Shirt….

…Twice Bitten..

London Film and Comic Con was taking place at Earls’ Court 2 again, and several WHO-related guests had been announced. Therefore Shirt made his way there on the District Line, joining a queue outside the cashpoint outside the venue. Many were dressed in Anime-themed costumes, which kept Shirt entertained whilst he waited. Finally having got some cash, Shirt made his way inside and paid for early-bird entry.

His first port of call was to the queue for Aidan Turner, vampire Mitchell from “Being Human”, to complete the trio (see CDS…Being Human). Aidan hadn’t arrived yet, but Shirt took a ticket. He then made his way to Tracie Simpson, producer of episodes including some of the Specials and some of Series 5 (including “Vampires of Venice”). There was only a short queue, which moved quickly. Unrolling his ‘Specials’ poster, Shirt got Tracie to sign it, but not before she had commented on how attractive David Tennant is, in real life and on the poster. Next up was David Bailie, formerly Dask in “Robots of Death”, but more recently famous for being one of the pirates in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films. However, Shirt wanted him to sign for an even more recent role, as he had taken on the mantle of Large Endings’ ‘Celestial Toymaker’. David was in the process of expressing annoyance to his steward at the number of photographs that he was being asked to sign for the organisers, but broke off, and cheerily signed Shirt’s “The Nightmare Fair” audio cover.

It was time for the first panel of the day, the ‘Doctor Who’ one. Shirt therefore moved to the panel area and took a seat. After about ten minutes, Who luminaries from all eras traipsed in – Matthew Waterhouse, Paul Kasey, Tracie Simpson, Hannah Steele (Vampire), Gabriela Montaraz (Vampire), Elizabeth Croft (Vampire), Simon Dutton, and the Brig himself, Nicholas Courtney. The microphone provided proved to be ineffective with answers to questions being lost. Also the number of guests meant that very few questions were got through.

Having wandered around the stalls, and gaining a DC goody-bag containing a DVD motion-comic of “Watchmen”, Shirt got Hannah and Gabriela to sign his Series 5 poster alongside their fellow Venetian Vampire, Elizabeth Croft, who had signed it on a previous occasion (see CDS…Stops for a Bite). Aidan had only just arrived, and was about to go to a photograph session, and so looking at his watch, Shirt decided that as his number would not come round for several hours, he would have to do without Aidan’s signature.

He therefore left Earls Court 2, and made his way to Naughty Asteroid who were having a signing with the authors of the latest Eleventh Doctor books – Gary Russell, Oli Smith & Una McCormack. Joining a short queue, Shirt was soon getting his books signed, as well as “The Runaway Train” and “Doctor Who Storybook 2010” by Oli, and “Torchwood: The Encyclopedia” by Gary. Gathering his items together, Shirt slowly wended his way home.

[PL]