Haven't put up anything in a while, so I thought I'd do some digging.
I've a fair few friends who say that the modern Doctors are a lot easier on the eye than Classic. Personally, I think it's just the relative youth, just about every actor who has played the Doctor on screen looked pretty damn fine in their early days - I'd argue most of them looked good as they acted the Doctor too, but assuming they didn't for a moment...
William Hartnell
Patrick Troughton
Jon Pertwee
Tom Baker
Peter Davison (youngest to play the Doctor, at twenty-nine, prior to Matt Smith stealing the crown)
(on the right)
Colin Baker (I'll give you, he's not the most typically good looking, but are any of them, really? Don't say Tennant, he's skinny, Scottish and has mad staring eyes. Face it.)
(scary 70s porno tache)
Sylvester McCoy (not easiest guy to find photos of, but I actually think he's alright looking these days too... I mean, look at Eccleston)
Compare to:
I personally don't think, other than who had the best hairdos* as the Doc, there's much to choose between...
(* Pertwee, Smith, Tennant.)
-----------------------
Also, film/extra Doctors (in some cases young, in Lumley and Broadbent's case, too awesome to bother with younger pics):
This chap here is the Chairman of Torbay's Conservative Future and member of Torbay UK Youth Parliament. Apparently, he is a little deficient in identifying humour. I made - what I admit is not the greatest joke since time began, but it was - a joke.
This is how it went. The BBC had retweeted this:
I found the idea of 'Tory sceptics mildly amusing so I made an average (typical of me) quip saying:
I know, it wasn't the wittiest remark of the century but it was pretty bloody clear I knew they meant eurosceptics. That being why I put #EU on the end... I was GOING to put in that tweet I posted above but there's only so much you could do in 140 characters, and I assumed anyone who followed me and cared about politics would get what I was on about.
I made this assumption because the people who follow me because they want to, not because they are spamming me, are generally people with a sense of humour. Clearly my hashtags picked up someone without a sense of humour. Or even an awareness of what might well be a poor joke (shall I stop pointing out it wasn't the finest of the millennia now?).
No, sir, no I did not. I meant exactly what I said. I meant that the BBC were using the term 'Tory sceptic' to describe Eurosceptics... and this amused me, because I am someone who is sceptical of much of the Conservative Party's policy. I am not ignorant of British, European or International politics. I am not stupid. And I certainly do understand what is meant by 'Tory sceptic'.
I despair for the future of the Conservative Party. Not only do they have a problem with racism, and misogyny but they're also incapable of recognising humour, not to mention a little patronising...
From now on, I'll remember to tag all my jokes with "#joke".
We're all aware of The National Organization 'for' Marriage (NOM) in the United States, right? They were founded back in 2007 to campaign - successfully, unfortunately - for the passage of California's Proposition 8 which removed the right of same sex couples in the state to marry, taking away the right they already had.
More even than their bigorty and lies, what annoys me about NOM is that 'for'. National Organization for Marriage. No, my dears, no no no. You're not for marriage, you're against it. Get your facts right.
I like, as much as the next Brit, to mock America (it's loving, we swear), and this was just another opportunity for me to laugh at those silly bigoted right wingers over the pond who could use 'for' to mean 'against' and get away with it. Actually, that didn't occur to me at the time, I just needed a way to link into how fucking ashamed I am to announce...
Yes... this is what you think it is. This is another anti-marriage organisation campaigning under the pretence of protecting families and preventing us all turning into anarchistic, animal-molesting cannibals, which I believe is what they think will happen. And yes, in my country. Scotland is currently undergoing a consultation on allowing same-sex couples to marry and the Kirk, the Catholic Church and representatives from the Muslim community are the most prominent to come out (no pun intended) against the introduction of equal marriage in Scotland, but the new campaign is just ace. It's nice to see good old classic lies and scaremongering:
Then we have the delightful Mr Gordon Wilson, former leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party, who is trying to freak his old party out by claiming that if equal marriage is introduced by the Nats it will affect the independence referendum (my scaremongering detectors are going mad).
(brief aside for anyone from overseas or even down South:
Scottish National Party ""tend towards the initial view" that marriage should be expanded, but await the results of the consultation
The Scottish Labour Party supports equal marriage
The Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party leader, Ruth Davidson, supports equal marriage
The Scottish Liberal Democrats... guess? Yeah, they support it too.
The Scottish Green P- oh, you get the idea, basically, our main parties are all YAY!
okay, back to the post)
So, we've established there are a significant number of people in my country who are stuck in the dark ages and are against the majority (polling has put Scotland pretty consistently at 60% in support of equal marriage), so what are they saying?
"To redefine marriage to include same-sex marriage may have significant and, as yet, inadequately considered repercussions for our country, for the well-being of families, communities and individuals."
... the well-being of families... because gay people don't have families?
Cardinal Keith O'Brien of the Catholic Church (that bastion of family values) had the following to say:
“If the Scottish Government attempt to demolish a universally recognised human right, they will have forfeited the trust which the nation, including people of all faiths and none, have passed in them and their tolerance will shame Scotland in the eyes of the world."
Yes, the man is clearly, a little off. So straight marriage is a 'universally recognised human right' which gays are attempting to exterminate? Correct? Oh wait...
Also, I'm no fan of the word 'tolerance', I don't want to be tolerated, that makes it seem like you are just putting up with it, however I'll take it, quite frankly. However, the way the good Cardinal uses it, you'd almost think the bigot thinks tolerance and respect of other people is a bad thing. What would his chum Jesus say?
What is more, if accepting LGBT people and working for that is going to shame us in the eyes of the world, let's get shaming. And is Mr O'Brien forgetting we're the country that released Abdelbaset al-Megrahi to much condemnation? Our government has some glorious moments of sticking it to the man. Equal marriage, releasing on compassionate grounds a man who [may have] been involved in the deaths of 270 people, equal marriage, releasing on... yeah, I can see what our government might be more widely criticised for.
(Wee extra note again: seeing as I dragged it up, I do support the decision of Kenny MacAskill and co to release Al-Mehgrahi. It was the right decision under the circumstances presented - disgusting to see people complaining that he's still alive two years later. Slow death from a terminal illness? I would already have been to Dignitas by now, not much of a life.)
Ann Allen of the CoS seems to be excreting out of her mouth these days:
“There are all sorts of consequences that are going to result if the Scottish Government proceed down this route.
“I cannot see one positive consequence for the young people of Scotland or for the parents and grandparents in Scotland.
“It’s certainly not a route that I want to see our society travelling down.”
I feel the only response is to post this.
And one last gem from Bashir Maan, a Muslim community leader:
“I’m concerned about this, and so is the Muslim community, because I think it could be the beginning of the destruction of society as we know it.”
“If there’s no family, what about society? These politicians should look forward and have some foresight – what will become of the family without the union of a man and woman?”
Again: gays have families. Actually...
GAYS HAVE FAMILIES TOO!
Doubt that got my point across any better than it would have without shouting but it made me feel better.
I feel that old adage is appropriate here.
Guys, if you don't want to get marry someone of the same-sex, don't.*
* oops, I forgot, this whole 'letting Teh Gayz marry' business involves us indoctrinating the whole population to our perverse ways, right? (The Gay Agenda™, p246, art. 4 para. 1(c))
EDIT i): A friend of mine who is anti-any marriage decided to point this out as I posted. That's not what this is about. While there are civil partnerships and marriage, anyone, regardless of their religion, lack thereof, ethnicity, gender ought to have equal access to it. I support straight civil partnerships, however, as straights aren't fighting heterophobia in schools and workplaces across the country, I do believe that is a bit of a secondary concern... should be dealt with as soon as possible, but there aren't exactly well financed, misleading organisations campaigning against it, are there?
EDIT ii): These are small, mean, bigoted, disgusting, lying individuals. I feel nothing but contempt.
I am seething. Not only does he disparage marriage, I can live with that, but he attacks families. Families that happen to be a little less than nuclear. Fuck you. Fuck all of you shitheads. I give up on being in any way articulated. I am going to sit here swearing. Sit here, on my own, like a crazy person hollering expletives at my computer screen.
I am seriously glad Ann Allen is not a fucking teacher any more. YES YOU ARE GOING TO BE LABELLED AS BIGOTED AND NARROW MINDED. Of course you are. Because you fucking are. Want a positive result for the young people? Acceptance. Kids in schools who can know that sometime in the future their government and most of their country is for them and accepts them and whoever they chose to be with, it doesn't matter to them. Anyone can get a civil partnership, anyone can get a marriage.
They want mothers to give up a day's work, or pay for expensive childcare, because schools will be closed.
They want teachers and other public sector workers to lose a day's pay in the run-up to Christmas.
They want scenes of industrial strife on our TV screens; they want to make economic recovery harder; they want to provide a platform for confrontation just when we all need to pull together."
Does anybody else reckon Michael Gove has gone a little hysterical?
Yes, actually, a few right-leaning bloggers and columnists on the web seem to think that the Conservative rhetoric is a little - as we say - OTT.
It's hard not to agree with the Telegraph's Daniel Knowles who in a recent column made the point that half of Twitter's been highlighting for a few weeks now:
"MPs like Dominic Raab call for strikes to be banned unless a majority of workers are in favour (apparently missing the irony that most MPs are not elected by a majority of their constituents)."
Mhmm, indeed, the Conservative Party don't even hold a majority, and let's face it, if you read the last blog I posted, go to the Guardian's Cameron interview, you can see Cameron doesn't even think he'd be doing much different if the LibDems weren't in Coalition. ConDem? Pah. This is a Conservative Government. A Tory Government without a majority, elected by a first-past-the-post voting system.
I'll be heading along to show solidarity with the public sector strikers at the picket lines at Glasgow, all assuming this stomach bug doesn't consume me before Wednesday.
I usually try and stick to hating the policies of people I have never met rather than crossing over to the person, but there are two and only two politicians I have ever felt myself cross the line from reasonable disagreement over a political ideology into a visceral revulsion. And unfortunately they sit next to each other every Wednesday on Prime Minister's Questions and they are two of the most senior members of our current government.
David Cameron and George Osborne.
A lot of people in my group of friends (not to mention my father) seem to feel similarly about Nick "The" Clegg, but to be entirely honest, all I can feel toward Clegg is the occasional twinge of annoyance. Much similar to my feelings towards his namesake. He's screwed his own chances in the next election, he screwed his Scottish counterparts' chance in the 2011 election as well as the Welsh Liberals and he's screwed the Liberal Democrats in general for the next goodness knows how long. Remember in 2009 when one poll put the Lib Dems ahead of Labour? Willing to bet that's not happening again for a fair wee while. They said Tony Blair was George Bush's lapdog, Nick's more like Cameron's neglected hamster.
Back to the topic of this 'quick' post though: Mr Cameron. That is, I mean to say, The Right Honourable David Cameron MP, Prime Minister Incumbent of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, First Lord of the Treasury, our lord and master standing on high (I'll stop now). What is my problem with him? Policies aside.
I know Prime Minister's Questions is notorious for being full of rude, arrogant, noisy twelve year olds but Cameron is the worst, the absolute nadir when it comes to pointless, idiotic, extraneous insults being slung around.
The 'jokes' when he is being asked something serious. Patronising git.
And I'm sorry to be petty enough to insult his looks, but seriously, he's an Auton (and not the Rory Williams type - I'm talking plastic-y, smashing up restaurants with his hammer-hand Mickey in Rose).
Richard Dawkins, ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author
Why do you support faith schools for children who are too young to have chosen their faith, thereby implicitly labelling them with the faith of their parents, whereas you wouldn't dream of so labelling a "Keynesian child" or a "Conservative child"?
"Comparing John Maynard Keynes to Jesus Christ shows, in my view, why Richard Dawkins just doesn't really get it. I think faith schools are very often good schools. Why? Because the organisation that's backing them – the church or the mosque or the synagogue – is part of the community. And it brings a sense of community and the backing of an institution to a school. The church was providing good schools long before the state got involved, and we should respect the fact that it's not just the state that can provide education but other bodies, too."
I despise the use of "just doesn't get it" - both of the main parties in British politics seem to have become absolutely obsessed by it recently. They correct response is to yell, "OH YES HE DOES!" at the offender (oops, panto is definitely seeping into my conciousness). No, seriously though, saying someone like Professor Dawkins "just doesn't get it" is leaving yourself wide open - seriously, the man has spent a good fifty years practising his responses to being told he's a strident, silly old fool who just hates your imaginary friend. You could write an essay on where Cameron goes wrong on this response, but I have fifteen minutes before I have to get to work, so I won't start. Aside from that, others have argued against the system faith schools follow in Britain better than I could, so a little Googling would be best.
Mike Leigh, film-maker
What is your moral justification for the state not providing free further education for everybody, and for the principle of student loans? And I do want to hear your moral reasoning: not any economic, political or historic excuses.
"I think there is a strong moral case for this, which is the evidence that going to university brings a benefit to that individual person over the course of the rest of their life. Therefore, I think it is morally right that they make a contribution to the cost of that course, which is what our fees policy does. And I think it would be morally wrong to ask the taxpayer to bear all of the burden of that cost, not least because there are many taxpayers who don't go to university who don't have that benefit."
When I first read this, I was at work and honestly, I thought I was going to put my fist through the computer. Lucky for my finances I remembered that would do no-one any good. All I can say in regard to this is that I have never been so happy to be under a devolved Scottish Government in this area. I dislike that universities such as Edinburgh have raised, have been allowed to raise, tuition fees for non-Scot, UK students to match the horrendous situation down South as much as the next person, but the one thing I can be sure of - glad of - while we have the SNP in office is that they won't share the UK Tory/Liberal/Labour Parties goal of alienating the lower middle and working class from entering university in Scotland.
Miranda Hart, comedian
What's the least favourite part of your job (apart from the difficulty of ordering takeaways to Number 10)?
"The thing I dread the most is news of casualties from Afghanistan, because that's the greatest responsibility. The thing that is odd and weird is having to have people open car doors for you because they weigh two tonnes and if you tried to do it yourself you'd cut your leg off."
Liar. You freeze the pay of tens of thousands of men and women involved in the forces and order them to continue on wars that cannot be won abroad (as well as suggesting they cover the duties of striking UK Border Agency workers). If you cannot afford to pay the armed forces, you cannot afford to fight.
Oh and, har-di-har ha! LOL!!!!!!11!11!!!!1!, at the door.
Terry Wogan, broadcaster
What does the PM think the public think of him?
"All sorts of things. Of course, there are people who profoundly disagree with you – and sometimes people can get very angry with you. But I think people are basically very fair-minded and as long as they see you trying to do your best, and doing what you believe in, they will be reasonable with you."
I do not think you are trying to do what is (whether you are doing your best at whatever it is you're trying to do, only you can know) best. If what I'm hearing you say and seeing you do is what you believe in, I cannot respect you, I can only be glad I will probably never meet you because I am one of those 'very angry' people who might have difficulty even being civil.
Angela Eagle, Labour MP whom Cameron told to 'Calm down, dear'
Your cuts hit women harder than any other group. What's your problem with women?
"It's absolutely true that, when you face a big budget deficit and great debts and all that Angela Eagle's party left us, you have to take some difficult decisions. But I don't accept this characterisation. Labour wants to make a series of political points about cuts and women because they see it to their political advantage."
There we are again with "it's all Labour's fault". Has anyone seen a week of BBC Question Time in the past year and a half where Labour haven't been blamed? I'm not even a Labour supporter, I'm not all that keen on Miliband a lot of the time, but for fuck's sake, give it a rest with the Labour blaming.
I've really got to get to work, but basically, he personally attacks Alistair Campbell and Jeremy Paxman (don't like these two either, but it's childish, I don't want a childish PM), Tony Benn on nuclear weapons, belittles Salman Rushdie's point on university education, weasels over the NHS... just read it. If you want to know why I dislike David Cameron, he makes it wonderfully clear in that interview.
And Gideon? Gideon's just... well... maybe another day.
PS. It's weird, maybe it's because they're so dinky (almost as dinky as my own party) and pathetic, but I am reasonably fond of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party. I miss old Annabel Goldie, I may have disagreed with her on a few hundred points but she really was a politician "trying to do [her] best, and doing what [she] believes in". She was a pretty good opposition to Alex Salmond and that gent really needs someone to keep a check on him, I'm wary of Ruth Davidson's ability to do so.
Sorry about the clichéd title. Can't help myself, but oh yes it is.
PANTO-TIME! (pardon the pun)
I love pantomine. I can't help it. They're camp and cheesy and ridiculously gay in every sense of the word and I just adore them. What is even better, is I get to work on pantomimes right through December, always amateur (the best kind), mostly with companies I've been working with for a number of years. It does, however, mean I don't stand a chance of having evenings to myself until after Christmas, for once I'm not complaining though. Seeing as my current contract ends next week, it'll be good to have one final push on moneymaking before returning to the horror that is job-searching as a student in January.
Anyway, best job in the world - lighting on pantomime - it's all very simplistic for the shows I do, nothing too stressful and as long as you're not an actor there's not really any pressure, mistakes are easy to spot and mostly overlooked.
Have you been watching Frozen Planet? My god... you think Attenborough's done his best documentaries, then the BBC comes out and show us why we pay for them. This show is absolutely beautiful, I would really advise watching it, despite the schism it has created in my group of friends. Around half of us have decided we're going to become extreme documentary filmmakers, thanks to the "Freeze Frame" section at the end of each episode, the other half have declared that it would be too cold/dangerous/"are you insane?"/unbearable to stand by at allow nature to take it's course (bye bye, cute fluffy penguins). Personally, I agree that it would be shocking, but how extraordinary to be able to say, "Yeah, I was involved in that. That was my shot."
Really, there is some beautiful stuff in here. The score is perfect, the camera work is gorgeous, it is put together sublimely, and Sir David is, as always, David Attenborough. One and only. The only disappointment I do have is that the BBC have exported it as a six episode series, allowing networks the option of the seventh. The Discovery Channel in the US - amongst others - is declining to broadcast the final episode, which deals with climate change. They're denying this is censorship of a show for the massive numbers of climate change deniers in the States but, c'mon, really?
Personally, I look forward to next week's penultimate episode hugely, and to the final in a fortnight. It's always nice to sit, nod and think about how perfect a broadcaster Attenborough is while agreeing with most of what he says.
And here are some penguins:
* "ice caps", if you're interested. Though I'd usually stuff a Trilby on it.
