Individual Eleven – The World's Cyberbrain

The weekend was jam packed full of people attending the London MCM Expo, hosted at the Excel Center. Around 30,000 visitors were at the show, it doesn’t surprise me considering it took an hour of queueing before going through the entrance.

As ever, I have taken some pictures and video footage of the event. The first video is a general tour of the expo, and the second contains clips from the Cosplay Masquerade competition that was held on Sunday. I have to apologise in advance for some of the commentary, it was completely on the fly but there are no profanities that I am aware of!

London MCM Expo – A quick tour, with a bit of randomness thrown in.

London MCM Expo – Sunday’s Cosplay Masquerade

Gordon Brown has this notion he can resolve the entire world’s economy in one meeting. Perhaps, at least, plan on what actions are needed to dig us out of this economic cesspool. A number of world leaders making up the global economy are gathering next week for the G20 summit in London. As with many G summits (most notably the G8), there will be protest marches on a variety of topics the public has grievances over.

Given the global situation right now, you can hazard a guess that the main topic on the agenda is the failure of financial institutions. Moreover, this is the source of anger for many people, who saw their investments dwindle away to worthless equity. With redundancies and the jobless count rising at a steep climb, the average Joe Bloggs have every reason to be angry at the government. It begs the question whether any of these leaders foresaw what was happening, and just sat back to reap as much money as humanly possible before the bubble burst.

Of course, the gravity of the situation introduces a blame culture, and anyone remotely tied into banking institutions, or stock brokers, are being head hunted literally. I don’t mean this in the recruitment sense either. Death threats have been issued to employees at AIG in Connecticut, with more likely to follow. The public will not be satisfied until said head is claimed and sitting on a silver platter. The emphasis is that someone has to pay for financial failure and the witch-hunt has begun.

So here we are with the G20, it is make or break time for Gordon Brown with his political career. He can perhaps strike a “coup d’état” on all his doubters, but with so many differences in viewpoint with the countries involved I would be very surprised if anything substantial is achieved. The G20 is being held at the London Docklands, Excel Centre and no doubt security will be very tight. The protest being held today, will start at the Victoria Embankment and then finish in Hyde Park. Many children are involved in this peaceful march, I guess ultimately the children are the ones who will suffer the most as they will be the inheritors of what happens over the next 5 to 10 years.

Coincidentally, the Excel Centre is also the venue for the London MCM Expo, which I will be going to in May. A much more light-hearted event than the G20, nevertheless the Cosplay Ball could be cancelled and a booze up at a local hotel is arranged instead. But I am sure there will still be cosplayers at the show. The thought of having a pint or two with Sephiroth and the Sailor Moon girls sounds splendid.