The Journal of the Browncoat Cat

The Ubutuntu installation disk arrived on Wednesday morning. Last night I decided to have a go at running it as a Live CD on my mother’s PC. For those who don’t know, and I didn’t until yesterday, that means that the PC will boot from the CD and not from the copy of Windows XP on the hard drive.

One of the biggest gripes I have had with every Wndows PC I have ever used until now has been its stupid insistance on trying to boot from any disk accidentaly left in a drive overnight. On the one occasion that I want this to happen, it doesn’t. My mother’s DELL has been fixed so that it will only boot from its hard drive. However, after a few minutes searching through the manual, I find a work around, and get it booting to Ubuntu. Unfortunately, as it is approaching midnight at that point, I decide to leave any serious experimentation until I today.

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UPDDATE:
Well, this evening I had a longer play with the Live CD in my mother’s PC. Had a wander throught the filing system, wrote a letter with the Open Office word processor, plugged in a pen drive and saved the file, disconnected the pendrive and then tried to install a printer driver to print the letters out. Everything was great except for the printing. My mother’s PC is not connected to the Internet, so when the driver installation process could not go online to find the right driver, the process stopped dead in its tracks. This should not be a problem when I set up my new PC, as that will be connected to the great outdoors via ASDL. Never the less, I was very impressed by how Ubuntu Linux worked.

It just gets better and better.

This 1′24″ clip is on a continuous loop on the BBCi interactive service on both SKY and Freeview. I recommend you go and see it on either of these if you can, as this YouTube version just does not do it credit.

1. Plot Summary
The unconcious body of Dipak Gandhi, an Ugandan Asian refugee is discovered in the record shop he runs with his brother Rajiv.  Hiding in a backroom is Layla Dylan, Dipak’s English girlfriend.  Sam discovers a small packet of heroin in one of Dipak’s pockets. In 1973, heroin was a relatively new illegal drug in the UK so the Gandhi Brothers, who also run an import/export business become prime suspects in the death of a series of drug addicts who were unused to this new poison.

DCI Gene Hunt hates all drug dealers with a fiery passion after the death of his brother, and is more than willing to let “Toolbox”, a local armed robber deal with the situation.  Sam however, believes that the crime is racially motivated.  The Gandhi brothers stood out as successful businessmen, which infuriated the braindead lowlives in the National Front.

Whilst all this is happening, Sam is hearing the voice of his girlfriend Maya.  She is telling him that she can no longer cope with him being in a coma in 2006 and she has to move on.   

2. Thoughts
This week, one of the less well known aspects of the 1970’s frms the basis of plot. The Ugandan Asian arrived in Britain in 1972, after the despotic madman Idi Amin, the president of Uganda gave them 90 days to leave that country.  Many arrived with nothing and then built up successful businesses in the UK.  So the success of the Gandhi brothers and the resentment it stirred up is very believable.  As is the casual racism, born out of ignorance that characters such as DS Ray Carling exhibit.  There is no doubt that the UK is a much more understanding and culturally open now than back in 1973.

This episode is more evidence that Sam is in two places at once.  He was hearing the voice of his girlfriend, who was in mortal danger when he had the accident that sent him back to 1973.  This proves that his actions there, in teh first episode or Series 1 did have an impact on the future.  Also the nature of May’s messages to Sam add to my suspicion that this is not a dream.  If this were the case, at the end of the episode Maya would have announced that she was going to continue the vigil for Sam’s contemporary recovery, because that would be what the dreaming Sam would want to hear.  However, Maya still tells Sam that he is dumped and Sam in 1973 accepts that fact.

The plot developed nicely to the revelation that Layla was the mother of Sam’s contemporary (now ex) girlfriend.  It was the logical development of the story and not at all out of place.

The main niggle this week is that nobody says anything about Sam’s occasional lapses into the erratic.  Surely someone would have said something about his behaviour in the Community Centre.  Wandering down a street talking to a transistor radio is not the actions of a sane man and someone should have noticed.

Stars:
4.5 out of 5

Last night I ordered the new PC from DELL, a Dimensions E520 desktop. Its estimated delivery date is 4^th April, 2007.  This morning the Ubuntu Linux (6.10) installation disc arrived.  Things are on the move.

I got to work extra early this morning and got the library ready to open well before 9am.  I had a very important phonecall to make. At 9am, the line to book a ticket for a special preview screening of Smith and Jones, the first episode of Series Three [29] of Doctor Who was due to open. I had to book a ticket, not just to see the episode early, but also to see it in full cinematic glory. So at exactly 9am I dial the number, and got an engaged tone and the message that the lines were busy. So hit hang-up and redial, same result. Then at 9.04am, a result, or so I thought, but it was only a recorded message saying that the office did not open until 9am. I screamed down the phone, “but its five past already”. Fortunately, the next redial connected me to the BBC National Orchestra of Wales Ticket-line, which threw me slightly, as I was expecting to be phoning an Odeon call centre as at least three of the five screenings are in Odeon Cinemas. The lady on the other end of the phone said that I had not dialled a wrong number and that I could book my ticket. So for the rest of the morning I was dancing on air.

It appears that there were only two women at the BBC NOW Ticket-Line taking calls. I honestly don’t think they knew what hit them, as I should imagine that they are used to dealing with one enquiry an hour, not the deluge of calls from Welsh Doctor Who fandom.

I suppose this means that Smith and Jones will have a BBFC classification certificate, even though it is a very limited theatrical release. This can only add to the bizarreness of the situation on Saturday morning. The screening is due to start at 10.30am, so that means that I will have to be catching the 8.17am train from Treherbert, so that I arrive in the bay by 9.30am, which will give me plenty of time to get to the Red Dragon Centre where the Cardiff Bay Odeon is located.

Update: My ticket arrived in the post this morning.  #52 for the Odeon Cardiff Bay.  Way-Hay!!!!!

The covers for the Radio Times listings magazine for Week 14 : 31^st March to 6^th April, 2007 have been released. Blow me down if it isn’t another Doctor Who cover, (or covers, as there are two to collect) to mark the return of the series for its third run since it was brought back in 2005. Click on the thumnail images below for a larger more detailled image.

I first read about these R2D2 post boxes being erected by the United States Postal Service on the Show Me Sci-Fi web log few weeks ago. They are to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of Star Wars on 25th May, 1977. The fact that R2D2 looks a lot like an American postbox lends itself to the exercise. I just cannot imagine the good old Royal Mail in this country doing anything this cool.

The BBC recently started putting short clips on YouTube, the Google run video sharing system.  Last night they released this little clip.   It certainly makes Smith and Jones, the first episode of Series Three [29] look interesting.  Unfortunately, the BBC has not quite got the hang of the sharing part of a Video Sharing site like YouTube, so embedding is disallowed,try getting the clip below to work.

Last night saw the official Press Launch of Series Three [29] of Doctor Who. So a group of journalists and a selection of celebrities (and their children, what lucky kids) were treated to the first two stories from the series and a question and answer session from the head writer Russell T. Davies and the stars David Tennant and Freema Agyeman. All because the BBC wanted to announce two things:

1. That the series would start at 7pm on Saturday, 31^st March.
2. Series Four [30] had been officially commissioned for Spring 2008.

Naturally the first thing that Fleet Street’s finest asked about Series Four [30] was would David Tennant be staying in the role of the Doctor, apparently much to the annoyance of David Tennant.

For us mere mortals, the BBC released a second 40 second trailer, which is as cracking as the first:

The week running up to the broadcast of Smith and Jonesis going to be pretty hectic as well, with Russell T. Davies, David Tennant, Freema Agyeman and John Barrowman popping up everywhere. So far confirmed for that week:

• 24/3/2007, David Tennant is doing the Fearne and Reggie Show at BBC Radio 1 from 7am-10am.

• 27/3/2007 Russell T Davies is on Richard and Judy

• 27/3/2007 Freema Agyeman will be a guest on Blue Peter

• 28/3/2007 David Tennant is on the Chris Moyles Show, BBC Radio 1, 7am

• 30/3/2007, Freema Agyeman is on the Simon Mayo radio show, 1pm, BBC Five Live

• 30/3/2007 Weakest Link Doctor Who special

• 31/3/2007 The Sarah Jane Adventures: Invasion of the Bane 4pm, the CBBC channel.

This is a great time to be a Doctor Who fan.

Wrtitten by: Matthew Graham
Directed by:Andrew Guun

1. Plot Summary:
Here is a box, a musical box. The episode opens in the style of the opening of the classic children’s series Camberwick Green with a puppet emerging from a rotating musical box. Instead of Police Constable McGarry (Number 452) we get Detective Inspector Tyler (number unknown). The puppet Sam is unhappy because Gene Hunt is “kicking in a nonce again”. At this point we cut from the Gordon Murray inspired stop motion animation to Sam’s grotty bedsit. The poor man is not at all well, clothes and  bottles of Lucozade are strewn all over the floor of the grotty flat. Sam receives a phone-call from work and rushes to A-Division, on the way receiving a series of surreal messages from 2006, just in time to see Mr Simon Lamb try to hang himself from one of the light fittings.

[digg=http://digg.com/television/Life_on_Mars_2_5_A_Review]Lamb’s wife and daughter have been kidnapped, and unless Graham Bathurst is released from prison they will be killed. In 1972, Bathurst was convicted of killing Charley Whitham, a 14 year old schoolgirl. Whilst Sam was sweating it out, A-Division have spent the past two days running a kidnap enquiry. Ray, ever the sympathetic colleague says to Sam that they have been working flat out and that he has not been to the pub for 36 hours.

Despite the fact that Sam appears to be tripping his head off, he has a fresh perspective on the case, and can see things that his colleagues might have missed as a result of sleep deprivation.

Having overdosed him with stimulants in 2006, the doctors give him a large dose of sedatives, and Sam in 1973 passes out, and in a very sureal scene watches the events unfold on television, changing channels to see different peoples perspectives on the events.

Whilst Sam is indisposed, Annie solves the mystery and other members of A-Division follow her lead.  Phyllis the Desk Sergeant tells Annie that the doctors in 1973 have tested Sam and it appears that the soft drink he was consuming whilst undercover before a drugs raid the previous weekend had been laced with LSD, explaining his strange behaviour in 1973.

2. Thoughts:
Well, after weeks of building up the case for Sam Tyler being a time traveller, this week we are presented with an episode that reinforces the notion that this is all a coma-induced dream.  One theory I read on the Outpost Gallifrey Forum states that Sam  has placed himself in his favourite television series in order to survive.  That Gene, Annie, Chris, Ray and Phyllis are all characters in a drama about the police in the early seventies.  Except, if this was the case and Sam is being the ultimate Mary Sue, where an author writes themselves into a story and solve the mystery to show how clever they are, why did the team at A-Division not fall to pieces when Sam collapsed.  They continued to act competently, solving the case and rescuing the two kidnapped women without the assistance of DI Tyler.  Yes I know Sam worked out that Graham Bathurst was innocent at the end of the episode by correctly identifying the oil found on the rag that had suffocated Charley Whitham, but that was the icing on the cake, if he were a Mary Sue, he would have woken up, rescued the women and then tap-danced in the police station.  I still think that Sam is in 1973 because his body is in a coma in 2006. That he is putting right the things that the original Sam Tyler did wrong before he can go home. However, because his real body is still in 2006, anything done to it will be telegraphed back to 1973, just as the good things he does back tehn postively affect the world he has been exiled from.

Lets be honest, at first there was nothing odd about Simon Lamb,  He appears to be an ordinary guy worried about his wife and child.  However, the seeds of doubt are cleverly laid  and the milky milky learing look he gives the girl on the bicycle at the end of the episode was  just dots the I’s and crosses the the T’s.  

Anyone who was a child in the seventies will be able to recite the fireman’s roll call from Trumpton and many of the other iconic images from the three children’s puppet series produced by Gordon Miller for the BBC between 1967 and 1969.  It was inevitable that they would turn up in Life on Mars somehow, and the site of Sam emerging from the musical box is just brilliant, and later him telling Gene Hunt to “stay out of Camberwick Green” is now my favourite moment from the entire series

The Annie/Sam relationship is developing nicely, although there is no way that it is going to end well.  What will happen when our Sam returns home.  Something will is bound to happen to make sure that their relatinship goes no further than professional friendship.

Stars:

5 out of 5