A Kirton

The Time Traveller’s Wife

2012-02-12T06:29:00.000Z

I watched the film adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger’s book ‘The Time Traveller’s Wife‘ yesterday.

It was with slight trepidation, since it is a book I like and I had heard the film had received bad reviews.

I like the film to. It is a close adaptation. It does not use all of the material in the book, but that was going to be inevitable, and it does cover the essentials of the story. It changes a few things, but not majorly. Of course, Henry and Clare looked nothing like I imagined them, but that tends to be par for the course.

Looking it up on Wikipedia one review apparently said: "Though it may satisfy fans of the novel, The Time Traveler's Wife's plot contrivances and illogical narrative hamper its big screen effectiveness". Metacritic,

Well I am a fan of the book and I am satisfied with the film.

Compulsory Maths

2012-02-05T15:47:00.002Z

Maths is useful, and many jobs or further study demand you have at least a C in Mathematics at GCSE. But not everyone gets a C (or above). There are some pupils about whom their school believes they will get nowhere near a C (or above), believing this from them being 14 or younger. Why insist on them spending several hours a week for 2 years studying maths? Surely there is a better use of their time.

I love maths, but I dislike it being forced on those who have neither the aptitude or ability for it.

Samson and Delilah

2012-01-31T06:08:00.000Z

I am currently reading the book of Judges and am confused by the story of Samson and Delilah. I think there must be something missing.
Delilah asks him the source of his strength. He tells her that if anyone ties him with seven fresh thongs that have not been dried, then he will become as weak as any man. So when he is asleep she ties him up like that with Philistines hidden in the room. But he lied and still has all his strength. This happens several times, with him spinning some yarn about what will take his strength and her doing it to him the next time he is asleep. So it should be obvious that he cannot trust her with the true secret of his strength. Yet he does. She, as all the other times, does it, he loses his strength and the Philistines capture him. Why would he do that? It just seems to me that there is something missing to this story, since I do not understand it, the way Judges tells it.

A Good Omens, Anathema Device moment

2012-01-22T10:01:00.000Z

My father recommended a book to me when I was in my late teens which I only recently got around to reading. One of the main characters shares my name. When I was partway through reading it, dad told me he had been influenced by the book when choosing my name. I would be dubious, since in the book it is spelled differently. Except this is my father, who's spelling leaves something to be desired.

Sunshine

2012-01-15T09:36:00.000Z

Jodie Foster is excellent in 'The Silence of the Lambs', yet Anthony Hopskins dominates the few scenes he is in. I was reminded of this the first time I read Robin McKinley's 'Sunshine'. 'Sunshine' is the story of a young woman, called 'Sunshine', who has an affinity for sunshine that gives her power over vampires. She is an interesting and appealing character and her story keeps the pages turning. However, whenever the vampire Constantine enters the story he dominates it.
Constantine is one of the reasons I like the book.
Another is how Sunshine's favourite fairy tale is Beauty and the Beast and how she tells the story to children making Beauty a strong and proactive heroine. Beauty and the Beast is my favourite fairy tale, partly because it is not a love at first sight story, where the basis for love is she is pretty and a princess and he is handsome and a prince. It is also a story where it is easy to tell it with the heroine being strong and proactive. Try doing that for instance with 'Sleeping Beauty'. It is possible: McKinley did it with 'Spindle's End' I am trying it with a story I am working on, but I am changing the plot, as did McKinley. The other reason for Beauty and the Beast being my favourite fairy tale, is the influence reading an adaptation called 'Beauty' when I was a child. It is an adaptation also written my McKinley.

Devil's Cub

2012-01-08T09:41:00.002Z

Getting back to talking about my five favourite books.
Georgette Heyer's writing style was similar to Enid Blyton's in that both a continuous roll from one action scene to the next.
'Devil's Cub' is a prime example of this. The heroine, Mary, and the reader with her, are whisked from London to Paris and then Mary flees to Dijon. As with Sense and Sensibility, the reason I like this is the calmness of the heroine. She is at the centre of this tumult, causing some of it herself, but remains self-possessed and in control of herself, even at those times when she is terrified. The line I have always considered sums her up is:

'She folded her hands in her lap; it occurred to him that she was a very restful woman.'

Something I sometimes try to do when stressed is to fold my hands in my lap and try to be like her.

http://anetkirton.blogspot.com/2011/04/good-omens.html

http://anetkirton.blogspot.com/2011/03/book-2.html

http://anetkirton.blogspot.com/2011/03/books.html

Doctor Who Christmas Special

2011-12-31T09:43:00.002Z

The Doctor Who Christmas special was fine, but nothing special. There were a couple of moments I liked. The first was when Madge turned off the tears, produced a gun and convinced those she was pointed it at that she could use it with the line: I’m looking for my children. The other was when Amy explained that River had told her the Doctor was alive and her line: She’s a good girl.
My main complaint was that the happy ending seemed forced and its arrival was as obvious as a Lancaster Bomber.
Three questions:
1. Who is the best Doctor?
2. Who is the best actor to play the Doctor?
3. Who is your favourite Doctor?
Answers:
1. The best is either Tom Baker or Jon Pertwee.
2. The question about best actor I am interpreting as just on the basis of their acting as the Doctor, but extending it to include audio material. While Christopher Eccelston has done many wonderful other things, he did not play the Doctor long enough, or at least has not done so yet. Likewise with David Tennant, with his portrayal of the Doctor, after a time (by the time of the Easter special with the London Bus) I was bored. It seemed I had seen it all before. Maybe that was a problem with the writing not the acting.
Patrick Troughton I think brought huge variety to his portrayal of the Doctor. My feeling though, now anyway, is that my answer is Paul McGann. The reason for this is the audio piece Caerdroia. In this the Doctor is split into three, each being different aspects of his personality. Charley describes them as being the ‘normal’ him, another when he is abstracted, who she calls Tigger and the last when he is irritated, who she calls Eeyore. McGann manages to provide the voice for all of these, and manages to pull it off so the listener knows which one is speaking.
3. Favourite is Sylvester McCoy.

The real meaning of Christmas

2011-12-24T16:32:00.000Z

I have for a long time thought the answer: 'PRESENTS!' is a good one.
The presents of the magi.
The present Mary as herself as handmaid to the Lord.
The present of Jesus Himself, both in Bethlehem, Calvary and for ever.

Anyway, Happy Christmas.

In the dark

2011-12-19T17:55:00.002Z

Coming home in the dark there were stretches of road with no street lighting. The only light on the road was that of the headlights reflected from the cats-eyes.
There was light away from the road: street lights on other roads, lights from buildings and Christmas lights.
How often are we in complete darkness? Not where I live. There is a street light right in front of the house and the back is lit from lights from houses behind us.

I sense there should be some deep analogy or message to make from these observations, but nothing is coming to me.

A Town like Mary Sue

2011-12-11T13:10:00.001Z

One of the interesting things about 'A Town Like Alice' is the lack of conflict between the main characters.
OK Jean and Joe face conflict, in the first half from the Japanese army, in the second half from circumstances. She is from England, he is from the Australian outback, and they are bright enough to know they would not thrive in each other's worlds, so she needs to make his home town into one where she could prosper - to turn it into a town like Alice Springs. But there is little conflict between Joe and Jean, and most of the people Jean comes across she can persuade into her way of thinking. The major conflicts, are dealt with in few words, and the focus seems to be on people getting along.
I love the book, but Jean is rather a 'Mary Sue.' I don't think the book would have been published these days, even if you removed the racism and the smoking.

Growing Up

2011-12-03T14:19:00.001Z

The first born has said he will give all his cars to the youngest. Cars were his favourite toys. He would spend hours playing with them, and having them as players in rugby games. He said after ages of not playing with them, he had got them out and tried to play with them. It was not fun anymore. He added something about not liking growing up. I said that growing up had its compensations. He agreed, his example of compensation being that you could watch more interesting films.

Why don’t schools teach cooking?

2011-11-27T07:02:00.002Z

Being able to cook is one of the most useful skills you can acquire, so why isn’t cooking on the time table for schools? Schools do teach cooking, but they call it by other things. It has been domestic science, home economics and is not food technology. These subjects do encompass such things as nutrition, evaluating meals, designing recipes. Good cooking lesson though should include those things.
Maybe schools do have a point. My mother used to teach office skills: word processing, spreadsheets, databases etc and typing. When the subject was called office skills on the options selection, she got an equal number of girls and boys choosing it. The one year it was called typing, she got only girls.

Mice these days

2011-11-20T11:35:00.000Z

I found the mouse downstairs.
Was it going squeak, squeak?
No it was going click, click.
Mice these days don't go squeak, squeak in the wainscot,
But click, click on the desktop.

Likes and Dislikes

2011-11-12T09:33:00.002Z

I don't like whisky and I don't like coffee much. So why do I like Irish coffee? Maybe it is something to do with loving drinks with cream on the top.
The funny thing about whisky and coffee is I love the smell of them. Mind you I also love the smell of freshly cut grass and wood shavings.

Two things I dislike are grapefruit and green tea. I have discovered though this week that I like Twinings Green Tea with Pineapple and Grapefruit. And I have not been drinking it with cream on the top.

Also this week I have found Neil Gaiman's 'The Graveyard Story' difficult to put down. I went out last Saturday looking to buy a shirt for myself and came back with a copy of that and a pair of trousers and not skirt, not for myself anyway. I did got a school one for the youngest. This is normal. I am not good at buying skirts for myself. One time on such an attempt I came back with a coat, another time with a pair of boots. The only time I recall buying a skirt for myself, I had gone out to buy a dress. I have in the past managed to buy myself dresses, but I was pregnant and they were denim tents.

Love is...

2011-11-05T08:17:00.002Z

The youngest has had a poem published in her school magazine.

The brief seems to have been to write lines in the format:
Love is as {colour} as {something}

For instance, one of the other poems has:
Love is as brown as rotten leaves.

The youngest's poem is:

Love is as red as a beating heart.
Love is as blue as dropping tears.
Love is as yellow as the burning sun.

Love, honour and obey

2011-10-29T06:07:00.000+01:00

Discussions of weddings sometimes get onto the subject of vows and will the bride vow to obey.
I don't think the bride promising to obey is part of the Catholic wedding ceremony, so the question never arose. (Either that or the Monsignor who officiated just automatically used a version that did not include that).
Thinking about it though, I don't think it relevant. I don't think the beloved has ever given me an order. I think the closest he has ever come is ask me to get out of the kitchen when he is cooking. He has very rarely given suggestions as to what I should do, even in circumstances when I directly ask him for advice. This is a reflection on me as well as on him. I don't think I would have married someone who thought they could tell me what to do. It is not that the beloved does not get his own way the majority of the time, as evidenced by the fact he controls the remote controls. It is certainly not that I have any control over what he does. It is just that the beloved has an indirect and laid-back way of being the dominant partner.

It's Christmas!

2011-10-22T09:00:00.000+01:00

I suppose Christmas tat has a certain appeal - in December. In October it is irritating. The only good thing you can say about it, is that it better than Christmas tat in September.
I love the religious Christmas, that starts at the beginning of Advent and ends with Epiphany.
The family Christmas, is focused on Christmas day and the few days around it. I can cope with a family Christmas, though some are better than others. I have tried spending part of Christmas broken down on the M1, when the temperature was below freezing. While it was with three wonderful people, I could not recommend it. They were not at their best at that time.
Then there is the commercial Christmas which starts at the end of September and ends on about the 28th of December, when the shops start selling Easter eggs and the TV advertising summer holidays.

Have you rebooted your PC?

2011-10-16T08:12:00.002+01:00

This is often a technical support helpdesk will ask. One reason is that rebooting your PC will solve a multitude of problems. Either in the shutting down, in that it will close down programs that have got themselves in a tangle, or if some programs have memory leaks, it forces them to release that memory, or in the starting up process, for instance it might include a re-mapping of drives, that could have got unmapped.

If the helpdesk asks you to re-boot your PC and waits on the line while you do it, then you can be sure they have asked you to do that because they think it might fix the problem. If they ask you to do that and ring back if the problem is still there, the reason is potentially because when you ring back you might get someone else and they don' t have to deal with your problem. If you say you have already done a re-boot and they ask you to try a cold reboot, then this is probably the case. A cold reboot is where instead of just re-starting your PC, you shut down completely, turn the PC off and then turn it back on again. I tend to do a cold reboot before ringing any helpdesk.

Gourmet burgers

2011-10-08T11:30:00.000+01:00

Oxymoron?

Sign of the times

2011-10-01T17:05:00.000+01:00

I came out with a statement along the lines: My mother insists on an Apple. At 70 she is rather set in her ways and has no truck with PCs.
The person I said this to, found this rather a bizarre comment. There is a limited period of time in which such an example of being set in your ways due to being 70 can be made and seem bizarre. My grandparents had nothing to do with any type of computer, so it would not have been said of them. My children are born in an age where using computers is the norm, even for their grandparents.

Starving and Obese

2011-09-24T07:37:00.002+01:00

There was an article in a paper about more people in the world are starving than are obese. The article reported lots of moral outrage about this statistic. I actually find it quite hopeful. It suggests that the problem is not that the world cannot produce enough food to feed the current population. People starving is due to some reason other than there not being enough food in the world.

The current population, I think, is about 6 or 7 billion. It is expected to hit about 9 or 10 billion somewhere about 2050 and either plateaux or peak there and then start to fall. Extrapolation is always dubious, and reading the future more about faith than science. If that projection is correct though, in the next four decades we need to determine how to feed 10 billion people. The stats about obesity and starvation, if added to the stats about how much food gets wasted, suggests it is possible. How likely it is to happen though, is a whole different question.

Melody – Mels – Mel?!

2011-09-17T08:29:00.002+01:00

When the Doctor first met Mel, she had already met him. Did we ever find out how she first met him?

Abandon Hop

2011-09-10T08:16:00.007+01:00

I came up with this cartoon. I suspect it rubbish since when I described it to my mother she laughed politely, and the beloved did not even understand it, never mind find it funny.
Oh well.

Questions about a Friday Fast

2011-09-03T06:43:00.000+01:00

If you fast on Friday by merely substituting fish for meat, what is the point? Except for maybe helping the fishing industry. This is possibly the reason fish on Friday was originally introduced. If you fast by eating less, you are potentially impairing your ability to work. If you both work and fast on Fridays are you doing a disservice to your employer, by not being able to work to the best of your ability? If you choose to fast one day a week, isn’t it more honest to do it on a day of the week you are not working for pay, so that the cost of your fast is borne solely by you and not by your employer as well?

To log or not to log

2011-08-30T05:44:00.001+01:00

In summary I say log. 'Let not your sins be sins of omission.'

I have been doing some actual testing recently, rather than talking about doing testing, talking about someone else doing testing or talking in general terms about how you would test for a specific type of development. Doing some real work is great, but a little scary, since I fear I have become rusty on the actual process of testing. One of the fun things with testing is people tend to notice not the bugs you log, but the bugs other people log who test after you. Which are sometimes leaks and sometimes: 'hang on, I know that's new, someone changed the code between my testing and that of the next phase.'
You can split issues into two types: things that are bugs that don't get logged and things that do get logged but aren't bugs. They are called type 1 and type 2, but I have never tried to recall which is which, since I do not have that kind of memory and I cannot see the point in knowing which is which. Ideally you want to reduce both types.
I read something ages ago, about how they had demonstrated you cannot reduce both at the same time. If you have someone focus on reducing the amount of bugs they miss, they will log more things that are not bugs. If you have them focus on not logging things that are not bugs, they will miss more bugs.
While I can recall what was in the piece about this, I cannot recall where I read it, who wrote it or what it was called. That is the way my memory works.
It does make sense though. You weaken a tester's hunger for bugs, if you distract them from it, for instance with a need to be cautious about not logging something that is correct behaviour.
I tend to encourage testers that if in doubt to log things. There are various reasons for this. If something is logged that is not a bug it maybe wastes a little time. If something is not logged that is a bug, it is a potential product breaker. Another reason is that logging something that is not a bug indicates a potential problem somewhere. Maybe the software could be clearer to use, or that something needs adding to the help files, user documents or the training. If a tester can mistake correct behaviour for a bug, the same confusion is likely in a user. It could also be due to a change in the specification, where the issue is a bug against an earlier specification, but not against current, flagging a potential need to improve communication.
One problem you may have with the philosophy of logging everything you suspect is a bug, is that the developer might get swamped with non-issues, wasting development time at a point in the project when it is most valuable. One solution is to appoint a gate-keeper: someone to whom all issues are assigned so they can verify they are bugs before letting them through to a developer. This is also useful if there are multiple developers working on a project, so that only the gate-keeper has to know which developer owns the code the issue lies in. This can save developer time even with genuine issues, if they are poorly logged. The gatekeeper can send the issue back to get more detail.
One risk with a gatekeeper is that they can become a bottleneck. You need to be able to move the gatekeeper position, when the principle gatekeeper is unavailable. This might be something you need to do on a daily basis, if you have a global organisation with testers and gatekeeper in widely different time zones. You also do not want urgent issues, like the system being down, having to go through the gatekeeper.

The madness of science and software testing

2011-08-21T17:53:00.000+01:00

There is a definition of madness is doing the same thing multiple times and expecting a different outcome. Maybe this is out of context, but I do repeat things to see if I get the same result: it is part of software testing. A software tester has some resemblance to a practical scientist. Scientists perform experiments to discover more about the universe. Tests are experiments run on software to discover more about the software.
There are experiments where you expect different results when you do the exact same things. If you fire an electron at a diaphragm with two slits in it, despite firing each electron in the exact same way, different electrons will end up on different places on the screen, beyond the diaphragm. This is down to quantum mechanics and that you cannot know where it will land just the probability of it landing in different locations and also the wave-particle duality of matter. It is an example that in science the exact same actions do not always produce the same results.

The Impossible Astronaut

2011-08-13T07:27:00.002+01:00

The kids have been watching the Matt Smith Doctor Who episodes on BBC 3. OK I have watched most of them again as well. The youngest has been watching some of them multiple times. This is much to the irritation of the beloved, who cannot see the point. He is currently watching Northern Exposure. When he finishes that, the first born predicts he will re-watch Babylon 5, then all the surrounding stuff for the umpteenth time. I suspect the first born is right about this.
Anyway, I was watching the Impossible Astronaut and I have a theory as to why he is impossible. I suspect the Doctor who is killed is the flesh Doctor. I suspect the astronaut is the non-flesh Doctor. The reason being for the Silence to believe he is dead. The flesh Doctor was killed in the gangers episode, but before that they did discuss the theory that he could come back from that. If he could, and the whole premise of this theory is that he did, then maybe he could return from being shot mid-regeneration and then his body burnt. Which would maybe justify the Doctor being able to kill him.

Olympics

2011-08-07T08:32:00.002+01:00

If you know me, you are probably aware I have little interest in sport. One of the great benefits of being a woman is that you are not expected to be interested in football. So my principle memory of the Olympics (any Olympics) is not of any sport, but of the prize giving, namely the practise of giving winners a bunch of flowers. This did not really register when they were giving flowers to the female gymnasts. Then it came to 6 foot shot-putters. 6 foot wide that is, with upper arm diameter probably more than the gymnast's waist. 'Well done, here's medal and your bunch of flowers.' That contrast between such size and strength and the fragility of flowers, sticks in my mind.

Tragic verses tragedy

2011-07-30T06:22:00.000+01:00

People ask why the death of Amy Winehouse headed the news, coming before the killings in Norway and the famine in the Horn of Africa. Such questions seem to stem from a belief that the order of news stories is dictated by the importance of the content of the story. I think the order of news items is mainly dictated by what makes the ‘best’ story. (The quotes around best are because I am talking about the literary aspects of a story, not as a judgement on the content of a story in a non-literary sense. The best stories purely on content would be things like rising employment rates, improved literacy rates, reduced divorce rates etc.) While the other stories are tragic, Winehouse’s self-destructive lifestyle is a tragedy. Tragedy tends to make a better story that something which is tragic without being a tragedy.
There is also the longevity of the story. Amy’s death is a flash in the pan story that seems to have disappeared from the news within a week. The Norway and Africa stories are not going to go away so soon.

Durham

2011-07-23T07:48:00.000+01:00

Spent the week at Durham university for a physics residential course. All of the campus is a smoke-free zone, with a £50 fine for smoking in or near the buildings. The picnic tables in the middle of the lawns are designated places where it is OK to smoke, leading to people standing there under umbrellas in the rain to feed their addiction. I have visions of Durham students out there in the snow.

One Tuesday afternoon had no labs, so was free to go into the city. My first aim was to find the train station. I had got lost on the way from the train station to the university and doubt I could have retraced my steps even if I had wanted to. After I had ensured I had a route for when I left, I then went for a wander with no fixed destination. I often saw the cathedral from a distance, but did not manage to find it. I did however find five charity shops, at least two green-grocers, an indoor market, someone from Amnesty International wanting my contact details so they could arrange for me to make a regular financial contribution to them, a man and a woman brawling in the street and a grey squirrel. The squirrel was on my way back in the grounds of one of the colleges and was so short a glimpse it might not have been a squirrel.

Here is some fun from maths with infinity

2011-07-16T08:23:00.001+01:00

There are an infinite number of integers and an infinite number of real numbers. But if you have N represent the infinity that is the amount of integers there are, then there are 2 to the power N real numbers.
There are also 2 to the power N real numbers between 0 and 1 and 2 to the power N real numbers between 0 and 3. So why if you pick a real number between 0 and 3 is it twice as likely to be between 1 and 3, than between 0 and 1?

Why Maths is conceptually easier than Physics.

2011-07-10T15:19:00.001+01:00

With maths you have concepts that are not easy to visualise. Imaginary numbers, more than 3 dimensions, projectile plane etc. But that does not matter: they are constructs of the mind which do not have to have a basis in reality.

With physics you have quantum physics (and to a lesser extent relativity). Quantum physics works, matches experimental observations, but does not make sense. (Not just to me. Some of the greatest minds in physics who were also founders in quantum physics thought it did not make sense, like Einstein and Schrodinger.) In the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, an electron does not have a definite position, just a probability of it being in various positions, unless you measure it. At the point of measurement it has a definite position, but an instant later it does not. Urgh. What the Copenhagen interpretation has going for it, is that it is better than the alternatives, such as the Othotological interpretation or the many-worlds interpretation. The beloved likes the many-worlds interpretation. What gets me is that it requires a mind-bogglingly large number of universes, the number growing exponentially. Physicists seem to tend to refer to it as an infinite number, but as far as I can tell it is just very big but finite. Physicists however seem to throw around the term infinite with a lack of care that I try to ignore, since it is like nails on a slate board if I pay attention to it. In optics they happily have x/infinity = 0, and have images being at infinity, talk about infinitely long wires and the gravitational potential energy of 2 particles that are infinitely apart.

Bird song

2011-07-02T08:48:00.001+01:00

On Countryfile awhile back there was a piece about declining numbers of songbirds. They put this down to loss of habitat, specifically citing people concreting over their gardens, foreign birds, like parakeets, magpies (case not proved) and cats.

One of the arguments against wind turbines is their impact on birds. Studies into this suggest this depends on the type of wind turbines and the type of birds: some birds can live near wind turbines and be totally unaffected. Even however with stupid birds and high velocity small turbines, the bird deaths due to them is very less than due to domestic cats.

I do not usually notice bird song, but since the program have made the effort to consciously listen for it. It seems that when outside it is an almost constant background noise.

Patronising websites

2011-06-25T13:34:00.000+01:00

At work my browser is IE6. We still support software on IE6 so I need to have access to an instance of this version of IE. Verification of software on other IE versions I use a different PC.

I find websites irritating that tell me I have an out-of-date browser and tell me to upgrade. I know, I have not upgraded for a reason. You want me to stick around on your website, don't patronise me or tell me what I should do.

Doctor Who Predictions

2011-06-18T13:50:00.001+01:00

Since the not so surprising revelation of River’s parentage, I have been thinking about where the story might go.

I still think River was the little girl in the Impossible Astronaut and that she as in the spacesuit some of the time, but not at the point where the Doctor was shot and permanently killed. I do not have a theory how they get out of that one. I suspect it will have something to do with the Flesh, but I hope it will not be something so obvious.

Here though is a possible way it might pan out, ignoring the death of the Doctor.

Rory spends sometime alone on the Tardis with River while she is a child. It is possible for them to fly the Tardis without the Doctor there, due to River’s TimeLord DNA. Rory teaches her various things, including how to fly the Tardis silently, since she does not like the noise.

Later, at say Nemesis, acting on programming from Madame Kovarian (Eye Patch Lady), the adult River attempts to kill the Doctor. Rory however gets in the way and is the one who dies.

The Doctor sentences the remorseful River to the Stormcage. River, is contemptuous, saying no prison can hold her. The Doctor tells her she will stay there through her own will, or at least continue to return there, until her sentence is finished.

River: ‘When will that be?’

Doctor: ‘You’ll know.’

Many years later, in River’s time line, in the Library, (post the incidents where River physically dies), Dr Moon says there is a signal from someone wanting Melody Williams.

River: ‘Only one person calls me Melody Williams. Hello Rory.’

Rory: ‘The Doctor sent me. He told me to tell you I’m to meet him at Nemesis, but before that you have to save me. I don’t know what that means.’

River: ‘But I do.’ She downloads a copy of him into the Library computer.

Rory goes off to Nemesis becoming a skeleton holding a sonic screwdriver with a flashing green light.

The Doctor and Amy take the screwdriver to the Library. Have some trouble there with the Vashta Nerada. Recombine the essence of Rory in the screwdriver, which contains his last memories, with the part of him in the Library into a new flesh body. Dr Moon glad to get rid of 2000 years of Rory’s memories, since the Library data core is finding it a strain.

Rory goes to the Stormcage and tells River he wants to talk about what happened at Nemesis.

River: ‘Nemesis is in your past?’

Rory: ‘Yes.’

River: ‘How can Nemesis be in your past?’

Rory: ‘Spoilers.’

Her sentence is over and Rory takes her to where the Doctor is waiting for a Picnic at Asgard.

The fall of man

2011-06-12T07:01:00.000+01:00

In Genesis the story of the fall of man is that woman talked man into gaining knowledge, they were punished for this by being cast out of the garden of Eden, women got painful childbirth and men had to work for a living.

You could interpret this literally, or you could take a more metaphorical viewpoint.
Childbirth is painful for women because of the size of the baby's head, which is related to the size of the brain, which is probably related to intelligence.
Early man was a hunter gatherer. Life became harder for man, when he switched to farming. I think the general interpretation by historians, is that men did the hunting and women did the gathering. It was therefore probably woman who discovered if you dropped seeds on the ground where you would like the plants to grow, you could choose where you did your gathering rather than foraging all over the place. That is probably how the seeds of farming were set, and how, thanks to women, men changed from the easy life of a hunter to having to work for a living as a farmer.
Farming is more labour intensive than hunting and gathering, leading to a population growth, leading to more of the Earth being less like a nature dominated Eden to a man dominated, farming/industrial factory.

Ducks

2011-06-04T09:38:00.001+01:00

Wandering along the canal, I saw a mother duck and four ducklings sitting on the bank, so I stood to watch. Then along came a group of people, who spying the family exclaimed to each other about it and went close to them. This caused mother duck to abandon the little ones for the water, and soon after they followed. (The ducklings not the people). The people then proceeded to throw bread at the family.

Leaving the Rat Race

2011-05-28T07:57:00.001+01:00

I heard of someone who believes so passionately in the Loch Ness Monster, that he has gone to live on the shores of the Loch. He spends his time sitting by the Loch taking photos, making a living making Nessie models to sell to the tourists. I am ambivalent towards the existence or otherwise of the Loch Ness Monster, but I can see the appeal of such a lifestyle.

Card Games

2011-05-21T13:56:00.001+01:00

I invested 99p in a book sale on 'Chambers card games for families'. It has several variations on how to play rummy, none of them how I play it with the kids. They are maybe a little more complicated than how I have played it with them since the youngest was 4, but I am a little dubious about the book's minimum age for rummy of 10 years.

Knockout whist has a minimum age of 8 years. The youngest has also been playing this since being 4. We played rummy and whist on the ferry to Ireland the summer before she started school and we had been playing it awhile before then.

The book also has the minimum age for playing snap as 6. I stopped playing snap with the first born when he was 3 or maybe 4 because I hate the game. I don't think I ever played it with the youngest, but got the first born to teach it her instead.

The Hand of Fear

2011-05-14T07:16:00.001+01:00

This was on this week so I watched it with the children, to show them Classic Doctor Who. The first born thought it tinny and slow. But he did watch it and said he thought it OK. I explained how his godfather, watching a classic Doctor Who watched the same shot of people running down a corridor several times, before he realised the system had got into a loop and it was not supposed to do that, because Doctor Who plots did not used to be in such a hurry. The youngest thought the dome at the start was the crystal dome in the crystal maze. For once they did not have a quarry as a set pretending to be somewhere on some alien planet. They had a quarry being a quarry. Unless of course they took all the crew to some alien planet and mocked it up to look like a quarry on earth.

Who is River Song?

2011-05-07T08:01:00.001+01:00

I have this theory, that I am pretty certain is wrong, is that she is Captain Jack who at some time got bored being male.
The other things that have been suggested:

Some relative of the doctor (mother, daughter etc)
His wife.
Amy and Rory's daughter.
The little girl in the spacesuit.
Amy.
She killed the Doctor.
She killed Rory (either as an adult or as the little girl in the spacesuit).

I don't like the idea of her killing Rory, because he has been killed before and I like him and they might get bored with bringing him back.

The problem I have with all those theories, is I don’t think any of them are right. They are all too predictable, (except the Captain Jack one).

Here’s a prediction: she is Amy and Rory’s daughter, the little girl in the spacesuit, and the Doctor’s wife and she killed the Doctor, when in the spacesuit at the start of this series, but he gets better, and she also kills Rory, permanently, and this is what she is imprisoned for.

Lent and Royal Wedding

2011-04-30T07:15:00.003+01:00

I was not sure what to do Lent this year. Last year I started going to the Cathedral in my lunch-break at least once a week. That would be a good thing to repeat, except I never stopped and tended to increase it to twice a week. So, while I was still thinking about it time passed and Lent was almost over. Then I thought about one thing that I had started to do at about the beginning of Lent, was to on work days have a small piece of dark chocolate. (And some days 2 or 3 small pieces of dark chocolate). I cannot recall why that is supposed to be good for you, but I did not let that stop me. Does taking up regular eating of chocolate count?

I thought the youngest would be interested in watching the Royal Wedding. But no, when I turned over to it just after 11, to view the bride at the alter she insisted in returning to ‘Horrible Histories’.
We are doing a couple of scrap books together; one of the Royal Wedding and one of other things. The other things scrap book has a large amount of Doctor Who. The youngest seems more interested in collecting pictures of Amy Pond than Kate Middleton (OK the Duchess of Cambridge). I suspect Amy seems more real to her than Kate. On her insistence the picture of the Dalek painted red, white and blue, with union flags and pictures of the happy couple, went in with the Dr Who pictures, rather than in the Royal Wedding scrap book.

The Sarah Jane Adventures

2011-04-23T06:30:00.002+01:00

It took the First Born awhile to get into Doctor Who. When the modern version started he was still of an age to be scared. The first episode he liked was ‘School Reunion’ and it is still one of his favourites. It was not scary because no one died in it. He missed that Tony Head’s Head character ate a school girl in the opening scenes, and Tony Head and his people died at the end. It was the episode where the late, great Lis Sladen returned to the screen as Sarah Jane. It was a role she had played on and off since 1973, when she first appeared pretending to Jon Pertwee to be her aunt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-TWW0N8Fg4&feature=player_embedded

When you include all the audio media, a role with probably more on that off time.

Then along came The Sarah Jane Adventures, showing that a program with a mature female in the lead could win big time with a children’s audience. Despite being targeted at viewers too young to have seen Classic Doctor Who (when first broadcast), it has more references to that than ‘New’ Doctor Who has. As well as more subtle references it included the last time Nicholas Courtney (also great and sadly late) played the Brigadier, a role he had played since 1968, on screen and in audio media and Kate Manning as Jo. In addition, both David Tennant and Matt Smith have crossed over into The Sarah Jane Adventures as well as the occasional cross-over in the other direction.

Lis has obviously gone too young, but, considering how much pleasure her work has given, she has not gone with her song unsung.

Sacrifice your only son.

2011-04-17T14:40:00.000+01:00

Some find the story of God telling Abraham to sacrifice his only son and Abraham going along with it one of the regrettable parts of the Bible. It seems to me that the message of the story is that God does not want us to sacrifice our children to Him and that if you ever think you should, then wherever that belief is coming from, it is not coming from God.

I would hope people today would think D’uh: that is obvious. Abraham though lived in a time and place where what was obvious was that you showed your loyalty to your god by sacrificing your children. It would appear Abraham was not chosen by God because he had an insight about that contrary to those around him. Like Canute teaching his sycophants that he could not hold back the tide, God made it clear to Abraham He did not want such sacrifice. Maybe it is because of this that it is so obvious to us that it is wrong. If God had simply told him killing Isaac or Ishmael* was not necessary or wanted, then other religions could have claimed this God of Abraham was not that good, or Abraham was not that faithful, since he would not even kill his son for Him. The story though does away with that possible claim, since Abraham was prepared to do that. Besides, Abraham was a nomadic goat herder, who owned slaves and was married to his half-sister. It was maybe necessary to show him something to get him to understand it.

The story is echoed later. God does not want us to sacrifice our children for Him. But He did sacrifice His Son for us.

*Accounts vary as to who the son was. This though is a story about God and Abraham. Or may about God and His relationship with man. Who the son was seems beside the point.

Good Omens

2011-04-09T05:15:00.002+01:00

Getting back to talking about my five favourite books.

Terry Pratchett is one of my favourite writers. I started reading other stuff of Neil Gaiman a year or so ago and like his work. This though is what I have read of either of them that I like best.

It is the book I reread after watching Rosemary’s Baby, and being slightly disturbed by that film. Adam Young of Good Omens was reassuring after that. Adam seems to be strongly based on Richmal Crompton’s William. It is dark and funny and light, all at the same time. It’s a book you can open anywhere at random and the stuff you look at is good. Anyway, I made the mistake of opening it somewhere at random and got hooked. Gotta go.

There’s going to be a census – a count of all the people in the land

2011-04-02T07:41:00.000+01:00

Interesting questions:

What is your job role: Software Tester

Describe what you do: Test software

The Beloved ticked the ‘other’ box for what he sees as his nationality and put ‘Anglo-Irish’

Part of me thinks: You were born in Portsmouth, with an English father, you’ve lived in England all your life, you’re English, deal with it.

However, if our descendants are researching us and they know of the Irish ancestry, that Anglo-Irish identification could help indicate they have the right people. And if they don’t, then it keys them to the fact that to get further back in one direction they need to look at Irish records.

PS: I’ll get on with wittering about books when I’ve worked out what to say about Sunshine or Good Omens.

Book 2

2011-03-26T08:19:00.000Z

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

I like this because of the character of Elinor and how she manages to govern her emotions. Even when she is terribly unhappy on the inside she manages to show everyone a calm exterior. She is someone I try to emulate, though by nature I am more like Marianne: letting all and sundry know how I feel and allowing myself to be depressed.

Pride and Prejudice is a romance, the title gives labels to the hero and heroine, both labels being applicable to both of them. Sense and Sensibility is about two sisters dealing with romance. Their experiences with men are similar. Elinor falls for Edward and Marianne for Willoughby. Both men lead the sisters on to believe they intend something serious, in Edward’s case inadvertently and in Willoughby’s deliberately. Neither man can marry them. Willoughby, because he has an expensive lifestyle and needs to marry a rich wife to sustain it. Edward because he is secretly engaged to Lucy Steele. Edward has discovered he does not love Lucy but is too honourable to break off the engagement.

The way the sisters deal with their similar circumstances are polar opposites. Amongst other things the book is an example of how often you have little control over what happens to you, but complete control over how you react to it.

Some of my favourite scenes are those between Lucy and Elinor. Lucy suspects Elinor and Edwards have feelings for each other, so she lets Elinor in on the secret. Acting all friendly, she makes it clear Edward is hers and Elinor can’t have him. Elinor takes it calmly and politely as Lucy drives the knife in and twists it around, not betraying to her how much it hurts.

My love of this book is also helped by the wonderful Irene Richard’s portrayal of Elinor in the 1981 TV adaptation.

Books

2011-03-19T09:33:00.002Z

The beloved and I sat down to make a list of our own five favourite books. It was a difficult task. I could have easily have come up with a much longer list. The beloved’s list had about sixty books on it.

The first on my list was ‘Prince on a White Horse’ by Tanith Lee.

On one level it is a ridiculous fantasy, with a talking horse, walking trees, three moons, none of them spherical and a doughnut shaped sun with no logic as to where it rises and sets. Please note, I think the ability to write such things well (and in this book they are well written) is wonderful.

On another level it is about a fight against nulgrave with can only be beaten by jewelstar. Nulgrave and jewelstar are approximately synonymous with despair and joy respectively.

I first read it when I was about twelve and thought I was too old for it, but loved it anyway. As an adult I spent an age until I managed to get a copy of it. Re-reading it I found it was as good as I remembered, and I was no longer too old for it.

The ten-year-old who first reviewed Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’ apparently claimed it was more suited for younger children. Adults and children have loved the book ever since.

The other books on my list, which I may comment on later are:
Sunshine by Robin McKinley
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Devil's Cub by Georgette Heyer.

The children were in agreement!

2011-03-12T10:08:00.002Z

The family have taken to watching some celebrity dancing thing of a Saturday evening.
Both children were very happy that Ade Edmondson got through to the final. The youngest because he was doing ballet and the first born because Rik Mayall came on at the end and hit him over the head with a frying pan.

My thoughts with Japan, especially those working in the nuclear power stations to limit the impact of this disaster.