Monthly Archives: February 2012
We want information
“Numberjacks is quietly creepy. There is something frightening about it, for all the offbeat slapstick. For one thing, there are numerous periods of quiet and silence and several pregnant pauses – an almost languid pace in today’s heady world of fast cuts and rapid plot development. For another thing, the villains are downright sinister. There’s Spooky Spoon, a shrieking anthropomorphic baking implement; the slimy freshly-picked-bogey that is the Problem Blob, and the calm, Simon Pegg-like Puzzler. Then there’s the Numbertaker, who looks like Simon Day from The Fast Show, dressed up for a cult funeral where everyone wears white. Even the Numberjacks themselves are a little bit freakish.”
Dalek Cake
Having just been trawling through the archives looking for photos for my new blog, I found this: My wife’s made many fantastic cakes over the years, but I think this one may top them all…
If Swiss Toni were the Doctor
“You know, Paul, being a Time Lord is a lot like making love to a beautiful woman…”
Strangers in a strange land
“Tthrough circumstances I can’t remember – probably a sale – I wind up acquiring both Fur and Gold and its follow-up, Two Suns. Both have their merits, although it’s the latter that I prefer, feeling as it does like the album Natasha Khan wanted to make first time around. There’s less tinkly piano and more use of synths (God, she’s even *developing* like Kate Bush). There’s a schizophrenic theme running through, or at least an alter ego. It’s a crazy, mixed-up record. I play it, and I play it again, and then again. One song in particular, ‘Two Planets’, makes me sit up: its bold percussive texture, omitting the crucial bass line and not suffering as a result, is extraordinarily reminiscent of key tracks from Hounds of Love (a record we’ll come back to in a few weeks). And the very first time I hear this, driving home from work, I am suddenly struck by a flood of images from Doctor Who.”
Up Pompeii
“Volcano Day”, courtesy of Joshua. The brown things chasing the Doctor are werewolves and the green thing on the top is the Absorbaloff. There is a Dalek there as well if you look.
From the Archives #5
Tuesday, January 11th 2011 “No wonder I can’t clean this wall properly. This isn’t pencil, it’s a crack.” “Ah.” “That’s funny, it seems to be glowing. I hope neither of our two children find this.” “Two? Don’t you mean one?” “What was that? Listen, I wanted to talk to you while we’re both here. We’ve [...]
The Gold Road
“Have you noticed the bear hugs? There are a lot. I mean an awful lot. There are comedy hugs, unnecessary hugs, farewell hugs laced with dramatic irony, bittersweet hugs, hugs that you really want to see develop into something else and hugs that you frankly didn’t want to see at all (Jack? I’m looking at you. Now sit down and put it away). Doctor Who has become very dark over the years, but there are moments of light and fluffiness, and when you put them all together it’s a bit like chomping through an economy size bag of Haribo: over in a flash, because they’re so compulsively moreish, but you feel sick afterwards.”
Lego garden party
It may be winter outside. But in my heart it’s midsummer. Here’s what we did with our afternoon. (Rarely do I post the same thing in more than one blog, but tonight I’m making an exception.)
Dalek Zippy
The funny thing about the ‘Genesis’ interviews is that when Skelton is doing his Dalek voice, minus the filters and the sound effects and the omnipresent hum that seems to pervade the ships and lunar bases that housed them in the TV series, he really does sound exactly like Zippy. The Dalek voice is tinged with monotone, lacking some of Zippy’s rising and falling cadences – nonetheless, the raspy extrovert is there for all to hear and it’s quite apparent that he modelled the Zippy voice on the Dalek voice, or perhaps the other way around; we may never know.
Is it just me? #4
Emily spotted this one.
Thunderbolt and Lightning
“Wayne’s World was a film that swallowed us up, in much the same way as Monty Python and the Holy Grail did, and we’d spend hours recreating our favourite scenes and reeling off pages and pages of dialogue. The monologues from Ed O’Neill are downright hysterical, the multiple ending split is inspired, and I can recall shaking in my seat with laughter when Robert Patrick peered in through the window of Mike Myers’ car, held up a polaroid and said ‘Have you seen this boy?’.”
From the Archives #4
Tuesday, May 4th 2010 “Why did you buy a statue of an angel?” “What?” “The statue of an angel that’s in the garden.” “Don’t do that to me. You know how scared I got. They’re just uber-villains that don’t even move, and then they kill you, just like that.” “I noticed.” “It’s all right for [...]
