A Hugo Award-winning podcast about science fiction and SF fandom from John Coxon, Alison Scott, and Liz Batty.
Episodes
Thursday Jul 23, 2020
Thursday Jul 23, 2020
John is channelling Ian Sorensen, Alison is on Sydney time, and Liz has written a poem.
Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and use #OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media!
- Letters of comment:
- Max Harden tells us she listens at 3x speed, and says “If only we could speed up pub chats too”.
- This gives John the idea for a panel show; have people listen to podcasts at various speeds, see how much they understood, and then have them drink alcohol and repeat!
- Dave Mansfield says he often doesn’t have time to read all the BSFA nominees and thanks us for reminding him you can abandon books you dislike
- Mark Plummer sent a clerihew to John which cannot be broadcast, and a triptych which can
- The triptych is printed below
- Liz wrote a limerick in response to Mark’s clerihew, also below
- Max Harden tells us she listens at 3x speed, and says “If only we could speed up pub chats too”.
- Alison’s GUFF trip has started!
- Virtual conventions
- Hugo Awards
- Alison wrote about the Best Fancast
- If you’re looking here for a picture of Alison looking confused, I misspoke: look at the album art instead
- Anki
- Aftershow
- Our theme music is Fanfare for Space by Kevin MacLeod, used under a CC BY 3.0 license
Liz’s limerick
- The poems of Croydon fan Plummer,
- Entertain Octothorpe for the summer.
- Though his rhymes are first class,
- They’re too rude to broadcast,
- Which is really a bit of a bummer.
Mark’s triptych
- Doctor John the boy Coxon
- Didn’t notice several LOCs on
- Octothorpe because he hadn’t checked
- And thus he failed to Mark protect
- Liz Batty (also Doctor)
- Didn’t know so many people had LOCced her
- Octothorpe’s a fannish gestalt
- But in this respect it’s all John’s fault
- GUFF winner Alison Scott
- Has several Novas and she has also got
- Two Hugos for the fanzine Plokta
- But unlike John and Liz she’s [Fremulon] not a doctor
Thursday Jul 09, 2020
Thursday Jul 09, 2020
John is an entryist from the Mark Neglection League, Alison is podcasting from a Secret Remote Location, and Liz would like to see the cats.
Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and use #OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media!
- Letters of comment:
- Claire “Correct” Brialey, Lilian “Time-Traveller” Edwards, “Crazy” Dave Mansfield, Helena “Not Andrew or Mark” McCallum, Mark “Neglection League” Plummer
- Alison is preparing for her virtual GUFF trip
- 11 July–2 August
- We are going to be doing a live recording from virtual Liz’s house, with real Liz and virtual Alison and John
- CoNZealand
- We discuss the new wave of #MeToo in the SF/comics/gaming communities
- Staying sane in the apocalypse:
- Liz is reading New Suns
- John has printed the following on Dox Direct:
- Our theme music is Fanfare for Space by Kevin MacLeod, used under a CC BY 3.0 license
Thursday Jun 25, 2020
Thursday Jun 25, 2020
John is bad at emails, Liz is bad at Twitter, and Alison is going to be quieter this week.
Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and use #OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media!
- We are really sorry to the following people who we inadvertently ignored for ages:
- Andrew January
- Andrew Hogg
- Mark Olson
- Mark Plummer
- Black Lives Matter follow-up:
- The WSFS Business Meeting “cannot” go online
- (Our perspective on this is perhaps quite British)
- Our theme music is Fanfare for Space by Kevin MacLeod, used under a CC BY 3.0 license
Thursday Jun 11, 2020
Thursday Jun 11, 2020
Black lives matter.
Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and use #OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media!
- Black Lives Matter:
- Virtual conventions:
- Balticon:
- A mixture of Zoom and Discord with Twitch and YouTube
- España Sheriff attended Balticon
- CoNZealand:
- The Nebulas:
- Alison spoke to Steven H. Silver about how the Nebulas went
- John Scalzi posted his set list from the disco
- Wiscon:
- We did not attend! If you did, send us locs!
- Virtually Expo (UK Games Expo)
- 21–23 August 2020
- Free at the point of use, but you can donate
- Balticon:
- Hugo Voter Packet
- It has been made available
- What’s in the HVP
- ALL THE COMICS
- Staying sane in the apocalypse
- Our theme music is Fanfare for Space by Kevin MacLeod, used under a CC BY 3.0 license
Thursday May 28, 2020
Thursday May 28, 2020
John has seen it all, Alison hasn’t seen Us, and Liz hasn’t seen Star Wars.
Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and use #OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media!
- Letters of comment
- España went to WiFi SciFi
- Two Chairs Talking
- A podcast from two Australian ex-Worldcon chairs about SF
- Let us know about any other fannish podcasts!
- BSFA
- Hugo Award finalists for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
- Michael Sheen and David Tennant are to star in Staged on BBC One
- Our theme music is Fanfare for Space by Kevin MacLeod, used under a CC BY 3.0 license
Thursday May 14, 2020
Thursday May 14, 2020
John needs validation, Alison hatches a scheme, and Liz is definitely never going to run a Worldcon.
Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and use #OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media!
- The tiles that Alison helped make
- CoNZealand
- They have announced they will hold Worldcon virtually
- They have a streaming partner
- Memberships are $300 (NZ): approximately £150
- The SFWA Nebula Conference 2020 is also being held virtually
- Registration is $150 (US): approximately £120
- Alison’s virtual GUFF trip is on Facebook!
- If you’re not on Facebook, email us and she’ll send the itinerary to you
- Our theme music is Fanfare for Space by Kevin MacLeod, used under a CC BY 3.0 license
Wednesday Apr 29, 2020
Wednesday Apr 29, 2020
John got drunk, Alison threw a party, and Liz was awake early.
Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and use #OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media!
- ConFusion 2021 is the next Eastercon
- We were right about the Guests of Honour:
- Dan Abnett
- Nik Vincent
- Dave Lally
- We were right about the Guests of Honour:
- The provisional bid for 2022 is to be launched at Novacon
- Fan fundery:
- Alison won GUFF
- Anna Raftery’s trip report is being streamed on Zoom and will be available afterwards
- John’s trip report is (almost) finished
- We got trip report bounties wrong:
- Staying sane in the apocalypse
- The Arkham Horror Tabletop Simulator mod got taken down after we recorded
- Our theme music is Fanfare for Space by Kevin MacLeod, used under a CC BY 3.0 license
Wednesday Apr 15, 2020
Wednesday Apr 15, 2020
John has a pin, Alison has a lot of pins, and Liz has opinions.
Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and use #OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media!
- Letters of comment
- Easter without Eastercon
- “A Toast for Alison Scott” (the Facebook group)
- The card for the Concentric 2020 committee
- John Robertson did The Dark Room for 48 hours
- Alison’s Zoom party was a great success
- Bid session
- ConFusion 2021 won the bid for that year
- Phil Dyson is head of a 2022 bid which will launch at Novacon
- Drawn to the Flame did a live podcast which John listened to
- Hugo Awards
- 2020 Finalists
- Fanzines:
- The Book Smugglers
- Galactic Journey
- Journey Planet (John edited Journey Planet #45, on The Matrix)
- nerds of a feather, flock together
- Quick Sip Reviews
- The Rec Center
- 1945 Retro-Hugo Finalists
- Staying sane in the apocalypse
- Our theme music is Fanfare for Space by Kevin MacLeod, used under a CC BY 3.0 license
Wednesday Apr 08, 2020
Wednesday Apr 08, 2020
John grumbles, Alison parties, and Liz can’t stay awake.
Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and use #OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media!
- The BSFA have a Discord server
- First Thursday London pub meetings (“the Tun”)
- CoNZealand announces they’re going online
- Alison is still running for GUFF
- Concentric 2020 is hosting a virtual Eastercon bid session on Easter Sunday
- WiFi SciFi
- Zoom has had some problems with respect to privacy concerns:
- Our theme music is Fanfare for Space by Kevin MacLeod, used under a CC BY 3.0 license
Tuesday Mar 24, 2020
Tuesday Mar 24, 2020
John is bad at Twitter, Alison discovers jigsaw puzzles, and Liz exercises.
Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and use #OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media!
- Eastercon
- Concentric 2020 cancelled
- This episode was recorded on Sunday 22 March, before gatherings of more than two people were banned in the UK
- Convoy (the cancelled Liverpool Eastercon)
- Contemplation (the last-minute Chester Eastercon)
- Concentric 2020 cancelled
- Fan funds
- The funds are:
- The Transatlantic Fan Fund (TAFF)
- The Down Under Fan Fund (DUFF)
- The Going Under/Up-and-Over Fan Fund (GUFF)
- A primer: “TAFF in Thirteen Paragraphs” by Teresa and Patrick Nielsen Hayden
- Michael Lowrey is cancelling his TAFF trip
- Alison is running for GUFF
- The funds are:
- Online fandom
- Staying sane in the apocalypse
- The Metropolitan Opera and Royal Opera House are offering free streams
- Games:
- Joy Con drift
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo Switch)
- Polyhedral Park Planner (tabletop)
- Free print-and-play games on PNPArcade (tabletop)
- One Shot Safety Net on GoFundMe (tabletop)
- Horizon Zero Dawn (PS4)
- The Last of Us (PS4)
- Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture (PS4/PC)
- Books:
- Toilets: