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21 September 2014 at 13:04 #32269
@jimthefish – you seem to have inadvertently disabled your account. Get one of the mods to push the Magic Button of Fixing.
journalist seem to have decided its their job to put politicians on the spot to try and force a straight answer.
This is known in journalism as “doing one’s job”.
21 September 2014 at 00:28 #32229An awful lot of the reaction to the entire referendum has been nothing more than petulance and bruised ego and resentment that the Scots would have the temerity to even ask to leave, probably exacerbated by the outright lies and disinformation that’s been peddled — with the BBC being the worst offender. But there’s no reason we should pander to it at all.
See, you had a swipe about stuff being described as paranoid and then chuck in “bruised ego and resentment”. Setting aside the extent to which that inflates the significance of Scotland to the average English voter, it so thoroughly dismisses very real opportunities to build common cause with the 97% of England that is not in London that I suspect generations of great Scots leaders would turn in their graves.
This is exactly the reason I have little time for nationalism of any sort. It is about divisions, atomism and exclusivity, it is fundamentally insecure and about taking the ball away because the rules don’t suit (you can bet your boots that the North East of England is mighty hacked off that the Barnett Formula has, yet again, been declared sacrosanct).
Who are ‘the English’
The people Cameron tried to railroad into reform of the back of the Scottish vote and the promises made.
20 September 2014 at 23:17 #32221I don’t like that whole boyfriend theme.
I don’t think ti was boyfriend, I think it was an expression of dependency. “I’m more fun than anything on a date”.
He rubs his arm uncomfortably.
Yes I noticed that – like something happened that we didn’t see.
20 September 2014 at 20:22 #3218519 September 2014 at 22:21 #32109You seem to be having difficulty keeping the goal posts in the same place.
18 September 2014 at 11:03 #32014@Handles
ENGLAND ROCKS
No. England swings
18 September 2014 at 01:10 #31998I don’t have a particular problem with it and the BBC is in a bit of a “rock/hard place” thanks to the Clash of the Tedious Titans – and anything is better that that godawful quiz show with the robot as a lead-in. And I think the practical reality is that timeshift is a huge factor in Who (and most drama) now so the nominal broadcast time is less significant..
18 September 2014 at 01:03 #31997Also, @oblique, setting aside that you appear to have moved the goal posts, you seem under the impression that the BBC is quite happy for a writer to rock up with a script and just head on down to Cardiff to shoot it.
That is not how the BBC works.
A good friend has had two, soon to be three, Afternoon Plays on Radio 4 – I consider her to be a total screaming genius, but that does not alter the fact that each play went through a process from “treatment” (outlines with a major plot points, theme and characters), through (once commissioned) first and then around a dozen drafts, then through the production process, casting etc. It took around a year for each story – and that is for a single drama on radio, where special effects are a tad more straightforward.
Appealing to the wide audience is the producer’s job. The most important part of that is keeping track of the story, whether it be single drama or serial storytelling.
17 September 2014 at 01:35 #31945The trouble with the writing is exactly that geoffers: ‘they do throw in too much stuff, just for effect here and there.’ And yes, they are professional writers and they should be making every minute count in the time they have to tell the tale.
They’re far too complacent about their successes
Ah, the old lazy writing meme given a fresh new coat. Moffat may be many things, but lazy (or complacent, how ever one wants to troll it) he isn’t. To assert as much, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, is the epitome of lazy critique.
Surely nobody really believes that the people who pen these stories really sit down and work out how it all fits together?
Of course Moffat and his fellow producers sit down and map out all of the major plot points and themes for the series (they are shot in a single block, so have no choice) but individual episodes are left to the writers to complete and the directors to create. Producers ensure that plot points for the season/ character arcs are delivered in the right episode and in the right amount of detail.
Of course, things don’t always go as expected. Sometimes it’s money – Joss Whedon managed to blow so much budget on Once More With Feeling that he didn’t have enough left over for decent Willow Tries To End The World special effects at the end.
Sometimes it is genuinely uncontrollable. There is a scene in Veronica Mars where Keith busts her doing something behind his back and said “I’m not sure I can trust you anymore”. It was sold with so much conviction by Bell and Colantoni that everyone thought it would be a major plot point. Trouble is, from the producers PoV, only when the show was edited did they see how potent the scene was, by which stage it was too late to reshoot – and it was never followed up because it was never meant to be that big a deal.
Writing serial drama is complex. And with the amount of cruft Who has gathered over the years, it is doubly so. I think both RTD and Moffat have done a pretty decent job of blowing away some of that cruft without diluting the show and, indeed, also adding to it mythos
16 September 2014 at 12:42 #31875@bluesqueakpip – well, quite. And given that we have known from the very first episode that the Doctor is a father, and that we now know that he has Mad Dad Skillz, we can say with some confidence that Susan bought him the shirt (taking advice from Romana).
16 September 2014 at 11:55 #31873Yes, but what does his absence of a bow tie tell about his quantum entanglement?
16 September 2014 at 11:44 #31871Ah, but the secret of good Bonkers Theorising(TM) is that it is bold in sweep and recognises that the redness or blueness of bow ties (or surnames) is much more important than the genetic relationships.
Without that it is mere theorising, and who wants that? 🙂
16 September 2014 at 11:37 #31869I think we may be letting Moff’s economical writing style suck us into plot-obsession-as-compulsive-itch-scratching.
Two men, both once frightened and lonely children, reflected in each other through the eyes of a kind, but strong and decisive, teacher.
No tricksy or bizarre relationships – just good story showing, though the medium of “find the lady”.
16 September 2014 at 10:32 #31863Why an orphange? Seems rather Dickensian
Most of Action for Children (formerly Nation Children’s Homes) are now closed, but it wasn’t really until well into the 90s that the full shift to smaller scale residential care was done, so it is just about credible.
16 September 2014 at 01:18 #31840So if ‘Orson’ is a descendent, why did the Doctor have him enter the restaurant sealed inside a spacesuit? Or is it merely a Moffaty nod to the ‘Grandparent Paradox’
Because he is a bit better informed than he is letting on?
Also, I suspect the suit gave Orson tunnel vision to it reduced the odds of him clocking Danny.
Edit: oops.
15 September 2014 at 18:40 #31800Lindalee (or Lindaee) speaks! Best review ever, watch right to the end.
15 September 2014 at 18:11 #31799No, I sorry Jim – that’s disgraceful. If you call a man a liar for saying that the question was not answered when it wasn’t – and also whip up a mob to boot! – it should be trivial to find him answering the question when it was asked.
@scaryb described the answer as detailed and reasoned – it was neither of those, and nor was it an answer.
Bloody hell, I’m going to have to take a cold shower from this defending of Tory Boy.
15 September 2014 at 13:41 #31781@jimthefish – it’s that or simple a string of ad hominems on the journalist (one for whom I have very little respect, btw) to mask the fact that Salmond didn’t answer the question he was asked.
Now, about that time stamp…
15 September 2014 at 12:37 #31778. But it’s all by the by anyway. It doesn’t really matter how and why the union came into being. (And for people to bang on about Darien still is a bit like a husband facing divorce after 30 years of marriage complaining about having paid for the couple’s first holiday together before they got hitched. It just sounds a bit peevish.)
Yeah, but it isn’t – remember I come from this from thinking how any deal following a yes vote will go over in England and how mind the English will be towards reasonableness after a huge bail-out followed by 300 years of chippiness.
Nick Robinson manifestly lied last week and he was caught out.
If you could give me the time stamp for the unedited footage where Salmond answered the question he was asked I would be interested – ‘cos I can’t find it. “Talking for 7 minutes” is not the same as answering and Salmond shut Robinson down when he tried to insist on an answer.
Yer paranoia is showing…
15 September 2014 at 12:07 #31775I should hope not!
This story reminds me of a beautiful Fritz Leiber novella called A Case of Conscience – everything that happens could have a natural or a supernatural explanation, and the author remains agnostic.
15 September 2014 at 10:37 #31766whilst the Dr is possibly mad -for if he wrote “Listen”, then why didn’t he remember it?
I think you are forgetting the Moffat Parsimony Principle. If you are very lucky you will get 4 words of explanation and if you miss them, then that will teach you not to Tweet during the show ;).
“Have you met you?”
It doesn’t even remotely surprise Clara that he forgot.
15 September 2014 at 01:33 #31729. England has never really got on with Europe….Our Scottish princesses spoke french and married French princes.
And England’s spoke German and Flemish and married Dutch and Bavarian – while the entire English Royal line is descended from the Angevins (which is why the true symbol of England is the three lions, not the cross of George).
The king of both England and Scotland in 1707 was …er…Dutch.
Scottish princesses spoke French and married Catholics.
But still, let’s wheel out the stereotypes, eh?
I don’t care what happens to television in Scotland
I don’t care what happens to the health service in Scotland
I don’t care what happens to taxation in Scotland
I don’t care what happens to business in Scotland
I don’t care what happens to everything else in ScotlandAnd I think most English people would agree. Provided they don’t have to pay for it (which is why any currency deal will be strictly “our cash, our rules”).
. If the idea had been put to some kind of a popular vote, if such a thing had existed then, it almost certainly would not have happened.
This is all but impossible to prove. But the simple truth is that Scotland’s economy was in ruins and England bailed it out.
It’s just a shame that the British (English, Welsh, Irish and Scots) are so easily hi-jacked by nationalism.
14 September 2014 at 22:40 #31710Darling is being a wee bit historically inaccurate when he says Scotland voluntarily chose to enter the union. Rather it was a cadre of skint noblemen who sold their country down the river in order to line their own pockets.
And also, this is pure nationalist historical revisionism.
Almost everybody in Scotland with any sort of disposable wealth, including the nascent Scottish middle classes, invested in the Darien scheme – and pretty well every family in lowland Scotland was hurt by its failure, many of them ruined. Even if the English and Dutch East India Companies (two of the most morally bankrupt companies in history) had not prevented foreign investment, the only effect would have been to spread the loss a bit – the overwhelming weight of investment was always going to be from Scotland.
The scheme was mis-conceived from the outset, totally blind to geo-politcal reality and a thorough triumph of vision over attainability – which cost 2,000 lives and half of Scotland’s working capital. No economy can bounce back from that. Sure, Scotland’s gentry took a bath – but so so did thousands of ordinary Scots. Were they all traitors?
The Darien venture raised £400,000 (about £6.5bn in today’s terms in a nation of fewer than 1m people) and the Act of Union saw England supply £398,000 to Scotland (which is also why many in England were opposed to the Union).
14 September 2014 at 19:16 #31670(On an oddly related note, I trust you have all been enjoying Outlander)
14 September 2014 at 19:12 #31668Of course it would, but not if the rest of the UK has no control over Scotland.
I’m not talking about what would happen after independence, I am talking about what would happens between a yes vote and legal independence (whenever that is – the much touted 18 months has no basis in law).
Control the money and you control everything. Every time English and Scots interests are opposed (inflation in Scotland and recession in England, or vice versa), English requirements will lead policy. You cannot be independent if you have no say over how your currency is managed.
And I do not, for one second, think that Devo Max is Salmond’s aspiration.
(Is it commonly known that he is very, very ill by the way?)
14 September 2014 at 17:38 #31662Devo Max is a complete distraction (although I favour it for the English regions as well – I am a long-standing federalist).
The success, or otherwise, of a country is in its finances. Salmond and others have said, perfectly correctly, that Scotland can use the pound. It could use the Israeli Shilling if it wanted to. But without control of your currency you have zero room for manoeuvre when things get rough, you have very little collateral. That is what I mean by a bad deal. And the Euro has not exactly been kind to peripheral nations and I doubt favourable terms would be acceptable in Germany.
If I were running a campaign to screw Scotland to the wall it would be almost trivially easy (as the rise of UKIP rather shows – the English are nothing if not gullible).
I would whip up The Northern working classes about how Scotland betrayed them after years of suckling on the Barnet Formula and demand to know where the country of Kier Hardy has gone. You’d be amazed how fast an old Commie like Mick McGahey could be rehabilitated as a lost hero. That’s Labour dealt with;
I’d make sure the question of dual citizenship gets asked very loudly; “English pounds for English people” – Absolutely meaningless but would back every politician into a corner. And that’s the Tories sorted.
And that would just be the start, because frankly only the Guardian and the BBC would even be interested in being even-handed.
@timeloop – yeah, I’ve been a member of the National Union of Journalists for 20 years. I know my way around.
14 September 2014 at 16:58 #31656Gosh. People attacking the media in the run up to a crucial vote.
I, for one, am shocked.
14 September 2014 at 16:53 #31654He was asked why people should trust him rather than economic players.
He launched a string of ad homs at the BBC, the Treasury and Nick Robinson in a truly scattergun manner (it is defensive variant of the Gish Gallop). Speaking for 7 mins is not the same as answering, and was, in fact, classic politician’s bluster and a credit to his media trainers. At no time did he answer the question, although he asserted he had to shut down Robinson.
Journalists are perfectly entitled to do their job and protect their sources, and perfectly entitled to edit out bluster, yet Salmond has demanded an inquiry. He has never struck me as such a fan of the Hutton approach.
I think Robinson should have been fired for his terribly partisan conduct as the last general election was counted and the coalition was being negotiated. But here he did nothing wrong and could have edited it in a much more damaging way.
(Also, Salmond clearly hasn’t been paying attention to the many corporation tax stories that have filled the news over the past couple of years)
Anyway, I have no dog in this fight – I’m much more interested in its impact in England and how that would shape negotiations (see here if you are interested).
To the partisan, any words that do not wholly toe the line are biased.
14 September 2014 at 16:11 #31644You’re not very good at concise, are you?
14 September 2014 at 16:11 #31643and our beloved BBC is being more biased than it was
This is the sort of paranoid nonsense that has been the mark of the first serious miss-steps by the Yes campaign, all of which have come since the YouGov poll.
14 September 2014 at 14:47 #31635Orson
Of course, they missed a trick by not calling the bedspread monster Mork…
Actually…, given a Moff trope…
14 September 2014 at 12:23 #31625Haven’t worked out what I think yet about Rupert/Danny/Orson etc (and what about the Blue chappie from Into the Dalek? Does he/how does he fit in?).
I think it would be beyond awesome and funny if that was put in for no other reason that to yank @juniperfish‘s chain.
14 September 2014 at 12:21 #31624Courtesy of @timeloop let’s try that again and, this time, remember to include all of the words in the first sentence. Pah, Late night posting…
But more significantly this is the second time (at least) that Clara has very specifically stated that she does not want to know when she dies (and to a Sontaran 12 years is a good innings).’
So either something very bad is going to happen to Clara or Moffat is going “LOOK OVER THERE!! LOOK OVER THERE!! LOOK OVER THERE!! LOOK OVER THERE!!” before blindsiding us.
Wild stab in the dark: what happens to Clara is the reason the Doc runs off with Susan.
14 September 2014 at 00:46 #31580Couple of things:
This of course confirms definitely without doubt that the Doctor is Danny Pink’s dad.
We know nothing of the sort – yet.
But more significantly this is the second time (at least) that Clara has very specifically stated that she does want to know when she dies (and to a Sontaran 12 years is a good innings).
So either something very bad is going to happen to Clara or Moffat is going “LOOK OVER THERE!! LOOK OVER THERE!! LOOK OVER THERE!! LOOK OVER THERE!!” before blindsiding us.
Wild stab in the dark: what happens to Clara is the reason the Doc runs off with Susan.
I think the clip of the War Doctor was to indicate that it’s Clara who’s jumping to conclusions that the boy is the young Doctor.
I think that would be considered a massive cheat. I really can’t think of a precedent in serial drama for that kind of thing (other than the huge retcon of Cordy in Angel S4 and that sucked beyond belief) – it strikes me as very unlikely that we are being blindsided in that way.
11 September 2014 at 21:30 #31462Apropos Clara seeing sadness – she has long running form: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p016r6pw
10 September 2014 at 12:23 #31411So no more nitpicking from me, I promise.
This promise will be broken in 3,2,1…… (Don’t fight it – resistance is futile)
8 September 2014 at 01:14 #31297Incidentally, the Golden Arrow was a bona fide Chekhov’s Gun (not a duck in sight).
7 September 2014 at 22:46 #31291Thats another example though where it can plausibly be said that Claras not mind-reading
I think it more likely that being a teacher who has had to learn to control a roomful of teenagers, spot troubled pupils etc, AND who knocks around with an eccentric, she has simply become rather good at reading people.
Shes looking directly into his eyes for the whole conversation up until 7:38 when she looks down at her paperwork for the entire line “Ah, you shoot people then cry about it afterwards” and only after that line does she look up into his eyes again. Curious.
I think that is the gaze of “My God! You’re hot!”-ness.
@bluesqueakpip will confirm that you have yet to master Advanced @thingying. 🙂 I, basically, am that test!
6 September 2014 at 22:55 #31209COTBP – Curse of the Black Pot? 😉
That was fun – this team really get the A-plot, B-plot, C-plot system, don’t they?
5 September 2014 at 02:00 #31110Ha! – A little synchronicity. now that seems appropriate to Moffat’s Who! (I don’t really have time to look beyond episode threads and maybe Spoilers, so I’m not even sure which of us got there first.)
4 September 2014 at 19:14 #31087Apropos of nothing at all, every time I read the words “Into The Dalek” this pops into my head (and now it will yours too!):
3 September 2014 at 16:44 #31027not to mention hitting on Clara, would be very different!
Didn’t strike me as ‘hitting on’ at all, just treating her the same was as anyone else might treat a neighbour’s cat, compared to her own.
3 September 2014 at 11:12 #31012I think I may have mentioned this before, but when I was a student we went on a field trip to the west country. Part of our task was to carry out “retrospective interviews” (ie find the oldest people around, show them a 1938 electoral roll and ask if they knew them.
“Oh yes, he was a farm worker – lived just there”
“Yes, he lived in the Big House”
“He was the blacksmith, lived next door”
“She was a writer – she lived in that big house”
“He was a ploughman, only died just recently”
“Oh, that’s May – she the one who sent you to me”
“She was a ….er….um…
…er…she was
the writer lady’s…
…companion…”
2 September 2014 at 17:41 #30966However, on the point about the her having ‘been the good Dalek’, this incarnation hasn’t been a Dalek, so it’s not like she can feel personally affronted, is it?
In-story I’d say it is perfectly possible and all part of the Impossible Girl – a hint of collective consciousness is all that’s required… She may not even know why she is so affronted, but Oswin was a total screaming genius and just a tiny bit modest…
Either way, the lead up to the slap was (for me) clearly painted as a bit more than mere disagreement.
2 September 2014 at 15:11 #30962Am I alone in thinking that it almost contradicts Clara’s character as a modern, intelligent woman if she’s going to start going all ‘Nora Batty’ about differences of opinion.
I think there is a world of difference between a “difference of opinion” and “an affront”. Clar, for me, was cleaelry offended not just disappointed. She’s been the good Dalek.
2 September 2014 at 01:38 #30931@devilishrobby @purofilion @thommck
When I was about 11-ish, during a game of playground football, I jostled Debbie Galloway (who was minding her own business with some friends). The result was a full, straight-armed slap across my face. Debbie was a tad fiery and could have taken most of the boys in a fight despite being a good three inches shorter than any of them. I had the piss taken for the rest of the day about how this slap clearly meant that she fancied me.
I am very much with @purofilion – to equate Clara’s slap with domestic violence is a false equivalence, just as much as suggesting Debbie’s right arm (I was neither the first nor the last to cop it) was the arm of a playground bully. Debbie was no bully – she just didn’t take crap from anyone – and Clara is no domestic abuser.
Domestic violence is a very, very real thing – but it is also shockingly banal (as in the banality of evil). A flare up between two people under intense, life-threatening, pressure is not what it is.
And I suspect your kids know more about getting a whop from the Girl With The Temper than they would ever let on to you.
1 September 2014 at 16:24 #30904I wonder what exactly the Doctor will do in her name?
I suspect it will be his failure to do something that will come to bite him in the arse.
1 September 2014 at 16:07 #30899The slap – It seems most people find it amusing when Clara slapped the Doctor accross his face but all of my family, my wife in particular, thought it was actually quite abusive and not jokey at all. Can you imagine the uproar if the Doctor had slapped Clara that hard? Nothing excuses domestic violence like that IMHO
I find this type of moral relativism fascinating. It sweeps a huge power relation under the carpet. The average chap can, very easily, overpower the average chappess. Of course there would have been outrage had the Doctor delivered the slap, but to say that Clara delivering the slap is equivalent is absurd in ignoring the nigh-on-a-foot height difference and that Clara is actually very slight. (Those who recall the “Here’s the part where you make a choice” montage from Buffy will have seen this spelled out very effectively – when the power relation changes is the time for discussion, not before ).
But anyway, in story, we know that one version of Clara had as close as you can get up-close-and-personal experience of Daleks morals, and in particular trying to be good. You don’t need to suppose some Clara-Collective-Consciousness to suggest that she has earned the right to give him a slap.
1 September 2014 at 00:15 #30865The question of course being who is father and who is daughter. Who is Pink, who is Blue?
31 August 2014 at 22:12 #30848Ta! – I was sure I’d heard it.
I think this is setting up for some role-reversal conflict between Clara and the Doctor.
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