#Bedford Who Charity Con

[thedoctorwhocompanion]

Doctor Who: This Year's Bedford Who Charity Con Raises an Astonishing £17,000!

#DoctorWho: This Year's Bedford Who Charity Con Raises an Astonishing £17,000!

We’re very proud to announce that this year’s Bedford Who Charity Con, an event organised by our very own Simon Danes, raise more than £17,000 for charity! In fact, it raised an astounding £17,101. That’s over £6,000 more than its previous record, meaning the convention is going from strength to strength. And no wonder: this year’s sported an incredible array of guests including Eighth Doctor,…

[pers-books]

My thanks to the Anon who told me the Bedford Who Charity Con video featuring Jemma Redgrave, Paul McGann and Daphne Ashbrook is up on YT!

[know-it-all-freak]

Today it's the 37th anniversary of Withnail and I. Let's celebrate it with the finest wines available to humanity!! 🍷🍷🎉🎆

Happy 37th anniversary, Withnail and I!

Paul told to BBC recently that while he was driving to Bedford (for the charity con), he passed by Milton Keynes, the place where the iconic tearoom scene was filmed, and was tempted to go there.

[panda-grenade]

Panda's Doctor Who adventure

My name is Panda and I’m undertaking a self made challenge. First thing about me, I’m autistic and coming out of lockdown has been very stressful for me. Another big thing about me, is I’m a big fan of Doctor Who. 

So it challenging myself to be around people more and travelling on different forms of public transport, places and all the sensory overload. As its the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who, I challenged myself to get as many autographs as possible from the series as possible, while trying to learn to be around other humans (not necessarily to engage but to be out of my little bubble). The autographs I collected will be raffled off for two charities. The National Autistic Society and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Support UK. 

So far, I’ve pushed myself to: 

Signing Spectacular 

John Levene (Sergeant Benton), Peter Purves (Steven), Carole Ann Ford (Susan), Nicholas Evans (Monsters) and Julian Glover (Multiple)

London Film Fair 

Milton Jones (Multiple), Michael Troughton (Guest), Nick Hobbs (Monsters), Mike Kent (Monsters), Derek Chafer (Cyberman+), Prentis Hancock (Multiple), Daisy Beaumont (Guest) 

Who’s at the Playhouse 

Nicola Bryant (Peri), Mark Strickson (Turlough), Colin Spaull (Multiple), Trevor Cooper (Multiple) and Jeff Rawle (Multiple) 

London Film and Comic Con 

Mandip Gill (Yaz), Sacha Dhawan (The Master), Christina Chong (Guest), Christopher Fairbank (Guest) and Brian Blessed (Guest) 

Dublin Comic Con 

Michelle Gomez (Missy) 

Bedford Who Charity Con 

Wendy Padbury (Zoe), Frazer Hines (Jamie), David Gooderson (Davros), Christopher Ryan (Sontarans), Andrew Burford (Cyberman) and Derek Martin (Stunt man) 

I don't always remember to take photos of the guest signing, or I'm not allowed. I've got a lot more to go.

How the raffle will work, there is a tier system, with level of donations. 

£50 per ticket for Doctor Who autograph bundles - These are split in Doctors 1-4, 5-7, 8-10, 11-13. These bundles currently include 7 Doctors,  2 Masters, 13 companions, 10 guests stars, 6 Monsters. There is at least 1 Doctor in each bundle, there is 4 bundles to win. (When making donation you can choose with bundle.) 

£30 for mystery box filled with lots of Doctor Who related stuff. 

£15 for a hat signed kindly by Frazer Hines 

Under £15 will get to choose a future stream from the TARDIS mug

It will run on my twitch channel, in November with a celebration of two weeks of Doctor Who's 60th.

[doctorwhonews]

Bedford Who Charity Con 8

http://dlvr.it/SkCnpS

[scoutshonor56]

Kakistocracy

In “Trump: Think Like a Billionaire” (2004), Trump wrote that others “are surprised by how quickly I make big decisions, but I’ve learned to trust my instincts and not to over-think things.” He added, “The day I realized it can be smart to be shallow was, for me, a deep experience.”

 Well, there you have it folks, Donald Trump in a nutshell.  I distinctly remember that surreal morning of this past November 9, when I awoke to the knowledge that yes, it wasn’t all a horrible dream, this ass-clown is actually going to be elevated to the highest office in the land. This orange-haired bag of bluster and braggadocio was going to become my president.  A scene from “It’s a Wonderful Life” flashed through my head, when a shocked James Stewart first starts to come to grips with his new reality that includes he now lives in a sleazy, flashy town called Pottersville, and no longer Bedford Falls.  Feeling more than a little disorientated, he says to his angel, Clarence, “No, NO… I just got hold of some bad liquor or something…”

 Me? I thought I was experiencing a horrible, nightmarish acid flashback.  See Bob? Mom always said that all those hedonistic days of recreational drug use will catch up to you…

I apologize, as in a recent past blog I said that I was done writing about politics, and Donald Trump in particular; but as we approach his inauguration this Friday, and after observing his behavior over the last week or so, I simply can’t leave this unsaid.  As Popeye used to say, “I’ve had all I can stanz, and I can’t stanz no more!”  The Dude “will not abide.”  If you’ve never seen “The Big Lebowski”, well shame on you, and I’m not even going to explain that last one…

 Yes, after viewing the highlights of his recent press conference – on “The Daily Show” of course, the only context within which I can watch Donald Trump, as he’s best taken with a stiff shot of humor and truth – it’s become obvious that our worst fears are about to unfold.  For those who grasped at that last thin straw of hope that just maybe, once if office we would see a tempering of the man’s style… ah, nope; he’s going to conduct his time as president with the same ego-centric, blunt style that he campaigned with.  For him, the office of the presidency is just a bigger and better reality TV show.

 I thought I could shrug this one off, a four year joke; I’ll just keep my head down, disengage from any discourse or political news, and hopefully, at the least, he won’t set the house on fire and it will provide a hard lesson for America and the GOP party – just ignore him… But I now find that the closer we get to January 20th, the more physically ill I feel.  There is a dark and impending malaise hovering over not just my head, but over our nation.  Like Captain Kirk and the Enterprise, we are about to boldly go where our country has never gone before, led by a man who literally lives in his own reality.  A blustering, pathological liar lacking the least amount of dignity or decorum for the office and position he is about to represent.  A man who lives high above the streets of New York in a pimped-out golden palace that makes the term baroque blush.  Who loves himself so much, he once funneled $20,000 from his own Trump Foundation to pay for a 6ft. painting of himself.  That is, when he wasn’t siphoning off cash from this bogus charity organization – to which he hasn’t contributed a dime since 2008 - to help pay for his legal defense tabs.

 A thin-skinned asshole with the temperament, empathy, and depth of thought of a grade school bully, who over the last year has insulted and mocked (just to name a few) a decorated veteran and former POW (John McCain), a disabled reporter from the NY Times (Serge Kovaleski), the grief-stricken Muslim parents of an American veteran killed over in Iraq by a suicide bomber (Khizr and Ghazala Khan), and now, this past weekend, on the eve of Martin Luther King day no less, he disparages the character and civic patriotism of universally revered Georgia congressman John Lewis, responding to Lewis’s statement that he will be boycotting the inauguration and refuses to accept Trump’s legitimacy as a fairly elected president with the tweet  “All talk, talk, talk — no action or results…Sad!”

 The gall of this man.  The imperial-like hubris!  Let’s clear this one up with a single sentence: Back in the mid 60’s, while Trump was attending his well-heeled schools and busy getting five deferments from serving in Vietnam, John Lewis was putting himself on the front line here in America for civil rights, including the march in Selma, Alabama (known as “Bloody Sunday”) during which he was struck so violently by a state trooper wielding a billy club that his skull was fractured.

 Yeah – “all talk.”  Well, OK, in Trump’s defense, I doubt he even knows the story of John Lewis, and the fact that his latest tweet attack came days before MLK Day probably never even entered his tiny brain, which has severely limited time for facts, or reading, or anything else that doesn’t orbit around his own small universe of self-assured greatness.

 And like the worst of cowards, he picks his fights from afar, using his favorite mode of communication – due to his child-like attention span and stunted verbal prowess – Twitter, 140 characters at a time.  Here’s one for you Don: “YOU SUCK – SO SAD!”  He is offensive and abhorrent to all things civil and good, and his behavior as an example only stokes the fires of divisiveness, xenophobia, and hate. Since his election hate crimes have spiked dramatically, and white supremacist groups have made no secret of their glee over Trump’s victory.

 Returning to his press conference – his first in six months and now almost a misnomer in terms – that night Trevor Noah (on “The Daily Show”) did a zoom-in on a video still from this combative circus sideshow, focusing on the table next to the podium stacked with piles and piles of bloated, paper-stuffed manila folders, supposedly representing the hundreds of business dealings that Trump will now be divesting from and turning over to his sons.  Noah took the liberty to point out the obvious: wait a minute… every sheaf of paper looked brand new, crisp and sharp edged; and even more revealing, out of all those folders NOT ONE of them had any kind of label on them, anywhere.  No dates, no titles, nothing; as clean and untouched looking as the ones on the shelves of your local Office Depot.  Come on… Oh well, what’s a meeting with the press without props, you know?  Any good con man worth his salt knows that!

 To add to the ruse, during a pathetic and ego-stroking attempt to further make his point, Donny also bragged that he recently turned down a multi-billion dollar deal with Dubai(!) – even though of course, he assured us, he is more than capable of running both his business and the country.  As if he could treat global and national politics and diplomacy as a “second job”… Oh yeah, and those tax returns?  According to Don, nobody is interesting in seeing those but the false media and character-smearing reporters, fogettaboutit!

 I’ve got nothing – I’m positively gob-smacked.

 Then the most foreboding moment of all, his coup de grace: angrily and arrogantly refusing to take a question from Jim Acosta, a CNN reporter because "Your organization is terrible... you are fake news!”, before calling on a  reporter  from Breitbart, an unabashed, openly anti-women, anti-semetic, anti-progress, anti-immigrant, and anti-nonwhites news (propaganda) organization formerly run by his newly appointed chief strategist, Steve Bannon.

 Are you ready folks?  First step to a Fascist government?  Delegitimize the press; same result as suppression, just a little slicker – gives Donny sort of that famous, “Hey I’m not saying, I’m just repeating what I heard” buffer that he used so effectively during the primary run to discredit his opponents. Hey, this ain’t China now - I ain’t clamping down on the media - just characterizing it as false and unreliable. Yep, in DT’s world, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth comes only in 140 characters or less.  

 I remember when Stephen Colbert was on Comedy Central with his own show, during the reign of George W, and he came up with the humorous phrase “truthiness”. In other words, if it “felt” true in your gut, well, then it was true, or as good as true.  Trump has swallowed this concept and shit out a twisted, even more effective and simplistic version of this: if you don’t like a fact, simply deny it’s truth.  Earth is round?  No it’s not. 2+2=4?  No it doesn’t.  According to factcheck.org, Trump’s winning percentage of electoral votes - 56.9 percent - was well below the historical average, 70.9 percent.  Further, Trump’s share of electoral votes ranked 44th out of 54 elections going back to 1804.  His take on the election results? “A landslide.”  “One of the biggest Electoral College victories in history!”  

 Donald Trump has literally created a whole new category for the term “liar”.  He lies like most people pick their nose or fart; it’s simply become part of his vernacular.  He can’t even make the distinction anymore between truth and lies, nor does he care.  

 I could go on and on, in particular about his obtuse and bizarre cabinet picks so far - “Hey, Dr. Ben, wake up, you’re on!” - or his shady and questionable bro-mance with Putin, but I’m going to close with this salient point: During yet another contentious and embarrassing appearance on CNN the other day, Donny’s idiot former campaign manager and now senior advisor/spokesperson (go-to spin doctor), Kellyanne Conway, tried to assure us with the ridiculous plea to not judge her boss by “what comes out of his mouth”, but “what’s in his heart.”  Wow – first, what’s in his heart is memories of Russian hookers treating him to a golden shower, and second, NEWS FLASH YOU STUPID BIMBO: in life, what you say matters, it has meaning; and if you’re the president of the United States, what you say affects the lives of millions.

 * Oh yeah, as to my cryptic title: I borrowed it from Paul Krugman’s excellent piece in the NY Times yesterday (which I encourage reading), and yes, kakistocracy is actually a word, I looked it up!  According to the old Merriam-Webster, it means rule by the worst.

[robogeek777]

Recollections of the Bedford Who Charity Con 3 – April 2017

http://thedoctorwhocompanion.com/2017/04/30/recollections-of-the-bedford-who-charity-con-3-april-2017/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[kahla-kosplay-blog]

Having a Destiny of the Daleks moment with Jim’s costume! Photo credit: abusiveArts

[romana-rose]

Had such a wonderful time at the Bedford Who Charity Con. L-R: my copy of Human Nature, Paul Cornell's signature inside, John Leeson's on my newly purchase K-9 art print, signed Lalla Ward book, the interior of my 'Journal of Impossible Things' signed by Ailsa Berk, Mike Tucker and Terry Molloy. Everyone was lovely, and my highlight of meeting them all has to be Paul getting a bit emotional when I told him that Human Nature / The Family of Blood is my all time favourite Doctor Who story.

[thedoctorwhocompanion]

The Fendahl Files: An Interview with David Gooderson, Davros in Destiny of the Daleks

The Fendahl Files: An Interview with David Gooderson, Davros in #DoctorWho Destiny of the Daleks

Frank and Simon Danes conducted this interview in 1981, when they were just starting in the sixth form, and David Gooderson was appearing at Worthing’s Connaught Theatre in Time and the Conways. He very generously gave his time to meet two schoolboys backstage at the theatre and chat about his time in Doctor Who. We met him again when he was a guest last year at Bedford Who Charity Con, 43 years…

[thedoctorwhocompanion]

Meet the Stars of Doctor Who and Get 10% Off Tickets to The Bedford Who Charity Con 8

Meet the Stars of #DoctorWho and Get 10% Off Tickets to The @BedfordWho Charity Con 8

With little more than a month to go, Bedford Who Charity Con 8 is coming up on Saturday 18th March 2023 – and, once again, we’re offering 10% off tickets to DWC readers! Details about how to order them are below. While I don’t like blowing my own trumpet, it’s probably fair to say that Bedford Who Charity Cons are rather special. Colin Baker’s been to two of them, and he says they qualify as…

[pers-books]

Supposedly there's a video at this link of Jemma Redgrave, Paul McGann and Daphne Ashbrook from the Bedford Who Charity Con 2024.

But when I click on the link zero videos are seen, so let me know if anyone spots it!

[pers-books]

The video from Bedford Who Charity Con is on YouTube. Can't send a full link on anon ask, but it's v=0n34uhEqvhE (hopefully that works!)

Thanks so much!

[thedoctorwhocompanion]

Doctor Who Convention: Bedford Who Charity Con 6 Raises an Astonishing £6643

#DoctorWho Convention: Bedford Who Charity Con 6 Raises an Astonishing £6643 (@BedfordWho)

We had to postpone it three times, it was 18 months later than originally scheduled, and 2½ years since the last one, but Bedford Who Charity Con 6 finally went ahead last Saturday (16th October). The pandemic meant masks were on, hand sanitiser was available in bucketloads – and yet a good time still seemed to be had by all. It’s a bit difficult to write this piece, since I’m the organiser and,…

[thedoctorwhocompanion]

An Evening With Terry Molloy (For Charity!)

An Evening With #DoctorWho's Terry Molloy (For Charity!), Courtesy of @BedfordWho

Presented by the Bedford Who Charity Con: we’re holding An Evening with Terry Molloy on Saturday 26th November 2022 – and DWC readers are warmly invited! Among other things, Terry is a children’s author, the alter ego of rural reprobate Mike Tucker in The Archers (a part he’s been playing for 50 years!), and an authority on the craft of acting. He’s currently touring with Colin Baker as Sherlock…

[thedoctorwhocompanion]

An Overview of the Record-Breaking Fundraiser, Bedford Who Charity Con 7

An Overview of the #DoctorWho Record-Breaking Fundraiser, Bedford Who Charity Con 7 (@BedfordWho)

The seventh Bedford Who Charity Con took place in early April, and raised more than £10,000 for Bedford Foodbank. The event featured three incarnations of the Doctor, a world first of two Davroses (if that is the plural; they could not decide), and never-told-before stories from entertaining guests. With the world as it is, not only was this a record sum raised for charity by the convention but…