The Blood is The Life 21-06-2012

• On The Subject Of Being Offensive
  "I care little about minimizing offense, but I care quite a lot about minimizing people"
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• Julian the Asylum Seeker
  ... doesn't really have any grounds to claim asylum from Ecuador or anywhere else.
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• You can’t deny people their rights and be nice about it
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• My Dream Cast For A Star Trek The Next Generation Reboot | The Mary Sue
  Erm... I wouldn't actually object to ANY of these. This is very unusual.
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• VIDEO: All These Sexist Gamer Dudes Are Some Shook Ones
  "[W]hen you bully and harass a woman for speaking her mind, all you do is show us that you’re afraid of that woman’s voice, and you don’t think you can beat her intellectually without using a cheat code." I like intelligent rappers.
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• Don't MENSCHn It
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RIP Caroline John

Caroline John: 1940 - 2012

I have been having a bit of a cry to myself this lunchtime, after the official BBC Doctor Who twitter account confirmed the passing of one of my favourite Who alumni, Yorkshire lass Caroline John.

Losing Liz Shaw in the same year as Sarah Jane Smith is a total kick in the teeth for all Who fans, and feminist ones in particular. Acerbically humourous, intellectually brilliant, and personally confident, Liz Shaw was everything I wanted to be when I grew up. She was a proper scientist, too, both full of old learning and open to new learning, both sceptical and curious: in these respects she is streets ahead of her namesake in a certain recent movie.

Her short time as a Who companion (she only did one season, before being dropped in favour of Jo Grant, who was far less threateningly smart) had and has a huge amount of resonance for me; from her first appearance in Spearhead from Space where she puts the Doctor in his place with great aplomb to her cameos in The Five Doctors and Dimensions in Time she owned the screen and claimed my heart.

I wish I had had the opportunity to meet her and tell her how much she meant to me.

National FIlm Theatre Production of Frankenstien at the @mediamuseum

Was very faithful to the book, apart from in one important aspect which I will get to shortly. Had beautiful set design, and amazing, AMAZING make-up. Had stunningly good performances from all concerned, even the little lad who played William. And having seen it, I feel sick to my stomach.

You see, nobody told me that the one major change they made, after being very faithful to the spirit and letter of the book throughout, is that before the Creature kills Elizabeth he brutally rapes her and screams "Now I am a MAN!"

If this had been a film, there would have been a warning about strong sexual violence and I wouldn't have gone to see it, because I know my triggers well enough. I have no desire to ban this sort of thing, or any sort of artistic expression, but I would like to make an informed choice about what I hand over money to see. But it wasn't a film, it was a filmed theatre production, so there were no warnings. I would have really appreciated a warning. If I had had a warning, I would not have gone, because the performances were really very good, and I won't sleep tonight they were so convincing.

So next time I am planning to go see a national theatre production I will be waiting until someone I know and trust has seen it, and then I can ask them about it. And then they can tell me Oh yes, it's very faithful to the source material, well, aside from the fact that they inserted a completely gratuitous and unnecessary brutal rape scene which adds nothing to the plot and will traumatise you. But apart from that it's very good.

I'm going to shout at Question Time for a bit now. Hopefully that will work as brain bleach.