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iguanaEmily and I have taken up swimming on a (roughly) weekly basis. We're generally preferring Marshall Street fitness centre in Soho for convenience. I've also used Sidcup swimming baths once, which had warmer water but is barely ever open in the evenings for lane swimming, in favour of swimming clubs and other events.
On Saturday 6th I went to the Thames Southbank where there was a bread festival going on. Disappointingly, none of the related stalls were selling edibles for lunch, and there was only one stall to my recollection selling bread at all! Fortunately there were other things going on along the Thames, so I got some tasty food and watched some limboers/plate spinners.
Now that it's cold and dark outside, Emily and I have been taking the opportunity to sample the best hot chocolate, as listed in Time Out's guide to the best hot chocolate. We have had mixed results, and are planning to create a separate blog to document our efforts. One night, we went to Cocomaya, just north of Hyde Park. The hot chocolate, after the frosty owners actually decided to let us in through the door, tasted like it had too little milk and too much cornflour in it, but afterwards we walked along the North edge of Hyde Park, and came across several bales of hay dotted along the pathway. They were difficult to jump up onto but very comfortable to sit on once you were there!
The next weekend we went to Oxleas Woods near Falconwood railway station, since it was mentioned on a National Woodland Trust "best autumn woodlands" list. It didn't disappoint. It was a lovely ancient woodland on a bright sunny day, and to top that there was also a lovely walled garden and even a small castle. It's part of the London Green Chain, which we shall have to explore some more.
The 21st was Emily and my first anniversary and we celebrated it by having pain au chocolate in the morning, taking a walk through Joyden's Wood in Bexley afterwards, then coming back home and cooking oven-roasted ratatouille followed by chocolate fondant, eaten by candlelight.
On Hallowe'en weekend, while rabbit-sitting for my parents, we carved a dragon into a pumpkin. I say 'we', in actuality Emily is much better and I contributed a mere wing on the resulting dragon. On Hallowe'en night itself, Emily, her flatmate Tim, and I did apple-bobbing, and I won the speed competition by virtue of being unafraid of completely dunking my head into the bowl of cold water (and displacing a lot of water onto the floor).
And finally...
I have finally finished watching through all of the Fourth Doctor episodes of Doctor Who (with the exception of Terror of the Zygons, which isn't released on DVD yet, The Robots of Death, which Lovefilm didn't have available to rent at the time; and of course Shada, Douglas Adams' script that was unfortunately never completed due to a strike.).
I wrote this section earlier before starting on any of the Fifth Doctor episodes, to make it easier on my memory. The Fourth Doctor spanned seven years of television (although I managed to watch them all in just over six months!), so it's difficult to remember them all with clarity.
The Fourth Doctor's era had an awful lot of different producers, which meant that different seasons had different styles to them, and the ones in-between were usually a mix of stories commissioned by the previous producer and then attempted to be adapted to the new producer's taste. By contrast, the Third Doctor had the same producer and script editor throughout his entire tenure. I think this is why people tend to describe Tom Baker's Doctor as just eccentric, although that is certainly how Baker portrays him too.
As you can probably tell, I didn't enjoy the Fourth Doctor's years so much, which wasn't just because of the character but also because of the direction the series took, and also the fact that a lot of the episodes have aged really badly - a combination of the special effects becoming easy enough to become commonplace while still looking lousy, low budgets for the sets and costumes, and the futuristic technology shown in the episodes being obviously late 70s/ early 80s technology (at one point the Doctor pulls out a box of punch cards and feeds one into the TARDIS, which prints out data on a receipt printer), rather than actually speculative science fiction as seen earlier in the series.
That said, there are a few gems in there that were really enjoyable:
* Genesis of the Daleks, featuring the introduction of Davros, who is portrayed excellently. My joint favourite Fourth Doctor story.
* The Android Invasion, robot doppelgangers!
* The Hand of Fear, Sarah Jane's last appearance, and a particularly good episode too.
* The Pirate Planet, Douglas Adams' first script for the series, showing Adams' talent for making things funny while still keeping a serious backbone to a story. The whole of Season 16 (title The Key to Time) gets an honourable mention for introducing Romana, but most of the stories weren't to my taste.
* City of Death, filmed in Paris. My other joint favourite Fourth Doctor story, also written by Douglas Adams (under a pseudonym since the original concept was not his idea).
* Logopolis, the Fourth Doctor's last story, which wasn't anything particularly special but I think it's possibly Tom Baker's best performance.
Other honourable mentions to Robot, Baker's first story; Pyramids of Mars ("Kneel before the might of Sutekh!"); The Sun Makers, a good concept but executed badly;
Destiny of the Daleks, which showed why the Daleks needed Davros but was otherwise unremarkable (and a little controversial in the handling of Romana's regeneration); Warriors' Gate, for a visually stylistic episode; and The Keeper of Traken featuring the (badly-cast, in my opinion) return of the Master.
I'm still hoping to get through the rest of the classic series before the 50th anniversary in just over a year's time, because I'm sure the new series will be chucking in a bunch of references. I just hope that I can stand it!
On Saturday 6th I went to the Thames Southbank where there was a bread festival going on. Disappointingly, none of the related stalls were selling edibles for lunch, and there was only one stall to my recollection selling bread at all! Fortunately there were other things going on along the Thames, so I got some tasty food and watched some limboers/plate spinners.
Now that it's cold and dark outside, Emily and I have been taking the opportunity to sample the best hot chocolate, as listed in Time Out's guide to the best hot chocolate. We have had mixed results, and are planning to create a separate blog to document our efforts. One night, we went to Cocomaya, just north of Hyde Park. The hot chocolate, after the frosty owners actually decided to let us in through the door, tasted like it had too little milk and too much cornflour in it, but afterwards we walked along the North edge of Hyde Park, and came across several bales of hay dotted along the pathway. They were difficult to jump up onto but very comfortable to sit on once you were there!
The next weekend we went to Oxleas Woods near Falconwood railway station, since it was mentioned on a National Woodland Trust "best autumn woodlands" list. It didn't disappoint. It was a lovely ancient woodland on a bright sunny day, and to top that there was also a lovely walled garden and even a small castle. It's part of the London Green Chain, which we shall have to explore some more.
The 21st was Emily and my first anniversary and we celebrated it by having pain au chocolate in the morning, taking a walk through Joyden's Wood in Bexley afterwards, then coming back home and cooking oven-roasted ratatouille followed by chocolate fondant, eaten by candlelight.
On Hallowe'en weekend, while rabbit-sitting for my parents, we carved a dragon into a pumpkin. I say 'we', in actuality Emily is much better and I contributed a mere wing on the resulting dragon. On Hallowe'en night itself, Emily, her flatmate Tim, and I did apple-bobbing, and I won the speed competition by virtue of being unafraid of completely dunking my head into the bowl of cold water (and displacing a lot of water onto the floor).
And finally...
I have finally finished watching through all of the Fourth Doctor episodes of Doctor Who (with the exception of Terror of the Zygons, which isn't released on DVD yet, The Robots of Death, which Lovefilm didn't have available to rent at the time; and of course Shada, Douglas Adams' script that was unfortunately never completed due to a strike.).
I wrote this section earlier before starting on any of the Fifth Doctor episodes, to make it easier on my memory. The Fourth Doctor spanned seven years of television (although I managed to watch them all in just over six months!), so it's difficult to remember them all with clarity.
The Fourth Doctor's era had an awful lot of different producers, which meant that different seasons had different styles to them, and the ones in-between were usually a mix of stories commissioned by the previous producer and then attempted to be adapted to the new producer's taste. By contrast, the Third Doctor had the same producer and script editor throughout his entire tenure. I think this is why people tend to describe Tom Baker's Doctor as just eccentric, although that is certainly how Baker portrays him too.
As you can probably tell, I didn't enjoy the Fourth Doctor's years so much, which wasn't just because of the character but also because of the direction the series took, and also the fact that a lot of the episodes have aged really badly - a combination of the special effects becoming easy enough to become commonplace while still looking lousy, low budgets for the sets and costumes, and the futuristic technology shown in the episodes being obviously late 70s/ early 80s technology (at one point the Doctor pulls out a box of punch cards and feeds one into the TARDIS, which prints out data on a receipt printer), rather than actually speculative science fiction as seen earlier in the series.
That said, there are a few gems in there that were really enjoyable:
* Genesis of the Daleks, featuring the introduction of Davros, who is portrayed excellently. My joint favourite Fourth Doctor story.
* The Android Invasion, robot doppelgangers!
* The Hand of Fear, Sarah Jane's last appearance, and a particularly good episode too.
* The Pirate Planet, Douglas Adams' first script for the series, showing Adams' talent for making things funny while still keeping a serious backbone to a story. The whole of Season 16 (title The Key to Time) gets an honourable mention for introducing Romana, but most of the stories weren't to my taste.
* City of Death, filmed in Paris. My other joint favourite Fourth Doctor story, also written by Douglas Adams (under a pseudonym since the original concept was not his idea).
* Logopolis, the Fourth Doctor's last story, which wasn't anything particularly special but I think it's possibly Tom Baker's best performance.
Other honourable mentions to Robot, Baker's first story; Pyramids of Mars ("Kneel before the might of Sutekh!"); The Sun Makers, a good concept but executed badly;
Destiny of the Daleks, which showed why the Daleks needed Davros but was otherwise unremarkable (and a little controversial in the handling of Romana's regeneration); Warriors' Gate, for a visually stylistic episode; and The Keeper of Traken featuring the (badly-cast, in my opinion) return of the Master.
I'm still hoping to get through the rest of the classic series before the 50th anniversary in just over a year's time, because I'm sure the new series will be chucking in a bunch of references. I just hope that I can stand it!
