I am going to be controversial and say that I really loathed the Dr Who series finale, and am getting increasingly despondent with the gushing unthinking praise that the programme gets from the fans (who make Apple fanboys looks moderate by comparison).

Some of the stories have been truly excellent and innovative – such as the clockwork robots and the weeping angels (first story, not the 2nd), but some have been dire – the appalling Midnight, which is basically a reworking of a cheesy 1970s horror movie was probably the bête noire of the relaunched series.

I am moderately keen on the TV series, and will generally sit down to watch it, although if I miss an episode it isn’t a disaster.

However, where the Doctor used to be a cunning chap who usually solved things by dint of cleverness, a dose of Heath Robinsonism and a splash of wit – today he is the all-action hero who grandly launches into long speeches about how awesome he is while having someone pointing a planet destroying weapon at his head.

Add in that the skeleton key style Sonic Screwdriver is now more like a Star Trek style tricorder that can study anything, fix anything and just coincidentally open anything and much of the slightly geekish fiddling with wires and cables is subsumed into a mere wave of Harry Potter’s silvery magic wand.

Leaves more time for rushing around the place and grinning about how much fun this all is though.

Worst though is the proactive role of The Tardis as an all-powerful deus ex machina that magically and improbably solves any unsolvable situation.

Someone dying – don’t worry, The Tardis can save them. World destroyed – don’t worry, The Tardis has magical entropy reversing systems that can put all the atoms back in place again.

Now we have the ultimate task – rebuild the entire universe, while coincidentally also being destroyed by an explosion. What will it do for the next series? Repair every universe in a multiverse existence, all at the same time, while also dancing a rather nice Irish jig?

We have a situation where people die, worlds end – all in emotion wrenching slow motion – and yet wave the magic wand a bit and when people wake up it was all just a vaguely remembered dream.

“It was all a dream” is rightly said to be the worst way to end a story, and yet that is the mechanism that Dr Who seems to be using to solve the unsolvable.

I know it’s only a bit of light entertainment, but can we get away from the curse of plot inflation where each series finale has to be bigger and better than the last – to the point were we now have the entire universe being destroyed by a blue box – and also saved by it.

Saving the entire universe is too much for any story to cope with.

Suggest an evening that involves wandering round an old fashioned museum with a glass of wine and I am probably already interested – but throw in allusions to Dr Who and various other science fiction shows and we have a near certainty that I’ll want to turn up.

Last night, the delightful old Petrie Musuem in central London tried out a “trail” written by written by Dr Who books author, Simon Guerrier.

Simple idea – various aspects of how ancient Egypt were co-opted by sci-fi writers and used as props within their stories – demonstrated by suitable artifacts in the museum that were closely (or not) linked to the underlying story.

A DVD of the Pyramids of Mars was being played in one of the rooms, where incidentally they also show late-night horror films on occasions.

Although most of the “trail” was devoted to Dr Who, Stargate got mentions, as did various other sci-fi shows I am less familiar with.

The big surprise for me though was to learn that the helmets worn by pilots in the original version of Battlestar Galactica were directly modelled on the headdress worn by Egyptian Pharaohs, right down to a variation of the uraeus on the front.

Overall, a very enjoyable hour in one of my personal favourite museums – and hopefully they will repeat the event (or similar) in the future.

Diamond Geezer also seems to be quite keen on the museum.

Being a moderately signed up geek, I am quite keen on Dr Who. Unlike some people I know (glares!), for me, it is just a bit of light entertainment, not The Meaning of Lifeâ„¢ as some seem to treat it.

Also, slightly heretical, but I prefer the pre-2005 episodes as they had a lot less special effects and generally more interesting plots!

However, I was still rather excited to see that Bonhams are going to sell off some of the BBC’s Dr Who memorabilia – which usually means public viewing days to have a look at the goodies. As usual, I can’t afford to buy anything, but I can go for a look.

Although public viewing days for auctions are normally free, this time they are being charged for – I guess Bonhams guessed it would be rather popular and spotted the opportunity to cash in on it – damn!

Entrance to the view and to the sale will be by catalogue only. Catalogues cost £15 and each catalogue admits two people. Children go free if accompanied by an adult, and a minimum of £5 from each catalogue sale will be donated to ‘Children in Need’.

Still, you do get the catalogue to keep, and sales catalogues do tend to be rather good quality – expect a lot of glossy photos and history about each prop.

PS: Yes, they are selling a DALEK – if you have a spare £5-£7,000 lying around.

The viewing days are:

Sun 21 February 11am – 3pm
Mon 22 February 9am – 4.30pm
Tue 23 February 9am – 4.30pm
Wed 24 February 9am – 12noon

More details on the Bonham’s website – the auction house is on Montpelier Street, just across from Harrods.

I think I might try to go on the Monday – as I suspect the place will be PACKED on the Sunday with lots of adult sized children ohhing and ahhing over the props.

A gushing press release from Network Rail has boasted that overland rail reliability is now at its highest ever level.

A grand total of 90.6% of trains are claimed to arrive “on time” now – although their definition of “on time” is not what I would call “on time”, being an allowance of up to 5 minutes late for local services and up to 10 minutes late for long distance trips.

Another way to look at the figures though is to say that a staggering 10% of all train journeys are still arriving over 10 minutes later than timetabled.

Which is a bit pathetic really.

Oh, the claim in the press release said “This is the first time in the history of Britain’s railways that the benchmark of 90% of trains on time has been reached over the course of a year.”

Considering how long Britain has had railway networks that does, to be fair, sound quite impressive.

However, it transpires that “the history of Britains railways” only goes back as far as 1992.

Just like BBC 3, which constantly reruns episodes of Dr Who, but also seems to think that Dr Who didn’t exist before 2005 – it seems that Britains railway history has been equally truncated and now began as recently as 1992.

The Orwellian posters, adverts and their ilk that are going up to warn us to snoop on our neighbours report legitimately suspicious behaviour, such as not recycling the glass bottles have invevitably lead to a website to make you your own fake versions.

Make your own at http://jamesholden.net/billboard/

Via: RailwayEye

Tip to people who make these mock image websites – allow direct linking to the website with the created image. I had to save the image, resize it and upload it to the blog, which also means I can’t just send a link of a joke billboard I made to friends. Yes, it pushes your bandwidth though the roof, but is very good for viral distribution and long term link building/search rankings.