Et In Arcadia Ego

1. Yesterday was the medieval festival at the castle.

I got my Tarot cards read. Retrospectively, admitting I had only once had my cards read before was a little disingenuous considering I am a skilled amateur and read for myself all the time. But the point of the exercise was to watch someone else's Tarot reading style, and I wanted as ordinary an experience as possible - or maybe I just like a good lie, to get it out of my system.

I was the six of coins - from which she established that I had a "big creative project under way". Always accurate, that one...but I was also worried about my financial situation. Perhaps I just had "artistic bohemian" on my forehead. Apparently, it's a bad time to start a relationship - which is a shame, my reader commented, considering an important King of Cups in my life. My current crossing influence is the Wheel of Fortune, which she translated as: "something big and surprising is going to happen, you don't know what it is, and you can't do anything about it".

If that isn't a Barnum statement, then I don't know what is...

I would describe my reading as very accurate, considering the day before I started on The Novel I Intended To Finish with the explict aim of publication. This makes sense of all the creativity and financial fears, but of course gives no clue as to why my next three months are going to be horrible. And I'm interested by the way something else seems to be intersecting with the things I already know. Temperance will give me a hand through the tough times. Irritatingly, later in the day I did consult my pa about my novel just as she had predicted, and I've been wondering ever since whether the event was FATED IN THE STARS, a coincidence, or in someway suggested by the reading.

Friend 4 got envy, support, and a veritable armory of of swords. Despite between us getting what I regard as the scariest cards in the pack - the Three of Swords, and my personal bete noire, the Nine of Swords - it was also quite fun. Friend 4 commented on how easily those in front of us in the queue would offer information about their personal lives in response to the cards. Friend 4 tends to see Tarot as very manipulative. On balance, she is almost certainly right, but that's not to say that some morally good Tarot readers can have a beneficial effect on their customers by providing a listening point for their grievances. Sometimes, just talking things out can help. But even I must admit, it was bizzare to hear these people discussing their financial situation and plans to quit their jobs with a total stranger. I tried to stay coy, and I noticed Friend 4 was almost totally silent. I feel like I got less out of the reading because of it.

In terms of technique, I admired how well she drew the reading together - something I have yet to totally master. It was a lovely spread. But she had a very traditional view of the court cards, with the Kings as men and the Queens as women, that I couldn't quite stomach. I prefer it if the court cards are not necessarily people.

2. And...

The highlight was getting an adorably guess-what-ish scar from the Casualties Union, a charity which trains people in depicting realistic wounds for, i.e., training first aiders. I'd join like a shot, but their grades involve acting as well as makeup - and frankly, adding "sucking chest wound" to my CV isn't a life aspiration...

The scar makeup is a see-through glue that contracts, pulling the skin downwards and creating a very impressive gash effect. I was the happiest little victim in the world, and thus totally deserved what happened next: an allergic reaction to the glue that blossomed into two huge red scabby rashes. I'm more amused than cheesed off - I've never had an allergic reaction before, and I can hardly complain. I still get a cute scar, and all I've got is the fun of having one for longer. This assumes I'm not permenantly scarred - I presume the novelty would quickly wear off. I've a feeling being reminded of Blake every time I looked in the mirror would be a shortlived entertainment.

3. Music history

When I was in Italy, the music channels kept playing the big hit "In Italia" - a very annoying song. Rap in "foreign" is more annoying, and more hilarious, than rap in a language you understand. On redisovering it on youtube, I actually rather like it. And having looked up a translation, I think his anger is being directed at Italian stereotypes. I also rather enjoyed "Do you speak English?". It's a bit offensive, but it's always fun watching your country get reviewed by a rather witty gent ("in England I would have won an MTV award for sure")

4. Films

My filmwatching has been very shoddy recently. Before France, I watched the Asylum version of Sherlock Holmes - starring Ianto, a kraken, a dinosaur and a "cyber man". Awful. I rewatched real SH, and Galaxy Quest. The last real film I've seen is Remains of the Day, a soul-destroyingly tragic Merchant Ivory drama. Based on a book, which prompted one of my least favourite comments from mama: "It was a better book".

The book was a better book - that is all. The film was a far superior film. End of debate.

Now, you can argue that the themes intended by the novelist are better revealed in one medium or another, and you can enjoy one more than the other. But at the end of the day, books are stories, and they work in any medium. I personally believe every book has the potential to be a great film, and vice versa. It's not a popular stance, but I defy you to prove me wrong. It's just typical of the way some media are held as "more worthy" than others.

Ignoring the pointless quibblings on accuracy, if you have a problem with a book being filmed just don't bloody watch it. I didn't bother with the Dorian movie. No point.

5. Other news
Do you remember Commuteocalypse? My long-rumoured Lovecraftian London Underground board game that I've been chatting about for two years? After 600 days of hot air, and 30 minutes of actual effort, I've completed the first 25 cards - tommorrow I shall do a second 25, and it will be ready for testing by the weekend. It is going to be excellent.

Finally, does everyone like - or can everyone live with - my new blog layout? Trying to fix the ever-growing line of bugs in the old one was getting tiresome. The creators just stopped supporting it, so here's something I'm growing to like in replacement. Similar enough, but actually functioning and with a search bar that works. Downsides? Still no dates. Still no archive. That doesn't bother me, because I can access both from the blogger dashboard - but I know it bothers you. The internet is too slow right now to even contemplate doing a task as web-frenetic as blog design, but hopefully I'll get the Flickr feed at the bottom fixed onto photos I like. I'm tossing up between a catalogue of current obsessions (too contentious narrowing it down to five?), some of my sister's photos, some of my paintings (will they work that small?), or a combo of the three. I might even have a bash at the dates if I am feeling productive...

I just finised Brave New World, a book which partially inspired B7. It was interesting to compare it with 1984, the other famous dystopian novel, because it is far more troubling. 1984 shows a horrible, horrible future - everyone is trapped in a wholly squalid system that runs itself. Every month they get less chocolate and razors, things are dirty and miserable. I'd much rather live in Brave New World, because it is a utopia. There is no illness or disease, no unhappiness, no conflict. And no free will. It's not challenging for a reader to choose between misery and freedom (although obviously its characters have rather a nastier decision to make). But choosing freedom, as a high liberal principle noble for its own sakes, over a society in which everyone is content with their lot and well fed and housed, is harder. The type of decision I could have made easily a few years ago, when I was in my suicidal-heroism/decadent-aestheticism phase, but has got exponentially trickier since developing a social conscience courtesty of Verity Lambert and Sidney Newman. Which isn't to say I was wrong in the past; just that extremes of any sort tend to be wrong. A dystopio-utopio-opia...

It's also exacerbated thoughts I've had for some time: is one human life worth a great work of art? You need to be a Doctor Who fan to get your mind in a position where travelling in time and changing the past while understanding its effects on the future, seems plausible. If you could prevent the sinking of the "Estonia", or the birth of "John Wayne Gacy jr.", prevent the horrors, and prevent the beautiful songs they inspired. If you could stop the world wars - no war movies, no war poets, no war journalism or photography. If you could stop war full stop - conflict, full stop, then drama would be bunk, and so would art and fiction.

This has troubled me a lot since stumbling into fandoms where people could be more important that principles. And Brave New World is a novel that tackles it head on, so I felt uncomfortable throughout. My mind kept hitting this closed loop.

In many ways, it was a shockingly similar - in that it is primarily concerned with man's two most important questions about the future:

1. Will there be sex?
2. Will there be books?

I suppose you can't have a utopia without the best things on tap. For the System, question one is primarily concerned with control. In Brave New World, reproduction is totally mechanised and the population nauseaous at the very idea of childbirth. As a consequence, people can have just as much sex as they like - it makes them feel happy and content, and there's no threat to it because the population have been trained from before birth not to do family or love.

1984 is obviously less advanced - they achieve the same ends through opposite means. Sex is almost totally cracked down on. People are trained to be prudish, necessary reproduction is "our duty to the party", but, for party members at least, extreme repression is the order of the day. The intent is the same - passion between couples, and thereby friendship/love to individuals over the state, has to be discouraged. Kids are conditioned after birth by organisations like the Spies, so family breaks down. A sense of shame in the society is necessary to prudce the same results.

This impacts the two plots bigtime. In 1984, sex is freedom. In Brave New World, quite the reverse - chastity is. I'm not sure this proves anything, except that the world is obsessed. Despite this fundamental difference, their stance on books is the same. Literature is a freedom, escape. Winston rescues Oranges and Lemons, while John recites Shakespeare. And because of this, there is the same concern with suppressed literature, propaganda (words put to evil) and language.

I think 1984 does the best job of blending the two. I tried finding my notes from my previous read, but I must not have written them down. I remember thinking how sex becomes the political act, and how, mirrorlike, reading is treated with an almost ecstatic fervour. It was an excellent theory, but frankly I can't facing that book again right now. You can measure my remaining Blake's 7 stock however you like, but temporally speaking the idea of only having two weeks left (five episodes at one every three days equals fifteen days...) is sufficiently unbearable that I'm bearing it by engaging in a healthy dose of doublethink. I can consider all the solutions suggested in my previous post, with the lightness of fanfiction.

B7 blends the two to perfection. We get five mintues of Brave New World, and we have to assume that's what the world looks like to its inhabitants. And then four seasons of 1984, its slimey underbelly. BNW works because its conditioning techniques are fallible. B7 borrows much of its terminology - the world is kept under control by conditioning, suppressive drugs, soma and an identical grading system - but unlike BNW, it seems to be less efficient. Maybe a future BNW in which the drugs don't work. So it also borrows ideas from 1984 - mostly "the world is awful. Here, have some betrayal!" - to counterbalance it. This is more realistic in a way, one book being too mean, the other too perfect, to totally convince.

And I've enjoyed rebuilding ideas from BNW into the world we never see on the telly. I like the idea of, if not cloning, then separating children from families at an early age. The B7 characters are fully able to do emotion and free will, which suggests a more 1984 system is in place, of propaganda and social pressure - with maybe some gentle scientific conditioning to discourage them, like the suppressants. We see that conditioning can also be thrown off with luck and effort, so maybe the Administration would be unwilling to overuse it. I like the idea that in the absence of family, people would find and form their own - their own bands of brothers.

Anyway, very glad to have read it, and it's definitely provided food for thought. 1984 is still the better novel - though both are exercises in political theorising, it feel more like it is a real book as well. You get a better sense of the characters, and you get to like them more. I never had the same emotional response to BNW. Nevertheless, when I've more time I will type out some quotes I particularly enjoyed.

In today's issue: dodgy theories about television; Sapphire and Steel; Blake's 7; a marvellous dream

Original Star Trek has set me thinking again. It's just so...shiney. Free of ambiguity. There's some gentle conflict, but all our heroes are that and nothing more: heroes. Original Galactica is just as bad; so is The A-Team. I've been busy building Sapphire and Steel into my conception of what television looks like, and it's conspicuously non-American. Again. Our "heroes" are a bit incompetant; one of them is grouchy, the other definitely not as nice as she seems; and while they're easy to like, you wouldn't trust them.

Consulting the map of television in my head, this fits neatly with what British television does. Doctor Who was at its darkest in its first few years, and while the Doctor is generally a heroic character, he shares a lot of Steel's flaws. He'll pop out of nowhere and save you from the supernatural, but he's not polite or pleasant about it, his agenda is entirely his own and if you catch him on a bad day, he may just poison you, shoot you, gas you or sacrifice your entire planet because it's the most expedient thing to do.

Perhaps the keyword here is "unreliability", which is something Blake's 7 also has in spades. These people are primarily heroic, can usually be trusted and are basically friendly - but don't count on it. The concept extends throughout their universes: the Doctor has a spaceship he can't pilot, and Blake has one which answers back. Furthermore, the program itself does not always seem to approve of its own characters actions - there is room for doubt, and often disapproval from the writers. This is also different to the American style.

Today's theory: British heroes are unreliable, British TV shows portray an unreliable world. American heroes, conversely, are reliable and live in a world which confirms their beliefs. American TV shows also approve of themselves.
Because the web is being truculent, I'm having difficulty finding other examples to expand my sample beyond six shows. I tried consulting the Guardian's Top 50 list, but it didn't seem to have any old American telly on it. Is this telling?

I looked up the BFI's top 100 TV, and all the dramas seemed to fit:

Fifties - 1984, Quatermass, Coronation Street
I'm aware Quatermass is like all British sci fi - dour, and packed with villainous establishment figures - but I can't comment on its hero

Sixties - Cathy Come Home, Doctor Who.
Lord, presrve me from ever seeing Cathy Come Home...

Seventies - Abigail's Party

Eighties - Boys from the Blackstuff, Edge of Darknesss

I was also deeply satisfied (and very surprised) to see Blake's 7 voted top of the "Shows Which The General Public Think Should Have Been On This List". This probably says less about the show, and more about the demographic most likely to vote in force on an internet poll...

While this seems to confirm my theory, statistics are difficult. As my most quoteable hero Charles Fort puts it, "there will be data". Is this merely because darkness sells, and anything positive = mainstream = trashy = not voted by the BFI?

A few things didn't quite fit: The Prisoner (but is maybe too weird to? Six doesn't have enough personality, and we never see him in morally trying situations - he is purely an escape machine) and Thunderbirds (purely for kids? Have kids shows always been shiney, both sides of the pond?)

I also found myself wondering, does America have a companion to our soap operas? Eastenders started in the 80s, Coronation Street in the 60s. British TV has always been closely linked to the social realism agenda, a naturally flawed and miserable genre. Perhaps that has seeped into all British dramas, or any number of potential correlations.

When do things change? Nowadays, angst is America's biggest export, which means there must have been a watershed point where everything changed. At the same time as cinema - you can tell you're watching a 1970s film, because there will usually be a downer ending? More likely, the 90s: Twin Peaks is 1990, X-Files is 90s-ish.

Your challenge for today: prove my theory wrong. Find me some old American television which isn't shiney, or some old Brit TV which is. For the sake of this study, comedies and book adaptions don't count.

While you're chewing on that, oh yes, let's talk about Sapphire and Steel, a rather perfect little 70s show. And all the little directory things I've thought about it in the past week.

After a gleefully incomprehensible opening spiel, which actually leaves you less informed about the show than before, our heroes arrive from another dimension to handle "irregularities" on Earth. So far, the phenomena we would recognise as ghosts. They have an array of weird powers, a talent for wandering into trouble, a mysterious agenda, and are definitely just as scary as the things they've come to chase off.

It digs out all the cliches in the damn book: nursery rhymes! Clocks! Flickering lights! Written by the guy who gave Torchwood its spooky-fairground/haunted-cinema episode But it is so marvellously constructed it seems less hackneyed, than a perfect example of its type. Friend 4 rightly identified that its special effects make Doctor Who look big budget, but cheap has always been best for spooky. Partly because it forces directors to be clever, partly because suggesting and not-showing is always more terrifying. Partly because there is something innately scary about bad special effects. They don't quite fit, they seem disjointed in some way - otherworldly - and this I have always found scary in its own right. And so these ghost stories do their best with flashing lights and ticking noises, and so somehow does it better.

It makes healthy use of sound and space. Lengthy serials fully establish the layout of the single locations on which the stories are set - the first in a creepy house, the second a railway station, and another four I haven't seen. This too is good: in it's purest form, a haunting is merely a building made notable by absence. Things not there, forgotten, hidden, so giving the location strong character is important. It's this, probably, which makes me love the show more than anything else. Hauntings, of any sort, bother me. I can't be bothered to waffle about the sound design, except there's a lot of it and it works well.

It is also notably well shot. The camera positively worships Sapphire - she always seems to stand right underneath light sources. This isn't unusual for telly, until you compare it to Steel's treatment. He's shot by an incompetant - totally in shadow most of the time, not in an arty way where the camera hits you side on and makes a fascinating mess of your face. Just out of focus, like a shadow. It's a marvellous contrast.

They are also often shot as a couple - not in a cute way, more creepily, as if they don't quite understand human interaction. Brief film studies lesson: generally speaking, there is only one reason for shooting two lead characters in close up, in a single shot:
Probably because there's no other obvious reason for two people to stand quite that close. It's the reason you can always "feel" a kiss coming in romances - the camerawork changes. In any other context, it conveys a feeling of extreme discomfort - it would be suitable for, say, two characters trapped in a tiny space. I've included the Blake's 7 scene on the right as an example of the latter working very, very well. This scene stood out as particularly disturbing at the time, even though it's only one of many arguments between the two heroes. Having recently rewatched the episode, I think it is the use of this shot that particularly makes my skin crawl. The dialogue and performances help, but it's this very intense, tight camera which conveys the feeling of attempted domination.

Sapphire and Steel does it all the time, for no readily apparent reason. But even though you'd think a man and a woman wouldn't make the shot quite so bizzare, it still feels like an alien violation of personal space. Whether they are a couple remains to be seen, and is perhaps impossible to answer - they are obviously abstract concepts of huge power who adopt human form, and presumably human limitations, when on Earthbound jobs. So whether they actually do emotion or relationships the same way we do is automatically contentious. It edges around blisteringly romantic and back into "no, just creepy..."

Not a couple. Definitely non-coupley. And the picture on the right is a perfect example of light missing Steel entirely.

The character dynamics are also intriguing. They are attempting masculinity and femininity (indeed, you could add the romance angle under that - they are attempting "couple" into the bargain). Sapphire is nice, comforting, motherly, while Steel is the "bad cop", all toughness and authority. This is curious because at the same time as this obvious polarity, I get the strong impression that Sapphire's feminine wiles are as alien to her as Steel's strength. The same goes for Lead's excessive joviality - they are aiming at something human, and almost achieving it. But not quite. I like that Sapphire provides the brawn, and Joanna Lumley's masculine qualities complete the whole bizzare impression. They also spend equal amounts of time rescuing one another.


Finally...I have returned from France much as I had hoped, with more Blake's 7 episodes, and more surviving characters, than on the fingers of a hand. But it must be said, neither is much more, so I am spending much time morbidly dwelling on the reputedly "climactic" final episode. Friend 4 has rightly pointed out that B7 finales never quite do what you expect them to, and tend to arbitarily pull the rug from under your feet - which hasn't stopped me listing everything on my brain, for your reading delight.

As I'm merely guessing, I don't think any of these count as spoilery, but if you were being extra careful you might not want to read them; it's also possible that I'm right. Here is the pick of my theories:

1. Avon's Dream - the entire series is a hallucination-under-torture from Avon's cell back on Earth, in which an imagined version of The Federation's Most Wanted rescues him, but doesn't actually like him. Kinda interesting - who else would have a dream in which everything is so awful? It'd make sense of Avon's all-consuming coolness.

2. Blake's Dream - same theory, different dreamer. Again, makes sense of the show's one brilliant stroke of luck: accidentally stumbling along the greatest ship in the galaxy. Not likely.

3. Vila's Dream - same theory, concerning the only character to appear in every single episode of the show (so far). He also seems the type to invent a dreamworld in which everybody picks on him.

4. e.t.c. - continue this theme for every other named character and sentient being on the show, those three are merely the most plausible and would pack the biggest emotional smack.

5. The Federation Is Defeated. Everything Is Well. Not beyond the bounds of possibility, but also not very likely. A better variant is...

6. A Small Glimmer Of Hope - the Federation isn't defeated, but something big happens suggesting one day, soon, if we're very lucky, they are going to fall. Probable last shot - somebody smiling faintly. I like this one, and it seems reasonable.

7. Everyone Is Caught! Seems likely, that a show that started with everyone on a prison ship would end that way.

8. Everyone is Reconditioned! Ditto.

9. Everyone is Killed! Ditto.

10. Everyone Has Been Dead All Along. It's Purgatory a.k.a. what Lost didn't do. More probable version is:

11. Sartre's Scorpio: "Hell is other people"

12. Avon Sells Everybody Out - not likely, but I did consider this at one point. Repeat with "Tarrant sells everybody out", "Soolin sells everybody out" e.t.c....

13. Blake Has Been Captured And Successfully Reconditioned As A Villain And Is Now In Charge Of Hunting Down The Remaining Cast - I think this pips it for darkest theory.

14. Universe Ends.

15. Any combo of above.

Frankly, anything confirming that Blake is OK is an OK ending by me. That's all I really want at all, ever, from life right now. God, there's nothing half so dangerous as hope...

This must be the most intense smattering of blogs ever produced here! And I don't need to type a word.

Bevenita and I were going to go to a Squat Rave on Friday evening - I was busy, she fell asleep. But she woke me up at 7 the next morning, to squee that the rave was still on and would I like to come, right then.

Well, why not? She only has a bus pass, so we spent the morning travelling down - I bought breakfast from Tescos, and later in the day called my folks. Mum reminded me Not To Do Drugs and to Stay Safe. We ultimately arrived at a clapped out office block in the shadow of the Battersea powerstation. It didn't look like much, but when we got close the building seemed to pulse, like a cat bristling with anger.

We passed through the door saying "No Tresspassers". Inside felt rather like a school, although perhaps that was the old-school-disco decor. It had been transformed into a club; there were three "rooms", a foyer, a chillout zone, and other areas which groups had colonised - one I found with a television; under the stairs, I found a man sleeping in a pile of cushions. Hastily erected signs or graffiti on the walls pointed the way to toilets, cloakroom and the organiser's area.

I'll get this out of the way first: for a nominally illegal party in a dilapidated building covered in last night's drug paraphanalia, I have never felt safer. Certainly not in a club. It lacked the nastiness of Guernsey clubbing - sticky floors, small-minded-desperation reeking off every stranger, very dark shadows anywhere the lampposts forgot. For a small, "safe" island, I've never felt in more danger than St Peter Port on a Friday evening. Nor did it have the obnoxious, hip-hop-video-audition vibe of London clubs - with everyone trying to make an impression in the most anonymous manner possible.

The squat was populated by imperfect people, and I felt very comfortable exploring the building on my own. There was something genuinely joyous about this DIY party: free entry, bring your own booze (or whatever), no expectations just people who like music. The party had started on Saturday morning - we arrived at about 11o'clock on Sunday, and was to continue until sometime Monday.

We emerged from a series of grubby corridors into the "psy-trance" room, the only place where music was still going on. The party had been broken up by police at 3AM, so there were only about 20 or so people around. The "main stage" upstairs was huge and deserted, and even more incredible: it felt like being on a prog cover. The walls were all draped with paintings (fractals, Ganesh, things like that). All over the roofes, the floors, stretched between walls with holes cut were stretched brightly coloured sheets. Neon spiders weaving webs; rather like a cheap fairground ghost house. All told, just one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.

Time passed. I worked out how to dance - which is pretty easy to music designed for zombies to shuffle to. I also did some hooping and have some truly intimidating bruises to match my new, truly intimidating skillz - I can now walk, twirl, hop and in general, dance while keeping a hoop going, as well as transferring it between my midriff and above my head. This did not look very graceful, especially in comparison to Bevenita - who is almost certainly in the top 10 most beautiful things I've ever seen once let loose with a hoop. Ultimately, she went off in a bus to a festival, and I headed home for a doze...

OK, it inspired Steampunk, it didn't evolve from it. Blade Runner is a walking definition. I read an interesting article on why Blake's 7 isn't cyberpunk, but and I'd strongly disagree with this:

• it's a dystopia with antiestablishment, piratical heroes
• they're very hands on in working out the Liberator technology, and building modifications
• the Liberator and Orac are two examples of bio-tech
• there are plenty of humanesque robots, and Travis is part cybernetic.
• the show's future is a grungy, imperfect one

If the standards for cyberpunk were as lax as those of steampunk ("it looks future-y"), it would definitely count.

Biopunk
Chemical engineering, bio-warfare people. The Daleks, with their racial-purity obsession, radioactive planet and genetically perfected bodies, are biopunk.

But beyond these two, the sole difference between the other Xpunks window-dressing. Or, to be generous, what size batteries they take. It's very close to the divide between fantasy and science fiction. In fantasy, things are powered by magic; in science fiction it's, well, scientific. And so, you could write the same "X-punk" story but change what powers it and still result in the same story. Here's the epic list from Die Wachen, in chronological order:

• Stonepunk
• bronzepunk
• sandalpunk (Romans)
• candlepunk (Medieval)
• clockpunk (Renaissance + cogs)
• <--------steampunk here
• dieselpunk (40s + diesel)
• atompunk (50s + radiation)
• transistorpunk (60s + drugs)
• cyberpunk here! (I see it as a very 80/90s thing...)
• spacepunk (retrofuturism)

Of these, only Atompunk is of any obvious interest to me. Atompunk would encompass Watchmen and all the early comic books, but totally by accident. In other words, it's describing a movement that already exists, and it's interesting to see it as part of the X-Punk movement because it's so very perfect.

But what about the rest? Alt-universe Earth history + fantastical technology = X-Punk, and if you're really lucky you pick a period no one's worked with yet and come up with your own term (i.e. Blitzpunk, Nazipunk). What I want to know is, what's happened to the 20s and particularly the 30s? I therefore propose Flapperpunk and Tweedpunk to cover the gaps.

If regarded as part of a whole thing, recurrent themes are far more obvious. In other words, splitting them up and thinking of them as discrete, visual objects obscures whatever politics they have as a group. And as a group, it's far easier to state What It Is.

Nothing ever changes.

Rosencrantz picked this book up for me called "Palace and Hovel" on the very correct assumption that I would like it. I like, I like a lot. Published in 1870 by Belknap and Bliss, it is a description of London written by an American abroad:

"by day and night; with vivid illustrationsn of the manners, social customs and modes of living of the rich and the reckless, the destitute and the depraved, in the metropolis of Great Britain"

It's packed with salacious gossip and hearsay: a curious man who hates what he sees, but has to gaze anyway. Or maybe one who knows debauchery sells. Chapters include "Rakes of the Royal Family" - yes, poor old Prince Eddy again, a gothicity cathexis*, who gets blamed for every Victorian exceess, from being an arrogant, mad aristocrat, to syphilitic, gay or Jack the Ripper - "Into the Jaws of Death" and "The Legion of the Lost".

It's packed with juicy Victorian detail, from the various street markets (bird sellers! old, non-hip Covent Garden!) to the slimey underbelly. It is interesting to note the gaslight legend was being forged even in the era itself, as Mr Kirwan is far more interested in the homeless, hookers and obligatory trip to a Whitechapel den than he is on politics or high culture. When he mentions anyone of better fortune, it's only to do a Daily Mail on them.

...but so many of his comments make me laugh as thoroughly modern.

Palace and Hovel on drinking culture:

"it is an undeniable fact that the English are the greatest beer-drinking people in the world" (Chapter X)

On UrbEx: a whole chapter called "Hunting the Sewers" which describes exactly the same perils as I've read described by modern covert drain explorers! From not getting caught and wearing high waders, to avoiding toxic smells and sudden tides,. the description is the same!

There's one on expenses too. Alas, the book is in The Other Place and I didn't note all the quotes down before blogging.

*cathexis is defined like this, and to laymen, means the same as "fixation". Gothicity is another daft academic word that Calypso has dug up in her studies, and means "very gothic indeed". Prince Eddy has become a target for everything that defines the Victorian era. Poor chap...

The fabulous thing about writing coursework is the things your brain chucks out there, in random desperation that you might stop.

Looking through my browser history, I discovered that the exam period was apparently also the right time to...

> Revisit your childhood love for X-men:Evolution and learn How to Throw Playing Cards so they cut through fruit and stick in walls.

> Research First Aid...just in case. I know know what to do in case of major bleeding, unconsciousness, heart attack and stopped breathing. Arguably useful when imperilled by exams?

> Read up on politics. Particularly the Pirate Party, who have 50% of my support and 50% of my severe disapproval. Art should be free, but also owned by its creator for longer than five years. How do you balance something like that?

> Make safe my Facebook account. This took longer than expected. But also much reading around the topic, particularly on the EFF...

>Consider buying a "corporate America" flag, with the stars replaced by famous logos.

> Read XKCD. Natch.

> Discover my lousy sense of smell has a fabuloso Greek name and is a real condition. Cue Calypso attempting to make me a "disabled rep".

> Haircare. Learn how to do victory rolls and 1920s starlet hair waves. Then spend longer in the bathroom than ever before (1 hour!) achieving the aforementioned, then spend more on haircare products than ever before (I mean in total, not in one go: £1) to go professional. Ace!

> Learn how to get into Urban Explore. Research dilapidated London buildings and, from my sofa, contemplate breaking-and-entering dangerous abandoned properties after exams are over. Gaze in awe at the chaps and chapettes of Sleepy City, who scaled the Victorian tunnels behind the Niagra Falls, and once UrbEx'd the London Underground...

> Collecting more bad music, from Music for Maniacs and the 365 project.

> Are the Jehovahs Witnesses as bad as they seem? After they came to visit, multiple times, I thought I'd better make sure. As it turns out, yes, yes they are - thanks Wikipedia, impartial moral arbiter that you are...

> attempt to defeat sweatshops, on the principle that Victorian Whitechapel has merely been outsourced to the developing world. Work out that putting companies in a position to pull out of the developing world will actually be worse for workers who no longer have a job. Give up on campaign. Blake would be ashamed...

> fall in love with George Formby. Irritate fellow housemates.

> troll Fitfinder

>research Synesthesia

> save oodles of printable Dolls House furniture...for that Dolls House I don't own

> research an actor from a webgame I played once

> Origami, natch

> take a survey about AntiDepressants for a Kings study. Confirmed what I already sort-of suspected; that I have what could be regarded as actual medical depression not just a tendancy towards melancholia. Balls. The study suggests I'm about 75% depressive, but I scored very highly on the self-esteem, self-image sections. Proud and confident of my opinions

> Leant how to talk about racism on the internet. They're mostly trolls, and to be honest most of the rules are stupid, counter-intuitive, and lead to people talking about how they should be talking about things. But at least now I know how to do it if I ever need to, and some of what I've learnt has helped in real-world terms, for talking about all sensitive subjects. I suppose it's like all systems - being dogmatic is stupid, but that's not to say there isn't also some good.

> google "How long does mead keep". Obviously fancying a tipple...

> ebay, Doctor Who section. I try to kepe all my DW stuff pretty nice, as I know some of it will ultimately be valuable. One of the exceptions is Avon, my cuddly Adipose, because it's a darned soft toy and there to be cuddled. Ironically, of everything I own, this is at present the highest selling item...£30 or £40 in a nice condition. Not that I could ever sell him, but still! Another interesting was So Vile A Sin selling for only £10, a book known to go for about £70. Is it worth jumping in there as an investment? LoL at naming him Avon. At the time, the joke was I wanted to name him something unsuitable and something alliterative. First bash was Adric, but that backfired as Adric really is little and cute. Avon becomes more of a bad joke by the day...

>Fandom secrets, natch

> The Fanfiction archive. WHY WAS I THERE I DON'T EVEN READ FIC.

Here is the full list of everything I wikied:

A Secular Humanist Declaration - Agincourt - Altered book - American Revolutionary War - Anosmia - Artist trading cards - ATC - Baklava - Battle of Agincourt - Beliefs_and_practices_of_Jehovah’s_Witnesses - Blissymbols - Bobby pin - British America - Cadaeic Cadenza - Care Bears - Carl Fletcher - Cave Clan - Cheyenne language - Cinema of Iraq - Colonial - Colonial history of the United States - Continental Army - Crack - Crack cocaine - Criticism of Facebook - Criticism of Jehovah’s Witnesses - Crossmodal - Culture of Iraq - Danger Man - Daniel Tammet - Darwin Day - Database management system - David Rees (author) - David Tennant - Diest - Disposable camera - Epilepsy - Facebook - Fall Out (The Prisoner) - Feynman point - Finger wave - Found art - Freedom Tunnel - French colonization of the Americas - Futuroscope - Gallifrey - Essentialism - Gender_essentialism Geni.com - George Formby, Jr. - Golden line - Grapheme–color synesthesia - Great Britain in the Seven Years War - Greek language - Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner - Hauntology - Herpes labialis - Herpes simplex - Hi5 (website) - HumanLight - Human Rights Day - Humanism - Humanism (disambiguation) - Humanism (life stance) - Humanism and Its Aspirations - Humanist Manifesto - Humanist Manifesto I - Humanist Manifesto II - Hundred Years War - Hyposmia - Ido - Interlingua - Intravenous therapy - Iraq - Iraqi literature - Jamie Kane – Jehovah’s Witnesses – Jehovah’s Witnesses and blood transfusions – Jehovah’s Witnesses and child sex abuse – Jehovah’s Witnesses - Joani Blank - Karl Fletcher - Kim Peek - Kwanzaa - La damnation de Faust - Lady Gaga - Latin - Legend tripping - Lexical-gustatory synesthesia - LinkedIn - List of Care Bears - List of Doctor Who serials - List of Doctor Who writers - List of dystopian music, TV programs, and games - List of social networking websites - List of writing systems - Lojban - London Underground - Lots Road Power Station - Mamihlapinatapai - Midnight (Doctor Who) - Model (art) - Model - Modular origami - Mole Day - Mole people - Multimodal integration - Nadine Coyle - Napoleonic Wars - National Labor Committee in Support of Human and Worker Rights - Ning (website) - Novial - Number form - Occidental language - Olfaction - Olfactory receptor neuron - Orkut - Outnumbered - Outnumbered - Phantosmia - Pi - Pi Day - Piphilology - Prisoner - Private network - Reality hacking - Recovery position - Repdigit - Rochester Subway - Savant syndrome - Section 28 - Secular humanism - Sextus Propertius - Shamu (SeaWorld show) - Silentlambs - Simple English Wikipedia - Simple English - Six (band) - Skyrock - Skyway - Smell - Smound - Social media - Social network - Sonobe - Special:Random New features - Square Root Day - Storm drain - Susan Pevensie - Sweatshop - Synesthesia - Synesthesia - Tetragrammaton - The_Brave_Little_Toaster_(film) The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland - The Lion King - The Prisoner - The Prisoner (2009 miniseries) - Time travel - Treaty of Paris (1763) - Trespass (album) - Twin Peaks - Underground - Underground City, Montreal - Underground city - Underground living - Urban exploration - Virtual private network - Volapük - Volcanic ash - West Park Asylum - White Mountain (song) - Wikipedia:Wikipedia logos - William Hartnell - World Humanist Day -

Dear all - a quick update on my life.

1) I hate how directors can let you down. I now find it difficult not to transfer my loathing of Domino - a film physically painful to watch - onto all of Tony Scott's other films. Like any director, he uses certain stylistic topoi, but in Domino everything is turned up far past 11, and the very sight of any now sets my teeth on edge. And I loved Man on Fire, Spy Game and True Romance so very much it feels daft to let one bad film ruin them, but nevertheless: there you go.

I feel the same way about Ed Zwick. Glory is a fantastic tearjerker-true-story about the Civil War's first all-black regiment. He's since duplicated the film's broad pattern in The Last Samuri and Blood Diamond and appears to have (though I haven't seen these, so I could be wrong) in Legends of the Fall and Defiance. I'd be curious to see someone who is read up on reading race to tackle his ouvre, because I find them increasingly sinister viewing experiences. In particular,

Even if I'm overreacting - and I don't think I am, because for a real-life concern to spoil my viewing experience, it can't be very subtle - nevertheless, from an artistic standpoint he has made some very, very similar films.

In the mean time, forgot how much I loved Glory, and am nervous to watch it again. What if I don't love it any more? What if I do?

2) I continue to work on my Doctor Who Tarot pack, but it's beginning to cause me trouble.

The usual disclaimer: I believe Tarot "works", but not through supernatural forces. Humans are just inclined to see patterns, which isn't to say they don't have positive applications. They're also pretty.

First problem: the idea of doing a pack is an aide memoire. Tarot cards are built of big, general meanings and when trying to understand those meanings, many just leapt out at me in Doctor Who terms. The problem is, I've since found other ideas seeping into unclaimed cards - particularly after the ill-advised Blake's 7 readings afternoon. It was hilariously accurate, but some of the concepts have stuck - the Empress and the King of Wands are totally ruined, I can't look the same way at the Two of Cups and the Seven of Wands is the Blake-y-est card ever. Shifting those ideas is difficult, and in a way, unecessary - I do now remember those cards. But it still defeats the integrity of the pack if I cave to it. Tricky...

Second problem: it's throwing up some alarming statistics. Honest truth, I don't do favourite Doctors - I enjoy them and their eras in different ways depending on my mood. I certainly don't do least favourite. Nevertheless, there they are - as I always suspected - as I try to balance the pack 9-ways fairly. Why nine, you ask - well, Eight only had 90 minutes on screen and it's hard seeing Eleven as part of an arc yet. While certain Doctors instantly conjure up helpful concepts, having long been slapped with labels, he's still an intriguing mess - so I can't make blanket statements about his character in the same way. I'm trying hard to crowbar him in, but ultimately, I will be replacing older cards I'm unsatisfied with Eleven as I start getting an idea of Where He Fits In.

Arguably, some concepts are far more apt to translation than others. The battle-scarred Ninth Doctor regaining his drive is one. Five's cheery optimism being crumpled like a paper cup is another. Any and all pre/post regeneration episodes are a third. The Master, UNIT and the Valeyard are useful shorthands for overweeing pride, society and inner-darkness. But there also some glaring, embarassing holes showing an obvious lack of knowledge or interest, some in very unexpected places, and I'm going to have to work overtime at rectifying them.

Unfortunately, I'm starting to accept there is one era that bounces off me like pain in a Neurofen advert. It doesn't feel real. The camerawork feels duff. I've never fallen for the companions. There's nothing intrinsically worse than any other, there are some fab concepts - and the Doctor in question is beyond reproach - but it just doesn't work on me. It always feels like I'm just watching the television, and not even in a campy fun way.

And thirdly: there are cards causing me nightmares: there are some concepts which are in Tarot, but rarely if ever in Doctor Who. In particular, the 10s, 6s and 4s which typically represent relaxation, success and settling down into a happy home life. Plus, I've only seen 50% of the Doctor Who - and I know the answers to some missing cards are in those episodes I've yet to see. And from the Tarot end, there the Court Cards, cards I've never understood at all.

I've been looking for - and found - some new series Doctor Who minatures for my game.

There are some fantastic stuff out there. In the barely legal category, I have found Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly figures. Plus random awesomeness: Jack Carter, Robbie the Robot, Pirates of the Caribbean. Cat people. One site I am sure is dedicated to Life on Mars figures.

I've found Federation troopers, but alas no crew. I might make that my challenge: they're basically simple enough designs, so hunting out things which are close could be fun. There's almost certainly a way to do it with customisation, as most of them are basically medieval clothes + 80s hair + sci fi gun. There's no point to missing an opportunity for copious praise: I must confess, loudly, how much I love the costume design, and indeed design in general. It's very consistent, both within the world as a whole and per character - they feel very much like real clothes, not costumes. And yes some of them are awful, but because of that consistency it comes across as a bad fasjoon day.

Unfortunately, it's easy to get distracted by cool things you'd never use. I really need the Harlem Avenger - and I'm sure once you've seen it, you'll need one too. I'm not sure my life is complete without a Jack the Ripper. This just made me feel homesick...

I've started resurrecting ancient posts; never let it be said I don't care...

I'm crawling through Vilette. I'm not surprised I never finished it before - it's bloody interminable. Lucy Snowe is just...too old fashioned for me to warm to. I'm sick of her humbly bearing privations suited to her lot with patient fortitude - I'm also sick of nothing happening for 154 pages.

There's one line that particularly chilled me:

Inadventurous, unstirred by impulses of practical ambition, I was capable of sitting twenty years teaching infants the hornbook, turning silk dresses and making children's frocks. Not that true contentment dignified this infatuated resignation: my work had neither charm for my taste, nor hold on my interest; but it seemed to me a great thing to be without heavy anxiety, and relieved from intimate trial; the negation of severe suffering was the nearest approach to happiness I expected to know. Besides, I seemed to hold two lives - the life of thought, and that of reality; and, provided the former was nourished with a sufficiency of the strange necromantic joys of fancy, the privileges of the latter might remain limited to daily bread, hourly work, and a roof of shelter.

...for who is interested in a character who wants nothing? I don't want to read about someone being contented with their lot. Go and chase happiness! Be brilliant! Seize it by the throat! But of course, she's quite resigned to sit and spin. Doubtless fascinating as a portrait of the Victorian woman, I don't know why if she's so bored with the life of reality she persists to tell us about it in such excruciating detail...I am reading it a few pages at a time.

Today's post - more news on my Doctor Who script.

I've been tweaking for a while, and I'm basically writing a celebrity historical - yaaaaa - featuring the Renaissance bookhunter Poggius, one of my favourite people in the world, time-travelling to the Library of Alexandria.

I've been advancing my writing by asking "What Would X Do", and it's very successful. What would Robert Holmes do? Give the extras some personality and witty dialogue! What would Terry Nation do? "I noticed you have some minor characters still living...?" I don't always take their suggestions, but it's sometimes helpful.

What the new series would do is pick a celeb to play Poggius - so this is where you come in, dear readers. Nominate me a British male thesp who hasn't been in the show for at least five years to take the role. He has to be mature, possibly crusty, but enthusiastic. I'm tossing up John Hurt and Charles Dance, both of whom have so-far survived casting. Get nominating!

I worry, with writing a tale all about missing novels, I'm packing it too full of my own neuroses - but then, you can't write in a vacuum, every portrait is ultimately painted of the artist, not the sitter, and the quickest way to create art others can care about is starting with something I care about.

Additionally, I came up with new theory of writing based on the LNW bargaining principle. To be a strong bargainer, you need to decide ahead of time:

• What you would LIKE the outcome to be (or you think you would like...)
  
• What you actually NEED the outcome to be (i.e. what you'd actually like)
  
• what your WALK away point is
  

Nice idea. And then I thought, to establish a strong character every single story the author should be aware of what the LNW is. Strong drama is created when:

• its in conflict with others
• the character thinks they know what their LNW is, but actually doesn't.
• the character ignores their LNW or is pushed past it
  

e.t.c. this all came to me in a flash of blinding, Terry-Nation-related flash of genius, and I don't think I'm ever going to have a problem with plot writing ever again. The Blake's 7 crew all have different LWN, and this is a major feature of the story, and leads to all that juicy character development and arguing. So, the Doctor:

• like to battle injustice
• he needs companionship
• he's got a pretty good walk away policy - no interfering with fixed points in the timeline, "no second chances", no guns, never cruel, never cowardly.

The Doctor is in his comfort zone, most of the time. You'll note that everything madly goes to pot when his needs aren't met, and he doesn't pay attention to his walk away point - Waters of Mars, I am looking at you. And I now want to give Avon a massive hug, and rescue him, because his LNW has been so thoroughly ignored for 40 episodes or so. My analysis is:

• L: to be independant, rich, and untouchable. Well, that's not happening...
  
• N: What he actually wants is very hard to assess, as his motivations are inscrutable even to him. But whether it's some sort of emotional fufilment (friends? true love?), thrill seeking and derring do, or to simply be Blake, it really isn't happening.
• W: Avon's self-stated walk away point is any point at which he is involved in something stupid and dangerous. Well now...
  

But at least, unlike some people, he has a walk away point...

I am a genius. This theory is the best ever. Now if only I could work out what the Rani wants...

Post two - more to come!

This week, my grandparents and cousin have been over, which has been rather fine. I'm happier when either totally alone and free from responsibility, or surrounded by friends - and happiest when I get both in turn. It bothers me that visitors, even ones I like, can thus never see me at my best. Rather exacerbated because Oceanic has been very depressed this week, and my cousin - Squirrel - has been missing her mum. We make for a very mardy bunch.

We've been doing Family Things, which I do enjoy. I was going stir crazy stuck in the house. The problem with Guernsey is the transport is patchy, and even if I could drive, there's nowhere to go anyway. Perhaps that's why people matter to me so much? They're the only entertainment to be had. It's not so much that there's nothing to do - having visited a smattering of English towns and cities, I'm convinced that Guernsey actually has more to do than most of them. Not many places have such a great range of shops, four(ish) great museums, castles all over the place, beaches, the list could go on and on. The problem is it's all the same. Same stone. Same tea green vegitation. I miss being able to be somewhere totally different within 20 minutes. London Tube as TARDIS. Now there's a new thought...

Earlier in the week, we went shopping and I splurged at Oxfam, for a copy of The Ethical Shopping Guide and Lemony Snicket's Unauthorised Autobiography. I've read both before, but the former is something you need to have for reference purposes. It is a very good book, because it presents counter arguments to ethical behavior, and degrees of ethical involvement i.e. fish to avoid even if you don't want to go veggie. The Autobiography is my very favourite of the Series of Unfortunate Events books. The novels are very well written, but repetitive - until you work out the plot you're seeing isn't the story at all - it's Lemony himself, and the details he drops about his life. And suddenly, they are the most exciting books on earth - and I dive through all the time to find things I've missed, just like that itch to see the Minutemen movie while viewing Watchmen. Naturally, the book all about Lemony is the must-have on that ground, so I'm a very happy chappie. Of course, doing a bit of innocent wiki research, I'm amazed to discover Lemony has released some five extra books that I don't own...I also spotted A BIG FEATHER BOA, sufficiently exciting to warrant capitals, which my grandparents got me of their own accord. Smart cookies :)

Last night we went for chips on the wall, and I went kite flying. The kite story goes something like this - I saw it last year in Herm and fell in love. Ever since, when stuck for a birthday present idea, I always thought "hmmm - kite?", but what I meant was "that kite". It's a flying viking longboat of rainbow coloured joy! When I went to Herm this year, and saw it was still there, and still reasonably priced...I tend to feel bad after buying things, but I've felt not a shred of regret.

Friend 2 christened it Zachariah - my dad has since tried to amend this to something a bit more noble, suggesting Odin, Earendil and Beowulf. When I pointed out that it was a happy, rainbow-kite, he amended his suggestion to "Gayowulf".

It is in truth, very very dull: it's too well designed. The boat has two flat wings to catch the wind, rather like that diagram they always include in encyclopedia entries about plane wings which I only pretended to understand. Once you get it in the air - not difficult - it just stays up there. You could fly it while riding a horse, or tie it to the back of a car, or loop it over your belt while walking - just so long as you keep it out of tree range. There's no skill involved, like with a traditional kite, and you can't do tricks. Friend 4 and I did some experiments - it can even carry light stuff into the air, if you balance it well enough.

But it makes me happy nontheless. Last night we had chips on the wall, and I played with it - by which I mean held onto the end, while trying to make sand-Liberators with my feet (not very well, and in the end they got destroyed by rising water). We had left a key strut at home, so I improvised a replacement with seaweed and a propelling pencil. If the wind had dropped, this would have been the best "I dropped my pencil and the lead broke" story ever. But see above - nothing will make that kite fall.

Super Squirrel released some chips for the seagulls, in the manner of a demolition expert - timidly carrying the package to a safe, open location; gently setting it on the ground, priming and opening the box, then running to safety as the area was divebombed by some fifty seagulls. We considered attaching the kite to some chips...but it didn't seem worthwhile, even if it would have been hilarious.

What else - we've been out to a nice restaurant. Pretty foul. My dinner was meant to be Asparagus, Spinach, Egg and Hollander Sauce - and turned out to be soggy leaves in custard. This I would not have minded - except for the other patrons. You know when parents snap at their children "this is a nice restaurant now be on your best behavior", and the poor kids freeze like meercats for the rest of the night? It was as if someone had yelled that at the adults too. I mined doing voiceovers on strangers for it's full comedy value, so again, nothing was wasted.