Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
31 January 2017 at 21:19 #55337
May I add my voice to those who have already offered their support. Be assured that we have your back and you are not alone.
I am lucky in that my family and my friends on both sides of the Atlantic pond are more or less in accord with my views on political developments, but I can empathise nevertheless with those such as yourself who are not so fortunate. It is depressing enough just reading comments on news sites and elsewhere on the internet, and realising, even allowing for the numerous trolls, how many there are who approve of what is happening.
As a historian as well as an archaeologist, and as someone who was born during the second World War, I have long understood in theory how fascism took hold in Europe in the 1920s and 30s, but this brings it home in a visceral way. Now, though, we have the benefit of hindsight and, however noisy the opposition, I think that we are still in the majority. So, even if all we can do is stand up and be counted, we should not yield to despondency.
31 January 2017 at 20:38 #55336Trump’s background strongly suggests he is the real deal as well (daddy in the KKK)
I don’t dispute that. Given that background and his default assumptions, fascism is his natural home, but I don’t think that is what drives him. I doubt if he has the intelligence, and he certainly doesn’t have the focus or attention span to formulate a coherent political theory or strategy; one cannot imagine him writing the equivalent of Mein Kampf, for example, though he might be happy enough for something of the kind to be published under his name.
What matters most to him is winning and being seen to win, and having his self esteem validated, and on that score, anyone with an ounce of objectivity who saw his interview on ABC and/or read the transcript must find it difficult to avoid the conclusion that he is delusional – deranged, even.
It is this combination of characteristics which makes him such an ideal tool for those who do have a fascist political agenda. Earlier today I came across an article about Bannon in Vanity Fair from last August which quoted him as saying, ‘Trump is a blunt instrument for us. I don’t know whether he gets it or not’. But Trump is erratic and wilful, with the attention span of a gnat, so Bannon and his like may not be able to control him as well as they would like. I gather that the Koch brothers may already be starting to have second thoughts.
I just wish that more politicians her in the UK and in Washington DC would stop pretending that this situation was in any way ‘business as usual’. It is beginning to look ominously like a replay of the 1930s, though then they did not have the benefit of hindsight.
30 January 2017 at 23:30 #55304Trump looks like a fascist, quacks like a fascist and goosesteps like a fascist and his instincts are certainly populist and authoritarian, but I doubt whether he has a coherent political idea in his head. All he is concerned about is Trump, his business interests and whatever feeds his narcissistic ego. It is significant that the countries whose citizens have been barred from entering the US do not include those in which he has business interests, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt – from which all but one of the 9/11 terrorists came.
The one to watch is his eminence grise and manipulator, the true fascist Bannon, who is on record as saying he wants to destroy the State and who is the principal author of those executive orders which are being drafted without consultation or regard to constitutional procedure, and which Trump gets the publicity for signing. So far everything appears to be going to his plan, and even faster than I expected at my most pessimistic.
Frankly, I can’t remember ever feeling so frightened by external events, though I can’t speak for the Cuban missile crisis because I was seriously ill in hospital at the time, and unaware of it until the crisis had passed. Maybe governments in the UK and the rest of Europe are alert to what is going on, but I don ‘t feel particularly hopeful.
30 January 2017 at 22:48 #55301The geopolitical, economic and social differences between the USA and the Roman empire at any stage of its growth and decline are so great that I don’t think comparisons are valid – except in the sense that empires all tend eventually to overreach themselves and decline; and the Roman empire lasted longer than most. As for emperors, Trump may have delusions of grandeur and fancy himself in that role, but he certainly doesn’t resemble Tiberius, and the only real point of similarity with Nero is the narcissism.
The principal surviving sources of information on the Julio-Claudian emperors are Suetonius and Tacitus. Suetonius was chief secretary in the administration of Hadrian, so had the run of the imperial archives, and his potted lives of the Caesars from Julius to Domitian are vivid and full of incidental detail, but he was completely uncritical in the use of his sources and it is difficult sometimes to know how much is documented fact and how much hearsay. Tacitus was writing in the reign of Trajan, having spent most of his political career in the reign of the truly horrible Domitian, and that experience may have coloured his interpretation of previous emperors, especially Tiberius, though he was much more scholarly in his approach and his weighing of the evidence.
Tiberius was thoroughly prepared for the role, though he seems not to have enjoyed it much. As the son of Livia and stepson – ultimately adopted son – of Augustus, he grew up close to the centre of power and followed the normal career of a Roman aristocrat with political ambition – the ascending sequence of magistracies in the cursus honorum , a provincial governorship, and reasonable success as a general in the army. He seems to have been an able administrator but authoritarian and not much good at dealing with people on a personal level; he was dour, possibly depressive, with a reputation for being somewhat puritanical and penny-pinching, and he disliked and distrusted flattery; nor did he care much about what people said about him; so not like Trump. He eventually left Rome and retreated to his villa on Capri, leaving most of the day to day business to Sejanus until Sejanus overreached himself, but it is difficult to know how much reliance to place on Suetonius’s salacious accounts of his depravity in later life. The general opinion seems to be that he was kept in check by his mother until her death, after which he was free to indulge his vices.
Nero comes across as a bit of a spoiled brat, but he had been groomed for the position of emperor by his formidable mother, Agrippina, and his tutors. He succeeded Claudius, his mother’s husband/uncle at the age of 17 and seems to have made a good impression at first, though that may have been his mother’s influence. Contrary to the legend, he was not responsible for the great fire in Rome, and in fact took measures to help those made homeless, but he did take the opportunity to seize the land for his extravagant palace, his Golden House – think a horizontal version of Trump Tower, but with rather more tasteful bling. Once he had thrown off the maternal shackles for good by having Agrippina murdered he does seem to have gone off the rails completely, but his narcissism expressed itself chiefly in his artistic pretensions. He fancied himself as a great musician, singer and poet, and took to entering competitions – guess who won! But this did not go down well with the Roman elite. A poetry recital among a select audience was one thing, but performance on the public stage, in competition, was far too Greek and effete, and not at all befitting to a Roman of any status.
There were, of course, several other truly appalling Roman emperors. though the worst tended to be ousted or to fall to assassins sooner or later, but I can’t think of any who are an exact parallels to Hair Twitler.
On reflection this is probably taking the whole idea too literally, and amounts to a good deal more than anyone wants to know, so my apologies. But having written it I will let it stand. If we pay attention, we can learn from history, but the parallels are never exact.
26 January 2017 at 17:14 #55233In this age of ‘alternative facts’ (lies) these words of the Doctor seem more than ever apt
The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common, they don’t alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be uncomfortable if you are one of the facts that needs altering – (The Face of Evil; 1977)
25 January 2017 at 17:55 #55222A sign of the times: Orwell’s 1984 is No. 1 in the Amazon book sales charts This statistic does not reveal how many of those buying the book think it is a ‘how to’ manual
@missy That clip is certainly going the rounds, and I’ve come across it several times in the last couple of days. The Trump impression is pitch-perfect, isn’t it ?
25 January 2017 at 00:36 #55216@thane15
puro Not painful at all, actually. For a few days there was mild discomfort, no worse than that I experienced when many years ago I first tried using contact lenses – and I abandoned those fairly quickly; contact lenses don’t react well to dust on archaeological excavations.
The surgery itself was no problem; I had a local anaesthetic in the eye and my face, apart from the eye, was covered by a mask, so all I could see was the light they were shining on the eye itself. They were chatting to me throughout, and there was even background music – a 60’s medley which I suppose they thought was appropriate for one of my years.
25 January 2017 at 00:07 #55213The cabaret scene in early 1930s Berlin was against a background of organised gangs of communists and Brown Shirts fighting in the streets, and things haven’t reached that stage (yet). I wasn’t suggesting that ridicule in clubs, newspaper cartoons or on twitter can have any real effect against those now in power – only organised, mass opposition has any hope of that – but it’s effectiveness against Trumplethinskin himself has been amply demonstrated already, and on an individual basis it can cut the ‘little hitlers’ down to size, if there are there are enough people prepared to do so in direct confrontation. Public mockery, too, can make people look weak.
24 January 2017 at 23:48 #55211Re Melbourne: true, at that date he looked nothing like Rufus Sewell, and I was tempted to point that out, but I certainly have the impression that V was attracted to him. Looks and age aren’t everything 😉
24 January 2017 at 23:04 #55208While I was watching Victoria I confess that kept seeing Jenna as Clara in period costume. She bears little resemblance to even the young Victoria – a bit too tall, too slender and neck too long – but she certainly conveyed V’s strong will and something of her opinionated character.
I thought that as a whole the drama was a bit pedestrian, but with all the documentation, including Victoria’s journals, to go on they couldn’t go far wrong on the historical details. They may have relied rather too much on unsubstantiated rumour in portraying the Duke of Cumberland’s machinations, but I don’t think that they were too far out in the portrayal of the relationship between V and Lord Melbourne; to her, whose father had died when she was very young, he seems to have been a father figure with whom she was half in love. Despite her determined character and strong opinions she always seems to have needed or craved the support of a man throughout her life – which could be a bit tough on the man concerned. I have always felt a bit sorry for Albert 🙂
24 January 2017 at 22:27 #55207((Hugs)) in return. I hope that you know and feel that here, at least, there are people who are sympathetic, and that you have a space to vent, along with the rest of us 🙂
@thane15 (puro) good to see you here. I am reasonably well, despite SDS (seasonal dormouse syndrome), and an alcohol intake that is greater than strictly prudent in my efforts to numb the impact of events in the external world. I had cataract surgery on my left eye on the 5th of this month, with a toric lens implant to correct astigmatism, and from that eye at least can now see more clearly than I have been able to since I was in my late teens. I can even watch TV without having to wear glasses. The right eye is due to be done in the next three to four weeks, though I don’t have a firm date yet, the ophthalmic surgeon having swanned off on holiday. In the meantime things, visually speaking, are a bit weird because I am still very much aware that vision in the right eye is blurred and colour values distorted, so I have a dual perspective on the world.
f.a.s.c.i.s.t is, by the way, the correct spelling of alt-right
Understood. You will note that I did qualify my use of the term. Trouble is, ‘fascist’ is an epithet that now is flung about indiscriminately by people who appear to have little or no understanding of what it actually means, and its currency has been devalued.
Trump may not be a re-incarnation of the man with the little toothbrush moustache*, or even of Il Duce , but even four days in, his administration is indeed beginning to display many of the hallmarks of nascent fascism in the true sense. He himself appears to have no particular agenda beyond what benefits himself, and I get the sense that as long as he is in the spotlight and his ego is being stroked, he will happily sign whatever is put in front of him.
As for punching Nazis, I can see your point; the drawback is that violence brings us down to their level. I was brought up a pacifist and suggest that at this early stage, when they have no organised freikorps or brown shirts and they can be confronted individually, overt, strident ridicule is an effective weapon in cutting them down to size.
*Though some have taken to referring to him as Twittler, which seems apt.
23 January 2017 at 22:26 #55190@thane15
Mike Pence is the evil genius behind the trumpeter.
I’m not so sure about that. In reality things may be even more worrying because, according to my reading, the one really pulling the Orange One’s puppet strings is more likely to be Steve Bannon – formerly executive chair of Breitbart News and one of the principal drivers of all that is repellent in the so-called alt-right – racist, white supremacist, anti-Semitic, you name it. He was T’s chief strategist during the latter stages of the presidential campaign, is now one of his principal advisers, and is said to have had the chief part in drafting that deeply troubling Inauguration Address.
As regards Pence, one plausible theory I have read is that he is the real choice of the Republican Party and, having manoeuvred him into the Vice-Presidential office, they are just waiting until Trump implodes and/or it becomes obvious that he is totally unfit, so that their man can succeed to the presidency. If that is the case, it is a very risky strategy, and in any case Pence would be nightmarish in his own way, if not such an alarming threat to global stability.
The one ray of hope is that this desperate state of affairs will be the stimulus for a resurgence of Left and Centre Left organisation and opposition, and that the marches across America and worldwide on Saturday are the first sign of this and not just a gesture with no follow-up, of the kind @janetteb referred to. In that respect I think there may be slight grounds for optimism.
What is really depressing in all this, reading comments BTL in various news sites and forums, is how many people seem incapable of critical thought and analysis, and how many are prepared to swallow the most blatant propaganda and the most obvious lies if it fits their entrenched views.
20 January 2017 at 00:28 #55170Yes, I’ve been reading of those town hall meetings where Republican representatives have found themselves heckled and shouted down by voters. I gather that the response now is to stop having public meetings, unless with a carefully selected few! I gather, also, that the unpresidented (sic) President elect already has an exceptionally low approval rating for one coming into office. With some bookies the odds are even that he won’t last a full four year term, but it’s going to be a bumpy ride whichever way you look at it.
On this side of the pond we have our own worries, but it is even more disturbing to see the Orange One’s nominations for his cabinet; for every poultry yard it’s own specially selected – and all too often supremely ill qualified – fox, and where environmental issues are involved, that has global implications.
I don’t think that I have ever felt so angry and frustrated and pessimistic about the way the world is going, and there is so little I can do other than sign petitions and write emails and letters. Grrrr.
19 January 2017 at 23:49 #55169My state of mind while watching this for the first time was somewhat ambivalent. On the one hand it is a brilliant piece of dramatic story telling which held my undivided attention throughout *, but it also stretched my credulity almost to breaking point, and I found myself struggling to rationalise parts of it and fill in the gaps – undoubtedly a mistake on my part
For a start, Sherlock’s normally hyper-acute powers of observation seemed to have deserted him, for how else could he have failed to notice that the glass was missing in the barrier in Euros’s cell – there should have been reflections, given the kind of lighting, which is the kind of detail he would normally notice – or (as even I did, and was muttering at the TV screen) that there was something very odd about a little girl remaining the sole person conscious or even alive in a plane which had apparently undergone some kind of decompression accident, but no doubt he was distracted by the (re)discovery that he had a sister, or his mind was still a bit fogged in the aftermath of his drug binge.
We must also suppose that Euros had managed to ‘convert’ and manipulate quite a large number of people in order to arrange and manage the logistics of her experiment; and presumably only she, even as a very young girl, knew of the existence of the well at Musgrave, because otherwise it would have been one of the obvious places to look if a child was missing; but the bones remained there for Watson to find – and for the record, the skull appeared to be that of a fully grown adult, not a child, but that’s a very minor quibble (I can’t help it; I’m an archaeologist with a fairly extensive experience of human skeletal anatomy 😈 )
If Watson was chained by the ankles in the well, how did he get free? was there a key at the end of the rope?
All that, though, is really beside the point. At the heart of the episode, with Euros as the catalyst, were the dynamics of the relationship between Mycroft, Sherlock and John Watson, and an insight into how Sherlock came to be as he is – an emotional child, as Mycroft described him, capable of close friendship, but – as @pedant says – damaged and emotionally inhibited by trauma at an early age and perhaps not fundamentally a sociopath at all, despite what he claims. After the ordeal he can come to terms with the memories he suppressed, and he and the sister who wanted to play with him and whom he ignored can at last communicate and play together – in violin duets
If there are to be any more episodes in this series, the ending certainly gives plenty of new scope for development and exploration of the character and personalities of Holmes and Watson – and so ACD’s legacy continues.
I don’t think there’s any understanding at all involved, except of the idea of somehow looking clever themselves by parroting such dismissive nonsense without troubling themselves to come up with a single notion (critical or otherwise) of their own
Agreed. As I’ve said before, I try to be tolerant, and would like to think well of the human race in general, but it can be difficult when I read the kind of comments you are referring to.
*which at this time of year is remarkable. There must be some dormouse in my genetic makeup because, during January/February I have a tendency to doze off at any time while reading or watching TV.
4 January 2017 at 22:19 #55032I am really looking forward to the next two episodes, and to anything more that Gatiss and Moffat have to offer
That goes for me, too. And since when has ‘clever’ become a derogatory term? I now tend to avoid reading comments by posters on the Guardian – and even more so on other sites – because whenever I do read them I lose ever more faith in the future of the human species. 🙁
4 January 2017 at 22:04 #55031@thane15
“mind the gap” why the flip do they say this all the time for 3o something years? Like we’re all gonna get our foot stuck once a day
You get the same thing on some stations on the Paris Metro – in five or six different languages; and I could swear that the English version is exactly the same as on the London underground. Either they are using the same recording, or the same chap recorded it.
They could do with a similar warning at St Pancras. When I descended from Eurostar last Thursday evening, there was a gap wide enough to swallow me and my cumbersome suitcase. Fortunately a gallant gentleman came to my assistance 🙂
Since this is the music thread, I would like to have posted something from the St Petersburg Rimsky Korsakov choir which I heard giving a recital of Christmas music on Christmas Eve in Paris. They are phenomenal (though the acoustics of the church where I heard them probably helped), but unfortunately I couldn’t find anything of theirs on YouTube or elsewhere.
4 January 2017 at 21:38 #55029This comment is somewhat later than intended, but yesterday I was thwarted by the temporary unavailability of the site.
Comic book superheroes have never held much appeal for me, so the trailer did not exactly fill me with excited expectation, but I hoped – and should have trusted – that Moffat would work his usual magic with the theme. In my estimation it is not up there with Last Christmas and The Husbands of River Song, but I enjoyed it for all that it had to offer.
I liked the way in which, on one level, the superman story was treated straight, entirely according to convention, while at the same time, in his incidental comments, the Doctor gently and slyly points out the absurdity of the genre; the bite of a radioactive spider might contaminate the person bitten with radioactive particles, but it wouldn’t result in that person suddenly acquiring superhuman, spidery abilities.
So we have a modern day equivalent of the folk tale Robin Hood of Robot of Sherwood. A young boy who loves comic book superheroes swallows a gem which has the magical ability to make wishes come true, so the boy grows up to be a version of Superman, complete in every particular, including the woman he yearns for who takes his everyday persona for granted but loves the idea of his alter ego.
I liked, too, the way in which links to the Doctor’s past were interwoven in the narrative. Harmony Shoal, last seen trying to buy the diamond from the head of Hydroflax, form a continuity with the last Christmas Special. Meanwhile (and earlier in his own time stream) the Doctor meets the boy Grant when he his trying to construct a gizmo to counteract a localised time distortion in New York – ‘my fault actually’ – which makes perfect sense; having lost Clara in more senses than one, why would he not try to find a way to make contact again with Amy and Rory? The way in which he produces the glass of water for Grant – ‘skills’ – recalls the way in which he produced a cup of tea in The Witches Familiar. But most significantly, there is the thread of melancholy stemming from our knowledge of his parting from River at the Singing Towers, referenced in the 24 years since he first met Grant – and Capaldi conveys this with perfect subtlety.
Of course there also were plenty of jokes to relish at all levels – from the corny and obvious references to opening minds and changing minds, to the subtle, even subliminal.
Finally, since this is Mudlark writing, there has to be a nitpick. I’m not entirely sure that Nardole’s costume as a 12th century Byzantine ruler is accurate. As far as I can tell, it appears to be based on a miniature of the coronation of the eleventh century Emperor Constantine IX Monomachus (1042), although the headdress could be even earlier – but compared with such things as horned Viking helmets, that is a very minor quibble 🙂
;
31 December 2016 at 17:53 #54968Just dropping by to wish everybody a Good New Year; may if bring happiness to all. Even if the wider world appears at the moment to be heading for Hades by the shortest and fastest route, at least we have a new series of Doctor Who to look forward to in 2017 and can hope for personal triumphs and joys.
@thane15 Very sorry to hear that your trip was marred by your getting sick; it sounds to have been horrid and you have my sympathy. I am glad, though, to know that puro is feeling somewhat better – she has been very much in my thoughts these past months, even though I have not been in contact lately.
I cannot comment on the Special yet, as I haven’t had an opportunity to watch it, but I plan to do so later this evening, with a glass of champagne to hand and possibly a few nibbles involving smoked salmon. I spent Christmas with my brother and his family in France, and only got back late on Thursday. No Doctor on French television, of course – in fact anyone who criticises the standard of programmes on British TV should be forced to spend a week watching what is available there. Not that it really mattered, as my brother lives on the outskirts of Paris and there was plenty on offer to divert us elsewhere.
Since we are in the pub, I raise a glass to you all, and will see you again (virtually speaking) tomorrow or the day after.
8 December 2016 at 22:37 #54855I would need to watch The Metaphysical Engine again to be able to quote exactly, but well before they emerged into the Cabinet Dorothea was muttering about things not going to plan, and that she would have to report to the Governors. As for what she said about the Cabinet of Souls deteriorating, I had the feeling that this was a piece of misdirection on her part. She intended that only Quill would emerge alive and was setting the scene accordingly.
8 December 2016 at 22:28 #54854Glad to hear that things went well. I am not conscious that the cataracts have affected my colour perception, but I suspect that once I have had the implants I may have to adjust the colour balance on my TV 🙂
In my case, also, the cataracts seem to have developed very quickly. Last year when I had my annual eye check-up I was told for the first time that there were signs of them developing, and fourteen months later, in October. they had already reached the stage where the optometrist judged they needed fixing. Apparently it is still just about legal for me to drive, but I wouldn’t dare do so at night, and even in full daylight I have difficulty reading road signs until I am almost abreast of them.
7 December 2016 at 22:17 #54844The failure of the Governor’s plan with respect to the use of the Cabinet of Souls appears to have sealed Dorothea’s fate as far as they were concerned, but I remain somewhat puzzled by the fact that she was worried things were going wrong well before that point, when she, Quill and Balon were still in metaphysical realms. I am still unclear as to what it was that was not going according to plan – assuming that the intention was, as stated, to rid Quill of the Arn. Maybe I should watch again in case I missed something obvious.
7 December 2016 at 18:24 #54843Thanks. I suppose it may yet turn out that my eyes are not suitable for toric implants, although the optometrist seemed to think me a suitable subject. I suppose that is why I will need further assessment by the ophthalmic specialist, but I’m hoping for the best.
I have needed glasses for distance since the age of twenty, although I have only ever worn them when absolutely necessary. It is only in the last five or six years that I have needed prescription glasses for reading and computer work, but it has got to the stage where I can no longer manage without those, and the cataracts are probably to blame in part for that.
Despite my reluctance to be seen in them – and why I should persist in such vanity at my age I don’t know – my current varifocals are by far the most wearable I have ever had; rimless, with light weight lenses and titanium frames so that I am scarcely aware of them, and quite stylish in appearance 😎
7 December 2016 at 18:02 #54842And if they didn’t intend for him to use it, they were presumably OK with the Shadow Kin wiping out the Earth’s population, so the Arrival mustn’t rely on people being around.
The impression which I got from Dorothea’s somewhat enigmatic utterances was, as I noted above, that the Governors did intend that Charlie should use the cabinet, but not to destroy the Shadow Kin. On the other hand, if they are acting as agents for the Weeping Angels preparatory to the arrival of the latter in force on earth, it would not be in their interest to see the population of Earth wiped out, because that would leave the Angels with no time energy to feed on and they would eventually starve.
The Governors were evidently more concerned that Dorothea had miscalculated in thinking that Charlie would not use the Cabinet against the Shadow Kin than they were about the intervention of the Shadow Kin themselves, whether or not they were expecting them to find a way back to Earth, so I suspect that – assuming there is a second series – the plot will turn out to be a lot more devious and convoluted than what has been indicated so far 😈
6 December 2016 at 22:35 #54838Good wishes for the cataract surgery. My two younger brothers, both of whom have undergone the procedure, say that it is well worth it. According to them there is a bit of discomfort for a day or two, but the results are spectacular, especially as one tends not to notice how much one’s vision has deteriorated – apparently the brain adjusts to some extent.
@TheConsultingDoctor Included in my culinary library there is an American cookbook which contains several recipes for biscuits. Those which contain butter are pretty much the same as unsweetened scones, and the recipe for those with just flour, raising agent and buttermilk is pretty much the same as for soda bread, although soda bread usually comes in the form of round loaves or triangular farls.
We have cookies here too, but the term is used only for the softer, chewy type which I don’t remember ever seeing when I was young, so I guess that they are a relatively recent import from America 🙂
5 December 2016 at 23:18 #54835My brother, ever a source of unconsidered trifles, drew this to my attention
Salvador Dalek – The Persistence of … something or other
The image is copyright, so I can’t reproduce it here.
I was assessed for cataract surgery last Wednesday and could have had the first eye done tomorrow on the NHS, but the NHS optometrist suggested that I might like to consider having toric lenses to correct my astigmatism instead of the standard ones. This seems like an excellent idea, but corrective lenses are not available on the NHS so I will have to pay for them myself (at about £420 each, which seems reasonable). The upshot is that I will need further assessment and so will have to wait until the new year to get new eyes and a fresh outlook on the world.
I’m with you wholeheartedly when it comes to Pontefract Cakes, but I have to confess – and I hang my head in shame – I do not like Jammy Dodgers. Ginger Nuts, yes; and Chocolate Digestives, also yes; but otherwise my taste in sweet biscuits * is somewhat rarified (which reminds me, I must check that I have the ingredients for my annual, Christmas batch of Florentines).
Biscuits according to British usage, not to be confused with American biscuits.
5 December 2016 at 23:00 #54834The identity of the Governors may still by a mystery, but at last we have some insight into their sinister purpose, and that was a satisfying twist on which to end the current series, while leaving a good many major questions still to be answered.
The episode was indeed brutal and the deaths genuinely shocking, but although the Shadow Kin were the principal drivers of the narrative it looks as if they may have been a side issue as far as the Governors were concerned, since the latter seem to have intended a different use for the Cabinet of Souls and, if so, were presumably prepared to countenance the genocide of humanity.
It would appear that the freeing of Quill from the Arn was so that the Governors could use her as a tool to compel Charlie, though to what end is not entirely clear except that it must have been in some way to facilitate the ‘Arrival’, and that intention was thwarted, if only temporarily. But with a plan so convoluted and dependent on so many shifting variables, what could they expect? Dorothea was the scapegoat for the failure and paid the price, and Quill, in the previous episode, was evidently spot on in her assessment, even if her intention was only to needle. ‘Is that why they sent you? Expendable?’.
Overall a satisfying episode with which to conclude the series, even if some of the dialogue was a bit clunky and obvious. It did, moreover, confirm me in the opinion that Vivian Oparah as Tanya was by far the most powerfully convincing and impressive of the younger actors, even if it was a bit difficult to see her as a fourteen year old.
5 December 2016 at 22:26 #54833Who is Quill when she is free? and
Who is Balon when he is free?
If ‘Detained’ centred on personal truths central to those who were trapped in the classroom, this episode was concerned with the fundamental identity of two who have been denied the freedom to act according to their nature. Miss Quill is of an actively aggressive species who has been forced into subservience, and Balon is a shape-shifter whose essence is fluidity, existing in a state of constant flux, but who is trapped in a static form. What the two have in common, it turns out, is the mutual fellow feeling and loyalty of soldiers in the field, and it isn’t clear that this was according to the Governor’s calculations.
It seems that the purpose of the exercise was to free Quill, using Balon to that end, but realistically,with so many variables it was a long shot, even with a rigged gun. Although Quill did in the end survive, Dorothea was worried that things were not going entirely to plan, and in what way things went wrong remains unclear. Was Quill’s pregnancy part of the calculation or is it a potential spanner in the works?
I rather like the idea of the metaphysical engine; it isn’t all that far removed from a concept central to a novel I read recently – Arcadia, by Ian Pears, which posits a reality in which any idea conceived in the imagination has the potential to exist as an alternative vector in time and space, provided that it is internally consistent. On the level of pure fantasy, a somewhat similar concept is the basis for a trilogy of novels by Michael Scott Rohan
21 November 2016 at 20:04 #54787If anyone has difficulty getting their heads round the concept of ‘a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff’, try this for size. It may be that reality can be described mathematically as a jewel-like geometric construct, challenging the notion that space and time are fundamental components of reality.
I hasten to acknowledge that it was my brother who brought this to my attention, I doubt if I would have found it for myself and I don’t have the mathematical ability to comprehend it in full, but it does titillate the sense of wonder.
21 November 2016 at 19:43 #54785This was certainly interesting, and held my attention throughout. In the opening moments I confess that my first thought was ‘What kind of school is it where sixth-formers can be put in detention?’ But then what do I know? I’m a fossil, and my school may not have been typical, even back in the day. I’m thankful to say that we were treated as responsible adults, even though we may not always have acted as such 🙂
It was effective, if a bit derivative – or so I thought. Above all it reminded me of Huis Clos – the play by Jean-Paul Sartre, in which three people find that hell consists of them being shut up together in a room where they are eventually and in gradual stages reduced to confessing the wrongs that they did in life. Hell is other people, in fact.
I noticed in particular what was written on the chalkboard ‘Remember, it is you who put yourselves here’. *
What Quill tossed to Charlie was the blood-smeared plastic bag containing the arn, so there is no reason to suppose that the arn itself was any larger than Quill first described it; approximately the size of two human thumbs.
I am not sure what the aliens motive was
The alien entity had been imprisoned outside of time and space along with three others, each under compulsion to confess their crimes. He had overcome and effectively killed the other three, apparently because his guilt was greater, and after all this time he was probably not even sane, having forgotten everything except the need for confession and a desire for release in death. Charlie, according to what he said, gave the prisoner that release because his own feelings of guilt were the greater.
* I quote from memory, so the words may not be exact.
14 November 2016 at 10:21 #54736@thane15
Yes, there was quite a strong whiff of cheese emanating from some of the dialogue. On the other hand there were also some interesting ideas and promising developments in the narrative arc, plus the beginnings of a more subtle exploration and exposition of the characters and personalities of the protagonists, which is why I judged it a considerable improvement on previous episodes. I think I must have a kind of filter in my brain which allows me to skim over cheese when the story itself is sufficiently strong to engage my interest and imagination, and Class may be getting to that point.
In a show which has so far featured shadow monsters, a dragon which manifests itself as a tattoo, and carnivorous blossoms, you complain that Dorothea Ames’s miraculously rapid recovery from a blow to the head is unrealistic 😀 Have you considered that perhaps the lady is an alien 😉 Or maybe it was, as @tardigrade says, just another example of an action movie convention which we must try and overlook for now.
13 November 2016 at 22:43 #54723@missrori That’s an interesting take on the title, though it’s stretching the meaning of ‘apprentice’ to the point where I’m not sure it really applies. At first, after fleeing the scene of their brief and accidental encounter, the Doctor clearly did think that he might have been at least partly responsible for what Davros became, but since following he events of The Witches Familiar he went back – and from Davros’s point of view it would have seemed as if he reappeared almost instantly – the lesson which Davros actually learned from him, and which he hoped to instil was ‘mercy’.
13 November 2016 at 22:26 #54722@pedant @thane15
Whatever the significance of EverUpwardReach, the hints as to their methods and possibly their real purpose are a trifle worrying. The Head says that their purpose is ‘keeping [the school] safe, keeping it clear, keeping it ready’, and ignores Quill’s question ‘Ready for what’. then she goes on to say ‘… governments have a way of tripping over themselves, slightly too concerned with rights; it’s terribly inefficient’ She’s beginning to remind me of Madame Kovarian.
13 November 2016 at 12:49 #54713he thinks he’s been elected King of America. When he discovers how the structure of the government and the principles in the Constitution constrain his childish will, he may very well implode in a real way, or just walk away —
leaving the US to be led by Vice President Mike PenceThat also. It was clear all along that he hadn’t any real clue as to what the office entailed, or even about the Constitution – other than the 1st and 2nd amendment , and if he ever paid any heed at all to the advice and briefings of his advisors and aides during the campaign, very little if any of it seems to have gained any purchase on his mind. It is all of a piece with what we know of his may-fly attention span and his profound ignorance of anything which is not conducive to his self interest. According to a piece in the NY Times he still seems to be under the impression that he will be able to continue to live part time in his gold-plated pad in Trump Tower, weekdays as well as weekends, as if it were a 9-5 job. And apparently he has also expressed an interest in continuing to hold large rallies, where his sense of self importance can be bolstered by the adulation of the crowds.
If he does not do a Sarah Palin and quit, and if his team find him impossible to keep under control, there would appear to be ample grounds for impeachment, should Congress have any wish to take that route; but that, too, would result in President Pence – perhaps a less scary prospect from the viewpoint of the rest of the world, but clearly not for you and like-minded citizens of the USA. Over here there is the added worry concerning the fall-out with regard to Brexit, adding yet another layer of uncertainty to the outcome of that disaster.
In your earlier post #54694 you referred to the entourage gathering round him to form his transition team as ‘evil vultures’, and by all accounts that is extremely apt. Query: how many of them, if any, were cronies of his before he decided to run for President? From this side of the pond it certainly looks as if he has potentially enabled the worst and most regressive elements in the Republican Party – nativist, dominionist, narrow minded and intolerant – as well as stirring up the worst elements in the population to the point where the white supremacists, racists, xenophobes and homophobes feel empowered to give open expression in word and deed to their repulsive views.
All the alternatives seem dire, and it is difficult to summon up even a spark of optimism at the moment. I have an appointment with the local eye clinic at the end of this month, for assessment to see if I need cataract surgery, and I have to fill in a questionnaire about my general health. One of the questions is how many units of alcohol I drink in a week, and the answer, if I am honest, would have to be ‘at the moment, far more than I should’.
13 November 2016 at 12:09 #54711This was, I thought, a great improvement on the preceding episodes: minimal gore and a much greater focus on the moral and existential issues, allowing us greater insight into the protagonists; and the resolution of the threat was very Doctorish.
The Governors are, as I guessed, not from UNIT , but their origin remains a teasing mystery. I still think that they could be a splinter off-shoot from Torchwood, with access to some of the resources and information but without direct knowledge or experience of the Doctor; but that may be because I don’t really like the idea of a proliferation of anti-alien organisations on earth. But who nose 🙂
I agree with you, @tardigrade , that the fight between April and Corakinus looked clumsy, but then how ‘real’ in a material sense are those scimitar weapons? On earth April was able to summon them when she was channelling Corakinus and they appeared out of thin air, then disappeared again when the link was broken. Furthermore, the Shadow Kin are just that, shadows; they can take form, but how much substance do they really have? Those which overwhelmed the petals looked like roiling smoke. I got the impression that the fight with Corakinus was more like a battle of wills than a physical contest.
My chief complaint is that I found it difficult to make out some of the dialogue, and I don’t think that it was my hearing at fault. I shall have to watch it again with subtitles.
12 November 2016 at 13:16 #54703What you say about Trump’s cynical political about-face doesn’t surprise me. I suspect that he has not, nor ever has had any real political convictions. He’s just a wheeler-dealer who appears to have benefited very little from an expensive education but is a canny enough business man to know how to work things to his own advantage, if necessary by off-loading his losses onto his investors and refusing to pay contractors what they are owed.
Watching and listening to him and reading accounts of his rallies, it has been difficult to avoid seeing him as a text-book example of a sociopathic narcissist, living at the centre of a reality constructed from moment to moment and resistant to anything which might puncture his self-image. He lies frequently and blatantly* and contradicts himself, possibly believing himself when he does so, and says whatever he things will go down well with his audience. In his rallies you could see this operating as a kind of feed-back loop, where he doubled down in appealing to the worst impulses of the crowd. In his acceptance speech, equally, he turned about and conformed to what was expected.
An article in the New Yorker reporting the views of Tony Schwarz, Trump’s ghost writer on The Art of the Deal, supports such conclusions and provides, in addition, the information that he has a minimal attention span and seems – or seemed at the time – to be interested in nothing beyond his own self aggrandisement.
Today’s headlines report him as rowing back on some of his more extreme policy statements, but I don’t see that as being particularly reassuring. A Republican Party in control of the legislative and judicial branches of government and ready to pander to its most extreme wing will probably find him very easy to manipulate, just so long as he can be flattered into thinking he is in charge. He certainly isn’t going to be able to ‘drain the swamp’ , even if he ever had any real intention of doing so, or the least idea of how to go about it.
As for foreign policy, if he thinks that diplomacy is the same as deal-making he may be in for a shock, especially as the leaders of some countries clearly regard him as a ‘useful idiot’; and in the light of this, plus his evident lack of impulse control and tissue-paper thin skin, the next 2-4 years look not only grim but positively dangerous to world stability.
*Politifact rated more than half of his statements as false or outright, pants-on-fire lies, and only 16% as true or mostly true.
11 November 2016 at 21:21 #54688I wouldn’t say the Doctor forfeited any sympathy from the General and Ohila in his actions. It is not inherently wrong, after all, to fight injustice and evil and the cold hand of the grave
From their point of view, though, he was very wrong. It wasn’t so much that his actions against the High Council, though warranted on several levels, were driven by a personal desire for vengeance rather than a sense of justice, but that in trying to give Clara an extra lease of life he had broken all the rules including, as Ohila angrily pointed out, those he set himself; ‘You have broken every code you ever lived by’. In any case, all the previous interactions between her and the Doctor suggest that their relationship is decidedly prickly, even she means well by him and he trusts her – up to a point. He might very well turn to her for help, but I don’t think she is someone he would think of if he wanted comfort or reassurance.
Though characters in a long running series may over time develop in complexity and acquire greater depth, they have to remain true to their essential selves as the writer or writers conceived them. To make them act in a way inconsistent with that established character does serious damage to a story, as I am sure you would agree, and Ohila as depicted so far does not strike me as anybody’s idea of a cosy auntie.
P.S. I know what you mean about trying to keep ones mind off other things; I suppose that is what I have been doing, too 🙂
11 November 2016 at 15:01 #54683I agree entirely that he needed time alone to adjust and come fully to terms to what had happened, and I suspect that by now he is old enough and wise enough to decide such things for himself. I’m pretty sure, though, that he would not trust, let alone rely on Karma, Fate or an impersonal universe, grateful or otherwise, to deliver what he needed. Once he is ready he will recognise when chance, possibly but not necessarily with a nudge from the Tardis, brings him potential new companions, and he’s had enough experience by now to know who to accept and who not to.
I respect your opinions, and it’s always interesting to see the Doctor and the Whoniverse through the eyes of others, but clearly we differ in our view of what is and is not possible in that alternative reality.
If he is loved by so many, if they would do anything for him, then where were they in his darkest hours?
Where would they be but scattered across all space and time, completely ignorant of his whereabouts or what he has endured? Most of the people in question are locked into their own time and place, with no means of tracking him or knowing what he is doing at any given time unless he actually turns up on their planet, space station or whatever and they happen to encounter him again. Even if any of them had known and had possessed some insight into his state of mind, what could they have done, since very few of them, if any, would have any extraordinary powers or knowledge or any means of reaching him. Those who do have such resources, assuming they can find him first, seem for the most part not well disposed towards him.
In Face The Raven only Ashildr/Me was fully aware of what was going on, but her primary duty was to protect the sanctuary that was Trap Street, and she was being blackmailed by the Time Lords. In any case, her feelings about the person who’s intervention had resulted in her having to endure immortality were bound to be somewhat ambivalent. As for the others present, they had little or no understanding of what was happening until it was too late, and once Clara had made the fateful mistake of taking the chronoblock on herself and the teleport bracelet had locked round the Doctor’s wrist, it wasn’t in their power to change the course of events.
When the Doctor emerged from his ordeal on Gallifrey, the ordinary people knew that he was under threat from the High Council and did all they could to help and protect him; but could they have been expected to have any precise knowledge of or insight into what he had been through? If, after he had disposed of the High Council, he had gone back to them and confided in them, they might have offered him whatever was was in their power in the way of comfort, but he didn’t; in his distress he chose to try and rescue Clara from her death and whisked her off to the end of the Universe. By these actions he forfeited whatever sympathy the General and Ohila might have felt, and Ohila is in any case the kind of friend who tells you what you need to hear, rather than what you would like to. Maybe in the interval of travelling alone he did go back to Gallifrey for a bit of R & R among the ordinary population, it would be nice to think so but we will probably never know. What we do know is, that by the time he encountered River, he had recovered much of his usual bounce.
11 November 2016 at 13:24 #54682@thane15
The discrepancy between the outcome of the popular vote and the majority in the Electoral College, which is not unprecedented, is down to the fact that the popular vote is the sum of all votes cast nationwide, resulting in a simple majority one way or the other, whereas the make up of the Electoral College is determined by the results on a State by State basis; so, given that (with the two exceptions) winner takes all in the Electoral Collage stakes, and given that population density varies very considerably from State to State and many of the States which most reliably vote Republican have relatively low population density, if the number of people who vote for the losing candidate is high and not far short of the majority vote in States with a high density of population, the raw number of votes cast for the loser can exceed those cast for the winner.
On another subject, it seems that someone has given Trump back his i-phone and he has resumed tweeting. Apparently those protesting the results of the election are ‘professional’ demonstrators, and it’s unfair (waaah 😥 )
10 November 2016 at 23:33 #54672@thane15
Before a presidential election the Republican party and the Democrats, and any other candidate on the ballot, each draws up a slate of potential electors, chosen either at a State party convention or by a vote of the party’s central committee. The nominees will usually be active members of the party in question, though not office holders, chosen in recognition of their service. In the election the voters are in effect choosing which slate of electors will vote in the Electoral College for the president of their choice, and in some States the list of electors for each candidate may be listed on the ballot, as well as the names of the candidates. So if a majority of voters in a State opt for the Republican candidate, the slate of potential electors chosen by the Republican party in that State will become the members of the Electoral College representing that State. A fairly clear and comprehensive explanation can be found here
Members of congress for each State have, as @pedants says, always so far been elected in much the same way as we in Britain elect MPs, by direct majority in a first-past-the-post system. It was only when it came to Presidential elections that the Founders felt that hoi polloi could not be trusted.
P.S. Judging from the evidence presented on these boards you are not in the least thick 🙂
10 November 2016 at 22:44 #54671Thanks for the compliment 🙂
I have just re-watched the ending of Hell Bent to check that particular detail. As the Doctor is losing consciousness he asks Clara to smile for him. ‘How could I smile” says Clara and he replies, ‘It’s OK, don’t you worry. I’ll remember.’ When he wakes we see the face of the man from his viewpoint and filling almost his whole field of vision, blurred at first and then coming into focus, and then for a fraction of a second the image of the man vanishes and we see the face of Clara against a blank white background. She is clearly not present at this point but you are correct, it isn’t the view he would have seen as he lost consciousness, because here her face is to the right in his view rather than directly facing him, and although her expression is concerned, she isn’t crying. It seems as if, in his confused waking state the sight of the man has triggered an earlier memory of waking to see her face – and he must have had an earlier period of waking, long enough at any rate to learn that his Tardis was no longer in London and to acquire another guitar.
In the final scene, when the diner vanishes from round him and he sees the Tardis, he pauses very briefly at the sight of Clara’s image in Rigsy’s memorial and then enters. The directions in the script are slightly different and less subtle, in that he kneels and studies the image, touching it in a moment of recognition – so that’s who … – before dismissing the thought and going through the door.
As I have said, it is as if reminders of her bring the memory almost to the surface, and I hope that I am not guilty of revealing spoilers if I say that there is an incidental moment in the first episode of Class which also suggests this.
I can understand how and why you feel as you do, but seen from my perspective it seems that you may be overstating the Doctor’s unhappiness. In Heaven Sent and Hell Bent he is indeed suffering extremes of grief and anger, but by the end this is resolved; he has expended his anger on Rassilon and the High Council and given Gallifrey a chance at reform, he has enabled Clara to live again, after a fashion, and the anguish of parting from her has been erased by the neural block.
He is glad to know that his home planet is still there and accessible, but it is highly unlikely that he would want to return to live there. He is a Time Lord who has little patience with his fellow Time Lords’ arrogance, cautiousness and policy of non-intervention, but neither does he have a great deal in common with the ordinary folk who are not Time Lords. He cares about them and they are grateful to him, honour him, even love him, but in a rigidly class-based society it is probable that neither he nor they would feel entirely comfortable if he lived among them permanently, even if he were not a restless soul, ever eager to roam all time and space seeking new adventures and new experiences. And while it may not be good for him to travel for too long alone, he does not strike me as the kind of person who is necessarily unhappy when alone in his own company. We are all different, and for some of us being alone does not necessarily mean feeling lonely, let alone sad, so long as we have something to occupy our minds and our time.
I’m not sure what you envisage with your notion of a grateful universe stepping in to guide a new companion to his door. Missy did that with Clara, largely to the benefit of the Doctor, although her motives were not entirely altruistic, but I think he would rather take his time and find companions for himself, than have them delivered by an abstraction 🙂
This season was a little lacking in light relief, I agree, but I think it was made plain that in between the episodes which made up the narrative arc, the Doctor and Clara were having a rip-roaring time gallivanting round the universe and having more light hearted adventures. Remember, for example, that Face the Raven opens with them tumbling into the Tardis, breathless and laughing about their latest escapade on a planet of sentient plants. It is significant, though, that Clara was claiming that it was she, through her own resourcefulness, who had rescued them from their latest predicament
10 November 2016 at 14:59 #54664The DVD of the animated version of The Power of the Daleks will be released on November 21st and is available now to stream or download from BBC Store. The Guardian has a review but *warning* don’t click on the link if you never saw the episode and are averse to spoilers.
10 November 2016 at 14:13 #54663@thane15
@ichabod is probably still asleep and will no doubt be able to give a more complete answer than I can, but in the meantime I am confined indoors by another day of inclement weather, so I’ll have a stab at answering at least some of your queries – at least according to my no doubt incomplete understanding of the system
The Electoral College was set up by the Founders of the Constitution because they were distrustful of popular democracy and wanted to avoid a popular vote, possibly driven by factional, ill informed and irrational impulses, resulting in the election of someone unfitted for the office. The Electors were therefore not bound absolutely to follow the popular choice in the State they represented. But note that when the system was set up there were no organised political parties in the modern sense, only loosely defined coalitions and affiliations.
The number of Electors for each State is equal to the numbers of members of Congress for that State, so roughly in proportion to population, and currently adds up to a total of 538 (435 Representatives and 100 Senators plus three more for the District of Columbia). They must not be holders of any other political office. Since the 1880s the Electors in each State, with the exception of Maine and Nebraska, have been chosen on a winner-takes-all basis and are normally pledged to vote according to the outcome of the popular vote in that State, though in theory they still could vote otherwise and occasionally one may do so as a matter of judgement or conscience.
Many people now think that this system is no longer fit for purpose, and in the case of this election it seems to have resulted in precisely the kind of situation the Founders sought to avoid: the election of someone who is on multiple counts manifestly unqualified for the office of President, whereas his opponent who won the popular vote, if only by a small margin, was – whatever her flaws – very well qualified.
Voters, faced with choosing a President as well as other candidates for office, potentially including a member of the House and a Senator, not to mention members of their State legislature, may vote a ‘straight ticket’ – i.e. for candidates all from the same party – and probably most do; but equally, if someone who normally votes Republican happens to think the Democrat Presidential candidate is the better choice, there is nothing to stop them voting accordingly, even if they vote mainly or wholly for Republican candidates down ticket.
It’s all so much simpler in a parliamentary democracy – have you seen the size of some of their ballot papers 😮
9 November 2016 at 15:18 #54626they need something to hide that they are playing the race card,
In the case of Trump there was no real attempt to hide it; he certainly he did nothing to discourage it in those who attended his rallies, and he seemed happy enough to accept the endorsement of white supremacist organisations such as the KKK.
There may very well be blood, especially when the left-behind of southern and middle America end up finding themselves even worse off.
Forget my attempts in my post above to discern light at the end of the tunnel: I spent the morning masochistically trawling US news sites and now feel profoundly depressed. The bottle of single malt my brother left behind after his visit looks very tempting, but perhaps I would be better off re-watching season 9 of Doctor Who.
9 November 2016 at 11:03 #54622@janetteb ‘s quote is from W B Yeats’ poem ‘The Second Coming’ ; lines that have been echoing in my mind for some time now.
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
It was written in 1919 in the aftermath of World War I and on the eve of the Irish civil war, but in full it is not quite as pessimistic as these lines suggest, because it goes on to invoke his quasi-mystical belief that history is cyclical. The concluding lines are
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Waking to the news this morning felt even worse than the morning of June 24th, and if it weren’t raining, and the rain forecast to continue all day, I would be spending as much time as I could in the garden, trying to work off the low mood.
There may be enough Republicans in Congress who did not support Trump as candidate willing to try and frustrate his most disastrous policies, but that isn’t saying very much. It depends, also, on who he chooses for his Cabinet and as advisors, because by all accounts he does not have the attention span to be a hands-on President, and seems so far to have shown little patience with efforts to brief him on what he will need to know, or willingness to listen to advice
At best the next four years look anything but rosy, not least in foreign policy, where he will probably have most influence, and when it turns out that he can’t deliver all he promised, especially in relation to the economically deprived regions of the US, the anti-establishment mood there is likely to get even uglier.
8 November 2016 at 15:48 #54601Still waiting for this series to fully hit its stride but … patience, patience, and this episode has introduced some interesting possibilities.
As alien monsters go, the Shadow Kin don’t really grab me. So far they seem as two-dimensional as, well, shadows. And what is their motivation? They feel that they have been born into the wrong universe so want to slaughter everyone else in it? In contrast, the carnivorous petals have at least made their appearance in a nicely insidious and sinister way, but I have a horrible suspicion that it will lead to yet more gore next Saturday. I found it scarcely credible, though, that Matteusz was apparently the only one (other than Dorothea Ames) to notice anything unusual. Are city dwellers really so oblivious to the natural world that they would be unaware there was something odd about pink blossom accumulating in drifts, like cherry blossom in spring but out of season, and when there wasn’t a blossoming tree in sight, cherry or otherwise? One thing which might be significant is that, if the solitary blossom we saw floating on the wind at the beginning of the episode was the first to enter the world, then April was the first one to be bitten. Ms Ames said that they are not in any way sentient, so have they floated into the world by chance, or are they an instrument of something else?
the new Head teacher and her beguiling rapport with Miss Quill. She definitely works for a dodgy branch of UNIT, right?
To me the Governors don’t have the right ‘feel’ for UNIT, dodgy or otherwise, and there are other reasons to rule this out (see below), but they could just possibly be from a dubious offshoot of Torchwood – or, as @tardigrade suggests, from an alien outfit with its own agenda. It would make sense, though, for an organisation dedicated to monitoring and countering alien incursions and aware that Coal Hill was a weak point in the fabric of space-time to take steps to have the school converted into an Academy administered by themselves. I don’t know if anyone else paused on Ms Ames’ folder on Charlie when she opened it, but it contained all the details we know so far about him and Miss Quill , and also confirmed the fact that they are of different species who had been at war for a long time. At the bottom of the visible part of the page was a reference to the intervention of the Doctor, but in terms which suggested that the compilers of the file were not closely connected to him – in which case, definitely not UNIT.
The revelation that the Cabinet of Souls might be used as an instrument of genocide is intriguing, but I have a suspicion that it might be more sinister than that. Suppose that Charlie was lying when he said the idea of the souls being able to take over the bodies of other beings was just a children’s’ story. It was implied that the bodies taken over might not necessarily be of the same species, in which case Charlie could turn out in the end to have ideas above and beyond his own survival and that of Miss Quill and to constitute a threat to Earth in his own right.
As for the teenage and alien sex; I saw April and Ram jumping into bed so precipitately as not so much Ram on the rebound, more an instinctive reaction to their consciousness of having survived danger and of still being under threat. It was a phenomenon noted during the second World War. Corakinus in his turn was aroused because of the link with April and his underling obliged, because that is what obsequious underlings do. Nevertheless 🙄
6 November 2016 at 16:56 #54587@thane15
The Trials and Time of Steven Moffat -or something
I wouldn’t dare 😮
he HAD those adventures with her even though he cant remember them.
I’m not sure it is entirely the case that he can’t remember them; after all, he remembered enough about the events on Gallifrey to be able to recount the story to Clara in the diner and, as I pointed out way back, he could even remember his motives in wanting to use the neural block on her. The key word, I think is ‘story’. ‘Stories are where memories go when they are forgotten’ he says, as if the recollection of his adventures had somehow become detached from any sense of personal involvement.
As for his forgetting of Clara, this seems to take the form of a mental blind spot so that, as I wrote above, he can no longer *see* her in either the literal or the metaphorical meaning of the word. He does, however, seems to manifest a response to reminder’s of her, as if he retained a subliminal awareness.
Speaking of which, when I watched the Blu-ray of Hell Bent I noticed a detail which I don’t recall from the episode when it was broadcast, and which doesn’t seem to be indicated in the script as published on line. When the Doctor wakes in the desert the first thing he sees is the face of a man bending over him, but for a split second the man’s face becomes that of Clara as he would have seen her just before he lost consciousness in the stolen tardis. Make of that what you will.
Following on from what thane wrote, I hope that you don’t feel that feel I was being didactic, telling you what you should think, because that was certainly not the intention. I was just responding to your queries and objections with my own thoughts on the subject; and I ought to acknowledge that in the course of discussion some of my thoughts have been modified or expanded as a result of ideas expressed by others.
I apologise for the length of my posts; I’m afraid that once I start writing I have a tendency to get a bit carried away 🙂
5 November 2016 at 22:39 #54579Further to my post above: You ask why the Doctor doesn’t just stop caring and travel the universe enjoying life and looking out for himself alone. Yes, caring often entails pain along the way, it comes with the territory, but anybody who possesses even an ounce of empathy cannot help but care. People who don’t or can’t care, who think only of themselves and what benefits them, are sociopaths, and the Doctor, whatever his flaws and quirks of personality, is not a sociopath.
As to why no one came to his rescue when he was in the confession dial, who knew where he was other than the Time Lords who put him there? And if my theory is correct, he was transported far forward in time to Gallifrey, and the time he was in the dial, from the point of view of the outside universe, was only a few days.
You seem to want stories with simple, happy conclusions, where everyone gets their just deserts, but that is seldom the case in real life and Doctor Who, although it is fantasy, acknowledges this fact. That is one of the reasons why, after all these years, I still watch it
5 November 2016 at 21:38 #54577Why was it wrong for the Doctor to want Clara back? @pedant said it: because it exposed Clara to danger both from others and from himself and, as he had observed more than once, he had a duty of care. To hang on to her in these circumstances would have been selfish on his part. Everything he did, even when pushed to his mental and emotional limits, was out of selfless regard for her, but the detail is complex.
His attachment to her – obsession even – had become closer than was healthy, given the fact that he is an alien 2000 or more years old, with possibly thousands of years more of sequential lives, whereas she was a short lived human. He was forced to confront this fact and that she, as a result of her association with him and their joint adventures, had become over confident in her own abilities to solve problems, Doctor style, and in his ability to save her in any situation if things went wrong. It led her into recklessness and, ultimately, into the mistake which led to her death.
He, rightly or wrongly, felt that he had failed her and, in the aftermath of his ordeal in the confession dial, because his thinking was distorted, he tried to rectify that in an extreme way. To go back in time and avert her death was not possible, but he calculated that by extracting her from her death between the penultimate heartbeat and the last, and then taking her to the end of the universe and to the end of time, so that time would not be disrupted, he could give her a second life. It didn’t work out quite as he hoped and she remained an anomaly in space-time and so anathema to the Time Lords, and as long as her mental connection with the Doctor survived they – and possibly – others, would be able to track her down. He realised finally that he must let her go and so planned to sever the mental connection by using the neural block and thus free her, both from himself and from the danger from others.
The conclusion of the episode was satisfying to me and, I think, to the majority of those who have commented here, precisely because it followed the logic of the story and was bitter-sweet, rather than a conventional and trite, happy-ever-after ending. The Doctor, being unable any longer to *see* Clara is free of the emotional tie. and all that remains to him is the story and an elegiac sense of loss. We know that he will sooner or later find another companion because he always has done, and in the interim he has the consolation of a 24 years’ night with River. For this episode to have ended with him finding a new companion immediately would have been a bathetic resolution.
As for why Ohila or the General did not offer him sympathy and hugs, they are simply not that kind of person. Ohila is effectively immortal and takes the long view; she holds him sternly to his own highest standards and she is not by any stretch of the imagination a cuddly individual. The General respects him as a fellow soldier and hero of the time war, but he is a Time Lord embedded in that culture, and the Doctor is a maverick.
5 November 2016 at 18:40 #54575As regards the confession dial, my view is pretty close to yours. As I think I outlined in comments I posted on Heaven Sent, the interpretation which makes the most sense to me is that what the Doctor experienced was in a virtual reality generated by the dial, and the time he experienced was subjective. The alternative, that the castle and sea were physical constructions in which he was physically present, and that the time was objectively real, raises far to many questions to be plausible – at least in my view.
The intended purpose of a confession dial was as an intermediate stage in the uploading of a dying Time Lord’s mind to the virtual environment of the Matrix, giving him an opportunity to reflect on his or her life and come to terms with its ending in corporeal terms It seems logical, therefore, to suppose that the dials worked on the same principle as the Matrix, or were even an extension of it, in the same way that the Nethersphere in Dark Water/Death in Heaven – described by the Doctor as a Matrix data slice – generated virtual afterlives for the minds uploaded to and stored in it.
The Time Lords, having gained possession of the dial, tampered with it to create an ordeal designed to torment him and wear him down to the point of admitting what he knew of the Hybrid which – so it seemed – had caused him to flee Gallifrey. They presumably understood enough about the Doctor to realise that the ordeal would need to be repeated, and I suggest that the dial, which may have been semi-sentient, was programed to make adjustments interactively, according to his specific response. Each re-set could have taken place over what, in the real world outside the dial, was the same period of time, and the changes in the position of the stars and the accumulation of skulls which marked the apparent passage of the centuries could easily have been a simulation.
4 November 2016 at 00:04 #54552Others have beaten me to it and have covered almost all there is to say. As @arbutus has said in different words, the Doctor is the Doctor because he can do no other; in essence that is who he is – or who he has become over the centuries. Sometimes he yields to the force of circumstance and lapses – which is why he does not acknowledge the war doctor, but ultimately he cannot abdicate. Even when he retired to Trenzalore he was active, protecting the inhabitants for hundreds of years. He has doubts as to whether he is a ‘good’ man – as he says in A Good Man Goes to War ( I quote from memory) ‘Good men do not need rules; today is not the day to find out why I need so many’. Some appreciate what he does and love and respect him for it, others fear him, but I don’t think that he takes that into consideration when he intervenes. As he passes through he tries to help by doing what he thinks is right in the circumstances, using his knowledge and experience. He is a mercurial character, sometimes playful – even a trifle irresponsible, sometimes deadly serious, but always and endlessly curious and open to the wonder of the universe, and that is satisfying in itself. So long as he has companions to keep him grounded he will generally be a force for good, and that is reward enough.
@thane15
Compare his misery with his joy and I think joy would win 1st prize.
You got it! Joy is the ultimate prize and it is rare, and its antithesis, the downside of life, is necessary if it is to be fully experienced and appreciated.
-
AuthorPosts
