New Decade? Pah. Gimme The Old One.

Happy New Year faithfull viewers.
I thought I'd start by examining my Top 10 Things of the last decade because... I feel safer looking back than looking forward. This was the first full-decade I've ever seen, so it was pretty important. I grew from a little girl into a (I hate this expression but it seems fitting) young woman. I guess. So: My Top 10 Things.
1. Harry Potter and JK Rowling.
Thankyou for giving me a role model, and an ambition. Thankyou for telling me the best story and giving me years of going to bed and pretending I was in a Hogwarts dormitory. Thankyou for giving me and endless game of 'lets pretend' where I could be magic. Thankyou.
2. The Summer of 2007.
This was the summer that I stopped trying to be someone I didn't know very well or like very much, and became the girl who wears shoes with stars on and sits cross-legged at dinner and gets inky fingers. This was the summer I realised that I was a wonderful person in my own right and that I could be that person.
3. Alice Arnold, Lauren Rowley, Amelia Caffrey.
It seems unfair to lump these girls together. They could each have pages in their own rights, but I don't have enough numbers. These girls are my best friends, and the first friends who I feel that love me because of my faults and not in spite of them. They are part of the reason that I am who I am at the start of this new year, and shaped who I have been.
4. Young Rogues and Vagabonds.
My theatre group. I had some of the best weeks of my life there, backstage at the Civic hall putting on shows. I fell in silly teenage love there, which felt like the most important thing in the world. I made best-freinds there, and lost them too. I learned (as an only-child) how to be with other people and love it.
5. Alcester High School.
My secondary school, where I grew up more than anywhere and where I discovered that history was important and that I could write and that I could pass maths. The three best teachers that I will ever have in my life taught me there. I made friends and enimies and I cried and I laughed. Sometimes I hated the place and sometimes I cursed it. That school was amazing.
6. Writing.
Pretty self-explanatary. If you write, you know. I guess it gave me another language. And another way to play lets-pretend.
7. David Tennant.
Because he's my only MAJOR 'celebrity' crush, in that cliched teengae girl way of posters on the bedroom wall. Becuase I spent one whole, hot summer hanging around my hometown, struck down by the luck he was there too, and trying to catch a glimpse. Because when I did meet him it was the single most exhillerating feeling in my life. And because his Hamlet cemented completely my love of...
8. Shakespeare and The RSC.
I love The Courtyard Theatre and I love the actors and I love the words and I love the way that he changed the course of literature forever. I love the way that he captures real humanity.
9. America.
It opened my eyes to travel. The people and the places and the variety and the sheer wonder of a country not many people take the chance to explore like we (my mum, my dad and I) do.
10. Reading everything and anything and my Dad reading everything and anything to me.
Proabably the most important thing on this list, as if one thing has made me into the person I am is reading.

Life Goes On.

Well.
Doctor Who, ey?
The scene in the cafe. Wowzers.
I hate it when his voice does that thing that sounds like he's going to cry (he's the only man I can stand to see cry - any other guy and I want to tell them to "man-up"). It gets to me. And when he was talking about the 'new man' after his regeneration. Jeez.
Bernanrd Cribbins was good wasn't he? He and David Tennant made a cracking pair.
I'm just slightly concerned about the Time Lords returning. Will that mean it gets a bit old-school Doctor Who? Cuz I didn't watch it then, and I probably won't get it. By the way - Timothy Dalton spits a lot doesn't he?
I'm sure it will be stunning though, whatever happens. It's Russel T for Gawd's sake.
BUT I DON'T WANT IT TO END.
I'm going through denial now. (It's like the 7 stages of grief.)
But,
Life Goes On.
Y' see:
My second-best TV show is officially 'Coming Soon.'
Yes, you heard it right guys:
BEING HUMAN IS BACK!
I died a little bit when I saw the teaser trailer, and jumped up and shrieked and got my (thouroughly confused) Nan to roll it back so I could watch it again.
Yummy Mitchell and lovely Annie and sweet George.
Life goes on.
=]

Christmas Viewing...

Well, this morning I sat down with my shiny new Radio Times and made a list of everything I want to watch this Christmas. It looks like a goo-od year on TV! When I'd finished writing the list on paper, I typed it all up on the computer; arranged by date and time, with little a little red 'R' by it if it may need recording. In fact, I'm so proud of it that I wish I could share it with you. The long and the short of it is that I'm going to be watching A LOT of David Tennant. He's on everything! About 14 things (not that I counted or anything.) And Gavin and Stacey will be good, and Top Gear and Catherine Tate...
Merry Christmas indeed.
By the way; here's an article for anyone to read if they love Doctor Who. It's about how RTD and Doctor Who has transformed the BBC:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/just-what-the-doctor-ordered-how-david-tennants-time-lord-saved-auntie-1842753.html
It's very well written, and I'll show the first paragraph as a kind of advert, and because I think it's funny,
Do you hate David Tennant? Then this will be the worst Christmas of your life. You might as well gaffer-tape your face until January, because between today and New Year's Day, that lanky Scotsman with the Converse tennis shoes and the pinstripes and the great hair-wax explosion will fill more airwaves than Fiona Bruce and the jewellery demonstrators of QVC combined.
It also says that "Fortunately for Tennant, the British nation has fallen hopelessly, madly and devotedly in love with him – and the 900-year-old Time Lord whose hair products he's been using for the past five years." Which is the kind of thing that makes me and Mum tear up.
I also bought a book today which I can't wait to start reading. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/nov/18/featuresreviews.guardianreview31 It's called The Winter Book by Tova Jansson, and I shall read it whilst listening to Sting's If On A Winter's Night, in homage to my faveourite season.
Have a good one lovelies.

A Good Day to Die.

What constitiutes a good death?
It's not a one-size-fits-all, prescriptive answer like many people think.
My RE class (who are studying euthanasia at the moment - the inspiration for this post) have conflicting ideas.
Most of them think dying in your sleep would be 'a good death.' But in Medieval times people used to pray not to die when they were asleep because they thought Satan would take their soul.
The Angry Atheist thinks it would be nice to die 'when you were high. Like a Jamaican.' Despite the shocking racial stereotype there, I don't think I agree.
Alice Arnold says she's going to die from Consumption like a Dickensian heroine, or go mad with love and fall into a river. I like it - but I doubt she's being completely serious.
I know a girl who thinks that it would be nice to die in place of someone you love. Stupid. In the words of Jeremy Bentham (Act Utilitarianist), don't think that a man will ever lift their finger without the prospect of a reward for themselves.
And what do I think?
Well, when they got to me, I wasn't really sure. I only know a few things:
1) The quote "Do not go gentle into that good night/ Rage, rage against the dying of the light," made me cry when I first heard it. That whole poem, a man urging his Father to not slip acceptingly into death really changed my views about the definition of making a good end.
2) There is a passage in The Book Thief where Max Vandenberg watches his dying Uncle lie and wait for death, and he decides that "Death will feel my fist in his face when he captures me." I like that.

That's all I could really say. I think that I want to die brilliantly. I don't want to die acceptingly, I don't want to wait for death, I don't want to give up until I have to.

So maybe I don't want to die in my sleep. I don't think that's a very good death.

A Blast From My Past.

I have obsessions. Dunno if I've mentioned that yet.

It's why I'll never smoke, do drugs, or get rip-roaring drunk every night, because I have an addictive personality. I mean, I will get hooked on things, and for a short burst of time (maybe a month, sometimes a few) it will be all I can talk or think about. When people aren't talking about it I sit and think about how I can bring it back into conversation. Basically I'm sad.

I've been obsessed with:-

Harry Potter - specifically Tonks and Lupin (I love them. I measure men by Remus Lupin's standards. That's how sad I am.)

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness

Being Human

Doctor Who + David Tennant

Robin Hood.

My Robin Hood obsession peaked at series 2, and I remember I counted down the minutes and hours until the grand finale. This obsession was feuled by a certain Will Scarlett, played by Harry Lloyd, and I became fixated on wether his secret love for Djaq (the cool, feisty girl character who was Marion's (ugh) antithesis. I loved Djaq's character - thought she was wonderful,) would be revealed and reciprocated, or wether the louder and more confident Allan-A-Dale would unwittingly steal her from him...

I think you're getting the idea.

So I talked about him and I googled him and I did other fan-girly things and when he left the show I cried for hours (literally. no kidding.) and then the obsession moved on and he was left in My Past.

But when I opened the Sunday Times this morning, and innocently turned a page...
GUESS WHO WAS THERE??

"He might be better known as Will Scarlett, Nottingham's prettiest outlaw in BBC's Robin Hood, but Lloyd caused quite a stir in the West End revival of A View From The Bridge - and is set to do the same in his next role as a rent boy in The Little Dog Laughed, which openes at the Garrick in January."

I loved that: Nottingham's prettiest outlaw. (He is too.)

And I felt all giggly again, and I got a bit flustered and I'm pretty sure I blushed, just like I used to when he came on the TV on a Saturday Night. And I decided I want to go and see The Dog That Laughed (which may be difficult).

And it made me want to look at a youtube video that I haven't seen in a long time...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9zR-fkoYSk

Oh dear.

Got home.
Checked facebook.
Update from DavidTennant.com about pictures from the QI special.
Click the link.
Open them up.
Shout to mum in other room: "He's wearing his velvet jacket!"
Mum: "The kind of reddy, burgandy one?"
Me: "Yes."
Mum: "I like that one..."
Me: "Mmm, Me too..."
*small moment of realisation*
Me: "We know his wardrobe. We might be too obsessed."
Mum: "*thinks* Mmm."

All the drunks they were singing...

Fairytale of New York.
My faveourite Christmas Song EVER.
Especially when I come from my big Irish family, when me and my mum and my Aunties and Nan sing it - loudly, and off-key.
It's just such a good song - especially the eminently yellable "Merry Christmas your arse I pray God it's our last."
I share this opinion with Alice, so together we made the following video for your dellectation. We were supposed to be revising, and (worryingly) we wern't even the tiniest bit drunk. She was Kirsty Maccoll, and I was Shane McGowan (I have a lower voice.)
Enjoy Darlings!

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=1177133067845&ref=mf
I'm having to post the link because I can't get the stupid video uploaded. You should probably take a look though. It is highly amusing.