Sunday Service

Straight off the bat, I have to say that Auto Assembly on a Sunday is a massive improvement on the Saturdays I attended last year, and in 2007.

Really, hugely better.

Quieter, slower, more sedate. No crowding, no barging... and, while they still haven't got the volume quite right on the PA, it was quieter than last year... and, hey, no random metal band noising the place up.

My main reason for considering the whole weekend, in fact, was that Next Of Kin were not going to be present and, instead, Mr Garry Chalk - probably my favourite Optimus Prime because of Beast Wars and Beast Machines - had volunteered to perform a Jazz set. Only about 45 minutes, going by the programme of events, but I'm sure it would have been cool.

Regardless, my partner in crime and I arrived shortly after 10am, got into the hall without queuing for even a moment, registered our arrival and collected our goodie bags in seconds, and then proceeded to mooch around buying stuff.

I cannot adequately express how much smoother and more pleasant that experience was this year, compared to last.

My friend even got chatting to one of the stallholders, who mentioned that yesterday had been utterly insanely busy - quite possibly unpleasantly so, from what I heard.

On the downside, many of the staff were somewhat the worse for wear after the Saturday evening, and poor Scott McNeil had been unable to fend of the eighty million attendees who'd wanted to buy him a drink, and so failed to appear today before about 1-2pm. Someone should have provided him with a minder...

Strangely, I was beaten to the first purchase by my companion - which is becoming a habit - who added several new Bumblebees to her collection, including Battle Blade, Cannon and Might Muggs varieties. I followed fairly close behind, and eventually overtook quite substantially... but, when your collection involves more than just one character, and you're at a bloody TransFormers convention, this is precisely how it should be.

But while my companion was in a far better humour this time round - thanks, largely, to the lack of queuing first thing - other companions were most certainly not: one girl, attending with her boyfriend, was heard to complain "It's all just TransFormers!" to which boyfriend responded "There's some Hello Kitty as well!"... but to no avail.

Somewhat upsetting was the fact that, when we entered the second, smaller hall for the Simon Furman/Nick Roche 'Creating a TransFormer' workshop just after 2pm (its listed start time), we were unsure that we had arrived at the correct location because neither guest was present, and nothing seemed to be set up for the workshop. We hung around for a few minutes - me grinning smugly at the guy failing to transform Leader Class Starscream, my companion pointing out that I'd complained about her smug/snide commentary last time, so my amusement was surely just as inappropriate - and eventually the setup started... Sadly, they didn't have a power cord long enough for the projector, and Furman arrived at least 10 minutes late. By twenty past, we figured it'd be safest to call it a day, as our parking ran out at 3.30, and there was no way they'd be ready to even start the presentation before 2.30.

Throughout the day, I took several turns around the main hall, hearing snippets of the guest talks from Nick Roche and James Roberts, and later Derrick J Wyatt, catching glimpses of Garry Chalk chatting with attendees and having his photo taken with them (and the occasional sign saying "Munky Not Trukk"). I still don't recognise most of the comics-related guests, but remembered seeing some last year.

We made the right call in taking a packed lunch, not least because it gave us the opportunity to return to the car and offload our first round of purchases. Not that lunch wasn't available at the hotel - in fact, this time, they even had a tempting-looking buffet in the bar area - just that our previous experience of the service wasn't that great. It also meant we had a reason to pop into the nearby comics shop before returning to the show.

So, overall, a far more positive experience than last year. It was very tempting to get some more money at the hotel's cash machine, but I'd arrived with £350-ish in my wallet, and spent about £320 of that by the time we left. I skipped on a few things that I'll probably regret later (Voyagers for £20? Deluxes for a tenner? Prices from 2007, anyone?!) but I still feel that I made out like a bandit.

My haul, you ask? Well, I got Botcon Skybite and 'Air' Sharkticon, Universe Special Edition Drag Strip, JustiToys MP-5 Upgrade Package (Masterpiece Megatron's stock and silencer, which has been impossible to find for a good couple of years), Alternity Bumblebee, Starscream and Skywarp (triggering my one OCD issue with TransFormers - now I must buy Alternity Thundercraker when he goes on general release), Revenge of the Fallen Bludgeon, and the complete set of Energon Bruticus Maximus (I'd hoped for the toned-down movie version, but none were around).

I'd hoped to find either Galaxy Force Chromia or Cybertron Thunderblast, for my Morrigan repaint project, but there were none to be seen apart from the limited edition, DVD pack-in Minerva repaint... for £80.

And what did I skip? Hunt for the Decepticons Hailstorm, Elita-1 and Sidearm Sideswipe, Sea Attack Ravage (I quite like the original, even if the colouration is hopelessly wrong), RotF Mindwipe, the E-Hobby set of Dreadwind & Smokejumper (aka Blue Mindwipe and Skystalker, aka RotF Soundwave and Cobalt Sentry Ratbat-analogue, if you ask me!), Masterpiece Thundercracker (the Japanese version is rather expensive, after all, and I got Skywarp for £20 in Argos!), Masterpiece Ghost Starscream (I'm not normally impressed by transparent plastic remakes, but MP Starscream is a thing of beauty in person, and it was only £80), Device Label Blaster and any one of the memory stick kitties (out of cash, by that point), Beast Wars Transmetals Tigerhawk (the boxed one I saw was gone by my second turn around the hall, and wasn't unopened anyway, the loose one I saw was gone before my last turn). And, of course, TFCC Punch/Counterpunch who, having sold out his limited 300-unit restock within a couple of hours on the Club web store, turned up at AA for a mere £120... one hell of a markup).

The trip home was punctuated by a brief visit to a friend of my companion's, to rest and catch up before the long and, as it happened, complicated journey home. First we were stopped in our tracks by a road accident in the narrow country lanes that warranted the arrival of an air ambulance, then something went wrong on the motorways two or three times, then the route to my home was beset by roadworks in three places. My companion was disappointed that she was unable to return me home by 6.30pm, but it had been such a good day overall that it scarcely mattered.