Song Time: Step Into Christmas- the misheard lyrics

CHRISTMAS.

IT'S HERE, AND I LOVE IT.

I love everything about Christmas. The decorations, the food, the time with friends and family, the presents, the food, the carols, Christmas shopping, the food...

However, Christmas is also a desperately busy time for students, as we race to write half a dozen things in the space of a week that we should technically have been working on for three months, but couldn't be arsed to.
So, instead of a witty and insightful comment on the festive season, have this placeholder I wrote a while ago. It's my own personal interpretation of whatever the heck Elton John is singing in his famous Christmas track "Step Into Christmas."
Turns out it's actually about his pathological fear of women.

Sing along!

 

Welcome to my Christmas, son! I'd like to thank you for the ear!
So I'm ascending you this Christmas, Carl, to say it's nice to have you here,
I'd like to sing about all the things your icy mind can see,
So hop aboard your turkey, boy,
Ooooh...
Step into Christmas with me, yeah!

 

Step into Christmas, leg joints together,
Eating lots of snow forever and ever!
Eek, it's a female, come along with me!
Step into Christmas, this adventure's free!

 

Take Karen, all you do next year! Your kid's smiling, chew the days!
If we can help to entertain you, oho, we will find a maze!
So merry Christmas one and all, the noblest I'd rather be,
Stop asking you if you'll oblige, stepping into Christmas with meeeee...

 

Step into Christmas, less joined together,
Eating lots of snow forever and ever!
Eek, it's a femur, come along with me!
Step into Christmas, this admission's free!

 

Wah-ho-ho-ho!

 

Welcome to my Christmas, son! I'd like to thank you for the ear!
So I'm ascending you this Christmas, Carl, to say it's nice to have you here,
I'd like to sing about all the things your icy mind can see,
So hop aboard your turkey boat,
Ooooh...
Step into Christmas with a mean yeah!

 

Step into Christmas, leg joints together,
Eating lots of snow forever and ever!
Eek, it's a feline, come along with me!
Step into Christmas, the admission's free!

 

Step into Christmas, leg joints together,
Eating yellow snow forever and ever!
Eek, it's old Felix, come along with me!
Step into Christmas, this admission's free!

 

Step into Christmas, leg joints together,
Eating yellow snow forever and ever!
Itching this feeling, come along with me!
Step into Christmas, this old mission's free!

 

Yeeeeah, step into Christmas!
Aaaaargh, this bra is forever!
Yeeeah, camels are with me!
Aaaaaaargh...



Actual posts coming in the week before Christmas. I promise.

Hartnell Watch: The Cave of Skulls/ The Forest of Fear/ The Firemaker (Series 1, Episodes 2-4)

As I move into the three episodes that make up the story proper, I find, perhaps thankfully, that there’s less to incoherently gush about (Note from future Gnu who's finished the review: this will turn out to be a lie). I mean, I still think it’s bloody marvellous, but I’m not going to spend the entire review essentially going “William Hartnell is awesome in this scene because he’s William Hartnell.” Critics of these episodes, and there are a fair few, have said that the struggles of a Stone Age tribe to discover the secret of fire was maybe not the most exciting way to follow up on the discovery of a machine that can take you anywhere and anywhen. Indeed, quite a few people have said that it would have been better to skip straight to the next story, with its exciting alien worlds and exhilarating battles against the… ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself. 

More key dialogue:
"Just open the doors, Doctor Foreman."
"Hmm? Doctor who?"
Also, check out a time before technobabble: the TARDIS has a "yearometer."

Hartnell Watch: An Unearthly Child (Series 1, Episode 1)

As excitement builds for the half-century anniversary of the Doctor Who franchise, it’s worth pointing out that it yesterday, it was just one year until we find out what Steven Moffat has planned for the show’s fiftieth. Maybe, just maybe, Moffat will actually give us some answers for the first time in his Producership.
But enough of my grouching. If it was one year until the 50^th anniversary yesterday, that means that it was also Doctor Who’s 49^th! And so, in celebration, I decided that there had been enough negativity on this blog. It was time to get to the heart of why I love this mighty show so much. And that meant going back right to the beginning, to my favourite era of the programme: the time of the First Doctor, played by William Hartnell. It’s time to sit back and enjoy how it all began…

When reviewing the very first story, many people choose to divide the four- parter into episode one, An Unearthly Child, and episodes two, three and four, titled The Cave of Skulls, The Forest of Fear and The Firemaker respectively, and with fairly good reason. An Unearthly Child, a name most people today give to the story as a whole, concentrates solely on the efforts of two schoolteachers, Ian Chesterton (William Russell) and Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill) as they work to unravel the mystery of one of their pupils, Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford), who claims to live in a junkyard, deserted but for the conspicuous presence of a Police Telephone Box, which seems to hum as if it were alive…

Possibly the most unassuming cultural icon ever.

Picture Time: Is it just me...

 

Or does Sarah Lund's new sidekick for Season III of The Killing bear a disturbing resemblance to a certain CGI version of a comic book character?

 

 

I honestly can't watch the show without automatically thinking, whenever he's onscreen, "Wow! This CGI is really good!"

What I've Been Watching: 18th November

Without a show so devoid of intelligence as Doctor Who on the box to get me riled, I tend not to be able to find the passion to write frequent reviews. I have a tendency to be able to find a lot more to say about the negative aspects of a programme than the positives. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that.

Nevertheless, for the sake of giving this blog a point outside of complaining about what I still claim is the greatest TV show of all time, let me take you through the shows I’ve been watching recently.

Review: Wolfblood: Episodes 3, 4, 5 and especially 6.

So, Wolfblood. When we last checked in with the inhabitants of Stoneybridge, I gave a glowing review of the first two episodes, but pointed out several key areas for improvement, including the generic bullies, the underdeveloped secondary characters, and the underused locations.

Well, I’m over the moon to announce that episodes 3, 4 and 5, titled Family Ties, Cry Wolf and Occam’s Razor, do a bang- up job not only of fixing those problems, but of improving on the show’s existing strengths almost to perfection. Family Ties in particular has a massive amount of character development not only for Tom, but also for school bully Jimmy. Cry Wolf and Occam’s Razor focus on the build- up to Maddy’s first transformation (quite a surprise after Young Dracula, where we had to wait until midway through season 2 before Ingrid first became a full vampire), expanding on the show’s mythos, and elevating former wild card Rhydian to the status of ‘the sensible one’ as Maddy becomes increasingly irrational and Shannon begins to suspect all is not as it seems.

Also, the teacher has gone from being a total tyrant in the first two episodes, to being the reasonable voice of authority in later installments. I still don't trust him.

One question, though: Cry Wolf has the characters sitting their GCSE exams. Occam’s Razor, set just days afterwards, features everyone merrily going on a school trip to Lindisfarne. That’s… that’s not how school works these days, is it? And what subject is this school trip supposed to be? It’s implied to be History, but surely every single named character wouldn’t be doing History, would they?

Review: Doctor Who: A Town Called Mercy (Or: 'The Doctor actually acts like the Doctor, and is criticised for it.')

Reasons I haven’t updated the blog in a while Uni has restarted, I’ve been insanely busy with work and Fresher’s Week stuff, and I’m also very naturally lazy. So, having finally reached a moment of free time when I don’t just want to lie down and sleep for a month, let’s see how much of the last two weeks’ worth of Doctor Who and Wolfblood I can rattle through tonight.

First up: Doctor Who: A Town Called Mercy.

The First Thing That Struck Me
ATCM is, essentially, a story that feels like it’s being told in the wrong order. At least, that’s the impression I got when watching it, suddenly and violently jarred as I was by the transition from “The Doctor wants to ruthlessly kill whatsisface from Upstairs, Downstairs, but everyone else thinks he’s great” in the first half of the episode, to “the town now suddenly wants to lynch the guy, but the Doctor now wants to save him, despite the fact that it will clearly be putting everyone’s lives in danger.” I mean, the Doctor being the only person to stand up for just principles and liberal morality in the face of public violence smacks of being a very traditional set-up for an episode- hence why the second half of ATCM would actually have a very good tone to it, were the whole cast not abruptly acting contrary to their established behaviour.

I’m just saying that the narrative would probably have made much more sense if the Doctor had gradually ended up coming around to the townsfolk’s way of thinking, and then Amy had stepped in and reminded the Doctor of his principles, rather than, as we actually got, yet another cringeworthy ‘empowering’ scene in which Amy almost shoots the Doctor in the face, which just leaves the audience confused over which protagonist we’re supposed to be siding with.