Inevitable
We didn't make it to Osbourne House on the Isle of Wight to make use of our English Heritage membership in the end. It was such a nice day that we decided hitting the beach was actually a better bet. We ended up having to trek around to find beachwear and towels first, but it was certainly worth it.
First time I'm been in the sea off the British Isles in longer than I can remember. Years and years and years.
Wight As Rain
Last minute decision - we're off to the Isle of Wight for the day. We meant to go a while back; we've been saying for weeks that one of these weekends we should get a day out, and next weekend we'll probably be in full-on pre-holiday preparations, so what the hell.
We're going to make use of our National Heritage membership for only the second time since we bought it at Tintagel last October... Still, that's better than the year's worth of National Trust member ship that I once paid for which resulted in zero visits to NT properties. We actually visited fewer places in the year we'd paid to get into all of them free than in either the year before or the year after....
My Deprived Childhood
It's a fact, sad but true, that when I was a kid there were no good Doctor Who toys. There were hardly even any crap ones, to be honest. By the time my brother was in the market for Who stuff, there was at least the fondly recalled TARDIS toy into which you could put your 12" Doctor (Tom Baker version) or Leela, and by spinning the light on top, courtesy of some not-overly-sophisticated construction you could make them vanish and then reappear. This was cool, though it made the TARDIS act more like Star Trek's transporter than an actual TARDIS should, and at least it meant you could have a TARDIS model in your house that you hadn't made yourself out of Lego. (Don't try and pretend that you didn't.)
But courtesy of 'New Who', the range and type of toys this time round has to be seen to be believed. I mean come on - they're bringing out a Cyberman Voice-Changer Helmet! Who in their right mind wouldn't want one of those? I could probably live without the TARDIS 'Phone Flasher' (yes kids, it's a model of the TARDIS and if you keep it near your mobile phone the light will flash when your phone rings....), and at a push the walkie-talkies shaped like The Doctor and a Slitheen could probably stay on the shelf, but the action figures this time round are mostly a joy to behold. The Slitheen was the favourite in our house for a long time, but we picked up a Cyberman this week, and I think we have a new winner. Except really we need a squad of them, and I quite fancy getting at least one for my desk at work.
But the pièce de resistance of the whole toy collection at least for the time being looks like being the TARDIS Playset. Scaled to fit the action figures, and with a couple of levels, police box doors, and a selection of light and sound actions, I haven't yet met a Who fan who isn't drooling at the very prospect. And all being well with a certain store's ordering system, we should be picking one up today.
Fuck knows where we're going to put it, but a place will have to be found.
Yes, this is a strange sort of second childhood, but the nice thing is that I'm sharing my life with someone who can get every bit as excited as I can over finally finding The Moxx of Balhoon in some odd shop in Bromley while at the same time being just sensible enough to look at some of this stuff and go "Probably not" in unison with me. So what we get, we really want and get a lot of fun out of having, without cluttering the place up with a load of other crap just because it's got the Doctor Who logo on it.
And as far as that TARDIS Playset is concerned - come on - take a look at this and tell me you don't want it...:-)
EDIT: It's HERE!!!! 
He’s Returning, Apparently
So Superman Returns this weekend, and astonishingly I can't recall any superhero film I was less interested in seeing. The lack of positive reviews certainly doesn't inspire; the unbelieveably dull trailers likewise, and okay, I've never been the biggest fan of the character, but seriously - didn't *someone* at Warner Brothers raise an eyebrow at the casting of someone who looks so completely un-super in the role of the most iconic superhero of them all. He's a child, fer fuck's sake, and one that looks like he belongs in a slacker movie at that. Superman is supposed to be inspirational; the kind of figure who stops you dead in the street through awe at his sheer presence. He's *not* supposed to look like he should be asking "do you want fries with that?"
My Prejudices Are Showing…
... but while I'm sure that there's something needs doing about inequities in the extradition system, I just can't find it in me to care much about the poor 'Nat West Three' being carted off to Texas to stand trial on allegations of fraud. And I know why. It's because I'm predisposed to dislike and distrust people who make millions just by moving money around.
Poor, Poor Microsoft
Yeah, right.
If only the news of a 280million Euro fine for anti-competitive behaviour was likely even to scratch the surface of their vats of cash, never mind encourage them actually to change the way they do business. But somehow I doubt it will.
Travelling Man
I've been (by my standards at any rate) a bit of a homebody of late. Quick trip to Dublin, some weekends north to visit mum, a day in Hamburg, and that's pretty much it. Compared to past stints this is positively immobile.
All this is about to change, however. Next week I'll be heading off to the US, returning only long enough to pass through Heathrow on the way to Geneva. The following week the holiday begins, and we'll be jetting off to Seattle for Nora and Chad's wedding, then coming back for a few days of chilling or possibly roaming the near-London countryside before flying off again for a week in the Med. Shortly after we get back I'll be off to Stockholm and Amsterdam.
Which makes the news report I caught last night about the prevalence of toxic fumes in passenger aircraft cockpits more than a little timely and worrying. Apparently the fact that air is taken in through the engines means that weird engine chemical substances can mix with it before it reaches the human-occupied areas. I've done some research and the most relevant article I can find about it is from The Observer back in February. I haven't been able to find online references to the report I saw yesterday, so I'm not sure what has suddenly triggered the follow-up, but it was reported that the next generation of passenger jets won't use the engine intake model for their air.
Superstitious
Chris discusses some superstitions that he can't shake off, and as his commenting is temporarily having a glitch, I shall add the point I was going to make there, here. So read Chris's post first, then assume it's got the following at the bottom of it:
Oooh! You got off lightly. In our house it was any shoe, no matter its age.
I once mentioned this in passing to David who has now taken it completely to heart, so there's an entirely new and unconnected generation which my mother's superstition has... 'affected'.
Doomsday
"This is the story of war on Earth."
So Rose's journeys come to their inevitable conclusion and she is, in many ways, left to be her new world's Doctor, which explains some of the "you even look like him" references that have come up before now. More than any previous companion except Romana, he's prepared her to carry on the good fight in his place.
I'm talking, in case you hadn't twigged, about Saturday's Doctor Who series finale. I remember the days when a series could end with a low budget time-filler (*cough*The Invasion of Time*cough*), but it seems those days are long gone. Unspecified millions of Daleks, five million Cybermen, and a global invasion that actually felt global, unlike the good old days when no bad guys ever seemed to get further afield than the home counties.
The consensus view in our house was entirely positive, even if Russell T Davies did appear to be trying to compete with The Return of the King for drawn out endings, and the final scene, with That Actress appearing out of the blue felt wholly in keeping with the nature of The Doctor as his stories should be portrayed - constantly moving on to the next challenge, even while mourning his loss, and no matter how bizarre that challenge might appear to be. The mass hysteria which struck certain parts of the Interweb within seconds of the episode's ending was, in the context of eight seconds or so of screen time, a joy to behold.
Message to the hysterics: Get a grip - it's only a TV series.
Oh Dear
And it was all going so well - the new location and blogging tool seemed to have energised me somewhat and I was doing regular postings again, but the last few days it all went wrong again.
I'm going to cite a general lack of energy that's rather drained me all round. I should say us. Twice since Thursday we've tried to go to the cinema to see Pirates of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, once to the point of actually having tickets in our hands, and on neither occasion did we make it into the screening. I can't even blame the heat, as it's cooled down considerably (though I was still sweating yesterday evening, to David's confusion, since he thought it was cool enough to close the windows).
Oh well - let's see if I can do better this week.