vivdunstan

As I say on my profile page I mainly use this blog to keep track of dosage changes and symptom patterns/progression in my neurological disease. Those entries are restricted to family only.

I do post more widely though. Many early entries are friends-locked. If you know me, either in person or online, feel free to friend me.

But some entries will be on more open access, especially those I link to from Twitter.

Having finished rewatching the BBC 1988-1990 Narnia TV series we are now happily starting to watch the extended making of documentary covering the full thing. Just learned about the beaver actors constantly falling over in the Scottish snow, and having to be rescued by dedicated “beaver retrievers”.

Just enjoyed a retro Commodore 64 text adventure entry in this year's Spring Thing Festival of interactive fiction games. Recommended for old timers like me, especially if, again like me, you were a Commodore 64 owner back in the day!

Clearing more secondhand books to go to charity. We don't have enough bookcases in this house and there are lots of piles. Positive: digging into a pile that hasn't seen the light of day for years reveals a large number of books to donate to charity. Negative: it can undermine another pile!

Also there's a limit to how many books Martin can take at a time to our local Oxfam's (the best place locally to donate them to find good homes). He may need several trips with over 30 books looked out today! Plus a backlog of other ones plus Big Finish Doctor Who audios.

There are many more piles and areas still to be attacked ...

We watched this last week, another 20-years-on anniversary rewatch. I remembered really liking this story on first watch, with some provisos. And it's still great.

Tightly written, full of content. There's an original Scottish setting, and it was nice to see David Tennant's Doctor use a Scottish accent, and be incorporated into the plot.

Rose is very resourceful and brave, leading the prisoners' defence. But at the same time she is phenomenally irritating re the repeated "We are not amused!", and her Princess Anne jibe was incredibly misjudged by RTD. And I say that as a non royalist.

The episode is full of exciting action scenes, from the opening monk acrobatic hijinks, through to the werewolf transformation, and the final climax.

A strong guest cast, mostly Scottish, helps immensely. Pauline Collins - a Classic Who returnee to Doctor Who - is a memorable Queen Victoria.

Much running along corridors, and more stairs. But effectively done, and not annoyingly repetitive.

Some nice uses of history, and as a book historian I especially liked the woodcut showing something relevant from James V's era. Unlike Jonathan Creek's "Satan's Chimney" episode with Mary Tamm, this story at least got the correct Scottish monarch!

And nods to the future, re both Torchwood and Bad Wolf.

Great stuff, albeit still with a few quibbles. And, yes, incredibly tightly written, which again RTD2 and also Capaldi-era Moffat could take lessons from.

Oh and the early 2000s special effects seemed to hold up well for me watching two decades on.

This last week marked 20 years since the start of David Tennant's first full series of Doctor Who. We weren't planning to rewatch anything, but stumbled at midnight that night into a rewatch of "New Earth". I wouldn't be surprised if we rewatch more episodes over the coming weeks ...

I jotted down some quick thoughts while watching.

• DT so young!
• Seeing Mickey is going to be *challenging*, but hey ho
• Nice to combine first new Tenth series story with a sequel to End of the World
• So many lift shafts and stair scenes in this early era of New Who!
• Adjoa Andoh's voice even more recognisable for me now after watching some of Bridgerton
• Certainly pre Covid, with the Doctor opening up multiple patient cells, full of people infected with many diseases, and saying it’s ok as long as you don’t touch them
• Marvellous cat acting from Doña Croll particularly
• Very dark storytelling, but also incredibly concise for the runtime - RTD 2 could take lessons
• Overall a fun intro to a new series. And the middle part of an elongated trilogy story of sorts, which I hadn't appreciated back then.

Starting the day looking up siblings of my g-granny from Dublin in the newly released 1926 Irish census. Having to check some more BMD certs (fortunately mostly available online, free, for this period for the Republic of Ireland) to verify addresses. But finding most folks sought.

Finished a bunch more books since last month, so time for another update.

( earlier books )
1. Insomniacs After School volume 8 (manga) by Makoto Ojiro
2. Shakespeare: The World as a Stage by Bill Bryson
3. The Book of Life (Discovery of Witches book 3) by Deborah Harkness
4. A Hat Full of Sky (Tiffany Aching book 2) by Terry Pratchett
5. Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book by Bill Oddie
6. Echolands: A Journey in Search of Boudica by Duncan Mackay

Continuing to enjoy Insomniacs After School manga, though volume 8 felt more of a filler volume than usual. The story continues to delight though, as do the lead characters. Good art too.

Bill Bryson's Shakespeare biography is very compact and concise, but well done, and covers the key issues. Also suitably analytical about the evidence and different perspectives. Recommended.

I reread the third Discovery of Witches book, a couple of years after rereading the second. The third book is by far my least favourite, with too much gratuitous violence, and also a rambling plot that needed tightening up. But it does provide a good resolution to the opening trilogy.

A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett was another reread, as I work my way through the Witches subset of Discworld books. Tiffany is delightful, and here is combined with Granny Weatherwax plus the Nac Mac Feegles. Solidly 5/5, though it's not my absolute favourite Tiffany book.

Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book was recommended to me by a birding friend, who knew it would give me an insight into the psychology of birders like Martin. Excellent stuff, though it was originally written back in 1980, and much is very dated now in terms of how birders operate. But still insightful, and ever so amusing. I read lots of bits out loud to Martin.

Duncan Mackay's Echolands book about Boudica is a voyage of discovery, digging into her story and the landscapes in which the story unfolded. On the downside I struggled an awful lot with the numerous descriptions of places and landscape. I probably have aphantasia from my neurological disease, and it's worsened over the years as the disease has progressed further. I couldn't picture enough what was being described, though I think the written descriptions were fair. I was also frustrated by footnotes in the Kindle version not being hot linked, so pretty useless in that format. But it was an evocative read, and the discussion of the archaeological evidence was gripping.

Sad to read this news overnight, now being reported by Donegal Daily and RTE. Her voice was ethereal, as was her harp playing. And perhaps known particularly to many of my generation because of the music of TV series Robin of Sherwood.

For added poignancy for me, she was diagnosed late in life with pulmonary fibrosis, the very rare terminal lung condition my dad died from. Which continues to have echoes like this throughout my life ...

Was worried that I was going to run out of title characters to fit that lot in!

Continuing my rewatch of the Peter Capaldi era with this opening two parter from New Who series 9. And going to put my discussion into spoiler space.

( spoilers )