Day 2322: Lord Blairimort in Paradise

Friday:


Specifically: Paradise, Texas. What BETTER place to launch his…

Just how quickly CAN the Americans change their Constitution to let non-natural-born Americans stand for the HIGHEST OFFICE? Because let's face the facts, the ONLY chance the Replutocats have of winning the next presidential election is: CLINTON versus BLAIRIMORT!

No, never mind that; for the next SEVEN WEEKS Lord Blairimort still has his slippery fingers on the ROYAL PREROGATIVE and the POWER TO MAKE TREATIES! One quick FLOURISH of the pen and the site of the former Queen Mary Maternity Home in Edinburgh is ceded in perpetuity to the United States of America; Lord Blairimort is de facto born in the USA!

Because the fact is that Lord Blairimort remains in the Americans' all-time TOP THREE favourite British People. And the other two (Princess Diana and Gandalf) are FICTIONAL CHARACTERS!

They think he is one of the best and most popular people in the World. Using the word World in the American sense, as in "World Series", i.e. meaning America.

And after spending the last eight years doing the bidding of the most POWERFUL man on Earth – Darth Cheney – why stop now, just when he's loving it? As an added bonus, being Lord President Blairimort he would still get to give orders to Mr Frown!

Before that, though, Lord Blairimort will take to the skies – running up a final tally of Blair Miles – for a whistle-stop final farewell world tour.

First he's off to France to meet the new French President, Monsieur Sarcastic, and then next week he's taking a trip to Washington D.C. to see the Monkey-in-Chief. Perhaps he'll find the time finally to pick up that Congressional Medal of Honour that he got awarded, for being such a CHUM about Iraq. Congress may be a bit less chuffed about giving it to him these days, of course.

After that there's a visit to South Africa, and any other African nations that will have him where he'll be laying the groundwork for his lucrative Halliburton contracts Foundation for World Peace and Prayer™. No doubt they'll remind them about all those promises he made at Gleneagles.

Then he'll be off to Germany for the G8 summit, where he'll no doubt be able to remind them to keep quiet about all those promises he made at Gleneagles.

And finally to Brussels where he'll be attending the European Summit just days before Mr Frown takes over and has to deal with all the fall out from whatever crazy agreements Lord B makes.

Lord Blairimort has always loved the JET SET lifestyle. And averaging an altitude of ten thousand metres above sea level for two months will ensure that he at least leaves on a LITERAL if not metaphorical "high".

Anyway, now that all the "Stop Gordon" candidates he tried to set up have fallen by the wayside it is time to graciously hand over as he always promised he would, he finally found it in himself to endorse his successor, Mr Frown!

"He'll be FINE," said Lord Blairimort. "FINE! Don't make an issue of it!"

Mr Frown has of course launched his own campaign to grind all opposition into the ground, beginning with a pledge to be HUMBLE.

I have looked up the word "humble" and it does not APPEAR to say: "SULKING until I get the ABSOLUTE power that is MINE BY RIGHT!"

"I have never believed presentation should be a substitute for policy," says Mr Frown. "I do not believe politics is about celebrity."

Who could he POSSIBLY be referring to?

Obviously, the REAL message here is "I am not HIM!"

But we've heard all of these warm fuzzy listen to the people promises before. And they are JUST LIKE "HIM!" Actions would speak louder than words.

There are three very obvious ways that Mr Frown could draw a line under the Blairimort Years and start if not quite FRESH at least a bit less niffy than RANCID.

Number One: pull out of Iraq. You KNOW you're going to have to sooner or later anyway, when the Americans leave. Doing it straight away makes you look decisive, distances you from the Monkey-in-Chief and might start the healing process in this country.

Number Two: declare independence of the NHS. It's a bonkers policy, and fundamentally meaningless (since the Treasury will still decide on who gets what money) but it will remind everyone of your one HUGE success, independence of the Bank of England and will shoot the Conservatories' latest fox – they can hardly beat you over the head with "interfering in the NHS" if you've just sworn off doing exactly that. Plus, anything they say about it you can call THEM for PLAYING POLITICS.

Number Three: as tipped by the Liberal Review, give the country FAIR VOTES. If you don't think you can win the next election ANYWAY – and believe me, Mr Frown, you can't from this point – then at least you can make sure Mr Balloon can never win either. Why Mr Frown, how comfortable you look in that MANGER.

Mr Frown is certainly likely to pull SOMETHING out of his, er, hat. It is his STYLE – remember the 2p "tax cut that wasn't a tax cut" from the budget?


Meanwhile, the race to replace the Minister for Magical Accidents is HOTTING UP! Soon it will reach TEPID!

Clementine coloured carpetbagger Mr Peter Vain has published a list of his backers including Mr Richard Wilson who is the Labour Chief Whip… hang on, that is in a PLAY; he's not a REAL MP! What a terracotta tinted twit you are, Mr Vain!

Never mind, I am sure that THESE people will still let you scrabble onto the ballot.

Not to be out done, Ms Harriet Harpy (Flydale North) has published her own list of supporters.

If you want some fun, you can try to see if there is anyone on BOTH lists! (I have not spotted anyone.)

What would be more fun is if instead of an election, they had to play TOP TRUMPS with their supporters!

Mr Vain plays "Mr Nick Palmer – spinning like topsie on Political Betting dot Com, Leadership Stooge: 8"

But Ms Harpy TRUMPS HIM with "Evil Ian Wright – betraying my constituents and closing the local hospital, Leadership Stooge: 10"

(Mr Vain would have been better playing "Mr Bob Marshall-Andrews – decrying the leadership, Dynamic Charisma: 7" against Ms Harpy's Mr Buff Hoon, or Ms Patricia Blewit!)

The ACTUAL rules will be decided by the Party Chairperson… and I do still think it is a bit IFFY that that headless chicken impersonator Ms Bleary is one of the candidates and has still not resigned as the Party Chairperson and organiser of the contest!

Mind you, everyone seems to think that the winner is going to be Mr Hillary Benn, or to give him his proper name Mr Benny Hill. He is famous for being the son of another famous man, Mr Benny Over-the-Hill.

Of course, under the Labour's rules, you need to be endorsed by 12.5% of their MPs in order to stand, so you can always have at least SEVEN candidates without anyone having to double up. So far there are only SIX.

Wouldn't it be fun to get some of the remaining MPs to nominate Lord Blairimort as Deputy Leader… just to see Mr Frown's face!

Day 2321: Blairimort est Mort

Thursday:

Part Three – Bury Bad News

Security at home: I.D.iot cards cost UP over HALF A BILLION to FIVE BILLION QUID!

Economic stability: Interest Rates UP AGAIN, another quarter percent to 5.5%!

Education, Education, Education: Heads warn of EXAM MELTDOWN!

24 hours to save the NHS: UK access to cancer treatments among WORST IN WORLD!

Green future: government CUTS GRANTS for home renewable energy schemes!

Africa, a scar on the conscience of the World: just forget about the WAR, OPPRESSION and DEATH that continues in Darfur, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Uganda etc, etc, etc…

Respect agenda: More ANTI-SOCIAL MADNESS as a family are banned from LANCASHIRE!

Freedom of Information: Pair JAILED for trying to reveal TRUTH of Lord Blairimort's schemes with the Monkey-in-Chief!

Constitutional Reform: Next Prime Monster to be elected by NOBODY!


LIBERAL DEMOCRATS RESPOND: WE CALL ON THE LABOUR TO KEEP THEIR PROMISE AND MAKE THIS THE END OF LORD BLAIRIMORT'S FULL THIRD TERM!

Day 2320: Blairimort est Mort

Wednesday:

Part Two – A Star Dies!

A huge star has exploded into nothingness, polluting the surrounding environment with fallout and casting destruction on all around it.

It is possible that the uncharitable reader might think that this is SATIRE!

Day 2319: Blairimort est Mort

Tuesday:

Part One – Remind Everyone about the Legacy

This one.

NOT this one.


"Accept one thing, hand on heart, I did what I thought was right."

Accept one thing, fluffy foot on fluffy middle: did you EVER bother to CHECK?


Everyone, SING-A-LONG-A-DADDY! "Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead…"

PS

A note to the people who REALLY matter – I have only written a small diary today, because I cannot write the things that I should write and should like to write, but I am still thinking about you, and so are my Daddies.

Day 2318: Seven Blokes

Monday:


Two of whom are bloke-esses and one of who is either a computer or a starship depending on your point of view.

Daddy has already written about the EXCITING new series of audio adventures for BLAKE'S SEVEN, brought to you by the Sci Fi channel, but since they are relying on word of mouth, I thought that I should give them a plug too!

As Daddy has explained, Blake's Seven is Robbing Hoodie in SPACE. Mr Blake is Robin and his crew are the Outlaws; against them is Ms Servalan who is the Sheriff of Nottingham (until she promotes herself to Bad King John) and her Guy de Gisburne is Space Commander Travis.

The creator of "Babylon 5", Mr J Michael Caboose, has often said that his "novel for television" was at least partly inspired by Terry Nation's Blake's Seven. The idea of an ongoing saga that did NOT hit the reset button at the end of every episode intrigued him, and made him realise that DEVELOPMENT was the thing that was lacking from drama on the box.

There is something a bit IRONIC here, because what Mr Terry Nation ACTUALLY wrote were three short mini-serials. The first is "How Blake Got Started" and consists of the episodes "The Way Back", "Space Fall" and "Cygnus Alpha"; second is "Blake versus Travis" made up of "Seek, Locate, Destroy", "Duel" and "Project Avalon"; and finally "Orac" which obviously contains "Deliverance" and "Orac" and sort of "Redemption", though that's obviously written later to try and get them out of the mess that the first two leave them in.

In between are a number of the standard "reset button" type episodes, and essentially each of these mini-series also finishes with everything back in order.

It is only in the second season, which is much more noticeably under the writing direction of script editor and professional grump Mr Chris Boucher – who NEVER GETS ENOUGH CREDIT FOR THIS! – the idea of an ongoing story begins to develop. In the episode "Pressure Point" Mr Blake persuades the crew to make an attack on Earth itself, finally fulfilling his promise made in "The Way Back". His intention is to destroy Federation Control and with one blow cripple the baddies. Except it turns out to be a trap and it costs the life of one of the crew.

Actually getting someone killed is a BIG THING in a television series because it means there has to be a definite ORDER to the episodes. The REASON for the reset switch is so that television stations can show episodes in any order they come out of the tin. But if someone gets KILLED halfway through the second season, then there is definitely a before and after, and you can't show episodes from before after or that person comes back to life!

Except this isn't really so very hard a concept to get your fluffy head around, and SOAP OPERAS have featured developing storylines for AGES, particularly the eighties super-soaps of Dallas and Dynasty. (Although Mr Bobby DID actually come back from the dead!)

Well, killing a member of the crew is SUCH a big thing that it actually makes the next story, "Trial", into "part two" of a two-parter, because it deals with the repercussions and would not make sense anywhere OTHER than immediately after "Pressure Point".

Subsequent episodes "Countdown", "Gambit", "The Keeper" and "Star One" then form a DEVELOPING story as Mr Blake and his crew search for the REAL control centre of the Federation, a secret base called STAR ONE. Obviously, they find it in the last episode of the season, only to discover that it has been overrun by the Daleks completely unknown aliens, who are about to invade the galaxy!

In the third season, Mr Blake and Ms Jenna both DISAPPEAR! (Because the actors have better things to do than play SPACE all the time!) This leads to another huge development, which sees former number two Mr Avon come to the fore as leader, and introduces new characters.

(And IRONICALLY the vicissitudes of fortune would similarly afflict Mr Joe with his "Babylon Project" as actors comes and go over his five years – losing people actually STRENGTHENING the sense of a real ongoing story. One of Star Trek's PERENNIAL problems being: "why does no one ever get promoted off the Enterprise?")

The OTHER irony is that the third season is actually the one with FEWEST inter-connected stories. Thematically, there are a few episodes where Ms Servalan is after powerful allies or artefacts with which to rebuild the Federation, but the sense of the Federation as a renewed and growing threat won't really appear until the following year. Only the first two episodes (setting up the new Liberator crew) and the last one (looking for Mr Blake) can DEFINITELY be said to be VITAL parts of the "overall" story of the show.

In contrast, the fourth and final season is almost ONE LONG STORY. Having managed to get their super spaceship the Liberator BLOWN TO BITS at the end of the third year, Mr Avon spends a lot of his time trying to build a new one, while at the same time Ms Servalan is trying to get herself UN-DEPOSED as ruler of the Federation, and then Mr Avon is trying to find a way that he can form an alliance to defeat her. All of which gets cocked up so he goes off looking for Mr Blake again and so everyone gets SHOT!


So you see, almost by ACCIDENT, Blake's Seven managed to tell a HUGE STORY with a great SWEEP of HISTORY, starting with Blake's little rebellion against a Federation that ends up being smashed by an intergalactic war anyway and then put back together again. Funnily enough, the War is actually caused because Mr Blake and Ms Servalan between them HUMILIATE Space Commander Travis. And the resistance to the rebuilding Federation fails mainly because the only people who could stop it can't stop their inter-personal problems getting in the way.

(And again, compare this plot with "Babylon 5"!)

Though to be fair to Mr Joe, he at least had an idea of where in HIS sweep of history he was supposed to be when writing any particular one of his episodes. Blake's Seven tends to hit the mark more by luck than judgement. Meaning you might get a "Terminal", the stupendous climax to season three, or you might get a "Redemption", the frankly LIMP resolution of the "Orac" story revealing the secret origin of the Liberator to be, er, some girls in blue leotards!

And often when it loses the plot it is because it's stopped trying to remember what's going on in the rest of the galaxy. So you end up with something like the DEEPLY EMBARRASSING "Voice from the Past" when everyone forgets that Travis isn't working for Ms Servalan any more, or the SEXIST DRIVEL of "Harvest of Kairos" which would clearly rather be set in a pre-War Federation and has NO IDEA what Ms Servalan's personality (or indeed RANK!) is supposed to be!

The format for these new audio adventures may turn out to be a strength here. By writing three stories and breaking them into five-minute "chapters" they may have recaptured Mr Terry Nation's original series of serials form. This gives them a chance to have three separate stories that feel longer in themselves without having to "progress" the overall story too much. And indeed it would be a surprise if stories two and three actually DID advance too far. The danger, of course, is that they don't advance at all – but (touch Daddy Richard's head for luck) it seems possible that they do have plans to avoid that. By keeping back the introduction of psychic alien Cally, they have shown that they have a longer term plan, one that will probably involve one of their current "seven" having to, er, make room.

To do Blake's Seven PROPERLY, though, to do justice to the original, you can't just rely on another HAPPY ACCIDENT. You need to think how the big picture is going to develop. Are you going to introduce Orac? Can you make the origin of the Liberator more interesting and more relevant to the rest of the plot? (You can hardly make it LESS so!) Will you play out Ms Servalan's grab for power in the same way? Will there be a War? Will you get rid of Blake at some point? Or separate him from the Liberator and play out following his story sometimes instead of theirs? Will you kill them all off in the end?

Because the thing that made Blake's Seven UNFORGETTABLE was that it WASN'T open ended – it had a beginning, a middle and very definitely an end. Just because they didn't PLAN it that way, doesn't mean that that isn't IMPORTANT. In fact VITAL.

So good luck to the new audio people, and don't forget: [stands over Mr Derek with a big gun] [smiles like a loon] [fades to black] Pow! Powpowpow! Powpowpow powpowpow powpowpow! [cue titles]!

Day 2317: Broken Reid

Sunday:


And so Lord Blairimort's Home Secretary has decided to JUMP before he is PUSHED. He says that Mr Frown should be able to bring FRESH FACES into his cabinet, and by going he will make room for TWO of them.

The REAL reason he's quitting is, of course, last week's elections. He thinks that Mr Frown is a lost cause and, like all the other rats, he is deserting the sinking ship. Better for him to ride to the rescue later once Gordo has lost the next election. Do you expect he will be discovered with two priests?

Our VERY PRECIOUS idea of a British system of JUSTICE is badly broken today and our so-called Home Secretary is one of the people who broke it. And for what? For short term political advantage, that's what! To look STRONG, to look BUTCH.

And now he is TRANSPARENTLY manoeuvring to take advantage of the fact that Lord Blairimort has RUINED any hope Mr Frown may have had of being re-elected. WHAT a piece of work!

The idea that he could become even Leader of the Opposition (let ALONE Prime Monster) ought to be INSANELY LAUGHABLE!

For a Prime Monster to appoint a person like him – let alone a whole STRING of people like him! – to the Home Office, that Prime Monster must be COMPLETELY round the TWIST! And to prove it, Lord Blairimort has come FULL CIRCLE: they're now rumouring that Mr Man O' Straw is tipped get his old job back!

Mr Councillor Stephen asks: Wither the Home Secretary, and do you know, I rather hope he does!

Go to the RUBBISH BIN of history, Mr John Reid! Go, and DO NOT COME BACK!

Day 2316: DOCTOR WHO: The Lazarus Experiment

Saturday:

[R: elephant temporarily hiding under blanket – normal service will resume tomorrow; meanwhile, here is my review…]

It’s difficult to know what to say beyond “that was very ‘Quatermass’ wasn’t it?”

In 1953, the BBC broadcast the first play written for television, Nigel Kneale’s in every way seminal classic, the story of a man, Victor Caroon, whose capsule returns him from space with his DNA altered so that, under alien influence, he mutates into a monster. Fleeing from the laboratory, he seeks sanctuary in Westminster Abbey where finally his human nature overcomes the alien.

The BBC recently remade this for the new millennium, staring David Tennant and Mark Gatiss… and the results were shown on Saturday night.

Of course, this is hardly without precedent – the Doctor has previously, er, homaged the Professor most extensively in his third incarnation. “Spearhead from Space” does for “Quatermass II” and “The Dæmons” for “Quatermass and the Pit” and even large chunks of “Ambassadors of Death” are from “The Quatermass Experiment” (though handily they used the space capsule and ‘something mysterious’ in space bits leaving the mutation and cathedral bits for Mr Tennant). Perhaps mindful of this legacy, writer Stephen Greenhorn slips in a reference to one of Jon Pertwee’s favourite catchphrases when the Doctor “reverses the polarity”.

(Not that mutation and body horror do not feature extensively in Doctor Who under Tom Baker once Messrs Robert Holmes and Philip “von” Hinchcliffe get their hands on it…)

Actually, though, this might be better described as the Anti-Quatermass Experiment. Instead of the tragic failure of a noble experiment to broaden human knowledge, here we see the just deserts for snatching knowledge (perhaps alien knowledge) too soon and for too selfish a reason. Where “Quatermass” is about the strength of the human spirit, “Lazarus” is about its shallowness.

Professor Richard Lazarus, as played by Mark Gatiss, is a full-on League of Gentlemen grotesque: venal, avaricious and above all greedy for eternal youth. Significantly, he demonstrates these traits even before he climbs into his blender, thus avoiding the “it made me evil” effect, one of the pitfalls of this sort of story. The monster is already inside of him: just as its hideous form comes from the unused DNA so its carnivorous egoism comes from his own personality.

Gatiss’ performance is perhaps a little too Grand Guignol – in particular when acting opposite David Tennant’s beautifully sold pity and revulsion – evidence perhaps of his own comedy DNA. His neck-popping twitches come straight from his appearance in “Spaced” where he was spoofing Agent Smith of “the Matrix”. Like Agent Smith, though, Lazarus’ coding has become corrupted to make him a devouring monster, an incarnate cancer.

This was great fun to watch, a rollicking Doctor-Who-by-the-numbers bug hunt, “Alien” for the teatime audience.

But the episode would seem very slight if it were not for two things. Firstly, the use of the “false ending” sees Lazarus apparently dead – killed by his own machine, Avengers fans – but actually rising from the dead to escape to the Cathedral climax. (That move to the cathedral is nicely foreshadowed both by the model in Lazarus’ office and by his wartime reminiscences). Doctor Who’s twenty-first century format would hardly seem to give you the time to pull that off, and the episode certainly seems surprisingly to wrap up the monster thirty-five minutes in. Although I think it probably could have done with more time: the Jekyll and Hyde nature of Lazarus’ transformation is played out too quickly.

(And incidentally, how does that work? It would seem that by absorbing Lady Thaw’s DNA or life force or something, he is able to transform back, stabilise himself somehow, perhaps like Magnus Greel from “The Talons of Weng-Chiang”. But this is in no way clear, and doing the same to the snooty party goer – yes, she was asking for it – does not seem to have any similar effect.)

But he only gets to Jekyll-and-Hyde it the once before we are into the full monster chase. For once, perhaps, we have a story that would have suited the old four twenty-five minutes better, and this is only emphasised by the way the thirty-second trailer manages to cover all the plot points of the first thirty minutes. His second transformation on the roof, which fully reveals the monster, is ideal end-of-episode cliffhanger stuff.

The second point that lifts the episode is the confrontation inside Southwark Cathedral (somehow, perhaps dimensionally transcendentally, containing the insides of Wells Cathedral) between the Doctor and the Professor. The circling camera-work draws us to this central vortex, showing us their diametrically opposite points of view. Lazarus has lived his life afraid, and devoted his life to obtaining nothing but more life; the Doctor already has long life and – remember “School Reunion” – sees it as a curse when all you can do with it is lose people. But it’s not all one-sided: Lazarus has a good riposte to the Doctor’s assertion that humanity is at its best facing death: humanity, he says, saves its best efforts for running away from death – that is why we survive. It shows that this series is at the top of its game when it can slip in a profound question about its own philosophy in the middle of a monster run-around like this.

Meanwhile, the episode also advances the season’s ongoing themes, not just the recurring ideas of DNA and humanity and also family, but of course more references to Mr Saxon, whoever he might be(!)

If family is going to be important this year, then I reflect that Martha has one thing that Rose didn’t, namely a brother. Which of course links back to the Doctor’s throwaway remark in “Smith and Jones”. Although my suspicions actually linger more over Martha’s sister, the far too able PR assistant Tish. I previously speculated, that Tish might turn out to be PA to that nice Mr Saxon. Well, I wasn’t quite right: she is actually head of PR for the Lazarus Laboratory that just happens to be a wholly owned subsidiary of whatever Mr Saxon is up to. But quite possibly she’s been installed there by someone else, since Lazarus himself does not seem familiar with her. At least until he starts to get over-familiar with her.

Just as there are dark reflections of the Doctor in Lazarus, so Tish reflects Martha – both of them seemingly looking for some romantic connection, both drawn to a scientific figure. It can’t be denied that Tish was on the brink of kissing Professor Lazarus even knowing something of his character. Powerful, dangerous and a little bit bad: I’m told that can be attractive, and it certainly sets Tish up for a possible future encounter with another shall we say dark reflection of the Doctor.

We also get to see more of Martha’s mother and her entirely justifiable suspicions of her daughter’s new best friend. Cleverly turning “Aliens of London” on its head, here the Doctor gets it wrong by getting it right, returning Martha a mere twelve hours after inviting her aboard the TARDIS. So this time out, he and her have had far too much time together compared to the length of their relationship seen from a non-time-travelling mother’s point of view. Obviously, the Doctor gets another slap.

Though, of course, there is someone else involved muddying the waters and – in best “X-Files” tradition – he’s named in the end titles as only “Mysterious Man”. (Alex’s suggestion of “Whispering Man” would be even better.)

What is it that he says to Mrs Jones? David A McIntee has suggested the very believable and not untruthful from a certain point of view:

“He killed Adiola, your niece.”

This would turn another throwaway gag from Mr Russell T into an important – and quite dark – plot point. Alex liked the idea – he said he’d been wondering whether the Doctor’s hand in the death of Martha’s “identical cousin” would come back to bite him.

It’s probably nothing so complicated as that, but you can see that it would be a quick and certain way to get Mrs Jones’ attention and set her against the Doctor.

And it turns out that he’s working for Mr Saxon.

Of course you have to ask yourself what Mr Saxon would be doing supporting and funding this experiment in rejuvenation anyway. Has he, for example, provided Professor Lazarus with the technology that he uses for his device? It would certainly be in keeping with Lazarus’ character to accept a shortcut of some alien tech to reach his goal, and, well, who else do we know who makes use of “sonic” technology?

If Mr Saxon’s connection to the Doctor is what we all think it is, then he’s got to know that this is interfering in human history. But then maybe that’s the point. After all, he’s got a man on the spot briefed to look out for the Doctor. Perhaps the Lazarus Experiment is nothing to do with turning Mark Gatiss into a fey Peter Davison, but is really just a great big piece of bait to attract the Doctor. In which case, it is Mr Saxon’s plan to use Martha’s family against him?

So in the end, it’s all very like another story too: last year’s Doctor Who and the Werewolf adventure: “Tooth and Claw”. Both stories feature an impressive CGI monster, both monsters are lycanthropic, one is created by and defeated by moonlight, the other created by and defeated by sound. Both stories feature an extensive chase sequence. And both stories are significant to the season’s developing arc.


Next time… silver suits and electronic voices take over the airwaves for a week. No, I’m not going to be interrupted for Eurovision; it’s Terrance Dicks versus the Cybermen in “Made of Steel”.

Day 2315: Scotland and Wales – Just Say NO!

Friday:


Sometimes, “No” is the hardest word.

In Scotland, the new Parliament has been chosen and… it’s a bit of a mix. But most obviously, the Labour have LOST seats and the Scottish Nasty Party has gained them – gained quite a LOT of them actually. Although it does not seem to be being reported that the Greens have actually lost MORE seats than the Labour!

If there is “no moral case” for putting the Labour into government because they have lost seats, then it is TRICKY to see the moral case for putting in the GREENS who have lost MORE seats!

Our own share of the vote held up, though because of a quirk of the almost-but-not-quite-proportional system we have still lost one seat. This is still rather disappointing – only a year or so ago we were doing really, really well and hoping to advance, but since then there has been a huge SURGE in the Nasties…

Anyway, now we have to do the difficult thing of deciding who will run Scotland for the Scottish people. And more important for us, will we join in.

The Labour have clearly lost, and a majority of people in Scotland have clearly rejected them as the government. What is more we are increasingly opposed to the Labour on a Britain-wide basis. Lord Blairimort may soon be gone but Mr Frown will hardly be a change of tune, and this may be a good time to be DISTANCING ourselves from them before they ALL disappear right down the plug hole.

I think that it would, on the whole, be better for us to say “thank you but no thank you” if they come asking for a coalition.

On the other fluffy foot, it would not be the most STABLE of governments if we went in with the Scottish Nasty Party either.

In the last parliament, we were able to form a coalition with the Labour because between us we had a majority with seats in hand.

OH, a small note for the BBC people – a “majority” means that you control more seats than all the others put together: in today’s parliament, the Scottish Nasty Party does NOT have a “majority” of one over the Labour. The word you are looking for is LEAD!

The point though is that even if we and the Nasties get together AND add in the Greens we will only have a majority of ONE. The first hint of a row, or if one MSP has a prior engagement or even if someone just steps out to the TOILET then the government falls over!

We know that we have BIGGER problems with the Nasties than with the Labour (not that there weren’t enough problems there!), and we would have great big blazing rows. Not good if your majority is WAFFER THIN!

Plus, we were part of that government that has just been rejected. We should be honest enough to put our fluffy feet up to that too.

So it might be best all around if we were to say: “okay, we aren’t going to join a coalition with EITHER of you. But we won’t deliberately undermine either of you either. If you can make a coalition with the Conservatories and the Greens – or with each other! – then we won’t FAFF ABOUT bringing you down every time someone takes a COMFORT BREAK.”




In Wales, the BBC lady doing the reporting kept saying over and over and over how the Labour will have to form a coalition “probably with the Liberal Democrats”. It cannot be GOOD if everyone just assumes we are a total PUSH OVER.

Whatever happens, our negotiating position should not be “TAKE ME, I am YOURS!”


Mr Black Peter, the Prince of Wales, has already made his bid to be new leader case for not joining a coalition.

Of course, we run the risk of giving Mr Balloon the KUDOS of saying: “look, Conservatories are now back in government in Scotland and Wales!” On the other fluffy foot, we get the advantage of being able to say “LOOK the Conservatories are now back in government in Scotland and Wales!”

The Conservatories are of course busily turning themselves into the ENGLISH NASTY PARTY anyway, so NO ONE should be surprised if they would rather jump into bed with the Nasties than have any principles.

Mind you, the REAL natural coalition is between the Thatcherite Party and the OTHER Thatcherite Party – but does anyone speculate about a Labour Conservatory coalition?

We are NOT an adjunct to the other parties; we are not just the “me too” party. We are the alternative. And perhaps it is time we were seen to be OPPOSING.

Day 2314: May the Fourth Be With You!

Thursday:


It was a dark time for the Liberal Alliance [No, no, no, no, noooooo]…

Oh bobbins! It seems like the EVIL EMPIRE have been using their ULTIMATE WEAPON – the BALLOON STAR – to explode several of our planets. There is only one thing for it, we must use the HIDDEN WEAKNESS by finding the SECRET PLANS… ah, now I realise why Mr Balloon HAS no plans!


It has been a bit of a HORRID night, all in all. I am sorry to have to say that, but it is TRUE.

Mr James was not impressed either, although Mr Jonny thinks that it is a PARADOX, with mixed messages for all parties.

As a FLUFFY ELEPHANT, I had very much hoped we Liberal Democrats could hold our own, maintaining our overall share of the vote. And if we maybe lost some council seats to the rising tide of the Conservatories I had hoped that we would cancel those out by making gains off of the Labour.

But it seems that the Labour's voters have decided to hold onto the hope that WHOEVER comes next (it will be Mr Frown) cannot be as bad as Lord Blairimort (he can!).

So although we have in fact managed to keep our end up in Wales and Scotland, we have clearly lost a couple of hundred councillors; and although our share of the vote at 26% is in fact barely changed from last year we have suffered the PSYCHOLOGICAL blow of seeing the Labour slip back ahead of us. Just barely.

I suspect that the reason for this may ACTUALLY be because the Liberal Democrats are now doing much BETTER. Yes, I know this sounds WONKY! But if you think about it, we are now coming under fire from BOTH of the other big parties as increasingly they retreat onto their home turf. In the south, where there is barely a councillor from the Labour to be seen, we have to stand against the Conservatories; but in the north where – significantly – the "Balloon Effect" has yet to fly, we are the ONLY opposition standing up to the Labour.

This leads to the BIZARRE situation of Mr Paxo accusing us of being "tarts" for trying to represent the WHOLE of the country!

(Mr Vince "Captain Power" Cable did NOT answer this question very well! He should have asked Mr Paxo if he would prefer it if we we're like the other parties and did not BOTHER with large chunks of the country. Mind you, at least Mr Vince pulled himself together again after that – Auntie Maude had disintegrated completely!)

We need to learn TWO important lessons, I am afraid.

Firstly, we need to learn to DEFEND ourselves much better. Holding a council is much harder work than taking one – because all of your good activists are now busy BEING councillors. And we need to work out a plan to stop ourselves getting all the blame for the mess left behind when Conservatories and Labour get kicked out. Otherwise, like weeds, they just come back.

We can pull in workers from surrounding areas to try to have enough numbers to keep delivering and campaigning but… well, aren't we rather good at doing this already? And if the areas where we do well are surrounded by others areas where we do well, well where do the spare people come from?

So we advance, but we get washed back. Which is disappointing.

On the other fluffy foot, Mr Councillor Stephen points out that many of our losses to the Conservatories were in places where the Conservatories were already strong, while in our own areas we were the ones taking seats. If Mr Balloon is consolidating and not advancing then he may find our MPs harder to dislodge than he boasts.

Secondly, we need to learn a new technique for ATTACKING, because we are no longer at the cutting edge, and in the main we are targeting against the Labour now rather than the Conservatories. The Labour are a very different kettle of fish, much more inclined to be TRIBAL. Yes, I know you don't get TRIBES of FISH.

Speaking of TRIBAL, personally I think that we made a MISTAKE in Scotland by campaigning so strongly against the Scottish Nasty Party's idea of a REFERENDUM. I think that it would have been better to say:

"Well, that's really a question for any negotiations after the election. We don't see the need for one, we think that there are more important things to get on and do for Scotland, and if one happened obviously we would campaign very strongly to keep the Union. We're a Liberal Party, a listening party and if that's the will of the Scottish people, then it wouldn't hurt us to hear their views. But it sounds like a huge waste of time and money so let me tell you what our priorities are instead…"

Insisting that we were against the referendum was just campaigning on the Scottish Nasties' territory. Why give them the free publicity?

We have plenty of things to talk about without having to talk about the Nasties' manifesto.

Because one thing that is GOOD is that we are sharpening up our POLICY OFFERING and PRESENTATION. I think it is widely recognised that we are MILES ahead of the Conservatories on this. If there is a crumb of comfort then it is that Mr Balloon's rise without trace was slightly blunted because he doesn't have ANY policies.

We need to remind ourselves that our top team now plays VERY WELL in the media. Sir Mr the Merciless himself is actually POPULAR, and particularly with younger voters who form the bedrock of our support. He talks about the things that matter to them and they respect him.

And to be fair he is not just a ONE-MAN-BAND the way that Captain Paddy and CK1 used to appear to be.

Mr Clogg has done very well in breaking thorough into the media world as well, with many appearances on the news in order to respond to the latest hilarity from the Home Office. Mr Ed has made his mark doing all the pundit shows and staying up all night with Mr Dimbledonkey. And our old friend Mr Hewn gets out a lot, too… (doing rather well on the Newsnight Show as I type!)

But we need to see more of our TALENT out there. We have GOT so many MPs now, we should USE them!

Our election broadcast about CRIME was quite good, but it was a CRIME that we did not see any of our lady MPs in our broadcasts. Ms Susan Kramer-vs-Kramer, Ms Julia Golds-Worth-her-weight-in, Queen of Bloggers Ms Featherweight, the amazing little Ms Jo and LOVELY SARAH TEATHER! Any one of them worth more than all fifteen OLD ETONIANS on Mr Balloon's front bench. Where were they all?

It wouldn't hurt to see more of Mr Tim or Mr Danny either – and let's have a lot more BIGGING UP of Mr Norman the Baker, defender of Freedom of Information!

We're never going to win an election by coverage in the national media alone – not in a world where we vanish from the front pages every time Mr Balloon drops his trousers. Campaigning on the ground, street by street, climbing EVERY STAIRCASE just to find that voter has always been our way.

But it is nice to know that we might get a little bit of support from the airwaves.


I think we should also thank the people who are taking us into CYBERSPACE, people like Mr Rob with his Lib Dem Voice, and Dr Pax and Mr Will sending results by TEXT from their electric broom-cupboard under the Cowley Street stairs!

It may not be Dale Winton on Certificate 18 Doubtful Street, but it's not Mr Millipede's robot-written blog either. It's the future. It should come with Garlic Bread.

So where do we go from here? Well, have a good sob into your nearest cuddly elephant if you need it, but then pick yourself up, dust yourself down and get ready to start all over again. Some of us have taken a drubbing, but we're still capable of winning – remember Hull! How's that for a battle cry!

And remember too, in four years time the Conservatories are going to have to try and defend these council seats while Mr Balloon will still have no policies and will be desperately trying to run the country from an unpopular minority government because a quarter of his party defected to UKIP the day after the next general election!

Day 2313: Mayday! Mayday! Prime Monster in Distress!

Wednesday:


Just GO already!

And so the PROTRACTED demise of Lord Blairimort continues and, like in HAMLET, the entire COURT has been wiped out but the death scene STILL goes on FAR TOO LONG.

As ever, the Labour seek to use their spin machine to try to cover up what is really going on. Rather than face up to the peoples' decisions in Scotland and Wales and the local elections, the Labour – just like in the Hartlepool by-election, when Lord Blairimort first got himself into this mess – are PRE-EMPTING the results and trying to BURY any BAD NEWS.

This week saw Lord Blairimort celebrate a DECADE in POWER. Or, more accurately, two years of doing exactly what the Conservatories had said they would do and eight years of doing exactly what the Monkey-in-Chief said he should do.

Looking back on this time, Sir Mr the Merciless gave the Prime Monster a very generous 4 out of 10.

Lord Blairimort has read this report. He quoted from it extensively at Prime Monster's TV Quiz, listing the things Liberal Democrats say he has got right: an "ethical foreign policy" (terms and conditions apply), economic stability, Scottish and Welsh devolution and increased investment in public services.

Strangely, he did NOT read out the bits that say where he has gone WRONG. Increases in personal debt; widening of the gap between rich and poor; 2% rise in Carbon emissions when the Labour promised to cut them; more deficits in the NHS; failure to meet their pledge on class sizes; increased violent crime; and above all the worst foreign policy decision since Suez, the illegal invasion of Iraq.

Mr Jonny has draws lesson for us from this.

But Lord Blairimort is ALWAYS like this: he is only interested in PRESENTATION and only interested in THINGS THAT MAKE HIM LOOK GOOD.

"He has squeezed the VALUES out of British politics," Sir Mr the Merciless told the BBC, "That's why there's a real opportunity for a party of principle like ours."

Lord Blairimort's PARTISAN BLINKERS might get him some cheap laughs in the House of Commons, but really they just HURT the country. He believes that he can do no wrong – so he just sticks his fingers in his ears and goes "lalalalala" rather than listen to any criticism. And THAT is why he makes such DISASTROUS mistakes.

Which reminds me: Mr Balloon also joined the celebration.

"Tony Blair's time started with great hope but has ended with disappointment," said Mr Balloon, reminding everyone just how much HE wants to be like Lord Blairimort.


It is no longer the case – if it ever was in the first place – that the BLAME for whatever happens on Thursday can be placed on Lord Blairimort's shoulders and he will depart leaving a new and innocent Mr Frown in charge. Certainly that was never going to be Lord Blairimort's plan! And now, even Mr Frown is being forced to admit that he may perhaps have had some small hand in running the country for the last ten years.

But by rolling out an ongoing Lord Blairimort SAGA of will he/won't he be announcing his walking of the ceremonial plank, the Labour hope to distract the news media into covering that story more than any actual democratic process that might be going on. Leaking that the announcement might come BEFORE the elections on Thursday has enabled them to keep it going through several "news cycles" and focus the spotlight firmly on themselves – one way or another – for the whole election week. And they will keep control of the news agenda after the election by tantalising the press with hints of the moment when Lord B ACTUALLY resigns.

I am not QUITE sure how good an idea it is to campaign on the slogan "I'm out'a here; don't blame the lot I'm leaving behind". It is as likely to remind voters that this is their last chance to give Lord Blairimort a good KICKING in the BALLOTS as it is to make them think "ah, we are renewed with Mr Frown!"

Mind you, you'd probably have to be drinking DRAIN-O to wake up thinking "ah, we are renewed with Mr Frown!"

Even at this stage, Lord Blairimort has to GRIT his teeth in order to spit out an endorsement of his Chancellor, still unable to name his successor by name:

"In all probability a Scot will become prime minister of the United Kingdom," he said at a gathering of those party workers still loyal to him. Both of them.

Does he STILL think that Nice Mr Dr John Reid could have a go at dethroning the prince in waiting and waiting and waiting?

Actually, it has been a fairly TYPICAL week at the Home Office when even though they might have been TRUMPETING a good result with several nasty terrorist banged, er not in this context, locked up, they STILL manage to make a mess of it by accidentally letting on that they've been covering up for MI5's having probably made a cock-up over the July 7th terrorists.

"WE never knew who they were, nice Master; thought they were nasty thieving fraudsters, we did, Master, but not terroristses, oh no," said nice Mr Dr Reid.

He added: "of course we knew who they were, my precious; we followed them home and took lots of snapses with the cameras, Gollum."

Actually, catching terrorists is REALLY QUITE DIFFICULT, and we cannot expect our secret agents to get it right every single time. They have to make choices about who to target and which contacts to follow, and sometimes they are going to get it wrong.

It IS horrible when they get it wrong, but it is also quite rare. Remember, they missed one lot of terrorists because they were concentrating on another lot, who they went on to catch.

As usual, though, it is the COVERING UP afterwards that is the serious problem – how can we learn from mistakes if we are too busy pretending that they never happened? How can MI5 be accountable to Parliament if they only give Parliament the EDITED HIGHLIGHTS?

Funnily enough, this came up at Prime Monster's TV Quiz too. It was all VERY predictable. Or as Daddy Alex said: "So it has come to this, a PMQT Clips Show".

Mr Balloon called for an inquiry

Lord Blairimort said no.

Sir Mr the Merciless asked if anyone would take responsibility for the mistakes made in Iraq.

Lord Blairimort said no.

Sir Mr the Merciless told the house who was responsible: the Monkey-in-Chief took the decision, Lord Blairimort made the case, Mr Frown signed the cheques and the Conservatories voted it through.

Lord Blairimort (knowing Sir M was out of questions) said that Liberal Democrats would have let Mr Saddam stay in power. (Unlike Lord Blairimort who actually told the House of Commons that, er, he would let Mr Saddam stay in power.)

Mr Balloon asked if Lord Blairimort would say anything nice about his successor.

Lord Blairimort rattled off his prepared thousand-page list.

Mr Balloon sat down looking embarrassed.

We have seen it all before.

At least Lord Blairimort didn't say: "I'm enjoying this!"

Daddy watched it all with me on the Daily Politics with the voter-o-meters: it was interesting to see that Sir Mr the Merciless got very strong positives with his question – worth remembering for those thinking the Iraq debacle is now "old news" – and Sir M's support is strongest among younger voters. Lord Blairimort, on the other fluffy foot, got only lukewarm support for his answers and in particular, when he was being partisan, it polarised the voters along partisan lines too – meaning he can no longer convince anyone other than the few remaining people who are going to vote for the Labour anyway.

I wonder how Mr Frown will do.

The Newsnight Show has run a poll saying that 73% of voters would like to get rid of him straight away give him his own mandate with a snap election after Lord Blairimort goes.

They should be so lucky!

In fact, there is NO NEED for a general election: we elect our MPs and not our PMs. Mr Frown will be able to command a majority of the House of Commons – probably – and that means he gets to be Prime Monster. Just like Mr Minor did for the Conservatories or Mr Call-again did for the Labour last time.

Mr Frown should be allowed to have his two or three years in charge. Then everyone will see that he is just the same as Lord Blairimort.

Of course, a snap BY-ELECTION in SEDGEFIELD would be an entirely other question!


GOOD LUCK to everyone in the local and devolved elections!


Condensed version: "just GO already!"

Day 2312: Mysteries of Doctor Who #9: So why exactly does Azal blow himself up at the end of the Dæmons?

May Day:


Any of you out there fancying the greatest occult festival of the year after Halloween… you've just missed it!

But my Daddies took the opportunity to CELEBRATE in the TIME-HONOURED FASHION of bunging on a DOCTOR WHO VIDEO.

"The Dæmons" is the story that finishes off Doctor Who's eighth year, and it is also the concluding episode of a sort of story arc that has seen Dr Who pitted against his brand new arch enemy Mr the Master in every story that year.

The Master is often described as "Moriarty" to Dr Who's "Sherlock Holmes", and this is because he's never mentioned until he appears in just one story and gets killed at the end… no, that's not right!

The Master is much more like ERNST STAVRO BLOFELD in the early James Bond films: he comes up with DIABOLICAL and usually BONKERS plots that fall flat on their faces the moment Dr Who turns up. But he ESCAPES and COMES BACK next time! In his early incarnation, he is always joining forces with some alien menace or other (the Autons, the Mind Parasite, the Axons, the Clangers, the Daleks) only to have them turn on him in the end so that he must team up with Dr Who. Later, he changes this for a fixation with disguising himself in ludicrous anagrams and hiding out in random historical locations.

However, in "The Dæmons" he actually works. He has a plan to get power that – bizarre as it may seem – actually makes sense. Obviously, his speech to the villagers promising that if they follow him he will lead them to take over the world seems a little, er, ambitious, but he's probably just bluffing them. He only wants their emotions, anyway.

(Actually, if the Master REALLY wanted to take over the World that way, he would need to think on a rather larger scale. Some sort of career as a CHARISMATIC POLITICIAN might be a good idea… er… not that I'm saying anything… MUST… NOT… MAKE… ALLIANCE… WITH… EVIL ALIEN!!!)

For a lot of people this is the best ever Doctor Who story for Mr Jon Twerpee, as it is not just a really great story for him and the Master but it also features the best uses for all of the UNIT family of Miss Jojo Grant, Mr Sergeant Benton, Mr Captain Yates and Mr the Brigadier, along with helicopters, flying gargoyles, motorbike chases and to cap it all, the Devil himself, alive and in person.

Or actually not, as it turns out that the Devil in this case is actually an alien called Azal.

Reading Mr Tat and Mr Larry's book "About Time 3", they notice that the Master tries to bind this Azal "in the name of the unnameable one" and wonder if this means that there is some other Devil out there, bigger and scarier than the Dæmons. Oh how they must have LAUGHED when Dr Who landed on "The Impossible Planet" last year!

In fact, Dr Who gets rather snippy with local weird woman Miss Hawthorn when she insists on calling it all magic. Everything has a scientific explanation, he insists several times to her and to Jojo. He is remarkably ungracious about it. On the other fluffy foot, he IS right.

The Age of Aquarius "you know, the occult and all that magic bit" are Jojo's latest obsession, though, so he's probably had to cope with it all the way down from UNIT top secret headquarters. (As marked by the big sign that says UNIT top secret headquarters.)

The Dæmons, at least according to Dr Who, are a bunch of AMORAL SCIENTISTS who have been tampering with the development of Earth people.

Mind you, so has Scaroth. And so has the Rani. And the Osirans, And the Fendahl. And the Terrileptils caused the Great Fire of London. It is surprising that Earth has any history of its own at all, to be honest!

Anyway, Azal arrived here about a hundred thousand years ago and has been tinkering ever since, kicking off the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution and stuff, and napping in between times. Now some ornery old archaeologist called Professor Horner has decided to have a go at digging up Azal's bedroom and the Master is on hand to take advantage.

Professor Horner – and Dr Who! – both get instantly frozen at the end of episode one when, in a rare moment of scientific accuracy, Azal absorbs a lot of heat in order to grow to his normal huge size. (Heat being energy and energy being equivalent to matter according to Mr Einstein who worked it all out!)

For the professor, this is fatal, but Dr Who has the constitution of an OX – which at least matches his manners, see above! Actually, we were left wondering whether BBC3 television presenter Mr Alastair Fergus also gets his at that point. He OUGHT to be down in the dig with the professor and we do not see him again – only his camp aide, seen as the telly people drive away. Does anybody know?

Azal turns out to be a bit of a stickler for instructions. His go something like this:

Experiment

To see if I can improve the primitives of the planet Earth

Equipment

Self. Planet. Primitives. Miniature spacecraft. Spare gargoyle ("Bok")

Method

Arrive on planet; use psychic suggestion to get primitives to develop new technology; take nap. Repeat until later twentieth century. Finally, pick a May Day; wake up; appear three times; offer powers to best available candidate; if none available, destroy planet; die.

Results

Initially promising: selected primitives ("homo sapiens") managed to drive rival species ("homo neanderthalis") to extinction; wrote some pretty good poetry; built some nifty buildings etc.

Disappointingly, primitives then became obsessed with ritualistic song and dance routine – called it "religion" – and totally misunderstood scientific basis of Dæmon methods. Used technology mainly to hit each other. Often over disagreements about "religion".

Additional: annoying habit of trying to dig up my spaceship.

Conclusion

On final manifestation, discovered that planet still overrun by stupid primitives, but found two superior specimens. (Decided to ignore the fact they are obviously aliens. Am bored of spaceship getting dug up. So sue me.) Offered powers to one called "Dr Who" – preferred him to other fellow, don't like beards. "Dr Who" turned powers down. Stuff it! Will blow up world! Hang on, what's SHE doing? Arrgh! Bang! Pop!

Now, not EVERYONE is completely happy with the climax to this story, where Ms Jojo flings herself between Dr Who and Azal's Pointing Fingers Of Death™ the result of which is that Azal, er, blows up in confusion.

In fact, this somewhat abrupt conclusion along with the fact that "The Dæmons" is one of Doctor Who's rare five-parters (the other two being "The Dominators" and "The Mind Robber" in the budget-stretching final year of Dr Who number two, Mr Pat Trout) led Doctor Who Bulletin to produce a spoof "episode six" where Azal's boss turns up and it's "god". That WAS for their 1st April edition rather than 1st May, though.

But accepting that the story really does end here, why might this have happened?

Well, Daddy has had a thought. Or possibly two thoughts.

The way that we are told that the Dæmons' "psionic science" works is by channelling "emotional energy". Actually, that is frothing-fit inducing nonsense too – if your body could generate and focus enough energy to levitate a stone gargoyle then you would have STEAM coming out of your ears because your BRAIN would be BOILING!

Still, breathe deeply and pretend that it might work, and then remember that the Master is currently providing all of Azal's wattage from his coven of cowering villagers. Black magic based on nasty negative emotions like anger and jealousy and greed. Azal revs himself up and prepare to go "Zzap!" when…

Suddenly along comes Ms Jojo and she's brim full of COMPLETELY DIFFERENT emotions: love, self-sacrifice, bravery.

It is like throwing a cup full of sugar into the petrol tank while doing ninety miles-an-hour. It instantly turns to caramel and gums up the whole works. Flash bang wallop bits of engine and gear box in all directions.

Alternatively, maybe Azal needs to produce a channel or tube of magic to focus all that energy from himself to Dr Who. In that case, Ms Jojo's intervention doesn't disrupt Azal himself so much as cancel out his channel. We HAVE seen people create "psychic barriers" in another Doctor Who story: "The Curse of Fenric" and that is to do with absolute belief; perhaps Jojo demonstrates absolute belief in Dr Who here she creates a "psychic barrier" by luck. Azal is left full to bursting with magic energy and nowhere for it to go. Except by bursting. All that "cannot compute" waffle is him unable to establish an alternative channel because he's already too overheated.

And then the church blew up!

There were letters to the RadioTimes complaining about that, honest! So, it might all be a bit silly but it was certainly WORTHWHILE!


Condensed version: "Although 'The Dæmons' is a good story, the ending is a bit dodgy."

Day 2311: Car Made Bon

Monday:


Last year I told you about Daddy Richard's car, Penfold, and the nasty Carbon Dioxide. I said how we went online and found a website that would let us buy a CARBON OFFSET, to cancel out all of Daddy's BADNESS.

It is called a Carbon Offset because it makes your Car Bon! (This is a joke in FRENCH!)

Well, that was LAST YEAR. It is time that I gave you an UPDATE!

Daddy has just got a nice letter from Mr Frown demanding more CAR TAX – which Daddy could pay on the Wibbly Wobbly Web this year because Mr Frown's SINISTER AGENTS have been keeping an eye on Daddy's MOT and insurance – and so I have pestered Daddy into updating his Carbon Offset TOO.


Last year, when we looked, Penfold had driven 22,943 miles which is the same as 36,923 kilometres. That is an average of about three-thousand-and-three-hundred miles a year, or five-thousand-and-three-hundred kilometres a year if you prefer.

We worked out that at 265 grammes of carbon dioxide for every kilometre this was 9.785 tonnes in total! So we bought 9.8 tonnes of carbon offset.

This year, we have checked Penfold's mileage again and it has gone up to 26,549 miles equals 42,726 kilometres. This means Daddy has driven another three-thousand-and-six-hundred miles this year, which is a bit up on the average. I think it is because we have been going up and down to Personchester a bit more often.

Doing the maths like last year, we worked out that this means that Daddy's total carbon footprint from Penfold has increased to 11.323 tonnes, an increase of 1.538 tonnes.

I have therefore made Daddy buy another 1.6 tonnes of offset in order to NEUTRALISE himself again!



Condensed version: "bought more Carbon Offset 'cos Daddy hasn't stopped driving!"

PS

Happy Beltane, everyone!

Day 2310: That Pink Dog Condensed

Sunday:


As a new service for my Daddies, I have boiled down several posts from that Pink Dog into one sentence, thus saving them much time and bandwidth!

This week:

“Got a letter from old lady.”

Say ‘woof’ li’l doggie

Day 2309: DOCTOR WHO: Evolution of the Daleks

Saturday:


I have been UNDERCOVER to report on the latest Doctor Who story – look carefully at this picture of the CULT OF SKARO and you MAY be able to spot an INFILTRATOR…

shhhh!

…unfortunately, Dalek Caan has ESCAPED! I am now VERY SCARED that he is hiding behind my sofa, so if you will excuse me I am going to go and take shelter in my Daddies’ bedroom while Daddy Richard reviews the rest of this story for you.

It would be easy to be dazzled by the impressive special effects, the thrilling action sequences, or by the obvious visual references to “Frankenstein” (in particular to James Whale’s 1931 Universal classic). But if you were, you would be suckered into mistaking this for some Hollywood hollow spectacular, and miss the more important thematic development that grows not just from “Daleks in Manhattan”, but also from “The Evil of the Daleks” and “Genesis of the Daleks” itself.

“Frankenstein” is subtitled “The Modern Prometheus”, a retelling of the story of the Titan who stole fire from the gods of Olympus to give it to mortal mankind. Superficially – as superficially as the visual referencing of “Frankenstein” by “Evolution of the Daleks” – that is a reference to the lightning bolt that Frankenstein uses to resurrect his stitched together man. But it is also about knowledge, and here that knowledge, that “power of creation”, is represented by genetics, the power that was used in “Genesis…” to create the Daleks in the first place, and now to re-create the entire Dalek race.

And, in context, the fire of Olympus represents free will: Prometheus gives man the ability to make choices for himself, rather than blindly obeying the will of the gods. Similarly, Frankenstein creates in his creature the ability to choose between good and evil for itself. And similarly again, “Evolution of the Daleks” is about the conflict between the Daleks’ law of obey or die, and the human factor of freedom. It is, essentially, what the Time War was fought over, and it is re-enacted here in microcosm.

After establishing the Old Testament memes of Heaven and Hell in last week’s episode, this week Helen Raynor reveals to us almost a New Testament of the Daleks, with Dalek Sec discovering it in himself to be a Dalek messiah. Instead of absolute law handed down from the “creator” in “Genesis…”, Sec wants the Daleks to learn that there can be another way, wouldn’t it be great if they could all just get along.

The irony should not be lost that by absorbing Mr Diagoras – superficially the “bad guy” in last weeks story – Sec has discovered courage, compassion, hope: all of humanity’s finer feelings.

The Frankenstein monster is, in many ways, more human than its creator too and, of course, it too is destroyed by the mob. Alex also points out that Doctor Frankenstein, like Dalek Sec, is a lone genius practicing his forbidden art and creating a single creature – but there is no place for such a unique talent among the Daleks who reproduce their golems on an industrial scale.

Redemption is the message of the New Testament, and redemption – Redemption of the Daleks – is the theme of this episode, with the Daleks being offered redemption first by Solomon, whom they exterminate, then by Sec, whom they exterminate, and finally, at the end, by the Doctor, whom Dalek Caan flees.

Killing off Solomon so soon in the episode was a bold and yet thoroughly correct decision. One of the “fear factor” kids expresses the surprise that “he was a main character!” By giving Solomon all that character development only to “just” kill him is, of course, the whole point. You should remember that everyone who gets killed in a Doctor Who adventure has a story, whether we’ve seen the development or not, and every one of them has a right to expect that story to carry on – killing them always ends those stories. And that’s what Daleks do: they have no respect for your “story” or your “development”; they just kill.

Besides, doing an impression of Thal leader Temmosus (“The Daleks”) is so asking to be exterminated.

But in a sense, Solomon’s death – pointless and little as it is – awakens Dalek Sec to his awareness of humanity. Solomon had courage and that affects Sec. Perhaps significant is the revelation that Dalek Sec is the first Dalek to have known pain in thousands of years. Daleks don’t need courage if they never have to face pain. In their shells, they are anaesthetised to all feelings.

Sec, to his credit, recognises that it is the ability to feel, to connect to the world outside, that challenges humans to better themselves and that gives them their unique powers of survival.

I am reminded that the human that Sec absorbed is named for Diagoras the Atheist, and that Sec begins to question “the creator”.

The Daleks are, of course, the ultimate creationists: they just know that they were created as supreme beings. Though, in fairness, they know because they shot the bugger that did it. But they didn’t kill him because they questioned him; they killed him because they took his word absolutely literally. (And by avoiding naming him, “Evolution of the Daleks” doesn’t just do away with needless backstory, it plays up the theistic metaphor.)

But here we see a bold restatement of one of the series’ core values: the Doctor’s argument with Davros (not to mention endless Cyberleaders) is over the need for emotion. Davros thinks emotion weakens you; the Doctor thinks it makes the universe a better place. It is Davros’ refusal to see this point of view that sets him and the Doctor at odds; it is Sec’s recognition of it that allows the Doctor to reconcile himself with a Dalek.

But the Daleks aren’t interested in redemption. And, like good little fundamentalists, they reject evolution.

There were really two ways to go from the cliff-hanger at the end of last week: I suspected we might see a “Blood of the Daleks” route, with the Doctor siding with the original Daleks to prevent the birth of something worse; Alex, more wisely, saw that the Doctor would join Sec to try and defeat the purpose of the other Daleks. Alex of course was right, and it was really more satisfying that he was. His way round, the Doctor remained true to his ideals, didn’t have to choose the lesser of two evils, and nor were the Daleks compromised in their fundamental inhumanity.

The characterisation of the fully Dalek Daleks was spot on: we loved their conspiratorial glances, suspicious, narrowing eye-lenses and are-we-alone eyestalk movements. It was entirely right that their diabolical deviousness would see them use the Doctor and Sec to complete and perfect the experiment for hybridising all those humans while at the same time subverting it, perverting it to their own ends.

I thought the idea of an army of, essentially, human corpses with Daleks riding around inside them was deliciously grotesque, if subtly played down in the show. A nice touch was the way that Sec referred to his new self as a “Human Dalek”, while the other Daleks called their army of undead “Dalek-Humans”.

And dragging Dalek Sec around in chains was another typically Dalek thing to do: humiliation of humanoids being their second favourite hobby, because – as the Doctor remarks in “Destiny of the Daleks” – they used to be humanoid themselves. These Daleks even recognised a need to retake humanoid form, so enslaving Sec (or as Alex puts it: chaining their conscience) they are really rubbing the point in. Daleks never change their minds, says the Doctor – well these guys do, but they are thoroughly “1984” about old ideas once they’ve decided that they were wrongthinking.

I’m glad that they addressed the issue that I raised last week: why didn’t they just clone more Daleks from themselves? Well, of course, they tried that and if didn’t work. Obviously, that begs the question why not? My suspicion would be that when the Dalek Emperor created the Cult of Skaro he deliberately designed them with a genetic flaw so that they couldn’t reproduce themselves. As Emperor, the very last thing that he would want would be a breed of thinking, questioning Daleks being nurtured within his Empire – after all, look what happened last time!

Which brings me to the climax with the Daleks on stage in the theatre – well someone must have enjoyed Nick Scovell’s “Evil of the Daleks” on stage as much as we did. Alex pointed out that Dalek Caan wiring himself into the walls to take command of the Dalek army was him making himself into a prototype Dalek Emperor (the BBC’s website uses that scary Dalek heartbeat, but Alex is disappointed that it is not available to download). And the final battle is precipitated when a “Dalek” – a “Dalek” infected with the human factor by the Doctor, no less – a “Dalek” questions an order.

My one passing regret was that Caan didn’t migrate to Sec’s discarded Black Dalek shell. Russell T has so gone on about how attached to their Black Dalek they’ve become I was surprised that they would just discard it in the sewers under the Empire State Building.


Well, I’ve spent the whole review talking about the Daleks again, haven’t I? They do rather tend to take things over though, don’t they?

There was more for Martha to do this week – from healing the wounded in Hooverville to battling the pigmen in the Empire State Building. Using the Daleks’ own lightning bolt against them was an inspired touch. Gosh but Martha is brainy: that one was worthy of the Doctor himself. And afterwards, after doing the necessary, she has a very Doctor-like moment of regret. “There should have been another way,” perhaps.

The other humanoid supporting cast were, necessarily, sidelined by the pepperpots. Sidelined or, indeed, shot. Tallulah and Lazlo suffered most – though we were still treated to another great Tallulah pig joke with her concerns about Gammon Radiation, and they did get their happy ending. Sure it was an “oh, he lives,” but having spent so much time setting up the fact that Lazlo was doomed, it was rather nice to defeat expectations by saving him. And it was very Doctor-ish to react to all the death and horror by throwing his all into saving one life if he could.

The Doctor was more of a force of nature than ever in this story: taking the lightning and re-writing it with his own body. (Oh yes he can do that – we saw him doing something similar in “Smith and Jones”, remember?) He doesn’t stop trying to teach the Daleks, though: from the moment he reveals himself to them after the cliff-hanger he’s telling them about music – you can see the effect this later has on Sec when the hybrid is handling the shattered radio; and later he marches straight in lecturing them about the morality of killing. Sec agreeing that killing is wrong brings him up short, though.

He’s at his most deathwish since his ninth incarnation too – offering himself up for extermination in Hooverville, even though it will achieve nothing, it won’t stop the Daleks or even save the people. He has genuinely lost everything again and the Daleks’ survival seems to have pushed him over the edge. In a way, Sec seems to save him in more ways than the physical, giving him something to live for and perhaps giving him some redemption too. Standing in the way of the lightning is about achieving something in a way that standing in the way of extermination wasn’t.

Neither of them were expecting the Time Lord’s salvation to come from a Dalek messiah, and yet they seem to recognise something worthy in each other and maybe even find a kind of respect, if not friendship.

It’s a great ending for the Doctor, too. If ever there was a time when he would be justified in killing a Dalek, surely it is just at the moment that that Dalek has committed genocide. (The Doctor and Martha both avoid genocide by a score of one, incidentally: Martha electrocutes all of the pigmen except Lazlo; the Doctor wipes out all the Daleks except Caan). And yet the Doctor goes to Caan and wants to help. Presumably to take Caan somewhere where he can live harmlessly away from anyone else. Maybe even to take Sec’s route and to evolve. It’s an ending very true to the spirit of what the Doctor stands for, a love of humanity, a love of life. And very true to the spirit of “Genesis of the Daleks” as well.

I’ll reiterate my thought from my review of “Blood of the Daleks”: the Doctor’s victory at the end of “Genesis of the Daleks” – and it is a victory – is in the realisation that if the Time Lords were to exterminate the Daleks then they would become the Daleks. The Doctor chooses a universe where Daleks are not inevitable, where “exterminate” is not the last word.

But where has Dalek Caan gone? No, don’t tell me – especially if he’s going to be back later this year. I’d like some surprises to remain!

It seems to me that the Daleks – or rather Dalek, now – may be trapped on Earth, able to jump forwards or backwards in time but stranded on the planet. Which makes for an interesting dynamic, but rather limits their ability to build their numbers back up again.

Personally, I’d really like to see the Doctor return to the Dalek Invasion of Earth. It’s such an iconic moment in the future-history of Earth as well as in the history of the series that it would have all the resonance of a proper “historical”. It was one of the stories that really transformed the series: up until that point, Earth had been the safe haven that Ian and Barbara longed to return to. Earth had been inviolable. All that changed with the Invasion; all that changed with the Daleks. It’s one of those events that people are sure to remember and may even think has really happened. And I can just imagine Dalek Caan skulking around trying to get hold of some viable Dalek genetic material without getting noticed, one bronze Dalek amidst all the silver Daleks. And it would be somewhere really uncomfortable for the Doctor to be as well, knowing that in say 2165 for once he can’t defeat the monsters because he already has, but not until 2167.

The last line of “Evolution of the Daleks” (Martha asks: “will you see it again?” and the Doctor answers “oh yes; one day”) even echoes “One day I shall come back, oh yes…” from “The Dalek Invasion of Earth”.

But wherever, and whenever, they are sure to return and I am already looking forward to the next encounter. Helen Raynor has brought a depth and allegory to them not seen since the great days of Robert Holmes, Philip Hinchcliffe and David Maloney; I hope that she’ll be back soon too.

Next time… It’s that Mark Gatiss! He’s seventy-six years old, you know. “The Lazarus Experiment”. Saturday at 7pm.

Day 2308: New Earth discovered; Beware of the Cat Monsters!

Friday:


Space… the way the news treats it these days, you would think it was less like the FINAL FRONTIER and more like the CORNER SHOP.

But, as Mr DOUGLAS ADAMS once said, you might THINK it's a long way down the road to the corner shop, but that's just PEANUTS to space.

Take this new planet that scientists have discovered. Already the newspapers are all calling it "New Earth".

People are talking about it being ONLY twenty light years away. ONLY! That means that even at the speed of LIGHT it would take twenty years to get there! They don't even know Doctor Who GOT CANCELLED yet, let alone know that it is back on! They haven't even seen Mr Sylv!

Not that we CAN travel at the speed of light!

But even supposing we invented some REALLY swishy rocket drive, probably something with ANTI-MATTER, it would be really, really difficult to get anywhere. Accelerate at one gravity (or ten metres per second per second, daddy tells me) for a whole MONTH and you'll still not get as fast as a tenth of the speed of light – at that speed, it would still take you 231 years to get to "New Earth"!

Keep going for 4 months and you might get up to about a third of the speed of light. So the new world is still sixty years away. Not to mention the fact that you've already burnt up at least 6% of your ship's mass – and remember, you've still got to slow down and stop at the other end. And you might want to come back!

But as you keep on accelerating, the effects of RELATIVITY will make it harder and harder to get any more speed out of your spaceship. The laws of physics just end up squishying your nose back into your face as all your relative distances seem to get shorter. On the plus side, this means that FOR YOU the trip seems to fly by… but to people back on Earth you seem to be moving slower so from our perspective you will ALWAYS take more than 20 years to get there.


All of which means that even if we go visiting, we're not getting any postcards back any time soon!

But that's not to say that we cannot concentrate a lot of effort on seeing if there is anything to see.

We could build robot space probes, like the ones that we already send to the planets. Perhaps they could be powered with an ion drive that can accelerate slowly but over very long periods. Even so, we are probably talking CENTURIES to get any kind of signal back. And that's assuming we CAN build a machine that will LAST for that long, especially in the UNPREDICTABLE environment of space where anything from a micro-meteorite to the Great Green Arkleseizure could smash it.

That's quite an investment. Who knows if anyone would even still be here to get the information when the probe robot starts sending it? Still, Darth Vader tried sending probe droids all over the galaxy and it worked for him!

But even from Earth we can use our POWERFUL GESTAPO BINOCULARS TELESCOPES to probe the mysteries of space.

As though it wasn't AMAZINGLY clever enough already, figuring out a way to work out where the planets in outer space ARE just from seeing how their tiny gravity tugs on the stars, now scientists are working on plans to detect whether there might be any LIFE on those planets. By measuring the PLANET-SHINE (which is like MOON SHINE, only I mean the light reflecting from the moon, NOT the BOOZE!) they can try to detect any of the chemical indicators that are caused by living processes – stuff like water, oxygen and methane. All the signs of farting space cows… er…

Even so, the BBC are already speculating what life on the new planet would look like.

(I suspect that this might just be another excuse to use a DALEK photo!)

To be honest, it is very difficult to guess. Obviously there will be ELEPHANTS, but what else is harder to know. This is because we only have one solar system to go on so far, namely our own!

So we have no idea whether life in the universe is very common, very rare, or unique to planet Earth.

The last option would SEEM quite unlikely because Earth's solar system does not seem especially special. Or rather our SUN doesn't seem special, as we can compare it to lots of other stars and go, yup normal. Though it might be that systems with small rocky planets ARE rare. Even though we have now detected many planets around other stars, they are by and large HUGE. That is because it is much harder to detect small Earth-sized ones. And that is what makes this new discovery so SPECIAL – it is the first time we have spotted a planet of the right sort of size in the right sort of place, not too close to its sun and not too far away (what scientists insist on calling the GOLDILOCKS ZONE).

Even if we DO find evidence of life up there – and I do not think it is possible to understate how BIG a discovery that would be! – even if we do find some, it may only be very primitive, like bacteria or amoebas and stuff, just like the life on Earth was very simple single-celled creatures for like three-and-a-half out of the four billion years that life has existed. Or it may be millions of years MORE ADVANCED than we are – remember, life on Earth got a nasty kick in the dinosaurs when that asteroid hit us sixty-five million years ago! The chances of life on another planet being even a bit like us… well, let's just say that there are plenty of OTHER options.

But the fact that we seem to have found a planet so like Earth only – look at me, there I go doing it – only twenty light years away, could be a GOOD SIGN though. A sign that in fact it is not a RARE FLUKE that rocky planets form in the right place, but that maybe LOTS of stars have Earth like planets.

In which case the chances of finding life in the planet-shine seem a lot brighter!


I started with Mr Douglas Adams but I will finish with another SCIENCE FICTION WRITER, Mr Professor Davros Hawking, who is planning on going into space personally.

He thinks that we need to be ready to move to other planets.

The truth may not be orange, but the future is out there! Watch the skies!

PS

Does ANYONE know: what planet is Mr Boy George Oboe on?

Day 2307: Sir Mr the Merciless Fights for Freedom!

Thursday:


Hurrah! for Sir Mr the Merciless who has been prompted into swift action to defend the Freedom of Information Act.

He stood up in the House of Commons yesterday and challenged Lord Blairimort over the bill introduced by a Conservatory backbencher that would make Parliament EXEMPT from answering DIFFICULT questions like "what did you spend your expenses on?"

Sir Menzies asked: "Do you support this shoddy bill. Yes or no?"

This is just the sort of thing that I was calling for yesterday! May I modestly suggest that I am an ELEPHANT OF INFLUENCE once again!

Lord Blairimort REFUSED to give a straight answer – no wonder we need a Freedom of Information Act!

"I am not going to express a view on this," he said.

Are you not A MEMBER of the House of Commons, Lord Blairimort?

Do you not have an INTEREST in whether you have to answer questions put to you or not?

Do you not have a VOTE on the issue in question? Aren't we ENTITLED to know how you intend to cast it?

Do you actually BELIEVE in the Act that your own government passed, or are you trying to get the Conservatories to water it down EVEN MORE for you by the BACK DOOR?

Here is Sir Mr the Merciless' OWN verdict on the Prime Monster's FAILURE TO ANSWER!

Only effective Freedom of Information will restore trust in our government after all the years of the Labour and their SPIN.

But in fact, instead of answering questions in the open, the questions the people WANT answered, the Labour government CONTINUES to employ underhand off-the-record methods to try and push its agenda.

Earlier in the week, policeperson Mr Peter Clarke warned that LEAKS and BRIEFINGS about ongoing TERRORISM cases damaged the police's investigations and might even put people's LIVES at risk!

Now, Liberal Democrat Mr Nick Clogg has produced a dossier of examples of leaks like this coming out of the GOVERNMENT! Stories that were given to the press but later turned out to be PREMATURE or INACCURATE!

Lord Blairimort rejected calls for an inquiry.

He just does NOT like answering questions, does he?


The Newsnight Show caught Lord Blairimort on camera the other day. "Told any more lies?" came a heckled question. "No, I'll leave that to someone else," was Lord Blairimort's laconic response.

Over to you, Mr Frown…

Day 2306: Lucky Penny

Wednesday:


I read in the paper that there is SIXTY-FIVE MILLION POUNDS in lost PENNY COINS out there!

I do not think that these pennies can be THAT lucky – after all they were not lucky for the person that LOST THEM!

According to the latest BARMY survey, the top places to look for free dosh include #1 £26 million on the streets, #2 £11 million in handbags and suitcases, #3 £8 million in the car and #4 £6 million down the back of the sofa.

Maybe I should have a look down the back of MY sofa!

[…]

Humph, I think Cuddly Cthulhu must have gotten there first!

The Lucre in the Dark

IC Wales sent out their own INTREPID REPORTER to see how many pennies were to be found!

He came back with 44p and – thanks to all those coppers in his pockets – a funny walk.

But the Metro's footnote (print edition only, I'm afraid) says that £65m in penny coins would weigh twenty-three thousand TONNES – or the same as 4,637 African ELEPHANTS.

They do not say what that would be in FLUFFY ELEPHANTS, but I bet it's a LOT! Maybe 4,638!

Day 2305: Freedom From Freedom From Déjà vu

Tuesday:


MAN THE BARRICADES, SIR MR THE MERCILESS!

Another UNDEAD CONSERVATORY is on the rampage!

Despite the excellent efforts of our own Professor Van Helsing, Mr Norman the Baker, the Bill to Exempt Parliament from Telling People What They Are Up To has returned… FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE!

I want to see sixty-five Liberal Democrat BUMS on SEATS in the House of Commons this Friday, all of you with good, LONG speeches! And if you're not there, I shall be wanting to see a note from your MUMMIES and DADDIES. This includes YOU, Sir Mr the Merciless!


We have already heard from Lord Blairimort's new Minister of Justice, Lord Charlie Chum, who insists that the government will be NEUTRAL on this. Neutral? Neutral! Neutral!?!?! On a bill that's trying to overturn one of your MANIFESTO PLEDGES?

When the question is: "will you defend your own Freedom of Information Bill or won't you?", then "We will remain neutral" is a "NO".

Still, it's not like we can expect more from the people who brought us SINGING CCTV and whose response to the HOME OFFICE CRISIS is to hand Charlie Chum an AXE and tell him to GET CHOPPING!

On the other fluffy foot, this could be the perfect test of Mr Balloon's new "responsibility" – will he accept that MPs have to behave responsibly and be SEEN to behave responsibly? Will he, in other words, tell his man, Mr David McClean, to DROP IT?

It is an INTERESTING TEST, do you not think? Let us see who turns up.

And REMEMBER Liberal Democrats – I am not just counting ON you; I will be counting you UP too!