Spring Memorabilia NEC 2011 – Day 2 Review

If you ever go and stay at a service area hotel, my one piece of advice would be to make sure you know which side of the motorway it is on. There’s nothing like dragging your luggage over a bridge from one side of the motorway to the other to make your feet ache more after a hard days con. Thankfully there was a sneaky way to get the car round without having to drive 10 miles in the opposite direction, big thanks to the hotel staff for providing a map.

The clocks going forward right in the middle of a con weekend was never going to be good. But despite this I was so tired from the day before that it didn’t really affect me. There have been reports that Matt’s iPhone didn’t register the clock change, I think it was more to do with over sleeping ! I was wearing the Series 5 – Victory of the Daleks costume for the Sunday. Which meant no mop so I had my hands free to do some shopping, unless you count the times I needed to deploy the jammy dodger.

After a good quality breakfast, a must for all cons, we left the carpark in good time and began our journey towards the NEC. With the words “It’s only 15 minutes down the motorway” ringing in my ears I decided not to setup the sat nav, and took the lead. Well, there may have been a few, slight, technical navigational errors on my part on the way there and we ended up during a brief tour of the Birmingham motorway system. I still maintain that I was going the right way to the NEC….Industrial Estate!

After that detour, we made it to the NEC, with yours truly slightly flustered! The walk to the carpark took us past a group of Stormtroopers who had setup a temporary check-point, no doubt looking for droids. They insisted on searching my autograph wallet and, despite my attempts to hide them, they found Matt’s porn autographs! I don’t think the excuse of “They’re his, not mine” really worked. They referred to the pictures as contraband and started to wave them about, whilst also telling everyone walking by to watch out if they saw me with a camera!

Once back into the safety of the NEC, I bemoaned the fact that the Empire probably didn’t have a complaints procedure whilst hoping that nothing else could wrong. Sadly it did. We quickly found out that Craig Charles wouldn’t be appearing today, slightly frustrating I have to admit as I have now got every member of the main Red Dwarf cast to sign my DVD cover except him. I consoled myself by vowing to spend the money on something else.

We made our way over to see John Levene as both Matt and myself wanted to get his autograph. What happened next was by far the funniest moments of the weekend and firmly cemented John with the prestigious title of Guest of the Weekend. He pulled Matt up for having a crooked tie and, whilst tidying him up, told us a story of how he managed to influence the political career of President Obama. During Obama’s first TV appearance John saw that his tie was crooked, knowing that this used to be a sign of poor standards, John rang his Democrat Senator friend and told him of this potential faux pas and how this could make Obama look. After a few minutes, the next time the live shot went back to Obama, his tie had been straighten and John maintains that without him anything could have happened.

Matt’s Bryant senses were tingling at this point and so we had to go and say hi to Nicola. Jemma and myself stood around and patiently waited whilst Matt said hello to his favourite companion, no special favours though as he had to queue. Now laden with Nicola Bryant merchandise we had to take a quick trip back to the car to deposit the goods.  Timing it just right we were able to see the 501st Garrison and the Reel Icons guys all lining up outside for a big photoshoot. It was impressive to see all the Stormtroopers, Darth Vader and various other Star Wars characters lining up along with the likes of Captain Jack Sparrow.

Once returning from the car we had a well earned coffee break, watched Matt try his luck at being a clown on some wheel step thingy then proceeded round the hall again. Both Jemma and myself managed to get some good Sunday deals on merchandise and Matt bought a massive autograph holder which I ended up carrying. He did actually need it though as we found ourselves being paparazzi again for another visit to the glamour models, I think Matt must’ve kept them in business over the weekend!

As with all cons, thing have to come to an end. Not before there was time for a quick stop at the American Candy vendor who we visit at every con, I have to say their coconut M&Ms are great. So, after dragging Matt away from Nicola, it was time to get on our way. We said our goodbyes and with my sat nav back in it’s proper place off I went….driving down a private access road instead of heading for the exit, at least Matt and Jemma weren’t there to see it!

Spring Memorabilia NEC 2011 – Day 1 Review

Three months in to 2011 and I hadn’t attended a single con, pretty poor form for me. I guess I had been preparing for the ones in the summer and hadn’t realised that my last con had been Collectormania in November, time does indeed fly!

I was invited to Memorabilia by my fellow con time travelling buddy Matt, he of Travels of a Timelord fame. I was initially only going to go for the one day, have a swagger around, and then come home. However, this changed with a few days to go as they kept announcing guest after guest that I wanted to meet. So with that in mind I signed up for the full weekend and spent the rest of the days leading up to the event getting my 11th Doctor costumes ready.

This was my first Memorabilia event and I was interested to see how it went. They have a very clever idea for the early entry tickets. You buy online and get a PDF sent straight to your email address. This has a barcode on it that they use to scan the early entrants in, genius. Once in we walked around trying to work out who was where and what we wanted to see. It was a big place and the first thing that struck me was how many dealers there were and how many other things there were to do, such as FWA wrestling. Not actually wrestling I should add, but watching it.

Saturday was the Doctor’s costume from the final episode of Series 5 – The Big Bang, complete with fez and my trusty mop. I had a small wardrobe malfunction to begin with as it had been a while since I had worn the fez and it kept falling off my head. Panicking as I thought it had got bigger or my head had got smaller, I finally remembered how I wore it before and all was right with the world again phew.

After a close encounter with a flying Pond in a wedding dress (don’t ask!) and the world’s hottest cup of tea, we made it across the hall and over to the photo area. This was probably the part of the con that was the most different than what we were used to. Instead of the trusty numbered photo shoot tickets we were given a small (and very losable!) raffle ticket to say we had paid. I was only interested in Dirk Benedict whilst Jemma was already starting to drool over her prospective Russell Tovey photoshoot!

Soon after we found out that the rumours we’d heard on the way in were true, Brain Blessed hadn’t been able to make it. This was a big shame as we were all looking forward to seeing him, but these things happen and he will know doubt be at a future event. We wandered round some more, I glanced at the sports guests and saw Joe Calzaghe and his Dad, they were originally on my list but I didn’t really fancy the queue nor paying the extra just to meet Calzaghe senior as I’d already met Joe at Collectormania last year.

Matt and myself then visited the Reel Icons stand. I was interested to learn more about what they did as we had seen some of there movie characters wandering the hall and I have to say they all looked really good. Especially the Indiana Jones and Henry Jones, they were amazing. We collected some info and had a good chat with one of their team who received a Sao Til business card from yours truly!

Leaving Jemma to drool, oops I mean, wait for Russell. We went to queue for Dirk Benedict’s autograph. His queue wasn’t too long but very slooooow! Turns out Dirk was speaking to everyone. When I mean speaking I mean, recounting his whole life to every fan! It was a long wait but not that bad considering how nice he was being to everyone, so it was worth the wait to meet the legend. Plus we educated a lady behind us on which pictures of him were from the A-Team. After prizing Jemma away from the arms of Russell we stopped for lunch (note to Matt and Jemma, always have the fresh batch of chips). Then it was on to queue for the Faceman’s photoshoot.

Confusion was abound when we reached the photoshoot area. There were three queues all kind of merging into one for people wanting to buy, collect and have photos. Matt took charge and staked a place with my mop at the front of a new queue for Dirk’s photo. This seemed to galvanise the crew who used us a marker and so we found ourselves at the front yay. We laden Jemma with our stuff, nice minion….I mean companion and saw Dirk again. He was very friendly again and not only recognised but really digged the fez.

We moved on to the queue for Russell Tovey and Sinead Keenan. I was there to get Joanna, who normally cons with us, an autograph from Sinead and Jemma wanted to get her picture with Russell signed. They were by far the busiest guests of the weekend and they had a joint queue for both of them. As I waited to see Sinead, Russell who was waiting for the next in line, started chatting to me about my tweed jacket. I explained where I got it from and how much it cost (eBay for £10, if you wanted to know). He was impressed with the deal I got and was also impressed by my commitment to authenticity by getting, the slightly more expensive, vortex manipulator.

Sinead was happy to sign for Joanna and even gave her a nice personal message, as she wasn’t there. Although busy these two were well worth the wait. Made even better by the continued conversation with Russell as I left the queue, as he was interested to know where the mop fitted into everything!

Next up I found myself being paparazzi to Matt as he met the glamour models Kyla Cole and Holly McGuire. There was much hilarity when Kyla asked him “So are you familiar with my work?” and the photos with Holly spawned the now infamous “Are you The Doctor?” picture. If you’ve seen it you know what I mean! I ended up having to look after the signed porn that Matt got from them, a decision I would come to regret on Sunday!

Towards the end of the day we visited a tropical animal type roadshow stall that was there for the day only. They were allowing people to touch the lizards, snakes and other more creepy things. I have to confess to having never touch a snake before, so that was a new experience. I drew the line though at the hissing cockroaches! In amongst all this, John Levene (Sgt Benton from Doctor Who) passed by resulting in some classic pictures of him trying to look pleased whilst posing with a snake.

Saturday was a hectic day, but thoroughly enjoyable. The morning’s drive was beginning to take it’s toll so we soon wandered off in search of our Alan Partridge inspired travel tavern somewhere on the motorway.