Shirt...

...Has a Great Day Out

A new regular show had entered the fray alongside ‘Memorabilia’ and ‘Collectormania’, the modestly named ‘Greatest Show in the Galaxy’. This was to be held in Peterborough, and boasted an almost unbelievable line-up, with the entire ‘Torchwood’ team appearing over the two days, as well as Doctors 6-8, the core cast of ‘Ashes to Ashes’, and seven ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ crew-members, amongst many other announced guests. Always ready to try new things, Shirt decided to go on the Sunday, as this was the day that Sophia Myles was attending, and he could also meet the one final member of the ‘Torchwood’ team that he had not previously met, Naoko Mori. However, he remained certain that all the guests that he wanted would probably cancel at the last minute.

Making his way to Kings Cross Station, Shirt arrived too early for his booked train, and so wasted some time taking a photo of the trolley embedded in the wall at ‘Platform 9¾’. Finding his assigned seat, Shirt settled back for the hour journey, being whisked away to Roman Britain by Fourth Doctor audio ‘Wrath of the Iceni’. The train was packed with women of all shapes and sizes that had completed the ‘Moonwalk’ in Hyde Park the previous night.

Exiting Peterborough station, Shirt strode off in search of the bus station where the free shuttle bus was due to depart from, ignoring the GSITG staff who were trying to point him to a short-cut. Finally finding the appropriate bay, Shirt stepped onto the bus, which set off a minute later. The bus was making good progress, and Shirt was transfixed by the conversation of other attendees who were discussing how the organiser of the event had triple-mortgaged his house to fund the event, paying everyone up front in an attempt to reduce the likelihood of cancellations. However, it suddenly ground to a halt, and the driver had an announcement.

“I misread the timetable, we weren’t supposed to leave until 11.30am”, she told the passengers, “the service has moved to every twenty minutes rather than ten. We need to go back to the bus station”.

This news was not taken well, with several people pointing out that they were already halfway to the venue, and citing booked photo studio times. A few more polite entreaties from passengers, and the driver gave in and continued on to the Peterborough Arena, which although being an arena, proved to be nowhere near Peterborough.

Disembarking and thanking the driver for continuing, Shirt made his way to a short queue to pay to get in. This done surprisingly quickly, and displaying his newly acquired event wristband, Shirt entered the arena building.

It seemed that autograph vouchers had only been being sold in advance (which Shirt had decided to forego concerned at last minutes dropouts), and that he would now have to pay at the individual guests’ tables. This also meant that he missed out on the 4 for 3 deal that the vouchers had offered. Entering the main hall, Shirt wandered around trying to find the guests that he wanted. The ‘Torchwood’ guests proved to be against the far wall, and having finally managed to get his ‘Torchwood’ poster out of his tube, Shirt joined a medium length queue for Naoko. This moved swiftly, and soon Shirt was paying for an autograph and unrolling the poster in front of her.

“Can you sign ‘To Shirt’ there ?”, he asked, indicating a space below Tosh’s foot.

“Ooh, am I the last one ?”, she asked, pointing at the signatures of Eve Myles, Gareth David-Lloyd and Burn Gorman.

“No, I still need John Barrowman”.

Smiling, Naoko signed the poster, concluding by saying out loud “and two kisses!!”.

Unfortunately, these kisses were ‘x’s on the poster, rather than kisses on any part of Shirt’s anatomy.

Gathering up his poster and thanking Naoko, Shirt moved a few tables along, where original team member, Indira ‘Suzie Costello’ Varma had just sat down. She also happily signed the poster, which Shirt then struggled to get back into the tube.

Shirt then went in search of Sophia Myles, finding that her table was not with the other ‘Spooks’ guests with whom she was advertised. He finally found the table with her photo over it, in the middle of the ‘Doctor Who’ guests. However, Ms. Myles was not there, as she was participating in a ‘Spooks’ stage talk. Shirt therefore had a quick look round the stalls, and fifteen minutes later, she returned to signing, and Shirt joined the small queue. Reaching the front, five minutes later, he picked up one of the photos of her as Reinette, and got this and his ‘Series 2’ poster signed. Deciding not to complete his ‘Torchwood’ poster today (baulking at £25 for JB), Shirt then moved back to the stalls, and the Large Endings’ stall where although buying nothing, Shirt got Nicholas Briggs to sign three covers that he had got as a subscriber.

Having wandered around the rest of the stalls, and buying a ‘Scaryfiers’ comic book, Shirt made his way into the reception area, where he found stalls that he had missed on his way into the venue. One of these, ‘Hirst Books’, had a Sixth Doctor Jigsaw Piece T-Shirt, made to promote Colin Baker’s fiction collection, “Gallimaufry”, which was swiftly snapped up by Shirt (along with a complementary “Gallimaufry” fridge magnet).

Making his way back to the car park, Shirt waited for the shuttle bus back to the bus station. On his arrival, he found the short cut back to the railway station that he should have used earlier, but was too early for his booked train and so had to waste time in Peterborough city centre. Catching a train back to Kings Cross, Shirt wallowed in the audio delights of 'Tales from the Vault', as he mused on an event that had gone a long way to meeting its ambitious title.

[PL]