lproven | Part 3

It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive, it's been said. I did plenty of that. National Rail Enquiries rather depressingly told me there'd be no train 'til 3:30pm; we actually got one an hour earlier. Then the damned thing was delayed by nearly an hour, so we missed the hourly train to Scarborough. Swines! Don't trust them. Never trust authority! (Except this, obviously.)

There isn't much to do in York Station for 45min on a Sunday evening. There's a fake pub, an Upper Crust and a Burger King. Then, to further enhance our joy, the Scarborough train was delayed too, by 10-15 minutes. Kjersti was almost in tears. If we'd got the 18:45 train, we'd have arrived before 8pm and got to the club at a reasonable time - albeit losing out on our planned meal and moment of relaxation. Arriving an hour later means we'll only get to Laughton's approaching 10pm - hardly optimal when it's a Sunday night and the venue closes at midnight.

But we made it. We arrived at Scarborough to find Tony the stealth Goth taxi driver waiting for us. (Shiny purple business card adorned with ghosts and bats.) Kjersti and Mathias encountered him a few days before. He's around 60 and dapperly dressed for his age - stripy shirt, sensible sweater etc. Yet there's a fluffy bat dangling from the rear view mirror, an MP3 CDR player mounted on the dash next to the LCD TV, and he listens to cutting-edge Goth music in the car. (Viz., bands I've never even heard of but she knows.) He was even sporting a wristband showing that he was attending the WGW event itself. Splendidly genial chap.

Despite wearing about 1 square foot of PVC and a handful of fishnet, it takes Kjersti 20 minutes to get changed, but we make it to Laughton's just before 10. I've barely sipped my S&B before a wave of nostalgia overtakes me and I spend the next two and a half hours (they seem to have got a small license extension; I'm not complaining) bopping away happily to everything from Adam Ant, Belinda Carlisle and Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine through to Zodiac Mindwarp. Even the Locomotion and a conga line that made it up the stairs and around the gallery. Maaaaarvelous. I am dripping, soaked with sweat, at the end; it's the most intensive aerobic workout I've had since... well, last time I was there. I suspect that if we'd got there when it started at 7pm, by 10 I'd have been in the local cardiac unit.

If I did this every week, I'd be as fit as when I was-- well, actually, I've never been that fit. Of course, if it was on every week, we'd all be bored silly with it and wouldn't do it.

Between us, it's cost us a hundred quid and well over ten hours on the train for K & I to attend some of both Novacon and Whitby. By any sensible measure, it's not remotely rational. But it has been terrific fun. Whitby is a one-of-a-kind event; Mat even has friends who've flown from America to attend. Yes, there are goth music festivals such as Leipzig, but that's a different kind of event. We'll try to avoid such a clash again, but it's been good. In three packed hours, there were lovely laydeez, really awful drinks, much silliness, and many shouted greetings. And some top choonz which sound much better 20 years on than they did first time around.

Novacon is special, but there are cons all the time, and we don't even try to attend all we could. Whitby's only twice a year. Next time, I think my choice will be clearer.