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Finished watching this, having watched spread out and slowly.

Just beautiful, a gem of a series, that has so much of the feel of Mackenzie Crook's Detectorists, but tells an original story, with brand new characters, with warmth, style and pathos.

The character interactions were magical throughout.

So much of the best bits of the series were the small details, so very carefully observed, acted and directed.

And every character was rounded and sympathetic to an extent. That's top writing.

I especially enjoyed some of the moments in the DIY store.

But the best part was the relationship between Michael and Kacey.

For goodness sake BBC, renew it for a second series! Though I am rather wondering how well that would work. I'll certainly watch.

If you're in the UK and can watch this on iPlayer, I thoroughly recommend doing so.

If you're in another country, I hope it is broadcast where you are and you get a chance to see it!

It really is very special.

ffutures

This is a bundle offer of Deadpool from Akers Games, a baseball simulation dice game.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Deadball

I am (a) British and (b) not a sports fan, and have no interest whatever in baseball statistics. I am obviously not this game's target audience. If you are, have fun.

vivdunstan

Very sad to see the Scottish assisted dying bill voted against. Thinking of my dad tonight, and those like him, who suffered cruel and prolonged deaths from terminal disease, with totally inadequate palliative care, and would have dearly liked the option of assisted dying legislation.

And I find it really hard to read people posting about making life worth living instead. My dad died of pulmonary fibrosis, suffocating to death over two years hooked up permanently to oxygen. The last few months were agonising. People saying this haven't a clue how much some suffer. It is so cruel.

andrewducker

1. "Gamblers trying to win a bet on Polymarket are vowing to kill me if I don't rewrite an Iran missile story": (tags:iran israel journalism gambling ohforfuckssake )
2. Subnautica 2 Publisher Followed ChatGPT's Advice On How To Break The Law: (tags:law ai games OhForFucksSake )
3. Nvidia's Next-Gen Photo-Realistic Lighting looks, frankly, amazing: (tags:games lighting nvidia video )
4. Regression, Not Progress: A Response to World Athletics' Return to Sex Testing: (tags:gender testing OhForFucksSake women LGBT transgender biology )
5. Have some simple but inspiring images about growth through making mistakes: (tags:inspiration visualisation )
6. Almost 25 years ago, a war game exercise had an Iran-stand in use asymmetric warfare to obliterate a US military force. So they re-ran it to force a US victory.: (tags:usa military ohforfuckssake iran games )

andrewducker

I do wish that polls wouldn't ask if people thought that the PM was handling something "Well" or "Badly". Because two people answering "Badly" might mean completely different things by it.

Also, me saying "Immigration is important to me" means the opposite of what a Reform voter would mean by it.

This because of reporting of how many people think that Starmer is handling the Iran situation well or badly. When I can guarantee that some of the "badly" think we should be bombing Iran right now, and some think that we shouldn't be involved even slightly.

ffutures

An extra big bundle of matrial for Trail of Cthulhu (first edition), the GUMSHOE system game of Cthulhu Mythos investigations from Pelgrane Press.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/TrailMega

There's a lot of material here, but most of it has been in previous bundles - Fearful Symmetries, The Book of the New Jerusalem, and Cthulhu Apocalypse (combined retail value $62) are new. I think that as usual with these bundles it may be worth checking how much you already own, and how much you actually want, and possibly just buy one or two that you really want rather than the whole lot.

andrewducker

This is from a post made here on Facebook. I'm copying it here, with the permission of the original author, so that people off Facebook can see it.

I had the pleasure of Terry’s company on a week-long Writer’s Retreat twice, in 1990, as part of a company of eight interesting people in Diss, Suffolk.

Terry later came to my wedding and gave me a proof copy of ‘Lords and Ladies’ as a wedding gift! I had never read his books before I met him, so I began with ‘Wyrd Sisters’ - and have carried on reading them ever since.

When he learned I was meeting up with Terry again, my local Librarian shouted ‘Oook!’ and collected up every book by Terry which he had in the Library, and asked him to sign them. This amused Terry - and shocked other participants! "You shouldn't write in Library Books" etc...

Terry and I were both reading Henry Mayhew’s ‘London labour and the London poor’ at the time.

I asked Terry to make a list of other books which he found inspirational. Here they are:

‘The Evolution Man’ by Roy Lewis.

‘The Specialist’ by Charles Sale.

‘The Canterbury Tales’ by Chaucer.

‘Fairy Tales’ by Charles Perrault.

Jacqueline Simpson’s folklore books.

Everything by J R R Tolkien and C S Lewis.

‘The Wind From the Sun’ by Arthur C. Clarke.

‘Cold Comfort Farm’ by Stella Gibbons (my favourite book).

‘Mistress Masham’s Repose’ and the Arthurian Trilogy by T H White.

I also add the new series of novels set in St Mary’s by Jodi Taylor, of whom I am a keen fan, and strongly recommend. Terry told Jodi how much he liked her writings. Start with ‘Just One Da*ned Thing After Another’ and carry on enjoying!

Edit - I forgot 'The Moomins' series!

andrewducker

1. 'Buffy' Reboot Dead at Hulu: (tags:Buffy TV )
2. The Life Cycle of Money: (tags:money )
3. A Guide to Terms of Address for British Nobility: (tags:monarchy language uk )

andrewducker

Following yesterday's illness, I was vaguely hoping that he would stay asleep through the night. Alas:

12:05
"I need a wee"
Took him to the toilet.
"Daddy, my tummy hurts"
Gave him some medicine
"Do you want to be in pyjamas or just straight back to bed?"
"Back to bed"
And then he closed his eyes.

12:20
Thundering footsteps "Daddy, I feel sick"
Told him to go to the toilet. Kept him company, got him a bucket.
He wasn't sick.
Persuaded him to take the bucket to bed.
Sat on the floor next to his bed until he closed his eyes.

12:35
More thundering steps
"Daddy, my arm and leg hurt"
By the time I'd found him medicine he was asleep again.
But woke up again and let me give him some Calpol.

03:30
"I'm hungry" (not surprising as he didn't eat yesterday)
We agreed on cream cheese crackers.
He ate ⅘ of the cracker and drank some juice and passed out again.

06:30
"I checked the light coming under the curtain and it's morning time"
I told him to go play games on the Switch downstairs.
Fifteen minutes later I could still hear him wandering about and I hadn't heard any game noises.
Went to check on him and he told him that he'd found various points around the house where the floor isn't flat.
Got him settled with the Switch, and then went back to bed and stared vacantly at my phone for an hour, before getting up to face the day.

vivdunstan

"The Importance of Being Earnest" of course, starring Ncuti Gatwa. Which is currently free to stream online via YouTube until March 18th.

I hadn't realised before starting to watch it that Julian Bleach (Davros) is in it too, and also Richard Cant ("Blink"). I knew Sharon D Clarke (Grace, Thirteenth Doctor era) played Lady Bracknell. Oh and Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́, who plays Gwendolen, also appeared in a couple of Twelfth Doctor TV stories. Ncuti Gatwa's main co-star Hugh Skinner hasn't been on TV Who, but has appeared in Big Finish audios. Oh and Amanda Lawrence (Doomfinger in "The Shakespeare Code") is also in it!

I've watched the first half of the play tonight and will watch the rest tomorrow or the next day. Very much enjoying it.

Watch on YouTube

mark posting in

dw_maintenance

Happy Saturday!

I'm going to be doing a little maintenance today. It will likely cause a tiny interruption of service (specifically for www.dreamwidth.org) on the order of 2-3 minutes while some settings propagate. If you're on a journal page, that should still work throughout!

If it doesn't work, the rollback plan is pretty quick, I'm just toggling a setting on how traffic gets to the site. I'll update this post if something goes wrong, but don't anticipate any interruption to be longer than 10 minutes even in a rollback situation.

andrewducker

The first time Gideon fell asleep in front of the toilet we moved him to a comfy chair. From where he woke up still feeling sick and Jane found him lying on the floor with a bucket he'd found and relocated him back to the toilet, where he then fell asleep again.

I missed all of this because I had passed out in bed feeling rubbish. I did wake up to various noises, but each time I did I tried to open my eyelids, failed, and fell back to sleep again. Thankfully Jane isn't feeling as bad as me, and Sophia was off having a play date at the other end of the street.

So far nobody has actually thrown up. Fingers crossed that continues.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

andrewducker

1. This 18-year-old Afghan girl had offers from York and Reading - thanks to Shabana Mahmood, she will now never escape the Taliban: (tags:Afghanistan women UK migration asylum education OhForFucksSake )
2. AI toys for children misread emotions and respond inappropriately: (tags:toys children ai )
3. PEGI to give 16 age rating to games with loot boxes (amongst several other changes): (tags:gambling children games )
4. Have two people being *ridiculously* good at a Dance Pad game: Streamed live at: https://www.twitch.tv/tomatoniumWorld 1st PG on Sarabande CoopP1: ElijahTSP2: Tomatonium

(tags:games dancing video viamybrothermike )
5. New NHS England Review Excluded 97% Of All Trans Studies To Say Care Doesn't Work: (tags:LGBT bigotry healthcare OhForFucksSake transgender )
6. Tracing the lobbying behind age verification laws: (tags:age surveillance USA law politics )

vivdunstan

Got to the end of my 4-a-day home blood pressure readings (was filling the complete form, and just had space left to do 2 final readings this morning). My average over the week-ish is coming in at 125/80. That'll do nicely.

I have a cerebrovascular disease, so keeping my blood pressure within safe levels is important. But my readings in the health centre are not reliable due to white coat syndrome. I am happy to check at home.

vivdunstan

Recently rewatched this, and enjoyed it again, though perhaps not as much as the first time.

The Golden Age style whodunnit aspect is fantastic. Though I found it frustrating that the Doctor already knows about the Foretold, making me feel one step removed from the story at that point. Writing about (fictional) past legendary things can be tricky, but I think a smoother bit of sleight of hand could have improved this. Taking the viewer along with the Doctor on the journey of discovery can be an important element.

I still find the split between the Agatha Christie esque train setting and the futuristic lab to be extremely jarring. This is a longstanding problem I have with Doctor Who stories that have an atmospheric opening setting, sometimes historical, and then relocate to a different much more scifi setting. Think "The Stones of Blood" for example.

Yet there is a good resolution, and the guest cast is strong. Not least Frank Skinner as train chief engineer Perkins, who has an unnerving ambiguity about whether he's an ally or not. Nicely done.