Gaelcon... Probably The Greatest Convention In The World

Monday

Monday morning we had the bright idea of heading into Dublin. When I say "bright" the word is of course dripping with irony, because while getting into Dublin on the bus was deceptively easy, getting out by cab took about an hour and then some, due to the fact that someone had decided to cut the city in half with a marathon.

Top tip: If, on Saturday morning, one of the convention organisers says "I wouldn't go into the city centre on Monday because the marathon screws up all the traffic" - I'd listen to them if I was you.

Still, on the way back I was able to discuss the politics of the situation between the FAI and the GAA about the use of Croke Park for the joint Irish-Scottish European Football Championships bid with the cab driver, something with apparently annoyed the hell out of the muppets (which I'd say is reason enough in itself).

Game 3 - Sorcerer: Letters Never Sent

That afternoon, we played our third game of the convention, a session of Sorcerer. None of us had played the game, which meant that the poor GM (who happened to be the GM me and G. had played with in the previous day's game) had to explain it all to us.

(Note:- Not having read the game, I don't know how much of what we played was part of the standard setting, and how much was just for this scenario. Given that said scenario was apparently written by the same warped genius who wrote the The Albatross Crime Club, it could be that a lot of the weird, but good stuff was the scenario not the setting.)

The general gist of what he explained is as follows:

The game is about Sorcerers. Sorcerers don't cast spells or do magic. They summon demons, which they bind them to themselves to give themselves greater abilities. In this game, the "sorcerers" were artists of various kinds, and the "demons" they had summoned were their muses. These muses (with one exception) took the form of human beings.

And here's the kicker:

The group consisted of six players, us four, and two other blokes. Three of the players were playing sorcerers. The other three were playing their muses.

Mark was playing a weird, freaky performance artist, and one of the Irish blokes was playing his muse, who took the form of a clingy girlfriend.

G. was playing a female sculptress, and I was playing her muse - a green, gaseous cloud. To complicate things nicely, G.'s character was the estranged wife of Mark's character (Mark's bloke had dumped G.'s woman in favour of Jessica, his muse).

The second Irish bloke was playing a writer, and Bog Boy was playing his muse, who took the form of ten different women. (To the outside world, it would just look like a writer, and a bunch of groupies).

The scenario started at the funeral of a writer who had been a mentor to all of us. The general plot theme was for us to investigate his death, but since each individual character had their own agenda (I wanted to make sure G.'s character didn't get back together with Mark's for example) things got pretty confused.

But it was good fun. It's an interesting game, and I'd recommend that people give it a look.

Closing Ceremony

The final event of the convention was the closing ceremony. One funny moment occurred while we were waiting. A bloke came up, asked if we were "Critical Miss", and when we confirmed that we were, introduced himself as the chairman of the Irish Games Association, who run Gaelcon. He asked us, slightly nervously, how we'd enjoyed things. Someone, I think it was Mark, said something like: "Don't worry, it will be a good review." The bloke laughed, and said something like: "Well I wasn't going to ask..."

I think that perhaps he'd read our article about Conception.

The ceremony was quite fun. The main portion of it was a light-hearted awards ceremony. I think the funniest award given was the "more money than sense" award, which went to the bloke who'd bid three thousand euros the night before.

Bizarrely enough, I managed to win an award myself at one point, which seemed a tad suspicious... :)

Things were interrupted half way though because James Walls, who as the guest of honour had been handing out the prizes, had to leave early. He got a pretty rousing send off, followed by the inevitable: "James Wallis has left the building." He really is the nearest thing the roleplaying world has to a rock star.

(I kind of wanted there to be a helicopter waiting outside with rotors already turning, but I suspect the truth was more prosaic).

The ceremony finished at around eight-ish, at which point the organisers said that they were heading off to a celebration dinner, so they'd appreciate it if we'd piss off kindof sharpish. But they did invite everyone to join them at a bar called Fibbers later on in the evening.

I should at this point put in a bit of a mention about the evening pub visits. There's a drink at Fibbers after each night of Gaelcon. In fact, they organise a bus to take people from the convention site to the city centre at the end of each day. You can buy tickets at the main convention desk.

When the auction had finished the night before, at around ten to one in the morning, Colm had asked everyone who'd bought a ticket to get going quickly because the bus was waiting.

Yes. It was ten to one in the morning... and they were heading off to the pub!

But back to Monday night...

Initially we weren't going to go, because we were feeling a little knackered - except for G., who is always up for a drink. But then I thought: "Fuck it, I get to spend plenty of evenings doing nothing, but I'll never have this evening again."

So we decided to go. (Except because we hadn't been going previously, we hadn't asked the Gaelcon guys where it was, so I had to call directory enquiries, get the phone number for Fibbers, and then phone them up to ask them what street they were in).

The Taxi Driver

Before I continue, I feel I ought to say something about the section I'm just about to write. I actually thought long and hard about whether to put it in, but I finally decided that I would, because firstly, I don't think it's that horrible, and secondly, the chances of the bloke concerned reading it are practically nil.

So here goes...

The cab arrives outside (I'd phoned up to order it) and we pile in, G. in the front, and me, Mark and Bog Boy in the back. I say, very clearly: "Parnell Street, please!" and then G., totally unnecessarily repeats what I've said: "Parnell Street!"

Now Mark has a knack of saying things which are just a tad too rude, and said just a tad too loudly, and which leave those of us who worry about these things (i.e. me) panicking that the person concerned will hear the comment and take offence.

So when Mark heard G. repeat what I'd said he remarked: "in case he's deaf!"

And then the cabbie, who I don't think had actually heard what Mark said, replied to G. in a synthetic robot voice. I didn't actually catch what he'd said, but it was immediately obvious that he had one of those buzzy voicemaker things that you hold to your throat, which I guessed meant he'd somehow lost his larynx.

So I gave Mark a dirty look, intending it to say: "No, he's not deaf, he's mute you insensitive bastard!" and I must admit, he did look pretty sheepish.

So we head off into town, and the cabbie is talking nineteen to the dozen. I was having a bit of difficulty catching what he was saying, because this kind of synthetic voice is kindof "flat", which makes it harder to pick out the words. But since I was sitting directly behind the bloke, I couldn't really speak to him anyway. It was basically left to G., who was sitting up front, to carry on the conversation, which went something like:

"Where-are-you-from?"

"England."

"I-know-that-where-abouts-in-England?"

"London."

"London-is-a-big-place-where-in-London?"

"Erm... well I'm from..." and so on.

After a little while, we reached Parnell Street, and cruised slowly down it looking for Fibbers.

Which was nowhere to be found. So we piled out of the cab and started looking around. At some point during this walk, we got onto the subject of the cabbie. I said that I'd found it quite difficult to follow what he was saying.

"What was that bit about 'bora-bora-bora'?" I asked.

"No, that was 'more more more'" said Bog Boy.

"Oh, so did you understand what he was saying?"

"Oh yeah. Mind you, I did watch a lot of Battlestar Galactica when I was a kid."

There is a final postscript to this story. A few weeks later, when we were in the pub, G. mentioned what it was that the bloke had said when we got in the cab. It was:

"We are Cylons. We are here to make you laugh. Don't worry, I'll get you where you're going."

So he's obviously heard the Cylon joke before. But fair play to him. He's obviously taking what's happened to him a damn site more positively, and with better humour, than I suspect I would in his situation.

Eventually, I got desperate enough to phone the pub up. Now us English people have a tendency to ask questions in a very indirect way, because we think it's politer. And I, being a bit of a worrier, tend to take this a bit further than most English people. Well, on this occasion I excelled myself:

"Excuse me... is that Fibbers?"

"Yeah."

"Ah good. Could I ask you if you know where you are?"

"Yeah. I know where I am."

"Oh right. Sorry. Erm... Where are you?"

She then gave me directions, and we set off. We still didn't find Fibbers, but as we were walking past a bar called "Baccus", I remembered reading a bit in the "thanks" section of the Gaelcon fliers which thanked "Fibbers (Baccus)".

This was indeed Fibbers.

I don't have many suggestions to the Gaelcon organisers, but this is one of them. When you tell people that you'll be in a bar called Fibbers, perhaps you could mention that the sign outside actually says "Baccus".

Fibbers

The evening started slowly. We found some people who looked like gamers and sat down at the table next to them.

They got up and moved to the other end of the pub.

It stayed like that for an hour or so. I was getting paranoid that "the party" was in the far end of the bar, which we couldn't see. Everytime someone went to get a round of drinks, I asked them to check if there was anyone in this hidden bit.

But eventually the Gaelcon guys arrived and the evening got going. We met quite a few people, but as the evening wore on, and people drifted away, it finished up with the four of us, Fiki, who was one of the Gaelcon committee members, and two of his friends, a girl called Xi (well that was how it was pronounced... fuck knows how you spell it) and a huge bloke called Wookie.

It was at this point that these hardened Irish drinkers introduced us poor innocent Englishmen to the concept of drinking games.

The first one was based around place names. The first person says the name of a place, such as "London". The person to their left then says a name that begins with the last letter of the previous name (so if the first person said "London", the second person can say "Newcastle"). You can say any kind of place, city, country, county, state, river, sea. But you're not allowed to repeat a name that has previously been used.

If you say a name that begins and ends with the same letter, such as "Australia" or "Yevgeny" (although I think Fiki might have just made that last one up), the direction reverses. It can be very annoying when you say "Tanzania", and the person next to you says "Austria", thus bouncing it back at you. Although you can them piss them off by saying "Armenia". Until they say "America". And then the two of you continue with Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, Australasia, Asia and so on.

There are a lot of double As. (And Fiki and Wookie, past masters of this game, have memorised them all).

And here's the drinking bit. When it is your turn to come up with a name, you have to start drinking, and you're not allowed to stop until you either say a name, or run out of drink (in which case it goes onto the next person).

Now I should have been good at this game. I'm good on geography. If you give me a blank map of Europe, I'll be able to fill in the names of every country. But add in a dose of stress, and a dash of alcohol, and I go to pieces. It was very difficult. Good game though.

After a while, we switched to another game, the "Numbers" game. This is one of those games which, when explained to you, seems too simple. Until you play it, when it clicks.

The person who lost the last game shouts "one". Anyone else can then shout "two". Anyone else can then shout "three". And so on, until the last person to shout (which in our case was the seventh person) has to drink seven "fingers" of their drink. But if two people shout a number at the same time, they both have to drink that many fingers of drink. (By "finger" we mean the width of a finger amount).

So it might go:

Me: "One!"

One second pause.

Fiki: "Two!"

Two second pause.

Wookie: "Three!"

Half second pause.

Bog Boy and Mark: "Four! Damn!"

At which point, Bog Boy and Mark would have to drink four fingers of their drink.

It reminded me of those computer networks which allow each client to try to transmit whenever with no attempt to avoid collisions (but when a collision between two clients occurs, each client backs off for a random time and then tries again).

It was a good game, but very fast, and with the potential to get people very drunk, very quickly. So we switched to a third game, the "I have never" game.

In this game you take it in turns to say: "I have never blah blah blah!"

Example: "I have never fallen out of bed!"

Now, you can either say something that is true, or false. Everyone, including you, who has done the thing has to take a long drink of their drink. It's usually more fun if you say something that you have actually done (so you automatically get to take a drink).

There are two further rules:

You are not allowed to deliberately smoke someone out by saying something that is ridiculously specific and could only apply to them ("I have never wet myself on the first day of junior school!" for example). Although I have to confess that I broke this rule with: "I have never insulted a disabled taxi driver!"

The second rule is that if only one person drinks they have to "tell the story". Which can be embarrassing.

The game soon got going. Mark got in a nice one with "I have never chundered in an Irish pub!" which got the three Irish people, plus an embarrassed Bog Boy, who'd made a longish trip to the bogs about ten minutes before.

I did a few boring ones, such as: "I have never eaten quorn!" (which I haven't, because it contains egg white, and it came out after I became a vegan) and the others came up with one's relating to wearing women's clothing, forgetting people's names while having sex, and so on.

But after a while I worried that I wasn't really getting in the spirit of things. My ones were a bit tame compared with the more "confessional" ones that other people were coming up with. I wanted something which was a bit embarrassing, but was the sort of thing that *everyone*, or at least every bloke, would have done at some point or other. And then I thought of something.

"I have never shagged my pillow!" I shouted, taking a deep swig of my drink. And then realising that no-one else was drinking. In fact, they were staring at me in open-mouthed horror. Oops.

"What..?" I stammered. "You never got bored and fancied a bit of hands-free action?"

Apparently not.

At some point, quite possibly immediately after that humiliation, I staggered off to the bogs for a slash, which ended up taking about ten minutes because I was leaning against the wall and couldn't be bothered to shake. Eventually I staggered back, and found that they were now playing the "Fuzzy Duck" game. Since I hadn't had the rules explained to me, I wasn't quite sure of what was going on, but as far as I can recall (and you have to remember that I had been drinking heavily) the rules went something like this:

One person says "Fuzzy duck". The person to their left says: "Fuzzy duck". It continues like that for no apparent reason until someone says: "Does he". It then continues until the person next to Jonny says something else, Jonny says: "Huh?", and is told to drink his drink. I didn't understand what was going on, but apparently I was losing heavily.

Now this was one of those times in life where have only two options. You can opt to keep your pride and your dignity intact. Or you can crawl under the table and refuse to come out.

I chose the latter option, spending the next forty-five minutes (I said 30 minutes, the others said an hour, independent arbitration settled on 45) ignoring requests to come out, and sending forth a flood of text messages saying mainly "I'm okay, it's quite nice down here" and "I've run out of drink". Apparently, I sent so many that the inbox on Evil G's phone overflowed.

Unfortunately, my phone is actually a work phone, given to me so that I can be contacted if needs be, which means that on Wednesday, when I got back to work, I had to send the following email to my boss:

Remember how I said that if you put international roving on my phone I wouldn't misuse it?

Well I think I might have sent out about 20 text messages on Monday evening, but in my defence, I was drunk at the time.

Luckily, my boss does have a sense of humour.

Finally, after I'd refused all appeals to come out (why would I, I was snug and happy) they pushed all the chairs to one side, lifted up the table, and carried it to the other side of the room. I guess they'd missed me. Either that or it was chucking out time.

We ended up outside the kind of seedy mini-cab office that is apparently a universal fixture in a modern city, carrying out the semi-drunken half-hour wait for a cab that is apparently a universal fixture of city-life. By now it was about 2:30 am, but we were all happily drunk(ish). I can remember much, but I think we did the usual declarations of life-long friendship, hugs, invitations to stay and so on, followed by a dash for a cab that may or may not have been ours.

Tuesday...

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