Is YOUR Neighbour A Dalek?

Ten Questions That Cut To The Chase1. Some leaves have fallen into your garden from your neighbours tree. You go round to complain. What do they do?
a) apologise and offer to sweep the leaves up.
b) slam the door in your face.
c) try and turn you into a Roboman.

2. The sewer in your street is blocked. When the council come round to investigate what do they find it is full of?
a) incorrectly disposed of foodstuff; rice, fat and tea leaves.
b) tree roots.
c) hideous mutant embryos, flushed into the sewers for not conforming to strict purity standards.

3. What do your neighbours listen to on the radio?
a) Radio One.
b) The Archers.
c) Dalek propaganda.

4. Your neighbour's cat has gone missing, how do they react?
a) put up posters.
b) get a new cat
c) trundle around the garden shrieking,”prisoner has escaped! I have failed! I have failed! Self destruct! I have failed - destruct! I have failed - destruct! Failed! Failed! Failed!” and then exploding.

5.What shape is your neighbour's body?
6. Your neighbour says they are going out to get a funky new look, do they come back with
a) a trendy perm like Paul Michael Glaser.
b) something from Marks and Spencer.
c) a brightly coloured, glossy paint job and a bigger, bulkier frame.

7. What does your neighbour drive?
a) a Ford Fiesta.
b) they don't have a car.
c) a giant flying saucer

8. What is your neighbour's idea of a good night out?
a) go down the pub
b) a trip to the cinema, and then out for a meal.
c) hanging around Canary Wharf fighting with Cybermen.

9.You are dancing with your neighbour at a party when your cardigan becomes wrapped around their head. How does your neighbour react, do they?
a) laugh it off and say accidents will happen.
b) ask you to be more careful.
c) start shrieking “my vision is impaired, I cannot see!” and blunder around crashing into the furniture before finally falling out of the window and exploding again.

10. What are your neighbour's etheric beam locators like?
a) unremarkable.
b) medium.
c) round, firm, and able to locate etheric beam emissions at a distance of up to 20,000 light years.

Scores:
A=1, B=2, C=3, D=You must have been filling in another quiz

Less than 10: Nothing to worry about here. Your neighbour is definitely not a Dalek.
10-20: Your neighbour is probably okay. You can sleep safe in your bed without worrying about being exterminated, or turned into a pig slave.
20-30: There is something fishy about your neighbour. He may not be a Dalek but for safety you may want to try completing another of our other quizes: Is Your Neighbour A Silurian, Is Your Neighbour Kroll, or Is Your Neighbour a Vashta Nerada.
30: Panic! Your neighbour is a Dalek. Evacuate the area immediately and notify the local anti-Dalek Force.
TOMORROW: Is Your Lodger A Time Lord?

I See Through You

Last week Shouting Into A Well gave you the first in a set of splendid Doctor Who Invisible Characters And Spaceships Trading Cards and showed you how to build a display stand for those cards as a fun family project (pictured above).

Your next two cards are shown below

There are seven cards to collect in all. Refusians from the story The Ark; Visians from The Daleks' Masterplan; Spiridons from Planet Of The Daleks; Xoanon's Projections from The Face Of Evil; Krafayis from Vincent And The Doctor; Skagra's invisible spaceship from Shada; and the Family's invisible spaceship from Family Of Blood.

Thanks to a cunning random generating algorithm no two people who view this page will get the same cards, so why not print them out and try trading cards with friends to see if you can complete the whole set.

(above) SWAP SHOP: In the Invisible City of Kitezh fans hold up duplicate Invisible Character Cards for exchange. In the background the invisible man, invisible woman and invisible dog form a pyramid as Sue Storm and the Martian Manhunter (J'onn J'onzz ) use their powers of invisibility while performing a daring high-wire act. To the left of the frame Predator uses his cloaking device while balancing on the top of James Bond's car from Die Another Day. Overhead Wonder Woman does barrel rolls in her invisible plane along with a cloaked Romulan Warbird. Not pictured, Hades wearing his helmet of invisiblity.

It's Reciprocal Links Friday!

Just like Apollo-Soyuz, or the fictional “Hands Across Space” mission between the United States and Soviet Union in the 1979 Quatermass serial*, Shouting Into A Well has joined forces with fanzine Venusian Spearmint. In it's latest issue Venusian Spearmint was good enough to print a plug for this blog and your big-hearted Shouting Into A Well publisher has agreed to cross-pollinate in return [sub:please check that last phrase].

Venusian Spearmint is an A4 fanzine that covers everything from Doctor Who, to Law And Order, to Neil's Heavy Concept Album, to Lost. Being edited by an American living in London the fanzine brings a different perspective to things that it's easy for UK viewers to take for granted, like not being able to see Genesis Of The Daleks as anything except a two and a half hour movie. In these twenty-four-hour-internet-only-retweeted-blog-days it's really good to see people continuing the proper printed fanzine traditions...

and it's free!

To get a copy simply drop an email to this address.
That's venusianspearmint at yahoo dot com (in your face spambots!)
For the full effect you'll need to print it out; obviously.

*hopefully not exactly like the Hands Across Space Mission, what with everyone concerned dying horribly when that mission is zapped by alien space-lightning.

That's The Problem With Second Hand Planets

Why Don't They Call?

Doctor Who Monsters Slam Heartless BBC Recasting Policy

Scythia the Silurian no longer spends her time sitting by the phone, hope has turned to disappointment. "When we heard that the Silurians were returning to Doctor Who, everyone in my clutch-brood was excited but after a while we realised the BBC were not going to phone and ask us to be in the new series. It was such a shame.”

But the Silurians are not the only Doctor Who villains to be left out in the cold by Steven Moffat and his heartless Doctor Who mandarins. We spoke to heartless Doctor Who Mandarin, the Celestial Toymaker.

“I was the original and best,” fumes the Celestial Toymaker, “I was the one who came up with the idea of playing games with the Doctor and his friends.”

“When I head that a story this year featured the Doctor caught in a terrible game of choice I thought I was a shoe-in but I quickly heard back that the BBC thought my approach was old fashioned.”

“Games like hunt the thimble, hopscotch, and blind man's bluff are timeless. Anyway I offered to meet the BBC half way,” the Toymaker gestures angrily to a pile containing Ludo, Snakes And Ladders, a Vectrex console and a first edition Dungeons And Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide. “They made some feeble excuse about Health And Safety, before finally admitting that they though I was out of date! Then the BBC stopped returning my telegrams.”

“The Dream Lord?" The Toymaker sneers, “he's just an aspect of the Doctor's personality. Getting the same person to play two parts is simply a way for the BBC to cut down on the casting budget.”

“Would you like to play one of my games?” The Celestial Toymaker asks, pulling out a Cluedo set,” I've lost the Lead Pipe and the Revolver, so we'll have to make do with this piece of Lego and a lump of Blue tac, but I've still got most of the cards and we can use the dice from Monopoly.” At this point our reporter made his excuses and left.

Ironically in their quest for the new, Doctor Who bosses also ignored an already established aspect of the Doctor's personality, the Valeyard. “I couldn't believe what I saw a couple of Saturdays ago,” the Valeyard seethes, “what is the point of creating another version of the Doctor's dark side?” “I'm a distillation of all the Doctor's evil between his twelfth and final regenerations, or something. I plotted to overthrow the High Council of the Time Lords; or steal the Doctor's remaining regenerations; I think; I had a Particle Disseminator and everything, although I forget what that was for. I definitely did put the Doctor on trial for his life, although I forget why I did that now. It seemed like a good idea. Anyway I'm pretty sure I survived. It was a crazy, confusing time. Colin Baker's coat gave me a migraine.”

Some however refuse to believe the BBC could treat them in the same way. “Get offffff the liine fooolisssssssssh hummaaaan,” The Ice Warriors told us.” The BBC could beeeee aaaatemptiiiiing to calllllll ussssssss right nooooow.”

We phoned the Rani for a comment but she was out getting her hair done.

1963 And All That

Being A Nice And Accurate Guide To The Complete History Of Doctor Who

Chapter XXVI: The Gathering Storm.
Russell T. Davies: The Welsh Nightingale

Russell The Davies, often abbreviated to Russell T. Davies, was born in a boat in the small Welsh village of Upper on 23rd November 1963. A figure of great importance in Davies' early life was the local Policeman, Dennis The Potter; known locally as the Singing Detective after his many appearances at Icetedfodd, the Welsh equivalent of the Ice Capades. When Davies was choosing a career he spoke to Potter and asked his advice. “Go west, young man,” Potter told him, and go west Davies did; to London where he planned to seek his fortune as a writer.

Unfortunately at the time the BBC Charter allowed only one Welshman to work within the city walls of London. The current BBC Welshman was Terry The Nation (or the National Treasure as he became known in his small Welsh home town of Swansea after he found the keys of the Marina) who wrote jokes for the Daleks, and later created the science-fiction series Hancock's Half Hour Journey Into Space. With London no longer an option Davies travelled instead to Manchester where he wrote his first script Century Falls, starring the titanic actress Kate Winslett as The Falls and Jaqqueline Pearce as The Century.

When Terry The Nation left London for Los Angelsey the post of Welshman to the BBC became vacant and Davies returned to the city in triumph. This became known as the Second Coming and was the subject of Davies' next script Mine All Mine which celebrated the events that led to him becoming Lord Mayor of Cardiff after winning the small city during a raffle held at the Welsh BAFTAs.

In 2005 Davies was startled by a Yeti on his toilet in Tooting Broadway and became fascinated by aliens of London. Inspired he created the idea for a new science fiction television series, a remake of Doctor Who, which became a smash hit after the script for one episode was written in forty five minutes to avert World War 3.

And the rest is history [citation needed].

Next Week: Chapter XXV He Who Calls The Piper Plays The Companion: In which Russell T. Davies is replaced by little Miss Muffat and her tuffet (Matt Smith or possibly Amy Pond).

I'm On A Seafood Diet