World Book Day

Oh yeah, World Book Day Happened

Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

That said, I’m not too worried about not blogging on the day about it as so many schools have decided to do things on the Friday before the weekend rather than have dress-down days. Only this morning I had a number of Harry Potters appear for Rhymetime, making me wish I’d brought in one of my replica wands with which to join in the fun and practice some spells with them.

Yesterday was the day itself though, and as libraries we did our best to fit it in with our general mission of getting interesting books in front of variously interested people of all ages. I was unable to convince any of the staff working with me to actually dress up as anything, so I was left to fly the flag and adopt most of my Harley Quinn cosplay while still remaining professional and unscary to the majority of our customers. In other words: no weapons, no facepaint, no fake tattoos, or blood (fake, or otherwise).

Just an average day at the library

In practice this meant a white shirt, the red and black waistcoat made by Lady M, and the old red and black nail varnish. This was fine, and bemused a number of elderly customers who didn’t dare ask what was going on. My staff are used to it, so all was well. We just didn’t get any children older than two and a half in all day. You might think therefore that this was a waste of time, but I say any excuse to wear cosplay at work and be paid for it is no bad thing. Then again, I am famous for having no shame over these things.

I couldn’t be bothered to remove the nail varnish last night, so I’m still wearing it today, along with my more general casually smart library manager attire. So far I’ve had ten people admire and compliment my nails while I’ve been serving them. I’ll take that.

World Book Day

Tim MaidmentLeave a comment

Continuing in our onward journey to have an awesome year, I’ve made sure to leap into any opportunity to do something worth remembering with at least affection if not glee. Today was a perfect opportunity. I work in a library when I’m not writing, so it was a bit of a no-brainer to do something for World Book Day 2015.

Lady P
The lesser-spotted cosplaying assistant library manager

Lady P has already made waves with her Daenerys Targaryen cosplay, which she plans to bring to May’s MCM in London, so this was a perfect opportunity to give the costume a test run. Knowing that Demonic had some LARP gear available, I prevailed on him to lend me some armour, so that I could make a passable claim to be Ser Barristan Selmy, her trusted military adviser. (Oh, okay, I could have done with a wig perhaps, or dyed my hair, but I was having fun, not trying to infiltrate a convention.)

It was great fun – we had people give us all sorts of strange looks, mostly people who don’t have school-age kids and that was part of the joy of the day. There was something very British about the way people wanted to ask what the hell was going on but coped by not acknowledging our garb in any way. I particularly enjoyed greeting some people who were teetering on the edge with an innocent “What?” and pretending that they were the ones strangely dressed, not us.

We had a window display and arranged a fancy dress story time, and made a point of tweeting on the library’s account about it all, with a series of photos. The local paper got wind of it (oh okay, we called them a couple of days ago) and sent a photographer round, and then somehow our pictures got noticed by a national newspaper. Suddenly we were appearing alongside a round-up of teachers for World Book Day celebrations – which was odd, but rather gratifying.

A Khaleesi and her tribute
A Khaleesi and her tribute

To round it all off, we decided to treat ourselves to a quick drink at our favourite local coffee – and we’ve had an ongoing conversation with the corporate twitter account about Lady P’s cosplay, so when we mentioned our plans they offered a free coffee. When we got there, they had decorated one of the blackboards in her honour – so we just had to pose. Can’t wait to see the other pictures they took.

By the time Lady M joined us, we felt a little bit mobbed by staff and other customers (in a good way), and conversations have been had about Lady P’s availability to cosplay at future events at the coffee house – so a bit of a result for her there too!

So all in all, a good day!