Today this morning reported Matt Damon’s suggestion that the Oscars should be handed out after 10 years to ensure winners stood the test of time.  I mention this not because I think David Tennant isn’t a great Doctor, but it proves nothing that whilst still, in effect, the “current” Doctor he is top of the polls.

When Pat Troughton took up the role, there had only been one Doctor – perhaps the toughest challenge, since he had to prove the Doctor’s persona could change.  Despite his success, Jon Pertwee also made the role his own, and could be said to have followed on from – at the time – the “greatest Doctor ever”.  When Tom Baker took over the role, again taking over the role from the greatest Doctor ever (spot the pattern?), like Matt Smith he was a relative unknown…  Yet for many people he remains the greatest Doctor ever.

It was in the eighties that the pattern came unstuck.  Peter Davison (who Matt Smith has been taking advice over lunch from lately) was also young (too young, he now claims) and left after doing less than half the time his predecessor spent in the role. But this was also a difficult time for the show, and the quality of the writing was going perhaps not as strong as it had once been – Matt Smith has Steven Moffatt in charge of that side of things.  Similar things could be said of Baker C and McCoy, both stints terminated prematurely (not the actors’ choice) and McGann only got 90 minutes, hard to become the greatest Doctor ever in that time, even though he created a distinctive and enduring Eighth Doctor in that one appearance.  And even when Tennant came to take over, Eccleston’s regeneration was identified with the show’s, a huge success.  So in taking over from “the greatest Doctor ever” Smith is following the majority of his predecessors.

For what it’s worth, I do think Tennant is one of the greatest Doctors ever (I particularly like Troughton and Baker T) but he wasn’t perfect (it would be a dull world if he had been) and I have a huge admiration for Matt Smith and the new head writer. Looking forward to April 3rd, and the arrival of the Best. Doctor. Ever.

Like his, my intimate relationships are abiding, loyal, deep and passionate. Like him, I think that what one does, one should do well. If we like eating we should eat well, we should cultivate our senses, we should dress well and learn what suits us, we should play at things that matter and not be idle or trivial. We should travel and know something of the world, we should learn another language. We should view all things, except romantic love, skeptically. We should puncture piety, challenge orthodoxy, we should be secular. We should be cultured without being effete, erudite without being pompous, smart without being glib. We should follow our own law consistently. People we love should know that we won’t let them down. We should be funny.

From Eulogy for Robert B. Parker by his son, David

Again, thanks to archel for the link.

If you use a Snow Leopard (or possible Leopard) machine as your media centre and you rip your own TV stuff into iTunes, you may have puzzled over why TV shows seasons that sequence correctly show up in Front Row in a random order, particularly if you’ve not added stuff to your library in the order it was originally released.

Leopard’s Front Row annoyed a few users by changing the organisation scheme from…

TV Shows ->
The Avengers ->
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3 etc.

…to…

TV Shows ->
The Avengers
The Avengers
The Avengers

Which was fine with me while I knew that each entry corresponded to a season, and seasons were in ascending order. But in some cases the seasons seemed to come out in a random order, and I puzzled over it for ages (well, I like puzzles). Had I tagged badly, and it was sorting by release dates? Were the most recently added to iTunes showing up first? Actually it turns out it was none of this. You might have entered the season number in iTunes and have it all showing up correctly there, and when you check the tags you see the correct seasons too, but to get Front Row to read it you’ve got to force iTunes to write it to some other place (I’ve no idea where) by, for example, renaming the show temporarily and then naming it back to it’s correct name. It’s inconvenient (and a disappointingly mundane resolution to the puzzle) but at least it works until Apple release a proper fix. If they ever fix Front Row.

Incidentally if you’re finding some of your TV Shows are showing up as movies (as well as TV shows) in Front Row, despite being correctly categorised in iTunes, this similar workaround suggests changing the media kind to podcast and then back to TV show.

The structure bears more resemblance to a sandwich; the custard is held between two pieces of flakey pastry with the unfortunate effect that any attempt at consuming it results in the immediate evacuation of the custard from the sides.  To make things even more challenging, the top is iced to prevent you from gripping it without getting your fingers sticky.  Unlike the simpler French patisserie, this is not going to win any usability awards.  This is not a custard that Jonathan Ive would have designed.

All the same, because of the pastry (which is deliciously reminiscent of a buttery), and the fact that it is the best available delivery method for custard outside France, it is something of an irresistible treat.  Albeit one that to preserve dignity should probably only be consumed in private, alone.

First kilt sightings: yesterday at 5pm (45 drinking hours before kick-off)

Kilt count so far (20 drinking hours before kick-off): 6

There’s no way you can ignore the rugby here, it’s all anyone’s talking about, and we all now that tomorrow the city will be awash with red.  The number of merry-go-rounds, belgian chocolate stalls and german sausage vendors in Queens Street have each gone up to a total of one of each.  One thing I’ve noticed about Cardiff is there are a lot of TV screens.  Not just in the pubs, but in the streets and even in IKEA (where notices promise all internationals will be screened – because presumably otherwise they might just as well shut for the day).

Sad to think I will only have the pleasure of reading a brand new Spenser book three more times.