Six Degrees of Separation

The movie Hombre is one of my favourite Westerns. It was recommended to me by a tutor on my scriptwriting degree course (as inspiration for the Western I was writing as part of my finale project).

The movie is based upon a novel by the late and lauded Elmore Leonard.

The other day, randomly, I picked up my copy of Hombre and read the first chapter. This got me wondering what stories were included in the chunky hardback, The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard, which I'd purchased last year.

The book flopped open to a title page I hadn't seen before... revealing that it was signed by Leonard himself.

This made me grin like a loon, as I'm a sucker for such dedications in books. Remember my excitement when I found the signed book in a sale at our local second hand book store.

Being a homebody generally, it's very unlikely that I'll get to pose for selfies with my favourite authors, actors etc

So I prefer "signed items" instead. I have a collection of signed Philip Reeve books (my favourite author) and head shots of stars of Classic era Doctor Who - from Carole Ann Ford and William Russell to Sophie Aldred and Sylvester McCoy. These latter pictures are proudly framed and displayed on the office wall, while my Philip Reeve library has its own shelf in one of the lounge cupboards.   

Back in February, I acquired from an online store (not Amazon) a limited edition (#365 of 750), first edition (with red page edges) of Red Sonja: Consumed by Gail Simone (which was signed by the author).

I was most delighted by this, and then when I shared it on BlueSky, Gail herself replied, hoping I'd enjoy the book.

The other week, a postcard winged its way across The Atlantic, signed by Dungeons & Dragons YouTube "influencer" Ginny Di.

This was a reward for supporting her Patreon (which I've been a member of since 2020).

It wasn't just Ginny's signature - and the details of an enchanted weapon to be used in a RPG - that made this magical though. It was the fact that a postcard had managed to find its way over here to the UK without getting mangled or lost. 

A signature is a sign of caring (I know many things get signed in a production line-like setting, but the fact is the creator is still doing it).

I may spend 90 per cent of my life within the four walls of our house, but receiving a signed item from someone whose work I admire (even it's purely by chance, such as the Elmore Leonard book) is a connection.

At one end of the process, the artist has signed their work and at the other end I get to hold it in my hands and appreciate the time spent both creating their art and signing my book, picture, postcard etc

Birthday Bonus Trailer for The Timeless Doctors

There are fan films, then there are fan films, and then there is The Timeless Doctors.

Of this forthcoming epic, due for release next year, creator Stuart "BabelColour" Humphryes says:

"It cleverly weaves archive film with newly created special effects, modelwork and voice acting to produce a spectacular new adventure in time and space. Augmented with a bespoke musical score and specially filmed inserts, with cutting edge CGI and the appearance of very special guest artists, this is a fan venture like no other!"

Celebrating Doctor Who's 62nd anniversary with the release of a new, bonus, trailer Stuart adds:

"To celebrate Doctor Who Day today (23rd November), I share a bonus trailer for the 'Timeless Doctors' fan-film. This trailer takes us back to Old Gallifrey, to the days of the Doctor's childhood and much, much further - through the millennia to the Dark Time and the Age of Rassilon, when Omega detonated stars, the Great Vampires stalked the universe and the fledgling Time Lords invented living metals to protect their world. "

This is next-level fandom, supported by many with direct connections to the production of Doctor Who - both Classic and Modern - and a phenomenal pool of talent.

Check out an earlier trailer below and make sure you subscribe to BabelColour's Doctor Who YouTube Channel and/or The Timeless Doctors Bluesky feed for further developments.

HAPPY 62nd BIRTHDAY TO DOCTOR WHO!!!

On the evening of November 23, 1963, the BBC aired An Unearthly Child, the very first episode of Doctor Who... and history was made.

Back in 2009, I convinced Rachel to watch this episode "to gauge her opinion of what I regard as one of the single, finest episodes of science-fiction ever screened". 

Here's what I wrote at the time (with some mathematical adjustments): 

I'm pleased to report that she enjoyed it; her only problems were the graininess of the image (well, it was filmed in 1963) and she couldn't accept Susan (Carole Ann Ford) as a 15-year-old. Rachel said: "She looked more like 30!"

Could anyone have imagined, when this episode was first screened [62] years ago, the infinite possibilities for storytelling that were being opened up?

Kicking off with a pitch-perfect first episode helped Doctor Who hit the ground running, dropping hints about the mysterious genius schoolgirl, Susan, and her enigmatic Grandfather (William Hartnell) and posing many questions that - to this day - remain unanswered!

Coal Hill School teachers Ian Chesterton (William Russell) and Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill), teachers of science and history respectively (the two subjects the series was initially most interested in), want to find out more about their star pupil and head to the address the school has for her.

It turns out to be a junkyard where they meet a strange, white-haired old man (The Doctor) who tries to drive them off and stop them poking around an old police box (where Ian thinks the man might be holding Susan prisoner!).

Instead Susan opens the door of the police box and the teachers walk in... to find themselves in the control room of the TARDIS... and nothing will ever be the same again, either for them or for the viewers.

How mind-blowing must it have been in 1963 to watch these people step through the doors of a 'normal' police box and find themselves in the vast, hi-tech expanse of a space and time ship?

William Hartnell's Doctor, at this stage, is still rather irascible and certainly doesn't appreciate the interference of two busybody teachers into his time on Earth (fixing the TARDIS and, we discover many years later, dealing with the Hand Of Omega).

Hence, his rather impetuous way of keeping his and Susan's secret - transporting the TARDIS away randomly, taking Ian and Barbara with them!

The TARDIS clearly isn't fully repaired as its first televised journey manages to knock Ian and Barbara unconscious and The Doctor and Susan appear rather strained by it as well.

They have travelled back to Earth's Stone Age and that is a story (called variously The Tribe Of Gum, 100,000BC, The Stone Age, The Cavemen etc) which I've always, rather cheekily, considered its own entity. I feel An Unearthly Child suffers if lumped in with this subsequent, less-than-enthralling adventure.

Of course, the main thing is that Rachel didn't fall asleep or wander off while An Unearthly Child was playing and allowed me to explain to her why this one episode is so important - because without it we wouldn't have over [60] years of Doctor Who and all the books, CDs, magazines, action figures etc

The TV listing in November 23's issue of the Daily Mirror.
NB. The actual broadcast was slightly delayed because of
the assassination of President Kennedy the day before.

To mark the Doctor's anniversary - which really should be a national holiday - here are a small selection of special online episodes from the show:

And this fan documentary looks at the return of Doctor Who after its extended hiatus through the "dark times":

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Sic Itur Ad Astra

The Star Trek: Voyager episode One Small Step features a discussion of childhood dreams and ambitions.

Whenever I watch this, it strikes a particular chord with me as, at about the age that Chakotay decided he wanted to be a palaeontologist and Seven Of Nine was dreaming of becoming a ballerina, the only thing I wanted to be was an astronaut.

It wasn't even Star Trek (The Original Series) or other sci-fi shows of that era (early '70s) that drove this dream but simply the fact that I was growing up in age when men were still walking on the Moon and the "space race" was a vibrant and exciting part of everyday life.

Sadly, I also remember when how that dream got mothballed.

I was reading an article in an annual (either Star Trek or Doctor Who, and I'm leaning towards the latter) about the reality of space travel and I came across a paragraph that pointed out that if your craft re-entered the atmosphere at the wrong angle you'd burn up (I already had a childhood phobia about fire from being freaked out by The Amazing Mr Blunden as a six-year-old) and so that was it. Dream shattered. Astronaut ambitions shelved.

I wonder how different my life would be if, at that impressionable age, I hadn't read that article in an old annual and had instead pursued my space-travelling dreams through later life, studied the sciences at school (heck, any studying would have been an improvement), gone off to university at 18, taken a job in the aerospace industry or become a scientist or a pilot...

Talking of old annuals, as we were, another "freaky" story revolved around a pair that I picked up at a summer fête at the old Pembury Hospital (I think one might have been a Victor annual, but I can't remember the other, it might even have been a Doctor Who one).

One of favourite annuals as a kid
- but nothing to do with these anecdotes

What I do recall is that the two annuals were from different years and I didn't look inside them until I got home - only to discover that these two, otherwise unconnected books, both contained exactly the same illustrated article about UFOs! My little kid mind was officially blown!

The Pembury Hospital fêtes were fixture of the Knight's social calendar as, in their day, the events were always able to attract "big name stars" to open them.

One year we had Rod Hull & Emu (I'm only slightly ashamed to admit that I stroked Emu) and another time there were a couple of genuine Daleks for people to inspect (before my time, even William Hartnell, dressed as The First Doctor, opened the fête one year).

In later years, once I was a local journalist, the hospital fête gave me my first opportunity to interview Louise Jameson (The Fourth Doctor's companion, Leela).

She was thinking of moving to the area and so ended up grilling me on what I thought about Tunbridge Wells.

Either later that year or the next she moved to Rusthall, on the outskirts of Tunbridge Wells.  I like to think I played some small part in that decision.