Fictional pussy

No, not the naughty variety - get your heads out of the gutter, you filthy lot (Lili, yes you, girl, siiting in the back of the classroom looking at teacher's cane - I'm talking to you here). Actually the four legged variety of pussies (and the type who occassionally wear boots) - the full text has kindly been made available of Frtiz Leiber's short story told from the point of view of a smart young kitten trying to work out his place in the family.


Dalek Fundamentalist threatens Parliament

I found this via Cheryl Morgan's excellent Emerald City: a Dalek was stopped outside Parliament in London by armed, anti-terrorist police worried about an attack. Turned out to be a stunt for a Doctor Who play - the police were not amused. Yeah, I can see their point - sliding a Dalek full of C-4 is just the sort of thing some fundamentalist might do... Presumably the same over-reacting plods would arrest the Time Lord himself if he had turned up to save the world from the Daleks and held him without charge as an illegal immigrant and security threat...

...Which brings me neatly to this week's Doctor Who. Have to agree with an earlier point raised here by Anonymous (one of the most prodigious authors of all history) and say that so far the use of single episodes of 45 minutes doesn't seem to sit very comfortably with the show. Perhaps when/if it opens up to two parters it may be better. Still, it was a fun episode and the revelation that Gallifrey no longer exists and the Doctor is the last Time Lord was spine-tingling.

First of all to old fans like me it was 'what?' Followed by 'when did that happen?' Then 'how did that happen?' 'Who did it?' How did they do it?' and it also begs the question, are the perpetrators now looking throughout time and space for the Doctor? And who could wipe out the Time Lords? I mean, since they have the power to remove your entire world from space-time and make it as if it never existed how could anyone destroy them and who would dare?

And you'd have to wipe them out throughout all of time as well, logically - since Time Lords exist all through time if they are wiped out in the future the earlier ones will notice and prevent it, so you'd have to wipe them all out throughout space-time simultaneously. And logically that would mean the Doctor too, so possible plot hole coming up, but be interesting to see how they deal with it. Certainly has the air of something which is going to slowly unfold throughout the new series.

For the first episode last week though we made a special night of it. Gordon and I went through to our friends Bobby and Margaret Anne's to watch the show with them and their wee boys (who are 2&1/2 and 4&1/2) who love watching old Who on their dad's DVDs. Other chums came over too and it was a great night with us all watching together (with a little drinkie, naturally). We loved it, the kids were rapt throughout - truly it did appeal to all ages groups, wee kids and big kids alike! Followed by curry, more booze then the chaps took part in the Port Tradition while the ladies retired from the Billiards Room.

Well, not quite, but for some utterly obscure reason over the years we have developed this bizarre ritual among the guys where we have the most ridiculous toasts with Port, always delivered in the style of 19th century officers of the Bengal Lancers. No, I don't know why, nor why the girls don't join in. I suspect it has something to do with being rather drunk before reaching the Port stage.