Apols, Dear Reader. I’m going to have to split this post in two; it’s laden with gifs you see, and if I don’t, you’ll never able to load the page. I’ll place a link to Part 2 at the end…

*Starting with a selfie of us with Rose eh, Clicky? …/lights up… The Blue universe is as gooda place to start as any…*

*But actually I’m gonna start in the Aqua universe… /drags…*

Leggy has finally published Underdog Anthology VI: The Gallows Stone 😀 Ten stories, seven authors and a corrupted corruption of E.A. Poe’s ‘The Raven’ on the Dead Poets page at the end. It’s a real Halloween treat…

Leggy has written a spine-tingling tale about a haunted gallows stone for the book. Syncing, spookily enough, with the title of the second episode of the new Doctor Who series, ‘The Ghost Monument’. Fellow Underdog Anthology author, Cade and I viewed it remotely together on Monday evening…

*Whoa there, Clicky… /streams smoke… We’ll get to the Tardis in part 2… /taps ash… First let’s show Dear Reader how tobacco saved the day…*

The episode opens with the Doctor and fam floating in space. Now this could have been a very short episode, nay series, indeed. Because…

*Quite…*

Fortunately the gang are immediately scooped up to safety as ‘bonuses’ by the last two competitors of an intergalactic contest, in search of the final leg, a shifting planet…

‘Winner takes it all, loser abandoned to death’. Dems da the rules of Ilin, holographic sponsor of the competition…

*Art Majik… /puffs… on a cruel, deadish planet called Desolation…*

The first contestant to arrive for the final straight is Angstrom, a orange haired, spunky lesbian with a Norn Iron twang, from the planet Albar. She wants to win so she can save her planet and people from the Blue Tooth baddies we met in episode 1. The other contestant is Epzo, a gravelly voiced, gammon faced loner, who’s brought his own prize…

*Tobacco! Promoted on a kid’s tv programme? …/sniggers… Butt it’s so politically correct, Clicky…*

And did the Doctor enlighten Epzo to the dangers of smoking, Dear Reader?

Not a bit of it. In fact she was quite refreshing…

*Even after an epic rant about guns, Clicky, she detonates a fucking EMP bomb and fries the insides of an army of sniperbots… /nods approvingly… *

And she said nothing when Angstrom cut Epzo free of a nocturnal, leech-like bandage baddie… using – shock, horror – a knife!

When it came to a really tight spot – surrounded by a multitude of dirty, soul-sucking bandages, in a field of a choking acetylene gas – What did she do?

*/final drag… Nicely done, Clicky… *

That beautiful cigar saved everyone’s bacon…

… ‘Idiot’ Angstrom used the knife she carried to save his life; ‘Selfish’ Epzo gave up his longed for prize to save them all. So near the finish line; one of them would win and the other would die, what’s The Doctor to suggest?

*Get a Song, Clicky, love… /stubs butt… It’s too late to start Part 2 tonight. Those gifs took for fuckin’ ever to make…*

Sew there’s you go, Dear Reader, how tobacco saved the day on the BBC’s prime time TV show for children, and why the new Doctor Who series is as subversive as ever. I’ll post part 2, ‘Bloody Woman!’ tomorrow if I can. In the meantime… Have a Song 😉