Jury Duty
So I have returned home to a week I have just blocked out as “comedown”. I’m tired, jetlagged and missing new friends I made on the trip. However, something exciting got announced yesterday that I’ve been keeping quiet for a couple of weeks… I’m on a jury for the British Fantasy Awards, specifically the jury for Best Film / Television Episode. For obvious reasons I won’t be talking about the work I’m doing for it, but I’m both thrilled and honoured to be asked and hope we do the award proud.
Details below the cut.
Tornado Chasers
My absolute favourite TV programme isn’t on television. You can’t even buy it on DVD or Blu-Ray. Instead it is bought and downloaded over the web.
Some of you may remember some years ago that there was a Discovery TV series called Storm Chasers. This followed the exploits of three chase teams as they tracked storms and tried to intercept tornadoes.
There’s so little known about tornadoes. Predicting them is still a black art and we don’t really know much about what goes on inside one. And so these teams got close, dangerously close. Two of them even had armoured vehicles that they actually drove into them to get readings and capture footage.
Now the big thing some people think is that the thrill of the chase is all about the destruction wrought by these beasts of nature. It’s not. In fact if anything can spoil a good tornado it’s it hitting a house or populated area. Just as you might love sharks and want to see them in the wild it doesn’t mean you want to see them eat people. In the same way, seeing a tornado is about seeing this Great White of the Plains away from populated areas.
But seeing as I’m in the UK, the closest I was going to come to seeing a decent one (we get a lot in the UK but they are fairly weak) was to watch Storm Chasers. A lot safer too.
(Not So) Lazy Sunday
Last weekend was my one week in three when I wasn’t on out of hours support with the day job, so you’d think it would mean for a lazy Sunday. Maybe it was being woken by my housemates at 5:30am (I love them but, by God, I don’t think they’d know what quiet is if it crept up to them and whispered its name in their ear) but I had a busy Sunday. I used the day as part of a weekend to get myself organised and on top of my To-Do list.
Why Tom Baker Is The Best Doctor
I’ll readily admit that my Doctor Who fandom only stretches back to Ecclestone. Actually, that’s not strictly true. As a child I have fleeting recollections of hiding behind the sofa when Tom Baker’s Doctor was on the television. I remember him falling from a pylon or something similar and regenerating into Peter Davidson. I never really watched again after that.
A Game Of Thrones
As everyone knows, I’m not the biggest fan of a Song of Fire & Ice. They’re good books and George R R Martin is a rare talent but they just don’t work for me on a level that they do for a lot of people.
But, that said, I’m excited that Game of Thrones is being made into a HBO series. Most fantasy movie or TV Series are cringeworthy. In fact it’s only since Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter that I’ve been able to watch fantasy on the screen.
Game of Thrones looks to join them, with an impressive cast and HBO approaching it with the right attitude. We’ll still have to wait until next year to see it, but I think it’ll be worth the wait