Octocon

I flew out from Bristol on Friday - it took longer, almost, to get to the airport from our house (half an hour) than it did to fly from Bristol to Dublin. They did not have time to serve tea, but we did get a rather spectacular view of the estuary and the Brecon Beacons. And then, suddenly, Fishguard and the Irish Sea.

The con is currently held in a rather nice hotel on the south side, so I got off the bus in Temple Bar and walked down, past Dublin entering its Friday night phase. I did some further walking up to St Stephen's Green on Saturday, but much time was taken up with the con, which was excellent. I ended up doing some extra panels and also going to several, which I have fallen out of the habit of doing in recent years. It was a very interesting programme. Irish fans/pros are a great bunch (we did, by the way, celebrate Harry Harrison's life on the Sunday morning) and I met several people for the first time, including C E Murphy, and may I say what a delight that was: we've never managed to meet up previously and I'm so glad we did.

On Monday I went up to St S's Green again and admired it properly, then went over to the national museum, which was shut, so I found a very interesting exhibition on Yeats in the public library - itself a building of some splendour - including all his Golden Dawn regalia. They seemed to want to make a feature of his occult work, rather than sweeping it under the carpet. After this I had tea in the magnificence of Bewley's, and went to see the Book of Kells: I have seen this before but it's always worth a visit. What always strikes me about these ancient tomes is the tiny detail - all that Celtic knotwork is teeny. After the exhibition itself, Trinity channels you upstairs into the jawdropping Long Room, which has to be some Platonic ideal of a library.

Then I walked to the Porterhouse for the dead dog party and lunch, and over the Liffey into Dublin's North Side: a friend was born in a pub up here, which I managed to find (I sat in it for a bit and watched the racing from Roscommon). A lot of the north side is in a pretty bad way: some of it looks like Canary Wharf and then suddenly there's a derelict street, so one can tell where the recession hit, marking its impact on the face of the city.

And then the airport and home. I want to thank Gareth, Kate, Dani, Rachel and everyone else for making this such an excellent convention. Very well organised, interesting and friendly: highly recommended.