HipPriest

RIP Captain Mike Yates

New entry in my blog about media that shaped me growing up - my first memory of TV is the famous cliffhanger to part 1.

I'd maybe still rate it as the best Dalek story but I can't be objective about it really!

As sci-fi show’s 60th anniversary nears, a collector pleads for BBC to offer amnesty to those with recordings discarded by corporation

Well this could be very interesting indeed... Obviously the main question is how on earth can they cut anything from that story down to 75 minutes when it's already such a lean script with no padding at all?!?

I'm a huge Troughton fan though, and while I'm g glad there's been something of a First Doctor revival in the last few years it'd be great to see a colourised Mind Robber or something as well, not that it will happen...

It's nice to know that they're planning to do some more Hartnell animations. Although The Smugglers would seem like quite an odd choice

I finally finished this book this week (I took a year long break somewhere around page 400) and it's left an impression but I'm still not sure what I think.

It's a book set during the Third Reich told from the point of view of a cynical SS officer - but not so cynical he still doesn't think there's still some value in the work that he does. And his work takes us from the Einsatzgruppen Death Squads, Stalingrad, Auschwitz and explores other dark places, including his extremely disturbed personal life - it's not an easy read. He meets several real life characters, famous and obscure, notably Himmler, Eichmann and the commandant of Auschwitz, Hoss.

There's not much unreliable narrator stuff going on actually, because he's not particularly repentant about his crimes despite obviously being scarred by them - the narrative voice is more like one of the downtrodden private investigators you'd get in a detective novel. It's especially interesting to explore the Nazi mindset from a perspective from someone who's cultured, intelligent, and has decided to incorporate it into their worldview and can argue to himself, or for the reader's benefit or both - why what he's doing is the 'right' thing, or at least no less unacceptable than what is going on on the other sides in the war.

On the downside - this book feels far longer than it needed to be. It's nearly 1000 pages long and without spoiling too much I didn't feel like the relationship with the narrator's twin sister or how things resolved with his mother were necessary in an already packed book. They ultimately don't really go anywhere important and feel like filler.

I really liked the lack of sentimentality in the book though, there's no attempt to make the situation better than what it was. It's probably not something that anyone would want to go through without some interest in the Nazi period; that said given what's just happened to Israeli and Palestinian civilians it's a reminder that the potential is always there for people in organisations to treat life as a cheap thing to be dispensed with if that's what their leaders say

With every available Doctor Who episode and its wife coming to BBC iPlayer on November 1, how should you approach a Classic and NuWho rewatch? We have options...

Doctor Who fans can look forward to new interviews from Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat and Chris Chibnall.

People who have turned to X for breaking news about the Israel-Hamas conflict are being hit with old videos, fake photos, and video game footage at a level researchers have never seen.

Morrissey must track down the missing sheet music for 'Suedehead'

It was hoped video would increase transparency in policing, but BBC has uncovered 150 reports of failings.

"The most serious allegations include:

*Cases in seven forces where officers shared camera footage with colleagues or friends - either in person, via WhatsApp or on social media

*Images of a naked person being shared between officers on email and cameras used to covertly record conversations

*Footage being lost, deleted or not marked as evidence, including video, filmed by Bedfordshire Police, of a vulnerable woman alleging she had been raped by an inspector - the force later blamed an "administrative error"

*Switching off cameras during incidents, for which some officers faced no sanctions - one force said an officer may have been "confused"

The home secretary backed police and ordered a review of armed units after officers protested over a murder charge

Background on this for non-UK people -

• Black guy shot by armed policeman whilst sitting in his own car.

• Policeman arrested for murder, released on bail.

• Last weekend armed police 'strike' by dropping their weapons because one of their own has been charged with murder

As per usual the victim is being forgotten in all of this while it turns into a massively corrupt political game.