In this issue: trip to a jumble sale; digression about cosplay; Mad Hatters Teaparty; good samaritans

I went on a quest to a jumble sale this morning. It was free, and somewhere to go: up in zone 3 in Tottenham. I've got rather bored of chain second hand shopping of late. Fair does to charities wanting to do the best for their causes, but if things are costing more than a pound, then it really takes the fun out of bargain hunting. Oxfam Books, I'm looking at you. In trying to appeal to a mainstream, most of the daft crap I'd treasure doesn't even reach the shelves.

The playground had been overtaken by about thirty car-boots and casual tables. Nothing seemed higher than a fiver, and it was like rifling through an attic. An electronic elephant graveyard, with boxes of broken DVD players; clothes, bizzare clothes; ugly jewellery; bad books; 8-track tapes. I loved it. Nothing was intrinsically valuable, but the enjoyment of shopping like that is the hunt: everything must have been the object of ardent desire to somebody, somewhere. Like the string of badly broken garden lights, tangled into knots with a mouse, a playstation and an old wire game. Bet no one ever thought that would be wanted by anyone.

It took me about 10 minutes to get the garden lights free, for one man's plastic tat is another's Liberator ray gun.

I've been building one for about a month now. I've got a really nice, cheap torch of the right proportions for a handle. I've a collection of five juice bottles in my room, all a little too big or small. I've been going down Asda corridors doing little Avon impressions to see if they "feel right"; I've even found the perfect shape in the Asda basics shampoo and conditioner, but alas those bottles are white, not see-thru.

I've no idea whether I should try and get the garden lamp bulb working with a switch, or dismantle it and slot the torch in, but I'm very happy with my purchase. At £2, it's actually cheaper than the Taste The Difference Lemonade experiment cost, and there are four lamps giving me three failed test runs. I also picked up a nice utility belt, and some curly black wire to attach it.

I still don't know where I'm going with all this. Cosplay being the inheritor of shamanistic ritual imitation, the vague plan is to have a bash at Blake. But he has an awful lot of things I don't have: not so much a gender-swap as Rugged Mega-Manly Man Masculinty; not so much size, as Serious Heroic Presence. I've a funny feeling the Robin Hood In Space aesthetic would translate to me as a thigh-slappin' pantomime pirate.

Calypso thinks it'll still work. Her theory is something like "If You Are More Attractive Than The Person You Are Cosplaying As, It Doesn't Matter". And I supposie that's why I make such a damn fine Sixth Doctor: because Colin Baker really didn't look good in his costume, whereas I rock it. When standing in a line of other Doctor cosplayers, they may be more accurate - but I'm still the hottest person in the room and the only one not going through a mid-life crisis. So I win.

That still leaves me in a bit of a spot, though. I'm easily more attractive than Colin Baker - but Gareth Thomas
is rather yummy in his own way, so here's a poll. If the internet thinks I'm hotter, than I will power ahead and buy tight trousers. If I lose my own poll on my own blog, then I'll go for one of the lady-characters (I don't know who this Soolin bird is - she hasn't turned up yet - but she would be instantly easier...)

So, there's the poll --------------> Vote! Vote now!

This may be academic, I don't know. I can't in good faith use a costume until I've got to the end, by which point I may no longer want to. And for now, I wouldn't pass up an opportunity to wear my fantastic coat.

As indeed I wasn't today, going to a Mad Hatter's Teaparty picnic purely as an excuse to legitimately wear all my outrageous gear at once. I took the bus back and established the route from Tottenham to London was one long retail strip with rubbish kebab shops on it. We had the angriest bus driver ever.

I stopped off at the Maughan library, for a little voluntary Latin and transform into my costume. Alas! No pictures, but I was wearing two different sorts of stripes (yellow and black + pink and white) plus the multicolour coat; a paisley cravat; the top hat complete with the Queen of Hearts, and I've developed a new style where I curl my hair over the brim of the hat and hold it there with the hatband. The result looks something between a mad powder wig and organic milinery. The tragic thing is, of course, that it didn't really feel like being in costume, as it's a combination I would have worn under most circumstances.

The picnic was in St James' Park, and consisted of caterpiller cake, cucumber sandwiches, mini mushrooms, and of course, tea marked "Drink Me". About 10 people ultimately attended - including Miss Liddell as Alice, Alzarius as the White Rabbit (he had pinched his mum's bathroom clock and attached it as a chain for a crazy huge pocket watch), and also Lady Gaga and the Black Corsair. Later, Ajax showed up. Time passed - from 4 until 9 - and for the whole time, the company kept up this appalling banter, somewhere between the language of the internet and Oscar Wilde dining room dialogue.

Perhaps it will turn out to be an expensive day after all? I got to play with the sonic screwdriver app on an iphone. It's a picture of a sonic screwdriver. You can make it move, and sounds work. That's about it - but it made me so very, very happy. It's a stupid reason to want one of the wretched things - especially because my poor mp3 player died earlier in the day, and my first thought was "Oh dear, that's a shame - but it has done three years good service, and one of those after being dunked in pineapple juice, so I can't complain". Not "I need an iphone as a replacement music player".

That would have been the end of the day's excitement, if not for some careless tourists and a little purple notebook at Westminster station. I like stationary, I like helping people, and I like being nosy - so I zeroed in on it very quickly and had a flick through. It contained very detailed plans of a holiday starting today in London, thenceforth to Paris, Frankfurt and Belsen - and had obviously just come from Korea because of the Korean hotel stationary, and had originated from Spain. Definitely an important notebook to return. For a moment, I thought their names might have been the two helpfully written in the back of the book. But I revised that estimate when I discovered a handy sheet of paper with the couple's full names, card numbers, expiry dates and security codes written on it. If not for that, I might have handed it into the station lost property box. But I always like returning things in person, as lost property boxes tend to be bottomless pits (especially if you're off in Central London and you can't remember where you dropped stuff), if there's enough information for me to do so - and I had enough information to bankrupt the pair of them then stalk them for the next month so yes, I had enough information. In a situation like that, you can only really trust yourself. I'm so glad it fell into the hands of someone absolutely morally unimpeachable...

...and I'm intrigued to discover how tricky being morally unimpeachable is when someone has handed their Mastercard, Visa and Paypal details to you. Even though I feel a sort of proxy fondness towards this pair, they are still pillocks.

Their hotel was on my route home - they had helpfully written down both the address of the apartment and the address of the check-in desk. I tried to make myself a little more presentable. By this point, I had long abandoned footware due to appalling blisters - because I made the mistake of buying ladyshoes and then trying to, y'know, walk in them. But I did my best to diminish the insanity of the Hatter costume, and arrived five minutes before the desk closed to discovered they had not yet arrived, so swapped details with the lady at the desk. I should really have left it with her, but that scrap of paper with the card information on really bothered me - besides, it was sort-of my responsibility by that point.

I worried for them a little bit on the way home - I mean, if you're on a journey that crazy you'd have lots of luggage, so why wouldn't they check in as soon as they arrived in London? I knew when that was as well...I wondered if their bizzare traveling was a once-in-a-lifetime megaholiday; or maybe they were rich folks on a run-of-the-mill jaunt, or perhaps international criminals?

I got a call from the hotel on exiting the Tube and arranged to drop it off the next day - she has a strange, hysterical voice. And quite a disappointing one too. I'm also a little crushed I won't be able to meet them; charity and voyeurism go hand in hand.

All in all, a busy, strange day.