My Hero, My Dalek

Another Armageddon passes; the first I've negotiated on my own, though I was thankful for that as the crowds were extremely cosy. I discovered that momentum was most easily maintained by finding the nearest clutch of determined teenage boys and tucking myself in till it was time to change streams, or until one of them noticed me. That sounds a lot worse than it was intended to.

There were some amazing costumes - some professional, some of home manufacture. I'll start at the bottom end of the home manufacture scale, which was the guy in the queue wearing a bin-liner and a cardboard box on his head. Possibly he wasn't actually in the queue and just got swept in by the forward momentum.

Then came Captain America and Batman, wearing stretchy material suits with fake abs. Guys - some things are better left in the bedroom, really. Especially when you're kinda dumpy and the fake abs rest on your belly, standing up. And worse, in Batman's case, the stitching has started to come loose and the fake abs are sliding down to coat the not-fake belly. A picture of Del Boy and Rodney Trotter came to mind, but luckily at that point an Assassin's Creed guy tripped over a Dalek so I had a reason to laugh insanely.

Onto the choir of Anime girls. I want to point out that most anime artists are male, which is why all the female characters have such dangerously low-cut costumes. Their real-life faithfulness in adhering to that detail had the crowds narrowly watching them walk SLOWLY AND CAREFULLY on their impossibly high heels, while spectators exuded a mix of hope and dread as far as escape went.

And then there was Daenerys Targaryen. Watchers of Game of Thrones will know that a large number of her costumes involve exceedingly tiny amounts of fabric. The most hazardous areas of the cosy crowds aforementioned were the intersections of aisles, where the sweeping-along involved a meeting of river streams and propelled people into each other. My teenage son found himself at one such intersection opposite a Daenerys who had clearly decided to skimp on the skimp. He knew he was doomed; so he lifted both arms over his head, pushed himself as far as he could to the right, closed his eyes and thanked his lucky stars when he tripped over the Dalek.

It was with a feeling of surrealism that I watched the guy in the Iron Man costume lift his helmet off to reveal dark good looks and a small goatee. Some people clearly take more trouble with their costumes than others.

Cosy crowds mean that certain things finally require to be carried overhead. Like 6 ft silver scimitars, and tiny tired girls. I wasn't close enough to intervene when someone called the name of Silver Scimitar and he turned in the exact arc to sweep Tiny Tired Girl off her Dad's shoulders - but luckily he tripped over the Dalek.

Turns out the Dalek was the hero of the day.