This weekend marks the first time I spent longer in the queue for an event than in the event itself. And had more fun in the queue! Attending the MCM show at Excel seemed like a brilliant idea when it was raised just last Thursday. A friend of a friend was a show artist, the entry was only £6 each and it was round the corner from home. Opening was slated for 11pm so, with the kind of cool logic that, in hindsight, is fundamentally flawed, we determined that arriving after midday would have us missing the long lines of slavering fanfolk and walking straight in. Hah! As we walked into the main hall of the centre, a tinny Tannoy voice apologised for waits of up to 2 hours for Hall 3. We laughed, and pitied the poor visitors waiting to get into Hall 3, and did so all the more when we realised that Hall 3 was our destination.
Vodka smoothies and a pair of interesting signature hunters in the queue with us made the time fly remarkably pleasantly. As did the large number of people asking Zara for pictures of her outfit. Having heard there was a cosplay event in the programme, Zara had decided to dress up, not strictly for the event, you understand. Large numbers of less astute visitors were sure she was the winning entrant and wanted photos to memorialise the encounter. It only took one quick glance from a real cosplayer to puncture Zara's bubble, however. "You dress like that all the time, don't you. It's too generic to be cosplay." Watch this space for more news about Zara's future outfits, though. She's been bitten by a new bug i.e. she has a new reason to shop.
A brief wander through the expo, and we were on our way to the truly pleasant part of the day. The late afternoon consisted of (un)comfy cushions, padded arches and gorgeous cake with naked men and women in various degrees of discomfort and arousal around us. This is the delightful basement of Coffee Cake and Kink, an inspired idea well-executed and wonderfully run by the friendliest staff EVAHtm! Going back there, oh yes we are. The birthday party started off a little slow and relaxed, which was nice, and then kicked into high gear when we reached Auberge, our restaurant for dinner. I think they must have been extremely happy to be rid of us by the time we left. We were just the teensiest bit noisy. Hey, we were having fun!
So, an excellent Saturday, on an excellent friend's birthday. It's, like, fate, man.
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Last year we spent five hours queueuing to get into the Erotic Gherkin on Open House Day (I made my feelings on the prospect of queueing plain at the very start of the day - but lost), and spent maybe 45 minutes there. But oddly enough, the whole day was fun. It helped that we had a large enough group of people that we could all take breaks every now and then to go find coffee/food/a place to sit; not to mention that we all kept each other (and sometimes the rest of the queue) entertained. Also, there were other entertainments on offer. A gorilla race, for one.
Btw Armin worked at CCK over Christmas. Indeed, lovely people. And great cake. Leftovers of which he kept bringing home with him. Lucky us!
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