Darwin Festival capers

[bellinghman]

Yesterday evening, bellinghwoman and I went off to Cambridge, to go see Sir Terrence Pratchett and Dr Jack Cohen in one of the Chemistry Dept.'s lecture theatres. It was part of the Darwin Festival, and it took the form of Jack and Terry conversing on the subject and themes of their book 'Darwin's Watch' (one of the Science of Discworld series), occasionally sparked off by a moderator.

300 or so people were packed in - it was a ticket-only event and every seat was filled - and I think it went very well. Jack occasionally fumbled for a word, but that's to be expected, and he was looking a lot better than he was about a year ago. As for Terry, he was on good form, despite having been up since pretty early in the morning, off being interviewed by the Beeb and so on.

The odd thing was how few of the regular suspects were there. We recognised Terry, Jack and Rob Wilkins (of course), but in the audience, Mad Hamish was the only person we recognised, apart from Colin Greenland (who is not noted for his following of the Discworld series, being better known as an SF writer himself. I didn't see Susanna.). A number of people had brought books to sign, but it was only a relatively small proportion of the audience, certainly not what would have been there at a reading or a con appearance.

We had brief chats with Rob, Colin and Terry, reminding the latter that there's a Worldcon in Melbourne again next year, before the organisers whisked the guests away in taxis, at which point we politely disappeared off in a different direction.

(Edit: corrected spelling that I always get wrong due to adjacency of a certain Cambridgeshire village.)

Comments

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

> Colin Greenland (who is not noted for his following of the Discworld series

Colin once told me that he had stopped reading anything written in the last 20 years (where 20 is a number I made up because I cant remember precisely what he said).

Something tells me he doesnt always stick to that :-)

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

The first Discworld books are now well over that age, so he'd be allowed to read at least the first half dozen.

But yes, I suspect a tendency rather than an iron rule in such cases, just as in bellinghwoman's stated determination not to listen to music composed after 1792.

[isihac.livejournal.com]

"The odd thing was how few of the regular suspects were there"

This entry is the first I've heard of the event.

[megabitch.livejournal.com]

Ditto

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

I suspect the publicity must have been only through the Darwin Festival, and failed to get currency among the generality of Pratchett fandom.

[silly-swordsman.livejournal.com]

A friend who's working at the university told me about it, but as I'm in Hampshire it didn't do me much good. :-/

[bellinghwoman.livejournal.com]

<pedant>

there's a Worldcon in Melbourn

Would that it were in Melbourn (rather than Melbourne); it would cost us a great deal less to go :-)

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Your tag is broken, dearest.

[bellinghwoman.livejournal.com]

</pedant>

Better?

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

<grin />

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Well, if you're doing the pedant thing, I believe there's only one 'r' in Terence (except, obviously, the Terrence Higgins Trust, which is not to be confused with Sir Pterry).