Poem – Welcome To The Hebrides

Me performing poetry – Taken by Andy N

The crops have failed again this year

And we can’t find a virgin Christian cop we can steer

Manipulate and engineer

Into helping us out

There aren’t that many celibate policemen about

And the Islanders insist

Our harvest festival should not be missed

So we are looking for a volunteer

To get in a boat or a seaplane and come to us here

We guarantee a very warm welcoming fire

While we all sing and dance in some traditional costumes we hire

Specially for the day

You’ll love the pole we prance around every first of May.

We keep our old pastimes fresh and alive:

Fertility dancing continues to thrive.

You can stay over at the Green Man Inn

Lord Summerisle himself often pops in.

You’ll get to see the spectacular sunrise view

When we lift up and elevate you

Into our famous giant wicker-weave art installation

While we gather round in great jubilation

We will keep well back to avoid smoke inhalation

In the interests of our safety and health.

We’ll all reap in the benefits as you sacrifice yourself

To nature and you will have served the greater good

Just like that last chap who came here, Edward Woodwood.

Oh, there was one other bloke, who we sadly failed to please

He didn’t like it when he got stung by lots of bees

But Summerisle assures us that won’t happen to you

Just don’t expect to go home and write about us in a Tripadvisor review.

Arthur Chappell

Eastercon – The First Full Day – Saturday 16th – April 2022

Twisting Tropes – Hannah Kaner moderated this panel on messing with cliches and familiar patterns in SF / fantasy subversively.  Kate Dylan, Saara El-Arifi, Katriona Silvey, and Tasha Suri chatted through the themes. 

Book Launch – Olivie Blake’s The Atlas Six has had a great deal of hype as a must read work. I saw a full window display of the work in the Preston Waterstone’s days before heading for London so I was looking forward to this reading and launch. All the elements were there, including free wine for attendees but the author read only the back cover blurb rather than even the opening pages of the book. I had hoped for more than this. 

Afternoon Party – All The Birthdays – This was a cake sharing session to show appreciation to fans celebrating birthdays at this con and what would have been their birthdays at the previous Eastercons lost to Covid lockdown. 

BSFA Awards – The awards ceremony was very well presented with some recipients cleary  very emotional in their acceptance speeches, including Adrian Tchaikovsky, best novel with Shards Of Earth, and Aliette De Bodard who took the best story award with Fireheart Tiger.  A full list of the winners here https://reclamation2022.co.uk/assets/uploads/issue-3.pdf 

Alien On Stage – The Saturday highlight was a screening for a full length documentary movie on an unlikely but true against all odds success story.  A group of Dorset nus drivers, despite no acting or theatre experience, hit on the idea of recreating the Ridley Scott movie, Alien as a theatre show to raise money for charity. Though injected with humour their production would follow the plot remarkably faithfully. 

My Alien, (Woody)

In seeking publicity, funding and sponsorship, they found the scale of their little theatre show’s reach expanding to an invite to perform in a major Leicester Square theatre. The film charts their progress as they overcame remarkable odds, built sets, costumes and effects from remarkably little and ultimately turned out a sensational show that the live audience clearly loved, leading to the show now receiving an annual encore performance at the same venue – a sheer delight from start to finish.  

Glasgow Worldcon Bid Party – The last big event of the night (bar a lively well received Disco I didn’t attend personally) was a celebratory launch party for the 2024 Glasgow Worldcon bid (which is sure to win given that no opposing towns or countries are challenging them). The party included tots of whisky, Iron Brew, and sweets.  Works for me.

Arthur Chappell

TV Review – Vigil

TV Review – Vigil – How To Ruin A Great Show Right At The End 

Spoilers here for this TV series, which was a riveting, tense political drama about a murder investigation on a British nuclear submarine at sea, (and a parallel inquiry waged on land).  It all got disappointing in the end though.

Scottish detective Amy Silva (Suranne Jones), is sent by helicopter to board the Vigil sub after a member of the crew is apparently poisoned.  She is claustrophobic and understandably afraid of water following being present when her husband drowned in a car crash (from which she and her daughter narrowly escaped). 

A TV set, taken by me

It becomes apparent that the killings and acts of sabotage on board are aimed at forcing the Vigil to surface, exposing their activity to stalking Russian / Chinese pursuit vessels and causing diplomatic chaos. The problems also risk exposing facts about the poor conditions of British nuclear submarines and crew taking illegal drugs to cope with the stresses of long periods of isolation underwater in radio silence. 

All goes well until the closing cliffhanger of the penultimate episode when it all falls to pieces. 

The killer releases a biochemical nerve agent that kills another crew member and contaminates a major bow region of the sub.  There has to be some crew sent in to help contain the contamination, but Hazmats are stored in the very area they need to inspect. There are only two drysuit diving suits on the entire sub, so the inspectors will have to wear those and they’ll only get about 15 minutes before the suits and helmets kill them with dehydration. 

This gets really silly in that Silva insists on wearing one of the suits so she can inspect the crime scene, leaving only Glover (himself a suspect) to seal the contamination and get the Hazmats. Clearly saving the sub and everyone on board would take priority and Silva would be expected to wait for someone on board who is much more qualified to make the dangerous inspection / repair detail. 

Job done safely, Silva & Glover are attacked by the killer / spy Doward. He knocks out Glover and goes after Silva, who is collapsing in exhaustion as the predicted dehydration kicks in. Doward saves her by getting her helmet loose right before trying to kill her by putting her in a torpedo tube.  Why didn’t he just leave her to suffocate in her diving suit? It would have looked a natural tragedy and he would have been free to further his mission with more damage and mayhem. 

The torpedo tube is obviously a Hell for a claustrophobic, especially when Doward fills it with freezing sea water and though the water is released quickly (somehow all the tube activity itself never sets alarms off in the bridge), Silva is left for some time breathing in an airtight tube (too long) before her ingenious use of Morse code saves her. 

The final episode wraps up the dangers too quickly. Three quarters of the episode are set after Doward’s capture and arrest. The government not surprisingly covers up the whole affair.  Silva is reunited with Kirsten Longacre, (Longy, played by Rose Leslie) her Scottish partner (career and relationship-wise), and the pair go to see Silva’s daughter.  There was a build up in a previous episode that showed Longy in conflict with Silva’s homophobic parents (the child’s minders) but that is not referred to when the ladies reunite with the child, who the homophobics were minding.  

A great edge of seat tension crank to a real damp squib resolution.

Arthur Chappell