The Journal of the Browncoat Cat

So, having published one lot of twaddle about Doctor Who on Tuesday, today the infamous news-comic for the barely-literate, The Sun published an exclusive that the series was going to be cancelled in a year’s time when the entire cast and crew resign and move on to new projects.  This is utter crap.  It is true that Russell T. Davies and Phil Collinson will probably move on at the end of Series Four [30], as they will have been working on Doctor Who for five years, and that is an enormous chunk out of the career of anyone working in the media.  However, if the series is as popular in a twelve-month’s time as it is today, you can bet that the BBC will find people to replace them, and Doctor Who will continue.

I had a pleasant family trip to Brecon on Bank Holiday Monday. Brecon is about 30 miles north of Treherbert the other side of the Brecon Beacons Mountains on the northern border of the Brecon Beacons National Park. The town lies in the rolling countryside on the banks of the Usk. Regency architecture dominates the town centre, and most of the modern buildings tastefully blend in with their surroundings. The town is the centre of the diocese of Swansea and Brecon and was the headquarters of the South Wales Border Regiment of the British Army.

I cannot for the life of me understand why the modern Welsh name for Brecon is Aberhonddu? Surely Brecon is an Anglicisation of Brycheiniog, the old name for the county of Brecknockshire was Sir Brycheiniog, the Welsh name for the Brecon Beacons is Bannau Brycheiniog and the National Park is y Parc Cenedleaethol Bannau Brycheiniog. So, why Aberhonddu? I suspect that it is another Enwau Llygoden Micki.

We had planned on leaving early in the morning and spending the whole day in the town, but as the weather forecast had been so poor for the Bank Holiday had been so poor, we had decided to cut the trip down to an afternoon only. My sister Carolyn, her husband Gary and her two children lead the way in their Volvo, my Mother and I followed on in her car.

We all arrived at Brecon at 2.20pm and the first port of call was the Wellington Hotel for a bite to eat. Natuarally, as this was a Bank Holiday, we had to wait to be seated, this was no real hardship. We ordered our meal and drinks to go with it, a pint of Reverend James for myself, Diet Pepsi for the other adults and a Fruit Shoot for William. Martha was asleep and oblivious to all of this. My mother does not like ice and lemon in her cola, so asked for it plain, and so generated the first niggle, as when the four colas arrived with William’s Fruit Shoot, none of them had ice and lemon. Also, niggle number two my pint of beer was absent, which I pointed out to the waitress. Eventually after five minutes and no beer, I asked another waitress to find out what had happened to my beer, and another five minutes passed with no beer. Eventually the pint did turn up but this only emphasised how long we had to wait for our food. When the food, there was a pretty obvious error with my mother’s steak and ale pie, it was missing its puff pastry crust, also despite the fact Carolyn had ordered a jacket potato, her fish pie was accompanied with a portion of chips, so that also had to be returned to the kitchen. I had ordered the cajun grilled tuna, which arrived no problems, as did Wiliams childs portion of sausage and chips. We all enjoyed our meal once it finally arrived, except for Gary. His chicken curry looked as if it has been sitting in a saucepan all lunchtime and was dry. To be fair, the landlord of the Wellington did refund the price of our drinks from the final bill, but it was still a less than successful meal and I doubt if I will be eating there again if ever I visit Brecon. (Overall : C-)

William was incredibly well behaved during the meal, it was a long time for a four year old to sit waiting for food. So the first place we all visited after the meal was a toyshop. Whilst in there, I was naturally drawn to the Doctor Who action figures. Standing next to me was a ten year old boy, his mother and grandmother. The boy was having a great time looking at the various figures and identifying them, but his mother and granny looked as if they would have had more fun have their teeth pulled out. To my surprise the boy told his mother that the Ood action figure looked like the Master in the suit. I looked at him and thought “boy, you have got the bug real bad, haven’t you?” Whilst most ten year olds are highly enamoured by Doctor Who I doubt if many of them know who the Master is, although that will change by the end of this series.

The day ended with a trip to the Morrisons supermarket on the outskirts of town, where I stocked up on catfood for George amongst other things. Whist in the Morrisons, it started to rain, but this did not put a dampener on the day, as by the time we all rolled back into Treherbert, the weather had cleared up and a pleasant evening finished of an enjoyable bank holiday.

After weeks of arguing and failed deal making, Wales is still without effective government. Proof if proof be needed that Proportional Representation is poisonous to both good government and democracy. Last week, the opposition parties threatened to form a coalition government. What a horrendous thought. The most popular political party that won the election because it has has the largest block of seats in the Welsh Assembly (just one seat short of an overall majority) denied power because the three parties that lost would have formed what was dubbed a Rainbow Coalition. I had to wonder which party would have been Bungle, which would have been Zippy and which would have been George. (No, strike that Plaid Cymru would have to be Bungle, after their complete failure to do anything constructive when they took control of Rhondda Cynon Taff from Labour in the late 1990’s). Fortunately it all fell apart because they all wanted to be Geoffrey.

I will wait until the concluding part of this story before I write the full review. However, after last night’s superlative episode of Doctor Who I think it is fair to say that this story could well prove to be my favourite of Series Three [29].

The Sun, that well known newscomic for the semi-literate has an article in today’s edition that claims that Freema Agyeman has been sacked from the cast of Doctor Who and will be replaced at the beginning of Series Four [30].  I think that this story is a load of old bobbins, and that The Sunis trawling the various Internet forums devoted to Doctor Who and regurgitating what they find there.

Of course, companions come and companions go, it is only the Doctor who remains (and even he regenerates every so often), so Martha Jones will eventually return to her studies at the Royal Hope Hospital.  I just cannot see that happening any time before the beginning of Series Five [31].

One of the things that I miss the most from RISC OS was the superior email client that runs on it called Messenger Pro. After a month of running Evolution on Ubuntu, a came to the decision that I would have to buy a copy of Gemini the Linux/Windows version of Messenger Pro. This is one example where Proprietary wins out over Open Source.

This morning, a chap from the Council’s IT Department and a pair of BT engineers called into the library to do some work on the computer network. They noted a dreadful smell of gas in the boiler-room. So, an engineer from the Central Heating Maintenance company was dispatched, and he promptly condemned the boiler as unsafe and in desperate need of replacing. On the one this saddened me ever so slightly, as it was installed at roughly the same time as I started working for the Library Service 19 years ago. On the other hand, it has always been a rubbish boiler and the Central Heating has never been right in Treherbert Branch Library as long as I have worked there.

It broke down completely one bitterly cold and snowy November about ten years ago. So a Calor Gas heater was wheeled out of the staff room and behind the counter to keep me warm as he was off on his half day. The problem was that it was not a very good gas heater, and the library is a big old building with lots of window that gets cold very quickly and takes an eternity to warm back up again.  So I was sitting as close to it as safely possible, wearing a thick grey duffel coat over a warm arran sweater, shirt and vest and trousers, managing to stay just about warm enough. And then at roughly 2.30pm the Calor gas heater began to gutter and fizz as the last of the butane gas in the cylinder was burnt and I lost my only source of heat.  Despite the many many layers of clothing I  was wearing, I began to freeze.  I phoned Treorchy Library, which was then the Headquarters of the Library Service to inform them of the dire situation, and it transpired that the Acting Branch Librarian had not bothered to inform them that the central heating was up the spout.  I have never been so cold before in my life, and hope never to be as cold ever again.

Not that there being no central heating in the building is really a problem at the moment.  The one word that could be used to describe the weather at the moment is glorious.  Everybody is out in their summer finery, enjoying the bright sunshine and cobalt blue skies.  In fact it is too warm outside during the middle of the day, and the cool depths of the library is possibly the best place to be at the moment.

*Dai Central ‘Eating. 

In work today, we are issuing books and CDs that should be returned by 13-JUN-07.  In other words, it is now just three short weeks until my 40th Birthday.  God, I feel so old.

Written by:Chris Chibnall
Directed by:Graeme Harper
Starring:David Tennant, Freema Agyeman
Guest Cast: Michelle Collins, William Ash, Anthony Flanagan, Matthew Chambers, Vinette Robinson, Gary Powell, Rebecca Oldfield, Joshua Hill (voice only)
Adjoa Andoh, Elize du Toit

1. Plot
The Doctor has applied the same amount of jiggery pokery to Martha’s mobile phone as he once applied to Rose’s and it can no be used to phone any number anywhere in space and time. As he hands it back to Martha, the TARDIS picks up a distress call, and he sets the TARDIS in motion to answer it.

The find themselves aboard the SS Pentallian a cargoship that has lost all engine power and is about to fall into the sun. The chamber the TARDIS materialised in is part of the ship’s heat shielding system, and shortly after the Doctor and Martha leave it, the temperature within reaches over 300 degrees, making escape from the ship via the TARDIS impossible. The Doctor and Martha a trapped aboard the Pentallian with her crew.

(more…)

Today is the third anniversary of Arthur King of Time and Space web comic.  Paul Gadzikowski’s epic retelling over twenty five years of the legend of King Arthur in a daily comic strip.  I have been reading this web comic since day one and it is now part of my daily routine, as it is one of the first things I check out when I first get online each day.  Well congratulations Paul, three down, twenty two to go.