It’s Saturday, so Maggie and I had plans for a day out.

Plans that failed.
Plans that failed badly.

But at least I can teach you something now, so here it is:

Mr. Topp’s Guide to Failing at Having a Day Out.

Have a plan

In order to fail at something, there has to be success criteria first. So a plan is required, if you’re going to fail at having your day out.

A beginner might make a plan that has no reasonable chance at success. But this doesn’t generate a true failed day out. No, to properly fail, set out a reasonable plan for what you might do or achieve that day. It works even better if it sounds like fun.

Our plan toady

Our plan today is a good example. It simply does not sound too difficult.

First, we wanted to buy a costume. Next weekend, we are attending a screening of The Muppet Christmas Carol, and there is an award for Best Costume. We don’t have time to make a costume, so we were going to buy one instead. This means that Maggie almost certainly won’t win, of course, but things will be more fun if we are participating. So the first part of the plan was to hit Oxford Street for a Christmas-themed costume to wear.

After buying a costume, we would grab lunch.

After lunch, we would head to Winter Wonderland. We would stop by a skate shop first, on the off chance that they sell skate runners that can strap over Maggie’s boots, so we could go skating.

Start failing early

My plans were starting to fail before I even got out of bed in the morning. One glance out the window showed it was raining. One glance at the weather forecast showed it was not going to stop.

So what do I think about Winter Wonderland in the rain? Skating at Winter Wonderland in the rain?

I don’t think highly of it at all. I think so little, actually, that I decided that if it didn’t stop raining, I wouldn’t even bother.

Fail unexpectedly

Like every day out with Maggie, a bag was packed. We needed a bottle of water, a couple of nappies, and some snacks. Additionally, we made sure we had mittens and hats, in case the weather cleared and ice skating returned to the menu. Finally, we took my camera. I figured that it might be nice to take photos, if we happened to make it to Winter Wonderland.

I put them all in a normal backpack. I have two camera bags, but one is too small (it could hold the camera, of course, but not all that other stuff) and the other is big, and hangs over the shoulder. This would result in some discomfort when I inevitably had to carry Maggie for long periods of time.

I should have sucked it up, and taken the large shoulder bag. Because if I had, I’m pretty sure my camera lens would have survived being dropped when I was on the train.

But I didn’t. And the only camera lens I brought was broken before I had a chance to snap even one picture.

Fail to anticipate

We get to Oxford Circus, broken camera and all.

The streets are blocked off. This is good — Christmas crowds are too big for the sidewalks of Oxford Street, as wide as they are.
McFly is playing. This is bad. Not because I hate McFly, but because the crowds are even larger than normal Christmas-season-Oxford-Street crowds. Which is to say that even though the blocked streets had enough room to move, the insanity indoors (and out of the rain) was even crazier than usual.

Don’t find what you need

But all this aside, Maggie and I have found ourselves at Oxford and Regent Street, before noon, thirty-one days before Christmas. We are here for one thing, and one thing only: a Christmas themed costume.

Success is inevitable.

We look in Hamley’s, the famous toy store. They have exactly one Christmas themed “costume” in Maggie’s size. It’s a red dress. An ugly, cheap red dress. It looks like it should cost £1 at Primark. It says “Little Miss Christmas” on the front. It is £26. I think about buying it anyways. I convince myself I can come back if I need to. I won’t need to.

We look in other stores. BHS. John Lewis (kind of). Sulfridges (halfway). House of Frasier.

Viable Christmas outfits can be assembled. But costumes? No luck. And it’s past time for lunch.

And this is where Maggie falls asleep.

Failed at the easy thing? How about the easier thing?

It was good that Maggie fell asleep, because she was hungry. And I couldn’t find us food.

I tried the John Lewis “Place To Eat”. It had a giant queue. I was holding a sleeping baby.

I tried the House of Frasier tea room. It had a short queue, and every seat was clearly taken. I was holding a sleeping baby.

I walked past pubs and cafes, looking in. Free tables were not present. I was holding a sleeping baby.

Eventually, I found a random restaurant which actually had a place to sit down inside. It only took an hour to get there.

Find out another part of the plan actually isn’t possible

Remember the skate shop I was hoping to visit? It isn’t even on Oxford Street.

Get told to give up by a two year old

Maggie laid down in the store, and had to be coaxed back outside.

“Train home now?”

At this point, I wasn’t hard to convince.

We mentioned it back in June, but it’s worth mentioning again now — on Sunday, exactly one year after her first night back at home after giving birth, Karen will run a half-marathon.

It’s very impressive stuff (you should support her), and I’ll be there cheering … and taking photos.

I took some photos at a 10 km race this past summer — I meant to snap some photos of a friend, but of course I somehow managed to completely miss him running by. There were still plenty of photos of other runners, however. With the race coming up this weekend, these photos seem a suitable lead-in to this weekend’s race.

When photographing a race, of course, I first get the lead runners:

Once the leaders are photographed, I continue to snap away at those following. These photos are usually thrown out, but sometimes I get something pretty good:

Men and women usually race together, but are counted separately. I keep my eyes open to get the leading lady, though sometimes she can be lost in the crowd:

Once this is done, we get to the masses, and I begin looking for interesting people and situations.

For instance, some people insist on running with their headphones in. I understand why people do this in training, but a race is about more than your own running — it’s about the course, the fans, and the other runners too. It seems wrong to wear headphones while running. But some people do. And for some reason, I found a group of these people clustered together:

Of course, most of the remaining photos are of runners in costume (“fancy dress”, as they say here in England).

First, you get those in lightweight costumes that are unlikely to much impact their performance:

Then you move on to those with more elaborate costumes:

Finally, towards the back of the pack, you find people racing in costumes that make you wonder how they do it. I admire these people:

One last photo before we’re done — the obligatory black-and-white arty photo with the runners out of focus:

Don’t forget to donate to Shelter in support of Karen by clicking here, and come cheer her on in Hyde Park this Sunday.

All photos by Mr. Topp. Photos were taken at the Ascics British 10K London Run on July 10th.

We are now less than a week away from the London Marathon.

On Sunday, the roads will close and thousands of runners will pass in close proximity of my home. This will be the third year that I have lived along the marathon route. It is the third year that I have had my SLR camera. It is the third year of the Big Bad Blog.

It feels as though the Blog and the Marathon are interlinked. We have blogged an awful lot about marathons — mostly pitcures of people in fancy dress, but also a lesson about arriving early, if you plan to take photos.

And, most memorably, our most popular post of all time is marathon-related.

So wish us well in our photographic efforts this weekend, and show up if you can and cheer for complete strangers.

The Morning Coffee, you might have noticed, generally includes a Webcomic. One of our favourite – hence most common – webcomics is Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

One thing that confuses us here at the Morning Coffee is how organisations such as the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) can exist. Here is an institution that is dedicated to a single thing: denying rights to a minority group.

How such a group can exist in 2011 — how many people think the existence of such a group is acceptable in 2011 — is beyond me. We often link to amazing new technological breakthroughs in this space, and claim that we are living in the future. Sometimes it seems that we are reliving some of the more inglorious moments of our past.

But … here comes the good part. NOM appropriated today’s choice of Webcomic for their website — but they hotlinked to it. So Zach Weiner, author of the comic changed the image to the following:

Of course, here is the original comic. And Mr. Weiner? We salute you.

Photo found at FFFFound. Photographer unknown.
Webcomic is Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal by Zach Weiner.