A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year !

I thought you might be interested to see this page from 'The Illustrated London News' of December 24th 1894.

The illustrations accompanied a story describing how, during a great storm, a mysterious blue box appeared in Lydd Churchyard. An unknown man calling himself the 'Doctor' managed to deflect a lightning strike on the church, during the midnight mass. The conflagration that would have, inevitably, followed may have led to many villagers losing their lives. Reluctant to accept the villagers gratitude, the strange 'Doctor' did partake of a glass of mulled wine and a mince pie, but insisted that he had merely been taking action to prevent a Rutan invasion? 

All Tilling is agog!

Mapp and Lucia is a collective name for a series of novels by E. F. Benson

The novels feature humorous incidents in the lives of (mainly) upper-middle-class British people in the 1920s and 1930s, vying for social prestige and "one-upmanship" in an atmosphere of extreme cultural snobbery. Several of them are set in the small seaside town of Tilling, closely based on Rye, East Sussex, where Benson lived for a number of years and (like Lucia) served as mayor. 

A TV series based on the novels, produced by London Weekend Television, was filmed in Rye and neighbouring Winchelsea  in the 1980s, and starred Prunella Scales as Mapp, and Geraldine  McEwan as Lucia.

The BBC has announced plans to adapt the books for a new series on BBC 1 with filming expected to take place in the early summer.

The cottage is only a 20 minute drive from Rye, so, any visitors staying at the cottage at this time may have the opportunity to witness some of the shoots or see the locations used.

The clip, above, from the LWT series has some of the exterior locations in Rye used for the LWT version.

As usual, there is a connection to Doctor Who. Steve Pemberton is to adapt the Mapp And Lucia novels. He was, of course, one of the co-writers of The League of Gentleman with Doctor Who writer, Mark Gatiss.

These shoes. They fit perfectly!

There has been some debate in social media about the merits and demerits of the Twelfth Doctor's new attire.

Personally, I quite like it - it is not particularly exciting or different, but I think that an understated costume gives the actor more chance to concentrate on performance.

After all, poor old Colin Baker never stood a chance of making an impression with his acting abilities when he was fighting against that costume:

As always fans like to pick up on the details and some people have said that the BBC has got it wrong about his shoes being Doc Martens, when they are actually manufactured by Loake. I'm not sure that the BBC have got it wrong, exactly. Doctor Marten was German and R. Griggs Group Ltd. bought patent rights to manufacture the shoes in the United Kingdom but did not have the technology. So in 1960 Griggs and NPS shoes collaborated to create a boot using a Solovair sole and a Griggs boot, the result was the now iconic Dr. Marten boot. The first pair leaving the NPS factory in 1960. NPS Shoes continued to make Dr. Marten boots and shoes under licence until the mid 90's. They patented the name Solovair in 1995 and now make their own air cushioned boot using the same lasts and leather cutters and machines used to create the first original Dr. Marten suspension soles in the UK. It is likely that Loake are making them using a Solovair sole under some kind of license. In the past, other shoe manufacturers have been licensed to produce shoes using the DM sole. Back in the 70's and 80's manufacturers such as Shelly and Robot made some very unusual designs with the Airwair sole. These were sold in iconic outfitters like Johnsons in Kensington Market - shoes like these might have been a more rock and roll choice for the Doctor !:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gormanghast/6828566731/

I had a pair of Robots back then - but they were murder to wear in !

We have reason to believe there's something rather unusual in the Loch

Two recent additions to the DVD collection at the cottage are the recently rediscovered Second Doctor story 'The Enemy of the World' and the Fourth Doctor story 'Terror of the Zygons' - both, coincidentally, included shoots at Climping in West Sussex.

In 'Enemy of the World' it featured as a beach in Australia and in 'Terror of the Zygons' a Scottish beach on the North Sea !


If you want to visit Climping during your stay at the cottage, it is about 80 miles along the coast and takes about 2.5 hours to drive there.

This time loop... thing, how did you get out of it?

Just added this to the collection at the cottage - the Third Doctor is now accompanied by Jo and the Brigadier !

Resistance is useless.

 Another DVD to add to my late brother's collection at the cottage.

Cybermen brought to life again !