Geek me, I'm done.

I've just finished watching the third season finale of Arrow with my 11 year old son. I bloody love it, I love how enthusiastic and excited my son gets about it, I love how absolutely beautiful Stephen Amell is, I love how camp John Barrowman is, even playing an evil mastermind, I really love when Flash turns up in an episode and I even love the gorgeously young and skinny girls playing all of the female characters.  I'm not sure my son knows just how lucky he is being a geek today. Over the many, many years that I have loved Science Fiction, fantasy and comic books, there have been many, many bad films and tv shows.  Every time I watched one of these a little bit of my geek died inside as normals were given more ammunition to throw at my beloved characters. Recently and now though things have changed, NOW though...Oh. My. TARDIS, shall I list them? Do you want me to give you a list?

Iron Man

Thor

Captain America

DOCTOR WHO

Star Trek

Arrow

Avengers Assemble

Agents of Shield

Star Trek into Darkness

Torchwood

Agent Carter

Dark Knight

Flash

Guardians of theGalaxy

Man of Steel

DAREDEVIL

Avengers Age of Ultron

And, AND imminent

Ant Man

DOCTOR WHO is always imminent

Jessica Jones.

Defenders

Suicide Squad

Batman v Superman, I can't actually remember them all, there have been so many and so many to come. However, I'm not sure I like this. These big budget, well written, glossy films and shows have been good, I mean, some of them have been excellent, characterful and exciting and more recently pretty damn dark. Normal people have started to take notice of the long time lonely world of the geek, they have watched and enjoyed MY films and shows, now when I am at the cinema with my kids watching a Marvel movie we aren't the only three people who don't leave when the credits start to roll. Now when I go to Forbidden Planet, it's busy. Lots of normals buying my shit.  On the fiftieth anniversary of Doctor Who a couple of years ago you couldn't buy a Sonic Screwdriver for love nor money. Ten years ago I wore a disguise simply walking into that shop and it was an Aladin's cave of goodness, items overstocked and getting dusty...Geekdom is evolving and unlike Charizard I'm not convinced it is a good thing.

Merchandise

So today I’m half through my April A to Z blogging challenge and I must say I’m a little relieved.  I had decided to visit the recommended five blogs a day from other participants. That’s great in theory except I hadn’t factored in the amount of blogs I would visit that I found really interesting and that I would want to visit the next day to see what they had come up with for the next letter.  This means I’m visiting five new blogs daily and also at least two from every day previous...that’s a lot of blogs.  Don’t worry though I am finding time to feed my children.

With any popular TV show or film you will usually find that merchandising is released pretty quickly after the big ratings are announced and this is fine, we as a consumer lap this up.  We like nothing more than filling our houses with things that remind us of other things.  Our children like to pretend to be their heroes or villains and will demand lightsabers and sonic screwdrivers to enable them to save the world. My small childs bedroom is a Mecca to Doctor Who, Ben 10, Star Wars and more Doctor Who. You would expect this though, you would expect to find lots of Doctor Who figures and toys in an 8 year old boy’s bedroom. The thing about our house is that it’s not just my small child who is a fan of The Doctor and this unique brand of merchandising has become part of our lives and home.  This slight obsession is not helped by the fact that we have a Forbidden Planet Store in our city.  Forbidden Planet is our favourite shop in THE world, described on its website as ‘the world’s largest and best-known science fiction, fantasy and cult entertainment retailer and the largest UK stockist of the latest comics and graphic novels’  there are only nine shops in the whole of the UK and we have one right here, in our city centre.  Great for Forbidden Planet not so great for my bank manager.   We don’t just buy Doctor Who merch here, my daughter is a massive Manga fan, and they stock books to fill her desire.  Small child likes Yu-gi-oh, they have plenty.  I am getting off track here though, I really just wanted to walk you round my home to show you how Doctor Who has become part of our daily lives, show you why friends who come to visit sometimes raise an eyebrow. I decided to walk round our house and take photos of the Doctor Who merchandise that I spotted, this was difficult because it’s so much a part of my home I was walking past it un-noticed.  I didn’t go into small child’s bedroom, this may have sent you, my reader running from this place, there would have been too many photos.

 Dining Room...have you spotted everything? Including the Judoon Helment.

 Living Room

Have you spotted everything on this bookcase?

 This is my bedroom, atop my mirror

 My bedside cabinet

 

On my wardrobe

 

Kitchen and a not very dangerous Dalek who has lost his eye stalk and his plunger

 Large one is my tea cup and the small one is my coffee cup

 

The side of Daughters wardrobe

 The beams in her attic room festooned with Who Postcards

 

Spare Room

 My work pen.

 Coffee Table Reading

Coffee Table reading

 My Car
I couldn't let you go without showing you this, it isn't merchandise as such because we didn't buy it but it's a seven foot part of my home that I painted on Small Childs bedroom wall and I wanted to share it.

I hope you liked my home and my slight obsession with Doctor Who Merchandise. I would also like to say that these pictures do not include the many figures, TARDIS playsets, various Sonic Screwdrivers, Fez's Bow Ties, Jackets and Top Hats that are lost in the midst of small childs bedroom.

Just in case you aren't lucky enough to live in a city with a Forbidden Planet Store and you fancy some of this wonderful Doctor Who Merchandise or just want to see what other goodies they sell here's a link to thier website
http://forbiddenplanet.com/