Six Reasons Why I Love Wolfblood

Wolfblood is currently experiencing its third series run on CBBC and I think it's one of the best dramas on TV, genuinely doing solid and extraordinary things, full stop. I've written about it before on this blog, but two years on, it's clear to see why it's ahead of the opposition:

1. It's a serial show. With Wolfblood you get more out of it if you started watching from the start, discovering the main characters' special abilities in the first episode (super-powered werewolf-like humans), and the gradual layering of new characters and events. More than that, the characters properly develop and show new sides, almost every week too. I was genuinely surprised in the first series how much they probed into the character's lives - Maddy's best mate Shannon's monster-spotting obsession being properly addressed, or later on with the slow and subtle romantic and non-romantic friendships between characters. Plotlines have been introduced that pay off later on, and plot elements that have proved useful before are taken for granted.

2. It's a fast show. Big things happen every week - big for the young characters and audience, like falling out with friends. And more importantly, it doesn't patronise its audience by undoing things after each episode. The secret of Wolfbloods living among us must be kept secret, and that's always a danger. Those high-stakes moments - at the series finales, or the threat of doctors running tests - feel like the whole thing could suddenly come crashing down.

3. It's not a scary show, it's not horror. The creator, Debbie Moon, envisaged her "werewolves" as normal people with superpowers - superpowered hearing, smell, the ability to run really fast and dealing with becoming a wolf at every full moon. That's particularly present in the most recent two-parter when one of the characters gets to experience what it's like as a Wolfblood. Stripped from the horror tropes, it becomes pure character drama with cool fantasy moments. And whilst there's sometimes big angry wolves, the scariness comes from characters messing up or getting found out, rather than death or getting attacked.

4. It's a realistic show, even with the fantasy elements (no, especially because of the fantasy elements, because without them you wouldn't be able to broach some of the subjects so easily). Whilst a lot of children's telly has a school setting, this really feels like the characters go to school - they get told off for skipping lessons, they have parents, they hang out at school at lunch break or in the toilets. Perhaps in another show the mundanity of French class and school assemblies would ground the rest of the fantasy and provide a safe haven before they go out to fight monsters. In this show, the monsters come from inside you, and school life provides enough drama for some episodes. As it's telly, we only see one class of course (well it's a tiny rural village!), but all of British school life is represented here: the sporty boys, the mean girls, the geeks, the loners, and the people who fall into the gaps. And the teacher Mr Jeffries is a real teacher too - like all the other (often more wolflike!) antagonists, he's not evil, he has interests and humour and warmth. That's what I've liked about the wild Wolfbloods and urban Wolfbloods introduced in series 2 and 3 - whilst they pose a threat to our main characters, they're always painted in shades of grey. No out-and-out evil villainy, that wouldn't be interesting enough.

5. It's a funny show, especially as the writers and actors have stretched their wings as they've gone on. The supporting cast of fellow school pupils might on the surface be a bunch of archetypes, but the strong polarised characters allows for some amazing moments and realistically snarky remarks. Recently the girl gang of The Three Ks have had some brilliant hilarious scenes (plus some brilliant drama), the writing and acting now honed over the three series to pitch perfect levels. There's variety in the humour too (bad dad jokes and insults to slapstick and farce) and a lot of it is refreshingly honest and grown-up for a show like this.

6. It's an amazing looking show, with a visual style and sound that's unlike anything on CBBC or elsewhere, and feels very assured from the first episode. The music has a wild folky quality (topped off by the theme song), even if ultra-modern chart music sometimes intrudes. There's bright yellow eyes, a wild muddy forest, slow-mo and stunts and night shoots. It's very impressive work all round - this series there's been seriously impressive closeups, drone shots, split-screen, the works. All this and CGI wolves! Rightly, this looks and feels like shows that have ten times its budget.

And these are just the shots that stood out!

So there's six reasons - and to be honest, I could easily come up with six more delving into the characters and the positive storylines. It's thrilling, it's fun, it's addictive to watch each week - I hope this has whetted your appetite if you haven't discovered it yet.

14 Forgotten Books from my Childhood

I see lots of books talked about online - but they're mainly classics, or by new or famous authors. From an age before the internet (well, social networking), most of the books I used to read never get publicised any more. And nobody ever recommends children's books anyway.

So here's a few that I remember enjoying - with no Harry Potter, Roald Dahl, Lemony Snicket, Narnia, Anne Fine, Artemis Fowl...

Revenge of the Killer Vegetables -Damon Burnard
I used to say this was one of my favourite books. One of the reasons was probably it's a comic! I don't think I realised that books could be this cool before - the title probably tells you the whole plot! And it's very funny, too. (Captain Underpants is another - sillier - comicky book I remember!)

Seriously - a talking potato!

Beaver Towers - Nigel Hinton
A bedtime story from when I was young - simple, Narnia-esque, about talking animals and magic and old places. And I must have read it lots of times, a rare event now.

Bobby Brewster series - H.E. Todd / Jeremy James books - David Henry Wilson
Two completely unrelated series I've lumped together, as I was about the same age reading both. The first, an old series of short stories from the 60s about a boy who ended up having magical adventures - well, slightly bargain basement adventures, with everyday items like a snowman or a potato coming to life. And the second, much more recent, about the highly comical adventures of an inquisitive four year old boy - I remember one of my teachers being a fan of them too.

Hiding Out - Elizabeth Laird
This used to scare me when I was little. It's about a boy on holiday in France, who then gets left behind and has to fend for himself. It's not creepy as such, just very realistic - although foraging for food and living in a cage isn't really comparable to getting lost in Marks and Spencer.

The Pokemon series - various
It seems a bit odd today. You had the videos games - the important, amazing thing - but also the Pokemon cards, the comics, the toys, the anime series... and you still got excited about the novelisations. Must have been a bit like what Doctor Who was - with Tracey Jump being Terrance Dicks's analogue. Even more excitingly - a few of them were original! I've got about twenty of them.

I don't think I got the Zelda books - but I do have Sonic !

Choose-your-own-adventure books 
Loved these. For those unfamiliar, you start at page 1, and then whichever pages you choose to read next determines the story. Nothing fancy with dice or paper - my favourites were some rare Super Mario books, which had a load of puzzles and mazes that you had to get right in order to get the best ending. I even made my own once in the back of a notebook on holiday.

Murderous Maths - Kjartan Poskitt
Horrible Histories, Horrible Science, The Knowledge, and all that lot... But my favourite series was Murderous Maths. Perhaps because - shock! - I actually quite liked the subject. And this series was great - actually dealing with pretty complex concepts (A-level standard, even) in amongst the jokes. There's a nifty website too.

Deadly, Wicked etc - Paul Jennings and Morris Gleitzmann
I'm not sure how popular these two authors were - maybe it's a 90s thing, or an Australian thing - but they're highly recommended. I opted more for the oddity and daringness of Jenning's short stories, rather than Gleitzmann's real-life surrealism (though I did like Toad Rage). When they collaborated (on a few series), the results were very insane - giant worms and murderous sheep, that kinda thing.

The Wish List - Eoin Colfer
Everyone knows about Artemis Fowl (hopefully), and there's some great other Eoin Colfer books (Airman, The Supernaturalist, Half Moon Investigations, etc), but this one's a favourite of mine, and very underrated. It's witty and down to earth, about a girl who comes back as an angel in order to help an old man complete his 'wish list' - and sort out her own problems.
 
The Fire Within - Chris D'Lacey
I loved the first book - a brilliantly told story about an introduction into the ancient, hidden world of dragons. And also a story-within-a-story about squirrels. More sequels followed (like, five or six of them now) but by the time I got round to reading them I'd forgotten what happened in the first one. Oops.

Muddle Earth - Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
Incredibly funny. Even for people who don't know Lord of the Rings - it's a spoof of fantasy novels, basically, from the writers of the acclaimed, extraordinary epic The Edge Chronicles (definitely worth reading, those!). They've tried to adapt it a few times, but it doesn't quite work as well as on the page. There was eventually a sequel, but I haven't read it yet.

Magyk, et al by Angie Sage
Okay, I was a bit old with this one (though apparently - 2005, so not that old), but it's still bewitching - literally, a book about an apprentice wizard in a very believable fantasy world. It's got a wide range of characters - so it's sometimes hard to keep track of them between books, but it has warmth and humour in spades. And there's a blog here.

TimeRiders - Alex Scarrow
 Okay, this is a cheat, as I was about 18 when it came out. But it's still an underrated new YA series. The first book in the series is still my favourite - time travel, Nazis, robots, nuclear war... it's a real action packed blockbuster! Website here.


There's probably lots more - children's fantasy series like The Divide (a boy discovering a mixed up fantasy world), Troll Fell (Vikings discovering trolls!), Otto and the Flying Twins (another fantasy wizarding world), and countless one-offs...

Flashback: The Eleven Doctors

I've been meaning to write an article on a Doctor Who fan film series I made a few years back in the summer holidays - and with talk rife at the moment, what better time to talk about my own take on 'Eleven Doctors' - featuring the voices of Matt Smith, William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, and all the rest?

I'm sure it won't be news to anyone reading this, but 2013 is a particularly special year for Doctor Who - its fiftieth anniversary, to be exact. At the time of writing - with filming due to start next month - speculations are wild for what the upcoming special story will be like. Will any the old actors who played the Doctor turn up - like in previous years? And what about including ones that are dead, or very old? Could there be other old guest stars, companions, monsters? What does Steven Moffat have up his sleeve?

Well, I don't have any answers*. But I do have my take on what such a special could be like...

It was back in the summer of 2010, and Matt Smith had just done his first 13 week run playing the Doctor (and only 13 week run, come to think of it!). Added to that, for the first time, the earlier Doctors were being released in toy form - fans could get a complete set of all eleven! In this era, where all the early years of the show are readily available and embraced, this sparked a lot of imaginations...

At the time, I'd done a few films with action figures. The Doctor versus the Daleks, that kind of thing, normally stop motion. With some of them, I'd put on voices - and because I'm rubbish at impressions, using sound clips from the TV show. If I was going to do a 'meetup' adventure of all of them - which was irresistable! - I'd have to make them talk to each other, and that meant using the original actors.

Yep, even Paul McGann!

It was ambitious. Actually, it started off as a one-off - a fun, short episode where the Doctors found themselves together, and decided to argue, ending on a cliffhanger. (I often end things on a cliffhanger, and then never resolve it!) I knew a website which handily offered soundbites from the show, so I was able to pick and choose a range of dialogue for the characters to say, and then piece things together, like a giant jigsaw puzzle. As the scale of the adventure increased - a very exciting prospect! - I quickly exhausted the list, and had to source my own clips from the DVDs, a few audios, deleted scenes, extra games, practically everything (with big thanks to online transcripts of the episodes, saving me a lot of time when I wanted something specific, like opening a door!).

Some ideas I'd had from the start. Others came to me whilst I was collating possible voices - for the story has to be driven by what the characters are able to say, or else the whole thing feels manufactured. One thing was certain - I wanted to feature all the Doctors, taking an equal share of the lead role (a hard task in itself - that's eleven lead characters!). Although I didn't have much choice when it came to companions, as many weren't released yet - I chose Amy, as she was the current one, though I couldn't resist featuring K-9 and Captain Jack too. However, all the big monsters would feature, like in previous specials - so thanks to the range of toys, we had Daleks, Cybermen, The Master (with a rather hammy voice), Weeping Angels, Sea Devils, Sontarans, Autons... the works!

And whilst the plot was always going to be weaker than most, I tried to make it as much like a proper new series story as possible - whilst nicking the general 'quest' format from The Five Doctors, and with a few blatant homages to old stories along the way.

As it turns out, the series was really popular. About two months elapsed between the first and the last part (including a holiday, hence a slightly rushed editing on Part Two), with the production getting slicker as it went - the first part, with static figures in a dark room talking, is a little quaint now I look back. The whole thing totals an hour - pleasingly, about as long as a 'proper' episode!

Plus a short scene at the end, in the new TARDIS set - which has just come out when recording the final part!

So, if you haven't seen it yet, why not have a watch? It's made out of six-inch-tall plastic toys by a teenager (on his own!), with various cardboard spaceships and a back garden becoming a rainforest. But it's bursting with imagination - and who could resist pitting William Hartnell against the Weeping Angels?



For more videos, before and since (I was going to follow this up with other invidual Doctor stories - but I only got as far as a dark Tom Baker tale!), see my Youtube Channel - http://www.youtube.com/user/Aquatics64

And Babelcolour's 'The Ten Doctors' is highly recommended - like this, but made out of video clips. Highly accomplished!

(*though I'd expect something like the Doctor visiting his past - possibly solving a mystery, like the Silence stuff - and so we have quite a few references and cameos, but an actual storyline. Think Wedding of River Song crossed with a Who convention!)

Do you want to do a Maths Degree?

Well, do you? Here are five criteria from me that, ultimately, might help the decision process:

1: Do you like mathematics?

Or rather, do you really like mathematics? And I don't strictly mean if you're good at it or not. Probably, you won't realise if you enjoy maths or not, until about halfway through the degree. Because there's nothing like ten weeks of solid problems to stimulate or shut down the mental processes.

2: Do you like learning?

You'd better. So far, maths lessons for you will have been, ultimately, building on what you did the previous module, or term, or year of study - with the odd exception, such as when you first discovered trigonometry, or calculus, or anything else that would send a normal person running and screaming. But then you find yourself at university, and the first lecture chucks everything you knew out the window. In my first few weeks, I was eagerly clinging on to the bits of differentiation and integration that I recognised amidst the sea of greek letters and set theory. Don't worry - it becomes much easier with time. But you will have to learn a lot of bizarre new things, and fast.

3: Are you terribly precise?

I'm presuming so, as you've got this far. I'm not talking about handwriting - some students I've seen have appalling handwriting, especially in maths. Rather, in copying down symbols and words and phrases from the board. One thing you can't do is just copy down any old rubbish, and copying down blindly means you can't always get the gist either. Mathematics requires precision, almost to the point of pedantry, when it comes to notation. Count your brackets! Swot up on Greek letters! Learn some logic!

4: Are you good at exams?

Compared to other university courses, mathematics particularly seems like a breeze. You won't have a report to hand in every week. There's no compulsory books to read up on. No essays, really. In fact, during the term time, you'll only have one or two pieces of coursework to hand in, three if you're very unlucky.

But then you come to the exams. The exams - which, by the way, are worth about 95% of your grade for this term - requiring you to basically do fifteen questions in ten hours. All crammed into about two weeks. Let's face it, if you're better at coursework than in examinations, I'd probably advise a different subject.

Of course, during the weeks leading up to the exam, you have lectures, you have problem sheets, you have a mounting pile of work that you really should do if you want to pass the exam. So whilst it's by no means a breeze, it does mean you can work at your own pace. Or rather, you can skip a few weeks of work, nobody will notice, until you have to stay up all night before the exam.

5: Do you know what you want to do afterwards?

The choice is simple. Do you want to be an engineer or something practical? Do an engineering course. Or something with computing? Step forward Computer Sciences. Most jobs have a course attached to them - aeronautics, finance, law, even media, ultimately... Mathematics? Well, most of it is theoretical. So, tough luck. But the good news is, maths degrees fit into every kind of job. (Actually - I'll get back to you on that one...) The sort of degree that tells people you've got the brains to do really complicated stuff. Because at the end of the day, it's not the really complex processes you learn in the final year... but learning the way of thinking that you need in order to implement them.

Unless you're one of these people who wants to go on to do a PHD in the subject. Shortly followed by a trip to an asylum, I presume. (joking, joking...)

So... that's my personal advice to any wannabee maths graduates. Oh, and also - it's a great subject - highly engrossing, entertaining, challenging, baffling and rewarding, if you want it to be.

The Novels of Agatha Christie

About four years ago, I decided to read some Agatha Christie. I'm not entirely sure why - I'd not seen any on the telly, so it was probably because of Doctor Who. I started with the perennial 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd', and then 'Death on the Nile', and before I knew it I had made a pledge to consume the entire back catalogue, through the help of my local libraries. All eighty or so books!

So in this post, I'm going to guide you through the highlights and highpoints - mostly the classics you might have heard of, but they're classics for good reason. This is probably a list of some of the best things she's written - unlike Sherlock Holmes, say, her novels are far better than the short stories.

The novels broadly divide themselves into three categories - the ones starring Poirot, the Miss Marple mysteries - her two most prolific detectives - and the 'other' category, of which there are many. Not all of these are murder mysteries - there's also some brilliant thrillers, as well as delving into the romantic and supernatural,

A word of advice if you're picking books off the shelf - broadly speaking, 'vintage' Christie tends to be stories written around 1930 (her early twenties work take a while to hit their peak) to 1950 (in the novels of the late 60s and into the 70s, written in the last years of her life, the standard of writing and plotting has noticeably slipped). And if you remember the TV (or film) adaptations beforehand then, in most cases, don't bother reading! Honestly, you'll enjoy them far, far more if you don't know what's going to happen next.

The Hercule Poirot novels

In my opinion, the best of the bunch - I prefer Poirot stories to Marple, if only because they contain some of her most ingenious set-ups. Poirot was the first detective she came up with - and, together with friend and narrator Captain Hastings - is basically Sherlock Holmes... but Belgian! Whilst early stories deal with many Holmesian ideas - Inspector Japp takes on the beleagured police role, there's a wife for Hastings, even an Irene Adler figure - he soon grows out of his trappings into something much greater. So - which are my favourites?

The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Her first novel, written as a bet, and designed to be surprising and unsolvable, yet all the clues are before us. You could do a lot worse than this, a fine country house mystery. (Poirot returns to the house of Styles in his last (chronologically) story, 'Curtain'. But that's a whole other novel.)

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Controversial, ingenious, and probably not the best choice for a first dip into Christie - although it is one of her very best. I'll say no more!

Murder on the Orient Express
Infamous, especially the ending - but if, like me, you don't know who did it, it's a perfect chance to dip into Poirot's most famous adventure. There's lots of atmosphere created by the isolated setting of the train, and the investigation is methodical and ever intriguing...

The ABC Murders
Another downright classic, probably my absolute favourite Poirot - if only because it's such a different style to the others. A serial killer is working his way up and down the country, and through the alphabet, going from Andover to Bexhill, to Churston... thrilling and satisfying!

Cards on the Table
A slightly contrived, but enjoyable murder here - four criminals playing bridge, and any one of them could have killed the man in the corner whilst they played... With a very narrow list of suspects, and hardly any evidence, this takes a more psychological approach, but is handled very well indeed. And of course, I must mention one of Agatha's most delightful creations: Mrs Ariadne Oliver, a writer of murder mysteries who provides a comedic counterpoint to Poirot on many later occasions.

Death on the Nile
Solid - that's the word I'd use. Whilst most of the books on this list are utterly ingenious, this one ties everything up rather most succinctly than most, and provides clues and suspects galore, which is probably why it's so popular. On a gloriously exotic and expensive river cruise in Egypt, passions come to a head, and a wealthy heiress is murdered...

Hercule Poirot's Christmas
You might not expect anything from that title - but don't be fooled. This is a bloody and fiendish locked room mystery, involving - naturally, for the time of year - a family who hate each other! This theme of bickering relatives is done many a time, but never as good as this one.

The Hollow
A later one, this - but it's on the list because it's very well written. At a weekend in a country house, a doctor is found shot in the swimming pool... Poirot has to sort through tangled relationships and a wealth of baffling evidence to catch the murderer...

Taken at the Flood
Another late one, which took me by surprise - and I've tried to come up with a range here. Whilst many themes are common, this one is set in the shadow of the Blitz and the War (something rarely acknowledged in these books, especially during the War itself, rightfully), and it has a thrilling solution. A young girl has found herself a widow and, much to the anger of the rest of the family, inheritor of a large fortune. But when a man arrives claiming that her marriage was invalid, things come to a head...

Also of note - because I'm restricting myself to only a few! - Five Little Pigs, Lord Edgware Dies, Peril at End House, Three Act Tragedy, etc, etc...

The Miss Marple novels

There's less of these ones, but she's still very popular. Whereas Hercule Poirot is a bossy private detective, Miss Marple is the opposite: a village spinster, with an equal eye on human nature! Perhaps it's this charming side of her character, and the stories themselves, that have made these so popular.


Murder at the Vicarage
This one's the first Marple, and probably the most famous. What I love about it is the characters. Whilst the murder and solution itself isn't one of Christie's best, the story is a real treat, as is the humour and liveliness of St Mary Mead. (And also, like so many others, the TV movie has a fab cast!)

A Murder is Announced
Probably the most enjoyable Marple there is. Not only have you got the village life that made the above so wonderful (also the setting for quite a few of these - not enough of them, I say), but also a gripping whodunit. When an advert in the local newspaper says a murder will take place at a local house, everybody is puzzled... until the hour comes, and a body appears! Very well written.

A Pocket Full of Rye
With this one, I saw it on the telly first, which made the book rather a chore. Which was a shame - as it's rather fine. Christie bases a few stories around nursery rhymes, but this one's rather more blatant (and therefore, surreal!) as there's suspicious murders involving a businessman, his wife and the maid...

Also of note: The Body in the Library, The Moving Finger, The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side.

The rest

It feels a bit wrong to sideline everything else into one category - here you have other returning characters, as well as stories with no detectives in them at all. Exotic thrillers, psychological dramas, crazy politics and spies...

And Then There Were None
The pinnacle. And her best selling novel, with good reason. The plot - ten people are invited to an abandoned island, but each of them has a secret past. When the island becomes cut off, and people start getting murdered, it is evident that one of them must be a homicidal maniac... A very suspenseful, utterly gripping story, the basis for which has been used many times since. And it's not as contrived as I've made it sound, honest.

The Secret Adversary
This book deserves a mention, as it's the best out of the five that star Tommy and Tuppence, a pair of young investigators who get imbroiled into a political mystery. Uniquely, they age the same rate as the books - unlike Miss Marple, who's a pensioner for about fifty years, they grow old together, whilst still having adventures naturally! In this one, they're up against an international spy ring in a pretty barmy, but well written and lively thriller.

Towards Zero
Probably the only 'proper' murder mystery on this last list. It could take pride of place in any Poirot or Marple collection, but instead features Superintendant Battle (who features in a few books, including Avengers style crossover Cards on the Table) - and he's not in it too much. A tennis player turns up to a seaside party, and where both his wife and ex-wife are staying. And then their host is murdered...
 

Death Comes as the End
Agatha wrote some odd books in her time (I particularly like the bonkers conspiracy thriller Destination Unknown, and there's also the baffling James Bond style The Big Four) but this one shows real flair. Whilst a few books are set around archeological sites, and in far eastern places, this goes one further... it's a murder mystery set in ancient Egypt! It works far better than you think, and contains all the usual charactering and intrigue.

Endless Night
A very late book, but very well written. It's told through the first person of a young man who falls in love, but dark events follow...

Also of note: Crooked House, Ordeal by Innocence.

So that's that - a quick guide to the best of the best of Agatha Christie. Of course, by this list I'm not saying the rest of the books are bad (well, not all of them, at least!). I'd advise any new readers to check them out, though. I know I've read eighty-odd, but I love her work to bits.

Coming soon: a (much briefer) guide to her short stories.