The End of an Era

Christmas Day used to revolve around a near crapulent family gathered in front of the TV at 3pm to hear what platitudes about the Commonwealth the Queen would come out with but, every year since 2005, my family gathers around the TV in the early evening to catch the latest adventure of Doctor Who. This year was special – a regeneration episode with two Doctors for the price of one which was rather fitting as it was very much an end of an era for the show.

I enjoyed the episode and found David Bradley’s First Doctor to be almost spookily like William Hartnell. Really it was an episode where nothing much in particular happened but this was just as well. Matt Smith’s last episode spent so long trying to tie up loose ends that we didn’t have a particularly great chance to enjoy Matt’s Doctor for one last time. With Twice Upon a Time we not only got to enjoy saying farewell to Peter Capaldi but had an excellent character led story with two of the best character actors out there. Mark Gatiss’s Captain was a nice touch as well. I had predicted that he would turn out to be a Lethbridge-Stewart but I thought it was going to be the Brigadier. The fact that it was actually his grandfather was both less fanboyish and added a nice little bit of background to the Brigadier’s story.

As it is Peter Capaldi’s last episode it is worth looking back over his tenure as the Doctor. Given the nature of the show there will always be some episodes that are better than others but the one thing that has remained exceptional throughout was his performance. The subtleties  of his acting are worth watching again but keep an eye out for his face: William Hartnell’s approach to television was that it was small and the acting should be kept small and around the face. Television is now large and expansive but Capaldi can do more with his eyes in a single frame than many actors could do with an entire script. If Hartnell was making the most of a small screen then Capaldi is making the most of high definition detail. It is well documented that everyone’s favourite Doctor should be their first so mine is, and always will be, Jon Pertwee. Peter Capaldi, though, runs him a very close second.

Even aside from Capaldi’s performances, there are very few episodes during his tenure that I wouldn’t happily watch again. In fact the only one I still feel was a bit of a stinker was Kill The Moon, and even then I think it would have only taken a few storyline tweaks to turn it into something exceptional. Capaldi, for me, has really captured the quintessential characteristics of what the Doctor is to me: a grumpy but kind old soul trying, in whatever way possible, to make the universe a better place. Of course this is also showrunner Steven Moffat’s last show so it is worth assessing his run.

The Moffat era of Doctor Who is a very long one. He has written for every series since its return in 2005 and has been the showrunner and lead writer since 2010 for a whole 6 series along with a smattering of specials along the way. That is a very long time to keep up a high pressure job and an astonishing period to keep thinking up new ideas. I started writing this blog at the same time that he took over the show and I am really running out of things to write about (an end to my era?) To keep up the high standard for so long is remarkable and I feel that his period in charge will in the long term be hailed as a golden era. There have been ups and downs, of course, and I think the time around the 50th anniversary episode (and hence the 7th series) was affected both by his workload and unsympathetic scheduling by the BBC but the fact that the anniversary was a triumph and that successive series have gone from strength to strength are a mark of what a great writer he is. I hope he enjoys going back to being a mere fan and I am looking forward to his new take on the Dracula story.

So that leaves us to look forward to the next series. Like many fans, I think my reaction to Jodie Whittaker’s casting went from initial shock, to apprehension, through acceptance and on to really, really looking forward to her in the role. This was partly reinforced by watching the Shada DVD that I got for Christmas: what struck me with that is how good Romana, the female Time Lord, was – she just needed that little edge to the character: that indefinable “Doctorishness”.  We didn’t really see that much of Jodie last night but I suspect that the next series, with Chris Chibnall in charge, will be the great rollercoaster that Doctor Who has always been. Doctor Who is all about change but, given the Thirteenth Doctor’s reaction to her new appearance, Jodie is just what the Doctor ordered.

We do NOT Burn Books

My mother-in-law has recently been decluttering her house. Being German she is a great stickler for keeping paperwork. Some of this is fair enough but there comes a point where there is no point in keeping 20+ years’ worth of fuel and telephone bills. Being security minded, she didn’t just want to throw the excess paperwork straight into the recycling bin. To properly dispose of this paperwork she borrowed our paper shredder which did an admirable job of obfuscating personal data until a combination of the recycling bin being full to overflowing and the shedder having a nervous breakdown put a halt to the process.

Her alternative disposal method was to ask me to burn the old paperwork. This, in part, was because it was far cheaper than buying a new shredder and also because she thinks I am some sort of wanton pyromaniac. I think this is rather unfair although I was able to spend an evening merrily throwing old phone bills into a flaming metal bucket whilst cackling uncontrollably and listening to Rammstein records at full blast.

The other thing which she has been clearing out is her enormous collection of books. She is very much one of those people who never throws a book out although some of them have not been touched for years: old novels, out of date reference books and even the set of “English for Foreign Students” books that she bought in London in the 1950’s after fleeing East Germany. Some of these books have found a willing home in our local library who find it hard to justify their meagre budget on foreign language books but many are just too difficult to find a willing home.

Raymond suggested that one solution would be to have another bonfire for the old books but he was told, very firmly, that “We do NOT burn books in this family.” Aside from missing a rather important piece of European history I also think he is missing a trick. I looked up the most unlikely of titles on eBay, the “Learn English” books from 1959 and there is a surprising market for them. I suspect that some of the other titles would be lucky to cover their postage costs but it does seem like a reasonable method of finding good homes for the items. Aside from anything else, I’m sure there are cheaper sources of firewood.

Flog It On Fleabay

I have come to the conclusion that I’m a bit of a hoarder. I have a garage full of boxes of things that “may come in handy” filled with items that I can barely remember what they are used for. I daren’t throw them out because I will inevitably find a use for that RS232 interface lead – or whatever it was.

I have been trying to clear the house up recently. Some things can go to charity shops and I’ve found homes for others via Freegle and the like. However, I had two sets of perfectly serviceable Winter wheel sets that needed to find new homes. I had asked at our local garage whether any of their mechanics could make use of them but, as I discovered, the wheel specifications can be quite specific and as it was none of them had a car that would match the Toyota and Volkswagen wheel sets. However, one of the guys did suggest that I “Flog it on ebay”.

I’ve occasionally bought things on eBay. In particular they are very good for second hand car parts but I have never actually tried to sell on there. I think what put me off is the whole shady character thing but the system is quite well protected. What I wasn’t sure of was the whole protocol of selling and its associated etiquette. For the most part I just ran with the suggestions of the site although I did lower my initial asking price as I definitely wanted to get rid of the things.

As it was, both items sold and the first set was picked up by a chap in Fife who was very prompt in paying and picking the wheels up. The other buyer also paid straight away but didn’t pick up until Friday as he was working in Aberdeen (although actually just lives around the corner from me.)

I think I have learned a couple of lessons, though. First of all, it is worth having a “Buy Now” price as this enables anyone who just wants the thing to buy it there and then. Secondly, there are quite a few chancers out there. After one of my items sold I was contacted with an offer to pay double what the eventual selling price was. I’m pretty sure that this is completely against the rules of the site and it is also very unfair on those that had put genuine offers in (if he really wanted it for that price he could have put an offer in to start with). I suspect the other thing is that having the option to deliver by post would increase the potential top price but for the wheels this would be a fair whack as they weighed in at 70Kg in total.

I do have a few other things to get rid of so it may be worth giving this another go. If nothing else, I actually have a bit of extra Christmas cash in return for some things that I was actually quite happy just to give away.

Down in the Dumps

I saw the long awaited Robert Plant tour on Saturday in Liverpool. Plant was, as ever, absolutely superb. Like a good wine he seems to improve with age and, as much as I enjoyed his latest album, it really doesn’t do justice to his astonishing vocal range. I just wish I could have said the same of the venue which he performed at.

Now I have seen Robert Plant perform four times now and all of the venues I have seen him play at could have charitably been described as “having seen better days”. I don’t necessarily regard that as a bad thing as it enables a major artist to play intimate venues at a reasonable cost rather than giant stadium tours with extortionate costs and giant screens to compensate for the fact that the artist cannot be seen due to the curvature of the Earth. I like the fact that Plant plays the sort of small venues that no other major artists will play. Maybe his next tour should be called the “Shitholes of Britain” tour.

The problem with the venue in Liverpool was much more down to the basic organisation. The Olympia is attached to an old ballroom called “The Grafton” and when explaining its location to local taxi drivers seems to be met with bemusement that it must have been demolished years ago. It’s still there and we made sure that we arrived in good time – particularly as there was a football match taking place just up the road. For some reason we were waiting for an hour outside in the cold before we managed to get in and, in the process, missed half of Seth Lakeman’s support act which I had been looking forward to as an added bonus. I had hoped that someone would show us to our seats but it was supposedly unreserved seating. At least it was until four songs into Plant’s set when we were asked to move as the seats we were in were reserved.

The problem with this is that we had bought seated tickets and looking around it quickly transpired that several of these seats were actually broken. After remonstrating with one of the staff we were moved to a table with seats whereby I could just see the stage but which my friend couldn’t. As he said, he may as well have gone home and put on an old Led Zeppelin album. The problem overall seems to be with the management of the venue – there were actually plenty of staff around and those that I spoke to were polite and as helpful as they could be but there is only so much that they can do to combat poor management.

What partially made up for the night is that the performance was truly breath-taking with a mix of songs from Plant’s last two albums with a smattering of others from recent years and a good dollop of the first four Led Zeppelin albums plus In The Light which I had never heard live before. It’s just a pity that the venue couldn’t live up to his high standards. Ironically, it was a toss-up between this venue or the Armadillo in Glasgow, the auditorium that vaguely resembles Sydney Opera House, which is a genuinely first class venue. Maybe I shouldn’t always go down to the dumps.

War Poets

Since it is Remembrance Sunday this weekend (and Armistice Day today) there are lots of Poppy sellers around. I spoke to my mother last night and she mentioned that whilst she has made a donation to the poppy fund she will not be wearing one. Of course, she is old enough to actually remember a World War so does not regard a Poppy as a simple fashion item which they appear to have become. However, she did find the joint remembrance of the English and German football teams (and military personnel) before last night’s football match to be quite touching and far more in line with what remembrance week should really be about.

One thing that I did pick up from my mother is an appreciation of War Poets. War poetry offers a first-hand glimpse at the reality of war and it is far from being rose-tinted solemnity. It is horrific, brutal, often angry and always honest. There seem to be one or two bits of war poetry that are often recited but as an act of remembrance it really should be delved into. If it doesn’t make you angry then you are missing the point. There is only really one thing that one should remember about war: never again.

One poet that I have picked up recently is the Welsh poet Hedd Wyn (the bardic name meaning “White Peace”) who posthumously won the poets award at the Birkenhead Eisteddfod of 1917 just weeks after he had died at Passchendaele. This is a translation of his Poem “War”:

Bitter to live in times like these.
While God declines beyond the seas;
Instead, man, king or peasantry,
Raises his gross authority.

When he thinks God has gone away
Man takes up his sword to slay
His brother; we can hear death's roar.
It shadows the hovels of the poor.

Like the old songs they left behind,
We hung our harps in the willows again.
Ballads of boys blow on the wind,
Their blood is mingled with the rain.

Gwae fi fy myw mewn oes mor ddreng,
A Duw ar drai ar orwel pell;
O'i ôl mae dyn, yn deyrn a gwreng,
Yn codi ei awdurdod hell.

Pan deimlodd fyned ymaith Dduw
Cyfododd gledd i ladd ei frawd;
Mae swn yr ymladd ar ein clyw,
A'i gysgod ar fythynnod tlawd.

Mae'r hen delynau genid gynt,
Ynghrog ar gangau'r helyg draw,
A gwaedd y bechgyn lond y gwynt,
A'u gwaed yn gymysg efo'r glaw

Hedd Wyn (1887 – 1917)

Things that go BANG in the night.

I quite enjoy fireworks, even if it does tend to involve standing outside in the cold and wet, cricking one’s neck backwards and making appreciative “Ooh” noises at the pyrotechnic display overhead. At least, it’s quite nice for half an hour although after that a combination of frost-bite and trench foot start to erode my enthusiasm for the whole thing.

It’s Guy Fawkes night tonight and I may take the kids down to the park to see the public fireworks display (if the weather holds out) but this commemoration of the gunpowder plot seems to have been going on for the best part of two weeks now and I expect we will still get the occasional explosion for another week or so. This is all well and good but it also means that I am compelled to walk the dog during the daytime and, given that I also have to work for a living, this isn’t always possible.

I think the problem comes down to two things – a lack of occasion and knobheads. The lack of occasion is something that Nina picked up on. Fireworks are freely available in Germany for New Year’s celebrations and typically go on sale for a few days prior to this after Christmas. They are set off, en masse, on the stroke of midnight and the sight and sound of this is quite spectacular. However, with Guy Fawkes night the fireworks are staggered, not only across the night but now, seemingly, for the fortnight surrounding it. Not only does it lose impact put the whole period is a nightmare for pet owners.

The other problem seems to be more of a UK based issue which is knobheads: morons who purchase fireworks for the sole purpose of public nuisance whether this is using them as weapons, idiotic pranks or idle nuisance. I came across this many years ago when a teenage knobhead threw a banger at our dog. Unfortunately, the dog ran away and hid under a car rather than doing the sensible thing of viciously mutilating the fecker’s face.

I think that there could be a reasonable solution to both problems which would be a simple licensing system for fireworks. This wouldn’t have to be anything too arduous but just a council-issued ticket that would allow fireworks to be bought after specifying the time and place that they are intended to be used. This would enable anyone in the near vicinity to be warned in advance and also provide a reasonable way of prosecuting and/or banning anyone who abuses the fireworks once purchased.

Of course, this still leaves the issue of what to do with anxious pets. I’d suggest the best thing is to leave them in a warm and comfortable place with some soothing music to listen to – just like I did with Sam:

Listening to soothing music can help anxious pets during fireworks displays.

Friendface

One of the odd features with Facebook is that it periodically encourages its users to repost old entries that were made on that particular day a number of years ago. I suppose if it is a wedding or other notable event then it would be nice to share the memory but on Friday it encouraged me to share the news that my dog, Eddie, died a year ago. I chose to decline the invitation. Apart from being a rather upsetting thing to repost I can’t believe it is a year already – I still look around when walking Sam still expecting to see Eddie with his nose stuck in something discusting.

The odd thing with Facebook is that I find it strangely addictive. I don’t post too many things myself but I do find myself compelled to see trivia entered by others. For the most part this generally consists of utter garbage although I do appreciate the occasional jokes and banter.

Recently I’ve been finding Facebook to be a continual bore to read through. Obviously I appreciate that it is funded by advertising but I seem to be continually bombarded by adverts for products that I have absolutely no interest in whatsoever which is surely wasting those companies’ marketing budgets. Also, I find that if I buy an item online I am perpetually pestered with adverts for exactly the same products even though I have zero chance of going for them as I’ve just purchased the thing.

I realise that Facebook content is algorithmically based but I can’t help but think that the Facebook sales team are taking their customers for a ride. Occasionally things do come up that I am genuinely interested in but for the most part I’ll stick to the jokes and banter.

The Insect Apocalypse

Some 25 years ago I went on a weekend away to Fort Augustus in the Highlands. At the time we had an old Mk 2 VW Golf and it felt like a huge trek to get up there. On arriving we were surrounded by clouds of midges and other flying insects which were intent of making life miserable for all concerned. One American tourist asked what the best way of getting rid of the midges was and I suggested that I had great success by hitting them very hard with a small German car.

I seem to recall that we had to stop a couple of times on the way up to clear the screen of insect debris just so that we could see where we were going. In more recent years I have had to do this task  far less frequently and I had wondered if this was an effect of the cars having a more raked, aerodynamic profile at the front but one news story this week would seem to indicate that there is another, more worrying reason for the lack of splatted insect matter on the car.

A 75% reduction of flying insects in 30 years is not a trivial matter, in fact it could be disastrous as these animals pollinate flowers or, at least, form the bottom layer of the food chain. I’m pretty sure I have noticed a decline in insects in general. When I am walking the dog in the early evening there are far fewer clouds of midges and other flying insects seem to be few and far between. I’ve also noticed fewer bats which at one time were very common around the woods that I walk the dog and feed upon the midges (which is why I have always tried to encourage them with bat boxes).

It’s not entirely clear as to the cause of this decline but there is a great suspicion that pesticides such as neonicotinoids have caused a reduction in the honey bee population. The effect on other insects and the environment still needs research but this isn’t exactly the first time that we have been poisoning ourselves in this way. Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring on the dangers of DDT back in 1962 and I am always reminded of this 1969 poem by the late, great John Betjeman:

Harvest Hymn
by John Betjeman

We spray the fields and scatter
The poison on the ground
So that no wicked wild flowers
Upon our farm are found.
We like whatever helps us
To line our purse with pence;
The twenty-four-hour broiler house
And neat electric fence.

All concrete sheds around us
And Jaguars in the yard,
The telly lounge and deep-freeze
Are ours from working hard.

We fire the fields for harvest,
The hedges swell the flame,
The oak trees and the cottages
From which our fathers came.
We give no compensation,
The earth is ours today,
And if we lose of arable,
Then bungalows will pay.

All concrete sheds.......

Like 1982 again...

On the 25th of June 1982 what is probably my favourite (and certainly most watched) film of all time was released. Blade Runner wasn’t a resounding success at the time; partly as it was released just after the heart-warming ET and all-action Wrath of Khan which rather squeezed out the audience for a cerebral, dystopian piece of future fiction. Also the film had been rather messed around by the studio which wouldn’t be rectified until years later. I think I saw this first on VHS and it blew me away in terms of its imagery and the high concept ideas of what it really meant to be human and I’ve seen it multiple times in multiple versions since. You could say I am something of a fan.

Just three days after Blade Runner was released in 1982, Robert Plant released his first post-Led Zeppelin album, Pictures at Eleven. Although I was a Zeppelin fan I didn’t buy this at the time and eventually picked it up along with its successor, The Principle of Moments. I’m definitely a fan of Plant and have bought every release of his since as well as seeing him live on several occasions – in fact, more than any other artist. So it is some coincidence that this October the sequel to Blade Runner should be released just a week before Plant’s Eleventh solo outing, Carry Fire. I experienced both for the first time last Friday.

Blade Runner 2049 picks up the story some 30 years after the original ended (and some 35 years after it was made). Whereas the first film queries whether androids could become self-aware and hints that they may be more human than the “humans” this film is questioning whether such artificially created lifeforms could become their own self-sufficient species. There are a few twists but the plot itself is actually quite straight forward – more so than the original. Where this film excels is that it is visually stunning. More so than any film I’ve seen in a long while and very much in the style that original - but more so. I recognised some scenes from Philip K Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep book that the original film was based on but I could see more influence from the likes of Kubrick, Spielberg (in particular AI) and even Spike Jonze’s Her (about a man who falls in love with an AI operating system). After leaving the cinema I immediately wanted to see it again which is probably the best review I could give a film although I will probably wait until its DVD release so I can watch it without the subwoofers set to stun (although, in fairness, it did clear the wax out of my ears).

Carry Fire is Robert Plant’s eleventh solo release although he has also made records with Jimmy Page, Allison Kraus and others in that time. It is very much a sequel to 2014’s Lullaby and The Ceaseless Roar although it is a more upbeat record than that. However, it is also one of Plant’s most political records along the lines of Fate of Nations and Mighty Rearranger - I think he has something of an issue with halfwit Republican Presidents. I’ve listened to it through a couple of times over and the more upbeat songs are very catchy with May Queen being a typical Plant opener and New World…, Carving up the World Again, Carry Fire and Bones of Saints being highlights along with a fantastic duet with Chrissie Hynde on Bluebirds over the Mountain. The slower songs are good as well although take repeated listening to gel and there doesn’t seem to be anything quite as gripping (and depressing) as Embrace Another Fall from the last album.

Just to round off the coincidences, when I saw the Director’s cut of Blade Runner my date for the night managed to throw up part way through the performance. I went to see Blade Runner 2049 with one of my friends and on this occasion he wasn’t sick but did need prodding to stay awake during the third hour of the film after finishing a long shift and making it for the late showing. I’ve got tickets to see Plant in November with him so I am hoping that goes better than the friend who I once took to see Robert Plant live who had confused him with Robert Palmer. It takes all sorts I suppose...

Hearing Aids

I had a hearing test at Falkirk Community Hospital a couple of months ago which confirmed what I had suspected for a while – that I have some partial hearing loss. For the most part this doesn’t bother me and it turned out that the main part of my hearing that is affected is high sounds about 4KHz – roughly where my tinnitus kicks in. Listening to speech in a noisy background is difficult but I can still make out clear sounds (and, thankfully, music) quite well.

They did ask me whether I would want to use a hearing aid at any point and, to be honest, it really doesn’t appeal to me. For one thing, I really don’t like having anything stuck in my ears and the cost of the contraptions (which can be in the thousands) doesn’t appeal to me when the only thing that really bothers me is hearing speech on the television properly. As such, I decided to go for my own hearing aid device. This is it:

Now this isn’t exactly light and discrete as the makers of those clever, digital, in-ear devices would claim (in fact it took two guys from DPD to lift them into the house) but the sound is absolutely fantastic. In fact, in some ways it is a little too good because it really shows up the difference between Dolby Digital and stereo broadcasts quite markedly but the best thing is that big centre speaker which is something like twice the size of the old one; it makes all speech crystal clear.

Now my hearing is fixed I’m rather tempted to go for glasses which are the size of the Hubble Space Telescope…

Fleabay

I have occasionally bought items off Ebay when I haven’t been able to find them elsewhere. They are great for second hand car parts or spares for discontinued domestic appliances but for the most part I have only ever purchased things at a fixed price.

Last weekend my son asked if he could buy a set of Manga comic books that were for sale there. They were for sale by auction and this was a new one for me. They appeared to be very cheap and I agreed to stick a bid in for them. I then discovered the wonders of automatic bids as successive bids were automatically out-bid until I finally had a bid accepted at a “not quite as cheap as I had first thought” price.

I thought that was it until just 5 minutes from the end of the auction I was outbid again. I tried a few more bids until I was once again the highest bidder at a “reasonable but not quite the bargain I had hoped” price. With 10 seconds remaining I was about to text my son to tell him that a load of back-to-front Japanese comic books were on their way when I was outbid for a final time with no chance to rebid. Bastard!

It was at this point that found out how the automatic bidding process works – place a bid that is the maximum that one is prepared to pay and the system will bid for you – up to that maximum. I had wanted some new Hi-Fi equipment and thought I would give this a try, placing a maximum bid against some floor-standing speakers. This seemed to work at first as one or two bids pushed the value higher but without outbidding me. That was until the last hour of the auction when I was outbid. I didn’t mind as it was more than I was prepared to pay but, surprisingly, two other bidders repeatedly outbid each other until the price for this second-hand item was in excess of what a new one would have cost from a reputable high street Hi-Fi outlet. Very strange.

Some people clearly enjoy auctions (and I have to admit that attending a motor auction was hugely entertaining) but actually participating in them is rather stressful and doesn’t give me any sort of satisfaction. What this actually tells me is something I already know. I don’t like gambling. For some people a trip to the bookies, a day at the races or a game of bingo at the social club is a fine form of entertainment and the mind-games of Fleabay fall into this. But for me, I would rather know where I stand with things – back to the fixed price listings, then.

Fitted Furniture

When we moved into our house the previous owners left lots of fitted furniture in the bedrooms. This was nice as it meant that we didn’t have to buy any new bedroom cabinets but after redecorating all the rooms over the last few weeks I’ve really seen the downside of it.

The first problem turned up in my daughter’s bedroom. That had fitted cabinets which actually made rather poor use of the space. The room has always smelled damp and I’ve never quite been able to determine where it came from (although the old roof was leaking at one time). The real culprit came to light when I removed the fitted cupboards to find that the skirting board had been removed behind them leaving a gaping hole, through the lathe and plaster, exposing the room to the external wall. It also revealed a mould infested wall filled with crumbling plaster where the units had been attached.

My son’s room also had fitted cabinets which did make decent use of the space but also hid a large crack in the plaster which, again, was very mouldy and also made cleaning the room the devil’s own work. This was also one of the rooms where the ceiling partly collapsed due to a leaking roof last year but my son was very stubborn about not having it redecorated which left the room looking like a bomb had hit it (in fairness that is also down to being occupied by a 15 year old.) To make matters worse, the room also stank. I actually discovered the cause of this when I removed the fitted cupboards - they had been installed over a very manky old bit of carpet.

Not Fitted Furnitire

Anyway, Having spent the last fortnight stripping his room down, fixing the wall and ceiling, insulating and papering the walls (and painting them in “Sky Blue” at his request) and arranging for a new carpet to be fitted; I have finally been able to install some non-fitted furniture that I bought off the internet. I think it looks pretty good although my son complained that the walls are too blue (in fairness he didn’t know what “sky blue” is as he doesn’t leave his room and he lives in Scotland) and he said the furniture looked rather old fashioned (which it is, to be honest, but so is the house and it is actually very solidly made stuff as well as being dirt cheap). However, I think he is now seeing the benefit in all this as he demands that everyone remove their shoes before entering his room.

Stripping paint

I have been doing a lot of decorating in the house recently and one thing that has been something of a bugbear is the paint that is flaking off  most of the internal doors. They can be painted over but this looks rather half-arsed and the only real solution is to strip off the existing paint and start again. The problem is that there is an awful lot of this paint – 120 years’ worth, in fact.

Flaky old paint

The front door was a case in point. I didn’t fancy sanding all the way down so I tried a bottle of paint stripper. This came in an awkward to open can and consisted of a gel that smelled suspiciously like nail varnish remover.

Bubbling up with stripper

After half an hour the paint had bubbled up quite nicely so I scraped it off to reveal – more paint. I gave it another go and did start to get down to the original layer of wood varnish in places but by this point I had run out of paint stripper.

Two lots of stripper.

In the end I removed the rest of the paint with a heat gun and then sanded down the bare wood which was a rather laborious task.

Stripped, sanded and varnished

I have a suspicion that the best way to do this is to remove the vast bulk of the paint with the heat gun and then clear the last of the paint and varnish with the paint stripper but at around £10 a bottle the paint stripper isn’t exactly the cheapest substance in the world. Maybe I should go back to making homebrew – I seem to recall that stuff could strip down the dining room table in seconds.

BT Phone Gone

You may recall that during the Scottish Independence Referendum I posted this picture of the phone box outside our house:

Happier times back in 2014

Well it has gone! Some men turned up with a lorry this morning and took it away. It was pretty tatty so this wasn’t unexpected but usually there is a notice that phone boxes are going to disappear before they snaffle them (as it is possible to “adopt” them) but the first I knew of this was the workmen digging the foundations out. It was then rather unceremoniously lifted on to the truck.

Going...

Going...

Going...

Almost...

 

GONE!

So that's another bit of local history gone for ever. At the rate these are going they will soon be as rare as the old Police boxes. Apart from anything else, the telephone box was a useful landmark when explaining the peculiar numbering system on our road. I'll miss the old thing.

Service Charges

I bought tickets for Robert Plant’s upcoming tour this week. This was the first time I have used Amazon’s ticket service and I for the most part it was reasonably easy to use even though it took me ten attempts to get the tickets booked having been logged in on the dot of 9am when they were released. From what I can tell, their procedures do appear to have made a reasonable effort to tackle touts but I am pretty sure that some tickets will find their way on to the usual outlets with heavy mark-ups from their original price.

One thing that I did found odd is that Amazon listed the administration service charge separately from the ticket price. Many ticket vendors do this but the odd thing was that Amazon quoted the full transaction price up front and I really didn’t need to know that their cut was a fairly hefty £8.50. They don’t do this with anything else – what you see is what you pay (accepting delivery charges, of course). I can only imagine that they wanted to offer a fairly presented product but somehow felt obliged to compare to Ticketmaster and the like by showing what the mark up would have been.

I don’t object to paying for a service but I find the concept of the “service charge” to be underhand and devious. I also experienced this a few weeks ago when buying our new car. The dealer included a service charge of £99 for “administration” but as far as I am concerned this should have been included on the list price of the car. They also included a charge of £20 for diesel which is reasonable to a point as you have to drive the thing away but I’m fairly certain that there wasn’t £20 of diesel in the tank or else they were going by breakdown rates and including a service charge with that as well.

I find the whole concept of compulsory extra charges that are not variable nor in any way avoidable to be a highly dishonest practice but I wonder whether anyone could reasonably put a stop to it? Advertising standards, anyone?

Newark Castle

Newark Castle - Port Glasgow

Newark Castle

We haven’t been along to see one of Historic Scotland’s buildings for a few weeks and I was rather surprised to see Newark Castle listed amongst them which I had always assumed was in Nottinghamshire. In fact there are several “Newark” castles and this one is in Port Glasgow on the banks of the Clyde.

The castle is very well preserved and has also been renovated to something like its former glory – in fact there were works going on there as we viewed it.

Newark Castle Hall

The interesting thing for me is that it was originally built by a George Maxwell in 1478 (or, at least, built for him by tradesmen unknown.) Could this be an ancient ancestor of mine? I’m not sure I’d be happy about that as one of his descendants was a Patrick Maxwell who turned the castle more into the grand mansion that we see today but who was notorious for murdering two neighbours and beating his wife who had 16 children by him (although, presumably, not all at once).

Anyway, the castle is well worth a visit as an example of Scottish Baronial style architecture if not so much for the memory of the rather unpleasant Patrick Maxwell. Mind you, I didn’t find out why it was called “Newark” but it should be remembered that it is an anagram of “wanker”.

The "New" Car

After last week’s escapade selling our old family car I had the slightly more fun task of picking up our new one this week. At least, when I say “new” it is new to us but actually a 3 year old Ford Grand C-Max which is now fully paid for apart from the thundering great personal loan that I’ll be stuck with for the next two years.

The car itself seems fine. The one problem we had is that seven seat MPVs, all the rage a few years ago, are becoming thinner on the ground. Many manufacturers seem to have morphed their MPV offerings into “cross-over” vehicles which incorporate all the compromises of off-road vehicles (increased weight, high centre of gravity, reduced interior space, poor fuel economy and crap handling) with the inability of a standard road car to drive across a field. Maybe I’m exaggerating but I am not really bothered about the styling of this kind of vehicle. I am purely concerned with the practicality.

In terms of pure practicality the Grand C-MAX does a pretty good job of it. Compared to our old Toyota Corolla Verso it has a couple of convenience items missing (no cruise control, and it has manual only air-conditioning) and the seat adjustment isn’t quite as simple but it makes up with it in other areas such as having rear sliding doors and the ability to completely fold away the middle seat so it becomes a 6 seater with easy access to the rearmost seats. It’s also pretty decent to drive for the most part. The only downside for me is that we had to get one with a diesel engine.

There has been much in the news recently about whether diesel vehicles are the major cause of inner city pollution. They are certainly a contributory factor but little is said about whether they are actually suitable for the average motorist. Many are not but, unfortunately, government policy has been promoting them until very recently. The problem for second hand buyers like me is that I am reliant on what was being sold 2 to 3 years ago. Unfortunately, in terms of 7 seat MPVs they were almost all diesel. I checked with our local mechanic to see what he thought of the particular model and he rather put my mind at rest by saying that they find the PSA-Ford engine to be very reliable as long as the oil is regularly changed.

I suppose I should be OK with it as the purchase price was pretty reasonable and the slightly improved fuel consumption should hopefully offset any higher running costs (although, as a bonus, the tax is £125 per year less than our old car). It’s early days so far but the indicated fuel consumption is around 47mpg which is far off from what the manufacturer claimed (60mpg) but still slightly better than our old petrol powered Toyota. I won’t really find out the true cost until it comes to service time or, more worryingly, if one of the many three letter acronyms that come with diesel engines decide to play up. Anyway, by the time we come to replace this car I would be hoping that we could get by with something a bit smaller – hopefully with an electric engine, 2nd hand market allowing.

Chancers and Tyre Kickers

After having to buy new tyres for my Golf last week I though my automotive expenses for the next year were all done and dusted. Of course, there is no telling for the Law of the Sod. On Monday, I had a rather apologetic phone call from Nina informing me that the door on our Toyota MPV had fallen off or, more specifically, that it wouldn’t now shut again. On examining it, it appeared that the latch that prevents the door from opening too wide had ripped through the sheet metal. Our local friendly car repairer pointed out that the structure of the door was compromised and that simple welding was unlikely to fix it.

My initial thought was to see how much the door would cost to fix. I managed to find a used door on Ebay and asked the repair guy how much it would cost to fit (given that it would need a respray). The answer was that it would cost a lot – in fact more than the car would be worth. This was important as we had been looking to replace the car at some point. Actually, we had looking to replace it for the last few years but each repair wasn’t enough to justify it and, being a Toyota, it is largely mechanically indestructible. A quick valuation with a an auction house in Glasgow showed that it was worth little more than the repair in perfect condition and certainly less given that car was fairly scruffy. A new (well, newer but second hand) car would be in the offing.

The odd thing about second hand car prices is that they are all about appearance. When I sold our diesel Mazda I got a decent trade in price, even though it let in rainwater and wouldn’t start before midday, simply because it looked smart and shiny. The Toyota was still in good mechanical order but it had various scuffs to the back bumper, a bit of rust along the tailgate, scuffed alloys and various small chips and imperfections across the body as well as an interior that looked like it had been regularly assaulted by 3 children for the last eight and a half years. Needless to say that I wasn’t expecting much in the way of trade in prices but I thought the offer of £100 from the used car dealer was rather taking the proverbial – particularly when I realised that £100 was the cost for them to take it off our hands.

The way to get the best price for a second hand car is to sell it privately but this is a hassle. Aside from having to arrange for advertising, dealing with a succession of chancers and tyre kickers and arranging for test drives and so on there is no guarantee as to when the car will actually be sold – this is far from ideal when expecting to get a replacement car which will need taxing and insuring in its own right. The obvious alternative is to stick the car in an auction and that was my initial thought. It was only when I told Nina that I would trek into Glasgow to drop it off that she suggested “We Buy Any Car” who have those utterly irritating adverts on the TV (which obviously must have worked on some level). I’ve always been rather wary of these firms as they come across as being the aforementioned “chancers and tyre kickers” but the no obligation quote and appointment seemed fair enough and their estimate of valuation looked similar to the auction house with the added bonus that their fee was £50 less.

The initial valuation is based on the description of the car, which is the registration (giving the make, model and age) tied to declarations of the mileage, service history, outstanding finance and so on. There are then options to add imperfections which will reduce the price by a few pounds (for a simple chip) to several hundred for serious damage to body panels. This latter bit is where it gets a bit tricky as there is no check list as such and it is a case of the owner’s opinion of condition against their standard. I put on the things I could specifically remember and made a booking at the local outlet (which was a good deal more convenient than the auction house in Glasgow).

The first thing to say about the assessment is that there were no “chancers or tyre kickers” in sight. The man carrying out the assessment was both friendly and professional. Initially he checked that all my paperwork and documentation was in order and then went on to carry out an examination of the car. Some of his assessments were more severe than mine – where I had described the rear bumper as scuffed, he put it as dented (which it was) but he actually removed some of my assessments of interior damage as acceptable wear and tear given the age and mileage of the vehicle. The only mechanical check (which he jokingly described as “an extensive test drive”) was to start the car, reverse it by two metres, drive it forward two meters and apply the brake. The only major item I had missed from my assessment were the scraped alloy wheels which I had forgotten about, mainly because when I examine a wheel I am more concerned about the condition of the tyres. However, as a bonus he marked my “partial service history” as full because, although I had lost the original service book with the dealer stamps in, I had a full set of service receipts.

The final figure that I was given wasn’t too bad. It was slightly below the auction house estimate but, once the fees were taken into account this was less than £100 difference with the bonus that it was all done and dusted on the day and I was not running the risk of a no sale. I was also saved the inconvenience of getting back from Glasgow on my own steam. I decided it would be a good opportunity to take the dog on a long walk so I wandered back home with a whippet on one hand and my magic beans in the other. Needless to say that it rained on us torrentially. So, would I recommend “We Buy Any Car”? On my experience, yes, although I think it helps to set one’s expectations fairly low. In my circumstances it was a good service and a reasonable deal and given that the initial valuation is online and free it wouldn’t be a bad idea to do this before visiting a dealer just to see whether they are taking the proverbial or not. Above all, it's a good way of avoiding the "chancers and tyre kickers" altogether.

Golf Mk 6: Wearing Bits Out

I had my car MOTed a couple of weeks ago. It passed without any remedial work although there was an advisory about a “light misting of oil on the front shock absorber”. I did ask what that meant and was told it was nothing to worry about. However, if that is the case, why did they bother to stick it on?

It’s worth pointing out that the car wouldn’t have passed if I hadn’t replaced the front windscreen wipers. The rubber on one of them had started to come apart and the other was slightly streaky. Given that these were the original factory fit items that had been through five Winters I can have few complaints about their service and given that the replacement Bosch Wipers were £16 for the pair and easy to fit it seems like a reasonable cost.

The only other thing to come up recently was a warning light for a faulty bulb which turned out to be the reversing light. I’d asked the garage to replace this before doing the MOT but, as it turned out, the bulb hadn’t blown but had simply worked loose. They fixed it by simply taking it out and shoving it back in again; it sounds like one of my standard fixes for errant computers. So overall I looked set for another year of motoring. That is until last weekend when I felt the rear end of the car do something a bit odd at a roundabout. When I stopped at the supermarket carpark I discovered the cause: a huge screw which had become lodged in the sidewall of the tyre. It was also raining by this time so I had to resort to my Incredible Hulk impression to put the spare on.

The car now has just under 57,000 miles on it and the tyres were the original factory fit ones. I’ve been using Winter tyres for a few months each year so I’d estimate that they had covered around 40 – 45 ,000 miles on their own and they were all between 2-3mm of tread so I had been considering changing them at some point anyway. As it is, I went for the Michelin CrossClimate+ tyres which are marketed as a Summer tyre with Winter capability, which is advertising-speak for all-weather tyres although they are approved for German Winter use. So far they seem fine and a definite improvement in the wet (which may just be the extra tread). I’ll have to see whether they are any good in the Winter but I do still have a set of Winter wheels if needed – and if I don’t need them I’ll probably have to find a new home for them.

Change, my dear...

Change, my dear, and not a moment too soon? (As Colin Baker’s newly regenerated Doctor once said). I have to say I was somewhat shocked at the announcement of Jodie Whittaker as the next Doctor. In fact, I was mildly irritated as I was needing to drive from Liverpool back up to Scotland and delayed my journey when it became apparent that Roger Federer would win Wimbledon in double quick time only to have to endure the long-winded trophy ceremony, some extended clips from BBC Sport and Boris Becker prattling on in the studio before we got a minute long clip to introduce the new Doctor that appeared to resemble a Scottish Widows commercial. Well, to paraphrase Charlton Heston in The Planet of the Apes: “Oh my God! They finally really did it!”

I did ponder about the possibility of a female Doctor back in February when Peter Capaldi announced he was leaving. I did get a couple of things right with that (such as the new Doctor would be someone from Broadchurch.) I think my concern back then was that they would plump for a stunt-casting exercise to try and boost the viewing figures. They have done this before, notably when they invited Kylie Minogue to appear in a Christmas episode. That had record viewing figures but most of those extra festive viewers soon disappeared and I could hardly blame them for what was a rather poor episode (aside from the excellent Bernard Cribbins – a somewhat more inspired casting decision). Had they chosen someone like Miranda Hart or Sue Perkins as the new Doctor I think it would have been a shameless stunt but this is not the case with Jodie Whittaker. She is a serious actor and the couple of things I’ve seen her in were pretty good (Black Mirror and Attack the Block). I’m also prepared to forget her appearance in St Trinian’s as I have chosen to wipe that travesty remake of a beloved 1950’s British comedy completely from my mind.

After the initial shock of the announcement of the New Who I’ve rather come to like the idea. My children are somewhat mixed on it: Raymond is fine with the casting but would have preferred to find out on Christmas Day, Sophia seems fairly nonplussed about it and Jake’s main concern was that they would paint the TARDIS pink. The odd thing is that this isn’t actually the biggest change they have ever had in the show. It is arguable that changing the lead actor for the first time was the biggest change as that had never been the original intention but the biggest change actually came in the early 1970s when it changed from being the adventures of a mysterious alien roaming time and space to a somewhat less mysterious alien acting as a scientific advisor to a military unit investigating paranormal and extra-terrestrial threats around England’s home counties. It has changes several times since but casting a female Doctor should shake up the dynamics of the show and keep it fresh.

I think what finally sold me on the idea were comments that Chris Chibnall made that he had wanted a female Doctor for a while – which means that he has a proper dramatic concept for the programme rather than being under pressure from the BBC or pandering to whims from commentators without regard to any dramatic concept. What will be telling is who the new companions are. I rather like the Doctor to have a boy/girl pairing (Steven/Vicki, Ben/Polly, Jamie/Victoria or even Amy/Rory) and I could see it working very well with a female Doctor. Remember that the stories are usually told from the companions perspective so regardless of the choice of lead actor they will influence what we see on screen. Of course, we will have to wait and see Jodie and the new team in action but I, for one, am looking forward to it.

Bremerhaven Maritime Museum

It’s been a few years since we managed a holiday overseas (if you discount Orkney). We ended up organising a more traditional family seaside holiday on the Butjadingen peninsula next to the North Sea. It’s actually quite a relaxing way to spend a week but aside from swimming in the water amongst the beasties and trying to fathom weird Friesian accents (a seemingly bizarre cross between German and Geordie) I did take a chance to see the famed Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum – the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven.

The German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven - The Rau IX is one of the ships that can be visited.

The museum itself is fascinating with various exibits including the remains of the Bremen Cog, a trading vessel dating back to 1380 which was discovred in the Weser in the 1960s. However the museum covers all ages of shipping from the ancient to the modern with both commercial and military vessels included. Some of the exibits are fully restored vessels which are located in the docks outside and are mostly accessible without a care for health and safety (as I discovered when frequently bashing my head on things).

The Bremen Cog from 1380 - discovered in 1962.

A one-man mini-submarine. Having had a look inside, this is not one for the claustrophobic.

This replica of a paddle steamer is inside the main museum building.

Additionally, there is a fully restored World War II U-boat, the Wilhelm Bauer (or U-2540 as it was originally designated). It has a rather colourful history as it was barely used during the war and was scuttled in May 1945. It was eventually raised and refitted for use by the German Federal Navy in the 1960s before being turned into a museum ship in the 1980s. The design of ship was influential as they were the first submarines designed to operate primarily underwater rather than for brief periods to escape detection. The design was used by the Royal Navy for all their post-war diesel-electric subs up until the Falklands conflict (although it was the nuclear powered ones that were the mainstay by then.) Having had a good crawl around inside I can only say that life beneath the ocean waves must have been hellish.

Wilhelm Bauer / U2540

The U-Boot commanders leather jacket - great if you want to cosplay as Jürgen Prochnow or the 9th Doctor. I suppose it depends on one's cultural references.

The dining area on the U-Boot. This was actually far more cramped than it looks in the picture.

This exhibit is actually a restaurant. It's also much more spacious than the U-Boot.

The Doctor Falls

The Doctor Falls – at least we know he will be gone on Christmas Day and I’m rather missing him already. This last series of Doctor Who has, to my mind, been the best since the series returned. A seeming match of great writing, smart direction and perfect performances from the cast without a single duff episode has made this a memorable swansong for Steven Moffat , Peter Capaldi and (presumably) Pearl Mackie and Matt Lucas in their respective roles.

The finales of Doctor who are, more often than not, something of a let-down – a great leading episode  with an unsatisfactory resolution or a simple anti-climax. Not this year: The World Enough and Time was a superb origin story for the Cybermen (there have been more than one both on screen and elsewhere) which really captured the body horror of the whole concept. Aside from the original Cyberman story, The Tenth Planet which aired way back in 1966, the Cybermen have appeared to be more armoured robots than living entities. This year we started to see the full process starting with simple life support devices, through the sight of the human features disappearing under fabric until the recognisable Cybermen appeared. Tellingly, this was not on a random side character but on the Doctor’s beloved companion – someone who we felt empathy and affection for.

I do try my best to avoid spoilers but I knew from the BBC’s own previews that John Simm’s master was returning. Even knowing that, I genuinely didn’t spot his disguise until the reveal. Having started out with Roger Delgado’s original Master I should have seen that coming but the reveal was a genuine delight. However, the confrontation between the Master and Missy was more intriguing. Was Missy genuinely trying to be good like the Doctor and would the Master really prefer to be dead than good? There were hints as to the origin of the Doctor-Master rivalry but still not a satisfactory explanation of why they were to turn Good/Bad other than to preserve some sort of balance to the universe. That’s one for another day or, like the Doctor’s real name, a question that should probably never be answered.

The Doctor Falls felt epic in the sort of way that Sergio Leone Spaghetti Westerns do. In fact there was an element of Murray Gold’s score that aped The Ecstasy of Gold from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. In a way the episode had a similar theme to many of the classic Westerns with our heroes sacrificing everything to protect a small rural community from a relentless onslaught of marauding bandits. What really grabbed my attention with this was the section with the Cyber-converted Bill slowly discovering the reality of what had happened to her. For a packed episode this was a wonderfully slow paced sequence and again captured the true essence of the horror of the Cybermen. Maybe the eventual “blow ‘em all up” solution was a bit too obvious but ultimately the defeat of the enemy was not what this episode was all about. Was the eventual conclusion for Bill a little bit of a sentimental cop-out? Possibly, but at the same time it felt like a fitting resolution to Bill’s story – it’s just a pity that we have only had her for the one series.

I ended up having to re-watch the last 5 minutes on the iPlayer as BBC Scotland messed up the sound but this was where our Doctor finally fell: fighting off regeneration until the second (thankfully spoiler-avoided) surprise reveal which places our Doctor back in 1966 - possibly in Antarctica? William Hartnell was ill during the production of Tenth Planet and missed the filming for the third episode. As a nice piece of retrofit could the First Doctor have been away meeting the Twelfth? David Bradley played William Hartnell in the docudrama An Adventure in Space and Time. It was a wonderful production and Bradley was astonishingly accurate as Hartnell – he is probably better known for Game of Thrones or Harry Potter but he is one of our great character actors and it should make for a Christmas episode to remember. It will be Capaldi and Moffat’s last outing and should be a fitting conclusion to one of Doctor Who’s greatest eras.

Easy Being Green?

My fixed price gas and energy deal ran out at the end of last month. I managed to get quite lucky with this as the fixed price was lower than the cheapest new deals for almost all of the contract period which is quite fortunate as the contract had a £50 early termination fee. However, having looked at the supplier's new tariffs it would have cost me a hefty £500 per annum to renew with their latest fixed rate so I said a quick Auf Wiedersehen to them and headed off to the comparison sites.

Often the fixed rate deals are amongst the cheapest which, on the face of it, doesn’t make that much sense as it is the supplier who is taking most of the risk with price fluctuations. However, it is the early termination fees that really ties people in which rather explains why people will stick with a fixed deal when prices are dropping. The curious thing I found, though, is that when I did the search the best price was for an energy supplier that had no early termination fee, had variable rates and provided all its electricity from renewable sources.

In fact, it wasn’t just the top one but several of the cheapest electricity providers were all-renewable (or should that be “sustainable” so as not to break the second law of thermodynamics?). It could be that this is something of a marketing ploy but it could also be that the cost of “green” energy is actually getting pretty competitive. Certainly, solar panels are no longer a rare sight on domestic homes and I can see four wind turbines from the end of my garden. The transmission costs alone of this electricity are presumably far cheaper than the nearest coal fired power station which I believe is somewhere in Yorkshire.

So, as it was, I went with the cheap variable rate firm which is a somewhat hippy-dippy outfit called bulb.co.uk and even managed to get another £50 off my bill by clicking on a refer-a-friend link (I’ve never met the guy but he is presumably £50 better off as well now). This sort of viral marketing seems to be quite common but I’ll not look a gift horse in the mouth. If anyone want to give it a go my referral is this https://join.bulb.co.uk/join/quote/rod1556 although I’d strongly suggest checking a comparison site first such as https://www.uswitch.com/.

Anyway, just before I posted this I noticed an email saying that they have reduced my standing charge. Maybe variable rate deals have their advantages after all?

The Eaters of Light

I had a bit of a heads-up about last week’s Doctor Who a fortnight ago which involved a trip to a Thai restaurant. We had gone there for Saturday night dinner and Nina saw a couple that she has known for a number of years. They asked us whether we were going anywhere after the restaurant and we informed them that we had an appointment with the good Doctor. They said that they were watching this series of Doctor Who intently as an old friend of theirs was writing an episode. This rather intrigued me as I tried to place who it could be: presumably a Scottish writer and presumably not Steven Moffat who writes more than the odd episode. I quickly narrowed it down to Rona Munro.

Nina’s friends were rather taken aback that I knew the name. At first they thought I must know her. I don’t know her personally but I certainly do know of her as she wrote the last ever episode of Doctor Who’s original series, Survival, and is a very respected writer both before and since that. I did glean from them that the episode was set in Scotland and involved the fate of the infamous Ninth Legion of the Roman Army. Also I was told that it involved ancient cairns which doubly appealed to me as crawling around Neolithic monuments is something of a passion of mine.

So what did I think of The Eaters of Light? Basically, I loved it. It had very much a feeling of Classic Who in that it was a stand-alone story but incorporated a Sci-Fi concept around a real historical mystery: the disappearance of the Ninth. Similar things have been done a number of times over the years but it has the effect of routing a fantastical story into very solid historical roots. Admittedly, this was obviously filmed in Wales rather than Scotland but to me that didn’t matter as the performances from the cast more than allowed for this suspension of disbelief. I also rather liked the idea that Neolithic monuments were aligned to the Sun to deal with phantom beasties rather than the probable truth which is that they were accurate, if somewhat unwieldy, scientific instruments to determine the seasons.

It’s worth noting that Rona Munro is the only Doctor Who writer to have written for both the old and new series. This also means that she has the longest time between consecutive stories at almost 28 years. Let’s hope that we don’t have to wait as long for her next episode. The two part finale now looks fascinating. We are also past the Summer solstice so our days, as well as those of the twelfth Doctor, are beginning to draw in.

Memories of the Absurd

I think I’ve written about starting to watch Doctor Who as a child before. I was very young (pre-school) but ended up watching it with some older cousins who we were staying with that were mad keen on it. From looking at old holiday photo albums (along with the broadcast dates) the first serial that I would have seen featured the Daleks but the one that really stuck in my mind was one that featured the Ice Warriors along with a thing in a washing machine called Arcturis and a squeaky-voiced green creature, called Alpha Centauri, consisting of a cloak, with a huge bulbous head, featuring one giant eye. I may have been young but the absurdity of this menagerie of weirdness clearly struck a chord – I was hooked.

Last Saturday’s episode, The Empress of Mars, also featured the Ice Warriors now emerging from their extended hibernation by a group of Victorian colonial soldiers.  All rather steam-punk (and not cyber-punk as I erroneously first typed!) and very much in keeping with the inventive weirdness that one would associate with Doctor Who. Like the last Ice Warrior adventure, also penned by Mark Gatiss, this saw the Martians as a noble warrior race rather than the alien invaders of the Patrick Troughton years or the galactic peacekeepers that I was introduced with through Jon Pertwee. What this episode ultimately delivered, though, was a link between the two eras. Very nice for long-term nerdy fans like me but, at the same time, not taking away anything from the casual viewer who may not have remembered episodes from the late 1960s or early 1970s.

I think this was one of Mark Gatiss’s better episodes and much more accessible than last year’s Sleep No More. It may also be his last as he has indicated that he doesn’t intend to write for the new show-runner so it’s nice that he has been able to go out on a high. I think the Ice Warriors actually make a good foe simply because they are not just a monster to be defeated. They have their own agenda and are ultimately a martial race but, at the same time, they are capable of reason and a sense of justice. The humans were shown with a reckless stupidity but, at the same time, could be seen to witness the consequences of their actions. I also really loved the Ice Warriors guns. The original weapon made a shrieking sound accompanied by migraine inducing electronic effects on the screen but these, compacting their victims into a ball, were truly original.

However, it was the ending with a cameo by the one-eyed wonder of Alpha Centauri that really stirred memories of the absurd. I was also delighted to discover that this squeaky wonder was voiced by Ysanne Churchman who performed the roll back in 1972 – she is now in her 90s. This, of course, nicely filled the gap between the 60s and 70s Ice Warrior stories and the inclusion of Missy at the end also seems to be hinting at resolving another missing chapter regarding the true nature of the relationship between the Doctor and Master. This Saturday sees the Doctor closer to home, Scotland in fact. I actually had a little inside info on that one but for now I’ll stay schtum.

The Monks Trilogy

I haven’t written about Doctor Who as such for a few weeks. Partly this was due to other distractions but mainly because I wanted to see how the “Monks” trilogy panned out. I’ve been intrigued as to where it was going and in the end it didn’t quite resolve as I expected. Initially, I thought the whole thing was going to explore a “brain in the box” type scenario in which the protagonists are stuck in a virtual reality but aren’t aware of it. In a way, the first episode was this but the others were actually a more interesting and relevant concept: what is truth?

What is the real threat of tyranny? It is possible to force people to act against their will through threats and violence but is it possible to force people to think against their will? We are constantly bombarded with messages to try and influence our thought but what if those messages are a complete distortion of facts. We see this every day with obviously verifiable scientific facts denied by those with their own agenda: whether this is climate change, evolution, carcinogens or whatever else that threatens the position of those in power. What happens when those lies and denials are aimed at things that are not so easily verifiable: we know, ourselves, that we are being lied to and the truth is as we remember it but how does one actually prove it?

So how did the Monks trilogy play this? First things first, I’ll say that this was too long. This has always been a fault with Doctor Who – even back in the day there were many 6-parters (a similar length to a modern 3-parter) that would have been better paced as a 4-parter. The only time that these do work is when the three episodes actually tell completely different stories and the Monks didn’t. In particular, I thought the middle episode didn’t really add anything to the overall story or, at least, it could easily have been merged into the first. Also, the whole concept of the Doctor’s blindness was thrown away for no really good reason. Again, I thought this was to be a major point in the stories resolution in that only the blind can see the truth. Unfortunately, that was discarded for no particularly good reason when the plot ran out of steam.

Having said all that, I did actually enjoy the whole thing and in no small part this was down to the performances of the leads. Really for the first time it felt that the Doctor, Bill and Nardole were an actual team and the revelation of the vault containing Missy, whilst not entirely unexpected, did introduce a particularly intriguing side of the character that has needed exploring: is she actually evil or is (s)he capable of redemption. The humour in the episodes was also spot on – the scene with the Pope crashing Bill’s date had me in fits. The false regeneration scene was also a good red herring. I had wondered whether this would form part of the series arc but it still had me fooled for a moment.

The monks themselves felt rather like a generic Who monster: rather zombiesque (we have seen this with the Silence) and lacking a motive other than ruling the universe. I did wonder, mainly due to the way that they spoke, whether they could be the forerunners to the Mondasian Cybermen which would make sense in terms of their rotten appearance but their modus operandi didn’t seem to match. However, we do know that the men from Mondas are returning later in the series so this is still a possibility.

This weekend sees the return of the Ice Warriors under the pen of Mark Gatiss. He did a really good job with them last time and as far as Doctor Who monsters go they are just that bit more interesting as we never know whether they are going to be good, bad or somewhere in between.

Weak and Wobbly

There is now less than a week to go until the snap (and largely unwanted) General Election. At the moment it doesn’t seem to be quite going as the Tory party envisaged although I have a great mistrust of opinion polling: these sample polls are meant to gauge public opinion but I suspect they are being used to try and lead it: in England, the polls may be overstating the Labour Party’s support to try and frighten soft-Conservative voters not to flirt with Jeremy Corbyn. In Scotland, I think they may be understating Labour and overstating Tory support to try and hoodwink pro-union Labour supporters to vote blue. All this is backed up with an astonishing tirade of slurs, misinformation and downright lies about their opponents. One should ask oneself who is behind this and who stands to gain from it? The only one thing I can say that is true is: Vote Tory, get Tory.

What surprises me in all this is how a party that has lurched as far to the right as the Conservatives have managed to maintain such high poll ratings. Supposedly this is somehow related to the popularity of Theresa May and her robotic “Strong and Stable” message. I can’t see anything remotely strong or stable about her. She is seemingly incapable of streaming a sequence of words together that resemble a reasoned argument and only manages to utter sentences at random that have been pre-programmed into her. This, remember, is the woman that is supposedly meant to be negotiating Britain’s withdrawal from the EU with some of the continent’s best trade negotiators and leading academics. As for stability she has been buffeted around by the deranged bigotry of UKIP and blowing in the wind of whatever whims sociopathic, billionaire media moguls spew in her direction. She is quite the opposite of strong and stable: she is weak and wobbly. Does anyone seriously want to leave her in charge of the country? Personally I think it would be taking a major risk leaving her in charge of the tombola at the village fete.

The problem with all this lies, largely, with our first-past-the-post voting system. It takes a great deal of momentum to even have a chance of being elected in the first place so the only real chance of forcing an extreme political view is to either threaten to take away the votes of a major party in protest (as UKIP have done) or to infiltrate one of the major parties itself. This has been happening to the Conservative party for a long time. At one time the consensus of the party was that of “One Nation Conservatism” a pragmatic, centre-right philosophy intended to be broadly appealing to the masses – largely similar in nature to Christian Democratic parties in mainland Europe. The change seems to have started in the late 1970s with the rise of Thatcherism and a rejection of the post-war consensus. Her successor, John Major, was a One Nation Conservative but by then the damage was already done, notable by his problems with the “SH1Ts.”

There are still a small number of One Nation Conservatives left (the Tory Reform Group is a dwindling band of these) but increasingly they have become dominated by post-Thatcherite rogues and scoundrels. Many have joined simply for the opportunities afforded for deception and theft from the state. In a more proportional electoral system these freaks of political nature would have been flung out to the extremities simply because they would have been forced to create a new party or the system would have moderated them out from mainstream politics. The problem for the country is that there are many people who hold perfectly reasonable right-of-centre political views that have nowhere to land their crosses on election day. The last centre-right leader (or at least he started that way) was probably Tony Blair but I can see that those who hold a moderate centre-right viewpoint may be initially sceptical of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour. However, for once, I think they should look at what the Tory party has actually become.

Since returning to power in 2010 the Tories have been a disaster for the UK. They claim to want to balance the books but since they have gained power they have doubled the national debt with absolutely nothing to show for it. They have enriched the very wealthiest in society at the cost of everyone else. Initially, it has been the poorest in society who have paid for this: the sick and disabled and those unable to find reasonably paid and secure labour through no fault of their own. They have run the infrastructure into the ground with the health service and education taking the brunt. Their intentions have now been laid bare in that they intend to move on to the moderately well off, in particular those pensioners who have managed to buy their own homes over their lifetimes by removing any assets they have via the dementia tax. Meanwhile, they are forcing an increasingly large number of people into outrageously expensive rented accommodation with little chance to afford their own home. The rents largely benefit a small minority of rich property and land owners. This is not One Nation Conservatism; it is a return to feudalism.

The question is, what can we do to actually rectify this? In the long term, electoral reform must be a priority but that is little help with less than a week to go. I think the real answer is to hang the parliament. Now it must be tempting to take that as meaning a mass execution of the political classes but it is perfectly possible that we may end up with no one party in overall control which could force a return to the centre – particularly as the Liberal Democratic Party could hold sway in any hung situation and are likely to press for the much needed electoral reform. So what I would say is that unless you are convinced that your local Conservative MP is of the centre-right One Nation persuasion to vote for the “Anyone but Tory candidate”. This may mean Labour voting Lib-Dem or Lib-Dem voting Labour or even everyone throwing their weight behind a Green, SNP or Plaid Cymru candidate. There are various websites giving a guide to this such as this one: www.tactical2017.com

So I won’t make any predictions as to what we will wake up to next Friday but I am hoping for a seriously curtailed Tory party. My only prediction is regarding the current Prime Minister whose days must surely be numbered: June will see the end of May.