Daily Archives: Monday, 9th June 2008
London Pictures – 2 August 2007
And in one more burst of tuitness, I present my last batch of London photos. This small set shows a few things I saw on my way from the station to the hotel, and some more of the view from the hotel. There’s even a day and a night view of the same building for your entertainment. One or two of these have been Flickred, but the rest are new.
And that wraps up the backlog for August. I have a total of 890 pictures I took that month, and I’ve shared a good number of those here. I’ll be moving on to July soon – and that will include a lot of pictures from the Sunderland International Air Show.
London Pictures – 3 August 2007 (Part Three)
After that walk from Tower Hill to Westminster, we got on a river boat for a trip to Greenwich. The boat had an open deck with lots of seats, and provided a great view as we moved along the Thames, seeing some of the same sights from different angles.
At Greenwich, we had a look round Flamsteed House, the original Royal Observatory – that was rather special for me, as I grew up reading every astronomy book I could get my hands on, and I remember seeing pictures of the room with the telescopes. To actually be in that room was really great. I also enjoyed seeing the Harrison Chronometers, the first seriously accurate clocks small and stable enough to be carried on ships, and which allowed sailors to work out their longitude with a great deal of precision for the first time. If you haven’t already done so, I recommend you read Longitude by Dava Sobel, an excellent little book which tells the whole story[1].
Declining to stand in line to stand on the line, well, the Prime Meridian, that is, we had a wander back through Greenwich Park, enjoying the view of the Old Royal Naval College, the O2 Arena (formerly known as the Millennium Dome), and the modern towers of Canary Wharf. By either luck or careful planning, from the right place in Greenwich Park, the Canary Wharf buildings can be nicely framed by the smaller, but infinitely more tasteful towers of the Naval College.
After all that, a wee drinkie and some dinner, we went through the pedestrian tunnel under the Thames, which gave us a lovely view of the Naval College basking in the setting sun. I went back to my hotel, and got a few pictures of the skyline.
There’s a moderate selection of pictures in this album showing all the stuff I’ve just mentioned.
[1]
Weight Report – 9 June 2008
Oh noes![1] This weight thing is going the wrong way again. I’ve somehow managed to get above the 100kg mark again. I really need to find some motivation somewhere….
[1] OK, that’s enough LOLCAT speak for one day…
Doctor Who – Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead
Ooooooooh, boy. I mentioned the first part of this story the day it was shown, expecting to do my usual quick plot summary and general mutterings about it. But the second part made me think again. You see, there was so much going on, with three separate, yet beautifully linked together, threads, that any attempt to summarise the plot would:
- Take too long for anyone to actually want to read
- Make my head explode
So instead, I’ll just touch on some of the details and ideas in the story.
This being a Steven Moffat story, a wee bit of scariness was only to be expected. But his creation of the Vashta Nerada – “piranhas of the air”, creatures of the shadows that will strip you to your skeleton before you get a chance to scream – was particularly nasty. But the mere presence of the nasty shadows wasn’t enough, oh no. When people in space suits were killed by the monsters, we had some even nastier stuff, as the Vashta Nerada proceeded to walk around in the suits in a suitably menacing way. What? Not nasty enough? How about walking around in the suits while endlessly repeating the last words of the former occupant of the suit? Oh, and if you find you have an extra shadow, it’s all over…
The story hinges around the presence of huge numbers of them in the biggest library in the universe, how they got there and what happened to all the people who were in the library when contact was lost a century earlier. Or does it? It’s really the story of how the Doctor meets Professor River Song for the first time. Well, the first time for him, and what might turn out to be the last time for her.
She clearly knows him very well – so well in fact that she knows his real name, a fact that he’s not known for revealing to anyone. And he gave her his sonic screwdriver. err, will give her his sonic screwdriver.[1] Is River Song a future companion, or perhaps more? Will we ever find out, or will it be left as tantalising mystery? Either way, it’s an excellent example of Steven Moffat’s wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. Meeting people in the wrong order is the sort of thing that should happen to a time traveller all the, err, time, but hardly ever does. I’m guessing that we can expect to see a lot more temporal fun, games and confusion when Steven’s first series as Head Writer/Executive Producer/Whomeister is shown in a couple of years.
And while all that’s going on, Donna finds herself living a new life. She meets a perfect man (“gorgeous and hardly says a word”), has two kids and is only mildly disturbed by the way her life seems to jump from scene to scene. Just who is Dr Moon, and why does he keep making Donna forget about the Doctor? And who is that little girl who’s watching what’s going on in the library, at first in her dreams (which Dr Moon tells her are real) and then on TV? And what kind of fancy multi-function remote control has she got that makes her father disappear?
See? It’s complicated. You wouldn’t believe how much I left out. This was seriously good stuff – about as dark as Doctor Who can get, given that its brief requires it to be “family viewing”. I have to say that I tend to think that’s a Good Thing – it certainly contributes to the unique character of the show. One of the best stories yet, and Steven will probably need to make room for some more awards on his shelf.
Next week, it looks like a bit of fun, then after that things will get very serious for the last three episodes of the series. 
[1] Douglas Adams once wrote about the biggest problem with time travel was getting the grammar right…
London Pictures – 3 August 2007 (Part Two)
At the end of my Embankment walk, I reached Tower Hill, where I was soon joined by Kevin, CL, Martin and Dennis. After a quick look at the outside of the Tower of London, we decided against paying to stand in a long queue to get in for the tour, so we walked around the place to Tower Bridge. We crossed over that delightfully bonkers bit of Victorian Gothic Engineering, then had a walk along the other side of the Thames. We passed some guitars, some fountains, a ship or two and some entertaining sculptures. We also popped into a market and saw some Space Invaders. We stopped for lunch in a pub, then carried on back to Westminster where we got on a boat. But that’s for the next part of the story.
Lots of pictures in this set. Some have appeared before, most are new.
Related posts
Canary
While you’re waiting for me to get on with the rest of the London pictures[1], here’s a nicely odd one for you to be getting on with.
Now I have to say that I’m not much of an ornithologist, but I’m pretty sure that the label isn’t strictly accurate…
[1] I’ve narrowed down the Friday pictures to around 85 that might be appearing soon…
