BUSTING BALLS EPISODE 110 IS OUR 2025 FINALE! @jonarnold.bsky.social @brasilianfury.bsky.social & I are talking VIDYA GAMES and AFCON! #Soundcloud soundcloud.com/busting-ball... #Spotify open.spotify.com/show/0Yz2r4p... #soccer #football #futbol

On BBC 4 Extra at 4pm: a repeat of @tobyhadoke.bsky.social’s estimable and effective 2018 radio adaptation of The Road. Genuinely not to be missed if you’re a Nigel Kneale fan. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

We were doing writing tips the other day, right? Just thought of a good one -- stop it with the fucking synonyms. If you're writing about, say, Paul McCartney, you can just say "McCartney" every time, not "the ex-Beatle", "the former Wings frontman", "the left-handed bassist" etc.

It's going to be another busy week on the Strangers feed this week as we make our way through the back end of the seasonal break - but here's a taster of what's coming up in January and beyond...

Whoever’s doing I Will Always Love You on this musicals thing on BBC1 is filling I Will Always Love You with more notes that Whitney ever dreamed of and quite honestly I wasn’t even sure that was possible.

Please listen to Absent Friends on BBC Radio 4 Extra today. Part One is 4.45pm (repeated at 0045) and Part Two is the same time tomorrow. It’s my acknowledgment of various folk from UK sci-fi, horror and fantasy who died this year. 4 Extra doesn’t do many home made productions, so do tune in!

Just what does the 'showrunner' of Doctor Who circa the late nineties have to say about his time editing the books, about Sam Jones, Fitz Kreiner and a really experimental period of the books. @jonarnold.bsky.social and I investigate. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/h...

Free for all. A Christmas Wishlist. @ Psychic Paper. buttondown.com/cooray_smith...

Can't believe people already have their Christmas decorations up. Gets earlier every year.

I don’t know if anyone’s noticed this or ever mentioned it before in any forum but Raiders Of The Last Ark is fucking great.

What a time to be alive

A Merry Doctor Who Christmas!

You could celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the traditional Christmas Who. …or you could celebrate the tenth anniversary of the best one.

An audio episode and a video episode for Christmas Day... On YouTube, we answer the question of why do we love Doctor Who: jrsouthall.podbean.com/e/film-club-... And over on our audio feed, we watch a pair of Christmas movies with an odd connection to the podcast itself: youtu.be/RIi4PauXhnM

Incidentally, a Happy Christmas to all of you at home

For Christmas this year, we decided to work out what was the most Christmassy non-special Christmas Special from the entire original run of Doctor Who... jrsouthall.podbean.com/e/blue-box-2... Catch up with our December output if we migrated off your feed: strangersinspace.weebly.com/links.html

Whenever I see a discarded star (which happens more times than you might think) I always think of @matthewwaterhouse.bsky.social

🕛NEW EPISODE!🕛 For Christmas Eve, we're delighted to welcome Rob Shearman and @stevecolewriter.bsky.social to discuss the new novelisations of @bigfinish.bsky.social #DoctorWho classics The Chimes of Midnight and Jubilee. soundcloud.com/powerof3pod/...

The Who book chat equivalent of a big Christmas lunch. Yes, even the sprouts.

A festive mystery from 1978, over at Psychic Paper. buttondown.com/cooray_smith...

We hope everyone enjoys tonight's profile of Doctor Who producer Innes Lloyd on BBC Four. We're pleased to announce we'll be publishing Innes' recently discovered memoirs. Innes Lloyd: Memory Box is edited by Charles Norton from Innes' surviving manuscripts and diaries, and will be released in 2026.

One of the best recent Doctor Who blu-ray extras gets a broadcast showing on BBC4 tonight: Innes Lloyd. And it’s already on iPlayer: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

The paragraph about TV Tropes is spot on. I can't bear that approach to criticism where the main aim seems to be asserting superiority to the work. People who'll identify an influence and be like "Ah, rumbled!" episodes.ghost.io/art-criticis...

That there Joe has only gone and built us a new playground for all our book chat. And you’re very, very welcome to join us all there too.

“Never cruel or cowardly…” on the 1976 version of The Making of Doctor Who, by Terrance Dicks, with exciting news for all readers: 0tralala.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-...

Happy Gauda Prime day to all who celebrate.

Theres something quite magnificent about how the #strictly final is a thing of pure joy year after year. All the work that goes on from every couple across every series means being in the final, let alone winning, feels hard earned.

If you want a trophy, just call a Lioness. #strictly

I think they're legally married now? #scd #strictly

My 14-yo-son has recreated the climax of Back to the Future in gingerbread and I thought you should know.

buttondown.com/cooray_smith... New on Psychic Paper, for paid subscribers only, but you could always become one and get access to the whole archive as well.

Cataloguing Film Collections Film is Fabulous! are pleased to announce that three film collections, which belong to former industry professionals, or their estates, will be catalogued in the new year.

"He believed that C20th British cultural life was, to a certain extent, a conspiracy in which ordinary people found themselves repeatedly hoodwinked by gate-keeping taste-brokers with a fatal attachment to modernism." RIP Professor John Carey

I continue to admire and appreciate David Lynch’s utter refusal to explain stuff if he didn’t feel like it. More entertainment like that, please

“It’s Christmas” And before I wish a happy Christmas to all of you at home, watch my Christmas episode to find out which shot number that moment belonged to! Doctor Who and the Feast of Steven (or the bits we can see…)

I hope they have this at the end of #TheWarBetween

One of my big bugbears -- the way Spotify playlists have, in just a handful of years, replaced British Xmas music (leery boozed-up Brummies with ridiculous facial hair) with American Xmas music (cardigans and expensive dentistry).

It’s weird how there’s always moves to make fiction more “interactive” with different endings etc. It’s like these people have never seen the same film twice a few years apart and had a completely different reaction. All fiction is interactive. That there’s an audience is the interactive part.

I've written a blog about my audio adaptation of Dickens' The Cricket On The Hearth, available now from @averageromp.bsky.social: eddierobson.wordpress.com/2025/12/12/t...

Tinker Swift, Taylor Swift, Soldier Swift, Spy Swift

Our thoughts on the first two episodes of The War Between the Land and the Sea youtu.be/FXwi4yxAbQE Our links page: strangersinspace.weebly.com/links.html

Barry Lyndon turns fifty this week. We thought we'd mark the occasion by taking another look. jrsouthall.podbean.com/e/film-club-... Download here: mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/xnwqx... Find the rest of our back catalogue via the links here: strangersinspace.weebly.com/links.html

Don’t forget to catch up with this week’s Nostalgia Tours with the brilliant @jonarnold.bsky.social Join us as we discuss Wales, the Peter Davison era, writers from the 1970s, Eleventh Doctor triumphs and much, much more! Huge fun! podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/n...

BUSTING BALLS EPISODE 109 IS LIVE! @jonarnold.bsky.social & I (@brasilianfury.bsky.social couldn't make it) ask WHAT. THE FUCK. WAS THAT WORLD CUP DRAW!??! #Soundcloud soundcloud.com/busting-ball... #Spotify open.spotify.com/show/0Yz2r4p... #soccer #football #futbol

You will be visited by three spirits

Looking for that uplifting Christmas spirit? We went to Torchwood to find ours…

7 Years Sober today. Self Indulgent Video Disguised As Inspiration Alert!!! (I wrote a blog two years ago about my fifth year of sobriety that some people said had been helpful. It’s on my website and easy to find if you want to see or share it).

People of a certain age will tell you estate agents don't get any better than this, but I prefer Turner & Cartmel.

Part I of an enormous post on Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks by Terrance Dicks, this one about why it *doesn’t* dovetail with Doctor Who and the Space War by Terrance’s pal Mac Hulke: 0tralala.blogspot.com/2025/12/doct... #booksky #books #doctorwho

Did the first RTD era ever go too far and forget it was family entertainment? Join JR, @jonarnold.bsky.social, @mattbarberuk.bsky.social and @stephenhatcher.bsky.social to find out... jrsouthall.podbean.com/e/blue-box-1... Find our episodes in these places: strangersinspace.weebly.com/links.html