The Doomwood Curse

Back in the olden days, when Doctor Who was off the air, and Russell T Davies made TV shows that seemed to set out to annoy the people that weren't watching them, it carried on, as books and later as audio recordings. The books seemed to work very hard at becoming incomprehensible as fast as they possibly could, but some of the recordings were rather good. Made by Big Finish, they feature 'real' TV Doctors, often with 'real' TV companions supporting them.
At their best the Big Finish audio stories can be very good indeed. The one in which the Tardis arrives on the doomed world of Mondas just as desperate measures become essential remains the greatest Cyberman story yet told in any medium. At their worst the writers start to become obsessed with companions having only a single story hook, which has to be brought out every time. There was one girl slotted into the space between two Peter Davison stories who could be relied on to have a fight with the Doctor every adventure, and wonder if she should leave the Tardis and settle down where ever they happened to be this time. And in the end she did of course.
The revelations though have been that Colin Baker would have made a pretty damn good Doctor given decent scripts, and even more surprisingly, that Bonnie Langford could have made a good companion. Really.
As well as better special effects, the audio adventures do allow a modicum of time travel adventures rather more easily than can TV. For some years India Fisher played Charlie Pollard been a companion to Paul McGann. Eventually the relationship became a bit tired and McGann went off to do a different style of story, leaving Charlie to a happy ending. Except a few stories later Charlie pops up as a companion to Colin Baker, knowing rather more about the Tardis and the Doctor than he really expects, not letting on half of what she knows for fear that it might alter the Doctor's history and prevent her Doctor from ever coming to be. It makes a different and really rather jolly dynamic.

This story's pretty much a romp. There's a bit of pretext for a highwayman melodrama, but it doesn't really matter. Bodices are ripped, horses are chased, lost siblings are discovered through matching birthmarks. All very silly and a welcome sign that Big Finish aren't taking themselves too seriously.

Congratulations Gary & Sue

Another wedding. That's two this year. They seemed to dry up for a few years, but now they're happening again. This time two members of the Dive Club coming round for a second time. Just to make this one a bit different Gary, who maintains that he is more Scottish than it sounds, asks that guests should come in highland dress, so it's down to the hire shop for kilt and everything.

And it really does come with everything, though it seems that I managed to drop the bow tie out of the top of the suit carrier while trying to bring it back to the office. Which I only realised with 30 minutes to go before the taxi turned up and no time to whiz into town to buy one.

The ceremony is out of town at a golf course, and it a good one. Not noticeably religious, but you don't expect that in a golf course, indeed it might be rule. After that a good meal and then Scottish dancing. Dancing is not something that comes naturally to me, but there is something splendid about a good ceilidh is that no-one has a clue what they should be doing, and there's normally someone in the next group heading left when it should be right more often than you do. Much more fun than a disco, when everybody else seems to know what they're doing and you don't.



Who should be there with the band, but my old friend John Batchelor. John used to work for us, where he developed whole heaps of the dominant work management system, before being forced into redundancy at about the same time I was. It made some kind of sense for me, though I didn't know it at the time - I was an OK Cobol programmer in a company that didn't want the bother of doing it's own programming any more. John was a guru. He understood how the whole thing fitted together, which given that we relied utterly on the few people who understood everything to inform the plebs, should have meant the bosses fighting to keep him.

But no. John's here with the band, trying to steer the people to the right when they need steering and stepping in to complete a set when someone disappears to the bar instead of coming back in a circle. Great guy. Doing a useful job supporting the band there, but should be doing so much more.

I'm going to bed...

...please God don't let me wake up to a surprise.

It's almost 3 in the morning. It looks like Obama has managed to pull it off. There was this horrible idea that people wouldn't vote for a black man, despite telling pollsters that they would. But unless McCain manages something unprecedented, like taking California, there's no possible way he can win.

Got round to it at last

Pictures now uploaded. More of them can be found on http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickpheas

24th-25th October: Auckland to York

And away.
Up in the morning playing sliding block puzzles with bags. Books, why did I bring so many, I've only read two in dead tree form, into the hand luggage, diving gear back into the side pocket, half a tonne (OK, 1.5kg) of chocolate into the end pocket, noodles to the bin. Drive about a bit after leaving the motel then to the car's drop off point, which is opposite the cheaper motel I kipped in. A bit earlier that actually needed, but what do you do with 90 minutes in an airport serving suburb?
Stooge about the outer zone of Auckland International for a bit, the into the heart, intending to get a meal in there, only to discover that AI is ill equipped with pubs & restaurants. Guess it's something of primary benefit to transit passengers, and they probably don't get that many. Typically, just after I've bought some nick-naks and a Steak & Cheese pie and Flat White from the coffee shop, I spot a book I'd actually want to buy, that would have previously used up the last of my cash rather nicely. Still, I'll be able to get it from Amazon, though if the pound continues to hemorrhage I'll wait for the 'New & Used' copies to turn up.
The plane to Singapore is a rather more nicely fitted out 777 than on the last leg. More comfy seats and better entertainment facilities. I'd have even been able to write (if not upload) this blog if I'd thought about it better.
Shrek 3 (as you'd expect, though I've no idea who the very butch Princess was), In Bruges (OK, though I didn't like it as much as Croz did), Speed Racer (very strange, a live action film based on a Whacky Race style cartoon we never saw in the UK, that looks exactly like a cartoon. I think probably very clever, and had I any idea what the references were I'd appreciate it better. Or a complete load of rubbish).
The second, longer leg, from Singapore back to Manchester, comes at last after four hours hanging about Changi like one of the living dead. It's subjective five in the morning before we're away and thankfully the plane is half empty. The couple in my row decamp to the empty seats immediately behind, leaving me with a row all to myself. I even get to lie down and sleep properly for some of the way, before arriving at dawn on a dry but cloudy Manchester morning to discover that the line across the Pennines is closed so there's faffing with buses needed. The plump bloke co-ordinating things at Picadilly seems to have two buses and no passengers wanting to go to Hatfield, and dozens of people, myself included, wanting Huddersfield. Eventually an appropriate coach arrives, complete with a driver who's never been there before and has to call for advice from the passengers.

23rd October: Waitomo to Auckland

Back to the caving place. While the quick trip was pretty much all tubing, this one starts with a huge great abseil and ends climbing up water falls, with a kilometre or so underwater.
When I was about 11 there was an abseiling do on a scout trip. Just walk off the edge of the cliff says the scout master, it'll be fine, but I can't bring myself to do it. That step into the unknown. Brrrr.
Fortunately this place actually knows how to teach. Ropes on a slope for several trips, each time adding a bit more, then, OMG, there I am lowering myself into a deep dark hole, and it feels easy. Natural.
After that, crawls and squeezes, leaping of a cliff, zip lines, waterfalls, glow worms and the works. Kind of cold, despite two layers of wet suit, but splendid. One girl, a nurse from Lincoln I think, becomes extremely upset because there's an eel in a pool we need to travel through. Quite what she thinks it will do to her is a mystery.
I still think cave diving's for nutters.
After that a quick walk through the woods, and drive on up to Auckland. Stop off in a motel, one down from the deserted place from the first night. Pretty decrepit mind you, but it does all it needs to.

22nd October: Rotarua to Waitomo

Oh boy did I need that. Not getting there, that was nasty, but the Blackwater Rafting thing has truly cleared my mind.
The flyer showed a route from Rotarua to Waitomo that seemed on my big map to be rather more direct than taking the main roads even if it was through back country. And very pretty, Shire like, back country, with several bits you'd have thought Peter Jackson would have wanted to work in somehow or other. Unfortunately, as is so often the case with C roads, the signposting was awful, there were unexpected detours, and places you were heading for disappeared from signposts, only to pop up pointing back the way you came 5km on. Would have been much easier to just take the main roads.
Still, in the end, Waitomo, wet suits, helmets, torches and riding down waterfalls on a rubber ring. Never done anything like it before, but it's blown the cobwebs out. Such fun that I've booked on to do a more extreme version tomorrow.
Bit of a disaster later - a pot of butter has melted in my food bag and I managed to get to good sized dollops onto the back seat of my car! Scrounge upholstery cleaner from backpackers, hopefully that'll get rid of the worst of the grease.
Goof off evening in backpackers, reading, watching rotten TV and chatting to and Olympic hockey players.