I've been to one, or two, UnCons now and I have to say that this was one of the best. There only being one stream of talks actually made the whole thing feel more relaxed.
I was a bit surprised that the whole thing kicked off with Ron Jonson, talking about the Psychopath test and the growing list of psychological conditions with their related checklists. But, he got things off to a flying start. Nicely balanced talk, too.
I missed most of Brian Regal's Sasquatch talk. I'm not a big Sasquatch fan, but from what I saw, it went down well.
Dave Clark's talk on the case of a woman, apparently frightened to death during a haunting in Sheffield, was very good. I really enjoyed it. Although, I asked a question about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novel, '
The Sign of Four', when I actually meant a possible influence on elements of, '
A study In Scarlet' (Mormons) and '
The Valley of Fear'.
Jan Bondeson's talking dogs and horses was both funny and very interesting. Covering, amongst other things, the gullibility of doting pet owners and the pseudo-scientific follies of the Third Reich.
I enjoyed Richard Freeman's talk on the search for various cryptid ape-men, even though it took on more of the form of a Fortean travelogue, at times.
Sarah Angliss, a composer and theremin player of considerable talent, did a brilliant talk based around the reproduction of the voices of the long dead, ventriloquism and teaching songbirds to reproduce popular tunes of former times. Then she played a composition on the theremin. I love the music of the theremin.
I wasn't going to go to Christopher Josiffe's talk on Gef the talking mongoose, but I'm glad I did. Once again, I was struck by how very similar the elements of the story of Gef, tie in with traditional accounts of restless house spirits, brownies, hobgoblins and the like, only given a 20th century make-over.
Dave Clarke and Andy Roberts did a very interesting talk on cursed stones and mentioned, Tigh nam Bodach, a pagan shrine of uncertain age, deep in Glen Lyon, Perth & Kinross, that I'd never heard of before. Interesting and tantalising tales.
Lynn Picket and Clive Prince's talk on the hermetic roots of modern science was quite interesting and good in parts. I did come away with a bit of an impression that Giordano Bruno was a bit like the Aleister Crowley of his day. I'm sure that A bit too Heliocentric for my liking, but I don't think that that can be right, he was more of a neo-Platonist, The Hermetics may have drawn their original inspiration from the ancient Egyptian Isis cult, but the neo-Platonists also drew a lot of their inspiration from the ancient Greeks and their early links through the Silk Route from ancient Iraq, Persia, India and China, amongst other sources. Early science and astronomy being fairly well developed in those regions, back then, too. I think. interesting, nonetheless.
Ted Harrison (something in religious affairs at the BBC), as Timble said, was like a sort of avuncular, CofE Archbishop. His talk on the various religious beliefs in the Apocalypse was interesting, enlightening and amusing. Quite excellent.
Gail-Nina Anderson's talk on Mummies in popular culture was great. Ms Anderson was even more laid back and relaxed than I've seen her previously and she gave a great talk.
The capper, of course, was Nina Conti's highly personal film meditation on her relationship to Ken Campbell and their mutual fascination with ventriloquism. Only a film, but a real invocation of something deep and at times, edgy. Vent Haven must be one of the saddest, if not the eeriest, places on Earth. I did think the film could lose at least two endings, though.
Poignant. Ken Campbell's presence was never more missed and yet, somehow, it was a fitting end to a great UnCon.
And, I haven't even mentioned the UnCon Late, on Saturday night!