Hub 2 Report - Part One
Mar. 17th, 2009 08:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
etmuseAs this report is turning out to take me a lot longer to write than I thought (because I keep writing more and more things I remember!), I'm going to split it into sections, and post as I finish them. This first section covers Friday and the start of Saturday - up to the start of the Gareth/Matt panel.
This is also the only section without pictures - I promise some picspammage with the other parts (once I've sorted through all me photos!)
Firstly, because this is important and surprising – CAZ LOVES EVE!!!
(she had a mantra all of Saturday – EveNotGwen, EveNotGwen, EveNotGwen …)
Anyway…
Got into Northampton on Friday morning with my sister (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
angelzbabe1989) and promptly got lost just getting out of the bus station. Luckily Caz (cazmalfoy) was there to help out, and we wandered over to the Ibis together – where we hung around in her room until we were allowed to actually check in!
After we got checked in and dumped our things in our room, we headed over to the Park Inn for the LJ meetup – the three of us grabbed a table and inadvertently /became/ the LJ meetup when people started coming over and asking us ‘are you the livejournal people?’
I’m sure pictures will be around somewhere of the hilarity ensuing with Jack!bear, Ianto!bear, Owen!bear and Diane!bear (and Myfanwy was in there somewhere too, at points). I don’t have any, partly because I’ve had my camera for roughly a week and I was still figuring out how to use it – I still am, even after using it all weekend (a lot of my panel pics came out blurry but I do have a few nice ones).
Then we went off for registration – and as one of the ‘goodies’ in the silver pack was a little badge saying ‘Harwoods Haulage’ on it, you can guess what happened next…
YOU WON’T BE SORRY WITH A HARWOODS LORRY!
(this was repeated, along with the rest of the jingle, about 50-60 times minimum over the weekend…)
I’m not sure if we may not still have been singing it at regular intervals when we spotted Kai at the bar just round the corner…
Then was the opening ceremony, where only Gareth and Kai had arrived – they both complained about having to do things during the rugby Saturday afternoon. Gareth announced (and from what I’ve heard this actually happened) that his 4pm ‘intimate encounter’ would be held in his room so he could watch the rugby during it…
Anyway… that night was ‘Turn of the Century Torchwood’ evening, which was much fun although I was very hot in my (very pretty) dress – both Gareth, Kai and Matt were spotted around the place; Gareth was getting mobbed at one of the blackjack tables.
Saturday morning was the start of the signings/photoshoots. It all looked so organised on the schedule, but in reality it was more than a little chaotic. .
Caz and I were in the first group for signings from Matt – were 2nd and 3rd autographs of the morning actually. I have to admit that, before this weekend, I wasn’t too bothered with Matt Rippy. But now… I seriously love him. He was so nice (and damn cute too!). I told him I thought it was insulting his intelligence a bit to spell out my name (it’s only four letters long and is spelt /exactly/ as it sounds) and he said, ‘I’m an actor – you can insult my intelligence all you like. I can barely spell my /own/ name.’ We also got a bit of a history lesson, as he said to the first girl something along the lines of ‘So you want my John Hancock on this then. I don’t know why they say that… oh wait, yes I do…’ (He was someone that signed the Declaration of Independence, apparently.)
Then we queued for Siobhan’s signing – while we were waiting, there was this huge squeal from Eve at the next table. From what I’ve heard, someone had given her a big picture of her in her underwear or something to sign, and she had a squeally moment. It was this point that marked the beginnings of ‘Caz loves Eve’.
After a little hanging around, we were onto the photo with Kai – possibly the slowest moving queue of the whole con, as he was taking his time and chatting away to everyone as they came through. We spent so long in that queue that we completely missed our chance to queue for Matt’s photo, and went to get Tom’s autograph. He signed Caz’s ‘Spooky do’s!’ and then she was standing there going ‘I got spooky do’s’ while he started to sign mine ‘best wishes’ so it became ‘best wishes and spooky do’s!’ Then it was our photo with Eve, who has pretty new hair :).
Signing with Kai, who continued to be completely mad but fun – he wrote a message to Eve on Caz’s joint pic of them – and pics with Tom. Even though Tom isn’t any taller than the rest of them, for some reason he seemed really tall when we were taking the pic (and I told him so!).
At some point during the morning, we noticed that someone somewhere just could not spell Gareth’s name correctly. On the electronic sign in reception, it read Garreth all morning. We just /had/ to pronounce this G-arrrrrgh-eth. This prompted various pirate!Ianto ideas. And once we noticed that a lot of the paper signs said Garth… that became ‘Welsh country singing pirate Ianto’.
That afternoon was the start of the panels. Me, my sister, Caz and sparks all missed the panel with Kai and Eve (the first one) because we’d won places in the 2pm intimate encounter with Gareth.
Said encounter started with him asking for a drink – but he didn’t have the cash so he gave his handler his debit card and his pin number (whispered not very quietly) so we all joked that she’d be off buying a flat screen TV, and…
Then he was all pouty that Matt’s intimate encounter had gone for more than his.
I’m sure there’s a lot I’ve forgotten, but conversations in the encounter included (from memory):
- he has missed his dogs while he’s been in the US the last few months. They’ve been staying with his aunt who is much more strict with them than he is, so he’s sure they’ll be very glad to see him again. (This also prompted a discussion about breeds of dog…)
- arguing over whether it was ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorns’ or ‘like a woman scorned’
- the plaster he had on his forehead all weekend is apparently the result of a vase being thrown at a wall /next/ to him, bouncing off and smacking him on the head. He didn’t say quite why the vase was being thrown in the first place.
- buying hats in the US – he was pissy over someone telling him they didn’t like the hat he’d worn on Friday.
- how the band might need a new drummer, and that he bought the current drummer nice drumsticks, but he won’t be getting them if he leaves (this was mentioned in a panel later too)
- plans for doing stuff with the band – album/going places outside Wales…
- getting back into theatre. Discussed a play set before and after Agincourt, where the main character is a young boy (playing a woman in Shakespeare) in the first part, and an older man in the 2nd part. He seemed by the end of this discussion to have sort of decided to direct/produce/star in a production of this in Newport in a few months…
- John writing the comic for the TW magazine that was all about Jack. He wants to write a 300 page graphic novel that is all about Ianto – and then direct and star in the film version.
- He’d been to see the Watchmen, and seemed bemused by the soft-porn-like sex scene (I'm pretty sure those were some of the words he used) that was in the middle – there’d be none of that in the film version of his Ianto graphic novel, apparently…
- Newport late at night. There were mentions of women tottering about with kebab meat hanging out of their mouths. We ended up comparing this to various other places (like Glasgow!).
- He has various of Ianto’s suits – but says he can’t wear them for a few years, so that people will forget that he wore them as Ianto. He doesn’t want to be accused of not buying his own clothes…
- He talked a little about some ideas he and James Marsters have for the acting ‘marstersclass’ he’s doing with JM in a few months.
- There was something about how one of the reasons s3 is only 5 episodes is that the creative team asked the BBC for a little bit more money per episode to make it look fantastic, and they only agreed to do it on a shorter run – and if the ratings are good enough they might get better money for SFX etc for a full run s4.
All too soon, time was up, and it was time for him to run off for his panel with Matt Rippy (‘better go say hi to him’ as Gareth said at the end).
Part 2 - Saturday panels and evening - coming soon!
Matt and Gareth panel report now up here!
This is also the only section without pictures - I promise some picspammage with the other parts (once I've sorted through all me photos!)
Firstly, because this is important and surprising – CAZ LOVES EVE!!!
(she had a mantra all of Saturday – EveNotGwen, EveNotGwen, EveNotGwen …)
Anyway…
Got into Northampton on Friday morning with my sister (
angelzbabe1989) and promptly got lost just getting out of the bus station. Luckily Caz (cazmalfoy) was there to help out, and we wandered over to the Ibis together – where we hung around in her room until we were allowed to actually check in!After we got checked in and dumped our things in our room, we headed over to the Park Inn for the LJ meetup – the three of us grabbed a table and inadvertently /became/ the LJ meetup when people started coming over and asking us ‘are you the livejournal people?’
I’m sure pictures will be around somewhere of the hilarity ensuing with Jack!bear, Ianto!bear, Owen!bear and Diane!bear (and Myfanwy was in there somewhere too, at points). I don’t have any, partly because I’ve had my camera for roughly a week and I was still figuring out how to use it – I still am, even after using it all weekend (a lot of my panel pics came out blurry but I do have a few nice ones).
Then we went off for registration – and as one of the ‘goodies’ in the silver pack was a little badge saying ‘Harwoods Haulage’ on it, you can guess what happened next…
YOU WON’T BE SORRY WITH A HARWOODS LORRY!
(this was repeated, along with the rest of the jingle, about 50-60 times minimum over the weekend…)
I’m not sure if we may not still have been singing it at regular intervals when we spotted Kai at the bar just round the corner…
Then was the opening ceremony, where only Gareth and Kai had arrived – they both complained about having to do things during the rugby Saturday afternoon. Gareth announced (and from what I’ve heard this actually happened) that his 4pm ‘intimate encounter’ would be held in his room so he could watch the rugby during it…
Anyway… that night was ‘Turn of the Century Torchwood’ evening, which was much fun although I was very hot in my (very pretty) dress – both Gareth, Kai and Matt were spotted around the place; Gareth was getting mobbed at one of the blackjack tables.
Saturday morning was the start of the signings/photoshoots. It all looked so organised on the schedule, but in reality it was more than a little chaotic. .
Caz and I were in the first group for signings from Matt – were 2nd and 3rd autographs of the morning actually. I have to admit that, before this weekend, I wasn’t too bothered with Matt Rippy. But now… I seriously love him. He was so nice (and damn cute too!). I told him I thought it was insulting his intelligence a bit to spell out my name (it’s only four letters long and is spelt /exactly/ as it sounds) and he said, ‘I’m an actor – you can insult my intelligence all you like. I can barely spell my /own/ name.’ We also got a bit of a history lesson, as he said to the first girl something along the lines of ‘So you want my John Hancock on this then. I don’t know why they say that… oh wait, yes I do…’ (He was someone that signed the Declaration of Independence, apparently.)
Then we queued for Siobhan’s signing – while we were waiting, there was this huge squeal from Eve at the next table. From what I’ve heard, someone had given her a big picture of her in her underwear or something to sign, and she had a squeally moment. It was this point that marked the beginnings of ‘Caz loves Eve’.
After a little hanging around, we were onto the photo with Kai – possibly the slowest moving queue of the whole con, as he was taking his time and chatting away to everyone as they came through. We spent so long in that queue that we completely missed our chance to queue for Matt’s photo, and went to get Tom’s autograph. He signed Caz’s ‘Spooky do’s!’ and then she was standing there going ‘I got spooky do’s’ while he started to sign mine ‘best wishes’ so it became ‘best wishes and spooky do’s!’ Then it was our photo with Eve, who has pretty new hair :).
Signing with Kai, who continued to be completely mad but fun – he wrote a message to Eve on Caz’s joint pic of them – and pics with Tom. Even though Tom isn’t any taller than the rest of them, for some reason he seemed really tall when we were taking the pic (and I told him so!).
At some point during the morning, we noticed that someone somewhere just could not spell Gareth’s name correctly. On the electronic sign in reception, it read Garreth all morning. We just /had/ to pronounce this G-arrrrrgh-eth. This prompted various pirate!Ianto ideas. And once we noticed that a lot of the paper signs said Garth… that became ‘Welsh country singing pirate Ianto’.
That afternoon was the start of the panels. Me, my sister, Caz and sparks all missed the panel with Kai and Eve (the first one) because we’d won places in the 2pm intimate encounter with Gareth.
Said encounter started with him asking for a drink – but he didn’t have the cash so he gave his handler his debit card and his pin number (whispered not very quietly) so we all joked that she’d be off buying a flat screen TV, and…
Then he was all pouty that Matt’s intimate encounter had gone for more than his.
I’m sure there’s a lot I’ve forgotten, but conversations in the encounter included (from memory):
- he has missed his dogs while he’s been in the US the last few months. They’ve been staying with his aunt who is much more strict with them than he is, so he’s sure they’ll be very glad to see him again. (This also prompted a discussion about breeds of dog…)
- arguing over whether it was ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorns’ or ‘like a woman scorned’
- the plaster he had on his forehead all weekend is apparently the result of a vase being thrown at a wall /next/ to him, bouncing off and smacking him on the head. He didn’t say quite why the vase was being thrown in the first place.
- buying hats in the US – he was pissy over someone telling him they didn’t like the hat he’d worn on Friday.
- how the band might need a new drummer, and that he bought the current drummer nice drumsticks, but he won’t be getting them if he leaves (this was mentioned in a panel later too)
- plans for doing stuff with the band – album/going places outside Wales…
- getting back into theatre. Discussed a play set before and after Agincourt, where the main character is a young boy (playing a woman in Shakespeare) in the first part, and an older man in the 2nd part. He seemed by the end of this discussion to have sort of decided to direct/produce/star in a production of this in Newport in a few months…
- John writing the comic for the TW magazine that was all about Jack. He wants to write a 300 page graphic novel that is all about Ianto – and then direct and star in the film version.
- He’d been to see the Watchmen, and seemed bemused by the soft-porn-like sex scene (I'm pretty sure those were some of the words he used) that was in the middle – there’d be none of that in the film version of his Ianto graphic novel, apparently…
- Newport late at night. There were mentions of women tottering about with kebab meat hanging out of their mouths. We ended up comparing this to various other places (like Glasgow!).
- He has various of Ianto’s suits – but says he can’t wear them for a few years, so that people will forget that he wore them as Ianto. He doesn’t want to be accused of not buying his own clothes…
- He talked a little about some ideas he and James Marsters have for the acting ‘marstersclass’ he’s doing with JM in a few months.
- There was something about how one of the reasons s3 is only 5 episodes is that the creative team asked the BBC for a little bit more money per episode to make it look fantastic, and they only agreed to do it on a shorter run – and if the ratings are good enough they might get better money for SFX etc for a full run s4.
All too soon, time was up, and it was time for him to run off for his panel with Matt Rippy (‘better go say hi to him’ as Gareth said at the end).
Part 2 - Saturday panels and evening - coming soon!
Matt and Gareth panel report now up here!
