The cutest story I've read today

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room.

One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs.

His bed was next to the room's only window.

The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back.

The men talked for hours on end.

They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation..

Every afternoon, when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window.

The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and colour of the world outside.

The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake

Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every colour and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance.

As the man by the window described all this in exquisite details, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine this picturesque scene.

One warm afternoon, the man by the window described a parade passing by.

Although the other man could not hear the band - he could see it in his mind's eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words.

Days, weeks and months passed.

One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully inis sleep.

She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away.


As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.

Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside.
He strained to slowly turn to look out the window besides the bed.

It faced a blank wall..

The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window.

The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall.

She said, 'Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you.'

Epilogue:


There is tremendous happiness in making others happy, despite our own situations.

Shared grief is half the sorrow, but happiness when shared, is doubled.

If you want to feel rich, just count all the things you have that money can't buy.

'Today is a gift, that is why it is called The Present .' 

The scariest place in the Universe ... A Childs Bedroom

Dr Who has a delicate balance to strike between stories which link a series long plot together (ie. Let's Kill Hitler last week) and other filler stories which could sit anywhere in the series unrelated to the plot. This is something which is very difficult to get right. If a separate adventure is too detached from the main story then the audience will lose interest, but answers can't keep coming every week, that would devalue thesignificant movements in the main plot.

Often a stand alone episode can be a big disappointment (ie. 'The Curse of the Black Spot' earlier this series), and most would have been expecting no more than that from this episode. Written by a new writer who's never written a Who episode before, but has appeared in one (Remember The Lazarus Experiment from an earlier series involving the tenth Dr,, Tennant? Well this is written by the man who played that inventor of the machine akin to the fountain of youth), expectations were rightly or wrongly not high.

Anyways, to the story! The basic pretense is a small scared young boy, who is told by his parents to put all of his fears in his cupboard where they can't hurt him, sensible move if he was a normal boy, however George is not a normal boy! He is a Tenza, another new monster, a psychic with a powerful perception filter. Through the first part of the episode things continually get deposited into the cupboard, the link between these things is they all scare George. From the lift (which goes in the cupboard whilst Amy and Rory are in it), to the Landlord, from an old lady who creates a scary shadow on George's window, to even the Doctor and George's father.

All that scares George is sucked into a world where everything is made of wood, saucepans, fruit, chicken, knives, forks, soup and painted to look like the real thing, the swift minded would have noticed at this point that this is inside a Dolls House. This Dolls House is a psychic repository inside the cupboard for George's fears!!  Meanwhile back in the dolls house, Amy and Rory have met the Peg Dolls (see right). These guys are spooky, dolls scare me nearly as much as clowns and that's saying something! They catch everyone who enters the repository and turn them into Peg Dolls too.

The Tenza named George latched onto his 'mum and dad' when they were desperate to have a son, he singled them out as potential hosts to 'foster' him. One of the wonders of a perception filter is that it's user can mould the minds and memories of those around it to suit it's needs (like the weeping angels do).
What scares the Tenza more than anything else is somebody coming to take him away, when the Dr realizes what George is he is terrified and so banishes the Dr to his cupboard too. By this time Amy has been captured by the Dolls and turned into a Flame Haired Peg Doll, but by making George aware that he need not be afraid of the things in the cupboard, that only he can remove them and save everyone the Dr convinces George that he is controlling the fears in the dolls house and to enter the cupboard and face his fears. As soon as George does this the Dolls try to prey on him, however his Dad convinces him that he'll never send him away (his main fear) banishing all of his fears and destroying the Dolls House. The ending to this episode was really fairly emotional, achieving something which I'd have thought impossible creating empathy to the characters which we've only known for 42 minutes! CONCLUSION: PLEASE LET DR LAZARUS WRITE MORE DR WHO EPISODES!

ANSWERS
1. The perception filter used by the Tenza is the same as that which the Tardis uses to make itself bigger on the inside, this is how the Dolls House is bigger on the inside. 2. The sonic screwdriver still doesn't work on wood. 3. There's still a reference to the Dr's death at the end of the episode =[

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The bigger on the inside Funbox

Dr Who's back!!  First things first, this is a Moffat episode, so expectations were rightly high, I reckon 90% of the best new episodes have been written by he or Russell T. Davis. Typically for Moffat, the preview which had been posted a few days / weeks earlier on the web asked some interesting questions, was this new episode going to involve the Dr walking an ethical tightrope tiptoeing around sensitivities over Nazi Germany, surely not, there was enough to follow on from after A Good Man Goes To War. Unsurprisingly, it turned out that the preview clip had really just been a dummy sold by the team to the public, Hitler was at best a minor role (in actuality little more than an extra). By the end a number of questions had been answered which had hung over from the new series. As always though, riding into view stood on the shoulders of the answers came new questions too.

This episode centered around River Song, I love River Song, best character of the new series, she's got so much depth and surprises at every turn. This was no exception. I did work out that Mels was River before it was made obvious, brilliantly done as they made it clear that Amy had almost brought her up (she was waiting outside the headmasters office and waiting outside the prison cell like a disappointed mother), but didn't pick it when she turned up initially. Also, we found out that Amy thought Rory was gay, isn't that exactly how it would have happened. Rory obsessed with Amy, Amy too self obsessed, blissfully unaware and ignorant to notice!

One slight disappointment, Mels was awesome, it's a shame we didn't get to know her more! Her best line, will remain calling the Tardis "the bigger on the inside Funbox"!

Right, next in 1940's Germany we met some kind of shape shifting justice-bot full of miniaturised people traveling in time dealing out retrospective punishment, a nice aside and something the sort of which has never been seen before in Dr Who as far as I'm aware!*  These guys though originally in Germany for Hitler, go after River as the murderer of the Dr. One flaw in the script ... I'm pretty sure they'd be after the Doctor
 

Antibodies

Skipping ahead Hitler shoots Mels and the penny drops that she's River when she regenerates. As soon as she regenerates River comes into her own straight away, Alex Kingston just lights up the screen whenever she's on it, she poisons the Doctor (that girl must have the most psychotic make up bag in the world!). It turns out that Amy and Rory named their Daughter after their Daughter (my head hurts trying to consider that). Amy and Rory end up miniaturised in the head of the Justice-bot, just escape the Antibodies whom reminded me of the suicide booths from Futurama ("Welcome ... You are unauthorised, Your Death will now commence; Welcome ... You will experience a tingling sensation and then death; Please remain calm whilst your life is extracted"). There's so much humour spread thickly throughout every Who episode nowadays.

The Justice bot does eventually catch up with River and so does the Doctor, bizarrely though he's found time to change into a tux for the occasion (what's that all about?). The Doctor asks who the people in the shape shifter think they are, but the answer is obvious ... they think they're god. River then gives up all of her future regenerations to save the Doctor, explaining why subsequently throughout her timeline she always keeps the same form.

Finally, River always said she was taught by the best to fly the Tardis, turns out she was taught by the Tardis itself after recognising her as it's child!

Right, ANSWERS: 1. The Silence are not a species but a religion, I presume that the Silence which we saw must be a separate species who are members of the order but there are also different members. 2. River's in jail in future episodes for killing the Doctor. 3. River was taught to fly the Tardis by the Tardis itself. The Doctor has accused her of flying the Tardis wrong, I thought she'd insinuated that he taught her, but turns out she was talking about the Tardis! 4. River has somehow managed to reverse her age and this is why she looks the same at various points throughout her timeline (an afterthought I guess and unusually not that well thought out). 5. The Doctor himself gave River her Blue Tardis shaped book which she's had in most episodes she's appeared in.

As always though further QUESTIONS were raised: 1. Are we seeing the Doctor's timeline in order? He seems to rush off in the Tardis alone too often for my liking and the expression "Rule 1 - the doctor lies" suggests all is not as it seems (this would also explain the tux at the end). 2. I'm starting to convince myself that the child in that spacesuit on the 22nd of April 2011 is Mels, after all she regenerated into a toddler, however I can't explain how she'd have time traveled there. Is this true? 3. What is the question which when asked will make silence fall? 4. Is River in jail in the future because the guys in the shape shifter catch up with her at a later date? And I'm sure plenty of other questions. 5. What did the Doctor say to River to persuade her to save him?

Unusually, as many answers as questions!!

*I've read lots on the forums about the fact that this bot was unexplained and flawed, pointing to the fact that there would be no bad deeds if this time traveling bot was getting rid of all of the bad guys from history and even how a race far enough into the future who have time travel take minutes to kill River. These points are all argued by the fact that the bot isn't designed to kill historical bad guys, that would have too much effect on the continuity of time, rather their aim is to punish these individuals when they are close to death!

Britain's heartbreak

I've always had enormous faith in the power of humanity and an unerring belief that this will eventually shine through in everyone. Over the last 4 days this belief has been tested and I like many have been made to question and re-evaluate it. As everyone now knows the riots in London and across the rest of the country have been appalling, distressing, heartbreaking and extreme I've heard many pundits and commentators question the underlying reasons for the disturbances, I don't think that now is the time to pick apart our society (elements of which are broken), the time for this is in 3 to 4 weeks time. Besides, however broken society is and however cross people are with the government, the lack of opportunity ... the roadworks, or whatever the hell they're angry about, what sort of person would loot businesses and destroy their own community.

These people must be completely ignorant if they think that the last two days have done anything but made the streets of London a much worse place to live in the coming months. But that's exactly what they are, I heard one girl when questioned about why she was looting say "we're cross with the rich innit, and the government, the Conservatives ... is that right? I dunno" that comment summed up one, how foolish and incompetent these individuals are and two, they're not rioting for a cause, they're rioting for gain.

Bizarrely, (as he stayed on holiday for too long) I think ol' DC has come out of this whole scenario quite well, his speech's both yesterday morning and this were rousing and though I've no political allegiances whatsoever (I don't believe in partizan politics) he left me with a sense of pride. I hope that it's not all talk and the punishments laid out to those individuals who are identified are heavy and they regret their actions for years to come.

More than angry the events made me so so sad, how can anyone torch and steal and so obviously enjoy it, there are evil evil people in the world, both far from home and on our doorstep, that much is abundantly clear! Furthermore the fact that it looked like police are terrified of taking the action which was necessary in the circumstances as they knew the force may not stand by them  and the fact that the thugs are not scared of the all too soft arm of the law are two of many effects of our justice system being completely the wrong way round, for this there are many consequences!

One final shining light was that amidst all the troubles yesterday morning I got in the car to go to work to hear a story about the rise of the swan population on the Today programme, how British to report on something so trivial amongst all the chaos. Right, it's getting towards my bedtime I'm off to make a cuppa and sit down with my book, probably as far away from a rioter as anyone could be :)

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An August Summer Sunday

Today in Surrey is divine, it's the sort of day that if you're not in a wood, on a mountain, by a river, by the sea or some other countryside place then it feels like you're wasting the time that you've been gifted on the planet! So, this morning I decided to go for a bike ride.

I ended up traveling through some amazingly quiet woodland, through some beautiful little villages and over a large stretch of Heathland. All within a 2 hour ride of my house, what a lucky boy I am. What amazed me on such a gorgeous day was that in 4 hours I saw 15 people, an outrage on such a day really, however I wasn't complaining the countryside seems so much more enjoyable when it's quiet and peaceful.


From Godalming, I cycled along the old railway line to Shamley Green, rode past a pub stopped and stared at it for quite a while wishing that I could go in and grab a glass of orange juice (note to self, buy a new bike lock for next time). I rode past a field full of tiny Christmas trees I presume growing for the festive season in a few months. Then into a very very quiet piece of woodland in which I found this wonderful toadstool.

After passing a few riders on horseback I stopped for my lunch on a piece of heathland, the kind which is always at it's best at this time of year, covered in colour. In fact there's colour (why does my computer want to change colour to be spelt color?) everywhere in the British summertime. Most prominent of all are the yellows from the flowers to the left, no idea what they are as I'm no horticulturist, but the look spectacular in the meadows.

Lunch spo

Anyway, as I was saying I stopped for lunch and to read for an hour. The whole time I was there only two cyclists and a horse rider came past ... I repeat, why were more people not out enjoying this spot!!??!! Finally, down a hill past a cricket pitch (one of the most picturesque I've ever seen, so civilized, the centre of the community) and around St Martha's hill. St Martha's is a very very old church cut off from pretty much everything at the top of a hill south of Guildford, it's wonderful, such a beautiful spot and I get the impression completely unchanged for I don't know how long. A fantastic ride, but man did I enjoy the glass of apple juice when I got back. (Photo's on the Flickr link above!)

St Martha's on the Mount

PS. I AM SADDLE SORE!!

A new start

For a while now I have harbored a secret desire to start a blog, but for at least as long I've had no idea where to begin. Well after taking some advice from people who know about such things here goes!!

I thought it was sensible to make my first post about the things that I enjoy, as presumably these will be the sorts of things which I will 'blog' about over the coming months. I would say that I have 4 main loves (aside from Family and Friends). These are listed in no particular order below:

MUSIC - My first love, I've been to more gigs than I care to remember and seen just about every band that I love (who hadn't stopped touring before I was ten. My musical tastes are fairly eclectic from The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band to Polysics. My interests in all things music has taken me to quite a number of festivals in questionable English summers over the years, my how I'm going to miss a particular farm in Pilton which over the last 4 years has felt like a second home next year. I guess my blog will contain new music I'm listening to once in a while, I tend to listen to a ridiculous amount of new music, perhaps that's why one of my heroes is John Peel.

BOOKS - If I'm not working there's probably around a 1 in 2 chance that I'm reading, to the left is the pile of books currently beside my bed (contains my two favorites, Alice in Wonderland and Dracula), this pile is ever rotating and I'd guess I read around 1 a week. I've recently discovered a site called LibraryThing which tracks all of the books you read, this is a tremendous idea and there's a link to mine at the top of the page.

One of the real joys of reading is giving fantastic books away for others to enjoy. I do this a lot, to all sorts of people, so if you see something you'd like then let me know

CRICKET - First things first, a confession, I no longer play cricket. I used to, I wasn't very good ... end of! I now consider myself a student of the game at County and international level. I watch a reasonable amount of county cricket live and have been lucky enough to have seen some of the greats of the game play. I've spent lots of the day today watching the third day of the second test between England and India. This test has highlighted one of the reasons I adore the game, in short Ian Bell was run out walking back to the Pavilion for tea and India called him back because they didn't feel his run out was in the spirit of the game. In what other sport would two teams battling for number one status in the world do 'the right thing', a true gentleman's game, well done India!

PHOTOGRAPHY - I've recently begun taking photo's extensively, this is something I've really enjoyed. One of my absolute favorites from the summer is below:

 

 So, those 4 things are some of the subjects my long awaited (by me at least) blog is most likely to contain. If one person reads and enjoys it then it'll be worth it! So please let me know.

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