More idle thoughts

First off the serious stuff. I'm sure you all know this by now but the LJ Downtime is politically motivated, which makes me a bit ashamed of whining about it because what for many us is a minor inconvenience is much more serious for others. I was never intending to leave LJ anyway, but I'm certainly not going to now if they have the guts to stand up to Russian political pressure.

On a happier note we took a step back in time on Tuesday and went to see Steeleye Span again.

( In a time before Mumford & Son there was Steeleye Span )

Yesterday we went to the theatre again, this time to see "SMASH!" at the Menier Chocolate Factory. This was a play written by the late Jack Rosenthal based on the theatrical mayhem that surrounded the failed production of his play "Bar Mitzvah Boy" as a musical. When I booked it starred Tom Conti and Kerry Shale and what I didn't know until last week was that Kerry Shale had left the production and been replaced by Richard Schiff. Yay Toby!

( SMASH )

And finally: Merlin fandom you are totally killing me, but in the best way. There's so much terrific fic out there at the moment that I've been running about like a headless chicken not sure what to read next. All the glomp_fest fic has been amazing and today giselleslash posted And Then They Kiss written for me. I'm pretty much speechless with total delight now. Thanks so much to giselleslash and the organisers of glomp_fest, which was a lovely idea.

And while I'm on the subject of Merlin also thanks to Merlin's merry tweeting trio of Bradley, Dale and Alice for, both separately and together, keeping me so entertained.

Long time no post here, but I may have to try crossposting if this carries on. Maybe I'll even...change my layout. Sigh...

Today is the day that BBC Radio 7 turns into BBC Radio 4 Extra for reasons that are probably clear to the BBC Trust, but not totally clear to me. There are some different programmes, but mostly it's the same mix of archive comedy, drama and readings. As I really like Radio 7 (apart from its very annoying jingles) I'm quite happy about that.

One of the new additions that I'm very pleased about is Desert Island Discs Revisited. DID can be a really brilliant programme and as the guest for this edition from 2000 is J.K Rowling I'll definitely be listening to this. Incidentally the DID guest on R4 this week is Martin Sheen, so I'll try to listen to that too or download it as a podcast. Still on the subject of Desert Island Discs they've just put a quite large selection of archive recordings on line here. The musical choices are truncated because of copyright issues but it's a treasure trove of radio already and I hope they put up more.

Back to Radio 4 Extra if you missed the Torchwood play Lost Souls that's being rebroadcast on Sunday. They are also broadcasting three of Big Finish's Doctor Who Eight and Lucie adventures Orbis, The Beast of Orlok and The Scapegoat. Big Finish's audio adventures of Doctor Who are really wonderful so if you haven't heard them this is a great chance.

Other goodies for people like me keen on SF and Fantasy are the dramatisations of Terry Pratchett starting on Monday with Mort and continuing on Friday with Wyrd Sisters.

For the really silly there is a rebroadcast of Hordes of the Things, "an epic Tolkien parody" from 1980 or the possibly even sillier and more recent Elvenquest. If you're in the right mood both of these series are very funny.

All of these programmes should be available on the iPlayer after broadcast with no regional restrictions. And that's me doing my bit to advertise Radio 4 Extra *g*. /radio nerd mode off

In other news: I'm still recovering from Bradley James's Friday Knight treat. If you're a Merlin fan I can't believe you haven't seen it, but it's here (complete with entirely predictable Season 4 casting spoilers *g*). Enjoy!

Tearing myself away from Bradley James's computer problems (or how to turn your fan following to good use and get them to assist you) and Neil Gaiman's central heating woes (Twitter, the great leveller...) to do a TV viewing update.

The Killing - the last episodes were shown on BBC4 on Saturday, but we were late coming to it so are still way behind and frantically trying to avoid spoilers. This is a totally addictive TV series. It goes at its own pace following the murder investigation, Copenhagen politics and the grief of the murder victims parents. Sarah Lund is the most compelling female detective since Jane Tennison, full of flaws but absolutely fixated on finding the killer. If my eyes could survive the subtitles we'd watch an episode of this every night!

Silk - I have no idea how accurate this is about life as a barrister (not very I suspect), but it's fun to watch. Rupert Penry-Jones plays a character rather less heroic than usual and Maxine Peake is interestingly spiky as Martha Costello. I like Neil Stuke's scheming head clerk too as I've had a soft spot for Neil Stuke ever since I saw him nearly melt in front of me at the Menier Chocolate Factory. Last episode tonight.

Friday Night Dinners - this is hysterical. It may not be to everybody's taste and it probably helps if you come from a family where your brother, after a furious row with your mother, stormed out of the house completely forgetting it was his own, because some of the situations are not quite recognisable, but definitely slightly familiar. Tamsin Grieg is wonderful as always but I think the true scene stealer is Wilson the dog.

Twenty Twelve - a spoof documentary style satire on London's Olympic preparations on BBC4. I haven't seen last night's yet but the first two have been both extremely funny and ever so slightly uncomfortable. On the day we watched the second episode J had been to a Team Away Day all day and they had a speaker who had used exactly the same phraseology as Hugh Bonneville was spouting, including "managing expectations". Hugh Bonneville is always wonderful and David Tennant does an excellent job with the fake documentary style commentary.

Away from the telly our trip to "Black Swan" at the weekend was probably the last time we'll go to the David Lean cinema as I don't think we can manage their swansong The Last Picture Show. I presumed the council were closing them because they were losing money, but the guy on the door on Saturday told me they were actually making a profit, a small profit, but a profit. I was resigned to the closure before I heard that, but now I'm furious.

Note for Miranda fans: She's presenting a show on Radio 2 yesterday, today and tomorrow. I haven't heard it yet, but it's available on the iPlayer here and as it's radio it should be available to all.

We've just filled in the Census (I have particular love for question 17) so I'm obviously in the mood to answer questions. Here's the 20 questions meme borrowed from archaeologist_d.

The Rules:
1. People who have been tagged must write the answers on their blog and replace any question they dislike with a new, original question.

2. Tag eight people. Don't refuse to do that. Don't tag who tagged you. - But I've never been good with rules so anyone can answer if they wish.

( Questions and answers behind the cut )

I don't seem to have updated for about a week though I've written lots of imaginary posts in my head. Here are digests of some of them!

• Had a lovely day on Sunday when we went into London, ate brunch on the South Bank and then strolled along the river. Most of the rest of London had the same idea as there were hordes of people strolling with us, but it's my favourite London walk and it was lovely to see the sun and almost feel as if it was spring. There would have been a picspam but my camera batteries died!

• The Thames was very high and the tide was still coming in. Underneath Southwark Bridge the currents were really racing and I went into history nerd mode telling poor J about how boats used to have to shoot the rapids under Old London Bridge. If I stole the TARDIS the medieval London Bridge is one of the sights I'd most like to see, barring the severed heads above the gate houses.

• Technology hates me at the moment. I've had to switch my LJ comments to my gmail address which seriously annoyed me and then Firefox started to play up too. I think I've wrestled Firefox into submission but I'd love to know if LJ's comments are getting through again so I can switch back to my other email address.

• I may have signed up to Twitter. I have no idea why, no, really *g*. Learning to use it so far is like learning to speak a foreign language! I've also had to disguise myself to hide from my brother who is also on Twitter so I'm Kathyh256, which is actually not much of a disguise on LJ, though I hope it is from family members in RL

• J was in Lincolnshire on Friday night so we "simulwatched" Comic Relief. The combination of comedy and extreme human distress always makes me a bit uncomfortable but there is no doubt that as a formula it works. The highlights for me weren't the Doctor Who sketch but the Masterchef feature (I thought Michel Roux Jnr was going to become hysterical, either from laughter or alarm), Miranda in her own sketch and the dancing with JLS and the Smithy sketch, which was extraordinary. It's here, but I don't know if people outside the UK can see it. It's not too late to give them some money.

I think I'm better at writing imaginary posts than I am at writing real ones!

Still no good news from Japan :( ETA: Yes, there is. honorh is OK!!!

Here's what I would have posted yesterday about the recent films I've been to see and the closure of our local independent cinema. It's run by the council and as the arts budget for the borough has been slashed a loss-making small cinema is obviously the first to go. There's no real argument to be made against it as we have two multiplexes in the area and are within easy reach of London, but this was the one cinema here where you could see non-commercial films. The multiplexes only show "big" films and anything quirky, interesting, foreign or a documentary has no chance. I really don't want to have to go back to doing what we had to do when we first moved back here, which was trek into London if we wanted to see anything that isn't completely mainstream (and it's not as if I have unusual taste in film). The other advantage of the indie cinema was that if you wanted to be sure of a decent seat you had to book in advance, which made us much more likely to go. I suppose it's better than it used to be when there were no cinemas here at all, but I'm still cross.

As I was operating in the spirit of "use it or lose it" before I heard about the closure we went to see "True Grit" there, which we could easily have seen at the multiplex. I enjoyed it but didn't love it, though it was great to see a Western again. Terrific performance by Hailee Steinfeld and the cinematography was fabulous, but I'm glad the Oscar went to "The King's Speech" as I found it a far more involving film.

( Some old films we've seen recently )

Speaking of the telly we're currently completely addicted to "The Killing" (Forbrydelsen) and trying desperately to catch up with it on the iPlayer. It's in Danish with subtitles, absolutely compelling and has a great female character in the detective Sarah Lund. We're loving it.

I've been loving this series of "Being Human" too, but am petrified about what's going to happen tonight. I can't see any way it's going to end well for anybody.

On a completely trivial note I thought Mitchell's date of birth last week was familiar and then I realised he was born the day after my grandmother!

This post is brought to you by the fact that I had a decent night's sleep for the first time in nearly a week last night as J's cough is finally going!

I thought that posting the last lot not so long ago would mean I didn't have so many this time. Wrong!

Note to self: do not try and do this when you've been kept awake all night by husband with a cough. It's a recipe for disaster, wrong numbering and duplicate icons!

48 Merlin and Merlin cast icons
21 Highlander icons (some from hl_stills but some new)
18 Doctor Who icons
12 Being Human icons

Teasers:


( Merlin and Merlin cast )

( Highlander )

( Doctor Who )

( Being Human )

Want, take, have, though credit much appreciated. Sorry if I've forgotten any credits. Please let me know and blame it on the sleepless night!

Yesterday it was my turn to go and see Colin Morgan in "Our Private Life" at the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs (and they mean that) at the Royal Court. I'm ashamed to say that this was the first time I'd ever been to the Royal Court Theatre and it wasn't a play I would normally have chosen to go and see, but I'm very pleased Colin was in it because I found it an interesting, challenging and, for such a difficult subject, strangely enjoyable play. I was absolutely convinced J was going to loathe it, which just goes to show that even after 27 years he can still surprise me because he didn't hate it! His verdict was "a good play", "much more entertaining than I was expecting" and "very well acted". That's the short review.

( The only slightly longer review )

We didn't do the stage door thing, though I was very tempted, but J was with me and he isn't great (read amazingly bad) at hanging around waiting for anything. An even stronger argument was his "what would you say to him?" and all I could think of was "Um". As I didn't really want to do my impression of a demented goldfish opening and shutting my mouth I agreed that maybe it was better to leave. Thanks...I think.

I must have gone to bed earlier last night because I didn't see that Nicholas Courtney had died until this morning. I knew he wasn't well but I was still hoping we might get to see him in the new series of Doctor Who after his appearance in the Sarah Jane Adventures. The Doctor Who universe without the Brigadier seems a very much poorer place now. My deepest sympathy to Nicholas Courtney's family and friends but I hope they will be comforted by knowing what a well loved actor he was.

I woke up to the news that the death toll from the Christchurch earthquake has risen and is expected to rise still further. We went to Christchurch when we were on holiday in New Zealand six years ago and it's quite hard to comprehend that a place of which I have such fun and happy memories has been so devastated. There are no words really.