hathycol | "so, an orc made kirsty have a dance-off with darth vader and the joker"

I love conventions. The three years off from them have been a great shame, but now I am BACK. That was the most awesome weekend EVER and now I am going to attempt an epic summation of the weekend, with my dodgy keyboard and still in my pajamas. Wish me luck!

So, normally these things start with cast lists and locations. Without further ado:

Previously, I have attended these things in Milton Keynes and London. This time I was in Glasgow, a large city in Scotland. Scotland is where I live 48 weeks out of 52, except this convention took place in one of the off weeks. Typical, really.

I attended this convention with many fine and upstanding members of DocSoc:

ann_pan, or Ann.

linwesurion, or Kirsty.
David
Louise
and of course, the DocSoc transport, my car, Starbug.

Now, as mentioned, I had to get to Glasgow. As I felt leaving the house at 5am on Saturday morning was excessive, I went to stay with David the night before. He lives in Perthshire, which is also not Glasgow but a distinct improvement on Liverpool. Ann was also staying over, so after I turned up - I got lost, unsurprisingly - we made stir fry and attempted to have an early night. Apparently I have a tendency to wriggle in my sleep and to bang my head on walls and not wake up. Oh dear.

The next morning, however, we all flung ourselves out of bed and managed to be ready to leave by 8am, which is impressive. As we drove through the mists of Perthshire - rather fast, sorry - we eventually got to Glasgow. Now, I was worried about this, as I am an idiot with directions and none of us had been there before. On the bright side, there were directions to the Braehead Arena, which is where the con was taking place. On the downside, the directions stopped at about the time the road got confusing. We phoned Kirsty, who was already in the queue, to wail about this, and eventually just went to a parking space and hoped for the best. AND LO we found it, and turned up at the same time as Louise. Timing, we are good at it!

So, togged out in DocSoc scarves and hoodies (cult? us?) we hit the convention, marvelling at the general awesomeness of it. First up was Ernie Hudson, Winston from Ghostbusters. We joined the queue behind the Biggest Fan ever, who spent a long time getting his costume and proton pack signed. We felt a bit rubbish afterwards, but he was ever so lovely.

After that - argh, I'm annoyed I didn't take notes - it was Nicholas Brendon. Now, I've met him before and he was an arse then. This time he was smiling, had time for everyone, posed for photos and was really pleasant to talk to. I heard he just got out of rehab last time, so that makes sense, I suppose.

Then we went to find the Doctor Who guests. Peter Davison wasn't yet there, but Louise Jamieson - Leela - was, and she was really lovely. We got an autograph signed to 'DocSoc' and she asked questions, admired our scarves, all that stuff. And she knew where St Andrews was, which is rare and a bit lovely, especially as she even asked all about the Byre. YAY!

Then we went for cookies and got attacked by stormtroopers. Why is it always me?

A few circuits of the dealer's room later, we finally met Peter Davison, who was basically the reason we were all there. There were noises of squee, we confused the living daylights out of him with our scarves etc, and then we went ff and jumped up and down with glee, before proceeding to get tickets for his photoshoot.

After lunch, we queued for aforesaid photoshoot and oh it was so AWESOME. He wore a DocSoc scarf, gave us all a big hug, and I have the BIGGEST smile on my photo. *bounces*

Then we went to the talks for Ernie Hudson, the Doctor Who guests, and Nicholas Brendon. Because I didn't take notes I don't have much in the way of remembrance of it, but amongst other things was the Snoopy Dance, mentions of the Giant Rat ("that was the only scream Leela ever did!") and just general awesomeness. We were all really near the front, too, so yay!

After that, we found the hotel. Well, sort of. We found another hotel first, and then got directions to our actual hotel, which had been open for all of a day and the staff were stressed. No bad thing, of course; meant we found it a lot easier checking in with three people and having five in the actual room.

So, back to the convention to do some shopping ("we all need some random sci-fi tat or it isn't a convention!") and talked to some people of Glasgow Who. We also watched the cosplay event, which was... a bit sad, but we all laughed a bit too much. Oops. I cheerfully shouting "qa'plah!" at a Klingon, who taught me how to say 'where is the chocolate?' I forgot, naturally.

At this point, lots of people had assumed we were all teenagers, but the Klingon then questioned if I was over 16. I flailed a bit and pointed out I was 21, rather loudly. Red-faced, we went off to get a photo with Nicholas Brenden, who I then made a fool of myself in front of. I AM AN IDIOT.

It was decided that we then needed a. a drink and b. food. So, after a quick perambulation to the hotel to drop bags etc off, we headed out for food and a rest, although obviously with the intention of being back to the hotel for X-Factor, which we watched whilst getting ready for the party. I was really excited about it, so when we got there to discover a crappy goth band playing and had to hide outside to escape the noise, it was a bit disheartening.

Luckily, when the band went away it all improved massively. The costume competition was judged by Random Extra From Lord Of The Rings, and had four participants; Kirsty in her Anne Summers Star Trek dress, Darth Vader and two Jokers. Kirsty won, which was AWESOME and helped by the fact that a lot of Star Trek fans quite liked her costume too. Even better, stereotypical convention songs were played and I taught the whole room how to dance to Doctorin' The TARDIS. I AM SO PROUD.

Alas, though, the night had to end and we walked back in the pouring rain.

Sunday was a very short day, unfortunately. We had a bit of a lie-in, although as I was on the floor it wasn't a particularly pleasant experience. Still, we managed to check out of the hotel and get to the convention to see another Nicholas Brenden talk and to have a personal chat with Louise Jamieson, who not only remembered us but even recognised that Kirsty wasn't currently with us. YAY! There is also a slight chance I may have bought a sonic lipstick. Ahem.

Alas, all good things must come to an end. I drove Ann, David and Louise into the Glasgow city centre (we got lost, unsurprisingly) and made it down the motorway with the power of Pro Plus and willpower, and then proceeded to not move very much, as a night dancing enthusiastically and sleeping on the floor has left me in extreme pain.

And now I am home, and planning to go to the Dcember event with DocSoc, because oh my, that was far too much fun not to go for another three years. That, and Nicholas Courtney and
Slyvester MacCoy are going to be there.

Oh, and would you like to see photos?