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He does rather look like he's been hit in the face with a snow-shovel doesn't he?

Funnily enough, this crossed my mind immediately after the regeneration. When I first heard that they were getting a mere child (by my increasingly middle-aged standards) to play the Doctor, I thought they were just getting an even younger, prettier boy to keep the teenage market hooked. To see that he's actually pleasantly non-pretty, with a touch of lined maturity in his brow, lifted my spirits somewhat.

Regards

Robin

I believe in ghosts, UFOs and the Loch Ness monster, so I might as well add God and magic in there, too.

Believing in any or all of these things is not itself a problem - faith, hope and imagination have a lot going for them. Problems only arise when you (A) let such beliefs control your life, (B) start believing that you have credible evidence that these things exist, and (C) start trying to force other people to believe in them, too, and then (D) get uptight when they won't.

Though obviously anyone who believes that Mark Millar's Robo-Hunter was actually good is a deluded, pitiable fool.


Regards

Robin

Given that there's absolutely nothing in the programme itself to suggest this, I've no idea where this came from.

You're right, of course, but it was the automatic assumption in our house too.

On the other hand, maybe it was Susan's mother?

the utterly clueless Mark Lawson, state this as if it was fact, but I can't work out why (unless, in Lawson's case, it was to make his entirely idiotic Hamlet analogy appear slightly less moronic).

He really is mind-blowingly dim, isn't he? You have to be impressed by his ability to get away with.

Regards

Robin

If he'd said 'I don't want to go' then,

I still found that one of the better and most honest lines in the whole thing, regardless of timing. The delivery was pretty good, too; it managed to be sad without quite tipping over into pathetic.

Regards

Robin

I think we're socially conditioned to think it's great when in fact all alcoholic drinks taste fucking vile

I'm drinking a glass of wine right now, and it certainly seems to taste very nice.  Maybe i've just got an overactive imagination. 

Yes, but you're clearly socially conditioned to think that. Or drunk. Possibly both.

Either way, my taste buds' hostility to alcohol has been advantageous. I went through four years of university and came out in profit. I later did another two years at university and used my modest (relative to most students) student loan to pay for the course fees on another degree. I know it's not entirely that simple, but I sometimes have difficulty taking student debt seriously.

That said, if I did like alcohol I might have spent more time at uni being less nervous about telling women I thought they were beautiful, and had a lot more sex as a result... but then I could have got them up the duff or caught a dose of galloping knob rot... and thus have something worthwhile to contribute to this thread.


Regards

Robin

I very rarely drink (it's very much an Emperor's New Clothes thing for me - I think we're socially conditioned to think it's great when in fact all alcoholic drinks taste fucking vile), but I've given it a shot a couple of times, so I appreciate the appeal of being pleasantly drunk.

On those three occasions, I've had to fight the overwhelming urge to go up to women and tell them I think they're beautiful. Fortunately, even when drunk my willpower seems strong enough to keep myself under control. It is, however, an interesting experience to become aware of the different levels of consciousness and rationality operating inside one's head, in this case pissed idiot and wise coward.

Regards

Robin

That statue is absolutely awful.  Sorry *ducks*

The classic line, Gaze into the face of Fear now offers new and disturbing possibilities...

Regards

Robin

Overall, rather frustrating. Between the two episodes there were at least three elements that would have been the basis for separate four-part stories in the olden days, all smeared into one clumsily plotted mess, with too much running about, shouting, and a loud, needlessly over-the-top score.

And yet along the way there were moments of real emotion and significance. Just a shame they were obscured by the rest of the mess.

Regards

Robin

I'm late to the thread, as usual...

Hmmm. Now, I know that figure-makers like to sell more than one figure (Aqua-Batman, Roller-Skate Flash, Frank Spencer with Red Para Beret, and so on). However, I can't help feeling that Thalidomide Dredd at 96yo might be pushing it too far...


Regards

Robin

Does anybody play this game?

Rather unhelpfully, I play Lord of the Rings Online. I'd recommend this instead.

Regards

Robin

Sorry if this has already been posted and I missed seeing it, but it's a thing of beauty and had to be shared:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11AhJ0EvI_0


Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night


Robin

I blame Amazon as well but i never bought anything off Amazon because i am so terribly old fashioned that i prefer going into a shop to buy books or magazines or whatever.

Amazon is entirely to blame. I love going into bookshops, and it'll be a shame when they die - and let's face it, they will.

However, for Christmas I bought my Dad Anthony Beever's D-Day: The Battle for Normandy. Normal price, £25: Amazon price, £12.50.

Similarly, I don't see anything by Ramsey Campbell in the horror section of Borders or anywhere else, because he's not popular enough for the mainstream market. 2000AD books are seemly ordered at random, and are too costly to buy from Waterstones, especially when you consider that I have the stuff already. I've replaced my tatty old Conan paperbacks with corrected reprints in American editions I never knew existed before I searched Amazon.

Amazon acting as a shop front for hundreds of secondhand book dealers means that I can fairly easily find obscure titles at often reasonable prices.

Yes, I'm going to really miss bookshops, but hell, I'd miss Amazon a damn sight more.

Regards

Robin

Cabal was a brilliant read but didn't much think to the film.

I had the complete opposite response. I really enjoyed the film, but was aware it wasn't quite what Barker wanted. I thought I'd read the book and see what he was really aiming for, but found it boring and drab. The film had all these great, colourful characters, but they existed merely as names in the book.

Regards

Robin

This is a weak story, since it can be entirely dismissed as a combination of disorientation and darkness. But never mind.

One night I woke up and rolled over in bed to face my girlfriend. I was a little surprised to see her shadowy silhouette - she seemed to be lying on her front, but obviously propped up on her elbows - I could sort of see the slope of her back and her head was raised. Obviously it was dark and she was shadowy, but it looked like her head was turning, slowly looking from one shoulder to the other like she was keeping watch. I couldn't see her face, partly because it was dark and partly because he has 'big hair', so the details were vague.

However, something didn't seem right. I reached out to put my hand in the small of her back, expecting to be able to stroke along the upward curve of her spine as she's propped up on her elbow. Of course, my hand just followed a horizontal path, through her silhouette.

I decided to roll over again and go back to sleep.

It wasn't scary, but I really didn't feel the need to examine the phenomenon any more closely.


Regards

Robin

Wasn't it squished when the original Statue of Judgement fell over after being blown up by Grice in Inferno?

I don't recall seeing it actually happen - but then that Statue of Statue of Judgement was over by the West Wall, while the real Statue of Judgement is on/near the East Coast.   Unless of course you're playing the Judge Dredd Board Game.  Plus didn't we see the Statue of Liberty more-or-less intact when PSU was being installed in the New Statue of Judgement?

I suspect you're probably right - the falling west/east issue had crossed my mind, too, but since the whole scenario made little sense I thought a squashing might still have taken place.

In America 2, young Beeny asks Daddy Beeny if Mummy Beeny blew it up, and Daddy Beeny replies, "No, that was someone else". I wondered about this when I originally read it. Wagner must have assumed that someone had blown it up, even if he didn't write the story.

The Case Files just come out fast enough, can they!

Regards

Robin