In Yorkshire

As you can tell by this post, I arrived safely here in Yorkshire, though I ended up in the last two rows of a KLM Fokker 70 twice in a row. The last two or three rows of a Fokker 70 should be avoided, whenever possible, because they are directly next to the engines and very noisy.

I didn’t post before, because the hotel charges extortionate prices for internet access and my mobile broadband stick refused to work. Turned out the SIM card had expired and I had a get a new one.

Yesterday, I was in Leeds, which has some lovely Victorian arcades and markets and a terribly confusing bus system. Found a lovely dress to wear for my Mom’s seventieth birthday later this month. Today I was in York, which was very beautiful and very crowded. I got lucky and caught a free concert in York Minster, because the choir was practicing for an upcoming service or concert. Photos will follow, once I’m home again.

This time around, I didn’t see a single person with an e-reader either at the airport or on the plane. Though I did see two books of Amanda Hocking’s Trylle trilogy for sale in the bookshop at Amsterdam Schiphol airport – in print. And the W.H. Smith stores here in the UK are advertising the Kobo reader. The cheapest one available here costs 52 pounds, that’s quite a bit cheaper than the cheapest Kindle. I’ve never seen an actual person use or buy one, though. Whatever the situation in the US, people in Europe still prefer print books by a large margin.

At the Amsterdam airport bookstore, I also saw that Carole Barrowman, sister of John Barrowman of Doctor Who and Torchwood fame, has a fantasy novel out. I never even heard of that, but then I severed my ties with Doctor Who/Torchwood fandom several years ago.

Talking of which, I chanced to catch a Doctor Who rerun on TV today. It was the Pompeii episode from the fourth season, i.e. the last full David Tennant season, and it promptly reminded me why I stopped watching Doctor Who. Because the Doctor quite frankly behaves like an arsehole in that episode. However, I was very impressed with Catherine Tate’s Donna, cause she told off the Doctor for his heartlessness regarding the twenty-thousand victims of the Vesuvius eruption and at one point tried to rescue a crying child from the streets of Pompeii. Donna reminded me of a grown-up version of Kelly from Misfits – the tough lower class woman with a heart of gold. Only that Kelly would have hit the Doctor and commandeered the TARDIS and would have pulled it off, too, thanks to her new rocket scientist powers. Mama McQueen from Hollyoaks is another variation of the same type, though a generation older.

So in short, Donna was awesome, the Doctor not so much. But then I never got the advance dislike for Catherine Tate anyway. Catherine Tate is obviously an excellent actress (far better than some of the other new series companions) and I liked Donna okay in the Christmas special. Interestingly, I spotted current companion Karen Gillen in a supporting role in the Pompeii episode. The actress looked familiar throughout and the credits confirmed it.