The rec.arts.drwho Quote File - Aug/Sept/Oct 99

Courtesy of Robert J. Smith

Submissions and comments should be sent to Robert Smith)


[Apologies for the lateness of this bumper quotefile. Not one but two
quotefilers managed to have a hard disk crash these past few months and
we're both still recovering from the agony. My thanks to everyone who
nominated quotes, as neither Dr Evil nor I were around in the newsgroup
much. - RS?]

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Anthony Brown (abrowne@cix.co.uk> wrote:
>>I'm not much of a fan of the Daemons either
>>(book's far better), but aren't you
>>just criticising it for being an action story
>>there? The set pieces don't have to contribute
>>anything to the big plot, so long as there's a
>>logical set-up to them (villain wants the hero
>>dead. Or villains henchman thinks he does), and
>>they keep the audience entertained so long as
>>they last.
>>  Check out a Bond film. There's about 10
>>minutes of each movie which is actually
>>necessary to the plot (such as it is). The rest
>>is just set pieces.

Jonathan Blum, on plotting The Daemons:
>And therein hangs the problem -- a *good* action story is much more
>tightly plotted than your average Bond film.  Contrast the action set
>pieces in "Die Hard" or "Red October", or for that matter "Inferno" or
>"Mind of Evil", which not only hang together less shonkily, they require
>significantly less stupidity from the characters than "The Daemons" does.


>(Personal rule of thumb:  if you have to knock your character over the
>head to make them stupid enough to do what your plot requires, you're
>doing something wrong. :-)

Extension to the rule: if, as in this case, you have to knock *Jo Grant*
over the head in order to make her stupid enough to do what your plot
requires, you need to take a long hard look at yourself.

In fact, this kind of plotting makes no sense!  It is not logical!  It  -
aargh!! nyuergh!!  aaaaaargh!!!

(self-destructs>
     BOOM!!!!
(self-destructs>

Danny (daniel.gooley@detya.gov.au> 9/8/99

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[Subject: Re: Gillatt, The Defender]

Andrew (Mr. Logic) O'Day (aoday41414@aol.com> wrote:
>After making this statement, I refuse to get involved in this new thread
>further in order to avoid battle.

>Isn't it interesting that no matter how bad a piece is in "DWM" (for
example,
>"The Time Team" or as some may say "Shelf Life"), Mr. Gillatt refuses to
>listen, instead saying that whoever on his staff being criticised is so
>talented. Also, interestingly Mr Gillatt provides no evidence at all of
this
>talent.

>From  the first page of his diary:

"It would appear via occular perception that I possess an
infinitesimally small and insignificant progenitive organ. This not
being an optimum state of affairs for happiness and continued
psychological well being in a cutural biosphere replete with
multifarious generously proportioned symbolic phalli and myriad shared
notions of import thereof, I will therefore commence the immediate
extraction of revenge upon what is colloquially referred to as "outer
society at large" for this apparent slight by mother nature upon my
innocent person, forthwith."

Adam Richards (Adam@roblang.demon.co.uk> 9/8/99

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[Subject: Re: RADW's (insert name>]

(Generic post for people who need to lash out -- fill in the blanks>

I felt that this deserved a thread to itself, highlighting its importance.
The title is deliberately close to that on (fill in name>.

I pay (insert price> to read r.a.dw every month, and I want every single
thread to be interesting to me, and frankly I don't care that (fill in
name> thinks otherwise. So (name of ISP> please get rid of (fill in name>
because their comments are a complete waste of my money. Their rudeness is
probably
the reason why they are (insert gratuitous insult here>.

I do NOT intend to return to this thread since I am uninterested in
having to defend my ludicrous opinions, and a hit-and-run flame is more my
style anyway. I am quite prepared to stop paying to read r.a.dw if (insert
name> is the kind of person who is allowed free access to the group
without a net.nanny to guide them. I can quite easily look over someone's
shoulder while someone else is logged on anyway!!!

Disregards to MR/S. (insert name> who feel they have the right to write
to me politely in front of literally, ooh, *lots* of other people on
r.a.dw  Please excuse any typos, as I am wearing boxing gloves as I type
this.

Mr. Peter Angho'lides

Peter Anghelides 9/8/99

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[Subject: Re: Is Dr Who Gay?]

Meddling Mick wrote:
>>Ha ha!  Erm... I just got a strange vision of all the Doctors dressed up
as
>>members of the Village People and dancing to FGTH's "Relax."  I'll put it
>>down to an overactive imagination...

Stephen Graves (Stephen_graves_@hotmail.com> wrote
> Ah, but which Doctor was dressed up as what?

I'd rather not say, although the image of William Hartnell strutting his
stuff dressed as a leather dude complete with peaked cap and handle-bar
moustache should be enough to give anyone the willies.

Meddling Mick (SutureSelf@sutureself.freeserve.co.uk> 9/8/99

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Andrew O'Day (aoday41414@aol.com> wrote:
>I am quite prepared to stop
>buying "DWM"

That's the readership halved then.

Marcus Durham 9/8/99

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[Subject: Where RADW got it wrong in the late 1990s]

1. Too many crap posts. There's nothing wrong with having a few whining
posts. RADW had always had these, even back in the good old days of the
early-mid 1990s. But in the later months of the group's existence the
proportion of whining posts increased until most of the newsgroup had
become whining. Naturally the ratings fell -- whining posts may please
some fans who like that kind of thing, but casual readers have no interest
in them. Evidence shows that group readership decreased from 48,000 to
45,000 readers between July 1 and August 2 1999. Compare this with the
readership in the good old days, when the number of readers sextupled from
3,000 to 18,000 between January 1 1993 and January 1 1996. Now,
late-90s-radw-loving revisionists will try to tell you that that's because
more people were getting on the internet in the early-mid 1990s, and that
in mid-1999 the readers had gone off to read Star Wars posts in other
groups; but obviously the real reason is that the group had become shite
because of all the crap posts produced by talentless posters. The
late-90s-loving posters are, in summary, damned fools who don't understand
what they're talking about. (My 500-page proof of this is available on
request and provision of a doctor's certificate indicating your phsyical
and psychological ability to withstand it.)

2. No-good posters. In the old days, the group was dominated by talented,
thoughtful posters who understood how to make good radw posts. I didn't
always like what they wrote, but at least their work was competent, and
didn't drive readers away by the bazillion. But in the late 1990s radw
became dominated by talentless losers who'd never posted to newsgroups
before hardly, or at least never been regulars in other groups. I hate
them, for refusing to quit the group when they could have. Sure, maybe no
other group would have taken them, but that's their fault for being no
good. And how about that poster who keeps going to conventions? Why can't
she find something else to do? She is a talentless cow and I hate hate
hate her to little pink pieces.

3. Now for some specific threads which I hated. Radw posters from the
early-mid 1990s would never have produced this drivel; I present them as
evidence of the lack of taste, talent and competence which these late-90s
radw posters are full of.

 a) The "McCoy Sucks" thread. OK, now I know a lot of people like this
one, though I don't really see it myself. I'm not interested in tearing it
to pieces here (I'm saving myself up for "b"). But, unbelievably, just two
threads after the "McCoy Sucks" thread, they produced the execrable "McCoy
was no good" thread. Which had *the exact same plot* as the "McCoy Sucks"
thread!!! Just what were they thinking? How these people were ever allowed
to post to radw I don't know. And to think that was the anniversary
thread, too. (Well, my fourth year here started a few weeks ago).

 b) The "McCoy was no good" thread. God, where do I begin? Apart from
being just a cut-price remake of the "McCoy Sucks" thread, but with
Sylvester McCoy instead of JNT as the villain, it was just incredibly
badly written. The arguments didn't make sense; McCoy was grossly
misrepresented, not nearly as villainous as he'd been in past threads; and
the bit about the ferrets was just completely out there, totally
irrelevant to what was going on in the rest of the thread. The American
guest posters really brought it down, too. I hate the way late-90s radw
feels this need to bring American posters into everything, in the absurd
belief that that will make the group more popular in America, when the
ratings show that fewer Americans read the group in the late 90s, and lots
of news servers even stopped carrying it because not enough people were
reading it.

  Above all, what I hated about these threads, was the way the main
posters were no longer just reacting to what they found when they arrived
in the group, like in the earlier 1990s. It was like they engineered the
whole argument to begin with, luring in their enemies and then stomping on
them. Is this the kind of poster we're supposed to look up to? Well, I
don't. As far as I'm concerned, these people aren't radw posters at all,
they're megalomaniacs who've let the power of being radw posters go to
their heads.

4. Late-90s RADW is NOT REAL RADW!!!!

It's not. Real RADW, back when I started reading the group, was good. Late
90s RADW is crap, therefore it isn't RADW. QED. And those stupid spinoff
groups, like alt.drwho.creative aren't real either, they're just fanfic.
And don't even mention that other one about the people cutting up rocks or
whatever which isn't even about Doctor Who and no-one reads it anyway. In
summary, I am right because my knowledge and understanding and grasp of
logic and statistical analysis are pure and untarnished, and everyone else
sucks, so my opinions must be correct. I suppose now someone will call me
a troll just for calling it like it is, well *THEY ARE THE TROLLS*!!! Not
me!

Daniel Frankham (danielf@oztek.net.au> 10/8/99

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[Subject: Re: Dr. Who & the Eclipse]

Nik Hayward & Karen Inskip wrote:

> ECLIPSE WARNING :
> Do NOT watch 'Timelash' without adequate protection.
> This story can seriously damage your eyesight.
> (So can Peri, but that's another story...)

"Jamie, don't do that!  You'll go blind!"
"Doctor, I'm over here."

Pope Maddogg (maddogg2@calweb.com> 10/8/99

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[Subject: A Black Dalek - is it really necessary?]

If there is to be a new Dalek in the proposed film, should it be black,
silver, white or gold?

Personally, I believe that we should get the *right* Dalek for the job,
and its colour shouldn't be an issue. Daleks do what Daleks do, and
this should be reflected in the writing. We have had Black Daleks
before of course, but their appearances were limited almost to the
point of tokenism. Is a Black Dalek any more evil than a grey or white
or silver Dalek, all of which have proved equally lethal in the past?

Whatever the case, I hope that the Paul Anderson understands that the
quintessential "Skaro-ness" of the Daleks should be maintained, and
that it is not the colour of the casing that matters, but the immoral
killing power of the creature inside that counts.

Which brings me to my next point: should the creature inside be light
green or dark green?

Salutations to all Dalek-followers everywhere,

D Lavelle (d_lavelle@my-deja.com> 11/8/99

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FlameMaster 3000 (w/- Troll-a-tron)

This revolutionary new system uses Troll-a-tron technology and advanced
NewsTrawl heuristic algorithms to extrapolate the most argument inducing
topic and message required at any time, and inject this post into any
Newsgroup, should there be a total lack of flame inducing posts over a 24
hour period.

The system is currently undergoing life-trials on the rec.arts.drwho group,
whose proclivity towards flame-wars borders on the maniacal.  Yet even on
such an argumentative group, flame-wars have demonstrated a marked
increase in both size and occurrence - often, by as much as 67% - with
ill-feeling on the group reaching near record levels.

As stated above, the system uses advanced heuristic algorithms - so-called
"learning software" - to insert with increasing stealth(ie false names,
"poster mimicking", "blind insertion", etc.), anger-inducing posts.
Starting with very basic flame parameters, touching on frequently debated,
"hot" topics, the FlameMaster 3000 system, learned from each reply those
ways in which each poster can be most easily and readily enraged.

With each message, it garners more angry replies, which in turn supply it
with further "weak-points" from which to derive even more accurate
targeting data.  It can now introduce a topic in such a way as to cause
the Ng's most disparate elements to "agree" to flame it, while leaving
others inhabitants
completely unmoved.

The possibilities for Ng's are endless.  Imagine, you would  be able to not
only introduce a request for information on particular cd on
misc.business.records-mgmt (an NG concerned with managing business
documents), but know which album to ask about so as to set a particular
poster into a frenzy.  This could conceivably lead to total chaos in the
business community world-wide (if anyone of course *read* said Newsgroup).

Back to our "radw" tests.  In this NG, we searched through it for a week to
determine what topics really got to these people.  It became clear almost
immediately that the pre-dominate topic involved vitriolic attacks on two
actors who played the title role in this television serial - namely
"Pertwee" and "McCoy" (interestingly, we are as yet to determine whether
these are first or last names, as they seem to exist as both, like the
excellent 'MacGyver').

Thus, we set the initial "flame parameters" to use these two Keywords, by
introducing threads along the lines of "McCoy/Pertwee is the best/worst
thing to happen to the show" or "Pertwee/McCoy is a fantastic/crap actor".
Within just a few hours, the FlameMaster 3000 system had detected seven
further Keywords and phrases ("UNIT", "JN-T", "Dark Doctor", "Cartmel",
"Colony in Space", "Brigadier", " and "squid"), and had expanded its
vocabulary to include the phrases "McCoy/Pertwee saved the show", "My
theory on UNIT dating", and "JN-T was the worst/best thing to happen to
the show ever".

Since these humble, but none the less remarkable, beginnings, the
FlameMaster 3000 system has expanded to include many categories, from being
gay, to reading magazines, from popular movies, to racial vilification, all
of which have little to nothing to do with the show itself.  Indeed, the
trial has been so successful, that the "radw" NG is starting to fracture
completely, with the group dividing into component parts, in an attempt to
end this destructive conflict.

In fact, FlameMaster 3000 has taken on several identities, creating whole
new persona's to argue amongst itself, in an effort to incite even more
flaming.  Our FlameMaster 3000 has taken a group of individuals accounting
for what seems to be a fairly broad cross-section of the online community,
and turned them into a bunch of bickering, jabbering, antipathetic
mouthpieces,  unable to take joy in the very thing that brought them to
their newsgroup in the first place.

So, we present to you this demonstration of our product, a device of
beautiful, vicious, totally malevolent, online destruction.  The second most
effective Usenet weapon available today.  Available for your vindictive
enjoyment, this system comes with solid evidence suggesting that up to 92%
of reasonable-minded individuals on any given group, can be reduced to a
state of frenzied bushwhacking.  All at the oh-so-reasonable price of
US$399.00.

So, when you see that newsgroup full of people you would just as soon murder
in a berserker fit of rage as live on the same planet with, why not just
send 'em all to hell, and tell 'em that FlameMaster 3000 is their
tour-guide!

"FlameMaster 3000.  Flame 'em all, let God sort 'em out!"

Prince Reynart (sparhawk0@netscape.net> 11/8/99

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[Subject: Re: Allegorical stories]

Rowan Bridge wrote:
> We all know that the best Dr Who stories work on more
> levels that just the standard "DR Who and the Monsters"
> adventure. As far as I'm concerned some of the best are
> where the series has been used as an allegory. Has anyone
> got any suggestions for stories that are allegorical, and
> can suggest what they are refering to?

Unearthly Child: Fire = nuclear energy, with a subplot anti-fire folk
vs pro-fire folk, and rival cavemen trying to steal fire secrets

Keys of Marinus: Loss of keys, a significant source of lost
productivity in Western civilisation, as it makes so many people late
for work. Sabrina and Altos lost years of their lives looking for
their keys. If the keyring had ever been invented on Marinus, things
might have gone very differently there.

Dalek Invasion of Earth: The Slyther is an allegory for the non-native
pets brought by settlers, which eat native animals.

The Rescue: a young woman is traumatised by a man in a rubber suit,
allegorising the effect on young viewers of watching Doctor Who. That
she is saved by the Doctor is probably a way of saying that the
presence of the "safe" figure of the Doctor is what prevents kiddies
from being permanently damaged by the series.

The Tenth Planet: A horrific allegory of the alienating effect of
celebrity, with its depiction of a planet where those who had too much
plastic surgery lost their humanity.

The Power of the Daleks: TANSTAAFL.

The Macra Terror: What happens when someone refuses to admit they
might have crabs.

Daniel Frankham (danielf@oztek.net.au> 12/8/99

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[Subject: Re: Where RADW got it wrong in the late 1990s]

Daniel Frankham (danielf@oztek.net.au> wrote:
> Evidence shows that group readership decreased from 48,000 to
> 45,000 readers between July 1 and August 2 1999.

This is totally unfair. In this period of the newsgroups history, radw
was directly scheduled against a Star Trek newsgroup which always had
high ratings. The quality of radw was actually far better and the
reader appreciation was high. It's totally unfair to say that radw
alienated it's readership and that they all switched off. The decrease
in readership can be attributed to seasonal variations, changes in the
tides, wind speed and anything else I can think of to avoid mentioning
the fact that readers left just because the newsgroup was crap.

It's been alleged that the quality of the writing has gone down. This
is rubbish, it's just that the posts are more thought provoking and
all the thick people just can't understand them. It's rubbish to
suggest that posts are just aimed at fans with nothing for the casual
reader. Just look at that post by Mr Platt the other week. Yes, it may
have been nonsensical, stupid, confusing and of limited appeal, but
many people liked it. Indeed, three million people tuned in. Just
because the remaining 57 million of the population didn't watch it
doesn't mean it's unpopular.

It's rubbish to say that radw was better in the past. The Heer era
(the one with the scarf) may have been read by more people, but it's
rubbish to say that it was more popular than the newsgroup is now. The
newsgroup may have been highly acclaimed and award winning, but that
doesn't mean it's any good.

Finally I believe that the future of the newsgroup is in books. The
newsgroup as we know it will cease to exist and we will be taking the
newsgroup in a new direction where a large number of readers will be
able to read it. Yes, this audience will be many hundreds of times
smaller than the current audience, but this will make the newsgroup
more popular and read by more people. In fact, the only reader will be
me, which will mean that, in real terms, the newsgroup will be the
most popular and appreciated than it has been in years.

Jin Blim

Marcus Durham (Marcus@zenn.demon.co.uk> 13/8/99

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Alan Barnes (alan.barnes6@virgin.net> wrote:
>There's science. And the rest is
>ARSE.

Yes, my arse has been defying the laws of physics all morning.  Draught
Bass does that to an arse.

Gareth Thomas (gareth@shaggaz.demon.co.uk> 13/8/99

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[Subject: Re: The Best Possible Who News]

>From the London Times of 4/1/2000.

BBC IN SHOCK TV FIND SHOCK -- SHOCK ROYAL CONNECTION

LONDON: The BBC announced today that all 110 missing episodes of Doctor
Who had been recovered. "The series is now complete," said a spokesman.
"We've even got that episode of The Dalek Master Plan which was ritually
burned just after broadcast, before any copies could be made."

The discovery has been described as "significant" by television
historians, who say it gives them hope that other important early
television programs which have been lost for years, may some day be
recovered.

According to BBC spokesman Steve Roberts, the episodes were found in the
BBC's Vault, where special and significant programs are stored for
posterity. They had escaped notice for many years due to their incorrectly
labelled film cans. "I was looking for something in the Vault one day,"
Roberts claims, "when I saw all these cans labelled 'Queen's New Years Day
Message'. I just walked past them on my way to another shelf, like I must
have done hundreds of times before, and then suddenly it hit me -- the
Queen doesn't do New Years Day messages! So I went back and cracked one
open, and what should I find but "The Web of Fear" episode 3! It turned
out that there was a whole shelf of these New Years messages, all actually
containing Doctor Who. They'd just been sitting there for years, and of
course no-one had opened one in all that time!"

It has not yet been established how more than one hundred episodes of
television could be found in forty film cans -- the maximum number of New
Years Day messages the queen could have recorded, had she done so. Nor is
it clear how the cans could have been labelled with the name of a
non-existent program, or how cans dating back to the 50s, and as recent as
last year, could have contained the missing material. Regarding the
quantity of material found within the cans, Mr Roberts is reported to have
said that the explanation was perfectly simple, and that a big box which
is further away can fit inside a little box which is closer, just like a
skyscraper can fit into your living room on your TV set.

The BBC has refused to comment on the note that was allegedly found in one
of the cans, but _The Times_ has obtained an exclusive copy from a source
who has asked to remain anonymous, and is not Steve Roberts. The note
reads: "Hi kids, hope you don't mind me borrowing these, but I had to show
Zoe what the Daleks were like, and I just didn't have time to read through
the labels on all those films. I was going to put them back where I found
them, but I got a little sidetracked and then when I was visiting the
1980s I found out they'd all been missing for years! You can imagine my
embarrassment, I'm sure. I thought it might be best if I hid them
somewhere they wouldn't be discovered for a while, to avoid causing any
temporal anomalies. But if you're reading this then you must have found
them, so there's no harm done. By the way, I noticed you were missing a
"Feast of Steven", so I popped back to the 60s and made a copy for you.
Hope you enjoy them all as much as we did. Cheers, The Doctor."

Daniel Frankham (danielf@oztek.net.au> 14/8/99

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[Subject: Re: Which companions were virgins?]

Bernice, Cwej and Forrester.

All the other's were BBC's.

Dave Owen (dave@meglos.demon.co.uk> 14/8/99

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[Subject: Re: Doctor Who video clips]

>"Will the sections of Trial of a Time Lord be released seperately?"

It would be dead stupid of the beeb to do that. So look forward some
time soon to 4 new videos- "The Mysterious Planet" "Mindwarp"  "Terror
of the Vervoids" and "Some shite with Anthony Ainley"

Ed Jefferson (edjeholo@aol.comnospam> 15/8/99

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[Subject: Re: The Best Possible Who News]

LONDON, April 1, 2000 -- The duo behind the successful drama "Queer As
Folk", Russell Davies and Matt Jones, will be producing a revival of
"Doctor Who" with co-production money from the US cable network
Showtime, the BBC announced today.  As with its other SF/fantasy
series, including "Stargate SG-1" and "Poltergeist: The Legacy",
Showtime has committed to a multi-year run ahead of time -- a
record-breaking four seasons of 22 episodes each.

Paul McGann has signed on to play the eighth Doctor.  Writing staff
positions and/or script assignments have already been offered to Paul
Cornell, Kate Orman, Jonathan Blum, Lance Parkin, Paul Leonard, Chris
Boucher, Gareth Roberts, Marc Platt, Steven Gallagher, Christopher H.
Bidmead, Steven Moffat, Peter Allan Fields, and Cannes jury prize
winner Rona Munro.  In addition, the producers are setting up a
special unit to work with aspiring scriptwriters, in hopes of
cultivating new talent, and are also contacting a variety of
established names from literary SF.  Ben Aaronovitch has been given
the position of Free-Floating Agent of Chaos, being paid a chunk of
money just to hang around the production office contributing witty
lines and ideas, without ever having a script deadline.  Lawrence
Miles is reported to be locked in the basement with a word processor
and an IV drip filled with caffiene.

When asked if the new production would be canonical, Davies simply
pointed and laughed.

In addition to the TV episodes, McGann will also be recording six
audio plays a year, released through the BBC's licensing deal with Big
Finish Productions.  'The idea is that we can produce fannish stories
for the fan niche market on audio, with all the old character
appearances anyone could want - and that way we keep them from
cluttering up the TV stories,' said Davies.  (The only such story
announced so far is Jon Blum's seventh/eighth Doctor story, tenatively
titled "The Child Is The Father Of The Man".)

Aside from a cameo by the Daleks in an episode entitled "The Ashes of
Skaro", no characters from the old show are scheduled to appear until
at least the first-season finale.  The series will feature a mixture
of stand-alone stories and a new ongoing story arc -- one which will
have 'little or nothing' to do with the Time Lords or Gallifrey,
according to Davies.

Jonathan Blum (jblum@zipper.zip.com.au> 16/8/99

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[Subject: Re: The tree]

> But Krynoids, like trees, are a form of vegetable life.  The Rani
> never actually says "This is an earth tree, and like all trees on
> earth, will not move." It could be an alien tree, like the ones on
> Spiridon, which are also capable of movement. It could be an *alien*
> tree, with alien thoughts, human feelings, and moving parts.
> Obviously, it could be total bollocks too. The operative word here
> is "could".

but what would be the point of using it as a land-mine then?  "i've
foiled you now!  you can still walk around and foil my plot, but
you'll have to be watered and dogs will pee on you..."

Rupert the Sheep Dog, PhD. (drew0025@tc.umn.edu> 16/8/99

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[Subject: Re: Co-authored novels]

_Long Ago in an English Rainfall_ by Paul Cornell, David A. McIntee, Kate
Orman & Jonathan Blum, Justin Richards, Dave Stone and John Peel.

"The Doctor landed on his feet and started running. They were coming after
him with [insert 5 pages of description of the artillery involved and at
least one mistaken reference to Quantum Leap]"

"Sam looked the Doctor in the eye. 'I love you, you big fool,' she said.
The Doctor reached for a pillow."

"Fitz reached carefully behind him and pulled out a gun. 'I'm sorry,
Doctor, but you'll have to move away from Sam. You see, she's not Sam at
all, but the dead warlord of this planet's history, in a bid to regain
absolute power."

"'Snoogy!' cried Sgloomi, eating himself."

"Suddenly they woke up. It was all a dream."

Robert Smith? (smithrj2@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca> 17/8/99

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Steve Moffat (S_Moffat@msn.com> wrote:
> Quite correct - I ripped off Paul.  I phoned and asked his
> permission though.

Oh, he's alright with that sort of thing is he? Don't suppose you
could let me have his number, then?

"Hello, Mr Cornell? You don't know me, but I'm preparing an EDA
submission, and I wondered if you'd mind terribly if I ripped off
'Human Nature'?
What? No, the whole thing.
Well, how about 'No Future', then? Except I'd make it readable.
Hello? Hello?
Bastard!"

Ben Woodhams (woodhamsb@parliament.uk> 17/8/99

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[Subject: Are the Looms Canon?]

>Before entering this thread, I suggest you go to www.dejanews.com, click on
>power search and type in the following keywords: rayctate, Blum, Gregg and
>loom.

But if you do, remember that the madness also looks into you.

Danny Gooley 17/8/99

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[Subject: Re: If I could sign up 11 writers for next years EDA books]

Philip Craggs wrote:
> Peter Anghelides (purely for Kursaal).

Philip, bless you for being the only person to ad my name to
their list. Sadly, I have to tell you that I tried what you're
suggesting, and the BBC said "This looks a lot like your
first novel, Mr Anghelides". So I decided that I couldn't
sell them "Kursaal" again, and had to write a pile of
rubbish called "Frontier Worlds" instead.

Unless I get a fabulous review from DWM, of course,
and unqualified praise from everyone on the newsgroup,
I shall have one of my friends send an amazingly long
post to r.a.dw claiming that I'll never write again. In
fact, I'll chop all my fingers off and post them to Gary
Gillatt. (Sticking the envelope down may prove tricky,
so I could be asking for volunteers to help with this.)

Peter Anghelides (peter-anghelides@cwcom.net> 17/8/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: Attention Scots]

For me, the casting of McCoy was inspired - at last, a British actor
to play the Doctor with absolutely *NO* accent....  ;-)

John Pettigrew (our.hero@virgin.net> 17/8/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: Which one of us is M. Waterhouse?]

Richard Molesworth (rmolesworth@compuserve.com> wrote:
> Ooooh......  It's Waxy, isn't it!!!!

Is it? Perhaps you should wash it more often...

Conrad Feinson (acfeinson@compuserve.com> 18/8/99

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[Subject: Re: Which one of us is Elvis?]

Shadows (shadows@wam.umd.edu> wrote:
>> Oh, that one's easy.

>> It's Dangermouse.

>> If you squint, Elvis looks like the master....

>Somehow, the idea of the Master in a rinestone-covered jumpsuit scares the
>hell out of me.......

"You *will* obey me! uh-huh-huh."
"I am the Master. Thangyouverymuch..."

Rob White (robwhite22@aol.com> 19/8/99

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[Subject: A Heart of TARDIS Statement ...]

A little while ago I said that I was going to write a book called _Heart
of TARDIS_. The lack of instant, total acclaimation and adoration from
absolutely everybody, however, has been severely disappointing.

Not one band of thousands has arrived at my door, doused me with
Champagne and marched me head-high through the streets singing 'for he's
a jolly good fellow'.

Young ladies and gentlemen of an attractive demeanour are notable by the
fact of not flinging themselves at me en masse and showing me their
pants.

When I phoned Vanbnessa Bishop to ask why the DWM has not rushed out a
special edition to cover this momentous event, her reply was merely to
say 'What the hell are you talking about, you total fucking loony?'

For these reason and more, I now cannot being myself to write _Heart of
TARDIS_ after all. This is a pity for thouse of you who would have liked
to see a Doctor Who book with a TARDIS in it, but you have only
yourseves to blame.

Bastards.

Dave Stone (dave@sgloomi.demon.co.uk> 20/8/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: Lalla Ward, too?]

Steve Phillips (steve.phillips@kcl.ac.uk> wrote:
> unless you are proposing they
> had "Forrest Gump" type of special effects back then, enabling her head
> to be superimposed on somebody else's breasts!)

...as opposed to onto somebody else's neck? Just what kind of sci-fi horror
is this film?

Paul 'Ozymandias' Harman (ozzy@kasterborus.demon.co.uk> 20/8/99

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[Subject: Lawrence Who (SPOILERS for Interference)]

Lawrence Who: The Fandom Menace

(A dark, shadowy mansion is on a hill, surrounded by stormclouds and twisted
trees. In a candlelit room in the mansion, LAWRENCE MILES sits at a
typewriter>

LM: Soon my Great Work will be complete!   Nothing in the world can stop me
now!

(In a corridor elsewhere in the mansion, STEVE COLE dressed in the garb of a
priest, walks solemnly, waving a glowing lantern gently to and fro. He is
leading an invisible CHOIR in a religious style chant>

STEVE COLE: And 'lo!   There shall be surprises for the fans

CHOIR: And a story arc-angel!

STEVE COLE: The Oldest Answer shall be revealed!

CHOIR: Who is I M Foreman?

(In the study, LAWRENCE MILES sits back and removes the final sheet from the
typewriter>

LM: There! Finished!

(LAWRENCE MILES places the sheet face-down on the huge pile of type he has
already done.   He turns the pile over to reveal the title page, which
reads:
'INTERFERENCE (in the black arts)'!   There is the obligatory flash of
lightning and crash of thunder>

(In the corridors again, with STEVE COLE, there is a subterranean rumbling,
growing in volume.   Steve Cole appears oblivious to it>

(In LAWRENCE MILES's room, the noise is loudest>

LM: Oh no!  I've awakened the Fannish Beast!  My Great Work has called
forces
beyond all reason or understanding!    Nobody can control it!

(A huge, amorphous form bursts through the door.   The only ting we can
discern clearly are a smoking jacket and a question-mark sweater fighting
fiercely in its midst.   It is the FANDOM, or Fannish beast>

FANDOM: Owraagh! (Bites LM's head off, and swallows the rest whole>

FANDOM (with the voices of a thousand tortured souls): Oh no! What have we
done!? (howls).

(FANDOM starts swallowing itself, calling out>

FANDOM: Come back Miles, Come Back!!!

(Soon there is nothing but a disembodied mouth and the two warring items of
clothing>

(STEVE COLE continues his walk through the mansion>

STEVE COLE (cheerfully): And 'lo!   We have more exciting surprises for
you in
next month's book!    Don't forget to buy it, boys and girls!

THE END

LennyTyke (lennytyke@aol.com> 20/8/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Lavi (clavi@ibm.net> wrote:
> So, who else thinks Peri and Adric should meet up in a novel???

He looked dumbly at the American girl, or the girl who said she
was American anyway, and blushed at the sight of her chest.  He
longed to pin a gold star on each of them for biological
excellence, and then she would be perfect.

"I'm not a child any more, you know," he said, knowing that it
was important to show how mature he was.  But she did something
to him that he hadn't known since "Castrovalva", episode 2.
He ached for her to ask him the square root of 12.882315271, but
at the end of every calculation were always those two bouncy,
rounded, tanned zeroes that haunted his nights.

She looked at him sideways, hanging her head a little and hoping
it would come out like a heroine in a Woody Allen movie, one of
those child-woman characters that the fifty-something hero knows
is too good to be true.  She still didn't know how the TARDIS
laundry could give her, day after day, nothing to wear but
bright-coloured blouses cut lower each time.  And the men you
met, just trying to get along around the universe.  So clueless,
or they want to turn you into a giant parrot.  She was a
Manhattan girl at heart and she thought she'd known a bit about
the weird fantasies that curdle in men's heads.  There was the
one who wanted to shrink her to six inches tall, like she was a
Barbie doll.  The one who just wanted to eat up her flesh.
The one who made love to her with a black and white mask on.
Neurotics and needs...  And now this one, his lank hair sitting
on a chubby face lifeless of expression like an oily takeaway
pizza on its cardboard plate.

Graham Nelson (graham@gnelson.demon.co.uk> 20/8/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: The tree]

William December Starr (wdstarr@crl.com> wrote:
>>>> In my opinion, whether the tree looked realistic or not doesn't matter.
>>>> It's the fact that the script goes to a fair amount of trouble to tell
>>>> us "Hey, this guy was just turned into a freaking *tree*, fer godsake!"
>>>> and then, magically, gives him the ability to do something as
incredibly
>>>> *un*treelike as bend one of its limbs at the -- let's face it -- at the
>>>> _elbow_ and heroically save sweet Peri from a similarly arboreal fate

Prince Reynart (sparhawk0@netscape.net> wrote:
>>>And this is different from Krynoids because...?

James Bennetts (glamma@iname.com> wrote:
>>Because the unusual properties of the Krynoid were what the story was
>>about from go to whoa; whereas the magical mystery moving Luketree
>>turns up halfway through the final episode as a plot device.

>>Plus everything about "Seeds of Doom" is larger than life and handled
>>with flair and elan. By contrast, everything about Mark of the Rani is
>>so low-key (even the Master's plan is small-scale by his standards)
>>that the moving plant hits a jarring note of unreality there that it
>>just can't manage in a story already filled with Harrison Chase,
>>Amelia Ducat, Scorby, the World Ecology Bureau and Daimler Boots.

Adam Richards (Adam@roblang.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Absolutely right and spot on, James.

>So all you tree-in-Mark-of-the-Rani-loving people who like it and try
>to stick up for it and yadda yadda yadda can just TRUNK OFF!!!

HA!  I just live in the surety of purpose and peace of mind that comes from
knowing that all you tree-hating bastards out there will be first against
the wall when the evolution comes!

Prince Reynart (sparhawk0@netscape.net> 21/8/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: A Heart of TARDIS Statement ...]

Chris Schumacher (kensu@madison.tdsnet.com> wrote:

>Lawrence was the greatest of you, and this is how you treat him?

Yeah, and now we're gonna gamble for his cloak.

Kate Orman (korman@zipper.zip.com.au> 21/8/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: Which one of us is M. Waterhouse?]

Jeff Works (jeffworks@aol.com> wrote:
>I heard he's here in disguise, that is what someone said, right?

I'm sorry but when I first started reading this thread, a shiver went
up my spine. It was like that moment you get in cheesey detective
stories when the detective gathers all the suspects into a room and
says:

"I've gathered you all together in this room to tell you all that one
of you is..........MATTHEW WATERHOUSE!"

The lights suddenley go out and a woman screams.

AGHHHHHHHH!

(This has to be one of the funniest threads at the moment. It's
getting so hard to see who's taking it seriously and who sees it for
the crazy situation that it is.)

(Oh and by the way...I'm not Matthew Waterhouse either. Actually, I'm
Nicola Bryant and I enjoy writing pornographic fiction about certain
fans...)

Andy Thompson (AndyT@roblang.demon.co.uk> 21/8/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Attention all potential authors!]

Are you down and depressed because the Doctor Who series isn't quite
the way you wanted it?

Are you annoyed because you thought you could neve rhave the freedom to
write a book where Zoe dies in The Krotons, the Brigadier and Mike Yates
get it on in a UNIT jeep, and the Fourth Doctor never met a Dalek? Have
pesky continuity bits kept you from having complete freedom?

Well we have something for you!

Introducing all new and improved Faction Paradox!  With easy to use
Faction Paradox and alternate timelines, Doctor Who continuity will
never hamper your creative expression again!  It's quick, it's easy, all
it requires is a nod to Lawrence Miles and you can do anything with the
Doctor Who universe.

You know that you always wished Mel had gotten killed by a Vervoid.
Well now she can thanks to Faction Paradox!   Third Doctor era not your
cup of tea?  Faction Paradox can simply eliminate seasons 7-11!

And not only can Faction Paradox eliminate parts of the series you don't
like, it can also add bits that you personally thought should have been
there!  Now you can have the Fourth Doctor marrying Romana,  The
Sontarans can be a race of famous knitters!  Anything is possible!

Faction Paradox, your key to *true* Doctor Who creative freedom.

Trey Korte (treykorte3@hotmail.com> 22/8/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

>>Food for thought: John Inman was given only 2 lines in the pilot
>>episode of Are You Being Served

J2rider (j2rider@aol.com> wrote:
> this is not true.

It is not to the benefit of one's credibility *to know whether this true or
not.*

Gareth Thomas (gareth@shaggaz.demon.co.uk> 23/8/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: 10 RADW-Specific Euphemisms for Masturbation]

1. Obeying The Master

2. Replying to Azaxyr

3. Running the print through the wet gate

4. Elongating the Weekly Stats 03/08 Thread

5. Messing up the Box Set

6. Ribbing Waxvax

7. Spoiling DM's Books

8. Searching the vaults in Hong Kong

9. Flaming the troll

10. Canonising the Looms

Dr. Evil (dr-evil@belisarius.freeserve.co.uk> 25/8/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: 10 RADW-Specific Euphemisms for Masturbation]

You all seem very keen on "Bashing the Bishop".

Dave Owen (dave@meglos.demon.co.uk> 25/8/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: Doctor Who Stole From Star Trek]

>Has anyone else noticed that the scene in "The Sea Devils" where the
>Doctor fails in his first attempt to convert a radio receiver into a
>transmitter (much to Jo's amusement) is almost identical to a scene in
>the Star Trek's "A Piece of the Action" where Spock attempts much the
>same thing (much to McCoy's amusement)?

Or like that time, when, they were like in space. A complete rip-off.

E Novak 26/8/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Curse of Fatal Death video release]

Steve Moffat (S_Moffat@msn.com> wrote:
> For the (very dull) record we put it back in its two part form because
> stopping and recapping literally every five minutes might have been a
> bit wearing.  We should probably have stuck it all together but I
> wanted there to be a cliffhanger because it's Doctor bloody Who, you
> know.

Best of all, it now exists in multiple, slightly inconsistent
versions.  All you need to do now is to ensure that one version
survives only in black and white, whereas another one exists only
in soundtrack (from three different sources with different
problems of noise and balance, and with credits missing), and
the third only in its Arabic translation.  Because it's
Doctor bloody Who, you know.

Oh, yes, and start a legend that "Steven Moffat" is actually a
pseudonym of Harold Pinter, and is Joanna Lumley's real-life
husband.

Graham Nelson (graham@gnelson.demon.co.uk> 26/8/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Arthur introduces his web page and eulogises the Window Cleaner]

Mrs "Goody" Banana ascribes the Window Cleaner's demise to the fact
that the window was opened from the inside; an action inimical to
window cleaners, she says, because it creates a de facto vacuum within
their particular dimension causing them to explode into the room within
ours.  "Poppycock", I said (for that is my pet name for my wife), it
was an act of devotion on his part; a supreme gesture of self
immolation that will not be forgotten.

The Window Cleaner expired during the seventh birthday party of our
youngest daughter Zap (inspired by the initiative of Frank Zappa in
calling his children by unothodox yet memorable names, we opted to do
likewise and called our daughter "Frank Zappa") during the dessert
course. Hoping to celebrate ethnicity and promote multiculturalism, we
had served Pathia for the first course to general acclaim.  Pathia, you
may know, is a Parsee dish that can be traced back to the Persian
settlers of the North Indian Subcontinent.  It uses the Indian spices,
but also palm-sugar and tamarind juice, to produce a sauce with a sweet
and sour finish.  I however took a few short-cuts (it is after all
quite acceptable to Westernise aspects of Asian cuising: for a start
there are few European or North American kitchens that can boast a
tandoor) and merely heated together a packet of Golden Grahams and a
tin of Ox-Tail soup, but the result was passable enough.  To ring the
changes for dessert we served Cinnamon Grahams, accompanied by the
flavoured milk that had been collected from the Banana family's Graham
bowls over the last fortnight.

It was at this stage that we heard the ominous clunk of the window
cleaner's ladder hitting the frame, and turned to see the personage
himself, wearing the confused expression of a man who wishes to appear
as if he is not in fact looking inside the room yet knows deep down
that he is not fooling anyone; one hand grasping the top ladder-rung
the other wielding the chamois leather with intent to wash.  This
struck me as odd, this being a ground-floor window, and it at this
stage that I would usually hide from the window cleaners prying.  The
only way to remain out of sight of any window in our household is to
crouch on a chair behind the open door of the smoking room (I've no
idea why it smokes, because there's sure no fire); and this is where
this circumstance would usually find me.  The presence of guests,
though meant that I would have to put on a brave face on this occasion
(the last occasion I put on a cowboy face, but it didn't really work)
so I decided to let the window cleaner know that he had been
immortalised in Cyberspace (or more accurately on some files within a
global computer network devised in the 1960s as a communications back-
up in the event of nuclear war) on this site, an annoying and decidedly
twee pseudo street within a pseudo district within a pseudo city with
infuriating pop-up advertisements.  Doesn't cost a penny, though, which
is good enough for me.

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Atlantis/9475/

It was as I opened the window to inform the window cleaner of his
immortalisation  that he exploded into the dining room, munificently
distributing his innards amongst all in attendance.  As well as
receiving their share of the veneer of viscera that coated the room and
all in it, each individual guest received their own internal organ.
Zap got the appendix, which landed in her Cinnamon Graham bowl with an
impertinent little "plunk".  Zap's best friend Alicia got the right
kidney which she managed to catch as it flew past her shoulder; she
being the Home Counties All-Girls Under-10 Rounders champion.  All that
fell to little Tommy Tomato was an unidentified membrane that landed
across his face, obscuring his youthful features yet affording them a
translucent shimmer.

So, kind readers, it is as a tribute to the Window Cleaner that I
invite you to visit this site.  The "Arthur peruses"   reviews are
there, as is the "Ballad of Brave Sir Marcus and The Binary Attachment
Dragon" and various sundry juvenilia written by Arthur in his youth and
intended for the enjoyment of certain specific individuals outside of
Who fandom who will understand the references.

There is a testimonial book, too, which I invite you to sign; and I
also request you to let me know if the site does not work and all you,
in fact, see is the Sam Jones internet equivalent that is "Page Not
Found".

Best and Igloos to you all,

Art Banana (artbanana@yahoo.com> 27/8/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Continunity - is it canon?]

Why not?

This thread makes about as much sense as the other (long string of
cursing here) continunity threads........

Craig A. Reed Jr. (trboturtle@aol.com> 30/8/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Roger Anderson (r.anderson@easynet.co.uk> wrote
>Just heard on BBC Radio 4 that 'the battle cry of the Daleks' (EXTERMINATE!
>EXTERMINATE!) has won in the Drama category of the 'TV's Greatest Moments'
>readers poll. The poll asked readers to vote for their favourite scenes
from
>the last 36 odd years. The scene with the Daleks was their first appearance
>in 1963.

>According to the News report, the Daleks beat 'Cathy Come Home' (an
>important early Ken Loach drama from 1966) into second place!

>I'll bet that the Radio Times people aren't pleased seeing as they seem to
>try to ignore any Science Fiction programming these days!

>I'm pleased!!

I bet the organized Fandom of Ken Loach are kicking themselves - there they
go spending year after year at conventions keeping magic moments alive like
the baby taking scene from Ladybird Ladybird or Robert Carlyle driving a bus
through Edinburgh or That weird looking bloke wearing a long balck raincoat
and getting up to naughty things in Nottigham or chucking stones up in the
air - when a bunch of tossers like us, who do absolutely *nothing* keep the
memory of our series alive except for hitting the redail button twenty times
on  dodgy Radio Times phone polls......come along and steal the prize from
Their Lord Ken Loach.

I dunno, it's enough to make them spit.

Paul Ebbs (paul@ebbsy.freeserve.co.uk> 28/8/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Lenny Tyke (lennytyke@aol.com> wrote:
>>Jon Blum's argument and the argument from 'creative expression' make the
>>Authors and the BBC an unelected government of Dr. Who with no
>>responsibilities to the fans whatsoever.

We need much more input from the readership, and I certainly don't see why
I shouldn't tap into the well-spring of free advice, plot ideas, and
characters
which is obviously available on this newsgroup and elsewhere in fandom. I
can then just post off the book, take the BBC cheque, and laugh all the
way to the corner as I pop it into my post office savings account, hahahaha

So, as I plan to introduce democratic accountability to the true owners of
the
DW franchise, here's your chance - quick, before I post off the final
draft of
"Frontier Worlds" this week.

1. The Doctor is faced by the evil P'tunthWt'hrung attack cruiser. Should
he:
(a) Use the sonic screwdriver?
(b) Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow?
(c) Agonize for an hour about why Sam left in "Interference"?
(d) Run for the TARDIS?

2. Fitz has to escape the embrace of the Snargoid Queen. Should he:
(a) Give in, what the hell, she's a babe?
(b) Scream like his lungs are made of leather?
(c) Neutralize the flow of the reversed polarity?
(d) Have another Woodbine?

3. Sam has stumbled across the Doctor being tortured. Should she:
(a) Wonder how she got here, wasn't she supposed to leave in "Interference"?
(b) Take advantage of him now while his undies are around his ankles?
(d) What happened to (c)?
(c) Ah, there it is.

So, exercise your democratic rights over my fiction now. Don't forget,
I can't wait for ever, I do have a deadline. So in the traditions of all
DW polls past present and future: vote early and vote often.

Peter Anghelides (peter-anghelides@cwcom.net> 1/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: Sam Fans Unite!]

Rebecca K. Dowgiert (bb708@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote:
> 7) Many people seem to dislike Sam because her (perhaps Naive)
>desires to engage in activism throw their own Slackerdom into Sharp
>Relief.

Stop right there Madam, or I may have to compose a dramatic trilogy
after the manner of Aeschylus and have the chorus repeatedly disparage
your name, each successive utterence increased in histrionics and
accompanied by the striking of a tabor.

I'll have you know that I have supported Slackerdom Association
Football Club since that day when, as a boy, my father took me to stand
in the terraces, dragging me toward the stadium as was his wont in a
wickerwork basket mounted on castors and attached to a rope.  I'll
grant you that The Slackers, far from being in sharp relief, have
languished away from the publicity of any football league whatsoever
since those heady days of the Forties when Brian "Bigcock" Barnes
captained us to victory in the Merkin Cup.  Nevertheless to have my
beloved club dragged into an apologist argument in support of that
Jones harridan raises my blood pressure and makes me sweat a watered
down version of Taramasolata.

My dislike of Miss Jones is well known and has nothing to do with
jumping on any bandwagon, being with the "in" crowd or, as you most
strongly hinted, the popular myth that if I didn't do it an Arctic Tern
would build a nest on my head.

No, my dislike is honest, reasoned and analytical; and can be
summarised thus:

1) Someone has left precisely one sheet on the toilet roll, in order to
get out of changing it for a new one.  That "someone" is Miss Jones.

2) There is a student before you in the supermarket queue; and he is
using a credit card to pay for a carton of milk and a packet of Jammy
Dodgers.  The sort of thing Miss Jones would do, in fact....

3) You wait during rush-hour for the tube train and stand right at the
platform's edge, only for the train to stop with you equidistant
between two doors so you have to squeeze in last then stand in a stoop
forced upon you by the curvature of the inside door and take in the
halitosis of two-dozen businessmen, their breath rebounding from two-
dozen Evening Standards.  That experience is Miss Jones personified.

Arthur Banana (artbanana@yahoo.com> 2/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Jon Blum (jblum@zipper.zip.com.au>  wrote:
>It just struck me how odd it is, even if you treat the Doctor Who universe
>as "real", to treat BBC dramatizations of these events as unquestionably
>true, utterly accurate reports of History.  If that's the case, then you
>have to accept that there was a circa 1965 BBC video camera roaming about
>with the Daleks in the jungle on Mechanus -- after all, it's there on the
>screen.  :-)

You *know* you've been a fan too long when...

You come up with a theory that part of Sutekh's punishment was to be
entombed with an immortal slave who *could* have assembled the rocket
and destroyed the pyramid; had he not been conditioned to be immune to
Sutekh's mind control and to do nothing for eternity except hold down
seat cushions (and other light cleaning duties...)

James Bennetts (glamma@iname.com> 2/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: Skaro]

Meddling Mick wrote:
>Part of the Dalek Prime's plan revolves around the idea of revealing how
>flawed Davros is to the whole Dalek race so that he can weed out the ones
>who are loyal to their creator.  Which wouldn't be feasible if the Dalek
>Prime had just exterminated him in his escape pod.

Also true, but only because the Daleks revived Davros and removed him from
the "Bunker."  If they had left him where he was, or killed him out right,
then he could never have influanced any of the Daleks to follow him.  I
mean I'm sure there were no Daleks sitting around saying, "You know, the
Dalek Prime is okay, but remember the god old days of Davros?  I wounder
what ever became of him?"

Kaijufan (kaijufan6@aol.com> 2/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Linking narration on The Web Of Fear audio]

David Brunt (Dvb@btinternet.com> wrote:
>>Anyone hoping for Debs Watling.......   ;-)

Steve Roberts wrote:
>Absolutely.

>In the style of her presentation on 'The Missing Years', I hope. It
>would bring a unique new twist to this timeless classic.

>"in HONG KONG"

Her perfect delivery of "some clips exist - on BLUE PETER" is worth every
penny of that tape by itself.

sic:    "And then THE YETI captured the Doctor, Jamie and VICTORIA.  Who
screamed (edit long anecdote from master tape> And they were taken to
COVENT GARDEN.  And met the BRIGADIER......  Who had a MOUSTACHE."

Aaaaaaarrrggggghhhh, kill me now.........

David Brunt (Dvb@btinternet.com> 2/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Beltempest- Printing Error]

There appears to be a problem with my copy of Beltempest. About 30-50 pages
from the back of the book appear to be missing. The book just sort of ends
without resolving much. And some of the pages have been reprinted from
Parasite. Is this a common error or is it just me?

Ed Jefferson (edjeholo@aol.com> 5/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: Timelash.... No, don't run away. Come back!]

One word you could describe Timelash with is "slightly flawed
classic".  It's surely among the best stories in the entire 80s era of
the show, able to hold its head up high with the likes of 'The Twin
Dilemma' and 'Delta and the Bannermen' and say 'look at me, I'm
adequate!'

And yes, I know that "slightly flawed classic" is three words.

It's probably best to compare Timelash to Interference, the recent twin
novels by Lawrence Miles, who I believe has been quite popular.  The
two have a lot in common - not least the fact that after his
unfavourable reactionism to their slightly flawed classics, Glen
McCoy's response was to drop out of Doctor Who altogether and change
his name to Shirley Manson.

Timelash on one level, works as a political thriller.  The fascinating
politics of Karfel, and their eerie neighbours the Bandrils must have
insipred Lawrence ("Mad Bandrils, Bad Mandrells") Miles.  The viewer's
attention is captivated by pondering the complexities of a society rich
with mystery.  Why are mirrors forbidden?  Why is the ruler a Big
Brother tyype character talking to people only as a puppet of Professor
Chronotis on video?  Why is this culture that is so scientifically
advanced still dressing like that and communicating in stilted formal
language?  Why does the wall of their council chamber look like the
back wall of a television studio?

On another level, Timelash plays with the same themes as Interference.
The burning robot that travels through time is a key - the future
affects the past.  Time loops.  There is also a theme of change - in
Interference through the remote and their rebirthing - in Timelash
through magic gas that's going to turn Peri into a dinosaur.  Add to
this the similarities between the way the Cold works in Interference
and the workings of the eponymous Timelash and you will start to see
the implications of McCoy's oeuvre on the later work by Miles.

On yet another level, Timelash is a fairy story.  Paul Darrow elects to
portray Tekker as an outrageously camp homosexual and fruit fetishist,
struggling to balance the fact that as Maylin, he is expected to father
a child by Jeananne Crowley with his craven desires for Dicken
Ashworth, himself a repressed homosexual.  Or maybe I read that on
alt.drwho.creative.

The fact remains that - on paper at least - Timelash is excellent.
With the same tight plotting as Unnatural History, the same woeful
miscasting as Horns of Nimon and the same themes as Interference, I
love it to bits.

Just thought I'd mention that.  Don't forget Shirley Manson = Glen
McCoy.  Changing the way we view both of them.

Chris Summerfield (chris_summerfield@my-deja.com> 6/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Marcus Durham (Marcus@zenn.demon.co.uk> writes
>JNT takes on all comers.

I'd like to transpose the second word and the last one.

But I won't.

'Distant' Dave (distant@faraway.demon.co.uk> 7/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: Who Wants to be a Millionaire]

Stuart Burns (stuart@sigma-video.co.uk> wrote:
>The speed question in last night's programme involved putting four Doctors
>in the correct order (Hartnell, Troughton, Pertwee, C Baker).

>I suppose Doctor Who questions tend to pop up in quiz programmes from time
>to time but they would have been better to save this for one of the main
>questions.  Something like:

>Which of these actors plated the sixth Doctor Who on television:  a) Tom
>Baker  b) Colin Baker  c) Peter Davison  d) Sylvester McCoy

Graeme Harper!

Are you sure?

Yes, Chris.

It's not one of the choices down there.

Believe me, Chris, Graeme Harper appears in The Brain of Morbius as one of
the faces on the 'mindwrestling equipment' and, chronologically, he
appears to be the sixth Doctor.

You're sure?

Yes.

Not ... Peter Davison.

No, fuck off - look, I'm the fanboy here, Tarrant. Interesting name, by
the way, do you have to pay Roger Hancock to use it?

So, you're saying E - none of the above.

Yes.

You could phone a friend.

I'm a Who fan, I don't have any.

Ask the Audience?

Ask them what? Ask them how many sodding reference books they've written?
Ask them how many letters and emails they've bombarded the BBC with? Ask
them where they sodding were during the hiatus of 85/86? Ask them whether
Sarah Jane's from 1980 or not? Ask them whether they keep their Missing
Adventures in chronological order or the order of publication?

So you're final answer is -

Graeme Fucking Caves of Revelation Sodding Harper.

Lance, you had £125,000 ... you've just lost most of it. You menky fanboy
wanker.

D'oh!

Lance (lance@lanceparkin.freeserve.co.uk> 12/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

>>Actually, Brian Blessed irritates the hell out of me in it. I hate it
when people
>>act that OTT, it ruins it for me.

Adam Richards (Adam@roblang.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>My god, I agree with him. HELP ME, GARETH!!!!!!    :-)

The quality of his performances seem to vary in inverse proportion to
his shouting and the quantity of his facial hair. He's at his beardless
best as Augustus in I Claudius, where he hardly shouts at all - only two
or three times in the whole serial - and his shouts, when they come,
really count for something when highlighted by sustained periods of
intense talking-at-a-reasonable-volume.

On the other hand (just to keep yer Craggs in on the act) I saw his
Claudius in the RSC's 1985 production of Hamlet and it was still very
much "Blessed - The Flash Gordon Days" because even from the gallery you
could see the foodstuffs that had accumulated in his shrubbery of a
beard and he played the part with an unremitting bellow.  What's more
the male cast were all fitted with codpieces and his positively
elephantine one jiggled mimetically to his shouting, to hypnotic effect.

On the other other hand Kenneth Branagh goes for an experimental
approach in his 1996 film of Hamlet, where Blessed plays the ghost of
Old Hamlet.  Here Blessed (bearded - but the growth is more tended than
in those carefree 80s days) is made to whisper *in a shout*.  The
unfortunate effect to a Doctor Who fan is that it seems like Elsinore
Castle is being haunted by a Sea Devil.

Gareth Thomas (gareth@shaggaz.demon.co.uk> 12/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: Profanity in DW (was Re: Most accurate line)]

Rufus T. Firefly
>>>And of course there's the bit in Destiny of the Daleks where Tom Baker
>>>tells a group of daleks to "spack off."  Who knows whether this was a
>>>genuine pre-NA invented swear word, or Tom catching himself about to
>>>say "sod off" at the last minute, or what.

Dangermouse wrote:
>>It's the latter.

Daniel Frankham
>It's "what"?  I always assumed he was trying to say "Just back off!"

We'll have to ask him one day.

"Mr Baker, do you remember that time you said 'Spack off'?"

"No?  Well, it was during 'Destiny of the Daleks'....."

"Yes, 'Daleks', Mr Baker."

"Oh.  Well it was during your stint as the Doctor...."

"Yes, you remember you played the Doctor for a few years on 'Doctor
Who'?..."

"No, 'Doctor Who', Tom.  It was a TV show made by the BBC....."

"Err, well, it's a big national broadcasting corporation.  You played the
part of the Doctor for several years in the Seventies...."

"Just after the Sixties, Tom...."

"What?  No, this is the Nineties.  Well, just about..."

"Oh, yes, certainly.  Bourbon, wasn't it?"

Danny Gooley (daniel.gooley@detya.gov.au> 13/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Avoid Paul Ebbs in Dar es-Salaam]

>>Just offering some alternative advice for anyone suffering delusions
>>that Paul's out to spirit away all thier favourite blank video
>>casettes.

>>Despite the fact that he owns quite enough of the things already,
>>unless B&Q have stared doing Video-Cassette-Effect-Wallpaper,  if you
>>do genuinely belive he's got his heart set on pinching yours then
>>perhaps you are best off avoiding him.

>> But while avoiding him in the UK is one way of doing it, people should
>> be advised that that's where Ebbsy lives, so they'd be much better off
>> avoiding him by holing up with their precious tapes in far off and
>> exotic lands where he will never think to look.

>>I have recently complied an extensive list of such locations, from the
>>Arctic tundra to the Mongolian steppes, and will be happy to put this
>>list at the disposal of any Ebbs-phobes as soon as they send me a huge
>>envelope full of cash.

>>Should you send me this cash, fail to hear from me, and trace the
>>parcel to my doorstep... could you please knock the door and tell me
>>the postman left it there.

>>Thanks in advance.

Paul Ebbs (paul@ebbsy.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>I'd never think to look in Patagonia - oh shit, I *did* think of looking in
>Patagonia.......

*Crosses Patagonia off list*
Um, how likely are you to think of Peru?

>Also - Artic Tundra to Mongolian Steepes ? What a strange alphabet you have
>in Welsh-Wales boyo :-) Where's N - Z or do you run out of letters just
>after LL ?

Ah...I'm afraid you've foreseen the publication of Volume II - "So He
Found You, Did He? - Try  Newfoundland and Zurich!!!"

Available soon for a second huge envelope of cash. (20% discount
available if you advance order before the 1st of Nove....15th of
Novemb...30th of November. Fuck, how'd a 'shifting history' thread get
in here?)

Richard Jones (tigermilk@net.ntl.com> 14/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Charles Martin (chas_m@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>>>>Both very underrated by fans, I think, but both are flawed.

Alden Bates wrote:
>>>What DW story isn't, to some degree or another?

Daniel Frankham (danielf@oztek.net.au> wrote:
>>_City of Death_ and _The Aztecs_.

Alden Bates wrote:
>I assume you're counting the bit in City of Death where Kerinsky does
>a disco dance right before turning into a skeleton?

>Or are you not counting acting/effects flaws? :-)

It's a beautiful scene, isn't it... Clearly the Professor was using his
final moments to live out his fantasy of being Brains in _Thunderbirds_. A
fine piece of characterisation.

Daniel Frankham (danielf@oztek.net.au> 14/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Kursaal, in Iambic Pentameter]

Mags (moosifer_jones@halliday47.freeserve.co.uk) wrote:
>Yep, the new BBC books are all prose what were you expecting? Iambic
>pentameter?

(To the tune of The Owl and the Pussy Cat)

Oh the Doctor and Sam set off for Cronus,
Away in a blue police box,
Sam wore nary a thing and the Doctor did sing:
Oh what a hip Sammy you are, you are, you are!
Oh what a hip Sammy you are.

Then a werewolf asked Sam, 'Oh, let us be married,'
And said dear Sammy, 'I do',
'We'll marry tonight, in the moonlight
But what shall we do for a ring, a ring, a ring!
Oh what shall we do for a ring!'

So they dug all day without a delay
Deep in the mountain they fell
And in the ravine they found a dead lupine
With a ring on the end of his nose, his nose, his nose!
A ring on the end of his nose.

The Doctor said, 'Oh Sam, Don't go,
He's not the wolf for you,'
But Sam sang a song as the moonlight shone on:
'Oh what a hairy hubby you are, you are, you are!
Oh what a hairy hubby you are.'

Over the wedding tables the rumor was said,
That such a marriage wouldn't last long.
By the end of the day the wolf was spirited away
He used a bungee cord too long, too long, too long!
He used a bungee cord too long.

In tears back to the Doctor Sam fled,
For not a single hair on her head did grow.
I heard her cry, with a heart-broken sigh,
'Oh, the things that wolves do know, do know, do know!
Oh, the things that wolves do know.'

Shadows (shadows@wam.umd.edu> 15/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Working titles for 7th Dr stories:

The Bitch is Back, and There's Gonna Be Trouble
(Time and the Rani)

You Can't Stop the Next in Line, Livin'
in a Dumpsters' Paradise
(Paradise Towers)

Take Me Down to The Paradise City
Where the Girls are Green and the Grass
is Pretty
(Delta and the Bannermen)

Ice Ice Baby
(Dragonfire)

Don't Shoot the Piss-Taker
(Remembrance of the Daleks)

Sweets Are Bad For You, You Miserable
Blues Lovin' Bastard
(The Happiness Patrol)

And Now For Something Completely the Same
(Silver Nemesis)

Under the Big Top With Doctor Silly
(The Greatest Show in the Galaxy)

The Magic Doctor... Who?
(Battlefield)

Shock the Monkey
(Ghost Light)

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun By Sucking
 Your Blood
(Curse of Fenric)

Bad Pussy
(Survival)

Azaxyr (azaxyr@aol.com> 15/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Rayctate (rayctate@aol.com> wrote:
>I have offered a very good suggestion that nobody seems to like because
they
>have made their minds up about who the Doctor is--loomed and half-human.

>I have suggested that there be loomed books as well as half-human books,
>combinations of both philosophies as well as neither.  All these books
would
>have little symbols on the cover to distinguish the themes.

Why stop there?  How about a complete ingredients listing on the title
page...

CAUTION:  This book contains references to the following TV serials,
books, and audio plays (or concepts introduced therein):

        Fury From The Deep
        The Invasion
        Terror of the Autons
        Dancing The Code
        The Green Death
        Lungbarrow
        The Eight Doctors
        Vampire Science

Readers allergic to any of the above stories should put this book back on
the shelf and flee screaming from the shop immediately.  Never mind if
they're only passing references, you're better safe than sorry.

ADDITIONAL NUTRITIONAL NOTES:  This story may prove particularly
unpalatable to those who wish to deny that the Pertwee era ever happened.
This book also contains at least 25% of the USDA recommended daily
allowance of angst, characterization, plot, theme, and ideas.  May contain
traces of the Doctor's third cousin.  The management is not responsible
for any additional continuity references beyond those declared here.  No
MSG.

OBLIGATORY MCDONALDS LAWSUIT WARNING:  Upon discovering a continuity
reference or an idea which you dislike, do not pour a scalding cup of
coffee on this book and tuck it between your legs.

Jon Blum (jblum@zipper.zip.com.au> 15/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: Who will play the Doctor?]

Azaxyr (azaxyr@aol.comicrelief> wrote:
> I nominate that red guy with no pants on
> Cow and Chicken.

    "How doooo," said the Doctor as he stepped from the TARDIS.  "I'm Doctor
Lacks-slacks, and these ARE MY STUPID COMPANIONS!!!"  He pointed to the duo
trying desperately to exit the TARDIS behind him, but having instead wedged
themselves in the doorway.
    "Oh, I do bewieve we are *stuck,* big bwudder.." moaned the large bovine
figure.  "What ever shall we do?"
    "We's wood'n not even be stuck here if you wasn't so FAT, Cow!!" shouted
the small chicken from behind Cow's udders.
    "Oh, boo hoo hoo.. moooooo.."

Rufus T. Firefly (r_t_f@hotmail.com> 15/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Peter Finklestone (106104.2605@compuserve.com> wrote:
>>Ah, but what if it's not just hearts that he has two of?  That'd give the
>>girl a sporting chance. (And he'd always be able to put the Rod of
Rassilon
>>to good use).

Nyctolops (nyctolop@concentric.net> wrote:
>On the other hand, what if Time Lords start out with one heart and get
>the second one during their first regeneration (as has been theorized
>here) by reabsorbing some seldom used dangly tissue?

If they absorb *that* particular bit of dangly tissue, they wouldn't
end up with two hearts. They'd have two brains instead. And judging
from my own experience, the new one would make most of the decisions.

Allen Robinson 16/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Azaxyr wrote:
>Yep, the new BBC books are all prose

Yeah I like them when they were in heiroglyphics and you had to smell
along the pages to understand the story like the cat books in Red Dwarf.

Charles Daniels (cdaniels@web1.calweb.com> 16/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: Doctor assisted suicide]

NRice17" NRice712@yahoo.com asked the masses:
>>>I am interested in hearing from anyone in the medical field who
>>>wouldn't mind sharing their opinions on doctor assisted suicide.

Alan S. Wales wrote:
>>A lot of people on this ng, whether in the medical field or not, believe
that
>>Slyvester McCoy assisted in the suicide death of a certain "Dr. Who".  I
hope
>>this helps.

Nyctolops wrote:
>Ooohh! You meany!  Assuming they exist, you are liable to get the
>McCoy Brigade after you for that one.

Of course we exist!  And we're coming to kill him horribly, now.  For....

I am the very model of a modern McCoy Brigadier
I'm rabidly pro -JNT and -NA, and I'm doubtless queer
I can't abide a critical assessment to be posted here
I spend my waking moments plotting painful deaths for Azaxyr.

If someone mentions Pertwee then I'll raise a mighty battle-cheer
By flaming all resistance I instill a righteous sense of fear
(I'm aided here by flaming from a thousand of my fellow peers
We work in packs, 'cause singly we're easily reduced to tears).

We work in packs, 'cause singly we're easily reduced to tears
We work in packs, 'cause singly we're easily reduced to tears
We work in packs, 'cause singly we're easily reduced to tears

My IQ is so stunted that I always leave a trail of drool
My humour so much lacking I can't see 'Zax "jokes" are really cool
My Zionistic sympathies endanger every person here
I am the very model of a modern McCoy Brigadier.

My Zionistic sympathies endanger every person here
I am the very model of a modern McCoy Brigadier.

I hate our TV history, it cannot compare with guns 'n' frocks
I blindly accept anything 'bout Looms or Faction Paradox
I really think that everything pre-JNT was really dumb
And toadily adhere to all the strictures set by Ormanblum.

My mocking put-downs stifle thought and make you want to watch McCoy
I flame all newbie posters lest they disagree: a clever ploy!
And though the beastly Pertwee-ites stand fast so brave and fuel our fears
The moderated group will soon remove unwanted social tiers!

The moderated group will soon remove unwanted social tiers!
The moderated group will soon remove unwanted social tiers!
The moderated group will soon remove unwanted social tiers!

My twisted masochistic nature means that chaos gives me joy
We claim to hate him, but young Henry really is our pin-up-boy
A "Three posts rapid: chap with hiss" is what is really wanted here:
I am the very model of a modern McCoy Brigadier

A "Three posts rapid: chap with hiss" is what is really wanted here:
I am the very model of a modern McCoy Brigadier

At night I'm sleepless from the thought that some do not adore our chap
But more so that some fans prefer another Doctor's mindless crap
I'm plagued by fears that in some newsgroup parallel, a naive reader
Strays, from rabid rantings of a modern Pertwee Brigade Leader.

I'm craven, tasteless, bullying, a hypocrite, I cry a lot
A Jewish, gay, black, evil, anal, dull, oppressive, horrid twat
In short, in spite, in character, intelligence, in hate and fear
I am the very model of a modern McCoy Brigadier.

In short, in spite, in character, intelligence, in hate and fear
I am the very model of a modern McCoy Brigadier.

Danny Gooley 16/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Arthur's Uncle peruses Autumn Mist]

This book was passed onto me for review by my great nephew Arthur as he
felt that its subject matter fitted my particular crusty bap of
expertise; though he also hinted that the local scandal involving his
wife's alleged Monkey Bourguignon had eaten away at his perusal time.
I was happy as a nun weeding the asparagus to oblige - to be honest the
task proved a welcome distraction from the petty politicking and one-
upmanship that plagues my little village of Upper Plipdom.

As is his wont, the postman delivered the parcel to me in person at the
front garden of Major Cadman (for whom I work Fridays as gardener and
Tuesday to Thursdays as amanuensis to his good wife the pig's meat) at
which time I was engaged in the onerous duty of maintaining the privet
peacocks that adorn the patio.  From across the wall I was taunted, as
ever, by that ogling oaf the Reverend S. Spangler.

"Let's face it Banana", he was saying, "You've done another gherkin.
You've taken a peacock of reasonable anatomic exactitude and pruned it
into the shape of a gherkin.  *Again.*  That's the *third* one.  I
don't know why Cadman puts up with you - out of pity I dare say - but
there's only so long that he'll tolerate the aspect of his driveway
being guarded by proudly strutting gherkins."

"It's a peacock  Spangler, you sadistic charlatan, and you know it," I
told him.  "You think you can disorientate me - take advantage of my
shellshock and lure me back into your nefarious employ - but you are
sadly mistaken.  Forget it Spangler - never more will I pump your
bellows."

(At which juncture the postman handed me my nephew's parcel and I
inveigled Spangler to take a powder by my usual method of kneading his
buttocks.)

"The church organ hasn't used bellows since 1957 you moron," was
Spangler's parting spat.  "I'm trying to help, that's all.  You'll
never shake off your lunacy if people continually pander to it.   You
can't tell reality and gherkins apart; and people shouldn't pretend
otherwise.   Cadman is far too indulgent letting you cut his hedges
into tubular crescents.  In my opinion he should throw you out on your
imbecilic arse."

(Calumny.  There's no other word for it. Except "Slander".
And "Defamation".  Yes it is true that I fell victim to a lingering
PTSD following my WW2 experience; and it is also no lie that for a
period this manifested in an obsession with gherkins; but those days
are long delallio.  I am loath to elaborate on this for fear that the
green pickles will regain the ascendancy.   Suffice it to say that they
treated me with some dignity at Barthe - they said they held only
respect for fighting servicemen and but for the faultless accident of
birth we could have been comrades in arms - until that day I removed
the gherkin-slice from my hamburger.  After that they became the
bitches' bastards and all I shuftied was  "SO DENKT SICH HERR BANANA ZU
GUT FUR UNSEREN HUMBLE ESSIGGURKE? VIERHUNDERT UND ZWANZIG SIEBEN
EXTRATEILE ESSIGGURKEN FUR HERRN BANANA HEUTE UND JEDEN TAG, BIS ER
ERWIRBT DEN GESCHMACK  HA HA HA".  They say that when I was invalided
from the Kate Carney I was a dribbling idiot and that it took seven
weeks of traction to free me from the gherkin posture.  However, as I
say those days are long gone.  The loyal support of friends and the
purifying voltage of the ECT have all but exorcised the green demons. )

I watched Spangler stride off - the mid-morning sunlight refracting
into shards from his bald, green, protuberant pate - then turned my
attention to the package.  Dark green it was, and shaped like an
irregular cylinder with a slightly fluted surface.  Beneath the skin
lay the novel "Autumn Mist" by David A. McIntee, which I read with
quite some enjoyment then placed in a jar in the larder.

Beneath the dust-jacket was a single printed sheet which unfolded to
seventeen square feet  - this due to Arthur's favoured typescript being
potato-halves dipped in paint - that stipulated I append the left side
of the page thus:

I
N
T
H
E
O
R
I
G
I
N
A
L
P
R
I
M
E
S
U
S
P
E
C
T
I
T
I
S
I
N
D
E
E
D
T
H
E
P
R
I
M
E
S
U
S
P
E
C
T
W
H
O
D
U
N
N
I
T

The reason why is anyone's good Queen Bess - though Arthur hinted that
its omission would cause ill-wishers to visit my house in a posse and
put floaters in snow through my letterbox.

Mr. McIntee has a solid style, one geared more toward communication of
story than the phonic impact of his words.  He is in short a capable
yarn-spinner (as was David Kelfell, the accepted raconteur of the
Stalag Luft kriegies, who regaled us with tales of his Uncle Priapus
who had a jointed appendage that could swat flies). This solidity is
just the sticky wicket for my period of convalescence - the
uncompromising style of a Hemmingway would be too dashed close to the
horrors for me, whereas McIntee's escapist fare is positively
recuperative.  Now a little birdie forewarned me (he's called Theodore
Thrush and has a passing knowledge of this line of books; he comments
on Lawrence Miles with a chorus of the sweetest song and John Peel with
a trail of the streakiest white) that Mr. McIntee has a predilection to
let his research show.  That, of course, is a recalcitrant trait - a
fact drilled into me by my sergeant, himself a novelist of modest
success, during exercises.

The words:

"RESEARCHASMUCHASYOUCANINTHETIMESCALEALLOWEDBUTDONOTGIVEINTOTHETEMPTATIO
NTOINCLUDESUPERFLUOUSDETAILSINYOURFINALDRAFTBECAUSETHATDETRACTSFROMTHEVE
RISIMILITUDEOFTHENARRATIVEYOU'ORRIBLELITTLEPOOFDAAHHHS"

would daily resound the parade ground filling us johnnies with dread
and ascetic writing habits. (At the time I vowed to kill him, but God
how I appreciate him now.)  It is a pity that penners of Mr. McIntee's
decadent generation did not have such disciple shit-scared into them;
and it is a sorry sign of our times that the current crop of historical
novels read more like Grammar School blackboards than soul-stirring
romances. However it is with pleasure that I give the lie to Theodore.
Whilst I am unacquainted with the other tomes of David A. McIntee I am
happy as a dog with two choppers to confirm that his Autumn Mist
generally allows detail to remain slave-mistress to his storyline and
the interaction of his characters.

With regard to characterisation Theodore mentioned an identity-crisis
hitting this line - something to do with "characters that have only
have only really existed in the printed word and who never acquired a
consistent persona through the televisual medium".  To which I
say "Ballocks! We never needed television to identify Biggles as the
gun-happy racist snob sky-hog that he was, so less of the piddle-poor
excuses."

 (What's more I have a first hand knowledge of identity crises on
account of being billeted with Jerry "Jerry" McNaughton who had a
familial curse whereby the male line was forever destined to be named
after the tension-relieving nicknames for the enemy soldiery - and then
take any reference as personally applicable.  So the officer's pep-talk
for us "not to worry lads because we'll burying Jerry in Berlin before
Christmas" would have McNaughton in an apoplexy of paranoia.  The curse
eventually saw Jerry invalided from active service on grounds of
dementia, as it did his brother "Ivan" in the early stages of the
conflict; as it had his father "Fritz" in the first war; as it had his
forbears "Charlie" and "Froggie" and "Fuzzywuzzy"; and as it would his
descendants  "Gook" and "Argie Bastard".)

I think McIntee addresses this issue (a shared responsibility, Theodore
tells me, amongst such notables as Miles, OrmanBlum and Magrs) by
strumming the ukulele to his particular strengths and sympathies. So
the rakish "Fitz" is affectionately portrayed as a type of gay-blade
Dick Barton variously consorting with Jerry and Tommy as "Cyril"
Circumstance dictates; and otherwise performing at the hinterland of
morality.  The prissy character of "Miss Jones", on the other hand, is
taken to her logical conclusion and assimilated into a fairy culture.
It seems that McIntee reccies that he is lumbered with this flaming-
onion of a dollface so limits the flak by skedaddling her to a context
where her bang-bang posturing will deliver the least damage.  (Arthur
told me that it is not now the done thing to denigrate Miss Jones - as
it conveys the impression that she can never do any right - so let me
just say that her personality reminds of that time during rationing
that you hit upon a cache of damson jam that you'd set aside before the
war but when you open it it really contains Bully Beef and we'll leave
it at that.)

The ostensible hero of this yarn - variously known as Dr Identikit;
Doctor Congenital Idiot; The Guy With Two Hearts Who Never Farts -
seems to me swept along by circumstance rather than the penner of his
own destiny, which is a bit Captain Morgan in a protagonist-led tale
such as this one.  The cove certainly doesn't hit me with
the "celebratory anniversary Red-Arrows display" of his presence as do
the great heroes like Ulysses and Mr. Moto, though McIntee is hardly at
fault if that is, in fact, the house policy.

Without a shadow of one the biggest bone of contention is Autumn Mist's
inclusion of Elven folk into a WW2 narrative - typified by this letter
to The Telegraph:

Sir,

I strongly object to the revisionist balderdash of Mr. McIntee.  The
Ardennes Offensive was defeated on the field by the allied servicemen
alone. To suggest that Elves were involved is an affront to those brave
soldiers who bought, with their lives, the freedom for us to buy our
belly pork in pounds and ounces.

I can confirm that I was born with a broom-handle right up my arse.

Mrs Katrina Kibbleswick-Duff MP (Con),
House of Commons

This viewpoint is, of course, the honourable lady's prerogative  - but
is also ballocks and vomiting vipers.  For this is a phantasy text, not
to be taken as "Lionel" Literal and such ephemera is dealt a positive
boot up the jacksie by maintaining a direct line with the Here and Now
(or more accurately the "There and Forty-five years ago").

It's as the Sarge used to say:

"FANTASYSCENARIOSAREMOREEFFECTIVEWHENTHEYREMAINATONEREMOVEFROMARECOGNISA
BLEREALITYANDANYONEWHOSAYSOTHERWISECANCLEANOUTTHEKHASISWITHATOOTHBRUUUSS
SH."

(At the time I vowed to kill him, but God how I appreciate him now.)

As well as effortlessly suspending our disbelief with his Eldritch
shenanigans, McIntee introduces a subtle and suitably heifer-hotting
element of amorality.  I refer of course to the character of  Oberon -
who is effectively utilised as a motiveless agent - though I do have
some pedantic misgivings.  Effective as this conceit is - and whilst I
am no scholar of the bard of Avon and indeed recently had to flee a
matinee performance of Lear just at that moment where Cornwall extracts
two plump gherkins from Gloucester's eye-sockets - would it be churlish
of me to suggest that Mr. McIntee has got his Oberons and his Pucks
mixed up?  Certainly my memories of those halcyon schooldays when the
English master bellowed, caned and dangle-from-the-windowed a love and
appreciation of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" into us spotty tykes (at
the time I vowed to kill him, but God how I appreciate him now) retain
Oberon as an undeveloped and frankly nondescript Erlkonig. *Puck*, not
Oberon, was the mischievous sprite who plucked away women's milking-
stools causing them to fall on their arses and the Cows' udders to
stretch into cannelloni.

That is but a small herpe on what is all-in-all a broad, healthy and
fully-moustachioed stiff upper lip of a story. Autumn Mist is a
barnstormer, a hair-raiser, a spine-tingler, a ballock-bouncer; and a
thumping good read for an ex-gherkin-chomping-doodle-ally convalescent
such as myself. I shall certainly demand that Arthur dispatches any of
Mr. McIntee's subsequent opuses straight in my direction.

Now, if you'll excuse me I have to see a man about a large pickled
cucumber.

Arthur the Elder

Arthur Banana (artbanana@yahoo.com> 17/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: Interview w/ Dr. Who Expert...]

Eric Schluessel wrote in message
>How does one get to be a Doctor Who expert?  Does one need a Dw.D?

It's a secret initiation ceremony a little akin to the Masons, but without
the grapefruit.

The mystic officiator, wearing the sacred Tombakerunderpants (on his head)
begins the ceremony by waving a rolled up DWM and chanting the sacred
words "Don't believe Rigelsford" (the meaning of which has been lost in the
mists of tome, but believed to refer to the anti-who).

A ceremonial burning of a filmprint follows. The real experts have 'Web of
Fear' or 'Evil of the Daleks', the lesser experts have 'The Underwater
Menace'.  The grand mystic officiator gets 'Marco Polo' - there have only
ever been seven postholders for some reason.

After a final traditional nit-picking of In-Vision, the ceremony ends with
the new appointee being escorted around the sacred hall of Caversham to
seek out the mysteries of time and yellowing paperwork.

Or something......

David Brunt (Dvb@btinternet.com> 17/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

John Pettigrew (our.hero@virgin.net> wrote:
>>>In The Web of Fear, how did the Yeti get to London?

Robert Smith? (smithrj2@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca> wrote:
>>They took the train.

John Pettigrew (our.hero@virgin.net> wrote:
>The cunning beasts!  How did they get on without tickets, though?

They climbed through a window and spent the whole trip hiding in the
toilet. (There's nothing more terrifying than finding a Yeti in a toilet
in a tooting train.)

(author unknown> 18/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject:    Re: Message from BBC Dr Who Book Authors]

Jonathan Blum wrote:
>If so, then blaming writers like me and Lance for opening this trap door
>and bringing about the Immanent Death Of Who seems a bit silly, doesn't it?

Nope.  Not when that "trap door" had been essentially sealed shut through
disuse and then you guys came along and said "Neat, a trap door!  Let's
pry
it open and oil its hinges and fix its latch so we can get some real use
out
of it!"

And by the way, Lance -- if I'm understanding him correctly - seems to be
interested in examining the trap door and its implications from a neutral
viewpoint, seeing it as something that might be very very bad.  You, on
the
other hand, seem to be championing it as the greatest things since sliced
Adric.

William December Starr (wdstarr@crl.com>  19/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

John Pettigrew (our.hero@virgin.net> wrote:
>However, I read Lawrence's RADW posting and the subsequent interview
>in DWM and have to grudgingly state that I think he is one
>egotistical, arrogant shitbag.  I dislike his agenda and am fairly
>glad that although he explained his ideas and concepts to Stephen Cole
>(going by Jon Blum's recent postings), the editor didn't just let him
>do everything his own way.

In my experience, the joy of writing in a shared universe is that no
matter how egotistical one person may get, there will always be five or
six others ready to jump on him and beat the shit out of him with a
retconning hammer.

Chris Summerfield (chris_summerfield@my-deja.com> 20/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: New ideas for the 'Years' tapes]

Ed Jefferson (edjefferson@aol.comspam> wrote:
> The Atkinson Years- Sylvester explains that Atkinson costs too much and
> proceeds to gurn over 'Curse of Fatal Death'

The Broadbent Seconds -- Bashfully hiding behind a sofa, Jim's
voice can be heard explaining that he's never been very confident
with cameras.

Graham Nelson (graham@gnelson.demon.co.uk> 20/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Zimbabwe Echo Article 19/9/99]

Quoted without comment.

DOCTOR WHO TO RETURN TO BIG SCREEN?

Doctor Who, the fictional Time Lord exterminated by the BBC's corporate
"Daleks" is set to conquer the world.

A team of America's hottest film-makers is to revive the hero of
Britain's longest running science fiction series, who was dumped in
1989 due to a perceived lack of ferrets, and the fact that the Director
General of the BBC failed to understand a word of "Ghost Light".

The BBC is in negotiations this weekend to shoot a =A314-140m film with
the makers of The Blair Witch Project, Dogma, Delicatessen and the
Matrix.   Talks are being led by a quadruplegic on a donkey.

An annoucement is expected in November to coincide with the launch of
Perfect Timing Two, edited by Helen Fayle and Julian Eales, featuring
stories, and pictures.

In an effort to return to the original appeal of the show, the ninth
Doctor is to be played by none other than William Hartnell (aged 91),
who created the role in November 1963.

Despite widespread reports of his death in 1975, Hartnell is said to be
committed to the project on all possible levels, and keen to take the
role in a more physical direction than in previous years.

"The Doctor should be an action hero, hmmm?" he said in a garbled
telephoneinterview with a man with a fish on his head.  "Well, young
Chamberlain, we can certainly do action hero thing, young, certainly
can do acting thing can certainly, yes?"

The new Who movie is also likely to make use of the internet to whip up
interest.  There have been discussions within the BBC about setting up
a newsgroup to discuss the show, and commissioning series of original
novels and audio dramas to whet the interests of the fans.

Not everyone associated with the original is convinced, however.
Ian Marter, Harry Sullivan from 1975-1986 said "I wish the BBC all the
best - but will be planting bombs in their trailers in a vain effort to
blow up the cast and crew.".  Marter, who for many remains the
definitive Harry Sullivan, said the story should reflect the modern
internet. "I would have Adam Richards as the Doctor with John Long as
the main cyberman"

The emergence of the Doctor as a film star could, however, be one of
the most popular legancies of the outgoing director-general.

Chris Summerfield (chris_summerfield@my-deja.com> 20/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

>From Reuters Newswire:

Thursday Infintember 9, 11:28 PM

Hartnell is a Premium Bond

Top CI7 spy and stuff James Bond is to make a comeback in a big budget
movie with Carry on Sergeant star William Hartnell (deceased) in the
lead role.

Independent film-makers and senior BBC executives are in talks about
the new film version of the hit series of books.

And they want Hartnell in a bid to expand Bond's appeal, especially
with elderly British male audiences.

They also hope a successful box office debut would create a winning
franchise similar to the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films.

A BBC insider said yesterday: "A powerful lobby wants Bond to be played
by an hmmm yes, an actor, you say, hmm, well, ah, yes that would widen
his popularity, m'boy. And I am, that is to say, Hartnell is very much
in the frame.

"It seems a script has been written with Action Hero Hartnell in mind.

"There was always the feeling that Bond had to be an African American.
Now the feeling is any new Bond will have to be a dead Englishman to
guarantee world-wide success."

The plans are the latest bid to resurrect Bond, who was last played by
a quadruplegic midget on stilts.

The team making the new movie comprises the BBC, Hal Films, a UK
offshoot of US distributor Miramax, Impact Films, a venture by British-
born Hollywood director Paul Anderson, the estate of William Hartnell,
the Shady Pines home for the terminally bewildered, Joe Straczynski,
Big Finish Productions, Rank Screen Advertising and the Zimbabwe Echo.

The BBC insider added: "There is actually no movie, but we do like to
perpetrate hoaxes to keep the fans wound up."

Chris Summerfield (chris_summerfield@my-deja.com> 21/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Shane \"Remo D\" Dallmann wrote:
>>In "Pyramids of Mars," Sarah wants to return to her time, figuring
>>everything's fine the way it is--after all, we "know" that Sutekh didn't
>>actually destroy the world, right?  Wrong.  In order to demonstrate
Sarah's
>>folly, the Doctor obliges her with a quick trip back to her time--and we
see
>>the Earth devastated by Sutekh.

M.H. Stevens (craftrr@swbell.net> wrote:
>I always thought that was a psychological trick he played on Sarah to get
her >to stop nagging him to take the Tardis to 1980.

"Listen, girlie, I'm sick and tired of you pretending you're not from 1975
- you've disturbed the Brigadier so much with this talk that I wouldn't be
surprised if he doesn't have some sort of breakdown sooner or later.

"You can just stop telling people you're from 1980 *this*instant* or you
can get off right here and now in this desolate wasteland, see if I care."

Robert Smith? (smithrj2@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca> 21/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: New Who in the Times]

David Brunt (Dvb@btinternet.com> wrote:
> OK. prime excuse to get Hartnell or Troughton back then.

Hartnell is apparently interested, but only if the role is more action-
oriented and he gets to sleep with Daphne Ashbrook.

Chris Summerfield (chris_summerfield@my-deja.com> 22/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: Ghostwatch response from the BBC]

Bob wrote:
>I'm so cynical I want to go up and poke Mrs Gorbachov to make sure she's
>really dead.

Er... that seems a bit extreme, even for us sex-starved DW fans.

Peter Anghelides (peter-anghelides@cwcom.net> 23/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

>>After the Doctor is attacked by the alien parasite in The Mind of
>>Evil, Jo offers him an aspirin.  He says, "No, it'll probably kill
>>me."

Robert Smith? wrote:
>Actually, we have no idea what Jo offers the Doctor in that scene as it's
>never identified.

Bearing in mind that Jo is a product of the Swingin' Seventies (or Exciting
Early Eighties if you prefer), the pill could be any number of interesting
substances.

The original script notes cast some light on the matter though:

Jo: "Hey, Doctor....., like.... try a hit of this shit man..... It'll
like...
*totally* straighten out your head, dude......"

Doctor: "Hell no, bitch, I'm off *that* shit!"

(See - Doctor Who, the Disco Years)

Rob White (robwhite22@aol.com> 22/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: Dr Who fans the biggest losers!!]

This from THE TIMES, 21st of September...

"Sumo ex-champion Hideyoshi Williams is recovering in style from
yesterday's literally crushing defeat...with a little help from Outer
Space.

Dr Who, the ever popular BBC Time Lord, has spent the last few hours
by Hideyoshi's bedside serenading him and wafting cool air in his
direction with fuck-off huge palm leaves.

Tom Baker, whose portrayl of the character is still considered by many
fans to be the most fourth, explained the reasons. "Ah, Well...Saint
Jude is a cruel and harsh master. To remain his faithful accolyte I
must ease the distress of lost causes wherever...What's that
Hideyoshi, old chap? We're out of Saki?"

This is however far from the first time TV's non-kissy-kissy spaceman
has fanned enormous losers. During his years contracted to Virgin, he
was often seen flapping his arms underneath Richard Branson's hot air
balloons in futile attempts to keep them aloft. These efforts came to
a final end last year when a team of Thals beat him round the world
using a polythene sheet.

Saint Jude (pictured) was not available for coment as he was martyred
in First Century Persia."

Richard Jones (tigermilk@net.ntl.com> 22/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: Dr Who fans the biggest losers!!]

Katherine Moran (katherine_moran@my-deja.com> wrote:
> We otakus at rec.arts.anime.misc have had a long discussion and have
> concluded there are creatures lower than even otakus and ...trekkies.

Ah! So! My devilish and quite intelligent plan has been found out. Long
have I strived and endured endless suffering to myself so that my status
of lower-leveldom would not be revealed to all, but now my schemes of
villiany have come to naught and I, Gaijin Dave, which is who I am, must
now stand revealed as no more than a worm in the sight of ...

Etc, etc, and other stuff that appears to be Anime's pithy way of just
saying 'bollocks.'

Dave Stone (dave@sgloomi.demon.co.uk> 22/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: Aspirin]

Nyctolops (nyctolop@concentric.net> wrote:
>>After the Doctor is attacked by the alien parasite in The Mind of
>>Evil, Jo offers him an aspirin.  He says, "No, it'll probably kill
>>me."

Shadows wrote:
>It's never shown as asprin, nor mentioned as asprin. IIRC, the line
>before that is just "the Doctor left this" or "take this". It could
>be ratpoison for all we know. :)

>Just something white and vaguely roundish.

"Something white and vaguely roundish"?  Sounds like Ian Levine.  Jo offers
Ian Levine to the Doc?  Yeah, *I'd* be worried if I was him...

David Brider (david@dwjbrider.freeserve.co.uk> 22/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: Dr Who fans the biggest losers!!]

Benjamin F. Elliott wrote:
>>[Cue image of John Pettigrew posting the adventures of The
>>Christmas Squid to rec.arts.anime.misc as a classic example
>>of Anime]

>>Okay, John's too ethical to do something like that, but
>>it's a great image.

John Pettigrew (our.hero@virgin.net> wrote:
>Fuck ethics!

>rec.arts.anime.misc   eh?

>Do you think I should?

"But some things might be better with the Christmas Squid. Hundreds of
warring posters will unite in their condemnation of hairy lips and seafood
restaurants. Listen, if a time traveller from the future told you that
some child would one day grow up to be Azaxyr, could you kill that child?
Well, yes, so could I; all right, bad example. But from the Christmas
Squid's great evil, some good must come..."

Robert Smith? (smithrj2@mcmail.cis.mcmaster.ca> 22/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Benjamin F. Elliott wrote:
>>[Cue image of John Pettigrew posting the adventures of The
>>Christmas Squid to rec.arts.anime.misc as a classic example
>>of Anime]

>>Okay, John's too ethical to do something like that, but
>>it's a great image.

John Pettigrew wrote:
>Fuck ethics!

>rec.arts.anime.misc   eh?

>Do you think I should?

Somewhere in Usenet a troll looks up.  His brain (sic) turns to ashes as the
Christmas Squid flashes upon that inward eye.

Is this humane?  Is this honour?  Is this the weapon you would use?  Answer
me!!!

End the madness, John.

Danny Gooley (daniel.gooley@detya.gov.au> 23/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: The things they would never say]

"No."
 - Chris Cwej.

"What shall I wear today?"
 - Any of Davison's companions

"Life, for all it's hardships, is an essentialy positive experience."
- A Lawrence Miles character.

"More Looms, that's what the series needs. I've had to read
'Weaveworld' twice this month to make up the deficiency."
 - Ray C Tate.

"Fuck. I think I'd better call the Doctor in on this one."
 - Bernice.

Richard Jones (tigermilk@net.ntl.com> 25/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Jonathan Blum (jblum@zipworld.com.au> wrote:
> You two are going to have to stop this sometime soon, you know.  There's a
> limit to how many times I can fall out of my chair laughing without doing
> myself a serious injury...

I can see the Gallifrey Guardian now...

WHO NOVELIST FOUND UNCONSCIOUS IN LOCKED ROOM
Authorities baffled! Wife suspected! Only clue is that he was found next to
a computer that was still switched on!!!!

Paul Griggs (paul@bedlam.freeserve.co.uk> 26/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

>>Which companion has the best leaving scene?

Ed Jefferson wrote:
>I would have to say Mel, event hough you could say she'd already had her
>leaving scene.

Yes, she's already had her leaving scene; she's yet to have her leaving
scene; her leaving scene is playing right now; we haven't seen her join yet.
It all depends on who you are and what you're watching.

Strange things, videos.

Danny Gooley 29/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: The Shadows of Avalon]

On Wed, 29 Sep 1999 05:01:09 -0700, in rec.arts.drwho Steven Moffat
wrote:

Just to boast a bit, I've already read it (oh, yes - friend
to the stars, me) and it's terribly good.  And definitely
canonitous.

I added "Long ago in an English January" in biro at the
end.  So he's got eleven more books to go now.

Steven Moffat 29/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: News: Big Finnish and FloorTen to collaborate!]

Yes! You heard it here first! After extensive consoltations with the AV
group, we can confirm that FloorTen Audio will be doing a Big Finnish
story next.

The story, called "The Helsinki Horror", will feature Paul McGann as the
central character - an overweight Finn with powers to travel through
time and space in his overstocked fridge.

Set inbetween the AV stories "Sirens of Time" and "Phantasmagoria", this
exciting cooperation between these two favourite fan groups promises
what Gary Russell has described as "a fascinating anglo-scandinavian
project which explores the relationship between gay alien races against
the backdrop of Rennaissance Helsinki".

Howard Richardson of fan group FloorTen continues: "I've always wanted
to take Doctor Who in a more adult direction and this finally gives me
the chance to do so. I feel the stories benefit immensely from replacing
the Doctor with a homosexual, obese Finn. In the past the programme
always seemed to pander to what I call the 'childish fanboys', but with
this new take on an old format, I really feel we are advancing the whole
genre."
  For years Doctor Who has just been about some stupid bloke who goes
round the galaxy in a cupboard killing things with a sonic screwdriver.
I mean - call me stupid or something - but isn't that sort of stuff just
for kids? At last we've got the chance to correct all the mistakes
Verity Lambert made in 1963."

Paul McGann has so far been unavailable for comment, but we understand
from his agent that he has already started fattening up, ready for his
performance in early 2001.

-----
Howard Richardson,
Press Officer,
floorten.com

Howard Richardson (howard@floorten.com> 30/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: Postmodernism]

Paul Cornell wrote:
>It occurs to me that, mostly, what radwers mean by postmodernism -
>anything that deviates from a sequential, straightforward, structure,
>basically  is in actual fact modernism, a literary movement thats been
>with us since before World War One, and to which radw forms one of the most
>consistent strands of objection.  Where was this forum in the 1920s, when
>the battle over modernism was being fought and lost?  Genuine postmodernism
>appears in two forms in Doctor Who novels: on a smaller scale, offhand
winks
>to the fictionality of the text (for example a Terrance Dicks character
>asking exactly what sort of sound the TARDIS made when it took off,
entirely
>so another can mention wheezing and groaning in Blood Harvest), and on a
>larger scale, in books such as The Blue Angel and comic strips such as TV
>Action in the latest DWM, which interpret Who entirely through the
>nostalgic preconceptions and shared points of view the authors are fairly
>certain their readers share, fiction set in and about and using fiction.
>Although in the case of the comic strip at least, a narrative device is
used
>(a parallel universe) to avoid terrifying readers who are still slightly
>nervous of the school of modernism, never mind its successor!

Aren't crisps just the greatest thing ever. Like ever, ever?

Ed Jefferson (edjefferson@aol.com> 30/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: So Vile A Sin]

Gareth (garethwho@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Does anyone have a copy of So Vile a Sin, which is in
>reasonable nick?

Yes,  yes I do.

>And do you live in the UK?

Indeedy.

> And would you like to sell it?

I certainly would.  But I think the government might get a bit upset
if I tried.

Meddling Mick 30/9/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Si Jerram wrote:
> >He must be a Nik-Naks fan then.  Personally I think Nik-Naks take place
> >in another packet.

Mags wrote:
> Ah, but that packet is inside a multi-pack packet which is inside...

> So what's your take on the little blue packet of salt inside a packet of
> Salt'n'Shake?

It's a packet universe.

Ben Woodhams (woodhamsb@parliament.uk> 1/10/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

>> > > Not to go all Cornell on you or anything, but is it really
>> necessary to
>> > > abuse the language in this fashion? Is there something wrong with
>> > > normal English usage, such as "created", "thought of",
>> or "conceived"?
>> > > Even "thunk up" would be preferable to this hideous coinage.

>> > 'Conceptualised' was the word he was looking for, I fink.

Allen Robinson (whosdoc@my-deja.com> wrote
>> At this point in time I am unable to formulate an appropriate response,
>> as my cranial housing has been negatively impacted by repeated bashing
>> against the nearest vertical support surface.

Dangermouse wrote:
>I feel the need... the need for expeditious velocity!

Oh, yeah!  Hollywood action blockbusters with the dialogue
script-doctored by Pip and Jane Baker!

-From Broken Arrow:  "Ain't it breath-takingly extraordinarily
ineffably cool!"

Nick Caldwell (s326954@student.uq.edu.au> 2/10/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: Xmas Squid]

John Pettigrew wrote:
>>The horrible thing is, Imran has only recently deciphered and
>>rewritten the sacred unmentionable text in this very thread!  To think
>>that I was going to repost the damn thing myself on the fateful date
>>of 25/12/99 (a terrible, fateful date in humanities history - I turn
>>30...) *just* when everyone had forgotten about it.

>>I fear the worst...

Daniel Frankham wrote:
>Oh dear God, nooooooo! Even now I can hear that hint of a whisper of a
>slimy slither arising, as the Squid slowly drags itself up through the
>ten-thousand-and-four Hell-dimensions beneath us... a sound like minute
>scraps of sandpaper rubbing against the inmost bones of the inner ear,
>faint but horrible.

*********** VERY IMPORTANT BAD NEWS *****************************

The Christmas Squid Joke's biodata has been messed around with by
Faction Paradox!

Yes indeed, in *established* continuity, the CSJ was about to reappear
on this very news group on 25/12/99.  RADW would spasm, quiver and be
severely weakened.  However, we poor damned citizens would survive
with only minor casualties (a shame about J2RIDER, but never mind...)

Unfortunately, the Faction Paradox has stepped into this unholy mess
and has reposted the entire history and the bloody joke itself Two
months before it was meant to - and not by the Sacred Keeper, the mad
arab Pettigrew.

Who know just *what* will materialise on 25/12/99 now....

Be scared, be very, very scared.

And if you can't be scared, be incredibly annoyed that established
history has been got at.

I blame Lawrence bloody Miles myself, like...

John Pettigrew (our.hero@SQUIDvirgin.net> 4/10/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Re: DWM Birthday Bash]

Andrew wrote:
>Fuck.  Wish she was my girlfriend.  Just a friend, unfortunately.  Glad to
>know everyone else was ogling her

Well, if thinking "who's that in the fucking stupid scarf" counts as ogling
then I suppose I was. I was ogling some pretty fucking ugly blokes if that's
the case.

Ed Stradling (edstradlingnospamtwats@lineone.net> 5/10/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

[Subject: Invasion (Spoilers)]

s
p
o
i
l
e
r
s
r
s
p
a
c
e

... Of the Dinosaurs!
    That sort of sums up Barry Letts' thinking at the time, I should think.

Paul Cornell (paulcornell@owlservice.freeserve.co.uk> 5/10/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Incidentally, I've often wondered if Pat Troughton were still with us,
what his "years" tape might have consisted of:

"Ah yes, my first story, 'Power of the Daleks', was a masterpiece.  But
they burned it.  Oh.  Anyway, later in the season I faced the terrifying
Macra. Unfortunately they burned that, too.  And then, of course, I came
face to face with the Dalek Emperor in,,, oh, that's been burned as well.
Ho hum.  My favourite story featured the terribly scary weed creature in
the classic adventure "Fury from the Deep".  Burned?  Oh...  Hmm...
Here's 'The Space Pirates' episode 2."

Matt Michael (HIS7MRM@leeds.nospoo.ac.uk> 6/10/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Paul 'Ozymandias' Harman (ozzy@kasterborus.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> As I see it there's just one adventure between Lungbarrow and
> the TVM - and it's where the Doctor (somehow) obtains the
> Master's remains.

(vworp>(vworp>(vworp>

"Hello, I'm the Doctor and I'm here for the Master's remains!"

"HERE THEY ARE.  TAKE THEM.  GO A-WAY."

"Oh.  Um, aren't you going to try to exterminate me?"

"WE THOUGHT A-BOUT IT, BUT THEN WE DE-CIDED WHY BOTH-ER?
IT NEV-ER WORKS.  JUST TAKE THE BOX AND GO A-WAY AL-READY."

"Oh.  Um, all right, I'll just be, um, on my way then..."

(vworp>(vworp>(vworp>

William December Starr (wdstarr@crl.com> 7/10/99

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[Subject: Re: Most inaccurate lines on RADW]

Azaxyr wrote:
> I have a life, you know.

(looks at thread title>

Finn Clark (kafenken@aol.com> 7/10/99

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[Subject: Re: Peri's Boobs]

> I wonder what Nicolas Bryant herself would think of all this?

"Why is my name Nicolas?"

Bokman (bokman7757@aol.com> 7/10/99

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Dangermouse wrote:
> Actually they did it because Rick McCallum was told
> by moral watchdogs and educational advisers (yes
> they have such things in the US for TV and movies)
> that Han shooting first was a bad example to children...

Presumably they'd been alerted to the dangers of this
by all those children building Death Stars and blowing
away inhabited planets...

Finn Clark (kafenken@aol.com> 7/10/99

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[Subject: Re: Weird Merchandising Ideas]

Ed Jefferson wrote:

> How about a boxed set of Interference and Planet of the Spiders!

How about a "Planet of the Spiders" Back Pack, as modeled by the lovely
Lis Sladen ;-)

Perry Armstrong (eldrad@suzy.dropbear.id.au> 10/10/99

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[Subject: Re: 'Nova' (american PBS) to do a show Time Travel]

> After all, how can you *know* if the stranger you bump into on the
> crowded street isn't from another time?

In fact, so many people laugh at the "anorak fans" who walk around in
TBaker scarves or Sylv vests.  How do we know they aren't time
travellers, who have learned from Doctor Who that such attire is
generally accepted in all places and times?

Elflore (elflore@aol.com> 13/10/99

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[Subject: Re: Why did the chicken cross the road?]

1st Doctor: Come over here. To this side, Chickenbum. Hmmm?

2nd Doctor: When I say run, run like a chicken!

3rd Doctor: Of course, that's it! I've got to reverse the poultry!

4th Doctor: I don't think these chickens know anything about the time
scanner.

5th Doctor: There should have been another way. Some kind of bridge,
perhaps.

6th Doctor: A chicken?! A chicken!? "Diminutive bantam" might be a more
apposite epithet. (Kicks chicken into acid bath across road>

7th Doctor: Evil, Ace, Evil from the Dawn of Time! I have fought the
Chickens of Chanticleer throughout eternity, and now they have laid their
foul eggs here in Perivale. In you. And all according to my plan. You
thought I was playing solitaire, when all along it was strip poker. And I
lost. Come back, you chicken!

Daniel Frankham (danielf@oztek.net.au> 15/10/99

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Paul Andinach (pandinac@mermaid.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au> wrote:
> So I wonder (not that I expect a useful response) how many people pick
> a certain point in the series as 'where it started going downhill' not
> because the series actually got worse, but because they happened to
> encounter it just as they were beginning to notice things.

Well I know exactly what you mean!
It was during The Aztecs episode 1 "The Temple of Evil" that I noticed a
distinct lack of Voord.
Now I was hoping this would be like in episode 1 of Keys of Marinus
"The Sea of Death" when they were in a pyramid of Evil and that they had
cleverly escaped from the building falling apart into episode 6 and made
it safely to the temple of evil in episode 1 of the Aztecs.
I was skeptical as the minutes ticked by, I thought maybe they were saving
the first appearence of the Voord for the shocking cliffhanger.
Which was somewhat disappointing as this means only the last few seconds
of the story would be canon.
However it never happened and for me, that's when the magic died.
The series was never the same.  What's disturbs me is the lack of Voord
in any Virgin or BBC novelization.
I mean it's like somehow people dont see the magical goodness that is
Voord.

Charles Daniels 17/10/99

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[Subject: Re: Mental retards should be killed, hmm?]

Azaxyr (azaxyr@aol.comicrelief> wrote:
> I don't believe in psychiatric treatment.

Has anything in the history of Usenet ever been more obvious?

William December Starr (wdstarr@crl.com> 19/10/99

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Kelly Robinson (ispy@groovyshow.com> wrote:
>Hmm, what is the mystery which McCoy supposedly put back into the show
>anyway?

"WHY did he just decide to hang from that cliff by that umbrella?"?

Graham Woodland 25/10/99

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David Brider wrote:
> Depends what you read - in an early DWW back-up strip, they were
> depicted as looking like sort of large white fridge/freezer-type
> things (at least I assume they were meant to be white - it's
> terribly hard to be sure when the whole strip's in b&w anyway...)

Time Lord: Doctor, you are accused of breaking into the TARDIS bays at
night and, by some means which have yet to be determined, unlocking a
TARDIS and entering it. Entry to a time capsule is strictly forbidden
to Time Lords -- even those of your rank -- who have not first been
authorised by the High Council to do so, after years of psychological
screening and conditioning. What have you to say in your defence?

Doctor: I just had to know if the light went out when you shut the
door...

Daniel Frankham (danielf@oztek.net.au> 26/10/99

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Ben Woodhams wrote:
> >(Although, if it helps redeem my kudos, I did have an office right next
> >to Big Ben* for seven months.)

> >* Yes, I know it's the name of the bell!

Si Jerram wrote:
> You mean you had an office right next to a huge fuck-off bell?

Next to the clock tower, not the bell. Still, pretty damn close,
nonetheless.

> How did you concentrate?

You'd be amazed at how easily your brain filters big, pompous, crashing
noises out after a while. That's why I'm hardly aware of what Paul and
DM are talking about right now.

Ben Woodhams (woodhamsb@parliament.uk> 27/10/99

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Lance Parkin wrote:
> Sorry, I watched Titanic for the first time on Saturday night, and it
> annoyed me. It's an episode of Casualty, people!

I like the idea that it's a surreptitious remake of Harold and Maude with
8-year old DiCaprio embarking on sexual escapades with 80-year old Kate
Winslet. Probably the most disappointing thing about it is that it
completely skirts around the Doctor's final battle with the Blue.

Daniel O'Mahony (danielom@lineone.net> 27/10/99

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[Subject: Re: R.A.D.W. favourite bath soap survey!]

Prince Reynart (sparhawk0@netscape.net> wrote:

>Adam Richards (Adam@roblang.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:foAWOIfV76E1GpnvyDFvdZtis7pc@4ax.com...
>| On Wed, 27 Oct 1999 10:20:01 +1000, "Prince Reynart"
>| (sparhawk0@netscape.net> wrote:
>|
>| >Charles Daniels (cdaniels@web1.calweb.com> wrote in message
>| >news:381608e9_2@news.calweb.com...
>| >| Adam Richards (Adam@roblang.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>| >| > On Mon, 25 Oct 1999 21:14:45 GMT, boc@lin.cbl.com.au (Brett
>| >| > O'Callaghan) wrote:
>| >| >>>What's your favourite bath soap, RADW?
>| >| >>
>| >| >>And who says satire is dead?
>| >| >
>| >| > It lives! It is come!
>| >|
>| >| NO DUDE!!
>| >| Dont bathe in that stuff!!
>| >
>| >People might think that there was something 'fishy' going on.
>|
>| (grumble> Oh shut up, you lot. Or else I'll post *the advert* we did
>| in FanGrok which got vetoed before publication for being *too sick*.
>| Yes, the one for "Jizz-O soap!"
>|
>|  (that is, if i can find it - if not I could probably still remember
>| how it goes... let's see...)

>Promises, promises...

OK... sick-bags at the ready!

Jizz-O, the beauty soap made from one-quarter REAL moisturizing cream!

Only the creamiest, spunkiest jism is used to bring you this protien-
enriched beauty bar, which makes every bath a heavenly, slightly
stringy, bleachy-lemon smelling, spermy delight, and leaves your skin
moist, white, and a bit sticky to the touch.

Also try new Jizz-O Bubble bath - sprinkle the hi-creaming Jizz-O
flakes into your bath and see it foam up to a rich lather with
beautiful thick bubbles that have a cloudy, difficult to wash-off,
kind of slimy eggwhite consistency, for you to luxuriate in, bathing
your cares away!

(**Both made with REAL protien enriched manfat, milked from only the
most masculine Plaid-shirted Vancouver Lumberjacks for that genuine
porky Canadian fragrance!**)

[THIS ADVERT STOPPED DUE TO COMPLAINTS FROM DUTY OFFICE]

Adam Richards (Adam@roblang.demon.co.uk> 28/10/99

-----------------------------------------------------------------

(ebrookes@telusplanet.net> wrote:
>>Say, after his last meeting with the Doctor, the Delgado Master, goes
>>kinda wacko.  He lands the TARDIS in Russia in, like 1914.  As he gets
>>older, he starts to say he is a man named Gregory Rasputin, and forgets
>>his past.

>>Later, in 1917, when he "dies", he becomes the decayed corpse that is
>>seen in The Deadly Assassin.  He remembers his past, and goes off in his
>>TARDIS.

>>Cool, huh?

Ed Jefferson (edjefferson@aol.com> wrote:
>No it contradicts my Mary Whitehouse theory. Just replace Rasputin with
>MW.

Let me get this straight. Are you saying that Mary Whitehouse was
"Russia's Greatest Love Machine"?

Ben Woodhams 28/10/99

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[Subject: Re: Buffy is Doctor Who backwards?]

Actually Buffy backwards is Yffub, which by a curious coincidence is
the EXACT sound I make when answering the phone with a mouthful of
marshmallows.

Charles Martin (chas_m@bigfoot.com> 28/10/99

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[Subject: Re: Canon Wars? Was: Re: Abuse in Thread Titles (Attn: Azaxyr)]

Snarky wrote:
>he doesn't quite get Who, that one can be a fan of both Pertwee *and*
>McCoy,

DANGER _ HERESY ALERT_HERESY ALERT

Orinoco (homer@orinoco.netlineuk.net> 28/10/99

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[Subject: Re: http://fire.to easy to remember website]

In rec.climbing axilaris (but spammed to radw and other newsgroups)
(axilaris@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'll like to invite everyone to have an
> easy to remember URL website at http://[deleted]

  And we'd like to invite you, yes, YOU, to go hurl yourself off a cliff
for spamming in our newsgroup.

  Best of all, if you act now, we might even help send out the dogs to
find your body.  That's right!  Jump now, and not only will you die for
*free*, but you'll also get this amazing set of contusions and
lacerations!

  Give your relatives the gift of a mysterious suicide the in family, and
make rec.climbing a more pleasant place in the process.  Act now.

Dave Andersen (angio@aros.net> 29/10/99

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[Subject: Re: What *IS* Doctor Who?]

Andrew wrote:
> > (And it's a children's show too - just thought I'd throw that in
> > there.)

Snarky wrote:
> HERESY ALERT! HERESY ALERT! Cuddles, you get the gasoline. Joxer,
> you get the wood. Orinoco, you get the torches. I'll get the rope.
> We'll teach him a thing or two...

OK, but who is going to bring the batteries for the torches?

Orinoco (homer@orinoco.netlineuk.net> 30/10/99

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[Subject: Re: Dinner Party -- whovian style]

Aperitif:
  A Snack of the Cybermen
  Toast Lite

Fish Course:
  The Ultimate Roe

Main Course:
  A Dalek Inversion of Boeuf
  Veg of Destruction, served with the Peas of Marinus

Dessert:
  The Daleks' Master Flan
  Five Hundred Pies
  The Scones of Blood

Graham Nelson (graham@gnelson.demon.co.uk> 30/10/99

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