This is just a short fan note for Russell T Davis. Some of the more recent Doctor Who's have had their dodgy moments (witness the AWFUL accent of the Talula and some of the stereotype behaviour of the characters in "Evolution of the Daleks"), but the two parter "Human Behaviour" / "Family of Blood" was a classic.
Really thoughtful, moving, touching stuff - making the most of the vast canvas a format like Doctor Who can allow you to paint on. Good for Russell for having the idea to turn this Doctor Who novel into one of the TV shows.
Done today, for the sake of completeness. I'm not very happy with the technical quality, so I'll probably do another. Anyway, this is where I live now, North Park Apartments North First St San Jose California. May 11 2005 - ??????
I think this is rather splendid. It was taken by Heather Burns. It is composed of images of a bus journey from Leith to somewhere "up the Bridges" (that's a reference for the locals) in Edinburgh. It contains many archetypal elements of Edinburgh that the locals would know very well, as opposed to the tourist view of Edinburgh. I spotted, in particular, damp streets, a massage parlour, a Leith "scheemy" guy wearing a track suit, and many many purple buses. When I was first in Edinburgh in the 1970's as a child, it was the purple buses that stuck in my mind. Makes me homesick, I must go off and do something more practical now with my Californian Sunday afternoon.
This was taken when I was around a month away from moving to the US. I had been conducting a HUGE eBay sale of most of my possessions and the video camera was about to be packaged up and sent to it's new owner. Having remembered my 1991 video, I decided to make a record of the flat I was about to leave. I always used to say to myself that I'd know when I'd made it in life when I could afford a flat in Marchmont (Edinburgh). Well, in 2001 I could, and this is it. Of course, things are never as good as you imagine they are going to be and the same student parties that I used to go to in the mid 1980's were kinda annoying in the early 21st Century, especially as I wasn't invited. And I had to make quite a few compromises to be able to afford this place at all. It was bought needing some work done on it and my lack of ability in anything practical and the chronic shortage of tradespeople in Edinburgh meant that some upgrading never got done. I did get a nice new kitchen put in, but as you can see from the video, there was a lot that didn't get done.
I still own this place, and may live here again one day as a consequence. Thanks to the ever growing Edinburgh property market, it's now worth a load more money than the mortgage, which is nice.
Looking at the place again, it does bring back some bad memories of the other side of the work from home equation. The side where you are stuck at home ALL the time, and have to talk to Californians at 12 at night and one in the morning, when you'd much rather be in bed. Also, the place is pretty disorganised because of my big eBay sale and immanent move out.
Still, an interesting record all the same. Particularly interesting, well for me anyway, is to spot which possessions are in both the 1991 and the 2005 videos (some particularly treasured possessions went to their new owners very shortly after this video was made), even better, which possessions in the 2005 video I have here - I came here with only one bag after all. No chance that any of the possessions in the 1991 video are here (I think). Actually, no - one thing has survived it all. I couldn't bear to sell my 1987 CD 20th anniversary re-release of Sgt Pepper. It would have been sitting in Downfield Place in 1991, Livingstone Place 2005 and here it is in North Park Apartments San Jose California USA, in the week of the 40th anniversary of Sgt Pepper in 2007.
Flat 2f1, 21 Livingstone Place Edinburgh where I stayed from the 14th of December 2001 to the 6th of May 2005.
This is my first attempt at Youtube. This was recorded as a test for a video camera I had hired from Radio Rentals (remember them?), with my parents money, in July 1991. I got this huge camera home and recorded this just to get the hang of it. It was so big that you could record straight onto a regular VHS tape that you put in the camera. You can see the camera in my bathroom mirror.
What's funny now though, is that this is now a little time capsule of my life in one Downfield Place, Dalry, Edinburgh in July 1991. I had lived in this flat for almost three years at this time, and I was very proud of it. So here is my little life back in July 1991 when I was 24 years old.
Sorry the images are a bit pixelated, I may have compressed the video too tightly. Some of the original has been edited out as there were some pretty terrible technical problems with that too. The background music is The Throwing Muses - for 1991, what else?
We had our annual picnic at work yesterday. This is the third one I've been at since I've been here.
This was held in the beautiful Lake Elizabeth Recreation area in Fremont. I don't really associate Fremont with nice green open spaces, but this place was really nice. Full of wildlife as well.
We had a "best dessert" competition and the run cake won. I liked the Tiramasu, is seems to be leaking here though.
The animals always seem to have a good time.
We had fun with the frisbees and I tried a few times to get a pic of one in flight - this is one that worked.
Lake Elizabeth has a great website with a webcam. They have archived some of the more interesting shots that the webcam has taken, worth a look: http://www.ci.fremont.ca.us/Recreation/LakeElizabeth/default.htm
One of iTunes more entertaining tricks is that it will list your top 25 most played songs. This is always interesting for an old music fanatic like me. So out of my almost 9000 songs, this is my top 25. I'm shocked how much of my own material is here, how vain. Also, imagine there being no Syd Barrett or Van derGraaf Generator. I suppose computers don't lie? I'm glad good old Pavlov's Dog is still in there, 23 years since I first heard them. When I had to decide in 1999 after a considerable amount to drink, what the last song of the 20th century was that I'd play, I decided on "Theme from Subway Sue" by the Dog.
Tom's blog about life in America as a Scottish person, appreciating and making music, politics, travel, my own philosophy and other stuff not easy to categorise.
