{"id":15579,"date":"2014-08-23T12:18:17","date_gmt":"2014-08-23T16:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=15579"},"modified":"2014-08-23T12:18:17","modified_gmt":"2014-08-23T16:18:17","slug":"my-favorite-loncon3-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2014\/08\/23\/my-favorite-loncon3-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"My favorite Loncon3 moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m home from Worldcon … technically. Both my brain and body are still on London time, which means I’m tired when I should be awake and unable to sleep when I should be tired. But in this brief moment of lucidity, before I launch into a full Loncon3 report—as well as recaps of my meals at The Fat Duck and Dinner by Heston Blumenthal—I thought I’d share my personal highlight of the convention.<\/p>\n

It occurred an hour or two into a party being thrown by the publishing company Gollancz. I was in a back room of the Aloft Hotel bar with Robert Reed, Ellen Datlow and others when I spotted the great Brian Aldiss standing by a pool table watching the action. And since I don’t get to see Aldiss often—in fact, the last time was likely during the 2000 Nebula Awards ceremony at which I was Toastmaster<\/a> and he was named a Grand Master—I immediately left my group, because such opportunities are not to be missed.<\/p>\n

\"ScottEdelmanBrianAldissLoncon3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I introduced myself and reminded him of when we’d last met. Joined by Rani Graff and Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, we chatted for awhile, a discussion which eventually led to Aldiss reminiscing about the first London Worldcon, held in 1957. I pulled up a site<\/a> filled with numerous photos from that event, which delighted him. Luckily, looking at all of those images of dead friends made him wistful rather than maudlin.<\/p>\n

A wonderful moment … but not yet the<\/em> most wonderful moment.<\/p>\n

That came when the conversation transitioned, for a reason I can no longer pin down, to George Formby. Perhaps Aldiss had mentioned Blackpool, where I’d attended a George Formby Society convention<\/a> early last year. Whatever the cause, this led to the two of us singing a medley of Formby songs, from “When I’m Cleaning Windows” to “Leaning on a Lampost” to “Mr . Wu” to what was his favorite number, “On the Wigan Boat Express,” which we returned to several times.<\/p>\n

Since you’ll never get to hear the two of us making a mess of any of those classic Formby songs, here’s Formby himself singing that last one.<\/p>\n