Joe Biden

It's starting to look increasingly like Joe Biden will have to pull out of his re-election bid, with reports that Barack Obama, very much the most respected man in the Democratic Party, is privately expressing his doubts over Biden's ability to defeat Donald Trump.

Biden's age is starting to catch up with him. His memory looks like it is beginning to go and he's having problems even reading stuff from an autocue now. His debate performance was by all accounts disastrous; Trump was an open goal and he kicked the ball into the stands. He's been pretty sheltered from direct public scrutiny in terms of exposure to the press.

At the moment, Trump does not have an insurmountable polling lead; he is still inside the margin of error. But the Democrats need to gain in the polls and Biden staying on the ticket will no longer help that, due to the clear questions being raised about his ability to do another four years.

Personally, I have real concerns about his ability to even live another four years if he got re-elected. He's been much better than Trump, but it's clear that he now needs to gracefully retire.

Live-Action LucasArts (Review: 'Phantom Peak: Starlit Summer')

Over the last few years, only partly interrupted by the pandemic, there has been something of a major increase in what is called immersive theatre. Theatrical productions where you are a direct participant in the events and can, in a way, influence them. The pioneers in this world are Punchdrunk, a British theatre company, while Secret Cinema have also made a name for themselves.

So, anyway, I've been to a couple of these experiences. The live-action Crystal Maze Experience that I managed to get my team at work to do as an away day went down very well, even if I ended up getting "volunteered" as Team Captain. The Stranger Things Experience in 2022 also proved to be a lot of fun, even if the ice-cream was more expensive than Karen Wheeler's perms...

On Saturday, I went to Phantom Peak, located in the Canada Water neighbourhood of SE London. I mainly know this place as somewhere I change trains when I have to go somewhere else in South London, so I'd not really seen it above the surface. It's definitely a pretty nice neighbourhood.

I feel I should probably get to the point or Jonas is not going to be impressed.

General Election: Post 3 - The landslide on 34% of the vote

We still have one seat left to declare, but that's not going to make much of a difference. Anyway, here are my thoughts in no particular order:

• My prediction for Labour's majority and vote share was too high; so was that of many others. On a uniform national swing, we would have been looking at a hung parliament.
• I suspect many Tories will be glad to have got 121 seats, but it was still a whooping for the ages. Close to half their vote and over two-thirds of their seats gone. 15 Cabinet Ministers ousted as well, but our Portillo moment has to be Liz Truss losing her seat and leaving her count without a concession speech. Which I was asleep for...
• The Lib Dems actually exceeded my prediction by at least one seat. 71 seats is their best result ever, but their vote share was well below the 22.0% they got in 2005 under Charles Kennedy. Lot of tactical voting there.
• The SNP are likely at 10 seats at best; a massive collapse which probably puts independence on the backburner for at least the rest of the decade.
• Reform got 5 seats, in range of my prediction, along with a vote share that outdid the Lib Dems. Those sort of parties generally do much better under PR as they tend to have their votes widely spread out. A lot of second places though and they helped Labour over the line in many seats by the amount they took off the Tories.
• Corbyn retained his seat against expectations. There were also four more independents who won over Gaza and another won in North Down over opposition to the NI Protocol. The former and Corbyn might want to team up to form their own group, because I believe it would get them short money.
• George Galloway lost his seat and showed even less class than Liz Truss by not even going to the count.
• Four MPs for the Greens; they concentrated their resources on winnable seats.
• Levelling Up remains a thing, sadly. Changing the signs would be expensive.
• Sir Keir is setting expectations early, but he will need to deliver in a reasonable time. The 2025 local elections, which will see protest votes, will be a big challenge.
• The overall future for the Tories really depends on their next leader. They lost a lot of votes over their immigration failures, but someone like Kemi Badenoch will have problems with people who went for Labour or the Lib Dems.

General Election 2024: Post 2 - Prediction

OK, we are now two days away from the election and here are my predictions:

• Labour will get a majority of between 200 to 225 seats, but on a vote share noticeably lower than Blair's 1997 victory. Maybe 38%.
• The Conservatives will stay above the psychologically important 100 seat level, but not by a massive amount. A bunch of Cabinet minsters will lose their seats and we may well have another Portillo Moment.
• The Lib Dems will get between 60 and 70 seats.
• The SNP will no longer be the majority party among Scottish MPs.
• Reform will get 5 to 7 MPs, one of them being Nigel Farage.
• Jeremy Corbyn will not retain his seat as an independent.
• The Greens will have at least two MPs.
• Some special arrangements are going to be needed for "pairing" in the Commons due to the sheer number of Labour MPs.
• There will no longer be a Department of Levelling Up. That brand will be consigned to history.

A typical RTD finale (Review: 'Doctor Who' 1.8, "Empire of Death")

• I watched the Tales from the TARDIS for "Pyramids of Mars" this morning before watching the finale; the edited version works even better than the original story and reminds you of just how powerful Sutekh can be.
• Speaking of Tales from the TARDIS - so that's where the memory TARDIS comes from. Hopefully, we can get some more of those next year.
• Ncuti Gatwa is great at fury, rage and sadness, with wonderful facial expressions that don't become something for memes, like Jodie Whittaker's scronch or Claire Danes' ugly cry face. At least not yet.
• Great episode for Millie Gibson as Ruby's main mystery arc is concluded. A very resourceful and smart companion, who I'd be happy to see more of. It did seem that this episode was written so it would allow for Ruby to leave the show permanently at this point.
• This said, the actual reveal of Ruby's mother, while realistic and definitely different, was a bit disappointing. And the stuff with her really went on a bit too long if I'm being honest. RTD likes his family stuff, but he's overdone it this time.
• Also a great return for Mel, historically seen as very much a screamer and ill-served in her original run. Bonnie Langford gets to demonstrate that she can do a lot more than just panto acting.
• Gabriel Woolf's voice has lost none of its power despite nearly fifty years passing and the fact that the actor is now 91 years old. Sutekh is a memorable villain and his ability to take over people at will, even effectively simulate them, makes him a force to be reconned with.
• When the entirety of UNIT got dust-killed, it became clear that there was going to be some big Uno-reverse-card pulled at the end, because RTD has done this sort of stuff before, most notably in the 2007 season finale with "The Year That Never Was".
• If the story's set in 2024, where did Mel get a 75 registration motorbike from?
• The final scene with Mrs Flood in a costume that some of us would recognise is quite interesting indeed. We haven't seen the last of her, I'd imagine.

Conclusion

A very typical RTD finale, for all the good and the bad.

8/10

London Loop Sections 19 and 20

Well, I'd planned to do these two in April as per my previous post, but La Niña had other plans, what with it having been rather wet recently.

When I actually did do it, the British weather just couldn't seem to make its mind up, as it commonly does...

Section 19 (Chingford to Chigwell)

The forecast was for possibly thundery showers (at least from the BBC) and the rain started as I was travelling up to Chingford on the Overground. I decided that I would take things a bit at a time, being prepared to abandon the walk if things got too bad.

This 4.1 mile section took me two hours and five minutes to do, partly due to difficulties finding my way to the next part of the route in Buckhurst Hill. The Forclaz trekking hat I got from Decathlon did wonders at keep the rain and later the sun off my head.

This section, which takes you through the eastern part of Epping Forest, is fairly flat and generally easy walking, but there were some badly overgrown bits that I had difficulty getting through. I also ended up walking along a road as the main route was a quagmire, stepping onto the verge when traffic was approaching.

I reached Chigwell and a light lunch in one of the local gastropubs, during which the rain came down, also drenching the people at Trooping the Colour in Central London.

I gave serious consideration to going home at that point, but when I came out, the rain had stopped and the wind wasn't too bad.

Section 20 (Chigwell to Havering-atte-Bower)

Like I said, the weather was inconsistent. The wind came and went. The rain stopped, then started, then stopped...

This section was supposed to be 6.4 miles, but it ended up being somewhat longer due to the fact I managed to end up badly off in course in Hainault Forest Country Park, followed by the golf course straight after. The mud got quite bad in some sections, but generally only in the bits under tree cover. The rain got quite heavy at times, but my clothing was waterproof and the hat worked as well.

The walk also took me past two massive piles of manure and this rather interesting sign at the Chigwell Row Water Works:

As I reached my home borough of Havering, the rain still fairly heavy and dark clouds in the sky, I did consider aborting at several points, but decided to push on.

You can see all the way to Central London at various points of the Loop, which I might have mentioned before:

As I neared the end of the walk, I entered Havering Country Park, where I had been told that there were some sequoias present - examples of what can grow to be utterly huge trees. I didn't initially see and wondered if I couldn't see the trees for the wood.

I did eventually find them though along a long avenue of trees. They are pretty impressive, but having only been here since they were imported in during Victorian times, they are nowhere near as big as their American relatives:

I finally reached Havering-atte-Bower, 3 hours and twenty minutes after I started.

As you can see by the water droplets on my lens, it was raining again. With the 375 bus to Romford a long time away and the other bus stops at least 20 minutes walk away, I decided to get an Uber home.

At which point it stopped raining.

I did over 33,000 steps and my right leg did not let me forget it all evening.

Just one section left to go now.

Pyramid schemes (Review: 'Doctor Who' 1.7, "The Legend of Ruby Sunday")

• Why can't the Doctor just materialise the TARDIS inside UNIT instead of crash-landing into the operations room? Also, putting the operations room next to the helipad doesn't seem like the greatest idea on the planet.
• This Doctor is the only one who could yell "Give me the lovin'!" and not look ridiculous. It's a great performance from Ncuti Gatwa all round here, covering comedy and drama with aplomb.
• Ruby is definitely a good companion. Not one of my favourites, but I've seen considerably worse.
• People do an awful lot of travelling in the space of two hours; does this world not have the massive traffic problems Central London has?
• What happened to the previous UNIT scientific advisor that we saw in "The Giggle"?
• The Time Window just sounds like more handwaving technology, but it's not like that's uncommon for Doctor Who.
• "Probability of trap, 96% and rising" is definitely a great line.
• We still don't know who Ruby's mother is. Perhaps we'll find out next time.
• UNIT does seem a bit overstuffed with characters, especially many that we've not seen long enough on screen to care about.
• "Wrong anagram". Well, that was a twist and a half. Bringing back the original voice actor as well. Now how did he get out of that time corridor?

Conclusion

Well, if you're going to bring back a villain from the past, that's not a bad one to bring back, that's for certain. Even if no-one holds down a pillow this time.

9/10