No geek
is an island

Nigel Kneale, the “godfather of television science fiction”, died on Sunday at the age of 84. Best known for his Quatermass serials (the film version of Quatermass 2 featured actor William Franklyn, who has also died), Kneale also wrote the anthology series Beasts, spooky Jane Asher drama The Stone Tape, a classic Peter Cushing television adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the ground-breaking The Year of the Sex Olmypics, a prescient prediction of the current reality TV craze.

Although he reportedly disapproved of Doctor Who and turned down the opportunity to write for it, the series was very much influenced by Kneale’s 1950s science fiction serials, a contribution acknowledged by a direct reference to “Bernard” (Quatermass) in Remembrance of the Daleks. HammerWeb has a tribute to him here.

(See also Nick Barlow.)

Joy of joys: Mark Oaten has found a new medium via which to expose himself to the world. Advance notice, then, that he will be appearing on the show I was on last night, Vox Politix, next Monday on internet “Talk TV” station 18 Doughty Street. Iain Dale will, as always, be inviting questions from the interweb - and if that isn’t tempting fate, I don’t know what is.

Come on, Winchester residents - find him some casework to fill his time.

This evening, I’ll be following in the footsteps of fellow LibDem bloggers Stephen Tall and Andy Mayer by keeping our end up on Iain Dale’s Vox Politix discussion show on internet telly station 18 Doughty Street. Subjects up for debate include whether MPs are increasingly toeing the party line and the new climate change report by Sir Nicholas Stern.

The programme is 9pm-10pm and should be available to watch afterwards if you’re engrossed in Spooks at the time. Do watch live if you’re free though - either way, logging on to www.18doughtystreet.com is the way in.

Following a wine-fuelled work quiz night on Friday which was good fun (my team lost on the tie-break and didn’t dispute too many answers…), I was up just after 5am on Saturday morning to get to the airport. I flew to City Airport for the first time, which is not only more convenient for central London than “London” Luton or “London Stansted”, but, because it was a smaller flight and a less busy airport, my checked baggage emerged very quickly (and in the right city too).

From there, a cheapish DLR journey took me to Greenwich, from where I took a stroll (more uphill than I’d remembered - grr) to Blackheath (and the obligatory second-hand bookshop browsing) and Lewisham. In the afternoon, I delivered some leaflets before heading back to Blackheath to see funny comedian Jeff Green. One joke I particularly remember was the bar happily selling us large drinks before the show without mentioning that we couldn’t take them in. All was not lost, though - the bar staff popped them in the fridge for us during the first half. Green himself was very funny, compensating for a quiet audience, low lights and a groin injury with spot on jokes about Blackheath, a good gag about Anne Frank merchandise and several naughty words.

After a lazy day including lunch in Greenwich, hired the 2005 film of The Producers to watch last night. It’s worth a look for plenty of funny bits (including my favourite shot from the original film), although becoming a musical in its own right does seem to have slown the film down a bit. For example, an early song and dance routine which illustrates Matthew Broderick’s motivation for joining Nathan Lane’s scam, while fun is lengthy and holds up the plot. Uma Thurman is good as a bad actress (a role she also played in The Avengers ), while Lane does well in the Zero Mostel role.

The best scenes are the introduction of Will Ferrell’s OTT German playwright, the indefatigibly camp Keep It Gay, and the opening sequence of Springtime for Hitler itself, in which a bleached blond, Nazi-uniformed John Barrowman off of Doctor Who and Torchwood (yes, and Live & Kicking) sings the title number. One or two of the new songs seemed a bit obviously lyrically, but the good elements make the whole film worth a look.

If you use Google Maps on your own site and haven’t already changed over to use version 2 of the Google Maps API, now is the time to do it. The v1 API will switched off in early November. There is a guide to upgrading on the API site.

Via Rullsenberg comes Rob’s Tuesday Doctor Who meme:

So here it is: what are you three favourite Doctor Who stories and why? You can have stories from the old series, new series, audio plays, movies, books, comics, stage plays, even fan fic. You don’t have to arrange them in any order (nor put down any other stories if you don’t want). You just need to name your top three.

I thought this would be tough, but it turns out that I can identify a top three - although I’d struggle to order the next 10-15. I feel a little guilty for not including Remembrance of the Daleks, Survival, The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, The Robots of Death, The Stones of Blood, Logopolis, Kinda, The Romans, The War Games, School Reunion, and even The Happiness Patrol (hey, Rob said “favourite” not “best”). But here they are.

1. The Keeper of Traken: Possibly the most middle-of-the-road story going, but it was the first Who video I bought. Anthony Ainley gives one of his two best performances in the series (the other is in Survival) and unconstrained by the bwa-ha-ha-ing of the Master he’s able to portray Consul Tremas as a sympathetic and endearing character. Traken itself is well-realised if a little camp - but what can you expect from an “empire held together by people just being terribly nice to each other.” The less excitable Tom Baker, in his penultimate story, is still an excellent lead and there is some brief foreshadowing of his final story. By no means the best story ever made, I do have a soft spot for it.
2. The Caves of Androzani: This one, however, is the best Doctor ever made. Excellent villains in Morgus (complete with asides to camera) and Sharaz Jek, top direction by Graeme Harper and a classy script from Robert Holmes. Peter Davison acts his socks off surrounded by a strong cast of supporting characters. As has been said on Rob’s blog, it’s as bleak as the series gets: only the female characters survive; even Davison is killed off. Every fantastic serial needs a rubbish monster, which in this case is the Magma Beast, but we just ignore that.
3. The Talons of Weng-Chiang: Let the talons of Weng-Chiang shred your nerves! OK, it’s not quite that scary, but it is extremely good. Tom in Sherlock Holmes get-up investigates a time traveller from the future who’s been kidnapping young women (<cough>prostitutes</cough>) in Victorian London. Another marvellous script from Bob Holmes, a convincing, foggy city, another great supporting cast (John Bennett, Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxendale), a good companion with lots to do. And, as an extra bonus, it’s six episodes long without overstaying its welcome. What more can you want? Apart from a slightly rubbish monster, of course, which in this case is a giant rat.

This is a meme, fanboys, so do join in.