The Lucozer's VHS catalouge system!!

Hello dear reader,

I've had far too much to do lately, moving house mainly, so I've been short on time to tome! The place I'm moving to is quite small. One of my vexing dilemmas space wise is that it's been hard to find a place that is out of view of visitors but also rapidly accessible at a nervy nerd's notice to store my idiosyncratically labelled Dr Who VHS collection. I'm happy for the official BBC DVD's to be on view, for reasons I'll explain later, but my VHS collection is another matter.

At some point in the late 80's, I decided it was a good idea to colour code my VHS tapes by Doctor. I already had a folder with the contents of each tape fastidiously documented, so it seemed the next natural slash painfully anal & obsessive step towards perfection. I ran a strip of electrical tape down the spine of each tape cover & in black texta wrote the appropriate Doctor's name & the number of tape for that Doctor i.e. William Hartnell #4 or Tom Baker #27, each Doctor starting from #1 for their era.

My grand plan was for each Doctor to have his own individual colour, until I realised that I only had 4 colours & that Dad was never going to drive his uber geek son to the supermarket to buy electrical tape for Dr Who video catalouging purposes. And of course being a kid I also had to do it all NOW!! So, some doctor's had to share colours, but they had to have at least one other colour between them otherwise it just wouldn't do for the sake of easy differentiation. Hartnell was green, Troughton white, Pertwee red, Tom Baker green, Davison yellow, Colin Baker red & McCoy yellow. Hartnell was green because I randomly started with that colour, but Troughton was the sole 'white' Doctor as he is my favourite. I felt he deserved to stand alone & not share his colour. In fact, he's so cool he got a tone instead. The others were chosen based on my 'must be separated by another colour' manifesto. I think I also vaguely factored in how much of each colour tape I had, knowing that I would need a full roll of one colour, if not more, to complete the voluminous 32(?) tape Tom Baker collection. I must have had a big roll of green.

As luck would have it, all the colours lasted, but there was very little left of each & I think I copped a stern 'Oh Lucozer!! really!!!' the next time Mum or Dad needed electrical tape. I was very proud of my handiwork & they all looked rather grand lined up on my pine book shelf. It was much easier to grab for the correct tape using the number codes from my book & my splendid spine labels rather than craning my neck sideways & straining to read my tiny handwriting on the spine that would say, for example..

Robot 4/4
Ark In Space 1,2,3,4/4
Sontaron Experiment 1,2/2

As fans, I won't have to explain the numerical code to you. The eagle eyed will spot that 'Robot' (the first Tom Baker story) is missing parts 1,2 & 3. Were they therefore on the end of the previous tape with Jon Pertwee's swansong 'Planet Of Spiders' I hear you ask? I also hear you ask whether that awkward 'mixed Doctor' tape would then be considered the final Jon Pertwee tape or the first Tom Baker tape? (or both?) Well, the two doctors on one tape problem did trouble me. I usually decided that whichever Doctor had the the most episodes on the tape could claim it for their colour. Jon would win in this marvellous theoretical case. However, this theoretical tape didn't in fact exist as for some reason I didn't tape the first few parts of Robot. Tom Baker Tape 1 started with Robot part 4.

There was an exception to this 'most episodes' rule though, a case where I had a tape with 'Revelation Of The Daleks' parts 2,3 & 4 followed by 'Ark In Space' 1,2,3 & 4 (again), which I inexpicably taped twice, perhaps by uncontrollable compulsion. It was also inexplicable that the ABC followed one with the other in 1993 during the infamous 4.30am screenings. Anyway, I decided that because Colin Baker only had a very meagre 6 tapes & because I had 'Ark In Space' in its correct place, even though this out of place 'Ark In Space' was in better condition than the one on Tom Baker #1, Colin's 3 episodes would trump Tom's 4.

Other problems emerged with the passing of time. I would buy or record off telly a new story & have to painfully insert it into my inflexible system. Oh how I gnashed my teeth & grimaced! At first I changed each bit of spinal tape onto the next tape & changed the number in my book to accomodate the insertions. Jon Pertwee 6 would become Jon Perwtee 7 with the new one taking the formers number & so on etc etc. This proved intensely frustrating & time consuming, but my obsessive ways would not let me submit to the easy, lazy ignominy of, say, having a Jon Pertwee 6A! It was, to quote the wonderful Stephen Fry, "a thundering nuisance, I don't mind telling you!".

More time passed & through lack of having the correct colour electrical tape when I needed it &, thankfully, eventually getting a life, I ended up with a few 'vanilla' spines. Tapes without tape!? that were merely inserted in the correct chronological position. At this point, I decided to turn them all around to face the tapes own label outwards again. This way, they all looked blandly similar, could have been any old movie or tv show to the casual observer & did not look geekily arranged in any way.

Now, at this time of moving house, they just look a bit too ratty & hodge podge to be on display. Also, the few official BBC tapes look incongruous amongst my far more numerous 'taped off the telly' tapes & also give away my long time fanboy status. The BBC DVD's are ok, they look slick & tidy & don't suggest such an arch obsession. Several have now replaced their VHS counterpart in my affections. Also, the new series has leant the old series a quaint, ironic, post-modern cool. Phew! But only in retrospect though mind you!! VHS really does give the game away. NERD BOY!

I really don't care what people think. I'm being overly silly for effect. But tell me loves that you don't feel a tiny little squirm inside when a new partner looks at a whole bookshelf devoted to your slavish love for a show that more often than not has been sub par & sometimes downright embarrasing over its huge life span. Tell me you don't immediately go into defensive mode & feel the need to madly justify & qualify.

Back to unpacking boxes. Damn. How nice it was to procrastinate for a moment...

xx Lucozer..

The Doctor's Favourite Companions!! (Hartnell/ Troughton Years)...for Peter Haining

Ian Chesterton - A charming & hunky antidote to Hartnell's coughs, cobwebs & mothballs. Steadfast, perceptive, quietly intelligent & stylish in a subdued way. I'd wear his cardigan any day (or Enoch on his wood perhaps?)...9/10

Barbara Wright - A smart & strong willed yet also warm & motherly figure. I would like Ms Wright to mop my brow & tell me it'll be alright after being paralysed from the waist down by a Dalek ray (if Ian wasn't available that is). I hope she & Ian got married & had lots of little Chesterton-Wright's...8.5/10

Susan Foreman - A painful & un-dimensional companion despite the writers best efforts to imbue her with mystique & alien-ness. A dreadful characterisation inhabited by a forced & clunky performance. Tripping (too often literally) at every wretched turn, I'd have no regrets, tears or anxieties if I never came back!...5.5/10

Vicki - An elfin cutie! I like her black & silver collar too. She had a relaxed & charming rapport with Barbara & Ian. Clever, curious, adventurous, woefully underrated & a vast improvement on Susan. For mine, she is the 'new black' where companions are concerned. Maybe that's overstating it a bit, but anyway...8/10

Steven Taylor - Not the poor man's Ian of repute, though initially he may have had to deal with a few scripts intended for Ian. He is passionate & heroic & Mr Purves gave it lots of gusto. His voice is a bit dorky, but his shoulders however..sf00khu...8/10

Sara Kingdom - C'mon. 6/7? episodes in the middle of one story (admittedly a Barrowman sized one). Not a PROPER companion surely?...N/A/10

Katarina - I've only watched Part 2 of 'Dalek's Masterplan' once & that was ages ago. So if I'm to be a serious critic, I'll have to award her the temporary pardon of another not very descriptive...N/A/10

Dodo Chaplet - If she was fired after a miserly five adventures because of, reputedly, 'terrible acting', then Ms Ann Ford's services deserved to have been terminated half way through her bus trip to the audition (sorry, that's probably a bit harsh) Dodo's not great, but she's competent & I think quite likeable. Lumbered with a dorky name, she suffered a dorky exit from the show too; written out half way through a story with no goodbye indeed! Tut-tut Innes...6.5/10

Polly Wright - Quite a looker. Would have set a few pimply fanboys pulses racing & a few dads might have poked their heads in too. Into the LOUNGEROOM that is! Not a great actress, but quite competent & a whole lot of sweetie. I'd go checking out the sailors & go-go dancing with her down at the Inferno...7.5/10

Ben Jackson - Originally cast to be the 'tough' for the ailing Hartnell. Fraze soon moved in, lifted the sporran & quickly showed who was going to be Pat's 'heavy'. Despite little character development & a broad accent that could make any dialouge wince in terrible pain, he did reasonably well. I'd buy him a pint...7.5/10

Jamie McCrimmon - A superb foil for the 2nd Doctor with whom he established a smashing rapport. Charming innocence, cheekiness & undying loyalty. What wondrous qualities. Oh how well he wore that long sleeve black T-shirt in the echoing white void. I'd quite like to be him, failing that, I'd really just like to...give him a whopping ...9/10

Victoria Waterfield - I wish Polly had stuck around & been developed further. She & Jamie would have made a foxy team, the pretty swinger & the simple, sexy Highlander. Alas, we have here the archetypal damsel in distress/ screamer. A thankless role played competently at best; not a good combination. She improved towards the end, but not enough to have me handing her a trophy for 'most improved'...6.5/10

Zoe Herriot - Not much character development here either, typical of the time I guess. At least they let her be a braniac even if not a very liberated one. Most of the time she just huffed & puffed & put her hands on her hips as impotent riposte to Jamie's sexist needlings. Zoe was charmingly played though & you can't argue with the curves in the catsuit or those doe eyes. The Co-Pilot would give her a lusty grrrrowwl if he were here. I'd give her half a growl too. I might just turn (on a spinning the TARDIS console) for zesty Zoe...8/10

That's it for now...stayed tuned for the Pertwee & Tom Baker years...

Love hurts, Lucozer...