CLOSING GROUP DINNER AT THE TROUBADOUR

SUNDAY 13TH FEBRUARY

7.30pm: For the final Some-Poasyum event, conventioneers gathered in The Gallery room at the legendary Troubadour restaurant and coffee house in Old Brompton Road. The Troubadour is a fabulously atmospheric place dating back some 50 years whose basement club, which now hosts comedy and poetry evenings as well as musical acts, has played host to many celebrities including Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix. Click here for more pictures of this fascinating venue.

After an excellent buffet meal, during which Olaf showed his Hoban slide-show again and a CD of Hoban-friendly artists from Thelonious Monk to Garbage played in the background, participants were treated to a showing of the brilliant David Anderson short animations Deadsy and Door, which Russ scripted in the 1980s, and an actual film of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction referred to in Fremder.

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The results of the Some-Poasyum Quiz were then announced by question-setter and script-marker extraordinaire Yvonne Studer, with the first prize, a complete set of signed Bloomsbury editions of Russell Hoban novels kindly donated by the publisher, won by Deena Omar. (See the Quiz page for the full results and a chance to have a go at the quiz yourself.)

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So that nobody went away M.T. Handed, there then followed a lucky dip, for which the prizes had all been bought from the gift shops at the museums on the Tour of Hoban's London and were wrapped, of course, in yellow paper. There was then a presentation of special gifts to Chris Bell, Roland Clare and Richard Cooper in recognition of their work on the convention.

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Conventioneers were then invited to read aloud favourite short passages from Hoban novels. Anthony Davis read from The Medusa Frequency, Diana Slickman and Richard Cooper read from Kleinzeit, and Lisa Greenstein read from Pilgermann. Hugh Bowden also gave a fascinating mini-lecture on Orpheus and Eurydice.

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Left to right: Hugh, Diana and Lisa.

Dave Awl then read from The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz (below left) and also treated everyone to uncanny impressions of both Russ and The Kraken (below right), demonstrating through the latter the terrifyingly correct pronunciation of NNVSNU TSRUNGH.

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Assorted Some-Poasyacs enjoy the evening...

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Left to right: Peter Christian and Helen Eve discuss modes of being; quiz winner Deena Omar chats to Gillian Capper-Raphael while booklet tsar Chris Bell signs a copy of his prize-winning novel Liquidambar (which by the way is very good indeed); Dave Awl and Diana Slickman reflect on their Neo-Futurist roots.

Troubadourians then posed for group photos.

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The Gallery room closed just before midnight and, stopping only to listen finally to recordings of Russ reading Wherever Love Drops, It Drops and The Dream of The Kraken, conventioneers went downstairs into the main cafe. When that closed a short while later participants descended further into the underworld, or at least went down into the basement club, where several more beers were imbibed and the voodoo swamp blues of Dr John were danced to.

Key to photo credits: ys = Yvonne Studer; os = Olaf Schneider; eb = Eli Bishop; lg = Lisa Greenstein; pc = Peter Christian; ds = Diana Slickman