Day 5554: Zombie Economics Rising

Wednesday:




In Gideon's Reheated Black-Hole Budget nothing actually adds up. It's almost like he's not got the Lib Dems there to do the maths for him!

Tax on sugar, that was his (sugar-free) Easter Bunny – money he immediately spent again, so does nothing to bridge the gap between taxing and spending, and a balanced budget slips further beyond his reach.

The growth forecasts are down, the borrowing forecasts are up… and then, like an underpants gnome, with one bound* he leaps to surplus by 2020.

But how?

The economy is slowing, the deficit is growing… so let's cut taxes.

• Tax cuts for big corporates – welcome, "Google", to tax haven Britain;
• tax cuts for the oil & gas industry – the effective end of the carbon subsidy, and so much for greenest government ever;
• tax cuts for landlords – paid for by local councils who will have to find the £6 billion quid he'd promised to hand back to them and now just evaporated;
• and tax cuts for those hedge fund dealers and stock market speculators with a return of the Capital Gains Tax rate to the giveaway levels that saw bankers pay less tax than their cleaners under old New Labour.

I do understand that if you are, shall we say, at the DRIER end of the economic paddling pool, tax cuts are the cure for all ills. But if you admit things are going pear-shaped and you want to stimulate the economy, for goodness sake, do as the Coalition did and target them on the people who will SPEND!

So even though Gideon is putting up the personal allowance too, like the good ol' days, UNLIKE the Liberal Democrats' policy he's raising not tightening the threshold of the 40% band, so that the lion's share of the benefit goes to the higher rate taxpayers.

It's unaffordable when there's still a deficit; it's unconscionable when you're snatching £30 a week from the hands of the disabled; and it's unmistakable for anything other than a blatant sweetener ahead of the EU referendum (and subsequent Tory leadership bloodbath). Has a BRIBE ever been so naked?

Seven billion quid on a middle-class give-away. And, as the saying goes, that's not all.

George's idea of "doing something for the young folks": if you're young and rich and can afford to put £4000 into an ISA, he will make you even richer. Who can afford that? He might as well call it the "Trust Fund ISA" and be done with it. Hard luck if you're a struggling young person, though, or disabled, or expecting your Universal Credit. Or have had your maintenance grant turned into a loan.

This is a budget for young people the way the BLACK DEATH was an "opportunity" for serfs in the Middle Ages – one they were UNLIKELY to SURVIVE!

It's almost like Master Gideon is on a mission to undo all of the progressive tax changes under the Coalition that led to a more equal Britain.

Even that sugar tax, so beloved of Jamie Oliver, disproportionately hits the poor.

And the giveaways to chums continued into the capital budget too.

Billions to be spent on infrastructure… so long as it's Crossrail 2. Or is it the Elizabeth II line now? And to places that vote Tory. He even admitted as much: "When the south west votes blue we listen." Has a BRIBE ever been so naked? Again?!

Promises to fix the flood defences for Yorkshire and Cumbria amount to un-cancelling things he previously cancelled. And then re-announcing the un-cancellation as new money.

And as Labour's Andy Burnham tweeted: the Northern Powerhouse turns out to be an extra lane on the M62. Hooray! Something else for Labour to abstain on, then.

It's EIGHT years since the crash and the terrible depression (aka Mr Frown). And that's about as long as economic cycles last. Or to put it another way, that's about as long as the Chancellor's luck can hold. Gideon's warnings of "storm clouds on the horizon" show that he knows it. He's getting his excuses in early. But if as seems likely we go into another downturn in the next couple of years, if it turns out that these WERE the "good years", it's going to be apparent how very NOT FIXED the roof was when the sun was shining. How the long-term economic plan was neither long-term nor economic. Nor a plan.

In the play Timon of Athens, Mr Timon is bountiful with his generosity to all his friends until his cash runs out, and then discovers that none of them will help him. That's you, Gideon, that is.

The albatrosses are coming home to roost. They're like chickens, only bigger and nastier and they bury you in guano.

Though at least it will be sugar free.



*It appears that the surplus in 2020 is down to changes to Corporation Tax that bring forward receipts; in short, he gets two years tax in one. Obviously that's a one-off gain – so a one-off surplus. Another of Gideon's tricks.

PS

Clearly Voodoo Economics is the new black as, over in Americaland, John Kasich seeks to paint himself the new Ronald Reagan. Governor Kasich is of course a fruity wingnut, but STILL not as outright berserk as Senator Cruz or as completely unhinged as Mr Drumpf. Unfortunately, he needs to win 109% of the remaining delegates in order to secure the Replutocrats' nomination. Unless it goes to the first contested convention (outside of the West Wing) in living memory…

Day 5535: Show A Little ReSPECTRE

Friday:

So, Spectre. Not SpECTRE, apparently. Which is a shame. Love a good acronym, we do.

Released on the daddies' wedding anniversary, we saw it in the cinema, in IMAX in fact as a special indulgence. Yet this review's haunted us until the DVD release. There might be a clue there*…

The opening extended tracking shot following a Faction Paradox-attired Bond through Mexico City's Day of the Dead has been rightly praised. Not just an extraordinary visual achievement, it sets up the film's themes of Bond as a living dead man, haunted by his ghosts: Vesper, M, and ultimately… spoilers – Blofeld.

(Yes, I'm going to use the name. We all knew who Christoph Waltz was playing; and it's liberally sprayed over the end titles. So we might as well get used to it.)

In fact the whole pre-title sequence is amazing. Bond's shooting the terrorists' explosive – is it deliberately? – and bringing the house down on himself reminds us of the Venice conclusion of Casino Royale even as it introduces the plot point of using terrorism not the old fashioned way to threaten and bully, but more subtly to panic governments into jumping the wrong way, into bed with "C" and his (i.e. Blofeld's) global intelligence network.

The fight in the helicopter is a particularly visceral stunt that outshines the helicopter stunt in "For Your Eyes Only" that it is clearly referencing (for obvious cat-lover related reasons). It's especially bold that the death of the assassin Sciarra (and of his pilot) is essentially off-screen as Bond just unceremoniously boots them out of the chopper and they are gone, as forgotten by the film as they are by our emotionally closed-down hero.

After the deliciously skull-topus-y title sequence, we cut to a grey London and the corpse of Bond-world's MI5 headquarters at Vauxhall. And thence to a funeral in Rome, that has the eternal city looking like one vast marble tomb – and of all the churches in Rome, they pick the one that looks most… Stalinist. With Monica Bellucci's glamourous widow, who does not expect her life-after-death to last long; along with the ghoulishly almost-undead appearance of Mr White, clinging to life through his thallium poisoning; and above all a message from M from beyond the grave this serves to reinforce the motif of the dead being with us.
That the person pulling the strings is the ghost of Judi Dench's M, drawing the threads of Daniel Craig's previous Bond films together in order to uncover the Spectre, makes for a satisfying answer to the questions left open that had made "Quantum of Solace" and even "Skyfall" feel like they were only an opening chapter, almost unfinished.

But we are also setting ourselves up for where the film starts to go wrong.

Before that, Bond's encounter with Mr White leads him to Madeleine Swann, White's estranged daughter who is currently working at a suspiciously Piz Gloria-a-like clinic on top of a mountain. There follows a kidnapping and a gloriously retro car versus plane chase sequence, as magnificent as something out of the Roger Moore era, with the added bonus of seeing Ben Wishaw's Q get to do "in the field" the way dear Desmond Llewellyn used to. And smartly hiding in a cupboard to escape the baddies shows his brains can be as good as Bond's brawn.

Mind you, I'm pretty sure that DNA on the Spectre ring really doesn't work like that. Somehow connecting everyone in the plot and revealing that Oberhauser is still alive. I mean it's Sciarra's ring, not Blofeld's, so you can't even make it a kiss-the-papal-ring pass your DNA along that way thing.

And now of course we arrive at the fatal flaw. The film itself insists that all the clues lead us here.

And the problem is this. The head of the organisation and apparently ultimate author of all that has happened to Craggles over the course of four movies turns out to be someone from his childhood who he thought was dead.

And is also Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

So why all the coy messing with the name? In context of the Bond films, of course we in the audience all know what Blofeld means. But it means nothing to this Bond.

The "(adopted) brother we never knew he had" is such a daytime TV cliché, but it is the real thrust of this film, that knife to the heart of Bond from the moment in Rome when he recognises the erstwhile Franz Oberhauser.

Blofeld? It means nothing here. It's just a throwaway about being "my mother's line", and Bond makes a half-hearted witticism (he doesn't even manage a "What, your mum was called Ernst Stavro?").

The name Blofeld ought to have been haunting at least this if not all four recent Bond films. The reveal that Oberhauser is Blofeld ought to come as the conclusion.

Blofeld brings up the very unpleasant and not-very-Bond-toned eye-gouging scene from the earlier Rome meeting. Yet, when he talks about Mr Guerra (the victim) as "not being there any more"… well, that moment just wasn’t there in the first place. Plus Blofeld was about half a mile away at the other end of that really long table. And that indeed is the problem with this movie – it needs to make references to moments that aren't there.

(Or maybe Blofeld just routinely gets Hinx to gouge people's eyes out; after all he does have his own skull-drilling suite in his own secret base.)

So we get to the secret base in the middle of the desert. Possibly the crater is supposed to remind us of the spectacular hollow volcano of "You Only Live Twice", but how does it fit with our themes of the dead alive? The meteor is sort of impressive, maybe, but doesn't appear to mean or connect to anything.

And we get to the political crux of the movie: information is power. And Blofeld has a lot of it (somehow) so he's very powerful. Here's a video of Mr White shooting himself to show I can see and know everything.

The problem with "knowledge is power is bad" is that we really don't see the application of that power. "Extortion is my business" said Donald Pleasance's incarnation of Blofeld. The "E" in Spectre might no longer stand for "Extortion" but we really do need to see that the ability to pry into people's privacy can be monstrously abused – we need to see those government officials being blackmailed into allowing arms sales and people smuggling. "C" for example could have been being forced to work for Spectre, rather than just Andrew Scott doing his Moriarty thing. Again. We need to see identities being stolen and lives being broken. The invisible tentacles are all too invisible, here. As in "Quantum of Solace", the threat becomes so large and nebulous it ceases to be dramatic.

The one instance of Spectre using this power to know it all – at least we presume this is how they know where Bond is – is that they must, as Ralph Fiennes' M guesses, use MI6's own knowledge of where Bond is (by way of the "smart blood" with which Q has injected him). And yet, that's left as an exercise for the viewer to work out. Mr Hinx just turns up on the train… and that's the sort of thing that Bond villains just do. It's too easy to miss that it's a clue to Spectre's power, because the baddies don't usually need to show how they find Bond when it's time for the next attempt to kill him.

Also, did Spectre buy their HQ from the same people who supplied Quantum with the exploding hotel two movies ago?

What's missing, ultimately, is the twist.

Alex pointed out to me how the film is full of the noir trope of mirroring: Bond and Madeline on the train mirroring Bond and Vesper on the train; Mr White's hidden room at l'Americaine mirroring his (literally behind the mirror) room in Austria; the helicopter stunt at the start mirroring the helicopter at the end.

Madeline is coded as a noir femme fatale… but without ever achieving fatale status. Not that Lea Seydoux is bad, but you've got Monica bleedin' Bellucci in the film (wasted in what amounts to an extended cameo).

(Just as Fiennes' M has all the coding of being the double-agent, too good to be true and perfectly placed to take over as M after "good" M is killed in "Skyfall". But no, there's no twist; he too is just another goody.)

So, I would have made one tiny, tiny change. The end of the movie. Bond has been diverted from the mission to prevent "C" from turning on Spectre's private panopticon into the ruin of the MI5 headquarters – I love the spiderweb of bomb fuses, though it is a switch of metaphor from octopodes to arachnids – and Chuckles has given him three minutes to escape and/or rescue the dame. He ends up in the shell of M's office.

Way Out?

Here's the change: instead of Christoph Waltz watching in a helicopter… it's Madeline. And she is finally revealed as Blofeld. A black Swann not a white one. The real cause of her split with her father.

Then Franz Oberhauser is just Franz Oberhauser. Instead of a coincidence too far, actually it was an ingenious double bluff. His jealous obsession with Bond another tool that the real Blofeld has used as a blind and a cover. And she gets clean away. Leaving her catspaw to face the music and whether or not Bond decides to shoot him.

(Even that – Alex used the term "peremptory" – exploding secret base becomes redressed as another bluff.)

And a movie that was running out of adrenaline after the Austria chase gets a much needed final surprise, a shock ending to leave you leaving the cinema with a surge, not a slow coming off the boil.

Watching it again I think it's not a bad flick. The good bits are really good: the opening Day of the Dead; the sinister menace – de trop eye-gouging aside – of the Spectre meeting; the chase through Rome, particularly the way Q has gaffer-tapped his improvements to the dash of the three-million pound DB10; the old-fashioned-and-revelling-in-it mountain-top chase. Craig continues to be excellent. And he gets to be funny, in moments, in his quiet understated way; often unexpected physical comedy, as when he manages to survive a building collapsing by landing on a convenient sofa. Naomie Harris is terrific as Moneypenny, even though she has less to do than in "Skyfall" and deserves more (at least she gets to mirror the "partner in bed" gag that "Casino Royal" did with M back in the day). Whishaw is, of course, wonderful in everything he does. Fiennes brings gravitas and, appropriately, ennui to M, and is clearly channelling his inner Bernard Lee. Though you do slightly wish he could have dropped "C" off his tower with an, "Avada ke-bloody-davra".

But still the ending is disappointing. Loaded with expectations that just don't deliver. In a way, I think, they are hamstrung by the possibility that this is Daniel Craig's last Bond outing, and the need to give him an ending that is both resolution and upbeat, meaning he gets the girl, and throws away the gun.

I think, perhaps, we'll have a better feel for this film when we can see what happens when it's not the end.

James Bond, after all, will return.

[*sinister chords by Thomas Newman, shadow of tentacles at the end of the mirrored paragraph]

Day 5533: 1% - A Decade of Millennium

Wednesday:


T'was ten years ago, I first opened my VERY FLUFFY DIARY and shared my GENIUS with the World.

How many things have changed in that time!

There have been three* James Bond films; four** Doctor Whos; and for five years the Liberals ran the country. A bit.

And I used to think that IMPORTANT things needed to be EMPAHASISED and so I used a lot of ALL-CAPS!

Nowadays I realise that in the Internets this is considered VERY FUNNY and should be ENCOURAGED!

So if you think YOU feel old remember… next year THE FLUFFY ELEPHANT GETS THE VOTE!

Daddy's Little Spectre

*also "Quantum of Sausage".

**Dr Dave, Dr Mat, Dr Hurt and Dr PeterC (Dr Chris just missed).

We've see the Rise and Fall of Prime Monster, Mr Frown...

From the resignation of phoney Tony... and the Government of All the Goats... to the election that never was.

From Stalin to Mr Bean. From economic crisis to 10p tax debacle to the Expenses Scandal.

Through the plottings of Milipede Snr to the Coup that Collapsed.

To I Agree With Nick.

We've lived through The Coalition...

From the decision to go into government…

…to the first 100 days that no commentator would have predicted the government would survive…

…through the difficult middle years…

…to the last Coalition budget (where I spot that Milipede Jnr has spotted his forthcoming defeat).

We've discovered it really IS the economy, stupid

And I've told you all about MONEY and WEALTH, the ECONOMIC CYCLE and the CREDIT CRUNCH and QUANTITATIVE EASING.

We've seen what happened to Northern Rock and the fall of Bear Sterns (who even remembers them!).

We've seen why Ed Miliband was wrong about the "myth" of Labour overspending …and fisked of a Labour Troll who tried baiting me!

And recently we've asked what does a Cobynite Labour economic policy actually MEAN?

and what should a Liberal Economic Policy Look like?

We've watched a LOT of movies…

Some old favourites GLORIOUSLY reinvented...

...and some that would have been better left alone!

Some Harry Potter and some Pirates and some More Pirates

Superman and Batman (good) and Batman (not so much)

Star Wars (cartoon version) and Star Trek (likewise)

Narnia and His Dark Materials




And VERY OCCASIONALLY some JAMES BOND. And some JAMES BOND. And some JAMES BOND!

…and we've watched some REALLY bad television

Bottomkickers...

Robbing Hoodie...

and, Crotchwoot


With special mention for The Amazingly Awful Mrs Pritchard (hang on, that's Daddy Alex's!)

We've had a few Christmases...

Jingle Bells

Jingle Bells

Fluffy All the Way

Oh What Fun

It Is to Ride

On a One ELEPHANT

Open Aston Martin...

And we may even have touched upon religion

When I may have occasionally disagreed with The Beardy-Weirdy of Canterbury. Once or twice.

Not to mention the Cardinal arch-bigot of Westminster

or Ruth Kelly and the Elder God Delusion!

But here are my absolute top ten favourite things about my diary for the first ten years…

#10 Mr Balloon Cartoon

OK, the silly names.

Over the years, I've had my little, er, misunderstandings about people's names, whether it was calling the leaders of my own Party Captain Clegg (as in the notorious Pirate Clegg) or Sir Mr the Merciless (as in the notorious Emperor Ming) or those of the (Hard) Labour Party Lord Blarimort, Mr Frown or Mr Milipede.

…or there are the ever changing adjectives to describe the perma-tanned pestilence that is Mr Peter Vain, er Hain. He been:

An Orange-hued apostate

A Tangerine-toned Turncoat

A Satsuma-skinned surrender monkey

A Clementine-Coloured Catspaw

A Peach-painted preener

A Sepia-stained stool-pigeon

A Fuchsia-finished old fraud

A Beige-Basted Bumbler

A Ridiculous russet rogue

A Terracotta-tinted twit

and a Heliotrope-hued hole in the head not to mention firebrick-brushed fraud!

…but from very early on – okay, in fact from my VERY FIRST diary – I have called the then leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition and now (as absurd as it may seem, and with whatever culpability for it that the Liberal Democrats may have) Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Rt Hon David William Donald Cameron… Mr Balloon.

He just LOOKS like a Balloon. An empty pink bladder with a smile painted on it.

So OBVIOUSLY I was delighted when a national newspaper cartoonist came to the same conclusion!

see also my favourite "interview" with the Rt Hon Dave Balloon.

#9 Coining the term "Unpology"

The era of New Labour came and went like a bout of gastric flu, but it left behind a legacy of political spin doctoring – ironically usually reduced to just "spin", when the whole point of Labour's news management strategy as run by Mr Alistair Henchman was to counter the "spin" that the (mostly right-wing) press were already putting on their stories about the non-Tory Party.

Terms like "remaining on message", sticking to "the grid" and "burying bad news" have all added to the public feeling that politicians – ALL politicians – are manipulative, deceptive even downright deceitful.

But the apogee (or nadir) of this technique comes with the dark art of appearing to deliver an apology while actually not doing so, and often managing to blame the person to whom you should be apologising for their misinterpretation of your perfectly acceptable behaviour being the only reason for taking offence.

Mr Frown's Hope Secretary Jacqui Smith delivered a particularly fine (by which I mean un-fine) example.

#8 Millennium on the Moon

Labour under Lord Blairimort quite quickly gave up any pretense of Civil Libertiies and started playing the SECURITY card left, right, and centre… tell more like right and far-right and even further right.

Quite early on, I had to go ON THE RUN from the Stormtroopers of the Labour Government after they mistook my SINCERE ADMIRATION for JAMES BOND for GLORIFICATION of TERRORISM. Fortunately, I was able to apply for political asylum on the Moon. Here's the full saga…

In hiding!

In Space!

I was NOT driving!

Monster!

In the Soup!

Nose Trouble!

Escape… to Danger!

(In tribute to our dear friend Dr Nick, every title ends in a !)

#7 Defeating Mr Frank Luntz

Another early victory was the time we had a run-in with Republican Push-Poller and semi-resident "expert" on Newsnight, Mr Frank Luntz.

He had presented what he called a focus group on the telly. Clearly a sensitive soul, he posted comments on a lot of Lib Dem blogs… but obviously it was MY piece, suggesting how a STAGE MAGICIAN could have arrived at a VERY SIMILAR outcome that most troubled him.

Here's how he might have done it…

…and here's me replying to him replying to me!

He tried his hand at "predicting" again, with the thankless task of suggesting someone other than Mr Frown might succeed Lord Blairimort (and how did THAT work out, again?)…

…then made an appearance on the Comic Relief Apprentice…

…before buttering up our own Capitan Clegg.

Pleasingly, Newsnight stopped billing him as "pollster" and started crediting him as a Republican. Full disclosure is good.

#6 Defeating the "Liberal" Conspiracy

I never REALLY took to the project launched by Mr Sunny Hundal and dubbed (not JUST by me) as "Labour Conspiracy", seeing it as at best a well-meaning BLACK HOLE that would suck in and swallow up non-Labour blogs into supporting that tired old Party, and at worst a front organisation.

But then Mr Sunny Delight's munchkin Aaron Murin-Heath went a little bit, er, over-defensive in response to this little piece putting a sore Green loser in his place…

For once read the comments, and Mr God Bless the Liberal Blogosphere for riding to the rescue of a soft toy under fire!

Of course, once Hard Labour went back into opposition, it was safe for Mr Sunny to have his moral high ground cake and eat it, so he slunk back into the party and his fabulous media career™ was quietly wound up.

Meaning my Diary has outlived his PROJECT. So yay!

#5 Defeating the Mr Master

Then there was that time when Doctor Who's the Master would have taken over the Fluffy Diary (and the World) but for one elementary error…

#4 Nick Clegg, his hand on my bottom

It remains a source of GREAT PRIDE in this LIBERAL Liberal Democrat Party that no matter how silly or bizarre it might have seemed to have a soft toy in their midst passing satirical comment on their goings on, at every level up and down the Party from grassroots to grandees they have been so willing to talk and listen and take part in bloggers' conversations.

And no one moreso than the Party Leader, Nick Clegg, who really took to the bloggers interviewers and talked to us on many occasions.

Here are two of my favourite, first from early on when he'd just been elected leader and made time for us and our doughnuts between the "serious" press…

…and second just a few years later from inside the Cabinet Office as Deputy Prime Minister.

I'm particularly grateful to Ming Cambell who, when HE was leader, was the first to talk to the bloggers, and to Chris Huhne who, during that leadership contest, was so easy to persuade to talk, perhaps because he as the insurgent was as much the outsider as we were. They got us going, and thanks to them Nick saw how important it was to open up a channel to talk to friends inside the Party. And Danny and Vice and Ed and others all followed.

#3 The Day of Meeting the Doctor (and all his chums)

But it's not ALL been about the politics. In fact there's been quite a bit of Doctor Who over the years, what with the telly series actually coming back to the telly pretty much in sync with my Diary. Obviously.

The highpoint for many a fan was the fiftieth anniversary and the Day of the Doctor, which we celebrated – of course – but by remembering ALL the eras of Dr Woo and all the many starts big and small who have given us so much to enjoy and think about over the first fifty years.

Some of whom even got the pleasure of meeting ME!

#2 I am Blogger of the Year. Oh yeah!

And so, obviously, the first thing the Liberal Democrats did on getting into government for the first time in EIGHTY years was to give a prize to a stuffed elephant. I was, I have to say, taken somewhat by surprise.

Of course, it didn't QUITE work out first time around… or second… or third or fourth… but, as the saying goes, if at first you don't succeed… throw a TANTRUM!

So this is ME winning Blogger of the Year in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, (FINALLY!) 2010!

#1 Daddies Get Married

Because THIS is why I write my Very Fluffy Diary. This is why I keep telling you all this Liberal stuff.

Big Gay Wedding

Because The Liberal Democrats changed the World. For the better.

Remember that. Always.

Day 5531: Brexit is for the Faeries

Monday:




Once Upon A Time…

"I assume also that no great power would shrink from its responsibilities ... if that country from a perverse interpretation of its insular geographical position, turns an indifferent ear to the feelings and fortunes of continental Europe, such a course would, I believe, only end in it becoming an object of general plunder.

"So long as the power and advice of England are felt in the Councils of Europe, peace I believe will be maintained, and maintained for a long period."

Margaret Thatcher, quoting Disraeli, last time we had a referendum on Britain in Europe.

Britain + Europe

The Brexit Brigade LURVE their FAERY Stories.

They are already pushing three MYTHS about what this referendum is about.

MYTH #1: "Who runs Britain"

(And I am already sick to the top of my trunk of Conservatory MPs who voted AGAINST fairer votes and voted AGAINST reforming the unelected House of Lords sitting pretty in their SAFE SEATS and having the GALL to tell us that the problem with Europe is "we cannot kick them out"!)

MYTH #2: "We would have freedom to trade"

(The leave campaign say that they want Britain to be free to make trade treaties with whoever we like… and they want to begin by pulling out of the largest free-trade area on the planet. Does this make ANY sense WHATSOEVER?)

MYTH #3: "Remain are SCAREMONGERING (nudge nudge, fear the immigrants)"

(Mr Farrago cannot open his mouth without scaremongering about Turkey, or about "500 million people with the right to come to live in Britain" – clue: 70 million of them are ALREADY HERE: they're called "the British"; Michael Gove – Mr Balloon's Smeagol – raises the spectre of razor wire across Europe as though that's a product of working together and not a symptom of the very nationalism with which he's flirting; and how many times do we hear the pitiful excuse from a country that is 92% undeveloped country "we're too crowded, we can't take any more"? Scare, scare and more scare.)

Pied Parper

So since they are all so KEEN on FABLES and PARABLES, let me tell you a story too. Spoilers: it has a HAPPY ENDING.

Long ago, but not that long, there was a WAR and EVERYONE LOST. And in the ruins that remained, friends and enemies alike came together and decided to try something, a very – I might say – British idea of making it easier to trade together.

Because, quite a lot of the time, people who trade with each other don't fight with each other. Trade brings prosperity to both sides and with prosperity comes peace. Business is good for peace and peace is good for business.

I say that's a very British idea because Free Trade was sort of at the heart of the dispute between the Liberals and the Conservatories i.e. between Mr Gladstone and Disraeli over the Corn Laws; and was sort of at the heart of the conflict between the British Empire and Napoleon (grossly to oversimplify four-hundred years of history).

And because protectionism and nationalism and the MYTH of "destiny" had done so EXTREMELY very badly in the years of the Great Depression that led to the War.

So the idea was actually a very simple one. It started with COAL and STEEL and the idea was that customers for coal and for steel should be able to pay the same price for the same stuff wherever they were.

That meant getting rid of trade barriers between countries.

But also, making sure that people on both sides played by the same rules, rules like how long it was safe for people to work so you couldn't undercut your competitors by paying slave wages or working dangerously long hours; or rules saying what the measurements should be measured in, so you couldn't short change the customer by having a slightly shorter "inch" or a slightly lighter "pound".

There have been "weights and measures" rules since the time of Bad King John. In fact, one of the reasons he got CALLED "Bad" King John by the barons is that the barons didn't like him going about the place stopping the business of putting a thumb on the weighing scales and shaving the gold off the coins.

So Europe's rules are about FAIRNESS to CUSTOMERS.

Now, it's a bureaucracy and bureaucracies grow rules like topsey, and not all of them always make sense, even more so when you take them out of context.

And sometimes – quite a LOT of times in fact – a "rule" from Europe is more of a GUIDELINE in Brussels but becomes gold-plated, copper-bottomed, red-taped LEGISLATION as it passes through the British Civil Service and the Houses of Parliament, but they still blame all the finicketty details because "Europe".

And sometimes people just MAKE THINGS UP (like the infamous MYTH of the STRAIGHT BANANA – but there ARE rules to protect banana buyers from ROTTEN bananas, but that sounds too much like GOOD news).

We PERPLEX our friends in Europe with our attitude to the rules. We make them EXTRA HARD, and then COMPLAIN about them. But STICK to them like glue. We need to RELAX, UNCLENCH a bit. Be a bit more, well, EUROPEAN.

Missing Out

Let us take an example: the Tampon Tax. It is said that we cannot remove the VAT from ladies' tampons because "Europe".

Well, the short answer is of course we can. No other country would be so RIGID.

Things get redesignated all the time. If Marks & Spencer can get a teacake redesignated as a cake, it is not beyond the wit of a Minister of the Crown to redesignate a tampon as an essential. And obviously we should do so.

But more broadly, it comes back to that business of FAIRNESS for the CUSTOMER. You want your customers to be able to compare prices wherever they go in Europe. So you want (roughly) the price of things that are basically the same to BE basically the same. So if there's a sales tax that is part of the price, you want that to be basically the same too.

Now good old Blighty didn't HAVE a general sales tax when we joined the (then) EEC (although there was a purchase tax on certain "luxury" goods). So a part of our negotiated conditions for entry was that we would introduce the broad-based Value Added Tax or VAT.

BUT, we negotiated a GOOD deal – VAT rates across Europe tend towards the 20%-25% rate, and Britain was allowed not only a LOWER rate (10% when we started, but of course it's gotten up to 20% now) but also some substantial exemptions, in particular for FOOD. Other countries have LOWER rates of sales tax on food, but no other European country has ZERO tax on food.

The Quid Pro Quo for this deal was that we would only ever move our VAT rates TOWARDS the European average. So the VAT rate only goes UP and not down (except in emergencies like when the economy went through the floor at the end of the last Labour government's time).

So we could not GENERALLY lower the VAT rate, or create broad new exemptions, but ONLY because we AGREED (and signed a TREATY to say so) that it was FAIRER to CUSTOMERS if the sales tax rates across all of Europe generally converged to the same level, so that everyone knew they were getting the same deal.

Gove takes the VAT rule out of context to make out it's some matter of HIGH PRINCIPLE that we have lost POWER over our taxes. When in truth we made a CHOICE that more fairness to customers was worth a bit less power over taxes. In other words we USED that tax power, rather than HOARDED and WASTED it, the way Smeagol horded and wasted the precious ring.

Let's take another example: Google's Tax Bill. Everyone seems to think that Google's tax bill is not terribly fair. But the REASON that they are able to shuffle their taxes around – do the so-called "Double Irish" – is because the Republic of Ireland chooses (and is able) to set it's Corporation Tax rate at 3%, so large companies are tempted to relocate their European offices and (theoretically) the profits they make to Dublin.

That unfairness is a consequence of NOT setting an agreement among the members of Europe that we will keep Corporation Taxes (broadly) in line. That is the sort of UNFAIRNESS that Brexit will ENCOURAGE. It is the "race to the fluffy bottom". And the only winners are the BIG COMPANIES, not individuals, not small or even middle-sized companies, but only the giants that can easily move countries. And of course the sorts of people who end up on the BOARDS of those companies. (Not looking at ex-ministers. No wait, that's EXACTLY who we should be looking at.)

Now we COULD pull out of Europe and try to compete with Ireland on Corporation Tax… so long as you don't mind cutting a further THIRTY-THREE BILLION out of the budget, pretty much the ENTIRE spend on EDUCATION, say, or two-thirds of the DEFENCE BUDGET. The sort of cuts that would make even Master Gideon wince. A little.

Or we could stay IN Europe and work together to make corporates like Google pay their taxes more fairly, and get Ireland to play nice too.


Is Europe UNDEMOCRATIC? Yes, but less so than BRITAIN – the Commission are appointed by elected governments (unlike the British secret Civil Service); the Council of Ministers are the representatives of those elected governments (unlike the British Cabinet, who are mostly old Etonian chums of the Prime Monster); the Parliament of Europe is elected by a proportional system (unlike the British Parliament at Westminster where the Conservatories have an illegitimate majority of 12 with 37% of the vote and Mr Farrago has no representation at all – given that his one MP cannot hardly bear to even talk to him, let alone be in the same leave campaign.)

Could Europe be MORE democratic? Yes, we could have more powers for the Parliament to approve commissioners and initiate legislation but only if the Kippers and Conservatories stop BLOCKING it. But equally, our MEDIA could stop being so PAROCHIAL and give the European Parliament the SAME coverage as the Westminster one – that's the KEY way to make people feel more informed and involved. Mr Farrago only gets away with NOT DOING HIS DAY JOB because no one sees that he's NEVER THERE!

We need to be IN to fight for MORE democracy. OUT just leaves us at the mercy of an UNDEMOCRATIC Westminster controlled by the Conservatories and the SPECIAL INTERESTS that back them.

Who are the unelected "elite"? The council and parliament of all of Europe or the Conservatory party with a tiny majority trying to shore up a system that gives them, a minority, absolute power, while they are using (abusing) that power to cut off the Opposition and the charities and the Lords who try to stand up to them?

So who rules Britain? The people who vote? Or the rigged system that gives all power to a Westminster controlled by a Conservatory elite and their secret big-money backers?


GREAT FLUFFY GRIEF there are four months of this to go!

Here's the HAPPY ENDING: on June 23rd we CAN vote to stay part of something Greater than just Little England; we CAN break the hold of the Conservatory elite. This DOESN'T just have to be about Boris's career plan; it can be about hope and a better future.

Fairytale Ending

Good luck!

Day 5530: Happy National Sticky Bun Day

Sunday:

A correspondent informs us that today is National Sticky Bun Day.

This is OBVIOUSLY nonsense. EVERY Day is sticky bun day! 

However... who am I to stand in the way of newly invented marketing opportunities, er, traditions...

...and so, in honour of all things EUROPEAN, today's buns are Belgian Buns. Yum yum.

Day 5514: A Great Deal of Europe but not Mr Balloon's Dreadful Deal

Friday:


In this week's the Evening Standard, Mr Matthew "Gideon's Voice on Earth" Anaconda wrote that the EU referendum could: "turn Mr Balloon from a good PM to one of the greats".

This is utter bunkum.

For starters, he ain't no bleedin' good to begin with!

And, for seconders, at best this wretched referendum will decide between whether Mr Balloon has wasted all our time (and money!) to keep the Status Quo or if he's going to be the first Prime Monster since Mr Pitt to have to explain to a reigning monarch how they managed to LOSE A CONTINENT!

So, as the Conservatories perform their farcical DANCE OF DEATH between their loathsome Europhobic back benches and their cowardly-but-pragmatic cabinet ministers, it is increasingly clear that the case for Europe must rest on its own merits.

Do we REALLY have to do this PANTOMIME? All of the Papers have thrown up their hands and said how DREADFUL a deal Mr B has got, so he will troop off back to Europe and return with an "even better" deal ("even better" – i.e. more foul) JUST so he can wave it in the face of his backbench and keep Teresa Nuts-in-May and Bojo the Clown onside.

What has he actually achieved? Let's play the Once-in-a-Generation Game and ask: "What's on the Euro-Conveyor Belt tonight, Brucie?"

• An "emergency brake" on benefits – being publicised as stopping people taking out before they've paid in, but sold under the counter as stopping those entirely-imaginary "pull factors" that mean bunches of migrants fleeing a massive war (that's our fault) are "pulled" to come to a cold, wet island full of xenophobes.
  
  
• A "red card" to stop European legislation and protect British sovereignty – how EXACTLY would Mr Balloon feel about giving the power to any 15 counties "red carding" HIS legislation? Sovereignty is a funny old thing, though. You actually get MORE by sharing. Europe may seem very distant, but at least at the moment you HAVE a say when you vote for the Parliament. The Europhobes talk BIG about "sovereignty" but actually they want you to have LESS voice, less voting power.
  
  
• A guaranteed "opt-out" from "Ever Closer Union" – Here's the thing about "ever closer union": it doesn't JUST mean Britain becoming more like France, Germany or Italy… it means France, Germany and Italy becoming MORE LIKE US too. And it's a BIT bleedin' rich to opt out of it, when "ever closer union" was ACTUALLY the compromise Britain demanded because all of our little-englander politicians got huffy about "towards a federal Europe". A FEDERAL Europe of CO-EQUAL states would actually SOLVE a lot of those problems about Sovereignty. But it would also mean finally accepting that Britain IS equal and not top of the heap (an attitude that can only lead to us ending up top of the RUBBISH heap!).
  
  
• And "protection" from the policies of the Eurozone – which means freedom from responsibilities for the BANKERS of the City of London (like THAT never got us into FINANCIAL ARMAGEDDON!) and, essentially, the right to make SWEETHEART Google-tax deals (did you know TART was originally a short form for SWEETHEART – so Master Gideon is Google's… well, you can work it out).
  
  
• And thankfully NOT a Cuddly Toy, because I am SO not on board with this pandering.

Europe has brought us PEACE and PROSPERITY – and both in levels UNDREAMED OF in a THOUSAND YEARS.

Europe has given us freedom to travel, and in safety, and to retire to warm climes while still claiming our British pensions. It has enshrined our Human Rights – the Human Rights that Churchill espoused after the Second World War so that the Holocaust would never happen again. It has championed our workers and our free trade. It has brought us continent-wide health protection, and joint action on the things that threaten us: crime, terrorism and climate change.

Europe has brought us FRIENDSHIP.

The OUT campaign cannot even be friends with EACH OTHER!

Or rather OUT campaign S – plural, multiple, or paranoid schizo – since they cannot even agree to BE one campaign. They literally cannot organise a piss-up in THREE brewery. Nigel Farrago cannot even manage to get to Question Time by car – do you REALLY believe he could make the trains run on time?

And what EXACTLY to the OUTERS want to DO with the Country once they've achieved their dream? (A dream to some; a NIGHTMARE to others!) Some of them want to trade – don't we do that in Europe? Some of them want us to "stand tall" (whatever that means) – do we not take a leading place in Europe? Some of them want to go back to an imaginary Nineteen Fifties – I've SEEN Dr Woo; it's MAKE BELIEVE! If you want to experience the Nineteen Fifties, try the former Communist states… in Europe! Some of them, even – whisper it – want to pull up the drawbridge and keep the migrants out – do we not migrate TO Europe? Are we to bar from returning all of those MILLIONS of BRITISH people who've gone work or retire in Europe? Because their England-for-the-English phobias (trading Polish plumbers and Hungarian handymen for grumpy geriatrics) would actually make our migration figures CALAMATOUSELY WORSE?

The way to make this country GREAT again is NOT to run away from our responsibilities, is not to deny that we have a DUTY to the rest of the World, but instead to stop SKULKING at the BACK and TAKE OUR GODDAMED PLACE in the fellowship of nations, and for GOD, HARRY and SAINT BLEEDIN' GEORGE DO our BIT to LEAD IN Europe.

PS:

Also, what Andrew says about Britain Stronger In.

Alex & Richard's Doctor Who 52: 08 New Earth

Previously…

We were partying with the aristocracy of the Nineteen Twenties, and there was something unpleasant in the attic being kept hidden from the guests. How times change. In the future, it's being hidden in the basement!

Introducing…

The Year Five Billion. Strictly speaking, we were introduced to this distant future setting in "The End of the World", but that was a select gathering of the plus plus super-rich. Not that we aren't still moving in exclusive circles; clearly the patients who can afford the services of the Sisters of Plenitude are extortionately well-heeled, but New Earth broadens out the canvas from space-going party venue Platform One to, well, brave new worlds…

And finally… finally!... after a whole season of stories set on or very slightly abve our own planet, we get a World in new Doctor Who that isn't the Earth. It's called New Earth.

Ten Reasons To Watch "New Earth" (warning: spoilers)

1. All of the tenth Doctor is here – It's only David Tennant's second episode (and he was asleep, recovering from regeneration, for most of his first, "The Christmas Invasion") but so many of the tropes of his era, for better or worse, start right here: the excessive clinginess with Rose; the "lonely god" thing; the self-righteousness, and self-appointed "no higher authority" status; we even get the first use of his "tragic" catchphrase: "I'm sorry, so sorry"!
   
   

   

   You may now squee

   
   
   But we're also, starting here, getting the sense of tragedy that enfolds the tenth Doctor: his anger is his fatal flaw: it unlocks his hubris and he starts asserting that he – specifically in his tenth self, it seems – is the highest authority, he knows best and he can impose authoritarian solutions – as when he flew off the handle and deposed Harriet Jones, leading to the rise of Mr Saxon; as when he goes all "Time Lord Victorious" in "The Waters of Mars". His clinginess with Rose foreshadows the heartbreak at the end of the year, as though he knows it's coming – and as a Time Lord he just might. You seem only to list two “for better” after a string of worse!
   
   "Song for Ten", from "The Christmas Invasion" but often referenced by Murray Gold, includes the lines: "I wish today could be like every other day / Because today has been the best day". And this encapsulated ten's misfortune: his very best day was his first day; everything was downhill from there; disappointment upon betrayal; culminating in the loss of Rose, and then Martha and then Donna.
   
   Tennant does a thing that Eccleston also did which is to drop the animation from his face entirely at moments. But where the ninth Doctor was revealing that his foolery was to cover bleak despair; the tenth is hiding inextinguishable fury. Denial and then anger, it seems the Doctor is moving though the stages of grief, post Time War, post Gallifrey.
   
   
2. But it's a comedy – While both 2007 and 2008's opening stories ("Smith and Jones" and "Partners in Crime") are also light-hearted romps, "New Earth" is way more out there than either of them. The cross-cutting of dialogue ("I'll get revenge on that little—"/"—bit rich coming from you" and "you're talking out of your—"/"—ask not!") is very Russell Davies, but to achieve Carry On ends. And the diseases of the rich and famous – Petrifold Regression and Marconi Syndrome to name but two – seem calculatedly crackers.
   
   And that's before we get to the body-swapping hijinks and hilarious peril-escapes: the Doctor's not even established his new character yet, and he's already getting possessed by Lady Cassandra channelling the spirit of Charles Hawtrey. It certainly give Billie Piper a chance to flex her acting muscles with a very different character (and her proper accent – it’ll be Davy T's turn next week) but Mr Tennant… well, "no, no don't do that."
   
   

   

   ...with HILARIOUS results!

   
   
   Overall, it's a bizarre choice to open a season with such an oddball, off-beat episode. And in fact, it works vastly better if you watch it as episode two following on from the more "straight" "The Christmas Invasion".
   
   
3. But it's a horror comedy – It's a story about possession and vivisection and plague carriers. On the one hand the implicit linking of these two different ways of destroying liberty is a pretty strong Liberal message. On the other hand, "pretty strong" rather describes the content for early evening hilarity.

   

   the horror, the horror

   
   
   
4. In fact, it's Day (Nurse) of the Dead – Like George Romero's zombie classic, this can be seen as a social satire, with the super-rich literally quarantining themselves from the heaving masses. Who are Zombies. The jovial Duke of New Manhattan throwing his ample frame into the fray to keep the doors sealed may seem almost heroic, until you think about what he's actually doing – saving himself. Though of course it's the hangers-on – here in the person of officious Frau Clovis – who are the really nasty ones when it comes to defending their privileges.
   
   

   

   this is satire

   
   The Sisters of Plenitude refer to their plague zombies as "the flesh", as in, presumably, "the flesh is weak", though, also presumably, not the white goop from "The Rebel Flesh"/"The Almost People". They're not really supposed to be self-aware – putting this into a category of morality play about testing on animals, where we decide that it's "OK" if they're dumb animals and not if they start to think, talk or indeed beg us to stop.
   
   
5. And Cat Nuns – The Sisters are cats. Where "The End of the World" had trees that had evolved into humanoid (or Gallifreanoid) form, here we have felines. It's a classic sci-fi trope of Russell's, though one that the series generally avoided for its first twenty-six years of the alien that's a bit like an earth animal. The following year would bring us "Space Rhinos" in the form of the Judoon, before it all gets extremely silly with the humanoids-with-flies'-heads in "Planet of the Dead".
   
   At least here the cat-nuns have the excuse of being (a) five billion years in the future and (b) descendants of planet Earth who (like the trees) have probably been engineered to look semi-human by humans in the intervening billennia.
   
   
   
   
   The look of the cats, achieved mostly though make-up rather than prosthetic, is terrific, though. (In fact, the difficulty of achieving this sort of look is probably why the classic series steered clear – see also the "fun fur" cheetah people in "Survival".) Particular kudos to whoever thought of having veiled nuns to pad out the numbers so that extras can be cat-nuns (with hidden faces) without the need for extensive make-up time (handy when you're already doing a lot of extras up as plague zombies).
   
   
6. Novice Hame – All three of the "lead" cats are excellent – Doña Croll as Matron Casp and Adoja Andoh (of "Casualty", but also later Martha's mum) as Sister Jatt, but in particular Anna Hope as junior Novice Hame. It's a beautiful and varied performance, full of depth, from her innocent wonder at the Face of Boe and the stories about him to her remorse as she is led away at the end. Hame, whose very name suggests "shame", is guilty, along with the rest of her Sisterhood, of crimes against the sentience of the flesh, but she at least appears to try to make up for it by confessing to the Doctor. Unfortunately she didn't encounter the sixth Doctor; the tenth is not so much of a cat person.
   
   
   
   
   (Though if you enjoy Anna Hope's performance, she does get to appear with Old Sixie as DI Menzies in a trio of Big Finish adventures: "The Condemned", "The Raincloud Man" and "The Crimes of Thomas Brewster", all well worth a listen.)
   
   And speaking of performances…
   
   
7. Lady Cassandra – is played here by no fewer than five different actors: Zoe Wannamaker reprising her voice-role from "The End of the World" and as a pre-flatness Cassandra; Billie Piper; David Tennant; one of the zombies; and Sean Gallagher, who has been portraying Cassandra's "pet", Chip: another engineered being that she describes as a "half life".
   
   

   

   Not a single Chip and PIN joke, though

   
   And yet it's Gallagher's performance as Cassandra that is the most touching: as she realises not only that she is dying, but that it's okay; that her time, the time of "pure" humanity has passed, and that it is surely time for the new new humans to take over.
   
   
8. So in fact it's a tragedy – The real tragedy, though, comes from the Ouroboros loop that the Doctor creates by taking the dying Cassandra/Chip back to the party for the Thracian ambassador. Not only is Chip designed based on his own pattern, which therefore comes from "nowhere" (or is a "gift from time" as the New Adventures would have it), but the last person to tell Lady Cassandra that she is beautiful is… herself.
   
   And the version of herself to whom she is saying this is the one before all the flatness, as though she recognises the truth of what Rose told her about nipping and tucking away all the humanity in herself.
   
   
9. Because no one is entirely human any more – The flesh become New New Humans. The Cats have as much claim to humanity as the Duke of Manhattan. With the Earth gone, suddenly the human race has a whole new future to look forward to – or in fact the post-human race; it's a term coined by Lawrence Miles (see "Alien Bodies") for the descendants of humanity after the Earth is destroyed, and clearly picked up by Russell Davies if only obliquely in Lady Cassandra's claim to be "the last human": or, the last – as she specifies - pure human; as opposed to all those others who were too darn Liberal and… mingled…
   
   (And in the previous story, the Sycorax were a bunch of voodoo cultists wearing bone masks… just sayin')
   
   But then even Cassandra "mingles" when she finds herself having to body swap into one of the flesh, and it's from that experience that she appear to learn her lesson.
   
   The Doctor wasn't murdering her in "The End of the World"; he just knew too well the burden of living on as the last of your kind when your time has passed.
   
   
10. Textbook enigmatic – The whole story occurs, ostensibly, because the Face of Boe (a giant head-in-a-tank seen in the background of "The End of the World") has a message to deliver to the Doctor. He summons the Time Lord by the psychic paper, and we hear that he has one great secret to impart before he dies. And then he decides to bugger off instead.
    
    

    

    Big Ol' Boe Face

    
    

What Else Should I Tell You About "New Earth"?

My original review is here.

As part of the BBC's general attempt to broaden itself into new-fangled multi-media presentation, the 2006 series of Doctor Who came with mini-prequel episodes called "TARDISodes".

Unlike the Moffat era, these preludes, prologues and prequels tend to be more amuse-bouche than plot critical (except possibly the one for "School Reunion"), but they are a nice touch and obviously ought to have been included as VAM on the DVD releases…

If you need one, my score:

5/10.
It's just too much of a roller-coaster between the slapstick and the Grand Guignol. And the Moffat-eqsue "everybody (not already dead) lives" ending is just plain daft. (To be fair: Moffat nicks "Did you miss me" from "The Christmas Invasion" for "Sherlock"). The cat make-up looks lovely, and the pre-titles with Mickey and Jackie and the last ten minutes as Cassandra reaches acceptance are from a much better, but darker episode.

If You Like "New Earth", Why Not Try…

"City of Death" – Doctor Who was very often funny, but very rarely an out-and-out comedy; when it tried the results were often… mixed (compare "The Romans", "The Myth Makers" and, er, "The Chase"). Season Seventeen, script-edited by Douglas Adams, was the nearest the show did to a run of "comedy", and "City of Death" is considered the apotheosis of the fourth Doctor's charm and whimsy. Even this is more "wit" than a string of gags.

"Partners in Crime" – A far more successful use of Russell's comedy cold open, reintroducing Catherine Tate as (new and improved) Donna Noble, the jokes are sharper, the performances tighter and the stakes are lower adding up to a much more enjoyable hour.

Meanwhile on the other side…

tba ;-)

Next Time…

From New Earth to a graveyard world; from the start of one Doctor (give or take a Christmas special) to the end of another (give or take a Christmas special); from an identity crisis to a man without a face…

Alex & Richard's Doctor Who 52: 07 Black Orchid

Previously…

After some snowmen for Christmas, why not a party with food and dancing for New Years’…

Introducing…

The fifth Doctor’s full house. The TARDIS is quite full during the show’s nineteenth season, with no fewer than four companions aboard in the form of the Doctor, Adric, Nyssa and Tegan. Three of whom are aliens and one an Australian. The TARDIS hasn’t had a crew of four since Seasons One and Two, when Ian and Barbara, the Doctor and Susan followed by Vicki made a cosy family unit of sensible parents with teenager and wacky grandpa. The dynamic for the fifth Doctor – more, big brother left in charge of unruly kids – is really quite different. No wonder the abiding expression of Doctor Five is exasperation.

Ten Reasons To Watch "Black Orchid " (warning: spoilers)

1. It’s a holiday – we often get the impression that the Doctor and his fellow travellers rocket from one peril to another with barely a chance to catch their breath. Indeed, I’ve even made a joke of the Second Doctor’s apparent “afternoon of fun” consisting of “The Evil of the Daleks”, “The Tomb of the Cybermen”, “The Abominable Snowmen” and “The Ice Warriors” with no gaps in between stories. So it’s nice that we get to see what TARDIS travel is like – or at least what we think it ought to be like – most of the time: turning up places and enjoying all that the local times and spaces have to offer. At least until the murders start.
   
   
2. The cricket – so, the fifth Doctor has been dressed as an Edwardian cricketer since his regeneration, and suddenly he gets a chance to show off that it’s not a put-on. Just like could-have-been-a-professional Matt Smith as the eleventh Doctor playing football in “The Lodger”, Peter Davison is actually rather good at this, and genuinely clean bowls and hits for six his way through a rapid montage. Well, rapid-ish. In fact, most of episode one is actually a gentlemanly chunk of leisurely sports coverage, leavened by watching Adric and Nyssa – standing in for the Doctor Who fans, clearly – with baffled expressions on their faces. Tegan – that resident Australian, remember – gets to add a touch of character by being just as cricket-crazy as the Doc.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. The costumes – producer John Nathan-Turner had put the show’s leads in much more easily identifiable costumes, almost uniforms (literally in Tegan’s purple airhostess garb), so this is a charming opportunity to see them in mufti. Nyssa and Ann’s matching purple butterflies are the highlight, with their jewelled halter; while Tegan carries off the Twenties flapper look with aplomb. Charmingly, Adric transfers his gold star for mathematical excellence to the collar of his own dress shirt. The Doctor picks the sinister harlequin suit because otherwise how can the villain look suitably menacing when the cliffhanger comes? Oh all right, probably because it’s the nearest to his beige cricket whites.
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. The food – and we get to see them eat as well. Specifically, Adric. People say that he eats so much because he’s Alzarian with a faster metabolism, but honestly he’s a teenage boy, have you seen how much we can eat at that age? This is about as much of the story as Adric gets – being scolded by the girls for getting seconds! – along with generally being confused by all the strange cricket terms and cocktails, but there’s also a lovely moment where he’s delighted at the realisation that Nyssa can Charleston. It really is all very convivial.
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. The dancing – yes, the Charleston is the featured “period” dance. Nyssa appears to have picked it up almost instantly from Tegan who “learned it for a play”. Tegan – being token human at the moment – is always full of weirdly unexpected bits of knowledge when we need to know something from Earth’s history (real or imagined): like the way that she suddenly comes out with knowing Sir George Cranleigh, the famous botanist and explorer who brought the black orchid back from the regions of the Orinoco. That might be important later(!)
   
   

   

   Is this a clue?

   
   
   
6. It’s a hoot – ostensibly this is the “Nyssa” story of Season Nineteen: both because Sarah Sutton is given a bigger role due to the unexplained appearance of Nyssa’s doppelgänger, Ann Talbot ingénue fiancée to the man passing himself off as Lord Cranleigh (Michael Cochrane – yes, Redvers Fenn-Cooper again); but also because it’s a formal, courtly story in a period setting (like Traken is faux-Shakespeare world).
   
   …And this comes between the emotion and psycho-drama “Tegan” story of “Kinda” and the boys’ own adventure “Adric” story of “Earthshock”…
   
   However, there’s a lovely little side-story of Tegan charming Sir Robert, the chief constable. He’s an older man clearly flattered by the attention she pays to him. For extra Agatha Christie detail, Sir Robert is played by the redoubtable Moray Watson who was Colonel Bantry in the first of the BBC’s famous Miss Marple adaptations.
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. It’s a genuine historical – (by which we mean entirely made up history) for the first time since Jamie joined the Second Doctor in “The Highlanders” and for the last time in the series so far we have a story set in the past with no “science fiction” elements (i.e. monsters) at all. It works perfectly well without them, and really the series should – at least occasionally – make or use of the fact that the social mores of the past could be as alien and dangerous as any Zygon gambit.

   

   Look - real history. Ish.

   
   
   
8. It’s a delightfully unexpected afternoon – Lady Cranleigh (Barbara Murray) turns out to be a complete bitch. Faced with the possibility of social embarrassment if she admits that her elder son is not so much dead as off his chump, she prefers to drop the Doctor in it by making him look increasingly crazy himself.

   

   This never happened(!)

   
   She’s hardly naïve enough to believe her own excuse that “no harm will come to him; he’s innocent”, especially since she’s taken active steps to undermine his alibi. Of course, the entire story hinges on this attitude of: “I’m very posh so you have to believe what I say”. That’s probably why the Doctor ends up trying his “I couldn’t be the murderer – I’m a Time Lord” line. Obviously it gets him nowhere, but he is trying to out-posh everyone else. (Though if anyone actually knew any other Time Lords – the Master, the Monk, the Rani, Borusa, Rassilon and the rest – that would probably see him convicted even faster!) However, the Doctor’s waspish put down to Lady Cranleigh as he is led away is a perfect moment of the fifth Doctor’s character – his politely-expressed vast irritation that since he stopped being Tom Baker the Universe seems to have stopped behaving like it owes him one.
   
   

   

   The Unexpected Lady Cranleigh

   
   
9. It’s all a rather massive coincidence – the story only kicks off because Lord Cranleigh’s chauffeur is expecting a substitute for the cricket match who prefers to be known only as the Doctor, the genuine ringer having missed his train. And that’s before we get to Nyssa and Ann being dead ringers too. It all smacks of being highly contrived, yet appears to pass off as “just one of those things” that happen when you travel about in time. Though really, it’s more like the Seventh Doctor trying to fix a holiday for his earlier self to make up for that thing he does in “Cold Fusion”. There’s even a steam engine for him to enjoy! (Though wouldn’t Cranleigh’s End have been a funnier name for the railway station than Cranleigh Halt, all things considered?!)
   
   
10. Strike Me Pink – it isn’t really true that the Doctor gets off by just shuffling the entire constabulary into the TARDIS… but it can look that way. Of course, by claiming that he has a Time Machine (when challenged about his identity), he’s made everything else that he says – about secret passages, and finding a second body, and an Indian with a lip… from Brazil… where the nuts come from (manic expression and trembling lip)… all being the reason he’s only just come downstairs so cannot be the killer – sound ridiculous. Demonstrating that the TARDIS is real, helps to establish he’s not lying, at least not about that – Sir Robert does remind him (quite sensibly) that there’s still a murder to account for. Fortunately, though, the younger Cranleigh has confessed all to Ann, and so they’re going to come clean to the authorities. Which is what really clears the Doctor’s name.
    
    With the police summoned back to Cranleigh Hall, the Doctor promises to get them there faster by TARDIS. However, given his abject inability to control his Time Machine during this season – we’ve spent most of the last five stories trying and spectacularly failing to get Tegan back to Heathrow – you have to suspect that there are months of hilarious adventures with Terileptils and Androgums for the Chief Constable in Time and Space between departure and arriving back at the Hall. Don’t think Big Finish haven’t thought about this!
    
    

    

    This will work out just fine...

    
    

What Else Should I Tell You About "Black Orchid "?

Don’t listen to the DVD commentary. Peter Davison, and especially when egged on by Janet Fielding, will often give a bitchy commentary on the goings-on. But it’s usually a funny bitchy. This one, it appears, that the cast had a really horrid time making it. Thanks to the miracle of video-cassette (on which this was recorded) you cannot really tell that it’s absolutely bucketing down in the scenes outside on the terrace. So Davison and crew all hate it. Which is a shame, because it’s actually rather good.

If you need one, my score:

7/10.
Episode one is a total charm; episode two goes off the rails completely, but the downbeat ending gives it a sense of dignity.

If You Like "Black Orchid", Why Not Try…

"The Robots of Death>/em>" – the costumes! The courtly manners! The mystery! The insane killer who likes dressing up! The clues are all there.

"The Unicorn and the Wasp" – all the period charm and whimsy, and for added Agatha Christie detailing… yer actual Agatha Christie. The explanations make about as much sense too. Christopher Benjamin and Felicity Kendal are worth the money on their own.

Meanwhile on the other side…

tba ;-)

Next Time…

From the upper crust of Agatha Christie-land to the Alpha Class of the Year Five Billion (and a bit); another mystery and another villain driven crazy by their looks. And some evil cat nuns.