Exhibition Hall #28

The Special TAFF Issue March 2018

Edited by Christopher J. Garcia Layout by John A. Purcell

Contact information Chris Garcia John Purcell 1401 North Shoreline Drive 3744 Marielene Circle Mountain View, CA 94043 College Station, TX 77845 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]

Table of Contents

Editorial Introductory Section – by Chris Garcia………………….…….…3 Well, I’ve Never Heard of Her! – by Helena McCallum………….……….4 Taff Nominee Fia Karlsson – by Fia Karlsson………………………….….5 Mo Chéad Bhriste – by Johan Anglemark…………………………….…..8 I’d Like to Buy a Vowel – by John A. Purcell……………………………..11

Cover and nominee art nicked from the Internet Photographs of Cardiff and Doctor Who Experience by John Purcell

This is a One-Off Production.

Editorial Introduction Section

Welcome to 2018, people! It’s a good time to be awesome! I’m back at it, and I’m happy to be writing about the TransAtlantic Fan Fund, or TAFF. Devotees will remember that I was the TAFF Delegate back in the year 2008, and that I’ve nominated and campaigned for various candidates over the years, and I’m happy to see that the year when I’ve not got a horse in the race, that there are three amazing candidates in the contest! So, what’s in this issue? There’s a piece from the great current TAFF Administrator John Purcell, and then three pieces from the candidates to come to San Jose for WorldCon. I can’t wait to get to hang out with which ever of the wonderful folks win. Speaking of WorldCon, I’m looking forward to it, because I love San Jose, and I love fans who come by to hang out and eat tacos. And yes, there will be tacos. There’s an amazing place for tacos not but three blocks from the convention centre, and there’s a really good place for mole a little further out, but next to the Fairmont Hotel, where the parties will be. There’s a great little Indian joint across from the Fairmont, and a nice Pho place next to the ultimate 1950s dining experience: Original Joe’s. Seriously, it’s more 1950s than those faux drive-ins that popped up in the 80s because it’s EXACTLY the same as it would have been in 1955. The portions are huge, the waiters wear tuxes, they have amazing ravioli, and in all, it’s a great experience.

So, why is this all about TAFF? First, I need more time to work on the Gail Carriger issue of ExHall! Second, I really just wanna keep this zine on a more regular schedule, so putting some TAFF stuff made sense. Also, TAFF is amazing. It was an amazing experience for me, with me taking my trip in 2008, going to the Dr. Who Experience in London (at Earl’s Court) and enjoying some time with Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer. This will make more sense with the piece that you’ll read from the great John Purcell! TAFF is an amazing thing. I really can’t wait to see who is going to win this year, since there are three folks running who would all make an amazing TAFF delegate! - Chris Garcia

I’ve said it so often, but it’s true, here I am, your TAFF candidate who lives in South London but is from Scotland, who is running because I was told “People like me couldn’t.”

I was still at school when I joined ZZ9 Plural Z alpha, the Hitchhikers Guide fan club. I got lots and lots of pen friends and wrote for hours to these people, but never produced a Fanzine as I just didn’t have access to a way of copying them. No mum who worked in an office, no 10ps to do copying at the library. So for years a core of about 20 people would regularly get a personalised Me-Zine, posted with the cheapest stamps, envelopes made from recycled bags or magazine pages.

When I finally got a job and money I was so glad to meet these people, in the factory my nickname was “Shakespeare”, and whenever any notes needed to be put on the blackboard that was my job.

But I realised I didn’t quite fit in, with these groups of students and civil servants, and being naturally brash and outgoing and not naturally blonde, I laughed and joked and loved my new people. I am always one for a joke, and had been taught to wear any intellect I have lightly as my mum constantly made comments about my smart mouth, and how I’d never marry if I had my books.

So I know I got a reputation. I’ve been asked to write stuff for convention websites and my natural straightforward language has been altered to add bigger words before it goes up. I eventually got to university (a couple of times) and travelled a little and I’ve learnt so many languages, yet even fairly recently a long-time fan turned to me and with shock said “I always thought you were an airhead but you are actually quite clever”

So what is the point of my rambling anecdote? Hello, this is me, I want to meet you but I need your help and votes if that will happen. And I have so much to tell you all.

Who am I?

I have loved science fiction and fantasy from an early age. It started with Narnia and the Belgariad, and evolved to me writing poems and stories of my own, inspired by my wild surroundings in the North of Sweden, near the Arctic Circle, with it's old forests, mountains, and rivers.

Our home was always full of kids - me, my brothers, and our friends - enjoying board games, the Sci Fi Channel and playing at being superheroes. And every week, my family would watch Start Trek together. Bringing people together like that, creating meeting places where people can find affinity and be a part of something they love, has become my greatest passion in life.

I was always a doer. I learnt by my parents' example. When I grew up, my father had three jobs and a thousand other irons in the fire, and my then stay-at- home mother seemed to never sit down. Before I had graduated high school I had two jobs and ran the local school café, with an employee of my own. I was also the ambassador for the business programme at school, and in my spare time I took driving lessons and hung out with my friends.

As I went to university, I found a group of friends as passionate about sf and fantasy as me. When we didn't study or work at the local student nightclub, we spent most of our days and nights binge watching Buffy and Angel.

My time at the university made me want more of that sf community, but it also seemed to solidify my life as an organiser, as I soon became the head of Outreach for the nightclub. With my team of industrious staffers I promoted the club, made posters, and organised balls and holidays for the staff, which was a fun experience and not too unlike conrunning.

When I graduated from university in Luleå in 2007 I decided it was time for a change of scenery and my next adventure. I moved 1560 kilometres down to the very southern shores of Sweden, looking for and 5 eventually finding a job as a civil servant.

I spent most of my days at the local library or the Science Fiction Bookshop, reading and starting a book blog. Then I found an online community of Swedish book bloggers, and although I didn't know it at the time, that was the starting point of my life in fandom. I reached out to them, asking if anyone would like to start an SF book circle with me in Malmö. Soon enough, I got a few replies, one from Frida, who's now my very best friend.

Eventually, someone online or in the book circle mentioned this thing called fandom, and this big literary sf convention called Eurocon happening in Stockholm in June 2011. I was curious, so I went, checked it out, and finally found the community I had been searching for all my life.

My second convention was Swecon in Uppsala in 2012, were I made my first fandom friends. Several members of Upppsala and Stockholm fandom, including Johan Anglemark and Bellis, took me under their wings and showed me the ropes. I also remember Jukka Halme being the Fan Guest of Honour. He talked a lot about his own experiences in fandom, and it made me want to be part of his community.

After this convention, I was completely bitten by the fandom bug. Heading back to Malmö, me and a friend from the book circle started a local fandom group called Malmöfandom. It escalated through the years and is now a fairly big group with pub meets in Malmö and Lund, a local fandom pod cast, and writing circles and book circles. I have chaired two local conventions and have done one local book auction so far. And with Denmark just 30 minutes away, I've also been visiting Danish fandom across the Sound, making lots of friends there.

But it wasn't easy being new in fandom, especially as a woman. There will always be people who try to make you feel as if you don't belong, that you're a fake geek girl or that you're somehow a lesser fan because you don't know everything that ever happened in the history of fandom.

One thing that I quickly realised is that fandom needs people like Johan, Bellis, and Jukka, ambassadors and guides to help newcomers feel at home in this somewhat strange new world. And as I got into it, I decided to be that person, and started holding meet and greet programme items at cons and fandom history talks.

Another problem I have struggled with is the lack of access at some conventions. I was born with sensorineural hearing loss and have hearing aids in both ears. After a few conventions my struggle with hearing and the lack of microphone use took it's toll, and I wrote a long blog post about hearing impairment at cons. Over time, Swedish fandom has come to know me as the crazy dillchips girl who’s the champion for microphone use.

After a few years in fandom, I went to my first convention abroad, Loncon in 2014. It was one of the most magical and life changing experiences of my life. It was here, when I hung out with Finnish fandom in the fan village, that I first became a roaring supporter of the Finnish Worldcon bid and got into international conrunning.

Since then, I've helped with Finnish cons like Archipelacon, Åcon 8, and then, somehow, I became the Social Media Area Head of Worldcon 75.

Since I grew up near the Finnish border, and now live near Denmark, I feel very connected to both countries. I feel so at home with Finnish fans, and not even broken ribs have stopped me from attending their cons. (A story for another time.) My love for Finnish fandom turned out to be a mutual affection, as they decided to adopt me as their own after Worldcon 75. It's safe to say that Swedish fandom isn't my only home; Nordic fandom is.

Through the years, my fannish activities have been mostly fandom-oriented, running the local club, being on the committees of local and international conventions, and running programme items about fandom, and when I don't do that, I enjoy reading and writing about science fiction and fantasy.

In 2015, me and my friends from Uppsala fandom started the Swedish TV series blog Onda Cirkeln (The Evil Circle, from The Craft), which analyses and reviews TV shows and often talk about intersectionality and gender. Our blog died for a while when we went on from that to organise the national Swedish convention Swecon in 2017, Kontur, and due to my growing responsibilities for Worldcon 75, I made the hard choice to let the blog group go on without me. It was a fun experience and I hope to get the opportunity to do it again some day.

My biggest interest apart from fandom itself, and blogging, is the subgenre time travel. I absolutely love speculating about where humanity could go next, dreaming of what could have been different if we lived in an alternate timeline, reading about epic paradoxes, historical conspiracies and adventures where the heroes save the universe from impending doom. There's always a sense of emergency and epic stakes, and there are so many different takes on how to play with temporal laws and mechanics from Doctor Who's wibbly wobbly timey wimey to Connie Willis's time as a god-like entity. Needless to say, Connie Willis is my favourite author. In short, fandom is a way of life, and it is my way of life. And it seems my fellow Swedish fans have appreciated my contributions so far, as I was awarded the Swedish Alvar Award in 2016 for doing good work for Swedish fandom, and in 2017 elected the Swedish NoFF delegate and sent to Dublin for Octocon.

But inevetably, my biggest mark on fandom so far has been a bit less epic and more silly. Every community has its gimmicks, things to gather around and enjoy. And when I came into fandom, the first thing people learnt about me is that I am a very serious dillchips junkie. What's even crazier than my passion for dillchips is how my dillchips mania seems to have spread through Nordic fandom, slowly eating it's way into international fandom as well. We joke about dillchips fandom and dillchips Worldcons, but joking aside, fandom means the world to me.

I have been blessed with great adventures and so many friends, and I hope to make many, many more. As my journey continues, I hope to bring Nordic and International fandom closer together. I want to see your fandom world, I want to meet your friends, and I want to show you my world. There's so much to be said about Nordic fandom, our openness and friendliness, our different Nordic mythologies and traditions, the way we celebrate our dead dogs in bright midsummer nights, the way we find inspiration for our stories from our great and wild nature, the silliness, the karaoke, the sauna, the ambitions we have and the love we have for our neighbours. There is much we can learn from each other, and I am so excited to meet you all.

Mo chéad bhriste

by Johan Anglemark

It has been noted by many that our lives are—just like science fiction—a journey that takes us into the future. It is also a journey that accelerates all the time and for many of us it is difficult to retain our curiosity and sense of wonder. Some of us try to, famous scientists and thinkers in particular seem to succeed in this, but it can be hard. When we recount “the first time that I” moments that we remember from our lives, they will cluster around our early years. Those first times you did something or heard something or read something are moments that stay with you. This is known.

The first time I listened to the Pogues, I couldn’t believe my ears how much I loved them. I was taken by surprise; I had never heard anything like them before. I had never imagined that Irish traditional music could marry punk and get a child like this. I listened compulsively to "I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day" and "A Pair of Brown Eyes" over and over again. I loved the raspy vocals, what they did with instruments I had come to love when used by Irish traditional musicians. Love at first sight. I have never again, I think loved a band so much, so immediately, as when I heard the Pogues the first time. They have not remained an absolute favourite the same way that I still listen to The Beatles (or even The Dubliners, another old favourite of mine), but I still remember the impact the first time I heard them.

My father is a chef. He started as an apprentice in the mid-fifties and he is still, more than 60 years later, working half time as one. He’ll be eighty next year. I think they call it Protestant work ethic. I didn’t grow up with my father.

When he and my mother were still married, he spent most of the time working and after the 8 divorce he quickly got a new family, with new children. However, I and my younger sister used to spend holidays with him and his family and one particular memory I have is of him asking me one time when we were shopping for his restaurant if I had ever tasted kiwi fruit. I hadn’t, so he picked one up and sliced it open. It was perfectly ripe and I think I had never tasted anything quite like it. It was sweet and it was crisp and it was bursting with flavour. Forty years later, I still feel sometimes as if I’m on a quest to find that perfect kiwi fruit again. I have heard some folks of my parents’ generation describe what getting an orange for Christmas was like during the war. For me, it was a kiwi fruit.

In my early teens, I stumbled upon the Lord of the Rings and fell for Middle-earth, hook, line, and sinker. In particular, I was entranced by the elvish languages, Sindarin and Quenya. As Sindarin was more than loosely based on Welsh, I tried to study Welsh during my third term at university, but although there was indeed a Celtic Section at the English Department, Welsh was only given every second term, so why not take Irish instead, my completely impartial Irish teacher suggested. I took his advice and enrolled in a term of extra-curricular Irish instead. When my fannish partner in crime Magnus asked whether I was interested in joining him for a trip to Ireland to see the place for myself (in the days when all young people in Europe toured the continent on Interrail passes), I said yes at once.

We arrived in Ireland on the morning of St Patrick’s Day 1986. We found a youth hostel with beds to spare—for some reason, the middle of March wasn’t peak tourist season—and walked around Dublin, taking in everything: streets, people, and had our first pints of Guinness on Irish soil. In those days, Irish-themed pubs had not begun their conquest of Europe and, more importantly, Guinness on tap could not be sold in Sweden for some reason I have forgotten, so this was a great day for me. I had been brainwashed by Flann O’Brien to worship a pint of porter (although at that time I didn’t know that modern creamy Guinness bears little resemblance to the pints of plain he put away like the alcoholic he was), so this was huge. The rest of the day we just walked the streets of Dublin, trying out the pubs. We quickly adopted the pattern of having a pint in a pub, walking around for a bit, needing a loo, going into a pub, using the loo and having a pint, walking around for a bit, needing a loo, going into a pub, using the loo and having a pint. It was great. On our way back I attended my first Eastercon, Albacon III at the Central Hotel in Glasgow. One of the nights we threw a small room party. I had never mixed a gin and tonic before. I don’t ´think I even had tasted one. The first time I met Bob Shaw I mixed a gin and tonic for him, with a very fuzzy notion of the proportions of gin to tonic water. His face lit up and he pronounced it the best gin and tonic he had ever tasted.

When I was thirteen I had still not read an entire novel in English. For me, English wasn’t a language that you could use for real; it was a language that existed in school and in movies, and texts in English were never longer than a few pages. That you could read an entire novel in English was not something I had thought of. However, my English teacher suggested I should try one, he thought I would be up to it. He picked one out from a shelf and put it into my hands. The spy who died of boredom by George Mikes was the first novel I read in English. I hadn’t expected it to be so easy. These days it’s more that I try to read something in Swedish now and then, so that not all my reading is in English.

Centuries ago, fishermen along the Baltic coast ate a lot of herring. It was their staple food. There was only one problem, you couldn’t fish in winter and salt was expensive. However, some of them found that with just the right amount of salt, the fish fermented in the vats and kept for much longer. The problem with that, of course, was that surströmming is an acquired taste (to put it mildly). I had never tried it when I came to Uppsala to study, but I had always been fond of 9 spicy, heady stuff. I like my cheese to argue back before I eat it, for example, so I had made my mind up: I would love fermented herring. And at last, at a dorm party, I was given the chance. The way to eat it is that you fill a wrap of tunnbröd flatbread with chopped onions, boiled potatoes and some surströmming and then dig into it. I munched and I munched and I declared it a success. I liked it! And then I reached the herring in the wrap and had to rush to the loo to avoid throwing up among the other people at the party. I’ve tried it again since, and I have decided that although I can eat it without throwing up, it’s vile stuff. Never again.

As a teenager, I had decided I was a pacifist. Humanity was evolving and we were putting the barbary of the past behind us. Violence was such a thing. If everyone would just refuse going to war, wars would end, and peaceful protests will always defeat violence in the long run. In those days, all Swedish men of the age of eighteen had to be tested for suitability for the National Defence Force. I was considering applying for unarmed service, but I was given the opportunity to become an interpreter/interrogator, which meant that I would get to learn Russian. I took that opportunity instead. The first time I held a gun in my hand, a submachinegun to be more specific, I felt giddy. It was an extremely unpleasant feeling that shook me, I almost fainted. Guns were so charged with emotions for me. In other words it’s ironic that it only took me a week to first get used to the gun and then to really love shooting, especially machine guns.

I remember when The Silmarillion appeared in Swedish translation, in 1979. I loved the cover illustration by Inger Edelfeldt and leafing through the book gave me a thrill. I had loved The Lord of the Rings, but like many young fantasy fans I wanted to know more about Middle-earth, its history, kings and wars, its peoples. And here was a volume full of this, written in an archaic prose style that spoke of “epic” and “veracity”. The first time I read it I listened to Jean Sibelius’s Finlandia and The Swan of Tuonela, so for me, the march of the Valar on Beleriand is forever entwined with the music of Finlandia.

So what are some memorable first times for you folks?

Cardiff, Wales, & the Doctor Who Experience by John A. Purcell

In our last episode we left our intrepid travelers, John and Valerie Purcell, literally riding the rails of the London train and subway systems, to say nothing of the double-decker buses and trolleys they also used to move around the thriving metropolis of London, England, as they visited Westminster Abbey, the Churchill Museum, the British Museum, the Natural History Museum, Kew Gardens, being feted at a fannish Meet-Up at the Lyceum Pub, all while using Fishlifter Central in Croydon as their focal point. Next up: Wales!

Our week of traipsing about London over, Valerie and I were ready to embark on the next leg of my 2017 TAFF trip: on 23 July 2017, taking the train out to Cardiff, Wales, via a four hour stop- over to visit the historic English city of Bath. First things first, though, we had to get to the East Croydon train station, which meant getting all of our luggage unpacked, sorted, resorted, then re-packed. We had to decide which clothing and other items would stay with Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer because they would be bring our Bag Of Doom with them to the Helsinki Worldcon in a couple weeks. This process comprised one afternoon’s worth of work as all of our belongings were condensed down to a still good amount of luggage: two suitcases (one large, one small), two backpacks, and a carry-on sized bag. Dragging all this around Europe could be problematic, so we thought of our three days in Cardiff would be an excellent way to finetune our Drag-Along Methodology Needed (DAMN™) system. We would eventually return to Fishlifter Central on July 27th for an overnight stay to re-sort and repack yet again before departing the next day, July 28th for Paris, France, via Eurail. For now, our sights were set westward on Cardiff.

To get there we needed to board a train in East Croydon, which was remarkably easy to do. See, by this time we had had a week’s worth of experience utilizing London’s extensive mass transit systems, thus the only real issue was managing that aforementioned bunch of luggage. 11

Claire and Mark went with us to the train station to make sure we got on the right train – which we did, surprising ourselves and our hosts by perfectly understanding the arrival and departure times of trains, platforms, and destinations on the monitors that pragmatically decorated East Croydon Station. Hugs were exchanged all around, and I could have sworn I saw a slight teardrop form in one corner of Claire’s right eye, imagining that she felt right proud of us virgin world travelers from America. But it was probably just a bit of dust. I made a mental note to ask her upon our return in six days. Valerie and I clambered aboard, and actually were quite efficient in finding our seats and storing our bags overhead. The DAMN™ system worked in getting on a train. Good deal. We began to think we could actually do this European traveling thing successfully. Little did we know… (insert ominous dum-dum-dumb! theme music here).

The total travel time by train to Cardiff from Croydon was a little less than three hours, which included a scheduled stop in Bath at 11:20 AM. Our plan was to get off there, put our stuff in luggage holding, and be back at the station by 4:45 PM to catch the 5:20 PM train out to Cardiff, which is roughly another hour and half westward. We astonished ourselves by actually implementing the DAMN™ system efficiently once again, giving us even more belief in ourselves as world travelers.

The train arrived in Bath right on time, and we alighted, luggage and all, into a light rain shower. This amused us: showering together in Bath. Before the train entered the station, though, we had accessed the internet on our brand new – well, three weeks old by now – iPhone 7+ cellphones and located a luggage drop place a mere 200 meters from the station that was right up the main street leading into the heart of Bath. We divested ourselves of our baggage there for a modest fee and began our exploration of Bath.

Even in an intermittent drizzle Bath is mesmerizing. The city dates back nearly two thousand years, founded by the Romans in the year 60 AD, even though the area was known for its hot springs by ancient Britons who treated the springs as a religious shrine. The ruins of the Roman public bath house are obviously what many tourists flock to see. Sadly, Valerie and I did not have the time to enter and view the ruins, although we were able to admire the exterior of the bath house, which has been beautifully preserved and restored. We did, however, go inside the Bath Abbey, which was founded in the 7th century, then rebuilt between the 12th and 16th centuries. It is an incredible cathedral - as all European cathedrals are, which we would discover time and time again – with impressive vaulted ceilings and stained glass windows that cast a calming glow into the nave. The main entrance is quite imposing, which Valerie photographed from different angles and numerous close-ups of details for her Door Porn Pinterest page. Myself, I could imagine English kings and courtiers standing before the Abbey, or the Archbishop of Canterbury proclaiming from the altar on one of his visits.

Another brilliant architectural delight was the Royal Crescent, built during the mid to late 18th century, a classic example of Georgian design. Even though there has been restorative work done on the Royal Crescent, the façade remains pretty much the same since it was first built nearly 250 years ago. Needless to say, we found beauty everywhere despite the dreary, drizzly weather. We spent most of our time wandering the streets of Bath, window shopping, admiring the landscaping, even joined a Jane Austen walking tour: she lived in Bath in the early 19th century. Mister Knight, our tour guide, was entertaining and informative, telling our little group how much Jane loathed Bath. Little wonder, he noted, while taking our little group around a ten-block area, showing us where in Bath Jane, her sister Cassandra, and their mother lived in virtual poverty after her father died unexpectedly in 1805, five years after moving the family to Bath. It was a delightful 45-minute tour, and we thanked Mr. Knight upon its completion.

It was at the start of this walking tour when Valerie discovered that she had misplaced her cane. Normally her back gives her incredible pain if she is on her feet for a great length of time. The fact that she had not noticed it was missing after walking around Bath for nearly three hours was a testament to not only how fascinated she was in our surroundings, but also to all the walking we had done during the first two weeks of our trip: her overall health by giving her more strength and endurance. This was a most unexpected upside of our trip, but by mid-afternoon her back began to ache. So we retraced our steps, stopping at shops we had, um, stopped at, such as David Thayer Ice Cream Shop, which served “26 Flavours of Ice Cream & Sorbet.” We eventually found that Val's walking cane was still in the luggage hold place: she had accidentally left it there before starting our perambulations around Bath.

Then we had a tea-time snack in a small cafe across from the train station, whose proprietor was a Frenchman, so Valerie practiced her French with him, earning a compliment from him for her skills. This was a great ending to our four hour stroll, which became even lovelier as the sun finally broke through the clouds while we sat there.

We had no trouble boarding our train out to Cardiff, which, like I said earlier, was another 1.5 hours westward. Since Bristol was about 12 miles northwest of the rail line, as the train pulled out we waved in that direction and said, “Hello and goodbye, Ian” because Bristol is where Ian Millstead, producer of the fanzine Griff, resides. Once again we enjoyed yet another relaxing ride through English countryside that soon began to roll with hillier hills, which turned into a more visual treat as the train approached the Welsh border. At Cardiff Central Station, we clambered off in record time, no mean feat with all of our luggage - DAMN™ , we were getting good at this! - then we walked the one mile on a lovely early evening to the YHA Cardiff Center, a hostel that turned out to be a lot nicer than we expected. After a buffet dinner in the Hostel restaurant, which had a nice selection of gluten free food for Valerie, we relaxed in our room watching BBC- 4, enjoying the comedy series "Call the Vicar" and a Mickey Flanagan concert (he's a popular U.K. standup comic, FYI). Sometimes you just have to unwind.

Welcome to Caerdydd. Day 11 of my TAFF Trip (it was now 24 July 2017) was to be our big explore Cardiff - aka, Caerdydd - day, which we did. The sun was out and the temperature was a splendid 68° F (which is 20° C), so the weather was perfect for meandering. We bought a one-day bus pass to take us where-ever we desired around this incredibly photographic city. We started by walking around the city center for a couple hours, taking a multitude of photographs, luxuriating in the clean, sea- scented air. Cardiff is a major seaport for this part of the United Kingdom, and the city exuberantly celebrates its maritime trade and national heritage. The bilingual words of poet Gwyneth Lewis are featured on the front design of the iconic Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay is a proud illustration of this coexistence of the Cymraeg (Welsh) and English languages. The English reads ‘In These Stones Horizons Sing’, and the Welsh is ‘Creu Gwir Fel Gwydr o Ffwrnais Awen’, which translates as “Creating truth like glass from the furnace of inspiration.” I loved that. It would be even better to hear it actually spoken. We really could have

spent the rest of the day wandering the streets and shops of Cardiff, but our tickets for the Doctor Who Experience were for 1:00 PM, so we boarded a double-decker bus and rode it out to the point on the bay where it was located.

The bus took us directly to the Doctor Who Experience, which overlooks Cardiff Bay (Bae Caerdydd). This was unbearably cool because when we alighted it was one of those moments when it suddenly hits you, and you squee at each other, “My heavens! We are actually in Cardiff, Wales!” After soaking in that atmosphere for a few minutes (and taking pictures, duh!), we entered the building, which was very much like walking into a real Tardis because with all of the Whoviana spread out on two levels, it really did look bigger on the inside.

A brief history of the Doctor Who Experience is in order here. This is a very large Tardis blue building that looks like a converted aircraft hangar, but was actually built by utilizing a massive steel beam frame with a cover stretched over that frame, giving the impression of a gigantic tent. According to an information brochure I picked up in the lobby shop, the site was “developed as part of the ongoing Porth Teigr regeneration project.” The land is actually owned by the Welsh government and its developer partner, Igloo Regeneration. (You have to like that name, given the topic at hand.) In other words, the building was built specifically for the purpose of being an exhibition hall to highlight Cardiff and Wales as a major tourist attraction, and its inaugural exhibit was to celebrate 50 years of Doctor Who. Opening in Cardiff in 2012, the exhibit was refurbished in 2014 to include an interactive movie featuring the 12th Doctor, Peter Capaldi, that 14 incorporated storylines from the current series. The hall was leased to BBC Worldwide for five years: the Experience was closed on 9 September 2017, and at the present time BBC Worldwide is unsure if it will be reopened elsewhere. I hope it does. We were very fortunate to get to see it six weeks before it ended.

As it turned out Valerie and I arrived about twenty minutes before the “show” part of the Experience began, so we browsed through the lobby shop (there was an additional shop on the second floor after you exit the museum), admiring this, that, and other timey-wimey things. Naturally, out came our cellphone cameras, and click- clickety-click, another few dozen pictures were taken. Then the line for the show began to form. Everyone was given a Time Lord monitor device: a three-by-one inch rectangular plastic block suspended on a blue lanyard. Each device, weighing at least one pound, was outfitted with a battery- powered buzzer/vibrator (that sounds kinky) and a flashing red light, all of which would go off at specific points as your group of time travelers progressed through each stage of the journey. See, the whole reason this is called the Doctor Who Experience is not only because it is a massive collection of costumes, sets, and assorted paraphernalia that celebrates over 50 years of the programme, but the exhibit was given this title because of the interactive movie (the “show”) that visitors go through before entering the actual two-level museum. Our robed guardian guide, whom I shall name Norbert, and our group of twenty entered through a rather ordinary looking doorway.

Once everyone was inside the movie began. Peter Capaldi, the 12th Doctor, addressed the group, introduced himself – “I am the Doctor” – then turned to his right and addressed our guide with “You, the boy wearing a dress,” admonishing him of committed transgressions, while informing the group as to our expected duties. This interactive Experience wound through a series of scenarios – an attack in space, chased by Daleks, Cybermen, falling through a wormhole, creeping through a graveyard where weeping angels lay in wait, and so on – in which the floor either tilted, rocked, shook, your monitor device blinked, vibrated, or emitted a high-pitched whoop, all the while Capaldi frantically urging us on to “Follow me!”; then the whole group would scamper through another dooway/airlock/curtain after him. It really was a lot of fun, lasting only twenty minutes, but it felt like you were part of a full-length episode. We handed over our Time Lord monitor devices to the “Boy-in-Dress” guide when it was over, and then stepped into the museum proper.

What a spread! I don’t know how long it took to acquire and set up this display, but if you’re a big Doctor Who fan, then this museum was the ultimate fanboy destination. We were 15 fortunate to see this – although we wished we had timed our trip to include the closing festivities set for the first week of September, but such is fate – and took our sweet time exploring, reading, taking tons of pictures throughout. Even though the Doctor Who Experience is not actually described as a proper museum, it most certainly is one in the arrangement of all the displays. There is a chronological order to it all, beginning with the original series back in 1963 and continuing right up to the present. There are wax figures and photographs of all the Doctors and their Companions, displays of the assorted costumes, makeups, aliens, props, and sets – many of these items were original pieces used on camera – and assorted paraphernalia.. There was even a display case showing the progression of the sonic screwdriver over the years. I got a big kick out of the Dalek grouping: the early ones were obvious rubbish bins outfitted with toilet plungers and cheesy-cardboard and tin sections painted silver, with various doo-dads glued or soldered on to make them look menacing. The more recent Daleks were really awesome; you could easily tell when the show’s budget went up. The evolution of the Cybermen was another cool display, and there were all sorts of key episode scenes set up – the weeping angels, a recreation from the “Blink” episode, and the walking trees, for just a few examples – where you could insert yourself into the scene and have your picture taken. It was all incredible, so it was no wonder that by the time we had seen everything it was nearly 5:30 PM when we eventually left. You could say we had lost ourselves in time.

Afterwards we took the bus back to City Centre, stopping off at Cardiff Castle, where we rested in the shadow of its clock tower and enjoyed a snack. Directly across the street from the castle’s main entrance was a Forbidden Planet International book store, which I naturally had to investigate. I didn’t buy any books, but we did procure some Cardiff postcards and trinkets as souvenirs and possible items to sell off at a future fan fund auction. We then wandered the streets some more before catching another bus that would take us back to the Youth Hostel.

Back at the Hostel we enjoyed another delicious dinner in its restaurant. Our meal was complemented by Meaghan, our Welsh-speaking waitress who, as it turned out, was a big Doctor Who fan like Valerie. Whenever Meaghan had a chance she invariably returned to our table to refill our water or tea and continue on with her Whoviana conversation with Valerie. Meaghan also had some really incredible tattoos on her arms, so that was yet another topic covered. Not surprisingly, dinner lasted a couple hours, but we weren’t going anywhere else today, so Valerie and I took our sweet time and soaked up as much of this company as we could.

Listening to Meaghan speaking Welsh was delightful. As a college English professor who specializes in language learning, I was amazed at how a language like Welsh, so bereft of vowels, could sound so romantic and enchanting. All languages have an internal music, rhythms and flows that allow for meaning to be carried by the rise and fall of inflection and nuance. I began to believe the Welsh language – like other Celtic tongues – and the people had been hewn from stone, chiseled into rugged beauty by the wind and surf. Standing before us was a living language that had been born in this land in long ages past when legends walked the land. I was mesmerized, relaxed, and comforted by the food, drink, and company.

I tell you, the Youth Hostel in Cardiff was one of the best experiences of the entire trip and I would stay there again if I ever return to Cardiff. No question. Valerie and I fell in love with Cardiff, and I made a mental note to visit the University of Cardiff website upon returning to the States. One could honestly say, “Who knows?”

What a wonderful day it had been! We slept quite soundly that night because we had an early day on the morrow to catch our train to Salisbury, where Rob Jackson was to meet us.

More adventures awaited us there and beyond.

Author’s note:

On the back cover of this issue is a collage of just some of the photos taken inside the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff. I really do hope this exhibit is reopened within the next year or two. It is very much worth the price of admission.