Geeky London trip 2014: The Who Shop

UPDATED: So regarding fandoms and this blog, I leave most of the fandoms stuff for my Tumblr blog here, but from time to time I'll be posting geeky stuff here as well, especially if reviews or feminist writing are involved (especially given that I'm the writes-a-lot type and I don't want to flood my Tumblr with lots of writing as yet xD). 

*END OF UPDATE*

So, first geeky-site review! I've recently come back from a geeky holiday in London (with my equally geeky mum) and I have so many geeky pics to share ^^. During our stay in London, we focused on three fandoms: Sherlock BBC (my favourite fandom!), Harry Potter and Doctor Who. 

I'm relatively new to Doctor Who, although I'm steadily beginning to identify with the word 'Whovian' and am currently the proud owner of  my very own sonic screwdriver ^^. General info about me and DW includes Ten and Nine being my fave doctors and loving the TARDIS :). And I'm still interested in writing reviews of DW episodes from a feminist point of view, btw (just, I haven't got a lot of spare time at the moment, that's why there's only one review here. But I've already drafted a couple more). 

   So, during our stay in London we decided to pay the Who Shop a visit. Emboldened by our desire to get a model of the TARDIS and sonic screwdrivers xD (just because they're cool :), and for our future cosplays as well), we undertook the relatively lengthy journey to this whovian destination in Upton Park. 

   I had read that this area was a bit dodgy, but, to tell the truth, I didn't find it all that different from other parts of London. It's not central London, granted, but (at least during the morning) I didn't find it that dodgy-desolate as I had been expecting, which was a good thing. The only unsavoury people we met was a brute of a woman shouting and hitting her children for asking her water on the tube back to central London (poor kids :( ).

   After getting off the tube, we decided to go the opposite way and ended up taking one bus to nearly Canary Wharf (the fates wanted me to experience feels again, it seems), and then another back to where we should have been going. Turned out that London A-Z was right and it was a short walking distance from the Upton Park tube, only the numbers on the streets were a bit jumbled up and we decided that turning right instead of left was the right thing to do xD. Well, at least we got some fish and chips for lunch.

    So after our little adventure, here we were (click on pics for larger image):

The shop is biggish and TARDIS blue (obviously). The shop windows were pretty cool as well, with lots of random Whovian merchandising, daleks and a cardboard cutout of Ten included:

The interior of the shop was satisfyingly geeky, even for one who doesn't still fully identify as Whovian. They had quite a lot of stuff, such as TARDISes, Daleks (both full size decorative models and merchandising), books, magazines, toys, prop replicas, some costumes, plastic screwdrivers with light and sound effects (we got two of those, Ten's - my mum will cosplay Nine because he's her favourite, but the screwdriver is basically the same), DVDs and CDs, and T-shirts, among other stuff.

 Regarding the T-shirts, they had some female sizes as well as male, yay for a bit more equality. Although there wasn't a lot of variety, imo, and the sizing, even if female-intended, was still too large for me. I don't see why thin-structured people like me can't have geeky T-shirts that fit us snugly (it is a bother to be a female geek and like snug clothing rather than loose clothing!). And the same for larger people. Such limited sizing is not cool (anywhere in the clothes industry, but specifically in the geek culture industry) :/.

There were also some Star Trek and Sherlock items (just some T-shirts and books in the last case). My mum got a cool Sherlock T-shirt with 221B on it, and we also got a cute (and shared) TARDIS model with sound and light effects.

One of the two full-sized TARDISes in the shop, and the full-sized Dalek (with 'Don't touch or you will be exterminated' on it):

And here's me having fun with the (very fearsome xD) Dalek. I've always thought they're kinda cute, but it actually sort of freaks one out a bit when you have a full-sized one standing right next to you in real life...Laughing at it in the pics might not have been a great idea, now I think about it...:D

                                       

The shop also includes a small museum with some costumes and props, some of them replicas, some original, and mainly classic Who-themed. I personally didn't find it all that thrilling (I wasn't expecting Cardiff Who experience level (which I still haven't visited), but perhaps a little bit more). Also, I'm hardly familiar with classic Who yet, so that's probably  another factor why I wasn't thrilled about it.

The visit to the museum included unlocking and stepping into one of the model TARDISes, and that was pretty awesome on its own and totally worth it, though! (Please notice the fact that we both decided to wear something blue :) ):

 

And more fun pics with the TARDIS! 

     

                                                

I like this pic a lot :). TARDIS aside, hey, my hair's looking long! From my perspective, it usually doesn't feel that long to me, so cool :)

And because we need a rant of sorts in an activist blog (feel free to skip. If not, read more):

 The staff of the shop was friendly and helpful, but there was one thing I didn't quite like about the Who Shop, and that is their photograph policy. Apparently, you can only take pics in the TARDIS if you've paid to see the 'museum', and you can take pics of the items in the 'museum', but you cannot post them online (I'm sorry, but what's exactly the point of that, from a fan's point of view? I didn't feel like taking any pics because I'm not familiar with Classic!Who yet, but still, didn't quite understand. Do they think that people won't come to visit their museum if there are pics online? Personally, seeing pics of places where I want to go further motivates me to go and gives me an idea of what to expect). You apparently can't make videos either (once again, I find video tours pretty helpful before visiting the actual place). Also, donating the museum fees to charity is pretty nice, but I still think that donations should be about free choice, rather than a part of compulsory fees to get into a museum.

   Some people might disagree with me, but I've always thought that we shouldn't pay for culture and fandoms in all the ways we're made to pay. Buying merchandising, buying a book, going to the theatre or the cinema, that's one thing. But having to pay in order to make a geeky pic with a TARDIS (as I understood it, you could only take pics if you paid for the museum)? No offense, but I find this not only quite ridiculous, but veering on taking advantage of fan's enthusiasm for the series. As if fans, and people in general, didn't have to pay for enough things already! (the fandom life isn't exactly a cheap life, especially if you collect merchandising and/or cosplay).

  That is also the reason why I get angry at several anti-piracy strategies (not only SOPA, everything in general). Methinks we pay enough taxes to be able to enjoy culture (that includes listening to music, reading e-books, watching films, and also visiting museums) without having to pay all the damn time for everything (and pretty abusive prices as well)! I assure you that if I like a movie, soundtrack or book, I'll end up buying them, but I shouldn't have to buy every movie, CD and book in existence just because I am curious about them (what if I end up not liking them, isn't it a waste (of money and materials) to throw them away? And I'm sorry, but I think that nobody has enough money to do that).

 I think many anti-piracy movements have to do way more with the companies wanting to enrich themselves as much as possible than with concern about the artists loosing any considerable amounts of money (and it is known that most of the money doesn't go to the artists). 

   I'm also pretty much against the non-photograph policy in many museums (for which we usually have to pay as well). I understand about having to take non-flash, non-sound photographs, for the sake of the items and the people seeing the museums, but not allowing any kind of pics speaks clearly about the museum's policy - trying to make people pay for as much as they can. Apart from the visit, if they want a pic, they'll have to make good use of the museum's collection of (ridiculously low quality and scantily varied, but pricey) postcards, because apparently a museum isn't here to promote and share culture, it's here to make money. It often happens to me that I need some pics for research purposes, but seeing as there are no postcards of what I want, I have to either leave without the pics or try to take a couple of discrete pics surreptitiously, which is really a very uncomfortable situation (not because I think that I'm doing any wrong, but because I'm tired of paid guards having to tell me off for a perfectly harmless picture). 

 That's why I find it such a refreshing change when I step into a museum that's both great quality, and free, and pro-pics, like the British Museum. You can say a lot of controversial things about this museum, but at least you don't have to pay an exorbitant ticket, and there are no obnoxious museum guards snooping around trying to find someone taking an 'illegal' picture. Guards are there to ensure that people don't break things and create any kind of conflict, which is what guards should be all about. And I don't see the British Museum having financial problems, btw.

Overall, I know it's a complicated issue, but I also think that we should be able to appreciate and have access to culture without it being called 'piracy' and 'theft'. Same as we shouldn't have to pay so damn much for healthcare and education. Maybe if corporations and unnecessary monarchies didn't use (oh, can we use 'steal' here?) so much money coming from people's taxes, then maybe this stuff wouldn't be such a big deal. I find it sad that money be considered more important than education, culture and healthcare. I think culture, education and healthcare should be available to ALL. To reserve it for those with (reasonable amounts of) money is unfair and elitist.

*end of the controversial rant*

This post is starting to get long, so I'll leave the DW merchandising pics for next post. Until then!