The Journal of the Browncoat Cat

Written by: Guy Andrews (based on Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen)
Directed by: Dan Zeff
Produced by: Kate McKerell
Starring: Jemima Rooper, Eliot Cowan, Hugh Bonneville, Alex Kingston, Gemma Atherton, Morven Christie, Guy Henry, Tom Mison, Christina Cole, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Florence Hoath

1.Plot:
Amanda Price works in a bank, has a boring boyfriend and generally hates her life.To escape the monotony of the everyday world she reads Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice over and over again. So when Elizabeth Bennett appears in her bathroom, as large as life and just as animated, Amanda begins to think she is going mad. Things get considerably madder when Lizzie makes a second appearance in her bathroom and shows her a door into her own World, and then propels Amanda through it.

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I saw this clip on YouTube.  Created by the user Scarabaeidae and it is absolutely brilliant.

It is now 12.53am on 26th September, 2008.  It is hard to believe that exactly five years ago, the first news of the return of Doctor Who hit the Internet.  God, hasn’t the last half decade just flown by.

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Last night I went to the first lesson of a Welsh Course organised by the University of Glamorgan, at the CwmNi offices in Treherbert.  It has been over thirty years since I last tried to learn Welsh. That was back in Secondary School, when the ineptitude and narrow minded arrogance of the teacher in the first year of killed any interest in learning the language for over two  decades.  So from now until next June, on Tuesday and Thursday nights I will be attempting to learn Welsh.

Last night was the real basics, Yr Wyrodd (the Alphabet) , Prifau (Numbers)  and the  basic questions Pwy ‘ydych chi? (Who are you), to which the reply from me would be John ydw i (I am John).  Well, its a start.

Once again the BBC National Orchestra of Wales’ stirling work on Doctor Who will be showcased in November when Silva Screen Records release their now annual original soundtrack CD.  It has come to the point where I cannot imagine my favourite television series without the compositions of Murray Gold. The only tracks that are definitely announced, because they feature on  the cover artwork below, are the Song of Freedom and the extended orchestral version of The Doctor’s Theme. I love the new version of The Doctor’s Theme and it was my favourite piece in the recent Doctor Who Proms concert. I am really hoping that the Library Theme from the Steven Moffat two parter Silence in the Library/Forrest of the Dead will appear on this disc.

Doctor Who Series 4 Music CD

An Unwanted Welsh Poppy

The photograph on the left illustrates perfectly the difference Between a Weed and a flower.  This Welsh Poppy is growing outside Treherbert Branch Library, a few yards from where a similar Welsh Poppy bloomed earlier this summer.  The  plant in the picture, no matter how pretty it may be, is a weed, because it is growing where it is not wanted, and its roots will weaken the structure of the wall it is growing beside.  The Welsh Poppy in the garden by the library sign has now died back after a vigorous growing season and will hopefully be replaced by one of its off springs next summer. The plant in the photograph will not be so lucky. 

Even with seven weeks to go until the 2008 Presidential Election in the United States of America, I think that it is fair to say that campaign is already over.  Senator John McCain raised the white flag and surrendered the day that Barack Obama accepted the nomination from the Democratic Party.  Why, because that was the day that he announced Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska was his choice as candidate for the Vice President.  You see after eight years of Neo-Con Republicans,  McCain was as a bit of a change.  Yes he was still a Republican, but he was seen as being a bit of a maverick, less stridently right wing than Bush and closer to the centre than the right.  So all those Democrats who were afraid of Barack Obama’s percieved radicalism, all those Democrats who supported Hilary Rodham Clinton because she represented the slightly right of centre brand of politics espoused by the Democrcatic Party since her husband was President would have voted for McCain with a heavy heart.  As although he is a Republican,  he was closer to their way of thinking than Obama. With the announcement that the Vice President, if McCain were elected would be the most conservative Christian right wing person,  from the redest of red states,   ever  to hold that office office, all the wavering Democrats ran back home to mamma with their tails between their legs as it became obvious that nothing had really changed, the figurehead might have altered but government policy would remain the same.  Obama has the guarenteed support of the nation’s Democrats, all he needs to do now is persuade the more conservative waivers in the swing states that it really is time for a change.

Of course, I am not happy with the choice of Senator Joseph Biden as Obama’s running mate.  Joe “The Plaigiarist” Biden was forced out of the 1988 Democratic Primaries when it became apparent that he was liberally sprinkling his speeches with quotes from Neil Kinnock, who at the time was the leader of the British Labour Party, and not publicly  acknowleging Kinnock as the  source of his wisdom.  But appart from that, all that remains if for Obama to hold his nerve and not do anything really stupid, and victory is his.

Whilst David Tennant is busy playing the ill fated Prince of Denmark in Hamlet for the RSC, work continues on Doctor Who at its Upper Boat studios.  This is pre-production work for the four episodes to be broadcast in 2009.  However, as this is mostly behind the scenes preparatory work, with no flashy location filming, there is nothing solid to update.  There has however been a great deal of rumour and speculation doing the rounds as bored fans on the Doctor Who Forum try to find ways to spend the next 18 weeks until Christmas, when the next television instalment of  Doctor Who will be broadcast.

Paul McGann as Doctor#8 in 1996

The main focus of the rumour and speculation has been about whether or not the actor Paul McGann will return as Doctor#8 for one of the Specials next year. McGann only played the Doctor once on television, in 1996 abortive relaunch of the franchise.  Since then he has returned to the role on BBC Radio 7 and in the Big Finish audio dramas.   Then about a fortnight ago, the DWF user “The Doctor’s Trainers” said that he had been told that McGann would be back, however because of future work commitments he would be filming some of his scenes in eight weeks time. This would have meant that there would have been some filming at the Upper Boat Studios at the beginning of November. ”The Doctor’s Trainers” has a reputation on the  DWF for discovering and posting very accurate spoiler information about what is coming up in the series, so there was no reason to doubt the veracity of the story. Soon another regular poster on the DWF “72lf” chimed in with the news that his contacts at Upper Boat had told him that there was no truth in the rumour, that it was all wishful thinking by the fans.  Now in this new Golden Age for Doctor Who when it is once again one of Britain’s most popular televisions dramas, interest in the series from outside the ivory towers of Fandom is inevitable, and sure enough, the dubious daily tabloid, The Sun has published the rumoured return of Paul McGann as an exclusive news story.  Which of course set things on a higher level of debate, with the BBC unofficially denying that Paul McGann was due to return to Doctor Who.  I am of the opinion that Doctor#8 will not appear in one of the 2009 Specials.  Of course, whilst nobody believed the stories that Billie Piper’s character Rose Tyler would ever be seen in Doctor Who after her departure in Series Two [28], until she was seen filming on the streets of Cardiff last year, somehow I doubt that  I will be similarly surprised.  I’m afraid Paul McCann is not likely to be returning to the series

It is now just 18 weeks to Christmas.  Apparently the first edit of the Chrstmas Day episode has been put together, ready for the special effects and music to be added. The latest news regarding this year’s Christmas Day special is that it will be called The Other Doctor and will be losely based on the Big Finish Doctor#6 audio play The One Doctor.   In The One Doctor, Christopher Biggins played a conman  who would claim to be the Doctor, and after defeating  a fake alien invasion on a planet would then claim a hefty reward.  This  scam came a cropper when the fake Doctor meets the real Doctor. In the Christmas Special, David Morrissey is due to play the conman other Doctor and Viele Tshablala plays his assistant Rosita.  Their scam falls apart when the Cybermen arrive on Earth, and the conmen have to rely on the real Doctor has to bail them out.  It certainly sounds interesting, but I cannot quite equate this with what is already known about this story.  Filming took place in May in the city of Gloucester, which was doubling for Victorian London.  This seems like an odd place for an interplanetary conman to be working a scam involving alien invaders.

The next version of Ubuntu, 8.10, code named Intrepid Ibex, due to be released at the end of October will have the latest version of the Linux Kernel.  From what I had read online the new version of the Linux Kernel would have supports ACPI.  The lack of ACPI support is the reason the WIFI card in my laptop did not work under Ubuntu Linux. So I decided to upgrade my laptop to the latest Alpha pre-release version of Ubuntu 8.10 to find out if my WIFI card would finally work.  This is not my first experience of experimental software.  In the last days of me using RISC OS, I got used to running bug-ridden Alpha and Beta quality software that was no longer being developed, because that was all that was available as softward developers were abandoning the platform in droves.  As Ubuntu is being regularly updated, any bugs I encounter will be quickly squashed, which will be helped in a very small way by me sending of the automatic “Bug Reports” that my computer is generating every time something crashes.

So, I upgraded the laptop and there was no change in the Wifi Card status.  This is because I had not changed the Boot options in GRUB, so my system was still ignoring ACPI.  I rebooted with altered options and when I held down the FN key and pressed the F10 key, the little green LED flashed on, and the Gnome Network Manager found my home network with the built-in RTL8187b Wifi Card.  The only problem is it will not connect to the network, or my mother’s wifi network.  It appears to now have its ears on, but is refusing to listen.

On the plus side, I can now plug the Huwai E220 USB dongle for connecting to my T-Mobile 3G mobile internet account that I use whenever I am down the caravan in Fontygary, and it will connect first time, every time, as Intrepid Ibex now has a driver for this device built in that integrates seamlessly with the Gnome Network Manager.  Previously I had been using the version 2.0β of the Vodafone connection software for Linux, which was very hit and miss, mostly miss.

So on the whole I am happy with this version and cannot wait for 30th October when the finished release version is made available.