Timewasters

Much kudos to Russell T for resolving his cliffhanger in the first twenty seconds of the next episode. That man has style. The conclusion was a real stonker - A and I were both in tears as the doctor left an uncomprehending Donna behind. It all reminded me of a recent mailing list discussion -- probably on the Diana Wynne Jones list, which is by far the nicest list I've ever been on, consisting soley of intelligent, witty, people writing beautifully about relevant subjects and being nice to each other - on the nastiness of the device whereby everyone's memory is wiped at the end of the adventure. The consensus was that it renders the whole story pointless if the characters remember nothing, and it thereby insults the emotional investment you've made as a reader. We didn't agree with that chap in Susan Cooper's The Silver Tree who (SPOILER SPACE) has his memory wiped for him as an act of kindness, either. Anyway, I thought Russell T very adequately demonstrated why it's such a bad thing: the death of the character, in fact.

I've been wasting time online. I can't remember how, but I've stumbled on a lovely blog that dissects some of the very silly comic strips in US papers. Partly I just love his writing style; but the fascination is also in the sheer weirdness of the strips themselves. The blog is Comics Curmudgeon; to see the strips, you can build your own page at the Houston Chronicle's site. From Comics Curmudgeon, I found myself at Judge a book by its cover, a collection of truly dreadful cover art including my all-time favourite cock-up. From there I ended up wasting most of a day at Photoshop disasters: hynotically awful.