Two recommended websites - and a nice review

June Hudson has got a new website (www.junehudson.com), showcasing her costume design work over the years. There are some wonderful, familiar drawings of Doctor Who characters circa 1980 (my favourite pictures are from the sublime 'Warrior's Gate'.) But there are unfamiliar and new images, there, too. Did you know, for example, that June was responsible for the exact look of Mrs Slocombe and Mr Humphries in 'Are You Being Served'? Just look at her drawings from 1972 - somehow she just captures their attitudes, and the precise way that these iconic characters will hold themselves.

The other recommendation is Mark Clapham's blog (http://www.rollbackandmix.blogspot.com/) on which he reviews and posts about all kinds of cultural tat, atefacts and phenomena. He's just posted a stonking review of Hornets' Nest, which I'm very pleased with - and which I hope he won't mind me reprinting here.

"Next up, a Doctor Who story (or stories). With Who dominating the airwaves over Christmas, any more might seem excessive, but Hornet's Nest, a series of five CDs from BBC Audiobooks, is distinctly different from the all-ages bombast of the current TV show.

"Thankfully, in spite of marking Tom Baker's first proper return to the role after only brief appearances in telethons and theme nights, Hornet's Nest isn't a direct return to a version of the character and the show that played itself out over the actor's long initial run and has been strip-mined in novels, short stories and comic strips ever since.

"Paul Magrs story/stories - the five CDs are linked into one narrative, but are each distinct - is/are closer to being an imaginary BBC4 Who spin-off to sit alongside the ones on BBC3 and CBBC, a version of that universe aimed at an older audience that remembers Ghost Stories for Christmas with fondness, shot on a low budget and aiming for slow burning chills. It's essentially a series of fireside tales exchanged between Baker's Doctor and retired soldier Mike Yates, two old men sharing scary stories and going on one last big adventure.

"The insistence on drawing a seventies period Tom on the covers, and placing it within that continuity in the dialogue, seems unnecessary and intrusive, a handwavy sop to obsessives and the BBC licensing department, who doubtless frown upon spin-offs chucking a brick through such continuity staples as which-Doctor-regenerated-when. This is an older Tom different to the one who descended into boggle-eyed tedium on-screen, and a different type of Who story tailored to it's leads current tastes, a story full of the macabre and weird, as well as cottages, wolfhounds and whiskey.

"Magrs makes a virtue of writing for his star's tastes, and goes full-tilt with a story that's genuinely creepy in places, and even manages to make that repetitive staple of early Tom stories, possession by aliens, work in a new and interesting way. The acting is fantastic, Tom being better here than a lot of his TV appearances, maybe better than he's ever been and Richard Franklin's older Captain Yates is certainly more interesting than the uncomfortable romantic lead he was cast as in the 70s. While a couple of the supporting cast hit the button marked 'northern whimsy' with a repetitive frenzy I could have lived without, there are great turns by the likes of Michael Maloney and Stephen Thorne - and in what other medium than radio could the towering Thorne play an Italian midget, hmm?

"Hornet's Nest is an entertaining, spooky new take on Who, and well worth investing in, an atmospheric treat for the cold winter months.

Mark"