missprint

So, last Doctor Who of the season and last Doctor Who with Rose Tyler in the passenger seat. I think I've just about recovered from crying over the departure of Dame Billie of Piper to sufficiently write my customary review in note form for Army of Ghosts/Doomsday:

- Ooh, I do enjoy a Doctor Who two-parter and I fully agree with Charlie Brooker that next season is definately time to wheel out a three or four-part story (preferably scripted by Mark Gatiss rather than Russell T. Davis or Steven Moffat - no more cringey pop culture references and jokes about bananas please Doctor Who script writers. Thank you!)
- Not so much a comment about the episode but the bit in Army of Ghosts where the ghosts are milling about a square amongst some children playing is right outside where I work. So you can imagine I got quite spooked walking through said square the next day to go to work, I kept expecting to be attacked by a non-corporeal Cyberman.
- Also again, not so much a comment on the episode but I so knew those ghosts were Cybermen in disguise.
- I liked all the random Doctor&Rose adventures that we glimpsed at the beginning of Army of Ghosts. And also Rose on the bus eating chips.
- How excited was I to see yet another shoutout to Peckham in a Doctor Who episode? Apparently, the Powell estate is located in SE15 - Rose a Peckham girl? Yay.
- I know it's overegging the whole Number-Ten-does-domestic thing but I loved the part with Jackie planting a huge one on the Doctor.
- It's nice to know that in the not-too distant future, office IM systems will still be used to conduct clandestine stationary cupboard affairs. (By the way, having little office experience myself, do such office IM systems even exist or are they a myth of TV and film land?)
- So why didn't anyone notice that the office lovebirds had suddenly taken to wearing two flashing headsets each?
- A double-thumbs up for lots of Jackie running about in inappropriate clothing, hurrah!
- And an even bigger yay for the return of everybody's favourite freedom-fighting-couple-with-no-homoerotic-undertones-whatsoever, Mickey and Jake!
- Excellent to see ex-Eastenders cast members being put to use! Although, both you dear reader and myself know that I am really referring to the fabulous Goddess with Corkscrew Mop, Tracey-Ann Oberman and not that-other-one-who-was-out-of-the-Ferreiras. I wish that Yvonne hadn't died though because she would have elevated the inevitably dodgy Torchwood to at least so-bad-it's-good.
- Although, Yvonne's death did mean that we got to see Cybertears cried from Cybereyes, yay.
- But really, the final fifteen minutes of this two-parter stole the show. Maybe for other less-'shipper inclined minds, the Dalek vs. Cyberman showdown was the highlight of this season's finale (all I can say is the playground taunts amused me greatly and that's about the point where I lost interest in the whole enterprise). However, being hopelessly girly and squishy inside (well, I suppose everyone is literally squishy inside but I digress) I wanted to see whether the Doctor and Rose would finally make plain what we've all seen since day one (ah, he had her at hello-quick-get-out-of-the-way-of-those-murderous-mannequins.) Even though there have been Portents of Doom all season, it broke my little 'shipper heart into teeny tiny pieces. The Doctor might travel across galaxies and through eras, epochs and aeons but he seems destined to make the same mistake and it's the same mistake that he made with Sarah-Jane that is repeating itself with Rose.
- Catherine Tate as the Bride? Let us speak no more of it and postpone any scathing judgement until Christmas.

Anyway, I should just prise myself away from fantasy television universes and transport myself firmly back into boring no-time-travel reality. I spent a rather enjoyable day playing tour guide to Steph's cousin today and seeing as it was a gloriously sunny day, we decided that Greenwich would be the perfect antidote to the other grimy tourist attractions of London.

So, I decided that any trip to Greenwich should definately incorporate a visit to the meridian line and the Royal Observatory which is located in my favourite of the Royal Parks, Greenwich Park. Given that the sun was beating down upon our heads and we had just climbed up a rather steep hill to get to the meridian line and observatory, I was too busy thinking about how dehydrated I was to pay attention to the helpful information boards telling me what the meridian line actually was. (I know it's got something to do with longitudinal and latidutinal lines but beyond that, I'm hopelessly flailing about in geographical terminology.) Then I remembered that tucked away in a dark corner of Greenwich Park is a deer enclosure, so we went trampling through some squirrel-infested undergrowth in search of the deer.

(A little detour: After visiting Dublin Zoo a few years ago, I've been quite a fan of zoos ever since but it's been somewhat of a sore subject betwixt myself and Steph after we had an argument about the living conditions of the animals. Anyway, ever since then the subject of a trip to a zoo has never been broached but I'd forgotten about the existance of safari parks such as Longleat and Whipsnade. Anyway, I mentioned to Steph that we should visit a safari park this summer and that I don't mind having my car pulled apart by monkeys, so I have spent the evening researching both parks and have thus far not decided which one is more worthy of my patronage. Any suggestions would be heartily welcomed dear readers.)

After a quick wander around the pretty but dull Queen's House in the grounds of the National Maritime Museum, it was off to gawk at the Cutty Sark and debate about whether we could be bothered to go under the foot tunnel (verdict: no, it was too hot and really, all we wanted was an iced beverage and to sit in the air-conditioned darkness of the cinema, entertained by a grease-painted Johnny Depp.) So, Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest it was then. I was rather disappointed by the first installment and the second installment lived up to the first's reputation. When will Gore Verbinski learn that you can't just string together a bunch of entertaining scenes featuring Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow and not-so-entertaining-as-much-as-coma-inducing scenes with Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly (why I am the only one who can see the resemblance between Knightly and a barracuda?) and label it 'summer blockbuster'? So Pirates II in summary: Johnny Depp and excellent CGI, yay, rest of the film (including the unresolved ending), boo.

In other news: American Apparel are perhaps taking political correctness a little too far.

I seem to be plagued with terminal indecision lately. It took me four days to write this entry (but I guess I can attribute that to laziness more than indecisiveness). I'm still trying to decide whether to leave my job or not and now I have the additional worry about whether to apply for this thing to train as a court reporter/stenographer or not. (I mainly can't decide whether it sounds interesting or terminally dull.) I have just spent the last half hour trying to decide whether I should do something with my day tomorrow and what I should do with my day if I do anything at all. The only thing that I gleaned from this was that I need more friends.

Last.fm have finally assigned me some neighbours and I have to say, it's somewhat of a let down. It's just a bunch of people who have exactly the same musical taste as me. (Which is exactly what it is so I don't know why I was so excited about it in the first place.) However, a perk of Last.fm is that everybody on the interweb can stalk me (musically speaking) and see that just now, I was listening to Blur's To The End. To this end, there's a stripy widget hanging about on the right-hand side somewhere which will enable you to carry out said aural stalkage. (N.B. If the list just shows up as Justin Timberlake - Sexyback, there is no need to readjust your sets. I really do listen to that track that much.)

Speaking of Mr. J.T.'s poptastic return, 2006 seems to be the year of the comeback. First, Take That bestow us with their craggy-yet-still-strangely-attractive presences, then Justin comes back looking like this:



But ignore the mysterious hanky and the fedora at a rakish angle! Instead, go listen to the Prince-a-licious new single Sexyback featuring (as all the best pop songs do) references to S&M sexual practices and the particularly excellent bit where some man in the background bellows "take 'em to the chorus!!" (Which is on a par with Rachel Stevens politely asking for the producer to "turn down the track a little please" in Negotiate With Love.) More reasons why Sexyback should be a summer 'choon':

- The triumphant return of the vocoder, saved from the ignonimity of last being used by Cher.
- Sexyback sounds a bit like Maneater's wife-beater wearing cousin.
- There's a very Britney-esque "yeah!" that intermittently appears in the background.
- Sexyback also sounds very much like JC Chasez's material (all of which was done better by JC) but hurrah for mucky boy pop being back in the charts!
- Like all great pop songs, the lyrics make absolutely no sense whatsoever ("I'm bringin' the sexy back / them other boys don't know how to act")
- All the promotional pictures vaguely makes Justin look like a criminal which is just the proverbial cherry on top of the proverbial icing on top of the proverbial cake.

And if that isn't enough, Beyonce is back with Crazy in Love part deux, this time entitled Deja Vu. Let's see:

- Big honking horn section? Tick.
- Cameo by Jay-Z? Tick.
- Beyonce wailing in her trademark it's-the-end-of-the-world manner? Tick.

But don't let this put you off, the intro should be enough to win you over (Beyonce intoning "Bass...hi-hat...808"). If you don't already love it for that bit then somewhere around the 3 minute mark, you have to have a heart of stone to not adore the handclap breakdown. Yes, a handclap breakdown. It has to be heard to be believed. Amazing.

Finally, Christina Aguilera, everybody's favourite mucky popstrel is back back back and seems to be releasing some kind of 1920s jazz concept-pop album. Which sounds so absurd it has to be fabulous. I have to admit, Ain't No Other Man didn't make much of an impression on me on first hearing. But then, late one night, I caught the video on TMF and it completely changed my mind:

Reasons to love Ain't No Other Man:

- The jazzy torch song at the beginning and end of the video.
- Christina prancing around in a gusset.
- Christina prancing around in rhinestone headphones.
- The perfectly synchronised dance routine (take note Girls Aloud)
- Christina's Tina-Turner-esque dance freak out at the end.

Other poptastic things to look forward to: Lily Allen's forthcoming album; the Jessica Simpson single (which I had previously condemned for being a terrible rip-off of Madonna's Holiday but have now embraced for the very same reasons); the as-yet-untitled Siobhan Donaghy album which features my new summer anthem, Sometimes; Pink releasing U + Ur Hand, a pop-punk ode to masturbation. Poptastic!