You had plenty money 1922

along with the usual insanity (torchwood discussion, robin Hood, Stargate, bitching about behind the scenes stuff, spin-off novels, James Marsters, convention stuff, comicses, fandom politics and perception of characters and motivations when seen through the extremely skewed lens that is most fanpeople vs. the normal viewer and thus audience expectation, theatre and adaptation squee, writers guild strike, what's profitable), I'd never thought it was actually possible to torture people who're trying to quit smoking with the smell of bbq ribs. Or mint ice cream. *Seriously*. Paul and Jackie's heads kept following my mint ice cream whenever I moved the plate. With added whimpering. And then Sean went and said 'last offer to passively smoke my cigar'. The size their eyes went was ... snickersome as they followed him outside.

around 7pm - we'd been in the pub since 12 - someone floated the 'what if' of the British version of firefly, set post the English civil war, though we updated it a bit to more Regency period for the fun of it. And then we cast it (but being realistic for those who'd do tv).

Bluebottle.

the transport would be named Basildon. the logo being the tube sign.
Instead of browncoats it'd be redcoats. Battles would be named after civil war battles. Planets after tube stops.

Capt Rupert Reynolds - Jack Davenport / David Morrissey (terribly repressed english officer)
Zoe - Sophie Okenedo (the only person we could really think of who'd look good with a shotgun)
Rinse (Wash) - Rhys Ifans
Susan (Jayne) - Robert Carlyle
Tracey (chav Kaylee) - Billie Piper
Trickle (River) - Hannah Spirit (her off primeval)
Simon - Harry Lloyd
Penelope - Martine McCutcheon (think sloane gone slightly wrong, and the tea ceremony would be... something to behold)
Book - Lenny Henry.

Reavers : re-named the Pikeys. it kind of went on from there. Don't ask.

The horrifying thing was that we concluded that 'Jane Austen in space' would be pretty easy to pitch in the current climate...

(so now we're hassling Jim to try to submit it to Radio 4 for the comedy slot if nothing else. And we want t-shirts.)

:thwacks unsuspecting americans across the head:

There is no such thing as an ER in this country! Or liquor! (and they were doing so *well*...) There is a Casualty Department (old name, still used regularly) or an A&E (Accident and Emergency, the current name) Department. And we have drink or spirits. The closest we get to the word 'liquor' is 'liqueur', and that either means the alcoholic syrup you get inside chocolates, or the fruit/hazelnut/vanilla/whatever syrup you add to drinks. When you want to use the posh word for 'syrup'. If I see 'liquor' in a British fic, my brain automatically starts pondering whether the Ambassador is really spoiling us. No, really. Or start looking around for a Kir.

In other news, had large amounts of fun at the Torchwood meet-up yesterday. 3 hours in TGI Fridays, then 3 hours in the All Bar One after we got chucked out of there. Where we discussed Torchwood, Jack/anybody, how much we get annoyed by Gwen and will they please have her doing the job she's meant to, Barrowman, the scariness of stage door scrums, theatre, Harry Potter, Ianto the teenaged girl, scenes in fic that have damn near killed us due to laughing, and what would happen if one day Jack's braces went for a burton and Ianto had to get a short-term replacement. Which means clip-on ones because button-braces can only be found at specialists. Basically, every few hours there would be a *TWANG* echoing across the Hub.

Argh. You know how you occasionally think 'oh, that would work so well as a vid', then maybe it goes a bit further and you think of a couple of scenes for a specific line in a vid. Due to the *pain* (no seriously, PAIN) of seeing 2 - count them - *2* badly edited/bad scene picks for Anything Goes (JB version) for Dr Who/Captain Jack/Torchwood vids (one was during S1 Dr Who, one during Torchwood S1 - and neither managed to use the defabricator scene on either of the song's *three* lines about nudity/being undressed), I started randomly noting specific scenes for each line of Anything Goes' lyrics.

...Today I discovered I'd completed 3/4 of the damn song. NO, I AM NOT GOING TO LEARN HOW TO USE VIDDING SOFTWARE. YOU CAN'T MAKE ME.

Classic quote of t'evening :

Polish flatmate's friend (also Polish) : What kind of weather do you call this? It's awful! (it wasn't raining and was merely rather strongly blustery)
Me : ...Spring?

I have heard that in other countries, where they merely have something called 'climate' and not Proper Weather, that they take their weather programs seriously and not the cross between comedy and fortune telling that they they are in their natural form. Uncivilised, clearly.

juleskicks, you may need to make sure all beverages are nowhere near you when you click this link.

Gah. got to go Sainsburys to stock up for tomorrow - suitable food. Also have to get up for 6-ish since the new Wind in the Willows adaptation. Mark Gatiss! Lee Ingleby! Matt Lucas! BOB HOSKINS AS BADGER! WIND IN THE BLOODY WILLOWS, PEOPLE!

...Seriously, what is it about this book that makes grown adults go 'squee! Where? Gimme!'

And then stay awake and compos mentis for Torchwood. :gibber: Plesae, please, please let me keep my Jack/Ianto hopes alive for next season.

Yesterday was pubmeet, where there was much Robin Hood squee from the people who'd been watching it regularly and then having to tell everyone else who'd given up after a couple of eps that it's actually turned into something *good*. No, really. Also, the awesomeness of the Sheriff. One guy who had been watching it missed last week so was getting a quick run-down of what happened last week, so we went 'well... wedding date been set, Marian gets stabbed by Gisburne, traitor surgeon, she apparently dies - oh, and Will and Allan are thinking about going to Scarborough for their honeymoon.' Everyone else who'd been watching it nodded in agreement. And then we got into a debate on if anyone was actually straight in this show. We came up with Marian, John and Djaq being completely straight, with Gisburne and Robin being vaguely straight but not averse to man-loving.

I hadn't heard this, but apparently even ITV refers to the 7pm slot as 'Dr Who time', and have given up all hopes of competing against it, admitting that they bloody watch or record it themselves.

Oh, and news - BBC are developing a new project for the Dr Who slot to fill one of the gaps between Robin Hood and Dr Who. It's going to be their own take on Merlin, same way as they did for Robin Hood - completely original, no specific books or legends. Be interesting to see how it turns out. Plus apparently the Blake's Seven radio whatsit is beyond awesome. Plus Craig Kelly is pouting a lot over the fact that Russell hasn't asked him to be in Dr Who yet - his brother's got to play Shakespeare in S3, and he hasn't even been asked. Thinkies is possibly because in QAF he basically played *Russell*, so... Oh, go on, Russell, be nice to Craig. The Doctor needs a male assistant. There's Torchwood!