The Telford Post! Finally!
All the way back on Saturday! I met hannurdock (Gina) at McDonalds in Birmingham to get some breakfast - I'm very glad they do Quaker Oats :D We got the 9.33 train to Telford, and tiggerbrasilf (Tessa) and her boyfriend picked us up and gave us a lift to the Telford Internation Centre. We hit a bit of a snag when we got there because we were supposed to be meeting at the outdoor tennis courts... which have since been demolished and turned into a car park. Huh. The four of us went and started queueing - it was only 10.30, and the doors didn't open until 11. As I'm really impatient, I dragged Gina back outside to look for people, and we found __kali__ (Julia) waiting outside. A quick phonecall to eternie (Laura), who was already in the exhibition with darkenglishrose (Amy), meant that we'd found most of the people who we were supposed to be meeting.
We got goodie bags while we were queueing up, which had a Hot Fuzz badge, a couple of posters and a few sheets of stickers. Kept us occupied for a few minutes at least. At long last they let us in, and we met up with Amy and Laura to find that they'd already met Gareth :O I jumped around squeeing for a little bit and then we went over. I actually had to stop a little way from the table and stare at him for a bit cause I was too hyper... I probably looked like lunatic. Finally calmed myself down and went to get his autograph. He shook my hand, then I asked him to sign my Torchwood book, because I'm hoping to get all of the cast's autographs in it. He pointed to John's autograph and asked where I'd met him, and I tried to reply "at the panto" but had melted into a puddle of Teh Happy cause he TOUCHED MY BOOK :D Then of course he touched my book again to sign it. He stood up to have the photo taken, and I asked if I could give him a hug. I gave him a cheeky kiss on the cheek too, and he gave me one back ^^ The Expo woman took the photograph on my camera, but Gina took a couple on her camera phone:
Me talking to Gareth
Posing with Gareth
I asked him how tall he was as well, and he said that he's exactly 6ft. When we'd all finished, I stood around hyperventilating for a bit, then me, Laura and Tessa decided to go up to the cash point in the shopping centre. We started walking outside, and Gareth chose that moment to go out for a cigarette break. So essentially he was following us :D The smoking is Very Bad, but as gem_pinkeh, who I was texting, pointed out, it would have been great to steal the cigarette butt, perfect the art of cloning and clone lots of Gareths. Crack ideas FTW!
When we got back, we went to the Chris Barrie Q & A, which was quite fun considering I've never watched Red Dwarf :P Then I went back over to Gareth to get an autograph for Gem, who couldn't make it to the con. Amy came with me, because I wanted to get a recording of Gareth doing The Eyebrow Thing, and was too scared to ask. Conversation as follows:
Amy: Apparantly I'm the only one brave enough to ask you, so can we record you doing the Eyebrow Thing?
Gareth: What Eyebrow thing?
Me and Amy: You know - The Eyebrow Thing! -vague gesture-
Gareth: Oh, you mean this? -does The Eyebrow Thing-
Me and Amy: YES!
Gareth: -weirded out look- Sure, okay.
So now, courtesy of Amy, I have a video recording of Gareth doing The Eyebrow Thing on my mobile! She also took a pic of me and Gareth on my phone, so that's my phone background now. Throughout the majority of the day we were not-so-subtley stalking him, mostly standing to one side and gazing at him xD This pic of Laura's just about sums it up, because he could blatantly see us and kept glancing nervously in our direction:
Stalking Gareth Picture
We made our way to the Q & A room, because it was a litle after 1.30, and Gareth was due on at 2pm. We met up with the rest of the torch_wood contingent: badfalcon, satellite_kid, conjunkie, llenni, and vamp_lynette. The MC knew what we were planning, and ruined it by telling Gareth that we planned to kidnap him before he came out. Bah :P Videos, downloads and transcripts are below:
Videos
Downloads
Transcript
After the talk we stuck around for the Warwick Davies talk, then went to see Gareth for what was supposed to be the last time, and begged for a group photo in exchange for leaving him alone. He agreed, and when someone asked him if he was scared about taking the table out from between him and the fangirls, he surprisingly said no :P
Group Photo
Fangirls from left-right: me, hannurdock, __kali__, pipsytip (crouching down), vamp_lynette, eternie, darkenglishrose, and tessabrasilf. Gareth doesn't look anywhere near as scared as he should be.
Bigger Group Photo
Sure enough, we left him alone after that, and sat outside during the Cosplay. Everyone but me, Amy and Laura had drifted off by around 4.15pm. We *had* to go and say goodbye to Gareth one last time, and then we left. Didn't manage to steal the hat.
AWESOME day.
Laura's Dalek of Doom
(Thanks to eternie, pipsytip, and hannurdock from whom I have gakked pics, thanks to my empty bank account and thus inability to get pictures developed)
We got goodie bags while we were queueing up, which had a Hot Fuzz badge, a couple of posters and a few sheets of stickers. Kept us occupied for a few minutes at least. At long last they let us in, and we met up with Amy and Laura to find that they'd already met Gareth :O I jumped around squeeing for a little bit and then we went over. I actually had to stop a little way from the table and stare at him for a bit cause I was too hyper... I probably looked like lunatic. Finally calmed myself down and went to get his autograph. He shook my hand, then I asked him to sign my Torchwood book, because I'm hoping to get all of the cast's autographs in it. He pointed to John's autograph and asked where I'd met him, and I tried to reply "at the panto" but had melted into a puddle of Teh Happy cause he TOUCHED MY BOOK :D Then of course he touched my book again to sign it. He stood up to have the photo taken, and I asked if I could give him a hug. I gave him a cheeky kiss on the cheek too, and he gave me one back ^^ The Expo woman took the photograph on my camera, but Gina took a couple on her camera phone:
Me talking to Gareth
Posing with Gareth
I asked him how tall he was as well, and he said that he's exactly 6ft. When we'd all finished, I stood around hyperventilating for a bit, then me, Laura and Tessa decided to go up to the cash point in the shopping centre. We started walking outside, and Gareth chose that moment to go out for a cigarette break. So essentially he was following us :D The smoking is Very Bad, but as gem_pinkeh, who I was texting, pointed out, it would have been great to steal the cigarette butt, perfect the art of cloning and clone lots of Gareths. Crack ideas FTW!
When we got back, we went to the Chris Barrie Q & A, which was quite fun considering I've never watched Red Dwarf :P Then I went back over to Gareth to get an autograph for Gem, who couldn't make it to the con. Amy came with me, because I wanted to get a recording of Gareth doing The Eyebrow Thing, and was too scared to ask. Conversation as follows:
Amy: Apparantly I'm the only one brave enough to ask you, so can we record you doing the Eyebrow Thing?
Gareth: What Eyebrow thing?
Me and Amy: You know - The Eyebrow Thing! -vague gesture-
Gareth: Oh, you mean this? -does The Eyebrow Thing-
Me and Amy: YES!
Gareth: -weirded out look- Sure, okay.
So now, courtesy of Amy, I have a video recording of Gareth doing The Eyebrow Thing on my mobile! She also took a pic of me and Gareth on my phone, so that's my phone background now. Throughout the majority of the day we were not-so-subtley stalking him, mostly standing to one side and gazing at him xD This pic of Laura's just about sums it up, because he could blatantly see us and kept glancing nervously in our direction:
Stalking Gareth Picture
We made our way to the Q & A room, because it was a litle after 1.30, and Gareth was due on at 2pm. We met up with the rest of the torch_wood contingent: badfalcon, satellite_kid, conjunkie, llenni, and vamp_lynette. The MC knew what we were planning, and ruined it by telling Gareth that we planned to kidnap him before he came out. Bah :P Videos, downloads and transcripts are below:
Videos
Downloads
Transcript
After the talk we stuck around for the Warwick Davies talk, then went to see Gareth for what was supposed to be the last time, and begged for a group photo in exchange for leaving him alone. He agreed, and when someone asked him if he was scared about taking the table out from between him and the fangirls, he surprisingly said no :P
Group Photo
Fangirls from left-right: me, hannurdock, __kali__, pipsytip (crouching down), vamp_lynette, eternie, darkenglishrose, and tessabrasilf. Gareth doesn't look anywhere near as scared as he should be.
Bigger Group Photo
Sure enough, we left him alone after that, and sat outside during the Cosplay. Everyone but me, Amy and Laura had drifted off by around 4.15pm. We *had* to go and say goodbye to Gareth one last time, and then we left. Didn't manage to steal the hat.
AWESOME day.
Laura's Dalek of Doom
(Thanks to eternie, pipsytip, and hannurdock from whom I have gakked pics, thanks to my empty bank account and thus inability to get pictures developed)