LokI: A Bad God's Guide 1 and 2, by Louie Stowell

A couple of long car journeys have been greatly aided by this pair of excellent books written by Louie Stowell and read by Ben Willbond. The Norse god of chaos, Loki, is in trouble for playing yet another prank on Sif - this time cutting off all of her hair. As punishment, Odin (or "poo-poo head" as Loki calls him) exiles Loki to Earth, in the puny body of a schoolboy. Worse, Loki must go to human school with oh-so-perfect (but dim) brother Thor, with other gods pretending to be their human parents. And then there's some bother with Frost Giants.

They're two fun adventures full of good jokes - not least where the diary Loki is keeping responds to any dishonesty in his account. There's also lots of comedy at the expense of our mundane, human world as seen by immortal gods. Loki, for example, is astonished by our "crime scenes" full of stolen loot - or, as we know them, "museums".

But there's something deeper here, in a story about a boy who wants to be good but doesn't always think about other people or consequences of actions. In the first book, there's a moral dilemma in his being able to raise a huge sum of money for charity - but only by humiliating his timid friend. The Lord of Chaos wanted to talk about that afterwards, and other bits of the story.

The second book gets into the matter of who tells heroes' stories, and which heroes are left out of these narratives. I'd very much like to see the hinted-at exploration of Cif's previously untold adventures. There's also something on the complex, tricky emotions of friendship that my children found very relatable.

Ben Willbond is a perfect narrator for this, and as well as him doing the different voices (I think there's something of Timothy West in his Odin), sound effects nicely underline some of the jokes - ie when some animal does a poo. All in all, a really good production and a good escape from the traffic.

La Belle Sauvage, by Philip Pullman

Last week, a long car journey through half-term traffic was made infinitely less taxing by Michael Sheen's reading of the first volume of The Book of Dust.

Set within the same fantastic universe as the His Dark Materials trilogy, the heroine of that story - Lyra - is here a new-born baby. She's being looked after by some nice nuns in a priory, and across the bridge from them is a pub run by the parents of 11 year-old Malcolm Polstead. Mal is a hard-working, concientious nerd, with a love for new words and bits of gadget such as screws that only turn one way. Chatting to pub customers, eavesdropping and watching, he starts to spy a conspiracy building round the baby...

Just as with His Dark Materials, Pullman conjures a vivid, rich world so near and yet so far from our own. Malcolm's borrowed books include A Brief History of Time but he's also accompanied by his shape-changing demon, Asta. The etiquette of demons - that it's rude to touch someone else's demon; that demons can change shape until their human reaches adulthood, when they settle in one form - is all subtely conveyed: a world of strange wonders that yet feels real.

This world is populated with memorable characters, and Pullman is good at making us warm to the nice ones and bristle at the villains. For all the villains are hissable, there are plenty of characters we're not quite sure of, or good people we can't quite trust. Kudos to Michael Sheen for expertly voicing such an enormous cast.

The book is in two parts, and the first is easily the strongest as Malcolm uncovers the plot against the baby and encounters various sinister organisations linked to the Church. I found the chapter where one group addresses his school utterly terrifying, children encouraged to turn on their teachers and parents and friends.

"Malcolm's headmaster Mr Willis was still away on Monday, and on Tuesday Mr Hawkins the deputy head announced that Mr Willis wouldn't be coming back, and that he would be in charge himself from then on. There was an intake of breath from the pupils. They all knew the reason: Mr Willis had defied the League of St Alexander, and now he was being punished. It gave the badge-wearers a giddy sense of power. By themselves they had unseated the authority of a headmaster. No teacher was safe now. Malcolm watched the faces of the staff members as Mr Hawkins made the announcement: Mr Savery put his head in his hands, Miss Davis bit her lip, Mr Croker the woodwork teacher looked angry. Some of the others gave little triumphant smiles; most were expressionless." (p. `147) 

If the Church are the baddies, there are plenty of good and kind Christians, such as the nuns in charge of Lyra. Yes, the politics are a little laid on with a trowel - but then that's true of our own world at the moment.

When we stopped for lunch, I asked Lord Chaos how much he understood what was going on in this sequence - and he did, and told me he wouldn't have worn a badge. But it also didn't resonate with him as much as it did with me. But he was on the edge of his seat for the end of part one, and the thrilling things happening in the midst of a huge flood.

Part two is fine and full of strange, arresting events but lacks the thrill of the first half. It details the journey made by Mal's boat - the Belle Sauvage of the title - and stop-offs along the way. After all the conspiracy and intrigue of the first part, I didn't really feel it advanced the plot. There's plenty of excitement, especially in the villainous Bonneville, and the prolonged chase affects the relationship between the protagonists, but I got to the end feeling it hadn't changed much else. That's a shame given the strength of the opening.

The second book, The Secret Commonwealth, is published later this year and set 20 years after the events here - and after those of His Dark Materials. I'm very much looking forward to it, and to the BBC's adaptation of His Dark Materials. You might also like this recent chat between Samira Ahmed and Philip Pullman on how he found his voice.

Outliers cover

Here's Tom Webster's cover for Doctor Who: The Outliers, out in October:

The TARDIS takes the Doctor, Ben, Polly and Jamie to a flooded underground town on an alien world. The streets are empty. The houses are bare. Not a trace of life.

The miners working here are vanishing. And it isn’t long before the time-travellers are suspected of being responsible for the disappearances. But even the authorities haven’t fully realised the scale of the problem.
There’s something else on this world. Something dragging people away. And it won’t stop until it’s taken them all.

Written By: Simon Guerrier
Directed By: Lisa Bowerman

Cast

Anneke Wills (Polly Wright/Narrator), Frazer Hines (Jamie McCrimmon/The Doctor), Elliot Chapman (Ben Jackson), Alistair Petrie (Richard Tipple), Debbie Chazen (Dr Goro), Matilda Ziegler (Chatura Sharma)
Producer David Richardson
Script Editor John Dorney
Executive Producers Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs

The sleeper must awaken: inside the mind of Dune

I've written an essay on Dune for the new issue of the Lancet Psychiatry, which you can read in full online.

Further reading:

• Brian Herbert, Dreamer of Dune – The Biography of Frank Herbert (Tor: New York, 2003)
• Frank Herbert, Dune (Orion: London, 2007 (1965)
• Frank Herbert, The Dragon in the Sea (Nel Books: London, 1969 (1955))
• David Lynch (dir.), Dune (Universal Studios Blu-ray: 2010 (1984))
• Ed Naha, The Making of Dune (Target: London, 1984)
• Timothy O'Reilly, Frank Herbert (Frederick Ungar: New York, 1983) - full text online
• Chris Rodley (ed.), Lynch on Lynch (Faber and Faber: London, 1997)
• The David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace - www.davidlynchfoundation.org/

The Making of Dune by Ed Naha

"Please enjoy this book and, most important, enjoy the movie. I have no doubt that there will be more."

Dino De Laurentiis, "Introduction" to Ed Naha, The Making of Dune (1984), p. 2.

I reread and wittered on about Dune last year and, as a result, have been commissioned to write something looking at the book and the film - hurrah. As part of that, I read Ed Naha's The Making of Dune (the film) and am a bit surprised by how little it's been of use.

As a kid, I treasured this book: a holy text of instructions on how to make something so epic and strange. In the first paragraph of his introduction, De Laurentiis (whose daughter, Raffaella, produced the movie), dismisses the standard making-of:

"It has usually been a nice book, telling the world how much everyone who made the movie liked every moment, how the relatively few little problems that arose were quickly solved. Too often, such books are only fairy tales.
Making a movie, an inexpensive movie or one on the scale of Dune, is always an exercise in the impossible. There are no small problems: personal difficulties, technical foul-ups, financial over-runs, the weather, the food - all become major concerns."

Ibid., p. 1.

Yet, unsurprisingly for an officially sanctioned tome, The Making of Dune is largely taken up with how the cast and crew triumphed over the challenges to produce an ambitious, grown-up, effective motion picture that deserves to be a success. As so often in these things, everyone's very complimentary about each other and they praise the food.

That said, there's plenty of interesting stuff on the colossal production:  all the mechanics involved in a pre-digital age, the problems of getting kit through customs, or the cast afflicted by sickness. Some decisions are telling:

"The women's [stillsuits] looked rather unfeminine ... so we redesigned the suits to have larger breasts. That's also why most of the Fremen women characters have long hair. It softens their looks in the suits. It works quite well."

Ibid., p. 72.

But there's almost nothing on the script. When David Lynch - who directed the film based on his own script - is asked why previous scripts had not worked, he answers:

"I don't know ... There's no logical reason why they failed. Maybe they were scared about the script. Maybe they were scared about the money. Maybe they were scared about so many major roles."

Ibid., p. 16.

But there's nothing on how he adapted the book: what he thought was essential and what could be stripped back, what needed improving or changing, or even what he felt the book says. "Tell the fans they're making the real DUNE" says an endorsement from Frank Herbert on the back of the book - but the book doesn't address the adaptation.

Why, for example, do we lose Paul and Chani having a child - one killed in the battle at the end? Was it for time or tone, or what? Nor does Paul end up engaged to a princess with Chani accepting her fate as a concubine. The end of the film is taken from one of the later books in the series... There's no discussion of those choices.

In the chapter devoted to him, Lynch talks about reworking the script as they film it, but there's little on what those reworkings might be. Later, there are two brief mentions of changes, and one is a picture caption:

"At right: No longer in the film, this photograph is of the original version of Paul's Water of Life scene. In the final version of Dune, this scene occurs in the desert."

Ibid., p. 186.

The other is right at the end of the book, as the film is in post-production:

"En route to a final cut, only one major story change has been made; the subplot involving Paul's killing of Jamis and his subsequent involvement with Jamis' mate Harah and her children has been completely excised.
'That has caused me some worry,' admits Raffaella. 'That whole sequence was very important in the book. It's a turning point for Paul. We had to eliminate it because it got very involved.If we kept Paul's fight with Jamis in the movie, then we had to deal with Jamis' wife and Jamis' children. It stopped the whole film.'"

Ibid., pp. 289-90.

She refers to the scenes as "boring". Lynch concurs, explaining how he tried to keep the "feeling" of the missing material if not the scenes themselves.

I don't feel I'm being swindled: the front cover promises "The filming of Frank Herbert's bestselling science-fiction masterpiece" (my italics). But Naha is, according to Wikipedia, a "science fiction and mystery writer and producer", so it's especially odd that he ignores the writing. The book rather implies that in making a film, a script is a minor consideration, not at the root of the production. Ignoring that root means there's little depth to this account. That seems wrong for such a complex subject as Dune, and means the making of is little help to me in understanding the film.

Doctor Who: 2012

Episode 790: The Snowmen
First broadcast at 5.15 pm, Tuesday 25 December 2012
<< back to 2011

Clara snogs the Doctor
The Snowmen (2012)

On 3 September 2012, Caitlin Moran asked Twitter:

"I know I'm going to regret this, but: what is the OFFICIAL number of companions the Doctor has had?"

It's a question that doesn't have an answer, for reasons I'm about to explain. But I did try to puzzle it out once for a work thing - and, at least for the series post-1989, I've a modest proposal...

Generally, it's quite easy to define a companion. There's three of them in the first episode: Susan, Barbara and Ian. When they leave, a new companion takes their place. Susan, leaves in Flashpoint (the final episode of The Dalek Invasion of Earth), and a week later the Doctor meets Vicki. Ian and Barbara leave the TARDIS in The Planet of Decision (the final episode of The Chase), not knowing that Steven is already on board.

That's generally the rule: a companion leaves and a new one is introduced, usually in the same story or one story apart. Most companions last about a year in the series.

But there are plenty of exceptions to this general rule. In The Horse of Destruction (the final episode of The Myth Makers), Vicki leaves and is replaced by Katarina – who is then killed off four weeks later in The Traitors. That episode introduces Sara Kingdom, who travels with the Doctor and Steven for the next eight weeks before also being killed.

Do Katarina and Sara count as companions? Neither are listed in the Characters from Season 3 page on the BBC's own Doctor Who website - if that means anything. But other lists say one or both of them do.

I once asked the actress Jean Marsh if she considered Sara to be a companion. She told me, firmly, no: it was made clear to her at the time that companions got a better rate of pay than she was on. But does what the production team decide have any bearing?

There's also an argument that Katarina counts because, although she's in just five episodes, they're spread across two separate stories – The Myth Makers and The Daleks' Master Plan. Sara's nine episodes are all part of that latter story, so she doesn't count.

(Jean Marsh has since appeared in lots more episodes as Sara for Big Finish - most of them written by me. I think if she wasn't a bona fide companion before, she is now because of those adventures. You are welcome.)

But if companions need to be in more than story, that would rule out Grace Holloway, who only appears in the TV movie (1996). And if she counts as a companion, does Chang Lee? He appears in the same story, travels in the TARDIS and is on good terms with the Doctor at the end.

Does a companion need to travel in the TARDIS? Liz Shaw never did. The Brigadier travelled by TARDIS in The Three Doctors (1972-3), and appeared in numerous stories - but does he count as a companion? If he does, what about other regulars from UNIT - Benton and Yates in the old days, or Kate Lethbridge-Stewart today?

Doctor Who Magazine
#367 (March 2006)

Mickey wasn't a companion when we first met him in Rose (2005), but became one when he joined the TARDIS in School Reunion (2006), though he left again after three episodes. Publicity referred to him as the TV show's first black companion - but that's also what was said about Martha Jones when she joined the TARDIS a year later.

In fact, since the series came back in 2005, it's been tricky working out who counts as a companion. There are the main ones: Rose, Captain Jack, Donna, Martha, Amy and Rory, and Clara. But what about everyone else?

Does Adam count as a companion? He travelled in the TARDIS in two separate stories - Dalek and The Long Game (2005), but the point in the second story is that he's not a suitable candidate, so the Doctor drops hims home.

Perhaps how the production team viewed Adam and Mickey's status can be gauged from the fact that, when they joined the TARDIS, the actors playing them weren't credited in the opening titles. When Mickey returned in Journey's End (2008), actor Noel Clarke was credited after the opening titles. We might use those titles as an indicator of who counts:

• Credited in the titles of Journey's End, therefore a companion:
• Catherine Tate (Donna), Freema Agyeman (Martha), John Barrowman (Captain Jack), with Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah) and Billie Piper (Rose).
• Credited after the titles of Journey's End, so not a companion:
• Noel Clarke (Mickey), Camille Coduri (Jackie), Adjoa Andoh (Francine), Eve Myles (Gwen), Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto).

That feels sort of right, but then the opening titles for the episodes following Journey's End credit people we might not think of as companions: David Morrisey (Jackson) in The Next Doctor (2008), Michelle Ryan (Christina) in Planet of the Dead (2009), Lindsay Duncan (Adelaide) in The Waters of Mars (2009) and Bernard Cribbins (Wilf) in The End of Time (2009-10).

Except for Wilf, these characters only appear in one episode and I don't think really count as companions - but then who am I to decide?

Well, entirely ignoring what I've said before about none of us getting to say what counts and what doesn't, I've a modest proposal. It goes like this:

Snog = companion

Yes, if we see the Doctor kiss someone, then they're a companion. It only counts for companions post-1989 but then, when companions have returned to the series - so far, only Jo and Sarah Jane - they've got a big hug from the Doctor.

Anyway, the list excludes Adam, Mickey and Wilf, but I think it works pretty well. And I'm delighted by the last one:

• Grace (the TV movie, 1996)
• Captain Jack (The Parting of the Ways, 2005)
• Rose (The Parting of the Ways)
• Madame de Pompadour (The Girl in the Fireplace, 2006)
• Jackie (in Army of Ghosts (2006) when she also travels in the TARDIS)
• Martha (Smith and Jones, 2007)
• Joan (Human Nature, 2007)
• Astrid (Voyage of the Damned, 2007)
• Donna (The Unicorn and the Wasp, 2008)
• Christina (Planet of the Dead, 2009)
• Amy (The Time of Angels, 2010)
• River (The Day of the Moon, 2011)
• The TARDIS (The Doctor's Wife, 2011)
• Rory (Dinosaurs on a Spaceship (2012)
• Kate Lethrbridge-Stewart (The Power of Three, 2012 - though it's only a peck on the cheek)
• Clara (The Snowmen, 2012)
• Elizabeth I (The Day of the Doctor, 2013)

Next episode: 2013

AAAGH! at the beach!

AAAGH! at the beach

More AAAGH! silliness from Doctor Who Adventures, this time from issue #266 and featuring a Sea Devil, a Marshman and a Haemovore, plus a Pyrovile from James Moran's The Fires of Pompeii. As ever, it's written by me, drawn by Brian Williamson and edited by Paul Lang and Natalie Barnes - who gave kind permission for me to post it here. You can also read all my AAAGH!s.

Next episode: the very hungry Master.

Catching up

Blimey. 2010 has been a bit of an old sod, all told. Having had next to no work for most of the summer, things suddenly got a bit manic in the last few months. Hence the lack of blogging. What follows is a splurge of me trying to catch up, more for my own future interest than yours.

My day job since September has been at Doctor Who Adventures, which has been a joy. It's quite a trek into the office and back - especially when there's any hint of weather - but that's given me lots of time for reading, which I'll try to blog about in the next few days.

At the end of November, the Dr and I jetted off to the States so I could spend the weekend showing off at Chicago TARDIS. Had a brilliant time - and the Dr made her debut on a convention panel, too. As always, there was too little time to natter with some very good friends and it was all over too quickly. But Graceless - which me, Ciara Janson and Laura Doddington were there to flog - seemed to go down well.

I also got a copy of Running Through Corridors by my chums Rob Shearman and Toby Hadoke, in which they watch all of black-and-white Doctor Who, two episodes per night. It's a pleasure to be in their company anyway, and the book is full of smart insights and jokes. It helps that Rob's a professional writer (he wrote for Doctor Who on TV himself) and Toby a jobbing actor - that experience gives them more of an 'in' to the mechanics of the programme than many other guides.

My favourite bits were when the two authors disagree over something and where real life crops up as part of the diaries - when their (non-fan) spouses chip in thoughts, or where the authors tell us about personal links to the stories. It's also fun just seeing how they juggle the watch round conventions and train journeys and things: the everyday minutiae of being a fan, fitting the programme around real life. Can't wait for the next volume.

After the convention, the Dr and I bussed up to Madison, Wisconsin to stay with some friends. We poddled round Madison and ate huge burritos, but mostly we spent the week loafing about. That was, sadly, quite a highlight of my year. I wrote two chapters of the Novel, read a fair bit and also did some thinking, which is a crucial part of being a freelancer and not something I've had much time for recently.

We returned to Chicago for one last night, and went out for a splendid dinner with T. All the time we were away we'd heard horror stories of the snow in London and how civilisation had collapsed. But on our last day the snow came down in Chicago - and it made not a jot of difference. We wrapped up warm and ventured out into the street, where the cars and buses and trains were all running just fine.

We caught the train down to the Museum of Science and Industry, where we had time to look round the U505 German submarine before going into Jim Henson's Fantastic World (runs until 23 January 2011).

Cor, that was fun. It's a comprehensive history of Henson's work, with many original sketches and puppets amid film clips and live performances. I'd seen a lot of the sketches before (in Jim Henson's Designs and Doodles - a Muppet Sketchbook), but its a very different thing then seeing clips of the realised creatures, shambling about.

I loved seeing Henson's non-Muppets work - his adverts, his documentaries, his experimental films. The producers of Sesame Street apparently brought him on board because they'd noticed that children were hooked on the speed and brightness of adverts. The Dr was much taken with the exhibition and is going to use it as the basis of some report thing she has to do at work.

As always, the museum shop was full of things we didn't want and had little that we did. So we made our way to the airport. Blimey, O'Hare Airport is a dreary place to sit for hours. There's little in the way of shops or distractions - you have to go back out of Passport Control for most things, and the one bar was the only place to ID me the whole time we were away.

But the plane home was pretty much on time and unencumbered by the snow. I watched Inception and Salt, neither of which really did anything for me. (On the way out, I watched Agora - featuring Rachel Weisz, and her nekkid bum in one bit - and Toy Story 3. The Dr cried at the sacking of the Library of Alexandria, I did not so much as sniffle at the toys. Honestly.)

Got home to find a crazy world of emails hollering for work. Since getting back I've written one play and pitched for four more - just as well I had that thinking time! The brother/boss also needed a final, final rewrite on our short film, having fixed the location.

Oh yes: we've made a film. Cleaning Up stars Mark Gatiss, Louise Jameson and lots of brilliant people, and was shot the weekend after I got back. I'd been working on the script since 2008 - and intensively over the last year, since Joseph Lidster signed up as script editor - but suddenly it was real, with a whole massive film crew. Mad and exciting, and I'm really rather proud of the brother/boss. He, producer Ben Greenacre and everyone else just worked wonders. I sort of stood in a corner and tried not to get in the way. There'll be plenty more about the film in the new year, sorry.

I also got to see Gatiss in Seasons Greetings - which is magnificently funny and runs til 13 March. And I've seen Harry Potter 7.1 twice. While I appreciate all Jonny's shrewd remarks, I still pretty much loved every second.

And then it's been working and working. The day job, some interviews, a comic strip or three, a magazine feature, a play and a world of pitches... It's feast or famine in this job, but all told, I'm knackered. Whited out on Christmas Day and went to bed with a migraine for most of the afternoon, then spent the next day carefully not doing anything. I start a part-time job in a couple of weeks that I'm hoping will make life slightly less fraught and more orderly.

Meanwhile, the Dr has been slaving away at the paperwork so that we can move house. And once that's done she can have a second cat - one she's already selected. Lots of changes in the air, and lots we have to do, but things are on the up... It's been a hell of a year, and I'm quite glad to see the back of 2010. But 2011 is already looking exciting. Let's see what can go wrong...

Signs, portents, types

On Saturday, I was at the launch for Rob Shearman's "Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical", with a whole bunch of mates. The venue is also used for comedy, and I admired the cheery signs:




On Sunday there was curry with the folks and thence my first go on a Wii, at which I played table tennis and cheated at fencing. Here is my wii-persona, which the Dr designed herself. Note the beard where I'd not shaved for a few days:


On Monday I did writing while ice fell from the sky. Was meant to meet chums for a Christmas drinkie but there were no trains into town. Apparently the Dr and Codename Moose were barefoot in the pub, socked socks and boots on the radiator. I sulked on a drizzly platform for over an hour while the information board just said "Delayed". Gave up and had fish and chips and mushy peas.

Glad I'm not traveling this Christmas, and really sorry for the younger brother who was meant to be in Hungary by now.

Yesterday, me and Codename Moose recorded a thing for something as-yet unannounced, and then went to the pub. Hatched plans and discussed projects before I stumbled home.

Up late today full of cold, and schlepped out across the ice to the postal depot to collect some parcels. I've received copies of both The Panda Book of Horror - in which I've got a short story - and the Blake's 7 CD I wrote, which sounds all splendid.

Am also in receipt of Fluid Web Typography - A Guide by my chum Jason Cranford Teague, which the Dr has already pinched. It looks very fine indeed, and my beloved Gill Sans gets a mention. Though there's no mention I can see of Divide By Zero - Tom Murphy's splendid free fonts, which include my favourites "Tom's New Roman" and "Douglas Adams' Hand". I've stuck this post in Trebuchet.

Digital Spy continues to post videos of me and other fine fellows discussing David Tennant's Top 10 moments as Doctor Who - I'll update that original blogpost with links to each one. I'm also among the luminaries looking back to Christmas Eve 1999 for Paul Cornell's blog.

"Come, do your husband's bidding!"

To the posh singing last night as a first birthday treat for the Dr. Scarlet Opera's Orfeo ed Euridice is on until Saturday at the Bridewell Theatre and very good it is too.

For those who don't know their Greek mythology (or haven't read the Sandman comic), Orfeo has just married Euridice when she only goes and dies. He's a bit miffed about this, so heads down to the Underworld to grab her back. The deal is he can lead her up to Earth again so long as he doesn't look at her until they both back out in the open. And he's not allowed to tell her why he can't look at her, either. So all the way up, she's wheedling and nagging. And he can't help but glance round...

The 1762 operatic version by the splendidly named Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck plonks on a deus ex machina happy ending which maybe misses the whole point (and I presume means this Orpheus doesn't get torn apart by Crazy Ladies). It's a smallish show - three leads and a chorus of five. But that suits baroque opera well, and means the voices and diction is all quite distinct.

It's also an effectively simple production. The only set is a lot of dry ice and a line of hanging branches, through which ghosts can step eerily. The performers wore simple robes, and when the chorus appear as the Furies they've got hoods and masks that made me think of ninjas. Orfeo wears a small dagger in his belt which, until he then wants to use it in Act Three, I thought was some kind of compensation for his being played by a lady.

Oh yes: Orfeo and Euridice are both played by ladies. There is girl-on-girl kissing and everything. Bargain.

Afterwards there were drinks and much earnest discussion of how women are judged by their bits, and then a long trek home through the pouring rain. We got chips and soaked but had a splendid night.

Am off to Brussels tomorrow in the next stage of the Dr's birthday. But two bloggers to follow just at the moment: George Orwell blogs from this day in 1939, on the declaration of war. It's worth working through his earlier posts on the lead-up, too. He's got a canny eye for detail as he scans the various papers, and he also let's you know what the weather's like.

Meanwhile, yesterday in 1666, Samuel Pepys was woken to news of London going up in smoke. It's a terrific, vivid bit of reportage. Though no mention of the role played by the Terileptils.

I know, I'll take you to B-

Hello from grey, rainy Blackpool. I know, what a turn-up, I can hardly believe it myself. Last night, with the rain bashing the Velux windows like someone outside brewing popcorn, I tried to remember a time I've been in Lancashire where the sky wasn't falling. I lived for three years as a student in Preston, and one time the rain was so hard it bruised...

(In the south, of course, it never rains. It's specks of liquid sunshine.)

Finished a few bits of chore yesterday morning - including several days' washing up since the Dr's been away in Aberdeen. Have, excitingly, now been commissioned for two things which I'm really buzzing about which cannot be announced. And on Thursday night, met with a bloke who explained clever stuff at a level I could understand(!), who is going to be very useful for something else I'm working on. No, I can't tell you about that yet, either.

Bundled up to Euston to find that the ticket the Dr had bought me was for a nice seat in first class. Apparently, she'd told me this in one of my more attentive moments. But what a nice surprise! Virgin threw in free egg sandwiches and orange juice and wine, and I sat comfy and content. I've finished The Envoy, which I will blog on in due course, and am now mesmerised by Nick Davies' Flat Earth News, a fascinating, damning and thorough exploration of the collapse of journalistic standards in the last decade or so. Again, it'll get a post of its own sometime.

The in-laws took me for fish and chips and then we drank whisky and watched TV. I realise that, before I went freelance, I was Jen from the IT Crowd. Which is odd, because after I went freelance, I did a couple of days' work with Chris O'Dowd. But yes, I once wowed the execs with a speech about the weightlessness of the internet. It is made of dreams.