Doctor Who Experience, London Olympia - Monday 25 July 2011

Rullsenberg and Neil face their first Dalek together!

What can I say?!

Frank went and I thought... you know what I really DO want to go to the Doctor Who Experience at Olympia in London!

So when the lovely Mark (Neil's brother) offered for us all to go whilst the NZ family was in London - well I was VERY excited!

Pre-view of the exhibition space in the waiting area

The interactive bit may not be as long as some would like (I was certainly tempted to pay the extra £4 to go back around again!) but it is nevertheless a brilliant experience. You're not allowed to take photos or video in the interactive section and I totally appreciate why.

At first it seems like a fairly innocuous play through of the universe and the Doctor's role in it, but then the crack appear and we're into the really fun part - and Matt Smith's 'conversation' with the shoppers pitches just perfectly to involve both adults and children alike. The appearance of the TARDIS is enough to make a giddy fan girl's heart beat faster, and the scares... well, they're pretty damn scary. And 3-D was never better used. I don't want to spoiler it too much for people, but suffice to say you're really close and it feels really REALLY exciting for those of us not lucky enough to get in to the real set and filming (actually, given how filming works - lots of setting up, shooting the same ten seconds from four angles, standing about in the Cardiff rain - it's probably the best fun to be had anywhere).

And then you're through to the exhibition section, which may be static but provides just as much excitement. The initial stuff you see before going into the interactive section proves to be just a taster. Once in the main exhibition, it is costumes, monsters and images a-go-go.

Rullsenberg and Neil in front of an iconic Radio Times cover featuring David Tennant (above) and the many Radio Times covers for Doctor Who (below)

Having been through the latest incarnation of the TARDIS interior, in the exhibition they've reassembled the coral forms of the 9th/10th Doctor's TARDIS... and oh my it is LOVELY to see it up close...

9th/10th Doctor TARDIS

Not least because on the wall of the space, they've got a stonking large screen projection of the regeneration of the 10th Doctor into the 11th Doctor (from the moment when Ten enters the TARDIS to 'Geronimo!')

Yes, including the 'ever-causing-a-lump-in-my-throat' moment of "I don't want to go".

No, I'm NOT saying how many time I watched that clip.... or how often I sighed and said that line along with him...

Just seeing a TARDIS up close, just seeing the costumes of all the Doctors so beautifully displayed... that alone would be worth the time you can spend in the exhibition (which brings together even more stuff than Helen and I saw in Cardiff in January 2009 - where photography was definitely a little less permitted).

Rullsenberg in front of the TARDIS (and a rather dodgy figure supposedly representing Matt Smith - poor man deserves better!)

As it is there are many, many more things to go SQUEE about --- the TARDIS interior from c. Five to Seven (eliciting much sighing from true Who geeks in the exhibition); a lovely section on the sound of Doctor Who with Stuart Maconie singing the praises of Delia Derbyshire; a 'walk like a monster' teaching session - with loads of space to stomp out your inner Cyberman; companion costumes; a collection of the changing Dalek forms ... enough to scare anyone...

....and Cyber-heads (lovingly recreated where dilapidated originals cannot be found); a Zygon (WHEE!!!); the Silence, and a creepy gas-mask wearing child.

Rullsenberg is feeling unnerved...

For the smaller sized, there is even a Dalek you can sit in and operate! (I couldn't quite justify booting out my lovely niece to have a go myself...)

Oh: and did I not say? There is also a super green screen area where you will HAPPILY part with additional cash to be photoshopped into various scenes and objects. They have the Pandorica seat for those addicted to the props (background only required for the green screen on that), and there are several other locations to be imaginatively dropped into including the TARDIS, and a rescue mission from outside the TARDIS ...

Between us, we all made an appearance on the great green screen of wonder and had a blast doing it!

Rullsenberg and Neil in the TARDIS!

Neil rescuing Lisa into the TARDIS!

We were in the whole thing for the best part of two hours, and had no objection to going to the shop ("hello shoppers" indeed) at the end of our time in the interactive and exhibition spaces.

The only thing is, how can I schedule going again before it leaves for Cardiff? And then who can I get to go with me again to Cardiff?!

Visiting the New Zealand gang in London

It isn't quite as crazy as it sounds: Neil's brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew were on an extended visit to the UK --- they went to LA first, then over to the UK to London, to the West Midlands to visit their old home, to Scotland to visit family, to Budapest and Vienna and then back over to London (which was where we caught up with them).

It was just delightful to be able to see them, spend time with them AND to even say farewells to them without the usual heightened emotions of knowing it would be a year, likely much more, before we would see them again. Being able to do a "bye" and being able to say "see you soon!" was just... priceless.

Hurrah.

Meme of myself 2009

Adapted from Persephone's recent and wonderful post.

1. Are you a male or female? Female, but happy to be one of the boys.

2. Describe yourself. Wage slave with a conscience, trying to make life better. Instinctively behaving like the teenage girl I never really was first time around. Imagines herself as a grande dame de lettres of the 1930s (I do have the odd frock suitable for this role)

3. How do you feel about yourself? Frequently bewildered

4. Describe your parents. I've written about my parents before. But describing them?

My dad was a talented man who hardly got the chance to show his skills: he was a significantly talented linguist in his youth who worked for most of my childhood as a bus driver (where perhaps he did at least get to translate the various curses of late night passengers). He was intelligent, fierce in his opinions (he loathed Ian Paisley with a passion that bordered on hysteria) and he loved light operetta and Jim Reeves (I have not taken on these 'pleasures'). He became a born-again Christian when he was a POW in the UK, married and divorced (not my mum), left the church, and finally returned to his faith with zeal as I passed into secondary education c.12 years old. Although I grew up as 'daddy's girl', his deteriorating health took him away from me in every sense. I kinda wish I had loved him better, but mostly I wish I had known him as a younger man both before and after his conversion,

My mother grew up loving history and literature and passed that passion on to me. She was tall, grew up a tomboy, and despite everything never failed to encourage me to enjoy life and do the things that mattered to me. Housework and tidiness were never high on her priorities (a trait I inherited, sometimes to my frustration) and though she improved over the years it was telling that she - like me some 30+ years later - was reprimanded in school for her appallingly limited needlework skills and inattentiveness in sewing class. I loved watching movies with her as a child and getting hooked on series such as The Aphrodite Inheritance and The Sandbaggers. I miss her more than words can express, not least for being the sort who would call me up to say when Jarvis Cocker were on TV.

5. Describe your ex boyfriend/girlfriends. There's a reason they're ex's.

6. Describe your current boy/girl situation. My much beloved Cloud (Neil) is more infinitely patient with my failings than I can believe is reasonable of a human being. 19 years together come August 2009.

7. Describe your current location. The 'teenagers' room, aka my study. Posters on the wall, itunes playing, reading blogs, laundry drying on the radiator. Yep, teenager.

8. Describe where you want to be. Happy right here, though wish I had more paid holiday from work (and I get a good deal - what can I say? I'm greedy)

9. Your best friend(s) know too much shit on me for the possibility of falling out to be anything other than a nightmare (I hope)

10. Your favourite colour - red, or blue, or purple.

11. You know that friendship is more powerful than anything, and that you should "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." (Margaret Mead)

12. If your life were a television show what would it be called? It's Just my Imagination

13. What is life to you? valuable, and more precious when shared with people around me

14. What is the best advice you have to give? "Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Belated congrats and welcome to the Inveresk offspring

Congratulations to Darren and Kara (blimey, I remember them getting hitched!). They are now proud parents to Owen Eugene Youngs-O'Neil.