Wolf Pegasus Four - The Journey Home...Currently Somewhere in Hyperspace

Right then, no waffle...just onward with the expose of the P4 weekender...

Neil Roberts


Admittedly I knew very little about Neil Roberts....okay, I knew nothing about Neil Roberts apart from what I looked up on imdb before going to London.....his link with SGA, an audio book which he had just recorded with Paul McGillion.....of which I recall the theme was a planet on which a volcano was erupting with the local population suffering from some disease.

I did actually miss much of Neil Roberts talks as I was busy getting hugs from Kavan Smith and Chuck Campbell....more than one from Kavan because I'm special...and the camera flare from my glasses meant the photographer had to retake the picture.

Anyway, much of what Neil Roberts said is mostly unprintable...he's a man who likes to wander in terms of subject matter and leans strongly toward the 1970's comedy tones and style of Frankie Howerd....It proved popular which much of the audience but I must admit I do prefer hearing career and behind the scenes stories.

The man has had a varied career including Diagnosis Murder, Charmed, Sliders, The Bill and Holby City....and once starred in a rather dodgy looking film called 'Nick Fury' with none other than The Hoff (who was sporting a rather camp looking eye patch)....Oh, and on British TV he was the face behind Max Meltus, an ad campaign for a cold and flu remedy, with themes of James Bond, in the fight against 'Chesticov'.

The one question which he did answer was that his dream role would be Doctor Who and, due to his connections with Stephen Moffat, he was apparently on the list at one time....'above George Bush, but below Obama'...he has also recorded Doctor Who audios with Slyvester McCoy (7th Doctor) in which he played the sidekick.

Neil was around for the parties in the evening...joining with the con dances, making me look pretty damn good...especially when Prince Charming was played.....and finally he did manage to educate us meager audience when one of his stories involved mention of toys of the adult persuasion we all learnt the sign language version from the lady interpreter in the front row.

Moving on......

James 'Bam Bam' Bamford

Right, well I was particularly excited by this guest as the Sunday talk included a demonstration Bam Bam had put together....before that though his Q & A....

Bam Bam started out as a martial arts expert and got into movies by being the right height to double for Micheal Dudikoff (Cobra series), he then trained in other disciplines. He mentioned how the process of getting into stunt work is different in most countries...in the UK for example stunt performers have to be registered in multiple skills in which they must take an exam before they can work (figures, only the British would form an orderly queue in the world of stunts)

In terms of whether he's limited by what he can do stuntwise, due to actors and legalities etc, he tends to be able to due what he wants....as long as the actors are up for it and that the stunt in question is indeed possible...generally it's a case of 'here's the script...make it look cool'

He was asked if there were any actors who are bad at or scared to do stunts and without missing a beat 'David Hewlett' was Bam Bam's reply 'and, er......David Hewlett'. He goes on to say that David is actually pretty good with the stunts, though a tad accident prone (is there anyone out there who finds that hard to believe?....anyone?...yup, didn't think so) 'Even if there's not a way to hurt himself, David will find a way to hurt himself' ....Bam Bam continues to say that because of the trust everyone has in him the actors tend to try it out the stunts because of the safety they know he provides....even David 'Just put some elbow and knee pads on him...and go David don't hurt yourself....and he will hurt himself' (much laughter from the audience...in fact more laughter than the few token 'aws' thrown in on behalf of David).

In the episode 'Runner' Bam Bam aided in authentic performance from David while he was suspended upside down from a wire by setting him into a spin as the director yelled 'action'...producing many expletives from the actor, as well as producing a technicolour yawn. On other occasion a wire stunt, in the episode 'Doppleganger', involving Joe Flanigan gave the poor man a case of whiplash due to repeated takes...which according to Bam Bam were purely due to director Robert Cooper's desire to torture Joe.
Bam Bam loves to do car stunts and has done 'just about everything you can do in a car'.....at which point the, gutter minded, audiences laughter cause the man to add 'I didn't say on the back seat'.....He enjoys the driving, pushing button at the right time which launches him into the air and then landing on the other side (hopefully in one piece) process......he then mimes getting out of the car in a slight daze 'Was that cool?.....what's my name?'
When asked if he had ever been hurt he spoke about a fall through a roof stunt which caused him to bruise some ribs and tear his lat muscle (ouch) and then having to perform as David Duchovny's double in The X-Files the following week.....which involved being thrown into the side of a van....much sympathy drawing of breath from the audience was heard as he mentioned that you can see the expectant grimace of pain on his face if you slow-mo the scene. (not sure of the episode but he thought it was in season 3). His other injury happen whilst filming Scary Movie 4 in which a fall down a 17ft hill landing on frozen ground has caused a hip injury and the appearance of 'walking like a pimp'.
Bam Bam was a brilliant guest, I got to speak with him, and his utterly gorgeous and lovely wife (who'd spent the weekend on Oxford Street) at the Saturday night party. He posed for several photos with fans...the face pulling possibly due to the whiskey he's been sharing with Paul McGillion.

Final part for now and the Stunt demonstration in which Bam Bam brought in two British Stunt performers, James Embree and Adam Young, and one of the Wolf crew (who's in training) and a fan TinaK (aka teknikal) who he taught a series of 9 moves of a very cool fight sequence. I was really impressed as the 'fight' (which Bam Bam put together on the day and Tina had very little time to learn) was a great insight into the style, techniques, problems and general bad ass-ness of the stunt crew...with a little goofing around too boot.
For the life of me I can't remember what comment was made which initiated it (something to do with Scottish manliness no doubt....and a cunning plot from Chuck who had whispered something into Bam Bam's ear moments before) but after the Stunt demo Paul McGillion came storming onto the stage, walked right up to Bam Bam and 'head butted' him, gave a 'I mean business' look to the audience as he stripped off his shirt (unfortunately a tee was underneath) and proceeded in giving the same treatment to the other stunt guys, leaving them writhing on the floor as a mass of cheers, laughter and whooping erupted from the audience...I'm afraid I wasn't quick enough to capture the action of video and the motion was too quick to focus anything more than the following shot:



Finally, here's a couple of videos for you're enjoyment:

Bam Bam runs through the final stage of the 'fight'....'strike a pose'



and Tina on her final run through.....'action'

Wolf Pegasus Four - The Journey Home

As this has taken a little longer than I'd anticipated to blog I'm sure some of the detail behind my notes have been mislaid in those parts of your brain that you don't really use....hopefully though I've retained the good stuff.

This years theme was both interesting and slightly somber...the decor of the main hall retained it's fabulous Atlantis glass window theme with full sized gate at one end of the stage and a screen with varying themed background throughout the weekend at the other....for the Saturday it was the balcony view of the planet, a hyperspace wormhole and then finally on the Sunday we arrived 'home' as the image of Earth from space could be seen. It was a nice touch, considering, as was the video which informed us 'passengers' our journey through hyperspace 'will cause a time dilation effect which would make it feel as though things were running late, but this was just an illusion' (ah how a year helps you to forget 'convention time')...also free food and other luxuries were to be made available by flight attendants for rows A through C...enter said 'flight attendant' with a board announcing we were in row D....all highly amusing.

I had wondered, since the series had been cancelled, if there would be much melancholy and/or a slightly somber atmosphere amongst guests and us attendees alike, this however was not the case...in fact the atmosphere throughout the weekend, especially the Saturday night party, was buzzing and was incredibly infectious.....but anyway, enough ramblings...to the guests...

In no particular order:

Christopher Heyerdahl
This was his very first convention and he soon seemed to warm up to us bunch of excitable ladies (and hand full of blokes)...he is also a complete goof, upon entering he seem overwhelmed by all the camera flashes but proceeded with pulling various model poses and cheesy grins. He was asked about Halling and what he though he was doing since we last saw him he concluded that he was sitting somewhere playing scrabble and trying to figure out what to use the letter 'x' in.
He talked about the difficulties of playing both Duritt in Sanctuary and Todd in SGA especially on one day when he was filming very late scenes for Sanctuary and had to pretty much go straight into make-up for Todd and film a full day on SGA....the make-up take several hours and he gave us the surreal image of the make-up guys playing punk rock at 4am whilst 'creating' Todd.

He talked about the make-up and the physical restrictions, the mask and teeth effect the way the 'Wraith' talk but then also the outfit and make-up help to create the character he's playing. Upon being asked his favourite episode Chris replied Common Ground, as it was the beginning (of the character arc) and after very little encouragement from the crowd he did the (in)famous line 'There's so many things you don't know about the Wraith John Sheppard' with the deliciously elongated drawl to the John and Sheppard. He was once asked by a director if he could speed up the delivery on a shoot which was running late...hehe.
He spoke about working with Anthony Michael Hall on the Dead Zone and meeting him at a set of traffic lights after filming.....AMH in his Porsche and Chris alongside, glancing over and realising who it was and just kind of staring, after a few moments AMH must have had the feeling of someone looking at him. He turned his head and Chris simply blew him a kiss and drove off as the lights turned green.

There was much conversation about the Todd/John Sheppard relationship, Chris was aware of the fandom and said he wasn't surprised as 'they'd spent time in prison together'...which produced much chuckling, as did the comment he made when asked how he tasted.....'delicious...and getting better every time'
In terms of Sanctuary discussion (it's a good show by the way so go watch it if you haven't already) Chris talked about the diversity of the Druitt character....intense psycho or the slightly nicer version in the latter half of the season, he liked the unpredictable nature of the character and was hoping for more of the same when the season returns (which should be the case since new episodes are being written but everyone's just waiting for the go...fingers crossed).
Ooo, and in other....ever-so-slightly TV scoopy nature....Chris announced he'd just finished filming two episodes of Supernatural...as Alastair (hell and damnation, torturer of Dean, Demon Alastair)...so personally quite excited about that...can just hear the 'there's so many thing you don't know about us Demons Dean Win-chest-terrrrr'

Chris was asked to describe his fellow SGA cast/characters in one word:

John Sheppard/Joe F - 'delicious'
McKay/David H - after some manic laughing....'phenomenal'
Teyla/Rachel L - 'Love'...due to the Halling/Teyla scenes he most frequently had
Ronan/ Jason M - 'Laddish and fun to stare down'
Beckett/Paul M - 'Dead sexy' in quite a convincing....if a little Fat Bastard from Austin Powers sounding....accent.
Keller/Jewel S - 'tough'
Lorne/Kavan S - didn't have many scenes with but toyed with Kavan as didn't recognise him without make-up
Woolsey/ Richard P - 'scaredy cat'
Weir/Tori H - 'Respect'
Chuck/...er...Chuck C - 'eyebrows'

So what else can I remember about Christopher Heyerdahl....

He is a fan of H.P. Lovecraft
Speaks Norwegian, French.....and a little English
His cousin was Thor Hygerson (adventurer)
Says there a great liberty which comes with being bald
Buys his underwear from Mark & Spencer....and they're boxer briefs.

I started this a little late so I'm going to have to leave it here, hopefully it's enough to whet your appetite....huh, I now have rumblys in my tumbly....so I'm off for a snack before bed.

Return of the Gremlins

It's been a while now hasn't it...various degrees of suckiness have prevented me from updating including some icky which clogged my lungs and breathing orifices causing several days worth of being attired in my comfy purple sheep PJ's and fluffy slippers, the inability to pronounce words without putting a 'd' on the end and, in retrospect, the desire to buy shares in Kleenex (after experiencing the full scope of the life cycle of mucus in the human body...I know the mental image which I present to you is a special one and should be cherished alongside that of me with balls of tissue up each nostril when a sneeze takes hold ;-) ).

Also on the agenda was the worst winter weather for 15-40 years (depending on which news report you listen to)....snow, ice, temperatures with a constant minus tagged upon them and more to the point all of the previous appeared to have missed my hometown, which is apparently a paradox of alternate weather...meh, I'm only grumpy as I wanted to chuck a few snowballs, make a snowman (or maybe even a snow dalek) and generally behave in a marginally anti-social manner as the rest of the country got to enjoy 'national snow week'....but no, the only skating I got to do was on the floor of the conservatory, until the parentals displayed their scroogey genes and banned me from the room.

Okay so the snow, or lack of it, didn't really prevent any quality time to blogging, but hey...I was pissed at missing the fun or 'chaos' (which apparently is the only word in the news presenters vocabulary to describe the country under several layers of the white stuff)....so I'm venting here. There was however the matter of me switching on my computer at the latter end of last month and be presented with the thing which causes many grown individuals to crave the existence of a pre-technological era and fight off the urge to launch said technology against a hard surface with some force.....'the blue screen error message'....where all functions of my laptop ceased and all files, photos, videos, aka huge chunk of my life, was frozen with the possibility of deletion.....needless to say I was not a happy bunny at the prospect.

Fortunately for me a friend of my sisters is some kind of computer prodigy who managed to hoover out the scourge of viruses and reset my hard drive whilst restoring my 'life'....only a few minuses after the emergency treatment...namely all of my Internet favourites and some of my luxury programmes (flv downloader and converter for one...humpf)...of which I'm slowly trying to restore....sheesh, bring back the Filofax I say.

So, an update for now...I will return to the original programming of the Wolf Pegasus Four report later today or tomorrow....I hoping I can still make sense of my scruffy notes from two weeks ago.....although some images are permanently fixed in the 'convention' section of my brain.

Wolf Pegasus Four - The Pre-Amble

It's now Tuesday and I'm still sorting, editing and scanning photos, trying to type up scruffy and nonsensical notes and every so often I day dream and find myself ghosting a smile or giggling manically...causing those near me to take a few steps away from the mad woman.

First off I'd like to say that Wolf Pegasus Four not only rocked BIG time, but the people who were there.....organisers, the Angel's Reach massive and of course the guests.....quite possibly made it one of the most memorable weekends I've ever had and certainly gave me an huge inner moppet happy of which I was desperately in need of.

So, where to begin...the beginning is as good as place as any....this entry will be a short taster as I still have to reformat pics so that blogger doesn't spit the dummy when I come to post them....and so I start with Friday and my first meeting with the rabble of whom I would spend much of my time over the weekend.

In some kind of order: Erik, Matt, Becki, Joey, Shelly, Kirilee, Amy, (bottom row) Nicky, Rob and yours truly

There is something slightly surreal in talking, in person, to those whom you've conversed with many times, but merely as words on a screen and under the guise of funky sounding alias'....trust me it's a little oood.

Skip forward to the evening and, like last year, I had managed to get a meet and greet ticket...mainly due to my complete lack of willpower and buying my ticket in February!...Anyhoo, it was very cozy at team Angels Reach's table as there were around 12 or 13 of us crammed round which lead to much merriment and decimating of the snack box. Wolf made the mistake of providing a bottle of bubbles which provided much entertainment for a collective of simplistic mentalities.

Then the guest entered...I can't remember the specific order in which they came round our table and there was long gaps in between as they made they're way round the 300 people in the room...what I can remember includes:

Chuck - Asked when everyone was from around the table in an effort to see which places he had been to, didn't sound like he was having much luck with our crew and when I said I was from Bognor Regis a look of utter confuzzlement was cast over his face and he replied he'd not even heard of it ...figures. He recognised Nicky as posing in a photo from P2 where he looked extremely drunk. He also said that since Sanctuary has been out he gets alot of 'Hey, new guy!' randomly shouted at him.

Paul - There were lots of hugs for Becki and Shelly (hugs becoming a bit of a theme of the weekend), he talked about having to wear heels in A Dog's Breakfast and doesn't know how ladies do it...and there was some staring at Kirilee's legs (although he was supposed to be looking at her heels)

Kavan - bless his heart was recovering from a case of the flu and did look a tad peaky, but he definitely was a real trouper....which in retrospect is a fair description as the fella swears like one. He talked about Sanctuary (another theme of the weekend, was kind of an unofficial Sanctuary con) and made fun of Nicky over some e-mails which they had exchanged (to do with a present for Becki) where he'd not heard the outcome...queue grovelling Nicky, who put the blame on Matt. He was tapped on the shoulder as his time was up, but waved them off saying he was going to stay longer....I think he was after the mini Twix's

Chris - Now first off....the man is huge....second....it's Todd the Wraith....and yet the man has a voice which is like hot honey on the coldest of days, he's completely mellow and utterly, utterly nice. He was asked by Kirilee if he'd done the 'Jack the Ripper' tour in London since, you know, 'he knows'

Bam Bam - He was one of those guests who I didn't really know much about, except that he's 'the stunt guy' but he was also lovely, thanking us all for turning up, especially when he found out about us all being from the same online forum. He spoke about the Stunt skit he was putting together for Sunday's talk at which point Kirilee got quite excited and (since she's done performing arts) volunteered...as she was wearing a rather 'dangerous' leopard print dress I chipped in with 'in that dress' to which Bam Bam replied if she wore that dress the definitely.

Neil - Another one of those guest whom I'm new little about, apart from him doing a audio Stargate Atlantis with Paul McGillion....the first thing he said was that he wasn't sure if anyone knew him, but Philippa was on hand with the info about an advert which he had done for a cold and flu remedy in which he played a James Bond type character in the fight against 'Chesty Cough', he's also done Charmed, Diagnosis Murder and Holby City.....the cheeky bugger nicked my last three love hearts and spent much of the time talking about his testicles.

After the Meet and Greet finished, and over-ran quiet considerably (due to Convention Mean Time), the floor was cleared for the first of the weekend parties....for those not in the know these are slightly reminiscent of every wedding reception you have been to with added geeking out and crazy line dances. And dear lord, what dances....I not only have two left feet but one i fear is webbed while the other is about as useful as pirate leg riddled with woodworm. Many, many apologies to those unfortunate enough to be next to me during the Doctor Who dance (of which I got the hang of approx 20 seconds before it came to an end)...I fear my wardrobe was also a hindrance as at one point, during a particularly complex motion of turning whilst stepping, I got all leg twisty, trod on my trouser leg, had a complete gravity malfunction getting up close and personal with poor Erik who made the mistake of dancing next to me, and whom I fear I may have scarred for life. One dance actually has the moves explained throughout (one hop forward, one step back etc) which should have enabled me to resemble Ginger Rogers in my skill...in reality my brain ceased to function and when the track said to 'move to the left', I moved to the right...when it said 'move to the right' I moved to the left...etc...creating a complete buffoon-like persona...oh the shame.....in a moment of clarity I totally ruled when 'Saturday Night' was played, mainly due to my misspent youth in Ground Zero circa 1997.

Huh, so much for my short write up...next entry....the guest talks...watch this space!

A Taste of Things to Come

Today

Only one event on my mind today.....and so I was busy putting together my 'stuff' for the weekend of course....the list includes camera (& charger), mobile (& charger), hair dryer (& straightener), wallet (& money), Wolf Pegasus 4 ticket, Goonies T-shirt (& other clothes), note book (& pen), polo mints and ear plugs...as the old man snores louder than the low flying jets screeching overhead....quite excited now, just 3 days to go!

Oh, yeah and the first African American President was sworn in today, yes, I watched it and was impressed with the speech which was expectantly inspiring and hopeful, with blunt tones, a not so hidden dig at the last administration and plenty of historical context.

I'm of a generation which religion, sexuality, lifestyle and race just do not come into my opinion about a person...if I call you a tool then it's generally based on my experience of you as a person....so, with regards to Barak Obama, as long as the dude can eat a pretzel without choking there is hope.

End of an Era

It's officially the end of a couple of things...

1.) the cold snap came to an abrupt halt today with temperatures into double figures for the first time in nearly three weeks and the frost replaced with dreary ol' rain, so no more exploring for me for the immediate future....I hate to venture out in the rain, preferring instead to clean the lavatory and take on the immense task which is cleaning my room...that's how much I hate the wet stuff, come back icy weather.

2.) Stargate: Atlantis comes to an end tomorrow night, I'm aware some have already seen the final part, since it aired across the pond last Friday, but for once I figured I'd watch it on terrestrial....another one bites the dust, decent Sci-Fi shows are becoming few and far between (ITV's current attempt Demons is a big fat fail, even with Phillip 'You're surrounded by armed bastards' aka Gene Hunt Glennister....it's dull, dull, dull), probably not helped by the current money troubles across the board, which makes me thankful of my epic DVD collection.....And at least the show will get a farewell in a little under two weeks time with a group of eccentric and fun loving individuals and some of the cast themselves at the ultra cool Wolf Pegasus 4...rock on!

So, anyhoo, here's a couple of pics on my last wandering:

On the towpath to Chichester......The ice covered the entire canal and seemed to be at least 2 inches thick

Dell Quay....On one of the last days of the cold snap, the temperatures failing to get above -1 C

Fluffed up Robin

My attempt at cleaning my room.....it's a work in progress

Winter Wandering

It's been a tad nippy round here of late...and by nippy I mean barely registering above freezing since Christmas Day....brrrrr...but at least for the most part it's been sunny, yay. I have, since I have nothings else better to do, been out on occasion to enjoy some of this sunny sunshine...today one such occasion.

I wandered over to a local wetland, which was incredibly peaceful and largely frozen over, something which I've never seen before in this area. As I was walking along the footpath my attention was drawn skyward to a hovering bird of prey, who promptly pounced on a poor unsuspecting wading bird less than 10 ft in front of me...camera in hand I managed to capture some of the carnage....never before have I been so close to a bird of prey (upon investigating I'm pretty sure it was a Kestrel....or a Sparrowhawk) in general, let alone one having a late afternoon snack of plump Sanderling.....so, uber cool.....and not another soul bore witness to this event either, most having better sense to preserve life by huddling next to some kind of heat source rather than losing appendages due to frostbite in an effort provide blogspot with some visuals....ahem, anyhoo...said visuals:

The following image I like to call "You're next, sucker"

After watching for about an hour I realised the sun had started to set, quite spectacularly, and so took up position to take in all it's glory.


After almost another hour and with frost starting to settle on everything, including me, I trundled off home....handily some kind person, who'd been clearing hedgerow, had made a bonfire of clippings and so I was able to restore feeling to certain extremities on the return journey.

New Year, New Doctor

This is the face of the new Doctor...



A 26 year old relative unknown which is bound to cause some controversy and upset amongst the die hard fans of the series, and those of David Tennant also I'd wager.....I'm more interested in what the actor is going to bring to the role, half of the excitement of the regeneration is how the new invisionment is played....the look....the catchphrases....how Captain Jack will react.....And of course there's the other question of who is to play the next companion, personally I'd like to see a fella for a change.....Russell Tovey....


Who's an amazing actor, already appeared in an earlier Christmas special and cheekily cute, would be my first choice....but then I'm not in charge I am, phufft....the stories I could tell.