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 afu uk ii daniele




From: pypbf@csv.warwick.ac.uk (D.M.Procida)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Daniele's Report from AFU London II
Date: 24 Jun 1994 01:59:21 +0100

A report from AFU London II, from your UK correspondent.

I was extremely nervous arranging AFU London II. This was because I tried to once before. Remember Alan Murphy? He said we'd organize it together. And that was the last *anybody* heard of him. Ever. As you can imagine, I was a little worried, both for myself and for my colleagues, this time. I didn't say anything, though, because I didn't want to alarm people.

The Fortean Times UnConvention was simply a joy. Although we were only present for one of its two days, every agreed that this was something that we'd be seeing more of in the future.

Present at the UnConvention were:

D.M. Procida
Robert Alcock
Andrew Welsh
Andrew Howe
and another thousand or so people.

Ewan Kirk was unfortunately being detained in Stockholm, and was not present. However, the University of London Union bears the marks of his absence; a million fluttering notes pinned to upright surfaces advising him where his friends were to be found.

We listened to talks on spontaneous human combustion, hoaxing, cryptozoology, urban folklore, scientific method, fakery in religious and paranormal phenomena, mediumship, cold fusion, and energy from the eight dimension. We watched videos, looked at bookstalls, photographic displays, and heard panel discussions. We were interviewed by the press, and invited to appear in a film about urban folklore. We bought useful alien detection equipment, magazines and books.

The loonies and the skeptics were well represented, which meant that the panel discussions and the challenges from the audience were thrillingly vituperative. Almost everyone was entertaining, and everyone had something to say.

After the UnConvention we proceded to our rendezvous. My first stab at a rendezvous turned out to be a gay pub, which had pink carpets on the walls. I asked the barman if a group of people had been in, looking as though they were waiting for another group of people.

"Are these friends of yours gay or straight?" he asked. That was a Useful Clue to me, and when he pointed out that it was a gay pub I could see that in fact it was. While I was congratulating myself on my powers of observation, he gave me directions to the right place, which I forgot as soon as I stepped outside.

However, we soon found our companions. They were Andy Wardley and Tony Sweeny. We hadn't been told about Andy's legs, but we had to admire them before tackling the pub quiz machine. This was our great humiliation; the machine took every opportunity to display high-quality digitized pictures of masturbating women, while asking questions of a gynaecological nature, and even while not. For example:

"The herpes virus is..." (In-your-face photograph of woman masturbating)

"On average, women are how much shorter than men?" (In-your-face photograph of woman masturbating)

This was quite off-putting, and we soon gave up. We hadn't even won any money.

When we had finished at the pub, Andy Wardley took us to a very pleasant Indian restaurant. We didn't even have to have our stomachs pumped to get the seven different kinds of semen out! And none of the dishes were made from cat, but we still had a good time.

We also had bedtime drinks from our brand new AFU mugs, which was a special thrill too.

Thanks are due to Andy for his hospitality, and to Bob Rickard of the Fortean Times for organizing such a fun UnConvention.

D.M. Procida


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