So it's going to be THAT geeky then, is it? Brilliant...

I promise not ALL the stuff I dump on here is going to be written whilst wearing my Dungeons & Dragons undies, but we're not off to a good start here, are we?

These are unfortunately too brilliant to not share though, so if you're not that way inclined (ie a massive boffin like myself) you might want to tune out now.

The two pics below are AWESOME adverts for the original Dr Who exhibition taken from the Blackpool Gazette's "What's On" publication, a massive summer special edition filled with what was going on through the holiday season. This was later downsized to a magazine, then a smaller magazine, then a smaller magazine, and now I think they just pay a homeless person to shout at people arriving at the Train Station about Joe Longthorne.

These are from the 1975 and 1976 editions, and just make me giddy looking at them. I don't know if the artwork was commissioned especially for this ad, but 76's has been drawn by Frank Bellamy!!! He was essentially the Stephen Fry or James May of British comics, a proper English gent drawing old-school rockets and martians for the likes of Eagle and TV 21. Both of which are just slightly a little before my time, but that brings me to how these publications fell into my grubby hands...

THE GAZETTE WERE THROWING THEM AWAY.

I was working for the Gazette at the time, and we had a few back copies of the old What's On filed away in an archive, every now and again digging them out to wistfully wonder where Sid James and Les Dawson were performing for the summer season that particular year and what hideous men's fashions were being touted by Binn's and Lewis's department stores. It was a bit like Bart & Milhouse getting their hands on the rare Radioactive Man comic - we would place these papers safely back in the filing cabinet, shiftily looking at each other with accusatory glares whilst plotting how these illustrious publications might one day fall into our own possession. So it was with a mixture of horror and glee that I had to cry out to a new manager one day "What are these doing in the bin?!?!" to be told "we're just getting rid of some old junk".

JUNK!!!

So after rooting through some bins, (not for the first or last time I might add) I now have Blackpool's Summer Seasons 1971 through 1977 stored safely for posterity at home, and will no doubt be boring you with more scans when I can eventually be bothered getting off my fat arse and sorting it. Which when you consider these 2 pages were scanned more than a year ago, and it's just essentially posh photocopying, makes me very lazy indeed.

(Frank Bellamy unfortunately passed away suddenly in the July of 1976 at the "holy shit is that all the time I might have left and I'm sat in a darkened room on a sunny day typing about Doctor Who adverts" age of 59. So this would have been on the shelves at the same time. Don't know where I'm going with this, but there you are.)

1975. With a Dalek, a Cyberman, an insect in a dress, and Captain Juan Lopez McPig Lookin' Thing the 3rd.

1976. Baker. Bellamy. Blackpool. What's not to love?

So I have a blog now. REJOICE!!!

Well, maybe not quite rejoice. Unless you're a fan of the same shit I post all over facebook, but quietly think to yourself "If only there was a way these posts could be even more rambling & self-indulgent".

After inadvertently reading the whole of the internet (well, the good bits anyway... and the naked bits) and buying ebay dry of retro tee shirts and cheap Hong Kong action figure knock-offs, I figure it's time to either dash my laptop to atoms on some jagged rocks in a Bergman-esque act of malaise, or start using it for something practical instead. So it's the latter. This blog is where I intend to stick my writings, artwork, mixtapes, film reviews etc somewhere that people can see them, but more than likely won't.

Of course, I reserve the right to never update this blog again, and for it to sit as a permanent digital tribute to my chronic procrastination and lack of motivation. On the other hand, there is the very real probability that drunken Bavis may well think he's Hemingway every Saturday at 4am. Either way, for what follows, I am truly sorry.    

Genuine Avengers figures from Hong Kong... seems legit.