Quotes from rec.arts.drwho


The Quotefile.

"Of course, if you had a quote file, you could look it up in the quote file under quote file" ...

- Jason A. Miller 31st May 1995

Welcome everyone to the latest Quote File. The Quote File is basically all the smartest, wittiest most entertaining stuff coillected off rec.arts.drwho (though other Doctor Who newsgroups are also eligible if you want to send something in) filtered by trained primates and presented back to you in a sort of instant-nostalgia recycling exercise curiously reminiscent of Readers Digest only more enlightening and actually funny.

Essentially, it is the funniest quotes to appear in the newsgroup as nominated by you. To that end, if you see a quote you think deserves an entry in the Quote File, just mail me at

smithrj2@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca

or the ever-handy

radwquotefile@geocities.com

and include the attributions and the quote in full.

Please don't be shy about nominating stuff directly to me via e-mail. Saying 'quotefile!' in the newsgroup may just be a way to express how funny you think a post is, but it's also highly likely that, due to the sheer traffic of stuff round here, it won't find its due receptacle. Even if you only think it's mildly funny, or if you think that nobody else might get the joke, I'd much rather have too much to choose from than too little.

I've tried my best to get the dates and attributions right, but a few will probably have wandered about of their own accord, so please don't get too upset and be sure to mail me with any corrections for the web page.

Disclaimer: The copyright of all material contained herein remains with the original poster. No attempt is made to supercede any copyright and the Quote File maintains its impartiality under Fair Use for purposes of Comment or Review.

The quotefile is updated monthly (usually midmonth, although it varies depending on my schedule) and past and present quotefiles can be found at:

http://geocities.datacellar.net/Area51/Corridor/1161/

On with the quotes!


Robert Smith? wrote:
> And I quite like the idea of it being a Time Lord mark of exile - I'd
> never encountered that theory until I saw it here on radw.

I have this strange image of inhabitants of Shada exchanging looks at each others' tattoos. All these barcodes, Misos Triangles, skulls, etc. And the Doc displaying "I luv my Mum" on one arm...

Dangermouse 13/5/99


[Jacqueline Hill]

>>(actually, he got me thinking...I'd love it if her surname was
>>Hyde......)

DerekBD wrote:
>Actually I thought it was a set up for a limerick ...

>Jaqueline Jill went up the hill
>Her head wrapped in a turban....
>(someone clever finish this)

Jac' fell down
And broke her crown --
The well was full of bourbon.

Daniel Frankham 13/5/99


JMoore9926 wrote:
>>> Titan

Simon Watkins wrote:
>> That's a satellite (Saturn) isn't it ?

Charles Daniels wrote:
>Yes and one of the most interesting in the solar system as it has a rather
>unique atmosphere.

There's a couple of pubs in Leeds that are close, though.

Richard Smeltzer 15/5/99


[Subject: Ideas For EDA Covers]

With the BBC going back to their idea of big round things to cover the front of the EDA's how long will it be before they run out of ideas? Here are a few more possilblites that could be used.

  1. Pizza
  2. Magnifying Glass
  3. CD
  4. An Eye
  5. A Polo
  6. Target Sights of a Weapon
  7. An Other Eye
  8. Doughnuts (mmm)
  9. Spy Hole (possibly with an eye through it)
  10. A Roundabout
  11. That Snake Thing That Eats It's Tail
  12. Button Hole
  13. Exhauts for a Car
  14. A Plate
  15. A Lightbulb
  16. Rings of a Planet

Simon Marsh 15/5/99


[Subject: Re: WHY ISN'T LEELA DEAD ?]

Maybe she's just to dumb to figure out she's meant to get old, what with all these timelords aging so slowly perhaps she forgot.

Cwej 15/5/99


[Subject: Re: My favorite villain quotes]

oh , and that Dalek recieving felatio off screen whilst tripping on the Thal drugs in serial B " Ahhhhh , Ah .....AAAH ...........ah ,ahhhhhhaaaaaaahhhhh....."

Cwej 15/5/99


clavi@ibm.net wrote:
>I can think of at *least* one other thing (well, in fact, it's a
>pair) that can be found "big and round". But honestly, I dont' think
>the Beeb would EVER go for them. Not in a line of mainstream books
>anyway.

Maybe not on the cover - but the actual books themselves are usually bollocks ;-)

Msquared 16/5/99


Stephen Watson wrote:
> Let's see: a recent car journey (4 hour round trip) accounted for
> the end of "The Stars My Destination", all of "Dominion" and the
> start of "The Witch Hunters".

And what's really impressive, folks, is that he was the _driver_. :-)

William December Starr 19/5/99


[Subject: Re: Yoda is William Hartnell]

Ken Carriere wrote:
>>I was just re-watching Empire Strikes Back, and I couldn't help thinking
>>how much Yoda reminded me of the First Doctor. Most of Yoda's first few
>> sentences end in "hmm?" with the same vocal inflection as Hartnell. And
>>he's all rickety, needing a younger man to do all his physical labor. And he
>>uses a cane, or walking stick, as the First Doc sometimes did.

David Hutchison wrote
>I got that impression myself... ;)
>I wonder if muppet voice actor Frank Oz -- or whoever it was who played
>Yoda -- developed that characterisation in that particular way
>intentionally, of if it just came out naturally...?

Naah, you guys have got it wrong:

Hartnell: Ben Kenobi (old, grumpy git, snuffs it early on)

Troughton: Yoda (short, comical, replaces Kenobi)

Pertwee: C3PO (qunitethentially Englith, futhy, into technology) (OK, *you* try typing with a lithp)

T. Baker: Vader (loud, larger than life, and barking)

Davison: Luke (young, naive, works on a farm)

C. Baker: Han Solo (cocky, arrogant, loudmouth, no dress sense)

McCoy: Chewbacca (gurns a lot and rarely says anything I can understand) (or as he's so short, maybe he's an Ewok?)

McGann: Leia (very pretty, keeps on discovering brothers he never knew he had)

Hope that clears everything up.

Just trying to get out of my mind a picture of McGann in *that* gold bikini...

David Brider 20/5/99


[Subject: Re: And the rookie winner is...]

Tim Saward wrote:
>> Who else? It's Arthur Banana.

Susannah Tiller wrote:
> Speech! SPEECH!!!!!!!!!!

Arthur regrets he cannot make tonight's ceremony as he is concentrating on his 'Saturated Fat' sequence of erotic fiction, - tales that bring to the forefront the sensuality that was always inherent to Literature's more generously built characters. Arthur insists that this will be no mere sexual titillation involving fat people as he has no patience for shallow prejudice. He hopes that these stories will convey: tenderness, and erotic contact; humour, and erotic contact; whipping up a nice Spaghetti Bolognaise for a few friends just on the spur of the moment, and erotic contact; checking your watch against the speaking clock, and erotic contact; nipping down the all-night garage for some ciggies and a can of Tango, plus erotic contact...

Arthur is currently working on a crossover sequence of stories that feature Roland Browning, 'Matron' from Carry on Doctor and The Michelan Man all coming to terms with their sexuality against the barbs of an uncaring and fashion-obsessed society. Arthur insists that this fantasy does not involve the actress Hattie Jacques (this, in the light of her former marriage to John Le Mesurier, being in questionable taste) but rather the character she portrayed, a formidable woman parading along a hospital corridor to the unmistakeable strain of a tuba playing 'Matron's Theme' aka 'Parrrom pom pom pom pom pom pompity pom pom pom pom pom pom pom'. The same applies to Roland Browning - it is he not Erkan Mustafa, to whom one's fantasy must be drawn, though Arthur is at pains to point out that this is a much older Roland Browning than is commonly remembered. No schoolboy he, but a 28 year age virgin. Arthur will not elaborate on the Michelan Man other than to confirm what is commonly suspected - he is not in fact fat but, rather, in the possession of a gargantuan wraparound appendage.

So Arthur cannot be with us tonight, but he has sent a heavily perspiring anthropoid to accept the award on his behalf.

Dorothy 'Dot' Harpic

Personal Secretary, Chauffeuse and Limbo Dancer,

pp

Art Banana 20/5/99


[Subject: An excerpt from the IG investigation files of 2002 re: [ADRICS] ]

[Excerpt from IG report of 2002. File: Usenet: rec.arts.drwho: Adrics]
>CONFIRMED
[Subject: A historical perspective on the events leading up to the usenet disaster of mid 1999]
>PROCEED

[Sorting data according to parameters...]
>ABORT ESC QUIT
[Unable to comply. Data retrieval already sorted]
>WHAT THE HELL HAVE I DONE?
[Unable to process commands. Display data anyway?]
>OH VERY WELL. I'M FOR IT NOW.
[Please answer Yes/No]
>YES
[Warning: This data is not recommended for those with weak constitutions. Proceed at your own risk. Internet Government Health Warning of the act of December 1999]

The ADRICS Programme Guide: Serial RADW

Plot: The inhabitants of a Doctor Who newsgroup found themselves facing the most peculiar menace in their long and troubled history. Over the last year they had faced things that other newsgroups would have faltered over. They had their ups, their downs and the just plain weird. But nothing had prepared them for what lay ahead...

Fluffs: "We've discovered The Space Pirates episode 3!" - Steve Roberts

Goofs: "The appalling music used in Curse of the Fatal Death was utterly unlike anything ever heard in Doctor Who ever before" - David Howe

"No, I'm not in jail" - John Long

"I wanted to write something that treated the subject of comedy Doctor Who with the maturity and dignity it deserved" - Steve Moffat

Dialogue Disasters: "People who like Sylvester McCoy watch Doctor Who for the wrong reasons" - Azaxyr

"Next year is not acceptable" - Waxvax

"Yes, but is it canon?" - the last recorded words of an unfortunate newbie before he was myteriously trampled to death

"I've written a Voyager book, you know" - Dangermouse (50 identical postings discovered, current thinking being that this was an advanced SPAMbot)

Dialogue Triumphs: "Suck, lick, touch, fondle, grope" - Charles Daniels

"QUOTEFILE!" - various

"You think irony is a type of metal" - Keith Topping

"Next year will be a lot better, honest!" - Chris Rednour

Other references: Very little material survives in other forms today. It is understood that a small breakaway group of survivors are currently working on reconstructing the newsgroup from a few quotefiles and a chunk of Jon Blum's hard drive. The group were ecstatic to discover the existence of an entire poster's output last month in a church hall in HONG KONG ... until it was revealed that the poster in question was Marcus Durham. No word has since been revealed about what has happened to this material.

Summary: The winner of the 1998 Adric for the worst thread went to:

Anything by Azaxyr (Death to Jews, Mel and Peri, et al)

The inhabitants of the newsgroup weren't all that surprised with this winner, it seems. There was some mumbling down the back about how the McCoy fans were trying to oppress the Pertwee fans through the evil forces of moderation, but no one paid much notice, as usual.

Historians looked back on the Azaxyr virus with some considerable amusement in these enlightened times, but the historical context should be borne in mind when considering the point of view of those from the time. But since they treated the virus in exactly the same way, this doesn't really make much of a difference.

The final consideration in this decidedly odd competition similarly went to a thread created by an entity thought to be an actual poster at the time. It is interesting to speculate about the nature of the entity that created this thread. We now know the true extent of what happened in mid 1999, the sheer mind-numbing horror of it all, and the way it eventually led to the formation of the glorious Internet Government.

However, at the time the entity appeared as little more than a slightly peculiar poster from California. Presented here for historical accuracy, and drafted from the IG investigation files of 1999, is the winner of the best thread of 1998:

Charles Daniels' Unofficial Programme Guide

Those poor, poor bastards. They never knew what hit them.

[End of extract]

Robert Smith? 20/5/99


>>The telesnaps came from the BBC Written archive, where they had existed
>>all along.

>>The rest are missing because nobody has found them.

DBurns6554 wrote:
>Either that or they were destroyed with the episodes from those eras.

No, it doesn't work that way. Or someone wiping the tapes had a strange sense of humour.

< buzz > 'The Celestial Toyroom' Never liked that one. < buzz > 'The Singing Sands' < buzz > Some rotten photo negatives you can't even see any detail in because they're too small. Anybody got a match...... < scrape, flicker, crackle >

David Brunt 23/5/99


"Demontage", like a number of Justin Richards' books, is like when you've been going out with someone for a year or so and you have a shag on a Thursday night, but partly because there's nothing decent on TV. And you enjoy it and it's fun and satisfying, but it was like last Thursday and not quite as good as Saturday. And, let's face it, you were thinking of someone else while you were doing it.

"Revolution Man", like a number of Paul Leonard's books, is like meeting someone in a club on Friday night, wearing something skimpy. You're hot, you're excited. You're out in the alley snogging and you're going to remember this for ages. And you were left with a hard-on at three in the morning by someone who was actually too fat and had spots.

Henry Potts 23/5/99


Rayctate wrote:
>To say I'm not a fan of the Virgin "Doctor Who" novels is quite
>an understatement, I'm sure anyone who has ever encountered me
>will agree.

Mental image inspired by that statement:

[Ray Tate is walking down the street. A stranger bumps into him.]

STRANGER: Oops, sorry.

RAY TATE: [shouting] The Virgin "Doctor Who" novels suck, dammit!

STRANGER: [backing away] Uh, okay, whatever...

William December Starr 23/5/99


[Subject: Re: Azaxyr]

Jarrow Merenivitch wrote:
>Well, i've only been on this group for a while but the thing best known
>on this group is everybody does not like Azaxyr. Well I would like to
>know why? Perhaps an Azaxyr Timeline, just something to find out
>why he is so hated.

Okay, I'm doing this from memory, so some of the dates may not be entirely correct.

Azaxyr - a Timeline

January 1 - Post that McCoy was pond-slime.
January 1 - Post that Jews are pond-slime.
January 2 - Post that McCoy was pond-slime.
January 3 - Post that Jon Blum is pond-slime.
January 4 - Post that everyone who disagrees with him is pond-slime.
January 4 - Post that McCoy was pond-slime.
January 5 - Post that McCoy was pond-slime.
January 6 - Post that JNT was pond-slime.
January 6 - Post that Time and the Rani is pond-slime.
January 6 - Post that Britain is pond-slime.
January 8 - Post that Jon Blum is pond-slime.
January 8 - Post that the NAs were pond-slime.
January 9 - Post that McCoy was pond-slime.
January 10 - Post 25 reasons why Remembrance is pond-slime.
January 11 - Post that everyone who disagrees with him is pond-slime
January 11 - Post that poofs & lezzos are pond-slime.
January 13 - Post that McCoy was pond-slime.
January 15 - Post that the world is out to get him.
January 15 - and that McCoy is pond-slime
January 15 - No really, McCoy is pond-slime.
January 15 - Pond-slime. Really.
January 15 - And Jon Blum too.
January 18 - Post that Lance Parkin is pond-slime.
January 19 - Post that Kate Orman is pond-slime.
January 22 - Post that McCoy is pond-slime.
January 23 - Post amusing but bitter parody of radw posters.
January 25 - Post that JNT was pond slime.
January 26 - Post that the NAs were pond-slime.
January 26 - Post advertising premium-priced NAs for sale.
January 27 - Post that people outside the US are pond-scum.
January 29 - Post short, nasty, unintelligible comment.
January 31 - Post that McCoy was pond-slime.

Repeat, 12 months a year for the last four years.

In short, he's a bit repetitive, in a somewhat negative, offensive kind of way.

Danny Gooley 24/5/99


[Subject: "RADW : Its Effect on the Millennium Decade"]

Thanks to yet another trip in my TARDIS I was able to read fragments of a book entitled "RADW : Its Effect on the Millennium Decade", being a full and frank discussion of the impact this newsgroup had on the world during 2000-2010.

In 2003 David A. McIntee became executive producer of the ailing 'Star Trek' franchise. He implemented radical changes by removing almost the entire crew, leaving only Bob Picardo as the sole member. In a homage to the original series the Picardo character was accompanied by females in skirts varying in degree from mini to micro to belt. Fans were originally up in arms when the Romulan cloaking device became known as a chameleon circuit but were impressed by the effect it gave of making the ship look much smaller on the outside than it actually was. Paramount were happier at the reduced cost of the production, especially since the fleet of CGI generated ships had been replaced by a single small blue box. Mr McIntee's close personal friend, former producer Brannon Braga, made varying suggestions on story lines without actually being given a screen credit. His best known contribution was implementing a large number of nearby wormholes which gave rise to many time travel stories. Although suffering under the clamour of many saying the show wasn't as good as in the old days it eventually went on to become a massive critical and commercial success.

The BBC still refused to make any Dr Who because "there isn't a market for that kind of thing".

The early 0's saw the rise of John Pittigrew as the towering comic of the age. His one man show "All Keys Lead to Marinus" were sellouts throughout Europe and America. He branched into films with such classics as "There's a Cybermat in my Soup" and "Jo Grant and Dumber". His performance in Comic Relief's "Death of the Fatal Curse" brought him a request from the Pope to perform in St Paul's in the Vatican in December 2004. John did so and a comic tour-de-force was underway until, tragically, he tried to introduce a Yuletide flavour by telling the Christmas Squid joke. Attempting to recover from the oppressive silence that followed John pointed to a carving of Jesus on the cross and asked "is that what happened to the last comedian you had here". The Vatican later went to great pains to point out that the finding of Mr Pettigrew's corpse, pin-cushioned with crucifixes and having a tentacled animal jammed into his mouth was in no way related to the holy war the Pope had launched on comedians.

In 2005 the first ever public flogging and exile in cyberspace was carried out. After hearing Jon Blum hype the forthcoming Lance Parkin novel "The Improbability Doctors" to stratospheric heights the netizens were incensed to discover that it was merely mind blowingly excellent and cast Jon adrift for the crime of promising them far more than could ever be delivered. He went on to a very successful career as an IBM sales representative.

In 2007 President Skreslet signed a bill which legalised homosexuality in the USA. He said "The Lord Buddha teaches us that we shall accept all others for what they are and rejoice in the differences". He was also reputed to have stated that homosexuality would be enforced on some people as there weren't enough interesting Dr Who fans around these days.

In 2008 the leader of the Aryan Wolves, Henry Vizi, announced he was casting away his brown shirt and stepping down from the extremist group. He explained that he had always known he was adopted and that this had been a source of underlying anger throughout the years. He said "all I ever wanted was to be loved by someone, anyone. Now I have found my birth parents I am getting to know them and for the first time in my life I am actually happy". Vizi changed his name back to the one originally given by his parent, Jacob Goldstein. A few months after this happy event Jacob took advantage of the President's recent legislation and married boyfriend John Long.

In 2009 the entire set of missing Dr Who episodes were found, including the colour version of Marco Polo and episode 6 of the Daemons. A somewhat embarassed member of the BBC, known only as SR for anonimity, said - "Well me and Richard were just doing some wet gate transfer when the machine died. Following standard BBC procedure I kicked it a bit but that didn't work. Richard swore at it but that didn't work either. We eventually prised the front off it and were amazed to see all these spools of film jamming up the works. We ran them through a projector and I was surprised to see this massive tentacle go right across the screen. I originally thought it was my wedding night home movie but then realised it was something far more exciting - Furry, sorry, Fury of the Deep. We discovered we had absolutely everything at which point we rang up Waxvax just to piss him off". On asked how the tapes originally ended up inside the machine a sheepish SR admitted "when we got it I was testing it with some old rubbish that was in our office. I remember using one can with the title 'Dalek Cutaway'. If it had been a proper title like 'Mission to the Unknown' I would've twigged it was a Doctor Who episode".

The BBC are planning to release each individual episode in a collectable cardboard gift box at the special price of £50 each.

Later that year Ian Levine said "I don't think any more episodes of Quatermass II will ever be recovered".

Graham Nealon 24/5/99


[Subject: Re: BBC Who Books Guidelines]

Stephen Graves wrote:
>Yes, but the published authors are allowed to get away with almost
>anything; can you imagine the look on Steve Cole's face if, say, I
>had pitched The Infinity Doctors to the BBC? Which means that
>first-time writers are going to be forced to churn out faceless,
>TV-style stories with old Doctors, like Last Man Running, before
>they're allowed to join the exclusive gentlemens' club that is the
>Eighth Doctor Mailing List...

>It's rather like Shakespeare being allowed not to spell proper-like,
>and inventing his own words, simply because he's *Shakespeare* and
>he can do what he likes. If an English student did something
>similar, the examiner would throw his work out of the window.

You know, just once I'd like to see someone apply an attitude like this towards a profession *other* than writing.

"I wanna be a stuntman. How come the people who hire stuntmen won't let my first stunt be jumping off a skyscraper while setting myself on fire and wrestling a tiger on the way down? I'm sure I saw some established stuntman do that in the movies last month. If they don't want me to do that straight off, it's just because I'm not in their little clique."

"It's rather like the way dentists can take a drill to peoples' teeth, cause they've got a degree and all so they can do what they like. But if some student picks up a drill, they'll do you for practicing without a license, they will."

Jonathan Blum 26/5/99


Steve Day wrote:
>"All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension.
>Trans-uranic heavy elements may not be used where there is life. Medium>BR> >atomic weights are available - Gold, Lead, Copper, Jet, Diamond, Radion, Sapphire,
>Silver, and Steel.... Sapphire and Steel have been assigned."

I don't know if it's is meant as a joke, but I've just read this .sig and got a very bizzarre mental image of a TV series where the safety of the time-space continuum is guarded by Joanna Lumley, David McCallum, David Collings and a very large box of washing powder. Well, it made me laugh anyway.

Simon Exton 26/5/99


>Mmmmmaybe... but that performance by Ms. Baron is *really* hard to
>get past. Who did she blackmail to get the role, anyway?

She lives up my road, she does. I've often felt tempted when I walk past to shout out, 'Oi! What did you think you were doing in Englightenment, then? And your singing in The Gunfighters was crap too!'

But I never do.

Shearrob 26/5/99


Ruediger LANDMANN wrote:
>>Which countries' TV archives haven't been properly searched? It seems that
>>at least the UK, Australia, and Cyprus have been given a very thorough
>>examination. Others, like Hong Kong and Nigeria seem to have been searched
>>by the locals - but how thorough were these searches? And what hasn't been
>>searched at all? Has there been anything done in Iran since the legendary
>>(or even apocryphal?) "What in Allah's name are you talking about?"
>>comment?

Paul Goubert wrote:
>The best person to ask is probably Ian Marter

There's such a wonderfully uncluttered perspecive where he is.

Simon Jerram 26/5/99


David McLoughlin wrote: >>Is a telesnap some kind of promo?

DBurns6554 wrote:
> A telesnap is a photograph of one frame from a film print.

My gross apologies. To me, that would be a "photograph". They had them when I was a kid enjoying Dr Who. In fact now I am a parent, I take such images of my children with a thing called a camera. Even my kids call them photographs.

How times change in such a short time.

Once again, many thanks for the Enlightenment.

David McLoughlin 26/5/99


[Subject: a pointless in-joke]

A sport in which contestants throw for distance a disk, typically metallic or wooden with a metal rim and weighing about four and a half pounds.

Discus.

William December Starr 26/5/99


[Subject: Re: Bad Endings...]

Number.6 said:
> Arc of Infinity: The Doctor prevents a matter/anti-matter explosion
> by shooting Omega with a Dymo label-maker that we're told is a
> matter converter. But what does it convert matter *to*?

NYSSA: Doctor?

THE DOCTOR: Yes, Nyssa?

NYSSA: You just destroyed Omega with a matter converter.

THE DOCTOR: Yes.

NYSSA: Well, what did it convert him _into_?

THE DOCTOR: Hmm.

[The DOCTOR examines the weapon, holding it up to his eyes and squinting as if reading fine print.]

THE DOCTOR: You know, it doesn't really say.

[Pause. NYSSA looks at THE DOCTOR. THE DOCTOR looks at Nyssa. TEGAN looks at THE DOCTOR and NYSSA.]

THE DOCTOR: [speaking very rapidly] Yes, ah, well, Amsterdam _is_ lovely this time of year but you know I _do_ think that we should be on our way now come along Nyssa don't dawdle Tegan there's a good girl...

[All three repair to the TARDIS, in haste. The TARDIS dematerializes. The End.]

William December Starr 26/5/99


The REGENERATIVE Website wrote:
>> Dear Reader,

>> If you have time please feel free to check out this site.

Ruediger LANDMANN wrote:
>Dear Dave,

>Please feel dree to get stuffed.

Dear Ruediger,

How does one contact Dree?

Danny Gooley 27/5/99


[Subject: Re: Yoda is William Hartnell]

Come back shall I, one day. Yes, come back shall I. Until then no regrets, no tears, no anxieties must there be. Just in all your beliefs go forward, and to me prove that in mine I am mistaken not.

Daibhid Cheinnedelh 27/5/99


[Subject: Funny thing...]

Apropos of nothing, but on deja.com I just saw:

Yoda is William Hartnell
Get Real
Steve Roberts
The Mind of Evil

-which, with the appropriate punctuation, would make a more coherent post than the average I see round here.

Conrad Feinson 28/5/99


[Subject: Re: King's Demons on 5 DRS. DVD?]

Paul Andinach wrote:
>> The King's Demons and The Five Doctors Special Edition were released
>> as a box set, and people complained.

>> People complained about having to buy TKD to get T5DSE.
>> People complained about having to buy T5DSE to get TKD.
>> People complained about all these people who were complaining about
>> something that (at least according to these people I'm talking about
>> now) wasn't really important.
>> And so on.

David Atkins wrote:
>...until the announcement of the forthcoming 'Beginning' box-set,
>featuring 'The Edge of Destruction', gave them something else to
>complain about.

>Personally, I'm just really annoyed that I have to buy another copy of
>'Wheel of Fortune' just to get 'The Lion' and 'The Space Museum'.....

>BBC videos. Complete rip-off aren't they?

What shat me was having to pay, again and again and again, to see the milk tunnel. Now, I like the milk tunnel as much as anyone, but how many times are they going to release it and expect the fans to pay for it? And don't get me started on the rising thingy in the early episodes...

Daniel Frankham 29/5/99


Steve Day wrote:
>>The whole production seemed staged as a poor over bright
>>pantomime, with everything from the ugly sisters in the Tetraps to
>>similarities with Beauty and the Beast and The Wizard of Oz - complete
>>with the Rani playing the Wicked Witch.

Alden Bates wrote:
>That means Mel=Dorothy and Ikona=Toto presumably. ;-) the Doctor's
>pratfalls were reminiscent of the Scarecrow's appearence, I suppose...
>:-)

If he was looking for a brain, he was in luck :)

Daniel Frankham 31/5/99


[Subject: Review: Dead Romance and Dominion]

Super Fun Quiz!
Are You An Author For The BBC and Virgin?

Have you ever woken up in the afternoon, turned on Neighbours and found yourself unable to comprehend what it is you actually do? Well now, with the help of this summer-tastic, fun for all the family quiz, you too can help explain all those hours you put into the 80,000 words you wrote to a deadline. Whether you wrote the jaw-dropping Dead Romance or the deadly dull Dominion, anyone can take part!

1. You are writing for a shared universe. Do you:
a) Apply lots of past continuity, invent even more of your own and generally behave like Orson Welles discovering a film set for the first time, right down to the sly joke of the acronym of book's title?
b) Try your best to conform utterly to what you perceive to be a standard story in that universe, adding nothing new and generally having your well-established characters run around for no good reason?

2. Your central character is obviously vitally important to the story. Do you:
a) Present a mysterious, past-less figure obviously based on an established person in this shared universe but totally subverted in lots of cunning, fascinating ways?
b) Present a bland, idiotic dullard bearing only a passing resemblance to a character so well established that you end up shaking your head at how an author can possibly get him so wrong?

3. For a novel, you will need to keep your readers interested. Do you:
a) Approach your book with a fresh style, possibly in the rarely used first person that will height the nature of the revelations you will be presenting later on? Your prose also contrives to be witty, page turning and just so damn 'sparkling'.
b) Write witless, sparkle-free prose that merely highlights the fact that your plot is so formulaic it was obviously only presented as a way to get a risk-free commission? Further compound this by presenting a half-decent alien culture and some effective tension, completely let down by a cop-out ending.

4. A reader will have to be interested in the characters. Do you:
a) As you go on, present intriguing facets of the characters, with their actions defining them so that the reader feels involved in their stories and can 'take part' in the novel by partly defining the characters for themselves, and therefore be even more shocked when someone suddenly does something unexpected?
b) Present every feeling and thought that crosses your characters' minds so that they can do absolutely nothing to surprise you and end up like so many facets of the author's own personality, right down to the eternally interesting and mysterious central character?

5. In any good story, there is bound to be emotional turmoil arising from things like death. How do you present this? Do you:
a) Attempt to explain the impact on your characters by the use of conversations they have and the actions they take in response to events, because everyone thinks they know how they'll react in such situations but the truth can be more complicated, and surprising, than that?
b) Show every character's thoughts in great detail, thereby turning them into whining, moaning idiots who bore the reader into something like submission and generally give the lie to the novel being the great cultural art-form of the 20th Century.

6. A great novelist will attempt to make his book resonate outside of the printed page. Do you:
a) Introduce whole reams of fascinating back story which may or may not conform to ideas you previously held, but deliciously subvert them anyway, leaving you, at the end, wishing the book could have gone on forever.
b) Present a story which exists merely within the confines of the book and which is totally forgettable once you've put it down, leaving the reader with the feeling that they've just wasted a portion of their life entering the mind of a deeply dull person with a few good ideas but no idea about how to make them interesting and memorable.

If you scored mostly a):
Congratulations, you are Lawrence Miles. Although you've only written four books, your patented 'what the hell is he doing?' style is now so well established that readers can't wait for your next book, about which they expect to be completely gob-smacked in ways they know not of yet, but which will provide exactly the sort of emotional roller-coaster Doctor Who books should be doing. Your latest book is a typically genre-busting example of how to write genre fiction and your ideas are pouring out of your head so fast that other authors are being caught up in a maelstrom which they have no hope of controlling.

If you scored mostly b):
Congratulations, you are Nick Walters. You've taken the slightly suspicious route of entering the world of novels seemingly by being mates with a few established authors and, with your first solo novel, have done absolutely nothing to disprove the slightly icky air of 'jobs for the boys' which surrounds you. Your writing is uninspired and your insights are possibly the dullest yet seen in your chosen line of books. Although some good ideas are present, they are not enough to encourage a reader that your book is actually worth finishing. Plus you're unlucky enough to a) arrive at a time when certain people were promising an upturn in the standard of your book line, and b) to have your work compared with possibly the finest author of the moment, working for a line which has been consistently trumping your line with malicious glee. Bad luck.

Dr. Evil 31/5/99

[N.B. Name of author corrected in the last paragraph to avoid litigation :-) - RS?]


Robert Smith? wrote:
>I move in mysterious ways.

I thought they'd given you some tablets for that "problem"?

Marcus Durham 1/6/99


[Subject: Re: Thoughts on Warriors' Gate]

Shane "Remo D" Dallmann wrote:
>Like many others (I suspect) I found this story incomprehensible when I
>first saw it--since then, I've "caught on" and find it quite effective. The
>concept of zero coordinates makes perfect logical sense for a concept such
>as E-Space--but there's one part of the story that continues to throw me.

>The end of episode three. Just what throws the Doctor from the Tharil
>banquet back into the hands of Rorvik? Not simply the Gundan axe-blow,
>surely?

Yeah that part throws me every time. My take on it is that the Doctor is part of some virtual reality as a means of explaining the Tharil history. With the arrival of the Gundan robots, the "tape" ends and the Doctor's perceptions return to the real environment. He has in fact been sitting at the banquet table unaware that Rorvik and co have been watching him experience some sort of psychic vision (as they would see it). The *real* cliffhanger ending is the Doctor realising what a complete dickhead he must have looked to Rorvik and his crew sitting there talking to himself and eating handfuls of spider web.

Podmix 1/6/99


[Subject: Re: Thoughts on The Face of Evil]

Carnegie wrote:
>>The ideas are great - the Doctor having cocked everything up before
>>hand; the schizophrenic computer, manipulating all the events to mirror
>>it's own inner turmoil; the tribal society revealed as decendants of a
>>space crew (which, I suppose could have come from SOD).

Robert Smith? wrote:
>I didn't think it was possible to reproduce that way.

Like the man said, the descendants are a result of the Doctor cocking *everything* up, on his previous visit.

Danny Gooley 2/6/99


[Subject: Inference Part 1]

"The Third Doctor. The Eighth Doctor. Sam. Fitz. Sarah-Jane Smith. And Tom Wilkins, the genial bartender. Soon, one of them will be tall; one of them will be even stupider; one will be highly irritating; one will have brown hair; one will be a journalist and one will have every major organ removed, chopped up into little bits, fed through a grain harvester and scattered all over southern Wales."

A mystery story, by Miles Lawrence.

Robert Smith? 3/6/99


[Subject: Re: Thoughts on The Face of Evil]

OJ Thornton wrote:
>Maybe I'm wrong, but reading the novelisation aged 7, the impact of it
>being the Doctor's face was I'm sure just as great as for those who saw the
>thing on TV for the first time. I was hooked not just to the TV
>programme, but the novelisations of stories I'd never seen that were in
>the library, and "Face of Evil" and "Tomb of the Cybermen" were the two
>novelisations I remember most from those days.

...And often while reading novelisations I had no idea what era they came from, so imagined completely the wrong doctor in the role. Davison in Tomb, Baker in the War Games, Terry Wogan in Genesis (I think due to bad cover art)... still, the 'Do I have the right?' scene becomes interesting.

jktwo@hotmail.com 3/6/99


[Subject: Re: www.marcopolo.com]

REMAINS OF MISSING EPISODES FOUND IN RESAURANT
By Paul Harman, PA News 'Doctor Who' Correspondant

Doctor Who Fandom was up in arms today when the remains of the original master tapes of a thirty year old adventure were discovered in the refuse bin of a London West-End restaurant.

The adventure, known as "Marco Polo", is widely regarded by Doctor Who fandom as a "classic" (dispite the tapes being unavailable for review). It starred William Hartnell as the Doctor, with companions Susan, Ian and Barbera.

The management of the restaurant refused to comment on the discovery, although several partons of the establishment have since complained that the pasta dishes were "a bit chewy".

(page 2)

Fans have since flocked to the establishment in an attempt to aquire what can be rescued from this tragedy. Some have even taken to dismantling the lavatory facilities, in case patrons have excreted some of the precious film while still on the premises.

The Master was unavailable for comment.

Steve Roberts, an expert at restoring old films for the BBC, later commented "I think you're talking crap, mate". One of his associates, a Richard Molesworth, was heard to state "Well Marco Polo was shit, anyway".

Ian Levine, film collector extraordinaire, merely belched and asked somebody to pass the ketchup.

Paul 'Ozymandius' Harman 3/6/99


[Subject: Re: DWM 279]

Ed Stradling wrote:
> That reminds me - I bought DWM to read on the tube the other day (quite
> good article about Comic Relief I thought) and this bloke sat opposite me
> and sniggered half of the way through the journey. He wouldn't have
> sniggered if he'd realised how blatantly his bird was eyeing me up, but
> that's another story. I left the mag on the train as I didn't want to cart
> it round the West End, and when I looked back, the hypocritical fucker had
> picked it up and was reading it.

And, of course, this sort of thing is always happening in the life of monsewer Stradling. For the record, I was that other guy on the tube, and I was just sniggering at anyone who would read DWM in these days. I mean, when the cartoon was half decent, okay. But *now*.

Oh, and I told my girlfriend to eye you up, just to give you the thrill you so desperately needed...

Dr Evil 4/6/99


[Subject: Re: DOCTORS ONE TO SIX--DARK TOO?]

Corey Klemow wrote:
> So why does the Doctor start so guiltily when Ian catches him?
> And what do you think the Doctor *was* going to do with that
> rock?

Tap the caveman on the shoulder, say "Look -- cool rock!", throw it as far as he could and watch the caveman run after it? :-)

William December Starr 5/6/99


[Subject: Jackie Jenkins (Was:Re: DWM 279)]

Paul wrote:
>>The John Wiles article was a good read, but can't you get rid of that Jackie
>>Jenkins once and for all, I'm sure the Daleks would oblige and exterminate
>>her!

Dokter Ooh wrote:
>I agree. I tried reading it the first 4 or 5 months but it was always so
>pointless and boring. It was like you had to find filler and she was it.

For godssakes, if anyone from DWM is reading this, *do not*, under any circumstances, entertain any notions of getting rid of the Jackie Jenkins column. It's funny, thoughtful and the first thing that gets read in my house. Why? Because it's light-hearted, short, and gets me back into the mood of being a fan- something that I need when faced with the pages of analysis that the Monthly seems chocka with these days. If it wasn't for the column to *ease* me back into the right frame of mind, the rest of the magazine would be impenetrable.

Mind you, I'm not one of those fans who watches an episode a day, or who always has a BBC book on the go. That's no slight to those who are, but my 'peak' fannishness (my "fanny-period" you might say) is usually for the four days to a week after I've got my Monthly...

Steev 7/6/99


[Subject: Re: DOCTORS ONE TO SIX--DARK TOO?]

Xerophyte wrote:
> Ace got the most of the horrible treatment of any companion in the
>series.

Conversations that never happened, part 143:

SARAH JANE: Just bundled out of the TARDIS! Just like that! Some stupid excuse about humans not being alowed on Gallifrey, and I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere!

LEELA: The Doctor told you humans were not allowed on Gallifrey? He said nothing of this to me. But then, he said very little to me when we were on Gallifrey and what he did say was unpleasant. Of course, he had his reasons, but...

PERI: Yeah? Your Doctor ever try to kill you? I mean physically attempt to strangle you to death?

ACE: Huh, that all? I had to go through aversion therapy to cure me of one of my childhood nightmares!

< Others look at her >

ACE: Maybe you had to be there.

Daibhid Cheinnedelh 7/6/99


[Subject: Re: DOCTORS ONE TO SIX--DARK TOO?]

J2rider wrote:
> Doctor One was dark at times--he tried to kill a caveman

Hang on. I've had a chance to review the scene. Basically what happens is that the Doctor bends down to pick up a smallish stone and then gets flustered when Ian jumps on him. Some people (Gary Russell among them, judging from 'Invasion of the Cat-People') might call this dark...

It's fairly obvious that the Doctor's plan was

(a) slowly pick up a blunt but not particularly heavy object in full view of a deeply suspicious schoolmaster and his friends
(b) dodder towards wounded but conscious and deeply suspicious caveman
(c) bludgeon him to death with this light object
(d) which should take a good few minutes, even assuming that i. the caveman is too weak to put up a fight, ii. Ian, Barbara, Susan and the caveman's beloved decide that this is good entertainment and just sit back and watch, iii. the pursuing tribes-extras don't catch up with them in the meantime, and iv. that the Doctor is much less feeble than he looks
(e) this to be carried out at a time when - as far as the Doctor is concerned - speed is of the essence, and
(f) for no readily apparent reason.

I suppose it would depend on the jury, but I would also a point (g) in mitigation:

(g) This is actually a dreadful old chestnut that no-one's really taken seriously since DWW went monthly, roughly equivalent to the belief that the series was created by Terry Nation and the first story had Daleks in it. Next thing you know someone will be reminding us that the first Doctor once "threw scalding hot tea in the Monk's face" or that the sixth once "pushed two defenceless men into an acid bath"!

Daniel O'Mahony 7/6/99


Steev wrote:
>Incidentally, I got invited to a big bookseller's bash a while back, and
>only chickened out cos I knew Tom Baker was going to be there... and I
>knew it would be inevitable that my dear woman would prod me towards him
>in an attempt at 'being helpful'... Is the a technical term for this
>phobia?

Cowardice?
Good sense?
A fear of the insane?

Tom's no different to those other gibbering unfortunates let out by the (previous) Government's care in the community scheme. He's just got a stripy suit to set him apart from the rest. In the land of the mad, the curly-haired stripy man is king........

David Brunt 8/6/99


[Subject: Re: DWM 279]

Tim Jones wrote in message ...
>I've always thought that the Jenkins style is remarkably similar to Dave
>Owen's... It could just be me, but I swear they sound nearly identical! Both
>full of long, vague sentences that don't really tell you anything, and such.
>But I could be mad.

Your observation that my sentances are both long (although I always tell myself it's what you do with it that counts) and uninformative (although, to be honest, I have always felt it more the preserve of magazine writers to entertain than to inform) is both telling and yet meaningless at the same time, leading to almost no decision on my part whatsoever, despite my having laboured for a not inconsiderable period to arrive at a more definitive conclusion than I have.

Dave Owen 8/6/99


[Holmes's "The Six Doctors" script]

Kafka wrote:
>Since another actor was taking over the role of the first Doctor, Holmes would
>have had him turn out to be a robot duplicate designed to fool the other Docs.

Hurndall: "And I'm the Doctor's first incarnation"
Everyone else: "But you don't look anything like him! IMPOSTER!"
Hurndall: "Bugger, rumbled."

Alden Bates 8/6/99


[Subject: Re: Crusade / Space Museum boxset]

BRINDELLR wrote:
>Sounds like the packaging alone is worth the price of admission:) And
>just think, we get the Crusades too. Oh yes, don't want to forget
>about the Space Museum!

Hmm... It's a close run thing between the key ring and The Space Museum for me.

David Herrick 9/6/99


'Distant' Dave wrote:
>>Overcoming my usual reticence to mix reality with fiction I popped
>>out to the Stamp shop on the Strand and got Tom baker's Autograph.

Steev wrote:
>This is something I *could not do*. Meeting Tom Baker would be just
>too frightening. I would have nothing of any wit or intelligence to
>say, and would probably end up just wanting to burst into tears,
>suck my thumb and blub "I love you Doctor" at him. Which would not
>impress him, methinks.
>And I can think of few things more embarrassing than being punched by
>Tom Baker.
>Incidentally, I got invited to a big bookseller's bash a while back,
>and only chickened out cos I knew Tom Baker was going to be there...
>and I knew it would be inevitable that my dear woman would prod me
>towards him in an attempt at 'being helpful'... Is the a technical
>term for this phobia?

A quick check of an online dictionary suggests the following pearls of "dog Greek":

Psomaphobia (Fear of Baker [actually fear of a baker, but close enough])

Didaktoraphobia (Fear of the Doctor)

Tesseradidaktoraphobia (Fear of the Fourth Doctor)

Kallistodidaktoraphobia (Fear of a favourite Doctor)

Kronoarchontaphobia (Fear of a Time Lord)

Andrapolymacrosaliphobia (Fear of a man in a very long scarf)

Tileorasatomikotitaphobia (Fear of a TV personality)

Iroaphobia (Fear of your hero)

Legoilithiosiroaphobia(Fear of saying something stupid to your hero)

Daibhid Cheinnedelh 10/6/99


Michael J. Montoure wrote:
>I saw it for the first time recently, and while I was
>watching the (okay, admittedly slightly stagey, but)
>literary and mythic dialogue being performed by
>jerkily-gesticulating actors with incomprehensibly
>distorted voices and ill-fitting rubber costumes,
>portraying beings whose awesome and nearly godlike
>powers were portrayed by cheap, flickering flashlight
>bulbs glued to their foreheads ... I couldn't help
>but think that if *I'd* written this sharp little
>script, I would have curled up into a little fetal
>ball and cried when I saw what they'd done to it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we now have the definitive description of every episode of Doctor Who ever made!

Robert Smith? 10/6/99


[Subject: Re: Playboy misses again]

Bokman wrote:
>>On the other hand, if a woman is posing nude for photographs on the side, doing
>>it as freelance work, working with people she likes and trusts in a safe,
>>sanitary environment, and everyone is of the understanding that she can stop
>>whenever she chooses, then she's still in control and is not being demeaned.

Charles Martin wrote:
>How can I find that out by looking at the box?

Look for the "Free range models" label.

Daniel Frankham 11/6/99


PowrWrap wrote:
>Now that AOL has newsgroup filters, I'd like to know if any of the veteran
>inhabitants of this ng actually use the killfile option. Here's an easy to use
>cut/paste survey:

>1. Do you use killfiles or filters to avoid postings by individuals or
>spammers?

Oh yes.

>2. List the individual posters you have killfiled,either presently or in the
>past.

I've got < dr-evil@belisarius.freeserve.co.uk > in my killfile. I just don't like what I've been saying lately, or the tone with which I say it. I just prefer not to see what I've written, as I never say anything of any worth.

Dr Evil 12/6/99


Peter Vialls wrote:
>If the play is to go ahead, we therefore need to obtain
>some costumes for Sea Devils. Does anyone in eastern England (or further
>afield?) possess such things? Do these costumes exist anywhere, and is
>anyone willing to loan them to us?

Some string vests, and half a dozen thin ugly blokes holding compact disks should do you fine.

Gareth Thomas 13/6/99


[Why use Mars in "Pyramids"?]

Michael Lee wrote:
> Of course they could search and replace "Mars" for "Venus". But it wouldn't
> be the same story.

Pyramids of Uranus has a certain ring.

Simon Simmons 14/6/99


Michael Lee wrote:
>> Of course they could search and replace "Mars" for "Venus". But it wouldn't
>> be the same story.

Simon Simmons wrote:
>Pyramids of Uranus has a certain ring.

"What do we have to do, Doctor?"

"Sarah, it's vitally important that we keep Sutekh away from Uranus!"

"I won't argue with that."

Daniel Frankham 14/6/99


mark@shoutmag.demon.co.uk wrote:
>>Oohhhhhh - you've done it now. Let's place bets on how many posts into
>>this thread we are before Azaxyr comes in with some of his
>>queerbashing cobblers.

xl5@six-new.demon.co.uk wrote:
> Him no frighten me! I've been slagged by experts! I shall *sniff* at his
> cobblers!

Eurgh. You're a braver man than I.

Ben Woodhams 14/6/99


[Subject: Re: They're not seriously releasing The Tenth Planet, are they?]

John Pettigrew wrote:
>Woops, sorry if this is all old news to folk on RADW but I've just been trying
>to catch up with stuff.

>Since when has The Tenth Planet been scheduled for a video release? I thought
>Steve and co thought the project was a no-go area just now since the lack of a
>fourth episode would prove to be too anti-climactic for the average punter.

>Also, what form would this take? A reconstruction ala' The Ice Warriors?
>Again, I thought the Restoration Team believed that, gorgeous though it was,
>this method would never be employed again due to the vast amount of money
>involved. No?

>A narration of the last episode to camera really WOULD seem a cop out, CD or no
>CD IMO.

It would provide an excellent opportunity to make the story a bit more exciting...

NARRATOR:
"NoW," said Krang, "YoUR plAnet wIll bE DEStroyed."

The Doctor sprang upon him. "Noooooooooo!" he shouted. "Never! It's my favourite!" And riding on the alien's back, he gouged at its eyes, and stuck his fingers in its mouth, and who could tell where they'd been?

"KIll hIm," said Krang, calmly.

"BUt KrAng," said the other Cybermen. "YOU Are In thE wAy."

"I wON't ASk twICE," said Krang.

The Cybermen powered up their weapons.

"See you in hell, plasticballs!" said the Doctor.

The cybermen fired. Krang fell to the ground, spewing green mucus. The Doctor had been spared much of the blast, shielded by the moulded plastic of the Cyberman, but it had been enough... he was dying.

As Mondas exploded overhead, for no easily discernible reason, Ben and Polly crouched over the broken form of the Doctor. "It feels different this time," he said, and closed his eyes for the last time.

Cue regeneration scene.

Daniel Frankham 19/6/99


simon_roberts wrote:
>The policebox IS important, but a functioning chameleon circuit would also
>be important. The Police box shell is part of Dr Who, and also an important
>running gag, and I for one wouldn't like to see it replaced by, for
>instance, a National Lottery kiosk.

I agree. Too much of a gamble.

Peter Anghelides 19/6/99


[Subject: Pick of the Brown Bag: A special presentation--The Taint]

Every once and awhile a book comes along that simply defies my humble abilities as a critic. So before I let the experts handle the honors. Let me tell you what few things I did like about the novel. Mr. Collier at least researched some of his subject. The drug information found in the book is fairly accurate. The Doctor actually acts like a scientist in this novel, and in the latter chapters, his concern for Sam is most attractive to his character. That's it. Okay, guys, hit it!

"....I'll send him cheesy movies, the worst I can find....La-la-la-la...He'll have to sit and watch them all, and I'll monitor his mind....on Mystery Science Theater 3000."

Mike: Welcome to the Satellite of Love. I'm Mike Nel--"
Crow: Mike! Mike! You're gonna love this!
Tom Servo: We were trying to make popcorn with the Interocetor.
Crow: Yeah, and we burned down the movie screen!
Mike: What?
Tom Servo: The curse has been lifted! No more cheesy movies!
Mike: No more cheesy movies?
Crow: No more cheesy movies!

Mike, Tom Servo and Crow jump up and down. The light flashes on the console.

Mike: Mrs. F. is calling.
Tom Servo: For once, we don't have to fret about answering.
Mike: Come in, Pearl.

Pearl: Hello, Mike. Robots.
Mike: Hey, Mrs. F. What movie do you have lined up today?
Tom Servo: Yeah! Yeah! We're feeling really frisky.
Crow: Our spirits are up way too high!
Tom Servo: Send up a Schumacher!
Mike: Send up a Schumacher!
Crow: Send up a Schumacher!
Chorus: Send up a Schumacher!

Pearl: Uh-huhhhh. Think I don't know about your little "accident?" While Brain Guy and the monkey get you boys a replacement screen, you're going to serve as my pigs, excuse me, my guinea pigs for my latest fiendish device. The Novel-Experiencer. It allows you to experience a novel together, frame by frame. Put the headbands on, boys. You're in for a bumpy ride.

Mike: We got novel sign!

HERE BE SPOILERS

Donning the headgear, Mike, Crow and Tom run through a series of doors, decidedly Gigeresque in fashion.

"Doctor Who"

Crow: Great, that means the novel's going to wobble.

"The Taint"

Crow: As in it Taint a good novel.
Tom Servo: A skull on the cover. Not a good sign.

"Michael Collier."

Crow: Michael Call your boat ashore.

"They say it's your beliefs that get you into heaven, not your deeds. Don't they."

Mike: No, it's cold hard cash.
Crow: "Black Gold."
Tom Servo: "Texas Tea."

"Copyright Michael Collier 1999. The moral right of the author has been asserted."

Tom Servo: The rights of the reader on the other hand....

"Original series broadcast on the BBC. Format copyright BBC 1963."

Mike: How can you broadcast a novel?

"Doctor Who and TARDIS are trademarks of the BBC."

Tom Servo: Oh, sure. Get all proprietorial even though "Doctor Who" hasn't been on since 1996!
Mike: Calm down, honey.
Tom Servo: I can't help it, Mike. Paul McGann wants to do more "Doctor Who." Daphne Ashbrook wants to do more. Phil Segal and Matthew Jacobs wants to do more, but the BBC can't take the time to get their heads out of their....
Crow: Hey, at least there's "Sliders" and "Seven Days."
Tom Servo: I ought to kill you for that, Crow.
Crow: Man, I'm so sorry. That was low.

"1.1 Muriel Kreiner Tells Dreams Down the Phone [1963]"

Crow: Down with the Phone Men starring Peter Sellers.
Mike: Hey, this chapter isn't so bad.
Crow: Good p.o.v.
Tom Servo: Lots of characterization.

"The Taint"

Crow: We know that already!

"2.1"

Mike: On the Richter Scale.

Crow: Nothing harmful in the first eight pages.
Tom Servo: Think maybe Pearl screwed up?

"The man sniffed the air appreciatively. He had light-brown hair that hung in lazy curls, a long pale face with thin lips that made him appear quite supercilious at first glance."

Crow: Here, we go.
Mike: Come, let me keees your supercilious lips.
Tom Servo: Do you suppose there are lips that make you look supercalafragilisticexpialadocious?

"Sam, Sam, Sam, please..."

Crow: Stop. Stop. Stop, please.

"The man slumped heavily against the police box, a thick string of drool escaping from his grinding teeth."

Mike: The TARDIS drools?
Crow: Misplaced modifier.
Tom Servo: Charming imagery.

"She looked at the Doctor's own outfit, his starched wing-collar shirt and cravat, his Edwardian breeches. For the first time in a very long while she found herself feeling embarrassment to be seen with him."

Crow: Breeches? I can buy the Doctor's pants at the Gap.
Tom Servo: They wore bell-bottoms in the sixties, and Sam's embarrassed to be seen with the snappy dresser.

"It's like something, you know out of R.J. Tolkein."

Tom Servo: And the first attempt at humor falls flat.

"You mean there's an R. J. Tolkein?"

Crow: Ha-Ha. Tourists are so stupid, and I'm so smart.
Tom Servo: Fitz Kreiner. Likability factor, zero.

"There are many women called Frodo in France. It was my mother's maiden name."

Mike: And the second attempt at humor fizzles.

Tom Servo: Well, we've got to go.
Crow: Nineteen pages, and I already loathe this book.

Away from the theater, Mike finds Crow and Tom watching television.

Mike: Hi, guys. Um, what are you watching?
Crow: Oh, hi, Mike. We're watching "Doctor Who 1996" also known as "Grace 1999."
Tom Servo: It's nothing like the television series.
Crow: The effects are better.
Tom Servo: The sets are sturdy.
Crow: The script's imaginative.
Tom Servo: Well they always were imaginative, but you get the gist.
Crow: And the Doctor gets the babe.
Mike: Really? But I thought the Doctor was--you know.
Tom Servo: A eunuch?
Crow: A gourd-loving man?
Tom Servo: Well, wrong you are, Mike. Observe.
Crow: He's about to--Yes! The kiss is good!
Tom Servo: Supercilious lips.
Crow: Yeah, they're supercilious all right.
Mike: We'll be right back.

"You're all dead! Meat and maggots in my Death Cave!"

Tom Servo: Which also houses my Deathmobile.
Crow: My Death Computer.
Mike: My Death Shark Repellent.
Crow: And much, much more. Oh, no, Rabid, there's the Death Signal.

"....There you go, love. Do you want a fag?"

Tom Servo: And after the fag, we can have a cuppa because we're lower class English people.
Crow: Can I have scones with my cuppa?
Mike: Do you suppose Lipton sells Cuppa Soup in England?

"Crikey Moses."

Tom Servo: And the Upper-class Twit Award goes to....
Crow: Did I mention we're jolly well English?

"His name's Austen, Oscar Austen."

Mike: Jimmy Bond's little brother?

"Five mos--five and a half mos."

Crow: I'm glad we didn't convert to the metric system.

"Then when you knock off, how about letting me show you how good it looks painted red?" said Fitz rakishly.

Crow: Blue or red, it won't ever look good.
Tom Servo: Right. We've just had an encounter with a raving madman. So now's the time to go on a date.
Mike: Well, she does have a great ass.
Crow: Arse.
Tom Servo: English, Mike. Speak English.

"That was the thing with art and antiques, she decided. You could be anywhere between 1998 and 1938, and places like this would look practically the same."

Tom Servo: Translation, the author's too lazy to go to the library's fine arts department.

"Six," affirmed Roley..."They believe they've been possessed by the devil."

Crow: Six crazy people believe they're the slaves of Satan, and this is suspicious why?

"It's fascinating, don't you think, that these individuals should share not only the same basic mania but also retain specific memories of an undoubtedly fictional place..."

Tom Servo: What?
Crow: Dreaming about caves strange?
Mike: Not a Freudian.
Tom Servo: Or a Bob Kane fan.
Mike: Well, we've got to go.

Away from the theater, Mike now finds his robot pals in strange positions. Crow lies on a leather couch, and Tom sits behind a poorly made wooden booth advertising whether the psychiatrist is either in or out and billing his services at five cents.

Mike: Crow, why are you lying down?
Crow: Tom's analyzing me, Mike.
Mike: Oh, I see. Can I--Can I watch?
Tom Servo: Well, this really should be confidential....but oh what the hey, it's not like I'm licensed. Tell us about your dreams, Crow.
Crow: Well, first I dream about a cave.
Tom Servo: Uh-huhhhh.
Crow: Then I dream about a tunnel.
Tom Servo: I see.
Crow: Then I dream about the Fertile Crescent.

Tom Servo: Go on.
Crow: Next, I dream about Cindy Crawford's skirt.
Tom Servo: Well, I'm stumped.
Mike: We'll be right back.

Mike: Skronk!
Crow: Whinny-Whinny-Whinny-Whinny-Whinny
Tom Servo: Prppppppp.
Mike: Skronk!
Crow: Whinny-Whinny-Whinny-Whinny-Whinny
Tom Servo: Prppppppp.
Mike: Skronk!
Crow: Whinny-Whinny-Whinny-Whinny-Whinny
Tom Servo: Prppppppp.
Mike: Skronk!
Crow: Whinny-Whinny-Whinny-Whinny-Whinny
Tom Servo: Prppppppp.

Pearl: WAKE UP!

Mike: Aigh!
Crow: Where am I?
Tom Servo: Oh, no. I'm still here.

"Do you play, then?" asked Sam.

Crow: Is your guitar a goer? "Nudge, nudge, wink. Bob's your, Uncle."
Tom Servo: "Say no more!"

"No it's my mother's," said Fitz.
"Really? That's cool."
"Actually, it is mine. Sucker."
"No, you're the sucker. I was suckering you with my sarcasm."

Crow: The power.
Tom Servo: The passion.
Mike: Actually, whoever bought this book was suckered.

"Sam looked around the poky attic room...There was a single mattress on the floor with a miserably thin, brightly dyed pillow adorning it. The walls had been white once, she imagined, but now they were beige--partly age, partly fag smoke..."

Mike: So, Sam is a stereotypical lower-class English person too.

"They're all broken! They've got great big holes in them!" she announced.

Tom Servo: Sam Jones. Jo Grant. Jo Grant. Sam Jones.
Mike: Doesn't the Doctor have a victrola?

"You're just dossing around here, passing time taking things as they come. You don't know anything about the ozone layer, recycling.....There's no AIDS, in your world. No HIV tests...."

Crow: I've got ten bucks that says she doesn't know anything either.
Tom Servo: What's really disturbing is that "Austin Powers" addresses the same issues more dramatically.

"A dark-haired woman galloped into the room, tall and lithe."

Mike: I'm half-mare, on my mother's side.
Tom Servo: England really is a different country. Their rooms are sinuous.
Crow: Some are probably supercilious.

"Doctor, this is Lucy Branch."

Cross: My cousin is Sally Limb.
Mike: My great Uncle is Ian Root.
Tom Servo: And her favorite singer is Twiggy.
Mike: We've got to go.

You have just tuned in to time-travel Jeopardy! Our contestants today are the lovely, sinuous Gypsy, the supercilious Tom Servo and Croooooow! Now here's your host Mike Nelson!

Mike: Thank you, Don Pardo. All right our first question is name two regular hosts of the Tonight Show before Johnny Carson.
Crow: I know! I know! Jay Leno!
Mike: I'm sorry. The question was BEFORE Johnny Carson.
Tom Servo: I've got it! David Letterman!
Mike: Not even close. Gypsy for the lead?
Gypsy: This is so unfair! How do you expect us to know that answer when we weren't even built during that era!
Crow: Yeah, Mike! I mean was there anything before CDs? I certainly don't know.
Tom Servo: Our knowledge begins and ends with our culture. For instance, we don't know anything about "Green Acres."
Crow: Cloche hats.
Gypsy: Prohibition.
Tom Servo: The Declaration of Independence.
Crow: And we certainly don't know anything about holes in albums.
Tom Servo: Why if we saw such holes, we'd be shocked!
Crow: Stunned!
Gypsy: Frightened!
Crow: It's not like CDs have holes in them!
Mike: Actually, Crow. They do.
Crow: They do.
Mike: Mmm-hmmn.
Crow: Well that's jolly well, crikey, fag-arsed...

"Do you want a cup of tea, love?"

Crow: Before I get into your knickers.
Mike: You do have knickers, I hope.

"Son of the morning....Come into me now. Take control of this vessel, I give myself into your hands."

Tom Servo: "This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius, the age of Aquarius. Aquarius!"
Crow: I can't take much more of this.

"Excuse the arm," he said. "War wound."
"I'm sorry. I bear a few of those myself," said the Doctor quietly.

Mike: What?
Crow: Wouldn't regeneration fix everything?
Tom Servo: Isn't that the purpose of regeneration?
Mike: The fifth Doctor was damaged the most.
Crow: And that was three regenerations ago.
Tom Servo: Don't get me wrong. I like the eighth Doctor, and he got banged up a little in his battle against the Master, but battle scars?

"I'm delighted to meet you, Mrs. Kreiner. Your son seems virtuous and trustworthy."

Mike: This must be the Fitz from the antimatter universe of Quard.
Crow: Meanwhile back at the non-interesting date of Sam Jones and that crikey twit Fitz Kreiner.
Tom Servo: Absolutely nothing happens.
Crow: Well there's a shock.
Mike: Oh, wait! Robots!

"...The Doctor hadn't even let her carry her rape alarm."

Tom Servo: Doctor Who-do-you-think-you-are?
Mike: Like the sonic screwdriver isn't anachronistic?
Crow: This is just offensive.

"This way lads, that's right, drag the bleeder down here, and we'll sort him."

Crow: Yeah, that Fitz is kind of a leech. Oh, wait, they mean the robots.

"Where are your mates?"
"We're here...Ready to rumble."

Crow: Of course, that just means snapping their fingers and doing pirouettes.
Tom Servo: Singing "I'm so crikey pretty."

"I'm afraid she's been through a bit of a rough patch lately."

Mike: Patch of what?
Tom Servo: A patch of blonde.
Crow: Bad for the gray cells.

"The excitor transmitters in the brain have been stirred up, altering the personality of each of the subjects, bringing about this delusion. A shared delusion....They're wired in a different fashion."

Mike: All this from a dream about caves?
Tom Servo: Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike.
Crow: Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.
Tom Servo: The Doctor and the Upper Class Twit clearly have vastly superior intellects to that of the average reader.
Crow: We couldn't possibly follow their trains of thought. So, the author considerately left them out.

"Grr." said Fitz, looking coyly at the plant between his legs. "You were an animal."

Mike: "Oh, the humanity!"
Tom Servo: It's like an overlong "Benny Hill" routine.
Crow: No, it's far worse.

"Sam! Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam...Cup of tea will do you good. Oh, Sam, Sam, Sam...."

Tom Servo: Does this guy even like the Doctor?

Mike: He seemed to in "The Longest Day."
Crow: This is "The Longest Read."
Tom Servo: The Doctor's a time traveler. Maybe he read this book and traveled back in time to kick him in the shins or something.
Mike: And paradoxically caused Michael Collier to write this book out of revenge.
Crow: It shows.

"Why am I so scared, Doctor?"

Crow: Because the novel's only halfway through, and you're still in it.

"Yeah, I left with a young woman, but I never saw what happened to Chubby. We weren't exactly looking for a menage-a-tois."

Crow: Ha-Ha. I so want to kill him.
Mike: Officer, arrest that poor excuse for a man for irrelevant sexual innuendo.
Tom Servo: Let's see. Two parts "East Enders," one part "Fawlty Towers," one part every Amicus and Tigon film from the sixties...Sprinkle "Benny Hill" liberally.

Mike: Oh, lord in heaven, please don't let the nice policeman refer to Fitz as "my son."
Crow: I'll make a pact with Satan just to cover all our bets.

"Well, well," he said. "Who's a clever boy, then?"

Tom Servo: And the Doctor's voice raises to grandma pitch.
Mike: One part Monty Python.
Crow: Someone just shoot me.

"His words seemed to insert a flash-frame of herself into her racing thoughts."

Mike: More like a slow crawl.

"She had dark hair and a whole different life, sitting in a bedsit eating hamburgers on a rainy day.

Tom Servo: And the bedsits are carnivorous.
Mike: At least they like rainy days.
Crow: And the annoying Phantom Sam is mentioned for no good reason.
Mike: At least she's not shooting up.
Tom Servo: But she's still there, Mike as a blatant continuity reminder.
Crow: A continuity I might add that nobody cares about.

"Sam, it's so good to see you!"

Crow: What? No Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, it's so good to see you?

"And Gallifreyan sight?"
"Well....my retinas have been through a lot in their time."

Crow: There was that time the Sontarans pulled them out of my head and used them as castanets.
Tom Servo: And the time when Richard Gere's henchmen popped them out of their sockets, sprinkled a little of Phantom Sam's cocaine on them and shoved them up my...

Mike: Arse.
Crow: Crikey that hurt.

"It's like trying to run an AppleMac program on a Commodore 64!"

Tom Servo: So she knows about the Commodore 64.
Mike: Best computer ever made.
Crow: But holes in records sends her into a state of total confusion.
Tom Servo: Oh, look, she knows about "Scooby-Doo" except for Freddie.
Mike: You know, at this point, I think I'd prefer the Phantom Sam.
Crow: At this point, I'd prefer the Phantom Menace.

"She felt the Doctor pulling her away, whispering her name in her ear, again and again...."

Tom Servo: Or like he always refers to her.
Crow: With his supercilious lips.

"Oh, you're going down for what you've done, my son."

Crow: That's it! I'm out of here!

Pearl: Well, Mike, robots, have we learned anything from this experience?
Tom Servo: Don't ::::sniff::::: Don't use the Interocetor to burn down the movie screen.
Mike: There are worse things than bad movies.
Crow: Can we go now? I need to shower.
Pearl: Very well. After all, you need to prepare yourself for next week's movie.
Tom Servo: Which is?
Pearl: Batman Forever.
Crow: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Ray C. Tate 19/6/99


Bokman wrote:
>>Not the
>>biggest waste of material, but still could have been significant.

Marcus Durham wrote:
>Well not as bad as the 200,000 unsold copies of Timelash that are
>filling a landfill just outside of Guildford...... called Woking :-)

>Yes, and Aidan, mention the Woking one way system and I may have to kill
>you.

Wasn't that the throughfare that Terry Nation got to name? You know the one I mean, The Woking Alley.

Robert Smith? 21/6/99


Dr. Evil wrote:
>> I've just downloaded 76 messages, of which 40 are from the
>> Moderated thread. Yawn. Wake me up when it's over will you?

Alain Berguerand wrote:
>BTW, could some kind soul post a daily summary for the rest of us ?

Moderation Diary (excerpts):

Day 684:
Some people are for it, some are against. Some arguing took place.

Daniel Frankham 21/6/99


[Subject: Re: 'Interesting' Doctor Who combinations]

Myra wrote:
>This is for individuals or pairs of DW characters (ie the Doctor and
>the Master, or the Doctor and some companion, etc) who would be...
>unique. Horrible or fun, it doesn't matter. Strange is the key
>For example:
>Ozzy Osbourne as the Doctor, Marilyn Manson as the Master
>Woody Allen as Adric

"Oh ahhh...I'm the Doctor or somebody...ahhh...I signed a lot a bad contracts actually...ahhh..ohh damn...that bat thing always comes up..ahhh...we were high, and I pissed on the Alamo."

"I just feel so disoriented by this time travel. I mean what if we arrive in a time where I'm considered sexual inadequate?"

"That's any time, gimp boy."

Charles Daniels 21/6/99


[Subject: Re: Finn Fang Foom Weekly #31 - the A-Z of Doctor Who!]

Pope Maddogg wrote:
>> And it's about bloody time!

Finn Clark wrote:
>The slogan for the Finn Fang Foom Telemovie!

Banned in 142 Countries, Publicity Burned To Righteous Nationalistic Music In the Rest.

Charles Daniels 21/6/99


[Subject: Re: DW COVERUP OF ALIENS AND DINOS?]

Karen Jo Nyctolops wrote:
>>I may be remembering wrong, but most of the invasions were fairly
>>localized, so could be covered up. All of the dinosaurs conveniently
>>went back to the past in Invasion of the Dinosaurs, so UNIT could
>>cover up the evacuation of London and odd sighting by saying that the
>>army accidently set off some new gas weapon that had hallucinatory
>>effects. I think that the Scarasen in the Thames would be the hardest
>>to explain/cover up.

Robert Smith? wrote:
>Well, they based that one on the real-life coverup of the unicorn
>stampede in Dorset in 1973.

[ " .... " ]

[ "Go on. That's your cue." ]

[ " ... No." ]

[ "Go on! Everyone's out there waiting!" ]

[ "Look, I'm *not* going out there. It's a crap joke, it's an obvious set-up line, and I'm sick of playing straight-man second banana to Smith?, anyway." ]

[ "Get out there *right now* or you'll never work in this newsgroup again! You're under contract, you know!" ]

[ *sigh* "All right, all right .... " ]

*ahem*

Gosh, *I* never heard of any unicorn stampede in Dorset in 1973!

[ Drum roll. Cymbal crash. The audience goes wild, throwing flowers. Exit MONTOURE, stage left, muttering crossly. ]

Michael J. Montoure 22/6/99


[Subject: Re: What happened to John Black?]

Nicholas Stanton wrote:
>Why didn't he direct anything else after K9 and Co?

I think that that speaks for itself.

Mark Aldridge 22/6/99


[Subject: Re: Dr.Who personal hygene and restroom issues??]

I will ensure that I include a scene in "Frontier Worlds" which answers all of these questions, and builds on the stuff that Lawrence Miles put in to "Alien Bodies". Clearly, the Doctor must have a perspiratory by-pass system, for example. And since he never goes to the toilet, you'll understand why Lawrence said that the Doctor is "at one with the lining of his pockets". He is, in fact, at Number Ones with the lining of his pockets. This is probably why Terrance Dicks and Paul Magrs keep describing them as "capacious".

Peter Anghelides 23/6/99


Nicholas Smale wrote:
>Lots of Doctor Who stories sound rubbish when you boil them down to a
>brief synopsis ("Plastic aliens try to take over the world using shop
>window dummies", "The Loch Ness monster attacks London").

Well, quite. I mean, "After a visit to the technological marvels of Heathrow, Concorde makes an emergency landing in primeval England, where pulsating jelly-monsters have teamed up with the Master!" sounds like a perfectly terrible idea, and yet...

Graham Nelson 23/6/99


[Subject: Re: CSO, anyone?]

Xerophyte wrote:
>I've never quite understood how on the same series, the same effect can be
>used and the end results are never consistent!

>For example:

>"The Robots of Death" < snip > looked perfect.

>On the other hand:

>"Planet of the Spiders"

>So how can the same effect work badly for some and not others?

It's almost as if there were *years* separating the production of those stories ...

I've never understood why William Shatner looks older in the ST movies than he did in the TV series :-)

Simon Simmons 24/6/99


[Subject: Re: San Francisco 2000]

>> And why did the Doc really give him the gold? Any >ideas, thoughts, or
>>comments?

Rayctate wrote:
>Yes, now this is tricky, but I'm going to go with that darn old Occam's Razor
>again. He's got at least a drawer filled with bags of gold dust for
>encouters with you know what. So, he's not going to miss one. No need to
>write a novel about it. Please don't.

The Doctor sighed and wiped his brow. 256 Cybermen were piled up on the ground in front of the Tardis already. Yet they *kept coming*.

Oh well. He reached into his special drawer and pulled out the 15th bag of gold dust in preparation for the next round. Busy day.

Soon it would be time for another tall, cool, refreshing glass of Country Time lemonade.

THE END

(novel partially funded by certain advertisers)

Azaxyr 27/6/99


[Subject: Re: Favourite companions to hate or love]

xl5@six-new.demon.co.uk wrote:
> I like them all except Ace and the machines.

> Susan - wierd
> Ian - camp
> Barbara - camp
> Vicki - dim
> Steven - thick
> Sara - butch
> Katarina - pointless
> Dodo - thick
> Polly - bats
> Ben - sexy
> Jamie - camp and thick
> Victoria - camp and dim
> Zoe - camp and bats
> Liz - bats
> Jo - thick, bats and camp
> Sarah-Jane - relentless
> Harry - thick, bats and camp
> Leela - sexy
> K9 - dreary
> Romana 1 - camp
> Romana 2 - arch
> Adric - bats
> Tegan - thick, bats and camp
> Nyssa - bats
> Turlough - camp
> Kamelion - dreary
> Peri - thick, bats and camp
> Mel - thin, bats and camp
> Ace - dreary

This evaluation of the companions is brought to you by Camp, Arch, Bats, and Thick, Attorneys-at-Law.

Deacon 28/6/99


Alan S. Wales wrote:
>I've often wondered what people would guess me to be if I went to a Halloween
>costume party dressed like a Sontaran. A walking, talking penis? I've
>never had the balls to do it, though. (I mean, I've never had the nerve to
>do it.)

You could always take along a mate got up as Alpha Centauri. That would really give 'em something to chew on.

Gareth Thomas 29/6/99


[Subject: Re: Worst actor to play the Doctor]

>>>>But JNT learnt his lesson, and made up for this slump by giving us the
>>>>wonderful McCoy era.

DBurns wrote:
>>>He might have made up for the slump, but there are those that would say
>>>that he made up for the slump by creating an even larger slump than before.

Gregg Smith wrote:
>>No, are there? I simply hadn't noticed. Goodness, next you'll be telling me
>>that such people have no taste.

Adam Richards wrote:
>Next he'll be telling us McCoy's poo smells of roses...

".....and when Adam next wandered onto radw, all the posters wore T-shirts which said: 'Come back John long. All is forgiven!!!' "

Danny Gooley 29/6/99


[Subject: Arthur peruses Dominion]

I hate swedes, me. You can blame Peter Wyngarde for that. When I was six Peter Wyngarde worked as a dinner-lady at my primary school. If you're wondering how on Earth Peter Wyngarde got a job as a dinner-lady I can tell you that it was while he was resting between acting appointments and anyway this was back in the Sixties and things were different then. Every lunchtime I would stand in the dinner queue between Jacqueline 'Swill Bin: Odour Reminiscent Of' Jameson, whose background of social deprivation had the effect that she smelled like a container of pig fodder, and Garry 'Wears a pair of National Health Specs with one of the lenses plastered over' Gilroy whose background of social deprivation meant that he wore a pair of National Health Specs with one of the lenses plastered over. They didn't call him 'Wears a pair of National Health Specs with one of the lenses plastered over' for nothing. It wasn't that he had a lazy eye or anything like that. It was just that he was so poor he was only allowed to look out of one eye at a time. Hard to believe, but this was back in the Sixties and that was the law then. As I waited to be served I would endure the taunts of Billy 'Bigot, Bully and Break's Badger's Backbones for a Bet' Barnes who stood further down the queue. To pass the time Billy would shout abuse at those he perceived to be different to himself. Itinerant igloo-dwellers like myself had no chance. 'OI, BANANA,' he would shout, 'GET BACK TO GREENLAND WHERE YER BELONG AND COUNT THE TYPES OF SNOW YER FISH-STINKING INUIT. ' It would have been futile for me to point out that I was in fact born in this country, and had never been to Greenland: this was back in the Sixties and such attitudes were acceptable then. Billy Barnes wouldn't have understood anyway: he was the peripatetic music teacher and only really taught clarinet to the posh kids.

Over the servery counter would come the rank aromas of over-boiled vegetables. This was back in the Sixties and vegetables were cooked to buggery then. They were put on to boil a full seventeen hours in advance to ensure that no trace of vitamin survived to allay the scurvy and rickets of the poor children. It was how they maintained the class divide in those days. The menu was always cabbage, carrots and swedes. Nothing else: just cabbage, carrots and swedes. That was all school dinners consisted of in the Sixties, apart from the semolina skins that were served for pudding.

The day that Peter Wyngarde came to my school I was feeling a bit peaky anyway on account of breakfasting on lightly grilled spam marinaded in Ready-Brek (remember, this was back in the Sixties long before the Golden Graham emerged to save Western society from encroaching culinary decadence) so I decided to forego the swedes, just for today. I indulged Wyngarde with my sweetest smile as he ladled semi-solid cabbage and carrots onto my plate, but I interrupted him as he reached toward the swede vat:

'No swedes for me, thank you'

Wyngarde turned a deeper shade of red, then paled to a lighter hue that was closer to orange, and the left point of his moustache disappeared up his right nostril. I guess he must have practised that.

'Just for that you can have *thirty seven* portions,' he sneered, 'and you're staying right here until you've eaten *all* of them.'

'Sod off,' I told him, 'I mean don't get me wrong - I'm sure you have the making of a fine cult actor and within a decade you will find your metier in an archetypal Seventies show of the Crime/Detection/Thriller genre - but I don't think dinner lady-ing is quite your forte. You seem to lack the requisite empathy with children.'

'*You* sod off,' he replied, 'It's my first day and I can't be expected to get it right first time. So eat up those Swedes or I'll remove your ears.

He made me do it too. Then he wouldn't give me any pudding until I'd eaten seconds.

It took two weeks and seventeen stomach pumps before I could finally expunge the swedes from my system and face the world. To this day I cannot even look at a swede. The aisle nearest the doors in Safeway is forbidden teritory to me. I hate swedes, me.

So when a fellow called Nick Walters writes a book called Dominion that is packed with swedes from cover to cover I'm sorry but I am not disposed to be generous. I mean I'm sure Nick Walters is a good bloke: it's such a 'good bloke' sort of name isn't it? So he shouldn't take this personally. It's just that he's written a book about swedes, and that gets to me at the level of personal childhood trauma. It's not my fault that I'm about to castigate a book he doubtless put a lot of time and effort into creating and feels pleased as Punch (on the day he first copped off with Judy, before the rot set in) with. I really can't help it.

Before I begin my tirade I will mention the one good, nay *pioneering* thing about this book. Walters has finally devised an apposite designation for the Eighth Doctor. No more experimentation with 'Doctor Identikit' and 'Congenital Idiot' will be required, for on page 88 of Dominion Walters has summarised the Eighth Doctors quintessence in eight pertinent words. From henceforth the Eighth Doctor will be known as 'The Guy with Two Hearts, who never Farts.'

My opprobrium then. Where to begin? With some

T
H
E
M
O
N
S
T
E
R
I
N
F
O
R
B
I
D
D
E
N
P
L
A
N
E
T
I
S
I
N
F
A
C
T
C
R
E
A
T
E
D
F
R
O
M
D
R
M
O
R
B
I
U
S
'
S
I
D

space of course, or else people might refer to be as a 'rapscallion' behind my back. Following that I'll move on to silliness:

Dominion is quite the silliest book I have read this decade. Countless episodes have 'Duncan' Daft's handiwork scribbled all over them. There's the lift, for example. So there's this lift into a UNIT base - right? And they want to hide it - with me? So they disguise it as a woodland cabin that anyone can just walk into. Silly enough for you? Wait - there's more. Suppose someone happens upon the cabin, how do they prevent them accidentally operating the lift? Well they disguise the controls as a vice-handle, of course! The single most prominent movable object in the cabin, that anyone can just 'idly toy' with, will get you down to the military base. They must get plenty of visitors. If I were them I'd open up a tea-room in the foyer.

Then there's the butterflies. I mean whatever you do, don't emphasise the butterflies, Nick. It's not worth it. The TARDIS having a room full of butterflies is twee enough anyway: don't go having them save the universe. Butterflies don't assemble en-masse and lead people towards buttons to be pressed. Everyone knows that. It says so quite categorically in the Children's Guide to Butterflies, Moths and other Pretty Insects that you Really Don't Want to Squash, p 245 (Target Education 'Patronising or what?!' series, Volume III, 1957, nla) so don't go stretching our credulity, Nick - it doesn't suit you.

Or there's the names. If I were to write a book about Swedes I would take as a matter of personal pride not to go for the obvious options. I would avoid the names 'Bjorn' and 'Andersson' at all costs. Not so Nick Walters. Care to guess the moniker of the third Swede we meet? A plate of meatballs goes to the winner.

Enough of 'Duncan' Daft. On to 'Francis' Formulaic. He's been drafted in to construct this narrative and no mistake. By special request he does the 'Hokey formula Cokey'. You puts yer 'mysterious disappearences *in*, yer 'half-hearted police investigation' *out*, *in* yer 'aliens that hatch out of people's stomachs', *out* yer 'let's keep all these alien visitations all hush hush coz we're conspiracists and we like to conspire coz otherwise we wouldn't be conspiracists innit?'; *in* yer 'wormhole to an alternative universe', *out* yer 'gung-ho military mentality cocking it all up at a crucial moment'; yer *shake* yer 'future of the planet is all down to whether yer blue police box can quite take the strain' *about*.

And that, sadly, is what it's *all* about.

Dominion cribs from movie genres like it's going out of fashion (which it is: the 'in' set of 1999 crib from Tiawanian prose-poems), which is not to say that it's narrative style reflects the directorial skills of a Bergmann. No, this is Michael Winner's contractual obligation film at best. To describe Walter's style as pedestrian is a gross calumny on footwalkers everywhere, although he does pass the most basic stipulation for a post-1999 Doctor Who release: he includes the word 'bullshit' at some stage in the narrative.

On to 'Conrad' Characterisation, or rather his absence. Let's start with TGWTHWNF. For sure, he's got two hearts; for sure he never at any stage emits gastric methane. Unfortunately, for sure he never does anything else whatsoever throughout the entire course of the narrative. Not a thing. Not a sausage (oh, all right, he does do just one little chipolata). Is he actually *in* this book? You know, I've quite forgotten. Mind, I wish Miss Jones would do nothing. Just for once. I mean, her attempts at wise-cracking in the face of annihilation are nauseating enough ordinarily, but Walters has to go one further and have her do it *telepathically*. Mind, there was a lovely passage which saw Miss Jones covered with assorted strains of corrosive and/or adhesive mucus, but, as ever, Miss Jones' tribulations *were not followed through.* She ends the book disarmingly alive, mucus-free and *still bloody wise-cracking*. You know that moment when the window cleaner has left and you are free to meditate? So you start to chant your personal mantra (mine is 'Nuts, Luvv-er-ly Hazlenuts, Ooh') and assimilate into your surroundings. Just as you're attaining oneness with the cosmos you are brought back to the here and now by a persistent yet non-rhythmic banging. Yes - some bastard has left the door to a draughty room across the hallway slightly ajar. So you get up to close the door then return to your meditation. Whereupon the bastard returns to the room and leaves the door ajar again. That's just the sort of bastard thing Miss Jones would do. She is *that* annoying. You can create an alternative universe as evocatively as you like, and I'll concede Nick Walters does this quite well (though I can't imagine other Universes, with a totally seperate evolution, still having 'dirigibles' in them) but your efforts are blown to buggery if *she's* in there.

Then there's Fitz and his comedy interludes. 'Hey, this'll raise a laugh ... this guy's gonna want to smoke a cigarette, but every time he gets round to sparking one up he' s ... *going to be interrupted!* Hilarious or what? Let's face it: it's 'what'.

At least Dominion is a *sobering* read. Come to think of it, I needed that. Revolution Man was superlative, but it put me on a high. The world seemed insignificant whilst the memory of its myriad wonders still traversed my neural-paths. Dominion has cured me of that. It has brought me back to my igloo, my pool of typing monkeys, my ever- present window cleaner, my beloved Golden Grahams. Back, in other words, to reality. I have read the book and I have reverted to the man I formerly was. I owe Nick Walters a grudging acknowledgement for that.

Art Banana 29/6/99


Rhys Evans wrote:
>>Yep, in his first story if I can remember the video cover picture he
>>wore a black hat that he nabbed off somebody

>Yes.. a nice trilby he swiped from Dr. Beavis if I recall correctly.

Yup.
Went a treat with the shorts and sneakers he nabbed from Dr Butthead.

Sorry.

Rob White 30/6/99


[Subject: Re: 3rd/4th Doctor employed by unit...Pay??????]

James Caldwell wrote:
>>Hi,

>>Just an interesting little thread. When the doctor was "employed"
>>as scientific advisor for unit, did he receive a wage, or any other
>>bonus or was this a more informal arrangement ????

>>Any comments welcome....

Nyctolops wrote:
>The third Doctor was UNIT's "unpaid scientific advisor" as either the
>Doctor or the Brigadier put it, can't remember which, maybe both, at
>different times. He got Bessie and lab space in return.

And girls, naturally.

Daniel Frankham 30/6/99


Nyctolops wrote:
>>The third Doctor was UNIT's "unpaid scientific advisor" as either the
>>Doctor or the Brigadier put it, can't remember which, maybe both, at
>>different times. He got Bessie and lab space in return.

Nicholas Stanton wrote:
>And the funds or parts to build the dematerialisation circuit and the
>Whomobile presumably.

And the washing-up bowls to redecorate the TARDIS interior for 'The Time Monster'.......

David Brunt 30/6/99


- Robert Smith?



1