Location
Apex Hotel, Dundee 14:00 – 17:00
Mission Report
The first Fairy Box event five years ago occurred the weekend I was cleared to troop with the 501st Legion and the excellent social attended by all the folks who’d travelled so far from south of the border to be there means that I’ve something of a soft spot for it, despite there being very little to the occasion itself.
As one of the handful of (ir)regular Reel Icons events we get here in Scotland, this was the first opportunity to wear the Batsuit in public and a more opportune one couldn’t be asked for as its swarming with kids and, while indoors, there’s would be scope to slip away for a breather or recover should the need to de-kit rear its ugly head, especially important for me given my recent medical problems. It was tough going to make it to the end too, with me using an interim cape without the final chest fastening it meant a great deal of weight across my upper back and shoulders. The heat of so many sugar and e-numbered up kids in the room had it’s pro’s as well as cons though, the resulting buckets of sweat made slipping out of the wetsuit at the end a breeze (and a couple of minutes outside turned it into a highly efficient liquid cooling system!) but was best endured propped up against a wall and it was touch and go for a minute while standing in the photo queue as to whether I’d topple backwards and destroy the cupcake stand…
I’ve mentioned before the surprise and delight of discovering the autograph books the kids are issued with at this event – delight, that is, on my part that first year to not be in armour and asked to provide any. This year was no exception, fortunately I’d come prepared with a pile of Topps Batman Returns-style trading cards to hand out as I didn’t figure Batman signs his name as ‘Batman’ and would settle for drawing a little bat shape on his notes to Commissioner Gordon. Seems simple enough, and perhaps my woozyness wasn’t helping, but it just gets to a point when you’ve drawn a bat shape a certain number of times where it appears your hands just can’t remember which way the pen should move. I’ve no idea what shape some of those kids had in their books when they walked away so hopefully the cards came as some compensation… Didn’t see any laying about on the floor at the end so apparently they were highly prized!
It was highly decent of Rosie to take the time out to come and speak to Julie and I a couple of times during the day and I’m sorry we didn’t get the chance to say cheerio to her before the end. The staff of the Apex Hotel looked after us like kings once again (luckily they don’t search guests bags for their plastic ducks at checkout or we’d have been done up like kippers) and apologies to our fellow ISS (and honorary ISS) members for the limited socializing time on Sunday night, but some of us had to be up and away in the morning for work in the morning…
Visual Archive
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