The Stolen Earth: some over the top thoughts!

There are times when I just love Doctor Who. When it still has the capacity to make me feel like an excited kid again. Tonight was one of those episodes!

It was just an adrenaline rush from start to finish! Brilliantly entertaining, really thrilling and despite packing in loads of old characters and old enemies, it seemed to work. It just upped the ante having the few remaining Torchwood members there (though the Tosh line made us laugh unintentionally I'm sure) and Sarah, Luke and Mr Smith (I need you!) (But no K9 :( ) too, as well as the Nobles and Martha and her Mum as well and the still ever so wonderful Harriet Jones (Ex-Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, there to do good again)... it should have been too much, but it wasn't! It was just a great big fanboy rush!

The new Davros was brilliant! Chillingly like Michael Wisher in Genesis of the Daleks, but with some great Molloy elements too. I think the mask/ chair look great, especially the wonderful retro clunky switches, and was made all the better when Sarah recognised his voice... great recation (and a nice little musical cue that hinted back to his first reveal in Genesis of the Daleks too) . The mad Dalek Caan was really well performed too. Good old Nick Briggs! he got loads to do this week, with the Judoon back as well!

Great to see some TARDIS spinning in space shots too. Always good.

So, the cliffhanger- nice to see everyone (Martha aside) in danger. Sarah in the car! Torchwood's Hub with Daleks, The Doctor... gasp... regenerating! Or is he? I don't think this is the end of the Tenth Doctor... I think the hand will save him somehow. We had a very obvious reminder that it was there bubbling away by the console at one point. We'll see.
Also is the heartbeat Donna hears related to Davros's heartbeat? I have a feeling it might be...

I can't wait for next week! It's like all those great cliffhangers from when i was young, where you'd be thinking about it all week, trying to work out what was going to happen. Very exciting!!

Food

It's been a funny few days.
We had a lovely evening on Friday. For the first time, we went out en masse with Mum and Adam, as it's Mum's birthday tomorrow. We went to the new pub/ restaurant, Peacock Farm, on the other side of Bracknell and had a really good time. Everyone was in a good mood and there was lots of chatter and banter between us all. Even Adam didn't seem too daunted by us all, which was good to see, as we can be a bit much when we're all together.
The food was good. Unfortunately just after we'd had the cup of tea at the end, I felt really odd. All hot and bloated. I went off to the loo and threw up everywhere. It was horrible. I don't know if I'd just eaten too much (we had had three courses and there were lots of ribs) but I really wasn't well, and I felt a bit grim all day Saturday.

Which wasn't too good really as we'd invited Richard and Mike over. Still, despite not feeling quite myself, we had a good time with the tow of them. We made a great dinner and dessert- Steve made a Thai style mushroom stroganoff, which was a bit runny (not helped by me only one can of coconut milk) and a lime cheesecake, which hadn't set properly. It ended up over most of the kitchen worktops and in a heap on the plate I'd put by to stand it nicely on. Arghh! Still it tasted nice, that was the main thing! Fortunately they'd both had some wine and could see the funny side of it!
We spent the evening playing Mario Cart on the Wii. It was good fun. Yes I know I don't like that kind of thing usually, but I have to say the Wii is an excellent console. Mostly because I can play the games fairly competently I suppose!

Good Doctor Who too. It was quite fun to see the flipside, of what might happen if he wasn't there to sort the monsters. Catherine Tate was as excellent as usual. She's been so good this year.

Today has been lovely too. Nice chat with Richard and Mike before they left, a trip to the garden centre to see the fish (Mike keeps tropical fish) and then we came home and went on a nice bike ride round Bracknell in the sunshine. I was quite tired, but we managed half and hour or so today, whcih was very good. I like the fact we just go randomly round the town, nothing set rtoo set. I know my way around quite well really (even if we did get a bit lost a few weeks back) so it's not too bad if we set out and just head in any old direction... we eventually get home again.

I've been doing some more writing this afternoon. I think it's ok. I just need to get it down really and then let Paul edit it.

Another driving lesson tomorrow. Yes, I'm actually doing it! Really! This week I was told I had really good clutch control, we did some roundabouts and I got up to third gear! Oh my! I know that doesn't sound much, but I was quite proud of how I'm doing really. This time I'm determined to see it through. However long it takes!

Simon has the flag

Myself and Steve had decided we'd take the centre path and ran into the woodland, guns at the ready. We came to a stop at a conveniently placed barricade and bunkered down as the crossfire from the opposing team started. Our aims were pretty good (or the volume of firepower perhaps) and we'd taken out the snipers. Steve headed off forwards up the hill, veering off the left, and I found myself on my own.
This turned out to be a good thing. There didn't seem to be any shooting at me (for a change) so I decided to take a tentative walk. Still no shooting, so I began to run up the hill, ducking for cover every so often, just in case... but nothing. All good I thought.
Suddenly I found myself at the top of the hill. Still no gunshots at me. The red and white striped tape marked the boundary of the course and I thought, I must be close to the pink team base. Looking to my right I found I was, and there was the goal, the rather grey and tattered flag. Oh what the hell I thought, I should go and get it. I'm bound to be shot, but what the hell. I pelted to the base, gun ready, just in case...
I grabbed the flag from the top of the tape and ran as fast I could away from the base. Still all clear of pink team members. I couldn't quite believe it- I'd got it. Expecting to be shot down any minute I began to retrace my steps and found I was running as fast as I could down the hill. The sweat was pouring off me by now and I still expected to be taken out any moment.
Coming down the hill I could see the first person I'd spotted for minutes. Pink band on the arm... oh no! But, my luck was in! She had her back to me. I took a couple of cheeky shots and took her out and ran off before she even realised I'd been there. I ran and ran, and eventually our base was in sight. Other orange team members were around now, and ran with me as I made it to the base with the flag.
Triumphantly, with our referee behind me I ran in and threw it over the stripy tape that marked our base out among the trees. The ref bellowed "Game over" and singlehandedly I'd won the round for the team! Me! Wow!
It felt really good!

Yes, we've been out in the sunshine paintballing today. It was great fun, despite me not really knowing anyone there very well. Hot and sweaty but there's something really fun about running round the woods firing paint at people. I wouldn't have thought it was something I'd enjoy but I did at Jay's stag do last year and I did again today.
We lost overall, but it didn't matter. I enjoyed being part of the team and being someone who managed to help make sure the orange team lost by a lesser margin!

We didn't get to play on the course with the Police Box though, sadly. Ah well!

Just you wait Mr Bradley, just you wait!

Heist! is completed!
I can't wait for it to go online now, because I really want to hear what people think of it. It's been hard work, not all of it enjoyable I have to say, but ultimately I think it's been a satisfying experience having complete control over my work. It hasn't come out quite how I imagined (mostly because I didn't exactly use all the incidental music I planned I think!) but I'm really pleased with it. Considering it's my first full length story that I've made, I think I've done really well, even if I do say so myself.
I've listened to it loads of times now and I'm still not sick of it. I don't quite know how that's happened. Maybe it's because it's mine, I don't know! I know it almost off by heart and still I'd be happy to have it on now (although I think I need to have a break from it really for my own sanity!)
Overall my favourite scenes are 6 and the last one, which sound great. The one I had most trouble with was Jann on the phone, because getting the right ring tone was the toughest thing to find and my favourite use of music is the Gershwin in scene 6, which fits really well, considering it was a piece chopped out at random.

That's taken up lots of time, but it's been worth it. I just don't want to do another one in a hurry. But should I ever write another script I think I'd like to produce it again.

In between doing that we've been doing a spot of shopping on eBay recently. One of my great passions is the music of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (as everyone knows) and int he last few weeks I've treated myself to a couple of the old albums. I'm sure there are very few people out there who'd love it, but I find it all really rather wonderful. The way the composers are grasping what was then new and exciting technology, and making it do things they didn't expect is wonderful.
Fourth Dimension is an album from 1973 by Paddy Kingsland who'd go on to write the Hitch Hikers music and Doctor Who scores. It's funky synth stuff, very 70s groovy and really quite likeable. The Soundhouse album from 10 years later is rather more diverse, but not quite as exciting, although the inclusion of the The Whale from the Hitch Hikers TV series scores lots of points from me. Somehow the later music doesn't seem quite so inventive- certainly it doesn't equal the stuff on the 1968 Pink album, BBC Radiophonic Music, but then it's not trying to. By 1983 the synth had made the musicians slightly less unique I suppose, because they weren't manipulating bits of tape to make sounds that were different to everything else anymore. And by the time we get to the stuff on the CD we bought from 1994 of library music, there's nothing really that couldn't be done by anyone else.
There's still some albums to collect, and I'm sure they're things that few others could get excited about, but I do!

The other things have been a few of the Myth Makers DVDs. They're really good, considering they're just interviews with Doctor Who stars and creative staff. I was always a bit dubious about the tribute tapes, but the two we've seen so far, Patrick Troughton and Jacqueline Hill have been really wonderful- they've included rare interviews with the two of them (both rarely interviewed- indeed I'd never seen any footage of Jackie interviewed before) and they come across to warm tributes to the actors. Indeed having Jackie's husband Alvin Rakoff on her disc made it, because we get an insight into her life that we've never had before. Great stuff and I'd really like to get hold of some more of them!