Well that's fucked up my Novacon nicely.

In brief: a major balls-up courtesy of my employer, who I discover has not given me the November leave I asked for despite having applied for it three months ago (It doesn't seem to matter if you've worked for this company for the best part of twenty years, over the last three years to get the leave you need has become next to impossible courtesy of BA's famously crap forward-planning).

So as it stands, unless I can get this totally arse situation sorted (which previous experience tells me I should doubt), my Novacon attendance will now be limited to Sunday 7th, and only because I will have driven straight to Birmingham from Heathrow when I land on the Sunday morning. I will then have to dose up on Red Bull just to stay awake for the rest of the day, my jet-lag roughly equating everyone else's hangover.