TV rambling (and film)

 While I am on a roll with posting, let's try to get back into this and talk about TV (because Silent Witness fandom has dropped off the internet I think, so I'll have to talk to myself). 

1) Foyle's War has been excellent, and last night's episode managed to be very timely (by accident) as it dealt with anti-semitism. I am finding Foyle's new position quite interesting. Also Sam's inability to stay in the car. 

2) Atlantis somehow went away and turned into a good show for series two. HOW. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? I'm not kidding, it has actually become enjoyable to watch for reasons other than laughing incredulously. I can't even refer to it as shirtless nonsense hour anymore ffs (more shirtlessness pls). 

3) Sleepy Hollow is ridiculous and I love it. I don't care if it doesn't make any sense. Also ( casting spoiler )

 

4) I REALLY LOVE GOTHAM. Once I've done this and put away all my bills etc (boring) I am going to watch episode 11. I love everything about it, especially Alfred. Ahem. 

ETA: EPISODE 11 IS AMAZING. Jiiiiiim! HARVEY! <3



5) MUSKETEERS! Musketeers has been very good, though I cannot fricking stand Marc Warren and that stupid voice he is doing and his stupid face and his stupid attitude and I don't care if it is all intentional I wish he would just fuck off. Ahem. However the main cast are still incredibly attractive so good for them. 

6) Silent Witness returned with the usual 'but it isn't remotely accurate!' articles blahing on about how forensic scientists don't do any of this, as if people who are watching a show in its EIGHTEENTH series don't know that. We know, we don't care, can't we talk about how attractive Jack is or how Emilia Fox manages to keep having amazing hair or how excellent Clarissa is? There's bugger all fandom for the show, sadly (even less since Harry left) so apparently no we can't. Anyway there was a sniper and Richard was an idiot (SHOCK - I hope his characterisation is intentional because he is always an idiot) and it was very good. 

7) Brooklyn 99 is amazing and hilarious but I've forgotten what episode I'm up to so I won't go into details. 

8) Broadchurch came back and I watched the first episode (not by choice, I was at my parents') and it was miserable from start to end. Hoping to avoid the rest of the series.

9) THERE IS MORE LUTHER COMING :D :D :D :D :D

10) Recently I have watched Inglorious Basterds (enjoyed it a lot) and rewatched Hot Fuz (still perfection). Thought there was something else but I've forgotten now. 

11) Spiral is back and it is great. Roban :D I love watching Laure and Gilou attempting to be sensible adults. I think only one of them can be at a time because they do seem to swap. 

12) On Emmerdale, I am enjoying the current round of Aaron Makes Terrible Life Decisions up until any point when Robert is onscreen. I hate him SO MUCH. Elsewhere, Cain is an idiot, Charity is annoying, Adam is being sweet and I am feeling very bad about the Belle storyline (I actually dropped the show around the time she killed Gemma as it was all quite depressing).  

A few notes about locations in my ROL fic

This is really just an excuse to natter about Surrey Quays but hey, when do I ever pass up a chance to ramble on about London? NEVER.

1) Crystal Palace

Crystal Palace is amazing, and sadly half of it is going to be built on because money. This includes rebuilding Crystal sodding Palace itself (WHY???). Being a public park in constant use with a fucking athletics stadium on site is no match for money, obviously (/super bitter).

(further info, which includes the encouraging information that these plans may not actually come to fruition: insidecroydon.com/category/environment/crystal-palace-park/, www.crystalpalacepark.org.uk)

The other tragedy of this redevelopment would be the loss of the Crystal Palace dinosaurs (they're not all dinosaurs, in case any pedants are reading), which moved with the Crystal Palace from Hyde Park after the Great Exhibition. They are Grade 1 listed so would presumably not be got rid of entirely but who knows where they would end up?

ANYWAY, the good bits: Crystal Palace park is obviously named after the Crystal Palace, which was moved from its original location in 1852. The Palace burned down in 1936 but the park is still there being huge and interesting and ripe for exploring.



cpdinosaurs.org/

Also in Crystal Palace itself there is a branch of Noodle Time. I have not been to this particular one but the Noodle Time chain of restaurants is amazing and cheap. 

2) Catford

Catford is a bit of a nothing place between Forest Hill (where I used to live) and Lewisham (start of the Docklands Light Railway). It does have a lot of food stores, which is nice. For some reason, however, it has two separate train stations servicing two separate lines but located right next to each other.

3) Charing Cross

Charing Cross is the station of my heart, and yes I know how that makes me sound. But consider! It is the terminus for trains coming in from SE London. It is the station I used to come to to get to my parents’ office when they were in Great Titchfield Street. It is the station I come to to get to work. More importantly, it is the station which allows me to live and work in London without getting the tube 90% of the time, therefore it is the best.

I realised recently that since my starting this fic and finishing it, the interior of Charing Cross has changed a lot, as the little unit of shops right in the middle of the station has just plain disappeared now (it is very odd to see the amount of space there now!). Also Charing Cross seems to be last on the list of stations to get loads of money chucked at them so it’s a bit beaten up and less shiny and new than the others (Kings Cross/London Bridge, I’m looking at you) and in a city that’s becoming increasingly shiny and new that is something quite nice, I think.

4) Surrey Quays

Surrey Quays is the WEIRDEST place. One day, if I ever have the money to have two properties in London (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *takes breath* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA), one of them will be in Surrey Quays just for the weirdness factor.

To get to Surrey Quays you either have to be taking the Jubilee line (changing to the Overground) from out Canary Wharf way, or taking the overground through Forest Hill etc. When you get there you will find:

• that the station is very close to Canada Water station
• there is a shiny new library just over the water
• there’s a massive Tesco with a small shopping centre attached to it
• lots of birds
• lots of shiny flats
• very few people

I used to go off to Surrey Quays for walks when I lived in Forest Hill. I liked the quiet, the space and the water. I found an ecological park with amazing views of Canary Wharf and, one New Year’s Eve, a city farm. A city farm! I’d been there for four years at this point, had been to Surrey Quays countless times and then found this place by accident. Everything is hidden away which makes it a great place to go exploring. 

In conclusion, I should get myself down to Surrey Quays again and so should you. 

(for more of my London stuff, see metropolithan.blogspot.co.uk/ and emptylondon.tumblr.com/)

London-based urban fantasy ramble

I found the Google docs I mentioned when I posted about my fic! Well done me.

Having finally posted a Rivers of London fic (which took forever to write), I thought I would talk a bit about a) the bits of London I used in the fic and b) London-based UF/horror book series I love.

I’ve been meaning to do a post or seven about Rivers of London for ages but never quite managed it because I could never quite get to a stage where I was able to be objective about the books (I think writing this fic finally did it for me because it was such a slog).

The books, by Ben Aaronovitch, focus on PC Peter Grant, a mixed race copper from North London (it shows) who accidentally finds out about magic and starts training to become a wizard under the tutelage of the only wizard police officer left in the UK (DCI Thomas Nightingale).

The mythology of the books is that after WW2 magic faded away, more or less, leaving just Nightingale (who is a lot older than he looks) and a few scattered practitioners, but it is gradually starting to come back.

Peter is an entertaining narrator, easily-distracted but funny and quick with a pop-culture reference. The supporting characters are usually intriguing with a big chunk of mystery in their backgrounds.

The main draw for me is that the author is really really good at portraying London, even if there is a bias towards everything North of the river (says someone just as biased towards SE London). The city in the books is very close to the city I know, and the way Peter feels and thinks about the city is pretty close to the way I feel about it (and London trivia spotters will have a great time reading the books and thinking ‘well yes but I already knew about Leinster Gardens’ etc etc).

There are currently five books in the series (I have yet to read the fifth), and apparently the fifth book takes Peter out of London, not that I know why you’d want to /only half joking.

The ROL series is not quite my favourite London-based urban fantasy series, however. That would be the Matthew Swift series of books by Kate Griffin. In this series, most of the sorcerers in London were killed two years before the series starts, and Matthew Swift (a sorcerer, which is apparently a bit different to a wizard) starts the series being brought back to life by the blue electric angels who live in the telephone lines.

Everything in Kate Griffin’s London has some sort of magic to it, from the magic of routine and rules (such as escaping from something chasing you by going through the ticket machines on the tube when it doesn’t have a valid ticket) to pulling power from the streetlights and everything upwards.

(where dryads in Rivers of London still live inside trees, in the Matthew Swift series they have moved to lampposts)

( cut for brief spoilers )

The reason I ended up liking Griffin’s series more is probably that she really covers all of London, having Matthew venture out over the sprawling suburbs instead of mostly sticking to the central boroughs. 

There are currently six books featuring Matthew, four where he is the central character and two in the Magicals Anonymous spin-off series, which focus on Sharon Li, a woman who finds out she’s a shaman who can become one with the city, and the group of people/supernatural beings who come to meetings after she puts a post up on Facebook.

Most recently I’ve read London Falling by Paul Cornell, which I think is due to become a series. I meant to write a review but never got round to it so I might as well do one here.

I didn’t like the book when I first started it - I had been saving it for months and had been expecting an instant love the same as I’d felt for ROL/Matthew Swift. I persevered, however, and by the end of the book I was really enjoying myself.

The characters in London Falling (three police officers and a data person) initially don’t get on with each other, which was one of the reasons I didn’t get on with it - I don’t expect everything to be sunshine and rainbows in my UF books, obviously, but I couldn’t work out why they seemed so reluctant to work together. By the end, though, the characters had been developed well enough that this didn’t bother me any more.

The characters in LF were all prickly and complicated in different ways, which I really liked. They only find out about/get involved with magic by accident and I thought that the ways they each dealt with this were interesting. ROL only really has to deal with Peter finding out about magic (and anyone else we hear about through him) so Cornell had quite a bit more work to do.

The plot of the book was nicely creepy, and the villian did some pretty horrific things - I think possibly this book is a bit closer to the horror end of things rather than urban fantasy (actually I’m not sure where the division would be). Sometimes the other series are a bit meandering without being particularly scary or creepy, but this book had some properly tense moments. I am looking forward to reading others in the series.

As a glancing final mention, there is of course the Felix Castor series by Mike Carey which predate all of these, but it’s been ages since I read them so all I can say is that I enjoyed those too and I’ve been meaning to do a reread (iirc they were also more down the horror end of the spectrum).

I’m sure there are others (lucky me, there’s always someone writing something magical set in London) so do let me know if I’ve missed anything.

Spooks rewatch s1 pt 1

As you may know, delgaserasca has posted about a Spooks rewatch over onspooky_doings and as I have the day off today I decided I'd make a start (I will inevitably fall behind and not finish this thing in time for the film release, so nobody expect anything from me). 

( Episodes 1 and 2 )