It wouldn't do to give the Chuckle Brothers the secret of interstellar travel.

[alexsarll]

Like so much of the series, the final Green Wing seemed to have difficulty finding a happy balance between the show's soap opera plots and its inspired, absurd comic vignettes. Also, there was far too much naked Mark Heap. But I think it gave us as good a resolution as such an awkward series would ever sustain, and the feral HR girls in particular were hilarious and strangely hot.

Yesterday lunchtime I went to renew my acquaintance with two of the best pictures in the world. John Martin's The Great Day Of His Wrath and The Plains Of Heaven. They form the endpieces of his 'judgment pictures' triptych (the centrepiece, The Last Judgment, is by no means bad - just outclassed by its neighbours. Think Temple of Doom compared to the other two Indiana Jones films). Now, obviously I'm very lucky to have such a majestic set of works displayed in such a place that I can pop in for free on my lunch hour. But I'd be even luckier if the gallery didn't appear to have been hung and lit by total amateurs. Last time I saw them, only the endpieces were on display (not ideal), but they were so well-lit that you could make out a huge amount of detail, see the full idyllic wonder of Martin's heaven and the sheer cataclysmic grandeur of his apocalypse. Now, from anywhere but the perfect spot in the room, all you can see is the shine of reflected lighting - and even from those perfect spots, too much remains unclear. They're too high, the lights are angled wrong...this is basic stuff. I could understand it on some minor work in a badly-funded provincial gallery, but for heavens' sake, this is Tate Britain - what's their excuse?

When embarking on a revisionist re-view of Doctor Who: The Fat Colin Years, The Mark of the Rani is perhaps not the best place to start. Essentially: three renegade Time Lords chew scenery at the Ironbridge industrial museum. The supporting cast mumble their dialogue through a selection of implausible prole accents, perhaps because they really don't want to soil their mouths with the dreadful dialogue of Pip & Jane Baker, who in some senses are the anti-RTD (the more geeky, obscure and sub-Shakespearean they can get, the happier they are) and in some senses could be his harbinger (few other Who writers have managed quite such nonsensical plots, and yes, I know the bar is set pretty high). And yet - it's fun. The villains may preen and overact and generally ham it up, but at least they have more to say than "My children!" times one zillion. Plus, the Rani has TREE MINES and at one stage the Master very nearly starts skanking!
And the Sixth Doctor really was a lot better than he used to seem; the coat remains unforgivable, but the performance (superior yet not unfeeling, smug yet not unsympathetic, and above all impassioned) really works for me now. I can see why, as a child, I hated him - but there's no rule that says every Doctor should be a kid's potential best mate. In summary: it's pretty bad, but it's better than The Runaway Bride*. Speaking of which, if you want a decent Christmas 2006 Who story, this Paul Cornell short is absolutely lovely.

Oh look, a promising avenue of research, which could free millions of people from pain and disability, is in danger of being shut down by witch-burners: "We hope that the HFEA has found this is one hurdle too many and they are not prepared to jump over it." Why do we persist in giving these primitives any say in the world? For starters, anyone objecting to this sort of medical research on 'ethical' (aka, natural law) grounds should be prohibited from using any extant technology to which such objections have been raised in the past - flight, for instance. Or trains. Or any post-mediaeval medical procedure. That'd soon thin their ranks, and leave the rest of us free to get on with heading for the future.

Right, I know what's happening Saturday (Wards, then Seeing Scarlet at Feeling Gloomy), but is there anything of interest tonight or Sunday? If not, I think I may go see Apocalypto.

*For me, "Better than The Runaway Bride" is now largely synonymous with "Better than The Beatles", ie, 'This thing has, at the very least, some small shred of merit which justifies its existence'. But given it will generally annoy fewer wrongheaded people, I shall likely restrain its use to Who-related contexts.

Comments

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

Whilst I haven't got a huge problem with stem cell research as it seems to do an awful lot more good than bad there must be a better way of doing it than creating embryos. Also I am not entirely sure I believe that *some* medical research companies care one jot about the health of people and more about finding something before anyone else so they can charge stupid money for it. But I may be just being really cynical there.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure the profiteering side of things is an issue, and one about which valid objections can be raised, and where the law should probably take a hand. But there are some pressure groups (this one apparently included) whose objection is simply that it is Against Nature, and these are the people who do not deserve the benefits of technology.

As for making embryos - it's not the fluffiest thing ever, but I think it's hard to mount a consistent attack on it unless one is also anti-abortion.

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

I dunno abortion is rather different to medical research, (doesn't have the feminist argument for one) but whilst I don't have a huge problem with it (AFAIK they are not proper embryos but like clone things which obviously could become human but you know it's still a bit different to ripping one out of the womb.) like I said if they could find a way to make it a bit more fluffy then I say yay!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Let some of the hybrid creatures grow to maturity - mutant babies could hardly be uglier than the variety currently available.

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

I really don't like you.

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

Did Dr Moreau not do this already?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Alas, I am told said noble pioneer was 'fictional', whatever that may mean.

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

the world is a lesser place....

[davegodfrey.livejournal.com]

There really isn't a better way than creating embryos. Adult stem cell research is going on, but doesn't seem to work nearly as well as embryonic stem cells.

Besides if one is arguing that embryos shouldn't be used in this way then IVF would not be acceptable as many embryos are produced just so a few can be implanted.

[davegodfrey.livejournal.com]

Sadly there isn't any really effective way to produce stem cells other than embryos. Adult stem cells just don't work that well.

I suspect that when Homo erectus tamed fire there were members of the group who thought this was unnatural. "We've managed perfectly well on cold raw antelope up till now", "just because you can make it any time you like doesn't mean you should".

[publicansdecoy.livejournal.com]

>>Opponents say the work tampers with nature and is unethical

What a pathetic argument. God or 'Nature' or whatever you want to call it is ultimately responsible for giving us the brains and skills to do these things in the first place. If anything, this work is entirely consistent with nature.

-x-

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

It is a stupid argument but you could also argue the other way that whatever we do is god's will so lets just do anything our brains can come up with. Clearly medical science needs to be regulated but not by religious morons or by 'public opinion'

whatever we do is god's will so lets just do anything our brains can come up with

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

...is pretty much my feelings on the matter. Hurrah for mad science!

Re: whatever we do is god's will so lets just do anything our brains can come up with

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

Dear god I am scared.

Re: whatever we do is god's will so lets just do anything our brains can come up with

[kiss-me-quick.livejournal.com]

Hey, my brain just came up with the idea of murdering YOU - it must be God's will so I guess I should do it!

Re: whatever we do is god's will so lets just do anything our brains can come up with

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm sure plenty of people would argue that we should respect your faith position and blame it on my foreign policy...

Besides which, I could have you easy. NB this did used to be a widely-accepted theology, I believe the doctrine was called Sacred Theft.

Re: whatever we do is god's will so lets just do anything our brains can come up with

[kiss-me-quick.livejournal.com]

Besides which, I could have you easy.

In your dreams!

Who'd Win A Fight Out Of Alexes And Lizzys?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I'm sooooo scared! ;p

(All the decent online references I can find to sacred theft aka furta sacra are subscription sites, but in summary - if you try to nick a saint's relic, and succeed, it means that the saint wanted you to have them instead of the prior owner. You can see how one can easily extrapolate that beyond nicking saints' relics)

Re: whatever we do is god's will so lets just do anything our brains can come up with

[shewho.livejournal.com]

my turn first. this beatles bashing is TIRESOME now sarll!

Re: whatever we do is god's will so lets just do anything our brains can come up with

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

A mere explanatory footnote, relevant to a phrase I have found myself using quite frequently in the past week.

Also: not as tiresome as the Beatles. :P

YAWN!

[shewho.livejournal.com]

When you least expect it Alex, when you least expect it....

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I might at least respect the consistency of these arses if they were mounting their objections while living in caves and communicating only through grunting and hitting people with sticks, but as is they are not only retrograde, but hypocrites. And that is unforgivable.

[billywhizz.livejournal.com]

Feral HR Girls: I'm at once glad it wasn't just me, and concerned that it was you.

As for Stem Cells objectioners &c, I nearly got in a bit of an internet rumble last week with someone who calls themselves an "anarcho-primitivist", until I realised that anyone prepared to posit the argument that technology is fundamentally bad and must be abandoned, ON THE INTERNET, isn't worth the bandwidth.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Well, quite. Did you direct said tosser's attention to this discrepancy?

[billywhizz.livejournal.com]

He typed some load of philosophy undergraduate gibberish (no offence Ally) about "personal intuitiveness". I don't think he understood what he was saying really, he kept quoting Heidegger.

At some point I'll get bored and tear him a new socio-political arsehole, but not on a Friday.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Which is particularly interesting given I'm assuming he's not the sort to lightly forgive Heidegger's flirtations with Nazism. Although I suppose they did have a certain inconsistent 'back to the land' fixation too...

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

For starters, anyone objecting to this sort of medical research on 'ethical' (aka, natural law) grounds should be prohibited from using any extant technology to which such objections have been raised in the past - flight, for instance. Or trains. Or any post-mediaeval medical procedure.

I presume you're not allowed to look at pictures taken from IN SPACE, on the basis that you disagree with the Nazi bombing of England (and one would hope the slave labour used to bring it about) then? The Nuremberg Code and the Declaration of Helsinki exist for a reason.

More specifically relevant, the Pernkopf Atlas was an important anatomical publication for decades after the Second World War, being reprinted as late as 1980. Something of a lack of objections in this period to the fact it was created by dissecting Austrians and Jews (indeed, the first edition had a swastika on the front cover). Will you be refusing treatment from anyone who trained with it?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I object to Nazi ideology, but only a fool wouldn't respect (and where appropriate, use) their technological achievements. This is also why I have no problem with the US poaching several German scientists and technologists after the War, but consider the Arab states which hired their propagandists (and the Church which shielded their murderers) to be forever stained by these actions.

Less emotively than the Nazis, but analogously, much of what we know about butterflies or birds now is derived from the work of earlier naturalists who shot or poisoned the specimens from which we learned. As with the experiments of the Nazi doctors this is behaviour which we can now see is Not On, but to discard what was learned from it would simply be an added insult to the dead.

As an anti-abortionist, you yourself are capable of objecting to stem cell experiments without inconsistency. But since the law of the land permits abortion, for it to prohibit them would be at best incoherent. Besides which, too many of these primitives seem to object to scientific advances in and of themselves. In this particular case they can pin their objection to the alleged suffering of a pre-human, but they are the ideological heirs of the 'if God wanted us to fly he'd have given us wings' brigade. They object to progress and change simply because it is progress and change - or in their terms, Against Nature.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was aware of the Momus concert but given it was alongside a bunch of head-up-arse 'sonic experimentation' types I assumed it would just be more of his recent glitch direction - which to me is the least interesting path he's ever followed. And even within that the live performances generally seem to concentrate on the low points of the recent albums.

Hope the driving test went well.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I even like some of the late stuff, but last time I saw him it was like he was on a mission to avoid even the tracks I enjoy from the albums around which he was basing his set.

[mylifebythesea.livejournal.com]

If only the new Doctor Who series was as good as that short story. Actually, I think we're all nitpicking a bit, whenever it goes a bit wonky we should all remember the Paul McGann thing and thank our lucky stars.

Temple of Doom is terrible. It doesn't even feel like an Indy film, it's like some Saturday morning Disney mess.

[mylifebythesea.livejournal.com]

Hmm, haven't heard that one before. What makes you say that? Not a huge fan of the new series, but it works sometimes, while the US thing just seemed to be a complete mess from start to finish.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Hang about, it deserves more credit than it usually gets, but that's just crazy talk!

Even leaving aside the new incarnations (about whom I broadly disagree with you, though there have undoubtedly been problems), you're describing *some* Doctors there, not The Doctor. Pertwee and Davison weren't creepy, McCoy, Davison and the Bakers weren't old, and the planning has only ever been a characteristic of a few Doctors (especially the Seventh), with many of them relying at least as much on inspired improvisation and incredible good luck. And so on with each of those traits you list. Though I do increasingly see all the Doctors as aspects of one character, rather than a series of characters, to ascribe quite such a thoroughly consistent personality to the Doctor as you do here is to risk homogenising his incarnations, and that would never do.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Whereas I don't think the show is, or ought to be, consistent in that way. At any given stage you can draw a line in the sane, accept everything before it as legitimate variation, and denounce further changes as deviation - I shudder when I remember doing just that myself on the release of Transit (http://www.drwhoguide.com/who_na10.htm). Having started out as a largely educational series about a slightly sinister old man, it has lurched through jester-led high SF, earthbound action/adventure, grand guignol gothic and half a dozen other modes which really shouldn't be possible in the same story. And yet, just as Grant Morrison's three totally different takes on Batman were all definitely, definitively Batman - these stories are all legitimate parts of the mad tapestry of Doctor Who.
Except for The Runaway Bride.

Have you ever seen Scream of the Shalka on the BBC website? The Doctor Richard E Grant plays there is not a million miles from the way I imagine Peter Cook doing it.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

The McGann film was undoubtedly a pile of cack, but his central performance was brilliant. And many of the faults it has (the inappropriate romantic subplot, for instance, or the incoherent resolution of the final threat) are things it has in common with new Who. You know at the end of Torchwood where the lumpen boyfriend is resurrected? That was basically a rip from the McGann film.

Temple of Doom is Saturday morning, sure, but more Saturday morning adventure serial than Disney!

[darkmarcpi.livejournal.com]

You seen the picture of Tennant on the SB board?

*shudders*

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Concur, but I can think of a few readers of this journal who were probably rather taken with it.