ianbee: this is instead of getting a dog

Dr Who is rubbish. At least the CPR is.

RIght. This is the post I hoped never to have to write.

Dr Who is rubbish.

I have written about bad CPR in films and on television before, both James Bond and Martha Jones have been on the receiving end of my withering criticism before now. Those examples were heroic compared to the third episode of the new series of Dr Who, which contains one of the worst examples of CPR ever presented on screen.

Amy Pond is trying to revive her husband, who has drowned (fell off a pirate ship). Let me just remind everyone that CPR for adults is taught in a relatively standard way all around the world. The best evidence suggests that a ratio of 30 compressions to 2 breaths is the most effective. And you carry on until help arrives, or you are exhausted. Amy utilises a ratio that averages out at 7:1. She performs the cycle six times, then has a little rest, at which point Rory coughs and wakes up. Ten minutes later he is in a dressing gown and popping off to bed.

Admittedly Amy confesses that she doesn't know CPR, so I am not blaiming her here. (Her husband is a nurse - why had he not shown her?) But I am distressed at the script writers and the directors and the producers and everyone who missed out on a golden opportunity to get it right and help save lives. People remember what they see. And most people have only ever seen CPR being given on telly. So why not put a teeny bit of effort in and show it correctly? That way, if someone has to perform CPR they stand a better chance of being effective because they have something to copy! Like this kid. Goodness knows why his parents let him watch Black Hawk Down when he was eight, although I bet they're glad now.

It is said that making some effort at CPR is better than nothing, but the camera angles in the Dr Who episode are all close ups of Amy's face and the mouth-to-mouth bit. At no point do they show a full shot of her pressing down on his chest. And you know what? That is the most important bit. Children are taught that when performing CPR on an adult, don't worry about the breaths, just push down hard and fast on the chest.

Grrr.

So what about the new series? Well, I really enjoyed the first two episodes, but I tend to agree with this statement ...

The very best thing about having a show with zero narrative accountability means you don't have to spend time making things fit together or avoid contradicting themselves: You can just do whatever you want, and then tell us that was how it was supposed to be all along. Just toss any old crazy awesome crap together -- space whales and Elizabeth X and scary face monsters and trapdoors and weird music and water falling in glasses and people wearing masks and time-travel ... but as long as you've also intercut three random scenes of other stuff happening, at the end of the day you can point to it and be like, "See? Brilliant."

(tvwithoutpity)



Poor Rory

I suppose I should write about Dr Who, it's been a while, and it's probably expected. We must be over half-way through the new series now. The thread of the storyline has accompanied me these past couple of months on my journey around the world. I saw the first episodes in Sydney (sitting with a big dog called Einstein) and another in Singapore airport on my iPod. Subsequent chapters were watched in London ... Edinburgh ... Leeds ...

For episode ten it felt like I had come full circle as I returned to the house where I watched Rose leave all those years ago. I found myself sitting, knees hugged to my chest, in a living room with my friends, their two young boys and a Matt-Smith newbie who is still plugging her way through the Martha-year. 

Matt Smith took until the previous episode before winning me over. Up to then I was always thinking WWDTD. Last week i sat on the edge of my seat and finally accepted that his bow tie was here to stay. My hosts are the fiercest Dr Who critics and they are fans, so he must be doing well. What do you think?

Tonight's Richard Curtis penned episode was unexpectedly brilliant. Proper scary, proper sad, proper laugh-out-loud funny. They didn't shy away from including Van Gogh's depression in the script, but i'd like to entertain the possibility that the "if you have been affected by any issues in tonight's episode" line over the credits referred to more than mental illness. Time travel? Coldplay fatigue? Invisible monsters? Unappreciated artist? Ginger hair? There are many reasons why the phone lines might have been jammed.

Knock four times

I have just watched the latest Dr Who episode. The one where David Tennant turns into Matt Smith. And if you think that's a spoiler you should get out more. Or stay in more. Certainly stop reading here at any rate.

My friends in Sydney include a small but fervent collection of Dr Who fans. A couple of weeks ago we gathered in the sticky evening warmth to watch the Christmas and New Year episodes that had kindly been recorded off the telly in Britain by my Dad and posted out to Australia. We had snacks. We were comfy. After the first episode's cliff-hanger we braced ourselves and moved straight onto the finale, only to discover that my Dad had sent two copies of the first episode by accident. It took longer than you'd think to discover this; we initially thought it was just a very long re-cap. It reminded me of when I went to see Sherlock Holmes in the cinema and they played a trailer for Avatar that seemed to go on for ages. It turned out they had accidentally started projecting the wrong film and we were actually watching Avatar. I think we had got almost ten minutes into it before the lights were turned back on.

Anyway, at the weekend we finally got round to watching the finale on a borrowed projector with our hands full of banana pancakes. I've found the big Dr Who specials to be a bit so-so, apart from the Water of Mars episode which was brilliant and very creepy. The scariest moment of the finale was when a young boy almost got hit by a car (it made my friend spill a hot drink in her lap) - you'd think with a plot including aliens, time travel and lasers we'd be treated to a few more hot-drink-spilling moments. However what it lacked it tension, it made up for in entertainment (the starwars-esque cantina sequence with Captain Jack) and pathos (the scenes towards the end between David Tennant and Bernard Cribbins). I do like it when they manage to ride the loop of a huge narrative arc running across many episodes. It is a show that really rewards loyalty.

So no more DT. And by the way they wrapped it up, probably no more indulgent revisits for Martha, no more nostalgic doses of Donna and, lets face it, no point in pining for Rose. I suppose it's not a bad thing to draw a line under the events and relationships of the previous incarnation. Let's hope that the new guy can match the depth and spirit of the past few years. I'll let you decide. Here's the trailer for series 5.

(I was working on this post at the same time as the previous one and accidentally emailed this video to loads of people with the title "Stormy Sydney" which really confused the members of my Kayak club.)

Four films and a fire alarm

The fire alarm went off this morning, at 2am. Everyone in the building was running around dazed and confused looking for smoke. Thank goodness I grabbed my penguin torch on the way out. There was no fire, but as I had the only torch I felt pretty heroic.

I have been to see three films recently all suitable for you to recommend to your mothers.

An Education - a story of teenage love set in the 60s and starring the adventurous blond one from the Dr Who episode with the scary statues that we all hoped would be the next companion. Except in this film she looks like a young Audrey Hepburn. I asked my actress friend how this was possible and she said "it's called acting".

Me and Orson Wells - another period piece, this time with the best screen Orson Wells you are ever likely to see. The film was oozing with charisma, very little of it supplied by Zac Efron or Clare Danes. Christian Mckay stole the show, but I think that was the point.

Away We Go - a simple, charming, hilarious look at themes of home and family. We follow a couple who criss-cross North America as they try to find a place to settle and bring up their baby. We get to see Allison Janney from the West Wing as a bonkers mother whose parenting strategy is based around mocking her children. We also get to see Maggie Gyllenhaal as the worst kind of new-age earth mother in a delirious scene of push-chair rage. Very warm and, dare I say it, fuzzy.

I saw District 9 on the plane. I would not recommend this to your mothers, due to multiple angry mob limb-tearing sequences. But I really enjoyed it, a fresh approach to the shooty alien film genre, that makes up for not getting the Halo movie from we all wanted from the same director. If he can make films like this on a budget, please don't give him any more money.

Unphotographable

There's a great blog I'd like you to check out, Unphotographable is a collection of photos that were never taken. As the writer describes, they document "occasions when I wished I'd taken the picture, or not forgotten the camera, or had been brave enough to click the shutter." It's a great idea. Here's my contribution ...

This is a photo I didn't take whilst sitting in Parammatta park, on the way back from the gym (and Aldi), resting with my shopping (which included a whole bag of red peppers for 50p!) I amused myself by watching a group of swish cyclists. One of them went on ahead and stood on a log in order to get a good photo of the others as they went past. They were instructed to wave, and as they did so one lady lost her balance and crumpled in a heap, then the bike behind crashed into her and soon there was a pile of bicycles and riders on the road, all wheels and arms and spokes and friendly people rushing around trying to untangle bodies and bikes. And everybody in the park was laughing at them and with them ...

There is a crisis brewing tonight. I'm not talking about something on the level of the credit crunch, or the despicable events in Zimbabwe, or global warming. But in it's own small way the fact that Dr Who clashes with Battle of the Choirs is a crisis in the limited, inconsequential arena of telly scheduling. It doesn't really matter tonight because it's only the Christmas special which I've already seen, but future weeks are going to cause dilemmas. 

At the gym this morning the instructor was pretty hyped up about the new episodes. We were all sweating with weights above our heads and she was wittering on about daleks. She asked who was a fan of Dr Who and when no-one else replied I raised a timid hand in support from where I was hiding at the back of the room. "Hooray!" she said, "A fellow nerd!" Everyone turned stared at me, and I looked sheepishly at the floor, suddenly not feeling very cool.

Oh Happy Day!

Grief is over. Time heals. Thanks for the tip-off Simon! Feel free to speculate ...

Don't read if you're in or near Canada

I don't really need to write any new entertaining things here as the badge competition is where all the action is! It's getting quite tense; there may have to be more than one prize.

So, the last episode of Doctor Who season three was shown at the weekend. (Stop reading NOW Emma). Wow, it was traumatic. I was blown away by the twist, although I have trouble accepting that after all that pain and suffering, everything can be put back together so neatly at the end. I suppose the American President is still dead, but that's it really. (Maybe no-one will notice?) Martha must be knackered! And the Doctor surely needs a holiday? The end just seemed a little ... quick and tidy.

Did you notice that Martha had a particularly tough gig as an assistant? Two months working as a maid in a 1914 boarding school, a couple of months trapped in the 1960s and a post-apocalypse year on the run. And the Doctor was generally mean to her. Still, she got to meet Shakespeare.

(Sorry, I know it's only really Simon who's interested in all this Doctor Who stuff!)

A bit of a degree show

First off, last night's Dr Who was brilliant. Who'd have thought that a sonic screwdriver which has no problem opening the doors to a nuclear bunker would be stumped by a Yale lock. With the snib down. Genius.

Today I went to the Edinburgh Art College degree show. Now, I am usually an optimist, but I didn't enjoy it as much as last years. And last year, if I remember correctly, wasn't as good as the year before. This means I am turning grumpy, as it's unlikely that 'art' is getting worse. Hope not anyway.

So, what did I enjoy? There was a bloke called Josean Garcia who had made glass casts of human torsos, including a pregnant tum. They were brilliant. I particularly enjoyed the video of him making them, which showed him burning his hands on the furnace.

A Japanese girl 'painted' a self portrait partly using buttons. She seemed a bit embarrassed by it, and so she should be as this stunning work unfortunately showed up almost every other painting in the building as total pants. I'm sure all the other students hate her.

Someone called Lorraine knitted a lot of things, including a chair which I sat on. I liked her stuff, but mainly because she was giving away free shortbread.

I'm a sucker for bright blobs and squiggles, so I was taken by the work of Lizzie Mann, which was mainly bright blobs and squiggles. So many of the artists seemed to be influenced by biology and in particular cellular forms this year, it got a bit predictable. But her paintings were the best of the bunch as they ... oh I don't know, they just were.

My favourites from the design students included a 'Superhero Stress Ball', for diffusing the building tension between Superman and Batman, a range of climate change clothing which included a neoprene suit with leather lace-up flippers and a conversation I overheard: two deadpan serious art students, looking at a pair of handcuffs attached to a suitcase of fake money ... "His little brother got himself attached to the handcuffs on the opening night. His parents were furious, he had to run home to find the keys. It really ruined the show."    

Stupid keyboard

I have so much to tell you about! And I haven't been able to write anything for a few days because the batteries in my bluetooth keyboard ran out. Which is a good advert for having good old fashioned cables connecting everything up. Or a laptop. And now I'm too tired to write anything, so it'll have to wait until Sunday because I'm at work tomorrow and when I get home I'll be watching Dr Who. Wasn't the last episode exciting? Although I don't understand why he couldn't just get in the Tardis at the end and go round and put everyone back in the right time again.

Anyway. Here's a photo of me at work.

Timelord CPR update

Today we learnt that a vital component of the Timelord CPR algorithm is multiple precordial thumps (front and back).

(Sorry - this post is mainly directed at Craig.)