A Slip of the Keyboard by Terry Pratchett Read Free Book Online Page A

so it felt as if it was going well, and it seemed that everyone had a book/books to be signed.
    On the way home, the captain of the 747 came over the speaker and said, “Good evening, I am your captain, Roger Rogers,” and in a cabin full of sweaty business types getting pie-eyed on free booze I was the only one who noticed.…

C ONVENTIONAL W ISDOM

    Introduction to the Third Australian Discworld Convention Programme Book, April 2011
    The 2011 Australian Discworld Convention was perfectly wonderful. It wasn’t a large convention, but it was crowded, somehow, with so many things going on. It set the benchmark for every subsequent Discworld convention
.
    However, I still remember fondly the first Discworld Convention, held in a (badly) converted department store in Manchester back in 1995. I watched the fans shuffle in, looking at each other in amazement and realizing they were not alone. They’re a loveable lot who drink like the rugby club and fight like the chess club
.
    Ladies and Gentlemen,
    Welcome to the Third Australian Discworld Convention!
    It may well be that this is the first ever convention for some of you; I know that in the U.K. about one half of attendees are first timers. When the first ever Discworld Convention took placein Manchester, England, back in 1996 nearly a thousand people turned up, each one expecting to be the only one there. Nevertheless, this fledgling convention boasted several panels, drinking, an extremely good maskerade, drinking, a gala dinner (which included quite possibly the last ever appearance of the genuine preimmigration English curry made from swede, sultanas, and urine) and, of course, drinking. At the end of the three-day event people were quite genuinely in tears at having to leave and certainly there were many friendships made that still endure; something that’s unusual in the general world of fandom.
    Discworld conventions (there are five worldwide this year) are now limited to the size of the biggest hall that can be realistically hired; in the U.K. and U.S. that means an attendance of around a thousand people. I attended my first Antipodean convention in New Zealand only a couple of years after my first ever signing tour down under in August 1990 and made certain that I came again at frequent intervals. The publishers were so pleased that I actually liked spending twenty-four hours in an aeroplane that until not long ago I was turning up probably every other year. Quite often my wife joined me and that meant that at one stage, when I was alternately coming down for a big signing tour and going back for a holiday later in the same year, I ordered some trousers in Perth which had to be altered and so I simply collected them when I next went past three months later. Yes, I actually do like the journey, especially since I have been upgrading myself to First Class!
    Frankly, I’m looking forward to enjoying myself at this convention and hope that you are, too. I am sufficiently keen on talking to people that I often have to get dragged away to do the more formal events, but I always welcome a keen fan who knows the magic words, “What would you like to drink?”
    A small embarrassing detail: I am over sixty and, as above, people will be buying me drinks and drinks have this terrible problem of being temporary. And so if you see me heading purposefullyin the general direction of the dunny, do not try to engage me in conversation if you want to live. Yes, it’s actually true; once I was communing with nature and somebody actually pushed a book under the door for me to sign.
    And on the subject of signings, please read and take note of the formal instructions; signings take an awful lot out of the hand and decades of signings have made my hand rather weak. However, it’s still strong enough to pick up a glass.
    I really am looking forward to the convention and that’s no lie.
    Best wishes,
    Terry Pratchett
    Wiltshire, U.K.
    February 2011

S TRAIGHT FROM THE H EART, VIA THE