A12 The Arundel – Masochism wins!* by ©Ann Manwell

THRUSH was remarkably benevolent as we gathered for the 2009 Arundel Affair. Sadly some of the stalwarts were unable to be with us this year, but those of us who travelled had easy journeys* (but see below) and some arrived so early we were able to explore tea shops and a fascinating second-hand book shop. Any writers out there thinking of using it as a background ?

Jac – no ‘Affair’ with Robert Vaughn
The format differed slightly from previous years because several cousins had either been to Robert Vaughn’s book signings or were on The Richard and Judy Show when Robert was interviewed about the first part of his biography A Fortunate Life. Some had even been at both.

The main raffle prize this year was a copy of Robert’s book which Jac had asked him to autograph when she went to one of his signings in London. He inscribed it to ‘The Arundel’ and not ‘The Arundel Affair’. People had recorded The Richard and Judy Show, which included Jac, Bridget, Judith and Linda talking about why they liked MFU, and Judith showing how the pen communicator worked. It was interesting to hear at first-hand what actually happened at the studio and the bits that didn’t make the ‘cut’ - like Linda’s favourite episode.

Other interviews had been recorded too, and it was interesting to see which of Robert’s shows were referred to - MFU was referred to in all of them but Hustle was only mentioned in one. Robert had some interesting tales from his book - many of them about Steve McQueen.

Not quite Deadly Games
The Quiz this year was even more fiendish, with symbols being used in the ‘code breaking’ part. Some questions should have been easy, but remembering which title belonged to which season was hard going. Rosemary and Sally won.

Skills of a different sort were used in the ‘dice and parcel’ game, which was a bit like ‘pass the parcel’ with attitude - or ‘throw and grab’. There was intense competition with everyone wanting to throw a six and then acquire the more desirable parcels.

Bon appetit as the Russians would say
Last year’s preamble to each episode was great fun, so this year Rosie introduced The Gazebo in the Maze Affair, Bridget and ‘friend’ introduced My Friend the Gorilla Affair, Gwynneth introduced The
Abominable Snowman Affair, and Gavin introduced The Virtue Affair. Rosie explained that, when she watched Gazebo for the first time, her much travelled aunt had confirmed Illya’s ‘bon appetit’ to the wolf was Russian. This episode really stands the test of time well and Jeanette Nolan’s totally dippy, nay insane, Edith Partridge rewards every viewing.

The Gorilla was everything I remembered and Snowman was not as bad as I’d thought it might be. Although I don’t see the blow up Abominable Snowman catching on any time soon. I wonder if all the elephants in these epsiodes were moonlighting from Daktari. I looked up tv.com to see if it was on at the same time as MFU, and it ran from 1966 to 1969 so they might have been. We can only be thankful that Clarence, the cross-eyed lion, must have been busy. I don’t suppose he danced very well. And as Gavin prophesized, some of us did enjoy the ‘wet’ Illya in Virtue.

"We do scrub up well"
We decided to have a second award ceremony, as the one at Arundel 10 had been so enjoyable.
Nominations for categories started in the middle of last year, then closed just around Christmas. Once categories were decided, there was a lot of ‘techy’ stuff done by Bridget and Shirley, to put the excerpts we wanted on the DVD so that everyone could have the chance to see the nominations.

Bridget used her extensive knowledge to track down the clips nominated, and then cut them together to make them coherent. Shirley used her expertise to capture YouTube clips and parts of David and Robert’s joint interview on the TimeLife DVD. So the results of all their hard work were shown first thing on Saturday, with some parts repeated later so people could see them again.

Jac had requested that we ‘dress up a bit’ for the occasion, so glad rags were the order of the day. Some of the pictures can be seen here and here, although we were disappointed to see Gavin had decided against wearing his safari suit!

Ruth helped me count the votes and Jac had arranged for unique mouse mats with the Arundel 12 logo for the nomination winners, and Shirley made up scrolls to be handed out to the winners at the same time.
There were 8 categories and each winner made an acceptance speech, some shorter than others - and some more modest (You know who I’m talking about!).

*Explanation, and more details on the Awards here.

Prizes we didn’t have to dress up for
Raffle
I’ve already mentioned the autographed RV book – there were lots of other prizes too – including some copies of Robert Vaughn’s interviews from the previous week, books and bags, I was lucky enough to get a bag with 4 pictures of Illya on it. When my bag was being searched at the airport (!) I saw the lady doing the searching look at it a couple of times. I hadn’t thought it wise to say I’d been at a Spy Convention when she asked where I’d been for the weekend - although we did have a chat about Arundel. After my bag was thoroughly searched, she asked what David was doing now, and when I said “Ducky in NCIS”, she said, “Oh yes. Of course”.

The Caption Contest was a ‘behind the scenes photo’ (possibly of The Super Colossal Affair) where David is explaining something technical to Robert.

Rosie had the winning caption: –
Illya to Napoleon “I can show you an easier way to connect to the Internet”.

**Homeward bound
And finally after yet another wonderful meal laid on by the Comfort Inn staff, we attempted the journey home.
Considering how easy it was to arrive, it was amazing the adventures we had on the way back. The weather turned nasty and text messages were flying around the country as people tried to suss out what type of weather they were travelling home to - not to mention broken-down cars and special searches at airports. Do you think THRUSH realised next year’s theme*** and were trying to prevent us from getting home to use our ingenuity on suitable ‘props’ for next year? Like guns, whips, red hot pokers and tea cups?

***Note from convention organiser – As 2010 will see our 13th convention, we are planning an unusual and special theme.