Generating New Ideas And Interests

The other night, I dreamt that the red, retro, replica telephone-box-cum-display-cabinet that Antonia got me as a Valentine’s gift had turned into a tardis. I accepted this phenomenon with no question whatsoever and was very excited by the prospect of travelling Dr-Who-style through time and space. Antonia, on the other hand, wasn’t so interested: she said she was way too busy with her college work (although to me it looked like she was playing some kind of Tetris game on her new i-pad). It was only when I said ‘fine then, I’ll go on hoilday to Italy myself – I just need to get my shorts’ that I turned around to find her wearing a giant multicoloured sombrero and wheeling a suitcase behind her.

The dream was truncated immediately after that, because Antonia nudged me awake. I tried hard to get back to sleep so I could recapture it, but she was persistent about the whole it’s-morning-and-I-want-you-to-open-your-eyes-and-pay-me-some-attention-thing. In the end, I settled for watching robot Santas attack people in the series two episode one Christmas special whilst eating my breakfast in bed.

When I say series two, I mean series two of the ‘New Who’ which was spearheaded by Welsh TV producer and screenwriter, Russell T Davies (‘Queer As Folk’, ‘Cucumber’, ‘Banana’) in 2005, and featured Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant as the incarnations of doctors nine and ten respectively, as well as ex-teen-popstar Billie Piper as his travelling companion Rose Tyler.

Now, I had previously never watched the show (in fact I purposely avoided it because I assumed it would be all cringey special effects, bad acting and dodgy plots) and was completely oblivious to the fact that it celebrated it’s fiftieth anniversary in 2013; and it was only when I read Roy Gill’s (www.roygill.com) short story ‘Generations’ – a beautifully written account of two young gay men in 1992 who tentatively correspond then meet and bond over their shared love of sci-fi-adventure stories concerning a certain self-generating alien-humanoid who calls himself ‘the doctor’ – that my interest was piqued. (I also gained some interesting early-nineties IT knowledge regarding the DIY duplication of VHS video tapes thanks to the how-to guide which was cleverly woven through the narrative.)

Anyway, I’m glad I did tune in. Because apart from being able to ogle Billie Piper in action for several hours (I don’t feel guilty at all about lusting after someone who’s playing the part of a ninteen-year-old, not when it’s a decade old episode and I know she’s thirty-two-and-a-half in real life), I have to admit that I’m quite fascinated by films and TV programs about parallel worlds and time travel and as a result I’m finding Dr Who very very addictive. It also inspired me to revisit a story idea I had a couple of years ago about a teenager who discovers she has the ability to rewind time after sustaining a head injury.

I just asked Antonia the question: ‘If you were a timelord and the telephone box morphed into your tardis, where would you take me on an exciting date?’

Her reply: ‘Sorry, hen, I’m a really boring timelord – I’m happy where I am.’

To be fair, so am I, but I might be tempted to nip back to the eighties to pick up a few collectibles on the cheap…

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