OK, the Doctor Who chess set. Sure, it's my most cherished possession and all, but boy does it need a lot of dusting. Not to mention being incredibly hard to actually PLAY chess with, what with trying to remember who's a Bishop or Knight or whatever.

And what's with the choice of figures? Of all the Companions, Adric and Kamelion don't exactly top my deserving-of-such-immortality list. And, whilst the Brig has earned his place, making him a Bishop instead of a Knight is ridiculous. And Leela as Queen? As a Knight, no problem, but the Queen OBVIOUSLY should have been a Romana, to counteract the Black side's Time Lord royals. And half the evil side aren't actually evil. Sea Devils, Draconians and (stretching the point here slightly) Ice Warriors LOOK great, but are probably REALLY NICE PEOPLE once you get to know them...

Nitpicking a chess set.... oh dear.....

Love my Sonic Screwdriver penlight. Got it for 10 Euros in the Dublin Forbidden Planet bookstore. Not only is it an awesome replica, it's a useful flashlight too.

I gaze upon my diecast Dalek every day. (Well, it is on the dresser I have to pass to leave the room.)

But why would you make it so the eye stalk moves, but the sucker and gun don't?

Nitpicking a chess set.... oh dear.....

Hey - I have an Yvonne-like attitude towards such things. Not so much 'If it's alien it's ours' as 'If it's Who-related I'm bloody going to nitpick it.'

But why would you make it so the eye stalk moves, but the sucker and gun don't?

The less moving parts the better, if you ask me. I keep seeing golden remote-controlled Daleks in charity shops with their eyestalks missing. It's a great shame to see the supreme beings of the universe reduced to such a state.

Of course, my Dalek cushion (well, actually a hot-water-bottle cover, but I turned him into a cushion with a little judicious stuffing) doesn't have this problem. His cloth protruberances stay attached even when mauled by a *shudders* child. (In fact, it was the kid who discovered that the cushion could actually threaten to exterminate you. Obviously I'd never hit my Metaltron in the right place or, indeed, at all.)

Speaking of which, has anyone got a solution to the dilemma of a visiting rug-rat heading straight towards your most prized possessions? On the one hand I just want to shriek 'Keep your grubby hands to yourself you snot-nosed brat!' but on the other, ANY interest in Who must be encouraged at all costs, not just to ensure Who's future popularity, but for the kid's own sake cos I can't imagine how it's gonna cope with life on this planet without the Doc to cheer it up.

"The less moving parts the better"

The *fewer* moving parts the better.

I keep all my small/breakable/precious Who toys at least 5 feet off the ground. That keeps them out of little hands, but in view so they will want to learn more about the Great Work.

Well, the Royal Mint have just produced a series of medals allegedly of the Tenth Doctor, K9 and a Dalek. Frankly I wouldn't know it was supposed to be the Doc if he wasn't holding up a sonic screwdriver. Which is just as well, removing as it does all temptation to spend £150 on a limited-edition golden chunk of Tennanty goodness. And as for the accompanying 'fabulously illustrated, info-crammed pack'...:

'A mystery daughter, a handy Satsuma and stair-climbing Daleks – David Tennant faced some surprises as the tenth Doctor!'

To be honest, the daughter wasn't exactly a mystery (Hello! Genetic replicators, people!) the Satsuma wasn't the biggest surprise in the Doc's 900 years of adventures (he KNEW Howard liked his fruit) and even if (like the rest of the human race) the Doc had forgotten encountering stair-climbing Daleks when he was McCoy, he sure as hell wouldn't have forgotten his Ecclestonian encounters with such creatures.

I thought the stair-climbing Daleks were also in "Dalek", and that Eccleston faced them down.

Well technically, Ecceleston wasn't around when the Dalek was ascending the stairs....

True. It was only Rose (and the van Statten's cannon-fodder flunkies), wasn't it?

Or do you mean Eccleston vs. the Ninth Doctor?

Eccy certainly seemed to think the Dalek had the ability to climb stairs, the way he was foaming at the mouth and LOCKING UP THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE WITH A DALEK and suchlike, instead of putting his feet up, playing musical instruments and assuring van Statten that 'Hey, we're several flights up, what's it gonna do, fly?'

Frankly I wouldn't know it was supposed to be the Doc if he wasn't holding up a sonic screwdriver.

No kidding. There must be something about Doctors that makes them incredibly hard to draw. Just look at that soundalike creature inhabiting Dreamland.

A friend had a Dr Who pinball machine with all the old Who Docs on the light board. I couldn't recognize any of them.

True. It was only Rose (and the van Statten's cannon-fodder flunkies), wasn't it?

And Adam.

But of course the Ninth Doctor knew they could ascend stairs, though by his cliffhanger-reaction, I would assume the 7th was the first to find it out.

There must be something about Doctors that makes them incredibly hard to draw.

That makes sense - they have such unique, special, ALIEN faces, after all. Well, except for Colin Baker - his plump smugness shouldn't be too hard to capture, assuming anyone would want to - and Peter Davison, whose bland youth should be a doddle (though the only picture of HIM that springs to mind is the one from the Earthshock video cover where he's got grey hair.)

Just look at that soundalike creature inhabiting Dreamland.

Look on the bright side - at least THAT thing didn't have those constantly-blinking orange eyelids that it did in Infinite Quest.

A friend had a Dr Who pinball machine with all the old Who Docs on the light board. I couldn't recognize any of them.

Tee hee.

Well, technically speaking they ARE all the same person, I suppose...

Speaking of odd merchandising, the Royal Mint is releasing a series of "Doctor Who" commemorative coin. Along with gold coins with #10's face on them, you can also get Dalek coins. In gold.

the Royal Mint is releasing a series of "Doctor Who" commemorative coin

That's what I was talking about - I think they're medals rather than actual coins.

you can also get Dalek coins. In gold.

Well, I suppose we should be grateful that at least they aren't Cybermen...

My loving wife jus ordered for me the talking TARDIS cookie jar. As soon as I get it, I'll let you know more.

"TOUCH THIS COO-KIE AND BE EX-TER-MIN-A-TED!!"

That would be the Dalek cookie jar, which is also available from many fine internet merchants.

There's a Dalek cookie jar? Excellent.

Well, it makes more sense than a TARDIS cookie jar. TARDISes don't talk (unless you count it telling Mel (MEL!) in a fruity voice in Quantum Archangel that 'You will be missed'...Oh, and I think it was probably chatting away in Zagreus - who wasn't, they even dug up poor Pertwee...)...anyway, your report on the talking TARDIS is eagerly awaited.

Bits of Who stuff, including Jack's car, up for auction: http://www.airlockalpha.com/node/7121

Re: The Bonham's Auction
In case you're wondering the Torchwood 4x4/SUV has a reserve price of £10,000 - £15000, while the Astrid Peth costume worn by Kylie Minogue, in Voyage of The Damned is valued at £2000-£3000....

Re: My Last Post
Well, the Torchwood 4x4 went for £18,000, while the Astrid Peth Costume went for £3,120...
2 Daleks went for £17,000 & £15,000 respectively...
(In case you're wondering, Tim, Nyssa's Season 19 garb went for £3360...).

How much does a normal 4x4 cost - cos that sounds quite reasonable, at least compared to the cost of some clothes...

Well, in the US a 2006 Range Rover Sport started at $69,535 new. Used would be less than $40K today.

Re: How much is a 2002 Range Rover anyway...?
The Torchwood 4x4/SUV was a 2002 Range Rover Vogue SE Auto Model, which when new, depending on options, was on the order of £50,000 ($75-100,000)...
Given deprication over time, it would now be about £13,000 on a good day... (I found a 2002 Range Rover Vogue SE Auto on sale for that price).
Note: the sale value of said vehicle, that I mentioned in a earlier post, did not include VAT, which drove the total price to over £20,000...

I didn't know where to post this, but these seemed closest. Found this link to a set of official "Make Your Own Dalek" plans. If anybody here is handy and got some time on their hands, please try this and let me know how it turns out.
http://www.aceldama.com/~tomr/media/dalek/blueprints/

All Emily wants for Christmas ...

My god, have you ever SEEN anything so hideous:

http://gallifreynewsbase.blogspot.com/

Someone has CHOPPED our Doctor n'Amy IN HALF and stuck them on spikes! What sick freak would DO such a thing?!

Soemhow it brings to mind the spinning heads in "Dimensions in Time."

At least the heads were NEATLY decapitated...

Just added to my wish list--a Sonic Screwdriver Screwdrive. Sadly, it does not unscrew screws via sonics, but still very cool.
http://www.amazon.com/Dr-Who-WOW-Sonic-Screwdriver/dp/B003ZRHP7Q/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I25JL83GPSSXGE&colid=1Q0MQ33B9Q7TJ

In theory, I could really do with a screwdriver. It might prevent me from ringing the nearest-male-friend-who's-good-at-DIY and squealing for help in an embarrassingly unfeminist manner every time anything in my flat goes wrong.

On the other hand, how could I put up with a screwdriver with that stupid Moffat-era green light at the end of it? A TRUE sonic screwdriver involves a BLUE light.

I've grown to like my 11th Doctor screwdriver. I like the way it pops open.

It seems a bit too chunky on screen, like the Doctor's carrying a tack hammer in his pocket.

According to recent news reports, the possibility of a real, working Sonic Screwdriver (blue/green lights at the end, a option) has become vastly more possible, according to a research team at the University of Bristol, lead by Professor Kevin Drinkwater, who have just produced a device called a "Sonitweezer".
The device which uses ultrasonic waves, in a similar manner to the Sonic Screwdriver, is intended for use in the field of Microbiology to manipulate cells...
So how long before Terry Pratchett, has to eat his words, regarding said device...?

Huh. I'll suspect it'll be more along the lines of the old sonic. Before it started reattaching barbed wire and lighting candles...

Not technically merchandise as you can't buy it, but interesting. The TARDIS looks like a big, blue peanut.

http://tvovermind.zap2it.com/cable/bbc-america/doctor-who-tv-news/coolest-day-doctor-nesting-dolls/43010

I got an Adipose Stress Toy for christmas but sadly, it sprung a leak

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Oh Emily....

http://www.wheresthetardis.com/

*Rapturous sigh*

From Gallifrey Base:

More details on the Doctor Who Shop at the Doctor Who Experience have emerged.

A special wi-fi service is to operate inside the shop which will enable customers to use their smartphones to access special promotions and additional facts and figures about the exhibition.

For god's sake! Are these people TRYING to turn us into earpieced Cyberpeople, or what?!

'BBC Enterprises in 1980...was a small and humble thing, it knew its place. Its staff looked like battered husbands. The height of their commercial activity was releasing occasionally a 45 RPM single of a popular TV theme' - a delightful description from Matthew Waterhouse's autobiography. Is it just me or is this exactly how the BBC's commercial arm SHOULD be? It's the BBC, for heaven's sake. Look what happens when it tries to go after profit. We get a cartoon Graham Norton plastered all over our first Season 5/31 cliffhanger and we get THOSE Daleks.

Hard to say. Profitability brings its own rewards, like bigger budgets and larger distribution. Something that makes money is less likely to be axed.

That's true, and you'd think there'd be NOTHING I couldn't swallow to ensure Who's continuation - even an orange hunchbacked plastic abomination claiming to be a Dalek - but in the long run, is this true? Doctor Who ALWAYS made the BBC more money than it cost, through overseas sales...and they STILL axed it for sixteen years.

The BBC is under threat (well, it ALWAYS is, and now we've got a Tory Government that's gunning for it on ideological as well as financial reasons) and MAYBE the BBC would do better to take a principled stand that they're a unique and precious part of British culture, rather than be some bizarre hybrid which claims to be a public service broastcaster worthy of its universal license fee...but is ALSO a profit-raking-in mega-company that sticks all these adverts between (and in the case of Time of Angels) OVER its programmes. (I always thought that I was paying the not inconsiderable sum of eleven-pounds-whatever a month for NO adverts.)

OK, probably not. They just need to get the balance right. Now that they've fallen flat on their stupid faces over Graham Norton AND the so-called Daleks, maybe they will.

I always thought that I was paying the not inconsiderable sum of eleven-pounds-whatever a month for NO adverts

Hahahahahaha! 11 pounds for no ads! Good lord, could anything be more funny than that? That's what, about $17 or so? Some people here pay $100/mo to be bombarded with advertising. I swear, we have more ads than programming.

The BBC may not be perfect, but it is worth it.

Right. I shall endeavour to count my blessings. Whilst keeping a VERY SHARP EYE INDEED on that BBC, which WILL bombard us with advertising given half a chance - the cartoon Norton DESCRECRATION proved THAT.

OK, I take back everything I've ever said (well, some of it anyway) about the BBC's shameless merchandising. A friend - the one with the four-year-old - has just rung to inform me that he's been forced to cough up fifteen quid on a sonic screwdriver - BUT that said four-year-old announced 'Sonic screwdrivers are better than guns, daddy.' Result! Oh, and that, in an act of selfless generosity, the kid insisted on lending the sonic to a friend. Ten minutes later he was howling his eyes out for his sonic back. But his parents are making him live with the consequences of his actions. I always believed that everything you need to know about life you can learn from Doctor Who - but it never occurred to me you could rear your kid the Doctor Who way.

See? You can get one of these things and turn it into an Emily clone. Someone has to take over this board after you've jumped into the big blue box.

A clone from a sonic screwdriver!?

No, a kid.

But the question is--is the world ready for another Emily????

No world is.

I doubt they'd have too much trouble on Skaro--they even managed to stop the Master for a time.

*Staggers sobbing into blissfully child-free home, slams door and leans desperately against it as if a horde of Haemovores are trying to get in*

Just spent a weekend with aforementioned rug-rat and now realise...a pro-Who ankle-biter is approximately a thousand times worse than an anti-Who ankle-biter.

Any OTHER brat opening its big gob during SJA would be slapped down. (Literally.) Any OTHER brat claiming twenty times an hour that it was being attacked by some monster of a non-Who variety would be told that the monster could eat it for all I care. Any OTHER brat, when demanding to know every single monster that, um, Spock or Mulder or whatever fought would be informed in no uncertain terms that I don't know and I don't care and only losers watched such things.

But I've just spent the ENTIRE ******* WEEKEND listing all forty-eight years' worth of the Doc's monster-encounters. Diving under the table shrieking 'Save me from the Daleks, Doctor!' Missing the tragic demise of Peter Dalton cos I was trying to explain the evil metaphysical angel from another dimension to a four-year-old.

I still have the headache and the sore throat. And I'm now praying to the gods of Ragnarok that William returns asap to his previous fixation with Thomas the Tank Engine.

Who's Peter Dalton?

Sarah's bridegroom! The Trickster's stooge! The noble self-sacrifice guy! The cretin who believed in angels! The one man she could ever love who wasn't the Doctor! The bloke who hasn't been mentioned ONCE in the season-and-a-half since! You know...PETER DALTON!

So the Who-child is a disaster? What part of explaining every single monster to a rapt audience didn't you like?

Maybe the fact that it was like talking to a younger version of herself? ;)

I bet you only indoctrinated the child with TV monster lore too. Go back at once and explain all about the Chelonians, the Kleptons, the Galyari and... Zagreus!!!

Oh, yeah! Kid would love that:

Zagreus sits inside your head
Zagreus lives among the dead
Zagreus sees you in your bed
And eats you when you're sleeping

Right up there with face-spiders!

I was in a comic shop & looked at some of the Doctor Who action figures they had & noticed one was a Weeping Angel. I commented, "Oh, great. Buy it, take it home, take your eyes off it... and it will kill you!!!

Merchandisers are trying to kill us!

;-)

This has got to be one of the BEST Who shirts EVER!

Oh, yeah! Kid would love that:

Zagreus sits inside your head
Zagreus lives among the dead
Zagreus sees you in your bed
And eats you when you're sleeping

Right up there with face-spiders!

It has to be admitted, that WAS one of the more successful moments in Big Finish history...but I don't want the kid growing up to listen to the audios OR to think that the Doctor aka Zagreus is evil...

This has got to be one of the BEST Who shirts EVER!

Fantastic!

Even without getting the Southpark reference which they seem worried about being sued over.

Though it might be premature, I'm sure Rory has many other exciting deaths ahead of him...

I ordered the shirt BTW.

There is a character in South Park called Kenny who dies in nearly every episode and when he does on the characters says "Oh my god, you killed kenny! You b*****ds!!"

Isn't the look on The Doctor's face down the bottom priceless???

I think Emily will want this

LOL!

But I want to build my own Tennant-or-Eccy-era sonic screwdriver! I don't want THAT one!

Awww.

http://merchandise.thedoctorwhosite.co.uk/dalek-tardis-decorations-pictures-review/

Emily:But I want to build my own Tennant-or-Eccy-era sonic screwdriver! I don't want THAT one!

Take a better look at the ad Emily,you may not be able to build a Tennant screwdriver--but there's nothing to stop you from buying one(look in the other products section).

Anyone else found themselves inexplicably yearning for a Doctor Who Monopoly set? I can't think WHY. The concept of devoting your life to buying up property and bankrupting anyone who has the temerity to actually rent said property is exact opposite of everything Who stands for. (You SAVE your fellow humans, you don't hurt them! Plus, if you want that stupid 'money' stuff just get a winning lottery ticket or rob a cash machine! Simple!)

I agree. Doctor Who monopoly just seems wrong to me. There are other board games around. How about Doctor Who Cluedo? or Doctor Who Guess Who....

How about Doctor Who Cluedo?

Ooh, yes!

It was the Ood! In the Cloister Room! With the laser screwdriver!

The Master, in the library, with the war glove.

Davros, in the laboratory, with a virus that will wipe out all organic life.

The Master, in the library, with the war glove.

The Master wouldn't need the war glove! He can shoot lightning from his hand all by himself!

Davros, in the laboratory, with a virus that will wipe out all organic life.

Sadly that would lead to a very short game of Cluedo, as all the suspects/investigators would be, well, DEAD.

(Of course, my own suggestion is equally flawed. As if there's such a thing as a Cloister Room, these days! A Cloister CORRIDOR, maybe, if we're lucky...)

Sounds like tour Cluedo is the same game that I know as Clue.

And I've always had a major problem with it--there's a 1 in 6 chance that at the end of the game you'll end up saying:

I DID IT--with the sonic screwdriver, in the TARDIS main control room--wait a minute,why didn't I know this before I blurted it out.

With brains like this--I belong in jail!!!!

Would you believe I meant to say---Sounds like your Cluedo-instead of Sounds like tour Cluedo???

Missed it by that much!!!!

On KBTC's semi-annual pledge drive one of the items that donators could get was a... plushy Dalek.

I'm looking at that and saying, "That's just wrong. Evil things shouldn't be cute & cuddly,... and they shouldn't sparkle!!!" ;-)

(Okay the plushy Dalek didn't actually sparkle, although it would not surprise me if some 14 year old girl wrote a fanfic called Twilight Of The Daleks featuring herself & a sparkling Dalek she falls in love with while fighting off an Evil Time Lord bent on Dalek destruction.)

Although later I did realize that a plushy Dalek would lend itself to punching & squishing a lot easier than a plastic or metal one.

'If Davros' Dalek guards are destroyed, he must immediately retreat to the nearest table edge' - DWM on the Invasion Earth tabletop conflict game. Adorable! I WANT one!

Dapol spokesperson in DWM in 2002, when they lose their Who licence after 15 years: ''We were completely stunned....We had thought that, after providing hundreds of thousands of pounds in royalty payments to the BBC, and seemingly single-handedly preserving Doctor Who brand-awareness, our long-term future was assured. We were mistaken.' - so why WAS their licence cancelled?

We Love Fine has merchandise based on Doctor Who And The Daleks.

Why it's specifically for the old movie and not the series, I haven't got a clue.

I love the one with the Dalek writing "exterminate" over and over on the blackboard

KBTC's recent Doctor Who pledge drive was on and one of the interesting looking things was a set of tumblers done up like Daleks. Brightly colored like the Crayola Daleks, but as I'm looking at them I'm wondering if the straw doubles as their gun. "HY-DRATE! HY-DRATE!" Slurp, slurp. ;-)

I have the Doctor Who Yatzee game that came out last fall, for the 50th Anniversary.

I don't even play Yatzee, I just bought it to put on display in my living room.

What IS Yatzee?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yatzee

Not to mention being incredibly hard to actually PLAY chess with, what with trying to remember who's a Bishop or Knight or whatever.

I've just lost a game of chess to a seven-year-old owing to my inability to remember which of his side are knights and which are bishops.

Of course, having Tom as his King also gave him a MASSIVE psychological advantage.

Come to think of it, it's the same kid I had in mind when asking in 2009 'has anyone got a solution to the dilemma of a visiting rug-rat heading straight towards your most prized possessions? On the one hand I just want to shriek 'Keep your grubby hands to yourself you snot-nosed brat!' but on the other, ANY interest in Who must be encouraged at all costs'.

Doesn't time fly.

"Of course, having Tom as his King also gave him a MASSIVE psychological advantage."

Given that the king in chess just sits around doing nothing, you could always pretend that it's just the waxwork Tom used for 'The Five Doctors' photocall.

Oi! That waxwork had me convinced it was Tom for YEARS!

Almost as many years as Hurndall did.

Board Game with DVD:

Can't even be bothered to give itself a name. THAT'S how little thought has been put into this.

Move your (TARDIS) counter round the board till you land on Earth at the centre is the sum total of this thrilling game. Exactly WHY you'd want to land on Earth is left to the imagination. Every move you get to pick up a card that asks you a stupid question ('What colour is the Ninth Doctor's jacket?' 'Black' - well, THAT'S a matter for debate) or play a DVD clip and then get asked an even stupider question (almost inevitably 'What episode is this?' Which is actually trickier than it looks when the Titanic-crashing-into-TARDIS clip from Last of the Time Lords, Time Crash AND Voyage of the Damned is shown). Given that the question is (almost) always the same, the proffered choice between a simple or an expert question is entirely pointless.

Seems that BBC Worldwide's agreed a deal with Lego for Dr Who themed sets.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/31138618

What took them so long?

They had to develop a special plastic to prevent an Auton takeover.


;-)

Does this mean that The Lego Movie 2 will have Doctor Who characters in it?

Ever yearned to convert the Doctor Who pinball game into a video game for a whole new generation to enjoy?

Kickstarter

No? Me neither.

Why does a Doctor Who pinball game make me think of the musical Tommy by... uh... um... it'll come to me.

Well, it took a year from the announcement, but:

http://shop.lego.com/en-GB/Doctor-Who-21304?fromListing=listing

Looks a bit small for fifty quid, doesn't it.

Still, the Daleks are adorable even if the Doc's a bit...weird.

I miss the days when lego was just square blocks of various sizes and colors with which you actually had to use your imagination to make something.

*Nostalgic sigh* I remember those halcyon days...(Well, almost. We had one little yellow astronaut too. He was thrilling.)

Anyone want to buy Sec?

Obviously I'm not coughing up two grand for a Sec's SHELL without the bubbling lump of hate inside, and besides, he might upset my papier-mache collection of Doctors-in-feline-form.

Is it just me or does the cover of the new Doctor Who Cookbook look even more kitsch than the Gary Downie one?

DWM: 'A new fundraiser has been established to try to help finance the first ever Doctor Who Merchandise Museum, which it is hoped will be based in Lincolnshire, England' - bless!

If you donate A LOT of money you get 'lunch with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Chase Masterson'!!

I'm not really convincing anyone to donate, am I.

Well, Chase Masterson IS hot.

At least, she was in her days on Deep Space Nine.

And I have just googled her, she's STILL hot.

And she plays Vienna Salavatori in Big Finish's audio "The Shadow Heart", featuring the Seventh Doctor.

Yeah, and she's now got her own Whoniverse spin-off series (Vienna) which doesn't make me ANY fonder of her OR more eager to buy a REALLY expensive lunch with her and ask if it's fun playing the same bloody plot about memory and identity over and over again for TEN SODDING EPISODES.

And isn't it telling that even Doctor Who Magazine mention her Trekkie connections not her wafer-thin Whovian ones...

Not content with appearing as a Lego minifig, the Doctor's now joining the ranks of Playmobil figures (well, Tom and Matt's incarnations anyway).

http://www.doctorwho.tv/whats-new/article/doctor-who-comes-to-playmobil

Adorable!

Why Matt, though? Why not Capaldi as the current Doctor or Tennant as the most popular?

Saturday Night Monsters: 'Lest we forget, the makers of the seventies Doctor Who Top Trumps cards thought [the TARDIS] had a "mental ability" of "nil"' - IMBECILES! PHILISTINES! No wonder I've always HATED Top Trumps!

Gotta Who calendar for Christmas, with a different photo for every day of the year (well, apparently every weekend just counts as one day for some reason). It's a great pleasure, aside from everyone being helpfully labelled as 'Friend' or 'Foe' - I think they got it wrong in the case of the Movellans ('Friend' my arse) and also in the case of Lucy Saxon ('Foe'? OK, so she danced a little dance while Earth was being destroyed but then SO DID THE NINTH DOCTOR. And she did, after all, come a LOT closer to killing the Master than anyone before her, AND - unlike a certain Doctor I could mention - she had the sense to realise he'd be back and to make plans to save us all.)

Oh, and being confronted with THE MYRKA on one's forty-fifth birthday is, frankly, hideously inappropriate.

Or perhaps I mean hideously appropriate.

Either way, it was QUITE UPSETTING.

Is this the right place to talk about the Doctor Who Barbie doll?

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2018/10/07/jodie-whittaker-doctor-who-barbie-hot-topic/

There is no right place to talk about the Doctor Who Barbie doll.

I thought that the Doctor Who Barbie doll was Aunt Vanessa ;)

Ouch.

I thought it was a Cindy doll in England?

Cindy is a separate doll in England, more working-class than Barbie.

For some reason I thought I had heard that for trademark reasons Barbie was known as Cindy in England, but looking it up I see that Sindy was a British doll and that the only Barbie connection was when Hasbro bought the rights to it and tried to make Sindy look more like Barbie and got sued by Mattel.

My Doctor Who calendar was gone a bit weird, frankly. Last Friday had a picture of 'THE BOY' which as said boy IS DAVROS is a bit inaccurate to name 'FRIEND'. Yesterday had 'SISTERHOOD OF KAHN [sic]' which isn't abusing the 'friend' label as badly as with THE GUY WHO TRIED TO DESTROY EVERY UNIVERSE EVER but still, I don't forgive or forget a certain tying-Tom-to-a-stake-and-setting-fire-to-him incident. And today we've got 'RASSILON' who's labelled 'FOE' despite being PERFECTLY REASONABLE in The Five Doctors (give or take condemning a few people to eternal torment, OK, and the moustache).

Oh I have the same calendar! Today's is "The Dark" from Heaven Sent (or Hell Bent, I can never remember which is which) and it's just a timelord in shadow....

Ah, the Matrix Wraith thingy, dunno why they called THAT 'foe' when all it did was its guarding-Matrix duties, an important and responsible job, especially when the Time Lords inexplicably stuck so many Daleks/Cybermen/Weeping Angels down there...

Gotta Who calendar for Christmas, with a different photo for every day of the year (well, apparently every weekend just counts as one day for some reason).

Yeah, well, this year's calendar is a crushing disappointment, they've got godawful DRAWINGS instead of proper photos, DAMMIT.

you could market boxes of ball bearings as K9's •••• and there'd be fans who would buy them. after all if they don't buy them he might never go to the toilet again...

Lakeland's Dalek-and-Sontaran cookie-cutters are a devastating disappointment, my friend's a PROFESSIONAL BAKER and even she couldn't get the •••• biscuits to come out looking like Daleks and Sontarans...(Well at least the Dalek's SHAPE is unmistakable even when its bumps are all...squished. And having cracked, indistinct features isn't unknown for a Sontaran, just look at dear old Kaagh.)

57th Anniversary shirt:
https://tinyurl.com/y7d6fzu7

Don't see why Matt has prominence when JODIE!'s tucked away at the back. He had our Fiftieth, the Fifty-Seventh is HERS. (And also, not till November.)

Loved the little "Made in USA" logo on a shirt about a British institution.

C'mon UK manufacturers have, a little national pride!