These boys used to be epic Morrisey, now they’re changed I hardly recognise them but for the voice.

Intriguing.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

I sincerely hope so, boys, as I used to enjoy your stuff so very much until you got a banjo player.

Oh BBC, you’re still brilliant to me:

The European Commission is standing its ground.

“We are not modifying our law and we are not backing down,” Isaac Valero-Ladron, spokesman for climate action commissioner Connie Hedegaard, told Thursday’s news conference in Brussels.

“If the Chinese want to do business in Europe, like open a restaurant or something, they have to comply with the health and safety requirements. This is not that different… if you want to operate in Europe you have to respect the law.”

And as aviation pricing is now EU law, it would indeed be tough for the bloc to amend or annul.

There’s talk in some quarters of a trade war; but given the piffling costs, and the fact that all airlines have to pay exactly the same fees, it’s hard to see how even a waving of handbags is justified.

You made it to the party – thanks!
I was hoping that you’d be able to.

I give you: Jonathan Ainscough as Iolo Price in 9 Stories High.

Iolo Price is my invention and he’s a ‘nasty piece o’ work’.

This and anymore WNO photos that follow are taken by Jeni Clegg for WNO Max.

It’s time.

It’s time for me to stop writing about everyone’s favourite timelord and start writing for him.

I did enjoy the Christmas special, very much and I especially like a good Sonta-Ho-Ho-Ho but it’s goodbye to the me that reviewed every episode minutely.

Anyone that knows me should feel free to discuss the Whoniverse with me at length but the reviewer is being put to bed.

Ironic as the title is, I’ve been very merry & productive so haven’t made constant updates about the Welsh National Opera work I’ve been doing.

Above is a shot taken by one of the reporters for wrexham.com and as soon as the video’s available, I’ll post that too.

Like all good poets, Gartner Inc coined their own own term back in 1995. This actually happens to me with ideas, stories, whatever so I’m gonna agree and say that it happens with most things. Including Bitcoin.

In other news, WE MADE IT! That is, out of here. Now we just wait for our neighbours to throw our space-trash back at us and make a bad situation good. Sure politicians are still idiots but at least technologists are wising-oop (sic) and fast.

After all, they really understand the need to move away from your home town.

I have been plundering spelunking.

At first I was underwhelmed; on second viewing, I was endeared; and now, on third viewing, it was all of the above and the two things it wasn’t before – heart-warming and entertaining.

“Fixed points in time can be changed.”
“No they can’t! Who told you that?!” (The continuity stuffs)

The reason I’ve left the clause within a clause in my first sentence is because, not only does Moffat keep telling us that he lies and The Doctor lies but, it’s a question of where you sit in the Whoniverse as to whether or not you’ll like both this episode and what Steven Moffat is doing with his tenancy.

In short, the long game.

Yes, this review is thus far full of contradictions much like that last sentence, references itself and comments on said reference…a lot. Like then. Did I mention that it likes referencing itself?

So too does Moffat and so too will you like Moffat’s New Who if you’re a fan of the old series of Doctor Who…mostly.

If you’re only a fan of the RTD era, this finale will put you off quicker than a human sized fish giving you a lapdance – no, not the sexy mermaid fish kind; the “I’m a mansized trout, my head is as big as your chest due to my messed up anatomy and my lack of proper legs means a lapdance is more of a wet patch waggle” kind.

Moffat’s playing the long game by not only putting questions in at the start which won’t be answered until the end but also planting something into the mainstream that has been on the fringes of the unconcerned Whoniverse for some time: namely, naming.

As he’s now opened an old can of worms as to what the Doctor’s name is, he’s making his mark on Doctor Who by making the name itself into something BIG BAD & UGLY -

“Suppose there was a man who knew a secret – a terrible, dangerous secret – that must never be told. How would you erase that secret from the world, destroy it forever, before it can be spoken?”

I wish he wouldn’t.

Partly because I’ve my own designs on the damn thing but also because he’s either got to make it harmless by having The Doctor lie about it for the entirety of the next season ONLY TO REVEAL *dum dum dummmm* it’s harmless [it is at this point that squibs would drop from the sky and Moffat would receive a shit-ton of wet-fish in the post]or that it will NEVER be revealed or he’s made the Doctor’s name into a big bad Timelord secret – unless he’s made it into a secret that undoes and resolves the Time War, not good.

“Why is this so ‘not good’?” It traps all other writers before and after him. We’re left with a ‘fixed time point’ (to use the now overly used phrase) that can be neither escaped nor ignored. This revelation or lack thereof on the fields of Trenzalore will mean that anyone with a mind to write anything continuity will now have to consider this as being present in all versions of The Doctor. If you’d like to write a Tom Baker era piece, you can forget that back then The Doctor joked about the shortening of his name.

Though it’s a little frustrating for me as a writer – as a viewer, this was one hell of a way to end a series and especially this episode.

“…the monks they turned on me.”
“Well, yes. They rather did…a bit.”

So, onto the episode itself: not so sure about the ‘other reality’ usage for the second time in as many series finale or the Live Chess; however cool flesh-eating-skulls though; and it was good to see Doriam & Churchill both back with us and back on form; “She said you…were a…Mr Hotty.” Hah; all the lovely little bits made for satisfying set-pieces; yes, even the Teselecta being the get-out clause was a nice nod to the earlier episodes [though the ‘Doctor in a Doctor suit’ didn’t impress much even on third viewing – it just seemed too easy, too slick and too much of an ‘aren’t I clever for hinting at the moon and giving you a stick’ ending.]

That’s all the little bits out the way.

The Silence are the ‘Sentinals of history’, eh? Well well well, didn’t The Timelords once consider themselves as such? Or were they simply the observers? More questions are always welcome.

“…worse, it’s stupid! You embarrass me…”

I know now that my initial problem with this being a series finale wasn’t the Teselecta being the get-out or the alternate time bubble repetition of last series but the lack of a connection to The Doctor at a critical moment of warmth.

I think Matt Smith might have dropped the ball on being so angry at River throughout the ‘beacon’ bit: he had a good opportunity to show his care for River, Amy and Rory by being more sympathetic – [from] “…worse, it’s stupid! You embarrass me…”
[through to]
“I’ll suffer if I have to kill you –“
“More than every living thing in the universe?”
“Yes.”
“River…River, River – why do you have to be this? Melody Pond, your daughter. I hope you’re both proud!”

I think he could have revealed The Doctor’s deep care for River and the universe itself by being moved and upset and relieved by the universe’s care for him and his for it. That way, the episode would have seemed so much more beautiful for those extra minutes it needed after River ‘killed’ him. Ah well.

“On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the 11th – where no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer – a question will be asked; a question that must never ever be answered”

Now it’s all to look forward to – catch you at Christmas.

Mathematically speaking, that is.

We’ll be rounding-up on all but one of these stories because there’s something bigger to get to today and this typing round is simply a rounding-down from my morning’s work and the next lot will be a warming up to afternoon.

Two uni tech flecks may bring about the small-scale, widespread-homestead clean energy revolution I’ve been banging on about for years: 1) to produce the energy necessary, MIT have come up with a hydrogen making submersible-leaf - put it in your outdoor pond or on your windowsill and capture the hydrogen coming out the top; 2) Lund University’s Maria Jonstrup has made a simple 2-step way to clean water of nasty chemicals [watch out for this lady in some science awards next year, I'd say - if not only in the Swede's history books] – now, she’s applying it to industry levels of chemical waste from textile factories however, I say, make  this process small enough and put it at the end of all our household waste water pipes and suddenly we lighten the load of water-recycling plants the planet over while lessening our household’s impact on the environment.

While all that’s happening now, NASA’s gone ahead and sort of just said ‘Oh yeah, Japan? Well we’ll do it BIGGER!” They then announced their plans for solar-sail spacey and proceeded to, formally of course, stick their tongues out.

Due to NASA being all meh, SpaceX replied on their Facebook that they’ve got a new experimental, re-usable bottle rocket and NASA should come round to watch.

The kids over in Creepyville, however, decided not to explore external space but internal – Tel Aviv wants your brains – and check up on your smoking without you knowing. Seriously for a sec, sure it’s not a problem yet but this kinda tech should be under much more serious ethical scrutiny.

Sundays mean the world turns a little slower because people move less [;)] but it doesn’t mean advancements aren’t made or noticed.
Keep up the good work, folks and I’ll keep aggregating.

Not a commentary on the long running debate, ‘Which Hulk is better?’ but instead, of course, a theory on Doctor Who:

When sporting a red bow-tie & braces, he seems to be an entirely different man from when wearing a blue bow-tie & braces – the former dislikes apples, the latter relishes them; the red hates rubix cubes, the blue solves them easily

THUS

either – a) Two Doctors (of the same age and from the same universe) have existed for sometime – probably a ganger made stabl by the TARDIS – and they’ve been sharing their adventure time between them

or b) we have another example of The Doppler Effect in action, as we did last season [where red equals moving forward in time and blue equals backward.]

‘How would two doctors go unnoticed?’ You might ask – well, there are several possibilities: one of which has been placed somewhere to enjoy life on-planet while they switch every so often; one of them could have been put to sleep for 100 years somewhere safe; or, simply, due to one possibly being a ganger there wouldn’t necessarily be a [paradox] problem with both being in the TARDIS at all times and simply tagging in and out per adventure.

So that’s all possible for Saturday’s episode HOWEVER, Mark Gatiss‘ entry on the IMDB entry for The Wedding of River Song has been changed from Fenric to Gantok after much net furor…could the net have called it on Fenric and the good Beeb had to ask IMDB to change it?

My word, I. Cannot. Wait. For tomorrow!

I am Weditory [wedded to editorial] and words come only through bones.

Thus it is that music comes gratis from my Ideastap associate, Lucinda Chua.