Doctor Who - Rise of the Cybermen

So, everyone else is grouching over the football overrunning and Doctor Who starting twenty minutes later. I am not. I am very grateful for this fact. Why this is will shortly become clear.

My night began, as expected, at twenty past six, when I was supposed to meet foulds outside John's, with the underlying logic that if ou3fs were watching Doctor Who at St Anne's to take into account Wyrd Sisters rehearsals, I would undoubtedly get lost on the way there. Sadly, I emerged from college to find it was raining. No minor downpour this; the sort of rain which leads to a permanent two-inch puddle over every flat surface and bubbling madly as more rain floods into it. Not very nice. I had no socks, a pair of slip-on red shoes and viral sinusitis. I also had a hat, a large red cotton polka dot thing which I originally brought with me for keeping off the sun. Still, ever-resourceful and all that, and after a minute Jon appeared with a large black umbrella and a determinedly cheerful expression. Battling on through the rain for the sake of the Cybermen seemed the order of the day.

And battle we did, through rain and clouds and the sort of puddles that insisted on filling my shoes and onwards through adversity until we washed up, literally, at the wet greenery of St Anne's. Seeing as how this was the best-thought-out plan ever, we wandered around the grass looking for something that resembled a) a TV room or b) a Wyrd Sisters rehearsal. We failed miserably. After a pause by the gate to ponder the next move, we ran into chrisvenus. Back across the fork onto St Giles - at which point I stepped into a puddle, drenched my skirt and started coughing again - Jon wanted to know what it is I have, again.

"Viral sinusitis," I reminded him.

"So, let's get this straight. I arrange for everyone to meet and drag a sick girl out into the pouring rain to watch Doctor Who only to cock it up and drag her back through the pouring rain to where she started."

I put my hat back on. "Yep."

"I am scum."

He sounded so despairing that I hastened to comfort him that at least he was gentlemanly scum - he was, what with his twirling umbrella and everything - which I promptly regretted when he suddenly decided that this was Not His Fault. "Why?" I wanted to know.

"The giant killer bees! We didn't watch it at St Anne's because of the GIANT KILLER BEES."

"I didn't see any giant killer bees."

"They're in disguise."

"As a five foot four Asian woman in a big red hat?"

"Yes!" Chris agreed. "Because giant killer bees aren't bigger than five foor four. That would just be silly."

Once we'd made it into St John's, matters improved. We'd discovered the football was running late, Jon found the TV room of his own college almost on the first try, and the only two people we found in there were also desperately trying to watch Doctor Who. I say "desperately", because as the telly insisted on telling us, there was a technical fault with the channel. And every other Sky channel. And every terrestrial channel. And there were no batteries in the remote. It was ten past seven. Panic time. We went across to the other television room - because John's have two, seeing as how they own half of Europe - only to find some misanthropic soul had booked it from eight to twelve. Leaving out the obvious question of what the hell they were watching for four hours, it was time to make a move.

Jon took us out the back door, and we were on the Parks Road. While I took a moment to splutter about how the fuck we could be on the Parks Road, he was musing about whether the whole scenario was some sort of mass improvement on Sky digital press-the-red-button. "Instead of watching Doctor Who," he said, "it's interactive! They make sure all the TVs don't work and send you around the place being the Doctor."

"Or maybe," I said, "all the televisions in the country are working except the ones in Oxford colleges, and everyone else is tuned in and watching us." There was a pause while I digested this thought. "Which of us is the Doctor?"

They both looked at me as though it were obvious. "You, of course."

"And I," said Jon magnificently, "am the tin dog."

"I'm the companion," said chrisvenus, "who looks confused."

We could, I suggested at this point, watch it at Wadham. But a quick survey led to companions looking confused and proved conclusively not one of us knew where the Wadham TV room was. "Onwards to Balliol!"

And onwards to Balliol it was, through puddles and undoubted impending pneumonia, where one might recall I started this journey of lunacy. I led the way, feeling quite understandably that someone had to be the Doctor, and four colleges later, we sat ourselves down in front of Strictly Dance Fever. Two minutes to spare, at that!

I put my hat back on. chrisvenus looked at it, and me, and said, "It's worrying how easily I can picture you as the Doctor, now..."

Jon said, "The hat helps you fit in with alien societies everywhere."

"Yes," I said, "everywhere I go I'm in fancy dress."

( Doctor Who - Rise of the Cybermen! )

Anyway, we shall see about next week, at which point I will attempt more coherent, less sleep-deprived commentary. Also, I hope next week to actually sit down and watch it without wandering around four colleges first. I bid goodbye to Jon at the door, where he entreated me to blame it all on the giant killer bees and not at all on his organisational skills. So yes, none of it was his fault. It was all the fault of the really big bees. And I am secretly the Doctor, with my TARDIS hidden on the Ashmolean roof, and now I must go watch Dogma and eat cheese on toast SAVE THE WORLD.