My sole post all week has been the latest Big Finish releases, which included the subscriber special The Five Companions. Which was fun - I want to see more of Ian and Steven teaming up now.

Friday was our work Christmas party, which I've only just recovered from. All I did was to sit around and talk (and stand for an hour) but I was tired from it I slept for 11 hours Friday night, still felt tired and slept for 10 hours last night. Now I don't feel tired.

In the work secret santa for the first year in I don't know how many, I didn't get a Doctor Who related thing. I got a rabbit instead. Which is good, because generally you can't go wrong with with rabbits. However, this one has a hole in it that you're clearly meant to put something in, but no one knows what. There was no packaging, so presumably my santa doesn't know either. The most suggested things at the party were mobile, iPod and remote control. I tried putting my phone in it and the hole holds together too well to get anything in there easily. So I am stumped.

There was also food, which I mostly couldn't eat. The chef wouldn't understand that I just wanted to know what was in it, I didn't care about contamination, which she was more interested in telling me. I don't think she wanted me to eat at all. Fortunately, I brought my own - I remember last year well when I got a salad.

I have things booked for January now. I am going to see the Gymnastics at the O2. It feels like we can't get away from that place. I'm also going to see Spamalot. For the third time. But the first and second times were on Broadway and in the West End, this one's in my nearest city.

This weekend I paid all my final bills for my old flat and then gave Big Finish all my money. Well, I bought the Benny box set that's out next month, the Jo companion chronicle and then thought I might as well buy the next Ian companion chronicle, even though it's not out until October.

I also bought a subscription to the main range. I ummed and ahhed over it for ages. I do want to listen to them all, so a download subscription would be fine for that. But I want to keep the Seventh Doctor and Ace stories on CD. Burning those isn't quite the same because you don't get the inserts and prettiness.

So my choices were to get a download subscription and then buy all the Seven & Ace stories on CD, or get a CD subscription and wonder what to do with the rest of the CDs. I ended up doing the latter since it'll work out cheaper in the long run. I made a deal with hhertzof to send her the Fifth Doctor CDs in return for books. Is anyone after any of the Sixth, Eighth or Seventh without Ace ones and wants to do a similar deal?

I got Frontier in Space from Lovefilm today after dbskyler talked about the commentary I decided I wanted to see it. It comes in a set with Planet of the Daleks, which I don't like much because it has Daleks in it. Each story has two discs, but Lovefilm only lists one. I just assumed it was because they're a bit useless (given that they're a bit useless), but no, it's because they send you both and count it as one! Very handy.

I've only made it through episode 1's commentary so far, but it's quite interesting and funny.

Confidential just reminded me that I wanted to say this after the first episode at Easter, but I don't like to put spoilers in here because hiding them depends on how people are reading and whether they can hold off from clicking on them.

There are spoilers for The Eleventh Hour in here, but not for any series 5 episodes after it. Read more...

I am behind on listening to the Big Finish Seven & Ace & Hex audios, and I just listened to Enemy of the Daleks today. Now, I have a big problem with Dalek stories. Well, two problems, one of which is exacerbated by audio:

1. Daleks aren't scary, they're actually quite sweet
2. They get even less scary the more they talk.

As I was listening this afternoon it suddenly hit me that the Daleks sound an awful lot like Nicholas Briggs doing Daleks voices. Which, yes, I did know before, it was just today that I couldn't get it out of my head every time the Daleks spoke. So it was hard to remember I was listening to cute little Daleks not exterminating.

Having said that, I quite liked bits of it, so it wasn't all bad. Mind you, the bits I liked were the bits without Daleks in...

My trouble when I'm ill is I tend not to want to talk to people, mostly because I have to be polite and I don't have the energy for that extra thinking. So it's usually better just to shut up and ignore everyone. Which has extended to me not wanting to post in here either, although I do have things I want to blog about.

I am getting better, if slowly (and don't have concussion, which is good after I hit my head on the kitchen side on Thursday night) and this has been marked as unread in my emails for a while:

Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your blog and elaborate on the subjects given.

tanaquilotr gave me Doctor Who, Elrond, food allergies, Davis Cup, fencing: Read more...

I have now filled eleven crates with my possessions. Four of those crates are mostly books. I really need to be ruthless with them after I move, I think. I've packed most of the pictures on my walls, mostly emptied the bookcases and taken a load of stuff off my desk and TV stand too. So it's all looking a bit empty. Well, until you see the crates piled up anyway. I have to go round the flat carefully in case I bump into things.

I spent a lot of yesterday morning going through stuff and tidying it. And discovering stuff I hadn't unpacked from when I last moved two years ago... I've binned it now because it wasn't even that important at the time. I kept on discovering stuff in random places, especially pension statements for some reason. Which included after I've packed that stuff and refuse to go back to it yet again.

Next Saturday my sister's bringing her crates and between those and all my boxes, I think that'll be pretty much everything covered.

Also, this weekend, I had a bit of a getting things done weekend because I didn't go out. I was planning to go swimming but I have conjunctivitis (although mildly - it took me two days to work out why my eye was pink) and I shouldn't take that to a swimming pool really.

But I did listen to the latest Seven & Ace audio: Forty Five. I don't think I was paying much attention to the first CD, though, so I'll listen to that again on the way home at Christmas. Then I also finally put my Canada diary up on my website. I have done all my Christmas shopping (which only involved buying one thing, so that wasn't hard) and nearly done everything for my TR secret santa too.

Now I am downloading Band of Brothers, so I won't be able to say I haven't got plenty to watch for when I have no broadband after I move...

I think DWM is trying to tell me something. Before I went to Canada I decided that when my subscription ran out (in the spring) I won't renew it. Increasingly the magazine annoys me, especially with the space they take up with the comic. I've never worked out how to read comics or understood why the pictures are there, apart from being in the way. And even when I do make the effort to read them I can't remember what's happened in previous parts months before.

They also annoy me by reviewing episodes that have been on telly. The whole point of reviews is to tell you whether to bother buying them, but I've seen all the stuff on TV, so there's no point in reading their review of it. It's just more space being taken up when they could do something with it.

Also, I can get it two days earlier in the shops.

When I got back from Canada there were two packages, each with my name (differently) spelt wrong. Inside one was a The War Machines DVD and inside the other with The Ultimate Adventure on CD, each with a note to say that I won a DWM competition. Now, I enter all of them on the basis that you do win stuff occasionally.

The Ultimate Adventures I got round to listening to today while writing a very will-to-live-sucking database and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The extras with them talking about how the stage play came about and how they adapted it were very interesting. The play itself is a lot like a panto in that the actors clearly aren't taking it seriously, so you have to listen to it in that vein. Plus it has Colin Baker in it, who comes across as just such a nice man.

Then when I got home today I found a parcel propped up against my front door. My postman might wake me up at 7am with the post on Saturdays and then not make it until lunchtime any other day, but at least he has a brain. Anyway, inside was a very cold copy of The Writer's Tale! So I was quite excited about that because I'd been meaning to look at it so see if it was anything I wanted, since it has such good reviews (although it'd have to be very good at £30). But now I have it!

I was thinking the other day about what sort of man is Jo Grant's type. The men she falls for are:

• Mike Yates (possibly) - soldier
• Peladon - king
• Thal in Planet of the Daleks whose name I've forgotten
• Cliff - scientist

And what they all have in common is a love of adventure, leadership, intelligence. Then I realised that describes Ian Chesterton quite well...

Saturday I went to Birmingham to meet up with a friend and go to Memorabilia. I bought four books - I was limiting my spending to books, so that was good. What wasn't so good was when we went into town afterwards and I bought a discounted remote controlled K9...

Anyway, there I saw the likes of John Billingsley, Deborah Watling and Lisa Bowerman and some Spitting Image puppets.

I went and got Lisa Bowerman's autograph. I knew she was there but thought to myself I didn't have anything for her to sign. No, just the Survival DVD cover and all those Benny CDs and books. Nope, nothing at all then. But it costs the same regardless of whether you have something to sign or use one of their pictures, so at least this way I got a free picture. She only had one that was her rather than her in a cheetah outfit. She said lots of people try to tell her they recognise her from that, which she said was mad because they couldn't possibly tell.

Davros had a Casualty DVD from when she was in it a long time ago. So then they discussed how much it had changed and she helped him put the DVD back in the box as they discussed how difficult it is to do because they don't make them big enough. She's been in Casualty more recently too and she sent them her CV, but they clearly didn't look at it because they asked her all sorts of questions about whether she knew what it was like and whether she'd seen it!

It was nice that there was no queue so there was plenty of time to stand and chat. I've only just remembered that she was in Spooks too (briefly) and I should have asked her about that.

After a day spent on my feet I then got up early (well, it was early by GMT at least) to go and help out at the World Pooh Sticks Championships. I got to direct traffic, and people for a few hours. By the time I got home all I wanted to do was sit down and eat lunch - I didn't eat until 3pm which is late in any time zone. I just threw all my stuff down and didn't worry about most of it until this morning.

I noticed last night that my keys weren't in their usual place on my bedside table, but I didn't worry about it because I'd probably left them in my coat pockets. This morning I put my coat on and my keys weren't in there. I spent a couple of minutes frantically searching my untidy lounge and checking the outside of my door just in case but they were nowhere to be found. You can't get in the house without them, so I knew there was in the house somewhere.

Since I was going to be late for work I dug out my spare keys and decided to worry about it later. When I got home I had my spare keys in my hand and wondered where to put them temporarily, as I'd put them back in my bag when I found my other keys. I came into the lounge, saw the top of the shelf nearest the door where my doorbell lives and considered there briefly before I realised I was in fact looking at my keys. I just wasn't looking high enough this morning...

Going slightly backwards in time from my last post, last Thursday I picked hhertzof up from the station and we went back to mine past what's now a housing estate, but was where they filmed The Invasion. The relevance of this will be more obvious later.

Then we went to a different train station via the village where they filmed The Android Invasion. I accidentally went through it rather than round, so when I got back and watched bits I honestly can't say whether it's the same place or not. If it is then they've put road markings down since.

By the time we got to Cardiff it was raining (unsurprisingly for Wales). We went to see Sarah Jane's house, and Alan and Maria's.

A quick trip to the castle (well, as fast as you can go up a keep with steep, slippery steps) and some second-hand bookshops and the Oxfam bookshop, and then we visited Torchwood. And I can prove that the invisible lift really works.

It turned out the Doctor Who Exhibition opened past 5pm and only cost £4, so we went round that taking photos of nearly everything - it was handy it was so empty. When we came out I might have accidentally bought a sonic lipstick and little remote control dalek. The latter is a black version of an ordinary gold dalek I have, so I will have to get myself some pink paint and paint them in the summer when I can do it outside - it doesn't matter if I accidentally paint the grass pink.

I've been meaning to write a post about this for ages. With the stuff I watch or read, I keep finding parent & child relationships where they're not actually related (or at least, don't have that direct relationship) fascinating. I've got a perfectly normal family going on, so there's no psychological reason like that, I just like it.

melliyna asked:
1. In your fandom(s), what are your favourite parent/child relationships? (biological or non biological parents and children) Why?
so I thought I'd answer here, rather than in a comment.
Read more...

This post isn't about the play, it's about names and what people call each other.
Read more...

I seem to have got through a fair bit of Doctor Who recently, partly courtesy of a free trial from Sofa Cinema, although not helped by the post being weekly and a week behind. Although it must be improving - I've had post twice this week and one was a credit card bill which was on time. Although wrong. The saga seems never-ending.

I bought Planet of Evil from amazon and to make it up to free delivery I ended up also getting Ark in Space and Genesis of the Daleks, so I have every Harry DVD. I watched the first two episodes of Ark in Space to remind myself how Harry talks. Although by watched I mean listened. I'm fine with the green bubble-wrap monster slithering along the floor, it's the fly-like thing (which they put on the cover!) and the bloke with the green arm I just can't cope with. There was a bit I ended up winding back and then turning subtitles on for because Harry says he once got his nose caught in a sliding door in Pompey Barracks! I never knew that. But now I do. A lot of his postings aren't mentioned in canon, but it does make sense he was at Portsmouth - it's the only naval base in this country I can name for a start.

I watched some Two and Six as well. First, there was The Mind Robber. I thought from the first episode it was going to be quite a scary thing with no real alien menace revealed. Which I was quite excited about, but then it turned out to be like The Celestial Toymaker. I enjoyed it, it just wasn't quite what I was expecting based on the first episode. I did get quite excited by the quote from Little Women, which I recognised. Zoe annoyed me at first - at the end of episode 1 she points out to Jamie that the Doctor seems to be flying away from them when the TARDIS explodes. Then she pauses and then screams. It seems like she's perfectly normal and rational and then decides that actually, she'll scream. After that, though, she settled down and annoyed me less. Although she works out the pattern for the maze that bears no relation to the picture of the maze we're shown on screen...

netgirl-y2k 'recommended' Mark of the Rani to me. I liked the Rani in it. The only other story I've seen her in is the Seventh Doctor's first and she spends a fair bit of that time pretending to be Mel. So this was my first chance to really see what she was like, and I really liked her. More than I like the Master. They were quite funny bickering and competing, but ultimately, the Master was a bit pointless in this story. Although what the actual story was I'm really not sure, but it was quite entertaining.

I listened to the two SJA audios. I preferred the yellow one (The Glittering Storm) to the pink one (The Thirteenth Stone), but I listened at work and was interrupted a lot during the pink one, so that probably didn't help. Although I also didn't like the premise of Sarah accompanying a school trip, so I was slightly against it from the start. It was definitely interesting in places but the alien aspect took a long time to show up. I felt that The Glittering Storm was in there much quicker. Mostly it was nice to listen to them as it made up for not watching SJA this week (or next, since I'm in London, but then I do get two in a row and that'll be the end of the series!).

I was terribly excited to discover one of the Companion Chronicles was Steven & Dodo and read by Peter Purves. I much prefer his narrations to any of the others. I liked this one - I liked the story, the setting and his impersonation of the Doctor. Most interesting was the interview at the end. Although the trailer at the end for the next one read by Frazer Hines was amusing because it sounded awfully like he'd forgotten how to do anything that sounded vaguely like a Scottish accent...

For some reason, until I heard an interview with Peter Purves a while back, I hadn't connected him with the Blue Peter presenter at all. I'd heard of him, everyone has, but I hadn't realised the actor and presenter were the same person at all. In my defence, he was a bit before my time - he stopped a year before I was born. John Leslie is the one I remember well and I hated Diane-Louise Jordan. I think it was because she replaced someone else and I felt like she dressed not like an adult (I don't think I'd grasped the idea of fashion).

A bit of a round-up of things I've been watching. And not watching in one case.

In Doctor Who, I've been working my way through The Key to Time and recently finished The Androids of Tara, which was okay but not particularly exciting. But, there was fencing at the end. Some of which was actually proper fencing, even if they were just playing about with parrying and riposting at one point. And their moves were all far too big. But, it's still a lot more realistic than a lot of the sword fighting you see on TV.

I'm sure amazon changed my rental DVD list around, but it meant I got to see Revelation of the Daleks, which was my first Sixth Doctor story. I haven't been putting him off for any reason, I just haven't got to him. I liked the Doctor and Peri and the interactions between them. I hated the story, but then I'm not that excited about Daleks and I haven't really been that keen on any Dalek story.

After that I went back to the Second Doctor. I listened to The Moonbase while I was away, which I enjoyed - not least because I had no idea it would have Cybermen in it. I'm three-quarters of the way through The Tomb of the Cybermen now. The Cybermen don't look scary, since they're obviously just wearing material. And some of them don't have chest plates. But I love their voices, their appropriately horrible. I'm really liking Jamie so far, and Two. Jury's still out on Victoria since this is only the second story I've seen her in and I don't feel like I know her yet.

There was SJA on TV yesterday. My PVR decided not to record it though. It did that once before with Life on Mars. The BBC iPlayer, which doesn't quite work anyway last time I tried it, only has the BBC1 episode on. So next week I'm going to watch the BBC1 episode followed by the CBBC episode - so both parts of Warriors of the Kudlak in one go. Which I was considering anyway because I hate cliffhangers.

Then tonight there was Spooks. And another Harry, they're breeding like Jacks. I wasn't convinced at all about them doing one 10 week story, rather than 10 (or however many episodes they usually have) stories. So this one did take a while to start up but it was exciting once it had. How on earth they're going to come back from that I don't know. The strangest thing, though, was the Glenister brothers between them being in all Kudos productions - Philip Glenister is in Life on Mars & Ashes to Ashes, and Robert Glenister is in Hustle and Spooks.

I know the next episode starts soon, but everyone at work just watches the BBC1 one because the BBC3 one is too late at night. And since I'm out most Tuesdays, I'm taping it to watch Monday (plus if the PVR decides not to tape it again, I have the BBC1 one to fall back on, since the BBC hate repeating things).

I've read a few books recently that I feel the need to talk about.

One of the ones I got cheap when the Friar Street Bookshop closed was a BBC Doctor Who was Three, Jo, Iris Wildthyme and Tom (Verdigris). If it was fanfic it would be described as crack. It is completely mad - and only partly because it has Iris in it. As I was reading it I thought that the summary on the back didn't really describe the plot. But then I realised, I don't think it's possible to adequately describe the plot. But it has killer robot sheep in it.

I read another Three & Jo one yesterday (The Suns of Caresh), which was much more normal. At the start, there wasn't much of the Doctor or Jo, but I got so caught up with two of the other characters, I ended up not caring. It was a good book, although the Doctor introduced a question five pages before the end which was never solved. It bugged me, although obviously not for long because I can't remember what it was any more.

I got Emily of New Moon from the library and have just finished it. It was interestingly, and I think I'll get the other two, but I don't think I like Emily as much as Anne. Although with Anne of Green Gables it helped that I found the relationship between her and Matthew and Marilla really interesting. With Emily, the relationship between her, Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Laura isn't nearly so interesting.

On a non-book related note, I watched Michael Palin tonight (there is TV on TV again!), which was really interesting. Although at the start he said he'd not really been to Eastern Europe and I think I've been to more of Eastern Europe than West!

I am also testing out the Trillian Astra (codename for 4.0 - the next release, not prizes for knowing where the Astra comes from) but I'll blog about that tomorrow.

I have finished all of the First Doctors episodes. I almost don't know what do with myself now - I liked him, and I really liked Steven. I have now seen all the episodes for all the odd numbered Doctors. I just have to work on the even numbered ones now.

I did find some interesting things I can do with WP comments, like allow people to post with the LJ ID. So I will be playing with that at some point.

And an old meme, recently seen on Van's LJ:

Post a topic, list, category, whatever, in my comments section. (examples: "5 Loveliest Things About Remus Lupin" or "5 Things You'd Do If The World Explodeded" or "Top 5 things to drink"). Then, in the comments, I'll post the answers to all your Top 5 ideas, according to me.

Some completely useless Doctor Who stats, in table form, that confirm that the First Doctor had more companions than any other Doctor and Jamie has been in the most number of stories.

This only includes the first seven Doctors. I've counted appearances in a story as being in all the episodes of that story - otherwise it gets hideously complicated with various of them disappearing for an episode. It does count every appearance, though, so The Three Doctors, The Five Doctors and The Two Doctors counts each of the Doctors and companions in it.

(For more completely useless statistics, I've also updated my list of The Bill regulars who have been in Doctor Who and Doctor Who regulars who have been in The Bill)
Read more...

During a bit of random surfing today I came across this site, which has lists of places Doctor Who has filmed. I already knew The Curse of Fenric beach scenes were filmed at Lulworth Cove - not that you can tell because they never point the camera directly out to sea, which makes it recognisable - although I didn't know that the Russian sailors came in through Stair Hole.

I've also been to Winspit aka Skaro from Destiny of the Daleks. Not that I've seen the episode though, but I've seen the episode of Blakes 7 it's in and it's very weird to see.

And I also knew that The Android Invasion village was actually East Hagbourne, which my satnav thinks is the best way to get to the A34 (it's not). So I've driven through it, but that was after I saw the episode this time and I was too busy panicking that I was driving through a small village with narrow roads to notice much.

But what I didn't know was that The Invasion was filmed in Wallingford! I knew Midsomer Murders has it as Causton and Rosemary and Thyme filmed part of an episode there (which I haven't seen) - I walked past Pam Ferris in the street. The part where The Invasion was filmed has since been built over with a housing estate (I nearly lived there...) and the tall building that might have been recognisable was pulled down a few years ago (at which I took no notice since it wasn't as interesting as the Poole Power station towers coming down).

So there you go.

And on a different note I am really excited at Redemption 09 is going to be in Coventry. OK, so I don't live there any more, but it still feels like home.

Last night I had fish and chips and I ate half the batter off the fish. And today I wasn't ill... We have a work trip to the Chinese on Friday so I had planned to have something with soy sauce in it and see what happened. I say had planned because it depends on how I feel because...

Walking home from work last night I hit my head, hard, on a fence. Yes, a fence. At least it's different. In my defence, it does lean into the alleyway I was walking down and I was taking off my jumper at the time, so wasn't looking where I was going. Also, I am accident prone.

According to the NHS Direct website, who like to overdramatise things a bit, I have all the symptoms of a head injury. Funny that. But I don't have concussion because you have to have passed out for that. But whatever you call it, I've had it twice before (from a door and a desk, so at least it's something different each time) so I do agree with the NHS Direct who say that the way to get rid of it is ibuprofen and rest and a few days wait.

So tonight I have so far watched Rosemary and Thyme from last night (which was very good, but why only a 2 episode series?) and the first episode of The Celestial Toymaker. Which is a mostly lost story, so I was listening to the narration (I really like Peter Purves' narrations). In it, the Doctor has a solve a puzzle, with dire consequences if he fails. They made a whole big thing of it and I could tell from the description it was just the Tower of Babel. If I can do that, the Doctor can. Although once he started it was obvious from his first two moves he knew how to do it. But why they made such a big thing of it, I don't know.

I've just discovered that the post I wrote when I finished reading Harry Potter on Saturday ended up just as a draft for some reason. I'm sure I pressed the publish button and it did its thing though.

Edit: Whoops, went to change the published date and deleted it! All I can remember it saying is that I thought it was alright, didn't make me cry, but did require a sick bucket.

It was so nice to have the chance to just sit (well, lie down) and read. And for some of that time I even had peace and quiet to do it in, which was even better. So when I got back yesterday I spent some time just reading. Well, and falling asleep. And trying to work out in what situation Harry Sullivan would have got married as a young man. My brain just went Harry Potter -> Harry Sullivan, which is a direct connection when your mind works sideways like mine.

I've been cross stitching to Doctor Who the rest of the weekend. I started a small thing off mum's magazine, but I was nearly through the first colour and ran out of thread. Fortunately, I have plenty of that colour, but it's only at that point that I discovered the instructions said to cross stitch in one strand. Clearly, I didn't read them, but that's because they always said cross stitch in two strands, backstitch in one. I am not unpicking it all, though, so it'll be interesting to see if I run out of any of the other colours.

I've been enjoying The Daleks Master Plan, which I started halfway through Wimbledon and will finish tonight. There's one episode where it's all a bit silly and Peter Purves sounds just as amused. I really like his narration voice. At work I listened to Reign of Terror and have been enjoying that too. Possibly it helps that I've already seen it, but I much prefer narrations to reconstructions. In fact, for good episodes, narrations are almost better than the moving things. Although that could be because it leaves me free to cross stitch without having to look up when it all goes quiet. Or means I can lie down with my eyes closed and it all looks better inside my head. Or would, if I have pictures in my head.