This post contains spoilers for the latest SJA episode, but nothing else.
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I am very behind in talking about SJA, not surprisingly given that I was at the gymnastics when the first one was broadcast and my copies of the audios had only just turned up that day.

There are going to be spoilers here for Prisoner of the Judoon, The Mad Woman in the Attic, The White Wolf and The Shadow People in that order.
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Last week I went to a quiz and one of the questions was who was Superintendent in The Bill. I was amazed to find it was Jack Meadows, although less so when I found out he took over when they went to once a week because I don’t think they’ll have got to those episodes in Australia yet.

So I thought I’d watch an episode.

I quite enjoyed it, although I was struggling not to fall asleep halfway through, but I think that was mostly due to me being tired. It was, amazingly, all crime. I can’t tell you anything about the personal lives of a single person in it and neither was the case uncannily like something that had happened to one of the coppers. Mum told me it would be like that but I didn’t believe her – I thought she was exaggerating! The only trouble was that it felt like a half hour episode that was stretched out to 50 minutes (I presume that’s how long it is without adverts since they have so many these days and they’re so long).

I had remembered that they’d said at the time that they were getting rid of the music, but I had thought they were replacing it. No. I still miss the days of the pullover, but at least the intro was short, even if it wasn’t at the start (I hate the way British programmes are doing that – it gives you less time to sit down and get yourself sorted before it starts). I don’t quite know why they felt the need to show shots of London where Sun Hull isn’t even vaguely close to. I was a bit paranoid that they’d suddenly moved it to a part of London where they could show the well known landmarks, but they haven’t, so I’m relieved.

My netbook was a big help because I could look up people on thebill.com and work out their names as it went along. Well, I didn’t need to look up Jack, Dodgy DI, Smithy or Roger. I just need to see an episode with Terry and Twiglet in and I’ll have the set.

I wondered what they’d done with the DCI’s office now that they don’t have one. My question was answered when they showed various parts of the station and the only part I recognised was reception. They had a room with coloured tiles on the floor and flatscreen monitors on the wall! Admittedly the last episode of The Bill I watched was from 1985, but I only stopped a few years ago and it’s moved on a lot from then. Their radios look a lot like my first mobile phone, which confused me at first.

I disliked the incidental music, which I knew was going to be there. It was only in a couple of places but I felt like they were trying to make me feel sympathy, which I already did, but I didn’t need it hammered into me with the background notes that made it hard to hear what they were saying.

Overall, I think I’ll watch some more. There’s been a bit lack of crime drama in my viewing schedule recently, although I really ought to get some Old Bill on DVD.

In other crime related news, the episode of Midsomer Murders that’s on next Wednesday had some scenes filmed outside my office featuring Jesse Birdsall dressed as Neptune(?) who had a dinghy covered in fish and lobster etc. Although my TV guide answers the question that bugged us as to what on earth was going on.

On Friday I went to the World Gymnastics Championships in London. And took lots of photos, which mostly consist of blurry gymnasts upside down. I really must check if my camera has a sport setting. My sister’s are better, not least because she can zoom in further, but hers are set to friends and family only.

It made me really dizzy, but was good fun. We went to the women’s all round because the men are boring and we got to see every piece of apparatus. We were sat high up and behind a metal bar, which hid the vault completely. So you’d keep checking to see that there was a girl still stood there, and the next thing you knew everyone was clapping because she’d vaulted and you’d missed it.

There were two Brits competing and you could tell when they were up next because the crowd would go mad. So I made sure to watch them, but apart from that I watched a bit of everything. What you can’t tell from watching it on the telly is how much of nothing goes on. While they’re busy showing you slow motion replays and discussing the routine there’s just waiting around for the score. Which adds up to quite a lot of waiting sometimes.

It was nice not to have to get annoyed with camera angles. Which I did at the weekend when they kept moving the camera around unnecessarily and made it impossible to watch some of it.

42.30 / 50kg (85%)

I am off to see the World All Round Gymnastics Finals tomorrow, in the Millennium Dome, so I have tomorrow and this afternoon off. Which is probably just as well because I’m quite dizzy and a bit snotty. I suspect the two things are related. On the plus side, when I’m recovering on Saturday there is at least plenty to watch, despite there being no Merlin (the TV series).

Everyone who signed up for the Sarah & Harry ficathon got a story in, which I am glad about. I wrote Not Just a Pretty Face. There was quite a bit of time between me putting everything into the posting box and actually coming up with a title…

I got all excited looking at fandoms for Yuletide. How I’m going to narrow it down to four, I don’t know.

Exciting news: Red Dwarf is getting a new series! Despite Back to Earth not living up to series I-VI I’m excited anyway.

I spent last weekend updating all my Firefoxes to 3.5. My laptop and Firefox Portable were on v3 already, so it was just a case of clicking the button and updating a couple of my add-ons manually. The netbook was a different story…

The trouble with it is that Acer made some programs dependent on Firefox 2 and disabled the check for updates button, so I hadn’t bothered updating. It was faster than my old computer, but it had got to the stage where it was really slow, specially in Gmail where my typing was ahead of what was appearing on the screen. So I found some instructions on the internet about how to install Firefox 3 alongside v2. So I copied Firefox files on the netbook so I could make sure to get back to the old version and followed the instructions.

I briefly had both versions open before I restarted, which made all my old Firefox menus and icons open v3. Which, because it wasn’t installed over the top of the old version meant that it didn’t have my profile. The instructions said that it was easy to get the old version back, but didn’t say how. After spending ages searching the internet and trying things I gave up and set up the new version of Firefox.

Which was all fine except that whenever I opened it it opened up four tabs, which wasn’t what I wanted. I assumed this was a problem with Tab Mix Plus restoring things. A week later I found this was because I’d accidentally set my home page to be all four tabs, which it didn’t even occur to me to do…

It’s worked out ok in the end because 3.5 is much faster, nothing seems to be broken, and I have the Penguin Racing game that’s on the Asus Eee on my netbook. Not that I can play it because it moves, but it’ll be there for future usage…

I’ve also watched lots of new things on TV that all seems to be American. But how exciting is Friday evenings going to look with SJA, HIGFNY and Armstrong and Miller? Read more…

Merlin is being such a pain this series. First we get McKenzie Crook, who was Servalan and in Pirates of the Caribbean (well, and The Office, but I couldn’t make it through a whole episode of that, whatsisname annoyed me too much). Then last week we get a King going something along the lines of “Are you this great assassin?” when the answer was clearly, no, he’s Micky Bricks from Hustle with a silly beard. It amused me that after the beginning credits they put up a big “With Adrian Lester” credit, when it was clearly obvious he was in it.

Then this week I noticed in the beginning credits that Colin Salmon was in it. So I was prepared when he turned up, but was completely floored by a blonde woman, who I have no idea what her name was or what she said because I spent most of the time she was on screen trying to work out who she was. Eventually I realised she was Kerry from The Bill (the blonde PC, obviously, not the DC).

I could just really do with Merlin (and Doctor Who) not casting these big names because it really distracts from the story. I’m still trying to get to grips with it having Anthony Steward Head and Richard Wilson in it.

Mind you, what can you expect from a program named after the cat?