Driving back from a beach stroll, stopping for a moment to look up at Corfe Castle. Not just dramatic in its own right but summons up Amon Sûl.

Channel 4 aired the first episode of 'Spaced' on this day in 1999. The first thing I ever saw that felt like it was made just for me and my generation of slacker nerds; even before my egg cracked I felt that Daisy was me, although now I'm almost in my 50s I'm Marsha (I am a dipsomaniac landlady).

The Classic Who Christmas specials trilogy: The Tenth Planet Blizzards and the Doctor’s first* rebirth Genesis of the Daleks or Doctor Who – The Nativity Snakedance A big festival celebration, but everyone’s forgotten the true meaning of Snakemas

Strange #DoctorWho Trilogies The Camfield Village Body Horror trilogy: Terror of the Zygons The Seeds of Doom The Nightmare Man The Folk Horror trilogy: The Daemons The Stones of Blood K9 and Company

OTD 1990: Pet Shop Boys – So Hard Great single. About a couple. Magnificent synths (half retro electronica, half contemporary stabs) Some of their best lyrics (not *just* for the innuendo, though obviously for the innuendo) And serendipitously future-proofed…

My dyslexic daughter (late teens) has asked for crime novel recommendations. Any suggestions for stuff that clips along, is fairly easy to read and preferably set in the present day would be really appreciated. Thus far I've thought of perhaps Caimh McDonnell's Dublin novels.

Hot guy took me out to dinner.

One last for #LDConf: OTD 1961 Liberal Party Assembly in Edinburgh votes overwhelmingly to apply to join the Common Market, establishing Britain’s first pro-Europe party then continuously through to Lib Dems and EU. That time it only took a decade or so… [Puts on hiking boots for long, uphill road]

Picked up some Lib Dem stats at conference. Some of these surprised me (especially given media coverage): 1. The Liberal Democrats now control more councils than the Conservative Party 2. In May's local elections in England, the LDs elected more councillors than either Labour or the Tories. (1/x)

Sunset on Bournemouth and #LibDemConference for another year.

Autumn is here.

👾LibDems are officially against the Online Safety Act in its current form After months of campaigning led by Young Liberals & @liberal_reform, Liberal Democrats have become the first party to call for scrutinising OSA & expanding digital rights #LDConf

I heard this was where the Lib Dem Lords’ question time was on, but I must have been misinformed. Boom, boom!

Walking very creakily today, with energy boost from listening to Blondie: No Exit – partly wondering if I should fork out for the SE. Nothing Is Real But the Girl (Boilerhouse Mix) from the CD single is a real banger. But also: need to check if the SE is the CD singles’ mixes, in which case…

In the UK, access to public paths is shrinking. Thousands of miles of disused railway lines, canal towpaths and green spaces sit unused or blocked off. Liberal Democrats have a vision to transform these forgotten routes into vibrant public paths for everyone to enjoy.

Happy #BiVisibilityDay! On this day of the year I’m always reminded of a certain Doctor Who adventure where a pinky-blue spray reveals the completely shocking presence of Them on the Planet of the Them ‘Somewhere on this planet there are ten thousand bisexuals!’ #DalekInvisibilityDay

John Steed. (But The Avengers women are strongly Liberal-coded, which helps)

A man’s just walked past me looking rather dazed. He also looked rather like Leslie Crowther. No-one knows who Leslie Crowther is now, so I can’t rule out that he was looking dazed because he’d just seen himself in a mirror and gone, ‘Who the f—‘s that?’

I like to think Lib Dems are generally more pro #BiVisibilityDay on instinctive Liberal principles of freedom and fairness, but can’t rule out it’s because we’ve all just been fed up enough times with ‘Yes, but are you really Labour or really Tory though? Happy Bisexual Visibility Day!

Delighted to announce that Borderlines is one of @waterstones.bsky.social paperbacks of the year!

Hear, hear, the outdated, archaic and post-feudal leasehold system needs to go. This is actually a return to a very old Liberal Party policy position. Some Liberals aligned to Lloyd George wanted to abolish the leasehold system during the Edwardian period. 🏠🔶💛

Been thinking for a while I needed to post something like this on the podcast site, given how widespread LLM slop has become. This is off the top of my head, and should probably be more precise and concise, but it'll do for now.

OTD 1960 An Age of Kings 11: Henry VI – The Rabble from Kent One of Shakespeare’s least rated plays and a crossover with one of the least loved Doctor Who stories! How’s that for populism! Go on, read on about how this intersects with (drumroll) The Space Pirates…

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't The Mandalorian And Grogu about two illegal refugees who team up to fight fascism alongside a diverse group of women, people of colour and religious minorities, who all believe in masking up? Why have Disney not preemptively cancelled it?

I spent half of my life living under mandatory ID laws in several countries, and I can tell you from experience, you won’t like it. These laws are designed to give police arbitrary power to stop, question and search anyone they choose.

A very Happy 43rd Birthday to Billie Piper! #DoctorWho 🥳

OTD: Bilbo and Frodo Baggins Bilbo seems lighter-hearted and Frodo the more serious hobbit… But for their big birthday journeys in The Lord of the Rings, Bilbo planned his Eleventy-first to the hilt while Frodo left it way too late, hoping something (ideally Gandalf) would turn up for his Fiftieth

OTD 2012: #DoctorWho The Power of Three (Re-)Introducing Kate Stewart! I enjoy this intriguing puzzle box of a story, even if it doesn’t quite seem to resolve it. By repute that may not have been helped by a rare ‘New Who’ guest actor also seen way back in The Avengers…

The New Avengers- finally coming Blu Ray (and DVD and 4K!) with loads of new special features. Audition footage, interviews from the Chichester convention, and 10 commentaries, including Joanna Lumley on Sleeper and the late Gareth Hunt on The Eagle's Nest and Dead Men are Dangerous!

Walked to Boscombe and back in the dark (gave me a strange urge to watch The Stones of Blood). Fine along the beach; went slightly off-target from a roundabout the other way, but on The Hobbit Day, was cheered to find this:

OTD 1937: The Hobbit A small part of Tolkien’s great history (perhaps his most fun!), yet once you set out on a road… I was always enticed by Gandalf and the scary bits, but the less Tookish I become, the more I delight in Bilbo’s voice dreaming of bacon and eggs.

Walking along the beach listening to Heaven 17: both relaxing and energetic (I listened to a particularly long podcast earlier and was a bit podcasted out, so something with a beat helped)

If The Rapture *does* come on Wednesday, despite Ed’s Jam-and-Jerusalem-ing I’m confident it wouldn’t take that high a proportion of our target voters, so predicting gains.

This. Oh this. When a certain former lodger said life with us was like living in a sit com, it was this one. And Keeping Up Appearances, obviously.

Favourite sit-coms in the order I thought of them: The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin A Bit of a Do Brass Fawlty Towers Yes (Prime) Minister The Young Ones Absolutely Fabulous Porridge The Good Place Drop the Dead Donkey …Does H2G2 count if the sit is (spoilers) demolished in the first episode?

Which Lib Dem MP dropped the F bomb on the #ldconf fringe? (And rightly so in the opinion of our editor @caronmlindsay.bsky.social in her Conference Diary) www.libdemvoice.org/carons-confe...

I have made my #LDConf Agenda more exciting by getting Terrance Dicks to retitle it like an early Target novel

Lib Dems: We have 12x Reform's MPs, can we have the same coverage? BBC: But Reform has 2x your poll rating. If there were an election tomorrow, they'd be running the country. Lib Dems: So you're putting their people and policies under scrutiny, right? BBC: Lib Dems: Right?

Children of the Corn Flakes was right there…

A fun project shown at the BFI yesterday. An introduction to Terror of the Zygons with Tom saying even he couldn't get a ticket.

“Consider, Turlough – which will you give him? The Doctor, or the diamond? The choice is yours…”

OTD 1995: #DoctorWho Toy Soldiers Teddy bears, missing children, endless war… Not one of the more fun times for the Doctor, Benny, Chris or (complicatedly) Roz Middling for the reader But I highly recommend Paul Leonard’s first Doctor Who novel, Venusian Lullaby: alien, a grand tragedy, and superb.

The annual festival of “stop hitting yourself!“ aka the BBC’s commentary on Lib Dem conference.

Misread this as ‘Fruity Topics’ and immediately pictured @rigg.lgbt in the chair announcing, ‘On today’s agenda, Conference…’

OTD 1976: I, Claudius – A Touch of Murder One of the greatest TV series ever made begins. When just a *touch* murderous this is phenomenally dramatic, bitchy and hilarious mafia-inspired family comedy… Then turns compellingly nasty Before outrageously horrid.

Beloved and I are just into Season 18 on The Pilgrimage (great era, love it) so a couple of months to Terminus: While fascinating conceptually, actually *watching* Terminus rarely wows me but Luke’s double bill has made me more excited for it than I’ve been in years*

With a new ‘jumping-on’ issue this week… OTD 1980: Prog 178 – one of 2000AD’s most brilliant for new readers Launching 50 weeks of fabulously weird Belardinelli in Meltdown Man And ultraviolent sport The Mean Arena But Killer Watt has the longest afterlife as Nemesis fights Torquemada to the deaths

The media: Nobody knows what the lib dems stand for! Lib dems: pass lots of hugely detailed, well-thought-out, evidence-based policy The media:

Babylon 5 nerds have been waiting 30 years for this moment.

OTD 1984: Doctor Who – Frontios by Christopher H Bidmead His compellingly gruesome novelisation was teen me’s fave Five Target by far Grown-up me might point out a touch of Shakespeare’s Henriad, but is still here mainly for machines built from the dead (& The Power of the Hat-Stand!) Thanks, Chris.