2005-10-25 - 11:37 p.m.

La Jolla, CA.

No, me neither. It�s kind of a posho seaside town that is pronounced �Lahoya�, which sounds like the name of a Jackson sister that never quite made the big time. It�s mostly older people and middle-aged men smoking cigars you could row a boat with and women who look like they would wear full make-up and heels down to the beach, but it�s a suitably sleepy place to convalesce after the weekend.

I mostly spent it putting the �alco� into �Journalcon�. I�d never been to ay kind of con before, though now I understand how big a part cash bars play, that could all change. Understand that I only knew two people going into it � Jessie Biensoul and Kevin AC Nightmare � and so allowances have to be made for the use of some kind of crutch, though given the rate of first night cocktails, I was being powered along in more of a top of the line, cognac-fuelled motorised wheelchair.

But everyone was friendly, even to reserved British boys, and soon enough I was in a bar at 1am watching a hillbilly perform magic tricks for shots of vodka. It doesn�t get much better than that. For some reason, his wife (and sister?), who had seen it all before, wasn�t impressed and kept trying to talk French to distract us, though her declaration of �A�hm ahff to the BOO-dwar� would have been even more impressive if she had actually meant bedroom and not bathroom.

After amounts of sleep not witnessed since the previous week�s InsomniaCon, I was at my first seminar addressing the attendees with the introductory telling of two truths and a lie about myself, which felt a bit like standing up at an Untruths Anonymous meeting. I went for a bodily functions motif � I have stopped producing natural tears, I have to have my ears syringed every 6 months and I have one less saliva gland than I was born with. Thank blimmin� crikey the second one is a lie as I can�t abide earwax.

Then came award-winning readings, which would have been great if the people involved hadn�t been able to write me into a cocked hat (if you can believe it with mixed metaphors like that).

I slept off my residual jetlag, which to the inattentive layman may have looked like a stubborn hangover. Luckily, the evening�s main activity had the pre-requisite of a few stiffners � singing in front of a roomful of strangers (who were thankfully less strange than they had been).

Karaoke, as well all know, comes from two Japanese words, �Kara�, meaning �empty�, and �oke�, meaning �your head of ideas about retaining any semblance of dignity�. Actually, some people performed jaw-droppingly well, notably Ms Biensoul and her Gangsteahca Rap, Jen TranceJen and Mr Monty, who wins �Best De-pompoous-ising of a U2 song�. Honourable mentions have to go to Mr Pratt, Meg Seafoam and Jake Chauffi for services to public displays of melody.

Sunday: sad faces, as laid out in the schedule.

Two things really struck me. First, the amazing diversity of the attendees, which ranged from soul-singing ex-clowns to penguin-impersonating rocket scientists to, oh, I don�t know, Baptist-hectoring punk mums.

Secondly, the genuine warmth shown not just to people who had recently (and not so recently) been through real shit-kicking times that I can�t even imagine, but to those they�d never heard of that only joined up at the last minute. I won't list names as I am bound to miss someone out, but I truly enjoyed meeting all of you, and everyone involved did a tip-top job.

Someone should organise something like this in the UK.

Not me, obviously.