Strike a Pose

So I went into the newsagents on the way home today and spent some time looking for a certain magazine, I was already embarrassed slightly so when I saw the staff looking at me suspiciously I of course made it look like I was looking at the row of semi-naked women pouting out from the lurid covers of magazines such as 'Front' and 'Nuts' before spotting my target, taking the final copy to the counter and paying for my copy of Vogue... yes you read that right... I bought a copy of Vogue, but don't judge me - Karen Gillan hypnotised me into buying it... that is my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

See what I mean? Those eyes are hypnotic!

Anyway it may surprise anyone who hasn't actually met me that I don't know a heck of a lot about the fashion world but apparently 51 years ago a chance meeting in the Vogue offices between photographer David Bailey and model Jean Shrimpton changed the face of fashion photography forever.

Now I am of course aware of David Bailey (miserable bugger from all accounts!) but will admit that I had not heard of Jean Shrimpton until it was announced earlier this year that our very own Ms Gillan would be playing her in a BBC Four biopic called "We'll Take Manhattan".

And that is what this spread is promoting by getting the real-life Bailey to photograph the pair who are re-enacting his formative years. The article itself is kind of slim (six pages in total including the photos) but it's made me want to see the film that much more as in all honesty I didn't really know what it would be about before this (I didn't even know the film was about David Bailey and Jean Shrimpton as every article I read focussed purely on the Gillan/Shrimpton angle).

No idea of an actual date yet but the article does confirm it will be on BBC Four later this year - so something else to look forward to then.

Five More Sleeps

One of the things I love most about new Who is the anticipation for new episodes. I know that in todays society of instant gratification that may seem an odd thing but to me Doctor Who is like a fine wine (not the best analogy as I don't drink wine... but my only other option is "Doctor Who is like a vintage cheese..." and that doesn't seem to have quite the same gravitas). The time it is off the air is not a time to spend mourning, it's a time to get excited, follow filming reports and start speculating about who lives, who dies, which random character is suspected of being the Rani this year, which villains come back, etc.

Even when the show is on the air, the week between episodes is usually filled with so much speculation that the days until the next episode is on seem to fly by. Not that any level of grand speculation ever quite matches the brilliance of what Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat have surprised us with over the last six years, but again that is all part of the fun.

Who is "Mels"? Is she a regenerated Melody Pond before she takes on the River Song persona? Is the rumour about certain characters making cameo appearances true? And do they actually kill Hitler? And that's just speculating about one episode, never mind the rest of the series.

Roll on Saturday night, but until then let's just sit back and enjoy the anticipation of it all.

Two Amy Ponds and an Introduction

What better way to christen a new blog than with a picture of two Amy Ponds?

Well I guess an introduction might also help so I'll start with a quick confession (tellingly more of a confession than owning two life-sized Amys) - I didn't always love Doctor Who, at least not to the extent that I do now.

Tom Baker was already the fourth Doctor when I was born and I have incredibly fond memories of growing up watching Pertwee, Baker and Davison's Doctors. I don't think I was ever obsessed with the show back then but I did have a talking K9 toy which I loved and the show was certainly up there with The Muppet Show and Worzel Gummidge for me.

Doctor Who remained on the air right up until I was 13¾ (bizarrely that is acurrate almost to the day giving me a nice Adrian Mole reference for my fellow 80s kids) and I will freely admit by the time it went off the air in 1989 I was far from distraught as Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy had done little for me and I simply moved on to pastures new when it was finally cancelled.

However my fondness for the show was always there and when Paul McGann became the eighth Doctor in 1996 I was genuinely excited for the return of what had been such a constant prescence during my childhood. But again when that relaunch never went anywhere I simply moved on to numerous other nerdy pursuits that could occupy my time, occassionally revisiting some classic Doctor Who stories on DVD but never really delving into serious fandom.

Then in 2005 Russell T Davies relaunched the show, he had cast the amazing Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor and even had Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat on board as writers... my hopes where high and nothing pleases me more than being able to say that, six years later, the show for me has gone from strength to strength, it's produced two incredibly high quality spin-off shows aimed at two completely different demographics and has even given me a new found passion for the classic series as I'm now collecting the classic DVDs.

Oh and not since my childhood crush on Daphne from Scooby-Doo have I loved a fictional character quite so much as I love Amy Pond!