Et In Arcadia Ego

One random reason why I'm glad with where I am, one random reason why I'm not.

Here - food shopping
Yes, folks, the novelty of going to the supermarket still hasn't worn off. Crumpets! Paninis! Lemon Curd! Jelly! I mean, there's no good reason why I haven't had these things more often - when my mum shops, she just doesn't get them. Indulging these obscure, forgotten treats is still a highlight of my week.

There- The A-Team

Random pick, but over Xmas the family got Sky TV, and I fell in love with the reruns. For one thing, almost every story I've ever written has been more or less A-Team with teen girls - the same jokey relationship, same safe world, same "weekly problem to solve" dilemma.


So there's the satisfaction of, more or less, watching my own show without the effort of having to actually write it. But more than this: you don't worry about the A-Team. Unless there's some "Blackadder goes Over the Top" twist ending I've yet to hear about, their invulnerability is endearing. Oh! For a show where you don't watch with your heart in your throat the whole time! No Galactica-esque constant grimness, or Doctor Who penchant for pulling out a sour ending when you least expect it. Yes, it's a great little show.

Every now and then, I'll be confronted with something - natural, human, usually cultural - and it's enough to make me just go "wow, this is what it's about". Little things sometimes, big things too - and I need to start writing them down, in no particular order, if for no other reason than to cheer me up on glum days. I want to see how many of them there are, to start with.

Randomly Great Things no. 1

Today I'm going to rhapsodise about the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, a universal tale of love, loss and how to cope when an unexplained force traps the entire population of New York in a nonsensical underground netherworld. No wonder it sounds so great on the Tube.

This is Genesis' most shamelessly pretentious piece of prog rock, lovingly spread out across four sides of weirdness. I's far from my favourite album of theirs, and te amount of sense it makes tends to be directly proportional to the amount you have smoked. Nevertheless, you can be sure of some things - Counting out Time is definitely about sex, The Lamia is definitely about sex, the Raven is definitely about castration, and Cocoon Cocoon is definitely about having a romantic heart to heart with a small fluffy mammal. That or "cuddle the porcupine" is a euphemism for sex.

No, I'm not pretending the Lamb is as deep as it thinks it is, or that anyone (Peter Gabriel included) has all the answers. But Riding the Scree and In the Rapids are definitely not about sex, and its the moment (for me at least) when the whole, daft thing explodes into sense.

The plot so far: Rael, a no good nasty street punk has now been trying to get out and back to New York for two disks (or three sides if you're a traditionalist), being subjected to all sorts of weird happenings and bad experiences along the way. Suddenly he is confronted with a door back home - but at the same time he sees his brother, John, drowning, and after a moment's thought he goes to rescue John. This in itself is a moving moment, especially as John refused to rescue him earlier.

So he dives into the water, and the magical door closes as inexplicably as it has appeared - and then he swims through these rapids and drags his brother out and onto the land. But when he looks, something has changed - "that's not John's face...it's mine. It's mine!"

For me, it says that in deciding to help and love others Rael, who was always an angry piece of work, has discovered how to help and love himself. But that's not the point. It's already a spine tingler of a moment - the place the album has been building to, the character discovering a sort of peace, things coming full circle, the crescendo of an alredy great song - but the production here just lifts it out of the water. The background music is almost silent on the first "it's mine", so you can hear his shock exactly - one of Peter Gabriel's greatest strengths as a singer is that cracked emotion he can bring to his voice. But the repetition of the word "mine" vanishes into this sound, which just shoots up and takes all the hairs on the back of my neck with it.

And I know that maybe the rest of it's pretentious, and makes no sense - but at this moment, everything is perfect, and I understand it perfectly.


The whole sequence is here, but if you're short on time skip straight to In the Rapids - you might have to put the volume up to catch the jangly guitars. Unfortunately, due to the web streaming, there might be a slight break - but hold your breath, it's well worth it. Don't bother to listen to the whole of It, I've always thought it was a very bad song.



SeeqPod - Playable Search


"Through it he can see the green grass of home, well not exactly; he can see Broadway.
His heart, now a little bristly, is shaken by a surge of joy and he starts to run, arms wide open, to the way out. At this precise point in time his ears pick up a voice screaming for help. Someone is struggling in the rapids below. It's John. He pauses for a moment remembering how his brother had abandoned him. Then the window begins to fade -- it's time for action.
He rushes to the cliff and scrambles down the rocks. It takes him a long time to get down to the water, trying to keep up with the current at the same time. As he nears the water's edge he sees John losing strength."

"He dives down into the cold water. At first he is thrown onto the rocks, and pulled under the water by a fast moving channel, which takes him right past John, down river."

"Rael manages to grab a rock, pull himself to the surface and catch his breath. As John is carried past, Rael throws himself in again and catches hold of his arm. He knocks John unconscious and then locking themselves together, he rides the rapids into the slow running water, where he can swim to safety.But as he hauls his brother's limp body onto the bank he lies him out and looks hopefully into his eyes for a sign of life. He staggers back in recoil, for staring at him with eyes wide open is not John's face -- but his own."

"Rael cannot look away from those eyes, mesmerized by his own image. In a quick movement, his consciousness darts from one face to the other, then back again, until his presence is no longer solidly contained in one or the other. In this fluid state he observes both bodies outlined in yellow and the surrounding scenery melting into a purple haze. With a sudden rush of energy up both spinal columns, their bodies, as well, finally dissolve into the haze. All this takes place without a single sunset, without a single bell ringing and without a single blossom falling from the sky. Yet it fills everything with its mysterious intoxicating presence. It's over to you."

In retrospect, my love of this moment may ultimately end up tainted by the fact it now strongly reminds me of a sound effect used in very similar circumstances in Caves of Androzani, which was itself inspired by a rock song - can't recall which, maybe Beatles? Which begs two questions: were Genesis inspired by the same source, and was Rael regenerating (have another look at that description above)?

In any case, anyone who wants to decipher the Lamb should really read this excellent site - or at least think about it: http://www.bloovis.com/music/lamb.html

In this post: the educational merits of Doctor Who; your humble narrator falls into peril with the College Chaiplancy; an adventure to Aldwych abandoned tube station, Strand Roman Baths and the Temple Church.


I can't remember who it was, but one of the many, many interesting people I've met here claimed there was nothing which spanned all three catagories: entertaining, educational and on television. I instantly countered, perhaps predictably with Doctor Who, yet I do believe this to be true.

Doctor Who was at the very start concieved as an educational show - the Doctor was originally accompanied by his granddaughter, Susan, and her two nosy schoolteachers whom he refused to let leave after they saw the inside of the TARDIS. Ian Chesterton, as well as occupying the role of chief Hero (the Doctor was too old, Barbara and Susan too female), was a science teacher - which meant that every other week he could interject "look, it's electromagnetics! This means..." and explain it for the audience. Barbara on the other hand was, being a history teacher, was handy in episodes in the past.

Before you dismiss them as walking exposition, Ian and Barbara were also great companions in their own right. And even though Doctor Who lost the educational edge very quickly, the bredth of issues and topics addressed across a 45 year old show leave you with a wealth of useful, random trivia -histories, places, people, even words (recursion, Grand Guignol, adumbrate and apostate being four which spring to mind). Why, even Just War made me feel more genuine interest and outrage at the German Occupation of Guernsey than ever before - and this is a place I've lived in for some 16 years!!



And so to today - that digression on fiction's hottest physics teacher has a purpose, never you fear. The Adventuress of Henrietta Street by Lawrence Miles has the Doctor helping out a coven-cum-brothel in Regency-era England, but brilliantly is presented as a novel of that era also. Letters, weird spellings, citing sources and surmises for events when no one was present. It's practically set at my university - Henrietta Street itself adjoins Covent Garden (I visit it more often than I should, because the road sign still excites me), and events take place up and down the Strand.

Did you know there was once a menagerie on the Strand? A zoo for posh people in a second floor apartment? More importantly, for today's events, did you know that the Temple the whole area refers to was once a genuine Knights Templar temple built around here? Temple walk, Temple place, Middle Temple, Temple tube station - even the Knight's Templar pub where Geeksoc meet. I'm reminded of one chapter of From Hell, when one of the characters takes another on a tour around London and strips past the layers and layers of past. I could stay here forever, because the mess of architecture and history is just so appealing.


It all started when my Myths lesson went missing. It's always at 11, 3rd basement, along to the left - but I arrived late, and none of the class were there. In its place, another very settled lecturer who seemed suprised indeed at the suggestion that he shouldn't be there. I half heartedly went looking for the class, but the Strand Campus comprises the Norfolk, Kings, Chesham, Philosophy buildings not mentioning the Classics wing, all of which have their own staircase and floor labelling system, linked up in an irrational manner known only to Escher. I had in fact just the day before discovered a passage directly from Classics to Film - a long, sickly lit corridor made up of tiny doors, winding staircases which lead nowhere and doors surely containing professors long-forgotten by the college who haven't left their offices since 1943 and have no idea the war is over. You could certainly starve to death and it would be at least fifteen months before anyone discovered the body.


To digress, that little voyage of discovery brought me to the College Chaiplancy Common room - "please enter, open to all" ominously written on the door. In any case, I took a peep - I've been longing to find a place in the college I can nap when I get exausted during the day. Then I spotted a poster on the wall - advertising for singers to sing mass on a Sunday morning. Brilliant! I thought - I've been longing to join a choir, but it seems my voice is just a bit too classical for the pop/rock groups, yet not classical enough for the serious groups. So I went in to take down the details, and that's when the trouble started.

Religious people are like tigers. I love tigers, I'd hate it if they went extinct. Tigers have a very important role to play in the world's ecosystem - they're a vital part of the way it all works. And individually, they're some of the most incredible things in the world. It's just...you don't want to end up alone in a group of more than five tigers under any circumstance, especially not on their own territroy.

And indeed I did feel I was being checked out by everyone - oooh, a new person, I wonder if she's edible? Inexplicably - probably because of my previous blog about Remonstrances - I suddenly got Cousin Jasper's advice about avoiding Anglo-Catholics pounding through my head.

Eventually, one of the group came and asked if they could help - and it turned out they were all genuinely very nice people. I was made the best hot chocolate in the universe - cream, sprinkles and everything - and I'm sure a mounting sense of discomfort when I realised I was trapped between a shelf of Vatican Discources and a pile of Bibles was more from my own prejudices than anything which actually happened. I'll probably find it again sometime, if I have a sour day. Will I sing in the choir? A better question is, will I be able to get to Holborn before 11 on a Sunday morning?


In any case, looking for my Myths seminar was a courageous but foolish idea - and while poking around for it, I ran into Spirita who was using her height to balance precariously at the top of a staircase and to put up a "revoke Peres' honorary doctorate" poster so high it couldn't be removed. Typically, she did not object to putting up posters against Kings regulations - but objected strongly to me pinching blu-tack from a nearby noticeboard to back up her own poster. With a little help from my umbrella, we stuck down the corners she couldn't reach.

We're on the eighth day of the Kings Occupation - and the occupiers have got all their demands met bar one. Kings are going to give Palestinians scholarships and send surplus equipment (to explain, Palestine just got its university blown up), organise funding events and open up their books to clear up allegations of involvement in the arms trade. But they won't revoke Shimon Peres' Doctorate, so the occupation continues. My views? My view is I still don't know enough about the scenario to judge, it still hasn't been explained to me adequately and impartially enough. They have my thoughts, if not my physical presence.

In any case, we got chatting in a stairwell about the most random things - Abba, Celine Dion, the Sphynx without a Secret and the house we're all going to get next year, which probably deserves a post all of its own. Along the way, I tried explaining my theory of auras - that when something repetitve happens in an area, it does affect the area in some way. This arose because we had both visited Bodmin Gaol, one of the most evil places I've ever been - it just had uncomfortable scratched into the walls, and that was before they decorated the ex-Victorian prison with grotesque mannequins of the dead inmates. Ellis Island Immigration Centre was another - as if the terror and expectation and the weariness of thousands upon thousand travellers had got absorbed by the building. Almost like a sense that it was holding it's breath, waiting to exhale all its stories. I feel the same way about churches and libraries, as if the respect and silence of everyone who has passed through has somehow left a mark on the places themselves.

A bit new age spirital - and Spirita offered some rational suggestions, which may have been correct - but in those two places in particular did give me the spooks on a level other than the rational. Certainly Ellis island, which was open and spacious, redecorated and wasn't so obviously unsettling as Bodmin Gaol, made me feel physically sick, bizzare and just disquieted in a way I couldn't define. I would strongly object to returning to the latter; the former, I would if only to get a handle on what worried me so much about it.

I'm not necessarily claiming I feel a so-called "psychic connection" to any of those places. To my mind, it would be pretensious - and it would suggest firmer beliefs in new age spiritality than I actually hold. I'm interested, and a percieved personal reaction to these places is one of the things which spurs this interest - but still not wholly convinced. One thing I have always thought curious is that places where genuinely terrible things have happened - I have visited Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and I've been in the courtyard of Kilmainham Gaol where the Easter Rising leaders were executed - the places you would expect any "psychic sympathy" to just be unbearable are empty, completely emotionally empty. They're like completely blank areas, as if the events there have just rubbed the land raw.

As I said above, this doesn't necessarily prove anything one way or another. Maybe it's all real, maybe it's in my head. Maybe I really am a powerful psychic, maybe there's no such thing. In any case, even though Spirita was twice as sceptical as I was about this whole idea, we decided to go and see if we could get into Aldwych Tube Station and see what the "psychic vibrations" left by an abandoned tube station would be. Along the way, we bumped into fellow Geek Caterpillar who joined our quest.


Fans of Lara Croft will recognise this as a location from Tomb Raider 3 - the fact as a functional station it is no more will explain a quibble I always had with this level, namely "why are there armed men, angry dogs and absolutely no civilians on that branch of the Underground?" I've enjoyed delving into the history - did you know the station opened on my birthday, 1907? But it was hardly ever used, so it was more cost effective to just shut it in 1994 than pay for a replacement lift. Somewhat frustrating, because a tube straight from Kings to Holborn would make the Maughan trip far more appealing - as it is, the walk is unpleasant and it's impossible to reach on a sensible tube line. Yet it's been useful in its own way - as an air raid shelter during the war for both humans and British Museum treasures, and a testing space for innovations on functional tube lines.

In any case, I've longed to have a look around there - actually, I really want to have the best goth disco in the universe down there, but I suspect the hire would be more than Geeksoc could afford. Spirita had had a peep a few days ago when there were builders, and indeed there were people there when we visited - a man had popped out for a cigarette.

We tried to gain entry as politely as possible, but he revealed that the police were using it as part of a training simulation so naturally we couldn't go in. The policeman also pointed out, fairly enough, that it was the tube station we saw in every tube-station movie - Atonement, Prince Caspian and V for Vendetta to name three - and that it just looked like every other tube station. Here's Aldwych Tube station in action in the infamous "Firestarter" video by Progidy:

Great video, by the way. Disturbing as hell, but still great.

Seeing the Tube on video wasn't exactly the point, but we thanked him. Looks like, for now, I'll have to make do with the photos on Subterranea Britannica - which do seem to have a certain sickly karmic something to them. I've always felt abandoned places do have an energy.

This disappointment didn't deter our adventure, however, and we went off to see the Roman Baths. They are located under the King's building, right next door to the entrance - but my love of Classics has always been overcome by my hatred of small, dark pokey alleyways. The idea seemed much safer in company, however, and in that particular London rain which makes everything grey and gorgeous, we went looking for Architectural Treasure no. 2.


The alley itself was thoroughly Dickensian, and in it's own Jack the Ripper way, quite beautiful - vents, ducts, windows and mess, in that uniquely London manner of making architctural chaos appealing. From the bottom, we could see the whole belly of the university, and it's crazy-paving layout. The back of the chapel is only held up by two very determined columns, and we walked under several very high tunnels which we pass through without thinking every day. Aptly enough, the Classics department is actually right on top of the Roman Baths...

...which were being redecorated or something - in any case, two builders fixing doors ensured that we couldn't actually see them. At this point I saw a dead mouse and almost hurled. I hope I never see a real human dead body, because even though my mind can objectively cope with the idea, in actual fact I always react to animal corpses with far less dignity than I would like.

At this point, you'd think we would be deterred by our double failing. Yet I started rhapsodising about London history, including my much-quoted trivia lovingly ripped off from Henrietta Street as mentioned above. Which reminded Spirita, when I came to the Knight's Templar, that someone had told her there really was a very old chapel about somewhere. So we trotted down to Temple Tube to ask the man there for directions, and he helpfully pointed us right.

Which was weird in its own right, because I take the crossroads from the Strand to Temple every day but never go any further - it's as if the world just stops there. So walking down this new road was a particular treat. If I had a massive wall-map of London, I'd ink in the roads I'd visited and make a point of seeking out those I hadn't. Because I'm sure all my activity would clump around one or two areas, when there's just so much to discover all over the place.

Luckily, at this point Caterpillar suddenly realised where we were heading and lead us through the most brilliant maze of buildings - imagine Hogwarts, Oxford and a set of church cloister gardens crunched together and rearranged. Temple Court Chambers, as I understand, is a little isolated village of barristers and bores in suits - and it occured to me that the three of us all looked like undesireable delinquents. There were pathways with iron fences and stone flagstones, a fountain, lines of trees, columned arcades - and finally, after feeling like I'd accidentaly wandered into Florence, we came to the Temple Church, built by the Knight's Templar as already noted above and as used in The Da Vinci Code, and responsible for the naming of the whole area.

And in keeping with the theme of the trip, the church was closed until later in the afternoon.

History was everywhere, and I longed to go examine all the Latin (we found a Gurney on a tombstone) and go explore more winding streets - but the group voted for lunch, and we went on another trek of quite a different kind in which my desire for a peking duck wrap but refusal to pay coffee shop prices (£5 to eat in?! seriously?), our ethical aversion to the evil of chain brands, my friends' vegitarianism and Caterpillar's various allergies/intolerances made agreement of any sort completely impossible. Indeed, the lunch quest took longer than the architecture one and is far too tedious to recount. Except that Tango new brand lemonade is worth trying.

And that's that. We met Calypso later, and then all of a sudden it was 6 in the evening and time for tea. But a very exciting day, all in all, and I forsee more Random London Architecture rambles in the future.

Living an ethical life is impossible. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

Today my mobile phone woke me up. I set it charging - electrical consumption - while I had a shower under a mix of cheap chemicals, and got dressed into clothes which, while not Primark or high brand, were not hand woven hemp either.

Yes, being ethically irresponsible is part of life - it's a sad truth that if you were to cut out all unethical consumption, life would be impossible. And that's before you take in the financial implications - shelling out for fair trade everything is quite pricy. I've been having one of those Locke days - "what the hell am I supposed to do?!" - because it doesn't matter how hard I try, I still feel dirty.

And even when I feel I am being good - what's the point? I don't know anyone else who is consciously cutting down on their internet/computer usage; I'm the only person in the kitchen to pay £1.50 extra for chemical-free washing up liquid, I refuse to learn to drive so I will never get a car - but what's the point in my denying all these little, irritating things to myself when I know there are millions out there who leave all their computers on overnight and own private jets? In other words, my sacrifices are instantly cancelled out by other's excesses, making the whole thing pointless. I could switch off my computer now and save electricity - but out my window are a thousand businesses who've left their whole skyscrapers lit up overnight.

I've been applying my personal motto to it, it's the only way I can focus my efforts. You didn't know I had a motto? But it's Latin and all - "decus intelligentia" - and it came to me halfway through Rob Roy. It means "Duty with Intelligence", or, "do what you must - as far as it is sensible". In the context of Rob Roy it means "once someone has stolen your cattle, burnt your house, raped your wife and shot your dog, you are no longer required to challenge him to honourable single combat. You go down, sink to his level and kick his teeth in." In a Doctor Who sense, it's Warriors of the Deep episode 4 "cling to your pacifistic beliefs as long as you can, but there's a point at which mercy no longer extends to genocidal Silurians, and it's this point at which you can gas them in good conscience. Also, Doctor, this point actually occurred 45 minutes earlier..."

And so on - any film which ends with the entire cast being killed for no good "honour and peace" related reason which doesn't actually produce any practical effect. You're just dead - as Guildenstern puts it, "dying is not romantic, and death is not a game which will soon be over...Death is not anything... death is not... It's the absence of presence, nothing more ... the endless time of never coming back ... a gap you can't see, and when the wind blows through it, it makes no sound...". Last Samuri is another - they die for their beliefs, and they do it nobly, but the net effect is they end up dead - which is what the villainous Americans wanted in the first place.

As you can see, this motto is a direct reaction against trash heroic movies, but it applies to real life too. Defend your religion - but don't start wars about it. Go and help people in trouble - unless the odds are overwhelmingly against you. Protest your cause - but don't cry if it doesn't help. Recognise the point at which your actions no longer make sense, and give it up, but until that point fight like hell.

So, to ethical shopping. You know all big companies screw someone, somewhere down the line; you simply have to assume good faith, until explicitly told otherwise. There are always alternatives. I boycott Nestle - no Nesquiks, but you can replace it with equivalent cereals like Coco Rocks. I strongly boycott Proctor and Gamble because they still do animal testing, and this hurts folks, because I have to cut out Head and Shoulders, Tampax and Pringles. There are other shampoos, though, and as much as I hate to say it, there are also other brands of crisps. And at the same time, I ask myself what the point is, because not even my animal-loving ex-vegetarian friends can be persuaded to give Pringles up. People will never live ethically when it directly conflicts with their own self interest.

Before you ask, they test their chemical products on animals, not the crisps, but buying the crisps is still supporting them instead of forcing them out of business and to rethink their methods.

This requires some willful ignorance - I haven't looked too hard at the methods of the companies I still support, mostly because I know that to be big and successful you have to be dirty somewhere. But if ever I discovered there was something untoward, then I would ditch them too. Few things make me angrier than bitches who still shop at Primark - Primark bags make me want to push people in front of trains. Because it's not even a case of "I won't ask questions" - they know, they all know. If you sat them down and asked them to shoot a puppy as part of their Primark subscription, they wouldn't do it; but they can do it because out of sight is out of mind.

There is a point where being ethical is just hard to live. But there are other clothes shops. How many of them are any better? Probably not by much. But knowing and doing it anyway is wrong on a basic level. It also reminds me of an argument I had with my mum about the Christmas at Olympia fair.

Mum - "I really want to go to that next year".
Me - "you'd like it, but we can't because the company which organises it also organises Britain's largest arms fair in Central London, and invites countries with appalling rights records to purchase "defensive" torture equipment"

I can't remember her precise response, but I know that that didn't convince her. I find myself asking, what isn't convincing about "going to this event genuinely allows this company to involve themselves in murder and destruction, and make profit off the suffering of others". Yet Clarion won't stop organising arms fairs, all that will happen is my mum will be denied the fun of an admittedly great event.

Nothing will change. Yet if we don't, who will? It's like I always say about protests - 99% of which are a waste of time. The point of a protest is to stand up and show your feelings, to say you were there because you know it's right to be so - not because you genuinely expect the villains to buckle under pressure. It won't make any difference in a global sense; I just don't want to have any part in the destruction of the enviroment or opression on those less fortunate.

And that's it. Ethical living cannot be done. Even when it can be, the number of people too ignorant and/or lazy will far outweigh any contribution you can make to the side of good. Nor is it worth you living in a cardboard box with clothes made out of banana skins. It's like reality. You can't escape from it - it's everywhere, and part of who you are. The world is built on it. But you can make yourself as small a part of it as possible, and that's what I'm asking this week.

Don't get to the point where it's stupid. Just do what you can. Buy the greenest, fairest, cleanest products available. Not because it makes the world a better place, not because it has any impact at all. But because it makes you a better person.

New blog layout! Do you like it? Very, very pretty.

Ignore the "unspecified"s though - it's meant to be the date, and I'm still working on getting it to work. In any case, I felt this was a bit more me, and I've updated the titles and tags too.

Today, the plan was to return to Camden - but it was raining. So I locked myself in the TV room and had a big ole Doctor Who marathon - Destiny of the Daleks, very very good, and Impossible Planet/Satan Pit, even better than I remembered it. I was going to go now and watch episode 2 of Edge of Destruction, but it gave me a terrifying nightmare a few days ago, so I don't really feel like it. This was exacerbated by Vapila's mobile phone accidentally ringing mine at some point past 1 in the morning - not only did it wake me up, it woke me up to the sounds of Davros screaming. Not condusive to peaceful sleep.

Also, I started up a blog and twitter for Aurinko, who was very excited about getting involved in the world wide web - once I'd assured him it wasn't a real web, as he gets quite frightened of spiders. But he hasn't posted anything yet, because it's past his bedtime now. Still, tomorrow morning I'm going to get my crayons out, so he may have art or something. He's a very talented bear. I'm thinking of getting him a Batman costume for his birthday. What do you think? Certainly if I ever get as far as graduation, I'll have to get him a matching gown. I'm also considering the dressing gown, to match mine, the Biggles costume and also trying to find him a top hat.

Also, and perhaps this is the most important thing, work out a day for his bearthday (see what I did there?) so I can have a proper party...

In this post: discussion of literary advice to university students, and a brief introduction to absinthe

A while back - indeed, my first post - was as intended to be entitled "Grand Remonstrances". Yes, fathers and concerned relatives throughout the ages always had a lot to say about one's behaviour at university - and I intended to use them as checklists and in light of my parent's own advice.

As it happened, by the time I had time to blog, I'd forgotten all their advice. True, I remember the sense of it - but dad had actually produced his as a numbered list which hit about 22. Highlight was number 2, boys, which I do recall verbatim: "People will tell you that boys are only after one thing. They're right"

My mum, as far as I recall, only had a single instruction which was "on no account go to Hampstead Heath at night". This term she has added "on no account go to a Gaza protest", and while if I felt strongly on either of these issues I wouldn't let this stand in my way, the fact is it would make them more unhappy for doing it than it makes me unhappy for not.

The term "grand remonstrance", of course, comes from Cousin Jasper in Brideshead Revisited. One of my chiefest disappointments in university is that no one has read this book. To me, it should be required reading. In any case, here is cousin Jasper's advice to Charles on his first week at Oxford:

"You're reading History? A perfectly respectable school. The very worst is English literature and the next worst is Modern Greats. You want either a first or a fourth. There is no value in anything between. Time spent on a good second is time thrown away. You should go to the best lectures Arkwright on Demosthenes for instance - irrespective of whether they are in your school or not...Clothes. Dress as you do in a country house. Never wear a tweed coat and flannel trousers - always a suit. And go to a London tailor; you get better cut and longer credit...Clubs. Join the Carlton now and the Grid at the beginning of your second year. If you want to run for the Union - and it's not a bad thing to do - make your reputation outside first, at the Canning or the Chatham, and begin by speaking on the paper...Keep clear of Boar's Hill...Don't treat dons like schoolmasters; treat them as you would the vicar at home...You'll find you spend half your second year shaking off the undesirable friends you made in your first...Beware of the Anglo-Catholics - they're all sodomites with unpleasant accents. In fact, steer clear of all the religious groups; they do nothing but harm...One last point. Change your rooms. I've seen many a man ruined through having ground-floor rooms in the front quad. People start dropping in. They leave their, gowns here and come and collect them before hall; you start giving them a sherry. Before you know where you are, you've opened a free bar for all the undesirables of the college..."

Meant to be funny, of course, but I do think of this now and then. Particularly "time spent on a good second is time thrown away", and also "you spend your second year getting rid of the friends you made in your first". Always liked that line, and again I think it does have the ring of truth - although to concerned first year friends reading, I genuinely don't think it's going to happen to me. I don't think I've met any Anglo-Catholics yet, in fact I only know atheists, my room is on the second floor and I am working on aquiring a suit. Today, for instance, I purchased a bow tie - true, it's shiney green and I intend to use it as a ribbon hair band, but it's the principle of the thing. Incidentally, pedants, I do realise that Jasper's actual Grand Remonstrance happens later in the book.

Slightly better - or in any case, more universal advice comes from Polonius to Laertes in Hamlet, and indeed, I recall thinking of this during my pa's own list as some of it was very similar?:

And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!

You'll note this scene obeys a universal rule - namely, whenever someone in Hamlet tells you they're going to be brief, you're in for the long haul.

They do agree on one point - which is, don't fall into decadence and excess. This only came to mind because last night I remembered a third Grand Remonstrance - that of Christian's father in Moulin Rouge.

In this post: a run down of last night's dream; a digression on Robert Holmes: hero of Who; another digression on Jason Foss, future bestselling author; corset shopping with Calypso; and bad news for the new Movie of Dorian Gray.

I wonder if dreams can come true?

Last night, it was me Anne and Jessie, and in a gloruiously mundane detail, we were sitting down in someone's lounge to watch some Doctor Who. Out of the stash of videos, Ribos Operation won - which warmed the cockles of my heart. It's more or less The Sting in space, but I love that episode, it's fantastic - good old Saint Holmes - because you actually genuinely end up caring for the extras. I cried, CRIED in the last episode. For the bad guys. Saint Holmes, incidentally, stands for Robert Holmes. You get so tired of people telling you he's a genius, you forget he really is a genius - he invented the Master, the Sontarans, the Valeyard; while he didn't invent it, he redefined Gallifrey as corrupt and sneaky, and is responsible for phrases like "Eye of Harmony", "Chancellery Guard", "Castellan", "Panopticon", "Prydonian" and "Matrix" which we all use like second nature nowadays. If that wasn't enough, he really knows how to write an episode - they're always rich in background detail (one of the things I loved about Ribos Operation was how real Ribos felt. Throwaway comments gave it an economy, religion, history - all backed up by the lovely set, of course), his extras are always interesting (a valuable skill for a Doctor Who writer; Moffat has this perhaps even better, making them loveable in a line or less e.g. "Proper Dave" and "Other Dave") and his plots, while often nothing new, are so well executed they become the ultimate in that story. As if to prove it, Caves of Androzani and Talons of Weng Chiang always battle it out for the top spot in Doctor Who polls, along with the indomitable Genesis of the Daleks (written by Someone Else).

For the second half of the dream, my mind kind of forgot that it was about "Anne and Jessie" - when I next found them, it was Lauren and Jessie - which obviously makes sense at the time, though now awake I feel guilty my subconscious mind has done what teachers have done for years. The part you will enjoy, however, was I was at a post-book launch party for my dad, Jason Foss - who's a soontobe famous author.

Now my dad isn't quite up to the standard of Saint Holmes yet. He's written, broadly speaking, airport novels - only nobody buys them, presumably on the basis that they're far too well written. In other words, good books, but crap airport novels. The first set - Shadow in the Corn (the New Age one), Byron's Shadow (the Greek one) , Lady in the Lake (The Arthurian one) and Shadesmoor (my memories of this are hazier) - are about Jeffrey Flint, archeologist come private detective. In other words, they're murder mysteries with a historical twist - but the characters are solid, the observations great, and a total absence of cliche. If that's your kind of thing, give them a look up - they can be got all over the internet, although ignore the nutter on Alibris trying to flog his Shadesmoor for £47. It's good, but not that good. Off the top of my head, Lady in the Lake is the one I recommend - but only because the twist regarding the sword is great; and perhaps it would be best to start with Shadow in the Corn, as it's first.

Then there's my two favourites - Blood and Sandles, which in broadly the same template as the former stories, is about a female archaeologist who becomes a historical consultant on a Hollywood epic, and unwitting private detective when there is attempted murder. Now, though I miss Jeffrey Flint - Maddy Crowe is nowhere near as adorable - the movie background obviously appeals to me even more than the historical one does. And the central idea is genius - after a botched assassination at a dinner party, not only has Maddy to work out the killer's identity, she needs to work out who he was trying to kill as well, which gives the whole thing a great paranoid atmosphere after one character after another becomes either suspect or victim. My other favourite, probably harder to aquire, is Islands that Never Were - a collection of short stories about the Channel Islands. They start in the stone age, with a mythic creation story; move towards the present day via Romans, Witches, Nazis and Fund Administrators, and then into the distant future, in a story that once again takes on a feeling of the mythic. They are all based in some sort of reality - i.e. There really are supposedly copies of Grande Albert and Petit Albert, Guernsey's most famous grimores, in the Guille Alles Library. Bits I really like: "Bring me the Head of Victor Hugo", about an assassin sent over Guernsey's most famous literary denzin (though naturally, soon to be overtaken by my pa...), "The Conquered" about a crashed Nazi pilot who is held prisoner in an abandoned mine during the Occupation, "Rendezvous", probably a ghost story but pretty regardless, "Colours" because of the sick twist, and the first story about the creation of the islands. Bits I don't like: the fact no one bought it, and therefore he will never actually write the sequel Islands in the Mist - we've never seen eye to eye on this, because if I had another book I wanted to write I'd sit down and put it on paper; whereas he doesn't bother, recognising in advance that no one will publish it. Shame, because I really want to read it, never mind anyone else.

Incidentally, Oscar Wilde says it is the first duty of a father to write stories for his children. And I suppose the "Emily and Alice" stories were that - Alice is my sister. They were great in their own way, aimed at the 8-year-old me. The plot was always broadly the same: Mum, who must represent the rational and safe world, was out or away, and we two plus Dad would get into some vaguely supernatural scrape: Aliens on Liberation day, kitchen antics on Pancake Day (and a sequel, I think with Christmas Puddings), and one about how we saved Christmas. Hmm, I really fancy digging those out again now...

He's just finished his new one, which is still a murder mystery, but the detective is a young boy and there's a supernatural twist. Being set where he grew up, it's also probably a bit more autobiographical than he lets on. I was particularly fond of that one, if for no other reason that his previous six books have got through his sisters, parents and wife, and that this one would be my turn for a dedication. No luck with publishers though.

I've been reading drafts, and I keep being asked how it could be better - the answer is, of course, it couldn't be. I'd sugarcoat any criticisms anyway - but the fact is, writing a good book is the last way to get published, as demonstrated by the amount of crud on the shelves. It's an impossible, frustrating industry. Currently, he's revamping the sci-fi murder mystery, which he wrote in the early 90s and in which he inadvertantly invented the internet. Is it going to be good? Of course. Is it going to be published? Watch this space.


In any case, this was the launch party - and there I was, in a fantastic outfit, mingling with stars I didn't recognise in a brilliantly decorated room like the inside of a gold jewellery box. So there you are, pa. Maybe it's a premonition.

If for no other reason, I was pleased about not dreaming From Hell, which I mentioned yesterday as Alan Moore does Jack the Ripper. It all got fantastically violent last night - every time there's a murder, of course, there's a few panels of gore, but there's time to catch your breath afterwards. The final one, however, went on, and on, and on, five pages, six pages in increasing detail. It was brilliantly effective in spelling out the horror of the situation, especially in contrast with how quickly the former ones were dealt with. It reminded me of a similar sequence in Watchmen, where page after page is...well, I won't spoil it. But you can actually HEAR the silence, and in a comic book that's pretty impressive.


What's happened since I last posted? The main important bits are that Calypso is a BAD INFLUENCE, and if a large amount of cash suddenly vanishes from my account (it'll hurt, but I can probably just about manage it) it's ALL HER FAULT for taking me corset shopping - this is the best collection of pictures which look not-too-whory:

http://www.fairygothmother.co.uk/corsets_with_straps.htm

Naturally, it's all about how you wear it - and there are indeed many ways to add corsetry to your image, without resembling a Victorian brothel ma'am; and during the sale, they've been reduced to ONLY £90 or so.

Hurts, doesn't it? I'm aware that we live in an age where unnecessary things are the only necessities, but I truly cannot justify getting one. They're still lovely to ogle, however (I was also very tempted by this Cylon Number 6 dress, but I don't think I could get away with "red dress" look, at least not in a group who knew me: http://www.fairygothmother.co.uk/ch-20.htm)

While talking Wilde, I couldn't help but think of his wife - who was heavily involved in a woman's group for Victorian costume reform. Every month, they'd put out a paper about women whose ribs had been crushed by tight corsets, or whose skirts had caused them to catch on fire or break bones when they were caught in the wind.

And while talking Wilde, I also got a bunch of white roses for my room. I'm pretending they look great.


Finally, talking Wilde - and parents or people with a sensitive disposition might want to look the other way for this bit - I came across a piece of news which made me shout lots of naughty words, very loud, in the middle of Oxford Street.

I've long been a little rattled by the new Dorian Gray movie on the way, particularly by the inadequate casting of Ben Barnes hearthrob as the titular hero. Granted, he's nice to look at - but his beauty is too 50s American Diner Boy. Nowhere near cruel enough. And I know the conceit is he looks innocent while he's rotten inside, but I mean cruelly good looking, gorgeous in a way that spites the rest of the world for being so dull compared. It should be otherworldly, not like any guy you could meet - no matter how lovely. In comparison, the hair colour change matters less to me. This has grated a little, but in the back of my mind I have always thought "maybe he'll be OK". But he seems like the dream compared to a new piece of information someone unwittingly spilled on Oxford Street.

Lord Henry Wotton. Colin Firth.

I'll pause for that to sink in, not to mention calm myself so I don't say something filthy. What infuriates me most is that I want to make this film, as I see it - heavy with decadance, overwhelmed with colours and experience, a bit like Marie Antoinette only with substance to back up the style - yet with such safe casting as Ben Barnes and Colin Firth, I know it's going to be a staid literary adaptation, not a well directed, edgy piece of intriguing cinema. The story is so detatched from contemporary morality and worldview, that to do it in an OTT, surreal way is the only way. Hyper-real, actually - Dorian's romance with Sybil doesn't work in real world terms. And I'd want to keep the "horrible Jew" line, which is naturally an inconcieveable way to speak for modern viewers; hence, you would have to immerse it in Victoriana. And when drugs, blood and sex got involved, it would be as lurid as a penny dreadful, and as corruptingly OTT as a Social Education video in which but picking up a spliff sends you incurably insane.

What I mean to say about Mr Firth is that you cannot have a dubious, dangerous part like Colin Firth played by someone your mother fancies. And I don't just mean my mother, I mean all mothers. Lord Henry has some great lines, but he's so much more than a quote machine a la Lord Goring, Lord Illingworth or Algy. All three of those are just dandy posers - Lord Goring in particular betrays his genuine depth of feeling for his friend. Lord Henry is more 3D - the pose is part of his personality, not just something to air at dinner parties.

Have a look at this gallery - while I'm getting used to Mr Barnes, Colin Firth's expression is the same smile I've seen him pull a thousand times:

http://benbarnesonline.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=205&pos=1. Those posters look like the crap as well - blue? Surely sepia...

Oliver Parker, director, certainly looks like he should know what he's doing - he made Importance of Being Earnest and Ideal Husband, both of which Friend 4 hated. I actually liked the former, though it's hardly a great pedigree.

It's not like I'm a change freak - it's quite an uncinematic book, and the climax rolls out in a whole chapter of Dorian thinking to himself. But naturally, I don't care who this Emily Wotton character is and while I maybe understand why she was felt necessary to give the second half of the book some structure, it does not nor can it come to any good. So to not "reveal the ending", the actress tells us Dorian finds her "somewhere she shouldn't". So what you mean is, she finds her way up into the attic at the end then? Presumably after he has genuinely fallen in love with her (she probably takes on an equivalent role to Hetty Merton) and has to do something unpleasant.

Why not at least have made it Gwendolyn, Harry's sister, whose children are not allowed to ride with her any more - she does at least feature in the book. Instead of this, presumed, daughter.

No - the only way to do this is like Marie Antoinette, the Sofia Coppola version. All sights and sounds and senses, with a traditional plot on a backburner. Oh! If only you could see the Dorian Gray I would make...

In this post: my most recent awesome dream; discussion of "new age thinking" and defence of religion in our society; going to Sceptics in the Pub

Dreams are just marvellous, aren't they?

This one was probably sparked off by reading From Hell - Alan Moore's Jack the Ripper novel, which was (so I'm told) turned into a complete hack job of a film, albeit one starring Johnny Depp - just before I went to bed.

It was about school - probably, Ladies College - though in the dream it was the Victorian era (thank you Mr Moore) and the place again resembled grandma's house. The whole thing took place in sickly, muted tones. In any case, in this dream I was two women - one in white, which was quite clearly me (proof of this later), and one in severe black who wasn't me. The woman in black had, as a student, accidentally got pregnant - and to spare herself the shame, had got a maid to hurry the child away and hide him in the Matrix.*

*lesson for uninitiated: the Matrix is made up of the memory of dead Timelords, kinda like the greatest data bank in the universe. But you can actually enter the Matrix, at which point things get very surreal - it's a dream country, governed by no logic but the strongest imagination in there. It didn't occur to me when I picked the comic up, but there's a Valeyard book called "Matrix" in which he becomes Jack the Ripper - oh the joys of the subconscious mind!

This, naturally, doesn't do the child much good - or rather, he grows up pretty interesting. Put a baby in a place where everything you imagine comes true, and the consequences will likely be intense. What I really wanted was to see Alex grow up - could he extend this ability to the real world? What actually happened was the dream jumped forward to the woman in black's death, when she was calling for her son before a room of people who had no idea.

At the same time, I was the woman in white - I had come back to visit the school 30 years after being there. I was having the double experience of seeing it as it had been and seeing it as it was now. Psychoanalysts might want to identify this with the serious sense of distaste I have for what my replacements are doing to my poor old school. There was something terrifying about the place, though - I've come to appreciate the house on which the dream based itself, but as a child it did scare me so perhaps the idea is stuck. I knew that I was going to see something unpleasant in the piano room, I'd known from childhood. And indeed, when I was there I saw myself, aged 11-or-so, come bounding in through the door - also wearing a white Victorian dress. And looking just like me, looking at me with a peculiar expression.

I seem to recall the term "blinovich limitation effect" being used, which somehow dilutes the "Peter Gabriel would write a song about this" effect. Anyway, that's the core of it. I had a wonderfully thereputic dream last night, but I don't think I'm going to talk about it.




Last night, we went to an arty party, Sceptics in the Pub - a friendly but rowdy group who meet up in pub basements, basically to debunk stuff. Students are meant to go to gatherings of bourgeoisie intelligentsia, right? In any case, it felt very much like those groups you hear about pre-Revolution, of well-to-do gents who meet up to talk about stuff.

They're not exactly my lot - at one point, they described themselves as organised scepticism - while I believe as long as you are happy, and as long as what you are doing does not harm either yourself or others, you should be able to do whatever you like, whereas this lot seem to be more focused towards wiping out mumbo jumbo of all descriptions.

I'm quite in touch with my spiritual side, actually - while a great deal of it is utter crap, nevertheless I do believe that thinking positively makes you positive, attribute it to "positive energies" or no. I'm a great fan of visualisation exercises - I don't believe for a second that merely by visualising things, they will come to pass. But by putting yourself in a spiritual state - that is to say, finding an area you feel safe, blocking out distractions, and focusing on your problem - your subconscious mind is bound to start thinking creatively. Or "psychically cleaning" an area - it might be bull, but if you're walking around thinking "this area is psychically clean" it's bound to have a positive effect on your thinking.

It's one of the reasons I'm a great fan of the Tarot. Whenever I have a serious problem, I genuinely consult the cards. I put myself into what believers would call a ritual state - that is to say, cosy clothes and a hot chocolate. The very process of focusing on my question and dealing out the cards gets my juices going. I think about the pictures and the meanings - the fuzzy nature of fortune telling means you can interpret the same card very widely. No, I do not believe the God of Mumbo Jumbo has answered my question. But it encourages me to calm down and think creatively. The Tarot card says my key problem in solving this is actually a lack of progression or risk. Well, is it? And if it isn't, maybe mulling it over will lead me to some other angle I haven't considered. Would I let someone else read my cards? Only for fun - because I believe the interpreting process to be genuinely helpful, not that they themselves contain mystical power from on high.

I also believe that places hold power - Ellis Island Immigration Centre, one of the nastiest places I've ever visited, had something just horrible emanating from the very walls. Even though I recognise the illogicality of it, I do believe that places have memories as much as people. I've started to wonder whether there's some deeper reason why my house and the Maughan Library unsettle me. And on the flipside, there are some places you go - particularly natural places or religious buildings - and they too seem to have power. One place which comes to mind is a waterfall in New Zealand - we went on a long walk on a muggy day, had to climb across a swing bridge, and venture up through rocks and mossy trees. The whole place was just magic - it's what religious scholars call a numinus (Latin: divine power), and it's basically a word which means "having a religious experience".

I might even investigate a new age religion properly, if I had the time, the staying power, and could work out which of my atheist friends and my Christian friends would be more alarmed. It's a question Iacomus asked me on the evening - would I rather people were living in a fantasy and happy or realistic and enlightened? I went for the former, naturally, and was probably the only person in the pub who would have.


In any case, I kept my mouth shut, and it was fantastic. A rowdy room of non-believers and intellectuals, and a single speaker from Boston speaking on "Women's Intuition and other Fairytales" - about think-yourself-happy scams, "the mommy instinct" and the damaging effect Oprah Winfrey has on the female psyche. Great fun stuff - from the notion that mothers "just know" what is best for their children, to retreading that whole indigo children thing. Which I always thought was crapola - all parents think their children are the most wonderful things in the world, and your little Timmy being a starchild from Witch Mountain is just one cut above Shona getting her Julian the lead role in the school play.

As noted before, there was an angle from which I disapproved - I like having these things in the world, so I can test them and come to a conclusion, and I don't think it's fair for a large group which hasn't tested it to mock, no matter how hilariously daft it all is. And I do in part believe some of it - think positively that you will get a porche, you might not actually get one; but at least you will be thinking positively. The chief argument I had with it was the idea that people would "put their creative energies" towards a goal and sit down and wait, instead of actually working for it. I doubt anyone would give up on their dream and wait for it to be presented to them - and the knowledge that they are going to achieve it through psychic means is an incredible boost of confidence. I know people who have been ill, and healed through the power of prayer. A sceptic's response would be "that's total B.S.", but I think that's unfair - even if you don't believe that God had a helping hand, the fact the patient believed in the prayers must be very powerful on a psychological level, even if you rule out a spiritual one. This isn't about whether there is/isn't a God - it's about whether religion and spirituality have a place in our world, a question to which I would say "emphatic yes". When used incorrectly, this sort of thing can start wars and cause pain - but that's the way of the world. Food is a necessity till it goes off, when it is fatal; electricity makes our lives possible, but still causes deaths; the concept of "freedom" has been responsible for all sorts of atrocities, yet we wouldn't live without it.

Thus so spirituality. The sceptic says, "when they pray for that patient and he dies anyway, they'll say it's part of God's plan - they've got an answer for everything!". To which I say, how much of a comfort is it to accept that a God, who you trust, has taken your friend for good reason - than to be told it was some unlucky gene, some freak occurance, or cruel accident. One may be right and the other wrong - but there's no denying that one is going to help you cope far more than the other. Religion and new-age-crap have a very powerful place in our society.

Yet the speech was still fun, well argued and informative, and the audience quick with banter and contributions. It should probably say something about Calypso that she asked a question.

And the afterparty was fun too - we hobnobbed, and met some people Iacomus told me were famous, not that I recognised any of them. Famous columnists and the like. One in particular you could tell was famous - the charisma smacked you from across the room. When the group of us got talking - well, Iacomus and Calypso were doing the talking really, I wasn't feeling very witty and charming yesterday evening - you could instantly tell why he was a celebrity and we weren't. Did he remind me of Dorian Gray? Or was it Paul McGann? The very fact I was comparing him to hot people who he didn't even vaguely resemble in the cold light of day means I probably had a crushette. Which was swiftly rectified when he offered to buy us a round, and when I said I was OK, he commented with the distinct implication I was way too young for alcohol.

Which was something of a bucket of cold water. I didn't correct him.

Who else? A member of the green party who had a great cat badge. A comedian who Iacomus was also very excited about, and who I also didn't recognise. A non-suicidal guy (running joke, don't ask) Spirita made friends with, whose friend is intending to open a prog bar, and is told he looks a bit like Peter Davison ("You don't" I replied on reflex, and then shut up for the next ten minutes hoping it hadn't sounded too cruel and dismissive). Iszi Lawrence, comidienne and podcaster, who also has the coolest hair in the universe.

Also, David Tennant's little brother. Probably. Well, he looked uncannily similar.

I will certainly go again next month.

Finally, parents, if you've heard about the "squat in Peckham" incident, I want to reiterate that I definitely wasn't there, it had nothing to do with me.

In this post: why superhero comics deserve to be studied

There's nothing worse than trying to write an essay when really, you want to be writing an essay on something else.

Essay I am writing: women in early Greek myth

Essay I want to be writing: why comic books are the modern myth.

Well they are. Just as the ancient Greeks could, out of the blue, decide "we need a new hero, lets invent a new nymph and have her cop it with Zeus", so Marvel can decide "What would it be like if Jean Gray was a guy" - and invent the New Exiles team to showcase "John Gray" instead. Want to find out what it'd be like if all the X-men were zombies? What about reading "Marvel Zombies"?

As a stickler for canon, I can barely comprehend the make it up as you go along attitude that comic books take. Not fond of established Batman continuity? Why don't you read the one where Bruce Wayne is in the police force, and Barbara Gordon is Batgirl? There's another alternate universe where little Bruce was adopted by the famille Kent early on in his life; and anotherone where Batman is an evil vampire who is eventually killed by Gordon and Alfred; and another one, where magic exists, the Batmage. My favourite discovery of the day is DC's Earth-D, which features a more ethnically pleasing selection of heroes, including a black Superman and Native American Green Arrow.

It's the combination of the experimental with the strangely pointless which always amuses me. I'd ask "who wakes up in the morning and things "I wonder what it would be like if Batman was actually a transexual in a wheelchair?*", but I suspect the answer would be "because it's really cool".

*I was joking when I wrote this, but it turns out there really is a wheelchair storyline...

But more to the point - the flexibility is exactly that of myth. Lets look at Catwoman:

"Batman #62 revealed that Catwoman (after a blow to the head jogged her memory) is an amnesiac flight attendant, who had turned to crime after suffering a prior blow to the head during a plane crash she survived

In the 1970s comics, a series of stories taking place on Earth-Two reveal that on that world, Selina reformed in the 1950s (after the events of Batman #69) and had married Bruce Wayne; soon afterwards, she gave birth to the couple's only child, Helena Wayne

The Brave and the Bold #197 reveals that she never actually had amnesia. It is revealed that Selina Kyle had been in an abusive marriage, and eventually decides to leave her husband.

Several stories in the 1970s featured Catwoman committing murder, something that neither the Earth-One nor Earth-Two versions of her would ever do; this version of Catwoman was assigned to the alternate world of Earth-B, an alternate Earth that included stories that couldn't be considered canonical on Earth-One or Earth-Two.
(sourced from Wikipedia)

So which is it? Amnesiac flight attendant, abused wife, muderess or Mrs Wayne? Some modern comics, naturally, have her as a prostitute dominatrix, but I believe that's been retconned too: she was only pretending!

And how is that any different from the arguments over whether Pandora had a box and a jar, and whether it contained blessings which she lost by opening it, or curses which she released? Just like Pandora, Catwoman is revisted by different generations, with different ideas about what is exceptable or interesting.

Here's something you probably don't know - Bruce Wayne's parents were killed by Joe Chill. Well I always thought he was a random guy in the street, and for me the power in the story always came by the cruel, unsolved randomness of it. Two separate traditions! The dedicated comic book fans - lets liken them to the people in the cities - who know Joe Chill did the deed. And then the story of Batman filters out into the provinces - to us, to the less dedicated - by which time the story has changed. Which makes the Joe Chill people the comic book equivalent of those who insist baby Jesus ended up in Cornwall.

When a character like Batman has been revised so many times, it's hard to pluck out a canonical truth. Comic book afficianados, naturally, do have the upper hand - but some of the general public will have discovered him in any of the films or any of the TV shows. The original Harvey Dent had acid thrown in his face by Moroni in a courtroom - but there's a whole new generation now convinced that the Joker had something to do with it, and as it's all fiction, nothing makes one version intrinsically more valid than another.

But conscious reinvention was known to the ancients too. For example, Medea is infamous for killing her own children. Actually, this was a completely new addition by Euripides in his play - Medea had never done that before or since. Several versions, she and the children escaped entirely. Yet say "Medea", and she's the one who killed her kids.

It's not just the developement of comics which are the same. Superman is Heracles - like a man, only better, and someone to live up to. The didactic value of ancient myth (i.e. don't marry your mother) is clearly reflected in early comics, where the bad guys get their comeuppance and good guys defeat them in a way the Doctor would be proud of. During the war, the superheroes were defending the side of right too

Yes sir, I could get way more than 2500 words out of that, with a bit of time and a lot of research.

Oh well. Back to Hesiod...

In this post: creepy going ons in Camden, gripes about academic essay writing and the inevitable Doctor Who connection to my latest piece of coursework.

The danger with clothes shopping is that my chief style icons are Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning from 70s Doctor Who - yes, a mix of miniskirts, fluff, ruffles and velvet would keep me going just fine. Indeed, the Doctor full stop - I've always thought his costumes were adorable.

This means there's always a very real danger with me coming back with one of the following items:

Yes, Camden really does have those fine cricketing jumpers - though luckily for my finances, I've only ever found them in blue, not red. More dangerous is the velvet jackets, which are all reduced to £5 currently. Yet having been sent to find trousers, I set out for the latter.

Epic fail. I found lots of yellow, but none striped - and they were all skinny fit jeans. I'm not a fan of jeans at the best of times - but skinny fit just betrays a little known fact, namely that my hips are massive. "Surely not!" I hear you say, and indeed - when compared to the worlds' largest woman they probably look quite comely. And it's not like I'm so worried I'm going to exercise more or eat less - it's just a genetic thing, nothing to lose sleep over. Yet drainpipe jeans really do advertise the fact for all to see. After an hour or so, I gave up and walked back towards the Tube, hopping in and out of shops just in case. No joy.


I stuck my head through one door, and was about to leave when the owner insisted I look properly. I was feeling too glum to argue, so I pretended to rifle through the hoodies. After a brief moment, he loudly declared "trousers!", and ushered me upstairs two floors with his female assistant into this massive room of the things. Which was spooky enough, except then this young lady asked me what I was looking for, and before I could speak my eyes settled on that dream item - the yellow and black striped trousers I'd been seeking all day.



When I finally found a fitting pair (just so you don't think I was being all female-neurotic about the trouser thing, these are actually 16s), I asked the girl honestly whether they made my hips look wide. She replied that stripes are slimming, and she was right - despite the tight fit they looked far better than anything else I'd tried all day.



At that point, I could barely refuse. The weirdness of the situation was too much. And just so you know my Brehaut genes are good for more than making drainpipes look unflattering, I haggled the shop owner down from £45 to a slightly more reasonable £33 (well, £35, but I ran out of coins and he spared me the difference). About £10 more than I intended to spend, but they were exactly what I wanted, and buying trousers isn't something I do very often - I hope these will last me a while.


So that was that. Now I'm back at home, feeling slightly less bereaved than I did yesterday and working hard on my essay: beguiling, trecherous females in Greek myth. I'm trying a new approach - the previous three, I started by working things out, and then investigated other scholarship. I got criticised all three times for not citing enought, which was doubly frustrating - I just want to write the essay, not write an essay about other people's essays; I want to explore my ideas. Oscar Wilde has a line I can't quite remember about historians quoting each other.

True, I haven't done the research in Greece myself - but surely I don't need a footnote to substantiate the claim that "buildings fall down because they are old"? And in all three cases, finding useful books in the Maughan was impossible, as detailed before, which makes it hardly my fault. In any case, avoiding plagarism is impossible - you've got to cite when you use someone else's idea, but what if you come up with the idea independantly? So this time, I am putting as few as of my own ideas as possible. Instead, I am going to repeat what other critics have said, and see if I get better marks.

Doctor Who connection of the day: Pandora's box is naturally a famous facet of Greek legend, but in the original myth it was actually a jar. Pandora's jar doesn't have quite the same ring. It did, however, remind me of Curse of Fenric - in which the Doctor finds Fenric, an "ancient evil" of chaos and destruction, trapped in a jar. And it's the maidenly Ace who opens it, and releases all the trouble. Coincidence? Well, Curse of Fenric is obsessed with runes, vampires and Viking mythology, so it wouldn't suprise me if the connection was entirely deliberate.

Hmmm...maybe I should put this in the essay for extra credit?

I have the most appaling news about Patrick McGoohan, and what stings worse is I was left to find it out from the AMC remake website.

http://blogs.amctv.com/the-prisoner/2009/01/patrick-mcgoohan-obituary.php

I just feel crushed. The Prisoner is among my favourite TV shows, and Number 6 has been my hero for the longest time. I've also been snapping up as much Danger Man as I could find, without shelling out for the ludicrously pricey boxed set.

Like everything I've ever obsessed over, it's left an indelible mark on my interests, ideas and sense of style - from the rainbow striped umbrella (no, not a Doctor Who reference), to the fact Unmutual is now my webname of choice. Of course, I've gone through fickle changes - Ninquelosse for my Middle Earth stuff, Paranoid Anna in the Flame phase, Five Dollar Shake in my crime movie year. But Unmutual has stuck, as expressing best what I want to say about myself and the world in general. The world of The Prisoner, not to mention No. 6 himself, has always been one of my key inspirations.

Someone on the Geeksoc forum has suggested this is only what they want us to think. It's a tempting theory. With the Prisoner remake airing very soon now, it has reminded me of a Doctor Who conspiracy - namely that there are only allowed to be a certain number of Doctors in the world at any one time. Jon Pertwee died a few days after the Paul McGann TV Movie; Patrick Troughton died at a sci-fi convention before he was due to appear in a panel with the newly-announced Sylvester McCoy. I must admit holding my breath and preparing for bad news the first week after the Matt Smith announcement. Perhaps there can only be one Number Six?

There's something unfair about life - it shouldn't be able to kill off people like the Doctor and Number 6. But it does. I realise I'm getting my reality and fiction mixed up again, but with characters like those, things get sufficiently iconic that the boundary just vanishes, and there is a point at which it passes over into a sense of genuine bereavement.

In any case, it completely cancels any hope I have of doing work this afternoon. I am going shopping, NOW.



I'm probably a lot less upset about this than people like close friends and family - but having a complete stranger distracted is a sort of triumph too. Be seeing you.

In this post: attending an exam; falling in love; getting my no. 1 Doctor Who novel

Greetings, everyone in Spaceport 7!

Very tricky thing, writing for a multiple audience. Oh! I have news for my family, my film fans, my Who fans, and I'm not sure where to start or two to write for first. Of course, I'm writing this for me - but I'm equally excited on every topic.

I got a new Dorian. Blackwells had 2 for the price of 1 on their Classic novels, and the Dorian they had was the really ugly one I've been putting off. I couldn't resist it for free, however, so I got it and a copy of the Aeneid. Need that for my exams. I was going to rely on the Maughan, but then...

Revised in the morning, then went hunting for the exam hall - in the middle of nowhere, as it turns out.

It was obvious where I was meant to be, by the massive cram of people sitting outside. I don't understand why everyone on the film studies course is so unfriendly, but they are - really uncommunicative and glum. I try chatting to someone, they're never interested. It could be me, true - but no other department seems to have a problem. And you'd think that having a shared interest, it would be easy.

It was at that moment I fell in love. He was across the road, wearing a top hat, sporting a black coat and black scarf, and smoking like he knew he was being watched. Refined beard too - no, not Masterly, too satanic for that. In actual fact, he was the spit of Lord Henry from the Dorian Gray graphic novel. Later, he put on sunglasses - small, round dark ones, as if the image couldn't get cooler. He was far too far away to accidentally bump into, and though I looked after the exam (he was, after all, pretty distinctive) i couldn't see him.

It is entirely possible that he was imaginary and/or fictional.

Anyway, the exam went well enough - talking about films is what I do best, though I'm badly out of practice at exam writing. I hope I expressed myself. Really, blog is the only medium long enough, versitile enough and editable to get my point across fully. And I've now spent at least 2 hours on this one. It turned out to be easier than I expected, which sucked because I still felt under prepared. I wasn't ready to tackle something this simple! So for question 1 I attempted to articulate my views and rationalise others' on Marie Antoinette - rambled on the relationship between art and history. And for question 2, I discussed the use of non-diegetic music (i.e. the soundtrack) in the movies we'd seen. Which was frustrating, because the selection of films had some of the most interesting uses of diegetic (i.e. Played in the world of the movie) music I'd ever seen. Hopefully things will improve, because I've yet to learn a talent I didn't already have. History A-level came particularly in useful for Question 1.

2 ours later I was free! I sorted my things and ran off into the London night, which is what I've been itching to do for the last three days. One of the things that zaps my spirit in Guernsey is the isolation. I wake up - middle of nowhere. The public transport is sparse, I can't drive, and even if I could there's nowhere to go. Believe it or not, London is a big place - which makes getting lost in it a particular joy. First stop - an Oxfam I'd sighted on the way. No "Lungbarrows", no Dorians either. But my eye rested on a slim eggshell blue book marked "Sebastian Melmoth". Which, if you'd been paying attention, was the cover name O.W. took on in France after his release from prison. Turns out it is a book of poetry, the first one dedicated to Oscar Wilde. Well that could not be resisted - until I noted it was £20, at which point I made an artistic judgement that the poem was not really very good. Pity, though, I'd have liked it for the collection - the author, Patrick Lloyd-Bedford, doesn't seem to have done much. By which I mean, I tried finding the text of the poem on the web and failed - surely the modern mark of true obscurity?

In any case - first stop, Forbidden Planet! I've been collecting Doctor Who: the Forgotten, a monthly American comic featuring all ten doctors. Tennant loses his memory in a museum dedicated to his exploits, and while he has flashbacks recovering it, Martha tries to work out who's controlling everything. It's the Master, by the way, it has to be the Master, which just makes it even more exciting. One of my chief fears over Christmas is that I'd miss the next issue - but there it was, Issue Four. This week it's Doctors 6 and 7, so I'm really excited. I had a hunt around the sales too - I got a very nice item which will for now remain nameless, and also a very reduced Battles in Time Dalek vs Cyberman special. Why? Because it was £2.99, but came with two packs of cards (worth £1.50 each) plus the TARDIS card case I've had my eye on for some time (worth £6.99), and what looks like a very cool game to play with them. Not to mention a die with Cybermen and Daleks on, which you just know is going to end up incorporated into my game. They're exclusive to that issue, and all shineys which still makes me childishly gleeful - the Daleks pack, which I have opened, has a uniform gold colour scheme which is dead kitch. The magazine has some glorious pop-art images of Daleks and Cybermen fighting each other, as well as timelines for both races (Terran Mean Time). Great, though it makes the mistake of omitting Resurrection of the Daleks, probably my favourite Dalek story.

It also brings me to my new favourite Battles in Time card: "Dalek Sucker attack"! True, "Dalek with Buzz-saw weapon" sounds more exciting, but look at the brilliance of this retro image. Genius! The Cybermen are nowhere near as fun, probably because they are nowhere as good as the Daleks and never will be.

I really want two of the new Doctor Who books - The Eyeless (by Lance Parkin, see below), and The Story of Martha (features the Master - how can I not?). I'm working out the most cost effective way to do this. Forbidden Planet, with their £2 off deal? Or Waterstones, which have 3 for two on Doctor Who books? Use up my gift tokens, or just wait for the library to get them? For now I resisted, but I am thinking about it...

I got into my favourite bookshops - no joy, but they were nice to look round. And I did some time travel - do you remember the staircase at Hamleys, decorated with Narnia scenes? Probably not, as you probably weren't there. This was a long time ago, the first time I remember being on Oxford Street. At the time it seemed massive - we had Godiva hot chocolates. At the time, I thought the decorated five-story staircase was marvellous - but believe it or not, it's still there. In other remarkable news, do you remember that brilliant DVD/CD shop on the outskirts of Soho we found between Kean and Cabaraet? Again, unlikely, though slightly less so because there were three of us there that time. Well I've gone searching for it a thousand times - and today, I rediscovered it. In a place I know I've already checked, more than once. In fact, it's exactly where I thought it was - which makes me wonder why I had such a hard time finding it...?

On my amble through the city, I somehow ended up in Leicester Square - I followed the sounds of screaming to the Seven Pounds premiere. Red carpet, limos, Gok Wan and Will Smith. None of which I saw up close - I did get incredibly close to someone very famous who I didn't recognise, but the girls surrounding me seemed to be excited. Also, Duffy I think. That's my movie news for the day - it was quite exciting, good atmosphere.

After that I hauled myself onto a bus and made for home.

I checked my mail - and it had come! All wrapped in lovely brown paper, like the best Christmas present ever. I've been wanting to read Just War since finding out it was set in Guernsey. Over time, things had conspired to change my opinion. I read Dying Days and Cold Fusion, and decided its author Lance Parkin was divine. But I'd also got sick and angry at the Doctor Who book range - too dark, too violent, too fanfic. I was already aware that Benny spends half the novel being tortured. Finally, and this really is the irony, I read Love and War, mistaking it for "the Guernsey one", and that book peeved me off so much I have barely touched the Seventh Doctor since.

Yet when a book you have been keeping an eye on for a year appears on Amazon for £10, the first time you've ever seen it below £30, you don't say no. If for no other reason that in two years time, you can flog it for more. Best of all, it's a really bashed up copy I've got. Digression: I read and adored Sands of Time on the BBC website, but it's no fun reading PDF files - not in the same way you love a book. So I ordered the cheapest copy I could find, and the note on amazon said "good as new". But I didn't really believe it - and that's the moral of this story, have faith in people's good nature. It's unblemished. The pages and spine are completely untouched. I wish it was a knackered copy, then I could in good conscience do what I intended to do with it - curl up in a corner and enjoy. It's so brand new that I feel like a vandal doing anything other than leaving it loved, but untouched on my shelf. End Digression.

What to say? I spent a long time ogling the cover - naturally, that's meant to be the Town Church at the bottom, and the arcade on the right - I definitely recognise that large grey building as a bank. But I'm sure the Town Church doesn't have a window on that side - indeed, the view of the church seems to be the one from the sea, with the High Street smacked on top. It's a bit like visiting film sets - you recognise it, but the proportions are all wrong somehow.

Of course, what all Doctor Who authors do is start with a little known idea and work from it. Like repainting Bad King John as a good guy for King's Demons, or the discovery that it was still classified why both the Americans and Russians halted their "drill into the Earth's core" projects inspiring Inferno. Just War is different - of course I know Guernsey and the Channel Islands were the only bits of Brit soil conquered by Germany. Jerry bags, the toll of rationing, rounding up and sending off the English folk - I know all of this. Doctor Who! In Guernsey! Not even Jersey, or Sark - but my Channel Island.

It also makes me wonder whether the Doctor's claim that "I always wondered what that explosion on March 1st was..." is based in a real unsolved mystery.

Being at Uni at the mo, I instantly went into nostalga-trip mode. Ma Dorcas begins by recounting the one and only bombing in Guernsey - the Germans mistook tomato trucks for munitions. The wait for the invasion. The Mayor making a speech in Smith Street, SMITH STREET! I mean, I got pretty damn excited when I stumbled across Henrietta Street last month (as in The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, another great Who novel) - but Smith Street in St Peter Port is actually somewhere I call home. And the Royal Hotel! Which was evidently still there when Mr Parkin wrote the book in 199-something, but has since been abandoned, burned then demolished and replaced with a big monstrosity. At times I wondered whether the author had ever actually visited the island - in particular, mentioning the granite cliffs.

By the time the plot begins, however, the Guernsey stuff is mostly over - one personal tragedy is that the TARDIS never actually lands there in the book - but thank goodness for it, because I feel I might have got touchy. I certainly frowned at one or two moments in the early part. The claim that a spy caught in Guernsey had been shot without trial - I'm not sure there were ever any summary execution. And though it was often threatened to punish several people for one person's crime, I'm not sure it ever came to actually shooting people. As for Wolff, I'm almost certain we never had a member of the SS on the island; and Benny would have been shipped off somewhere else. There is no big underground torture chamber - unless it was meant to be the Underground Hospital, which, though it's a nasty place to visit, as you might have guessed was a hospital. It seemed to me that the novel's Nazis were far, far too mean - the impression I always had was of young lads in the German army, enjoying the rather cushy placement they had, not a hotbed of dedicated sadists.

Though of course, when you live in the place where it happened and there are many people who still remember it, memories are, well, selective. I've a friend who did her history coursework on collaboration between Guernsey people and Germans, and she found that people were either still outspokenly critical or unwilling to talk about it. The myth of our friendly model occupation is no more wrong than Parkin's cruel and vicious one. Certainly Operation Todt, the slave workers from Europe, were a reality. Alderney even had it's own Prisoner of War camp. And I'd be interested if anyone could either confirm or correct my historical assumptions in the paragraph above.

In any case, as the Doctor would put it, "time is in a state of flux" - which covers any inaccuracies nicely. And Parkin chooses to go all the way with the darkness: ultimately the moral is not "the Nazis are as nice as we were", but "we were as evil as the Nazis". And while they're all pretty nasty pieces of work, they never turn pantomime - even the sadistic SS officer somehow remains believeable. I've noted this before, at some length, about Cold Fusion - but he has a brilliant touch with adult subjects, never cheapening them or making them seem gratuitous. He knows when to go into detail, and when to stay vague. It's this genius touch which is so sorely missing in so many other Doctor Who novels, which are peppered with sex! and bloodshed! with the enthusiasm of a teenager newly exposed to the joys of alcohol.

It's all typical New Adventures stuff - owls, and chess, and getting a companion naked within 30 pages - he just does it so well that I'm too busy enjoying it to roll my eyes. Let it not be forgotten that this is the guy who actually gets the Doctor laid, three times, without fandom going into total meltdown (and when you think how much trauma the Movie kiss caused, you'll appreciate how impressive it is). That's why he gets away with using what is probably regarded as the foulest word in the English language some chapters from the end.

And the Doctor is fantastic - this is the Seven I love! (best doctor ever, incidentally - always has been, always will be). Like the tits'n'gore mentioned above, there's nothing intrinsically different in his character. He's dark, mysterious and manipulative, just like a man getting shot in the guts will always be a man getting shot in the guts. It's just the way it is done here doesn't annoy me as much it does in pretty other Seventh Doctor book. Except Cold Fusion, in which Mr L.P. again demonstrates a genius for getting away with things which in other circumstances make me angry (in this case, double-crossing his previous self then knocking him out. I do sometimes wonder how I'd have reacted if Lance Parkin had sprung the "Death the Eternal demands I wipe out my previous self" thing, and whether he'd be able to treat that in some way it works). When it all, inevitably, starts going a bit "Season 21", with the Doctor running around like the only sane man in a crazy universe, with even his companions blowing things up and dealing death at every turn - you just want to sit him down and give him a hug.

The companions are interesting, if for no other reason than they're all futuristic. When confronted with 1940s ideas, it's never forgotten that all three come from an era far far advanced. I first met Roz and Chris in Cold Fusion, where they ahd to endure being less interesting than Seven, Five and the whole of his crowded TARDIS. Chris is fun, but reminds me of Fitz - womanizing, chirpy and cheeky. Not necessarily a bad thing, because I love Fitz - but I've yet to read a book where their characters diverge. This book gave me a lot more info about the both of them, particularly Roz' backstory. She reminded me very deeply of Hannah at times, in a complimentary way. I think it was her dismissive "good boy" to a fellow officer, when informing him that she was completely off limits. I don't know much about her, but I think her rather racist musings at the end make an interesting counterpoint to the book. Other moments too. Benny is as Benny always is - completely and utterly adorable.

Other things I'll remember later. The best fanwank award goes for the brilliant two-page ramble, as the Nazis remind Benny of the Daleks. Irony almost certainly intentional (although an internet review points out correctly - and this is another point for his subtlety on serious topics - neither the D-word, nor "Hitler" is ever used in the book). The bad fanwank award "and they were all wearing...". Yes, I sniggered at the time, but it jolted me out of the story.

No, I remember. Chris describing the Guernica painting as "a dairy in a transmat accident". And the Freudroids which made me laugh in Cold Fusion. There are some great, great little touches in here.

I did intend to, you know, save it and read it slowly. Well I sat down, and I've only just noticed that it's tomorrow - three minutes past 12 exactly. Which means I've been reading solid since, oooh, 8 or 9. It was a very good book. It's even revived my faith in the New Adventures - if for no other reason than I want to know more about the future Chris and Roz come from.

Incidentally, in the future Guernsey is Undertown Spaceport 7.


It's 1 in the am - oops, mybad. Well I'm having a day off tomorrow - some intense shopping, methinks. There are no lessons now until Monday, and while I have Latin homework...well, I've got a list this long of things to do. British Museum, Camden, Oxford Street...Sainsburies (yup, still subsisting on cereal)...

Finally, I have decided to become a subscriber to the Big Issue. Why not? If I'm happy to waste £1.50 on trading cards once a week, then why not waste it on a good cause once a month? One of the things I love about Big Issue vendors is that they are never pathetic. The one or two I pass regularly always have a smile, even if you're not buying. They never have that hopelessness that homeless people do. To cap it off, it's a good magazine - 50% arts and culture, which is naturally my thing; 10% London-y stuff, nice to know what's going on, and 40% hippy gaff. By "hippy gaff", I mean news about good causes; but also, as the Big Issue charity is all about people making something of their lives, there are lots of non-patronising uplifting articles about ways to improve yourself. Plus, the crossword is satisfyingly easy.

http://www.artwho9figurepainting.co.uk/harlequin%20dr%20who%20gallery.htm
Some of these are offensively good. I'm taking comfort that my 5 is better - we're about evens on 6. Their 7 is just sickeningly well done.

And I have just seen an urban fox (cue Wiley) out of the window. They have the most curious but beautiful bark I've ever heard.


Good morning, Undertown Spaceport 7!