antique roadshow

I've learnt for a few weeks now that BBC's Antique Roadshow was going to be in Sheffield on May 10th. I'm not normally an AR fan, but I didn't dare voice my preference for the other antique BBC broadcast, Cash in the Attic, today.

I got on an earlier train this morning with hopes of going to my office before heading to the City Hall. When I got into the city, a queue of about 20 already existed (an hour and a half before the doors were supposed to open)! I had to double check with the people already waiting in line to ensure that, in fact, this was the line for AR and while I was contemplating on whether I should come back in 45 minutes, the line doubled in size in a matter of seconds.

Luckily, I was in the first wave of people the stewards ushered into the ballroom. The glimpse of the appraiser guys through the glass doors caused quite a stir amongst the older ladies in the crowd. It was then that I realized that I was significantly younger than the majority of the population - at least, 30 years their junior.

It was a morning of queues. We waited in another line to get our treasure-from-home pre-screened by the receptionist. I was very excited when the receptionist looked at the hand-painted ships I had brought and immediately brought them to the ballroom to consult an appraiser. I thought that this would be my - excuse me, the item I brought - only chance to be televised but unfortunately, no luck :(

Once again, there were queues everywhere once I entered the ballroom - queues for paintings, ceramics, books, militaria, etc and filming was taking place concurrently. Everything was happening all at once and I was more interested in everything else going on than my task at hand: getting the ships appraised. On a final note, to be an appraiser you need to have a poor fashion sense as the appraiser I met wore pink and white checkered shirt and red corduroy pants (I mean, trousers).

All in all, a very English experience.

I would have posted a picture of the ships for you to see but because I was explicitly shown twice at home on how to put the delicate ships back in their layers of packaging (it was like doing origami or advanced map-folding) but I'm scared to take them out of their boxes again.