Dreamer Easy

Smith defends Malaysia on asylum seekers: "Australia is confident Malaysia will treat asylum seekers appropriately, even though a report says corrupt officials have forced refugees into prostitution and slavery... The two nations agreed to stronger cooperation to combat people smuggling. But a US State Department report released last month put Malaysia on a blacklist of 16 nations judged to be the worst for people trafficking... Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN convention on refugees." (The news item neglects to tell us who "Smith" is - he's Foreign Minister Stephen Smith.) I can only hope that Australia's involvement might mean Malaysia improves its treatment of refugees, if only due to outside scrutiny.

Review of Hummer which IMHO gets my good and bad points as a writer spot-on.

Stop Motion With Wolf and Pig

Pre-taped call in show

Stop Motion Drums and Piano

Currently giggling at my own rubbish jokes from Walking to Babylon c/o the online Disco Guide. Tch tch tch. Hee hee hee.

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.bizarre/msg/e1b37d0f68b9cb7e

"The Terrible Fate of Kate's Novels" by me (talk.bizarre, 12 October 2005)

"Blue Box"
Was crushed by rocks.

"So Vile A Sin"
Fell into the bin.

The rest of my books
Were eaten by chooks
(Except "Room With No Doors"
Which was eaten by Jaws.)

The end
By me

Chicago TARDIS is utterly splendid - efficiently run and a ton of fun - and the organisers are taking excellent care of us. Laughing with other fans is the cure to that blinkered view of fandom that the Intersplat gives you: it's not all about bile and repetition, after all. The slash and sex panels were full of fresh ideas, and there was further thought provokage at the novels retrospective (plus Paul and Gary being hilarious and witty as usual) and the "look back at the RTD era" thing (Simon Guerrier makes me lol so much). Only thing that's gone off the rails a bit so far was "how to write better fanfic", which I fear was consumed by me ranting about the unimportance of punctuation. Next year I think we ought to do it as a jelly-wrestling contest.

It's snowing a bit.

ETA: I made Lars Pearson literally fall on the floor laughing by doing an impression of the Master shagging the Doctor with the help of the chair I was sitting in. Result!

ETA 2020: I was literally out of mind at this convention: hypomanic, agitated, irritable, and generally out of control. It's one of my great regrets.

Fic: "Overtures" (Eight/Karl, R)

The best Ianto bits from the BBC America Captain's Blog

YOIT review

Things Ianto Jones Learnt on his First Date With Captain Jack Harkness

A really excellent theory about Torchwood

Q reviews "Room"

Online Fans Represent TV's Vocal Minority

Heh. Check out Behind the Sofa's header. (Doctor Who S4 finale spoilers)

Decalog 4 review

Captain Jack's cufflinks

John Barrowman gets girl germs

ETA MOAR

Script of the cut scene from "Journey's End"

io9 Interview with Steven Moffat

Ben Aaronovitch's blog

Prior to a hasty flocking¹, a naughty nameless person was complaining that my Doctor Who novels are merely an excuse for indulging my fetishes. I protest! I prefer the term "perversions"!

It's hardly the first time someone's pointed out the suspicious link between my perpetual crush on the Doctor and the rougher than usual handling he received in my books for Virgin and the Beeb. I've puzzled about this for years - there are perfectly sensible writerly reasons to kick hell out of your characters, but those scenes of hurt and comfort drove my narratives (to the point where even I started taking the piss). In actual TV episodes, I find them more riveting than any other part of the story.

The thing is, it can't actually be a fetish; bluntly, it doesn't sexually arouse me. I have a few strange little turn-ons, just like anyone (not that you'll be hearing about those in this blog, dear reader), and I can tell the difference between them and, say, 42 or Set Piece. I don't think it's sadism, either - I always end up identifying with the victim, not the other guy. And my heart goes pit-a-pat for, say, the Fourth Doctor getting zapped in The Android Invasion, even though I'm incapable of fancying Tom Baker. In the immortal words of Sonny Crockett: "What the hell is going on here?!"

My current theory is that it's some sort of sublimated parasexual thingumy to do with heroic suffering (something I am crap at myself). Like Christian girls falling in non-sexual love with Jesus. Does this tally with anyone else's experience? Is hurt/comfort an actual turn-on for you, or just a strange fascination?

1 I'm wrong! It's just cut now, which I guess is why it fell off Google Blogs search.

For kelemvor: here we have New Adventures companion Chris Cwej and recurring supporting character Joel Mintz and a missing scene from The Room With No Doors and sex. >:-)

( Joel makes sure that Chris spoons him )

Next up: the Eighth Doctor hath a phobia...

The alien in my Sixth Doctor novel Blue Box was inspired by Magritte's painting Left Behind by the Shadow.

To help with my Big Finish Benny novella, All Mimsy Were the Borogoves, I'm re-reading my 1996 Doctor Who novel Return of the Living Dad. There's too much repetition, too many in-jokes, too many characters, and far too many POV shifts, but the prose is generally holding up all right. There are certain similarities with the new show: the emphasis on relationships, the self-awareness - and it's tempting to think that the NAs influenced RTD's thinking, but I suspect that more than anything both books and show are products of their times.