[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

Apropos of nothing, this made me smile. A lot.

I praised my 97yr old Godmother today for learning to text…

She reminded me she worked at Bletchley during war #codebreaker

— Dee (@sayitaintsojoe9) April 3, 2016

How cool would a Bletchley-set DW ep be? Turing, Tutte, Tiltman and a whole cast of eccentric brilliance.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@puroandson @winston @janetteb

Since you seemed to like Wales, so here’s some more

Cregenan (This one I have as a 60x90cm canvas on my living room wall)

Borth

Also, Glesni is back and has reclaimed her nest after a short but intense squabble with Blue 24.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@dalektor

Google  “glastonbury orbital matt smith”

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

Meet Monty. This could start getting lively now…

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@janetteb

I like the water buffalos. They use them to merrily chomp through the reed beds to stop ’em getting clogged. They winter elsewhere (the whole area used to be overwhelmed by rhododendrons, which are epically invasive – took a few years to clear them). The Osprey project are consider adding a reed bed hide, so we should be able to watch the otters doing their “Look at us! Aren’t we so otterly fucking cute?” schtick. Which is fair. Otters are cool.

The cows were in the RSPB reserve. In the time I spend in one of the hides, they wandered over from half way along the flats – I think I may have been the most excitement they had had all day.

You should do mid-Wales. The hill walking is superb and landscape practically a place of pilgrimage for geography students. U shaped valleys, truncated spurs and roche moutonée everywhere. Base in Machynlleth of Dolgellau(1).

@winston

Yes, I’ve seen the “everything’s bigger in America” North American style robins ;). Seemed to have a pretty similar temperament, iirc – quite bold and pugnacious.

 

 

 

(1) pron: mack-un-cleth; dol-geth-ly (well, sort of – the double-L pronunciation can’t really be written down.)

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@puroandson

Yeah, the insects were unexpectedly cooperative (although I think the black darter dragonfly was just having a post shag rest – if I still smoked I would have offered him one).

The robin was amazing – he followed me for 50 or so yards, hopping around my feet and even onto my shoe. I think he thought I had food, bless.

Both days were a bit awkward for light from a landscape POV (loads of milky sky) but I learned to fiddle in post and turn blue luminance down (which beefs up blues by making them shine less).

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@puroandson

Most of them are ringed, but there is a post somewhere about how hard it can be to ID individuals. Dai Dot is, I think, a regular but unringed. The bird he’s been shagging is known as Blue 24, while Blue 5F is the interloper (iirc from Rutland in central England). Blue 24 got her arse kicked by Glesni last year (she yet to return). I think she’s earned a name by now.

Only 30% of first year birds make it back from migration.

Dai is a Welsh diminutive for David.

The HD night cam is a new addition this year and will be awesome once the pecking order is firmly established and the nest occupied with mini-opspreys. Apparently they are due to get fibre soon, so can stream even more.

Very windy – the wind whips straight up the Dyfi estuary, from Cardigan Bay and across salt flats and reed beds. What my dad used to call a “lazy wind – it’s doesn’t go around you, it goes through you”.

By the way, if you want to buy a bit of Wales, then just up the coast, in the next estuary up (the Mawddach) is Fairborne. You can probably get it for about a fiver. You just have to find the £3-500m for sea defences that the Welsh Government is not going to spend. My family are really pissed off about that. Lots of lovely memories.

Some pix I took last year (I want to go back with more lens).

And from Ynys-hir, a huge RSPB reserve about 2 miles down the road.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@gamergirlavatar

Brian Blessed doesn’t do anything quietly – he is rather well known for that.

Also, it wasn’t serious.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

 Thankyou also for the pronunciation of Dyfi, I would never have got it right.

That’s Welsh for you!

Yesterday was another day of sex and violence – and the two usual residents haven’t got back from Africa yet!

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

For those in need of a little drama while The Doc is taking a breather, you may enjoy dipping into the live webcam of the Dyfi Osprey Project at Cors Dyfi(1) in Wales. Today, for example, has been a day of sex and violence.

Live feed (24×7 and will come to real life over the next few weeks as more birds return fro wintering in Africa). As I type this (at night, obv), it sound like there is engineering work on the nearby railway line and the featured nest is empty, but it was pretty lively today.

 

(1) For the benefit of non-UKers, Dyfi is pronounced Dovey (’tis a river)

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@craig @jimthefish @fatmaninabox

dailyboother (no @ for encouragement!)

Spam, spam,spam,spam,

spam,spam,spam,spam,

Didn’t know how to make links live though….

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@ichabod

*cough* A Man Called Ironside *cough*

@missy @stitchintime

Most of the Doctors have done OK, mainly in TV (and mainly British TV) but with out outings into film: Troughton was in The Omen, f’rinstance; Davison had a very good TV career; Tom Baker did a lot (A LOT) of TV – and a LOAD of voiceover for adverts; Colin Baker has rarely been out of work, ditto Sylvester McCoy (incl the Hobbit, of course). Eccleston is Eccleston, Tennant has done TV, film and a lot of stage (he’s Royal Shakespeare Co after all); Smith has done OK – played Christopher Isherwood in a well regarded TVM, in addition to the stuff listed by @bluesqueakpip. If Who is the last thing Capaldi does he could still look back of a great career.

The assistants on the other hand…

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@arbutus

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@bluesqueakpip

Doesn’t really work – Dinorwic is a pumped-storage facility for managing peak loads. If needed it can be brought from standstill to full production in a few seconds – and then the water is pumped back once the peak has passed (went there not long after it opened on a A Level geography field trip – it is VERY cool!).

Either way, the release wouldn’t inundate anything that isn’t already inundated.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

Attention Americans!!

Amazon Prime to become exclusive US streaming service for Doctor Who.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

Bizarre random thought that popped up unbidded of the “Er, isn’t that a wee bit of a plot hole” variety,

A dam is used to create a lake. When the dam gets all blowed up and the water flows out a a huge gushing torrent, it will eventually subside and leave…. a river (like was there before the dam was built).

So why is there a future oil base thingy under a lake?

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@ichabod

Further to your query, Marsters is going to be at Wales ComicCon (as is Amber Benson from Buffy and all sorts from Dr Who – incl Davison, McCoy, Redgrave and Starkey and assorted production types). So still very much in the mix.

My cousin is unfeasibly excited about this. She’s 43.

There will, apparently, be a lot of fancy dress. Or ‘cosplay’ as we must now call it. But it’s fancy dress.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@puroandson

US network seasons are typically between 22 and 26 episodes, this being the requirement for a show to go into syndication (also why so few series have true arcs – they may be shown out of order in syndication, so need fillers). Buffy was a mid-season replacement that only got a full (multi-)season order soon after S2 started airing – so What’s My Line was a potential series finale, in the event it got cancelled.

Cable networks have different rules and aren’t concerned with syndication, so seasons lengths vary a lot, although 10 and 13 are typical.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@thedentistofdavros

More a game of three thirds 😉

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

On a different topic: The perils of daylight saving.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@fatmaninabox @jimthefish @puroandson @doctordani

It’s not a new story:

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@dalektor

YOU HAVEN’T DISCOVERED THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY?!?!?!?!?! Not the unutterably shit Hollywood movie, which missed the point of every single joke, but the original radio series and spin-off books?

Oh my. Have you moved here from Betelgeuse?

Are you in for a treat.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@puroandson

I think it is one of the big-arsed Mercedes SUVs.

The Poke had some bunch of malware pricks passing themselves off on Facebook as The Poke for a while. You may have copped one of those links. The site itself is fine and usually pretty funny.

@ichabod

As puro says, Spike was bad. Even when he got his soul (as thus became amenable to the redemption he achieved) he was still a narcissistic twat. Fabulous character – one the best; appalling creature.

Marsters has been on quite a few things (including Torchwood and some other nerdy stuff and a stint as recurring baddie in Hawaii 5-0). Been pretty busy if IMDB is a guide. And I presume he still has his band.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

I can pretty much guarantee this will make you LOL.

@puroandson @jimthefish

I think that line – and the episode – are designed to provoke that sort of question. Spike, shorn of his moral compass – because, vampire – but also, we later learn, of distinct Byronic heart and inclination before that – would see it that way.

But his being there taints everything around him – and if there is anyone nearby with a bit of darkness lurking below…why, hello there Red!

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@missy

Amusing.

Will never happen.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

So this stands up to repeat viewing much more than I expected it to. (Although helped by spotting a missed detail dealing with the “Hang on, ism’t Clara still converting” issue – the real conversion-trigger was the signal in the video).

But compare it with the grace note at the end of Blink, and you see that Gatiss, while being brilliant at generating creepy atmospheres, is still comparatively weak at “planting the landing”.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

Sometimes it is easy to forget how subtle Moffat’s wit can be:

River: “Don’t use my name. Ever.”

c/w a certain whisper in 10’s ear.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@puroandson @jimthefish

Hang on. Are you saying Ben and Glory are related?

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@puroandson @jimthefish

Molly’s offing was, for many, a highlight of S7. Crimes against accents in a capital offence.

“You made a bear! Undo it. Undo it”.

But they pale to insignificance alongside the second use of “Bored now”. And the only use of “She’s a hero you see. She’s not like us”.

“tumbleweed moment” – when a gag is told and all that you hear is the sound of tumbleweed in the wind.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

FFS. Death is really taking the piss now (apparently suicide, allegedly because illness meant he could no longer play).

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

So months later,  rewatching in a hurry, and Capaldi’s speech has not lost a single photon of its power. But familiarity lets you admire the scenery a bit and the attention to detail is phenomenal – and Jenna Coleman’s acting as Bonnie is a small masterclass…er…mistress class.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@puroandson

Is everyone here stoned?

(Still the crowner of funniest gag in anything, anywhere, ever)

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

Just to make us all feel young and fresh: 19 years yesterday since Buffy first aired.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@bluesqueakpip

But my point about neutering is still good, right?

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

One of benefits of having treated myself to the fancy dancy blu-ray set ,and watching in double-quick time, is the realisation of just how much of the key imagery that would become crucial at the end was set up in the run between The Magician’s Apprentice and The Woman Who Lived. Everything that became significant later was put into play in the first half.

Chekhov would have been quietly chuffed, and possibly fed his duck.

(Also, watching like this you really appreciate what total thundering twatbadgers are all of those over on the Graun, and other places, who said Maisie Williams can’t act. Somebody should neuter them as a service to the gene pool)

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@puroandson

Spotless

*cough*Spotlight*cough*

The “Today’s lesson is that A Woman Should Not Aspire To Be A Doctor” relies so much on decontextualising that it is absurd.

Clara does something ‘a bit reckless’ in every episode? She faced down a God, fer crying out loud (God, from the PoV of the Vikings), only for Ashildr to be the reckless one.

Every time she did something ‘a bit reckless’ something else happened to alert us to just how dangerous this is for those with just the one heart, from the Doc first stating his duty of care in Under The Lake, through Ashildr t0 the Zygons. It was a train coming down a track to the thundering roar of a thousand clue sticks. Not “a woman” but this specific woman, with all the wagon trains of baggage behind her, the grief, the rage, the unspoken pain, driving her to a moment when she misses that one little detail…

And then she faced it like a boss.

And then gets regenerated.

Stories get reordered in Who all the time – the key beats don’t.

 

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@dalektor

Consider divine beauty from the Dalek PoV. Say, annihilating a planet.

They could, perhaps, develop a planet killer/ Death Star type thing.

But that might be considered crass, graceless.

They may prefer, from the standpoint of beauty, to build a legion or two and take the plant apart inch-by-inch to fully savour every moment.

Art.

Near Kings Cross Station in London is a cluster of gas holders that were built in Queen Victoria reign. Long since redundant, they were built very much to serve a purpose. But they are things of beauty and are now protected structures.

Or consider the Chrysler Building. On the one hand, just another office building….

 

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@dalektor

making actual art

No, no – you were perfectly clear. It just seems that you are exhibiting a very human concept of art 😉

to see why the giant pepper-pots were scary

It’s not the pepper-pots, it’s the pepper!

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@craig @jimthefish or any passing mod – we seem to need a new sofa (and a new spoiler room).

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@puroandson

Metal container for the discs.

@dalektor

Colon-D is the big smiley, I think (will find out in a mo). 😀

The Daleks have a concept of beauty (cf Asylum). So they probably already do art – we just don’t see at as that!

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

So the Amazon Exclusive steelbook is very pretty. The cover art is lickable. Lots of extras on the discs, including both the Xmas specials and the prequels.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

So those assuming a new doc with a new showrunner, maybe not so much:

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@bluesqueakpip @puroandson

And I am sure you will both note that the point in the story I was referring to, FtR, was not the end of the story.

Much like Sloan Sabbith, “I’m able to hold as many as two thoughts in my head at once.”

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@marsbarsmiranda @flesz

Outside the most hard core of geeky fans, nobody really gives much of a stuff about how the confession dial works, the ins-and-outs of Time Lord society nor the literal meaning of hybrid. The wider fanbase and casual watchers care about the people, the challenges they face and the way they face them.

Anyone who was paying attention at the end of Face the Raven could see that Clara’s story was far from over. The number of people, especially over on the Guardian, who complained that they hadn’t used the “run you clever boy” grace note, while totally failing to spot that they were being hit with a massive clue stick was epic. Moffat is a master craftsman and it was simply inconceivable that he would omit that. The next two episodes were in the can well before FTR aired. She wasn’t “bought back”; her story wasn’t finished.

The story was of Clara was of her hubris – buying blindly into her part of the hybrid gestalt – leading to her nemesis, facing it with calm and courage and compassion and then being rewarded by a most secular riff on karma.

And judging by the reaction to the episode (and the season as a whole) that is pretty much what delighted the wider viewership.

The Maltese Falcon was a fake…

(There’s an alternative take, which I like a lot, in this Amazon review)

 

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@mudlark

There is a small possibility I might have pre-ordered.

The steelbook.

(When I move I bought a new TV. UHD Smart/ 4 HDMI etc etc – same price as a big box CRT model bought in 2005 and dumped when I moved)

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@jimthefish

Heh. Four legs bad, two legs good.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

On an entirely different topic, this happened yesterday: Bottoms up, sigmoid! Hopefully informative and amusing. Feel free to pass around.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@jimthefish

(I’d actually like to know who coined it as they deserve a hearty kick to the knackers for it).

Don’t know the who, but I’m pretty sure the why is because neo-whig would sound silly…

(Whig Liberalism was once entirely about unrestrained free trade, in contrast to the patrician and protectionist Tories – a bit like how the Republicans used to be the radical party and the Dems the conservatives. Lincoln was a Republican.)

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@bluesqueakpip

OMG!! You OB-wotsit with the obsession with dictionary meanings! I wondered whose sock that was.

Seriously. You do not have the tiniest shred of a clue what you are talking about. Just stop now.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@bluesqueakpip

The Manchester Guardian, as Jim clearly knows, was traditionally a Liberal paper. So calling it ‘neo-Liberal’ really isn’t the insult you intend it to be, pedant.

I know exactly what I am talking about and it is exactly the insult I intend it to be.

 

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