"Lunacy" and the Bride of Frankenstein's Mum

The Dr has been much absorbed by the second most festive of her Christmas presents, Inconvenient People - Lunacy, Liberty and Mad-Doctors in Victorian England by Sarah Wise (2012), a history of mental health institutions with lots of horror stories worse than what happened to the first Mrs Rochester.

The book, says the Dr, debunks a lot of myths: men were much more likely to be incarcerated, and people were often locked up because they were an embarrassment to their families or because of disputes over money and inheritance. She was particularly pleased to show me this account following the introduction of the Lunacy Act 1890, by turns amazing and chilling:

"The first major case for the new law came in 1895. Edith Lanchester was the epitome of the New Woman of the Nineties: educated to degree level, she was a white-collar worker, a Socialist, a feminist, and determined to spend the rest of her life with her lover, James Sullivan, a railway clerk, in their Clapham Junction lodgings, without marrying. Her father, a wealthy architect, was having none of this, and on the evening of Friday 25 October 1895, he and two of Edith's brothers dragged her to a carriage, tied her with rope, and deposited her at The Priory, Roehampton. It was all very old-fashioned. 

An 'urgency order' had been written by Dr George Fielding Blandford [...] Blandford's rationale for authorising Lanchester's detention sounded decidedly quaint in 1895, and indeed there was some sniggering when his diagnosis became public: 'She says she is going to live with a man below her in station because marriage is immoral. This she argued in a wholly irrational manner.' Blandford stated that certification would have been unquestioned if Miss Lanchester had threatened suicide; as it was, she was threatening 'social suicide', which had justified his saving her from 'utter ruin... She had a monomania on the subject of marriage, and I believed that her brain had been turned by Socialist meetings and writings, and that she was quite unfit to take care of herself.' 

Coincidentally - and fortunately - just two days later the Commissioners in Lunacy turned up at The Priory for a statutory visit; and as her father had not yet had time to obtain a magistrate's order and a second lunacy certificate, they immediately freed Edith. She was brought back to Clapham in triumph by her comrades from the Social Democratic Foundation, who helped to keep the tale of 'The Socialist Romance' in the newspapers for weeks. Fresh from his destruction of Oscar Wilde, the Marquess of Queensbury - atheist, divorcé - wrote James Sullivan a supportive letter offering to pay any legal costs: 'I should like to shake you and your wife [sic] by the hand... You have a chance now of making a public protest, as everyone's attention is attracted. What is their idiotic [marriage] ceremony?' (Lanchester and Sullican never married and lived together until James's death in 1945; their daughter, Elsa, went on to be the Hollywood star of Bride of Frankenstein - a different kind of horror story.) 

The Lanchester case had shown that the new lunacy system seemed to be working, as the victim had been speedily freed. However, some things clearly hadn't changed. The Commissioners refused to take any action against Blandford or the Lanchester family. Her counsel also warned Edith not to go ahead with a private prosecution, as it would be an expensive failure to try to prove in court that malice - rather than a genuine mistake - lay behind the attempt to have her certified."

Sarah Wise, Inconvenient People - Lunacy, Liberty and Mad-Doctors in Victorian England (2012), pp. 377-8.

(The Dr's most festive present was of course Paul Preston's The Spanish Holocaust).

Asa Briggs at Bletchley Park

Earlier this month, at a lunch to celebrate my great-aunt's 90th birthday, I was surprised to learn that she'd worked in Hut 3 at Bletchley Park in the war, translating the top secret messages snaffled from the enemy. I asked her what she remembered of her time there.

"The cold," she said.

I asked her about the work she'd done, and - since she spoke French and German - what secret stuff she might have been privy to. She took my arm and leaned forward earnestly.

"You must understand," she said, and I expected her to tell me that it was all too long ago, or that there was still an obligation not to speak of it. But she went on: "It was perishing cold."

The next day, my dad sent me a link to my great-aunt Althea's memories of her time at Bletchley Park, and the Infinite Monkey Cage on Radio 4 devoted an episode to Bletchley Park and code-breaking with special guest Dr Sue Black. I also stared reading Secret Days - historian Asa Briggs' account of his own time at BP, published in 2011 as Briggs turned 90.

The Dr is a big fan of Briggs - especially his books on the Victorians and his history of broadcasting in the UK - and went to hear him speak recently. Secret Days is a little disappointing, too rambling and anecdotal and more like an extended interview than a comprehensive history in itself. The best bits, the Dr felt, are the 36-page introduction to BP, the nine-page "Selected Chronology" and the six-page "Further Reading".

This latter section is exhaustive, with a good sense of how accounts have developed as BP's secret work has been declassified over the years. There's a huge and growing amount of material on the subject, and Briggs himself admits that his own contribution is not the place to start. Rather, it's a response to this huge wealth of material, his own memories of what he did and its context while he's still able to share them. As he says in the book - and the Dr said happened when she went to see him - Briggs is asked more about his short time at BP than any other part of his life and work.

What is the appeal of BP? I've argued before that the interest in spies is the idea of one man (it is usually a man) with only his wits and courage, working against all the odds in the midst of enemy territory. With BP, there's a sense of brain beating brawn, the boffins in their freezing huts running rings round the brute force of the Nazis. It's more complicated than that - and Briggs details his own rough treatment in training, by soldiers who didn't appreciate brains - but BP still offers a not-quite fantasy of geeks winning the war.

Briggs acknowledges this interest with good grace - and deserved pride - and says in his (very good) introduction that he felt obliged to give this testimony of his time. The book needs to be read in that context - not as a definitive work on the subject but as an additional source. Often, he directs us to other sources or accounts with a cursory remark.

“A memorandum by [Brigadier ET] Williams [Montgomery's intelligence chief] on the use of Ultra in the field in military operations (WO208/3575), labelled Top Secret, is one of the most interesting documents on the subject produced during the war.” 

Asa Briggs, Secret Days (2011), p. 18.

But there are nuggets of telling detail and concise, clear exposition that attest to his skill as a historian. Briggs mentions an awful lot of people and the ways they are connected, which is quite a tangle in my head. But there are also great asides about interesting characters.

“The great city of Smyrna in Asia Minor in which George McVittie, head of the BP section cracking weather codes, was born was an unusual starting point for many of his later journeys. After the war he taught mathematics at King's College, London, where one of his pupils was the writer of science-fiction, Arthur C. Clarke. McVittie subsequently crossed the Atlantic to the University of Illinois, where he worked in radio astronomy, building a radio telescope. In 1958 his colleagues published in Nature some of the earliest orbital data relating to Sputnik 1.” 

Ibid., p. 50.

There's nice little details, too, like naming the civil servant, Martin Roseveare, at the Ministry of Food, who was,

“said to have invented the ration card and the points system.” 

Ibid., p. 62.

He's also good on other telling details, describing how a Welsh colleague was taken in for questioning by the authorities because of his suspiciously un-Anglo Saxon name: Hrothgar Habakkuk.

“Hugh Trevor-Roper was to have a somewhat similar experience in 1940. Strolling through the Cornish countryside and looking, as he admitted, scruffy in his unbuttoned uniform, he was arrested by the Home Guard on suspicion of being a spy.” 

Ibid., p. 57.

Even so, Briggs and his friends were still writing to each other in German - discussing obscure German poetry, apparently - without incurring the wrath of the censor. I loved these rare, strange insights, so unlikely and so real.

Briggs is excellent, too, on what exactly was needed to break the German cyphers - and  keen to correct the idea that BP was all genius mathematicians. Briggs doesn't stint in his praise for Turing, but also places his work alongside the other people at BP. For one thing, there were 10,000 people at BP at its peak. But Briggs also argues that historians - like himself - had a particular skill set that was vital to BP's work. It wasn't only maths and the invention of the computer.

The key thing was to spot "cribs" - or anticipate words and phrases that the coded messages would contain. That might be the use of the same opening or closing words, proper nouns such as place names or commanding officers, "Heil Hitler" or messages that comprised nothing but "Nicht zu melden" ("Nothing to report").

“Historians could make excellent cribsters since they were usually well-read, drawn to lateral thinking, and taught to get inside the mind of people totally different from themselves. Senders were good prey. Many Y Service interceptors would have made good cribsters too. They were capable of imagining what their German opposite numbers were like by tracking their habits and styles which did not change when there were changes in the frequencies they were using and even the keys. Many what might be thought of as 'hunches' were genuine insights. Concentration and insight were almost as valuable BP qualities as mathematics, and fortunately many mathematicians, such as Herivel, possessed them.”

Ibid., p. 78 

This made me think of two things. First, it chimed with CP Snow's 1959 lecture on The Two Cultures, and the importance of the sciences and humanities working together. Snow, Briggs reveals, was involved in recommending Oxbridge graduates for intelligence work - including at BP. He was, Briggs recalls,

“the ugliest man I had ever seen”. 

Ibid., p. 57.  

Second, it reminded me of Commander Millington in Doctor Who and the Curse of Fenric, sitting in an exact replica of his German opposite number's rooms, to “think the way the Germans think”. That always seemed a rather fanciful idea to me, but Briggs gives it much more credence. (I'm assuming Ian Briggs, who wrote Fenric, is not a relation of Asa's.)

Briggs then proceeds to concisely explain the “technical side to cribbing”, including three key features without which BP's work would have been much harder: 

“First, the machine would never show up the same letter in an encrypted message as was there in the original text. A would never appear as A; any other letter was possible. Second, the letter coding was reciprocal: if A appeared as B, B would appear as A. Third, Enigma did not encrypt numbers: the numbers always had to be spelt out in letters.” 

Ibid., p. 78

But the work owed as much to lateral thinking, psychology and human foibles as it did to mechanical factors:

“Likewise – and this had nothing to do with the make-up of a machine – it would have been difficult for decypherers to find enough letters to make up a menu from a crib had not the Germans liked to incorporate the names, ranks and addresses of the senders and receivers in their texts. They also like going over old ground in standard format when they dealt with supply, administration and planned schedules.” 

Ibid., p. 79 

Briggs also talks of an attitude to intelligence work at BP, reflected in the way its huge number of staff still kept the secret well into the 1970s and beyond. My great-aunt still rather sees the declassification of material about Enigma as a distasteful lapse in security. The back cover of Secret Days says,

"Briggs himself did not tell his wife about his wartime career until the 1970s and his parents died without ever knowing about their son's contribution to the war effort."

He's good on the different stages at which things were made public, and the battles fought to keep them secret. He explains how not being able to mention the work they'd done in the war affected some people finding work later. Again, he's often good on the detail of this covert stuff:

“Enigma was never referred to as such. Synonyms included 'Boniface', 'an unimpeachable source', and, simplest of all, 'special stuff'.” 

Ibid., p. 95.

He's withering about Ian Fleming, too, and seems - without quite spelling it out - to be particularly appalled at Fleming's indiscretion in naming his Jamaican home "Goldeneye" after a secret and then still classified mission. Briggs contrasts Fleming's love of the "drama" of intelligence work with Fleming's boss - Rear-Admiral John Godfrey, Director of Naval Intelligence from 1939 to 43, and, Briggs claims, the model for M. 

Two quotations from Godfrey tells us all we need to know about his cool attitude to intelligence work - an attitude Briggs clear shares. First, there's a memorandum Godfrey wrote in 1941:

“Intelligence ... is only rarely dramatic; its true basis is research, and the best results are usually obtained from the continuous study of insignificant details which, though singly of little value, are collectively of great importance.” 

Ibid., p. 127.

That's basically the point of the first episode of The Sandbaggers. Godfrey, Briggs tells us,

“also framed the cool precept: 'The value of a source ... is almost invariably greater than any given piece of information that source produces.” 

Ibid., p. 128.

In those two remarks I could read a whole culture. But Briggs is at his withering best when he makes a fleeting reference to Fleming's James Bond novels:

 “The women in them were somewhat different from the hundreds of women who worked in BP”. 

Ibid., p. 127.

There were a lot of women at BP, and their working the machines reminded Briggs of the girls working in the factories in Keighley in his youth. Briggs rather glosses over them - women mentioned by name are usually the wives of the men he's talking about. I wondered perhaps if Briggs was being coy - or naive - about what might have gone on, or if things were just more innocent. He mentions crowded trains heading down to wild parties in London, but otherwise only of,

“chatting to girls who had frequently been highly educated”. 

Ibid., p. 84.

Education is key, too, in the BP story. Briggs bristles at the term “Oxbridge” and the idea that BP was all tied to particular colleges and public schools, yet the same names recur throughout – King's, Sidney Sussex, Eton, Marlborough and Sherborne – with the connections between tutors and their former pupils of lasting importance. Indeed, when speaking of the engineer to whom the first digital computer Colossus owed most, Briggs thinks it worth noting (because it's so unusual) that,

“Tom (Tommy) Flowers, who had no Cambridge or indeed any university, connections.” 

Ibid., p. 98.

There's a chapter on Briggs leaving Bletchley and what happened next, and then one on the internal politics of the trust that has taken over the BP site. Briggs concludes by talking about the renewed interest in the "remarkable personality" of Turing and the efforts to celebrate him, and rectify the grave injustice done. That sits oddly, I felt, because the book otherwise is good evidence that BP was not down to the genius of particular individuals - however brilliant they were and however much their work transformed life as we now know it. Rather, it was the result of a huge, tangled and extraordinary group effort, one we're just beginning to make sense of, far too late for many of those who took part.

Digging the Past: Archaeology on TV - BFI 19 January

The Dr has been helping the splendid fellows at the British Film Institute with an event on 19 January where you can watch a load of old telly about archaeology. There now follows a short public service announcement:

DIGGING THE PAST: ARCHAEOLOGY ON TV 
Date: 19 January 2013 | Time: 4pm | Location: BFI Southbank, NFT2, Belverdere Road, London SE1 8XT | Price: Non BFI members £10 (£6.75- concessions) | Age group: ANY |
In association with the Institute of Archaeology and the British Film Institute, the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology presents three sessions looking at the way television has portrayed archaeology. Starting with early televised newsreels of excavations and discoveries including footage from 1949 taken in Cairo to more recent programmes including the controversial Romer's Egypt. The presentations cover the often eccentric characters including the legendary Mortimer Wheeler and an interview with Dorothy Eady otherwise known as Omm Seti. The end session focuses on ancient Egypt as seen by TV fiction writers with something to please everybody from the BBC's Cleopatras to Doctor Who.
020 7679 4138 | Booking through BFI box office www.bfi.org.uk or tel 0330 333 7878

Of particular excitement to me is the stuff with Mortimer Wheeler - "Archaeologist and Man of Action" as I blogged last year.

Incidentally, Wheeler also makes a brief appearance in the bit I wrote for Many Happy Returns, a special 20th anniversary adventure for space archaeologist Bernice Summerfield, all the proceeds of which go to charity. Producer / Evil Genius Scott Handcock has also tumblred credits as to who wrote what.

Chart Wars - may the hits be with you

Last month in Manchester, the Dr and I stumbled across what might be the most 80s piece of vinyl ever pressed. Duran Duran. Bauhaus and Renee and Renato - together at last. And you thought Yoda flogging Vodaphone was a terrible cash-in*.



Yoda flogging Vodaphone is a terrible cash-in.

The Masters of Luxor

The Dr has already blogged about our trip to Luxor in Egypt over new year. I've been writing what follows in fits and starts.

We stayed for a week and packed in as much as possible. Our hotel was a short walk from Luxor temple, the Luxor and mummification museums and a longer walk from Karnak – we arrived there at half eight in the morning and pretty much had the place to ourselves.

We hired a guide and driver to take us to the Valley of the Kings where we poked our noses in the tombs of Ramsees IX, III and IV (but sadly not Thutmoses III which is mentioned in the Doctor Who story Pyramids of Mars). We went to Deir al-Madina (the village of the workers who built the kings' tombs) and the Ramesseum – where we saw the vast, fallen statue that inspired Shelley's poem Ozymandias (which is more than Shelley did, as he based it on a visit to the British Museum). We got to see the Al-deir Al-bahari temple, the Valley of the Queens, Medinet Habu temple and took a cruise up the Nile to Dandara, where the Dr was delighted that opposite a rare carved portrait of Cleopatra and Caesareon is a temple (and the equivalent of two fingers) built on the orders of Caesar Augustus. Having admired the pale blue ceiling that showed an ancient zodiac, we spent the four-hour trip back down the river gazing up at the stars.

We also took a four-hour drive to Abydos, a vast, impressive place still with its original ceiling, where I snapped the following two short videos on my wireless phone:

We saw so much, the Dr took 400-odd photos and pages and pages of notes. The ancient building are covered all over, often with huge Pharaohs smiting people from different countries. Flinders Petrie collected casts of the people’s faces as part of his study of race – something the Dr is writing a book about. And while she gathered evidence, I was struck by how often we saw the same posture, one Pharaoh or other stood with feet apart, one arm raised and the other pointing out, while wearing a kilt with a hanging belt. Here are two examples:

Surely, I thought, that’s Orion.

There were relatively few other tourists: the hotel was only 40% full and was a bit desperate in asking us to come to its gala new year's eve dinner. The local people were keen to tell us that Luxor is safe for tourists – horrified that the Arab Spring and ongoing events in Cairo might have scared people off.

Since so much of the economy is based on tourism, that's a real problem. We'd been warned before we went, but the constant hassle was a bit of a shock at first and then a wearying nuisance. Wherever we stepped, people hurried over to offer taxis, boats or horse-drawn rides – some of the horses barely skin and bone. They wanted to know where we came from, where we were staying, where we were walking to. They wished us happy new year or called out “Lucky man” and “Why not smile?” – and if they got any hint of an answer they'd then offer us taxis, boats or horse-drawn rides. If they couldn't get a reaction from me they'd run round to the Dr. “Madam”, they'd say, and the try exactly the same tack.

One man followed us down the road telling us which hotel we were staying in and for how long – the creepiest sales pitch ever. Another promised us “no hassle” and then continued the pitching in a whisper as if we weren't meant to hear.

In every temple and museum there seemed to be someone keen to point out something in plain sight or to offer to take us past roped-off sections, if we’d only pay out some small change. At the airport, the man loading our bags through the scanner expected something. The guide books advised us to keep a separate pocket of this grubby baksheesh.

It was exhausting at first, but within a couple of days we'd developed thick skins. Sadly, some people did just want to say happy new year – but even saying thank you to them brought more people hurrying over. I managed to offend a man working in a bar by blanking his polite inquiries about where we were from. I apologised, said I'd thought he would only try to sell us something. And without missing a beat he pointed over to his stall of souvenirs and invited us to browse. There’d be something for free if we did. We finished our drinks and escaped.

The worst part was if you did actually want to buy something. You couldn't browse – the people in shops would flap around beside you making suggestions, or trying to put items in your hand. We tried to buy a bottle of water and the man in the shop kept repeating, “Only one?” and then offering to drive us to a place out of town where we could buy souvenirs at a bargain price. Trying to buy a guidebook, we were surrounded by people offering advice, eager to fetch us the same books in French or Italian, a constant, desperate witter that just made us want to give up and walk away. This hustling sometimes just confused us, so we bought more than you wanted or paid a silly price.

“It’s a different culture,” explained the tour rep, before offering to sell us day-trips. We had to buy them from her then and there, and soon found other guests who’d turned her down only to buy much cheaper tickets for the same trips just by asking at reception. Ho hum.

But it is a different culture, one where sharing wealth is a sign of virtue. We have our own strange ways. In crowded London, giving people space (such as by not talking on the Tube) is a mark of respect – though that’s not how it often appears to people visiting the city. But also, baksheesh isn’t so foreign an idea. Watching old films since I’ve been home – The Hound of the Baskervilles from 1939, Doctor No from 1962 – I’ve been struck by the number of times Holmes and Bond hand out money to people who offer them help. Those they patronise seem grateful, and it’s used to show our heroes’ impeccable manners.

Once the Dr met up with a local archaeologist and he organised a driver to take us round, the bothering changed gear. There were still people eager to sell us souvenirs, but they didn’t trail after or crowd us. And it was oddly reassuring to see Egyptian tourists visiting from Cairo treated exactly as we were. (The Dr was thrilled by the numbers of Egyptian tourists visiting their own heritage sites – she thinks it bodes well for the future.)

Generally everyone we met – even the people trying to flog us vastly inflated old tat – were welcoming and friendly. We went to a brilliant new year’s eve party on the roof of a hostel where there was live music and a dancing girl, though (having been shoved forward by the Dr) I felt too awkward and sober to dance with her for very long.

We'd planned to mix the sightseeing with days by the pool, but there was so much we wanted to see that we didn't exactly stop. Most days we were up with or before the sun, having breakfast as the hot air balloons rose slowly over the Valley of the Kings. When we weren't touring, I wrote pages of spec script and read Claire Tomalin's biography of Dickens - which I might blog about if there's ever a spare moment. But don't expect much: Egypt was my last break for some time...

H for themselves

The Dr sometimes accuses me of tumbling through life as if a guest on QI, where points are scored for top facts and dodging cliche. A while back, for my own entertainment, I came up with my own QI questions, complete with the cliches that set off a klaxon and lose you 10 points. The "H" series was on at the time.

Heiroglyphics
Which profession is a baboon the god of?

X Actors
X Politicians

Thoth – as a baboon – was god of writers and scribes in ancient Egypt. The thinking is that baboons chattered and babbled like humans, which was a sign of intelligence. And baboons throw poo at each other and bear their bottoms, which is like a lot of writers. The ancient Egyptians also used baboons as police dogs.

Huxley
Who else died the same day as John F Kennedy?

X Lee Harvey Oswald
X A bodyguard
X Liberal America

Well, lots of people also died on 22 November 1963 – including the writers Aldous Huxley and CS Lewis. Huxley famously experimented with hallucinogenic drugs such as mescaline and LSD, and at his own request was injected with LSD while he was dying.

Holy Days
Why do most of us get Sundays off work?

X It's the sabbath
X The Bible says so

Edward VI's father Henry VIII split with the Roman Catholic Church and formed a (Catholic) Church of England. Two acts under Edward VI sealed the split. The First Act of Uniformity in 1548 introduced an English prayer book, imposed penalties for non-observance and ordered the suppression of images and Latin primers. It was the first time religious practice in this country was proscribed by a secular authority. The Second Act of Uniformity in 1552 required every subject to attend church on Sunday at one of the rechristened services or morning prayer, evening prayer or the Lord's supper. It was the beginning of keeping Sunday's special, and accompanied by an act for the control of alehouses – the first time liquor began to be licensed. So, strictly speaking, keeping Sunday holy is an anti-Catholic measure.

Honorificabilitudinitatibus
What does Honorificabilitudinitatibus mean?

X It doesn't mean anything
X “I'm very clever”

It means “with honour”, and is Shakespeare showing off in Act 5, scene 1 of Love's Labour's Lost:

I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word;
for thou art not so long by the head as
honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier
swallowed than a flap-dragon.

James Joyce then used it in Ulysees. But is that all that it means? In 1910, Sir Edwin Lawrence-Durning pointed out that it's also an anagram “Hi ludi, F. Baconis nati, tuiti orbi”, or “These plays, F. Bacon’s offspring, are preserved for the world” - which Sir Edwin argued showed Shakespeare's plays were written by Francis Bacon.

Homo
Who's a homo?

X You are
X He is

We all are. All modern humans are examples of Homo sapiens sapiens – note the two “sapiens”, which distinguish us from our late cousins, Homo sapiens idaltu, who died out about 160,000 years ago.

The “homo” bit means “human” or “person”, though “human” derives from the Latin “humanus” - an adjective cognate of “homo”. So the homos came first, then the humans. “Homo” looks like it derives from a Proto-Indo-European word which we now call “*dhǵhem” - that is, “earth” or “soil”. So “Homo” means “Earthman”. Think also of Adam, first man in the Bible, whose name seems to come from “Adamah”, meaning “ground”.

The “sapiens” means “wise”, so we must be especially wise if we're “Homo sapiens sapiens”. But other creatures also have repetition in their names. There's pica pica – the magpie. And my favourite, Meles meles meles – the Eurasian badger.

The angels had the phone box

The Dr spotted these sneaky Weeping Angels in Kensal Green cemetery, London. There's a TARDIS-shaped gap in the midst of them, which can surely be no coincidence. Empirical proof that Doctor Who is real.

Plugs and plugs

Sorry - a pluggy post. I have a new CD out this month - Doctor Who and the Memory Cheats starring Wendy Padbury as Zoe Heriot and Charlie Hayes (Wendy's daughter) as Jen. The spooky cover is by clever Marcus at Amazing15 (who I also sometimes work with doing daftness for Doctor Who Adventures). Here is the blurb:

Zoe Heriot remembers everything. But she remembers nothing.

A genius with instant recall, Zoe’s mind has been purged of her memories of travelling with the Doctor and Jamie in the TARDIS. And years later she is in deep trouble – prosecuted by the mysterious company that has evidence that she has travelled in Space and Time.

Except Zoe knows they’re wrong.

Aren’t they?

But if that’s the case, why is there proof that Zoe was in Uzbekistan in 1919.

Can the memory cheat?

The story owes a bit to Col. Bailey's Mission to Tashkent, which I have blogged about before. I'm interviewed about the CD in the new issue of free Vortex magazine (issue #31). Look, my name is even on the cover, as if I am a draw.

My next CD is out in November. Doctor Who and the First Wave is the final part of my trilogy starring Peter Purves and Tom Allen. Me and Will Howells went to see Tom's show in as part of the Scipmylo festival in Shoreditch last night, a chat show with guests Stephen K Amos, Katherine Ryan, Ed Byrne and some bloke called Matt Smith.

Will, Nimbos and the Dr will be on Only Connect on BBC Four on Monday. Oh, and there is a Twitter competition to win tickets to the first screening of my short film Cleaning Up.

Think that's everything.

The awkward age

I was in Copenhagen at the weekend. The Dr had been there for a week shadowing a new Egyptology exhibition and I joined her for the last couple of nights.

On Saturday, with my birthday hoving into view, we trained out to the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, with five different kinds of longship on display and lots of other cool stuff.

I liked how much they used the Bayeaux tapestry to show how these people once lived: gleaning from the comic-strip history vital clues about colours, tools and shapes, even the haircuts of different groups of people.

A panel on the history of the Vikings describes them getting over their 'awkward age' (i.e. marauding round other countries, raping and pillaging) in time to lead the Europeans on their crusades (i.e. marauding round other countries, rapings and pillaging).

But it also gave the lie to the Vikings as burly savages, showing the sophistication of their work. The ships were made from flexible, bendy planks, and then expanded over the fire to make them longer and lighter. That made strong, flexible and nippy crafty, ideal for stealth operations. But larger ships could carry plenty of cargo, and (as in Jonathan Clements' Brief History of the Vikings) there was a lot of emphasis on the friendly trade that was much more the norm than the pillaging.

Having read the Sagas of the Icelanders last year, it was good to see lots on the multicultural mixing of the time. As I explained to the Dr, the history of the Vikings is inextricably mixed up with the history of the UK.

As well as the original ships, expertly preserved, there was also a lot on the experimental archaeological project to rebuild a longship and sail it across the North Sea and circumnavigate the UK. This meant lots of footage and panels about sea-sickness, which at best disrupted watches and basic ship duties and at worst took out a third of the crew. Watching the crowded boat sitting so low in stormy and dark water, I got a sense of why the Vikings might not have been in the best moods when they arrived anywhere.

In the drizzle outside the museum there were tourists in horned helmets (though the Vikings didn't wear horns) rowing for themselves, and various beardie people at stalls selling hand-crafted Vikingish tat. I settled for a chicken sandwich - and was delighted to discover that the Danish word for chicken is 'kylling'. And just by the museum is a small fast-food place: Viking Pizza.

The Dr also took me round the prehistoric bits of the National Museum, and had clearly had a lovely week exploring other museums in the week. Copenhagen's a friendly, bustling city crammed full of people on bikes. I had a lovely time and only saw a small fraction, so am hoping to go back again.

AAAGH! and the Atraxi

Another AAAGH!, this time from issue #209 and featuring the Atraxi and a Weeping Angel. As before, script by me, art by Brian Williamson, edited by Paul Lang and Natalie Barnes, and posted up here with the kind permission of the lovely Doctor Who Adventures.

Francis Galton and eugenics

YouTube now boasts a video of the Dr's short lecture on Francis Galton and the legacy of eugenics, but I don't seem to be able to embed it here so you'll have to click the link.

Galton, who invented the term eugenics and liked his statistics, also sported a fine pair of sideburns which are still the fashion. The Dr's worked on exhibitions and things to mark the centenary of his death.

A new chapter

It seems no time at all since I was blogging that we'd bought a flat. Ah, the happy, bouncy fellow that I was back then...

Tomorrow, the Dr, the dim cat and I move out after a little over five years. It's the longest I've lived anywhere since moving out of my parents' place roughly half my life ago. It's the first place I've owned, and the first place that's really felt like my own home. There's a lot of good memories bound up in the place. We've had some very good parties, done all sorts of repairs and renovations to make it our own, and it's all a bit sad to be going.

But a sadness also hangs over the place where we thought we might have children and then spent months hiding when that didn't work. So this move also means drawing a line under the fact that we can't have children of our own.

We're moving to a house - though it's not much bigger than the flat - where I'll have a sundial and shed. The plan is to get the place in order while we press on with our efforts to get approved for adoption. (I'm probably not going to go into all of that here.)

So. Five and a bit years ago we got our keys, and then the Dr and I and Mr and Mrs Brown sat on the floor in our new, unfurnished living room and ate fish and chips from the place round the corner. Tonight I'll trudge home from work to pack the rest of the boxes and dismantle the computer and desk.

Then first thing tomorrow the van arrives to spirit our lives off to whatever happens next...

Sleep is for tortoises

Hello. Haven't died, at least not yet. But having been nail-bitingly desperate for work just a few weeks ago I'm now nail-bitingly busy.

Tomorrow, though, I'll be at Alt.Fiction in Derby with plenty of my writing chums. Do say hello if you're there.

And on Thursday I'm off to Malta for an actual proper holiday with the Dr, the first time we've been away where neither of us are working or seeing family since, er, September. That is very exciting and also the far side of some pressing deadlines. Yikes.

And I call myself a hack

To quote my wise chum Toby Hadoke, “Who needs facts when you've got an opinion?”

First, in the Independent, Gerard Gilbert slags off the forthcoming new series of Doctor Who without having seen it. He admires Russell T Davies – who is not involved in the forthcoming series – “not least in resisting what you might call a glossy Americanisation of the property, and in retaining the show's essential, and very British, spirit”, but then decides Doctor Who would be better were it, er, more like a glossy American TV show called Caprica.

“Caprica delves into some pretty meaty themes, from religion and racism to terrorism and what it means to be human, while it directly addresses current developments with the internet and its virtual worlds. It's light years more ambitious in scope than Doctor Who, and it's still not too late to catch.”

Except, recent Doctor Who – a fun family show as opposed to a tediously dour one for tediously dour grown-ups – has also covered religion (the faith of people in Gridlock, the Doctor meeting the devil in The Satan Pit), racism (in the experiences of Martha Jones, but also in the way humanity treats aliens), terrorism (from the Slitheen attack on London to the Government deciding which children to give to the aliens in Torchwood: Children of Earth), what it means to be human (all of Season 3, especially Human Nature / Family of Blood) and the future of the internet (come on, the Doctor Who did that in 1966).

The article is petty, lazy and factually wrong. The comments that follow it afford the usual edifying spectacle of the public speaking their brains, but include a beautifully polite reply from Doctor Who's producer Piers Wenger.

Second, the Dr took me to see The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo this afternoon. She'd read the book (and is on to book three now) but I have not. So obviously I'm now qualified to lecture on both.

No, that would be ridiculous wouldn't it? So I'm baffled by Viv Groskop's blog for the Guardian (an edited version also appeared in print in the Review section yesterday). Groskop admits avoiding the book to begin with because of the hype.

“I imagined clichés and extreme violence. I was pleasantly surprised, then, to discover it is neither formulaic nor disturbingly graphic. And it was indeed Larsson's take on feminism that made it stand out as an original read.”

So she liked it, then? But Groskop goes on to quote from a number of reviewers who found the book sexist or misogynistic – though, note, that's not the view Groskop herself had of the book. She then says the film, which she has not seen, has been “universally panned”, and quotes criticisms of “Larsson's misogynistic fantasies” and scenes “glibly indulgent of those visual horrors”. Groskop concludes:

“In the novel Larsson spares us many graphic descriptions, leaving a lot of the worst to our imagination. It seems, then, that the film has betrayed not only some of the book's original subtlety but also its feminism. I waited too long to read the book. I think I'll give the film a miss altogether.”

Again, the argument is based on not having seen the subject. Having seen the film, I thought it showed remarkable restraint in its depictions of violence. We know what's been done but the camera avoids explicit detail. The events are not pleasant, but the point seems to be that the specific brutality of the killer here is part of a wider misogyny. The violence done to women and men – it is done to both – is shocking and horrific, but never celebrated or dwelt on. It's really not there as titillation.

The Dr also feels the book contextualises the violence – before each chapter Larsson provides real statistics on domestic abuse and assaults on women in Sweden. The point made is that though the events are fictional, these are not “misogynistic fantasies” but grounded in reality. Liberals, says the Dr, tend to think of Scandinavian countries as having all the answers, but this book and things like Wallander suggest something nasty lurking under the surface. The secrets of one rich and influential family stand for the whole country. That's what makes it so disturbing.

Groskop says she took from the book the message that, “gender is irrelevant”. But I wonder whether there'd be anything like this criticism had Larsson been (or written under a pseudonym as) a woman.

For a more sensible opinion, see Nyssa's review of book and film.

Domestic bliss

Have been busy this week with a damn load of work - which is something of a relief after a rather desperate January. Has meant some late nights and a wealth of research, but am feeling a lot better now that somebody wants me.

On Friday, I took a few hours off to go to London Zoo with the Dr. It was 10 years since I'd first stumbled up to her and said "You're lovely." As I said this time last year,

"The lesson is, my young padawans, that if you fancy someone, tell them."

Me, "Gallifrey and nine", 19 February 2009.

We'd adopted each other animals at London Zoo - I got the Dr an Asian lion, she got me a lady gorilla reputed to stink of garlic. The Asian lions were best, all snuggled up in a pile, watching us visitors languorously. We also liked the baby monkeys and the owls. I took a picture of the Dr playing with the tiger-paw gloves, and realise now we should have bought them.

We were home well in time for the live EastEnders, which was all rather manic and brave. M'colleague Lisa Bowerman says that audio drama separates the men actors from the boys, and the same seems to be true of live telly. Turned over to BBC Three after, to shout at the obscenely indulgent behind-the-scenes thing. Managed about 20 minutes.

Instead we put on another True Blood - we're now five episodes into season 2. It's much stronger than season 1, with more screen-time and plot for the other characters around Sookie and Bill. The Dr loves the comedy vampires. But it is all having an effect on the cat.

Yesterday I wrote a comic strip and two (very) short stories, which I hope will be approved by the Masters. Then I went out to see Ghosts, a play by Ibsen reworked by Frank McGuinness, starring Lesley Sharp and Iain Glen. It's a brilliant play about the shadow cast over a family by a long-dead father - who remains a constant presence though never appearing in person. A very deft bit of writing, and Sharp and Harry Treadaway (playing her son) were incredible. Not entirely convinced by some of the accents, though. Glen seemed to be playing the vicar as Abraham Lincoln.

Today, I was interviewed about my Being Human book and am writing more stuff, while the Dr is finishing her William Morris embroidery by attaching it to a cushion. Later we shall eat the kilo of best beef what I bought as a treat.

But perhaps our most exciting news is that we have a bath. It's been five weeks since the shower was pulled apart. B&Q's promise to deliver our purchases "within three weeks" turned out to be not entirely true. Their promise to ring us with a date of delivery, and to let us know why things were delayed, was not entirely true either. The Dr chased and chased - and spoke to some helpful, apologetic people - and the stuff was finally delivered on Thursday. Well, all except the end panel for the bath which we hope will now come next week.

The delays have meant our helpful Man has taken on other works, but he was round late last night getting it set up so that we can at least have a wash. It stills needs plenty of work, and there's a sink to be put in, but we're both skippy with delight.

IVF

Something different for my 900th post. I don't normally blog personal stuff, but the Dr and I want it out in the open that we're doing IVF. There's a weird taboo around the subject, and even people who know that we're doing it don't always know what it entails or quite how to respond. We're just starting our second attempt, and a lot of people seemed surprised that the first go didn't work. IVF is not some miracle pill that lets “career women” have babies later. It's a last resort, with the odds stacked up against it.

This goes on a bit, is probably a bit mawkish and we know that everyone has their own shit to deal with. But anyway, here goes...

The usual method of making a baby is via the ancient combination of alcohol, fumbling and interlocking body parts. There are all sorts of reasons why this might not work – apparently some one in seven couples have fertility problems. All sorts of tests and treatments can help spot the problem and, with luck, sort it out.

This all takes time. You might hear helpful comments about IVF being for women in their mid-thirties who have “left it too late”. The Dr and I have been “trying” (i.e. with alcohol and interlocking parts) since before we got married in 2004, when we were both in our late twenties. The doctors won't consider you've got a problem until you've been trying for about two years, so we started tests in late 2005.

There are a lot of tests: taking supplements, giving samples, prodding around in the plumbing. We collect matching punctures from the blood tests. None of it is particularly fun, and we made regular trips to the GP and two separate hospitals. I'll write about the joyous practicalities of sperm tests – and the instruction sheets they give you – another time. Medical stuff works on the basis of “Have a go and see what happens.” We tried a lot of different things.

For most of 2008, the Dr was on nasty stuff called clomid which made her paranoid, weepy and claustrophobic. About 11 pm every night she'd want to be home in bed, and away from other people. We didn't know this at first, of course, but worked it out by degrees. By the last month of the treatment I'd realised that when the Dr said “I want to go now”, whatever the time, wherever we were, we had to get up and go – usually without saying goodbye to anyone.

Gradually, I also worked out that I should let people know at the start of a night out or meal or wedding that this was what we might do. “Don't,” I'd say, “worry, or hold us up as we go. We'll just disappear.” And it helped to have enough money on me for taxis so as to avoid crowded trains. Generally, it made even the most simple tasks much more complicated. And after all those months, the clomid didn't have any positive effect.

If none of these tests and experiments work you get put on to in vitro fertilisation (IVF), where instead of using alcohol and interlocking parts the sperm and egg are mixed up in a petri dish. We were recommended for our first go at IVF in late 2008, and went through it last summer – more than five years after we began “trying”, and in our mid-thirties.

There are all sorts of percentages for how successful it will be depending on the exact problem. For example, you seem to have a better chance if the chap's sperm is okay and the issue is with the lady. The statistics are also less good for women after they turn 35 – we're luckily just inside that bracket before we try this second go. One doctor said this was because we had “got through the tests relatively quickly”, so some poor women must find this all especially cruel.

Once you're doing IVF, the process takes about two months. The wheeze is to jump-start your system to get it going, then extract the bits, put them together manually and re-insert them into the womb. There are distinct stages, and – a bit like end-of-level baddies in a computer game – you can only progress to the next stage when you've passed the last one.

First you go on what's basically the pill. Then, on the 21st day of your cycle you start injecting yourself with drugs that effectively put you through the menopause, shutting down your system. Symptoms of that can include hot flushes, night sweats, hormones all over the place (so lots of crying for no reason) and hair growth (sadly, the Dr didn't grow a beard). You have to inject the drugs at the same time every day, you can't drink and you're not scintillating company anyway. So it kills your social life.

After two weeks you go for a scan to see that your insides are shut down. If they have you're on to the next stage, injecting the menopause drugs and the drugs that put you through puberty. That's why you feel like you're being pulled in two directions. The Dr felt giddy, found it difficult to concentrate and kept forgetting things (she lost her mobile phone three times last year while on the various drugs). She only wanted to eat sweets and her body changed shape completely.

All the stuff with the clomid the previous year had prepared us a bit for these side effects. Knowing to leave early and to apologise in advance made things a little easier, but you're constantly on edge, madly hoping that you'll get to the next stage. It's also not easy to see someone you love going through something like this – and being completely unable to help.

Then there's another scan to see that your ovaries are producing follicles – the things that house the eggs. You'll have some idea already if it's working because you're swollen and sore, and even walking a step is painful. If it is working, they call you in for what's called a "harvesting", where they remove the follicles. This process hurts, so they put you on opiates and you still feel pretty wiped out and bruised. You're not allowed to leave on your own; you need someone else there to ensure you get home. The Dr was bruised for weeks afterwards.

They're hoping for about 10-12 good eggs from this harvesting, so there's some to fertilise and some to freeze so you can skip to this stage if you need to go through the process again. If you're with a chap, he donates his sperm at this stage and the boffins put it all together.

If that putting together works, two days later you're in again for the implantation, which is pretty straight-forward and easy. Then you wait two weeks to see if it's worked. “Try not to worry,” they say, as one might advise, “Try to walk to the Moon”. You get used to the matter-of-fact language as you go through the process. “If you've not bled after a fortnight,” they tell you, “do a pregnancy test”. Depending what statistics you read, at implantation your chances of pregnancy are about 40%.

Once there, you face all the normal risks of pregnancy, though IVF increases your chances of having twins which can mean a whole number more complications. Most people I've talked to who've done this thing see twins as just catching up on all the time spent getting this far.

But if it doesn't work – and last time ours didn't on the 14th day – you can try again.

It's all a numbers game, with the waiting “room” (a corridor) at the Assisted Conception Unit filled with the same despair and desperation, the plaintive longing for miracles, as in any Ladbrokes. According to the British Medical Journal,

“One cycle of IVF offers a 25% chance of pregnancy; three cycles offer a 50% chance”.

On that basis, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence in 2004 published guidelines,

“aimed at raising infertility service provision in England and Wales to the standards enjoyed elsewhere in Europe”,

which included the key recommendation of,

“up to three free cycles of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) for couples who have been unable to conceive for three years because of an identifiable reason—provided that the woman is under 40 years old.”

Caroline White, "Infertile couples to be given three shots at IVF", BMJ. 2004 February 28; 328(7438): 482

That recommendation is still not happening: it all depends where you live and which health authority you're under. We're caught between two health authorities, so went with the one that said it would pay for two goes. Until, that is, we actually needed to have a second attempt, when it admitted it would only pay for one.

It's about £4,000 to go through the whole thing (roughly what I get paid for a novel), and about £1,000 if you've got eggs already frozen, plus the £400 per year for freezing them. There's a brilliant bit of internal market cleverness when it comes to buying the drugs – the hospital gives you a list of the drugs you need and numbers for three suppliers. You take a morning off and ring round these people, getting the best price. There was about £70 difference between them, depending on postage arrangements. We couldn't, though, then order the drugs ourselves. We had to schlep back to the hospital who did it for us. Any savings made had been lost in the time faffing about. But this is apparently a key part of “Patient Choice” and is somehow empowering for us.

We've also had delays because of ongoing building works at the hospital, and our second go looks like it will be split between two different sites, so there'll be added excitements about where we're meant to be for any given part of the cycle. Ordinarily, stuff like that would just be annoying, but on something so complex, emotional and intrusive, it leaves you howling at the sky.

It also doesn't help that we already know what to expect – the side effects and pain, the desperate hope and even more desperate disappointment. It took several months for the Dr to get the drugs out of her system last time; she still felt clutzy and forgetful, and kept finding herself lost or double-booked.

There are difficult decisions to be made about how long you try for: how much the drugs affect the lady, how much you can afford, how close you get at each stage, how much you're wasting your time. It is, all told, weird and knackering. It's like we've both been carrying this weight around with us for years.

You start noticing how much female identity is built up on having kids – especially when women get to their late twenties. It's still surprising how often strangers will ask if you have children and then ask why not – are we “focusing” on our careers? You notice how many people see their kids as an achievement, not the result of alcohol, fumbling and interlocking parts and being lucky in the draw. We've been envious, yes, and sometimes upset, as our friends and relations get pregnant with such relative ease. It's not quite the same as watching my colleagues get thrilling writing gigs – where I'm torn between thinking both, “Good for them,” and also “Bastardsbastardsbastards!”

Sometimes we've hidden away from celebrations rather than be spectres at the feast. Not that that's how other people treat us, it's how we feel ourselves. I struggled for a long time to explain how this feels, but a good friend, K., described what we're going through as a kind of grief. That's exactly what it feels like – as if part of our future has died.

And yet through all of this the Dr and I are closer than we've ever been. Oh, we've had some spectacular rows, but mostly its being howling at the sky rather than each other. I don't think we'd have made it this far otherwise. And we've learned who our friends really are. The weirdest thing about all of this is what it does to other people as they try to help. There's the cheery teasing about us not turning up to things, or about leaving early. Or the ones who interrogate us about how we're feeling and want details of all the worst bits. Or – a favourite – those who tell us how difficult being pregnant and having kids is, as if in many ways we're blessed.

I know it's all well meant but these things don't really help. All that happens is that we want to withdraw, to hide away and lick our wounds. One kind person even told us – for our benefit, I'm sure – that we were being over-sensitive. But it's difficult to feel anything but broken, and constantly pelted with stones. There's news of abuse or neglect of children, or you see people shouting at their kids in the street, or yet another “authority” speaks out about IVF or even that marriage is all about having kids, or that some medical condition is a moral judgement on the person who has it, and it's like twisting the knife.

We're not expecting the second go at IVF to work. We're already prepared for the result of that: the blunt statement that we can't have children. We just have to grit our teeth and get on with it; whatever happens, then we can move on.

So the best thing is not to crowd us, or worry if we disappear. But it is good to know that our friends are thinking of us. The best thing to ask is, “How are things going?” and after that, “Would you like a drink?”

Victorian rhapsody

To the British Library last night for a “Late at the library” event. There was Victorian Values – a lively show by the Ministry of Burlesque. There was the chance to dress up and have pictures taken by Madame la Luz's Photographic Parlour. A splendid brass band played versions of “YMCA” and “Bohemian Rhapsody”. And there was a high proportion of slapped-up goth girls in the audience, bursting from their clothes. Though I, er, didn't really notice.


There seemed to be too audiences for the event – the goths affecting the age with barely corsetted flesh and those wanting to perambulate round the Points of View exhibition (free until 7 March 2010), which tells the history of photography through some rare and extraordinary images.

We ably straddled both factions. The exhibition is glorious – and free. There's film explaining the difference between the Daguerre and Fox Talbot methods, and a wealth of nineteenth century capturings from all round the world.

The Dr was thrilled by the archaeological specimens – including that famous shot by Corporal J McCartney of Charles Newton and the ropes round the lion of Cnidus, on which she wrote a book. I loved Philip Henry Delamotte's images from the construction of the Crystal Palace in Sydenham, including my beloved monsters.

There was also the splendid Victorian hippopotamus and an astonishing nineteenth century photographic atlas of the moon, and photography changing our understanding of family, history, science and our own time. The explanatory panels delved into the politics of photographing empire and criminals, and the assumptions made by the “reality” of the image. There were gems embedded all through the thing, and I will have to go again.

It perhaps dwelt too much on the process and practice of photography, with less on the way the ordinary punter might collect, display and use the images. And, of course, the shop was shut by the time we came out, so there was no chance of checking which images exist as postcards.

Three different kinds of archaeology

1. The Dr is engaged in an exciting project in experimental archaeology. London's own Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology is going to make a pair of woolly socks based on the ancient originals they have on display, and using – as far as possible – the same methods.

You can follow the adventure on the Sock It! blog, and members of the public are invited to come along and help at special sessions on the last Saturday of each month.

2. Big Finish have announced a new run of Lost Stories. I've adapted an unmade 1968 Doctor Who story, “Prison in Space” by Dick Sharples, for release on CD in December 2010.

It's a fun story in itself and an interesting what-may-have-been – “Prison in Space” got as far as even casting Barrie Gosney in a role before it was cancelled. You can read a bit more about it's history at Shannon Sullivan's Lost Stories page.

ETA: You can now preorder the second series of Lost Stories - including mine - as a special discounted price.

3. The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine features a splendid review of my history of space-archaeologist Bernice Summerfield:

“The overall sense is that Benny's story – from its very beginning, and particularly when Big Finish took it over – was a labour of love: something that's also true of this book. A long time in the making, and absolutely worth the wait, this is the definitive story of one of Doctor Who's most enduring and well-loved characters. Essential.”

Matt Michael, The DWM Review, Doctor Who Magazine #415, 9 December 2009, p. 62

Hooray!

"In European countries this use of boys is scarcely possible"

To the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology last night for a sneaky peek at the "Framing the Archaeologist" exhibition. It's a series of photographs and related notes and diary extracts from Flinders Petrie's excavations in Egypt at the end of the nineteenth century, with the emphasis on the workers who lived locally.

The photographs and notes are also handily available on the Framing the Archaeologist blog, where you're invited to leave comments.

Some of the photos might have been taken this week, others - and the accompanying notes - are from another world. They reveal attitudes to race, to child labour, to archaeological practice which seem startling from our lofty position looking backward.

But they also change our sense of the ancient relics on display in the museum, around which the photographs are displayed. They are not just art objects behind glass with puzzling, technical descriptions typed beside them. They are the possessions of people, unearthed and pieced together by diligent, long-dead hands.

I was surprised by Image 5 - Muhd es Said, Muhd Jafur, Muhd Timras, the notes explaining how Petrie chose his child labour - over 20 years-old, he explains, the workers get "stupid" and "lazy". He also laments that boys aren't available to work in England because in the school holidays they must collect the harvest.

Image 6 - Ahmed Hafnawi and Muhd Hassan describes a girl who gave her name as "Muhammad" (her father's name), thinking Petrie employed only boys. No, he was an equal opportunities sort of guy.

Another favourite is Image 18 - Amy (Petrie's sister-in-law) buying antiquities.

Gallifrey and nine

Gallifrey was exhausting and brilliant and silly. Saw a whole bundle of old chums and made a great glutch of new ones. Flogged product and drank one or two ales. I said at the closing ceremony (where you have to say something) that I wished it could be Gallifrey every day. Which would be fun, but I wouldn’t long survive.

James Moran has made a number of very serious allegations about me, but surely there’d be pictures. And if there were pictures, surely there’d be evidence of Photoshop in them. I deny all accusations.

Didn’t sleep a wink on the flight home, and my entertainment system wasn’t working either. So I sat in the darkness and thought Thoughts that may one day become things I can brag about. Slowly the hours ticked by.

Eventually we plonked down in Heathrow. Turns out we shared our flight home with the Hoff, and dared each other to ask for pictures with him while we waited for our baggage. Don’t think we actually did – but by then my brain was drooling out my eyes. Out through customs to fall into me and M.’s waiting taxi. We slalomed through west and south London and then finally we were home.

Slept. And slept and slept. And woke up not knowing what day it was or where I’d left my head. Confused and stupid (no, more than usual) have got myself back into work. There’s been quick rewrites on a thing as-yet-unannounced and rewrites requested on something else. Went to the Post Office and the bank and fell through two splendid episodes of Being Human and nearly 300 emails. And then started sneezing; think I picked up a cold on the plane home. Dammit.

The Dr is, of course, delighted by the state I’m in. The whole point of jetting off across the pond without her was to come home relaxed, refreshed and skippy. Not snuffling and stupid and snoring. But I’m taking her out tonight for a posh tea, so she can’t complain.

Because nine years ago this evening I stumbled over to the Dr to tell her she was lovely. And dammit, she still is. The lesson is, my young padawans, that if you fancy someone, tell them.