December 18, 2005
Santacon 2005
Well, I made it even though I was a little late as I had to wait while my washing machine was being fixed!
What excellent fun Santacon is! I don't know how many santas turned up yesterday, but Soho was full of them when I arrived in the middle of the afternoon.
The police were out in force, monitoring discreetly and chatting to any santae who wanted to share some Christmas cheer with them. At one point they seemed to be trying to encourage the santas to move along, but generally they just let us do what we wanted, which mainly involved singing carols and moving to the next pub.
Santa Steven has written a very good and complete write up of the entire day and I don't think I can do much better than that, although I ought to say that the meat pie I tucked into after we were kicked out of the Tate Modern (Santa had lots of fun slilding on the floor) was anything but vegan. I also disagree with Steven that the Rachel Whiteread exhibition is boring. It is reminiscent of igloos and Santa felt quite at home (I know that Finland isn't renounded for igloos, but it does snow a lot in winter).
I'll post a few of my own photos as soon as I can remember how...
OK, I have learned how to add photos on MT again (for a non-techie, this was quite a feat). Here are some of the snaps I took:
First up this is Big Bad Wolf Santa whose fault it is that I even heard about SantaCon in the first place:
Sadly I didn't manage to capture BBWS's trusty companion Little Red Riding Hood Santa on film - they made a great team! Hopefully someone will pubish a photo of her.
After singing carols on Oxford Street, we all headed to St Paul's on the tube (effectively losing our police escort at the same time). Not sure what the tourists made of it when 400 santae entered the train.
After St Paul's we trooped across the Thames to the South Bank
where we joined in with some proper carol singers... actually they joined in with us, but who's being picky?
Onto the Tate Modern where most santae were appreciative of the exhibition
although that didn't stop a little horseplay on the shiney sloping floor (made an excellent slide)
Finally, here's a pic of a very handsome Santa (ahem!):
MERRY CHRISTMAS! HO HO HO...