Monthly Archives: November 2013

How the FIFA rankings work Thanks to redfiona99!(tags: fifa mathematics )

Westerosi Recipes Yum (possibly).(tags: cooking ) The End of Hypocrisy American Foreign Policy in the Age of Leaks(tags: uspolitics internet humanrights ) BBC: Giant prehistoric toilet unearthed Links to three more BBC stories about poo.(tags: fossils )

Lots of driving = less reading than sometimes. Current The Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss Eyeless in Gaza, by Aldous Huxley About Time: The Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who, 2005-2006; Series 1 & 2, by Tat Wood Last books … Continue reading →

Stop Digital Arms Trade EU technology used to crush dissent.(tags: eu ) The Perils of Backseat Negotiating, by Christopher R. Hill A sane take on the Iran talks.(tags: politics ) Lee Harvey Oswald Was My Friend A personal reminiscence.(tags: jfk … Continue reading →

L. Michel: des amendements menaçant la vie privée déposés à son insu This doesn’t really make Michel look much better…(tags: belgium eu ) EU and Ukraine: What went wrong? @apsyrtus asks, Who lost Ukraine?(tags: ukraine eu ) 7 Little Known … Continue reading →

Drowning Kiribati A gripping report from the front line where climate change is winning.(tags: climatechange ) Can you pick the language in which the given sentence is written? I got 10/11.(tags: languages ) ‘The Worst of the Worst’ – by … Continue reading →

The BBC3 Doctor Who Afterparty included some of the worst television I have seen for a long time. (I don't watch much television of course.) Someone on Twitter commented that: #doctorwho was fantastic. The BBC3 'afterparty' on the other hand … Continue reading →

Well, what a couple of days. When it was announced that Day of the Doctor would be shown in cinemas as well as on TV last night, I felt a brief stab of disappointment that there would be none in … Continue reading →

Settiai’s reaction, with discussions (tags: doctorwho ) Reaction post by paratti (tags: doctorwho ) Reaction from beccaelizabeth (tags: doctorwho ) Reaction from qatsi (tags: doctorwho ) Reaction from andrewducker (tags: doctorwho ) Reaction from chicafrom3 (tags: doctorwho ) Reaction from … Continue reading →

Scottish independence: Dr Who claim dismissed One less thing to worry about!(tags: scotland doctorwho ) Doctor Who’s Jewish roots I knew most, but not all, of these.(tags: doctorwho ) Ireland and Doctor Who (Éire agus an Dochtúir Cé) Reposting my … Continue reading →

Security Innovation Releases NTRU Public Key Cryptography to Open-Source Community to help fend off looming “Cryptopocalypse” My brother moving things.(tags: crypto ) Oswald and the Curtain Rods This is pretty conclusive for me.(tags: jfk )

Russian Officer: We Would Intervene In Karabakh Against Azerbaijan The frozen conflict heating up another notch.(tags: nagornokarabakh ) 1912 eighth grade exam: Could you make it to high school in 1912? I got 86%. One round was particularly good for … Continue reading →

Current Reamde, by Neal Stephenson Jacob Have I Loved, by Katherine Paterson The Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss [Doctor Who] Dark Progeny, by Steve Emmerson About Time: The Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who, 2005-2006; Series 1 & 2, by … Continue reading →

Please can I come over and watch it with you, and then crash on spare bed or sofa before disappearing at an ungodly hour on Friday morning to catch my plane back to Brussels?

Delegate Detective Jac Rayner (@GirlFromBlupo) tries to work out which galactic delegate is which!!!(tags: doctorwho ) Walled world (tags: westernsahara ) let’s play a game “I will have to ask you to provide essentially all the raw materials, plus shielding … Continue reading →

Association Européene des Jeunes Entrepreneurs, by @JonWorth Strasbourg astrorturf!!!(tags: eu ) ▶ Doctor Who Animation – 50 Years in Time and Space Nice.(tags: doctorwho videos ) Does pursuing investment protection in TTIP signal more transatlantic mistrust? A corrective to Monbiot.(tags: … Continue reading →

British author Doris Lessing reacts to Nobel win “Oh, Christ!”(tags: literature death ) Did McDonald’s change their coffee stirrers because they were being used for cocaine? Yes.(tags: snopes ) Lee Harvey’s Oldest 1995 interview with June Oswald.(tags: jfk ) Welcome … Continue reading →

A New Adventure novel featuring the Seventh Doctor with Roz, Chris and Benny as companions, landing on a planet where there are various human colonists in distress and conflicting AIs trying to restore the status quo, of which the key … Continue reading →

There seems to be a bit of a trend of books about people doing pointless things (eg How To Sharpen Pencils

For me as teenage reader, the Foundation trilogy was one of my gateways to science fiction, and I later read various of Asimov’s other works (some written up here and here, but also including some of his non-fiction and detective … Continue reading →

More reading for me in my slowly progressing Tudor history project, this is a study of how the leadership of the English government maintained an intelligence service to protect the realm, in particular the Cecils and Sir Francis Walsingham. I’ll … Continue reading →

Catching up now with my November bookblogging. I won’t waste too much time on this one; a Third Doctor / Jo story from the rather variable Telos novella range, which attempts to retell A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Whovian terms. … Continue reading →

It's the end – but the moment has been prepared for! 2013 TV The Bells of Saint John The Rings of Akhaten Cold War Hide Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS The Crimson Horror Nightmare in Silver The Name … Continue reading →

Terrible real estate agent photographs What it says.(tags: photos ) Quiz: What Do You Know About Moldova? Ashamed to say I got two wrong.(tags: moldova )

Having praised both the Sarah Jane Adventures on television and the associated audiobooks, I thought I should try the 11 novelisations – the pilot, the five stories of the first season, the first two from the second season, one from … Continue reading →

I used to be really into the Fables series, but this had been languishing on my shelves for some time and I realised after reading it that I had actually skipped a volume and not noticed. The title story is … Continue reading →

After the excellent Blue Lotus, The Black Island is a bit of a step backwards for Tintin; he is shot and wounded ion the first page, and then chases a group of forgers to Scotland by a series of improbable … Continue reading →

The penultimate in the series of short Who ebooks for the 50th anniversary (the last of which, by Neil Gaiman, comes out today week) takes the Tenth Doctor and Martha to a place very similar to the Land of Fiction … Continue reading →

November is halfway over, and I haven’t finished bookblogging for October yet; so there follows a series of hasty write-ups for books which would have got longer reviews without travel and pressure of other work. Equal Rites is the first … Continue reading →

So, I've been a Big Finish subscriber for a number of years, but somehow never got around to reading their freebie magazine, Vortex – I find magazine in general difficult to read with my middle-aged eyes, and this comes on … Continue reading →