Welcome to the November Newsletter

A lot of stuff came to light in the past while. We have UFOs in Galway, witches in Dun Laoghaire, the return of Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on Radio 4, and The Night of Two Neils, amongst much else, so I’ll get straight to it.

HHGG returns to Radio 4, with help from CDAT

Many of you will have heard that BBC Radio 4 are to broadcast radio adaptations of the final books of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, beginning next February.

What is particularly pleasing about this, however, is the fact that Roger Gregg, the founder of Dublin-based Crazy Dog Audio Theatre, is to have a part on these historic recordings.

Roger plays the part of Eddie the on-board computer. As well as Roger, whose work with Crazy Dog I’ve been wittering on about for a number of years now, other cast members include old hands Simon Jones and Mark Wing-Davey reprising their roles as Arthur Dent and Zaphod Beeblebrox respectively, along with many others. More details can be found at the CDAT site.

Neil Gaiman in Dublin

Neil Gaiman is to appear in the Dublin Bookshop on Grafton Street next Monday. The full details, as taken from his website, are that he will be appearing on the 17 November 2003 at 19:00.

Neil Gaiman will be talking about and reading from The Wolves in the Walls and Coraline at The Dublin Bookshop, 36 Grafton Street, Dublin 2.

More details at Neil Gaiman's website

On the same night, as synchronicity would have, Neil Armstrong is talking on the National Concert Hall, as reported in a previous NL. Ye pays yer money, and ye takes yer choice…

2nd Birthday at Third Place

John Hendrick of 3rd Place tells me that, on Thursday the 4th of December, their shop, located in Dublin’s Crow Street, will celebrate its second birthday. To mark the occasion, they’ll be having a number of give-aways, raffles, and general fun in the shop all day long, from 10 AM to 8 PM.

John is one of the people who has been supporting this newsletter almost since the beginning, along with the people at the Forbidden Planet, by donating goodies for our occasional quizzes and quiz nights, so go along and wish them a happy birthday, and buy something while you’re there. Tell him I sent you! (It’s a comic and Sci-Fi merchandise shop, by the way, for those who haven’t been before, and the shop is on the site that was once the Flying Pig Bookshop, which I used to run. Well worth a visit.)

UFO con in Galway.

The UFO Society of Ireland, headed by the now-legendary Betty Meyler, is to hold the First Irish International UFO conference in the National University of Ireland over the weekend of the 11th to 13th of June 2004.

Amongst many guest speakers, and to choose virtually at random are: Stanton T Friedman, who won the ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ at the 2002 Leeds UFO Conference; Michael Hesemann, who won the award for ‘Best Video on a UFO Subject’ in the 2002 UFO magazine awards; Dr Nabil Shabeen, whose presentation will be entitled ‘Of Course It’s True. But Are They Only Tourists?’, and many more. Price for the 3 days is €80. Form an orderly queue…

For more information, and for details on how to join the society, visit their website at www.ufosocietyireland.com.

Mecon News

Dominicon, the SF/Gaming convention to be held in NUI Maynooth in March of next year, have put their website up. They have Irish filmmaker Paul Cotrulia as a guest, as far as I know, with more to be announced. Paul will be premiering the first episode of ‘Forsaken’ at the con. More info at the Dominicon website.

Mecon, the SF con in Belfast’s Queens University next March, have added John Meaney to their guest list. Prices there rise at the end of November, so sign up now! The Mecon website is at www.mecon.oreg.uk.

Octocon have added John Kaiine, husband of GoH Tanith Lee to their guest list, and previously announced guest Juliet E McKenna is withdrawing for the moment, due to previous commitments. More news at the Octocon website.

No major news from P-CON II, but as I’m the chair, I’m going to mention it anyway! Don’t forget the quiz on Thursday, which goes towards the con, though.

In Brief

In Dublin City 2, the follow-up to, fairly obviously, In Dublin City, is in comic shops in Dublin now. This is also from Gerry Hunt, and is the tale of a wronged woman, left by her feckless sailor beau when she’s pregnant, and her attempts to get him back. This features pirates and sailing ships, as well as more lovely images of Dublin city, and especially Ringsend. As ever, it’s told in rhyme. Buy it now.
I keep saying I’m not going to do a sort of ‘link of the month’ slot, and I keep finding new ones. Here, brought to my notice by our Webmaster Ian, is the cream of Irish TV all in one handy-dandy site, which you can find at www.irish-tv.com.
I have been asked to send out a questionnaire to you all over the newsletter. However, as there’s a fair bit in this already, I’ve decided not to send it out, but to give you all the option of getting it or not. A man called Brian Showers is thinking of opening a SF bookshop in Dublin, and thought that doing a bit of market research via the net would be useful, which I can’t help agreeing with. If you’d like to receive one of these, let me know at this address, and I’ll send it to you, or write to him directly at prosperos2003 AT hotmail.com (remembering to substitute "AT" with the " @ " symbol, of course)
The planned event in Dublin to mark Alan Moore’s 50th birthday on the 18th of November seem now unlikely to go ahead, which is a pity.
However, plans are afoot for a joint Irish SF News/Live Journal Christmas Party. (As I’ve said previously, if you’re on Live Journal, you’ll find me there as Slovobooks. If you’ve no idea what I’m on about, go look at www.livejournal.com ) More on this soon…
NaNoWriMo, or the national novel writing month, now become an annual and international event in November, is well underway, and several of my friends are giving it a go. One of these, James Shields, is now the area coordinator for Ireland. More information at www.nanowrimo.com
I keep meaning to mention this. The Monico meeting in Belfast, held every second Thursday at 8.30 PM in Belfast’s Monico Pub (on Lombard Street), is, as it says here in front of me, The Original Belfast Science Fiction Group. The next meeting is due on the 20th of November. More information from the lovely Eugene Doherty’s website.
I was meaning to write something about Witchfest Ireland 2004, which is happening in the Royal Marine Hotel in Dun Laoghaire next June (or July), but I’ve lost the piece of paper I had all the details on! I’ll hopefully have found it by the time I sit down to write another one of these, though.
I was also meaning to write something about how many Irish contributors there are to The Alien Online, but that’ll also have to wait ‘til another day. See how many you can spot at www.thealienonline.net
I must go now and finish writing the questions for the quiz! Many thanks for reading this far. If you know about anything that you think I should know about, let me know. I'm always glad to get information about forthcoming events and publications.

Best Wishes
Pádraig Ó Méalóid
Irish SF News