Proms - any excuse

As we all know, last July there was an extra special Promo concert at the Royal Albert Hall.

It was THE event to get to - and I managed (by the skin of my teeth) to get tickets to go!

As the date had drawn close, various sellers on eBay had them on offer. It was finding the right tickets to get me in that was the problem. Often they would be one or two adult and one or two children. I need two adult tickets, and although I could buy one of the 'family' ticket sets on offer, I couldn't then sell-on just the children's tickets. Who would buy just a children's ticket, sitting next to a stranger?

Eventually I found two tickets and I sniped the auction at the last minute. However, once it closed the seller 'reminded me' that half-way through the run of the auction he had changed it from two to one ticket - though it was not correctly changed as he said, and it still said two in part of his listing. I was gutted and annoyed.

We mutually agreed to void the auction - not exchange money - and post positive feedback on each other and walk away.

All very well, but still left me without my tickets!

Luckily, another listing for two adult tickets popped up, closing with only a couple of days to spare before the event. Again I managed to snipe them - for multiple times their face value - but hey, I got em - and no more suitable tickets were posted for sale after that - so I like to think I got the last two seats in the house! Well, the eBay house that is!!!!

I paid for them and to ensure I got them, collected them by hand later that day (luckily the seller was in central London, so I could swing by on my way home).

The concert was an early start on a Sunday morning - a hot and sunny Sunday morning. A morning too hot for wearing an overcoat. Normally. But this wasn't a normal day, was it?

Everything about the concert was just fantastic!

Travels with my TARDIS

I thought I would just throw this in as an aside in the blog.

In July 2008 I went to Crich Tramway Museum with my Step-Father, who is an avid restorer of vintage buses, especially ones built by Leyland. His oldest bus was built in 1908, so last year it was one hundred years old, so a weekend event was organised to celebrate this and the eight or so other restored buses dating up to 1925 or so. Here is a pic of just four of his buses.

This was the very first time that all his buses had been together at the same place at the same time, as most of them live in transport museums around the UK most of their time.

It was quite a sight to see them together.

Anyway, Crich Tramway Museum is a living museum. They have various trams and buses there that have been rescued from here there and everywhere, as well as some buildings that have been saved form demolition. The build the buses are seen in front of WAS the town hall of a Yorkshire town, and the facade was transported and rebuilt brick by brick at Crich.

The trams are staffed by volunteers, who dress in period costume and take your ticket for the tram, giving a real feeling of being back in time to the Edwardian era.

There is also a pub and tea room, which again the facades were saved and moved to Crich. Last time I visited (some 10 years ago) there was nothing behind these facades, but since then they have built a fully working pub and tea room, where you can go to get refreshment, or for us last year, shelter from the heavy rain that spoilt most of the day there.

Now to the point. One of the buildings rescued is an original Police Box! So I was keen to get along and have some nice pictures of my in the Mk III coat!

The Earl's Court Exhibition - all bets are off!

So - The Doctor is in town!

Had to go and say hello - didn't I?

As I said before, instead of the coat being in a spinning glass case, it was this time on open display. You could go up to it and touch it - take the closest look.

Here are some of my pictures from that day.

And before you ask - no, I have no shame.

It was real cool to be so close to the coat.

The fabric it is made from is real soft to the touch, almost like velvet. It is clearly a suede like material, but a real good quality one. The colour is complex, being made of a flecked fabric, with lighter longer fibres over a darker, shorter base.

Moving round to the back of the coat, I finally totally understood what that back slit and pleats was all about.

The pleats of the gusset carry on down to the hemline, with the right hand side extended to lap under the left.

The left then has a flap sewn at intervals along its height, equally spaced along with are four button holes. There are then buttons on the right to correspond with the holes. Only the top most button is done up (at all times).

Then, in the next room of the exhibition there was a display of the costume designs for the series. One of these is for The Doctor, and it contained a bombshell!!!!

A hand written caption on the display states:

COAT:

BROWN ALCANTARA

'sofa' fabRiC

ROAN 11

single Breasted 

with BACK 

VENT & BUTTON 

DETAiL

INSiDE POCKET

DETAiL.

Could this finally be THE lead that brings us to THE fabric used for the coat????

The Mk III - nearly there

Now I had identified some issues with my Mk II, I set about re-cutting the pattern to get it even closer to the real thing.

I spent a lot of time working on the collar shape. 

I got the point of the collar less acute, at a more 80degree angle rather than the 45degree I had on the Mk II.

I also added a little trick to get the topstitching around the collar and lapel to look better. I sewing in a very narrow strip of padding along the seam line so when the topstitching was added, it looked a little deeper (see pictures here comparing the Mk II and Mk III).

Overall I was much happier with the result. I was now breezing the welted pockets!

I corrected a minor issue with the tailoring of the fronts. It is along this line that the buttons are sewn. On the Mk II I had this seam as a little curved, where it should have been dead straight.

I corrected the pleats in the back, making it even closer to the real thing.

However, the exhibition was in town (at Earl's Court) and this time it was up close - and personal!

It wasn't long before I took a trip there to find THE coat not only on display, but this time not in a glass case. this time you could touch it!

This opened a couple of cans of worms . . . .