#48

Blimey. Not done no bloggy guff for ages. Summer is always a bit mad for me because it rains slightly less than it does in the Winter so there are all those out-doory jobs to do, things like lawns selfishly just start growing like mad, so very little time for white-collar styli creativeness such as this even though this Summer has been even less impressive than the usual UK Summer... at least there's little chance of contacting painful 'Petrocelli Thumb' this year. OK so what is Petrocelli Thumb? Well it's a condition I, err, named, err, defined myself [You don't say that's not like you to make-up, I mean define, illnesses] it is pain in the main joints of your thumbs that you get from hooking them in your jeans pockets as you stroll about -- a perambulation style well suited to hot sunny days because your hands keep cooler than if you put them in your pockets but it still stops your arms flopping about a potentially uncool way. Petrocelli was a fictional character in a TV lawer/detective series of the same name, during the seventies I think. Of course the condition of Petrocelli Thumb of which I spake is only in-fact the modern day version of Petrocelli Thumb...the original version would involve pain, not in the main joints of your thumbs, but in the last joint of them (nearest the ends) because upon catching a repeat of Petrocelli the other day I noticed that his jeans were so tight (as was the custom of the day) that he could, in-fact, only manage to squeeze the tips of his thumbs in his drain-pipe pockets. He must indeed have suffered from Petrocelli Thumb though, because it would seem he was unable to lay more than a couple of bricks per week due to the pain, since that house of his that he was building out in the desert (I guess that land is cheap out there or something) never got above about waist high as far as I remember.

Anyway, while I've been away from the blogging keyboard another series of Doctor Who has finished alas, but at least they brought back one of my favourite baddies for the finale: Davros, don't you just love'im, and they had recreated him from his old 20th century self perfectly... they did not try and modernise him too much as I'd feared, he was delightfully horrible....it is a shame that the whole episode didn't follow suit with similar grittiness because instead of being delightfully horrible it was undelightfully cheesy to the max. I had to substantially boost my cheese filters before I could enjoy watching it... and it wasn't Katherine Tate that was guilty of the cheese, no, she was turning-out to be quite a good side kick towards the end and was showing great promise for the next series, and so they wrote-her-out all together, doh! Nor was the plot all that cheesy (well not the basic plot anyway) they just ladled-on the sycophantic style runny schmaltzy American cheese by the bucket load until it was almost intolerable. But I have to keep watching Doctor Who regardless of the ever increasing cheese because sometimes the episode you sit down to watch on Saturday night turns-out to be a real gem, a real dark harrowing gem. And Tennent is quite a good Doctor Who... although not my personal favourite, because as with everyone who has seen and grown-up with more than one Doctor I have a firm favourite regeneration the Doctor: played by Tom Baker. I used to be so impressed at his skill as an actor the way he he could portray this fantastic character which was simultaneously crammed full of wide eyed unpredictable eccentric enthusiasm, and, British style nonchalance. But the more I heard about Tom Baker the more I learn this is what he is/was actually like, so now I still just as impressed but on different grounds. So, given that the actor can bring so much of themselves to the part, I leave you this time with something to ponder over, and later argue about down t'pub: 'Who would make a top notch Doctor Who by more-or-less playing it as themself?' I've already though of one fantastic candidate: Brian Blessed need I say more (especially for those who saw his hosting of 'Have I got News for You' a few months ago)? [But damn-it, looking at his entry in h2g2 it seems he has already played a part in Doctor Who: 'King Yrcanos' so maybe that would exclude him even from an imaginary line-up.] But who would you choose? Thinks.


(By the way: acting tip of the week: if you ever were to audition for the part of a baddie in Doctor Who, remember to pronounce well, and emphasis much, the second 'o' in the word 'Doctor'. That 'o' is almost silent in normal spoken English, but not so in baddie English apparently. Try it and see for yourself -- probably the most effective Doctor Who baddie acting tip ever and you heard it here first (unless you're an existing Doctor Who baddie actor in which case you must have read it in some sort of 'So now Your a Doctor Who Baddie' manual))