The second Comic Con at the world famous Widnes Market was a couple of weeks ago!
Greeted on Friday by the Stay Puff marshmallow man, Lightning McQueen, the Batmobile and the Ghostbusters car, it was a hoot and a half with a number of Cosplayers milling around and the Traders getting into the mood. Best of all were superheroes in the seafood and free Lobster samples, which was a bit chewy. A nice couple of days, with several sets from various shows, I had to get a shot of me on the Iron Throne of course! Now with the video and pics done (up on Mr Tiglets Facebook page soon!) It will be the Halton comic con at the end of September.
In the meantime- Autobots roll out!
Also- Happy 13th Vlogversary! 13 years and over 1,300 posts- WOOHOOOO!
Somewhere I’ve been meaning to get to in a while. When I worked in Chapelford, I went for a few short walks- Whittle brook/Dakota Park/Twenty Acre Woods and along the St Helens canal and Sankey Brook a few times. Warrington West is a relatively new rail station on the Manchester line, serving the Sankey/Westbrook and surrounding housing estates. The station is in the shape of one of the old aircraft hangers, a few of which were converted into warehouses. There actually isn’t much left since the base closure 30 years ago The Heritage centre itself is a museum, full of exhibits from the 54 years the Base was open. It is next to Gulliver’s World, check the website for opening times. Well worth a visit.
Also been to Ladies Walk Wood, which connects to Twig wood and the canal, but I only discovered that when I walked the opposite way the next time I strolled through!
While Doctor Who is certainly a contender for the GSITG, the story itself isn’t that great. I’ve always found it a bit TOO creepy. The robot killer clowns are well scary and the poor ‘contenders’ who audition for the Circus are poor caricatures of fans and bbc execs and other shows, which the Discontinuity Guide lists. Not a bad story, just that I don’t like it because of the clowns.
Season 22- NO MORE MR NICE DOCTOR- Colin Baker’s era
Colin Baker got a lot of flack for his two years n the role of The Doctor. While the show got a bit more violent, that was more down to the Script Editor than anything else, JNT also came under fire, both from fans, who he had reached out to and engaged with when he started, something no Producer had really done before, but also clashed with senior BBC management. The reformatting of two-part 45 minute episodes and bad scheduling also didn’t help, so added up together, all these factors resulted in Michael Grade cancelling the show, though he wasn’t prepared for the backlash.
Season 23-THE TRIAL OF A TIMELORD After a ‘rest’, the show returned with a terrific continuing storyline- The Doctor on Trial for the crime of interfering (again) With an amazing opening shot of the Timestation and dramatic first story in The Mysterious Planet, then Peri seemingly gets killed off in Mindwarp and there’s carnivorous plants on the loose in Terror of the Vervoids, which also introduces Mel before a climatic finale with The Master and The Valeyard in the Gallifreyan Matrix in The Ultimate Foe, Robert Holmes last story he began before he died. It’s a great serial, though the question of The Valeyard still hasn’t been resolved. The Master said the Valeyard was “somewhere between 12th and Final Incarnation” which would place him between David Tennant and Matt Smith, but then can you take The Master’s word at face value? That’s an entire essay in itself, maybe after I get to Season 12 and Timeless Child in October or November. I will be taking a break from all this in the summer, once the Classic era is wrapped up. Speaking of which, next time will be SEASON 24 and the debut of Sylvester McCoy!
This is what I should have planned to go to, as it was, I only got there in the afternoon, but there was still plenty going on. It was a bit different, didn’t seem as packed as last time, so there was time to wander around, see a few people haven’t seen in ages and get plenty of pics.
Now all I have to do is make sure I get to the next one!
John Nathan Turner promised the return of old monsters/faces for the anniversary season and while Omega turns up, he looked very different from before. Snakedance brought The Mara back and the Guardian trilogy brought Black Guardian back, also with Two Brigadier’s (from 1977 and 1983) Introduces Turlough, Nyssa leaves and Then The Master returns with Robot Kamelion.
The Five Doctors was the 20th Anniversary special in November 1983. Written by Terrance Dicks, it sees the first five Incarnations taken out of time and deposited in The Death Zone, The dark secret at the heart of the Timelords Paradise (according to the Master) It’s a fun romp, a quest for Immortality with Companions and monsters all making an appearance. Just hope the 60th Special is just as good!
As I was prepping the Leeds-Liverpool canal vid for the blog, caught latest video from Valliant Renegade, whose in-depth financial analysis is always quite impressive. This revelation, that Super Mario on it’s opening few days tops Disney’s Lightyear and Strange worlds was a mind-blowing revelation. Something is seriously wrong at the Mouse house, with everything from Star wars to Marvel suffering, but can it be fixed? Kudos to Universal and Illumination for this, I might go see it, see it it lives up to the hype!
It snowed again back in March, so I started out early to catch it before it got trampled on and melted. Victoria Park in the snow I’ve been to before, but getting to Spike Island was a first, so glad I did it.
Great way to start the day!
Now I’ve got three more walks and that’s March caught up with!
I’ve been looking through my mum’s books again, doing a bit more to try and sort through them. I might have mentioned how much of a difficult task it has been, herculean. Since she never really made any notes, a few handwritten drafts, but mostly typed her ideas as she went along, there has been a lot to go through. Of her five completed works, Northern Conspiracy is the one book I have become most familiar with. Eric Sephton is the James Bond of the 13th Century. Sent north to uncover a conspiracy against the crown, he returns to his family home to find himself engaged with his brother’s widow and becomes embroiled in local matters. It’s a great story and the characters are well-defined. It’s also well-paced, with a lot of running around. The main locations are Highton, Farnworth, Chester and somewhere in North Wales! I wonder if that was the reason we went to Chester once? I did accompany her on several research trips to Caerleon, Chester, York, Nottingham and maybe Kidwelly castle. It was the mid-90’s so was a while ago! Looking through her files over the past couple of days has been emotive, but putting my own editing skills to work from my own stories and blogpost from the last decade, as well as all the videos has made me a bit more confident to tackle NC, though with it being 94k words, that’s still a challenge. Anyway, with it being World storytelling day, it’s a nice way t tie in to it!
Wandering aimlessly round Birkenhead may not sound that exciting; Hamilton Square and Gardens might be a highlight, as is the Priory and The Submarine exhibition next to Woodside. Spaceport used to be great fun, but that’s closed now (though I didn’t know it until I arrived at Seacombe.) I had gone to get Snakedance, one of the few Doctor Who dvds missing from my collection (which I am going to watch this week actually, as this month’s episodes of From the Beginning have all been recorded.) Walking up from Woodside was straightforward enough, until I got to a fence and had to walk inland, going through an industrial estate and past an old tower, over a red bridge and along Birkenhead road past the Cruise Terminal. That reminded me of when I went to see the HMS Edinburgh at Camel Laird dock in 2013 as part of the 70th anniversary of the battle of the Atlantic events, one of the first videos I uploaded to my Youtube channel in 2013.
Anyway, made it to Seacombe and thought about ideas for next stage of Grey Dominion, though I do have a trailer nearly ready, I really need to push forward some way, don’t know how yet. The script is really dragging its heels and is really frustrating. Ah well, never mind. And after all that found that Spaceport was closed and turned into a science place for kids (adults need to be accompanied by a child I was told curtly by the woman on the door) so that was disappointing. Not a bad walk though. Considering it’s been ten years since I hiked round the Wirral coast (see 2012 blogs for details) Videoblogging or Vlogging it has not been entirely done yet. Yes I have been to New Brighton and West Kirby so many times, just not in one continuous epic series.
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