Having failed to meet Alex Kingston in Milton Keynes, Shirt decided to try again at ‘London Film and Comic Con’, as he was already intending to go to meet both incarnations of Canton Everett Delaware III (Mark & Morgan Sheppard) and Oliver Smith (Drak from first Sixth Doctor story – “The Twin Dilemma”. Alex was attending on the Sunday, and so Shirt would hopefully avoid the DW crowds attending for Karen Gillan on the Saturday.

Having missed the deadline for booking tickets online by a day, Shirt decided to pop into Earls Court 2 on his way home on Friday, as due to there being a preview evening, was selling tickets for all days. The long queue for tickets moved slowly, and it turned out despite there being no signs indicating this that Shirt should have been in the other one of the two queues if he wanted tickets for an individual day that was not Friday. However, the cashier managed to obtain a Sunday ticket from the next-door booth for Shirt.

Shirt’s plans to leave very early on Sunday were scuppered by the first train from his home station not being until 7.32 on Sundays. Despite this he reached the venue just after 8am, and joined a very very long queue waiting to get in at 9am, which contained about six ‘Marty Mc Fly’s’ as both Christopher Lloyd and Lea Thompson were signing. Shirt stood against a wall, listening to a podcast tribute to Edward Hardwicke, until finally at 9am the queue began moving, as the doors opened and the queue was let into the venue. Once through the first set of doors, the queue was split between two entrance doors, and Shirt found himself fuming as a group in front of him struggled to find their entry tickets, delaying his entry and ability to get a number for Ms. Kingston’s queue.

Finally inside, Shirt walked briskly to the place on the map that indicated was where the signings were taking place, and quickly found the sign for Alex Kingston, taking a virtual queuing ticket. Despite the length of the queue outside and his being delayed, Shirt still got ticket number 77 (a distinct improvement on 651). The steward indicated that they were expecting Alex at around 9.20am, and that only tickets 1-50 should start queuing. Shirt therefore wandered off, and got a ticket (#12) for Mark Sheppard who was not yet at his table.

First signature of the day was Lysette Anthony, who had a number of “Without a Clue” photos on her table, so Shirt selected one of these [obviously one of the ones of her in Victorian underwear], which Ms. Anthony happily signed. Next up was Laurence Belcher, who appeared as the youngest Kazran Sardick in “A Christmas Carol” (and who also appears as the youngest Charles Xavier in “X Men: First Class). This latter credit seemed to have led to his autograph price being increased from that on the website, but Shirt paid anyway, for the first signature on his “Series Six” poster.

Returning to the other side of the signing area, Shirt joined a short queue for Morgan Sheppard, getting him to sign at the top of his poster (which had an “Impossible Astronaut” design), before moving to an equally short queue for his son.

“Where shall I sign ?”, asked the younger Canton.

“Just above your Dad”, replied Shirt.

Mark having signed, and Shirt moved down to the “Hellraiser” section of the signing area, waiting patiently to meet Oliver Smith.

On reaching the front, Oliver was impressed with the image of Drak and Noma that Shirt gave him to sign, which was already signed by Barry Stanton (Noma).

“Where did you get this ?”, he asked.

“At a Seventh Galaxy signing”, replied Shirt, “Both you and Barry were supposed to be there, but you could not attend at the last minute”.

So within 45 minutes of entry, Shirt had met everyone that he wanted to, save Ms. Kingston. Having texted Chalky to inform him of this (and his improved ticket number), Shirt went back to look at Alex’s queue, which seemed to be the same length, and still stated 1-50. He therefore took twenty minutes to look at some of the stalls, before returning to read on Alex’s sign that she had been delayed (apparently due to a fun-run happening around her house), would not be arriving until 11am, and would therefore go straight to her photoshoots, after which she would begin signing. Shirt therefore had a quick look around the rest of the stalls, buying a non-SH sequel to the Basil Rathbone movie “Sherlock Holmes and the Spiderwoman” (wonderfully called “The Spiderwoman Strikes Back”) on DVD, before leaving the venue, getting his hand stamped for re-admittance.

A quick ride on the District Line and Shirt was browsing the shops in Notting Hill Gate looking for a bargain. Having failed to buy anything, he jumped back onto a train to West Brompton, and before returning to the event, popped into Brompton Cemetery a few minutes away to find the area where filming took place for the Downey Jr. “Sherlock Holmes” film, and take some photos.

It being 12pm, Shirt re-entered the venue, with a steward scowling at his smudged hand-stamp, and found that Alex was now signing, and it was back to 1-50. Having trawled the stalls again, and being very distracted by a busty Femme Sixth Doctor, who was overflowing her question-marked collared white shirt (never has Shirt felt such varied emotions), he returned to Alex’s queue to find that she was now signing 1-130.

Joining the queue, ten minutes later, Shirt found himself paying for one autograph. The queue snaked back-and-forth, but was moving quickly due to the banning of any photos, and stewards moving people along. Alex was smiling the whole time, despite signing the same three images again-and-again. She even managed to sign the body of a Future Sonic Screwdriver as used by River in “Silence in the Library”. After about ten more minutes, Shirt was placing his “Companions” book in front of her, which she signed underneath Arthur Darvill. Close up, Shirt was taken by exactly how attractive she was, all thoughts of Femme Sixth Doctors expelled from his mind.

Picking up his book and leaving the signing area, Shirt found his fan heart strangely warmed by the fact that Alex had put “Hello Sweetie!” before her signature, despite her having done so for almost every other member of the queue. Another quick text to Chalky, and Shirt made his way to the Underground, wending his way home, musing on a successful extended morning.

[PL]