I've just posted an article on The Wizard of Duke Street highlighting the decision for Billie Piper to return as Rose in Doctor Who. I've kept my commentary mild enough over there, but I want to get some sensible opinions here before the txt kiddies get loose in the comments.



Is it just me or is this an utterly pathetic move on the part of the casting and scripting people? I can't lay it solely on RTD, but I suspect a great deal of his involvement. There has not been one single notable event so far in the new Who, except the switch from Nine to Ten, that he hasn't managed to weaken by going over the same events and the same plots again. And I suspect that if he could get Christopher Eccleston to sign up again, we'd see the first (temporary, of course) reverse regeneration in the Whoniverse.



It's turning into a cross between a soap opera and a 90s Marvel comic...

We were away in Finland for the weekend for inannajones' grandmother's 80th birthday.



I'm very pleased with the trip, not least because we had snow - about an inch on Friday night - and then a glorious cold clear day on Saturday, with temperatures down around the -7°C mark.



There was also a very fine black dog at inannajones' grandmother's house, and while he seemed to understand even less Finnish than I do (or, more likely, my accent is as incomprehensible to dogs as it is to humans), we eventually settled on an arrangement where I would say "Sit!" in Finnish, and he'd drop the stick he was carrying, and when I said "Sit!" a second time, he'd actually sit. After which I'd throw the stick, he'd charge after it, bring it back, and we'd repeat the process, sometimes with a few more repetitions of the command bit, as my accent wandered in and out of comprehensibility. inannajones' goddaughter and her uncle's girlfriend did very well at concealing their amusement.



There is also a prospect of having horses there - the uncle and girlfriend are building a house, and will keep horses and teach riding. I haven't been on a horse since I was about 16, but I look forward to the prospect again.



We're going to be in Finland again for New Year. I'm looking forward to it greatly, and intend to mount a massive raid on the Tiimari craft chain.



(inannajones will be posting pictures soon. I shall be getting icons from some of them.)

Can I draw your various attentions to the first EVE Online Rags to Riches Competition? It's an EVE Trial Account competition, sponsored by me, with prizes of two one-month EVE Game Time Codes.

The 10th Edition Encyclopedia Britannica describes a different planet, really. It was published in MCMII, or 1902 for the Roman-numeral challenged. There's a lot of sound good sense in there, much of which appears to have been forgotten, or made impossible, in the intervening century:

"In ideal conditions the homes of the people, and especially the poor, must be in the country. Air, light, low rent, ground to till, and wholesome recreation for children can only be had by scattering the working population of a city into the surrounding country to sleep..."

-- Railways, Vol 32.



This was in support, essentially, of the idea of a good public transport network, an idea that Dublin is only reluctantly arriving at again.

Due to the great generosity of radegund, we are now in possession of a nearly complete 10th Edition Encyclopedia Britannica. Expect many random quotes and much inattentiveness otherwise, as I struggle with questions of why everyone in the Navy hates Mr Childers so much, and just where Rumelia is or was. All the volumes are currently sitting on the kitchen table, pending me finding a more suitable home for them somewhere in the house. Visits may be arranged.