Tiger Tiger
So I appear to be missing some drama in San Francisco, where a tiger escaped its enclosure at the zoo and killed one and mauled two other visitors. The way the headline I heard earlier made it sound, it had escaped completely and was out there roaming the streets somewhere, but in fact it's been killed.
And A Merry Christmas To All Of You At Home
So that's it then - another festive season is upon us, and all of my best laid plans to be really organised this year and get everything planned and ready well ahead of time were well and truly scuppered by the no-notice move to the US, but anyway, we're making the most.I'm still sleeping on the most random schedule, but slowly seem to be returning to normal.Anyway - the bird's in the oven, the veggies are ready to go, and not a creature is stirring (or something). Hope yours is restful and enjoyable.
Slightly Strictly
As well as not talking much about the Doctor Who Christmas Special I've been noticeably not discussing Strictly Come Dancing this year, mostly because for various reasons I didn't see much of the early stages, and then was away for a lot of the final ones. However, in those early programmes I did see, it was screamingly obvious that Alesha Dixon deserved to win it, so I was pleased to be back in the UK and at home in time to see her do just that.
One thing that you have to worry about in these things is that the person who's actually best doesn't win, because everyone gets caught up with the person who's had the biggest 'journey'. The not-actually-about-reality Reality TV business these days is obsessed that every participant has to be on a journey towards something (or possibly away from something in the case of all those freaks on Big Brother), and sometimes that gets in the way of something that (as far as Strictly and others that are about actually learning a skill are concerned) is more important - talent.
Alesha Dixon had that aplenty, and as The Mrs and I also noted, she's warm, natural, likeable (unlike smarmy Mark Ramprakash last year) and humble. She's also stunningly beautiful, and when Bruce Forsyth embarked upon what I personally found a slightly startling discussion about how she could be the UK's biggest female star, it nevertheless rang quite reasonable - as a whole package, she makes quite the entertainer.
Anyway, best moment of the whole fiesta around the announcement of the winner was actually a shot of runner-up Matt Di Angelo's family. The man himself looked like he was being gracious in his defeat, but his brothers looked about as sour-faced and bitter as two human beings ever have. Now *that* was reality.
Damned
I've been unusually (for me) quiet about Voyage of the Damned, the Doctor Who Christmas special so far this year, but the reason is that I've missed so much of the build up, with being out of the country. For example, there was/is a trailer for it doing the rounds at the cinema - The Mrs saw it with The Golden Compass - but it isn't showing in the US, obviously. And there'd usually have been countless sitings of various performers on chat shows and breakfast programmes that I'd caught odd bits of by now, but somehow Matt Lauer on NBC didn't twig that he should be chatting with Kylie about being Astrid. Silly man.
Anyway, it's looming fairly close now - press screening was Tuesday night, so no doubt there are spoilers to be avoided all over the place. But I'm obviously looking forward to it - come on - it's Kylie. In Doctor Who. On The Titanic. What's not to like?
Japan Plan Canned
Temporarily. But we think sensibly.
Basically, we've been completely sideswiped on the Japan Plan (or 'Japlan' as we like to call it) by my sudden move to the US. According to the current plan, the Mrs is coming to me for the month of February then a week later going to Japan for five weeks. Three weeks after he leaves, I then leave the US to be back in Blighty for all of three days before I go to join him for two weeks.
It's probably going to kill us, and at the very least might mean that we each start our respective breaks utterly shattered, which seems daft to both of us. On top of which, we want to do some travelling whiel he's in the States with me, and financially it all starts to look a bit mad.
So with a certain amount of regret, we've decided to postpone until 2009. It seems like spring is the time to go, so that makes a year's postponement the logical thing to do. A pity, but at the end of the day, wholly logical.
Yaaaaaaaawn…
Seriously, between multiple flights in no time flat and the weekend's company Christmas Party, with its attendant late night and lack of sleep, I'm utterly all over the place. Sunday I was just a wreck, and today I'm alternately wide awake and practically nodding off standing up. Hopefully this will pass just in time for me to get on my next plane.
There’s A Reason They Call Them ‘Red-Eye’
Two overnight flights in two nights, taking me through a total of eight timezones via a twelve hours stop somewhere in the middle, and my body has no idea where the hell it is.
Pragmatic Outrage
I've been perusing this opinion piece on the subject of the impact or otherwise of the Global Online Freedom Act currently being proposed by US Congressman Chris Smith.
The Act "would fine American companies for releasing customer information to foreign governments seeking to suppress dissent; it would also allow aggrieved individuals to file lawsuits against said companies in an American court. Censoring information from U.S. government-financed sites would be prohibited as well..."
The author very astutely summarises the challenges around punishing businesses for this kind of activity to the level where they might stop working in China for example, leaving only state-owned providers for the local populace to use. And she actually suggests some pragmatic steps in the right direction. Interesting reading.
And…. Cue NIMBYism
Wind turbines all round the British coastline by 2020?
I'd be in the 'yes please' camp, but then I also think that ranks of turbines on a countryside skyline can look rather majestic, which is, I know, not a view shared by everyone.
The Englishman Abroad – Ailments
I'm sure this country has ailments that no other country has. I had the TV burbling in the background this morning as I was getting ready, and on came an advert for a product designed to treat 'Restless Leg Syndrome'. I thought this was a joke at first, but it seems to be a real thing. Apparently, if you get pins and needles and a few other odd symptoms a lot, this is what it is.
As with many drug adverts over here, even more entertaining than discovering that there even is such a thing as RLS (yes, it has its own three letter acronym and everything) are the side effect warnings. It seems that patients taking it should tell their doctor if they experience (among other things) increased sexual or gambling urges. I'd have thought that they could market it for the side effects alone.