Car Dealers

My Bank Of America Credit Card appears to have swapped my balance with the national debt of the United States of America. I’m not entirely sure how this happened but I’m blaming the 19th Century German Engineer Karl Benz. The Car Trouble I was anticipating a few months back is translating into bank balance trouble. In fact it’s not just my ailing Yaris – the big car has been eating money as well but it has tended to be predictable and fixable things. Anyway, as I was having to travel into Edinburgh for a meeting last week I thought I’d go straight from work and call into a couple of dealerships to have a look at what’s available.

There were actually two cars I was interested in. The first was a Toyota Auris Hybrid. One of my colleagues has one as a company car and it’s a lovely place to be – quietly floating around the car park and driving around quite pleasantly on the open road. The only problem I could see is that the boot isn’t flat but has a “hole” behind where the batteries go – this probably maximises the number of litres reported on the boot size but would make it awkward to transport dogs around. The other was a VW Golf which I had on hire for a day. They have finally fitted them with half decent engines. The one I had was a TSI which is a small petrol engine with a ruddy great turbo-charger attached. As I was just driving to Dumfries and back I didn’t look in the boot but I did notice that it averaged over 50mpg even with my laissez-faire attitude to the prevailing speed limit. I thought I would investigate both cars further.

The first dealer wasn’t actually a Toyota dealership (in spite of the impression given on Auto-Trader). Nevertheless, I described my automotive canine transportation requirements in some detail and asked whether there was some after-market accessory to flatten out the boot. He may not have known the answer immediately and if he had said so and offered to find out this would have been perfectly acceptable but his opening line was “That isn’t what you want”. Yes it was. I’d just explained this too him in great detail. Apparently, what he thought I should have is an Audi A4 saloon. Now, apart from the fact that driving an Audi is likely to make me look like a bit of a knobhead, was he seriously suggesting that I shove my whippets in the boot? I’m pretty sure I’d be in trouble with the SSPCA if I did.

I thought things might get a bit better at the VW dealers. They didn’t. In this case it was because I became invisible. I had a poke around the models inside but all the salesmen ignored me. Maybe I look a bit common? Maybe I was a bit scruffy? To be honest, I am a bit scruffy but I was still in my shirt and tie from work so I couldn’t have looked that bad. I approached one of the salesmen to ask them if I could have a look at the inside of a Golf VI parked outside. They told me that I would have to book in advance to have a test drive. Even when I explained that I just wanted t look inside they were “too busy” (even though I was the only punter in the place). I left.

I’ve had this kind of thing before; it’s what I would call the Comet factor. When idly browsing around Comet the sales staff would circle in like midges attracted to a sweaty hiker, but when actually trying to buy something they all go AWOL or only want to sell the thing that they want to and not the thing I want. I used to end up going home and buying the stuff off Amazon. Comet went bust and I’m sure this was a major factor but I’ve had a look on Amazon and they don’t do cars (yet). In fact, after driving around the bloody awfulness that is Edinburgh in the early evening I’m really sold on the benefits of a peddle bike. I wonder if I could fit the dogs on the back?

The Name Of The Doctor

We are never going to find out the name of Doctor Who – that’s a given and I didn’t expect we would find out last night. After all what would they rename the series? Doctor We-Know-Who? I had also more or less guessed the whole Impossible Girl sub-plot. The clues were fairly clearly labelled up from the first three episodes with Clara / Oswin; although I didn’t quite expect it to pan out as it did. However, the rest of the episode was really quite eye-opening and moved the whole Doctor Who mythology further than at any time since the End Of Time, possibly even since the final episode of The War Games. Except, of course, having seen the big revelation, we will have to wait 6 months to find out how it pans out.

What The Name Of The Doctor has done is to explore one very dark aspect of a time and space traveller – the fact that it is possible to walk on one’s own grave. I think this was touched on back in the 2005 series with one of my favourite lines from Russell T Davies when Rose, having seen the universe through the  Doctor’s perspective uttered:  “I can see everything. All that is, all that was, all that ever could be.” I think that summed up what the series should be about but whilst it allows upbeat and hopeful stories it also lends itself easily to the dark and depressing ones. As stand-alone science fiction this worked very well but, let’s face it, this is the 50th Anniversary year and if they can’t do an out-and-out fanfest then, when can they? The final big revelation of the Doctor’s dark secret really took me by surprise. This has been hinted at even going back to the 9th Doctor episodes but quite where John Hurt fits into the mythology remains to be seen.

I have found this series of Doctor Who to be a bit of a mixed bag: From the very good to the frankly mediocre. I think part of this is down to the mid-series split with the change of supporting cast that this necessitated. However, I think some of it can come down to the way it is written. Back in the Russell T Davies series the season long story arc was largely shoehorned in whereas the non-Moffat episodes are  genuinely stand-alone episodes with mere hints at the bigger picture. In many ways it pays dividends to watch Moffat’s episodes on their own as the impact is greater in isolation (I discovered this with the last series). The Russell T Davies episodes always felt more like filler than being “the” story (with the possible exception of the second series which I still highly rate for RTD’s writing). But even with the disjointment, the Moffat series are more satisfying for me. Once the story arc is complete it makes sense and it is satisfying – the pay-off is worth the build-up.

In contrast to Doctor Who, I found the Eurovision Song Contest something of a let-down. It’s never been the most serious of things on TV but it did have a certain novelty factor about it. This years winner was good enough but it really felt rather manufactured to be a Eurovision winner. It wasn’t the only entry that was guilty of this and many songs were clearly plagiarised from other songs (and even other entries). I sort of enjoyed it but I think Nina made a fair comment in that we weren’t drunk enough to really get into the mood. Two things I think that could be done to improve it are to do something to curtail the unwieldy voting at the end and to return to everyone singing in their own language: at least that would create some sort of variety. On the plus side, Graham Norton’s catty asides are comic genius – let’s hope the BBC keep him gainfully employed.

A Saturday Night to Remember

I’ve been without internet connections for a few days whilst I switch internet company. Sky had just taken over my existing provider so I wanted to be as far away from the clutches of the Murdoch empire as possible. Anyway, without the distraction of the internet to bother me it has, at least given me chance to catch up with my TV viewing. LoveFilm had sent through a couple of Doctor Who DVDs and there was the brand new thing on Saturday night as well.

The Doctor Who DVDs featured stories from 2 consecutive series. The Krotons was from Patrick Troughton’s last year in the lead role. Of all the old series I’ve watched, these Troughton stories have been an absolute delight. Partly this is because I didn’t see these the first time around although I did see The Krotons when it was repeated in the 1980s. I wasn’t that impressed with it at the time but it was actually far better than I remembered it. The basic story has a good premise and the action sequences were well realised with good cliff-hangers at the end of each episode. The only downside were the Krotons themselves which looked like they were constructed from old domestic appliances – they possibly were. Also, somewhat strangely, they have South African accents. Why this seem odder than received pronunciation, I don’t know – it just does. I’ve had a scan through the old 60’s series and the only complete surviving Troughton story I haven’t seen is The Dominators which gets rather patchy reviews. I also have to watch The Seeds Of Death and The War Games with the kids but it is rather depressing at how many of these stories are now missing.

The second disk was the first 4 episodes of Doctor Who and the Silurians. This was from Jon Pertwee’s first year as the Time Lord and also the first series recorded in colour – although judging from the quality of the picture this has been restored from an imperfect source. I don’t recall seeing this one at all but it does show the more adult themes that the show was using in the 1970s. Oddly enough, I don’t think the colour does the production any favours. Black and white hides some of the cheaper sets and effects and also allows for the effective use of shadows – just think of all those German Expressionist films. I think any fault in the production values are largely made up for in the strong script and cast – including guest appearances by the likes of Fulton MacKay, Peter Miles and Paul Darrow (years before his starring role in Blake’s 7).

The final part of this Doctor Who trilogy was Neil Gaiman’s Cyberman story, Nightmare In Silver. I was really looking forward to this one and I have to say I did enjoy it. However, Nina was rather less impressed and thought it was all special effects and not enough story. I suppose she had a point and it is markedly different from the old 1960s and 70s episodes which had to rely on strong scripting and story concepts to accommodate both the limited special effects and the significantly longer running time of each story. The odd thing is that Gaiman’s trump card is story telling and there have been great film adaptations of his work such as Stardust and Coraline. The interesting thing there is that, although these were Gaiman’s stories, they were adapted for screen by separate scriptwriters – in the case of Stardust, Jane Goldman and for Coraline, Henry Selick. I am wondering if this might be a better way forward for Doctor Who: have authors write the story and let script writers adapt them for the screen?

Anyway, next Saturday sees the Season finale in the form of The Name Of The Doctor (which I am certain we won’t find out) followed straight after by the wondrous campfest that is The Eurovision Song Contest. I’m looking forward to this and we are planning a Doctor Who themed Eurovision party to celebrate. At least it should make a Saturday Night to remember.

The Aerial Horror

I know many people in Britain who dislike the standard phrase of American service workers: “Have a nice day.” They object to it as a false, insincere pleasantry. I don’t object to this – at least not from Americans. Having visited the country I get the impression that if I did have a nice day it would give them a sense of satisfaction of a job well done. In Britain it would be a different matter as most service workers tend to give the impression that whatever interaction they are forced to make with the paying punter is at best a distraction to the bloody awfulness of the rest of their daily toil. In fact, if they were to give any sort of heartfelt valediction it would be: “Burn in Hell, you bastard!”

An example of the can’t-be-arsedness of British firms happened to me this week when I made an appointment for an aerial firm to fix the mangled mess of antenna on my roof. Initially, they said that they would come around on Saturday afternoon to have a look and give me a quote. After a couple of hours they phoned back and asked if they could come out on Monday morning as they were very busy. Fair enough, I could work from home and wait for them. Then, on Monday morning, they phoned again to ask if Monday afternoon would be OK. I was going to be in all day so I could manage this but I was beginning to become suspicious as to why a local tradesman couldn’t just pop around and have a look on the way to another job. It was then that I noticed that I had fallen foul to a Google inspired scam. Whilst their web page and URL indicated that they were local they were actually a large national  franchise. They phoned again in the afternoon to ask if Tuesday would be OK – I cancelled there and then.

In a fit of pique I decided that I would replace the aerials myself and headed down to the local builder’s merchants to buy the bits and pieces I needed for the repair. All of this forgets the fact that I am terrified of going up on the roof in the first place. I had bought everything at this point so on Saturday afternoon I ventured up on to the roof to sort the damage out. In fact, I could never have imagine quite what a concoction of mangled metal and spaghettified wires I would find. The fortunate thing was that the chimney lashing was still intact which saved me a task and after removing much of the other mess with bolt cutters it was a relatively simple task to point the aerials in the direction of Black Hill transmitters. There is also a fairly good view of Falkirk from up there as well.

So that was job done. The reception is far better than we had previously and the aerials look very new and shiny at the moment. I just hope they survive the next storm intact. Unfortunately, I will have to replace Raymond’s aerial s well as the boom has completely rusted through and bent over. I was tempted to do this on Saturday but the wind and rain were indicating a rapid retreat was the order of the day. When I got down I was shaking – initially, I thought, from the cold and wind but in truth from the utter horror of spending 2 hours on the roof.

At least that was sorted by a glass of whisky and settling down to watch The Crimson Horror – the latest episode of Doctor Who. This is the second episode written by Mark Gatiss for this series and, whilst I didn’t think it was good as Cold War, it was still a great amount of fun with the seemingly regular cast of Madam Vastra, Jenny and Strax (the potato one) investigating a series of disappearances in Victorian Royston Vasey. Very much played for laughs (the Thomas Thomas quip had me laughing out loud when I worked it out) I was left with one really depressing thought: Whatever has happened to Emma Peel?