It's sunset at The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House, dear blog reader. Keith Telly Topping calls this particular picture Night, She Come Quickly (2023). Pretty, isn't it?
The latest From The North bloggerisationism update begins, dear blog reader, with the following - necessary - reflection on the passage of time leaving empty lives, waiting to be filled. Here is a photo of Christmas Day 1975 in Downing Street. Prime Minister Harold Wilson and his good lady, Mary, are having a small informal gathering of fiends; including Tim Brooke-Taylor, Lis Sladen, Bill Pertwee, Roy Castle, Vera Lynn, John Le Mesurier, Ian Lavender, Eric Morecambe, Ronnie Barker, Ed Stewpot Stewart, Ernie Wise, Bill Oddie, Valerie Singleton and Tom Baker. And, no doubt, the sausage rolls were tremendous.
On a somewhat-related theme, here is a photo of Christmas Day 2022 at Downing Street. Temporary Prime Minister Mister Sunak is, it would appear, upholding this long-standing Downing Street tradition and hosting a small informal gathering for all of his close, personal fiends.
The following was spotted whilst this blogger was browsing on Deliveroo (other online delivery services are available). The name of the North East-based restaurant and/or takeaway involved has been deliberately withheld. Otherwise, dear blog reader, let's face it everyone would be wanting to order some of their, no doubt scrumptious, Cantonese Salt & Pepper Disease ...
Next, an illustration that just one missed space in a caption can have the most dramatic and devastating effect on the intended message being relayed to the public. Tragically, this is claimed to be a hoax. If so, then it's a jolly good one and the person responsible deserves his very own, ahem, stroke in the privacy of his own lavatory.
The Dundee Evening Telegraph, meanwhile, has a front page splash which appears to offer concrete proof that both 'Arnold Layne' and 'In The Middle Of The Night' were, actually, based on a real case. 'The arrest followed an undie-cover operation mounted by a mother and daughter who were losing their smalls,' the paper alleges. 'Nobody likes the idea of people with such a peccadillo creeping about at night. You just don't know where these things can lead.' The front page of the Dundee Evening Telegraph, seemingly.
Now, here's something you don't see every day, dear blog reader - three Doctors and the missus.
Whilst we've already had a short glimpse of what is set to come from Doctor Who in 2023 via a - really exciting - trailer, Russell Davies has revealed he originally planned to unveil a lot more, before thinking better of it. The trailer, unveiled on Christmas Day, took many fans by surprise, with the clip revealing new cast members including Ncuti Gatwa's first line as The Doctor. Writing in Doctor Who Magazine, Big Rusty explained: 'Those sixty seconds were originally designed as a much larger trailer, ninety seconds long, to go out after The Power Of The Doctor on 23 October 2022. A trailer for well, things that are still secret. Announcements of our bigger plans. But then we said, "no, too soon." And in fairness, we realised: this is Jodie's night, it's time for us to step back so we can all celebrate her, along with viewers across the world.' Davies has also revealed that the Christmas Day trailer includes no footage from 2023's second-of-three specials. Big Rusty previously said: 'If you thought the appearance of David Tennant was a shock, we've got plenty more surprises on the way. The path to Ncuti's Doctor is laden with mystery, horror, robots, puppets, danger and fun! And how is it connected to the return of the wonderful Donna Noble? How, what, why? We're giving you a year to speculate and then all Hell lets loose!'
New Doctor Who episodes might be ten months away but two more casting announcements have made. Big Rusty has confirmed that joining the likes of Neil Patrick Harris and Ruth Madeley in the sixtieth anniversary celebrations will be Ronak Patani, who is playing Major Singh who was seen, briefly, in the trailer released on Christmas Day. Patani has previously appeared in Andor, Call The Midwife and The Suspect. The casting of Coronation Street actor Jack Forsyth-Noble has also been confirmed for series fourteen. He will be playing a character named Will and told DWM: 'Russell has brought together a kind and incredibly talented team and to be a part of the first day of filming was really special. Audiences are in for a real ride!'
Yer man Bi Rusty also said recently that a figure seen, briefly, in the trailer for the anniversary specials is 'a mystery guest star' whom nobody had picked up on. Yet. He noted: 'The man with an umbrella and his back to camera, walking into the bright red shop in the rain. Who is he? That's a lovely guest star. Wonderful actor. Walking past, unnoticed.'
So, dear blog reader, we have had a number of big reveals in recent weeks giving us a sense of what Doctor Who will look like in Big Rusty's new era, whether it's casting announcements, costume reveals or spin-off suggestions. However, one thing that we still have little idea of is just what the newly designed TARDIS interior will look like - although we have received a few titbits from executive producer Joel Collins. Speaking in this month's Doctor Who Magazine, Collins said of the design: 'We talked thorough various concepts with Russell and there was one rough idea that was just too ambitious and too impossible - but which everybody loved. Once I'd put it in front of Russell, he's just too visually bright to unsee it. I'd go, "Yes, but it's completely mad, it's never going to happen." Then we started to say, "Okay, how do we make this impossible space possible?"' Collins continued: 'Phil [Sims, the production designer] brought in a brilliant engineer, who spent months trying to solve the engineering riddle of this impossible, logic-defying set, which no one in their right mind should ever have even drawn in the first place. But that kind of sums up the show.'
The latest issue of Deadline features a fascinating interview with BBC Studio's executive Tom Fussell, BBC Studios Boss Talks "Excellent" Doctor Who Deal, M&A And International Growth which you can have a right proper good gander at, here, dear blog reader. In 2021, BBC Studios announced it would for the first time co-produce Doctor Who with Bad Wolf. On the distribution side, BBC Studios has since signed a landmark global streaming agreement with Disney+, ending existing territory licensing deals in the process. The deal is one of the biggest struck in the commercial outfit's history.
After delighting Doctor Who fans with his return in The Power Of The Doctor, From The North favourite Peter Davison has said that he is 'always' up for another comeback, if asked. 'I'm always very happy to come back, he told Radio Times (which used to be run by adults). 'I was very envious of the special effects. We didn't have a lot - we're mainly down to green screen and rather cumbersome rubber monsters. It's a thrill to be a part of the digital age but, at the same time, when David Tennant first took over as the Doctor in 2006, I went along to see the filming. I was very pleased to see the actual programme - although it looked much better with all the special effects on the screen, it was still made with the same degree of chaos and panic and nobody knew what the heck they were doing, as it was when I made it. Nothing really ever changes, despite the technology.' He added of his appearance in The Power Of The Doctor: 'It was marvellous. Terrific. I never would have dreamt [sic] that in the Twenty First Century I'd be appearing in Doctor Who. I never thought I'd even be alive by this time! To have a series still going and still going strong and every few series it gets a new lease of life - and who knows if I'll get invited back again - but it's been a great thrill to be involved with and I've never been worried about that because I've always managed to work apart from it. It's fun to come back. When I get into the costume and I catch myself in the mirror, it's not quite so pleasant! You're not quite the same shape as you were back in 1982.'
And all of that, of course, brings us to that popular semi-regular From The North feature, Memorably Daft Double-Entendres In Episodes Of Doctor Whom (1963-2022). Number Ninety Four: Amy's Choice.
Memorably Daft Double-Entendres In Episodes Of Doctor Whom (1963-2022). Number Ninety Five: Forest Of The Dead.
Memorably Daft Double-Entendres In Episodes Of Doctor Whom (1963-2022). Number Ninety Six: What a sensible chap. Invasion Of The Dinosaurs.
Memorably Daft Double-Entendres In Episodes Of Doctor Whom (1963-2022). Number Ninety Seven: Journey's End.
Memorably Daft Double-Entendres In Episodes Of Doctor Whom (1963-2022). Number Ninety Eight: The Horns Of Nimon.
Memorably Daft Double-Entendres In Episodes Of Doctor Whom (1963-2022). Number Ninety Nine: I'm very much afraid it is, my dear. Vengeance On Varos.
Memorably Daft Double-Entendres In Episodes Of Doctor Whom (1963-2022). Number One Hundred: The Caves Of Androzani.
Anyway, dear blog reader, iPlayer hasn't been working on The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House widescreen tellybox over the last couple of days (probably because this blogger has just installed VPN and iPlayer, seemingly, wasn't entirely convinced that Keith Telly Topping was still Keith Telly Topping. Something which, on some days let it be noted, this blogger understands exactly what iPlayer's concerns were). Having contacted this blogger's tellybox supplier, explained the situation and been given a jolly useful little bit a neo-technobabble to help Keith Telly Topping get around the problem, suddenly iPlayer seemed to be working again. To test that it was working, therefore, this blogger went in the section where all one hundred and fifty five episodes of Doctor Who (post 2005) are stored and watched The Power Of The Doctor.
And then, Keith Telly Topping watched The Haunting of Villa Diodati.
And then, Keith Telly Topping watched Twice Upon A Time.
And then, Keith Telly Topping watched The Day Of The Doctor.
And then, Keith Telly Topping watched The Eleventh Hour.
And then, Keith Telly Topping needed a lie down after watching too much Doctor Who and went to bed. Bloody daft popular long-running BBC family SF drama. If only it wasn't so Goddamn addictive, Keith Telly Topping's life might've turned out 'normal' and he could, as a consequence, have developed the ability of being good at picking up girls and strutting his, if you will, funky stuff down at the local discothèque.
Ah well, those are the breaks, one supposes. You win some, you lose some ...
Things we learned from From The North favourite Only Connect this week. Christopher Columbus was buried after he died in 1506 and he was was then reburied on four further occasions over the centuries for a variety of different reasons. On one occasion (1793) this was to avoid his body falling into the hands of the French. 'We've all been there' noted the Divine & Naughty Victoria.
The Netflix Life website has a piece containing all of the latest updates for series two of The Sandman, which you can check out here. There's not a huge amount of new information contained in Stefani Munro's piece, but it's useful to have everything we know at this stage under one roof as it were.
Matt Berry, Kevin Eldon and Spencer Jones appear to have joined the cast of Vic Reeves abd Bob Mortimer's much-anticipated film The Glove, British Comedy Guide website has suggested. Wor Geet Canny Gina McKee, Dan Renton Skinner, Lauren O'Rourke, Bobby Mair, Sunil Patel and Rob Carter are also pictured in photos of a recent script reading at the London offices of production company StudioPOW. In November it was reported that Brian Cox(no, the other one) would also star in the long-gestating movie, which is due to start filming thist month. In the works for nearly two decades, Vic and Bob play childhood friends who own a junk shop. Profits are down and with their futures in jeopardy, they approach their obnoxious landlord to explain their rent problems. Rather than helping them, the landlord gives them a choice: eviction, or locate for him a rare and unusual item ... Michael Jackson's 'training' glove. Last year Jim Moir announced that it was likely to be his character of Vic Reeves' final on-screen outing. The Glove will be directed by Tim Kirkby and produced by Perry Trevers and Gina Powell and Kevin Proctor and Nicola Holt at YES! Media, while co-producers are Patricia Rybarcyk and Sacha Bennett of Three Wise Monkeys. Further character details have yet to be announced.
All From The North's dear blog readers are pointed in the direction of Gabrielle Sanchez's article on The AV Club website There's Never Been A Better Time To Watch Columbo. A thoughtful and well written piece, there's really only one thing wrong with it - there has never not been a better time to watch From The North favourite Columbo! That apart, it's well worth a read.
Now, dear blog reader, let's have this week's political bloggerisationism moment.
Well, this blogger certainly didn't expect that.
The Left-Wing Economic Establishment's chief weapon is surprise, they reckon.
This blogger's beloved (and now, thankfully, sold) Magpies' one-all draw with West Hamsters United at St James' Park last Saturday was something of a disappointment to most Toon fans, given that it allowed both The Scum to pull three points clear of Untied in The Premier League and Stottingtot Hotshots, currently one place behind Newcastle in the league, to close the gap to but one point (albeit, Spurs having played one game more). That said, however, The Magpies remain unbeaten in, now, a club record sixteen league games (since losing, narrowly, to Liverpool on the final day of last August). They also reached a - theoretically - significant moment on Saturday, hitting forty points, the bar at which, it is often stated, a team cannot be relegated. So, that was some good news, anyway.
The From The North Headline of The Week award has, of course, already been decided (see above). However, let it be noted the Evening Standard had a right good go with Cocaine In The River Thames Is 'Another Problem Eels Don't Need', Says Expert.
And finally, dear blog reader ...
