@ichabod

Though I think he’d play some quieter, more meditative work too, in those quieter times.  But we’ll never see those . . .

Perhaps we did, though – in that final scene of The Woman Who Lived when we saw him in meditative mood, alone  and playing his guitar in the lighted interior of the Tardis, framed by the star-sprinkled blackness of spa…[Read more]

@Mersey

Some of the clues we perceive no doubt exist only in our overactive imaginations, but some do prove eventually to have significance within the narrative. On the other hand, one of the examples you cited, the toy soldier in Listen, is a clue in the strict Ariadne sense, because it was one of the tangible links in the somewhat conv…[Read more]

@Craig

Not long ago I, too, lost a couple of posts, but in both cases it was after I tried to edit out typos. It has made me a bit more cautious about trying to do any editing after initial submission, but so far there has been no further problem.

@JimTheFish<b></b><i></i><u></u>

I think the ££-joke is probably meant to signify a sense of humour … and a sense of humour signifies autonomous intelligence

That makes a lot of sense and, although I didn’t consciously note it at the time, it may have been something which registered subliminally as supporting my conclusion that the em…[Read more]

@Bluesqueakpip

Valid point. I wasn’t being entirely serious, but my detailed agricultural knowledge for what it is worth is in part that of an archaeologist/historian and in part derived from youthful observation of more traditional practice.  Such of my extended family and their friends who were farmers and whom I knew were in a rather…[Read more]

@zeyra

I am very sorry that the fear of terrorism appears to be having such an affect on your life, because that is precisely what the terrorists want: to create an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear in the population. The best way that ordinary people have of opposing them is to carry on living as normally as they can, rather than cowering in…[Read more]

@pedant

Experience has taught me that placards are a very unreliable metric.

True, but experience plus placards are a bit more reliable. I have been living here for long enough, I think, to be able to gauge the temper of this ward and this constituency.

@Pufferfish

I wasn’t aware of that fact. How wonderful!

@Zeyra

Yes, I have been following the election, as I follow politics in Europe generally, although I am probably not as well informed as I ought to be. The newspapers and TV news programmes in Britain don’t cover French elections quite as extensively or in as much depth as they do elections in the USA, which is regrettable.  We in England are a…[Read more]

@Pufferfish

Thanks for that. I assumed that it was a variant of Keziah and that it had an appropriate significance, but the only work of reference I have to hand wasn’t very helpful, since it gave the meaning as cassia without reference to the primary significance.  Strange, because in general it seems to be informative and fairly reliable on…[Read more]

@thane15

No, I don’t think you got hold of the wrong end of the stick I proffered though, as you see from the above, posted almost simultaneously with yours, I took them to be sentient from the first, and that the Doctor, whether he foresaw it or not, did them a favour by removing a layer of conditioning which was preventing them from realising…[Read more]

When I wrote post #56698 above I don’t think I had drunk enough coffee, because I meant to clarify the sense in which I was using ‘intelligence’. It was probably evident from the context, but if not, I meant conscious, self-aware, sentient as well as capable of reasoning, but as machines – dry brains, not wet brains, as the Doctor put it.

I have…[Read more]

@tardigrade @thane15

The Doctor talked to and about the emojibots and the vardies as if they were intelligent, although whether they were supposed to be independently intelligent or together formed a composite intelligence wasn’t entirely clear, and in that light the reboot could be seen as a liberation.

I understood the vardies to be so…[Read more]

@Zeyra

In what I wrote above there was a sentence in which I omitted a word which made nonsense of what I wrote and so, bearing in mind that English is not your first language, and in case you were confused, the fourth sentence should have begun: ‘I too, had a tendency to day-dream in class and let my mind wander … ‘

@Zeyra

You are certainly not alone because I, also, was not very good at maths – even though I did in the end manage to narrowly pass the necessary examinations.  I loved physics and the biological sciences; chemistry not so much, but that may have been partly because my teacher in that subject was not very good at her job. The deficiency in…[Read more]

@Whisht

A promise he’s kept by staying on Earth for 50 years.. so made around 1967? kinda the time he first regenerated…. purely coincidental I’m sure….

Coincidence or not, the same thought struck me some time ago.  William Hartnell’s last appearance as the Doctor was in November 1966 in The Tenth Planet, after which he regenerated, and The Tent…[Read more]

@pedant

The cyberman special edition, from the Under Gallery, perhaps

That suggestion gives me an excellent excuse to view it again and have another close look – but any excuse for a re-watch suffices 🙂

@nerys @thane15

I agree with you on the subject of Donna. Of all the AG companions so far, she was the one I most warmed to, with Rory and Amy coming second (in no particular order).  On present form, though, I think even she may be superseded by Bill, who displays a delightful combination of earthy practicality and wonder, and probably has the…[Read more]

@geoffers

do any of our resident eagle-eyed art people know what the huge wall painting is, in the very furthest background

It’s The Raft of the Medusa, painted by Gericault in 1818/19 currently in the Louvre.  A bit tricky to make out at first, because it’s been stood on its side and there are various objects in the way, but identifiable if you…[Read more]

@Juniperfish

Strictly speaking, the Doctor and Bill are not going back to the Victorian era. At the time of the frost fair of 1814 George III was still technically king, though in a somewhat precarious state of health – hence the Regency, his grand daughter Princess Charlotte, at that time second in line to the throne, was still alive and V…[Read more]