Fancy Dress

This week we were told that our children would be going to school in their pyjamas as part of Children in Need week. This is a perfectly decent charitable cause but having children go to school in pyjamas, in Scotland and in the middle of November one can only assume that this should have been called Children in Need of a Bleeding Overcoat.

Dressing up is a fun thing for kids but there seems to be an increasing demand for them to have a costume for every occasion. A few weeks ago we were told that my daughter was meant to be going to school dressed as a pirate for “pirate party day”. Now I was tempted to send her with a replica AK-47 and tell them she was Somalian but we actually had a Captain Hook outfit which she looked rather cute in. Then we had the ritual of Halloween for which it is no longer acceptable to stick a sheet over the kids’ heads and tell them they are ghosts. The latest thing is that they have to go dressed as “a number” which can include a replica football shirt if so desired. I’m blown if I’m going to fork out for that and I’m very tempted to send them as π just to confound the school.

Fancy dress is something that can carry on into adulthood with fan conventions and dubious themed parties. I’m not a big fan of it normally but next week is the Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary and I have been invited to an event dubbed by my friend’s wife as Geekfest and I wouldn’t miss the opportunity to dress up for the world. I did mull over the idea as going as Roger Delgado’s Master which I think I could have pulled off quite nicely except that I couldn’t have survived the facial hair growth (Movember or not) which did make me wonder whether going as Christopher Ecclestone’s Doctor No 9 (or was he?) would be a good idea as I usually have a similar cropped haircut.

The key to the 9th Doctor outfit is his leather jacket. I did manage to find a suitable jacket online. It was £125 which is not cheap but I thought I could get some use out of a nice leather jacket. Unfortunately, my wife disagreed because whilst I think it would make me look like this:

My wife thought it would make me look far more like this:

At £125 quid I thought I’d knock it on the head. However, I did rather like the idea of going as Patrick Troughton’s 2nd Doctor. Like me, the 2nd Doctor was a bit of a scruffbag and the key to his outfit is to wear things that are slightly oversized. This worked for Patrick Troughton as he was quite a small man but unfortunately I tend to were the top size of everything (at least length-wise) unless I was going to buy a pile of clothes from High and Mighty.

The saving grace in all this is this rather fetching item which I found at Forbidden Planet:

It’s a T-shirt with the 2nd Doctor’s outfit printed on it. I did wonder whether it would look a bit naff but once I stick my (slightly) oversized black jacket over the top it looks quite fitting. Anyway, as of 19:50 next Saturday I don’t think anyone will be bothered with what I’m wearing.