The Journal of the Browncoat Cat

Written by Phil Ford
Directed by Alice Troughton
Starring: Elisabeth Sladen, Yasmine Paige, Tommy Knight, Daniel Anthony, Joseph Milson, Juliet Cowan, Alexander Armstrong.
Guest Cast: Paul Casey, Jimmy Vee, Ian Midlane, Martyn Ellis, Imogen Bain, Anton Thompson McCormick, Lachelle Carl 

1. Plot
Part 1:

A week* after defeating the his creators, the Bane, young Luke Smith is about to encounter the big wide world for the first time by starting at the local comprehensive school.  This is a big day for Maria as she is also her first day at this school.

Over the course of the summer holiday, the school has had a new state of the art science building constructed on its campus.  However, there is something odd about the building, it has a very strange smell and food in the canteen next to the building decays rapidly.

(more…)

This video appears on YouTube:

I don’t for one minute think that the Time Lords and Gallifrey were wiped out, and neither does the creator of that video.  I strongly believe, and so does the creator of the video that the Time Lords have hidden somewhere and have left the Doctor as a patsy, spreading the story that the Time Lords are no more, so that the most xenophobic race in the Cosmos can disappear.  After all, everyone believes the Doctor.

Is it me, or is the British food industry getting better at making yoghurt. Yoghurt first really started becoming popular when I was a child in the mid 1970’s. They used to be so sour, they would take my breath away. So for years I would not eat yoghurt at all. However, in recent years things seem to have got a lot better. Yoghurt still have a natural tartness, but the taste bud paralysing sour after-taste has gone. Maybe the quality of the bacterial cultures being used has improved over the past thirty years, maybe the quality of the milk going into the yogurt is a lot better than it used to be.

I really like the Muller yoghurt in square cartons with a portion of fruit purée or crunch biscuits in a separate section. I think that it was the introduction of this brand into the UK that saw an upturn in the quality of British yoghurt, as their product is nice enough to eat without adding the fruit. I get a very childish delight in watching the pristine white creamy yoghurt slowly turn pink as the fruit purée mixes in.

Today was an absolutely glorious day. So I headed of down to the caravan in Fontygary with Janet and my nephew James Mathew. It seems to me that we are having our summer now, in September. It always seems to be the same, the first couple of weeks after the big school summer holidays, when all the children are back in school, the weather is stunning, especially if the weather during the holiday was a bid bland. As if the weather is taking having a bit of a laugh at the the kiddies expense.

We left Treherbert at 11.20am and the traffic in the Rhondda was horrendous, so it took half an hour to get to out of the valley. Even the dreaded Culverhouse Cross roundabout was plain sailling compaired to the Valley traffic.
We stopped of at the Barry Tesco supermarket to get some supplies for the weekend. I bought myself a copy of KT Tunstall’s CD Eye to the Telescope which was on offer there. It is an album I have been meaning to buy for a while now, as I think KT Tunstall is a remarkably talented singer songwriter. I know she has a new CD out, and I will probably by that one as well, sooner or later. I am listening to the CD as I type this. (I am using the ScribeFire extension of Firefox to edit this entry, as there is no way of connecting this laptop to the Internet at the moment.)
After a drop of lunch, myself, Janet and James went for a swim. Well after we fished the caravan keys out of the rubbish skip, where they had been accidently deposited along with remnants of the meal. Not the most pleasant of jobs, but a nice long swim cheered me up.
There must have been an airshow at St. Athans today, as the peace of the afternoon was shattered At first I thought it was a plane coming in to land at Rhoose Airport, but it turned out to be RAF Red Arrows display team tearing through the sky in a “V” formation, with the coloured streamers from their exhausts.
Fish and chips from the Fontygary Fish and Chip Shop for tea tonight. An excellent piece of fresh haddock with a pile of very nice chips after watching what can only be described as road crash television, the auditions for this year’s X-Factor. There is a horrible fascination in watching all the delussional people making a fool of themselves on national television. In between all this dross, they show the acts that will eventually go through to the Live Shows, see how they are polished up from the rough acts at the auditions. That is what makes the Auditions worth watching.

Sunday dawned very grey, and there was an unpleasant nip in the air. It was very autumnal. After the previous day’s of gorgeous weather, it was a bit of a let down. Good job we were heading home early. Not surprisingly, in the three weeks since I was last at the caravan, the grass has shot up, as have the dandelions. Pernicious weeds that are edging out the grass. Andy brought the lawnmower down with him, so the weeds and the grass outside the caravan one last cut before the end of the summer. In the car on the way home, I couldn’t help but notice the amount of trees that have started to lose their leaves. At least 20% of the trees have started to go into twig mode, by the end of this week that figure will have passed the 50% level and it will be the autumn equinox and the dark half of the year will be well and truly upon the Northern Hemisphere.
Before we left the caravan park, the four of us had lunch in the Raj Kimura indian restaurant. At Sunday lunchtime this restaurant does an all you can eat buffet. A selection of starters, four different curries , various assortments and rice. I love indian food, and this is such a good selection of food spicy with a lovely flavour.

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http://showmescifi.com/2007/09/10/indiana-jones-and-the-kingdom-of-the-crystal-skull-a-scifi-fantasy/

So another wrinkle has been added to the “Why is Doctor Who the most popular drama the BBC currently produces taking a gap year?” mystery.  It appears that there will be a West End production of Hamlet starring Jude Law and directed by Kenneth Branagh from June 2009, and so the RSC production that David Tennant is starring in will transfer to the West End as soon as it closes in Stratford, and have a limited six to eight week run.  Resulting in David Tennant being free to return to the production of Doctor Who sooner than anyone imagined.    This means that the absence of the man who plays the Doctor is not a problem, as theoretically, they could filming in February and broadcast only a few months later than usual between July and September, with no need for the three Bank Holiday Only specials.

It has been pointed out on the Outpost Gallifrey Forums that the BBC simply does not bend to accomodate actors, it usually recasts.  Silent Witness was recast recently; back in the 1980’s despite star Jean Boht begging the BBC to cut a deal for two of her colleauges in the hit sitcom Bread, the roles were recast and the series was never the same afterwards; back in the 1970’s Jon Pertwee was reportedly replaced by Tom Baker in Doctor Who after he asked for in increase in pay.  So if it was not to accomodate the talent, why are we looking at a year with only one quarter of the usual new episodes of such a popular series?

One thing can be guarenteed, the BBC is answerable to the Licence Fee paying public for all its operational descisions, but does not have to say anything about its artistic descisions.  The reason for the Gap Year is obviously being classed as an artisitc descion and Aunty is keeping her secrrets to herself.

I am typing this article on the Thinkpad, whilst sitting in bed, with a pile of pillows propping  me  up.  All very luxurious you might say, except for one problem.  Despite the fact that the WiFi Broadband router is less that twenty feet awy, the signal is very poor, sometimes less than 25% and never more than 34%.  The reason for this is when I as having my house renovated, the walls in my bedrooms were lined with plasterboards that had a shiny metal cover on one side, to help with the insulation.  This was great for keeping me warm in the winter and for keeping my fuel bills low, but does not do my network any favours.  Of course, five years ago, the thought  that I might have a wireless network in my house was so far from reality, it just did not bare thinking about.

My mother’s reaction to the pilot episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures was that it reminded her of traditional Doctor Who from the original run of that series. Today CBBC announced that the BBC Wales production would be broadcast on Monday afternoons at 5pm from 24th September. Each story would have two episodes labeled “Part One” and “Part Two”, just like old fashioned Doctor Who. Each episode would run for 25 minutes, just like old fashioned Doctor Who. Finally, each story will be novelized into 150 page children’s novels, just like old fashioned Doctor Who. In other words, everything that the people who make Doctor Who know that they cannot do with that series. They knew that Doctor Who would have to be made in a format that fitted modern television in order for it to be a success. With The Sarah Jane Adventures, because it is on a chanel and at a time that needs far lower ratings to be a success, they can get away with making an old fashioned series to delight their collective fanboy hearts. And all the adult Doctor Who fans who love that series in its new modern format will also watch The Sarah Jane Adventures, because it will remind them of the Doctor Who they first fell in love with. It will be the single most recorded program in the history of CBBC, with all the adults recording it to watch later in the evening and enjoy a slice of nostalgia for the way television was when they were children.

The BBC has releases a series of very nice promotional pictures for the series:

The first features the ageless Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, former companion of the Doctor and Investigative Journalist who has set herself up as an investigator of all things alien, helping friendly visitors from outer space and dealing with the not so friendly. The next is Luke, played by Tommy Knight, the cloned child that Sarah Jane rescued from the Bane and later adopted. Third is Maria, played by Yasmin Paige, Sarah Janes’ new neighbour who has been drawn into SJS’ dangerous life. Finally the new character Clyde, played by Daniel Anthony, he is a new character who will be introduced in the first episode of the new series.

I have just bought myself a brand new technotoy. A shiny new 8Gb iPod Touch, strait from Apple. Once I saw the demo video on the Apple web site, I just could not resist. The main selling point is that as it has a touch sensitive screen, doing away with the buttons at the bottom, all the face is devoted to video, so whilst the screen is still frighteningly small, it is a lot better than any previous iPod. Another selling point is that it has built in WiFi, so I don’t need to worry about the fact that iTunes is not compatible with Linux, so not available on my PC. The iTunes store can be accessed through my wifi network, and it does not really matter if the files are in the AAC format, because I will have a device that can play them.

Also, I can have my name and postcode engraved on the back, so I can easily identify it.

Addendum:
I have just noticed an advert in one of the papers stating that the the Apple iPod Touch will not be shipped until 28th September. I will have to wait. Stil, I should be pretty high up on the waiting list, so it should arrive at some point in early October.

Like the Welsh, the Italians love good music.  To possess a good singing voice is seen as having the greatest of gifts.  There can be no doubt that Lucianno Pavarroti had a superlative singing voice and since his debut at Covent Garden in 1963 shared with the World the greatest gift of all. 

Luciano Pavarotti was a man of the people, believing good music should be enjoyed by all.  The choice by the BBC of his rendition of Puccinni’s Nessun Dorma as the theme music for the coverage of the 1990 FIFA World Cup united Pavaroti’s two great passion, Opera and Football.  As did the famous Three Tenors concert with Placido Domingo and José Carreras  before the World Cup Final in Rome, which saw worldwide sales of operatic recordings rocket.

His death today, from Pancreatic Cancer is a great tragedy.  However, thanks to modern recording technology, the Maestro’s magnificent voice will never die.

Luciano Pavarotti
1936 – 2007