The Journal of the Browncoat Cat

The Eagles have made so many all time classic songs such as Hotel California, Johnny Come Lately, You Can’t Hide Your Lieing Eyes and on and on. They have been touring Europe, and the last date of the tour was on Sunday, at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. This was an un-missible opportunity to see one of the greatest bands of the Rock and Roll Era. So when I was asked if I wanted to go and see them, it was bit of a no-brainer. When the ticket was given to me as a Birthday present, I was in seventh heaven.

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Before the Eagles concert, I went to Subways for a bite to eat.  I as told that they don’t give out stamps for the loyalty cards anymore.  This is terrible news, I have five stamps on my current card, just three short of filling a card and qualifying for a free six in sub.

Not a bad week off. Although, I spent most of it fetching and carrying for my mother, who is still recuperating from her operation. She had a hysterectomy at the end of last month, and has so she cannot be usual busy self. The first week after the operation, she didn’t feel like doing much, which is not surprising, but now she is starting feel better, she wants to do more. This is driving her a bit batty, because she is far. She does not like sitting down doing nothing, even whilst sitting watching television, she is working on a crossword puzzle. Well, the crossword is about as strenuous as she has been allowed to get.

It was my 39^th Birthday on Tuesday, 13th June, 2006. It coincided with a meeting of TIMELESS down in the Central Bar in Cardiff, so I used that as an excuse for my rare visits to a Cardiff meeting. (more…)

A week ago, I popped into the library, as I needed to use one of the PCs to reformat the hard drive on the jPod. Whilst there, a journalist called Rin Simpson from the Western Mail rung. It appears my details are on file as a rent-a-quote for all things connected to Doctor Who. She wanted to know what I felt about Billie Piper’s departure from the series. At than point in the morning, I had yet to go on line, so this was news to me. Not that I wasn’t expecting this news sooner or later, although this was sooner than I imagined. I said to her the journalist that whilst I was sorry to see her go, Doctor Who thrives on change, there had been 30 companions before Rose, and there had been four whilst she was with the series, so it would be interesting to see who came next. None of my comments appeared in the main article the following morning, however, more or less verbatim in a sidebar was my choice of the top five companions from the original series. I was very pleased with this.

So, who next. In the article in the Western Mail, the name Michelle Ryan was mentioned, along with a picture of her from Eastenders. The Sun claimed that Freema Agyeman who appears in the last two episodes of this series has been cast as the next companion. Many fans, myself included, hope that the actress Florence Hoath who played the character Nancy in the story The Empty Child will get the job, but this is highly unlikely. Naturally there was a lot of speculation on the Outpost Gallifrey Forum, where lots of names have been put forward, from the ridiculous to the sublime.  However, I am fairly certain that it is a question of when and not if Michelle Ryan will be announced as the Doctor’s new companion. The reason being there was considerable speculation back in 2004 about who was going to play Rose Tyler, a list of possible actresses was touted by the newspapers, but with each articles, there was always a sentence saying that Billie Piper had auditioned for the role, and in the end Billie Piper was cast. This time around, with every article and every name no matter how improbable, there is always a sentence saying that Michelle Ryan has auditioned for the role. So I suspect that the role of the new companion has already been cast, and that it will be Michelle Ryan. Also, it was reported at the end of last year that Russell T. Davies and crew were looking for someone posh an brunette as a possible replacement for the Blonde working class Rose Tyler; well Michelle Ryan is definitely very brunette an although she has a London accent, it is not nearly as Cockney as the one she used in Eastenders, so I can imagine her doing a posh BBC accent in Doctor Who. As Zoe Slater, she had a lot of very meaty story-lines to cope with in Eastenders, which she handled very well, so I have no doubt about her acting talents. Finally Michelle Ryan has a lot of tabloid kudos, just like Billie Piper, which did the series no harm what so ever.

It was my birthday last week. Thirty-nine years old. It passed very quietly this year. My mother did not make the usual fuss, as she is still recovering from her operation at the start of the month. I went to Cardiff on the night because there was a TIMELESS meeting in the Central Bar. I had a ticket to see the Eagles at the Millennium Stadium on 25^th June from Carolyn, whilst I had an MP3 player of Janet.

The MP3 player is cool, it is possibly the closest thing you can get to an iPod Nano that isn’t actually made by Apple. I call it my jPod. As you can see from the photo, it is small, the train ticket on the right was included to give you an idea of the scale of the thing. It has a 2Gb memory, which holds shed loads of songs, and even plays video files on its tiny screen. I don’t think I more than a few megabytes worth of MP3s, but what I have got is rapidly going onto the memory of this machine. Although I did have start again from scratch this week, as I tried to rename the hard drive using the RISC OS file manager, and corrupted the damn thing. I had to reformat it on a PC at work. By the time I go on the cruise in August, I hope to have copied quite a few of my albums onto it memory.

Out of a sense of tradition, the first thing I copied onto the jPod was Dire Strait’s masterpiece Love Over Gold as it is the first thing I play on any new piece of audio equipment I own.

I have just played an MP3 of Mr. Blue Skies by the Electric Light Orchestra, and as soon as it started the heavens open. The first rain in nearly two weeks began falling. As soon as the track finishes, so does the rain shower. Freaky or what?

There is a very good reason for me suddenly putting this track on.  I have just found out that this song features in next week’s story, Love & Monsters.  In a story with little or no appearances from the Doctor and Rose that focuses on a group of amatuers investigating sightings of the Doctor.  They use a band rehearsal as a cover for their activities, and this is the song they are rehearsing. Top choice of tune. From what I have read, this episode is really going to split Doctor Who fandom, as it is an experimental episode that will stretch the series to its limit, and whilst fans claim that Doctor Who has an infinte capacity to try new things, when the production team actually do try new things, the fans cry foul. I am looking forward to this story, and will watch it with an open mind.

20six Comment

Wyvern / Website (21.6.06 12:36)
So what did you make of the episode???And what about the confirmation of Billy Piper’s next move?

Vorcampbel / (22.6.06 16:08) I am waiting for the inevitable anouncement that Michelle Ryan has been cast as her replacement.

Summer is here, the last week has seen temperatures in the mid twenties Celsius, with brilliant blue skies with white fluffy clouds. The summer clothes have been unpacked from storage, and making a definite impression. Women are wearing skirts again, up until last week, on a good day; I could count on my thumbs the number of women not wearing trousers. More and more women are giving an airing to spindly white pins that are getting the first exposure since last summer. Not that I am complaining, as I have said on this web log in the past, I am a bit of a social dinosaur, and I prefer women in skirts and men in trousers.

Not that the good weather is set to last. The Metrological Office are predicting heavy showers and higher than average rainfall for next week. Fortunately it will be warm and wet, with sunny intervals. A couple of days rain every few weeks would be nice during the summer, to stop everything getting so parched.

So, 20six.co.uk have upgraded the software they use for the web logs. This means that the annual face lift that I give this web log is here a bit earlier than usual. I will have to see what I make of the new system.