...because of two links, but I do want to show off the beautiful Ashes to Ashes icon kathyh made for me. Oh Shaz and Ray. Oh amazing Danny Boy scene, how do I love you, let me count the ways.

Now, I also just read a fascinating interview with with Alexander Siddig, aka Siddig El Fadil (whom if you're a DS9 fan like myself you first associate with his role as Julian Bashir), conducted by the novelist Jamal Mahjoub. Both being of Sudanese/English origin, they discuss cultural identity, how their perceptions of themselves shifted through their lives, especially in the 9/11 aftermath (" In terms of my identity, the childhood need to be English no longer exists. And the forcibly adult Arabism, I’m very aware that it’s happening"):

The Accidental Arab

Choice quote, discussing his role in Spooks (in the second season):

JM: Your character in Spooks, Ibhn Khaldun, was quite complex—a reformed terrorist, a freedom fighter now committed to trying to stop the violence. You come across the channel clinging to the back of a train in a very elegant white suit.
AS: That was the beginning of a particular crusade of mine. The first of a series of characters in which I have tried to explore that element of academic Arabs who are disenfranchised by the modern militant wave, whose ideas of Islam have been completely usurped by a much more vocal youth and the various clerics. To me, he represents old Islam, where you can shake someone’s hand or have a whiskey and talk about whatever.
JM: So, a familiarity with the West while remaining rooted in Arab culture?
AS: That character was a godsend, because it enabled me right away to portray various aspects of an Arab man who was readily credible. He came out of a new identity I was looking for, trying to take a snapshot of this guy before he disappears. He was my father. He was your father. He was the father of all the generations that had a liberal upbringing and didn’t make a lot of money.

And a Doctor Who fanfiction link: eledhwen covers the 2009 specials in drabbles, a hundred words for each of them, with her usual brilliance here.

For those of you keeping track, yes, I skipped season 6 on universal advice of it being horrible and because kathyh, who presents me with seasons of Spooks on a christmassy basis, agreed on this and gave me the seventh one this year. So, here's what I thought.

( Back to the USSR )

Or, the one with the kids. As spin-offs go, this one isn't a must, or as good as the parent show in its first season, but it has potential, provided me with some good suspense in its six broadcast episodes, and I like some of the characters, so if and when there are more episodes, I'll keep watching.

Spooks: Code Nine is set a few years into the future, at which point a nuclear bomb went off in London. This resulted in something suspiciously resembling the England in the Doctor Who episode Turn Left; since both were shot at roughly the same time, I think it's simply a case of similar ideas - after all, loss of civil liberties, overcrowded housing areas for the refugees and Guantanomo-style camps aren't that big a stretch of the imagination. Anyway, to it's credit, the show tries to do something with the premise instead of just using it as a justification for the spin-off and otherwise carry on the spy business as usual. Our heroes, all of which joined MI5 in the aftermath of the nuclear attack for a variety of motives, solve cases that more often than not confront them with what their country has become. There is also a season long mystery which isn't one if you know your spy story rules, relating to the nuclear attack, and like its parent show, Code Nine shocks you with killing off a character early on whom you assume to be a regular.

Now, I usually find the older characters in any given spy series - Arvin Sloane, Jack Bristow and Irina Derevko in Alias, Harry, Ruth and Tessa in Spooks - to be the most interesting, so a series where everybody is younger than I am, in fact not older than their early 20s, has a drawback against it. (Also, this does not augur well for the future of the characters in the parent show. I'm several seasons behind with Spooks, and maybe they've killed or moved some more characters since the end of s4 anyway (hey, no maybe about it, this is Spooks), but it's somewhat disconcerting to imagine that whoever survives gets blown into kingdom come by a bomb.) This being said, I came to like several of the youngsters, notably Kylie, who is played by Georgia Moffet (and paradoxically looks a decade older than Georgia-as-Jenny on Doctor Who, in a show where everyone else looks younger; it's the red hair and the general demanour, I suppose), and was close enough to London to be dying of radiation sickness now, which makes her enjoy what life she has left all the more now (Joss Whedon would approve); and Rachel, the ex-cop, who is all cool competence versus Kylie's energy buzz. Rachel and geek-turned-leader Charlie, who doesn't just have a Beatles hair cut but looks like one of them in their very early days so I constantly expect him to become black-and-white, are the closest the show has to an official love story, and this makes me suspicous (I remember Tom Quinn's love life, and the annoyance of same), but so far they haven't made me roll my eyes. Jez, the ex-criminal-turned-spy, does one of those things early on where you wonder why on earth he doesn't get fired immediately, but then I wondered that in the first season of Torchwood all the time, and I suppose I've become numb by now in this regard. Though it did make me want to slap him instead of going "poor Jez" (but then I wanted to slap Ianto in Cyberwoman instead of going "poor Ianto", so go figure). Otherwise, I liked Jez as well, and I came to like Rob, who doesn't get fleshed out until the later episodes.

In conclusion: a good way to pass the time, but not addictive yet.

On the road again, after the book fair ended with several great speeches by Wolf Lepenies (a scientist and journalist who received the Friedenspreis, the “peace award” of the German book fair) and Andrei Plesu who did the laudatory acclamation. Today, reading the papers, I was somewhat irritated by what the F.A.Z. (biggest conservative non-yellow press newspaper) did – it was the usual journalistic game of picking quotes while ignoring others, but in some cases this didn’t just lead to a limited pov but to direct falsification, as when they claimed Lepenies had taken position against Turkey joining the E.U. What he actually said was:

“There are good reasons which could be named against Turkey joining the European Union – the ignoring of human rights, the lack of protection for minorities, the danger of various European institutions being unable to function afterwards due to blocking themselves. But in no way can one argue that Turkey shouldn’t join the E.U. because “Christian Europe would loose its soul this way”. Europe – and this has always been its strength – never had a “pure” soul. (…) If we argue that a secular state like Turkey cannot be a member of the European Union because supposedly a Muslim country would be a stranger on our continent, do we wish to know how very much our Christian middle ages were co-formed by Islam? How can we claim the enlightenment as a “Western” achievement if we are ignoring its Judean-Arabic roots?”

Out of all this, guess what the F.A.Z. picked? “There are good reasons against Turkey joining the E.U.” That’s why I usually read the Süddeutsche. (Which btw thought the speech wasn’t that fascinating, as opposed to yours truly, but printed it completely so readers could make up their own minds.)

During recent weeks, I was able to watch the third season of Spooks (kathyh, this does not mean I don’t want it as a Christmas present – what I watched was only temporarily mine) and last night, I finished it. It, err, shares more than one quality with the third season of Farscape. (This is a compliment, no-Scapers.) To recapitulate, my fannish history with Spooks so far: loved season 1, thought season 2 was a shaky affair with some great individual episodes but overall too much of Tom Quinn’s love life and a WTF cliffhanger which had several characters behaving bizarrely, plus I missed Tessa. Season 3, I loved again.

( Detailed third season impressions )

Now, I owe some people some more love reasons. Which as today's hotel has only dial-up connection I had time to do. Let’s see.


( Kosh/Lyta )

( Charles Xavier & Hank McCoy (either movieverse or comicverse )

( Arvin Sloane/Jack Bristow )