London/Glosgow Travelogue: Day 7

The Hugo awards were held last night - quick and professional, and blessedly not too long.

My friend from my writing group, David Moles, didn't win the Campbell, but he's a great writer and worth watching for. Another nominee worth paying attention to is Strange Horizons (website category: they didn't win, but they publish a lot of great fiction. David Moles and I have both had fiction published there).

Ellen Datlow got the best editor and Sci Fiction the best website, so it was a good and well-deserved night for Ellen.

Hugo night is always a very fun glitterati evening with many people dressing up thier best and enjoying the last gasp of well-attended late-night parties.

Some Glasgow observations: I'm going out into it further today, and hopefully learning a bit more, but it really feels like a butterfly struggling with an old cocoon. Old and crumbling buildings are right next to new shiny buildings. There are more fences and walls and there is more dirt and clutter than London had, and I even passed a few fences with warnings about "anti-climb paint" - whatever that is. I suspect something that comes off on you and glows? It doesn't feel like somepleace I'd walk around in on my own on Friday night.

Not too many of the older buildings in the part of town I've seen are very well restored, although last night I was at an Orbit Books party in a very trendy new bar in downtown Glasgow that looks like a restored warehhouse. Trains rumbled above our head and arched brick doorways and ceilings all looked fairly old, although in good condition. My guess is some were original, some re-made, and all restored. Another party-goer described it best as very similar to the landscape of Neil Gamin's "Neverwhen."