A childhood mingmong in Loughborough

Still trying to hunt down that somewhat important file. I did, however, find proof that I've been a sad, lonely and pathetic Doctor Who fan practically since the womb.

We had to make our own entertainment back in the mists of time (well, the 1990s). None of these shiny Doctor Who toys in bright orange packaging, or the internet, or mobile phones or non-terrestrial TV back in my day, y'know. (Well, the latter three did exist, they were just Very Expensive and we couldn't afford them). And TV used to closedown every night and start up again every morning, and if you got out of bed too early you had to sit through the testcard or Teletext teamed with lift music until the cartoons started. The SNES was the height of technology and Gameboys were the size of bricks with a two colour screen: black, and the bits that weren't black. None of these touch screen full-colour with a rechargeable battery wotsits. Basically, things were a bit crap. The Tories were in power back then, as well. Coincidence? I think not.

(c) Me, circa 1992-4 (Click to enlarge).

L-R: The Fourth Doctor, Romana, K9.

L-R: The Melkur (I think), K9, Me, The Fourth Doctor, the TARDIS, a Dalek.

'Fun Greetings of Dr Who'.

'How Dr Who met Erykah'

My artistic talents haven't particularly improved since the early-1990s.

I also discovered this - also from Doctor Who Magazine - which I'd completely forgotten about and means I can now technically include 'interviewing David Tennant' as one of my journalistic achievements. Excellent stuff.

What a spectacularly unexciting answer. For the record, an 'Erykah' cocktail would essentially be a Kalimotxo - not only does it contain two of my favourite things, but it's red, it's fruity, and has a bit of a kick to it. Though the Erykah-themed version would probably add a shot of absinthe in order to get everyone appropriately trashed.

Surviving

I just spent a very long time trying to hunt down a file on my hard drive. Naturally, I couldn't locate it. I did, however, find these cuttings from Doctor Who Magazine, dating back to sometime in 2007. Somewhat miraculously, two photos of myself that I don't utterly detest were chosen to delight/shock/repel/insertadjectivehere the nation's Doctor Who fans.

I look so young! It was only three years ago, I can't have got that old and haggard in the meantime, can I? I bloody miss being a fresher, though. Those were the days... I have no recollection of ever dying my hair black, but the photographic evidence is there for all to see. Very odd.

Survival is available from all good DVD retailers. The fan commentary for episode three is an unrivalled beacon of analytic skill and wit.

Oh, who am I kidding? They got four Doctor Who fans who could string a sentence together (one being the lovely Niall), locked them in a room with lots of wine, recorded the results then released the drunken ramblings internationally. I have only now, for the first time in three years, realised there's an empty wine glass on the table in front of me in that picture; it's such a common occurance. I don't even drink that much, I just seem to continually end up in photographs with empty alcohol vessels. I suspect that even at my graduation, I'll still somehow end up clutching a bottle of wine rather than a scroll in all my official photos.

I'm mildly concerned this is the type of thing that may well come back to haunt me in fifty years time. I could win the Nobel Prize for Literature and still be asked if I really did want to marry Matthew Waterhouse when I was five. (Answer: yes. But then I reached the lofty heights of six years old and switched my affections to Sam West instead. He was in Dimensions in Time AND The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, I still would be madly in love with him had he not also aged fifteen years and started to look a bit too much like his dad).