Whatever Power Has Taken Hold of the TARDIS Has Taken Your Pen!

Oh my word, we are in a pickle.

I've such a backlog of entries to write it's unbelievable. I knew I wouldn't do that 30 Doctor Who things meme in 30 days!

But anyway I shall start with the present and then catch up; after all if the show messes around with it's chronology on a weekly basis I suppose I can too.

On Saturday Leslie and I went to the Winter Warmer hosted by The Flashing Blade Podcast at The Fitzroy Tavern.

For those who don't know 'The Tav' was something of a Mecca to Doctor Who fans back in the day before t'internet where a huge group of them would meet up regularly. It's tailed off since then though I'm lead to believe a few still attend on the first Thursday of every month. Past regulars were the likes of Steven Moffat and Paul Cornell and as you'll know from Tony Gallichan's Private Lives column in TTZ8 that the first drafts of Timewyrm: Revelation were passed round the Tavern as Mr Cornell worked on them.

Saturday's event was a follow on from The Flashing Blade's hugely successful summer picnic and was of course timed to take place around Doctor Who's anniversary. Leslie and I had had a great time at the first one and it was so wonderful to talk about Doctor Who all day with people who were so passionate about the show.

I've never been to the Tavern before despite living in London all my life (Though to be fair I was still a kid when it was in its heyday of being the hub of fandom) but I had a reasonable idea of where it was. As it turns out I was almost right. I confidentally took Leslie to the Fitzrovia which was just round the corner and it was amusing to walk in and find absolutely nobody in there.

Although the outside temperature was a bracing 1C and thus scarves were of course highly justified, once we finally got to the right place, even if we hadn't of recognised people from last time, the sheer number of very long scarves in one corner of the room would've given the game away. Not to mention that Tony was dressed as the Fourth Doctor circa Season 18 (Though as some wag had it, the Fourth Doctor as in Dimensions in Time!).

People we'd met before were Tony of course, his two co-hosts Robert and Rob (Jo! came towards the end of the evening), Adam (the best dressed man in Fandom) from Staggering Stories, Craig (aka Mister Chinn from the Ministry) and Lee from That 1963 Show Podcast (Wyn joined us later), Tim from Tim's Take On and Martyn from the Bad Wilf Podcast plus other faces that I sort of recognised from last time but hadn't really had a chance to speak to them / been properly introduced.

There's also the weird element that some were people who I later learnt I've spoken to on Twitter like Luke from The Minute Doctor Who Podcast but hadn't made the connection whilst there. A couple of people were still tweeting whilst there and using the #fbwinterwarmer hashtag so I sort of worked out who some people were.

Another Tony turned up, he had seen me tweeting about the event and so as a result of that decided to come down and we chatted for most of the evening. Melissa (also published in The Mythological Dimensions of Doctor Who) arrived not long after us and would be staying with us for the weekend as we were to have a belated Thanksgiving on the Sunday.

It was nice to be recognised as the team behind The Terrible Zodin and to get positive feedback for the zine. Discussions with other Who fans gave me ideas for future articles and Tony C. is already so passionately defending The Web Planet that he's gonna have a shot at the next No! Not The Mind Probe! And whilst you don't know what that is yet, all I can say is stay tuned for it's debut in TTZ9.

Tony G. had dared Leslie and I to wear our costumes for Halloween which reminds me that I never did post it on here. So that's another entry pending. Ditto I need to write an entry about my Draculasaurus t-shirt but I hope he'll be pleased to note that people did get the joke.

Highlights of the evening for me were:

* A chap called Andrew wearing an authentic Seventh Doctor question mark jumper

* Lots of Doctor Who lego figures

* Fans comparing sonic screwdrivers

* Everybody shouting "HELLO LILIBET!" down the phone to Florida

* Learning that one shouldn't wear a long Doctor Who scarf when on the toilet

* Playing the "first Doctor Who memory" game and having to sheepishly say "Dalek flying up the stairs in Remembrance versus other people's memories of Magnus Greel having his mask ripped off and the giant maggots advancing upon Jo.

* The unfortunate phrase "Daniel Redcliffe pulled off Equus" considering the subject matter of the play

* Shouting "Zarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrbi" across the bar.

* Planning a series of graphic novels of the missing Hartnell and Troughton stories though knowing the purists will try to burn down our publishing empire if we put the colorful Victory Daleks in The Dalek's Masterplan or have Mavic Chen interviewed by the Bad Wolf channel.

* Speculating about who River Song is / What will happen in the next series of Torchwood / What's in store for Season 6

All in all I had a very fun evening and I hope I'm invited to the next one.

PS: Tony you've got till Friday to get that column in for the next issue!