We arrived at BiCon to discover that the programming rooms had rather odd names. Other people have mentioned this already, but I thought I would just add my !! to it too. The rooms were all named after computers in science fiction films, so we had Hal, Multivac, Toy, MCP and, erm, Ira. Which was written in block capitals. So at least half of us thought that one of the rooms was named after the Irish Republican Army. Not perhaps the image that the organisers were trying to cultivate.
The opening plenary was quite dull, and much to my amazement,
adjectivemarcus wasn't running it! I had just assumed that Marcus running the plenary was par for the course, and I was rather surprised to find someone else doing it. After that, there was a pitiful half hour gap for lunch. I had no idea where anything was, but didn't want to spend 10 minutes walking back to the accommodation to find food there. So I ended up eating in the cafe of the cathedral. Then I wandered back for the workshops.The first workshop I went to was "The Workshop for Women Who Hate Women's Workshops", run by the delectable Nickie. She was very surprised when I arrived, as she had thought I was the sort of person who liked women's workshops. Heh. Well, okay, I admit it - I only went to that workshop to lust after Nickie. Well, there wasn't anything better on the timetable, okay?!
Then there was "Bisexuals and Disability", which I was running. We had a respectable turnout - about 8 people I think. The only problem was that the room we'd been scheduled in was ridiculously hot and the windows couldn't easily be opened. So we opted to sit outside and talk there. We all had a nice rant, and Kay told me that he'd been inspired to change doctor on the basis of my workshop writeup! One of the things I'd said was "Do your medications affect your sex drive?". Kay said he'd finally got round to asking his doctor if he could change to a different drug because he was sick of never wanting to have sex, and the doctor said "With your back you couldn't do anything anyway"!!! We all sat there absolutely speechless! Not just an insensitive thing for a doctor to say, but a bloody ignorant one too. I can think of all kinds of ways in which someone with a knackered back could have sex - it's not all pelvic thrusting! So I left that workshop on a real high because I'd actually made a difference to someone's life.
I picked "God the Bisexual" next, which was an extremely funny romp through religious writing. Did you know that there were actually loads of gospels written, not just the four that ended up in the New Testament? Some of them were really rather interesting. I must look into this more sometime. Finally, there was a workshop on "UK poly activism", but by this time we were all ready to collapse somewhere and sleep.
(Note for future programmers - four workshops in a row without a break is Not A Good Idea). Oh, and there was a plenary too, but I was entirely brain-dead through it, so I've no idea what was said.
I went out for dinner with Sandra & Simon, Alex & her bloke (whose name I've forgotten) and Michael from Clays Lane. We went to a rather expensive place called the Chicago Rock Cafe, which insisted on playing rock videos at us while we ate. We were all tired and silly enough to sing along loudly to all the songs we liked, including playing of air guitar, and boo all the crap ones. Some people drank pitchers of cocktails with the obligatory dodgy names, but I was already off my head from lack of sleep! I can't actually remember what happened after that. We went back to the accommodation to get changed for the disco in the evening, and I can only assume that I did so!
The disco itself was fairly crap, but that wasn't really anyone's fault. Apparently some of the equipment they'd hired had broken down, and the organisers were left running around Coventry trying to find CDs to borrow. So it was all rather odd. Also, most of the people I knew were sitting with a few people that I would have preferred to avoid. But it worked out fine in the end, as I got to sit with Nickie, Toni and David. Nickie was looking absolutely stunning.
