I've just noticed that my listing of books of the year is missing two entries. Fortunately, I do know where they should go, so I'll add them here with the correct numbers:
#17: "Scoundrels", by Timothy Zahn
#25: "The Golden Ocean", by Patrick O'Brian
The World Championships is actually one of the competitions I tend to enjoy the most. This is partly because it's so late in the season, and partly because it's in the centre of Glasgow, which affords the opportunity to leave the grounds and go and do something else, rather than just sit around waiting endlessly. In the worst case, it's even possible to just get a train home, although I'd promised myself not to do that again as I didn't want to be absent for the march-past.
My hopes were not high for this year's competition though. In order to qualify for the final, we would need to be in the top six out of sixteen in our qualifying heat - something we had never achieved all season. Still, with a good performance it might be possible...
Unfortunately, the Worlds requires a very early start. Although we weren't playing until 11:20, the bus needed to be in the park by some early hour, and so the pick-up was at 6, in turn necessitating a 4:30 wake-up. Nice.
And so we staggered out, got to the bus, got into town, and then waited. Eventually, we found a Cafe Nero that had opened, got something to eat (though it wasn't all that might have been hoped), and started feeling a little more hopeful.
The final prep for the competition did not go well. The rain wasn't bad, but it was bad enough to play havoc with the pipes, and the pipe major was getting increasingly frustrated - to the point where at one stage he had a go at me for overblowing my pipes and underblowing them at the same time. Thank goodness there's only one more competition this season.
Anyway, we went on, and did out bit. Mostly, the performance was fine, with one exception. Once again, the band had a bad start to our performance, which meant we might as well not have bothered. (On the plus side, it wasn't my fault - in fact, my performance was actually fine throughout. So I'm not taking the blame for this one.)
At this point, LC and I went back to hear some of the rest of the bands, and got thoroughly cold and wet doing so. There were about 10 bands after us; I only think I saw one that was less good than we were.
We didn't qualify.
At this point, LC and I went into town to kill some time, I failed to buy a copy of the new "Player's Handbook", we did get some ideas for nephew #1's birthday present, we got some lunch, and it was generally okay. Then we went back to the bus to read for a bit.
It was only some hours later that we heard that we actually weren't doing the march-past after all. Which was a bit frustrating - had I known, we would have packed up, taken the train home, and saved the rest of the day.
The journey home was not the best, due to a combination of tiredness and alcohol. But we eventually got in, ordered pizza, and gradually unwound.
The last competition of the season is the Edinburgh Highland Games on Saturday. I will be very glad once it's done.
(And, yes, it's fair to say I don't enjoy competing at all. The problem is that I enjoy almost everything else about being in a pipe band, and especially the teaching, but I just don't know how to separate out the two.)
#42: "Pathfinder: Ultimate Campaign", by Paizo Publishing
Things have been pretty tough for the past few days. It all began on Friday...
I had an appointment with the hairdresser on Friday, which meant I had to leave work fairly sharp. This was good, although I left the office just as we were being battered by extremely heavy rain - even by the time I reached the car I was soaked. I was also delayed just enough than LC had to run me round to the hairdresser, as there wasn't quite time to walk.
On arriving back home afterwards, I was met with news from LC: she has a job! Huzzah! Rather shockingly, though, she had been called at five to five on the Friday, and asked to start on the Monday (pupils return Tuesday). So no pressure, then.
Things were therefore looking good. And then, sadly, they went downhill.
About eight, another monster shower passed overhead. Now, I've been paranoid about the roof every time it rained for the past eighteen months, and this time my fears were justified - the ceiling in the bedroom sprung a leak. Fortunately, it missed everything but the carpet, so it's perhaps the least-worst leak possible, but still a hassle.
The ordeal with the roof is still ongoing, and is still causing a lot of stress. But for Friday, it meant calling several people, only to be told they couldn't help me (for one reason or another). Not the best.
The other consequence of this was that I had to call off attending the competition at North Berwick. The band did okay but not great in my absence - it certainly wasn't as if my being there would have made any difference.
But that meant that on Saturday, instead of a 4am start time to catch the bus, I instead woke up at 9am to make some calls, and didn't get up 'properly' until nearly 11. So I got an extra 7 hours of much-needed sleep.
The rest of Saturday was therefore very restful. Suddenly, I had some unexpected free time. So I got caught up on some stuff, got ahead on some other stuff, and generally had a good day.
Alas, Sunday wasn't the same success. LC was extremely stressed by this point, on account of needing to prepare something (but not sure exactly what) for the week ahead. And, stupid me, I picked that moment to bring up student loans. This of course added another stress to her load. Not my best moment.
That afternoon we headed over to my parents' in order to celebrate Dad's official birthday. Which was nice but very chaotic and loud. And then home, exhausted, and back to bed.
On balance, I think it was a better weekend than not. I'm even trying to persuade myself that the leak was a good thing, as it enforces that a repair be made now, rather than going horribly wrong in Autumn/Winter. But I'll certainly feel much better once it's done. And although LC was stressed, that stress was a side-effect of some really good news.
But at the moment I'm just worn out, and feel that I'm just barely holding together against all the stress. Things really need to start calming down around here...
Another one from the "Hairy Dieters: Eat For Life". I should note, however, that I made some substitutions - LC doesn't like kidney beans, so I used a tin of Heinz "Fajita Beans" instead; I used the large flour torillas that they said not to use, and I used the full amount of liquids, beans, etc; but only half the mince, torillas, and cheese (because I was making for two instead of four).
These were highly successful, but... I accidentally put in rather too many chilli flakes, which meant that the heat of the dish was out of proportion. And the sauce could maybe have done with another few minutes to thicken a bit more. Also, I think I prefer the chicken enchiladas I've sometimes made, rather than these beef ones.
That said, these tasted good, and not at all like diet food. Plus, they were very filling - I barely managed to eat two, while LC managed only one. Which is pretty awesome.
I would definitely have these again, though I think they're perhaps better done as a full batch, probably with company.
This one comes from the "Hairy Dieters Eat For Life", which is a generally useful book. It's also another really easy, one pot recipe - there's a small amount of preparation and then it just cooks together. And it was really, really nice. Another winner.
I do like a tasty burger, and for that reason LC and I have had Hugh's spicy lamb burgers on several occasions. However, we've always had them with pitta breads, which were fine but somewhat limited in what they could hold. So this time I decided to follow Hugh's recommendation and cook up some of his flatbreads. These are from Hugh's "River Cottage Every Day" book, which is definitely one of my favourites.
There's not actually much to say here. They were really quick and easy, they tasted really good, and they carried much more of the onion, yoghurt, and salad that went with the burgers. All in all these were a massive hit. So, job done.
And so we come to the third of the three 'lesser' Doctors. And of all the Doctors, it is Paul McGann who most suffered from the quality of the material - although both Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy had some poor material to work from, they also got some really good stories ("Trial of a Time Lord" and "Revelation of the Daleks" for the one; "Remembrance of the Daleks" for the other). McGann, though, got one crack of the whip, and was stuck with a dud. Indeed, I was particularly glad to see his appearance in "Night of the Doctor", if only to help redress that balance.
However, where the Eighth Doctor suffers on the screen, he potentially gains in other media. Whereas the spin-off novels, radio plays, and other materials for other Doctors need to fit in the gaps left by the TV series, the Eighth is a blank slate, and so they can do more or less what they like. And, having heard good things about most of these items, I was rather looking forward to this month.
This month's short story is "Spore", by Alex Scarrow. It has a fairly interesting concept: an intelligent virus comes to Earth to determine if we're 'worthy' of continued existence; the Doctor has to try to oppose it.
There's nothing wrong with the story, but there's not really much to recommend it either, I'm afraid. In particular, there's nothing I could see that makes this an Eighth Doctor story; it would work just as well with any other Doctor, at any time he was travelling alone.
This month's novel was "Earthworld", by Jacqueline Rayner.
Unfortunately, this one runs into trouble for the very thing I praised above - because the Eighth Doctor stories didn't need to "fit into the gaps", the powers-that-be decided to build a single, series-long storyline for this incarnation of the Doctor; essentially, they wrote the novelisations for a TV series that might have been. Which is fine, and probably the best way to present that series.
But it suffers a terrible weakness when you pull just one episode out of that series - taken by itself the novel doesn't really work. It's full of fairly specific references to things that happened before, which is good for those who have read the books. For me, it would have been better titled "Confusing Sequel to a Book You Haven't Read".
And so we had a Doctor suffering amnesia not, as I first guessed, because that had been a character trait in the TV movie, but rather due to things that happened in the series to-date. We had a companion constantly referencing those events, while also dealing with an existential crises brought on by things I knew nothing about. And another companion mourning the death of a character we never met.
In context, I'm sure all this was fine. Without the context, it's a big negative mark. They should have chosen something else.
I also found the writing style very jarring - it seemed... lacking somehow. Actually, it reminded me of "Confessions of a Shopaholic" but, alas, not in a good way. The characters' internal monologues seemed to be a froth of irrelevancies and nonsense, more fitted to someone who would shop without ever counting the cost, only to be bailed out at the last moment by a Knight in Shining Armour. Though the novel had those, and they weren't entirely benevolent...
So, I'm afraid I wasn't a fan. Maybe if I'd read the series from the start, and I'd read the series when it first came out, things would be different. As it was, I have to rate this as the weakest Doctor Who novel so far. (The Sixth Doctor has the best novel, followed by the Third. Two, Four, and Five all have pretty good entires, One and Seven are okay, and then Eight.)
For my next trick, I'm going to tackle the Ninth Doctor, the herald of the regenerated show. I'm looking forward to it.
#41: "Earthworld", by Jacqueline Rayner
Sunday was not a good day.
It started brightly enough - I woke up feeling pretty good about things, went to Tesco to get the milk I had forgotten we needed, and then LC and I made ready and headed over to Bridge of Allan.
Shortly after arriving, I had an errand to run - the band were donating a prize at these games in memory of our Honorary President, who had died just before our wedding two years ago (in fact, I received the text informing me of it while at the wedding rehearsal). So, I headed over and delivered that.
Meanwhile, we were being entered into the Grade 4 competition. Due to a mix-up with the entry forms, we had only been entered in the Grade 4MSR, which is a slightly different competition, and would prefer to do both. So, that arranged we had a race to get ready.
And then things went horribly wrong. For some reason, we've been having issues with chanter reeds this year, where they seem to have a really short life in the spot between "too hard" and "too easy". In particular, my reed was causing problems with a flat F. So, the Pipe Major adjusted it, making it a little easier. This shifted the problem, so there was now a flat G. So, another adjustment, and again a little easier.
And then, horribly, it hit that "too easy" point, where whenever I started up the drones, the chanter sounded. And this about a minute before we were to go on.
At this point, I expected simply to drop out of that competition - better for the band to do well without me than for me to play and mess it up for everyone else. I wasn't happy at that outcome, for obvious reasons, it's just one of those things.
What actually happened was that the pipe major switched the reed for another one, adjusted it a bit, and we went on. Which was, I must admit, something of a surprise, but a pleasant one. And the performance was... okay. Not great, but about as good as could be hoped I think.
There was then about an hour for our second performance, during which the pipe major tried to get the new reed properly adjusted. Only it just wouldn't quite some in. So it got switched again, and the new reed again wouldn't quite work. More adjustment, and another reed. And another. (I really don't know what's going on there, because it really shouldn't be this hard.)
Anyway, he finally got it sorted (ish). And then the rain started.
(I should perhaps note at this point that we did have our waterproof capes with us. Alas, they were in the car, and we didn't have time to go get them. Yes, we got wet.)
We played again, and the performance was... okay. Though by this point I just wanted to go back to bed and not come out again for a week or two. (And I'm really not looking forward to the World Championships in two weeks.)
The rest of the day was the now-traditional waiting for the march-past. This was made somewhat easier by LC being there, for the first time this season; shame she couldn't have had a better day, but there it is.
The march-past was likewise okay. They're pretty standard by this point, and at least by then we'd got our capes on. Additionally, we had been joined by four of our five learner pipers (and one of our learner drummers), which was nice - good to see the hard work on the teaching front start to bear fruit.
I don't actually have the full results at the moment - they haven't been posted at the time of writing. I do know we weren't in the top four for the Grade 4 contest. For the Grade 4 MSR, we came second overall, which was a stunning result. So stunning, in fact, that we didn't even muster a cheer, it was so unexpected. (It also, coincidentally, meant we won back the cup that we had ourselves donated that morning. Hugh would have been very proud of that.)
(Update: We came last out of 11 in the Grade 4 competition - 11th for piping and 7th for drumming. We came second out of 4 in the Grade 4MSR - 2nd for piping and 2nd for drumming.)
And that was that. The journey home was blessedly quick - the advantage of taking cars rather than a coach. And then an evening of eating pizza, watching part of "Spider-Man 2" and the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games.
There are now three competitions to go this season. I think that, next year, I'll forgo these weekly reports - they're getting too depressing. But then, I don't think that's the reports necessarily.
#39: "Pathfinder: The Slave Trenches of Hakotep", by Michael Kortes
#40: "Pathfinder: Pyramid of the Sky Pharaoh", by Mike Shel
Saturday was a somewhat mixed day. The morning was gloriously sunny, but in the afternoon it started raining hard; so hard, in fact, that the march-past was cancelled, meaning we all got to leave that bit earlier than expected.
My day started at 6am, with me dragging myself out of bed and off to the shower. The return to work has been pretty brutal, and last week was thus a particularly tough one. I could really have done with a chance to rest. Oh well.
The journey to the competition was reasonably pleasant and was quite quick. Indeed, we had made sure to leave lots of extra time in case of Commonwealth Games traffic, only to find that there wasn't any noticable increase. Thus, we got there with some hours to spare.
The preparation for the competition actually went reasonably well. We took to the field, played out selection, and came off. All seemed good; indeed, it was our best performance of the season, and by a long long way.
There then followed several hours of waiting, which wasn't good but which was improved by having a good book to read. Eventually we got the result.
And we came last. Out of fourteen bands playing, we came fourteenth from both piping judges, fourteenth for ensemble, and eleventh in drumming. Which was a massive kick in the teeth - we'd genuinely thought we were in with a chance of sneaking away with a prize, and certainly didn't think we were that far off the running, so to come last...
The journey home was a rather subdued thing, during which I almost fell asleep a couple of times. I finally got home just before 8pm, which was a good bit earlier than expected. And then I went to bed.
So that's it. There's one final major championship of the season, the World Championships in Glasgow in three weeks time. However, due to the number of bands involved we will need to qualify for the final, and there's little chance of that, never mind of winning a prize. Which means we'll be ending the season without a single championship point to our name. And after several years of that, we're likely to be demoted back down to Grade 4B - which might not be a bad thing from a player satisfaction point of view (better to win in a lower grade than be thrashed in the higher), it took a lot of effort to get moved up, and the thought of facing that again isn't fun.
But I really don't understand what happened. It would be disappointing to have come last due to a bad performance, but at least that would make sense. But I was sure that wasn't the case here. As I said, it was our best of the season by miles, so to still come last... That practically requires everyone else to have been brilliant.
It's just frustrating.
"The Cuckoo's Calling" in not a book I would normally read. It's not that I have anything against crime fiction; it's just a genre I don't usually bother with. Had it not been for the revelation that Robert Galbraith was actually J. K. Rowling I would probably not have ever been aware of the noval. (And, of course, as soon as it was revealed to be JKR the reviews of the book became worthless - suddenly people were reviewing the author rather than the book.)
Still, I did enjoy the Harry Potter series, so when the novel appeared in Tesco's near-permanent "2 books for £7" offer, I picked up a copy. That was some months ago, and it has been waiting on my shelf since then.
I started "The Cuckoo's Calling" on Saturday while on the bus to Dumbarton; I finished it Sunday evening.
For the most part, it's very, very good - it's a really easy read, the characters are well drawn, and the central mystery is engaging. And it did indeed have me guessing right up to the last chapter. In fact, my big concern was that I had identified three characters I thought might be the killer, and I was worried she might pull a "they all did it!" twist, which wouldn't have been good.
Crime writing must be a tricky thing - you want a mystery complex enough that the reader doesn't quite see the revelation coming, and yet also clear enough that when the killer is revealed then it immediately makes sense - it should of course be clear how they did it, why they did it, and basically tie everything up.
Unfortunately, "The Cuckoo's Calling" fails that latter test. I had previously considered the character in question as the killer, but discarded him for a pretty obvious reason. (Though, admittedly, I was largely considering him because of the Gene Hunt law of crime fighting, rather than any good reason.)
The problem didn't lie with the murder itself. The means, motive, and opportunity all fit together perfectly well, so there was no problem there. Unfortunately, the bigger problem was that if that character was the killer then his other actions in the novel just don't fit.
Now, in fairness, JKR does try to resolve this by explaining what the character wanted to achieve through his actions. But the explanation is simply madness - the character would need to assume that another character, whom he had never met as an adult, was precisely competent enough to find this, this, and this, but just not quite competent enough to find that and that.
But then that means... alas, the more the story tries to fit together, the more it unravels. It's like trying to fix a slightly bendy floorboard by stamping on the raised end - doing so fixes the one problem but it creates others.
Which is a real shame, because for 520ish pages out of 550 it was a really good book. (There's also an issue with the epilogue, which seems determined to ignore some inconvenient facts in order to secure the mega-happy ending - exactly like Dumbledore's blatant cheating of the system in order to secure a Gryffindor win in the first Harry Potter book. But that's a comparitively minor problem.)
Still, it's good enough that I'll probably read the sequel when it comes out in paperback next year. Assuming it's again in the "2 books for £7" offer, of course.
#37: "Solo", by William Boyd
#38: "The Cuckoo's Calling", by Robert Galbraith
I've been reading "Solo" recently, the new James Bond novel by William Boyd. It's a fairly decent read, although surprisingly lacking in thrills. However, while it's a decent novel, it's just not a very good James Bond novel.
I've been thinking about just why this is, and I have a theory. Unfortunately, if correct that theory means that nobody can ever again write a good new James Bond novel. Indeed, even Ian Fleming couldn't write a good new James Bond novel at this point (if he were alive, of course).
The issue is what I call 'markers'.
In certain series there are distinct markers that are used as a shorthand to the audience to put them at ease and make them comfortable. A Superman film will never deviate very far from the classic suit design, will have Clark Kent as Superman, will have Lois Lane as the love interest, and Lex Luthor will never be too far from the scene (as I understand it, he's in the sequel). Similarly, Batman is Bruce Wayne, the orphan billionaire. Similarly, when casting the new Star Trek movies, there was a need that Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto bore a certain physical resemblance to Shatner and Nimoy, respectively. A Star Wars movie pretty much must include lightsabers (and, probably, two particular droids).
And so on.
With the James Bond movies, the set of markers has become quite extensive, indeed to the point where pretty much anyone could write a (really bad) James Bond movie: take two or three exotic locations, three gadgets from Q-branch, a car packed with all sorts of gadgets, three attractive women (he's been upgraded - it used to be two), a bad guy with some sort of obscure physical defect, "vodka martini", "Bond, James Bond", the Walther PPK, some terrible puns... give them a good shake together, and it's done.
(And, yes, "Casino Royale" didn't use all of these, and subverted some others, but actually that was rather the point in that movie. But with "Skyfall" we're back to business as usual.)
The thing is, though, that the James Bond novels also have a set of markers. And these are both subtly different from those in the movies and also, in a few cases, they're incompatible with the ones in the movies - for instance, Bond drives a different car, and drinks a different drink, and is very particular about such things.
The problem is that the majority of readers of a new Bond novel will be people who have only ever seen the films. They will, therefore, expect the novel to contain the various markers that they're used to. And for commercial reasons, therefore, the novel needs to match those expectations.
Conversely, people who have read the novels will expect any new work to serve as a companion piece - they'll be looking for the markers from the novels.
In order to succeed, therefore, a new Bond novel needs to satisfy both. But since the markers are incompatible, this cannot be done.
There have been three recent attempts to write a new Bond novel, and thus three attempts to square that circle. Of these, I've read one, skipped one, and am reading the third. (I skipped Deaver's attempt as I have no real interest in a "literary reboot" of Bond. I find the notion of a continuing adventure, set in the 60's, interesting, but not any update.)
For much of its length, I found "Devil May Care" by Sebastian Faulks to be an excellent read - for about 200 pages it's almost indistinguishable. Unfortunately, it completely goes to pieces in the last third, turning into a bad Roger Moore Bond film in tone. Such a shame.
William Boyd has taken a very different tack, though. Where Faulks tried to write "as Ian Fleming", Boyd has instead absorbed the existing novels and then written his own novel. Essentially, he's doing a work "inspired by" Fleming's novels. Which is a fine approach, I guess, and it gives me reason enough to consider looking up his other works. But the truth is that I wasn't looking for a William Boyd novel; I was hoping for a James Bond novel, and by that metric it fails. Again, a shame.
I will be interested to see if they do another attempt at a new James Bond novel, and if so in who they choose to write it. Assuming it's again set in the 'classic' time, and assuming it's a continuation rather than another reboot, I'll no doubt pick it up and give it a read... and then complain about it again. Still, I do think it's a worthwhile exercise; if nothing else, it helps me identify authors that might be worth giving a look in their own right.
#36: "Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space Limited Edition Rulebook", by Cublicle Seven
The bathroom ceiling is now dry, and unlike previous attempts this one has actually succeeded - no nasty cracks all across it.
So, that's that job done.
If it's not too much trouble could you please, please stop trying to talk us into a war with Russia? At present the situation in Ukraine looks really bad, and it's certainly very tense all around, but there's far more that we don't know than that we do. The last thing we need is people pouring large amounts of oil on it.
I should probably make clear at this point that I'm not defending Vladimir Putin. By all accounts, he's not a particularly nice person, in charge of a not-particularly-nice government. But there are three things to be considered:
Military action against Russia may now be inevitable. It may even be the right thing to do. But it also goes beyond being something we don't want to do unless we absolutely must - it's something we don't want to do even if we absolutely must. Because even if we 'win', we'd end up vastly the worse off for it having been done.
So, yeah, rather than the daily set of headlines designed to out-outrage your rivals in order to sell copy, with the by-product of talking us into a war we really don't want to fight, could you please STFU and let cooler heads prevail? I'm sure Jordan has some tasty revelations about her private life you could cover instead. (And, incidentally, that goes for the BBC and, especially, Sky News as well.)
Another 50 days done, reaching day 200 of the year. So, time for another update...
And that's that. The above is almost exactly what I predicted with my last update, and I'm pretty happy with it. The only goal that remains problematic is the first one, and that's not really a surprise when looked at objectively.
The next update should be on the 7th of September. I don't expect to have too much to report at that stage - I expect the Work and Books goals should now remain on target, and that the Maintenance and Money goals will join the Computer goal in being completed. I do hope to have some progress to report on the Weight issue, and I'll have come to a decision regarding games for the remainder of the year, one way or another.
By the next update, the band's competition season will also be complete, so at that point I'll have something to report there, too.
So, I went to see "Transformers: Age of Extinction" last night. I'm not going to bother with much of a review: Michael Bay has these down to a fine art now, so if you liked the first three you'll like this; if you didn't like the first three, you won't like this. For what it's worth, I rate them 2 > 4 > 1 > 3, but that's like rating Spice Girls singles - they're just varying levels of awfulness.
(That said, I did like some things: most of the Autobot character designs; Hound; the Dinobots!; Prime's original disuise form; that Prime had the Autobot shield in his new disguise form; Frasier Crane's character; and the Dinobots!)
But I'm getting really sick of a particular depiction of women that seems to crop up in films rather too often, which I have chosen to call the Order of Willie Scott, after the character in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom".
This character type is distinguished as follows: the actress is cast because she looks good but usually (but not always) lacks any acting experience and indeed talent. The character is then portrayed as being completely useless. She exists to shriek at opportune moments, to get herself into all sorts of trouble, and to generally motivate the manly men to go off on their adventures. As a side-order of awfulness, the character is usually (but again, not always) depicted as being 'strong' by virtue of constantly defying the paternalistic male figure in her life - be that her father as here, or the hero (who, by virtue of being the hero must of course be the surrogate father-figure /sarcasm) - generally serving to get herself into yet more trouble.
Now, in fairness, there is a certain counter-argument here: faced with a war between giant transforming robots, it's not really a surprise that someone might go to pieces. Indeed, there was one scene in particular that would have had me curling up in a ball and just accepting death. But that's actually part of the point: in film, it's invariably the female character (especially the OWS) who cries, and cowers, and gets rescued, while the manly men bellow, and stand, and do the rescuing. It's not a realistic human response to danger; it's a patronising faux-female response to danger.
(The reality, with something like this, is that some people would be shattered and some would adapt more quickly. But it's likely that that adaptation wouldn't cut across the 'classic' lines: faced with a war between giant transforming robots, there's no telling whether it would be the manly man or his seventeen year old daughter who is better able to cope. Indeed, there's an argument for it being the latter, as she has less life experience to be confounded.)
So, I'm afraid I'm going to have to induct Nicola Peltz's Tessa Yeager into the Order of Willie Scott, alongside Rosie Huntington-Whiteley's Carly, and of course Willie Scott herself (but, incidentally, not Megan Fox's Mikaela Banes - Michael Bay does actually know how to do better, he just chooses not to).
(Of course, I've also previously complained about the 'fake' badass warrior woman - the one who is portrayed as being tough and independent and awesome... right up to the point where the script-writers need to establish how great the 'real' hero is, at which point she'll need rescued. I don't like that either. My preference is for characters like Lady Sif from "Thor", Eowyn from "Lord of the Rings", Delenn or Susan Ivonova from "Babylon 5", Sarah Connor from "Terminator", or Ellen Ripley from "Alien".)
Actually, it occurs to me that "Transformers: Age of Extinction" could have been improved hugely by the simple expedient of changing the sex of Mark Wahlberg's character. Though it should be noted that I didn't see anything wrong with his performance.
A couple of years ago, I complained that "How I Met Your Mother" had run into problems, largely because it had fallen into a holding pattern. I was actually quite dismayed when the 9th season was announced, because while I wasn't enjoying it, I felt a need to see it through to the end (see also: Wheel of Time, Song of Ice and Fire, Outlander). But I actually enjoyed most of the 9th season - the need to bring things to a close forced the writers to actually get moving and tell their story (see also: the last book of Wheel of Time), and the introduction of The Mother added a whole new dimension to the show. Good stuff.
Then they did the finale, and managed to completely blow it.
Of course, most of the discussions about the show have already been had, probably those months ago when it finished in the US, so I'll be brief. My problems with the finale were threefold:
So, anyway, that's that. And now I have another gap in my TV schedule to fill - counting everything there are maybe only half a dozen shows to watch all year.
August is the month of the Seventh Doctor, as portrayed by Sylvester McCoy - sadly, also the last Doctor of the classic era. Thanks to the machinations of the BBC, I actually missed a large chunk of McCoy's tenure - I missed his first companion entirely, and saw only parts of the adventures with Ace!.
Unfortunately, having viewed some of the McCoy stories later, I'm inclined to think that cancellation actually was the best thing for the show. The reality was that computer SFX were just hitting big in the US but they were still very expensive. So Doctor Who was never going to match up with "Star Trek: the Next Generation", never mind "Babylon 5" and the shows that followed it. It really needed massive investment or it would look really cheap... and the BBC weren't in a position to give it the investment it needed.
Faced with that, I'm afraid cancellation was necessary. And in some ways it was good - it allowed a new generation of fans to grow up, and led directly to the RTD and Moffat eras.
This month's short story is titled "Ripple Effect", and is by Malorie Blackman. As the name may imply, it deals with the Doctor (aided by Ace!) making an unwise decision and the consequences being far reaching indeed. It features Daleks, but not as we know them...
It was a good read, certainly being a decent diversion for an hour or so. Still, as with so many of these short stories, it barely gets going before it's time to wrap up. In particular, I think I would have preferred a bit more deciding to fix the problem and a bit less being forced to fix the problem - there was an interesting dilemma there, but it was largely sidestepped by the urgency of the situation.
The novel was "Remembrance of the Daleks", by Ben Aaronovitch, the novelisation of his serial of the same name.
I suppose that was an inevitable choice - when picking eleven novels for a "50th anniversary collection" there are a few things you have to include: one featuring each Doctor, one each with Daleks, the Master, Cybermen... one written by Terrance Dicks, and one novelisation. This hits three of those in one fell swoop. And with it also being Ben Aaronovitch's first published novel, and given his later success elsewhere, it must have been a no-brainer to include it.
It's fair to say, though, that it wouldn't have been my choice.
There's nothing particularly wrong with "Remembrance..." Indeed, given that it was the last Dalek story for years, it made for a good ending for their particular story. And yet, it suffers a bit, as do many of the seventh Doctor stories, by the Doctor having a plan that he's following but which looks like a completely random sequence of actions. He goes here and does that, then he goes there and does this, and then... it all comes together. That makes things quite frustrating - it's as if some exposition is just missing.
The novelisation of "Remembrance..." also suffers from much the same flaw as I found with "From Russia With Love" - with that Bond story the film captured the essence of the book so well (and with "Remembrance..." it's the reverse) that it just seems redundant - yes, it's a decent story, well told and well written, but... I've seen it before. I can't read it without Sylvester McCoy's voice in my head, delivering exactly those lines. When Ace! says "but professor..." it's Sophie Aldred I hear. I know the story, I've seen it relatively recently, so why bother reading it?
None of which is Ben Aaronovitch's fault, of course. Indeed, one could argue that that's exactly what you want from a novelisation. But it does hopefully explain why I think I would rather have had something else instead.
Anyway, that's the classic era done. Next up is poor Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor, the longest and the shortest. I always felt that while his TV movie was pretty terrible, he himself could have been a great Doctor, and I was really glad to see him get another chance in "Night of the Doctor". So I'm rather looking forward to next month's adventures in time and space...
#30: "Firefly Roleplaying Game: Core Book", by Margaret Weis Productions
#31: "Cross-Stitch" ("Outlander in the US), by Diana Gabaldon (A book from The List)
#32: "Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks", by Ben Aaronovitch
#33: "The Science of Discworld IV: Judgement Day", by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, and Jack Cohen
#34: "Ender's Game", by Orson Scott Card (A book from The List)
#35: "The Crusader Road", by Michael A. Stackpole
Another week, another competition. We at least got to play at this one, and did much better than we'd expected (we had real problems getting set up to play). We came 6th out of 8, which wasn't great but wasn't too bad, all things considered.
I also mostly enjoyed the parade through the streets, as the weather was nice and lots of people had come out in support. Also, some of the groups in the parade were really quite creative - I particularly liked the "Riding of the Minions".
Ultimately, though, it really wasn't the best of days, for all the usual reasons.
Oh well. There are now six competitions to go (two Championships and four minors), and then the season will be done. I'm looking forward to that.
(One thing that wasn't particularly good either is that I'm still wading through the book I was reading last year, which I'm still not enjoying. Still, I only have 155 pages to go...)
A couple of years ago, in a bid to distract me from my Irn Bru problem, I started drinking coffee at work (with the consequence that I now have both an Irn Bru problem and a coffee problem). After a few weeks of trying out various types and brands of coffee, I settled on Kenco's "Columbian" coffee as my drink of choice. Which is mostly fine and uncontroversial.
Unfortunately, Tesco in Falkirk have decided to become rubbish, and seem to be intent on reducing the range of things that they carry or, worse, stocking them only erratically. This has already had the terrible ordeal of forcing me to to buy green! mouthwash on one occasion (and, horribly, they've also sometimes had the green! and red! mouthwash on offer but not the blue stuff, provoking the most terrible of dilemmas). And the same has applied to coffee - naturally, they've retained a fairly extensive range but become erratic in stocking the one I actually want.
So, the last time I found myself running out of coffee, Tesco were of course out of stock. So, rather than go a week without, I was forced to try an alternative. After much careful consideration, I plumped for Nescafe's "Blend 37", that being one I hadn't had before. (Nescafe also have a "Columbian" coffee, but I've learned in the past that this is a cruel trick.)
So, I picked up a jar of "Blend 37", and that should have been the end of it. It was horrible, but it was just one jar and so just three weeks of bad coffee - not a disaster. And, indeed, had it been one jar I might even have been tempted to throw it away as soon as I could get an alternative. A waste, to be sure, but one I could blame on Tesco and so move on.
But I made a terrible, stupid mistake. See, I'd run out of coffee both at home and at work (because I'd run out at work and so taken the jar from home to work, and then run out again). So, having decided to try "Blend 37", just as I was about to move on... I picked up a second jar for the flat!
Naturally, this was a total disaster. I don't even drink coffee at home all that much, and could have easily managed without for a week. But, no, I grabbed the second jar of granulated horribleness, took it home, and then discovered my mistake (whereupon I didn't drink any coffee at home for weeks).
This of course created a bigger problem - it wasn't one jar but two, and it wasn't Tesco's fault but my own stupid mistake that caused the problem. Consequently, just throwing the coffee away wasn't an option. It had to be drunk.
(Plus, in another cruel irony, the coffee went from "dire" to merely "horrible" by switching from a heaped tablespoon per mug to two-thirds of that... meaning it lasted even longer. Gah!)
The upshot of that is that today is a day of celebration - I finally finished the last of "Blend 37"! And since I picked up some more as soon as it came back into stock, I can resume Kenco's "Columbian" on Monday. Huzzah!
Over the past few weeks, I've been gradually reading through the rulebook for the new Firefly RPG. And, naturally enough, once I've finished it I'll be wanting to add it to my list of books read for the year.
There's just one thing, though. Back when I started recording the list of books read, I set up a number of rules: it's a book if the publishers say it's a book; one set of covers is one book; and when tackling an anthology of which I've already read part, I only need to read the 'new bits' to count the whole. In particular, that "one set of covers" rule has a corollary that eBooks don't count (not having covers). Indeed, I specifically noted this restriction way way back when I first posted on the topic.
The reason that that matters is that the Firefly RPG is a PDF, as the hardcopy hasn't arrived yet - it's on pre-order with Amazon, but has been delayed since March (-ish). Having gotten bored waiting, and since the electronic form of RPGs is frequently useful when preparing anyway, I picked up the PDF at fairly low cost, and have since started reading that.
So, I found myself with something of a dilemma - how to add the Firefly RPG to the list of books while adhering to my self-imposed rules?
So, I considered not including Firefly on the list, on the grounds that the rules exclude it. I also considered deliberately stopping just short of finishing the book until the hard-copy arrived, and then reading the last page or two in the physical version (and thus sneaking it in under the 'new bits' clause). At which point I decided that that was pretty absurd.
At length, I've decided to make an exception to the rules, and just include it once it's finished. If nothing else, when the physical copy arrives I'll take a look through it anyway, at which point I can sneak it in under the 'new bits' rule - per standard logic rules "all the new bits" evaluates to TRUE if there are no new bits. (Besides, I actually do expect there to be a couple of new bits - probably some back-cover blurb and one or more adverts for upcoming products - that have been omitted from the PDF.)
As a general principle, it's probably time to relax the "one set of covers" rule to admit eBooks and PDFs. (Not that I expect to make much use of such a clause, as I have neither a Kindle nor iPad, and don't like reading PDFs or eBooks on a PC screen.) The only problem there is that it's not immediately obvious how such things should be measured - if I were to get a compiled PDF of, say, the "Hunger Games" trilogy, would that count as one book or three? With a physical version, that's obvious, but not so with the electronic form.
(For now, I'll only include electronic versions of things that are also available as physical books, and list them in the same manner as I would the corresponding physical book. So if that electronic version of the "Hunger Games" trilogy matched to a one-book physical version it would count as one, where if it corresponded to a boxed set containing all three then it would count as three. Either way, I'll note when something was in electronic form, and if you really want to take issue with it then you can... though I don't promise not to shake my head sadly in your general direction.)
