Than a Row of Pink Tents...

4 cd's arrived today

The Wizard of Oz OST
Xanadu OST
Bananarama 12 inch remixes
Macy Gray Greatest Hits

and also want tickets for this

Is it possible to be so gay you go straight again?

Ostara

Yep, once again, a Pagan Festival sat snugly amongst a Christian one. And Ostara was actually a full moon too, so a small amount of barking ensued. By small, it was more of a gentle whine and a woof. But as Tesco tell us, every little helps.
Of my five days off from big job, I was working most of them at little job .... but at double time for Friday and Monday I wasn't complaining. Bizarrely, some film called Step Up 2: The Streets seems to be selling out at all showings - which surprised me as
A) Id never heard of it
and
B) Thought the 2 was a 'down with the kids' thing, not that it was a sequel. There is a Step Up 1 by all accounts. Who knew?
Still desperately trying to learn my lines for Magpies. Have now spent about three times the man hours digesting the script, than I did for Help last year, for a part about 20 times smaller ... and still only know three of my lines. And we are on in two weeks. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. Ah .. I'll get there.
Disease now completely gone. Lumps and all.
And had to have a bit of a 'why oh why' on Friday night, after BBC3 announced that they aren't showing the Torchwood series finale, so we have a two week wait until it airs on BBC2. That's right, fish us in with a juicy preview mid series, then leave us hanging at the end. Bastards.
Still no news on a time and date for Who ..... but suspiciously Who shaped hole at 6.20, Sat 5 April, BBC1 .... with an even more suspiciously Who Confidential shaped hole on BBC3 right after it .... so lets see.
And my special secret journo friend has been told he isn't getting preview discs for eps 1 & 2 ... BAH! I rely on him to drip feed me info and whip me into a frenzy. I'll have to get excited all on my own now. Luckily this year, I do have the lovely boys (and girls) at Kinda though .. so all is not lost.

The Two Doctors

So Doctor Who is back for 'week 15 time and day to be confirmed' according to the BBC press office. So that's Saturday 5 April at 7.00pm then, yeah?
And tried to speak to my GP yesterday. I have been trying to get hold of them for a while but continually get voicemail. Not like, 'this is Dr Wotsisnames surgery' ... just the bog standard 'you have reached voicemail. leave a message' type thing. Further investigation showed that actually. the surgery are not on the number I had - which I am sure I have used to speak to them before.
On the right number, I got a message saying they were closed weds afternoons and would re open at 6. So I waited at work until 6 figuring i may be able to see them on my way home, and called again. To be told they are closed weds afternoons and would re open at 6.30.
huh?
That sooooooooooooooooooo said 6 when I rang at 1.15. So I drove home with the idea of popping in and booking in person. But at 6.34, they were still very closed. No problem, nila problemo, I said to myself, my doctor has three premises around Caerphilly and was clearly at a different one. I can be home in about 6 mins and will call.
By the time I got home, the car in the garage, fed Smeagol and had a quick wee ... it was still only 6.47.
'The surgery is now closed'
WHAT? They open in the evening for 15 mins?
Reet pissed off now, I rang NHS direct. The lovely call centre type advised it really did sound like mumps and I should speak to a nurse. I could expect a call by 8.00pm
So at 8.43 they rang me back.
A lovely nurse took me through the symptoms. I was awfully polite and even spoke of uncomfort in my testicles, rather than sore bollocks. He said def mumps and I should see my GP ASAP.
Rang my GP this morning. The receptionist said definitely mumps but under no circumstances should I be in contact with anyone, let alone coming in to the surgery so Doctor would call me back. Of course I was already sat in work at this point and have been all week, so its a bit late for that anyway.
Naturally, Doctor rang me back when I was sat in a meeting with a client. Rather than talk about my uncomfy testiclay with him, I left the room. Doctor thinks may not be mumps but just an unknown viral infection.
Well that's OK then

What Am I? 8?

So you may recall last week I had a swelling that concerned me slightly.
The weekend sore an onset of a sore throat. Then from Monday, my neck has gone from hamster to Frankensteins Monster ..... which all started to feel really familiar. So I went and looked at NHS Direct and found this:

In mumps, one or both of the salivary glands swell up and become painful. This creates the characteristic 'hamster' appearance of a swollen face, particularly just below, and in front of, the ear. The swelling of the glands increases over two to three days and gradually decreases as the high temperature falls. It is not unusual for swelling to last for around eight days.

The incubation period for mumps (the time that the viral infection is in your system before the symptoms begin to show) is between 14-21 days. However, a person who has the mumps infection is contagious from about six days before their glands swell, until about five days after they swell. You can only pass on mumps if you currently have the infection.

Other symptoms of mumps may include:

• pain when chewing and swallowing, Fuck aye
  
• sore throat, It hurts mama
  
• fever, The Kylie CD or Madonna track? I have both
  
• feeling tired, for many years now... but worse of late
  
• loss of appetite, Yes - but that only puts me to eating what a normal person does and I am still on the chocolate
  
• mild abdominal (tummy) pain, Again, yes but its a regular thing with me. Been farting like a good un though and it really fucking stinks
  
• dry mouth, and yep
  
• headache. Again, when you suffer from migraine, you find it easy to ignore an ordinary headache
  

There may be swelling around the ovaries (in girls) or testes (in boys after puberty).

Around a third of people with the mumps virus develop no symptoms and, in most other people, the symptoms are fairly mild.

So it looks like I have the mumps. What next? Chickenpox? Days off school to watch Picture Box, Look and Read and then have mum bring me chicken soup when Crown Court is on?
Honestly!

10,000 BC

Just don't go and see it. Its two hours you'll never get back and your life will be ten years shorter.
If only somebody had said that to me before I went in to the flicks last night.
Effects: hit and miss. Script: possibly didn't exist but entire film was based on an improvisation made by some year 4 kids as part of a project.
I am no historian but I am sure this is massively factually inaccurate too.
The story such as it is: tribe live on top of snowy mountain. They have a wise old woman who is great for mild comedy relief .. what? She is supposed to be the drama? Oh. Well, anyway, she prophesies the coming of some four legged demons (blokes on horses) and a blue eyed girl who will bring salvation to the people or some such nonsense. Blue eyed girl comes, grows up, gets kidnapped by ugly blokes on horses so tribe set off to rescue her. Possibly because they are bored of snow cones to eat. Along the way, on a great journey (we know its a long journey as we go from mountains to jungle to desert) many join the quest with spears and relevant face armour. You have to love the wearing-bamboo-on-their-faces tribe who look so ridiculous I disturbed the rest of the audience, who had nodded off, with my raucous laughter. Some bollocks about a stat later and we are watching Mastodons help build the pyramids. Which started out as the great Pyramids of Giza and then became another set entirely from what I could gather. The Almighty is over seeing all of this, aided by a bunch of panto dames with long nails. Of course, the hero prevails, and The Almighty is revealed to be .. gasp! ... a white man! Suddenly, I see where it had been going all along. Its an American film made by a German bloke apologising for white mans treatment of native peoples around the world. Which is a fair point, but has been done so many times before so much better.
Oh, and one of them is called Tick Tick. Really. And the hero saves a drowning Sabre Tooth ... which remembers him and decides not to eat him - twice. Because that would happen.
If you find yourself considering this film, sit at home and remove all your toenails with a garden spade instead, its less painful.

Kylie 101 in under 10 mins.

itis

Woke up yesterday and bu golly did I feel like shit. Spent most of the day fighting aches and pains and a bastard of a sore throat. I still went to work though - want the money too bad!
So after a very disturbed nights kip, I awoke to a really bad throat indeed. And a slight nausea that felt vaguely familiar ... somewhere in the deep recesses of my conscious cranium.
And then I remembered a conversation from last week with Mia at work. And I knew where this feeling came from.
Id last felt this way in the summer of 1980. The week of my 9th birthday! And at that time, it was a very very familiar feeling indeed. Something that I had been blighted with from a very young age, every six weeks or so .. knocking me out flat for a few days at a time. Unless I had the big fizzy orangey tablets - in which case I just felt a little sick around meal times.
Yep. I have tonsillitis. Which I thought was impossible given they removed my tonsils on 16 August 1980. But a small amount of digging has lead to two possibilities:
1. If its a bad case, you can still get the infection in your throat
2. The bloody things can grow back! What the fuck? Apparently, they don't even take them out anymore except in extreme cases. And if they do remove them, its not a week in hospital and a week of bed rest with just soft food like ice cream and jelly to eat .. hell no ... its a half day job and you are fed dry toast to scrape against the wound to make it heal!
Boy am I glad I had it done then and not now. I was the star of the ENT ward back in the day. Because my Dad brought a tv and video in one afternoon. And he brought Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back in. Yep, Empire was still at the cinema, and my Dad had it on video. The brought every child from the hospital into our ward and we all sat watching. I remember being very blase about the whole thing ... I was far more excited that Mum and Alan had brought me in a Han Solo in Hoth gear figure. Think Dad was pissed off at that.
But come to think of it ..... that was quite a pattern. Dad always had the big presents, the expensive stuff, the massive American car to pick me up from at school (I knew when he had arrived to get me, as the entire school would be crowded around the car, wondering which kid was going to be getting in this huge great trans am. The looks of disbelief when it was me, the small and wimpy child getting in the worlds coolest car outside William Austin Junior/Denbigh High ever) ... and I was never impressed. Slightly embarrassed if anything. I can remember one birthday (think it was 8th) when Dad had £100 cash to spend on me and took me to a toy shop. Now bear in mind, it was still the 70s and nothing in the shop - not even the most expensive bike - cost that much. I could have had anything. All i wanted was a wind up V.I.N.CENT Black Hole toy. Some young girl Dad was screwing was with us. Id never met her before and never saw her again. I knew that my big expensive gift was nothing to do with me - it was just about looking good in front of her. So I beat him at his own game. I cried. I got the attention. I am fairly sure he probably still got a fuck out of it later, but right there and then I made the moment ALL ABOUT ME. Not because I wanted the attention, but because I didn't want to be used and that was when my stubborn streak kicked in. Like father like son. This was all going somewhere, but it got away from me ... oh well.... I'll post again if it comes back to me

MAXIMUM EXTERMINATION

So this was Friday night. After being alerted by Scott to filming down on Riverside, we picked him up then headed down for a few hours.

We saw them lay the track and put a man inside this dalek and record a scene from a few angles. This Dalek seems to be talking to a crowd of people. It said Men, women and descendants will be taken by the Daleks. A man is then heard (not the actor, just the AD filling in the lines) to send his family indoors and tells the Daleks to go back into the sky where they came from.

The Dalek cried 'Maximum extermination' and then fired. All this time, Wilf and Sylvia look on from an alleyway. Wilf has a paintball gun and says he plans to shoot the eye stalk, impairing the Dalek's vision. After the maximum extermination, Syvlia leads him away. They also shot scenes with a Dalek catching Wilf in an alleyway and is about to exterminate him when Rose arrives with a fuck off big gun and blows the Dalek up. We also saw a crowd of extra reacting to the maximum extermination. I'm not sure if they get wiped out or if the Dalek shoots the house the aforementioned family go and hide in - as the crowd were rained with debris ...... but somebody bites it, that is for sure

Now, from the position we were in, as the Dalek was performing its speech to the crowd, it was rolling right at us - looking at us. Apparently even Daleks use camera left and right techniques. Such professionals. The first rehearsal was actually spine chilling. It's no secret that I have never found Daleks to be particularly threatening. Cybermen always scared me much more as a child... but being there, with a real Dalek about 20 feet away, rolling towards me, with its proper voice calling out for my surrender, and then pointing its gun at us and crying out maximum extermination ... I don't mind admitting it was a frightening moment. Even though I could see Nick Briggs off to one side in the van doing the voice, even though there were a good 30 crew members and security milling about, even though I was stood with about 20 people behind a barrier, and even though I could see the trainers of the Dalek operator carefully wending his way along the tracking the case was resting on, so as not to trip over the rungs ..... all the hair on the back of my neck stood up and I had to cover my mouth to prevent myself crying out and ruining the shot.

That's the power of Doctor Who.

Of Mice and Moths

Now how do I do this again? Think it goes something like this.....

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Amazing set reports from Scott and the gang last night up in Penarth.
The Doctor shot by a Dalek! Captain Jack and Rose with the big bastard fuck off Dalek guns from series 1. Donna, Sarah-Jane, Mickey and Jackie all in attendance too. (ooh, there's a thought - is the tin dog still in the exhibition? Surely he shows up at some point too. Even though I am sure they could CG him these days). The daleks stealing the TARDIS! Oops .. just shot a wad in my boxers again. Must stop thinking about how exciting this year is going to be.

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Jake Shears and the son of the bloke-off-The-Goodies-with-the-glasses are writing Tales of the City: The Musical.

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

So .. Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf. What a cracking stand up! Toby Hadoke (pronounced Hade Oak, not Had Oaky as I had been saying) clearly knows his shit. Bit obsessed with John Abineri but since it got him his leg over once, I'll not knock it. He states at the start, that you don't need to know classic Who to enjoy the show, and he's right as its the situations that coem from him being a Who fan that make most of the comedy - but there are many levels on which the performance works .... one for every level on Who knowledge basically. Although I have been with the show since Pertwee, I don't commit every last fact and line to memory. Largely because my memory is really really shit. But I got most of it .... and could tell that some of my peers got even more. (Pete, if he tours down under, get there - you will love it). What amazed me most however, was that after combinations of observation, Who related and political comedy, he brings the show to a close with a moment of raw emotion. The entire auditorium was gripped, each person having their own little moment based on the first time his son asked if they can watch Who together. It was beautiful. I don't have many memories of Dad living at home, and of the ones I do have, 99% are him beating the shit out of my mum and shouting a lot. But one of the few I do have is watching Doctor Who. Couldn't tell you which adventure, but its Jon Pertwee with Jo Grant as companion. For years I thought Doctor Who was in black and white until Tom Baker - but turns out we just had a black and white telly. From there, I can remember being terrified of the Zygons and whenever we were out in the car, Dad would point at the nearest gap in the clouds and tell me if I didn't behave the Zygons would come through and get me. I also have a memory of Tom Baker as the Doctor clinging to a cloud and falling off it - which may have been a dream actually. I do remember Dad always making lewd suggestions about exactly what he'd do to Sarah-Jane....
So back to Moths ... there is Toby telling us that his son wanted to watch Who with him .... School Reunion. The episode that first really brought my old Who life and my NuWho life together. My second lump of the week .. this one in my throat.

Chaos, Rains.

Its all gone a bit mad. Very busy with both jobs .... last night I managed to spectacularly break a ticket printer, purely by standing next to it. It was making odd noises when printing, then a ticket it printed fell back into it (they usually slide out and are kind of gripped so that cant happen). I cleared the jam, but then it wouldn't play. Luckily, Louise knew how to deal with it ... and when that didn't work she just ripped it right out of the desk and replaced it. Of course, this had to happen when we had a queue going out of the doors......

And the weather is all over the place. As I think it is for most people actually. Its sunny out right now, but its been all kinds of everything in the last 24 hours. Except snow. We haven't had that ... yet.

Never managed to get hold of my surgery. Not sure I need to as cant find the problem I thought was there. Perhaps I just had a bollock upside down.

Doctor Doctor

My dear mate Scott found Doctor Who filming on Saturday, as he so very often does ..... and this time about 200 yards from his front door.
Sadly, a security guard, either pissed off because he was missing the rugby/hasn't had a decent fuck in a while/is a neanderthal cunt - delete as you feel apt - decided to give Scott a lot of verbal abuse.
Granted, he takes a lot of pics and is the God of all spoilers over at OG, but all they have to do is ask firmly and politely and he stops. There is no need for very foul language from a supposed working professional on one of the UK's top family shows. I am sure the BBC would be horrified.

Sadly, I need to see a Doctor myself but can only get voicemail from my surgery at the moment. And its potentially quite serious, so Id really like to get it sorted.

Who What?

Ok, this post is going to be sort of spoilerific, so shy away now if you don't wish to hear the rumblings from the fan community.

Still here?

Sure you want to stay?


Ok good.
Probably talking to myself now, aren't I?
So latest rumour that has all the people, who in my head look and sound like comic book guy off The Simpsons, reaching for their keyboards and posting in earnest, is that the Supreme Dalek is back at the end of series 4/season 30 (depending on how traditional you are). It will be red (the controversy), a different gun (shock!) and have three 'ear lamps' - the things that flash when they speak and I am sure are just indicators nicked off an old mini cooper (scandal. Three! THREE!! Will I'll go to the foot of our stairs. Quite what I'm supposed do once there, nobody has ever explained. Might have a wank) and that when the internal occupant of said Dalek is revealed, it will be none other than Harriet Jones, previously MP for Flydale North and deposed Prime Minister. Initially, this does sound awful, but I do have to reserve judgement until I see it... if its even true. Of course, in this we also allegedly have every companion that ever lived and Davros.
One villain does a Borg Queen-esque entry .... ie the whole coming down on a crane thing I guess.

Roll on mid-late June!