My tweets

Posted on 3 January 2021 by fromtheheartofeurope

Sat, 12:56: RT @stphnfwlr: Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger puts out a statement deriding “failed treasure hunter” J. Johan Philyaw (aka…
Sat, 13:34: RT @khalafroula: This quote Iain Duncan Smith: “I just wish I was 21 again… My goodness what prospects lie ahead of us for young people…
Sat, 13:52: RT @CallidusDominus: @khalafroula @nwbrux Good god… IDS really is awful. I suppose lucky if you reached 21 under his misery architecture.
Sat, 14:48: RT @ChairmanYaffle: Excellent on #Brexit and well worth a read. https://t.co/clU9GlPSJH
Sat, 15:00: Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky The book has three stars – Raskolnikov himself, the actual criminal; Porfiry, the detective; and the city of St Petersburg, whose geography is a key part of the novel. #nwbooks https://t.co/458we8CrAK https://t.co/Jn5oUvagTy https://t.co/2dkMTq3GR5
Sat, 15:30: Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman Takes a new look at Gaiman’s old themes of family, death, divinity and identity and does it very well, with a dollop of humour. I creased up with laughter at the story about President Taft. #nwbooks https://t.co/ML4rIK5hYW https://t.co/K1eopPpAuX https://t.co/jV44bn8loe
Sat, 16:00: Macedonia, by Harvey Pekar and Heather Roberson, illustrated by Ed Piskor One or two of those depicted are people I know, though they are not named and their physical appearance in the book is quite different in real life #nwbooks https://t.co/vskqD2arIn https://t.co/OQa5vwOt5F https://t.co/mV58TcHu0n
Sat, 16:05: Dover voted 62:38 for Brexit, and now they are complaining that they have got what they asked for. https://t.co/qUGi00biQS
Sat, 16:30: The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates, by Des Ekin On 20 June 1631, pirates from Algiers descended on Baltimore in County Cork and kidnapped most of the population, selling them into slavery in Africa. #nwbooks https://t.co/W6hrJFT157 https://t.co/NXPKjkMoJj https://t.co/nWdpYDINTm
Sat, 17:00: The Next Generation, by John Francis Maguire MP It’s 1891! Women have had the vote for 20 years. Ireland has Home Rule, there’s a Channel Tunnel and steam-powered balloons. #nwbooks https://t.co/L8oZ0TCFSA https://t.co/wuhOysJWAJ https://t.co/ufKxSuBzFJ https://t.co/HwX5fBczgf

Sat, 17:30: Brave New Worlds, ed. John Joseph Adams I was struck by just how many of the stories focussed on future dystopian interference with reproductive or sexual rights. #nwbooks https://t.co/9TlC3F8OWE https://t.co/4R7FnDfhef https://t.co/jHdxKcADwp
Sat, 18:00: Wildthyme Beyond!, by Paul Magrs Iris and her peculiar friends are trapped in a parallel universe while on our Earth fans and pro writers of her adventures are uneasily interacting with each other and with her story. #nwbooks https://t.co/Mp8gGSgMq8 https://t.co/gA0uzkX7EB https://t.co/AnKPeL2VfZ
Sat, 18:15: Back to the Future https://t.co/vI5v4myMVE
Sat, 18:30: Ormeshadow, by Priya Sharma https://t.co/9eHdC23xtb
Sat, 20:48: Another triumph for the DUP! https://t.co/DRBQ8tZcNh
Sat, 23:33: RT @apcoworldwide: 2021 is a time for long, overdue change. This is the year when everyone needs to take a hard look at their commitments t…
Sun, 09:30: Whoniversaries 3 January https://t.co/FEKOGveBxP
Sun, 09:32: The first chapters of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the Philip K. Dick novel on which the film Blade Runner is based, are set on 3 January 2021. https://t.co/0lzu8JCQ9N
Sun, 10:42: RT @peterjbirks: @nwbrux I know I’ve mentioned this to you before, but the original printing (and also, I note, the 2007 Gollancz edition)…
Sun, 10:45: RT @schultzohio: This sentence says everything you need to know: “Not one of the Republican officeholders objecting to Biden’s victory hav…

Sun, 11:13: RT @timoconnorbl: @nwbrux @oconnellhugh @KeohaneDan And McCord’s case recently stresses just how wide the discretion is. https://t.co/jaK4D…

Whoniversaries 3 January

Posted on 3 January 2021 by fromtheheartofeurope

i) births and deaths

3 January 1920: birth of Peter Stephens, who played Cyril, the Kitchen Boy, and the Knave of Hearts in The Celestial Toymaker (First Doctor, 1966), and Lolem the high priest in The Underwater Menace (Second Doctor, 1967)

3 January 2017: death of Rodney Bennett, director of three Fourth Doctor stories – The Ark in Space (1975), The Sontaran Experiment (also 1975) and The Masque of Mandragora (1976).

ii) broadcast anniversaries

3 January 1970: broadcast of first episode of Spearhead from Space

3 January 1976: broadcast of first episode of The Brain of Morbius. The Doctor and Sarah land on the desolate planet of Karn. The sinister brain surgeon Solon drugs the Doctor and the mysterious Sisterhood take the Tardis.

3 January 1981: broadcast of first episode of Warrior's Gate. Biroc the Tharil escapes from Rorvik's ship; the Doctor, Romana, Adric and K9 arrive at the intersection between N-Space and E-Space.

3 January 1983: broadcast of first episode of Arc of Infinity, starting Season 20. Two backpackers in Amsterdam are terrorised by the Ergon; the Doctor is attacked by a strange being in the Tardis, goes to Gallifrey and is shot by his own future self's twin.

3 January 2009: Matt Smith is announced as the Eleventh Doctor.

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Ormeshadow, by Priya Sharma

Posted on 2 January 2021 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second paragraph of third chapter:

Gideon stood beside his father. The sun made a fuss of setting, bleeding red and orange into the sea. Gideon could smell salt. The vastness of the ocean was still new to him.

Towards the end of the year I'd been working through some of the short fiction submitted as part of the editors' section of the 2020 Hugo voter packet, but this is the first one that left enough of an impression to write up. It's a novella edited by Ellen Datlow (who was last to qualify for the final ballot for Hugo for Best Editor, Short Form, but went on to win the award by a pretty convincing margin). The author is a doctor from Cheshire, who doesn't seem to have written any novels as yet, but is getting well known in the horror community. Ormeshadow won Best Novella in the 2019 Shirley Jackson Awards (not a list I have been following, but maybe I should start paying more attention).

I thought it was really good. It's set at some point in the past (people travel by coach). The author says that "Despite the fantasy elements it’s about rural poverty, sibling rivalry, thwarted ambition, and abuse." The viewpoint character is a teenage boy whose family is forced to move back to his father's ancestral farm in Cheshire; there are murky local legends about the legacy of the Orme (dragon), but vicious present-day family dynamics as well. Intensely and convincingly done, and recommended. You can get it here.

This was my top unread book by a non-white author. Next is Into The Ashes, by Lee Murray.

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Back to the Future

Posted on 2 January 2021 by fromtheheartofeurope

Back to the Future won the 1986 Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentaton. Second place went to Ladyhawke, third to Cocoon, fourth to Brazil (the only other one I’ve seen) and fifth to Enemy Mine. Brazil is rather a cinematic triumph, but I'd have voted for Back to the Future for making me feel good. That was the year that Ender's Game won both Hugo and Nebula for Best Novel. IMDB users rate Back to the Future top film of 1985 on one ranking and second on the other. That year's Oscar winner, Out of Africa, is pretty far behind. (Back to the Future won an Oscar for Best Sound Effect Editing.)

Two returnees from previous fims I've watched in this sequence. Christopher Lloyd, Doc here, was mental hospital patient Taber in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ten years ago.

And Marc McClure, Marty’s brother Dave here, was Jimmy Olsen in Superman (and the sequels).

The film is a Bechdel fail – on the two occasions that Lorraine is talking to other women characters, it's about Marty. It does a bit better on race (a lot better than the average award-winning film), in that Donald Fullilove's Goldie Wilson is shown running for re-election as Mayor, though it's a little tin-eared that the white hero takes the place of the black man who has been injured rescuing him, and then helps to give Chuck Berry his sound (yeah, it's a time paradox, but even so it removes agency from Berry).

I just have to say something about the DeLorean. The factory where the cars were built was less than two miles from the house where I grew up in Belfast. For several years the British government desperately pumped taxpayers' money into the firm in order to bring peace by building cars that nobody actually bought. I have teenage memories of going past the factory in the train, noting the gleaming vehicles in the yard which always seemed to increase in number. Occasionally – very occasionally – we would see transporters loaded with the finished article going past our front door on their way to the docks. By the time Back to the Future came out, the DeLorean drama had ended badly, but it's a little heart-warming that these strange memorials to buying off the local warring factions have left a positive cultural legacy.

However, this is a brilliant film in general. Incredibly, I had not seen it before, and nor had young F; we were captivated from start to finish. I'm putting it at the top of my list, in fourth place after 2001 but before Blade Runner. The central plot of Marty facing personal extinction if he cannot get his parents together in 1955 is a complete sf cliche, but it is very well executed. In particular Crispin Glover and Lea Thompson are totally convincing in playing three different versions of the same two characters, in the past and in both versions of the present.

And the script is a delight as well as being beautifully delivered. The Ronald Reagan line is completely hilarious. Apparently when Reagan himself watched the film, he had the projection stopped and rewound so that he could enjoy the scene again.

Well, that was a promising start to my year’s write-ups of films (though admittedly we watched it last weekend when it was still 2020). The next year’s Hugo winner was Aliens, but first I will watch Out of Africa.

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My tweets

Posted on 2 January 2021 by fromtheheartofeurope

Fri, 13:20: RT @DouglasSloane: Cork is now the second largest English speaking city in the EU

Fri, 15:00: Eats Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss I think it’s all a bit exaggerated myself; I doubt that the level of literacy in general has deteriorated much in recent decades; what has happened is that more people are writing. #nwbooks https://t.co/Hcu7heMWOD https://t.co/6tyrSYKU7z https://t.co/MTFF9XHASS

Fri, 15:45: God’s Clockmaker: Richard of Wallingford and the Invention of Time, by John North The first half somehow doesn’t sparkle, but the second half is a completely superb summary of the state of knowledge in medieval physics. #nwbooks https://t.co/XKw08gz8P3 https://t.co/dd5zQKXRlf https://t.co/ZLLgsTT9y5

Fri, 16:05: RT @simoncoveney: Ireland takes seat on powerful UN Security Council, aiming to be ‘consensus builder’ https://t.co/XnEN5BvtCO

Fri, 16:30: Memoirs Of My Life, by Edward Gibbon Gibbon comes across as, of course, tremendously intelligent, but also rather modest: he expresses the hope, in 1791, that people will still read his work in a hundred years’ time. #nwbooks https://t.co/igBvj0U31H https://t.co/B7gZUCzG3s https://t.co/J2A4PjoCTN

Fri, 17:15: The World of Yesterday, by Stefan Zweig Zweig embodies the concept of being a citizen of Europe, particularly once his homeland has turned on him. The World of Yesterday is about where we came from, and what was lost. #nwbooks https://t.co/27KvwLx4jV https://t.co/N1SHpYLLmm https://t.co/QM03JlVMaZ

Fri, 18:00: Hild, by @nicolaz Griffith really brings seventh-century Britain (especially what’s now North-East England) vividly to life, with convincingly depicted cultures, languages, religions, and people. #nwbooks https://t.co/t2VkJshjZm https://t.co/fEMyioz4wN https://t.co/PDMl2sHeRR

Fri, 18:05: RT @fran_wilde: @nwbrux @nicolaz I love this book.

Fri, 19:41: RT @TonyAgotha: @nwbrux Funny you mentioned it, ordered it a week ago

Fri, 19:41: RT @sierrakim: @nwbrux @nicolaz A friend loved Hild so much that he gave me his copy so I could read it. I loved it so much that I passed i…

Fri, 19:42: 3 mins to go. https://t.co/yB3DwwayDU

Fri, 19:46: RT @bbcdoctorwho: Here we go! https://t.co/f7TgHbXVus

Fri, 20:16: RT @bbcdoctorwho: We all did Yaz! https://t.co/PEtjuUINmU

Fri, 20:48: RT @NaomiOhReally: “Britain objected to any depletion of sovereignty – the right to treat others as it wished – or international oversight”…

Fri, 21:45: 290 days of plague: New Year, New Who https://t.co/kYlIzeiEfk

Sat, 01:19: RT @nicolaz: @sierrakim @nwbrux The best life for a book: being passed from hand to hand with great fondness

Sat, 01:19: RT @nicolaz: @nwbrux I’m delighted you enjoyed it!

Sat, 09:30: Whoniversaries 2 January: Deborah Watling, John Woodnutt, Rescue #1, Terror of the Autons #1 https://t.co/Fb6vLWV1Zj

Sat, 09:58: RT @ajamora: @nwbrux @nicolaz Sounds v. interesting indeed

Sat, 10:45: RT @uk_domain_names: On a bicycle parts ecommerce merchant’s website in the Netherlands… https://t.co/NrLgZyH4X1 https://t.co/PG16rv8UV2

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Whoniversaries 2 January: Deborah Watling, John Woodnutt, Rescue #1, Terror of the Autons #1

Posted on 2 January 2021 by fromtheheartofeurope

i) births and deaths

2 January 1948: birth of Deborah Watling , who played the Second Doctor's companion Victoria Waterfield in 1967-8 (and also returned for the unofficial spinoff Downtime in 1998)

2 January 2006: death of John Woodnutt, who played George Hibbert in Spearhead from Space (1970), the Draconian Emperor in Frontier in Space (1973), Broton and the Duke of Forgill in Terror of the Zygons (1976), and Seron in The Keeper of Traken (1981).

ii) broadcast anniversaries

2 January 1965: broadcast of "The Powerful Enemy", first episode of the story we now call The Rescue, introducing Maureen O'Brien as new companion Vicki. The Tardis, now without Susan, lands on the planet Dido where the two survivors of a crashed space ship are terrorised by the mysterious Koquillion.

2 January 1971: broadcast of first episode of Terror of the Autons, starting Season 8 of Old Who and introducing Katy Manning as Jo Grant, Richard Franklin as Captain Mike Yates, and Roger Delgado as the Master. The Master takes over a circus, a radio telescope and a plastics factory.

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290 days of plague: New Year, New Who

Posted on 1 January 2021 by fromtheheartofeurope

Well. When I did my first ten-day update on 27 March last year, it seemed then that we would have a grim few weeks and then be back to normal by late summer. Obviously, that did not happen. And it seems somehow appropriate that 40 weeks after that Friday at the end of the first full week of lockdown, it's New Year's Day and we are as uncertain as we ever were about the end of all of this.

The numbers in Belgium are actually fairly encouraging right now (unlike in some other countries, alas). Confirmed new cases are down 30% in the last seven days, and hospital admissions down 20%. At that rate they will be below the official targets for relaxing the restrictions in two and three weeks respectively. So I may even be back in the office by the end of this month.

I'll be back at work on Monday after a quiet Christmas holiday. I repeated the Christmas dinner menu from five years ago, but made life a little easier for myself by just having quails' eggs as a starter (dipped in salt and pepper) rather than grilled figs, and new potatoes instead of mămăligă as the main course carbs. I also made a Christmas cake uing this Northern Irish recipe – I don't have an especially sweet tooth usually, but somehow this seemed necessary for the times we are in.

And we managed the traditional family walk, this time at Het Vianderdomein. I took a dozen selfied and there was one where everyone was looking in roughly the right direction with reasonable facial expressions.

I suspect that for you as for me this was not a big gift-giving year, but if you want to do something a little extra, can I point you towards the Nuk Je Vetëm online counselling for vulnerable young people in Albania, run by the Foundation Together Albania of which I am a trustee?

I saw in the new year last night in an online fandom party, where I think I was one of two or three people in a Zoom room of several dozen for whom the time zone was right. I made everyone watch the Brussels light show. It was good.

And this evening we had the latest New Who. Given that it was filmed before the current crisis, I thought the message of resistance to a non-human threat was timely. Unfortunately the deranged American millionaire with political ambitions did not completely get his comeuppance. And the departure of Graham and Ryan is only the second time that New Who companions have left voluntarily – Martha is literally the only other example, Rose stuck in a parallel universe, Donna brainwiped, Amy and Rory timeshifted, Clara and Bill both killed off. It was much more balanced in Old Who (involuntary departures: Susan, Katarina, Sara Kingdom, Dodo, Jamie, Zoe, Sarah Jane, Adric, Kamelion, Peri; voluntary departures: Ian, Barbara, Vicki, Steven, Ben, Polly, Victoria, Liz, Jo, Harry, Leela, K9, Romana, Nyssa, Tegan, Turlough, Mel; unclear: UNIT, Ace). I though the whole thing was done emotionally convincingly, and the Daleks' combination of body-horror and racial purification may be not quite what Terry Nation had in mind in 1963, but it's a reasonable evolution.

Anyway. We tried a new Indian food delivery last night, and it was delicious, but once I eventually got to bed I slept very badly with weird dreams. So I'm off to bed now, and we'll be back to the usual book and film reviews tomorrow. Good night. Stay well.

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My tweets

Posted on 1 January 2021 by fromtheheartofeurope

Thu, 12:56: Britain braces for not-so-special relationship with Biden https://t.co/HdurSnRW5D Article quotes UK diplomat asserting that they have just as good access to Democrats as to Republicans. I’ve heard a *very* different story.

Thu, 15:04: RT @shezza_t: @nwbrux The Indian school point caught my eye: my BiL was born in Oman, and went to boarding school in India too.

Thu, 15:45: Thursday and December reading https://t.co/LpM7DwOKtY

Thu, 16:00: My Doctor Who books of the year 2020: Two that I especially enjoyed: – @unamccormack‘s All Flesh is Grass (with Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors) @Jody_Houser‘s Defender of the Daleks (with Tenth and Thirteenth, despite cover) https://t.co/20xjkqgcOT https://t.co/HZrpyZunlK https://t.co/Yy47Z4MAP7

Thu, 16:30: My 2020 books https://t.co/yD69FloViQ

Thu, 17:46: RT @Glasgowin2024: Happy Hogmanay, folx! #GlasgowIn2024 would like to thank all our fabby followers for your support in Hell Year 2020. Let…

Thu, 18:20: Glorious! https://t.co/HZL7i6g4cB

Thu, 20:11: You have just a few hours left to prepare for 2021… (Unless you’re in Kazakhstan or points east of there. In that case it’s already 2021 so it’s too late.) https://t.co/IKMbIosP1G

Thu, 22:09: “Dragging the north of the EU”? What’s that supposed to mean? https://t.co/QUtCYQJxaW

Fri, 08:58: RT @alexstubb: Thank you to the #UK for all of the years together in the #EU. We will miss you. You will always be welcomed back. In the me…

Fri, 09:30: Whoniversaries 1 January https://t.co/co2KyReoJT

Fri, 10:45: Brexit changed the game on Scottish independence https://t.co/FIDwe1EtYN Nicola Sturgeon writes.

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Whoniversaries 1 January

Posted on 1 January 2021 by fromtheheartofeurope

Second half: This is a repeat of a project I did ten years ago in 2010-11, and it's generally been a fun distraction rather than a chore. This time around I have been ioncluding relevant photographs of actors and TV episodes, which is usually a nice little hunt. The Tragical History Tour website is generally reliable

I do the research for each day's anniversaries on the Tardis Index File (Doctor Who wiki), but rather than just use the individual pages for each date (such as the one for today) I use the list of pages linking to that date (again, such as the one for today) and follow through each link to see if it is worth noting. Actors get listed if they have played a significant speaking role in more than one story. Writers, directors, and senior production team get listed if they have worked on any story at all and their birthdate is known to the Tardis Index File. Broadcast anniversaries always get included; other significant performance and production anniversaries almost always. I may sometimes skip dates supposedly specified in canon if it's a spinoff story I haven't heard of, or worse have actually read / watched / heard but can't remember, but will try and err on the side of inclusion as well.

Last time around I morrored the posts to the community, but given how quiet LJ is these days I haven't done that. Instead, I started by crossposting to my own Facebook, and then switched to the main Doctor Who group there. All my LJ entries are tweeted, and every so often I back them up to Dreamwidth.

It would be nice to do this as a permanent publication of some kind, but I don't really have time!

Anyway, on with today: a birth, two deaths, and nine broadcast anniversaries (including a record-breaking three on the same day, 1 January 2007), but no dates specified in canon other than follow-ons from yesterday's rather large crop.

i) births and deaths

1 January 1935: birth of Dave Martin, co-author with Bob Baker of The Claws of Axos (Third Doctor, 1971), The Mutants (Third Doctor, 1972), The Three Doctors (Third Doctor, 1973), The Sontaran Experiment (Fourth Doctor, 1975), The Hand of Fear (Fourth Doctor, 1976), The Invisible Enemy (Fourth Doctor, 1977), Underworld (Fourth Doctor, 1978) and The Armageddon Factor (Fourth Doctor, 1979) as well as four spinoff novels.

1 January 2003: death of Cyril Shaps, who played Viner in The Tomb of the Cybermen (Second Doctor, 1967), Lennox in The Ambassadors of Death (Third Doctor, 1970), Professor Clegg in Planet of the Spiders (Third Doctor, 1974) and the Archimandrite in The Androids of Tara (Fourth Doctor, 1978).

1 January 2015: death of Fiona Cumming, director of four Fifth Doctor stories and variously involved in other ways too.

ii) broadcast anniversaries

1 January 1966: broadcast of "Volcano", eighth episode of the story we now call The Daleks' Master Plan. The Daleks realise that the Taranium core is a fake; the Doctor, Steven and Sara encounter the Meddling Monk on the planet Tigus, also passing through Lord's cricket ground and Trafalgar Square for New Year's Eve.

1 January 1972: broadcast of first episode of Day of the Daleks, starting Season 9. Diplomat Sir Reginald Styles is under attack by mysterious guerrillas from a Dalek-dominated future.

1 January 1977: broadcast of first episode of The Face of Evil. First appearance of Louise Jameson as Leela. Leela is exiled from the tribe of the Sevateem for blasphemy; the Doctor finds that the Evil One has a familiar face. I remember it very well.

1 January 2007: broadcast of Invasion of the Bane, the first episode of the new Sarah Jane Adventures. Sarah, her young neighbour Maria, and Maria's annoying friend Kelsey (who is never seen again) team up to discover that the alien Bane are behind the new Bubble Shock! soft drink; Sarah adopts the human boy at the centre of their plan.

Also 1 January 2007: broadcast of Captain Jack Harkness (Torchwood), the one where the team get timeshifted back to 1941 and Jack falls in love with his namesake.

Also also 1 January 2007: broadcast of End of Days (Torchwood), the one where the big demon thing kills both Rhys and Jack but they come alive again.

1 January 2010: broadcast of The End of Time Part Two, the last regular episode for the Tenth Doctor. The Time Lords return; the Master is persuaded to blast them back into the Time War; and the Doctor rescues Wilf, at the cost of his own life. And the new Doctor yells, "Geronimo!!!!"

1 January 2019: broadcast of Resolution. A long-buried creature is beginning to stir. The most dangerous creature in the universe, and it will stop at nothing to claim the Earth. Conquest in 9376 rels.

1 January 2020: broadcast of Spyfall Part One. The head of MI6, C, enlists the Thirteenth Doctor and her team to investigate former agent spy Daniel Barton to see if he's been turned against them. Meanwhile, an alien threat that can pass through walls, even those of the TARDIS, known as the Kasaavin is wiping out spy organisations all over the planet. Can former MI6 agent "O" help them, or is he not who he claims to be?

1 January 2021: broadcast of Revolution of the Daleks.

With ten broadcast anniversaries, 1 January has more than any day except 25 December. (Though only six are Doctor Who rather than spinoff shows, and there are a couple of days in the spring with more than that.)

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