Chalky & Shirt...

...With these Chocolates you're Really Spoiling Us

(Guest Starring Tigger)

Shirt was a little annoyed.

Partly this was the fact that the whole world and it's girlfriend now seemed to be part of a couple even if (as in the case of some of his close acquaintances) that couple was a few hundred miles apart.

Partly this was due to the fact that, because Dufus was wandering back and forth from Birmingham, Lupine was visiting his grandparents and Enigma was celebrating her new boyfriend's birthday, he would have to play gooseberry to Chalky and Tigger at the latest 7^th Galaxy signing.

The signing itself had been 'subject to change'. Initially, Caroline John was to celebrate the release of The Ambassadors of Death on video, Anneke Wills was to sign copies of The Smugglers on CD and Lynda Bellingham was going to sign some (probably embarrassing) photographs of herself, dolled up as the Inquisitor.

However, Lynda had been moved to an unconfirmed date in July and Caroline John had been replaced by Nicholas Courtney. At least Anneke would still be there.

Shirt was now a little reluctant to go because he wished to purchase neither the video nor the CD. Being the good friend he was, however, he decided to face the trial of spending yet another Saturday in a queue to get said items signed for Dufus.

Oh, and then 7^th Galaxy announced that Terrance Dicks would be attending to launch his latest BBC novel, Warmonger. Shirt denied any suggestion that he was now only going to get Mr. Dicks' signature on a book which featured a certain pair of his favourite Doctor Who companions - Peri and Gilliam Brown (well, the length of time he's spent staring at them, he must have named them by now).

With Chalky promising to purchase Lupine a video and Tigger in tow, the trio made their way to East London - again navigating the District Line's propensity for having 'engineering works' whenever West Ham weren't playing at home.

Surprised at the shortness of queue (although they had - for once - managed to get there a little earlier) the lads bought the requisite items and joined the queue at the place Tigger was considerately saving for them.

Chalky pondered on the fan in front. Seemingly no older than 13 or 14, he was apparently without sad fan parents of any type and it made Chalky glad that his class of bizarre midgets weren't the only 'new generation' of Who fans.

Of course, it meant that he had to tone down the pashing with Tigger.

As the trio stood in the queue, Tigger read some girly book and Chalky gasped at the climax to the DWM comic strip. But no sign of the guests !

Glancing aimlessly over Chalky's shoulder, Shirt spotted Nick, Anneke & Terrance all sitting in the small cafe, stuffing their faces. There then followed a failed attempt to point them out to Tigger, without making it too obvious to the people concerned, who just pretended to be busy eating their buns.

"Couldn't we just go over there and get their autographs now?", Tigger asked, having a lot to learn about signings.

Time wore on and the trio began to entertain themselves with watching the people below.

The teacher instinct in Chalky and Tigger was stirred by the apparently unsupervised wanderings of 3 or 4 toddlers around the ground floor of the centre.

As the toddlers risked life and limb wandering off into various shops, their parents sat - unconcerned - drinking coffee.

One girl, in particular attempted to grab her uninterested parents attention by constantly dropping and picking up (and presumably eating) Smarties from the floor - clearly attempting to get herself rushed to casualty and therefore gain her parents' concern.

Whilst Chalky and Tigger innocently enjoyed each other's company, Big Ted wandered along.

"That's enough of that!" he cried.

"What?" exclaimed Chalky innocently.

"I've got rooms I can offer you," he suggested.

"Don't encourage them!" moaned Shirt.

"You can only carry on if I can have a go," Big Ted lecherously suggested stepping towards Tigger. Chalky punched his lights out.

Well, it might not have quite ended like that but you get the idea...

Entering the shop, Tigger declined the opportunity to 'be Dufus' or 'be Lupine', preferring to go off and look in some girly shops. This left Chalky and Shirt to meet the three guests alone.

Double Agent was standing around inside the shop.

"1 personal item only," he reminded Chalky and Shirt.

"10 personal items, ok!" replied Chalky, cheekily.

"ONE personal item," emphasised Double Agent.

"10 personal items - got it!"

"ONE!"

"Yep, TEN, I heard you!"

"ONE!" said Double Agent, this time moving away so as to not be drawn into Chalky's machiavellian mind games.

The young fan in front caused some hilarity when asking Anneke for a photograph.

"Would you like Nick in it too?" asked Anneke.

The boy paused.

"Yeh, okay," he replied with a certain lack of enthusiasm.

Everyone (except possibly Nick) laughed heartily.

With none of his family present, Chalky offered to take the photo for the young lad, but then his sister turned up so Chalky was rebuffed.

Chalky moved through the guests quickly and then Shirt followed, confusing the celebrities by being both Shirt and Dufus.

Reunited with Tigger, the trio wended their way to central London with the intention of trying to get in to see the last performance of 'The Play What I Wrote' which was closing that day and the lads had intended on seeing before Chalky had got somewhat distracted in his social life.

"£10 standing," offered the nice man in the ticket office. The trio hesitated and then decided they had nothing to lose (except the feeling in both legs) and stumbled into a packed theatre to enjoy the hilarious comedy.

"The light fell across her face."

"I picked it up and put it back on the table..."

[AE]