Teleport bracelets and Timelash

[vilakins]

The latest Horizon club newsletter is offering:

Teleport bracelets made by Martin Bower, the guy who designed and made them for the series. I own one from the last time he made some. Yeah, they're expensive, but how could I resist? If you don't have huge Gan-like hands though, you do need to add foam rubber to the inside or you keep losing them just like the cast did.

Signed first day covers. I have no idea what a first day cover is. [Edit] OK, I do now, but the stamps on them don't look like B7 or DW ones. Anyway, they have three of them: Bayban and Avon (Avon when it was Vila's ep?), Servalan, and a Doctor Who: Timelash one signed, like the first one, by Colin Baker and Paul Darrow. I find this pretty funny because I just read andrastewhite's post about the worst DW episode ever and Timelash (which I've never seen) is a prime contender.

Comments

[kerravonsen]

A First Day Cover is a special envelope (with accompanying postage stamp) made to celebrate the first day of the issue of said stamp. Yet another thing for philattilliiisssttts stamp collectors to collect.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

[grins at the strikeout] You mean they made stamps of those characters? If they come up with a Vila one (yeah, I know, most unlikely), I'll buy a whole sheet. ;-)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

[peers at stamps] They don't look like B7 or DW ones.

Right, off to class.

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

I'd love a bracelet! When do you wear yours? I'm seriously tempted, but I suspect I'd never wear it as I'm not much of a jewellery wearer, and would hate for it to sit in a box

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Mine's too big and clunky to wear. I've considered finding a much smaller plain wooden one somewhere and painting it. That way I could wear a funky bracelet that only the cognoscenti would recognise. :-D

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

now there is an idea. I have very small wrists, I can wear children's bracelets, so it would almost certainly be too large for me
I remember watching them showing how to make one on Blue Peter ;0)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

They have that segment as an extra on one of the DVDs!

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

Cool :0)

It's funny, but they really don't have that sort of connection to adult programmes that they used to. I mean they might show something that is Dr Who related, but I can't imagine them linking to such an adult-themed prgramme these days

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

The weird thing is, B7 was shown as a 'family' program. I can't believe that, esp given the false charges against Blake in the first ep--and what they did to the kids' friends (as many of them called them) in the last ep. There's even a publicity shot of the S4 crew in costume leading some sort of kids' parade down the street. What? They promoted it to kids, then shot the characters down just before Christmas? I don't begin to understand that.

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

I clearly remember (although I was only 10) the shocked silence that fell across the entire gorram country after Blake aired. There was, indeed, a lot of "That was a bit strong for the Christmas season, wasn't it?" over the next few days and a bit of tut-tutting about the children, etc...

I wasn't traumatized, though. I was bloody furious... ;)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I saw it several years later here (we still take ages to get some SF series) and I was very upset and depressed. I spent the next few weeks making up what I only found out a few years ago was AU fan fiction. When I saw it again in 2001, I was surprised that Vila wasn't hiding under a convenient table. :-P

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

yes, that certainly wouldn't happen today. I suppose there are levels to it, but if it was proposed today they would either want it simplified for the younger audience or 'sexed up' for the adults.
I can still remember my utter shock at the ending, and my total conviction that Vila had survived.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

YES! Me too. I made up so many stories in my head for how he survived, I was surprised to find in 2001 that he didn't hide under a table or crawl through a duct.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

They did both liberator and Scorpio bracelets.
It involved the ubiquitous sticky black plastic and a squash bottle.
Funny really cos we had already made our own using squash bottles too!

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Timelash is one of only a handful of DW episodes I've seen, and already I can tell that it's a decent candidate for worst-ever.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

Seconded It was a hoot. For some reason paul Darrow was doing a "Richard the III"! only without the hump. The timelash gadget also is a win for worse special effect ever!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I've been buying old school DW DVDs if I see them, and sadly my last purchase, 'The Sontarran Experiment', is Astro's pick for worst ever. :-(

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I'm curious about the icon set: I know there's a set of DW icons. There's one in the same style of a mean-looking little girl with a clown doll, with the caption "My clown hates you." Is that a Life on Mars icon by the same iconner?

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

They're by redscharlach. Links to the latest ones and her previous ones are on this post (http://redscharlach.livejournal.com/133936.html).

Yes, the evil little girl with the clown is from 'Life on Mars'. She's from the test card they actually used to broadcast back in the 70s when TV was off the air. It comes to life and speaks to Sam Tyler in the series. She appears in the last scene IIRC, skipping down the road. I'm not sure if it's one of redscharlach's though because I haven't seen it. Sam had a puppet dream (!) and I've seen some icons from that.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I just finished S1 of Life on Mars! Although in the US in the 1970s, TV stations were *never* off the air, so the test card would be exotic.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I can remember our TV stations going off the air every night around 11pm or midnight. TV1 and TV2 (we also had TV3) used the Goodnight Kiwi cartoon to say goodnight to us (trixieleitz posted a link to a video few months ago, giving me a sudden dose of nostalgia)*. I can't remember what our test card looked like. I suspect we didn't have one; I remember hearing about an old lady who never turned her TV off because "they do that in Wellington".

* The Goodnight Kiwi turned everything off, went up the stairs with his pet cat behind him, got in a lift which took him to the top of a transmitter tower, then bedded down in a horizontal antenna dish. There were two versions, one for TV1 and one for TV2, which had the cat either sitting on him, or curling up on him and going to sleep. I'm not one for kitsch, but along with everyone else, I loved those little guys. I have it saved on YouTube; I'll post a link when I get home.

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

I was a bit freaked that Kevin-the-vampire took one look at the test card the first time it was shown on LOM and said 'that's not the real one' which made us immediately think she was going to turn up as a character.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Wow, he was on the ball!

And you have one of the puppet ones! So cute!

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

*drooooools* at teleport bracelets. If they're still taking orders in the middle of October, I might have to succumb, although I still think Blue Peter showed us how to whip up a decent facsimile... ;)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

With your skills, you could probably make something that fits a woman's wrist much better than his do, and that looks just as good.

I only saw the Blue Peter thing when I got the DVDs. I should have a go so that I have something I wouldn't worry about losing.

[jthijsen.livejournal.com]

They're way too expensive for me. Also, the color of the perspex rectangle is just all wrong, so I wouldn't buy one even if I could afford one. That sort of detail would just keep niggling at me. It might fit me, though, since my hands are quite big.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Colours were muddier in the series, but the one I have isn't the same colour as the photo anyway. The bracelet is more brownish and the plastic is more orange-pink.