"Today is a lovely day"...: Mark Everett and parallel worlds

Thanks to the wonders of - say it quietly - a moderately well functioning Freeview box, we finally caught up with the absolute gem "Parallel Worlds, parallel lives" - a BBC4 programme on Mark Everett of the Eels and his father, Hugh Everett III, who developed the parallel world theory. As a topic that I love in Science Fiction, and as a musician I have several albums by, this combined the best of all worlds in one show.

Nicely reviewed by doyen Nancy, it was a really charming piece of work. It even drew Cloud away from resolving problems with his laptop for the hour (he spent the first 30 mins in the doorway hovering to leave before saying "fuck it" and sitting down). It was also very watchable by non-scientists. I certainly felt much better informed about physics and quantum mechanics by the end, and that is no mean feat!

If you get chance to see it on a repeat, do watch it.

Disneyland and being grateful

Joe said "For those of you that have never been to Disneyland (are there people like that?)..."

Hmm. Well, I have never been to Disneyland, and nor frankly do I have any desire to. Not sure I even did as a kid!

I hate rides (I get dizzy) and I'm not best thrilled with crowds. So (1) never been and (2) no desire either!

Still, in the spirit of Joe's post and three things to be thankful for in the midst of a REALLY trying week at work:

I am grateful for

1) having a man I love to put up with me and love me in return

2) friends who mean the world to me

3) a job that just sometimes I can possibly believe I am good at and that makes a difference. Though the inner Eeyore in me also feels very beleagured at work at present...

4) [because the last one became a moan] that our builders are supposed to be starting on our house on Monday... demolition and chaos here we come...! But the result should be spiffy!

Description of Torchwood over at TV Scoop

This had me howling with laughter:

We'll get burglaries, abnormal deaths, scenes of torture and claustrophobia... but of course, this being Torchwood, it all feels like a B-Movie full of schlock and mwhahahaing... not that there's anything wrong with that. Torchwood is Doctor Who's little Emo brother listening to pretend punk music really loudly.

*snerk*

Blink on the Nebula list

I knew it was on the long shortlist (I think), but this morning the news confirmed that Steven Moffatt has been nominated for the screenplay for Blink.

The script for the 2007 Doctor Who episode "Blink" by Steven Moffat has been nominated for a Nebula Award. The Nebula Awards are awarded yearly by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) for the best science fiction written in the previous two years, using a system of "rolling eligibility". Moffat was nominated last year for his script for "The Girl in the Fireplace", but lost to the Hayao Miyazaki animated film "Howl's Moving Castle".

This year, the other nominees for Best Script are the screenplays for the films "Children of Men", "The Prestige", "Pan's Labrynth" and "V for Vendetta"; an episode of the television anthology "Masters of Science Fiction" written by Harlan Ellison; and an episode of the fan-produced Internet series "Star Trek: The New Voyages".

(Thanks to Alex Frazer-Harrison.)

Go Steven!!!

Primeval 2:2 quick responses

Ah, sigh. I got to watch this on my own yesterday as Cloudy Neil has a thing about worms. He wasn't best keen to watch which meant I could fully indulge in sofa climbing and sympathetic drooling for poor Nick Cutter.

With plenty of intensely brooding confused Cutter staring at Claudia/Jenny, action hero adventure Cutter in the office with the suck-you-to-death worms (how exactly did they kill people btw? Stupid questions will be asked...), wet Cutter under the sprinklers, and heartbroken Cutter on Jenny/Claudia's doorstep... well, I was in clover for the hour.

Sorry, but rational criticism got completely suspended (though I was on the ball enough to spot something of an explanation for the vanishing cleaner we noted last week. And does anyone else not trust Caroline Steel?)

BTW though, on the back of other debates about how ITV categorise and promote shows like Primeval it's interesting to note that from ITV's own website they had a link to a fan site by Jon Donni... who has now gotten so hacked off at ITV pulling even 20 sec video clips off the web that he is closing down the fan site. OUCH! As phrased on the site (before it disappears):

"All the promises of exclusive images and videos from Helen Lawrence, never materialised.

All the promises from the ITV publicity guys on facebook, never materialised."

Good job I've never really used any other site than the Douglas Henshall fansite isn't it?! But it does seem a shame given that the ITV site itself is hardly a model of spectacularness... Promotion this time around seems a tad lacklustre and really only bolstered by the toys and book merchandise out/due out... Come on ITV: surely you can do better than this?

It's Freeview, but not as you know it...

So, long-term readers here will know that I have frequently growled about Freeview after some disastrous experiments with it and complaints from neighbours that they too struggled to get it to work. If you visit MediumRob with any regularity, you'll have heard me moan in the comments boxes there possibly even MORE often.

Anyway, last week decided to give it another try.

We set up the box and with some trepidation scanned for the channels (bear in mind please that the tests you are advised to do via teletext ALL came up blooming fine).

What did we find?

Channels whose sound/picture synchonisation made the dubbing of spaghetti westerns (e.g. Django*) look like they had been made with on-site sound by the actual performing actors, that made one weep in desperation for the children's TV classics of our youth such as Heidi and The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, that made Anime material seem perfectly aligned with (US) English phrasing...

In short, it was enough to make me want to pull my eyes out. With the sight of Stuart Maconie's mouth moving a couple of seconds out of sync with his words, this wasn't a slight slippage: this was a full blown Duelling Cavalier moment - "yes, yes, yes!" "no, no, no!"

Like poor quality sound recordings [something causing me especial grief with the Rullsenberg construction of home compilations] and the wrong aspect ratio on film/tv broadcasts and DVDs, out of sync sound makes me feel like someone is drilling my teeth whilst dragging nails down a blackboard.

It wasn't a good night.

Last night we tried again. This time the sound was largely okay - so we can now watch BBC4 and More4. Great.

Except I discovered in searching the channels the chance to see Last of the Time Lords again on BBC3 (call me crazy for wanting to watch it but, you know, its Who!).

... what did we find?

Out of sync sound?

NO, much 'better' than that.

This time it was full-on pixelating picture, crackling sound (I think I heard two halves of two sentences of dialogue from the whole ep) and frequent complete breakdown in image.

Five US is the same.

Pants: the two channels I may occasionally want to watch for indulgence (Who on BBC3 and all those Five imports I love on FiveUS) and neither work AT ALL.

Sigh.

We're going to get a new TV aeriel it is now decided for sure.

In the meantime we have Freeview, but not as most people would know it.


* I am tempted to defend Django for being such rollicking OTT bonkersness despite it's truly awful tone...

Primeval 2.2 coming up and...

... the nice people at the Dreamwatch site give me a lovely Henshall interview to enjoy in advance. How kind of them!

Belated 'lunch' postings: depressing US political crap...

God, this post enraged and depressed me. I know that the worst of right wing commentary in the US gets a way disproportionate amount of attention, but that this stuff is out there and so consumed...

All we can do is hope that the critical commentary on it and good plain humanity lets people see such nastiness as the scumbaggery racism that it truly is.

Linda Grant and me have something in common

Via Normblog profile.

Where would you most like to live (other than where you do)?
It really saddens me that it is looking increasingly unlikely that I will ever live in a large doorman apartment overlooking Central Park, a cab's ride or even a walk from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Barneys.

"When Bobby Fischer's plane (plane, plane) touches the ground..."

"...He'll take those Russian boys and play them out of town.."

I spotted via Scottish Patient that Bobby Fischer has died.

I now have "Cue Fanfare" by Prefab Sprout running through my head.

Norm reveals two of his ten selected Novelists for the current poll

Well, Norm's selection of Anne Tyler will definitely please a good friend of mine who wrote her PhD on Tyler...

Daemon

I took a brief quiz on The Golden Compass website (ta Lisette!) and found my Daemon response was that as I was "modest, spontaneous, solitrary, inquisitive and a leader." I was therefore matched with a fox Daemon - by the name of Remis.

Think it suits me? Am I fixed as a fox???
Check this URL to tell me if so...

SFX magazine Feb 2008 issue 166 - did anyone just hear me squee?

Primeval as the lead feature in SFX Feb 2008 issue!

Primeval POSTERS: a double sided 'how do I decide' with the team on one side and holy heck of hotness Dougie Henshall with fighting creatures on the other!

I think I have fainted and gone to squee-land.

Did someone hear my pleas for some nice things to happen to me following a start to the year that has so far included TWO bouts of illness?

Seems so! Hurrah!!

(I need to scan to get some pics of this but Woo-Hoo! Take my word for how excited I am!)

First thoughts on Torchwood mark II

Better.

What I liked: Captain Jack is more like the Jack we knew and loved from Doctor Who. The team seem to have a bit more purpose to them. I thought Ianto especially had been well developed - the Jack/Ianto 'relationship' being better handled (did I get a sense of there being some fan-fic awareness on some of these elements?) The introduction of Spike Captain John was promising (and the trailer for the remainder of the season makes it clear there is more of him to come). I loved, loved LOVED the Star Wars reference. It was generally more exciting and much funnier. There was enough cross-over to Doctor Who to bring some smiles without it being too over-done. Nice.

From the only review I have read so far over at TV Scoop (I await the others...):

They missed a trick though, with those cargo containers. Having started the "homage" theme with the Obi-Wan message, they could easily have revisited this while they were looking for Gwen. Opening up one of the empty containers to find a Peter Petrelli look-alike in there, chained up without his shirt. "Oh, sorry," they'd have said coyly, and shut him back up again.

Hee hee hee...

Still needing work: the music got a bit overwrought at moments. The blowfish didn't really work - though it was a tad amusing (the shoot-out was a bit overstretched at the start).

You know what, I hardly even noticed the Chibnall-ness of the episode. I have higher hopes all round...

Favourite (English language) Novelists: an agonised Normblog poll response

Gah, choosing 'favourite' English language novelists is tough.

For a start, there are all those writers who fall more easily into the category of short story writers: with some heartbreak this means no place for Dorothy Parker.

Next were my thoughts on how many books someone had to have written (as novels) to count: for example, I adore and regularly re-read Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves. I hardly know if he has written more novels -- checking up there is The Whalestoe Letters (an adjunct piece related to one of the House of Leaves narratives) and more recently Only Revolutions (which I haven't read). His debut is certainly a favourite novel, but does he count as a favourite novelist on the basis of a single text? What about Mark Gatiss, whose two Lucifer Box novels have proved so enjoyable? What about the likes of Robertson Davies? A Canadian author, his Cornish Trilogy on art, myth and academia brought me to friendship with the lovely Rita (soon after I had finished reading it, we were on a plane together and I couldn't help but spot she was reading the same book... a Transatlantic friendship was born). But I haven't had chance to follow up on more of his writings - could this fondly re-read trilogy of novels allow me to include him?

And what about friends, whose novel writings I have loved and enjoy re-reading? Clare Sudbery and Marie Phillips could easily claim a place on a similar 'favourite novels' list and I so love their writing styles that it seems churlish to feel so ambivalent about whether they would 'qualify'...

I have to admit that despite reading plenty of fiction by women, I was a tad mortified by the (gender) imbalance of my eventual list. Sure, plenty of favourite women authors were excluded on the grounds of them being short story or essay or memoir writers. But I can almost hear the cries of horror at their being no Edith Wharton (though I did really enjoy The Custom of the Country), no Virginia Woolf (I have to proclaim in honesty that I am not awful fond of her writing beyond her essays), and - waits in terror for the real backlash - no Jane Austen... certainly I have enjoyed some of each of their works, but favourites? My favourite Austen is Northanger Abbey and though I have liked and admired her other works I don't think I can honestly say I would choose her writings above certain others as 'favourites'.

I toyed with Charlotte Bronte (and in the end compromised by a certain inclusion on the final list in honour of Jane Eyre). I pondered on included Toni Morrison for Beloved, a work that still astonishes me on each re-reading. I considered the (over?-)prolific but facsinating Joyce Carol Oates. Though not re-read recently I also fondly recalled Marge Piercy whose works I continue to recommend. And what of Angela Carter, whose shorter works and non-fiction are my favourites of her writings (though The Passion of the New Eve is a novel I often re-read)?

Mind, in thinking of the women I excluded I also thought hard about all the male authors who I may like and admire but whose work doesn't necessarily make me 'sing', bring me to delight or make me feel anything much beyond a disengaged awe. Pynchon, Updike, DeLilo, Ellroy (though I do like selected of Ellroy's works)... none of these really 'touch' me to think of them as favourite no matter how much/little I may read of their works. As you well know, despite many attempts and even requirements (I really should have read more for my PhD), I remain disenchanted by the prose of Henry James excepting Daisy Miller an early-ish shorter work and - funnily - The Golden Bowl (his finale). Phillip Roth I admire more, but I really have to be in the mood for his writing as much as certain friends of mine rave continuously over his works (and whom I love to hear conversing about him). I feel similarly about Paul Auster (and again I will duck from the firing of friends in their rage) - I can truly admire and be enthralled, but favourite? Alisdair Gray is an acquired taste for sure and I do like his works a good deal - but would be take a place on my list?? What of the frothy, safe-on-his-writing-patch, flights of Kinky Friedman?? What of Ian Rankin? (and yes, Alex, I know that George Pelacanos hasn't got mentioned here but so far I have read too little of his works to properly comment -- though if the majesterial 'The Wire' counted as novels his contributions would surely be in with a shout...)

As the list I finally chose felt frothy enough I reluctantly dropped Eoin Colfer, despite being so addicted to the lovely Artemis Fowl works (and others by this enjoyable author). I also thought long and hard about ommitting George Orwell, despite 1984 and Animal Farm. Again, it came down to what I liked the writing for and it was chiefly the essays despite the influential power of those two key works.

After all that the final list came out as follows: it feels very arbitrary, but also a reasonable reflection of recent or continuous reads. And barring one selection, there is limited doubt that each can lay claim to the role of novelist. Tommorrow, as ever I may have changed my mind about several of my inclusions and exclusions...

In alphabetical order:

Kelley Armstrong - though her most recent works have fallen a little from the heights hit by Bitten, her writings remain fun and great page-turners. I thoroughly enjoy her writing style and her characters.

Lawrence Block - the Matt Scudder novels are amongst my most favourite series of novels in the crime genre. Wonderful.

Christopher Brookmyre - for being just the most wickedly hilarious writer of Scottish based narratives

Charles Dickens - shockingly I think my only heavyweight author, but for his overall oeuvre and the pleasures his works have provided he had to have a place

Arthur Conan Doyle - the one I felt most ambiguous about including, but he is too much a favourite writer to exclude

Jasper Fforde - after a long promotion via friends I have recently gotten into this most enjoyable author. And The Eyre Affair seemed to make up for my excluding poor Charlotte Bronte.

Neil Gaiman - though still best known for his graphic novel opus The Sandman (10 volumes, count 'em), Gaiman is such a fine writer of the novel form that he truly warranted a place here.

Alison Lurie - it took me a long while to realise when I first started reading Lurie's works (a) how old she was and (b) when many of them were written. Some may say they are 'of their period(s)' but I have always found them enjoyable portrayals of the world into which I can slip.

Phillip Pullman - if he had only written The Dark Materials trilogy, that would be sufficient despite all my previously raised caveats for choosing. That the Sally Lockhart novels are so fine makes his work a treasure.

Dorothy L Sayers - she's probably almost totally out of fashion now, and some of her characterisations are less than comfortable for modern readers. But there is a verve to her Wimsey novels that never fails to draw me in.

[apologies for the decrease in provided links - my tummy rumbled for food!!!]