The lack of activity on this blog hasn’t been caused by laziness, I have actually been keeping busy…
One of things going on is the exciting news that I’ve been able to tick an item off my “Bucket List”. Yes, to quote Anne Hathaway: ”It came true!” – no, I haven’t won an Oscar, but I have got some of my writing published in a book. WHOOP.
So, Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, has reportedly banned Yahoo’s staff from working remotely. It’s not my place to tell her she’s wrong, but I know about the benefits of remote working. So, yes – here’s why she’s wrong.
The view from my home office – all mod cons: A Beatles screensaver and a countryside view are not compulsory, but come highly recommended
I have a love-hate relationship with Twitter, here’s how I’m trying to make it more loving.
It’s all about ignoring the Toxic Tweeters.
Adopting an older cat, or taking a stray on board, worries a lot of people – they expect all sorts of heartache and trouble. But we have done it – and there are so many un-wanted cats out there needing homes, that I urge anyone considering getting a pet to look away from the breeders and think beyond the cute kittens who are so much more easily homed.
This is our experience.
Rudy (black and white), Curry (ginger)
Okay, first things first…this episode was problematic for me.
There was so much to love: My favourite city in the world filmed in a style that made me think of some of my favourite films – New York City is in Film Noir glory here. There is also the opportunity to have a good old cry for companions I’ve become very fond of and some genuine suspense and horror – this one was right up my street.
Overall it was hitting the 10/10 grade, but – the pudding was definitely over-egged, with stretched logic that jolted me out of feeling connected to the story – to the point that my lasting feeling about the episode (which started so well) is sadly, slight disappointment.
Like many of Steven Moffat’s recent stories, it worked if you didn’t think about it and went along with the flow. But – I’m going to try to be fair here…and there’s certainly plenty of Spooking and Sniffling going on.
Warning – Spoilers!
It’s back to contemporary (ish, if you’re a nitpicker) earth after the last few weeks of travelling around time and space. We’ve had Daleks, Dinosaurs and Terminator-style robots to contend with, so now it’s the time to face those well-known adversaries….ermmmm….Cubes.
More importantly, this is the dress rehearsal for the impending blubfest next week when (according to all reliable sources) this will really be the time that Amy and Rory leave Doctor Who for the last time.
Last week we had Amy being clever (and likeable), Rory & his Dad being utterly adorable, the Doctor being quite endearingly annoying, Queen Nefertiti acting like a Benny Hill girl (either that or the Doctor had sprayed himself with Lynx), David Bradley being a really boo-worthy baddy and muthaclunking Dinosaurs on a muthaclunking Spaceship.
It has been so far so good this series…
What have we got in store in A Town Called Mercy?
So last week in The Asylum of the Daleks we had the return of the most famous baddies in Doctor Who, the surprise early appearance of the new companion and lots of Significant hints about the departure of the Ponds and the Doctor’s future without them.
Rory was more action hero that ever before, Amy was drunk/Dalekising, the Doctor was mostly not annoying (except when he was bantering with Ozwin/Clara/Cheryl) and we had a heart-breaking end.
Phew, we certainly need something light-hearted and fun after all that….and that’s what this was promises to be. A romp, a riff on the film that famously built a plot around its outrageously simple title. Let’s see if it was as fun as we hoped.
Doctor Who came back to our screens on Saturday after a long wait – what did you think?
Other people will do serious analysis, here’s my take on The Asylum of the Daleks.
Doctor Who Asylum of the Daleks
It would appear that the utterly stupid statement “sex began in 1963″ (from Philip Larkin’s poem Annus Mirabilis) has been utterly disproved. Mad Men was devised to refute this view. And in real life, only a small cabal can ignore the evidence that President Kennedy was (to use the modern parlance) a “committed pussy hound” and believe JFK was a faithful husband.
Nobody believes that the Fifties and earlier were chaste any more. So, recent attention has turned to proving that sex, or more specifically – recreational sex between un-married people – began before 1913.
“I hope none of these posh people think I’ve just been released from an Asylum. Maybe the viewers at home are wondering if that will be a future plot reveal”
The TV adaptation of Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End is the latest drama to feature people in carriages and corsets getting their ends away (following Atonement and Birdsong which had similar themes and settings).
