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@jimthefish

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Ooooh – good shout. Totally forgot about it.

I like the Patrick Stewart Christmas Carol, but I find that he strays into full I’m A Shakespearian Actor mode once or twice too often. Sims’s restrained paranoia is a treat.

Trading Places is, indeed, always a delight.

And The Great Escape (The Likely Lads: “I was going to watch The Great Escape. It’s usually on”) must be due around soon soon.

 

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@bluesqueakpip

 to everyone telling everyone else what they want

That is how Christmas should be. My mum was the only one who understood that when I said “Underwear is always welcome” I meant it.

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@Purofilion

There is a Buffy ep, which you will know when you get there, that will be added to your repeat Xmas viewing alongside In Exclesis Deo. If I had a working multi-region DVD player I would add An Echolls Family Christmas from Veronica Mars for added Noir.

I usually watch the Moffat Xmas eps, all of which reward repeat viewing much more than you might expect.

Not Christmassy as such, but if it is on I will generally make time fo Edward Scissorhands. Need my Winona fix.

Definitely on board with the Sim Christmas Carol.

This Xmas BBC is adopting Professor Branestawm, although a little wary of the Harry Hill factor.

Other than that, whatever my niece and nephew have settled on (although a couple of years ago this led to stumbling upon Bridge To Terebathia, which held me an my then 12yo nephew spellbound to the extent that we refused to come to Xmas dinner until it was finished).

And indeeed, yes @barnable: SPOILERS!

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@purofilion

Oh, I’ve just realised – that means you should have met the loquacious – and very cool – Oz.

I think speech making when in opposition is a pretty thankless task

Very impressed with the #illridewithyou hashtag, though.

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Depends on the tablet. If an iPad, then yes. You just hold in the text box and wait for the pop up menu.

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@juniperfish

I would strongly recommend trying to track down the original unaired pilot of Dollhouse. It is the only way to get a sense of the show that Whedon wanted to make, rather than the one that got made after every executive at Fox had injected his two-penn’orth. Remember, these are the same people who made the opening of Tru Calling a shot of Eliza Dushku’s breasts bouncing down the street (and then using it in the credits too).

The tone is altogether darker and more mature. Too mature for Fox.

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@purofilion

That would be the wonderful Olivia Munn. If you have a few minutes search for Ghost Tits on Youtube. It is very amusing.

Second season well worth a watch, although maybe a little inconsistent. Third and final season is majestic.

 

Where are you up to on Buffy?

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@purofilion

 But yes, it was CJs bullet -in a waaay.

No, you misunderstand – my interpretation was that CJ did the leaking and that Toby took the bullet. No textual support, but makes more sense than what they went for. (Also the story made no sense – it is impossible to launch a “super secret” rocket without somebody knowing about it).

Anyhoo…back to favourite scenes. All of this (Katherine Joosten’s 4-or-so lines of dialogue are simply majestic):

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@arbutus

some screens felt almost like stills,

Those might have been the reconstructions 😉

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@avpr212

What do you guys think of this article? http://whatculture.com/tv/doctor-who-10-biggest-missed-opportunities-of-series-8.php

I took one look, saw that I would need 10 clicks to read a single article and proceeded no further. Such click-whoring is both shameless and shameful.

I presume it was the usual whine-fest.

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@purofilion

As in ‘I Touch Myself’?

Yep.

Viewers dropped off post-Sorkin – the show got rather caught in a “how do we top that‘ and it got moved to Sunday’s which cost it a third of its viewers. I know that Richard Schiff has never quite forgiven them for the direction they took with Toby, not least because it didn’t make sense. I rationalise it like he does – that Toby took the bullet of CJ.

Have been interested in the reaction to the most recent (and penultimate) episode The Newsroom. It’s like, even after all these years, some observers (in this case from the more bone-headed end of the feminist spectrum, which makes a change from the downright thick-headed end of conservatism) didn’t notice that all three sub-plots needed to be viewed as a whole.

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@purofilion

The Merry Men are right as far as they go, but the projection re-discovered by Peters had been known since 1885-ish. A dude called Gall published it. What Peters did in the early 70s was run a thoroughly obnoxious PR campaign that pretty well dissed the entire cartographic community. But this had the effect of pushing cartographic representation up the agenda and you could make a case that it kicked down the door for many of the infographic presentations we see these days.

It weakness as a projection is that it stretches in the mid latitudes (so elongates Africa and S America) and is very distorted at the poles (more so that Mercator). The inherent problem with mapping is that you can’t render a spherical surface as a flat surface without distortion. In the end, the correct projection to use is the one that enables you to do your job. And that should certainly be taught in geography classes at school.

Anyhooooo

I think the running joke with Buffy – which you are probably getting around about now-ish – is that she is actually pretty smart and has excellent reasoning skills, but has to cut a lot of classes to, you know, save the world and stuff.

Let me know when you get to the Divinyls joke. How the 13 year old responds to that will teach you much about him 😉

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@purofilion

Although, as a geographer by training and inclination, this remains my all time favourite scene (even if it is a bit soft on Peters)

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Moved from Music thread, rather than divert it.

@purofilion

Of course, the song was set up earlier with Donna explaining how she had learned what the lyrics to I Don’t Like Mondays referred to. CHEKOV’S GUN PEOPLE!

In ‘Somebody’s Going to Emergency, Somebodies Going to Jail’ Toby gets lumbered with talking to the protesters – there’s a short scene with the cop where he gives a speechwriting master class. Of course, if it is a speechwriting masterclass it is also a writing masterclass. One of the most effective tests a writer can give material is to read it out loud. If you stumble over it, you can bet your reader will.

There are people who think that English poetry does not need rhyme or meter. Rhyme is certainly not essential (but used well can be devastating), but anyone who thinks English writing can live without meter is a bumbling fucknut, and I don’t give a flying fuck if they are heads of department at Poshtwat College OxBridge. There is a reason that the approach to writing discovered by Chaucer while travelling in Italy has stood the test of 800 years.

Re Buffy, like all right-thinking people my first, last and only Buffy crush is Willow. And in Season 3 we got our reward with Doppelgangland. You will know why when you get there.

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The return of LindaLee (@Juniperfish et al)

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@purofilion

Is that some sort of test? I saw your shameless attempt at baiting me into the Fan Fic section

Have had something of a West Wing binge. The Complete Works of Ainsley Hayes, plus 20 Hours in America. Oh and Noel (where Josh gets “shrinked”).

Tori Amos coming at you:

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

Possibly the oddest thing you will see today

Every episode of BG Who – all at once (well, the 1st 15 mins). 707 ep, including reconstructions.

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Doctor or philosopher? I got 9/10. Bloody Descartes!

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@purofilion

All in all, you’re having a bit of a stressful time aren’t you, puro?

*Passes brandy*

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There may have been drunkenness. And the match was really boring, so you didn’t miss much 😉 .

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@purofilion – Well, the usual offering is a sacrifice, but that’s always seemed to me to be a waste of a good virgin.

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Hang on – I’ll go PM (spoilers, for the avoidance of). Then you can worship my rightness.

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@purofilion

Oh yes, but sh/h/it left because of off screen things (or rather story development things that undermined the character). Think where one key episode ends and another begins (like, 2 mins later) and *poof*. Gone. Not even noted in passing.

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@katharine

Just to echo others, Two Cathedrals, the S2 finale is simply magnificent. But you do have to get there first.

Other joys are:

1) Writing out a character but never, ever mentioning it despite it making no sense at all;

2) Emily Proctor’s utterly brilliant recurring turn as Ainsley Hayes (makes me sad she got the CSI Miami gig or we might have seen more of it);

3) Of the regular’s, Richard Schiff’s Toby Zeigler is one of the greatest characters ever created (although that might be because someone once said to me that he was me, only American, bearded and Jewish. And also powerful), not least for the genuinely moving season 1 episode In Excelsis Deo;

4) And then there is John Spencer. Oh, John we hardly knew ya.

After Season 4 it gets a bit more workman-like (Sorkin was too busy field testing Columbian Marching Powder, so no longer involved), but still better than most other things.

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@purofilion – there is a shake up at a critical moment that both broadens and deepens the Buffyverse.

@katharine – I fully endorse all that puro says about the West Wing. you can get the boxed set for less that £50 now. Totally worth it.

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I think the only solution to establish the principle is The Slaughtered Lamb (I think The Leaky Cauldron is a bit too populist ands aiming for culty (I said CULTy) would be better as a first stop on the crawl.

@scaryb

Nothing is more evil than shipping.

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@scaryb @bluesqueakpip

Deep Breath is up there with “Tennant leaving” levels.

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@Purofilion

Incidentally, now you have started on Buffy, when you hit Season 4 you will have to start watching Angel “in sync” – Buffy first, then Angel. The reason becomes obvious fairly quickly.

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@bluesqueakpip

Nope

And definitely don’t mention the greatest exercise in misdirection of all time….

(We’re just taunting you now @purofilion – like @jimthefish I am profoundly envious that you are discovering BtVS for the first time)

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@craig

I notice the Rose 7 Crown is hitting that 20 page level that seems to cause all sorts of oddness. Perhaps it is time to refurbish and open as The Wetherspoons Rose & Crown Experience.

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@all

General point if we do a Buffy fest – there are entire episode *concepts* that @purofilion knows nothing about and it would be awful to spoil them – you know the one’s I mean (I knew somebody who had had no warning about a certain Season 6 episode and it totally blew his mind).

So tread carefully and considerately.

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@katharine

Apparently the official SMG fan site had a blanket ban on all shipping discussion (before Television Without Pity disappeared up its own fundament my user id was ShippingIsEvil, so obv this amuses me greatly). The old Usenet groups were often rendered unusable by moist 15 year-old girls of all ages and genders.

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@Purofilion

And you haven’t even met Faith or The Mayor yet…

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@danmartinuk

I think the lack of a hoo-ha about the search for a new companion is the biggest clue that Clara’s story is not quite told yet.

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@purofilion

Although the informed statistician would never attribute any single weather event to global warming, increased frequency and amplitude (at both the hot and low ends of the scale) are expected (think of heating a bowl of water and how its internal circulation accelerates, then try to predict the temperature in any single spot).

And it is not just the media being on high alert. 11 of the worst 19 Hurricanes in history have occured since 1989, with 6 of those since 2003. The technical term for people who think climate change is a scientists’ conspiracy is ‘moron’.

Here is some stuff I wrote about it a few months back, when I was playing with the core data: Heating the cauldron.

On a separate note here is a little thing I wrote in response to the awful cricket accident this week.

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@firestarteruk

Best to go via his agent: http://www.feastmanagement.co.uk/clients/william_russell.html (who will doubtless take a position in whether you are a complete nutter or not before forwarding!)

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@scaryb

“Thundering bellend” is my current favourite pair of words!

Here to help.

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*cough* Filmed in Cardiff *cough*

(It sound more like a mockery of “lifestyle guru”/ gushy heal-yourself nonsense speak to me.

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@purofilion

XD = grin so big it makes you cross-eyed

ftw = for the win (note the “Oswin” variant 🙂 )

rofl = rolling on the floor laughing

IMDB.com Internet Movie Database (which also covers telly). Handy source of C&Pable stuff.

HTH. 😉

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@purofilion

Ha! I so much a twitcher that I don’t even see it in other people unless they are sat next to me!

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@purofilion

Speaking as a fellow inveterate fidget, I don’t see boredom there (after due adjustment for her being surrounded by total geeks). Bear in mind they are talking about events that happened when she was about 7.

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@purofilion

Shame poor pedant had to type out the whole thing.

Ah – so you haven’t discovered the joy that is IMDB then? Copy & Paste ftw!

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@craig

Oh yeah – I’m absolutely not talking about the length of time it takes to write. 10 years for 50 outstanding pages would be perfect!

It’s the surplus words. The days when Dickens was paid by the word and boy did it show should be long gone.

Indeed Gaiman is an excellent exemplar of nothing wasted. American Gods is rich, complex and deep with nary a wasted word. Love it.

(Last bit of off-topicness: Many moons ago I was reading Red Mars, a multiple award winning novel by Kim Stanley Robinson coming in a 600 pages. I was really looking forward to it, but by about page 280 I thought “If I have to read through another buggy ride across the Martian tundra I’m putting this book down and never picking it up again”. Twenty pages later there I was on the Martian. Sodding. Tundra. Somewhere, I think I may still have it, bookmark in place.)

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Interesting. What does the Italian dialogue say?

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Nope – he said he killed them all

Dalek: [scared] Keep back!
The Doctor: [the Doctor confronts the Dalek] What for? What’re you going to do to me? Because if you can’t kill, then what are you good for… Dalek? What’s the point of you? You’re nothing! What are you doing here? What the hell are you here for?
Dalek: I am waiting for orders.
The Doctor: What does that mean?
Dalek: I am a soldier, I was bred to receive orders.
The Doctor: Well, you’re never going to get any. Not ever.
Dalek: I DEMAND ORDERS!
The Doctor: Well they’re never gonna *come*! Your race is dead! You all burned, all of you. Ten million ships on fire. The entire Dalek race, wiped out in one second.
Dalek: You lie!
The Doctor: I watched it happen. I *made* it happen!
Dalek: You destroyed us?
The Doctor: [the Doctor walks away from the Dalek] I had no other choice.
Dalek: And what of the Time Lords?
The Doctor: [pause] Dead. They burnt with you. The end of the last great Time War. Everyone lost.

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@darkanian

Dalek, I think, was the first where is was spelled out.

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@bluesqueakpip

Oh God, yes.

Dear George,

Look, we know it’s going end in an epic battle between Dragon Queen and the Ice Walkers, probably with Little Stabby Girl and Shortround doing something ever so clever.

So

Get

On

With

It

Will

You?

Ta.

Yours etc

 

 

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@purofilion

‘world building’. I think this comes from the fantasy creation of worlds in game-land?

Nah, gaming’s a fairly late comer. The problem is that Lord of the Rings would have been about two-thirds the length if Tolkien had only let the reader imagine the sodding world a bit. And nearly all fantasy writers got sucked into the same thing.

Beware any book that has a map at the front!

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@arbutus and indeed @all

I think the key has been that both RTD and Moff have been conspicuously respectful of established canon, without ever allowing themselves to be bound by it.

That, I think is why we won’t see Gallifrey back any time soon – other than the occasional glimpse – because RTD’s great idea was to sweep away all of the 80s cruft. It had got sucked into the terrible fantasy habit of world building which got in the way of storytelling. Sweeping it away allowed the focus to return to The Doctor, rather than the Time Lords.

Moff had to go back to Gallifrey for the 50th – of course he did – but I suspect a lot of people expected a very Time Lord-y origin story, since they are all the fad these days. It was very smart indeed to sidestep that. What we got was a much more interesting story with consequences that @arbutus outlined so well.

 

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@arbutus @bluesqueakpip @jimthefish

So in another corner of t’interwebz the inevitable question of “Couldn’t they find something better to spend €1.4bn on” came up.

This is a summary of my responses: On the unexpected beach

 

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