Xenon's Seventh Circle

I'm basically being trolled by cats now. I just cleaned out my keyboard, and there was at least one full cats worth of fur stuffed under the keys. They must get together to poke it down there when I'm not around. None of which is what I came here to post. What did I come here to post? Nothing. Something. I ought to post something, as I never do, and the rest of you lead interesting lives, or at least manage to make yourselves sound interesting, and I'm just here being me.

I read a book! It was a very nice book. It's called The Tyrannosaur Chronicles, by Dave Hone (except he's called David Hone on the cover, to make himself sound more serious and sciencey). It's all about the biology of tyrannosaurs, and what we know, and how we know what we know, and it's full of nice diagrams of skeletons. Also it's purple. 99.9% of you aren't remotely interested, but I'm recommending it anyway, as I promised I would. (I read some other books too, but this one was best).

I've also been watching films, on and off. I've been trying to watch one a week, as I haven't really watched films in years, and to start with I decided it was high time I got around to seeing the Back To The Future trilogy. It's supposedly one of those iconic 80s things, but despite seeing the first one at the cinema about two million years ago, I'd never seen the others. I shan't be bothering again! Although the third one wasn't entirely bad. Then I rewatched the Indiana Jones trilogy to make me feel better about 80s films (and indeed 80s film trilogies, I suppose). That was much, much better. Also 100% more Tip Tipping. The Last Crusade also featured surprise Julian Glover, which was nice. And then after that, I watched the proper Star Wars trilogy, because they actually put out the proper, non-fiddled-with version on DVD, and Amazon was nice enough to be selling it second hand for 12p. Han clearly fires first, sorry George. It was lots of fun, but sadly Return Of The Jedi left me with the Ewok theme song stuck in my head for three days. Here: click at your peril. Dear me, the eighties were a strange place at times.

( Some pictures and things )

Which would be a fascinating crossover, but instead is just a post. One heck of an anticlimax, but there you go.

I am distinctly unFacebookian, so ordinarily I wouldn't link to anything there, but this has been doing the fandom rounds, and I love it. It may be the best Star Warsian thing ever created (except for anything involving Han, Chewie and Lando going very fast in a spaceship, obviously).

https://www.facebook.com/BANGBROSDISCIPLE/videos/134452133246064/?theater

Fans are brilliant. When they're not being ranty anyway.

Elsewhere, I have been feeling very ungrateful. The BBC has kindly made me much New Who, with proper SFX and an actual budget, but all that I really care about is the old stuff. I've been watching "Inferno"! Grumpy green werewolves from the centre of the Earth! Parallel UNIT! Benton with fangs! And they were all wearing eyepatches, the rotters! It's wonderful. I haven't finished it yet (one more episode to go), but I can't see it going bad before the end. And even if the story itself weren't fun enough on its own, HAVOC certainly are. I couldn't have chosen a better tribute to Derek Ware if I'd tried. Every five minutes, one of his gang seems to leap off something, or through something, or into something. Also fisticuffs. Hurrah! I do sort of wish we could have kept parallel Liz though. Not that I have anything against the regular flavour as such, but that blonde wig of hers is ridiulous, and the dark one suits her much better. Also I liked parallel Liz's sarky attitude, and her Brigadier-shooting. Also also, more telly should involve people called Olaf Pooley, just because - and especially if they're mugging at the camera whilst painted green.

So yes, that was fun. I've actually never seen "Inferno" before - there's a few of those very early Pertwees that I've still to see. He's one of my favourite Doctors, so it's nice to still have a few gaps to fill. They are running out though. (No fair). Even though Sean Pertwee is ageing into a splendid reconstruction of his father, he is so far failing to rush about in a cape and fight monsters. Except when he does. And they wouldn't make it right these days anyway.

Elsewhere, in a world sadly devoid of spaceships (although AJ Simon does spend chunks of the first season wearing the Third Doctor's jacket), my rewatch has turned up what must be one of the most hilariously fan-servicey episodes of Simon & Simon ever made. Rick gets AJ into a competition with a body-building nut. Watch AJ do push-ups! Watch AJ do chin-ups! Basically watch AJ flexing bits for a prolonged period. Then watch AJ get the stuffing beaten out of him, and Rick go on one of his over-protective rampages. It's like somebody back in 1986 hacked into fanfiction.net via a timewarp.

Oh, and I finished reading Once A Crooked Man, otherwise known as the first book by David McCallum. It's good, for the most part. Massive amount of brand names getting thrown about. As an habitual viewer of ye olde BBC, which had a terror of anything that might be seen as advertising, this tends to make me twitch. I did like the characters though, and the story was a good one, with at least one decent trope annihilation. He shouldn't be allowed to write sex scenes though. I say this not to be a prude (though I am, admittedly, the sort who rolls their eyes at such things, and waits for a return to the fisticuffs), but he really, really shouldn't be allowed to write sex scenes. At least without a lot more practice.

And that I think is that.

PS: Beneath the cut, AJ Simon, modelling a brilliantly Thirdish outfit. Only in the 1980s would a bookish introvert wear a conservative black three-piece that's bright red on the inside. Oh, 1980s. Stylistically you were bonkers, but your telly was good.

( ... )

Thanks to the wonderful world of Amazon gift vouchers, I've been catching up on some new (to me) Doctor Who. Therefore, today I'm going to bore the world with talk of "The Space Museum".

( Huzzah )