… if you’re the person who ended up on the SFSFW web site after searching for “centaur bestiality”.

The word ‘bestiality’ appears exactly once on the site, on the same page as the word ‘centaur’ though not at all close together. I’m afraid that the searcher would most likely have been disappointed.

Other search terms that somehow ended up at the SFSFW in the first half of June include:

• “disadvantages of being vertically challenged”
• “lap dancers devizes”
• “why gamers should go to anime conventions”
• “why does pooh have mr sanders on his door”
• “inca drawing of dinosaur killing a man”

The worrying thing is that the society has such wide interests that all of these, except possibly the lap dancers (especially as GZG are not based anywhere near Devizes), are topics that we could cover.

But the number six term overall was “emperor dalek”, only just behind “troublesome trucks” and “bob naismith”. Will it be higher by the end of the month?

Just played back the first episode of the new series of Nip/Tuck. Serious gore factor, maybe I shouldn’t have watched it whilst eating supper. Still, it has to be watched to see what will be happening next year in The Bill – womaniser attends one sexaholics anonymous meeting, pulls, has one night stand, gets contacted later by now pregnant sexaholic. Hmm, Christian Troy or Phil Hunter?

And if Nip/Tuck is Six Feet Under with live people is House, CSI with live people? (I bet I’m not the first person to say that.) And what’s all this I’ve been reading about people on the States not realising that Hugh Laurie is doing an accent? I’ve heard people from most parts of the US and I’ve never heard anyone who speaks like that (but it’s still better than Nicola Bryant’s accent). Still it looks promising.

And yesterday pink_weasel and I went to see The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse. Insane, totally insane. And brilliant, totally brilliant. I don’t think I’ve been so open mouthed for so much of a film since, um, since ever really. If you’ve ever seen any of the TV series go and see it; if you haven’t then watch the TV series and then go and see the film.

Two dinosaurs (the small and very big Iguanodons from the OOP HLBS Co/DZ Miniatures range) and a random impulse purchase of a crashed alien spacecraft (from Monolith I believe). All courtesy of eBay.

Running total is now £544.33

“We have your associate. You will obey or she will be exterminated.”
“No.”
“Explain yourself.”
“I said no.”
“What is the meaning of this negative?”
“It means no.”
“But she will be destroyed.”
“No. Cause this is what I’m gonna do. I’m going to rescue her. I’m going to
save Rose Tyler from the middle of the Dalek fleet, and then I’m going to
save the Earth, and then, just to finish off, I’m going to wipe every
stinking Dalek out of the sky.”
“But you have no weapons, no defenses, no plan.”
“Yeah, and doesn’t that scare you to death? Rose?”
“Yes, Doctor?”
“I’m coming to get you.”

Bad Wolf wan’t bad at all. Three months ago, did you think the phrase “they’ve killed Billy Piper” could ever be a bad thing? (And a nice Absolom Daak homage in there as well.)

First twenty minutes: 7/10, Middle twenty minutes: 8/10, Last five minutes: 11/10

Overall: 9/10

Next week looks like every fanboy’s wet dream. I’m looking at my miniatures shelves and thinking “I need more Daleks”. BTD must be laughing.

Shaggy Dog Stories

Now the mysterious voice at the end of the trailer, who or what is it? The theories are coming thick and fast:

1. Davros – the obvious choice. He was creating Daleks from humans back in Revelation of the Daleks (which presumably is the fate of the gameshow losers), an act which made him an enemy of the racial purity fanatic main Dalek force.
2. The Emperor Dalek – the voice is very much like that from Evil of the Daleks, but does it make sense to bring back a villain that appeared in one, deleted, 1960s story (and once as a disguise of Davros in the 1980s)?
3. The Dalek from Dalek – The phrase “they survived through me” is very similar to a line from that episode and this Dalek, already contaminated with Rose’s DNA would have less problem in using humans to create a new Dalek army. Oh dear, that would really destroy the ending and impact of that story.
4. Adam – he has 20,000 years of knowledge in his head (or does he, if he does then why would he need that answering phone message?), he’s seen a Dalek, he has a grudge against the Doctor. Stupid idea.
5. The Master – not likely.

And to add to the fun these choices can be mixed and matched (Adam is Davros; Davros is the Emperor Dalek (again); The last Dalek is the new Emperor Dalek). A whole week of wild speculation :-).

Mmmmm, Susan Ivanova.

Anyway, Boom Town. I wasn’t expecting much from this based on the trailers but it turned out better than I expected. Not brilliant but certainly not terrible.

It was a collection of “greatest” hits from the series so far – Slitheen from AoL/WW3; the rift from tUD; incidental music from Rose; Mickey; reversing the teleport from tEoftW; some of which deserved a repeat performance more than others. It was also more than that.

It was a look at the Doctor’s morality and whilst Russell T Davies is clearly against the death penalty (see his interview on Doctor Who Confidential) the episode was no where so clear cut, Margaret’s arguments didn’t really hold water when held against the lengths she was prepared to go to save herself, and the Doctor’s attitude was a mixture of factors – part “leave local customs alone”, part “Everything has it’s time and everything dies” and part traumatised post-Gallifrey Doctor.

The moral debate would have been more interesting if a human had taken a larger part. Maybe we could have been spared some of the Rose/Mickey (non-)relationship and instead had them involved in the discussion between the Doctor and Margaret.

In the end the debate was rendered meaningless by a deus ex machina resolution. I liked the heart of the TARDIS and I wonder if it’s foreshadowing something, possibly connected to regeneration?

7/10

And the Doctor notices the Bad Wolf at last. Just in time for this week’s episode that looks like it could be very, very good and very, very bad at the same time.

IMDB is listing Norman Lovett (the original Holly from Red Dwarf) as Davros in the season finale. But anyone can update IMDB with any old information (it’s not quite a Wiki but it’s nearly as bad) so we’ll have to see. I doubt that such a genre favoutite actor could play such a genre favourite part without it leaking out before now, and I think he’d make a bloody awful Davros. But you never know.

Meanwhile:

You are the eighth Doctor! Friendly and warm, you are the most human of all the Doctors. Your sense of style is a bit old-fashioned. You have a bit of trouble figuring out exactly who you are at first, but no worries. Eventually you’ll find your way.

Which Doctor (from Doctor Who) Are You?
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And if anyone hasn’t already, have a look at the Sudokwho.

Last week I picked up a copy of The Times on the train (as you do). There was a short article about a newly described short necked sauropod by someone called Mark Henderson (hmm, that name seems familar).

Here I’d like to rant about the crapness of The Times web site, about how the search feature directed to towards a so-called print friendly version of the article (hello, 2005, print CSS) - complete with (presumably) print friendly banner ads, and about how the very nice illustration from the paper version are entirely lacking from the web site.

Anyway, Brachytrachelopan mesa is a south american sauropod with a short neck, in fact it looks superfically rather like a hadrosaur (see the pic at the bottom of this post on Palaeoblog). As the hadrosaurs were mostly (entirely?) northen hemisphere residents it makes sense that some sort of southern hemisphere dinosaur would evolve to fill the same ecological niche and sauropods are the only major group of plant eating dinos in the southern continents.

But The Times claims that “the short neck of Brachytrachelopan appears to be an adaptation for feeding on shrubs and grasses”. Um, no. Grasses didn’t evolve until millions of years after the dinosaurs went extinct. None of the other sources carrying this story made this mistake so I guess that this Henderson fellow is at fault, I wonder where he learnt his science?

(Mark, if you read this, sorry if I come across as being a bit mean. For all I know the mistake was a sub-editor’s not yours, and maybe The Times even published a correction on Friday.)

Drinking in The George Inn this evening and overheard a couple of lovies at the next table talking about Doctor Who – he had been in it in 1964 and was constantly asked by people what is had been like to work with William Hartnell, she had been in it with Peter Davison. They both liked Christopher Eccleston.

Then there was folk music so Jolyon and I adjoined to the Slug and Lettuce for food and more (although not as nice) beer.

On the way home I noticed that all the office lights were on. This was five to eleven on a Monday. I may be putting on my environmental hat and asking questions. All the lights were on next door in City Hall too so I may be writing to Ken as well.

Very small children seemed to be a not immeditately present but still prevalent feature of the evening. Ben D (father of a three week old) had briefly joined us for a shandy early on; Dave H (due to become a father within the next ten days) also made an appearance; and Jolyon was about to become an uncle at any moment (a text was received that informed him that pushing had been underway for twenty four hours!). Cripes.

You scored as Drunk Cat. Put down the bottle, Cheech. Sign up for some
AA classes and drink a glass of water. Bars are ok once in a while, but you
shouldn’t be sleeping at them.

Which Absurd Cat are you?
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