mostly david ephgrave

I have an alarming habit of passing famous people on the street.   It happens often enough for me to worry I’m an unwitting stalker. If I found a copy of The Catcher in the Rye in my house, I’d check in to my local police station, offering myself up for voluntary arrest. Either that, or get a job writing the Mirror’s 3am column. They’re not fussy. They'd accept stories in potato print. It started when I saw Frank Carson in the mid-90s, drinking a can of lager on a Stevenage park bench. That opened up the floodgates. Now the list is endless. I’ve seen Suggs so many times I've lost count; the most notable being at The Enterprise Pub in Camden, when Madness were rehearsing in the same room after us. They didn’t do their trademark walk as they passed us on the stairs, which made me feel cheated. I spotted David Tennant on the Tube, making me terrified of an imminent Cyberman attack. I didn’t fancy being assimilated. I’ve had Boris Johnson cycle past me (stupid hair...

Tonight was definitely a night for watching television. This evening saw the broadcast of the much-hyped fiftieth anniversary special of Doctor Who: The Day of The Doctor – and I, like many others across the country, stayed in so I could watch it. I’ve become something of a fan of the series over the past few years. I saw it occasionally as a child, during the Sylvester McCoy days, but didn’t really get into it until its ‘regeneration’ in 2005 (see what I did there). Even then, I was a bit of a late-starter; I only really started watching properly after I bought a couple of box-sets for my girlfriend for Christmas. It’s probably not that surprising that I would like it. I was always a bit of a sci-fi fan as a kid (I used to watch Star Trek almost religiously; braving the cold to sit in my mum and dad’s conservatory each week, as the original series was repeated on BBC2). What I particularly like about the revamped Doctor Who is that...