The Caretaker

Of the re-occurring Doctor Who writers, Gareth Roberts is one that is a horse for a particular course. His first two attempts where quasi-historical adventures, The Shakespeare Code and The Unicorn and the Wasp, which both struck me as rather so-so episodes and his next, Planet of the Dead written with Russell T Davies, was basically pants. His next two episodes, The Lodger and Closing Time, were delightful in which Matt Smith is landed in a domestic environment with the long suffering James Cordon. So after writing for Tennant’s mockney cheeky chappie and Smith’s slightly dyspraxic and socially awkward adventurer, what would Gareth Roberts make of the rudest man in the universe?

The Caretaker brings us back to the very beginning: Cole Hill school where the Doctor’s grand-daughter was attending back in the very first episode, 1963’s An Unearthly Child. This time he is undercover as the temporary school caretaker (which seems to have confused many American fans who know the role as “janitor”). In this respect it has a great deal in common with The Lodger and it is also very much a character piece, exploring the lives of Clara and Danny and exposing more of the quirks of the twelfth Doctor. In fact the monster of the week, the Skovox Blitzer, is very much a McGuffin to get the characters in the same place at the same time. Aside from being a plot device it appears to resemble the Terminator on a mobility scooter.

Almost the whole of the episode is played purely for comedic effect. The twelfth Doctor may feel that he can fit into a normal environment but he clearly can’t and much of the humour relates to his bull in a china shop effect on all that surrounds him. However, there were a few nice touches, not least in his relationship with Clara which is clearly closer to the father-daughter relationship of the third Doctor and Jo Grant than any of the pseudo-romances that we have seen in recent series. I’m also wondering if the appeal of schoolgirl Courtney is harking back to the 60s series and the Doctor’s need for a substitute grand-daughter? By co-incidence, I saw this photo on Twitter of Katy Manning visiting the Doctor Who set. It’s nice to see that Capaldi is the same fan-boy he was back in the early 70s: something that also came across on his appearance on the Graham Norton show.

Ultimately, this episode was required to push the series along and fill in work missed by the earlier episodes both in terms of characterisation and the whole series plotting. It does a very effective job in this: it comes slap bang in the middle of the series and aside from filling out further the main characters it also puts us back in touch with the series story arc – Missy and the mysterious Netherworld. As an oddity, someone pointed out this week that there was a character called “Missy” in the 2013 episode Nightmare in Silver. Could this be related? I can’t recall that character or why they would have been significant so it is always possible that this is pure coincidence.

So I would say it was a success for Gareth Roberts – not quite as good as his scripts for Matt Smith but certainly maintaining the high standards of this series, the rest of which is looking intriguing. Aside from Steven Moffat we are looking at writers that are all new to Who and whilst The Caretaker had little to justify its later timeslot next week’s episode does look more like 12-certificate territory. I think I’ll have to preview it before letting the younger kids watch it in case the sofa isn’t big enough.

Time Heist

So that’s all the excitement of the Independence Referendum over. I actually felt rather dejected on Friday morning – not so much from the result but by the fact that it all seemed like something of an anti-climax. With the population being asked to decide something very important for a change it looked like it was back to business as usual with the politicians bickering amongst themselves about what exactly it is that they will be delivering. However, the engagement of ordinary people into the political arena has been fantastic and if the momentum of this can be maintained there is a chance for real change in local communities.

One of the more peculiar claims made during the independence debates was that an independent Scotland wouldn’t be able show Doctor Who. I think this actually comes under the “laughably clutching at straws” school of political debating but I’m actually rather glad that the BBC will be left intact. It’s not without its faults and some of the reporting during the referendum was askew (and on both sides as well) but I’ve seen what national broadcasting is like in other countries and the BBC is one of those institutions that we can be proud of as a nation. Aside from anything else, the Doctor is now a no-nonsense Glaswegian so he would probably tell the programme controllers to “Shut up! Shutity up up up!”

The week’s episode, Time Heist, has kept up the strong run that the series has been on lately. The difference this week is that the format was harking back to something that was more like a mid-1970s Who: taking another genre / story and shoehorning it into the Doctor Who format (e.g. Brain Of Morbius being an adaptation of Frankenstein). In fact this was the idea behind Doctor Who right from the start in 1963 but what Time Heist gave us was a Sci-Fi bank robbery caper with a certain nod to the work of Philip K Dick. Particularly, this reminded me of both Minority Report and Paycheck – where the central character has agreed to have his mind wiped by a client but his payment is a set items left to aid his survival. In Time Heist this is all told in a typical Doctor Who style with a simple middle-end-beginning type of storytelling.

One thing I would question in this week’s story is just how family friendly it was. I saw this with our oldest boy but the younger two were in bed by the time we watched this (I really don’t watch live TV outside of news and football these days). I’d say it was still pre-watershed material but the Teller monster was a really terrifying creation and the soup-brain man, with his head caved in, even made me feel rather queasy. I suppose it’s always a fine line between family entertainment and infantilism but I do think they slightly overdid it this week. In fact next week’s episode starts at 8:30 which will actually put it past the watershed when it finishes. Whether that is due to content or scheduling remains to be seen.

Referendum Day

So, after all this time it's actually here. The big decision day. Regardless of what the result is, the Scottish Independence Referendum is a truly historic moment. I thought it would be worth posting a few photos of the day that I snapped on my phone. I hope these are reasonably representative - as it is I have seen far more "Yes" banners than "No" around the Falkirk area but I expect that is merely the nature of the campaign - it is easier to motivate people to campaign for change than the status quo but in a secret ballot people will show their true feelings whether or not they openly advertise them.

This was the phone box outside our house which some "Yes" campaigners decorated - as a friend of mine noted: "I've never seen a phone box achieve orgasm before"

This was a large "No" banner on the A9 near Torwood.

I saw many houses displaying "Yes" banners as well as a good few St Andrews saltires around.

One of their neighbours disagreed politely - this was the only "No" banner I saw locally other than the paid for billboards.

I think that gets the message across in no uncertain terms.

This was my favourite picture of the day and I wish it had come out better. It is the canvassers at the Dobbie Hall polling station in Stenhousemuir posing for me. The left two are "Yes" campaigners and the right two "No". All very civil, very polite and all smiles. Obviously many people will be disappointed whatever the result tomorrow but I feel this bodes well for the future. 

I took the dogs for a walk down to the Kelpies afterwards. I think the one on the left is saying "Naw" and the one on the right "FREEDOM!". Well, maybe not. I have a vivid imagination.

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

The Scottish Independence Referendum seems to have been dragging on for ever. I’m not even sure when the date was first announced but the whole process appears to have lasted for years. Above all else I’ve really been longing for the whole thing to be over. Now, all of a sudden, the vote is here: this Thursday. Yes, folks. It’s make your mind up time! For a long time a No vote has looked like a foregone conclusion but at this point it is looking far closer than anyone could have imagined - even from just a few weeks ago. So, as The Clash once enquired: Should I stay or should I go?

Since devolution was first introduced I think the Scottish parliament has worked quite well. They have been able to run the country’s affairs efficiently and, importantly, make changes to the legal system that have been decades, an often centuries, overdue: in fact one of the first acts of parliament was to abolish the archaic feudal tenure arrangements. Above all we have had some sort of buffer to the usual idiocy that is generated from Westminster. So could Scotland successfully run all of its own affairs? Of course it could. However, like leaving home for the first time, whilst the freedom of independence would be wonderful, paying all the bills and doing one’s own housework is something of a bind. The devolution agreement, so long as the split in duties is appropriate, strikes me as a rather good idea.

The problems I find with the Union are not to do with the UK as such – I rather like the concept – but with the democratic deficit that is created by Westminster. The SNP often phrase this in terms of Scotland being lumbered with a Tory government but it is quite probable that you will get a government that you don’t vote for: that is the nature of an evenly balanced elective democracy. In fact those that are under-represented at Westminster are the 20% of Scots who vote Conservative who typically get next to no representation whatsoever regardless of the government of the day. They do get represented at Holyrood and, whilst I might not agree with them, they have made a valuable contribution and have ensured that their constituents’ views are aired. To add to the lack of lower house representation at Westminster the upper house is completely unelected and mostly made up of grace and favour friends of the elite and those that have bought themselves into power. In short it is an anachronistic relic of a failed imperial state.

So my preference would be to reform Westminster: make the elected MPs truly representative, replace the House of Lords with something approaching democratic accountability and devolve power down to the English regions so that they can enjoy the kind of local accountability that we do. After that we can see what additional powers would be best devolved to Scotland and what we are better off sharing with the rest of the UK. Except I don’t get a box to cross for that and the options are either to go it alone with all the uncertainty that comes with that or to chance it with the bunch of shysters who usually run the UK. It’s not an easy choice. In fact it’s a bloody awful one. I‘m not going to say which way I’m voting because I believe that future harmony is better served by everyone abiding by a secret ballot but ultimately my vote is one amongst millions and whichever way the result comes in on Friday morning it is the one I will have to live with. So how do I feel about that?

A Yes vote on Friday morning is the result I am a probably a bit more apprehensive about. It’s not so much to do with the Independence decision itself but there will be several years of uncertainty about how the whole arrangement would work. For all the telling of economic gloom and doom, I don’t really see this as a long term problem. Scotland is, by and large, a well-educated and well-skilled country with a variety of industries and whilst some sectors may dwindle or relocate there are plenty of others who are tied by location (e.g. tourism and whisky) or leading in their fields (engineering and video games spring to mind) and many others could be attracted by what the country has to offer. Having travelled around Europe there are many other countries with a similar population who have a very good standard of living – even those with a much lower GDP. There is always the oil as well but I’d rather that wasn’t part of the equation. With the possible exception of Norway (who have invested rather than spent their oil money) I don’t think economies based of fossil fuel resources are particularly nice places to live. Whilst there may be vast prosperity for the few there is often little hope and even resentment amongst the poorer in society. I suppose the lesson is that money can’t buy you happiness – then again, poverty can’t buy you anything.

If the vote is a No to independence then in a way it is business as usual. We have been promised “extra powers” but as of yet we have to see what that actually entails. I rather suspect that it will be things that London can either not be bothered with, don’t want to pay for or those things that they regard as a poison chalice to be thrust upon whichever devolved parliament is daft enough to take them. We will, presumably, get more tax altering powers but I suspect that this will not be anything that is likely to give any sort of competitive advantage to Holyrood. On the plus side there are a multitude of things that I really couldn’t be bothered with having to change and I rather like the idea that family and friends wouldn’t be calling me a bloody foreigner! I think the key thing with a No vote is to see Westminster reform – they have had a fright with the independence vote but I don’t think that will cure them of their arrogance. I can’t see it being the end of the Scottish independence movement either because if, as some want, there is an attempt to take the UK out of the EU I can see Scotland having another vote almost immediately.

So that’s it. Whatever the outcome of the vote I don’t really mind. That’s not to say I don’t care, because I do, but the way the campaigns have been run are far more like a general election campaign with the differing groups of snake oil salesmen telling everyone that the sky will be bluer and the grass will be greener if only we take their particular vision of cloud cuckoo land. And that’s not mention the huge number of threats, veiled or otherwise, which are almost exclusively pernicious lies aimed at the vulnerable. Independence is not about that – it’s something far more fundamental about how we live and identify ourselves and I can see benefits to both sides of the argument as well as distinct disadvantages. However, I was taken by the words of the actor James McAvoy on this subject who seemed to have a far more brutal assessment of the whole thing:

“This should be a choice about identity, not about whether we’ll get oil, the pound or whether we will be richer. You know that there are statements that just can’t be backed up on both sides. It shouldn’t be a question of ‘are things going to be better?’ There’s no country in this world that says, ‘I’m really happy with this government. Taxes are great, education is great and everything is cool, because I voted for my guy’.

“So yes or no, we’re still going to be bitching. Things are still going to be s**t, or good. It’s just going to be different s**t, or different good. These politicians, you can’t trust them as far as you can throw them, and we’re getting sucked into a meaningless political debate. I will go with whatever way my country votes, but I don’t know which way I want to go yet.”

I’m very much in agreement with him on this. I’m not planning on going anywhere and whatever we wake up with on Friday morning we will just have to get on with whatever s**t or whatever good it brings.

Listen

I’ve been enjoying the new series of Doctor Who far more than I could have hoped but so far I’ve still had this nagging thought in my head as to what Matt Smith would have made of this or that. Last week’s Robin Hood themed episode struck me as being very much a Matt Smith vehicle but this week’s episode, Listen, was so far removed from anything that has been done since the series revived that I can only imagine Peter Capaldi pulling it off – has he now truly arrived?

It’s not just Capaldi, though. Somehow Jenna Coleman has shone in this series and the writing has been spot on. However, Listen seemed to work on so many levels that it’s not just the script. The entire ensemble appear to be gelling together. I think I can see themes that have been used in the series before: Steven Moffat has frequently relied on childhood fears for his ideas and there was more than a hint of Russell T Davies’ Midnight episode in its unseen threat but for once this episode appeared completely fresh and new.

I‘m not sure how the new series is faring in general. Fandom is fickle and so far the viewing figures are firm if not outstanding. However, for me this is shaping up as one of the strongest to date and certainly the most consistent start to a series since David Tennant’s first series.
Just one question, though. What is it with blackboards?

Plantations

I’ve been listening to Robert Plant’s latest album this week: Lullaby and... The Ceaseless Roar. This is his tenth solo album since leaving Led Zeppelin (not including collaborations) and it would be easy for him to be simply going through the motions but that simply isn’t his way. The sound is far removed from his Led Zeppelin days but he still has something new to offer. There aren’t many artists who have been around that long that can say the same.

As a solo artist Robert Plant’s career has been made up of several distinct stages but with an obvious progression of style and influence throughout. His first solo album, Pictures at Eleven, came out in 1982 and in many ways can be seen as progressing from the softer rock style of Led Zeppelin’s last album. The key personnel here were guitarist and co-composer Robbie Blunt and drummer Phil Collins (on loan from Genesis). Whilst Pictures was a solid if unremarkable affair the follow-up, 1983’s Principle of Moments, was actually rather good although with very much a radio-friendly AOR feel. It even afforded him an appearance on Top Of The Pops performing Big Log although the standout tracks for me would be Other Arms and In The Mood. His third album was something of a departure in the form of Shaken 'n' Stirred. It’s an album I’ve never quite taken to: the songs aren’t bad and I can cope with the overall sound which is closer to something like Talk Talk than mainstream rock but I’ve never taken to the harsh mid-80s digital synth sounds. Nevertheless, Little by Little was still a decent single.

1988 brought a new young band (and importantly Phil Johnstone as a key composer) and something of a reinvention in the form of Now and Zen. Heaven Knows, Tall Cool One and Ship Of Fools all made an impact on the singles charts but more importantly he started to perform Led Zeppelin songs in his live shows again. I saw him on the associated tour and he seemed genuinely pleased at the reception of songs old and new. 1990 brought a follow-up, the underrated Manic Nirvana which I always feel was his one solo album that was closest to the Led Zeppelin sound. However, it was his next album, 1993’s Fate of Nations that many regarded as his greatest album to date. This produced the hit single 29 Palms but the whole album works from start to finish and for once contains a rather strong political message as he was appalled both by the human and environmental tragedy of the first Gulf war.

Plant’s next project was the No Quarter album with Jimmy Page in 1994. This coincided with MTV’s “Unplugged” concerts and was essentially Led Zeppelin Unplugged but which they dubbed “Page and Plant Unledded”. As Zeppelin produced many folk-rock songs throughout their career an acoustic set would have been rather superfluous  but what they did produce on this album was a reimagining of old songs that Plant has gone back to throughout his later career: many utilising African musicians. This re-interpretation of old songs and several Moroccan influenced new ones was a key moment for Plant and the album remains a personal favourite of mine. The follow-up, 1998’s Walking into Clarksdale, is a selection of new songs written with Page and is mostly in a straight rock style. For me the album was something of a disappointment because, whilst the songs are decent enough, the production is rather flat and it often sounds little more than a demo. Whether that was the intention, I don’t know.

2002 brought a new solo album, Dreamland, with a new backing group, The Strange Sensation. This saw a collection of new songs combined with radical interpretations of songs that Plant covered early in his career such as Morning Dew and Hey Joe (his original version was later released on the second disk of the Sixty Six to Timbuktu compilation). The Strange Sensation were then augmented with seasoned session musicians and former members of The Cure, Cast and Portishead and produced what I still regard as Plant’s best solo album, 2005’s Mighty ReArranger. This is an interesting blend or World and rock music and also comes across as one of Plant’s angriest: partly due to another Gulf war and partly his disenchantment with the music industry – particularly the scathing Tin Pan Valley in which he showed the world he could still howl like a banshee when called upon.

In fact Plant would show that he had not lost his power as a hard rock singer when he performed a one off show with Led Zeppelin at London’s O2 arena in December 2007 but his next recording project was intriguing: an album of duets with bluegrass singer Alison Krauss called Raising Sand. It’s a surprising departure but the album actually works – and it is a definite co-production with each of the singers taking turns on lead vocals. The follow-up to this was 2010’s Band of Joy which took the Americana a stage further but this time with Folk-Rock singer (and later Plant’s partner) Patty Griffin taking over the female vocal role.

That brings us on to Lullaby and... The Ceaseless Roar which features The Sensational Space Shifters as the backing group – partly based on the Strange Sensation but now with a more world music feel to them – in no small part due to Gambian riti player Juldeh Camara. I had expected this to be something closer in style to the Mighty ReArranger album but it is actually a far gentler affair. The hardest rocking track is Turn It Up but that is somewhat an exception and the bulk of the tracks have a far gentler, more organic feel about hem which indicates that many of these tracks have gone through several iterations after starting life as jam sessions. Plant himself also sounds much more contemplative – often sounding as if he is saying farewell and looking back on life rather than to the future. This may be down to him breaking up with Griffin and returning to the UK but much may be down to him pondering that at 66 years of age he has probably performed for far longer than he is still likely to. Nevertheless there is much to like on this and some new territory for Plant with the piano ballad Stolen Kiss offering a kind of intimacy that would be hard to imagine from his early “lemon squeezing” days. The lead singles, Little Maggie and Rainbow were performed at this years Glastonbury festival and they have lost none of their live power with their transfer to the studio. Overall it's a satisfying album that will stand up to repeated plays.

It is all too easy for major artists to fall into the trap of money making nostalgia tours but Robert Plant is one of those rare beasts that has constantly strived to remain relevant. I think he has achieved that on Lullaby and I look forward to hearing these songs live when he performs in Glasgow in November.

Robot Of Sherwood

Every series of Doctor Who seems to have an episode that fans put down as “the duff one”. If I’m being fair, then some series have more than one. The reasons for this vary although traditionally it has been down to lack of budget, lack of fresh ideas or shoehorning a good conceptually square peg into an unforgiving, round, Doctor Who shaped hole. I was rather fearful that this series’ “duff one” was going to be Robot Of Sherwood. As it turns out I was rather pleasantly surprised.

In a way I shouldn’t have been because this was written by Mark Gatiss who I have often thought of as one of the new series best writers, if one of the quirkiest. The other thing that this particular series has going for it is Peter Capaldi who is actually surpassing my expectations for him in the lead role. In a way, I suspect that this particular episode may have been written more with Matt Smith in mind – particularly the sword fight with the spoon that would have all the marks of Smith’s quirkiness but somehow Capaldi pulled it off – possibly reminding me of Jon Pertwee again who was always up for a fight as the third Doctor.

One of the other things that made this work are the supporting cast who could have just hammed the whole thing up (and in fairness this did require a certain amount of porcine thespianism) but the subversion into where the dividing line between myth and legend lies an interesting one. From that perspective it was very clever to get a cameo of Patrick Troughton as Robin Hood. As far as the supporting actors went I particularly liked Ben Miller as the Sherriff of Nottingham – possibly the best portrayal since Alan Rickman. Also, as a thought, could we have Jenna Coleman in her Maid Marion outfit every week?

I suppose the episode was more of a nod to the Errol Flynn era of swashbuckling Robin Hood rather than the more recent po-faced (and remarkably dreary) adaptations and it is a reminder that the BBC have done rather well out of series like Merlin and Atlantis when Doctor Who isn’t on. This worked remarkably well and it does make a nice change from the seat of your pants Dalek episode and next week’s Listen which looks like the episode to get the kids wetting the bed again.

Europe Sucks

I was doing a few odd DIY jobs at my mother-in-laws last weekend and after fixing her spare bed I wanted to clear up the dust and wood chippings before putting the bed back in place. Unfortunately, her Hoover vacuum cleaner (a 1900W cylinder unit) refused to work. It made lots of noise and seemed to get very hot but it had absolutely no effect on the dust. I had a look inside and noticed that the filter was quite blocked. To clear this I tried to use her cheap, bought-from-Tesco, bagless vacuum (rated at 1700w).This didn’t suck any of the dust up and I only just managed to dispose of the fluff down it when I picked it out with tweezers and dropped it in the hose. In the end, I brought my old Henry vacuum round (rated at 1200w or 600w depending on the setting) and cleared the whole mess up in a few moments. Thus I laid bare one of the great annoyances of modern life. Vacuum cleaners that don’t suck (or at least they “suck” but only in the “not working” informal American sense of the word).

There have been plans afoot for a while to introduce minimum standards for vacuum cleaners via European wide regulations. This involves an efficiency label in a similar manner to those applied to washing machines, refrigerators and the like. This should make life much easier for the consumer as it will be easier to see how effective particular items are before they are purchased and it should also push the manufacturers into making more efficient and reliable appliances. Except this is not how it is being reported and has been causing an almighty stooshie, not only amongst the usual frothing-at-the-mouth Europhobes but also via Which? magazine who have been spreading misinformation and causing panic buying of vacuum cleaners that don’t meet the new regulations. In short, they have fallen foul of the manufacturers’ ploy of conflating power with effectiveness as far as vacuum cleaners are concerned.

The problem with this is that the power of the motor will only make any real difference if the design of the rest of the vacuum actually works – and hence why my old Henry can outperform my mother-in-law’s lackadaisical Hoover at a third of the wattage. Since some manufactures have opted to up the wattage of their cleaners to overcome the poor performance and then passed this off as being more effective, others have had to follow suit in an arms war of watts. The EU regulation aims to put a stop to this and to prevent ineffective, inefficient cleaners ever reaching our shops. The problem with the Europhobe right-wing press and, seemingly, Which? is that they don’t appear to have read the regulations. I have. It’s actually rather hard going as it is aimed at the manufacturers rather than the consumer (units are the rather obscure dpu – dust pick up) but the key areas as listed in Annex I are:

 

From 1st September 2014 vacuum cleaners manufactured or imported must have:

• a carpet pickup rate greater than 0.7 dpu
• a hard floor pickup rate greater than 0.95
• an input power less than 1600w
• estimated energy consumption of less than 62 kWh/year 

In short, this means that they are regulating the effectiveness of the cleaner. If the manufacturers are going to sell a vacuum it must meet at least a minimum standard of effectiveness and without just sticking a Cessna light aircraft engine on the back of it to try and compensate for the poor airflow. However it gets better:

From 1st September 2017 vacuum cleaners manufactured or imported must have:

• a carpet pickup rate greater than 0.75 dpu
• a hard floor pickup rate greater than 0.98
• an input power less than 900w
• estimated energy consumption of less than 43 kWh/year 
• dust readmission must be less than 1%
• the sound produced must be less than 80 dB
• the hose must be durable for at least 40,000 oscillations under strain
• the operational life of the motor must be greater than 500 hours

So not only must they work better and use less power but they must be durable as well. In short, a vacuum cleaner must be fit for purpose. This is good for the consumer in 3 years’ time but what is useful at the moment is that information on how effective cleaners are must be provided on an efficiency label so that the carpet cleaning, hard-floor cleaning and dust readmission are rated on a scale of A-G. The energy efficiency and noise levels are also provided. I can see some problems with this (in a similar way to how car manufacturers frig their fuel consumption levels) and it is not entirely clear how this will be policed but I can, at least, see that this is a good thing for the consumer and it might just prevent my mother-in-law from purchasing yet another waste-of-space domestic appliance.

Of course this doesn’t stop the mindless British press ranting on about how this impinges on the British sovereign right to have crap appliances and pay a fortune in electric bills but then I’d rather keep the cash and not have to live in a pig sty. Maybe it’s just me?