Octothorpe John Coxon, Alison Scott, Liz Batty

John is a professor, Alison doesn’t have a bucket list, and Liz is the country’s foremost fan historian.
An uncorrected transcript of this episode is available here. Please email your letters of comment to comment@octothorpecast.uk, and tag @OctothorpeCast (on X or on Mastodon or on Bluesky) when you post about the show on social media.
Content warnings this episode: More wealth privilege (chapter 2)
Letters of comment
Bridget Bradshaw
Christopher J Garcia
Farah Mendlesohn
Jonathan Cowie
Jonny Baddeley
Kin-Ming Looi
Sandra Bond
Tammy Coxen

Awards
Babel wins “Best Translated Work” at the 2024 Xingyun Awards
Clarke Award finalists
John: 0, Alison: 1, Liz: 3
The winner will be announced on 24 July

2024 Nebula Awards
2023 Nebula Awards
Locus Awards

Glasgow 2024
The Hugo Packet is now available
Joel’s Whisky Zoom is hosting a tour of the Clydeside Distillery on 9 August at 7pm

Picks
John: Sunderland Shorts Film Festival
Soulmate, Beautiful Things, Ensouled, Finger Food, Bisected, Own Home?, R1CO, The First Time I Never Met You
Wes Anderson’s short adaptations of Roald Dahl

Alison: Aurora
Liz’s view on auroras

Liz: A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin [paper, ebook, audiobook, Amazon]

Credits
Cover art: “Explain 2233” by Alison Scott
Alt text: Three photographs of the night sky, labelled Newcastle, Bangkok, and “Quite near London” (the labels were written by a Londoner, which is why it doesn’t just say “London”). Text above reads “Octothorpe 110” and below reads “Local Aurora Snapshots”. The Newcastle and London images show photographs of aurora with some minor bits of vegetation intruding; the Bangkok picture shows a skyline of buildings underneath a thunderstorm.

Theme music: “Fanfare for Space” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

John is middle, Alison is even sadder, and Liz is sorry.
An uncorrected transcript of this episode is available here. Please email your letters of comment to comment@octothorpecast.uk, and tag @OctothorpeCast (on X or on Mastodon or on Bluesky) when you post about the show on social media.
Content warnings this episode: Discussion of access issues (chapter 2), wealth privilege (chapter 6)
Letters of comment
Abigail Nussbaum
Ali Baker Brooks
Andrew January
The Eastercon members’ portal

Caroline Mullan
DC
Farah Mendlesohn
Critical Friends 8

Jacob Holder
Mark Plummer
Meg MacDonald

Doc Weir award
Dave Langford receives the trophy
Alt text: Dave Langford triumphantly lofts a blue Bag for Life from Tesco, which we are expected to believe contains the Doc Weir trophy. He is standing in front of a house.


GUFF
The results

Chengdu 2023
“The Pidu district of Chengdu announces a 10-year science fiction plan”

Glasgow 2024
Town Hall Event: Hugo, Lodestar, and Astounding Awards Glasgow
Town Hall Event: Site Selection Glasgow 2024

Eastercon and money
Picks
John: Dredge
Alison: Hopeland by Ian McDonald (paper, epub, audiobook, Amazon)
Liz: Starling House by Alix E. Harrow (paper, epub, audiobook, Amazon)

Credits
Cover art: “Voyagers” by Ulrika O’Brien
Alt text: The background is a starry, lightning-filled square in blues, purples, and yellows. Atop that, there is a spaceship, somewhat like a rocket, with engines coming out of the sides. There are yellow lights shining from it, and a ladder reaches up to a central archway. John, Alison and Liz are depicted as silhouettes, regarding it with wonder. Their shadows stretch off the canvas, and they look faintly alien or futuristic in a hard-to-define manner.

Theme music: “Fanfare for Space” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

John is ignorant, Alison is first, and Liz is a trendsetter.
An uncorrected transcript of this episode is available here. Please email your letters of comment to comment@octothorpecast.uk, and tag @OctothorpeCast (on X or on Mastodon or on Bluesky) when you post about the show on social media.
Content warnings this episode: COVID (chapter 8).
Letters of comment
Chris Garcia
Maundy Thursday

Andy Openshaw
Nuala on Bluesky: sorry!
Raj recommends pizza crunch
Mono

Raj on Mastodon
Track Changes

Meg MacDonald
DC’s loc

Eastercon 2024
Telford
Telford International Centre
KFC

Catchup
Members’ area
Catchup will be closing at the end of April

Dealers’ room
Beyond Cataclysm

COVID
No reported cases, as far as we are aware


Picks
John: Thunder Road: Vendetta
Alison: Fallout (the TV series)
Liz: Stardew Valley

Credits
Cover art: “Vibrant Food Culture” by Alison Scott
Alt text: A drawing of a blackboard with text that reads: “Octothorpe 108 guide to Glasgow street food.” A picture of a deep fried pizza with glasses is next to text reading ’The “Coxon” pizza crunch’, a picture of three pakora with glasses next to ‘The “Scott” haggis pakora’, and a picture of a deep fried Mars bar next to ‘The “Batty” deep fried Mars bar”. Stars also adorn the backboard, and bottles of red and brown sauce are in the bottom-left-hand corner.

Theme music: “Fanfare for Space” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

John, Alison, and Nicholas are live from Levitation!
A transcript of this episode is available here. Please email your letters of comment to comment@octothorpecast.uk and tag @OctothorpeCast (on X or on Mastodon or on Bluesky) when you post about the show on social media.
Content warnings this episode: None
Thank you very much to our stunt Liz, Nicholas Whyte!
Nicholas’ blog, From the Heart of Europe

April Fool’s Day
The rocket in all its glory!

The Hugo Awards
Hugo Award finalists
The announcement video
Thank you to everyone who nominated us!
Congratulations to the other Fancast finalists:
The Coode Street Podcast
Hugos There
Publishing Rodeo
科幻Fans布玛 (Science Fiction Fans Buma)
Worldbuilding for Masochists

The first Town Hall will be on 20 April 2024
Tickets available on Eventbrite
The stream will be available on YouTube

Three Black Halflings
Tammy Coxen
The Glasgow Gimlet
Tammy’s Tastings
Tammy’s podcast, My Tiny Bottles

Bigolas Dickolas

Gallifrey One
BSFA
Join their Discord!

Picks
John: Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace (Channel 4)
Our cosplay

Alison: Eastercon catch-up
Nicholas:
The Black Archive
David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television by Simon Guerrier


Credits
Cover art: “Octothorpe at Levitation” by Sue Dawson
Alt text: John, Alison, and Nicholas Whyte stand in front of a projection of the Octothorpe podcast and behind a panel table. Each of them wears a convention badge, and Nicholas holds the Glasgow Landing Zone Rocket. Nicholas is looking at the camera, while John and Alison are not quite as good at this. The table they stand behind holds beers, coffees, convention newsletters, phone batteries, microphones, and table tents.

Theme music: “Fanfare for Space” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

John used to be an undergraduate, Alison has been keeping a list, and can Liz be a stunt Liz?
A transcript of this episode is available here. Please email your letters of comment to comment@octothorpecast.uk and tag @OctothorpeCast (on X or on Mastodon or on Bluesky) when you post about the show on social media.
Content warnings this episode: Death (Deb Geisler, chapter 3) and gambling (Hugo Awards, chapter 7; Alison’s pick, chapter 8).
Letters of comment
Chris Garcia
Mike Glyer
Transcripts

Bob Morrell
Colin Murtagh
We also heard from Jonny Baddeley, Alex Holden, Farah Mendlesohn, and Ang Rosin

Deb Geisler
File 770

Eastercon
Programme
Octothorpe Live is at 13:00 on Monday!

Games
Newsletter
Please come help, post in the Discord if you’d like to volunteer!

GUFF
Vote here!

Doc Weir
BSFA Awards

Awards
Nebula Award finalists
Android Press Games
The Bread Must Rise

Hugo Award betting markets
Liz has decided not to put her referral link here because the people who run the website might be a bit too Silicon Valley-y

Hugo, Girl! un-recuse

Picks
John: Airecon
Overs: The Cricket Card Game

Alison: The 2023 Eastercon souvenir book
Balatro

Liz: “No CGI is really just INVISIBLE CGI” on YouTube
Todd Vaziri on X, BlueSky, Mastodon


Credits
Cover art: “Podcasting Is Magic” by Alison Scott
Alt text: Three ponies in the style of My Little Pony adorn the cover. The left-hand one is orange, and has a six-sided die as a cutie mark. The central one is teal, and has a rainbow Apple logo for a cutie mark. The right-hand one is blue, and has a Hugo Award for a cutie mark. They look like they are having a nice time. The words “My Little Octothorpe 106” appear at the top, and the words “Podcasting Is Magic” appear at the bottom.

Theme music: “Fanfare for Space” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)

John watches movies, Alison walks on the Moon, and Liz has special bonds.
Please email your letters of comment to comment@octothorpecast.uk, check out our subtitles/transcripts, and tag @OctothorpeCast (on X or on Mastodon or on Bluesky) when you post about the show on social media.
Content warnings this episode: Censorship, in the form of more Hugo Award controversy
Letters of comment
Ang Rosin
Andy Openshaw
Chris Garcia
Zodiac Speaking

ErsatzCulture and Raj
España Sheriff
Brighton 1987

Martin Easterbrook
Tammy Coxen
Sandra Bond
Keep an eye out for Poetry Slum!
Click here to see the cover

Nicholas Jackson on Bluesky
Harry Payne on Bluesky

BSFA Awards shortlist
Hugo Awards
The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion by Chris M Barkley and Jason Sanford
Charting the Cliff: An Investigation Into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics by Camestros Felapton and Heather Rose Jones
More on Other Chinese Hugo Nominations, based on “Charting the Cliff” by Prograft
Recent updates from the MPC/WIP
Journey Planet #79

Picks
John: Monolith dir. Matt Vesely
Alison: Moonwalkers
Liz: FRIENDSHIP

Credits
Cover art: Liz’s Bedtime Reading by Alison Scott
Alt text: A famous photograph of Margaret Hamilton standing beside printed outputs of the code that took the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon, overlaid with the words “Octothorpe 105” and “Liz has finished reading the latest Hugo Award exposés”.

Theme music: “Fanfare for Space” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)