John Smith and the Common Men

So today (April 20th) is Record Store Day and wanting to get my Doctor Who themed 'John Smith and the Common Men' 7" I set the alarm to get up early.

Having no idea of the scope of Record Shop Day's draw I decided to just try to get to one of the two participating stores in my home city for opening time and then if needed head to the other one. One store which I won't name opened at 9am so they got my first choice slot. There was already a healthy queue when I arrived but nothing major and someone from the shop was assuring us they would open soon so I was sure I would be in and out in no time... over half an hour later they finally opened and the queue flowed like treacle on a cold day.

As we slowly inched toward the shop a fair few unhappy shoppers were exiting as it appeared the shop had not had deliveries of some of the titles as Universal had let them down but as the Common Men release was on an indie label I wasn't too worried... eventually got into the shop and finally got to the counter and asked for my selection... dumbfounded and slightly rudely I was told they weren't stocking that one before he moved on to the next customer.

To say I was not happy about that would be an understatement but never one to give up I went to where, in hindsight, I should have gone first - the Liverpool institution that is Probe Records... which had a disheartening queue outside the door and down the street by this stage. I'd wager there close to 200 people in front of me but I wasn't going to write the day off so I queued and this time it flowed like treacle on an even colder day!

Credit to Probe though - I was in line for a few hours there but the staff were jolly and even gave out sweets and later biscuits to those still waiting outside to get their grubby little hands on their chosen vinyl! They even confirmed for me that the Common Men release was indeed in the shop and they still had some copies, thus giving me hope and a reason to stay!

My patience paid off (as you may have already assumed by the photos already posted!) and I finally bought myself a copy of the nifty retro-designed numbered vinyl... then I asked for the Reservoir Dogs 20th Anniversary Soundtrack coloured vinyl (which colour you get is a mystery - I was hoping for pink for Steve Buscemi's character but was happy enough with my lurid yellow Michael Madsen version!) which I was also interested in and they'd sold out. This is where I turned a negative into a positive - having wasted that time at the unnamed record shop earlier that day I knew they hadn't had all their deliveries early on and knew they hadn't had Reservoir Dogs when I was there... so I went back to their now empty store and my hunch had paid off as I was able to get a box-fresh copy from the same, still surly despite the lack of a crowd, shopkeeper.

I was hoping the whole day would be an in/out kind of deal but five hours after getting up I had what I had come out for!

"That's the way to do it"

Long time, no blog. And whilst I do intend to update more this year this is not a New Year's resolution kind of thing; the only reason I'm writing this today is that last night as I struggled to get to sleep over the sound of patrons of the pub over the road ringing in their new year by arguing and fighting in the street I got to thinking about Doctor Who.

Specifically my mind was turning over the mystery that is Clara Oswin Oswald and whilst I lay there listening to John's friends telling him it wasn't worth it for the first, but doubtfully not the last, time in 2013 I made a connection about Clara. In an effort not to forget my little revelation I wrote a note for myself on a scrap of paper which I left on my desk as a reminder... "That's the way to do it".

So here's what was was going through my head in the early hours, the episode is littered with examples of the Great Intelligence mimicking the people around it; in fact the episode opens with this when we see Walter Simeon as a child first encountering the Great Intelligence in 1842; the snowman Simeon builds throws his own words back at him in an approximation of conversation, a point which is clarified later when the Doctor confronts Simeon.

The Great Intelligence mimicking what it hears is hammered home later in the episode when the Ice Governess throws back the Doctor's Mr Punch routine and he explains to clara that it is "mirroring, random mirroring"; and it was that which suddenly got me to thinking that either Clara (The Snowmen) or Oswin (Asylum of the Daleks), or possibly both, could be creations of the Great Intelligence. After all one character when creating a false reality to cover the fact she is in fact a Dalek creates a spaceship with a rather homely kitchen where she can cook soufflés and her final words are "run, you clever boy... and remember"; the other when entering the TARDIS doesn't know why but she asks if there is a kitchen as she likes cooking soufflés and her dying words are repeated from Oswin word for word.

Oswin seems the most obvious to be a creation of the Great Intelligence as it seems as if the version of reality she has created for herself is a way of living in denial that she is a Dalek. Could the Great Intelligence have taken over a Dalek and used a human persona not realising it was so strong a persona it would override the Dalek side of things? Another key thing to remember here is the Dalek asylum planet was covered in snow which at the time didn't raise any questions but now seems very likely to be a clue to the Great Intelligence's involvement.

I can't rule out Clara being a creation of the Great Intelligence either though as she acknowledges herself that she doesn't know why she says certain things (she even flat out says "I don't know why I said that") and her dying words (a repeat of Oswin's) seem incongruous to the rest of the deathbed conversation.

After sleeping on it and writing this blog I'm inclined to think both versions of the character we've seen so far are the Great Intelligence experimenting somehow and that the real Clara is the modern day version seen briefly at the end of The Snowmen and who I suspect will be the version to become the real new companion.

The only thing that seems out of place is The Snowmen version of Clara being far in advance of what the Great Intelligence was capable of in 1892 (it would take it another few decades before it could take over robotic Yetis after all) but as always Moffat is tricky though, and I love him all the more for it!