• Thu, 12:56: The Antikythera Cosmos https://t.co/YgV4ILBb55 Amazing presentation of an amazing ancient Greek planetary computer.
• Thu, 14:23: One year ago. “Passen Sie gut auf sich, und auf Ihre Liebsten auf.” “Look after yourselves, and look after the people you love.” https://t.co/tzFEvP6wEI
• Thu, 16:00: 40 hours left to nominate for this year’s Hugo Awards! If you were a CoNZealand member, and you want to nominate, check now to make sure that you are in the system.
• Thu, 16:05: RT @BSFA: “No artist ever set out to do less than his best and did something good by accident. it doesn’t work that way. You head for perfe…
• Thu, 16:38: For me this was the most difficult poll today. War Machines, viewed in sequence, is an amazing step forward – first case of the Doctor allying with contemporary Earth, before that became normal. I know, I know, Holmes, Sladen, but am voting War Machines. (Am in minority.) https://t.co/OCA2K4ZTKT
• Thu, 18:27: August 2010 books https://t.co/jdj3WVt8ot
• Fri, 02:00: 30 hours left to nominate for this year’s Hugo Awards! If you were a CoNZealand member, and you want to nominate, check now to make sure that you are in the system.
• Fri, 08:59: RT @worldcon2021: 1000 people submitted their nominations We’ve got 23 hours left so if you haven’t submitted yours yet – now is the tim…
• Fri, 09:30: Whoniversaries 19 March https://t.co/L6MXcfslC9
• Fri, 10:45: RT @LMBD1418: A priest, a pastor and a rabbit walked in to blood donation clinic. The nursed asked the rabbit: “What is your blood type?”…

i) births and deaths

19 March 2019: death of Clinton Greyne, who played Ivo in State of Decay (Fourth Doctor, 1980), Stike in The Two Doctors (Sixth and Second Doctors, 1985) and the Sontaran commander in In A Fix With Sontarans (Sixth Doctor but disowned, 1985).

ii) broadcast anniversaries

19 March 1966: broadcast of "The Return", third episode of the story we now call The Ark. The Tardis returns to the Ark centuries after its original visit, to find that the Monoids are now in charge. The Doctor and Dodo are sent to investigate Refusis.

19 March 1977: broadcast of fourth episode of The Talons of Weng-Chiang. The Doctor escapes from Li H'sen Chang on stage; Weng-Chiang's men capture the Time Cabinet from Litefoot's house.

19 March 2005: broadcast of the Doctor Who night on BBC, including the Mastermind Special.

19 March 2008: broadcast of Adrift (Torchwood), the one with the island full of people rescued from Torchwood's vault by Jack.

iii) date specified in-universe

19 March ?2009: setting of From Out of the Rain (Torchwood, 2008).

19 March ?2011: Miracle Day, starting the fourth series of Torchwood.

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.

As noted, we started August at my sister's in Burgundy, and then had two weeks in Northern Ireland, where F was kind enough to help with the catering arrangements for one of our younger visitors.

The most memorable thing about the holiday was that I got the time of the return sailing wrong and we had a long overnight drive through Wales at the other end. The following few days were spent at the Discworld Convention in Birmingham, where I had an absolutely excellent time but I took no photographs and have not found myself in anyone else's. It was of course moving to see Terry Pratchett in what we all knew would be one of his last appearances; I was also very happy to help my friend J in her successful election bid as Low King of the Dwarves.

I read 37 books in August 2010:

Non-fiction 11 (YTD 52)
The Bloody Sunday report, Vol IX
The Bloody Sunday report, Vol X
A Viceroy's Vindication? Sir Henry Sidney's Memoir of Service in Ireland, 1556-78
Faith in Europe?, by Jean Vanier, Mary McAleese, Timothy Radcliffe, Bob Geldof, Chris Patten and Cormac Murphy-O'Connor
The Moldovans: Romania, Russia and the Politics of Culture, by Charles King
Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, by Thomas Merton
Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War, by Pete Earley
Back To The Vortex, by J Shaun Lyon
The Bookseller of Kabul, by Åsne Seierstad
Mistress Blanche: Queen Elizabeth I's Confidante, by Ruth Elizabeth Richardson
Aké: the Years of Childhood, by Wole Soyinka

Non-genre fiction 5 (YTD 33)
Soul Mountain / 灵山, by Gao Xingjian
A Town Like Alice, by Nevil Shute
Dubliners, by James Joyce
The Rosary, by Florence Barclay
A Farewell To Arms, by Ernest Hemingway

SF (not Who) 9 (YTD 55)
Black Blade Blues, by J.A. Pitts
Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
Sinai Tapestry, by Edward Whittemore
Tolkien: The Illustrated Encyclopedia, by David Day
A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
The Wizard Knight, by Gene Wolfe
Diaspora, by Greg Egan
The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett
Northern Lights, by Philip Pullman

Doctor Who 9 (YTD 46, 50 counting comics and non-fiction)
Longest Day, by Mike Collier
Doctor Who Annual 2011
Legacy of the Daleks, by John Peel
Wishing Well, by Trevor Baxendale
The King's Dragon, by Una McCormack
The Ring of Steel, by Stephen Cole
The Pit, by Neil Penswick
The Slitheen Excursion, by Simon Guerrier
Fallen Gods, by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman

Comics 3 (YTD 12)
With the Light… / 光とともに…, vol 2, by Keiko Tobe
Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life, by Bryan Lee O'Malley
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, by Bryan Lee O'Malley

~11,000 pages (YTD 63,100)
8/37 (YTD 42/202) by women (McAleese, Seierstad, Richardson, Barclay, Shelley, McCormack, Orman, Tobe)
5/37 (YTD 16/202) by PoC (Soyinka, Gao, Tobe, O'Malley x 2)

Some very good books here. The book of the year for me was the Bloody Sunday Report, which you can download here. But I also really enjoyed Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, which you can get here, Joyce's Dubliners, which you can get here, and Shute's A Town Like Alice, which you can get here. At the other end, I found that once I put Wolfe's The Wizard Knight down it was impossible to pick it up again (you can get it here) and The Pit is one of the least impressive Who books out there (you can get it here).

• Wed, 12:56: RT @AlynSmith: Proud with ⁦@StewartMcDonald to write in ⁦@ForeignPolicy launching Project No Surprises : ⁩”An Independent Scotland…
• Wed, 16:05: Let’s Get Medieval https://t.co/VrS5vJtKDk A nice Belfast project (well, projects) on the intersections of medieval and modern culture.
• Wed, 17:11: Who’ll win the Hartlepool by-election? https://t.co/c8acGtMlDQ A question with a fairly obvious answer.
• Wed, 18:34: Science Fiction: The Great Years, eds. Carol and Frederik Pohl https://t.co/iWyJO28Enn
• Wed, 20:00: 60 hours left to nominate for this year’s Hugo Awards! If you were a CoNZealand member, and you want to nominate, check now to make sure that you are in the system.
• Wed, 20:03: RT @My_Mums_Voice: A poignant end to our journey on this St Patrick’s Day sees mums headstone finally installed, today may mum finally rest…
• Wed, 21:03: RT @christinebelled: Ta gaeilge ag Prionsa Liam!
• Wed, 21:14: RT @pbergsen: Holy moly! Exit poll suggests liberal D66 to become easily the second largest party in the Netherlands https://t.co/CHvGpq5Ubw
• Wed, 21:39: A thread of red pencils given to voters in different parts of the Netherlands. https://t.co/W3erWIwWtB
• Wed, 21:49: Well. Nice to have a system that rewards parties who are prepared to work with each other. (But after 21 years living in Flanders, wow, the Dutch sound *so* Dutch!) https://t.co/5GD5FtldiE

• Wed, 22:00: RT @DavidHenigUK: The Dutch election presumably proves the EU will collapse tomorrow according to UK experts?
• Thu, 06:00: 50 hours left to nominate for this year’s Hugo Awards! If you were a CoNZealand member, and you want to nominate, check now to make sure that you are in the system.
• Thu, 08:55: Belgium eyes suspended AstraZeneca�jabs surplus https://t.co/0pZ5Rtdwcg It’s an ill wind…
• Thu, 09:22: RT @alexstubb: Gotta admit that I am getting increasingly worried about the nationalistic rhetoric around #COVID19 in the UK. I can sort of…
• Thu, 09:30: Whoniversaries 18 March https://t.co/WX7Mn2Nk0C
• Thu, 10:45: 16 Real Places That Look Like They’re From the Future https://t.co/YQEiroOqW0 Includes the Atomium.

broadcast anniversaries

18 March 1967: broadcast of second episode of The Macra Terror. Ben is brainwashed by the secret rulers of the camp; he and Polly encounter a Macra, but he denies it has happened.

18 March 1972: broadcast of fourth episode of The Sea Devils. The Doctor and the Master arrive separately at the Sea Devils' lair and try to negotiate with them.

18 March 2010: broadcast of Space, Time, and The Doctor Drops In, three mini-episodes. (Space and Time are very funny, watched together.)

Second paragraph of third story ("Old Faithful", by Raymond Z. Gallun):

The two messengers who had come to his workshop that afternoon had not seen into his heart, and he received their message with the absolute outward calm that was characteristic of his kind – at the end of forty days Number 774 must die. He had lived the allotted span fixed by the Rulers.

I got this in 2014 because the last story, "A Matter of Form" by H.L. Gold, was up for the Retro Hugo for Best Novella that year (beaten by the classic "Who Goes There?", which got my vote). It's a collection of seven stories from the Golden Age, published between 1934 and 1953, all by men. The weakest is an early story of Pohl's own, "Wings of the Lightning Land"; several of the others have aged poorly, including Eric Frank Russell's "…And Then There Were None". I don't especially like Kornbluth's "The Little Black Bag" but I think it's a well-executed story. You can get it here.

This was the sf book that had lingered longest unread on my shelves. Next is another anthology from another era, Kaleidoscope: diverse YA science fiction and fantasy stories, eds Alisa Krasnostein and Julia Rios.

• Tue, 12:54: Tremendous detail here. (Would like to see the same for Belgium.) https://t.co/CvhbzS68nz
• Tue, 12:56: RT @cult_edge: Sad to learn of the recent passing of writer James Follett. James wrote two episodes of Blake’s 7 – Dawn Of The Gods and Sta…
• Tue, 13:12: RT @AyoCaesar: Julie Burchill abused me for being Muslim – but at the time, the press made her out to be a victim of ‘cancel culture’. Ou…
• Tue, 14:00: 90 hours left to nominate for this year’s Hugo Awards! If you were a CoNZealand member, and you want to nominate, check now to make sure that you are in the system.
• Tue, 14:36: Wow, lots of wrong decisions being made here! https://t.co/l1rL7nva5P
• Tue, 17:11: Microbes Unknown to Science Discovered on The International Space Station https://t.co/39WRzAfmb9 What could possibly go wrong?
• Tue, 18:22: Nebula finalists: Goodreads/LibraryThing stats https://t.co/UO5LNgfVUc
• Tue, 19:55: RT @singharj: EXC Dominic Raab has told officials in a video call leaked to @HuffPostUK that Britain will seek trade deals with countries a…
• Tue, 23:32: RT @GMB_union: BREAKING NEWS: Uber has finally done the right thing. From tomorrow, all 70,000 Uber drivers will be paid holiday time, be…
• Wed, 00:00: 80 hours left to nominate for this year’s Hugo Awards! If you were a CoNZealand member, and you want to nominate, check now to make sure that you are in the system.

• Wed, 09:30: Whoniversaries 17 March https://t.co/nyq44anvYA
• Wed, 09:38: The first St Patrick’s Day celebration in America: 1600 and 1601 Here’s a fascinating piece by Michael Francis, looking at the history of St Augustine, Florida – the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in the contiguous USA founded by Europeans. https://t.co/GizDZ9hHL0
• Wed, 10:00: 70 hours left to nominate for this year’s Hugo Awards! If you were a CoNZealand member, and you want to nominate, check now to make sure that you are in the system.
• Wed, 10:25: RT @worldcon2021: @nwbrux https://t.co/AGGr9scHUV
• Wed, 10:45: Government plans to change mayor of London elections to First Past the Post https://t.co/5S4z0J6RFC A late consequence of the botched 2011 referendum.
• Wed, 11:01: The origins of St Patrick’s Day https://t.co/bCCkOjoWaI

Just a brief note on the day.

It's well known that St Patrick's Day parades were originally a diaspora phenomenon, and the first really big parades were in the eighteenth century in the USA. But the first recorded celebration of St Patrick's Day in what is now the United States was a good deal earlier. St Augustine, in Florida, is the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in the contiguous USA founded by Europeans, in 1565. It was a Spanish settlement, but in 1600 the parish priest was an Irishman, Richard Arthur, known as Ricardo Artur locally; and he invoked the protection of St Patrick (rather than St Augustine, after whom the town was named) for the settlers. Local historian Michael Francis has found records that Artur organised public celebrations of St Patrick on 17 March 1600 and 1601, including a public procession in 1601. It's not quite St Patrick's Day as we know it; there was not much of a diaspora in Florida, and the tradition ended when Artur left the town. But let's take a moment to think of the weirdness of that historical moment.

More locally to here, the Irish College in Leuven claims to be the first place to have celebrated St Patrick's Day as a diaspora festival, with a public sermon in around 1610. The Franciscans at the college were certainly instrumental in helping Luke Wadding to persuade the Vatican to make St Patrick's Day an official feast day of the church. There were Irish colleges elsewhere of course – most famously in Salamanca, Lisbon, Douai and Rome itself – but Leuven claims the earliest documentation, and as they are my neighbours I will take their word for it.

Most years there has been much celebration, both by the college in Leuven and by the Irish community in Brussels. Last year's St Patrick's Day was exactly when the lockdown was imposed, and this year things are not a lot better yet. Here's hoping for 2022.

i) births and deaths

17 March 1942: birth of Ken Grieve, director of Destiny of the Daleks (Fourth Doctor, 1979)

17 March 2011: death of Michael Gough, who played the Toymaker in The Celestial Toymaker (First Doctor, 1966) and Hedin in Arc of Infinity (Fifth Doctor, 1983). He was also married to actress Anneke Wills.

ii) broadcast anniversary

17 March 1973: broadcast of fourth episode of Frontier in Space. The Master has the Doctor and Jo captive, but all three are captured by the Draconians.

iii) dates specified in-universe:

17 March 1898: death of Mary Eliza Millington in The Curse of Fenric (Seventh Doctor, 1989).

In 2010, an exhibit on Vincent van Gogh opened at the Musée d'Orsay, as seen in The Lodger (Eleventh Doctor, 2010).

Also, for the day that’s in it, my guide to Ireland in Doctor Who written in 2019 (therefore missing last year).

Followed the annoucement live last night due to insomnia. Going to be early to bed this evening.

Best Novel

This is the tenth year that I have been tracking these figures. Last year's winner was fifth out of sixthird out of five. The top ranked novel on this basis won the Best Novel Nebulas for 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014. The 2013 winner (Ancillary Justice) was fourth of eight. The 2012 winner was second of six. So was the 2011 winner. So in the last nine years, the top-ranked novel on this ranking has won almost half the time, and one of the top two has won two-thirds of the time.

Striking that Mexican Gothic has more owners on LT than all the others combined, but the lowest reader ratings on both systems. Of course with best-selling books, it's often more likely that readers who didn't like them will register an opinion.

Skipping the Novella category because not all of them were separately published.

Andre Norton Award:

Last year the fifth out of six finalists won (as with Best Novel). The previous year, the top-ranked finalist in this category won. I failed to do the calculation for the 2017 award; for the 2016 award, the winner was fifth out of seven on this ranking.

• Mon, 12:56: EU rail passenger rights revamp falls short of disabled groups’ hopes https://t.co/5r9GlhxJpC Trains are really unfriendly to people with disabilities – my old friend @jchoste is quoted.
• Mon, 18:05: Mostly Void, Partially Stars, by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor https://t.co/m5uQU1raXJ
• Mon, 19:35: Oh wow, I remember that vividly! I was ten and a half… https://t.co/uCNahM8Wjf
• Tue, 01:48: RT @sfwa: The #Nebulas2021 Finalists for THE ANDRE NORTON NEBULA AWARD FOR MIDDLE GRADE AND YOUNG ADULT FICTION are: (see next tweet)
• Tue, 01:48: RT @sfwa: -Raybearer, Jordan Ifueko (Amulet) -Elatsoe, Darcie Little Badger (Levine Querido) -A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, T. King…
• Tue, 01:48: RT @sfwa: The #Nebulas2021 Finalists for SHORT STORY are: (see next tweet)
• Tue, 01:48: RT @sfwa: – “Badass Moms in the Zombie Apocalypse”, Rae Carson (Uncanny 1-2/20) – “Advanced Word Problems in Portal Math”, Aimee Picchi (Da…
• Tue, 01:48: RT @sfwa: – “The Eight-Thousanders”, Jason Sanford (Asimov’s 9-10/20) – “My Country Is a Ghost”, Eugenia Triantafyllou (Uncanny 1-2/20) – “…
• Tue, 01:55: RT @sfwa: The #Nebulas2021 Finalists for NOVELETTE are: (see next tweet)
• Tue, 01:55: RT @sfwa: – “Stepsister”, Leah Cypess (F&SF 5-6/20) – “The Pill”, Meg Elison (Big Girl, PM Press) – “Burn or the Episodic Life of Sam Wells…

• Tue, 01:55: RT @sfwa: – “Where You Linger”, Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam (Uncanny 1-2/20) – “Shadow Prisons”, Caroline M. Yoachim (serialized in the Dystopia…
• Tue, 02:07: RT @sfwa: The #Nebulas2021 Finalists for GAME WRITING are: (see next tweet)
• Tue, 02:07: RT @sfwa: – Blaseball, Stephen Bell, Joel Clark, Sam Rosenthal (The Game Band) – Hades, Greg Kasavin (Supergiant) – Kentucky Route Zero, J…
• Tue, 02:07: RT @sfwa: – Scents & Semiosis, Sam Kabo Ashwell, Cat Manning, Caleb Wilson, Yoon Ha Lee (Self) – Spiritfarer, Nicolas Guérin, Maxime Monast…
• Tue, 02:27: RT @sfwa: The #Nebulas2021 Finalists for NOVELLA are: (see next tweet)
• Tue, 02:28: RT @sfwa: – “Tower of Mud and Straw”, Yaroslav Barsukov (Metaphorosis) – Finna, Nino Cipri (Tordotcom) – Ring Shout, P. Djèlí Clark (Tordot…
• Tue, 02:28: RT @sfwa: – “Ife-Iyoku, the Tale of Imadeyunuagbon”, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa…
• Tue, 02:28: RT @sfwa: The #Nebulas2021 Finalists for THE RAY BRADBURY NEBULA AWARD FOR DRAMATIC PRESENTATION are: (see next tweet)
• Tue, 02:28: RT @sfwa: – Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, Christina Hodson, Warner Bros. Pictures – The Expanse: “G…
• Tue, 02:28: RT @sfwa: – Lovecraft Country, Season 1, Misha Green, Shannon Houston, Kevin Lau, Wes Taylor, Ihuoma Ofordire, Jonathan I. Kidd, Sonya Wint…

• Tue, 02:28: RT @sfwa: The #Nebulas2021 Finalists for NOVEL are: (see next tweet)
• Tue, 02:28: RT @sfwa: – Piranesi, Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury US; Bloomsbury UK) – The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US & UK) – Mexican Gothic, Si…
• Tue, 02:28: RT @sfwa: – Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga; Solaris) – Network Effect, Martha Wells (Tordotcom)
• Tue, 04:00: 100 hours left to nominate for this year’s Hugo Awards! If you were a CoNZealand member, and you want to nominate, check now to make sure that you are in the system.
• Tue, 09:30: Whoniversaries 16 March https://t.co/IPcF8IC7Fe
• Tue, 10:45: RT @jessica_salfia: This poem is called “First lines of emails I’ve received while quarantining.” https://t.co/4keCqPaO63
• Tue, 11:32: RT @BoozeAndFagz: On 13 December 2020 I made defamatory statements about @AyoCaesar, which I sincerely regret and retract and have undertak…

This is the last of the seven dates of the year on which six episodes of Old Who were broadcast; it saw the demise of Adric in 1982, of the Fifth Doctor in 1984, and of Paul Darrow's credibility in 1985.

i) births and deaths

16 March 1935: birth of Donald Tosh, script editor in 1965-66, author of "Bell of Doom", fourth episode of the story we now call The Massacre (First Doctor, 1966).

also 16 March 1935: birth of Tristan de Vere Cole, director of The Wheel in Space (Second Doctor, 1968).

16 March 1943: birth of John Leeson, the voice of K9 in Old Who (apart from one season), New Who, the first Sarah Jane spinoff K9 and Company, the more successful Sarah Jane Adventures and let's not forget the Australian K9 series (though I think he himself might like to). He also appeared in person as Dugeen in The Power of Kroll (Fourth Doctor, 1978-79).

ii) broadcast anniversaries

16 March 1968: broadcast of first episode of Fury from the Deep. The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria arrive at an oil refinery where the chief refuses to do anything about the mysterious noises and pressure fluctuations in the pipelines.

16 March 1974: broadcast of fourth episode of Death to the Daleks. The Doctor destroys the City, freeing both Earth astronauts and Daleks; but Galloway has hidden on the Dalek ship, and destroys it as it takes off.

16 March 1982: broadcast of fourth episode of Earthshock. The Cybermen are defeated, but the freighter crashes into prehistoric earth, killing Adric. Last regular appearance of Matthew Waterhouse as Adric.

16 March 1983: broadcast of second episode of The King's Demons, ending Season 20. The Doctor takes control of Kamelion and defeats the Master.

16 March 1984: broadcast of fourth epsiode of The Caves of Androzani. The Doctor rescues Peri as everyone else on Androzani Minor gets blown up or otherwise killed, but is unable to save himself. Last regular appearance of Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, and first appearance of Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor.

16 March 1985: broadcast of second episode of Timelash. The Borad turns out to be mad scientist Megelen, who the Doctor kills twice, returning Herbert to Scotland to become H.G. Wells.

16 March 2007: Lauren has a new English teacher. But who is Mr Logan? Or rather, Mr Logan is Who.

Second paragraph of third episode, “Station Management”:

The Night Vale Business Association is proud to announce the new Night Vale Stadium, next to the Night Vale Harbor and Waterfront Recreation Area. The stadium will be able to seat fifty thousand, but will be closed all nights of the year except November 10, for the annual Parade of the Mysterious Hooded Figures, in which all of our favorite ominous hooded figures — the one that lurks under the slide in the Night Vale Elementary playground, the ones that meet regularly in The Dog Park, and the one that will occasionally openly steal babies, and for a reason no one can understand, we all stand by and let him do it — all of them will be parading proudly through Night Vale Stadium. I tell you, with these new facilities, it promises to be quite a spectacle. And then it promises to be a vast, dark, and echoey space for the other meaningless 364 days of the year.

The scripts of the first 25 episodes of Welcome to Night Vale, the cult podcast's first year, with also the first stage show. The printed page is of course no substitute for the mellow tones of Cecil Baldwin delivering the words directly to our ears, but has the minor advantages that you can savour the text at your leisure and not worry about losing the next line due to laughing too much. Each episode is topped by a note from one of the creators, usually Fink or Craynor but with contributions from others as well. Really, it speaks for itself, and rathe than write more I'm just going to reproduce some of my own favourite lines, starting with the moment in episode 1 when we first realise that this is going to be seriously weird:

The City Council announces the opening of a new Dog Park at the corner of Earl and Somerset, near the Ralphs. They would like to remind everyone that dogs are not allowed in the Dog Park. People are not allowed in the Dog Park. It is possible you will see Hooded Figures in the Dog Park. Do not approach them. Do not approach the Dog Park. The fence is electrified and highly dangerous. Try not to look at the Dog Park, and especially do not look for any period of time at the Hooded Figures. The Dog Park will not harm you.

Followed soon after, in the same episode, by:

And now a brief public service announcement.
Alligators: can they kill your children?
Yes.

More pithily, from episode 3:

Monday would like you to leave it alone. It’s not its fault that you are emotionally unprepared for your professional lives.

Skipping ahead to episode 24:

Here’s a public service message to all the children in our audience:
Children, the night sky may seem like a scary thing sometimes. And it is. It’s a very scary thing.
Look at the stars, twinkling silently. They are so far away that none of us will ever get to even the closest one. They are dead-eyed sigils of our own failures against distance and mortality. And behind them, just the void. That nothingness that is everything, that everything that is nothing.
Even the blinking light of an airplane streaking across it does not seem to assuage the tiniest bit of its blackness – like throwing a single stray ember into the depths of a vast arctic ocean.
And what if the void is not as void as we thought? What could be coming towards us out of the distance? Insentient asteroid with a chance trajectory? Sentient beings with a malicious trajectory? What good could come of this? What good, children, could come of any of this?
Fear the night sky, children, and sleep tight in your beds, and the inadequate shelters of blankets and parental love.
Sleep sound, children.
This has been our Children's Fun Fact Science Corner.

You can get it here, but you should probably listen to the podcast first.

This was my top unread book acquired in 2016. Next on that pile is Roger Zelazny's The Dawn of Amber, by John Gregory Betancourt, which I fear I will not enjoy as much.

• Sun, 12:00: 140 hours left to nominate for this year’s Hugo Awards! If you were a CoNZealand member, and you want to nominate, check now to make sure that you are in the system.
• Sun, 12:56: RT @RobotArchie: As a general thing one of the best ‘thank you’ messages you can send people who work on conventions is to send them photos…
• Sun, 14:48: Check out this thread, and the video. https://t.co/CfIqKkwE5D
• Sun, 15:29: RT @BobbyMcDonagh1: Irish Government has confirmed that all students in Northern Ireland (including students from GB) will be able to parti…
• Sun, 18:16: The Dolmen of Duisburg https://t.co/RieyRJZESZ
• Sun, 19:34: RT @ChairmanYaffle: The Observer view on the grim effects of Brexit being impossible to hide | Observer editorial https://t.co/4N98hU8aMo
• Mon, 06:49: RT @Cygie: Volgens sommige experts is dit volgens verwachting. Ik ben geen expert maar ik vind dat het virus nu heel snel aan terrein wint.…
• Mon, 08:00: 120 hours left to nominate for this year’s Hugo Awards! If you were a CoNZealand member, and you want to nominate, check now to make sure that you are in the system.
• Mon, 09:30: Whoniversaries 15 March https://t.co/XrleROkZa9
• Mon, 09:43: RT @MrMichaelSpicer: To any protesters, please remember not to engage in an act of clear provocation with the police such as lighting a can…

• Mon, 10:45: RT @ItReachesOut: Today in Highly Important Tasks, I made my spreadsheet of first-impression Eurovision rankings. There’s some beauty here,…
• Mon, 11:21: One year ago. https://t.co/Qr510wYBMN

i) births and deaths

15 March 1928: birth of Mervyn Haisman, who co-wrote The Abominable Snowmen (Second Doctor, 1967), The Web of Fear (Second Doctor, 1968) and (uncredited) The Dominators (Second Doctor, 1968).

15 March 1943: birth of Scott Fredericks, who played freedom fighter Boaz in Day of the Daleks (Third Doctor, 1972) and turncoat scientist Maxilian Stael in Image of the Fendahl (Fourth Doctor, 1977).

15 March 1947: birth of Tony Osoba, who played Lan in Destiny of the Daleks (Fourth Doctor, 1979), Kracauer in Dragonfire (Seventh Doctor, 1987) and Duke in Kill the Moon (Twelfth Doctor, 2014).

15 March 1992: birth of Anna Shaffer, who plays Ram's girlfriend Rachel in two episodes of Class (2016).

15 March 2008: death of Dennis Edwards who played the Centurion in the story we now call The Romans (First Doctor, 1965) and the surgeon Time Lord Gomer in The Invasion of Time (Fourth Doctor, 1978).

ii) broadcast anniversaries

15 March 1969: broadcast of second episode of The Space Pirates, the one surviving episode of the six-part series. With the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe trapped on one of the fragments of the beacon, Milo Clancey is arrested as a suspected pirate.

15 March 1975: broadcast of second episode of Genesis of the Daleks. The Doctor and Harry meet Davros and his team, including the newly-invented Daleks. Sarah, captive in the Thal dome, tries to escape.

15 March 1982: broadcast of third episode of Earthshock. The Cybermen take over the space freighter.

15 March 1983: broadcast of first episode of The King's Demons