50th Anniversary Doctor Who success!

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Just a quick posting in reaction to last night’s 50th anniversary celebration of Doctor Who on the BBC.  I know, I don’t do reaction postings but on this occasion I will.   There are many critics and reviews of last night’s programme and the live reaction shows and so on which you can fine elsewhere but here is a link to the wiki page about the special episode.

What did the programme do for me?  I thought it was one of the finest of the new and modern episodes that is first off.  My three children sat glued to it for more than an hour which is testament to its quality.  Leaving aside the plot of the episode which the wiki will tell you I will mention my feelings about it as an event.  A cameo by THE Doctor made my night, Tom Baker, they kept that quiet but my feelings from my post yesterday was justified.   The bringing in out of the cold, finally, of Paul McGann who was short changed as the Doctor and is now official canon.  Lastly bringing Gallifrey back from the DEAD!  Can’t emphasis this one enough.  If my thinking is correct it mean that with Moffat at the helm the time lord will return to his roots in the original version of the universe.

Special surprise after ‘Day of the Doctor’ on the BBC ‘red button’, a one off accompanying short film called ‘The Five’ish Doctors’ starring Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Peter Davidson with many other characters appearing.  Well worth a watch and it beat the frankly cringe worthy after party hosted by Zoe Ball.  Have a look at the trailer below.

Well done BBC!

GBS

50 Years for Who?

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Today is the day, across all the multi-verses today is the day.  I have listen to, watched, recorded and sat the dark late at night to see all of the multitude of BBC programmes on TV and Radio to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who.  I could dribble on about the programme and about the books, the gifts and gadgets and the other items across the years that have form a part of my life from this mighty science fiction show.  But I won’t.  I will just say that since I was a wee lad its been a part of me.  I have gone to exhibitions, met the cast, got autographs and that is saying something.  I waited with the rest of my generation through the long 1990’s for it to return and it did in time for my own children.

From the brand new (tonight!) to the very oldest in flickering black and white Dr Who is a programme unlike any other on television.  Its fans and devotees among the best of Humanity (those I have met anyway) and its lore so diverse that it has covered more ground than any other science fiction series.  It has tackled issues wide and far.

Best Doctor….

So tune in tonight and if you are not in Great Britain then I feel sorry for you this time.  License Fee is worth it today!

GBS

15mm.co.uk gets a Blog

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I have just made live and announced that 15mm.co.uk now has its own blogger blog.  Out of the digital cold and into the hot light of cyber augmented reality the birth of the blog leads with a posting about the latest re-mastering and re-release of a classic Laserburn vehicle.  From white metal to resin and back to life.  Appropriate really for this new forum as well.

The blog is small just now but it will grow fast.  You can visit it on www.15mmcouk.blogspot.co.uk.  Its going to be a great read.  Plus you can see our new vision logo.

GBS

Children in Need 2013

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Today is the annual Children in Need event on television and I, along with the rest of the family have done my part.   I enjoy watching the televised event and I do not donate money by phone.  I donate money by hand held boxes, by boxes in shops and by way of Girvan Primary School’s events.  Today’s event was a ‘wear your pyjamas to school’ day which mercifully it stayed dry for.  After what has been a hectic week at work (see the Havelock ESO results over on the Ion Age blog) I finished up a bit early and picked the three offspring up at the school gate.

There are a lot of charities out there…a whole lot.  In fact I have got to the point where I ignore almost all of them as the feeling of guilt at not dropping coins into every hand that reached out was getting me down at a deep level.  This does not make me a bad person.  In fact I am a ruddy good person as all who know me will point out but my resources are limited.  So I choose which I support and Children get some priority in this as does the UK so Children in Need is near top of the list (after Sense).  It is a very worthwhile cause.

So have a look, have a read.  Have a watch if you can.  Give them some money too.  If you live in the UK and you walk home after work, sometimes the child you see in the street needs your help more than you might know.

GBS

Bloggy Endus Hiatus!

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Hello All!

I have been gone some time.  Well not gone rather sitting here as always working away but rather working solid in my ‘downtime’ on the playtesting of Patrol Angis as per the last post here some six weeks ago.  Six weeks, gone by a flash aside from the warm summer evenings now dark and stormy.

Just a quick post to say I will be getting back to normal now and to thank everyone in the test group for their efforts.  You can see the six weekly blog posts about it by me over on The Ion Age blog.  They make for some fine reading.  I will be redrafting the rules engine based on the results of the playtest over the festive period for release next year.

A lot has happened with me in the last month and a half so perhaps some retrospective posts will feature plus some movie reviews and books reviews too now that I have time to leisure once more. Perhaps even a wargame or two if I can drum up a foe.

GBS

Bloggy Hiatus – Patrol Angis playtesting

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You all know that I work hard.  Some of you might even know that twelve or thirteen hours a day is not that unusual.  A few know that I work weekends too and that sometimes I just can’t get it all done.  Well one of those times has arisen and I have decided to take a ‘Bloggy Hiatus’ on my personal blog.   This means I will not be posting here unless it is urgently awesome to do so.

Why?  Well I am now in the midst of several projects including the public playtesting of Patrol Angis.  Patrol Angis is the main 15mm skirmish system I am writing for The Ion Age.  Its taking up a lot of my time replying to the thousands of words of feedback and I am doing this at home in the evening, prime bloggy time.  There are other things too but that is the main one.

Head on over to the Ion Age Blog for the latest and I will see you all at the end of the month.  I intend to do Movember again this year so pictures and fun will come from that.

Happy Wargaming!

GBS

Wigtown Book Festival 2013

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Sally Magnusson, Horace and The Poet

Yesterday I attended the 2013 Wigton Book Festival and I had an excellent time.  The weather was warm and sunny and there were a great many events and readings taking place across the pleasant little town of Wigton.   This was not the first time I had been, in fact last year I attended and posted here about it.  This time my prime reason for attending was once more Sally Magnusson and her creation Horace the Haggis who was out and about promoting his new book for the kiddies.

My middle son, The Poet, was literally vibrating with excitement to get into the large tent where the reading was to take place and he enjoyed it greatly.  He even got his copy, being held up proudly above, signed by the authoress who remembered him from the previous year.   My eldest went to a talk being held by Robert Harris who while discussing his new book is also the author of Talisman a board game from the 1980’s by Games Workshop which was a firm favourite of mine.  If Mr Harris was distracted by being asked about it rather than his new work he seemed delighted to discuss the game!  The smallest of the wee chaps went to a talk on Dinosaurs where he put forth his theories on evolution and asked if birds would turn back into T-Rex’s any time soon.  A picnic lunch was spread and the drive home was very nice too with the choice of music being two albums by The Alan Parson’s Project.

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Books from the Book Festival

I trawled the book shops in the town and managed to find three gems among the literally thousands of volumes in each and every shop.  You can see these above.  There is also a flyer for the special exhibit for ‘Wigton 2113’ which sadly I could not get into as it was booked out…sci-fi denied!

Fantasy Wargaming edited by Bruce Galloway is an excellent find as books about wargaming, what I do for a living mainly, are thin on the ground.  No training manual for my profession no.   I have several of these titles about different periods and genres and they are all very useful.  This one pre-dates the whole modern fantasy wargaming movement but it does give solid grounding in what is to be expected.  I look forward to reading it.  The other two are a pulp science fiction art and story  book made for children in the 1980’s in a series which if you can believe I own the others but have never seen this one missing volume EVER before.  Awesome!  Lastly a heavy weight academic text on Three Tomorrows examining tropes in sci-fi from a British, American and Soviet perspective.  Yes, Soviet.  Its not new but it dates from the same period as Terminator and Blade Runner.

If you can get to Wigton for next year’s festival then do so as it is an excellent day out.

GBS

Ex-Patriots by Peter Clines – Book Review

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After I had finished reading Peter Clines first novel in the ‘Ex’ series I was so taken with it that I went out and bought the next TWO in the series (he is still writing the fourth tale set in this fictional universe).  I set to reading Ex-Patriots at the weekend and read it through in just two sittings of an hour or so each.  It moves at a crackling pace.  So just what is it about?

Two years since the dead rose and the plague of ex-humanity decimated mankind. For most of that time, the superhero called St. George, formerly known to the world as the Mighty Dragon, has protected the people of Los Angeles at their film studio-turned-fortress, The Mount. Together with his fellow heroes — Cerberus, Zzzap, and Stealth — he’s tried to give the survivors hope and something like a real life. But the swollen population of the Mount is becoming harder and harder to sustain, and the heroes are feeling the pressure. Hope arrives in the form of a United States Army battalion, based in a complex a few hundred miles away in Arizona. This is not just any base, however. The men and women of Project Krypton are super-soldiers, designed and created before the outbreak to be better, stronger, and faster than normal humans. They want the heroes and all the people of the Mount to rejoin America and have normal lives again. But can the military be trusted? And is there even a country left to rejoin? There is a secret at the heart of Project Krypton, and those behind it have an awesome power that will help them keep that secret hidden. The power of Freedom.

Was it any good?

Yes.  Climes is a pop culture rapid fire author and built on the first book with interwoven themes but also brand new branchings too.  I don’t want to give away the plot as it would spoil your enjoyment but let’s say that Zombies are not the focus this time rather the US Government and its post apocalypse way of dealing with the world.  If you thought that US Marines were the top soldiers in the world, well they are not something rather more enhanced is.  Twists and turns with double dealing is in the book and the last fifty pages took me by surprise.

Well worth reading and it was nice to see Nathan Fillion getting his dues in print.

GBS

Happy Birthday!

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Happy Birthday my darling wife.  Light of my life and inspirer of work and devotion unquestioned.  My adoration of you knows no bounds and your beauty is unsurpassed among all of nature’s creatures.  Is that enough….good, she put the cricket bat down.  🙂

Seriously though today is my good lady’s birthday and I have done my best to please her with gifts, food, attention, flowers and so on.  My last gift is this short display of public affection here on the blog.

Thanks also to everyone who visited today, who phoned, who sent cards and gifts.  Its nice to know friends are thinking of my good lady as she spends a lot of her time caring for children and doing favours for others.

GBS

180914 a Year to the Day to Go

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Daily Mirror Cartoon (Alex Salmond SNP, George Osbourne Conservative)

It is a year to the day until the referendum for independence is to be held here in Scotland.  With one simple question the voting age population of Scotland will make the single biggest choice likely in their lifetimes.

“Should Scotland be an independent country?”

Head on over to this BBC news page for the facts thus far about to whom and what else the vote will affect next year.  As I said in my previous posts here on the label 180914 there is a long way still to go and my own mind is not made up.  Perhaps its the cynicism over politicians and politics in general or the potential loss of Great Britain, a nation which did an awful lot to shape the modern world, or if the facts and figures prove Scotland would be better on its own.  Perhaps even it is just that I don’t really care I just want this national paralysis over and a choice made.

Either way I will certainly keep posting and as it nears I will do more in depth.  For now…well I am just too busy working to pay taxes to prop up whatever side wins the vote!  After all the economic figures from the YES and NO side are so radically different that one or both of them must be fibbing; they will either need the money or just send it back to me.

GBS