Friday
Those Present : David, Aileen, Jackie, Jackie, Andrea, Heike, Robin, Robert, Daniel, Una, Kate and Toya.
Well, most of us had met up by 5pm. So, after pleasantries and a bit of drooling over mags and pictures, we went off for an Indian meal. We had been dropped in a rather dodgy area of Manchester but it didn't dampen our spirits and we stayed close as we moved out.. You could choose your meal from the variety of stains on the tablecloth. I picked the yellow one beside the wine *tumbler*, and it turned out to be very good. Heike had a very special HTML-Samosa donated by Una (wait until you see the pictures :-) but she refused to eat it and as a punishment, her scarf disappeared :-(
We returned to the B+B and met the two Jackies. Now we were only missing Andrea. It turned out she couldn't find us and had been invited to a Daily Star journalist's party in a marquee outside. She went to that instead!
The rest of us went up to Aileen and my tiny room and *squeezed*, in to watch *R+R*, and *Dark Side of the Sun*, on our 45 degree video player leaning against the wall. :-S I must say it was absolutely great watching these amongst a group of fans. It was the first time I've done this and it was really enjoyable with everyone drooling over their favourite characters and all laughing and cheering together:-) Toya discovered that the double bed was actually 2 single ones pushed together and were actually different heights ! She thought Aileen and I must have checked in as Mr and Mrs. Smith.
Saturday
Andrea found ! Breakfast and a quick march to the Granada Studios where Jan *Soup Dragon*, Trotter and her two mini-marines and David Inman were already waiting (patiently;-) Christine *Jammie Dodger* Forrester, Sean and Naomi arrived later. As all the pensioners (or is that Marines David ;-) headed to Coronation Street we headed for Aliens !! Actually this was after we checked out a good old fashioned cockney knees up - for about a minute - I don't think the sight of 19 people walking out did anything for their confidence :( but the show sucked and they didn't serve peanuts !
Aliens is an excellent motion simulator in which you join the colonial marines driving in an APC on a hostile planet to try and rescue their comrades trapped by the bugs. It was great and the quote of the day came from the Granada staff member who said at the end. Well I hope you all had as much fun as the people in the front row ! - Hooyah!
Skytrack the rollercoaster was very broken - a bit of the track was even missing so we couldn't fly our little hammerheads :-( Robocop was ok, the Cracker interactive show was pretty good, the UFO crash zone was fun - apart from the end which everyone thought was lame and the special effects gore show was superb!!!! The backstage show was pretty good too. All in all I think everyone had a good day at the park. Some of the group - was it Daniel ? even managed to breach the Granada web security to read a S:AAB web page instead of the Granada one in the futurevision display! Nice going :-) Daniel's reputation also soared when he gave away his beloved teletubbie baloon to a small boy. Incidently, the most expensive item of the weekend will probably be the blackmail ransom for the photograph of Army man Robin holding said teletubbie baloon. :-)
We took Andrea's suggestion and all headed to ChinaTown for a great Chinese meal. Then back to the hotel for the great S:AAB trivia quiz. Jackie and Jackie had some really hard questions which really separated the men from the boys (and the women from the girls) e.g. do you know Shane's serial number? Or Cooper's Invitro conception date, batch and facility number? Everyone did very well, especially on the impersonation round :-D and in the end the winners were the Card's Castoffs with 58 points!!! (no joke!)
Christine had given us her big Tucker Smallwood news and I think a few people signed up on the spot. Go Jammy! You're doing so much for Space ! The Saturday only gang headed off while the rest continued to drool over the German S:AAB mags and Daniel's many Coldnorth photos. Heike had trouble regaining her prized Rodney picture from several women at the end of the night!
Sunday
A day for late starts, a hairy furball with the B+B woman *Bend over chiggy-woman* :-( and a visit to the Arndale centre to check out the bookshops with people peeling off at different times to make their way homes.
One story that emerged was that Kate had found a pillow outside her room on Sunday morning. It turned out that Daniel had said he needed one and he had already mentioned that he was in room 3. Jackie being the kind-hearted humanitarian that she is went up to room 3 in the dead of the night, knocked and whispered *Daniel, Daniel, I have something for you!* Ok - it was a lot more innocent than that but this story gets better and better with exageration ;-) Anyhow it was actually Kate in room 3 as Jackie hadn't realised that although Daniel was in room 3, it was actually in the other B+B! Luckily Kate slept through the whole thing but was a little confused as to why a pillow was lying against her door.
Epilogue
I really enjoyed the whole weekend and it was absolutely fantastic to finally meet all you dedicated and nice people.
It was especially nice to welcome Andrea, Heike, Una and Robin who had travelled especially far.
Thanks again to Jackie and Jackie and Toya for helping me organise it. It'll be great when we get some pictures up on the web.
I can't wait until next March now as I know we'll all make it a major, major event :-)
All the best
David Rigg
British Liaison Officer, Major, 57th Crusaders
Development Officer, 59th Ready Reserves