gorgeousgary and Sheryl set an alarm for 8:30am so they could get to panels they wanted to attend. I needed to get up anyway to prepare for my concert. I went down to the hotel restaurant at 11am in search of breakfast to learn they stopped seating at 10am. Somehow I talked them into having the chef put together a breakfast plate for me; it contained a poached egg, link sausage, blood sausage, bacon (shoulder bacon rather than the kind of bacon we're used to in the U.S.), baked beans, and a potato scone (looks kind of like a flat version of French Toast). In retrospect I wish I'd taken a photo of my plate. The waitress brought toast, but when I asked her for Marmite she kept bringing marmalade. Turns out she was Lithuanian and didn't know what it was, let alone that the restaurant did have it. Since I was in the UK I opted for tea to drink; I was surprised when they brought a pot of hot water with two teabags in it rather than something pre-brewed as they had done in Melbourne.Afterwards I went up to the room, hoping to work on my computer, only to find the maids hadn't done our room yet. I took the computer to the "Green Room" and worked there for a couple of hours. I then took it back to the room and it still wasn't done. Finally I started setting up my printer; that was when the maid finally decided to clean our room. All weekend it was a struggle with the hotel to get them to give us enough towels; this day was no exception. I wound up slipping a couple of extras out of the maid's cart.
Rehearsal time for my concert was set at 1pm. I was having printer problems and couldn't get the sheet music printed, so it was clearly time to have my singers fake the "Sha la la lahs" and so forth (they were great, btw). I had Kate Soley Barton, Andy Gordon-Kerr,
hrrunka, and vaurien in my room amidst the chaos with the maid practicing "Sha la la la" and discovering bugs with the MIDI backup file. They left at 2pm, leaving me an hour to fix the MIDI file. Unfortunately the MIDI file started corrupting itself around 2:55pm. I had it fixed in time for my concert, but then I couldn't get a down elevator! After the third full one stopped at my floor I opted to try to go up. Unfortunately, the guy in that lift wouldn't let me in because I was going down. Grrf. This made me ten minutes late for my own concert and very embarassed. (At least I ended on time!)I couldn't tell how well the opener went, as it was loud and I was tired and nervous. I was told a few folks who were familiar with the original and with "Banned from Argo" were "nailed," to quote
gorgeousgary. Unlike my usual form, I actually opted to punt a computer-backed song and stick to guitar songs for the rest of the concert. The CD recording has made me more confident and competent at guitar.After the concert I stuck around to catch all the other concerts, feeling severely outclassed. Dinner that night was with
gorgeousgary and Sheryl at a place called "Bombay Blues" in Central Glasgow that had a kickass buffet that was a Good Value even by U.S. standards. Quite a few other congoers were there as well. Afterwards gorgeousgary and Sheryl went straight to the Hilton to party-hop while I opted to go first to the hotel and change, then party-hop. Since the buses from the Exhibition Centre to the Hilton didn't start running till 11pm I hung out in the filk room till it was "party time."It amazed me that folks at the Hilton were buying ales when there was free booze to be had at the parties if you knew where to look. I ran into lots of friends in the parties, drank interesting stuff, and ate some pretty good stuff, too. I learned from
bovril that there's a really good whisky distillery in the San Francisco Bay area not far from where Dr. James lives and works. "But it's only open for tasting during the day," he said."I'll be there during the day Thursday. I might even have a designated driver with me!" Hee. Warren was actually self-conscious about his disinterest in consuming alcoholic beverages...
I eventually got partied out and went back to my hotel and crashed.
