Welcome to the April Newsletter

I've been in bed for the last week with the worst dose of the flu I've had in over twenty years. Usually I reckon that two days in bed is enough to shake off anything, but not this time, when after a full week I still feel a little shaky. However, I'm pretty much all OK now, and there's a number of things coming up in the next week I'm keen to go to, so I'll get straight into listing them!

Gay Trekkies celebrate Star Trek First Contact

I've mentioned the Gay Trekkies a few times before. Essentially, they are a group of gay and lesbian Star Trek fans that get together once a month to watch a few episodes and generally gossip about all things Trek. They meet on the second Tuesday of every month at 8 PM in Outhouse, the gay and lesbian resource centre at 105 Capel Street, Dublin 1.

Those of you who saw the movie Star Trek: First Contact may recall that the date given for the first contact between humanity and the Vulcans is the 5th of April 2063. The Gay Trekkies have decided to celebrate this event sixty years early, and are having a First Contact day next Saturday, also the 5th of April. Very much in the spirit of the occasion, they have sent out an invitation to the rest of the SF community to come m on this occasion.

They say:

You can find out more at the Gay Trekkies wesite.

Trinity Booksale

Although this is a little bit off the subject, it's worth mentioning. Once a year Trinity College Dublin has a booksale to raise funds for the college librarys acquisitions fund. They fill the Exam Hall in Front Square with tables covered in books, all of which have been donated for this sale. This runs from Thursday 3rd of April to Saturday 5th, and is one of the highlights of the second hand booksellers calendar.

On the Thursday night, after the initial opening, which is absolutely hectic in itself, with a queue forming early to get in, all the secondhand and antiquarian booksellers gather in the front portico with their complimentary glasses of wine and talk shop. This invariably ends up moving to a bar, and many sore heads the next morning.

More information on the sale is available on the TCD website.

My excuse for including this is that there is always a table of SF books, and that its simply a lot of fun! Mind you, as the books are priced by different people, theres absolutely no consistency in the pricing, so a book thats there for €3.00 could also be there for 50¢. Well worth hunting around.....

Crazy Dog Masterpiece Theatre

I got a mail from Roger Gregg of Crazy Dog Audio Theatre, who says:

Roger and Crazy Dog Audio Theatre are doing something truly unique with their own version of humourous sci-fi radio, and I recommend any of their performances to you. They are due to record a new radio series for RTÉ sometime this summer, and will be looking for volunteers for the audience. More information on that as soon as I have it.

Dominicon

Deirdre and myself were at Dominicon last weekend, which we enjoyed very much. This was the first time that the con has featured a SF end to it, usually being only a gaming event, but it all seemed to work very well. The con itself was low in numbers, no doubt at least partially due to them having to change their dates close to the last minute, as reported here in January. None the less, they were all extremely friendly and cordial, and went so far as to go out to get drinks and food for us from the shops in the village.

Maynooth is a beautiful spot, too, and we took a little time away from the con to wander around the old college grounds, and to look at the castle of the Geraldines, once home of Silken Thomas, who ended up in Tower of London. All in all, were already looking forward to going back next year.

Thank a million, folks!

Ballyfermot Gaming Club

Seeing as I was last month reporting on the two gaming clubs attached to two of the SciFi shops in Dublin city, here is another one a little further afield:

And that's what it says on the flyer!

Fringe Subscription List

FRINGE, the excellent fanzine from Fionna O'Sullivan, partially book reviews and partially her caustic comments on the world around her, is now available electronically. You can see the latest issue at the Fringe website. As she is currently living in Finland, there's a lot of stuff about snow.

I recommend it to you all, as much for the asides as for the reviews themselves. You can subscribe from the bottom of her site, or by dropping her a note at fionna at theculture.org (of course remembering to replace the "at" with an "@" symbol.

Hellmouth

My apologies to Denis Rush of UT Events, who are organising the forthcoming Hellmouth event in Belfast's Europa Hotel on the 27th of April, for the fact that their event is not currently listed on the online version of this newsletter. The details, to refresh your memories, were something like this:

More information from www.utevents.co.uk or email them at info at utevents.co.uk

And that's my lot for now!

Regards,
Pàdraig Ó Méalóid

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