When I was young I was a Bank of Scotland Supersaver. The mascot for this children's account scheme was Super Squirrel, a cartoon red squirrel in a superhero outfit.

Recently, Abbey National have been advertising a Super Saver account. It's not a kids' account, but it does have a red squirrel in a cape in the adverts.

Since HalifaxBoS doesn't have a Supersaver scheme any more (the equivilent seems to be Expresscash, a debit card for 11-15 year olds which doesn't even come with a magazine) I don't suppose they care, but it catches me by surprise every time I see it.

Reading jblum's recent entry about Doctor Who fans complaining that a solid old-fashioned UNIT story with classic monsters is a betrayal of the old series, mostly because of things that were in the old series, but they hadn't noticed at the time, I was reminded of a letter I almost sent to Doctor Who Magazine, back in 2005.

During the Ecclestone series, someone wrote to DWM, saying that while they were excited about the new series of Doctor Who, they'd recently discovered a new series about a girl who travelled in a time machine. There was also a secondary character, an alien who piloted the ship, was rude to her, and didn't seem to like humans much. They thought it was called Rose's Adventures in Time And Space. (I think, it was something along those lines, anyway)

The letter I drafted out, but never got round to writing, would have said that I had also enjoyed Rose's Adventures In Time And Space; it reminded me of an old sixties series I'd seen repeats of, which had likewise been about ordinary people being taken through time by a rude alien. It might have been called The Adventures of Ian & Barbara. I also recalled many similar series had been made through my lifetime, usually broadcast in the Doctor Who slot, ranging from The Sarah Jane Adventures to Ace! (although the aliens in those weren't quite as arrogant and overbearing as the one in Ian & Barbara, or indeed the one in the seventies series U.N.I.T.) and ended with the conclusion that, while the original writer was wondering when the new series of Doctor Who was going to start, I was still trying to work out when the old one did.

Got from capriuni

Grab the nearest book, open to page 123, find the fifth sentence. Then post the next three sentences. Then post a comment.

( Read more... )

Terry Pratchett is sixty today.

BBC 7 are celebrating by broadcasting various Radio 4 Discworld stuff over the week (although thankfully not the Wyrd Sisters adaptation where they completely wrecked the ending), culminating with a classic episode of "Bookclub" in which Terry talks about Mort.

Got from ciciaye and others

What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.

( under the cut )

Humphrey Lyttelton, presenter of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue died last week.

I wrote this song last year, and posted it on afp, where it got one response from a non-ISIHAC listener who criticized the rhythm (correctly). I made the adjustments he suggested, but never got round to reposting it. I'm posting it now in memory of one of the most consistently funny people I've heard.

Piano Man
(TTO, well, Piano Man by Billy Joel)

It’s half past six on a Monday night,
A panel game’s going to begin.
There’s an old man in the chairman’s seat,
Looking like he could do with a gin.
There’s a wide range of ludicrous wordplay,
And people making silly sounds,
In the midst of this bumph, the chairman named Humph,
Dreads every musical round.

“Don’t play a song,” Humph begs the piano man,
“Your music’s my personal hell,
“I can’t stand you killing the melody,
“Please don’t play a note, Colin Sell.”

Memed from marco_villata.


1. Reply to this post, and I will choose four of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee! Or something.

( Marco chose Kennedy Crest, Ceannaideach, Bob the Muse and Chelonidae. )

Highland Council. What are they like?

Many years ago, before I was born, the building at the corner of Inverness High Street and Castle Street, had a nook on the second storey, containing a statue of the Three Graces. At some point, the statue disappeared, and when I was a kid MacDonalds bought the building, and turned the corner into a glass tower.

As part of the "revitalisation of the Old Town" (which seems to largely consist of digging up the streets so people can't get to it, while leaving the buildings to fall to bits) Highland Council has brough back the Three Graces. Only now, instead of a statue, we've got three ramp-like structures on Church Street, each one with an elm tree from a different continent and the name of the Grace it represents in English, Gaelic and Norse. So far, so typical, it's the sort of thing the Council's been constructing ever since we became a city. What really gets me is the name of the Graces.

They are Insight, Perseverence and Open-Heartedness.

What mythology book did *that* come from?

The Three Graces, or Charites, were, in "standardised" Greek myth, Aglaea ("Beauty"), Euphrosyne ("Mirth"), and Thalia ("Good Cheer"). Some Greek societies claimed the third was Cleta ("Fame") and others only had two Graces who were Auxo ("Plant Growth") and Hegemone ("Mastery") or Cleta (again) and Phaenna ("Shining").

Many people today, myself included until I researched this, get them confused with Christianity's Cardinal Virtues which, according to the King James Version are "Faith, Hope and Charity", and according to more recent versions are "Faith, Hope and Love". If you squint, this could *almost* pass for "Insight, Perseverence and Open-Heartedness", but if that's the intention I'd *really* like to see the city planners' translation of the Bible. I suspect it's what my Dad would have called a "happy-clappy" version.

I don't know why I'm ranting about something so trivial. It just seems to me that if the Council are going to spend money on this sort of thing, the least they could do is get it right.

It's occured to me that, while I've shared my often-incoherent opinions here, and erratically reported on my life (usually six months after something interesting happened, so I've forgotten about it), one thing I haven't done is inflicted any of my song parodies on readers. Well, your luck has run out.

This particular one is atypical, in that it's not a SF&F based song (a filk). It is, however typical in that it was spawned from hearing a song repeatedly on the radio at work, until my brain decided to turn it into a song I liked better. (About two thirds of my song parodies are generated that way, at least when I'm working somewhere with a radio. The rest are created from songs I really like, on the grounds that songs that good must *have* a Discworld [or whatever] version, and I just need to work out what it is).

Apologies to all readers who find the references to the UK folk scene impenetrable. And further apologies to those who find them embarassingly superficial (I know I'm not a True Folkie).

( I Wanna Be A Folk Star )

This weekend I attended Hi-Ex!; the Highland International Comics Expo. Great fun! The main reason I don't go to many cons (just the biannual Discworld one) is I can't face all the fuss of travel, and hotels, and so on, so having one a 10 minute bus-ride away is definitely something I'm in favour of.

Because of the weather, not all the advertised guests made it[1], but the ones who did (including local 200AD artist Colin MacNeil) were excellent, and very entertaining. There was so much going on, I missed my chance to buy the graphic novel version of Kidnapped and have it signed by the artist (Cam "Kenny Who?" Kennedy) 8-(. I also got a bit carried away at the auction, and bought a statuette of Minnie the Minx and Little Plum blowing up a balloon shaped like Biffo the Bear[2]. No idea where I'm going to put it.

Looking forward to the next one!

[1]Quote of the weekend, possibly, came at one "Brits in the US" panel when someone (I can't remember who now) said "If I can speak for Alan Grant, who can't be here because he's on cocaine. Allegedly. Something to do with snow, that's all I know...")

[2]Based on the 1965 Beano Book cover, which you can see here. And yes, Minnie is wearing the atypical colours in the statue.

Picked up from esmeraldus_neo: what D&D character are you.

I'm a True Neutral Wizard, which wasn't a huge surprise, once I'd thought about it (I was certainly expecting to be a Wizard, but I'd a feeling I'd be more Neutral Good; having thought about it though, they're probably right).

(Edit: Having actually *looked* at the detailed results, I notice I actually have an equal score in the NG column and the N column. Interesting.)

( Further details under the cut. )

If anyone hasn't heard, Terry Pratchett has been diagnosed with early Alzheimer's Disease. He's keeping optimistic, and says he still isn't dead.

Many people on the alt.fan.pratchett newsgroup have been wondering if there's anything we, the fans, can do. One afper, Bruce Richardson, suggested the following:

Buy his books. Start threads on a.f.p that spin off on unpredictable
tangents. Wear Discworld costumes and/or industrial-strength corsetry
in his presence. Drink like the rugby club, fight like the chess club.
Don't treat him like an invalid. Be the same
slightly-worrying-but-unquestionably-benevolent group of crazies that
Discworld fans have always been. It really is the only help any of us
can be at the moment and he really will be grateful.

Questionnaire meme collected from ciciaye:

( Read more... )

I knew it. I knew an LJ would rapidly one of the many things I keep thinking "I should be doing that", but because there's so many of them, I never do any of them.

So, latest news. Sarah-Jane and Doctor Who on Children In Need were brilliant. I've got an actual job where they give me money (actually I've had that since May, I just forgot to mention it) but I've been off sick a lot due to clinical stress[1]. I'm on pills that seem to be helping, and almost immediately came down with flu...

The cat recently had an operation for... forgotten the name, the glands at the back of his neck. One of them was swollen, and needed removed. He's fine now.

And that would appear to be all I can think of to report since July.

[1]People ask me "What do you have to be stressed about?" and I say "Not much, that's what makes it a medical problem." Which I'm not sure is strictly accurate, but I'm quite pleased with as a snappy comeback.

"When you see this, post a favorite quote from Doctor Who."

A bit of background. Feel free to skip.

I'm 31. When I was a kid, Doctor Who was this mad, wonderful programme I watched fairly regularly, and was vaguely aware had been around for a while. And at 14, just about the age when previous generations had either given up on it as "kids stuff", or realised it was a mad, wonderful and surprisingly deep programme, it disappeared.

If this hadn't happened, I'd have been in the latter camp, of course. If Doctor Who had been on continuously from 1989 until now, I'd certainly still be watching it. But I don't think I'd be a capital-F-Fan, exactly. It was the absence that led to me discovering past Doctors on video, reading novels and episode guides and DWM, increasing my output of fanfic. I even think my first filk, long before I knew the word, was a protest about the cancellation. And I always knew that, even if the mad, wonderful programme never returned to TV, the concept of Doctor Who still existed.

"Somewhere there's danger. Somewhere there's injustice. Somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on Ace, we've got work to do."

I guess that makes me a Real LJer 8-)...

Meme from esmeraldus_neo, artela and ciciaye

- Bold all of the following TV shows which you've ever seen 3 or more episodes of in your lifetime.
- Italicize a show if you're positive you've seen every episode of it.
- underline the ones you own copies of
- If you want, add up to 3 additional shows (keep the list in alphabetical order).

( Hopefully, this is a cut... )

Shame it isn't International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Following surgery, I have the eyepatch.

Although my natural mode in such situations is panic, I worked on staying calm in the operating theatre ("I can't feel anything, since I need to keep my eye closed I can't see anything, therefore nothing's happening. Relax, listen to the music, and remember to breathe"). I thought I'd done pretty well, until I tried to let go of the squeezy stress ball I'd been given, and discovered it was stuck to my hand...

With all the discussion on the implications of converting a New Adventures novel into an episode of the new series, and what's going to be changed, and what's not going to be changed, and what it all means for continuity, no-one, as far as I'm aware, has asked the most important question:

Will Wolsey be in it, and will he become a companion?

(I've given up trying to get this to look right in a proportional font. Please cut-and-paste into Notepad, and you should see it properly. Sorry.)

Anyway, daft idea that occured to me a couple of days ago when I was thinking about how much of the Doctor's family history was revealed in the books, even as they insisted they were bringing back the mystery. It'd have been up then, but, as mentioned above, I kept trying to get it to look right.

(Edit: Thanks to pedanther, I now know how to set it to a non-proportional font. So I've done that, and also fixed a spelling mistake, and a bit where it didn't seem to line up right. It should be OK now.)

The Doctor's Family Tree


Assorted Cousins, Elders etc.
 of the House of Lungbarrow
            |
     Ulysses of the
    Prydonian College
          and            Penelope
   House of Lungbarrow---- Gate
                        |                    (The Other's biodata?)
            ____________|___________________      |
           |            |                   |     |
           |            |                   |     |
       daughter?     Irving   Patience?----The Doctor
                    Braxiatel            |        |__________
                                         |                   |
                                         ?----?           Miranda----?
                                 ___________|__________  (adopted) |
                                |           |          |           |
                      David----Susan       John?     Gillian?   Zezanne
                    Campbell  Foreman

Notes for anyone who isn't a total anorak:

Penelope Gate first appeared in the Virgin New Adventures novel "The Room With No Doors" by Kate Orman, as a time-traveling Victorian scientist/adventuress. This was the second-to-last Seventh Doctor stories, so was probably written in the knowledge the Doctor was half-human in the TV Movie.

Ulysses was going to be the name of the Doctor's father in various films that weren't made. In the BBC Book Eight Doctor Adventures novel "Unnatural History" by Orman and Jon Blum, we meet Daniel Joyce [Joyce -> James Joyce -> Ulysses], who interestingly claims *not* to be a Time Lord, but is strongly hinted to be the Doctor's father, and has a photo of himself, a woman who resembles Penelope Gate, and a young girl. Hence the unnamed daughter.

Ulysses and Penelope finally appeared as more or less definitely the Doctor's parents (and with the descriptions matching the above) in the EDA "The Gallifrey Chronicles" by Lance Parkin. This also featured the Master's father, which is why he's not on the tree, no matter *how* many fan theories there are that he's the Doctor's brother.

"The Other's biodata" (and, indeed, the House of Lungbarrow) is a reference to the Cartmel Masterplan. If you don't know what that is, you really don't want me to try to explain it. Find a synopsis of "Lungbarrow" by Marc Platt. Note that I've ignored that book's revelation that Susan is the Other's granddaughter, because I think it's been overtaken by later events.

Irving Braxiatel was invented by Justin Richards in the NA "Theatre of War" and revealed to be the Doctor's brother in the Doctorless NA "Tears of the Oracle", also by Richards. Simon Winstone, who was editing the NAs at that time, is also the script editor of the current series, in which the Doctor implies he once had a brother.

Patience is the Doctor's ex in "Cold Fusion" and "The Infinity Doctors", both by Parkin. It's not clear she's Susan's grandmother (hence the ?), but she's the best candidate in a field of one.

Susan is the Doctor's granddaughter from "An Unearthly Child". If you didn't know that, the rest of this must be utter gibberish. Sorry.

John and Gillian are from TV Comic. They have question marks against them because both the books and the DWM comic strip have explained they don't exist. This is frankly the simplest option, but if I hadn't mentioned them someone would have pointed it out.

The Doctor adopted Miranda in the EDA "Father Time" by Lance Parkin (again). Her daughter Zezanne appears in the EDA "Sometime Never..." by Justin Richards (again). The degree of homonymity between "Susan" and "Zezanne" is not a coincidence, but I'd rather explain the Cartmell Masterplan...

So, anyone I missed?