Sprained his wrist writing sonnets

(Just switched to Beta Blogger on the promise of all kinds of cleverness. Hope it doesn't not go snafu.)

Okay, I admit that I read 1599 to swot up for next year’s Droo. Pretty sure that’s why I got bought it, too. Not that I’m sure it will help:

“I cut myself off from reading anything about Shakespeare, went on what I knew already, and then checked afterwards. … I didn’t want to read James Shapiro’s book 1599 … in case I got bogged down.”

Gareth Roberts, interviewed by Rex Duis, “Script Doctors”, Dr Who Magazine 377 (3 January 2007), p. 13.

Well, it’s still a rich and lively book, whatever Gareth says. It avoids the usual failing of literary biography (as I’ve discussed with Wodehouse) – not so comprehensively linking the elements in his stories to influences surrounding him that it’s like Will was less creator than copyist. But Shapiro is also keen to show that Shakespeare’s work is not timeless, and that far all he was a transcendent genius, he was very much of his age.

1599 is when Shakespeare hits it big. The year begins with the construction of the famous Globe Theatre, in which he himself had a stake. Shapiro explores the mechanics and economics of that investment, and then the politics and practical necessities that influenced the writing of “Henry V”, “Julius Caesar”, “As You Like It” and “Hamlet”.

As well as some heavy-going analysis of particular snippets of play, it’s full of facts and detail. I discussed the relevance of 17 November back on, er, 17 November. Neat.

In exploring the adventures of the Earl of Essex and his ill-fated trip to Ireland, there’s something broader to be said about the fickleness of heroism. Essex’s collapse from grace is just as wild, explosive and tragic as the stuff what’s in Shakespeare’s writing.

We also get a sense of the wide, heady mix of high and low cultures which Shakespeare had to straddle. His works were performed for the old Queen amid the sumptuous decorations of Whitehall. Yet they also needed to win an audience from the bear baiting and cock fights crowding the rascally South Bank.

It’s little wonder then that his peers were taking risks, writing stuff that would get them fined or even land them in prison. Our Will seems to have deftly dodged anything too controversial, while retaining a verve and topicality that appealed to all classes of folk. (Shapiro’s also good on how plays would be taken off when events made them a little too topical…)

There’s also some fun detail about everyday practicalities – that bookshops would have very individual stock, and that without any copyright a book of Shakespeare’s poetry wasn’t necessarily all by him.

I was also enraptured by the consequences that follow from news being so slow to travel. There’s some mystery about how many weeks elapsed before Will heard of the death of his son. More fun is the courtly entanglements as London is unable to prove one way or another if England has just been invaded.

All in all, it’s a vivid animation of late-Tudor London, rich, sweaty and teeming with life. Especially so, as I read it in Florence, which I said had the same kind waterfront of crowded, timber dwellings seen in the cockney models of “A Knight’s Tale” and Olivier’s “Henry V”.

Two more top facts: 1599 was also the year that Oliver Cromwell was born. And I’m strangely pleased by the word crucifige (“Crucify him”), given on p. 208.

"I didn't want it to end."

Codename Moose summed up our feelings in those six words.

Pan’s Labyrinth is another wondrous strange creation from Guillermo del Toro: mesmerising, scary and brilliant.

Ofelia follows her very pregnant mother to an army camp deep in the woods. Mother’s new husband is a captain for Franco’s new regime, putting down the last of the communists at the tail end of the second world war. He’s violent and vicious and cares only for his unborn son.

But nearby in the wood is an ancient labyrinth, a dark and foreboding portal to powers ancient and terrifying. If Ofelia can complete three tasks for the Faun, she’ll be granted her dearest wishes...

Like del Toro’s previous "The Devil's Backbone", the film mixes up the real awful history of the Spanish civil war with fantasy no less alarming. It’s just as unsettling to watch the military barbarity as the gaunt, eyeless monster that guards a lush banqueting table.

It’s also reminiscent of CS Lewis’s "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" – especially the recent film, which made the second world war more explicit. Ofelia is a more put-upon Lucy, and this Faun isn’t offering her tea.

I talked not-quite-a-year-ago of how it’s only us adults who are freaked by horrid things done to and by children. We’re the ones to harbour fantasies of childish innocence and kindness. Children know, from school and everyday life, that children are full of vicious and untempered cruelty.

Still, we could also see why Neil Gaiman was in trouble for taking his littlest to see this one.

Speaking of which, this morning I finished his Fragile Things – a collection of short stories, poems and bits of idea.

Gaiman has often been rather cosily strange, with the feel of a Grimm’s fairy tale read by an open fire. Yet many of the stories here are thuggish and nasty, lacking what Susanna Clarke has called his "Wodehousian generosity of spirit", which made "Anansi Boys" and "Stardust" so appealing. There are zombies and gangsters and paedophiles and killers in this, with no redeeming features whatever.

Where Gaiman’s at his best is creating characters we care about, and then exploring the strange realms from behind their eyes. The final novella, "Monarch of the Glen" revisits one of the gangsters from a previous entry, who is no less powerful of scary than when we last met him.

Yet, by telling the story from the perspective of Shadow (the same character as from the novel "American Gods"), and detailing Shadow’s own qualms and uncertainties, it’s a much kinder feeling adventure.

"The Problem of Susan" is another haunting highlight, revisiting the spurned Queen of Narnia. It confronts her brusque dispatch in "The Last Battle" – where she’s the only one of her siblings not allowed into Heaven because she’s too fond of lipstick. More than that, it confronts the psycho-sexual elements implicit in that distinction, and the cruel way the other Pevensie’s find their way to paradise (Lewis kills them all off in a train crash).

"There is so much in the [Narnia] books that I love, but each time I found the disposal of Susan to be intensely problematic and deeply irritating. I suppose I wanted to write a story that would be equally as problematic … if from a different direction."

Neil Gaiman, Introduction to Fragile Things, p. xxii.

With reference to other strange children’s fictions like Mary Poppins and Dahl’s Mathilda, it manages to be something more altogether about the faults and something extra with which we fill up our kids.

Think my favourite is the opening "A Study in Emerald", which nicely twists the classic Holmesian short on its head. Not only does that there link let you read the whole story, but Wikipedia then goes and explains it.

Man? Police man?

Terrific concern this afternoon that we might be in work a bit later, as a result of Mr Blair going to see Mr Knacker.

"Look... I really want to help put the matter straight and I'll answer any questions you have. But had you ever considered how you might one day fancying being Lord Knacker?

Come on, I've a flight booked to Finland..."

Anyway, we did add on a whole thirteen minutes, which I don't think qualifies us for any compensation under rules for the victims of crime. Were it to turn out that anything untoward had gone on, which of course is completely unlikely.

I just await the chaps finishing before we fall at the pub. So don't want to start getting into anything too postie.

Why not go visit my new friend Alex and see his fun Die-cast movie. And then go see all the treats Ebb of Weevil has currently on display.

Normal service to be resumed sometime. I have read books and done thinking and everything.

"Vic sounded like a truck driver"

The Dr is out tonight having tea with a friend, and I’ve been left lonely and plotting.

My thinking cap sits at a rakish angle following a chance encounter. All kinds of treasure is being drawn forth – space wars and recreational incest, a computer with a headache, some murder, some foam, no clothes and a cliff-hanging window.

A late self-addressed note compels "ONLY MORE AND MUCH WEIRDER". Need it written up before pubbing on Saturday.

This elan of grey matter is all rather welcome. For days I’ve been grouchy and about to explode, “What the bloody-hell-cock is a Wii?”

Don’t write in, as I now have the edge of the premise. It’s like a souped up VIC 20 with crazy more games. (Though sadly, that doesn’t mean an Amstrad; not even one with its very own disk drive.)

On a not unrelated tangent, is it only me filled with incandescent rage when adverts leave off the word “pounds”? Computers for “just three-nine-five” and cars “starting from six-seven-nine-nine”... they’re more like odds than prices.

Perhaps it’s a ploy so we forget they mean money, and the corresponding toil in the workplace.

Or perhaps they accept payment in other kinds of currency – like 395 dreams or 6,799 kittens.

Avon calling

Well what else would the headline be? My chums at B7Media have announced their thrill-packed new Blake’s 7 audio series, which has just finished being recorded.

At last it’s all done and public, having heard hushed bits about it for a while. Writers Ben, Marc and James have all scribbled for me in the last year and yet remained frustratingly discrete. Git monkeys.

Like you didn't know, it's a gruff bit of space opera about a gruff dude called Roj Blake - on TV a rare Welsh sci-fi hero. Framed for crimes he didn't commit by the Earth's nasty, dictatorial Federation, he teams up with a gang of ne'er-do-well rascals and runs off in a spaceship called "Liberator". Which is a clue to what he's intending...

I have vague memories from the end of the old-school version – that oft-repeated shot of Scorpio docking in its garage, a barely understood crush on Dayna, and Avon being glad to learn Servalan’s still alive because he wants to kill her himself.

Years later, about the same time my love of Dr Who proper burgeoned, my friend B. had the early run of Blake’s 7 videos, where a whole series was cropped down to 90 minutes. Cutting anything that wasn’t essential to the plot, these movies were simply amazing – fast and dark and twisty and (of most importance) violent.

They pretty much spoilt the series for me, because those full episodes I’ve seen seem so ponderous and dull. Just skip to the end, Mr Vila.

The new series promises zippy five-minute episodes, and the (re-)cast is monstrously exciting. Blake shall be played by Derek Riddell (of the Torchwood Estate – as opposed to Gareth Thomas of a Torchwood terrace), and James Bond’s Colin Salmon is Avon. Cor.

I’m trying to recall which of my chums had a peculiar thing for Daniela Nardini, who’ll be vamping it up as New Servalan. Was it you, Liadnan? Are you now very excited?

Scaredy-cats and soft death balls

On Saturday I attended a glittering soiree on the occasion of a very first birthday. Gorged on fizz and finger food, which included a New Zealish delicacy.

“Fairy bread” is buttered white bread cut into animal shapes, then sprinkled o’er with hundreds and thousands. It’s sickly sweet, has no redeeming or nutritional features whatever, but earned hearty cheers from my inner eight year-old.

S. handed me a copy of Wholphin 2, which Nimbos and I then watched that evening. It seems largely an excuse to release the first part of “The Power of Nightmares”, Adam Curtis’s contentious BBC documentary linking the rise of both the American neo-conservatives and radical Islamic groups, arguing that both are against liberal society and the Soviet Union, and both like to start people fighting...

Not surprisingly, this thesis has met with a certain amount of heckling. The BBC boasts highlights from more than 3,000 comments, “reflecting the balance and range of views we have received”.

Terror is an emotive subject (well, d’uh) and a lot of the reaction seems along the lines of “But terrorists exist!” This is rather missing the point of a documentary about how our fears have been encouraged and manipulated by both terrorists and members of our own governments.

There have been terrorists before, the argument goes, so why is al-Qaeda so different?

The documentary has not been shown in the USA, and Wholphin proclaims it “the film US TV networks dare not show” (as according to the Grauniad). On Wikipedia, Curtis claims a network head told him “We would get slaughtered if we put this out”.

The film is available as a free, legal download and has been shown at film festivals and in Canada. The Australian showing was postponed for five months, following the London bombings.

So why has it not been released on DVD before? On Wholphin, it’s provided as a bonus disc, and the sleeve notes add to the dark whiff of conspiracy by suggesting it might still be excised:

“If there is no Power of Nightmares in your package, it means that something went horribly wrong and the retailer was asked to remove the film.”

Which implies some terrible censorship, whether voluntary (on the part of suppliers or distributors) or enforced by the Powers That Are. However, Curtis’s own comments from last year offer another explanation:

“The films are full of archive film and music from a multitude of sources. The reason my series are normally not released on DVD is that it is prohibitively costly and a nightmare - no pun intended - to clear the rights.”

Adam Curtis, “Power of Nightmares re-awakened”,
BBC News, 26 April 2005.

And this is my real problem with the documentary: you're not always sure what is verifiable fact and what is brave supposition.

Curtis uses archive footage to make his points, rather than giving those he critiques any right to reply. His targets' arguments are undercut by fast cutting between contradictory statements – like a headline on a news programme that’s the opposite of what some authority has said. So Curtis gets to make his claims pretty much unchallenged.

I’ve heard it argued that this is okay because his film is a “personal essay”, an invitation to debate the issues that he raises. And though I appreciate that he’s taking arms against a whopping great ocean of struggles, it still feels a little one-sided. Like kids shooting peas at policemen, it’s a challenge to authority, yes, but not exactly going to change the system.

The problem with the essay is that Curtis does what he accuses his targets of, and tells us what to think. If he wants a debate, why not have a debate? Or what is he afraid of?

The rest of the DVD was much more satisfying. I’ve never been quite won over by McSweeney’s (responsible for the DVD), whose beautifully packaged publications are often more pretentious than profound. That’s true of the Auster-lite “Home, James, and Don’t Spare the Horses”, about an artist being groomed to be shocking, and of Soderbergh’s ponderous “Building No. 7”, and of Donald Trump discussing Citizen Kane in “The Movie Movie”.

But there are jems, too. We loved “Okusama wa Majo” – the Japanese version of Bewitched, only subtitled by the jokers from The Daily Show. The animated “More” and “The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello” were strange and Goth and moving. “The Mesmerist” is a haunting retelling of the warped and broken footage from an anti-Semitic film from the 1920s starring Boris Karloff, and – best of all – “Sour Death Balls” shows different people struggling to chew on a not very pleasant sweet.

No, it wasn’t more of the fairy bread.

Code and Carthage

Spent today mostly playing with virtual building blocks. Anchor tags don’t seem to work across pages, but that may just be a thing with the management system preview. Feel like I’ve achieved something at the end of the day, but it’s been fiddly and a long time in coming.

Ah, but it’s a fun excuse to flex my HTML. Look on my works when they’re live, ye mighty, and despair.

Usual pub last night to see lots of splendid people for far too little a time. Talked lay-out of a forthcoming project, and the level of 15 in-jokes on something else. Also got to meet Mitch Benn, who spoke tantalisingly and cryptically of his Mysterious Neil Gaiman Project.

So I did the same back at him about the forthcoming war with Draconians. Bwah ha ha.

The Dr is having fun in Tunisia, and has been to both Tunis and Carthage. She’s back on Sunday, so I’ll need to have done some washing and vacuuming by then.

"Have lots of turkish delight 4 mothers" she texted. But what of delights for me?

Rose and the Ruby

Fun night out at the special NFT preview of “The Ruby in the Smoke” last night. Many of the cast and crew were also there, and after the showing m’colleague Matthew Sweet asked questions of Philip Pullman (who wrote the book), Adrian Hodges (who adapted it) and JJ Feild (who plays Fred ).

Soon after the death of her father at sea, Veronica "Sally" Lockhart (Billie Piper) receives an illiterate warning that she too is in danger. Soon she’s killed a man and is running for her life, pursued by the vicious Mrs Holland (Julie Walters)…

It’s a sumptuous, break-neck adventure – perhaps a little too much plot crammed into the time, and sometimes tricky to follow. Since it’s consciously aping the penny dreadful thriller, perhaps an episodic version would have worked a bit better, on the same model as last year’s Bleak House.

I also thought the whole thing owed much to the Sign of Four, only told from the perspective of the future Mrs Watson.

The cast are all strong, Julie Waters brilliantly grotesque, and it’s good to see Billie in her first starring role. However, the rocketing plot means there’s little chance to show much depth of character. Grisly killings pepper the story from start to finish, so there’s also little time to get to know many of the supporting players.

Brian Percival also directed the stunning North and South, and there’s a similar richness of detail in this adaptation. The historical accuracy is a little off, though – you didn’t get opium dens until the very end of the 19th century, when the stuff was no longer available freely and legally. And nor would a Victorian girl have ever heard the word “spiv”.

But as Pullman said in answer to a question, he’s happy to ignore the historical facts in favour of a gripping adventure. Perhaps he should read Matthew’s splendid book on the far stranger, real Victorians.

Afterwards there were drinkies and I got to meet Alex Fitch, another of Big Finish’s scribblers.

Good hunting

How things change. A mere 17 years ago today, I was a little into my third year at school – Class 3’s room on the ground floor of the main building, just a stone’s throw from the chapel.

At the end of each day, I’d run the mile-or-so to St Denys station and just catch the earlier train home. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to be home earlier, or just not to hang around in the dark for the later train. The earlier one also featured real, live girls from the schools in the centre of town.

They must have been impressed by the itchingly nervous, spotty, lanky boy in his fetching brown blazer with gold braid. Especially if I wasn’t shutting up about Dr Who or comics.

Would have got home and eaten and then settled down to watch episode 3 of “Survival”. Even then, Dr Who was a guilty pleasure – a video of “Brain of Morbius” had proven it wasn’t as good as it used to be, and the schoolmates who dared watch the new stuff spoke of it only in whispers.

But “Survival” seemed like something else, strange and new and amazing. Ace, played by Sophie Aldred, is turning into a wild cat lady, egged on by cat lady Kara (Lisa Bowerman). The Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) pursues Ace, hoping to coax her from the lusty desires to do nothing but fight and feast.

It all ties in to script editor Andrew Cartmel’s efforts to develop Ace’s character, and grow her up on screen. Gary Gillatt has also pointed out how similar the feel and locations and emotional depth are to the first new episode, “Rose”.

Yes, the effects are a bit wobbly, the animatronic cats and the Cheetah People make-up are a bit crude, and there’s a rather odd bit when the Doctor plays chicken on a motorbike.

Yet sun-drenched and bright from a mid-summer filming, the coloured-in skies of the Cheetah People’s world are actually rather epic. Anthony Ainley gives his best and most scary performance of the Master, and gives Sylvester something to step up to. Their final confrontation is played as a stand off between two small gods.

Rona Munro’s clever script is also crammed with stuff that my 13 year-old brain was only just starting to notice. There’s this slow-motion sequence of Ace running after Kara...

And at the end Ace has left home – “home” is now the TARDIS, and she and the Doctor walk off to thrilling new adventures, just as the Beeb pulled the plug. (I didn’t know that until a year later, when I started getting DWM.)

But the oddest thing about all this remembrance is that on the same day, Codename Moose would have been eight.

Rien la de la de tra?

Ha ha! This blog is also available in French.

Working, not working and flying

The Big Finish website has been updated with all kinds of thing I’ve been up to and many things still yet to come. I’ve got a new Bernice Summerfield play to write and five more to edit, as well as keeping an eye on three books. I’m co-writing a book on Benny’s 15-year history, and judging a competition for new writers of Doctor Who. Lor.

That’s on top of bits and pieces that isn’t British sci-fi; writing and editing and the sort of architecture where you need not be good with your hands.

With the Dr away in Tunisia (stubbornly not making Haj to the Star Wars locations), I’d planned to spend today swinging between the branches of content management.

Computer, however, said no.

"Driver_unloaded_without_cancelling_pending_operations" explained the error message that’s taken all day to fix. Turns out a driver called cdr4_2k.sys got broken when I updated DivX – which appears not to like Windows 2000.

So from Safe Mode I stuck DivX on to a USB keyring and got it to play on my XPing laptop, enabling me to catch up with Heroes while trying to unfuck the PC.

Yes, it’s all the fault of Heroes, which I downloaded the new DivX to watch. But my giddy teeth, that’s a bit brilliant.

All across the world (well, across America, plus someone in India and someone else in Japan), normal people wake up with super powers – and all sort of headaches ensue. It’s sometimes a bit cheesy on knowing who you really are, but it’s thrilling and brutal and twisty. And there’s often that lovely thing of the twist that comes out of absolutely nowhere in retrospect seeming inevitable.

I have watched six episodes in pretty much a single sitting (just seen to the end of episode 10). No spoilers, no clues, just go watch the dyam thing.

Though it’s probably not worth trashing your computer for.

Craig

Nimbos rang last night with the awful news that Craig Hinton has died. The web has since caught up with facts and people’s memories. The same things are said: a lovely, funny bloke, always eager to share the best and most salacious gossip.

I didn’t know him well, but Craig was a fixture in the pub and on mailing lists. He was the first person I knew to pick up on the mentions of “Bad Wolf”.

My abiding memory is his telling me in strictest confidence the plot of his forthcoming novel. I giggled at thoughts of breast implants controlled by aliens and killer contact lenses.

“But don’t let anyone else here know,” he said, with a comradely twinkle. He’d told me and me alone because I was someone special.

I then watched him go person-to-person round the pub, telling everyone exactly the same thing.

Oof

First, a word from our sponsor:

"Her name was Sally Lockhart; and within fifteen minutes, she was going to kill a man."

Blurb for "The Ruby in the Smoke" (BBC, 2006)

Bit excited by the NFT preview on Wednesday, with questions hosted by m'colleague Matthew Sweet. Will report back.

Anyway. Met B. last night as he dashed through London on his way to meet his mrs in Zagreb. We went to the zippy Thai Silk, where I enjoyed a nice peanuty thing of chicken, served in a hollowed out loaf.

I remember my dad explaining that the Vikings used to eat their meals from hollowed-out crusty loaves called "trenchers". The soft bread inside was torn out and given to babies and the old, or anyone lacking in teeth.

It's true, too, and not merely a cunning wheeze to get me eating crusts. (Which I do – and other people's – hence my full crop of unbalding ringlets.) Indeed, History.uk.com has a recipe. Hooraye for ye internete.

After tea we found a corner in the King's Arms, and caught up til half-past 11. B. was appalled at this unsophistication - pubs in 'Ampshoire be open much laterer.

Like O. (and also from my old stomping grounds), B. has been working on the shell of a house, making it all spick and span again. With walls and ceilings and everything. Since last I looked, he's got all of a roof and even some spangly windows. Again, I am sorely envious of anyone who can do shit with their fingers.

But what next, I asked. And he's considering going door-to-door for the Tories. Blimey.

He left with the rest of the night to fill before his six a.m. check in, promising to bring me back a Top Fact from Croatia, and to read Paxman's Political Animal.

What know you of ready?

It has been a while since I was last in Lewisham. The stalls are filled with Christmas tat and the reek of new-caught fish.

Somewhere deep inside the Wetherspoons, J. detailed the myriad shortcomings of something I have wrought. He provided the same sterling service for my very first piece of professionally published fiction, and I’m really very grateful.

Again, he leaves me feeling savaged yet unable to disagree:

• What I’ve writ needs to be more visually arresting, with more stuff never seen before
• The direction needs to be more concise and yet a whole lot more engaging
• The dialogue needs to be simpler and more as real people speak – no “twat monkey”, “jobby” or “bumways”
• What a person says also needs to show exactly how they think
• Mysteries are all very lovely, but it can’t just not give any answers – that makes it all a bit too jumpy, like we’re missing the key scenes
• Lucy’s solution is rather inelegant and more effort than it’s worth, and we should see her being smarter in how she gets just what she wants
• Richard needs a pal in whom he can confide (i.e. on how he’s coping with the plot)
• If we don’t like him – and we really don’t in that bit on page 52 – the whole thing’s a bit of a turn-off
• And the ending just isn’t strong enough – it needs to really raise the stakes

It is all, damn him, entirely on the money. At least I didn’t have to somersault between trees while giving him a piggy-back.

The 75 back home was filled with notes for fixes. I remind myself that what does not kill can only make me stronger. And that Real Writers Re-Write. Hum ho.

J’s also poked me in the direction of what already prove to be two very good writing blogs: Jane Espenson (from Buffy) and Ken Levine (off of Frasier).

Fetch the engines

70 years ago tomorrow, the Crystal Palace burnt down. We were planning on going to commemorative fireworks tonight, but they start too early to get their from work. Rats.

The Crystal Palace stood in Penge Place, Sydenham for 82 years, and by the end was a bit run down anyway. Existing film footage of galas and things make it look a bit overgrown and bedraggled. And so all the more weird and exciting.

London’s second-tallest structure (after Torchwood Tower) is built on the site: the Crystal Palace transmitting station, what provides us our TV. It’s a recognisable fixture of the London skyline for miles and miles around.

The transmitter mast is approximately 6.5 times taller than the Crystal Palace was (222 metres as compared to 33, or 728 feet to 110).

So presumably you could have seen the palace from miles away too. I would love to see photos of this.

Mars, not the Arctic

Just home from a fun tea and biscuits where a commission has been finally hammered out. Joe Lidster went through his list of great concerns, and we've fingered it into swimmingity. So hooray.

Though I realised on the train home we now can't use the gag about polar bears. Curses. It's time will come.

Also seem to have been commissioned for something else, and contracts are being sent out for things that I'm in charge of. Have had a good-natured disagreement on the paradigm of Han Solo's "I know", but that all seems amicably sorted. And I've begun the painful hatchet where elsewhere we're far too long.

Of no lesser importance, we also know who'll be goosing with us on Christmas Day. And we merely await the Radio Times to schedule cheese and pudding.

None of which is of any interest to anyone but my brane. If only I had a top sort of fact - which I did, but Nimbos blogged it the same time that he told me.

If only I had someone clever in the building. Oh, hang on...

The Dr says: the establishment of the British Museum in 1753 was funded by the nation, through a "dubiously run" (she says) national lottery.

Between fact and breakfast

Have worked my way through all 25 episodes of “A Bit of Fry and Laurie” in the last few weeks.

It’s very wordy, and at its best when kept short and to the point, rather than rambling any old which way. Often the longer skits end up in them refusing to go on, like they’ve even bored themselves.

While some judicious and brutal editing would have helped, there’s still heaps of wonderful stuff. The vox pops are often especially good. I also adored the wet le Carre stylings of Tony Mercheson making coffee for Control, which manages to be quite moving.

Like Uttoxeter’s damn businessmen, Peter and John, I’d remembered them as being much more prominent throughout the run, rather than just in one series. They’re also a lot more of their time than I’d realised – Tony losing his job when the Berlin Wall comes down.

I’d remembered it as rather silly fluff, but there are frequent, angry tirades against consumerism and crassness and meaningless corporate speak. Two seasons bow out with Fry’s emotive address to camera about the turgidity of buzzwords like “choice”, “charter marks” and “leisure facilities”.

There’s also a recurring thing of showing up the silliness of accepted procedures: the former estate agents now selling petrol, and the lawyers agreeing the stages of a one-night stand.

The series covers a huge range of stuff – daytime telly and Top of the Pops to gritty drama in the mould of the Professionals, advertising, politics, semantics, various films and sports, even the life of Alan Bennett. And in large part it’s character-led stuff, with the comedy hinging on the well-observed performance and vocabulary.

That range is all the more impressive considering it’s largely just the two of them. Earlier seasons have a couple of fun one-off cameos from the likes of Paul Eddington and Nicholas Parsons, but the season 4’s “guests” doesn’t really work. It all feels a bit smug and pally, even when they’re trying to make things a little more interesting, like implying m’colleague Clive Mantle is an alkie.

(I had to turn off the extra on Season 2, a 1982 Cambridge Footlights Review, which is just toe-curlingly self-indulgent and simpering.)

And yet and yet.

What really tickles this viewing several is some very simple comedy stuff: two men dressing up as daft women; an awkward great loaf with no rhythm dancing; lots of mugging like fools at the camera.

Actually, with all the silly wigs, frocks and singing involved, I’m surprised the series isn’t more often featured in “Before they were famous”, now Laurie’s a big film star and house.

Moonshine washing line

Things, like umbrellas, that bother me:

• Endnotes. Footnotes are so much friendlier
• The horrid cold sat under the bridge of my nose which makes my head feel monstrously heavy and packed full of PVA glue.
• Trying to catch up with overdue work with a horrid cold sat under the bridge of my nose which makes my head feel monstrously heavy and packed full of PVA glue.

Things, like Ackbar, that make me feel a bit better:

• Syd Barrett's song "Arnold Layne"
• The noise of David Bowie.
• The splendid conjoinment of the two.

Bleurg.

Discovery and deceit

Shouldn't really complain if the first miserable cold of the season only hits me in late November. But bleurg.

Had a good meeting yesterday from which some work may come. Did bits of other work, and then round to Nimbos's for tea. I note from his diaries that David Tennant has a very good collection of DVDs. There's all of James Bond to his lower left, and all of the West Wing lower right. And upper right: that looks like a near-as-dammit complete run of old school Dr Who. I'm sure that's research.

Speaking of research, I recently came up with what Dr Evelyn Smythe wrote her Master's on. Evelyn (through whom I once met David Tennant, as it happens) will obviously be interested in this forthcoming lecture at the National Portrait Gallery.

"Discovery and Deceit - Charles Newton and the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus"
Sunday 28 January 2007, 15:00
On the 150th anniversary of this archaeological discovery, Debbie Challis examines the controversy around who actually found the Mausoleum and the heroic cult of the archaeologist in the nineteenth century.

I'm hoping for a mention of Daleks.