"I’m pretty rubbish, now you point it out."

Have had a happy day's writing (plus a brief excursion to hand in a contract) and am onto Scene 10 of 47. The intrepid little brother is coming round tomorrow so we can go through it.

Also agreed a couple of exciting new things having met with a new editor yesterday. And 1,800 words of what might be a book is now a chapter-by-chapter breakdown with all sorts of viceral detail. Perhaps something will come of it.

Currently listening to the first episode of Mr J Lidster's "Reaping", and am delighted to hear Dr Who refer explicitly to the Mim. Hooray!

Our sponge-like chums put in a pretty thrilling appearance before the end of the year. Should have that to finish just tomorrow...

Straight bit

'Strain current affairs edutainment "60 Minutes" just ran The Overlanders, a 15-minute theeng on the younger brother's horseplay.

The theeng (which you can experience in real, live video) shows off footage from his forthcoming documentary, "One Straight Road". (No, not this one.)

Strangely I'm biased but it's all a bit impressive. Git. And about time we saw some of his moving pictures.

Still haven't seen the brother since he got back from the bush, what with his being so bustlingly showbiz. Though he is coming next week to tidy up the cat poo. Hope he doesn't want to film it.

Bond Watch: Sir Roger Moore

Live and Let Die
Yes, I’m rather impressed with Alex and Richard’s idea that Sir Roger Moore learns he’s the new James Bond in his opening scene with M (discussed in the comments of this previous Bond post).

Unlike OHMSS, they keep the new Bond out of the pre-credit sequence and instead tease us with fragments of plot. What connects a killing at the United Nations, a killing in a New Orleans street and a killing in a weird voodoo ritual? The new Bond will surely work it out.

It’s the second film in a row to be set in America, but it’s got a grittier, harder edge than Diamonds Are Forever. We see an America that’s dirty, dangerous and racially segregated. George Martin’s atmospheric score also reflects the changing times.

Roger Moore is a skinny little bloke compared to his predecessors and suffers from 70s fashions, with dweeby patterned jackets and ironed creases in his flares. It’s all a bit fussy and uncool.

Is Felix Lighter an inherited title as well? If they’d been worried about establishing the new man, they could have wheeled out Norman Burton again (he’s the one in Diamonds Are Forver). Can’t see him in Licence to Kill, though.

The Man With The Golden Gun
More silly things done by Bond: squeezes a fat bloke’s bum.

Does Scaramanga’s obsession with Bond mean that he thinks Sir Roj is the same man as Sir Sean? Alternatively, do their paths cross because Sir Roj is pursuing Gibson, the man Scaramanga is planning to kill?

The stuff about Gibson and the energy crisis works quite well, lending some weight to the cock-fight plot, though there’s some especially crass infodumping about halfway through, with M detailing science that everyone in the room already knows.

Which is a shame because there’s some deft and witty writing here. Top marks for Bond’s threat to shoot a bloke in the cock if he doesn’t answer questions: “Speak now or forever hold your piece.”

I think Sir Roj is at his best when being a bit ruthless – shagging Rosie Carver in the last one when he knows that she’s a wrong ‘un, or holding Maud Adams to ransom. Yes, in For Your Eyes Only, it is a Good Thing he kicks the car.

Other silly things: Scaramanga’s Shadow Gallery has a life-size Sir Roj on display and it doesn’t occur to him that Bond might use this. And why does the dummy have a real and loaded gun?

The Spy Who Loved Me
The Making of… will tell you that this was a new direction for Bond, pushing the franchise into off-the-wall fantasy.

But it’s the first to obviously repeat stuff: a ski chase as in OHMSS, the swallowing whole of vessels like in You Only Live Twice, underwater battles as per Thunderball and a gagdet-strewn car as in Goldfinger.

We also get the first explicit reference to Bond’s wife since she died. Gogol calls M “Miles” (the only time the films mention his name) and XXX calls Q “Major Boothroyd” – so he is the same man as in Dr No. We also see Bond (again) as a naval Commander.

Setting things up for the future, Walter Gotell makes his first appearance as Gogol and Robert Brown appears as Admiral Hargreaves. As well as taking over as M, he’s referred to as "Admiral" in Octopussy, which might mean he’s the same bloke all along.

The Dr Who cast is pretty good in this one: George Baker, Jeremy Bulloch (though not as Smithers), Kevin McNally, Cyril Shaps and Edward de Souza. No, you can’t count Caroline Munro.

An odd thing: 007 and XXX join forces in Egypt and are briefed by Q. They then take the train to Sardinia (no, I don't think that's possible either), where, er, Q is waiting for them with the Lotus. They don't seem surprised or say, "Didn't we just see you?"

Another odd thing: how many chances does Stromberg give Jaws to kill Bond? It’s far less credible than the number of times he survives buildings falling on top of him. You can almost hear Stromberg saying, “Maybe fifth time lucky…”

Moonraker
It’s been slowly creeping up on us, but this is the first film to really go out of its way to give M and Q more interesting things to do. Bernard Lee’s final film sees him looking unwell in Venice and running an office in Rio. It's like Bond can't be trusted to go out on missions on his own.

This is a sign of a franchise: where the practical wants of the actors supersedes what their characters would do. I gather something similar happens in the West Wing with a promotion for CJ (though I’ve only just finished Season 5).

Moonraker feels a hell of a lot like the last one as Bond gathers evidence on the bloke he already knows is the villain. The villain’s plan to start civilisation over is the same, as is the final gag of Bond caught doing the deed.

The Star Wars-inspired finale is kept relatively brief, though I remember all the marketing pushing James Bond In Space. (Sir Roj even appeared on the Muppet Show with a laser gun).

How many times do they need to tell us that Jaws and his missus have been rescued?

For Your Eyes Only
Blimey. It’s all a bit small-scale after outer space. Bond doesn’t even leave Europe in this one. Bill Conti’s music is very much of its time. It’s not bad, but it lacks the timeless style of John Barry and makes this feel just like any other (low-budget) action movie.

It does feel like a new kind of Bond film (again), and continually undercuts the grandeur of the past. Bond visits his late wife’s grave and finally sees off Blofeld. But:

Why is Teresa buried in England, and in a tiny little church? Her dad Draco seems to be based in Portugal and could probably afford something swankier.

Blofeld is as we saw him at the end of OHMSS - bald, in a neck brace and wheelchair. Which suggests that OHMSS is canon and Diamonds Are Forever is not. Which is a bit odd.

There’s a car chase with Bond behind the wheel of a 2CV, and the countess he shags turns out to be a scally. The finale is not Bond going one-on-one with a terrifying villain or chasing after bombs in a spaceship. He breaks a computer by throwing it off a rock.

Bond is looking old, and Lynn-Holly Johnson’s character just makes that more obvious. As well as turning down a dead-cert shag, Bond is toe-curlingly patrician with her, with lessons on how to behave. Up, I thought, yours grandad.

He’s no less patronising to Melina, and though she laughs at his jokes in the car chase I didn’t feel there’s much chemistry between them. At the end of the film they’re (inevitably) lovers, and I couldn’t help but wonder, “When did that happen?” They’ve not even snogged until then.

Yeah, the plotting is a bit weird. There’s a gratuitous cheat when Bond and Melina go scuba-diving and Melina FOR NO REASON AT ALL takes off her aqua-lung and leaves it by the underwater Greek ruin. Well, NO REASON AT ALL other than that she has read the script and knows that she and Bond will need that aqua-lung there in a few scenes time.

The Greek Temple appears to be near the Corfu coast, whereas the sunken ship is out to sea (and something of a journey). Kristatos captures Bond and Melina as they surface from the sunken ship, but tries to kill them in the water above the Greek Temple (where their handy aqua-lung comes in). So, er, does he take them back towards Corfu because that’s where the scratchy coral is? Doesn’t that mean he’s more likely to be seen doing his killings?

Oh, but bonus points for Charles Dance as a thug!

Octopussy
Cor. It looks amazing, John Barry’s score is gorgeous and the whole thing zips along. Maud Adams is really rather marvellous. Suddenly Bond has got his groove back.

They make less of Bond being an old man now, but play a nasty card with Moneypenny when Sir Roj smarms all over her new assistant.

I’d missed Bond disguising himself as a gorilla from my list of Bond being silly. He also manages to remove himself from the gorilla suit and escape to the back of the train carriage while Kabir Bedi is watching him. But Bond being magic, he is not seen.

It feels like there are a lot more action set pieces than usual, and there’s a nice mix of the exotic (in India) and the very political real. Weird to see Checkpoint Charlie and a divided Berlin having been there a fortnight ago.

Also odd to see Détente creeping in – a theme since the Spy Who Loved Me. I gather this is because the Bond films sold well in Russia, so the producers were keen to push us all being chums. But it means Bond seems ahead of more war-mongering spy stuff from the time. Eat that, John le Carre.

And, er, Q’s set up a workshop in India. Now I can see it might be helpful to give Bond his gadgets, but this makes it feel like there’s a whole industry behind Bond, following wherever he goes. Q even helps in the field, leading Bond into a siege and saving pretty ladies in the process. While Sir Roj is sliding down banisters.

Perhaps Desmond Llewellyn was being considered to take over from Sir Roj? Don’t laugh – have you seen who else they considered?

A View to a Kill
So, Sir Roj’s last one already. Blimey, that went quick. And you can tell by the hair and the rubbish robot dog that it’s from more than two decades ago.

It’s a bit slow, actually – with lots of scenes of people just talking to each other about their various allegiances. The 80s “fashions” don’t help because rather than looking stylish and cool, Bond seems to be stalking the blousy wives of the crassest chinless wonders.

Like For Your Eyes Only, they’re continually undercutting Bond’s cool: his rifle only shoots rock salt, the police think he’s talking bollocks and he woos a girl by making a quiche. Tanya Roberts is also not the most brilliant leading lady, and there’s far more sparkle with both May Day and Fiona Fullerton.

There’s another lady in it who I kept trying to place. The Internet explains that it is her from Last Crusade.

Why does Bond give control of the fire truck to Stacy, and then climb out on to the back? Surely it’s not just so the ladder can detatch and swing him about over the road to add excitement to the chase. That would be silly.

The mine set is amazing, and the fight on the Golden Gate Bridge very impressive. But then it ends in a cut-price version of the endings to Spy and Moonraker. This time, Bond’s having a shower. Half an hour earlier and Q could have caught him taking a shit.

It just seems a bit of an ignominious end for the most prolific of Bonds. I’d been rather sniffy about Sir Roj’s efforts compared to the hard stuff of his colleagues, but some of that was downright cool. Good job, 007.

The old bloke’s a porker

Today I held in my very hands The Centenarian – the newest Dr Who anthology of thrilling short stories.

Wodged within its great wealth of pages are a story of mine (I’ve written about “Incongruous Details” on the Centenarian blog) and a thrilling preview of Time Signature – the next Dr Who anthology of thrilling short stories, as edited by little me.

So that’s all a bit exciting.

Spent the afternoon going though an archive (i.e. two cardboard boxes full of CDs), gathering materials for a forthcoming thingie. As is the way with archives, I also found a few excitements I wasn’t exactly looking for. Pretty baubles! In one case, literally.

Also suggested an idea to the chief that may even happen into being. It is not merely a cockle-warmingly good idea but a cheap one too, so here’s hoping.

I have also deleted quite a lot of words about an education programme, done the washing up and discussed current affairs in depth with the cat. He thinks the pope should have known better and that it’s not very Christian to say to people, “Your Mum’s rubbish”.

That is (if Shag’s memory serves him correctly) what John 14 refers to as “asking for a slap”.

Prints of darkness

I have learned two new things – both of them obvious to anyone with a brane.

Kept awake last night by a rather smashing storm. The pause between purple lightning and the gurgle of thunder remained a constant seven elephants, which scientifically proves the storm was either sitting perfectly still or using our house as a pivot.

The cat was not impressed at all by this and kept nosing up for a cuddle. The moment he felt a bit better about life, he would bravely scamper off to pursue invisible mice.

“I don’t need you,” spoke his behaviour. “I am helluva tough with my animal instincts.”

He’d then scurry back into my armpit the moment the storm got more noisy.

Shag had been acting odd all evening – the anxious running about between our feet and wauing that either means its bedtime or he’s made some smelly bears. (You can usually tell the difference by whether your nostrils are aflame.)

But it was early and my nose was still intact. “Don’t be so silly,” I told him, though not too sternly as he is quite impressionably dim.

Later, I headed up to fetch some Robinsons Apple and Blackcurrant for night-time slaking (we can’t have water because the cat sticks his head in it). Our kitchen, just to be different, is up in the converted roof. And was liberally glossed over with water.

The cat was busy pressing his forehead into the back of my ankles. “See?” he seemed to say. “See?”

The skylights in the roof of the kitchen can be locked just-a-bit-open, which is useful if you’ve been griddling chicken breasts for a rather scrummy tea and want to be rid of the steam. The just-a-bit-open nature of the locking mechanism means that any previous rain has been easily kept out.

Thing learnt #1: If it storms particularly hard, the just-a-bit-open locking system isn’t waterproof. Well done the redoubtable British weather. And well done that man with the late-night mop who cleared up all the mess.

So it looks like the summer is over. The nights are drawing in and we even got a Goth weathergirl after the BBC’s 10 pm news. The Dr was delighted to spot black fingernails and everything.

“I guess that means the clocks will be going back soon,” I said. But there’s weeks and weeks left before that.

Thing learnt #2: British summers are longer than the winters. We get 21 weeks of Greenwich Mean Time each year, and 31 weeks of British Summer Time.

This offence of the curry bread

Over curry and beer with the Joffstar a couple of weeks ago, we fell into talk of good comics. He kindly leant me the first volume of Ranma ½ which I devoured on the Victoria line home.

Mr Tendo owns a "school of indiscriminate grappling" and three daughters. He's keen to have his daughters marry, so send word to an old pal with an eligible son. The son, Ranma, is soon engaged to the youngest daughter Akane. But she's still at school, fancies the local doctor and anyway she says she hates boys.

But there's another wee problem. Ranma and his dad are both cursed, having fallen into some Chinese ponds when out training. Now whenever Ranma's dad gets hit with cold water he turns into an enormous panda.

Ranma's curse is all the more terrible - cold water turns him into a girl.

It's a weirdly compelling story, with a love triangle and school bullies and unrequited crushes. With it’s martial arts and teen-loves and curses-from-the-dawn-of-time, it’d be a bit obvious to say it’s like Buffy. Well, yes, but imagine Buffy getting her tits out all the time. If you hadn’t already.

As Joffstar said, for all the plot, ahem, requires accidental disrobings and people wandering in on showering, bosomy teenagers, it’s endearingly innocent. Though I am amused that the noise for prodding someone’s boobs to check that they are real is “Poit! Poit!”

It's also giddily silly, with the panda using hand-held signs to communicate his despair because he's unable to speak. (There's a nice moment where he answers the phone and then just looks exasperated at the reader).

By the end of this first book, we’ve set up the regulars and all the tangled love-geometry of triangles within triangles, and things are getting complicated by visiting cast – such as an old schoolmate of Ranma’s hellbent on revenge. The schoolmate is, as is everyone, a martial arts whizzkid, but his terrible sense of direction is the source of many jokes.

Joffstar tells me it continues in this vein, with other people turning up with their own strange curses. He’s moving house, though, so he can’t find volumes two and three. Gah.

Shipping forecast

Sent this shippy review of The Time Travellers, which seems generally pleased with the thing. When I wrote that chapter, the snog seemed less crucial than ensuring I got the 1966 bus routes and fares 1966 correct. Even asked the London Transport Museum for help, and they went and looked it up. Hooray!

Shippers will be pleased to hear that there are more snogs to come in the life of Bernice Surprise Summerfield. A week ago I was just finishing a holiday but it seems like another life now. Work continues apace and things are getting signed off in one manner and another.

"Collected Works" is at proof stage and I've seen the final cover. We race towards a final version of the words and then it can go and be published.

"Old Friends" has gone back to its authors (Jonathan, Marc and Pete) so they can argue with my comments and agree on the appropriate Japanese.

Edits of some plays are done and we've even had time to do trailers. E. Robson responds that this is the first of his audio work he's actually ever heard, because though he's all prolific and that, none of it is out yet. (There is a trailer for his rather lovely Memory Lane on Joe's Reaping, but E. Robson has yet to get a copy.)

Have also seen the final artwork for "Summer of Love" and am filled with paroxysms of pleasure.

Now reading the first draft of the first play of Benny's Season 8 (so far into the future there's nowhere yet to link to), and have another draft awaiting my attentions. Any time soon I should get responses back on two other projects which may require hasty rewriting on my part.

In the meantime, another company entirely has asked for a more detailed breakdown of something I sent them in May. I'd rather expected a "Thanks but no thanks!" as I've since learnt a bit more about what they're after. But instead they just said a bit more about what they're after and have asked me to suitably respond. This is pitching for a big and paid gig, so that's all a bit exciting.

And then there's the script I promised the brother, and something for that there John S Drew. And, you know, attending to the needs of both wife and cat.

And watching the rest of "For Your Eyes Only"...

It should be in a museum

The brother in law played something of a blinder with the DVD of “One of our Dinosaurs is Missing” for the Dr’s recent anniversary. Cor, it’s a corker. And, of course, an essential bit of reading for anyone interested in the history of museum acquisitions and their interpretation.

Sometime soon after the First World War, Derek Nimmo’s dandy secret agent escapes China with the top secret “Lotus X”. With Chinese hoodlums (led by Peter Ustinov) hot on his trail, he hides the secret in the skeleton of a dinosaur in the Natural History Museum, but then has a nasty fall.

Lucky for him, he bumps into his old nanny just before he passes out, and she’s able to take on the case. While Nimmo languishes in a cell perishing all thought of his being a spy, the hoodlums and the nannies both plot to recover the Lotus X whatever way they can – even if it means scousing the dinosaur.

It took the wife a bit by surprise to find that this was a Disney film, especially considering the cast – which includes Joan Sims, Bernard Bresslaw, Jon Pertwee and Roy Kinnear, and suggests a sexless Carry On or, even an Ealing comedy.

It was the last film of director Robert Stevenson, who’d been responsible for Mary Poppins, Old Yeller (a favourite of my mum’s), The Absent-Minded Professor, and Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

(He also directed Darby O’Gill and the Little People, with its lurid Technicolor Oirland, complete with shamrocks and leprechauns. It features an all-smiling, all-singing Sean Connery three years before he became James Bond. Yes, it’s why Ian Fleming responded, “What? Him?!?”)

Dinosaurs is a very low-budget runaround in comparison to all that – a clue to that being the absence of American stars other than Helen Hayes. The cast are quite amazing, the leads ably supported by some fantastic cameos. And the whole thing is a set-up for two brilliant set pieces: the chase through fog-enshrouded London with the stolen dinosaur, and the final fisticuffs between hoodlums and nannies.

It does feel like something from another age, with Caucasian actors made up (in some cases almost not at all) to play the lead Chinese. The Dr and Nimbos both felt sure it hailed from the late 60s, though it’s from 1975 (so post, not pre, Pertwee’s commitments to the universe as Dr Who).

It is very funny, but in an especially mild-mannered way. The villains are all good eggs really, if only you take a moment to chat to them. Like Talons (made two years later), what racial jokes there are more readily mock English pretensions than bully the Oriental.

I couldn’t understand why Clive Revill, as Ustinov’s ambitious number two, seemed so familiar – and his make-up only made him more so. And then I remembered that he used to be the Emperor before Fidgeting George cut his bits out. Do put those scissors down, dear, or you'll end up the subject of a rhyme in Struwwelpeter.

What I especially like is the way Dinosaurs constantly undercuts the gritty tension of the thriller. So it sets itself up as something like Fu Manchu, but we discover along the way that the Chinese super-villain had a nanny, too, and that anyway Nimmo doesn’t work for M but for a supermarket.

Nimbos, always eager to spoil the fun, points out that the dinosaur prop looks like a skeleton, not a fossil. But he was impressed enough with the set to not always be sure what had been filmed on location.

Just like Salisbury

Bob’s my uncle (and his Mrs used to be my boss at the same time my sister was my landlady). You can now hear the noise he makes at his shiny new site.

Stung

A bit surprised by the response from some chums to the death of Steve Irwin (sorry to pick on that site in particular but it's indicative of stuff said in the pub last night). Some have said Irwin was reckless or a madman, or even deserved what he got.

I can’t help feel that if those gorillas had mauled David Attenborough instead of hugging him, it’d earn a different response. No less reckless a stunt for making good telly, it’s just Irwin wasn’t so immaculately spoken.

Danger men

Watching a 70s drama about Philby, Burgess & Maclean the other night (in which Derek Jacobi got Richard Hurndall and Arthur Lowe all cross), the Dr asked why spies so appealed.

The things the spies did and reported on led to the deaths of thousands – and they colluded willingly. (This led to a discussion of party politics, team games and all this current rubbish, my thoughts on which I’ll write up once I’ve prised “Interesting Times” from her paws.) She also decried what ruthless, vicious bastards spies are.

I concede she does rather have a point.

So what appeals? The charm and sex appeal of the style begun by Bond does lend the bastards some humanity, and a lot of what I like is the tension caused by the wretched ruthlessness of the job. Then there’s the tedious wish-fulfilment bullshit of one man who can make a real difference.

Spies are also clever protagonists, relying on wits and skill. They face constant danger in the field, battling against all the odds. Though they may have support and resources back home, they’re very much on their own. They face terrible, unforgiving brutality should they get things a bit wrong. As a result, they immediately make a plot into a thriller.

One of the great appeals of Casino Royale when I read it all those years ago was Bond getting things a bit wrong. Am hoping the new film (full trailer now here) will include his penance-by-tennis-racket.

See also: Millennium Dome on DangerMouse.

The whole brevity thing

Rob complained last night that my posts here go on a bit long. I patiently explained that cutting stuff down is the difficult bit and usually something I’m paid for. Rambling is extravagant luxury.

“But I don’t read to the end,” he said.

I think I replied along the lines of this blog being for my own personal amusement. But I have a notebook for that and its good practice anyway, so shall attempt more frequent concisisity.

Intelligent design

After a day trawling through the washing and inbox, the Dr and I last night attended a soirée at the Royal Chelsea Hospital which included a talk and free fizz.

Chatted to a couple of other punters, all linked to art institutions of some kind. The Dr spoke knowledgeably of effigies of Queen Anne and what conservation cleaning can reveal, and I mugged a bit and ate canapés.

One of the pensioners showed us round the chapel, and explained the prominent baptismal font. Pensioners’ grandchildren are eligible to be baptised (and married) in the place.

Then it was on to the smart Council Chamber for two quick talks explaining the hospital’s role now (with 300-odd pensioners today, and a new infirmary in the works - donate here), and the history of its origination. The latter made use of portraits round the room of the founding heroes and villains.

Charles II (yay!) set up the hospital at about the same time as he did the country’s first standing army. Work got underway quickly, and then stalled for over a decade when the Earl of Raneleigh (boo!) ran off with the money.

The hospital didn’t just deal with the social problem of former soldiers now begging. Charles had been newly established as king by a government who’d cut his dad’s head off, and the “sentinels” – as the pensioners were originally described in all the documentation – had an implied remit to act, should he need them, as bodyguard.

Christopher Wren (yay!) positioned the building at a slight angle to the river, so that the pensioners are shaded from the sun in the summer and get maximum sunlight in the winter.

The design also includes shallow, wide steps ideal for old blokes and a clever mix of public and private space in the long wards. Pensioners can hide away in their berths, or sit chatting in the corridor. Which is all a bit clever, really.

I am a doughnut

Saturday
Climbed into a cab at a little after 3 in the morning on Saturday and had a very easy ride up to Stansted. Behind us in the check-in queue, two female exemplars of English moderation and kindness took their time explaining the obvious: that the airport is very busy even at this time in the morning; that it’s still dark outside; that there’s a lot of people going to Berlin.

They also get mardy about a young couple just ahead of us they’ve decided jumped the queue. When they start saying, “Well then we should push ahead, too,” I point out that the young couple have been there all along. They glare at me right up to the check-in desk.

Security is no more of a palava than usual, apart from them not allowing cigarette lighters in your hand luggage. Well d’uh. Your hand luggage must also be, er, hand luggage, and not just a suitcase which you can demonstrably lift. We pass swiftly through the arguments with patient airport staff, whose mantra goes, “No,” and, “No,” and, “No,” and, “Even in this circumstance there aren't any exceptions.”

Had hoped to pick up “Lost Girls” in the airport bookshops, which are often ahead of the outside, real world. No such luck, and the Internet is available for just £1 per 10 minutes. Bah.

We shuffle onto the plane, and no one is allowed any sleep because Ryanair has exciting news of drinks and scratchcards and hire cars and shit. Everyone is already cranky from no-sleep, so this makes things all the more lovely.

Then we are in Berlin, sleep-starved and lost by the route into town. There are chatty volunteers at the railway station showing what tickets to buy, but they’re so chatty we miss a train while they “serve” the people in front of us. The train then stops for 20 minutes at one station and terminates at the next. We spend longer getting the miles into town than we did in the air.

“It’s a lot like London,” says the Dr as we plod out of Friedrichstrasse station, friendly commuters bowling past us, between us and sometimes right over the top.

We amble down the street to where our hotel is meant to be. On first sight, Berlin reminds us of Chicago, our favourite American city from our honeymoon. The hotel is sumptuous and we sleep a couple of blissful hours, me dreaming of Bernice Summerfield and spaceships full of cats. The Dr indulges in a bath (we don’t have such things at home), and the Hotel even provides its own rubber duck.

After a spot of lunch we wander up to the Brandenburg Gate, both so blinded by prejudice we’re amazed to realise we’re staying in what used to be East Berlin. Poster campaigns show the city’s gleaming tube network peopled by every demographic – young, old, scruffy, smart, disabled, gay and into rock music. I think I even spot someone who isn’t white, but it might be my imagination.

We gawp at the gate we’re so familiar with from old news, and then go for a peak at the Reichstag. Deciding to do the climb to the roof another day, we amble back through the park comparing notes on our A-levels and what we learned about the fire.

Feeling jet-lagged we explore the Gemaldegalerie, where there’s a Botticelli sketch of Venus and a lovely Vermeer of a girl polishing off a Glass of Wine. We pootle around for a good two and a half hours, and spent an anxious time in the shop afterwards looking for postcards. Why do they never have ones of our favourites?

On the way back to the hotel we marvel at the swanky new shopping centres, and then stumble over what used to be the border. We follow the line of the old Berlin Wall, picked out in colour stone in the pavement, and take photos where there are odd fragments of tall concrete, like the ruins of a skinny Stonehenge.

We reach Checkpoint Charlie and instead of trying its museum (which we’ve been warned is a bit gaudy), we read the many information boards all round the crossroads. It’s an eerie and moving experience – both of us remember watching this place on the news and seeing the world change. It could have all so easily played out more violently, more miserably, more slowly…

Then back to the hotel and the Dr has a swim while I snooze. We eat at the same nice place we had lunch in and then crash into an early night. The Dr dreams of monkeys without legs after I tell her I glimpsed one on the television.

Sunday
We get up lateish and head towards Museum Island, the reason we are here. On the way we pass through Bebelplatz, the square where the Nazis burnt 25,000 books.

The well-read Dr quotes Heine’s remark that,

“where they burn books they will also, in the end, burn people,”

and wonders whether the burning of the Satanic Verses all those years ago was the first symptom of more recent religious tensions. I start to answer that burning books is easier than burning people, but that’s not actually true.

The destruction of books is the destruction of social structure. The law is in books, as is religion and science and history. To burn a book is a refusal to empathise, to think, to engage. When you have burned down people’s ideas and opinions there is nothing left to stop you burning the people down, too.

Bebelplatz is an empty, open space amid the university, and though there are a couple of artworks about books in general, I think there should be something more lasting. They should have something like the stalls of mixed second-hand reading outside the National Film Theatre, with all kinds of well-thumbed, unsuitable ideas at tantalisingly affordable prices.

We move on, and the Dr adores the Altes Museum, speaking highly of a video presentation that shows where the ancient objects were taken from and how. We cheer as it shows an original Firman (a Turkish certificate saying they Ottoman government okay any looting), and I’m introduced to Furtwangler, whose marvellous moustache – as Charles Newton said – makes him look like the Dying Gaul.

There’s all sorts of detail in the objects on display and we coo at intricate glass and gold works and the insights into everyday life. We collect a mass of photocopied sheets with their additional facts about each display, the Dr marvelling at how well interpreted it all is. Again, though, the selection of postcards misses several favourites.

The museum is on a shared square with the vast, dark edifice of Berlin Cathedral and the building site that used to be the East Berlin government. The secular cathedral of classical gods easily holds its own against the Christian fella, and a great neon sign declares that “All art has been contemporary”. Feeling taller and happier and properly on holiday, we go find a suitable beer.

Next stop is the Pergamon, and the Dr marvels at how cheap the museums are before remembering that in London all this would be free.

The Pergamon is on a much bigger scale than the Altes, with whole reconstructions of pillaged ancient streets, but leaves us less impressed. I like the vast paintings of the relics in situ, hanging above the same relics on display. Yes, they look better where they were. And they wouldn’t have been quite so bombed, either.

We head home, get changed and head out for dinner. After a bit too much red wine we see in the Dr’s birthday with what cards I’d intercepted and the book on Victorian London she’d already intercepted.

Monday
Breakfast arrives at 7am, courtesy of the not-too-bad husband. We then amble down to the Health Club for the morning of indulgence I’d booked. The Dr chose the special “strawberry bath” while I was lead away by an agreeable-looking blonde to have an all-over massage.

She gently suggests I’d be more comfortable without the swimming trunks on and then sets to work on my knotty bits. Its odd to sprawl out in the all-together for a complete – and pretty – stranger, but I am soon blissed out by the pummelling. Point out later to the wife that it’s the first time in nearly seven years another woman’s got to have a prod at me naked. Does this count as a scratching of the itch, and do I have to wait as long for another go at it?

When it’s the Dr’s turn, I have fun playing in the saunas and then in the pool, and but for the last ten minutes have the whole place to myself. The Dr should have birthdays more often.

Floaty and content we find some clothes to put on and head out to again to explore. We pass the rather groovy British Embassy building, a cube of yellow inset with fun blue and pink shapes. It looks like a military headquarters run by children.

Queued and queued to get into the Reichstag as we passed through the various airlocks of security and up into Norman Foster’s splendid roof. The fine panoramic views remind you how flat Berlin is and why there are so many bicycles.

We then wandered East down the Spree and into the old Jewish quarter. Having marvelled at the great palace built for the Post Office’s horses, and at the magnificent rebuilt synagogue, we had a happy time poking around the fashionable, studenty shops. The area around the Nikolaikirche was very badly bombed, and the rebuilt area is rather smart and foreboding. A bar seemed a bit perturbed to be serving tourists, so we left them to it.

Instead, we dined at the 12 Apostles, a lovely pizzeria just next to the Pergamon. It was bustling with locals – always a good sign – and we got to sit right up by the open-plan kitchen. I had a huge calzone (a folded over pizza), and managed manfully to finish it. Cor, it was good. We bickered amiably about the selfish gene and about lost bits of stone off Malta and where our travels would take us next, and then plodded home.

Tuesday
Breakfasted and checked-out of the hotel, and then made our way to the Jewish Museum, which was something of a surprise. It was less about the Nazis as about the history of Germano-Jews since the time of the First Crusade. Charting the highs and lows of bias in the law and acts of violence, to the contributions to society by Jewish scientists and artists, it’s as much a celebration as a warning.

I found it moving and involving, and was impressed by how much it engaged the gangs of noisy schoolkids. The interactive elements included difficult yes/no questions about citizenship and immigration, such as “Should those born in Germany automatically qualify for German citizenship?” (68% of visitors when we were there said, “Yes.”)

Then we had a foolishly long walk across town to the Humburger Bahnhof – a former railway station and now a contemporary art gallery. It had been recommended by a few people, and we were hugely disappointed. As well as the usual pretension of the things on display, the place was stark and unfriendly, the staff keen to tell us off for carrying a cardigan the wrong way.

Only contemporary art makes you feel like a trespasser, and I found it difficult to get anything from the work. Were scuff marks just discernible in the blinding-white walls some new, untitled piece? Or were they just what was left behind when a piece had been relocated? In different cases, both.

There was little signage or – so important to the Dr – interpretation. The café was not open but didn’t tell say so anywhere (so we got told off again for blundering in), and there were various building works going on and things set up, with nothing to explain which areas on the map were newly out of bounds.

We did like some of the things – some fascinating photos from inside the ruin of the Palast der Republik, built in 1976 to govern East Berlin. But much of the collection was large, abstract, plain-toned stuff, presented against large, plain-toned walls so as to reduce any hint of excitement.

Also, of course, none of the things we liked were available as postcards. Instead they had lots of pretentiously rude ones – dead-eyed women fingering their bits, a bloke looking bored with his half-hearted cock out. I suppose there’s an argument that it’s not dreary porn because of the building its in. But, you know, piss off.

We had curried sausages before taking a train back to the Altes Museum, where the Dr was keen to make notes. On the way back to the hotel to fetch our bags we nipped into the Friedrichswerdersche Kirche and had a look at the collection of sculptures by Schinkel. The church was largely destroyed during the war and has been rebuilt elegantly. Some of the early 19th century sculptures were also missing limbs, and seemed oddly so much more like the classical works that had inspired them.

There was time for a beer before getting the train back to the airport. Our place was late leaving London, but they didn’t tell us that until we were on the plane. We mooched around the meagre airport facilities – a coffee bar, a shop and a sickly-stinking Burger King – and then huddled in a corridor with our fellow passengers.

Air travel brings out the worst in people anyway, but the half-hour lateness turned boarding into a scrum. There is something especially galling about people pretending not to see me as they shove past – I am tall, I am freakish-looking and I spend my whole life in the way.

We left the tangled morass at Stansted, climbing into our waiting taxi as people around us swore at each other for all having been off on holiday. Home about half one this morning, to the Dr’s remaining cards and presents, and a pair of new shoes for me.

Rhymes with "Vimto grins"

If seasoned smokers, tokers and pipe-pokers can blow Smoke Rings (and Tolkein implies such activity is the finest part of havin' a puff), surely the same technique - the same articulation of the throat and tonguing action - might be used in the forging of vomit rings.

Imagine the joyous bafflement inflicted at bus stops besplattered in acidic hoops... like the Mysterons have had a night on the tiles.

Surely there's a research grant in this. No, really.

ETA: That should be "Anagram of", not "rhymes with". I am a twat. And much in need of a holiday.

Attack of the memory cheats

Blimey: The official Dr Who website has posted up Nightshade, former Dr Who Mark Gatiss’ highly acclaimed first forage into BBC endorsed Who.

Here's a review of it I wrote earlier:

The readers of Doctor Who Magazine voted it best New Adventure of 1992, despite competition that included Paul Cornell’s dazzling "Love and War" and strong entries from Marc Platt, Andrew Cartmel and Ben Aaronovitch - three men who’d contributed some of the McCoy Doctor’s best TV stuff. The reliable reckoning of I, Who thinks it one of the "most emotive Who novels [...] striking a deep melodious chord with most readers," (p. 164).

The story is relatively simple – in marked contrast to the Doctor’s adventures at this time. The setting is a small town in late December 1968. Among the community is Edmund Trevethick, who used to play "Professor Nightshade" in the [fictional] BBC sci-fi series of the 50’s. He, the Doctor, the town and the staff of the nearby radio telescope are besieged by initially welcome, ultimately deadly ghosts from the past.

The book moves at a cracking place, full of drama. It’s built up of dialogue and action sequences, so reads like the novelisation of a TV story. It’s brief compared to many of the later books – only 228 pages – and keeps the reader on tenderhooks right until the end. The fact that it’s set in the days up to Christmas 1968 lends a significant atmosphere of invaded cosiness, as well as establishing a strong sense of time and place. Gatiss also takes us to the Civil War, albeit briefly, another potent time of English order being invaded.

"Nightshade" evokes the best of "Remembrance of the Daleks" – the first TV McCoy story to really impress. The 60’s setting is immediately identifiable, and would have ensured good production values had this been produced for television.

The interplay between the Doctor and Ace is excellent, giving both plenty of interesting character development. The way that McCoy’s Doctor and Aldred’s Ace speak on screen is nicely observed and mimicked: unlike a lot of books before and after this, we can really hear them speaking the lines. On page 198, Ace even gets to repeat the emphatic "Boom!" from "Battlefield", episode one.

There’s also a high demand for thrilling special effects sequences that screams for TV presentation. Thus, "Nightshade" transcends cursory similarities to classic Who of earlier eras – most notably "The Daemons" – and the ilk of English horror where evil whispers behind the walls in sleepy villages – without ever losing sight of its television heritage. Perhaps that accounts for the broad appeal.

This is the anti- Heart Beat, thank ****. There are terrors lurking behind the cosy façade and nostalgia kills. There is continual effort made to undercut a rose-tinted view of the period. Veterans of ghastly world war still suffer the effects of gas poisoning and the loss of friends and family, while an age of free love and drugs for the young and the rioting in Paris leaves people anything but safe and secure. This all adds to the threat that the demons from the past present: Ace herself offers a telling critique on the contrast between the era and her mum’s own lovestruck recollection.

What is also gratifying about a re-reading eight years after publication is noting the foreshadowing of 1996 TV Movie Dr Who. The book opens with the Doctor listening to scratchy gramophone records, and wearing a russet waistcoat. Ace has the same sense on entering the tertiary console room as on her first visit to church: post TV Movie books have tried to render the TARDIS interior as sepulchral, a cathedral like Notre Dame.

Gatiss signposts several of his own later efforts: the failure of religion to comprehend or answer the attacking monsters foreshadows his more pointed dismissal of the church in "St Anthony’s Fire." The character of the Civil War suggests much of the activity of "The Roundheads", while he even uses the word "Phantasmagoria" on page 72.

Billy Coote, the vagrant, could easily be a comedy yokel taken straight from a cosy Pertwee script. His running off in terror at the arrival of the TARDIS is, however, laced with his "malicious" desire for the deaths of famous people. Celebrity death means fatter newspapers and therefore comfier bedding.

This scintillating morbidity comes straight from League of Gentlemen. Crook Marsham is a "hotchpotch of small houses," (p. 32) akin to Royston Vasey. As the Doctor and Ace walk through the drizzle into town, we almost expect them to stop off at a Local Shop for a can of Coke. League of Gentlemen and this kind of Doctor Who (and, to some extent, Withnail and I, which is cited on page 5) are funny and scary – in a disturbing rather than wholly gory way – with well-observed, over the top English archetypes.

The crowning achievement is the depiction of social interaction between a range of characters, and the ways that this inter-linking group buckles and strains under pressure. The characters of batty pensioners and a carer who’d far rather be a political activist, the tensions amongst those working with the radio telescope – all are glorious.

The way the town hangs together is perhaps best shown right at the beginning of the book. Jack Prudhoe is aware that "there had been a lot of gossip recently about how ill Betty [Yeadon] was looking," (p. 4). This ginger suggestion of possible domestic violence and its evident interest to the townsfolk serves to ensure the close-knit feel of the town. The suggestion itself is soon forgotten in the wake of a cause far more horrifying. And yet, at the end of the novel, the town again closes ranks. Even "those who’d had the worst scares were the first to deny anything out of the ordinary," we’re told (p. 230). The novel rewards as a convincing case study in human behaviour.

Some of the cast are exceptionally engaging. Trevethick’s character is slyly observed. Like some other veteran actor whose telefantasy work is much adored, Trevethick is staunchly opinionated, loves to lose himself in Dickensian London and is a regular in the pub.

His relationship to the fictional Professor Nightshade recalls (in my mind, at least) a 1978 Nationwide interview, where Frank Bough accused Tom Baker of actually being the Doctor in ‘real life’. Tom muttered darkly that he only had to ‘be’ the Doctor as much as his accuser had to live up to being ‘Frank Bough’. The TV persona is a projection of a fallible, flawed man. If only Bough had listened and not laughed: it was exactly this dilemma between public and private personas that lead to his own plummet from grace in the 80’s.

Trevethick, as a retired actor whose private life is quietly evaporating, clings more and more to the strengths of a man he used to ‘be’. Rude and cantankerous, he’s still quietly delighted by the renewed success and longevity of his work, harbouring grand thoughts of a new series. But it’s not just this wonderful figure who suffers the crisis between public and private lives. The Doctor, too, experiences crisis as the misery and memories he has subdued for so long threaten to engulf him, overwhelming the space hero with all the answers that Ace enthuses him to be. Both Trevethick and the Doctor eventually have to face and live up to the responsibilities of their projected selves – it’s the only way to defeat the monsters.

Overall though – and despite the novel’s title – It’s not about Doctor Who and it’s not about Nightshade. This is Ace’s story. It is Ace who solves things, not only besting the Doctor but also provoking him into action when he has surrendered. Facing the angst of her past in the way she does resolves the ongoing issues explored in Season 26 - the final year of the TV series. As she acknowledges in the book, the Doctor has helped her grow up, straightened her out. She’s competent, brave and wise – knowing not only enough about Pulsars to explain them to Robin, but shrewd enough to manipulate the sly Time Lord.

Robin is a likeable, earnest, worthy and just bloody nice guy, and surely Ace earns her right to stay with him. In the books that follow this one, she’s never as happy with anyone else. In many ways, ‘Nightshade’ would have been a richly rewarding exit for Ace, and far more deserving of the character than what eventually got done to her.

If we can muddy the lines between TV and novels (as Doctor Who Magazine did in issue 287), ‘Season 27’ ought really to have ended with Ace’s victorious departure, the Doctor heading off to new adventures and a strong, new companion without her. Just think of all the crap she and we would have been spared...

"The ending breaks your heart," says I, Who. It’s certainly a stunning, powerful finale, and one that promises a new realm of forward-looking adventures. It’s a bit of a shame then that the loss of Robin is only fleetingly mentioned in "Love and War", and that such a genuine emotional match is eclipsed in favour of the unlikely and unlikeable Jan: something rather nicely made up for by Robin’s cameo return in "Happy Endings".

"Nightshade" is a richly satisfying book, superb to revisit. It’s also the sort of thing you can duplicitously hand to those strange and terrible Not-We if they enjoy League. Rah!

Usealla planeetalla on pohjoinen

Panic sorted, thanks to those that asked. Have tomorrow and Friday in the studio and am then off to Berlin for a bit. Am hoping that another country and looking at their Greek bits will distract the Dr from being so much horribly older.

Speaking of foreigners and Drs, the Finns get Dr Who next month and their blogs are jolly excited about it, as Alex recently posted. He’s even had a post translated into Finnish by a bloke called Tero Ykspetäjä:

“Tohtori uskoo vapauteen ja vihaa tietämättömyyttä, yhdenmukaisuutta ja eristäytyneisyyttä. Hän ei ole kenenkään työntekijä eikä käytä univormua tai kanna asetta.”

I am inordinately envious, not having had anything I scribble so much as translated into English.

Sent Alex’s thing to Jonathan Clements, who is knowledgeable about Finns (and also about Vikings which are apparently not the same thing). He comments:

“I know Tero Ykspetäjä, he is indeed a terribly nice chap … I spent much of my first Finnish convention appearance in 2003 trying to impress people with my Doctor Who associations, but nobody gave a flying toss, as only a single person had ever heard of it at that time, and he was Swedish.

However, the Finns are very excited about Doctor Who now, because:

1. the marketing for it has very smartly targeted blog-crazy Finnish fandom, with a screening at Finncon
2. it's got London in it (nobody has told them yet that it's mainly Cardiff)
3. Billie Piper looks like a pixie

My personal Finn, who has demonstrated little to no interest in Doctor Who for the last three years, despite editing an SF fanzine and being offered the chance for all sorts of insider gossip, came back from last week's Finncon in Helsinki full of squeeing fangirl excitement about it.

I have now realised that the way to get her to do anything is to get a stranger on the internet to tell her that something is cool, since she immediately rushes off to get anything recommended to her by anonymous bloggers, but doesn't pay an ounce of attention to anything I suggest.”

This strikes something of a chord, as I shared with a fellow passenger on a much delayed train this morning:

"You'd probably really enjoy Talons of Weng-Chiang," I tell the wife
on a regular basis for six years. Nothing. Doesn’t even look up from her book / cat / book with a cat sitting on it.

"You'd probably really enjoy Talons of Weng-Chiang," Matthew Sweet tells the wife. And she’s watched it all within a fortnight, and voluntarily too. I wonder what else he’d endorse for me.

Jonathan also remarks on the Finnish translation of “Tohtori Kuka”:

“Finnish has at least two words for ‘Doctor’, and they’ve plumped for the academic variant, Tohtori, rather than the medical one, Lääkäri.”

I delude myself with happy thoughts of serious debate in Helsinki over the on-screen evidence in the old-school show. Does his being a valeyard, his special knowledge of Article 17 and his donning a wig for the Megara mean he’s really a doctor of law?

But then what about his studying under Lister?

Of course, the title of this post is the Finnish for “Lots of planets have a north” – as, Jonathan adds,

“A mystified Finn has just confirmed.”

I enjoy mystifying Finns.

Rewriting in his own hand

Things can be spoken of: the Big Finish website now thrillingly details much that I’ve been up to.

I have edited another book of exciting Dr Who short stories and it is called Time Signature. Philip Purser-Hallard came up with the title (after we decided “Music of the Spheres” was a bit wussy) and the incredible cover is by the incredible Stuart Manning.

(I gather Stuart also had a successful time in New York this weekend flogging his new Dark Shadows series. Dark Shadows is apparently a famous US soap but with the twist of being full of ghouls, the undead and all manner of macabre happening.

No, actually, that’s most soaps I can think of…)

Also in the news is Nick Briggs’s book of exciting Dr Who short stories, Dalek Empire. Nick is of course the voice of the Daleks (and the Cybermen and the Autons and Mr Crofton) as well as chief of new old-school Droo on CD.

Dalek Empire is also the name of an audio series he did (bits of which starred David Tennant), and in that there is a planet called Guria. Nick assures readers on page 300 of his Dalek Empire scriptbook that this is assuredly not named after me because – he says – he didn’t even know me then.

But he did. And so I hold that he did.

Guria makes an appearance in that what I’ve written. And not just in the way I am credited.

Also of great excitement, but only until midnight tonight: my Sapphire and Steel heads the Play Bank Holiday sale. Which may explain why I’m currently numbers 5 and 24 in their audio drama chart.

Hooray and hooroo! It’s been a bit of a slog, but life is pretty damn -

[Mobile is rattled by a text message bearing not entirely fab news. Cue leaping about in a panic and howling full tilt at the sky.]

Gah! Thank you, the Fickle Finger of Fate. I hate it when this happens…

Hullabaloo

The 12,000 words is more like 13,500 right this minute but the bulk of the heavy work is done. It includes the word "hullabaloo", which is no doubt done in memory of "Hullabaloo for Owl" which I read when I was little.

And I am pleased with it. And Julio Angel Ortiz likes the Time Travellers.

So life is good. Sleep now.

I should say

Go have a look at Next Time, I Shall Not Be So Lenient! - a new blog from my friend Alex which dares to collect together all the snippets of thought about old-school Dr Who that he's sent into DWM's Time Team. Alex is, of course, a frequent contributor to the "And you said" side-bar, and now you can read him in all his glory.

On a related note, I'd recommend his advice on writing press releases the DWM way.

7,200 words have been sent round the houses for comment and another 3,700 is being worked on right this minute. Have also had time for a pub lunch (mmm, moo cow) and yesterday went to see some chaps playing football.

As a result of having been Satan in a former life, I was in the visitors' end of Selhurst Park. The game was okay, though mostly played round Burnley's goalmouth. A small, valiant gang of mad-keen fanatics had travelled down to cheer on the clarets, and myself and the Swedish contigent marvelled at their inventiveness with songs.

It wasn't all just about southern jessies - there were bold denunciations of other north-west teams, and even a couple of ballads about fellow supporters. Though it took a minute to work out why they were so proud of some Lanky Shah.

One season-ticket-holding Burnley-ite was amazed at the lack of police presence. "We get one copper for every two of us back at home," he boasted. This is because we southern jessies are all so beautifully brought up.

Or we're too jessy to misbehave.

There were a few evictions in the second half for naughty behaviour - having drink on the terraces or shouting rude words. One bloke refused to be manhandled by security staff and would only be led off by the police.

After the disappointing finish we ambled back into the city and found a pub for the evening, though it wasn't open as late as I'd promised. Lidster teased me about liking to eat pancakes, because he himself is not posh. I think his myriad inadequacies bleed through the bulk of his work.

But with a knob of butter

From the archive:

The Iron Man (1968), by poet widower and Laureate Ted Hughes, is a rich, darkly textured story.

An awesome metal man from nowhere wreaks havoc until taught better by a small boy called Hogarth. The metal monster then saves the world from a terrifying, Australia-sized space bat. In five brief, plosive chunks, it’s great bedtime reading for impressionable kids, and was an ideal book-of-the-week for Jackanory in the early 1980s. A shaven-headed, bleak and grey Tom Baker told the sombre tale from a bleak and grey set, and another small boy was utterly mesmerised.

Many favourite books have fallen apart when reread as an... ahem... adult. But, like Russell Hoban’s The Mouse and His Child, The Iron Man is more absorbing and satisfying than I remembered it. Stirring, potent imagery, right from the beginning, delights in hulking metaphors – the Iron Man is,

"taller than a house, [his head] shaped like a dustbin but as big as a bedroom."

Ted Hughes, The Iron Man, p. 11.

The images are unwieldy, noisy and jarring, a messy ensemble of everyday bric-a-brac.

We’re immediately drawn into the mystery – who / what is this robot and where is he from? We’re never told, and just learn to accept him. There are clues to some sort of imprisoned past –

"Never before had the Iron Man seen the sea,"

Ibid.

- and throughout, his industrial, masculine body contrasts with the natural and feminine (a theme overplayed in the less wowing sequel, The Iron Woman).

The opening moments are shocking – the cold, inhuman machine torn apart, tumbling down the cliff into the sea. Seagulls pick at his severed parts. Eerily reborn – rebuilding himself bit by bit from just one hand and eye - he grows from bird-fodder to saving the world from a terrible pterodactyl.

The Iron Man invades a land of picnics and fox-hunting. Hogarth lives a safe, rural idyll. It’s not just the Britain of the 1960s – Hogarth spends nights out on his own with a gun, while his dad immediately believes him about the monster, even when other adults don’t. This is a child’s world, where adults are just as alien and other as robots and space monsters.

The ever-ready kid carries a handy nail and a knife amongst the clutter in his pockets, and it is he who leads the Iron Man to initial entrapment in the pit, to the scrapyard after that, and then to his duel with the Star Beast.

The adults want to destroy both Iron Man and Space Beast. Big is intrinsically bad; the two strange visitors are feared for their size and scale of appetite. Both, however, ultimately save mankind. World peace, with people,

"blissfully above all their earlier little squabbles,"

Ibid., p. 62.

derives from space, the "bigger picture", if you will. As it happens, it was adult, earthly war that originally corrupted the Star Beast so that he wanted to join in with the destruction – the little people and their little squabbles brought the real threat upon themselves.

Proving himself - sprawling in fires of his own making - we’re told that the Iron Man’s

"hair and elbows and toes became red hot".

Ibid., p. 52.

His hair? Why does a robot need hair? He’s resplendently, sensibly bald in Andrew Davidson’s stark illustrations. On the cover, however, he’s gazes at us with sensitive blue eyes.

The Iron Man is about a monster growing unmonstrous. It’s unprecedented. King Kong and Frankenstein’s (engineered) monster raged against the adult world, and lost. It’s a small boy who humanises the Iron Man, leading him to glory.

For all their guns and cars and industry, the adults are left feeling sheepish and silly, and have to submit to living a peaceful idyll. Hah.

The eighth wonder of the world

No, I don’t mean King Kong.

For reasons that shall become clear another time, I asked a couple of learned fellows about the seven wonders of the world (according to Phil from Istanbul: two blokes, two tombs, a church, a garden and a lighthouse).

If, I wanted to know, you were to list seven modern wonders of engineering and human cleverness, what would they be? The catch being that you can only include things made before 1853, so I might rip off the answers for a story.

So no, you can’t have the Brooklyn Bridge (which was started in 1870), and neither the new Palace of Westminster nor the Clifton Suspension Bridge were completed.

We came up with a bridge, a boat, a greenhouse, some tracks, a lighthouse and two connected houses. You can have a guess if you like, but the answers aren’t due until Christmas.

There’s yet another shortlist for “unsung landmarks” on the BBC News site. I find myself torn between two:

Telly transmitters at Crystal Palace
Which I live sort of under, and what gave Nimbos his logo. It's on the site of one end of the Crystal Palace, and can be seen from all across London. Which makes me wonder whether the palace was, too.


Radio telescope at Jodrell Bank
Which was the formative death of Dr Who, and also had sunflowers growing next door when I visited many years ago.

Still, it loses points for the paltry exhibition, which explained little more than what the nine planets are called. The exhibits were mostly about what we can see of the cosmos, when Jodrell Bank really just listens.

Returned home to my then physicist housemate who explained that the little and newer telescope next to the big one is by far the more powerful and groovy. Technology has meant that size doesn’t matter.

And yet, they can still make use of the big one. They team up with two other big telescopes evenly spaced around the Earth, and then go listen to the same bit of space. By comparing the slightly different hearings, they gain results as if they had a telescope bigger than the whole of the planet.

Which is a bit damn cool. So I’m voting for Jodrell.

(Note to self: 4,073 words and still lots to be done with the other one.)

Hot salad

Things that happen when you have a chef staying who cooks tea in leiu of rent: last night the outlaws took the Dr and I for a slap-up meal at Carluccio's and it felt a little like slumming it.

Ah, heaven...

Moments ago, m'colleague A. declined a cup of tea on the basis he'd already had several. This is indicative of the wild, rock-n-roll lifestyle what the young people live nowadays.

"And one of 'em had caffeine in it," he added.

Hmm. In my book of arbitrary rulings that makes his total just one cup of tea, plus several mugs of fruit drink.

Another colleague, F. tells of culinary hardship when attempting to buy herself lunch. The cooked chicken had gone mostly cold so she asked the bloke behind the counter if she could have it re-heated.

He took her plate, decorously arranged with meat and veg and sald, and bunged the lot in the microwave for a good minute's ping. F. ended up eating arid, still-not-hot poultry and some unnaturally warm strands of lettuce.

"Didn't you complain?" asked A. "Didn't he think it was odd cooking salad?"

"People ask him for odd things all the time," said F. "Putting ketchup in soup, or just ordering a meal of chips and potatoes... People round here are weird."

Oddfelt

Have spoken before about odd things in James Bond films, but working my way through the shiny new attache case of all 20 remastered flicks, all sorts of new ones occur.

Doctor No and From Russia With Love are both very fast-moving, with lots of tightly edited quick scenes and sequences. I love that having set Bond up as this dangerous playboy we then find out that he shoots like a lady.

I also like how vast the world is - it's a long and arduous process to get across a border.

Doctor No thinks Bond just a "stupid policeman" with ideas above his station (about nice wines and so on). But Bond's actually quite a blunderer. His job is to walk into wherever's the dangerest and piss people off until they tell him their plans. Then they fail to kill him.

Goldfinger really is very good indeed. I don't quite understand why Goldfinger gives his demonstration to hoodlums he's going to kill - unless it's just so Bond can eavesdrop.

It's a whopping great coincidence in Thunderball that Bond happens to be in the same health farm as the baddies. That is, unless either a) it's being right next to a NATO base means the Secret Service can get a discount, or b) M has had a tip-off.

Though the latter seems not to play when Bond phones in his suspicions about Count Lippi's tattoo: Moneypenny reminds him how he's on leave.

There's a top cat moment in You Only Live Twice, as Blofeld and his gang flee the control room. Watch the white pussy struggling in his arms, and pulling hilario-comedic gurns at the camera.

Also, when Blofeld kills Osato (just before he doesn't kill Bond, then walks through a door, and then tries to), the cat escapes him. So presumably dies in the volcano.

Why don't Blofeld and Bond recognise each other when they meet in OHMSS? There's a silly scene of Savalas catching Bond out on geneaology when they've already met...

Bond sits reading Playboy in OHMSS, and then steals the centrefold. While trying to look inconspicuous in a lawyer's lobby, he's admiring the double-spread and then pocketing it.

Blofeld tells Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever to go and put more clothes on because her bikini distracts his workers. So she covers up her arms. Also, she's a sassy, dangerous lady right up until she meets Q on the fruit machines. And then she's just a ditzy, dizzy broad. Which is a shame.

All Sean's movies except Goldfinger end with him and his moll on a boat.

Ten headaches

As well as making my tea each night and ensuring that each morning I am ready for school, it appears the two wives feel themselves responsible for my general presentation.

Last night, as we ate the chicken-and-noodles-and-chillies-and-yum that Wife 2 had made and while Griff Rhys Jones enthused about Betjeman, Wife 1 tried to explain that if you’re wearing groovy brown trousers, you shouldn’t wear tops that are blue.

And that white stripes on the arms are not cool.

And that anyway it looks like a cardie.

This is unfair on two counts: firstly I’d asked for her unforthcoming opinion while compiling the day’s costume, and second, you should see what she’s happy putting on, the Goth freak.

Anyway, I ventured, such silly fripperies as fashion are below a fellow of my breeding. You decide these things on a sensible, evidential basis, asking will they last and do they fit and can you avoid having to iron them.

Wife 2 suggested that no, knowing what colours go well together is a universal. Pah, said I, that’s what fools told the Impressionists with their punky clash of blue-against-orange and purple-on-yellow that made their stuff so vibrant and exciting.

(Anyway, we know all about those men who are good with colours, don’t we? And if we don’t, we ask Lee.)

The wives countered that an arty sort like Monet would have known better than to wear a mismatching cardie. At least he knew what he looked like.

“Have you seen pictures of him?” I blathered. “He looked like an old tramp! His wife wouldn’t be worried about how his white stripes looked council. She’d more likely say, ‘Oh zut alors, Claude! Did you put that on so you could spill paint on it, or have you been out on park benches sucking shit through a sock?’”

I’m quite content looking a bit grubby at the edges. Neglecting to shave is as much a guilty thrill as not getting out of bed. At school there was one teacher who used often to jeer that, “You’re a shambles, Guerrier.” I was always too timid to shout back, “That’s the point!” – though sometimes I would bravely dare think it.

This Betjemanesque admission much amused the cackly wives, who thought “You’re a shambles, Guerrier” would look good on my tombstone. Yes, they are already planning, and said how they’d plant the grave with an appropriate great clash of weeds.

“They’re not really weeds if you plant them on purpose,” I said, and then had to explain: “Weeds are your unplanned-for growths.”

Forget the lure of the reaper, “Unplanned-for growths” can be the name of my memoirs, in which will appear the further unbosoming of my bigamous exploits. And anyway, this dishevelled thing is what gets me two wives in the first place.

The weekenders

Things progress. Have picked the brains of chums and the Dr for stories I am writing, got a whole load of Benny things happening for 2007, and have locked the next pair of scripts. Am also informed that things due for release are very nearly due for release.

Which all means that the great long list of things that Simon Must Do keeps having great swathes of it ticked off. Hooroo!

On Friday, my new chair was delivered and it is quite marvellous. It is tall, supportive and has a pleasing rocking motion. Saw the deliverer out, and returned to find the cat had already claimed it.

On Saturday we spent a very pleasant evening in the very pleasant Dulwich Wood House with J. and D., evil-freelance-overlord-I., Nimbos and Josephlidster – who teased me about initialising them all on this blog.

Some things of excitement were discussed, but their time on this electric journal is still to come.

On Sunday, we poddled down to Winchester for a world of lunch with the almost-family we went to Spain to see married . Lots of food and natter, and met some people who spoke wisely of Birmingham, Finland and Classics. And hydrogen fuel cells.

For some reason people were singing Christmas carols out in the garden. We took that as our cue to run away.

Then went to see my old mate B., whose house is a shell of loose bricks, and only one room has a floor. He has six weeks to make it all proper, and we delighted in hearing how he’ll have finished the roof by… er… this afternoon, and then there’s walls and floors and plastering and stairs and… Anyway, plan is to go help when I have got through some remaining deadlines. The Dr is keen I keep up physical works, probably because being knackered means I leave her alone.

We took B. to the Westgate Hotel for some refreshment. Sadly the Pride of Romsey was off, but the Ringwood Bitter made a good second. I was born in Romsey and harbour happy fantasies about how one day they’ll erect a statue of me, based on being so big and famous. Like to think that I’m already half-way there.

Eventually got back to London, where M. had already arrived and was busy with Dr Who’s lunch. We chatted drunkenly at her until bed-time.

This morning I was awoke by the sound of both my wives struggling to box up the cat. His grace required annual shots and check-up, and I hear tell of how he soon plied the old Guerrier charm to the lady-vet. (No, in a way that worked.) He has spent since his return sulking in the corner.

And so back to the coalface of picaresque space adventure. Am pleased with the metaphorical wax, though it may not survive till the final draft.

London thing

Here’s one I prepared earlier. Back in May, a friend asked for things to do in London that are less touristy and a lot Dr Who. This is what I came up with for day one:

Start in the morning by getting the tube to Bank station.

Get the Docklands Light Railway from Bank to Greenwich Cutty Sark, and admire the groovy buildings and stuff along the way. Your homework before this trip is to watch The Long Good Friday, which (as well as having a young Pierce Brosnan offer his bottom to the villain from Raiders of the Lost Ark) shows lots of the area you'll be going through, before it all got smartened up.

At Greenwich, wander up to the (free) Royal Observatory - the centre of world time, apparently - and have a look at the nice clocks. It can be crowded outside where people stand on the meridian line, but it's usually quieter once you get inside.

Once you're done there, head back down through the park to the (also free) Queen's House (where they filmed Dr Who and the Dimensions in Time, and also where I got marriaged). The paintings inside aren't very exciting, so don't bother hanging around too long.

Then go see the Cutty Sark (a big boat from Dimensions in Time), and head for the big glass-domed thing at the water's edge. From there, you can see the Millennium Dome (to your right). James Bond fell on it once.

The glass-domed thing is the entrance to the free foot tunnel to Island Gardens (under the Thames). It was my favourite thing in London when I was little.

From Island Gardens, take the Docklands north to Canary Wharf. Get out and change on to the Jubilee line. The Jubilee-line bit of the station is cool and space-age. You might also like to take a ten-minute detour outside and go see the traffic-light tree what I put on the cover of my Dr Who book.

Take the Jubilee line to Westminster. It's also space-age. Exit the station and gaze happily up at the Palace of Westminster (aka the “Houses of Parliament”). The pub right by the station, the St Stephen's, can be crowded but is nice and you'll probably need a drinkie anyway.

Head to the river, and look at (but don't cross) Westminster Bridge, which is the one with the Daleks on it in that photo, and the one the Dr and Rose hold hands on as they run over.

Having admired the view, turn round and walk back up to the corner with the parliamentary bookshop on it. Parliament square, with Winston's statue, is to you diagonal left. On the other side of the road right in front of you is a building with a squarish tower on top of it. They filmed the opening of the Prisoner there (with Number 2 driving his sportscar past Parliament and into the underground carpark nearby).

Anyway. Turn right onto Whitehall, and wave at Downing Street as you go past. Not much to see by peering through the gates, but they've repaired it very well since Dr Who blew it up last year.

Carry on to Trafalgar Square and see if you can climb on the lions - it seems to be the thing to do if you are foreign.

But it's probably a bit touristy. So:

In front of where Nelson is looking is a roundabout with a statue of some king on it. Cross on to that, and then left to the Waterstones on the far side of the road. Follow Northumberland Avenue down to the river, and cross Waterloo (foot)bridge.

At the south end of the bridge, head right, down the steps and go play on the London Eye / Auton antennae dish. Worth paying for a ride.

Then, back again under Waterloo bridge and along the river front, and maybe pretend to be a Draconian on the walkways round the National Theatre and Hayward. Yes, that's where Frontier in Space took place.

After you've browsed the bookstalls outside the National Film Theatre (and under Waterloo bridge), hang a left away from the river and head to the underpass where the IMAX cinema is. It's fun, but expensive, if you want to stop off.

Follow the signs for Waterloo Road - you want to be on the other side of the road from Waterloo station, on the side of Stamford Street. Follow Waterloo Road past the kebab shops, and turn right just before you get to the pub called the Wellington (very tactfully, this is the first thing French people see when emerging from the Channel Tunnel trains).

Nestling behind the Wellington are some quiet streets of traditional yellow-brick houses, in which Remembrance of the Daleks got filmed. On Roupell Street, there's also a very good pub, the Kings Arms.

The Thai place on Waterloo Road is good for a well-deserved tea, and you're right by Waterloo station which will get you back to wherever you are staying once you are properly full of beer.

Day 2 another time…

Garbage cans, rats galore… Scram!

“His claws arced up, up, and slashed a vicious curve through Cludge’s soft, wet nose.

The big dog howled. He twisted away, turning his face left and right, spraying blood into the snow. He stumbled back from Razor’s claws, and hid behind Varjak, trembling, whimpering, bleeding from the nose.

It was over.”

SF Said, The Outlaw Varjak Paw, p. 20.

Mr Shaggy Guerrier Esq., smallest and hairiest member of the family, bought this for the Dr for Christmas. He seemed much taken with the first Varjak Paw novel, and its none-too-brave black cat fighting a world of wicked felines.

I assume the eponymous cat’s name is a play on “Paul Varjak”, the blocked writer of the 1956 novel “Nine Lives” and star of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. (And played by Hannibal Smith some years before Nam and the crime he didn’t commit.)

“I’m like Cat here. We’re a couple of no-named slobs, we belong to nobody and nobody belongs to us. We don’t even belong to each other.”

Holly Golightly, Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

(I’m sure there’s an argument for how both the cat-books-for-kids and the hip-flick-for-grown-ups make the same sort of plea, that it’s a tough, mixed-up world and us kooks need to stick up for each other. But it’s probably trying a bit hard…)

Knocked through this new adventure in a couple of evenings – though there’s 260 densely plotted pages, its set in a heavyweight point size and illustrated throughout. Dave McKean’s sketchy illustrations are integral to the story, as violently clawed and sinister as the text they accompany.

In it, Varjak and his chums Tam, Holly and Cludge (shockingly, a dog) are finding the “free” streets hemmed in by an ever more ‘orrible gang. Those that don’t pay due deference to Sally Bones get their ears and tails pulled off, and they’re not even sparing old women and children. It’s got so bad that even some of the other gangs and hoodlums are looking to Varjak for help…

It’s a grisly and violent read with constant blood-spilling, death and disfigurement. Amid the steady low drumbeat of CRACK! and CRASH! and SMACK! and THUD!, cats plummet from tall buildings and wade through sewage. There’s also love, with Varjak’s squirmy feelings about the girl-kitten he sleeps with.

That’s not to say this is only for older kids; it’s no more vicious than the last two Harry Potters. What’s more, aged 11ish I devoured 2000AD and the novel of Doctor No because – with their torture and Nazis and sex and explosions – I thought I was getting away with something adult, that the parents wouldn’t approve if they only knew how sophisticated my trashy reading really was.

Not that this is an original thought:

“If you say you want to stay up until the end of a movie they're never going to let you do that, but if you say "I just want to finish this chapter" it's okay.

Little do they know you're reading about a troll hacking off someone's head.”

CBBC Newsround, Authors on the spot: Lemony Snicket, 2 June 2006.

The violence is vivid and scary, even if a lot of it happens off-camera. It reminded me in some ways of The Iron Man – a succession of stark, brutal images ever threatening the kind, easy-going yet wily hero (in that case, a small boy).

Though Varjak is unnaturally good at fighting, he never enjoys it. We see him struggle to build and maintain alliances so he doesn’t have to fight any more. And we see how his insistence that everyone works together ultimately pays off.

It’s exciting all the way through, though I’m surprised there aren’t more cliffhanger endings to chapters. The loss of a major character (which happens quite a bit) occurs mid-chapter rather than the end. I guess this means the book works better as a bed-time story; you get all the thrilling plot developments in your instalment, rather then being left on sleep-preventing tenterhooks.

The mystical stuff with Varjak’s long-dead ancestor, the kung-fu master Jalal, is all a bit Jedi. I half-expected, as Jalal reveals his own weaknesses, that evil Sally Bones would turn out to be Varjak’s mum. And we still don’t know how or why Varjak has these lurid dreams, or what his special connection to the Way is.

Otherwise, Outlaw seems to tie up everything neatly, there’s no “coming soon” in the endpapers (as there is in the first one) and the official website says nothing about book three. But I can see where Said might go for Varjak’s next perilous adventure – without giving anything away for this one, using a character who at the end has one “ice-blue eye, seeing his secrets, laying him bare” (p. 260). And that would really be putting the poor scraggy cat through the ringer.

Googling to see what might have been mentioned, Said told Newsround that he thinks there’ll be a third book, but that,

“there's another story I want to work on. It's a sort of science-fiction samurai story, so there'll still be martial arts - but there might also be spaceships...”

CBBC Newsround, Q & A with Varjak Paw author SF Said, 14 November 2005.

Cor! Kendo in space... Oh, no wait. Has't that be done?

For one week only…

…you can hear the Dr’s broadcast debut, via Radio 4’s Listen Again wossname.

She pops up about halfway through (by which time you might have
lost the thread of what Malc McClaren’s going on about, bless him).

We’ve also watched the first three episodes of Talons of Weng-Chiang, the Dr mesmerised by Li H’Sen Chang. Ducked off to bed early to escape the seminar on ethno-racial stereotyping. Though I notice Chang’s not shown on the packaging…

On which point, I’d recommend Alex’s post on profiling. Surely terrorists who almost out-think airport security (with a method devised by the Joker, where different, innocuous chemicals become lethal when blended) are cunning enough to thwart looking “a bit foreign”...

And I have an answer for airlines and passengers complaining about all the delays: airports provide an option for no-frills security. It's quicker, it's cheaper and you can carry anything you like in your hand luggage.

But it's your own fault if you don't survive the journey. Now shut your moaning!

Lazy boy

I’ve not come anywhere in the Writers Inc competition, and wonder what of the two stories sent in can be salvaged for use elsewhere. Humbug. And, indeed, fizzy fish.

The problem with having lots of work on is how it eats up all the thinking time. Or, to use the technical term, “idling”. Or, to use the Dr’s phrase, “I thought you were going to do some work today.”

Today I made much use of an unpatented creative process for getting story outlines to work. The trick is, having researched diligently and got a pretty good idea where it’s all going, to then not get up too early and lie in bed thinking it through.

It’s amazing (to me, at least) what can come out of idling. This morning the trusty left hemisphere (have I got that right?) rustled up a whole new character, a nice thing about how to play the bloke alone in his escape pod, and the right place for a big revelation.

The next stage is to get all this down in the notebook. And then, after a lunch of cheesy crumpets, tea and Dr Who magazine, I settled down at the computer to type up the outlines entirely from memory.

Relying only on the grey matter means you only get the essentials of the story, and it’s a good way to see what really matters. Yes, that bit about the escape pod works nicely, but I entirely neglected it as the thing got typed up.

This uber-outline is saved and then saved-as, and I leech through the notebook putting back all I’d forgot. Have chipped 2,626 words off the 12,000 monolith, and it’s now just a matter of knocking down those pins.

And, having set the stories in stone, of finding ways to keep it interesting for myself as I write it. Which usually means changing it all as I go.