Month: October 2019

The Sound of Silence

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in 1980s, Childhood, Doctor Who

No more Doctor Who, oh dear.

I’ve spent the past 18 months (even now, it’s hard as a Doctor Who fan to see the phrase ’18 months’ and not get a bit of a shudder) listening to the audio releases of the Missing Episodes of Doctor Who, from the 1960s. They’ve been an ideal accompaniment to many steamy hours of ironing, and to really seal the deal they’ve been available for free. (Well, free with Mrs Curnow’s £7.99 monthly subscription to Audible – in other words, free to me, which is what I’m interested in.)

I’ve not done ALL the missing episodes, to be tediously nitpicky. Those stories which are largely complete but just missing a bit here and there, and which in most cases have been animated/reconstructed to allow the ‘complete’ story to be released on DVD, I’ve not bothered with those. But where the stories are almost entirely, or indeed entirely entirely, absent, I’ve worked my way through them, which means that not only have I been thoroughly entertained (most of the time) but by crikey we’ve been up to date with our ironing, for the past year and a half.

So anyway, now, I’ve finished them.

I started with Marco Polo, the earliest missing story of all, but after that I was determined to plot a random course through the miscellaneous selection of monster fests and history lessons. Abominable Snowmen, Ancient Trojans, Space Pirates, and even the odd Dalek or two, I’ve heard them all.

In most cases I knew the gist of the story but nothing more, and while a couple of stories have disappointed (Galaxy 4 and, especially, the seemingly never-ending Dalek Masterplan) in most cases it’s been a real thrill to hear them. In fact the last two, which have been the generally-unregarded (or, if regarded, generally-abused) The Space Pirates and The Smugglers, were both far more enjoyable than their reputations suggested.

To Doctor Who fans there’s something very tantalising about these missing episodes. There are some people who seem unable to get past the fact that they’re missing at all, but that way can only lead to unhappiness because I think it safe to say the chances of them all reappearing are very very slim indeed.

Granted, it was certainly a shock to this 10 year old’s system to discover that anything was missing (and how much!) when our old friend Doctor Who Magazine first broached the subject back in 1981 – but it did at least explain why the BBC had chosen to repeat The Krotons rather than The Tomb of the Cybermen earlier that year.

Since then, of course, Tomb has turned up (as any keen Doctor Who fan, or indeed avid follower of the very early episodes of Eldorado will know) so to anybody under the age of 30 it’s never really been a ‘lost’ story at all. There were about 140 episodes missing back in 1981, but the best part of four decades has knocked that down to double figures (just) with the current missing tally standing at 97.

For all that this means there’s a whole heap of absent material, I must admit I sort of like it like that. There’s a whole array of exciting memories in the discovery of Tomb; or a couple of episodes of The Dalek Masterplan being found in a Mormon Church; or The Celestial Toymaker’s last episode popping up in Australia. Not to mention the nine mid-Troughton episodes which were dramatically unveiled to the world just in time for the 50th Anniversary in 2013 – Yeti in the Underground, what could be more Doctor Who than that?!

We might never find any more, although the exciting possibility of spotting some unexamined, overlooked film can has got me through more than one otherwise-tedious car boot sale – just as the lovingly-recorded soundtracks have got me through more than one session of ironing!

The search (and, alas, the laundry) goes on…

Catch Up? Head Down

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Family, Friends

I managed to avoid Curnow’s First Law of Shopping today.

For anybody unfamiliar with this it’s not, alas, anything to do with getting out without paying. I think there probably is some kind of Law relating to that too; but no, Curnow’s First Law of Shopping is, simply put, if you spot somebody that you want to avoid, you will then inevitably bump into them on your way around the shop.

It’s occurred often enough to be an established, if not exactly scientifically-recognised, fact – and it of course leads on to Curnow’s related Second Law which is, the amount of time the person you don’t want to bump into wants to spend talking to you when you do inevitably bump into them, will be inversely proportional to how much time you have available to talk.

Having established all that then, and as my opening line has already indicated, in an ‘exception proves the rule’ kind of scenario I managed to (a) spot somebody I knew but didn’t really want to spend time talking to; but also (b) managed to avoid them, both in the shop and also (which is sometimes the place where you least expect it, just as you’re thinking you’ve got away with it) the car park outside.

Of course, all this unproven nonsense is really just me skirting around the issue – which is, surely, how terribly antisocial and unfriendly I must be (misanthropic even, if you want to go there) to be actively avoiding people in such a manner.

I certainly can’t imagine my grandparents sneaking around the shop hoping to avoid people. Indeed, both sets of grandparents (in all ways, a better breed of men/women) had bungalows laid out with a huge sitting-room window right beside the front door – which meant that anybody calling on them, would see them sat there before they even got as far as ringing/knocking… which also meant it was quite impossible to pretend you weren’t in and just wait for them to go away!

In part, I think it’s because my brain works in a very ‘pigeon-holed’ manner. That is, I expect to see certain people in certain places and am prepared accordingly. When I see the ‘wrong’ people in the ‘wrong’ place, when/where I’m not expecting them (when, in other words, they’re in the wrong pigeon-hole) it throws my brain into a state of confusion which only serves to ramp up my natural tendency towards social (or maybe I mean, sociable?) awkwardness and a general lack of chit-chattery.

Also, though, in a probably less-than-rational way, I feel the constant pressure of time. Today, accompanied by my other half, it took almost six hours for us to ‘pop to the shops’ so I accept that other opinions are available – but my own take is that I’m not there for pleasure, I’m there to get in, get the job done, and get home, with the minimum of fuss and spending. And time.

That’s why, while I was keeping my head discretely down today in le café Morrisons, I was also worrying over the vast collection of work clothing and bedding waiting back home to go through the wash. Of stairs in need of hoovering and dogs in need of feeding.

I suppose, to unexpectedly bung in a Biblical analogy at this late stage, I’m more a Martha than a Mary (I’ve been called worse) and although I’ve always thought it unfair in that story to label the former as entirely in the wrong, the general sense that sometimes what we think is the most important thing actually isn’t, is a fair comment. I probably oughtn’t to go too long before feeding the dogs, but hoovering the stairs can maybe wait if somebody pops up for a chat.

Although… maybe it’s not the pigeon-hole mentality at all, or the ticking clock. Maybe I just don’t care enough to stop and chat. I don’t think that’s the case, but it is true that I’m not really a people person, mainly because of… No, never mind.

I don’t want to talk about it.

The C-Word

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Childhood, Christmas, Doctor Who, Family, Writing

I’ve been thinking, whisper it, about Christmas.

For the past couple of years, I’ve posted a daily ‘advent blog’ on Facebook, mixing Christmas thoughts and memories with the occasional moan and the odd gag or two. It’s something I’d been thinking about, in a rather casual and disorganised way, for a few years before finally getting my act together in 2017 – and my ego was sufficiently flattered by some of the responses, to give it another spin last year.

As it turned out, some of what I thought I remembered from the Christmasses of my youth was entirely wrong – meaning, for example, that there is now a cloud of uncertainty over the exact nature of my Gran’s stuffing recipe; and it would also appear I entirely imagined what I had previously considered a firm, even eidetic memory of the late-70s, of my Dad measuring the boot of our car to see if my brother’s new Pot Black table would fit in it. I can’t recall whether it did or didn’t, but apparently that trip back home to spend Christmas with family in Cornwall never happened either, so it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

Nevertheless, there’s fun to be had – in part, it’s been interesting to see what does and doesn’t grab people’s attention. Morecambe & Wise in 2017 got barely a reaction at all, much to my surprise; whereas what I thought would be greeted with little more than a polite shrug, the fact that I’d never seen the ‘Batman & Robin’ episode of Only Fools, turned into a full blown debate on the Trotters.

So, and anyway, I’m in the throes of debating with myself whether or not to do it all again this year. On the one hand, I’m not certain that I have enough thoughts and topics and complaints and opinions, to fill 24 days. But… on the other hand, doing a third batch and billing it as definitely the last might allow me to riff off Peter Davison’s “I met Patrick Troughton in a car park” anecdote, which is sinfully tempting.

Hence I’ve been thinking, and occasionally writing, about Christmas today, from musing over when exactly calendars became such huge business, to what mince pies are made of, to who invented pigs in blankets. A cursory glance over those three topics sort of highlights my problem I feel – namely, that the really big subjects (Father Christmas/Nativity Plays/Putting the tree up) have already been done.

It has, though, given me just a small insight into the world of entertainment. Not, I hasten to add, that I’d want anybody to confuse my Facebook posts with entertainment (I suspect there’s probably no danger of that, but even so). What I mean is, it reminded me that many of the Christmas TV shows we’ll be watching later this year are probably already in the can.

I recall Steven Moffat writing in Doctor Who Magazine (see, Magazine, it doesn’t even call itself a comic) during the Summer of 2010, to say that it was a glorious Summers day, but that he was sat inside listening to Carols and other Festive music, desperately trying to get into the right frame of mind to write the Christmas Special that was soon to start filming.

Now obviously, I’ve not got Matt Smith impatiently waiting for my words of wisdom (and frankly if Karen Gillan was here, it’d be an awful waste to spend my time writing on a laptop) but even so, I can’t exactly wait until 1st December and then spend three and a half weeks just winging it.

So, reluctant as I am to admit it, and although I sometimes (by which I mean, specifically, in 1st December 2018’s Facebook post) moan about it starting earlier every year, Christmas is already underway.

May the Lord have mercy on my soul.