Merlin 4.08 Lamia

In which the fact it's a filler episode is set against the fact it's also a lots of Gwen and Gwen & Merlin team up episode, not to mention an Arthur has Merlin's and Gwen's back episode.

( Field trip a la Camelot )

And on this Sunday's "when fandoms meet" news:

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Now the only remaining question is, given he has mop top era Beatles and Sgt. Pepper era Beatles t-shirts, will David Tennant's next Beatles t-shirt present the break-up era Feb Four? On second thought, by all accounts he's a sweet-natured guy so probably shies away from the fascinating bloody mess that is the last two years of Beatledom, look included. Also, none of them were at their best then looks-wise, though still miles away from the stylistic horror of the 70s.

Meanwhile, feminist writer Caitlin Moran, whose book How to be a woman? I'm looking foward to read, is supposed to review Martin Scorsese's George Harrison documentary for the Times but in said review makes a poetic detour into summing up the late George's bandmates thusly:

John and Paul are essentially a legendary world-changing love affair that ends in heartbreak — like Burton and Taylor, but with no touching. They are the thing the other was looking for. A major part of their lives was settled the day they met at Woolton fair — they were completed, reborn and undone with each other.


Bless. If Lennon/McCartney = Burton/Taylor, who is who? My first instinct is to say John makes a good Richard Burton (very talented but also very self destructive, bottle brings out worst in same, tragic death) and Paul a good Elizabeth Taylor (survivor through the decades, for a long time treated by condescending critics as lighter of the duo because of greater commercial success, later critical revision). But then again, there's one key difference in that both Burton and Taylor were already famous in their respective fields, theatre and film, before they ever met, whereas Lennon & McCartney grew famous together. And of course, neither Sally Burton nor E.T.'s subsequent husbands qualify as Yoko and Linda in the sense of alternate life changing partnership. (If anyone, Sally is May Pang. Larry Fortensky probably qualifies as Heather Mills.) Anyway, this description has now entered my collection of most memorable descriptions of the Lennon/McCartney partnership, currently vying with Kenneth Womack's Long before Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play - long before the pressures of real life had reached their fever-pitch - there were two boys in love with music, gazing upon a brave new world, and upon each other's imaginations, under the blue suburban skies of a Liverpool churchyard. In many ways, the narrative of the Beatles is - and always will be - their story (from his introduction to the Cambridge Guide To the Beatles) for top unabashed emotionalism I'm completely in tune with.