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Showing posts from June, 2024

The Joy Of Choice (How I'm Voting Next Week)

In every election since I was 18, I’ve voted. General elections, EU elections, referendums, local elections, PCC elections. I don’t remember that I’ve ever had the opportunity to vote in a bye election, but I’d have done that too. At my age it’s expected that I vote but back when I was 18, just like 18 year olds today, it was more unusual. (I think this is something that is often forgotten because the people that are leading the discussions, on both sides, are politics nerds - either politicians or political journalists. While I’m neither of those, I am like them in one way: I’ve always voted, albeit for different reasons, possibly.) My voting history (I don’t remember every vote but I remember it enough to sum it up) is not one of unwaveringly party loyalty. I’m not Labour through and through, rather a term I first heard in 2015, I’m a “never Tory.” I usually vote Labour but I have certainly voted Green (I did in the last council elections for example), Liberal (back in the days befo

Doctor Who (2024)

Thanks to Disney buying part of Dr. Who, and it being rebranded as the Whoniverse, we have the third season one… Classic Who, Nu Who and Whoniverse. Much though I loved Jodie and Mandip as Thirteen and Yaz, I was not the biggest fan of Chris Chibnal's writing. When he got it right (in my opinion), he was great but, for me, too many of the scripts didn’t hit the mark. This season has had one show that was a complete miss for me and given it was trying to serve as a new show pilot for Disney while not being a new show to me (I’m old, I remember watching John Pertwee, live on a Saturday night) I’ll cut it a bit of slack. With a bit of time and reflection, less adrenaline and emotion, the finale has some serious issues too. It doesn’t make sense if you stop to think about it. But in the moment I didn’t care. Otherwise, I liked all the episodes, in the moment and afterwards. Some were stronger than others, but they were all at least good in my opinion. This season has three arc-long

Ophan Black: Echoes (Season 1)

Way back when, 2016 or 17 I think, in response to a question about my favourite show, I described Orphan Black as the show of my head, and Wynonna Earp as the show of my heart. I’m happy to be able to say that Orphan Black: Echoes is a worthy, and glorious, follow up in the show of my head category but it also scores well as a show of my heart . It’s clever and thought-provoking in the ways the original was, clearly the daughter of Orphan Black but, just as you can usually see similarities between a mother and daughter white seeing them as distinct, different people, Echoes is similar to, not just a clone (sorry) of the original. We’re still in the world of biological sciences, but this is set 40 years into the future. It’s not clear how the world sees the clones now, at least not for a long time but, in fairness how much do you remember about the big news stories of 1984? So we have a different story, one that I found as engaging, and I’m sure it was much less technically demand