"Terror of the Zygons" concludes less distinctly than it began with Part Four adeptly resolving things. While watching, one gets a sandpit, and a brutalist basement, but the whole serial is sealed with a beautiful farewell back in the highlands.

We all bounce between obligations, frequently self-imposed. 5K race and grade 8 piano exam behind me, I feel relaxed and spontaneous today, running a Parkrun and playing my piano pieces for sheer fun. It won't last long, and that's fine, but I'm learning to relish it.

I just heard a young YouTuber put "like" into the middle of the number of subscriptions he was chasing. "Seven hundred and, like, ninety-eight". The new generation has found its "unbe-bloody-lievable". We had ours. I cannot judge.

Steve Harris' bass solo at the start of Iron Maiden's "Blood on the World's Hands" is a impassioned love letter to Chris Squire of Yes, specifically his solo piece "The Fish", more specifically the live versions on "Yessongs" and "9012Live". Unmistakably. No doubt. I'm not imagining this.

"One year anniversary". If only there were a more succinct way to put this.

“…which was nice.”

It's like you've asked GenAI to draw a picture of Pink Floyd at the Roundhouse in 1966.

I love that they appear to be flanked by John Nathan-Turner and Linford Christie.

I took my Grade 8 piano exam earlier today. Probably a pass, we think, but I'll find out for sure in a few weeks. I managed to leave the anxiety explosions in the places they happened, reset, and move on, and get through the rest of it.

I've just looked up "vibe coding" and this is what it reminded me of. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Las...

"No, I said we could definitely get a SCALLY..."

Just told spouse I had a Leatherman in my back pocket, and she didn't even seem surprised.

The original Tom Baker opening titles looked nice, even after several generations of domestic video copying. The Sid Sutton ones, exciting and new on broadcast, copied awfully, as low-band machines couldn't accommodate the hard black to white transitions, and so looked blurry after just one copy.

Nathan, your time has come.

"Terror of the Zygons" Part Three returns the human warmth to the story. There is great humor as the Duke receives the visitors from UNIT in the hall of his castle. DOCTOR: (PROMPTING) Brigadier? BRIGADIER: (OFF GUARD) What? It's a richer scene with hindsight because all four know different amounts.

When anxious or agitated, my speaking voice becomes louder and more strident. The same thing happens to my piano playing whenever I've just made a mistake. It is specifically the least helpful thing to do in a graded examination, telegraphing the fuck-up boldly, just in case the examiner missed it.

I encountered a FoaF this year who was openly transphobic, without prompting, as a kind of "disagree with me if you dare" opening salvo. She later sighed and rolled her eyes at the existence of autism and ADHD as just another thing "we" have to deal with. She already knew I was autistic.

Just started ITV's "Frauds", or "Mini Heist" as one might style it. I'm tickled to watch Jodie Whitaker wearing normal clothes and playing a decodable human, especially alongside Suranne Jones and Elizabeth Berrington, Idris and Auntie from "The Doctor's Wife".

During the futile period in which I attempted to furnish my father with a word processor, he described the save icon in Word as "a picture of a television". This is a completely consistent interpretation for someone whose first set would have been a floor-standing cabinet.

I'm taking 10 days off running after the autumn 5K programme. I can feel immediately that I'd been overtraining, not taking out things like gym circuits classes when the running became more intense. My chronic systemic pain has eased almost completely. I feel it in yoga, which was agony 3 weeks ago.

When I can’t sleep, I put on headphones and resume the audiobook of “The Atrocity Exhibition” wherever I previously left off and it catalyses the most vivid dreams within about 20 minutes. It’s an almost stateless book so I can just keep sampling it at random like the I Ching.

Just checked for details of the gig I've been looking forward to going to tomorrow night, and the most significant detail was that it's actually tonight.

"Terror of the Zygons" Part Two brings some terrific set pieces, studio and film camerawork and action sequences but less world building and local colour that Part One. The Duke and Angus the landlord don't appear. But at the time, the revelations about what the aliens could do would have delighted.

As a child I initially thought that TV's cartoon ghost hunting dog was called "Scoopy Doo". Listening to series four of "From The Oast House" I've just heard Alan use that same misapprehension. You honestly would not believe quite how happy, and seen, this has made me feel.

When I worked in IT at big financial institutions, and we were doing planned upgrades and maintenance, the managers coordinating the work referred to their function as "Command and Control" which I found hilarious. I should have addressed them as "General" or "Admiral".

I was my present age when I became aware that the title of the LP "Jon Pertwee Sings Songs For Vulgar Boatmen" is a joke on "The Song of the Volga Boatmen". I have still, to my knowledge, heard neither.

I sat a mock exam for Grade 8 piano with my teacher today. The shakes really set in after the first of the three pieces! I'm doing the real thing next week. This is an order of magnitude harder than the previous grade, having skipped from 6 to 8. I feel like I'm six sleeps away from a space launch.

Recent 20th century Doctor Who revisiting has taken me to interesting stories less highly-regarded or familiar, but tonight the Blu Ray plus Target audiobook plus @tobyhadoke.bsky.social Happy Times and Places podcast formula led me to "Terror of the Zygons" Part One. An injection of pure comfort.

He did “Amnesiac” as well, in “The Father”.

The strange world of gurney Slade.

What is a motoring correspondent's favourite leg exercise? Calf raises (car phrases).

A few days' cogitation reveals that in fact what I saw was the recording of the follow-up, "Hawkeye the Pathfinder", in summer 1973. So the redcoat with a tea tray who smiled at me in the curving corridor may have been Pat Gorman. And I may have seen David Maloney directing Patrick Troughton.

Briers playing YET ANOTHER dominant psychopath.

NARRATOR’S VOICE: “He did.”

I can’t wait for this. Nina’s most recent novel combines documentary, imagination and autofiction. Her use of complex, reflexive structure is hypnotic.

Today, I wrapped up my 5K running season with the Blast Running Meadows 5K race. Wet and slippy, and a lingering head cold, but I still managed 22:16, which rounds off a steady improvement over this autumn training block. Nothing hard now until mid-December when I get back on the marathon bus.

I genuinely love how Tom has facially and posturally aged into a caricature study of himself of the kind that used to accompany @garygillatt.bsky.social's witty DVD reviews in DWM.

If it helps, most Americans think Trump is suing Big Black Cock.

Just used the developer console in Chrome to work out why the Sainsburys website wasn't letting me paste a shopping list in. A small yet utterly satisfying victory in the War on Monday.

Listening to "Piece of Mind" and realising that in the "Threads" timeline it's the final Iron Maiden album. No "Powerslave" in a nuclear winter. (Any surviving members of Maiden would have to change track two to "2 Minutes AFTER Midnight", anyway, and record it acoustically, as "Powersave").

When we watch “Gone Fishing with Mortimer and Whitehouse” and the credit “Fishing Consultant - John Bailey” appears, I think of the actor from “The Sensorites”, “Evil of the Daleks”, and “The Horns of Nimon”. Every single time.

I had an uncle who was a BBC TV documentary producer in the sixties and seventies. Although I visited TV centre a couple of times in the early eighties, I remembered today that I was taken as a very young boy in the early seventies and saw what may have been "Last of the Mohicans" in studio.

A week since my 5K attempt. I've only run once since, when it felt like I was pushing a concrete mixer, but I went out again today and the feeling of running on fresh legs was invigorating. I'll be taking another swing, at a 5K race on Tuesday, and I now think I might improve my time. 🏃‍♂️🤞⏱️

It's seven letters long, and regularly brings me great pleasure while temporarily raising my heart rate. P*R**U* Parkrun, obviously.

People saying "a Slack" instead of "a Slack workspace" or "a Slack channel" have no idea which how painfully it lands in my uncooperative brain. It's far far noisier than "a Powerpoint".

"Bugonia". Loved it! (Lanthimos, Stone, Plemons, so not surprisingly). I challenge anyone with the same cultural baggage as me not to be reminded at times of "Rumours of Death" and "Mawdryn Undead".

Zoe was so posh that, in "The Mind Robber" when she describes the Karkus, I thought he'd appeared in a publication called "The Arly Telepress", presumably bringing the news every 60 minutes to the citizens of Arly. Plebs like me think "hourly" has three syllables.

I must confirm that I am *not* a lawnmower, and that you specifically cannot tell me by the way I walk.

Here's what I did this evening: grep -i -B1 @ fc-raw | egrep -v "^--" | paste -sd ',\n' - > fc.csv They should televise me doing this against the clock, and call it "8 out of 10 Retired Unix Admins Does Countdown".