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The Mind of Evil
I was out when the Mind of Evil omnibus was on. I was at a chum’s house
either recording or writing mediocre radio comedy. Yes I had that phase
too. I definitely remember going to someone else’s house on a bank holiday
Monday to record some stuff so maybe this was the day before. The other guy was a chum of a chum and big
into electrical wiring and equipment and so on. His house was wired up
like none I’ve ever seen before. Suffice it to say we were in the dining
room with microphones while he was in his attic bedroom recording it on
his computer and adding sound effects in real time. This was the early 90s
when it wasn’t as easy as it is now. I could do that now. He could do it
then. And still find time to have a girlfriend. The recording day was
ruined by an appalling headache I remember. I got home and watched
“The
Man From X”. So anyway, I got up and watched the first bit
of Mind of Evil before going out and spending a morning doing whatever it
was we did. It might even have been rehearsing which doesn’t sound like me
at all. I’m not even keen on second drafts.
I think I’ve bought Mind of Evil on video more times than any other story.
You know about my two copies of the Sensorites and obviously I’ve bought
the Five Doctors four times if you include both versions of the video, the
Region 1 DVD and the Region 2 Super Special Deluxe Edition. But I've
bought three identical copies of the Mind of Evil. I still have my
original one – I’ve not idea where or when I got it so you can stop
murmuring that I’m touched by a special kind of madness – and according to
my Amazon order history I ordered two copies in September of 2003. Amazon
decided to get rid of most of their Doctor Who stock and dropped the prices
to a fiver a throw. First come, first served. Naturally I pounced and a
few days later I got the second biggest parcel I’ve ever had. In it were
ten Doctor Who videos, mostly doubles, just ready to sit on for a few
weeks and then sell. Not literally sit on. I wasn’t aiming for the fetish
market. And sell them I did. Still sealed, out of stock at Amazon and a
healthy profit was made. Mind of Evil was my most successful as that being
quite sought after within days of the out-of-stock signs going up. My
biggest ever parcel, for those interested, was when I foolishly paid about
£70 on eBay for a guy’s entire collection of VHS wrestling shoot
interviews. Two massive cardboard boxes, mummified by parcel tape, arrived
by courier a few days later. It took ages to find somewhere to put them
all. I’ve never watched any of them. Five years later I'm dutifully
transferring them to DVD and taking bin bags full of VHS tapes to the tip.
Despite all that, I can't
remember what happens at the end of Mind of Evil. I tend to start it with
good intentions but once the Thunderbolt motif is introduced I wander off.
This is apparently important in the half of the story I never watch
Claws of Axos
I do have a clear video-memory (by which I mean I remember it as a moving
image rather than just snap shots, not the more modern habit of recording
everything on your phone and uploading it to You Tube so your mates can
see how obviously wacky you are) of buying Claws of Axos from Woolworths
in Macclesfield. I actually can remember walking over to the rack,
flipping through it and finding the C of A. The £7.99 price sticker I may
have added in my memory later. I can also clearly remember being there
watching it that evening. But that’s all I have for the Claws of Axos.
Macclesfield town centre - I think Woolies is off to the right
Colony in Space
Colony In Space was an important crossroads because it was with Colony in
Space that I decided it was about time I’d start keeping the UK Gold
omnibuses instead of just watching them and – if I’d taped them because we
were out – recording over them. I only remember this because (a) it seems
so utterly unlike me that I wouldn’t have been keeping them from the
beginning because I have a massive personality defect which won’t allow me
to enjoy anything unless I have a copy of it and can watch it again at
will and (b) I made the bizarre decision that I would record them onto
audio tape rather than video. I never put this plan into operation of
course but I can remember watching Colony in Space and trying to make an
audio copy of it with the old tape recorder up to the speaker gimmick.
This was 1993 for goodness sake. People didn’t do that sort of thing in
1993. It didn’t work – of coruse it didn’t work – and at some point during
the week I slapped myself, said not to be a moron and from the next story
I needed I recorded them on video to keep. Colony in Space had already
been taped over by this stage so it remained on my wanted list for a long
time to cme.
When the video came out – in a tin with the Time Monster – I found myself
loving Colony in Space from the first viewing. It didn’t take time to bed
in – from the moment I saw the IMC spaceship had cork notice boards I was
hooked. I posted something on the BBC message boards about it but my
message was deleted because I’d committed the cardinal sin of writing
“mining co.” and their obviously expensive software misread it as an
attempt to include a website address.
What THE HELL was I thinking?
The Daemons
The Daemons was the first story BBC2 showed in their second block of
Doctor Who repeats. I think they started again in January 1993 after
running three stories in the first quarter of 1992. This would’ve been
when I read the story in the Radio Times about merging colour VHS with
black and white masters etc. It was a good article. These days the Radio
Times is full of the same nonsense as every other magazine with an eye on
people too embarrassed to openly read Heat. I can’t imagine them running a
fascinating technical article in 2008. The bit that stands out was a
remark about one bit which they didn’t have a colour source for because
the VHS tapes were switched over. It was a scene where the gargoyle turns
round and they had to make up the colour by putting an orange glow over
it. I watched out for that bit and flattered myself I could see it.
I got the video in Birmingham during a shopping trip with my chum H. I was
supposed to get the brand new Carnival of Monsters video but as we’ll see
later, that was already taken care of. I’m not big on shopping with other
people. Even other people I like as much as I liked H. Other people seek
to bring order where there would otherwise be chaos or chaos where there
would otherwise be order. It’s a sort of microcosm of living with someone.
I am a solitary beast, best left to hunt and gather at will (or whim). I
can’t remember anything else about the trip other than getting the Daemons
video from WH Smith (£7.99 fact fans) and that she didn’t consider donuts
to be a “proper” lunch.
She was wrong - this IS a proper meal - 2 for starter
4 for main course and 2 for pudding
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