By which subtle Marc Almond reference, we come to this year's winter Memorabilia show at the Birmingham NEC.
In many ways, this was a much smaller affair than any of the previous shows I've visited. All of these conventions, lately, seem to be getting smaller and smaller... If not in terms of floorspace (as was the case with this Memorabilia) then in terms of good use of that floorspace, and retail opportunities. Strange, as they seem to be consistently popular. That having been said, this show didn't experience the sudden crowding at 11am (standard entry time) that the others had.
Bad weather had been forecast for this weekend, so the initial plan was that my friend and I would be in and out of the show fairly quick, to avoid having to drive back to the hotel in the gale force winds that supposedly threatened. Certainly, the drive up to Birmingham wasn't too pleasant. Now that it's getting dark so early, it was pitch black and raining all the way. I have a nasty habit of sleeping through car journeys, however inclement the weather, but being at the wheel the whole way, my friend had no such luxury and, when the car started to aquaplane at one point, we slowed right down until the weather eased up.
A diversion on the route to the hotel caused some brief worry, too, but things worked out quite nicely, the diversion reconnected with the main road, and we arrived at the hotel at a still reasonable hour, had a snack dinner, then hit the sack.
The drive to the NEC gets easier each time we do it - this was actually our fourth visit to the show, so it should be pretty simple by now! - and the M6 Toll Road cuts travel time dramatically. So few people are willing to stump up the cash (£3.50 for yer average car) that the road is plain sailing all the way. Hum... Perhaps a sailing analogy isn't such a good idea after the aquaplaning incident...
Nevertheless, we got to the NEC, and even managed to negotiate its bizarrely complicated internal road system which always, without fail, manages to force one to park at the opposite end of the grounds to the hall you're heading toward. I'd like to think they don't do it on purpose, but I can't see how else it could happen.
Prepaid car parking and 'early bird' entrance tickets got us in nice and easy, though, and the browsing began with a look around a small art/animation gallery, displaying everything from Disney to Batman and Superman to Danger Mouse and Mr Ben. They were running a prize draw for a canvas to be painted by one of the celebrity guests, which could have been fun. Wasn't too bothered when I left the show later without having entered, though.
In an attempt to be organized, we tend to walk the aisles in a pretty regimented fashion, deviating from the 'up one, down the next' system only when something particularly fascinating catches our eye. For the most part, that didn't happen very often (although every stall carrying anything TransFormers was pointed out to me, and every time something worthwhile cropped up on one of those, I was advised to "buy it NOW, you'll only regret missing it later" - certainly not ironic coming from the one who denied herself the opportunity to own a chittering, snuffling, jumping electronic furry Ice Age 2 prehistoric Squirrel for so long, they...er... became extinct ;)
And, no, there weren't any at Memorabilia either... I'm sure they're out there somewhere, though.
For the most part, while I found one stall which had some of the things I was after, I was really looking for the stall held by 2nd Star, purveyors of TransFormers to the discerning buyer, and was aiming to pass them most of my trade. I recently had to cancel a pre-order I had with them because they were having such trouble with their suppliers (all the more annoying because they got stocks mere days after I picked up what I'd ordered at Toys'R'Us!), so I felt like making it up to them because they're a nice, helpful and friendly bunch. They turned out to be right at the end of the hall, near the stage area, so I would have found them far quicker than I did had I followed my friend when she dashed off to see Babylon 5's Claudia Christian on stage promoting her new TV series, Starhyke.
When I caught up with her later, just in time to see the screen makeup presentation, Zombies! It Could Be YOU!, it turned out that I hadn't missed anything good... the Q&A session had about 10 people in the audience, and the whole thing had been "somewhere between embarassing and humiliating". On a more interesting note, my friend had been in a queue for drinks with Claudia Christian just afterward.
The screen makeup presentation was pretty good but, being presented in real time, took ages to get anywere. It was interesting all along, and the presenter kept things flowing nicely with much joking and self-depreciating banter. We nipped out after the groundwork of foam latex parts had been glued on, and blended in so we could continue browsing, and came back toward the end to see the finished zombie.
Strangely, it looked like Matt Lucas.
After that came the second showing of the Starhyke pilot, and slowly we understood why attendance for the Q&A session after the first showing had been so poor. Starhyke could quite easily be one of the worst TV shows of all time. Hovering indecisively between toilet humour and Carry-On sex farce, it doesn't even play to Claudia Christian's comedy strength (deadpan - Bab5 could be utterly hilarious simply by showing us Ivanova doing nothing more than raising an incredulous eyebrow in the face of bizarre alien occurances, but her few pithy words in some situations were perfectly judged). The opening sequence, and most of the computer generated effects throughout, are stunning. Some of the best outer space CGI since the later Star Trek series and, had it been a little more imaginitive, better even than Bab5 and the new Battlestar Galactica. Aside from one funny visual gag, where the Dreadnought Nemesis bumps a satellite out of its way, it went quickly downhill as soon as the characters started talking.
At first, Claudia Christian might as well be playing Ivanova again but, as soon as the plot kicks off, and the crew of the Nemesis are sent back in time to the present day and turned into morons, slapstick humour and unfunny jokes make one wonder if this thing wasn't written mainly down the pub by a committee of very drunk Red Dwarf fans (who, by and large, must have missed the best jokes in Dwarf) who sat around one evening saying "wouldn't it be funny if...". Someone should have sobered up and pointed out that the answer was often "no". Jeremy Bulloch as the ship's doctor is alternately randy or senile, and the ship's teenage chief engineer manages to have an orgasm over a helping of spotted dick. When Harry Met Sally it was not. Just about everyone in the crew got into gratuitous groping/snogging for no reason other than to illustrate one of the central plot elements for the series.
According to the scant details available at Memorabilia, the entire series was filmed having been funded by a TV station. This unnamed company then pulled out before any of the post-production work could happen, and the crew then saved up to do it themselves so they could present the series as a fait accompli to any TV station.
I can see why whichever company it was pulled out... As Sci-Fi Comedies go, this is light on both, and I'm sorry to say I'm hoping it never gets airtime. My guess is that the BBC were looking for something to follow Red Dwarf in the Sci-Fi Comedy stakes, before they realised what a success the new Doctor Who had become, but then pulled out when they realised Starhyke just wasn't funny. And that Who was excellent. I kinda feel sorry for Claudia Christian, because she deserves far better than Starshite. Sorry, Starhyke.
So, what nice things can I say about Memorabilia? It was a great show, despite the reduced size. Compared to the recent London Expo, this was about 95% retail and 5% display as opposed to the paltry 30/70 (at best) split of the London show. There was a huge range of stuff, from old to new, sci-fi to sports... Just about every kind of geek was represented, but there wasn't much (that I saw) in the way of Cosplay.
My haul from 2nd Star was largely TransFormers from the Classics line - Optimus Prime and Megatron, Starscream, Bumblebee and Hot Rod (sorry, Rodimus), along with the Japanese Beast Wars Reborn (aka 'Reboan' due to a spelling mistake on the CD) 10th Anniversary set, and THS-01 Galaxy Convoy, which is now set to be one of my Christmas presents this year. I was tempted to also pick up TF: Titanium Jetfire and Optimus Prime, but decided against in the end. Elsewhere, I picked up Classics Mirage and Astrotrain, but sadly missed out on Grimlock, who sold out very quickly. Jetfire was noteable by his absence...
Pictures will turn up sooner or later - next weekend at the earliest, because it's getting dark too early to do any photography when I get home after work - so, for the moment, suffice it to say that they're spiffy.
I considered getting a couple of things as Christmas presents for friends and family, but I've already got most of those people's presents sorted. I was counting on finding a new dragon for my mother's collection, but either the usual stalls weren't there, or they weren't selling any dragons that I saw.
The trip came to a rather unhappy end this morning, when it transpired that my friend had been very ill overnight. She'd had a very rich starter for dinner, and followed it up with Lamb as a main course, which lead to a very uncomfortable night for her, and a small delay in leaving the hotel. Even so, we managed to stop off at a little craft centre we've passed by and visited before and, while the excellent delicatessen had shut down (sometime in June, we were told), the other places were still there, and I came away with a selection of ales for my parents, and some jams/preserves for everyone.
In other news, I got a letter recently from a friend in the States, Lydia, who I've not seen online in some time, thanks to her husband's discovery of the internet. She mentioned that she'd read this blog to catch up on what I'd been up to, but misses the two-way communication of chatting via MSN Messenger and suchlike. This got me thinking about a conversation I had with my Memorabilia buddy, when I first got her to try MSN. She said it was awkward because the timing was so different to talking face-to-face, or even over the phone, and didn't quite believe that it would ever feel 'natural'. That changed, of course, and now we chat online quite easily when we're not able to speak face-to-face.
So to you, Lydia, I say this: It's all a matter of timing, and if you can slow yours right down, leaving comments on my blog almost works as well as - albeit far slower than - any 'instant messenger' software. Frustrating, maybe, but easy enough once you find the new rhythm.
Also recently, I got a couple of emails from Cheryl, a girl who first contacted me way back when I was signed up to several internet dating services (more on that some other time... there are plenty of horror stories!). We've never actually met, but we have exchanged a fair bit of email. Neither of us are 'on the market' any more, for one reason or another, but I still hear from her once in a blue moon. The first email she sent was a link to a t-shirt which bears the legend "Haikus are easy/but sometimes they don't make sense/Refrigerator" - a very funny bit of haiku... Though it's not necessarily true that Haiku (I don't tend to pluralise it, personally) are easy to write.
The second was 'the lost Dr Seuss poem' - I Love My Job, which was quite cute... I really must write back to her, and to Lydia...
While I remember, I shall refer to an earlier posting by saying that the magazine for which I drew the '12 Days of Christmas' icons arrived back in the office last week, and they look pretty damned good in print. I still don't like them, as such, but they serve their purpose very well.
And on that note, I shall conclude this posting...
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