The alien Voord! Not exactly the Daleks are they?
Men in creaky rubber wetsuits with very peculiar helmets and equally weird 'teletubbie' aerials - they fought the first Dr WHO for control of the Conscience of Marinus in story five of the first series.
And then they were gone... except for an appearance in the first Dr WHO annual!
And that weird comic strip in the Doctor Who Magazine where they turned out to be proto-Cybermen.
And they were recently the subject of a figurine in the Doctor Who Figurine Magazine collection thing.
Yes, apart from all that, they were the proverbial one-hit wonder.
So that's why I now present Action VOORD!
When I've run out of ideas for new tat, I usually turn to Twitter hashtags for inspiration. Last Tuesday was National Burger Day for reasons known only to the industry that came up with the idea.
Burgers = Beef = Cows = Bulls = NIMON!!! (This is how 'word association' works in my brain. Psychologists take note!)
And again, one thing lead to another and I've ended were nearly material for an Iceland advert.
(Cue lots of repetitive comments about "How many Nimon burgers have you seen?")
Following my recent cardiac episode, one of the best pieces of advice to assist with my convalescence was to invest in a few "box sets" and force myself to chill out and watch them. It gave me a very good excuse to shell out for the complete Edgar Wallace Mysteries box set - twenty discs containing over fifty British 'B' movie crime thrillers from the early sixties - a few of which were actually based on Mr. Wallace's stories.
There's plenty to keep the rabid Doctor Who happy in this exhaustive collection. William Hartnell is a grumpy police superintendent in one. William Russell pops up in two. Producer Derrick Sherwin is in no less than three of them - one of which he appears as the young romantic lead! Some are great, some are corny. But they are all hugely entertaining.
Included in the box set are booklets containing viewing notes and collections of the various cinema posters used to advertise them.
Now that I'm virtually back at the computer, I've knocked up a handful of Dr Who cinema posters based on the Edgar Wallace designs.
Well, I had to didn't I....
Another idea based on someone else's tweet... probably Clayton Hickman again. He always seems to have the best ideas.
With the online premiere of ClassDW looming in the middle distance of this Saturday, the royal we decided it would be a good (and kind of topical) idea to take a look at some the of the Doctor Who spin-offs from the last season we won't be seeing this Christmas.
Like K9 and Company, they have at least been given the chance of an Annual for their troubles...
The signature of Terry Nation has adorned many products over the years - like Talking Daleks and Blakes's 7 annuals.
But now it's the signature of quality for a new range of kitchenware!
Just the thing for all that cupboard space in your new fitted kitchen...
Back in the mid-seventies, a lavish stage production of Doctor Who hit the London stage.
Sadly, Jon Pertwee - the then current Doctor - declined to appear, having just announced his departure from the role. And the role was taken by former War Games Time Lord, Trevor Martin in a new adventure with the snappy title 'Doctor Who and the Daleks in the Seven Keys to Doomsday'.
It's a little known fact that the genesis of the Daleks on stage actually began a year or so earlier with plans to turn the series into a lavish 70s style musical. Pertwee was still interested, Terry Nation had adapted his recent 'Planet of the Daleks' episodes and the talented composers/lyricists - Leslie Bricuss & Anthony Newley- had begun penning the songs.
Sadly. as with all of these ventures I've uncovered over the past year or so, it was not to be.
The reasons are too complicated to go into now but involved a legal dispute by members of the Dalek operators union who demanded danger money and a matress in the orchestra pit for working on a raked stage.
When Wall's launched the Dalek Death Ray ice lolly in 1975, their manufacturing department took the name a little too literally resulting in it being hastily withdrawn and replaced by the now familiar 'mint and chocolate flavour' ice cream.
In the absence of an effective death ray, I give you the official Sapphire and Steel ice lolly from Lyons Maid....
09.04.2017 - IMPORTANT UPDATE: The above Sapphire and Steel ice lolly is (like all of the TV merchandise on this blog) a fake created by me. It's silly isn't it? Even in the 1970s, who'd have produced an ice lolly with what is effectively a stainless steel knife at its centre. And what kind of company would use "I don't trust it!" as a by-line on its advertising. No. It's a completely made up piece of merchandise. But it hasn't stopped folk from being fooled by it over the years. When I originally posted it, some enterprising ebayer decided they'd produce fridge magnets using the image believing it to be a genuine ad. Comments on Twitter have also come from people who genuinely think they remember it. I will say it again. The Sapphire and Steel does not exist. It is a figment of my and hopefully, your imagination. Goodnight. x
If there's one thing that comes across in the works of Terry Nation, it's his capacity for research.
You only have to hear the legend of his finding of those curious artefacts in his garden and his tireless attempts to translate what eventually became the so-called 'Dalek Chronicles' from them to realise this.
The BBC obviously understood his skill. In 1979, spurred on by the success of his sci-fi political thriller Blakes 7, they commissioned Terry to write a book that would explain the forthcoming British General Election to its listeners and viewers in words that even a sci-fi fan could understand.
Terry set to work. Using the same talent for coming up with startling facts about Daleks, he put together a short tome.
The BBC decided not to publish it.
The alien Voord! Not exactly the Daleks are they? 
