Regional Roundup

United Kingdom:

Nick Briggs, Simon Guerrier, Peter Anghelides, and J T Colgan will be lending their authorial talents to Doctor Who creative writing workshops at this year's Winchester Festival. Aimed at youngsters, the workshops will be held at the city's Discovery Centre on Saturday 7th July from 9.30am to 4pm.

Daleks invaded Yeovil as part of the 10th-anniversary celebrations for Yeo Leisure Park. As well as full-size Daleks on show, the charity event also included remote-control Dalek racing. In addition, visitors could see a Cyberman, Scarecrow, Sontaran, K-9, and a TARDIS. [This Is Somerset and The Mary Sue, 19 Apr 2012]

A Dalek had to be manhandled by four people over a roof to get it into a house in Shrewsbury. It was bought by fan Andrew Morris from a children's hospice in Barry Island but when it arrived it proved too big to get through the front door so an alternative entrance had to be figured out – needing extra manpower and some levitation! [Shropshire Star, 25 Apr 2012]

A group of pupils in Guildford who entered the Script To Screen competition may not have won the contest but Steven Moffat was so impressed by their work that he decided to send them goodie bags of Doctor Who items anyway. The entry by the trio from Holy Trinity Pewley Down made it to the final ten. All scripts had to have an Olympic theme, and the one from Holy Trinity Pewley Down saw the Doctor, Amy, and Rory on an alien planet resembling ancient Greece but where the statues turned out to be Weeping Angels. The overall winning school is yet to be named. [Get Surrey, 26 Apr 2012]

The newly-opened Wales Coastal Path gives people the chance to see famous filming locations along its 870 miles, including Portmeirion, which was used for The Masque of Mandragora, and a number of south Wales settings for the revived series. The BBC has uploaded a slideshow of various locations along the route.

Clothes and personal belongings donated by John Barrowman to the Dogs Trust have raised more than £200. We reported in March on the gift to the charity following a spring-clean by the actor, and when the items went on sale at its Cowbridge branch they attracted huge interest, with one fan even travelling some 180 miles from Nottingham to spend £600. [Barry and District News, 18 Apr 2012]

Genuine police boxes have gone on sale in Edinburgh. A total of 22 of the two-tonne constructions are available and no price has been set on them, with offers being accepted until midday on Thursday 31st May. A sales fee of £100 will, however, apply to each box. Designed by Ebenezer MacRae in the 1930s, they differ in appearance to the TARDIS ones, which were designed by Gilbert MacKenzie Trench for the Metropolitan Police in 1929. Buyers will have to remove them or get planning permission and change their colour if they want them to stay in situ. [BBC News, 30 Apr 2012]

CBS TV host Craig Ferguson has taken his Late Late Show to his native country of Scotland. A week of programmes, which see Ferguson exploring Edinburgh, his birth city of Glasgow, and his home town of Cumbernauld, were recorded in March - pictured right - and will start airing on Monday 14th May. [Associated Press via Yahoo! News, 16 Apr 2012]

The Big Lit Day book festival in Gatehouse of Fleet on Saturday 26th May will see Annette Badland make a special guest appearance. She will be giving a reading from The World's Wife, a collection of poems by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy that imagine wives' perspectives of famous men. The event is part of the Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival. [Dumfries & Galloway Standard, 27 Apr 2012]

USA :

A Dalek popped up on the roof of MIT's Stata Center, housing the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The appearance follows in the footsteps of the TARDIS a couple of years ago! [Lezgetreal, The Daily What, 28 Apr 2012]

In March we told of an appeal made by Tashi King for a TARDIS urn for the ashes of her terminally-ill husband, Kevin Pratt, when he dies. They have now received just such an urn and have uploaded a video thank-you message. (NB: The video contains Battlestar Galactica-style expletives and one other expletive.) [washandtashiblogspot, 24 Apr 2012]