Shirt...

...Meets April in May

It was time for MCM London Comic Con at the Access Centre, and announced were two-thirds of the Tenth Doctor’s female companion coterie – Billie Piper (whom Shirt and Dufus had met at MCM Birmingham) and Catherine Tate. Also announced were all four of the young leads from spin-off ‘Class’. Shirt booked for the Sunday as this was the only day that Vivian Oparah (Tanya) was advertised. However, Billie was a late cancellation, but two signings involving DW authors in the ‘Author Zone’ piqued Shirt’s interest.

Arriving early for general entry, being aware that one of the two DLR stations serving the Centre was closed for maintenance, Shirt walked around the side of the Centre as part of a mass of attendees, before being directed into a hall, then the appropriate queue to have his entrance ticket scanned and a wristband placed around his wrist. He then joined a queue five people deep, waiting patiently for 11am, listening to Large Endings’ interview with Jacqueline Pearce – ‘Call Me Jacks’ – on the LE App. A very rude anecdote caused Shirt to splutter with laughter, leading to confused looks by those around him.

Finally the queue surged forward, and Shirt was in the Centre proper. The event was taking place over two exhibition halls, and Shirt accidentally went into the one that only had merchandise stalls first.

Having identified the main signing area, Shirt found that the ‘Class’ guests were not there, finding them instead in the ‘Memorabilia’ signing area. Three of the guests were there, but there was no sign of Vivian, or a sign indicating where she should be signing. A quick check online revealed that she had been a late cancellation. Having met Fady and Greg in Birmingham, Shirt paid a steward and presented his ‘Class’ DVD cover to Sophie Hopkins (April).

Sophie smiled, and asked “Do you want a short message ?”

Shirt hesitated, remembering what had happened last time, but said “Yes”.

Cover signed (on the outside, there being no space inside), and Shirt decided to show Sophie what her co-stars had taken to be short messages.

“Can I have a photo with you ?”, he asked.

The steward being busy, the photo was taken by Greg Austin.

Moving back to the main signing area, Shirt bought an autograph ticket for Catherine Tate. There was only a small queue at her signing table and so Shirt joined it.

“Have your cameras ready if you want a selfie”, her steward was just telling the queue.

Catherine had decided to stand in front of the table signing, making photographs easier.

After around 10 minutes, Shirt was at the front of the queue and getting Catherine to sign his ‘The Tenth Doctor Adventures – Volume 1’ Limited Edition boxset.

Handing his camera to the steward, she then managed to turn the camera off rather than taking a photo, then took a photo as Catherine was gesturing to someone in another queue, before finally taking a photo and hurrying Shirt away. (However, when Shirt checked this later, the photo was very out-of-focus – a pattern relating to getting others to take photos of him with Ms. Tate)

Finding the ‘Author Zone’, Shirt slipped in for the end of a panel featuring authors from Orbit Publishing, including Jason Arnopp. Whilst others dashed to the table to buy books, Shirt managed to sneak up and get Jason to sign ‘UNIT Dominion’ and ‘Army of Death’.

“Who’s that signed by ?”, he asked.

“Mitch Benn”, replied Shirt.

Returning to the halls, Shirt grazed the stalls for about an hour, identifying a few things that he intended to buy later.

It was then time to return to the ‘Author Zone’, and an interview with Richard Dinnick about his new book ‘DW: Myths and Legends’ which had started life as non-fiction, but then became a short-story collection, including multiple Master and multiple Rassilon stories.

Purchasing the book (a month before publication), Shirt managed to be early on in the queue, getting his book, two audio covers – ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ and ‘The Tangled Skein’, and Richard’s short-story in the collection ‘Encounters of Sherlock Holmes’ signed.

Shirt then proceeded to singularly fail to remember exactly where he had seen the items that he wanted earlier, finally purchasing two Railway-style posters with ‘Sherlock’ and ‘Doctor Who’ themes, and a SH-themed board game ‘Beyond Baker Street’.

Shirt made his way back to the DLR, catching a train back to Waterloo, stopping briefly for lunch, before wending his way home. His intention was to upload his new photos, but his computer refused to read the memory card, which it stated needed formatting. However, a few days later he managed to recover them using an online recovery program. Having done so, Shirt mused as to whether he would ever get a suitable photo with Ms. Tate.

[PL]