Monday, June 06, 2005
So, good evening, how the devil are you?
Things have calmed down at work, today we actually appeared to be a library, rather than a building made of students. Things got a bit busier in the afternoon but I assume that school exams have really started to get going in a meaningful way. With the exception of the mental blankspot of their mobile phones the university students are sweeties really, they are here to do revision and don't mistake the library for somewhere to go to meet morons of the opposite sex. The last two weeks have been no fun at all.
Doctor Who: The Bad Wolf. I can give you lots of theories for what it might be, but none that run along with the continuity-lite approach that Russell T. Davies has been taking. He said a month or two in to the whole thing that he'd been sprinkling the Bad Wolf meme through the show but it didn't really mean anything, then there were reports that the writer of the last episode had made changes to tie it all up. Writers have lied before, it could be all a cunning plan of misdirection. If it is, and RTD knew where he was going all along, then I think the Bad Wolf was the Doctor, last Saturday's episode Boomtown was about the collatoral damage the Doctor leaves behind, plus he must have some bad karma to work off for all the deaths he holds himself responsible for in the great Time War. The main problem with this is that he's up against the Daleks, the new improved twice-as-deadly ones and, if they are all souped up and ready to dance, I can't see them as being overly concerned with having a philosophical debate with him. It may turn out to be not much at all.
Had the parents come to visit yesterday. They brought me a new office chair that I can use when I'm on the computer and took me shopping. This time next week I'll be in Central Europe somewhere, stopping overnight en route to Austria. After my freakout in Manchester last August I'm a little bit concerned with how I'll react to going somewhere so far away from home that I can't travel there in one day, the number of days of my life when that's happened amount to less than a month. But at the same time I'm looking forward to it. I'm quite a good traveller, it's just my fellow traveller's that I have a problem with. I think I could probably go anywhere in the world, it's just that when I'm somewhere else it's difficult to find a space to be on my own that feels secure. My safe space is anywhere I can cocoon myself.
But on the other hand: Adventure! Trains! Austria! Wheee!
We experimented yesterday hooking my camera up to Dad's laptop and it works fine. We're taking the laptop so I may commandere it for stretches and right something that I can put in this blog when I get back. Or I might not. I seem to be going through a period of not updating my personal journal at the moment, so doing it twice might not be happening. On the other hand (again), a change of routine might be what I need to get writing again.
The work blog is going well. You'll have to take my word for that. I've had to create a seperate ID for my writing for that, seems my managers weren't too happy at the idea of a member of the public looking at the blog, then making his way to my blog and reading me saying "bollocks!" or some such. Feh. I've set up a couple of my coworkers to keep it going while I'm on leave, I found to my surprise that I'm very protective of it and had to bite back the urge to watch them intently whenever they post something and micromanage every last semicolon.
Mock the Week: First episode last night, wasn't very good. It's Have I Got News For You mixed with Whose Line is it Anyway. Or at least, the bad bit of each format. However, most of it's flaws can be fixed. Firstly, get rid of Rory Bremner. He was easily the best thing about the show, but he's out of place. For some reason Bremner is convinced that people only watch him for impressions, so when he's doing an improvisational show like this or Whose Line..., he does everything through the mask of one of his characters, even when he doesn't need to. This causes a clash when no-one else on the show does good impressions. This makes him stand out.
Secondly, for half the rounds the contestants have to go over to a 'performance area' to our left of where they are seated. Through the magic of television this can be made to take no time at all, but it looks clunky, especially when chairman Dara O'Briain has to 'shout over' with instructions. And then when they've done whatever they went over there to do, they come back. A better design would be to remove their desks and put them on stools, Blind Date-style, and have the 'performance area', if it's really needed (and nothing last night made me think it really was) be in front of them. It just looks nicer.
Those two changes alone would make it a much better show. The other main thing it will need is time. QI started rather poorly and improved very quickly, Mock the Week could do the same. At the moment it lacks something distinctive, it needs it's tub of lard or it's 'Alan Davies getting everything wrong'. When it's found that, it's away.
Branston brand pickled onions in Branston's pickle are fucking disgusting.
So it is, so mote it be. Or something.
Things have calmed down at work, today we actually appeared to be a library, rather than a building made of students. Things got a bit busier in the afternoon but I assume that school exams have really started to get going in a meaningful way. With the exception of the mental blankspot of their mobile phones the university students are sweeties really, they are here to do revision and don't mistake the library for somewhere to go to meet morons of the opposite sex. The last two weeks have been no fun at all.
Doctor Who: The Bad Wolf. I can give you lots of theories for what it might be, but none that run along with the continuity-lite approach that Russell T. Davies has been taking. He said a month or two in to the whole thing that he'd been sprinkling the Bad Wolf meme through the show but it didn't really mean anything, then there were reports that the writer of the last episode had made changes to tie it all up. Writers have lied before, it could be all a cunning plan of misdirection. If it is, and RTD knew where he was going all along, then I think the Bad Wolf was the Doctor, last Saturday's episode Boomtown was about the collatoral damage the Doctor leaves behind, plus he must have some bad karma to work off for all the deaths he holds himself responsible for in the great Time War. The main problem with this is that he's up against the Daleks, the new improved twice-as-deadly ones and, if they are all souped up and ready to dance, I can't see them as being overly concerned with having a philosophical debate with him. It may turn out to be not much at all.
Had the parents come to visit yesterday. They brought me a new office chair that I can use when I'm on the computer and took me shopping. This time next week I'll be in Central Europe somewhere, stopping overnight en route to Austria. After my freakout in Manchester last August I'm a little bit concerned with how I'll react to going somewhere so far away from home that I can't travel there in one day, the number of days of my life when that's happened amount to less than a month. But at the same time I'm looking forward to it. I'm quite a good traveller, it's just my fellow traveller's that I have a problem with. I think I could probably go anywhere in the world, it's just that when I'm somewhere else it's difficult to find a space to be on my own that feels secure. My safe space is anywhere I can cocoon myself.
But on the other hand: Adventure! Trains! Austria! Wheee!
We experimented yesterday hooking my camera up to Dad's laptop and it works fine. We're taking the laptop so I may commandere it for stretches and right something that I can put in this blog when I get back. Or I might not. I seem to be going through a period of not updating my personal journal at the moment, so doing it twice might not be happening. On the other hand (again), a change of routine might be what I need to get writing again.
The work blog is going well. You'll have to take my word for that. I've had to create a seperate ID for my writing for that, seems my managers weren't too happy at the idea of a member of the public looking at the blog, then making his way to my blog and reading me saying "bollocks!" or some such. Feh. I've set up a couple of my coworkers to keep it going while I'm on leave, I found to my surprise that I'm very protective of it and had to bite back the urge to watch them intently whenever they post something and micromanage every last semicolon.
Mock the Week: First episode last night, wasn't very good. It's Have I Got News For You mixed with Whose Line is it Anyway. Or at least, the bad bit of each format. However, most of it's flaws can be fixed. Firstly, get rid of Rory Bremner. He was easily the best thing about the show, but he's out of place. For some reason Bremner is convinced that people only watch him for impressions, so when he's doing an improvisational show like this or Whose Line..., he does everything through the mask of one of his characters, even when he doesn't need to. This causes a clash when no-one else on the show does good impressions. This makes him stand out.
Secondly, for half the rounds the contestants have to go over to a 'performance area' to our left of where they are seated. Through the magic of television this can be made to take no time at all, but it looks clunky, especially when chairman Dara O'Briain has to 'shout over' with instructions. And then when they've done whatever they went over there to do, they come back. A better design would be to remove their desks and put them on stools, Blind Date-style, and have the 'performance area', if it's really needed (and nothing last night made me think it really was) be in front of them. It just looks nicer.
Those two changes alone would make it a much better show. The other main thing it will need is time. QI started rather poorly and improved very quickly, Mock the Week could do the same. At the moment it lacks something distinctive, it needs it's tub of lard or it's 'Alan Davies getting everything wrong'. When it's found that, it's away.
Branston brand pickled onions in Branston's pickle are fucking disgusting.
So it is, so mote it be. Or something.
