I resist Christmas for as long as possible.  The point I give in is when I put Its A Wonderful Life on the DVD player, and settle down to have a long weep.  I’ve blogged here and on my own blog site  about this film, and why it is both heartwarming and devastating.  Not sure when I’ll watch it this year – either tomorrow pm or Xmas Eve once we’…[Read more]

@rtdfan  I’m not sure what you see as being a problem here.  Looking at the responses to your posts, I see debate and discussion, and civil disagreement, not hostility.  You say:

I didn’t start this thread to get people swapping ideas on morals

but you raised the issue of whether the current series is heavy-handed in its treatment of moral issu…[Read more]

OK so the big festive question to which I am now putting my mind is which previous Xmas special to line up for a watch on Xmas Day, since we don’t have a new one.  I’m currently favouring last year’s, because of the whole Armistice centenary thing (and I recently saw an amazing contemporary opera about the Xmas truce in the trenches), but the…[Read more]

I loved this one.  It helped that it referenced in so many ways (starting with the title) The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, which was a huge part of my childhood.  I do also recall having a lengthy and fractious discussion on The Other Place about whether the narrative was attributing a mystical power to maternity, or whether ( as I argued) t…[Read more]

@mudlark True, the Theseus myth is specifically Mediterranean but I like to think that most of these things have a universal element, and that aspects of that story found their way into this new Norse myth.  OK, I agree Ribbons is more Gollum than Minotaur, and the svart alfar/troll king reference is definitely relevant.  But I do think there’s a…[Read more]

@kevinwho  Ahhh – do I envy you that dream?  The joy, yes, but the waking up….

@idiotsavon YES to the Ariadne’s thread motif (both in the Antizone and in our world).  The Antizone certainly shared some characteristics with the labyrinth, and Ribbons perhaps the Minotaur – although I think it echoed many 20th/21st century retellings of that story by making the Minotaur rather less terrifying, and locating the threat…[Read more]

@pedant – we were gutted to hear of Pete Shelley’s death. Only 63  – we expect to be losing some of the old guard (as sad as we have been to see some of them go) but that’s far, far too young.  When punk arrived, I was initially utterly loyal to prog. I couldn’t see why people should want to embrace what seemed to me so often to be ugliness, in t…[Read more]

@pedant Ashamed to say Ghibli is unknown territory to me.  I know.  I must address that!  Still mystified by the connection that’s niggling away in my head.

@thane16 –  def not Rectify as I haven’t seen that!

The frog at the end is really bugging me.  Not because I didn’t like it, I read it as fairy tale and was fine with the image.  But it reminds me of something, I think in a film, so strongly that I can’t dismiss it, but not so strongly that I can actually figure out what it is!

I loved it.  Proper bonkers.  Sheep, moths and frogs.  And again with this series’ key trope, the big bad isn’t exactly a big bad after all.  The monster in the woods is a fake, the creepy little dude in the tunnels gets eaten by moths because he can’t resist going after the sonic, and the alternate universe is kind of a lonely consciousness try…[Read more]

Thought people here might enjoy this – Sheff Uni making the most of the Who connection!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=5dsBuf7TNF8&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR21F1CIOX4FYNHNXjJmVAiHiLhufSzpvfHyLV0p6oq1bzWNBdd_xQqIAG0

Everyone already knows that Heaven 17 and Human League are SHEFFIELD, yeah?  People’s Republic of South Yorkshire, from the days when the buses were subsidised and you could go for miles and miles for about 10p, and when Sheffield music ruled.  There were loads of other less well known bands (Cabaret Voltaire, In the Nursery, Clock DVA, Comsat A…[Read more]

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@thane16 (17) Happy birthday!

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@tardisprototype94 This is a parody, right?

@pedant Dammit you just made me cry.