blue is the colour of four knocks

I've been chained to my desk again today and I'm just about to start my evening shift. I did take a short break for food and watched the Bowie base on Mars being attacked in Doctor Who.

But not by spiders. The Waters of Mars.

There were water based organisms that made people into smiling cracked faced Zombies.

The Thing meets Shaun of the Dead.

It was quite an enjoyable episode, with plenty of references to other movies. Silent Running's hydroponic garden, a rather cranky Meccano robot that could have been from Short Circuit or Wall-E. A joke about dog robots.

A colony with a chain of modules that looked like the main space ship from 2001 dug into the dirt.

Some blippiness in the soundtrack from 2001. Come to think of it, an 'open the pod bay door' kind of moment.

Some pulled back scenes that could have come from Thunderbirds.

Running through lots of empty hangers whilst talking about the cost of shipping bicycles to the planet. I was wondering how much metal there was in the apparently wasted space they had to run through. It would have made a lot of bikes. And shorter corridors.

There was also some good ensemble wobbliness in the first part. Kind of ancient Doctor Who acting. Wooden handshakes and a few long pauses. Like a live show where someone has almost forgotten their lines. I'm sure it was some kind of homage.
And the really cool ray guns and walky talkies, like something from Mars Attacks. Water pistols that fire death rays.

Of course, it turned into a proper story about moments in time. Fortunately, the Doctor has a perfect memory and could recall the exact web pages describing the doomed fate of the fledgling space colony.

Boom.

And he knew it was one of those moments, like Pompeii, that you are not supposed to change. Not even as a Time Lord.

So we moved from 'base under attack' to 'fatalistic ending - it has to explode'.

The Doctor should leave. But he hesitated in his special crash helmet and came back.

Maybe he could be a god and change everything? Even when he wasn't supposed to. Could he rule time?

Then we saw the countdown of the space station's inbuilt bomb. And how cool were those graphics? Someone had a lot of time on their hands to make the numbers look so interesting for people about to be blown up.

Of course, with a single leap, they escaped.

Kind of. We see a blue flash as the base captain kills herself (we assume!?) to reset time. The Doctor is clearly on the edge of going dark.

What finer than a snow bedecked setting for a few ghosts to appear and four knocks to sound the end of this particular Doctor?

We shall see.

At Christmas.

we both go down together

A tenuous set of links...

From yesterday's post - with Debra - who used to live in Amsterdam and has just returned from Portland, Oregon

To today, with a post of Colin Meloy from Portland, Oregon, performing a song in an elevator in Amsterdam.

To tomorrow, when I'll be somewhere in London seeing Colin and the rest of the Decemberists teaching about the Hazards of Love and other important things.

sparrow pits and dove holes

I'd never need an excuse to divert on travels through parts of the Peak District, but we were afforded an excellent opportunity on the way back from Manchester.

This was a result of being on the home patch of Debra, who writes a fine word, clicks defining photos and knows the best routes around plenty of high places.

Much better than my own navigational skills, which resulted in her needing a search party to guide my car to the right location.

Oops.

A visit complete with one of those conversations where we both know random additional things about one another from our on-line linkages. It's great to put more of the pieces together and share news in real time.

Hours whisked by, before leaving a countryside serenity to return south to my own particular hubbub.

andmoreagain

Sunday could also have a Thirteen I suppose.
1) We finally arrived in Manchester, later than planned, but in time for a good dinner with some fancy wine.
2) Being in the area around Piccadilly meant there was much noise and general partying into the night.
3) But somehow we managed to be around again in time for breakfast, which was served until a moderately realistic eleven o'clock.
4) Then to the city, with vague lists of early festive shopping, and several stores trying almost too hard with the music and spray tester fragrances.
5) Surprise good news whilst in the basement of one store, where we heard on fuzzy cellphone of the arrival of Henry, son to Kate and Neal.
6) Hooray for Scorpios.
7) Then by evening out to meet friends, swap papers and in my case be a supporter, whilst a certain pop star sang away in the Apollo.
8)Back in a new found friend's car to the hotel, where a real life drama involving paramedics and police was unfolding. We were asked to go into the bar, instead of past the thankfully well-assisted scene.
9) Quite a good plan for us, involving some pretty fine cocktails. Shaken and muddled.
10) Sometimes I think I am also shaken and muddled
11) Yet another blink and it was already Monday.
12) Creating planning and modest logistics for a thoroughly enjoyable detour into the countryside
13) And a whole other story...

or six.

Thursday Thirteen (V47)

I know its not Thursday and this probably won't be thirteen items, but hey.
1) I've spent since Thursday morning chained to a desk and was starting to think I haven't been doing much stuff in the last few days.
2) Then I realised I've probably been operating at a blur without somehow noticing.
3) SInce November started, there was my little rainy day trip to Edinburgh
4) And working in the South of France for almost a week - it was even sunny for most of the time.
5) Various nights in hotels and another one later today.
6) We've all been to a lovely restaurant to celebrate my birthday.

7) And several pubs and bars, including that one with the tree downstairs and all those twisty rooms.
8) I've been writing that NaNoWriMo thing for 2009.
9) My first book, "The Triangle" was launched at the Miami Book Fair
10) A few of us had a blast at The Comedy Club
11) I met a good friend for an evening, someone I haven't seen for about two years
12) I've been back and forth on the Tube system to various office meetings; I'm deciding that Jubilee is my most used line.
13) And later we pack for the weekend in Manchester.

working bluesky gone black

Its almost Friday as I write this and I'm wondering where the day has gone.

I feel as if I've sort of erratically orbited the planet, with a combination of conference calls with America, Malaysia and Central Europe.

It somehow disorientates the sense of time, with morning meetings when other people are just finishing their days and then much later sessions as different folk stir their breakfast coffees. I know I'm not the only one to have multiple time zones along the edge of my work calendar and have to do those EST-1 and CET+7 calculations when talking to people.

I've actually been working since daybreak and realised a few minutes ago that it was almost time to shut down for the evening.

A home-working day today, which I think I took too literally, somehow not noticing the changes from dark, to light to dark and the appearance of rain. In some ways I've been very connected today, but in other ways it can be very disorientating.

pay the fiddler off till I come back again

Now we've had Halloween, Guy Fawkes and a couple of days where the night has dipped into low single digits.

This year, November sunshine lingered around trees and leaves held resolutely in place. But now, wind's stern speeches and rain's applause cajole the change.

Only the early dark big moon evenings provide a real clue to the passing season.

I clear intruder rockets from the garden and curl my toes to anticipate the acceleration from November into the next year.

quiet time

Thanks for the varied greetings...I also managed a small amount of quiet time this morning by way of a birthday gift to myself.

I'd awoken at 6 o'clock in order to be in position for an early morning meeting, but before it all started I had time to take in the view above and pause a while, without even a phone call or email to send.

Later, at eleven, my busy office meeting also paused, for the two minute Armistice Day silence.

This year my birthday is on one of those cusps, half-way through a personal decade. Therefore, it's the start of a new range that marketeers use when they classify people in surveys. They claim it is supposed to be more tactful than starting ranges at the ten year boundaries.

If such classifications can ever be considered tactful.

I suppose, by their reckoning, I move into their start of a new category.

Junior again.

Spy kit

I suppose it was inevitable that someone would give me a spy kit at some point.

The brown illustrated paper bag included a reference card providing advice about handling various dangerous chemicals. There were two sticks of what I assumed to be bubble gum but was most emphatically told they had an entirely different purpose. Also a solar powered calculator with a reflective back.

I think the shine was so I could be rescued if stranded in the desert (Stay near the crashed plane and use something shiny to attract attention - don't start walking).

But probably the most important content, once I'd got past the orange triangular cut out and the two peg warning, was a ticket to see Lee Simpson and friends at the excellent and raucous Comedy Club - which we've secretly attended.

Incognito, of course.

action, camera, lights

So yesterday lunchtime was pretty chatter-filled as we heard of a few recent electrifying and superheroic events.

By the time we got to the indeterminate but possibly quince flavoured truffles with the coffee, we were all feeling somewhat full and perhaps a little boggle-eyed too.

I think the little man used as a logo by the restaurant is a sort of symbol of what may happen.

But that was just the beginning of our adventures as we then made our way towards the King's Road, finding the Trafalgar where we conversed whilst one of us travelled on a most extraordinary route to pick up a few items from a carrier bag.
We rendezvoused again at Sloane Square (I favour the fountain as a meeting point) and that led us into the evening section. Peter Jones was already Christmas bright, but the Sloane trees in their elevated positions on lamp-posts are not yet ablaze, unlike their more commercially minded cousins to the east in Oxford Circus and Regents Street.

fog bound in Soho

I may have to describe Sunday in stages. We'd started rather opulently in Chelsea and edged our way via a few stops and some zig-zags across into the west end. The man in the dark coat didn't seem very happy to see us arrive or leave the one pint underground drinking establishment.

Of course, we made up for it at the raucous club around the corner later.

This was the bit where we were in the alleyways around the back of Soho. It's before the freezing fog arrived. Oh, come think of it, that was after midnight, so technically it was already Monday.

competitive binding with Elisa

Writing "The Square" is proceeding quietly in the background - I really should count the words and add them into NaNoWriMo.

I had a sort of breakthrough today when I randomly introduced a new character. I needed someone to help me tie two story lines together and so I sat in a coffee shop talking to an Isreali scientist. She helped me make the connections.

It's worked brilliantly, because even parts of the story that I thought I understood are now different from the way I was planning to tell it.

The fascination for me is having these random characters parked around one's head and then having them reactivated. I can learn from my earlier foray with "The Triangle", but I'm starting to feel that "The Square" is getting its own good plotline which is being partly written by the characters.