Dufus & Shirt...

...Pay The Piper

MCM Comic Con Birmingham (incorporating Memorabilia) had announced several guests that were of interest to our friends, in particular Ninth/Tenth Doctor companion, Billie Piper, as well as two of the stars of DW spinoff ‘Class’. Dufus and Shirt were both interested in attending, and Dufus suggested that Shirt stay at his new home for the weekend and that they go together. Therefore on the Friday, Shirt made the surprisingly simple journey to the station close to where Dufus works, listening to ‘UNIT Silenced’ on the train.

Arriving at about 3.40pm, Shirt had a short wait as although Dufus finishes work early on Fridays, this was not until 4pm. At around 4.10pm, Shirt saw Dufus’ car draw in and throwing his bag in the back, jumped into the passenger seat. After a half-hour journey (and a five minute wait at a level-crossing whilst the longest freight train in the world went past) they reached the new-build estate on which Dufus now lived. Having retrieved his bin from the end of the drive, Dufus opened the door and they entered the property.

The evening was spent in catching up, in watching television, in identifying signatures in Dufus’ ‘Companions’ book by comparing it to Shirt’s, in Shirt being given a tour of Dufus’ new home, and in consuming a sausage casserole that Dufus had managed to make in his slow-cooker. It was agreed that they would make an early start the next morning, so they both retired at a sensible time, Shirt to the guest/Large Endings’ boxsets room.

The next morning, as could have been predicted, they were late leaving, and following a detour to a nearby supermarket to pick up lunch and fill Dufus’ car with petrol, they were around 30 minutes behind schedule. Zooming along back-streets they made their way towards the ENC, with Dufus predicting an ETA of around 10am. However, as they were approaching the motorway exit that they needed, they suddenly found themselves in a slow moving queue of cars on their way to the six different events taking place at the ENC that day (the subjects of the others being photography, cake-making, hobbycraft, education, and young scientists). Crawling along, they finally exited the motorway, and slowly made their way to the car park signposted as being for Comic Con, arriving at around 10.40am. Having been directed to a parking space, both grabbed their record bags out of the boot, and made their way to the payment booth to pay for parking, Dufus giving the ticket to Shirt for safe-keeping. They had just missed a shuttle bus, so strode off towards the main ENC building, Shirt being concerned that if they arrived after 11am, they would be forced to join the back of the ‘General Admission’ queue, despite having paid for ‘Priority Entry’. However, this proved not to be the case, and they entered the event without problems (but only 10 minutes before the masses queuing), having stopped to take a photo of some ‘Blakes 7’ cosplayers.

Shirt led the way to the MCM Signing Area (with Dufus stopping briefly to take a photo of ‘Star Wars’ cosplayers) where they found a long queue for Ms. Piper. However, there seemed to be no evidence of it moving, and so Dufus remained in the queue whilst Shirt went up to the front to see what was going on. The signing table for Billie was empty, and asking a nearby steward Shirt was informed that Ms. Piper had been held up by an accident on the motorway and that they were expecting her soon. Having gone back to Dufus and discussed matters, it was agreed that they would leave the queue and see about meeting some other guests first.

First port of call was the photoshoot area where Dufus paid for a photoshoot with Billie, and Shirt handed over cash for a ‘Class’ double-shot, before realising that he had misread the price on the website, and taking the cash back.

Returning to the main signing area there was no queue for the ‘Class’ guests, and so they walked up to the signing table, both paying for two autographs.

Shirt was first, placing his ‘Class’ DVD cover down in front of Greg Austin (Charlie), with the blank inside uppermost (the DVD having a clear case).

“Do you want a message, or just ‘To Shirt’?”, asked Greg.

Expecting a short message, Shirt went with the first option, and Greg managed to fill the whole left-hand side with a message and signature.

Side-stepping to the left, Shirt placed the cover in front of Fady Elsayed (Ram), who managed to fill the whole of the right-hand side.

‘I’ll just have to get any others on the other side’, thought Shirt.

Shirt then asked for a photo with the two of them, which Dufus took, having just got his cover signed by Greg.

They swapped places, and second photo taken, the two guests returned to sitting behind their table, and Dufus got his cover signed by Fady also.

Picking up their covers, the two moved off, deciding to make for the far end of the hall. Passing the ‘Memorabilia’ guests, it seemed that the only one that Shirt wanted, Scott Stevenson (recurring extra in the latter half of Series 7, and Eighth Doctor stand-in for ‘Day of the Doctor) was not at his table.

Shirt having used the facilities at the far end, they slowly worked their way through the stalls in that part of the hall.

Eventually returning to the main signing area, the queue for Billie was shorter, and having checked the signing tables, she was now signing. They therefore joined the queue, which was moving swiftly, due to there being no posed photos. Halfway along was a payment table, with both buying one autograph, and Shirt picking up a 10x8 publicity photo.

As they were getting closer, they noticed that the underneath the names of the guests on the large signs above the signing tables was the star’s twitter-handle. On Billie’s right were three guests from ‘Starsky and Hutch’ – David Soul, Paul Michael Glaser and Antonio Fargas – who were currently away from their table. However, David’s twitter-handle which included his middle-initial was amusing Dufus so much that he drew it to Shirt’s attention.

“@DavidRSoul”, he said gesturing at the sign.

“Seems a bit harsh”, commented Shirt, before both began sniggering like Beavis and (the strangely-appropriately named) Butthead.

As they moved forward, Shirt was consumed by a sudden reverie, staring at the guest on Billie’s left, the lovely Louise Brealey.

Finally they reached the front of the queue, and Shirt handed over the autograph voucher to a steward, placing the photo in front of Billie, swiftly asking “Can you sign it to Shirt ?”, noticing that Billie was not personalising as standard.

A “Shirt” then her signature swiftly signed on the photo, followed by a “Nice to have met you”, and Shirt was moving off.

Next up was Dufus with his ‘Companions’ book. (Shirt had already got his ‘signed’ at the Richmond Theatre stage-door)

“I’ve got that book”, commented the steward, “Billie’s not in it”.

“I know”, countered Dufus, “But she is a companion”.

Placing the book down, Billie was very impressed by the number of signatures.

“How many have you got ?”, she asked.

“Around sixty”, said Dufus guessing (and over-estimating, given that Shirt has only a few more than that, and has got almost anyone ever to enter the TARDIS to sign).

Finding a small space of white page, Billie signed, but Dufus had forgotten to ask her to personalise it.

Picking up his book, Dufus went to join Shirt, in an excited state.

“I’ve now met companions from all Doctors, save the Eleventh”, he babbled, knowing that they planned to try and meet Arthur Darvill at a Nottingham event six weeks later.

Dufus then took multiple photos of the Gran Torino car in the ‘Starsky & Hutch’ signing area (for £300 you could be driven round the ENC in it by the stars), before they browsed the few stalls that they had missed in that section of the hall before joining Billie’s queue, including ‘Big Chief Studios’ whose bargain prices at the London event the previous year were not being repeated, and ‘Stateside Stills’ where Shirt spent ages searching for ‘Sherlock’ images in the ‘S’ section, finally realising that he was looking in the ‘US - S’ section rather than the ‘UK - S’ section..

Feeling hungry, it was decided to return to the car to pick up their lunch, but not before they had popped back to the ‘Memorabilia’ area, where Shirt got Scott Stevenson to sign his ‘Series 7B’ poster, and Dufus attempted to take photos of the ‘Allo Allo’ guests who were in costume, without paying for their autographs.

On exiting the hall and getting their hands stamped for re-entry, they made their way to the main doors, where they were just in time for the free shuttle bus back to their car park, which had to go an alternative route due to heavy traffic.

Not being entirely sure where the car was, they stumbled on it almost by accident, stowing unneeded items in the boot, and sitting in the front seats to eat their lunch, there being a slight drizzle.

After a short rest, they made their way back to the car-park entrance, and again walked back to the main complex, this time having identified landmarks in order to be able to find the car again.

Showing their stamped hands, this time they concentrated on the part of the hall that they had simply dashed through on their way to the signing area earlier. Having done very well for cheap stuff at the London event, Shirt was disappointed at the lack of such freebies in Birmingham. However, both picked up free posters for the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ live-action remake and ‘Kong: Skull Island’ at the Cineworld stall.

Having completed these stalls, they went into the other part of the hall to revisit some stalls from before.

Finally it was 2.50pm, and time for Dufus to queue for his Billie Piper photoshoot, which the poster indicated had ‘Sold Out’. However, on arrival, there appeared to be about three different queues for Billie, and it seemed that previous photoshoots were overrunning. Therefore again, Dufus and Shirt split their forces with Dufus joining a queue, and Shirt moving closer to the entrance to the photoshoot area to hear what the steward was shouting.

It seemed that they were just finishing the ‘Allo Allo’ guests (which Shirt noted were supposed to be done at 1.30pm), and the steward was just indicating that people should queue up for Billie to the right-hand side of the photoshoot area. Shirt therefore conveyed this to Dufus, who along with a mass of others moved to the indicated area.

Having been asked several times to move away from the multiple queues if he was not having a photo with Billie, Shirt decided to wander off for a short period.

After around 10 minutes, during which Shirt purchased poster-prints of Peter Cushing and Jeremy Brett, a Titans mini-figure of Mycroft Holmes, and ‘Time Clash’ another WHO-themed card game from Booth 9, he returned to find Dufus in a recently combined queue which had just started moving.

Agreeing to meet by ‘The Glamour Mansion’, Shirt moved off again, sitting on the hall floor, reading a newly acquired event guide.

The queue continued moving at a good rate, and eventually Dufus was stepping up, and placing his arm behind Ms. Piper, whom he noticed was having all shots taken with one leg placed carefully in front of her.

Having taken one photo, the photographer looked at the image on the camera.

“Need to take another one”, he said, adding “Problem with your glasses”.

Another photo taken, which the photographer was now happy with, and Dufus was moving off and exiting the studio, where after a short wait he had copies of both photos.

Meanwhile, Shirt had been tapped on the shoulder, looking up to see someone seemingly in their early-twenties dressed as Hiccup from the ‘How To Train Your Dragon’ books.

“You haven’t seen a plush dragon ?”, he asked, “I think I lost him here”.

Shirt mumbled that he had not, and Hiccup moved onto another person sitting a few yards away.

A few minutes later and the friends were reunited, and having laughed at the first photo which showed Dufus looking to the side as if concerned that he might be about to be forcibly dragged away from Ms. Piper, they decided to ‘call it a day’, returning to Dufus’ car, passing several visitors to ‘The Photography Show’ who were frantically snapping the various cosplayers.

Not being able to get onto the first shuttle bus which was full, they finally boarded the next, finding the car without trouble.

Items stowed in the boot, and Shirt was handing the car parking ticket back to Dufus. Getting out of the car park proved to be a challenge with attendants not liaising with each other, causing tailbacks.

Finally leaving the ENC, they sped back to Dufus’, who insisted on using back streets again, causing regular panics from his sat-nav when he failed to follow ‘her’ instructions.

The evening was again spent watching television and chatting, but the main focus was Dufus repeatedly trying to scan his Billie photos in on his printer/scanner upstairs then returning to his laptop downstairs as the wireless connection between the two singularly failed to work. Eventually succeeding, the two played ‘Time Clash’, which proved to be as confusing as Booth 9’s ‘Doctor Who Card Game: Classic Doctors Edition’ had been when Shirt, Chalky and Tigger had played it a few weeks before. Both tired and having fallen asleep for various portions of the evening, they retired to their beds.

The next morning Dufus drove Shirt to the station, from which he caught a train back to London, finishing listening to ‘UNIT Silenced’ and musing on the weekend’s activities – the friendly Ms. Piper, David Soul’s unfortunate middle-initial, the Classy co-stars, and most importantly the fun and friendship of attending events together with Dufus.

[PL]