Rise of the Cybermen

Part three of my first ever pitch for a Doctor Who novel, from 13 years ago. (Part one here.)

Episode Three

With the time-travellers at gun-point, the Cyber-Leader explains that Cyber control realised the FULL consequences of their “failed” attempt to wipe out Earth in 2526; that is the creation of themselves, but also detected that the TARDIS would land on Mondas shortly afterward. The Cyberleader, his lieutenant and a squad of Cybermen were sent back in time to ensure that despite thwarting them in the 26th Century, the Doctor did not erase their existence altogether.

The Doctor’s two companions are ‘taken down’ from the wall, and are to be taken as hostages while the Doctor is escorted to the King by the Cyberleader, who will then take over Mondas directly, completely determining the Cyber-destiny. However, on of the companions (Cwej(?)) escapes. A Cyberman shoots at him, and he fakes his own death by leaping from a gantry. While the Cybermen reports his death to the Cyber leader, Cewj heads off to the rebel camp to get help.

At the Court, both the King and Prime Minister are horrified by the Cyber-Leader, but the King comments that if this the ultimate state of his people, the “so be it”. The Prime Minister cannot accept this, and tries to side with the Doctor, suggesting either a programme looking into fertilisation, or emmigration to another planet, or hibernation or even a PROPULSION UNIT being fitted into Mondas to take her back to her old orbit. The Doctor replies that all but the first of these are to become the directives of the Cybermen anyway, with their single motivation for SURVIVAL. It is unclear whether he is for or against Cyber evolution.

On the outskirts of Mondas, Cwej and the Exile group he has assembled agree to rescue the Doctor before doing anything else.

In the courtroom, the Prime Minister is silenced by the Doctor admitting that nothing he can do will stop the rise of the Cybermen. The Cyberleader wishes to instill this powerlessness (and show dominance over all foes) and orders the hostages to be executed. Over the communicator, there is the sound of gun-fire, and a cyber-voice reports that the hostages are dead. The Cyber leader turns to the Doctor, who looks mortified, and almost gloats the word, “Excellent!”

Next episode: TOTAL CYBERISATION

Corridors etc.

Part two of my first ever pitch for a Doctor Who novel, from 13 years ago. (Part one here.)

Episode Two

At the last minute, the King intervenes, refusing to allow the murder. However, when the Doctor and Bernice cannot help him as to the location of the exile’s camp, he agrees to have “the Pinks” locked up, pending an interrogation.

The Doctor’s other companion’s awaken from the “stun shot” in the Cybernetics factory. They are to be, as with all the other captives, made into Cybermen. They rally support for a jail-break, but after escaping their cell and running down a few corridors etc. etc. they are all recaptured.

The Doctor and Bernice are more successful. With a little bout of Venusian Akido, they escape their escort and head back to the TARDIS. They are not going to interfere anymore, letting destiny run it’s course. The TARDIS’s self-repair systems will soon be finished and they can leave. At least now, the TARDIS will be in a state that the Doctor can co-habit (the reason he was so ‘ill’ before was because of the pain and confusion the TARDIS’s “brain” was sending him).

These plans are messed up by their finding the TARDIS absent of the other two. While the Doctor attempts to trace his missing companions, Bernice plays on the other side of the controls, and finally finds what she is looking for. A computer simulation shows an object collide with the sun and explode. An anti-matter flame is caused, a sweep of very powerful energy. It wipes Mercury (presumably removing any remains of the Jagaroth’s Final Battle), turns the pleasant Venus and her people into a dead, fire world, kills the dinosaurs on Earth (the Silurians having the foresight to hibernate), breaks off a piece of the planet (where the Pacific Ocean is now) that becomes the Earth’s moon, knocks Earth’s sister, Mondas into space and bleaches and makes barren her people, and then fizzles out shortly after making Mars too uncomfortable for the Marsians. The Doctor is hardly listening, but has found his other companions, in the Cybernetic’s factory. He again expresses concern for the rapidity of events. Bernice makes a comment about it being a Child Prodigy being too-clever that has led to this. The Doctor ignores her and looks at her computer console. He seems to falter, and identifies the object that hit the Sun as the 2562 A.D. Space Freighter (from “Earthshock”) and comments that “his friend must have finally steered the ship out of Earth’s orbit. He then does a double-take on Bernice’s “Child-Prodigy” joke, and runs from the TARDIS. Shrugging, Bernice follows.

Arriving at the Cybernetics Factory, the Doctor, who seems jubilant with himself, comments “…he never could choose the right side to be on… I knew he hadn’t died!” He marches past startled staff and up to the “Cybernetics Controller”. “Hello, Adric” he beams, but the Controller is not Adric. He is a tall, life-less man with a large, metal device screwed into his face. The Doctor nearly collapses.

Bernice sees the other two companions amongst a group of figures in booths, being prepared for Cyberisation. She tries to rescue them, and the Doctor recovers his wits and assists her. Her brilliant blue pulse from a laser cannon sends them both sprawling.

From the floor, the stunned Doctor looks at the shooter. It is the Cyberleader (Earthshock – Silver Nemesis type Cyberman), who stands with his lieutenant and the humanoid Cybermen, obviously under their control. The Cyber leader speaks: “As we predicted, we meet again, Doctor!!”

Next episode: RISE OF THE CYBERMEN

Spare parts

Have been busy, sorry. But I've done all my reading for the Doctor Who short story competition, and we should have announcments soon. Am now well into Bernice Summerfield - The Inside Story, and have interviewed a great wealth of people in the last few days.

Got masses still to do, and fact-checking and transcribing and putting it all together. But pretty pleased with current progress. It's got to be delivered by the end of June, so I shall remain rather frantic till then.

Amid the research, I unearthed my own first ever proposal to Virgin for a Doctor Who novel - sent in September 1994, in my first week at university. It's eye-poppingly appalling, and in typing it up I have tried to keep in all the typos. Yes, the version I sent Virgin was handwritten...

It's in four episodes (I think I was keen it should have the feel of the telly show). Since I've been doing so much judging and lest should be judged myself, we begin serialisation today:

Mondas
A Genesis of the Cybermen by S. Guerrier

Episode One
Bernice has been nagging the Doctor to investigate the Ice Warrior’s exodus from Mars. As it heads back to the end of the Jurrasic Era, the TARDIS is overcome by some extra-dimensional energy wave, and crashes violently on an Earth-sized planetoid situated between Jupiter and Saturn.

Wild and erratic – through his symbiosis with the damaged ship – the Doctor flees the TARDIS. Telling the others to remain, Bernice follows him. She follows him into a strange, alien citadel, where the sparsely seen inhabitants – cloaked and faceless – shirk away from the Time-Lord and his Minder. Soon, masked, armoured police arrive, arresting and dragging off the travellers, and ignoring Bernice’s pleas for the Doctor’s state of health.

Bored with waiting, the other two companions venture out from the ship, into the hands of a small group of rough-looking cloaked figures. They remove their hoods to reveal that they are ALBINOS – as are, apparently, all the inhabitants of Mondas, since the ‘Time of the Burning Skies’. This is a recce group, investigating the TARDIS crash site on behalf of their fellow exiles. They take the two travellers to their leaders encampment.

In a Mondasian cell, Bernice calls for her rights or an explanaition of her crime are ignored by the unmasked, albino guards. A sobered Doctor reveals that Mondas is the home planet of the Cybermen.

The exiles’ leaders welcome the “pinks” (the two companions) and explain how they too were “pinks”, until thirty years ago when they were bleached and made infertile by the “Burning Skies” that have sent their planet moving out to space.

In the cell, the Doctor explains how once, Mondas and Earth were twins, sharing the same orbital path around the sun. Then, for whatever reason, Mondas drifted outwards to become the Solar System’s tenth planet. The atmospheric changes of this shift were too much for the inhabitants, and herbal medecines could not help. Slowly they replaced limbs for metal and plastic… Bernice is concerned, and points out that this period at the end of the Jurassic Era also saw the Martian exodus, the Silurian hibernation and the total extinction of the Venusian civilisation! Such revelations are cut short by the return of the police men, who have orders to take the prisoners to the King!

On the outskirts of the metropolis, the exiles bring the cloaked companions to “convince the people of their aims”.

In the Court room, the Doctor and Bernice are taken to the King and his Prime Minister. The King, seen as strong and proud, is in reality weak and indecisive, following the instructions of the sly, manipulative PM. The newly begun Cybernetics programme is all the Prime Minister’s doing. The Doctor’s natural ability to befreind royalty is rebuked by the PM, who refuses to allow “Pinks” to upset the stable regime.

On the streets, hidden Mondasian police watch the exiles try to rally attention. When the two companions remove their hoods, their is a roar of shock, followed by the appearance of the troops, who mercilessly gun down all those present, including the two companions.

In the court, the Doctor and Prime Minister are arguing. The Prime Minister “cannot allow the travellers (as pinks) to incite further unrest”. He presses a button, and a lumbering “Tenth Planet”-type Cyberman enters. The Doctor’s fear that Mondas should not have Cybermen so soon is interrupted by the PM’s order, “Kill them!”

Next episode: CORRIDORS ETC.

Dead or alive

In between all the copious reading, I have sometimes escaped my pod. The Dr took me on Friday night for ramen and A Matter of Life and Death. It’s an expertly staged version of the Powell and Pressburger movie, full of vim and ingenuity. But I felt these rather detracted from the all-important love story.

The film (which I love but the Dr and Codename Moose both felt too boring) begins with dashingly handsome World War 2 pilot Peter (David Niven) on his way back from a raid over Germany. The rest of his crew have either bailed out or bought it, and Peter’s plane is bothersomely on fire. Knowing he hasn’t a hope of landing, and dashed well without a parachute, he natters to a pretty-sounding wireless operator – June, played by Kim Hunter (yes, hot chimp lady Zira from the Planet of the Apes).

After wooing this fine-sounding filly, Peter leaps from the plane… and miraculously survives. The after-life has made a balls-up in the typically English fog, and while Peter and June get to a-snogging, a celestial court hearing is being arranged…

The afterlife of the movie is full of deliciously over-the-top performances, yet all in cold black and white. The spirit world is a haunting and grey place. This contrasts with the staid, stiff-lipped Brits surviving world war in rich and vivid colour. The play nicely smudges the split between the two worlds – living and dead – so it’s less explicit that the court is all in Peter’s head. I was a bit worried by advance warning that the play featured several songs, but its all fun and rumble-tumble stuff, bringing to life the passion of life that Peter’s fighting for.

That said, this smudging does make things a bit tricky for the central wheeze – whether it’s right that Peter should get a second chance. For all Douglas Hodge does his best as Peter’s dead friend Frank, arguing in defence of the star-cross’d lovers, we’re not exactly convinced of the special flavour of the case when the afterlife seems so rosy. There’s passion and larking and sexy girls on both sides of the mortal divide, and the dead seem more happy and care-free.

The performances on stage were all excellent, though the plot was overshadowed by moving props, Kirby wires and pyrotechnics. I thought of my few lessons in audio drama – that the sound engineers can make widescreen baroque on stereo, but we need to hear the words people are saying to build a picture in minds. The play is a great, funny feast to watch and enjoy, but its real strength and cleverness get a bit lost in the mayhem. The larking about and jokes about drowning in bags of milk rather smothers the emotional core.

It doesn’t help that the play then brings out women killed in Coventry and Dresden on the sorts of mission Peter was flying. This departure from the film may make the story more complex and contemporary, but the random brutality of war also undercuts the right of Peter to get special leniency. In the film he’s fighting a war against grey bureaucracy – and one that’s made the cock-up in the first place. In the play his motivation is a bit more selfish.

The extra context did very effectively up the emotional stakes of the play, and maybe got the audience working more critically. It is very well done, and a lively, sparky night out was exactly what my sandpapered eyes were after. Yet in retrospect it doesn’t sit happily.

Perhaps it’s just the effect of living in a different time. The film originally played to a newly post-war audience, every one of whom would have lost somebody. The underplayed sentiment holds back a tide of evocations.

Jason and Jason

New up on the Big Finish website are the cover and a sample chapter from new Benny novel, The Two Jasons. The book went to press on Tuesday.

"The growls will be added in post"

Much as it might be cheering on the opposition, you can hear the first installments of all-new Blake's 7 at scifi.co.uk. That's the sort of magnanimous fellow I am.

The whole thing's a bit damn brilliant, really. And plenty more of it to come, too. Hooray!

Had a nice chat with author Ben Aaronovitch early today, as it happens. He is happy with what we're going to do his space vixen Kadiatu, so now we just need to get her into a booth.

Great day in the studio yesterday recording "The End of the World", with a simply brilliant performance from Stephen Fewell as Jason, ably assisted by an exemplary guest cast. Couldn't have asked for better, loves.

In fact the only one to let things down was, er, me. Scene 22 worked a lot better without my monstrous growling (despite my best efforts to be Killoran) - and even gave our visiting reporter goosebumps. Woo!

The chimpanzees of death

The official Droo website now has a funky comic maker wotsit. Cobble together your own novel graphics and sequential arts. You can surely do better than my effort.

The write stuff

Ten years ago tomorrow I went to the Manopticon 5 convention in Manchester – which is where I first got to meet famous people who are now my pals. I know this ‘cos I found the souvenir brochure the other day, while researching for the Inside Story.

The autographs page shows my priorities even then; I’ve only got scrawl from the writers (Steve Cole, Paul Cornell, Terrance Dicks, Steve Lyons and Gareth Roberts, fact fans). The floppy-haired, wide-eyed, 20-year-old me had only the previous day handed in his undergraduate dissertation – comparing the TV Movie to Star Trek: First Contact – and little dreamt of all the mad shit and scribbling as yet to come…

Signed off on The Two Jasons yesterday and wrote up a quarter of my notes on the first draft of Nobody’s Children. Pretty damn delighted with this year’s Benny – and people are saying nice things about Judas Gift both on Outpost Golliwog and the Down Among the Dead Men mailing list (you’ll need to sign-up to read what’s been said, though).

Also got a lunchtime demonstration from Dr Davy Darlington of how you check a recording studio offers dead space: clap your hands and listen for the lack of any reverb. Look at me with my hang of the lingo.

Then put on a better shirt and jacket and tripped into town to attend my first ever Clarke Award ceremony. I first heard about the Clarkes while doing my MA, when I got to meet some of the judges on the morning after. They’d had no doubt about The Sparrow’s fabulosity, and so I sought it out myself. The Clarkes are generally a great recommendation. It’s like the older kid at school who can recommend the good stuff – there’s only one winner I wasn’t so swayed by.

Was wary about what it would be like, but the place was full of old chums and the beer didn’t need to be paid for. Got to meet Andrew Cartmel – who I’ve employed and am employing, but by proxy – and various other fine folk.

Was so busy nattering that I was one of the last to file into Screen 4 for the ceremony. Managed not to see a prominent step as I looked for spare seats, so went flying in front of everyone. Gah! The free honeycomb ice-cream helped to settle the embarrassment, and I hid at the back with Jim Swallow.

The speeches were all very brief, and having applauded Mike Harrison and the organisers, we beetled back out to the bar. I had fun asking different people if writing knock-off sci-fi tie-ins did you any favours in writing standalone sci-fi (there’s lots of ways you can articulate “No!”), and traded business cards, salacious gossip and hyperbole. Then followed some people to a pub round the corner, and did the same over pints of Green King.

And the only thing I paid for all night was a grubby pasty on the way home. Whee!

Ooh look, rocks!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Technicolor™ type

Regular acolytes of this ‘ere blog might note a sudden and spangly facelift.

Looked through Blogger’s layout interface because of something I was proposing for work. It was too tempting not to click around and, I hope, make things a touch warmer.

The typeface is now all Trebuchet, named after the contraption for getting middle-aged men into castles.

If I understand these things even remotely, Mr Gill’s beautiful letterings come out of copyright in just fewer than three whole years. Gill Sans, designed for clarity and fine looks, even from far away, is ideally suited to both print and the screen (which is why the BBC use it). I beseech it then being a core font for the web, and will use it and Joanna here.

Splitter!

“At the end the comandante raised his arm in the Fascist salute. ‘¡Arriba España!’ In the early days of Bernie’s captivity, at San Pedro, many prisoners had refused to respond, but when a few were shot they had complied, and now there was a dull ragged response. Bernie had told the other prisoners about an English word that sounded almost the same as ‘Arriba’ and now it was ‘Grieve España’ that they called back.”

CJ Sansom, Winter in Madrid, p. 256.

Mother-in-law leant us this, which gripped when I should have been reading work things. It’s about three public school boys, caught up in Spain after the civil war, as Franco debates whether or not to go in with Hitler.

Bernie Piper is the son of a shopkeeper, in Spain to fight for the reds against fascism. Missing, believed dead, he’s in a work camp in Cuenca, slowly toiling to death, destroying pagan cave paintings. (This might constitute a spoiler were it not also revealed in the back-cover blurb.)

Bernie's grieving girlfriend Barbara has been taken up by the Clark-Gable-moustached spiv Sandy, who got expelled from the old school and never got on with Bernie. Sandy’s up to something mischievous involving gold mines and Jewish refugees. So another school mate, hero and Dunkirk veteran Harry Brett, is sent out to spy on Sandy.

It packs in the historical detail, explaining the power groups, economics and cultural nuances to build up a vivid picture of these terrible times. There also some fun gags involving real historical characters. All this helps flesh out an engrossing plot, and the last 100 pages are especially hard to put down. The Dr was a little disappointed by the abruptness of the ending; I thought it effectively placed the whole thing in the context of the rest of the war.

The 4½-page historical note is and one of best and most concise summaries of the period I’ve seen. But the novel itself explores the splits between what are ostensibly two sides. The British-bribed monarchists vie for power with the fascist Falange, while Bernie’s as much at risk from his fellow communists as he is his captors. And at its heart are those with no particular leanings, ordinary, decent, everyday people helplessly caught up in the horrors.

The acknowledgments don't mention Orwell or Hugh Thomas - which is pretty much all I know about this most uncivil of wars. But I'm intrigued by a couple of the other sources:

“Phillip Knightley’s Philby, KGB Masterspy (London 1978) opened the world of wartime espionage for me […] The article by J. Bandrés and R Llavona, ‘Psychnology in Franco’s Concentration Camps’ (Psychology in Spain, 1997, vol. I, no. I, pp. 3-9) is a chilling account of the abuse of psychiatry.”

Ibid., p.537.

There are posters in the train stations all over London enthusing about Sansom’s other books, and one day when I’m not reading for money I shall endeavour to look them out.

You would make a good Dalek

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Harry Potter’s magic wand

Went to see Equus last night at the Gielgud, made famous by Daniel Radcliffe flapping his old chap about at the end.

We had “stage seats” – a bold new venture for me. There’s no legroom in the high horseshoe looking down on the performance, and if you even look like you might have food on your person, a stern-looking bloke comes over. So no popcorn.

It’s an odd place to sit, because you can scrutinise the audience as much as the play. Spotted Howard Jacobson in the posher seats, and possibly Julian Fellowes, too. They didn’t wave.

Richard Griffiths, leading and narrating, was good enough to glance over his shoulder from time to time, to include us in events. His was an engaging, gentle performance, playing against the frustrated, ranty man as written.

Griffiths is Martin Dysart, a psychiatrist, whose latest patient is 17 year-old Alan Strang (Radcliffe), who just blinded some horses with a hoof pick. Dysart’s patience and ploys unravel the reasons behind such an abhorrent act. But the more Dysart “cures” the nightmares plaguing the boy, the more he’s envious of his passion, too, and the more he starts to question “normalcy”.

Radcliffe was excellent, and a world from Harry Potter. The girls were pleased to see he’d been working out, too. Well, if you are going to lark about in the all together for the entertainment of a full house of punters, you want to be looking your best.

All the performances were good, and it was expertly staged. Kudos to the chaps playing horses, cantering about in precarious high heels.

Yet the writing is heavy and overly worthy, and very much of its time. Alan’s parents are by turns a self-taught socialist and blinkeredly religious, and it’s difficult to believe they’d stay together. I found the stuff about telly as the opiate of the plebs very dated, too. The women are very underwritten; able and capable and all very lovely, but objects for the men to respond to. Jenny Agutter was all very good, but really had nothing to do.

I think my real beef was that it reminded me of too many other things, most notably Robert Lindner’s excellent The Fifty-Minute Hour (and ooh! Alan C Elms’ brilliant New York Review of Science Fiction article, Behind the Jet-Propelled Couch: Cordwainer Smith & Kirk Allen is now online).

M’colleague B., sat next to me, was more bothered by the idea of psychiatry as only an intellectual process, the cure coming from deductive reasoning alone. And one lady outside the theatre was very annoyed that, “Just because we know why he did it, doesn’t make it okay.”

I spent a little over two hours waiting to be examined myself, today, having finally got around to registering with a doctor. I am a stone overweight, not diabetic and should cut down a bit on my drinking.

Three points

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

My three bullets for you today are:

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


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


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

Pomp and circumstance

Watched the BBC’s 1962 Elgar drama documentary, directed by the young Ken Russell.

The imagery is beautiful and cinematic – looking as if made with a most un-BBC budget. Unlike more modern drama docs, the actors do not speak and the only voice heard is narrator Huw Wheldon. It’s a very effective way of illustrating one man’s essay, but also makes best use of Elgar’s music.

It mentions Elgar’s Catholicism as an inspiration for his epic and melodic scores, which is kind of ironic since his work is seen as so inherently C-of-E British. But then the lush theatricality of our anthems, crownings and royal ceremonies has always been a bit Anglo-Catholic.

It suddenly occurred to me (no doubt after everybody else) that Anglicans who object to women vicars must, on the same principles, oppose Betty as head of their church.

Elgar himself was uncomfortable with the patriotic claims made of his music. Perhaps the most extraordinary sequence in Russell’s beautiful film is his use of Elgar’s “Pomp and circumstance”. This Boer War marching song is, with someone else’s lyrics, better known as “Land of Hope and Glory”. And Russell juxtaposes the lyric-less original with awful footage from the First World War – men shot as they ascend from the rat-infested trenches, queues of wounded soldiers staggering through the mud. It’s an incredible, provocative sequence, and I could see just why Elgar might have felt angry…

• Screenonline’s page on the Elgar documentary includes a two-minute clip of the “Hope and Glory” sequence.

What’s a weekend?

Spoke to the sister this morning, swapping gossip of one sort and another. She lives on the other side of the planet and has caught the natives’ upward inflection. The Dr and I hope to spend Christmas with her in Melbourne, some other projects permitting.

Work continues. Have gone through the proofs of Dave Stone’s novel, The Two Jasons, in time to receive the first draft of our next book, care of Jon and Kate and Phil. The Wake needs a little tweaking and is ready for studio, and by Tuesday I should have all this year’s remaining scripts done. Chapter 2 of Inside Benny is currently 25,000 words, and is coming together nicely. Bit of a blimmin’ mammoth, though. And we’re powering through the short story competition.

Met the writer Colin Harvey last night – or one of them. This one’s the winner of SFX’s own new writer competition, who’s also got a story in Snapshots. He was lucky enough to catch me when I’d spent all day at the typing, and I may have been a little talkative.

We and several other colleagues were in Lewisham’s answer to the Dolphin, ostensibly to pick apart the joys of Gridlock. Nope, everyone seemed agreed it was pretty damn wondrous, and I arrived too late for what had apparently been lots of snitty misery about the end of Life of Mars.

(Though I can sympathise with much of the criticism, it kept me and the Dr entertained and guessing right to the end. And Ralph Brown was, as always, a shiny great treasure.)

Congratulations to m’colleague E., who sneakishly, secretly got himself wed yesterday. Everyone should get married. And, more importantly, they should then have a good party.

E., you’re not allowed to do that bit in secret, okay?

Births, marriages, deaths

Met the Dr in the spangly Young Vic bar Wednesday night, where we shared some giraffes of wine. She also bought me a leatherless present, London: City of Words.

Have already learnt that Caxton’s first English printing press was inherited by the splendidly named Wynken de Worde. In about 1500, de Worde moved it from Westminster to Fleet Street, which remained the heart of English pressing for just shy of 500 years. Good fact!

• More on early English printing

We then ambled onwards to Tas for some Turkish comestibles. It was packed, but the service was exemplary and we had some very good food. Also got through quite a lot of fizz.

Yesterday was somewhat different, and we grabbed a lift from my cousin in Richmond down to my grandfather’s funeral. He was 93 and had been declining some time, but his death (on 31 March) was still a bit of a shock. Lots of family I’d not seen in years, and some wonderful stories too. Most of them entirely unrepeatable.

I’d been tasked last week with ringing round the cousins to gather stories to use in the eulogy. Most featured boozing and swearing. One family friend referred to the latter as “bicycling”, after “Jesus Christ on a bicycle!”

The elder brother – who delivered the short version of all this – had also worked through Grandpa’s own incredible memoir. He remembered Conan-Doyle as “tubby”, went tiger-hunting aged seven, and married my Granny having seen her only six times in daylight. The wedding guests had to take cover in the street from an attacking Meschersmitt.

But for the man who’d been born in Shanghai and lived his life all over the world, the last goodbye was in Basingstoke. We filed out to the thumping Radetzky March, and on to a pub flying the Union boldly.

Then back to the Smoke, and we took our chauffeur out for drinks and pizza in Richmond. More revelries and revelations, and some cheesecake for pudding.

With exquisite timing, my friends P. and A. produced a baby the same day that Grandpa died. Very glad to hear all is well with them. Found myself humming while on the way into work not Radetzky but that one from the Lion King.

Leather goods

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Venice of the north

Done lots of work, ate lots of chocolate, saw some family from ‘cross the pond. The Dr dragged me out into the sunshine yesterday and we explored the posher, greener bits around where we abode.

Went to the Dulwich Picture Gallery and its busy Canaletto in England exhibition (on until 22 April). The DPG (as it’s known to the hood) only has a moderate exhibition space, which was crammed with a great wealth of pics large and small, plus a great wealth of fellow browsers.

Canaletto was in England between 1746-55, and his main interest was evidently the architecture. Just as in his famous Venetian efforts, grand buildings look majestic beneath a great deal of pretty sky. The people who give scale and a clue to the period are constructed from crude spheres and cylinders – more marionettes than they are people. On close inspection I have to admit I was rather reminded of Trumpton.

The epic views of the skyline above the Thames show a vibrant and complex metropolis, its most modern (then) constructions showing Venetian influence. Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s loom hugely over the rest of the city, but it’s fun to spot the odd other landmark – the roofs of Westminster and the Banqueting Hall, the square tower of the cathedral at Southwark.

Also on record is the building of Westminster Bridge (the one Daleks famously queued upon, and where Eccles and Rose first held hands).

I found the pen-and-ink sketches of far more appeal than the oils. Perhaps it’s the quick movement of the marks on the paper that give them more life and vibrancy. Perhaps the lack of glossy colour makes them more dirty and lived in. Or perhaps they look more comic strip and trendy. I also like seeing the working, and the sketches include notes for later colouring-by-numbers and hastily scrawled other detail.

As is the law in these matters, the few postcards missed all of our favourites, so I splashed out on the £25 book. We wended our way up the sunshiny hill and found a pub with a garden and lunches.

Back home to the grindstone until getting on for 10, and got most of what I’d planned finished off. Then snuggled up with the Dr to watch nothing on telly, flipping channels and bothering the cat.

At one point we moved from UKHitler, showing Eva Braun’s holiday movies, to 8 Women starring Catherine Deneuve. This – in those moments we saw of it – seemed a muddle of pretentious old cliché and was not, I said, a little French.

“The Nazis were better,” said the Dr. And then added (she said as a joke), “They made for better television”.

Spent the rest of my bank holiday being warned of terrible dooms that would follow repeating her words here.

Slave I

The Dr and I went to see Amazing Grace last night, the biopic of William Wilberforce. The performances are excellent, there are some good gags, and it looks sumptuous and real. I was especially impressed with shots of a Thames clogged with 18th century shipping.

It is, though, a bit chocolate-boxy, with the very perfect Wilber not merely giving his all for the slaves, but also inventing the GCSE, women’s suffrage and modern geology. He talks at one point of the healing waters from a spring having “waited for a million years”. Er, surely his own religious convictions would have stopped him from so brilliantly pre-empting Lyell (who was only born the same year as the film opens on).

The film packs in the historical figures who knew and influenced Wilbur: John Newton, Pitt the Younger, Thomas Clarkson, Lords Grenville and Fox and (the only black speaking part in the film) Olaudah Equiano. The script also works hard to explain the context: that many working class people lived brutal and impoverished lives; that there was no money for war veterans or other social causes; that whole cities had been built on slavery; that with America and France in revolution, a “popular” movement could be seen as seditious.

Much of this is described rather than seen, so apart from a few city street scenes the film always looks immaculate and tidy. Evidence of the horrors of slavery is also kept to descriptions of witnesses, rather than being enacted on screen. Wilberforce sees a few opiate visions, but mostly it’s what people say.

This is, of course, as was with the case the abolitionists made to Parliament. Yet I felt the film was somehow pulling its punches. The Roots TV series, which we’ve also been watching, is much more explicitly graphic, and I think more effective.

Yet it’s not as if there are loads of films made on the subject, and it’s not a bad film by any means. Though it certainly doesn’t suggest it was easy for Wilberforce to get the slave trade abolished in the British Empire (on 25 March 1807), it does rather simplify the story.

Slavery itself was not banned in the Empire until 1834 (after Wilberforce was dead). In the independent United States it continued until after their vicious civil war. No mention is made of that – indeed, the US is spoken of only with whispered excitement as a contagious hotbed of freedom and liberty.

The banning of the trade did eventually lead to the banning of slavery itself, and because existing slaves could not be replaced it can be argued that they were better treated in the intervening period. Yet indenture remained as slavery in all but name well into the twentieth century, and slavery continued in many countries until the end of the nineteenth. Slavery in various forms still exists today.

There’s a whole heap of events and stuff commemorating abolition this year, and I’ve had fun going through all the links there to glean yet more top facts:

“The surgeon on HMS Sybille , Robert McKinnal, took drastic action when a seaman went down with yellow fever, to convince his fellows that it was not contagious. One of the symptoms of yellow fever is black vomit, and McKinnal, on deck and in sight of the crew, drank off a glassful.”

Royal Navy, “Boredom, boat service and the black vomit”.

ETA: No sooner have I posted than I notice this feature on the emphasis of the commemoration on the BBC news site. Ng. Always behind the tide, me. Get there eventually.