A wish granting god baby, granting Conrad's wishes in service of the Rani, turns London into a misogynist utopia and The Doctor into a good husband and insurance worker.
Hard to say why misogynists are so keen on the American 50s. Perhaps because it was before blacks had the vote and women could do banking.
And if anyone doubts this ridiculous tale, their table stops working and their family might call the doubt police, so they soon learn not to. All very oppressive and subversive.
Ruby manages to doubt anyway. And all the disabled people who simply never enter into Conrad's mind. Nice touch that. Great scene in the tent city filled with the dispossessed. They don't seem to have actually done anything so far but maybe they'll get more useful in part two.
Conrad is on TV telling a story about a man named Doctor Who.
Giant dinosaur skeletons walk the city, stepping over sky scrapers, and a bone palace towers above the city. Because I guess Conrad wishes for it to be so in order to give the Rani somewhere to live.
The palace is beautiful and Gothic.
But doubt is seeping in. Rogue is back, on the TV in hell, telling the Doctor that tables don't work like that. So he investigates. Gets himself reported to the doubt police who take him and Belinda to the bone palace.
The Rani's split from Miss Flood gives the pair of them a good chemistry. Queen and her maid of honour. Seems like Mrs Flood is likely to be the Rani's downfall. She doesn't like being told to make a sandwich.
A lot of exposition going on, but they at least put a hat on it: "Isn't just exposition, I need you to doubt"
So that's the reason for the strange wishes: To make the doctor have doubts so severe that the reality collapses, and Rani can rescue Omega. Omega is the dude in a Mask from the first 3 doctors episode, who gave the timelords time travel and got trapped in the underworld in the process. Timelords forgot him and never mounted a rescue, but presumably Rani is now hoping he'll bring back Galifrey.
And with London collapsing into the underworld and the doctor falling from the sky, we get the episode break and have to wait until next week.
That's not a cliff hanger, that an already-falling-from-the-cliff hanger.
Poppy really is his daughter he's shouting as he falls. And you know what that means?
🤨🤔
Back in Space Babies, the worst episode of the Nchuti seasons, that space baby asked if he was her parents and he said he wished that he was their parents.
That wish has been granted somehow?
Is this space baby Susan's mother? They have very different skin tones, but that doesn't matter much in a regenerating species.
Never have found out much about The Doctor's child. When he traveled with his granddaughter everyone assumed he'd met his own kid, the grandchild's parent.
But that doesn't have to be true for a time traveler. Maybe he met the granddaughter before he met his own kid, and maybe his own kid was just wished into his family line 60 years later (or billions of years in his timeline I guess).
Pretty fun episode but not sure it makes much sense. Why doesn't the Rani just wish for Omega to be back instead of all this doubt and underworld bollocks?
Last one next week. Super long episode. Hope it's all cleared up. Good chance we'll meet Susan again I think. And maybe see Omega's mask once more.
I don't know if those "FCK ISRL" stickers are legal in Switzerland, but I'm glad they're not in Germany, so we don't have to constantly go through the hassle of removing that crap. Israel's fundamental right to exist is not up for negotiation.
#Israel
Am I late to work because I wanted to hang this up before heading out this morning? Absolutely, I sure am!
#Anarchism #Syndicalism #AnarchoSyndicalism
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really
good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change
their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really
do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are
human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot
recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
-- C…
So we’re at Revere Beach for the Sandcastle thing & while I was unpacking the car, a Cybertruck1️⃣ came by - I guess I did a double take with a disgusted expression because as it went by, the passenger, an 80 year oldish woman was making an embarrassed “I’m just the passenger” expression at me
😂
no one is home so i'm cranking it up and ... uh oh ... that sounds BAD. do i need new speakers? sob! i've had these fishers since 1986. I don't think they were anything special back then, but they have grown on me. and oh no, new speakers are expensive. 😭
oh wait the balance settings all screwed up here ⚙️ just a sec 🛠️ and 🔊 ok everything is fine. phew.
my stereo is ok — just ok — but i don't care because all i do is play scratchy old LPs anyway.
Sonnet 109 - CIX
O! never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify,
As easy might I from my self depart
As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:
That is my home of love: if I have ranged,
Like him that travels, I return again;
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe though in my nature reigned,
All frailties that besiege all kinds …
This https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.03249 has been replaced.
link: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=a
Comment on "Politicizing science funding undermines public trust in science, academic freedom, and the unbiased generation of knowledge"
John M. Herbert
https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.18196
"This isn’t to say that AI is uniformly bad—it’s clearly not—but that we must not fall into the trap of mistaking the outputs of writing (…) from the value of the cognitive process of writing (…).
It would be a catastrophically unwise decision for humanity to abandon a key step in training young brains simply because they can now clack a few keys and produce something that sounds intelligent even as they never become intelligent."