Today has been appalling.
Things started off bad when I spent the entire night running around on Androzani Minor. This didn't upset me so much as you'd expect, so much as just make me cross. It's just such an obviously cruel subject for a dream. If I keep having distressing, first-person dreams as the Doctor, I'll go insane within a few months. Especially if I don't get out of season 21 soon (I did Planet of Fire a couple of days ago...)
I woke up at 8, for my annoying film studies lecture at 10 - why they can't arrange the early ones for Stamford Street sods with a 10 minute commute I don't know. Went down for breakfast, already feeling pretty rough. Had cereal. Warned Actimel that I was about to hurl up said cereal, then proceeded to do so. Off milk, early wakeup, lactose intolerance and morning sickness have all been suggested.
Still, I hauled myself off to my lecture, and felt guilty for the entire tube ride in the knowledge that I was a ticking time bomb of spew. All was well. I started reading Grave Matter - Six and Peri - under some duress. It's setting up to be an average, ordinary work of Doctor Who literature. I feel I should read it, but it's not going anywhere exciting. It's so far been defiantly average. The Sixth Doctor is quite nicely captured, however.
Film Studies was quite fun, because I got into an argument about whether or not "realism" is a genre. The argument was that realism is anti-genre, because of it's unconvential characters and plot structures. I was arguing (and I was right...) that unconventional characters become a cliche in themselves - the alcholic father, single mother, unemployed layabout are as much predictable archetypes as the Sherrif, Bandit and Hooker with the Heart of Gold. And films are marketed as realism too - so why is it not a genre?
This was followed by Myths, which remains fascinating if unengaging. I had a careful lunch of ciabatta and cheese, and thence locked myself in the Maughan intent on doing work. I hate the 10 o'clock wake up because it leaves me tired for the rest of the day. I managed a very small amount of Latin, but gave up and had a nap instead. I deliberately leave my mobile on in the Maughan Library, just because of the sheer hating joy it gives me when my obnoxious Doctor Who ringtones go off in there. Calypso more or less woke me up, with the blessedly LOUD strains of the Trial of a Timelord theme tune.
We hung around in Chapters cafe for a bit, and arrived five minutes past closing at So-High Soho, a shop we'd discovered earlier in the week where Calypso had spotted something nice. She also managed to get me into a corset, which I can report is a painful but also bizzarely comfortable experience. It certainly does wonders for your posture - you have to move gracefully, there's no other way to do it. I'm thinking of one for Speech Day.
We then set off to see Lysisisisisisisisistrata, the Kings Greek play, and turned up 10 minutes too late. At which point, going back to a cashpoint to pay for tickets was superfluous as then we'd be 20 minutes late, et al.
I'd already gone off on yet another Ripper-inspired rumble about how wonderful London architecture was, because that particular area is packed with Victorian brickwork and stab-bety dark alleyways, which have aesthetic merit if nothing else. It's a gorgeous place, and I'd already rhapsodised at some length about the joys of Butler's Wharf, which was very nearby.
Butler's Wharf is a set of old, turn of the century warehouses which have recently been renovated quite classily. Yes, I first went there because they filmed Resurrection of the Daleks there, but I like it on its own merits too. Very atmospheric, and I'd always wanted to visit it in twilight or after dark. I suppose I'm obsessing about Jack the Ripper at the moment. This probably stems from an unsubstatiated rumour involving the Valeyard, which in turn probably inspired me to pick up From Hell, the Alan Moore Ripper masterpiece, and there's a great scene in that where a character takes another on a coach tour of London pointing out the layers. Ever since I can't help but think as I walk around "this is the London of Jack, and Mortimer, and Oscar Wilde, and King Charles I, all the way back to the Romans". There's history all over the place. Even the fact they filmed Doctor Who there is another layer of meaning.
There's a word Calypso uses about London, which I can't remember, which begins with p, and means "a text which has been overwritten by lots of other texts". She's right.*
*My father reminds me the word is "palimpsest", and that "this reminds me of Jack the Ripper" isn't necessarily a great reason to walk down a dark alley...
So we set off to walk to it, and never more has the principle been better demonstrated. We passed through massive, iron arches covering fruit markets which must have been there as long as they had been built. We passed a church chiming, surrounded by offices. We saw the Golden Hind and the HMS Britannia. We found a fake-tree, glowing neon beside real trees. We found some crazy modern architecture which Calypso determined was actually meant to represent a pot of bubble tea, pearl of tapioca and curly straw. This place never ceases to be beautiful.
Butlers Wharf was less exciting by night than I had anticipated, but I always love being there. It's a long, windy street with bridges joining the high windows, where dockworkers used to transport merchandise inland. We found a fountain entitled "Waterfall", which we decided was an blank excuse for seven, sculpted, naked women, with no nobler artistic merit. The whole experience was decidedly steampunk.
(PS, when I said the Doctor rugby tackles a Dalek out of the window...it's too late for me to actually post a photo, but this website has lots of screencaps including one of him after giving it a good shove.)
I had forgotten Tower Bridge was in this area, but the instant I saw it I had a mad crazy desire to walk across it - just to see what would happen. Because it was dark, because I had never done it before. Because it was there. I felt a little guilty about dragging Calypso across, with my ulterior motive already firmly in mind, as no one really deserves to have to deal with my curious neuroses - and as it turns out, I was as subtle as bagpipes, as she evidently worked it out within minutes, which made a lack of honesty from the start even worse. Yes, it's the site of one of Lord M's disasters. Perhaps, ultimately, his most defining disaster. One day I'll tell the story in full. Today, however, I'll leave it as "something bad".
I've spent about three years obsessively attempting to capture it all on paper, and then a few months ago I evidently succeeded. I haven't felt tempted to draw the scene again since: I consider the matter closed. So this was a final piece of catharsis. And it didn't matter that it wasn't built even remotely at the right time isn't the point, nor that the east footpath was closed and we could only approach from the west, nor that the sun was still going to rise in the wrong direction contrary to what I had written. Standing there did feel weird - as weird as Butler's Wharf. You've got a twin impression of alienation and familiarity - you've never been there before yet you recognise it so well. And then the weirdest things are different - things are out of proportion in the weirdest ways. But the blackness of the water was just right, as was the approach through the abandoned warehouses and dockland. Especially considering that during the regency, all that ambient London light would have been absent. We stayed a long time there, as the whole experience was quite moving - even discounting the fictional angst angle.
We went down off the bridge and had a look from lower down - the north end of the bridge has a series of steps and slopes beneath it. We attempted to find a way down, to no luck - which was a shame because there was something very atmospheric and creepy with this area in particular, in what I can only describe again as "Jack the Ripperly" - all alleyways, angles and gaslight. I've never felt comfortable with dark, inland water - though I'm not sure whether it's something I've always had, or just more recently. There was something tragic, sinister and very quiet in those massive iron girders, just the sense of something hidden beneath the bridge itself. And on coming back up, we discovered via a handy sign that this particularly emotive piece of architecture was where bodies fallen from the bridge would be fished out, and be stored in a morgue on that very site.
I slumped on the grate. It didn't suprise me - I'd already been struck standing under there by the image of a body washing up on the slope, and I suddenly realised that I'd never established whether this fictional corpse was found or not. "I bet Lord M's reeling", Calypso commented - to which my only response was "I'm reeling"!
Just as we were leaving, I took one last look over the edge, and to be honest, felt a bit sick - although whether that was concience, vertigo or just the cereal resurfacing, I couldn't say. A man passed on a bicycle and told me not to jump. In jest, I'm sure, but under the circumstances it was an interesting comment to make. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to kiss him or slap him.
So as evenings went, totally magical. Having not known what to expect, I took the bridge experience better than expected - the sense of walking across a place with such history, albeit a totally fictional one, was invigorating and I feel better for having done it. So the end of the day circles around to Androzani Minor again, because I walking across that bridge was something I didn't really think I'd ever do and emerge sane, and I felt extatic on reaching the other side. I am going to have to do it again, in appalling and dangerous weather, to get a proper feel for it. I'd also like to sit there and watch the sun rise. Just to establish, once and for all, which direction...
Things started off bad when I spent the entire night running around on Androzani Minor. This didn't upset me so much as you'd expect, so much as just make me cross. It's just such an obviously cruel subject for a dream. If I keep having distressing, first-person dreams as the Doctor, I'll go insane within a few months. Especially if I don't get out of season 21 soon (I did Planet of Fire a couple of days ago...)
I woke up at 8, for my annoying film studies lecture at 10 - why they can't arrange the early ones for Stamford Street sods with a 10 minute commute I don't know. Went down for breakfast, already feeling pretty rough. Had cereal. Warned Actimel that I was about to hurl up said cereal, then proceeded to do so. Off milk, early wakeup, lactose intolerance and morning sickness have all been suggested.
Still, I hauled myself off to my lecture, and felt guilty for the entire tube ride in the knowledge that I was a ticking time bomb of spew. All was well. I started reading Grave Matter - Six and Peri - under some duress. It's setting up to be an average, ordinary work of Doctor Who literature. I feel I should read it, but it's not going anywhere exciting. It's so far been defiantly average. The Sixth Doctor is quite nicely captured, however.
Film Studies was quite fun, because I got into an argument about whether or not "realism" is a genre. The argument was that realism is anti-genre, because of it's unconvential characters and plot structures. I was arguing (and I was right...) that unconventional characters become a cliche in themselves - the alcholic father, single mother, unemployed layabout are as much predictable archetypes as the Sherrif, Bandit and Hooker with the Heart of Gold. And films are marketed as realism too - so why is it not a genre?
This was followed by Myths, which remains fascinating if unengaging. I had a careful lunch of ciabatta and cheese, and thence locked myself in the Maughan intent on doing work. I hate the 10 o'clock wake up because it leaves me tired for the rest of the day. I managed a very small amount of Latin, but gave up and had a nap instead. I deliberately leave my mobile on in the Maughan Library, just because of the sheer hating joy it gives me when my obnoxious Doctor Who ringtones go off in there. Calypso more or less woke me up, with the blessedly LOUD strains of the Trial of a Timelord theme tune.
We hung around in Chapters cafe for a bit, and arrived five minutes past closing at So-High Soho, a shop we'd discovered earlier in the week where Calypso had spotted something nice. She also managed to get me into a corset, which I can report is a painful but also bizzarely comfortable experience. It certainly does wonders for your posture - you have to move gracefully, there's no other way to do it. I'm thinking of one for Speech Day.
We then set off to see Lysisisisisisisisistrata, the Kings Greek play, and turned up 10 minutes too late. At which point, going back to a cashpoint to pay for tickets was superfluous as then we'd be 20 minutes late, et al.
I'd already gone off on yet another Ripper-inspired rumble about how wonderful London architecture was, because that particular area is packed with Victorian brickwork and stab-bety dark alleyways, which have aesthetic merit if nothing else. It's a gorgeous place, and I'd already rhapsodised at some length about the joys of Butler's Wharf, which was very nearby.
Butler's Wharf is a set of old, turn of the century warehouses which have recently been renovated quite classily. Yes, I first went there because they filmed Resurrection of the Daleks there, but I like it on its own merits too. Very atmospheric, and I'd always wanted to visit it in twilight or after dark. I suppose I'm obsessing about Jack the Ripper at the moment. This probably stems from an unsubstatiated rumour involving the Valeyard, which in turn probably inspired me to pick up From Hell, the Alan Moore Ripper masterpiece, and there's a great scene in that where a character takes another on a coach tour of London pointing out the layers. Ever since I can't help but think as I walk around "this is the London of Jack, and Mortimer, and Oscar Wilde, and King Charles I, all the way back to the Romans". There's history all over the place. Even the fact they filmed Doctor Who there is another layer of meaning.
There's a word Calypso uses about London, which I can't remember, which begins with p, and means "a text which has been overwritten by lots of other texts". She's right.*
*My father reminds me the word is "palimpsest", and that "this reminds me of Jack the Ripper" isn't necessarily a great reason to walk down a dark alley...
So we set off to walk to it, and never more has the principle been better demonstrated. We passed through massive, iron arches covering fruit markets which must have been there as long as they had been built. We passed a church chiming, surrounded by offices. We saw the Golden Hind and the HMS Britannia. We found a fake-tree, glowing neon beside real trees. We found some crazy modern architecture which Calypso determined was actually meant to represent a pot of bubble tea, pearl of tapioca and curly straw. This place never ceases to be beautiful.
Butlers Wharf was less exciting by night than I had anticipated, but I always love being there. It's a long, windy street with bridges joining the high windows, where dockworkers used to transport merchandise inland. We found a fountain entitled "Waterfall", which we decided was an blank excuse for seven, sculpted, naked women, with no nobler artistic merit. The whole experience was decidedly steampunk.
(PS, when I said the Doctor rugby tackles a Dalek out of the window...it's too late for me to actually post a photo, but this website has lots of screencaps including one of him after giving it a good shove.)
I had forgotten Tower Bridge was in this area, but the instant I saw it I had a mad crazy desire to walk across it - just to see what would happen. Because it was dark, because I had never done it before. Because it was there. I felt a little guilty about dragging Calypso across, with my ulterior motive already firmly in mind, as no one really deserves to have to deal with my curious neuroses - and as it turns out, I was as subtle as bagpipes, as she evidently worked it out within minutes, which made a lack of honesty from the start even worse. Yes, it's the site of one of Lord M's disasters. Perhaps, ultimately, his most defining disaster. One day I'll tell the story in full. Today, however, I'll leave it as "something bad".
I've spent about three years obsessively attempting to capture it all on paper, and then a few months ago I evidently succeeded. I haven't felt tempted to draw the scene again since: I consider the matter closed. So this was a final piece of catharsis. And it didn't matter that it wasn't built even remotely at the right time isn't the point, nor that the east footpath was closed and we could only approach from the west, nor that the sun was still going to rise in the wrong direction contrary to what I had written. Standing there did feel weird - as weird as Butler's Wharf. You've got a twin impression of alienation and familiarity - you've never been there before yet you recognise it so well. And then the weirdest things are different - things are out of proportion in the weirdest ways. But the blackness of the water was just right, as was the approach through the abandoned warehouses and dockland. Especially considering that during the regency, all that ambient London light would have been absent. We stayed a long time there, as the whole experience was quite moving - even discounting the fictional angst angle.
We went down off the bridge and had a look from lower down - the north end of the bridge has a series of steps and slopes beneath it. We attempted to find a way down, to no luck - which was a shame because there was something very atmospheric and creepy with this area in particular, in what I can only describe again as "Jack the Ripperly" - all alleyways, angles and gaslight. I've never felt comfortable with dark, inland water - though I'm not sure whether it's something I've always had, or just more recently. There was something tragic, sinister and very quiet in those massive iron girders, just the sense of something hidden beneath the bridge itself. And on coming back up, we discovered via a handy sign that this particularly emotive piece of architecture was where bodies fallen from the bridge would be fished out, and be stored in a morgue on that very site.
I slumped on the grate. It didn't suprise me - I'd already been struck standing under there by the image of a body washing up on the slope, and I suddenly realised that I'd never established whether this fictional corpse was found or not. "I bet Lord M's reeling", Calypso commented - to which my only response was "I'm reeling"!
Just as we were leaving, I took one last look over the edge, and to be honest, felt a bit sick - although whether that was concience, vertigo or just the cereal resurfacing, I couldn't say. A man passed on a bicycle and told me not to jump. In jest, I'm sure, but under the circumstances it was an interesting comment to make. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to kiss him or slap him.
So as evenings went, totally magical. Having not known what to expect, I took the bridge experience better than expected - the sense of walking across a place with such history, albeit a totally fictional one, was invigorating and I feel better for having done it. So the end of the day circles around to Androzani Minor again, because I walking across that bridge was something I didn't really think I'd ever do and emerge sane, and I felt extatic on reaching the other side. I am going to have to do it again, in appalling and dangerous weather, to get a proper feel for it. I'd also like to sit there and watch the sun rise. Just to establish, once and for all, which direction...
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