Last year I went to a lot of trouble buying a replica of the costume that David Tennant wore as the 14th Doctor in the long-running TV series, Doctor Who. When Carmen found out he was going to be at the ExCeL in London for MCM Comic Con, I think she was quite keen on going, and for me it was chance to use the costume again. I added one small addition this year though: psychic paper. The prop in Doctor Who originally used a UK Driving License folder with the foil removed from the embossing, so I used the same. The prop should have some small changes to it to be 100% accurate, but it’s close enough I feel.

The doors open at 09:00, and you have to join a queue in a different hall in order to pick-up your tickets. The thought of it is something that reminds me of SDCC, and not in a good way. Fortunately though, we found the hall was empty, having arrived a little after the opening time so we were able to collect our badges quickly, and made our way to the north hall, and started to look around Artist alley. I felt we could have been more efficient, but we deliberately missed a lot to get to the main stage. Only those with tickets could enter, so we sat down in a chair for the live stage instead.

At 10:55 the interview with David Tennant started and went on until 11:45. I think it was worth taking a break for that. We then looked round some more of the north hall before moving in to the south. The north hall was too busy really, the south hall wasn’t much better, but wet did our best. The general entries were now open, and that was why it was so much busier. It was like moving around on a crowded subway platform at rush hour. It makes it difficult to look at every stall, and when you stop it sometimes feels like you're in the way of someone else.

I’d been tempted to photograph a lot of cosplayers but it was that busy it didn’t feel possible. For those that I really wanted to though, and if there was space, I did go to the effort of asking and then getting the shot I wanted. I think having done a London Comic Con now, if I was to do one again I'd most likely wear something more comfortable for summer weather. A Doctor Who costume is too warm. I'm sure the Daleks that were waiting outside the hall would agree that I wasn't in a playful enough mood to mess around when I came across them - it would have made for some more fun photographs, but I just wanted to get going.