Glasgow Who | Doctor Who Blog

As you probably know, we will be manning our usual tablefull of Doctor Who goodness at this year’s fabulous Collectormania at the Braehead Arena on 29 and 30 August (that’s next weekend, fact fans!)

We’re fully covered for the Sunday but we need one or two brave souls to help man our table on the Saturday…

If you think you have what it takes to help us sell the group (plus our Nabil Shaban event and a few photos,) let us know!

Ideally, we’re looking for someone who can be there for the whole day… but if you can only make it in the morning, or just in the afternoon, we may be able to fill our slot (ooh err missus!) with two people rather than one! (Yikes!)

Just let us know on this thread (or by PM if you’re shy!) and we’ll let you know the arrangements!

(Please don’t be offended if you ask to help and you’re not chosen - we will hopefully find someone to fill the gap quickly and we’ll have to get arrangements made as quickly as possible… so don’t hang about if you want to help us out!)

Cheers!

Al.

To quote the opening line of Dragonfire - you lucky, lucky people!

 Glasgow is awash with events and activities for the discerning Doctor Who fan over the next month or so.

 We kick off with the next meeting of the local Torchwood fan club this Thursday evening, run by the lovely Leigh. Just pop along to the Crystal Palace from 7pm and look out for people talking Torchwood at the comfy couches by the window. Beers will be imbibed, chat will be partaken of and a good time will generally be had by all comers. Lovely!

Then, a little over a week later, the sheer loveliness of Collectormania Glasgow once more descends upon those of us lucky enough to be in the vicinity of the Braehead Arena over the weekend of 29 August. Doctor Who guests confirmed to date include Peter Davison, Mary Tamm, Sophie Aldred and Dave Prowse… (I’m led to believe the latter has also appeared in some film series or other but I wouldn’t know about that. Star Warts or something. I think it’s the shocking story of celebrities in space contracting a variety of disfiguring carbunkles.) It’s well worth popping along as, apart from anything else, your very own local Dr Who group will once more have a table at the event, plying our wares. (That’s us, by the way, in case you hadn’t guessed…) We should hopefully have some exciting news by then so please pop over and have a chat!

Meanwhile, over in Edinburgh, there’s still time to catch the lovely Katy Manning in her one woman show at the fringe, hot on the heels of the wonderful event Martin and the Edinburgh group arranged at the start of the month.

Then we high tail it into September (already?! It feels as though May’s Army of Guests were only yesterday…) And week one, as always, sees our triumphant return to The Crystal Palace from 7pm onwards on Sunday 5 September. I’m sure uncle Bryan has been slaving away in his meetings lab, concocting something exciting for us all to partake in amidst the booze and chatter… but I shall leave it to his good self to reveal the results of his dabblings…

And, of course, the end of September (the 27th, to be precise) sees our next event of our very own, The Whole Shaban - An Afternoon with Nabil Shaban, between 14:30 and 19:30 at Trader Joe’s on Hope Street. Amidst the traditional blend of interviews, autographs and photographs, we have one or two very exciting little additions… which we can’t tell you about just yet! And all this for just a tenner! Bargain! Buy your tickets quickly or you will miss out on a fantastic day!

And, not wishing to go too far into the future just yet, but fans of the recently released Delta and the Bannermen will be interested to hear that Agent Hawke himself, Morgan Deare, will be appearing in The Stripper at the King’s Theatre in the first week of October. Ticket prices for the play start at a very reasonable £14.75.

So keep your eyes peeled for even more Dalek-table goodness and we’ll see you at one (if not all!) of these fabulous events!

Cheers!

Al.

What a brilliant Sunday (2^nd August)

After wiping the sleep from my eyes I took the bus into the city centre just after 8 and typically it looked like it was going to rain. I took my umbrella and typically I never used it.
Just before 9 I arrived at the Crystal Palace where Alan and John Hughes were already waiting for our lift, Rintu.

Rintu turned up just after 9 and we were in the city of Edinburgh just before 10 and trying to figure out how to get to the Illicit Still. Alan can never remember the way and everyone else was just as bad!

When we did arrive, after going up the road Alan ignored and told us not to go up in the first place, we all arrived at the venue just after 10. Katy Manning was sitting talking to Martin near the front door and she was greeting everyone who came in. Just after 10.30 we all sat down with our coffees (unfortunately drink couldn’t be served until 12.30) and started Katy came onto the stage.

What a witty woman. I have never known someone to be so engaging and she has so many anecdotes of her life and her time on Doctor Who. I never knew she was friends with Liza Minnelli and she’s such a versatile voice artist. She certainly isn’t anything like Jo Grant’s perceived naivety and under all the scattiness there is a very underestimated and intelligent woman. A joy to listen to and I would like to once again on behalf of the group thank Martin and the team in Edinburgh for a brilliant few hours.

Alan also announced in Edinburgh Nabil Shaban will be with us in Glasgow on 27^th September and he’s already posted a lengthy blog for this so I’ll skip over it.

Photos

Well, what about the photos for the new series filming. Is it me or is Karen Gillan just stunning in whatever she wears. There is even a photo of a recurring guest star but I’ll say no more just now, it’s really a spoiler still.

Forum

The Randomiser is swinging into action and the Fan Fiction section of the Forum is still being looked at but our concentration will be on Nabil’s event between now and September 27^th so any new things for the forum will probably be put on the back burner.

Website

The website as you already know crashed on Monday (27^th July) and didn’t come back up until the following day. We are working behind the scenes to improve this and prevent such a major server failure from happening again. Using a hammer and spade just doesn’t do the job in fixing server quickly nowadays…

There are mumblings that the gremlins of the group are doing something. I’ll let our events gremlin say more…

Till next time I’ll leave you a picture of Rintu, Me and Alan with Katy. Guess which one has had the drink!

Barry

Hello, hello, hello you lovely, lovely people!

Hot on the heels of the frankly fabulous Katy Manning event which was hosted by our friends at the Edinburgh local group this past weekend (what do you mean you weren’t there? You missed a fantastic day…,) we’re pleased to announce that the events bandwagon is rolling once more in a Glasgow-wise direction.

In fact, with so many brilliant guest events this year in Scotland (what do you mean you weren’t at Army of Guests in May either??!! You didn’t know about Collectormania next month??!! You’re just not trying hard enough..!!) you could even say it’s a bit of a Sil-ly season for Scottish fans…

Especially when, on Sunday 27 September 2009, from 14:30 to 19:30, Glasgow Who, The Glasgow Doctor Who Society, proudly present The Whole Shaban, a unique chance to meet actor, writer and director Nabil Shaban, the man behind the most iconic villain of the 1980s, Sil, the profiteering Mentor from the planet Thoros Beta.

Nabil made two appearances in classic Doctor Who - his debut in 1985’s Vengeance on Varos, followed by Mindwarp, part of the following season’s epic Trial of a Time Lord.

So Varos, so goodos!

Nabil has had a fascinating career, ranging from Dr Who to films with Patrick Swayze and Clive Owen to competing with David Tennant for the 2005 Theatre Critics of Scotland Best Actor award, and we’re delighted to be able to welcome such a fascinating guest to Glasgow.

The event will have the usual blend of interviews, photo opportunities and autograph sessions, along with competitions and much, much more! You could even say it’s an event the way they’re Mentor be…

Standard Tickets are just £10.00 and include admission and one free autograph. Gold Tickets are also available for £20.00 and include front row seats, an extra free autograph and first place in all queues. (NB - There are only 6 Gold Tickets available and 2 have already been sold! So Nab yours before they’re all gone!)

To buy your tickets by post, send a cheque (made payable to “Glasgow Who”) to Alan G McWhan, Top Right Flat, 12 Percy Street, Cessnock, Glasgow, G51 1NY along with details of where to send your tickets

To buy in person, come along to our next regular meeting at the Crystal Palace, (Sunday 6 September 2009 from 7pm,) or keep an eye out for additional meetings

To buy online, visit http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/glasgowwho/nabil.html or visit our main website at http://www.glasgowwho.co.uk and follow the links

There are also places for just 4 lucky attendees to join Nabil for lunch before or dinner after the event! Attendance at each of these exclusive meals costs just £5 per person plus the price of your meal! (NB You must have a ticket for the main event in order to book a place at either meal. We cannot guarantee the availability of Marsh Minnows at either meal.)

As there are only 4 places at each meal, you’d (Thoros) Beta be quick if you want to take part…!

Full details are available, as ever, from our main website at http://www.glasgowwho.co.uk, and you can join in the discussion of the event on the forum at http://forum.glasgowwho.co.uk

So join us on 27 September 2009 for The Whole Shaban!

Go on - give us your Sil of approval!

Cheers!

Al.

(This announcement has been sponsored by The Glasgow and Surrounding Areas Awful Pun Society.)

As you may know earlier in the week the site and the blog went down.

After many hours using a hammer and spade trying to kickstart the website we got it back up a day later.

The forum has a redirect link and this didn’t work either but if there is any issues in future there is a backdoor link. http://glasgowwho.phpbbhosts.co.uk. Keep a note of it for the future just in case.

This message is also on the forum.

Don’t worry guys I’m still here, things are getting a little busier for me thats all…

I have been busy on the forum this morning and to see the latest photo from the BBC Website Karen Gillian looks stunning in her 60’s style clothes and Matt Smith is looking very old-style professer.

They’ve started filming this morning so they’ll be lots to talk about on the Forum

 Speaking of the forum, The Randomiser is gearing nicely. Ok Ambassadors of Death is not a story I can actually watch but I’ve already put my review on for Destiny of the Daleks so I’m more involved this week on a story I can actually talk about at length!

A rather short post from me ‘cos apart from that there’s not much I can really comment about this week. 

Till next time.

 Barry

Well, today`s the day we `ve all been waiting for!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/misc/galleries/matt_and_karen_01

Not only do we get our first look at the 11the Doctor in costume, we also learn that Karen Gillan`s Character is called Amy Pond, there are some desert fatigues in the costume truck behind the two actors [possible future UNIT involvement?] and filming starts on Series Five TODAY!

Well, dunno about you lot but I discovered all this just about tennish in my local library [my own PC is on the blink] and rushed over to the Forum to post on my discovery - only to find that Uncle Alan had beaten me to it!

I dunno about the new look, a bit Troughton, a bit McCoy TV Movie.

But then I`m full of [hopefully unfounded] misgivings about Series Five so let`s just wait and see… 

In what has been an absolutely quiet week for me on the forum I have been watching from the sidelines and there are a few things I want to talk about in this blog.

Firstly, Torchwood. What a FANTASTIC week. I think I only rated episode 1 as 4/5 the rest were 5/5. The best piece of telly I’ve seen in ages.

The Randomiser has been plugging away rather nicely and for it’s first week it went OK, although it’s a little less response than I’d thought. This week is already looking better although my knowledge of Ambassadors of Death is patchy at best. Next week is Destiny of the Daleks and that it will be a different story. It was the first story I got on VHS so I’ve probably watched it the most and can pick holes in it from memory without having to refresh my memory like I did with Tooth and Claw.

It’s been over a week since the last meeting and more people have been adding themselves to the forum so the momentum is building. I’ve still to post over 100 messages and Alan is sneaking past Bryan in the posting stakes, abliet very briefly.  As I write this blog we’re waiting on post 800 but it might be me with my Blog plug…

So what’s next for Glasgow Who? Well some of us are going to see Katy Manning on August 2nd and then back to The Crystal Palace in the evening for our monthly meeting.

I am really dissapointed with one thing though, Bryan’s not doing a quiz next month!

Never mind

Till next time my friends, keep posting and most of all have fun on this little corner of the internet we call Glasgow Who

Barry

Weeks 3 and 4? I needed to post 26 entries to seal posting a weekly update as a habit, I’ve broken it in 3 weeks!

I suppose I could give an update on the Forum, but apart from the launch of The Randomiser, it’s really been ticking over.

The meeting last night (5th July) was only the second such outing where I’ve consumed Alcohol in 3 months so to match Rintu’s sentiments on the forum I was one of the more intoxicated ones. Saying that I have to admit if it wasn’t for that Alan McWhan fielding a team on his own for Whoniversity Challenge my team might have won. Oh well…

After getting a new phone I’ve managed for the first time to upload a photo on Twitter taken on the camera phone to our twitter profile. This photo is with Clarkie and his wife and with the magic of a laptop I can upload the picture here for all to see. I’ve also posted the picture on the website and I might do the same on the forum later but I just think it’s so cool.

Speaking of the Forum, you’ll of noticed I’ve rearranged the layout a little. It just tidies it up a bit.

That’s me for now, unlike Bryan I’ve not got the War Games DVD, not yet anyway…

Barry

It just keeps getting better and better.

Well, you know I was saying I hoped that more local groups would have their own sub forums. Mark from the Manx Anorax group contacted me asking if it was OK to setup a own thread for his group. I suggested one better and like the Taysiders, the Manx group now have their own sub forum under the World Community Section. I’ve still been posting and keeping an eye on threads in Gallifrey Base, Outpost Who and Outpost Gallifrey. I’ve also joined the Doctor Who World forum. I’m gonna put up a link on our website to theirs after they contacted us with a request to do so.
 You’ll have noticed that some of the users on the forum have become moderators. They’re special mods and all I can say is that “The Randomiser” that Alan has been promoting, cryptically, is part of it.

Finally, a couple of congrats are in order, both for Bryan McCormack. He’s been working to try and get some Scottish users of Outpost Gallifrey to come over and he’s done quite well to get what he has so far. Also Bryan is the first person to post over 100 times.  Great job Bryan!

Anyway, thanks for posting and keep doing so, there’s plenty to talk about.

Barry