Big Damn Post
Didn't get round to it yesterday, so I'll do it today. This was my long weekend. The post will also be long, if you hadn't already guessed by the subject title :o) Oh, and there will be lots of pictures. I'll try and trim some down, but expect picspam.
Thursday
Okay, the exam on Thursday went rather badly, I thought, but better than I was fearing. Which doesn't say much, really. But anyway, Adam gave me chocolate and I was fine. Went home and threw stuff in a bag, stocked up on audios, had dinner and left for the bus in plenty of time. The bus journey was okay - Adam and I listened to the second Sapphire & Steel audio, 'Daisy Chain'. It reminded me of 'The Railway Station' (Assignment #2), but I won't say why, cos Adam hasn't seen the rest of that one yet :o) Mum met us at Buchanan St and took us to her boyfriend's house, where we sat and had a cuppa and a chat. Bit boring, but 'Chariots of Fire' was on the telly and I got to squee about the cricket jumpers :o)
Friday
Faffed about and watched telly most of the day, Angela came over before we had to go, and I made my chicken creme fraiche thing for Mum, Drew (the boyfriend), Daniel (my youngest brother), Adam, Angela and myself.
The airport was kinda fun, and the flight was very cool - I haven't flown much so I got all hyper and excited and couldn't stop staring out the window. We were in the emergency door seats, so my bag had to stay in the overhead rack, but it meant I got to sit along the wing and that was fun.
They have a taxi service at Bristol airport where you book the taxi in an office and they tell you the cost of the journey before you get in, so you don't get scammed. It's smart. And you get to wait in the warm and dry.
The B&B was very nice - regular beds with a sheet and a quilt, no annoying multi-sheet tangle. And not at all like the last time I stayed at a B&B, where the room was all flowery and old-fashioned. Even over the phone when I was booking the room, my gaydar was pinging. It turned out the place was run by two guys, who were either a couple or had some kind of weird dynamic. One of them had kids, but then my dad had a boyfriend for a while, so it's very plausible :o)
Saturday
We had a cooked breakfast, which was very nice, and really nice tea despite it being PG Tips.
We walked down to the con in the rain, cos it was only about twenty minutes, and we got to go in faster the rest of the queue cos we prepaid :o) It took us about half an hour to actually find Jennie Breeden, and when we did, we bought pretty much one of everything on her stall :o) Got a t-shirt, and one for Ange, a whole bunch of comic books and several buttons and magnets and stuff. The comics were kinda split between us, and Adam got a puzzle too. Jennie's very cool. She had her Flying Monkey and was using it as a dictaphone so she would remember comic ideas. There were things about "What not to say in England", and we were talking about the Flying Monkey and the squirrel dance and stuff.
Adam got a Naruto headband. That's all I have to say on the matter.
Then we were talking to the guys at the Doctor Who table - there was a big Dalek that moved and spoke :oD Paul Cornell showed up about three seconds after I asked the guys if he was around :o) He signed Matthew's books that I took with me, and we had a good chat later in the bar.
One of the guys at the DW table, Tom, was telling us about the comics - there were seven books: four Eights, two Fours and a Five. They had a three-for-two deal, and we couldn't decide which one to leave out. Eventually - and shh cos we're not really supposed to talk about this too much, but this is flocked, so what the hell - the seventh one 'fell in' :oD Tom is great. We chatted to him outside for a bit later, and it turns out he wrote some Big Finishes - The One Doctor and Bang-Bang-A-Boom, two of the crackiest audios ever :o)
We went to get sandwiches that didn't cost the earth, and found out that Bristol is crap. Half four on a Saturday, and pretty much everything was closed. We managed to find a relatively big newsagent in the end, but it took ages.
We chatted to people in the bar later - mainly Paul and Tom, but a couple of other writers too. Spoke to David Bishop, who wrote the second series of SJS audios - apparently the resolution to the cliffhanger has multiple directions :o) Helpful. It was fun to talk to all those guys.
The award dinner thing in the evening was interminably boring - except for the fact that Norman Lovett was there doing stand-up, and one of the guys at our table was quite interesting to chat to.
We spoke to Norman afterwards - he looks weird with a body. He's pretty cool. He's 60 now, so he reckons he's at the perfect stage of his life to actually be Holly now :oD Just the right level of senility.
Sunday
Got the train to Cardiff - the booked tickets we had were actually from Bristol Parkway, but we didn't realise this until we got to the only train station we knew of, Bristol Temple Meads. Luckily the guard was very nice and let us get the train from Temple Meads to Cardiff instead. We listened to the third S&S, 'All Fall Down', which was fun! There was Silver! I was happy.
It was bucketing down in Cardiff, and I had rather stupidly assumed that the place would be fairly close by. We found the Millennium Stadium, but it turns out that this and the Millennium Centre are not the same place :o) While looking for the front of the building, we stopped a woman and asked how to get to the Doctor Who Exhibition. Turns out she was going there too :o) She's a big Torchwood fan, so we kinda had all the knowledge about both shows between us :oD Her name's Sarah, and she had a map and a list of places featured in Torchwood that she was finding and taking photos of.
Apparently the exhibition is not near the train station at all. It is in fact a decent bus journey away from it.
Here comes the picspam :o)
Unfortunately, one side is a lot darker than the other - might've been the light, or maybe that my camera is a bit crap. But that's the Millennium Centre, as seen in Doctor Who and Torchwood. The English, as you may know, reads "In these stones, horizons sing." The Welsh is not the same, it translates as "Creating truth like glass from the furnace of inspiration." Which is very pretty.
Now you see me...
Now I am concealed by a perception filter left behind by a transdimensional time and space machine... Or, if you like, it's an invisible lift.
Pay no attention to the suspicious-looking flash in the mirrored water-tower. Or my drowned-rat appearance. Cardiff was underwater, damnit!
The space outside of the centre is pretty.
And so is the art thingummy I found inside the centre.
So, inside the exhibition.
People
Ten's blue suit.
Ten's shot at being Arthur Dent.
The shoes :o)
Martha's outfit. If those are actual clothes worn by Freema, then she is very very thin.
Rose's disguise in the Cybermen double-parter.
And her dinnerlady disguise from 'School Reunion'.
Non-villain/monsters for which 'people' is not really applicable
K9
And K9 again, from the front. I patted him. You're not supposed to touch, but I was very careful :o)
A very cute K9 made by kids.
Okay, so K9 is the only occupant of this category. Bite me :o)
Villains/Monsters
Ooooood.
Clockwork robot from 'Girl in the Fireplace'.
Auton Mickey head!
Auton bride!
BBC monks and the werewolf guy.
Anne-Droid.
A Cyberman which has just crashed through the window :o)
A Dalek, of course.
Judoon platoon upon the moon...
Trin-E bot.
Sycorax leader.
A Cyberman made by kids.
And I would have a video of the Dalek moving, but I can't make the thing work. I suck at Photobucket videos. Anyway, there was a button that said 'do not push', so we pushed it.
Other things
Ghost Shift lever.
The vase from 'Father's Day'.
Pete's World teleporter buttons.
Cyberman head and little figurines.
Sign for Deffry Vale High School.
Earpods and some of Ace 2.0's stuff :o)
A panel from the set of the TARDIS.
The hand-things from 'The Long Game'.
And they had sections for the Classic Doctors, but I couldn't get photos of the monsters behind the mesh - with the flash on, the mesh showed up, and with it off, it blurred too much.
Behind One and Two there was an Ice Warrior.
Behind Three and Four, a Sea Devil.
A Cyberman behind Five and Six - you can just about see the jug handles :o)
And behind Seven and Eight there was a haemovore. Not a pretty sight, really.
Oh, and there was a wheelie bin. Inside...
Well, there was a video of Mickey being eaten by the bin. But I got Sarah and Adam to look scared anyway.
Other things outside the exhibition
Jack's main perch :o)
A restaurant near the Millennium Centre. I found the name amusing. I am sad.
Edit: Oh, and there was the sci-fi shop at the exhibition! Can't believe I forgot. It was really more of a Who shop, as is to be expected, but it had little bits of other stuff too. I got three BBC books - one Six and Mel, one Seven and Mel, one Seven and Ace - and a novelisation of 'The Ribos Operation', which I chose because that story was my first Classic Who story, and it's rather a talky one, so I figured it'd be good as a novelisation. Although they changed some of the lines! I am rather pissed off that the Romana-Fred conversation is different.
So yeah, that was Cardiff. We tried to go to Ramon's Cafe which was where Gwen went in the Torchwood episode 'Random Shoes', but it was closed, so we went to the one across the road.
All in all, Cardiff is pretty cool around the Doctor Who places, but a little bit dull in other respects. Main non-Who note of interest - everything is in two languages. Street signs and shop names I had expected, but the posters are twice as big to fit all the extra words. Welsh looks complicated. And I know exactly two words, what they mean and how to say them - "blaidd drwg". Not all that impressive, really, given that most of you guys do as well. I wanted to know how to say 'thank you'. It would've been handy, and possibly given the Welsh people a giggle at my terrible pronunciation :o)
On the train back from Cardiff, we listened to the first half of the Seventh Doctor audio, 'Night Thoughts'. That was fun, it's very creepy. On the way back to the B&B, I got colder and colder until I couldn't actually speak clearly from shivering. It wasn't really that cold, so Adam got rather worried about me - I think I got a bit of a chill, and was expecting it to turn into a cold, but it didn't. So hurrah.
Monday
We checked out of the B&B and caught the bus to Bath, and were directed to Bath Backpackers by the tourist info guy at the train station - they let us leave our bags there for £2 each. Brilliant place. So then Adam didn't have to carry around the big heavy bag full of comic books. Seriously, heavy. I couldn't lift it, although that's not really saying much - but Adam had trouble after a while.
Anyway, we went back to the train station and met up with a friend I made on the Outpost Gallifrey chatroom - Dave. He now has a LiveJournal - slaar_9000. I'm glad he said for us to go to Bath rather than he go to Bristol, cos there'd have been nothing to see in Bristol. Bath is nice. And the girls are hot. There was a milkshake place where they blend sweets with icecream to make the milkshakes. I had a Dark Bounty, Adam had an Oreo one and Dave had one made of Skittles. I didn't think Skittles would blend...
We got the bus back (listened to the rest of 'Night Thoughts'), then one to the airport, and did the whole check-in thing again. Bristol isn't as nice as Glasgow in terms of airports. I was just as excited on the plane back, and we were behind the emergency seats this time, so I was allowed to have my bag with me and not in the overhead.
Tuesday
Not much happened on Tuesday - we went to visit Ange at work to give her presents from the con, and we got cups of pick'n'mix from Woolworths - it's one price for the cup and if you're strategic about it you can stuff a whole bunch of sweets into those things :oD
Had a bit of a fall-out with Mum, but it was at least partially resolved and I don't really want to talk about it anymore.
Listened to the fourth S&S, 'The Lighthouse', on the bus back. It was extremely confusing but enjoyable all the same. I still don't quite get it, but I figured out one of the major plot points before they revealed it, so I'm quite proud of myself :o) I'm rather glad it was a relatively short audio though, cos I don't think my brain would hold up over two hours of that much confusion.
And then we got back and collapsed. I have since slept very soundly.
So, that was my extended weekend. Hope I didn't bore you to tears :o) If I did, just enjoy the pretty pictures :oD
Thursday
Okay, the exam on Thursday went rather badly, I thought, but better than I was fearing. Which doesn't say much, really. But anyway, Adam gave me chocolate and I was fine. Went home and threw stuff in a bag, stocked up on audios, had dinner and left for the bus in plenty of time. The bus journey was okay - Adam and I listened to the second Sapphire & Steel audio, 'Daisy Chain'. It reminded me of 'The Railway Station' (Assignment #2), but I won't say why, cos Adam hasn't seen the rest of that one yet :o) Mum met us at Buchanan St and took us to her boyfriend's house, where we sat and had a cuppa and a chat. Bit boring, but 'Chariots of Fire' was on the telly and I got to squee about the cricket jumpers :o)
Friday
Faffed about and watched telly most of the day, Angela came over before we had to go, and I made my chicken creme fraiche thing for Mum, Drew (the boyfriend), Daniel (my youngest brother), Adam, Angela and myself.
The airport was kinda fun, and the flight was very cool - I haven't flown much so I got all hyper and excited and couldn't stop staring out the window. We were in the emergency door seats, so my bag had to stay in the overhead rack, but it meant I got to sit along the wing and that was fun.
They have a taxi service at Bristol airport where you book the taxi in an office and they tell you the cost of the journey before you get in, so you don't get scammed. It's smart. And you get to wait in the warm and dry.
The B&B was very nice - regular beds with a sheet and a quilt, no annoying multi-sheet tangle. And not at all like the last time I stayed at a B&B, where the room was all flowery and old-fashioned. Even over the phone when I was booking the room, my gaydar was pinging. It turned out the place was run by two guys, who were either a couple or had some kind of weird dynamic. One of them had kids, but then my dad had a boyfriend for a while, so it's very plausible :o)
Saturday
We had a cooked breakfast, which was very nice, and really nice tea despite it being PG Tips.
We walked down to the con in the rain, cos it was only about twenty minutes, and we got to go in faster the rest of the queue cos we prepaid :o) It took us about half an hour to actually find Jennie Breeden, and when we did, we bought pretty much one of everything on her stall :o) Got a t-shirt, and one for Ange, a whole bunch of comic books and several buttons and magnets and stuff. The comics were kinda split between us, and Adam got a puzzle too. Jennie's very cool. She had her Flying Monkey and was using it as a dictaphone so she would remember comic ideas. There were things about "What not to say in England", and we were talking about the Flying Monkey and the squirrel dance and stuff.
Adam got a Naruto headband. That's all I have to say on the matter.
Then we were talking to the guys at the Doctor Who table - there was a big Dalek that moved and spoke :oD Paul Cornell showed up about three seconds after I asked the guys if he was around :o) He signed Matthew's books that I took with me, and we had a good chat later in the bar.
One of the guys at the DW table, Tom, was telling us about the comics - there were seven books: four Eights, two Fours and a Five. They had a three-for-two deal, and we couldn't decide which one to leave out. Eventually - and shh cos we're not really supposed to talk about this too much, but this is flocked, so what the hell - the seventh one 'fell in' :oD Tom is great. We chatted to him outside for a bit later, and it turns out he wrote some Big Finishes - The One Doctor and Bang-Bang-A-Boom, two of the crackiest audios ever :o)
We went to get sandwiches that didn't cost the earth, and found out that Bristol is crap. Half four on a Saturday, and pretty much everything was closed. We managed to find a relatively big newsagent in the end, but it took ages.
We chatted to people in the bar later - mainly Paul and Tom, but a couple of other writers too. Spoke to David Bishop, who wrote the second series of SJS audios - apparently the resolution to the cliffhanger has multiple directions :o) Helpful. It was fun to talk to all those guys.
The award dinner thing in the evening was interminably boring - except for the fact that Norman Lovett was there doing stand-up, and one of the guys at our table was quite interesting to chat to.
We spoke to Norman afterwards - he looks weird with a body. He's pretty cool. He's 60 now, so he reckons he's at the perfect stage of his life to actually be Holly now :oD Just the right level of senility.
Sunday
Got the train to Cardiff - the booked tickets we had were actually from Bristol Parkway, but we didn't realise this until we got to the only train station we knew of, Bristol Temple Meads. Luckily the guard was very nice and let us get the train from Temple Meads to Cardiff instead. We listened to the third S&S, 'All Fall Down', which was fun! There was Silver! I was happy.
It was bucketing down in Cardiff, and I had rather stupidly assumed that the place would be fairly close by. We found the Millennium Stadium, but it turns out that this and the Millennium Centre are not the same place :o) While looking for the front of the building, we stopped a woman and asked how to get to the Doctor Who Exhibition. Turns out she was going there too :o) She's a big Torchwood fan, so we kinda had all the knowledge about both shows between us :oD Her name's Sarah, and she had a map and a list of places featured in Torchwood that she was finding and taking photos of.
Apparently the exhibition is not near the train station at all. It is in fact a decent bus journey away from it.
Here comes the picspam :o)
Unfortunately, one side is a lot darker than the other - might've been the light, or maybe that my camera is a bit crap. But that's the Millennium Centre, as seen in Doctor Who and Torchwood. The English, as you may know, reads "In these stones, horizons sing." The Welsh is not the same, it translates as "Creating truth like glass from the furnace of inspiration." Which is very pretty.
Now you see me...
Now I am concealed by a perception filter left behind by a transdimensional time and space machine... Or, if you like, it's an invisible lift.
Pay no attention to the suspicious-looking flash in the mirrored water-tower. Or my drowned-rat appearance. Cardiff was underwater, damnit!
The space outside of the centre is pretty.
And so is the art thingummy I found inside the centre.
So, inside the exhibition.
People
Ten's blue suit.
Ten's shot at being Arthur Dent.
The shoes :o)
Martha's outfit. If those are actual clothes worn by Freema, then she is very very thin.
Rose's disguise in the Cybermen double-parter.
And her dinnerlady disguise from 'School Reunion'.
Non-villain/monsters for which 'people' is not really applicable
K9
And K9 again, from the front. I patted him. You're not supposed to touch, but I was very careful :o)
A very cute K9 made by kids.
Okay, so K9 is the only occupant of this category. Bite me :o)
Villains/Monsters
Ooooood.
Clockwork robot from 'Girl in the Fireplace'.
Auton Mickey head!
Auton bride!
BBC monks and the werewolf guy.
Anne-Droid.
A Cyberman which has just crashed through the window :o)
A Dalek, of course.
Judoon platoon upon the moon...
Trin-E bot.
Sycorax leader.
A Cyberman made by kids.
And I would have a video of the Dalek moving, but I can't make the thing work. I suck at Photobucket videos. Anyway, there was a button that said 'do not push', so we pushed it.
Other things
Ghost Shift lever.
The vase from 'Father's Day'.
Pete's World teleporter buttons.
Cyberman head and little figurines.
Sign for Deffry Vale High School.
Earpods and some of Ace 2.0's stuff :o)
A panel from the set of the TARDIS.
The hand-things from 'The Long Game'.
And they had sections for the Classic Doctors, but I couldn't get photos of the monsters behind the mesh - with the flash on, the mesh showed up, and with it off, it blurred too much.
Behind One and Two there was an Ice Warrior.
Behind Three and Four, a Sea Devil.
A Cyberman behind Five and Six - you can just about see the jug handles :o)
And behind Seven and Eight there was a haemovore. Not a pretty sight, really.
Oh, and there was a wheelie bin. Inside...
Well, there was a video of Mickey being eaten by the bin. But I got Sarah and Adam to look scared anyway.
Other things outside the exhibition
Jack's main perch :o)
A restaurant near the Millennium Centre. I found the name amusing. I am sad.
Edit: Oh, and there was the sci-fi shop at the exhibition! Can't believe I forgot. It was really more of a Who shop, as is to be expected, but it had little bits of other stuff too. I got three BBC books - one Six and Mel, one Seven and Mel, one Seven and Ace - and a novelisation of 'The Ribos Operation', which I chose because that story was my first Classic Who story, and it's rather a talky one, so I figured it'd be good as a novelisation. Although they changed some of the lines! I am rather pissed off that the Romana-Fred conversation is different.
So yeah, that was Cardiff. We tried to go to Ramon's Cafe which was where Gwen went in the Torchwood episode 'Random Shoes', but it was closed, so we went to the one across the road.
All in all, Cardiff is pretty cool around the Doctor Who places, but a little bit dull in other respects. Main non-Who note of interest - everything is in two languages. Street signs and shop names I had expected, but the posters are twice as big to fit all the extra words. Welsh looks complicated. And I know exactly two words, what they mean and how to say them - "blaidd drwg". Not all that impressive, really, given that most of you guys do as well. I wanted to know how to say 'thank you'. It would've been handy, and possibly given the Welsh people a giggle at my terrible pronunciation :o)
On the train back from Cardiff, we listened to the first half of the Seventh Doctor audio, 'Night Thoughts'. That was fun, it's very creepy. On the way back to the B&B, I got colder and colder until I couldn't actually speak clearly from shivering. It wasn't really that cold, so Adam got rather worried about me - I think I got a bit of a chill, and was expecting it to turn into a cold, but it didn't. So hurrah.
Monday
We checked out of the B&B and caught the bus to Bath, and were directed to Bath Backpackers by the tourist info guy at the train station - they let us leave our bags there for £2 each. Brilliant place. So then Adam didn't have to carry around the big heavy bag full of comic books. Seriously, heavy. I couldn't lift it, although that's not really saying much - but Adam had trouble after a while.
Anyway, we went back to the train station and met up with a friend I made on the Outpost Gallifrey chatroom - Dave. He now has a LiveJournal - slaar_9000. I'm glad he said for us to go to Bath rather than he go to Bristol, cos there'd have been nothing to see in Bristol. Bath is nice. And the girls are hot. There was a milkshake place where they blend sweets with icecream to make the milkshakes. I had a Dark Bounty, Adam had an Oreo one and Dave had one made of Skittles. I didn't think Skittles would blend...
We got the bus back (listened to the rest of 'Night Thoughts'), then one to the airport, and did the whole check-in thing again. Bristol isn't as nice as Glasgow in terms of airports. I was just as excited on the plane back, and we were behind the emergency seats this time, so I was allowed to have my bag with me and not in the overhead.
Tuesday
Not much happened on Tuesday - we went to visit Ange at work to give her presents from the con, and we got cups of pick'n'mix from Woolworths - it's one price for the cup and if you're strategic about it you can stuff a whole bunch of sweets into those things :oD
Had a bit of a fall-out with Mum, but it was at least partially resolved and I don't really want to talk about it anymore.
Listened to the fourth S&S, 'The Lighthouse', on the bus back. It was extremely confusing but enjoyable all the same. I still don't quite get it, but I figured out one of the major plot points before they revealed it, so I'm quite proud of myself :o) I'm rather glad it was a relatively short audio though, cos I don't think my brain would hold up over two hours of that much confusion.
And then we got back and collapsed. I have since slept very soundly.
So, that was my extended weekend. Hope I didn't bore you to tears :o) If I did, just enjoy the pretty pictures :oD