Well. What to say. What a day!
We got in, didn’t manage to get into the talks but then we’d have to have woken up even earlier before dawn to have achieved that. Hopefully there’s a DVD version as apparently they were excellent. We got in just after 9, queued for Stage B talks with a random pleasant Sheffieldian who was on her third day of trying to get into some talks at least, until we heard along the queue grapevine that Brent had sold out. Then we went on an autograph hunt. As so many people were in the Stage B queue we found the Captains’ autograph area generally empty – the staff actually looked confused if we asked for a ticket rather than just joining the open queue that was there! First we went to William Shatner. There’s not much time for the captains so all Bill does is sign, but AnM got a fantastic shot of him with me there. He looked at me with that sort of soft expression he has (which I have on FB characterised as if I had just given him a kitten) and said “Thank you so very much” – I have no idea what I was being thanked for but I expect I was staring at him with the same “wow a kitten!” expression. He was adorable! Next was Patrick Stewart, who sadly couldn’t really hear my still-too-scared-to-talk-at-normal-volume voice over the noise of the crowd, but he did pick up that I was talking about The Tempest. Last of the Captains was Kate Mulgrew, who was really lovely – she called me sweetheart twice, although bear in mind all I could think of to say was “I really like your hairstyle?!?!! hashfangirlflail” I particularly like AnM’s photo of me at this point as Kate looks slightly bewildered and my head and hands are blurred, mid-flail. But it was still fantastic.
The hall itself was… ok. There were two bars which were half-heartedly themed as Klingon and Fed bars, plus a museum and some trade stands. With the exception of Stage B talks which we could have benefited from having multiple day passes i.e. multiple chances to queue, I’m glad we only had day tickets, as beyond autographs and photo shoots there wasn’t much to keep your attention for more than an hour. The museum was mostly someone’s collection, and everything else was a bit half-baked. I realise that I justified the entrance fee by considering it an access to the autographs – had I not got autographs and got to meet the guests I possibly would have wondered what I’d paid for. However, since I got very autograph happy, that wasn’t an issue 😉
Then I think we dallied for a bit as Brent was still in his talk. We may have gone window shopping. Oh I had at some point gone to get some fake voucher money for autographs and came back with said fake money and a Brent Spiner photo shoot ticket (how did that end up in there?!) Eventually he came back and we went to get his autograph. He was just lovely – he makes an attempt to interact with everyone and for me he commented on the lack of letters in my name – lack of n’s, no e. I said I was downsizing, he approved. <3! AnM got his autograph too - handily I'd brought all my spare printed photos. I was having a dithery moment of whether to buy more autographs, and so while my brain stalled and tumbleweed rolled by we sat down for a bit. Randomly two girls from our old school walked up to us and said Hi, which threw me totally but was lovely! We chatted a bit - they'd been here three days and said Friday was the best - loads of time with each guest etc. I do suspect that with minimum 4/17000 representatives from our school we were perhaps the most represented alumni of a grammar school there. Then, the second highlight of my day (the first being chatting to Brent Spiner). The photo shoot with said same Brent Spiner. We got there early, and ended up getting told to go sit down and that they'd call us in groups of 50. With ticket 411 we though we should sit down. However then people started just freely queuing, so I wandered in and joined the queue. The girl behind me (aka Wocket) struck up conversation over our jewellery; her necklace matched my earrings, and for the half hour we stood there we got along famously. Talked about genesis theories, fanfiction, Transformers, jobs, cats, and maybe just a little of Star Trek. As I fail at having pockets, let alone a phone, pen or paper we had to wait until we'd gone through the photo shoot to swap FB details. As for the photo shoot, Brent put his arm around everyone and I've no idea if it was allowed but I certainly put my arm around his back 😀 <3 <3 Not the most flattering lighting for me but I think it came out well. Again he was lovely - I can't remember what he said but he made the effort to say it. He called Wocket "babe" - she has a great standby line "I hope you enjoy the convention" which apparently I need to learn. After bouncing enthusiastically out of the photo shoot we made our way to AnM and attempted fruitlessly to swap FB details, reverting in the end to pen and paper. How archaic. AnM and I then left the hall to huntergather and found pie (there was a pie bush), which was rather nice. I can't remember if this was before lunch or after but I did eventually decide that I would get John de Lancie, Michael Dorn and Denise Crosby's autograph, partly because they had no queues (a Q with no queue?!). John and Michael were very quiet, but I choose to believe this is because I was struck dumb and unable to talk, and expecting all guests to carry the conversation is naive 😉 John looked at the slightly dodgy picture for a long while before signing - it was the only high res image I could find online and it clearly had stripes on it from being taken from an old TV set. Denise however was lovely, despite my unintentional insult "I don't have a picture of you, I ran out of photos!" Smooth. She even posed for a photo with me. Lovely lady! And wow she almost looks how she did when playing Tasha Yar, some 20-odd years ago. After lunch we returned to the Brent queue for me to get my new photo shoot picture signed. He had a huge 1hr queue (the crewmember manning his VQ deserves major props for his bright attitude and reliable predictions of waits) so we wandered off to Stage C to see a talk by Richard Arnold. It was a pretty interesting talk - all about the years he worked with Gene Rodenberry. It also had info in about the way Paramount mistreated the old Star Trek folk, which was pretty shocking. All very eye opening, although they did finish amicably. I also learned about the number 47 - apparently it's an in joke - almost every episode has the number 47 in it. Species 8472, 47 Baku abducted (Dad spotted that one!), 47 people saved, planet 4 having 7 moons etc. Lastly we went back to Brent to get my photo shoot photo signed. And of course I talked nonsense instead of what I wanted to say. Which is fine, he talked nonsense too. He was still lovely, despite it being about 3.30pm on day 3. Le sigh 🙂 Having spent more than was sensible we decided then to make like a tree and go. I now have an inexplicable urge to tour the US attending Star Trek conventions... which considering how much I hate flying is saying something. SPOILER FOR NEMESIS - IN PLACE FOR DING! * * * * * * SPOILER FOR NEMESIS - IN PLACE FOR DING! I re-watched Nemesis (sort of - was also surfing. FYI title of blog is a song Data sings in it) tonight, and I realised something had changed. Previously (bearing in mind I'd last watched in on Wednesday before the Con so 'previously' is fairly recent) at the point of Data's last scene I'd felt bereft (read: I was in floods of tears). This time, having met Brent Spiner, it's like my brain accepted they were separate, and the "Goodbye" was from Data, not Brent. Which I realise is tremendously gushy and I may review and edit this in the morning lol, but there we are. There is life after Trek.
