The Journal of the Browncoat Cat

Ten days ago, my baby niece Martha was a year old. She wont be a baby for much longer. She is crawling everywhere and is desperately trying to find her feet. Soon she will be a toddler, walking and talking. At the moment, she still sounds like a baby, especially lunchtime yesterday, when the combination of teething and eczema made her cry inconsolably. There is something melodic about the way a baby cries that even small children can not emulate. It is like music, and it is the saddest music in the World because you cannot find out why the baby is crying, because crying is its only means of communication. I suppose it is an evolutionary thing; human babies have evolved a way to make a sound that no normal human adult could possibly ignore.

On The Doctor Who Forum (that used to be the Outpost Gallifrey Forum) somebody started a thread stating that they had heard from a very reliable source that Steven Moffat was definitely taking over as the Executive Producer/Head Writer on Doctor Who after the 2010 series had been broadcast. However, the BBC would neither confirm nor deny this until closer to the time when the handover occurs. I am very dubious about this, whenever I have seen Mr. Moffat talking about his career and in every interview with him that I have read, he makes it quite clear that he prefers working on things he has created himself and writing the occasional Doctor Who story is the only exception. So I think it is highly unlikely that he would want to concentrate all his talents on a series that was created by a committee back in 1963.

However, the thing that amazed me about the thread was one contributor who claimed that “Not even Steven Moffat could undo the damage done to Doctor Who by Russell T. Davies” . What!? Is the sky pink where this person lives. Bringing a moribund concept back from the dead and turning it into the most popular drama on British television can in no way be described as damaging Doctor Who.  Having two successful series, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures spun-off from Doctor Who is not incurable harm to the series. So where this idiot, because idiot is the mildest thing I can call him, gets the idea that Doctor Who is damaged beyond repair from is beyond me. He is definitely diverging from reality. The thing is, Doctor Who fans are a rum bunch. They have a notion of how to make perfect Doctor Who and whenever the production team deviate from that notion, then it is the end of the World. This fool is probably cheesed of because Russell T. Davies has been making Doctor Who for the twenty first century, and he feels it should still be made the way he thinks Phil and Bob did it back in 1975.

Whilst I am on the subject of fan perceptions diverging from reality, lets kill another sacred cow. The Fans did nothing to bring the series back in 2005. The announcement of the return of Doctor Who had nothing to do with the Fans “keeping the flame alight” by buying the merchandise and campaigning. Anyone who thinks buying a series of books that was increasingly disappearing up its own bottom, a magazine that was starting to repeat itself for the fifth or sixth time or Big Finish’s  faux-of-the-tv-recordings audio plays helped to keep Doctor Who in the eye of the people who run the BBC is deluding himself (I say himself because before 2005, Fandom was almost exclusively male). The announcement  made on 26th September, 2003, was the product of a cold assessment of what the BBC needed to regain its traditional control over Saturday Night television. Steely eyed professionals saw a series that had once been popular and might be popular again. The fact that the people making the show are all Fans is a happy coincidence. Yes they are fans, but they knew that the reason the series died a death in the late 1980’s was because the show tried to please only the Fans, and they knew that they had to make as show that pleased the general audience first and the Fans second, just like Phil and Bob really did it back in 1975.

Anyway, back to the topic of Russell T. Davies’ departure from the top job. It wont happen until at least 2010 as he has said that he is staying on for the 2009 Specials and maybe longer. Also, I suspect that when Russell T. Davies does decide to move on, it is a racing certainty that his replacement as Executive Producer/Head Writer will not be Steven Moffat, Chris Chibnell, Matthew Graham or any of the other names mentioned by the Fans. It will be be a professional television writer who had had very little previous connection with the series. I said as much on one of the threads on The Doctor Who Forum, pulling the name Heidi Thomas from the hat because:

• She created Lillies, taking it from concept to finished series
• She has experience as an Executive Producer on Lillies
• She is a well respected writer who has created scripts for many popular series.
• She has worked with new Head of Drama at BBC Wales and incoming Doctor Who Executive Producer Piers Wenger on Granada’s recent successful adaptation of Noel Streetfield’s Ballet Shoes for the BBC.
• Is just the sort of non-fan breath of fresh air the series would need after the departure of Russell T. Davies.

The Sarah Jane Adventures have been commissioned for a second series, so I would not be at all surprised if Ms. Thomas is not asked to write a script for that series, or maybe even a script for the third series of Torchwood next year, followed by a two parter for Doctor Who Series Five in 2009 for broadcast in 2010. Although, to be perfectly honest I have no idea whether or not she is a fan of the series so the last point is just conjecture. As I said, this is just an educated guess, so if she does get the job, then you will be as gob-smacked as every other Doctor Who fan in the World.

The trailer for the fourth Indiana Jones romp, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crstal Skull has been released. Am I excited? Silly question. I hope that it gets a simultaneous Worldwide release on 22nd May, 2008.

Week-3

So tonight was my final slot on Radio CwmNi 87.8FM. I was really wondering what I would be able to say this week, as there were no interesting new programmes left to talk about. I normally hand in a bulleted list of points as a briefing sheet, for Byron the presenter of the show my slot is part of, on a Monday lunchtime. Unfortunately, Monday Lunchtime came and went and I still did not have anything to say. So after watching The Palace at my mother’s house, I was scanning through the EPG on her SKY+ and noticed that Neighbours was no longer on at 5.30pm, that it had been replaced by The Weakest Link. Inspiration struck. I head back home and by midnight I had something that I could give to Byron in advance of the show. You see, as this is the last slot until Radio CwmNi 87.8FM goes back on air, and as in the first slot I talked about the return of the classic ITN News at Ten, I thought I would talk about shows that were leaving production or moving to a new home. This slot would be the entitled The Long Goodbye. I did some research about Grange Hill which has been cancelled after 30 years, Neighbours which is moving from BBC ONE to Channel Five, and The Weakest Link which has moved to BBC ONE to fill the gap left by Neighbours before the BBC Six O’Clock News. I even dredged up a very silly conspiracy theory about the cancellation of Grange Hill to spice thing up, but that was not needed.

Week 4

And right at the end of the slot, I managed to get a plug in for TIMELESS.

I have only one thing to say to the people who voted to keep Tony Lewis who performs as a tribute act to Robbie Williams in the BBC reality show The One and Only… And that is:

Get Real You Muppets!

He was terrible this week, sounded nothing like Robbie Williams.  He might have had all the moves, but he looked like Robbie after an overdose of meat pies.

Well, at least the rubbish Tom Jones tribute act Simon Archer got the Spanish Archer this week.  However, sending Siam Hurlock, who I tipped to win as Diana Ross home was a travesty.

This Christmas, as part of the annual cheese board, the family sampled Shropshire Blue. This is a delicious blue veined cheese made from pasteurised Cows Milk dyed orange by the addition of the vegetable dye Annatto, that is processed by the addition of vegetable Renate and the veined by the Penicillium Roquefortii fungus. Despite its name, it has bugger all to do with the English county of Shropshire, as this cheese was invented in a Scottish creamery back in the 1970’s and given its name by the marketing men.

You can’t escape the fact that the colour of the body of the cheese is pretty unusual. Most blue veined cheese I have seen like Danish Blue, Stilton or Gorgonzola are creamy white. The orangey yellow of this cheese was quite startling, and it certainly did emphasise the blue veining. It also had a very pleasant creamy texture. As for flavour, I thought it was sharper than Stilton, with a slightly acid bite that complemented the flavour from the veining.

I especially like the cheese crumbled on salad sandwiches, or sliced on rings of fresh baguette style French bread. Definitely a cheese I will be buying again.