I couldn’t be bothered to take my camera to last month’s Wendy House. But we did enjoy a few drinks beforehand under threat of extermination.
When did it become fashionable to start referring to the Union Jack as the Union Flag? Well, we probably all know when.
It was then this man appeared on our screen and, in the middle of a rant, his assistant helpfully snapped “That’s the Union Flag. It’s the Union Jack only when it’s flown at sea.”
It might have worked well in the heat of the moment, but it had one lasting problem – everyone believed it, even though it simply isn’t true. As the Flag Institute notes, this whole concept is a relatively new invention; and the flag, both on and off dry land has long been referred to as the Union Jack.
So stop arrogantly correcting me when I use the term Union Jack. I know you think you’re big and clever because you can parrot back a phrase you heard on the telly, but you’re not – go read an actual encyclopedia instead 😉 .
As I previously mentioned, I am now fully caught up with the latest adventures of Doctor Who.
I originally had a rant about the series finale, which I stand by though having talked to Rich last Tuesday I think he nailed it when he said it’s just generally a celebration, especially given it is the last series to be masterminded by Russell T Davis and you just have to talk it with a pinch of salt, sit back and enjoy it.
It’s been a good return for the show. I think the first few series really nailed it as they had consistently good episodes which I was less true of the later series though they never the less featured some very good episodes.
End of the day, it’s good to see we still produce good cult television. Only two months to the Christmas special, that’s something to look forward to in the holiday season at least.
I’m going to make a more general post about the show later but for now I want to get some thoughts of my chest. I’ve just polished off the 4th series of Doctor Who and it was, well, interesting.
I did enjoy the series. But not as much as the previous ones. It really felt like a new series and so the criticisms I have of the new series really came through in this one. I prefered the first few series of the revival because they tended, or at least felt like, they had more mini off world adventures. I know the show has always spent a lot of time on Earth but these days it feels like it’s too focused.
The problem with the revived show is that every week it’s the end of the world. There just isn’t some problem on a distant world The Doctor has to take on, he has to stop some mad invasion force from destroying the fabric of reality. Also, I think it is far too open and well known these days. There is massive news coverage of what is going on. The whole world knows that there are alien invasions and that The Doctor saves them, which I don’t think is a good thing, it kind of ruins the magic.
Also nobody dies. The problem with doing some huge world ending story lines is, it is supposed to end something. Fair enough if you have a skirmish with the Darleks or the Cybermen and then they later return, that’s fine. But when they are wiped out of existence and then come back, that is just bad storytelling.
Finally, the whole thing is just a bit cheesy. I mean, bringing everyone back for one final happy ending? Come on, it’s just awful. The Doctor has a companion for a series and then moves on. They don’t just keep getting pulled back again and again in some kind of sitcom style guest appearance, it just looks tacky.
So that is what I didn’t like. But then I guess that is to be expected with Doctor Who being a BBC One show which needs to score ratings. I suppose I can live with such flaws because, as I said, overall I have really enjoyed the new series, including series 4. And I now have something to look forward to at Christmas now.
As I said in the text message I sent, I feel Rich slightly oversold Human Nature.
It was a two part episode from the third series of the new Doctor Who and came highly recommended. Not that it wasn’t a good episode, it was very good indeed. I felt Blink was equally as good though. Still, perhaps it will take some time to see the real genius in it.
While I should probably be sleeping now, I am just polishing off the third series, ready to make a start on the forth series soon and then I will be all caught up and ready to discuss new episodes every Tuesday. Not that it is even on at the moment lol.
It’s not even 10am yet and I am awake and watching Doctor Who. I’m not like out of bed or anything, but I’m fully awake and able to blog and everything.
Personally, I don’t think this is a good thing. I’m getting far too old when I’m awake at 10am. You would think being awake so early would give me more time and yet, we’re half way through August and I’ve only just started on series 2 of Doctor Who. Summer is running out…
Short tags. My one victory of the night.
It’s been one of those days.
I got my new equipment delivered today in preparation for the podcast. The mic stands are, well, awful. They are way too big. Still I’m sure I can look beyond that if only Behringer had got back to me in terms of configuring my mixing deck so sound comes out. I haven’t got that far yet so I’m now sitting on lots and lots of very expensive equipment that I can’t get to work and we start recording the show in just over a week.
A-Soc. I had to redo the artwork for the membership cards because everyone prints different “standard size” business cards apparently. I don’t know if my artwork has sent because all my SMTP servers sent my email then told me it had rejected it. And I can’t order the hoodies because people aren’t answering their phones after they haven’t responded to my emails. I can’t test the A-Soc website locally because the MySQL server keeps rejecting my connections.
Finance. I’ve had £170 go missing out of my account which means I have had to cancel my card so now at some point I need to go home and get my new card and no doubt spend time on the phone activating it too as well as going through the fraud procedures.
Web. My web host isn’t returning my emails with regards to the fact they have lost my database. I still can’t commit all of my files to the SVN for House Metrics but the one victory I have had tonight is short tags. Having finally got everything running, anything without a full
Much like the way that Christian gatherings are mostly dominated by discussions of the latest episode of Neighbours, A-Soc meetings run along similar lines with Doctor Who. It’s massive, it’s conference-going (perhaps even in full custume) and it’s at the point where people brag about a friend of a friend who once new a guy who had a friend who did some paperwork for the show.
With that in mind, I had been meaning to catch up on my Doctor Who for ages and given my life is now without point nor purpose it seemed an excellent time to get caught up. It’s been quite a while since I’ve last watched it so I’ve started re-watching it from the start of the revival.
My initial critisism of the revival was that it’s too over dramatic – the world is in mortal danger every time. Which I think is true having re-watched the first season though not quite as much as I thought. It is certainly too over-dramatic though. The whole thing about The Doctor and Rose kissing, and looking into the heart of the TARDIS and such, it’s just a bit too Hollywood-ised. Still, I guess that is the modern world.
Christopher Eccleston made a fine Doctor. Hopefully David Tennant will be equally impressive.