Redemption 2005

The bi-annual convention re-surfaced for it’s fourth time at a new venue this year, near Hinkley in Leicestershire.  As had been the case at the last two, the Genesis contingent was a sizable one.

Friday:

With the route pre-planned and car boot packed to the rafters, departure time was 9.30, which gave us a leisurely trip, and I really should say first of all, that this was the first time anyone had said to me anything like “You’re too good at this, you’re fired!” when referring to my navigational skills (thanks Tony). 

So after various discussions on some the panels and potential goings-on over the coming weekend (S-F Cluedo was, wed decided bound to finish with the words “Deanna Troi in Spacedock, with the Enterprise” or “Q, everywhere, with everything”) we found the hotel and after discovering that our room was located in the Corridor of Doom, made a bee-line for the bar.

It would be worth pointing out here and now that actually, Tony and Ann didn’t get a room as such, more of a flat, complete with office and a Jacuzzi, though fortunately not quite in the same place, and this became known for the weekend as ‘Isengard’.  Mine and Ross’ lowly twin on the floor above was in fact a ‘hobbit hole,’ although how it was possible for this to be physically above Isengard is anyone’s guess.

The rest of Friday was notable for several reasons, a Klingon called Roy, with a slightly un-Klingon like accent (imagine a Cornish Klingon yelling “Today is a good day to die!”), the hilarious Man of Iron Script reading, (this was a script written by Paul Darrow for Blakes 7 which was never used, and after going to this you’d understand why) and some rather dubious and violent goings-on at the opening ceremony, where traditionally the current year’s candidates outline their cases (or otherwise) for election, and then occasionally ‘die’ horribly (and you did it very impressively, too - ed.)

The pub quiz is the item which traditionally follows the opening ceremony, and so it was this year.  And naturally enough, our team ran in a typically average third out of five, before hurriedly departing in time to make it to Jason Carter’s poetry reading.  Well, what can you say?  Boisterous, loud, but very very entertaining, and was particularly good because they were all his own poems.  After he exhausted his material with about 15 minutes of the hour to go, he threw the floor open to questions, and was asked inevitably about his late friend and colleague Richard Biggs, who passed away last June at a shockingly young age.  The next drink we had, he asked, should be for Richard. 

Saturday:

The central day of the con, which began with the first part of the bi-annual table top cricket match between the Babylon XI and the Blake’s XI.  I arrived a little late but caught the end of the first innings, as the Babylon XI posted 137.

Saturday afternoon was dominated by the ‘Weakest Geek’ quiz which Tony, Ross and me (but mainly Tony and Ross) ran in the Zocalo, a large event room given over to games, the bring and buy sale and other such stalls. Now, Tony’s nifty little program and Ross’ question writing gave us an excellent quiz, and we managed to run two games, the only problem really being the lack of willing victims (sorry, volunteers) to take part.  I managed to get most of the first game on film using a digital camera, except the memory card filled up shortly before the end and I missed the last few questions on the head-to-head final (mutter, mutter).  But the whole thing ran really well and we seemed to have attracted quite an audience by the end.  However, the supply of contestants was in such short supply for the second game (or rather, there didn’t seem to be any purple badge wearers around to even up the numbers with the greens) so the nearest purple Tony could find was me.  The fact that I managed to then win the second game will go into the annals of great unexplained mysteries, along with beasties in Loch Ness, triangles near Bermuda and David Hasselhoff’s singing career.   Anyway, we’ll be running this on the stage in the main hall in two years time.

The traditional focus of the convention on the Saturday night is the fancy dress, cabaret and disco.  This year’s fancy dress was a little Spartan it has to be said, but there were some very good efforts, including a startlingly good Van Helsing and a quite brilliant Eighth Doctor, complete with wig. The cabaret, as is traditional also, included a brilliant ‘filk’, which although it never quite hit the heights of “I’m Watching Angel Instead” from two years ago, certainly raised a few chuckles.  In case you wondered, it was an Atomic Kitten song which got the filk treatment this time, and the last line of the chorus changed to ‘Then he lost his soul again” among other things.

Now, the rest of Saturday night was a little quiet (if you ignored the music from the disco).  But things got a bit more interesting when we got to Sunday morning.  After exiting the hall Ross and I went for a drink, and I left Ross, in the bar having a nicotine fix, went to the Rotunda to find a comfy chair…and failed to see any sign of Ross for the next hour and a half.  That was until after a brief and courageous foray into the ear-bleedingly loud vampire disco (where Tony and Catherine were doing the D word) when I bumped into Ross on the way back out.  “Come into the bar, and have a chat with Jim!” he said, Jim being one of the guests, Jim Mortimore.

Well, after another two and a half hours of wonderful chat and possibly a bit too much beer, (although I was still reasonably coherent, I think), we staggered back to the corridor of doom, about quarter of an hour after Jim had also made his exit.  Although this was fairly impressive at the time as far as ‘leaving the bar’ times go, I since found out that we were comparative lightweights – there were still people in the bar at 4.30 in the morning.

Sunday:

On Sunday I actually felt reasonably human, surprisingly enough, and after another foray into the dealers room witnessed Mat Irvine’s slide show,  most of the second innings of the cricket match, which saw the Blakes’ XI bowled out for 94, 15 minutes before the end of the hour. This was despite the impressive efforts of Orac, who had taken four catches as wicket keeper the day before, made 30 with two sixes, before falling LBW. Not bad for a plastic transparent box.  It was said at the time that Orac may et have saved the game for the Blakes XI, until it was pointed out that this would have been very unlikely as he had previously failed to save the ship!   It was then decided to make the game a two-innings match, and carry on for another hour, and the Babylon XI batted again.  In the course of the second innings, Marcus Cole, top scorer in the first innings was run out for 0, after what was decided to have been an almighty mix-up, where he found himself at thw rong end of the pitch, and dashed back to be run out himself, in order for the established player to stay in.  In other words, he sacrificed himself (again).  The Blakes’ XI made a solid start to their attempt to score the higest score of the match to win, but it all went wrong, and when things stopped for the culmination of  the weekend’s election shenanigans, the hustings for the Ruler of the Universe, the Blakes’ XI were in the doldrums at 50 for 5.

Unsurprisingly after his brilliant campaign video at the cabaret the night before, Og (Blakes’ 7  creature thing) was the winner, with Londo Mollari in second place.  Bender the robot (yes there really was someone dressed as Bender) amazingly won only 7 votes, but there again strange things have been known to happen to ballot boxes at Redemption. The previous ruler, the Sixth Doctor, who was noticeably absent from the proceedings (ask me and I’ll explain) managed a stunning 1 vote, possibly because someone took pity on him rather than letting him get ‘nul points’.

After another foray to the bar where various devious plans concerning the next Ruler of the Universe elections was cooked up (ask anyone in the hall today who was there and we’ll be happy to explain) we attended the panel on the new Doctor Who series, which was a very good hour,.  The panel included both Jim Mortimore and Colin Brake, TV writer and Doctor Who novelist, who had dropped by specifically for this panel.  This was particularly notable for the end comment from one pf the panellists which was something along the lines of ‘thank you for being the nicest, sanest group of Doctor Who fans we’ve ever met’).

Then there was the festivities of the closing ceremony (Ann won the Movie Quiz, AGAIN!), the surprising announcement of the cricket result, (Blakes XI won by 5 wickets – while I was at the Doctor Who panel) and the hilarity of the chaos film which had been made over the course of the weekend, plus signing up for next time and grabbing something to eat, that really just left the ‘future of sci-fi’ panel, which was attended by both Jim Mortimore and Jason Carter (once they prised him out of the bar).  Not quite as epic as the equivalent panel two years earlier but an interesting and entertaining hour nonetheless. 

Which just left the growing tradition of the ‘Who’s the Shadow Agent’ card game for the last part of the evening in the Rotunda, where the law firmly established last time (“it’s never Tony! Except when it is!”) was again adhered to.

Monday:

That wasn’t quite the end, though, Ross and myself got chatting again to Jim Mortimore (and author Ken Ludden, who was at the con promoting his new book) at breakfast the following morning before we left, and it seems Jim had a bit more inside knowledge of the new TV series in which Jeremy Bulloch has a role (along with Claudia Christian).  Again, ask us and we’ll be happy to explain (in fact, see Page 13 and all will be revealed - ed.)

So that was Redemption 05, at a new venue, with more people than ever before.  The guests were great, everyone had a brilliant weekend, at least that’s the definite impression I’m getting from the continuing deluge of e-mail coming in on the Redemption eGroup every day, and although there were one or two layout differences between this hotel and the previous venue in Ashford which need looking at for next time, the new venue was generally met with approval.  The Committee, as always did a brilliant job of organising the whole thing, and will be back for ’07, for which over 100 people signed up over the weekend. I think the general opinion among a lot of people at Redemption is that this as what a convention should be like.

Jeremy Ogden