I really should try to update on a day less Monday-ish some time

[alexsarll]

I am in a church social club where one of my favourite bands are launching their concept album about David Koresh. I want to go to the loo, but it is marked 'DANCERS ONLY'. Two of my favourite singers are waiting for their guest spots as ATF agents, and insist that I should do a dance to make sure I am able to use the loo. Not a dream, not a hoax, not an imaginary story. And from there the weekend went pretty much like the last days of the Roman Empire, except I don't think the Romans had cider. charleston's birthday gig was at the Silver Bullet, which I may have mentioned before is one of my favourite venues what with the whole being-at-the-end-of-my-road thing, but the cider on tap there is Addlestones, which while very tasty is maybe not the best idea for prolonged sessions with dancing, so apologies to anyone caught by what I'm told was some impressive flailing.

A poor Doctor Who this weekend from Matthew 'Fear Her' Graham, supplying the opening to the dull, plot-holed two-parter which each new series season seems inexplicably obliged to offer. It was not entirely without merit - the setting was excellently atmospheric and Fang Rock, the lack of any aliens was a welcome escape from the formula of recent years* and Matt Smith was as excellent as ever - but boy, was it boring. Run through every cliche in the clone/replicant book, and just for good measure, add in a few moronic errors - "only living things grow" was a particular corker, but I think I may have winced even more at "cars don't fly themselves", simply because it thought it was so science-fictional and clever, while failing to notice that automation of driving is progressing a damn sight faster than getting cars airborne. Got the bad taste out of my mouth on Sunday with Planet of Fire, where Peter Davison goes to an alien planet which looks authentically alien because it was filmed on Lanzarote - although they do rather undermine that by then having a few scenes on Lanzarote too. But still, Turlough being a devious little sh1t! Peter Wyngarde as an evil high priest! And tiny Master in a box! That, Graham, is how you write a cliffhanger.

The news, as ever, is mostly too dismal for comment, but I find the whole Strauss-Kahn business especially grim. The IMF has its uses, but on the whole it has tended to take advantage of circumstances to screw low-status workers from poor countries, and not give a fig for their objections. And then suddenly the managing director is headline news because he tried to do that to one low-status worker, instead of a nation's worth? Just goes to prove what Stalin said about how one death is a tragedy but a million is a mere statistic...

*If the Flesh turns out to come from space, I will not be impressed. I suspected my hopes for a return to pure, alien-free historicals were not going to be met, but in their absence, strictly Earth-born near-future threats in the vein of WOTAN, Salamander and BOSS at least move us a step away from invasion-of-the-week.

Comments

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

I really want to be able to do dancing soon. Stupid useless body. I also approve of the location of the Silver Bullet, it being right by my bus stop.

Also, heh heh, "flailing". Probably.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

There can't be many people who'd be more than two buses from the Silver Bullet, and that's even once the Tube has gone to sleep.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

Still, a five minute walk/stumble to bed must be hard to beat...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Tru dat.

(Also, hur hur, 'hard')

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

I would also have accepted "beat".

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

That's what she said.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

Did I ever tell you, dear, about the time my friend and her husband started saying "That's what Anwen said"? Can't think why.

[splendorsine.livejournal.com]

I still have no idea why so many people (about 50%) have taken so badly against The Rebel Flesh - my favourite Matt Smith episode to date. Yes, it's by the writer of "Fear Her", yes, it's the conventionally duff "old school two-parter", in all likelihood it should be terrible... but I personally didn't think it was, in any way. The "cliches" and "moronic errors" that so many people seem desperate to cite are certainly no worse than many, many things in the very best episodes of Classic Who, I just don't believe that we should grade them on different standards.

Having said that, some of the preview clips for next week have looked a bit cringey, and I dimly recall thinking The Hungry Earth was pretty damn good until Cold Blood came along. So I am prepared to eat my words in a few days' time!

[splendorsine.livejournal.com]

Also, footnote, every scientific definition of the characteristics of life I can find begins with "growth" (alongside respiration, reproduction, response to stimuli, etc etc). Accepting that "all living things grow, therefore all things that grow are living" would be false logic, I nevertheless have no idea why the line is attracting quite so much scorn!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Don't those definitions tend to be a load of old bollocks for small children, though? As I recall, a virus is missing all of them bar reproduction. And yes, 'reversing the polarity of the neutron flow', say, was gibberish. But - you'd only realise it was bollocks after a year or two of physics at big school. Whereas even in junior school, some kids will have grown crystals, and even the sink estate ones will have seen a fire. Besides which, old Who was hampered by a lack of time and money. We can forgive it some of the resulting flaws, but seeking - or even merely allowing - their emulation is taking classicism too far.