'huge, queer and tawdry' but 'much admired by the public'

The new Torchwood trailer is not filling me with hope, to be frank. And if Peter Capaldi is making a second Who appearance, as a government official of some sort, I want this to confirm that Malcolm Tucker is in fact a direct descendant of Caecilius from the Cambridge Latin Course. I don't know why, I just do.

Friday: renegadechic lends me a data stick the size of a packet of gum, containing multiple TV series and several films. This freaks me out not because of sleep deprivation but just because we are living in the future. Later I go to my first Poptimism at its new venue, and for the first time ever hear 'Put A Donk On It' in its alleged home setting of a club. I have planned to stay only for a couple of drinks but end up as one of the last dozen there, dancing like I'm in Queer as Folk whenever something vaguely handbag comes on. En route I am impressed by the attendance at the Critical Mass bike ride on Westminster Bridge (though is it not slightly excessive to have two bike protests on the same bridge within four days? Combining and co-ordinating them would seem more effective). I also pick up various comics including one which causes confusion among the Poptimists, and the existence of which I admit I find baffling: This Is A Souvenir, a series of short comic stories inspired by the music of Spearmint. The best of which - the Phonogram one - turns on a misheard lyric. It shouldn't exist, but it makes me happy that it does.

Saturday's mass of cyclists didn't disrupt my progress, but on Saturday I am glad I left far too much time to get to my coach, because the Victoria line is shut and the army are blocking roads between there and Green Park for their parade. I didn't even know we had that many cavalry anymore! Or gun carriages - what do you use a gun carriage for in the 21st century? Anyway, make it to Brighton in plenty of time to see the Pier and the Pavillion, neither of which I have ever encountered before having always been up near the crumbling West Pier, because I am 1 x goth. The Pavillion turns out also to be the site of simon_price's wedding (we are only along for the reception) so we admire the new Mrs Price's quite astonishing dress, and then meet a dog in a tie called Rufus. He wasn't anything to do with the wedding, he just ruled. As does Brighton generally, in spite of all the bad ink; for some reason East Sussex seems to have an unusually high proportion of pretty girls. Or maybe it's just that because they're near the sea, they tend to wear less, and I am an easily-distracted male.
At the reception, when I am not dancing, or falling asleep and then claiming that I was just "bored", I am mainly introducing people off the internet to each other's faces. It is great fun. Later we take gin to the beach, and meet randoms.

I do not see much of Sunday, but make it out again for missfrancesca's birthday and associated jollity. Yesterday, because I wanted to get caught up with the Harry Potter films before the new one and vivid_blue wuvs blokey from Twilight, she hosted a viewing of Goblet of Fire. The films really do improve as they go along, don't they? There's some savage cutting, to the extent that eg Snape barely does anything in this one, but that's a good thing - by being forced to reconfigure the story, it becomes more a film and less a theme-park ride connecting key scenes from the book. Also, I dread to think how much fanfic was launched by the bit where David Tennant licks Alan Rickman's wand.