Anguirel - we were near there on Friday as we went to look at the Pitt Rivers so you may have heard me babbling on about the shrunken heads!
I hope Mithalwen has read all the books she bought (ruddy loads!) - we eventually found her after wandering about all day long and wondering who she might be, and she's very nice! No pink boots though! I hope you'll be there again, Mith, maybe to even stay over and join in the fun, which on Saturday involved a long drunken discussion after we avoided some atrocious 'music' by a member of the Tolkien Society and a famous Tolkien artist. Oh dear it was
bad. Anyway, stay there and you'll get narfforc entertaining you on Sunday morning, but just don't stand behind him.
We met some great people, not least of who was Mithalwen! We were also introduced to Joanna Tolkien, though davem doesn't remember as he was drunk
I've just told him about it now! Heard some great stories from the old timers. Watched all the eccentrics wandering about, and come up with a theory that the TS is secretly a Freemasons' recruiting society after noting that there was a bloke in an apron, and watching the Springle Ring dancers who had rolled up trouser legs and ribbons round their arms.
I hope its in better accommodation next year - I've slept for 11 hours last night to make up for it! It got me all grumpy cause I need a good night's sleep so on Saturday I just got hammered so I'd collapse anyway, which I did.
But the grub was good, apart from the Friday dinner. We were being tight and didnt shell out £28 for food we didn't fancy so we ate a picnic instead, and it turned out that there wasnt enough food to go round anyway. So we didnt need to press our noses against the windows like destitute orphans.
I liked the slideshow, which went through art inspired by Tolkien, looking at the good and bad, but was dreading something I liked coming up and being slagged off. Which it did when they got snooty about the art in the Day bestiary. OK so the text is bad in that book, but I thought the pictures were great!
Good show by Bob Blackman who wrote the new book about Tolkien in Birmingham, looking at the local history of the Sarehole area. And another entertaining one about Tolkien, women and oxford, which i listened to while sitting outside as the mic was pretty loud, and it meant I could get in some more smoking. Shop was in the Maggie Thatcher centre, appropriate. I didn't manage to think of anything to deface the sign with, but if I go there again I'll go armed with 'Coal Not Dole' stickers, meh-heh. Shop was excellent of course too, I couldn't decide what to buy....almost, though it took some deciding.