verity peoples Erika and Kat were doing their first onstage interviews over the weekend, and they were both awesome. I got to see Erika interview Gary Russell, and it was just ridiculously charming, and entertaining, and Fraser Hines thanked her for her excellent interview work on his Twitter. And sadly I missed Kat, thanks to my being slightly unwell on the Sunday, but heard only good things about it, and she was gifted a…special effects team t-shirt (something like that) which I assume means she’s now allowed to cause explosions and stuff in the name of television. (Deb also had interviews but she is OLD HAT now and I knew she would be great.)

-Rachel Talalay was there! (Director of many things, including Doctor Who’s Dark Water/Death in Heaven.) And you can hear her on last week’s Verity, and I totally managed a whole sentence at her that came out in words. Ye gods. I am TERRIBLE at meeting people I admire.

– I’ve been EXCEPTIONALLY good in convention dealers’ room for AGES, but there were Glitter Daleks (yes, actual real merchandise, released by Dapol some 15 years ago) for sale and so I bought them because my Glitter Dalek Army must GROW.

– Perhaps the most magical thing about Gally has come about over the past few years, and it’s the explosion of cosplay. I say this every year but omg. You can just sit in a hall and every couple of seconds someone walks past wearing a costume that just delights you. I get a massive fannish kick out of the more obscure costumes, and my winners this year were the Menoptera. Stunning costumes from a story over fifty years old, bloody fantastic. (I would totally share a picture except I have no idea how my phone works…I bought one for the first time in ten years for Gally and I feel like I’m handling future tech that may explode something any moment.)

–Companion Piece was available in the dealers’ room! And people bought it and I signed copies and people said nice things! Thank you so much to everyone who picked it up!

And then it was over, and real life awaited and, lo, it was sadness but also there was real tea and proper cheese sandwiches again, and those things were good and cheering.

Things I did elsewhere on the Interweb:

– Because I am really quick and timely with the blogging there is an even shinier Verity! out at time of posting where we chat about Ace who wrongly came at the top of our Doctor Who companion poll (Barbara, dammit, Barbara!)

And elsewhere:

– The sequel to Jen Williams’ superb The Copper Promise (which I flailed about here) is now out. It’s called The Iron Ghost and I have not read it yet but it is sitting v patiently on my Kindle and you should almost certainly totally buy it. Yes.

– This breaks my heart a little bit: it’s a salute to the recently departed Leonard Nimoy by Star Trek Online players. They gathered at a fountain on Vulcan to pay tribute to him. As a gamer and someone who appreciates Nimoy’s contribution to the medium (in STO and most especially Civ IV), it got to me something rotten as a respectful farewell.

– If you are in Doctor Who fandom and haven’t yet admired this vid, you should. Set to Taylor Swift’s Blank Space (not a word, I love that song :p), it explores the relationship between the Doctor and the Master over the past forty years.