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It's hard to believe that after so many months of waiting and behind-the-scenes planning that Celebration Europe is over. July 13th - 15th brought Star Wars home to, as Stephen Sansweet called it, "It's spiritual home." And indeed it was home, to anybody there who's Star Wars born and bred, like me. |
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But this affectionate look back at that crazy July weekend isn't just about my memories. Here you'll see photo's and video's, hear audio clips and interviews and read the thoughts and memories of many. From fans, cast members and Lucasfilm staff this will be a unique and heartfelt tip of the hat to the biggest Star Wars day the UK has ever seen. So, grab your Lightsabre, remember the thrill of the Battle of the Bridge and go back to 13th July 2007 and the start of Star Wars Celebration Europe... |
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Prior to the convention |
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| Mark - "We'd been planning the event for months, since the back end of last year when we set up our own dedicated Celebration Europe page. With Lightsabre being an interview site as much as anything else it was perfectly set for me to ask our guests if they would donate autographs towards Cancer Research UK, our chosen charity. Many folks did just that, and after not too long we had quite a haul of gear. The initial idea when first speaking to Barry Eldridge was to have a charity auction but Lucasfilm asked that we not do that as it would "steal their thunder". Like we could steal their thunder! Then we sorted our stand in the Fan Area but a few weeks before the show we were asked to move to the Dealers Area due to us selling the autographs, which wasn't a problem. But the best moment came just a week before Celebration, at Memorabilia in Birmingham where we got chatting to Gerald Home. It turned out that, for various reasons, he hadn't been invited. So, after some nifty footwork between me and Barry and Gerald and Stephen Sansweet at LFL it was arranged. But, of course, I had to try and get the word out there about Gerald being our special guest. Luckily, as well as hyping it on Lightsabre both The Force.Net and Club Jade kindly posted the news." | |||||
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Thursday 12th July 2007 |
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| Mark, Rebecca, Louis and Paul's ExCel-lent Adventure begins... | |||||
Mark - "We had a pretty good run down to the ExCel from Lichfield, despite not getting away from work as early as I'd like. The traffic was no problem, we fit everything into the car and managed to get to the hotel for about 10-ish, which gave us time to drop our gear and meet Anthony. He worked alongside Bex, and he's a proper laugh so we took a stroll over the road to the Peacock, a brilliant pub run by a charismatic Irish fella full of stories about the end of the world. I have a vague recollection of about 6 bottles of Newcastle Brown, some great conversation about everything from the undercurrent of the Thames being as fast as a train to the world being blown to bits in 2 years. Oh, and finding out Louis is a bit of a pool shark. I reckon I'll have to up my game next time we play..." |
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| Louis - "The Peacock was a pleasant pub that really made you feel welcome, and wasn’t too expensive. I really wish we had gone over there again, but the temptation to schmooze, Marks words not mine, was too high. As for me being a pool shark, I hadn't actually played for six months." | |||||
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| Anthony - The Thursday evening was quite tiring carrying bags to the hotel and I needed, to quote a Jedi Knight 'A Drink'. I walked to the Hotel where Mark and clan were staying and managed to find a pub about 100 yards from the hotel. (RESULT). | |||||
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| Rebecca - "Tired from travelling but looking forward to Celebration with trepidation." | |||||
| Anthony - "It looked a bit dilapidated from the outside but once inside it was like a different building! It was a proper pub with all the decor you would expect and a beer garden to die for! My only regret is that I didn’t take any photos. (But I think our resident Barmaid, Rebecca may have done)." | |||||
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Chris Gereke - "I arrived at the Excel Thursday morning. I was greeted by David Prowse who was waiting for Mark Hamill to do a promo shot for the The Sun. That really set the tone for the show..." |
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Mark - "We had a real laugh with these two guys in the Holiday Inn foyer. It was about 2am, we all knew we had to be up mega early but the beer was flowing and we didn't want to go to bed. Plus, Louis had taken a photo of this guy at the Memorabilia show last year when we interviewed Jeremy Bulloch and Daniel Logan, but we couldn't remember his name. Still can't, but credit to him, he always acknowledged us whenever we passed him over the weekend. Oh, and just to remind his pal, the original Star Wars won seven Oscars and was nominated for eleven!" |
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1) Louis - "I know, it was cool to see the faces outside of the costumes. Plus, do you remember, we photographed that one chap at memorabilia earlier in the year? Nice blokes, both of them – cant remember whether we got any contact details though – can you? I'd only had two pints and already my brain was dead." |
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Friday 13th July 2007 |
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Mark, Rebecca, Louis and Paul's ExCel-lent Adventure Day One... |
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10:30 - 11:15 Mint Imperials
- MAIN STAGE David Prowse, Barrie Holland, Michael Culver, Richard LeParmentier, Julian Glover. The original Imperials invade the stage for nostalgia and fun. 10:30 -- 11:00 and 11:30
-- 12:00 The Clone Wars - PLATINUM STAGE 11:00 -- 12:00 Fan Force
Presentation 11:45 - 12:30 The Two
Halves of Darth Maul, with Ray Park- MAIN STAGE 12:15 -- 13:15 R2-D2
Builders' Club 12:30 -- 13:30 Original
Trilogy costume design, and creating Darth Vader - PLATINUM STAGE 13:00 -- 14:00 Charlie
Ross: One Man Star Wars Trilogy- MAIN STAGE 13:30 -- 14:30 L'Amour
d'Armor: Costuming for the Troopers of the Trilogy 14:00 -- 15:00 The
Star Wars Vault - PLATINUM STAGE 15:30 -- 16:30 The Force
Unleashed with LucasArts - PLATINUM STAGE 14:30 -- 15:15 Jabba:
Inside the Vile Gangster- MAIN STAGE 14:45 -- 15:45 Hardware
Store Props -- Scott Will 15:45 -- 16:30 One-Eyed
Security with Jay Laga'aia- MAIN STAGE 16:00 -- 16:15 Jedi vs.
Jedi, Mustafar Reenacted 16:30 -- 17:15 Vader's
Fist -- The Founder Speaks on the 501st Legion 17:00 -- 18:00 Working
with Walking Carpets- MAIN STAGE 17:00 – 18:00 What’s New
at Hasbro Toys - PLATINUM STAGE 17:30 -- 18:00 Droid
Demonstration 18:30 -- 19:00
Celebration Europe Opening Ceremonies - Outdoor Stage, Royal Victoria
Square (Directly west of ExCeL Center) 19:00 -- 21:30 A New
Hope Screening - Outdoor Stage, Royal Victoria Square (Directly west
of ExCeL Center) 21:30 onward Opening
Night Mixer at Fox Pubs |
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| Mark - "When that alarm went off and Louis got up to get his shower, those bottles of Newcastle Brown decided to start clanging together. Urgh, that wasn't a pretty start to the day. Every drop of water from the shower hurt. We saw a bunch of Star Wars t-shirts in the foyer, grabbed some croissants and juice and started out for the con." | |||||
| Louis - "Getting Mark out of bed wasn't necessarily a problem, but why is it that women take so long in the bathroom?" | |||||
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| Mark - "Yep, that X-wing was pretty much what greeted us on the morning as we arrived. Well, apart from the thousands of people milling about, a huge queue to get our passes and a mad rush to the dealers area." | |||||
| Anthony - "On Friday morning I had NO hangover!! Quite a shock actually due to the amount drank the previous evening. The queue for the Hyperspace booth was “Impressive. Most impressive” and I thought I had got there early. After 40 minutes or so of queuing I got my goodies and joined the even bigger queue to get in the Exhibition. While waiting in the “Deathstar Entrance” the surrounding free-standing walls decided to fall on us all waiting to get in. The problem was the draft of air through the place blew the HUGE curtains and then the walls surrounding. It was quite scary but we all managed to push the wall back and the security cleared the area of destruction. We continued to wait and were let in a few minutes later. Then the FUN began..." | |||||
| Louis - "An interesting bit of news that came to light later was that Play.com hasn't informed those customers who'd bought tickets from them that the venue had changed from Earls Court to the ExCel Arena. Consequently when I dropped down to pick up the media passes (yes!) there were a lot of confused and annoyed people. However, hats off to the customer services people, they were pleasant and did their best to help." | |||||
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| Mark - "Seeing this as we entered the main arena just made me laugh, in a good way of course. I couldn't help but think of Adam and Joe, when they travelled to the Disco Star. I kept waiting for a load of spotlights to hit it and The Star Wars Holiday Special to begin in real life." | |||||
| Rebecca - "Chaos. Stress. Frustration. It all went Pete Tong because our stand wasn't there, the table wasn't there. Proper stress." | |||||
| Mark - "Trouble was, we were so late getting there on Thursday we didn't have time to set up or check in, so they didn't think we were coming. By the time we got to the stand on Friday morning, even though we knew it would only take 10 minutes max to set up the photo's and the banner, they had given the table to someone else." | |||||
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| Louis - "I was mega – stressed that we were gonna be late for the con – and couldn’t believe that it took us so long to get there, but in the end we arrived at ten at night. We 'sort of' arrived in time, but when we arrived at the table, and found it already occupied – I nearly freaked – but there was a space in the fan area so I was sort of placated – but I’ve gotta be honest , I was mad with Mark for not getting up earlier. That's what made me go and ask the chap in the booth next to the one we should have had why he was using ours. When he said that it was because it was unoccupied, and he offered to move his stuff out, I was like 'yes!!' In retrospect we all got up late so Mark wasn't necessarily to blame. Blame it on two bottles of Newcastle Brown, or was it three, I forget." | |||||
| Mark - "We'd managed to find a space opposite the guys at Jedi News, but we couldn't get a table set up because of health and safety issues and the show had already started. So we were really in a pickle. It wasn't the best start to the event, Louis was annoyed, Bex was panicking. I was pretty calm, I knew we'd sort it out. Even if it meant being cheeky and 'finding' a table and carrying it there ourselves. As a last resort me and Louis asked the guy on the stand next to what was meant to be ours if he knew who had taken our stand. He said he'd been asked to fill the space, as they didn't think we were going to show. I wouldn't mind, but even the name above the stand was wrong, it said 'Angels to Demons' instead of 'Lightsabre'. Anyway, he moved his stuff back to his stand, we all dived in and managed to set up in five minutes. The guys name was Chris and he turned out to be a proper mate, really helpful and a top laugh." | |||||
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| Mark - "I was very happy when Don Bies stopped by for a word because we've interviewed him twice on the site, he always sends very cool emails and he put us in touch with both Danny Wagner and Lorne Peterson. It's always cool when you meet people for real, and especially neat when they're as decent as you hope they'll be and Don was certainly that." | |||||
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Mark - "We were really pleased to finally meet Stephen Harrogate of G.E.N (Galactic Empire Network). We've been affiliated with each other for years, practically since Lightsabre started, but as often happens the sites managed to lose each other and I honestly thought his site had ended. Which was a shame as Stephen is one of the original webmasters from 1999, alongside Sailor Coruscant at Watto's Junkyard and a lady at TF.N who's name evades me, who used to post a weekly alert about our Setnin Selects. I was more than happy when the 'bad penny' that is Stephen turned up in an email a week or two before the show and arrived at the stand. It's always good to put a face to the name, but often surprising. I thought he'd be taller and he said I was taller than he expected, so naturally we both curled up into little balls of happy shock." |
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| Louis - "Steve was a great guy, always willing to help out, a genuine character and I hope we all stay in closer contact." | |||||
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Rebecca - "I told Louis 'Dis the Yoda rucksack again and you are gonna get it'. I look really buff in this one." |
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| Mark - "I've only recently made contact with Neil Baker - better known as Nob01 on the blogs - but in that time I'd like to think I've found a friend who shares many of the same sensibilities as me, at least when it comes to Star Wars. He wrote a great piece about his Celebration 4 experiences for Lightsabre (Celebrate the Love), we host his Dork Side strip every Monday and I'm writing a short story for his collection. So it was a great pleasure when he turned up at the site with his lovely wife Kuldip for a chat." | |||||
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Mark - "I think Bex took great pleasure in this photo because even though it was still early on Saturday we were all aching, my feet were killing me - I brought totally the wrong trainers to wear - and we were all tired from the night before. So when Anthony suggested she chop my head off, I swear you haven't seen a woman grab a blade so fast since Dawn French kissed Sean Bean on Comic Relief." |
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| Rebecca - "I reminded Mark 'This is not the romantic weekend in Paris you promised me'." | |||||
| Louis - "And I reminded Bex that if she chopped his head off I'd be charging her for cleaning the blood off the Lightsabre blade." | |||||
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| Louis - "Awesome wasn’t it? The impact on seeing that when I entered was fantastic. Though the fact that the thing was made of plywood wasn’t that fantastic." | |||||
| Anthony - "When I saw it for the first time my jaw actually fell. It was not full size but it was very impressive. The thing must have been over 6 meters high and was the meeting place for almost everyone it seemed. You could see it from all around the centre." | |||||
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| Mark - "These guys were ever-present throughout the event. Wherever you looked there was one kind of armour or another. It was very cool and really reinforced the fact that finally we were at a Star Wars convention." | |||||
| Louis - "Though some of them were a little short for Stormtroopers." | |||||
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| Mark - "Some of the new stuff coming from Hasbro is amazing, especially the Bantha set, loved that. The sixty 30th anniversary figures are also spectacular, and even the Transformer figures which I thought were dumb at first are really smart." | |||||
| Anthony - "Some of the new stuff from Hasbro looks really cool. The new range will be something to buy two of. One to look at and one to play with. (Must remember to get shares in the company)." | |||||
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| Mark - "This was just flat out cool, and I wish I'd took the time to sit in the seat. You can't quite see it here but the cockpit was full of running lights and the whole thing looked fantastic, as if it could just lift off any minute. And to think, it's either in some lucky guys collection or they scrapped it after the show." | |||||
| Louis - "Believe it or not the seat was actually big enough to take a sixteen and a half stone man, although I am glad that it was constructed of solid materials, because otherwise I would have had a lot of explaining to do." | |||||
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| Mark - "I don't know the history of this car and I probably should, but I can well imagine that Lucas got a real kick out of seeing this. And probably taking it for a spin around the parking lot. I can just imagine him on a supermarket car park at 2.00am doing doughnuts with all the other kids." | |||||
| Let's Have a Luke Then - Meeting Mr Hamill | |||||
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Neil Baker - "My wife and I had a couple of priorities for Friday, one was to secure some McQuarrie prints (somewhat easier than we expected), the other was to get a bucketload of autographs from Mark Hamill for ourselves and our friends back in the U.S. Having lined up ridiculously early and secured our pieces of paper worth £85 each, we toddled off to enjoy the rest of the show, ready to return at 2:00PM as instructed. Just to be on the safe side, we returned at 1:30pm – to be confronted by a mass of angry and confused punters laying into a bemused security guard, plus an abnormally long queue which snaked around and out of the autograph hall with no apparent beginning or end. People in this mysterious line (a weekend-long phenomenon) were getting agitated and were also being disowned by the organisers, so tempers were simmering nicely. |
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Mark - "We could see a huge queue snaking around the main dealers area and guessed it must be for Mark. Those films crews here looking for their geeky photo-ops must have been pretty surprised, but then again I bet even they managed to put a spin on that." |
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Neil - "Following some aggressive negotiations, my group was finally let into the main line, and we slowly made our way towards the front, catching glimpses of Mark along the way. Suddenly, the security chaps began forming a couple of new lines, and staggering the people who were sent forward to the table of the Skywalker. To say this caused a kerfuffle is an understatement, and as shouts were exchanged between the lines, a shaven-headed thug with a neck like a Reek finally boiled over, turning the line into battlefield as he screamed expletives and threats at a guy next to him, both men reddening like angry lobsters and balling their fists ready to bring the quaint old tradition of British hooliganism to a Star Wars celebration. As people stepped out of the line of fire, and we shielded the children with us, a couple of sensible types stepped in between the idiots and calmed the situation down. The irony of all this was that the British Bulldog who was ready to punch several colours of poodoo out of the other chap was holding his beloved Star Wars annual under his arm, a remnant of happier times I guessed. |
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Neil - "Excitement over, we finally reached Mark, and suddenly all tension was gone. He was extremely friendly, chatty and more than happy to pose for pictures, despite the protestations of his entourage. What a thrill. This was Mark Hamill, hero of the saga that I have loved for 30 years, and now my day was complete. Was it worth 85 quid? Hell, yeah! |
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Mark - "Stephen from GEN did a very cool thing and got various Star Wars celebrities to welcome us to his site. Cracking idea, wish we'd thought of that now..." |
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| "A New Dope" - The Emperor waits for the Death Star to take him to dinner | |||||
| Mark - "This was very, very cool. Stephen Sansweet came and officially opened the show, despite the gale that was blowing his notes everywhere and being on the flight path so that every two minutes he'd get drowned out by a Jumbo jet. What he did manage to say was very touching, that the UK is the spiritual home of the Star Wars saga and how long they'd waited to come over here. Classy words from a classy guy." | |||||
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| Mark - "Then on came Warwick Davis, who is always great value, followed by Jerome Blake who explained why we were all here in aid of Medicinema, and then Mark Hamill who whipped the crowd into a frenzy before totally cocking up the introduction for the nights special guest, Ian McDiarmid." | |||||
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1) Louis - "I was literally yards away from it all when it kicked off, filming it and taking pictures for the site – its just a shame that I wasn’t filming the Mark Hamill bit – I cant believe that he got the introduction to Iain McDiarmid wrong – one line, just one line. Ah well, guess that's the way things fall. It was impressive though, seeing the introduction to the movie again." |
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| Mark - "When Ian hit the stage the crowd went crazy, it was a brilliant ovation and I think he was really touched. And as the video shows, he really revelled in the spotlight and bad-punned us into A New Hope with great style." | |||||
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| Anthony - "This was given an awesome intro by the Emperor himself, Ian McDiarmid. It was possibly one of the best experiences I have had with reference to Star Wars. The whole of the Victoria Dock screening was teeming with fans of all ages and nationalities." | |||||
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| Mark - "We watched the opening ceremony but decided to skip the film, get back to the room and change and chill. I can't remember who made the decision to walk back to the ExCel - probably me - but we managed to get lost and wound up walking parallel to the arena. We could hear the film still playing, and I remember thinking "That's wierd, it should have finished by now." | |||||
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| Anthony - "It will be one of the most memorable days in my mind. Mostly because half way through the massive screen display broke down, but was resumed not long after. During the brief power issues one of my friends jumped up and continued the Vader versus Obi-Wan scene to everyone’s delight!" | |||||
| Friday Night Lights(abre's) - Ending the day with a brewski | |||||
| Mark - "It was pretty clear that the place to be was The Fox Pub. There was a barbeque and plenty of fans and faces around including Jerome Blake, who we'd recently interviewed. Joe Corroney and the artist gang were there, and I noticed Bonnie Burton in the corner, so I introduced myself and we pretty much spent the next two hours chatting, which was amazingly cool as she introduced me to Matthew Wood, Pete Vilmur (who dropped his drink and wouldn't let me buy him a refill) Tom Hodges and his wife the lovely Terri Hodges. Richard LeParmentier was there enjoying the evening, smoking a whacking great stoogie. The thing I got a kick out of was the way we 'talked shop' without me having even been remotely near the supermarket. But, Bonnie seems to know a bit about our site, and we had recently interviewed her as well so that was very neat." | |||||
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| Anthony - "This was not hard to find (due to most of the 501’st getting drunk outside). It became the place to be where fan’s and stars alike relaxed with a beer or eight." | |||||
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Louis - "The night was excellent - and much fun was had playing with Lightsabre's. the guests were pleasant, the fans showed a camaraderie that I haven't ever felt at a convention before. And some of the Princess Leia costumes were downright dirty, but I digress. I got to talk to Joe Corroney, who is an excellent chap as well as Terri Hodges who is a complete mine of information and was more than happy to point out the flaws in my American accent." |
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| Mark - "While Louis looks very cool in this photo what you don't know is that he was taken to the limit by a five year old kid who was really battering him. He fenced him away, but there was a great crowd watching." | |||||
| Louis - "I was going easy on him, too easy - had he been a real Padawan, I would not have so easily allowed him to get me in the nuts. Still, my fencing skills worked for at least the first twenty seconds!" | |||||
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| Anthony - "Tip for a good night on the town: always carry a Lightsabre while on a night out. The locals were really up for the whole Star Wars thing and joined in the banter." | |||||
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Mark - "I finally met Derek Maki after dealing with him on the net for a couple of years. he was nothing like I imagined, I had this image of a quiet fella and Derek is anything but. He gave me a massive hug, led me away and told me off for not calling him during the week. We decided on the time and the place for the Billy Dee interview, and he also promised to help set up an interview with Irvin Kershner. Which was very sweet, but Rick McCallum had already done that." |
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| Louis - "It was also good to meet Richard LeParmentier for the first time." | |||||
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Rebecca - "It was good to meet up with Anthony and meet his Galaxies mates, one of them seemed hell-bent on moving in with us." |
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| Louis - "The Fox pub closed at twelve and we left at one. Bex was fully expecting us to come to the room, but we stayed in the bar for another hour." | |||||
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Mark - "It was pretty late when we finally left. I remember Richard LeParmentier being there trying to find Ty and Jerome Blake enjoying the festivities but I couldn't tell you what time we finally left. Late, I know it was late." |
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Mark, Rebecca, Louis and Paul's ExCel-lent Adventure Day Two... |
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