The Web Planet

I didn't think I would be this busy when I started this - busy, busy and sod all gets done! (Also this was delayed a fortnight by an infected finger. Who gets one of those? Apparently lots of people, its one of the most common ailments in the UK, but I was ignorant of this until I had to stop all writing for over a week and become an even grumpier sod than usual!)

Anyhow...

The Web Planet (episode 1)

If this feels like it was written differently, its because I have never seen this story before. Is it, as a friendly voice told me back when I was a kid, "a lot of ¤¤¤¤e" or, is it a hidden gem? As I wrote these words as way of preamble, I hadn't a clue. I knew about zarbi and the basic plot, and the reputation, but I had no idea how I'd react to actually seeing this...

Onwards!

The TARDIS is caught in a force field, and is being dragged down to a planet!

RAW 14/6/2021 - The Phantom Piper (Niven)

 We start the show as we ended the last, with some possessed demon girl laughing. Alexa Bliss gives everyone portents of doom about what's to come, which to be fair, she could give us every week and it'd be accurate about watching RAW.

Nikki Cross defeated Charlotte Flair by countout in another match where Charlotte dominated but then was distracted by Rhea Ripley so lost. The worrying thing is that I think this is the WWE trying to push Nikki Cross. They just suck at pushing faces now.

Smackdown 11/6/2021 Uso Ready for This

 Smackdown started with the traditional Roman Reigns looking angry backstage bit, then Jimmy Uso came out and did a standard promo about Reigns. All the while backstage Reigns continued to stir shit with Jey.

Euro 2020 Preview (with Jon Arnold, Gav Mills and Joao Reis)

Michael: It’s an actual football tournament. If you are reading this, well done on getting this far through the End of Days (TM tabloids). Euro 2020, in 2021, where the mighty Scotland and 22 other teams compete to determine who is going to lose in the final to France!

Jon: Here we are then, with the last of football’s great rush to make sure every single competition threatened by the pandemic actually happens.

Michael: Yeah, football, football, football, err, keep safe…

Jon: I suspect that if they’d cancelled the tournament there’d have been riots on the streets of Glasgow. Well, in one household I can think of anyway…

RAW 7th June 2021 (so you don't have to...)

 RAW started with a battle royal to determine the tag title number one contenders. Randy Orton and Matt Riddle, The Vikings, The New Day, Lince Dorado (just one man as Gran Metalik is injured and WWE recently fired Kalisto for some reason) and the former Retribution. AJ Styles does a Jericho 98 style run down of all their challengers, and then Miz shows up. Bah and humbug.

John Morrison decides he can win the battle royal by himself, and so enters it.

Dorado tries his best but is eliminated, Morrison is just one man and portrayed as a goof so goes, and Retribution are jobbers. You can see where this is going, and you'd actually be wrong, as The Vikings eliminated both New Day members and Randy Orton to win the match.

A good opening which showcased a dozen people, and had a surprising but worthy winner? What is this show and what has it done to RAW?

Smackdown (4th June 2021) - 3 title matches and an Otis

 Smackdown...

(contains spoilers obviously)

For a few weeks now I've been doing the "WWE so you don't have to" recaps on Facebook as one of the few wrestling fans in our circle still watching RAW and Smackdown. Stockholm syndrome, probably. Anyhow, with folk like Brian Zane quitting it, the straight cut on if the shows were any good (spoiler - RAW usually sucks, Smackdown is usually decent) is getting a bit lost, so here's my Smackdown review transported to the blog...

We open with our usual Roman Reigns promo. The Usos are out there and hyped. Reigns tells Jimmy he better win the tag title match as he called his win in advance.

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.