From Spicy Caludron alerts us to the fact that Newham council has been overrun by Daleks. But why has the our usual source for all things East London not reported on this development? Oh, her blog claims that she’s in Paris, but is that just a cover story put about by UNIT? Has miss_newham been exterminated?
Archive for May, 2005
Filling in the gaps in the Rebel Storm collection (damn I’ve been sucked in, I was only going to buy Stormtroopers, but now I want all the heroes as well), plus some OOP HLBS Co dinos, all courtesy of eBay – £14.18
GURPS Romulans and a half price pack of Copplestone Casting Bolshevik mounted standard bearers from Orcs Nest – £20.99
Running total is now £611.64
But, game related stuff sold on eBay netted a profit of £14.81 so…
Running total is now £596.83
Way back when I had a blog, I wondered whether I had backed myself into a corner by giving such high marks to the Doctor Who episodes shown so far. With two ten out of tens already, would I need to go up to eleven?
“Are you my mummy?”
At first it seemed that The Empty Child might break the scale – it was certainly the most atmospheric and chilling episode since, well, since ever really. But the whole barrage balloon sequence, ironically, kept the episode’s feet on the ground through a combination of sheer ludicrousness (it was up there with the “cliffhanger” from Dragonfire), historical innaccuracy (what’s the point of barrage balloons if enemy aircraft fly beneath them?), and so-so CGI (a series trademark).
The gas mask child; Doctor Constantine’s transformation; the wards full of patients. Great stuff, really scarey, and nicely counterpointed by the nightclub scenes; Captain Jack; Rose’s desire for a bit of “Spock”. All that and a great cliffhanger.
10/10
But that left us with a week of wondering, would they fall into the trap that snared just about every Star Trek two parter? Great build up followed by a lousy resolution?
The Doctor Dances, ever since I’d first read the episode title a few months ago I’d had two images from the novel range stuck in my head. The first was the Seventh Doctor dancing with Death on the Moon on the cover of Timewyrm: Revelation; the second, and this is the image that came to mind more often, was the Eighth Doctor furiously playing the violin in the middle of the world shaking storms in Year of the Intelligent Tigers. Now, YotIT is one of my favourite DW novels of all time, a really wonderful book with a marvellous Doctor, could the TV series produce to match? Could the much earthier Ninth Doctor produce a scene to match the poetry of the Seventh’s or Eighth’s novel highlights?
(After Rose many people made comparisons between Eccleston and previous Doctors, these have all but vanished which is almost certainly a sign that the Ninth Doctor is such a strong character in his own right that people have accepted him for himself. Here’s hoping that David Tennant can create an equally good impression for the Tenth Doctor.)
The episode started with the best pre-titles sequence of the series. Cliffhanger resolved and one liner delivered exactly as desired. Some spookiness and at last much running around corridors in the classic tradition. Guns, bananas, screwdrivers! Then the dance begins.
An interesting little dance, The Doctor, Rose Tyler and Captain Jack stepping nimbly between a crowd of zombies, dancing to two tunes at once. Can they save the earth before the music stops? Will one of the dancers miss a beat of their more personal tune?
But enough with that, for now. I haven’t mentioned Nancy yet in this review, which is a mistake as she was one of the highlights of the episodes. Florence Hoath gave a wonderful performance and I hope that she goes on to do great things. By the way, am I the only person who thinks that she looks like a younger Kate Isitt (Sally from Coupling)?
I totally failed to spot the truth about the boy’s mummy but in hindsight it’s so obvious. I was scared for a moment that the story would end with Nancy sacrificing herself to save the world (as has been something of a trend in the series) and was extremely happy when things turned out differently.
“Just for once, everybody lives!”
The look of joy on the Doctor’s face as he saves everyone was, to borrow his catchphrase, fantastic! This was just the sort of moment that I had been wanting, right up there with a violin in the storm.
But then the coda, the Doctor actually dances, and despite what he claims he doesn’t really have the moves, does he? Bless him.
10/10
I’ve been quiet lately, both in real and blog terms, because of a very nasty throat infection. Last Sunday I had to track down the emergency doctor service at Dulwich hospital, where after a bare minimum of poking and prodding I was given a prescription for anti-biotics - a seven day course which means I’m off the beer until Monday. Which was, obviously, okay whilst I was having problems swallowing water, let alone anything more interesting. But now I’m feeling mostly better and the sun is shining and the idea of a nice cool beer is so tempting. 
Congratulations to Ben and Mojo on the birth of a son on Wednesday morning.
Oh, so pink_weasel tagged me for this one.
- Total volume of music files on my computer?
8Mb - a grand total of two songs at the moment (one Tanita Tikaram and one Madeleine Peyroux). But now I’m commuting again I may finally catch up with the world and get a MP3 player. Or someone could buy us his and hers iPods as wedding gifts.
- The last CD I bought was?
Crikey, I think it was The Zutons last summer. Though I did blag a freebie copy 69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields (through investing in their record company) more recently. Time to go shopping.
- Song playing right now:
Orgasm Addict by The Buzzcocks
- Five songs I listen to a lot or that mean a lot to me:
- And I Think Of You - Tanita Tikaram
- Very Long Ride - Adam Ant
- Ever Fallen In Love With Someone (You Shouldn’t've Fallen In Love With)? - The Buzzcocks
- My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors - Moxy Früvous
- Misterioso - Thelonious Monk
Why? They’re all just songs that have stuck in my mind over the years, and I’m too lazy to analyse whethere there might be some reason as to why each one stuck when and as it did.
- Which 5 people are you passing this baton to, why?
As there are fewer than five people on my friends list who haven’t done this I’m going to let this thread of the meme die.
“Father’s Day” was damn good. I had a great big lng review in my head, exploring the episode as a standalone story (brilliant), as part of the ongoing series (for the second week in a row the Doctor was rendered impotent and another character saved everyone), and in the context of fandom (it was the most New Adventures-like episode yet). But I can’t be bothered. If you missed it yesterday the repeat’s on in just over an hour.
10/10
… went to Wagamama, Urban Golf and the Groucho Club, in that order. I would recommend them in the inverse order.
Stuff I’m selling on eBay - these all end on Sunday evening so you have a couple of days to deliberate. With luck I’ll find the time to photograph and list some more things this weekend.
I’ve decided that I don’t want to become one of those people who live in a set of cleared passageways between towering piles of old magazines. So I’m having a clear out. But before I chuck them all in the recycling I’m looking at flogging some of them. The piles mostly consist of:
- TV Zone
- SFX
- Wargames Illustrated
- Miniature Wargames
- Practical Wargamer
- Harbinger
- Star Trek The Magazine
- Warpstone
- Valkyrie
- Prehistoric Times
It’s really the first three that are problematic (and I’m definitely keeping all of the last three), so what’s the market in back issues of those like?
Not good it would seem.
Wargames Illustrated have released issues 1-150 on CD-ROM with 151-200 to follow soon, so there’s very little demand for back issues there.
SFX and TV Zone would seem to be the sort of thing that sci-fi collectors should go for but the evidence on eBay seems to suggest otherwise – very few bids, even on issues no longer available from the publishers’ back issue departments.
So before I waste my time listing stuff on eBay that probably won’t sell I’m making an open offer here, if any of the above takes your fancy, or if you want to ask any questions, please post a comment or send me an e-mail and let’s see if we can work something out. I’ll draw up a list of which issues I have and post it later.