Joanna Lumley For The Twelfth Doctor! (sic)

One for the hard core sci-fi nerds — Now. We have to save me from
an abandoned roadside café in 1982….

[Caveat: This was mostly written before Peter Capaldi ruined the post and made my day.]

[Update, 6 Aug., 2013:

One for the Whovian hardcore massive — Goodness, Chesterfield. This Garibaldi fellow’s nailed it already!

….]

Hmmm….

A weird week to be writing anything, whether it’s, y’know, like, writing writing, blogging or microblogging.

First, now that I’ve purged many of my NYC twitter feeds, and replaced them with Embracentric feeds, I found myself reading this offering from @edbookfest:

Fancy a flash fiction / #vss challenge? Write a story on the theme of ‘Sherlock’ in just one tweet and tag it #Storyshop. No need to @ us.

— Edinburgh Book Fest (@edbookfest) August 3, 2013

Be the Master already, damnit! — Benedict Cumberbatch Hates Liquids

I appears that this request for tweet-sized short stories is going to be a regular thing during the Book Festival. Each day, a selection of the submissions will be “storified”. Click though and scroll down to see mine:

Here’s a selection from today’s #edbookfest #Storyshop story-in-one tweet entries. The theme was #Sherlock: http://t.co/RQPutT30We

— Edinburgh Book Fest (@edbookfest) August 3, 2013

Then, as if scaling down to 140 characters wasn’t enough, I felt obliged to participate in Caitlin Moran’s day of #twittersilence on Sunday, protesting online — and specifically twitter-centered — abuse. For a number of reasons. First, C-Mo’s feed tends to brighten my day. Second, as a male feminist, father, and boyfriend of someone clearly smarter and more rational than I am, I think it’s important to show solidarity against the wankers, no matter how symbolic.

Maybe the Twitter silence thing is symbolic and will accomplish nothing. What will definitely accomplish nothing?? Mocking those doing it.

— James Moran (@jamesmoran) August 3, 2013

I get that, symbolically, silence isn’t necessarily the most appropriate reaction, since the wankers want women to shut up. But as it turns out, this has been a loud silence. My feed has been full of chat about #twittersilence, and there’s been plenty of news coverage here in the UK, too. This is important because there seems to be an unspoken move among both men and women — at the instigation of those benefiting from the status quo — to a position that we’ve come far enough on feminism. We haven’t. Consider that the article cited in the following exchange was published in a major British broadsheet.

RT @DPJHodges: Men aren’t scared by modern feminism. We’re laughing at it. > Telegraph > http://t.co/c9rTNPomvP< temper temper hodges…

— stellacreasy (@stellacreasy) August 1, 2013

A: It doesn’t. Horribly disingenuous and intellectually dishonest piece.

— Ricky Brown (@ricky_ballboy) August 1, 2013

Finally, Paw Broon and Beth think that I’m spending too much time on twitter anyway, as I keep up with what’s going on in my old new home, and get up to speed with what’s going on in my new old home. Or the other way round.

Thanks to everyone (you know who you are) who’s contributed to the intellectual life of apoplectic.me in the last few days, whether by preparing their own list of significant songs or providing links to the latest news in the world of strokes. Proper acknowledgments will forthcoming in Thursday’s episode 5 of digesta plaga. See you then. In the meantime, I’m going to eat Jelly Babies and drink tea while not tweeting about waiting for the announcement of the twelfth incarnation of the Doctor.

A charming young woman, as evidenced at Gallifrey 2012 — “You’re Scottish — fry something!”
“Och, just wait four years and do it yourself.”

And use the word “feminism” in a positive fashion in conversation.

I’d encourage you all to do the same at least once this week.

People missing point about #TwitterSilence: it pushed @Twitter to address abuse and got media dialogue about misogyny. Achievement UNLOCKED.

— Zoe Margolis (@girlonetrack) August 4, 2013

[Update, 5 Aug @8:50am: Couldn’t be happier about the announcement last night that the Paisley mafia have tightened their grip on Who. As I noted at the time, “Looks like a Doctor. Talented. Multi-dimensional. And I’ve had a wee man crush on him for years. Hooray!” I do hope that they make Jamie MacDonald the next companion, though….