I should be processing credit transfers. And checking board schedules. And catching up on plaintive curriculum advice emails. So I'm going to make another cup of Earl Grey, assault the packet of TimTams I raided from the Evil Landlord's cupboard this morning, and talk about Torchwood instead. I'd witter on about District 9, but it's still percolating. Memo to self: get new job. Preferably reviewing science fiction. This one isn't leaving enough brain space.
( Torchwood. Spoilery. You Have Been Warned. )

That was all a bit heavy, so have some Friday Hee: a Lemony Snicket Advice Column. "Dear Mr. Snicket: I recently discovered that a family of rabid ermines has taken up residence within the belly of my eighteenth-century Rococo chaise lounge. What would you, sir, suggest to be the best way to envelop them with the spirit of the holiday season?"

The Evil Sinus Infection thingy has taken on a new twist, namely a roaring temperature with a truly crippling headache - this latest one woke me up at 4am on Monday morning and caused me to take Advil on an empty stomach in sheer desperation, thus adding nausea to the list of symptoms. I dozed off from 6am until about until 8.30, staggered to the phone to tell work I wouldn't be in, fell back into bed and slept until half past two. This is weird, I never sleep in the day. And the wretched headache is only marginally dulled by painkillers, too - when not actually passed out I had it full force until yesterday evening, upon which it started tapering off, possibly because of the soothing application of hot rum toddies.

Still very shaky today and with a sort of a vague headache in the middle distance, ambled around the house doing nothing much apart from, yet again, dismally failing to sort out the bloody Windows install on my Dad's computer. (Got further this time. Now the screen blues out instead of blacking out while it's refusing to log me into Windows until I'm activated. Also, have conceived passionate loathing for the very Zen process of flashing through five different shades of black while it's rebooting. It's been rebooting a lot, entirely futilely).

And, speaking of shades of black, my copy of the new Torchwood series, Children of Earth, arrived, and I watched it over the last two evenings. It was mostly very good, intense and chilling in parts, but I'm incubating a fresh new Russell Davies rant. Watch this space.

The Cosmic Wossnames were bizarrely favourable in placing me randomly in Britain over Easter, as I was able to watch the Doctor Who Easter special right, so to speak, at the horse's mouth... or almost, given that I had to wait for a couple of days until the living room had cleared of various random relatives before I could monopolise the TV. Fortunately the BBC seems to follow a saturation procedure with airing these specials, at daily intervals until everyone in Britain and their porcupine have seen the damned thing at least 2.4 times.

So: Planet of the Dead. This was fun, visually spectacular (Dubai sand dunes ftw), not particularly rife with plot holes, and refreshingly free of the usual Russell Davies overblown set piece quotient. I really liked the aliens (either clicky, metallic or both) and the classically Doctor-Whoish piece of pseudo-scientific hokum which holds it all together. One of the strengths of the series, to me (although I'm happy to accept that it may drive more rigorously-minded sf fans cordially demented) is the way that it cheerfully subordinates scientific logic to the emotional demands of the story.

The bit that didn't quite work for me was the Doctor's relationship with the Temp Companion, TM. She's chirpy, kick-butt, attractive, sassy and basically a spoiled brat, and I felt as though his final capitulation to her essentially amoral nature was a cop-out that badly flawed the operation of the Doctor as a moral centre. It's as if the writers got all confused and allowed the Doctor's grief at losing a whole string of companions to ultimately flaw the Doctor's need to temper his incredible, time-spanning powers with a rigorous sense of justice. Feel-good is important, but it has to be earned, and this wasn't.

Tra la la, it's January, and Seasonal Depression, as usual, has gripped me, since I'm clearly deeply contrary and insist on getting this in the depths of summer rather than winter. Work starts tomorrow and will be hell for two months, the weather's horribly hot, my neck's still itching, Avatar is being mean to Appa, and Roswell has just handed me Liz and Max breaking up and that stupid slut Tess seducing Max. Terry Pratchett is now Sir Terry, which is equally amusing and wonderful and doesn't at all make up for the Alzheimer's. And the BBC have cast a complete unknown as the next Doctor. I was very sold on the Patterson Joseph rumour, I'm narked. The new guy looks way too young, and rather dweebish.

Phooey. It's bad when even my fangirling distractions fail me. I shall go and punish myself for an hour and a half at the gym instead. Possibly medieval monks had something in the mortification-of-the-flesh department.

Devastated though I am by the news that David Tennant is leaving Doctor Who, I contemplate with joy and satisfaction his purported replacement: the Marquis of Carabas. I loved that actor in Neverwhere, he seriously rocked that coat and he has the perfect manic energy, without which I don't think it's actually possible to follow in the Ecclestone/Tennant footsteps.

This public service announcement brought to you as a faint, pre-emptive strike against a day characterised by Extreme Administration and quantities of putting-out-crisis-fires, all in insufficient time and with the added help of yesterday's pounding headache, still clutching my cerebellum in a vice-like grip.

*vanishes with despairing squeak into huge piles of paper, brandishing painkillers*

Clearly the bloggery is all about the postmodern fragmentation at the moment. Sigh.

1. Woe! David Tennant to leave Doctor Who!. Apparently he buggers off after the four 2009 specials, callously refusing to stay and see what Steven Moffat does with the series. If this is loyalty to Russell T. Davies, I think it's a tad misguided. Also, woe. Deep, fangirly woe.


2. Also on the woe front, the traffic this morning was ostentatiously unpleasant. What the hell's with these sudden days when every dweeb and his pomeranian suddenly has to be between me and campus, expanding a ten-minute trip into 35? It seems to follow no logic, pattern or external stimulus that I can discern. I am extremely grumpy as a result. Bloody mafflards. (Today's worthless word, meaning "blundering fool". Essential vocabulary in our day and age).


3. Superhero Munchkin! I spent most of yesterday evening with the Cleavage Stun superpower, at an additional +2 because of my Spray-On Costume. At intervals I also burst into flame. The Hero set is, perhaps appropriately, overpowered: we were all ridiculously rife with abilities and items by the final few rounds, and the nemesisisises didn't really get a look-in. Also, possibly Watchmen had something: super-heroing apparently brings out the nasty in most of us. Alternatively, it was just jo taking on khoi_boi's patented shit-stirring role, causing us to all rapidly descend to her level. Sorry about all the theatrical recrimination, jo. It was righteous pwnage.


4. Current second favourite Eurythmics song from Peace. Another lovely tune. (Again without the video, they seem to routinely disable embedding. Phooey.)
   

It's been raining off and on all weekend, which makes me and my garden happy, and it's still gently drizzling today. This is going some way towards reconciling me towards the headache and general disinclination I am suffering as a result of allowing Mike to ply me with altogether too much wine yesterday afternoon at his farewell braai. (He's buggering off to Oxford for a few years to do a PhD. Yay, more docs!). The bastard kept taking away my sensible glass of water and replacing it with a glass of wine, and I'm consequently a little fragile this morning. On the upside I drank enough to allow me to hold actual conversations with a notable array of complete strangers, which is a Great Leap Forward. Normally I curl up and die in a corner. Social butterfly, not.

So, Doctor Who. ( On mature reflection, I still don't have a lot of time for Russell Davies. )

Last Night I Dreamed: I was travelling across a rather attractive country, or countries, with rolling farmlands and ranges of mountains and a sandy coastline; unfortunately the whole thing was being threatened by some kind of hazy thing in the air, which was rolling in from the sea and gradually overtaking the country with unspecified ill effects. In the course of travelling with a refugee train I discovered that the country had recently abandoned the practice of growing a special kind of tree outside their homes; the tree had the power to suck in the nasty haze in a sort of mini vortex. At some stage I also realised the incredible significance of a glowing mother and daughter on horseback, who we passed in a field next to the road, and whose cart full of supplies we subsequently appropriated.

This is a public service announcement. Gratuitous fangirling will follow. May cause dizziness, disorientation, disbelief and retching in extreme cases. Void where prohibited by notional academic dignity.

So, Doctor Who. The fourth season has been enjoyable, but my socks have remained firmly un-knocked-off until the other night, when I and the houseguests, nicely buzzed on too much food and the EL's wine stash, sat down to watch "The Unicorn and the Wasp", followed in quick succession by "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead".

The Agatha Christie episode was brilliant: jo and I sat there going "It's a LARP!" with unholy glee at frequent intervals. It was beautifully constructed, magnificently and playfully self-conscious, and completely immersed in its period. I loved the tongue-in-cheek games with dissolves, and the deliberate artificiality of the setting and of the traditional detective-holding-forth approach to the problem-solving. Also, bonus subtextual homoeroticism and vaguely Cthulhoid elements! And the actress who played Agatha Christie was superbly cast.

However, that was no more than the tasty starter to the main course, which was the delirious joy of a two-parter constructed by my favourite scriptwriter, Steven Moffat (fangirlfangirlfangirl). ( This may be spoilery, so I've cut it. )

Now, of course, we do the usual sudden, dizzy descent into the season finale à la Russell Davies. Phooey.

This week has been completely mad, mostly because I'm trying to combine the ravages of Sid with three solid days of interviews with students for purposes of choosing orientation leaders. This has led to the following:
1. The uneasy realisation that probably everyone in the universe but me was a prefect at school. Also, contrary to expectation, the upshot of piling CVs from approximately 53 prefects and 22 head students onto one corner of my desk is not, in fact, a black hole created from critical worthiness mass. Colour me surprised.
2. These are bloody nice kids, and are tending to positively reinforce my tendency to rather like students.
3. After the twenty-sixth interview I have to forcibly prevent myself from leaning back in my chair and steepling my fingers while formulating searching personal questions. Memo to self: am not auditioning minions.

After hitting mac1235 for same, I devoured the first five episodes in the new season of Doctor Who in a marvellous gulp over the weekend. I was all braced to be narked to the max by Donna, who was truly irritating in the Christmas special, but in fact they've toned her down, or perhaps she's toned herself down, enough that I actually rather like her. She's being very nicely built up as having genuine reasons for self-esteem issues, above which she tends to rise pleasingly when the chips are down. She's also down-to-earth in a way which provides wonderful ballast to the Doctor's flightiness, and she offers the complete antithesis to Martha's slightly-droopy-schoolgirl-crushiness. Also, the first episode's Alien Du Jour succeeded in being both cute and fundamentally disgusting in a way I have to respect.

On a not unrelated note, those of you who don't read Neil Gaiman regularly (and I have to add, why the hell not??) may have missed his rather gorgeous piece of Doctor/Shakespeare crossover (scroll down a bit). It's note-perfect. He's a clever man.

Now I have to go and mark twenty-three third-year essays on Vampires and The Sex, which are lurking rather entertainingly under a photocopied reading entitled "Welcome to bisexuality, Captain Kirk!" A quick survey of essay text-choice reveals, on the upside, Buffy, David Gemmel, The Hunger, (fangirlfangirlfangirl) and Tim Powers (wow!). On the downside, umpteen discourses on Interview with a Vampire and two on Queen of the Damned (throws self out of window on reflex). Wish me luck.

p.s. OMG! The fourth student in the pile entitles himself Firstname "The Dragon" Surname. Am wishing I had the courage to sign myself under his awarded mark as Extemp "Docinatrix" -oranea.

This has to be done, mostly because it made me giggle until I choked on my chocolate biscuit, causing an advice-seeking student to back away from me looking slightly wild-eyed. Ursula Vernon has more Kama Sutra hamsters.

Annoying day. I may have to give up this 6.30am gym thing, the gym is simply too crowded, and there's a clear and present danger I'll snap and bite some inoffensive circuit-user. Also, power cuts over lunch, resulting in frustration and internet withdrawal. Phooey. On the upside: Friday! I begin to appreciate this day in a way I never really did while bumming around as a part-time lecturer.

Read the second Mark Gatiss Lucifer Box story, btw. Entertaining. Madly satanic. Dodgy as all get-out. Also, "Blink", from Season 3 of Doctor Who is just as terrifying third time around, even with knitting to focus on in the creepy bits.