=-=-=-=-= Society of the Rusting TARDIS Newsletter (#50, 11/12/96)
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>>> Items of interest to British media fans and Seattle-area residents,
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>>> and whatever else I feel like spewing about. You have been warned.
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Welcome to the 50th installment of the Rusting TARDIS Newsletter.
Coinciding
with this anniversary is my first trip to London. Yes, I, of all people,
had
never been to England until two weeks ago. (The closest I had been was
Logan
Airport in Boston.) I shopped until my luggage was full, then went to
museums. For those who might care, here are some (admittedly
self-indulgent)
notes:
Hmmm...It's London, so I have to see a play. Peter Davison is starring
in "Dial M For Murder"? Okay. Half-price ticket in the fifth row?
Sure.
Hmmm...It's London, so I guess I should see a musical. It's Robert
Lindsey's ("G.B.H.", "The Wimbledon Poisoner", etc.) opening night in
"Oliver"? To see Robert Lindsey, you bet. A front-row seat? How
could
it get any better? (Well... I talked to him afterward. I told him he
had a group of loyal fans in Seattle who see nearly everything he does.
I'm not sure if he believed me, but he was quite charming and not at
all
insane.)
Some of the sights seen:
Museum of the Moving Image (very good)
London Transport Museum (good, lots of old men wandering around)
London Dungeon (cheesy look at torture through the ages)
Old Operating Theatre Museum (old instruments, things in jars, and
careful - that's authentic blood-absorbing sawdust)
Highgate Cemetary (classic gothic cemetary, but limited access)
Lee Ho Fook's (beef chowmein was conspicuously absent from the menu,
but hey, it's not every day a drunken Chinese businessman
goes into dry heaves right in front of your table)
Sir John Soane's Museum (a wonderful and almost unbelievably dense
"real" museum)
Cabaret Mechanical Theatre (a definite must-see - bring lots of
change)
Some of the stores seen:
Virgin Megastore (in best pseudo-Worf - "It was glorious!")
Hamley's (huge but over-rated toystore)
Camden Town Market (ehh)
Portobello Road (cool variety)
Disney Store (oddly has a huge promotion for Walt Disney World in
the front window - no mention is made of Euro Disney)
Forbidden Planet (large comic/book/video/toy store - I just
happened to be there when Colin Baker and Nicholas Courtney
were doing a signing, so I talked to them briefly about
their past visits to Anglicon)
Dr. Marten's Department Store (more than just shoes, and cheaper
than the US)
The Tube is the worst subway I've ever been on (but then again most
subways are not over 100 years old).
I learned in a record store that Anita Dobson (Angie on "EastEnders")
released a couple of singles with Brian May (of "Queen"). No luck
finding them (but I did find the "EastEnders" cast album).
Very little is open late. The major exceptions were American chains
(e.g., McDonalds, Tower Records) and Chinatown.
Ads for Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere" (a TV mini-series he created with
Lenny Henry) were all through the Tube stations, but lifting them
was, unfortunately, not possible.
I got to see an episode of Noel's House Party in its entirity.
Wallace and Gromit merchandise is everywhere. (I got a rather
elaborate
talking alarm clock, among other things.)
I saw an advert (for Wolf Beer?) with a rather grey Kyle MacLaughlin
doing the Agent Cooper schtick.
Filming seemed to be happening all over the place.
McDonalds and Burger King both sell vegetarian burgers. McDonalds' is,
predictably, an almost completely homogenous orange thing (kind of like
shake mix with more fibre); the only identifiable ingredients were peas
and carrots. Burger King's had identifiable beans and peppers. It
also tasted better.
Bus drivers actually give change (and often cut you a break on your
transit pass for travel outside central London).
On the whole, the British are the most confused drunks I've ever met.
Pay attention to the expiration date on toothpaste tubes, particularly
if the date is three years ago.
Okay, enough of that. On with the news...
On tap this time:
Quick news items
McCoy and Aldred online
Wallace and Gromit Loose In Manhattan
Micro Dinos, Anyone?
Upcoming SotRT events
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Subject: Quick news items
Sound bites:
BBC1 aired the "final" AbFab story on November 6th and 7th. "The
Last Shout" was split into two 45-minute episodes. It will show up
at a video meeting in the near future. (Everyone returns except
Bubble.)
In an interview recently, Paul McGann _supposedly_ stated that
"Doctor Who" was returning and that production would begin in March.
On the other hand, BBC executives at a Conservative Party Conference
recently stated most emphatically that "Doctor Who" was dead as far
as the BBC was concerned.
This past weekend the BBC had a 60th anniversary awards programme to
honor programmes in many categories. Ten were nominated in each
category by critics, directors, and producers. The votes were cast
by the public via a phone poll. The surprise winner (to me, at any
rate) in the "Best Popular Drama" catagory was "Doctor Who".
(Peter Davision and Sylvester McCoy accepted the award.)
Local news:
Randy Rogel, Guest of Honor at Anglicon 8, will be appearing at the
5th Avenue Musical Theatre Company in "Singin' in the Rain" (12/03 -
12/22). For info, call 206-625-1900, or check out
"http://www.speakeasy.org/5thavenue".
Miscellany:
Today's quiz question: Who was the "Elevator Killer"?
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Subject: McCoy and Aldred online
Sylvester McCoy (the Seventh Doctor) and Sophie Aldred (Ace) will be
online on CompuServe on Sunday, November 24, 1996 starting at 1:00pm
Pacific / 4:00pm Eastern / 9:00pm GMT (London) for a conference in the
CompuServe Convention Center, sponsored by the SF & Fantasy Media
Forums (which I administer). We're presenting the conference with the
help of Paul Vanezis as well as Andrew Beech of the DWAS.
The conference is slated for about 90 minutes. Sylvester and Sophie
will be online with two separate accounts to be able to answer
simultaneously at Mr. Beech's home in the U.K. To get to the
convention center, GO CONVENTION; to reach the SF Forums for more
information, GO SCIFI.
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Subject: Wallace and Gromit Loose In Manhattan
Brit Puppets Survive NYC Taxi
NEW YORK (AP) -- It was the closest shave yet for film star Wallace
and his canine pal Gromit: The clay puppets spent a full day locked in
the trunk of a New York City taxi. The two clay figures -- stop-
action animated film stars adored in England -- were in New York City
with their creator, Nick Park, to publicize the video release of their
Oscar-winning film "A Close Shave." The caper began Saturday when
Park and his publicist Arthur Sheriff arrived at their hotel from the
airport. A porter who carried in the luggage from their cab missed a
battered, black 12-by-18-inch box containing the clay models of
Wallace, Gromit and a motorcycle, Sheriff said. The cab sped away
with the models in the trunk as Park chased it for a block, unable to
get a license number. They contacted police, taxi dispatchers and
radio stations. "I was resigned to not seeing them again," Park
said. "I thought, it'll be a miracle if they do turn up." Then, on
Monday morning, the taxi driver came to the hotel with the missing
box, saying he'd heard the news report. He refused a reward, Park
said. "It's given me a few ideas for a future film," said Park, an
Englishman who has won three Academy Awards for his films featuring
animated clay figures. Wallace, an amiable if dim English inventor,
and Gromit, his sensitive, underappreciated guardian, are beloved in
Britain, their pictures on everything from T-shirts to magnets. Their
disappearance made front-page news in the London tabloids. The story
could have come straight from one of Park's films. In "The Wrong
Trousers," which won the 1993 Oscar for best animated short film,
Wallace and Gromit bring a sinister penguin to justice in a dizzy
chase through their house aboard a toy train. In one breathtaking
sequence, Gromit throws down segments of track one by one, just in
time to accommodate the speeding car he is riding in.
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Subject: Micro Dinos, Anyone?
From a recent issue of "The Big Issue" (a newpaper sold by the homeless in
London), in a story about dinosaurs:
Mr. Kim Boo Yuk placed adverts in a newspaper claiming that using "Jurassic
Park technology", he had bred a selection of "prehistoric pygmy monsters"
which were now for sale. Reaction was immediate, with over 200
transactions
in the first week, including 86 Tyrannosaurus rexes, 60 Pterodactyls and
one
man-eating mollusc. "My husband gave me a Stegosaurus for our
anniversary,"
said one woman. "I cried with joy." Mr. Boo Yuk looked set for fame and
fortune, and it was only when the dwarf carnivores displayed a predilection
for sunflower seeds over raw meat that it was discovered they were actually
gerbils concealed within India-rubber dinosaur outfits. "I knew something
was wrong when I noticed my Velociraptor had whiskers," admitted one
customer.
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Subject: Upcoming SotRT events
Nov 13: Video night Round Table Pizza, 5111 25th Ave. NE, Seattle
Nov 19: Social Azteca, 543 NE Northgate Way, Seattle
Nov 27: Video night Round Table Pizza, 5111 25th Ave. NE, Seattle
Dec 03: Social Round Table Pizza, 5111 25th Ave. NE, Seattle
All events start at 7pm unless noted.
Currently planned for the next video night (Nov 13):
Goodnight Sweetheart: Season 3, episode 3
The World of Lee Evans
Dressing For Breakfast: Season 1, episode 1
Spitting Image
The Thin Blue Line (starring Rowan Atkinson)
Coming soon: "Father Ted", "French and Saunders", and Neil Gaiman's
"Neverwhere".
See you on Wednesday.
"The city slept. Men slept. Women slept. Children
slept. Dogs and Cats slept."
--"Space March of the Robots", Leo Brett
(a.k.a. Robert Lionel Fanthorpe)
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The standard disclaimers apply to everything here except this statement.
Contents Copyright 1996, Hand of Onan Enterprises, unless otherwise noted.
To subscribe/unsubscribe to this list, send mail to "onan@eskimo.com".
The Society of the Rusting TARDIS web page - http://www.halcyon.com/sotrt/
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