And so, after another overlong and unintentional hiatus (read: laziness on my part), it seems fitting that the first post is about shopping for toys...
After being unable to get to the nearest branch of Smyth's on Friday, I somehow thought it would be a good idea to make the journey by public transport yesterday.
Not my wisest decision ever.
My first mistake came via the necessity to visit my bank to extract sufficient funds for today's escapades. This took me to Harrow but, I believed, there were plenty of options available to get me from there to Brent Cross for my transfer onward. The most obvious option (possibly the only option from Harrow, these days) turned out to be the 186.
When I took my seat, I was shortly joined by a kid who asked how long it'd take to get to Brent Cross, and at what point in the journey we'd be going through Wembley. He must have sat next to me specifically to ask these questions because, at that point, the bus was all but empty. Unfortunate for both of us that, since it's been so long since I used anything like this route, I was unable to answer - though I ventured the estimate of about half an hour to 45 minutes to get to Brent Cross. As it transpired, I think we were both thinking of the 182.
The route was... circuitous, to say the least... and, with terrible traffic most of the way, it ended up taking something like two hours. I'd heard there were problems on the North Circular, but figured the journey on to Friern Barnet shouldn't take much longer... but there was about a 20 minute wait for the bus (while at least two headed in the opposite direction passed through), then the final leg got completely mired in roadworks, adding another hour to the journey.
And then I was only in Smyth's for about 10 minutes.
But the tribulations didn't end there... the journey back, whilst made by a different (far more sensible) route, was also hit by the roadworks (bizarre, really, considering the road had been virtually empty on the way out), and getting back to Brent Cross must have taken most of an hour, because the whole journey back home took something in the region of two hours.
So, that's five hours travel for 10 minutes of shopping. Nice.
Today, however, I had to set my alarm to be sure I'd get up in time* to get to ExCeL for the London Expo's 10am Sunday opening time. The journey couldn't have been simpler, and was even quicker than I had expected. Typically, though, it couldn't all be perfect. That mainstay of the London Expo - excessive queuing - reared its head again. Even with our pre-paid entry tickets scanned, and our bracelets attached, my old mate Paul and I had to join a queue for entry, which only started moving 10 minutes after the billed opening time of 10am. It moved pretty rapidly but, looking at the fluidity of Memorabilia at the NEC, I can't understand how the queuing was necessary at all.
Still, the show was pretty good... Not so much of interest on the sales front (I spent less than half the money I'd taken, and made only two purchases other than lunch!), and it seemed that T-shirts and anime plushies are the growth commodity at the moment - though a small (and fairly eclectic) 'Steampunk exhibition' was further indication that that strange fashion style is gaining popularity.
So I bought very little - a bunch of T-shirts from Genki Gear (some for me, some not) and a couple of transforming robots from FansProject (Crossfire/Causality CA-01 and -02) from one of the first stalls I visited. After that, I think I picked up one DVD (the first Eden of the East movie, following on from the events of the series, which I watched recently on DVD), had some lunch, then sat down in the main theatre for three panels - BBC3's upcoming The Fades (looks like it has potential, but I'm tending to be sceptical of the BBC's attempts at horror, other than Being Human), Futurama (five of the voice actors - very entertaining) and X-Men: First Class (the two writers discussing their movie, Bryan Singer's two, and various other topics).
After all that excitement, Paul announced that a friend from his workplace was nearby, and we went off to meet her. Dressed as Claire Redfield (circa Resident Evil 2), she was with a friend dressed as a mouse (and who didn't actually join us, just stayed sat by the wall, looking over occasionally), and happily chatted about Cosplay generally, and the plans she and her group have for the October show (rebranded Memorabilia London).
Sometime afterward, it occurred to me that Paul may have been introducing me to his girlfriend... but that seems unlikely based on the conversation as a whole... Who knows, though?
I did manage to lose one stall that had a couple of artbooks I may have been interested in, but I didn't get a good look when I found them because, by that time, things were getting crowded, so that saved me a bit of money. Other than that, the only notable thing was the appearance of a Crossplayer who beat 'Funny Bunny Man' hands down.
Gentle reader, 'Funny Bunny Man' was a skinny kid with short, curly brown hair, who'd dressed as a bunny girl for an Expo several years ago. He'd used sellotape to keep the costume in place on his chest. It was scary. Even scarier than the 'Guy Dressed As Female Cloud Strife From Final Fantasy 7' I saw at a later show. Today's gem of Crossplay was 'Cutie Fairy Guy'... Short-ish, not fat, but certainly not slim, wearing a purple corset, deelie-bopper antennae, wings stuck down to his back (as opposed to flapping about, hanging off his back) and comparatively tasteful levels of makeup. Really taking his Crossplay seriously, rather than doing it for a joke... and all the more worrying for it.
And if getting to the show was smooth, getting home was even better. Barely any wait for the DLR, the transfers (a different route for our return journey) were free of trouble, and we ended up getting home just over an hour later, having set a new record for most time (and, probably, least money) spent at a London Expo. Arriving mere moments after 10am, we had stayed till almost 3pm!
(*Actually, I needn't have set my alarm at all. My neighbours kept waking me up between midnight and 3am having noisy arguements, and the cleaning crew for the office next door started their hoovering at 6.30am, the perfect time for me to get up and start getting ready...)
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