life, liberty and the pursuit of geekiness

Just watched Sherlock on iPlayer; it's pretty good.
( Spoilers, mild )

Still no sign of the backup CDs for the edition of Windows on the laptop. Also, while our bin was sitting out in the alleyway after being emptied, some plonker came along and practically filled it with their rubbish.

Have been cheering myself up by watching clips of Yes, Minister, after doyle_sb4 had reminded me of its existence. On the achievement side, have cleaned most of the house and done a crazy amount of ironing and now will have actual clothes to wear to work.

Okay, here's a question for you: who has destroyed the greater number of irreplaceable historical artefacts, Indiana Jones or the Bonekickers team?

Indy gives you more bang for your buck, but Bonekickers has more regularity and sticking power. They do it once a week!

I'm no archaeologist, but I was wincing this week.

The disadvantage of warm weather: no central heating, therefore no hot water in the tap for the washing up. I'm boiling a kettle and remembering my student days.

This is not my Sam Tyler. Nor is it Gene Hunt. It's not LoM, and it doesn't look like it's an American cop show of any quality. It's just a half-baked mess. It doesn't seem to be a reimagining, just our programme warmed over. These guys aren't Sam and Gene, they're acting Sam and Gene.

No, I'm not doing a boycott of LJ all by myself. I'm just feeling a bit bleh about doing anything that requires effort. Also bleh about TV at the minute.

Doctor Who is back next week and I only have the tiniest bit of squee in a sea of apprehension. The promotional interviews do not tend to confidence.

I haven't seen the last couple of Torchwood. This is partly due to being away from the broadband and BBC iPlayer over Easter, but not wholly

Have more or less given up on Ashes to Ashes instead of hanging around waiting for it to become Life on Mars.

And Diane Farr is leaving Numb3rs after the current series finishes. Not that we're actually going to see that till about 2011 at the rate it gets over here legally, and the government will possibly have got around to the whole CONFISCATE UR INTARWEBZ 4 ILLEGAL DOWNLOADIN BY THEN. Sigh. I hate that thing where people leave TV programmes. Numb3rs was there before Megan and it will be after, but there are other people who can't be replaced, and it makes me a bit nervous.

I can't believe it's over. ( Spoilers )

Yesterday we did a great deal of cleaning and tidying—the stairs haven't been so clean in months—and also a slight book cull. We have finally convinced the parents that what we need is not fewer books but another bookcase, and they say we can get an Argos one this week. There is not such thing as too many books, only too few bookshelves.

I also sat down and watched the tapes of the ITV Austen adaptations.

Mansfield Park: First mistake was casting Billie Piper as Fanny. Emma Woodhouse, certainly, Elizabeth Bennett, perhaps, Fanny Price, definitely not. Once you have Billie Piper, playing her as shy and delicate becomes difficult. So instead she ran and skipped and giggled all over the place. When sir Thomas said his line about William finding his sister at 18 too little changed from his sister at 10, I remarked, "Yes, she still hasn't learnt to use a hairbrush." I don't think she had her hair (which mysterious didn't match her eyebrows) tidy or a bonnet on her head throughout. Speaking of costuming, could we ever have an Austen adaptation that knows the difference between and evening and a morning dress, or doesn't have the heroine running and even riding without coat or hat? And the Bertram boys seemed to have a bit of difficulty in getting fully dressed before they left their rooms, too. And what on earth was up with that waltz at the end? Fanny and Edmund waltzing, WHAT?

Mansfield Park is a great long book; squashing it down to less than two hours was never going to be satisfying. I could see why they removed Mr Yeats, and thus Julia's elopement, and the trip to Rushworth's house, but I can't see why Fanny's coming-out ball was changed to a picnic, or why she was left alone at Mansfield instead of being sent back to Portsmouth in disgrace. I know that's it's an irresistible temptation to expand on the book's conclusion and how Edmund noticed the giant anvils dropping all round him, but it did make him look even more gormless than when he was in love with Mary.

The Crawfords were pretty good, though, and Maria, and Lady Bertram before she inexplicably woke up and played matchmaker at the end. And Edmund and Fanny managed to have chemistry while still being believable that he was in love with Mary.

Northanger Abbey: As this is the shortest of the books, it suffered the last from the compression, IMO. Catherine was played by an age-appropriate actress, and was very sweet and convincing. Henry was really quite fanciable, too. The one thing I didn't like was having Isabella sleep with Captain Tilney—she had much to good an eye for the main chance to do that. It made her seem a victim, as well, and Captain Tilney much worse than in the book. I hadn't realised those novels that Catherine was reading were quite so dodgy, either.

Persuasion: This is my favourite of the novels, and I don't think that any adaptation could satisfy me. This one was definitely too short, giving me the impression of a mad rush. For instance, Anne's little nephew has his fall while they are dressing for dinner, and Charles and Mary go off before the surgeon is fairly out of the door. The conclusion was a sort of hybrid of the cancelled and final ending of the book (Jane Austen changed it for a reason, you know), and takes place while all the characters seem to be running all over Bath (hatless, of course) only to end up back where they started. I liked Anne, though—and Captain Spooks was most attractive. I thought they did the explaining the backstory—most necessary in Persuasion—pretty well, too. I can't help wishing, though, that it had been twice the length, the Bath part especially.

So tonight Spooks had terrorists all over the Thames barrier. The fact that I'm reading Brothers in Arms at the minute is entirely fortuitous.

I'm glad that the episode didn't stop ten seconds sooner than it did.