The Costume Cupboard – Sao Til, The Blue Guy...

Recently I had an idea (dangerous I know), I decided I wanted to try my hand at doing a new outfit, not just any outfit, I wanted to bring back Sao Til!

The Sao Til reference picture :)

For those that don’t know Sao Til was the brainchild of my good friend Tim and was the winning entry in John Barrowman’s Tonight’s the Night ‘Search for an Alien Superstar Competition’ in 2009.

So with the idea in my head I text Laura (Tim’s wife) to share my plan! Her reply ‘have you told Tim yet?’, I hadn’t so between us the secret costume plan was hatched, the objective to see the look on Tim’s face when Sao Til made an appearance.

Originally I was looking at November Memorabilia to get the costume completed by, this would give me loads of time. To help me with the costume Laura sent me an email detailing all the bits I would need, the toughest part was going to definitely be the arm.

The List / Freebie Five...

What seems like a lifetime ago now my friends and I were talking about our ‘lists’.

For those thinking, ‘Matt, what are you on about’, the concept of the list was made famous by the Friends episode: ‘The One with Frank Jr.’ Where you and your partner both list five celebrities that you can have your wicked way with should the opportunity arise and the other person can’t get mad. My version is slightly different I opt for 'the run away with if they asked me' option.

While recording episode two of Journeys in Fandom we end up going a bit (lot!) off topic and get onto the subject of lists, when you hear it it’ll make sense! (It'll also put this blog post in context!)

Ten Plus? – Redux

Yesterdays post got some interesting reactions. Some thought it was deep thinking, others a goodbye and others just weren’t sure what to make of it...

Me :)

Well... Don’t panic! I’m not going anywhere (see you can breathe again now). What it was is me looking back over what I’ve done and how much of an influence the man in the pin stripe suit has had.

What I want to do now is move forward from this point, what that does mean is expanding what I do, which will probably result in Ten taking a bit of a back seat for a little while, after all I can’t be me if I’m standing behind a Ten shaped shield.

Allons-y!!

Ten Plus?

How I'm best known. The Doctor

Recently I’ve been putting together a bucket list and it’s got me thinking (dangerous I know). My main thought is what do I want to be known for...

I’ve mentioned before that the Facebook page first launched back in 2010 I envisaged only ever getting a few likes, almost two and a half years later the page has over three thousand three hundred which is totally mad, I’m just me after all!

Back when I first started all I ever did was a few pictures and hang out at events, which while being good fun had a danger of becoming very ‘samey’ within a short space of time. As a result, in October 2010 I did my first event write up which added to what I do...

We Have A Podcast Now, Podcasts Are Cool...

If you follow my Facebook Page or Twitter account you'll probably have noticed that I've launched a new project with with my good friend Tim, we have a Podcast called 'Journeys in Fandom'!

No Matt! Don't make me use the paper!

Episode 1 was released on Sunday (October 7th), with the following synopsis:

"In the first ever episode Tim and Matt introduce themselves and explain just what is Journeys in Fandom. In the main feature of this episode the guys discuss and give a review of the first half of series 7 of Doctor Who. But there is still time for Tim to try an describe wargaming and fail, Matt to insult an entire country and the guys to come up with the best review sound bite for a Doctor Who episode ever."

A Pen, A Piece Of Paper And A Bucket...

You’ve all heard of a bucket list right? You know, a list of things you want to do before you’re no longer able to...

Well, recently I was thinking, perhaps I should write one for myself? 100 personal objectives to achieve, but the question is what?

So this is my question, which 100 things should I aim to achieve?

Should I Have A Cosplay Page?

Recently I’ve noticed loads of new pages popping up for cosplayers, now before I go any further I can already hear you all shouting ‘Matt, you hypocrite, you have a cosplay page yourself’, yes, yes I do, but give me a moment...

Anyway cosplay pages, I have no objection, in fact if people want to have one I’d actively encourage it, however... before you run to Facebook to set up your page stop and think for a moment, why am I setting one up?

Good ol' Facebook

Reasons to have a page:

• You want to have a public profile that anyone can see – This is why I ended up with a page, I didn’t actually set my page up, it was done by my girlfriend at the time following on from an off the cuff comment of ‘I keep getting friend requests, I should have a fan page!’. Anyway, my plan way to have a profile that I could share all my Doctor Who related things on without it taking over my profile, not all my friends have the same interests as me so I’d feel bad spamming them with one topic, plus it also meant that I could keep my private profile, well, private, I’m not interested in how many friends I have on FB, I’d rather have 10 that are my best mates than have 1,000 that I don’t know because let’s face it who really wants to look at my random photo’s from years back?

Lords of Time – Tea, So How Should It Be Made...

Yes, this is a blog post about how to correctly make a cup of tea!

How to make tea?!?

Over the course of the Lords of Time weekend a large amount of tea was consumed, especially by me, now the age old question is, how should it be made? Milk first (the correct way!) or milk in second?

This debate raged most of the weekend, the girls from the DT Forum, DavidTennant.com and I locked in stalemate as to who was correct, only one man could sort this, I am of course referring to Mr David Tennant.

During the DT guest talk, the question was asked, so how should tea be made? We all expected a quick reply, what we got was probably the most detailed description of how to make tea I’ve ever heard!

Lords of Time - To Benedick Or Not To Benedick...

David Tennant as a guest at a convention, that’s a no brainer I hear you say! Well, yes normally it would be, but with me flying back from 5 days at Dragon*Con only a couple of days before hand I wasn’t overly sure what sort of state I was going to be in...

So, I arrived back in the UK on Tuesday morning with only about 30% of my voice and not feeling anywhere near 100%... by Friday I was feeling more with it and could actually maintain a conversation without my voice failing, as such Friday lunchtime I decided, why not, may as well go to Lords of Time, hey it’d be rude not too...

Getting to the Hilton around 7pm Liz and I picked up tickets on the door. What did surprise me was what number tickets we ended up with, I was Gold 54 (out of a max of 150) I had a feeling this could be a very quiet event...

Those Two Awkward Questions...

Bit of a random one this but hopefully one you’ll find interesting to read...

In my years dressing as the Tenth Doctor there are always two questions that come up, well, I say questions, it’s more one question and one statement, can you guess what they are?

Think about it and it’s obvious...

The Crash of the Elysium

It’s June 15^th and a new exhibit has opened in Ipswich to commemorate the Elysium. A ship launched from our very own docks by Princes Helen and that was lost in 1888 after 50+ voyages.

The exhibit itself has a few remains from the ship and a number of photographs from the time, it’s quite dry but informative, that is until the military burst in...

There has been an incident and they need our help!

The Greatest Show In The Galaxy – The Fanboy Who Waited...

If you’ve read the first part of my GSITG blog you probably noticed it was a bit more formal than you’re used to, well this second part is going to focus purely on the guests and what I got up to, hope you like it!

Jeri Ryan

Me with Jeri Ryan

When Jeri was announced by Showmasters I must confess I was a little excited as she is a rare guest in the UK, to my knowledge she’s only been over once before. To my complete surprise she was then announced by GSITG on the same evening! Woohoo, two bites at the cheery so to speak!

As I knew Jeri was going to be busy I made sure she was the first guest I went to see at GSITG. She really was lovely! Really chatty and came across as really fan friendly, I expected her just to sign my 7of9 picture but instead it was personalised and even had a dedication “Resistance is.... Well, you know”.

The Greatest Show In The Galaxy – Well Was It?

We all know that claiming to be the best is always problematic... If you’re at the top the only place you can go is down, so when an event is called ‘The Greatest Show In The Galaxy’ (GSITG) it sets itself a pretty mammoth task...

GSITG was organised by a new events company called Treble Ace Events, and as their first show it first came on my radar when they announced a number of Star Trek guests (it also helped that the event was due to take place relatively locally to me in Peterborough).

After the initial guest announcements I gave the event website the occasional glance, slowly but surely more and more guests appeared... Before long there was a massive line up including some big and rare names! I have no idea how the Treble Ace team managed to secure all the guests but it really was an impressive list!

So, a week prior to the event I bit the bullet and order myself a ‘Fast Track’ pass and write out up my ‘must meet list’.

Tea in the Tardis (S2) - A Veritable Doctor Stew!

Welcome back to ‘Tea in the Tardis’ originally episode 2 of series 2 was going to be with the team from ComicWho... However as I've got a bit behind with things they are currently away on honeymoon (congratulations guys!!), as such I’ll be chatting to the Team at Doctor Stew instead.

Doctor Stew I hear you say? What’s that then? Well, picture this, what would happen if Stewie from Family Guy was the Doctor...

However as we all know there are dark things that lurk in the universe as such things did not end well for the original Doctor Stew. Our Doc was forced to face the dark overlord known as Foxtraxi, he lost...

A whole buncha Doctors

So team, in the beginning what made you decide to originally merge Stewie from Family Guy with the Doctor to create the first generation of Doctor Stew?

Kevin: I was sitting down one night watching Doctor Who remembered Family Guy was gonna come on later, and that’s when it hit me: 'Stew' rhymed with 'WHO'! So I sketched up a quick image of what Stewie would look like as the Doctor... And it got such good feedback, that I though "Hey, why not try to do a little animated spoof?" That’s when I decided to do the series 5 Parody, and the rest is history!

Corsham Sci-fi Day – We Need A Bigger Boat...

I’ll never work out why I always struggle to do a write up for Corsham, but I always do, but here goes...

If you read by blog about Corsham Sci-fi 2011 you’ll already know that I love this event! My comment last year was (and I quote) “a review cannot just say “AWESOME!!” in massive letters...” and I had a feeling this year would be no different!

Corsham Countdown!

This was my third time at Corsham (I know time flies!!) and this time it was going to be a bit of a special one, why? It was also my 30th birthday!

When Corsham 2011 came to an end there was a section on the Charity Sci-fi Forum asking for guest suggests for next year. As always I had a suggestion, no prizes for guessing who! Yes, Nicola Bryant.

What I hadn’t banked on was the answer... If you want her to be there Matt, then you need to invite her! You don’t need to tell me twice, email was sent and then it was a case of waiting for a reply...

To my great relief, Nicola replied and was available for the event and was also able to attend the pre event meal the night before. This was going to be a good birthday!

Tea in the Tardis (S2) - Lights, Camera, Doctor!

When I did my first blog interview/chat with Matt Elliott back at the beginning of March it was only meant to be a one off post and something a bit different.

Following that original post the idea of doing some more chat’s was pitched to me, why not I thought, so the initial post became a series of 3, the second being with Craig Hurle of Doctor Who and the Tardis and the third being with Michael David Key of Mike’s Star Trek and Doctor Who Art.

As the first ‘series’ of Tea in the Tardis posts was well received a second ‘series’ just had to be done, the plan is to being you a selection of chat/interviews with various parts of the Doctor Who fan universe. 

Ryan receiving the award for his short film CHOICES

This series will include the team behind Doctor Stew and the highly talented Comic Who, but first off I’m joined by actor/director/filmmaker Ryan Hendrick who you may know from the Fan Film Doctor Who – Beseiged, so without further ado, here we go...

MH: Welcome Ryan, can’t believe the last time I saw you was back at Dimensions 2010! Seems like a lifetime ago, easy first question for you, how long have you been acting and film making?

RH: I always wanted to be an actor from an early age and imagination got the better of me, I decided that I'd have to shoot some stuff when I was 14 to allow myself to experiment with acting, and then I caught the film making bug and drifted down the route of behind the camera for a number of years until I took a gamble and decided to train as an actor.

MH: Great stuff, it’s always good when someone is able to follow their ambition from a young age, I know one of the early projects you were involved in was Minds of Glass, tell me a bit about it.

Tea In The Tardis (S1) - A Picture Paints A Thousand Words...

March is drawing to a close and I find myself on the third of my ‘Tea in the Tardis’ series.

For this latest instalment I’m joined by Michael David Key of Mike’s Star Trek and Doctor Who Art.

Mike, stars and signed pictures

I was first contacted by Mike back in July 2010 following him seeing a picture of me with Jeremy Bullock (Boba Fett from Star Wars). Mike had a request for me, if he mailed me some of his pictures would I be able to get them signed by the stars when I was at events...

That was 20 months ago, since then I’ve got a number of drawings signed for him and been able to witness some great reactions to them. Mike now also has his own Facebook page, that has now grown from a few followers to a highly popular place that contains not only Mike’s standard drawings but also a number of cartoons and other illustrations as well.

So with the introduction finished let’s talk pictures!

Who’s That Girl?

According to various sources it looks like Auntie will be announcing who the new Doctor Who companion will be tomorrow...

New Companion - But who will it be?

Now while I can see this causing great excitement I find myself in the odd position of not actually wanting to know who it’s going to be. To me it’s almost like a mini spoiler, I’d rather it just happen rather than it being announced ages in advance...

What I don’t like about the whole ‘who’s going to be the new companion’ saga is that all the guessing lists are all established actresses. Personally I would like to see a complete unknown take the role, which, for me would make the companion easier to bond with.

Bear with me here while I explain. The issue I have with well known actors and actresses in tv series roles is that it can become about the actor first and the part second (although I accept this is not always the case). With an unknown actor as we know nothing about them it’s easier to bond to the character first.

Tea In The Tardis (S1) - Two Matt's...

Here’s a bit of a different post, recently I met another Matt, namely Matt Elliott (ME) who makes a truly amazing Matt Smith lookalike.

The original picture Matt sent me

So here’s an interview/chat that we did for my blog about how he got into this crazy world of Doctor Who events...

MH: So then Matt, are you a lifelong Doctor Who fan or are you new to the whole thing?

ME: I've never really seen any of the original series as I'm too young, although I do remember being scared of the theme tune after hearing it at a very young age. I would try and catch episodes when I could of the new series but my appreciation for the series definitely increased after Matt Smith was announced as the new doctor.

MH: Ah, so a newbie to the world of Doctor Who then, from what you’ve seen of the show do you have a favourite Doctor and a favourite companion?

ME: It has to be the 11th Doctor but I probably am biased.

Trust Me, It Does Get Better...

Me now

For those that have read my blog before you’ll know that it’s very rare for me to actually do a personal post, the main reason is that (believe it or not) I don’t like talking about myself, especially my private life.

So, why do a personal post at all...

Well, I was recently asked to share a Doctor Who themed Anti Bullying page via Facebook. However rather than just share the page and then forget about it I’ve decided to share a few of my own experiences, the idea being if reading about what I went through helps someone else then it’s a positive thing.

On one of my early school reports my teacher described me as “an intelligent, friendly and extremely sensitive boy who my preferred his own company to that of others and showed issues with socialising”. In other words, I was never going to be one of the cool kids...

You Are Compatible, You Will Be Upgraded...

Don’t panic, the Cybermen haven’t got me, I’m actually talking about the recent Facebook Timeline upgrade for pages!

Love it or hate it Facebook has changed how pages work...

Before you think ‘ oh what a boring post’ and head off to read something else, humour me and just have a look at the new things that can now be done via my Facebookpage...

My Return To Wales: Part 3, SFX Weekender 3 Hi-de-hi Campers!

Have you ever heard the expression, ‘if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all’? Well, if I was to apply this to my opinion of the SFX Weekender 3 this would be a very short post... Along the lines of: Arrived, saw dancing girls, went home...

*Insert comedy caption here*

I can, hand on heart, say this was the worst event I’ve ever been to.

I have to confess I’d not really given SFX much thought before I actually arrived, I wasn’t even sure what guests were going to be there, but the idea of it really was appealing, a few thousand like minded geeks taking over a holiday camp for a weekend, what more could you ask for?

Check in was from the Thursday afternoon, however, if you’ve read part 2 of my Wales posts then you’ll know I was busy climbing Snowdon that day, so we decided to get there on the Friday morning and go straight into the event.

On the Thursday though the little alarm bell in my head began to ring upon hearing stories of people waiting hours to check in... Not too promising. Luckily when we got there on the Friday there wasn’t a queue so we checked in quickly and then went off to find our ‘Gold’ level chalet...

My Return To Wales: Part 2, Snow! Real Proper Snow!

So having had a wander round Ogmore Castle it was time to head north up to Snowdon. Having never been to that part of Wales I had to fully rely on Kate to get us to our destination...

Not a bad view

Kate gave us a drive time of about 6hrs so to make the most of the journey and see as much as we could we asked her to pick a route that didn’t use any major roads, the result some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve seen.

Our route took us through the middle of the Brecon Beacons, the ground was covered in a good layer of snow which just looked epic.

The most random moment was when we can across a burger van in the middle of a National Park, it just seemed so out of place! But, as there wasn’t much that resembled civilisation anywhere near it seemed as good a place as any to have a late lunch.

My Return To Wales: Part 1, I think I’ve Been Here Before...

From where I live Wales is a bit of a trek (this may be an understatement...) so as  I was off to the SFX Weekender Leanne and I decided to have a bit of a Welsh holiday beforehand, well makes sense, Wales is the spiritual home of Doctor Who...

The Millennium Centre

The original plan was to get to Wales for Tuesday lunchtime, however after a slightly disastrous train journey back from London the night before we were slightly later leaving than we’d hoped (however unexpected Peter Davison in Legally Blonde had made up for it).

So, even with Kate getting slightly lost and having a minor ‘hissy fit’ we made it to Cardiff in the early evening. After a quick cup of tea we headed down to Cardiff Bay to look at some of the Who locations based around there. It was so cold!! Normally I don’t get cold (it must the 25% Northerner in me) however even I have to confess it was a tad nippy!!