Conventional Thinking - Part Two

Are we sitting comfortably?

No? Well try IKEA maybe they have a sale on.

Saturday Morning

Waking early with my usual zest… (*lie mode cancel*) – my first thought was curiosity. Ian had somehow left the middle of the four–man love-in and curled himself up near the door. A sudden knock snapped my remaining faculties to attention and Ian’s entire body a foot across the room. Rumbled?? Thankfully it was only housekeeping.

The early hours of Saturday were a bit hazy. There was definitely an episode of Futurama, the distinct possibility of the bar and then it was straight into the first of the day’s Q+A sessions.

The cast at DJ often remark that the shows characters are extensions of their own personas. The prime example being Red Dwarf’s resident Mechanoid and most techno-savvy of the main cast, Robert Llewellyn. It was hardly a surprise then when Robert arrived with a video camera and the intention of filming his own Q+A for broadcast on You Tube. A good thing really since I’ve managed to forget virtually the whole thing. I recall, he obliged one young fan with an in-character “Spin my nipple nuts and send me to Alaska” quote and recalled an anecdote from filming IT2I2 were he booked out the use of a cybercafé, turned up to find the place had no record of the booking, blagged his way into filming and then left only to discover the ‘booked’ café was actually on the other side of the road. This apart he was probably asked a question about getting an agent.

By now time was well and truly occurring in random pockets. So I’ll skip straight onto the next Q+A session, Mr Danny John Jules.

Danny may well be the most regular DJ guest of all the cast, certainly he’s been present at all four I’ve attended.

I remember at my first DJ back in 2002, Danny arrived staggeringly over-dressed in a claret coloured smoking jacket. He had apparently flown direct from the US premiere of Blade took a taxi to the hotel and walked straight on stage for his Q+A. Whether this is true, Danny always appears such a good-natured guy I would love it to be correct.

For this DJ – Danny had brought a bonus guest, his 10 year-old nephew Alex - famous in Red Dwarf terms for appearing as the Baby Lister in the episode ‘Ouroboros’. Seeing a baby from the penultimate series, to date, now half way to adulthood it emphasised just how long ago Red Dwarf began, truly one of those TV shows that some of us have grown-up with.

I’d question exactly how much you can ask a child about a brief televised appearance he made in his nappy-wearing days but at least three audience members decided to have a go. Perhaps they didn’t want him to feel left out, however from his dumbstruck guise and catchphrase-in-the-making answer of “Don’t know” after a significantly long pause. It seemed apparent that the kindest thing would have been to let him escape the spotlight.

The rest of the Q+A was the usual stuff, a request for a cat dance and another for the Riviera kid. I’d love to recall a stream of paxmanesque questions and equally insightful answers but in truth there wasn’t. In fact the standard of questioning at this years DJ seemed on the whole seemed very bland. (Note to self – Compose an incisive question for each of the cast members ready for next year)

Danny ended his session with a string of good-natured pops aimed at Craig and his recent misdemeanours, there was a brief objection from a Craig Charles fan-girl but as Danny accurately pointed out had the roles been reversed Craig would have been ripping his cast mates to shreds!

The morning Q+A’s over Mick, Ian and I jumped into Mick’s 2CV and dashed off to Peterborough for food, which leads neatly onto a few words about this year’s hotel.

On first impressions the hotel seemed much improved upon last year. Taking a more considered view however tells a different story. Before DJ had even began stories of the hotel loosing room bookings had been mentioned on the fan club’s internet forum, BTLi. In addition in terms of both variety and cost the hotel is simply awful for food. Specialist menus promised after complaints made last year, were not available – only to appear on Sunday following the culmination of this years DJ. Likewise the inflated food prices meant heading elsewhere. This itself leads onto the problem of the hotel’s location. Situated miles from anywhere, there simply isn’t time to leg it into Peterborough and back in the allotted lunch break.