Wednesday 30 December 2009

Doctor Who – Scavenger Hunt

Part 4 – The Meadow

In a peaceful meadow, nestled within a huge forest somewhere in Britain, numerous creatures that man has not seen in generations went about their lives; eating, sleeping, grazing and hunting. Then, as if from nowhere, the humming and churning of an ancient craft’s engines faded into the area. The swirls and groans of the TARDIS echoed out through the woods and the wildlife ran for cover into their respective holes and hideouts. The impossible choice had been made.

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With the softened squeek of the TARDIS’ old door, The Doctor stepped out into the bright sunlight of prehistoric world they had tracked the other TARDIS back to; Martha followed swiftly after.

“Here we are then!” the Doctor said in his ever chirpy tone

“And where is here?” Marhta asked

“Weeeell, the TARDIS tracked us back about 12,000 years or so… give or take a decade or two”

“But why now? There wasn’t even any real civilisation in the Upper Palaeolithic era, let alone the need for alien technology!”

The Time Lord turned to his companion and examined her with an obscure expression, as if staring long enough would somehow explain why she knew so much about the previous time periods of man instead of simply asking. But this was a familiar trait with the Doctor, so she answered the non existent question for him

“A level history, I wrote an essay on the evolution of man, don’t ask”

“I wasn’t going to” the Doctor said with a slight laugh

“So why would the…other TARDIS be here?”

The Doctor looked up into the silent skies as if he could hear something she couldn’t, it turned out this was actually true, as he uttered in a slightly worried voice “I think we’re about to find out”

The roaring sounds of an alien object began to blast its way over the skies as it entered the atmosphere and burnt across the affluent blue. From within the mighty ocean of heavens came a large black object, growing nearer and nearer with an increasing volume that cracked like thunder and boomed like a torpedo. Then it crashed into the meadow in a ball of flames in a mighty crater of dirt and mud covered rocks. The two travelers came running over to the pit, inside which was the fallen object; a large elongated cylinder about the size of a car. Though covered in dirt and scratches, the natural reflective silver skin of the object was still very abundant. At the end of the cylinder was a long spike white protruded from the centre of it and outwards beyond the length of the outer shell.

“That looks like a jet engine” Martha admired

“It’s a shock core, part of a very large engine from a delta cruiser, these things fly off all the time; it’s like shedding a rotor blade on a boat.”

Martha insisted cautiously “If it’s something so trivial then why do you sound so concerned?”

“Torchwood never found a shock core, in fact I’ve never heard of any delta cruiser technology ever found on Earth, they hardly ever come to this side of the galaxy” the Doctor pondered as he began to look into the sky “unless someone else found it first…” and as if from nowhere an enormous ship floated over the meadow. From the ground, the shadow made it virtually impossible to comprehend the full size of the ship but he knew one thing for sure “scavengers!”

A bellowing horn pelted out a low blast of sound as a round hatch opened on the underbelly of the ship, from within this shone a large purple light which lurched towards the surface. The light encapsulated the shock core and began to raise it into the air. The Doctor grabbed Martha’a hand and jumped on top of the engine part with her, they gained speed as the silver bullet hurtled up into the bowls of the ship, then there was nothing; just black.

TO BE CONTINUED

Saturday 26 December 2009

Doctor Who – Scavenger Hunt

Part 3 – The Impossible Choice

What was this incredible find that the final Time Lord now looked upon with his faithful companion in similar disbelief. He pulled himself forward and swiftly crawled on his hands and knees up to the opening in the clock. Though different to the Doctor’s coral interior design, there was no mistaking the TARDIS control room inside. Despite the obvious fact that it was bigger on the inside, there was a wide sweeping staircase that spun out from the opening and could be seen on the far side nearing the lower ground floor, from which there was a huge engine pillar the was glowing a soft blue – no matter how long it had been waiting there, the life of the TARDIS could not be extinguished, it was almost like it was waiting for the Doctor to arrive. And now here was here, and the engine groaned again, as if to suggest it was waking from a slumber – welcoming its Gallifreyan comrade to the resting place it had waited in for so long.

GW800H600 The Doctor, still suffering from the silent shock which spawned a rumbling of double heartbeats throughout his chest, continued to pant as he stared in disbelief at the room he still refused to accept he was seeing. Then there was a grip on his arm; it was Martha.

“Doctor?” she asked softly. He didn’t even notice her intervention on the moment.

“Doctor!” she said louder. he snapped out of it and his head jerked across to see her "Should we…go inside?”

“I don’t….I can’t…”

“Calm down Doctor,” Martha pulled him to his feet “let’s just go inside and see it”

tardisintThey took steps together, ducking beneath the low entry of the clock’s door and finding their way through the dim light of the sleepy shadowed TARDIS to the bottom of the stairs. Around the room and the levels of the console platform were lights glowing at strategic intervals that hung in the dark like stars in the night sky. From the bottom level Martha looked up to the door above on the opposite side where a blaze of Arizona sunlight shone through. She was in amazement, much like she was when she first entered the Doctor’s TARDIS for the first time. Her Time Lord friend had already jumped ahead of her and started clicking buttons and leavers to try and revive the ancient travelling machine. Suddenly the room filled with light and the real theme came to life; it was a large square shaped room with dark, almost granite coloured walls which falsely looked as if they bent slightly towards the roof, upon which was an amazing piece of art; circles and stars of different colours all enveloped within each other, closing in to the central circle which bore a strikingly realistic painting of a blood soaked lion standing proud over the carcass of his defeated foe – a great bear.

The Doctor peered up at the art with his mouth open for many minutes, trying to decipher what the art meant or which Time Lord it might have belonged to. So many of the Time Lords personalised their ship to make their own mark; even the most ferocious took part in this almost ritualistic act. Even so, with the amount of Time Lords he had known and the numerous TARDISes he had seen gave him far too many possibilities and not one that matched this specific design. He slumped down onto the chair large leather seat in front of the control console and thought silently to himself for a few moments. Martha cautiously approached and sat with him, not knowing what he might do or say next; this was obviously a huge moment in the Doctor’s life, the size of this moment was unlike anything she had encountered so far and she had absolutely no idea what was going to happen next. Unfortunately it wouldn’t take more than a few seconds to come.

“Martha…” the Doctor muttered “…this TARDIS, do you know what it represents?” he turned to her

“Not really” she felt a little silly for not knowing the answer

“This TARDIS is the vessel of my people, the survival of this ship is a beacon; a symbol that Time Lords never die. Oh Martha, if we knew what this ship knew, if we could have seen what this TARDIS had seen…” then he stopped. He sat bolt upright and pulled his glasses off “THAT’S IT!” he shouted and dropped to the floor in front of the chair.

“What is it?” but the Doctor didn’t answer. Pulling out his sonic screwdriver he shone it over the metallic clamps of an access panel, peeled the floor open and dived inside to investigate a great torrent of machinery, wires, cables and lights; behind which he disappeared. All was quiet for a moment, then Martha asked again

“Doctor! What is it?”

Then his upper half surfaced again to address her

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“If I can reconnect the signaling matrix I can find out where this TARDIS has been, if we do that, we can go back and find out who left it there…”

He continued to fumble and switch with instruments under the metal surface, then there was another silence. After a moment or two, a new section that had remained dormant and dark lit up. The Doctor sprung up from under the level and rushed over to the section which had a screen attached to it, he pulled it around and started analysing the display with is specs on. Martha was 10 minutes behind him, she still hadn’t gotten her head around this situation, let alone try to comprehend what the Doctor was doing about it, so she just stood there watching in silence – wishing she could somehow help.

“Aahhh the tracking system is damaged!” the Doctor said in a frustrated fuss. He ran his hand through his hair and scratched away for a few seconds at his infinitely clever head. Then he stepped back again, looking a little upset with something he had just realised.

“Martha… this TARDIS is different”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, my TARDIS is old and derelict; it isn’t meant to exist. It was only chance that brought the ship to me, stealing it from the decommissioning yard was lucky for both of us. Even so, that TARDIS is old and broken. It’s falling apart and slowly it is dying, but this TARDIS Martha, this TARDIS is unspoilt, it won’t ever make a mistake and it can take us further than we’ve ever been before – to the furthest reaches of the galaxy and back in the blink of a eye…” he paused “…but to do that I’d have to reboot the static loops and we’d lose the tracking co-ordinates”

“So we have a choice…” Martha said

“An impossible choice” he told her. He began to walk slowly around the island of the console, looking at the towering engine while running his right hand lightly over the buttons and gadgets on the more modern console; the kind of console he hadn’t seen in 2 regenerations. Martha waited patiently for him to speak again. As he approached the full lap of the control room he stopped and looked at her “Either we go forward with a new TARDIS and explore new words, or we go back and find out how this got here. But if we intervene, I can’t guarantee where this ship will end up, so it’s one or the other…”

TO BE CONTINUED

Thursday 24 December 2009

Happy Holidays

I decided to change a few things this week, not enough happened to justify a daily post of events, instead I’ll just do a quick recap and then get on with my xmas eve message :)

Monday – Shopping! Oh the shopping! Far too much time in Hanley buying nothing at all, oh well, I managed to get 99% of my gifts sorted that day. I also planned my travel arrangements for the following day to get down to Mum’s.

Tuesday – Oh haiii packed trains and cold weather! What an idiot, leaving the house without a scarf! Oh well, managed to get down without my face turning into a massive icicle… just about. Was nice to be back in the countryside again. Mum’s house is nice and festively decorated, which is what the house in Stoke kind of lacks. Still, no need to worry about that anymore!

Wednesday – Managed to face the fear of fear itself, took a trip out to the shops with mum and was surprisingly calm the whole time! Travel tablets are a bloody miracle, can’t believe I didn’t put more faith in them before now! Steve, Lynn, Sophie, Katie and Granny Sue arrived later that day too and it’s amazing to be reunited with them all for the first time in years!

Thursday – Mmmm xmas eve! Well today has been quite uneventful to be frank, bit of relaxing, applied for a job and now there’s a large loud party (of sorts) shaking up from downstairs. I’m in my room just chilling out, it’s cool. Gunna hit the buffet in a while :)

 

So, that over and done with, it’s time for me to make a real jump into the festive style blogging!

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So it’s Christmas Eve, the night before the biggest day of the year. The day everyone looks forward to. In fact it’s just 5 hours and 10 minutes until it officially happens; and how am I feeling about it? Great actually. This year has been one of the most evolutionary for me, I know that in the times I blogged over the year I’ve said some things that are a positive, some things that are negative and some things that are downright boring. Even so, everything that happens to us is something we develop from, and in this festive season I’m looking forward to the big day more than ever. Last Christmas it had only been a month since I revealed my biggest secret and I was still and very anxious person, so that Christmas was hard for me to deal with in one way or another. But this year I’ve had time to develop, time to prepare, time to think and time to get excited! I really can’t wait for Christmas this year and to be told I’m looking much healthier than last time I was here is a really big compliment for me, so I’m even more positive now! It’s awesome.

Anyway my friends, I’ll blog again tomorrow about what I got and how Christmas Day went for me and the family, so stay tuned!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good…


Night x

Sunday 20 December 2009

A week in the life: Day 1

Sunday – Victory Dance

Today I got up at another normal time, it’s odd how much different things are when you sleep regular hours. In fairness they’re still not that regular – half past midnight until about 9:30am is still a few hours shifted forward in most normal people’s view, ho hum. Today was the end of a 2 week stint of my life where all I did was pay attention to the world of Facebook, in particular the Rage4xmas campaign. Nobody ever thought the campaign would get near the top 10, let alone number 1 – even Chris Moyles’ breakfast show on Radio 1 played a daily jingle saying that Joe would win the top spot and that “all the other acts should throw in the towel” – unfortunately they got it completely wrong. Still, getting up at 6 every day to listen to Moyles was quite fun, before crashing out for a few more hours of sleep.

The days are crazily short now; the sun rises from the far left hand side of my bedroom window at about 7:30am and doesn’t reach far above the row of houses across the alley from mine, so I get about 6 hours of proper sunlight every day – strangely enough it’s been very sunny lately so that’s an upside I guess. Time seemed to just float by today, things were easy to come by, drumming was a good release of energy and I managed to record a bit of freestyle drumming, though it needs to be edited.

Popped to the Spar for some food but my card was declined. Strange, as I was sure I still had plenty of cash in that account. Went to Minton News and used the cash machine – ta da, hello money. What was wrong with Spar? Oh well, they lost out on my custom! Though I was really looking forward to those bbq Pringles I had planned to buy.

Still snowy and icy in Stoke!

The chart show started on Radio 1 and my adrenaline started to go a bit mental. The next 3 hours went surprisingly fast, at 6:30 I listened to those top 5 songs and waited for the predictions of the Rage success to come true. The adrenaline became so bad for me that I started to feel really sick, and I wasn’t the only one! Several people said they felt the same about the situation, maybe I’m not so mental after all. As the number 3 track (Lady Gaga) played, I couldn’t stand it anymore so I went into the shower, knowing that by the time I came out the nation would know and I could just see the result on the Facebook group’s wall – which I did, and my hopes were answered! But it took a good half an hour for my body to relax again!

Chatted to Harry for a bit before going to the shop for some dinner. Unfortunately both Spar and Minton News had closed their shutters and I was forced to get chips from Brunchies as a fall back – not the most filling/healthy of dinners, oh well, Spag Bol tomorrow night!! One thing I did notice out on my travels today is how icy it is! There’s a layer of ice under all the snow that’s still here, so it’s really hard just to get down the street. All is soon to change though, I called Mum earlier and arranged to go to her house on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. Despite the lack of independent activities available there, I want to get away from here – everyone else already has!

Watched another episode of Sarah Jane Adventures (got lots left to watch before Friday) and now I’m chilling to a nice mix of stuff on iTunes. Here’s today’s rightful song choice – it’s Rage’s first UK number 1, the first ever download-only number 1 and the best selling first week download single of all time too; it’s KILLING IN THE NAME!!

Reno x

Saturday 19 December 2009

The rollercoaster

Good evening my lovely readers! Glad to have you back at my little spot. So, what’s going on? Well it appears this RATM vs. XFACTOR thing has exploded. It’s kinda crazy, because I’ve watched the group grow since the early days of the campaign and watching the way it has spiraled up into the proverbial mountain top of musical competition has just been insane! Last week nobody took us seriously (and yes Harry, I will continue to use the word ‘us’, as the group is now a community – a group effort to make this happen and I am an active part of it, so sue me). Now, we’re getting numerous plays on Radio 1 every day, interviews on Sky News, the BBC have taken a lot of interest (thanks to 5 Live for arranging the live performance) and the numerous other tabloids and media outlets for at least giving us the coverage up to now, though most of it has been slanderous slur from the mouths of establishment enforcing morons who can’t stand to see a different view on society and culture. Still, we got here. 5 hours until the count ends (midnight Saturday) and we’re going to find out if we can fulfill the prophecy we all hoped for. Tomorrow I’m going to start my new ‘Week in the Life of’ column on here so come back regularly to see a little peek into my life on Christmas week!

Reno x

(P.S – I’m bringing back the song of the day on my blog, so here’s today’s classic from Portishead!)

Monday 14 December 2009

Merry Ragemas Everyone!

It Has Begun!

So, if all goes to plan this week, we’ll see the X Factor defeated to it’s regular position of number 1 in the UK this Sunday, having ruined the yearly intentions of the money spinning, square headed fame pusher Simon Cowell. It’s time to get Rage Against the Machine’s classic track Killing in the Name to the Christmas number 1!

Reality Inbound

It appears that over 700,000 people aren’t happy with the way that music is monopolized and smeared over TV screens in an attempt to make money through advertising while building so much hype up to who is going to win while destroying people’s dreams on a weekly basis, and then they are forgotten, kicked to the curb like last year’s toy. Can you remember any ex finalists from previous years? It would appear that this pathetic game of reality music TV is getting more and more annoying every year.

And in the end, that’s what the X Factor is; a circus. A coliseum whereby the masses sit and judge a few people who are naive and simple minded enough to believe that there really is glory in the process of entering the competition, what with Hello! Magazine selling your personal secrets to the braindead masses who breathe in the lives of ‘celebrities’ like it’s crack cocaine, giving them a rush because they can find out that Peter Andre’s left nipple is that little bit rounder than the other, or an article describing the ways in which Britney is a bad mother or how the world really needs photographs of the next orange celeb’s wedding. On top of that, you get 10 million odd people making their opinions on people who, they in themselves, have absolutely no idea about how to sing themselves. I know when I wrote my blog earlier this year entitled Responsibilities of a Gramophone I angered a lot of people in my opinions not only of the way pop stars conduct themselves but also the way the words they sing and the integrity of their music beyond the shiny layer of bleach blonde hair and £5000 outfits used for just one music video. After this rant I decided to be less of a tight arsed, snobby little shit and listen to more pop music simply to enjoy how it sounds (and yes, some of it is actually awesome – particularly my affinity with La Roux this autumn) but my opinions of how ‘real music’ should be remains, because I still believe that music without instruments, the kind of music that involves 4 guys sat on stools with a CD player in the background while the mime the lyrics to ‘their’ song (most likely written by someone else and therefore has no real emotional or personal connection to them) just looks to me like a travesty of how the industry now works – flooded with the same pretty boys and slutty girls who just want that five minutes of fame, the ones who will latch onto that publicity by selling their lives off like it’s a yard sale – and it really is a shame to me that this is what society has come to. Britain used to be a shining light in terms of music production – some of the stuff that came from this country has changed the world, but now we have nothing to be truely proud of on a global level, just manufactured artists who are molded into the same shape year after year by Cowell and his cronies, simply for the sake of making millions of pounds for themselves – that is all it comes down to; after all, why have 2 X Factor winners been dropped from their labels? Do you REALLY think he loves music? Even Cheryl Cole complained that there was a rock week on X Factor this year, is that really a fucking crime? Jesus.

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The time of reckoning!

Anyway, back to the point, I urge you all to buy Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine this week (any time up to midnight on Saturday  19th) for the sake of showing that people really do have a voice in this country, a way to bring REAL music back to the people. The fact that it is Christmas number one isn’t the essentiality of the situation, the reason this has been done is to disrupt Cowell at the time he attempts to flourish the most. The fact it’s around Christmas (which is a coveted chart position anyway) is just beneficial because it will have even more impact on the134x160_ratm_xmas_no1 public when they see what can be done! I remember the days when, in the early naughties, nu-metal was the coolest thing in music. Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park and Papa Roach may seem done and dusted now, but it was a sign that there can be an alternative over produced tripe, and this campaign is more than proof that people want it! Just look at the kind of coverage we’ve got; BBC Radio 1, Five Live and 6 Music, as well as mentions on BBC One and News 24, Sky News, Kerrang! Radio, The Independent, The Metro, The Sun and countless online publications! On top of that we have celebrities such as Bill Bailey and Stephen Fry backing us as well as Rage’s guitarist Tom Morello too. We have the power, the publicity and the promise, now let’s make it happen!

 

Giving in the Name…

Some people have said that if everyone in the UK’s most traffic heavy Facebook group (and base of opperations for the whole campaign) has given the money to charity instead of buying the Rage song then it would be a more worthy cause, which may be so, but at the same time it isn’t as if the campaign is without charitable intentions, in fact it is far from it – £20,000 has been raised for the charity Shelter through the Facebook group. You can donate here!

 

Rally the Troops!

Think about it, the biggest chart surprise in history, the last ever number 1 of this decade put there by us! Don’t say “it’ll never happen” – defeatist talk never got anyone anywhere, oh and drop the Sonynewone argument, it’s not even relevant! The biggest aim of this campaign is to have fun, so going a little overboard with ‘where the money is going’ is just silly! Right, with that out of the way, it’s time for me to say goodbye and time for you to go buy your copies of the single! Get on it! For more info, check out the Amped blog with more links on where you can buy! http://ampedwales.wordpress.com/

Merry Ragemas everyone!
Reno