I think all the double entendres have been used here (Review: 'Star Trek' 3.23, "All Our Yesterdays")

I spent five years as a pupil librarian at school, but I never encountered one that acted like Mr Atoz.

This post contains spoilers for Strange New Worlds.

Capital Ring Section 2, Green Chain Section 8a/9/9a

Storm Floris mainly hit the north of the country, but its effects were definitely felt down in London yesterday as I did another long walk. Blustery wind for much of day and occasional rain; I gave serious consideration to going home early if things hadn't improved after lunch.

Ironically, I also did over 21,000 steps when I was at The Greatest Gathering in Derby on Saturday - post on that to follow.

Section 2 of the Capital Ring goes from Falconwood to Grove Park. Well, not exactly as the actual start points are next t a bridge over the A2 and somewhere called Marvels Lane, which is lacking in any Brie Larson.

As walks go, it didn't have many highlights - the area is very suburban in character.

This building is Conduit Head, which was part of an underground tunnel system designed to bring water to Eltham Palace, where Henry VIII grew up. Falling into mostly ruin in the 17th century, only the medieval hall survives with an Art Deco mansion from the 1930s surrounding it. English Heritage now run the place and charge a steep admission fee for entry - I skipped that as I didn't have time. Also doing some Taskmaster-related events if that's your jam that you need to place on a shelf without stepping out of a circle.

I went through Mottingham too, where W. G. Grace lived for thirty years. You know an area is posh when the houses have names.

The highlight of this particular section is King John Playing Fields, which has a spectacular view of nearly all the prominent structures of London.

A shame that it's not accessible by wheelchair - even the gate would be a bit of squeeze for larger people.

Also, this house either has a lot of genuine rubbish for collection or a fly tipper is really showing that they just don't care.

("Fly tipping" is the British term for illegal dumping)

I'd decided that this section was too short for a day's walk and doing Section 3 to Crystal Palace would be far too long an addition. Therefore, I did some of the Green Chain after lunch, heading through Chinbrook Meadows and then Elmstead Woods before going to the station there.

Elmstead Woods, despite being surrounded by London is the sort of place where you could, where it not for the noise of traffic and aircraft, think you were on some alien planet. I found myself thinking of Blake's 7, although they never actually filmed there.

Anyway, I have another walking-related trip planned this week, with a connection to another popular franchise.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #2

So, I just saw Buffy push Jayne Cobb  into a cremation oven ("Never Kill a Boy on the First Date", in case you're wondering) and it was a bit of weird feeling.

Buffy is one of those characters who manages to be annoying and endearing, sometimes in the same scene. She would try the patience of an awful lot of people who would still risk their lives for her and if she ever met the Doctor, they'd get on like a spaceship on fire. Having probably caused the fire in the first place.

(Ten would be the obvious choice based on mutual levels of banter, but it would be funnier to have her paired up with a more strait-laced incarnation like Five. Or someone socially awkward like Thirteen)

It's the sort of same reaction I got with Ellie from The Last of Us, who is basically Ellie the Zombie Slayer, only they don't call them that in that show.

She does seem to spend an awful lot of time in very short dresses, even at school. I can imagine her and Sydney Bristow snarking about each other's outfits in an Epic Rap Battles of History, but don't ask me to write that.

The times when stunt doubles are involved is fairly obvious, but perhaps I am just good at spotting those scenes.

I'm definitely having a lot of fun with this and the show stands up very well. Even if the Scoobies could do with mobile phones. Something that will need to be addressed in the new show with the "Scooby Twos" as I'm calling them.

Edit 2 August: That wasn't Adam Baldwin, even if it did look like him.

c2c gets nationalised

One of East London's railway operators, c2c (no official definition of that) is being brought back into public ownership as of Sunday 20 July.

I have to say it has been one of the better private operators. Frequent services, pleasant trains and an early adopter of Oyster/contactless; well it had to be due to sharing three stations with London Underground.

I don't know how quickly things will change visually; for one thing the Great British Railways legislation has yet to be introduced.

Does sticking a new vinyl on something make things automatically better? I doubt it. Public organisations can muck up just as much as private ones. Especially rail operators. 

But we shall see. I wonder if we'll get a new livery any time soon?

Not the most ultrasound episode (Review: 'Fringe' 1.16, "Unleashed")

Walter Bishop, bless his heart, is the kind of man who really needs a conservatorship or something like that. He may be a certified genius, but he's frankly certifiable in other ways as well, liable to be a danger to himself or others if carefully monitored by Astrid and/or Peter.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

So, with the revival currently working its way through the pilot stage, I have decided to watch the original series that is currently on Disney+ and ITVX here in the UK.

While I have seen the Kristy Swanson movie, Buffy was not something that I ever watched growing up. The fighting female of my formative years would be one Sydney Bristow of Alias as previously discussed on this blog... of course, when you realised their full names are Buffy Anne Summers and Sydney Anne Bristow, you can see that Abrams was clearly influenced by Joss Whedon in more than one regard.

I've watched the two-part series opener, "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "Harvest". I'll definitely be watching some more, that's for certain.

At more than one point during this, I started wondering what show I was actually watching. In the climax of the first episode, Xander and Willow are in a mausoleum with a bunch of vampires closing in on them. Willow screams - a reasonable one, not the Full Victoria. Then Buffy enters with this line:

Well, this is nice. I-it's a little bare, but a dash of paint, a few throw pillows... call it home!

This is exactly the sort of line you can imagine one of the post-2005 Doctors from Doctor Who saying, maybe with some slight alterations. Now, I know that Russell T Davies was heavily inspired by Buffy when he brought back Doctor Who but I hadn't quite realised how much! There's even a bit at the end about how Sunnydale is going to rationalise a vampire attack at a nightclub or just forget it happened.

Also in terms of further comments:

• Cordelia is a shallow, mean woman. If I didn't know about her later development, I'd be comparing her to Libby from Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
• How young everyone looks! Sarah Michelle Gellar was just 19 when she started doing this.
• Also, some very 90s fashion - and computers. The Internet is something that Giles is not overly familiar with.
• You get to see a bunch of people in this that you've seen in other things. The first guy to get killed was in CSI: New York. Darla's actor would later be in Defiance. I could go on.
• Also, I don't think Julie Benz's prosthetic fangs quite fit.

Anyway, I might do some more posts on this.

It's Mr Lava Lava (Review: 'Star Trek' 3.22, "The Savage Curtain")

I'd make a "four score" joke, but this is actually episode 77 of 79; TOS not quite reaching the 80 episode mark.

In any event, I got a feeling this was going to be a weird one just from the description on Netflix...