So, as it was my birthday during the week my good lady wife took me out for a surprise day out yesterday. As usual I frustrated her by not wishing to know where we were going or what we were doing until we actually arrived there! Mwa ha haaa!
It was a lovely day, and comprised a wander round St James's Park with a homemade picnic in the sunshine by the lake, then a jaunt up to Barbican and a visit to the 'Dickens and London' exhibition at the Museum of London. Nothing earth-shattering, just a great day out and thoroughly enjoyed. In the evening we went out locally for tapas at El Molino in Penge. Fabulous!
I'm only blogging about it because we made a couple of curious observations that got us thinking about aspects of contemporary life.
The first was in St James's Park, where we were picnicking on a bench - not having a rug to sit on the grass with. It was amazing the number of people giving us odd looks and making comments as they went past. We were getting as much attention as the waterfowl on the lake! And no, my flies weren't undone - I checked. Is picnicking such a rare or curious activity? Or was it the fact that we'd brought some wonderful homemade food with us (cheese muffins, red onion & goats cheese tartlets, mini cottage loaves - yum) and not picked up tasteless pre-fabricated sandwiches and some sort of 'meal deal' extras from a shop?!
To clarify:
- we weren't in anyone's way
- we weren't taking up anymore space than two seats on a bench between us
- we were fully and normally clothed
- it was nice weather for a picnic
Maybe if I'd put my hat out people would have thrown us some small change? If I thought there was a living in it I'd happily hawk us both around the fairs and bazaars of the land, picnicking for the entertainment of all and sundry.
The next 'issue' was when we had just entered the 'Dickens and London' exhibition, and is no doubt a popular subject for ranters and angry people everywhere: mobile phones. In fairness I didn't see any signs requesting that people turn off or silence their mobile phones whilst in the museum - but then should you have to? I don't think so. There's a certain reverential etiquette to being in libraries, art galleries, exhibitions and museums generally. So we're reading the first couple of displays and a mobile phone rings. The lady answers it. The lady then has a reasonably long and loud conversation on it. 'Hello?!' This woman was probably around 50 and therefore old enough to remember what life was like before we all had mobile phones.
I was rather surprised that the exhibition attendants didn't come over and suggest that since she was so near the entrance she might like to step away to take the call. Shamefully neither I nor anyone else said anything to her either, but barging in next to me and obscuring Edward Bulwer-Lytton once she'd finished her call did confirm my hunch that she had the manners and social graces of a goat.
The exhibition wasn't packed, but it was certainly busy and there was some jostling for position from time to time. My wife got annoyed with an old boy who obviously thought it was acceptable to lean against her backpack rather than ask if she'd excuse him. Some guy also took a call, but he at least had the good will to be discreet and whisper & head away from everybody. Interestingly when my mother-in-law visited the exhibition some time back she was asked by another lady to hurry up when she was trying to locate her home area on the large map of Dickensian London, because she also wanted to look in the same place. Presumably this lady also steals library books from people's hands, or shopping from other people's trolleys if she can't get to what she wants straight away...
Aside from the behaviour of other visitors, the exhibition itself was engaging and illuminating. Sometimes it can get wearisome just looking at dead people's personal belongings and day-to-day ephemera, but there was a good balance between personal items and the more contextual pieces representing society at large. The doors from Newgate prison probably impressed me the most out of everything. The manuscripts and corrected novel proofs are a timely reminder of how much labour went into his work, as well as how difficult his handwriting is to read!
We went in on the 14:30 session and easily lost three hours inside. It's not an exhibition for casual browsing - there is much to be learnt from the information plaques and from close scrutiny of the display items. We particularly enjoyed the reproductions of the periodicals containing the latest instalment of Nicholas Nickelby and other novels, and one really gets the feeling that in book form you lose so much of the cultural context surrounding these episodic publications, with their adverts for quack health remedies and announcements of local events.
As we staggered back out into the daylight, tired but educated, I realised yet again how badly read I am in Dickens, and Sian decided she wants to read Dombey & Son next, since she knows very little about it! If I'm going to read anything in the short term it'll be Sketches By Boz, which was probably the most quoted work in the exhibition and certainly the one that the most attention was drawn to, it being a collection of short pieces dealing very much with London culture and life.
It's only on until early June, but if anyone is umming and ahhing about it I'd say go, and go now! (and watch out for middle aged people who have forgotten their manners!)
Sunday 13 May 2012
Thursday 10 May 2012
Death and War - the post-Shada come down...
Having already tackled Gareth Roberts' The Romance of Crime and The English Way of Death prior to reading his adaptation of Shada it was only fair that afterwards I should see out Doctor Who's 17th season fully and take on Jonathan Morris' PDA Festval of Death and the final Virgin MA The Well-Mannered War (also by the aforementioned Mr Roberts).
Various online chronological lists suggested I shouldn't read these two books in publishing order - so I didn't! They're not linked at all, but there is a logic to reading them this way round.
Festival of Death I found a curious read. A lot of the time I was thinking it's the kind of book I'd probably enjoy more the second time round, once I'm more relaxed with where it's going and what it's trying to do. I've enjoyed a lot of what Morris has produced over the years - The Tomorrow Windows is one of my favourite EDAs and Flip-Flop one of the best and most intelligent Big Finish audios, for example. But I couldn't quite find the 'joy' in Festival of Death, though - and that's what tends to mark out the Season 17 stories from the Season 18 ones. It's there on the surface, but I wasn't 'feeling' it underneath - like the author was ticking boxes. The story is a clever use of time travel (timey-wimey etc) and pre-destination, but I felt Morris was focussing too much on his convoluted story and this got in the way of character development and narrative progression (or even regression). There were some sly digs at the era, such as the Doctor effectively trying to 'direct' a scene at one point and K9 blasting a bit of structure that had obviously been recently re-plastered so you could still see the join. I couldn't tell if the author was being 'fond' here or critical. There are also occasional Douglas Adams-esque lines or moments but these tend to stand out unnecessarily and it puts me in mind of what an Adams script might have ended up like if Chris Bidmead had script edited it - intelligent sci-fi with occasional flashes of wit but overall too caught up with itself to relax.
In contrast The Well-Mannered War was a wonderful read. By his third Season 17 outing Gareth Roberts was very comfortable and confident with the characters and what he was doing. Like most of Season 17 on TV it is deceptive in its apparent simplicity, with much going on underneath. It trips along at a fast yet easy pace, with plenty for the Doctor to do and plenty for Romana and K9 to be doing elsewhere. Menlove Stokes, returning from The Romance of Crime, manages to avoid being too annoying - just - and the whole premise is wonderfully worked out with a gorgeous twist that makes the reader question their own basic assumptions about all Doctor Who stories. The final section is very dramatic, with a much darker tone, and as always with Roberts' writing you can picture it perfectly within the production constraints and the performances of the time. It was a great way for Virgin to finish off their 'Missing Adventures' range - in much the same way as BBC Books did with the EDAs in 2005. I don't want to say too much as I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it yet, plus I've already gushed about how good a writer Gareth Roberts is elsewhere! I will mention, though, that the thought of Romana in the Third Doctor's costume may set some pulses racing (like when she wears the Fourth Doctor's current costume in Destiny of The Daleks, hubba hubba) but surely it would have dwarfed her? Or maybe that's the appeal - a saggy frilly shirt and an inverness cape you could use as a tent?!
Bye bye Fourth Doctor, Romana & K9 in book form. Thanks for the fun times.
Various online chronological lists suggested I shouldn't read these two books in publishing order - so I didn't! They're not linked at all, but there is a logic to reading them this way round.
Festival of Death I found a curious read. A lot of the time I was thinking it's the kind of book I'd probably enjoy more the second time round, once I'm more relaxed with where it's going and what it's trying to do. I've enjoyed a lot of what Morris has produced over the years - The Tomorrow Windows is one of my favourite EDAs and Flip-Flop one of the best and most intelligent Big Finish audios, for example. But I couldn't quite find the 'joy' in Festival of Death, though - and that's what tends to mark out the Season 17 stories from the Season 18 ones. It's there on the surface, but I wasn't 'feeling' it underneath - like the author was ticking boxes. The story is a clever use of time travel (timey-wimey etc) and pre-destination, but I felt Morris was focussing too much on his convoluted story and this got in the way of character development and narrative progression (or even regression). There were some sly digs at the era, such as the Doctor effectively trying to 'direct' a scene at one point and K9 blasting a bit of structure that had obviously been recently re-plastered so you could still see the join. I couldn't tell if the author was being 'fond' here or critical. There are also occasional Douglas Adams-esque lines or moments but these tend to stand out unnecessarily and it puts me in mind of what an Adams script might have ended up like if Chris Bidmead had script edited it - intelligent sci-fi with occasional flashes of wit but overall too caught up with itself to relax.
In contrast The Well-Mannered War was a wonderful read. By his third Season 17 outing Gareth Roberts was very comfortable and confident with the characters and what he was doing. Like most of Season 17 on TV it is deceptive in its apparent simplicity, with much going on underneath. It trips along at a fast yet easy pace, with plenty for the Doctor to do and plenty for Romana and K9 to be doing elsewhere. Menlove Stokes, returning from The Romance of Crime, manages to avoid being too annoying - just - and the whole premise is wonderfully worked out with a gorgeous twist that makes the reader question their own basic assumptions about all Doctor Who stories. The final section is very dramatic, with a much darker tone, and as always with Roberts' writing you can picture it perfectly within the production constraints and the performances of the time. It was a great way for Virgin to finish off their 'Missing Adventures' range - in much the same way as BBC Books did with the EDAs in 2005. I don't want to say too much as I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it yet, plus I've already gushed about how good a writer Gareth Roberts is elsewhere! I will mention, though, that the thought of Romana in the Third Doctor's costume may set some pulses racing (like when she wears the Fourth Doctor's current costume in Destiny of The Daleks, hubba hubba) but surely it would have dwarfed her? Or maybe that's the appeal - a saggy frilly shirt and an inverness cape you could use as a tent?!
Bye bye Fourth Doctor, Romana & K9 in book form. Thanks for the fun times.
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