Update: See my later post for Mr Steven Moffat Sir’s response to this. Details still lacking, though.

Errr, what? Now this is getting confusing. Apparently the fourteen further Matt Smith episodes that the BBC have commissioned include this year’s Christmas special, which you’d expect to mean the usual thirteen episodes in 2012. But the latest reports suggest that we won’t be getting a “full series” next year, with some vague remarks about a special build up to the 50th anniversary in 2013.

So, what’s happening? Some scattered “specials” next year, and more of the same the following year? How does this make any sense what-so-bloody-ever? Doctor Who (despite what some of the more moronic newspapers might be trying to suggest) is consistently the most popular TV show that isn’t a soap opera or an untalent show. It’s exported to numerous countries. DVD sales are healthy. So what possible reason could there be for making less of it? The 2009 specials made some kind of sense, as it gave more time for the new production team to get things planned, and David Tennant had some theatre stuff to deal with, but there are no such reasons this time that I’m aware of.

More information, with varying levels of spin will no doubt come to light over the coming days and weeks, but I’m hoping to hear something a lot more positive than this.

The Doctor Who News Page: No full series for Doctor Who in 2012.

Well, having mentioned the WordPress 3.2 Release Candidate earlier today, I decided to take my life, or at least my blog, in my hands and update Losing it[1]. Rather than do any of that tedious manual uploading and extracting, which is so several versions ago, I installed the quite handy WordPress Beta Tester Plugin, set it to the less exciting than it sounds Bleeding edge nightlies setting then hit the update page, which downloaded the latest nightly build, which just happens to be RC-1, and successfully updated the site.

Nothing seems to have broken so far, and I’m giving the new “distraction-free” full page editor a go. This makes everything on the browser tab disappear apart from the post title and the editing area, which seems to be expanding quite nicely as I type more of this stuff. I can see this being useful when you just want to type loads of text.

Blankness

As soon as you move the mouse (or slide a finger over the trackpad), a slimmed down toolbar appears at the top of the window, with the basic editing functions and the all-important Save button. That’s also where you find the option to get yourself out of full-screen mode if you need to use more advanced features, or you’re just overwhelmed by the blankness of the page.

Minimal

I hope I’m not going to create a paradox or a black hole or anything by including screenshots of this post being edited…

More on WP3.2 as I discover it…

[1] Note that this is now an actual footnote as I’ve removed the footnote from the title

No change today, which is not very exciting.

Here’s another picture from last week, which shows how the demolition of Tyne Bridge Tower is coming along.

Coming down nicely

I mentioned Ed recently when he released a video of an acoustic performance of this song, which is the one that caught my ear when he was on Later with Jools Holland a while back. Anyway, the single is available to buy now from all the usual sources. It contains the standard version, some remixes and an acoustic take on the song, which I rather like. The picture on the left[1] will take you to Amazon, where you can get either the MP3 or round shiny thing[2]. You can also get it from the iTunes store, and actual record shops[3].

As I mentioned before, this is good stuff from a young musician with a lot of talent. And I’m all in favour of encouraging that sort of thing.

[1] Assuming you’re not AdBlocking it, in which case ignore that sentence
[2] You tell youngsters about those, and they look at you like you’re a relic from the previous century. I don’t dare mention tapes…
[3] Remember those?

WordPress 3.2 is now officially imminent. Nice word, that. Yes, it’s now moved form Beta to Release Candidate status, which means that barring any major issues cropping up in the next few days[1], there will be an official release quite soon.

This version features a major facelift for the admin interface, which I like a lot.

There’s a new default theme called Twenty Eleven, which has more configuration and tweaking options than Twenty Ten. Not enough to tempt me away from Suffusion, but it looks like a good choice.

There are some things to be aware of, other than the usual caveat about not running test code on live sites[2]:

1. Your server needs to be running at least PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0
2. The admin interface no longer makes allowances for Internet Explorer 6[3]

There is, of course, more. See the RC announcement, and click through from there to the Beta announcement for more details

WordPress › WordPress 3.2 Release Candidate

I’ve upgraded my super-secret[4] test site, and it looks like it works just fine. I may take the plunge here later…

[1] If memory serves, this may have happened in the past
[2] Unless you are really confident about your backups
[3] Quite apart from not wanting to encourage people to use the thing, this avoids lots of extra code. Good thing.