Shirt…

…Nocturnal Activities

Seventh Galaxy were having yet another signing. Present would be one-time Grace Brothers employee, Trevor Bannister, the guest star in the latest Large Endings’ release, “Nocturne”; Barry Stanton (Noma from first Sixth Doctor Story – “The Twin Dilemma”; as well as “Torchwood” book authors, Dan Abnett (who also wrote “Nocturne”), Andy Lane and Peter Anghelides. The presence of a Sixth Doctor guest star and the author of Sherlock-Holmes-meets-Seventh-Doctor New Adventure “All Consuming Fire” (Andy Lane), meant that Shirt was a definite attendee. Dufus was unable to come down from Birmingham two weekends running (having come down for a murder mystery party and Billie Piper play - both for Shirt’s birthday – the previous weekend, see CDS…Birthday Treats). Chalky was otherwise engaged – visiting the Kylie Minogue exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum (and he has the cheek to call Dufus and Shirt camp !!), his taking of Tigger, fooling no-one.

Shirt therefore made his way to Barking, hoping for a similarly short queue as the one that he had found two weeks before for Richard Beale, Michael Leader & Katarina Olsson, particularly as a BBC CD was not being promoted that week. This hope was granted, as Shirt arrived at the shopping centre at 11.30am to a reasonably small queue. Purchasing the requisite items in the shop, where there was no queue to pay, Shirt was temporarily tempted by a Doctor Who Double Eggcup for the bargain price of £5. A brief detour to ASDA to get a drink and some crisps to eat in the queue, also saw him buying a Doctor Who Double Eggcup for the even more bargainous price of £2.98. Joining the queue which now stretched three-quarters of the way along the barrier beside the escalators. A quick glance at his watch, revealed the time to be 11.45am. Settling down on the marble floor, Shirt became engrossed in a biography of radio comedy star, Kenneth Horne, that he had got for his birthday.

Twenty minutes later, and the queue started moving, and due to a lack of personal items by attendees, moved very quickly. Twenty-five minutes after this, and Poppy was beckoning Shirt into the shop. Joining the small queue, Shirt attempted to organise his items for signing. First up was Trevor Bannister, who signed Shirt’s “Nocturne” cover, then the programme from Guildford’s 1999/2000 pantomime, “Aladdin”, which Dufus and Shirt had gone to see (see CDS…Don’t Meet The Rani). Mr. Bannister seemed pleased not to be signing an umpteenth “Are You Being Served” or “The Avengers” cover, and seemed to remember the production. Moving along, Shirt proffered the promoted photo of Noma and Drak to Barry Stanton (Oliver Smith had been due to sign the same photo two weeks before, but had been unable to attend at the last minute). Signing under the appropriate character, he then took Shirt’s “Twin Dilemma” cover.

“Most of the actors in this are dead”, he mused whilst signing this, causing Shirt to become confused as to how many actors from the story were dead, only being able to think of Maurice Denham. Barry then struggled to find an unscrawled-on part of the front of Shirt’s “The Eighties”.

The three authors were next, and seemed pleased that someone had actually stopped to meet them. Dan Abnett’s authorship of “Nocturne” also seemed to have been overlooked by the majority of fans, once they had got Mr. Bannister to sign it. Scrabbling in his large Seventh Galaxy bag, Shirt finally produced his copy of “Border Princes” (or “Boarder Princes” as Dan’s placecard proclaimed). Mr. Abnett then proceeded to sign the book, crossing out his name on the title-page first, then Shirt’s “Nocturne” and “The Harvest” CD covers. Scrabbling in the bag again, Shirt produced Andy Lane’s “Slow Decay”, which the author slowly signed. Shirt then produced “All Consuming Fire”, much to the author’s delight. He immediately turned to the frontispiece illustration which a graphic artist friend of his had created, and spoke at length about how good he thought it was. Showing the others the cover, they mumbled about how much they had enjoyed it. Signing the title page, Andy got even more excited when Shirt produced “Randall and Hopkirk: Deceased – The Files”, the guide that he had written for the Vic & Bob series, particularly as it meant that he needed to use the silver pen that Dan had been using for CD covers.

Peter Anghelides described feeling left out, until Shirt produced “Another Life” for him to sign. Turning to the title page, he commented,

“You’ve got a first edition”.

When asked how he knew, he revealed that from the second edition onwards, the dedication had changed from his wife to the late Craig Hinton. Peter also crossed out his name on title pages, stating,

“There’s no point having it there twice”.

It transpired that both Peter and Dan had picked this trait up from another BBC Books author, as they thought it looked “cool”. Next, Shirt produced “The Ancestor Cell” and “Kursaal”. Holding up the cover of the latter, Peter commented on how the Assiduous lettering hadn’t quite been sorted out at that point.

“It looks like Hursaal!”, he commented, “It didn’t make a lot of difference to me, but it was unfortunate when Kate Orman had her first book published in the range”.

This amused Shirt, Andy & Dan.

Gathering up his books, and stopping briefly at the till to buy a pack of the new “Annihilator” Battles in Time cards, Shirt staggered out of the shop to a space where he could sort himself out. Books stowed, Shirt looked at his watch, 12.45pm. Plenty of time to slowly wend his way home.

[PL]