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DANNY ROBINS' EVENTS GUIDE: 30TH SEPTEMBER 2010
Post categories: Danny Robins
|11:23 UK time, Thursday, 30 September 2010
Remember the TV series Robot Wars, presented by 6Music's very own Craig Charles? Robots fighting each other, smashing themselves up with hammers and buzz saws and weird whisk appendages... pretty cool huh? Fancy seeing it in the flesh? Of course you do...
If you want the retro thrill of reliving the excitement of seeing robotic war action, get yourself to Portsmouth on Sunday 3rd. It's called Roaming Robots and is at the Mountbatten Centre in Alexandra Park. It's run by people who've taken part in Robot Wars.
If you want a line to whet your appetite, on the website it says...
"Until you have felt the floor vibrate when 100kg of robot is thrown 6ft in the air... or the thud of 20kg hammer of doom hitting another robot, you don't realise just how big, ferocious and deadly these machines really are."
Sounds like fun for all the family. Or for nerdy blokes like me who get off on metallic carnage between robots with names like Maelstrom, Whirlwind and Stewie.
You'll be glad to know that all of the fights are fought in accordance with the rules of the FRA (the Fighting Robots Association) the FIFA of the robotic world.
There's two shows - one at 12pm and one at 3.30pm. As well as watching, you can have a look at all the robots in the pits and meet the roboteers and even get to have a go fighting with some robots yourself. Bring it on!
Hyper Japan London Festival - Fri 1st - Sun 3rd Oct
The Old Truman Brewery, a big exhibition space on Brick Lane in East London is being taken over by a festival of Japanese pop art this weekend.
Japanese pop art stuff has been cool for a while now and this will be, I think, the largest ever collection of it in one place in the UK. There are loads of stalls and pop-up shops full of Japanese clothing, food, collectibles, magazines and toys. Many of the brands bringing their wares over have never previously been available in the UK.
Aspiring artists and animators might be interested in the Manga drawing seminar on Saturday, film buffs might want to check out the screening of a Japanese Anime cartoon film on Friday morning, fashionistas can go to the shows organised by Kera, Japan's leading street fashion mag, and for the drinkers there's An Introduction to Sake.
And are you familiar with the concept of Cosplay? I have to admit I only heard of it recently but it's a Japanese trend that has spread across the world and is huge now. Combining the words 'costume' and 'play', it's where groups of people get together and dress up as their favourite characters from manga comics, anime films and video games (though here in the West it's been taken on to include characters from Sci Fi TV and films and even historical characters).
It goes beyond just fancy dress though - cosplayers really try and 'become' the characters, adopting their body language and sometimes even acting out scenes in role. At Hyper Japan, there are Cosplay parades on Saturday and Sunday and an award for the best Cosplayer.
And if you get peckish whilst you're wandering around snapping up pop art goodies, there's going to be some great food - a lot of London's best Japanese restaurants are going to be there providing noodles, gyoza, sushi and other delights for festival-goers.
Advance tickets are selling out, but if you don't lay your hands on those in time, you can still go down on the day - it just might mean you have to queue.
Go, buy cool things, eat good food and who knows - maybe even get into costume?
As you'll probably know, it's almost always 'National Something or other' Day or Week. Remember National Be Nice to Nettles Week that we talked about on the show a few months ago? That sort of thing... and there's quite a few this week.
Friday 1st is World Smile Day. This was set up by Harvey Ball, the artist who came up with the iconic 'smiley face' logo that was appropriated by the rave scene amongst others. Harvey reckoned over-use of his logo meant that it had lost its meaning and we should all devote one day of our year to doing kind acts that make people smile. It's random acts of kindness along the lines of the things Danny Wallace gets up to in his book Join Me. World Smile Day has spread from Harvey's home town in the US all over the world, so if you need an excuse to do nice things, why not join in and make someone smile?
Or, you could forget all about being nice to people and be nice to animals instead. Sat 2nd is National Badger Day. I love badgers. I even did a running series of sketches on my Radio 4 series The Museum of Everything about a fictional badger-themed theme park called Badgerland. But apparently, badgers are under threat from people wanting to shoot them so they don't spread bovine TB so Saturday is your chance to stand up and make a difference.
Badgers aren't your thing? No problem, Sat 2nd is also the start of Red Squirrel Week. Yes, that's right - these Squirrels get a whole week - take that badgers! This one's got some great tag lines - 'Spend a week seeing red' and 'We're nuts about them'.
But both these events seem to be superseded by the fact that on Monday 4th it is World Animal Day. Sounds just a bit vague and cover-all to me - I like the specificity of badgers and squirrels, but they have messages of support on their website from the likes of Brian Blessed, Mel C, Jilly Cooper and Uri Geller, so they have to be taken seriously. They seem to be encouraging you to organise any sort of animal-themed event to show your solidarity with the animals of the world and it is genuinely global with events held all over the planet since it started in 2001. To join in check out...
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