Day 2380: Millennium at the By-Election

Sunday:


My daddies have taken me to my first Liberal Democrat By-election, in Ealing Southall.

Vote Elephant!

We met lots of famous Liberal Democrats – Mr Theo, Lord Rennard, Ms Linda, Mr Power Cable, Mr Theo – and I was a BIG HIT! I even got to shake the hand of a VERY SPECIAL person... Mr Nigel, the NEXT MP for Ealing!

This is SURE to get me on the list for the elected House of Lords Club, so I have checked out my PECULIAR ARISTOCRATIC TITLE.

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: His Most Noble Lord Millennium the Elephantine of New Porton Wells Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

And I have to say that that's JOLLY CLEVER!

Here are some pictures of our day:

"How will we find the place?" asks Daddy Richard. "It's just a big orange circle on the map."

"It's a big orange circle on the ground, too," says Daddy Alex. "Look!"

Look! Liberal Democrats!

But we are soon on the case...

Dream Team!

Elephant HQ!

...and we meet up with an old young friend...

Mr Theo!

...then we go to the front desk to sign in...

warm (orange) reception

in the book!

...and meet some more FAMOUS people...

Hello Linda!

Hello Mat!

...before we get down to doing some WORK...

fold the leaflets

pack the leaflets

OBVIOUSLY, the Stuffed Elephant is put in charge of stuffing envelopes.

I am even given an EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT...

I'm the boss!

All goes well until we find an envelope addressed to a Mr Grant Mishapps and that Pink Dog attempts to stage a DEFECTION!

Get out of there, you LILAC LOONY!

With my VERY junior sidekick grounded by Mr Pax for more House Training, it is time for us to get back on the CAMPAIGN TRAIL.

Bye bye!

This has been my five-hundredth diary, brought to you by the miracle of the Liberal Democrat By-Election Team.

Published and Promoted by Daddy Richard (and blogger!) on behalf of me, Millennium Dome, of my flat, London, E14.

Day 2379: DOCTOR WHO: The Infinite Quest

Saturday:


Daddy has asked me ESPECIALLY nicely and so I have decided to allow him another slot in my diary for reviewing Doctor Who so that he can tell you about this year's cartoon episode. No, not the one with Catherine Tate in it!

Although originally broadcast in bite-sized chunks as part of CBBC's Doctor Who companion programme "Totally Doctor Who", the whole lot was strung together into a single 45-minute episode including, rather charmingly, a proper title sequence, as per the series, but with a cartoon TARDIS standing in for the usual CGI one.

Broadcast on BBC2 on the same Saturday as the series finale, even getting some quality trailers to attract attention, and starring the current Doctor and his companion Martha, does this mean that it qualifies as a "proper" episode of the 2007 series? It's certainly the closest by far of the various Doctor Who spin-offs that have been tried by the BBC among others. The nearest equivalents would seem to be the LP of "Doctor Who and the Pescatons", staring the (then current) fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane, and "Slipback" the radio adventure for the (again, then current) sixth Doctor and Peri, and neither of them actually made it to the television screen. So, I'm going to treat this as a proper episode, though many, I think, may prefer not to, no doubt citing the example of the mean-spiritedly "officially non-canonical" animated series of "Star Trek".

The obvious question, then, is when is this story supposed to be set? The 2007 season splits quite neatly in two, with the episodes up to "The Lazarus Experiment" being the "just one trip" that Martha is promised as a thank-you for saving the Doctor's life in "Smith and Jones", while the subsequent episodes are her journeys as full-time companion. The Doctor doesn't make any excuses about this still being her "one trip" (which he does in both "Gridlock" and "Daleks in Manhattan") and indeed is having Martha pick destination settings at random, so I think it's pretty obvious this falls into the second half. But equally, a lot of Martha's reactions are very naïve and she's still thrilled by the sheer possibilities of time travel: clearly not the same woman who has matured over the course of "Human Nature" and "Last of the Time Lords". Martha's decision to (at least temporarily) quit the TARDIS at the end of the season only reinforces that "The Infinite Quest" cannot take place after this.

It would be perfect to place it between "The Lazarus" Experiment" and "42" as her earliest on-screen adventures as full time companion. That would fit nicely with the characterisation and with the one-week gap in broadcasting. But there's a snag. Actually there are two snags, but I'm going to ignore one and, in fairness to the continuity cops, it's the important one I'm going to ignore. So, first, Martha is wearing her red jacket in "The Infinite Quest": she wears this in all the stories on her "just one trip", but then she only goes and leaves it behind when she boards the TARDIS at the end of "The Lazarus Experiment". She is then seen to pick it up again when they are in her flat in "The Sound of Drums". So, technically, "The Infinite Quest" can't be in the second half of the season. But I'm going to ignore that.

Secondly, and more trivially, for reasons known best to themselves, the BBC have arranged the releases of this season on DVD to have four episodes on the second disc (third if you want to count "The Runaway Bride" as part of season three). This is particularly odd when you think about the pattern of stories rather than episodes, so the DVDs have three stories, three stories, two stories and one (three-part) story, when they could have more evenly had three, two, two, and two if they'd chosen to put the four episodes on the last disc of the season. Maybe it's to do with the extras they have planned for the box set… Anyway, with a separate DVD of "The Infinite Quest" promised in November, it seems that the only sensible place to put this so that you can line up your DVDs on your shelf is between "42" and "Human Nature". Which will do.


The Doctor Who "quest story" has a noble history going back to the likes of "The Keys of Marinus" and "The Chase". The hokey Doctor Who quest story has a slightly less noble history going back to, well, "The Keys of Marinus" and "The Chase".

It is well suited to the "series of serials" nature of both the early Doctor Who and the "Totally Doctor Who" slot, since the changing locations and cast keep it fresh and interesting week after week and it's usually easy to pick up what's going on, while at the same time rewarding the committed viewer.

So "The Infinite Quest" consists of three mini-adventures set in a larger framing device.

The villain of the piece, scourge of the fortieth-century galaxy, the piratical space tyrant Balthazar, voiced a little predictably by Tony Head, is reported to be seeking a legendary spaceship that will grant him his heart's desire. The Doctor must therefore chase around the Universe in pursuit of four data chips that together will reveal the location of said spaceship.

(Minor criticism: during the expository sequence at the start, although we see the wrecked starship in the Doctor's mind's eye, at no point does he explain that this thing, "The Infinite", that he's burbling about is a spaceship, and not – say – a celestial toast rack or other MacGuffin. Yes, we know – but how does Martha? Just adding: "It's a legend, well it's a spaceship, well, it's a legendary spaceship…" would have helped.)

Presented with the first data chip by Baltazar's one-time ally, Caw, they follow the directions first to Captain Kalico and her crew of oil pirates, then the Mantasphid caverns on the planet Myarr, and finally to the prison of Volag Noc. Once they have all the chips, they can follow the intergalactic treasure map (Martha even remarks on the "X Marks the Spot" gash in the Infinite's side) to the wreck of the Infinite and a climactic showdown with Baltazar. Sort of.

Playing pirates in space seems to be a minor obsession for the fringes of the tenth Doctor series, what with Justin Richard's "The Resurrection Casket" and Simon Guerier's forthcoming "The Pirate Loop" as well as this. "Pirates of the Caribbean" has a lot to answer for, I suspect.

In fact, Baltazar's back story, with his cybernetic arm, robot parrot and hand-crafted starship, more powerful than anything else in the sky, seems to come straight out of Doctor Who's other Pirate Captain, the one from Douglas Adams' "The Pirate Planet". Unlike that Pirate Captain, though, Baltazar is, I'm afraid it has to be said, flat and two-dimensional. His dialogue is clumsily written and clichéd, even his heart's desire is somewhat… mundane.

And his plan seems a little overcomplicated. He starts off in prison with all four data chips to hand but lets his cell mates go wandering off with their chips; he starts off able to snatch the TARDIS out of space but then lets the Doctor go wandering off in search of the chips… wouldn't it have been quicker to kill his cell mates, steal their chips – which he does anyway – and then just grab the TARDIS? Obviously, you wouldn't have a story – or at least not episodes three to eleven of it – if that happened.

But it doesn't just make Baltazar look stupid; the Doctor looks rather dim as well. Clearly he works out that Baltazar is following him and killing off the people he meets, but then goes and leads him to Volag Noc anyway which gets Gurney killed too. He doesn't even think to mention it to Martha, and it's not like this is part of some enigmatic seventh Doctor plot to turn Baltazar's trap against him. Nope, the Doc just ends up getting zapped and left behind. Good job he put in a big temporal deviation when he was setting the co-ordinates for the Infinite.


What works well is how it all runs surprisingly smoothly when tied together. The "prologue" episode makes an excellent pre-title sequence, and the individual adventures flow together without seeming disjointed at the "cliff-hangers". It's not quite perfect – the Mantasphid Queen seems to change her personality every three minutes (co-incidentally tying in with the three episodes she appeared in) and the Doctor appears to say "Martha your brilliant!" twelve times in an hour. But there are also some very nice touches of interconnectedness – who, for example, would get the "you don't have a teaspoon, do you: I seem to have misplaced mine" gag with a gap of nine weeks between set up and payoff?

Disappointingly, though, "The Infinite Quest" never really makes use of its format to stretch the Doctor Who experience. The advantage of animation over live action – even in these days when Computer Imaging lets you stick cartoon critters like the Lazarus Monster into the picture with David Tennant – ought to be the ability to have the Doctor and Martha interact with non-humanoid shaped people as easily as anyone else, or to place them in extraordinary situations and locations.

The Star Wars "Clone Wars" cartoons use this to great advantage to create creatures even more bizarre than the ones that George Lucas was producing for his films. Furthermore, there was a definite sense of movement around the locations created, giving them a three-dimensional feel, and painting a more complete picture of them as real "worlds".

In contrast, "The Infinite Quest" is staid and stationary. There are only two really non-human characters: the reptilian Mergrass who could just be a man in a suit and seems only to appear in one pose; while the Mantasphid Queen, although she looks good, is as immobile as the Racnoss Empress. Balthazar himself is no more exciting than a man in a balaclava and stripy tank-top. This only leaves the living oil rigs and Captain Kalico's pirate skeleton crew to show any visual panache.

(That is by far the most interesting part of the adventure altogether, with those living oil rigs, artificial suns, Earth exhausted of mineral wealth and morally dubious Oil Corporations. Maybe it's because it's ripping off Robert Holmes rather than Douglas Adams… Mind you, Holmes had a go at "Space Pirates" too.)

There is the odd bit of nice CG 3D rendering: Caw, the gold-eating oversized pirate-parrot; Baltazar's somewhat Flash Gordon (1980) -looking warship; the Mantasphid swarm… though oddly enough, the CGI sticks out as much in a cartoon as it does in live action.

And visually the direction is very static too, far more scenes of people talking to one another and little by way of movement. Obviously each new "set" has to be paid for, the same in animation as it is in live action. But the disadvantage is that, unless it’s a 3D computer rendering, you have to do a new piece of art for each new camera angle you want – there's no opportunity for the director to just swing the camera around and say "let's try it from this angle". But the result is that everywhere the Doctor goes appears to be "backdrop" rather than an environment to explore.

The music is all rather recycled as well which is a mixed blessing, good use being made of Martha's song, but rather too much of the up-tempo Krillitane theme – ironically from the last time that David Tennant met Tony Head – whenever something exciting is supposed to be happening.

The other area of limitation is in the cast, as it becomes painfully apparent that the Doctor and Martha only ever meet two other people at a time: Baltazar and Caw; Calico and mutinous Pirate Swabb; Mergrass and the Mantasphid Queen – joined by pilot Kelvin! Okay, that's three – then Gurney and Governor Locke (and other Warders); and finally Baltazar and Caw again. That's not to say that the cast are bad, though the weakest are bizarrely Tennant and Head, the former slipping too much back into his "golly, I'm wacky" performance from 2006 and the latter's performance seeming, at times, even more telephoned in than when he was Lord Grayvorn for Big Finish's Excelis trilogy. Freema Agyeman, on the other hand, positively sparkles and really pulls the show together as she connects to Doctor, villains and audience. Toby Longworth's Caw is a sympathetic bad egg, and Lisa Tarbuck turns in a thoroughly enjoyable Captain Kalico, who deserved to be in much more of the show.

The small cast and talky script combine to give the thing a very sub-Big Finish feel, which is particularly ironic given the talented Alan Barnes in the writing seat and the talented Gary Russell in the director's chair. Between them, they've achieved much broader and more vivid stories on audio alone. Perhaps it was the brief that defeated them: the constraints of the visuals actually having to be realised, the need to make very specifically time-constrained scenes and episodes.

Alan Barnes has written for Doctor Who Magazine, praising the series sixteenth season, the "Key to Time" quest, and obviously here he recreates it, even including dodgy sponsor who makes the search for the object of power questionable in the first place. It doesn't really make any sense for one data chip to lead you to the next, but it makes no less sense than it does for finding one of the segments of the Key to Time to allow you to locate the next.

The casual mention of a "Great Old One" being responsible for the power of the Infinite to grant your heart's desire is an idea out of the New Adventures but one particularly seized upon by Gary Russell, as in, for example, his Celestial Toymaker story. (Not that Gary ever went quite as berserk as the late Craig Hinton in pinning Cthulhu Mythos names on elder Doctor Who things.) Here, less is more and the references to the Dark Times, the Racnoss and the Vampires and the Great Old Ones are slipped in slyly enough for them not to overwhelm the story.

It's just a shame that the story itself is so slight, and very obviously pitched at the level of children. And that just never works: Doctor Who is always better when aimed at the intelligent young person, when it is being the show that kids of all ages can enjoy. Here, like the ninth and tenth Doctor tie-in books, there isn't any greater depth for the older kids and grown-ups to enjoy. Baltazar explains that he's tracking the TARDIS in the opening sequence so it can hardly be described as a twist when he turns up at the end, and frankly neither can the "gold at the end of the rainbow" ending where it turns out that the Infinite's power is literally an illusion.

Ultimately, the ending is like the Infinite itself: empty. And after a dozen weeks following the story that tends to leave you feeling disappointed. There was a lot to enjoy along the way, though none of it quite as satisfying as last year's TARDISodes. Having said all that, the early Big Finish adventures were also occasionally a little clunking before Gary and his people really got the feel of what worked and what didn't, so hopefully this isn't an end in itself, but a new beginning and they'll learn lessons that will see a new quest next year that really pushes the boat out.

Oh yes, of course I intended that pun.

Next time… let's go back to the beginning for a review of Martha's year with the Doctor.

Day 2378: Do Daddies for Justice have a point?

Friday:


Because if they do, they're not making it very well!

Mr Michael Cox, who has just been let out after being out in gaol for not paying £43,000 in maintenance to the Child Support Agency was on the The Today Programme trying to explain why it wasn't fair.

If I have this right, Mr Cox is supposed to pay maintenance to look after his children. He looks after them for half the time though, so he gets a 50% reduction in the maintenance he pays. But – he says – since he pays 100% of their upkeep for the 50% of the time that he looks after them, he shouldn't have to pay any for the 50% of the time the time that his wife looks after them. And his wife – apparently – is not unhappy with this arrangement; it is only the CSA that is after him for the cash.

It DOES look like the current arrangement is a bit unfair. It seems that Mr Cox is expected to pay 75% of the upkeep of his kids – all of his own half and half of his wife's half. But it is not IMPOSSIBLE that that is what the court decided, since if Mr Cox happens to earn three times as much as his wife then that would be a FAIR split.

But I am not really sure that that is the case. I think that if he is doing half the looking after, he should probably have to pay less than half to take into account the former Mrs Cox share of the looking after costs.

Otherwise, the system seems to be biased against daddies who actually stick around and do SOME of their share. And that would be DAFT.


Mr Cox, though, did not make a very good job of explaining this, though to be fair he was hindered in putting his case across by another person who just kept saying "You are greedy, you don't want to pay for your kids." Well that was just NOT TRUE as Mr Cox was at least paying for them when they were with him.


Then, Mr Ed Stourton put it to him: "well, it IS the law and so you should obey it!" to which Mr Cox replied: "well, what about when it was the law in Nazi Germany to take property from Jewish people, should you obey that law?"

Mr Stourton's response was "well, don't be silly this isn't Nazi Germany!"

Well, on the one fluffy foot, Mr Cox has broken GODWIN'S LAW (first person to mention the Nazis automatically loses the argument). But on the other fluffy foot, Mr Stourton's answer was CHEATING TOO.

You see, if you are going to say you must do this in ALL cases (like here, Mr Ed says obey ALL laws) then if someone counters with an extreme example you CANNOT say "extreme examples aren't allowed" because what you are ACTUALLY saying then is "you must do this in all cases except some".

It is the EXTREME examples that test us.

If it would be silly to apply the "obey all laws" rule in Nazi Germany then why is it not silly to apply it here and now? How do we tell the difference? And where is the dividing line to be drawn?

Because if you ARE saying "you must do this in all cases except some" then you agree actually Mr Cox is RIGHT – some laws ARE wrong and should be broken. So the argument should be whether this IS a law that should be broken, and NOT just say "well breaking the law is wrong so you lose".

I think that this issue was rather too complicated for the The Today Programme though, because they seem to be more interested in having an argument than in working out what would be RIGHT.

Day 2377: Mr Jonny on Questionable Time…

Thursday:


…didn’t happen. So here’s one he prepared earlier!

It was a HUGE SHAME he did not make the show. In the first place, we are big, big fans and were looking forward to seeing him and in the second place they could have done with a LIBERAL on the panel.

It is always pretty infuriating when the grown up Questionable Time producers FORGET that there is a third major party in British politics or (EVEN WORSE) think that we are INTERCHANGEABLE with the Eco-Stalinist Named-After-A-Colour Party. When it is the officially designated “young people” producers who forget us, it is DOWNRIGHT DEPRESSING.

“Kids today, eh!” as depressing Mr Nigel Kneale would say.

It’s even more sad when you know that they DID want swivel-eyed right-wingers like barking mad neo-con artist Mr Douglas Murray-Mint; gay-daddy-hating Conservatory beneficiary of Mr Balloon’s patronage, Ms Sayeeda Warsi (NOT an MP, whatever the Questionable Time website might say, and bottled out of ever becoming one); and Mr Millipede Minor who we decided looks less like his more famous but weirder-looking brother, Mr Millipede, and more like that other famous irritating younger brother Scrappy-Doo.

Oh, and they also had Ms Davina McCall-Centre, who was a bit liberal on some answers, but even SHE works for BIG BROTHER. (Unlike Mr Murray-Mint, though, she works for the Endemol one and not the George Orwell one; you can decide for yourself which one is worse.)

So instead of Mr Jonny we got Mr Charlie Bell, an enthusiastic if somewhat anaemic looking young person with wild hair and eyes. Still, his answers were generally quite good, if perhaps a bit more “right on” than properly Liberal.


Actually, though, the NUTTIEST answer of the evening came from Mr Millipede Minor and it was on tuition fees. The question – probably predictably for an audience of “we’re about to go to university”-year-olds – was “Gordon Brown has promised to listen to the people, so isn't it time he listened to the vast majority of university students and abandoned tuition fees?” And Mr Millipede Minor’s answers was “No, we would be better off putting the money into schools education.”

Why is this NUTTY?

Well, because Mr Millipede Minor’s BOSS and his government have based their ENTIRE ECONOMIC STRATEGY on Britain being a high skills, high-tech, primarily “white-collar” workforce. Basically, a workforce who, in general, come with a high DEGREE of education and training.

Saying, we’re only going to fund our plan up to A-levels and then you’re on your own is like saying “I’m going to drive to Sedgefield, but I’ll only put in enough petrol to get to York and after that is up to the car to fund its own way.” One is LIKELY to come to a JUDDERING STOP!

Questionable Time returns in September.

(This is presumably to give Mr David Dimbledonkey time to record another series of “What I Did on My Holidays” “How We Built Britain”.)

Day 2376: Ex-ex-gay

Wednesday:


Listening to the The Today Programme before seven, my Daddy Richard caught an article about another of those WACKY Christian groups that claim that they can cure you of being a gay daddy.

They claim that being a gay daddy is not something that happens to you by nature, but a CHOICE.

What I want to know is: and that makes it a bad thing, why? And more importantly, that makes it ANY OF YOUR BUSINESS, why?

(Of course "business" might be the whole point – not that I am thinking about the Silver Ring Thing Kerching Limited
at all – but, after all, these groups can CHARGE you to cure you of the thing that is making you UNHAPPY. Mind you, when the thing that is ACTUALLY making you unhappy is a bunch of evangelistas whining on at you, you might find that a RESTRAINING ORDER is a more effective cure.)

This kind of group originally comes from America – oh, do not even PRETEND to be SURPRISED! – where they operate under the UMBRELLA name of "Exodus". This just shows what BAD Christians they are – if they knew their Bible properly, they would be called LEVITICUS!

Anyway, some of the gay daddies and mummies who have been given the brainwashing treatment and worked out that it had not worked were meeting last weekend at the "Ex-gay Survivors Conference" in California.

Among these self-styled ex-ex-gays were several of the ORIGINAL LEADERS of the Christian Exodus "Ex-gay" programme. And here are some video interviews where they talk about their experiences.

It seems to me – although I AM only a fluffy toy – that being a gay daddy is about emotions and hormones and glands and yucky stuff like that that you do not really have much CONSCIOUS choice over. Whereas being an interfering busy-body is about reading a four-thousand year old story and deciding that you will ignore all of the modern scientific evidence that shows that most of the made up story was wildly wrong and CHOOSING to use that as a reason for sticking your oar into other people's lives and making them miserable.

So if it is a question of making BAAAAAAD choices…

After all, do they not also say that you cannot be a Christian unless you CHOOSE to accept the little baby Jesus?

But I do not think that being a gay daddy is like being a Christian. No, being a Gay Daddy is usually something that you are born with (some people say you get it from your mummy) but sometimes you can – with a lot of effort – convert. Sometimes gay daddies stop practicing and become lapsed. They talk in their own special type of language. Oh, and they are quite CAMP. Yes, it is like being JEWISH!

So I think that I have the SOLUTION: being a Gay Daddy should be declared to be a RELIGION.

This would have many advantages: ABBA records would become Tax Deductible; Mr Graham Norton could do Fart for the Day on the The Today Programme; Anne Atkins would spontaneously combust… There can even be different SECTS: those who worship THE MADONNA… and those who think she's gone really downhill since marrying Guy Ritchie!

But the BIGGEST advantage is that people who make the LIFESTYLE CHOICE to be BONKERS BORN-AGAIN CHRISTIAN would have to do what ALL THE PROPER Christians do and preach love and tolerance to ALL religions. Hooray!

PS

If you feel you have experienced the WRATH OF GOD for reading this diary, please consult your local weather bureau and NOT the Church of England. Thank you.

PPR

If you were looking for eX eX eX Gay, you have come to the WRONG DIARY ENTIRELY!

Day 2375: A Brisk Constitutional

Tuesday:


Following Mr Frown's first appearance at Prime Monster's Please Kick Me Time, there has been much speculation:

Is it less "Clunking Fist" and more "Flunking Missed"? is the question that has been asked.

Certainly, he was no Lord Blairimort… though that, of course, might have been the POINT.

I think that people feel GOOD about Mr Frown at the moment ENTIRELY BECAUSE he is conspicuously NOT Lord Blairimort.

Does it do Mr Balloon any good to land a clever-clever blow (especially when that turns out to be "blow" in the sense of "ooh, it's BLOW'n up in my stupid face")?

People feel about Mr Frown just like they felt about Mr John Minor when he took over from Queen Maggie: he may not have much of a personality, but he does seem to be trying his best and at least he's not the maniac we just got rid of! Mr Balloon does not appear to have changed his own tactics to take this into account.

So it is all very well for Mr Balloon to BOP the Prime Monster on the NOSE a couple of times and leave him REELING, but he's in danger of looking a bit like an Old Etonian SWOT making smart remarks to a supply teacher. Worse, he's in danger of looking like Mr Neil Kinnock!

So, I think it actually HELPS Mr Frown when Mr Balloon does this. Mr Frown looks a little bit HURT and SURPRISED that his efforts at consensus are being knocked back, and Mr Balloon looks like a SMUG OIK.

On the down side for Mr Frown, he IS in danger of looking like the SUPPLY TEACHER. It may be mean to be mean to him, but he'll never be around long enough to gain anyone's respect.


Sir Mr the Merciless' approach was BETTER, even with the slightly waspish improv ("looks a lot like a TRAP door") joke. Though Sir Mr the Merciless’s UNSCRIPTED gag was a lot funnier than Mr Frown’s obviously SCRIPTED one.

Sir Mr the Merciless only gets two questions, so some people have thought it a bit cheeky that he seems to have asked SIX, in two goes…

"[ONE] Will he now set a target for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq; [TWO] will he order the reopening of the investigation into allegations of corruption in relation to arms sales; and [THREE] will he renegotiate the one-sided extradition treaty with the United States?"

and

"[FOUR] Will the Government now abandon their headlong rush towards a new generation of nuclear power stations? [FIVE] Will they undertake to tax pollution more than earnings? Finally, [and SIX] will they abolish the unfair and regressive council tax?"

…but what my CLEVER Daddy Alex pointed out to me was that Mr Sir M had actually asked Mr Frown if his new "ALL CHANGE" government was actually going to mean ANY change on half-a-dozen KEY PLANKS of Liberal Democrat policy: Iraq, corruption, our one-sided relationship with America, the environment, green taxes and fair taxes.

(Mr Balloon, of course, really only asked two questions with his six, he just kept repeating himself several times. Perhaps they should give the extra questions to the opposition with lots of ideas rather than the opposition with too few!)

And Mr Frown, waffling out his usual government line, FAILED Sir Mr the Merciless's test.

So, while Mr Balloon gets to look smug for embarrassing the Prime Monster, the Liberal Democrats can say: "we asked for a change of direction, we asked the Prime Monster DIRECTLY. And he turned us down."

Sir Mr the Merciless has explicitly shot down the SECRET STALIN SPIN of Mr Frown's "change" pose here.

(And of course, the self-deprecating "fool me once…" trapdoor jest also served to disarm Mr Frown's "let's all be chums" disguise.)



Mr Jeremy has given us a TIMELY WARNING that we should be CAUTIOUS of Mr Frown's embrace, particularly his new ENTHUSIASM for Constitutional Reform.

We should not be SURPRISED that Mr Frown has come to us when looking for an exciting new policy to start his term in number ten. In the first place, that is EXACTLY what he did when he started his term in number ELEVEN – oh, we ALL remember Independence for the Bank of England. But in the second place, he thinks that he can DISARM us by taking some central part of our policy and clutching it to his bosom.

Just like Mr Balloon, he wants our support. Or to be more accurate, our SUPPORTERS.

But this shows, once again, that Mr Frown does not UNDERSTAND the Liberal Democrats.


The Liberal Democrats do not want to get into power JUST to tinker with the constitution. That would be SILLY.

Of COURSE if we were elected, then since we would be governing a MODERN LIBERAL DEMOCRACY, then we would want to make sure that it had a PROPER CONSTITUTION to match.

But that is like moving into a new house and finding that all the LIGHT FITTINGS have been taken away by the previous owner. (Something of which Mr Frown is believed to have had recent experience!)

Of COURSE you would put new lights in, but you didn't move house JUST to replace all the light bulbs, did you?!?!?

The Liberal Democrats exist to govern Britain in a LIBERAL way.

We want to empower people through opportunity, but without interfering too much. Interfering is the Labour way. We want to set people free without abandoning them to the bullying of bosses, or landowners or other special interest groups. Special interest groups are the Conservatory way. And we want to protect and preserve the Environment without ruining people's lives and livelihoods. Smashing the economy to flinders is the Green Party way.

We are about being FAIR, and about being FREE and about being GREEN.


Having said that, if Mr Frown has decided that he needs to improve the British Constitution, a document often described as not worth the paper it is not written on, then we should not SNUB his endeavour.

Mr Balloon of course, took the OPPORTUNIST route of more "Punch and Judy Politics" to score points off Mr Frown, bleating on about English Vote for Ingsoc Laws… or E.V.I.L for short.

But this is just his usual English Nasty Party POSTURING for political advantage. Really, the Conservatories like the Constitution the way it is – it has plenty of loopholes for them to get through. (In fairness, they would not be PROPER Conservatories if they did not like CONSERVING things the way they are… but what is Mr Balloon's excuse?)

We should take a more CONSIDERED approach.

Unlike his immediate predecessor, Mr Frown did not send some poor schmuck in to bat for him, but chose to lead from the front, making the statement himself, and if you listen to him, there is a lot that he said that we can AGREE WITH.

For example, he is quite right when he says that there are TWO KEY PROBLEMS to address: the need – especially after his predecessor – to hold the government to account BETTER; and the need – especially with so much cynicism about politics at the moment – to hand power BACK to people.

Mr Frown's plan is to

1. Take unaccountable powers away from the government and give them to Parliament.
2. To make Parliament more ACCOUNTABLE to people.
3. To give more powers back to COMMUNITIES.
and
4. To reinvigorate the whole idea of CITIZENSHIP.

and a lot of this sounds pretty GOOD!

Under part one he said that he would give up the powers of the ROYAL PREROGATIVE, promising to hand over to Parliament a whole long list…

• the power of the executive to declare war;

• the power to request the dissolution of Parliament;

• the power over recall of Parliament;

• the power of the executive to ratify international treaties without decision by Parliament;

• the power to make key public appointments without effective scrutiny;

• the power to restrict Parliamentary oversight of the intelligence services;

• power to choose bishops;

• power in the appointment of judges;

• power to direct prosecutors in individual criminal cases;

• power over the civil service itself;

• and the executive powers to determine the rules governing entitlement to passports and the granting of pardons.

…of things that at the moment the Prime Monster can do on a WHIM. And Lord Blairimort frequently DID!

He also said he would reform the role of the Attorney General (about time too – the chief law officer should be one of those independent appointments that Parliament are going to get the power to scrutinise, and not a political position for a chum of the Prime Monster); stop Special Advisors having the power to order the Civil Service about (which he has done already); and bring in a NEW Ministerial Code and that too will be overseen by Parliament and not by the Prime Monster (you remember how Mr Blanket would do something NAUGHTY and then Lord Blairimort would go "ooooh, I don't think that's naughty" and let him off the hook… well that won't happen any more).


For part two, to make Parliament more accountable, he said that first there would be an ELECTED House of Lords Club, and then he would fulfil a LONG-DELAYED promise to look at the voting system.

On the other fluffy foot, he also said that PARLIAMENT would have "every opportunity" to discuss and vote on the European Amendment Treaty, which only SOUNDS like he's being good, when in fact he's SLYLY ruling out a proper referendum. The Treaty is still EFFECTIVELY a constitutional change and therefore EVEN IF IT IS INCONVENIENT we should still give the people a say!


Thirdly, in order to devolve more power to the regions, he said that he would create Parliamentary SELECT COMMITTEES for each region of England, and he has already appointed ministers for each region.

We will have to see how this works out, but I am not sure that this is REALLY what "devolution" is supposed to mean. It all looks a BIT like Mr Frown is being KING and handing out BARONIES to his feudal underlings. I would have thought that proper devolution would mean that the people in the regions get to choose who is their "first" minister, and not Mr Frown.

I am not sure that Mr Frown sees the contradiction in saying he will give up his powers to appoint people at random, and then tries to solve the West Lothian Question by appointing a whole lot of people at random. Which is worrying.

Meanwhile, Mr Frown promises people more control over their local quangos, which is a GOOD thing. This would include a new "community right" to call for action and a new responsibility for public bodies to involve people; a new right to scrutinise services; and a new right to be consulted through "Citizens Juries" (although THAT might just mean more FOCUS GROUPS!).

And he also said that there would be powers to let people control (some of) their council's spending though local ballots. This scheme has already been announced, and so far it LOOKS like it might be COMPULSORY (and not just an OPTION for councils looking to pass the buck on difficult spending decisions – "we don't want to be blamed so we'll have a vote on which of these to cut", sort of thing).


And for part four of his plan, Mr Frown's suggestions were to try and turn around the terrible fall in turnout at elections by thinking about moving voting day to the weekend; to consider lowering the voting age; and to begin a national debate about what it is that we really mean when we talk about the "Rights and Responsibilities" of being British, and whether we could or even should consider drawing them up in a complete Bill of Rights and a Written Constitution.


Looking at all of that, I think that we should offer encouragement to Mr Frown as a SINNER that REPENTETH, and try to work with him to make sure he does not botch it up. He WILL botch it up, of course, but we can try and smooth over some of the more EGREGIOUS mistakes before he makes them.

Certainly we can warmly WELCOME PART ONE of the plan, and part two DESERVES OUR SPECIAL ATTENTION to see that Mr Frown does not let it slide. Part three we should be MOSTLY WARY of: with Mr Balloon blowing on the embers of English resentment, we need a better answer that just some committees in parliament and a few posh focus groups. And part four is so full of "maybes" and "considers" and "in the fullnesses of time" that we should only believe it IF WE EVER SEE IT.


Mr Frown has made an interesting start in his first five days week as Prime Monster: cautious, consensual, moderate and modest. Almost deliberately faltering, at time, and he could hardly be more humble if he were turning down the Uriah Heep award for humongous humility…

That is not like Mr Frown AT ALL! Do you think we should be checking his forehead for a ZIPPER?!

No, I am afraid not.

He is still showing his SECRET STALIN tendencies when pressed.

Funny as it was to see Mr Frown start to FLAP and FLOUNDER when he could not come up with an answer to Mr Balloon's question – and that "I've only been here five days" gag that fell flat got a lot of the coverage – surely more significant was what happened next. STILL without an answer, Mr Frown fell back on "I.D.iot cards are the answer to everything."

Mr Balloon's newly appointed SECURITY BARONESS, Dame Pauline from Eastenders, might agree but very few Liberals will.

Day 2374: Mr Balloon Gets Ruthless

Monday:


"Ruthless": that is how The Times described Mr Balloon today when he struck out on his own with decisive action to relaunch his faltering Conservatory brand and seize control of the news agenda by, er, doing exactly what Mr Frown has done: he announced a reshuffle.

It's hardly ORIGINAL; even Sir Mr the Merciless is doing it!

So, what are the changes? Well, he has ruthlessly kept Mr Gideon Oboe as Shadow Chancellor, now with even more things to mess up responsibilities; he has brutally asked Mr Vague to remain as Shadow Secretary of State for Places-that-don't-speak-with-a-proper-accent; and he has been quite unforgiving in retaining Mr Davis David as Shadow Home Secretary!

All in all, Me Balloon's idea of "change" amounts to "much the same" then. This, I admit, is not news.

The EYE-CATCHING surprise news is of course supposed to be that he has axed his old Old Etonian Chum Mr Whogo Swires and half-axed Mr David Two-Brains Willits (or perhaps totally axed one of his two brains)…

[R: surely "…that he has appointed a NICE Lady Muslim and Dame Pauline from Eastenders"?]

…who are of course the two people who have accidentally BETRAYED HIM by coming out with POLICIES recently: charging people to see NICE things; and building / not building / building / who knows more Grandma schools.

Yes, it is straight into the PIRANHA POOL for anyone who lets down Mr Balloon, I can tell you!

So, just like Mr Frown's MAD-HATTER'S TEA PARTY in the Cabinet, much movement but all GOING NOWHERE!

Mr Balloon's dizzying approach to politics (SPIN, my beauties, SPIN!) may have left some of the elderly Conservatory gentlefolk CONFUSED. People like Miss Ann "Is Bernard Manning REALLY dead?" Winterton are baffled: what has happened to all those things they used to treasure? Cutting taxes, shooting foxes / immigrants / poor people, and cutting taxes; all the central planks of any Conservatory Election Programme, and where have they gone? Nowadays it is all hugging hoodies / hating hoodies / hugging hoodies / whatEVER! It has left them wondering whether Mr Balloon stands for anything… and they aren't going to stand for it!

Still, at least his PR COUP has had one immediate effect – another DEFECTION!

Welcome to the Liberal Democrats Mr Brij Mohan Gupta, formerly the Conservatories Deputy Chair in KEY By-Election seat of Ealing Southall.

"Under David Balloon the Conservatories have become a party of STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE…" said Mr Gupta. "…The Conservatory candidate CANNOT WIN in Ealing Southall!"

Perhaps it is time for ANOTHER reshuffle, Mr Balloon?

Day 2373: out of Jail Free Get

Sunday:


We interrupt this diary with the joyful news that the BBC’s news correspondent in Gaza, Mr Alan Johnston, has been released from his captivity. This is incredibly happy making.




Being locked away in a small box, never knowing what your fate might be must be VERY HORRID!

Perhaps that is why the Monkey-in-Chief has spared Mr Scooter the Perjurer from going to gaol.

Now be fair, like us the Americans already send FAIR TOO MANY people to prison anyway and it does not do them a lot of good. And it is not like Mr Scooter is actually DANGEROUS to anyone. Well, not to anyone who isn’t an American spy who might get murdered if her identity is revealed so that Darth Cheney a completely mysterious person can score a cheep point off her husband…

But some people have said that this interference with the judicial process is a BETRAYAL of the Monkey's main policy platform of politicians not interfering with the judicial process…

…but fortunately one of his reprehensatives on Earp (as he would say) was on the The Today show to explain.

"Mr the Monkey DOES believe in not interfering and if you look at his record you will see that he has very, very rarely interfered. Only when one of his friends needs it, in fact."

So I am GLAD that that has been cleared up!

Day 2372: DOCTOR WHO: Last of the Time Lords…?

Saturday:


It is all over for another year! What are my daddies going to do!

And what will Dr Who do next? Christmas on the Titanic: that promises to go down well. Will there be a special guest star? We should be so lucky!

Oh, I suppose I had better let daddy finish his reviews…

So, now we know. The Master would rather die than appear in "Scream of the Shalka". Seems a bit harsh…

Okay, this was the climax of Doctor Who's third season in the new millennium and while the season as a whole has been more consistent and of higher quality than the preceding two, "Last of the Time Lords" seems a little more muted than either "The Parting of the Ways" or "Doomsday".

In part, that must be because the death of the villain is never going to hit us as hard as the death of one of the leads. In part, it's that we haven't had as long to get to know John Simm's Master as we had with first Christopher Eccleston's ninth Doctor and then Billie Piper's Rose. Even though he fairly explodes across the screen, we barely knew him, and I would rather have seen him escape at the end, for no better reason than to see more of the Doctor's dark mirror. It would have given an interesting and alternative dynamic to the fourth season to have the Doctor effectively in pursuit of the Master across time and space…

Also, there isn't really enough space in the story given to understanding just how much it means to the Doctor to have another Time Lord back, even if he is the Master. Which is a shame as it would have made a great counterpoint to Martha's unrequited love, with her effectively asking: "you'd rather have your worst enemy than me?" And it might have been interesting to explore whether the Doctor was holding back from defeating the Master because he didn't want to be alone any more.

So, this should have felt more like the capstone of three years of developing story for the Doctor as "lonely god", but instead it felt more like a sidestep into the land of might-have-been.

With that in mind, I think it may improve once it's not being looked at as "the big conclusion to Doctor Who", and becomes just a story that is in between other stories; when the weight of importance is lifted from it.

Where I described part two, "The Sound of Drums" as a series of moments, moving the plot into place, this third part was a series of set pieces: Martha on the beach, Martha spying on the rockets, Martha capturing a sphere...

It's the most marvellous moment when Martha, on her knees awaiting execution, just starts laughing at the Master. It's the point where, essentially, she has done what she always wanted and become a Doctor.

And we loved the fact that the whole Time-Lord-killing gun scheme was a bluff, and that it was the perfect device to fool the Master. Lethal and ludicrously over-complicated, just like all of the Master's schemes.

Meanwhile we have had the aged Doctor working with the Jones family to set up an attempt to seize the Master's laser screwdriver and turn it on him. It failed, obviously, but was this sequence just to show that the Master was still outclassing the Doctor? It would seem extraordinary that the Doctor would leave it a year before trying something like this. Or was this actually the Doctor trying – and succeeding – in provoking the Master into making that broadcast that actually reassured Martha that the Doctor was still alive? It is interesting that he instigates the doomed scheme only after the Master tells him that Martha has returned to Britain.

The Master gets his set pieces too: the opening dance number, energetically reminding us of the situation under his new order; the quiet scene with the caged Doctor, intercut with Martha opening the sphere, when he explains the exposition; and the street scene when he walks the Earth to take Martha prisoner.

They're interesting in the way that they contrast the different sides to his character. We begin with the wild, unrestrained side, but later we get brooding and, when taking Martha, he is focused and intense. He's clearly relishing his power, even when it's just to have fun – but also take note of Lucy Saxon's bruising, and the Master's casual psychological torment as he picks out today's beautiful woman to be his "companion". It seems quite likely that Martha's sister, Tish, has suffered from his "affections" too, judging from the scene where she says she'll kill him even if it costs her her life. But this case of apparent old-fashioned misogyny gets its comeuppance as, for the second time in as many lives, the Master is destined to be shot by his female companion. A message, Russell? Treat your companion properly? Or don't forget the little people? Or maybe just Girl Power!?

The Master "plays" rough and doesn't care whether anyone else gets hurt. But he isn't merely unhinged. His plan may seem crazily audacious but he does appear to be using the resources he has methodically to take over the universe. And getting a good way towards succeeding.

And it's good to see what the Master would actually do with a planet if he got his hands on one. Not that we can say we were terribly surprised that this consisted of reducing the population to slavery, building an immense number of extremely phallic war rockets and erecting statues to himself all over.

Actually, nice as the giant statue of the Master was, if you're going to say that he's carved himself into the face of Mount Rushmore, why not show us Mount Rushmore? (For a laugh, you could have added President Reagan as well.) When Martha recalls her travels, it might have been fun to see icons of the Master all around the world, towering over the Eiffel Tower, Sydney Opera House, the Great Wall of China and the Pyramids. Even if we were constrained to the one – and let's be fair, the Mill were quite busy with this week and last week's episodes – why not at least have him bestriding the White Cliffs of Dover?

On the other hand, as the Master grows enormous, the Doctor dwindles away until he's barely in his own story.

I must admit I wasn't terribly convinced by the "David Tennant under a ton of latex" look, and then reducing him to a pixie (yes, alright, everyone's made the Gollum/Dobby comparisons already) was really even worse.

In the first place, as a Time Lord, shouldn't the Doctor have an extraordinarily long life even between regenerations? The first Doctor must live something like four-hundred plus years (the second incarnation claims to be four-hundred and fifty in "The Tomb of the Cybermen") and he doesn't look ridiculously old. And the Doctor is fairly reckless with his lives, compared with other Time Lords, usually succumbing to misadventure rather than age. Shouldn't the tenth Doctor need a lot more than a hundred years to put the grey hairs on him? And then, secondly, maybe it's supposed to foreshadow Jack's human body dwindling away from him to become the Face of Boe, but did anyone really believe in the Doctor shrinking like that? Without the Tissue Compression Eliminator?

(And just who made up his mini-me suit? I can hardly see the Master doing the fine needlework, perhaps it was Lucy between putting on her vamp nail-varnish and practicing her pistol shooting… just in case.)

With the Doctor reduced to a CGI shadow of his former self, it seems ironic that Martha is spending her time bigging up his legend. Alex suggests that – like the Daleks not being in the New Adventures – his absence makes room for the myth of the Doctor to be bigger.

But obviously the biggest set piece is the climax, and that is all the Doctor's.

Some people have felt that the religious, particularly Christian, iconography was too strong. The "prayers" of the people are answered by a figure glowing with light bringing a message of forgiveness.

Other people just see it as an updating of the "I do believe in fairies" scene from "Peter Pan".

(Still others have suggested that it's all a metaphor for the sixteen years without Doctor Who on the television; that people were "crying out" for the new series to return; but when it does come back, the super-fan who kept alive his own miniature version of the series, reacts with horror. No, I don't believe a word of that myself.)

But I do have more of a problem with the underlying theme: the Doctor essentially wins by convincing humanity to become a single mass mind all thinking the same thought. Now, that's usually the very thing that he tries to put a stop to! The Daleks (in "The Evil of the Daleks") and the Cybermen (in "The Age of Steel") are brought low when he re-introduces individuality.

More than that, in a story about the dangers of unfettered childish behaviour – the Master and the child/human Toclafane both exemplify this – a solution that relies on calling on a higher power is essentially treating the human race as children too.

Now, fair enough, he gives it up straight away and sincerely expresses the belief that it is good that everyone has forgotten him. But it still seems a little… ill-fitting with the rest of the series' philosophy that the individual is more important than the mass.

There is, I admit, a certain niceness to the symmetries involved. Russell has clearly pitched the Master as the anti-Doctor, hence his mocking sense of humour to deflate any situation and his ability to pull a random technological solution out of his hat. And this means that the Master both uses and enjoys using the Doctor's strengths against him.

In that sense, it is entirely right that the Doctor wins by using the Master's own strengths back against him in turn: the Archangel network and the mass hypnosis.
And it's quite cleverly done, of course. With no radio and television, the only way to co-ordinate a world-wide "think-in" is to use the Master's own self-admitted weakness for a ticking countdown.

Incidentally, the "Floaty Magic Doctor™" with his "laser-deflecting powers™" has reminded many of the climax of 1972's "The Mutants", in which heroic native of Solos, Ky, "evolves" into a psychedelic floating superbeing, and this has suggested an interesting retcon to me. We never see any of the other Solonians evolve into this superbeing form – though we do, unexpectedly, see a creature that looks like a mutant Solonian crashland a spaceship in "The Brain of Morbius", so maybe they don't. Perhaps what happens is that Ky becomes the "psychic focus" if you like of the Solonian species, in just the same way that the Doctor becomes the focus of the humans in "Last of the Time Lords", hence their similar appearance and powers.

Or maybe not.

I don't actually object to rolling back the "year that never was" at the end. Not only is it explicit that the Master is over-writing the "real" history of that year with his own version (something that has always been a big wrong in the Doctor Who universe) but moreso that the time reversal had to be earned. There is still a cost at the end, paid by Martha and by Martha's family in grief and tears, but more than anyone paid by the Doctor who loses Martha because of this, just when he has paid the biggest cost of all, and is alone again.

The problem with the "take back time" solution – science fiction's very own "and it was all a dream" – is that it negates the events that happened, betraying our emotional investment. But that isn't what happens here; quite the contrary, Russell even has his characters state that the events did happen, because they remember them.

This is entirely in keeping with the Russell T Davies vision of Doctor Who where the story is always about those people at the eye of the storm. For all of the hugeness of the events that he depicts in each of his three season finales, the story really comes down to the decisions of a small family at the heart of events.

On the other hand, I would rather there had been something a bit cleverer than just shooting up the Master's Paradox Machine involved. It leaves you asking yourself why the Doctor didn't just pull the plug when he first found out what the Master had done – his remarks then, that it might blow up the solar system, make the final resolution seem a little cavalier at best.

Just a line of dialogue could have solved it – something to the effect that the Doctor would use all that magical human-faith power to allow the paradox to be erased without blowing a big hole in the universe.

And it does seem awfully easy for him to just have the TARDIS fixed again afterwards. Never mind the damage that the Master did, there's also the small business of the Doctor fusing the co-ordinates "permanently". Surely if the Doctor can fix them, then so could the Master.

In fact, you could link my two complaints and have a single correction fix them both, if the plot depended on the Master's Paradox Machine being powered by all those human minds thinking in parallel. Then, when the Doctor manages to get everyone to just do their own thing at the crucial moment, all that individuality could break the spell.

On the other hand, Russell is to an extent contrasting the idea of people working together with the selfish behaviour of the Master and of course the sphere/children too.

Yes, of our three options last week (Daleks, Time Lords, humans from Utopia) the Toclafane sphere's turned out to be humans – or, as Alex correctly put it, heads in flying battle armour: that'd be new series Cybermen evolved into Daleks, then.

It's an interesting nod back to the Master's first appearance, though – no, not Nestene control spheres; I'm being controversial and suggesting that the War Chief and the Master are one and the same person! "Humans, the worst monsters of them all" is, of course, the theme of "The War Games" and nicely counterpoints the Master's view of the Doctor's favourite species. It makes it seem less of a coincidence that the Doctor reprised his "indomitable" speech during "Utopia". This duality of human nature reflects the conflict between Doctor and Master.

But particularly horrid to make them children's heads. I'm reminded of Mr Shakespeare, appropriately enough this season (Martha, deadpan: "I’ve met Shakespeare"), as the Universe enters its dotage and the humans literally enter second childhood before ending up sans eyes, sans teeth sans literally everything. And of course, the spheres all have one mind too – as explained when the one that Martha opens speaks with the memories of the child she met in "Utopia". Only Russell T Davies could let a Blue Peter viewer win a role in Doctor Who and then turn them into a decapitated death-sphere. Lovely.

In fact, the end of the universe is an incredibly bleak view of the ultimate fate. And without the Master-created paradox, the last of humanity will be the sphere/children abandoned at the end of time. Perhaps Russell's been watching too much "Torchwood". Or perhaps we will return to this line of thought in future stories. The failure of Utopia doesn't have to be the final end – the Big Finish adventure "Singularity" suggested that there were humans left at the end of time who were abandoned when the Time Lords made a new Universe for most living beings to escape into. Those events are probably in question after the Time War, but perhaps the television series could revisit something similar.


The finale to a season that has often seemed reminiscent of earlier stories then concludes with a homage-a-thon of, in rapid succession, "Superman" (time rolling back over the Earth), "Return of Jedi" (the villain's funeral pyre), and "Flash Gordon" (a "mystery" hand picks up the villain's ring to the sound of his maniacal laughter) seems calculated to have been a "best of…" for science fantasy.

Who was that mystery woman who picked up the Master's ring? Well, for a start can we please quell the insane fanboy speculation that it's the Rani. It really, really isn’t. In fact it seems likely that it is the Lady Macbeth of the piece, Lucy Saxon herself.

Why would she collect the ring after killing her husband? Well the possibility that suggests itself is a post-hypnotic command from the Master. The Doctor is quite right that the Master always puts his own survival first, and a failsafe backdoor to resurrection would certainly be in character, even if it undermines the viciousness of his spiteful death. And with Russell having done "The Doctor's Wife" with the Master, can we completely rule out him using the Master for the old "he'll regenerate into a woman" canard? I feel that, traumatised and victimised by the Master's treatment of her, Lucy genuinely shot him of her own volition, only afterwards finding herself compelled to find the ring. Alex suggests a tricksier alternative: that the Master's command included shooting him dead if it looked like he was going to be caught by the Doctor. Either way, after apparently killing him off for good, Russell has in fact left open the possibility of a rematch.

And then surprise and sorrow at Martha leaving. It's been quite a journey for Miss Jones, but she's been magnificent and I'll miss her, even if she is going to be coming back occasionally. Rumours are already circulating that the next companion will be a boy, which would be nice, although I'd rather like to see Sally Sparrow and Lawrence Nightingale get a trip in the TARDIS as their reward for saving the Doctor's life. Just one trip.

Martha's decision to go made perfect sense in the story though. She's grown up over this year, graduated from the school of Doctor, and is ready to make her own way. It's like a proper story with closure and everything, sad but strong and very Russell T Davies.

Essentially repeating the cliffhanger from last year with RMS Titanic in the Catherine Tate role was not particularly clever, though. Would have been better – in my opinion – or at least different to have seen it from the outside: Martha, and after all this year has been her story, hears the whoop of the foghorn and turns in time to see the TARDIS suddenly disappear as though smashed sideways out of her space and time, leaving her holding the Titanic's lifebelt and delivering the "What?"s.

"Last of the Time Lords" is a story that leaves me strangely ambivalent. Somehow it didn't seem to deliver on the promise of the last ten minutes of "Utopia", or even on the earlier highs of the season. And yet I enjoyed it, enjoyed it for all of those brilliant moments and set pieces, for John Simm being a loon and for the emotional centre of Freema's Martha and David Tennant's hearts-broken Doctor.

Still, what do I know? Eight million people watched this on Saturday, making it another top ten position for Doctor Who and they gave it an Appreciation Index rating of 88 out of 100, joint highest for the third season. The series goes from strength to strength. Role on Christmas.

Next time… it's not over yet! The Doctor and Martha journey into a whole new dimension: the second! Let's get animated for "The Infinite Quest".

Day 2371: Security Notice

Friday:


Daddy Richard would like everyone to know that he has NOT been exploded.

The office Summer Party in Leicester Square on Thursday night was AT LEAST a score of metres away from the Haymarket car bomb, he left a good couple of hours before the bomb was supposed to go off and most importantly, it DID NOT GO OFF anyway.

So, no reason to panic!

Day 2370: Change the (Criminal) Record

Thursday:


Lord Blairimort hasn't been out of office A DAY and already the police have nicked him again.

Just as last time, though, it turns out that it happened weeks ago and the Labour have been keeping shtumm about it, waiting for a good moment to BURY IT.

So much for "ALL CHANGE".


Possibly MORE shocking is the news that we heard on the The Today Programme the other day – though apparently it has been known for some time – that the police wanted to question Lord Blairimort "under caution", but were talked out of it. "Under caution" means treating him as a suspect rather than a witness, i.e. reminding him that he USED to have the right to remain silent, but that his government had got rid of that along with most of the rest of the civil liberties that would have protected him, so he'd better sing like a tweetie-bird. The police people were asked not to do this. The clinching argument was apparently that if they DID question him under caution, then he would have to resign.

Let us just ANALYSE that for a second. Why would you resign? (a) because your actions have been thought so questionable that the police WANT to treat you as a SUSPECT or (b) because the police ACTUALLY treat you as a suspect so people might FIND OUT about it?

It is a question of SUBSTANCE or STYLE, and we ALL know which one of those wins EVERY TIME with the Labour.


WILL Mr Frown's promise of CHANGE extend to cleaning up the Labour's habits of SECRECY and MISINFORMATION or will he be sticking to his SECRET STALIN ways?

He has an EXCELLENT opportunity this week, with the news that the Americans will be investigating the Al Yamamah arms deal.

This is quite a brave move by the American Justice Department, because it is bound to tee-off their key Saudi Arabian allies, just at a point where their "retreat from Arabia FORWARDS into Iraq" plan seems to have come completely unstuck.

(Although the CYNICAL reader could notice that this investigation also puts the kybosh on BAE's plans to expand into the American Market.)

The Al Yamamah deal first came to the Department of Justice's attention when they noticed super-tanker sized slices of cash flowing through the account of the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar. You may remember him – he is the chum of the Monkey-in-Chief who gets his own private airbus aeroplane paid for by, well, us, the British Public. In return for this ALLEGEDLY he makes sure that his government continues to pay for warplanes from BAE (formerly British Death Smiths of Goth).

But it turns out that the secrets of the deal – known only to a small, elect group known as the "Panorama viewers" – are actually kept by the GOVERNMENT and not by BAE at all. BAE are just SUB-CONTRACTORS. This is a LEGAL TERM meaning "we can pass the buck".

So, it is up to Mr Frown whether he will be "helping the Americans with their inquiries" or keeping Prince Bandar aloft in our his airbus.


Meanwhile, I hope that holding them in Lord Blairimort's PRISON CELL will not inconvenience the Middle Eastern peace talks TOO MUCH!

Day 2369: Après le Deluge

Wednesday:


First there was the HEATWAVE.

Then there was DROUGHT.

Then there were GALES.

Then there were FLOODS.

And on the next day THE LORD spake thus: "What do I have to DO to convince you people about Climate Change?!"


What, you thought I was going to write about something ELSE today?

Oh, all right...

It is the END of an EARACHE! Lord Blairimort has quit as Prime Monster and as MP for Sedgefield too, and now Mr Frown has taken over.

The entire House of Commons rose in SPONTANEOUS cheers of joy when Lord Blairimort finally admitted he was finished. Mr Balloon himself crossed the floor… to do that checking-for-breath-with-a-mirror thing so that he could be sure Lord Blairmort's career really was dead. Mr Frown, of course, had got their first, but had settled for just sticking him with a pin to see if he was faking.

But there was no time for FRIVOLITY, and immediately Mr Frown was whisked off to the PALACE where her Ineffable Majesty, Queen Liz, invested him with the key to the Downing Street EXECUTIVE LAVATORY and divvied up the secret spoilers for Saturday's Doctor Who finale. Then it was back to Downing Street for a speech to his adoring public. i.e. the press.

He said:

"Nya ha ha ha haaaaaaa, it's mine, mine at laaaaaaaaaaaast. Er, and we will bring, uhh, change and newness and, uhh, new change to all of you. Bless the little baby Jesus, goodnight."


It must REALLY irritate Mr Balloon no end to see Mr Frown steeling his HIGH ENERGY WALLPAPER and MODERNIST MUSIC and his mantra of "Change, Change, Change!"

Even more so when – for BOTH OF THEM – it all means "The Same, the Same, the Same!"

Mr Frown, carried into Downing Street on the crest of a wave of public ENNUI, is at least managing to keep that BAYING CROWD of the PRESS happy with a series of impressive PARLOUR TRICKS.

Last week's game of "sawing the Liberal Democrats in half" has been followed by a routine of "find the lady" with Mr Quentin Quentin in the leotard of the glamorous assistant, and for his next trick, it will be the classic "Cabinet of Doom".

You might think that this is the one where Mr Frown plunges a dozen knives into the Cabinet and we see who comes out unscathed, but it is actually a CARD TRICK: he's going to shuffle the deck and come out with all the KNAVES!

First out of Mr Frown's new hand was Mr Eyebrow-stare Darling, tipped to take over the Treasury desk from Mr Frown himself. Darling Mr Eyebrow-stare is just the man for the job. Mr Frown will want him there for the same reason that Lord Blairimort wanted Mrs Bucket as Foreign Secretary: this was because Lord Blairimort was his OWN Foreign Secretary, but it was nice to have someone on payroll who knows how to make the TEA when you've only got a camping stove to hand.

In fact, what everyone seems to have missed is Mr Frown's SMALL PRINT. After all, he DID say he would be forming a government "of all the talents… that we've been using for the last ten years."

So, far from being a CHANGED GANG, Mr Frown's new Cabinet is more of a CHAIN GANG, with everyone shuffling to the next chair around the table.

Mr Frown takes Lord Blairimort's chair, Mr Eyebrow-stare takes Mr Frown's chair leaving the Trade and Industry chair free for Mr Hutton who leaves his Work and Pensions chair for Mr Peter Vain. No jokes about Mr Vain being Pensioned Off, please!

Going the other way around the table, Ms Bleary is reward for coming last in the Deputy Lead contest by being promoted to the Community Chest replacing Mr Ruth Kelly who is transported to Transport replacing junior wooden-top Mr Alexander Douglas-Fir who moves to International Development replacing Mr Benny Hill who is released into the Environment replacing Mr Millipede who gets his reward for not standing against Mr Frown by being sent to "abroad".

(He's replacing Mrs Bucket, who has been kicked, er, out.)

Mr Frown, of course, has very little interest in "abroad", and so will want a proper little crawler bright and intelligent new face to head up the Foreign Office. The BIG surprise is that this ISN'T patched-up Conservatory Scarecrow Sir Malcolm Rifkind. He would have been DELIGHTED to do the job because his level of CROSSNESS with Mr Balloon, for passing him over for the Shadow Foreign Secretary role in favour of Mr Vague, is said to know no bounds.

In fact, Sir Malcolm was only one of several names suggested by the Conservatories in response to Mr Dale Winton rumouring that there would be ANOTHER defection from Mr Balloon's ranks.

Well, I say they "suggested names"; it was more cries of "PURGE THEM! PURGE THE UN-PURE TRAITORS!"

I am not QUITE sure how this zest for ETHNIC-CLEANSING will result in a more MODERATE and COMPASSIONATE Conservatory party, but frankly that is Mr Balloon's problem.

To conclude Mr Frown's reshuffle, though, for reasons that passeth understanding he has put Mr Buff Hoon in the role of Chief Whip – which should be FUNNY if they have any tight votes coming up.

And in an EYE-CATCHING move, the reformed Home Office is to be headed up by the SPICE GIRLS!

Meanwhile, The Minister for Magical Accidents is also being abolished. He is apparently hoping for a role in Europe and is looking forward to becoming an Island in the Balearics.

Day 2368: Vote Conservatory – Get Labour

Tuesday:


At least that's the case in Grantham and Stamford today.

This is because their MP, who no one will have heard of, has defected from the Conservatories to the Labour.


Mr Quentin Quentin, the man in question, said that, under Mr Balloon, the Conservatory Party "…appears to me to have ceased collectively to believe in anything, or to stand for anything".

Which is why he has decided to join the party that GENUINELY does not believe in anything or stand for anything!

I am SURE that he will find everything VERY FAMILIAR in his NEW Party, same as his OLD Party.

According to They Work For You, Mr Quentin Quentin's only STRONG parliamentary votes have been FOR illegally exploding Iraq, and AGAINST equal rights for gay daddies. I am sure he will FIT RIGHT IN.


Shadow Home Secretary, Mr Davis David (no relation), said darkly: "YOU find OUR lack of faith… disturbing," as he strangled the unfortunate defector with the Force.

Mr Gideon Oboe has vowed that he will even the score, promising that soon there will be a defection to the Conservatories. "…just as soon as I've defected to the Labour myself, then you'll see me defect back again!" he added.


Is this or is this not a bit of a DISASTER for Mr Balloon?

Easy enough to say that it is a "flash in the pan" and that it will all be forgotten by the time it is "tomorrow's chip paper", because it is and it will be – but underlying this is something MORE IMPORTANT: if Mr Balloon is REALLY following the Lord Blairimort SCRIPT, then he should be getting defections going the other way!

This is why the Conservatories have been so desperate to WOO Liberal Democrats, desperate enough to put the job in the hands of Mr Oboe!

You're not going to convince people of your BIG TENT politics if even your own side would rather skip out of your "Faith Zone" and explore the flashy IMAX across the road. (It is showing "Revenge of Gord-zilla", in GIANT 3D, of course.)


Obviously, this is Mr Frown's idea of A BIT OF A COUP, a reminder of the HEADY days of the young Lord Blairimort when Conservatories would REGULARLY trip, LAMB-LIKE across the lobby, into his waiting arms. No doubt it was supposed to go hand in clunking fist with getting hold of some Liberal Democrat peers, too, so that Mr Frown can go: "uhh, look at me, I'm, uhhh, so inclusive."

Well, clearly the Liberal Democrats are the ones with the PRINCIPLES, and the GUTS to say "No, thank you," to Mr Frown.

Liberal Democrats are DIFFERENT to the NuToryLabour – whereas the line between Mr Frown and Mr Balloon is increasingly BLURRED.

This is where those policies that Mr Quentin Quentin voted strongly on are IMPORTANT. Although they LOOK very different, International Law and Equal Rights are both areas about CONTROLLING the power of the government. Liberal Democrats believe that the government SHOULD BE controlled because it is the SERVANT of all of us. The Labour and the Conservatories believe that government is about making US obey THEM!


Last week, all of the Conservatories were saying that Sir Mr the Merciless was WEAK to even CONSIDER Mr Frown's offer – but the Liberal Democrats remain UNITED behind their leader.

What do the Conservatories have to say about a leader who loses an MP ENTIRELY?!

"Well, David," squeaked Mr Oboe, "at least it might make people forget that our peers keep defecting to UKIP!"

Day 2367: Peace Off

Monday:


Lord Blairimort is to bring PEACE to the Middle East.

Meanwhile, Dr Henry Kissinger is to give up SATIRE.

Day 2366: And the Winner Is…

Sunday:


Well, Mr Frown, obviously.

But much MORE interesting – well, interesting if you are a number anorak like Daddy Richard – are the results for the DEPUTY leader. Or as BBC3's news in 60 Seconds put it: Mr Frown gets to be Top Dog, but who gets to be Deputy Dawg?

Handily, someone has put the full results on the Wikipedia (thank you to Mr James for spotting this) and they make interesting reading (with the same caveat as above).


What is clear is that Mrs Harpic didn't just win in the LAST round – no, in fact she was a CLEAR winner in EVERY round… among the MEMBERS of the Labour. But she LOST in BOTH of the other categories EVERY TIME too!

Equally clear is that Mr Postman Pat, far from having the union vote all tied up as everyone supposed, was actually kept in the competition because he won the MPs and MEPs college EVERY TIME.

In fact, the Unions voted EVERY TIME for Mr Never Heard of Him from the Backbenches, only switching to Mr Pat in the final round when Mr Whoever He Was had been knocked out and taken away for interrogation tea and cakes by Mr Frown's SECRET STALIN secret police.

Now, you MIGHT say that there is a bit of a case for Union members to have a say in the Labour's leadership election. All right, SECRET STALIN fixed that, but you might say that they should have a say in the DEPUTY election, because they pay their money. Of course, under the present system there's no limit to how MANY Unions they can join so if they feel like it they can have SEVERAL says, which is kind of not right. Less one member one-third of a vote; more one member, how many votes would sir like to buy?

But the really OUTRAGEOUS thing is giving the MPs and MEPs SUPER-VOTES: there are three-hundred and fifty-one Labour Members of Parliament and nineteen Labour European Parliament Members, three-hundred and seventy in total; meanwhile, the Labour have around about a hundred-and-eighty-thousand members.

So an MP's vote is worth 487-and-a-half members. (That is a third divided by 370 over a third divided by 180,000… PLUS an extra one because the MP can vote AS a member AS WELL!)

This seems VERY UNFAIR – especially when the MPs can choose to LOCK OUT anyone they do not want to stand anyway… as a certain Secret Stalin managed to organise in the Leadership ballot.

Oh the WHOLE, it would be a lot fairer or at least a whole lot less peculiar if they just gave ONE EQUAL vote to every member and, if they want to, ONE to everyone who was signed up to a union too.

So the good news is – if you are Mrs Harpic – that you LOOK like you GENUINELY deserved to win, rather than having it fixed for you by Union Barons (or "My Husband", as Mrs Harpic calls one of them) or by Secret Stalins in Parliament.

Or so it would SEEM, except that we cannot REALLY know for sure, because in round THREE Mr Benny Hill was eliminated even though he actually came SECOND in the members' vote.

If Mr Don't Know Him Now and Never Will had been eliminated at that stage for coming last among the members, then who knows how his vote might have split up among Mr Benny and Mrs Harpic and Mr Pat? It might have been Mr Postman Pat eliminated at the fourth round and then Mr Benny and Mrs Harpic could have gone head to head!

Would a Blaiocratic stuffed effigy passing themselves off as the true inheritor of the Labour tradition have won in that contest? Who can possibly know?!


Never mind, Mr Benny, you can console yourself with the fact that you will probably keep your job in the Cabinet, maybe even get a promotion, while Mr Frown has acted quickly to say that the elected deputy leader can be Party Chair. Amid the huge applause for this decision, how many – I wonder – realised that what he was actually saying was "the elected Deputy will NOT be Deputy Prime Monster"?

I doubt that Mrs Harpic was expecting her promotion to Party Chair to mean she was being SAT ON!

Of course, if Mr Frown was a REAL Secret Stalin, he would IMMEDIATELY replace Mrs Harpic with a STEPFORD Harpic who would say she never said the government should apologise for Invading Iraq. Oh…