Doctor Whom or ET Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Parodication
Page 13
‘So when the ET shot you . . .?’
‘The bullet passed into my tie: it was hurtling across the cavity as I lay there. But I had to wait until the ET left, or he’d just shoot me again. It’s like towel - you remember that TARDY towel you used to dry yourself off after your dip in the North Atlantic? That was similar technology. The spaces between the strands of towelling were much much much larger than the towel itself. That was why it was so extraordinarily good at soaking up water.’
‘So that explains the towels,’ I said.
Not much of a sentence, really. Considering that I’m a prose tailor, and everything.
‘Right!’ said the Dr with enormous vigour. ‘Let’s get on with this averting of terrible consequences, shall we? Put an end to the Garleks - nip back in time to rescue your ladylove - and get away!’
EPILOGUE
My relationship with Lexanco didn’t last, of course. The time I spent upon Tapov had its moments, but the main thing I learned there was that I couldn’t dance very well. Well, the two things I learned there were, (a) that I couldn’t dance very well, and (b) it’s hard to keep a woman interested in you if you are flabby and pale and badly co-ordinated when that same woman is surrounded by a whole planetful of lithe, muscular, handsome, graceful and co-ordinated males.
Ah well.
But that’s not what I want to talk about in this epilogue.
You’ve now read my story, tailored out of my own prose, about my experiences with the Dr. If you’ve read it with any attention you will have spotted a variety of errors of punctuation, and the occasional grammatical solecism. If you’ve paid even closer attention you may have noticed that the story was not arranged according to the rules of sequential and chronologically-linear development. Everything that the Time Gentlemen represent.
This was done on purpose.
You see, I met up with the ET again. I couldn’t stop thinking about his words, to be honest; and when I met him again he was able to convince me.
To convince me that the Time Gentlemanly obsession with rules, order and sequence is not only wrongheaded, but actively dangerous to the cosmos.
To convince me to join him in his campaign to save the universe from the Time Gentlemen.
And if you’ve been able to follow the story this far - if you’ve survived this dislocation of narrative - then I hope you’ll understand. Understand, and maybe join us too . . .
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Only available from Whom Industries plc.1 Yours for only £399.99 plus postage and packing, placing, platterning and patrolling. And pirouetteing. [Whom plc guarantees that our staff will pirouette at least three times for every order received].
• Bothered by screws?
• Troubled by bolts?
• Tenderised by a meat-tenderiser?
• Worried by global warming?
• Anxiously uncertain about the English translation of the German angst?
THE MONSTERS OF DR WHOM
The complete range of monsters against which the Dr and his apprentice have battled is now available via Monsieur Monster, the specialist Monster Introduction Agency
Available in clove, megaclove, supermegaclove, hyper-supermegaclove and Big.
“Oi am a zyder thinker, oi think it all of the day . . .’
‘Sluttyteen’ over-skin suits now available in Matt Lucas or Nicholas Soames sizes.
Rising from the depths of water (well, of frozen water on the slopes of the Alps, but that’s still technically water) to terrify innocent skiers . . .
A fearsome sect of fanatics whose life is dedicated to the writing of Susan Sontag.
Dr WHOM PAYS, TRIBUTE TO Dr WHO
Who could forget the roll of acting honour, the range of genius that embodied Dr Who for generations of eager viewers?3 Deathless their names shall be; never shall their glory fade; they shall not grow old as we who lack the capacity to regenerate our bodies via some frankly implausible cod-biological strategy shall grow old. Let us list them here, names as familiar to us as the names of our own families, in an if-you-will roll of Who-honour. Whonour, indeed:
Anyway, the point here, the point, is that nobody can really remember Troughton either.
I mean, I know he’s a highly respected actor and everything, but he has ‘Eccles’ in his surname. It’s the main part of his surname, for crying out glaven. How can anybody take him seriously? Would you take me seriously if I were called ‘Adam Doughnutton’? NO, you would NOT.
1
Parodically Limited Company
2
PLEASE NOTE: Device fits most hands. If your hand is unusually large, small, or tentacular, please refer to manufacturers’ handbook/tentaclebook
3
The first ‘Who’ in this sentence does not refer to ‘Dr Who’ obviously. If it did, then the sentence would be saying that Dr Who could forget the actors who played Dr Who, which would be a strange thing to say. Although, now that I come to think of it, there may be something in that . . . as if to say, the archetype that is Dr Who need have no cognizance of the individual actors who have embodied him over the decades . . . but, no, on second thoughts, that would just be silly.