SPOILERS! - Waters of Mars

I've once again broken my month-long blog silence to bring you .... A Brawny Review! (That could be a Breview I suppose... but anyway...)

DR WHO - THE WATERS OF MARS

In Which - The Doctor lands on Mars, ends up in the first human base on Mars, and then realises that he really shouldn't be there....

What did I think? - A bit of a strange beast this episode, as the majority of it seemed to be made up of a standard Dr Who "Base Under Siege" story, combined with the Doctor repeatedly saying "I should go" and then, well, not going. The Flood was the sort of monster that I like, an unexplained, inhuman, completely alien idea, hidden in something so simple and essential. But the pacing of the first half hour just felt, well, a little off.

The turning point was him in the airlock though, discussing what he knows must happen with Adelaide. It finally gave us an insight into the changing history / not changing history rules in Dr Who. (Or at least, in the new Russell T Davies era of Dr Who) by re-iterating that history has fixed points, things that can't be changed.

And then, the Doctor questions himself. Why can't he change things? He's the last time lord, there's no-one else left, what's to stop him?

So he does. He turns back and joins in the fight for survival. And I've never been so ambivalent about the Doctor saving people in my life. On the one hand, Yay, he's the Doctor, he should save people, and the base people seem nice enough. On the other hand, you know that what he is doing is against the laws of time, and you can't help but feel that there will be consequences (I'm pretty sure that the fact the final 2-part special is called "The End of Time" indicates that).

The end of the Mars-set action shows the Doctor coming up with a plan which almost feels like cheating, with the utilisation of the TARDIS to save everyone, although this obviously allows the explosion to happen as history recorded, presumably defeating the Flood.

And then, the Earth-set epilogue. Easily the finest end to a Dr Who episode in many years. The Doctor turns from having been a slightly over-cocky nice guy, to a very cocky... well... asshole. We get someone actually being freaked out by the TARDIS (which I've always thought is missing, most people would get properly spooked), and we get the Doctor insisting he is the Time Lord Victorious.

And then we get the death of Adelaide. Marred only slightly for me by the fact its the second climactic suicide scripted by RTD in the last year (the previous one, of course, being Frobisher in Torchwood: Children of Earth), it is a superb moment, and the Doctors realisation that he has gone too far.

And what happens from this point? Who knows, but I'm guessing it will be catastrophic...

(Oh and for all you pedants, I know that there wouldn't be fire on the surface of Mars, but didn't it look good)

The Good - Performances excellent all across the board, gripping ending, we get to see the Doctor be fallible for a change

The Bad - The annoying robot was annoying, and no amount of self satisfying references to the fact that robots are annoying can make him less annoying, the pacing of the first half hour felt very strange

Conclusion - I think it would have worked better in 45 minutes than the full hour (which is a very rare statement for me to make) but on the whole I liked it. 8/10 (Can't wait for End of Time!)

Now that the review is over, I'm sure many of you are wondering why I'm not pressing on with my novel. I am, sort of, I'm just procrastinating, but I'm at 33,000 words already. So I might make it... fingers crossed!

Packages and Word Counts

OK, so assume that this blog has started with apologies for not having written lately, although I did explain why I would be being less frequent with this blog in the post a couple of weeks ago.

But I got so annoyed with something today, that I had to write...

Royal Mail.

OK, so I don't really like to complain about them, because on the whole they provide a good service. It costs you a few pence and you can send something the length of the country. HOWEVER, if I ever get one of those little red "We tried to deliver something but you were out" cards, my heart sinks.

I'm ALWAYS out when they try and deliver something because, like most people, I work during the day. Therefore I have nothing against the cards per se, it's just that whenever I get one, the claiming of said package seems to be horrendously complicated.

It always says you should wait 48 hours between the time they tried to deliver it, and the time you go to collect it..

Why is this? I understand needing SOME time, because the package stays in the postmans bag since he's finished his round. But, working on the assumption that postmen go home at the end of a shift, and therefore leave their bags at work, I would assume that they get emptied every day. And therefore, you put everything that needs to be collected into a van, which takes it to the relevant sorting office. Surely. That'd make sense.

Well I don't know what they do, but it obviously isn't that.. as was proved by today when I went to pick up a recorded delivery package that they tried to deliver to me on Friday. I originally went on Monday, to be told it wasn't there yet, so I went today. And guess what? It's still not there... I guess this wouldn't be so bad, if not for the other major hassle with it...

The Sorting office is only open from 8am-12pm.

Four hours a day? Name me another public service that only opens for four hours a day, at the time when the majority of the population is at work!! Seriously, I can't fathom the logic behind this. Why do it?

So I'm still waiting for my package, (incidentally, I don't know what it is, and I really hope it's something for which going to this amount of hassle is worthwile (but I'm sure it will be (mostly))) which HOPEFULLY, I can pick up tomorrow, although that means I'll have to dive out of work during the day to go and try and get it. But I'm still vaguely hopeful it'll be there. Unlike something that was sent to me last year, which I never recieved because "It's gone missing..." That was the excuse. Seriously.

Like I said at the start, I know that they do provide a good service, but it's the little things like this that really just feel like a let down.

So, other than that, I'm still writing my novel for NaNoWriMo. As you may remember, my aim was to write 2000 words a day, so that I could have five days off. This has gone a little wrong...

I was on target until Thursday, which was my birthday, so I let myself have the day off. Then I did my 2000 on Friday, and since then... nothing. To be fair, I have got excuses (been visited by Neety, who bought me Guitar Hero: Metallica for my birthday!) but not a real, solid excuse. So now I'm staring at the document again, knowing that I have (ideally) 8000 words I need to catch up. Before tomorrow. And I'm in the middle of a chapter introducing a new character and I don't really know where I'm going with it.

And that's the thing thats hardest about this time/word limit. There's no time to go back, re-jig and cut bits. I could cut the half chapter I've got (which is about 1500 words) and just go to another character, but then I'd lose more word count.

So I'm procrastinating here and on the internet. And in a minute I shall cook some dinner. I'm trying to be good and not play Guitar Hero, but we'll see how the evening goes.

I could, of course, assume that Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Today were all days off, and recalculate accordingly. If I did that then I'd have 2000 words a day left to write, with NO days off... and since I'm heading to Poole this weekend, and again at the end of the month, I ought to try and salvage at least one.

Anyone else doing NaNoWriMo by the way? Or is it just me...

On the good news front, my nice bike is now on its way back to Poole, where my wonderful father will have a look at it, and see if it's fixable! Yay!

Anyway, I ought to go now....

Television - A Poor Man's Gold

In case you didn't know, I like to watch quite a lot of TV, both home-grown (Dr Who, Torchwood and many many comedy programs) and imported (Lost, Chuck and a lot of other US episodic drama), and I watch some of them on actual TV, many more via DVD, iPlayer and some .... other internet methods.

And recently, with the start of the new US TV Season, I've been going back to old favourites, and I also thought I'd try a new series, Flash Forward, which is currently airing here on the cultural wilderness known as Five. (On reflection, I'm being too hard on the poor channel, it does occasionally show good things - the current exception to it's "if it's not a procedural or a film, it has to be a rubbish documentary" rule is Ross Noble's Australian Trip, which IS a documentary, but not one of their usual ones with titles such as "The Giraffe that taught English as a Second Language in an obscure Antarctican Village", or "My Mother, the Top Hat". Whoops, I appear to have digressed a little, back to the point)



So, having sat through a few Flash Forward episodes, I'm sure you are all wondering what I thought of it. Is it, as some say, the new Lost?

Well no. Because there's no island, polar bear, obscure scientific research organisation or (so far anyway) Jim from Neighbours. (But it probably won't be long, he does turn up in just about every U.S. Drama Series at some point). But it's also not that because, unlike Lost, which started with an event that was unexplained, and has at every turn thrown up new events to be explained, Flash Forward's event was documented. And that is (for now, anyway) the ballgame. The event happened, this is the aftermath.

Except.... it just doesn't grip me. I tried my best, I sat through all the standard character types, assuming that at least one of them would develop, or that the plot might take an interesting turn, but I ended up actively switching off mid-way through episode 3 (I think), because I had completely stopped paying attention. I have no desire to watch it, and unless anyone that I know tells me that it gets better (as many people did with Heroes when I originally gave up a similar number of episodes in), then I probably won't give it a second shot. Although I will want to know the explanation behind the event and, more importantly, if it gets re-comissioned for a second season, I will want to know how they're going to continue as they will have passed the flash forward date by that point...

So for the moment, that's off my schedule. Which leaves me down to just two US shows that I am regularly watching as soon as I can after they air (being as Lost and Chuck don't re-start till after Christmas), one of which is the aforementioned Heroes.



Heroes and I have a intricately weaved past. Every time I try to give up on it, something happens to pull me back in. In the first season I watched a few episodes, and gave up until, towards the end of the season, a friend advised me to watch, and I did, watching the vast majority of season one in one sitting. At which point I grew excited for the finale, and then disappointed when I actually saw it. Still, a show that good must get better in Season Two, right?

Wrong. Season Two was just messy, lazy, and to be honest, only had enough plot (yes, I said plot, people travelling to see someone else for 8 episodes is NOT plot!) for about 4 or 5 episodes, and introduced some of the most annoying characters. Ever.

So Season Three? Tim Kring, creator, stated they'd learnt from the mess of Season Two, and had a new plan...and it sort of worked. In bits. But we got ANOTHER dystopian future (the third in three seasons) that needed to be stopped, we got characters completely changing their minds on things just for the sake of the plot, we got convulted Time Travel plots, Ali Larter playing a different crazy blond woman, Peter and Sylar both becoming way too powerful.... And Nathan being an ass. As always.

And I'm now a few episodes into Season Four, and I still don't know whether I want to stick with it. Of course, I will, because I'm hooked. And I have to know what happens. And its almost as if the writers know that, and are just twisting us along. For every good moment (Peter/HRG team-ups and Matt/Sylar mind battles), we get multiple bad ones (Sylar with Amnesia, A random selection of carnival villains, ANOTHER potential love interest for Peter (who has a frankly useless power), HRG moping, Claire entering a bisexual relationship (and that wasn't done for ratings at all was it??) and Angela Petrelli - just generally being as useless as she has been for three years). But this is where Heroes has got me, and Flash Forward hasn't. I cared about them at the start. And I'll therefore take all the crap, just to see how it ends. But Flash Forward? I'll just read about what happened.

"But Brawny, what's the other show you are regularly watching?" I hear you all yell. (Well I don't. But I can imagine that might be what you're yelling. Or at least that you might be gently mumbling under your breath as you peruse this blog. Or maybe you don't care. Well stuff it. It's my blog, and I'll tell you). It is, of course, the wonder that is House M.D.


By all rights I shouldn't particularly like this show. I'm a big fan of high-concept TV, which it isn't. I'm a big fan of sci-fi, which it isn't. And I usually can't stand procedural shows. Which it is. But it's just so damn good. Hugh Laurie is outstanding, and flanked by a superb support cast. And the writing is good, and funny. And it breaks with procedure JUST enough that it feels different, and you do often feel that an episode could not follow the schedule of
Mysterious illness - Ideas - Patient gets worse - More Ideas - Patient nearly dies - House has random thought that he connects to Patient - Patient saved - Interspersed with a subplot either involving Cuddy or Wilson, depending on who is less involved in the actual medical case.
And this season particularly (Season 6) has been outstanding, causing genuine changes in the Status Quo, (and yes, I'm aware I've capitalised that as if it was the band, but I like it. And as I pointed out in an earlier set of brackets, it's my blog. So if you don't like it, tough!) and I have no knowledge whether they are permanent changes, but it's a show that's never been afraid to do that before, so who knows?

To conclude : Watch House - Avoid Flash Forward - Put up with Heroes.

NaNoWriMo

Hey there Guys! (And girls, I wouldn't want my blog to appear sexist in any way...)

After the two kind of serious blogs I posted on Friday, I thought I'd just casually ask you wonderful people (some of whom I know are writers) if any of you are taking part in NaNoWriMo this year?

For those of you who don't know, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, and is basically a challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. I've often considered doing it, and I've decided that this year, I'm going to do it.

Writing 50,000 words a month equates to about 2000 words a day, with 5 days off... so basically, you may get less blogs from me over the month of November (and also in the last week of October too, because I'm heading back to Poole for a well-deserved break :P)

I did consider starting a seperate blog to keep track of how the novel is going, but then I realised that's just adding more writing work to my month, and that'd be silly!

So basically, if you are doing NaNoWriMo - feel free to add me as a buddy on their website, if you're not but you are thinking about it, then go for it, and if you aren't interested at all, then just bear in mind that you will probably hear less from me over the next month or so!

Peace out, my homies.

Am I Heartless?

I was reading BBC News' round-up of Antony Gormley's "Fourth Plinth" project this morning, and the thing that struck me most was how many of the people named in the article did things to raise awareness for charity.

Now, can I just state that I am not against charity, and indeed I believe that charities are good things (I know that sounds like an obvious statement, and that you'd have to have the brain capacity of a retarded chihuahua to disagree with it, but I thought it was worth stating, since the rest of this article may well sound like I don't like charities)

Are these people who would get up on a statue to raise awareness really more generous and caring than I am? If I'd been on the plinth I'd have taken a guitar and played music, or... well, I don't know. That's one of the reasons I didn't do it! But it would never have occurred to me to just get up and promote a charity.

And that, in a nutshell, is my worry. If you asked me whether I would do something for charity (and, in this example, let's assume it was something I was capable of doing / would enjoy / didn't need to do any organising for) then I would say yes. Or, alternatively, if I was directing a show, and someone wanted me to donate a share of the profits to charity, then I'd consider it and discuss it with the relevant people. But if you offered me a chance to do / talk about whatever I like, then I guarantee you it wouldn't be a charity I talked about.

Another example - A good friend of mine often goes out to Romania to work with orphans, he has done for several years now, and I'm sure a lot of good comes from it. However, when he returned, he was very enthusiastic that I, and various other friends, should go out to Romania with him next time, so that we could all work with the orphans and make everything nice and wonderful. Lots of our mutual friends said yes, but I instantly said no.

It's not because I think orphans aren't a deserving cause for charity work, it's just that I don't want to go out there and work with them, when there are so many factions of my life that are not, as yet, in order. Also, if you start doing things like that, where do you draw the line? If it was me, I'd be consumed with guilt for only helping the orphans and not the lame dogs of Germany, or some other charity work.

Don't get me wrong, I'd donate money to charity (and indeed, i have done before) if I had a suitable disposable income, but I don't. So I guess I value my own life and well-being (and that of family, friends and people I know) over that of good causes. But do other people feel differently? Do people genuinely rank charity causes above their own comfort? Or are they just racked with guilt at not being able to do enough?

I'm well aware that this post makes me sound like a selfish, idiotic asshole... but I do genuinely worry about it.

Am I a heartless bastard?

A Strange, Lonely and Troubling piece of Journalism (AKA Jan Moir: Homophobe)

Consider this a warning - this is an angry, sweary, offended blog, which is on a subject I know a lot of people have talked about / blogged about today (including people much more talented than me, such as Charlie Brooker) but, having read the offending article, a few hours ago, and then mulled it over in my mind, I felt I wanted to say something.

For those of you who don't know what this is about, today in the Daily Mail, a piece was published by their columnist Jan Moir, both in print and online, entitled "A Strange, Lonely and Troubling death..." which is about the death of Stephen Gately.

Now, just to be clear, I'm not a mad Boyzone fan, and nor did I have any particular affection for Mr Gately himself, except for that affection one affords to all human beings (excluding those who have done something to cause that affection to be terminated). I read of his death a couple of days ago, and my brain simply registered "Oh, that's sad." Then, this morning, I started to see people posting on Facebook and other such outlets about Ms Moir's article. So I decided to have a read and see what all the fuss was about.

Where do I start? At the beginning I guess... (Please bear in mind that I shall not be reproducing the ENTIRE article here, just sections...)

"The news of Stephen Gately's death was deeply shocking. It was not just that another young star had died pointlessly"

Well yes, it was that another young star had died pointlessly. In fact, I would say it was more shocking than those who die from fast living, drug overdoses and the like...

"Through the recent travails and sad ends of Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger and many others, fans know to expect the unexpected of their heroes - particularly if those idols live a life that is shadowed by dark appetites or fractured by private vice."

OK, so when you get to this stage in the article, you are expecting her to reveal that Stephen Gately had some "dark appetite" or "private vice". Was it drugs? Drinking? An addiction to kittens? Let's read on...

Well none of the next few paragraphs imply any such vice, reminding us that Gately was "charming, cute, polite and funny." And basically, apart from a none-too-subtle dig at his vocal abilities "he was the group's co-lead singer, even though he could barely carry a tune in a Louis Vuitton trunk", the piece appears to be a simple statement of the facts, carrying on to talk about Gately being forced out of the closet by someone threatening to run the story in a paper, and then about his civil union he entered into in 2006.

Then the self-righteous, self-serving, suspicious, shit-stirring and frankly disgusting side of Ms Moir starts to emerge

"All the official reports point to a natural death, with no suspicious circumstances. The Gately family are - perhaps understandably - keen to register their boy's demise on the national consciousness as nothing more than a tragic accident... But, hang on a minute. Something is terribly wrong with the way this incident has been shaped and spun into nothing more than an unfortunate mishap on a holiday weekend...The sugar coating on this fatality is so saccharine-thick that it obscures whatever bitter truth lies beneath. Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again."

OK, first things first Ms Moir, your name is not Dr Moir. You have not (as far as I am aware) studied medicine. This makes us equal on knowledge of these particular subjects, as neither have I. So please explain to me, how the FUCK are you able to say that 33 year old men do not just go to sleep, never to wake up again?? And your assumption that the incident has been shaped and spun, surely you have evidence of such a thing? Surely you wouldn't just write slanderous accusations towards a man who died less than a week ago?

"Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this. All that has been established so far is that Stephen Gately was not murdered. And I think if we are going to be honest, we would have to admit that the circumstances surrounding his death are more than a little sleazy."

Forgive me, but surely if the death is not murder, and the toxicology report shows that there were no drugs in his system, then it is a NATURAL death. That's kinda the point of the statement. And the circumstances surrounding his death are sleazy? How do you know? Were you there??

"After a night of clubbing, Cowles and Gately took a young Bulgarian man back to their apartment. It is not disrespectful to assume that a game of canasta with 25-year-old Georgi Dochev was not what was on the cards. Cowles and Dochev went to the bedroom together while Stephen remained alone in the living room."

IT'S NOT DISRESPECTFUL? YES IT FUCKING IS!!! You have made the assumption that a) All Gay Men are the same, b) All Gay Men are sex mad and c) There is no reason for bringing someone back to your apartment other than for some sordid sex act. You then go on to point out that the man in question (Stephen Gately) WAS NOT EVEN WITH THE "YOUNG BULGARIAN MAN" AT THE TIME HE DIED!!! So for WHAT reason is it worth bringing that up? And if you are implying that they may have had a threesome, or had the intention of having a threesome, I'm sure you can find thousands of people in heterosexual marriages that have had one, or thought about one, or discussed the idea, and I'm sure none of them died from it, ESPECIALLY if they weren't in the same room as the others!

Oh, but it gets worse

"Another real sadness about Gately's death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships. "

Oh it does, does it? Why's that you ignorant homophobe?

"Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael. "

Yes, this much is true. If you look at heterosexual marriages, not everyone is like... well... Angus Dayton... or OJ Simpson... or.. the list goes on...

"Of course, in many cases this may be true. Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas..."

OK, firstly, Kevin McGee comitted suicide. This is obviously a tragedy, as it would be for anyone comitting suicide. However, it had (certainly as far as is common knowledge) NOTHING to do with his ex-civil partnership with Matt Lucas, so how on earth can you bring that up as any form of argument within this debate?

" and now the dubious events of Gately's last night raise troubling questions about what happened. "

There are always troubling questions about why someone dies, then they do an autopsy, and give us answers. Which has been done. The man died from "acute pulmonary oedema, a build-up of fluid on his lungs." So please explain to me, Ms Moir, how exactly does one contract acute pulmonary oedema from bringing a Bulgarian Man aged 25 home with you and letting him go into the other room with your husband? I was unaware that this could happen, does this also mean I could suffer from a punctured lung if my girlfriend booked a hotel room and then stayed there without me because I couldn't make it there? That makes about as much sense as your analogy

"It is important that the truth comes out about the exact circumstances of his strange and lonely death."

Yes, it is. But the people who will discover the truth are the coroner, and the police, and I hope that they simply pass that information on, as they should do, to the Gately family, so that they can mourn for their loss.

*Takes breath, swigs whiskey*

To put it bluntly, Ms Moir appears to be of the opinion that being in a gay marriage means that you will be promiscuous and indulge in many varied sex acts, and that this will apparantly cause fluid to build up in your lungs, and that really all gay men just want to fuck any other men that move.

What an ignorant bitch.

(As stated earlier, I apologise for the offensive language in this post, and I also apologise if any of my facts are wrong, these are the facts as I understand them from the public press.)

If you have read the article and are as offended by it as I am, feel free to visit the Press Complaints Commission website to complain. Apparently (and this information comes from those more knowledgable than I) the article breaches sections 1, 5 and 12 of its code of practice. (Apparently the site crashed earlier today, but should be back up and running)

Games - Too hard then, too easy now?

Last night, after re-discovering Zak and Wiki on the Wii (and solving three more levels), I decided to indulge in a good bit of retro gaming, and turned on my N64, ready to play the game that was lurking within the 90s black plastic console...

Which game was it? Why none other than the perennial N64 Favourite Goldeneye!

Now, either I've got a lot worse at the game (which is possible, I was never particularly good at it before), or I've been spoiled by other FPS that have existed more recently. I'm not a massive FPS player, being of the opinion that Doom II on the PC is the best FPS of all time, and not owning a PS3 or XBOX360 (the platforms of choice for Nazi/Zombie/Other general bad guy shooting fun), but I do know what I like, and I have played various modern FPS's, usually in 2 player mode round other peoples houses.

But what spoils me? The map. The fact that you can, at a glance, see where you are in relation to other things. Even Doom had an in-game map (accessed by pressing TAB I seem to remember), but Goldeneye doesn't have one (certainly not one that I can find - feel free to correct me if I'm being an idiot).

On early levels this is fine (and, incidentally, I have played the early levels so often I know exactly where I'm going and what I'm doing), but last night I dropped into my saved game, onto a level I have absolutely no memory of (The Statue level). And boy, was I rubbish. I got lost, I shot my contact, I shot the guy I was meant to be unmasking, I blew up the helicopter and the girl I was supposed to be saving died....

So, whoops there :P

But are things easier now? I don't know. In regards to a completely different type of game, New Super Mario Bros Wii is coming out on November 20th (YAY) and apparently has "Super Guide" - which means "players will be able to pause the game, let the game complete the level for them, and resume play at any time by unpausing. This is only available in single player when a player has failed to complete a level eight times."

Now, when I heard about this, I despaired slightly, because frankly, that sounds like another step towards making games easier. However, it may have had the opposite effect as, according to Russ Frushtick from MTV Multiplayer ""New Super Mario Bros." on the Wii is going to teach you a lesson in humility. It's really hard. ... Nintendo was showing off some of the new levels from the game. The first they dropped me in was level 8-7 and very near the end of the game .... I went in expecting instant success, I left with zero lives and a lower sense of self worth... It's because of the Super Guide that the developers were able to crank up the difficulty, knowing that they no longer needed to make the game for the lowest-skilled player. So you're left with what's arguably the most hardcore Mario game you've ever played."

So, is the Super Guide a new way of allowing casual gamers and hardcore games to both play the game without complaining? Is it the new version of a difficulty level?

I hope so. I could do with a Mario game that's hard... :)

I'll let you all know once I get it!