Something Something Gallifrey

What people usually ask me soon after Christmas Day: "Did you watch Doctor Who?" followed by "Did you enjoy it?"

What everyone asked me this year: "Did you watch Doctor Who?" followed by "Did you understand it?"

"The Time of the Doctor" by Steven Moffat, directed by Jamie Payne. Spoilers after the cut.

Dick Twittington 41: Fops on the tube

This week on my Twitter feed, bits of a theatre fall down, and programming at another one stops making sense.

Writing my American Psycho review; meanwhile the team at the next bank of desks is getting VERY excited about their new business cards.
10:37 AM - 18 Dec 13

@TootingGareth I wanted to do a #themorethingschange hashtag but the character limit was against me.
11:29 AM - 18 Dec 13

Theatre review: American Psycho http://partially-obstructed-view.blogspot.com/2013/12/theatre-review-american-psycho.html
1 RETWEET
11:54 AM - 18 Dec 13

Let Zygons be bygones

Yes, this post did take a little while for me to get round to. Still, I got there before the next episode aired (just.)

It's not often people on the internet agree about anything, let alone Doctor Who, but it seems to have worked in the case of "The Day of the Doctor," the 50th anniversary special - and indeed all the surrounding programming spread around the BBC.

"The Day of the Doctor" by Steven Moffat, directed by Nick Hurran. Spoilers after the cut.

Dick Twittington 40: Turned on beyond endurance

This week is a non-stop parade of filth on my Twitter feed.

Catching up with Only Connect. Hywel naming mathematical terms is strangely arousing.
1 FAVORITE
2:58 PM - 11 Dec 13

@bridgetorr I'm genuinely baffled by Twitter wetting its knickers over Kester and not noticing Hywel's existence.
3:11 PM - 11 Dec 13


"He needs to show me more respect innit - I'm his friend's best friend's cousin!" #overheardonthebus
9:33 PM - 12 Dec 13

Book review: Love All The People

I moved to the UK in 1993, and Bill Hicks died in early 1994, so I never got a feel for the huge popularity the US comedian had been building up over here. Having heard a lot about him subsequently I've watched a few performances to see what the fuss was about, and now read the book Love All The People, a collection of his writings and transcripts of his recorded performances. Although I feel like the angry but strangely loving comedian is someone whose influence and reputation is well-deserved, the book is irritating because the editors haven't really done any actual editing - the same routines are repeated in transcripts from various performances. The justification given is that it's to allow people to see how the same material evolved over time, but you'd have to be a real Hicks obsessive to want to re-read the same routine half a dozen times with small variations, so after a while there was a lot of pages getting skipped. Interesting man though.

Dick Twittington 39: Mexican vampires

This week on my Twitter feed included my birthday, but I kept quiet about that.

Well, I'm pretty sure there's nothing anyone on the internet will have Strongly Worded Opinions about today.
8:54 AM - 4 Dec 13

Jeez, Sean Foley's doing all right for himself lately isn't he? *other theatre directors are available*
3:15 PM - 5 Dec 13

Sloane Square http://twitpic.com/dno23a
3:17 PM - 5 Dec 13

Dick Twittington 38: Invisible trumpet

This week on my Twitter feed, something or other gets The Gaiety all excited. Can't imagine what.

Thought I saw Sam Claflin jogging but it was just some bloke. Good job I didn't shout out "YOU'RE NOT PRETTY ENOUGH TO BE FINNICK!"
9:16 AM - 27 Nov 13


Rargh Expressionism, look at me being an Expressionist, smell my Expressionzzz #intervaltweets
8:41 PM - 27 Nov 13

Just seen police tell off a cyclist for riding on the pavement. Marvellous.
9:25 AM - 28 Nov 13

Book review: Waking Nightmares

Waking Nightmares is the fifth in Christopher Golden's Shadow Saga series of books, that follows a post-Church world where the measures put into place to keep the supernatural at bay have been lost, and alternate dimensions now regularly creep into this one.

This time around the magician Peter Octavian is called upon to deal with an ancient chaos goddess who's been reawakened in an small college town, with the help of three women, a witch, a vampire, and a seemingly normal human with a family connection to the events. This is another fun supernatural thriller although it's very obvious The Shadow Saga is now something completely different than it originally was - the first three books were a separate trilogy with an ongoing epic sweep and huge cast of characters, but from the fourth book on it's been practically a reboot into a series of standalone adventures. Still good, but not quite what it was when I started reading the series.