Picocon

[major_clanger]

If I'd attended every single Picocon since arriving at Imperial College as a fresher then yesterday would have been my 24th. I haven't - I know I've had to miss some - but I'd guess I've been to about 20 since my first, Picocon 5, back in 19861987 (oops). Some things have changed a lot in that time, such as the main student bar in Beit Quad (now on at least its fifth major redecoration since then). Others, such as the adjacent Union Bar, are almost unchanged. As are some of the weird Picocon traditions such as Destruction of Dodgy Merchandise (HULK MEET LIQUID NITROGEN!) and the Oxford-Cambridge Fish Fight. ("What's the point?" enquired darth_hamster? "What's the point of the Boat Race?" I asked in return.)

It was great fun and a real pleasure to see everyone (if I tried to list them all, I'd only miss someone.) Looking forward to nest year, and a quarter of a century of Picocons.

Comments

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

Am I alone in wondering if the combination of the fish fight and the boat race would be an interesting idea?

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

I think that would certainly kick it up a notch, so to speak :-)

[teaparty.net (from livejournal.com)]

What, are you kidding? That'd basically be Morphy Day, wouldn't it?

[unwholesome-fen.livejournal.com]

Surely if your first one was 1986 and you went to all of them since, this year would have been your 26th? Or were there some years where it didn't happen?

I think my first was probably 1988, and as I recall it was the following year I represented Cambridge in the very first fish fight, which was all Ivan's idea - whatever happened to him?

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Oops - I started at IC in late 1986 but indeed Picocon 5 was in early 1987.

Not sure what happened to Ivan. My last memory of his is when he had to impersonate Anne McCaffrey for the GoH interview at a convention when she couldn't make it...

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Some years during the 90s did in fact go by without a Picocon. Shocking, I know, but it is the truth.

As to Ivan, he's now in New Zealand where he works in software of some kind and has a blog:

http://hestia.typepad.com/flatlander/

He's probably now going to wonder where all the extra traffic came from :-)

[yvonneh.livejournal.com]

It was great to see you and meet Sian, and talk to Kari and Phil over lunch. Sorry I had to leave early. I'll definitely be there next year.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I was there but must have missed you. It was a fun con, with panels that touched on a lot of my interests, but I was feeling a bit under the weather and left after the silly games.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

When I briefly investigated the fish fight, they had announced Royal Holloway as the winner of a bout, so they must have branched out to include other university SF societies in the fish-slapping.

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

We accept all comers.

In fact if they let us into the bloody boat race then we'd beat them at that too - at least according to my IC rowing friend twen-mumble years ago