Little Storping-in-the-Swuff

I want to mention this one simple because of the way it starts out so well, with some terrific location filming and special effects; and ends up so poorly in a studio full of cardboard props and Sinclair ZX quality “special” effects.

Much of the story takes place in a nuclear power station (actually filmed in a real power station, and it shows). Sarah Jane is possessed, an over-used and irritating device with other characters, but Lis Sladen carries it off rather well (in pink dungarees). In fact her performance here is excellent, far more relaxed than earlier serials (think Felicity Kendall as Barbara Good). The titular hand, when it becomes animated, is seriously scary. The nuclear power station scenes are remnicent of The China Syndrome, and although it doesn’t compare that favourably (unsurprisingly) I was quite impressed to discover it actually pre-dates it by 3 years.

Lennie Mayne’s direction, especially in episode one, is first class. Judith Paris is a wonderful alien, but the serial’s decline (in plot and production values) towards the end is exemplified by her regeneration into the dull, shouty Stephen Thorne. A pity when it started out so well. But that’s why it’s only remembered as The One Where Sarah Jane Leaves.

A couple of days ago, when I visited http://www.bbc.co.uk/torchwood/ it took you through to the Wales South East site.

Now, ACCESS DENIED.

It’s coming.

The first picking, today.

In fact several of them are already going rotten on the tree. Any good pear recipes, anyone?

Could this be the worst Bond song ever? I’m trying to remember just how much I hated “Die Another Day” when it first came out (I mellowed after I saw how it was used in the titles) to work out whether I can really say this is the worst Bond song ever, or whether I’ll like it better once I’ve calmed down.

Update: Paul Dunphy on CommanderBond.net has posted with the views from the CBn forum:

Some see it as it as a brave step for the franchise: ushering in a new era, others wonder why an American rock artist was picked at the height of his mediocrity to work on a cock-rock song that is meant to relaunch Britain’s greatest universal export, but sounds more fitting for the end credits of a Spiderman film.

Some see it as the spiritual sister to Wings’ 1973 classic Live And Let Die, others believe it’s as aggressive as a wet fart; that it’s an asinine, lyrically-cliched, fetid turd of a song with no remotely memorable hook and no discernible link to the musical world of James Bond.

It’s certainly not Live and Let Die. But there is a discernible link to the James Bond theme if you listen carefully enough. Anyway, I don’t think he likes it, and I don’t blame him.

I’ve been waiting for gridman to do one of his detailed reviews on this over on Lone Locust Productions so I can keep my comments brief, but I still wanted to say a couple of things about this impressive serial.

The first is about the absolutely superb sound design. The production values are high, and there are some tense action sequences in the early episodes, but it is in the use of audio effects that it is exceptional.

The second is the unremittingly dark – even grim – storyline. I’d read Russell T Davies’ comment on getting carried away with parallel universes and giving the Brigadier an eyepatch; and it had lead me to assume there was an element of frivolity in the cast playing their characters’ counterparts. In fact, the differences are necessary and (apart from the strange changing hair) nicely underplayed. There’s far more sense in this parallel universe than that of the Lumic Cybermen.

I like the more serious tone and, having written off the Pertwee era as all giant maggots and “chap with wings – five rounds rapid” I’m now tempted to revisit more Third Doctor stories.

The BBC have just announced a new series of Doctor Who set to be broadcast on BBC 7 in the new year. To star Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, currently battling the Cybermen on BBC 7 in the repeat of the excellent The Sword of Orion, these really are brand new adventures, set after the current Big Finish series with Charley Pollard. Produced by Big Finish, the new series will mark the independent production company’s first foray into the BBC’s new Doctor Who format of 50 minute one-off or two part episodes. There will be six stories, including two two-parters.

The new companion is Lucie Miller, played by Sheridan Smith, but just look:

The guest cast is equally impressive: Timothy West, Kenneth Cranham, Anita Dobson, Nerys Hughes, Ian McNeice, Elspet Gray, Ben Silverstone, Stephen Gately, Bernard Cribbins, Julia McKenzie, Nigel Havers, Roy Marsden and Nickolas Grace all feature.

The series is due to go out from New Year’s Eve, superbly timed to fill in that post-Christmas special, Torchwood-free drought period preceding the broadcast of Series 29 on TV. Just to make sure we’re all dosed up over the holiday season, Sarah Jane and K9 will return on New Year’s Day in a one-hour Sarah Jane Adventures special, marking the start of the third Doctor Who spin-off which will continue in an (alas K9-free) CBBC series later in the year. Ex-Moneypenny Samantha Bond is the baddie.

Under the new artwork views, iTunes groups tracks together as an album and shows one piece of artwork for the whole lot. Which makes sense, but gets more complicated in practice.

Two problems occur: iTunes groups together more tracks under one piece of artwork than I’d like. Or iTunes divides a group of tracks into two or more groups with the same artwork when it shouldn’t.

The first key thing is that the artwork can be attached to each track. So I might have (and indeed do have) different artwork for tracks on disc one from disc two. iTunes just ignores this. It appears to show the artwork from the first track in the album that has artwork. This means that more tracks are grouped under one piece of artwork than I’d like.

The first issue where the opposite problem occurs concerns the new “Album Artist” tag. This has to be the same for all the tracks on the album for them to be grouped together. This is fine, and logical. However how does iTunes decide what goes in this tag? It’s new, it should be blank! Yet my files (which admittedly I’ve tagged in various different softwares) seem to have randomly different “Album Artist” tags. Furthermore, just looking at the file info seems on occasions (and I can’t see any pattern here) to change the “Album Artist” tag. It’s all very wierd.

The second issue where this occurs is a little less obvious. Where tracks on an album are encoded in different formats (eg AAC and MP3) iTunes treats it as two albums. Why have I got albums with their tracks encoded differently? Because often I take one track from a compilation, and then go and buy the others online.

Update: Aha, here’s the first script for iTunes 7, useful for knocking the “Album Artist” field into shape, but be careful. If you use it on an album where one or more tracks has a guest or a different artist, you’ll experience the strange behaviour described above!

Update 2: I done made a mistake. The format thing (AAC/MP3) has no effect on album grouping. In the case in question, the one AAC track had “part of a compilation” ticked. Notably, when I wrote in the “Album Artist” it no longer cared.

There seems to be a higherachy of grouping. Where the album and album artist ar the same, they get grouped. If the album artist is blank, it will look next at just the artist field, and then the part of a compilation check box. And goodness knows what else besides…

If you want to use the groovy new views, better do a bit of tag housekeeping!

The new iPod Shuffle is 7g lighter (down from 22g to 15g) and half as long (down from 84mm to 21mm). But it’s wider and deeper by 2mm (up from 25mm to 27mm and 8mm to 10mm respectively). Plus the clip.

Then there’s the memory stick factor – there’s no indication the new one can be used as a memory stick and anyway, it needs a dock to function.

I’m really not sure. Should I pop down to Dixons before they sell out of the old kind?

This has made me quite happy. Damn, it is nice.

• Cover view is cool. Cover flow view is waaay cool. Art from iTMS is neat.
• What is this “anaylsing for gapless playback” it does when it starts up first time? Surely gapless playback just involves leaving out the gaps. (And after I spent all that time concatenating MP3s for live concerts and radio plays…) Still, gapless playback = good.
• daap sharing is backwards compatible with iTunes 6. Critically, mt-daapd works with it.
• Nice redesign of the playlist section. But why lose the Aqua scroll bars. Is this not a Mac app anymore? Or is Aqua on the way out in Leopard?
• Got used to the new blue-er logo. First time I saw it I thought “hell no!” Now it seems quite nice.
• In Preferences>Advanced>General you can now “Allow iTunes control from remote speakers”. What’s that about? My Airport Express can’t do that, and iTV will surely use daap sharing. Might there still be a new Airport Express in the works?

Hello iTunes 7
Mmm, this is great. Worthy of the build up alone, really. Deserves its own post.

Bigger capacity iPods
Just as well I can’t afford one. Or I might be tempted. And then how would I feel when the video iPod comes out.

New Nanos
Okay, we’re back to the colours. They’re now little iPod minis.

New Shuffle
I was expecting this to be phased out, and have to dash in and buy one before they disappeared. Now I can get “the smallest MP3 player” in the world. But hang on, it looks wider than the old shuffle. And can you still us it as a flash drive dongle? Hmmm. Not sure, do I want this, or an old style one?

One More Thing: iTMS
That M stands for Movies, of course. Better than I’d expected. Upgrading to 480×640 makes it all just a bit more worth while, and being able to play a movie seconds after you start the dowload is critical. Having a Worldwide date (albeit an aspirational one) is good for us UK folks, still waiting for the TV shows. But the pricing is wrong. Do I want to spend more on a download than on buying the DVD with (slightly) higher quality and the extras? Surely only if I want it right now. In which case it’s a rental. Which isn’t available.

Although music is generally around the same as it costs on CD, iTMS have the advantage of being instant and being able to choose a track. Although TV shows are around the same cost as on DVD they have the advantage of being (potentially) released right after the TV show, letting you choose particular episodes, and catch a missed show during a run. But movies to keep I’ll stick with DVD unless the price really drops. Rentals for £1.99 would be a winner though.

Another One More Thing: iTV
This is indeed the rumoured video streaming device. Although it’s not miniature as I speculated, we don’t know yet, it might have 802.11n. I’m a bit underwhelmed. At half the price of a Mac Mini, I still think I might go for a Mac Mini to do the job of set top box. A Mac Mini has DVI, optical audio like the iTV. Okay, it doesn’t have the component video, but it includes a DVD player and since it runs OS X is far more flexible. A cheap, miniature Airport Express video might have tempted me…