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Well, where to begin? I suppose that with the exception of the terrible one-day StarCon '97 in Basildon in, surprisingly enough, October 1997, this was my first convention. I had been told that this was the ideal event to make my first proper convention, so I booked my place around last November and waited for the big weekend.

Recruits to the cause of the invasion of Ashford by Genesis members were Tony, Ann, Ross, Mike Allum (for the Saturday) and Mark, who was also at the previous Redemption Con in 1999.

It should be pointed at right now that there are two Ashfords in the southern half of England - one is in Middlesex, one is in Kent. This event was at the one in Kent! Apparently there were instances two years ago of people ending up at the other one and wondering where the hell the convention was.

So the weekend arrived and we set off for Kent on the train. Tony was carrying a heftily sized rucksack, Ann with a more moderately sized bag. I was doing the costume thing, so had to put the velvet jacket in a suitcase, and also brought a small backpack. Ross brought a TARDIS. Allow me to explain. His bag was marginally larger than my small backpack, yet it carried ALL of his supplies. For three days. It MUST have been bigger on the inside....

This was the first thing we attended after dumping cases, and TARDIS. At this point it should be worth pointing out that G'Kar was actually David McIntee, sometime New Adventures author and evidently a massive B5 fan, and Londo was Lesley Rhodes, whom David married on the Saturday! The other point is that this incarnation of G'Kar had a broad Scots accent. I have nothing against the Scots, but A Narn with a Scots accent? That made for a fairly bizarre hour. Especially at the moments when they dropped out of character and some very human chuckling was heard emanating from under what was obviously a very hot rubber mask!

A panel devoted to the ramblings (or, if you were being unkind, just plain bollocks) of the enigmatic Vorlon. Who was the guy in the weird encounter suit that looks like a shower curtain attached to a toilet seat with a funny head sticking out the top? And will there ever be a series called Babylon 5: Grumpy Old Vorlons? (Sorry, you had to be there).

The genrously priced bar food proved very popular over the course of the weekend, so after our first visit there we attended the festivities of the opening ceremony, but first had to negociate the Mixer Game, essentially an ice breaker exercise, during which we had to find fellow attendees who fitted various descriptions, including a male smoker (Ross) . Someone wearing glasses (almost the entire Genesis contingent) and a star guest (I almost asked Michael Sheard but was worried he'd put me in detention).

The opening ceremony itself was the scene of the start of the weekend's murder mystery, when an attendee in the guise of President Sheriden appeared to die in a manner obviously partially inspired by the vampire from the Buffy movie who refused to expire without first putting on a dying swan act. Naturally Londo and G'Kar were both chief suspects, more of that later.

We were also brought up to date on various timetable changes and informed of various items that were going to be happening over the course of the weekend, such as the belly dancing classes (when it was suggested that the esteemed guest Gareth Thomas would like to have a go and give a demonstration at some point, Mr Thomas was eager to point out that it would be only his belly that would be dancing!) Oh, yes, and we were introduced to the candidates for the 'Ruler of the Universe' election which was another highly popular strand running throughout the weekend. All the candidates were introduced, including a Spike impersonator who glowered and menaced his way through the weekend with distinction, Servalan him/herself, the reigning Ruler of the Universe, G'Kar and Londo, a Spock impersonator (though it was actually an 'Anti-Spock' since he was bearded), the Clangers (yes, that's right the Clangers, and they had Gareth Thomas on side as well) and Ares, God of War.

We were also told about the Green verses Purple Drazi Point contest - basically rather than prizes, any quiz or competition being run over the weekend had 'Drazi' points as it's end reward. More of that later as well.

Next up was the pub quiz, in which we did the typical middle of the road score having bombed out badly on round 1, the subject of which was Blakes' 7. This was hosted by the extremely good Servalan impersonator David Walsh (yes that was HIS real name). The winning team had their score reduced by two points by the vigilant host but still ended up with 24 out of 30.

The opening ceremony was also the setting for one of the most quotable moments of the weekend, when on entering the room I enquired to Ross, "which table?" the reply that came back was "Near the women!" A couple of minutes after someone enquired about Mark's whereabouts, to which Ross replied, gesturing at one of the empty seats at our table "well, he can't sit there, there won't be enough room for the women."

After the formalities of the opening ceremony, we wandered back to the hotel's Boulevard area, which was the ideal place for a drink and a chat, and to plan the next day's activities, while Ann went off to find the sixty clues which made up the movie quiz. Now that in itself was quite spooky - if you were at the meeting last month you will probably remember the 'Tag-Line' round - ie, identify the film which goes with the tagline. Well, spookily enough, that's exactly what the Movie Quiz was - except that the clues were stuck on walls, doors and even ceilings in various places around the hotel. Now bear in mind that I was a 'Green' in the Drazi point thing and Ann was 'Purple' and you'll realise that really I should really have kept my mouth shut!

The final notable thing to happen on the first evening was a visit to our table on the Boulevard by each of the guests. Firstly Michael Sheard, who tried to persuade us that we actually really wanted go back to the disco and dance a bit. After hearing how dancing to Alice Copper's School's Out has become a convention tradition for him, because of Mr Bronson, we politely declined (as Mark's brother Paddy so eloquently put it, 'we don't do the 'D' word'). Soon after, Gareth Thomas wandered over in search of an ashtray in which to leave the wrapper from his latest packet of cigarettes, before swiftly returning to his place at the bar.

When we started seeing Klingons in full costume wandering around, (this being fairly close to mid-night, and with a long day ahead tomorrow) we decided it was time for some sleep.

After breakfast we managed to bump into Mike Allum who was spending the day at the con, and also some of his mates from the South Hants Group. But we swiftly realised we were in dire need of supplies to keep us going through the day (ie chocolate) so off we went to Sainsbury's, handily located just next door to the hotel, to raid them of all the chocolate we could carry. I would have taken a photo of the shopping basket with it's contents, but didn't like to do that in the middle of a busy supermarket, so I saved the receipt for posterity instead.

Back at the hotel, I went back to the room to don the costume, and this being at a time when no-one else had bothered yet, I think I was just about the first person in costume at the whole convention that day.

We soon bumped into some of Mike's mates from the South Hants Group and posed for the obligatory photo....next to the vending machine in the gents (ahem) before going about the business of actually attending some of the stuff that was going on. I took a swift interest in the first innings of the B5 Verses B7 cricket game, held in the Boulevard (officially Outer Galle, reflecting the venue for the Test match going on in Sri Lanka at the time) which actually took the form of a table top cricket game which used a spinning arrow to decide what happens next and cardboard cut outs to represent the various players. It was the Blakes' 7 XI who were soon under the Kosh (sorry).

This was hosted by a gentleman answering to the name of Mr Postie, and showed just how inventive you can be with some disposable razor blades, a water pistol and some old Star Wars toys. Actually some of the stuff he'd cobbled together was rather impressive and you wouldn't tell what had actually gone into the construction of the guns, Borg costumes and even a brilliantly realistic bomb, which raised a few laughs from Mr Posties captive audience when it was revealed that it actually ticked! He openly admits that he would have to be very careful when taking it onto an aeroplane!

Next it was off to the main hall where we treated to three quarters of an hour of moral argument over the cause fought by Roj Blake in the TV series which bore his name, involving, among others, Blake himself, Gareth Thomas, who was actually somewhat at a dis-advantage in this debate since, as he put it , "I never saw the series and it was twenty years ago". Obviously a lot of beer has flowed under the bridge since then. That being the case, though, it was still amusing when asked by someone about the moral justification for destroying Star One (in the episode of the same name) that he replied "I can't remember what Star One was, it was obviously something very important". Another audience member also asked about the merits of non-violent revolution, such as that of the feminist movement, to which Gareth replied "I didn't fall down a man-hole this morning, I fell down a person-hole".

Just to emphasise that things shouldn't really get too serious at these conventions, one of the final questions on offer was phrased:

"I've no objection to violence against people [pause for laughter] but Blake might have destroyed [due to the destruction of Star One] all the tropical fruit in the Universe. How do you justify that?"

Which became more a case of Michael Sheard trading anecdotes about various goings-on in his career and stuff he's been involved in down the years. One of the tales he shared with us before he had to make a premature departure to sign some autographs was regarding his autobiography 'Yes Admiral'. Now, when he did his first book, Yes, Mr Bronson, he had got in contact with his old mate George Lucas and asked permission to include a section about and perhaps use a picture of his Empire Strikes Back character Admiral 'My Lord, there are so many uncharted settlements' Ozzel. Lucas was more than happy for him to do this, indeed he replied personally. However, when he asked George about using the name Ozzel in the title of the second book, he received a reply not from Lucas, but from one of his 'minions' which basically said 'no way, and if you do we'll sue'. Lucas, Michael said, had been too busy making 'The Phantom Flippin' Menace' to reply personally. However he did make sure the notes on the back of the book made it clear that Ozzel was the character he'd played. When he came up with 'Daft Mole' and 'Jar Jar Stinks' as alternative names for the obvious characters, his opinion of the movie was abundantly clear.

His second Star Wars yarn involved an old trading card which he retrieved from his wallet after much searching. The wording on the back went something like this:

"The mighty Imperial fleet at the Battle of Hoth contained some of the finest crew in the whole Empire, and Admiral Ozzel"

Lastly, and back on the subject of Doctor Who, Michael told us about the time a couple of years ago when he was being seriously touted to play the Doctor himself. As you will probably know, Peter Cushing starred as the Doctor in the sixties in two movies which featured the Daleks. The third movie in the series was never made. Sheard was contacted by someone who claimed that he was ready to make the third movie, had his lawyers working on tracing the rights to the film and wanted Sheard to be the Doctor. Now Michael, being a seasoned actor was a little dubious, but agreed in principle that if the rights could be sorted out and if it actually was going to happen, then yes, he'd be very willing to take on the role. Next thing he knew, the press had got hold of it and it was blown out of all proportion. Needless to say the project has since disappeared into the depths of Pre-Production Hell.

After Michael's early exit, attention turned back to a number of issues, including who would make the ideal Doctor, (Alan Rickman, Joanna Lumley among the names touted) who would make the ideal Master (Alan Rickman again in the frame) and what would happen to the audio dramas now that Paul McGann is involved, and....would Highlander IV ever be seen by anyone on this side of the pond and could Adrian Paul replace Pierce Brosnan as James Bond after the next 007 movie? Aside from Michael, also in this panel were Andy Lane (New Adventures novelist and versatile writer and journalist) and David McIntee, not in Narn mode now, but newly married.

You'll recognise this from the series in the Matrix. This was a very popular and not entirely serious (actually not serious at all) panel about the route to becoming a powerful, evil overlord, and the mistakes to avoid on the way. I have to say I felt a little out of place, dressed, as I was in (bespectacled) Eighth Doctor guise and seated alongside the resident Ares and Spike impersonators, who were looking as mean and evil overlord-ly as usual. Among the characters up for discussion were Emperor Palpatine, The Master, Blofeld, Blofeld's cat, cats in general and Bill Gates. This could have easily led onto a 'James Bond is a Time Lord' discussion, but that will have to wait for another day.

Next it was back to room 118 for chocolate supplies and then off to the evening's cabaret. Now, if you ever go to a convention and find there is something billed as cabaret on the Saturday evening, don't pass up the chance to go. Chances are you'll see some good entertainment. There was an excellent display of costumes on parade (including the newly arrived Seven of Nine, a chaos-costumed Herr Flick (!) - as Rene Artois, 'the bravest man in all of France' would have said, "Oh 'eck!" - and Susan from LOTNA who was wearing a very elegant Centauri outfit, plus an entertaining blend of music (a 'filking' duo, including the aforementioned 'Ares, God of War') who told the story of the Blakes' 7 episode Pressure Point to the music of Wonderwall by Oasis), dancing and singing (Servalan/David Walsh being responsible for the election stunt that, in the end, won my vote - ie throwing election flyers all over the potential voters at an opportune moment while doing a Karioke type-thing to Money, Money, Money by Abba). He/she/whatever also selected some (un)lucky members of the audience, including Ann, to 'd-word' (dance, in case you forgot) to I Will Survive. We were also treated to some appallingly bad puns in the intervening bits from the weekend's MC, Chris O'Shea. Oh yes, and there was belly dancing, though rather disappointingly Gareth Thomas (or rather, his belly) declined to participate.

Soon after 10.00 we bundled into one of the video rooms to cast eyes over the new Sci-Fi Channel mini series version of Dune. Now, I have to say that this was a little wasted on me, being one of those people who suffered long enough to see a pre-Next Gen Patrick Stewart last time the film was on Channel 4 a couple of years ago and then was so bored he turned over to the football (the World Cup was on at the time). Anyway, the more hard-core Dune fans enjoyed it more and stuck it out for far longer than me, Ross and Tony, though the fact that the room was a little crowded and the TV was a little small didn't add to the experience. This was one of my very few gripes- the showing of Dune could have been made a little more comfortable and accessible.

Anyway, that just left the Rocky Horror Disco, so after some brief respite, we ventured back to the main hall, and if by any chance we had forgotten where it was, all we needed to do was to follow the sound of loud heavy rock music being pumped out at about 120 decibels and look for people emerging from the hall with their brains oozing out of their ears. It was a bit loud, that's the impression I'm trying to convey. However, it was all the more enjoyable by the playing of Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana. Not really because I like the song, but because of the brilliant spoof version Smells Like Nirvana by 'Weird' Al Yankovic (he of Eat It and The Saga Begins fame) which I and Mike both have copies of. Tony, I don't think, quite worked out why I laughed hysterically through the whole song - I just told him 'I'll explain later', not that I ever did. Ross, by contrast, was having a great time, and even managed to put words to some of the loudest songs that were playing. After a while, I realised that my ears were bleeding and making a mess on the carpet, so we all went out for air, and a drink and bumped into Michael Sheard, who in wandering through, was pounced upon by Mike, or actually it was the other way round, as Michael said he'd recognised by Mike and had been meaning to say 'hello' all evening! It fell to me to tell him that sadly he'd missed School's Out. Poor Michael looked mortified.

Soon after, Tony, Ross and Mike moved faster than I saw them move all weekend as the sound of The Timewarp emanated from the hall. I supervised by the door, keeping a respectable distance, and sharing a brief conversation with another equally bemused non-Timewarper.

After another collective pause for breathe, we heard the rather dubious tones of the Star Trek version of Bohemian Rhapsody (yes there is such a thing, apparently) booming out, and soon the proper version by Queen was playing, which was our cue to go back in. Michael Sheard was there again, conducting a choir of people doing their Wayne's World bit. I then experienced another startling musical revelation - on telling Mike that you haven't experienced Bohemian Rhapsody until you've heard the Rolf Harris version, he told me he had a copy of it, which means that me and my brother were not the only people in the world who bought it!

After a sleep, a shower and breakfast (which for me consisted entirely of toast and croissants) my stomach had stopped feeling so upset, and the last day of goings-on could commence. However, the nightmares and flashbacks had nearly returned when Ross looked out of the curtains, turned round and said 'by the way, it's been snowing'. The grassy area outside the room was covered, but there was also bright blue sky and sunshine, and since we didn't have to be anywhere other than breakfast anytime soon, it was hardly the Cardiff scenario all over again.

I started by seeing some of the second innings of the cricket match - we knew things were getting really silly when it became clear that Villa was batting the B7 XI out of serious trouble, and ended up second top scorer with 25. In the end, though, it was the B5 XI who triumphed, despite at one stage being in serious trouble in their second innings. They reached their victory target of 157 with three wickets in hand. (Do you think I took this a tad too seriously?)

Meanwhile Ann was busy winning not only the hastily organised snow-man competition but also the Movie Quiz, and more Drazi points were being dished out for various feats, notably the best limerick, which was, rather worryingly:

Kosh said to Sheridan 'jump'
And he landed with rather a bump
But Lorien said
'I can make you not dead'
Which gave Garibaldi the hump.

Oh good grief.

There was a very important task to perform on the Sunday morning, the ritual entering of the Anal Retnetives Quiz and the public shaming that follows when a) you get an answer wrong which, had you been asked the question half an hour earlier you would have got right or b), you come up with an obscure answer to an obscure question - and get it right! Despite the best efforts of Tony, who was able to give Seven of Nine's full and proper name, our team ('Muppets in the Matrix') managed to finish well and truly, well in the middle actually. The winners were a couple who went by the name of 'Pinkie and The Brain' - in fact those were their badge names they were registered under.

The last rites of our weekend involved the hunting of autographs and photos with the two guest stars, and then settling down in the main hall for the remainder of the question and answer session with Gareth and Michael. This was interrupted by the Federation Trooper Drill, in which Michael Sheard did his Sergeant Major turn, and Ann and company made the Dad's Army home guard platoon look like a mean fighting machine. I'm sorry to sound unkind but their attempts to stand to attention on time were rather comical. The bit where one of the motley crew of troopers piped up with "I didn't realise we were in Dad's Army: The Next Generation, SIR!"just about summed the whole thing up nicely.

Gareth Thomas had been holding court with stories of going into pubs ('can't think why') and journalists who were startled to find out that actually, he wasn't raking it in as a result of Blakes' 7. He also had a fully justified rant at the BBC for making a complete pigs ear of the repeats of Blakes' 7 last year. Michael, for his part, told his captive audience about a little event in Basildon he'd been to a few years ago, for which the organiser had grossly under-catered and 3,000 people had been turned away from. This event was the StarCon event I mentioned right at the start of this item. That day, he'd met the producer of a new series called First Frontier, which at the time was just in the first stages of development, and which was to co-star Claudia Christian. First Frontier is now, over three years on, nearly at the stage where the shooting of the pilot episode is imminent - they hope to have that in the can by about October, all being well. How far it will get is another matter, but if it does, well, at least something good will have come out of that rather chaotic and disorganised shambles we went to in November 1997.

So that just left us with the closing ceremony, in which Servalan was again pronounced Ruler of The Universe, as she took the vote by a clear margin. By this time the Clangers had joined forces with The Bear (a small cuddly toy made to look vaguely like Travis from Blakes' 7, so we decided that due to this un-holy alliance they were unworthy of our votes - Servalan got my vote for what it was worth, in an election using a Florida style voting system, ie, the number of votes a candidate receives is 'flexible', and with some slightly dodgy tactics flying around which involved the use of photocopied bootleg ballot papers!

We also got to see a hilarious Babylon 5 Blue Peter Style, which had been made during the course of the weekend. This made the special effects in Doctor Who look like an Industrial Light and Magic epic, but clever use was made of various kitchen rubbish, intercut with footage from the stage-fighting workshop and scenes shot around the hotel on the Sunday morning. Cheap? Yes, but very cheerful - a great laugh. The murder mystery thingy was finally resolved. It turned out that G'Kar was, in fact The Master, cunningly disguised. The Doctor, (he was the guy in the Second/Third Doctor outfit and smoking the pipe, not me, despite the worried glances I got from Tony and Ann when we saw that The Doctor's name had been added to the list of prime suspects), had been working undercover to expose him, thus explaining the mysterious blue pillars in the Boulevard which had allegedly been disappearing and re-appearing in different places. (Yeah, right! An excess of alcohol and a need to ham up the whole murder thing was a more plausible explanation but far be it from me to spoil the plot). G'Kar himself had been discovered, tissue compressed into size comparable with a B5 action figure, hidden down the back of the stage in the Main Hall. Obviously the Master's doing. However, Servalan, newly re-elected ruler of the Universe took the Master into her/his/whatever protection and so gave him immunity from prosecution. (I believe the exact phrase she used was 'hey, want to rule the Universe with me?') The 'Greens' were also declared Drazi point winners, though I have to say it was me (but mainly Tony) who were responsible for the round of partisan chanting/yelling of 'Green!' and "Purple!" when the results were about to be announced. Somewhere around this time I unfortunately had to make my exit along with Ross, Tony and Ann, but not before the charity coffers raised from the raffle had been swelled to over £1,000, after it was pointed out that all that was needed to get this very healthy amount of dosh was 'another 27 fivers'. Benefiting charities from the weekend, by the way, were the National Asthma Campaign and The Woodland Trust, whose first land purchase, made 27 years ago was rather fittingly, Avon Woods in Devon. That just left a taxi ride to the station, and the following in approximately this order - coffee, train, disembark and run across station, lose Ross, find train, find Ross, disembark at Clapham, wait, wait some more, get on train, play with text messaging on mobile phones, get off train at Basingstoke, get in car, go home, sleep. And then sleep some more. And that, really was that, an ideal first convention and a brilliant weekend. Congratulations to everyone involved in running the event, they all did a great job. And one last mention of the guests - sadly Ron Thornton couldn't make it in the end - work commitments forced a last minute cancellation, but the other stars, , Gareth Thomas, Michael Sheard, David Walsh and not forgetting Andy Lane were all great guests. The atmosphere and planning of the whole event allowed them to mingle freely rather than stay at an inaccessible distance behind stewards and barriers. And I'm no longer scared of 'Mr Bronson'. I'll be there in 2003, will you?