I lost two posts (one Cerebus and one Cal Dream), and the synopsis of my next novel, in the burglary, and I’ve spent my free time for the last couple of days installing Debian and getting it configured on our replacement laptops, so you get links today. I’m going to spend the weekend writing, so hopefully I’ll have some interesting stuff up after that.
I’ve got one of those Ello things. Suspect it’ll be even less popular than Diaspora, but I’m giving it a go. Add me if you like. No I don’t have any invitation codes.
Terry Pratchett isn’t jolly, he’s angry
Nick Barlow was as unimpressed with Miliband’s speech as I was
Unreflective pastoralism will kill us all
Millennium’s review of that crappy Doctor Who story where Clara caused everything again
Sci-Ence! Justice Leak! 
Huh. And I was just going to watch that episode this weekend.
Don: don’t not watch it because Andrew and Millennium didn’t like it. Lots of people (me included) loved it. At the very least, something that splits opinions that strongly is worth 45 minutes of your time so you can make up your mind.
Absolutely. Everyone except me, Millennium, Millennium’s daddy Alex, my friend Jennie, and a person I know on Twitter who has a personal dislike of Moffat seemed to like it, and GallifreyBase loved it…
Any by the way, Don (and anyone else unspoilered), if you do decide to watch the episode — and I highly recommend it — please do so before reading Millennium’s review, which is very spoileriffic.
I had been a bit flustered when I first saw Andrew’s link, because the description therein sounded like it was essentially spoiling the end of the episode. (I tend to be pretty good at avoiding spoilers, but have a real ire for instances which put the spoiler right into the headline or link.) Fortunately, having seen the episode last night, I see that wasn’t particularly the case.
Those of us who watched it last night had a mixed reaction to the episode. We all think it started off VERY good, if very Moffatty. But I think my main problem with it was that the episode was trying to be two completely different “Moffatt” episodes at once: The creepy story, and the knotted time-travel story. He’s made good episodes out of both of those kinds in the past … but I think each of these is tonally at odds with the other. So instead of getting an excellent version of one of these, for us it ended up as a frustrating mismatch.
That said, I am a bit boggled at just how universally acclaimed it’s been – and that kind of near-universalism always makes me want to re-examine the work, and my reaction to it. (ie, It’s always worth considering “If this is working for everyone else, maybe the problem is ME.”) So I expect I may want to give the episode another rewatch, and then read a few more reactions and discussions….