I met a fellow BDer!!

[Saurreg]

Originally Posted by Lalaith

Yes. Quite baffling.

x 2. What's going on?

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

My guess is that someone's hooked up an improbability drive to the forum's bandwidth.

[Saurreg]

Originally Posted by The Squatter of Amon Rûdh

My guess is that someone's hooked up an improbability drive to the forum's bandwidth.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy FTW!

[Volo]

Anybody who would dare to meet me living in Berlin?

[Brinniel]

I'm happy to announce that I've just been accepted into my college's Kasteel Well External Program. This basically means that from January to April 2008, I get to live and take classes in a castle in the Netherlands. Not only that, but we're required to visit two other cities (I'm not sure which ones yet) and are encouraged to travel abroad to other countries in Europe as well- thanks to 3-day weekends and 2 week long breaks, this is entirely possible.

Now I know that Spring 2008 is still pretty far away, but I definitely hope during my stay in Europe that I will have the opportunity to meet some of you European Downers. I've never been overseas before, so this is really exciting for me.

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

I will try to remember that. . .

From what I have seen here and on LJ you seem like a person I would like to meet and since Holland is not that far away and fairly cheap to go to. . . well it is definitly a possibilty.

[Laleena]

oh!oh! I know someone cuz we go to the same school in Berlin, CT. Legolasfan1 is my Best Friend!!

Anyone else live here?

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Well, with this year's Oxonmoot came some strange occurrences indeed. Yes, I went there and met some quite disturbing people. I also met some Downers.
Estelyn and Guinevire were at the Eagle and Child and we had many adventures! Squatter arrived a little later complete with trilby and waistcoat of doom. Narfforc, in true Northerner fashion, arrived drunk and beating the living daylights out of a small child... Or at least, something like that.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Hookbill the Goomba

Well, with this year's Oxonmoot came some strange occurrences indeed. Yes, I went there and met some quite disturbing people. I also met some Downers.
Estelyn and Guinevire were at the Eagle and Child and we had many adventures! Squatter arrived a little later complete with trilby and waistcoat of doom. Narfforc, in true Northerner fashion, arrived drunk and beating the living daylights out of a small child... Or at least, something like that.

Hope you had a great time. I'm envious. Did you get to hear Alex Lewis singing at the 'Ents'? Lal is particularly upset to have missed the Dealers' Room. I was going to go down myself - told Lal I'd send her some pics back from me phone, but for some reason she insisted I had to be around 'in case something happens'.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by davem

Hope you had a great time. I'm envious. Did you get to hear Alex Lewis singing at the 'Ents'? Lal is particularly upset to have missed the Dealers' Room. I was going to go down myself - told Lal I'd send her some pics back from me phone, but for some reason she insisted I had to be around 'in case something happens'.

Rotten old goat :P As it happens if we had booked to go we'd have wasted a few hundred quid as I was detained in the hospital til 6pm on Friday for obs. I must have foresight...or maybe a pessimistic outlook?

I'm not sorry I missed the 'Ents' though. Meh. Last year I was almost crushed to death in the rush to exit the marquee as they began...the best 'Ents' were narfforc's recitations from News of the World on Sunday morning. I trust he was on form?

Photos are demanded - go direct to your blog Mr Hookbill...if you please.

[Mithalwen]

Alex Lewis wasn't there you can imagin how controllable my grief was Lal, ...... but there was a lot of truly dreadful poetry, some folk singing - which was fine but basically the same tune regardless of subject matter and the truly wonderful "Sound of Mumaks" presented by the Cambridge Tolkien Society...... All together now "How do you solve a problem like Moria?" ....

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Right, if you want a nice little report about Oxonmoot, I got one on my blog.
http://hukbillgoomba.livejournal.com/67249.html#cutid1

Mithalwen, you were at Oxonmoot? Why didn't you try and find the rest of us? Think yourself too good for us, eh?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Alex Lewis wasn't there you can imagin how controllable my grief was Lal, ...... but there was a lot of truly dreadful poetry, some folk singing - which was fine but basically the same tune regardless of subject matter and the truly wonderful "Sound of Mumaks" presented by the Cambridge Tolkien Society...... All together now "How do you solve a problem like Moria?" ....

Now I'm really angry that I missed the one year that was not blighted by the 'singing' of Mr Lewis.

Although I did miss a chance to annoy by starting an argument about how folk music is actually good

Originally Posted by Squatter

I'll say this for the TS: they know how to drink; and by 'drink' I mean anything and everything that they can lay their hands on.

Yes, it's the English disease I spent a long time after the last Oxonmoot worrying I had made a plonker of myself with Joanna Tolkien because I was introduced to her while sitting on a park bench in the darkness (to which we had retreated so as to swear copiously about the Ents without directly hurting anyone's feelings...and so that we could still see in and laugh at a certain singer), well oiled with cider and stinking of an excessive consumption of cigs and cheesey Nik Naks. There was a roof party (of sorts) last year - unfortunately this happened above my room on the Friday, one of several designated as the 'quiet' block - I trust this was not the case this year or our esteemed pal Alan may have had to spend a night sleeping on a bench in the quad once more and I don't think it did him very much good - I shall have to get davem to ask him...I believe last year Mr narfforc was so drunk he went to sleep at teatime and woke up at 4am on Sunday morning looking for the party

Did you know that at the Birmingham event the TS had drunk the local pub quite literally dry by Sunday night - but being troopers, everyone went and sat outside the pub anyway.

Next year we may or may not be able to bring the newest Downer of all. This depends on how good the cider harvest has been though.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

I should like to say that the Tolkien Society did us proud, and that although davem and Lalwendë were missed, we managed to soldier on in their absence. Owing to a combination of road closures and my own incompetent navigation, I arrived at dinner on Friday just in time for the main course and had to wait until we were filling in the corners before looking for the other Downers. I caught up with Estelyn, Guinevere and Hookbill just in time for the Cambridge Tolkien Society's rendition of their combined homage to Tolkien and Spike Milligan, The Lord of the Goons. Narfforc was in evidence, but he and I didn't actually have a proper conversation until Saturday afternoon, so for now we must leave him.

Having known Guinevere through various quiz threads and Hookbill through his editorship of The Downer, it wasn't difficult to strike up a suitable conversation, which I must say was so interesting and engaging that I can't remember any of it. Perhaps my regular trips to the bar can explain my aberrant memory. In retrospect I didn't spend as much time speaking to Guinevere as I should have liked, since in person she speaks less than Estelyn, Hookbill and I; but hopefully she didn't feel ignored. Estelyn and I have, of course, met several times already, so we picked up where we left off. She was, as usual, the person who made introductions, dispensed Tolkien memorabilia, collected signatures and arranged group photographs, which would never happen if it were left up to me. She also enforced the forum regulations with an iron fist throughout, although I did make that bit up. Hookbill proved to share my delight in the subtle art of absurd comedy, much as one would expect from a perusal of his newspaper; but we also discovered that we've both watched Withnail and I rather more times than is good for us. Since he's undoubtedly reading this, I'd just like to say: "I have a heart condition."

Saturday began unwontedly early with a suitably enormous breakfast. I then attended more lectures than I did in my entire first week at university (four), sometimes with one or other of the Downers, sometimes not. In one of these, Hookbill demonstrated that he actually participates when the lecturer asks for audience participation, and that he doesn't need his books to talk about Tolkien (I clearly do, since I couldn't accurately remember a single quotation for the whole weekend). I finally caught up with Narfforc at the last lecture of the day ('The Goths and Huns revisited'), where our conversation about early medieval mythology was rudely interrupted by the guest speaker's insistence on delivering her lecture.

We all met up at one table for the Ents on Saturday night, where the first set of Downs group photographs was taken before I could get completely drunk. We then adjourned to the bar, where further madness ensued, before taking in the utter lack of entertainment that was the Tolkien reading group (not one reading that wasn't part of CRT's HME commentary, and mostly a single bore monopolising the entire event - no names, no pack drill). Estelyn, Hookbill and I all went, but all of us made excuses after a very short time. Of all of these, only Estelyn's was genuine, since Hookbill and I claimed tiredness, but actually went to a party on the roof of the block where I was staying.

I'll say this for the TS: they know how to drink, and by 'drink' I mean anything and everything that they can lay their hands on. The roof was one swinging event, where many members of the committee and several performers from the Ents letting their hair down with a vengeance. To give you some idea of the evening, I was discussing with a TS member from Holland how Joseph's Wright's comments as quoted by Tolkien [1] explained the high prices charged by Oxford colleges for use as Oxonmoot venues, while the two of us drank some Dutch mead that he'd brought and Narfforc taught two people the basics of unarmed combat directly next to us. It was, in short, the sort of drunken shambles that I particularly enjoy. I went to bed at twenty to five in the morning, got just over two hours' sleep and missed the morning walking tour. We were represented on that excursion by Guinevere and Estelyn, who had neither stayed up all night nor drunk themselves silly.

I shan't be too flippant about Enyalië, being that it's a respectful ceremony of remembrance. That leaves me little to say about it other than that it was the diametric opposite of my first visit to Tolkien's grave. A speech was made by the TS's outgoing president, Namarië was sung and another Downs group photograph was taken by the grave. Afterwards, we headed off to the Nosebag in Oxford for tea and cakes (and in my case a mountain of other food to settle my churning stomach). There we met up with other T.S. members and continued to talk about various subjects until the Return of the Bore. Eventually, at about three, Hookbill and I had to leave, since we weren't staying in Oxford for the extra night. We managed to have another chat about various subjects on the walk back to Lady Margaret Hall, and I drove him to the station, during which time I discovered that he's completely uninterested in cars. For this failure to show due slavish appreciation for my convertible, I kicked him out and charged him five pounds for the petrol, although not really.

Thus ended my first Oxonmoot, and a roaring good time it was too. I recommend wholeheartedly both the event itself and the meeting there of other members of this forum, who are for the most part neither cannibals nor zombies. I look forward to meeting more of you next year at the extended edition of the moot.

[1] "'What do you take Oxford for, lad?' 'A university, a place of learning.' 'Nay, lad, it's a factory! And what's it making? I'll tell you. It's making fees. Get that into your head, and you'll begin to understand what goes on.'" Reported in Letters #250; 1 November 1963, to Michael Tolkien. The interposed answer was Tolkien's own.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Originally Posted by The Squatter of Amon Rûdh

For this failure to show due slavish appreciation for my convertible, I kicked him out and charged him five pounds for the petrol, although not really

Yes, all he really did was throw me out of the car and then run over me thirty six times. Hence the rather cobbled together nature of the latest Newspaper... Although, thankfully, they are all cobbled together and so no one noticed.

But I'm making time!