The Rose & Crown

[Arbutus @arbutus]

As the weekend is almost upon us (already upon some of us, @our Australian friends!), and some people will be heading into full festive mode, I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Solstice, or whatever festival of light you subscribe to. I hope that these coming days bring joy to your lives and peace to your hearts.

I will now venture out into the snow, which is exciting as we don’t get a lot of snow here. It’s looking remarkably like Christmas out! I shall enjoy it while it lasts, as I expect it will be raining again soon enough, and I will rejoin the group of members who do not live in northern Britain, complaining about the wet or the heat. Cheers!

[Rob @rob]

Merry Christmas One and All

From a rainy Wiltshire, on the first day of my festive break, hmm Wiltshire surely wrong county…. Ahh yes “the client” decided yesterday at 14:00 that additional works were essential,  where’s my Claricle hehehe

Ohh well

And no my spirits aren’t down so once again

MERRY CHRISTMAS 😀

[Anonymous @]

Dinner is served 😈

[Rob @rob]

Tonight is a good time to sit in the virtual pub nursing a drink and gaping out ofthe windows at the fearsome gale blowing, pleased at being inside and wondering how many trees are coming down in the forest. Take care if you’re out and about.

[Arkleseizure @arkleseizure]

Wishing everyone here a merry Christmas! I haven’t gone away at all. I’ve still been reading but have struggled lately to think of things to say, so I thought I’d comment here to remind myself that I still exist. Two days from now the Matt Smith era will be over, a fact I dread, but I’m fully expecting the third part of the Fall of the Eleventh trilogy will be great. Like the first two bits were. 🙂

[Timeloop @timeloop]

Happy holidays guys.
Hope you have some nice days surrounded by loved ones.

Cheers,
Timeloop

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@fatmaninabox

That’s just GROSS!!!

It’s not cooked – send it back to the kitchen. 😉

Christmas Cheers everyone

<clink>

[Magnetite @magnetite]

Hope everyone’s enjoying Christmas Eve unless you’re a few hours east of here and it’s already Christmas!

A bit like @arkleseizure I’ve been reading like mad of late but not posting. I also was a bit taken with the tick box under the login section – “Remember me”. Very Clara-esque, although it’s not unique to this site 😉

Anywho (sorry, can’t resist saying it), I hope everyone has a great Day and no doubt this site will go into meltdown again at 8.30 pm GMT, although, unlike with TDotD, those outside the UK seem to have to wait a bit longer.

Happy Christmas everyone!

[Anonymous @]

Shock news…Angry Atheist celebrates Christmas 😯

Is that a Sonic Screwdriver in his pocket or is just happy that it’s Christmas 😀

[Rob @rob]

@fatmaninabox

Well that beats my Cyberman mug (original style)

Enjoy the proms in yer new suit 🙂

[Anonymous @]

An hour to go and I have absolutely nothing to do. Aaargh!!!

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

Sex Tape Rediscovered?

[ScaryB @scaryb]

Oh… not been in here for a while.

We appear to have gone sleazy/casual  ( 😯 @fatmaninabox (nice threads) @wolfweed (that fur coat looks familiar!))

@osakahatter – I see we have our own dedicated barista now.  He volunteered, works all hours, never complains – says he’s here to serve, and has a reference from Winston Churchill. Says the sink plunger comes in handy too.

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

Hi @scaryb Here we are in the pub again 🙂

The tea-serving dalek gives me the shivers actually – there’s something especially menacing about an instrument of total war with a tea cup.

Are people familiar with Big Dog? The company (Boston Dynamic) is making the robots of the future and they really are scary – imagine that thing with a weapons system patrolling the streets:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNZPRsrwumQ

Anyway, on a perhaps less dystopian note, I just saw Wall-E for the first time and was mightily impressed by a tale told almost entirely without dialogue. Oh wait, that wasn’t altogether less dystopian, given the subject matter!

Ahem 🙂 Under grey and rainy skies, I can still see birds dancing in the wind (that’s better).

Happy New Year Who comrades!

[OsakaHatter @osakahatter]

@scaryb, @Juniperfish –

Glad to see staffing concerns have been addressed!  Could be useful come kick out time too although I was also disturbed by the domesticity of a Dalek (in fact it’s a shame that episode is mostly remembered for the iDaleks – seeing them being onside was extremely disconcerting and a good concept for a story)

Are Boston Dynamic the ones that Google have just acquired? Just don’t call them SkyNet… 😉

Happy 1st birthday to the forum, and happy new year to all who write in her!

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

@juniperfish

WALL-E is absolutely my favourite Pixar film. It’s astonishing, which is why I thought I’d mention it was on yesterday On the Sofa. A great silent movie in the beginning and such an unusual tale to come published by a big corporation like Disney. Its view of humanity is pretty broad (but all the more engaging for it) satire.

It sent the usual suspects of the American Right into a right tizzy on release. The comments on @cathannabel s blog on It’s a Wonderful Life talked about how the FBI saw it as Communist propaganda. I think the reaction to WALL-E was more extreme!

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

@phaseshift – Yes, your On the Sofa comment inspired me to watch it! It’s great!

I was particularly happy that the stereotypical “markers” for “female” in animation, such as boobs or long-eyelashes were totally absent from EVE. She was a scary mo-fo 🙂 The musical score was marvellous too.

I haven’t read @cathannabel ‘s blog yet – but I will.

Hmmn, regarding a certain right wing reaction to Wall-E – not a surprise – the sympathetic depiction of a duped over-fat junk food fed US populace was particularly nail-on-the-nose.

But, prior to this, the Simpsons and Avatar are perhaps only some of the the most recent US entertainment products which critique US contemporary capitalism. Such critiques are popular and therefore, ironically, highly profitable…

Apparently, according to James Cameron, Fox initially asked him to leave the “hippy tree hugging crap” out of Avatar. He refused and Avatar was a box office smash hit, so now they’ll be ordering versions of “hippy tree hugging crap” (although actually much of Avatar was a full-on battle) for years to come.

One of the things, I think, which has made capitalism as a system so very much more robust than communism, is that it permits big entertainment criticism of itself, which not only turns a whopping capitalist profit, but persuades people they are free. It’s a very, very clever system.

I still love Wall-E though!

 

 

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

@osakahatter Yes, that’s the one <whispers “Skynet” very very quietly, oh oops in public on the interwebs>

I think I’m getting to the age when part of me is grateful there are some futures I won’t be around to see.

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

@juniperfish

I just had an unpleasant coincidence. I was trying to find out which one of Peter Cook’s Establishment crowd had produced a pithy quote on satire being the indulgence of capitalism and found out one of them, John Fortune, has just died! Oh well, farewell John.

I agree with you btw, but it is unusual for todays Disney to go down that route. I can’t help think it got by on sufferance as Disney was in the middle of contract negotiations with Pixar at the time.

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

@scaryb – Sleazy/Casual? Surely not!

[Cath Annabel @cathannabel]

http://i.imgur.com/waXHek3.jpg

My son sent me this …

 

[nicelyuseless @nicelyuseless]

@cathannabel I love that. Brilliant!

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

Oh well, best laid plans and all that. I was supposed to be in transit for the majority of this week, but had a look at the later end of my journey up to West Cumbria and blanched at the site of the number of “bus replacement services” for trains. I bravely decided to chicken out of adding another bunch of hours to what is already a long enough journey, and delay things a bit.

That’s probably got to sound pretty hollow to our US and Canadian correspondents considering some of the conditions I’ve read about over there, but I’m cheap and lack moral fibre. Commiserations if you are stuck in wintry conditions.

[Arbutus @arbutus]

@phaseshift

Moral fibre is relative. My family members cycle to school/work in the rain all winter, but we don’t like the  temperature to drop more than a couple of degrees below zero. We get called on this all the time by our relatives in colder climates, but then they come to visit and complain about the damp. Ha.

Cheapness, however, is another thing. I’m shocked, shocked, to find such a thing on this forum!  🙂

 

[Anonymous @]

@blenkinsopthebrave

I hope your wine cellar’s fully stocked 😉

http://gawker.com/thousands-of-shattered-wine-bottles-shut-down-major-can-1498766476?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_twitter&utm_source=gawker_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@fatmaninabox

The flags are at half-mast across the country today.

Fortunately, the blenkinsop cellar is secure.

[Arbutus @arbutus]

@fatmaninabox

I can’t believe this story made Gawker, you wouldn’t think they would be that concerned about the Canadian wine supply.  🙂  This happened just a couple of hours east of here, but apparently heading away from town, so I’m not anticipating any runs on the local liquor stores. They may however be panicking in Kamloops around now.

@blenkinsopthebrave is clearly a wise man who knows better than to let the levels get too low in the cellar.

[Arbutus @arbutus]

Forgot to add, I have always said that it takes a tragedy of mammoth proportions to get Canada into the American news!

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@arbutus

it takes a tragedy of mammoth proportions to get Canada into the American news

Oh, that one’s too easy!

(clue: I live in Toronto)

[Arbutus @arbutus]

@blenkinsopthebrave     Ha, good point. Your comedy definitely beats our tragedy.  🙂

[Anonymous @]

Time’s running out to vote in the National Television Awards.

Nominations include Doctor Who (Best Drama) and Matt Smith (Best Drama Performance). Be warned though, there are some clashes. DW is up against Broadchurch and Best TV Detective has nominations for David Tennant, Olivia Coleman and Benedict Cumberbatch.

[Nick @nick]

You’ve probably seen the news, but it was announced that Roger Lloyd Pack died today from Pancreatic cancer.

[Anonymous @]

As the number of followers @Ukipweather  on Twitter continues to increase, Dalek operator Nicholas Pegg lends his voice to the UKIP Shipping forcast.

http://doctorwhoworldwide.com/2014/01/20/nicholas-peggs-ukip-shipping-forecast/

[Whisht @whisht]

@fatmaninabox – that is a thing of beauty!!

The line “some-how councillor” also raised a chuckle!

thanks

🙂

[Arbutus @arbutus]

@purofilion   @whisht   Moving this to the Pub as I’m sure that’s really the appropriate place for all this sports and etiquette chat!  It is true that, as with the internet, sports just brings out the worst in some people. We see it here in ice hockey, a sport that I grew up with but have largely abandoned due to the goon show that it has become, and the beyond idiotic behaviour of many of the fans. It seems like internet forums are too often a place for people to bring their attitudes when there isn’t a match on. As you so rightly say, thank goodness for the DWF!

Puro, congrats on the cricket win. That’s a game that still confuses me, although I have a sort of idea of how it works. It’s not mainstream in Canada, although it does get played. There was a big playing field we used to walk past, when we lived in a different neighbourhood, where we would see them at it on the weekends. We were always strangely fascinated, because we didn’t really know what they were doing!

As for my son’s soccer team, they do all right. They are nice boys with a fair amount of skill but less ability to stand up to the more physical teams. We didn’t mind yesterday’s loss so much, because it was to a really good team that simply outplayed us, as opposed to out-hitting us! And since that is the only team outside the city, most of the games are played at far less photogenic parks (and in way worse weather, in this case), so we all enjoyed that!

 

[Anonymous @]

@scaryb @bluesqueakpip @juniperfish @jimthefish @pedant @whisht @arkleseizure @pufferfish @tardisblue @mini-htpbdets @blenkinsopthebrave @fatmaninabox @magnetite @osakahatter @steve-thorp @tardisblue @thommck @timeloop @whohar @janetteb @wolfweed @miapatrick

Some of you might remember my brother Triton (http://www.thedoctorwhoforum.com/sidrat/days-of-the-doctor-the-big-50-blog/comment-page-2/#comment-1942).  [He didn’t really have green eyes, you know.]

You might even remember me, Scout (http://www.thedoctorwhoforum.com/sidrat/days-of-the-doctor-the-big-50-blog/comment-page-3/#comment-1951):   The Good One; The Pretty Girl.  {preens}

My brother had a liver scan today.  They told our Mum that the tumour in his liver was so big he doesn’t have much liver left any more.  Mum’s been telling me all afternoon that all 3 of us won’t be going back to London again.  What is a ‘girl’s weekend’?  My brother’s definitely a pain in the arse but he’s MY brother.  Why wouldn’t he go with us?

Our trip to London last November was great – we saw the lemurs in Golders Hill Park!  They’re still there!  And they’re not afraid of dogs anymore.  {sigh}  But we still stood transfixed watching them, again, just like before we moved away.  Who knew something like that existed – furry, but not a rabbit?  Not a fox?  Not a squirrel?  They climb around the ropes!  They are truly wonderful.  (I wonder … hmmm … how they taste.)

But the best night of our trip to London was the pub (even though Triton did his ‘Houdini’ trick – shrugged off his lead and ambled over to the neighbouring table to cadge some food).  So many people were saying hello to me and my brother, and we got to stay in the dining room ALL NIGHT.

If you have a moment to think about my brother – even though he was a thorn in my side, a drag on my fabulousness, and an all-round dweeb – it might make Mum feel better tonight.

[Anonymous @]

@ScoutTheAiredale

So sorry to hear about Triton.

Sending a huge hug to you and your Mum.

xxx

[Pufferfish @pufferfish]

@ScoutTheAiredale

Sorry to hear about your brother. Kenny Whippet is sending you lurcher vibes. Tell your Mum we miss her, too.

xx

[Whisht @whisht]

aw @scouttheairedale – of course I remember you! How could I forget??!?

Really sorry to hear about your brother.

I’ll take a look at the stars tonight and think about you and your brother.
Maybe Mum will tell you how looking at the stars can be a good way to find some quiet and remember loved ones.

Like the fatman – sending you all big hugs (and I do very very big hugs).

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@scouttheairedale

So sorry to hear about your brother Triton – I have fond memories of all three of you.

A big hug for you all.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

Ack, @ScoutTheAiredale , it’s never good to hear news of a good man going down.

A certain troll will spin the Twirl of Friendship tonight.

[Magnetite @magnetite]

@scouttheairedale

So sorry to hear your news – you and your Mum look after each other when the time comes.

 

xx

[Arkleseizure @arkleseizure]

@scouttheairedale:

So sorry to hear about your brother: I still think he could smell the cheese in my bag, even if he wasn’t sure what to make of it!

Hugs to you and your Mum.

[Anonymous @]

@scouttheairedale  I just read the comments and I also will be thinking about you (I’ve been a member here for a bit over a month). Everyone here is kind and thoughtful -so I echo all the others in my sentiments -hugs to you and mum for your bro. I know you don’t know me and the ‘net is a difficult place for proper ‘intimacy’ but this is a true place & people mean what they say here. 🙂 Be well. Kindest,

purofilion

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@scouttheairedale

Hugs to all 3 of you.

Thinking about you

xx

[XAD4 @xad4]

@scouttheairedale

Very sad news. But rest assured that you, your brother and your mum have many friends here on this forum, who miss you and who will keep watching the stars together with you these days.

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

@scouttheairedale

My thoughts are with you & your Ma.

x

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@ScoutTheAiredale and Mum,

Both Mrs Blenkinsop and I are so sorry to hear about Triton. A couple of years back we lost a little bundle of white fluff called Pip, who had been with us for 18 years.  But she is still there, part of who we are.

So, @ScoutTheAiredale and Mum, stay close, in the knowledge that Triton will always be still there, where it counts.

[janetteB @janetteb]

@scouttheairdale  I am sending hugs in thought. I once spent a night alone with a dying pet and I know only too well just how much the heart bleeds. And “scout” I have missed your “mum” on the forum. Tell her to come back.

Regards

Janette

[Anonymous @]

A toast to the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman who died two days ago.  Originally, he used to take small/Indie acting roles and I always looked forward to him accepting a cameo in Doctor Who during Tennant’s time -hard pressed to remember any American actors in AG Who.. Kindest, puro

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