Pick of the penguin

Hooray! For the third time ever, I am in the letters page of Dr Who's Magazine.

"ANIMAL CRACKERS
Doctor Who has had pig people, cat people, rhinoceros people, butterfly people, bird people (and, ahem, badger people) but I think we should get some octopus people. Octopuses have three hearts, blue blood and can regenerate their limbs. So they are probably related to Time Lords anyway.
          Simon Guerrier, email."

Galaxy Forum, DWM #393 (2 April 2008), p. 17.

The last leg

So where were we? Oh yes, I was blogging from our hotel in the Sydney Rocks, while the Dr was exploring the roof-top hot-tub. I went up to join her and we enjoyed the view, choosing to ignore the ominous low and dark cloud out to sea.

This proved to be a mistake as it meant that as we went out to meet Dr Who author Jonathan Blum for tea in Darling Harbour, I was only wearing Birkenstock flip-flops, shorts and tee-shirt. And so got soaked when the heavens opened. There was thunder. There was lightning. There was a river of water higher than the pavement. There was me and the Dr diving into a posh wine bar, looking like drowned and under-dressed rats, texting Jon to come join us.

He did, and when the sky had cleared he took us squelching for tea in Darling Harbour. I had a pizza and shared a bottle of fizz, and we talked a bit of shop and to Jon’s wife Kate Orman by phone, and then me and the Dr squelched back to our hotel, cold and damp but well-fed.

The next day was a bit over-cast, but we explored the Rocks and took pictures. Again we were struck by the Manchester-ness of the lower-tier architecture, with sparkly skyscrapers behind.

Not that I'm sure the photo right really shows that adequately. You'll just have to take my word for it.


We nosed round the observatory that’s so very like the one in Greenwich – though they call the time-keeping bollock on the roof a “time ball”.

Bought a postcard of the upside-down Moon.

Thence a long walk to Darling Harbour again for pancakes with Jon, followed by a trek round the Maritime Museum. The Dr dared suggest it’s better laid out and interpreted than the one she used to work at herself, with plenty of personal stories and artefacts to bring the Big Ships And Stuff to life.

Just time for a beer in Edinburgh Castle (a pub) before the train back to the airport, and we got back to Melbourne in time for me to grab a quick beer with the sister’s boyfriend.

On Thursday, I managed to cock-up the trams to Melbourne Zoo, but we got there eventually. Had a great afternoon of cooing at the creatures and taking photos. The highlight was probably seeing the smallish, cuddly-looking Sumatran tigers getting fed. The keepers poked a syringe of milk through the gaps in the fence, and the tigers lapped away like little kittens. They had to chase the syringe as the keepers moved it around, and they were then touching the tigers’ paws as they poked them through the fence. Just the game I play with the Dim Cat at home through the banisters.

Also good were the apes:

The zoo is laid out in regions, so the tigers and apes from East Asia are amongst Asian trees and buildings, while the marsupials are all in a bit that feels very outback. The koalas hid in the tree and it’s illegal in Victoria for people to handle them anyway, so I didn’t take any pictures. The wombats were all cuddled up in the dark, looking snug and comfy. Again I couldn’t get pictures of them.

Then we trammed back into town and made our way to the Ian Potter Centre. There were fun exhibits of aboriginal artworks and a thing on black in fashion which was very goth and the Dr. Then there was pizza, and we bumped into the sister’s boyfriend again by chance, who spared time for a chat as I accompanied him up to the bike shop.

In the evening, me and the English girls (the Dr, the sister and Erykah) descended en mass on poor old Ian and Mrs Mond for wine and clever bloody Joe Lister on the telly. Couldn’t have been a better last night in Oz, with splendid company and many laughs. Ian even showed us the Wicket T Warwick costume he’d been made to wear on his stag do.

Up early Friday for a very long flight to South Africa, where again I didn’t fit. My auntie met us at the airport, and explained the various things we were driving past on the way back to her house. She dealt very well with what were probably two zombies. I was much tickled, though, that they call traffic lights “robots” – and didn’t know that it’s the Czech word for serfdom.

On Saturday, the auntie and uncle laid on an extraordinary trip round Soweto, with local guide Ken Dalgliesh. No, not the one I used to have a poster of. He’s studied and written on the history of the collection of townships that now has a population of 4.9 million, and is also up to his eyeballs in projects to help and support the poorer bits.

So we went to the market opposite the Hani-Baragwnath hospital, biggest hospital in the southern hemisphere, and the Dr and I braved the protein-rich mopane caterpillars that are a local stable. Past the chicken stranglers and heaps of freshly butchered, fly-covered meat, we ventured into a shebeen (pub) to share a carton of the yeasty, frothy Jo’Burg beer which was home-brewed in the days of Apartheid, when the locals were not allowed the “white man’s” beers. It’s thick, heavy, low-alcohol stuff that reminded me a lot of freshly-squeezed milk. The locals seemed very interested in my hat.

We toured through the various areas of the townships. After the fall of Apartheid, the inhabitants were given the plots of land on which they had their small and basic shacks. In the posher bits, they’ve since extended and enhanced these basic facilities, so you’ll see lavish properties and exquisitely manicured gardens bolted on to the side of a crude oblong of breeze blocks. I assume this juxtaposition is better than demolishing such a reminder of their history, and also serves to show how far the inhabitants have come – and in such a short time.

The aunt and uncle were most surprised by the low walls and lack of armed guards and electric fences that are everywhere in their bit of town. Only recently one of their friends was bound, beaten and robbed by a gang described as “militant”. Incidents like that seem pretty regular, too – they and horrendous car crashes are talked about in the way we might talk of a bad morning on the Tube.

Perhaps Soweto is just a safer, happier place with less divide between the well-off and poor. Or perhaps it has always been self-policing, so that no one would dare risk being caught stealing or anything else. I assume we only saw the tourist-friendly bits of Soweto anyway.

But our tour did include the poorer bits, and we stopped off at a community centre (oddly, built by an American basketball charity) which our guide Ken was very involved with. The smiley, happy children hanging out there quickly threw together a performance of dancing and singing, and were keen to get us dancing too. It was all so impromptu and lively. We also met the old lady who has run the place since its most basic beginnings back in 1954. She’s still the one everyone goes to when approving any new developments or projects.

The main part of the tour, though, was following the route of the march on 16 June 1976, when schoolkids with an average age of 13 protested at having to be taught at least 50 percent in Afrikaans – a language they and many of their teachers did not even speak. The subjects chosen to be taught in Afrikaans were history, geography and mathematics, further disenfranchising the country’s black majority. The kids acted independently of their parents, who they saw as subsumed into the Apartheid regime because they accepted it. And in the Catholic church where many of the kids first assembled that morning, we counted the bullet holes in the ceiling and saw the broken edge of the altar where the camo-wearing South African police had tried to scare them off.

The kids were not scared off, and we followed the route to Vilkazi Street where the police dogs (or, some sources say, a single dog) were set on them. The dog was killed, and then the police started firing into the ranks of children…

One boy, Hector Pieterson, was shot in the back, and a photo of his wounded body being carried by another boy came to embody the massacre. The picture (see the last link) is a classic “pieta” in structure, a tragic emblem that fuelled a tide against the regime. But our guide, though understanding this focus, was keen to acknowledge the other 20 people who died that day – not all of them black – and to talk of the wider context.

We stopped at Vilkazi Street to see the memorial to Hector, and then to the larger memorial with a museum to one side. The museum was full of different perspectives and ideas, if a little text-heavy. It was an intensely moving, fascinating place – so much so that the Dr was quite quiet for the rest of the evening. Seeing it makes it all the more remarkable that the fall of Apartheid didn’t descend into a bloodbath. Those we spoke to all credited that to Nelson Mandela; and they expressed concern that there was still the risk of major violence. There was much discussion (not all of which I followed) about how the BEE policy, despite its best intentions, had widened, not helped, an epidemic skills gap in the country. They await the forthcoming elections with some anxiety.

In the evening we went out to a place near to where my aunt and uncle live for some food. And again it messed up our preconceptions and prejudices about the place. There was a mix of white and black people there, and me and the Dr were both struck by how much more integrated Johannesburg is than either Australia or LA, where the races seemed to much more stick to their own. Even the airport at Johannesburg had hefty tomes trying to reconcile the past (including a book by the Dr’s PhD supervisor); we saw no acknowledgement at all in LA or Australia of their own contributions to racial history. But then I also can’t see the UK producing anything so self-critical on, say, the history of Northern Ireland.

On Sunday, we had a two-hour trip to the 55,000-hectare Pilanesburg game reserve to the north of Johannesburg and spent the day spotting real, wild hippos, giraffes, impalas, zebras, wildebeests, warthogs and what could have been a crocodile but could have been a log. The aunt and uncle apologised for us not seeing rhino and elephant, but we were very happy.

I tried to explain the astonishing vastness of the landscape, like the horizon has been extended twice as far. Various people have told me that once you’ve lived in Africa it gets into your blood, and the mother-in-law still hankers for the continent some 30 years after she left Kenya. I can sympathise. There’s something rich and potent about the brick-red soil, the hugeness of space with its wealth of animals and under the soil in gold and platinum. I guess human beings evolved to best fit this landscape, this climate, this altitude and everything else. We’re already making plans to go back, to see more…

Odd thing. The toilets at the park all offered free condoms. The toilets at Melbourne Zoo had special boxes for disposing of needles. Not sure what this signifies.

My cousin G. took us to a bar in the evening, and made us feel old by not knowing that the Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black” was more her mother’s generation than mine. I managed three bottles of Castle beer before we were back to the house for a fantastic spread of spare ribs and some kind of sweetcorn bake.

A quiet day Monday, though we visited the barking mad shopping centre / casino of Montecasino. The whole place is made out like an Italian town, and even the trees and ducks in the river are fake. The ceiling is painted so that half of it’s in “daylight”, the rest at “night”, and I can see when it’s really hot outside it makes sense to hang out in a place like this. But with the constant piped pop music and everything a sell, I was wanting to break out after five minutes. My uncle said it was like the village in the Prisoner – like this was a good thing.

The dire warnings about not bringing your guns into the place, and the security check to get through the door, made me ask about guns in the country. Apparently it's a major problem - people getting shot for beeping bad driving or just for being in the wrong place. Driving is mad too - you don't step on the gas when the lights go green, you pause to let people jump the lights. And the taxi drivers have to be seen to be believed.

After a bit of shopping and chasing the dog round the garden, we made our way to the airport. Plane was two hours late because they’d loaded the wrong baggage on the plane. And then the holiday was all over.

In the taxi from Heathrow, as we got caught up in the tailback behind an accident in Chiswick, I thought how small and squished up the road signs and roads and horizon all seemed. And how pale and cold and unambitious the weather seemed. And how relieved I was to get home and to sleep.

Two degrees

Hello from sunny but cold London. Didn't sleep on the flight (but did watch No Country For Old Men, Michael Clayton and the 1966 version of Alfie). Will try to write up travel notes and post pictures tomorrow. Still wading though a world of email and stuff. Bah.

In the meantime, here's Nicole's write-up of a commentary I did in LA on my audio play "The Lost Museum". Yes, a commentary on an audio play. And picures of me looking strange.

Sydney rocks!

We are now in Sydney, and have had a nice time wandering about and looking at things. The Botanical Gardens (the green bit to the left of the bridge and opera house in the pics) is chock full of all kinds of different and exotic trees. And they are chock full of bats!

You'll have to wait till the Dr gets her film developed for pics as they were too far away for my mobile. But cor it was like the trees were ripe with fat, black and burnt fruits. And then they'd yawn and stretch their bin-bag-like wings. And they look all russet and hairy and would probably be nice to cuddle...

Then on to the Domain (the green bit behind the Botanical Gardens) and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The building itself is a lot like the Art Gallery in Edinburgh, and housed some fun archaeologically-correct stuff by Alma-Tadema and his mates as well as some fun contemporary and aborginal artworks.

I was especially impressed with this fella in the entrance lobby, and asked special permission of one of the staff to take his picture. As te staff fella said, it was almost as if he'd been sculpted to have his picture taken on a mobile. And them whiskers are sure something to aspire to.

We meandered into Hyde Park, enjoyed the buses and signs to Lewisham, Sydenham, Croydon, Dulwich and Chiswick, and I suggested that a fountain-sculpture of Theseus presenting his meat and two-veg while about to stab the minotaur was all a bit Torchwood, being all blatant sex and monsters. The Dr days there's quite a lot of that in antiquity, and I now have visions of spin-off show Torchwood 2000 BC.

Down Market Street and along George Street, we stopped off to take a pic of the Dr in front of Challis House. Apparently this long-bearded bigwig bequethed lots of cash to local educational somethings. The Dr was rather pleased.

Like Melbourne, there's the same two-tier feel to the place; heavy, blocky Victorian and later building in the shadow of brand spanking new skyscrapers. The Dr kept thinking it looked like Manchester, and the colonies also look like Britain's trading posts in Bristol and Edinburgh and what of London wasn't bombed. You have to remember that it's not that Oz was built in the image of Britain, but that all these colonial towns and cities were influencing each other. Bristol and Edinburgh, London and Manchester are all a brick-and-mortar dialogue with the rest of the world.

Or maybe I have sunstruck myself.

Thence to the Museum of Contemporary Arts, just a stone's throw from our hotel. Lots of aboriginal bark paintings and some depressing documentaries about just how well the native population has been shafted by us Westerners in the last 200 years.

Yesterday we did a wine tour which was entirely splendid; with just me, the Dr, A. and J. being driven round by the helpful Neil, who chatted and advised and bent the whole day around our unhelpfully faffy whims. Started at the Chandon estate and drank fizz. I'd assumed that any French-owned wineries in the Yarra Valley would date from the nineteenth century, with refugees from the phylloxera epidemic that ate up European grapes. Turns out this place only opened in 1985, part of a general expansion into the southern hemisphere (Brazil etc.) and all related to demand.

Drove round a few places and tried all kids of lovely stuff. Many growers have been able to see the affects of climate change on what they're producing; atypical weather in recent years that's unheard of in a century of records. Last year's harvest was badly damaged by completely unexpected hale! It also means that some vineyards are having to rethink what grapes they grow.

The oldest vineyard in the Yarra Valley is a nineteenth century escapee of ignoble rot. Yaring had lots of nice stuff, but by that point we were rather well oiled and instead tried some Boules outside in the sun. I even managed to win one of the three games I played, no doubt due to the genetic heritage.


Oh, and one last pic. This is typical of the full-body horrors to be found on the packs of cigarettes over here. None of your big-type Helvetica, just screaming bloody nightmares.

You may need something nice to look at after that. And Brilliant-Looking by Candlelight has an all-squeeing post about The Pirate Loop, with fun pictures and joy and everything. Which is nice.

There's also exciting news from T. and I. back in Blighty. But I do't think we're meant to mention it yet until Everyone Has Been Told. So we have raised a glass of fizz to them but kept our lips firmly sealed...

Grey

It is a bit grey and cold here in Melbourne today. I am in an internet caff in St Kilda - and the locals queue up to tell you that there was no such person as St Kilda, so it's all a bit of a paradox.

On Friday we went to Melbourne Gaol, which is a pretty harrowing experience and devoid of happy endings. The gaol is based on the panoptic model of Pentonville (as are many of the older prisons in the UK), with the idea being a) securing the maximum number of prisoners with the minimum number of guards and b) breaking the prisoners down by means of isolation tactics. A lot of the time as an inmate, you're not sure if you're being watched - the same principle on which a lot of CCTV works.

We were delighted to find the anti-masturbation gloves that had apparently become a highlight of the tour after a Billy Connolly programme. But mostly each of the open cells described the girsly life and despatch of an executed inmate, usually with a cast of their dead bonce. Again and again the inmates were non-English speaking, and/or convicted on the most scrappy circumstantial evidence. Several of the convictions have since been over-turned.

Worse was realising that the prison's official flagellators and executioners were other inmates. Ned Kelly was hanged by a convict imprisoned for flooding a street with sewage and other public nuisances. This meant that the hangings could be rather botched; the whole point of hanging is, done right, it causes immediate death. Getting it wrong either leads to a slow garotting and asphixiation, or can tear the head clean off.

So was using inmates to do the dirty work a way of not getting your hands dirty, or a way of making the prisoners complicit in the system?

We then went on a tour of the jail cells used up until 1995, with a bolshy actress dressed up as a policeman being very strict. She divided us from people we were with, so we explored the cells with strangers. She called us "it" if we stepped out of line, and she alluded to all sorts of gruesome miseries that had happened in the cells. Again, it's all about authority breaking down the individual, but also you pick up very quickly how to play the game. Do as you're told, don't make yourself noticed, and you might survive...

Needed some beer after all this institutional stuff, and hooked up with some buddies later on. I have also done a lot of reading, which I shall write up another time. Pip pip.

Yet to see the upside-down moon

Hello from sunny Melbourne. It rained yesterday, which was good as I ended up having some urgent rewrites to do on something as yet unannounced.

What did get announced on Saturday was that I am writing for the new audio Blake's 7 series. Mine is about the adventures of Jenna Stannis prior to her meeting Blake. I sat on a panel with producer Andrew Sewell, new Blake actor Derek Riddell (from Ugly Betty and Dr Who versus ninjas and werewolves) and moderator Andrew Cartmel.

In fact Saturday was a VERY long day, with no end of panels and signings and just chat. The Dr was a bit impressed by how hard everyone works at these things, and she's already talking about how next year we'll go visit San Francisco, so I think she enjoyed herself too.

Met a whole bunch of people who I'd only spoken to on email, and am doing that again tonight. Ian Mond and Dave Hoskin are both Strains I have employed. Now it's their turn to buy me beer...

Off to the Museum of Immigration first, and have some other museums tomorrow. On Monday we are going up the Yarra Valley on a tour of wine. Mmm. Wine.

I have experimented with the sink and watched water swirl backwards. but still haven't seen the upside-down moon. Oh, and Australian money is brightly coloured and made of plastic.

Right. Off to have breakfast now...

LA la la

Hello from sunny but breezy LA, where I have a few minutes before my first showbix panel. Yesterday we went to Universal Studios, which was fun but rather heavy on selling Merchandise and Brand. The rides were exciting but mostly quite quick, and I don't think they'd have been worth long queues. Luckily, it was pretty quiet and uncrowded.

The Dr got chatted up by Donkey out of Shrek and had a cuddle with Scooby-Doo. Will try to load up some images soon. I was made to have my picture taken with SpongeBob, and went on plenty of rides. We couldn't peak down the street from Desperate Housewives becase it was being used, but the other sets and streets on the backlot were fascinating.

Met some old chums and plenty of new splendid people. The Dr's just back from a trip to the Getty Museum, wowed and excited about that. "I actually teared up," she says. "How sad is that?"

Kitsch 'n' sink

Hello again. It's been a while, hasn't it? I can tell by the length of your hair.

I am almost entirely out the other side of a very busy period, and 20 pages of script from my HOLIDAY. Having not been real for months and months, I'm now getting rather excited. I've not been south of the equator before (or, I think, any further down the planet than Egypt), so 10 nights in Australia and three in Johannesburg is really An Adventure. Connections depending, I shall keep you up to date with my movements.

I am bashing out these words on my funky new MSI PR210 notebook, which I bought specially for the trip. It's a sleek and disturbingly unheavy lovely, though I find I keep missing occasional keys. The compromise was between something small and light for trekking about, but with a keyboard that still fitted my fingers.

After much fangling about, I've also got the wireless wossnames to work. (The technique seems to be to restart your computer continually for two hours until all the wossnames have loaded.) And I'd thought the laptop would latch on to the wireless thing itself, but it needs drivers and a ZyXEL router thing that looks like a USB memory stick.

This means I'm now sat in our rooftop kitchen, the unexpected sunshine rather nice on my back. As well as what remains of the as-yet-unannounced script, I've also had a chance to look over the novel that I'm intending to write while I'm away. Or at least, to break the back of.

It's a thriller that's not a tie-in to anything else, and I gamble that if I mention it here, people will ask me about it. And that pressure will mean that rather than just thinking through the clever plot mechanations, I might actually get the thing done.

Along with the wireless wossname, I've also signed us up to Virgin Media, which has all been going swimmingly. The Dr and I took great delight in watching Ashes to Ashes last night via the Telly On Demand gizmo. Laughed like fool - and was terrified by the clown! What with Torchwood and that Dot episode of EastEnders last fortnight, didn't telly get all good?

We then continued the retro 80s vibe by watching the first episode of Survival. "Weird," concluded the Dr. Though she thought the scraggy black cat (that some friends of mine till insist is called Shomi) was so like our own that I must have chosen him on purpose. Honestly, no. But we do seem to have the only cat ever who really likes having his fur brushed in the wrong direction.

If Shomi is Shaggy, asked m'colleague Scott Andrews, "Does that make Sophie Aldred Velma or Daphne?"

I think Sylvester McCoy would be Velma.

Ándale! Ándale! Arriba!

The gringo who so often harangues me for not updating this thing has started his very own blog. Keep up with his adventures as he explores the dark continent and its pretty girls. And pester him for new posts.

I’m going to be here sporadically until I jet off to LA in the small hours of 13 February. So much work stuff to deliver before I go, and just two weeks’ sand left to drool through the narrow bit of the timer.

“How the Doctor Changed my Life” is about four-fifths signed-off and done. The 25 first-time authors have been doing themselves proud with conscientious rewrites. Most have argued with at least some of my suggestions, though no one has done any shouting. It’s been a really good process all told, and well worth all the effort. Trying to fathom the running order, I’m delighted how strong a collection this will be. Hooray!

Cover to come sometime soonish, I think. Plus news of the book’s bonus features.

Meanwhile, Bernice Summerfield – The Wake is just out, ending my run on 15 consecutive Bennies. A few nice people have said nice things, though I was a bit surprised by two people who thought What Happens to Doggles just comes out of nowhere. I thought I’d nicely set this up in his dinner date with Benny, and earlier in The End of the World’s final scene. Ah well…

I’m also well into writing something that cannot be spoken of, have begun something else that cannot be spoken of, have three short scripts to write up for Codename Moose, a script about carrots to be written by August for John S Drew, and have bought the book about something else top secret which I can pitch for when I’m back from my holiday.

Well, I say holiday; the plan is to take with me my funky new laptop and break the back of the standalone novel I’ve been meaning to write for some years. Have scooped up plenty of useful details for this from some recent reading: coal fires, smoking compartments and something for headaches called venganin…

Spent the weekend at what m’colleague M has described rather well as “a two-day pub quiz”. On Saturday night I thought my all-out blaspheming had led to a strange hallucination. No, apparently, Matt Lucas was not an apparition and saw me and Nimbos "hilariously" breaking some rules… Not sure this is actually better than the thought that my brain had invented him.

Also learnt how to eat hot-cross buns quickly; stuffing them into your mouth leads to dried-out gagging. The trick is to tear off small pieces, which can be swallowed more quickly. You get this top tip for free.

Flying man

Snapped here is James Butler's 2000 Fleet Air Arm Monument, which I think is haunting and beautiful. The not-brilliant photography maybe doesn't quite show what the pilot hangs dead beneath torn, broken wings.

According to the Dr's rather fab book on London's various statues,

"The Fleet Air Arm is that part of the Air Force that operates from aircraft carriers. During the Second World War it became the most important and effective part of the Royal Navy. This monument commemorates those who gave their lives in service of the Fleet Air Arm."

Andrew Kershman, London's Monuments, p. 150.

The statue is about halfway between Westminister and Hungerford Bridges, and if the dead man looked up he'd see right in front of him the Royal Air Force Memorial (1923) - the stone column with a sparkly bronze eagle on top of it, which is where the Doctor parked his TARDIS in "Rose".

Knight fall

How sad about Heath Ledger. No, I didn't know him or anything like that. I haven't even got a lame-o showbiz story about having been on the same bus... Although, my sister made his clothes for Ned Kelly and said he was one of the good ones.

The shocked obituaries have of course all mentioned his moody, sulky turn in Brokeback Mountain. And Channel 4's lunchtime news had a clip of him being the Joker which is all very wow. Yet the film for which I think he should be remembered is his nicely light dude hero of A Knight's Tale.

The Dr and I went to see it in the now-closed old-skool cinema in Catford on 12 September 2001. We both kind of needed a break from the reality of the day before, and that was the perfect thing. It's quite a hokey story about a working class boy done good, that might as well be about him playing good football as it is about his good jousting. Yet it manages to be far better than it really needs to be, the lively pop history in a clever script allowing plenty of fine comic performances.

The Dr quite liked the scowly Rufus Sewell, and there's a scowly James Purefoy in there too. And ooh look, there's him out of Firefly and that's Saturday's Dogberry).

Paul Bettany's wildly over-the-top Geoff Chaucer is a particular gem. And Laura Fraser is in it too, which is always good for warm, glowy feelings. I once oggled at her on a train at New Cross - which is exciting because that's where Chaucer really was mugged (as happens at the start of the film).

Ledger really ought to be invisible in the company of such sparkling sidekickery. He is, after all, being the usual kind of square-jawed, blond hero eye candy, too saintly to be of much interest. I can't imagine another actor being better in the role, embuing what's could be such a stereotype with such warmth and charisma and life.

So, no, I didn't know him or what went on in his real life. And yet it really is a shame. As the sister said, he was one of the good ones.

Mountains out of lady parts

Having spent the day trying to get words to work right on Saturday, the Dr took me out for the evening. We went for pizza and then Much Ado About Nothing at the National.

The prince's men stop off at a house on their way back from the wars. The prince's top man Claudio falls for pretty Hero, daughter of the house, and there is much rejoicing. The prince also decides he's going to trick ever-warring Benedict and Beatrice into declaring their love for each other. But the prince's bastard brother hates all this larking about, and plots to bring it all crashing down...

It's, as you'd expect, an energetic and sumptuous version, full of note-perfect performances from the impressive cast. Cassandra from Dr Who vies with the former King Arthur from Spamalot to the amusement of that bloke from Star Wars who says a communications malfunction can only mean invasion, and that bloke who used to run Brookside's neighbourhood watch.

High emotion is rung from the emotional scenes, and the funny stuff is played with great slapstick. There's people hiding in plain sight, an old man struggling to wield a sword twice his size, and some people falling over into... Oh, that would rather spoil it. Mark Addy and Trevor Peacock valiantly try to steal the show in their brief, Act-Two-only roles as Dogberry and Verges.

I especially liked how Zoe Wanamaker's Beatrice clearly always had a thing for Benedict. The Dr felt their bickering was not a million miles from our own. (I think we're more Rod Hull and Grotbags, myself, with Emu as the cat.) She also liked how it's clearly all the fault of the boys.

And we both giggled a lot at the programme's insight into the title of the play.

"But men make a fuss in another sense, for, as Elizabethan slang well knew, women are defined by having no 'thing', or, as Hamlet puts it, nothing is 'a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.' Men's inability to control what women do with their 'nothing' is frequently tormenting for them."

Peter Holland, 'Strange Misprision', in the National Theatre programme for Much Ado About Nothing.

Space-pirate badgers #3 and #4

Last post on this subject, I promise.

Went to Manchester yesterday to sign more copies of Dr Who and the Pirate Loop. It was more exclusive an event than maybe we'd expected, but congratulations to young fans Peter and James for winning the quiz. Me, Jim and Trev did readings of our best bits (Milky-Pink City; the Doctor walks into the bar; the Doctor in the bathroom) and then got to scrawling our names.

John Davies of Short Trips fame made it along, and I also got to meet Mike Amberry and Bernard O'Toole, who'll be in "How the Doctor changed my life" later this year. Both manfully resisted the urge to throttle me for the work I've made them do. Then it was on to beer and Chinese, and a contest for lame meets with celebrities.

My brother-in-law and his mate the Yemayan Ambassador (see page 91) worried we'd share the last train home with Manchester's finest drunks. Sadly, the trip back to Macclesfield was quiet and uneventful.

Amongst the Decemberists, there was much comparison of our various reviews and how can readers pick up or concentrate on the strangest of elements.

Anyway. Hooray, because I've managed to come out pick of the month of all knock-off product featured in this month's DWM, and am a bit dazzled to beat The Target Book, let alone my colleagues.

"The Pirate Loop is one of those rare things, a children's book that adults will adore. It's clever, funny, thoughtful and silly, and loads of other good words. But the one that sums it up best is this: brilliant."

Matt Michael, "The DWM Review", Doctor Who Magazine #391 (6 Feb 2008), p. 60.

SFX likes Jim's one best (though refers to it as "Peacekeeper"), and thought mine worth just 2.5 stars out of five. My own, it says, starts outrageously,

"and gets gradually camper from there ... It lurches between comic setpieces and frequent bursts of violence (including endless shootings and a couple of gratuitous stabbings), while the constant pressing of the temporal reset button quickly becomes wearying (even Martha admits she's "getting a bit bored by it all" at one point). It's also incredibly talky, and everyone knows that, if there's one thing guaranteed to turn the kids off, it's too much yakking."

Paul Kirkley, "SFXrated Books", SFX #166, February 2008, p112.

In fact, my book seems to have caused a bit of a stir, with some people tickled pick and others rather angry. "Omega's Chicken" on the Doctor Who forum thread for the book (you have to register to read it) seems especially cross, calling it "Absolutely terrible ... just childish, dull and banal." But on the whole people who deserve to continue to living (joke!) seem to enjoy it.

I don't think I can really count Millennium's lovely comments, much as they made me beam.

A few people at signings (some of them adults) have also asked about What Archie Did Next. Even the folks at my publishers seem taken with the little scamp - my editor even had cake with Lee Binding's Archie artwork printed on it. And I'm told people have done drawings...

But can you do better? I've set up an open Flickr group, "Archibald the space-pirate badger", in which YOU can submit your own drawings.

Intermission

This last week I have mostly been doing back flips through fiery hoops. But fiery hoops are my speciality, so you prepare the ground, put on your best shoes, make the most of whatever there is of a run up and Wheeeeeeeee!

Only then to be told, “Well yes, okay, but could you do it again, this time holding this glass of water…”

Excitingly, my efforts are now approved – and better for all those gauntlets of flaming hoops. The books that need reading are sitting in a heap by my computer, and though I’ve skimped on seeing friends (sorry O!) or going to some meetings (sorry P and J and M at Rob Shearman’s book launch tonight!), the freelance commitments have – I hope – not even noticed my raw-eyed, manic look.

This morning, I even managed to schedule a lie-in. And it seems to have finished off the last of my itchy cold. Now I’ve just a ton of things to get written and in before 13 February, when I’m off to tour the world. Which will be easy as…

Oh heck.

Hence, of course, the radio silence on here. But I have some notes to write up when I have a spare moment on such topics as The Wisdom of Crowds, Spamalot!, Last Chance To See... , what signings are like when you’re the one signing, the way people talk of “the market” like Ben Kenobi does “the Force”, Stewart Lee doing stand-up, and why the words “parallel” and “alternate” are Wrong. And I’m about halfway through A Peace To End All Peace, which has led to a lot of cross scribbling…

In the meantime, here is some music. (No, not really.)

Shut it!

Went to see a preview screening of Sweeney Todd! at the NFT last night, which included a surprise Q&A with director Tim Burton. Burton explained how he'd cut the three-hour stage version down for the film, losing the big numbers and concentrating on Sweeney's story, at the expense of Judge Turpin and - to a lesser extent - Mrs Lovett.

It's a typically macabre imagining, the 18th century story told in a mythic, Victoriana London sometime after the completion of Tower Bridge (1894, fact fans). Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter are magnificently grotesque, Depp getting very little dialogue and so playing big, expressive eyes in the manner of Peter Lorre. Mrs Lovett is a fantastically devious character, whose dream of a beach holiday is one of the film's many highlights.

The supporting cast - Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen and a number of newcomers - are also really good. The Dr was especially excited by a duet between Rickman and Depp on the subject of pretty women. I suspect that song is still playing in her head.

Yes, this is a musical. The songs help elevate the arch gothery of the thing (though Burton said he's not even sure what goth means). The actors, not known for their singing, are surprisingly accomplished, and for such an over-the-top film, there's an added realism to the way they act the songs rather than project them. Still, for all Sondheim's talents, I can't now recall any of the melodies - not even the one about London being a shithole.

The design is absolutely brilliant, and with the skinny, gaunt figures with shadowed, haunted eyes it's probably the film to look most like Burton's own sketches. The NFT lobby includes some of these drawings, as well as Depp and Bonham-Carter's skinny costumes.

Some people have commented on the bloody violence - which is odd considering it's a film about cannibals. But the lurid scarlet juice that squirts from people's necks is oppulent, Hollywood stuff. Even the Dr managed to cope, and she can be girlishly squeamish. It reminded her of the Technicolor gore of the classic Hammer horrors. It reminded me more of the delimbing of the Black Knight in Mønti Pythøn ik den Hølie Gräilenn. The most shocking death is the one not to be done by the razor.

It's not a film to tell you anything profound or to change the way you see things. It's not a film with a happy ending (Burton doesn't show us what happens to characters we can presume made their escape). But it's sumptuous, funny and gloriously peculiar, and well worth going to see. Bloody good show!

Bloop eater

Julio Angel Ortiz's quick interview with me is now up on his site. It includes a fetching portrait that's not the usual mugging, crazy ape. That Lisa Bowerman, she clever.

Also up online is Richard McGinley's review of The Pirate Loop. He seems to think I'm too junior to have got the gig, and concludes that it's "frivolous" but "enjoyable". But he's wrong in saying my reference to Trev's The Wishing Wall is me being a continuity monkey. That reference (and so the order of our books) was suggested by the chief. Anyway, I come out of the review, as do the other Decemberists, with a pretty good seven out of 10.

And also this afternoon, I got to meet Peter Duncan. Yes, only long enough to shake hands and say hello and then go our separate ways. But ha! to Nimbos, who should be all dead envious.

(And a little more of a tale than the time I met David Tennant and he said to me, er, "Thanks, mate." Lame-oh showbiz stories are me.)

Still not a reviewing sort of post

I keep meaning to blog about books I've read and TV and films I've seen, but other matters keep taking priority.

I've finally got notes out to all the authors of How The Doctor Changed My Life, and am already engaged in fun discussions with some of 'em who have good reasons for thinking me wrong. Yes, that they're all first-time authors (of fiction that's professionally published, at least) means it's more work than my previous anthologies. But they all seem full of vim and excitement, and it's looking really strong. Might even have a final line-up of story titles before I head off on holiday next month.

Got two big things to write myself before that, and have been working and reworking the outlines for them both, following comment from my bosses. Happy with how it's all going, but still a lot to do. I've got an outline for something else to write up before I go away, and there's a fair bit of freelancing to be fitted in too. Tomorrow, for example, I'm off to be interviewed about Flash Gordon for the telly. No, really, I am.

Oh, and there are ads on the telly for the SpongeBob Squarepants Krusty Cards collection; I worked on issues 15-19 in the run-up to Christmas.

And of course on Saturday I will be scribbling my name in books. Come one, come all, to Forbidden Planet, Shaftesbury Avenue, between 1 and 2.

Dr Gonzo

Accidentally fell into the pub last night, and met many wondrous new people. At least two of these were already my writing bee-atches, but I'd only ordered them about online. Now I know what they look like, they can truly be afraid.

Home to find an exciting parcel awaiting the Dr. A while back, I bought her a Gonzo toy because she's always had a bit of a thing for him. (Yes, she has strange tastes in fellows, thank heavens.)

Thing is, the Gonzo toy is dressed kind of dorkily when he should be all KAZAMM! and glitter. How much better if he'd been done up in his Darth Vader gear from the legendary Stars of Star Wars episode of The Muppet Show?

Hooray for the purple-haired sequin queen who has done just that. Hooray hooray!

(The Dr is the one on the left.)

Space-pirate badger #2

The monstrously talented Red Scharlach has created an avatar of Archibald the space pirate badger. And I am giddy with excitement.

There's plenty more of this sort of thing at Red's site.

Harpy new year!

Having not been fagged to do anything special to mark the end of 2007, we ended up having a fine old party with several splendid fellows and jokes. Attacked the hangover with smoked salmon and scrambled egg and then poddled to West Dulwich to gawp at the Age of Enchantment exhibition. Which wasn't open. Drat.

Instead, we sat outside a coffee shop enjoying the grey, drippy but not too cold day, and the whining of small posh children and their parents.

Am back into work this afternoon, with 110 pages of notes on How The Doctor Changed My Life to type up and send out to the authors. I have also written a blurb and done other bits of housekeeping. Need to get the notes done as there's two dead exciting new bits of work which should get the green light over the next few days. Announcements as and when tis permissible.

The Dr is also much excited to find herself on Amazon. From the Harpy Tomb to the Wonders of Ephesus is apparently published on 25 April; preorder it now, and we can fill her "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought..." slot with all manner of Dr Who nonsense!