Flickr Highlights: 2013 in Photos

Some highlights from my Flickr page. I did a post like this in 2012 - and here's some of the best things I've taken this year: (DVD stuff omitting)

 

     

 

   

 

   

 

   

  

  

   

   

   

  

 


 

  

   

   
 
 

 

 

 

 

   

  

   

   

 

   
 

 

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

 

   

   

   

   

  

 
 

The Doctor Who Actor Spotting Game

(Well, nobody's given it a proper name, have they?)

It's one of the most common things people shout at the telly - "oh, what's he/she been in?" And a lot of the time, they've been in Doctor Who. Naturally, it's attracted a whole range of guest stars over its 50 years (well, minus fourteen or so - but who's counting?) - from the likes of Michael Gambon and John Cleese, to Ken Dodd and McFly. People have noticed - I recall Doctor Who Magazine itself asking some pertinent questions a couple of years ago: with alumni popping up seemingly in every show, is there anything with no Doctor Who stars in? Or a series where every actor has appeared in it?

Okay, there's a few rules to this. For starters, it's got to be British - some American telly for instance is connected, but that's just lucky guessing. Secondly, obviously we're only looking at dramas or comedy, not real life stuff. And thirdly, ideally it has to be a series. A one off play with two actors or new and upcoming comedians isn't as interesting as twenty-odd episodes of something.

And only Doctor Who counts - not Torchwood, or Sarah Jane Adventures (sadly - even the latter starred Nigel Havers, Phyllida Law, Miriam Margoyles, Jane Asher, Julie Graham, Eddie Marsan, Ronnie Corbett...). Nor technically the wonderful new An Adventure in Space and Time drama. And no Big Finish, or we'll be here all day listing them.

The Day of the Doctor

"Great men are forged in fire. It's up to lesser men to light the flame."

Saturday 23rd November, 2013 - fifty years to the day since Doctor Who was first shown, and going stronger than ever. Of course everyone expects a special episode to commemorate it - and so we got The Day of the Doctor, the latest anniversary extravaganza!

Whilst I can't comment on the 3D (though I'm sure it looked cool), this Doctor Who special was big (and yet contained), brilliantly written, and beautifully directed. The sort of anniversary special the series needed, even if people didn't know it. Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman (both good value, as ever), David Tennant (seamlessly appearing again, even though it's been almost four years), and the very clever casting coup of John Hurt as a long lost Doctor. Who could resist?

Writing for Radio 4 Extra's "Chain Gang"

Chain Gang is a fun weekly radio series that's run every few years on BBC Radio 4 Extra. It's basically like the game Consequences - every week you can send in your suggestions as to what happens next, and with the help of ace writer Robert Shearman (late of Doctor Who - and probably a bit overworked on Thursdays) and a talented group of actors, it's turned into a three minute chunk of serial.

It was last on in 2009 - and I listened to it, but never sent anything in. (It was a bit crazy - I didn't know where to start, and I was pretty young considering) So when it came back a few weeks ago, I thought this time I'd enter. And after being shortlisted a couple of times, for Episode 4 - my plot was made! I was over the moon!

Skulduggery Pleasant: Last Stand of Dead Men - spoiler-free review

It's a challenge in a review not to just recount the plot. Especially in this review - this book's got a heck of a lot of plot - and it's book eight of nine in a bestselling fantasy series, chances are you haven't read all of them. So I'm trying be as spoiler free as I can (as author Derek Landy would wish) for this, the latest, heaviest, and perhaps best book in the series. Here goes...

For those who aren't clued up, these books are a lively mixture of strong characters, misguided villians, cool magic, and dry wit. The main characters are the titular Skulduggery, who's a skeleton and a detective. His associate Stephanie starts off as a normal teenage girl before discovering a crazy world and becoming Valkryie Cain, sorcerer. And if you really haven't read it before - stop reading this and pick up the first book!

Spare Parts - a review

In my local libraries, there's been some old Big Finishes popping up for once - some of the earlier releases by the looks of it. And when I saw Spare Parts, I had to get it. It's my first 'main range' one I've listened to, I think.

The story of Mondas in The Tenth Planet was always a little bit farfetched. The idea is good, but Earth having a twin planet? And one that's just like ours - presented here as having buildings and most of the technology just like London in the 1950s - what are the chances? You can tell why, in the new series when riffing off this story in Rise of the Cybermen, they decided to go down the parallel world route instead.

But aside from that, it tries to create a very realistic world, in a small scale and quiet production too. There's an air of the Sylvester McCoy years in its real world analogies - a secret police, call up papers, and in a setting of post-war Britain.

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...

The Silent Scream

Against all expectations, it's something new from me - and it moves! If you like Doctor Who, or watching things, then here's The Silent Scream...

And since this is a blog, I thought I'd say a bit about the making of it:

It's not your normal Doctor Who episode - really, it's an experimental short film. (Intentionally, kinda, there's no theme music, or familiar TARDIS groaning) It started off as me filming something on my new camera, and naturally that led to a seven minute short, with lots of voices, mixing different styles of filmmaking!

The Great Gatsby

At the moment, I'm reading another of F Scott Fitzgerald's books - in fact his first, This Side of Paradise. (It's rather dragging I'm afraid - well written, just not too engaging - but that's another story entirely) Undoubtedly the most famous of the things he wrote was The Great Gatsby - a novel which has just come out as a Hollywood blockbuster movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan, directed by showman extraordinaire Baz Luhrmann.

A few months ago I read the book itself. It had been on my reading list for a while, given its popularity - but I went into it knowing very little, especially about the plot. So I didn't quite know what to expect - it wasn't as if I'd read any other of Fitzgerald's work, or was familiar with his distinctive, effortlessly poetic writing style. (I haven't seen any other film adaptations either!) But I did enjoy it.

I was caught up in the characters, the plot, the words, the atmosphere. In my mind, though the prose was pleasant (and the cynic in me thought it was almost written to be analysed for countless GCSE literature courses), the atmosphere seemed pretty harsh and brutal. This was a shady world of corruption and capitalism and, in the end, murder and death. Strangely enough I hadn't got the full impact of it - it's a book trying to define its time, but read ninety years later, you take the motor cars and the alcoholic parties for granted. When in actual fact this was the era of Prohibition (hey - I'm not American, perhaps that's why some of it was lost on me). But I could see why it was successful, even if I didn't quite get everything on my first (and only, thus far) reading.

But then you read that it wasn't initially successful at all. When it was first published in 1926, though the author had realised he was creating a novel's novel, a fine piece of literature which would, in part, define and also transcend its decade... it received mixed reviews. It didn't sell very well. People, apparently, didn't quite get it. So bear that in mind when reading the book - or indeed, seeing the new film that's just been released (you know, that one that's been getting mixed reviews...).

So what about the film?

The first thing that strikes you is the visuals - it's a blockbuster in every sense of the word, and it looks absolutely lavish. The parties are wild, and brilliantly staged. There's great sweeping shots from one bay to the next, and cars whizzing by over huge landscapes - created, of course, by the latest computer effects. In fact, for me watching it in 2D, there's a bit too much of it, and at times it's almost too well done. Almost all the exteriors of the film are done in greenscreen, which gives it an odd look to my somewhat trained eyes, almost like a comic-book. Given that it isn't, and the subject matter isn't sci-fi or fantasy, it's jarring. Whether or not it looks better in 3D (even if you have to wear the glasses and focus a lot), I don't know.

Where the film shined the most for me, apart from it being gorgeous to look at, was the actors. The quieter moments, where the characters are sitting in a room and talking. And they are good characters, and very good actors - after all, one of the reasons the book is adapted is because of the plot and the characters. Even though at first it doesn't really feel like they're centre stage, amongst all the visual trappings. And the music too - it's a great soundtrack, the dazzling jewel in the film being Lana Del Rey's sumptuous Young and Beautiful, and there's also Florence + the Machine's amazing, directly-inspired Only the Love. Sure, it's odd seeing people in the 1920s dancing along to modern club music, to rap, and a jazzy rendition of Beyonce's Crazy in Love. But, it's of its time, and it works. Coupled with the CGI, the 3D, and the glitz and glamour, this film will date very very fast - ironic, given the source material. But hey - Hollywood does this sorts of blockbusters every year, so why not, in Gatsby's spirit, give people a huge showstopper to remember?

It's definitely a tough book to film. Being somebody else's adaptation of the novel, it's always going to be somebody else's view of what they think the novel is saying. It's one of those books where you often have to read into the poetry or things that are happening just out of the main picture - subtlety, in other words. That's kind of hard to capture - the film uses voiceover, but then that ruins the scenes where the characters are properly interacting.
Watching it on screen, with the film following the plot of the novel faithfully (overly so, perhaps), some scenes I thought were spoilt by showing it in detail, and would be better left to our imaginations - I didn't imagine Gatsby's love affair was quite so passionate when I read it, for instance. And then, some scenes I thought worked really well, where the film deliberately showed us its themes, and what the story was all about. And then spelt it out in voiceover. And underlined with a red pen, twice.

The book, I believe, has reached high acclaim, right up there as one of the best American novels. Similarly, the film absolutely adores the book. Take the last chapter, the last paragraph: reading it fresh, I thought it was an enigmatic, poetic, if downbeat end to the whole story, but I didn't realise that it was especially famous. The ending of the movie tries to capture the essence of those words on the page... well, it tries too hard. I'd have been happy with just a voiceover to be honest. When the film starts to quote parts of the book, literally writing the words up on the screen, you realise this is a very unusual adaptation. Whether it's a good thing or not is up to the viewer.