I guess everyone has times where they look round at their life and go ‘How the fuck did I end up doing this?!’

Last week, I dressed in a Dalek Sec mask to ask political questions of a Beeb cameraman, walked past Stephen Hawking on my way to work and went on my first date with a woman in well over a decade.

I also made tea for my lifelong icon, played hostess to three (very different) guests of the FP business and left my scribble pad in the Head of Departments’ Office. The last of these means my wit and insight (cough) are currently in van-limbo somewhere between the Megastore and Titan House – I’ll talk about Simon Furman, Stephen Donaldson and Scott Robertson next week.

Instead, I’ll return to the visit of Auntie Beeb.

A call from a major television network isn’t unprecedented. We’re the first home of Geek Credibility; the London Megastore is both pioneer and national icon. In the bright lights of the West End, it’s the place where ‘geek’ and ‘street’ have fused to make something entirely new.

A call from This Week, though, is unexpected – late-night political discussion programmes are kind of outside our fusion zone.

They want something ‘futuristic’, they say; something cyberpunk- or possibly manga-related to fit with their chosen topic… never being one to turn down free publicity, of course I say yes.

When I get to the store, I blunder across a forgotten meeting with a bloke from an online news-writing service, trying to charge me a grand a month to add original, keyword-laden copy to my website. Whoever he is, he’s overpriced and out of luck – it’s the closest my PR self comes to rude as I hustle him through the meeting and out of the way.

A quick chase round the store for propage – and we’re good.

The Beeb are impeccably behaved. They even keep a straight face when Robbie emerges dressed like a supervillain’s genetic experiment – who knew Iron Man had Optimus Prime’s head and Wolverine’s claws? Blisteringly confident as ever, he’s only too happy to get it on with the camera.

Reluctantly, I swap heads between a TIE fighter pilot and the bloody Dalek Sec; I can’t believe I’m doing this. All my high ideals about bright lights and street cred; all my shiny-teeth PR about how Forbidden Planet has ridden the upsurge of science fiction and fantasy into the mainstream and public acceptance and blah-di-blah blah blah—  *pause to inhale…*

Why do these people insist on making us out like the worst kind of nerd – and on the end of a serious, late-night discussion about population explosion? Maybe it’s me, but I don’t see ‘humour’ and ‘human interest’, I see the perpetuation of a public myth – that reading Furman, or Donaldson, or Robertson, effectively precludes you from any kind of political awareness, or educated opinion, or social skills – in fact, any inclination to live anywhere but in the heart of your chosen falsehood.

Anyway, I later found out they’d dubbed my voice to make me sound ‘more alien’. I feel like I’ve been stitched – I mean, what’s wrong with Dalek Sec speaking like a Home counties public school girl, anyhow..?!

It’s a little ironic to jump from talking about my snobby speaking voice to mentioning the man who’s lack of one has become part of his brand – Stephen Hawking was emerging from the hotel on St Martin’s Lane accompanied by two ladies in their thirties (I guess) who could have been relatives or carers, I wasn’t sure. Loitering around the hotel doorway were also three lean, hard-eyed young man in head-to-foot black who looked like they’d walked out of a Morgan novel. Bizarre? Well, they certainly didn’t belong to the hotel… go figure.

I had to call Devin as I passed, just to share the moment with him – had my Twitter been phone-friendly, I would have shared it a little further!

My week ended (after having made tea for Stephen Donaldson!) with an evening in a Souk bar in the company of a dark-eyed lady who was anticipating taking me home. It’s odd how a date with a woman is a very different deal to a date with a man – it’s more about emotional feedback, more ‘touchy-feely’, if you like. Men’s agendas are usually straightforward; a woman’s? Gods know! The end result is assumedly the same, but it’s the route you use to get there – and the potential fallout afterwards – that I’d forgotten.

All right, I confess, I baled – the sheer emotional intensity of it was waaaay to much for me; I was disconcerted by the way she deconstructed my normal, human defences and tried to ‘figure me out’. Some of it she got right – and that’s (weirdly) almost invasive. Certainly it was enough to have me recoiling with phrases I never thought I hear myself use – you know, the ones that start with, ‘I need to take this more slowly!’

On the plus side, though, the Souk bar had a truly lovely belly-dancer with a wonderfully mischievous twinkle who brightened the evening… and she didn’t come across at remotely complicated..!

It’s been one of those weeks where I’ve taken two steps back from my life to look at where I’ve ended up – and kinda wondered how I got here. I’m sure everyone must have weeks like this – and I’m sure the feeling will pass. At the moment, though, I’m still blinking at my little corner or the sky and wondering when I last hit a ‘Save Point’ – and if I'd take different road if I had it all to do again..!