Drilling in my head

The Dr and the Other Wife have arrived safely in sunny Venice, after quite an Adventure yesterday in getting to Paris by train. The Dr is speaking at a conference on Mary Severn, the artist wife of Doctor Who's friend Charles Newton. I assume the conference will be a lot like FantasyCon, only with more goths and corsets.

I, meanwhile, have a lot of typing to do. Which is not helped by the stereo drilling from my neighbours downstairs and next door. I still possess the note they wrote in the first week of June saying the building work might take "until Friday". Yesterday, the machines began grinding at about eight in the morning and were still going at nine at night.

(Yes, it's now September. And despite odd flourishes of sunshine, nine is now no longer in the evening but very much at night.)

The building works have been going on so long the dim cat has stopped being bothered. I'm finding them knackering.

But on we slog. And, via Cornell, here is something rather splendid:

First past the post

Home from sunny Spain to grey and cold London, though we're told we should be thankful that it is not raining. Shall endeavour to write up where and which we got up to, but am a little pressed for time...

Plenty of post awaited us, including additional presents for the Dr's birthday. The cat seems to have found her a Sony PRS-505 e-book reader which is loading up plenty of dead people now.

I've got my copies of Doctor Who & How the Doctor Changed My Life, plus a glut of emails from the authors who are all justifiably packed with squee. You can also see the latest Benny play there, too. Hoorah!

Scott forwarded me this interesting article on "real" writing as opposed to that wretched, TV tie-in stuff. And a few people have sent sample chapters and scripts and stuff they want me looking over. But the sizeable amount of work I got done in Spain needs writing up more pressingly...

Got lots to do tomorrow then to Cardiff on Friday for the weekend. Will endeavour, where time allows, to wave a tentacle from here.

The lions in the castle

Have been feverishly meeting a deadline the last couple of days. But on Thursday I was also required to do acting, at the lavish showbiz launch of Dr Debbie Challis' new book. In a strange reversal of the norm, Ms Lisa Bowerman played "Narrator", and I was the famous archaeologist.

The Lions in the Castle
Narrator: Two stone lions sit either side of the South Staircase from the entrance hall of the British Museum. Visitors largely ignore them in their haste to do the top ten sights of the museum or get to whatever blockbuster is showing.

The lions once adorned the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. An earthquake dislodged them at some point in the middle ages and they were re-used to decorate the late crusader castle of the Knights of St John in Bodrum. And then 150 years ago in 1856, they were identified by archaeologist Charles Newton who thought they’d be a lot better off in the British Museum. In excavations of the Mausoleum, Newton had found many of the hindquarters of lions and hoped to be able to unite the bodies with the heads in the British Museum. As Newton wrote:

Newton: I was anxiously awaiting for the papers empowering me to take possession of the lions which I had discovered in the Castle last year. Unavoidable delays had prevented the granting of this document.

Narrator: To hurry things up, Newton despatched his good friend the painter George Frederick Watts to Istanbul to acquire the paperwork needed. Although perhaps ‘hurry’ is the wrong word: on the way, Watts had time to cruise through the Greek islands to Athens and paint one portrait of the British ambassador and another of the commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean fleet.

While Watts was away, word was spreading that the lions were of value. Why then, should they be shipped off to London? The Ottoman Minister of War had ordered the Commandant of the Castle of St Peter to remove the lions from the walls and send them to Istanbul.

Newton: It was not a pleasant sight to see this operation performed under our very eyes . . . Two more lions were soon dug out of the walls. The extraction of two of my eye teeth could not have given me so great a pang.

Narrator: Just to rub it in, the Commandant visited Newton at the excavation site where he contrasted the ‘little fragments’ of sculptures Newton had found on the excavation site with the big impressive lions he had extracted from the castle.1

Newton: I endured his civil impertinence for about a quarter of an hour, till at last my inward chafing found vent in a strong expression or two in English addressed to Captain Towsey. The Turks did not understand what I had said: but guessed from the expression of my countenance what was passing in my mind . . .

Narrator: Thinking he had lost them for good, a dejected Newton had photographs taken of the lions. Then they were placed on a ship ready to sail for Istanbul.

[Beat]

At four AM the next morning Watts sailed into Bodrum with the paperwork Newton had been waiting for. A sailor was sent to wake Newton, but:

Newton: I had had so many disappointments about the paperwork that I received this news with sceptical indifference, and doggedly fell asleep again.

Narrator: He was woken up again two hours later by another messenger from Captain Towsey.

Newton: I answered Towsey’s news very sulkily as I believed the lions were gone. But he told me that the ship was still in the harbour awaiting a fair wind. I jumped into the boat without a word more: a few vigorous strokes brought us to the harbour.

Narrator: Newton and Towsey went to see the Commandant, who was surprised to see them so early in the morning.

Newton: We disrupted him with that indecent haste with which mad Englishmen occasionally invade the kieff of an Oriental when any real emergency occurs. I put the firman in his hand with that air of cool satisfaction with which a whist player trumps an ace on the first round.

Narrator: The Commandant was astonished. But once he checked the details, he claimed that the statues on his boat were not the lions described in the paperwork but leopards. Newton was having no more delays.

Newton: Come, come my friend. Aslanlar or caplanlar, you know very well what are the beasts meant by the firman, and where to find them. I claim those beasts, and no other.

Narrator: The lions were handed over, though Newton reimbursed the Commandant for his expense in removing them. Although, one solitary lion from Bodrum made it to the museum in Istanbul where it is displayed on its own. The lions were duly transported to London were they sat in a shed until there was room in the museum to display them. Newton’s friend and fellow archaeologist, Austen Henry Layard objected to the treatment of these antiquities in a creaky shed that let the rain and soot in, but that is another story.

I've had it with blondes

Met the Dr in Kings Cross on Saturday, where we had celebratory chips on the basis of her having a copy of her book. It's all very exciting to see it actually in print.

Thence to Cud playing at the Scala - an indie band I used to read about in the pages of Deadline. And how it did take me back to nights out in the early/mid nineties; there was even a fantastically ill-loved performance poet in the line-up.

Cud were really very splendid, a lead singer Carl Puttnam all very Jim Morrison, squeezed into very tight leather trousers. How exciting to see m'colleague Will Potter being a rock and roll star. I danced about like a foolish buffoon before we ducked out mid-encore to make the last train home.

All the way back there was earnest speculation everywhere you looked as to whether anyone could really vote Boris. People even said they'd x'ed his box "because of the comedy value". What a depressingly stupid place London can sometimes be.

And more so yesterday, when it took an hour and half to get from Waterloo to Richmond (a journey that's usually about 20 minutes). Met up with the brothers and a cousin for beers and cheery chat - and the final delivery of a belated Christmas present. Had meant to get back home in time for last orders at a friend's birthday. But it took nearly three hours to get home...

Rewrites today on a thing as-yet-unannounced. And if that goes okay I might watch last night's Droo.

Time out with the wife

The Dr's book is due out next month and the media circus has already begun. She's interviewed in this week's Time Out - the second time she's been in that magazine (the last time she was talking about, ahem, Roman marital aids).

The old girl will also be harping on about suggestive bits of cloth at the National Gallery on 14 May.

Yesterday, we celebrated my finishing a first draft of something as yet unannounced by stopping for a pint in the new-look Bridge House Tavern. It's spangly and trendily grey, and all a bit yummy mummy.

I'd just found a table in the much extended pub garden, and was wondering if this was the first time this year that's allowed drinking outside. And the heavens suddenly opened. So we skulked indoors, I suggested the title for her next book and then we went for medicinal curry.

I went ape

For reasons of research on something I cannot yet speak of, I have been looking into physics. Specifically, I have been learning about orbital rendezvous and delta-v calculations – the sorts of tricky manouvre one does in rockets in space. You know, real space travel, not all those sci-fi cheats.

The Dr has patiently zoned out of my efforts to explain some of this stuff. She ignored almost all of the DVD of In The Shadow of the Moon, though she was rather moved by the former moon-walkers having trouble coming back to reality. They found God, they drank, they just fidgeted about – though none of them got a job in the music industry in the way that Polly ffaze-Avatron did.

As I’ve said before, the Dr considers all this space stuff to be “moon porn”. Not even my top facts impressed her – like that it took the Apollo missions three days to reach the moon; less time it took the first passenger flights to reach Australia.

I even foolishly attempted to explain to her the late Craig Hinton’s theories that Martian civilisation would have seemed somewhat Egyptian, what with the Ice Warriors and Khufu both being under the yoke of the Osirans. She likes Egyptians. She’s even quite tickled by the idea that the pyramids came from space. Just so long as it wasn’t from mid-70s low-budget Doctor Who space.

She’s also not a great fan of monkeys, and points out that they’re always the baddies. See, for example, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Pirates of the Caribbean or the apes that kidnap Mowgli. Against this, I can offer… er… Muggle Wump in The Twits and... um… Cheetah off of Tarzan. And Bernice’s friend the lemur.

Can anyone do any better?

More importantly, what a marvellous conjoinment of the Dr’s two horrors is this news of space monkeys.

The title for this post is, of course, the greatest Knock Knock joke ever.

London under London

I’m a bit of a sucker for the tunnels of London. There’s the space-age aluminium and toughened glass all through the Jubilee line extension that I put into The Time Travellers. Compare that with the hand-made feel of the oldest Tube stations, where the tunnels themselves have kinks in them because horses would freak out if they saw the whole corridor in one go. There’s the echo of the Greenwich foot tunnel and the strangeness of London’s ancient rivers – the various prefixes of bourne, Effra or the Fleet – having once been the highways of the boating city and now all packed up in pipes.

There are few enough opportunities to explore these strange places – a few guided tours, sometimes just tracing the route above ground. And so I’m rather envious to read Neil Gaiman’s description of the brickwork in the Victorian sewers, which he got to explore while researching Neverwhere.

Neverwhere was, originally, a BBC TV series. I must admit it’s not one I remember well – neither fully nor fondly – and I don’t even know how much of it I stuck with. As I recall, it had an awkward, stagey and video feel to it, at a time when telly drama was otherwise all coarse-grained and gritty. It’s not just that it was of its time; it was failing to keep up. The theatricality of fantasy seemed retro in the late 80s when the BBC produced their Chronicles of Narnia. That had featured animated (e.g. cartoon) special effects, like your watching pre-viz placeholders.

Which I suppose just shows the amazing affect digital grading and CGI has had on telly. And in some ways I’m glad there was no Droo in the 90s because it could only have looked cheaper and worse.

The book version of Neverwhere is not constrained by the production values, nor by budgets or regular episode lengths. I don’t know how much Gaiman has expanded or revised the plot but it doesn’t feel like a novelisation – there’s too many characters, too much strange incident, too much you couldn’t pull off in telly. Or, perhaps, it’s very faithful to a script that would have been a huge headache to realise.

The basic wheeze is that a bloke called Richard finds himself in an underground London which mirrors and warps our own. There’s a real Earl at Earl’s Court and Hammersmith is a bloke with a hammer and anvil.

Structurally, it’s very like Gaiman’s later – and, I think, better – Stardust. In both, a rubbish bloke is punching above his weight in the girlfriend department, getting all attached to some posh, demanding girl. She has him jump through all kinds of hoops to please her – but really she just doesn’t like him being him.

I can’t imagine why this bit early on struck a chord:

“Richard found himself, on otherwise sensible weekends, accompanying her to places like the National Gallery and the Tate Gallery, where he learned that walking around museums too long hurts your feet, that the great art treasures of the world all blur into each other after a while, and that it is almost beyond the human capacity for belief to accept how much museum cafeterias will brazenly charge for a slice of cake and cup of tea.

‘Here’s your tea, and your éclair,’ he told her. ‘It would have cost less to buy you one of those Tintorettos.’

‘Don’t exaggerate,’ said Jessica, cheerfully. ‘Anyway, there aren’t any Tintorettos at the Tate.’"

Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere – author’s preferred text, p. 11.

Then, being a bit naïve and well-meaning, rubbish bloke ends up on the wrong side of the divide between the real world and the fantastic. It’s all magic and dangerous strangeness, and he’s hardly equipped to survive it. But his well-meaning naivety and all sorts of chance events and encounters mean he gets by okay. And everyone’s after this sulky, gothy girl for her her special powers. But our rubbish bloke comes slowly to realise that he just wants her for her.

(Four years ago today, I married the sulky, gothy girl what drags me round museums…)

The book is a mish-mash of warped London history and elegant flights of fancy. It kept reminding me of other things – Christopher Fowler’s Roofworld is in many ways this book on its head, while the visceral feel of the undercity is very Perdido Street Station.

It’s goth and nasty and people abruptly die or disappear, all shackled to strange and terrible rules that don’t quite meet with logic. It’s also brimming with vivid images and smells – curries and sewer-folk, leaking wounds and vomit. I’d be tempted to mention Bakhtinian ideas of “grotesque” body horror, if I could remember those bits of my degree.

(I must also point out to the ladies of fandom that on page 260 there’s a shopping trolley that goes “squee, squee”.)

There’s candles and mirrors like in lots of Gaiman’s work, and some elements like the angel could have been lifted straight from Sandman. Like Stardust, for all the not-as-random-as-it-seems violence and viciousness, the easy-going nature of the protagonist rubbish bloke and his desire for no more than an easy life gives the whole thing a warm and enthusiastic feeling. Very RTD, I thought.

What’s also like new Doctor Who – and still rare in other fantasy telly – is how good it is on roles for black actors. London Below is just as much a cultural melting pot as the London upstairs. I guess that’s down to the TV version being produced by Lenny Henry’s production company, just as Gaiman admitted Anansi Boys came about because Henry bemoaned the lack of black characters in horror movies.

It’s an atmospheric and enjoyable book, but sometimes the narrating voice is too knowing and though there are great set pieces it never quite surprises. Perhaps it’s merely lacking an edge that’s there in Gaiman’s later novels. Perhaps if it hadn’t first been written for telly the reveals could have been wilder. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that this very good book had one better just under the surface…

Exposed at last

Appearing round London from today and in a special exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery are Franklyn Rodgers’ splendid portraits of 30 black British actors. It’s part of the 4 The Record Initiative which seeks to raise the profile of black British talent, celebrating them as positive role models.

The Dr has been the initiative’s Learning Officer for over a year now and it’s all very exciting to see it being real.

She’s not quite as excited as I am about how many of the actors featured have also been in Doctor Who – and not just the new series and Big Finish. Earl Cameron was in nothing less than The Tenth Planet (and Thunderball and an episode of The Prisoner, which makes him pretty damn cool). I helpfully pointed the Dr in the way of DWM’s covers featuring Mickey and Martha, and also Gary Gillatt’s brilliant essay on race in Old Show in Doctor Who From A to Z.

And – hooray! – they get included on page 28 of “Getting a Credit” (PDF 7 MB), “the story of Black British actors on television … aimed at A-Level Media and Theatre Studies students and teachers”.

P.S. I am also quite excited about Doctor Who tomorrow. And Torchwood. And the Doctor and Donna on Jonathan Ross’ show. Woo and eek and squee.

Little wonder

150 years after Doctor Who was there (and 18 years after me), the Dr is in Bodrum. Back in the day, it wasn't called Bodrum but Halicarnassus; site of the vast tomb of the satrap Mausolus.

The Dr's texted two pictures showing the range and bias of her researches there...

Oriental cunning

The Dr and her ma are in Turkey, half holidaying and half doing some research for the forthcoming bestseller, "From the Harpy Tomb to the Wonders of Ephesus - British Archaeologists in the Ottoman Empire 1840-1880". (I wanted her to call it either "The Time Travellers" - which is a good name for a first book - or "Oriental Cunning" - which is a quote from one of the chaps she's writing about.)

Anyhow, here's her first report, complete with wobbly spellings where she's on a foreign keyboard.

"Sheets of lıghtıng dısturbed my sleep last nıght. A dramatıc storm took place ın what felt lıke my bedroom or the sıttıng room where I am sleepiıng on a pull out bed. We were at the centre of the storm and the lıghtıng stung your eyes even wıth your eyelids closed.

But to go back we got here (Kusadası) late on Thursday nıght / Frıday morning and ouur apartment ıs nıce. There ıs a very cold swımmıng pool whıch ı have been ın once. Lounged about on Frıday untıl İ dedecıded to frogmarch my mum to fınd out where the domuses went from ın Kusadası. The resort ıs a resort caterıng for package tourısts but ıt ıs a good base and ıs startıng to close down. Went to the ubiquitous tour rep meetıng where I discovered: 1. don't buy ıcecreams when cruıse shıps come ın (Tuesdays apparently) 2. Not to walk around on my own after dark (yeah rıght) 3. they / them mean the turks who have dıfferent customs to us 4. I am very mıddle class. Ok I knew the last one before. My general demeanour was not helped my my mum occasıonally laughıng or raısıng eye brows. Informed rep we may be away for a few days doıng sıtes so not to worry about us. She saıd any thıng can happen ın Turkey. As ındeed ıt can any where.

Yesterday went to Selcuk after fındıng the rıght dolmus (bus). Selcuk ıs near to Ephesus and where the museum ıs. It ıs also where the antıquıtıes were loaded on to the traın to go to the Brıtısh shıps that were waıtıng at the harbour ın Izmır so we located the traın statıon after gettıng lost.My mum now ınsısts on having the map. There ıs an old steam traın ın the sıdıngs and several 19thC features stıll reemaın - such as the water towers - so all evocatıve for my photos. Checked the traın tımes out for Izmır and suspect may go on the traın only to come straıght back agaın. By the traın statıon ıs a Byzantıne aqueduct that houses several stork nests and further down ıs buılt ınto an old Ottoman warehouse.

Selçuk ıs also the burıal place of St 'Book of Revelatıons' John though funjıly enough I'm sure I also went to hıs burıal place ın Patmos, whıch was an ıntrıcately decorated cave. Any way due to thıs dısputed fact, there are the ruıns of a huge 6thC basılıca on top of Ayasolouk Hıll whıch had a walk ın baptıstery and the tomb of St John, as well as great vıews. next went to the 14th mosque that was ın the process of beıng restored. Loads of Roman and Byzantıne capıtals and columns every where. Then onto the sıte of the Temple of Artemıs whıch ıs about 500m out of town. there ıs very lıttle there now bar one column made of bıts of column drums whıch also hosts a storks' nest. Some one asked me where the rest was and I saıd ın the Brıtısh Museum, whıch ıs almost true. The temple ıs now home to ducks and goats and the odd touırıst who can be bothered to go from Ephesus and selcuk. Can see why Wood had such problems fındıng the place as ıt ıs 2km away from the maın sıte of Ephesus. My mum got bıten very badly by mosquıtos whıle there and I saıd Wood constantly had malarıa whıle he worked therer. Funnıly enough that dıd not cheer her up. I lıke travellıng wıth people who are tastıer than me.

Museum was last - some ınterestıng antıquıtıes. Lıked the every day stuff from the Roman houses best. Been to Rome and Naples (and etc) and ımperıal portraıts just lkook the same really. Japanese tourısts gıggled at Prıapus - god wıth a massıve erectıon - but I lıked Eros rıdıng on a dolphın best. Also had cult statue of Artemıs of Ephesus whıch ıs very bızarre and has breast / testıcle appendages over her chest. there ıs a testıcle / breast debate - I go wıth breasts myself but that could be for aesthetıc reasons.

Today veryy tired so got up late and lazung around. Undecıded as weather strangely sunny and thundery. Tomorrow to Ephesus proper.

Lots of love to you and the cat."

The aqueduct?

Because of the showbiz, may-fly lives we lead, the Dr and I rarely follow TV shows as they’re going out. We didn’t watch all of Droo live, for example, and sometimes were not even in the same country. There are come colleagues who think this behaviour desperately, dangerously wrong.

So, while the second series of Rome comes to an end on the telly, we have just got to the end of the first lot on DVD. And find ourselves bothered that we’ve got a whole three weeks before we can see the next bit.

The Roman republic is falling on its arse, because of soldier called Julius Caesar. He insists he’s only being a tyrant to get Rome back on its feet. At the same time as all the politics, we follow two lowly Roman soldiers, Titus Pollo and Lucius Vorenus, as they struggle with everyday life.

I’d watched the first episode and bits of some more when it was on the telly, but it had failed to win me over. The writing seemed all gruff and joyless, the attention on the look of the thing. Sudden and shocking naked bits and violence were less titillating as excluding. And I was probably working at the time, and not paying due attention to the story.

Some learned colleagues explain that the first telly episodes had been edited - the BBC favouring less talky explaining in favour of more stabbing and bums. And I also think it’s a series you need to stick with to get into.

This is also true of I, Claudius, the BBC’s series from the 1970s which we watched some time ago. With that, I felt it didn’t really get going until Master No. Five Derek Jakobi was appearing in the flashbacks as well (the first episode or two just set the scene, and Claudius appears as a nipper). Once he’s commenting on stuff we watch him do himself, critiquing and juxtaposing the story, it all becomes much more absorbing.

I, Claudius also had a lot of sudden, shocking violence and nude bits – though a telly generation more tame. And it also worked hard to get through all the big history while also keeping in all the gossip. The Dr provided commentary on both that and Rome, explaining the various sources. I found I came to Rome with a bit more knowledge of my own, too, having studied both Asterix and Shakespeare.

I noticed that the Gaulish leader Vercingeterox looks less like he does in the comic and much more like the mulletted Dying Gaul (the statue that’s the spitting image of nineteenth century classicist Adolf Furtwangler). And I’m sure that Caesar is meant to have been bald.

The Dr was horrified by the look of Egypt, which would have Edward Said spinning in his sarcophagus. She liked the way that rumours were started – for example why there are accounts Julius did it with Augustus. We also marvelled at the scale and excitement, and the clever way it mixed the epic story of the city and empire with everyday people’s lives.

Still think it could have been funnier, though. And some of the dialogue clanked.

Also, I can’t quite reconcile myself to the fact that Max Pirkis is playing the young Brian Blessed.

Three books at once

I have been busy with badger-faced pirates and so not mucking around here. It also doesn't help that my computer is acting up.

Sometimes it doesn't start up properly, and you just get a waiting blue screen. Sometimes it does start up, and then the keyboard doesn't work. Sometimes it starts up, the keyboard works, and then the Internet doesn't do anything. Oh it connects, and it says it is doing something, but then nothing webwise loads up. Lost three and a half hours to that today, though I got some pirates written on a laptop. Arg.

Nimbos suggests it might be something to do with USB ports, since the keyboard and Internet both come in from them. So I have something to investigate the next time it falls over. Joy oh joy oh joy.

"Or could it be," I suggested, daring to imply that I have any idea, "that I'm still running Windows Millennium Edition?"

Nimbos considered carefully before explaining that I live in the Dark Ages. Have not let on that my keyboard comes with rubber keys.

Otherwise things progress. Spent an hour at Deej's taking pictures of his books and rummaging through his magazines. This will greatly help Alex as he zips along in finishing the Inside Story of Benny.

Speaking of which, I had a fun leaving do on Sunday to mark the end of my regime (though I've still two books and two audios to deliver, as well as the ones being pressed and published now). Somehow, completely accidentally, I managed to drink some beer.

Well, not exactly "some". Text message to the Dr from 01.22 says:

"I love you. Sorry. But you are quite good. Phwoar."

Ho hum.

But she is quite good, and today has word that her book is going to be published. More news on that as and when it is appropriate, but we have reason for opening fizz. Just think, both of us will now be tearing out hair out and swearing, rather than just me.

Ooh look, rocks!

Have been away this weekend in Athens – which meant some last-minute frantickery to get Things Done, and sterling effort from some people I work with.

The Dr used to make pilgrimage to Greece every year, but it all got too expensive in the run up to the Olympics, so this was our first trip together since 2003. (She and the second wife did manage a trip to Lesbos in May 2005; they went to a bar guarded by a dog that barked at men, and to a petrified forest like on Skaro.)

It’s all a lot smarter and more organised, as a result of the Olympic developments, while still being a bit shambolic in places and with building works going on just everywhere. The new and improved underground network is exemplary – the Dr’s extensive tour included a stop off at Syntagma Square station, where the mezzanine down to the platforms includes exhibits of old stuff found on the site.

Having dumped bags at the nice and central hotel (just up the street from Monastriki), we ventured out into the sun and the ruins. Was a bit pleased to find I knew my way about, though I missed the intended lunch stop-off by 100 yards.

Took it easy to begin with and explored the Agora – the remains of the Athenian market place. Here Socrates and the other citizenry would discuss politics and philosophy and shagging – as detailed with quite some accuracy in Mr Handcock’s “The Oracle of Delphi”.

Wished I’d known when I was editing that about the House of Simon of the site. Simon was, the Dr informed me, a cobbler, a citizen and talker, and gets a mention in Xenophon. Was obliged to pose for photos.

We siesta’d then went out for a few early evening beers, and collapsed into an early night.

Saturday was baking, and we did the Byzantine and Cycladic museums in the morning – which were full of impressive artefacts and interpretation. The Dr bought a few heavy books, which I had the foresight to lug back to the hotel before venturing any further.

Re-met the Dr and Mum at the Temple of the Winds (having spent a good while trying to locate the way in), and we began the long trek up to the Acropolis. It’s a steep, hot, winding path up there, and a detour round to the Dionysus theatre proved much further and more up-and-down than expected. But we marvelled at the theatre in which so many classics were first played and told ourselves it was worth it.

With grumbling knees we reached the rock’s summit. Parents were suitably wowed - Dad, who’d never been to Greece before, had studied these buildings carefully when modelling our wedding cake.

The Acropolis itself was much improved site since we’d last been, though there’s still a lot of work ongoing. Odd to see the temple to Apollo Nike in bits. They’ve been repairing the stuff, putting in new marble to piece the Parthenon back together – so it’s all in a better state and more complete than ever. All the new stuff is clearly discernable by being a slightly different colour.

It’s controversial work, but the place was falling apart anyway, so it seems it’s either this or letting it collapse. And the small temple to Poseidon (whose Caryatids can be seen copied in the church at St Pancras) is now, you know, a temple now, and not just the crude impression of one.

We admired the views and took plenty of pictures. The Dr guided us through, explaining the pre-Classical stuff in the museum. This is stuff excavated from the site – long after us Brits had been stopped nicking things that were not always lying around. (I may be misremembering, but the site is much tidier, with none of the strewn stones and rocks that tourists were tempted to pick up; the constant whistling from the staff telling off such thievery is gone, too.)

Stomped on weary legs back down into the town, stopping for more pictures on the way. We don’t have a bath at home, so baths in hotels are luxuries; this one was especially bliss.

In the evening, our guidebook took us to a café favoured by and named after Melina Mercouri. We ate and drank extremely well, looked down on by great portraits of Mel with Dali, with politicians and leading men, such as James Mason. I resisted the primal urge to do impressions.

Easier day Sunday with a trip out to the island of Aegina, where the Dr and I once spent a few cheap nights when a passenger ship’s sinking meant we couldn’t island-hop anywhere else. We were poorer then, and spent our nights on the balcony, eating pistachios and reading aloud Harry Potter. (We started to get what the fuss was about in book 3, when the Dr would get up in the middle of the night to hunt for the book I had hidden…)

Saw the columns and pottered about. I bought two shirts but declined to paddle. Drank a fair bit and just soaked up the sunshine. Ferry home again, and then out to the place round the corner for proper Greek grub – moussaka and souvlaki. Yum.

Monday, we went to the National Archaeological Museum to gaze upon the face of Agamemnon. But despite the promise in the guidebook it was not open, so instead we went to the Benaki museum, which gives a patriotic history of the whole of Athens (and not just the classico-hellenistic bits).

Cooed again at Edward Lear’s drawings, the prep for watercolours that I find less interesting. His drawings include notes and doodles and scribblings out, and so make everything seem more alive and immediate.

Mum liked the various iterations of traditional Greek costume, and the wooden-panelled rooms look cosy and snug, and reminded me of an early date going round Leighton House. One day we will have a house big enough to recreate something similar. Though I will only spoil the Arabian effect by leaving out my sci-fi magazines and hardbacks…

After an expensive coffee on the top floor amid rich Athenian women, we took a stroll through the gardens to the Temple of Olympian Zeus. The last time the Dr was here you could walk right up to the monument, but it’s now strictly roped off.

Lots more good photographs, and I asked if they might ever resurrect the one tumbled-over column. But it’s a Roman temple, so probably doesn’t merit the same attention.

Found a fantastic, traditional little eatery on our way back to the hotel. Ate and ate for less than 10 euros each, then picked up our bags and headed for the plane. Even the airport has a museum of the finds made during development. Dad was particularly taken with how a whole old church got moved.

Arrived tired and grouchy at Heathrow, and had to wait for our cab home to fight through the traffic. Ride home not helped by the M4 being closed, but I got excited when I realised we’d pass the TARDIS at Earl’s Court. No, I’ve not yet seen Saturday’s episode – though am even more keen after Nick Walters’s spoiler-free text…

And so home to much junk mail and waiting works. Going to be a busy couple of months now, with lots of stuff that just needs doing. So blogging nonsense may suffer for a bit. Sure you’ll all be relieved.

I like this, though, which awaited me in the office:

You would make a good Dalek

Up early Saturday to get the train to Manchester. Read the first quarter of Nobody’s Children (first draft), which is really rather good. Hooray!

Met the brother-in-law and his mate P., and caught the free bus into town. Some kids on the bus were off to the same top destination, and compared signed merchandise on the way. One explained seriously to his friend that,

“Nick Briggs is funny, and not as scary as you’d think.”

Texted this at the boss himself, who’s glad it’s not the other way round.

The Museum of Science and Industry’s Droo exhibition was absolutely packed, and we had three quarters of an hour before our timed tickets let us in. We sat in a café and ate Bellinis, and I snapped the Dr in front of the TARDIS.

Eventually got into the show, the only grown-ups not escorting children (or using them as an excuse). Proved my geek credentials by not only identifying each of the first eight Doctors, but also which stories their pictures were from. P. very impressed. Or maybe a little scared.

That was the only concession to old-skool show, and we wended our way round the displays of new show monsters and costumes. Was more entertained by the other punters, and kids barely able to toddle explaining to their grans where the Moxx of Balhoon fitted in.

Bottlenecks around the Cybermen and Daleks, of course, and other adults seemed to think me brave for having my picture taken right by the sink plunger. The shop was full of new-logo toys – tents and screwdrivers and action figures I’d never have dared dream of when small.

There were a few knock-off products without the new series logo, which looked a bit shabby in comparison. No Big Finish of any flavour – a terrible and tragic oversight.

We wandered a bit round the MSIM’s other, free buildings and then found ourselves a pint. Then a bus to the shops, on which the Dr got chatted up by an incomprehensible drunk. (No, not me.)

On the trek back to Piccadilly, the bro-in-law led us into an inauspicious bookshop to see a display of toy soldiers. There were three tiers of marching Nazis, hand-painted in Hong Kong and £20 a piece. As well as Hitler, Goebbels and anonymous troops and youths, there were limited editions of Heydrich, Hess and other middle-ranking Nazi slebs.

We were struggling to find words when the bloke behind the counter came over to help. The figures, he said, were illegal in some countries, but weren’t half as offensive as stuff in some of his books.

Bryan Ferry had a point, he went on, and anyway, some people collect and dress up in SS uniforms. That was nothing political, of course – the clothes were just stylish and well made. He was short, enthusiastic (at least towards the Dr, who didn’t tower above him) and we weren’t sure if he was joking…

Caught the train back to Macclesfield. The teenage girls sat opposite were overheard to say that I was “pretty fit”, which says a lot about the talent in this poor part of the world. The Dr was still finding this hilarious a good hour later – a bit unfair given the best she can do is drunks and neo-Nazis.

Beer and splendid, scary Droo, then out to snaffle curry. Talked new series theories and old continuity with P. into the small hours. Late up yesterday, good pub lunch and then the long trip home.

Now just 50 pages of Nobody’s Children left and really very pleased.

Three points

I have been told that Margaret Thatcher, when Prime Minister, refused to read briefs of more than three bullet points. If not too hot on detail, she did always appear to be on top of the myriad issues that people might ask her about.

My three bullets for you today are:

• ITEM! A talk next Thursday addresses human remains and display, and probably won’t include my one-liners:
  
  “The Stories of Sara Baartman – the ‘Hottentot Venus’”
  Written and presented by Dr Debbie Challis
  National Portrait Gallery (in the lecture room, downstairs)
  Thursday 26 April 2007, 13:15 - 14:00
  


• ITEM! M’colleague Mr B. Aaronovitch has joined the 21st century, and marks this auspicious occasion by… er, railing against the 21st century
  


• ITEM! M’colleague and soon-to-be neighbour G. thinks he knows where Martha Jones gets her look from

Leather goods

Three years ago this afternoon, on a rather bright and sunny Easter Sunday in Greenwich, the Dr said, "Oh, go on then".

It seems a world away now. There was no Droo on the telly, I’d yet to get inside the Stockwell Moat Studios, and we lived in an underground flat with poo seeping up through the floor. Ah, happy days…

The commemorative wossname for a third anniversary is leather, according to my extensive research (no, not Wikipedia but page 55 of Schott’s Original Miscellany). But what to get the Mrs, who already has cat suits and whips?

After some lateral consternation, I settled on 300 – Frank Miller and Lynn Varley’s lavish comic-strip version of the battle of Thermopylae. Well they’re wearing leather shoes and shields. It’s also Greek stuff, which the wife likes, and comics is what we enthused about the first time we met.

It’s a graphically violent, lurid story, a tiny band of macho warriors going against all the odds. Miller’s style – which I first saw in Ronin – is stark and shadowy, with crudely hewn figures carved into the page, spattered with gore and muck. The story moves quickly and is unrelenting, piling up the Spartan mythology. They crack butch jokes in the face of misery and their training is more like torture.

For something so epic and steeped in history it’s not unlike the recent Commando collections, tough men being hacked to bits for the edification of children. It also reminded me of the hard-edged violence and humour of some of my favourite old Judge Dredd.

But it’s also a fun way to crystalise in my brain things I’d sort of gleaned in bits and pieces. I now understand how the battle played out, and know the Persian King Xerxes for more than being the "X" in Edward Lear’s alphabet rhymes.

Some concern that it might be read as don’t-negotiate-with-the-black-foreigners, and the Spartans’ lust for the glorious death that echoes in the heavens and history is never problematised as religious fundamentalism. No, it’s Xerxes seeing himself as a God that is hubris.

But it’s richly told and incredible looking, and we now both want to go see the film. The Dr muttered something about it being "visual culture" and so relevant to her work. Which also means we can claim the tax back on the tickets. Woo!

Thinking of graphic comics (if you see what I mean), A. leant me Marvel Zombies, which is one of the maddest lends yet. It’s about an alternative universe where zombie-ism wins, and undead superheroes eat the whole world up. Colonel (nee Captain) America has half his head sliced off and Peter Parker eats his wife and his auntie. There’s also some fun stuff as the zombie heroes try to keep the hunger in check by re-eating stuff that falls from the jagged holes in their bodies. Nice.

It’s a vicious and funny one-off, packed full of comics continuity that mostly passed me by. But having always felt that Marvel was a bit goody-goody, this is a joyously guilty pleasure.

Nice work

“Sunday, December 31st [1978] …I listen to the car radio and hear tales of horror from all over the UK. Edinburgh is almost cut off from the rest of Scotland (a fact which the weather only confirms!)”

Michael Palin, Diaries 1969-1979 – The Python Years, p. 519.

Yes, I have been busy. The Dr bought me this for Valentine’s Day (naw) and to read on the plane out to Gallifrey. Which I did, and got something like halfway though. And then mutchwurk stopped me getting much further.

More than a month later, with bits snatched on trains and in toilets, the end is almost in sight. It’s a great brick of a book, with perhaps too much on the weather and what the author was eating, so perhaps this is the best way to read it.

The diaries cover the period from the first filming on Flying Circus to the furore that met Life of Brian. Palin’s a sharp-eyed observer, and even the briefest entries contain telling detail.

In large part, it documents the progress of his work – the late nights, the famous people, the many meetings and compromises, the flights on Concorde that are not half as glamorous as might have been hoped for. With my own current schedule it’s been good to see someone else barely outrunning the snowball. And it’s weird to think of Palin, that funny old man off the telly, being my age when he wrote all this stuff.

But it’s not just the hard graft of the writer that’s of interest. It’s a fun and engaging historical document. As well as definitively telling us what day Brian was first thought of, he notes the world as it changes around him:

“Pre-lunch cocktails with the two neighbours and their three daughters, who bring with them a game called Twister, which involves participants in a grapple on the floor and, in the immortal words of Eric’s joke salesman, ‘Breaks the ice at parties’.”

Ibid.

Palin is, as his later travel documentaries have shown, a sharp and witty commentator, and his remarks on politics and life in Hampstead are often warm as well as comedic. But there’s also more insight into his own life and feelings than I think we’ve ever been prey to. There’s the slow decline of his dad and a fair amount on his poor teeth.

I’ve seen some reviews mutter that it’s not more salacious, that Palin is too nice about everyone. Yes, that’s apparently a bad thing.

Anyway, he can be quite tetchy and is especially impatient with anyone who makes life more difficult. That reminded me of the last of his 80 days round-worlding, when his temper is beginning to fray.

(On this very point, he told Saga Magazine how he can “fly off the handle ... Usually at the most stupid things.”)

But it’s to Palin’s credit that he was seen as a mediator by the Pythons and others he worked with. It’s because he was the one that everyone talked to that his history is so comprehensive.

Do not fear fluffiness

Our Bumper Book of Daleks is just reaching people, a hair's breadth prior to Christmas. Hooray!

As a special bonus, you can read online for free - yes free! - the story I pinched from based on the Dr's own PhD. Mrs Guerrier, she so proud of me.

To read "The Eighth Wonder of the World", click on the link immediately below the book's cover at the webpage given above.