Beautiful Merovingian metalwork from a very nice exhibition, “The World of Clovis“, in the Royal Museum at Mariemont, of which I was previously unaware. There’s lots of other lovely material there, but it was the metalwork that really caught my eye – here are two fibluæ, a reliquary and some rings and things. These last are from a grave known as The Lady of Grez-Doiceau, which is just down the road from us here.
Here’s a teaser for the whole exhibition. (In French, sorry.)
I went with two work colleagues, one of whom decided to order a five-cheese pizza for lunch, and the other went one better by ordering a pizza with chips/fries on it. (I had pasta with sea food.)
Sun, 12:56: RT @charlottegore: Hello UK. It’s not Political. It’s not that everyone hates you. It’s that to get points from a jury or a televote this y…
Sun, 14:48: Really fascinating analysis, comparing major/minor keys, tempo and key changes for songs that won Eurovision in last 20 years, and also songs that came dead last. https://t.co/MMS4ZYmGDQ
Sun, 16:05: RT @DrClaireH: Welp, #Eurovision was punctuated by a linguistics controversy last night. Amanda Holden came on for the UK and quipped, “Bo…
Sun, 23:28: RT @Mij_Europe: “President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus personally gave an “irrevocable command to turn the plane around and land it”, a…
Mon, 10:45: RT @peterdonaghy: I’ve become completely obsessed with the treasure trove at @BNArchive. My favourite this week was Flann O’Brien’s letter…
24 May 1944: birth of Fiona Walker, who played Kala in The Keys of Marinus (First Doctor, 1964) and Lady Peinforte in Silver Nemesis (Seventh Doctor, 1988).
24 May 1945: birth of Graham Williams, producer of the 15th to 17th seasons of Doctor Who (the fourth to sixth Fourth Doctor seasons, from Horror of Fang Rock to ShadaThe Invasion of Time and City of Death, and author of the unbroadcast story The Nightmare Fair which brought back the Celestial Toymaker (and was released in audio format by Big Finish in 2009).
24 May 1986: death of the great Robert Holmes, script editor from Robot (1974-75) to Image of the Fendahl (1977), and author of The Krotons (Second Doctor, 1968-69), The Space Pirates (Second Doctor, 1969), Spearhead from Space (Third Doctor, 1970), Terror of the Autons (Third Doctor, 1971), Carnival of Monsters (Third Doctor, 1973), The Time Warrior (Third Doctor, 1973-74), The Ark in Space (Fourth Doctor, 1975), Pyramids of Mars (1975), The Brain of Morbius (co-author, 1976), The Deadly Assassin (1976), The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1977), The Sun Makers (Fourth Doctor, 1977), The Ribos Operation (Fourth Doctor, 1978), The Power of Kroll (Fourth Doctor, 1978-79), The Caves of Androzani (Fifth Doctor, 1984), The Two Doctors (Sixth Doctor with Second Doctor, 1985), The Mysterious Planet (Sixth Doctor, 1986), and the first episode of The Ultimate Foe (Sixth Doctor, 1986). See Richard Molesworth's excellent biography.
ii) broadcast anniversaries
24 May 1969: broadcast of sixth episode of The War Games. The Doctor tries to outmanoeuvre the Security Chief, but is trapped in a shrinking SIDRAT.
24 May 2010: broadcast of Taphony and the Time Loop, twentieth episode of the Australian K9 series, and for my money of the the best of them. When Gryffen breaks an alien out of VR prison, he may have put everyone in danger. I think I would recommend that the curious sample this episode if they want to see what the Australian K9 series was like at its best.
24 May 2012: broadcast of Good as Gold during that day's Blue Peter, an episode written by the children of Ashdene School.
24 May 2013: webcast of Strax Field Report: The Doctor's Greatest Secret.
I discovered recently that I had a third cousin living on the other side of Brussels, who I had never met but whose grandmother was a Whyte; and then even more recently that I had a fourth cousin twice removed living in Brussels, who I had never met, whose mother was a Whyte. I eventually made contact with both, who had of course never heard of each other either. And this afternoon we had a gathering of the clan at our place.
First, the actual Whytes by birth and Whyte descendants:
Left to right:
1) M, my third cousin on the far side of Brussels;
2) me;
3) F, my son;
4) C, my fourth cousin twice removed who lives in Brussels;
5) F2, C's son, my fourth cousin three times removed;
6) K, C's brother who happens to be in Belgium at the moment.
Common ancestors of this group:
(3xgreat grandparents of me and M, 4xgreat grandparents of F,
5x great grandparents of C and K, 6x great grandparents of F2)
Can you see the resemblance?
And then a group selfie with everyone squeezing in:
Left to right:
1) F3, M's wife;
2) M, my third cousin;
3) in front C, my fourth cousin twice removed;
4) behind branch Anne, my wife;
5) F, my son;
6) in front K, C's brother who is also my fourth cousin twice removed;
7) F2, C's son, my fourth cousin three times removed;
8) E, C's husband;
9) me.
The weather was good enough for a walk in the woods and tea in our garden. An afternoon well spent.
Sat, 12:56: RT @alexvtunzelmann: This piece doesn’t pull its punches and says exactly what I’d been thinking about the hypocrisy pouring out of some re…
Sat, 14:48: RT @wildforest_matt: Perhaps the problem with discussions over Cecil Rhodes is that people do not really understand who and what Rhodes was…
Sat, 16:05: RT @danhett: very very rare I do this, but I politely sacked a client this week. repeat offender: vague briefs, moving goalposts, late paym…
Sat, 21:04: I am finding just the opening of #Eurovision quite moving, a feeling that we are turning the corner and returning to normality. For certain values of normality, of course.
Sat, 21:10: RT @DaveKeating: After last year’s Maudlin #Eurovision special replacing the contest bummed everyone out, the Dutch seemed to have learnt t…
Sat, 21:11: RT @peterjbirks: I like to think that Proust would have been fond of Eurovision.
Sat, 21:21: RT @FrancesLievens: #Eurovision may be apolitical, but I have to explain a lot of Cold War politics to my kids for them to understand some…
Sat, 21:25: I wake up and I think I could use another drink I’m reaching for a smoke to forget about last night, last night I get up ’cause I need a shot of instant remedy I put a record on, it makes me think about last night, last night
Sat, 21:39: RT @JohnValenciacf: The importance of running order in #Eurovision. This century only one of 19 winners has started in the first nine and t…
Sat, 21:48: RT @feelinglistless: The BBC should open an immediate public enquiry as to how this was chosen. Jesus, this is absolutely shocking. What t…
Sat, 21:52: RT @nicolleness: Sneak preview of Hotel Transylvania 4 in which the daughter divorces the human and gets with the invisible man #gre#Eurov…
Sat, 21:54: RT @DaveKeating: #Switzerland up now. This is my second-favourite song this year. But I don’t know how viewers will feel about this stagi…
Sat, 21:56: RT @AmIRightSir: The UK’s 1962 & 1963 #Eurovision entrant, Ronnie Carroll, went on to be a repeat independent parliamentary candidate, and…
Sat, 21:57: RT @AbiePB: You have to admire the self belief of a guy who thinks he can win #Eurovision with a musical homage to French existential angst…
Sat, 22:03: “no hay nada que perder mientras dibujo un mar de memorias en tu piel” “there’s nothing to lose while I draw a sea of memories in your skin” Hmm. #Spain#Eurovision
Sat, 22:08: I like #Moldova‘s attitude, Natalia is just there to sing a song she enjoys singing and have some fun. If you vote for her, that’s icing on the cake. #Eurovision
Sat, 22:20: RT @JohnValenciacf: @nwbrux Finland a victim of their 2006 success. Multiple Finnish entries since seem to have decided that the way to win…
Sat, 22:38: RT @SabineFreizer: @nwbrux Too much has happened since last Eurovision to just sing about “voila.. moi qui je suis”
Sat, 22:39: #Azerbaijan going for a bit of orientalism and singing and dancing girls. “I am a dangerous lover Drinking my poisonous water” Hmm. #Eurovision
Sat, 22:55: RT @jordandias: Italy – erm. This is even worse than the earlier heavy metal. I’m just… Well no, not for me. Questions over his outfit. #…
Sat, 22:57: #Sweden again rather catchy, seems to be speaking to our post-pandemic situation. “There’s fire in the rain But we’ll get up again We’re a thousand miles apart But we’ll overcome” #Eurovision
Sat, 23:36: RT @nickjbarlow: On a serious note #Eurovision is a great example of something that could have dwindled away and died out but has become ab…
Sat, 23:42: OMG! Sandra Kim who won in 1986 when she was 13! She’s great. #Eurovision
Sat, 23:42: RT @conbrunstrom: Nothing in modern Eurovision competes with the creepiness of “Save all your kisses for me, EVEN THOUGH YOU’RE ONLY THREE!…
Sat, 23:44: RT @AndrewBeatty: It’s that magical time of the year, when @AFP bureaus around Europe and beyond wait anxiously to see if their lives will…
Sun, 00:14: RT @DaveKeating: Can we just point out that right now the top 3 songs are the ones in French? (Well for Malta the title at least) https://…
Sun, 09:59: RT @alanbeattie: The jury-then-public-vote thing in #Eurovision is a metaphor for EU policymaking. The Commission comes up with some carefu…
Sun, 10:45: RT @DaveKeating: Wow what a night. Some final thoughts: : What Dutch broadcaster NOS and the EBU accomplished this week was incredible. T…
23 May 1964: broadcast of "Temple of Evil", first episode of the story we now call The Aztecs. The Tardis lands in medieval Mexico, where Barbara is received as the reincarnation of the priest Yetaxa.
23 May 1970: broadcast of third episode of Inferno. The Doctor realises that he has travelled to a parallel Earth. (This is the one with the famous eyepatch scene.)
23 May 1988: release of "Doctorin' the Tardis" by The Timelords (later the KLF). A true cultural millstone milestone.
23 May 2003: webcast of fourth episode of Shada. The Doctor and Chris discover Skagra's store of genius minds.
23 May 2020: broadcast of Doctors Assemble! All of the Doctors, though none played by the original actors.
Jurassic Park won the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1994, the only film to win between 1993 and 1997 (TV shows Star Trek: The Next Generation and Babylon 5 won twice each in that period). It beat three other films and a TV episode, in order: The Nightmare Before Christmas, Groundhog Day, Babylon 5 – “The Gathering” and Addams Family Values. The only one of those that I have seen is Groundhog Day, and while I like it a lot, I would have voted Jurassic Park ahead of it. IMDB users also like Jurassic Park, rating it #2 film of 1993 on one system and #3 on the other, behind Schindler's List in both cases. I agree with that judgement too.
None of the cast seems to have been in previous Hugo winners, or in Doctor Who. Two had small parts in previous Oscar winners. Jeff Goldblum, playing Ian Malcolm here, was one of the Californian party guests sixteen years ago in Annie Hall:
And Jerry Molen, who was co-producer of both Jurassic Park and Rain Man, also appeared in front of the cameras in each film. Here he is Harding who looks after sick dinosaurs; in Rain Man five years ago he was Dr Bruner, the head of Walbrook where Raymond Babbitt lives.
I originally thought of doing a joint review of this and Schindler's List, because they were both directed by Steven Spielberg, both based on best-selling novels and both came out in the same year. But really, the subject matter is so very different that I felt it would be somewhat disrespectful to take that approach. Also, I am quite enjoying the pace of doing a film review most weekends, and didn't really want to lose momentum. So here we are.
In the unlikely event that you don't know, Jurassic Park is set in the present day (ie 1993) and concerns a theme park where dinosaurs have been brought back to life with Science. Two cute palæontologists scientists and two cute children are brought in to check it out before opening, and due to sabotage by an employee secretly in the pay of the competition, the dinosaurs escape their pens and all hell breaks loose. The cute characters all survive, though some of the others (including the saboteur) get eaten by dinosaurs. Here's a trailer.
To start with the usual, almost all the characters are white. This is a film set in Latin American, none of whose characters appear to be Latinx. The minor scientists include an Asian and an African-American (the latter being a curiously cast Samuel L. Jackson).
The women characters are given more agency than in the original novel – Laura Dern's Ellie Sattler, the palæontologist palæobotanist, is the peer of Sam Neill's Alan Grant rather than his student; Ariana Richards as Lex Murphy is older than her brother Tim (Joseph Mazzello), and her computer skills save the day. However the subplot of Dern trying to persuade Neill that they should have babies together (not in the original book) is pretty cringeworthy.
But look, the human characters are completely beside the point. This is a film about special effects, and making dinosaurs real. The cinematography and John Williams' music signal to you that this is a really special occasion, a cinematic big deal, and frankly that's what it is. It's one of the most effective sensawunda films out there. The opening scene with dinosaurs in the lake is still mindblowing.
And despite having seen the film before, rewatching it this time I was still on the edge of my seat for the sequence where the velociraptors hunt the children in the kitchen.
I'm putting this in my top ten Hugo and Nebula winning films, behind another novel adaptation, A Clockwork Orange, but ahead of another tale about humans misusing technology, Dr Strangelove.
I went back and reread the book. The second paragraph of the third chapter (by one count) is:
Although it was true enough, as he had told the Bowmans, that lizard bites were common, Jimenez had never heard of a basilisk lizard biting anyone. And he had certainly never heard of anyone being hospitalized for a lizard bite. Then, too, the bite radius on Tina's arm appeared slightly too large for a basilisk. When he got back to the Carara station, he had checked the small research library there, but found no reference to basilisk lizard bites. Next he checked International BioSciences Services, a computer database in America. But he found no references to basilisk bites, or hospitalization for lizard bites.
Of course, I saw the film when it first came out, and found myself continually comparing the book to it. But in fact the book holds up well – a lot of the shocking visual moments from the film are reasonably firmly rooted in the book, and sometimes actually come off better on the page. And the book turns out to be not really about the process of reviving dinosaurs, but about the fragility of human endeavour against the chaos of the natural world – the author's mouthpiece character, who gets to speak long infodumps and whose gnomic statements preface every section of the book, is not a palæontologist but the mathematician played by Jeff Goldblum in the film.
I did notice, however, that very few of the Costa Rican characters and none of the walk-on black characters actually had names.
Comparing again with the film, I was struck that the novel spends a lot more time on set-up – here are lizards on the main coast of Central America, here is the rather crap career structure of the average American palæontologist – where the film just gets on with showing rather than telling. It also seemed to me that the film streamlined the various goals of the humans trying to deal with the park's problems, more effectively than the book. You can get the book hereContact in 1998; meantime the next Oscar-winenr is Forrest Gump.
Sat, 10:45: RT @jonworth: “Brexit. That’s pretty much it from me.” A blog post on why you’re going to get a lot less Brexit / UK-EU politics diagnosis…
22 May 1944: birth of John Flanagan, co-writer of Meglos (Fourth Doctor, 1980)
22 May 2001: death Jack Watling, who played Professor Travers in The Abominable Snowmen (Second Doctor, 1967), The Web of Fear (Second Doctor, 1968) and Downtime (unofficial, 1995).
ii) broadcast anniversaries
22 May 1965: broadcast of "The Executioners", first episode of the story we now call The Chase. The Tardis crew play with the Time-Space Visualiser and land on the planet Aridius, where the Daleks have pursued them.
22 May 1971: broadcast of first episode of The Dæmons. As archæologists open the ancient tomb at Devil's End, strange and deadly events occur around the village.
22 May 2010: broadcast of The Hungry Earth. The Doctor, Amy and Rory discover that a near-future Welsh drilling project is finding more than it bargained for.
I’m cheating a bit by writing this on Saturday morning and backdating to the moment last night when I got my first dose of Pfizer.
My arm is a bit sore, thank you, and I am braced for further reactions today, but it’s a lot better than the alternative.
Apart from that, I went into Brussels again on Thursday and had my first outdoor coffee meeting with N, who worked in my then office exactly ten years ago (see current bookblog nostalgia posts) and has gone on to greater things.
The reasin for going in was another office leaving party, in the park (again note that we were largely maintaining social distance and sticking to smaller groups).
It was really nice to see restaurants opening up again – the first picture below is from Thursday, the second from March last year as the lockdown hit, from the same point on Place Lux.
And the Belgian numbers have continued to show drastic improvement. The death rate is already below where it was before the October lockdown, and the hospital numbers will reach that milestone today or tomorrow.
I have to correct one statement in my last entry: I forgot that I nipped across the border to France for a haircut in December, so it is only five months since I left the country; probably not a record for my lifetime, though I suspect the longest such period in thirty years.
Our current TV fixes are Stranger Things, Au Service de la France, Monty Python and Friends. Who needs new stuff??
I went to Mons on my day off for Ascension, and have another museum trip planned for Monday.
Current The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant City of Blades, by Robert Jackson Bennett
Last books finished All the Fabulous Beasts, by Priya Sharma Doctor Who: The Pandorica Opens: Exploring the Worlds of the Eleventh Doctor, by Frank Collins Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton Finna, by Nino Cipri
Next books Wonder Woman: The Golden Age, Vol. 2 by William Moulton Marston The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women, ed. Alex Dally MacFarlane
Fri, 10:45: RT @hhesterm: Some thoughts on a trade tweet that – as many have pointed out – is wrong. Now I try to no longer critcise tweets of others,…
21 May 1953: birth of Trevor Cooper, who played security chief Takis in Revelation of the Daleks (Sixth Doctor, 1985) and Friar Tuck in Robot of Sherwood (Twelfth Doctor, 2014)
21 May 1985: birth of Calvin Dean, who played the Slitheen in the form of a boy called Chris in The Gift (Sarah Jane Adventures, 2009) and security guard Ha-Ha in Nightmare in Silver (Eleventh Doctor, 2013).
ii) broadcast anniversaries
21 May 1966: broadcast of “The O.K. Corral”, last episode of the story we now call The Gunfighters, and the last episode before 2005 to have an individual title. Doc Holliday and the Earps shoot it out with the Clantons, to the detriment of the latter. NB that Doc Holliday and Kate Horony are the last two historical characters to be depicted in TV Who until George Stephenson in Mark of the Rani (1985), 19 years later.
21 May 2005: broadcast of The Empty Child; first appearance of Captain Jack Harkness and first contribution to New Who by Steven Moffat. The Doctor and Rose find London in the Second World War infested by zombies with gas-masks.
21 May 2011: broadcast of The Rebel Flesh. The Doctor must mediate between the original workers at an acid-mining factory, and their rebellious artificial duplicates.
iii) date specified in-universe
21 May is a crucial date in the plot of The Ghosts of N-Space (Third Doctor audio, 1996).
So said one of the two men who got into the train and settled down.
The planet earth passes through the tail of a comet, and as the result of a massive collective shift of spiritual consciousness, human society is transformed into a polyamorous happy new state of affairs. It goes on for a bit longer than that, but that's the gist. Really rather earnest, even by Wells' standards. You can get it here.
This was my top unread book by H.G. Wells. I am hoping for better with the next, Kipps.
Wed, 12:56: Entitled Mother ends my engagement and gets me banned from a steak house all in one night https://t.co/7fDjnSzBPK One of the more memorable posts to r/entitledparents.
Wed, 16:05: North Macedonia PM: EU risks losing sway in Balkans – POLITICO https://t.co/9t2uw2UJ1y Some people need to remember that it is usually cheaper to keep your promses than to break them.
Wed, 17:11: Very good and informative thread by former Australian trade negotiator on the UK-Australia deal. This tweet is the killer. Despite UK’s structural advantage, unclear policy goals lead to messy outcome. https://t.co/TvdEh6LXnI
20 May 1926: birth of John Lucarotti, writer of the stories we now call Marco Polo (First Doctor, 1964), The Aztecs (First Doctor, 1964) and The Massacre (First Doctor, 1966)
20 May 1961: birth of Owen Teale, who played security guard Maldak in Vengeance on Varos (Sixth Doctor, 1985) and cannibal leader Evan Sherman in CountrycideTorchwood, 2006).
20 May 1966: death of Mervyn Pinfield, who was Associate Producer for Doctor Who from An Unearthly Child (First Doctor, 1963) to The Romans (First Doctor, 1965) and also directed The Sensorites (First Doctor, 1964), Planet of Giants (First Doctor, 1964) and The Space Museum (First Doctor, 1965).
20 May 1977: death of Lennie Mayne, who directed The Curse of Peladon (Third Doctor, 1972), The Three Doctors (Third Doctor and guests, 1972-73), The Monster of Peladon (Third Doctor, 1974) and The Hand of Fear (Fourth Doctor, 1976)
20 May 1982: birth of Jessica Raine, who played Emma Grayling in Hide (Eleventh Doctor, 2013) and Verity Lambert in An Adventure in Space and Time (docudrama, 2013).
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.
20 May 2017: broadcast of Extremis. The Pope asks the Twelfth Doctor to investigate a mysterious book called the Veritas.
20 May 2020: webcast of Listen, a poem by Stephen Moffatt tying in with the epuisode of the same name.
also 20 May 2020: webcast of Fear is a Superpower, last words from Danny Pink.
My hosts now were two graduate students, one male, one female, from the Revisionist History Department. In the noise I could not hear their names clearly. I liked them both and was attracted by their easy conversational style and, as an unsought-for bonus, by their apparent familiarity with several of the books I had written. Without going into my reasons in detail, I asked them both not to address me as Doctor, saying I preferred the use of my given name. They were fine with that. The ice was being broken in many different respects.
Christopher Priest's latest book returns us to the Dream Archipelago, with the story of Todd Fremde (which is almost German for "strange death"), a mystery writer who gets sucked into a real mystery in the course of giving a lecture at a far-off university, in a world which is very like ours, except that a phenomenon called "mutability" blurs reality often and confusingly. Twins and magic pop up again, as they have done in a lot of Priest's other work (notably The Prestige). I see some reviewers complaining that the situation, and the mystery, are not adequately explained at the end, but I felt very much that the journey is its own reward (we are practically told as much in the text). Recommended, though I think I would not tell anyone to start reading Priest with The Evidence. You can get it here.
Tue, 16:05: How often have age cohorts been on the winning/losing side? https://t.co/VTgVZOKUJo Looks at age cohorts and UK elections. A majority of those born in the 1950s have backed the winning side at every election in their lifetime. But those born in the 1990s have always lost.
Wed, 10:45: RT @mattshuham: I spoke to the “QAnon Shaman” Jacob Chansley’s attorney, Albert Watkins, for this story. Here’s what he had to say… https…
Wed, 10:53: With Monday being a holiday here, I’m planning to go to @MuseeMariemont, near Charleroi, to visit the exhibition “Le Monde de Clovis” about the Merovingians. I am willing to give others a lift to/from Brussels – two spaces left. Let me know in reply, or by message.
19 May 1935: birth of Michael Wisher, who appeared as TV anchor Wakefield in The Ambassadors of Death (Third Doctor, 1970); factory owner Rex Farrel in Terror of the Autons (Third Doctor, 1971); Kalik in Carnival of Monsters (Third Doctor, 1973); most iconically as Davros in Genesis of the Daleks (Fourth Doctor, 1975); Magrik of the Vogans in Revenge of the Cybermen (also Fourth Doctor, 1975); Morelli in Planet of Evil (yet again, Fourth Doctor, 1975 – his third role in four stories); and Robar the ship's engineer in Shakedown (unofficial, 1994). A man of many faces, as you can see.
19 May 1944: birth of Colin Spaull, who played security chief Lilt in Revelation of the Daleks (Sixth Doctor, 1985) and Mr Crane in Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel (Tenth Doctor, 2006).
19 May 1947: birth of Michael Cochrane, who played Charles Cranleigh in Black Orchid (Fifth Doctor, 1982) and Redvers Fenn-Cooper in Ghost Light (Seventh Doctor, 1989).
19 May 1982: death of Elwyn Jones, who is credited with co-writing The Highlanders (Second Doctor, 1966-67), though the lore is that in fact he didn't do any of the actual writing.
19 May 2006: death of Peter Bryant, script editor of Second Doctor era 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.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I've been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I've found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
Much travel and confusion in June 2011. We had a family trip to Sint Truiden on the 2nd, which was very enjoyable.
I also too a detour on the way to work one morning to visit the Enclos des fusillés / Erepark der gefusilleerden.
Not sure if it was June or May 2011 that Luxembourgish J left my office and went on to set up a tremendously successful League of Young European Voters in the run-up to the 2014 European elections, and now works for her home government. Her replacement was Belarusian N, the first person from her country that I had ever worked with. (But not the last, as we shall see.)
Mid-month I had a fairly crazy trip to the USA, to New York for work and then to Washington to give my video deposition in the case of Milan Jankovic v. International Crisis Group, a defamation law suit relating to two of the reports I had overseen at my previous job. It took another six years, but the case was eventually thrown out. It was quite an intense experience to be grilled by lawyers for eight hours. My flight back was then five hours late taking off and landing; on arrival in Heathrow, I lost my phone getting off the plane, which was an immense hassle and required me to change my phone number to the current one. I went direct from Heathrow to Manchester for the ordination of my son's godmother; once we eventually got home, I started another trip to Moldova only a couple of days later. Here's the new ordinand cutting her cake:
With lots of sitting around on planes, I read 31 books that month.
~9,100 pages (YTD ~42,400)
8/31 (YTD 27/149) by women (Atwood, Willis, McHugh, the Irish Magic II authors, Funke, Rayner, Orman, Sibylline)
0/31 (YTD 9/149) by PoC
The best three of these were Ian Rankin's Fleshmarket Close, which you can get here, and the first two volumes of Mike Carey's The Unwritten, which you can get here and here. I really bounced off When Santa Fell To Earth, and didn't much care for Schlock Mercenary or Monster Hunter International either. You can get them here, here and here.
Tue, 09:50: RT @DavidHenigUK: Let us finally not forget that in a few short weeks the UK government has gone from denying there would be any checks as…
18 May 1928: birth of John Abineri, who played van Lutyens in Fury from the Deep (Second Doctor, 1967), Carrington in The Ambassadors of Death (Third Doctor, 1970), Railton in Death to the Daleks (Third Doctor, 1974) and Ranquin in The Power of Kroll (Fourth Doctor, 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.
18 May 2013: webcast of Strax Field Report: A Glorious Day.
Also 18 May 2013: broadcast of The Name of the Doctor. ending the regular stories of Series 7 of New Who. The Doctor is summoned to Trenzalore where it was said he would fall. But what does the alleged site of his final battle have to do with the mystery of Clara Oswald? Can the Paternoster Gang help him avoid his apparent destiny? And who's John Hurt playing?
iii) date specified in canon
18 May 1969: setting of much of Paul Leonard's 1999 Eighth Doctor novel, Resurrection Man.
Her second thought, which she vocalized, was, “Oh, shit.” Whether one is theoretically expecting to get a toothbrush (or whatever) through the ribs, when the sharpened object is honing in on you, carried by someone who looks like her job on the outside was strangling livestock, it’s all right to let out a little profanity.
Sequel to The Collapsing Empire, which was a Hugo finalist in 2018. Where the first volume had grand sweeps of interstellar space, the second concentrates very much more on court politics in the capital of a galactic empire which is being undermined by the collapse of the wormhole network on which it depends. The political and sexual intrigue is well done, but I keep running into the same problem with Scalzi's books, which is that all the characters sound the same. You can get it here.
This was my top unread sf book, and my top unread book acquired in 2019. Next on those piles respectively are The Place of the Lion, by Charles Williams, and City of Blades, by Robert Jackson Bennett.
Sun, 14:46: I’ll admit that transfers between SDLP & UUP in last Assembly election were effective, though votes fell in such a way that SDLP benefited more in terms of seats. BUT my point is that it didn’t resonate with voters. SDLP had worst 1st prefs %ge result ever, UUP not much better. https://t.co/m3zMmUFHdQ
Sun, 14:48: RT @John_Cotter: This tweet highlights some interesting themes I’m noticing amongst Brexiteers 1. Some Brexiteers are now acknowledging th…
Sun, 20:48: RT @drsammytweets: Still processing my first run in with the police… I’ve been doing a lot of cicada interviews & with national news out…
Mon, 08:58: I generally like and admire @b_judah’s work, but he is seriously off the mark here to put Prodi and Renzi in the same category as Sarkozy. Even Schröder has not been accused of breaking the law, however dubious his choices. Disappointingly lazy writing. https://t.co/Yl0y6ZQEaN
Mon, 10:45: RT @robinlustig: This is probably the best background piece I’ve read over the past week. (And I’ve read a *lot* of them). https://t.co/KkW…
17 May 1943: birth of David Simeon, who played Private Latimer in Inferno (Third Doctor, 1970) and TV anchorman Alastair Fergus in The Dæmons (Third Doctor, 1971)
ii) 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.
17 May 2011: broadcast of The Custodians, nineteenth episode of the Australian K9 series. "Little Green Men" is a new virtual reality game sweeping the nation, the brainchild of a company with designs on taking over the youth of the world. The game has a hidden secret: a link to a strange telepathic alien who turns humans into his own kind.
17 May 2020: webcast of The Descendants of Pompeii. Evie and Maxine discuss the way their family seems to be protected.
Like a lot of fans, I was hugely excited at the prospect of more Doctor Who stories featuring Christopher Eccleston being produced by Big Finish, his first performance in the role since leaving the show in 2005. The first of them, Ravagers, came out on Thursday when I was in Mons, and I confess I immediately sought out sufficient wifi to download it to my phone on the spot. (These days, I listen to Big Finish plays via the app on my iPhone, either through the system in the car or through ear buds while I'm out walking or shopping.)
There are three 45-minute plays, or rather a single story in three 45-minute episodes, and another hour of behind-the-scenes. The trailer video actually gives a fair taster. This isn't Russell T. Davies or Steven Moffat writing, and there's no Billie Piper; instead we have Nicholas Briggs with an ambitious and somewhat confusing story of time travel, in which Eccleston gets to reprise some of his best lines from TV.
We have a new companion, Nova, played by Camilla Beeput, and a villain, Audrey, played by Jayne McKenna. Neither seems to have done Who before. Eccleston sparks well against both of them. It's a complex timey-wimey story, in which we meet both Nova and Audrey at different points of their personal timelines out of order. I confess I found it difficult to follow, and the Nova thread flowed in the wrong direction for her character development. The core of the story is that there is a massive game whose participants are the unwitting tools of an alien threat, but I did not really grasp how all the bits of plot added up – there's a section in 1959 London infested with Roman soldiers, and another segment at the Battle of Waterloo (so points at least for visiting Belgium).
Basically, it's great to hear Eccleston again, clearly enjoying himself. The BTS chat has a lot of interesting thoughtful commentary from Eccsleston and others, especially Nicholas Briggs. Eccleston is particularly moving about his father's illness intersecting with the 2004-05 filming.
This is a major event for Big Finish and for Who fandom generally. However, it lacks the oomph that I felt when it was all shiny and new in 2005. Tom Baker's first audios, the BBC Hornet's Nest series, similarly seemed to me a bit unmoored, putting a familiar character in a context that didn't quite suit. Baker has long since found his gear and is a fantastic performer now. (Not to mention the redemption of Colin Baker's character through the audio adventures.) So I'm hoping for better things to come. And I'm not saying that Ravagers is bad, just that I had expected (perhaps unfairly) a little more. For three audio plays (plus the BTS tracks), it's pretty good value, and you can get it here.
Sat, 16:05: Galina Ivanovna’s Nun https://t.co/IA14iN4CDX This is a lovely story. Sister Andr� taught music at my school and ran the school orchestra that I played in.
Sun, 10:45: RT @ddoniolvalcroze: Christopher Lloyd (Banquo) and Christopher Walken (Macbeth) in the stage production Macbeth at Lincoln Center, New Yor…
16 May 1963: date of a note with the title '"Dr. Who" General Notes on Background and Approach for an Exciting Adventure – Science Fiction Drama Series for Childrens Saturday Viewing', signed by Donald Wilson, C.E. Webber and Sydney Newman. Click to embiggen.
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.
16 May 2013: release of Strax Field Report – The Name of the Doctor.
Schindler’s List won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1993, and six others: Best Director (Steven Spielberg), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score (John Williams), Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction. It lost in another five categories, all to different films, including one to that year’s Hugo winner, Jurassic Park.
That year’s other Best Picture nominees were In the Name of the Father and The Piano, which I have seen, and The Fugitive and The Remains of the Day, which I haven’t. Apart from the two just mentioned, I had seen another six films made that year: Jurassic Park, Groundhog Day, Philadelphia, The Three Musketeers, Much Ado About Nothing and Dave. I must say I really like them all, but I do think that the Oscar voters made the right choice. IMDB users rate Schilndler’s List top film of 1993 on one system and second to, bizarrely, Dazed and Confused (a film I don’t think I had even heard of) on the other. Here’s a trailer.
I spotted no actors who had previously been in a Hugo-winning flm, or in Doctor Who, and only one actor who had previously been in an Oscar winning film. It is Ben Kingsley, here the most prominent Jewish character, accountant Yitzhak Stern, and eleven years ago in the lead role in Gandhi.
In case you didn’t know, it’s the story of Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist during the second world war, who rescued over a thousand Jews from extermination at Auschwitz. It is based on a Booker Prize-winning novel. I think it is the only Booker winner to also be an Oscar winner; I count four based on Pulitzer winners (You Can’t Take It With You, Gone With The Wind, All the King’s Men, and Driving Miss Daisy).
It’s also almost entirely in black and white. The last film in black and white to win the Oscar was The Apartment in 1960. Schindler’s List is the most expensive black and white film of all time, and also the highest earning. It’s a tremendous device to make us feel simultaneously distanced and involved in the action, especially combined with the handheld camera documentary style filming. Life happened in colour in the 1940s, of course, in Eastern Europe as everywhere else. But our historical memory of the period in general is in black and white. The colour Nazis of Spielberg’s earlier films Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade are a bit comical. These Nazis are not, just as the black and white Nazis of Casabalanca are not. And the film’s exceptions to the black and white rule are all the more memorable as a result.
I have to say that it’s a rather male film. The women are not as central to the action as the men. I was interested that one vivid incident, when the engineer Diana Reiter is shot dead for offering structural advice, was based on fact. It is also interesting that the real Diana Reiter was 40 when she died, and she is played by 26-year-old Elina Löwensohn.
We’ve had several Oscar-winning films which looked at Jewish identity and anti-semitism in different times and places. (The Life of Emile Zola, Gentleman’s Agreement, Ben-Hur, Annie Hall, Chariots of Fire, Driving Miss Daisy; the word “Jew” is not mentioned in Casablanca, but the subtext is very present.) Schindler’s List is at its heart the story of Schindler and his antagonist Goeth, and only then of the people he saved, but it is such a long and wide film that we get a much much better exploration of these issues than in any of the others. The story is brought home to us directly at the very end, where the real survivors saved by Schindler, accompanied by the actors we have just seen playing them on film, honour Schindler’s grave in Jerusalem.
Apart from that caveat, the film is indeed a masterpiece, telling a grim story at length (still leaving out a lot of what’s in the book), exploring the ambiguity of Schindler who did things that are normally considered bad (fraud, theft, forgery) to ameliorate something much worse (genocide). The settings are convincing. The music is unforgettable. Here’s Itzhak Perlman playing it in concert.
It’s also carried by Liam Neeson in the central role. Schindler is complex but I think not ambiguous; he enjoys the pleasures of life, but is also shocked and repelled by what is happening to the people around him, and is in the position where he can make a small difference to some.
It’s difficult to know what else to say. I’m putting it right at the top of my rankings, in fifth place overall, just behind Chariots of Fire, but ahead of Rebecca.
I also went and read the novel by Thomas Keneally, first published as Schindler’s Ark and then retitled Schindler’s List to capitalise on the film. The second paragraph of the third chapter is:
With some hundreds of other captured Polish officers from Przemyśl, Pfefferberg was on his way to Germany when his train drew into his home city of Cracow and the prisoners were herded into the first-class waiting room, to remain there until new transport could be provided. His home was ten blocks away. To a practical young man, it seemed outrageous that he could not go out into Pawia Street and catch a No. 1 trolley home. The bucolic-looking Wehrmacht guard at the door seemed a provocation.
It’s a great book, and the great film that was made from it inevitably cut out some important details. The core of the story is still the same – the sensualist Schindler, who succeeds in saving a few lives, with perhaps more of an emphasis on the people he saved as well as the people he opposed and the women he loved. But the book has time to show us the overall context. There’s an interesting cameo in an early chapter from a policeman who complains that the entire railway system is being diverted to transporting Jews, rather than the soldiers who might actually help win the war. It made me wonder briefly if the Germans could have won the war if it had not been accompanied by a policy of genocide. But of course, if there had been no policy of genocide, there would probably have been no war.
There’s another interesting moment in the book when Schindler goes to Budapest to brief the Jewish Relief Organization on what was happening to Jews in Poland. This again is based on fact. In these days of instant news, which I guess we’ve had more or less since the 1960s, we forget just how difficult it was to get information, even about mass murder to which there were hundreds or thousands of witnesses. By 1943, the first reports were already out there – the New Republic broke the story in December 1942, rumours had reached Anne Frank and her family in hiding a few months before that. But Schindler was able to provide a dangerous and direct link between the Zionist relief funds and the surviving Jews in his part of the world. I find this particularly brave. Budapest was not home territory, the Zionists were not people who he knew, in the same way that Poland and the Sudetenland were.
But the most striking difference between book and film is the detail of suffering which the book can describe but the film cannot. Actors in 1992 were able to convincingly portray the terror and trauma of fifty years earlier. They could not portray malnutrition and disease. It’s a comprehensive and convincing account of what life was like both inside and outside the camps, when horror and tragedy were everyday occurrences. Really very much worth reading, whether or not you see the film. You can get it here.
Fri, 12:56: RT @davidallengreen: Forget the old joke about the two ‘What teach you/don’t teach you at Harvard Business School’ books comprising all hum…
Fri, 14:12: RT @pmdfoster: It’s out!! My latest #Brexit Briefing which looks at stormy outlook for Northern Ireland. Not at all clear either EU or UK i…
Fri, 15:50: RT @Girlinthe: Morning all. For everyone missing @greensideknits, I’ve just had confirmation that her funeral service will be streamed onli…
Fri, 17:07: RT @DanielFerrie: This is entirely incorrect. The Protocol, and the tailor-made solutions found in Dec 2020, ensure the continued availabi…
Fri, 17:11: RT @Mij_Europe: Viktor Orban’s ingenuity to use each & every situation to increase his power while suppressing that of the opposition is le…
Fri, 17:49: Poots 19, Donaldson 17 – the party’s first contested leadership election in 50 years, and you can’t get any closer than that! https://t.co/O3j9x2SIxY
