The Author's Blog

The Leisure Cruise: this is the second cruise that I've been on. Co-incidentally, it's the same ship, too. But why write about it this time? Well, mainly because (I had nothing to do for several afternoons and) I thought I'd make a few observations this time round, now being an "seasoned" cruise passenger.

The cruise was "Escape to the East" and is run by Thomson. The cruise ship was The MV Thomson Celebration. I'll tell you about Jeno and Zoltan (the Hungarian maestros), The Bride of Frankenstein, Egyptian fighting and social classes. All in one blog!

My Doctor Who obsession - as you would expect - involves watching the old episodes (pre 2005) as well as the new. Inevitably, this also involves investing in DVD's of the "Classic" series (as it's now called) to watch them.

One of such investments is a box set called "Mannequin Mania" and that comprises of two Jon Pertwee (Third Doctor) episodes: "Spearhead From Space" and "Terror of the Autons" - both stories concerned with an alien entity called the Nestenes. [Incidentally, the Nestenes and Autons were the very first story of "New" Who in 2005.]

The protaganist's servants are called Autons - mannequins made of plastic - that are controlled by the Nestene conciousness. [Hence the title of the boxset!]

This story - when originally aired - led to my second only fright from Doctor Who...

Just over a year ago, I decided to forego my traditional phone (I used to buy almost exclusively SIM-free Motorola's) for one of those Apple iPhones. It wasn't an iPhone 4 (they weren't out at the time) but the 3GS model. I got talked into getting one by a colleague at work that had the 3G model (the preceding model) and let me have a look and a play with it. I have to say that at the time, I was impressed. So I then embarked on my first contract phone for a very long time. Not only that, as my phone network supplier that I'd used for years wasn't offering the iPhone at the time, I also had to change network supplier too. Oh what a big mistake *that* was!!

You have to laugh (well, I did, anyway!)

I follow Jill Wagner on Twitter, you see.  She does quite a few Tweets and makes quite an interesting read (she's a very pleasant person). I was even lucky enought to get a reply from her once.  Quite by accident, as I didn't actually realise that people you follow (and don't follow you) could ready your replies!!  So I'd been idly replying now and again to different celebs that I follow, not realising that they could see it. (Much wiser now!!)