#Terence dudley

[nerds-yearbook]

The time traveling alien known as the Doctor (Doctor 5) and his companions arrived in England in June of 1925 where the Doctor was mistaken for a medical doctor and invited to a cricket match. Identities got further confused as the Doctor’s companion Nyssa was a dead ringer for one of the guests’ fiancé. It was not all fun and games for soon a murder mystery developed. ("Black Orchid", Doctor Who, vlm 1 TV)

[natequarter]

In their tongue-in-cheek reference book Doctor Who: The Completely Useless Encyclopedia (1996), Chris Howarth and Steve Lyons write that "An examination of Kamelion's history reveals the possible existence of a curse of Poltergeist proportions. Both Terence Dudley and Peter Grimwade, who scripted the robot companion's appearances, have died. So too have Kamelion's human alter-egos, Gerald Flood and Dallas Adams, who played his 'Howard Foster' form for most of Planet of Fire. Kamelion's software designer, Mike Power, who was killed shortly after the decision was taken to include the robot in the series. Craig Hinton – who penned the Missing Adventure The Crystal Bucephalus, which featured Kamelion prominently – later died of a heart attack, at the age of 42, in 2006.

Even Robert Holmes, the writer of The Caves of Androzani, which features an illusory Kamelion, died in 1986.

i'm gonna be honest, this is not the best of phrasing. "even robert holmes ... died" yeah no shit, did you think he was immortal?

[rygoespop]

List of characters that appeared in my Thomas and Friends AU

Here’s a list of characters in my Thomas and Friends AU

Main:

Thomas

Edward

Henry

Gordon

James

Percy

Toby

Emily

Molly

Rosie

Stanley

Nia

And Rebecca

Secondary/Supporting:

Duck

Donald and Douglas

Oliver

Wilbert

Castle

Eagle

Dane

Alfred

Barry

Diesel

Diesel 10

Arry and Bert

Den

Dart

Mavis

Sidney

Bill and Ben

BoCo

Philip

Salty

Porter

Derek

Timothy

Marion

Daisy

Ryan

Brent the Ballast Spreader

Fergus

Arthur

Harvey

Stafford

Norman

Billy

Charlie

Dennis

Murdoch

Flora

Belle

Flynn

Whiff

Scruff

Neville

Paxton

Hank

Neil

Sonny

Ferdinand

Bash and Dash

Bloomer

Stephen

Glynn

Dustin

Winston

Skarloey

Rheneas

Sir Handel

Peter Sam

Rusty

Duncan

Duke

Bertram

Mighty Mac

Freddie

Smudger

Luke

Millie

Victor

Fred

Culdee

Wilfred

Alaric

Godred

Harry (Formerly known as Lord Harry and Patrick)

Mike

Rex

Bert

Jock

Flying Scotsman

Spencer

Stepney

Green Arrow

Mallard

Patriot the Big City Engine

Duchess of Hamilton

Dudley

Sixteen

Thirteen

Albert

Jinty

Pug

Robert

Samson

Connor

Caitlin

Merlin

Lexi

Theo

Hurricane

Frankie

D261

Roderick/Lumpy

D400

D40

D199

Splodge (Splatter and Dodge)

Hiro

Kenji

Ashima

Rajiv

Yong Bao

Gator

Axel

Etienne

Raul

Gina

Frieda

Hugo

Ivan

Vinnie

Sam

Carlos

Lady

Proteus

Annie and Clarabel

Henrietta

Hannah

Old Slow Coach

The Slip Coaches

Toad

Bruno

SCruffey

Fred Pelham

Hector

Rocky

Judy and Jerome

Bradford

Ada, Mabel, Jane, and Cora

Catherine

Bertie

Bulgy

Terence

Trevor

George

Elizabeth

Caroline

Butch

The Horrid Lorries

Kevin

Madge

Thumper

Jack

Alfie

Oliver

Ned

Kelly

Isobella

Byron

Max and Monty

Buster

Patrick

Bulstrode

Captain

Skiff

Harold

Jeremy

Cranky

Carly

Big Mickey

Reg

Owen

Merrick

And Beresford

Coming Soon:

Ulli

Logan

The Slender Engine

Frank

And many other characters to come up with to add

[azazel-dreams]

Black Orchid (Doctor Who) by Terence Dudley

Rating: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[mariocki]

Doomwatch: Waiting For A Knighthood (3.4, BBC, 1972)

"What are the symptoms for less severe exposure?"

"Well, they're terribly varied. Vomiting, constipation or diarrhoea; headaches, depression, anxiety, lassitude..."

"Plenty of all that about, wouldn't you say?"

[365daysofthedoctor]

156. BLACK ORCHID

A 1920s country house. A costume ball, mistaken identities, secret passages and a murder mystery – and a rather pleasant game of cricket.

Image from http://tygerwhocame2t.blogspot.com/ .

[vintage1981]

K-9 & Company Celebrates 36 Years!

It is 36 years ago that we were introduced to “a girls’s best friend” - little did we know that a “one-off” present for Sarah Jane Smith from the Doctor would lead to a whole array of adventures for both her and K-9 in the 21st Century!

Photos are courtesy of the amazaing @dwcoverstory on Twitter! Follow them for an array of interesting and rare Doctor Who covers. 

Picture 1: Publicity still of Elisabeth Sladen and K9.

Picture 2: K9 and Company was originally broadcast on 28 December 1981. Here is the billing from the Radio Times.

Picture 3: Overseas sales info for K9 and Company.

Picture 4: A K9 annual was published by World Distributors in 1982. It features K9 and Sarah battling an assortment of Satanic covens, perfect for the Christmas market.

Picture 5: The back cover artwork for the K9 Annual.

Picture 6: The rather lovely contents page spread from the K9 Annual.

Picture 7: A novelisation of K9 and Company was published in 1987 as part of the short-lived Companions of Doctor Who series. Cover by Andrew Skilleter.

Picture 8: This issue of In Vision looked at the making of K9 and Company.  

[siryl]

Cover art by David McAllister.

anyway here’s wonderwall

[mydaroga]

As prepared for my upcoming Sherlock on Screen course--the same scene from Hound of the Baskervilles in as many versions as I could find:

Basil Rathbone (1939) Peter Cushing (1968) Peter Cook (1978) Vasily Livanov (1981) Tom Baker (1982) Ian Richardson (1983) Jeremy Brett (1988) If anyone has a line on others (Roxburgh, Frewer, silent, German) that are in digital format, slip me a note?

[kwebtv]

The Beiderbecke Connection  -  ITV  -  11/27/1988  -  12/18/1988

Comedy / Drama (4 episodes)

Running Time:  3 Hours  21 Minutes

Stars:

James Bolam  as  Trevor Chaplin

Barbara Flynn  as  Jill Swinburne

Terence Rigby  as  Big Al

Danny Schiller  as  Little Norm

Dudley Sutton  as  Mr. Carter

Dominic Jephcott  as  Detective Inspector Hobson

Keith Smith  as  Mr. Wheeler

Patrick Drury  as  Ivan

Judy Brooke  as  Yvonne Fairweather

Thomas McGlinchey  as  Firstborn

George Costigan  as  D. C. Ben

Sean Scanlan  as  D. C. Joe

[nerds-yearbook]

The time traveling alien known as the Doctor (Doctor 5) and his companions arrived in England on March 4th, 1215, during a joust. All was not as it seemed, and the Doctor soon discovers the Master and a shape changing robot known as Kamelion were attempting to prevent the signing of the Magna Carta. ("The King’s Demons" Doctor Who, TV)

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: So as someone who is a royalist and also an Oxbridge grad what do you make of the dreadful events at Oxford University where a college took down a portrait of the Queen? Is this wokeism gone mad? I wonder what’s next for these privileged and pampered left wing lunatics?

So I was having breakfast the other day and tucking into my croissant that I dipped into English marmalade (it’s nicer than you think) as I was scrolling through my newsfeed on my mobile phone, a front page headline in the London Times today read: “Oxford college removes Queen’s portrait over colonial links.” Well, I thought to myself there’s a proper marmalade-dropper of a headline.

Although I went up to Cambridge to read Classics as an undergrad I did hop over to the other place to pursue my graduate studies. And to be honest I had a throughly good time studying at Oxford. My heart will always loyally remain light blue but I do have a soft spot for the dark blue of Oxford. A couple of my older siblings were undergrads at Oxford (a good reason to go the other way). So I do care on some level. I suppose I was meant to be shocked by the clickbait headline. And I was. Sort of. But I didn’t want to get myself worked up into a hissy fit so early in the morning. I simply try and make it a rule not to start the day in anger. There will be plenty of opportunity to get angry during the rest of the work day that’s for sure. To start your day in a sour and angry mood is a waste of precious energy. So I sighed and scrolled past to read more about the upcoming G7 summit and other news stories of the day.

Switching off my phone I rushed out into the glorious sun kissed streets of Paris to an in person business breakfast meeting at a nearby café (terrace cafés are now open in Paris all of which means less face time glued to onscreen Zoom meetings). When I did switch on my phone I was surprised to see so many expletive laden texts and WhatsApp messages from family and friends in the UK mostly about the fact that it was Magdalen College, Oxford had decided to remove a picture of the Queen.

Magdalen? Magdalen?! The Magdalen of Thomas Wolsey, William Tyndale, John Betjeman, Seamus Heaney (Nobel winner), T.E. Lawrence, Julian Barnes, Alan Garner, Dudley Moore, Terence Malick, Peter Brook, Katie Mitchell, Ian Hislop, six Nobel Prize winners in Medicine, Chemistry and Physics (Sir John Eccles, Lord Howard Florey, Sir Peter Medawar, Sir Robert Robinson, Erwin Schrödinger, and Sir Charles Sherrington), two associate US Supreme Court Justices (Steven Breyer and Alan Souter), Andrew Lloyd Webber, Compton Mackenzie, Wilfred Thesiger, Robert Macfarlane, A.C. Grayling, Douglas Murray, Andrew Sullivan, many eminent historians (including Edward Gibbon, Edward Byles Cowell, Niall Ferguson, Robin Lane Fox, Martin Gilbert, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Albert Hourani, Adam Roberts, Norman Davies, N.H. Gibbs etc), countless British politicians (William Hague and George Osborne) and the judiciary, and other luminaries who made their mark in other fields.

Most of all, when I think of Magdalen I think of Oscar Wilde and C.S. Lewis.

I wondered why would Magdalen College of all the Oxford colleges do this? Magdalen has always been royalist throughout its long history. The Queen herself received an honorary degree in 1948. The monarch also visited in 2008 to mark its 550th anniversary.

So it’s not as if I’m not busy with back to back meetings and work deadlines, but somewhere I found a window during my lunch break to actually scroll back to the London Times article headline and this time read the story.

Magdalen is not the oldest college in Oxford, having been founded in 1458, but it is almost certainly one of the most beautiful. Whether, as the London Times claimed, it is one of the wealthiest, I do not know. Not mentioned, but more relevant to the story, is the fact that it was the first college in either ancient university to be attended by a Prince of Wales. The future Edward VIII, the present Queen’s uncle, studied (or rather played polo) at Magdalen before the First World War. The college has many other royal connections and the Queen herself last visited the place in 2008. So the thought of royal portraits being taken down conjures up an image of the Hall, lined with huge paintings of the founder, William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor, followed by Cardinal Wolsey and Queen Elizabeth I, plus many others portraits of the great and (sometimes) good. As most of these are male, there is at present, or so I’ve been informed, an exhibition in Hall of photographs of women with links to Magdalen.

As is so often the case, there is less to this London Times news story than meets the eye. As the Americans like to say it’s a ’nothing burger’.

It is not ‘the college’ per se that has taken down the Queen’s portrait, nor even the undergraduates, but a committee of the Middle Common Room (MCR) - which represents postgraduate students.

As the President of Magdalen, the eminent barrister, Dinah Rose QC, commented: “The Middle Common Room is an organisation of graduate students. How they choose to decorate their room is a matter for them.” The portrait in question is a faintly colourised print of a photograph taken at the time of the Accession in 1952. It has hung there, doubtless hitherto unnoticed, since 2013. How it got there no one really knows. It’s been part of the furniture all these past years and had gone un-noticed by postgrad students.

The news story does not reveal who decided to make an issue of this harmless photo, but apparently the MCR committee voted to remove it because “for some students depictions of the monarch and the British monarchy represent recent colonial history”. The head of the committee, Matthew Katzman, said that “the room should be a welcoming, neutral place for all members, regardless of background, demographic or views”. They wish to replace the royal image with “art by or of other influential and inspirational people”.

The reaction it is fair to say has been one of outrage across many national news media. Predictably hyperbole and hysteria have characterised the response by the tabloid press and those on social media.

‘Disgraceful!’ ‘Disrespectful shits!’ ‘Deport them!’ were some of the more obvious headlines.

‘Now the Queen gets cancelled.’ (No, the old girl will still be there long after they cancel Netflix’s The Crown)

‘And to think in some parts of the world, to merely talk ill of the head of state lands you in prison.’ (He means the ex-colonies, in America they just give you a cable show).

‘Universities need to start being defunded. The insanity must end.’ (Universities have been defunding for years thanks to cruel and short sighted government cuts).

‘That's what happens when you engage in social engineering’ (yes, you end up with Boris Johnson as Prime Minister).

‘Our universities indoctrinate young people into the left. It's almost like a cult or how isis recruits its members’ (do terrorist cults have diversity hiring policy and safe spaces for the easily triggered?)

‘Oxford and Cambridge are actually Wokesbridge’ (could be worse, it could be the London School of Economics).

‘Remove the Queen? Half of these woke dick heads are queens themselves!’ (Okay, that’s quite funny actually)

‘I wouldn’t have been surprised if this was about Cambridge University but Oxford? That’s quite a thing.’ (Ouch, that hurts)

‘Has Magdalen considered offering a degree in virtue signalling?!’ (I fear it would be oversubscribed)

Anyway, you get the idea.

What I find distasteful is how the tabloids went after the MCR President. He happens to be American, Matthew Katzman, a 25 year old Stanford graduate now researching his PhD in computer science. So they used him as a straw man to build the bonfire to stoke the fires of outrage. The tabloids gleefully revealed that Katzman came from a privileged Washington DC home. His father - a high powered DC lawyer - was also paraded on their pages as if he did something wrong. Matthew went to Sidwell Friends, an elite private high school in DC, that typically boasts of the children of past presidents who went to the school (From Nixon to Obama). As anyone knows Sidwell Friends it is not and has ever been a nest of wokery. It actively eschews Critical Race Theory etc. It did finally hire a director of equity in 2019 but after Katzman had gone to Stanford.

The tabloids did their best to whip up anti-American hysteria by shrinking on top the trope of privileged upper middle class brats getting all woke. Katzman didn’t push for the motion he meremy presided over as the President is supposed to do. What else was he supposed to do?

To me, it was disgusting to see such character assassination. These journalists (mostly Oxbridge themselves) know better but will never let ethics get in the way of a good story to generate faux outrage.

So a few points to clarify this over-egged scandal.

For those who don’t know about such things the Middle Common Room (MCR) is essentially social common room for postgrads to mingle and relax. It’s not the Carlton Club or The Reform Club or any image one can conjure up of the oak panelled gentleman clubs in London. It’s a glorified break room. Typically it has dingy leather chairs moping around, a coffee stained reading tables full of newspapers and journals, a big TV screen, and a kitchen area to cook or make tea and coffee.

Every college in both Oxford and Cambridge has one. Undergrads have the JCR (Junior Common Room) where there is typically a bar and a pool table; the Dons have the SCR (Senior Common Room) where they congregate to have port or wine before and after a High Table meal.

The MCR is really a very quiet room to relax in and how ornate or dingy it is depends upon how wealthy or poor and old or new the college is. To be honest in my experience no one really notices how an MCR is decorated. There are notice boards with flyers of university and college events taking place from sporting to the arts. There are often framed portraits on the wall but they usually tend to be of historic photos of great sporting achievements by college teams (like rowing, rugby, or football). There may well be a portrait or two of a historical figure connected to the college that hangs on a wall and even then they are largely forgotten as if they were part of the wallpaper.

Having done my postgraduate studies at Oxford I can say that it’s a different experience to being an undergraduate as you are less involved in college life. By and large anyone who has done their postgrad studies at both Oxford and Cambridge will tell you that postgrads are generally treated like crap (actually that’s true in most universities these days). Everything is focused around the undergraduates - the famous one-to-one tutorials (or supervisions as we say in Cambridge). Undergrads tend to live within the college and postgrads are shunted out to generally live off site in college halls or private housing.

The irony is that it’s the postgrads - many of them from overseas - bring in cash (higher fees and research money). Both the university and the colleges increasingly now depend upon lots of research dosh from such students to replenish their coffers and maintain their highly prized international rankings within the top 5 best universities in the world. 

Postgrads - most of them - are too busy with their own academic research and meeting of deadlines to be overly political in my experience. The graduate community that uses the MCR is a very small fraction of the graduate community of the college itself. You get the same old faces in there all the time.

I remember I only ever used my college’s MCR to shower and change from early morning sports training  before cycling over for long study sessions in the Bodleian, sleeping off a hang over from a drunken night before, or chewing my nails ahead of meeting my graduate tutor for a piece of work I knew was rubbish because I had gone to a wild party in London the night before, or procrastinating on my own work by lounging in a comfy leather chair and happily volunteering to reading my friends’ PhD chapters in subjects I knew next to nothing about (I sure did learn a lot though).

I don’t know of any Oxbridge MCR - whether the college leans left or right by virtue of its reputation or demographics etc - where graduate students are super active in the MCR. Out of the hundreds of grad students I doubt you would have more than 20 ever attend one MCR meeting in their time at that college. Root canal dental work would be more desirable. It’s like a high school prom committee to give an American comparison. They organise the social events and all anyone cares about is making sure there’s enough coffee and tea in the cupboards.

So at these meetings a member of the MCR can say I don't like that picture let's have a vote to take it down, and it just happens to be who is in the general meeting at the particular time. Which isn’t many. In the case of Magdalen MCR, Out of the 250 or so graduates, only 17 students actually bothered to turn up and vote.

I’m not sure this is worth getting steamed up about. Oxbridge students have always been self-righteous bores. I know we were back in my day. The current crop are no different.

This may be a hard concept to understand but the United Kingdom is a liberal democracy where freedom of political thought and expression is an ideal that men and women have died for. Denying people education because of youthful political beliefs would be somewhat contrary to that. Voted (or put up?) to put it up in 2013, voted to take it down in 2021. Voted. Democratically. No one outside of Magdalen should care. If other graduate students within Magdalen really care then they should actually bother to turn up and vote.

More importantly what kind of signal does this send in the wider battle of ideas? If you are like me who detests the petty viciousness of ‘cancel culture’ then what does say for the moral high ground that we think we occupy when we make own argument against the evils of cancel culture? If we seek to ‘cancel’ a democratically held vote by forcing these students to put the portrait back up then how are we any different from the pernicious faux outrage on those on the far left and the woke mobs?

I would like everyone to take a breath and pause for reflection. They're taking one picture down in one room.  It's not like they're declaring a republic. This so-called affront doesn’t even come close to the infamous "This house would fight for king and country" Oxford Union debate of the 1930s for weighty moral controversy.

The MCR common room is not a public space, but neither is it a matter of indifference for those who care about Magdalen or indeed Oxford.

Because while I am dismissive over this silly storm in a tea cup to provoke another round of the culture wars, I am incredulous at the reasoning for the removal of the Queen’s portrait. If they said we don’t like it as she’s stuffy old bird and we prefer to stick up something cooler like Jimi Hendrix or whoever. That I can understand. But the fact they invoked ‘colonialism’ as the main reason is just baffling.

It is almost laughable to think that these incredibly bright students, every one of whom is privileged to have been accepted there because the to get in is super tough, can be so historically illiterate. Was there anyone there doing a PhD in British imperial history to remind of everyone else of things of salient facts?

The Queen ascended to the throne in 1952. Her reign began with the start of decolonisation, especially in Africa. In its place emerged the Commonwealth of which the Queen is the head of a Commonwealth of 54 member countries; fifteen of these countries, she is the official head of state.

I don’t know any scholar or politician or journalist who can doubt that it was her personal achievement to have transformed the Commonwealth from a relic of the colonial era into a benign and entirely voluntary presence on the international stage. Netflix’s The Crown gets a lot of things wrong with the Queen and plays fast and loose with historical facts but even they were at pains to show just how much the Queen cherishes the Commonwealth and its interests even if she had to go against her own Prime Minister (Thatcher) on contentious issues.

Every one of these former colonial countries respect and even love the Queen and marvel at her quiet leadership.

It is her personal achievement to have transformed the Commonwealth into a useful voice for the developing world to solve issues like education, poverty, and climate change. Largely she enjoys this position of quiet authority because she has remained scrupulously above politics throughout her long reign, uniquely among world leaders she is universally respected. In fact, it would be hard to find a more “influential and inspirational” person, or one better suited to a “welcoming, neutral place”.

To me these 17 students (actually we don’t know the voter tally as it could easily have been 8-7), were being blinkered in their outlook that they would find this reminder of the Queen’s larger significance to the Commonwealth in their common room obtrusive or even offensive.

What you won’t find on social media or events followed by the news media are other more important issues that don’t seem sexy enough to warrant a clickbait headline.

A few months ago, Magdalen itself was briefly in the news because the President - a distinguished human rights barrister - was criticised for representing a Commonwealth country, the Cayman Islands, in a case that involved the legality of same sex marriage there.

Absurdly, it was suggested by Stonewall and others that the college of Oscar Wilde was no longer a “safe space” for LGBTQ students and that President Dinah Rose QC - the first woman to be elected head of the college - had done something wrong.

Her colleague Edward Fitzgerald QC pointed out that she had “acted perfectly properly” and that to return her brief would be a “breach of her professional duty”. For a brief moment it, though, looked as if the campaign against her might escalate on social media. Once the Fellows and students made clear their support for the President, however, the row soon blew over.

Or take the ongoing saga at Oriel College, Oxford. The college authorities seem to be standing by the their guns in not removing the statue of Cecil Rhodes after a well publicised outcry from leftists and woke activists.

Oriel College said they had decided not to remove the monument due to 'considerable obstacles', including financial costs and 'complex' planning processes. An independent inquiry to examine Rhodes' legacy was set up last June in the wake of BLM protests after the governing body 'expressed their wish' to remove the statue from outside the college. A majority of members on the Commission supported the college's original wish to remove the Rhodes' statue. But Oriel College said: 'In light of the considerable obstacles to removal, Oriel's governing body has decided not to begin the legal process for relocation of the memorials.'

The Rhodes Must Fall campaign accused Oriel College of 'institutional racism’. Recently, according to the Daily Telegraph, more than 150 lecturers have since refused to give tutorials to Oriel’s undergraduate students following the decision by Oriel’s refusal. Lecturers reportedly pledged to withdraw from all talks, seminars and conferences sponsored by Oriel and stop their involvement in interviewing students and recruiting fellows. However, the boycott does not include work which is not discretionary, such as exams, delivering lecturers and supervising postgraduate students (because they have contracts tied to research funds).

Many rightly see it as academic blackmail. They are holding hostage the education of Oriel undergraduates for their own political beliefs. They are unfairly punishing students not the college.

I feel sorry for the students. They have been in lock down most of the past year with the all stress that distant online learning brings and now they come back to this nonsense. A lot of these students are paying fees they can barely afford and now they are being punished on the altar of wokedom.

One of those supporting the anti-Rhodes campaign has been Robert Gildea, Professor of Modern History at Worcester College, who suggested Oriel College should place a sign saying 'Sorry' around Rhodes' neck. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'One of the options offered by the commission was to retain and contextualise, so if the college put up a notice explaining who Cecil Rhodes was that would be fine. If the college put a placard around his neck at lunchtime today saying 'Sorry' that would also be fine.'

Many Oxford dons have rightly condemned Gildea and branded his actions as despicable and mean-minded. It is unprecedented for the head of one Oxford college to attack and detract from the teaching of students at another college. It is politics based on ignorance and bias, and should have nothing to do with Oxford or any other university, where the principal aim should be to educate students and not damage their learning through left-biased agitation.

Put into context then, the bone of contention at Magdalen and the Queen’s portrait seems even more trivial.

One simply can’t get whipped up into a frenzy over every little matter. If so one risks in return of being easily triggered. Indeed, like the woke leftists and SJW crowd, people of a more conservative pursuasion might fall victim to the same affliction as they do. Namely the law of Maslow’s hammer. As Abraham Maslow said in 1966, “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”

Of course, nobody should be forced to hang a portrait of the Queen in their common room. Even its removal is a matter of the utmost insignificance. Perhaps the MCR committee thought nobody would notice or care what they did. Now that it has become a news story, however, I confess that I am dismayed by the lack of judgement, tact and taste shown by these students. Nor did they do their research very well. It evidently did not occur to them that if the Queen had been a symbol of colonialism, Nelson Mandela would hardly have been one of the few non-royals to be on first name terms with her. (He called her “Elizabeth”, she called him “Nelson”.)

The best thing the committee could do now is to consult more widely among their members and, perhaps, consider a change of heart. Better still: Magdalen should invite the Queen to revisit the college, so that its graduate students can see for themselves why her portrait belongs in their common room after all.

I was joking with my older sister who was at Oxford as an undergrad about how sensitive and easily triggered these students must have been at looking at a picture of the Queen. Presumably they are happy seeing the Queens face on a £50 note though, my sister quipped. If they want to dispose of their bank notes, my sister will happily take them off their hands and give the cash to the homeless.

I couldn’t help agreeing with an Oxford educated African colleague from work who suggested quite reasonably that perhaps these easily triggered students shouldn't go to Oxford University to study since they're so concerned with benefiting from the colonial past. No one is forcing them to come to Oxford.

How can the pampered middle class woke argue with that?

Deep breath.

Thanks for your question

[rygoespop]

Every character in my Thomas and Friends AU

Main:

Thomas

Edward

Henry

Gordon

James

Percy

Toby

Emily

Molly

Rosie

Stanley

Nia

And Rebecca

Secondary/Supporting:

Duck

Donald and Douglas

Oliver

Wilbert

Bear

Castle

Dane

Alfred

Barry

Eagle

Arthur

Harvey

Stafford

Billy

Norman

Dennis

Charlie

Murdoch

Flora

Fergus

Neville

Hank

Neil

Sonny

Paxton

Sidney

Mavis

Philip

BoCo

Salty

Porter

Bill and Ben

Derek

Timothy

Marion

Daisy

Ryan

Brent the Ballast Spreader

Den

Dart

Diesel

Diesel 10

Arry and Bert

Belle

Flynn

Whiff

Scruff

Ferdinand

Bash and Dash

Stephen

Glynn

Dustin

Winston

Skarloey

Rheneas

Sir Handel

Peter Sam

Rusty

Duncan

Duke

Bertram

Freddie

Smudger

Mighty Mac

Fred

Ivo Hugh

Luke

Millie

Victor

Culdee

Wilfred

Alaric

Godred

Harry (Formerly known as Lord Harry/Patrick)

Mike

Rex

Bert

Jock

Flying Scotsman

Spencer

Mallard

Green Arrow

Stepney

Thirteen

Sixteen

Duchess of Hamilton

Connor

Caitlin

Patriot the Big City Engine

Samson

Albert

Jinty

Pug

Merlin

Lexi

Theo

Hurricane

Frankie

D261

D199

Splodge (Splatter and Dodge)

Dudley

Hiro

Kenji

Gator

Ashima

Rajiv

Yong Bao

Shane

Gina

Raul

Frieda

Hugo

Vinnie

Sam

Axel

Etienne

Ivan

Carlos

Lady

Proteus

Annie and Clarabel

Henrietta

Old Slow Coach

Toad

Bruno

Rocky

Judy and Jerome

SCruffey

Hector

Fred Pelham

The Slip Coaches

Victoria and Helena

Bradford

Ada, Jane, Mabel, and Cora

Catherine

Bertie

Bulgy

Terence

Trevor

Elizabeth

Caroline

George

Butch

Kevin

Madge

Thumper

The Horrid Lorries

Jack

Alfie

Max and Monty

Oliver

Ned

Kelly

Isobella

Byron

Patrick

Buster

Bulstrode

Captain

Skiff

Harold

Jeremy

Cranky

Carly

Big Mickey

Reg

Owen

Merrick

And Beresford

Coming Soon:

Logan

Ulli

Frank

Hannah (Henrietta’s Sister)

Nelson

Algy

And more characters to come

[causatum]

marauders ;

james potter : gryffindor, chaser, adam dimarco,

lucinda talkalot : slytherin, chaser & captain, olivia taylor-dudley.

golden era ;

adrian pucey : slytherin, ex-chaser, darren barnet.

hannah abbott : hufflepuff, prefect, emilia jones.

ron weasley : gryffindor, keeper, george mackay.

terence higgs : slytherin, ex-seeker, hero fiennes tiffin.

new gen ;

dominique weasley : slytherin, duel club & captain, sarah grey.

frank longbottom ii : ravenclaw, prefect, jacob dudman.

fred weasley ii : gryffindor, n / a, michael evan behling.

lily luna potter : hufflepuff, seeker, abigail cowen.

scorpius malfoy : ravenclaw, duel club & prefect, jake manley.

teddy lupin : hufflepuff, head boy, israel broussard.

[mariocki]

Doomwatch: Tomorrow, The Rat (1.4, BBC, 1970)

"The reason for my resignation?"

"You released a strain of cannibal rats, prematurely."

"Not true."

"Unofficially."

"Not true."

"The rats were released from your home."

"Yes, true, you agreed for the sake of convenience."

"Have you a written authorisation?"

"Ah. I see."

"Then that's settled."

[dannyreviews]

In Memoriam 2018

Happy New Year everyone. It’s time to remember the well known icons of entertainment that we lost in 2018.

Ray Thomas - musician (The Moody Blues) (1941 - 1/4/2018)

Jerry Van Dyke - actor (1931 - 1/5/2018)

France Gall - singer (1947- 1/7/2018)

Donnelly Rhodes - actor (1937 - 1/8/2018)

Terence Marsh - production designer (1931 - 1/9/2018)

Eddie Clarke - musician (Motorhead) (1950 - 1/10/2018)

Jean Porter - actress (1922 - 1/13/2018)

Edwin Hawkins - gospel singer (1943 - 1/15/2018)

Dolores O’Riordan - singer, musician (The Cranberries) (1971 - 1/15/2018)

Bradford Dillman - actor (1930 - 1/16/2018)

Dorothy Malone - actress (1924 - 1/19/2018)

Jim Rodford - musician (The Zombies, The Kinks, Argent) (1945 - 1/20/2018)

Connie Sawyer - actress (1912 - 1/21/2018)

Hugh Masekela - musician (1939 - 1/23/2018)

Dennis Edwards - singer (The Temptations) (1943 - 2/1/2018)

John Mahoney - actor (1940 - 2/4/2018)

Kenneth Haigh - actor (1929 - 2/4/2018)

Reg E. Cathy - actor (1958 - 2/9/2018)

John Gavin - actor (1931 - 2/9/2018)

Jóhann Jóhannsson - film composer (1969 - 2/9/2018)

Vic Damone - singer, actor (1928 - 2/11/2018)

Jan Maxwell - actress (1956 - 2/11/2018)

Idrissa Ouédraogo - director (1954 - 2/18/2018)

Nanette Fabray - singer, actress (1920 - 2/21/2018)

Lewis Gilbert - director (1920 - 2/23/2018)

Bud Luckey - animator, director, actor (1934 - 2/24/2018)

David Ogden Stiers - actor (1942 - 3/3/2018)

Hubert de Givenchy - fashion designer (1927 - 3/9/2018)

Ken Dodd - actor, comedian, singer (1927 - 3/11/2018)

Stephen Hawking - scientist, personality (1942 - 3/14/2018)

Delores Taylor - actress (1932 - 3/23/2018)

Stéphane Audran - actress (1932 - 3/27/2018)

Steven Bochco - producer (1943 - 4/1/2018)

Susan Anspach - actress (1942 - 4/2/2018)

Isao Takahata - director, animator, screenwriter, producer (1936 - 4/5/2018)

Chuck McCann - actor, comedian (1934 - 4/8/2018)

Milos Forman - director (1932 - 4/13/2018)

R. Lee Ermey - actor (1944 - 4/15/2018)

Harry Anderson - actor, magician (1952 - 4/16/2018)

Verne Troyer - actor (1969 - 4/21/2018)

Michael Anderson - director (1920 - 4/25/2018)

Charles Neville - musician (The Neville Brothers) (1938 - 4/26/2018)

Lester James Peries - director (1919 - 4/29/2018)

Robert Mandan - actor (1932 - 4/29/2018)

Ermanno Olmi - director (1931 - 5/5/2018)

Anne V. Coates - editor (1925 - 5/8/2018)

Margot Kidder - actress (1948 - 5/13/2018)

Tom Wolfe - author, journalist, personality (1930 - 5/14/2018)

Joseph Campanella - actor (1924 - 5/16/2018)

Patricia Morison - actress (1915 - 5/20/2018)

Clint Walker - actor (1927 - 5/21/2018)

Philip Roth - author (1933 - 5/22/2018)

Jerry Maren - actor (1920 - 5/24/2018)

Kate Spade - fashion designer (1962 - 6/5/2018)

Anthony Bourdain - chef, personality (1956 - 6/8/2018)

Eunice Gayson - actress (1928 - 6/8/2018)

Danny Kirwan - musician (Fleetwood Mac) (1950 - 6/8/2018)

Jon Hiseman - musician (Colosseum, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers) (1944 - 6/12/2018)

Matt “Guitar” Murphy - musician (The Blues Brothers) (1929 - 6/15/2018)

XXXTentacion - rapper (1998 - 6/18/2018)

Vinnie Paul - musician (Pantera, Damageplan) (1964 - 6/22/2018)

Harlan Ellison - author (1934 - 6/28/2018)

Steve Ditko - comic book writer/artist (1927 - 6/29/2018)

Gillian Lynne - dancer, choreographer (1926 - 7/1/2018)

Robby Muller - cinematographer (1940 - 7/4/2018)

Claude Lanzmann - director (1925 - 7/5/2018)

Tab Hunter - actor, singer (1931 - 7/8/2018)

Roger Perry - actor (1933 - 7/12/2018)

Yvonne Blake - costume designer (1940 - 7/17/2018)

Mary Carlisle - actress (1914 - 8/1/2018)

Winston Ntshona - playwright, actor (1941 - 8/2/2018)

Moshe Mizrahi - director (1931 - 8/3/2018)

Charlotte Rae - actress (1926 - 8/5/2018)

Aretha Franklin - singer (1942 - 8/16/2018)

Brian Murray - actor (1937 - 8/20/2018)

Barbara Harris - actress (1935 - 8/21/2018)

Robin Leach - personality (1941 - 8/24/2018)

Neil Simon - playwright, screenwriter (1927 - 8/26/2018)

Paul Taylor - dancer, choreographer (1930 - 8/29/2018)

Carole Shelley - actress (1939 - 8/31/2018)

Jacqueline Pearce - actress (1943 - 9/3/2018)

Bill Daily - actor (1927 - 9/4/2018)

Christopher Lawford - actor (1955 - 9/4/2018)

Liz Fraser - actress (1930 - 9/6/2018)

Burt Reynolds - actor (1936 - 9/6/2018)

Mac Miller - rapper (1992 - 9/6/2018)

Peter Donat - actor (1928 - 9/10/2018)

Fenella Fielding - actress (1927 - 9/11/2018)

Marin Mazzie - actress, singer (1960 - 9/13/2018)

Dudley Sutton - actor (1933 - 9/15/2018)

Arthur Mitchell - dancer, choreographer (1934 - 9/19/2018)

Denis Norden - comedy writer (1922 - 9/19/2018)

Al Matthews - actor (1942 - 9/22/2018)

Otis Rush - musician (1934 - 9/29/2018)

Charles Aznavour - singer, actor (1924 - 10/1/2018)

Geoff Emerick - recording engineer (1945 - 10/2/2018)

Will Vinton - animator (1947 - 10/4/2018)

Audrey Wells - screenwriter, director, producer (1960 - 10/4/2018)

Montserrat Caballe - opera singer (1933 - 10/6/2018)

Scott Wilson - actor (1942 - 10/6/2018)

Peggy McCay - actress (1927 - 10/7/2018)

Arnold Kopelson - producer (1935 - 10/8/2018)

James Karen - actor (1923 - 10/23/2018)

Ntozake Shange - playwright, poet (1948 - 10/27/2018)

Raymond Chow - producer (1927 - 10/2/2018)

Roy Hargrove - musician (1969 - 11/2/2018)

Sondra Locke - actress (1944 - 11/3/2018)

Francis Lai - film composer (1932 - 11/7/2018)

Douglas Rain - actor (1928 - 11/11/2018)

Stan Lee - comic book writer, editor, actor (1922 - 11/12/2018)

Katherine MacGregor - actress (1925 - 11/13/2018)

John Bluthal - actor (1929 - 11/15/2018)

Roy Clark - country singer (1933 - 11/15/2018)

William Goldman - novelist, playwright, screenwriter (1931 - 11/16/2018)

Bernardo Bertolucci - director, screenwriter (1941 - 11/26/2018)

Stephen Hillenburg - cartoonist, animator (1961 - 11/26/2018)

Ken Berry - actor (1933 - 12/1/2018)

Philip Bosco - actor (1930 - 12/3/2018)

Pete Shelley - singer (Buzzcocks) (1955 - 12/6/2018)

Nancy Wilson - singer (1937 - 12/13/2018)

Penny Marshall - actress, director (1943 - 12/17/2018)

Donald Moffat - actor (1930 - 12/20/2018)

Amos Oz - novelist (1939 - 12/28/2018)

June Whitfield - actress (1925 - 12/28/2018)

Ringo Lam - director (1955 - 12/29/2018)

Don Lusk - animator (1913 - 12/30/2018)

Mrinal Sen - director (1923 - 12/30/2018)