Deadbeats

Velvet Goldmine

Posted by The Powers That Be, Monday, 15 November 2004 at 3:33 am, EST

There’s something coming to Stockton.

The residents feel it, a genetically wired race memory of foreign intrusion, the hackles on the back of their neck raising even as the family dog lifts its head to a Northern night sky and begins to howl. Within hours they’re herding the children into the back of the Mondeo and making for the safety of the hills. By Friday night the streets are empty but for the occasional lonely piece of gutter trash spiralling its way in the lamplight, uncertain of where to go.

They’re here.

And they’re wearing scarves.

The last time I had the decency to spice this column up a bit by travelling away and becoming your roving anorak I was in Perth, Australia. This time the journey was only slightly shorter but the destination a tad less glamorous.

I’m in Teesside.

They speak less English here than in Australia.

Ooh, but that was unnecessarily cruel.

The reason I’ve brought my cultured tones to the land of the elongated vowel? I’m wearing my anorak even tighter than normal. I’m here for a Doctor Who convention.

Time to put my time honoured anorakism principles to the test then.

I’m cheating of course, I pretty much know what to expect, my hymen of convention respectability having been well and truly breached about five years ago (in Coventry; it was surprisingly gentle with me but did leave me with a funny taste in my mouth and a curt letter on my pillow).

I know by now to expect a smattering of costumed attendees, their ability to hold conversation frequently proportionate to the florid-ity of their waistcoats. Why, a few hours ago I had the life changing sight of watching a faux Tom Baker make out with an equally faux Peter Davison within the shadows of an hotel bar, a thrashing and sighing mess of curly hair and striped cricket trouser, I look forward to the result nine months down the line. I am in no doubt that it will be stitched into a suitable costume the minute the umbilical is cut and I shall make its acquaintance this time next year.

Previous conventions offered many a child in costume but usually with the equally pleasurable sight of a bored parent trailing behind it (the look on its face being, at best, bemusement; at worst utter arse-shattering fear; as if their offspring has just revealed a new found love of sexual perversion and they really have to attend the golden shower panel after lunch). This time though, it’s in reverse, fan parents helping to keep national bullying statistics high by calling their child Romana and forcing them to wear hand stitched frock coats in social situations. This will no doubt turn out to be deeply character building and, hating kids anyway, I’m disinclined to worry; let the fuckers deal with it in counselling later. I had the shit beaten out of me at school and it never did me any harm.

(I spent thirty pounds this weekend on a four-foot inflatable dalek, feel free to disagree with the above statement.)

Still, it’s all in the name of good clean fun. Don’t let my naturally dry and scathing manner lead you to believe otherwise.

Thanks to the gentle tutelage of the Dalek Builder’s Guild, I now have an overriding fondness for the words ‘hemisphere’ and ‘dome’; thanks to Gary Russell I now dream of skiing down women’s breasts; thanks to Conrad Westmaas, I jealously fear Nick Brigg’s sense of humour to be darker and more twisted than my own — this remains unproven, you understand, I will want some form of officially governed test before relinquishing my reputation; thanks to Doug ‘Finch’ Inman, I’ll probably spend the next few days crippled with mucoid head death.

Swings and roundabouts then.

The hotel staff have been as baffled as usual, no doubt crying themselves to sleep nightly for having neither the foresight nor option to have booked this weekend off work. The management however, are overjoyed to realise that if there’s one unifying factor amongst Doctor Who fans it’s their capacity for drink. Fortunes have been made this weekend even as fan’s bank balance’s have taken a good and solid shafting.

(Hmm… I just pictured ‘Tom’ and ‘Peter’ again, the continued use of analogy may have to be carefully monitored.)

There is, predictably, a resounding lack of comprehension from the few residents brave enough to stay within the town, perceived notions of fandom leading them to nail garlic at their windows and crosses on their doors (with one notable exception, a taxi driver who, having heard Kate O’Mara had been present proceeded to outline quite how enthused he was at the notion of ‘giving her one’ - had I had the chance to put his offer forward I would have been only too glad; if his performance is as enthusiastic as his chat she would have been bandy for a week with her eyes turned a subtle pastel colour.) There is, as with every cliché, a degree of truth to their view of us. Yes I’ve been surrounded by the hollow and the lonely, the twisted and the bizarre, the obsessional and the demented but you know what? They surround me every day, due to one single inalienable factor.

We’re all only human.

And, as in all gatherings of a suitable number there have been the usual diversifications, for every Tom Baker wig there has been a product-spiked coiffure of gay glam. For every velvet clad whisperer there was the loud drunken roar of a t-shirt and jeans leaning on a bar.

So sit there and mock from a distance by all means but I’m always going to win. Do you know why? Because when I feel that twinge of being the outsider, begin to question my thoughts, desires, taste, when I get that brittle fear of being ‘not we’. Or, heaven forbid, just fancy a bit of a laugh. Well…

I’ve got somewhere to go.

You’ll know where to find me, I’m the giggling fool in the corner, smoking up a fury and watching a man that has become Pat Troughton for the weekend dry-hump his wife in her Cyberman Costume.

Either that or I’ll be chilling in the bar with the usual wonderful mix of society. There’ll be plenty of us, Indulging in our usual joyful obsession, our passion.

Where will you be?

G.

Spread the love, it’s good for your skin.

	Read: Bernice Summerfield Novels - Various At the time of writing there is a whorish offer of all six paperbacks for a tenner which inclines me to believe these fine books didn’t sell half as well as they had a right to. Big Finish’s entire Benny Summerfield output (books and audio dramas) has been a joy no doubt overlooked by many fans. Put it this way: As an actor and writer I would be just as, if not more, enthused at the notion of working on the series as their Doctor Who range. Let fellow anoraks comprehend the weight of that compliment and then spend their money. Lisa Bowerman gives Aural pleasure and I intend to write such on the walls of as many public conveniences as the ink in my marker pen will allow.
	Listen: Arrangements for War - Paul Sutton To prove Owen wrong and Gary right. A fine and rich play that manages to convey drama, time and emotion that belies the odd bad review it has received as the witterings of dribblers. An audio with a genuine and affecting sense of scope.
	Watch: Big Finish Talks Back - Paul McGann A superb DVD that captures the bizarre contradiction of this fine actor, a man who is as intense as he is calm, usually both at the same time. Witty, perceptive and with a career filled with just the sort of stories that make a DVD (or, indeed, a Convention Panel) fly by. Also features an interview with McGann joined by India Fisher (his co-star in the Big Finish dramas). At which point he becomes, well… A flirt frankly.

Note: This column is respectfully dedicated to Dean’s mentals, Kim’s tits, Lee’s Nurses and Gary’s cows.
Baker Scarf: Lee Thompson, scholar, gent and dedicated follower of fashion.
Excess Perversion: Model’s own
Photo’s taken by Guy Adams & Phil Jarrett.

Brought to you with an unapologetic bias towards the output of Big Finish, having found, much to my shame, that ‘artistic director’ Gary Russell is a far finer chap than I had expected him to be.

(Unless, of course, he should happen to read this, in which case he’s a 100%, satisfaction guaranteed, fur-lined, ocean going, G-List Celebrity free-loader. No sense in swelling the man’s head.)

Categories: Anorakism, Doctor Who, drink drink and more drink

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