A few months back I did a poll on books published in 1959, 1909, 1859, 1809, 1759, 1609 and 1509. For the publications to be commemorated in 2010, I found the pickings much slimmer for the older set of anniversaries, but on the other hand 1960 appears to have been a rather good year (indeed, deserving a poll of its own). Here are the top books from 1910 and 1860 (again ranked by LibraryThing popularity).

(Yes, I know that When the Sleeper Wakes was originally serialised in 1899, but I am assured that The Sleeper Wakes of 1910 is very different.)

I’m in the middle of Framley Parsonage at the moment.

These 50 books were all published in 1960. (I have selected them by the scientific method of identifying the top 46 from that year on LibraryThing, plus another four that I happened to have read myself.)

NB some of these I wasn’t sure of myself and had to check, as follows:
For Your Eyes Only – is a collection of James Bond short stories
Jeeves in the Offing – is the one which starts with Bertie discovering that he is engaged to Bobbie Wickham (when her mother phones up, sobbing, to ask if “the dreadful news” is true); also features Aunt Dahlia, the psychiatrist Sir Roderick Glossop and the Rev. Aubrey Upjohn, but not much Jeeves
A Burnt-Out Case – is the particularly depressing Graham Greene set in a leper colony in the Congo
Dorsai! – an episodic book about Donal Graeme, warrior extraordinaire
The Adventure Of The Christmas Pudding etc – is a short story collection mainly featuring Poirot
False Scent – is the one with an aging actress who is murdere with ehr own insecticide
The Clue in the Old Stagecoach – is the one where Nancy Drew searches for an antique stagecoach that, according to legend, contains something of great value to the people of Francisville

Happy to clarify any other cases where confusion is possible…

A letter of 22 September 1590 from Adam Loftus, Archbishop of Dublin, to William Cecil, Lord Burghley, recommending fines and imprisonment as a method to force the Irish to accept the Reformed religion. Noted here because Sir Nicholas Whyte is mentioned as a dangerous liberal.

To the Right Honourable my singular good Lord the Lord Burghley, Lord Treasurer of England.

It may please your good Lordship — I have been lately made partaker of your Lordship’s letter to my speciall good Lord, the Lord Deputy, wherein you lament the general corruption of this realm in the cause of religion, and do wish his Lordship and myself to enter into some speedy consideration how thesame may be remedied. I am thereby emboldened, humbly craving your Lordship’s good acceptation, both at large to discover unto you the means and degrees by which this people are fallen into this general revolt and to signify mine opinion how they may be reduced to better conformity.

And looking back unto the times past, I cannot forbear to inform your Lordship of that which in mine experience I know to be true :—that albeit there hath been in this people a general disposition to popery, as to a thing wherein they are misled, ever from their cradle, yet this general recusancy is but of six years continuance at the most, and began in the second year of Sir John Perrott’s government, in the beginning of the parliament holden by him. Before which time I well remember, and do assure your Lordship, there were not in the pale the number of twelve recusants, gentlemen of account. But, since, they have grown to such obstinacy and boldness that it is to be feared—if some speedy remedy be not provided—upon pretence of religion they will shake off all duty and obedience. Before that time they were restrained by the Ecclesiastical Commission, and—howsoever they were affected inwardly in their consciences—yet outwardly they shewed great duty and obedience, in resorting to service, sermons and in receiving of the communion. In the beginning of the parliament, Sir Nicholas White, in the name of his countrymen, moved Sir John Perrott with sundry reasons before the most of this Council, to permit this people to have the liberty of their consciences and the free use of their religion, wherein they had been bred and brought up, assuring Sir John, that granting that unto them, they would not only condescend to the repeal of Poyning’s Act but to any other reasonable motion which should be propounded in the parliament. His good success with the Lord Deputy at that time moved another of his country, one Edward Nugent, a lawyer, to come into the lower house with a premeditated speech in defence of the Mass and Romish religion, declaring the good success her Majesty’s progenitors had while they embraced the Mass and the Catholic religion, as he termed it, and the bad success which pursued the rejecting thereof.

By these encouragements, and by the bad example of some great personages of credit in this state, this people hath ever sithence grown to wonderful obstinacy and therein do persist unto this day — increasing in malice beyond all measure and utter detestation of religion. When we, the bishops of Dublin, Meath, and a few others well affected, perceived this declination, being authorised by her Majesty’s High Commission for Ecclesiastical causes, we convented before us the principal gentlemen and such as we knew to be ringleaders in this cause, seeking to draw them to better conformity. But so soon as they came before us we were forbidden by the then Lord Deputy to deal with them, who told us — but in truth never shewed the same — that he had received direction from their Lordships that this people should not be dealt with for matters of religion. And so we were restrained from proceeding any further. And presently it was bruited throughout the pale, that her Majesty’s pleasure was that they should not be touched for their religion, but should be permitted to use the same at their pleasure, and so they did during the time of Sir John’s government, wherein they took such heart and grew to such obstinacy that now they can hardly be reclaimed. The rather because those noblemen and principal gentlemen by their bad examples do daily draw them backward from the service of God established by her Majesty. And sorry I am that for discharge of my duty I must be forced to note unto your Lordship one particular man, well known to your Lordship, whose example doth of all others greatest hurt in the pale. I mean Sir Lucas Dillon, who, albeit he is both a most grave and wise Councillor and of great experience in this State, yet his notorious recusancy and wilful absenting of himself from the Church these three or four years past (being drawn to this backwardness by his son-in-law, Mr. Rotchfort, a most malicious and dangerous instrument both against religion and this government) is a special provocation and mean to draw the greatest number of this people unto that general corruption wherein they live.

For redress whereof, your Lordship hath most wisely considered that the sword alone without the word is not sufficient. But yet I assure your Lordship their obstinacy now is such that unless they be inforced, they will not ever come to hear the word preached, as by experience we observed at the time appointed by the Lord Deputy and Council for a general assembly of all the noblemen and gentlemen of every county, after her Majesty’s good success against the Spaniard, to give God thanks for the same. At which time, notwithstanding the Sheriffs of every county did their duties with all diligence, and warned all men to repair to the principal church in every county, wherein order was taken for public prayers and thanksgivings unto God, together with a sermon to be preached by choice men in every diocese, yet very few or none almost resorted thereunto, but even in Dublin itself the lawyers, in term time, took occasion to leave the town of purpose to absent themselves from that godly exercise—so bewraying in themselves, besides their corruption in religion, great want of duty and loyalty unto her Majesty, and giving just occasion unto us to conceive a doubtful opinion of them.

For preachers (God be thanked) my cathedral church and these civill dioceses hereabouts are indifferently furnished, but it is almost a bootless labour for any man to preach in the country out of Dublinj for want of hearers—the people are grown to so general a revolt—which thing, notwithstanding, is not so far gone but in mine opinion it may be easily remedied without any danger and with great gain to her Majesty, if the Ecclesiastical Commission be restored and put in use, for this people are but poor and fear to be fined. If liberty be left to myself and such Commissioners as are well affected in religion to imprison and fine all such as are obstinate and disobedient, and if they persist—being men of ability to bear their own charges—to send them into England for example sake, I have no doubt but within a short time they will be reduced to good conformity.

If it be objected that this severe course may perhaps breed some stirs, I assure your Lordship there is no doubt of any such matter, for they are but beggars, and if once they perceive a thorough resolution to deal roundly with them, they will both yield and conform themselves. And this course of reformation, the sooner it is begun the better it will prosper—and the longer it is deferred the more dangerous it will be. All which I leave to your Lordship’s wise consideration, and so, most humbly craving pardon for my wonted boldness, I commend your good Lordship, with my prayers, to God’s best blessings. From Rathfarnham this xxii of September 1590. Your Lordship’s humbly at command. Ad. Dublin, Canc.

From State Papers concerning the Irish Church, ed. W.M. Brady, 1868.

One of the early Torchwood books – set just before Cyberwoman, I think. Andy Lane has written some good Who novels and this too is excellent; good depictions of all the team (not much Ianto, but lots of Owen), and of how alien tech threatens to infilltrate Rhys and Gwen’s relationship. I was also impressed by the first season Torchwood novel Border Princes, and on the basis of that and this will now be looking out for more of them.

Another dip into the sub-genre of African-American romance, as told by Beverly Jenkins, whose books are among the highest-rated on LibraryThing. If anything I enjoyed this slightly more than Jewel. Most of the action takes place in 1897 Philadelphia, with the last section in a free black town in Kansas (the fictional settlement of Henry Adams, where a lot of Jenkins’ other books are apparently set). There is not much to the plot; former bank robber Teresa July and businessman Madison Nance are obviously destined for each other, and some detailed and well-written erotic passages explain how they make up their minds to accept this destiny. Jenkins does throw in a fair bit of political commentary as well – the dispute between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois, corrupt Republican party bosses, feminism (Teresa’s sister-in-law is mayor of Henry Adams), certainly enough to keep me happy and maintain my interest. It’s really not a type of book I would normally read, but I’ll look out for more Jenkins in the charity bookshops.

• Reading Gibbon’s "Decline and Fall" – Chapter XIV: The Rise of Constantine
  Diocletian’s system does not long survive his abdication. His four succesors squabble among themselves, and at one point there are six mutually recognised rulers of different bits of the Roman Empire. But one of them, Constantine, defeats all the others, through superior statesmanship and military skill. "The successive steps of the elevation of Constantine, from his first assuming the purple at York, to the resignation of Licinius at Nicomedia, have been related with some minuteness and precision, not only as the events are in themselves both interesting and important, but still more as they contributed to the decline of the empire by the expense of blood and treasure, and by the perpetual increase, as well of the taxes as of the military establishment." The whole chapter is an impressive marshalling of historical facts, complex narrative and geography running from Britain to Asia Minor over a period of almost two decades.
  (tags: gibbon)

Well, I enjoyed it. RTD tends to do much better with penultimate episodes and then fumble the climax, so I hope that doesn’t happen again this time. Particular comments below the cut, but if you want the collected wisdom of (part of) the internets, check here.

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(Further space for spoilers for those reading this on non-LJ platforms)

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Stuff I particularly liked:

The best scene, as many others have said, was the cafeteria conversation between Wilf and the Doctor. Bernard Cribbins is generally excellent. What an extraordinary break it turned out to be for Doctor Who, when Howard Attfield was too ill to continue as Donna’s father, and Cribbins was brought back in! 

I also thought John Simm much better here than in Season Three, where (heretically) I wasn’t actually all that impressed by him. There seemed to be more to the Master this time, perhaps because he isn’t in control for most of the episode. The Master transformation (as someone put it, the Tremasization) of humanity was a great concept, and the Obama thing worked for me, though I note not for everyone.

And I unashamedly loved the end. We knew it was coming – we have known it was coming since the first set photos of Timothy Dalton leaked out – but I love the idea of the Time Lords returning. I particularly like the possibility that their return may actually be a Bad Thing which the Doctor will give his life to prevent. I don’t think there is any chance that Claire Bloom’s mysterious lady character is actually Romana; sorry, folks, I don’t think that is how RTD’s mind works. The Deadly Assassin is seen by many (including me) as the zenith of Old Who, as Robert Holmes, its greatest writer, tackled the Doctor’s own origins. RTD has set himself a similar challenge here.

I was a bit more ambivalent about the plot, or lack thereof; my expectations of RTD on this score are fairly low and I suppose they were met. I hope the Vinvocci aliens get a decent shake of the action and don’t come in for just that one scene. I hope the Nathaniel and Abigail plotline also has a halfway decent resolution. I hope poor old Wilf and Donna aren’t killed off. I hope Wilf himself doesn’t turn out to be a Time Lord in disguise, or (as some think) to be concealing the whole of Gallifrey in his mind.

The one bit, well, two linked bits, that I thought over the top were the secret cult of the Master bringing him back – OK, it had to happen somehow I suppose, but it seemed a bit silly; I think I would almost have preferred his unexplained escape from the certain doom he faced at the end of his previous story which was the Old Who approach  – and the resurrected Master having the powers of shooting energy from his hands, which he mysteriously doesn’t actually use to kill the Doctor and which equally mysteriously desert him once Nathaniel and Abigail have got him. But Simm in general made up for it and was creepy and yet comprehensible.

The companionless Doctor: Picking up on the cafeteria conversation, I’ve just been watching both The Deadly Assassin and The Massacre, the former being the only companion-less Old Who series and the latter ending with a scene where the First Doctor’s companions have all left him. The Doctor does need someone, and it’s been part of Ten’s tragedy that it hasn’t worked out. (Incidentally, both stories feature actor Erik Chitty – in The Massacre he plays Charles Preslin, the scientist who conceals the Doctor from the main narrative for three episodes, and in The Deadly Assassin he is Coordinator Engin, in charge of the Matrix, who shunts the Doctor into the alternate world of the Matrix for two episodes.) Ten has now had three TV specials without a regular companion, as well as a large number of books (including the ten-volume Darksmith Legacy series). His slightly silly opening scene (including the dogy line about Good Queen Bess) gives cover for all of those being canon, for those who care about such matters. (And was there also a reference to Netty from Beautiful Chaos?)

Next week, I reckon that we will get the mother of all reset buttons, and not only will the Time War be reversed, but so will all of the Doctor’s incarnations taking us back to Matt Smith as a younger version of William Hartnell. That will of course create problems with River Song’s return, but Moffat is the master of timey-wimey stuff so he will have thought of an answer.

…I could never get the missing line.

Yes, I know what the canonical version is, but I don’t really believe it. What should it have been?

(And I never understood why it was always listed as "Boss Cat" in the BBC TV schedules, but that would be an ecumenical matter.)

Young F got this jewel in his cracker yesterday:

Q: What kind of relationship does coral have with algae?
A: A symbiotic relationship.

Now, this answer turns out to be perfectly sound biology (so I at least learned something) but doesn’t seem to me paticularly funny. Am I missing some point about, perhaps, two popular celebrities or fictional characters called Coral and Algy? Or is it just meant to be funny because coral is generally hard and algae generally squishy?

Yep, I have read the first of my Christmas presents: a nice half-dozen Tenth Doctor stories, originally published as separate comics and here as a single volume by IDW. I really bought it to read the first story, “The Whispering Gallery”, which is by Leah and John, and am glad to say that I enjoyed it and most of the others (the exception being a typically cliched cute robot story in the middle). The standout, however, is Tony Lee’s “The Time Machination”, featuring Ten teaming up with H.G. Wells against Torchwood, with lots of other pleasing references to both New and particularly Old Who. Lee’s The Forgotten was also excellent, and I shall look out for more of his work. And the collection as a whole is excellent value.

• bugshaw: Merry Christmas
  the Dalek nativity
  (tags: doctorwho christmas)

Rereading this classic, which combines the horrors of the 1945 bombing of Dresden with the sfnal captivity of the hero by the aliens of Tralfamadore. Having first come to Vonnegut via Cat’s Cradle and The Sirens of Titan as a teenager, I wasn’t really sure what to make of this. Coming to it again a quarter-century later, I have a much deeper appreciation of Vonnegut’s savaging of the surrealism of war, and of how trauma throws the rest of your life into a weird perspective. But I also find his attitude to women much more annoying – at least, to the women in the main part of the story, the mothers of Billy Pilgrim’s children, Valencia Merble and Montana Wildhack (and Pilgrim’s daughter Barbara). Having said that, the sanest character in the book is probably Mary O’Hare from the ostensibly autobiographical foreword; and it must also be admitted that most of the male characters are pretty unpleasant too.

Anyway, I can’t think of many other sf novels which take the Second World War as their subject, and this is probably the best in that rather small set.

Ursula turned seven yesterday. She cannot talk, but is very musical, as I hope this spirited rendering of “Old MacDonald” will demonstrate.

We have no idea what other tunes she is singing – songs she has heard at school or on TV, or just made up in her mysterious little head?

Nicholas: I continue to enjoy working as an Independent Diplomat. My office is in the shadow of the Berlaymont and I have been observing the EU’s development with considerable interest. As well as my ongoing work with the Turkish Cypriot team negotiating the reunification of the island – which is likely to accelerate dramatically come the New Year – I ended the year taking on the lead for ID’s work with the government of Southern Sudan, after a somewhat grueling visit to Juba. I went to a science fiction convention in Boston in February, and am also working up a small Irish history project on the side.

Anne: I was sorry to come to the end of the very enjoyable Dutch course just before Easter. Since then I have been busy doing odd jobs about the house. I was very pleased to discover that when Ursula needed specially adapted clothes I could make them myself. I also adapted a second hand television cupboard to try to protect the screen from Ursula. That is still a work in progress as the plexiglass in front of the TV is now covered in little scratches, but it’s a big improvement on what we had before.

We see Bridget as often as we can. Anne takes her for cuddly walks around the farmland where she lives; Nicholas likes to bring her to nearby parks for exercise. She seems to be happy in general. The staff at Delacroix work very hard to discuss any problems with us, look for creative solutions, and find activities that she will enjoy.

Fergal: I went away for a week’s holiday with my school this year, my first holiday without my family. I recently joined the local Scouts, where I’m able to see friends from my old school. I have the same teacher, classmates and classroom as last year, but I get to do music and stories as well as art, and “activity + new things in the activity = need for a new name”: last year it was ‘crea’ (short for ‘creativiteit’, which means ‘creativity’), now it’s called ‘Muzische vorming’ (education in the creative arts); next summer everything will change again.

Ursula too has stayed with the same teacher for one more year. She spends occasional weekends in Delacroix – the same building as Bridget but a different ‘house’ – and seems to enjoy the change of scene and the attention lavished on her by the staff. She spends a lot of time singing and dancing beautifully.

With our very best wishes and love for Christmas and the New Year,

Nicholas, Anne, Bridget, Fergal and Ursula

• David Tennant: It just feels scary – all the time | Television & radio | The Observer
  (tags: doctorwho)

I was surprised to receive this distressing message just now, ostensibly from one of my cousins:

Hello

Am in a hurry writing you this mail, I want to seek your help on something very important and  you are the only one I can reach at this time and I  expect you come to my aid because something extremely terrible and horrible is happening to me now, I need a favour from you, I had a trip to Manchester (UNITED KINGDOM) for a research program.    

Unfortunately for me i was robbed on my way to the hotel where I lodged and the robbers went away with all i had on me alongside with my money, passport, travelling documents and dairy,and ever since then I have been without any money,right now i owe the hotel some money and they are on my neck for their money. So I have restricted access to Internet for now and the phone connections in my room were disconnected due to the bills and right now am so confused and don’t know were to go or what to do.       

Please I need you to help me with £1,850 pound sterling today so I can make preparations and go back home immediately because i have to pay the hotel here their bills and get a new ticket to return back home as soon as possible, I have spoken to the embassy here but they are not responding effectively to the matter i cant wait another day down here.

please I will return the money back to you as soon as I get home.       Please I will be waiting to hear from you soon so i will be able to tell you on how to send me the money and keep me in prayers because that matters a lot. Our first priority is safety because I do not feel safe or secured.

Thanks for reading

[Name]

There are numerous clues here to indicate that the message is a fake, the first being that it was sent to me at all – if one of my Irish cousins was really stuck in Manchester, there are at least a dozen other mutual relatives whom it would be more sensible to contact than me. Note also the complete lack of corroborating details (name of hotel, identification of embassy, salutation of recipient). Also my cousin is, as far as I know, unlikely to need to make a research trip to Manchester.

Assuming that my cousin’s email address has been hacked, it would be rather pointless to reply to the scam artist – or are these emails simply sent as harassment, without the expectation of pecuniary gain? I have alerted my aunt and my cousin’s sister, since they all live in the same town, and suggested that the Gardai also be alerted. Though I guess there is a good chance that the hacker lives a long way outside their jurisdiction.

Edited to add [ten hours later, sorry, I’ve been busy] the message originated from 41.217.65.4 which is an IP address registered to Zoom Mobile, a telcom company in, surprise surprise, Nigeria.

This was pressed on me by the infamous quarsan, and his efforts have been duly rewarded; I really enjoyed it. It is a fairly short novel, told in fragmentary, disjointed style (150 chapters in 135 pages) about the narrator’s investigation of the disappearance of the head waiter of his favourite Indian restaurant. He spends a lot of time stuck down a well, in hospital, and musing on the precise nature of the vindaloo, the biryani and other Indian recipes. It is a real classic of surreal style, very funny in places. Interested to note that it was originally published in blog format earlier this year; the hard copy costs €10 and comes from amazon.de among other places.

List the towns or cities where you spent at least a night away from home during 2009. Mark with a star if you had multiple non-consecutive stays.

Newton, MA
Washington DC
New York, NY*
Nicosia, Cyprus*
Cluny, France*
Podgorica, Montenegro
Skopje, Macedonia
Ashford, Kent
Croydon, Gtr London
Loughbrickland, Co Down
Kidderminster, Worcestershire
Berlin, Germany
Juba, Sudan
Storrs, CT

A lot fewer than some years. But also addfour overnight flights – two transatlantic, two between Europe and Africa.

…but like a lot of people I’ll be watching with interest for the outcome of the selection process for the next Lib Dem candidate in Cambridge, now that David Howarth has announced his intention to return to his academic career (he is a specialist in tort, if that is the right way to put it). Of the six shortlistees (listed here and also here) the only one I know at all is Julie Smith. I know David Howarth rather better since we were actually next door neighbours during my second year, as well as being Lib Dem activists at the same college. David won in 2005 on his third attempt with a majority of 10%, having eaten substantially into both the incumbent Labour MP’s vote and into that of the Conservatives who held the seat from 1967 to 1992. Assuming (as seems likely) that the Labour vote tanks, the Lib Dems hold steady and the Tories rise but not dramatically, the seat should be holdable in next year’s election

I thought I was reasonably well-informed about the history of Doctor Who spinoff fiction, but was rather amazed to discover this 1966 46-page story, in the same format (and by the same publisher) as the Doctor Who annuals, in which the First Doctor prevents an invasion from the Andromeda galaxy with the help of a family who he has rescued (just before the story starts) from the Great Fire of London. Apparently the text is by J.L. Morrissey, who published half a dozen detective novels in the 1930s and 1940s; the artwork is by Walter Howarth, the World Distributors stalwart illustrator. The story itself is standard Who, let down by rather dodgy astrophysics and some awkward phrasing (note extract from first para here). But the characterisation of Hartnell’s Doctor is bang-on.

A friend of mine sent me this greeting:

which apparently means “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” in his native language.

A special prize for the first person to identify that language!

(And a very special prize for anyone who knows how to pronounce it…)

ETA: Well done ! Others may guess anyway by clicking on “reply” without reading what others have written.

• reading_gibbon: Chapter XIII: Diocletian
  Another very long chapter, but an excellent read, full of incident and character. Diocletian comes over as one of the best emperors so far – a slave from Illyria who rose to the top, managed it well, and retired in time to enjoy his later years plating cabbages by the Adriatic. In the meantime he puts down Carausius' rebellion in Britain, wins a war with Persia and sorts out the empire by dividing it into four. Of course, that simply meant new structures that could go wrong; but it was a good solution to the problem of unmanageability.
  (tags: gibbon)

I feel a bit mean posting this, because the other reviews I’ve seen so far of An Earthly Child are rather positive (without spoilers here and with spoilers here). I think Marc Platt’s scripts are a bit like Marmite – you love ’em or hate ’em. However, to explain why I didn’t like it requires a cut-tag and spoiler warning, thus:

SPOILERS BELOW

First off, I felt Susan was very badly served by the story. I did not think that her credulity in dealing with the aliens, and her naivety in going behind the back of the government, and then her swiftness to change sides against the aliens, were very believable for someone who has supposedly had her experience of travelling with the Doctor, being married to a freedom fighter and being a political activist herself. Essentially the plot is about her making a pretty huge mistake and the Doctor then rescuing her (and the Earth) from its consequences, and I don’t recall that happening in any of her TV stories.

I also thought that the way she and the Doctor treated Alex at the end was equally infantilising. Sure, parents and grandparents do sometimes treat their 17-year-olds like that, but the Doctor at his best is about emancipating his companions and letting them achieve their own maturity. It is extraordinary to have this out the same month as the end of Lucie Miller’s story in Death in Blackpool.

The scene with the lunar settlers coming back was a bit underwhelming.

Finally, I’m afraid I didn’t think Jake McGann was really up to it. He may well be a fine up-and-coming actor in his own right, but I wonder if (like John Barrowman) he finds it difficult to perform in the recording booth. In a couple of the crucial scenes he sounded rather like he was reading the lines in rehearsal.

Having said that, I thought that Leslie Ash and Carole Ann Ford did very well with the material, and the reunion scene between Susan and McGann’s Doctor was excellent. (Even though McGann was unaware of the back-story.)

As for Gallifreyan / human interbreeding? I detected a couple of hints that Alex is not Susan’s biological son, but adopted from a human mother. There were a couple of other lines pointing the other direction, but I thought the hints towards adoption were stronger. It was, however, unambiguous that Susan is the Doctor’s grand-daughter in Gallifreyan terms (though of course one can speculate about what those terms might be).

It won’t have escaped notice that the weather has been a bit cold round here of late. Some (including one who works in the same building as me) think we should take it in our stride, and to an extent I agree that one should try and be slightly Zen about it. But sometimes this is not easy.

Thursday night was a bad night. I was rather enjoying myself at a Bosnian embassy reception when I bit awkwardly on a (really yummy) piece of Baklava and my tooth, re-filled only that morning, began hurting like the blazes. I made my excuses to the ambassadors (the one I was talking to at the time, and the one hosting the party) and hurried as fast as I could to the tram and the Gare du Midi / Zuidstation. Less than 40 minutes later I had reached Leuven station, only 7 km from home. But Leuven was snowbound; the rest of the journey took over two hours, as buses failed to show up and trains were cancelled; eventually I trudged to the warmth of the Novotel and called a cab from there, jaw still aching.

Since then it’s been OK here, but we were really alarmed to hear of the Channel Tunnel being closed – and 2000 passengers stuck inside it! – since we were due to head over to the in-laws’ tomorrow for a couple of days before Christmas. There is no reliable information available on the Eurostar / Eurotunnel site; but in the Twitter era, you cannot escape instant and public consumer feedback. It is clear that traffic is backed up for hours around Calais and Dover / Folkestone, and there are worrying reports of chaos at the loading ramps. There is no way we can take the risk of travelling with a severely autistic child (who will turn seven on Monday) and being stuck in traffic for hours, so we are not going tomorrow – particularly since the forecast is for more heavy snow precisely in western Belgium and the Pas-de Calais overnight – and quite likely will not go on Monday either. Alas, no pantomime for F, and no reunion with Anne’s cousins either. But sometimes you have to accept force majeure.

It’s been a grim couple of weeks on the dental front. As reported previously, I went to the dentist two weeks ago for her to look at my upper left second molar (the upper left first molar was capped last year). She gave me mouthwash and painkillers to kill off the gum infection, and then did the root canal on Monday, filling half the tooth (commenting on how twisty my nerves were). As I left, feeling slightly euphoric in my morphine-induced daze, she said that if things didn’t get better she would have to look at the premolar on the other side of the capped tooth. Had a terrible night with pain that evening and went back to her first thing Tuesday. She drilled out the roots of the premolar, and put in a temporary filling which she then replaced properly on Thursday. At that point she also gave me antibiotics as my jaw is inflamed from some horrible infection. I am therefore off booze until Wednesday, and it still bloody hurts. The dentist expressed the hope that the antibiotics would sort it out, but I could tell that she wasn’t convinced, and she muttered about how I might need some more thorough investigation of my jaws in the New Year. Ow.

It’s been a good few weeks for us Who fans who follow audio as well as TV. The last two parts of BBC audio The Hornet’s Nest, starring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, shipped at the start of the month; for Fifth Doctor fans, we have had the last two of the three Big Finish audios set in Stockbridge and co-starring Sarah Sutton as Nyssa, and also a Companion Chronicle told by Mark Strickson as Turlough; the Sixth and Eighth Doctors both went to Blackpool, and the Eighth Doctor also went back to a future Earth to see his granddaughter; and for good measure I’m throwing in the animated story “Dreamland” and the audiobook “Day of the Troll”, both featuring David Tennant in his closing days as the Tenth Doctor. To put you out of your agony of suspense, I will reveal now that I thought the best and worst of these were the two Eight Doctor stories; read on to discover which was which. I believe I have avoided significant spoilers – though this is not always true of the reviews I have linked to.

I’m afraid my feelings about the five episodes of The Hornets’ Nest became steadily less enthusiastic as the story went on. Part 4, A Sting In The Tale sees Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor investigating funny goings-on in a medieval convent. The plot was OK (no more than that) but I found some of the descriptions rather disgusting, and not in a fun way. My lapsed medievalist hackles did not particularly rise, but perhaps I wasn’t listening hard enough. The final episode, Hive of Horrors, explains why the Doctor chose Mike Yates, of all previous companions, to join him on this adventure as they join forces with the sinister Mrs Wibbsey to deal with the hornets. There was lots of potentially good stuff here and maybe it will have worked for some people, but I was not one of them. Somehow Baker’s performance and Paul Magrs’ script ended up as less than the sum of their parts; Richard Franklin doesn’t bring much to it as Yates (but I am not his biggest fan anyway). I think Baker needs a full cast to perform with and to; The Hornets’ Nest too often reminded me of Doctor Who and the Pescatons, which similarly had him doing both Doctor and narrator and other voices when necessary, and was the weaker for it.

Of the three Fifth Doctor audios in this batch, the best is the first in internal chronology, The Eternal Summer, the second of a trilogy of Doctor / Nyssa plays set in Stockbridge, which was the setting for a number of the Fifth Doctor comic strips in Doctor Who Monthly (and also for the wonderful “Autumn” segment of the Circular Time audio play). I only dimly remember the strips, but like Peter Davison I will now see if I can buy them; Jonathan Morris’ script combines nostalgia for those half-remembered stories with a decent sfnal plot which, even if it has been done several times before by Big Finish, is done well here. Particularly good also is Mark Walliams as UFOlogist Maxwell Edison, who falls in love with someone who is a fellow fan of Terry Pratchett. (Obviously that could never happen in real life, he said, waiting for the reactions of various parts of my friends list.)

The concluding part of the trilogy, Plague of the Daleks by Mark Morris, doesn’t really rise to the same heights. There’s a mysterious village with Something Going On, but the clue is in the title of the story. As cruelly comments, it might have been a better story without the actual Daleks.

The latest Companion Chronicle, Ringpullworld (another by Paul Magrs), stars Mark Strickson as Turlough telling a tale of travelling with the Fifth Doctor and Tegan. There is a very nice narrative device, with Alex Lowe oplaying one of the novelizers of Verbatim Six, telling, narrating and even shaping Turlough’s story. I was less overwhelmed by the actual plot, and poor Tegan gets a rough deal from Magrs’ script and Strickson’s imitation. The extra track of interview with Strickson, who now makes nature documentaries in New Zealand, is interesting though.

I was not hugely impressed by The Nightmare Fair, by Graham Williams, when I read the novelisation back in the summer, and I was not hugely impressed by Big Finish’s audio production of this unbroadcast Sixth Doctor script. has analysed why this doesn’t work in greater detail, but basically, the plot doesn’t make a lot of sense, the Toymaker’s own problems are puzzling and his fate rather incomprehensible, and I just couldn’t really care what was going on.

I’m going to save An Earthly Child for a separate post because I can’t properly discuss my reasons for not liking it without spoilers. But Death in Blackpool is very good, and I hope the new series of Eighth Doctor plays keeps up the standard. Alan Barnes has written some of the best Big Finish audios, and he is on form here again: this is a sort-of sequel to The Zygon Who Fell To Earth, which was for my money the best of the second season of Eight / Lucie plays and which ended with the revelation that Lucie’s beloved Auntie Pat was actually a Zygon. Death in Blackpool picks up the story years later, with veteran Helen Lederer turning in a storming performance as Auntie Pat, and Sheridan Smith doing Lucie’s departure beautifully. For a Christmas-themed play it is surprisingly bleak – not one to play to friends and family to get them in a good mood – but very effective, and gets my vote ahead of Eternal Summer and Day of the Troll as the best of this lot.

I haven’t seen The Infinite Quest, the first animated Tenth Doctor story, so was intrigued by the concept of Dreamland, with Tennant as the Doctor and Georgia Moffett as his girl sidekick. I was a bit disappointed. The quality of animation is not very much advanced from the Hanna Barbera shows of forty years ago. Phil Ford’s story is a fairly basic aliens-in-Nevada one; I guess for kids who are excited or excitable by the whole Roswell mythos it is fun to see Who going there, but it didn’t really grab me. I was particularly sorry that Moffett, whose acting presence is rather gripping in both The Doctor’s Daughter and the early Big Finish play Red Dawn, seemed a bit subdued here.

Famous Scottish actor David Tennant reads Simon Messingham’s story The Day of the Troll. Messingham is a good writer, Tennant is a good reader, and the story pushes lots of buttons and does it well – creepy monster under the bridge (the troll of the title), evil plant intelligence, freezing future Britain (listening to this during this week’s snow was a bit uncomfortable), European government which has originated as a response to crisis, vulnerable kid who the Doctor has to try and save. All very good and recommended.

Posts since I last counted that got more than 20 comments – 42 in total, top 21 bolded, top 14 and top 7 in larger fonts.

25 Dec: The Next Doctor – 30 comments (that day’s Who)
27 Dec: Two things I have been wondering – 31 comments (bananas and bluestockings)
31 Dec: 2008 books poll – 21 comments (books I read in 2008)
31 Dec: Books I haven’t read – 49 comments (what I didn’t read in 2008)

02 Jan: In praise of… – 23 comments (the Channel Tunnel)
10 Jan: January Books 8) Starship Troopers, by Robert A. Heinlein – 53 comments (the usual Heinlein debate, mostly)
17 Jan: Actually, never mind what I think… – 38 comments (first of several polls on the Guardian 1001 books list)
18 Jan: Guardian books: Crime – 26 comments (more from the Guardian 1001)
19 Jan: Guardian Books: Comedy – 25 comments (and more)
28 Jan: Maternity leave – 38 comments (Which country other than Lesotho, Liberia, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea does not have statutory paid maternity leave?)

06 Feb: My name is Nicholas. – 28 comments (My name is not “Nick”.)
08 Feb: Andrew Wakefield’s faked research kills children – 42 comments (I feel strongly about this. Did you guess?)

02 Mar: Identity – 23 comments (why I don’t blog anonymously but others should be able to)
05 Mar: March Books 2) Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown – 60 comments (this year’s winner!)
11 Mar: Which of these films have you seen? – 34 comments (the films Obama gave Brown)

05 Apr: Reclaiming þorn – 29 comments (an alphabet post)

08 May: STV – British Columbia and Ireland – 28 comments (electoral systems and why ministers should not be members of parliament)
10 May: Lightsecond – 21 comments (query about a detail in an sf story I was reading)
27 May: Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead – 27 comments (rewatching Who from 2008)
28 May: Midnight – 20 comments (more 2008 Who)

01 Jun: Transatlantic linguistics – 35 comments (are pasties for nipples or for eating?)
10 Jun: Hellboy II: The Golden Army – “Let’s go to Antrim!” – 34 comments (most of the discussion being about correct pronunciation of Irish names)
11 Jun: The Dark Knight – “This town deserves a better class of criminal, and I’m gonna give it to them.” – 21 comments (discussion of whether it was any good or not)
15 Jun: Tuigim anois – 22 comments (origin of the verb “to twig”)
18 Jun: Monotheism – 48 comments (how to pronounce it?)

01 Jul:  Weirdo email – 36 comments
11 Jul: The Torchwood debate – 41 comments (the debate being, as so often, “was it any good?”)
21 Jul: July Books 27) Misspent Youth, by Peter F. Hamilton – 23 comments (answering my question as to whther I should bothe with any other Hamilton books, the majority answering in the negative)
23 Jul:  Etiquette, again – 20 comments

11 Aug: Fannish five – 25 comments (many questions, few of which I answered)
21 Aug: Poll prompted by reading Swift’s Directions to the Footman – 27 comments (how to spell “oxter”)

13 Sep: September Books 12) England’s Troubles, by Jonathan Scott – 21 comments (the seventeenth century)
23 Sep: CD&V – not getting my vote – 30 comments (banning the burqa, and fining cyclists without fluorescent strips)

09 Oct: Nobel Peace Prize – 35 comments (we were all surprised)
29 Oct: Films of 1959 – 23 comments (which have you seen?)

02 Nov: Sparked by a conversation last night – 20 comments (have you heard of Ian Paisley?)
07 Nov: Riddle me this – 25 comments (use of the words “blond”, “ovate” and “willowy”)
22 Nov: Sudan – 26 comments (pictures)

05 Dec:  Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire, and other bad TV shows – 33 comments (which have you seen, or even heard of?)
06 Dec: Pronunciation poll – 20 comments (how do you say “asia”?)
16 Dec: Livejournal v Dreamwidth – 35 comments (the genderfail scare)
17 Dec: Not everyone uses our calendar but most have a word for December – 42 comments

So it’s polls, controversial science fiction, and real life evil scientists that generate the most comments here.

One interesting thing (well, interesting to me) is that as Facebook starts to devour the internet, my posts of LJ entries to there are starting to spark discussion as well – and it is a completely different set of posts which get the most attention. More than ten comments were made on the following (there may have been others, but it is very tedious to chase these things down on Facebook):

07 Jul: One thing from last night’s Torchwood… – 12 comments (Queen Victoria erroneously described as HRH)
10 Jul: And so, shortly after his resurrection… – 13 comments (Torchwood again)
28 Jul: eBay etiquette – 11 comments (a troublesome seller)
01 Sep: Ireland: same-sex marriage – 36 comments (discussion became heated)
10 Sep: Unpopular belief – 13 comments (why the House of Lords should not be replaced with an elected body)
02 Oct: Referendum Day – 10 comments (deleted when the discussion got seriously derailed, but was originally about the Irish Lisbon referendum)
04 Nov: Cometh the hour, cometh the man – 10 comments (Herman Van Rompuy)
09 Nov: The Fall of the Wall, twenty years on – 11 comments (Berlin)
19 Nov: Didn’t see that coming… – 13 comments (Catherine Ashton’s appointment as EU foreign policy representative)
20 Nov: One interesting thing about Catherine Ashton… – 10 comments (she has a Dalek in her living room)

Now, six of these are fairly hard politics posts, and I guess my facebook readership, being more reflective of my professional environment, is more likely to comment on those. But I find it peculiar that of the various posts I made about Torchwood: Children of Earth, two scored high on Facebook but a completely different one scored on Livejournal. I guess it is sometimes just a matter of the post catching the attention of potential commenters; a matter more of luck than judgement.

is 70 today!

Thanks to the 97 people who have so far answered yesterday’s scripts poll. The results are rather neatly bunched into four groups: 14 could be seen by at least 83 of the 97; there were a further 8 in the 47-62 range; there is a cluster of 3 which could be seen by 15-21 people; and one outlier which only I could see when logged in using Firefox.

95 Δεκέμβριος Greek (10-20 mn)
94 Декабрь Russian (100-200 mn)
92 ธันวาคม Thai (50-100 mn)
92 ديسمبر Arabic (200-500 mn)
92 דצמבר Hebrew (5-10 mn)
90 दिसंबर Hindi (200-500 mn)
89 டிசம்பர் Tamil (50-100 mn)
89 Դեկտեմբեր Armenian (5-10 mn)
88 ਦਸੰਬਰ Punjabi (50-100 mn)
88 ડિસેમ્બર Gujarati (50-100 mn)
85 クリスマス Japanese (100-200 mn)
84 聖誕節 Chinese (over 1 bn)
83 크리스마스 Korean (50-100 mn)
83 დეკემბერი Georgian (2-5 mn)

Taking it for granted that everyone could see the Latin alphabet clearly, this list includes the correct scripts for nine of the world’s ten languages with most speakers, and 23 of the top 25. I’ll address the missing languages when I get to them; the odd inclusions here are Greek and Hebrew (understandable for cultural reasons), Armenian and Georgian (which despite their small number of native speakers are geographically convenient to the massive information technology hub of Russia, and also relatively easy to code) and Thai, which quite probably says something abut the relative openness of Thailand compared to some of its neighbours.

62 ডিসেম্বর Bangla (100-200 mn)
61 డిసెంబర్ Telugu (50-100 mn)
61 ಡಿಸೆಂಬರ್ Kannada (20-50 mn)
61 ഡിസംബര്‍ Malayalam (20-50 mn)
60 ޑިސެމްބަރު Divehi (200,000-500,000)
58 ܟܢܘܢ ܐ Aramaic (2-5 mn)
54 ᑎᓯᒻᐳᕆ Inuit (20,000-50,000)
47 ᏓᏂᏍᏓᏲᎯᎲ Cherokee (20,000-50,000)

Actually these eight subdivide pretty clearly into three groups. Bangla, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam are South Asian scripts which somehow have not achieved the penetration that their number of speakers would have suggested. This is particularly striking for Bangla which unlike the other three is the sole official language of a sovereign state. Divehi (which is the official language of the Maldives) and Aramaic may not be obvious partners, but in fact both scripts are related to Arabic, so if you have coded for one you may as well code for the other. Inuit and Cherokee are the two least-spoken languages on the entire list, and I suspect that their alphabets may not be all that widely used even by native speakers (Latin transcription of both languages is fairly common), but like Georgian and Armenian they have the advantage of being relatively easy to code and on a convenient continent for coders.

21 ዲሴምበር Amharic (10-20 mn)
18 දෙසැම්බර් Sinhalese (10-20 mn)
15 បុណ្យណូអែល Khmer (5-10 mn)

The Ge’ez script is used for Tigrinya as well as Amharic, so may need to be bumped up a population category; notably it is the only indigenous African script in the list. All three of these score rather lower than one would expect for the official language of a sovereign state (two sovereign states if one counts Eritrea as well as Ethiopia).

1 ဒီဇင်ဘာ Burmese (10-20 mn)

Isn’t that shocking? Burmese script is not easy for us alphabet-users, but really is no more difficult than the other South Asian and South-East Asian scripts. I would be interested to know more about the politics and policies which have put Thai so far ahead and Burmese so far behind compared with their neighbours. You may remember that Cory Doctorow’s book Little Brother is to be translated into Burmese, Karen (which also uses Burmese script), Shin and Kachin; I think this survey rather illustrates why that is a good idea.

Stephen Cole is one of the most consistently good Doctor Who writers, and I was glad to pick up this Telos novella when last in London – a range that has not always impressed me, but this is one of the good ones. It is a little odd – the old man and the girl who travels with them only decide at the end of the story that they will adopt the identities of “the Doctor” and “Susan”, and the story combines the fairly standard base-under-siege-by-telepathic-horror story with a rather subtly done reflection on establishing and keeping identity. Worth looking out for.