September Jubilee Meeting

As usual, London fandom let down its collective hair at the Jubilee, York Road, Waterloo

PNN's roving reporter, Alison Scott, presented Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer of Croydon-based Fishlifter Press with a fishlifter in the shape of a fish. We wondered whether Claire and Mark got given lots of fishlifters, and whether Plokta Enterprises should change its name. "We've never had a fishlifter like this before", said Claire, tucking the spatula into her cleavage for safekeeping.

Fans appearing from further afield included Jim Young, still on leave from the dodgier parts of Africa, and Chris Bell. And TAFF delegate Maureen Kincaid Speller was there in virtuo, with an in-progress combination trip report and guide to major US Civil War sites. I was taken by Maureen's tales of how easy it is to spot the fan waiting for you at the airport, even if you've never met them before. I guess there is something in this Sensitive Fannish Faces stuff.

The "London Circle" fan meetings are a fine example of anarchy in action. Fans from London and the Home Counties have met in a central London pub on the first Thursday of the month for more than 50 years. There is no particular plan or agenda for the meetings, where people commonly drink the pub out of real ale and trade fanzines, gossip, and infectious diseases. Any PNN readers would be welcome.

[Alison's camera malfunctioned and her digital photo got eaten by the gremlins. However, in order to demonstrate the photo facilities of the PNN site, Dr Plokta has added a couple of vaguely relevant pictures from the archives.]

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Claire and Mark, not shagging

Alison Scott and Claire Brialey look for somewhere to put a fishlifter

-- Alison Scott

06 Sep 1998