You would have to pay me £500 to watch that.

BTW my mum also thought it was excellent but she didn't like the chapters switching between the spiders and the humans, so she read all the human stuff and then all the spider stuff. #JonnysMum

The cover is a large spaceship in space above a green planet, caught at just the moment when a setting or rising sun will cause lens flare.

JR Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovksy. I'm late to the party but, yes, this is excellent. The joy of good SF is an author with such imagination that you leave the book feeling your mind has been expanded. 600 pages is a lot but that said I read the last 150 in one sitting, I was so gripped.

One Who mystery I've never worked out is how/why they decided to go from Mission to the Unknown to The Myth Makers, which seems mad, and which we know annoyed/confused viewers at the time. It just seems to have happened almost by accident.

John Levene remains unassailable at top place.

Shirts off, everyone, we're doing the Iliad!

He'd be "Feck! Arse! Boys!"

So much of what Tosh etc. say about Hartnell having trouble learning his lines was down to them delivering the rehearsal scripts so late he didn't have time to learn them. (This *is* mentioned in the production paperwork).

Much as enjoy the mental of image of William Hartnell turning up to rehearsals in an inebriated Father Jack state, shouting "Feck! Arse! Girls!" if it's not in a memo in the production paperwork, I don't believe it.

I am impressed at the logical contortions undertaken to accuse people who shout "Refugees welcome" as being racist.

I believe it was dear Oscar who wrote, to attempt to appoint one sex offender apologist to a diplomatic role may be regarded a misfortune, to do it twice looks like carelessness.

#1 on the list is 'leave'.

Yes (Full Version) YouTube video by McAlmont & Butler - Topic

This sounded like it might be the beginning of something amazing. It wasn't.

youtu.be/vltxC9ljJqA?...

What's The Excuse This Time? YouTube video by McAlmont & Butler - Topic

[SATIRE] Yes, Keir Starmer. What's the excuse this time? [/SATIRE]

youtu.be/0f30KF1cOCc?...

You'll Lose A Good Thing YouTube video by McAlmont & Butler - Topic

I have just discovered this was a cover rather than something they made up in a couple of hours of spare studio time so I'm less impressed now.

youtu.be/fSKCLfeYbQM?...

McAlmont (l) & Butler (r) avoiding eye contact. Butler seems concerned by the typographical errors in the title lettering.

#EveryAlbumIOwn The Sound Of ... McAlmont & Butler. 1995.
Top 3 tunes: Yes, What's The Excuse This Time, You'll Lose A Good Thing
You can skip: Disappointment is nearly 9 minutes!
Rating: 7/10

There's some good stuff but let's face it, this is a b-sides compilation with singles at either end.

Shakespeare wrote all of Shakespeare's plays.

Me, making the pilgrimage.

So farewell then
Ianto's shrine
Created as a
So farewell then
For Ianto
Your show was dark, wild and sexy
Now you're a risk to health and safety
On TripAdvisor
You were #43 in Things To Do In Cardiff
Now Cardiff is down to
Only 42 wonders.

Yes, nowadays, he'd be getting hour-long videos DICKENS' LAZY WRITING - FIFTY OF HIS WORST MOMENTS.

An excerpt of the fragment.

kept even from his family, and which only became public after his death (and that after he was 'fired' from the job, which had been given as a favour from a relative, "I never shall forget that my mother was warm for me being sent back".)

There are all sorts of other interesting bits ie. Dickens re-reading David Copperfield before writing Great Expectations just to make sure he didn't repeat himself. But obviously the most interesting is the autobiographical fragment about being sent to work in a blacking warehouse, a secret which he

"Apparently the bit where Krook dies of 'spontaneous human combustion' was 'a bit far-fetched'. I will have you know there are several recorded cases of spontaneous human combustion, it can happen, it is a scientific fact!"

Yeah, so he's not always right.

There is also a lot of him railing against 19th century Actually-I-Think-You-Will-Finds. "You don't think I did my research on terrible Yorkshire schools? I WENT to Yorkshire! I visited the schools! I spoke to former teachers and pupils. How else do you think I unerringly captured the dialect?"

Similarly - and I paraphrase. "A critic said that the twist of John Rokesmith's real identity in Our Mutual Friend was too obvious. No. It wasn't meant to be a twist! You were supposed to work it out, that's why I made it super-fucking-obvious, you dumbfuck!"

beforehand escaped your fucking notice, did it? That bit where Rigaud goes in and goes, 'Woah, this place is a bit creaky, I hope it doesn't fall on me later' passed you by? The fact that I kept saying how rickety it was?"

He doesn't let it go. He keeps going on in this vein for another 2000 words.

I was greatly amused by - and empathised with - Dickens railing against unfair/incorrect criticisms of his work. i.e. "This review said that the end of Little Dorrit was inspired by a report of a building collapse in the news. Oh yeah, so the fact that I'd foreshadowed that for literally a year

Photo of Chaz Dix.

JR Charles Dickens Critical Anthology. I only read the letters/articles by Dickens himself, I have zero interest in reading criticism of his work (they all seem to have the same it-pains-me-to-say-it-but-you-could-have-done-better tone as the fanzine The Frame, if you remember that).

They ended up having to eat each other, like in the film They Ended Up Having To Eat Each Other.

The 1984 Video Recordings Act was a good idea though.

"Scientists have observed that rather than swimming upstream, the fish have been seen releasing increasingly indulgent double-albums".