Liquid bonving

[alexsarll]

A great weekend for sport, with the first UK bonving of the season (or indeed, several seasons). The beauty of bonving is that it's such a ridiculous activity, and takes place so infrequently, as to render talent and skill deeply marginal; few trends develop, and former championship contestants can quite easily find themselves trousered.
Obviously I can't pretend that was the only sport this weekend - there was also some football, taking up a couple of minutes of Doctor Who which I presume Matt Smith very much enjoyed filming, having himself only narrowly been saved from a life of footballism by some injury or other (o felix culpa). 'The Lodger' was a lovely little episode, with the emphasis on 'little'; the tacked-on suggestion that the (unexplained) ship might work its way through the whole population of Earth aside, this was about some disappearances in Colchester, nothing more, and before that, about one man who needs a bit of a nudge to sort his life out. Insufficient Pond, clearly, but a lovely Matt Smith showcase. And next week - Drahvin! Chelonians! Monsieur Moffat, you are spoiling us.

Other recent activities: an Oxford Dons read-through (repurposed for radio, it's now longer and wronger); Will Ferrell as George W Bush, hilarious as you'd expect without being as obvious as it could have been; the Bowie Bar, with some frankly scandalous behaviour from one rock star in particular, though I don't think that was what caused one of the DJs to have a meltdown in the Gents; improving my recent ONLY WAR average; seeing Daniel Kitson perform what I hadn't realised was the final ever 66A Church Road show, a very moving and only incidentally comedic meditation on home, and memory, and the evils of the property market, which I had also seen at a very early work-in-progress show, making me feel I've lived with it just like he lived in the eponymous flat, getting me into a strange sort of self-reflexive nostalgia for a show about nostalgia.

Charlie Stross on the perils of near future science fiction; it's hard to outrun the advancing present.

Comments

[xandratheblue.livejournal.com]

On a slightly OT point, I'm not so convinced by that Robyn album your song comes from. I like the single from it, but the rest just feels pedestrian, in admittedly a very well-recorded way.

I really liked that last episode, though I still don't know WHY THE SHIP DISAPPEARED AT THE END!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I am being mostly underwhelmed by it, aside from the single and 'The Girl and the Robot'. The reggaeish stuff is especially unnecessary.

The ship's disappearance was fair enough - he mentioned an emergency shutdown. But I was surprised by the lack of curiosity as to who would be trying to make a TARDIS and why it should have ended up in Colchester. Hopefully that will be resolved over the course of the finale.

[xandratheblue.livejournal.com]

I like to believe that this curiosity has been dissipated by the fact that EVERYTHING WAS ABOUT TO BLOW UP! But yes, it was rather odd.

[vertigoranger.livejournal.com]

I've got my nose in the first draft of Rule 34 by Stross at the moment (yay for LJ), and one of the background details is that the supermarkets were nationalised, because they've eaten all the logistics needed to run a country; banks and post offices to the retail sector and the petrol stations. Interested to see how that one turns out. Jury is still out on whether Scottish independence will fall into the category of interesting rather than accurate prediction.

He's pretty emphatic when he says that Halting State is already obsolete.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Even at the time, I noticed one or two details in Halting State which had been outpaced. I liked the Scottish independence bit in so far as it was fundamentally irrelevant to the plot, just something he'd put in because (presumably) he thought that was how things would play out.

There was a column in Saturday's Guardian suggesting that Tesco in particular already resembled a state operation in many respects.

[vertigoranger.livejournal.com]

I'll have a look at the Guardian article, I could certainly do with more information on that idea.

Good stuff. What army you playing in 40K then?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I think it was by Ian Jack, though I have now recycled my copy so cannot swear to that.

I favour the non-humanoid, ravenous swarm of Tyranids, especially since they picked up some ranged anti-tank capabilities. Yourself?

[vertigoranger.livejournal.com]

I was an Ork player originally. I like hitting things until they die. Not played for a good while though and I've since acquired a sense of tactics that I'd love to try out one day.

I have a lot of Warhammer Fantasy Orcs I could sell, but I'm keeping hold of them until the urge to play overtakes me again, which it does eventually, usually.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I used to play Fantasy a lot more back in the day, so I find the changes there much more offputting (splitting the Undead, indeed!) - whereas I was only an occasional 40K player, so while I miss a few of the more outlandish concepts, it's far less jarring an adjustment.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

I have no idea who/what these Drahvin/Chelonians are, but I am QUITE EXCITED about next week's Who. I am also QUITE EXCITED about having real computer, as this means I can perv over Beyoncé: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKqIgqJEH-o *faints* (Ooh, and I can finally see new GaGa, hurray!)

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Drahvins were in 1965's Galaxy 4. The Chelonians have popped up in one of the annuals, but were mainly seen in the New Adventures books released while the series was off air between Survival and the McGann TV movie. This is hardcore geekery, but that's why we love Moffat.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

I have to say, this series (and discussions around it) has made me actually bother to pay a bit more attention to older stuff, rather than just feeling as though I probably would enjoy it but never quite getting round to it. I even bought DWM* this month, and ordered a book that was mentioned in it, and started watching the Genesis of the Daleks DVD that my sister lent J last year some time. *has very short attention span and geek envy*



*DWM fact: Chica recently went to a p0rn shop on Soho and saw DWM in the gay section.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

During the offscreen years, the joke was "How many straight Doctor Who fans does it take to change a lightbulb?" "Both of them."

Which book?

Personally I think Genesis is a bit bollocks, but I seem to be very much in a minority on that one.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

Yes, but it's not quite p0rn. Well, maybe if next month has a centrefold of naekit!Eleven...

Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters.

I've only watched part one so far and can't really remember what happened in it (but then, see above re: attention span, I have been distracted by Mad Men). Any recs for what to watch next?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

My opinions and general sentiment seem to vary widely, but everyone loves Talons of Weng Chiang.

That Beyonce video - I'm not sure I'd like the song much as isolated audio, but one does get the impression that Gaga has been a very bad (by which I mean very good) influence on Ms Knowles.

Misinterpreted all my naiveness...

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure she needed much influencing...

Re: Misinterpreted all my naiveness...

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

Ugh, the audio/video is all wrong on that link, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkIf1yaaw5Q

Re: Misinterpreted all my naiveness...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

No, for me that's like most of her stuff until lately - it has all the signifiers of sexiness but without actually being sexy, because underneath it's all just too...symmetrical? Clean? Controlled? Something like that, anyway.

Re: Misinterpreted all my naiveness...

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

Ah, ok, I get what you mean, now. Tbh, Beyoncé could probably read out football results and I'd find it sexy, so.