The Third Doctor and the Weeping Angels

Once upon a time, there was hiding behind the sofa.

Before I grew big enough to watch Tom's showdowns with Davros - or to get girly over Peter's cricketing whites (sshh!) - the Third Doctor was the Main Man of the early Seventies. Elegant, well-presented, with authority, presence and a flair for technology - you got to love a man in frills who takes out the bad guys with Venusian Aikido.

Today, my six-year-old son isn't having this sofa crap, he's completely enwrapped in Doctor Who. He's a Tennant-fan (fairly obviously!) but likes to play games of imagination featuring his favourite Bad Guys. Daleks and Cyberman dominate - but he and I both are tranfixed by a more up-to-date Nasty...

The latest releases for Titan Merchandise, both these characters are now available as 8" maxi-busts, with the kind of high-quality sculpting that makes me wish I didn't have two left hands.

Though they do make me think... what would happen if they ever actually met...

What's More Compulsive Than Twitter..?

On Saturday, FP hosted an event with Urban Vinyl designer Jon Burgerman, signing his latest range of toys. With him, he brought rolls and rolls of his Burger-doodle wallpaper - a mobius meandering of pen and mind and curiosity that leaves the victim with one thought...

MUST. COLOUR. IT IN.

Suddenly, you're a four-year-old with a fistful of melting crayon. It's compulsive; one look at that paper and you relinquish all control. You sell your mind to the Overlord of Burgertown and his Posca Pen minions... your wrist belongs to Them now.

Jon spoke of the amount of blog-coverage his wallpaper had received, but I didn't really hear him over the noise of dementedly focused scribbling. Goaded onwards by his tales of kicking a Blue Peter presenter (with love of course), FP staff reached for more colours and shaded fixatedly inside the lines.

Surrounded by the Heroes of Burgertown, Jon watched his mind-controlled minions with gentle perplexity. Here is an artist who has created the single most appallingly mesmerising thing since Sid Meier’s ‘Civ’ – a compulsion that has spread onto the web like a… well, exactly like a virus…

More dangerous than Civ, more compulsive than Twitter – this thing is the words ‘Viral Marketing’ given form.

It’s not wallpaper. It's OCD by the metre.



The image in this post belongs to Jon Burgerman. I was too scared to take my own.