The Greatest Gathering - or that's a lot of trains

As you may already know, 2025 marks the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the first public railway that used steam engines. As a result, a large number of events are taking place around the country to mark what is called "Railway 200".

One of the highlights of this anniversary year, clearly marked as such from when it was first advertised, was The Greatest Gathering, taking place at the Alstom train works in Derby from 1 to 3 August.

The coat of arms of the city of Derby

It most definitely lived up to the name, with the number of items of rolling stock going into three figures. I was there from around 11.30am to just before closing time and I still didn't get to see anything.

Many others will have covered this in their own articles, so I will just show some of my pictures with some of my own comments.

There was a heritage bus service running to the station with vintage vehicles from around the country, but I didn't get this.

These two were from The Cab Yard, a museum under development near Swansea. The 442 cab in the left is a cab simulator, but this required booking and was full up for the day.

Locomotive present ranged from 1825's Locomotion No.1 to...

The brand new Class 93 from Stadler, a tri-mode locomotive (25kV overhead, diesel engine, battery)

Making its "debut" here - the Watercress Line's recently acquired Class 150, in a Regional Railways vinyl livery. This is the first of the "Sprinter" family to enter preservation and probably not the last.

HST power cars were rather prevalent - the yard near Derby station also had a bunch of them.

There's a lot more that I could share. It was definitely a highly memorable day and a testament to the skill of everyone involved that it came off.

Looking for those cruise missiles - a visit to Greenham Common

It's said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Well, the road to nuclear annihilation is paved with the same stuff most British roads are paved with.

Had the Cold War (maybe the First Cold War now?) ever gone hot, then 24 vehicles, each armed with four nuclear cruise missiles, would have come down this road and made their way to pre-planned launch sites in the Berkshire countryside, ready for orders to launch weapons on targets in the Soviet bloc.

Greenham Common is of one of the most well-known sites to British students of the Cold War period. This one-time RAF base played host to American nuclear bombers like the B-47 Stratojet, but is best remembered from being one of the two locations that hosted BGM-109G Gryphon cruise missiles in the 1980s.

(The other, RAF Molesworth, is still an active facility)

Known simply as Cruise to many or the GLCM (Ground Launched Cruise Missile or "glick-em"), the Gryphon was the Tomahawk's land-based cousin, developed and deployed as a response to the Soviet deployment of the RT-21M/SS-20 'Saber' intermediate-range ballistic missile, capable of nuking pretty much anywhere in Europe from well within the USSR in under 15 minutes.

While the Gryphon was by no means as fast as that, its ability to fly long distances at low altitudes using terrain matching systems to keep on course meant that the Soviet Union ended up seeing it as a potential first-strike weapon. They invested considerable amounts of time, money and energy looking for evidence of a planned US first strike.

The presence of the Gryphon at any rate was controversial to put it mildly. Anti-nuclear Peace Camps, eventually women-only were set up outside the entrances to Greenham Common to protest and disrupt operations on the site. 

This included breaking into the control tower and reading all the emergency situation documents and writing on the pages to confirm this. When base security didn't show up for five-and-a-half hours, the women started turning the lights on-and-off to get them to show up, because if they just left, the Ministry of Defence would deny it.

A "battle" between the USAF, the police and many locals on one side, with the protestors on the other ensued. Rocks were thrown, statements were cooked up, fences were cut and it became rather difficult for the missile unit to do any exercises outside the base because protestors kept turning up. In the event of an actual war, I suspect those women might have dealt with in a much more lethal way.

Eventually, the INF Treaty of 1987 saw the missiles removed in 1991 for destruction and the base closed shortly afterwards.

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 to 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... 

Israel vs. Iran

It's been rather a long-time coming. I blogged out a playthrough of a game on this scenario that came out in 2010 and I ran an award-winning RP that had it happen in 2015.

In any event, the Israelis have decided that the best way to deal with someone you feel wants to kill you is to kill them first, hence they have launched this massive attack on Iran.

Things though are very different than they were in 2015. Syria is no longer under the reign of Assad. Saudi Arabia was on the brink of normalising relations with Israel before October 7 happened. Hezbollah and Hamas are a shadow of their former selves. While Israel's missile defence system is blunting Houthi attacks. They already damaged a lot of the Iranian air defence capability last year during their previous round.

Iran's options are now limited to trying to wreak havoc on the Straits of Hormuz, something the US and GCC will not stand for, even if Donald Trump is not really keen on major foreign wars - he's more a fan of beating on brown-skinned immigrants who aren't actually doing any real harm.

I feel sorry for the Iranian civilians who are likely to get caught this by virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time - or related to the wrong people. Also the conscripts who will be killed as a result of this.

Perhaps this could have been avoided, but Netanyahu wants his grand victory. 

Let's hope something better emerges out of all this.

Massive Dynamic Risk Assessment, or a lack thereof (Review: 'Fringe' 1.15, "Inner Child")

Stop me if you've heard this one before...

Frederick Forsyth 1938-2025

Frederick Forsyth is one of the authors that has definitely influenced me in my own writing, with a strong eye for technical detail and the sort of knowledge only gained from actual experience; he did stuff that quite literally risked his life in the name of research. Also, his stuff is a cracking good read; I re-read The Day of the Jackal when the TV series came out and it holds up very well.

(I have strong memories of following the Jackal's journey through a 1982 European road atlas I happen to have access to)

Definitely a legend in his profession - we will not see his like again, I'd say, at least not for a while.

Israel is seeking to ethnically cleanse Gaza

They may not want to kill all the Palestinians there, but they certainly want them to go somewhere else. That is a crime regardless of how many of them supported or support Hamas.

It is past time for targeted economic sanctions and a suspension of arms sales.

Cloud District Nine (Review: 'Star Trek' 3.21, "The Cloud Minders")

Only four episodes left of this to go. I'll likely move to a whole season review system for the other Trek shows once this is done - a paragraph for each episode, basically.

There has been some comments on science fiction being "woke" recently, with counterpoints that it has always been "woke", especially Star Trek. This is true, but sometimes the political element is more obvious than in other episodes. This one is a particular example.

Shave and a haircut, two naira! (Review: 'Doctor Who', "The Story & the Engine")

That would be a spectacularly cheap haircut considering the current exchange rate.

80 years since VE Day

I found myself wondering earlier this week if the people who fought Hitler should even have bothered, looking at the state of the world. Some people with distinctly fascist inclinations will celebrating the triumph over fascism, devoid of any sense of irony at their actions. It also definitely feels that we are seeing a return of beliefs we'd hoped were on the way out, especially among the young, where Holocaust denial and antisemitism are becoming unpleasantly common. 

We are seeing Israel now very much the abuser; they may not be the modern Nazis, but they are definitely not a beacon for good in this world and I would support their banning from Eurovision. Russia - well, there is something deeply rotten there - and I hope their war machine collapses first to avoid Ukraine having to make some deeply unpleasant choices. Then there is the electoral success of Reform in the UK.

It's not like we even saved Poland by declaring war in 1939 - it still ended up losing a sixth of its population and became a communist state for over forty years; countries that appeased Hitler or quickly acquiesced actually fared better in many regards.

Yet, what would have happened if we had left Hitler to carry in 1939? He would have probably gone after the Soviet Union eventually, with a plan to basically destroy the Slavic peoples in the name of living space. Perhaps the Soviet Union would have stopped him, but it would have been at an even bigger price and then likely left Europe in an even worse state than it was in 1945.

Resistance against evil is not an easy choice. Sometimes you have to take difficult decisions and pick your battles carefully to avoid hurting the people you are trying to protect. Bullies don't always run away when someone stands up against them, sometimes they will go after you or others as a gesture to keep people afraid and protect their fragile egos. It will definitely not be stress-free either.

Even defeating Hitler required the deaths of millions of Allied soldiers and the destruction of many of Germany's urban areas, with the survivors on all sides carrying the horror to the end of their days.

What gives me hope is that we are not going gently into the good night with democracy; there is considerable pushback against Trump, whose popularity has slumped. Poland chucked out its authoritarian-inclined government and Hungary might well do the same. Canada and Australia have definitely rejected Trumpism. Reform will hopefully prove themselves an utter clown show in local government and hurt their general election chances.

However, the fight will not be easy and it may well get bloody. I just hope the fight is short and as painless as possible, because while war might be necessary, it should be a last resort. 

We can also not defeat these people by stooping to their level, be it by fake news or outright murder. We can and must offer a better way, because otherwise we're just replacing one bad system with another. Let us persuade with love, not hate, as Jesus did.

To those who have gone on and those who are left, thank you for your sacrifice. Hopefully we can still honour you.

Woke? Most definitely. That's a good thing too. (Review: 'Doctor Who', "Lucky Day")

I was tempted to call Ruby Sunday a Wish.com Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but that's really not fair.

Not quite a damp Squid (Review: 'Genius Game' 1.1)

Don't mind me, I'm just here for David Tennant...

Well? That was rather good (Review: 'Doctor Who', "The Well")

In case you're wondering, which you probably aren't, I do these posts after I've watched the show, but before I've had the time to go on the forums and discuss the show in further depth.

I get the feeling this one will be quite popular though.

Pope Francis 1936-2025

I think the main thing that will stand out for me about the late Pope, who died this morning, is his humility. He lived in the papal guest house, not the palace. His coffin will be a simple one, not the three-layered one of his predecessors. He very much shunned the grandeur that many of his predecessors had, continuing the practice of John Paul II.

He was a passionate advocate for the poor and downtrodden. I imagine he would have dressed down the US Vice-President himself about the treatment of undocumented migrants if he had been able to do so.

He could have gone further on some issues like contraception, but he has very much changed the Catholic Church for the better.

I hope that one day he will be known as Pope Francis I, with others taking the Francis regnal name.

Rest in Peace.

Easter 2025

I was thinking about Pontius Pilate when doing my nightly Bible reading a couple of days. How he was basically a morally corrupt politician, willing to murder an innocent man to maintain his popularity and prevent problems that could bring down the wrath of his superiors on him.

Unfortunately, we have plenty of Pilates in the modern world. I can think of one leader of a major state in the Western Hemisphere that I could arguably apply that label to, not to mention one in the Eastern Hemisphere. I think it will be obvious which ones I am talking about.

Jesus was crucified as it was politically convenient to remove someone who challenged the wealth and power of those at the top of society. But that was not the end of the story and he rose again to clear the way for us to go to heaven.

One day he will return and all the Pilates will be held to account. Presidents and Kings should be warned of this, because one day there will be justice for all.

Happy Easter!

Getting a bit cartoonish (Review: 'Doctor Who', "Lux")

 Keeping this one short and sweet. Partly like a certain character in this. Partly.

Well, at least she's not LINDA (Review: 'Doctor Who', "The Robot Revolution")

I realised that I didn't actually do a review for "Joy to the World". Not that it really matters.

This may well be the last season of Doctor Who we get for a good while; Disney has yet to make a decision on funding further seasons and even if they greenlight more episodes, it will be unlikely we'll get anything before 2027.

Spoilers after the cut.

It's all Greco-Roman to me (Review: 'O'Dessa', 2025)

I would like to apologise to the people on the District Line at my out-loud reaction to one particular moment in this movie. Sorry for the audible reaction. I will try not to do it again.

20 years since the return of Doctor Who

I am pretty sure that I did not imagine, when I sat down to watch "Rose" a few days after it aired (I was on holiday at the time) that the show would still be going 20 years later, with I believe 188 episodes having aired since then, not counting Children in Need stuff.

It's been through some good times, it's been through some bad times. We've got a critical new season ahead of us that will probably make the difference between the show carrying on for a few more years and a quick end; Disney will want some good ratings for their money.

But at least we have it. At the moment, many of us really need some form of distraction from the darkness seemingly coming back in much of the world.

Happy anniversary!

Capital Ring Section 1

 

Having completed the London Loop last year (see my previous posts), I am now moving onto the Capital Ring, another "circular" footpath that covers inner London.

This has a lot more tower blocks and a lot fewer cows, but the views can still be very good on a clear day - I did this on Thursday 20 March, the first warm day we've had all year.

I've also made an investment in my walking; as easy access to various bits of equipment is handy in this, I acquired an old crime scene investigator vest from a military surplus place near where I live. It also has an inbuilt hood, although I didn't need it.

Section 1 starts from the southern end of the Woolwich foot tunnel, then after a while beside the Thames, heads south/south-east, going through three parks, Woolwich Common and four woods stopping just over the A2.

Counting the station links, it's about 7.2 miles, although I might have done a bit more due to wrong turnings.

Much of the route is on pavement or properly surfaced paths, although it gets bit more unsurfaced near the end. Even for a Thursday, there were plenty of people about, including dog walkers; you're definitely not in the sticks like with much of the London Loop. There's even a somewhat pongy industrial estate once you come off the river; I don't know how many of those I'll encounter on my way.

One notable area on the walk is Severndroog Castle, a Gothic "folly" on Shooter's Hill, built in memory of a British admiral of the East India Company who won a victory for them against the Maratha Navy in 1756. There is a viewing platform, but it's only open on Sundays.

It took 3 hours and 21 minutes to do the lot, including a break for lunch at a small café in Charlton Park. Pretty easy going, the good weather helping even if it meant I got a bit sweaty... which is kind of the point, as I am doing this to help keep myself in trim.

I might do Section 2 on Good Friday or Easter Monday; other things depending. But I will definitely be doing it.

Don't mind me, I'm just here for Jemma Simmons (Review: 'Mystery Island', 2023)

Well, there are worse ways to keep your SAG-AFTRA health insurance.

Gaza: Here we go again

There are sensible solutions to the Israel-Palestine situation. Unfortunately, there are few sensible people on any position of political power in the region.

It is clear that Israel never intended to proceed to stage two of the ceasefire; withdrawing from Gaza is a security gamble for them and in any event, Netanyahu is completely opposed to any Palestinian state. So is the US, with Donald Trump's crime against humanity that would be the Gaza Plan being seemingly official policy for both that country and Israel. Israel has also blocked all aid to Gaza, itself a war crime. Soon hunger is going to become a serious problem for that territory and you can hardly put bread in a rocket, can you? Israel cannot ultimately defeat the Palestinians without a huge number of deaths, some of which will be on its own side and becoming a pariah state.

Hamas is refusing to release the hostages because it is using them as leverage to prevent further Israeli attacks... which is causing further Israeli attacks. They seem to bent on fighting a war that is frankly unwinnable and they should never have started in the first place. They're not firing rockets at this stage - one wonders how many they actually have left.

The Palestinian Authority is worse than useless - not trusted by either Hamas or Israel.

So, the hostages remain in place. Possibly only 24 are alive. How many will survive this next stage? Indeed, how many Gazans will be alive?

In which Hippies cancel Star Trek (Review: 'Star Trek' 3.20, "The Way to Eden")

There is a character in this episode called Tongo. He might as well be called Torgo, as this is arguably the most riffable episode of Star Trek I've yet come across.

That means it's awful in a funny way. Well, somewhat.

Our Very Disturbed Man Flint (Review: 'Star Trek' 3.19, "Requiem for Methuselah")

You can tell the episode has a messed up concept when Spock needs to step and erase someone's memory.

Three years of war between Ukraine and Russia

It feels longer in a way to me. I imagine it must feel like an entirety for those involved in one war or the other, including the refugees that I know are in my area.

I don't think anyone wants this war to go on; Ukraine just wants a peace that will keep its country secure in the long-term, because it seems that Putin wants at the least a client state and at most to end Ukrainian independence. They might want to do a mineral deal, but not at the price of becoming an American vassal.

Trump has done vast damage to European security in his first month in office. It appears that we will now have to defend Europe from Russia largely on our own, with implications for public spending in other areas, not to mention taxation.

In any event, it seems Putin is not willing to compromise on anything meaningful and produce a peace deal that Ukraine should accept, so I guess the suffering will continue on both sides for a while longer sadly. Many more people will die or suffer life-changing injuries because one man wants to recreate an empire, regardless of cost.

I just wish more people would accept that, on both far-right and far-left.

The name's Bond. Amazon Bond.

So, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli have handed over the reigns of the Bond franchise to Amazon after 30 years in charge of it.

To be frank, it wasn't in a great place. The last film was in 2021 and only because it was delayed in release a year because of Covid.

The reaction to this change has been one of concern. Mainly about it turning into the MCU or the Star Wars franchise with oversaturation. Along with a lot of jokes. Even I've done a few and I'll do a lot more.

A lot will depend on the creative personnel. There are a lot of Bond fans in the business; some of them actually very good creatives. What we need is a highly competent head honcho with good ideas and a keen eye for picking talent. The studio needs to give them a decent enough rope, but not too much - a director can go too far and this is not a charity.

Of course, we need a good Bond. A sort of Brosnan-type is my personal preference for the character; humour and darkness in the right mix.

As for spin-offs, I'm fine with one or two, but let's not overdo it, shall we?

Anyway, it's the end of an era in more ways than one. Bond has a new boss and he'll have to adjust to that reality.

If nothing else, it will be interesting to watch.

Totes-a-Mazzy letdown (Review: 'A Sacrifice', 2024)

Don't mind me, I'm just here for the... What the actual... Get your hands off her, you [expletive deleted]!

This review contains spoilers for this film and all four seasons of Stranger Things aired to date. When Sadie Sink leads a movie, some things are inevitable.

In a rather fun coincidence, the trailer for O'Dessa dropped on the same day I started watching this.

It's Agent Dunham, you creepy pervert! (Review: 'Fringe' 1.14, "Ability")

So, I kind of forgot this person was in this... and of course, they are a really good actor to boot.

1, 2, 3, 4 - Trump declares a trade war

This is one of the stupidest things Trump has done and that is saying something.

The reason we don't take American food is because of the lower standards they have there. Improve those and maybe there wouldn't be such a trade deficit.

This is going to hurt an awful lot of people at the end of the day. For no good reason at all.

Death by Stupidity Squad (Review: 'Star Trek: Section 31')

Alternative titles are "Let's Hire Hitler", "I'd happily kill all of these except the haughty Starfleet brunette", "Alias but in the Star Trek universe and awful" and "There are better ways to spend a commute".

80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz

As someone who works in administration, the people I deal with are often just characters on a screen. I usually don't see their faces, I don't hear their voices.

People administered the Holocaust. They put together the transport lists, they ordered the Zyklon-B, they paid the invoices from the various companies that built the architecture of mass murder. They could distance themselves from it in a way.

However, there were clerks in the camps as well. People who typed up the death certificates with false causes of death so the Nazis could claim the estates of their victims. They would have heard, seen and smelt what was going on. Alcohol abuse was extensive, being used as a coping mechanism and fuelling violence itself.

But they were of course not the real victims in all this. They, mostly, got to survive and live out their lives, unpunished for their actions for many decades, if it all in this world.

The Nazis and their allies reduced people to creatures with numbers, exploited until they were of no further use and then killed. Indeed, many of those in Auschwitz-Birkenau never even got the numbers survivors still bear to this day, being gassed on arrival, cremated and then used as fertiliser.

It is still hard to believe even when you've been to two concentration camps and a cargo facility used to ship people to the camps, now memorials. If you've not been at all, then it is sadly easy to see it as fiction.

We're seeing a worrying rise in Holocaust misunderstanding and denial among younger people. We're also seeing the same rise in alt-right views, demonstrated by Donald Trump's recent election. I suspect those two are linked and it remains important to continue educating people, even when the survivors are all gone.

We need to remember that people are more than just a label a politician might stick on them for the sake of election. They have their dreams, their hopes, their fears, their foibles.

If we forget that, then that is the start of a very nasty road.

Never again.

An Officer and No Gentlemen (Review: 'Star Trek' 3.18, "The Lights of Zetar")

One has to remember that while Star Trek could be remarkably progressive, it was a product of the 1960s and so could be very much of its time. A time when women could be paid less than men and viewed as the "weaker sex".

People, the prosecution presents Exhibit A.

Gaza ceasefire

Five days before Donald Trump becomes President, in a move reminiscent of the ending of the Iranian hostage crisis in 1981, a ceasefire agreement has been reached.

15 months of war has resulted in a victory for neither side, but the Palestinians have lost far more. Hamas is a decimated force with much of its structure dead, seriously injured or captured. Hezbollah has gone the same way. The fall of the Assad regime has eliminated a major weapons supply route for both forces and Iran is much weakened.

Israel has badly damaged its international reputation. While it may not have sought to commit genocide, it has clearly committed war crimes in its quest to destroy Hamas and it is likely that only pressure from the international community stopped it from doing far more.

Palestinian extremism has become ingrained in their society by nearly 80 years of conflict and Israel isn't a great deal better; this war has probably hardened attitudes on both sides.

Unless some cooler heads enter the scene, there may well be another throw-down in a few years and I can't see that ending any better for the Palestinians if they're stupid enough to try that.

Of course, it could resume sooner if this ceasefire doesn't hold. The Palestinians should not give the extremists in the Israeli political world a chance to say "told you so".

In any event, a lot of people have suffered and died. For rather little. Thus is often the case for war.

'Fringe' 1.13, "The Transformation"

In this episode, another passenger aircraft gets destroyed by a piece of crazy science gone wrong as a man literally turns into a beast while in the toilet. Insert joke about EasyJet here.

The Return of Donald Trump

I could go a full analysis of all the various factors that led to Trump's narrow win in November, which shouldn't really have been the surprise that it was.

However, it's probably best to keep things fairly brief as others will have done far more than this. There are two main reasons for Harris losing.

Firstly, she was basically an unpopular incumbent in an economy many felt was performing poorly and so they voted for a change of government. Something happening in a good many countries at the moment. It is quite possible that if Trump mucks up the economy with his tariffs etc. that the Democrats will sweep back in come 2028.

Secondly, the left in general has become quite seriously out of touch with ordinary voters. Some frankly view anyone who would vote for Trump as beneath contempt, deserving of the pain that is about to come their way. They will not even associate with them socially, which means that they are rather unlikely to convert them or even present them with an alternative to the right-wing distortions that Elon Musk is happily amplifying right now. Also, they don't really look like "working class" people anymore. Who is the most working-class person in the government right now? Probably Angela Rayner.

Trumpism may collapse from its own internal contradictions, but the left needs to get its act together. It is no longer guaranteed the Latino vote or the working class vote; the black vote is better for them, but that could go with the right Republican candidate.

There is a decent chance, as two other politicians observed the other day - and it's happened in other countries with Thatcher and Merkel - that the first Madame President will be of the elephant persuasion rather than the donkey.

2025 Plans

My blog last year totalled a respectable 47 posts - not my biggest number, but not my smallest. Most of those were reviews of one form or another.

I'll definitely be doing more of those, but I also plan to cover some other stuff - it's going to be a rather "interesting" year, I'd say.

'Fringe' 1.12, "The No Brainer"

It's been eight years since I watched an episode of this show. Barack Obama was President, David Cameron was Prime Minister, Brexit hadn't been voted on and I had never heard of The Last of Us. We have also lost Lance Reddick to heart disease.

Anyway, I intend to resume watching this, especially as I am approaching the end of Star Trek with a plan for a fortnightly post.

As this show is from the same production company as Alias and shares a bunch of behind the scenes personnel - such as Shauna Duggins, who did some of the stunt doubling for Anna Torv here, comparisons between the two are inevitable.

Sydney Bristow and Olivia Dunham could have a fascinating lunch together.

Anyway, this one involves people's brains liquefying after they click on a pop-up and watch some weird video. In 2009, most of us already knew not to engage with strange pop-ups...

Nice View, Shame about the Air Conditioning (Review: 'Doctor Who' 2024 Christmas Special, "Joy to the World")

I wasn't able to watch this on Christmas Day due to a family gathering, but I managed to avoid any major spoilers for this. I haven't been on Gallifrey Base to discuss this episode, so I don't know what others thought of this.

Anyway, here we go:

• I imagine that pumpkin latte would have gone rather cold by the time the Doctor found Joy.
• Ncuti Gatwa has now settled into the role, with a great line in empathy and reassurance, but I found his blue-tinted buzz cut rather distracting at time.
• Nicola Coughlan just didn't work for me. Not that I've watched Derry Girls but she seemed a little one-note and flat for me. Not helping was her rather big coat, which rather reducing her ability to express herself through body language. It must have been uncomfortable too.
• The Doctor has spent a lot of time living days in order - including within the last few years of this show's run. Steven Moffat, why did you put that line in like that? You should know better.
• Moffat's hanging of a lampshade on the whole bootstrap paradox thing was OK, but he's done that idea to death now.
• Villengard make a good faceless corporate villain, although their whole plot in this was rather convoluted.
• They seem to have hired rather a lot of extras for this... which seems like a waste of money that have been spent on some bigger sets.
• Surprised the Doctor didn't have more of a go at the Time Hotel as a concept, as that sort of thing i
• The resolution of the dinosaur situation that was the ending of one of the preview clips was a bit of a cop out.
• Moffat basically lets everyone live here. Another one of his common shticks. Probably needed for a Christmas episode, but he's killed in the past in them.
• If Mary Whitehouse was still with us, I can only imagine her reaction to the ending of the episode. I can't say I was overly impressed myself.

Conclusion

Ncuti Gatwa saves this from being a clunker, but it's not exactly a great episode and definitely one of Steven Moffat's weaker ones.

6/10

Christmas 2024

I am probably in danger of repeating myself here, but Jesus gives me something to look forward to. In a world where justice seems far away for many, with widespread war and poverty, I know that one day - I do not know when - things will get better.

One day, Jesus will return, having already done so much good from his first visit, arriving as a humble baby in Bethlehem just over 2,000 years ago. Tears will stop, there will be no poverty or illness or fear. The righteous will be rewarded and those who willingly distance themselves from God will get their own rather different reward.

That is what keeps me going and stops me despairing at the news.

Merry Christmas to all my readers.

A thought on certain events

If you cannot condemn a murder without pivoting within the same sentence to the wrongdoing of the victim, are you really condemning that murder?

Reverse the polarity of the magnetic probe (Review: 'Star Trek' 3.17, "That Which Survives")

There are episodes of Star Trek that the fandom loves. There are ones that it hates. Then are the ones that are so forgotten, Lower Decks hasn't even made a joke about them.

I get a feeling that this one doesn't receive much attention... and is clearly that another cheap one. Anyway, here we go:

• I've said it before and I'll say it again... Starfleet really needs defences against random people teleporting in.
• Losira's hair and make-up look like some form of LSD was involved in their desire. While her top must have involved a lot of double-sided tape. Lee Meriwether had been Miss America in 1955.
• That's a rather unconvincing-looking earthquake in what is obviously a studio set with a purple backdrop. No-one ever thought to add a cloud?
• A planet with no accessible water or non-poisonous foodstuff is not really a good place to set up home. Even Rimworld gives you those.
• Sometimes redshirts don't have to wear red. Although one does here.
• Phasers must be powerful if they can create an entire grave; something that takes multiple hours to do, even for a shallow one.
• Listen to Scotty! He knows what he's talking about, even when he phrases it in a rather strange way. But he doesn't even put on safety goggles when going in the Jeffries tube and gets far too panicky in the climax.
• "Lt. Amato". That's how you're burying him? Doesn't he even have a first name? Also, are you going to recover his body afterwards? His family might want it back!
• "I am for you". What is this? A Donald Trump ad?
• Strange women in purple distributing death by the touch of a hand does not make for a good system of security.
• Spock is very funny in this, playing emotionless Vulcan to the hilt.
• If every cell in Sulu's shoulder was disrupted, how does he still have a functioning left arm?
• Reverse the polarity of the magnetic probe? This appears before Jon Pertwee became the Doctor. Mind you, it's not done as easily here as in Doctor Who.

Conclusion

Saved from being truly bad by the Spock and Scotty stuff, that still doesn't make the episode very good.

It's notable that D.C. Fontana was so unhappy about how how far the story changed from her concept that she had her credit changed to "Michael Richards".

4/10

Exit Assad

When this latest offensive began, I doubted that Assad would be in power at the next Islamic New Year in June.

He has now fallen faster than anyone really expected; his army deserting, his allies in Russia and Iran abandoning him. His current fate is unknown; at best he'll be living his remaining days in exile - there is a French warrant out for his arrest in any event.

Syria now faces an uncertain future; one hopes that the new government will be democratic and tolerant of religious minorities.

In the meantime, Assad's fate should serve as a warning to all tyrants, active or wannabe; when the fall comes, it can come very quickly indeed. 

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin.

Assisted Dying Bill

The House of Commons is voting tomorrow on legalising assisted dying for the first time since 2015; it will be an unwhipped vote with MPs free to vote their conscience.

The details on the proposal are here.

I understand the desire of people to end their suffering and go out on their own terms, but it would be very hard to detect whether someone had been pressured or coerced to take the life-ending medication.

The restrictions are very tight; how many people would be in a position to actually go through this? Some terminal illnesses rob you of the ability to know what day it is, at which point you're not going to be able to have the presence of mind to take your own life. Others will be different.

In any event, I am personally not comfortable with suicide or helping someone to kill themselves. I am not sure I want the High Court deciding on these cases either. This is not a case where someone is brain-dead; they are still actively living human beings.

I would personally vote No on this, but I understand those who would support it. I trust if this were to pass, it would not be a slippery slope.

Sixty-One Years of 'Doctor Who'

Watched most of the Tales from the TARDIS version of "The Time Meddler" today. It's not bad, although very much of its time in terms of pacing, fight scenes etc. The Doctor/Monk stuff is fun though.

The show is in interesting place now; the Disney-funded "Season 2" is to air next year. There has been no official greenlight for a third season although scripts are being written for it. A lot will depend on the performance of Season 2 outside the UK and Ireland; a bad performance and Disney may well end up pulling the financial plug, which would put the show in serious trouble.

Also, we might end up going to a Sixteenth Doctor in 2026, depending on Ncuti Gatwa's feelings about continuing with the character; pretty much all of the leads bar one since 2005 have done three seasons then out.

Finally, it would be nice to have more than eight episodes in a run. Ten at least, please.

So, happy anniversary to the Doctor and long may it continue in some form!

Remembrance 2024

The events of the last year, particularly the last week, make it clear that the struggle against fascism and other forms of intolerance did not end in 1945. There is a distinct possibility people will be called upon to defend freedom again at some point in my lifetime - and with nuclear weapons a thing, there might end up not being anything else but freedom.

I wonder what the veterans who sleep in Flanders Fields are making of all of this.

The return of Donald Trump

Well, he's back for another four years. Unless he drops dead first, which is possible. I want to wait for all the final numbers to come in, but my initial thought is that there is a danger of overcomplicating this election.

"It's the economy, stupid" goes a long way to explaining the results, frankly.

As for Trump, we're about to see how strongly the guardrails cope with his crazy ideas.

US Presidential Election 2024 Prediction

We are nearing the end of an election campaign even nastier than the last one. Donald Trump and his Republicans have engaged in the sort of rhetoric that the Nazis used and they're increasingly not able to hide it.

Kamala Harris, thrust into the nomination after the Biden campaign collapsed, has done a remarkable job in the circumstances, although admittedly many are not entirely happy about her lack of a clear stance on Gaza. She might be clearer on that once election is secured.

The election looks very close, but one of course must remember a little thing called margin of error; a blowout in the swing states is entirely possible with a normal polling error.

The Trump campaign seems to be having some major issues with its ground game; they also seem to be setting the "information environment" (thank you Institute for the Study of War for that) to claim election fraud after any loss. The insult comic at the Madison Square Garden rally seems to have invoked real fury among Puerto Ricans.

Harris has an advantage in enthusiasm, particularly among women and older voters. The Democrats are seem to be at just the right level of confidence to avoid complacency.

So, here is how I think it is going to go:

Prediction Map

• Harris wins the popular vote by two to three points.
• Harris wins six of the seven swing states, coming close in North Carolina. 303 electoral votes will be three fewer than Joe Biden got in 2020.
• With the rise of early voting on both sides, the 'red mirage' will be less prominent than 2020, but still there nonetheless.
• The Democrats will take the House, the Republicans the Senate. This will mean more Congressional gridlock.
• Trump will "declare victory" on Wednesday morning (UK time) and scream fraud later.
• The National Guard are going to be needed at some point, sadly.

But of course, I could be wrong and it's going to be a long couple of days, I would say.

One Year of War in the Middle East

Today marks one year since the October 7 attacks by Hamas on innocent Israelis that very much set the spark for a conflict that shows no signs of a quick resolution.

Both Hamas and Israel have bitten off very much more than they can easily chew here - so has Hezbollah. It is quite likely at this stage that Israel will eventually be able to defeat both of them, but at a very high human cost. Quite how the Gazan death toll has been so low is a mystery to me - we could easily have seen a quarter of the strip's population dead by this point.

Ultimately the peaceful resolution would be a two-state one, but that would need powerful moderates on both sides to be able to deliver it. There currently aren't sadly, so it looks like this conflict might go on for a while; any ceasefire would just be temporary.

And innocents on both sides will continue to suffer.

Dame Maggie Smith 1934-2024

If she had just done Violet Crawley and Professor McGonagall, she would have worth a glowing obituary. But that was just a small section of a very long acting career.

She was one of the greatest actresses of the last century. Her list of accolades is massive, with the DBE coming even before she had done Harry Potter. Few could do a waspish put-down like her - she stole every scene she was in on Downton Abbey.

She will be greatly missed. RIP.

Wigs, Frocks and Glocks - rewatching 'Alias'

This post contains a fair amount of British self-deprecation. I'm surprised, in all the time I've had this blog, I've never done a post on this show.

James Earl Jones 1931-2024

One of the greatest voice actors of all time has died.

Darth Vader was simply an iconic role that any actor would be happy to have on his obituary, but he did so much more than that over his very long career. His legacy will last for centuries.

Rest in Peace.

It's a D from me (Review: 'Star Trek' 3.16, "The Mark of Gideon")

Star Trek can frequently be a case of "great idea, shame about the execution" and this episode is clearly a case, clearly a cheapie to pad out the episode order.

Because the execution is very bad.

A complete lech (Review: 'Beetlejuice')

So, Netflix currently has the 1988 Beetlejuice movie on there and since the sequel is coming out, I decided to give the original a go.

I will be watching the sequel, but not in the cinema. Thoughts below the cut.

In space, no-one can hear Dora scream in Spanish (Review: 'Alien: Romulus')

It's very difficult to cover this movie without spoilers, so I'm going to have to insert a jump break here.

Anyway, my screening was pretty much full, although a small screen; the last time I've had that happen was for Black Panther.

It also had the air conditioning at full blast, which very much helped matters in terms of atmosphere.

What's black and white and illogical all over? (Review: 'Star Trek' 3.15, "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield")

I take notes when I'm watching this episode of things that stand out to me when I'm watching it. My ones for this episode extend to over 2 1/2 pages. A5 pages, that is.

In this case, the stuff standing out is not necessary good. Quite the opposite.

• The bi-coloured skin was the director's idea. It should have been rejected.
• Seriously, Starfleet needs better defences against mental ship hijacking. Also, how on earth do you hijack an electronic system using your mind anyway.
• An invisible spaceship of course saves you a lot of money. As well as reusing effects footage from a previous episode as they did for the original; the Netflix version uses the remastered CGI stuff.
• Kirk is a great poker player when he activates the self-destruct. He'll of course eventually self-destruct the Enterprise for real in The Search for Spock... with the same codes being used.
• One wonders how the crew of the Cerritos would have handled this. It may well have been a lot more enjoyable too.
• Alas, persecution did not end in the 20th century, as my own country demonstrates.
• There's a reference to the Vietnam War here, with an implicit comment about African-Americans being drafted to go and fight there - a reason why Muhammad Ali refused to serve, getting (among other things) banned from sanctioned boxing bouts for over three years. However, this is also a series that did "A Little Private War".
• Today's racists are a good deal less erudite.
• How do you spray something from orbit? Liquids don't stay liquid in a vacuum.
• "Proceeding without incident"... then there's a pretty big incident.
• Lokai is wearing some very tight trousers in this; he has a noticeable bulge.
• There's some stupidly fast repairing and travelling in this.
• For a species with little real contact with the Federation, they seem to know an awful lot about operating its technology.
• Piles of unburied corpses... yet vegetation is reclaiming the cities. That doesn't really make sense.
• By the end, it feels rather padded - by Fred Freiberger's admission, the chase scene was because they were running under-length.. There's also the use of stock footage from the Second World War of burning cities, also for padding.

Conclusion

This could have been an interesting story about racism and hate... with a page-one rewrite. Instead it's got less subtlety than the Doctor Who episode "Orphan 55", which is saying something.

It's really just awful.

2/10

London Loop Section 21

So, I reach the end of my London Loop journey. All 24 sections on the 150-mile route have been completed. More or less. I can't say I followed it 100% exactly, especially when some really heavy mud turned up to the party.

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

General Election 2024: Post 1

I must admit that I haven't been following this that closely. Being in full-time employment and with a bunch of other stuff to do has rather limited my time.

It's clear from this that the Tories are going to lose and lose heavily. Going out of power after 14 years would be expected anyway, although their government and this last Parliament in particular have been a shambles of massive proportions. Sunak has been the best PM of the last three and that's damning with faint praise; his early departure from Normandy will be mentioned in his obituary, I'd say.

I don't detect a massive deal of enthusiasm for Labour. Certainly I don't have it myself. I would have liked to see more of a move back towards the EU and a softer tone on immigration. Fiscal circumstances are cited as the reason for a lot of restraint - the Tories have saddled us with some massive debt levels - but I get a feeling the party could be bolder. I also wonder just how many actual votes they'll get.

The Lib Dems will probably do quite well - maybe even recover to their 2000s level of support and seats. But they are not going to get near to power for a good while.

Reform will have a strong turnout, but their votes will be thinly spread. In time, they may replace the Tories as the main right-wing party, which is arguably a case of be careful what you wish for.

In any event, we're going to have some real challenges in the next few years. Starmer may be a bit dull, but dull is better than Boris Johnson by a long chalk.

I can't imagine the Fifth Doctor doing much of that (Review: 'Doctor Who' 1.6, "Rogue")

• The pre-titles sequence is particularly great here. Contains some wonderful lines then a memorable death sequence.
• Can we have Kate Herron and Briony Redman back for future episodes? They were great.
• I cannot imagine most of the Doctors dancing to Kylie Minogue, let's for sure. Not only goes Ncuti Gatwa carry off the Regency outfit with aplomb, he's got a great variety of performance in this.
• A very good episode for Ruby Sunday, who finds herself very much with her own plot and bringing what can be described as "Northern" to the whole literal and metaphorical party. Plus she plays a key role in the denouement, something companions rarely do.
• Rogue was great fine. We may well see him again at some point, even if only in audio format.
• They keep killing Indira Varma! The Chuldur shapeshifters were generally a good deal of hammy fun. One is reminded of the Slitheen, but they were doing their stuff far less for giggles.
• The Doctor having a gay relationship would be something new and dramatic, if we'd not already seen it with Thirteen and Yaz. Mind you, this was much better written than those two.
• The Doctor moving on quickly from a relationship that didn't work out reminds me of "The Girl in the Fireplace"... which was eighteen years ago now.
• Just when you think jokes about the TARDIS have all been used up, we get a gag about it resembling a shed. I'm pretty sure there are TARDIS sheds already in some fan's gardens.
• A whole bunch of points in this where I genuinely laughed out loud. Good job.
• Glad to see a tribute to William Russell at the end, a man who had a massive impact on the show's early success.

Conclusion

An excellent episode, although perhaps not the canon-altering one that some said it was.

9/10

D-Day +80 Years

Operation Overlord was a massive operation. 156,000 soldiers and 195,700 naval personnel were involved on the Allied side just on D-Day itself, a number larger than most of the armed forces on the planet today. 

Over two million had arrived in France by the end of August 1944. Some of them would not come home and many of the others would be traumatised for life. D-Day, especially Omaha Beach, would expose a soldier to more carnage in one day than most of us today in a more peaceful world experience in our whole lives.

It would not end on that day either; it would be a long and hard slog until Paris was liberated. You can read my 2014 post in the subject.

Now the Normandy campaign is fading from memory as the veterans pass on - at least two who were planning to attend today's events died before they could get there.

It now falls on us to ensure that their sacrifice is never forgotten and that we work for a world free of tyranny in all forms.

For those who assaulted those five beaches on 6 June 1944, thank you and I hope you are never forgotten.

Bleak Mirror (Review: 'Doctor Who' 1.5, "Dot and Bubble")

• This will inevitably be compared with Black Mirror - in fact, RTD came up with the concept before that show was a thing.
• It does start off a bit saccharine and silly, but I think that's part of the point.
• The Doctor and Millie spend most of their episodes on a screen; perhaps this was another thing linked to Ncuti Gatwa's filming for Sex Education?
• How does someone go for multiple days without urinating at all? What do they eat and drink on Finetime?
• Very good performance by Ncuti and Millie in general; especially Fifteen's frustration at the end.
• Lindy Pepper-Bean's general saccharinity makes the twist at the end much more dramatic, but also serves as a reminder of what we all could do in a situation like that.
• This thing is saying an awful lot about being reliant on technology. I went to Kelvedon Hatch bunker today and one would not hold up much hope for an influencer in any nuclear exchange. Except for any survivalist ones, who might have a chance.
• Some of the elements of this episode don't really bear close scrutiny; it's more a parable than anything else, I'd say.
• Having the supposedly vapid pop star actually be most in tune with the situation was a good twist.
• That's a stupid way to operate a door mechanism.
• I'd argue that defeating the genocidal AI might be a priority, Doctor, before it tries it on anyone else.
• The ending is downright bleak and seeing the Doctor turn away, knowing there's nothing he can do, is really quite moving.

Review

Definitely one of the darker episodes I've seen from Russell T Davies, or indeed Doctor Who for quite a long time. It starts a bit silly, but the payoff is worth it.

8/10

Edit: I managed to completely miss the bigotry displayed in this episode by the people of Finetime. Which says a lot about white privilege, I suppose.