The Journal of the Browncoat Cat

I decided last night that as I had finished my latest assignment for college, I would give myself a bit of treat, and take myself down to Cardiff Bay to have a nose at the latest filming for the new series of Doctor Who.  I arrived outside the new Wales Millenium Centre, and there she was, the old girl herself, the TARDIS, with its white tarpalin to protect it from the curious. I was extremely fortunate that a crew from Doctor Who Confidential had just arrived on site, and where about to film a piece for their series, so off came the protective tent, and I got somene to take a photo of me with the prop that will be used in the new series, it was too good an oportunity to miss. The TARDIS was parked in front of the sixty foot aluminium wall of water that is at the head of Plas Roald Dahl, an oval ampitheatre that used to be part of the docks complex, but which is now used for open-air concerts in the Summer. I should imagine that the TARDIS materialising infront of this obelisk will be one of the moments of the series.

Next, I walked towards the waterfront of Cardiff, and could not help but notice where filming was taking place. Russell T. Davies and Phil Collinson had set up their monitors midway along Bute Crescent, the road that runs along the length of Plas Roald Dahl, and were monitoring the setting up of a scene on the waterfront. This was a few hundred yards from the restaruant that where filming occured last week. This is apparently filming for episode 11, the one with the working title Boomtown. It was speculated on the OG Forum that this episode and the end of The Empty Child/Doctor Dances were being filmed concurrently, I should imagine that this proves it.

The first thing I noticed was that the ground was covered in bits of sugarglass, remnants of an earlier scene. (more…)

When I started using the libraries as a child, the date stamps seemed huge things, all shiny with a lever that had to be pushed down and made a reassuring kerthunk when they printed the return date on the label in the front of my library books. When I started working for the libraries, these stamps were still in use. I knew that I had stamped the book I had just issued because of the pleasantly loud noise the stamp made. When the library database moved of the old manual Browne system to a computerised system, that all changed. New stamps that were affixed to the scanners were introduced. These were horrible to use and were eventually replaced by insignificant little date stamps that needed to be inked on a pad ever time if the date was to be legible. Yesterday, a new stamp was delivered to work. For the first time in over a decade, we have got a proper library date stamp that goes kerthunk and inks itself each time. This one is not the same design, this stamp is made of plastic, and is sleeker than the old ones, but it makes the reassuring kerthunk. Which makes me very happy.