Computer time very limited at the moment...

...since it is sandwiched between Jan's awake-time and my asleep-time, and Jan's awake-time is (to our great happiness) increasing.

Thus I will spare you my incendiary open letter to Cameron and the unconscionable Clegg, composed after inadvertently hearing a snatch of the news this evening about how everything I predicted in my depressing post a while back is in fact true and coming to pass. Also the text of the campaign ad I came up with at the same time, which ended "If you want to know what the future will be like, brush up on Charles Dickens. If you'd rather have something different, vote..." except that there is no party left in Britain whose name belongs at the end of that sentence, nor ever will be again failing a bloody revolution.

I will let you know that I have found the answer to my problem with recording the guitar in Cubase and not hearing the effects. The answer was, as I expected, boneheadedly simple and easy to fix; there's a button on the track control panel whose function is to enable "monitor with effects." Click on the button, and there all at once is Brian May, playing as if he was wearing boxing gloves and Peril Sensitive Sunglasses on the deck of a three-masted schooner in a high wind off Jamaica. Except Brian May would play better. Ah well, early days.

Still battling the cold, I have reached my Paul Robeson stage, where first thing in the morning I have a rich and mostly tuneful bass. Jan says if I had voice lessons I could maybe have that without the cold, and keep some of the upstairs voice as well. I hae ma doots, as Private Frazer would have said.

One more go at putting a guitar part on to Home At Last, and then to bed, I think. Maybe tomorrow Parliament will have been transported bodily to the moon so that a bunch of bipedal rhinos with only one vowel between them (and yet whose species name contains two: odd that) can search for the intergalactic master criminals who surely must be hiding amongst the members. Or maybe it'll just be Friday.

Friday, and the concluding part of the conrep at last.

Parliament still there as far as I can tell. They're probably waiting for full attendance before they teleport the place. Yeah, that'll be it. (In which case, of course, they might as well not bother.)

*sigh* One of my characters spent eight years in a fictitious mental home because of these people. This time round it might end up being me. (Of course, reading this paragraph, you may already be backing nervously away and hiding the French cook's knife. Soren will understand, though.)

Anyway. Onward.

When I woke up, the Dead Mouse Filk had been going on for some time. (Further explanation: the final circle at a filkcon always takes place after the closing ceremony and therefore outside the con proper. Some people are already leaving, because they have to be at work on the morrow, and there's a traditional air of exhaustion and determination to wring the last drops out of the con about it. Thus it became known as the "dead dog" circle. And, since fans never name something once if they can name it lots of times, the particular deceased animal is now subject to change according to whim. This year it was a mouse.) So up I got and wheeled Jan towards the room in question, and as we went in Silke was just coming out.

(I had indicated, when apologising for missing her set, that I had wanted to hear her sing some more, and she had been waiting for me to turn up, and had just given up on me and decided to have a break. Unfortunately, I didn't know this, and so it looked a lot more pointed than it was. Happily we had a chat later and straightened it all out.)

My memory of the circle is mostly dominated by Piers. Piers is one of those people *I* find intimidating, though I know he doesn't mean to be; he's big (yes, I know, I know, but I only think of myself as "big" when it's a disadvantage), he has a beautiful voice and a seemingly bottomless fund of unimpeachably authentic actual folk songs, as opposed to the cheap knockoffs I turn out, plus he's Northern and I'm a soft southern pansy so there's privilege guilt there. Fortunately my internal confurblings are of no significance in the real world, and he's very nice and believes in libraries.

Another good thing about Piers is that whenever he's singing I always seem to be able to find a really nice harmony. (Well, it sounds nice to me, and nobody's thrown me out yet.) He did a couple of shanties, including one where the verse consisted of:

[Insert something here] wouldn't do us any harm (x3)
And we'll all hang on behind.

Various somethings were duly inserted, some of them alcoholic. I didn't get to throw in "a cong-a line", which was a shame, but it was fun, and the harmonies on the chorus, "We'll roll the old chariot along," were truly amazing.

There were lots and lots of other good songs and stories as well, from Tiggy and Emily and Soir and 36 whose other name I didn't manage to retain and Talis and Rhodri and Steve and Katy and lots more people. And in the fullness of time Silke came back in and sang, and it was good.

One problem relating to circles was highlighted for me by the experience of two friends, though it's happened to me too. This is when a circle which started out small and bardic becomes too big (in someone's opinion) to carry on being bardic, and the someone suggests that it go chaotic, and other someones enthusiastically agree, and it was just about to be your first turn to sing. It's quite possible to feel extremely got at and put out under those circumstances, and the friends in question actually got up and left. This all happened while I was still sacked out in the lounge area, and I found out about it later, but it seems to me there ought to be a way to mitigate this somehow. Perhaps while the circle is still within notional limits for bardicness the self-appointed someone could say "one more turn around and then can we go chaotic," thus giving the non-pushy ones at least one go, and the people who can't stand chaos at any price a chance to leave without it looking pointed. I don't know. Just a thought.

Anyway. There was good singing, and I got to play Mich's keyboard a bit, and then it was time for bed.

And that was Cre2c3ndo. Next year's con, Duple Time (2/4), will also be in Grantham, with Mary Crowell as the overseas guest and Lissa (as I've mentioned) as British guest. We've booked. See you there?

Well, we'd been a while without a drama...

...so of course I had to drop my key pouch in Tesco car park last night, and as of this morning it still hasn't been handed in. There were only door keys and a Clubcard fob in there, nothing to give away identity, but it was a pain, involving a hasty drive back to retrace my steps and look for it last night, and a trip out this morning to get replacements cut from Jan's. Sigh.

On the upside, I can now use my cute vampire key ring, who I understand is named Sir Simon, and Jan has suggested I chain him to my handbag with a long chain. Probably not silver, in case anyone was worrying.