Science fiction triple feature

I've been away from this blog for some time. I'll explain later.

The bad news is that I had written this post just before Blogger died for a couple of days. I know I saved the whole thing as a draft. I mean, I know I did, because I hadn't finished the post and besides that, I wanted to come back and edit it.

Well, it's gone. All of it. As they say in America, sonofabitch.

Never mind. Writing is re-writing.

DOUGLAS ADAMS

is dead. He has been dead for ten years, more or less exactly.

He died young, he left the world much poorer for his passing and it has had to struggle on without him ever since.

I did not know Douglas Adams. I think I might once have communicated with him on a forum - possibly the Digital Village - once. But that was it.

Just as well, too. The horrible teetering thing about being a fan is you might meet the person you idolize and find out they aren't the person you imagine them to be. That might be crushingly awful. Of course they might be wonderful, but people tend to be people no matter the height of esteem you hold them in.

So, the Douglas Adams I knew was constructed from his work. This is the nice thing about writers; they let you into their heads - or limited bits of their heads - and show you what they're thinking. Of course the craft of writing means this is artifice and you have to be wary of that, because this is where the whole fallacy that you know the artist comes from. It's much saner to say that I knew the work of Douglas Adams and was profoundly pleased to have discovered it.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was the place where my sense of humour lived. I damn near memorized several versions of the story. I can still bore people with quotes, although these days I very nearly have the maturity not to. To put this in context, there have been shows - The Goon Show, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Hancock's Half Hour - which define a sense of humour. These shows provide a home, a place where those who share that sense of humour, belong.

I came late to the Goons and Python. I was obsessing about towels long before I understood about pining for the fjords.

With typical Geek appetite, once I had discovered Douglas Adams I wanted to read everything he'd ever written and consequently discovered his love for technology and his concern for the environment. I also discovered that he wasn't a novelist at heart (but had managed to write some good ones anyway) and, essentially, wanted to be given the chance to tinker with stuff and then enthuse about it to people who had receptive minds.

I'm glad that he had the chance to do this. I'm delighted by his imagination, because things he wrote are still with us to be enjoyed, and I'm grateful to him for giving my sense of humour a place to call home.

Moffat Slams Spoilers

There's a really odd relationship between fans and spoilers.

Some of us love them. I think it's the thrill of secret knowledge. Other people love the tang of the illicit.

Like any piece of art - yes, television is art and if you disagree then sorry but you're wrong (at least for the purposes of this blog) - people form relationships with a TV show. Most of us have a pretty normal, healthy relationship with the show and are satisfied with that. Some want more. They want clandestine meetings in seedy hotels, they want to explore relationship elements which, to others, would seem transgressive.

I think that's part of the thrill of spoilers.

My own relationship with spoilers is similar to a Lovecraftian protagonist's relationship with the Mythos. Sure, I want the knowledge. Crave it, even. But I know having the knowledge will drive me mad and result in my face being bitten off by something with too many mouths.

Generally, I try to be Spoiler free.

However, for those who want to be Spoiled and who consent to be Spoiled...well, I can't really tell them they're wrong. Any sensible fan, and any sensible forum, has a special place reserved where people who want to engage in a little harmless Spoilering...can. Behind closed doors, so to speak. If you're a consenting fan, there's no harm in this.

The Moff has vilified the other type of fan. The one for whom blurting spoiler information where any unsuspecting person might see it is cruise control for cool.

I always assume this person is either looking desperately for validation, or else has a staggering lack of empathy, but either way it's a cry for help.

If Doctor Who is art, and if people form relationships with it, then the senseless spoiler is rather like the graceless idiot who sidles up to someone in the first blush of first love and, in an oleaginous whisper, says 'oh yeah...goes like a bunny, they say'.

Neil Gaiman Writes Doctor Who

I saw something in a facebook post. Someone said that the episode written by Neil Gaiman is superb - something I agree with wholeheartedly - and is much the better for the fact that it's written by someone who isn't one of The Moff's inner circle of friends.

I had a chuckle about this.

Because it's wrong.

Well, it's mostly wrong.

I don't want to comment on the relationship between Neil Gaiman and The Moff. I have no idea what it is, beyond the comments made by the men themselves on Doctor Who Confidential. I also have no desire to know. It doesn't matter.

Well, it doesn't matter beyond this: Neil Gaiman is a talented author and all round generally capable writer who wanted to write for Doctor Who and, after having met Steven Moffat, wrote to him to ask if he could.

It helps, of course, that Neil Gaiman has several novels to his name. And some screenplays. And some comics. And quite a lot of other things. Frankly, if Neil Gaiman wrote to you and said that he'd like to try writing an episode of your show, you'd be mental to dismiss the prospect out of hand.

Be that as it may, the author of the original facebook comment may have misunderstood the nature of writers and script editors. To an extent, there's a lot of social networking that goes on. It happens in every walk of life. If we're in a position to be handing out work, we will give it first to people we know and trust. These will, in all probability, be people we also find it easy to like. Before you know it, you've got yourself an inner circle of friends.

Being outside the whole process of Doctor Who, we do not see it and we do not understand it properly. My time as an amateur parapsychologist taught me that when people half see something, they will make shit up to explain what they believe is happening, and that this shit is worryingly difficult to dislodge.

We have to be really careful if we're trying to be critical, careful not to equate "this doesn't work for me" with "I totally understand how this happened, and it's a bizarre conspiracy".

Especially when we're looking at a social network which we're not a part of and which we have no chance of being a part of. It's hard to see what's really there when the shadowplay that hints at how we only think the world works is so much more comforting.