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I'm back in the flat. I have been away for a bit.

Currently, I've just watched the sun set outside the flat. Spectacularly beautiful.

I'm just going to nip out to the shop for tonight's supper, and when I get back, I'm going to sort out that Traveller article and continue editing The Fourth Rewrite.

Eleventh Doctor To Be Announced

The Beeb have announced that the actor who will replace David Tennant as Doctor Who will be unveiled on Saturday January 3rd, at 17:35, on Doctor Who Confidential.

The announcement on the Beeb's website

Direct to the Doctor Who News page

One good reason to want to stay in at half past five on a Saturday afternoon, then. :)

Obits 2008

From the BBC's website and others:-

Sir John Harvey-Jones (Jan 08)

Ex-President Suharto of Indonesia (Jan 08)

Suzanne Pleshette (Jan 08)

Heath Ledger (Jan 08)

Jeremy Beadle (Jan 08)

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (Feb 08)

Lord Francis Pym (Mar 08)

Carol Barnes (Mar 08)

Sir Arthur C Clarke (Mar 08)

Julie Ege (Apr 08)

Mel Ferrer (Jun 08)

Yves Saint-Laurent (Jun 08)

Stan Winston (Jun 08)

Cyd Charisse (Jun 08)

Kermit Love (Jun 08)

George Carlin (Jun 08)

Lyall Watson (Jun 08)

Don S Davis (Jun 08)

Bernie Mac (Aug 08)

Isaac Hayes (Aug 08)

Sir Bill Cotton (Aug 08)

Ken Campbell (Aug 08)

Don laFontaine (Sep 08)

Bill Meléndez (Sep 08)

Paul Newman (Sep 08)

Joerg Haider (Oct 08)

Studs Terkel (Oct 08)

Michael Crichton (Nov 08)

Reg Varney (Nov 08)

Madelyn Dunham, President-elect Obama's grandmother, just shy of his election (Nov 08)

Oliver Postgate (Dec 08)

Bettie Page (Dec 08)

Jack Douglas (Dec 08)

Bernie Hamilton (Dec 08)

Donald E Westlake (Dec 08)

Conor Cruise O'Brien (Dec 08)

Mark "Deep Throat" Felt (Dec 08)

Harold Pinter (Dec 08)

Eartha Kitt (Dec 08)

The list's incomplete. There are others who passed this last year. It's just that beyond a certain point the sheer number of people who've passed just ... gets on top of you.

XKCD

I also love looking deeply into the staring glass eyes of CCTV cameras ... and yawning.

Sleepwalk and New Europeans - Cyberpunk Anthems (yes, really!)

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Man Of Two Worlds - Ultravox Again

This was when Ultravox rotated from cyberpunk to Shadowrun without blinking, taking me along for the ride. A song to announce my growing up, and the emergence of my fifth and final instar:-

Watch on YouTube

Taking shelter by the standing stones
Miles from all that moves
Breathing solitude, seeking confidence
A gift to me
Feeling spirits never far removed
Passing over me and I greet them with open arms

Hand fighting hand
As you turn to a man of two worlds
Taobh ri taobh tha sinn mar aon de dha shaobhail
Do lambh nam lambh gabhal aithne air leim a ghablh

Reading passages of ancient rhyme
Cut so deep so old
Telling tales of travellers and mystery
Hearing spirits never far removed
Call out aloud
When the time comes they'll talk to me

Hand fighting hand
As you turn to a man of two worlds
Taobh ri taobh tha sinn mar aon de dha shaobhail
Do lambh nam lambh gabhal aithne air leim a ghablh
Hand fighting hand
As you turn to a man of two worlds

Feel a presence moving into me
Painting pictures with its words
Seeing places that I've never seen
Like a door thrown open on a life I've lived before

Taobh ri taobh tha sinn mar aon de dha shaobhail
Do lambh nam lambh gabhal aithne air leim a ghablh
Mar e shealbhaichis mi an tiodhlac seo ahonisa
S mo lambh n'ad lambh smuainich air na tireauu ceinne
S mi deaunabh gardochas da raire

Irony

I listed a couple of Ultravox tracks from YouTube in a previous post or two, and explained how, for me, they had this spirit I would ultimately come to recognise as "cyberpunk."

Ironically, a very good friend of mine with whom I was chatting on IM had to hang up. Some friends were coming around to game.

And the game they were playing? Cyberpunk.

Full of future thoughts and thrills, his senses slip away.
He's a European legacy: a culture for today ..."
- Ultravox, New Europeans