Not now, huge out-of-control NASA satellite…
10.03.2026 15:31
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Not now, huge out-of-control NASA satellite…
Never trust someone who uses “females” when they could use “women” is a rule that just keeps on being proved.
Paul Merroney (Colin Baker) in salmon jacket and fishier tie but still looking handsome as the Devil. I know I should put up a picture of the Hammond family but, come on, you know who you want to see.
OTD 1972: The Brothers – End of the Beginning
Harbinger of later power-soaps with big business deals, affairs, and— lorries
Bad news: you have to wait four seasons and two and a half years for villainous Colin Baker (and even longer for Kate O’Mara)
But terrifying Mother is there from the start.
Me, as a child, reading about how Denis Healey didn't become Labour leader because he was rude to too many of his colleagues: 'wow, that's silly. How could anyone do that?'
Me now: 'Remarkable really that there were 129 of his colleagues that he had *not* called stupid'.
A snapshot from iamkate showing the UK is meeting 86.4% of its demand internally. 58.4% of that is from renewable sources (wind, solar and hydroelectric). Lots more detail - search for "iamkate national grid" to see live data.
A reminder that moving to renewables reduces our dependency on global fuel supply. We're not there yet, but just now 58.4 per cent of our demand on the grid was being met by renewables.
grid.iamkate.com
Iran to EU: 'spare the hypocrisy' A spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry on Tuesday had harsh words for Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission. In response to von der Leyen’s remarks that the “people of Iran deserve freedom, dignity, and the right to decide their own future”, Esmaeil Baqaei posted on X: “Please spare the hypocrisy”. “You’ve made a career out of standing on the wrong side of history — green-lighting occupation, genocide, and atrocities, and now laundering U.S./Israeli crime of aggression and war crimes against Iranians,” Baqaei wrote. Baqaei continued: “Where was your voice when more than 165 innocent IRANIAN little angels were massacred in the city of Minab? Why don’t you say anything when hospitals, historical sites, oil facilities, diplomatic police headquarter, firefighting stations and residential neighborhoods are wickedly targeted? “Silence in the face of lawlessness and atrocity is nothing less than complicity.”
Iran is right here, and I'm not happy about it.
Von Der Leyen has been part of the effort to completely abandon the EU's ability to have a moral high ground, all to allow Israel's genocide to continue unopposed.
We should be able to condemn Iranian autocracy without being hypocrites.
Because apparently in 2026 it needs saying:
We absolutely *should* rule out British troops on the ground in Iran.
Oooh, @alexwilcock.bsky.social one for us to look into
Historians are quite capable of explaining the hellscape that is the US at this particular minute, and its kind of telling that you imagine we won't because it means you haven't been listening or reading
"The world Pet Shop Boys evoked to me back then was less kitchen sink drama, more film noir... This was a gay underworld, unspoken and largely invisible." Thanks @grindrod.bsky.social for this wonderful essay on PSB, the suburbs & sexuality:
thequietus.com/opinion-and-...
Transphobia is a rot that hurts everyone. Everyone should be safe in our city centre, and this kind of violence for clickbait is unacceptable. Full solidarity with @greenpartyhan.bsky.social and bravo to her for staying resolute against these bullies. www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater...
Honestly, that’s way better than I thought, cos I’d spent so long trying to find a way of saying my take *right* that I thought you’d had to take it down from discourse overload.
In spite of having all the troopers and the super weapon and the last magic space wizard …
The Empire looses
*because* that’s what fascism does
And it’s pretty explicit about this.
Tarken says the plan is to rule by fear. That’s the entire reason they’ve built the Death Star.
And Leia gets probably the most important line:
The more you tighten your grip, the more systems will slip through your fingers.
What do I* get from “Star Wars”?
Fascism looses.
And that’s a simple message we need right now.
*and let’s be clear, Andrew’s take is *not wrong* because what we take from art is what *we* take from art.
Our viewing this evening, for #InternationalWomensDay and Mrs Peel is quite the international woman!
How many milliseconds closer to the present does this war bring a global environmental collapse event? How much stronger is it making future storms? By how many millionths of a millimetre higher is it dragging up the sea level?
Doctor Who: The Collection – Season 12 Blu-ray cover: The Doctor (Tom Baker) with wide eyes, wide hat and long scarf, holding sonic screwdriver and holding within a blaze of monsters, towering tragic Giant Robot, insectoid Wirrn, handle-helmeted cyborg revenant Cyberman, granite-toned dome-headed Sontaran, hate-filled one-blob armoured tank Dalek leading, against a rushing time vortex
“To hold, in my hand…”
“Do I have the right?”
The crucial moral choice:
Doctor (“Nothing conforms”) or Daleks (“Aliens! I must exterminate! Exterminate!”)?
Freedom from conformity vs fascism.
Still. Today.
The Doctor (Tom Baker) and Davros (Michael Wisher) – the wizened, half-machine creator of the Daleks – talk, struggling philosophically
Sarah Jane, the Doctor and Harry debate whether to destroy the Daleks at their creation
Genesis of the Daleks omnibus illustration – Davros, the Doctor, hooded figures through barbed wire and the shadow of the Daleks looming over all
A Dalek looms over the battlefield, a tank-like war machine in its natural habitat. They grow up so quickly.
OTD 1975: #DoctorWho Genesis of the Daleks
Brilliant direction, compelling speeches, thrilling score, one of TV’s most electrifying moments as the Doctor and Davros debate…
One of *two* Doctor Who stories premiering OTD often voted best of all
Thank you. That’s what I wanted to know.
OTD 1983 #DoctorWho Enlightenment Part Three
The first DW story both written and directed by women
(Though Paddy Russell directed in 1966, and Verity Lambert was Producer from day 1)
Our viewing today for #InternationalWomensDay and Tom’s March Challenge is a superb tale and a fabulous pirate queen!
The Lord of the Rings Radio Times 7-13 March 1981 – stylised creatures surround a mountain
Slightly tiny Radio Times billings clipping for Episode 1: The Long-Awaited Party
OTD 1981: The Lord of the Rings (BBC)
The Long-Awaited Party (or The Shadow of the Past) begins six glorious months of fantasy on Radio 4.
Brian Sibley’s adaptation JRR Tolkien stars Ian Holm & Bill Nighy, Michael Hordern, Robert Stephens, and, unforgettably, Peter Woodthorpe.
ProudFOOTS!
Incredibly normal to be banging on the door of the Quakers repeatedly but allowing literal organisations such as Britain first to stalk homes of refugees and domestic violence survivors every weekend.
Totally normal is this government. Not worried at all.
Tall, gleaming Cybermen stand around a holographic scanner in which the Doctor’s (Peter Davison) horrified face is visible
This first episode is one of those times everything comes together. A masterpiece.
Kinda and Earthshock are the twin poles that define the Davison era – Arthouse and Macho.
Then OTD two years later, his greatest story will be a synthesis of both.
A trooper’s boot scuffs into a sizzling mess on the cave floor, the name-tag “Snyder” congealing on top
On a scanner screen, one of the blobs of light that indicates the heart-beat of a living person suddenly flares and winks out
…from missing surveyors, through scary shapes in the dark, to gleaming great über-monsters and rivetingly horrible deaths
A hi-tech scanner that becomes an old-fashioned portent of doom
Flashes in the dark that reduce you to bubbling pizza!
Incredibly memorable.
Down in dark caves, a woman sergeant and male trooper in protective helmets and uniforms turn their blaster rifles on two dark, smooth silhouettes that have moved in behind them…
Two dark, smooth silhouettes cast shadows on the caves walls
OTD 1982: #DoctorWho Earthshock Part One
Possibly DW’s most memorable ending of the ’80s, but before then—
One of the most superbly crafted openings, too.
Brilliantly inventive direction
Strikingly eerie music and sound
Moody lighting
Tension builds…
Mark Gatiss proposed in a 2000s documentary that Nigel Kneale should have a broadcasting spot called “I Told You So”
In this mix of 1950s real news, real-life paranoia (or rational fear) and fictional autobiography, Kneale’s narration here did pretty much that a decade earlier.
The Quatermass Memoirs CD cover – a pointillist illustration of Andrew Keir’s Quatermass staring down at an astronaut in torment as another British rocket roars upward
OTD 1996: The Quatermass Memoirs
March 8th marks some of BBC TV and radio’s most fantastic beginnings…
It also saw an end of sorts to both (by bringing in film too), a coda – the last of five short reminiscences in which 1960s Quatermass Andrew Keir closes the book on 1950s Quatermass.
The Book opens (in a Peter Jones-y sort of voice):
In which the earth is unexpectedly destroyed and the great hitch-hike begins.
An epic adventure in time and space including some helpful advice on how to see the Universe for less than 30 Altairian Dollars a day.
Don’t Panic! It’s only the end of the world… but lone survivor Arthur Dent needs the sort of advice found in The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. HELP! 10.30pm Radio Times illustration of Arthur Dent, a fleet of flying saucers, and a being with bifurcated eyes. Alan Brookes hasn't quite got the idea of an electronic book, but how could such an outlandish notion ever take hold?
OTD 1978: The HitchHiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
Fit the First premieres on Radio 4 and the world doesn’t know what’s hit it
One of the funniest, cleverest, most unspeakably moving stories ever told.
And with the end, Douglas Adams is just beginning.
#H2G2
