…This popped up on my phone and I thought, how could I not?

Field-Major Styre was particularly scary for little me So Sontarans became a firm favourite monster! That scary memory, then a cliffhanger TV return, and perhaps most of all the brilliant advantage that even a boy who couldn’t draw *could* easily draw the distinctive shapes of them and their ships.

OTD 1975: #DoctorWho The Sontaran Experiment Out on the wily, windy moors… Eerie, empty Earth Tom’s Doctor facing threats with beaming charm Intelligent, capable Sarah Jane Smith Adorable, pretty Harry Sullivan I love them and this – from thrilling nightmares when I was three, to still gripping now.

The difference between Tory entitlement and Labour entitlement is that Tories feel entitled to their place in society, whereas Labour feel entitled to the votes of everyone who isn't a Tory.

The distinct possibility of coming third in the Gorton and Denton by-election is making Labour lose their minds. It's the offended sense of entitlement that's making them shit the bed. Inverted snobbery about Hannah's living room. Wild fearmongering about crack den playgrounds. Looks desperate.

The beginning of something great. Just not the greatest beginning. (It kind of needs reframing as a two-parter in the middle of season one where Jeff is facing a board of inquiry… possibly en route to Talos IV😉)

Kenneth Williams was an immeasurably pleasurable personality as I grew up From reading Agaton Sax on Jackanory to all the voices of Willo the Wisp Bona old radio shows my Dad had recorded which I didn’t yet understand And Carry On Up the Khyber might be my most problematic fave. But such a fave!

Which she did. Having first called my Mum and blasted flames down the phone to her errant daughter. Ringing me back, she was all sweetness and light to her grandson. At least, once she’d exploded: “Does my family think I’m wrapped up in cotton wool? I’ve known for years!” 6/6

“Why are you so upset?” “Well… I’m not. I’m completely fine about being gay. But I thought *you* would be.” “And why would that be?” “Well… Mum thought…” As far as I got in the conversation before she cut me off with a determined: “Right! I’ll ring again in a minute.” 5/6

(*31 years, 4 months next week, and for always) I waited on tenterhooks. A week later, the phone rang – the only time Grandma ever rang me direct. And in fact she rang me twice in quick succession. The first call was more abrupt and to the point. It went something like this: 4/6

So when Grandma visited the UK in the ’90s, I first bottled it, then regretted it. Eventually I wrote a long letter, walking on eggshells – not wanting to upset her, but to be honest and not shut her out of my life with Richard (we’d already been together over a year*) 3/6

I’d been generally out since I was 17, and yet— Mum prevailed upon me not to tell Grandma, and it was easy to justify exceptions: she was in her eighties then; she could be rather unbending (or severe, or ferocious, depending); we didn’t see her often, living half the world away… 2/6

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll tell you a story. My second-favourite coming-out story, a funny one for #LGBTHistoryMonth You know the excuse ‘Of course *I* don’t have a problem, but old people won’t understand’…? OTD 1996: I wrote a letter to my Grandma… 1/6

We need to go back to a situation where racism is shameful rather than electorally advantageous.

Really fun thread and piece at the end!

The tragedy of our two-party system is that otherwise good and kind people see the Tories as “the baddies” and buy into the narrative that Labour must be “the goodies”. They are not. Reform are just the true face of Labour. McSweeny wasn’t betraying Labour’s principles. He was revealing them.

Sunday

I love how humanity evolved out of monkeyhood and then invented spaceships that employ gravity assists to swing around the solar system like little steel orbital chimps on a 60 AU climbing frame

Evolution, eh. What’s that about?

I’ve seen people defending this protest saying it’s not racist, it’s patriotic. There is absolutely nothing patriotic in attacking someone because their skin colour is different to yours. It’s racism. Racism is a stain on our country, and so are these racist bastards.

a) it’s U=42, isn’t it b) this actually raises serious questions about whether Deep Thought was really the greatest computer ever or if the mice were conned with a knock off LLM

Opportunity for DWTV and DWTV+ (same episodes an hour later, but with commentary)

He was arrested and tried— But freedom prevailed. Knee-jerk authoritarians are always gagging to splurge billions on reintroducing ID cards to micromanage our lives, and Labour Governments *every time* need constant vigilance.

OTD 1952: UK identity are to be abolished We have one person above all to thank for this But not even Churchill, who announced it A year earlier, police ordered Henry Willcock (no relation) to show his ID card… He refused: “I am a Liberal and I am against this sort of thing.”

This. I travelled to the US 21 times up to 2024. I had two trips planned for 2025, both of which I cancelled. Being thrown in a concentration camp is just not my idea of a fun holiday experience.

Panda’s book is in stock and he will sign copies x

Mood

More authors should do this

Don’t you ever forget

Wise words for a better Britain!

#WutheringHeights Sweepcliff.

This week on aNARCHY rULES... Enter the Valley of Fear. Take to the skies as Steven Chance keeps climbing the secret ways of Empire Street.

Nice out

OTD 1979 Blake’s 7 – Killer Robert Holmes’ prescription for B7: ‘What this show needs is “Avon’s Two”. ‘And a dose of horror.’ Paul Daneman is superb as a genial, laid-back epidemiologist, but his final line is one of the most existentially terrifying things I’ve ever heard. I won’t write it down…

Woah.

The three crucial early New Adventures to me: Terrance Dicks’ Timewyrm: Exodus, *the* Doctor Who novelist embracing the new form Then Paul Cornell’s Timewyrm: Revelation and Marc Platt’s Time’s Crucible were the NAs’ Blue Monday and West End Girls—bold, exciting, defining, *New*.

The New Adventures were ideally timed for me at uni – for broader and deeper worlds and for years when I had no TV but could afford the odd book – if quite badly timed for getting work done there. They meant so much to me then and are still one of my defining Doctor Who eras.

OTD 1992: #DoctorWho Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible by Marc Platt This fizzes with ideas, turning history inside-out and putting Ace at the centre When I bought this, I was going to read just the first chapter, because I had lectures to get to that day… I finished it by dusk.

OTD 1975: Doctor Who and the Cybermen The first book I ever bought, aged 5 – the book I learnt to read on – and I still love it. 5 reasons to read this, if you’re coming to it much later: loveandliberty.blogspot.com/2016/11/five...

I used to side-eye a plot dependent on the Liberator – the most amazing ship in the galaxy – conveniently suddenly draining all its energy banks. But our actual 21st Century suggests ‘prodigious tech, rubbish battery life’ is late-’70s BBC Sci-Fi’s most futureproof prediction of all.

OTD 1978: Blake’s 7 – Duel Another post-apocalyptic planet (legally not Star Trek) Driven by energetic and weird direction For one week only, Travis and the Space Vampires are the Big Bad Plus Avon on Space Gogglebox, scorning Big Brother (the show, not their home Dome this time)

Moogneto

Always the future. It has to be better one day.

OTD 1966 The Avengers – A Touch of Brimstone 60 years since The Avengers’ most infamous night! Emma becomes the Queen of Sin Steed takes the p A shower of excessively wealthy, titled men (imagine) led fabulously and disturbingly by Peter Wyngarde aim to blow up politics, then bring in their own whip

Things you can say in response both to today’s Eighth Doctor announcement and Tricoteuse-inspiring royals: “Bring me knitting”

This has been a long time in the planning and we're all very excited about what the future holds. The teamwork to get it to this stage has been extraordinary. We've a great year of events ahead of us - do share this as much as you can. Thanks. 😁

UK: Prince Andrew arrested. South Korea: Former President Yoon sentenced for life. Brazil: Former President Bolsonaro serving a 27-year sentence. USA: President Trump demands $10 billion payout from taxpayers.

So SCOTUS, with its fabricated-out-of-thin-air immunity doctrine, has actually made American presidents less accountable than LITERAL royalty.