i) births and deaths

20 May 1926: birth of John Lucarotti, writer of Marco Polo (1964), The Aztecs (1964) and The Massacre (1966).

20 May 1961: birth of Owen Teale who played Maldak in Vengeance on Varos (1985) and Evan Sherman in CountrycideTorchwood, 2006).

20 May 1966: death of Mervyn Pinfield, who was Associate Producer for Doctor Who from An Unearthly Child (1963) to The Romans (1965) and also directed The Sensorites (1964), Planet of Giants (1964) and The Space Museum (1965).

20 May 1977: death of Lennie Mayne, who directed The Curse of Peladon (1972), The Three Doctors (1972-73), The Monster of Peladon (1974) and The Hand of Fear (1976)

20 May 1993: death of William Emms, author of TV story Galaxy 4 (1965) and the widely forgotten Sixth Doctor book, Mission to Venus (1986).

20 May 1996: death of Jon Pertwee, who played the Third Doctor from 1970 to 1974, with occasional returns to the role.

ii) broadcast anniversaries

20 May 1967: broadcast of first episode of The Evil of the Daleks. The Tardis is stolen, and when the Doctor and Jamie pursue it, they find an antique shop with added Dalek.

20 May 1972: broadcast of first episode of The Time Monster. The Newton Institute near Cambridge is in fact run by the Master, who summons Kronos.

20 May 2006: broadcast of The Age of Steel. The Doctor and friends manage to infiltrate Cybus industries and destroy the Cybermen.

• Garret FitzGerald, RIP — Crooked Timber
  By someone who knew him much better than me: "I think Garret lived such a mentally sharp and active life for so long – still writing his regular economics column in the Irish Times to the end – because he was just so curious and endlessly interested in and enjoying the people around him."
  (tags: death ireland)
• ias: Garret Fitzgerald, 1926-2011
  "He was *my* taoiseach."
  (tags: death ireland)
• Edmund Burke and Islam | c2c Journal
  "The majority of men are in no persuasion bigots; they are not willing to sacrifice on every vain imagination that superstition or enthusiasm holds forth, or that even zeal and piety recommend, the certain possession of their temporal happiness …
  "If anything can tend to revive and keep [fanaticism] up, it is to keep alive the passions of men by ill usage. This is enough to irritate even those who have not a spark of bigotry in their constitution to the most desperate enterprises; it certainly will inflame, darken and render more dangerous the spirit of bigotry in those who are possessed by it. "
  (tags: religion islam)

I’m sorry to see that Garret Fitzgerald has died, at the age of 85. He was Taoiseach (=Prime Minster of Ireland) twice in the 1980s, and also Irish foreign minister in the mid-1970s. He played as important a role on Northern Ireland as any Southern politician – he was one of the Irish government’s negotiators at Sunningdale in 1973, set up the New Ireland Forum to try and direct Irish nationalism more productively in the early 1980s, and most importantly he persuaded Margaret Thatcher to sign the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985, which (rather bitterly) transformed Unionists’ understanding of what might be possible for the future of Northern Ireland. He tried, and largely failed, to liberalise Irish politics, spectacularly screwing up referendums on abortion in 1983 and divorce in 1986, and just about managing a reform of the contraception laws; but all of this paved the way for the secularisation of Irish society which hit only a few years later. Less appreciated now is his crucial role as foreign minister immediately after Ireland had joined the European Economic Community, establishing the state as an independent international actor in a context where it had basically joined on Britain’s coat-tails.

I met him several times, most recently at a seminar I gave in DCU in 2006 (I note that the official photo of the event shows Garret flanked by the host and the chair of the meeting, with no visible trace of either of the actual speakers) where he asked some typically sharp questions about the situation in Georgia (where his grand-daughter, who now works around the corner from me in Brussels, was about to go on a mission). I also remember meeting him at an Anglo-Irish political seminar about ten years before, and admitting to him my past research into medieval history. He pondered for a moment, and then asked me a rather unexpected question, of the type where the questioner already knows the answer: “Do you know what the main means of goods transport over land was in France in the eighth century?” I shook my head in bafflement. Garret gave his characteristic chortle. “The camel!” he declared. (I have no idea if this is true, and suspect that it isn’t.)

He also wrote the foreword to the book that my father had finished writing the week before his own death in 1990, and gave the first of a series of annual lectures dedicated to his memory – the title was “What Makes Politics Tick? Interests, Ideals or Emotions?” and it was a typically quirky reflection on his own time at the top; by a coincidence of timing, the day he delivered it in Belfast was the day that Margaret Thatcher resigned, and he leavened his text with some personal anecdotes (I remember one about them both being soaked to the skin while on a boat ride at the European summit in Corfu). Someone asked him how he thought Charles Haughey, his enemy and successor, would deal with the recent election of Mary Robinson as president of Ireland. He gave his characteristic chortle. “The Taoiseach,” he declared, “is a pragmatist.” And so it proved.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam, as they say.

i) births and deaths

19 May 1935: birth of Michael Wisher, who played Wakefield in The Ambassadors of Death (1970), Rex Farrel in Terror of the Autons (1971), Kalik in Carnival of Monsters (1973), Davros in Genesis of the Daleks (1975), Magrik in Revenge of the Cybermen (1975) and Morelli in Planet of Evil (1975) as well as Dalek voices in several stories.

19 May 1947: birth of Michael Cochrane, who played Charles Cranleigh in Black Orchid (1982) and Redvers Fenn-Cooper in Ghost Light (1989).

19 May 1982: death of Elwyn Jones, who co-wrote The Highlanders (1966-67).

19 May 2006: death of Peter Bryant, script editor of Doctor Who from the second half of Evil of the Daleks (1967) to The Enemy of the World (1967-68) and then producer from The Web of Fear (1968) to The Wheel in Space (1969).

ii) broadcast anniversaries

19 May 1973: broadcast of first episode of The Green Death. The Brigadier and Jo go to Llanairfach in Wales to explore why people are turning green.

19 May 2007: broadcast of 42. The Doctor and Martha have 42 minutes to save the S.S. Pentallian.

iii) date specified in canon

19 May 1553: Rani appears in London and meets Lady Jane Grey, as seen in Lost in Time (SJA, 2010).

• belgianwaffle » Historic Times [now with extra traffic restrictions!]
  The disruption caused by Queen Elizabeth II to one Dublin family's life.
  (tags: ireland)
• Imogen no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed… | Love and Garbage – some commonplace musings
  Making the obvious point there there is absolutely no public interest in exposing the love life of a footballer, no matter how famous.
  (tags: freespeech law)
• Ignatieff in Canada: Another failed intervention | rabble.ca
  A lefty, but convincing, perspective on why Ignatieff failed so dismally.
  (tags: canada)
• The Scottish vote | YouGov
  Support for Scottish independence:
  29% in Scotland pro, 58% against
  41% in England and Wales pro, 40% against!!!
  (tags: scotland)
• סופרמן בבריטניה (Superman in Britain)
  A Hebrew cartoonist looks at logistical problems facing Superman in London.
  (tags: comics doctorwho)
• What Cathy Ashton needs to do now // Jon Worth
  "First of all there needs to be some honesty from Ashton, ideally presented in a set-piece speech. She needs to publicly acknowledge that there are very major challenges to overcome in European Foreign Policy.
  "Second, Ashton needs to ask for a pause of at least 6 months during which her focus must uniquely be on the administrative side of the functioning of the EEAS. 
  "Third she needs to work out who she trusts, and put at least some of those people in her cabinet. 
  "Relating to the third point, Ashton needs to address the low morale and staffing disorder that currently reigns inside the EEAS. 
  "Fourth, Ashton needs to get her communications in order, by employing a decent speechwriter, and by improving the web communications of the EEAS. 
  "Fifth, her timekeeping needs to improve – an unfortunate reputation of turning up late is now well known. "
  (tags: eu)
• When will Cathy fall from the wuthering heights?
  "One of the most intriguing ‘fantasy politics’ games in Brussels is calculating when Cathy Ashton, the embattled European External Action Service head will return to Britain. While she has charm, this has not covered what has been described as a dismal performance in the new post-Lisbon position."
  (tags: eu)
• What has Facebook done to our relationship with death?
  Dunno about you guys, but I too find it weird that the dead live on in cyberspace…
  (tags: death internet facebook)

i) births and deaths

18 May 1928: birth of John Abineri, who played van Lutyens in Fury from the Deep (1967), Carrington in The Ambassadors of Death (1970), Railton in Death to the Daleks (1974) and Ranquin in The Power of Kroll (1978-79).

ii) broadcast anniversaries

18 May 1968: broadcast of fourth episode of The Wheel in Space. The Cybermen emerge and start to take over the Wheel.

18 May 1974: broadcast of third epsiode of Planet of the Spiders. While exploring the meditation centre, Sarah is transported to Metebelis Three, and the Doctor follows her in the Tardis.

iii) date specified in canon

18 May 1969: setting of much of Paul Leonard’s 1999 Eighth Doctor novel, Resurrection Man.

Yet more refinement of the events of the Silmarillion, in various different formats; I’m rather glad that the next volume in this series takes us to Númenor and away from Beleriand. The most interesting thing in this volume (though unfortunately also the least readable) is Tolkien’s casting of the Annals of Beleriand into Anglo-Saxon, a very visible piece of his commitment to reshaping English mythology by giving it new roots as invented by himself, though as it turned out rather a blind alley creatively. There is also some impressive forensic work on the faint pencil-drawn maps on which Tolkien planned out the geograohy of early Middle-Earth. But this is probably the least accessible so far of this rather obscure series.

Inspired by this post:

If I have a mortgage secured on my house, and then sell said house to you, but neglect to use the proceeds of the sale to pay off the mortgage, does the lender of my mortgage still retain a claim on the house which you have bought?

broadcast anniversaries

17 May 1969: broadcast of fifth episode of The War Games. The Doctor infitrates the Chief Scientist’s laboratory, but Jamie’s raid on central control goes badly.

17 May 2008: broadcast of The Unicorn and the Wasp. The Doctor and Donna arrive at a house party in 1926 and, together with Agatha Christie, defeat the Vespiform.

broadcast anniversaries

16 May 1964: broadcast of “The Keys of Marinus”, sixth episode of the story we now call The Keys of Marinus. Susan, Barbara and the Doctor expose Eyesen and Kala and liberate Ian; the Voords have taken over the Conscience, but Ian gives them a false key and it explodes.

16 May 1970: broadcast of second episode of Inferno. More slime bubbles up, infecting Stahlman; and the Doctor vanishes, with Bessie and the Tardis console.

16 May 2003: webcast of second episode of Shada. The Doctor, Romana, K9 and Chris find Skagra’s invisible spaceship.

“…some things are bigger on the inside than they are on the outside. And, perhaps, some people are bigger on the inside than they are on the outside, as well.”

Latest of the Big Finish sequence of Companion Chronicles audios, this time bringing Mary Tamm to contemporary(ish) Norfolk to confront a somewhat sinister former astronaut turned cyborg aristocrat played by Madeleine Potter. Peter Anghelides hits a lot of good notes, the result being pretty faithful both to the Key to Time season and to the more steampunkish end of the Big Finish universe, and Tamm and Potter do it well.

I did notice a possible connection with Mary Tamm’s Baltic homeland – the observatory whose nickname is the title of the story has a tame astronomer called Öpik (I think – might be ‘Erpick’ I suppose) who presumably commemorates the famous scientist from Estonia who lived out his declining decades in Northern Ireland, and whose grandson Lembit became a prominent Liberal Democrat. Or maybe it is just coincidence.

i) births and deaths

15 May 1925: birth of Roy Stewart, who played Toberman in Tomb of the Cybermen (1967) and Tony in Terror of the Autons (1970).

15 May 1937: birth of Darrol Blake, director of The Stones of Blood (1979)

15 May 1990: death of Peter Grimwade, director of Full Circle (1980), Logopolis (1981), Kinda (1982) and Earthshock (1982) and writer of Time-Flight (1982), Mawdryn Undead (1983) and Planet of Fire (1984).

ii) broadcast anniversaries

15 May 1965: broadcast of “The Final Phase”, fourth episode of the story we now call The Space Museum. The Xerons revolt and kill the Moroks, allowing the Tardis team to escape.

15 May 1971: broadcast of sixth episode of Colony in Space. The Guardian destroys the ancient weapon, and himself; the IMC surrender to the colonists; the Master escapes, and the Doctor and Jo return home.

15 May 2010: broadcast of Amy’s Choice. Amy is forced to choose between different versions of reality by the Dream Lord.

iii) dates specified in canon

15 May 2008: death of Donna Noble’s father, Geoff.

15-18 May 2009: events of Gary Russell’s 2009 novel, Beautiful Chaos.

This book has been lingering on my ‘unread’ list for several years so I was a little annoyed with myself to realise that I had actually read it; I don’t have a note of having done so after buying it in 2007, so I must have previously owned a copy in the late 1990s or early 2000s. As usual, it is full of McDonald’s lush, dense, descriptive prose, taking us to various richly imagied environments (mostly near-future Earth, but not usually in the First World). The standout piece for me is “Toward Kilimanjaro”, the prequel to Chaga / Evolution’s Shore, but they are all great.

A solid tale of the life of Gogol Ganguli, born in Boston to Bengali parents in the late 1960s, coming to terms with America and his Indian background. I enjoyed it a lot; it’s basically an account of a complex love life against a complex cultural background, and Lahiri caught me out with a couple of the plot develoments. Recommended.

This is a collection of historical essays, edited by David Edwards, Pádraig Lenihan and Clodagh Tait, about political violence in Ireland between the mid-sixteenth century and the 1690s.

I found the first essay, by Edwards, much the most interesting for my own selfish purposes; he finds that political violence escalated during the sixteenth century because the English government increasingly used it as a political tool; he challenges the received wisdom that the endemic violence of the system before roughly the 1540s was as serious as it subsequently became, and also points out that violence of the earlier period hit the topmost echelons of society particularly hard – he has a nice table breaking down deaths of Irish rulers as to whether they took place in peacetime, or at the hands of their own kin, or at the hands of others. The change then comes with the removal of Butler supremacy in the 1540s and the attempts of the governments of Henry VIII’s children to enforce Dublin Castle / Whitehall control across the island. There were indeed counter-attacks by Irish chieftains on English-led forces, and on each other, but Edwards finds unambigously that the English used violence as a political tool first, and on a larger scale than the Irish were able to (including hitting the common folk as much as the lords).

It’s a provocative and counter-revisionist piece, and the editors of the books argue in their introduction (and a number of other contributors agree) that Irish historiography is perhaps more liberated to inquire honestly into the facts of political violence in the past, now that the threat of violence in the present is largely over. One contributor blames C.S. Lewis and W.B. Yeats for whitewashing Spenser, who was clearly initmately involved with the 1580 massacre at Smerwick. On the same period, Hiram Morgan has a typically profound analysis of the murders carried out on the orders (probably) of Hugh O’Neill.

There are a number of pieces on the traumatic 1640s, the best being one by Kenneth Nicholls on the 1642 massacres of Catholics by Protestants in Leinster and Munster (which followed the even bloodier 1641 massacres the other way round in Ulster), though I was also interested to read John R. Young’s account of the reception of Protestant refugees from Ulster in Scotland (it’s a shame that he doesn’t match this up with Ulster geography) and Mark Clinton, Linda Fibiger and Damian Shiels on the archaeology of a massacre at Carrickmines south of Dublin.

John Morrill and Micheál Ó Siochrú take two different looks at Cromwell and Drogheda, Ó Siochrú unpacking the contemporary published accounts of the massacre, Morrill looking at it in the context of Cromwell’s whole career – anti-Irish and anti-Catholic, but markedly less so than most of his allies. While Ó Siochrú sticks to (and reinforces) orthodox interpretations, Morrill is interestingly revisonist: for instance, he interprets Cromwell’s infamous description of those he ordered killes as “barbarous wretches, who have imbrued their hands with so much innocent blood” as referring to Royalists in general rather than Irish Catholics in general.

Anyway, relatively cheap for an academic volume and worth a read for a deeper understanding of the topic of the title. A couple of the writers make parallels with more recent wars in the Balkans, and I can see the point, though will have to reflect a bit further.

i) births and deaths

14 May 1925: birth of Ysanne Churchman, the voice of Alpha Centauri in The Curse of Peladon (1972) and The Monster of Peladon (1974), and a Spider in Planet of the Spiders.

also 14 May 1925: birth of Tristram Cary, who wrote incidental music for six First Doctor stories and two later ones.

14 May 1942: birth of Prentis Hancock, who played a reporter in Spearhead from Space (1970), Vaber in Planet of the Daleks (1973), Salamar in Planet of Evil (1975) and The Ribos Operation (1978).

ii) broadcast anniversaries

14 May 1966: broadcast of “Johnny Ringo”, third episode of the story we now call The Gunfighters. Ring arrives in search of Doc Holiday, with fatal consequences for Charlie the barman and (indirectly) Warren Earp.

14 May 1998 1996: broadcast of Doctor Who: The Movie on Fox. The Doctor arrives in San Francisco at the end of December 1999, and regenerates after being shot; the resurrected Master attempts to take the Doctor’s body and/or destroy the Earth, but Grace prevents him.

14 May 2005: broadcast of Father’s Day. Rose prevents her father’s death, causing tremendous paradoxes which can be fixed only for a very high price.

14 May 2011: broadcast of The Doctor’s Wife.

i) births and deaths

13 May 1938: birth of Milton Johns, who played Benik in The Enemy of the World (1967-68), Guy Crayford in The Android Invasion (1975), and Kelner in The Invasion of Time (1978).

13 May 1946: birth of Tim Piggot-Smith, who played Captain Harker in The Claws of Axos (1971) and Marco in The Masque of Mandragora (1976).

13 May 1949: birth of Zoe Wanamaker, who played Lady Cassandra in The End of the World (2005) and New Earth (2006).

broadcast anniversaries

13 May 1967: sixth episode of The Faceless OnesThe Mutants. Ky is transformed into a superbeing and kills the Marshal; Sondergaard stays on to help the other Solonians transform.

13 May 2006: broadcast of Rise of the Cybermen. The Doctor, Rose and Mickey arrive in a parallel world where Rose’s father is still alive and the Cybermen are coming.

Here’s a third post on my Hugo nominations – I took advantage of my recent indisposition to watch the nominees for Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) from a recumbent position, and formed therefore the following scientific views.

6) Toy Story 3. I had somehow missed the first two Toy Story films, and based on this I don’t feel especially deprived. The animation is cute but the plot risible. Woody’s barely reciprocated loyalty to Andy is rather pathetic, and the rest of the characterisation is wafer-thin. You more or less know what will happen in the film from the first five minutes, and I found it difficult to keep up my interest.

5) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1. There are some good moments in this – notably the legend of the Three Brothers, told in animation about three quarters of the way through – and Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe are still very watchable, as are many of their older costars. But it’s awfully slow and yet also disjointed. Shame that they didn’t gut the book (which is also too long) and just make a single film of the good bits.

4) How to Train Your Dragon. Another animated film, but one with actual plot and humour, as the geek among the Viking warrior kids discovers that intelligence and compassion can be better than brawn and bashing things when dealing with awful threats like dragons and adolescence. It’s not exactly profound, but the script is witty and the animation excellent.

3) No Award. I mean, seriously, folks, it would be embarrassing for any of the above to win.

2) Scott Pilgrim vs The World. I found it pretty easy to rank the lower three, but wavered between my top two. In the end, though I greatly enjoyed this, I am putting it second. It’s a lovely film, but I was sorry about the inevitable screen truncation of Scott and Ramona’s relationship from the series of graphic novels and concentration on action sequences (of which my favourite, the library fight between Knives and Ramona, was also axed). The film also seemed a bit more racially dodgy than the original. Still very enjoyable though.

1) Inception. In forty years’ time, when my grandchildren (or yours) ask me how I voted in this year’s Hugos, I think this is the only defensible choice. Admittedly I found it rather hard to follow, due to being in pain and on various drugs while watching it in several installments, but that was true when I watched all the others as well, so in fact not a great excuse. It looks and sounds utterly fantastic, and is clearly paying homage to Philip K. Dick while bringing in various other sexual and social paranoias, in the ultimate example of someone’s personal relationships interfering with their career. I wasn’t totally sure about Ellen Page (either her character or her performance), but maybe my appreciation would have been greater under normal circumstances. In any case, no work of art is perfect, and I can happily give this my top vote.

Previous Hugo category write-ups: Best Short Story, Best Dramatic Presentation – Short Form.

i) births and deaths

12 May 1968: birth of Catherine Tate, who played Donna Noble in New Who from 2006 to 2010.

12 May 2001: death of Norman Kay, who composed the incidental music for An Unearthly Child (1963), The Keys of Marinus (1964) and The Sensorites (1964).

ii) broadcast anniversaries

12 May 1973: broadcast of sixth episode of Planet of the Daleks. The Doctor, Jo and the Thals trap the Daleks in the ice volcano.

12 May 1996: first broadcast of Doctor Who: The Movie on a local cable channel in Edmonton, Canada.

12 May 2007: no Doctor Who episode shown today, the series taking a break for the Eurovision Song contest between The Lazarus Experiment and 42.

iii) date specified in canon

12 May 1999: birth of Adelaide Brooke, who we meet in The Waters of Mars (2009).

• The epic AV Referendum post-mortem blog: Evil triumphs when the good are led by incompetent halfwits « Paperback Rioter
  How the Yes campaign lost.
  (tags: avreferendum)

i) births and deaths

11 May 2001: death of Douglas Adams, writer of The Pirate Planet (1978) and Shada (unbroadcast but would have been 1980), co-author of City of Death (1979) and script editor for Season 17 (1979-80); best known, of course, for other things.

ii) broadcast anniversaries

11 May 1968: broadcast of third episode of The Wheel in Space. Cybermats have infiltrated the Wheel, and the Cybermen have laid a trap in their spaceship.

11 May 1974: broadcast of second episode of Planet of the Spiders, the one with the interminable chase sequence.

• 513 – Then We Take Berlin: When East Ate West | Strange Maps | Big Think
  The public transport map of East Berlin.
  (tags: germany history)

i) births and deaths

10 May 1935: birth of Terrance Dicks, author of Robot, Horror of Fang Rock, State of Decay and The Five Doctors, co-author of The War Games and The Brain of Morbius, script editor of Old Who from 1968 to 1974, author of over sicty novelisations of Old Who stories, fifteen spinoff novels, two stage plays and four non-fiction books (including The Making of Doctor Who, co-written with Malcolm Hulke).

10 May 1998: death of Dalek operator Robert Jewell.

ii) broadcast anniversaries

10 May 1969: broadcast of fourth episode of The War Games. The Doctor and Zoe start to explore Central Control, and in a chilling moment the Doctor and the War Chief recognise each other.

10 May 1974: broadcast of fourth episode of Revenge of the Cybermen, ending Season 12. The Doctor succeeds in deflecting the Nerva beacon so that the Vogan’s missile destroys the Cybermen.

10 May 2008: broadcast of The Doctor’s Daughter. The Doctor, Donna and Martha land on the planet Messaline where they are caught up in a war between humans and the Hath, and encounter Jenny, the Doctor’s newly cloned daughter.

• The story of the AV campaign
  How the referendum was won by the No campaign.
  (tags: avreferendum)
• xkcd: Marie Curie
  Careers advice from zombie Marie Curie!
  (tags: sexandsexualityandgender history)
• In memoriam: George Ross 1935-2011 « Francesca Elston
  The Ten Commandments of the late George Ross (I summarise):

  1.- Sapere aude – Dare to know. 
  2.- Know thyself.
  3.- Universalize your actions.
  4.- Be kind and compassionate, and be involved.
  5.- Take very seriously your duty towards others, but do not take yourself too seriously.
  6.- Remember that all human opinions, values, tenets and beliefs are of necessity subjective and relative.
  7.- Be regular and ordinary in your life, like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.
  8.- Tolerate any stance, except intolerance itself.
  9.- Treat with respect the planet on which we live.
  10.- Strive to live in such a way that the world you leave behind you is a better place, freer, wiser, more tolerant, than the world you found when you were born. 

  Read the whole thing!

  (tags: life)

i) births and deaths

9 May 1940: birth of John Black, who directed The Keeper of Traken (1981), K9 and Company (1981) and Four to Doomsday (1982).

ii) broadcast anniversaries

9 May 1964: broadcast of “Sentence of Death”, the fifth episode of the story we now call The Keys of Marinus. Ian is accused of murder, and the Doctor is his defence lawyer.

9 May 1970: broadcast of first episode of Inferno. The Doctor is tapping energy from the controversial Inferno project; meanwhile people contaminated by subterranean gas are turning into monsters.

9 May 2003: webcast of second episode of Shada. The Doctor examines the mysterious book from Professor Chronotis’ laboratory.

• NDP's Brosseau admits she's never been to riding, but excited to go soon – The Globe and Mail
  The new Canadian MP who has never actually been to the district she represents and barely speaks French. "In the interview with Trois-Rivieres' Le Nouvelliste, the 27-year-old said that she will quit her job as an assistant bar manager at Ottawa's Carleton University and devote herself to her new post." Glad to hear it! 
  (tags: politics canada)
• English Russia » The Base Of Human Exterminators
  Tour of a nuclear missile base.
  (tags: war)

What with the election, and still not being completely recovered from my recent indisposition, I’m way behind in both reading and book-blogging (and in replies to various emails as well). Tomorrow may be a day to start catching up, though I’m doing radio again in the morning and TV in the evening.

Meantime, I should record that I finished this book as long ago as Thursday; it is a history of the reign of the Byzantine emperor Alexius I by his daughter Anna. Gibbon is (as so often) unfairly scathing about this book, saying that “an elaborate affectation of rhetoric and science betrays on every page the vanity of a female author”. It’s not that bad, but it’s not that great either; if you’re not especially interested in the events of the late eleventh century and early twelfth century at that end of the Mediterranean, you can skip it in good conscience.

I did take several things away from it. First off, the importance of the Norman invasion of Sicily and Calabria: Anna is completely obsessed with Robert Guiscard and especially his son Bohemond, who starts off as a thorn in the side of the Byzantine empire, conquering chunks of Albania, Macedonia and northern Greece, and ends up ruling Antioch after the success of the First Crusade. Bohemond is an rather impressive figure (see especially Anna’s description in 13.10) who seems to be somewhat forgotten by posterity.

Second, as a lapsed historian of science, I was interested in Anna’s account of these things. She has quite a long rant (6.7) about how wrong astrology is, but also writes on the one hand of her father tricking the Scythians into submission because he knew that an eclipse was about to take place, and on the other hand (twice) of important strategic decisions being made by writing the alternatives on two pieces of paper, praying over them all night, and then implementing whichever option is selected by the priest (one at 10.2, can’t  find the other). So she actually favours both astronomical knowledge and superstitious grounds for decision-making, and it’s a bit surprising to me that she doesn’t buy the combination.

Third, towards the end she starts reflecting on the fact that she is writing the history because she is effectively locked away from the rest of the world in a convent and has nothing else to do, and also on how she reconstructed the sequence of events from first-person accounts of her own relatives and of former soldiers who had become monks. It’s a rather welcome glimpse of how the history book was actually written, and also makes one feel sorry for this talented woman who fell out with her younger brother and so was banished from public life.

i) births and deaths

8 May 1928: birth of John Bennett, who played General Finch in Invasion of the Dinosaurs (1974) and Li H’sen Chang in The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1977).

8 May 1931: birth of Douglas Camfield, who directed the third episode of Planet of Giants (1964), also The Crusade (1965), The Time Meddler (1965), The Daleks’ Master Plan (1965-66), The Web of Fear (1968), The Invasion (1968), much of Inferno (1970), Terror of the Zygons (1975) and The Seeds of Doom (1976).

ii) broadcast anniversaries

8 May 1965: broadcast of “The Search”, third episode of the story we now call The Space Museum. Vicki helps the Xerons to plan their revolution against the Moroks.

8 May 1971: broadcast of fifth episode of Colony in Space. The colonists capture the IMC guys, and then the IMC guys capture the colonists; meanwhile the Master is holding Jo hostage to ensure the Doctor’s cooperation.

8 May 2010: broadcast of The Vampires of Venice. The Doctor, Amy and Rory visit Venice, to find aliens disguised as vampires infesting the city.