• BBC News – A real Good Samaritan
  A charitable train conductor. "If you feel the need to thank me, the next time you see someone in trouble, you help them out. That will pay me back amply. Tell them to pay you back the same way and soon the world will be a better place."
  (tags: christmas)
• Sapovnela, 1959, Otar Iosseliani
  A 16 minute film about Georgian florist Mikheil Mamulashvili, made in 1959 when he was 86. In Georgian, but enjoy the music and the flowers!
  (tags: georgia films)
• Frederik Pohl: A Visit to Prince Mtskheta
  I've also been to Mtskheta, but did not get the same local guide!
  (tags: georgia)

Sad to hear of the passing of the inventor of the Wombles.

Before:

Despite the delivery problems, a respectable pile of parcels

After:

F surrounded by trophies (note new Pterry book in foreground)

U worships the diabolical Tweenies

And we’re going to try and take B for a walk in the snow this afternoon.

Happy Christmas to those who celebrate, a restful and enjoyable day to all.

i) births and deaths

25 December 1916: birth of Edward Burnham, who played Professor Watkins in The Invasion (1968) and Professor Kettlewell in Robot (1974-75).

25 December 1984: birth of Georgia Moffett, daughter of Peter “Fifth Doctor” Davison (whose real name is Moffett); she has played Jenny, the Doctor’s daughter, in The Doctor’s Daughter (2008), Cassie Rice in animated story Dreamland (2009), Tanya in Big Finish audio Red Dawn (2000) and Alice in Big Finish audio City of Spires (2010).

25 December 1988: death of Terence Dudley who directed Meglos (1980) and wrote Four to Doomsday (1982), Black Orchid (1982) and The King’s Demons (1983).

25 December 1999: death of Peter Jeffreys who played the unnamed Pilot in The Macra Terror (1967) and Count Grendel in The Androids of Tara (1978).

ii) broadcast anniversaries

25 December 1965: broadcast of “The Feast of Steven”, seventh episode of the story we now call The Daleks’ Master Plan. The Doctor and Sara get arrested at a northern English police station, but Steven busts them out; they then get embroiled on the Hollywood set of a silent movie; and the Doctor wishes “a happy Christmas to all of you at home!”

25 December 2005: broadcast of The Christmas Invasion, first full Tenth Doctor story. As the regenerated Doctor arrives in London, the Sycorax invade, but are repelled.

25 December 2005: launch of interactive game Attack of the Graske on the BBC website.

25 December 2006: broadcast of The Runaway Bride, first appearance of Catherine Tate as Donna Noble. Her wedding turns out to be a front for the release of the Racnoss; the Doctor flushes the spiders down the plughole.

25 December 2007: broadcast of Voyage of the Damned, first appearance of Bernard Cribbins as Wilfred Mott, with Kylie Minogue guest starring as Astrid Peth. Max Capricorn has persuaded the captain of the Starship Titanic to crash into Buckingham Palace, but the Doctor prevents them, at the cost of Astrid’s life.

25 December 2008: broadcast of The Next Doctor. Back in 1851, the Doctor thwarts an invasion of England by Cybermen, with the help of Jackson Lake and Rosita Farisi.

25 December 2009: broadcast of The End of Time. The Master is resurrected; the Doctor returns to Earth via the Ood-Sphere and is captured by the Master in time to witness the transformation of the whole of humaity into duplicates of his arch-enemy.

25 December 2010: broadcast of The Christmas Carol.This makes 25 December, along with 1 January, one of only two dates in the year with seven broadcast Whoniversaries (and the only one where all of those Whoniversaries are actually Who rather than the spinoffs).

iii) dates specified in canon

As well as those mentioned yesterday:

25 December 1883: setting of Attack of the Graske.

25 December 1951: The First Doctor, Ian, Susan and Barbara steal the Stone of Scone (in “Set in Stone” by Charles Auchterlonie and John Isles, from the 2005 anthology Short Trips: The History of Christmas).

• diggerdydum: STORYPOLL: THE FINAL
  Your chance to vote!
  (tags: doctorwho)
• Eve's Alexandria: "My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me."
  On Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that one joke isn't really enough to sustain a parody mash-up novel over 300 pages."
  (tags: books)
• Why Blink?
  it not only found an elegant way of telling a Doctor Who story without the Doctor, it found a way of telling a new series Who story without rubbing our face in its themes.
  (tags: doctorwho)

Young F researched this piece today and posted it elsewhere; he has given me permission to reproduce it here for reference.

I decided to make a list of the missing Doctor Who episodes – which are often known as being ‘lost in time’, aptly…
Statistics
There are currently 114 missing episodes from 28 serials, including 12 completely missing serials and 45 episodes from 12 serials for Hartnell and 63 episodes from 15 serials for Troughton and the 6-episode Shada – unless you want to count the 11 black and white Pertwee episodes from 3 serials, including one full serial only available in black and white, in which case there are 124 missing episodes from 31 serials including 13 completely missing serials. All of them have surviving footage except for Marco Polo/A Journey to Cathay, Mission to the Unknown and The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve/The Massacre, though you could argue that Marco Polo/A Journey to Cathay has footage as the Edge of Destruction/Inside the Spaceship/Beyond the Sun is completely intact…

00:45 in the video shows the only surviving footage we have of Marco Polo/A Journey to Cathay – which is actually from the Brink of Disaster (The Edge of Destruction/Inside the Spaceship/Beyond the Sun).
List of missing episodes
4-episode run of original versions of episodes that survive through An Unearthly Child/100,000 BC/The Tribe of Gum.
Original version of The Dead Planet (part 1 of The Daleks/The Dead Planet/The Mutants) missing: At some point after recording somebody found out that a technical problem had caused backstage voices to be heard on the tape. In early December 1963 it was remounted with a different costume for Susan. The only surviving bit is the cliffhanger – again, not from the original but from episode 2, The Survivors.
8-episode run of original versions of episodes that survive from The Survivors (The Daleks/The Mutants/The Dead Planet) to The Brink of Disaster (The Edge of Destruction/Inside the Spaceship/Beyond the Sun), unless you insist on saying that The Dead Planet survives. If so, it’s a complete run of 13 surviving episodes.
6-episode run of missing episodes through Marco Polo/A Journey to Cathay.
19-episode run of surviving episodes from The Sea of Death (The Keys of Marinus/The Sea of Death) to A Change of Identity (The Reign of Terror/The French Revolution).
The Tyrant of France and A Bargain of Necessity from The Reign of Terror/The French Revolution are missing.
23-episode run of surviving episodes between Prisoners of Conciergerie (The Reign of Terror/The French Revolution) and The Lion (The Crusade/The Lionheart/The Crusaders).
Alternating between lost-surviving-lost, we have The Knight of Jaffa, The Wheel of Fortune and The Warlords from The Crusade/The Lionheart/The Crusaders.
14-episode run of surviving episodes from The Space Museum (The Space Museum) to Checkmate (The Time Meddler) and thus for the rest of Season Two.
10-episode run of lost episodes at the start of Season Three running from Four Hundred Dawns (Galaxy Four) to The Nightmare Begins (The Daleks’ Master Plan). Yes, I’m counting Four Hundred Dawns as missing. Even though there’s an 8-minute piece of footage in it, that doesn’t mean it’s complete.
Alternating between surviving-missing-surviving, we have most of the rest of The Daleks’ Master Plan: Day of Armageddon, Devil’s Planet to The Traitors, Counter Plot, Coronas of the Sun to Golden Death and Escape Switch.
6-episode run of lost episodes from The Abandoned Planet (The Daleks’ Master Plan) to Bell of Doom (The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve/The Massacre).
4-episode run of surviving episodes through The Ark.
3-episode run of lost episodes through The Celestial Toymaker from The Celestial Toyroom to The Dancing Floor.
5-episode run of surviving episodes from The Final Test (The Celestial Toymaker) to the last episode with its own title, The OK Corral (The Gunfighters).
4-episode run of missing episodes through The Savages.
4-episode run of surviving episodes at the end of Season Three through The War Machines.
4-episode run of missing episodes at the start of Season Four through The Smugglers.
3-episode run of surviving episodes through The Tenth Planet from episodes 1-3.
13-episode run of missing episodes through the Doctor boundary from The Tenth Planet #4 to The Underwater Menace #2.
After episode 3 of The Underwater Menace (which survives), we have a 2-episode run of missing episodes from The Underwater Menace #4 to The Moonbase #1.
Alternating between surviving-lost-surviving, we have the rest of the Moonbase.
4-episode run of missing episodes through The Macra Terror.
Alternating between surviving-missing-surviving, we have the first three episodes of The Faceless Ones.
4-episode run of missing episodes from The Faceless Ones #4 to The Evil of the Daleks #1.
After the surviving second episode of The Evil of the Daleks, we have a 5-episode run of missing episodes through the rest of The Evil of the Daleks.
4-episode run of surviving episodes through The Tomb of the Cybermen.
After the missing first and surviving second episodes of The Abominable Snowmen, we have a 4-episode run of missing episodes through the rest of The Abominable Snowmen.
After the surviving first and the lost second and third episodes of The Ice Warriors, we have a 3-episode run of surviving episodes through the rest of The Ice Warriors.
After the missing first and second and the surviving third episodes of The Enemy of the World, we have a 3-episode run of missing episodes through the rest of The Enemy of the World.
After the surviving first episode of The Web of Fear, we have a 13-episode run of missing episodes from The Web of Fear #2 to The Wheel in Space #2.
After the surviving third and missing fourth and fifth episodes of The Wheel in Space, we have an 11-episode run of original versions of episodes that survive from The Wheel in Space #6 to The Mind Robber #5.
The original versions of The Invasion #1 and #4 are missing, but they have been animated for DVD. So if you want originals, you’ll have a 2-episode run of survivors between them and a 14-episode run of survivors after them from The Invasion #5 to The Seeds of Death #6. But if you don’t care about originality and absolutely insist on counting The Invasion #1 and #4, we’ve got a 27-episode run of survivors from The Wheel in Space #6 to The Seeds of Death #6.
After the missing first and surviving second episodes of The Space Pirates, we have a 3-episode run of missing episodes for the rest of The Space Pirates. After that, everything survives. Except…
List of black and white-only episodes from the Pertwee era
Yeah, there are some Pertwee episodes that are only available in black and white. So if you count the colour versions of those as missing, we’ve got a longer list!
22-episode run of surviving episodes over the Doctor boundary from The War Games #1 to The Ambassadors of Death #1.
3-episode run of black and white episodes through The Ambassadors of Death from episodes 2 to 4.
After the coloured The Ambassadors of Death #5 and 6 and the black and white The Ambassadors of Death #7, we have an 11-episode run of colour episodes from Inferno #1 to Terror of the Autons #4.
6-episode run of black and white episodes through The Mind of Evil.
We have a 61-episode run through Seasons 8-11 from The Claws of Axos #1 to The Time Warrior #4.
After Invasion of the Dinosaurs #1, everything is available in colour – except 60% of the 6-episode Shada, which has no complete episodes but might just appear on DVD – probably the same way as it did when it appeared on VHS in 1992 with Tom Baker narrating the bits that weren’t filmed.
Phew – that took so long I had to save it as a draft halfway through! Combine the facts that it’s such a long list and I am going to bed after possibly wrapping a few Christmas presents and e-mailing this to my dad for him to put in his blog, I can’t just read it all through in one go and I don’t feel like doing that right now, but you can mention spelling mistakes (I do not spell colour wrong. That’s how you spell it in the English that I speak – aka English English) and things I did extremely weirdly in the comments.

He is his father’s son, obviously!

I was dismayed to realise last weekend that this is in fact the second book of Cooper’s famous Dark Is Rising sequence, not the first; but the majority of my friends on LiveJournal, Facebook and Twitter reassured me that if anything it’s better to start here rather than with the first volume, Over Sea Under Stone.

Well, it turned out to be pretty appropriate to be reading a novel set around Christmas time with unprecedentedly heavy snowfall. Eleven-year-old Will, the seventh son of a seventh son, discovers that he bears ancient powers, and is one of the Old Ones who are trying to prevent the Dark from, er, Rising. I think it’s a great exposition of the desire that most children (and many adults) have of being the secret hero, tying in the magical otherworld with Will’s family life (which is itself disrupted by events). I liked it a lot and will now look out for the other volumes. (And will see if my own eleven-year-old can be persuaded to take an interest.)

An intriguing tale of two space-faring civilisations who find themselves contesting possession of a Big Dumb Object, in this case a ship that appears to fade into another universe, with the Eighth Doctor and Sam arriving and getting mixed up in it. There’s some good sfnal stuff about time paradoxes, though I was a bit sorry that Sam’s character appeared to have lost all the development of the last couple of volumes in the series. Nice Doctory characterisation though, and generally clear writing.

The kids were supposed to go to school today, even though it is Christmas Eve. But the roads were slippery enough yesterday evening, and more snow has fallen overnight, our back garden showing that the total depth is about 30cm:

U’s school bus decided not to run, and although F’s school is only 4km away we decided that the trip isn’t worth it (he is still coughing nastily). So Christmas starts here. I doubt very much that we will get any more postal deliveries today, so we’ll be a bit short on actual presents tomorrow, but at least I have started marinading the boar.

And it will go on through next week, as the presents trickle in and visitors arrive – rarely posting LJ-ers , and child, and Mrs , all will arrive in time for one of the bigger New Year celebrations we’ve had here.

And Doctor Who is on tomorrow!

i) births and deaths

24 December 1925: birth of Innes Lloyd, producer of Doctor Who from The Celestial Toymaker (1966) to The Enemy of the World (1967-68).

24 December 1941: birth of John Levene, who played Benton in various UNIT stories from 1968 to 1975.

ii) broadcast anniversaries

24 December 1966: broadcast of second episode of The Highlanders. Polly and Kirsty capture Ffinch; the Doctor tricks solicitor Grey; but Ben, Jamie and the Laird are trapped on the slave ship.

24 December 2006: broadcast of Combat (Torchwood), the one with the fighting Weevils which was written by Noel “Mickey Smith” Clarke.

iii) dates specified in canon

All of the Christmas specials actually begin on the 24th:

24-25 December 1851: setting of The Next Doctor (2008).

24 December 1869: setting of The Unquiet Dead (2005).

24-25 December 1968: setting of much of the action of Mark Gatiss’ 1992 novel Nightshade.

24-25 December 2006 (?): setting of The Christmas Invasion (2005).

24 December 2007 (?): setting of The Runaway Bride (2006).

24-25 December 2008 (?): setting of Voyage of the Damned (2007).

24-26 December 2009 (?): setting of The End of Time (2009-10).

• PaulCornell.com: The Twelve Blogs of Christmas: Eleven
  Paul on the numinous.
  (tags: religion)
• The Blast Shack
  "For diplomats, a massive computer leak is not the kind of sunlight that chases away corrupt misbehavior; it’s more like some dreadful shift in the planetary atmosphere that causes ultraviolet light to peel their skin away."
  (tags: wikileaks)

broadcast anniversaries

23 December 1967: broadcast of first episode of The Enemy of the World. The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria land on a near-future Australian beach, are attacked by gunmen, rescued by Astrid in her helicopter, and discover that the sinister Salamander is the Doctor’s double.

23 December 1978: broadcast of first episode of The Power of Kroll. In search of the fifth segment of the Key to Time, the Doctor and Romana land on the third moon of Delta Minor, where Romana is captured by the native Swampies and the Doctor by the protein miners.

• PaulCornell.com: The Twelve Blogs of Christmas: Ten
  Paul gives his views on e-books and piracy
  (tags: copyright)
• The devil we know
  Me old mate Peter Osborne writes about the Parades Commission in Fortnight magazine
  (tags: northernireland)
• FROZEN STORIES – Definitely *not* a review of Ursula le Guin's "The Dispossessed"
  Why Peadar liked it when he was 15 and still likes it now.
  (tags: sf)

This month’s main sequence Big Finish release, a set of four Fifth Doctor / Nyssa single-episode stories, each of which is independent (the last has very vague links to the first). They are all basically good single-shot tales, the second (“The Entropy Composition” by Rick Briggs) having been pulled from hundreds of submissions to an open request frm Big Finish;’ the standout is certainly the fourth, “Special Features” by John Dorney, which is set in a recording booth where the Doctor and other former cast members are recording a DVD commentary for a 1970s horror film, which will certainly appeal to those of us who love the DVD commentary tracks for, oh, any other 1970s shows.

In the gaps between Doctor Who audios for the last couple of months, I’ve been listening to “This Sceptred Isle – Empire”, a series of 90 short radio programmes about the history of the British Empire, narrated by Juliet Stevenson with additional voice work by Christopher Ecclestone, Anna Massey, Jack Davenport, and others, a sequel to the earlier This Sceptred Isle which dealt with the history of Britain in the same way.

I was a bit underwhelmed, to be honest. I suspect that the subject is too big to treat in this way; I had picked it up in the first place to listen to the bits about Ireland, which for the earlier period were fairly decent, but rather tailed off towards the end (Irish history apparently stopped in 1916), and the other ex-colonies I’ve dealt with professionally (Cyprus, Somaliland) were barely mentioned. The focus of the narrative was generally, though not always, on the effect that the colonies and colonised had on the British rather than the other way round. I was particularly frustrated by the sections about Warren Hastings, which lionised him as an innocent hero without making it terribly clear why he was anything more than a venal administrator set up by rivals in office politics who played hardball. Macaulay was much clearer (if more long-winded), but I missed really any Indian account of whether Hastings was any good.

There are also serious limitations to the straight narrative-with-actors style. Probably if I’d been listening to it at a rate of one instalment every day or so, rather than in bursts of several at a time, it might not have irritated me as much. But I’ve now started the more recent and excellent History Of The World In 100 Objects, and I’m stunned by how dull the format of Scepterd Isle is, in comparison. It would hardly have killed the producers to include, like, music, or even original sound tracks in the later period when they become available.

So, all in all, not really recommended listening.

The 32 posts on this journal since my last tally which got more than 15 comments (I’ve lowered the bar – last time, 42 posts had more than 20 comments, this time it was only 14, which no doubt reflects the general migration to Twitter and Facebook and perhaps my own less obsessive blogging this year). Top 17 in bold, top 8 and top 4 in larger fonts.

20 December 2009: ርሑስ በዓል ልደትን ሓድሽ ዓመትን – seasonal greetings in Tigrinya (23 comments)
22 December: Email scam – fake message from my cousin seeking £2000 immediately (21 comments)
30 December: Books unread – my poll of books to read in 2010 (28 comments)
1 January 2010: 2009 books poll – have you read what I read last year? (17 comments)
9 January: I guess you could call this the NATO meme – a bit silly really (16 comments)
16 January: ‘Completist’ authors poll – which of these folks have you read? (24 comments)
14 February: A book I am unlikely to read – Blackout, by Connie Willis (16 comments)
21 February: Cooking 1) Boiling – how do you do rice? (15 comments)
28 February: February Books 17) A Short History of Fantasy, by Farah Mendlesohn and Edward James – discussion of book, BSFA voting, and availability of other nominees (17 comments)
7 March: State of me – health whinge (20 comments, thank you all!)
7 March: Descendants – more on the most recent common ancestor, looking at the offspring of Victoria and Albert (19 comments)
19 April: Victory of the Daleks – latest Doctor Who episode (20 comments)
29 April: Linkspam for 29-4-2010 – ‘s post on being a European (18 comments)
15 May: So, that coalition then – discussion mostly about the House of Lords (15 comments)
4 June: Questions meme – I still owe people questions from this one, sorry (16 comments)
7 June – How to pronounce van Gogh – Doctor Who encounters the Dutch language (15 comments)
8 June – Address book backup – actually I went for none of the above (16 comments)
6 July: 600 seats – redrawing the seats in Northern Ireland (60 comments)
17 July: Statistically improbable phrases – identifying books via Amazon (19 comments)
8 August: Tonight’s the night (Sherlock) – when will you watch it? (19 comments)
10 August: Blackberry v Android (v iPhone) – seeking the wisdom of my f-list (54 comments)
13 August: August Books 10) A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge – general discussion (23 comments)
7 September: Delicious LiveJournal Links for 7-9-2010 – mathematical discussion (38 comments)
6 September: Android brick – my customer dissatisfaction, still not completely assuaged (15 comments)
12 September: Drama (locked post) – sick child (16 comments)
17 September: Favourite series of books – early post in a meme which I did not complete (15 comments)
24 September: Ian Sales’ list of British sf masterworks – didn’t include many women (24 comments)
10 October: Author bites back – Paul Magrs objects to a review (21 comments)
7 November: What happened to the Doctor Who companions? – one of my favourite posts of the year (15 comments)
2 December: TAFF (locked post) – I didn’t go for it in the end (15 comments)
8 December: Which are the best novels by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman? – poll and discussion (22 comments)
17 December: Bizarre incident – road rage (22 supportive comments, thank you all)

Thanks to everyone who reads and comments.

broadcast anniversaries

22 December 1973: broadcast of second episode of The Time Warrior. Sarah is rescued by Boba Fett Hal, while the Doctor is captured by Irongron and Linx.

22 December 1979: broadcast of first episode of The Horns of Nimon. The Tardis collides with a ship full of sacrifices from the planet Skonnos.

• Announcing the Twelve Doctors of Christmas! | Tor.com | Science fiction and fantasy | Blog posts
  I'm in good company!
  (tags: doctorwho)
• The EU – What's in it for me?
  The UK, as most of us know, is a net contributor to the EU budget. Therefore it’s understandable that people in this country want to learn more about how we benefit from our collective contribution. On this website you can find out how the EU helps with:

  * Moving around Europe freely and safely* Giving UK consumers a fair deal* Making our food and environment safer* Fighting crime and policing borders

  (tags: eu ukpolitics)
• Three Reasons AKA Jessica Jones Makes Me Worried | Tor.com | Science fiction and fantasy | Blog posts
  (tags: comics)

…too cloudy, and someone has put all this white stuff outside:

The path Anne cleared down the drive yesterday is all but invisible!

i) births and deaths

21 December 1915: birth of James Cairncross, who played Lemaitre in The Reign of Terror (1964) and Beta in The Krotons (1968-69).

21 December 1991: death of Colin Douglas who played Donald Bruce in The Enemy of the World (1967-68) and Reuben in Horror of Fang Rock (1977).

21 December 1998: death of Roger Avon, who played Saphadin in The Crusade (1965), Daxtar in The Daleks’ Master Plan (1965) and Wells in the film Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150 AD (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.

• Reminder
  Lunar eclipse tonight. Presumably the usual sacrifices to dark, forbidden gods will bring the moon back.
• Richard Holbrooke: an appreciation in spite of myself | peacefare.net
  by my friend Daniel Serwer, who knew Holbrooke all too well.
  (tags: war balkans)
• Man called hero after accidentally killing shark in Egypt – NYPOST.com
  The end of the Red Sea Shark.
  (tags: wildlife alcohol)

It’s a chapter in two halves, the first being Gibbon’s account of the history of monasticism up to the fifth century, and the second about the conversion to Catholicism / Orthodoxy of the various Barbarian peoples who had previously practised Arianism, of which the most dramatic incidents take place in the Vandal kingdom of north Africa. This has been so far the least exciting of the three volumes I’ve read, Gibbon somehow trudging through various inept rulers and barbarians, even the chapters describing the fall of Rome not exactly fizzing with energy. But now with the end in sight and with a thematic subject on which he is passionate, it somehow catches fire. See also notes on the Comma Johanneum, Ulphilas, proof that Christianity is right, the persecution of the Jews in Spain, and poor editing.