Here be many spoilers, so if you haven't watched The Time of the Doctor, do not read any further

I've watched it twice now. And I think I probably need to watch it a few more times before I properly understand it. I can't come out and say that I loved last night's Doctor Who Christmas special. That was never going to be on the cards, though. I've loved Matt Smith as the Doctor, however much I've occasionally been annoyed at the directions his character has taken. That's not his fault, though. He acted the scripts the writers gave him with more flair, quirkiness and originality than even they could possibly have imagined. His last show was always going to be an ordeal, an assault on my emotions. Even 4 years on, I cry whenever I watch David Tennant's regeneration. And 8 years on my reaction to Eccleston's isn't that much easier.

And so we come to Steven Moffat. His ears must have been burning last night. Twitter exploded, evenly split between outrage and adoration for the episode. How very Twitter. I'm quite happy to criticise Moffat and his predecessor as head writer and executive producer Russell T Davies when I think they get it wrong, but let's get a bit of perspective here. 25 years ish ago, Michael Grade took Doctor Who from its safe Saturday tea time slot and put it up against Coronation Street in the hope of killing it once and for all. In 2013, fresh from the triumphant 50th anniversary episode, Doctor Who went up against Corrie on Christmas Day and whipped its backside. And that's down to great writing, great acting and great production values. Moffatt is the guy in charge and he deserves gratitude and credit for his part in the sustained revival of the show I feel in love with when I was just 7 years old.

Just as an aside, I have Corrie recorded and I know I'm going to howl my eyes out at that, too. The authenticity and tenderness which David Neilson and Julie Hesmondhalgh bring to Hayley's terminal cancer storyline is phenomenal. The real mix of emotions, from anger to poignant moments of joy to shock and fear just jump out at all of us.

But back to Who. Last night's episode, for the hardcore fan, was going to be a very different beast from last month's The Day of the Doctor. In that one, Moffat managed to satisfy fans with lots of in jokes and a secret kept - the appearance of Tom Baker as the Curator - and appeal to new audiences too. That was never really on the cards for the Christmas Special. For a start, he had to tie up the loose ends in stories that some of the fandom didn't like anyway. He did it, although he had to use a pretty big shoehorn at times.

This episode had action, drama, pathos, creepiness and comedy all packed into an emotional adrenaline-filled hour. That bit towards the end when you went from the noise of a battle scene to the poignant and tearful regeneration. We all knew it was coming, but Moffat managed to mess with our heads enough, changing what has become the established pattern of a regeneration so that when Capaldi's head literally popped out of Matt Smith's neck in a flash, we were all surprised. Very clever.

Moffat is a bloody genius. No doubt about that. I do, though, have one huge plea for him in the new series. He has to learn how to write better female characters. Women seem to come in two types in his universe. River or Amy. I mean Tasha Lem was a "hello sweetie" away from being almost a carbon copy of River Song, right down to the alien takeover that she had to fight. And "hey babes" isn't really that far away, is it? I guess the excuse would be that the programming River was subjected to was based on Tasha Lem by the Kovarian line who went back to try to kill the Doctor before he ever arrived in Trenzalore. Not buying it, though. Orla Brady was brilliant, though. Pity she wasn't allowed to age, though, like the Doctor, because you couldn't possibly have a woman doing that, could you?

And then there was Handles, the cyber head he had picked up at the nicely named Maldovar Market, a tribute to the excellent Dorium Maldovar from A Good Man goes to War. Not sure I liked the way the Doctor slapped him when he got irritated, but as things which replace the TARDIS when the ship isn't available go, he was pretty good. A slightly mawkish ending for him, though.

The beginning of the episode was action-packed, although if you are being sensible you have to ask what the earthly point was of the Doctor going aboard all these ships when he knew perfectly well who was on them. But at least we got to see the Doctor in mortal peril from his sworn, ancient enemies.

We now come to the entirely gratuitous nudity.  It was funny on board the TARDIS, but, and this is a big failing of Moffat's Eleventh Doctor, why on earth did he think it was appropriate to turn up at Christmas Dinner with Clara's family in the buff?  The Doctor has learnt enough about humans in a millennium to know that's a pretty serious social gaffe. But then, it's entirely appropriate in a retrospective in which we are saying farewell to this character.

I wonder if, under Capaldi's tenure, we'll be able to have a non-Victoriana Christmas Special. The village of Christmas, snowy and romantic, would have been fine if similar hadn't featured so relentlessly. I mean, the Doctor has the whole of time and space at his disposal, yet what is allowed to depict Christmas is very narrow. Yea, I know he suits that period, but let's ring some changes, please. The truth field was brilliant, though. And the Weeping Angels were incredibly creepy. And did we all laugh at the reversing the polarity bit?

No sooner had the Doctor and Clara arrived than they found the crack that joined up the last 4 years' dots. And then, just like in Mercy, the Doctor appoints himself the Sheriff.

There was a symmetry with the beginning of his tenure, leaving a child waiting again, just like he did with Amelia Pond. And of course he was kept waiting by the TARDIS this time, who had Clara clinging to her in the time vortex.

You have to wonder, though, why when he returned there the second time, with TARDIS in tow, why he didn't just take all the people of Christmas somewhere else and left Trenzalore to the daleks. That would have been way too easy.

Steven Moffat said at last month's 50th anniversary convention that Matt Smith's performance in this episode was the best of any Doctor ever. He was pretty darned good, especially as he aged from young, to old, to ancient.

And what of the time lords? Back, but off-screen back. You can bet your life that the new regeneration cycle is for their benefit, not the Doctor's. Maybe the events of the Day of the Doctor made them nice people, but I'm too much of a cynic to believe that it was done purely out of altruism on hearing Clara's heartfelt plea. The Doctor is their passport back. What will they want him to do for them? There are endless scenarios as to how this could play out. They won't all come back at once, I bet. One or two will get out at a time, with different motivations. And if one nice lot has given the Doctor a new life cycle, what's the chances of another lot doing the same for the Master?

The last 6 weeks have been an unprecedented time in the life of the show and the character. It's strange to think we've had 3 regenerations in that time, all of them different. McGann's to the War Doctor was induced by the Sisterhood of Karn. The War Doctor's to Eccleston took on the form we've become used to, beacons of light streaming from the limbs. That's what we were all expecting. But no. We get the flashy bit, complete with triumphal cry of "Love from Gallifrey, boys," then Clara opens the TARDIS door, not knowing who she's going to meet in there, and it's all familiar. He's young Eleven again. That's when it gets teary. Karen Gillan's brief appearance and "Raggedy man, goodnight" had me howling. Then there was the tenderness of that last "hey" to Clara before Capaldi appeared in a split second.

I was thrilled to hear his Scottish accent as he mouthed off about colour schemes and kidneys. He still seems a bit like Malcolm Tucker in the TARDIS, but that will change as we see him properly get in to the role.

I doubt I'll ever be able to say I loved it. My emotions are still wrecked. My hopes are high, though. That's all you really need from a regeneration episode, surely?

Malcolm Tucker vs the Daleks

Bob, Anna and I gathered round the tv in our holiday cottage to watch the Doctor Who special last Sunday. 

I probably owe Zoe Ball an apology after being so critical of her choice as presenter. She did a very good job. In fact, it was Rufus Hound who let the side down, making two factual errors in his comments. First of all he said that Bernard Cribbens' Wilf Mott had knocked 3 times to cause the death of Tennant's Doctor and then that Peter Eccleston was the 9th Doctor. It's like he was trying to give the lie to Ball's claim that nobody in the studio knew who the new Doctor was.

I was still fairly convinced that it was going to be Capaldi - it would have been very stupid of the production team to let that speculation build as it had. By the time of the announcement, everyone had the idea of Capaldi firmly in their head and anyone else would have been a disappointment. He has the versatility, skill and authority as one of our best actors to play the Doctor. We know how well he can do both comedy and drama. If you haven't watched Torchwood: Children of Earth and seen his portrayal of Home Office official John Frobisher, watch it now. 

I had one wobble, though. When Matt Smith was interviewed, he said that the new Doctor had come up to him in the street and congratulated him on his debut performance, saying "Well done, mate." I couldn't really imagine Capaldi saying that. Maybe I had got it wrong after all.

My favourite part of the whole programme was when the new Doctor said he hadn't played the Doctor since he was 9 years old. It's good to have a genuine fan, who knows what it's like to grow up being petrified and enchanted in equal measure. 

It seems that Capaldi was the first choice of the production team and the only person to be seriously considered. I like the fact that we're going to have an older Doctor again, for the first time since the series came back in 2005. Maybe we'll get an older companion, too, particularly an older female in the style of Liz Shaw. That would be a novel departure for the new series. So far we've had companions who had few prospects before the Doctor came along to rescue them, companions who fancied him, companions he fell in love with. I'm not saying we should dispense with Clara, although it will be interesting to see how Jenna Louise Coleman and Peter Capaldi work together, just that I want to see something a bit different.

Capaldi has become so associated with Malcolm Tucker in the minds of those of us who watched The Thick of It and the various gifs of Tucker swearing at daleks and the like have been very amusing. It will take time for us to stop waiting for a sweary outburst, but we'll get there. I will, though, be very disappointed if Tucker's Law doesn't get some sort of oblique reference in the script.

One consequence of Capaldi's appointment is that Anna is very keen to watch The Thick of It. After two nights, we're at the end of the first series and she loves it. She seems to have the idea that this is how Government works, though. That's probably more scary than any dalek.

There are two episodes of Matt Smith's tenure to go, though. I want to enjoy every minute of them before thinking about next year's series, though.

The unveiling of the new Doctor goes primetime

Sometimes you just wish that secrets could be kept. The surprise of a reveal of the new Doctor's face at the end of the Christmas special would have been immense. But, sadly, all it would take would be a tweeted picture of a new actor in the vicinity of the Roath Lock studios in Cardiff to tell the world. I wish they'd tried, though. They managed to keep Catherine Tate's appearance in the 2006 Christmas special secret, as she told us the other week. 

I am a bit gutted that Matt Smith is leaving. While I've been unimpressed with some of the things Stephen Moffat has made him do, I love the zaniness, eccentricity, hint of darkness, narcissism, emotion and gangly originality Matt has brought to the role. It took me precisely two episodes to have me writing a letter of apology to David Tennant for forsaking him. 

I've loved the dynamics he's had with his companions, from Amy and Rory to Vastra and Jenny - although I'm less than impressed with the way he treated Strax in the Christmas special. I don't care how miserable he was feeling, that level of abuse is just not on.And I've developed a lot more sympathy with River since we've found out her story.

From the ironside daleks to the Pandorica, to that lovely episode written by Richard Curtis featuring Vincent Van Gogh, to dinosaurs on a spaceship, the pathos of The Girl who Waited to losing Amy and Rory to the weeping angels to facing his demons at Trenzalore, it's been a fantastic 3 and a half years. 

The announcement of his departure did actually hurt. At least with Tennant we had more than a year to get used to the idea. With Eccleston, we had the whole series. With Smith, we have just two episodes.It's kind of heartbreaking.

And because of the necessity of filming the regeneration scene, the new Doctor has to be around when the Christmas special is filmed.If they had more than a shoestring to work with, they could film the scene with several just to keep us guessing. So, it was announced at midnight that a special live programme would be held to unveil the Doctor on Sunday night. 

This displeases me for two reasons. First, I'm on holiday and there isn't much in the way of signal, so I'm not going to be able to say much about it. Secondly, why Zoe Ball? I've nothing against the woman, but she's going from not being Claudia on It Takes Two to presenting a Doctor Who special when she's had nothing to do with the programme. Could they not have got Catherine Tate to do it, or Karen Gillan? Or Neve McIntosh? I wish Lis Sladen was still around to ask.

And as for the identity of the new Doctor, the smart money seems to have gone on Peter Capaldi. Malcolm Tucker vs the Daleks. I know who my money would be on. Capaldi is a very talented actor and, at some point, we'd would stop waiting for the tsunami of profanity. But the smart money was on Paterson Joseph the last time and they completely surprised us with Matt Smith. Who knows?

Neil Gaiman said that he was more inclined against a famous actor being cast in the role because of the baggage they come with. I loved the last paragraph of his article though, because this is what we all hope for, and secretly fear won't be the case:

I want to see The Doctor. I want to be taken by surprise. I want to squint at a photo of the person online and go “but how can that be The Doctor?”. Then I want to be amazingly, delightedly, completely proven wrong, and, six episodes in, I want to wonder how I could have been so blind. Because this is the Doctor. Of course it is.

Catherine Tate's top tips: Be nice to everyone and don't be late. With added Doctor Who geekery

Catherine Tate? On a politics site?  Really?

Well, this is a lovely Summer Saturday morning, Parliament has just broken up for its holidays, so I just thought I'd do something a little bit different. You can tell me to take a running jump if you like, and this is something I would only ever do sparingly, but I thought I'd give it a try. Please don't worry. My fixations with Doctor Who, Strictly and F1 will be confined to my own blog.

A few weeks ago, I missed both the Social Liberal Forum Scottish conference and the British Grand Prix to spend the weekend in Birmingham at a Doctor Who convention. While it was officially my daughter's birthday treat, you will know that it was hardly an ordeal for me to have to accompany her.

For the first time ever, Catherine Tate, who played David Tennant's Doctor's companion Donna Noble in the 2008 series appeared at a convention. We were looking forward to asking her questions, not just about Doctor Who but about her long and successful comedy career which has recently included being on the US Office.

These celebs certainly earn their money at conventions. They have to stay smiling through hundreds of photos with individual fans, and then spend hours signing all sorts of memorabilia. After all of that, she gave a one hour talk to close the convention.

I noticed later in the day that this bloke, who looked like a grumpier version of Adrian Chiles, was hanging around her. I wondered if he was security or something. As I wrote on my own blog, shows how much I know about celebrity gossip. What struck us throughout the day was how very down to earth she was. She seemed genuinely amazed that people had come to see her and thanked everyone for waiting in the enormous queues. I saw her wandering around the hotel by herself, too, with no entourage.

When she came on stage, she forgot to take water with her and went back and got it herself. I do like a big star who keeps it real.

"It didn't occur to me people would watch"

By the time she came on to Doctor Who, Tate was already a very Big Name. After drama college, chosen because it was where her school drama teacher had gone, she had had a few television parts. Apparently The Bill was good for a job a year aspiring London actors. You had to have a 9 month gap between episodes, but it gave her the chance to play a few different characters. She chose to go into stand up comedy because she thought it was better to "create her own work." Winning the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival led to her being offered her own tv show, but she fitted in a stint at the Royal Shakespeare Company in between.

With characteristic modesty, she said that it never occurred to her that people would watch her show. Observing people, creating characters and dialogue is very much how her brain works. She certainly found inspiration for her characters in her own social circle, but she says that if you changed their hairstyle, they wouldn't recognise themselves. One relative was convinced a particular character was based on them because the hair was the same, while another friend, whose habits she'd copied almost exactly, didn't recognise herself because of a radically different coiffure.

She famously gave her teenage character Lauren a confrontation with Tony Blair for Comic Relief in 2007. She described Blair as "one of the finest comic actors of his generation."

"A script I knew I couldn't better"

Tate was invited to co-star in the 2006 Christmas special, The Christmas Invasion, playing a shouty bride who finds herself in David Tennant's TARDIS on the way to her wedding. It was the only secret the production team of new Who has successfully kept - although it was very nearly let out of the bag by Catherine herself. She's been booked into a Cardiff hotel under an assumed name, but she had forgotten what it was. When she hesitated, the receptionist suggested her room might be booked under "Catherine Tate".

She was "completely blindsided" by the offer to be the full time companion. She says she'd been invited to meet the team under the guise of doing a biopic of Margaret Thatcher.

She says that working with David Tennant was "joyous." Knowing that he was going to be in the make up truck up 5:30 am was a motivator to get her out of bed, despite the gruelling schedule and Wales, as she put it, "not having the friendliest climate."

When you write, you do have an urge to tinker in other people's work, but she never felt the need to interfere with the lines Russell T Davies wrote, despite the fact that he was very collaborative. She knew she couldn't better the script.

She worked with Tennant in two different settings, as Donna and the Doctor and later in Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing. In the former role, there was no romance whatsoever, but in the latter, these warring characters end up as reluctant lovers. She prefers theatre to television as there's much more time to establish and investigate the relationship between the characters and you get the instant feedback of the audience.

"Be nice to everyone, don't be late, learn your lines"

Her tips for aspiring actors wouldn't be out of place in a political environment, although a lifetime of being late hasn't hurt Shirley Williams or Simon Hughes. She said it's important to treat people well, not just for altruistic reasons as "You never know what runner will bite you in the arse in 10 years' time when they're a producer."

She seemed to enjoy her first convention. I hope she does some more because she is so interesting and funny. If you get the chance to see her interviewed like this, don't pass it up.

And now for the Doctor Who geekery

She loved playing Donna, a character who developed so much during the series, but the heartbreaking thing is that when we leave her, she's learned nothing as her mind has been wiped. She said the most poignant and hardest to portray moment was when Donna as the Doctor/Donna realised that she wouldn't survive unless he had no memory of the Doctor. She said the Doctor and Donna were both better people as a result of the time they'd spent together. She reckons Donna would have found Matt Smith's Doctor frustrating as she wouldn't be able to wind him up. And as for the 9th Doctor, well, he and Donna would have bristled and it would have been a race to see who pushed who out of the TARDIS.

She said she didn't know much about Doctor Who - but she actually does. Certainly she's more into it than Billie Piper, who really didn't have much of a clue when we saw her in December.

She talked about not really understanding the techno-geekery in the scripts and would just ask David if they were going to be chased by aliens that day.

I really, really hope that the BBC don't ask her to suggest people for the next Doctor. It seriously is not the role for Janette Krankie. She said that Matt Smith had been brilliant. It had been no mean feat to take over from David. 

Asked about her favourite companion, she said, to the approval of the room, Sarah Jane. She spoke about working with Lis Sladen, and described her as "a beautiful person, so youthful, ethereal" who had been utterly bowled over by the second chance to play the character. 

And the monster she's most scared of? The Vashta Nerada as the enemy is far scarier if you can't see it and can't hear it. The line which scared her most was "It's not in every shadow, but it could be in any one."

Spare a thought for poor Les, a lovely guy from Scotland, who called her Karen by mistake. She showed no mercy, teasingly calling him practically every name under the sun. Not Adrian, though.

Catherine was a superb convention guest and I hope she does more in the future.

Revealed: my ignorance of celebrity gossip.....

I am not as well informed as I used to be about who's with who...

I was at the Starfury Return to the 11th Hour Doctor Who convention in Birmingham this weekend which happened to be Catherine Tate's first ever convention.

She was brilliant - funny, insightful and so genuinely appreciative of the fans. I will type up my copious notes from her session later, but I just wanted to share with you one little thing.

While she was giving her talk, a bloke I hadn't seen all weekend was sitting at the side of the stage. I had no idea who he was. In fact, I even wondered if he was a security guy. I had clocked, though, that he looked like a grumpier version of Adrian Chiles.

I didn't waste too much attention to him, concentrating on Catherine and the other guests.

Well, how was I to know that Catherine Tate and Adrian Chiles had been an item for 9 months or more....? I mean it's not even on Wikipedia, for goodness' sake. Just every tabloid newspaper known to man.

Good luck to them both. It's fair to say that the Doctor Who universe is pretty well disposed to Catherine, so if she's happy, so are we.

How exciting can one weekend get?

I am sitting on my bed during a brief lull in Doctor Who convention proceedings sipping Earl Grey & marvelling  at how many exciting things are going on this weekend.

On the Liberal Democrat front, Portsmouth Councillor Gerald Vernon-Jackson and his partner John have their civil partnership today. I hear that there was gridlock in the city as guess made their way to the ceremony. Best wishes to Gerald & John for a long & happy life together. 

Then there's the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. I so want Mark Webber to win his last race here but he'll have a tough job. A Mercedes win would be nice, but I would much rather it was for Nico.

Wimbledon continues with British interest into the second week.

Just as my parents leave France after their first joyfully successful motor homing expedition, the Tour de France starts. Let's hope we see our Cav continue his current good form.

And then there's here at Starfury's Return to the eleventh hour convention, based around Matt Smith's tenure as The Doctor. It had a controversial start after convention organiser Sean Harry disengaged brain & keyboard while, in his words, feeding some Internet trolls. In so doing, he insulted Sixth Doctor Colin Baker who responded on Twitter. I think it will take a hand-written, sincere apology to get over that one, not just a simple tweet. We all screw up online - it's how you put it right that matters.

Anyway, it is fantastic to have Neve McIntosh & Catrin Stewart, who play current irregular companions Madam  Vastra & Jenny Flint. They had a fun talk speculating about their characters' pasts and future and suggesting that the Doctor might have a child with them. Catrin revealed that Matt Smith kissing her and her slap in response in Crimson Horror were not in the script. Matt added the kiss, she responded accordingly.

I just love Simon Fisher Becker, who plays Dorium Maldovar. Apart from being very funny, he provided lots of real, practical insights into an actor's life. He said he spends part of each day reviewing work he's done (as he put it, ringing his agent and seeing if the money has come in) and looking for new work. Both he & Christina Chong made much of the idea that you don't just say you want to be an actor, you behave as though you are. You have to be quite strategic about learning the craft and knowing the industry. 

And that is all I have time for now - autographs & photos to collect! Then fancy dress, with Anna as Rory Williams, tonight. 

Volunteers wanted for Leicester Doctor Who study

If you're able to get to Leicester on 28th February, you might want to sign up for a study into audience reception of Doctor Who. Don't worry, this doesn't involve your brain being dissected for clues as to what makes us love the Time Lord. Although I doubt they'd tell us if it did. Apparently they want you to watch a couple of Tennant episodes of Doctor Who and then fill in a questionnaire and take part in a discussion afterwards. Can't be bad. They will even pay you £15 for the privilege.

If you're interested, all the details are here.

Reflections on Starfury's Midnight Doctor Who convention

I've just about recovered now from the fabulous weekend Anna and I spent in Birmingham at the Starfury Midnight Doctor Who convention. The first 24 hours involved prize pooches and daleks with handbags, as I wrote the other day.

My convention going experience ranges from the hyper-official (the Official Doctor Who convention in March and Star Trek: Generations at the Royal Albert Hall in 1995) and the cosy and intimate - an event called Cult TV which took over a holiday camp in Norfolk in the 90s. That, actually, was where I found myself on several occasions chatting to the lovely Lis Sladen when we were both outside having a cigarette. Midnight was much bigger and more formal than Cult TV but not as regimented as the official events.

I really need to thank Blogtor Who because if he hadn't posted a few months back that David Tennant and Billie Piper were going, I doubt we'd have even considered attending. David Tennant is Anna's Doctor in the same way as Tom Baker is mine, though. The one you grow up watching is always special. There was no way we could turn down the chance to see one of his rare appearances, or miss Billie's first.

So, let me give you a little flavour of the weekend. I will do some additional posts with more notes on the main guests' talks later.

If I knew when I'd booked what I know now, I would have made sure that we stayed the Sunday night as well. I had assumed that David \and Billie's talk would be over by late afternoon but it wasn't scheduled to even start until 5 - and everything had run late the whole weekend. They managed to get it back on track, but I was worried for our flight at 8:30. We also missed a party on the Sunday night, so if there is a next time, we'll be staying right through.

The Guests

Apart from David and Billie, the headline guests were Torchwood duo Gareth David Lloyd, whose character Ianto was killed by a vengeful alien sneeze in 2009, and Eve Myles, who plays Gwen Cooper, the only character with any common sense in that show. Gwen, actually, is one of my favourite female sci-fi characters. She's feisty, brave, passionate, stubborn, funny and generally the sort of girl you'd want to go out for a few beers with. Anjili Mohindra, who played Rani in The Sarah Jane Adventures was appearing at her first UK convention. Script Editor Gary Russell, Sontaran actor Dan Starkey, Slitheen actress Annette Badlands, Dalek operator Barnaby Edwards,  and writers Phil Ford, Tony Lee and Jim Swallow completed the line-up.

All the guests worked really hard. Poor Billie Piper was full of the cold, but it was hard to see where she had a break all day. She and David Tennant spent the first 3 hours having photos taken with virtually the entire convention, then 4 hours signing autographs for the same people and then had to go out and sparkle during their talk. The others' workload included at least one panel, plus photos plus about 6 hours of signing. The Saturday autograph session was supposed to finish at around 6:30 but it was 7:20 before we got out.

I will be eternally grateful to Eve Myles for being lovely to Anna. She said some really complimentary stuff to her, the sort of stuff I tell her all the time, but I'm only her mother so I don't really count. Anna really likes Eve, and when you're 13, when someone you really admire takes the time, unbidden, to pay you an enthusiastic compliment, that means a lot. I visibly saw my girl grow about 4 inches on the spot. It was the end of a very long day for Eve, and I really appreciated her effort. Her autograph queue was about a mile long because she was chatting to everybody and she partied happily long after I went to bed.

Anjili Mohindra was also fantastic - very friendly and she was handing out Skittles to people.The sweets, not actual skittles, you understand. I was really sad that I didn't get to see her solo panel on the Sunday because I was queueing for photographs as we had to leave immediately after Tennant and Piper. I think it would have been better to have had her solo talk on the Saturday. She had a panel that day with Gary Russell and Phil Ford but, to be honest, it turned into what Jennie would call a sausagefest. Any young woman who has ever been to a meeting on anything will tell you about middle aged blokes talking to each other and pretending she isn't there, talking over her, ignoring her and then regurgitating what she's said a while later, passing it off as their own idea and that sort of thing. And the thing is, I bet you Gary and Phil didn't even realise they were doing most of that. Had I been moderating that session I would have made sure Anjili was brought in a bit more and given her own space. Credit to her for butting in and trying to take it back herself on occasion, but she shouldn't have had to and it was intensely irritating to watch.

And while we're on the subject of writers and females, I was less than impressed when somebody asked Tony Lee about whether he'd like a female doctor. He said that, yes, he'd welcome it and she wouldn't have to be a "young dolly bird", she could be like an elder statesman figure. Because, clearly, those are the only two types of women there are. I despair.

Eve and Gareth probably shouldn't be let out in public. Both of their panels were hilarious, irreverent and highly entertaining. We certainly got our money's worth out of them.

David and Billie were great, too. I liked particularly her honesty about being slightly overwhelmed by the fandom thing. Rose Tyler was a job to her, it didn't come with the baggage we fans give to the Doctor Who world and she didn't try to pretend any different. She did it in a lovely way, not disrespectful at all. She finds it very strange that "every conversation" she ever has "is dominated by" the two years she spent playing Rose. Tennant's obvious attributes are enhanced by the fact that he was the sort of colleague you would love to have around when there's idiocy going on. I could not believe the things that they were asked by a couple of people. Bearing in mind that this is the first time Billie had ever faced the fans in this way, to have someone ask if she and David would like to sleep with each other is beyond the pale. I really felt for her, but David diffused that one with humour, asking if the questions had been set up by John Barrowman. He also brushed off another stupid question which went something like "If Rose had been a call girl (Billie played the lead role in Secret Diary of a Call Girl), would the Doctor have tried to rescue her from her wicked ways." Tennant said that the Doctor wouldn't make moral judgements about people's personal lives.

The Parties

I love a good dance to really cheesy music - and I got it. The evening discos went on until 2 am and were really good. The very same dalek who was pictured with the handbag was apparently doing the Macarena on Saturday night. The music was great and I learned loads of convention dances that I didn't know before. I have done the Slosh to the Doctor Who theme tune. My life is complete.

For the future, though, I think it would be good to have a sort of fringe, like you do at party conference. At Cult TV, way back in the mists of time, we used to have this thing called After Dark where a group would gather and talk about geeky stuff to a reasonably set topic. I think there's scope for that sort of thing at a Starfury event. I'm sure fans to lead these things could easily be found. Some of the guests came along, too. Kevin Davies was a regular, for example.

The organisation

Dealing with the number of people they had to deal with on Saturday was one thing - and that was no insignificant task.On Sunday, when everybody wanted to meet David and Billie, it was something else. The convention staff were all brilliant, especially the people on the photo sales desk who had to distribute all the photos to people, no mean feat, especially when they were arriving in dribs and drabs.

The one point which I felt let them down was the closure of the queue to get electronic copies of the photos at 3:30 on Sunday with no possibility of getting any more. Now, there was a good reason for that - I really wanted the photo staff to get to see Billie and David's talk and that was the only way that was going to happen. However, I think there should have been another way of acquiring the photos electronically, even after the event. 

The autograph queues were a little strange - at previous conventions I've been at, there's been a single queue and you just go from guest to guest. For this one, you had to queue for one, then the next. There presumably was a reason for that, but I'm not sure I can see how it helped. By the way, I clearly hadn't thought through what we were going to get signed. You could take one personal item and one paid item to David and Billie. We didn't have any personal items - and then it suddenly dawned on me that I could get him to sign this:

Credit for that idea has to go to Sarah Green, who several years ago got Ross Brawn, Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello to sign hers.

I have to make special mention of the very scary hall steward, who ruled the hall with a rod of iron, making sure people weren't recording any of the proceedings. I was using my phone and iPad, but, as requested, it was always on flight mode and I was using it to take notes. He told me off at one point but when I showed him the little plane in the corner he was happy. And when he was outside the hall, he wasn't scary at all. You generally need someone like that at big events, who will take no nonsense in their domain.

Sadly, nonsense there was because footage has apparently appeared of some of the talks on the internet.It will never be anything like as good as being there, but people will see it who didn't pay to go and that is unacceptable to the organisers. There's been a bit of a stooshie online about it, with the organisers sounding like they regret allowing any phone use in the hall at all. I think that there has to be a balance here.In this day and age, you can't expect people not to take their phones - and in some instances they are people's cameras and the only way they could get footage of the event. If  someone is determined to record something and put it up on the internet, having phones on flight mode isn't going to stop that. It only means you can't put it up from the hall. I don't know how many people we're talking about here, but hte vast majority of  people behaved like adults and deserve to be treated like adults. Surely the simplest thing would be to have, like in the cinema, a "if we see your red light, or catch you recording anything, you will be ejected from the convention, barred from future events and made to delete the material. Then the majority of rule abiding attendees can be left in peace to use their phones as they need. And is there really any problem with tweeting through an event? One person was tweeting in the Midnight hashtag during David and Billie's speech. They're easily identifiable and they were allowed to do it. So, there is already an inconsistency there.

Venue

It was held in the Hilton Metropole Hotel near Birmingham airport which is right next to the NEC and a really good venue for a 1000 people plus event. It would be even better if they moderated their exorbitant bar prices a little. £8.10 for a large glass of wine really is taking the mickey, although it kept me sober all weekend. In the lounge, I discovered on Sunday that if you ordered a coffee from the bar, it cost significantly less than if you ordered it from Costa Coffee. Eating turned out to be less expensive than I'd feared. They did a buffet for £10 a head which was pretty reasonable value, but it could have done with being on for an hour longer given that it had finished by the time we got out of the autograph sessions on Saturday night. However, judicious choices from the menu in the bar, with the 20% discount for attendees, worked out cheaper. The room was ok, but it was either too hot or too cold - there didn't seem to be a way of getting the temperature to stabilise. And the pillows were too soft and the mattress too hard for my liking.

The staff were generally pretty friendly and helpful, although the concierge people were really snippy on the Sunday. Yes, they had 500 bags to deal with, but if they're a regular conference centre, they should expect that.

It was also really good that they came and picked us up from Birmingham International station in their courtesy bus. Getting back wasn't so reliable, though. The bus we were booked on left early and I just jumped in a taxi rather than risk losing my flight.

We absolutely loved the weekend. It's slightly concerning that Anna is now viewing the fact that they are running conventions next year around both her birthday and Christmas. She made a friend her age who is into all the things she's into, all the same animes and programmes, and it was quite good for her to realise that there are, actually, at least 1000 people in the world who are quite like her. I think we'll wait and see if there is going to be another official one around the 50th anniversary and then decide what to do, but we'd certainly go back to another Starfury event. I'll even volunteer to proofread their schedule for them. Seriously, it has to merit a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the most errors to space ratio ever...

Here be SPOILERS: Asylum of the Daleks review

Just in case you didn't read the word SPOILERS in big writing in the headlines, I'll do a bit of a long introduction before I start to spill any beans. I didn't actually watch the programme live, which is a bit sacriligious, I know. This is all Natalie McGarry's fault for arranging the second #twinner, a loose gathering of the Scottish political twitterati to partake of some good food and a little light refreshment for the same night. There are not many groups of people for whom I would have missed the season opener, but this was one. When I say light refreshments, by the way, when I left, our table of nine, of whom one was driving and therefore not drinking booze, had consumed six bottles of wine and two of Sauternes. We had a beautiful meal at Bo'Vine, opposite Oran Mor at the A82 end of Byres Road. I had the 3 course pre-theatre dinner which was £18 and delicious. The smoked mackerel pate was probably a bit smooth for my liking, and it wouldn't have killed them to throw in an extra oatcake, but the sirloin steak was cooked perfectly and the chips were to die for. I even ate the roasted tomatoes which did not taste like they were the food of Satan himself as I normally consider such evils to be. A spoonful of  brown sugar in the rhubarb crumble wouldn't have gone amiss either, but the gingerbread ice cream was amazing.

Ok, enough SPOILER space. The goodies are coming now. Anna had already watched it and had spent the entire evening discussing it with the other fangirls on the internet and she was happy to watch it again with me. We watched it again this afternoon. Here are my thoughts:

It was proper creepy. 

Dark spaces, mad daleks, people having dalek stalks bursting out of their foreheads. If I could have climbed behind my sofa, I would have done so.

Where in the name of god did all these daleks come from?

The first seasons of New Who were predicated on the idea that all the daleks had been locked in the time war - and then the Doctor busted the Canary Wharf specimens into the time vortex. The only daleks supposed to exist are the brightly coloured jobs from the Victory of the Daleks. The only person who could unlock the Time War would be another time lord and supposedly the only other one left, the Master is dead, isn't he? 

Genocide is not good

Not impressed with the idea that people can just kill off their criminals and mentally ill. I know that a whole load of insane daleks wandering the universe is not a great idea. But then nor are any daleks. And I'm especially not keen on the Doctor not only agreeing but colluding. It's a bit like the Silence last year. 

What was with the forcefield?

Was I missing something? Where did the forcefield come from? Was it made by Oswin? Otherwise it makes no sense to have a prison planet with a forcefield that they couldn't access from the Dalek ship. I mean, a prison where the "warders" were locked out from?

Dalek scaredycats

There's an inconsistency between "daleks fear nobody" and daleks needing to hunt the universe for the Doctor and his mates to sort their problems out cos they're scared to go down there.

The Dalek PM

makes you almost feel lucky to have David Cameron. Almost. Wonder why they expose the jellyfish in their most important? Surely that renders them vulnerable. He's very creepy, anyway. 

The layout of the Parliament is so much more Holyrood than Westminster. Surely the PM couldn't be based on Alex Salmond? I mean, writer Steven Moffat is mates with Tom Harris, Labour MP for Glasgow South who isn't the FM's greatest fan.... I just lay that idea before you without comment:-)

Amy and Rory

No, sorry, I don't buy it. These two have been so close since childhood. Infertility is a huge thing. They would have talked about it. Rory would have guessed what Amy was trying to do when she chucked him out. Mind you, it came out that he doesn't think she loves him as much as he loves her and he could have been just setting her free. But I don't think any couple who have been through the trauma and violation that they have endured would part so easily. I mean, one day, they were having a full English served up by an Ood and seemed perfectly happy, the next, he was leaving with all his worldly goods in a bin bag. I have more faith in them. They would not treat their relationship so casually.

Oswin

Now there's a surprise. Our new companion (we know these things, sadly, cos the tabloid press and anyone with a smartphone can't be relied upon to keep their gobs shut) seems to have been turned into a dalek and been blasted to smithereens. How is Moffat going to bring her back from that to lounging around the TARDIS playing Carmen and calling the Doctor Chinboy? Seriously, the latter could get irritating, but Moffat has to turn that around plausibly in 5 episodes. 

And, sorry, but as it happens, I don't want to swap Amy for her.

Souffle jokes

It was weird that the Doctor was asking about where Oswin got the milk for the souffles. Eggs are a much more intrinsic ingredient. The Eggs...term...inate stuff was pretty funny. Rory hadn't met the daleks before, of course, so we know what's going on but he doesn't. Very clever.

Who put the chains on Oswin?

She's hardly likely to have done it herself, is she?

Dalek MP

If you have not yet discovered the amazing Dalek MP Twitter account, do so now. The Member for Skaro North East's thouhts on life, the universe and everything appeared almost simultaneously with the episode and has some very new Labour messages. My first thought was "Tom Harris". When I asked him if he was behind it, he said that his wife had just asked him the very same thing but he wasn't. I have enough faith in him to think that he wouldn't tell a downright lie. However, this is a Twitter One to Watch.

Conclusion

Moffat started last season by killing the Doctor. It was hard to imagine that he could surpass that. He actually might have done. By giving us the serious creeps over the fact that there's gazillions of daleks out there, by making us angry and sad and devastated and relieved over Amy and Rory's relationship, he's kept the standard up. We know we're going to lose them in a heartbreaking way in just 4 weeks' time, though....

Whatever the plot holes, Asylum of the Daleks worked. Having watched Torchwood's CyberWoman this weekend, I'm not sure I can be as confident that next week's episode, also by Chris Chibnall, will be of the same standard. We'll see.

I can tell you the secret now......

Six weeks or so ago I tweeted that I was more excited than the most excited thing on the planet, but I couldn't tell you about it. You all knew that it had to be something really special if it was going to top my McCartney excitement.

The reason I had to stay quiet was because it was one of Anna's Christmas presents, the one from us rather than Santa.

But now I can tell you.

She and I are off to the first Official Doctor Who Convention at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff in March. Not only have I never ever been to Wales before, but we're going to see, among others, Matt Smith, Steven Moffat and Arthur Darvill.

Definitely something to look forward to. A lovely girlie weekend in Cardiff with my gorgeous daughter. I can't wait.

As a matter of interest, the guesses I had on Twitter showed just how well people know me. It was SNP activist Grahame Case who sussed it out almost immediately, though,  because he and his fiancee had just booked the tickets for the same event. I'd done it within 10 minutes of receipt of the e-mail telling me about the event, so we were both pretty quick off the mark.

If you were amused by my wide eyed excitement about Liverpool and McCartney, imagine what I'm going to be like in the run up to this........

Review: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe #doctorwho Christmas Special

There are spoilers in this, so if you're likely to throw a Twitter tantrum and block me if you find things out you don't already know, DO NOT read any further.

In recent years, one of the highlights of Christmas Day has been to gather round the television in the early evening for the Doctor Who Christmas Special. It's certainly more essential than watching the Queen in our house.

We've gone from the Sycorax running amok while the Tenth Doctor sleeps off his regeneration to the searing poignancy of the final build up to his farewell with a futuristic Titanic with Kylie as a waitress, an unwitting Doctor imposter and flying fish soothed only by Katharine Jenkins along the way. 

What would this year have to offer?

Let's put it in context first. The last series saw the Doctor's public murder and private escape. Of course, it's an open secret amongst those close to him that he's still alive, but he's keeping a low profile and staying away from them. So, it's a lonely Doctor who's wandering around the universe getting himself into scrapes. He starts the episode by falling from a spaceship. If it were River, he'd be waiting with the Tardis swimming pool roof open or something, but there's nobody to catch him. He has to make do with fighting his way into a space suit, back to front, before crashing to earth in some sleepy little English village. Didn't he do that before and leave a  little girl heartbroken?

Anyway, he finds himself at the bottom of a crater in 1938 and he's rescued and driven by Madge Arless, who seems to be a very accepting soul. Not many of us would casually help a spaceman from the future with a suit on the wrong way round - especially one who criticised their driving. 

Three years on, Madge, played by Outnumbered mum Claire Skinner, receives the awful news that her RAF pilot husband has been killed in action just before Christmas. She decides not to tell her two children, Lily and Cyril, because she doesn't want them to forever associate Christmas with their Dad's death and packs up the family to spend the holiday at the unseen Uncle Digby's home, run by a mysterious and slightly bonkers caretaker - our Doctor. He's clearly going for the Mary Poppins style. The children's room, complete with hammocks has all sorts of magical treats. 

However, typically, all that magic within their bedroom is not enough to keep young Cyril occupied. He just has to open the huge present under the Christmas tree downstairs - which is a portal into a magical world, just like Narnia. Like all good Who adventures, the main protagonists are separated and each work out bits of the story. A good idea of the Doctor's, to give the kids some happiness and fun, goes awry, as you might expect.

From flying fish twelve months ago, we've moved on to trees with little starry souls seeking escape before the landscape is plundered for energy. No parallels with anything modern there, then.  Bill Bailey and Arabella Weir are absolutely brilliant as hapless representatives of the company destroying the forest. It just goes to show that there are jobsworths alive and well in the 24th century. Weir wrote about her experience for the Telegraph last week. These characters' contribution was quite brief but very funny and I want the Doctor to meet them sometime.

The way the story unfolds, which amounts to the ever accepting Madge carrrying an entire planet's worth of tree souls in her head and thinking them to their new home, is both funny and poignant and has an unintended consequence. However, Moffat did make a huge howler in an effort to shoehorn a superfluous plot line into the script. I'm fine with our heroes illuminating the time vortex at exactly the right spot to guide our RAF heroes home, but I'm not ok with stalking being shown as an appropriate courtship ritual. We learn through flashbacks that Madge's husband followed her home every night until she agreed to marry him. I'm sure it wasn't meant to be as offensive as it was, especially as he didn't much seem to mind having a wife who was as open and accepting of strange, futuristic concepts as Madge. However, it is simply not right for a bloke to repeatedly follow a woman through a lonely, dark, scary forest at night until he gets his way.

Earlier in the episode, the Doctor tells the children that the TARDIS is his wardrobe. A casual glance at the clock as the wartime story concluded told me there was more to come. As soon as Madge claps eyes on the TARDIS, she knows that the caretaker is the man she helped out all these years ago and when he tells her he can't see his friends cos they think he's dead, she basically tells him not to be so daft.

He then turns up at Rory and Amy's TARDIS like house. I have to say I'm not convinced that our Amy is so po faced that she'd take a water pistol to carol singers, but what was undeniable about that scene was the amazing on screen chemistry between Karen Gillan and Matt Smith. I know that there probably wasn't much further to go in the whole Amy-Rory-River story arc, but last week's news, announced by Steven Moffat, that Karen and Arthur Darvill would be leaving in the new series, made me very unhappy. I wouldn't have minded if they were to disappear but remain contactable, like Sarah Jane Smith did, but it seems that there will be some heartbreak involved. Why? It's just not necessary to do that to much loved characters. I wonder if it'll involve them going back to the library to try to get River out of the computer. You never know.

But back to the matter in hand. The Doctor's Christmassy indulgence in going back to Amy and Rory's will surely have alerted the Silence that he's still alive. After all, even the most incompetent group of people would keep an eye on their enemy's associates, just in case. 

The Doctor, the Witch and the Wardrobe was searingly sad in places. Watching Madge having to experience that emotional pain to the maximum was really tough but, unlike last year, we know that the pain ends there. There were moments of comedy gold and some good old sentimentality. Moffat took the idea of Narnia and, as Louis Walsh would say, made it his own. I'm not quite sure he'd remind anyone of a young C S Lewis, though. It wasn't my favourite Christmas Special and, to be honest, I think I preferred the flying fish last year, but it ticked all the boxes it needed to tick.

It's going to be a long wait for the new series.

I'm very proud of my brave girl - and grateful to Freddie Mercury

In the scheme of things, the very minor surgical procedure Anna underwent this morning isn't a great drama. Or even a small drama. For a child who's been lucky enough never to require much in the way of medical treatment, it was a very new experience, though. Especially when her mother is a State Registered Coward.

We pitched up at the hospital at the appointed time, Anna listening to Queen on her iPod and me faking serenity.

She had to have a local anaesthetic which, she told me afterwards, was very sore, but which she endured without making any fuss at all. The staff said she'd coped a lot better than most grown men. She did it by reciting the words of Bohemian Rhapsody as a distraction. "Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the fandango?" is always good to hear, whatever the circumstances. It's yet another reason to be grateful to one of my favourite bands of all time.

Anna took a liking to Queen a year or so ago, but recently she's seriously listening to a lot of their work - even stuff I don't know. She was delighted yesterday when our tickets to We Will Rock You at the Edinburgh Playhouse arrived.

So, we then came home and watched The Five Doctors. It looks like her Classic Who orbit is centring around Pertwee and Baker. I love that episode - the evilness of the Master, Tegan and the First Doctor, Cybermen, Daleks, the Brigadier and Bessie. On the other hand, I'm so glad that Russell T got his hands on Sarah Jane - she is proper annoying in that one.

Now Anna has a friend in and they are using Facebook Chat to summon me whenever they require anything.

My sister helpfully reminded Anna via Facebook that today was the day to ask for presents, and she should consider her choices carefully. I'll return that favour with her four children some other year, close to Christmas, shall I?

I may not be around much over the next couple of days. I'm not going to let the opportunity of a rare midweek lie in pass me by and I suspect we'll watch some more Doctor Who. I want to steer her on to a bit of McCoy. Haven't seen Battlefield in years - and the Brigadier's in that, too.

She won't be back at school till at least Thursday afternoon, so I'm going to treasure some quiet time with her.

I don't get all the fuss about Janet Devlin #xfactor

Yes, two reality tv posts in one day - but it's my blog and I'll write about trash if I want to.

The return of the X Factor always makes me feel sad because it feels like Summer's over and we're on the home run to Christmas. It always seems to come back the week the schools go back up here, too.

This year is the first season without Simon Cowell. Whatever you say about him and his squillions and his worrying obsession with personal appearance, his instincts about people's talent are usually good. He's popular and his absence from the show to concentrate on launching the US version is bound to have an effect.

The show's thrown 3/4 of its babies out with the bathwater this year. Cheryl Cole and Danii Minogue, the latter, particularly, were much more hands on mentors. I'm going to miss Dannii particularly as she's had a long and tough career. Her experience was pretty invaluable and she clearly worked hard for her acts.

Dannii and Cheryl have been replaced by Kelly Rowland and Tulisa from NDubz. Tulisa reminded me a bit too much of Alesha Dixon from Strictly. Every time I see her, even though I like her, I want Arlene back. Kelly Rowland was very deep and meaningful at times - but she was often right.

Simon is replaced by Take That's Gary Barlow. Now, I love Take That, but Gary needs to be himself and not pretend to be Simon. I just felt that he was a bit constrained last night. We'll see how it all develops.

And, you know, why does he have to take over Simon's seat and role as head judge? Kelly Rowland has as much if not more experience. Why couldn't she head the panel? A missed opportunity.

The talk of the night was Northern Ireland's 16 year old Janet Devlin, who sang Elton John's Your Song, one of my favourites. Everyone was raving about her last night, but I just didn't think she was that good. Her audition seemed out of tune. I didn't dislike her, but she didn't grab me.

However, a quick search of You Tube led me to this video of her singing at home which sounded much better.



I see more of her potential from that clip than from her audition performance.  She certainly was one of the better auditions from last night's show, though. I did wonder about Frankie Coccozza whose claim to fame was that he had seven girls' names tattooed on his backside after a Summer in Malia. Can you just imagine how a girl saying that she had been with 7 men over the Summer would have been absolutely villified?

I'm not particularly excited by the X Factor this year. Watching it seems like a bit of a chore, to be honest.  I hope we'll get to see Simon on the US version - ITV2 usually showed American Idol, which I hardly ever watched - so it's quite likely.

Next week, X Factor will clash with Doctor Who Confidential, so I know what I'll be watching - or at least I hope I will. I've organised a campaign training day in Perth for the day Doctor Who comes back. Not clever at all. However, if you are a Scottish Liberal Democrat council candidate or campaigner, you need to book your place at this event  now because it's unmissable. Contact me by e-mail for details.

Caron in London: The Doctor Who Experience

Last year, Anna and I went to the Doctor Who Exhibition in Newcastle and I wrote about that fantastic experience here.

Part of the reason for the trip to London was to go to the new Doctor Who Experience at Olympia. We were booked in at 11am last Wednesday morning. Because of a fairly major failure on my part in understanding the transport system, we arrived, a bit frazzled, on the Number 10 bus from Kings Cross, which had taken us on a very picturesque tour of the city, 20 minutes late. I was really worried that we weren't going to be allowed in, but the staff could not have been more pleasant and friendly.

The morning's trauma wasn't over as my phone rang just as I was about to turn it off before we went in. I was  so worried to see it was my friend Anne who was looking after our rabbits. My fears that Benjamin and Patches had suffered an untimely devised proved groundless, thankfully. Anne had inadvertently set our burglar alarm off and needed to know how to make it stop.

That drama over, we entered the exhibition. We were invited to sit down and watch a film. I'd noticed a bit of a crack in the screen and wondered at first if it was some sort of flaw in the equipment. I'm not going to spoil the surprise, but it was part of an interactive adventure in which we got to fly the TARDIS under the instructions of the Doctor himself (via video link). There were lots of fantastic special effects and an encounter with some old enemies - exciting even for adults.

I had wondered if the exhibition would be much the same as last year's - but there weren't that many duplicates. While last year's was mainly of post 2005 exhibits, this one goes much further back in history. They say never meet characters from your childhood, but I was thrilled to see the big fella in the photo above, the Robot from the 1974 story which was the first I ever watched. It's not bad for 37 years ago - and you can see him in action here:



We were completely suckered in to the "have your photo taken in front of the green screen" money making effort and are now the proud owners of two pictures of Anna piloting the TARDIS and hanging outside the door kind of like Amy Pond in The Beast Below. I know, it's £15 we'll never see again, but in our defence, it was £12 for one, and they are lovely and unique photos.

There were a selection of Radio Times hoardings for each Doctor.

Along with each Doctor's costume. Here's my favourite.

There's similar for each companion in the new series. The one of Elisabeth Sladen and the notice of her untimely death earlier this year made me cry.

I was particularly pleased to see a display of Daleks through the ages, from this guy from 1967:

He was actually on the tv last Saturday afternoon in Day of the Daleks.

But my favourite, apart from the "would you care for some teeeeeeeeeeeea?" brigade from last year's was the Special Weapons Dalek from the 1988 story Remembrance of the Daleks.

And then there was the Big Daddy of em all:

I was so petrified of him as a child - always so glad to see the back of him, and desperate to see him again.

And I remember when the TARDIS was modernised in 1983. How eighties can you get?

The exhibits were bang up to the present day with a couple of silents from this year's yet to be completed series.

And I kind of like this silhouette of a Judoon.

They had gangers as well from this year's series, but we seem to have omitted to take photos of them.

There were a few interactive exhibits as well - you could play around with the theme tune, or have your voice mutated into that of a Dalek or Cyberman. Particularly poignant was the story of Delia Derbyshire who turned Ron Grainer's original Doctor Who theme into the electronic masterpiece it became. It was good to see the BBC finally, too late, acknowledge her contribution.

This was a fantastically enjoyable experience. Even Bob, who's not that much of a fan really, enjoyed it.

What made it particularly fun was the enthusiasm and friendliness of the staff. They were keen to answer questions, or chat and really looked like they were enjoying themselves and were keen to help and give information.

The one annoying factor was beyond the control of the organisers. Works on the underground in the run up to the Olympics led to the closure of the tube station right next door. You have to go to Barons Court as well and try as I might, I couldn't find directions from Barons Court to Olympia. Both Olympia and Transport for London should think about this as the exhibition wasn't as crowded as I thought it should be. I wonder if they've taken a hit because of transport inconveniences.

The exhibition is at Olympia until 20th November and you can book tickets here.

BAFTA forgets Nicholas Courtney but Doctor Who fans never will.

I didn't watch the BAFTAs last night, but I was very sad to wake up this morning to see that during the "In Memoriam" spot, there was no mention of one of the best loved Doctor Who actors. Nicholas Courtney, who played Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, passed away in February.

Toby Hadoke, whose show Moths ate my Doctor Who scarf is a must for Doctor Who geeks and occasional fans and, actually, anyone in their 40s or 50s, posted his anger at the lack of respect to Courtney.

I'm sure everyone who grew up with the Brigadier will agree with me. 

I love this tribute video, one of many on You Tube.  I still think my favourite moment is Tom Baker's first episode, and the Brigadier's face when he's trying on all the ridiculous costumes. Comedy gold. 

And here's another from his last appearance in the Sarah Jane Adventures. I hadn't actually watched it since Elisabeth Sladen died last month. Let's just say it made me cry.

Tears before bedtime - beautiful CBBC tribute to Elisabeth Sladen

The BBC have excelled themselves tonight with a stellar assault on my emotions. First there was the rollercoaster ride that was the season opener of the new Doctor Who series- of which more probably tomorrow - and immediately afterwards, on CBBC, the programme nobody ever wanted to see, or make - My Sarah Jane. This was a tribute to actress and Who icon Elisabeth Sladen who died on Tuesday.

You could tell that this programme had been put together with love and tenderness by people who were shocked and grief stricken at the unexpected loss of a friend and inspiration.

There were heartfelt words from Matt Smith, David Tennant and Steven Moffat. From the kids who'd been her gang on the Sarah Jane Adventures, all of whom talked about how Lis had really looked out for them on set. It was the music that really set me blubbing. Not just a moist eye, but full blown, noisy, proper blubbing which followed a flash of "you bastards, BBC, how could you have picked something so perfect?".

What made it perfect was looking across the room, past the Matt Smith cardboard cutout (really!) over at my husband on the other sofa. He regards my Doctor Who obsession with a certain resigned, but benevolent tolerance. And there he was, blubbing his eyes out too. It's moments like these that confirm that you are absolutely with the right person.

We haven't had to wait very long to see the programme come up on iPlayer too - view it here. But have a nice soothing cuppa and a box of tissues ready as you'll need one to get you through this tender, tasteful tribute.

And to those of you on Twitter who say there should have been a Nick Courtney tribute - well, of course there should. But let's not take away from Lis and what she gave to mine and my daughter's generation. We'll miss her so much.  I still feel very sad and a little choked when I think about her no longer being with us, but we'll always have her excellent performances and portrayal of a character who combined kindness, compassion and curiosity with an inability to take crap from anyone or to conform to expectations to inspire us.

And although Tom Baker wasn't part of tonight's tribute programme, he wrote this blog post about Lis earlier this week.

A childhood heroine for both Anna and I dies - RIP Elisabeth Sladen

So after a hard day’s envelope writing last night, we headed back to my sister’s where my niece Laura was cooking her risotto – which,  I have to say, is one of the most delicious, punchy, garlicky, creamy, pretty things I’ve ever eaten.  In the olden days families used to gather round the piano for a sing song, or the ladies of the house would play the instrument in genteel and cultured fashion while everyone listened or danced.  The modern day equivalent is singing along to songs on You Tube. Songs from musicals and Disney to be exact. “How do I know that he loves me?” from Enchanted is sure to become a modern classic, and my sister’s and my rendition of For Good from Wicked is quite simply beyond compare.

Having such fun in the real world limited my options for dipping into Twitter, although I did share a little of our revelry with the world in passing, not checking at all what was happening to anyone else.  I am very grateful to MiMi (@meemalee), though, for making sure that I couldn’t ignore what everyone was talking about – their shock at the news that Elisabeth Sladen, who played Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who had died from a cancer she’d kept very private.

Sarah Jane Smith was the feisty journalist accompanying the Doctor when I first started watching in 1974. I absolutely loved her. She was clever, fearless, kind and pretty. I was literally heartbroken when she left in 1976 and to this day I’ve wanted a pair of those stripy dungarees she wore in her final episode.

Lis Sladen was wickedly funny, approachable and lovely in real life. In the late 90s we used to go to a Cult Tv holiday weekend in November each year in Norfolk and she came along for a couple of years. She brought along her husband and daughter, too and made a family weekend of it. I’ve mentioned before on here that somehow it seemed wrong that Sarah Jane Smith should be smoking, but it was often in smokers’ corner that I came across her and she was always friendly.  It’s her husband Brian Miller, and daughter Sadie, now a woman in her mid twenties I thought of first last night. They will be devastated but I hope the genuine love people had for Lis, of which we’ve seen loads in the last few hours, will at some point in the future make them smile through their tears.

The character of Sarah Jane had a renaissance in 2006 after  Russell T Davies brought her back and reunited her with David Tennant’s Doctor and then gave her her own spin off series which is briliiant. Action roles for women beyond their thirties are few and far between, but here was a middle aged single parent middle class woman with an alien supercomputer in her attic, a son cloned by aliens and a group of teenagers who helped her save the world again and again. The last series where she worked with Matt Smith’s Doctor for the first time, and played alongside another former companion, Jo Grant, seems poignant now. As does the last storyline where apparently an ill Sarah Jane left – although she hadn’t really, she’d been kidnapped by a sadistic alien and was kept in a basement till the kids rescued her.

It is not a coincidence that my daughter has Elisabeth as a middle name – as a tribute to her paternal grandmother Betty and to a talented actress who was the perfect female role model for several generations.  She loves Sarah Jane and is sad today.

I really want to get the DVDs out and spend the day reading what folk have written about this lovely woman on the internet. I shall have to delay that indulgence until I get home at the weekend.

Andrea Gill @msNoeticat on Twitter, summed it up best this morning when she said:

“To those who don’t get the fuss about Lis Sladen, all you need to know is generations grew up in love with her, or wanting to be her or both. “ I’m grateful that both I and my daughter had the good fortune to be influenced by her and her character’s warmth, wisdom, compassion and curiosity.

The Science of Doctor Who

LaLast week, Anna and I went to the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh to see a talk on “The Science of Doctor Who” given by Mark Brake and Jon Chase as part of the annual Edinburgh Science Festival.

I thought they would talk about whether cybermen or daleks could be created, or whether a TARDIS was possible, but it was more to get children interested in what science fiction was all about.

The  hour long session was very interactive, with the kids being asked for their ideas on things like who would win in a battle between the cybermen and the Sontarans.

They started by showing the kids the painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights” which was made 500 years ago and depicts the universe as being very small, with God in the top left hand corner. Now, anyone with more than a passing interest in Professor Brian Cox will know that the universe is massive, with literally billions of planets and stars – giving science fiction writers a huge number of different places to go to create stories.

They talked of meeting Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell who said that Doctor Who wasn’t science fiction, but “Galaxy and Chips” meaning that it was just exploring the normal range of experiences human beings going through but in the context of space.

The idiocy that in such a huge universe with huge potential for creativity, most Doctor Who aliens look human was pointed out, and the provenance of some was speculated upon. For example, (and you can tell I didn’t mis-spend my youth enough because this was news to me – the weeping angels are a bit like the ghosts in Pacman.

ReRemember in Charlie Brooker’s recent satiricaltv series, he speculated about how we’d probably invest emotional energy in something as horrid as who would win between various genocidal regimes, leaving him in You Tube immortality cheering for the Nazis? Well, Brake and Chase had come up with Fantasy Death Match, asking the audience for their suggestions. Anna’s contribution to the question of who would win between the Doctor and the Daleks was to use a mirror to bounce back the Dalek beam – and that the Doctor would win because he could regenerate as many times as he liked seeing as they’ve got rid of the old Canon of 12 times. Jon Chase told her to try that the next time she met a Dalek.

ThThe show gave the kids some sense of the history of science fiction, telling them about ground breaking books like HG Wells’ the Time Machine and Lewis Carroll’s Sybil and Bruno which they might then go and read.  There was discussion of 2001: A Space Odyssey which had people evolving into star children.  One thing about Anna having a dad who was born in the 50s is that he can tell her about the science fiction about when he was a child, and how they expected today’s world to look. In fact, his justification for his cherished “grumpy old man” demeanour is disappointment that we’ve got to the 21^st century and not cured poverty and disease. He feels let down in some ways.

ThThere were occasional reference to a competition for people to write sci fi in 6 words. Entries such as “Time machine reaches future – nobody there” and “Tick tock tick tock tick tick” were included.

ThThe one thing that really annoyed me about the show was a reference to the Slitheen and then the appearance of a photo of Nick Clegg and David Cameron. That was a low blow which made me wonder if there was anywhere Lib Dems can go to avoid having crap thrown at them these days. It wasn’t the right place to do it.

All All in all, though, I left the event feeling confident in the future of Doctor Who geekery – and particularly in the fact that there were so many girls there. The kids clearly all loved the show and knew loads about it so as we head towards its half century in 2013, it seems like the Doctor ‘s future is assured for the time being.