Messages

Quitting smoking is difficult,  hot knife through soft-spread margarine.[/color][/size]

nah, it's easy - I've done it dozens of times.

Posted as an addict who is being forced to face the 'yeah I'd better quit' vs 'painful death ahead!' struggle

[Dark is Rising]

Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising sequence ... go equally unremarked.

the BBC did a very good radio adaptation a couple of years ago featuring Toby Jones amongst others

In the 2nd year at school our English teacher asked us all to write a letter to a favourite author c/o the publishers. Out of a class of 30, only my friend who wrote to Ursula K LeGuin got a (rather lovely) reply.

Must revisit Earthsea, as I loved it back then. Come to think of it, he must have been a fantasy buff because as well as that one we also read The Dark is Rising that year

Melania: "you had ONE job..."

It would be interesting to see if they will mention the fact that the Doctor has already faced Sutekh as the Fourth Doctor faced him and stopped him from escaping his imprisonment on Mars where he was placed by Horus and then Sutekh dying of old age at the end of the story the Pyramids of Mars

The voice of Sutekh is the same guy - Gabriel Woolf, he's 91 now.

Yeah, I enjoyed that one, just hoping the danger isn't just hand-waved away with some nonsense in the second part

When lockdown came I started cutting my own hair and I haven't stopped yet.

The only time I tried that I made a right pig's ear of it. At my first post-lockdown haircut, I mentioned to him that I'd considered getting some clippers and having a go, but decided against it. "Oh mate" he said shaking his head "you should have seen some of the haircuts I've had through the door this week!"

/quote]oops replied rather than edited

I need to find a new barber. Been going to the same tiny shop for nearly 30 years, turned up today and there's a notice in the window from his son saying that he died. When I first started going they used to smoke roll ups while cutting my hair and never bothered customers with unwanted chat about where you're going on holiday

Whatever the details, I think we all want two things:
1. More Rok of the Reds
2. For John Wagner to actually be paid for his work, rather than have to scrape up financing.

That Wood Quay story was a fascinating read - I'd never heard of it before.

I ddo agree it's getting better - I can think of three or four recent cases where historic pubs have been bulldozed only for the developers to be ordered to rebuild them brick by brick at ruinous expense, like this one I've known all my life:The Punch Bowl, and the more famous Crooked House pub recently. It's amazing how many historic properties coincidentally go on fire so soon after purchase.

And a special circle of hell should await twats who vandalise precious remains. A dutch guy was arrested last week for tagging, in indelible marker, one of the frescoes in Pompeii. Fuck those cunts.

[Enola Holmes]

Enola Holmes. Thoroughly enchanting.

I really thought that Helen Bonham-Carter deserved a slap rather than a hug at the end, but yes it was a lot of fun.

[TOS]

Unlike Star Wars, whose longevity has made it bogged down in boring and complex continuity and spin-offs, Trek has always reinvented itself down the years, some more successful than others, but always interesting. My humble and brief rundown:

TOS - Absolute stone cold classic. Ignore the inconsistencies (ranks, titles and dates fluctuate), can't be beaten. Set the template for Roddenberry's vision, and such a great crew. Currently watching these after a long gap due to over-familiarity (more on that in a later post...)

The Animated Series - not seen it since I was a wee sprog, all I remember is the cat alien - must rectify

TNG - I remember the trepidation of a reboot turning to delight as this proved to be another classic. Occasionally mawkish and overly earnest - I tend to avoid any episodes featuring crew's children, lovers or parents (Lwaxana excepted) in favour of transporter accidents, weird AIs, holodeck malfunctions, strange diseases and cosmic mysteries.

DS9 - Probably the strongest for a full rewatch. Dropped off quite a bit towards the end, but another banger.

Voyager - Great concept, great characters, but a much higher ratio of duff episodes than TNG or DS9. (That cringeworthy Oirish village for example)

Enterprise - Tried to like it but failed. I found the characters of Reed and Tucker quite annoying and the inevitable constant foreshadowing problematic and if I ever watched the later seasons I have no memory. Maybe I should give it another go.

Discovery - pure hokum, even worse than Enterprise for inventing tech way beyond what they'd have a century later, but highly entertaining.

Picard - enjoyed the first with reservations, didn't like the second much, but for S3 they just said "ah fuck it, let's just make a final season of TNG" and it was pretty damn good.

Lower Decks - love it

Prodigy - only watched a few, not bad but definitely a kid's show.

Strange New Worlds - not seen this yet (can't face signing up to yet another streaming service, but I really want to watch the Lower Decks crossover)

the Doctor should have always been an asexual, aromatic figure

I assume you meant aromantic. (although Ncuti does look like a chap who'd always smell nice tbh)

I think there's definitely been a move to "vibes" based story telling in this series. Don't let "plot holes" get in the way of the central theme/message.

Plot holes? PLOT HOLES? Nothing makes a lick of sense this series. It's as if RTD is actually offended by the concept of narrative consistency and plot resolution. This one was better, relatively few WTF moments (a super-unbreakable techno-trap, beyond both their abilities to deactivate, but a good shove is enough?); but I'm still angry about 73 yards

I don't know if the art droids mind us Squaxx watch or if they are under pressure as I hate people standing over me at my work.   

It's why I don't like getting sketches at cons - I get socially awkward and stressed that I should be making conversation or that I'm holding upo the queue.