One more week of Election! OMG! nonsense to go and today the Tory press are more outraged by a grumpy powerful man calling an old woman a bigot but not to her face than they are about proper mad dangerous bigots. Tabloid Watch wrote a good piece about this so I shall direct you there with a clicky link rather than witter on about it.

I crave an end to the poxy leaflets that keep on coming through our door. The Conservative one was generic, the Labour one was boring, the BNP one was full of rotters and a time travelling Angry Churchill, and the token ’eccentric’ local independent candidate with too much publicity budget just baffled me as they didn’t really say anything about anything except that they were not a politician but had some nice photos of a cinema/theatre/whatever and some countryside and thought that more non-politicians should go into politics, thus creating an odd contradiction. I’ll stick with the Lib Dems as per usual then, and never the Tories because, even though it is obvious:

1. I love being married to my man and I am sure this would not have happened under a Tory government.

2. I would never wish to be in the same gang as charming people like Melanie Phillips, Simon Heffer, Amanda Platell and Jim Davidson.

3. I don’t want anything bad happening to the BBC *cough*Tories*cough*Murdoch*

4. I remember the last time they were in charge. I didn’t like it very much.

5. If the Daily Mail wants a Conservative government then that in itself is reason enough not to.

Leaflets! :

Oh yes I am such a second class citizen what with being a white man oh boo hoo hoo. Churchill looks unamused by his guest role in the fascist tea party and who can blame him? First the Daleks and now this, the poor bugger.

Talking of Daleks:

The Green Party are using Skaro’s finest to get your vote. Whoah. Someone should use The Doctor in their campaign:

Hmmm… the son of a classic Doctor and the voice of another more recent Doctor? What do the Lib Dems have? Susan Foreman?

No, just Nick. If only he had worn that Cyberman voice changer helmet that I’ve got.

Cool stuff everywhere today. Not a mishap with milk but more new music and video things came to my attention, which was surprising considering how busy I am with Bloody Christmas In April projects in the office. Oh don’t ask, I’m not mad or even out of synch with the rest of the world, it’s a publishing thing which will calm down soon. I could also  go on about the “Bigoted Woman” Fiasco which took over the riveting rolling news (perfect fodder for that) and the internet (oh the outrage) but I won’t as I can’t be bothered and had these delightful things below to look at instead.  Happy thoughts!

Thanks to Paul Fizzypop’s plugging of her music and Rod Brightlight’s working with her and remixing of her, I tried a bit of Nerina Pallot and found her to be surprisingly to my taste. Maybe she had an annoying single once that put me off? I don’t know but the recent single is a lovely blast of Summer pop and there’s a Bright Light Bright Light remix (free!) that is also damn fine:

In brand new music news The Divine Comedy are back! Almost!

At The Indie Disco is out soon and there’s an album on the way. I remember indie discos well… I think  it must have been in the 1990s.

Nick from #1 Hits From Another Planet has done a big old review of that Foxy Shazam album I was raving about the other week and very good it is too. Album trailer:

Chorusy, isn’t it?

Just watched a new TV pilot and liked it: It’s an American show called Gravity and is on the Starz channel (home of the great Party Down) and is floating around on the interwebs too. A darkly comic drama about a support group for people who failed to commit suicide doesn’t sound very funny but it showed promise in an odd kind of way. The trailer was way too schmaltzy so here’s a video of interviews and clips instead:

The theme tune is by Sarah Bareilles and is, shockingly, the song Gravity from her album: the one I liked but no bugger bought. Ah well. Gravity stars Krysten Ritter (aka  Gia in Veronica Mars and Jane in Breaking Bad, and playing another messed-up character here) and Ivan Sergei (from top odd film  The Opposite of Sex) plus some other men and women, one of whom used to be married to Rod Stewart.

It wouldn’t be a blog from me without a Doctor Who moment and this trailer for a very forthcoming DVD (next year) got me  feeling all 1982 (when I really got mad on the programme):

Also of note for Mara fans is this forthcoming Big Finish play. Oh yes.

Episode four already? Time flies and all that. Lovely to see the return of River Song as she brings a certain camp fun agenda to things (shoes, handbag, sonic gun etc) and made me think that an action figure box set of River, Amy and Liz 10 would be a surefire win for the gays next Christmas. Having her and the Doctor meeting all out of sequence is an  obvious but rarely-used idea when you consider the lack of organisation you would have if you actually travelled in time ( I may have thought about this a bit too much) so I like where this has been going but am half hoping they reveal  her big secret this time round. But then there’s her new big secret too, it’s like a bloody weird version of Eastenders or something. Anyway, the episode itself was a good old adventure and the two parter aspect certainly improved on the rushing-about-headless-chicken pacing that sometimes blighted parts of the last few episodes.

The Angels are back and still as creepy as ever, especially with the new gimmick which I won’t mention here. No Robbie Williams cameo thankfully, only That Bloke From The Streets. Shockingly, Doctor Who Confidential resisted using the turgid Angels song which was very unlike them, so that was all lovely and nice.  Good plug for the forthcoming computer game (again), I am a child in many ways so shall be wasting time with that whenever it goes online.

Next week: The River & Pond show continues! Water palava (apologies). Back to the crack and more scary statues, hurrah! Hope a cartoon Graham Norton doesn’t pop up again and make me shout rude things at the telly, he has not yet been forgiven for the audio ‘accidental cameo’ in Rose. Well Father Noel was last seen in those caves so anything is possible…

18 days too late to be an April Fool…

There is a crack in the Fanwank/Doctor Who spin-off continuum! Jo Grant aka The Actress Katy Manning is teaming up with Sarah Jane in her new series, as well as some bloke called the Doctor, apparently. What are the chances of that happening (again)? I have already accidentally seen The Scry Picture teice today since this announcement and will not be showing it here, I can tell you. Click it if you want to know more. Are you sure?

PS It’s written by Russell ‘Tea?’ Davies. No, really.

Jo moments:

Ms Katy Manning moments:



Marvellous.

So… hmmm…

Victory of the Daleks was rather rushed, wasn’t it? I hope this isn’t going to be a recurring problem and I’m not suggesting a return to the old days of the 7 x 25 minute episodes where a companion would spend half an hour lost down a hole and end the episode screaming at an inept rubber monster but the pacing of that one was all over the place. I got confused as to how/why those pesky Daleks (who had survived total destruction! Again!) did the whole remake/resurrection/ paint job thing on their ship but liked the use of a yummy biscuit as a way of temporarily fooling the evil pepperpots. The new design is very 60s Dalek movies and I like it but it smells too much of a merchandising opportunity to have that many different colours. A Mail reader would of course call them “diversity Nazis” without a hint of irony but who would take that seriously?

Initiating pantomime mode.

If the episode had been an hour long we could have explored the WW2 world a little bit more rather than just doing the “ooh the Daleks are nice: cups of tea and folders and… oops. Evil now” thing. I liked Churchill and not just because he said “backs to the wall” and pronounced “Naaaahzis” a bit like Brian Butterfield. This episode felt more like a Russell T Davies era one with the return of the ‘aren’t humans great?’ theme saving the day and preventing robot armageddon. Phew. All in all I can only give this a score of 7 as it was too much like a series of gimmicks (space bubble spitfire bad science, even if it did look cool) and toy adverts for my liking. Next week we get the first part of a double episode with some other (better) returning characters:



Right, I’m off to pre-order the inevitable 8 Dalek toy gift set. Because I’m worth it.

There was some kind of big debate on ITV this evening as apparently some men want you to like them by saying what they think  you want to hear. One of them thinks married people are better so they deserve extra pocket money, which is quite nice (speaking as a married person with a superiority complex) but it’s actually a load of old wank when you think about it. Not just because we earn too much to qualidy for the married people are best reverse-tax maneouvre. This is a far better big debate:

I would vote for Terry if he was in the election. Is he?

In other news, my new toy arrived in the post:

I will get them out of the box tomorrow and have a little play. Oh yes. Nothing  wrong with that sort of thing.

Mostly Doctor Who nonsense again, as you might expect…

This video excites the inner child in me:

Those Doctor 11 action figures are rather hard to find. Damnit. Nothing in Forbidden Planet last Friday which I went to with the lovely That Cheryl before her birthday drinks and eats in Fancy Soho. Nice pub but Friday night in Dean Street made me flashback to when I could tolerate the crowds and noise i.e. 15 years ago. Such an old man these days, went home a bit early with the husband for a nice cup of tea and a sit down. My own miniature plastic Matt Smith should be in the post and I look forward to playing with it soon.

Bleeding Cool has some interesting Doctor Who timey wimey plot arc theories and this image is heavily involved:

The fact that it is of a man’s bottom is pure coincidence, I swear.

BBC Archive site has some great archive (obviously) material that is well worth a look. Lots of information about audience reaction to new Doctors… can you guess which one got the worst reaction?

Hmm… McCoy’s face says it all really.

The clip below intrigued me last night on the telly. BBC soap doing a sensitive storyline about gay kids with cockerney hardmen local gangster dads?

Or just more soap nonsense?

In other geeky news: Joss Whedon to direct Avengers film? The Marvel comic, not the British TV series that has already had one terrible film.

Talking of comics…

No the X-Men are not reading one of the mutant spin-off comics, it’s more of a brown stuff hitting spinny whizzy thing situation.

Doom Patrol is still the place to go for oddball DC characters. Danny The Brick is in the current issue but he’s not really talking much Polari unlike when he was a whole street. Shame.

No special cake this week as it would be a bit of an effort to do that for every episode (not that I made it anyway) … but once again I thoroughly enjoyed a new episode of Doctor Who. No surprises there, I don’t want this blog to turn into a gushing love fest in the style of Russell T Davies (lovely man) but until / if it all goes horribly wrong (yeah right)  I am very impressed with the new series. I am not going to write an essay about The Beast Below, just some thoughts:

Amy is pretty fantastic, isn’t she? Beating Martha and Rose in my Nu-Who companions chart, if such a thing actually existed. She never feels forced or clunky, which is nice. I assume she’ll get some proper clothes next week? I am sure some viewers enjoyed her in a wet nightie even if it was covered in alien sick as some people like that sort of thing. I might have a little crush on Matt Smith but I couldn’t possibly confirm. 

The TARDIS is a bit 60s and so is the new structure of the episodes with a little scene leading into the next story. Good William Hartnelly style idea to revive, I like it. Wonder if this is a permanent thing? 

“I’m the bloody Queen, mate!” Liz 10 was great. Always been a fan of Sophie Okonedo and not just because she was a kind of  companion in that kind of Doctor Who that everyone else has forgotten:

For a while Richard E Grant was the real 9th Doctor. Really.

The Star Wars ‘dialogue homage’ and an appearance by The Demon Headmaster made this very geeky, and I felt it could have benefited with  a longer running time as some aspects were rather rushed. That’s the thing with the new version: sometimes it’s all over too quickly, in contrast to some of the older stories which went on for what felt like several days. That’ll teach me to watch The Horns of Nimon with a mild hangover.

Space whales are a good old reliable sci-fi idea, seen in places such as that old X-Men story from the 80s (I am talking about the Acanti) and an unmade Doctor Who story from around the same time called The Space Whale which has 2000AD connections and went through several incarnations until it was abandoned. It’s been re-jigged once again and is one of Big Finish’s Lost Stories, coming out on CD quite soon under the new title Song of the Megaptera.

Next week:

What?

Also of interest:

Games? Me? And games? Interesting!

When not going mad over Christmas 2010 deadlines at work (in April. APRIL) this week I have mostly been listening to music and thinking “I should mention that in my blog.” But not in quotation marks obviously as I didn’t say it out loud. So…

Ray Mang featuring Lady Miss Kier: Bulletproof is rather funky and poppy and just damn fine:

Dee-lightful etc etc.

Tommy D (friend of David McAlmont, producer of loads of great pop and Sugarcubes remixer from way back) has a new band called Graffiti 6:

I realised afterwards that it’s the same band who did the terrible viral video with the stripping traffic warden thing but the music is good so all is forgiven.

Husband Jamie recommended Codeine Velvet Club and I liked them enough to buy their album:


Didn’t realise the man was the man from the Fratellis, who get on my nerves. Still, let’s leave the judgementals to the Daily Mail and call them the equivalent Last Shadow Puppets spin-off project.

Suzanne Vega did Tom’s Diner with The Roots on American telly:

I used to work in a (motorway) diner but never made up songs about it. A song about the manageress who was scared of transvestites despite being a strapping 6 foot (ish) burly lady herself, the old evil customer couple who we used to torment back by turning off the lights when they were in the toilets or the numerous randy grannies who used to work there might be interesting but not that interesting.

Other geeky stuff of interest:

Someone I don’t know (from the internet) painted Battlestar Galactica character faces on some eggs for Easter.  As you would.

Someone I do know (my friend Adam) made his annual Doctor Who launch night cake: this year’s was an Adiose which ended up featuring in a very nice blog dedicated to Doctor Who related baked goods. Yes really: look! It tasted as good as it looks.

So… pretty unanimous opinions abound that the new Doctor Who was really very good. Even the specific breed of ‘high class’ (in their opinion) tabloids seemed to like it but it wouldn’t be grumpy whiney tabloid bollocks without some ‘Outrage!’ angle, would it? Step forward the Daily Mail (who else?) with a story designed to whip up a bit of choking on leftover hot cross buns which ended up being cut & pasted almost word for word by the equally quality Telegraph a bit later on. Or was it the other way around? This timey wimey nonsense is not helped by their odd habit of ‘updating’ the online stories throughout the day and not crediting the writer on one of them. Anyway, what was the outrage about this time?

Doctor Who’s new girl ‘too sexy’ … for her shirt? Car? Cat? Hat? What does the Mail think about that?

See? Slutty! Mail readers need to be shown these offending legs so they can whip themselves up into a frenzy about it! No mention of beefcake Jeff and his laptop porn being alluded to in a “kids show” though, I wonder why? And what of this ‘flood of comments on online message boards’? Well, they managed to find two examples among the thousands in existence: 

Writing about Amy, one viewer in an online forum asked: ‘Why did she dress up as a tarty policewoman? Surely that’s not fitting for a family show.’

Another said: ‘They’ve completely demeaned Doctor Who by replacing good episode stories with slutty girls.’

Shame the majority of the readers of this flimsy article saw it for what it is, I was looking forward to ‘AMY POND has ROOIND this once great nation with her slutty LEGZ!’ but it was mostly not to be…

Miserable? Oh the irony of that comment.

Even a gaylord such as myself appreciates those legs.

So says the man commenting on an online message board.

Eileen won’t be getting a visit from Santa any more.

Bravo Jim Diamond!