![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hathycolThis is a convention post. Honestly, it is. Just let me get through a fairly large whinge first.
There was a plan for Friday. I always feel better at the concept of a plan. We were going to go to St Andrews. It was going to be awesome. We were going to leave ridiculously early but that was okay because it meant we coiuld beat the traffic and make it to St Andrews and today I would write about all my lovely wedding plans and get on with finally almost sending some invitations.
Unfortunately the gods of fate had different plans. After an hour or so on the motorway, signs saying 'M6 CLOSED' started flashing up. This is Very Not Good as the M6 is pretty much the essential road for getting to Scotland. This meant that everyone else wasalso stuck on the M6. To cut a long story short, a lorry had overturned, spiralled through the central embankment, and shut the entire M6 down as his load was plastic and glasses bottles. All of the traffic had to be funnelled away from the motorway and through Carlisle up to the next junction. We spent four and a half hours in traffic.
So, on the plus side I managed to fulfill a life long ambition of reading a book and successfully driving. (Caitlin Moran's How To Be A Woman for those who are interested. It's fab.) On the downside, I burst into tears on the A6 because we were meant to be seeing our reception venue at that exact point in time and we were probably never going to make it to Scotland, let alone St Andrews.
We gave up on getting to St Andrews, and eventually spent a night in a lovely posh hotel on the outskirts of Glasgow (we felt sorry for ourselves, okay?) where we got a bit drunk instead. Hey ho.
However! All was not lost! Because at least we were in the environs of Glasgow, meaning we could make it to Collectormania with a little more time to spare. Until I got lost. Whilst using a SatNav. AGAIN.
Anyway.
We arrived at Collectormania with me in my Star Trek command dress, which made walking through the shopping centre by myself an interesting decision. Richie accompanied me, which helped.
Luckily we arrived just in time to get in with the cheap day tickets, and met Ann, Louise, Alice, Lucy, Fiona and David, who were all in the talk for Michael Wilmslow. He is apparently from Police Academy, which I haven't seen, but sitting down was a relief and his talk made me laugh. I also hung around for the talk by Robert Maschio, who plays The Todd in Scrubs and sort of came as the character? It was all very strange. I think it was all meant to be ironic, but there were a few bits where I wanted to stand up and shout about the patriarchy.
Anyway, it was a sort of low-key day, really. There were only two Who guests, Frazer Hines and John Levene, the first of whom was lovely, the second of whom was an experience. We wandered around quite a bit, and I was frankly noble when it came to Not Spending Money. NOBLE I TELLS YA.
After NOBLY failing to buy anything in the auction (one day I will get Richard Dean Anderson's autograph. One day) we were in the centre of the front row for Frazer Hine's autograph, all donned with DocSoc scarves like the scary scary cult that we are. His talk was marvellous, filled with anecdotes about Patrick Troughton and a great rapport with the audience. I asked about Emmerdale as I was curious if a plane had fallen on his head. It had not. I am mildly ashamed.
Later on, when I got his autograph, I managed to blurt that I planned to have a Jamie and the Doctor centrepiece at my wedding. He was very kind as well as thinking I was less than 24. This is probably for the best.
Er, what else. We got some people asking for photos with us dressed as the TrekBabes (which, by the way, is an entirely ironic name which was taken on a strange life of its own) which I'm sure will pop up in the internet soon. We also watched the cosplay with the usual mix of confusion, amusement, and embarrassment squick.
After that, it was a quick hop back to the Travelodge via Marks and Spencers for booze which we drank during Doctor Who. This is not the post where I talk about Doctor Who, although I would like to give a large cheer for Rory. As always. And also "I was on my way to a gay Bar Mitzvah for the disabled..."
Then Ann, Alice, Fiona and I went out. To Glasgow! In a taxi! Dressed in Star Trek uniforms!
To explain: there was an afterparty organised for the convention. Now, I like dancing like a crazy fool with other geeks, so this seemed to me to be a no-brainer. We felt to go in costume seemed like a wise idea, as we were going from taxi to door which meant we would avoid heckling from the general public. The party itself was absolutely fab, and we danced like idiots to all sorts of things, including a rock remix of Defying Gravity and Star Trekking BY OURSELVES and Geek and Gamer Girls and drank green drinks. And then suddenly the club turned the lights on and it was only 10pm and we were all thrown out.
WHAT.
We were aware it would end when the usual club crowd were let in, but what no one knew - including the organisers - was that we would be thrown out of the entire building at 10pm, to the streets of Glasgow. Fiona had to fight off neds. It was not a good moment. Some very, very kind convention attendees took us under their wing and took us to a local bar, where we had a hasty drink and then ran back to the Travelodge.
"Why didn't you do a Vulcan neck grip?" the taxi driver asked us.
"WE COULDN'T GET THROUGH THE LAYERS OF POLYESTER," we wailed. He was a very nice taxi driver, and thought we made his night.
In the end we were back by 11pm and had a drink in the hotel bar. Oh well. The few hours of party we did get were really good!
The next day I hauled myself out of bed with some difficulty, before lugging my way downstairs for another day of convention. I wasn't cosplaying this time, but everyone else was: Louise had her TimeLady outfit, Fiona was in a lovely Doctor Who dress, Alice was dressed as Martin Clunes from Snakedance, and Ann was Kaylee from Firefly. REMEMBER THIS AS IT WILL BE RELEVANT.
As we all bumbled over to the convention, we had a nice slow day of lots of wandering, and Fiona managed to successfully win an autograph of both Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann! It was an awesome achievement. Just after that, we nagged, harrassed and eventually physically pushed Ann into entering the cosplay and then had to try and think of what she could do for personality afterwards, including debating teaching her to dance. We did not do this in the end, but still.
We also all bought things from Dr Geof who was a lovely bloke and also a great artist. Richie and I have a fab poster to frame in the upcoming few months.
Anyway, after some lunch we watched the John Levene talk which was... different. He was certainly charming enough - except about Tom Baker - and spoke very movingly about Nicholas Courteney, but I think we were spoilt by Frezer Hines the day before!
And then it was time to see Ann in the cosplay. She gave a fake name - "Ann Smith' indeed - and was introduced wrong by the lady in charge. Still, she was marvellous, a great copy of a very enthusiastic Kaylee, telling us all how shiny we looked. There were loads of other entries, though, including a full singing and dancing anime troop and a Sims Death which made me laugh.
But in the end, Ann came second! We all whooped and cheered, and it was a very well deserved prize.
After that, though, Richie and I had to go home. Alas. It was a long, long way and we basically fell over when we got through the door.
(There were some not so nice elements to this convention for some friends of mine, and that isn't my story to tell, and I don't want to dwell on it, but I feel I should acknowledge it. You know who you are. Lots of love.)
And now I am back at work. We are attempting to make invitations and find time to go back to St Andrews in a very short amount of time. BUSY BUSY.
There was a plan for Friday. I always feel better at the concept of a plan. We were going to go to St Andrews. It was going to be awesome. We were going to leave ridiculously early but that was okay because it meant we coiuld beat the traffic and make it to St Andrews and today I would write about all my lovely wedding plans and get on with finally almost sending some invitations.
Unfortunately the gods of fate had different plans. After an hour or so on the motorway, signs saying 'M6 CLOSED' started flashing up. This is Very Not Good as the M6 is pretty much the essential road for getting to Scotland. This meant that everyone else wasalso stuck on the M6. To cut a long story short, a lorry had overturned, spiralled through the central embankment, and shut the entire M6 down as his load was plastic and glasses bottles. All of the traffic had to be funnelled away from the motorway and through Carlisle up to the next junction. We spent four and a half hours in traffic.
So, on the plus side I managed to fulfill a life long ambition of reading a book and successfully driving. (Caitlin Moran's How To Be A Woman for those who are interested. It's fab.) On the downside, I burst into tears on the A6 because we were meant to be seeing our reception venue at that exact point in time and we were probably never going to make it to Scotland, let alone St Andrews.
We gave up on getting to St Andrews, and eventually spent a night in a lovely posh hotel on the outskirts of Glasgow (we felt sorry for ourselves, okay?) where we got a bit drunk instead. Hey ho.
However! All was not lost! Because at least we were in the environs of Glasgow, meaning we could make it to Collectormania with a little more time to spare. Until I got lost. Whilst using a SatNav. AGAIN.
Anyway.
We arrived at Collectormania with me in my Star Trek command dress, which made walking through the shopping centre by myself an interesting decision. Richie accompanied me, which helped.
Luckily we arrived just in time to get in with the cheap day tickets, and met Ann, Louise, Alice, Lucy, Fiona and David, who were all in the talk for Michael Wilmslow. He is apparently from Police Academy, which I haven't seen, but sitting down was a relief and his talk made me laugh. I also hung around for the talk by Robert Maschio, who plays The Todd in Scrubs and sort of came as the character? It was all very strange. I think it was all meant to be ironic, but there were a few bits where I wanted to stand up and shout about the patriarchy.
Anyway, it was a sort of low-key day, really. There were only two Who guests, Frazer Hines and John Levene, the first of whom was lovely, the second of whom was an experience. We wandered around quite a bit, and I was frankly noble when it came to Not Spending Money. NOBLE I TELLS YA.
After NOBLY failing to buy anything in the auction (one day I will get Richard Dean Anderson's autograph. One day) we were in the centre of the front row for Frazer Hine's autograph, all donned with DocSoc scarves like the scary scary cult that we are. His talk was marvellous, filled with anecdotes about Patrick Troughton and a great rapport with the audience. I asked about Emmerdale as I was curious if a plane had fallen on his head. It had not. I am mildly ashamed.
Later on, when I got his autograph, I managed to blurt that I planned to have a Jamie and the Doctor centrepiece at my wedding. He was very kind as well as thinking I was less than 24. This is probably for the best.
Er, what else. We got some people asking for photos with us dressed as the TrekBabes (which, by the way, is an entirely ironic name which was taken on a strange life of its own) which I'm sure will pop up in the internet soon. We also watched the cosplay with the usual mix of confusion, amusement, and embarrassment squick.
After that, it was a quick hop back to the Travelodge via Marks and Spencers for booze which we drank during Doctor Who. This is not the post where I talk about Doctor Who, although I would like to give a large cheer for Rory. As always. And also "I was on my way to a gay Bar Mitzvah for the disabled..."
Then Ann, Alice, Fiona and I went out. To Glasgow! In a taxi! Dressed in Star Trek uniforms!
To explain: there was an afterparty organised for the convention. Now, I like dancing like a crazy fool with other geeks, so this seemed to me to be a no-brainer. We felt to go in costume seemed like a wise idea, as we were going from taxi to door which meant we would avoid heckling from the general public. The party itself was absolutely fab, and we danced like idiots to all sorts of things, including a rock remix of Defying Gravity and Star Trekking BY OURSELVES and Geek and Gamer Girls and drank green drinks. And then suddenly the club turned the lights on and it was only 10pm and we were all thrown out.
WHAT.
We were aware it would end when the usual club crowd were let in, but what no one knew - including the organisers - was that we would be thrown out of the entire building at 10pm, to the streets of Glasgow. Fiona had to fight off neds. It was not a good moment. Some very, very kind convention attendees took us under their wing and took us to a local bar, where we had a hasty drink and then ran back to the Travelodge.
"Why didn't you do a Vulcan neck grip?" the taxi driver asked us.
"WE COULDN'T GET THROUGH THE LAYERS OF POLYESTER," we wailed. He was a very nice taxi driver, and thought we made his night.
In the end we were back by 11pm and had a drink in the hotel bar. Oh well. The few hours of party we did get were really good!
The next day I hauled myself out of bed with some difficulty, before lugging my way downstairs for another day of convention. I wasn't cosplaying this time, but everyone else was: Louise had her TimeLady outfit, Fiona was in a lovely Doctor Who dress, Alice was dressed as Martin Clunes from Snakedance, and Ann was Kaylee from Firefly. REMEMBER THIS AS IT WILL BE RELEVANT.
As we all bumbled over to the convention, we had a nice slow day of lots of wandering, and Fiona managed to successfully win an autograph of both Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann! It was an awesome achievement. Just after that, we nagged, harrassed and eventually physically pushed Ann into entering the cosplay and then had to try and think of what she could do for personality afterwards, including debating teaching her to dance. We did not do this in the end, but still.
We also all bought things from Dr Geof who was a lovely bloke and also a great artist. Richie and I have a fab poster to frame in the upcoming few months.
Anyway, after some lunch we watched the John Levene talk which was... different. He was certainly charming enough - except about Tom Baker - and spoke very movingly about Nicholas Courteney, but I think we were spoilt by Frezer Hines the day before!
And then it was time to see Ann in the cosplay. She gave a fake name - "Ann Smith' indeed - and was introduced wrong by the lady in charge. Still, she was marvellous, a great copy of a very enthusiastic Kaylee, telling us all how shiny we looked. There were loads of other entries, though, including a full singing and dancing anime troop and a Sims Death which made me laugh.
But in the end, Ann came second! We all whooped and cheered, and it was a very well deserved prize.
After that, though, Richie and I had to go home. Alas. It was a long, long way and we basically fell over when we got through the door.
(There were some not so nice elements to this convention for some friends of mine, and that isn't my story to tell, and I don't want to dwell on it, but I feel I should acknowledge it. You know who you are. Lots of love.)
And now I am back at work. We are attempting to make invitations and find time to go back to St Andrews in a very short amount of time. BUSY BUSY.
