'Chunky and retro' just about covers it.

It's really good.

It's very hardcore HD, like the TARDIS and the Sonic Screwdriver. Can't say I particularly like it, or dislike it. Actually feeling a fair amount of indifference about Who 2010 still - not enough info been released to get me excited.

Looks like something the cybermen would use!

Jeez I find those dvd extras of interviews with people unsettling-watch someone aged about 30 capering around a Who episode and then-bam!-fast forward 35 years to have them interviewed with all those years suddenly dumped on them.

Thanks for all the comments, the rec (have considered that one in the past - am v tempted) and general to-do. Anyone catch Amy Pond in yesterday's papers? That police uniform looked suspiciously non-reg.

I believe a certain author once wrote that his wife 'wore a nurses uniform.' Mayhaps that same author will be treating his wife to a Xmas pressie with a Dr Who theme.

Got to say I rather like the new logo ... I am quite excited to see how the new series turns out - and we've got the old one to end yet

Royston, please. There are some things i wish i had never committed to print. Giant cough.

giant cough? Don't tell me your wife is giving you a 'medical' as you type?

Am lost for words.

PS That Dextrose announcement - though later than I was expecting - should be happening tomorrow. I hope.

PPS All the reviews of DILY on Amazon have disappeared! (Mind you, a few of them am glad to see back of.) Still odd, though.

468. Anvil

Just watched The Story of Anvil, doc of the 80s metal band who never quite made it. (One for you, esp, Dave.) Yes, it was very funny, knowingly Tap, but also very affectionate. Man, I cried twice. Loved it. Highly recommended.

PS Still waiting for my Dextrose announcement. Am feeling a bit like Anvil myself.

468. Am I Anvil in disguise?

To rub in my Anvilness, my bi-annual DILY royalty statement arrived this morning. It seems I'm selling minus books. Sort of DILY black holes. I don't know how this works, but it goes beyond 'demoralising', while flicking Vs in the rear-view mirror and leering slightly. I console myself that Anvil are now headlining huge festivals and are finally the success they dreamed of being. Bless.

Erratum. That last entry should have been 469. I can't even count. Sigh.

Nick-you have written books that people take great pleasure in reading, so don't be on such a downer! Book sales always take a dip at some point-sometimes because of the second hand market for a start. So realise that your writing has made many a reader chuckle and ignore the current sales figures.

Very kind of you to say so, Royston, thank you, but fear not I was in a light-hearted mood - if admittedly resigned - when i wrote those comments. Something to do with that Anvil movie, I suspect. Onwards and sideways!

470. Luckiest guy in the world!

From Anvil to this! I've been contacted by another bloke (or perhaps a lady - he's not sure) who's found 14.5 big ones after some chap died in a plane crash - yet completely different names from our good friend Bob Hakam. (Gee, I miss Bob.) Here's the email, from Patrick/Patricia, who may be a cross-dresser. Do I have a strong enough hand to go ahead?

From: Mrs. Patricia Robertson

Johannesburg, RSA

Investment Proposal

Good Day.

This email transmission is coming to you from my residence because of it's confidential status. However, this letter contains some confidential materials and should be deleted from your mail box indicating that you are not interested concerning the proposal. For the formality of this transaction I would appreciate introducing myself.

My names are Mr Patrick Robertson, the director of audit in First National Bank Haughton Estate branch here in Johannesburg, South Africa.

We discovered an amount of $14,500.000.00 (Fourteen million five hundred thousand united states dollars) during our audit and the amount belongs to Mr. Ziya Bazhayev who died in the plane crash of Yak-40 jetliner on March 9, 2000. You may follow the Link below to read about the plane Crash which cost my client his life:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/europe/672849.stm

I and my colleague have all the necessary documents involved in this deposit. Now I want you to stand as the next of kin and help us transfer this amount of money from the bank here to your bank in your country. We assure you that this transaction/deal is 100% risk free and I will prepare all the documentation and prove the source of the fund before the transfer.

Furthermore, I would want you to understand that this business involves two bank top officials and must not be played with. We advise that you think very well before responding to this proposal because we need a matured and strong hand that can handle this transaction.

Your percentage and other important details will be discussed once I confirm your kind willingness in assisting in the transfer.

We anticipate your prompt response indicating your willingness and readiness to proceed.

Best regards.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Patricia Robertson

I just love that it's the same story, even the same amount, but with different names. Can they not change it just a bit?!

471. Finished

I just sent off the Daredevil Book for Anglers, which is out next May - not in time for Xmas, the date I had in my head for some reason - and can be pre-ordered off Amazon by hitting that cover there.

472. Hang on

I don't normally read my spam for obv reasons, but I just did and i could be a very very rich man soon! I've got loads of people with millions of dollars thanks to dead blokes in plane crashes! Except for this one, in which the poor family died in a plan crash. (How many of my plans have crashed. However I survived. Seems I was the lucky one.) At least this one is risky free:

BUSSINESS TRANSATION FOR YOU

By your host: kabiru Abrahim

Date: Saturday October 10, 2009

Time: 10:00 am - 11:00 am (GMT +00:00)

Street: Dear Friend I am Dr kabiru_abrahim the Director in charge of Auditing section in Bank of African ouagadougou, Burkina Faso,I need your urgent assistance in transferring the sum of($14 million us Dollars.) to your bank account. The fund belong to our deceased customer who died with his entire family in an a plan crash, leaving nobody behind for his claim and as such, I decided to contact you to enable us claim the fund. Your share is 30% while 60%for me 10% will be used to defray all expenses incurred in the process of the transfer. Contact me through my private email kabiru_abrahim@mail.ru for more details: on how the business will be executed,send me your contact information.1.Age,2)Residential adress,(3)occupation,(4)private telephone,This transaction is 100% risky free. Thank WAITING TO HERE FROM YOU

473. PS

I shall be making the Dextrose announcement tomorrow. Definitely.

Maybe the planes crashed into each other, and the grief and shock has casued the mailers grammar and spelling to fall apart. I reckon all the mails look like a sound financial investment to me. Now, could I interest you in a certain 'Tower Bridge' property I happen to be selling?

474. A little originality at last!

Now a princess (named Fatty) needs my help!

I am a princess i need yr help to transfer my father wealth pls reply me urgent

Par votre hôte: Faty Wedrago

Date: mardi 13 octobre 2009

Heure: 8h 00 - 9h 00 (GMT+00:00)

Rue: Dear friend, How are you today,i hope fine?I am a female student from University of Burkina-Faso, Ouagadougou. I am 22 yrs old. I will love to have a long-term relationship with you and to know more about you. I would like to build up a solid foundation with you in time coming if you can be able to help me in this transaction. Well, my father died earlier 1 year ago and left I and my junior brother behind. He was a king, which our town citizens titled him over sixteen years before his death.I was a princess to him and I am the only person who can take care of his wealth now because my junior brother is still young and my late mother is also late two years ago before the death of my Late father. He left the sum of USD 5,350, 000.00 dollars (Five Million, Three Hundred and Fifty Thousand US Dollars)in a security company.This money was annually paid into my late fathers account from Gold Exploring companies operating in our locality for the compensation of youth and community development in our jurisdiction. I don't know how and what I will do to invest this money somewhere in abroad, so that my father's kindred will not take over what belongs to my father and our family, which they were planning to do without my present because I am a female as stated by our culture in the town.Now, I urgently need your humble assistance to move this money from the security company to your bank account after which i come over to meet with you. and I strongly believe that by the grace of God, you will help me invest this money wisely.I am ready to pay 30% of the total amount to you if you help us in this transaction and another 10% interest of Annual After Income to you, for handling this transaction for us, which you will strongly have absolute control over. If you can handle this project sincerely and also willing to assist me in lifting this fund,i need your picture and your details.Do send it to me before tomorrow morning.This is my home address,From Burkina Faso in West Africa.Home Address: Rue 54 ave. LOUDIN

475. Mrs Dextrose!

At last, contracts confirm it. Looking for Mrs Dextrose will be published next May, and more importantly I have until January 20th to write it. Having typed '...will return in Looking for Mrs Dextrose' at the end of the ItFoHD manuscript at least half a decade ago, it is coming to pass. Am very excited. (And may start up the Twitter page for Mrs Dextrose again, in which I will Tweet re the writing process and plotline brainache - will see.)

476. Gotta be quick

Looking after Regan today again, since the wife went back to work this week, so allowing self 46 seconds of the alloted 163 to update Bob the Blog. Have realised now have nothing to add and cannot retrieve said seconds. Hmm.

*phones childline immediately* and you do realise Your Good Lady can see you have been slacking by checking your blog. Is your other kid called Goneril btw?

Goneril's a lovely name. You telling me you don't like it?

And now I've googled Goneril and understand. I know less about Shakespeare than I do about the petting habits of Latvians. Had you asked whether I'd called the other kid Carter, I'd have got it straight away.

*splutter, drops monocle into brandy glass* A writer who knows next to nothing about Shakespeare? *no wonder we lost the Empire*

477. Too hectic

Forgive the sporadic updates to Bob - with the wife recently back at work and nursery care seeming to involve me doing everything (small exaggeration), plus the Daredevil Fishing writes and rewrites, feel have too little time to potter. And now I'm being chased for Lindsay Duncan (as opposed to being chased by Lindsay Duncan, which would be unlikely), plus a radio script - and Mrs Dextrose is due in three months. Zoiks.

Surely your youngest is now of an age to be sent out to clean chimneys? And I assume the eldest is comfortably ensconced in Eton as a full boarder. So all you must do all day is wait around for Mrs G to return to feed you hand peeled grapes and fine wines as befits your status as reknowned author. I assume your butler updates your blog for you.

Yes, where is my butler? Bastard must have died.

478. Who mode

Spoke to Lindsay Duncan a while back, concerning her upcoming role as DT's latest companion, Adelaide, in Waters of Mars. Have very high hopes for that ep as a return to the usual form...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/videos/

479. Dear to my heart

As someone who loves his fish, I am deeply committed to the idea of sustainable fishing. A wee in the ocean as it is, I have set up a Facebook group to promote the idea, including info and a pledge to avoid eating non-sustainable species. If you'd care to join, you'd be very welcome...

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=158175381917&ref=nf

480. Best gig

Saw Bloc Party in Brighton last night, with merely minor hopes prior to the off. And they were stunningly good. Just amazing. Anyone who's thought to themselves - as I had - hmm, maybe I'll see Bloc Party play one day... DO IT!

481. Who

moves are afoot.

482. Nostalgia Central

I don't remember, but I imagine my love of Airfix models was included in DILY. Just watched James May's Toys (or whatever it's called) on BBC2, it being about Airfix, and gimmicky as it was, and presented by one of the Top Gear team (who think cars are great and are therefore risible), I did love it. Reminded me of trying to make a large-scale Spitfire with Dylan when he was seven or eight, and becoming impatient (parenting mistake no. 762), because I really wanted to make it myself and I couldn't bear any imperfections. Only child, see. Anyway, I've pressed Keep on Sky+ so the boy can watch it with me one day soon, and maybe it'll - I was going to type reignite, which would have been wrong, since my impatience hardly sparked an ignition - ignite his fondness for the toys of yesteryear. At the very least I can ask Santa to bring him some plastic stuff on sprues. Hehehe.

What who moves are afoot? Did you miss a question mark?

Interviews and stuff which I've signed forms declaring that I won't talk about, which is why i was necessarily vague. However, yes, I do miss question marks, and all sorts of punctuation; if only people's use of the English language were more refined.

PS When you coming down for a curry? Next week sometime?

483. Quiz!

I ran a Hallowe'en quiz a couple of nights back and thought I'd give you a chance to have a go. Click on the pdf at the top of the pic queue for the Table Round - identifying the spookily disguised famous faces. Feel free to add your solutions here. If anyone would like the three written rounds (Current Affairs, Spooky Stuff and Family Fortunes) to run their own Hallowe'en quiz, just e me and I'll pass them on...

Ah Airfix models-memories of stringy glue, realising that pilots were easier to paint BEFORE affixing in the cockpit, building a 1:72 scale Mustang, leaping over my bed and landing on it, trying to elegantly lift transfer roundels off the wet paper without them crumpling in half and sticking togther (or drying out en route to aircraft and thus tearing while being eased into position), the smell of the airfix paint, trying to put the damn guns in the damn housing in the damn warship models and not have them pointing in three different directions...

I just paint warhammer dwarves now...

Anyone else got a wrongly bound copy of this months DWMag? Mine has pages repeated etc. Will accept offers of around £500k from collectors.

As for Airfix-I forgot the joy of trying to glue the transparent cockpit canopies down without streaking them with glue.

Haven't picked up a DWM yet, and will hold off on paying 500K for your 'collector's copy'. Your Airfi memories brought my own flooding back. Liquid Glue - which, though terribly neat and applied by brush, if you please, failed to stick stuff. Humbrol Enamel paints - the smell of matt green. And the 'joy' of opening a new kit to discover proper rubber tyres. Sigh. Must add a kit to my Xmas list.

You boys do know you can get Airfix Doctor Who kits, don't you? There's a Tenth Doctor one with the TARDIS and Martha Jones available...

I didn't! That's one teeny part of my Xmas list sorted. Ta!

What's your favourite pirated Who toy? A local market was selling an 'officially' packaged set with orange coloured Tennant doll with rubber sucker dart gun and darts (presumably to fire at him). Classy.

I'm afraid I don't shop in 'local markets'. Only authorised retailers for me, because I hate to see anyone other than the registered licensee getting the cash. Anyone else?

Bet you find it wearisome shopping at Fortnum and Masons all the time though Nick?

Royston... Actually, that's sidetracked me from my intended glib reply. I've been watching the League of Gentlemen boxset with the wife, since it's a revered comedy (by those in the know) that I somehow missed out on. And it's had some brilliantly funny - and gross - moments. But it's the performances that are perhaps the most impressive, including those of our good friend, Mr Gatiss (having met him a few times, I can confirm that he is indeed a very friendly, unassuming chap, the sort you could imagine boring for Britain over a glass or two of cider, while he was too nice to yawn) - though I'd say that Steve Permberton's probably the best actor of the three. Am currently honing my "You're my wife now, Dave" impression. Is pretty good. Must try it on Mark Gatiss, should we ever meet again - bet he's never heard one before.

Couple of points for Dave Lythgoe - you still there, son? (Is weird typing this knowing it'll be read by at least three people, but neither who they are nor where in the world they are.) Is Gatiss' Auntie Val modelled on Geddy Lee, I keep wondering. And I was hit by a double-whammy of delight while watching Ray Mears' new series, when his birch-bark-caneoing scenes were given a soundtrack of Big Country, from the Restless Natives s/t I believe. Mears and Adamson - bliss.

Hi, Nick. It's been a while. First off, can't wait for November the 15th... although I don't think I'm on my own there!

Secondly, I know from reading DILY how much of an Interpol fan you are. I've just bought their 'Black EP' as well as the Paul Banks solo album 'Julian Plenti Is... Skyscraper'. Both awesome. Have you been lucky enough to catch Interpol live? I haven't but am working on it.

Speaking of music, saw Bad Lieutenant (essentially New Order minus Peter Hook) in Manchester recently. Brilliant! As well as the new album, did an Electronic number, 'Out Of Control' (Chemical Brothers collaboration) & 3 New Order songs. And if that wasn't enough... a Joy Division encore of 'Transmission' & 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'. The roof was well & truly raised!

And on that note 'You're my wife now'...

Hi Ade - I love the Julian Plenti album and have tix for him at the Scala early Dec. There are some vids of him playing live at the Guggenheim in NY on YouTube, which are interesting, though you wonder whether he couldn't afford a coloured lightbulb.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6m7AFRHmTg

Have seen his house band several times, happily - always amazing. Reckon we're due a new album and tour next year. Also just bagged Editors tix for next March, having not seen live yet, which is a minor crime somewhere between littering and theft from a sweet shop.

Have never been able to get into New Order - picked up double Substance best of for a fiver in HMV, then put it back down - which is a shame. Joy Division, on t'other hand...

PS I used to think Love Will Tear Us Apart was a Paul Young original.