The Romans

The Romans (part 1)

The Slave Traders

Ah, so now we are in the world of Dennis Spooner again. We already saw that approach to the historical, where the Doctor and companions get bunged into the middle of a major event and have to survive. (In comparison to John Lucarotti's more ethical tourism route....)

Spooner's historicals like to eschew historical fact in favour of the story, but then, to that point, let's just remember that the closest historical connection to Tegana in Marco Polo was in fact some 500 miles away during the events of the time in real life!

Spooner moved to Doctor Who from involvement in Gerry Anderson's Zoom Fish (hi Rob and Charlie!), writing a dozen episodes for the stingray adventures. He was also writer for Girl on the Trapeze, one of the only surviving episodes from the first series of The Avengers, and went on to create Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), remaining in high demand until his death in 1986, from a heart attack.

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Anyhow, the TARDIS landed on a cliff, and fell down. Not to worry, the Doctor thinks that can get fixed later, and the TARDIS crew are found lazing around a Roman villa.

The Thistle Promotion Diary 2006

The following was written for Pie and Bovril in the early hours of 15th May 2006. The day before, Partick Thistle won the 2nd Division playoff final on penalties. This had not seemed a likely result after losing the first leg at home, yet somehow I convinced Mike Witticombe to travel 300 miles to the Highlands in the chase of a false dawn. Anyhow, we won the match. As this memoir is now no longer on the net, I republish it, as the Thistle have just been repromoted from the same league, 15 years on, after last years little contretemps with the SFA. I could have made it look a lot more mature and erudite, but I decided it was written in the style of drunk teenager, and in the style of drunk teenager it shall remain. Anyhow, without further ado, the Thistle playoff victory 2006 diary...

City on the Edge of Forever

 

So sometimes its difficult to talk about something without sounding cliched. Because it's been said so often, it doesn't sound like an original opinion anymore.

 

 

Undertaker PPV Matches

 Someone recently asked for a quick resume of The Undertaker's PPV matches in the WWF since I'd seen about 90% of them. In the vague interest anyone wants a quick rundown of the quality, here they are:

Decent to Great vs Bad

 

Survivor Series 1990 - Debut. There to be the new monster. Moves around well, takes out Koko and Dusty, eliminated by one of their standard daft count outs. Match has lengthy Bret/DiBiase sprint so is obviously good overall. 1-0

 

Scottish Election (2021) preview

 For some reason my election previews remain quite popular, despite the fact they are either in the right ballpark (2019) or wildly off (2015).  Although, aren't most? If you go by the view that the Scottish electorate are actually addicted to exciting election night coverage now, who knows what twists and turns will show up before May 6th. 

Anyhow, instead of looking at every single seat (many of which are very safe), this looks at the upcoming election in three ways: SNP targets, SNP defence, the regional lists. If you want to skim over, the gist is this is a lot more volatile than the polls suggest.

Poetry Suggestions

Some suggestions from Poetry Day then!

First up, who doesn't want to read of Lord Byrons nightmare about the end of the world? It has less focused on rhyme or meter than most of his work so is a bit more raw - Darkness.

As I've said before, Mary Robinson's January 1795 might as well be January 2021 and most of the corruption and social inequality is still a talking point! One of Steve Atkins's favourite poets - I legit thought this was much more modern (bar the odd dated phrase) when I first saw it.

The Rescue

The Rescue (part 1)

The Powerful Enemy

In which Doctor Who meets an enemy, who is powerful.

The TARDIS lands in a gloomy and sandy place.

We see a smashed up space rocket, with its radar system going nuts. An excited young woman rushes in to tell a man lying in a bed that a rescue ship has arrived.

Hey, everyone, its Vicki!

The Dalek Invasion of Earth

Dalek Invasion of Earth

Worlds End (part 1)

Been a while, hasn't it?

We start with a sign saying it is forbidden to dump bodies into the river, and then a man walks towards the river and drowns himself. Already that Terror Nation is doing a number on the nations sleep pattern.

Inside the TARDIS the Doctor does some cleaning and sighing. It being William Hartnell, this is a magical waste of 20 seconds.

The crew are delighted to find they have landed in London, but Susan is the first to twig something is up as Ian casually yells out hello. No one answers. "Probably Sunday!" he quips.

The Doctor thinks the area has been abandoned but Ian think its just a construction site.

Then Susan bashes her ankle, which causes a bridge to fall on the TARDIS, trapping them. Ian tries to lift some of the debris to no effect.

Planet of Giants

Oh yeah, apparently there's more Doctor Who. Who knew?

Planet of Giants (episode 1)

Planet of Giants

The crew are in the TARDIS when Barbara burns herself on an overheating TARDIS console. Suddenly the TARDIS doors begin to open in flight, and everyone rushes to shut them. Susan checks the TARDIS for faults but it all seems to be OK.

We then get an example of how changed the Doctor is when he immediately apologies to Barbara. "I always forget the niceties."

DOCTOR: The space pressure was far too great whilst we were materialising. The strange thing is that we all came out of it unscathed. It's most puzzling. It's a big mystery, my boy.

Says the Doctor, tempting fate...

The Thirteen Problems

 

(The cover on mums copy, borrowed from elsewhere, with its blue geranium..)

It is usually Aidan who writes reviews of crime novels. However, I was recently reading one of the early Agatha Christies, so I thought I would share my thoughts on. The Thirteen Problems pitch together a collection of short stories that Agatha Christie had written about a character named Jane Marple in the latter half of the 1920s. In the collection, a dinner party tell each other unsolved mysteries, usually involving a murder, while the rest of the party try and work out who done it. To their bafflement, the unassuming little old lady who sits in the corner works out each solution correctly. Even those that baffled the greatest minds in the crime fighting industry.

Rumble predicts

 As my attempts to predict the Rumbles were so popular last year (read - 2 or 3 people clicked like...) here's my attempts to predict/book the 2021 ones, based on, well, a little bit of current storyline and a whole lot of wishful thinking...

And WWE completely changed their plans and announced the first two in the mens, not the womens, so this from 3 days ago is already out of date!

Womens Rumble