Tired but Happy

I’m terribly sorry that it’s been such a long time since I’ve posted. It’s been a combination of tiredness and still running about doing things. The vast and kind reception of ‘Human Nature’ has meant a lot of meetings, interviews, requests to appear (for instance today at the Barclays Bank SF Society and last Monday at a Junior school in Somerset) and just loads of thank you letters to write. Not that I’m complaining in the slightest. To anyone who’s left a message on my MySpace page: I’ll get back to you, I promise!It was a pleasure to attend the ‘Oncoming Storm’ convention in Gloucester last weekend. I appeared onstage with Tom Sangster, who’s very straightforward and together, and the hero of every child in the audience (and there were many of them, which is new). Tom clearly has a big future ahead of him as an adult lead. He tells me that Emma Thompson is indeed as gorgeous as she seems. But he may have just been telling the old man what he wanted to hear.

It was also an honour to pop along to a big BBC Who bash in Cardiff, where John Barrowman delivered a typically charismatic and charming (and did I mention filthy?) introduction. Much argle bargle and quaffing late into the night with folk from Doctor Who Adventures, 2Entertain DVD and Battles in Time. Hello, you! We discovered, to our amazement, that someone right in the middle of Who at BBC Worldwide is the brother of someone who’s in Caroline’s rhythm and blues orchestra. Who would have thought it?

Summer has meant music from every quarter in my little town. We were sitting outside the bar clapping along to acoustic guitars the other night. The Magpies have a new direction as a funk band. The Arts Festival in July is once more going to be huge. But all this art and music is making my liver very sad.

I’m in the midst of reworking the novel, hoping to finally be able to reward my agent’s patience by delivering it to him within the next couple of weeks. That’s taking up most of my mental space right now.

There follows a commercial for Reaper Frubes. Frubes being the only licensed Doctor Who product that has opted to adorn itself with the image of a Reaper from ‘Father’s Day’. Here is the delicious yoghurty iced product in question.



And here’s our correspondent Alex, who provided these images, trying one out. Mmm. Tastier than a wound in time.



It was my pleasure to do one of those writer to writer interviews the other day, this one with comics writer and novelist Peter David, one of whose novels was an early inspiration for Human Nature. We were meant to fill a half hour, but we chuntered on about comics and Doctor Who for four times that, and the end product will now be filling three programmes on Resonance FM (104.4 in the London area): two editions of their new comics show Panel Borders, on the 9th and 16th of July at 4.45pm, and an edition of Alex Fitch’s talk show I’m Ready For My Close-Up on 12th July at 10.30pm. And afterwards, as always, on the Resonance FM website:

www.resonancefm.com

Peter is a charming and funny man, and he really knows his Doctor Who.

From Eric Briggs of this parish comes this brief video clip of many Doctor Who authors, including Lance Parking, Keith Topping, myself and the late and lovely Craig Hinton, appearing onstage at a Gallifrey convention in Los Angeles a few years back. Putting us into a line seems to have given us a smidge of comic timing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1NRx_yRV3I

Mike Maddox, the co-author of my Doctor Who audio play Circular Time, has a novel coming out later this year, Dreams of Inan: The Worm that Wasn’t, from those nice folk at Abaddon Books. Here’s the blurb:

http://www.abaddonbooks.com/coming_soon.php

Mike is also the man tasked with adapting the vast length (twelve episodes!) of ancient Who story ‘The Daleks’ Masterplan’ into a two hour stage show. More details of that production as we approach it, but I did mention it to the script editor of that Hartnell story, Donald Tosh, who it was a great pleasure to meet in Gloucester, and he could only shake his head in amazement that such a thing had been attempted.

And finally, if you’re in the Chorleywood area next Sunday, June 17th, that is, Father’s Day, at 7pm, you might like to pop along to St. Andrew’s Church, where Mark Stibbe will be delivering the latest in a series of ‘Lessons from Doctor Who’, in this case ‘Father’s Day: Healing the Wounds of Time’. I’m greatly honoured that my work should be the subject of a sermon. I think that’s the first time that’s happened. At least, the first time in a positive way.

So, I wish you a cheerful week and a happy Father’s Day, and I hope to pop up again rather sooner, with chuntering about Veronica Mars, Lucky Star and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Until then, Cheerio.