Christmas Links #1
Here we are again. Advent calendars are up, the Christmas tree is booked for the 18th December and it's time for twenty odd days of solid gold (if somewhat tarnished) content on the blog. We'll see how this goes, I'll try to keep things as COVID free as possible. As ever if you have some project or article you'd like me to plug (and it doesn't necessarily have to be Christmassy) tweet or email me through the usual channels and our editorial team will decide if it should make the cut. Ahem.
Festive treats and perfect soundtracks this Christmas across BBC Radio & BBC Sounds:
"This Christmas, across BBC Radio and BBC Sounds, we’ll provide the perfect soundtrack to the celebrations, with a raft of content bringing festive treats and music for every mood."
Christmas isn’t Christmas ‘til You Toast With Rompopo:
"Does Belize have an official Christmas drink? You bet. It’s called Rompopo and it’s so close to eggnog you could have a hard time telling them apart—-until you ask for seconds!"
Micro Live: Xmas 1985:
"The last of the present series of reports on the new developments in information technology."
Our favourite Christmas poems:
"A time for family, friends, festivities and an undeniable sense of childhood nostalgia, the Christmas season brings with it so many sentiments. We’ve chosen a selection of our favourite Christmas poetry, from funny Christmas poems, to moving festive verses and some Christmas poems for kids, all perfect for reading by the fire over the festive season."
The Nativity at Night by Geertgen tot Sint Jans at the National Gallery, London:
"This painting tells the traditional Christmas story – how Christ was born in a stable, and his mother ‘laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them at the inn’ (Luke 2: 7). The infant Christ, lying in the manger, is watched over by Mary, Joseph and adoring angels, while an ox and donkey peer out of the darkness behind."
How to get out of your work’s depressing Zoom Christmas party:
"The pandemic means the annual office Christmas party is getting a digital twist, and employees are scrambling to come up with excuses at a time when lockdown makes that difficult."
Why arguments about when Christmas starts are as old as the hills:
"Analysis: as history shows, preventing trees, lights, tinsel and baubles appearing earlier and earlier has been nigh on impossible."
Daze Before Christmas:
"Daze Before Christmas is a video game developed by Norwegian video game development company Funcom and originally released by Sunsoft onto the Sega Mega Drive in 1994 exclusively in Australia. A version was also released for the Super NES both in Europe (only in Germany) and Australia. A North American release was planned however it was canceled. It is one of the last games to be released by Sunsoft's USA division. The game is one of the few Christmas-themed video games to see commercial release."
The Snowman Belongs To A Shared Cinematic Universe:
"The Snowman is an animated holiday classic, but it also belongs to an early form of shared cinematic universe — with somewhat troubling implications."
Let’s Settle This: A Unified Theory to Define “Christmas Movies”:
"Okay, internet. Let’s settle this once and for all: What exactly IS a “Christmas movie?” It’s a debate that’s torn families apart and continues to send internet armies to war. From Die Hard and Iron Man 3 to Home Alone and White Christmas, how do we decide what films get the title of “Christmas Movie”? I propose formulating a unified theory so we can finally get to the bottom of this debate."
Fresno Fire urging community to be safe when putting up Christmas lights:
"Black Friday may be known as the biggest shopping holiday of the year, but many see the day as getting the green light to put up the Christmas lights."
Christmas in Canterbury, 1963 from the Screen Archive South West: "John Clague's colourful film captures those last exciting days before Christmas – with Christmas trees and Christmas lights all ready for the big switch-on."
Frosty the Snowman visits Beef-A-Roo customers:
"Customers at the Beef-A-Roo on Riverside Blvd. got to meet a special guest on Friday!"
York Christmas tree lights up Downing Street:
"Local firm York Christmas Trees won the honour of providing the Downing Street Christmas Tree after winning Champion Christmas Tree Grower of the Year."
The Time War 4.
Palindrome
Much like the previous box, this feels like a way of telling the story of a recurring character without trying to sell something within their own series but on this occasion it feels as though that's what Big Finish should have done. For two whole episodes of this boxed set, Davros is the protagonist and although the story is sound and Terry Malloy's performance incredibly compelling, I paid my twenty-odd pounds for the Eighth Doctor to be front and centre rather than an incidental figure. There are half a dozen other boxed sets which offer that. Not to mention that there's an inevitability to the conclusion when a lighter, more forgiving touch might have been in order.
Dreadshade
The Eighth Doctor has amnesia. Again. Fortunately on this occasion he's not the only one so we get to enjoy an amnesia episode as the Time Lords forget who they've been fighting and make huge assumptions about who that might be. Perhaps of most interest is Bliss, a creation of the war with a shaky fix on her individual reality who now remembers her alternative version's participation in the Companion Piece episode of Ravenous 3. Due to the release schedule, it's been difficult to warm to Bliss, but she's fresh, resourceful and incredibly funny in place and stands as a contrast to the rather sullen and "realistic" Liv and Helen.
Restoration of the Daleks
Of course. As you know I'm less enamored of the jargon soup adventures in which various Daleks and Time Lord factions have incomprehensible battles, with various "gods" shouting at each other, Nick Briggs destroying his lower vocal range through his ring modulator. But in the midst of the multi-dimensional Dalek nonsense, there's some incredibly squeesome moments of foreshadowing setting up the revival period not to mention looking backwards towards the golden era of "The Eighth Doctor Adventures" ("The Seventh Dimension!" Dingy-dingy-dong). If there is another chunk of these Time War stories, can we have some more reportage from the fringes of the war, about how it effects other peoples in the galaxy?
Lockdown Links 2.3
One Touch Of Love: 20 Years Of Sugababes' Debut Album:
"Perhaps the most definitive opening statement of any British girl group..."
Sugababes' Keisha Buchanan Shares Amazing Throwback Photo As Band Celebrates Big Anniversary:
""Literal babes," Keisha tweeted, alongside an incredible photo of herself and her bandmates."
DuckTales Has Blown My Dang Mind:
"Disney’s shockingly excellent reboot of DuckTales has given us countless joys: The introduction of Huey, Dewey, and Louie’s mother Della; David Tennant voicing Scrooge McDuck; and the origin of Chip and Dale and the Rescue Rangers, just to name a few. But the series has also given me a scene that changed everything I thought I knew about Disney cartoons, if not my very existence."
Georgia On My Mind:
"The suburbs of Atlanta, where I grew up in an era still scarred by segregation, have transformed in ways that helped deliver Joe Biden the presidency. But some things never change."
Dozy dormouse gets stuck in garden bird feeder on the Isle of Wight:
"A dozy dormouse could not believe its luck when it managed to squeeze inside a bird feeder for a feast - only to fall asleep and get stuck."
10 of the best Christmas songs (that aren’t by Mariah Carey):
"The classics are back in the charts even earlier than usual – alongside the perennial row about the Pogues. So why not discover these lesser-known festive bangers?"
A Canadian Town Is a Festive Anywhere, U.S.A., Onscreen:
"With its mix of 19th-century historic buildings and a ’50s diner, Almonte in Ontario has been the go-to location for holiday movies set in Vermont, Alaska and even Milwaukee."
Liverpool Biennial
2020 2021:
Press Launch.
Art What with one thing or another, this year's Liverpool Biennial has been postponed until next year. The opening date of next March still feels relatively optimistic, contingent on good distribution of a vaccine and relying on volunteers enforcing COVID safe rules. Nevertheless, it's full steam ahead and the press launch was this morning.
I forgot.
After falling asleep in the chair post-porridge as usual (its an anxiety exhaustion thing) then going for my morning walk to get the paper and listen to last night's The Rachel Maddow Show and all the outrage about Michael Flynn's pardon it slipped what's left of my mind.
Fortunately, since piling up to a hundred people into an education room at Tate Liverpool or the Playhouse theatre isn't really possible or ideal right now, the programme has been made available via a recorded stream (uncomfortably positioned above because Vimeo hates embeds) and a list of artists and a press release about one of the venues.
So no photographs of half eaten croissant or confusion over embargoes. About an hour ago I clicked the watch link on the video and that's all the "on the scene" blogging colour you're going to get because that's all there is. Dammit 2020.
After the underwhelming mishmash of 2018 (which I didn't even review on here because of the Thumper rule), the Biennial now has a whole new creative team led by director Fatos Üstek, with this year's show guest curated by Manuela Moscoso of the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City and a veteran of numerous other Biennials.
This year's title is "The Stomach and the Port" and a theme of "the body" and "notions of the body and ways of connecting with the world" which is a return to the non-specific open tent approach of some of the best of the Biennials in which it is up to the spectator to speculate on how the works are connected to one another.
As ever, I'm trying to keep myself relatively spoiler free although Jenna Sutela's work sounds as though it's going to be very impressive, with its reference to a specific type of mold. If it's anything like her PLANTSEX installation as featured in this Serpentine video, I only hope there's some decent chairs and an adequate toilet, because I'll be in front of it for hours.
The introductory page has a list of venues, all the old favourites including some which essentially opted out of 2018 or have previously only been inhabited by the Independents strand:
Yes! In a return to previous Biennial adventures in semi-derelict edifices, part of this year's show will be on two floors of the Lewis's building with an impressive sixteen artist's work which suggests this will be a massive space. The Biennial programme is presented in locations across Liverpool, including public spaces, historic sites and the city’s leading art venues: Bluecoat, Liverpool Central Library, Cotton Exchange Building, Exchange Flags, FACT, National Museums Liverpool, Open Eye Gallery, St George's Hall, Tate Liverpool and Victoria Gallery & Museum. New for 2021, Liverpool Biennial’s reach will also expand to the city’s historic Lewis’s Building.
Other than that, there isn't much else about how this will be structured, where Bloomberg New Contemporaries will reside, that sort of thing. Looks like City States is now gone for good but its last hoorah at Copperas Hill was a worthy conclusion and I should probably move on.
I'm incredibly optimistic about this new installment. It feels more accessible somehow and a return to some old principles. We'll see. I just hope that in these blighted times this new body is able to show itself in all of its glory.
Stranded 1.
Audio "Oh hello Earth Arc II!" was my first reaction on hearing that the next big mid-era Eighth Doctor series would see him stuck on Earth with a broken TARDIS. The details differ, of course. We're presumably not going to see him experience a deep expanse of time, he doesn't have amnesia yet and he's trying to keep a relative low profile (although appearing on a game show should catch the attention of a few old friends). Not to mention that this is very much the London 2020 of the revival series, drawing together elements from all the eras Big Finish currently have rights to and the proles not being especially surprised by the appearance of aliens.
The most notable difference with his other exile in the 70s (or was it the 80s?) is that Stranded is intensely interested in his living arrangements. This is Doctor Who does domestic, forcing him once again to interact with real human beings in close proximity having ended up being a landlord after his bolt hole on Baker Street has been turned into shared accommodation. In keeping with the Eighth Doctor he's not very good at it, but unlike some of his later incarnations he's not cruel just neglectful with Liv and Helen acting as an interface. But it works and the cast sound like they're having a wail of a time dealing with material which doesn't involve Time Lords or Daleks or both.
Lost Property
The set is right out of the gate with introducing the Doctor, just not the one we were expecting. You might expect them to hold Tom Baker's participation back for some reveal halfway through, but he's almost in the opening scene. If The Day of the Doctor was purposefully ambiguous about the identity of The Curator, Matt Fitton's script is entirely explicit. He is the Doctor, a future incarnation with the older Baker's face, in retirement protecting the Under Gallery and its treasures. After the events of The Timeless Children, we know the Doctor has an infinite number of potential incarnations - how far in the future is he from? His memory is still sharp, he recognises Liv and Helen, and has a view as what he thinks of the Eighth Doctor. Frankly this is all worth it just to hear Tom namedrop River Song.
Wild Animals
Considering Stranded was recorded last December, this insight into the Doctor's psyche feels incredibly timely. He feels trapped, walled off from the universe, a similar business to the Third Doctor, but his enunciation of his fears cuts to the core. He talks about the animals at the Zoo and how they have illusion of freedom because they're in large cages but its still captivity and how they fall into patterns of behaviour, routines. We all know that feeling, especially now. John Dorney also wrote the award winning Absent Friends and this shares its low-key emotional through line and investigation of needless tragedy. This is a rare occasion when for all of his god-like genius, the Doctor is essentially useless and knows it and but has to work hard for acceptance.
Must-See TV
If you'd told me when watching Torchwood's Everything Changes at the Filmwork in Manchester in 2006 that fifteen years later PC Andy would be the special guest star in an Eighth Doctor audio which also references that bloomin' organisation, I would have also asked you whether my liberal arts degree had been of any use and which companies to buy shares in. But there he is, Tom Price, all present and correct, interacting with the gang and trying to hide his knowledge of spooky-doos. Not having kept up with the Torchwood audios, I don't know whether he's still in the police or a full member or both, but it's rather brilliant how consistent his character is with what we've heard before. The rest of the episode is mainly set up for future entertainments - who is the mysterious Mr Bird and will he turn out to be the Master? Again?
Divine Intervention
One of my mistakes over the years has been to treat these boxed sets as complete entities and being quite cross when they bleed into one another or aren't simply a series of self contained stories. But on reflection, they're actually sixteen episode seasons structured like any modern bingeable series, with story arcs running throughout reaching a conclusion or explanation in the finale. So although this offers a few tantalising story elements for the future, this is really just episode four and shouldn't be given any more weight than that. A few mysteries have been established, the premise of the season has been set up and on this occasion without the need to dash off to another timeframe, characters are receiving far deeper development than usual. Thrilling stuff.
Placement: The usual.
Lockdown Links 2.2
Covid-19: Liverpool mass-testing finds 700 cases with no symptoms:
"Public Health England director Dr Susan Hopkins said nearly 100,000 people had been tested over the last 10 days. She stressed that these positive cases would have not been detected otherwise."
Ga. secretary of state says fellow Republicans are pressuring him to find ways to exclude legal ballots:
"Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday that he has come under increasing pressure in recent days from fellow Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), to question the validity of legally cast absentee ballots in an effort to reverse President Trump’s narrow loss in the state."
A holiday diamond in the rough: An oral history of The Family Stone:
"The star-studded cast revisits the making of their 2005 angsty Christmas classic."
Not My Job: We Quiz Comic Chelsea Peretti On The Chelsea Football Club:
"We've invited comic, writer and actor Chelsea Peretti — you may know her as self-involved administrator Gina Linetti from Brooklyn 99 — to answer three questions about The Chelsea Football Club, the English soccer team. Peretti's latest film is called Friendsgiving."
Keen to make new friends? Here are simple three techniques to try:
"I would love to have a friend who is like-minded and can give me their opinion when needed. Plus, my eldest child is going to start school next year, and it would be lovely if I had someone to share school tips with me."
Julia Stiles is “extremely embarrassed” by her stint on Ghostwriter
"A working actor since she was 11, Julia Stiles has spent literally all of her adult life in the public eye."
Been getting a lot of questions about the recent sale of my old masters. I hope this clears things up:
"I just wanted to check in and update you guys. As you know, for the pastr year I've been actively trying to regain ownership of my master recordings. With that goal in mind, my team attempted to enter into negotiations with Scooter Braun."
Universal Strikes Deal With Cinemark Allowing Movies to Premiere On-Demand Early:
"Under their terms, any movie that earns more than $50 million in opening weekend ticket sales has to stay in theaters for at least 31 days, or five weekends. All other titles can be made available to rent on digital platforms after just 17 days."
Three Studios, Three Strategies: How COVID-19 Turned Film Releases Into a Free-for-All:
"Studios were always competitors, but after the pandemic are they all in the same business?"
Academy Museum Gives Debbie Reynolds Her Due as a Costume Conservator:
"When the “Singin’ in the Rain” actress was alive, the film academy turned up its nose at her fabled costume collection. Now it has gone to her son with hat in hand."
"Under their terms, any movie that earns more than $50 million in opening weekend ticket sales has to stay in theaters for at least 31 days, or five weekends. All other titles can be made available to rent on digital platforms after just 17 days."
Three Studios, Three Strategies: How COVID-19 Turned Film Releases Into a Free-for-All:
"Studios were always competitors, but after the pandemic are they all in the same business?"
Academy Museum Gives Debbie Reynolds Her Due as a Costume Conservator:
"When the “Singin’ in the Rain” actress was alive, the film academy turned up its nose at her fabled costume collection. Now it has gone to her son with hat in hand."
She's back and it's about COVID-19.
TV News comes that Doctor Who is back in production but thanks to the all important COVID filming protocols we're now down to just eight episodes next season.
"Talking about the new series, showrunner Chris Chibnall says: “In this strangest of years, the Doctor Who production team have worked wonders to get the show back into production. We’re thrilled to be back making the show. Given the complexity of making Doctor Who, and with new and rigorous Covid working protocols, it’s going to take us a little longer to film each episode, meaning we expect to end up with eight episodes, rather than the usual eleven. But rest assured, the ambition, humour, fun and scares you expect from Doctor Who will all still be firmly in place. For everyone around the world, this is a challenging period - but the Doctor never shirks from a challenge!”"The press release is ambiguous about the duration of those eight or if they include a seasonal special or indeed when they'll be broadcast but at least we know a few television adventures are going to be banked. For obvious reasons there's also no news at all about whether it will just be Yaz travelling with the Doctor but given the shorter season that would make sense. Either way, the tv end of the franchise back up and running.
Lockdown Links 2.1
How long will our DVDs and Blu-rays last?
"We’re big fans of physical media here for our movies at home – but as Brendon reports, it’s not without a few problems."
"Walt Disney approached ‘Fantasia’ much the way Peter Jackson did his ‘Hobbit’ movies or Ang Lee ‘Gemini Man.’"
[Film Stories] Stanley Kubrick and Kirk Douglas wanted Doctor Zhivago movie rights:
"Director wrote to Boris Pasternak in late 1950s, previously unpublished material reveals." [The Guardian]
"A "rare" Shakespeare book being sold by Rugby School is estimated to fetch up to £50,000 at auction." [BBC News]
"Netflix started streaming all six seasons of the WB's "Dawson's Creek" for the first time. It was like the '90s all over again! But with one big difference: The old theme song, Paula Cole's "I Don't Want to Wait," had been replaced by Jann Arden's "Run Like Mad." [Huffington Post]
"A Storyville documentary. Pepe the Frog started life in 2005 as a cute cartoon character in an online comic. Today, he is known as an international hate symbol after being hijacked by the alt-right." [BBC iPlayer]
Biden, Biden, Biden, Biden, Biden.
Life Here we are then. He's gone. Or will be in three months.
Having been watching CNN solidly for three days, of course the moment happened when I wasn't in the house for various reasons. As is so often the case these days the news came via a tweet, or rather a stream of tweets as various news organisations called the race, once Joe's lead in Pennsylvania reached over thirty thousand.
My expectation was that it would be an anti-climax after all of the waiting and the surety of the moment.
It was not. It was one of the happiest moments of my young life and I'm 46 now.
The past four years have been exhausting. Waking up each morning and glancing through twitter and discovering what this attention sponge has said or done overnight, his every move sucking the joy out of everything.
Listening to his voice. Seeing that face.
He won't be gone. Not yet. The prospect of the next three months are terrifying as he does all he can to burn the house down. He won't go quietly and given the number of votes he won either way, he won't be completely gone from culture.
His supporters will still be out in force, angry about the libtards stealing the presidency from him. Or at least they will until the next shiny moon of toxicity drifts into view.
But more importantly, mainstream news organisations just won't have a reason to cover everything he says. For the most part, once he's not POTUS he'll be shouting into a metaphorical void and then hopefully, eventually, solitary confinement with its literal emptiness.
Plus once he's not a head of state, Twitter will be in a position to ban him. Finally.
But, despite everything else happening in this shitty world, 2020 has given us something back.
Perhaps Brexit can be reversed too and we can finally put 2016 behind us.
The Twenty-First Book I've Read This Year.
Although Haver does cover the gossip about Judy Garland's behaviour on and off set, much of the main section of the text describes the technical nitty-gritty of film making, the lighting, costume and photography. There are staggeringly detailed and completely fascinating discussions about the development of various screen ratios and how the film began in production on a cheaper Cinemascope knock off, Warnerscope, before that footage was scrapped and reshot in the more superior format. Similarly, Technicolour was not the original choice but the results were just too good to pass up which is why the film now has such a ravishing image.
On completion, A Star Is Born was just over three hours long and even at that length beloved by audiences and critics on initial release. But the bottom line men at the studio complained that it limited the number of showings per day and outside the supervision of the director George Cukor and any sense of film editing, went in an gutted the release prints to remove key blocks of scenes (including whole songs) reducing the running time by half an hour. Instructions were sent out to cinemas to replicate these changes and the cut footage was sent back to the studio for destruction.
A young Haver saw the shorter version and then spent the rest of his life on a quest to see the longer version, assuming it must be out there somewhere. With some friends and the eventual backing of the studio, he searched dozens of film vaults and connected with private collectors and although the key sequences were lost, he did find a complete audio track for the full version which became the basis for the reconstruction, a miraculous achievement in 1983, long before digital restoration. This is a first rate book for anyone interested in filmmaking history and the fight to preserve that history.
Oh Koquillion.
You might look like some kind of all purpose wheel replacement device sold at Halfords, but you're also the best monster in Doctor Who history.
Which is why it's a shame that you're not included in the new BBC Books publication The Monster Vault and indeed your lack of presence is a massive spoiler for your source story to anyone who hasn't seen it.
How I wish you'd been given the full page painting and voluminous text treatment anyway to give old school fans a wry smile and to double the surprise for newbies taking the pilgrimage for the first time.
But I understand why. Such projects already have a limited enough pagination and to go all that trouble for an inaccurate wheeze doesn't really make sense.
So by way of a replacement, here's an explanation as to why you're my favourite monster, lightly edited for its third appearance on this blog.
Across its two episodes, the otherwise unassuming 1964 adventure The Rescue was responsible for a number of firsts for Doctor Who.
The first introduction to a replacement companion, the Doctor’s grand daughter Susan having been left behind in the wake of The Dalek Invasion Of Earth the week before.
The first episode to appear in the top ten most-watched programmes of the week, which really is quite something when you consider this was at the height of Dalekmania.
The first planet visited by the Doctor that he’s claimed to have visited before. Apart from Earth.
The first occasion the Doctor explains how the TARDIS moves. We’re told for the first time that it doesn’t just land, it “materialises”.
Which isn’t bad considering its overall fan appreciation status. In Doctor Who Magazine’s 2009 survey, The Rescue came 127th.
Which is odd considering it contains one of the show’s best monsters and an amazing twist, which I’m about to give away so I’d urge you to look away now if you haven’t seen it yet. Yes, this is a spoiler alert for a 60s story.
Across its two episodes, the otherwise unassuming 1964 adventure The Rescue was responsible for a number of firsts for Doctor Who.
The first introduction to a replacement companion, the Doctor’s grand daughter Susan having been left behind in the wake of The Dalek Invasion Of Earth the week before.
The first episode to appear in the top ten most-watched programmes of the week, which really is quite something when you consider this was at the height of Dalekmania.
The first planet visited by the Doctor that he’s claimed to have visited before. Apart from Earth.
The first occasion the Doctor explains how the TARDIS moves. We’re told for the first time that it doesn’t just land, it “materialises”.
Which isn’t bad considering its overall fan appreciation status. In Doctor Who Magazine’s 2009 survey, The Rescue came 127th.
Which is odd considering it contains one of the show’s best monsters and an amazing twist, which I’m about to give away so I’d urge you to look away now if you haven’t seen it yet. Yes, this is a spoiler alert for a 60s story.
He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not (Time Lord Victorious).
With Brian the Assassin Ood from The Knight, The Fool and the Dead also in this new Big Finish series we're clearly on the road to explaining why the Eighth Doctor cropped up at the end of that novel, with the current Ninth Doctor strip in the parish circular setting up his side of that reveal. Having originally been a bit skeptical of this whole endeavor as a mild case of franchise hubris, the ingenuity of exec producer James Goss and his umbrella story has sucked me in.
Carrie Thompson's script is also incredibly strong. The Doctor, perhaps still hiding from the Time War, can't seem to be able to land in any of this old haunts and when he finally ends up in what he thinks is going to be a beautiful tourist attraction, it turns out to be a dust bowl, populated by the tropes of a spaghetti western. Cast as the man with no name he stumbles into town to try and save a couple of the run from their home and Brian's murderous orders to kill one and kidnap the other.
Comparisons with A Town Called Mercy are inevitable, although the Doctor is on a much clearer moral foundation and even specifically says he doesn't like guns which delights the younger version of me. The parallel story adds depth. Has the Tenth Doctor somehow changed history and Eighth is experiencing the ramifications? How does that effect the Time War? See what I mean? I'm fully on board now. I might even end up buying the Titan comics.
Placement: Before The Knight, The Fool and the Dead.
The Knight, The Fool and the Dead (Time Lord Victorious).
Steve Cole's novels seems to be at the epicentre. In the aftermath of The Waters of Mars, the Tenth Doctor runs from his mistakes into the Dark Times and discovers a race of beings, the Kotturoh are travelling the galaxy rewriting the DNA of other races to some master plan, potentially being the source of the very concept of death as its expressed in the Doctor's own time. He decides to stop them.
From the beginning we can tell that something has broken inside the Doctor, that without anyone to stop him, his usual benevolence has become infected by malignancy. He's sharper, more cantankerous, less patient and more than ever willing to trying to bend reality to his will if he believes its for the good of the cosmos and damn free will. In his head, the ends justify the means.
He's become the kind of figure that David Collings inhabited in the Big Finish Unbound story Full Fathom Five. Still the Doctor, but something is off and we can only imagine how Tennant would have played it, this whole portion of his life having almost been skipped over on screen ten years ago. So it's quite a bold step to make it the premise of a story which is ostensibly for children.
The Eighth Doctor's participation is limited to a flashback interlude perhaps set during the Big Finish strand of stories (I presume, I'm saving them) then a huge, barnstorming appearance at the end. Judging by his costuming on the cover of this book's sequel (coming soon!), it's his Time War iteration so he's traveled from one universe wide wave of destruction to participate in another. Busy life.
Steve Cole was series editor during Eighth's formative prose years and it's a pleasure to see him write the character again, coming across as a more meditative soul than his counterpart from four incarnations hence. He's more clearly defined here and closer to his Big Finish counterpart than in some of the short stories of recent years, which just demonstrates the co-ordination at play across this whole project.
Placement: Just before the first Big Finish Time War series?
Molly Haskell on Women.
Film After seeing a recommendation on the brilliant Be Kind Rewind YouTube channel my latest read is From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies by the film theorist and critic Molly Haskell. Haskell's best known for defining the "women's film" genre and this book is laser focused on not just how female characters developed but also how Hollywood abused the actresses playing them.
It's early days, we're still getting to know each other, but the first twenty pages are devastatingly good. There's a passage in which she talks about how male critics tend to give films a pass if they fancy the actress and pages pretty much burn as you read them. After lengthy quotes from Otis Ferguson's lubidinous prose about Margaret Sullivan, she takes aim at some of her other colleagues:
"For James Agee, it was after croaky-voiced actress, June Allyson, who could turn routine movies into musicals and musicals into masterpieces -- momentarily. To Ferhuson's and Agee's crushes (which he shares), Andrew Sarris adds a passion for Vivien Leigh which led him to see That Hamilton Woman eighty-five times. Vincent Canby has been known to make considerable allowances for the performances of Candice Bergen ..."
And so it goes on. Andrew Sarris (who helped develop auteur theory) incidentally was her then husband, they'd been married for five years and this is just the sort of insight you might expect from someone who's seen a particular film just too many times.
But the best paragraph so far is on the second page and defines the work which Haskell is committing to. It's quite long but worth repeating especially in the light of the current and past presidential elections and the treatment of female candidates by the media and opposition party.
"The prejudice against women is no less pernicious because it is based on a fallacy. Indeed, to have sanction by law and custom a judgement that goes against our instincts is the cornerstone of bad faith on which monuments of misunderstanding have erected. We can see that women live longer than men, give birth and endure pain bravely; yet they are the "weaker sex." They can read and write as well as men -- are actually more verbal according to aptitude tests. And they are encouraged to pursue advanced education as long as they don't forget their paramount destiny to marry and become mothers, an injunction that effectively dilutes intellectual concentration and discourages ambition. Women are not "real women" unless they marry and bear children, and even those without the inclination are often pressured into motherhood and just as often make a mess of it. The inequity is perpetuated as women transmit their sense of incompleteness to their daughters. But men, too, are victimized by the lie. Secretly they must wonder how they came to be entitled to their sense of superiority if it to these "inferior" creature to home they owe the debt of their existence. And defensively, they may feel "emasculated" by any show of strength or word of criticism from their nominal dependents."
That was written in 1973 and some of the language has dated. But glass ceilings still exist. Some women's careers still take a hit if they decide to have a family, perhaps even giving up their employment, their spouses still inoculated against such things. Pay parity is still being fought for. Fifty years on, the white male voice still feels loudest. Especially in cinema.
Taylor Swift endorses Joe Biden. Properly this time.
Politics Back on election day 2016, Taylor Swift posted a photograph of herself voting but despite the implications of the sweater she was wearing it wasn't until after election day that it was confirmed that she had voted for Hilary Clinton.
In the documentary Miss Americana, we see the back and forth with her management over how political she should be with Taylor clearly very angry that she'd essentially been muzzled by nervous men not wanting have her image tarnished with right wing fans (even though her silence had led a whole lot of racists to believe she was on their side).
It's been a long four years on this occasion time, Taylor isn't being subtle about it:
The article in the magazine or at least what must be a preview of it is on their website and she says pretty much what we're all thinking. We need this to stop.I spoke to @vmagazine about why I’ll be voting for Joe Biden for president. So apt that it’s come out on the night of the VP debate. Gonna be watching and supporting @KamalaHarris by yelling at the tv a lot. And I also have custom cookies 🍪💪😘
— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) October 7, 2020
📷 @inezandvinoodh pic.twitter.com/DByvIgKocr
How are we all?
Life One of the key blogging rules from back in the day was never to apologise for not posting for extended periods, just to blog. Which is correct, of course, so instead, I'll simply offer an explanation. What with one thing and another, I haven't felt the ability or need to write anything here, which has been a problem for a good couple of years but has been exacerbated more recently by the slow apocalypse and my own slightly fragile demeanor. One of the key elements of anxiety is fear and folks, I've been very, very frightened. Petrified in fact.
This came to a head on Monday in the local Spar shop on a garage forecourt. Regular Twitter readers will know I've been conducting something of a survey of the supermarkets in the area, trying to find somewhere close and safe so I can buy Mum her Liverpool Echo. Up until last week, we were getting it delivered and because we live in a tower block that meant the flat's intercom ringing at any time between three and five in the morning. After six months, not getting a full night's sleep was beginning to have adverse emotional effects.
Crazily this Spar seemed like the best option. Although its small and the staff don't wear masks, there are plastic screens at the counter and the geography of the isles mean its possible to ditch along them if someone comes into the place not wearing a mask either, which happens frequently because for the most part its drivers paying for their petrol who can't be bothered keeping everyone else safe for the brief time they're in the shop. Plus it has a large selection of groceries which is incredibly handy in such close proximity to home.
But all along I've never really felt properly safe in there, but put it down to not actually feeling safe anywhere outside my own home. Each shopping trip has felt like being a strategy game, having to navigate social distancing from people who don't really care about such things. Having to be constantly vigilant is tiring as is the feeling of being the only person taking all of this seriously even as the number of cases in Liverpool increases, feeling sometimes as though I'm being unnecessarily paranoid even though all evidence is to the contrary.
Anyway, back to Monday. Having waited long enough for the maskless to dissipate from the queuing area, I stood in line on the spot designated on the floor by a large circle with the Spar logo on it. Within moments a young man, earlier twenties. stands just a foot or two behind me. Already a bit wound up by the sheer bigness of things, I turn to him and ask him to step back and make some distance. He refuses, saying that he is distanced. Which. He. Isn't.
"Plus" I say, "You're not wearing a mask."
He isn't but I don't know why I added this, because he knew full well. At this point it's a choice not to. Asking someone to wear a mask has apparently become a huge deal - people don't like being told what to do by total strangers even if it's in their mutual best interest, even though by not wearing a mask they could be giving me a deadly, airborne disease.
"You don't have to...!" He screams back.
I'm seething. I'm next in the queue so I walk forward and plonk the newspaper and lolly ices I'm buying on the counter. Meanwhile I can hear the man talking to someone else, "That nob head telling me to wear a mask." The person he's talking to is wearing a face covering by the way. They're inches away from each other.
I turn my head slightly.
"Because it's mandatory to wear masks in shops!" I yell.
"No one asked for your opinion." He hollers back.
It's not an opinion, I want to tell him, it's a fact, but think better of it. My heart is pumping in my chest and I just want to get out of there. After months of keeping my mouth shut, the damn has burst and I've become the person I didn't want to be. For all I knew, there could be reasons why he personally couldn't wear a mask and Ive added to his nightmare. Perhaps I should be posting this to Reddit.
After paying, I turn to look around and notice again the small size of the premises, how few people are wearing masks or social distancing and I realise I've been deluding myself, making excuses against reality. This place really isn't a safe place to shop. Nowhere is, unless everyone is following the rules. There's always a chance of something going wrong, of spending just a little bit too much time breathing the same air as an undiagnosed super-spreader not wearing a mask.
When I was being signed off from the telephone CBT I received at the start of the lockdown, the psychologist said that she didn't really have anything to teach me because I already had most of the elements of knowing how to deal with the anxiety locked in, especially how to "solve" those problems which were causing me to tip over, but also how to do that in such a way that it doesn't stop being from gladding about.
This virus has rather changed that. In this case, one of the ways to stop myself to becoming overwhelmed is to shop online and top visiting supermarkets, even small ones. We did right the way through proper lockdown, but the ability to visit somewhere and choose things off the shelves offered a sense of normality when there's no such thing as normality right now. The attitudes of others make that impossible.
Now I've found a couple of newsagents were the staff do wear masks and there's perspex shielding all around the till area, limit customers and who take card payments. It's still a risk, but a small one and we've agreed that's better than not having a full night's sleep ever. Not to mention that it forces me to go out at least once a day and breath some fresh air, as best I can through the mask.
The other reason I haven't updated much is Blogger's horrible new interface which somehow makes the process of updating the blog a more laborious process. For a few weeks the "legacy" interface was still available through a hidden URL but that loophole has been blocked and it now redirects to this supposedly tablet friendly nightmare which hates HTML. Let's see if I can get this to post. Stay safe.
The Secret History of Writing.
Typical of the show's casual revelations is why we call the edge of the book its spine. This dates back to the original utility of vellum. In the series we see the scraping and stretching process on the cow hide but despite the craftsman's work, anatomical features of the animal's carcass can still be seen on the surface including the spine of the animal. It's at this point the pages are folded and hence the name we still use.
[iplayer]
The Nineteenth Book I've Read This Year.
Virtual Exhibition of restored elements of Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece.
- When you magnify an item, it appears in the aspect ration of the item not matter the shape which means when you zoom in, it's within that window, which can be tricky to look at.
- Also the tour includes the audio guide which suggests you press an A button for more detail. Except that would be on the physical guide machine and isn't available virtually.
Other than that it's an excellent way of seeing an exhibition which most of us wouldn't otherwise have access to.
There's also this curator's tour available:
What could happen during the Interregnum?
Politics This long read from The Atlantic outline the scary scenarios of what might happen after the US election now that we know that the current POTUS isn't interested in a peaceful transition of power:
"There is a cohort of close observers of our presidential elections, scholars and lawyers and political strategists, who find themselves in the uneasy position of intelligence analysts in the months before 9/11. As November 3 approaches, their screens are blinking red, alight with warnings that the political system does not know how to absorb. They see the obvious signs that we all see, but they also know subtle things that most of us do not. Something dangerous has hove into view, and the nation is lurching into its path."Between COVID-19, the no-deal Brexit and this, the three month between the end of November and January are going to put Western civilisation at a precipice politically and economically and I don't know if any of us are properly prepared for it.
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