"Nothing but the rain"
On my run this morning I took some photographs because this area of Kent is lovely. It was nice and sunny, although cold. I run in the North Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Here’s my route:
Here’re my photographs:
Kit’s Coty House – note the moon hanging around!
A road / footpath:
The North Downs taken half way up / down from the footpath from Burham to the Robin Hood pub:
A kind of triptych of the view just out of Burham on Church Street
I tweeted about giving up Dr Who and it seems fair to give you more information, dear Fooyah fans.
I’m (most likely) middle-aged. I grew up believing in The Doctor. The glory days of Tom Baker as the time traveller. I liked Peter Davison as the Doctor and also watched a little of Sylvester McCoy. By this time I was a little older and TV had outgrown its purposes of entertaining me for a while.
I remember looking forward to the Doctor Who film in the mid 90s. I quite liked it but had hoped it would prove to be enough for a new series. The things of wonder from my childhood still provide wonder as long as I don’t return to them because the adult mind is so different to that of a young boy. Things I thought were great don’t always stand the test of time.
When the BBC returned the series in the 2000s I was hooked. It was great. Funny, exciting and what it should be. Ecclestone was good and although I was rather shocked when he left I still enjoyed the story line with Tennant. Personally I found that the series peaked with the discovery of who the Face of Bo really was. It was such a revelation that I can’t wait to watch the first few series with my children when they are older just to see their faces at that point. I think that occurs about 4 seasons into the new imagining of Dr Who.
When Matt Smith took over I had no problem accepting him as the Doctor and I didn’t stop watching because of him. I stopped watching because the plots and solutions to universe ending crises seemed too thin and similar. I don’t need the Doctor to save the existence of the entire universe once a series. I just want intelligent scripts and reasonable effects. The sonic screw driver seemed to have become such a plot device that it could do anything, boring. The Doctor would think for a while, rush off while our companions are in mortal danger and fix everything with a zap from the screwdriver. More boring. Deus Ex Machina. Boring.
I gave up watching it. I only have a certain amount of time I give over to television and Doctor Who dropped of the list of things I like to watch. There, said it for the world to see. I don’t think it’s as good as it used to be. Put that in your screwdriver and smoke it.
So, here’s W.A.S.P. singing “I don’t need no Doctor” [yes, I know that’s a double negative but you know what it means].
First off: I haven’t read the books. I probably won’t. I don’t get a great deal of time to read and so when I do I read other stuff I find interesting. I’m currently reading “Ring World” by Larry Niven and have been for about 4 months!
Second thing: People who eat from noisy packets should be escorted from the cinema. I go to the cinema about once a week and last night was the first time for quite a while where there were idiots eating from extremely noisy crinkly packets. I could understand it if you sneak food into the auditorium in a plastic bag and quickly get food out and make a “one-off” noise but making noise all the way through the film is not acceptable. It displays a complete lack of empathy and care.
Thirdly: Since I haven’t read this book this communication is simply about what I thought of the film and not how it did as an adaptation.
Overall, it was a good film. Very well made and filmed. The acting is ok and the storyline worked well, possibly apart from the final five minutes which left me a little non-plussed. Out of it all I think I liked the chariot ride the best. Well, that’s not much written for a film of 146 minutes but it’s not outstanding.
I do like the look of the Capital and the politics. It makes it quite interesting. The fashion looks good but then again flamboyant costumes have been used for years to enhance films. I can’t help thinking that the same story has been told many times. We all know how it’s going to end. I keep thinking of “The Running Man” and how this is essentially just a cross between that and “Battle Royale”.
It’s all cyclical, I guess. When I grew up I think that Swallows and Amazons was still quite a big thing for kids to read along with the Famous Five and also the Hobbit stuff. Over time franchises grow and decline giving a snap shot of the teen zeitgeist. Harry Potter and then the Vampire crap will all become a thing of the past with children only reading it because their parents buy it for them thinking it’s good stuff while a new story will rise and sell shed-loads. Is Lord Of The Rings really (I mean really) that good? This cycle is probably going to get worse with bigger blockbusters with a shorter lifespan because information travels so much more quickly via the internet now. My conclusion is that the grand-themes will return but jacketed within different characters, leading each generation to think they have “their” thing. Ha ha. It’s all been done before.
Addition 4 hours later:
Potential Spoiler
When Katniss fires her lightning conductor at the force field it breaks the shield. That’s fine but then there’s loads of roofing and girders crashing down to the ground. If you have a force field you don’t need a solid structure too. I don’t understand what was going on here. It doesn’t fit with the technology in the film.