Journey to the top of the roof

After losing part of my roof last week I managed to get it fixed this week. I thought the insurance assessor was somewhat lackadaisical but once they agreed as to what the repairs cost they moved things along quite quickly. As it was I went with a local roofing contractor which meant that they were able to fix the thing as soon as the weather allowed rather than sending of a request to their own contractor to be “signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters” (to quote Douglas Adams). To the credit of the insurance firm, they were very prompt sending through the settlement cheque.

This did mean that it would cost me slightly more than the £100 excess I was expecting but I did take the opportunity to upgrade the insulation on that part of the house whilst the roof was off. Insulation is one of those things that we are meant to do to save the planet. I think most people actually do it in an attempt to reduce their fuel bills but my primary reason for doing it is to try and make the house more comfortable. Not that the thought of depriving British Gas of revenue doesn’t appeal to me. I didn’t expect to notice much difference but the effect is remarkable. I usually find the bathroom a bit chilly first thing in the morning but on Friday it felt quite acceptable; even the tiled floor felt warm. I just put this down to warmer weather – at least until I went outside to find it a chilly 2 degrees – the insulation really does make a difference.

That just left the mangled TV aerials to sort out. I’m actually pretty good at fixing these but I dislike working up ladders. However, as the aerials are on a chimney pot in the middle of the flat roof I was pretty sure I would be OK doing it myself. I went up a ladder and got as far as the roof. I looked down. I felt the adrenalin rush kick in. I felt sick to the pit of my stomach. I phoned the TV aerial repair people. Whatever they charge, it’s going to be worth it.

Anyway, after all that excitement I settled down to watch this weeks Doctor Who. Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS was really aimed at long time fans of the show as we finally get to see more (much more) of the TARDIS interior. There were quite a few references to earlier episodes as we get to see the giant library, the swimming pool and various living quarters as well as the internal TARDIS workings. It seemed to be quite organic looking (reminding me of the film Avatar). For some reason I had always imagined that the TARDIS was more of a steam-punk contraption. I was also a little disappointed that they didn’t find the secondary control room with it’s oak panelling which was used in the late 70s. I expect it would cost too much to build every set just to please aged old geeks like me.

One blast from the past I did notice is that there was a great deal of running around corridors (that favourite staple of cost conscious Sci-Fi). I bet this was a wind up for internet forum malcontents but then the resolution, the big friendly reset button, must have been Steven Moffat giving a big two fingered salute at all those would-be script writers who constantly bicker about plot details. In fact, I think he should have called it the “Deus Ex Machina” device. Go on Steven, I dare you!

Nowhere To Hide

I think after a rather slow start Doctor Who has really picked up. After last week’s Cold War, this week’s Hide has upped the ante further and taken both elements of the shows past and yet moved away from the predictable “monster-of-the-week” format. At least I did manage to see it which was looking dubious earlier in the week.

It was somewhat stormy on Tuesday, so much so that the roof blew off the mid-section of our house leaving debris down the street and squashing the TV aerials in the process leaving them looking like paper-clips left in the hands of a destructive three-year-old. Fortunately, our neighbours now have cable TV so I didn’t have to worry too much about their entertainment troubles (although they moved their cars very quickly to prevent bits of broken roofing falling on them). However, I checked our TV and the picture was a complete blank – in this digital age there isn’t even the satisfaction of some static to stare at.

We also have a second aerial on the chimney on the Victorian section of the house. This had also blown down but in a turn of luck it has fallen over pointing directly at Black Hill transmitter. I tried the PVR and it worked perfectly so I’m just left with the roofers and (somewhat lackadaisical) insurance company to deal with. After all, literally loosing the roof over one’s head is bad enough – missing Doctor Who would be disastrous.

Hide was the second script from Neil Cross after the rather disappointing The Rings of Akhaten and it certainly made up for that with an episode oddly reminiscent of the John Pertwee stories. In fact it even gave a mention to the planet Metebelis Three although I seem to recall that it was pronounced Meta-beelis rather than Metab-balis. Have I misremembered it via John Culshaw’s Dead Ringers? I haven’t seen Planet of the Spiders since 1974 (summer holiday repeat) – it’s on the LoveFilm list so I’ll have to check. Anyway, it appeared that the story was a straight ghost story but managing to explain the whole thing with a plausible sounding bit of pseudo-science is a touch of genius.

I was impressed again with the quality of guest actors - Dougray Scott and Jessica Raine were top draw as the supernatural investigators with an eye on each other as well as the spooks. Matt and Jenna were also on top form but does the Doctor really see her as a friend or a scientific specimen? I’m assuming that we will find out later in the series. The final episode of the series has been announced as “The Name Of The Doctor” but I don’t imaging that we will find out – Alex Kingston is also named in that episode so I expect we will see her story go full circle, preceding the events of Silence in the Library.

Next week sees the Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS so are we to see a hat trick of great episodes? Hopefully I will be watching it with decent reception and a sound roof.

Cold War

Well, that was really rather good, wasn’t it? And I’m not just talking about this weeks Doctor Who. I was looking forward to the Scottish Cup semi-final all week - not just a chance to see some football on the telly but a rare opportunity to see Falkirk play. It’s a rather old cliché that football is a game of two halves but that’s exactly what we got – plus another half hour to decide things. In the first half Falkirk played like a team possessed. Hibernian looked like fish out of water but, as Pat Nevin pointed out at half time, it was a stunning display from Falkirk that put them 3-0 up after 30 minutes and left many Hibs fans trudging home to Edinburgh after the half hour mark – I bet they feel a bit stupid now.

Falkirk are a mix of young players, many still in their teens, and aged old workhorses. Whatever the Hibs’ team talk at half time did it became more and more noticeable that the Falkirk players were tiring and after Hib’s early second-half goal it became increasingly obvious that Falkirk’s best chance would be to hang on to their remaining lead. Whereas in the first half the Falkirk players were seemingly sailing past Hibs at will in the second half they were struggling to keep up with even the brilliant Lyle Taylor only looking like a shadow of the mercurial player in the first half. After Hibs equalised, the only way I could see Falkirk progressing was to hang on to penalties. It wasn’t to be but that is one of the most entertaining games I’ve seen on TV for a while: a great advert for the game in Scotland and a great credit to the sportsmanship of the players from both teams.

Doctor Who’s latest episode, Cold War, was the first of this series’ two episode penned by Mark Gatiss and after two rather so-so episodes this was a fantastic return to form. I’ve enjoyed Gatiss’s scripts for Doctor Who but this must surely rate as one of his best. He is, primarily, an aficionado of the horror genre and in Cold War he was taking the old Doctor Who tactic of using established film and literary concepts and applying them to the Whoniverse. In the case of Cold War this was a mix of the claustrophobic submarine drama of Das Boot, the single creature menace of Alien and Cold War type thrillers such as Hunt For Red October. What I think really made this far more effective was Gatiss’s master stroke of removing both the Tardis and Sonic Screwdriver in the first scene. Why don’t they do this every week?

The supporting cast for this episode was also top class: Liam Cunningham and Tobias Menzies were top draw and  David Warner was his usual brilliant self as the 80’s pop loving Russian eccentric. In fact his role struck me as very similar to the sort of paternal Doctor role that Jon Pertwee played. He would make a brilliant Doctor except I can’t see him being able to commit to the role (and I suspect the BBC couldn’t afford him). The Ice Warrior was also a masterpiece of how underplaying the monster of the week can play dividends. I watched the Monster of Peladon a couple of months back with the kids and whilst it was nice to see the Ice Warriors again they were amazingly clunky and obviously a bloke in a cheap suit. Having a single Warrior and removing him from his battle armour both moved the concept forward and made for genuinely gripping TV.

The leads were on top form again. I was rather pleased that the show’s producers didn’t just decide to enter Clara in a wet T-shirt competition but actually gave her something interesting to do. There were some similarities with episode Dalek in terms of how Clara saw the alien but I think the Doctor’s liking of petit blondes now appears to be confined to a Barbie doll. On the subject of the Doctor’s eccentricities, I sometimes wonder if Matt Smith is, in fact, completely crackers in real life and the shows directors just shove him in front of the camera and see what happens but I have detected more and more elements of his portrayal which seem to be borrowed from Patrick Troughton – which reminds me, we have “The Mind Robber” sent through from LoveFilm to watch.

So overall a great day of football and Doctor Who – if I hadn’t been woken up in the middle of the previous night to fix a computer it could have been my perfect day.

Music Recommendations

I find that after a while my choices in music start getting a bit predictable. Just for an experiment, I thought I would let someone else choose my music for me. I decided to allow the listeners (or at least chat room guests) of the Reaperman’s Wasteland radio show pick  a CD for me. The first suggestion was an album by Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell.

Now this caused me some confusion. I looked up the name to discover that he was a 17th Century English naval officer. It also turns out to be a pretty decent heavy metal outfit. The album I went for is the only one I could find – “Don’t Hear It, Feel It” which came out last year but sounds as if it was recorded in 1969! For the most part it reminds me of early Black Sabbath with, possibly, a slight touch of Hawkwind. The sound is quite remarkable. It sounds as if it was performed live in the studio in much the same way that Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin’s first albums were but with lots of phasing effects and vocals that sound like they were played through a Leslie speaker. Under that is a really good, old-fashioned, crunchy guitar sound. What it doesn’t have is stacks of compression and overwrought bass which is the curse of modern recording. The CD says that the album is also available on vinyl – I can see why.

The other recommended purchase came about after I suggested that I thought the Russian language sounded great in rock music. It was suggested that I might like the Russian rock group Arkona. I had a look on YouTube and found this video which appeared to be a bunch of tanked up Russians beating seven shades out of each other:
The parent album is called Slovo so I gave this a go. So “like it”? I love it! Arkona fall into the folk-metal genre combining heavy metal genres with Slavic folk music and traditional instruments. It might sound a bit bizarre but it is essentially what Led Zeppelin did back in the 60s with blues-rock and English folk or Thin Lizzie with psychedelic-rock and traditional Irish music. The result sounds exhilarating and confirms what I suspected about the sonic possibilities of the Russian language. The CD booklet is also a fine example of what can be done with the medium with lots of romantic artwork mixed in with a brief English description of what the songs are about. Stenka Na Stenku translates as Wall On Wall and “is an ancient Slavic entertainment for men, that was basically a fist fight.” So I was probably right about the tanked up Russians beating seven shades out of each other.

I can see me buying some more Arkona CDs (and I rather like the folk-metal concept) but I’m wondering if the blind-date music selections would work in other genres? How about a Jazz or classical selection?

The Rings of Akhaten

Let’s get this over with. I didn’t think that this week’s Doctor Who, The Rings of Akhaten, was one of the best. I didn’t think it was without merit but the plot wasn’t its strongest card. I was actually quite surprised about this as the writer, Neil Cross, is the writer of the crime series Luther so I was expecting something that was strong on plot but lacking visual flare. In fact the opposite was true and the episode’s strengths were its variety of alien species which reminded me of Star Trek or the Dino de Laurentiis version of Flash Gordon.

In fact the Flash Gordon similarities went further with the Doctor and Clara riding into battle on a space scooter but whereas Flash Gordon’s leads were dull backed up by star turns from a variety of British character actors, the bit parts on Akhaten blended into the scenery with the performances from Matt and Jenna carrying the show. Emilia Jones did well but her role was written too cutesy whereas I feel the part would have benefited from a more confident character.

The saving grace of the episode was how it looked. It utilised lots of passed over alien masks which gave the whole episode a big screen feel and whilst I don’t find alien planet Doctor Who to be the most engaging it did make full use of the pallet provided. The monster-of-the-week was, eventually, a bit of a let down. I feel like I’ve seen this before several times. However, whilst writing this I went to look up the monster I had in mind (I think it was in 42) and discovered that Margaret Thatcher had died. Now there is something to really frighten the kids.

I’ve never understood the fawning over Thatcher although the fact that she was Britain’s first (and so far only) woman Prime Minister is certainly of historical note. Living in Scotland, I don’t think too many people will morn her passing but it is probably too early for me too pass judgement. In fact, if it isn’t possible to say anything nice, then it’s probably best to say nothing. Maybe it’s time to watch something bright and cheerful for a change: