Tolkien Events 2013
 

I've finally noticed the absence of a thread on this. Perhaps fellow Downers would like to put up something on events this year they've already been to.

Speaking of future events this year, I'll be going to Oxonmoot 2013 next month. Is anyone else here going as well?

I am going to Oxonmoot with Kath! I wasn't really planning it, but then things happened and I booked a flight.

I'm still trying to work out what we'll dress as for the masquerade. :cool:

Will be there, but only on the Saturday and Sunday.

As always, I've attended the two major events of the German Tolkien Society - the Seminar in spring and the Thing in summer. I lectured on the music of the radio plays at the former and met several Downers - there's a photo on this thread: Minimoot.

I will be attending a very special event next weekend - the opening of the Greisinger Tolkien Museum in Switzerland! I'm delighted that I was invited, as it's not yet open to the public. I can't showhorn two events into one month without annoying my family, so I'm skipping Oxonmoot this year. I do hope to attend again next year.

No Oxonmoot for me this year--I'm still resting from all my journeys last year!

Besides, I will be busy reading and evaluating all the submissions for the call for papers on "Humour in and around Tolkien". I've been on the proverbial needles and pins hoping for a good number of good papers but they are flying into my inbox at a goodly rate as the deadline approaches.

Note: this is also a gentle reminder for any Downers here who are submitting abstracts. :D

Oxonmoot!
 

Aganzir and I would like to say a big "Hello!" (or as Agan put it, bellow) from Oxonmoot! We have participated in the dinner and enjoyed thinking of Numenor (you know, the thing that involves standing up and looking towards the west) and also remembering the Professor. We have taken part in the Tolkien Pub Quiz, coming a respectable middle-ish according to the scorers! We have also discovered that they sell wine in VERY big glasses. Aganzir has the giggles over everything I mistype and I nearly fell over some other poor attendee on the way up the stairs. It's all going excellently!

We miss you Bethberry and Esty! Come soon. :)

(Addendum to the wine comment: I just asked Agan if any of this didn't make sense. She said yes. I said what? She burst out laughing saying no, no I mean no! As I said, all going perfectly according to plan ...)

Oh yes, and in honour of the occasion, we have just watched Where There's A Whip There's A Way because we persuaded our pub quiz team to take that name! Including Poison Ivy!

Good thing Poison Ivy is there - the Golden Girls need at least one representative! ;)

We wants pictures, we does, many incriminating pictures. And are you in the Isis Guest House?

I know Pervinca and PI have met up and Bethberry I know that PI' costume is due feture something you might recognise.

Yes, I have been waiting an entire year for the rest of the (Tolkien) (Downer) world to know what you and I have known. It sounds absolutely splendid and I'm quite disappointed that I didn't come up with the idea. ;)

And wonderful that PI has met up with Pervinca. I had no idea Pervinca was attending. Still a good number of Downers representing us.

Oh inhope she doesn't mind me saying. But she is running her Password clue via text message... so already public domain.

Got home about half an hour ago!

What an absolute joy to meet Aganzir and Kath and have a good discussion with The Squatter Of Amon Rudh (sp?) (my last conversation with a group including the Squatter was on a roof about six years ago). The conversation of last night/this morning was also shared by Faramir Jones, whom I already knew before he became a Downer.

Poison Ivy and I had a brief conversation a few years ago which would have been longer, but she had promised to meet someone. We had a really good conversation this time - in fact more than one.

Have been attending Oxonmoots for quite some time now, so met quite a few Downers before I knew they were Downers.

Oxonmoot was a much more relaxed affair than in past years. There still manged to be clashes of things we wanted to see, but it was still great and we all had a lot of fun.
I didn't think it was possible, but my Saruman of many colours costume was upstaged by Aganzir and Kath as Fili and Mr Dwalin! Next year I will wear EVEN MORE COLOURS!! ;)
Squatter was mad as a hatter as usual. His hilarious impractical car nearly got crushed by a pair of gates, but at least he didn't think cheese was a viable currency, so I think he ended up ahead.
Pervinca Took was very friendly and to my shame I did not realise who she was until it was too late! If I knew that I knew you I would probably have been more talkative!
Poison Ivy is as enthusiastic and creative as ever! I will never look at otters the same way again!

Hello to all those that I met at Oxonmoot this year, after hearing about the Barrow downs at Oxonmoot I just registered to give it a go.

(for those who met me, I was the father of young Arwen. I suppose I should have registered as Elrond - but instead I chose Bilbo's dad's name!)

Yay welcome! I'm sorry we didn't get a chance to play a final table football match with Arwen on Sunday, and the other team never got permanent proof of just how much better we are. :smokin: Well maybe next year!

Enjoy your stay on the forum. :)

Hookbill, we've never really talked on here, because I only registered in 2009 and I got quite "talked out" on Tolkien in the early noughties, on a different board which was never the same after it crashed and lost all its old threads. Also I began to feel out of place on boards that seemed to become very pro-film (even though I like aspects of the films and was tremendously enthusiastic in the "looking forward" stage that preceded them). And I'd joined the Tolkien Society about a year before having any Tolkien activity online, and had always felt very comfortable there.

I think I became properly aware of the Barrow-Downs when Downers started coming to Oxonmoot. (I remember quite a lot of their masquerade costumes, too!) And eventually I decided I'd like to try a bit of online Tolkien discussion again. I've posted elsewhere, but I find the BD to be the best place around. My addiction to cryptic clues (especially lots of them in a "Password" arrangement) may have something to do with this, but I also very much enjoy the literary discussion here.

Bungo, did you and your daughter go to the Slide Show? (The lighthearted slide-show of Tolkien art, with audience participation, in the wooden-panelled room with the tapestries). If that was you, I certainly remember talking with you, and your daughter playing with my friends' children (I was sitting next to them).

Hi Pervinca

yes, that was us - we did go to the slide-show. We also went to the auction in the morning and managed to buy a bunch of Tolkien calendars. Then when we returned home we found many of the slides in the slides show already in our set of calendars - which was nice!

best wishes

Bungo and Arwen

Hi Aganzir

yes, maybe/hopefully more table-football next year!!!

And Arwen's sister may come to Oxonmoot too in 2014!

best wishes

Bungo

Thought it might be you. You sat with us at Saturday lunch, too. I thought I might have seen you at the auction, but wasn't quite sure.

So this is a fun game isn't it - guessing the identity of people we have met from their forum posts!

So Pervinca I remember you too from our Saturday sandwich lunch,

all the best

Bungo

The Desolation Of New Year
 

Well, guest! I smell you and I feel your airplane. I hear your breath. Come along! Help yourself again, there is plenty and to spare!

Fellow Barrow-Downers! Those of you, who have been to previous Finlandmoot, or other moots, but especially those of you who so far have not! Now is the chance to change this! Because for everyone, awaiting you welcomingly, there is-

- THE DESOLATION OF NEW YEAR IN FINLAND!

The place shall be Helsinki, Finland and the timeframe expected is around the New Year, but given that everyone will likely have different open possibilities to come, there are no specifically set dates. A week here, a week there, I guess everything can be discussed with each of you who will be coming. Accomodation is provided, as indeed many guests can reside in Legate and Lommy's abode in the Dreadfort (nomen non est omen) and in the Halls of Nogrod.

What else can you expect? Meeting your favourite 'Downers, celebrating the Professor's birthday, watching and discussing the new Hobbit movie with both constructive and deconstructive criticism (I can vouch for both), Tolkien-themed games, exploring the city of Helsinki and the surrounding hostile Finnish Wilderland in dark and hostile Finnish winter, tasting traditional Finnish food, and much more.

Also, for those for whom the abovementioned events are still not exciting enough, this is another event that will be taking place (for those who are interested, of course).

We are looking forward to see you here! Individual questions can also be forwarded to myself, Aganzir, Lommy, Nogrod, or Greenie, who are sort of the core group in organising everything.

What about destructive criticizm? :D:p

I hereby appoint myself the tour guide for that group.

I just wanted it to make it sound nicer. But destruction can certainly be part of the program if there are enough people enjoying it.