Archive for October, 2018

For the Love of Doctor Who

Doctor Who is a 55-year-old child going on 2,000. His mother, Auntie BBC, is a crumpled, cramped, neurotic old fart who was born on the 18th October 1922, which means that it will be her 96thbirthday this week. For many a moon, Auntie lumbered along under the guidance of white Anglo-Saxon men from public schools in high office until suddenly the real world hit her, very hard, and rightly so. And that little knock proved to be a very good thing. The doors of Auntie Beeb’s abode were prised open, making those dull, white middle-aged controllers wheeze and choke on the fresh air provided by a great wave of unexpected talent that came from women, gays, people of ethnicity and others… and we started, very slowly to witness a bit of a change for the best. Yes indeedy, Doctor Who is the child of the awful old crone that we revere – the Auntie who had good stuff but also allowed  Eldorado to appear on our screens, and series as bizarre as Help Me Anthea, I’m Infested, starring Anthea Turner and an exterminator (along with sundry mice, rats, moles and cockroaches).

But Doctor Who was of another order. Doctor Who was and is great, and I have watched it since I entered my teens, from the time when it appeared in black and white, starring William Hartnell through to the glory years of Tom Baker in 1974. Tom Baker was, of course, the greatest incarnation of them all. By the time Tom Baker appeared I was in my 20s, but I still loved my mummy sooo much for knitting me the Doctor’s stripey scarf for Christmas. It was a very special present. It was a sad day when Tom Baker went… I found it tricky to even accept the Doctors portrayed by Peter Davison, Colin Baker or Sylvester McCoy.

And years passed, and the aged Auntie (who by now had come to her senses) revived the good Doctor, and although Christopher Eccleston appeared when I was a mere babe in my fifties, it seemed exciting that such a great hero should return. And of course, David Tennant was truly wonderful, the family just loved him, and Matt Smith rather less so. I personally adored Peter Capaldi, but some of the episodes seem to leave much to be desired, and a certain tiredness crept into some of the scripts… particularly the stinker concerning the Doctor repeatedly banging his head against a stone wall for thousands of years ‑ an interesting metaphor for a script writer clearly bereft of ideas.

But now great changes are in the air and afoot and around, and we have yet another incarnation of Doctor Who – Jodie Whittaker, and let’s face it, she looks very much like the best since Tom Baker and David Tennant. Sadly, I am at choir practice this evening, so I won’t be able to catch up with the latest antics of the Doctor until later tonight, but I will do so. It all looks very promising, the companions are lovely, and there is only one thing missing — I just feel a bit discombobulated until the Tardis reappears.

 

 

Posted in Posts | Comments Off on For the Love of Doctor Who

Felines, Fun and Funeral Readings

A warm and wonderful welcome to the Antbeat blog on this sunny day in autumn. Sad to say, the beautiful summer is fading away, and also sad to say my blog does not leap onto the electronic page with the regularity and wit that I would wish. I do admire those people who blog away all the time, by night and day, constantly churning out breath-taking wit and pithy remarks. But here is some news… I have launched a new website of funeral readings – called www.funeralreadings.org and I hope it will prove useful to those good people and celebrants who have had enough of Henry Scott Holland who has been telling us for the past century “What is this death but a negligible accident?” Excuse me, but this negligible accident happens to us all… so why does everyone go on using this morbid little reading all the time? Maybe there are just not enough heartfelt and varied funeral readings around.

The two latest additions to www.funeralreadings.org  took umpteen years to write, but I hope they are a touch fresher than “Death is Nothing at All. One was inspired by a scientist who wanted a reading for his wife that reassured him that consciousness doesn’t end with death, it’s called What If,  the other is for a cat, because I know how upsetting it is to lose a pet. I am a cat person, which is OK, as Facebook and the world are awash with cats. Sadly the cat population is effectively seeing off the bird population, which is why I don’t have a cat anymore. My much-loved cat died many years ago, and I only had to think about him, and his crazy sense of fun, to appreciate how special he was. I’ve been told that the result is very sentimental, and that said I am (sadly) reminded of what Norman Mailer said about sentimentality, which is that ‘…sentimentality is the emotional promiscuity of those who have no sentiment’ to which I can only reply that somebody, somewhere also said… ‘sentimentality is a disease you can catch from the Americans.’ If that’s the case, I reckon I watch far too much American Schlock and do too much of the music as well, so I am well and truly infected.

Anyway, sentimentality apart, here is my cat reading… and a picture of the neighbour’s cat, which is very glamorous. It is a very English cat, but I don’t know if it voted for Brexit.He keeps trying to get into our house. If only my nephew wasn’t so allergic to felines this place would be populated by zillions of neighbouring cats, but thereby hangs another tail….or tale…

Cat, Friend and Companion

Life goes with scrapes
Doors, dogs, dicey streets
Happy holidays, sad workdays
And those skipping spirits
That cannot be ignored
Padding shared paths

Laughed and loved
Soft fur, loud purr
Teased and fluffed
With fleas and stuff

Saucers, special bowls
Impatient whiskers
Wicked ways
Pawing and bluffing
Yelling for nothing
Except food

My cat was a friend
And everywhere we went
My friend went with me
Even 100 miles away
Even when freer than free
We had connection

You will understand
When I say
I lost my best friend today
A small friend
Whose dancing spirit
Has curled up
Gone to sleep
And now holds a place in my heart
Gone, just for a moment
Never forgotten, never apart

 

 

 

 

Posted in Posts | Comments Off on Felines, Fun and Funeral Readings