"It's the end. But it has been prepared for."

I'm beginning to actually fear opening my inbox. It's always full of random panicking, people threatening to set themselves on fire and various natural disasters that have held up ficathon entries.

Enough of that. Today was spent with hathy_col, who has recovered from the weekend, in Ormskirk watching a lot of Doctor Who and not doing much else. I actually went to Ormskirk from Freshfield by train. For all you people who do not understand the momentousness of this, Colleen's house is about seven miles, as the crow flies, from mine. On the train, it takes an hour and a half. This is not because the train goes at four miles an hour. The reason is much more complicated than that.

Anyway, I reached Ormskirk, Colleen came to get me and we walked across the town chattering away. It's Thursday, market day, and according to Colleen, it has been market day every Thursday in Ormskirk since 1286, barring those Thursdays which have also been Christmas Day. We navigated our way around the stalls, through the park, and once we'd got there, we made beans on toast. We're watching Doctor Who. This requires beans on toast.

And for Americans and other aliens, this is what beans on toast is:

( beans on toast! )

Only, because she is weird, Colleen puts HP sauce on hers. Anyway, we took it upstairs and started watching City of Death, which was written by Douglas Adams and has John Cleese in it. It's just so much fun, what with the Doctor and Romana actually skipping round Paris (hand porn! thankyouverymuch), and stealing the Mona Lisa and going back in time, and the terrible effects and crazy Russian scientists and did I mention just how much fun it is? It even has the Doctor spotting Shakespeare's mixed metaphors, something I have done myself on occasion and now feel like less of a geek for doing.

The best bit, of course, is the bit at the end where John Cleese, playing an anonymous art critic with friend, are talking about the "dysfunctionalism" and "sublime colours" of a blue police box. At which point the Doctor, Romana and Duggan come skidding through, the Doctor's scarf hits him in the face, they rush in the door and it dematerialises. The critics think this is "exquisite."

We were sitting there heckling and eating jellybabies, and enjoying ourselves thoroughly. Colleen has made a decision. Next con we're going to, she wants to dress up as schoolgirl!Romana, which the hat that is perpendicular to the ground and yet never falls off. I want to dress up as Four, mainly because I love his clothes anyway (yes, I am a geek, we are aware of this), and our running around a con dressed up thus will probably garner us no small amount of attention.

At which point the dog ate the jellybabies, and we went out on a quest. It would appear that not a single charity shop in Ormskirk has any of the old Doctor Who episodes, but we did find one book and the original Battlestar Galactica, which is a result; having had lunch, we toddled on back and watched End of the World.

City of Death aired in Britain in 1979; End of the World, however, was on telly two months ago and hence the ( cut )

Moving swiftly on, then, the big geekfest of a day finished off with my leafing through Colleen's con photos (they are so good!) and watching Logopolis. To be honest, we didn't actually watch it as much as watch only the good bits and miss out the exposition. We reached the following conclusions:

-the Master is an evil megalomaniac, yes, but he looks like one. If you met him in the street, you would actually think, oh, evil megalomaniac.

-no-one in this show actually looks like an alien. The security guards don't shout, "Aliens!" Instead, they chase an oddly-dressed stranger being chased by an even-more-oddly-dressed stranger across a field...

-Tegan and Nyssa are femmeslashy. Colleen said something at the time that had us falling about, but I figured you had to be there, or be us, or something.

-I actually would prefer to dress up as Four from this episode. He's wearing a long red coat with tails and swishy bits and, just, love. I mean, I would wear it wear it, not dress-up-for-con-in-it wear it.

I need help.

-the Doctor and the Master are, as she said, disgustingly slashy. No respect for each other's personal space whatsover, and they actually look like they kiss on the gantry. I shrieked and jumped about, and said, "I did not imagine that!"


Colleen agrees I didn't, which I am profoundly grateful for as otherwise I'd think I was losing my mind. Also, the BBC promo pic for Logopolis is actually captioned "Doctor/Master." I love those people.

-and the end of the episode, even if you have fast-forwarded through most of it, is genuinely sad and depressing. "He doesn't look dead!" Colleen said.

"That would be because he isn't, not yet," I replied, but she is right in that he does look rather untouched for someone who just fell a hundred feet onto hard ground.

So I am home again, having fangirled out for one day, and back to revision, tomorrow!

Still, good day. And at the end of this I plan to make a list of Things What This Ficathon Has Taught Me.

And post my own story, of course. That's next on the list.