Looking forward to getting away

As it's mid-March, I'm just starting to come out of my customary winter hibernation, and looking forward to a trip to Berlin over Easter. There's a transport strike there at the moment, and the news reports today are rather confusing. Apparently the talks today have broken down, but the strike will be suspended anyway. I think this is good news, unless I've misunderstood it, or it's been misreported. My German isn't very good, but reading it in German seemed to be easier than in the mangled Google Translation. Thankfully, we're staying in Schoeneberg - a central location - so if the strike is still on, getting to most places we want to see should still be possible, if awkward.

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PODcasts

It's amazing how many producers of these seem to forget the name. As podcasts are (by definition) for mobile devices and therefore meant to be listened to on the move, the likelihood is that there will be background noise from traffic, etc. For safety reasons, the volume shouldn't be turned up so loud that this is drowned out. If the listener is on a bus or train, things are often no quieter. For these reasons, it's essential that the volume of a podcast should be "normalised" (i.e. the peaks should be at the maximum allowed undistorted level) and its dynamic range should be severely curtailed - that is, there should be very little difference between the quiet and the loud bits. I probably have hearing that is just below average in efficiency and I've lost count of the number of times the podcast was so quiet that I couldn't hear most of it (even when turned up to full volume on my phone), or had a section with various speakers muttering inaudibly in t...

New Who

The name at the top of the bookmakers' lists this summer for the next Doctor Who was Peter Capaldi. I was interested to see the list but pooh-poohed this, as it seemed the production team were set on casting only young actors - I think it was even said at one point that only someone in their 20s could keep up with the pace of production. I was delighted to hear back in August that the rumours were, in fact, true. The choice pleased me for two reasons - firstly, as a long-term fan of the programme (except for the awful period in the 1980s when the production went badly astray) I wanted to see a Doctor with the authority that only an older man could have; secondly, I knew Peter back in the 1970s as a fellow fan - we're the same age and I've followed his career since the 1980s. I had met Jon Pertwee a couple of times, during the making of Death to the Daleks and Planet of the spiders , and got to know Peter through the Jon Pertwee fan club (started by an old school friend, ...

Buckets of blood

Sadly, I think a lack of imagination has meant a serious drop in standards and attitudes in "horror" films. I do love old horror/fantasy films (Terence Fisher's expression was “adult fairy tales”) but want to be uplifted – film should be an emotional experience, but not one that makes you want to slash your wrists. I don't think it's a coincidence that many of the films covered and praised in podcast s and on line ( Night of the Demon, The Devil Rides Out, The Wicker Man etc) are retrospective, and more than thirty years old. Just to establish where I'm coming from, can I say that I really liked Witchfinder General, Hellraiser and Candyman , all of which were gruesome films. One of my favourite horror films is Brian DePalma's Carrie , because it's psychological horror. What distinguishes all of these from lesser films is character and plot. I actually read a review of Carrie on IMDB where the (amateur) reviewer rubbished it because there wasn...

You're a beautiful woman probably...

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