Every Day Should Be A Holiday

[alexsarll]

Anybody else coming to see The Indelicates launch one of the albums of the year at Madame Jo Jo's tonight?

An unknown unknown: I was unaware that I did not know whether there are moles in Ireland. Apparently there are not. Whereas the snakes so famously driven out by St Guinness are not absent as such, only "poorly represented".

Since the century turned and everything started going madder, I've often said that there's no such thing as contemporary fiction anymore - you're either writing SF or historical. That Joe Stretch novel about which I was enthusing turned out to be both. Like Atomized, it had a framing narration from the future - but that future stemmed directly and divergently from the book's 'present', and that present must have been the past because the characters kept smoking in bars and cafes. Speaking of which, 2000AD is currently running a Savage strip in which Poptimism's venue, The Cross Kings, is one of the key locations. An alternate Cross Kings in an alternate London, one under neo-Stalinist occupation - but for all the brutalities of life under the Volgan jackboot, there are ashtrays on the pub tables.
In other science fiction news: wasn't 'The Fires of Pompeii' splendid? Having found Tate's performance one of the less dreadful aspects of 'Partners in Crime', here she was definitely the weak link. Not enough to ruin the episode by any means, but I did wish for Martha.

I suppose it was inevitable that should the Guardian publish an eminently sensible article questioning the vogue for China among galleries, and the dubious tone of some of the accompanying commentary, in light of recent reminders of the Chinese regime's failings, then the comments would instantly decline into name-calling and facile moral equivalence.

Finished The Wire last night. Not really ready to talk about it; what is there to say? It is what it is. Maybe in five, ten years - if we last that long - some kids who grew up on it will make something that compares. For now and for myself, I can only say that I'm glad I never got round to getting any LJ icons from it; right now I wouldn't want to identify as anyone in there.

Comments

[stu-n.livejournal.com]

I don't think Martha (or Freema, bless her) could have pulled off 'You just can't leave them!' as well as Donna/Tate did. She would have come across as petulant and self-righteous, where Donna was shocked, distraught and disbelieving.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

As soon as she turns the volume up, I hate her. She comes across as a believable type of dislikeable person, for sure - but if I'd been the Doctor (and in that scene it was the Doctor's distress I found so powerful, not the fate of the humans) my first inclination would have been to leave her there too.

Or, alternately, to ask her "Donna - do I look bovvered?"

[dickon-edwards.livejournal.com]

Completely agree. Donna is more naturally mother-hen like, and the story made excellent use of this.

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

I adore Martha and Freema, but I agree with you. The age=experience thing sometimes really rings true and I'm glad they're going with that angle (along with Donna accepting that the Doctor is actually an alien).

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

When she was being a big sister to the daughter (and was the daughter in CLC? 'Cos her name really didn't click for me like Caecilius, Metella and Quintus did?), that was good. But the shouting that you can't leave them to die...anyone can do that. Rose almost killed the timeline with similar sentiments, and a medical student's urge to save life would equally map on to it.

Now Evelyn, she did age = experience well.

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

I thought she was wonderful!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I am starting to wonder if the Master's psychic network has been hijacked by RTD to propagate his pro-Tate agenda...

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

Rose's crying could often come off as teenaged and whiny, which is fair, because she was basically a wide-eyed kid who grew up while with the Doctor. There's something more maternal, both protective and angry and desperate, rather than merely sentimental and stroppy when Donna cries. It's a different sort of "IT'S NOT FAIR". She isn't just screaming, she wants him to get it and is frustrated that his alien-ness prevents that. The whole "you need somebody to stop you" thing. She doesn't want him to save people for her, because he loves her and blubbing will get her way, she wants him to save people because it's right and it's inconceivable that he shouldn't and "Doctor if we're going to hang out together you will have to start to get this stuff or I won't be able to live with myself...or you".

Evelyn is amazing, though.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

There isn't a daughter in the orange series of CLC as far as I know - only Melissa the slave girl. Of course I never actually got as far as the eruption episode of CLC so I don't even know to what extent the Doctor did alter history by saving them. Quintus got out alive, didn't he?

I was pro-Donna anyway of course, but I thought she was excellent this time - I hope there's an episode or two where her bull-in-a-china-shop approach does screw things up, though.

[stu-n.livejournal.com]

The daughter wasn't in CLC, and I hadn't realised that Caecilius, Metella and Quintus were real people.

The point wasn't so much what she was yelling, it was the sentiment behind it. She wasn't telling him that he couldn't leave them to die, she was expressing shock that he could. And then she suggested the compromise, to just save someone, which I don't think would have occurred to Rose or Martha because they were too in awe of the Doctor.

Rose backed down when the Doctor wanted to use dead bodies to house the Gelth. It wasn't Martha who called the Doctor on his responsibilty for so many deaths in Human Nature/Family of Blood. Not to diss either character, but they had a different response to the Doctor, and I think they've nailed the difference with Donna.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

The problem being, Donna doesn't understand that the Doctor is right - if he mucks about with the wrong things (and as he explains, he can see which things are the wrong things - she cannot), then Reapers will purge the planet of all life, or worse. He's been doing this for centuries, she's just taken her second trip. She should at least entertain the possibility that he knows how to do this stuff slightly better than she does.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I would like that, but do not know whether Rusty will allow it.

The eruption came at the end of the first book, didn't it? And yes, Quintus and the slave whose name escapes me made it out. And were involved in foiling a plot against the Emperor's life, iirc. Maybe that will now not happen, and this will come back to bite the time travellers in the backside?

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

Drama = conflict.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

That all sounds very exciting. I was put up a year and missed out on the blue and green CLC courses completely, being put straight onto Path To Latin, which was all Molesworth-y "The Gauls are attacking the ditches with spears" stuff and not a comical slave in sight :(

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

There was a footnote to that extent somewhere, I think - they didn't make a big deal out of it.

OK, that is a good point about the compromise. But I still fundamentally feel that after he explains his Time Lord sense of what can and cannot be altered without causing far worse devastation, she should maybe have dialled down the 'oh the humanity' stuff.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

They also go to Egypt! But I forget what happens there except for the presence of rattles.
The later CLCs drop the ongoing plot a bit in favour of extracts from the classics - a bit of bowdlerised Catullus, 'The Matron of Ephesus' (aka 'the Whore of Ephesus'), bit of Ovid...

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

No sweetie, it is just you are horrifically stubbon. *kiss*

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

The Doctor's own inner conflict about having once again to press the button which killed thousands in the name of the greater good worked for me. As did the rampaging rock monsters. I didn't then need an overlay of 'will someone think of the [Roman] children'?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I've already admitted that, unlike in her first appearance, she is no longer the worst companion ever. But I'm not going to head from 'better than Adric, just a little worse than Jo' to thinking she is great...

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

I meant more as a long-term thing. What Donna needs to learn is not that he can't be her boyfriend (Rose and Martha) but that, although he sometimes screws up and does now and then need reminding that there is a human and emotional aspect to things, the Doctor does know an awful lot more than she does and there are more things in heaven and earth than can be dreamt of in her philosophy - and they aren't all stardust and wonder. And the Doctor needs to learn that not all humans who want to be his friend will unquestioningly accept 99% of what he says and be constantly in awe of him, and if he doesn't want them to fall in love with him, that is a good thing.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

OK, that's fair - if that really is where they're taking this.

[charleston.livejournal.com]

I didn't think she was quite as great in this episode as the last one, but I do like her character a lot.

[mondoagogo.livejournal.com]

Oh, so that thing about the Cross Kings is true? I actually found out from my mum (not having read 2000AD for years) and I thought she might have been wrong 'cos she sometimes is. A friend of a friend of hers is Pat Mills' girlfriend, who also happens to run(or possibly own) the Cross Kings, so I suppose it's not such a stretch.

[moleintheground.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm.

[moleintheground.livejournal.com]

She's just a real two-note actor. I was watching the second series of Big Train the other day and she's just the same as that. She has two settings, Bovvered and Not Bovvered.

[charleston.livejournal.com]

I am so jealous of all you people who got to do Latin at school!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I never thought I would find myself defending her, but I think that's a little unfair; some of her quieter scenes in the two episodes so far have been quite affecting.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

It was definitely my favourite language GCSE, though I now remember shamefully little of it.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Ah! I did wonder what the connection might be; had it been an Al Ewing strip I wouldn't have batted an eyelid. But yes, while the street layout outside is slightly off, the pub interior is dead on.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

OK, he gets to still make models, but what's he doing for a living? And for all the results they got - albeit ones compromised by Herc blabbing - that whole ruse was still not something I'd be proud to have done, even if Lester comes out of it cleaner than Jimmy.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

There was definitely a bit with a cat - possibly Quintus was in trouble with the local priest until the temple cat took a shining to him??

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

Yes, but to be fair that is partly because you are Barry and not Donna - probably she *should*, but she was upset, freaked out, and has probably never contemplated such things before (being probably not e.g. a big SF fan, and clearly not especially educated).

I have to say, I am amazed to find myself sort of quite liking Donna. I'm glad they've firmly established that she is Not Another Groupie - I mean, I can understand why Everyone Falls At His Feet, but damn, it makes a nice change that someone isn't.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yes. I did like the clarification - more in the first episode than the second, granted - that she was after him not so much for his own sake, as because he was a doorway to a more exciting world.