Christmas Television

Somewhere in my head I have a Dickensian image of a family Christmas spent playing games around a log fire whilst the snow gently wafts past the window settling on a crystalline landscape. Instead of that, it rained mercilessly and I found myself in a house of excessively hyperactive and exceedingly noisy children, throwing wrapping paper around like confetti, whilst I slumped like a stranded walrus onto the living room sofa with a glass of whisky in one hand and a grudgingly accepted mince pie in the other. Of course, this is where the real fun starts as there is a wealth of entertainment to be had with the simple use of a personal video recorder and the television volume control “set to stun” to drown out the kids.

There seem to be a few things that we watch every year. For some reason we always end up watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation which is far more in line with my reality of family Christmas rather than the Dickensian idyll that I summoned up in a pipe dream. I also like to catch a film version of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol: I went for the Disney Motion-Capture version with Jim Carey this year which seems to be specifically designed to scare the bejesus out of everyone (rated PG – my arse). I’ll go with the Muppet one next time. I also managed to find the old episode of The Vicar Of Dibley in which Dawn French eats so much Christmas dinner that she explodes. Christmas Eve gave us the last ever episode of Merlin which predictably turned out to be a complete tear-fest. Well, there is always Doctor Who on Christmas Day – it’s not as if Steven Moffat has a penchant for killing his lead characters off, is it?

I’ve been looking forward to this years Christmas Doctor Who for a while as we finally get to see, properly, the new assistant in the form of Jenna Louise Coleman’s Clara. Or, at least, I thought we would. It looks like we are being led a merry dance on that subject again but if her performance in this episode is anything to go by we are in for a treat. Being set in the Victorian era I was wondering whether Clara might be modelled on the 2nd Doctor’s Victoria Waterfield: a pretty, sweet girl that should have come with a set of earplugs to muffle out the screaming. Clara certainly has the looks but personality wise she is a world away: smart, cheeky, bright and with wits to a match the Doctor. Pity that she didn’t make it to the closing credits then…

Aside from Clara, The Snowmen had much to offer – the grumpy Doctor was a nice twist and his banter with Strax and Lady Vestra raised a smile but if I had to make one criticism it’s that I did lose the plot somewhat. In fact The Snowmen appeared almost as a MacGuffin to give the Doctor and Clara some reason to interact. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the episode but it was only when I read some of the online reviews that I realised that the Great Intelligence was harking back to the 1968 story “Web Of Fear”. Well, give me a chance; I may be a Doctor Who nut but I’ve only ever seen one episode of that story and I’m unlikely to se the rest as the BBC wiped them. Still, it’s nice that things can tie back that far but is that actually distracting for those without this inside knowledge? Possibly, but I felt that this was ultimately Clara’s story.

We have now seen Oswin/Clara in two episodes and have seen her demise in both. Does this make her the new Rory? I think there is actually more of a clue on her headstone in that she was born on 23rd November and died in December, 26 years later. Is Clara a metaphor for the series as a whole? The year of her birth (1866) would also be the year that the 2nd Doctor met Victoria Waterfield. Or am I just looking for patterns where they don’t exist? As it’s the 50th Anniversary year I suspect that there will be quite a few nod’s to the obsessive fan (me, for example) so it wouldn’t surprise me if there are a few more references like this. I just hope it doesn’t get in the way of the story telling. As it is, the revamped title sequence and the new TARDIS interior are already harking back to the series’ past.

Back in January I wrote a blog entry called “Something For The Dads” which was a jokingly lascivious assessment of the Doctor’s female companions over the years. This has actually had more hits than any other posting I’ve made all year which either shows how popular Doctor Who is or that the internet is populated by filthy minded old men (I suspect a combination of the two). However, if this was done in a year or so I would imagine that Clara will be up there. I don’t think it’s just cute looks either as I’ve really warmed to the character already. The rest of the series should be back on in the Spring with the anniversary in November. Better hold on for the ride…

Who-athon

I received a text message on Monday which simply read “Nov 23rd 2013 We should be sat round together watching the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary special. Agreed?”. The funny thing about Doctor Who is that for all it’s Sci Fi geekery it is very much a communal event. Families and friends will make the effort to gather around to watch together. There isn’t much on TV that will still do that outside of a major sporting event or Eurovision. I checked my calendar and it falls on a Saturday so why not make a day of it? I’m assuming that the BBC will be showing their own programmes (presumably alongside the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination) but how about a marathon Doctor Who session with a bit of each Doctor? The question is, what would you watch? Here is my idea of an 11 Doctor marathon taking in some of the highlights of the show’s long history.
1st Doctor: “Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop” as  Lewis Carroll once wrote and what better place to start than An Unearthly Child, the very first episode. In fact two versions of this exist – one of which is referred to as the “Pilot Episode” but was actually just an early attempt that was reshot due to technical issues and the fact that some elements were regarded as too scary for teatime telly (see the “thunderclap” opening titles). This introduced us to the Doctor, his unusual granddaughter Susan and her curious teachers Ian and Barbara as well as the mysterious TARDIS disguised as a Police Box. This is usually lumped into the following story in which our crew find themselves back in the Stone Age but which is nothing like as entertaining as the opening episode so I would purely go for the opening intrigue. It’s also interesting to see William Hartnell’s early take on the Doctor – would you trust this man?

2nd Doctor: Patrick Troughton’s time as the Doctor only remains in patches due to the BBC’s somewhat myopic policy of wiping old video tapes. However, to my mind one of his best adventures was his last, The War Games, which really moved on the Doctor’s mythology as we finally discover where he came from and what he was running from. The only problem from the perspective of a Doctor Who marathon is it’s length: a full 10 episodes. Maybe the last couple would suffice? It also gives us the first chance to see a regeneration – except it doesn’t, really. Maybe that’s one for later but this really sets up the mythology for the rest of the series’ long existence.

3rd Doctor: I’m a big fan of Jon Pertwee (he was always “my Doctor”) but in some ways his were rather atypical adventures: usually contemporary Earth based and with the Doctor often an authority figure as UNIT’s scientific advisor rather than an eccentric alien traveller. However, one story I could come back to time and again is Carnival Of Monsters in which he and Jo go on some space tourism. This has many great elements about it: scary (at the time) monsters, a plot which doesn’t give the game away in the first episode and lots of daft humour from the regular cast and guests alike. This episode wouldn’t have been out of place in the late 1980’s but for some reason they just did it better in 1973.

4th Doctor: Daleks. Did I mention Daleks? We have to have some Daleks in our Whoathon and what better place to see them than in their creation in Genesis Of The Daleks. This was the adventure that really bought me into Tom Baker’s Doctor but it also gives us a great grounding in the Daleks’ origins and introduces us to the Mengele-like Davros. In fact the whole adventure is dripping with Nazi imagery from the underground bunker, the Kaled guard’s uniforms and the creepy Nyder (to my mind a more frightening presence than Davros). This also featured my favourite TARDIS crew with Sarah Jane and Harry joining the Doctor on his mission from the Time Lords. Russell T Davies stated that this story was the basis behind his Time War idea so it’s essential viewing.

5th Doctor: We haven’t had an actual regeneration yet and what better way of doing it than Peter Davison’s last episode The Caves of Androzani? It seems generally accepted that 1980’s Doctor Who lost the plot somewhat but I still think it was on form here. In fact it is often cited as the best story ever which I wouldn’t agree with but it is Davidson’s best. In fact I was quite surprised to see him regenerate at the end as I wasn’t expecting that until the end of the series but it has one of the most intricately thought out regenerations that the series has done.

6th Doctor: I never really took to Colin Baker’s doctor but I blame the scripts rather than the actor for that. From the point of view of the series’ mythology we could have something from the Trial of a Timelord or the Rani but I wasn’t fussed with either of them. We haven’t had any Cybermen yet so I’ll plump for Attack Of The Cybermen. The Cybermen had become some sort of caricature of Darth Vader at this point but the plot hints at events that took place just before the 1st doctor regenerated and I would always go for Peri over Mel anyway.

7th Doctor: Contrary to common opinion, I thought the series rather picked up towards the end. I watched Battlefield recently with the kids and they enjoyed seeing Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor alongside the Brigadier. That last series had it’s moments but for a marathon I would have to go with the final story, Survival, in which we will see the Master and we do, at least, see the original series go out with a bang rather than a whimper.

8th Doctor: We only get the one screen adventure with Paul McGann which is the TV Movie. I watched this with Raymond a few month’s back and it really just demonstrates as to why this is a fundamentally British phenomenon. There is nothing wrong as such with the Doctor and his companion and Eric Roberts makes for a convincing villain. However it looks like a second hand remake of a much loved original. I suppose we will have to watch some of it but I think we would be phoning for the pizzas when this is on.

9th Doctor: There was only one problem with Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor and that is we didn’t see enough of him. There are several iconic stories during his brief year in the blue box and it’s difficult to pick one – but I’m going to go for The Empty Child. This was real proper scary Doctor Who: just as I would (mis-)remember it from my childhood. Definitely one for the back of the sofa.

10th Doctor: My absolute favourite David Tennant adventure is The Girl In The Fireplace, but I’m actually going for Human Nature as the 10th Doctor story. This was one which really moved on the whole Timelord mythology and nicely set up the return of the Master later in the series. It is also one which pulls in all aspects of the series: a historical setting, science fiction, horror and elements of the super-natural into one package but with a script that explores the characters in depth and really gives the lead actors something to justify their drama-school fees with. All that with a rather tear-jerking ending.

That brings us to the 11th Doctor and I am hoping that we will see Matt Smith in the Anniversary special. I’m not quite sure if I have a favourite Matt Smith episode at the moment. His opening story, Eleventh Hour, was joyful and Vincent and The Doctor and Asylum of the Daleks both stand up to repeated watching for rather different reasons. If I had to pick one I’d go for The Doctor’s Wife – mainly because I enjoy Neil Gaiman’s writing. Having looked back over this list there is actually far too much to see in one day so it may be a case of going for individual episodes for each Doctor. That could be tricky with the long episode counts in the 60s and 70s but it would be interesting to see if an actor’s performance could be condensed to one 25 minute episode.So, for a day of Who what would you go for?

Supersize Pets

I had to post the following picture which was me holding my friend’s cat, Artie, at a party at the weekend. He is a Maine Coon which is known to be the one of the largest breeds of domestic cat but Artie has to be the largest pussy cat I’ve ever seen. He also has a lovely nature which is just as well as I’m sure he could have your arm off if he wanted.

In fact, I also have a supersized pet of my own, Eddie the Whippet. He is a fully kennel club registered dog (under his original name of Conan the Barbarian or something) but he was the largest puppy of his litter and ended up growing into something the size of a greyhound but without the extra muscle that fully blown greyhounds develop and the general IQ of an amoeba. I tried to get a picture of him next to Sam, a normal sized whippet, but one or the other of them kept sitting down, wandering off or licking the camera. I’ve put a red line on to indicate the difference in shoulder height. Essentially Sam can walk under Eddie (and frequently does).

I think the biggest outsized pets I’ve seen are rabbits in Germany. In fact, they aren’t strictly pets as they are originally farmed animals but I’ve seen some really enormous bunnies. I’m not sure whether they would get big enough to bother Jimmy Stewart but this one would take some looking after.

Obituaries

The growth of online social media has seen the growth of the ad-hoc obituary particularly when it is related to those in the public eye: a brief posting of “Joe Bloggs RIP” followed by similarly minded comments. Occasionally, these are actually more in depth with reminiscences of the effect that those celebrities have had on the individual's life. This week has seen the death of two such people that have influenced or inspired me: Dave Brubeck and Sir Patrick Moore.

I don’t suppose that it is entirely unexpected as both men were just either side of 90 years old. In fact I watched this month’s edition of The Sky At Night this morning and felt that Sir Patrick was rather subdued – even given the poor health he has suffered in recent years. However, it is still something of a shock that someone much admired had passed away. Similarly with Dave Brubeck, given his great age his death is not unexpected but it still leaves a sense of loss.

Dave Brubeck was a stepping stone for me into the world of jazz. I often think of him as a halfway house between classical and jazz music and many of his famous works have been directly influenced from classical pieces but for me he was that first inkling that jazz music may be a land that I wanted to dabble in and his Time Out album was one of the few jazz recordings that I can remember in our house when I was a child. It’s still a record I can listen to over and over again and with the wonders of modern digital Remastering it is one that still sounds like it could have been recorded yesterday (except it has decent tunes, isn’t over-produced, over-compressed and wrecked by auto-tune). From that one starting point I have discovered a plethora of artistry the surface of which I have only just begun to scratch.

Patrick Moore was, by any standards, a rather eccentric man. I first saw him on the television in the early 1970’s when space exploration was at its most adventurous heights. The Apollo missions to the moon were the most astonishing thing that mankind had attempted (it still is) but the commentary for all things astronomical was provided by this ultimate eccentric Englishman with a glass monocle, wild hair and erratic, idiosyncratic speech patterns. However it was  Sir Patrick’s enthusiasm for his subject matter that was a huge inspiration to me. Far from making astronomy a strange and inaccessible world for boffins with billions of dollars, he showed us that anyone could do real astronomy in their back garden with a minimum of equipment – or even no equipment at all. I can recall “borrowing” my fathers binoculars and training them on the Orion nebula. What I saw left me speechless and wanting to see more and find out as much as possible about the night’s sky and the physics behind it. I think, above all, that Patrick Moore had great faith in the public’s understanding and appetite for hard science. The Sky At Night has always been an oddity on television (it is, after all, one of it’s oldest products) but it is one of it’s most welcome. I do hope the BBC will keep it going without its unique host.

In fact, there was a gem at the end of this month’s Sky At Night in that the Geminid meteor shower is due this week. I’m hoping for a clear night around the 13th and 14th and will be wrapped up warm in the garden with my eyes turned to the heavens and Time Out on my MP3 player.

Rolling Around

Having had a quick look at my Blogger stats this morning there seems to be a sudden flurry of activity on my Winter tyres posts. Oh yes, it’s snowed overnight. In fact I had a few hits on one of my earliest postings about the EU tyre labels. These have now been introduced and I was interested to see how various tyres now compare. I will be needing to buy new tyres for our people carrier in the Spring so I searched on Blackcircles website to see what was on offer. The size I went for was 205/5 R16 V (91) which are the ones I’ll be needing. I’ve usually found Michelin to be the best Summer Tyres for this size so it is interesting to see how they compare.

In terms of Rolling resistance, there are currently no “A” rated tyres but the Michelin Energy Saver +, Hankook Kinergy Eco K425 and Michelin Energy Saver in Mercedes configuration all achieve a “B”. In terms of noise, the Dunlop SP Sport 01 (both generic and in Mercedes guise) are the quietest. For the all important figure for braking ability in the rain, various versions of the Michelin Energy Saver, Michelin Primacy HP DT1, Michelin Pilot Sport 3, Hankook Ventus Prime 2 K115, Yokohama Advan Sport V103S and Yokohama Advan Neova AD08 all achieve an “A” rating. Based on this, my faith in Michelins would appear well placed.

One thing that did surprise me is how much the ratings can vary for the same tyre configured to the varying specifications for different manufacturers. However, the EU labelling is not the whole story and it is interesting to compare the results from the tyre tests carried out by ADAC. They don’t have all the tyres available but the latest Continental fare the best although there are no real duffers in their tests and no Michelin tyres (as they were in mid-change when the tests were done). Even with the EU label there is still room for tests like ADAC’s and I think the EU could also include important information such as predicted tread life (which is available in North American tyre labelling).

One other criticism I have of the EU label is that it measures all tyres based on the same ambient temperature. This leads to some of the Winter tyres looking rather poor and it would be interesting if the EU label could show figures for typical Summer and Winter temperatures (say, 20°C and 0°C). However, some information is better than none at all and I would hope that the new labels will inform some of the public (but I bet lots of people will still fit the cheapest thing they can find).

Tyre Name	Energy	Rain	Noise (dB)
Autogrip F101	C	C	72
Autogrip P308	C	C	71
Avon ZV5	C	C	71
Bridgestone A001 Weather Control	F	B	72
Bridgestone Potenza RE040	E	C	72
Bridgestone Turanza ER30 (Ford)	F	E	73
Bridgestone Turanza ER300 (Honda)	E	C	70
Bridgestone Turanza ER300 RF (BMW)	F	B	72
Bridgestone Turenza ER300 (Mercedes)	E	B	70
Bridgestone Turenza T001	C	B	71
Continental Premium Contact 2	E	C	71
Continental Premium Contact 2 (BMW)	E	B	71
Continental Premium Contact 2 (Mercedes)	F	B	71
Continental Sport Contact (BMW)	F	C	74
Continental Sport Contact 2	E	B	71
Continental Sport Contact 2 (Audi)	E	C	71
Continental Sport Contact SSR RF (BMW)	G	C	68
Dunlop SP Sport 01	E	B	67
Dunlop SP Sport 01 (Audi)	C	C	68
Dunlop SP Sport 01 (Mercedes)	E	B	67
Dunlop SP Sport FastResponse	C	B	69
Falken Ziex ZE-914	C	B	70
Firestone TZ300a	F	C	70
Goodyear Eagle NCT5	F	C	69
Goodyear Efficientgrip	C	C	68
Goodyear Excellence	F	B	68
Hancook Ventus S1 Evo K107	E	B	70
Hankook Kinergy Eco K425	B	B	70
Hankook Ventus Prime 2 K115	E	A	69
Kumho Ecsta HM KH31	C	C	74
Kumho Ecsta SPT KU31	C	B	75
Kumho Solus KH17	E	B	71
Michelin Energy Saver (Audi)	E	B	70
Michelin Energy Saver (BMW)	C	A	70
Michelin Energy Saver (Mercedes)	B	B	70
Michelin Energy Saver +	B	A	70
Michelin Energy Saver S1	C	A	70
Michelin Pilot Sport 3	F	A	71
Michelin Primacy HP	E	B	70
Michelin Primacy HP (Audi)	E	B	70
Michelin Primacy HP(Mercedes)	C	B	70
Michelin Primacy HP (Toyota)	E	B	70
Michelin Primacy HP DT1	E	A	70
Michelin Primacy HP Zero Pressure RF (Toyota)	F	B	70
Pirelli P6000	F	C	72
Pirelli P7 Cinturato	E	B	71
Pirelli P7 Cinturato (BMW)	E	B	71
Pirelli P7 Cinturato (Mercedes)	E	B	70
Pirelli P7 Cinturato RF	E	B	71
Toyo Proxes CF1	F	C	70
Toyo TAJ48 (Mazda)	E	B	68
Uniroyal RainExpert	E	B	71
Yokohama Advan A460 (Lexus)	E	E	71
Yokohama Advan A460 (Toyota)	E	E	71
Yokohama Advan Neova AD08	F	A	75
Yokohama Advan Sport V103S (Mercedes)	E	A	71
Yokohama Advan Sport V105 (Mercedes)	C	B	71
Yokohama AVS dB E70J (Lexus)	E	B	70
Yokohama AVS dB E70JC (Subaru)	E	B	70
Yokohama C.Drive 2 (Mercedes)	C	C	70