SciFi

Found architectural drawings for building your own TARDIS, ok it's only an 1930's Police Box, but we can dream.

Find the plans here for all you model makers (who work in big scale)

Glorious words from Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' (Miranda's speech, Act 4, Scene 1), spoken by The Savage in Aldous Huxley's quintessential dystopian novel, Brave New World, my absolute favourite. Set in AD2540 London, it anticipates the development of reproductive technology, biological engineering and sleep-learning that combine to change society.

Hollywood has brought us Spiderman, X-Men, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Daredevil and Hulk. And in production, Captain America, Wonder Woman and Ant-Man.

Ant-Man? Getting a big desperate, aren't we?

While good escapist fun, isn't it high time they tackled something more cerebral like a big screen remake of Brave New World?

I remember being captivated by the 1980 TV version starring Kristoffer Tabori as John Savage, Keir Dullea as Thomas Grambell and Julie Cobb as Linda Lysenko. Loved the twisted perceptions of behavioural norms and quirky language:

'Bottle of mine, it's you I've always wanted! Bottle of mine, why was I ever decanted? Skies are blue inside of you, The weather's always fine; For There ain't no Bottle in all the world Like that dear little Bottle of mine.'

'Imagine the folly of allowing people to play elaborate games which do nothing whatever to increase consumption. It’s madness. Nowadays the Controllers won’t approve of any new game unless it can be shown that it requires at least as much apparatus as the most complicated of existing games.'

'Christianity without tears— that’s what soma is. A gramme is better than a damn.'

'That is the secret of happiness and virtue - liking what you've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny.'

'I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.'

Winced when I read in Wikipedia that they'd done a 'modernised' made-for-TV version in 1990. Loved the Queen soundtrack in the late Heath Ledger's 'A Knight's Tale', but if I hear The Savage burst into song with a jolly rendition of 'I Want to Break Free', I think I'll cry.

And the 2007 anime version? Mind-boggling.

Please, please, PLEASE, don't change it!! It's perfect the way it is. The language and concepts are as fresh and quirky today as when written 75 years ago. Genius is timeless.

Hollywood, are you listening?

Reference and credit for first edition image of book to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World

Scribbled this into my notebook at my son's footy game today. In the breaks, of course. I was paying attention, honestly. Sadly, they got flogged.

Damn, that didn't last long! School assembly tomorrow and boy can't find his hat. Probably in the Time Lord technology that resides under his bed, together with the sum total of everything else he's lost in his life-time. Like the TARDIS, it's bigger on the inside than the outside.

Credit for images to doctorwho.time-and-space.co.uk screencaps - The Christmas Invasion, Series 2

FYI, A*** is the appointment scheduling programme we love to hate.

Featured Employee of the Month Question:
If you could invite 6 people to dinner, who would you invite? (living or deceased)

The Tenth Doctor (of course), cute.

Sting for toe-tapping dinner music.

TARDIS gate-crashes Police concert, Festival Hall 1981, mid-Roxanne … Cute back then, both of us.

Aagh, don’t step on that butterfly!

But back to the list ... Genghis Khan. Joan of Arc …

Oops, plagiarising Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure – mmm, Keanu? Yeah, cute, hop on board.

Nostradamus …

Oh, cheer up, it’s not the end of the world!!!

Marilyn Monroe …

Geez, I can only have six? OK, TARDIS getting squeezy.

NOOOOO!!! You’ve smashed the flux capacitor!!

And so we swirl chaotically through the vortex to our mystery destination, picking up Jamie Oliver on the way to do the catering.

No phones. No dishes. No A***.

Beats karaoke at Dooleys.

This popped into my head at my son’s footy game yesterday and I madly scribbled it into my notebook. In the breaks, of course. I was paying attention, honestly. Huh, the ball was going where?? Oh, good, good … proceed. Oh, is it over?

Life’s too short to be serious.

Any other aspiring sci-fi/fantasy writers out there?

Credit for warping TARDIS image to Desktop of Rassilon.
Credit for Tenth Doctor image - doctorwho.time-and-space.co.uk - Attack of the Graske