Monday May 26th. 23:43.

Ever since I did my back  in, way back in March, I've slept in Chloe's room, knowing the bed is higher and has a softer mattress.

Because I'm off work most of this week, I have decided to try and move back into my own bedroom.

I want to move things around in my room, but I'll do that tomorrow. Gone are the days where I get the sudden impulse at half past eleven at night to redesign the layout in my room.

Moving on.

There's two different things that are building to climactic release, in public media. With seductive teasing taking part, there is much speculation going on.

Not making sense ?

Well, okay. The two highly anticipated events that I refer to are, the release of Apple's next generation iPhone (supposedly the iPhone 6) and the arrival of the new season of Dr Who.

Now there's two differing, or perhaps converging timescales in evidence here. The BBC released a teaser for the new season of Dr Who (Season 8) this week, in which they reveal that the series, complete with new Doctor, Peter Capaldi, will return in August.

The trailer is really the height of disappointment I think. It's fifteen seconds long, and a lot of that is the introduction and fade out sequence. There are no words. Just and image of the Doctor standing, silhouetted against and image of the Tardis' control room. To be honest, it's more of a teaser, of a proper teaser we're bound to see later on. It could quite easily have been knocked together from existing footage by a skilled and talented fan.

I can't help feeling that this is just the opening salvo in a campaign  increasingly wetting the appetite. It's only just begun.

Another campaign of appetite wetting, is the recent upsurge in TV advertising for Apple's current generation of iPhone (the 5c or 5s). They normally hit us with loads of advertising about how great their existing products are, encouraging those few people that haven't already, to go out and buy this technological marvel. This marvel that's so good, you just want it, need it. Crave it.

This encouragement, and reminding how amazing the current product is, normally precedes the release of a new product. New shiny amazing, magical technological marvel.

There are all sorts of rumours as to when it will be that Apple make the 'Iphone 6' announcement. It appears from the many websites on the subject, that the big day could be sometime between June 2nd and September.

There are lots of ideas, and even mocked up photos of what differing people THINK this new little wonder will incorporate. As ever, the nerds and the technowhores are getting rather wet over the idea. Me, I'm thinking that if the iPhone 6 comes out, then the iPhone 5s will get cheaper.

Right now, they're all just guessing. Will it have a curved screen ? Will it have a larger screen, or possibly come in two sizes ? Will it wash your dishes, tie your shoelaces and pick a girl or boyfriend for you ?

Here's a selection of some of the mockup pictures that have been uploaded.  The curved screen is an interesting suggestion,  a design style adopted by two other manufacturers of late. Personally I really like the rather retro looking iMac G3 look.

I have tempted by the adverts being shown lately, and have even popped into a Three store to have a try on one.

If I was going to weak enough, I would have to upgrade early. This would cost me £400 to buy out of my contract early. The alternatives to this are that I either buy a second hand phone on ebay, or that I just take out a new contract, and allow my existing one to run out.

My beloved teenage daughter has her fifteenth birthday in a couple of months. Fifteen !!! Eeeeek !! This means that her phone is due to upgrade soon. In fact this is due at the end of this month. She seems to think that I should get her an iPhone.

Yeah, right, like that's going to happen. Bearing in mind what happened to her last phone, as she's currently using my old phone (HTC Wildfire S). This was after I had already repaired the screen on her phone once, she broke it again. Teenagers eh ?

In another time, another place.

© BBC

New Doctor ?

So they finally announced it. The new Doctor Who is Peter Capaldi. This guy that played the angry, sweary, spin doctor, Malcolm Tucker in the series 'The Thick Of It'. He's also made an appearance as the father of a Roman family who the Doctor spares from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the David Tennant story 'The Fires Of Pompeii' (ironically also the first appearance of Karen Gillan). He also appeared in Torchwood - Children Of Earth.

With a departure from the younger Doctors, Capaldi is 55 years old. The same age as William Hartnell when he was cast as the very first Doctor way back in 1963.

With much pomp, ceremony his appointment as the next man to control the Tardis was revealed to the nation on a live show on Sunday night.

Already the buzz on the internet of 'who is it' ?, or 'who can it be..I wish it was...' the endless speculation since Matt Smith revealed in June that he would be leaving the show has been replaced by two camps of viewer.

Either those that love the idea. Or those that hate it.

The internet isn't a place where people without an extreme opinion seem to get heard much.

Personally I think it's an interesting choice. It'll be good to see how he takes over, and develops the role, how the scripts change. What sort of Doctor will he be ? Will he be more like Hartnell and Eccelston, distant and authoritarian ?

Peter Capaldi. Older, not so sweet Doctor ? 

I'm sure that some of those saying they'll never watch the show again, may actually keep their word, and stop watching. The vast majority though will suck it up, and find themselves drawn in as the new Doctor takes his first strides about the console room in the Tardis. Soon forgotten their rejection of a man's performance without even seeing him in action.

The only slight disappointment for me was that I really wanted us to have a female doctor. It would be about bloody time. The doctors have all (so far) been a selection of white men.

In an interview in the show revealing the next doctor show head writer and executive producer, Steven Moffat went very clearly on record as saying that he felt strongly that it was about time for a female Doctor. After all, if we can have a female Prime-Minister, and the Americans can have a black president, it seems a bit unimaginative for us not to have either represented in the longest running science fiction show in the world.

There's also the whole argument about the Doctor only having 12 regenerations. Capaldi will be the 12th Doctor. Now, do you count the number of bodies as the regeneration, or do you count the number of times he's regenerated. Is it inclusive ?

I'm sure twisting our heads around one more regeneration isn't something we'll have to worry about, there'll be some clever way for the Doctor to 'refresh' the number of regenerations he has, or indeed for that limit to be explained away. It's all in the writing after all. Such is the nature of drama, let alone drama where you have the ability to break the laws of physics on a weekly basis. Other science fictions shows use reality breaking time paradoxes every now and then. Doctor Who eats, breathes and shits reality breaking time paradoxes.

Temporal schism ? Bring it the fuck on.

Saturday. Oh, how I love you Saturday

This weekend's a bit out of the ordinary, because I'm not seeing my daughter. She's gone away for the weekend with her mother.

Nice for them to get away, and in a funny way, it also sets things up nicer for her to go away with me for the week. Making that just a little bit more special.

I have to be honest, I've been fighting the 'holiday mode' since booking the holiday last weekend. I have to keep reminding myself that I do need to get up at 7am and go to work each morning.

Got out of work late. Had to take a call from an unhappy customer. The day had been really quiet, and rather pleasurable in fact, just that as normal, as the shift ended, everyone else seems to be too busy to be able to deal with this.

In between making sure I don't enter holiday mode too early, I need to continue with the editing of the NaNoWriMo story, get some cleaning done, make a start on the editing of the episode of Stephen Brown and write a review.

Not a lot going on then. Easy enough to balance out really.

Tomorrow evening the BBC are showing a live TV show at 7pm, in which they announce who the new Doctor Who is. One set of waiting will be over, and then another starts, as the Whovians count down to November 23rd, when the 50th Anniversary episode is aired. The regeneration to the new as yet un-named Doctor won't occur until the Christmas special.

There's plenty of speculation online about who the 12th Doctor will be. Will it be someone Ginger ? Will they be black, will they be female or male ? I'm not about to launch into some detailed analysis of who the next person to fly the Tardis will be. I have no idea. I have no preference.

In Moffat we trust.

Photo by ADRIAN ROGERS – © BBC.  
"I guess we just have to watch the box and find out."

Dumb ways to die. So many dumb ways to die.

Chloe has recently shown me a video on youtube, and an app for the ipad 'Dumb Ways to Die'. It's actually a safety information piece from Australia, but it's quirky, and funny, and interesting enough to watch - and more importantly for people, kids especially to take in what it's on about. Basically don't fuck around on or near railway tracks.

Another dumb way to die, was what happened to me last night, when I was asleep. No, of course I didn't die in my sleep. Not unless there's wifi in the afterlife. To be honest, there may be. We just don't know.

In my dream, I was with Tom Baker, when he was playing Doctor Who. I was running around a lot, with him, in what I can only assume were underground corridors. (They always nearly are on Doctor Who). Anyway. We were running away from the Daleks, trying to escape them. Then the Doctor comes across the brilliant idea, that if he leaves me with the other humans that the Daleks have captured, the ones that they are force feeding in order to serve their goals (not sure what the Daleks would do with a bucketload of obese Humans, but it's a dream, not a carefully thought out Terry Nation script).

 

Anyway, I protest, I'm not happy, but the Doctor persuades me, this is the only way of keeping me safe (because the Daleks would almost certainly kill me if they found me themselves), while the Doctor goes off and does Doctorish things and generally saves the day. 

Anyway, I find myself in this force feeding tube, which is basically a big vertical tube the size of a human, and the stuff that they are force-feeding me bears an uncanny resemblance to skittles. I can most certainly not taste the fucking rainbow at this point I can tell you. 

Anyway, I start choking, on the sheer amount of alien foodstuff (skittles) is being rammed down my throat. 

Cut to Simon waking up in the middle of the night, retching and chocking, with the taste of vomit in his mouth (you know that horrible occasion when you sick into your mouth and swallow it). I'm rather disoriented and frightened. Scared witless that I nearly just choked myself to death in my sleep, or nearly threw up on my bed, (possibly suffocating in my own vomit). 

This rather puts me off the idea of going back to sleep, but somehow I manage it, not really knowing if I will make it till morning. 

It just struck me as a really odd thing for me to dream about, and even odder that my dream would bleed into real life in such a way. I'm just really glad I didn't manage to manifest a Dalek in my dream, and bring that into reality. It may well have only been a late 1970s Dalek, but they were very scary back then. Ok ?

Saturday

A working day, being the end of a rather tough week. In human terms some exceptionally difficult stuff is week, I wouldn't know where to begin, even if I could really talk about it. Suffice to say there are some times when I really don't enjoy being a manager. If I did find enjoyment in the things that have been going on this week, then I would definitely be in the wrong job.

Still. You can't make an omelet.....

This half season thing with Doctor Who means that It's nearly October, and next week we'll be treated to the climactic ending. From the spoilers it looks like next week is really going to be a treat.

I'm going to be typically English now, and talk about the weather. We are rapidly descending towards winter, and I'm looking forward to it. Last night it was most definitely nippy. I felt this quite keenly as I'd been waiting around at Havant train station. As normal I'd gotten out of work late, but went for a swift drink. Feeling I deserved it after the week I've had. Today, was glorious warm sunshine. Perhaps Summer's last parting hurrah ?

I've noticed that all the occasions (as few of them that there are) that I've had an alcoholic drink lately, I've plumped for beer. My god. I'm turning into a man.