Text Key

"Audible speech."

'Directed thought, telepathic speech.'

Idiot's Lantern

Chapter 34 - …and Run The Lights

"-and I'm saying that what you want is Frijid Pink's show on The Lively Spot," I said, punctuating the name of the show as we waited outside the TARDIS for the Doctor to go do… whatever. "1971, Detroit, best version of House Of The Rising Sun after the 1950's and before the 2000's."

"Not the Animals?" Rose asked.

"The Animals can, in the words of Bart Simpson, eat my shorts. Frijid Pink brought better instrumentals and better vocals. The only edge the Animals have is that they had an electric organ solo."

She looked to be amused by my admittedly strong opinions on the subject. "And that's vital to your enjoyment of the song?"

"Absolutely." The Hammond organ was one of the greatest instruments ever invented, and that was a position I'd held since I was five in my first life, idling with the barely maintained T-100 at my father's house and getting the fallboard slammed on my fingers for being 'noisy'.

"Alright," Rose allowed. "So if Frijid Pink was the best for that time, who's the best after?"

"Heavy Young Heathens - bit of hard rock, bit of soul, whole ass professional choir, absolutely gorgeous electric organ solo, but it was for a movie so of course they'd go hard." I'd leave out the fact that said movie - Revenge of the Green Dragons - was about seven years off from even being a thing in her native time period. "Five Finger Death Punch's is great, but again - no electric organ takes away points. And they use the 'Sin City' line variation instead of 'New Orleans'. It's more flexible, but it upsets the flow in a less than great way."

"And what makes the pre-1960's ones better?"

"More variety. If you find the oldest notations and recordings, you get a lot more interesting subjects without losing the spirit of it - the novelty of folk songs," I explained. "Oldest written recording is supposed to be from at least 1905 and is lyrically written from a 'fallen woman's point of view, while the oldest audio recording is closer to the Animal's cover in spirit but has nearly completely lyrics - the gambler is a rounder instead, there's no wife, there's a brother to be warned not to repeat the mistakes of the singer -, what they did was hamstring the version that was getting passed around the most in the 50's-"

I cut off the info dump as the TARDIS doors opened, the small rev of an engine the one warning of what the Doctor was doing.

"Oh, what a ride!" Rose crowed.

I was less impressed. "I tell him not to be like Haruko and what does he do? He goes and gets a fucking Vespa," I muttered as the Doctor drove the scooter out through the TARDIS doors, a white helmet already on his head and highlighting his ear to ear grin.

"Goin' my way, doll?" he asked Rose, laying on a thick Elvis drawl, tossing a pink helmet to her.

"Is there any other way to go, daddy-o?" Rose shot back, dipping into - into what I could only describe as 'vintage valley girl' as she slipped her helmet on. "Straight from the fridge, man."

"Don't do that," I said. "Either of you. Nobody talks like that unless they're doing the worst version of Grease."

"Well come on then, I'll take off the accent and you'll put on the helmet," the Doctor said as he tossed a third helmet my way. "Safety first."

"No way." I immediately tossed it back. "I'm not affiliated with either of you. Doctor who? I don't know him."

He tossed the helmet to me again. "Come on, it'll be fine. I won't do the accent again. I promise."

"It's not just the accent, Doctor." I glanced down at the moped and its glossy TARDIS blue paint. For all I'd complained about the Haruko resemblance, it was still a nice scooter… but still one only built for two butts to sit comfortably. "You can't honestly see us all fitting on that."

"Bit of effort, you could," the Time Lord replied, lightly sulking in my general direction. "Thought you humans were all about shoving as many people as possible into small spaces."

"Small spaces that aren't moving. And a Vespa isn't a small space, it's a small platform."

The pouting intensified. "You've clearly never ridden on a Philippine jeepney."

"This isn't a jeepney, Doctor. This is a Vespa and none of us are close enough friends for me to even consider trying to make it a three-person vehicle." I tried changing tracks. "I could go get my motorcycle?" I offered. "Sidecar means she can sit three comfortably if you want us all together."

"That dull old thing?" The Doctor scoffed. "I know it's a Triumph Tiger and roughly era appropriate, but really - a British bike in America? Show a sense of patriotism."

Bitch. I didn't want to hear that from the guy who brought out the Italian scooter.

"I'm not going to be one of the buns in a Rose sandwich," I shot back, throwing the helmet back for the last time. "Get something else if my bike isn't good enough."

"Fine. You're so par-tic-ular," the Doctor said as he turned the scooter around and drove it back into the TARDIS.

"I thought we were fine now," Rose said as we waited.

"Rose, there's a world of difference between us being 'fine' and what getting me on that scooter behind you would have involved," I pointed out. "And me buying you Chinese once doesn't count as a good enough date for that sort of thing, even if you were my type."

She flushed slightly at the implication. "I mean, you could have gotten in between me and the Doctor…"

I managed to contain any outward sign of my discomfort at that idea. I was working on being better around these two, but that kind of physical contact was nowhere near on the table yet for so many reasons. "That suggestion is not actually an improvement."

Before the conversation could go any further, the Doctor returned in…

I blinked as the TARDIS's frame warped outwards in a way that I could only describe as being halfway between 'silicone rubber' and 'piss poor mid 2000's CGI', her material - still looking like painted wood despite the physical impossibility - stretching in almost a cling-form shape around the car pulling out of her console room.

…right, that looked weird. And slightly fucked up in a way that made me very glad that the TARDIS came with a 'Someone Else's Problem' field - er, perception filter as a standard feature.

"...what?" the Doctor asked in response to my stare. "What's that look for?"

"You made me disassemble my bike to get through that door," I pointed out flatly. "Because my side car was 'too wide' for it."

The Doctor turned around in his seat to look at how the TARDIS had warped her doors to fit the current vehicle through.

"...ah. Well, you see, there's a funny little switch that takes a little bit of finding-"

"Yeah. Okay, just know that I'm going to remember that switch exists," I said, before waving at the new vehicle as the Doctor finished pulling it out of the TARDIS. "Also, Doctor, how is upgrading from an Italian scooter to an Italian car more 'patriotic' than my bike?"

Immediately, the Time Lord's sunny manner was back. "Oh, you can tell from that distance? You know, it took them a while to develop that iconic profile, so without having the red paint job or a good look at the badge-"

"You're missing my point on purpose, I think."

"Is that a Ferrari?" Rose asked once she was close enough to see the rearing horse badge.

"1952 Ferrari 342 America. Live axle, front engine, worm and sector drive, synchromesh gearbox, Lampredi V12 engine," I rattled off, doing a slow circle of the car now that it was clear. It was a good paint job - TARDIS blue again, but this time in fine pearl paint, apart from two shock white 'go faster' stripes - and the car itself seemed to be in just as perfect a condition as you could ask, though I'd have to look under the hood to know for sure. "Only six road models ever made. Top speed; 115 miles per hour."

The Doctor looked smug. "Well, I've certainly modified this little number to go a bit faster than that, with handling and braking to match, but the rest is roughly right."

Still an Italian car though. "Did you modify it to have more than two seats?" Or seatbelts?

The smugness crumbled as he checked the one - and only other - empty seat in the car. "...um."

Dummy. So focused on showing off that he'd forgotten exactly what problem had given him the opportunity to do so in the first place - aw no, now he was making a sad face. Almost entirely with his eyes. That wasn't fair.

Before I could throw him a bone about balancing on the back, the hangdog look evaporated. "Aha!" he said as he pulled a lever that brought the front set forward by a few inches. "Hidden set of seats in the back! Bit of a squeeze but you should be able to fit…"

I looked. Yeah, technically. It really wasn't enough leg room… "It's fine. I'll figure it out."

Immediately, the hangdog look evaporated for good and the excited puppy was back, blasting my Aura senses with how goddamn happy he was like a searchlight to the face.

'You gave in to the Bambi eyes too easily,' Zeke chided playfully as I took up my position in the back, trying not to feel too much like a public spectacle sitting this high up. 'You'll never get him trained at this rate.'

'Like that was even going to happen. I've spent over a thousand years with you and I'm still not entirely sure I got you housebroken.'

'Ah, yes, but did you ever want me to be?' he replied smugly.

I rolled my eyes, the expression secure behind tinted lenses - though with the way the Doctor was chattering away to Rose in the background as he started driving down the street, it wasn't like it was going to be noticed by anyone else. 'If it meant you stealing my shampoo less, yes.'

'Selby does that too,' Zeke pointed out.

'Just more evidence that Time Lords and Time Gods of any size are all beasts, set upon me to cause me infinite amounts of mild inconvenience while being utterly untouchable because they know all my weak points. Like cats with thumbs.'

'Leaning on that analogy…'

'Yes, yes. It means I know you're only as trainable as you have a mind to be,' I finished for him. 'That much was obvious from the start.'

'I was going to say that, since you like cats, that's part of the charm.'

He wasn't wrong about that. Still… 'Oh fuck off.'

"But what's your opinion on Elvis, Delaine?" the Doctor asked, helping draw my attention off of Zeke's smugness at winning our argument and back to reality.

"Vegas wouldn't be what it is without him." And where would I be without my favorite neighborhood friendly gang of Elvis impersonators? Well, less likely to have to put up with Pacer, I guess, but other than that - "And Junkie XL's remix of A Little Less Conversation is fantastic."

"That one really is good, isn't it? Any other-"

"Stop sign," I announced, seeing a red triangle.

The Doctor hit the brakes, bringing us to a stop right before we could plow into the double decker bus crossing the intersection just ahead of us.

I watched a Time Lord slowly swivel his head to the right and to the left before turning around in his seat to fix an unimpressed stare on me. "Alright. When did you realize this wasn't New York?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"Because you're just the right combination of 'observant', 'smart', and 'more than happy to let me look like a fool in public if you think it'd be funny' for me to know that you absolutely did figure it out before now," the Doctor pointed out.

You know what? That was completely true.

"Pretty much as soon as we stepped out of the TARDIS," I said. Even without foreknowledge, there were plenty of 'clues' to pick up on. "Nobody was yelling at you for blocking traffic, all the advertising posters are for things Americans don't care about, the traffic signs aren't anything that'd fly state-side, and there's no bodegas or stands of any kind either." I paused. "And even without all that, the Union Jacks all over the place are a bit of a giveaway."

"Union Flag - they're only Jacks when flown at sea," Rose corrected.

"And how long were you going to wait to tell me that?" the Doctor asked. He quickly turned to Rose. "Not the flag thing, Rose, I was sort of aware of that already, but-"

I shrugged. "No idea. I kinda wanted to see how long it'd take for you to realize on your own," I admitted. "I almost thought you did know. Given that you were driving on the wrong side of the road for American traffic law."

The Doctor leaned his head over the side of the car. "...so I was."

…to be perfectly honest, that statement and the whole stop sign thing did not give me a lot of confidence in his driving skills.

Tommy Connolly worried.

The mood in their neighborhood lately was distressingly familiar to what he could remember of the War - he'd been very young during the Blitz, but he could vaguely remember the tension and terror of waiting down in the Underground, surrounded by people all huddling in the dark tunnels, praying that they'd have the chance to leave them by the time the latest raid was over.

But now, he was old enough to know things. To catch the patterns in the people around him and put words to it.

The neighborhood was scared. Tense. Even the Coronation around the corner couldn't fully lift their spirits, because there was always the question of 'who's next' hanging over all their heads and all they could do about it was just… wait to find out.

His Gran hadn't paid much mind to it, but that had been… before. Early enough on in the whole mess that nobody had really known it was happening, because nobody talked about it.

And now… well. Nobody was talking about it, but words weren't necessary when you could just look at some people and know that something bad had happened in what should have been the safety of their home, even before the black cars and government men had started showing up to take the victims away.

And Gran was in no state to pay much mind to anything - but Tommy figured that he and his mother could do enough worrying for her while she… wasn't able to.

His mother wasn't eating during meals. She'd pick at her plate, rearranging her vegetables and whatever else they had to go with it, but she wasn't… she wasn't finishing it. Instead, it would end up being the plate she took up to Gran's room, sometimes with a little extra put on to fill it out a bit more, hoping that this time would be the time she managed to eat something.

It wouldn't be, but… Tommy understood that trying - always one more time, no matter how the last went - was better than just sitting down in the sitting room, listening to Gran tapping away at the floorboards and being sick with worry.

The strange thing was… his father wasn't worried. At least not about Gran's condition, anyway. On the days when she was quiet, he seemed downright pleased by the sight of her empty chair and the silence in what used to be her parts of the conversation - and all of that pleasure would turn to anger in a flash if anyone said anything contrary to it or if Gran started tapping on the floor again.

Tommy almost preferred the anger over the cheerfulness; at least then, it didn't feel like his father was doing a gleeful little dance over his grandmother's soon-to-be grave or, on other days, savoring the distress of the neighbors as another person was hauled out of their house and into the back of some anonymous black car.

…and there was his father at the window again, watching the street with anticipation while Tommy and his mother tidied up the sitting room.

Tommy wondered, idly, if his father would do the same thing if someone reported Tommy - not for losing his face, but for his… other tendencies, if he ever did anything with them. Odds were, it would probably be Eddie Connolly doing the reporting himself - couldn't be 'embarrassed' by his son being outed if he was the one doing the-

Tommy blinked as a fine sports car turned onto Florizel Street, somewhat awkwardly hosting three people, one of which had bright purple-blue hair of all things.

Well, if his father wanted anything unusual to complain about, that would certainly do it.

The Doctor had learned centuries ago that when the TARDIS took him somewhere he hadn't meant to go, it was usually on purpose.

Sometimes, it had been for someone else's purpose - the Time Lords were… uncomfortably invasive whenever they wanted him back in Gallifrey's orbit -, but usually it was a pattern that only his oldest partner could follow, either by catching some forming snarl in the Web of Time or an oncoming snag in the Weft of Space, if it wasn't a matter of simply being opinionated.

…he was pretty sure the Weft of Space wasn't actually a thing but that was getting off topic from figuring out why they'd landed here. Which - if he was going to maintain the textile motif - meant moving around, tugging at threads until something moved in a way it wasn't supposed to.

Which meant finding some way of figuring out where and when he was and what should have been normal for those coordinates.

Most time travelers would grab a newspaper to do that, but that was just a little too easy for the Doctor's tastes - the kind of easy that could easily spoil a person into lax decision making. He'd much rather try to take the Holmesian route of 'collect clues' and then calculate all those factors into one complete answer - not unlike how Delaine had pinned down the fact that they were in London from all those little fiddly bits that were so easy to overlook.

Of course, the Doctor also had to stay present enough to not crash the car on the way to where Rose's home would eventually be; Delaine was already judging him for the few mistakes he'd made already without having any actual disaster to show for it.

But as for the year… they were still very definitely in the 1950's or near about from the fact that those traffic signs that Delaine had pointed out were still cast iron - and earlier in the decade than not, the Doctor figured after a taste of the air. He'd encountered the Great Smog of 1952 before and it'd left a rather lasting - and unpleasant - impression on his nostrils, even eight regenerations on.

'That rules out anything 1966 or later, though these automobiles wouldn't fit with that decade anyway,' his Third said, grimacing. 'I do wish humans weren't so difficult about keeping their planet clean.'

'Corporate greed and convenience trumps conservation, sadly,' his Second replied. 'Unfortunate, there really are some lovely creatures suffering thanks to it…'

'In the other direction, I'd say that we're at least a few years after the Second World War,' the incarnation most expert on the subject of 'war' added. 'Between the technology level and the lack of tension, it's probably been wrapped up for a bit now.'

So that gave them a rough ten year span to play through the process of elimination. The rest… well. As Delaine had pointed out, there were flags and bunting hanging all about the place, which was a touch more uncommon in Britain than it would be in America, which pointed towards some rarer sort of event, like the 1948 Olympics or…

"The Coronation," Delaine said flatly.

"Eh?"

"It's the Coronation of Elizabeth the Second," she repeated. "That's about… 1953, right? Near start of June?"

It was, but… "How'd you pin that down?" the Time Lord asked, braking for another intersection.

"Ford Anglia E494A," Delaine said, nodding in the direction of one car before pointing at another. "And the Morris Minor."

"The Morris Minor came out in 1948," the Doctor pointed out. "Could be the Olympics."

"Except the Olympics were in the summer - the Morris came out in October," she counterpointed. "And that specific model of Anglia came out the next year."

The Doctor grinned. "Very clever!"

Rose was less impressed by the display of automotive knowledge. "Oh god, you're worse than Mickey," she said. "Why do you even know all that?"

Delaine blinked. "Because… I like cars?"

"Yeah, lots of people do, but not to- right, anorak. Mum mentioned that bit. Not to mention the toys and the whole Klingon bit," Rose said before sighing. "You're not a trainspotter too, are you?"

The Doctor cleared his throat loudly. "Anyway - Delaine's got the right of it; everything I've noticed points to 1953 as well," he said. "I'm just…"

"-embarrassed about landing in the wrong place?" Rose said teasingly as Delaine offered up "-worried about exactly what made the TARDIS land here?"

As Rose fixed a concerned look on Delaine, the Doctor nodded. "Second one, mostly," he confirmed. "I'm surprised you caught onto the pattern that quickly - most of my companions never do."

They usually ignored it or, in a few cases, assumed that he was simply lying about it not being on purpose. The arguments that came after that were… never good.

Delaine shrugged. "The TARDIS has vibes. I just pay attention to them, that's all."

…well, that was another tally for the 'psychic' theory. They would really have to have a conversation about that sooner or later.

"It's a bit odd," Rose said, drawing the Doctor's attention back. "How many aerials there are. My nan grew up around here and said that everyone had to pile into a single house, cause almost nobody had a telly, but…"

"But there's enough here for almost every household to have a TV set," the Doctor finished, glancing over the rooftops. Yes, much more branching metal up there than was right for this year. "That is odd. Good catch."

Rose beamed.

"So we're… probably dealing with something technological or energy based then," Delaine said. "Under other circumstances, I'd have put up that it could be a defense or repelling measure, but the tension isn't high enough for that and anything bad enough would have made some kind of impression on history. Not sure why those aerials are all swastika shaped though..."

"Oh, you'd be surprised how much you humans will ignore… or purposefully sweep under the rug," the Doctor said, studying first the aerials - oh, that really was ominous, for all he'd missed that detail before Delaine's pattern oriented brain picked up on it - and then the street. A lot of curtains were drawn, which was… odd, for June, even if it was early in the year. While the tension wasn't as 'high' as it would be in the event of a proper 'people are getting eaten' nature, there definitely was some going on - and mostly around the houses with aerials already installed, it seemed, because the curtains generally weren't drawn on those homes without them.

Hm - ah, the Doctor thought as his eyes were drawn to a delivery truck with the words 'Magpie Electricals' stamped on the side. Always good to go to the source… and one that rang a bell of familiarity in his mind as well.

He slowed down to a crawl as they came up alongside the vehicle, stopping as soon as he confirmed the presence of the owner.

The delivery man - Magpie himself, from the few encounters with the man the Doctor had had in previous incarnations - was rumpled, even while wearing what was likely his best clothes - which would have been another person's second or third best, if they were even in their closet at all. It went entirely too well with his sleep deprived look and the 5 o'clock shadow that was on the verge of pushing to 6 or 7.

"Every unit in here has been spoken for," the man said. "I'm sorry, you'll have to stop by my shop later -"

"Oh, no. I just recognized the name and stopped out of curiosity," the Doctor said. "Figured you'd be doing good business, what with the Coronation and all that - and you make some of the best product around - well built, well worth the price."

Magpie cracked a half-hearted smile - genuine, in its own way, but so tired that it collapsed before hitting the finish line of a proper beam. "Always nice to hear my work appreciated - though I don't think I remember seeing you…"

"Oh, you would have dealt with one of my older… relations, I think," the Time Lord said, scrambling only slightly for an explanation. "Either the funny little fellow with the bowl cut and the bowtie or the fossil who'll think Edwardian cut is still the height of fashion come 1963 - oh, wait, no. The dandy - big cloud of white hair, kept on wearing a cape and velvet jackets everywhere?" He gestured above his head, ignoring the grumbling of his predecessors in the back of his mind.

A spark of recognition lit in Magpie's eyes. "Oh, that Dr. Smith fellow that ran that watch repair shop over in Shoreditch with his…niece? Fixing Time?"

"Ye-up." The Doctor was so glad he remembered that correctly - he'd spent months picking around the electronics shops of London, not that he'd been all that spoiled for choice, and he was pretty sure he still had some Magpie electronics scattered about the TARDIS… somewhere. "Surprised you remembered."

"Hard to forget - t'weren't more than half a year ago that that Ramsey outfit torched the place on account of Smith not giving him protection money - and right during the Great Smog, too." Magpie clicked his tongue. "A good riddance to that lot, but I never found out - did old Smith come out alright?"

"Oh, yeah, he was fine - didn't last too long after that, but that was a whole different problem - environmental impact instead of human, you could say," the Doctor said. 'Overexposure to alien radiation' counted as an environmental risk, didn't it?

"That's too bad - lost a lot of people lately," Magpie sighed. "Government says it probably wasn't the smog, but air like that doesn't do the lungs any good…not that I have much room to talk about 'health' these days."

The Doctor could believe that, based on how well the man seemed to be holding together. "Getting a lot of business thanks to the Coronation?"

The question got him a wan smile again; less enthused than the one earlier and flimsy rather than fragile. "Oh - yes. Patriotic duty, you know - and what with the big event being tomorrow, anyone who didn't have one is all over my ear. I'd be raking in quite the profit, if not for…"

"For?"

"Oh, Ol' Magpie is practically giving the sets away, don't you know? Lowered the price to barely a pittance," another person - the latest buyer? - said, clapping the man on the back, sending Magpie stumbling slightly. "It's a wonder he has any stock left, at the rate he's been going for the last few weeks - or that he's been getting more than a few hours of sleep a night, with how much he's been running about getting them all delivered and putting up all those aerials over the last week."

Odd. The Doctor, during the different times he was stuck on Earth, had been forced to haggle, argue, and scrounge for Magpie Electronics because they were that expensive compared to the rest - good materials and workmanship cost money, after all. Why would he be giving them away-?

The man in question huffed. "Yes, I'm… very much looking forward to resting - now that my deliveries are done. Tomorrow," Magpie added as a near afterthought. "Tomorrow, I won't have to worry… any longer."

And that wasn't ominous at all.

But any thoughts on what to do with that strange thread were discarded as a pair of black cars screeched to a halt in the street behind them, a handful of black suited men pouring out of them and rushing to the door of a house - already outfitted with an aerial, the Doctor noted quickly -, pushing it in with a bang.

Barely a minute later, they were out again, bustling along a person with their head hidden under a blanket out of the house and into the rear seat of one of their cars, ignoring the protests of the people around them as they shot off.

Alright. Now that was the blatant strangeness the Doctor had been waiting for. "What do you think that was about?"

Delaine shifted her position, grabbing onto the seat to lean forward with a keen hunter's gaze. "Well, we have a Ferrari - you might as well chase them down and find out."

The Doctor nodded and laid on the gas.

Magpie stared at the back of the sports car as it disappeared around a corner, on the trail of the government men. He swallowed.

That Doctor Smith who'd run the clock repair shop had been the pokey type as well, he remembered as a small cold sweat began to run down his neck. Always asking little questions that would lead up to bigger ones - it had been part of why he'd gotten noticed by the gangsters in the first place. And Magpie had no reason not to think this one was any different.

Part of him almost dared to hope that those questions would lead back to Magpie Electricals, before the Coronation, that somehow the man would find an answer along the way that would fix this, but he smothered it quickly enough.

There was no getting out from under the Wire. Not now.

Author's Notes

Me, with a bucket of water: Stop being on fire, Doctor Who fandom, it's embarrassing.

DW Fandom spaces: *NO I MUST BE RACIST. AND SEXIST. AND MAYBE EVEN TRANSMISOGYNISTIC IF ANYTHING MAKES ME THINK OF IT.*

Today (as in, today of me writing and the today of me doing touch-ups on the authors notes (roughly a month apart I think), not today of posting, but who knows, it's been a problem for the last 15+ years) in the DW fandom, we have racism. And sexism. And, you guessed it, it's at least partially because of shipping. Because what brings out the worst in people more than the lovechild of Fantasy Football and people on the highway who think they're doin' NASCAR.

Personally, I'm a multishipper and someone who minds my own business

The House of the Rising Sun (also known as Rising Sun Blues) is one of my favorite songs, can't you tell? I have so many opinions and I wish that there was more conversation about the history beyond 'oh the Animals' version'. Talk about Joni Mitchell's, Tom Clarence and Gwin Foster's, Lead Belly's, Frijid Pink's. There's so many options.

The Heavy Young Heathens cover of the House of the Rising Sun was actually made for the movie Revenge of the Green Dragons, not the remake of the Magnificent Seven, though it was reused for the trailers.

The TARDIS door thing - based on the fact that the Eleventh Doctor managed to fit a robot T-Rex companion (his name was Kevin) into his TARDIS multiple times in a few comic stories without difficulty, though the fact that this wasn't always easy to do quickly was brought up as an issue in one story (ex: they were trying to make a quick escape and Kevin slowed it down a bit).

Another comic story saw Eleven fit a monster truck variant of Bessie through the doors somehow, so I just… made up something that would probably work. And with the BBC budget.

The swastika TV aerial thing wasn't something I made up - it was something that was done in the episode proper that me and Monica caught on a watch and then found out was a deliberate touch; not terribly surprising considering how they're utilized in the episode as a sign that 'things aren't right', but it did catch us off guard at first.

Somebody Else's Problem Field, courtesy of Douglas Adams' 'Life, The Universe, and Everything' from the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy five-to-six part 'trilogy'.

The Ferrari (right down to the exact model) was recommended as a replacement for the Vespa by my friend Monica almost two years ago. For most of the writing of this arc, I thought it only had two seats as that's what most of the interior pics showed, but I happened to see one from another angle and there's technically another row… it's just very small. So I had to go back and correct everything that brought up that bit. Most of the other in-fic conversations around the car were based on different discussions my cowriter and I had about it (the identifiability of a Ferrari at range being an interesting one).

Monica: Identifiability specifically by the layperson who isn't super into cars, especially retro ones, aka Rose Tyler.

Yep. The most identifiable aspects to most people are the post 1980's profile + the rosso corsa red paint. Without those, it's a lot more finicky to identify until you see the badge. Also, the Doctor's Ferrari is 'legal' by the standards of the company in terms of palette, cause I went to check on a whim.

Another funny trivia bit about the 342 America is that one of the 6 models made was delivered to King Leopold III of Belgium in May of 1953. Which makes the Doctor impersonating him later in the story extra hilarious, both inside and out, because it was an unintentional additional reference.

The Elvis impersonators aside is a reference to Fallout New Vegas, specifically to the faction known as the Kings, who are, quite literally, a gang of Elvis impersonators who are at least, friendly to their neighborhood… even if the King's second in command, Pacer likes making a pest of himself.

Yes, I researched the history of stop-sign design for the United States and British Isles for this one bit. Just to be sure. For the era in question, a stop sign for the UK would either be a red-painted cast iron triangle or that same symbol printed on sheet metal. Also the first ever stop sign was invented in Michigan, naturally.

The other cars helping pin down the year was a bit of a late addition, though a fitting thing to carry through because it skipped the cliche of 'newspaper dating' and was already something Delaine did w/ cars and books so far, so it wasn't out of place.

The Doctor references the Great Smog of 1952, which was a real life pollution event that killed several thousand people (officially four thousand, but estimates are at around ten to twelve thousand), and the Clean Air Act of 1956 which was created in response to it, along with other similar measures to avoid a similar event happening again… which didn't work, because there was a similar event in 1957 which killed around a thousand people and another in 1962 that killed about 750.

The Great Smog was used as a set piece in the book Amorality Tale (which is where I drew the Third Doctor references here, given that it was a Third Doctor and Sarah Jane adventure) and the Big Finish story The Creeping Death (which is Tenth Doctor and Donna story). Amorality Tale is put a bit ahead of Planet of The Spiders, which is the Third Doctor's regeneration story, so that's why the Doctor references that incarnation's 'death'.