Weekend Watchmen and Who and Them

It's been a good packed weekend.

Saturday morning began with me driving to work on my own for the first time. After a moment or two where it felt very odd not having anyone else next to me to tell me what to do, I found myself feeling quite confident and enjoying it a great deal. OK, I stalled a couple of times, but that I hope was just me getting used to the car.
So I survived. I survived driving last night too. I drove home after a our trip to London- well part of the way anyway. We swapped at Greenford and after a sticky start where I just couldn't get going very well and had a stroppy Mercedes driver beeping my furiously, I drove up the 3 lane A40 to the Slough junction and on to home. I had got the hang of the clutch by the time we got to Slough and so didn't stall again (hooray!) and enjoyed it all a great deal by the time we got home. This is good! At last Steve might have a chance to relax!

We went to see Watchmen on Saturday afternoon. It's been a few years since I read the graphic novel, so the details were rather hazy, but I thought it was a great adaptation overall. It was a very thoughtful and thought provoking movie- not really an action movie- much more than that. It got under the skin of what makes someone put on the hero costume and how they're all disfunctional in one way or another, but are prepared to do the right thing in the end, even if the means by which they do the right thing differs in each case. It was quite gruesome in places (in a far too realistic way at times) and there was some gratuitous sex thrown in, but what was produced was a great film based on the comics. Much more than I expected.

Yesterday we went to Who and Them- a convention celebrating the Barry Letts/ Terrance Dicks team that took us through the Pertwee years. They make a good team, and even 40 years on from when they first met, the friendship between the two of them really shines through. Indeed, one of the most touching moments of the day was when Terrance Dicks was asked about what was the best thing that came out of his time on the show he replied "My friendship with Barry". Aww!
The other guests were almost the equal of them- Katy Manning as bubbly and mad as ever, Stewart Bevan who seemed very pleased and proud to have been associated with the show, Iain Fairbourn, Sheila Fay, Pik Sim Lim and David Simeon who all had various recollections of their experiences on the show and a great panel with three directors- Christopher Barry, Michael Ferguson and Tim Combe who needed so much longer to talk about their time on the show.

It was a reminder though that everyone involved in the show is now reaching old age. Barry Letts seemed old and rather frail, though his mind was still ever so sharp and as he said to me when I was chatting to him while getting his autograph- old age has rather taken him by surprise. These are the people, as Doctor Who fans, we've been used to always having around and it will be sad day that this team is broken up. There were hints that Nick Courtney isn't at all well at the moment either, another reminder that they're not going to be around forever.
That's why events like this are so lovely. It's our chance to say thank you.