The graphic novel Watchmen is one of those stories that lurks at the back of your head and from time to time leaps into conscious thought. The older I get, the more its themes deepen. It’s almost certainly the graphic novel to give people who think they don’t like graphic novels.

So there was a bit of fuss when last year they announced the film adaptation, being made without the blessing of original writer Alan Moore. But while he’s a genius, he’s a very cranky genius, so don’t let that put you off. Much has been wittered about the futility of putting Watchmen onto the screen as books and films are different and blah. I can certainly see that it would be easy to get wrong, but I don’t see why it’s wrong to try.

It’s not out until next March, but there’s now a trailer. They’ve obviously got the effects down. I don’t remember the book having such prominent sexy, but then it’s a while since I’ve read it¹. Rorschach looks good, though. I love Rorschach. We’ll see.

1. don’t know who I’m trying to kid - male brains always remember the sexy [↩]

It’s…suggestive. Like he says, don’t try this at home. Via.

I have a friend who thinks the same as me on many, many issues. But the one topic that’s produced a few colourful arguments is summed up by today’s xkcd. I say it’s spot on, she says it’s a total lie.

I’m right, obviously.

I really like Rachel Hulin’s photography linkblog Shoot the Blog. It’s a neverending stream of ooh. She updates a lot, and always with things I’ve yet to see elsewhere. I haven’t decided whether she doesn’t link to the schmancy art projects, or if she’s so good at humanising them that I don’t notice; but whatever, she finds a huge amount of down-to-earth, genuinely interesting work.

Like this. Sheep portraits. Sheep portraits! You’re thinking ‘that sounds baad’, right? Well, you’re wrong:

Who’d have thought you could capture the personality of a sheep? I once tried this myself, but I ran out of ram¹.

1. the half-finished results are on ewetube [↩]

I’ve spent the last couple of days setting up OpenVPN, the open-source VPN software, and I’m very impressed.

My parents’ office is increasingly mobile, with my sister working from home with the baby, and Mum and Dad needing to access data while out at clients’ offices. Up to now they’ve coped with a laptop, copying files back and forth as necessary, but this isn’t great for backups or security. As most businesses have wireless broadband internet these days, a Virtual Private Network - connecting to the office network via the Internet - seemed like a good idea. The trouble was, VPNs scared me.

I’m not a total novice - I’ve had some experience setting up a proprietary Cisco system. I didn’t get into the real nitty-gritty of that setup, but I understood the basic concepts: the need for encryption and authentication etc.. However, I also knew that things get very complicated very quickly. Encryption alone is a nightmare. I know from experience that these things are easy to grasp at a basic level, and there’s always plenty of information at the technical level, but bridging the two is difficult. Without a structured training course you run the risk of missing something important, or - and this was my primary worry - configuring something that works, but that you don’t really understand.

So I tentatively started exploring the options. If I needed to buy a bunch of books, so be it. And I quickly came across Hamachi.

Hamachi is VPNs for doofuses, like me. You install a client onto each computer, and these then register with a central server. When you want to connect to another machine on this virtual network, the central server mediates a secure connection, then leaves them to it. I didn’t understand the ins-and-outs of the security features, but it’s recommended by the ever-paranoid security expert Steve Gibson, so I figured it must be pretty good. Icing on the cake: it’s free.

I installed it. It was indeed remarkably easy to set up - I had to configure a couple of port-forwardings to get it fast enough, but when it worked, it worked very well. Other machines were accessible by their Hamachi name, so I could treat them as if they were on my network. Totally seamless. Great! But, the service was occasionally down. And if the central server isn’t working, there’s nothing you can do. Plus I had intermittent connectivity to certain computers - Hamachi would sometimes only establish a proxied connection, so data would have to flow through the Hamachi central server rather than directly (and you’re only allowed a certain bandwidth before they kick you off - unless you pay a subscription). If this were continuous I could have fixed it, but it only happened occasionally, and that’s just annoying. I also had problems with kicking machines off the network, as well as annoying bugs in the client generating demands to set a ‘master password’ every restart. So I started looking elsewhere.

And that’s when I first found mention of OpenVPN (again from Mr Gibson). It seemed to do exactly what I was after, but without the external infrastructure - the software handles the connection at both ends, so there’s no need for central servers. It’s also open-source, free and highly recommended. But this obviously comes at the price of extra complexity, and it would clearly be far from the easy ride of the Hamachi setup. Nevertheless, this seemed to be the best option, so yesterday morning I took a deep breath and dived in.

I needed an overview, and their home page links to OpenVPN and the SSL VPN Revolution - a white-paper on the concept of OpenVPN. Sounds terrible, right? Official documentation is usually extremely detailed and extremely useless for the beginner - I usually have to search for clarifying blog posts or forum questions, and piece it together from a thousand different sources. Not this time.

That document explains everything, and explains it clearly. Even amusingly (”There are many ways to exchange keys, some elegant and some barbaric”). From the basic problems a VPN needs to solve, to the various different attempts to solve said problems (and why some of them suck *cough* IPSec *cough*), to the most advanced and battle-hardened encryption methods and authentication standards, it covers everything. I was amazed.

I was particularly fascinated by public/private key encryption. I thought I understood it. Turned out, not so much. I’d love to be a mathematician in that field, as it’s very cool. Here’s how the aforementioned document describes it:

Certificates use Public Key Cryptography, meaning a host generates a public and private key pair that are mathematically related to one another. Any data encrypted with the public key can only be decrypted with the private key, and vice versa. Each end system has its own public/private key pair. The public key is given out to the world to encrypt traffic bound for the system, and the private key is kept secret to decrypt this traffic. The private key can also be used to prove that data was actually sent by a specific entity, which is called non-repudiation. If I encrypt something with my private key you can confirm it is really me by decrypting it with my public key.

As I said, I’ve been introduced to these concepts before, but the above was like a light bulb flicking on. I can’t recommend the white-paper enough as an all-round introduction to VPNs. I’ll probably need to read it again within a week, then refresh it occasionally, to keep the not-often-used concepts in my head, but that should be do-able.

Armed with this knowledge, I set about installing OpenVPN. I pretty much followed the HOWTO on the website. I set up the GUI, generated the various certificates, forwarded one UDP port at the server end, configured the text files and copied the right files to the right places. It took maybe 40 minutes to get everything ready, so i clicked ‘connect’. Didn’t work. Obviously - nothing does first time. I quick glance at the logs and…I hadn’t put a file path in quotation marks. This fixed, I hit connect again and…it connected.

I was logged in to my parents’ network over an uber-secure connection, and could ping the server. Just like that. A config line, a static route and an XP registry tweak later, I could ping any machine on their network. Another generated key and I had an extra authentication layer. A tweak to the certificates and the initial connection startup was passworded, just so anyone messing about with the laptop can’t play havoc by accident. No hassle, no stupid bugs, no stress. That’s pretty rare. So the technical side was set up exactly how I wanted it, which was lovely, but I needed more. It needed to be used by non-geeks, so required prettification.

OpenVPN GUI let me create a desktop shortcut, and via registry tweaks I turned on the silent connection options, which hide the ugly console windows and encryption info. There’s also the option to run a batch file on connect/disconnect - I set these to map/delete network drives. Sorted.

So on their laptop my parents can click a shortcut, enter a password, and a few seconds later they have an E: containing all of their documents, as if they were at home. On any wifi connection. This is exactly what I wanted, and it’s brilliant that it worked so well, but more important is that I understand what’s happening this time. It’s not magical Hamachi superpowers, it’s blowfish encryption and certificate-based authentication over an SSL connection. And writing that didn’t scare me at all.

This somehow got very long. But in conclusion: I haven’t tested OpenVPN extensively yet, but initial impressions are great. So far it’s been easy to understand, rock-solid stable and everything I could ask for. And the white-paper = as good. Recommended.

General notes:

The only worry I had was that Windows File Sharing might need to know the names of individual computers, which wouldn’t work over the VPN¹. I thought I might have to set up a WINS or samba server to control computer names, and a bit of googling suggested there are no WINS servers for XP, and installing samba would always require linux - a whole other skillset. But I was wrong - Windows File Sharing is happy to work via IP, so I just used that.

Today I set it up on my sister’s Vista laptop. This presented its own challenges that I shan’t bore you with. I will just say that a) the promised client installers will be a great help - deploying the current setup to many computers would require jumping through a few hoops atm - and b) transferring executable files over the Internet is increasingly nightmareish: the combination of Gmail, Live Messenger and Vista paranoia drove me doolally. If you want to set up a machine, it’s easiest to drive over with a usb stick.

FYI, the current state of remote control software for Vista is appalling. Vista Home doesn’t support Remote Desktop; TightVNC doesn’t support Vista; UltraVNC does, but its site and setup procedure are currently such a mess that talking a novice through it on the phone would be formidable. But the built-in Remote Assistance, of all things, saved the day. XP’s version was a bit rubbish, but Vista’s implementation actually understands NAT and routers, and Just Worked. I was actually pretty impressed, as it can even handle UAC prompts. Worth a look.

1. I set up a ‘routing’ network rather than a ‘bridging’ network. This means only IP-based protocols can flow between the two, and netbios is certainly not IP-compatible. Bridging makes it all look like one big network, but is more complex and unwieldy [↩]

There is some epic pwnage currently going on in the comments of Ben Goldacre’s blog. Quick background: The Sunday Express recently published a front page article claiming suicides were linked to the locations of phone masts. This was based on some dude’s research. Ben Goldacre contacted said dude and asked if he could see the data, but the guy had lost it. Happily, he’s now found it, and this evening turned up in the comment thread, where he’s currently, as polite as you like, being taken apart.

A publisher wants to use one of my flickr photos in an upcoming book. It’s an image of a Scientology tent I saw in London a couple of years ago. The publishers emailed to ask permission to print it, and in return I’d get a free copy of the book. I’ve had two similar requests before, and I gave permission to both. But this time I don’t know what to do.

I know there’s a school of thought amongst photographers that this is taking away their livelihood. This argument generally applies to microstock websites, which have enormous image databases of every subject imaginable, and sell non-exclusive rights very cheaply. Some photographers claim microstock loses them business, as clients who would previously have commissioned specific shots can now get generic images for a fraction of the price.

But this isn’t a microstock shot, and I can’t imagine the publisher would have paid someone to go out and photograph a Scientology tent. Also, and I’m sorry if this sounds callous, I’m really not bothered about the death of old-and-busted business models. Times change. If someone wants a specific photo taken, they’ll still need a photographer. I don’t see that microstock is malicious or unfair to anybody, and there are approx. a million photographic career paths that aren’t affected by microstock. So I’m happy to reject that argument.

I guess I’m confused by the economic rights and wrongs. I mean, the photo was a quick snapshot into which I put no effort or work. But they clearly see some value in it, and I’m sure some would say it’s fair they pay me¹ if they’re going to make money off it. But thats somewhat mercenary. I can see the logic, and I don’t mind anyone else taking such a position, but I don’t see the moral duty to do so. I’m not going to get paid either way, and if it adds something to their book, what’s the harm? Like I said, I put no work into the picture, and I don’t see that it took any great learned skill to produce, so why shouldn’t I let them use it? I wouldn’t be losing out, as far as I can see. But maybe if I said no, they’d go pay someone else, so saying yes would be unfair on them. But that’s just stupid. Argh.

Also, they say it’s a book about a Scientologist of 22 years who’s now left the ‘religion’, so it sounds like an expose of some sort. If this is the case, great - I’m happy to help the anti-Scientologist cause. But what if it’s not? What if it’s actually pro-Scientology? I don’t want to help evil cults in the slightest.

There’s also no current mention of the photo being credited to me, which was the case in the other two books. Hmmm.

Anybody have a strong opinion either way?

1. which I’m sure they wouldn’t, but that’s irrelevant atm [↩]

looks like this:

My brain catches it in peripheral vision and breaks out the emergency adrenalin. Twice now the ninja reflexes have kicked in, and it’s lucky for the fridge that my ability to think clearly under pressure is many times that of a normal man.

Last week William Hague took the lead in PMQs, and said:

Isn’t there something supremely ironic about being lectured about food waste by a prime minister who is past his own sell-by date?

Which is quite supremely stupid. That’s not ironic, that’s just arsing about with words. Isn’t there something supremely ironic about being told to clean up your act by someone who was washed up long ago? Isn’t there something supremely ironic about being lectured on food dialogues by a has-bean? See: stupid. Just a worthless ad hominem.

Obviously it’s meant to sound like the PM is being hypocritical, which isn’t surprising given ‘you’re a hypocrite’ is apparently the only technique taught at politician school¹. Harriet Harman didn’t do much better, with some comment about not getting dietary advice from someone who used to drink a lot. Or something. I stopped caring.

Anyway, this reminded me of B4L’s recent post about Labour reactions to David Davis, which makes the rare valid point about hypocrisy (a point completely ignored by the crazies in the comments). Also worth seeing are the 10 Socialist Commandments. It’s an oasis of sanity, that site.

1. sorry, bitter today [↩]

Last week a student took a cracker from his local church, and the Internet exploded.

Some Catholics think the cracker is actually - literally - the body of Jesus, and say it’s a hate crime to hold it hostage. A hate crime! The US Catholic League has gone bananas, hurling fire and brimstone (and bizarrely coming out as anti-evolutionists, despite their church’s ‘official’ position) and suggesting the student should be expelled. Of course, if he’d taken the cracker and chewed it up, that would have been just fine. Their little world is really quite gross.

The insanity ensued after science/atheist blogger P.Z. Myers posted about it, in typically entertaining style. He asked for crackers to hold hostage on his blog, and he’s had to close various posts after literally thousands of comments threatened to take down his server. The Catholic League is in shock that anybody would want to hurt the baby Jesus, and so is telling people to email the head of P.Z’s university with their complaints. P.Z. has tenure, but I think he and everyone are somewhat shocked at the escalation of muppetry in just a few days.

One the one side you’ve got many many people taking advantage of an excellent opportunity to take the piss out of the Eucharist. I don’t blame them at all. The Eucharist is so conspicuously stupid that it’s almost a duty to bring it up whenever the opportunity arises.

It is a bit weird that the Eucharist is still around, if you ask me. Religions have been quite good at abstracting out all the fantastical stuff so it’s vulnerable to logical fallacy. Miracles conveniently happened thousands of years ago, because humans for whatever reason think old stuff = wise. God acts in mysterious ways = the ultimate argument winner. Jesus died for our sins makes no sense, but it’s mysterious, and humans for whatever reason equate mystery with virtue. All pretty obvious. But the Eucharist doesn’t bother. It just says ‘this here cracker literally becomes the body of Jesus Christ’, and that’s it. No equivocation. They’ve got as far as using fancy words to make it sound Big And Clever: a cracker = ‘The Host’, magic spells and voodoo = ‘The Eucharist’, doing something the Catholic Church doesn’t like = ‘Desecration’. But that’s it. No spin, just magic spells and cannibalism. Really, at some point it’s got to be phased out.

I guess I find it hard to believe that most Catholics, in their heart of hearts, really think it’s literally true. I mean, most religious nonsense I can empathise with. There are plenty of reasons people believe wrong things. But the Eucharist? Come on. The cognitive dissonance must be epic. The whole concept makes no sense - why do you want to eat Jesus? what part of his body does it become? Is he alive or dead? WHY DO YOU WANT TO EAT JESUS? - and I suspect most people just take it as highly symbolic.

Which is why the other side of the argument is probably just your standard mental minority. But they’re very very loud, totally paranoid, lack any kind of sense of humour, and have been sending death threats. At which point it stops being funny. Although, having said that, the average YouTube videographer gets death threats - “this video sucks, die in a fire” - so while it’s serious, I suspect that’s just the way things are on the Internets. You get the impression they’re quite new at this lark, and watching them try to take on creationist-hardened skeptics is almost painful.

Still. The Eucharist itself = pretty funny. I only know one Catholic - I must ask what she thinks…

This post was longer than intended. I really just wanted to point towards Ophelia, who made me laugh.

I finished all my work late this evening, then quickly packed up and headed over to my grandparents’ house. I’m here for a week to water plants, feed animals and guard against Evildoers. It’s pretty rural and there are no neighbours for a long way, so I can crank up the guitar. Hooray. Of course, my string control isn’t all that, so I’ll quite possibly turn it back to normal levels before long. But, you know, good in theory.

I’m not entirely sure what I’ll do if Evildoers attack. Probably hide under the bed.

This morning I cleverly set up my home computer for remote access. Was really good. I enabled Remote Desktop on a non-standard port, and configured the various router, firewalls and dynamic DNS updates, then when I left the flat I turned the computer off. What a n00b. I’m going to blame this incredible stupidity on workload, bees and Russia.

I was vaguely aware this week was coming, but I’ve been a bit preoccupied with work and haven’t thought about it much. Which is nice, because it’s like a surprise holiday. My grandparents left details of local walks, so I might head out with my camera. The world’s been depressing me lately, so maybe I need to go out in it.

I’m rushing to finish two big projects before the end of Saturday, so things are a bit quiet atm. Then I’m off to house-sit in the middle of nowhere, with only a laptop and a guitar for company, so if my posts start sounding a little stir-crazy…send food.

I must excise my inner fanboy, though:

I just finished watching LOST series 3. ZOMG.
I just finished watching Battlestar Galactica series 3. ZOMG.

Ok I’m done.

Did you know that predictive text conflates ’select’ and ‘reject’? Could be problematic.

The other week I had a fairly heated argument about Max Mosley. I didn’t blog it at the time for reasons that will become obvious, but since he’s in the news again, why not.

For those who don’t know, Max Mosley is head of something to do with Formula One, and was filmed having a(n allegedly) nazi-themed orgy with five prostitutes. At one point he apparently had his head checked for lice, which is a reference to concentration camps. Many many many people are disgusted, unsurprisingly, and many many many people think he should lose his job, and amongst these are some very liberal people.

So here’s the thing, as I started arguing it. He may well be a nasty piece of work. He may be sympathetic to the Nazis. He may be an anti-semite. But until he does something, in the course of his job, that expresses any of these attitudes, I don’t see the grounds for sacking him. Having a nazi-themed sex orgy may be distateful to many people, but isn’t actually illegal. It’s also not part of his job description, and was done in private (until the News of the World got hold of it, anyway). So how can it be liberal to demand he lose his job?

But the above isn’t really an accurate reflection. Prostitution is clearly illegal, for a start, and doing something illegal is a fair reason to lose your job. Pragmatically, I see plenty of other problems. I wouldn’t want to know the guy, and he probably needs mental help. I think there are suggestions he has behaved badly in his job, too.

All fair enough. I’d got off to a bad start in what had started as a casual discussion, as I hadn’t explained myself properly. I wasn’t actually intending to defend the guy in reality. I was really arguing about Hypothetical Max, and the general liberal principle.

Let’s say they’re Theoretical Prostitues, who are free and happy in their job and are treated properly by all their clients¹. Let’s say he has done nothing wrong job-wise, and there’s no reason to think he will. People may react still differently to him in this world, but they shouldn’t. Nobody has been harmed, and his fantasies are all in his head. You can’t say ‘people at work will react differently to him so his job will be affected’, as that’s the point - should people act differently towards him (at work, if you want to shun him personally, sure)? (In Theoretical World people think things through before speaking).

I thought this would calm the situation down, but the person I was arguing with still disagreed. They said he should still suffer. When pressed, their argument became, essentially, the Nazis were really, really evil, and expressing any kind of desire or sympathy relating to them is unconscionable. I was even warned not to blog it, as I would ‘upset a lot of people’. Which is bit of an overestimation of my readership, but since we’re in theoretical land anyway, I’ll bite.

Let me just stress again that I am not defending the guy in actuality. I am also not trying to trivialise Nazis, or people’s hatred of them. I’m just confused.

I was surprised that somebody I consider (very) liberal reacted so badly, and the vehemence of their argument took me by surprise. I really, really pissed them off, and I’m wondering what I’m missing. It may be a case of ‘there are lots of more important illiberal problems to work on before we get to this kind of thing’. But, still.

What do you think? I’m not defending liberal principles with a flaming sword, here, and I’m fully prepared to be convinced. But I don’t yet see the argument, and I don’t see the harm in discussing it, either…

1. I doubt Theoretical Prostitutes really exist, but that’s irrelevant [↩]

The big non-story of the weekend was the Church of England debating female bishops. They voted to allow the practice in principle, but the final vote won’t happen until 2011/2012. Or something. I don’t care.

Really, it’s like freemasonry. Freemasons are funny, with their Right Worshipful Brothers and and all that. They have their clubs with their rules and their games, and I generally see no reason to take any interest. If that’s what people want to do, no worries - I’d play Dungeons and Dragons if I could talk my friends into it. But freemasons aren’t fond of women either, and so piss me off. The first phrase that springs to mind is ’stupid little club for stupid old men’. Which feels mean, and maybe isn’t fair - I know someone who’ll defend them for their charity work - but I’m happy to mock those who rationalise away Neanderthal sexism. You don’t deserve attention if you’re this backward. Pity maybe, but not attention. It is 2008.

Church of England = the same. I’m not interested in their little power struggles. They can do what they like. It’s not like this is the one remaining obstacle between them and rationality. But then I’ll remember that these people, these people tearing themselves apart over whether women should have the same rights as men, sit in the House of Lords. They can affect the law. And this is obviously worth screaming to the hilltops over. It is 2008.

But still - a weekend’s news coverage of old sexist dudes? Not worth the effort. But then. Then the Catholic Church stuck its oar in, and things became Very Funny Indeed.

The Vatican has a ‘Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity’. Sounds worthy, doesn’t it? Think of all the good things that could be done by unifying Christians! Here’s what its head said about the CoE’s decision:

For the future, this decision will have consequences for dialogue, which until now had borne much fruit.

Yes. Thanks for sorting out Northern Ireland, by the way.

Such a decision is a break with apostolic tradition maintained in all of the Churches in the first millennium, and is therefore a further obstacle for reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Church of England.

These people who issue edicts on behaviour. These people who claim to be a force for good in the 21st century. These people who continually witter on about their mischaracterisation by ‘militant atheists’, and who claim their religion is not the hate-filled, medieval backwater of the ‘extremists’. These people who would have us believe they can build bridges with other faiths and solve the world’s problems.

These people think it counterproductive that their competitors don’t treat women like shit. Competitors who believe in the same deity, read the same magical book, and are only a different religion in the same way Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant are different Doctors. The only ‘obstable for reconciliation’ is the stupid old men and their stupid little rules.

Their Bible says Jesus’ apostles were men. I note that said apostles were also all from the Middle East. And (somehow) white. And won’t have worn deodorant. Or watched televisions. And didn’t wear totally ridiculous hats¹. But none of this matters - it seems the most important thing about the apostles was their genitalia.

It’s not really Very Funny Indeed. Innocent people, for perfectly understandable psychological reasons, pay attention to these whackjobs. They matter. Yet it’s 2008, and they still can’t handle women’s rights. Pathetic.

1. NOT that there is anything wrong with wearing ridiculous hats. In fact it is one of the pleasures of life. If I were Pope I’d wear a ridiculous hat too. I suspect it is the main reason people become Pope [↩]

That went fast. Maybe I’m used to the big story arcs of the US dramas, but I felt there was scope for another ten episodes. If only.

Regarding the finale, I thought Catherine Tate stole the show. Everybody who was sniffy about her, including me, should be appropriately chastened. Her final ten minutes, from the delighted exuberance of DoctorDonna to the total horror of realising the only way out, were perfectly played and, for me, moving.

The more I think about Donna’s resolution, the more awful it becomes. They did a good job of showing the character’s evolution over the series, and the final stark contrast between knowledge and ignorance was heartbreaking. But the Doctor had no redemption either. Davros was right: he leaves a trail of death and tortured souls, and ends up alone in the bleak final moment. Abandoned by everybody he loves, there was no ‘what? what!’ to take the edge off. That was brave.

The rest of the episode, whether you liked it or not, was fairly inconsequential, but I think Donna’s exit will linger. It’s as haunting as the final moments of series 2, imho.

The surrounding events were ok, I thought. It’s a shame Rose didn’t do anything (although I’m pleased she had a happy ending), and I’m always a touch disappointed by internally-resolving plots - Bonkers Dalek was controlling it from the start, so the Doctor was really just an actor - but it was still a hell of a spectacle, with plenty of great moments. I’m going to learn my Catherine Tate lesson and say nothing about Mickey heading for Torchwood¹. And Gwen still rules.

I thought it was another excellent series. Pompeii and the Sontaran & Library episodes stand out, but I didn’t dislike any of them. David Tennant was good as ever, regularly making me laugh out loud yet able to switch to deadly serious at the drop of a screwdriver, and the surrounding cast were rarely less than impressive. There was plenty going on behind the scenes, too, with stories benefitting from (but not needing) knowledge of previous events, which is all great geek fun. I’ve always liked Doctor Who’s series-long story arcs, and this season felt a little more structured and planned, which was nice.

I’ve recently seen a little more of the ‘original’ Doctor Who, and I think you have to salute Russell T. Davies for the work he’s done. I don’t know whether the 1980s Doctors seemed as contemporary and interesting, but I doubt it. I read comics, and know that no matter how much potential a character has - and a time-travelling ubergeek adventurer has a lot - it needs a good pair of hands to actually work. Bringing Doctor Who up-to-date can’t have been easy, but RTD managed it with style, and I’m very grateful for the four series of entertainment.

There are good things to come. Four specials next year, then the new broom. I’m a total sucker for romantic, epic grandeur, which Steven Moffat’s episodes have thus far exemplified, and I’m excited to see where he takes it. Hopefully David Tennant will stick around for a bit, as I do so enjoy watching him. And more James Moran, please.

1. other than I really, really hope Tosh and Owen wanted to leave, and weren’t killed off to make way [↩]