The trouble with Doctor Who at the moment is that they will persist in casting people who had been in other things. So, much as I enjoyed last night's episode this morning, it did annoy me that I couldn't remember where I recognised Lesley Sharp from (it was Second Coming).

Only when it came to the credits did I remember David Troughton was in it. The trouble was that he looked familiar and the only other thing I could think of that he was in was The Curse of Peladon. Until I looked at the imdb and it turned out he was Roy Merchant Jnr in Drop the Dead Donkey.

Then the other blonde woman, who was in Eastenders, so I recognise her name, was also in a couple of things I've seen. I think I recognise her more from Eastenders though, even though I don't watch it. There just are some actors who you've never seen in anything, but you can recognise anyway.

Fortunately, most of the rest of the cast haven't been in much I've seen, although nearly all of them have been in The Bill, unsurprisingly.

A few things about this morning last night's episode because I am confused.

BEWARE SPOILERS.

Read more...

I had a test drive tonight to see if I was well enough to drive. I can't quite tell whether I'm 100% better any more because I've been so tired due to working hard at work and not sleeping, so that makes me a bit dizzy anyway. I am definitely looking forward to doing very little this weekend, and going to 's to spend money at the local bookshop (and tell my satnav where it is) will force me to do that. Apart from the driving through Wycombe part...

The trouble was that I haven't driven for two and a half weeks, I think. So I was scared of just about everything going wrong, but I just had to open the car door and it smelt of dad's car, and that made me feel better. I quite liked, when dad first brought it up and I was scared to drive it at all, to see it outside the house because it reminded me of home. So I slid in the car (I parked it really close to the wall last time I drove) and then had to wipe away the cobwebs and use the windscreen wash twice because it was so dusty...

I made it round the block - well, round the town since the town's so small and I live on a tiny estate so there isn't a block. The only trouble I had was getting the car started - something with automatic choke would be very nice. Also I now know the tank is three-quarters full, which is good given I noticed the other day that petrol's gone up to 114p! Depending on who drives to what events coming up, that may or may not last me till mid-June. It certainly won't last till the end of June, but then I last filled up at the end of April, so as long as a tank of petrol lasts a month, that's good (just doesn't always happen).

I discovered the use of the iPlayer tonight. I love how they have it just on the website now. I don't need to start up the software at all. I got a bit restless and thought I'd like to watch something interesting but mind-numbing on TV. This was at 9.30 and when I looked at the TV guide I found something on at 7pm... So I went to the iPlayer and watched, well, not that exact program, but another episode from earlier in the week. And now my lounge is much tidier.

I was convinced I recognised the Vicar in last night's Doctor Who, but had convinced myself I was imagining it. But no. It turns out he was Peter Pettigrew in Harry Potter and Ben in The Worst Week of My Life. And he was in Broken News. Also, an episode of Spooks. So I've seen him all over the place.

I haven't checked but I'm sure I set the video for 6.59 last night. It was taping Small Gods on BBC7 form 6.30 so I can't tell what time it started taping both. Anyway, at 7.25 when I'd cooked dinner and was ready to watch it, I started the file, had my finger ready over a skip button to skip forward to where it started and it had already started! I wasn't quite sure at first but I've watched enough Poirots to know what I was watching was either Doctor Who or something 1920s-like before it.

And now for the actual spoilers: Read more...

There are a whole load of things I planned to do this evening, and then I found the Doctor Who trailer maker...

An hour later, I present to you, my trailer.

I like cop shows. So it was quite annoying when someone mentioned Taggart last Wednesday, which made me remember that there was a random episode of it on last week. Two days before. But, I thought to myself, all will be ok because ITV have their own equivalent of the BBC iPlayer and 4oD. Or not. They do have it, they're just selective about what is on it. Which is to say you can watch all the crap they've put out in the past week, but none of the good stuff. Thanks ITV, that's really helpful.

I did remember to tape tonight's though. The trouble with Taggart at the moment is that the last few episodes have been on at random times and only an hour long. I remember when it took them three hours to solve cases. Then it got cut to two hours and I can't quite believe it's now one. The first one or two it was fine because it was a bit different. But now it's all got a bit simple and it's feeling a bit like The Bill in Scotland. Although tonight's did have a suitably gruesome murder.

In contrast, last Sunday was a random Midsomer Murders. There must be so many villages around Causton, all with murders and barking mad residents that it must be a small city by now. I missed some a while ago and I'm still a bit confused there's a new sergeant. The trouble with Midsomer Murders is that I have to cross stitch to it because it goes so slowly. It's completely mad though.

recommended State of Play to me, so I added it to the top of my amazon rental list and I really liked it. The cast list was crazy: John Simm (with a rubbish beard), Bill Nighy, Philip Glenister (with short hair and his normal accent - he sounds a lot like his brother), James McAvoy (Tumnus in Narnia), Marc Warren (he gets everywhere). It was quite interesting to see a murder mystery mostly from the point of view of a newspaper.

I kept recognising names of actors and the writer and when I looked them up I discovered it was State of Play I recognise them from because it gets mentioned a lot. I just never knew what it was about.

Yay!

(I am up stupidly early - I thought my clock said 7.35, which is 25 minutes before my alarm goes off, so I thought I'd get up, it actually said 6.35. In my defence, I have been sleeping on the wall side of the bed so my bedside table is a long way away, especially when I don't have my glasses on)

I was thinking the other day about what sort of man is Jo Grant's type. The men she falls for are:

• Mike Yates (possibly) - soldier
• Peladon - king
• Thal in Planet of the Daleks whose name I've forgotten
• Cliff - scientist

And what they all have in common is a love of adventure, leadership, intelligence. Then I realised that describes Ian Chesterton quite well...

Via Wil Wheaton: 3 steps to find out if you're a Trekkie.

For reference my answers are:

1. Yes, but haven't you spelt it wrong?
2. Yes, although it is purple and furry
3. Oh, let, me think...

Saturday I went to Birmingham to meet up with a friend and go to Memorabilia. I bought four books - I was limiting my spending to books, so that was good. What wasn't so good was when we went into town afterwards and I bought a discounted remote controlled K9...

Anyway, there I saw the likes of John Billingsley, Deborah Watling and Lisa Bowerman and some Spitting Image puppets.

I went and got Lisa Bowerman's autograph. I knew she was there but thought to myself I didn't have anything for her to sign. No, just the Survival DVD cover and all those Benny CDs and books. Nope, nothing at all then. But it costs the same regardless of whether you have something to sign or use one of their pictures, so at least this way I got a free picture. She only had one that was her rather than her in a cheetah outfit. She said lots of people try to tell her they recognise her from that, which she said was mad because they couldn't possibly tell.

Davros had a Casualty DVD from when she was in it a long time ago. So then they discussed how much it had changed and she helped him put the DVD back in the box as they discussed how difficult it is to do because they don't make them big enough. She's been in Casualty more recently too and she sent them her CV, but they clearly didn't look at it because they asked her all sorts of questions about whether she knew what it was like and whether she'd seen it!

It was nice that there was no queue so there was plenty of time to stand and chat. I've only just remembered that she was in Spooks too (briefly) and I should have asked her about that.

After a day spent on my feet I then got up early (well, it was early by GMT at least) to go and help out at the World Pooh Sticks Championships. I got to direct traffic, and people for a few hours. By the time I got home all I wanted to do was sit down and eat lunch - I didn't eat until 3pm which is late in any time zone. I just threw all my stuff down and didn't worry about most of it until this morning.

I noticed last night that my keys weren't in their usual place on my bedside table, but I didn't worry about it because I'd probably left them in my coat pockets. This morning I put my coat on and my keys weren't in there. I spent a couple of minutes frantically searching my untidy lounge and checking the outside of my door just in case but they were nowhere to be found. You can't get in the house without them, so I knew there was in the house somewhere.

Since I was going to be late for work I dug out my spare keys and decided to worry about it later. When I got home I had my spare keys in my hand and wondered where to put them temporarily, as I'd put them back in my bag when I found my other keys. I came into the lounge, saw the top of the shelf nearest the door where my doorbell lives and considered there briefly before I realised I was in fact looking at my keys. I just wasn't looking high enough this morning...

Oh, wow, that was good. Now all the cop shows have finished, what am I going to do now? The answer, I think, is watch 's Between the Lines DVDs. Assuming they're better than the first episode, which bored me.

Going slightly backwards in time from my last post, last Thursday I picked up from the station and we went back to mine past what's now a housing estate, but was where they filmed The Invasion. The relevance of this will be more obvious later.

Then we went to a different train station via the village where they filmed The Android Invasion. I accidentally went through it rather than round, so when I got back and watched bits I honestly can't say whether it's the same place or not. If it is then they've put road markings down since.

By the time we got to Cardiff it was raining (unsurprisingly for Wales). We went to see Sarah Jane's house, and Alan and Maria's.

A quick trip to the castle (well, as fast as you can go up a keep with steep, slippery steps) and some second-hand bookshops and the Oxfam bookshop, and then we visited Torchwood. And I can prove that the invisible lift really works.

It turned out the Doctor Who Exhibition opened past 5pm and only cost £4, so we went round that taking photos of nearly everything - it was handy it was so empty. When we came out I might have accidentally bought a sonic lipstick and little remote control dalek. The latter is a black version of an ordinary gold dalek I have, so I will have to get myself some pink paint and paint them in the summer when I can do it outside - it doesn't matter if I accidentally paint the grass pink.

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originally uploaded by paranoidangel.

I discovered by accident that John Barrowman was coming to Borders this afternoon to sign his autobiography. So I thought it would be interesting to do. And then I took the afternoon off (which was just as well) and then the book cost £19. His sister was at the signing as well, as she wrote the book.

We got there an hour before he was due to start signing and joined the back of a long queue that got a lot longer. We were in the best place, though, as the aisle we were down had lots of toys, so we amused ourselves with the marble in a maze thing and the dice in a dice, which I just couldn't work out the point of.

They started quarter of an hour early - given that before he came out he also signed copies of the book for Borders to sell signed, he can't have spent that long in Reading. He probably didn't spend all that long here either, because they did rush people through. We got to him less than hour after he started. It didn't feel like we'd queued that long, though.

He was lovely and sweet and handsome and thanked me for buying the book. I was worrying too much about cameras and taking photos and I should have told him that if I hadn't come to get it signed I wouldn't have bought it at all.

He did his signature on the very inside, to people's names. Then his sister flicked a few pages and signed - she pointed out that as she wrote it it meant we got it signed by the author too

And then that was it, apart from taking photos of the TARDIS and walking miles in search of the buses due to roadworks. I'm glad I went, though. Now I just have to read the book - the friend I was in the queue with read some of it in the queue (I was distracted with queueing in the children's section) and said it was very droll.

I have been unexpectedly in tonight. I was supposed to have a Rotaract meeting, but last night I thought I had better check with the person running it when and where it was and his response was, "What meeting?" So, that was cancelled, funnily enough.

So tonight they had a second episode of Torchwood on BBC3 immediately after the one on BBC2. Well, according to the EPG it was immediately after. According to my TV guide it was 10 minutes after. Mind you, the TV guide also said there was a character in the second episode called Martha Jojones, so clearly they can't be trusted. Fortunately, I always go by the EPG when setting things up to record.

The bit with spoilers in (for both eps): Read more...

The short spoiler-free review: I liked it, although not quite as much as Life on Mars so far.

Spoilers: Read more...

I'm sure it had a title, but goodness knows what it was. It was the one about 1918, though.

Spoilers: Read more...

I finally got round to listening to the last episode of the new Blakes 7 audios the other day. I only taped it back at the beginning of the month when BBC7 showed it.

Spoilers for the audio series, and for the TV series too. Read more...

P9290642,
originally uploaded by paranoidangel.

Been there.

I accidentally bought Life on Mars on DVD, but since it arrived while I was ill, I can't say it was a bad accident. I re-watched both series (and the extras) in five days. I always meant to re-watch it after knowing whether Sam was mad, in a coma or back in time. It's interesting to re-evaluate in that light. The last episode doesn't work at all, though. The first time it's a chance to wonder what's really happened to Sam and then be disappointed and then happy with the ending. But the second time you already know, so you don't have the same feelings about it at all.

I am looking forward to Ashes to Ashes a bit more now though. Gene Hunt's great and it'll be good to see him more. Mind you, it helps that I haven't seen any old episodes of The Bill. Ashes to Ashes won't need to be a cop show in the 80s, the same way it was a cop show in the 70s, because we already have it. Even if it's changed beyond all recognition.

On the subject, last week The Guardian had a conversation between the two writers and Gene Hunt.

Taggart was really good last week and I was disappointed to find it was only an hour long tonight (I remember the days when it took them three weeks at an hour a week to solve the murders - and you got half a dozen of them). However, even though it felt like it raced along, the end of it was so emotional I felt that it was just as well there wasn't more of it.