First home game

Saturday was Southampton’s first home match of the season, the opposition Sunderland. Last week’s win at West Brom and the signing of Dani Osvaldo for £15 million had raised expectations, including mine.  I really thought we would win this one handsomely; should have known better. Sunderland scored after about 3 minutes; the shortest guy on the field got a free header at a corner. After that Southampton spent the entire match battering at the Sunderland defence and only scored with 2 minutes to go. A hugely frustrating experience, but at least they scored; last season they lost 0-1. I came away from the ground feeling like they’d lost. If they are going to achieve the league position they hope for then they have to beat teams like Sunderland.  

Some more words got added to the sequel. No further news from my agent but then according to his Tweets he’s on holiday.

The quiz team won again on Tuesday and again chose the correct envelope and lifted the jackpot.  We’re going to give it a rest for a week or two to allow the prize funds to regrow. Did another quiz on Sunday night with my brother-in-law and niece, did pretty well (and won a bottle of wine for having the best team name). Good to have the next generation along with us even if she only managed a couple of answers.  

Pretty good week

I’ve had a pretty good week.

First off England beat Australia in a classic test match on Monday.

Then on Weds England beat Scotland with a sublime moment by Rickie Lambert, scoring with his first touch as an England player. I can’t tell you how much this mattered to me, suffice to say I work for a Scotswoman.

My quiz team won the pub quiz on Thursday and picked the correct envelope for once; almost £60 per person in the jackpot.

Then on Saturday Southampton won their opening match of the season away at West Brom. I don’t remember the last time they won away on the first day. I hope this presages a great season.

The novel sequel advanced by about 1k words (no further news from agent).  

Nineworlds

I just got back from the Nineworlds convention which was held over this weekend in two hotels beside Heathrow Airport (in fact the car park of the Renaissance Hotel appears to be a favoured venue for plane spotters). All the stuff I was interested in took place in the Renaissance Hotel. The workshop the T-Party ran on the Saturday was a success even though we had only 7 submissions and 8 critiquers. I was critting with Gaie Sebold and Francis Knight and as always they gave very detailed and insightful comments. All the submitting writers joined in with comments so I think everyone got plenty of discussion of their work. Shame there weren’t more submissions, this is probably down to the announcement of the workshop going out too late.

The con itself seemed to be a success, considering it was the first time the organisers have run such an event. I’m told 1,200 people bought tickets and there may well have been more walk-in sales. There were loads more people in costume than I’ve seen at any other con. The panels worked well because they were scheduled with half an hour between them giving people plenty of time to find the room and the inevitable overruns didn’t matter. The only negative aspects are most likely down to the hotel. The bar was VERY expensive – £4.90 for a 330ml bottle of ordinary lager, £3.00 for a small glass of Coke – and with no decent beer. The bar is the heart of every convention; somewhere to circulate, meet people and relax between panels. The only people spending time there were the people with expense accounts. I didn’t buy a single drink while I was in the hotel (though good on the organisers for having frequently replenished water stations around the con). Same with the food in the hotel – too expensive for the average con attendee. There was no discounted car-parking rate for con attendees either. 

I had a brief chat with my agent; the novel on submission has collected a few rejections, but there are still a decent number of editors who haven’t yet responded. It only takes one. Work on the sequel continues.