Also, I no longer have the right to describe my appearance as 'something between a youthful Albert Einstein growing a beard and a dandelion-clock', which is a tragedy in itself.
TRAGIC INDEED. Why would you ever, ever give up this opportunity? I am ashamed!
BUT. DOCTOR WHO. THAT MAKES EVERYTHING BETTER. The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances are likely my favourite Who episodes yet (Blink & The Girl in the Fireplace also). Also Billie Piper really is fantastic: I don't know what it is I love about Rose, but I know that I love Rose. Also your shipping preferences are pretty much spot on. When you reach the end of S3 (however long that might take) your Jack/Nine (well, it'll be Jack/Ten, but still) will be reaffirmed, I promise.
How was The Ruby in the Smoke miniseries, by the way? If it's any good I'll try to acquire it -- I remember loving that Pullman trilogy when I read it years ago and thinking it was unfair that it got no press, unlike his other one.
For the record, I think that Northern Lights is justified in being retitled 'cause in North America, it is The Golden Compass. :p
I was being prodded and prodded and prodded and came to the conclusion that being able to roll out of bed twenty seconds ago without people being very aware of that fact (well, more than twenty seconds because it takes more that twenty seconds to wake up and get dressed and go to somewhere where the people are but that is not the point) because my hair gives new meaning to the word rumpled (such as 'fractal' and 'an excellent demonstration of the vagaries involved in the interplay between chaos theory and quantum mechanics') so I got it cut, and also it made my sister's dream come true, which is not something that I get to say very often and have it be actually literally true. Also it makes my beard (which no is not really a real beard but nonetheless has certainly moved past stubble and is hovering at the point where fluff needs trimming microscopically with scissors to prevent it whisping which really does look silly and I'm going into such great detail here that it would probably be more sensible just to make my beard a seperate blog) look less like I've just been sleeping on the streets for a while and more like I've had a long hard look at the relationship between myself and my razor and decided that it really wasn't working and decided to have a break so that we can assess our priorities and really find ourselves again over the summer before school starts. (And no that was not subtext for 'I've lost it. Of course not.')
YES. YES IT DOES. THIS IS VERY TRUE. IT MAKES MY MONDAY MORNINGS A HAPPY PLACE. (And believe me that can sometimes be quite difficult, especially when I have had two hours of sleep and not a single cup of tea. Mm, tea.) It's odd; I've found that most of the more popular episodes don't do that much more for me than the others do, in that I felt that The Empty Child, whilst better than lots of the episodes, was ever so slightly somewhat overhyped (and that The Doctor Dances was just as good as if not quite superior although it gets less press) and The Girl In The Fireplace, whilst rather awesome, was neither particularly creepy nor spectacular, being somewhat underexplained, strangely cast and underdeveloped. But still it was made of lots of win, because OMG SPACEAGE CLOCKWORK.
I seem to prefer The Christmas Invasion and Tooth and Claw and the character bits of School Reunion and little oddball ones like that. And Blink, and OMG THE MASTER. But, well, um. (Which probably answers your question, in that I watched everything from Blink onwards.)
(I think that it is fairly obvious that I should never be allowed to be on the internets within half an hour of watching Dr Who at all. UPGRADE THE HUMANS. Oh, oh, Zeppelinworld I heart you so much. And Adam/Rickey is so OTP, by the way. Just saying.)
The Ruby miniseries was very odd, in that it was excellent except for the fact that it was so appallingly badly cast. Billie Piper is excellent, bless her, but there is nothing about her that could possibly suggest Sally Lockhart; you want somebody spiky like Keira Knightly. They also seemed to forget about the fact that Victorian London was not modern London when it came to casting, because Nicholas and his brother and a bunch of other characters were black, which really would not have been the case. However, I would still recomend it, because it is pretty and the acting is good and it is rather fun. Excellent Christmas television, certainly.
... Anthony, I'm pretty sure that in order to be subtext, it actually has to be, you know. Subtext. And subtext =/= an entire paragraph that screams, "COMMIT ME TO THE ASYLUM! IT'LL BE BETTER FOR US ALL!"
Not that said paragraph is a bad thing. :DD
Also if you made a beard!blog I would read it JUST FOR KICKS.
Also I am glad that your sister's dream came true, but dreams coming true? Not always a good thing. Yesterday I dreamed that one of my friends took me out to go get high (?!). Sometimes, I really worry about my subconscious (but not nearly as often as I worry about yours).
In any case. Tooth & Claw and School Reunion made my second-class favourites list. (My "single favourite episode" list consists of nine episodes (yes I can count, really), divided into first, second and third place.)
... You are done new Who?! ALREADY?! IT TOOK ME HALF A YEAR! (If you liked the Master, according to bruadar and ressie_noldo you are supposed to watch Life On Mars. They are prodding me v. enthusiastically.)
YES. Adam/Rickey IS SO OTP. !!! I am glad I was not the only one who caught that. Obviously Adam was desperately in love with Mickey, and his affections were transferred over to Mickey and the two of them will build a strong relationship and take over Zeppelinworld together.
It got no press because it wasn't so fashionable, I guess. They weren't desperately high profile because they were nothing new: whilst they were awesome historical adventure stories that guys would read despite the main character being A Girl they didn't really do anything that was new. Northern Lights broke ground because it was a very sophisticated and grown up novel that was sold to children and that worked both ways, and before then the steampunk revolution had really been going nowhere fast in the popular imagination (although I just made that bit up and it's probably not really true because of Gormenghast and Neverwhere and things, but still). It meant that adults could read fantasy and children could read books and above all it sold, and money, as they say, unfortunately, talks.
(It isn't actually a trilogy, by the way, because there is a fourth book too, although admittedly Sally only really has a cameo role: it's mostly Jim (and A N Other) and it is excellent. It's called The Tin Princess and it is one of my favouratest bookses ever.)
Well, yes. meine_kleine's argument was that it was a stupid title in the first place (partly because she is a big old purist and His Dark Materials was English first, damnit) because the alethiometer was not actually a compass; I argued that a.) there were more readers in the States so it made good sense, b.) calling it The Golden Compass preserved the thematic unity with the other books in the trilogy, because that way all three were named after the pivotal instruments in their segments of the story and c.) the aletheiometer is described as being like a compass and is indeed very much like a compass and performs the same function as a compass so it pretty much was a compass so the analogy was valid. We went round in circles a lot and Captain Jack's compass was discussed at length and I got accused of being incredibly stubborn because I refused to say that she was right because she failed to logically convince me. Then we stopped. Eventually.
Yes, that's true. All the same they were very enjoyable books. Agreed, about The Golden Compass -- I will resolutely continue to call it this because it's the name the book was using when I first shook hands with it -- not only was it a good book, but it works in the same way that the early Harry Potter novels did: it has something for both children and adults. I should actually re-read those books from the "adult" perspective; it's been years since the first read.
(I haven't read The Tin Princess yet! I didn't know it existed! Must go find it.)
That sounds like one of the Epic Arguments that should be recorded for posterity. I am v. big on b); I like series that are neat and tidy and name all of their books properly. The bibliophile inside of me likes it. :)
Mmm. That's why I do still prefer the title Northern Lights on a personal level, even if I logically think that for the cinematic release The Golden Compass is probably the right choice. They are excellent books, and probably better than Harry Potter by an order of magnitude (but they suffer from being less fun and less fandomable) and oddly I was reading them yesterday; I was hanging out in a bookshop with Sarah-who-does-Physics-at-Oxford and we discovered beautiful new editions of Northern Lights and The Subtle Knife that have little drabble-like snippets at the back called lantern slides, and they are beautiful.
The thing I both love and really really hate about books is new editions. New editions are, in general, the new & improved version of a book -- and I want them all -- but the problem is, I already own the book in an older edition and it would be silly to re-buy. Those new editions sounds lovely. I have these old paperbacks of the first two in the trilogy, printed in an edition which doesn't even have a matching third one (was v. distraught over that).
TRAGIC INDEED. Why would you ever, ever give up this opportunity? I am ashamed!
BUT. DOCTOR WHO. THAT MAKES EVERYTHING BETTER. The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances are likely my favourite Who episodes yet (Blink & The Girl in the Fireplace also). Also Billie Piper really is fantastic: I don't know what it is I love about Rose, but I know that I love Rose. Also your shipping preferences are pretty much spot on. When you reach the end of S3 (however long that might take) your Jack/Nine (well, it'll be Jack/Ten, but still) will be reaffirmed, I promise.
How was The Ruby in the Smoke miniseries, by the way? If it's any good I'll try to acquire it -- I remember loving that Pullman trilogy when I read it years ago and thinking it was unfair that it got no press, unlike his other one.
For the record, I think that Northern Lights is justified in being retitled 'cause in North America, it is The Golden Compass. :p
Also, re. Helen: ♥ & *hugs*. That is all.
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YES. YES IT DOES. THIS IS VERY TRUE. IT MAKES MY MONDAY MORNINGS A HAPPY PLACE. (And believe me that can sometimes be quite difficult, especially when I have had two hours of sleep and not a single cup of tea. Mm, tea.) It's odd; I've found that most of the more popular episodes don't do that much more for me than the others do, in that I felt that The Empty Child, whilst better than lots of the episodes, was ever so slightly somewhat overhyped (and that The Doctor Dances was just as good as if not quite superior although it gets less press) and The Girl In The Fireplace, whilst rather awesome, was neither particularly creepy nor spectacular, being somewhat underexplained, strangely cast and underdeveloped. But still it was made of lots of win, because OMG SPACEAGE CLOCKWORK.
I seem to prefer The Christmas Invasion and Tooth and Claw and the character bits of School Reunion and little oddball ones like that. And Blink, and OMG THE MASTER. But, well, um. (Which probably answers your question, in that I watched everything from Blink onwards.)
(I think that it is fairly obvious that I should never be allowed to be on the internets within half an hour of watching Dr Who at all. UPGRADE THE HUMANS. Oh, oh, Zeppelinworld I heart you so much. And Adam/Rickey is so OTP, by the way. Just saying.)
The Ruby miniseries was very odd, in that it was excellent except for the fact that it was so appallingly badly cast. Billie Piper is excellent, bless her, but there is nothing about her that could possibly suggest Sally Lockhart; you want somebody spiky like Keira Knightly. They also seemed to forget about the fact that Victorian London was not modern London when it came to casting, because Nicholas and his brother and a bunch of other characters were black, which really would not have been the case. However, I would still recomend it, because it is pretty and the acting is good and it is rather fun. Excellent Christmas television, certainly.
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Not that said paragraph is a bad thing. :DD
Also if you made a beard!blog I would read it JUST FOR KICKS.
Also I am glad that your sister's dream came true, but dreams coming true? Not always a good thing. Yesterday I dreamed that one of my friends took me out to go get high (?!). Sometimes, I really worry about my subconscious (but not nearly as often as I worry about yours).
In any case. Tooth & Claw and School Reunion made my second-class favourites list. (My "single favourite episode" list consists of nine episodes (yes I can count, really), divided into first, second and third place.)
... You are done new Who?! ALREADY?! IT TOOK ME HALF A YEAR! (If you liked the Master, according to bruadar and ressie_noldo you are supposed to watch Life On Mars. They are prodding me v. enthusiastically.)
YES. Adam/Rickey IS SO OTP. !!! I am glad I was not the only one who caught that. Obviously Adam was desperately in love with Mickey, and his affections were transferred over to Mickey and the two of them will build a strong relationship and take over Zeppelinworld together.
Reply
I was so tempted to make one on reading that sentence, you know. For several seconds. :D
Well, I haven't done all of S3; I have a relatively slow net connection, so it's a bit of a pain in the posterior to download stuff en masse...
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It got no press because it wasn't so fashionable, I guess. They weren't desperately high profile because they were nothing new: whilst they were awesome historical adventure stories that guys would read despite the main character being A Girl they didn't really do anything that was new. Northern Lights broke ground because it was a very sophisticated and grown up novel that was sold to children and that worked both ways, and before then the steampunk revolution had really been going nowhere fast in the popular imagination (although I just made that bit up and it's probably not really true because of Gormenghast and Neverwhere and things, but still). It meant that adults could read fantasy and children could read books and above all it sold, and money, as they say, unfortunately, talks.
(It isn't actually a trilogy, by the way, because there is a fourth book too, although admittedly Sally only really has a cameo role: it's mostly Jim (and A N Other) and it is excellent. It's called The Tin Princess and it is one of my favouratest bookses ever.)
Well, yes. meine_kleine's argument was that it was a stupid title in the first place (partly because she is a big old purist and His Dark Materials was English first, damnit) because the alethiometer was not actually a compass; I argued that a.) there were more readers in the States so it made good sense, b.) calling it The Golden Compass preserved the thematic unity with the other books in the trilogy, because that way all three were named after the pivotal instruments in their segments of the story and c.) the aletheiometer is described as being like a compass and is indeed very much like a compass and performs the same function as a compass so it pretty much was a compass so the analogy was valid. We went round in circles a lot and Captain Jack's compass was discussed at length and I got accused of being incredibly stubborn because I refused to say that she was right because she failed to logically convince me. Then we stopped. Eventually.
(& *hugs*)
Reply
Yes, that's true. All the same they were very enjoyable books. Agreed, about The Golden Compass -- I will resolutely continue to call it this because it's the name the book was using when I first shook hands with it -- not only was it a good book, but it works in the same way that the early Harry Potter novels did: it has something for both children and adults. I should actually re-read those books from the "adult" perspective; it's been years since the first read.
(I haven't read The Tin Princess yet! I didn't know it existed! Must go find it.)
That sounds like one of the Epic Arguments that should be recorded for posterity. I am v. big on b); I like series that are neat and tidy and name all of their books properly. The bibliophile inside of me likes it. :)
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