Jenny Turner’s piece on Doctor Who in the London Review of Books. Written partly as a review of Kim Newman’s book. Very interesting.

Seen on Language Hat: Dear Abby on what happens when you assume that the foreigners can’t speak your language:

My mother is from Germany, and I speak German. I vacationed there with my husband, two children, my mother and my in-laws. On the way home, my father-in-law and I went to the flight desk to check in. The woman behind the counter told us our plane had left two hours before! Then, in German, she said to her co-workers that we were stupid Americans, and she’d make us stay another night and take a flight the next day. I replied in German that we were not stupid, and we’d take a flight that day. Her jaw dropped, and her boss came over and ran with us to the next flight.