Paroxysms

A morning of scawling, and I'm now at 2,216 words. Which is less than at this time yesterday. Hmm. Still, I think they are better words than before. I have to think that, or I'd go perculiar. More perculiar.

The boss also rang to tell me not to do the [censored until announcements made] bit, which has probably lost me another paragraph. At least I've come up with a word to use instead of endlessly repeating "the pain".

Speaking of which, my back hurts. Not sure if this is the monitor being too low, or the zen-like office stool I'm using, or having been to the gym twice in two days after a month's lapse.

This is, of course, but trifling inconvenience compared to the wife of one of the Xmas authors, who's just had a baby. Well, she had the baby yesterday but I've only just found out. Hooray and hooroo!

Things heard, written and drawn

A couple of correspondents beef that I don’t say much about music. This is probably because, when I do, my eclectic “taste” is much-mocked. For what it’s worth, I currently have on Bone Machine by the Pixies.

A day’s writing, and 2,243 words now sit where there was a blank page before. Quite pleased by the woman with a dog and her shopping.

Also managed some transcripting, and to listen to some things on the pile to be heard. After due consideration, think I’m better Dead than a Fan. Not a surprise.

Enjoyed Lizzie’s Afternoon Play, which is chock full of Who people. But did they really say “multitask” in 1587?

And, since the BBC is showing off it’s fantastic tumbling TARDIS, here’s something I did a while ago and never got round to finishing.

And, er, now can't even get into any more due to a crash and lost .FLAs. Gah.



The clever CGI stuff is by Simon Belcher, of course. He's the clever one.

Feat. BA Baracus and O Prime

If there is a god (and He is not a bit bollocks), this beautiful theeng will be the Xmas no. 1. Come buy, come buy. Lovely, lovely Flash. Lovely, lovely choon.

I am sat here with J Brown, bit pissed. J Brown wants to say 'ello to his mum. Hello his mum.

Like a bad head in the morning

A fun bash in the festive upstairs of a pub last night, with as many of the Christmas lot as could make it. Got to see some people I’ve not seen in ages, and one or two I’d not met before at all. And I also now know how to pronounce "Auchterlonie". Good eggs all round, and S. and B. yanked the Dr and I to another pub afterwards, which seemed like such a good wheeze at the time. Not so clever this morning.

Oh, it isn’t even morning any more. Oops.

S. sent me this uisge bertha-fest, harking back to our wine-selling days. For the love of God, no. "I don’t think I’d survive," I said.

"Quite," he agreed. "But if you had to pick a way to go..."

Worst review of Time Travellers yet:

"By no means the best Doctor Who time travel story I've read, and Guerrier’s supporting cast are often woefully underdeveloped, but if you can struggle through the pedestrian opening two-thirds of this novel you will at least be rewarded with a cracking finale."

Lawrence Conquest, Reviews – The Time Travellers, Outpost Gallifrey.

Luckily, I am off to see some chums’ new kitten. Also I am helluva-tough.

Especially in the brain, just now.

Method writing

A load of new work has just come my way, so things are rather fraught. In fact, finding out that my booking for Monday is now cancelled is a huge relief.

Just having to get on with it, which is actually very satisfying. Wrote until half-two in the morning (though did spend some of the evening drinking port and watching the TARDIS crash). You can tell the Dr is away, being clever, can't you?

One thing I've done is break the back of the script editing, with notes on two Benny plays written up, and ready to go to the authors (subject to being cleared by my boss).

Also made notes on Joe Lidster's fab "Terror of the Darkness", for something else in the pipeline. On the off-chance it shows a valuable insight into my working methods, and on the basis it gives nowt else away, here's what I scribbled:

• H down from York. Got lost on tube. This his first day.
• C ignores him. Posh voice. "Cold-hearted cow," he thinks. Imagines shooting her.
• Dr accosted by youths (London doesn't change).
• C "recoiled slightly at the physical contact."
• She's met (another) Dr before.
• Colonel Coldheart. Code Blue.
• Killing lovers - H - not helping them.
• H a problem: "cocky and uncontrollable". Dr sees it as "impulsive and reckless and probably likes a drink or two ... sounds like he's the perfect U soldier".
• He likes: "Pints. Pop Music. Football."
• "Space vampire." (Another space vampire?)
• Woman gets nails in his face and hits him with a poker.
• "London survives another day, then."
• C has a mobile, fancies a pint.
• H smokes and has a "practised lady-killer grin."
• "Straight back to HQ, I promise," and "But remember, boys, I'm in charge."

Are you illuminated? Will explain later...

Now off to town to have drinkies and nibbles with the Christmas crew. It is work, I tell you.

Picaresque (= "pirate-y")

"The music industry is to extend its copyright war by taking legal action against websites offering unlicensed song scores and lyrics [...] Mr Keiser [President of the Music Publishers' Association] said he did not just want to shut websites and impose fines, saying if authorities can 'throw in some jail time I think we'll be a little more effective'.

Ian Youngs, "Song sites face legal crackdown",
BBC News, 9 December 2005.

Yes, the terrible practice of copying out song lyrics. I often read song-lyric sites to avoid buying music. It is the first thing they teach you at Buccaneer School.

I think next they should go after people who flagrantly listen to music they've not paid for. Like people on a train, near someone with headphones on. Think of all the royalties being thieved from the artists. And, more importantly, from the MPA.

And don't just tell them off; jail's the only thing these villains understand. Also, if we could cut off their feet or ears or something, that would probably help too.

It is daylight robbery. Like Dick Turpin. And probably funds terrorism.

The perfect spy

Overheard this yesterday, from the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, and immediately added it to my Christmas list. ("If I get you that," said my dad on the phone later, "I can read it, too.")

"Some in your Lordships' House will recall Colonel Bailey's book Mission to Tashkent. Bailey, Britain's principal agent on the Northwest Frontier in 1914, became, because of his mastery of Muslim dialects and of disguise, in the aftermath of the 1918 war, the senior staff officer from the Indian Government attached to the White Russians in central Asia. Bailey, who died peacefully in his own bed in Norfolk in the 1960s, achieved his professional apogee by attaching himself to the Bolshevik NKVD murder squad, whose only duty was to hunt down and destroy the notorious British spy, Colonel Bailey."

—[Official Report, 8/12/05; col. 781.]—

There's a good review of the book, too, at Almaty or Bust!

"The way that our surroundings shape us"

"Written in stylised, clipped and concise prose, and from frequently shifting viewpoints, Guerrier gives his book a real sense of immediacy and reportage that distinguishes it from most Doctor Who novels. Guerrier performs a cool tightrope act between celebrating the Hartnell era and presenting something new. Oblique and occasionally eye-wateringly complex, The Time Travellers is a satisfying book."

Matt Michael, "Off the shelf",
Dr Who Magazine #364 (4 January 2006), p. 63

Which is nice, though I’d hoped the “eye-watering” was more about (spoilers) the snog on page 284.

Another recommended book (from an unusual source) I can tell you about tomorrow, when what got said is in the public domain. Ooh, mysterious.

The BBC linked to Will Howells’s blog, so if it’s good enough for them…

Speaking of blog, this one seems to have acquired a Livejournal-feeding wossname. Not sure who set it up, whether it works, or what it’s all about, really. Perhaps some kind soul could let me know.

And more baffling technology: my new pin and chip bankcard shows they’ve learnt the new address. Hooray! But I’m boggling at the Space Year expiry date. That’s not a year, it’s the future.

Right, that interview with Billie, and tea and wine and wife… I’m also going to take my tie off.

Things that work

Merely 12 hours after they rang to say my broadband was working, it's working.

Hurrah! Google is in the house, and I can't quite believe how many weeks I've survived without it. Lots of links and bits of things sent my way, some of which I can tell you about...

Busy few days of eating and drinking and seeing people (some, like Phil, for the first time.)

As well as the Internet, I've had a clever fellow come and fix some holes in our living room wall, and done Quite A Lot about getting my sister's place rented out. This morning, in fact, I met an estate agent who seemed an entirely decent sort. Or perhaps I have just fallen to the dark side... Afterall, it's not the first time I've taken The Shilling.

Tucked in with the original artwork for Lost Museum, the keenly gifted Ade also included a copy of The Faceless, which I enjoyed a great deal. There's a fun review of the thing by the Groovy Age of Horror, which also includes an exclusive pic of Sharp stalking a tasty vampirette. Nummy.

Borrowed the second series of "Randall and Hopkirk", mostly to see Gareth as a mental patient. Puzzled in episode one by the sexy/geeky/funny and familiar-looking maid, only to suss it's m'colleague Lizzie. She's really rather brilliant, her.

"The only problem with Kong is there's just too much of him."

My King Kong review is up now. And the first two eps of Lost series 2 really pick up the pace, and have the Dr and I clamouring for our next instalments...

Otherwise been too busy writing and editing this and that to see much. Apparently I've made DWM's Matt Michael cry, which has always been an ambition. Hope to pick up the new issue tomorrow, to confirm this.

More soon. Hooray!

Press ups

Should have email in the new pad from tomorrow, so updates here will get back to normal. If normal is the right word. Various odds and ends to tell you about, and I ended up reviewing the flick I saw on Sunday. More on that after Friday.

Time Travellers is getting some nice coverage now, which kind people have passed on. Also, my Mum txtd to say it was in the Waterloo Smiths. Blimey, and cool!

"The Time Travellers expertly captures the gritty edge of early Doctor Who. A glib remark wouldn't help the TARDIS crew save the day back then – they'd more likely be battered, bleeding and relieved simply to get back to the ship at the end of it all. Also, only in the Hartnell era could saving the universe have to wait until they'd done the shopping! […] Let's hope Simon Guerrier can find the, er, time to delight us further with his challenging story telling."

Robert Muller, "Reviews",
Dreamwatch #136 (January 2006), p. 76.

"Simon Guerrier makes The Time Travellers an adventure that the crew live through over time, and captures the First Doctor incredibly well. In a very nice touch, there's a second Time loop that extends beyond the book, as the reader's left to work out which of the Doctor's future adventure[s] will avert the catastrophe that brought about this history."

Anthony Brown, "Bookshelf",
Starburst #331 (December 2005, vol. 31 no. 9), p. 89

"In this, his debut novel, Simon Guerrier manages […] a pleasingly romantic approach to what couls, so very easily, have been a dry SF story. It has the endearingly didactic tone of the first year of the original TV show, and by explicitly presenting for us the impact of what should be some pretty devastating events on both regulars (Ian and Barbara, most significantly) and several subsets of his own incidental characters, he transmutes thouse neighbouring refuges of the scoundrel writer – the Time paradox and the alternative history – into something rather more affecting."

David Darlington, "The TV Zone Reviews",
TV Zone #196 (December 2005), p. 86

But I rather like the thought of being a "scoundrel writer".

Questions that don't matter anyway

Five top facts, rummaged from my notebook:

An “alibi” is not just an excuse, it is proof that you can’t have done it / been there. If you’ve got an alibi, you’re innocent (and not just claiming to be).

Breathing CS gas? Keep a vinegar or lemon-soaked handkerchief over your mouth, effective for short periods. (I assume you keep these in some kind of sealable plastic bag). A squirty water bottle (like cyclists use) is good for cleaning CS-gassed eyes.

"[Joseph] Paxton’s proposed solution to the 19th-century traffic problems in central London was the Great Victorian Way or Crystal Boulevard, unveiled to the Select Committee in June 1865. This monumental arcade was to have formed a 16-km (10-mile) ‘girdle’ around London linking all rail termini and would include shops, cafes and hotels as well as a main street and railway systems. Its estimated cost of construction was £34 million and although the Committee recommended his plan to Parliament, it was never realised"

Kate Colquhoun, “Cathedrals of glass”,
The Garden, July 2003, p. 525.

“Handicap” derives from “hand-in-cap”, because people with disabilities were assumed to be beggars.

Potatoes are high in vitamin C, though they lose it when cooked. So crisps are packed with vitamin C. Though you’d probably not be able to market them as “healthy” (as some sugary orange drinks do) because of all the salt and fat.

Some assignments

Big Finish have announced my Sapphire and Steel play, The School. Nothing more to say just yet, but woo! As well as writing up that these last few days, I’ve also had fun coming up with odd stuff to extend the-thing-that-was-short. And begun another thing that’s due in by the end of the year.

But a pitch I really liked has been turned down (albeit kindly, and with good reasons). Bah.

My copies of History of Christmas arrived on Monday, and am simply delighted (though I’ve had a typo pointed out already, dammit). Hopefully, it’s a broad range of stories with something for everyone. The ideal Christmas present, in fact. Go buy, go buy.

I’ve also seen the covers for the almost-at-the-printers Parallel Lives and Something Changed. But you’ll just have to wait for those. Bwah ha ha. I also have a fat wodge of Benny stuff to read through and edit.

And still unpacking. And sorting out tedious flat-stuff. And cleaning up cat-sick…

Went to see Harry Potter last night in the Ritzy, which we’ve not been to since the glamorous days of the diva. Fab, scary and funny, and the best one yet. The Dr was thrilled by Snape tugging his cuffs, and even found Fiennes delicious as a monster. There’s a bit, though, where he looks like he’s on fire, which puts him into her same special category as Rochester, Vader and the English Patient.

The brother’s better-half is also taken by the new Dr Who, even when he’s so splendidly evil. And Droo has got the cover of the Xmas Radio Times! This can’t all be happening, can it? Beginning to suspect I’m really in a coma…

Dr’s not so bothered by Kong, due to her weird fear of monkeys. (No, I know Kong’s a great ape, not a monkey. Argued that one myself. Doesn’t matter.). Also, the wondrous original made her cry.

So I’m off to see it with my boss this weekend at a press theeng. And I don’t even have to write anything up. Hooray!

Nature’s way of keeping meat fresh

Call me a colds magnet. Full of snot and shakes and bleurg, which has cost a lot of money this week in undone work. Just what I need right now. And I’m not sure whether the new pad is cold, or whether it’s just me shivering anyway.

Parents visited on Tuesday, and once we’d shifted all my old tat indoors, Dad and I took a stroll round Crystal Palace to see the sights: the ugly, Stalinist sports centre, the fat dino-monsters, and the rusty music stage.

We chatted about how the place has changed in the 30-odd years since he last mooched round it with my toddling elder siblings, in the days before me. Like Greenwich Park, you can forget you’re in London – because the hills and trees surround you with greenery. Flat, open spaces like Clapham and Peckham are just glorified roundabouts. But this is home.

Also pointed out how the ruins of the Crystal Palace’s sculpture gardens resemble the ruins of antiquity – such as the asklepion on Kos, thought to be home to Hippocrates.

(Many years ago, I pointed that one out to the Dr. And not the other way round. Think it gets a mention in one of her papers.)

Also asked about the monocyclist. Yes he was real, and worked with my Dad in the late 70s. An American and a medievalist, too. Explains everything.

The Dr had prepared suitable stew for the evening, and we nattered our way through several bottles of booze. Kitchen works then. And having people round for tea makes it real. Like I said, this is home.

Finally finished watching Blackpool, which we missed last year. It’s excellent, and like Second Coming should be required reading for New Show. Kept me guessing to the end – especially the last-minute red herring about Steve’s grown-up son. What a very wonderful thing.

Also watching Droo commentaries, and surprised (in Doctor Dances) by Steve Moffat saying no one noticed what’s possibly my favourite line from the whole year: the Doctor’s stark, rationalist view of creation. So I’ve made it today’s heading.

(“Creation” is an odd word. It tends to get used to mean “origination” – i.e. things made from new. But the Latin “creare” means, I think, “growth” – i.e. development of something already there. Is that right, clever readers? Does “Creationist” then actually mean, er, “Evolutionist”?)

Still not got round to writing up my notes in response to Phil’s godly nonsense. But Moffat’s got him in just six words. Hah!

And two things to celebrate:

Official word that my uncle is getting married on 17 December. Hooray! Too little notice and too little cash to get over to snowy Detroit, but we’re promised some kind of bash this side of the pond next year. ‘Bout bloody time. His soon-to-be father-in-law is a Droo fan, though. Surely worth pausing for thought…

And History of Christmas has been seen in the building. Ooh!

“I’ve been moving so long…

...The days all feel the same,” as philosophic hairy-persons Supergrass would have it.

Movers were cool and quick, and we discussed how London is not like Brazil. The cat was all out-of-sorts, refusing to get into his catbox for travelling, and forging a particularly stinky, liquidy poo as protest. He chirped up, though, when the Dr came home from work, and seems sorted since we rebuilt the sofa.

Made our way to B.’s in the evening for toasties, booze and lovely, lovely Dr Who. Cor, Tennant’s it, isn’t he?

Fell asleep contented and cosy, then had to trek home. What’s happened to the air? I boasted in Sweden of our Indian summer… I think it’s now colder here. Too bloody cold, and a hundred pages into Fifty Degrees Below, I’m finding the weather plain scary. Perhaps the Ice Warriors were right about the effects of global “warming”.

On Saturday I clattered down to the olds’, while the Dr awaited deliveries. Had a cathartic afternoon binning my GCSE, A-level and degree notes, stuff slaved over half a life ago. Filled a bin-bag with paper for recycling, and two bags of more generic rubbish. I’m hard and ruthless, me.

Then back into town for fine wine with Liadnan and other chums, who’d got four hours’ head start. Not a problem.

Yesterday, R. escorted me to Barking, where I signed some things for people who’d come to see Van Statten, Gwyneth and the Gelth. Saul Murphy – who’d never done a signing either – was amazed by a fan who knew he’d been in Empty Child (for a moment, in the nightclub), as well as inside an Auton and Adherent. And some folk glower if you write comments as well as your name… But lots of ego-ballooning fun, and some people even claimed to like the book.

Back home, where the Dr reciprocated for B. with spicy Mexicana, and we cooed at the extras on the Season 1 DVD. Especially wowed by Mark Gatiss’s video diary, which is chock-full of tantalising insight into writerly process. Yes, it was long and consuming work, but I’m all the more envious now… Billie’s diary is fun, too, and though the menu takes some sussing, this is a package that even makes storyboards engaging. Hooray!

Fell down the road to join chums in what’s now our local, though we were already suitably oiled. To my great embarrassment, work needs doing on something I’ve wrote. Have a wheeze how to fix things, and the Boss seems happier. But dammit.

Into work this morning, and it’s alarmingly quick from the new place. Just time for Frank to learn his mystery woman’s name, and I had to pack the book away again.

A world of emails to work through, though I’ve got some more writing work, of a spooky sort. Announcements in due course.

Tomorrow, while the Dr and my mum are pampered in style, my dad is hefting the keepables to our new pad: boxes of stories written when I was 10, beloved books and ornaments, and three bin-liners full of Droo stuff. Plus £100 of cat-toy to compensate for the loss of the little sod’s garden. He’ll probably be sick on it.

Fed up with cardboard boxes, and the flat is piled high with Things Needing Sorting. The Dr has been working wonders, but we’re dog-tired and craggy, and now I hear the new washing machine won't play.

And this is just Monday…

Radio silence

About to unplug the computer, so this may be the last from me for a bit. Stop that cheering.

Play was top last night – full of dead babies, a hanging, a drowning, and the reporter from Aliens of London dribbling blood and seeing visions. Cool. Also some Handel and jokes.

During the interval, some wide-eyed schoolkid came over and asked if I knew if it was going to be like this. Obviously saw me as someone who wouldn't normally find themselves in a theatre (looking so cool and young as I do), but just the sort to appreciate freaky violence...

Looks like something I pitched in September might get picked up. Which’d be nice. Got notes to write up for some other pitchy things, plus a short story due in at the end of December.

And little Huw is jealous. Naw. Though it's not "Reggae", it's "Moose".

Whistling through the house

Discussed my trouble writing about music (think it’s cos I like tunes to zone out to), left Sin’s at half six (UK time) last night, and got home just after 1 this morning. Blimey, I’m tired. The Dr has been extremely busy, and most of our life is now stowed away in boxes. My turn now.

Done a few bits of work promised elsewhere. The boss has agreed to let me do something a bit different with the blurb for The Settling, which I’ve just delivered. Woo.

Listening to the new Kate Bush album, which is nice enough to work to (the Dr tells me the second CD is where the cool stuff’s at, though).

Tonight we’re off to see Coram Boy at the National, tomorrow it’s work plus the rest of the packing. Friday moofing, hopefully done in time to see new Dr Who. Saturday I’m meant to pop back to the olds to sort some stuff, racing back for Liadnan in the evening, and scribblings on Sunday.

Somewhere, sometime there’ll be sleep. And maybe the welcome-home snog that remains overdue.

No, not you, needy cat who won’t leave me alone for five minutes. You happy I’m home, then?

Like Sliding Doors...

“…but several shades more complex and interesting.”

Joe Ford’s kind, spoilerific review of Time Travellers is nice. As were The Settling’s cast. Clive Mantle is brilliant - and my mum’s terribly envious I got to meet him. Another member of the cast lives next door to where I met the Doctor. Weird. Blurb will follow soon – about to write it now.

Game was fun yesterday, though I rather backed myself into a corner by being “just the driver”. Imagine Han Solo, only Luke hasn’t convinced him to care… Difficult to make a conspiracy thrilling when my motivation is not to care. Kudos to G. for making it work despite this.

Dead early this morning I stumbled through some stuff about the English language with 72 Swedish kids. Not sure if they looked bored ‘cos they couldn’t understand me, or because they could. Best question was “Why should we learn English?”

Hmm… well, it’s a well-spread language and world leader and blah. But what seemed to go down well (if not with the teachers) is that you don’t need a lot of English to be understood. I mean, Sin speaks – and teaches – English with a thick Burnley accent, and half the time I’ve no idea what he’s saying. Aaaaah.

Sin's victors

Greetings from chilly Sweden. The Deniz birthday proceeds well, though the central heating, eating and drinking means I am quite dozy. Staying up nattering till 3 and 4am has not helped.

Still, my team won the games yesterday - due álmost entirely to one good hand of Top Trumps. Learnt lots of top facts and made new friends. Much discussion of Star Wars - like is Tack mentioned on screen - and our host's godawful taste in tunes.

Am not very good at Quoridor. Nor at Swedish keyboards which have odd ö and ä and å keys where I want apostrophes and things. Sörry about odd accents and stuff. Gah.

Tomorrow I am Star Wars role-playing. Not rped for years and years, but think I recall the method. Am going to be a Mon Calamari, of course.

Missing the Doctor, though she has been keeping busy doing painting and house chores. Wonder if there's anything left to drink...

Out, just out

Loads to cram in tonight…

Lively do on Tuesday, Gaiman discussing the intrinsic joy of stories, and how without them – and asking “what if?” – we’d all still be mooking about the African savannah, waiting for animals to drop dead so we could eat them.

Gothier, freakier audience than for Fry, and a much better quality of question. Notably, there were no stalkers, or “me and my opinion” bores. The nearest was a bloke politely enquiring if he might get a second question… Naw.

I’d heard many of the stories before through the blog, but it’s fun to hear them out loud, and with someone beside me who doesn’t know, for example, of the melty-eyed Muppets in Hampstead.

Gaiman also talked about the use of blogging; keeping the brain limber, engaging with ideas. See, it’s not merely for parrying real work. Honest.

Lenny Henry, who was there to read from Anansi Boys (which he’d got the ball rolling on a thousand years ago by muttering that horror never has any black people in it), laughed at a question about whose universe would get used if Gaiman and Joss Whedon teamed up. Gaiman laughed back: Henry’s a comic-reading geekboy, bad as the rest of us, and all-too-versed in other people’s universes…

(Not sure “universe” – meaning entirely everything – is the right word, ‘cos you can’t have more than one entirely-everything. Nor is “parallel” the right term either. “Parallel worlds” tend to be the same but different, where one choice made the place go a different way. But parallels don’t intersect… “Branches” is probably best, and cf. chapter 9 of my bloody book.)

Gaiman lives a really enviable life as an author – it’s endearing how little there is that he doesn’t like or isn’t interested in. Or, at least, how little he’ll say that’s not keen. Really inspired by his enthusiasm for all manner of anything. “Research” is an excuse to poddle round LA looking at graveyards, a “block” (not a term he likes, he was keen to explain) means beach-time in Barbados, puzzling things out…

Dead envious of Henry, too, who’s read Miracleman #25. Bastard!

There was all kind of name-dropping, as Gaiman’s loved by Tarantino’s mum, wrote some of his book in Tori Amos’s spare house, and couldn’t judge what Angelina Jolie is really like because he had her wearing an all-over, blue, gimp-sort-of suit for reasons of smart CGI…

Yes, I thought. That’s the sort of writerly schmoozing I’d like to get at some day. And then spent yesterday with Sylvester and Sophie and… well, fab actors to be announced soon… Maybe speak of that another time.

After recording yesterday, I fitted a curtain rail and then watched the brilliant Much Ado… Really very lovely indeed. And well done B. for top Toad in the Hole, fruity booze and good cheer.

Much drunken natter ‘bout the Government being whupped. Really, this should have happened at the start of the year – and only didn’t because the other parties dropped the ball. As was said while the Terrorism Bill clogged the Lords, it’s depressing when the only effective opposition in this country is that there Jeremy Paxman…

Ignoring hangovers, today the Doctor got doctored officially, and got to shake hands with Eric Hobsbawm. Finally, school is over. Another graduate, taking her baby with her up on stage, sums up Birkbeck’s zealous championing of the part-time student, juggling research with a full-time life. Bain’t easy. I couldn’t have done what the Doctor did, and am full of awe and pride and amazement.

Looked pretty fit in her hood and felt hat, too.

After cheap fizz and canapés (I had almost three) we and the parents did Persia (v. good, full of detail, and Neil McGregor’s audio-commentary is well-worth picking up), and then tea. Lots of chatting about not much in particular. My dad’s read Time Travellers, and thinks it okay.

Then home, shagged out, to finish chores, pay more money out on new house, decide which questions are to be asked of my team this weekend, pack, snog the mrs, sleep.

Sweden tomorrow morning. Maybe without email (!), hence clearing the decks of stuff now. More Wednesday next week if not sooner.

But a mate has a blog that’s worth reading, and my review of a film is now up.

Out of here.

Happy happy happy

This week is proving rather good. The BBC loves me. I spent a fun day with Dr Who today, and will report on that and last night and things soon. And tomorrow the Doctor becomes, er, a Doctor. I am all skippy.

Oh, and like you care, but this is my 100th post.