Archive for the ‘Memes’ Category

SF+F Authors Meme

Posted on in Books, Magazines, Memes.

A few weeks ago SFX published a SF and Fantasy Books Special which contained a top 100 Favourite SF and Fantasy authors of all time decided by popular vote. The list shows the perils of popular votes… But lets turn it into a meme anyway.

Bold any authors who you have read; italicise any authors who are sitting on your current to-read pile (not literally I hope); strike through any authors you plan to never read/read again.

  1. Terry Pratchett
  2. JRR Tolkien
  3. Neil Gaiman
  4. Douglas Adams
  5. George RR Martin
  6. Isaac Asimov
  7. Iain M. Banks
  8. Philip K. Dick
  9. HG Wells
  10. Robert Rankin
  11. Ursula K. LeGuin
  12. David Gemmell
  13. Peter F. Hamilton
  14. Frank Herbert
  15. Robert Heinlein
  16. JK Rowling
  17. Robert Jordan
  18. Arthur C. Clarke
  19. Ray Bradbury
  20. Stephen King
  21. Robin Hobb
  22. Philip Pullman
  23. John Wyndham
  24. Diana Wynne Jones
  25. CS Lewis
  26. Guy Gavriel Kay
  27. William Gibson
  28. Steven Erikson
  29. Anne McCaffrey
  30. Roger Zelazny
  31. Lois McMaster Bujold
  32. Raymond E. Feist
  33. China Mieville
  34. Gene Wolfe
  35. Stephen Donaldson
  36. Orson Scott Card
  37. Alan Moore
  38. David Eddings
  39. Michael Moorcock
  40. Trudi Canavan
  41. Kurt Vonnegut
  42. Tad Williams
  43. Jim Butcher
  44. Clive Barker
  45. Neal Stephenson
  46. Alastair Reynolds
  47. Jules Verne
  48. Mervyn Peake
  49. H.P. Lovecraft
  50. Sherri S. Tepper
  51. Robert E. Howard
  52. J.G. Ballard
  53. Octavia Butler
  54. Jasper Fforde
  55. Harlan Ellison
  56. CJ Cherryh
  57. Mercedes Lackey
  58. Jennifer Fallon
  59. Stephen Baxter
  60. Richard Morgan
  61. Terry Brooks
  62. Elizabeth Haydon
  63. Dan Simmons
  64. Richard Matheson
  65. Marion Zimmer Bradley
  66. Harry Harrison
  67. Jack Vance
  68. Katharine Kerr
  69. Alfred Bester
  70. Larry Niven
  71. Stanislaw Lem
  72. Susanna Clarke
  73. Robert Silverberg
  74. Edgar Rice Burroughs
  75. Julian May
  76. Charles de Lint
  77. Samuel R. Delany
  78. George Orwell
  79. Simon Clark
  80. Joe Haldeman
  81. Joe Abercrombie
  82. J.V. Jones
  83. Theodore Sturgeon
  84. Kim Stanley Robinson
  85. Jacqueline Carey
  86. M. John Harrison
  87. David Weber
  88. Scott Lynch
  89. Jonathan Carroll
  90. Christopher Priest
  91. Jon Courtney Grimwood
  92. Michael Marshall Smith
  93. Olaf Stapledon
  94. Ken MacLeod
  95. Brian W. Aldiss
  96. Terry Goodkind
  97. Charles Stross
  98. Sara Douglass
  99. Gwyneth Jones
  100. James Herbert

Tags: , , ,

Film Meme

Posted on in Films, Memes.

Via . Below is the Entertainment Weekly’s list of 100 Classic Movies of the past 25 years. Bold the ones you’ve seen, underline the ones you plan to.

  1. Pulp Fiction (1994)
  2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-03)
  3. Titanic (1997)
  4. Blue Velvet (1986)
  5. Toy Story (1995)
  6. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
  7. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
  8. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
  9. Die Hard (1988)
  10. Moulin Rouge (2001)
  11. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
  12. The Matrix (1999)
  13. GoodFellas (1990)
  14. Crumb (1995)
  15. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
  16. Boogie Nights (1997)
  17. Jerry Maguire (1996)
  18. Do the Right Thing (1989)
  19. Casino Royale (2006)
  20. The Lion King (1994)
  21. Schindler’s List (1993)
  22. Rushmore (1998)
  23. Memento (2001)
  24. A Room With a View (1986)
  25. Shrek (2001)
  26. Hoop Dreams (1994)
  27. Aliens (1986)
  28. Wings of Desire (1988)
  29. The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
  30. When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
  31. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
  32. Fight Club (1999)
  33. The Breakfast Club (1985)
  34. Fargo (1996)
  35. The Incredibles (2004)
  36. Spider-Man 2 (2004)
  37. Pretty Woman (1990)
  38. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
  39. The Sixth Sense (1999)
  40. Speed (1994)
  41. Dazed and Confused (1993)
  42. Clueless (1995)
  43. Gladiator (2000)
  44. The Player (1992)
  45. Rain Man (1988)
  46. Children of Men (2006)
  47. Men in Black (1997)
  48. Scarface (1983)
  49. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
  50. The Piano (1993)
  51. There Will Be Blood (2007)
  52. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad (1988)
  53. The Truman Show (1998)
  54. Fatal Attraction (1987)
  55. Risky Business (1983)
  56. The Lives of Others (2006)
  57. There’s Something About Mary (1998)
  58. Ghostbusters (1984)
  59. L.A. Confidential (1997)
  60. Scream (1996)
  61. Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
  62. sex, lies and videotape (1989)
  63. Big (1988)
  64. No Country For Old Men (2007)
  65. Dirty Dancing (1987)
  66. Natural Born Killers (1994)
  67. Donnie Brasco (1997)
  68. Witness (1985)
  69. All About My Mother (1999)
  70. Broadcast News (1987)
  71. Unforgiven (1992)
  72. Thelma & Louise (1991)
  73. Office Space (1999)
  74. Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
  75. Out of Africa (1985)
  76. The Departed (2006)
  77. Sid and Nancy (1986)
  78. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
  79. Waiting for Guffman (1996)
  80. Michael Clayton (2007)
  81. Moonstruck (1987)
  82. Lost in Translation (2003)
  83. Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987)
  84. Sideways (2004)
  85. The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005)
  86. Y Tu Mamá También (2002)
  87. Swingers (1996)
  88. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
  89. Breaking the Waves (1996)
  90. Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
  91. Back to the Future (1985)
  92. Menace II Society (1993)
  93. Ed Wood (1994)
  94. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
  95. In the Mood for Love (2001)
  96. Far From Heaven (2002)
  97. Glory (1989)
  98. The Talented Mr Ripley (1999)
  99. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
  100. South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut (1999)

Book Meme (another one)

Posted on in Books, Memes.

The Big Read (or the BBC, depending on which source you read, but actually The Guardian) reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.

  1. Look at the list and bold those you have read.
  2. Italicize those you intend to read.
  3. Underline the books you LOVE.
  4. Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated.
  5. Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 and force books upon them
  1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
  2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
  3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
  4. The Harry Potter Series – JK Rowling
  5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
  6. The Bible
  7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
  8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
  9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
  10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
  11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
  12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
  13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
  14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
  15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
  16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
  17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
  18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
  19. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
  20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
  21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
  22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
  23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
  24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
  25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
  26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
  27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky (I’ve read about a third, but a long time ago so I really should start again)
  28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
  29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
  30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
  31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
  32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
  33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis (I’m sure I’ve read some other than TLTWATW but I’m not sure how many)
  34. Emma – Jane Austen
  35. Persuasion – Jane Austen
  36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis (Why is this separate to 33?)
  37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
  38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
  39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
  40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
  41. Animal Farm – George Orwell
  42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
  43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
  45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
  46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
  47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
  48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
  49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
  50. Atonement – Ian McEwan
  51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
  52. Dune – Frank Herbert
  53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
  54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
  55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
  56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
  57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
  58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
  59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
  60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
  62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
  63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
  64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
  65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
  66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
  67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
  68. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
  69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
  70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
  71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
  72. Dracula – Bram Stoker
  73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
  74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
  75. Ulysses – James Joyce
  76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
  77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
  78. Germinal – Emile Zola
  79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
  80. Possession – AS Byatt
  81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
  82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
  83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
  84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
  85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
  86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
  87. Charlotte’s Web – EB White
  88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
  89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
  90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
  91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
  92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
  93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
  94. Watership Down – Richard Adams
  95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
  96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
  97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
  98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
  99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
  100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

ObHTML: I managed to resist the temptation to add <cite> tags to every title. If I had an editor open with better RegEx support…

SF award winners meme

Posted on in Books, Memes.

Via

The following is a list of Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award winning novels (not including retro-Hugos)
Bold the ones you’ve finished
Italicise the ones you’ve started but not finished
Underline the ones were you’ve seen the film/tv show

  • …And Call Me Conrad (aka: This Immortal) by Roger Zelazny
  • A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
  • A Case of Conscience by James Blish
  • A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
  • A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
  • American Gods by Neil Gaiman
  • The Antelope Wife by Louise Erdrich
  • Ash: A Secret History by Mary Gentle
  • Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
  • Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson
  • The Big Time by Fritz Leiber
  • Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
  • Boy’s Life by Robert R. McCammon
  • Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart
  • The Children’s War by J. N. Stroyar
  • Collaborator by Murray Davies
  • Cyteen by C. J. Cherryh
  • Declare by Tim Powers
  • The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
  • The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
  • The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
  • Doctor Rat by William Kotzwinkle
  • Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
  • Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein
  • Downbelow Station by C. J. Cherryh
  • The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford
  • Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre
  • Dune by Frank Herbert
  • Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
  • The Facts of Life by Graham Joyce
  • The Family Trade, The Hidden Family and The Clan Corporate by Charles Stross
  • Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman
  • The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
  • The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip
  • Foundation’s Edge by Isaac Asimov
  • The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke
  • Galveston by Sean Stewart
  • Gateway by Frederik Pohl
  • Glimpses by Lewis Shiner
  • Gloriana by Michael Moorcock
  • Godmother Night by Rachel Pollack
  • The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
  • Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
  • Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
  • Here Gather the Stars (aka: Way Station) by Clifford D. Simak
  • Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer
  • How Few Remain by Harry Turtledove
  • Hyperion by Dan Simmons
  • Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
  • Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
  • Koko by Peter Straub
  • Last Call by Tim Powers
  • The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
  • Little, Big by John Crowley
  • Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
  • Lyonesse: Madouc by Jack Vance
  • Making History by Stephen Fry
  • The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
  • Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold
  • The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
  • Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock
  • Neuromancer by William Gibson
  • Nifft the Lean by Michael Shea
  • Ombria in Shadow by Patricia A. McKillip
  • Only Begotten Daughter by James Morrow
  • The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin
  • Our Lady of Darkness by Fritz Leiber
  • Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold
  • Pasquale’s Angel by Paul J. McAuley
  • Perfume by Patrick Suskind
  • The Physiognomy by Jeffrey Ford
  • The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
  • The Prestige by Christopher Priest
  • Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge
  • Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
  • Replay by Ken Grimwood
  • Resurrection Day by Brendan DuBois
  • Ringworld by Larry Niven
  • Ruled Britannia by Harry Turtledove
  • The Severed Wing by Martin J. Gidron
  • The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe
  • The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge
  • Soldier of Sidon by Gene Wolfe
  • Song of Kali by Dan Simmons
  • Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
  • Spin by Robert Charles Wilson
  • Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner
  • Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
  • Startide Rising by David Brin
  • Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
  • The Summer Isles by Ian R. MacLeod
  • They’d Rather Be Right (aka: The Forever Machine) by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley
  • Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner
  • Thraxas by Martin Scott
  • To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
  • To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip José Farmer
  • Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton
  • Towing Jehovah by James Morrow
  • The Uplift War by David Brin
  • The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold
  • Voyage by Stephen Baxter
  • The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber
  • Watchtower by Elizabeth A. Lynn
  • Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm

Another Book Meme

Posted on in Books, Memes.

Via just about everyone. The 106 books most often tagged as unread on LibraryThing. Bold the ones you’ve read. Add an asterisk to the ones you’ve read more than once. Italicise the ones you’ve started but not finished. Strikethrough the ones you hated. Underline the ones on your “to read” list.

  • Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
  • Anna Karenina
  • Crime and Punishment
  • Catch-22
  • One Hundred Years of Solitude
  • Wuthering Heights
  • The Silmarillion*
  • Life of Pi: A Novel
  • The Name of the Rose
  • Don Quixote
  • Moby Dick
  • Ulysses
  • Madame Bovary
  • The Odyssey
  • Pride and Prejudice
  • Jane Eyre
  • The Tale of Two Cities
  • The Brothers Karamazov
  • Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies*
  • War and Peace
  • Vanity Fair
  • The Time Traveler’s Wife
  • The Iliad
  • Emma
  • The Blind Assassin
  • The Kite Runner
  • Mrs Dalloway
  • Great Expectations
  • American Gods
  • A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering enius
  • Atlas Shrugged
  • Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
  • Memoirs of a Geisha
  • Middlesex
  • Quicksilver
  • Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
  • The Canterbury Tales
  • The Historian: A Novel
  • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
  • Love in the Time of Cholera
  • Brave New World
  • The Fountainhead
  • Foucault’s Pendulum
  • Middlemarch
  • Frankenstein
  • The Count of Monte Cristo
  • Dracula
  • A Clockwork Orange
  • Anansi Boys
  • The Once and Future King*
  • The Grapes of Wrath
  • The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel
  • 1984
  • Angels & Demons
  • The Inferno
  • The Satanic Verses
  • Sense and Sensibility
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray
  • Mansfield Park
  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
  • To the Lighthouse
  • Tess of the D’Urbervilles
  • Oliver Twist
  • Gulliver’s Travels
  • Les Misérables
  • The Corrections
  • The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
  • The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
  • Dune*
  • The Prince
  • The Sound and the Fury
  • Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir
  • The God of Small Things
  • A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present
  • Cryptonomicon
  • Neverwhere
  • A Confederacy of Dunces
  • A Short History of Nearly Everything
  • Dubliners
  • The Unbearable Lightness of Being
  • Beloved
  • Slaughterhouse-Five
  • The Scarlet Letter
  • Eats, Shoots & Leaves
  • The Mists of Avalon
  • Oryx and Crake: A Novel
  • Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
  • Cloud Atlas
  • The Confusion
  • Lolita
  • Persuasion
  • Northanger Abbey
  • The Catcher in the Rye
  • On the Road
  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame
  • Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
  • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
  • The Aeneid
  • Watership Down
  • Gravity’s Rainbow
  • The Hobbit*
  • In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and its Consequences
  • White Teeth
  • Treasure Island
  • David Copperfield
  • The Three Musketeers

Conclusions? I’m way behind on my Neal Stephenson reading, and I haven’t read many ‘classics’ but nor have a lot of other people.

Book Meme

Posted on in Books, Doctor Who, Memes, My Life.

I was tagged by Jack on the grounds that I’ve “not done a meme for a while”.

Total Number of Books Owned

According to my LibrayThing profile, 858. I know I have at least one more to add to that list and I’d also need to subtract the 27 tagged as !borrowed or !sold. So 832. Minimum, as there may be more hiding somewhere that I haven’t added yet.

Last Book Bought

A couple of out of print role playing games from eBay. Last ‘real’ book would appear to be Clarissa Oakes by Patrick O’Brian which I found in a bookshop in Amsterdam and made Lettice buy because I’d only just bought something else there and the shop assistant was a bit on the scary side.

Last Book Read

I finished re-reading Human Nature this morning. I’ve been wanting to refresh my memory since the TV version came out. The book is bloodier and does a better job of creating the historical context. However it does have a number of elements that are really superfluous and which the TV version correctly ignored.

Five books that mean a lot to me

In reverse chronological order in my life:

  1. Life by Richard Fortey

    I bought this whilst on holiday in Tennessee visiting and so it reminds me of a great time as well as being a great book. Fortey takes a look at the history of life on Earth from the moment if started to the dawn of human history. Richard Dawkins did the same trip backwards in The Ancestor’s Tale but for me Fortey’s book is more engaging.

  2. Ships of the Star Fleet, Volume One

    Very, very geeky. But as well as being one of the best Treknical fandom works ever it’s also the first book I bought online.

  3. Thieves’ World

    I could have listed several works of fantasy or science fiction that I read during my adolesence – The Lord of the Rings, Dune, the Pern novels and The Colour of Magic prime amongst them, but this collection of low fantasy stories set in a seedy city at the arse end of an empire is the one that stuck in my mind the most.

  4. The Warlock of Firetop Mountain

    I was the pefect age for this when it was first published. And from this book sprung my interest in RPGs and wargames. It has a lot to answer for.

  5. Read About Me and the Yellow-Eyed Monster

    A childhood treat – a book with me and my family and my friends in it.

Four People You’re Tagging With This Meme

Tags:

The Dancers at the Heart of Time

Posted on in Doctor Who, Memes.

When you see this post, quote from Doctor Who on your blog/journal.

Points at the top of the page, I have a quote from Doctor Who there all the time, but here’s another one:
“My theories appal you, my heresies outrage you, I never answer letters and you don’t like my tie.”

Anyway, The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords — A bulging set of homages to SF/Fantasy – Harry Potter/Wizard of Earthsea; Captain Scarlet; Peter Pan; Flash Gordon; Return of the Jedi.

Harold Saxon, PM seems more based on John Culshaw’s Tony Blair in Dead Ringers than the real thing, and the “Britain, Britain, Britain” opening to one of his speeches was highly reminiscent of Tom Baker’s voice overs for Little Britain.

All of which briefly makes it all seem like some sort of attempt to screw with the minds of the media studies/crossover/slash/post modernism/irony obessessed sectors of fandom. Which actually makes me like it slightly more.


The ninth Doctor said that he didn’t do domestic, but here the Master apparantly does domestic violence, which is terribly petty and human of him. Is this meant to be the point? Without the demi-god socierty of Time Lords the Doctor becomes greater, more God like, whilst the Master becomes less, more mortal? His final choice to die a mortal death rather then be chained like Loki might be a pointer in that direction.

Martha, she’ll be back, but maybe not for much of net year. But even if she leaves now for good, I disagree with the people who think that her character’s been hard done by. Her love for the Doctor, he total faith and trust in him, became the key to defeating the Master (without that trust being manipulated and betrayed) and she decides at the end that “it’s him, not her” and that she is more than good enough, and that somewhere there’s a stubbly paeds doctor who doesn’t yet know what’s going to hit him. It’s not the story arc that a lot of people wanted, but it works and it is a positive thing for Martha.

The Doctor is the loser here. He saves the world but loses his oldest friend/enemy. His companions re-evaluate their place in the lopsided relationship, but he doesn’t. Taking for granted that modern Doctor Who is ‘about’ the relationship between the Doctor and the companion(s) can next year show some sign of growth on the Doctor’s side?

A final observation: In many ways the John Nathan Turner years didn’t happen as far as Russell T Davies is concerned. Most of the references to the Master’s and Doctor’s past came from the Third Doctor era. The depiction of the Time Lords picks up in 60s and 70s aspects and avoids the 80s (not such a bad move). The returning villains (Autons, Daleks, Cybermen (sort of), Macra, The Master) all predate 1975. The way the Daleks and Cybermen are portrayed owes more to their early appearances than their later ones. The Doctor’s lost at least a few decades and probably a few hundred years if he’s ‘only’ 900-odd in the new series. Just how much of his history did the Time War wipe clean away?

Top 5…

Posted on in Dinosaurs, Memes.

…Dinosaurs

As tagged by . Post a comment with “top ten” or “top five” and I’ll give you a subject to base your list around.

  1. Stegosaurus

    Maybe because we start our names with the same three letters but I’ve always liked Steggy. One of the classic dinos that all the kids know, and one of the most fantastically strange looking creatures to ever walk on land.

    Stegosaurus

  2. Allosaurus

    A big mean predator, not as unbalanced to look at as T.rex but still big enough and toothy enough to give you nightmares.

  3. Brachiosaurus

    Of Lofty as we call him round our way. Not only is it one of the biggest dinos but it’s also unusual in having longer legs at the front than at the back (hence the name).

  4. Anklyosaurus

    Walking tank. My default user icon.

  5. Deinonychus

    Velociraptor : Deinonychus = Hobbit : Human

Making history

Posted on in Computer Games, Magazines, Memes, My Life, TV, Work, WWW.

As we’re all blogging for history, here’s a bit about my day.

Alarm went off at 7:00. Lettice got up. I didn’t. Whoops. Staggered out of bed at 8:00 and between checking e-mail, showering, eating breakfast and faffing about managed to get into work around about 9:45. No meetings this morning so not a problem. Check work e-mail and calendar and tell the project manager that I love her because she’s worked out that in our incredibly tight schedule for the site (www.visitlondon.com) redesign I actually have no tasks allocated to me between the end of November and the sometim in February so I can take some holiday after all. But then I groan as I realise that Friday is booked up with meetings from 10-12 and then 12:30-16:00. Ouch.

Spent most of the day working on a project for our kids’ site (www.kidslovelondon.com). Nothing terribly exciting – a bit of CSS, bit of XSLT, bit of JavaScript (enforcing my own recently written coding standards to avoid document.write and use appendChild() etc.). Minor panic regarding the half term edition of the kids’ newsletter but it got sent out on time and everyone seems very happy with the new style.

Went to lunch with Lettice – she’s working at VL for a few weeks. And after that it was time for today’s round of meetings about the redesign project. Time and money versus ambition. Same as every project I’ve ever worked on. We actually have a very good team (and soon to be a much bigger team, an ad will be appear in this week’s New Media Age for six positions within the web team at VL) and doing most of the work in house will cut down on some of the headaches.

Ended up working until 18:30 which makes up for the late start, though a fair chunk of the last hour was spent playing Bang! Howdy (www.banghowdy.com) whilst waiting for other people to go through the designs of the Christmas pages with me. We need to have some pages up very soon in order to cover the switching on of the Christmas Lights.

London Bridge was busy and I just missed the 18:39. I bought this week’s New Scientist (suckered in by the ‘what would happen to Earth if humans vanished cover story) and this month’s .net (a couple of articles that I can quote mine for a brainstorm in one of Friday’s endless meetings). Ran into Séverine and we caught the 18:51 to Tulse Hill and then walked up to West Norwood together.

Home, sausages for dinner, then watched CSI: Miami with Lettice before sitting down to write this.

So there you are, not my usual sort of post and probably not of any great historical interest.

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The letter 'L'.

Posted on in Memes.

This is how it works: Comment on this entry and I will give you a letter. Write ten words beginning with that letter in your blog, including an explanation what the word means to you and why, and then pass out letters to those who want to play along.

So gave me L

  1. Lettice
    Of course, the one and only , my wife. The source of much happiness, silliness and messiness.
  2. London
    My home for eight years and now my job. Huge, noisy, smelly, confusing, polluted, congested, over priced and badly run. Come to London and spend lost of money!
  3. Lock Forward
    My preferred position back when I played Rugby. Fine when I was at school as I was taller than most of my classmates but a bit tricker in the sixth form and at college when some people just kept on growing and I was relegated to being a roving utility forward (hated playing at prop, and flanker in today’s Rugby is just a back who pretends to be in the scrum). And yes, the locks are the ones who stick their hands between the prop’s legs – want to make something of that?
  4. Liberal
    I’m far too lazy to understand the nuances of political philosophy but being liberal puts one in the middle of the spectrum in Europe and in clear opposition to Bush at al. in the US. And that can’t be too bad a place to be can it?
  5. Links
    The web wouldn’t be the web without them. The implementation of inks in HTML/HTTP is primitive compared to most hypertext systems but the simplicity of a one way, stateless system of linking is what allowed the web to take off.
  6. Leather
    Sorry veggies. A good leather jacket can’t be beaten for looks and practicality. And then there’s skin tight shiny leather, mmmm…
  7. Laughter
    See also Lettice. I like laughing, who doesn’t?.
  8. Learning
    I never want to stop learning. Though unlike some people this doesn’t mean that I want to be a perpetual student. 😉
  9. Lead
    Actually most of my little friends aren’tr pure lead, and many have very little or no lead in them at all these days. The lead started to go out of toy soldiers over ten years ago when some US states brought laws in out of fear of lead poisoning. Never mind the termial kinetic energy poisoning from lead bullets…
  10. Looms
    See also Lettice. I don’t know much about looms but they seem to cause equal measures of joy and stress to my beloved.