Sunday 22 July 2007

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an ‘men gang aft agley


Plan A:

~ finish all school reports (90-odd)
~ go shopping, replace entire wardrobe
~ change SIM card fert new number
~ buy souvernirs to take fer family in Blighty
~ finish fanfic and publish

However, due to time constraints and working hours, Plan A has rapidly been shucked in favour of

Plan B:

~ screw school reports (not given time or resources to do ‘em anyway)
~ screw the shopping – it’s a logistical nightmare, drives me mad wi all the people and lack of owt that fits
~ leave the SIM card till I get back from Blighty in two weeks’ time – can’t use it in England anyway, cos Neil Hanlon-stylee, me ‘phone don’t roam
~ snag the wee objects that make people smile and amuse
~ get down important flashes of inspiration fert fanfic and deal wi it later – much later

Horrible news this week: The world has lost a lovely, lovely woman in Helen McDonald (otherwise recognised as David Tennant’s mum), and yet all you hear is people pissing and moaning cos it means filming of a certain BBC TV show has been held up because of it. Selfish bastards, the lot of ‘em. I mean, perspective, people. Leave the family alone for a bit, eh? What a family does and how they cope with the death of a loved one is none of anyone else’s business.

And that’ll have to do. I’ve stuff to be getting on with, obviously, as me flight leaves Tuesday night my time and it’s Sunday afternoon and I’m still just about 98% unprepared.

Just time to say not all students are bad – in fact, some are shiny-shiny-ace people and Wallpapers Of The Week have already been posted.

Right then. Probably won’t have time to post here again before I fly, so see you all in two weeks!


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Wednesday 18 July 2007

Ready? I was born… wi a vodka glass


I’m on holiday in about five days. I’m not packed, have no idea of what I’m taking to Blighty, or in fact know of the whereabouts of my suitcase. However, I do know that, not only have I just let loose another ‘Doctor bloody Whofan-fic ont world, but it’s had nice reviews. So I can stop sweating, then.

Or not. As Hong Kong weather gets up to about 33 degrees C coupled wi 90% humidity, clearly there’s no non-sweating in sight.

I must confess, I’m having to type this then go back and correct or re-type everything about three times. Thank Sean (Bean, the god, dontchaknow) for ‘Spell Check’, or this post might well be a mish-mash of typed verbal diarrhoea. And I can’t even spell that.

Anyway, reason I’m three (and seven-eighths) to the wind is cos we’ve sat and watched ‘Doctor bloody Who’s episodes ‘Blink’ (series 3, ep 10), followed by ‘New Earth’ (series 2, ep 2), followed by ‘42’ (series 3, ep 7). While playing our home-made ‘Doctor bloody Who’ drinking game. We play a similar game for ‘Supernatural, but this is purely fert crack, as they say. Behold the rules of said game:

The ‘Doctor bloody Who’ Drinking Game
(as arbitrarily devised by the Soupdragon):


Take a drink every time:

1. You physically see the Doctor slip his glasses on.
2. The Doctor uses the word ‘impossible’ in a conversation.
3. The Doctor calls her ‘Martha Jones’, not plain ‘Martha’.
4. The Doctor heavily stresses the word ‘well’.
5. The Doctor runs down a corridor.
6. Martha runs in heels.
7. Martha says ‘you’ve got to be kidding / joking me’.
8. The Doctor’s carefully-crafted off-Cockney accent slips (see season 2, last episode, ‘Doomsday’, near end: the word ‘fracture’, for reference).
9. The Doctor pulls at his ear. Either ear.
10. The Doctor runs a hand (or hands) through his hair.


Have to say, not much ‘Doctor treating Companion Martha badly’ evidence going on here.

And just fert record, I don’t see that he treated her so badly, when it really came down to it. I mean, ok, so he didn’t know her as well as Rose, and he didn’t appear to want to, but isn’t that what you tell people to do after they lose a close friend? A person you love dearly but just could never shag? Don’t you warn them not to be one of them ‘rebound’ people?

Hmm. Purr wee Davey Doctor, everyone always getting at him for not treating Martha like Rose. As if he ever could – I’ll always think Martha’s more suited to Ten than Rose ever was. Praps I’m wrong. Praps I just need to go to bed…

So I will, as it’s nearing 4am. I hope all you people have a lovely evening.

Soopytwist.

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Sunday 15 July 2007

Books, fics and kids


Finally finished the whole movin thing. Went back to the agent’s shop this morning, swapped all the old keys, electric bill receipts, old tenancy agreements and stuff for my full deposit – after proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’ve not used any electric at all fert past two weeks. Mostly cos I’ve not been living there, obviously.

Finally finished me latest ‘Doctor bloody Who’ fan-fic, as yet still untitled and just needing a general polish before it gets flung into the ether for your ridicule and resentment. Had some wee problems wi canon, or more accurately, what is and isn’t canon. Looms says one, traditional growing up from babies, says another. Bugger, says me, I’m not having this tripping up me entire story. Sorted it now, mind.

Finally finished listening to the ‘Doctor bloody Who’ BBC audio book ‘The Feast Of The Drowned’ by Stephen Cole, and read with devastating effect by Mr David Tenninch Tennant. I know he must have been to drama school and did proper jobbing as an RSC act-or etc. before he got big roles on telly, but where did he learn all them accents? A decent impersonation of Rose, a bang-on, almost identical rendition of Mickey (yeah! Mickey!), a little old woman from Edinburgh, a scientist from Aberdeen, an American naval admiral and a whole host of Cockney extras. Boggles the mind. And a cracking story too – might have to go and get another one for meself. So long as he reads it again.

And so to things as said by kids at work. Two contenders for the Mistaken Words category coming up then.

Student: [reading from phonics paper] So he drop-did the pound on the –
Me: He dropped dead? He dropped dead? Well was he ill, or something?
Student: I don’t understand. He drop-did the money on the –
Me: Dropped. Dropt, mate, dropt.
Student: Oh.


This is a peculiarity with Hong Kong kids, but might be shared by Asia kids in general, I wouldn’t know. Any ‘-ed’ ont end of a word gets pronounced as its own syllable. It takes a long time to beat it out of some of them.

And then we have a wee lad’s attempt to come first in a comprehension exercise. More haste = reading the words incorrectly:

Me: What do leopards eat?
Student: [reading from text and getting much too excited] Teacher! Teacher! They eat money and beer!
Me:
Student: It says here! It says ‘leopards eat money and beer!’
Me: No, it says ‘leopards eat MONKEYS and DEER’.


I think I prefer his answer though.

That’s it, I’m off. Just time to plug me on-going Wallpapers Of The Week (yes, they’re still going even though show’s finished till Christmas) and say ta-ta.

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Wednesday 11 July 2007

No rest for the Damned


Far be it for me to expound upon how much shite The Sun newspaper dole out claiming it’s all true. Let’s forget the ‘Kylie in a cybersuit’ and ‘Freema Agyeman sacked’ reports for now. Let’s just say, someone there is either getting insider information before the other tabloids, or just very, very good at guessing, dunt sleep and simply grabs every tidbit of info and publishes it before anyone else can.

For example, they’ve announced (exclusively, mind), that Geoffrey Palmer, he of the ‘slam in the lamb’ telly adverts, is to be Captain of the Titanic in the‘Doctor bloody Who’ 2007 Christmas special, ‘Voyage of the Damned’. Having been in Who before, and being the dad of one Charles Palmer who directed a couple of series three goodies, dunt hurt, I suppose.

However, trawl back through their other shite and you’ll notice stories such as Dennis Hopper being approached to star as some ee-vil baddie – and that The God That Is Russell T. Davies is stepping down after writing series four. It also goes on to say that the normal thirteen-week run of programmes will stop here for the time being, replaced with occasional TV specials from time to time to keep it ticking over.

While I can’t lend any credence to owt The Sun says, I can believe it’s time to take it down a peg and take a breather. After all, they’ve managed three (hopefully, soon to be four) series of cracking, breath-taking telly. And that’s bloody hard to do – look at any other long-running series and tell me it didn’t get crap after the first few seasons. Of course, they’ve had the added bonus of changing cast lists at the end of every series, but somehow they’ve kept it exactly the same. Genius.

It also means that perhaps the Tennster is going ahead with the entire batch of series four episodes after all, and then he’s free to pursue all those other things he wants to do without being stuck in a BBC contract. Like that adaptation of ‘Hamlet’ he’s always wanted to do.

And so to last night’s telly. I posted last time that those jolly good sports at BBC Entertainment, the broadband TV channel from Now TV here in HK, are showing series one (twenty-seven, if you want to be pedantic) in its entirety on Monday nights over here. Great, I thought, no need to buy the DVD boxed set and then find out it’s not as great as I thought it’d be. But wait – I were only half right. They are showing series one, but they’re showing it every night, with the Wednesday slot a repeat, I think. And you even get the fifteen minute Confidential straight after it.

First thoughts? Bearing in mind my Doctor (in a subliminal, used to sometimes watch it kinda way) is Five, Peter Davison? And then I adjusted to this Ten?

Christopher Eccleston is always fab, no doubt about that. I was worried I’d watch it and find he didn’t quite fit the whole Time Lord persona. But then, what is that? After all, it’s been recreated (necessarily) by everyone who’s taken on the job. For better or for worse, you get the new alien in his best and sometimes worst lights. Nine is a wholly different Doctor to the others I’ve known, and yet he’s extremely Doctor-ish, as he should be. There are moments where it feels the new cast and/or crew are a little shaky on their feet, the pacing or attitude wavering from one scene to the next, but we have to remember this was the first big come-back, and these first episodes were the newest of the new. (And I nearly choked when I saw the big old Face of Boe again – for the first time – again – for the-. Oh, whatever. I will never be able to look at him the same way again…) So yeah, it’s fine. It’s not my Doctor, but it’s great fun. It passed the test.

And so to ‘my Doctor’. Oh the emotional turmoil over this one, I tell you. After I posted a fan-fic on the archive last, I had replies and reviews, all of which are gratefully received, be they good or bad. But one mentioned I’d made a glaring error transliterating one of the Doctor’s favourite phrases. The review was right, and after I’d realised and almost thrown meself out of me seventh floor window fer being so amazingly stupid, another wave hit me.

The word it should have been were French. French. And my immediate thought was (bearing in mind I write stories about Ten – the current David Tenninch Tennant incarnation – and Martha) ‘my Doctor wouldn’t speak French!’ And then – woah woah woah, since when was Ten MY Doctor?

When did that happen? When did I go from Five being the last proper incarnation of the Gallifreyan that I saw, to Ten ambling in, hands in pockets, sticking his jaw out in abject disapproval and stealing the show? When?


Ah. It’s all becoming clear now. I know David Tennant attracts a helluva lot of criticism, mostly concerning his reliance on his eyes to sell a scene. Bollocks, I say, the people who don’t think he’s a serious actor should watch those wee bits where he’s tasked to sell a sob story. He’s ace, whether he’s making you laff or making you cry – and he does em both so easily.

That’s it, I have to go to work. And stop blogging about ‘Doctor bloody Who’. Even though I’ve not quite finished that latest fan-fic yet.

Soopytwist.

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Sunday 8 July 2007

Drums, rings, Time Lords and fics


I know, I know, ‘Doctor bloody Who’ finished last week. And I’ve done me follow-up post already. But the Wallpapers of the Week go on, and there are a few things niggling…

Many people have expounded on the crapness of the last ever episode of series three, ‘The Sound Of Drums’. Still more people (me included) have gone on about how fab it was. I’d just like to work through a few thoughts.

The Master. Ooh, now. Cue cries of: ‘he’s not the Master, he’s a very naughty boy!’. Having looked back at the whole dying scene (which still makes me cringe, in a ‘hate to see grown men cry’ and ‘Doctor + crying = heartbreak’ kinda way), I have to say, he’s a sneaky bugger, that Master. Seems to me, and ‘scuse me if you lot have already figured this out, but I’ve only just got round to putting it on e-paper, that getting shot were perhaps his aim all along. Once he knew he were beaten, like. I mean, come on, who stands there egging on Francine when she’s holding a gun? Clock his face – he means it. He’s not doing the old ‘you won’t kill me, you don’t have the guts’ routine, he actually means it. But why? Cos he’s really had enough of the drumming? He’s mad enough to think it’s a great way to go out? He’s a complete psycho after all?

And then when he’s finally put out of his misery – who did it? Lucy Saxon. Lucy. One of the ‘kids’ salvaged from the Toclafane crew of the ship from ‘Utopia’? Summat he found downt side of the sofa (if we believe ‘The Sound Of Drums’)? Did you clock her face as she did it? Not exactly with us, as Jack grabs her gun, is she? Has she cracked, is she stunned by what she’s just done, or was she still under the influence and following orders? After all, this psychic network thing works a treat when you want it to – free-floating wishes of death, anyone? Or did she just have a plan B to follow?

Which brings us to the ring. Not, people have pointed out, the one he were wearing before (which appeared to have an S for Saxon on it). This time, as it’s plucked from the funeral pyre by a hand that or may not be Lucy (unlikely, considering she should have been incarcerated), we see a Gallifreyan version. And oh, doesn’t it all make beautiful sense… How else could he escape the good Doctor’s care/plans of imprisonment, and make him believe he’s the last Time Lord left, just to torture him? If you can hide in a watch, you can hide anywhere, right?

Alright, alright, I’ll leave it now. Suffice to say, this Catherine Tate/Donna thing might be good fer a laff fer a few episodes if they write it right, and anyway, Martha’s not far away. And can you imagine the combined comedy potential of a double-act like Martha and Donna? We could be in fer a treat – or complete shite. Only time will tell…

And those lovely people at the Beeb really do come up wi stuff when you least expect em to. If yer living in Asia and have Now TV through yer cable or broadband operator, you can enjoy series one of New Who starting tomorrow night, Monday 9th July at 8pm on BBC Entertainment (channel 529 on my box). Saves me buying the Christopher Eccleston boxed set, dunt it? Bloody marvellous…

And now to a very, very small niggle. I know I’ve had over a year to tune into the psychic network that is the writing team of New Who, but sometimes I just wonder how far all this goes. Fan-fic, people. We’re talking about fan-fic. Mine, to be precise, and the catalogue of coincidences that surround its existence. Now, I believe in coincidences – coincidences happen every day. But I don’t trust coincidences, as plain simple Garak used to say. There were the TARDIS-tipping in the TV episode ‘Blink’, and I giggled cos I’d just covered it in ‘Bad Jelly Babies’. Then there was the spaceship-escaping-planet thing from ‘For Want Of Key’, which of course came up a few weeks later in ‘Utopia’. Again, I thought it quite funny. And then there was the lyrics quiz and assorted running for yer life fun of ‘Slime and Queens and Choices, Oh Martha’, finishing with the lyrics to the Muse song ‘Invincible’. Guess what song turned up at the end of the last Doctor Who Confidential?

Now I’m freaked out. Course, in a Derron Brown kinda way, if you watch the series and listen to Muse CDs, of course these coincidences are bound to come about. Sometimes it makes me wonder, though. I even had Martha comparing the TARDIS to the Titanic in me last story. How freaky is that?

So if series four comes around and the first episode after the Christmas Special is about dragons, you heard it here first. I’m nearly finished this one, give me a week and it’ll be posted at the archive.

And now to all them people who keep asking me why I don’t post much about the goings-on in Hong Kong, seeing as I live here. Well, it bores me to write about shite like that (apart from the times I need to moan) when I could be imagining far away lands and stuff. And anyway, there are so many better blogs that do it so well: Flagrant Harbour just about covers anything I want to moan about to do wi daily stuff, Simon World takes care of the important stuff, Hongkie Town is a good read for somewhere in between and more, and of course, that favourite of so many people looking for amusement, The Dormitory Boys. They do a really good ‘I Want It That Way’, by the way…

I think that’s everything. Back to slaving over a cool Mac, fan-fic-wise, I think. Or just watching Sunday afternoon TV and getting the roast in our new oven. Gawd, I love Sundays…

Peach and lube, people.

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Wednesday 4 July 2007

Spoilers, prophecies or just plain shite?


Since ‘Doctor bloody Who’ finished last Saturday, Tinternet has been ablaze wi rumours, spoilers fert coming series four, gossip, futures both impossible and improbable, and of course, the inevitable back-lash that only a season-ender such as ‘The Last Of the Time Lords’ truly deserves. Across a few different forums, communities and discussion boards the general census seems to be ‘love or hate it, but you can’t ignore it’.

So get ready to confront a few home truths and join us as we play Sensational or Shite!

In the Sensational corner we have: brilliant manic madness (John Simm), revenge (The Master), nobility (Martha / the Doctor), Greater Good, self-respect (Martha), teamwork, trust (the Doctor), patience, compassion, revelations (Jack!), helplessness, stability, season wrap-up, good ol’ fashioned closing scene running joke (“What? What? What?”) and all questions answered.

In the Shite corner we have: madness gone silly, shameless Star Wars rip-offs (funeral pyre), incoherent / downright silly plot devices (levitation?), mis-placed need to wrap things up at all (Face of Boe), gabbled tacked-on ending (hoooooooonk!), predictable James Bond style ending [come on people, really? He’s the Doctor: ‘don’t try and beat him cos he’s already won, cos he’s too cool for school’!], repetitive closing scene and even an historical error [so the Titantic didn’t have her name written on the life buoy things cos they were shared between the fleet, so what?], would you believe.

I’m obviously int Sensational corner. Just for so many reasons it’d be tedious to put down here, not least of all the music used. Gawd, but if the Beeb don’t put out a series three soundtrack CD including the ‘running’ music, ‘Martha’s Theme’ and the long orchestral mishmash of ‘The Doctor’s Theme’, ‘Martha’s Theme’ and even hints of ‘The Face of Boe’ and ‘Doomsday’, I’ll go down there and nut the head of marketing outta sheer righteous indignation. (And while we’re ont subject – yes, I were absolutely chuffed as nuts that Captain Jack is the Face of Boe. It’s all shades of stellar genius: be told!)

And onto the point of tonight’s tirade: spoilers. Rumours based on loosely overheard facts, juicy hyperbole, prophetic fantasy or just plain talking bollocks? Well. Let’s see. But first, a wee fable about believing all that people tell you.

Once upon a time, on a space station far, far away, lived a bunch of Starfleet hopefuls and a load of ex-terrorist aliens trying to drag their planet out of an occupation-induced near-holocaust aftermath. Yes folks, she’s banging on about ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’. But hold on, it gets good. It’s a fable about listening to everything you’re told and trying to keep up with spoilers. Only these spoilers are about their own future lives, which makes them a prophecy. It states that three vipers will return to their nest in the sky, and when they try to peer through the gates of the Celestial Temple, a sword of stars will appear in the heavens. The Temple gates will burn, and the gates will be cast open for all time.

What are you to believe? Are you with Sisko, the “do me a favour, this is all bollocks” man, or with Kira, the “but it’s all coming true…” woman? Especially as three Cardassian scientists arrive back on the DS9 station (their former residence as prefects of Bajor; their nest in the sky), to try and set up some new communications array. But what starts out looking like a clear-cut case of numbers and blatantly obvious interpretations turns into a plethora of mistakes, metaphors and badly-translated legends. The three vipers turn out to be shards of a great comet, not Cardassian scientists after all, the sword of stars is the chemical compound leaking from said comet and not the comms relay they’re trying to start up, and when the leaked compound reacts with the inside of the wormhole – “burning the gates” – it acts as the much-needed carrier wave. No-one dies, no pivotal forces rack the nearby planet, and in fact, the comms relay starts to work straight away, the path for comms through the wormhole now “open for all time.”

See? It all makes beautiful sense, if only you wait and see. Which just about sums up what I should be doing with ‘Doctor bloody Who’ series four, but I just can’t help myself. I were convinced Ten were dying and being replaced in that last episode, and held me breath for pretty much the last twenty minutes. Then I saw news that Ten would be in the Xmas Special, but only to hand over to Eleven. But, as usual, we should have just waited fert actual BBC press releases. Now it seems that, far from the tabloids’ gossip about Freema Agyeman being sacked fer being crap, she’s actually going to do half a series in ‘Torchwood’ and then anything up to half a series back in the good ol’ blue box.

Then two press releases came within ours of each other: Kylie Minogue is to be the co-star of the Xmas Special for 2007 (but no, sorry fellas, she’s not appearing as a Cyberwoman, or even a baddie), and then the new Companion has been revealed to be none other than Catherine Tate. Yeah yeah, I know, she annoyed half the country last time as Donna the shouty bride, but I’d like to give her a little slack, seeing as how she ended the episode so well. And who knows? We may get a little light-hearted relief and a few comedy moments to start off the new series. And it may be that Ten stays fert whole shebang too. We can only hope. Reading June’s edition of SFX recently has only cemented my fears fert Doctor: “Cut loose from that sometimes cloying ‘golden couple’ he’s become increasingly impressive. One day soon we’ll be crying “How did Who survive without him? Give it four seasons, fella: you’re too good to get typecast. [snip] Give David Tennant fine and noble words and you end up with something special, and his head-to-head with Lazarus is sublime.

So then, what have we learned? That the season-ender was far more Sensational than Shite, don’t believe all the spoilers you hear, and all that titters is not bold. Or some such.

Anyway, I’m knackered and it’s time for bed, as a wise man once said. Zebedee, I think. Soopytwist…

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Sunday 1 July 2007

How now, Brown Cow-Eyed One?


It’s a beautiful day! The sun is shining ~ I feel good, I feel right: NOBODY’S GOING TO STOP ME NOW…. as Freddy Mercury once, most defiantly, stated.

And on a day like today, as Bryan Adams once wrote, the whole world can change. In fact, anything can happen in the next half hour, as the Thunderbirds voice-over man once told me, scaring me wee nipper brain into nightmares of things falling fromt sky onto me head.

Basically, just seen last night’s season-ender fer ‘Doctor bloody Who’ and I’m still trying to get me head round it. Ooh, the SPOILERS I shall insert right here, right now… as Fatboy Slim once wrote…

John Simm / The Master = pure ee-vil psycho baddie who just wanted to rebuild his home. Or rather, nick someone else’s, cuckoo-stylee, and sort it how he wanted it. And “not wanting” to regenerate, being bloody perverse enough to go and die just to try and get one over ont Doctor – or is he? Or IS HE? Ooh, that cheeky little blagger! Loved the expressions on his face as he dealt with so many twists in his plans – the moment he realises what he’s done to the Doctor, and then sees it, is magic. Shaking? Shocking? Pure bloody class, mate. (And have to say, loved the way The Mill SFX people kept the hopelessly wizened old Doctor looking like Ten. It were definitely the eyes and the teeth...)

Martha. Oh, Martha Jones. Oh you star. Being grown-up enough, being tough enough, being sorted enough to make decisions where blokes are concerned. Although, I have to say, was it always about the bloke? Wouldn’t you want to ride around in a TARDIS, meeting people and seeing strange worlds just so you could ride around in a TARDIS and see strange worlds? Does it always have to be about a bloke? Or am I a complete geek, the only bird int known universe who’d do that? Just so I could have a quick shuftie under the Time Meter to see where all the ports and sockets are? I mean, if I had such a marvellous, shiny-shiny-old-old piece of fab kit like that, would I even notice the bloke?

Well clearly I would (to paraphrase David Tennant’s Scottish English teacher fromt Catherine Tate comedy sketch, even), cos my heart (just the one) nearly stopped about five times watching the bloody episode. I was so convinced, so irrefutably hypnotised into thinking this were David Tenninch Tennant’s last episode that not even Derron Brown could have convinced me otherwise. I had one of them ‘nursery hours’. You know when you have to teach wee’uns for an hour, and you put all the sharp implements and anything remotely dangerous on all the big shelves so as they can’t hurt or main anyone by accident? It were like that. ‘Step away from the door, Doctor! Don’t stand near the machine, Doctor! DO NOT DO THE NOBLE THING AND JUMP IN FRONT OF FRANCINE’S GUN TO SAVE THE SODDING MASTER, DOCTOR!

Phew. Wears me out just thinking back, I tell you. And then Jack. Aww, Jack. We liiiiike. And – ooh, SPOILERS ahoy, he be the Face of Boe! The Face of Boe! All this time, all these millions of years! And he dunt know it yet cos even though the Doctor’s seen him die, it’s not happened in his personal timeline yet. But aww, looking back and knowing that the Doctor was – is – will be with him when he finally dies… Isn’t that the best way? And NOT totally giving all the game(s) away, only telling him about YANA and the Master in them cryptic responses… Gah! Russell T. Davies, and in fact the entire team of writers, all my hats and related headgear are off to you, sirs. Damned fine story arcs, people, damn fine story arcs!


And you’ve all seen ‘Flash Gordon’, right? Ming the Merciless’ – sorry, The Master’s ring, anyone? BWA-HA-HA-HAAAAAAAAAAA!!

I’m so relieved. I couldn’t be more relieved if the Four Minute Warning had just been called off. Well, obviously I could, but I’d have a hard time being as convincing as I were about five minutes after the episode had safely ended. But how now, Brown Cow-Eyed One? Martha’s chucked her phone at you – an open invitation that, if she ever feels like it, she’ll just call you and expect you to appear on her doorstep, to take her wherever she wants to go at the drop of a hat. But what will she do when she finds he’s already taken in a new TARDIS tea-lady / boy? If he turns up as summoned and she finds he’s got another Jamie, another Peri, another Romana (who really should have thought of laser screwdrivers, back in the day, and pioneered them)? Only time will tell – if she does ever re-appear. Ooh, thinking about it, can we have another Ace? Or was that Martha in disguise all along…?

And isn’t that a wonderful feeling – knowing that life will go on as close to normal as it gets fert Doctor now. Back to the TARDIS, same old life… And let’s look through the wrong-sized square police box windows, children. Ooh, who’s through the square window? What a lot of exciting humans there are. I wonder which one we’ll meet next… Yes, he’s back by himself, but not cos the Companion’s dead, or snatched, or ditched, or otherwise removed. She chose to go, just like Sarah Jane. And it didn’t hurt, did it Doctor? It didn’t pinch at those hopelessly complicated, oblivious hearts of yours, did it, Doctor? It’s fine. Really. No really, it’s fine. Really.

That’s it. I’m knackered. An entire week of not being able to read any mail, any forums (save the mighty I has a TARDIS one, cos spoilers are marked as such before you can see ‘em) has left me wi close to seventy unanswered messages in my inbox. So much reading and laffing and relaxing to do, then…

So we just wait till Christmas, then. Well, the boxed set coming out November comes first, obviously. Then Christmas.

Oh, almost forgot: Wallpapers of the Week are here, and will still be updated as I catch up with episodes 12 and 13 (sorry).

I should be watching Hong Kong’s 10th anniversary Britain to China hand-over doings on telly, or watching the street parades or some such thing, but I think instead I’ll have a nice long BATH in me new BATH in me new BATHroom and think about the genius that is Jack Harkness. ‘What a brilliant, wonderful, genius little plan!’ as Remington Steele once said…

Peach and lube people. ‘Tis a beautiful day.

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