Probably best now to try and excuse myself for not starting G.I.T.
sooner, but there's a bit of a story behind this. Run with me on this one.
	I identify myself, more than anything else, as a TV game show fan.
When I say fan, I mean it - it's a lot more than "just liking to watch
Countdown when it comes on the telly"; much in the way that Mark likes motor
racing, and is quite devoted to it, and knows a lot about it, or my friend
Benny eats, sleeps and breathes the AC Milan football team. It's a rather
unusual thing to like and pursue an interest in; maybe that's one of its
attractions. I have an unusual (and possibly unique in the UK) collection
of video tapes of game shows - getting on for 50 now with a good deal of
old, rare and foreign material. My knowledge of the field, though I'm not
going to claim omniscience, is better than that of most.
	Lots of my friends are game show fans, too. There aren't many in
this country, so this is where the Internet comes in. In America, it's OK
to like game shows, and at least as credible as liking musicians or sport
stars. So naturally game show fans congregate and confer on the Internet,
and when I saw people doing that, I was pleasantly surprised, and soon
joined in. They found it quite a novelty to have a foreign perspective, as
almost all the discussion in the past had been American. I've been chatting
with them (the "them" being readers of a USENET newsgroup by the name of
alt.tv.game-shows) for nearly 2 years now, and not just about game shows.
I'd say I've made about 20 good friends around the world because of it.
	Semi-regularly, members of the newsgroup meet to revel in the genre
of game shows but mainly to get to see what people look like and how they
act. My holiday was going to one of these meetings, Game Show Convention V,
in Los Angeles. After that, I went and saw someone in Atlanta. I'll write
more about the wonders of the holiday later, but in summary, it's probably
the best holiday I've ever had. We watched game show videos, we attended
tapings (we even got to see the filming of a show from the control room,
which is quite something), we played the board game home adaptations of
some of our favourite shows, we appeared on the all-game-show satellite
channel Game Show Network, we cracked lots of bad gags, we generally enjoyed
each other's company, hung out in and cruised around Los Angeles. I related
to these people en masse better than any other group of people I've met in
my life. The weather was just right, too.

                         M A N   O   M A N O R C O N
               (MANchester's stabcon tO birmingham's MANORCON)

	I attended two amateur games conventions this summer within the
space of 8 days - my first ever Stabcon and my second Manorcon. Stabcon was
a bit of a mixed bag; my bed was very hard and there were a painfully finite
number of people to play the sort of games I wanted to play with. That said,
the Manchester venue was reasonable (decent burger bar, very mediocre curry
house opposite the site, average sandwiches, expensive but pleasant muffins;
Annie Shillabeer kindly let me have a crumb from hers) and the company was
fine. Unfortunately I didn't know too many people there beforehand, but
that changed fairly quickly - lots more names to faces next year. Most
importantly, the gaming was good; 3 games of Siedler, a notable McMulti (in
which I learned that rulebook covers tend to stick to hot tables, ahem) and
maybe a little too much Ave Ceasar for my liking.  I'll be back in '97.
	Manorcon was thoroughly entertaining. The singing and dancing at
the DipSoc curry were up to expectations (though "My Boomerang Won't Come
Back" does suffer slightly from there not being _all_ that much that you
can sing contiguously), the Oxford University Dip team CREAMED the OMR one -
now why am I not surprised not to find that mentioned in OMR 13? - though
there were a disappointing turnout of current undergraduates and I learned
how to play Railway Rivals, and enjoyed it. Just to explain Mark's cryptic
reference to my real life Midnight Party with Annie; I was just about to
hit the sack at a sensible time like half past two when I heard noises
outside and down quite a few doors. I popped my head out, clad only in
pyjamas, only to be spotted by Ms. Shillabeer, and my presence was demanded
in strong terms. Yep, the highlight of a fine Manorcon was 3am croquet in
pyjamas, jeans and a denim jacket. Sounds good to me!