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So. A little more than two weeks since I posted about anything but the New 52. During which time I have been to see ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
xandratheblue in sexy cabaret, in the pleasingly post-apocalyptic space the Old Vic have constructed in some old tunnels. And to the National Liberal Club, which is exactly the sort of grand old space where I think of London weddings as properly taking place since attending my first as a child, where people I'd not seen since university made me feel at once terribly old and surprisingly young. And paintballing, which I've never done before, and which is strangely fascinating for the way you really do feel the fog of war (and not just from the goggles steaming up on a day that really doesn't feel like October) - you have no idea whether you've hit anyone, or how many people are out there, or of anything much beyond the need to keep shooting and not get shot*. In the final game, having fallen in defence of the President (our stag, who turned out to be paint-bulletproof anyway), I watched from the Dead Zone as two fighters, unsure of each other's exact locations, frantically duelled from behind cover at a distance of maybe four yards, 'death' having granted an appropriately detached and godlike perspective on the conflicts of the living.
Then on to Oxford. Having been to the Other Place, I always thought of Cambridge as simply Oxbridge entire, whereas Oxford is what happens when you attach Oxford to an actual city. But lately I've realised that's not the whole story. Sitting in gentler, more thoroughly English countryside, not the blank, unfinished Fens, Oxford is more truly idyllic. Nor do the winds from the Urals chill it to the bone each winter. I don't know that anyone as thoroughly complacent as a Cameron or a Blair could ever come from somewhere with Cambridge's sharp edges. I think maybe that's been part of the problem these past 15 years. But then, I am of course massively biased.
Anyway: waiting at Paddington to assemble the paintballing party, I saw (though nobody else did) a fat child run past dressed as the Eleventh Doctor. Which confirmed that really, the look is not a good one in and of itself. What to make of the latter half of Season 32? I don't know why, but for me it didn't quite fly. I love the Ponds, and they were the best thing in the final episode, but I felt we got a little too much of them. We got the wrong Cybermen (especially when you've just rewatched The Invasion), defeated too soppily. There have been great images, great performances, great lines - none sadder than simply calling Amelia Pond 'Amy Williams' - but somehow they haven't added up to great Doctor Who, not even with a great Doctor in the lead. But now he's stepped back into the shadows, everything changes again, and I'm still very excited to see what happens next.
*Though this point was elastic. In one game, as attackers, we could respawn. In all games, by the rules of this establishment, head shots didn't count. I assume they wished to discourage head shots, while assuming that pain and startlement would be sufficient disincentives to stop people from willingly getting themselves headshot as a tactical measure. Given I have a very thick skull, and very thick hair, and a fairly high pain threshold, however, I was basically using my head to draw fire.
xandratheblue in sexy cabaret, in the pleasingly post-apocalyptic space the Old Vic have constructed in some old tunnels. And to the National Liberal Club, which is exactly the sort of grand old space where I think of London weddings as properly taking place since attending my first as a child, where people I'd not seen since university made me feel at once terribly old and surprisingly young. And paintballing, which I've never done before, and which is strangely fascinating for the way you really do feel the fog of war (and not just from the goggles steaming up on a day that really doesn't feel like October) - you have no idea whether you've hit anyone, or how many people are out there, or of anything much beyond the need to keep shooting and not get shot*. In the final game, having fallen in defence of the President (our stag, who turned out to be paint-bulletproof anyway), I watched from the Dead Zone as two fighters, unsure of each other's exact locations, frantically duelled from behind cover at a distance of maybe four yards, 'death' having granted an appropriately detached and godlike perspective on the conflicts of the living. Then on to Oxford. Having been to the Other Place, I always thought of Cambridge as simply Oxbridge entire, whereas Oxford is what happens when you attach Oxford to an actual city. But lately I've realised that's not the whole story. Sitting in gentler, more thoroughly English countryside, not the blank, unfinished Fens, Oxford is more truly idyllic. Nor do the winds from the Urals chill it to the bone each winter. I don't know that anyone as thoroughly complacent as a Cameron or a Blair could ever come from somewhere with Cambridge's sharp edges. I think maybe that's been part of the problem these past 15 years. But then, I am of course massively biased.
Anyway: waiting at Paddington to assemble the paintballing party, I saw (though nobody else did) a fat child run past dressed as the Eleventh Doctor. Which confirmed that really, the look is not a good one in and of itself. What to make of the latter half of Season 32? I don't know why, but for me it didn't quite fly. I love the Ponds, and they were the best thing in the final episode, but I felt we got a little too much of them. We got the wrong Cybermen (especially when you've just rewatched The Invasion), defeated too soppily. There have been great images, great performances, great lines - none sadder than simply calling Amelia Pond 'Amy Williams' - but somehow they haven't added up to great Doctor Who, not even with a great Doctor in the lead. But now he's stepped back into the shadows, everything changes again, and I'm still very excited to see what happens next.
*Though this point was elastic. In one game, as attackers, we could respawn. In all games, by the rules of this establishment, head shots didn't count. I assume they wished to discourage head shots, while assuming that pain and startlement would be sufficient disincentives to stop people from willingly getting themselves headshot as a tactical measure. Given I have a very thick skull, and very thick hair, and a fairly high pain threshold, however, I was basically using my head to draw fire.
