Whoever said you should never meet your heroes was clearly an idiot. I spent six hours yesterday driving to and from Collectormania at Milton Keynes to spent about thirty seconds with two of my own heroes, Nathan Fillion and Leonard Nimoy, and it was worth every mile. Even the permanent roadworks at Birmingham (a ruse to get people on to the M6 Toll, I’m certain) and torrential downpour that only a British summer can give couldn’t remove the smile from my face.

I suppose there’s nothing much to say. Nathan is tall, broad, handsome, has great hair, perfect skin, walks with a film star swagger and was utterly charming and delightful. Seeing my autograph request, he asked where my wife was (she couldn’t make it down), laughed when I asked him to sign a Castle picture as Richard Castle, and even wrote a neat tagline above the name (“Murder, he wrote!”). It was especially cool to meet him now, having just finished watching the completely superb first season of Castle a few weeks ago. I meant to ask when shooting starts on season two, but quite frankly I was far too star struck to manage much conversation.

I did actually get a pic with him personally, which is coming by post, but in the meantime I snuck in this snap while standing in the autograph queue.

Rick Castle himself signs his latest bestseller!

Leonard Nimoy, on the other hand, was an entirely different prospect. I’m not sure I’ve ever met quite such a legend as he, and certainly his autograph queue was the longest of the day. But he was also charming, a real gent, signing a picture of Spock for me (no dedication), saying it was a pleasure with a smile. And then later on I got a little closer and exchange a handshake and some polite chit chat.

Famous actor Leonard Nimoy and not quite so famous SF author Adam Christopher, Sunday 7th June, 2009. That's Nimoy on the right.

And that was it. A entire day and probably a minute of rubbing shoulders with two personal heroes. I also got fairly close to Philip Glenister and the Ashes to Ashes Audi, but possibly the biggest surprise of the day was that people actually seem to have watched Torchwood, going by the crowds of adoring fans the cast appeared to attract.

Funny old world, innit?