Monthly Archives: January 2008

Doctor Who, Movies & TV

Torchwood Countdown

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There is now only a week before the new series of Torchwood begins on BBC2. SFX are running a series of articles on their website as a precursor to the new series, including today an interview with head writer Chris Chibnall.

That article, along with the reports of the press preview showing of the first episode before Christmas certainly seems to indicate a definite change for the new series with the production team apparently having taken on a lot of the criticisms levelled at the first outing for the programme last year. A number of the reviews I have seen have said that even if you gave up on series one, series two may be worth a look.

Despite the distinctly variable quality last series, it looks like guest stars were queuing up. According to the Chris Chibnall interview, James Marsters (best known as Spike in Buffy and Angel) who guest stars in the first episode wanted to be in the programme, and Alan Dale, who is forever associated with Neighbours in my mind, but has done loads of genre stuff now, apparently phoned up asking if they had anything going too, and has a guest star role later in the series.

In other Doctor Who news, this week would have been the one hundredth birthday of William Hartnell, the first actor to play the Doctor. Hat tip to Outpost Gallifrey for the news that in celebration of the anniversary, the Plymouth Who group are holding an event on Sunday to mark Hartnell’s life and work which includes a screening of The War Machines, and a question and answer session with Anneke Wills who made her début in the story. More details about this and other events the group holds are on their website.

Church, Country/Seaside/Island Parish, Movies & TV

Back to Normal Life

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So, here we are, 8th January, the Christmas lights are gone, it’s dark in the morning, and dark in the evening, and we’ve got what looks to be an endless series of storms coming across. I’ve been back at work for five days, Beth only two, and it already feels like we’ve not been away… and I’m sure we’re not alone in feeling the same.

As in previous years, this is the time that the BBC start on a new series of Island Parish, showing the lives of people living on the Isles of Scilly and revolving in particular around the Church of England priest on the islands, the Rev Guy Scott. It’s probably the filming, but it has to be said that the programme even makes the bad weather on the Isles of Scilly look somewhat appealing – certainly more than the wind and rain outside the windows here.

The first programme reintroduced us to some characters from last year, and also some of the new people for the series this year. So we meet Rev Guy and his family again, and we also meet the new vet, who arrived towards the end of last year, and has been discovering the difficulties of making a life on the islands – the relatively small numbers of sick animals being the main problem. Looking at the opening credits, the policewoman who swapped life in Plymouth for a summer on the islands is going to be back – although she didn’t appear tonight. We also have some interesting new people in the form of the baker who moved to the islands fifteen years ago after his divorce. In tonight’s programme he and his daughter were making plans to buy the local pub – the commentary dangled the high cost of the pub and questions about they could afford it – it wasn’t until towards the end that you found out the twist – his ex-wife is selling her house in Brighton and moving down to the islands in order to go into business. It does on paper seem like one of these recipe for disaster type decisions – but then Island Parish is one of these gentle documentaries, not particularly hard hitting, so I suspect it will all work out reasonably well in the end.

From a Church point of view, there were a couple of choice moments. I mentioned in one of my postings on the series last year the slight bit of controversy there had been over the lack of acknowledgement given to the Methodist Minister on the island. This time around, the programme showed a joint Anglican/Methodist service, and even features the Methodist Minister saying something – unfortunately it’s the point where he bounds up to assist Rev Guy with his Mothering Sunday sermon, and makes a joke about a pair of waterproof pants… Hopefully they’ll do something to try and redress the balance over the rest of the series, as at the moment if I were the Methodist Minister I’d not be overly happy.

With Rev Guy in post, I suspect we’re not going to get as much of the Church politics as we did last year – unless of course the brief clip of the PCC was a pointer to something to come… We’ll have to wait and see.

If you missed it, the programme can be found on iPlayer for the next few days.

Church, Computers/Technology, Web/Internet

One Click from Danger

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Hat tip to Ian over at Youthblog for pointing out the Panorama tonight – One Click from Danger.

I’ve blogged several times before about various aspects of online safety, in particular Bebo and Myspace including the irony of the fact that on the one hand we’ve had regular concerned parents asking us not to put pictures of their children on the Church website, and yet the ease with which we could find the profiles of a number of the members of the youth group.

The Panorama tonight showed exactly why I was concerned at some of the profiles – if I could find them, who else could?

I have to say, at points in the programme, my blood ran cold. It started off with two girls who when they were 14 accepted someone who claimed to be a 26 year old woman onto their friend list. It wasn’t, in actual fact it was a 55 year old predatory pedophile, who subsequently used information on their pages to turn up when they were on a school trip. Thankfully the two girls involved, despite being frightened managed to get a picture of the man leading to his subsequent arrest.

But it went on. The programme set up a honey pot – a perfectly innocuous profile of a 14 year old girl, which pretty quickly attracted attention. When it got onto the 16 year old who was essentially selling himself over his webcam the programme was really getting disturbing. Another disturbing aspect was the survey statistics comparing what the children were doing, with what the parents thought their children were doing.

I suspect I’m in somewhat of a minority in that having been around online for a while, I’m well aware of the ease with which people can hide their true identity online – indeed it was at University that I first came across someone who was totally different in real life when two people I knew arranged to meet a girl they’d been chatting to online, only to discover that they weren’t who they said they were – in fact it wasn’t even a girl… Having spent time on IRC when that was a popular online haunt I’ve got a catalogue of internet stories of a similar ilk.

Interestingly chatting about the programme today with a long time friend who was also on IRC around the same time, but whose now husband is relatively new to the internet, it seems that we have a very different attitude to people online. Both of us, although we have Windows Messenger, have the security settings turned fully on – i.e. the only people who can message us are people already on our list. The few people we’ve added recently have been people we’ve met in real life, rather than random online friends. Compare this to my friends husband, who has been randomly chatting to people on Windows Messenger – “how do you know who they are?â€? she asked – “because I’ve seen a picture.â€? came the reply.

A little story for you. Back on IRC I remember one of the regulars having a major crisis as they had built an online relationship with someone in the US, indeed they’d got as far as arranging to meet. The problem was that this person was very insecure about how they looked, so right back at the beginning of the relationship had sent a picture of their cousin, who they thought was much better looking. As a result, when a meeting in real life was a possibility, she then had told her friend that she had a phoney picture, and to send a real one – at which point he had called the whole thing off. It is really, really easy to use a phoney picture to disguise your identity, it is really, really easy to pretend to be something or someone you are not online. As with the IRC story, it could be that two lonely people got hurt, but equally it can be someone pretending to be what they are not. Parents warn their children of stranger danger in the real world, but it is doubly important in the online world. Just because they say they are someone and show you a picture, doesn’t mean that they are who they say they are.

The programme itself will be available online at the BBC iPlayer, and certainly if you’re a parent, or involved with young people at all it is well worth watching.

The programme talks to CEOP, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, which is a UK wide specialist police unit who also host the Think U Know site which includes resources and advice aimed at various age groups, and also information for parents, and teachers/youth leaders that could be used to talk about internet safety in a youth group situation.

Music

Voces Cantabiles on iTunes

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I’ve blogged a couple of times about Voces Cantabiles – originally a single choir, but now four choirs and an Educational Foundation working in a number of places around the country promoting the vision that:

… music is important for the social and cultural values it represents and promotes, and for the communities it can help to build an unite.

Alongside all the other projects, the original Voces Cantabiles choir that we heard on a couple of occasions at St James is still going strong, and is now a lot easier to hear with their latest album, now appearing on iTunes, and as a conventional CD from places like Amazon (although Amazon only mention Barnaby, not the whole choir on their listing).

General

A Modern Birth Announcement

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A few years ago, a birth announcement would come via phone calls, or even a letter – not any more. We’ve just found out that Beth’s cousin has given birth via her uncle Hugh’s Facebook status which now reads “is the proud new Grandfather of Abigail Ware!â€? – and we knew she was on the way when her aunt Helen’s status changed earlier in the day. Congratulations from both of us too!