My tweets

Posted on by

  • Tue, 10:45: Irish unity: going nowhere fast https://t.co/OFJNR7hA0h Well put, by @bjhbfs. I’d go further; Nationalists not only are not engaging Unionists, they are not even engaging the middle ground whose votes are crucial.

Posted in Uncategorised

My media 2020

Posted on by

My biggest media hit of the year was a quick soundbite the morning after the US election, given to Bloomberg in Brussels, who explained that all of their US-based experts were still in bed. (As I probably should have been too.) It came out just in time for the Asian evening news cycle, so I found my name popping up in mentions in Chinese (both Hong Kong and Taiwan, and presumably the mainland as well), Indonesian and Vietnamese as well as the less unusual Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Greek.

My other big hit was an October interview on the future of Kosovo/Serbia relations, which I did in English but is only available in Albanian and Serbian. (Google Translate is your friend.)

Apart from that, I did an interview on Brexit for Bulgarian TV, and for a Flemish journalism student, and a piece for Montenegro television on the pandemic (back in the days before Montenegro had been seriously hit by it). Here's the last of those – voiceover in the local language, but you can hear me in the background.

Also in media news, I secured a positive ruling from the Spanish media ethics commission in June over false statements published about me in 2018 and 2019 by a Spanish news website, finding in my favour on all counts. I was told earlier this month that the commission is restarting the process to give the news website a chance to reply (a bit mysterious as to why the commission failed to reach them in the first place) but I'm still right and they're still wrong, so I'm confident in getting the same result. Will update here as and when.

Posted in Uncategorised

Our War: Ireland and the Great War, ed. John Horne

Posted on by

Second paragraph of third chapter ("200,000 volunteer soldiers", by Philip Orr):

At the beginning of the twentieth century the British Army no longer held the huge proportion of Irishmen that it did in the 1830s when 40% of its men were from this island. However, close to 30,000 Irishmen were in the regular forces by 1914 and another 30,000 were reservists. Irish soldiers were stationed in locations across the empire, in units known as battalions, approximately 1,000 strong. Each battalion belonged to one of the historic regiments that recruited in Ireland, usually on a regional basis. Every regiment had its store of military traditions, going back in some cases to the seventeenth century and including participation in famous battles such as Waterloo. As well as the long history of Irish foot-soldiers, there was an officer tradition among Anglo—Irish gentry with twelve of the generals in the British Army being Irish in 1914, including Henry Wilson, from Ballinalee, Co. Longford, who was assassinated by the IRA in 1922.

A lovely book of essays on various aspects of Ireland's engagement with the first world war; I'm familiar enough with the subject from my own work (my PhD thesis was on Irish science from 1890-1930 and the effects of the war were pretty significant), but even so I learned a few things, including the fact that the British government made it illegal to buy a drink for someone else in pubs. Topics address include specifics on the roles of women and of the labour movement, and on the wider societal impact of a war whose legacy in Ireland was distinctly ambiguous. The presentation is scholarly but light enough for the general but interested reader, and it is lavishly illustrated with colour copies of documents from the time, in particular the originals of soldiers' letters home, which makes it all pretty immediate. The original cover price of £15.95 must have been way below cost for RTÉ and the RIA. I hope it was offset by a government grant; money well spent if so. You can get it here.

This was the non-fiction book that had lingered longest unread on my shelves (since I could not find the guide to megalithic Northern Ireland). Next on that list is Anne Chambers' biography of T.K. Whitaker.

Posted in Uncategorised

My tweets

Posted on by

Posted in Uncategorised

Whoniversaries 21 December

Posted on by

i) births and deaths

21 December 1915: birth of James Cairncross, who played Lemaitre/Stirling in The Reign of Terror (First Doctor, 1964) and Beta in The Krotons (Second Doctor, 1968-69). (he's also the parson in Tom Jones.)

21 December 1937: birth of Sheila Reid, who played Etta in Vengeance on Varos (Sixth Doctor, 1985) and Clara's grandmother in The Time of the Doctor (Eleventh Doctor, 2013) and Dark Water (Twelfth Doctor, 2014).

21 December 1991: death of Colin Douglas, who played security chief Donald Bruce in The Enemy of the World (Second Doctor, 1967) and lighthouse keeper Reuben in Horror of Fang Rock (Fourth Doctor, 1977).

21 December 1998: death of Roger Avon, who played Saphadin in The Crusade (First Doctor, 1965), Daxtar in The Daleks' Master Plan (First Doctor, 1965) and Wells in Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150 AD (Cushing movie, 1966)

ii) broadcast and stage anniversaries

21 December 1963: broadcast of "The Dead Planet", first episode of the story we now call The Daleks. The Doctor, Ian, Susan and Barbara land on a strange world with a petrified forest and an abandoned city. But what is it that terrifies Barbara at the end?????

21 December 1965: first performance of the stage play Curse of the Daleks, by David Whitaker and Terry Nation.

21 December 1968: broadcast of eighth episode of The Invasion. Tobias Vaughn changes sides and helps defeat the Cybermen, though he too is killed.

21 December 1988: broadcast of second episode of The Greatest Show in the Galaxy. Ace is captured by the clowns; the Doctor is forced to perform for the circus.

Posted in Uncategorised

Top LJ posts of 2020

Posted on by

As Livejournal continues its sad decline, it becomes paradoxically a bit easier to pick out the posts that got the most engagement over the year.

The biggest by far was my Brexit post on 31 January, which I had been brewing for three and a half years.

The second biggest was my full Hugo details post, which I was able to get done a bit more promptly thanks to being a deputy administrator this year.

Only two posts got more than five comments, my review of Titus Groan with eight:

and my review of a fascinating paper on Tolkien (which has been withdrawn from publication, unfortunately):

Some day in 2021 I will have to put in place an alternative blogging platform.

Posted in Uncategorised

Top Facebook posts of 2020

Posted on by

Facebook have made it even more difficult than before to track the impact of your posts. Luckily I had already tallied the first half of the year, so it was a bit less tedious to scroll through and tally manually. And unlike Twitter, there are only three things to measure – reactions, comments and shares.

Most comments: a rather toxic debate on 'cancel culture', though I feel I owe it to my trans friends (and indeed my trans enemies) to spell out where I stand. Basically, if you are not prepared to use people's preferred pronouns, I don't really want to be friends with you.

“Cancel culture” is nothing more than the latest repackaging of the argument that the true threat to liberalism resides…

Posted by Nicholas Whyte on Monday, 13 July 2020

Most shares (only counting my own content rather than stuff I've nicked from elsewhere): my valedictory piece for UK membership. Here I clearly spoke for many far beyond my own circle of friends, and again I stand by it.

It is one thousand, three hundred and seventeen days since the Brexit referendum. And I am still angry.

There is no…

Posted by Nicholas Whyte on Friday, 31 January 2020

On a totally positive note, the most reactions to any post was my re-upping my wedding day photo, originally posted in 2017.

27 years on!

Posted by Nicholas Whyte on Friday, 2 October 2020

Posted in Uncategorised

Top Instagram posts of 2020

Posted on by

Only three metrics here: likes for pictures, views of videos and comments on both.

The most comments went to the small montage for F's 21st birthday.

The most likes went to our reunion picture with B, on her birthday, after we had not seen her for three months.

And the most viewed video was of B and her not-very-secret boyfriend earlier this month.

Posted in Uncategorised

Top tweets of 2020

Posted on by

The year isn't over yet, but I am guessing that I may not tweet anything very significant in its remaining eleven days.

Here are my top tweets of 2020 in all the various metrics offered by Twitter, plus where the top tweet(s) didn’t have original content from me I’ve drilled down for the top tweet in that category that does have original content, plus one that isn’t actually top in any one category but has the best aggregate score of them all.

Most permalink clicks (I had completely forgotten even posting this one):

Most hashtag clicks (I rarely use hashtags; I posted this as the second last episode of this year’s Doctor Who was on air, and I guess a lot of people were surfing the conversation):

Second most impressions (not quite sure why this day of all days should get the attention, I have been tweeting the numbers daily since April):

Second highest number of replies (deliberately designed to get lots of replies):

Third highest retweets (highest for original content, and makes an important point about not signal boosting the worst):

Most app opens (a video I did many years ago sadly became relevant):

Highest engagement rate and most URL clicks (surprising, I didn’t think it was that exciting a topic):

Most URL clicks, second highest detail expands (on an issue where I am possibly the most visible commentator out there, this was the biggest news story of the year):

Most replies and user profile clicks (grim stuff as things started to get bad):

Second most engagements, likes, media views and media engagements (played for laughs, though really, sometimes people who spend money promoting their tweets are just throwing it away):

Second highest retweets (also not original content; grim laughs, if any):

Most impressions, most retweets, most likes, most detail expands, most media views, most media engagements (sadly not my original content; more grim laughs, if any).

Top aggregate score across all categories (though not actually top in any of them, entirely thanks to being retweeted by Georgia Tennant, the author’s daughter):

Facebook and others coming soon.

Posted in Uncategorised

My tweets

Posted on by

Posted in Uncategorised

Whoniversaries 20 December

Posted on by

i) births and deaths

20 December 1943: birth of Jacqueline Pearce, who played Chessene in The Two Doctors (1985), Prime Miniister Sherilyn Harper in Big Finish audio The Fearmonger (2000), Admiral Mettna in the webcast Death Comes to Time (2001-02) and of course Servalan in Blake's 7.

20 December 1978: birth of Eddie Robson, author of many Big Finish audios and various short stories.

ii) broadcast anniversaries

This is the first day since 28 August (arguably 21 August) with no broadcast anniversaries, and the last such day in the calendar year.

iii) date specified in canon

20 December 1992: St Christopher's Church in Cheldon Bonniface is transported to the Moon, as recounted in Paul Cornell's 1991 novel Timewyrm: Revelation.

Posted in Uncategorised

The world in 2021, according to science fiction

Posted on by

I’ve spent several weekends working on a presentation of twentieth-century science fiction set in the year 2021, and here is the fruit of my labours, a 21-minute video.

The works I found are:

Introduction
TV: Super Force (Hank’s Back), 1991
TV: The Voices, 1955

Hi-tech future
Comics: Superman 2020 (Deadly New Year 2021), 1982
Comics: Superman 2021 (Kidnappers in the Sky), 1982
Film: Johnny Mnemonic, 1995
Game: D/Generation, 1991
Manga: A.I. Revolution, 1994
Novel: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, 1968

On other worlds
TV: The Twilight Zone (On Thursday We Leave for Home), 1963
TV: The Outer Limits (The Invisible Enemy), 1964
Film: Moon Zero Two, 1969

Dystopias
Film: The Sisterhood, 1988
Game: Scorcher, 1996
Comics: Oz, 1992
Novel: The Children of Men, 1992

The End
Novel: Macrolife, 1979

This was the first time I’ve made anything this long by myself, and I must say it has drastically increased my respect for those who do this regularly, either as a hobby or for a living. If I decide to make a habit of it, I’ll invest in better software and hardware. But I’m happy enough with this for now.

My tweets

Posted on by

Posted in Uncategorised

Whoniversaries 19 December

Posted on by

i) births and deaths

19 December 1915: birth of Simon Lack, who played Kettering in The Mind of Evil (1971) and Zadek in The Androids of Tara (1978)

19 December 1942: birth of Ian Talbot, who played Travis in Doctor Who and the Silurians (Third Doctor, 1970) and Klout in The Leisure Hive (Fourth Doctor, 1980).

19 December 1961: birth of Matthew Waterhouse, who played the Fourth and Fifth Doctor companion Adric from 1980 to 1982.

15 November 1933: birth of Donald Pickering, who played prosecutor Eyesen in the story we now call The Keys of Marinus (First Doctor, 1964), Blade and his alien double in The Faceless Ones (Second Doctor, 1967), and Lakertyan leader Beyus in Time and the Rani (Seventh Doctor, 1987).

19 December 2018: death of Bill Sellars, who directed the story we now call The Celestial Toymaker (First Doctor, 1966).

ii) broadcast anniversary

19 December 1964: broadcast of "The Waking Ally", fifth episode of the story we now call The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Jenny and Barbara are betrayed by the women in the woods and captured by the Daleks; Ian manages to break into the mine but hides in the missile which is headed for the earth's core; Susan and David kiss.

Posted in Uncategorised

Time Lord Victorious: DALEKS! by James Goss, The Enemy of My Enemy, by Tracy Ann Baines

Posted on by

Another update on the Time Lord Victorious stories that I've been working through, all recently released in an order that will surely build to some kind of climax.

First off, a webcast series called DALEKS! starring Nicholas Briggs as the voice of the Daleks, with Anjli Mohindra and Ayesha Antoine as the Mechanoids. (Anjli Mohindra needs no introduction; Ayesha Antoine played the professor's assistant Dee Dee in that great Who story Midnight, and has also been Bernice Summerfield's companion Ruth on Big Finish.) Since they are webcasts, you can watch the five episodes starting here:

The series is by James Goss (also the mastermind behind the wider Time Lord Victorious cycle, who as my regular reader knows I rate as one of the best Who writers who has never written for TV). I must say it’s pretty impressive. Both the Daleks and the Mechanoids are bad guys, but the story gives both sets of metal monsters agency and motivation, which means that they actually become interesting. Facing the Daleks with a dangerous cosmic mystery means that we are brought into te exploration of the problem with them. The character of the Dalek Strategist, already introduced in Defender of the Daleks, becomes an intriguing plot vector. Animation means that there is no need to worry about the special effects budget, and the Mechanoids can look impressive rather than just a little cheap as they did in 1965. And the five individual episodes (1 as above, 2, 3, 4, 5) are only 15 minutes long, so you don’t get bored. I was certainly converted enough by the end to be eagerly anticipating the release of the last couple on Thursday nights.

The next two Big Finish plays in the Time Lord Victorious sequence, together with He Kills Me He Kills Me Not, form a loose trilogy starring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor – all written by women, in fact, Carrie Thompson, Tracy Ann Baines and Lizzie Hopley. The new two both involve the Daleks where the first did not.

The Enemy of my Enemy brings the Doctor and the Daleks together to the world of Wrax, which the Doctor thinks should not be there (like the planet of the previous story). The Wrax start off sounding like nice cuddly human-type aliens who you want to be friends with and then turn out to be way more evil and monstrous than you could believe. The Doctor is pushed into alliance with the Daleks. Or is he? It plays out very well, with Nicholas Briggs again being several different Daleks and Rachel Atkins tremendous as the Wrax leader. And McGann, who sometimes is not on form, is very much on form here, playing superbly against Briggs and Atkins.

I have listened to the third of the trilogy, Mutually Assured Destruction, but apparently it's a follow-on to the Una McCormack novel which I have got but not yet read, so I'll write it up when I have done them both. Just to say that it has Daleks too.

Posted in Uncategorised

My tweets

Posted on by
Posted in Uncategorised

Whoniversaries 18 December: Master Plan #6, Shalka #6, the Sky Gypsy disappears, Sarah meets K9

Posted on by

i) births and deaths

None that I noted.

ii) broadcast anniversaries

18 December 1965: broadcast of "Coronas of the Sun", sixth episode of the story we now call The Daleks' Master Plan. The Doctor, Steven and Sara give Chen a fake tarranium core; and land somewhere with a really poisonous atmosphere.

18 December 2003: webcast of sixth episode of Scream of the Shalka. The Doctor blows up the Shalka with Alison's help. (And there's a rather peculiar bit with the Master, but watch and judge for yourself.)

iii) date specified in canon

18 December 1953: disappearance of the Sky Gypsy flying from Dublin to Cardiff (see yesterday's Torchwood anniversary).

18 December 1981: Sarah Jane Smith meets Brendan and K9.

Posted in Uncategorised

Thursday reading

Posted on by

Current
Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake
Perdido Street Station, by China Miéville
Macro Life, by George Zebrowski
Utopia For Realists, by Rutger Bregman

Last books finished
Amadeus, by Peter Shaffer
The Company Articles of Edward Teach, by Thoraiya Dyer/Angælien Apocalypse, by Matthew Chrulew
Our War: Ireland and the Great War, ed. John Horne
2010: Odyssey Two, by Arthur C. Clarke
Above, by Stephanie Campisi/Below, by Ben Peek

Next books
Planetfall, by Emma Newman
The Anything Box, by Zenna Henderson

Posted in Uncategorised

My tweets

Posted on by

  • Thu, 10:45: RT @lukemcgee: Ben Wallace’s “Trump will be missed” comments have reminded me of something I have always found weird. A lot of Brexiteers h…

Posted in Uncategorised

Whoniversaries 17 December

Posted on by

i) births and deaths

17 December 1929: birth of Jacqueline Hill, who played the First Doctor companion Barbara Wright from 1963 to 1965 (she is the first regular cast member to actually appear on screen), and then returned to play Lexa in Meglos (Fourth Doctor, 1980).

17 December 2009: death of James Cairncross, who played Lemaitre/Stirling in The Reign of Terror (First Doctor, 1964) and Beta in The Krotons (Second Doctor, 1968-69). (he's also the parson in Tom Jones.)

ii) broadcast anniversaries

17 December 1966: broadcast of first episode of The Highlanders, introducing Fraser Hines as Jamie. The Doctor, Ben and the McCrimmon menfolk are captured by Redcoats in the aftermath of Culloden; Polly hides out with Kirsty McCrimmon.

17 December 1977: broadcast of fourth episode of The Sun Makers. Leela is rescued, Gatherer Hade thrown off the roof and the Collector disappears down the plug'ole.

17 December 2006: broadcast of Out of Time (Torchwood), the one with the accidentally time-travelling plane passengers from 1953.

Posted in Uncategorised

May 2009 books

Posted on by

This is the latest post in a series I started last year, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days I've been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I've found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.

I don't seem to have travelled abroad this month, but we did have a family expedition to the megaliths at Wéris, Belgium's biggest megalithic site.



The daily commute meant that I got through 33 books that month.

Non-fiction: 10 (YTD 36)
Fanny Kemble: A Performed Life, by Deirdre David
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, by Azar Nafisi
The Prisoner Handbook, by Steven Paul Davies
On the Place of Gilbert Chesterton in English Letters, by Hilaire Belloc
The Prisoner, by Alain Carrazé and Hélène Oswald
Rhetorics of Fantasy, by Farah Mendlesohn
Fall Out, by Alan Stevens and Fiona Moore
EU Accession Dynamics and Conflict Resolution, by Nathalie Tocci
Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded, by John Scalzi
Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller

Fiction (non-sf): 5 (YTD 21)
The Story of Tracy Beaker, by Jacqueline Wilson
Double Act, by Jacqueline Wilson
Vicky Angel, by Jacqueline Wilson
The Stories of Elizabeth Spencer
Jewel, by Beverly Jenkins

Scripts: 5 (YTD 19)
The Winter's Tale, by William Shakespeare
Οιδίπους Τύραννος / Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles
The Tempest, by William Shakespeare
Henry VIII, by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher
The Two Noble Kinsmen, by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher

SF (non-Who, including Apuleius): 9 (YTD 36)
The Patriot Witch, by Charles Coleman Finlay
Zoë's Tale, by John Scalzi
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J.K. Rowling
The Man in the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick
The Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum
Wicked: the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, by Gregory Maguire
Bard IV: Ravens' Gathering, by Keith Taylor
The Golden Ass, by Apuleius
Elric, by Michael Moorcock

Who: 2 (YTD 14)
Sands of Time, by Justin Richards
K9 and Company, by Terence Dudley

Comics: 2 (YTD 6)
Fables vol 3: Storybook Love, by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham and Steve Leialoha
The Golden Ass, by Milo Manara

Total page count ~8,500 (YTD ~38,700)
11 (YTD 28/132) by women (Nafisi, Tocci, Mendlesohn, David, Oswald, 3x Wilson, Jenkins, Spencer, Rowling)
2 (YTD 7/132) by PoC (Nafisi, Jenkins – not sure if Apuleius counts)

My favourite books this month were Sophocles' ancient play, which you can get here, and Nathalie Tocci's analysis of the EU's failure in Cyprus, which you can get here. Keith Taylor's Celtic misht novel was pretty awful; you can get it here.


Posted in Uncategorised

My tweets

Posted on by
Posted in Uncategorised

Whoniversaries 16 December

Posted on by

i) births and deaths

16 December 1929: birth of Nicholas Courtney, who played Bret Vyon in The Daleks' Master Plan (First Doctor, 1965) and Colonel, later Brigadier, Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart from The Web Of Fear (Second Doctor, 1968) to Enemy of the Bane (SJA, 2008), the longest-running character on TV apart from the Doctor himself

16 December 1940: birth of Ronald Allen, who played Rago in The Dominators (Second Doctor, 1968) and Ralph Cornish in The Ambassadors of Death (Third Doctor, 1970).

16 December 1971: birth of Ashley Way, director of Torchwood episodes Captain Jack Harkness (2007), End of Days (2007), Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2008), Reset (2008), Something Borrowed (2008) and Exit Wounds (2008); also of the New Who two-parter The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood (2010) and the Sarah Jane Adventures stories Death of the Doctor (2010) and The Empty Planet (2010).

ii) broadcast and stage anniversaries

16 December 1967: broadcast of sixth episode of The Ice Warriors. The Doctor manages to repair the ioniser and uses it to destroy the Ice Warriors and their ship.

16 December 1974: first night of Doctor Who and the Seven Keys to Doomsday, a stage play starring Trevor Martin as the Doctor and Wendy Padbury as his companion Jenny.

16 December 1978: broadcast of fourth episode of The Androids of Tara. The Doctor defeats Count Grendel in a thrilling sword fight, and he, Romana and K9 depart.

iii) date specified in-universe

16 December 2011: death of General Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart.

Posted in Uncategorised

The Children of Men, by P.D. James

Posted on by

Second paragraph of third chapter:

Then Xan said: ‘I’m next door. We have our own bathroom, it’s at the end of the corridor.’

One of three sf novels I have found set in the year 2021. The other two are Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, at least later editions, and the first half of Macro Life, by George Zebrowski. (NB that the film Children of Men, based on the book, is set in 2027.)

This was published in 1992; the story is that in 1995, humanity simply stopped reproducing and no new children have been born since then. The narrator is a cousin of and former adviser to Xan Lyppiatt, the dictator of the UK, and is drawn into the resistance to his rule. The graying, disintegrating society is very well depicted, and then all is further disrupted when it turns out that human fertility is not completely finished. Vivid scenes of flight across England to an uncertain destination. You can get it here.

Posted in Uncategorised

My tweets

Posted on by

Posted in Uncategorised

Whoniversaries 15 December: Pennant Roberts, Sarah Hellings, Time Warrior #1, Nightmare of Eden #4

Posted on by

i) births and deaths

15 December 1926: death of Chritopher Burgess, who played the underground exile leader Swann in The Enemy of the World (Second Doctor, 1968), radio astronomer George Philips in Spearhead from Space (Third Doctor, 1970) and chief meditator Barnes in Planet of the Spiders (Third Doctor, 1974)

15 December 1940: birth of Pennant Roberts, who directed The Face of Evil (Fourth Doctor, 1977), The Sun Makers (Fourth Doctor, 1977), The Pirate Planet (Fourth Doctor, 1978), Shada (Fourth Doctor, unbroadcast but would have been 1980), Warriors of the Deep (Fifth Doctor, 1984) and Timelash (Fifth Doctor, 1985).

15 December 1945: birth of Sarah Hellings, who directed Mark of the Rani (Sixth Doctor, 1985).

15 December 1985: birth of John Magnus Jones, who directed several stories of New Who Series 12 (Thirteenth Doctor, 2020)

15 December 1998: death of Peter Mayock who played Ibrahim Namin in Pyramids of Mars (Fourth Doctor, 1975) and Solis in The Deadly Assassin (Fourth Doctor, 1976).

ii) broadcast anniversaries

15 December 1973: broadcast of first episode of The Time Warrior, starting Season 11. First appearance of both Elizabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith and the Sontarans. Scientists are being kidnapped through time to the medieval castle of Irongron, where his mysterious guest Linx is forcing them to repair his spaceship.

15 December 1979: broadcast of fourth episode of Nightmare of Eden. The ships are separated and the Doctor captures the bad guys in the projection.

Posted in Uncategorised

Tono-Bungay, by H.G. Wells

Posted on by

Second paragraph of third chapter:

My uncle was the first real breach I found in the great front of Bladesover the world had presented me, for Chatham was not so much a breach as a confirmation. But my uncle had no respect for Bladesover and Eastry — none whatever. He did not believe in them. He was blind even to what they were. He propounded strange phrases about them, he exfoliated and wagged about novel and incredible ideas.

This is Wells' best-known non-sf novel. I say that despite the following points:

  • Most of the plot revolves around a magical potion, Tono-Bungay. But Tono-Bungay is a complete fake, and sells well because of marketing, not because it actually does any good.
  • There is a miraculous mineral which would have transformed the plot, indeed the world, if it came into play. But all supplies are lost, so it becomes a narrative hook for an unsuccessful journey instead.
  • The hero flies an aeroplane to France, in a novel published (and mostly set) in 1908, something that didn't actually happen until 1909. But in 1908 it was clearly going to happen pretty soon – in October, the Daily Mail offered a prize of £500 for a cross-channel flight made before the end of the year.
  • Anyway the hero's aeronautical experiments turn out to be a dead-end, and he abandons them and is designing warships by the end of the book.

But most of all, the point of the book isn't the change to human society offered by transformative technology, it's about society and social mobility in the very first years of the twentieth century in England. The tech bits are decorative rather than fundamental, and I think it's less sfnal than the Lovejoy books where he supernaturally differentiates real antiques from fakes.

So, the story is actually about our narrator and his uncle; his uncle starts the book by becoming bankrupt, but very quickly becomes fabulously rich thanks to Tono-Bungay. His nephew helps him manage the business (and does well out of it) but fails three times to find true love, his emotional life reported in much more realistic terms than I think was normal for fiction of the day – for this alone I think it's a memorable book, avoiding romantic cliches. The mineral expedition is a slightly silly adventure, but I think redeems itself as a literary device by failing to bring home the goods.

There are unfortunately still plenty of other cliches. I never quite got the feeling that we were meant to take the uncle and aunt seriously; clearly the posh folk of Surrey think they are getting above themselves and I sensed that the author thinks so too. The French scenes are a little bit in that direction too. But overall it's a very engaging and interesting novel, and I feel with some confidence that I can work through the rest of Wells. You can get this one here.

This was my top unread non-genre fiction book. Next on that pile is The Home and the World, by Rabindranath Tagore. I'm splitting Wells (both sf and non-sf) into a separate list; The Food of the Gods is next on that.

Posted in Uncategorised

My tweets

Posted on by

Posted in Uncategorised

Whoniversaries 14 December

Posted on by

i) births and deaths

14 December 1926: birth of Margaret John, who played Megan Jones, the Director of Euro Sea Gas, in Fury from the Deep (Second Doctor, 1968) and The Idiot's Lantern (Tenth Doctor, 2006), a 38-year gap which is unmatched for the main TV show (spinoffs allow some flexibility)

14 December 1926: birth of Alan Rowe, who played Evans and the voice of Space Control in The Moonbase (Second Doctor, 1967), Edward of Wessex in The Time Warrior (Thrd Doctor, 1973-74), Skinsale in Horror of Fang Rock (Fourth Doctor, 1977) and Garif in Full Circle (Fourth Doctor, 1980).

14 December 1933: birth of David Maloney, who was one of the great directors of the classic series: The Mind Robber (1968), The Krotons (1968-69), The War Games (1969), Frontier in Space (1963), Planet of the Daleks (1963), Genesis of the Daleks (1975), Planet of Evil (1975), The Deadly Assassin (1976), and The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1977) all benefited from his talents.

14 December 2018: death of Kenneth Kendall, who appeared as a newsreader in The War Machines (1966), the first celebrity to portray himself on Doctor Who (unless you count the Beatles). He's also in 2001: A Space Odyssey in a similar role.

ii) broadcast anniversaries

14 December 1963: broadcast of "The Firemaker", fourth episode of the story we now call An Unearthly Child. Ian makes fire for Za, who defeats Kal and tries to force the time travellers to stay with the tribe; but they escape.

14 December 1978: broadcast of seventh episode of The Invasion. UNIT successfully uses a Russian rocket to destroy the source of the Cybermen's signal.

14 December 1988: broadcast of first episode of The Greatest Show in the Galaxy. The Doctor and Ace land on Segonax and are captured by the Psychic Circus.

Posted in Uncategorised