Only the super geeks of this world would organise the worlds biggest Doctor Who convention to fall on Valentine’s weekend.

Natuarlly, I was in attendance.

Yes indeed, weekend just gone saw me at Gallifrey:20 to Life at the Marriott hotel Los Angeles.

I have been to Dr Who exhibtions before now, many of them in fact, but this was my first time at a major convention. I had been looking forward to this for 2 years. I had tickets already purchased for the event back in 2008, but I was sent to work in Paris at the last minute and could not go. This time around there was no stopping me. The guest list and schedule was just too good.

I arrived at 6pm on the Friday just in the nick of time for the opening ceremony:
when the main guests are introduced to the crowd. The pick of the bunch this year being Phil Collinson

Dr Who producer 2005 - 2008, Nicola Bryant

who played Perry in the 1980s and Colin Baker -

6th Doctor (1984 - 86).

After the opening ceremony was the ‘fires of Pompeii toga party.

Which was pretty well attended and most people got into the spirit of things, even people who really shouldn’t have.

Some guys had even arranged an ‘after party, party’ with a free bar in one of the function suites. The place full of semi drunk, semi clad Whovians.

Saturday was when the real convention began. I started off my taking a trip to the dealers room, which was very well stocked full of merchandise. I had no intention of buying anything, I just wanted to see how much things that I own myself would sell for if I decided to ever cash in on my Dr Who treasure chest. For the record, I would do quite nicely.

Then off to the main convention hall for a Q&A session with the show’s writers. Amongst them was Robert Shearman, who wrote ‘Dalek’ in the 2005 series and Paul Cornell who wrote ‘Fathers Day’ from 2005 and Human Nature from 2007. It was a great experience too, getting some real behind the scenes views on how a Who story comes together from start to end, plus some pretty funny stories too.

Next up was the Q&A with Nicola Bryant (Perry). Nicola joined Doctor Who back in 1984 and attracted a lot of media attention for wearing skimpy outfits in most of her scenes - actually her first ever scene was her swimming wearing a skimpy bikini. I was really looking forward to this one, but I have to say I was very disappointed. Nicola seemed to be about the only person there to have a bit of ‘attitude’ telling the audience not to take photos of her during the session because it would distract her. Quite honestly she didn’t have too much interesting to say to lose track of in the first place. Then the final 10 minutes of the chat was her showing us all a video she recently created about the ‘making of The 2 Docotrs’ a dreadful story from back in 1985. She was offering to sell people copies of the DVD at the convention. Was this really someone who wanted to come to the convention or simply the act of a semi-celebrity trying to cash in on the success of the new series?

My mood lifted considerably after that because next up was Phil Collinson - new series producer 2005 - 2008. Fantastic, simply fantastic.

After dinner and a few beers in the bar with Phil Collinson and a couple of the writers I returned to the main hall for the costume competition.

Some people take this VERY seriously:

Then was the first American performance of Moths ate my DOctor Who scarf. A friend of mine saw the show at the Edinburgh Fringe a few years ago and raved about it. Its a stand up comics look back on his life growing up with Doctor Who. Very funny and well worth seeing. There are some clips on youtube.

My biggest gripe of the night though was the delay. It was already running behind schedule after the contestants of the costume competition had appeared on stage, so instead of announcing the winners and going straight into the Moth show the organsiers decided they would indulge themselves by showing a series of home made movies. Hillarious though they may have been to the people who made them and in the privacy of their own homes, they meant little or nothing to most of the 1000 plus people in the room. Seriously it was cringe worthy and like making 1000 strangers sit through slides of your recent family holiday.

People who organise the event should feel rightfully proud of what they managed to bring together and acheive, but remember that people pay the membership fee to see the guests, not so that you can buy yourself a captive audience.

Where was I….. oh yeah, the Valentine’s night dance.

This was pretty good actually. They had a good DJ who even played of my favourite comedy songs of all time.

Cabbaged though I was I did still noticed when a Dalek crept up behind me on the dance floor and threated to exterminate me. Naturally I screamed a big girly scream and ran away.

The morning after, feeling a little delicate, I went to a few more events. The Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant Q&A, naturally Nicola asked us not to take pictures, A talk about the Doctor Who audio adventures with Big Finish and several more.

Then it was time for home.

And time to show the world photos of me wearing a purple toga

A strange title for an entry perhaps, but let me explain….

For nearly 2 years I have resisted the urge / encouragement / requests from others for me to purchase a US mobile phone.

A couple of weeks ago I cracked. Having been given a rather splendid and very ‘blingy’ new phone for Christmas I went out and purchased myself a US SIM card. So out went the old UK number I`ve had for nearly a decade now and I joined the US telecoms world.

I knew it would be a bad idea.

Last Saturday I was woken up by a call from a guy in Lathrop, a city 360 miles away, asking if I still had the British bulldog for sale.

Huh?

‘Sorry, you`ve got the wrong number’

and hung up.

Back to sleep.

For 10 minutes until someone else phoned up asking the same thing.

Something was wrong.

‘Why do you think I`ve got a bulldog for sale?’

‘Your advert in the local newspaper’

Oh dear.

It turns out some pillock is trying to sell his bulldog in the local paper and put down the wrong phone number in the advert.

Quite how he manged to get the number so badly wrong is something of a mystery. The local area code for Lathrop is 209, my new number starts with 714. Not exactly similar.

So far I`ve had 17 calls about this bulldog. I`m fairly sure the guy who actually does have the bulldog has had exactly none and is wondering why the locals of Lathrop are so cold hearted when it comes to animals.

I looked into it and a good size bulldog can fetch (no pun intended) up to 700 dollars. Sadly though there are no British bulldog owners in the complex where I live.

There are a good few poodles though.

Could I pass off a shaved poodle for a bulldog?

I`m off to buy a pair of hair clippers to find out….

Last weekend back home in blighty looked something like this:

While over here in the OC I decided to have a BBQ.

It was a great time to have it too because there was some kind of game going on over here last weekend that got all the locals into a flap.

It certainly had all my neighbours going nuts. The balloons outside did confuse me for a while. ‘SUPER BOWL XLIII’ - what did that mean - some very very very extra large bowl???

I had no idea.

But one thing is for sure, I wish it happened every weekend, all the shops were completely empty, not a soul in any of the supermarkets. Which is great as I had my pick of the food, and Albertsons had lobster tails on sale for 5 bucks each, which went nicely along with my burgers and carne asada.

Very nice they were too.

I suggest next weekend all you over there in the UK do the same