Yes, the latest version of my sad little piece of photographic image manipulation of what the new TARDIS team might look like. Except it has been stressed over and over again by the BBC that this is not what Karen Gillan’s as yet unnamed character will be wearing. Also it is only my guess at Matt Smith’s costume.
The BBC has just announced, on all its news broadcasts that 21 year old Scottish actress Karen Gillan has just been cast as the new companion in Doctor Who. Following the great tradition of recycling actresses who have previously appeared in the series, this is a return for the cute red-headed seeress who first spotted the TARDIS in ancient Pompeii in the Series Four [30] story The Fires of Pompeii. She will be joining Matt Smith who takes over as The Doctor in Series Five [31], which starts filming in July.
The Rumour that it was going to be an actress of Celtic extraction have proven to be true. Lets wait and see if the rumour that the character is going to be an Edwardian maid who gets mixed up in The Doctor’s adventures also prove to be true, and that unlike David Tennant, they let her keep her Scottish Accent.
Not surprisingly, the madness has started on the Doctor Who Forum. There is a suggestion that just because Karen Gillan is a red-head she must be a regenerated/rejuvenated Donna Noble, who has been cured of the life threatening Metachrysis and has been returned to her early twenties. I doubt that this is even remotely the case. Its also been suggested that Karen Gillan will be playing a younger versin of River Song, the character from Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead who might or might not be The Doctor’s future wife. I hope not, I really did not like the character of River Song, or River Smug as I call her. Of course this is all because “M” has given us so little to go on. BBC Wales has released only the actress’ name, in the RTD days, we would also have been told the character she would be playing’s name and a few titbits about her background.
Somebody has already been busy. You Tube user Lucky Tardis has put together this mock up of the title sequence if the current style is still used next year. However, rumour has it that this is not going to be the case, so this is probably the closest anyone will get to producing the Matt Smith credits in a form that we recognise.
A few months ago, I decided that I would like to go up to London and visit Saint Pauls Cathedral, in the heart of the City of London. Then to wander down to the River Thames, via the steps that the Cybermen marched down in the 1967 Doctor Who story The Invasion and then cross the Millennium Bridge. It is always better to travel in company than alone, and a number of my friends in the Cardiff SF group TIMELESS said it sounded like an interesting trip. So I had a bit of brainwave. I announced on Bablefish, the TIMELESS: Mailing List, that I would be heading up to London on 16th May, and issued an open invitation to those interested in joining me. This was going to be a semi-formal TIMELESS event, with everyone who would be joining me on the trip making their own travel arrangements then meeting up at one of two possible rendezvous, the first at Cardiff Central Station at 9am, for the 09:24 train to London Paddington and the second at 11.45am at the Statue of the Paddington Bear, ten minutes after the train arrived in London.
It was a pretty miserable start to the day up in Treherbert with low cloud and light rain. Fortunately the rain halted for long enough for me to get the first train of the day at 0747. As I am not a morning person, I had a bit of a snooze on the train down, and when I woke up after the train had left Cathays station, my friend Tim had joined the train and was sitting opposite me. We were slightly thrown by the timetable poster on the platform, it said that the train would be arriving in London at 1232, a full hour later than planned. This struck me as odd, as the train take just under an hour to get to Bristol Parkway Station and from there it is only just over an hour to London Paddington Station. However, once aboard the train, it was soon apparent that it would be arriving in London at 1136, and we would not have to alter our plans significantly.
One of the drawbacks of independent travel arrangements is that myself and Tim were in different carriages in the Standard accommodation on the train. I was also in the Luddite monstrosity, the Quiet Carriage. As I was feeling a bit decadent, I found where Tim was sitting and suggested that we headed to the back of the train where the First Class was located that morning, and upgrade with a Weekend First supplement. Plush carpet, and comfortable reclining leather seat, is this how the other half live? No, only how they travel. Although by booking my tickets so far in advance (two singles tickets for there and back) , even after paying this suppliment, my fare was still less a Standard Return Ticket. This is a crazy way to run a rail network.
Please Look After This Bear
London Paddington has changed a lot since I last passed through it. The concourse is considerably fuller than I remembered, with more shops and restaurants. I am not exactly sure if busier does mean better.
Shortly after I arrived at Paddington, I noticed a woman at the counter of a café dressed so immaculately in the style of the 1950’s, I was expecting her to pull a ten bob note out of her purse to pay for the chocolate bar she was buying. Hair, make-up, dress and accessories, all perfect.
Tim and I met up first of all with Andy Grant who had travelled up to London by coach and then by Sharon and Jonathan “Jonjo” Lewis-Jones who had come down from Cambridge for the day. Ian Golden and his fiancée Sian were already up in London, as they had been to see the latest production of Oliver the previous evening, and we were meeting them at Notting Hill Gate. This should have been a two stop trip on the District Line, however as the Circle Line was closed for engineering work, we all assumed the District Line was too, so we went the long way around, the Bakerloo Line to Oxford Circus and then the Central Line to Notting Hill Gate. Which is why once I got out of the tube station in Notting Hill and could receive a signal, I was bombarded by a string of plaintive texts from Ian asking where the hell we all were. D’Oh!
Then another tube journey, back to Oxford Circus, as we all decided that before we went any further, we would have lunch in the delightfully gothic Ben Crouches Tavern, just of Oxford Street, for lunch. This is a theme pub, the sort of establishment that I would normally avoid. However, the theme fits so well with the architecture and layout of the pub, it definitely adds to the ambience.
This year sees the tenth anniversary of Sharon and Jonjo moving to live in Cambridge. I found this fact hard to believe until Sharon described a what in Wales would be seen as no more than a minor shower as “bucketing down” and Jonjo agreeing with her. This was a cue for some light hearted banter about them having lived in the East of this island for far to long.
The Cathedral Church of Saint Paul
And so off to St. Pauls Cathedral. Seat of the Bishop of London, the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul stands on the highest point in the City of London. The Seventeenth Century baroque masterpiece was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and replaced the medieval cathedral destroyed by the Great Fire of London. Inside the great dome, Wren built a Whispering Gallery, where because of the way the soundwaves bounce of the internal parabola of the dome, it is possible to hear what someone is saying in a whisper on the other side of the dome. The plan had been to go up to the Whispering Gallery, unfortunately the Diocese of London has seen fit to introduce an entry fee to the cathedral. I strongly objected to paying £11 to enter a church, no matter how grand it may be. Quite apart from the fact it is a place of worship, and should be free for all to enter anyway, the Church of England earned £160 million last year from all the property and share portfolio it owns that the Church Commission manages for it. More than enough to keep the Cathedral open to all at al times and not just during services.
So we all remained outside the cathedral. I wanted a group photograph and suggested that we ask a stranger to take one in my camera. Sharon pointed out that there was a risk that the person asked might run off with my camera. That is why I always ask someone with a better camera than me to take the photo, because a) they already have a camera and would not want to steal mine, b) they are probably a better photographer than I am and c) When they ask me to return the favour I get the chance to use better photographic equipment than I could afford. Although having asked someone to take the photo, I then had to force Jonjo into the frame. It was well worth it in the end though.
Back Row L to R : Tim, Ian, Me, Jonjo | Front Row L to R : Sharon, Sian, Andy
Invasion 1968
Invasion 2009
The famous image of Cybermen marching down to the Thames from the 1968 classic Doctor Who story The Invasion is now impossible to duplicate, because that tha particular flight of steps are not there anymore, as a more user friendly ramp was put in their place in the 1990’s. The nearest I could get was of four of our group standing in a line on the northern end of the Millennium Bridge. So we crossed the Thames from the City of London to the London Borough of Southwark and made our way to the reconstruction of the Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.
At this point Sian and Ian left to fulfil prior arrangements and the remainder of the group struck out westwards along the Albert Embankment towards the London Eye and County Hall. There was a fascinating exhibition of photographs of Polish Wildlife on the Riverside Walkway entitled Wild Poland. It was here that I cemented my position as TIMELESS: Trivia King, if there was any doubt, by pointing city on the map of Poland on one of the boards and asking Sharon and Tim how they thought they should pronounce the name Łodz? They assumed it was Lods, and I said that the correct Polish way to pronounce it was “Woodge”. In the background I heard someone with a strong Polish accent say “Yes, that is correct.” Well, it made me feel smug.
The Thames is tidal at Westminter, and on the beach infront of the Albert Embankment a group of artists had scuplted some amazing peices of artwork in the sand. I thought their sculptures definitely deserved a donation to their charity. It is a good job that the buckets used for collecting the donations were sitting on large white sheets, as so many coins missed the buckets and would have disappeared into the sand. As I discovered, even standing directly over the bucket and dropping it was no guarentee, as a strong gust of wind might alter the coin’s trajectory.
Possibly one of the weirdest things I have seen in a long time were a pair of performance artists dressed as brightly coloured iguanas on exercise bikes just to the east of County Hall. If anyone put money in their tins, they would pedal like crazy, otherwise they just sat there as still as statues. The green iguana was accompanied by an iguna child, which was a very well put together puppet that peddaled in unison with its parent. Not surprisingly, this pair had generated quite a crowd of onlookers.
Anyway, after a wander around the shops in Gabrielle’s Wharf, a visit to the Taken by Storm Exhibition at the the.gallery@oxo in the basement of the OXO Tower and the books in the second hand book market under the bridge, we arrived at the London Eye and County Hall, which is now home of the Movieum of London, a museum of film and television memorabilia. This was well worth the entrance fee, a gem of a museum and something the comes close to filling the sadly missed Museum of the Moving Image. As well as film memorabilia there were pictures of The Beatles from the Getty Archive on display, and a very good copy of Roy Lichtenstein’s iconic painting Whaam! for sale. If the group had gone into the Tate Modern as well this afternoon, then we would have seen both the original and the copy.
Whaam!
It is becoming a TIMELESS tradition that someone gets separated from the group at a Tube Station. Thirteen years ago (dear God, is it really that long ago) Tim got separated from myself and Jonjo when we went to see The Science of Star Trek exhibition in the Science Museum. This time around Andy seemed to vanish at Embankment Station. Everybody assumed that he would catch us up at Paddington, so we were all amazed to see him waiting for us on the concourse of the Station.
So the day drew to a close. Myself and Andy Grant visited the Yo! Sushi on Paddington Station. Yes I know it is more expensive than any other Yo! Sushi kaiten in London, but it was a few minutes walk from where our train home would be departing from, so we were well prepared to pay the premium for our raw fish and pickled rice. After we had eaten our fill of Japanese fast food, there was time for a pint in the Mad Monk and Bear pub on the Station.
Plans are already forming for another TIMELESS: Away Day in November. Again visiting London, but this time taking in a museum such as the V&A in Kensington, at the beginning of November. This would be just after the Christmas Lights go on in Oxford Street and Regent Street, and before the shops get too full of Christmas Shoppers.
On the whole, it was a brilliant day out.
Apparently yesterday, principle photography on the last of the Doctor Who 2009 Specials wrapped at the BBC Upper Boat Studios near Pontypridd. Seemlessly the Russell T. Davies Era came to an end and the new and new and shiny Steven Moffat Era began. Although it is still seven months until he regenerates on screen, David Tennant is no longer The Doctor, that honour is now held by Matt Smith.
The Kings are Dead! Long live the Kings.
Except of course, there will be no real change in the series. It is so successful at the moment, that the BBC would be mad to let anyone change it to radically. There is going to be a lot of disappointed wailing from the Cult of Demnos next March, when the Matt Smith/Steven Moffat series debuts. All those sad fools who think that “M” is going to reverse everything that RTD had done to make the series so popular, making it the dull and worthy series that they want to see, are going to be badly disappointed. Oh dear, what a shame, never mind.
Produced by J. J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof and Bryan Burk
Directed by J. J. Abrams
Written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Leonard Nimoy, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Zoë Saldana, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Eric Bana, Ben Cross, Bruce Greenwood and Winona Ryder.
1. Plot:
A massive alien vessel destroys the USS Kelvin. The bravery of its acting captain George Kirk allows the entire crew of the Kelvin to evacuate the striken Starfleet vessel. Before he dies, Kirk hears the newborn cries of his son, who grows into a very troubled young man.
On the planet Vulcan, Spock, the son of the former Vulcan ambassador to Earth faces constant taunts because he has a human mother. Insulting her is the only thing that can cause him to show any sort of emotional response.
The young James T. Kirk has been persuaded to join Starfleet. As a gifted young cadet he is due to graduate from the Starfleet Academy a year early. He has been suspended after cheating one of the final year’s key examinations, the Kobi Ashi Maru Test. Before any action can be taken against him a distress message is received from the planet Vulcan.
With the rest of Starfleet busy in the Laurentian System, the final year cadets are assigned to seven vessels and sent to aid Vulcan. The brightest and the best are assigned to the new flagship of the fleet, USS 1701, the starship Enterprise, under the command of Captain Christopher Pike. Kirk is smuggled aboard the Enterprise by his friend Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy. He realizes that whatever destroyed the USS Kelvin 25 years earlier had returned. Suitably forewarned, the Enterprise avoids the fate of the other ships in the armada but is still heavily damaged by Nero’s ship. Captain Pike is ordered to report to Nero, or see his ship destroyed. Before he is captured, Pike makes Kirk the acting First Officer aboard the Enterprise.
The planet Vulcan is destroyed by a weapon that created a blackhole in the planet’s core. Nero now heads of to his next target, Earth.
Spock rescued his father Sarek from Vulcan, but failed to rescue his beloved mother. He maroons Kirk on the surface of a hostile ice planet. He meets a much older version of Spock, who tells him that history has been subtly altered. Spock take Kirk to the nearest Starfleet base, where he meets Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott. Scotty uses an unconventional adaptation he has been developing to the Transporter system to beam himself and Kirk back onboard the Enterprise. He persuades Spock that, even for a Vulcan, the destruction of his homeworld is affecting his judgement and assumes command of the Enterprise and sets out to save the Earth and rescue Captain Pike.
2. Thoughts:
The notion of going back and seeing how the original crew got together is not new, even the Great Bird himself, Gene Roddenbury talked about doing this as a TV mini-series back in the 1970’s. It had been suggested as the basis for at least three of Star Trek movies in the ’80’s. However I really think that now was the right time to make this movie. There had been no new Star Trek for nearly half a decade, it had been five years since the cancelation of Star Trek: Enterprise in 2004, and the disappointing film Star Trek X: Nemesis released in 2002 is a distant memory. Now was the ideal time for the Franchise to return to its roots.
The parallel between the 2005 relaunch of Doctor Who are clear. Russell T. Davies is a life-long fan that knew what to keep from Doctor Who’s past and what to jettison to make that series a success. Likewise Orci and Kurtzman are self-confessed Trekkies, and Abrams loves the original series of Star Trek. They had already successfully rebooted the other Desilu classic from the 196o’s Mission: Impossible as a successful movie franchise starring Tom Cruise. With their proven track record of effectively honouring the past without being stuck in it, they were bound to succeed.
The film is a few minutes over two hours long, but it does not drag at any point. It has so much to get through, as for forty years we have known all about who Kirk, Spock, McCoy and all the others areaboard the Enterprise, but we did not know who they were before they arrived on the ship. I do however have some problems with the character of James T. Kirk. Modern military academies have all sorts of psychological tests and assessments that potential cadets have to undergo before even begining their training, surely the Starfleet Acadamy of the Twenty Third Century would have similar tests. The military really do not want to put nut jobs in positions of authority, and anyone who could perform the sort of stupid Thelma and Louise style stunt that the adolecent Kirk pulls with the vintage car proves that that young man was three stops short of Dagenham, and would not be allowed into any contemporary officer training acadamy, and should not ahve been allowed into Starfleet. It appears however, that Starfleet is run by the strongest force in the Universe, Nepotism, as just being a starship captain’s son is enough to gloss over even the most glaring of defects.
This movie also explains how the Vulcan’s changed from the unspeakably arrogant species that they were in Star Trek: Enterprise into a race that was described as “The Lapdogs of the Federation” in Star Trek V. Of course, this film does seriously alter the accepted Star Trek future history, and now the episode Amok Time and large chunks of the beginning of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home cannot possibly have happened, as Vulcan just isn’t there any more.
Recasting of such iconic characters is very hit and miss:
The on going trend of the past two decades has been the rebooting of classic television series for the new millennium. This has always been a hit or miss process. For every Mission: Impossible there has been a Get Smart, for every Doctor Who there has been a Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). It has to be said that J. J. Abrams re-imaging of Star Trek is definitely one of the successful reboots.
3. Stars:
5 out of 5
Last year I bought some miniature fruit trees that I planted in large pots to sit and decorate my patio. Two apple trees and one pear tree that would grow into neat fruitbearing columns. One of the trees died, and as I had lost the little markers that named the varieties, I was not really sure which it was. I have just replaced it with another apple tree. With luck I still have two apples and a pear, but I will not be excessively upset if I end up with three different varieties of of apples. Not that I will have fruit for a while yet. The older trees are still too young to be allowed to produce fruit, they will be blossom only this year. And I cannot say that I have been overwhelmed with apple blossom this year. Only one spur of blossom on the taller of the two older trees, with four flowers on the spur.
I have just finished reading The Seeress of Kell, the fifth and final novel in The Mallorean. I enjoyed it as much as The Belgariad, the series that preceded it. Next I plan to read the two prequel novels that David Eddings wrote with his wife Leigh, (although I suspect she had a great deal of influence on the two series). The world created by Eddings was wonderfully rich and colourful, there are so many nice details that I would like to explore in greater detail, but which were quickly brushed over as the main quest that the series progressed. I will be sorry to leave this intricate setting once I finish the two prequels. because the Eddings left a couple of dangling lose ends that I would like to see tied up.
The first thing is what happened to the Serf’s revolt in Arendia. Mandorallan, the Baron of Vo Mandor took a huge step at the end of The Seeress of Kells to start a change of attitude amongst the nobility of Arendia, to try and end the constant bickering and warfare that beset it. But the whole society was based on feudal servitude, and the peasants want some serious change and nobody seems to be listening to them. In thef The Belgariad many serfs went off to join Ce’Nedra’s army and saw a whole new world in the run up and aftermath of the battle of Thull Mardu. Many must have opened their eyes to how poor the quality of their lives was. Add in the fact that at the start of The Mallorean it was stated that the Grolim Naradaz was stirring up open revolt amongst the serfs, that must have had consequences for the whole of Arendia. Finally, what affect on Arendish society will the discovery of the Dalsian Mimbrates have, as they long ago abolished serfdom, but still manage to maintain the way of life that any Arend would easily recognise.
Another thing that bothers me is the geography of this World. Thanks to the divine intervention of the mad god Torak, the landmass of the world was split into two major continents:
If this truly the case, where is the big empty continent equivelant to the Americas? Barak and his friends sail all the way down the coast of “The West”, rounding the tip of southern Cthol Murgos and across the Sea of the East to get to Mallorea. If this is really a psuedo-medieval culture that has accepted that the fact their world is a globe, then why didn’t Barak simply strike out across the Sea of the West until he reached the east coast of Mallorea? If it were my fantasy world, then there would be a third (second pre-Torak) hidden continent, that the Twin Prophesies prevented the inhabitants of the world knowing about on a concious level. That the reason Barak, and later King Ahreg went the long way round was that they did not want to go near the hidden continent. With the two prophesies resolved, the missing continent would become visable in a third fantasy series, that would the effect of exloring and settling this continent had on the world of the Alorns and the Angaraks.
Its been over a week since I upgraded, my two PCs, laptop and desktop respectively to the latest version of the GNU/Linux distribution Ubuntu. Version 9.04 aka Jaunty Jackalope was released on 23rd April with the usual broohaha.
Downloading the upgrade via the Upgrade Manager was much quicker than for previous upgrades, and the whole process was fast and efficient. This is the first time that I have upgraded any of my computers without there being a major compatibility issue with a piece of software that I absolutely have to use. I still think that I might have done something wrong, and something will come crashing down around my ears. It cannot really have been that simple, can it?
Mark Shuttleworth, the overall leader of the Ubuntu Linux project stated that the main aim for this version of Ubuntu Linux was to speed up booting up process of computer using Ubuntu Linux, reducing the amount of time it takes from switching on a PC to get a working desktop environment. As I see it, this aim has been acheived in spades. It used to take about two minutes to get to an usable desktop with previous versions of Ubuntu Linux. I can now get there in in about 45 seconds, quite an improvement.
The change that appeals to me the most is in the Shutdown dialogue box. In the past, after selecting this, the computer would sit there waiting until you either selected the “Shutdown” or “Cancel” option. If I was in a hurry, I had been known to leave the computer on, in this anticipatory state. With this version of Ubuntu Linux, if no response is made to this dialogue box after a minute, the machine will shutdown automatically. Which I think is a great improvement.
As with most regular updates on the regular six month schedule, most of the changes are under the bonnet. The latest version of the Linux Kernel is now driving the operating system, and the desktop on standard Ubuntu is powered by the latest version of Gnome. OpenOffice 3 is now the default version of the productivity suite, and Firefox 3’s latest release provides the web browser.
The only problem I seem to have encountered was with YouTube and the BBC iPlayer, which were refusing work with the latest version. Although after re-installing access to the Medibuntu repositories, the latest updage from the Upgrade Manager seem to have solved these problems.
Not happy to rest on their laurels, version 9.10 Karmic Koala is now being worked on by the Ubuntu development team. With more improvements to the bootstrapping system.
Theme: TheBuckmaker.com Wordpress Themes | Gehaltskonto ohne Spesen, Free Mixed-Tape
