Stuff consumed lately
Books
Well, I finished
A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin, so now I get to join everyone else in waiting anxiously for
A Dance With Dragons. This is especially nasty, given that it ended with cliffhangers for a lot of characters. Cersei: hoisted on her own petard. Brienne: hoisted on
someone's petard. Just what is a petard anyway? And where the hell is Tyrion?
Let's play the casting game: I would like to see Billie Piper playing Brienne. She's too short and not really muscular enough, and probably isn't interested in a supporting role whose ugliness is commented on by nearly every character who encounters her, but still. Brienne needs pluck and charisma, which Billie has, and she's described as having a square jaw, full lips and prominent teeth, which ... well. You know. Anyway, I ♥ Brienne, and I think Billie would be nifty.
Incidentally, the pilot for the HBO series is being filmed, among other places, at Castle Ward in Ireland, which once belonged to the family of Lalla Ward, before the money ran out and the National Trust took over. Good times. Good, obscure-connectiony times.
First Generation by Mary Tamm: was pretty awesome. Very light, and written in a style that makes you feel you're sitting in a pub with Mary Tamm, drinking vodka and limes as she rambles on about her life story. Large sections are devoted to her journey to Estonia in 1990, where she met many of her relatives for the first time. Those were good, but I have to admit that I got more of a kick out of the showbiz anecdotes. Like the time Richard Burton ended up back at her flat eating fish and chips, or Peter O'Toole describing her future mother-in-law thus: "Who is that magnificent woman?"
Doctor Who comes almost as an afterthought after all of this; there are a few chapters about the filming of season 16, including a rather extraordinary bit where Graham Williams hints that he'd fire Tom if it meant Mary would stay. Equal space is given to a hilariously awful cruise-ship convention in 2003, in which Mary, Peter Davison, Deborah Watling and their plus-ones hid out in each other's quarters, smoking and drinking champagne.
Then I read
Breakout: How I escaped from the Exclusive Brethren by David Tchappat. It was ... the early chapters, about his life in the Brethren, and his attempts to escape before finally getting out were interesting. But once out, the book basically goes like this: "Went out drinking with the boys. Meditated on how much I hated women. Picked up a girl. Had a relationship. Broke up with her/She broke up with me. Single again. Went out drinking with the boys. Meditated on how much I hated women. Went on
Big Brother." None of which is either interesting, or likely to hold my sympathy for long. The book was borrowed from work; I'm very much hoping it will be deemed to be in salable condition when I return it, because otherwise I'll have to buy it, and I don't really want or need to own it.
TV stuff
Am into season four of my
Babylon 5 rewatch. By this stage the first time around, I was pretty obsessed and watching quite closely, so I'm not picking up new things the way I did with the first couple of seasons. So I've been watching some other things this week, starting with SJA's "The Eternity Trap"
( Spoilers ain't afraid of no ghosts! )Somehow, SJA always leaves me in the mood for some Pertwee. So I dug out my DVDs and watched "Doctor Who and the Silurians" for the first time.
( Spoilers never report themselves anywhere, particularly not 'forthwith'. )Naturally, I had to have MOAR THREE, so I scouted through my files until I found something I'd not seen before: "The Time Monster". Now, I've always had this idea that it was a bit rubbish, but obviously my mind was poisoned by silly fanboys who don't appreciate feminist scientists with a sense of humour, or the inherent comedy of the Master wooing the queen of Atlantis. Also: RANDOM ATLANTIS.
( Spoilers will be consulting the entrails of a sheep next. )After that, my last unwatched Three serial was "The Time Warrior", aka Sarah Jane's introduction. Now, I'm no great fan of Sarah Jane in her companion years, but everyone assured me she was better with Three than Four, and I do love a bit of SJA. So I finally bit the bullet and watched it.
( Spoilers wrote this review at the age of five. )Now I'm sort of Pertwee-d out, so I'm going back to B5. Ah yes, the exciting life of a nerd.
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