Well, it's Sunday now, but let's talk Saturday.
Wandering down to the hotel lobby at about 7:20, it turned out the 221st Southumberland Waffleers had already headed out for their latest campaign, so I settled on some Starbucks chai tea and a cinnamon roll to break my fast, went for a lovely morning walk about the perimeter of the hotel grounds, and general preparation for the day.
The official 221B Con programming starts at 10 AM, but there was a little breakfast reception for the Diogenes Club supporters of the con, so I swung by that room for a little continental second breakfast before going down for the first panel.
Dynamics of a Podcast, the world's only Moriarty podcast, was connecting with South African co-host Dixie from the other side of the world to discuss "people from history or fiction who Professor Moriarty would recruit for his organization." Local (London), regional (UK), global (world-wide), and cosmic (anywhere in the universe) were all categories considered. Much discussion happened, many characters were brought up, from Robin Hood to Q from ST:TNG, but in the end James Bond was the winner for Moriarty's best possible recruit, through whatever means.
Next on my list was the CBS Watson panel. There's a lot to say about CBS Watson, since we podcast about it on The Watsonian Weekly every week, and since one of the panelists was someone I discuss the show with every week, there's wasn't much new on this one that my memory has retained at this point. I tend to get much more from panels on things I know less about, and that would be my advice for anyone trying a 221B Con situation for the first time: Don't limit yourself to your favorite topics -- challenging yourself might find you some new favorite topics. I have a whole list of fun things I've gotten into from going off my normal tracks at con.
Next came a screening of "They Might Be Giants" with Curtis Armstrong doing some opening introduction and notes. Having seen the movie a few times, I stayed for the intro, then slipped out. One "They Might Be Giants" virgin, Max Magee, caught me in the hall and tried to coerce me into returning, but I was starving and the food truck was a short walk away. So let me talk about the hotel food truck, parked just outside the con doors.
Jackfruit barbecue on a vegan bun. Housemade potato chips. Broccoslaw. Roasted turkey and fancy cheese I can't remember sandwiches. Cobb salad with chicken. Big chocolate chip cookie. Those were all things I ate at the food truck in 24 hours. It's a good food truck, and when you're running from happening to happening, you need quick meals! The hotel restaurant is good, but committing to a full hour or more for a meal costs you content!
The day passes so quickly at 221B Con between panels, events, trips to the dealer's room, and just hanging out with old and new friends. And suddenly it's 4:30 and I have to sit on the panel for Sherlockian chronology, which continues to get a good crowd at con.
Max Magee, Chris Ziordan, and I did a little intro to the subject and its challenges, and then we dropped right into building a timeline of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with our audience, who all got a copy of the 2026 edition of The Sherlockian Chronologist Guild Handbook just for coming. We had to hustle at the end but we did make it through the first twelve short stories and, hopefully, inspired some new chronologists.
Immediately after that, I sat on the John H. Watson Society panel, which went from explaining the many aspects of the society and then became an art show, where I handed folks markers and large magazine acid-free backing boards and had them draw their favorite Watsons for the audience to guess. We got some amazing portraits, ranging from Edward Hardwick to Dr. Dawson, and many photos were taken, but I was so busy hosting the art show that I didn't take any. (I did get a couple of the amazing pieces of art. Bluebell was especially kind in letting me keep her work.)
The two hours that followed were, for me, prep and resting up for the Alpha Inn Goose Club Pub Trivia Hour, a great fun game I run with my co-host Steve the Goose. (You might have met a fellow named Steve Mason, who doesn't look like a goose, because he's not Steve the Goose. Steve the Goose is Steve the Goose.) But immediately before the trivia hour, there was one more thing to do.
Rita Smith, one of my podcast pals, was treating us to a one-woman show entitled "Snakes I Have Known" originally presented at the Harrisburg Fringe Festival, which wove "The Speckled Band," truth, family, and domestic violence. I had known in advance that I'd have to leave a half hour into it to run the trivia hour next door, and the show was engaging enough that I waited until the last possible moment to leave, which then allowed me to make an entrance for the trivia hour, which somehow heightened my energy for being basically a game show host for the next hour.
The Alpha Inn Goose Club Trivia Hour had run successfully at 221B Con before, and like many a franchise then tried to expand into a longer after-dinner version at a "Holmes In The Heartland" weekend. Being back home at 221B Con and an hour -- especially an hour at nine PM after cocktails had been ingested, made for a much livelier crowd. The two teams, based on knowledge bases of Holmes's world, the British Museum and the London Library, were quickly roused to chant their team name, which they started doing with enough enthusiasm that I worried about the rooms next door and hoped we weren't disturbing them.
We played trivia Family Feud style with five players from each team lined up in the front of the room to take turns competing head to head in categories like non-Canonical regulars from Holmes based TV shows, Sherlockian music, Sherlockian art, numbers of books in novel series that spin out of . . .
Okay, I have to take a break for a second, because I'm writing in the "Raffles and Bunny" panel, and the purple demon girl came in and sat in front of me. Have I mentioned the purple demon girl? (No, I'm not hallucinating.) There is a completely purple demon girl, who may not be a demon, but I always think that, who sits quietly in the front row of many 221 B Con panels. When you're sitting on a panel the first time this happens, you can't help but find you attention drifting in that direcetion, simply because, a.) It's a really good cosplay, and b.) Most of us don't see purple demons every day.
Back to trivia. We had a nice, rowdy hour, with disputes (of course), boisterous cheers, triumphs and tragedies, and unlike a couple of years ago, Madeline Quinones and Ashley Polasek did not dominate so thoroughly, even though they were on the same team. The scoring ran neck-and-neck for most of the hour, but when we came down to a "Final Jeopardy" type final question, where the teams could bet a number of their souvenir Alpha Inn Goose Club Scoring Pence, the London Library was a few pence in the lead. Both team's representatives got their final question right, so the bets didn't affect the outcome that much and the London Library won the night, getting an exclusive "Big Honking Winner" blue badge ribbon to apply to their con badges.
The London Library Team with me and Steve the Goose
It took me a minute to clean things up, tote things to my room, and get back down, but next came Drunk Canon, which I missed the intro to, and was fumbling its way through reprising Sherlock Holmes stories. Perhaps a certain comic book creator was not as well versed as the theatrical ladies on the panel, and a certain school teacher was in an entirely different mode, perhaps because he was sitting closest to the bottles, but I shall let them remain anonymous and not detail the chaos that followed (if I even could). I will, however, post this redacted photo . . .
After that, and a lot of loud conversations that required one to leave the room to speak with more sober attendees, a number of us retired to Mrs. Hudson's, the 221B Con lounge full of celebrity standees, inflatables to sit or lay upon, the front door and fireplace of 221B Baker Street, and a photo-friendly TARDIS, whose constant working TARDIS-hum is so comforting. We relaxed, we chatted some more, and sometime after midnight, I decided sleep was my next priority.
But once in bed, my mind still took a bit to wind down. Because it's 221B Con weekend.
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