Follow-up letter to my MP repeating my request that he back a #PeoplesVote

I just sent this to my MP, Mark Harper, via the WriteToThem web-site. It is a follow-up to my letter of two weeks ago, which has not received a reply.

Dear Mark Harper,

Two weeks ago, I wrote to you about withdrawal agreement negotiated by Theresa May and her team, asking you to vote against the deal. As I have not received a reply, I am writing again.

Kerblam!: yes, but what does it all mean?

Another nearly-but-not-quite episode this week. I feel like we’re edging closer to a really good story without quite having got there yet. A novel setting, an interesting mystery, and some fine moments. But nagging concerns about the resolution of the mystery, about the supporting cast, about the Doctor herself, and about what the whole episode was actually telling us.

Demons of the Punjab: close, but no sonic screwdriver

There’s a lot to like about this one. But, paradoxically, the strengths of the episode have the side-effect of laying bare its weaknesses. It all leaves me still struggling to summon up the level of enthusiasm I feel I ought to have for Doctor Who. That’s not a good feeling, half way through the series.

Set at the moment of the Partition of India — which I knew shamefully little about — Demons of the Punjab takes on the Hindu/Muslim divide head on, by having an inter-religion marriage taking place the day after the line is drawn. To make things worse, the younger brother of the Hindu man who is about to marry a Muslim wife is a zealot who wants the new border to be as hard as possible.

The Tsuranga Conundrum: as you were

When this series of Doctor Who started, the big hook was a female Doctor. Was it just stunt casting? Would it explore genuinely new territory? Would she actually be any good? And I think people’s hopes and fears about that blinded the world to the much bigger challenge the show was facing: Chris Chibnall’s writing.

Letter to my MP asking him to back a #PeoplesVote

I just sent this to my MP, Mark Harper, via the WriteToThem web-site.

Dear Mark Harper,

As I write, the broad outlines of the withdrawal agreement reached between UK and EU negotiators are apparent. Assuming that this agreement survives Cabinet, it will be put to the Commons for a vote. I am writing to urge you to reject the agreement, which bears no relation to anything that we were promised in campaigning before the Brexit referendum.

Arachnids in the UK: treading water

OK, so a slightly clever title, though only people fifty years old will get what it’s punning on. A decent set-up, exploiting one of the most widespread phobias. A truly nasty bad-guy, who is clearly Donald Trump despite the transparent distraction-references to Trump. There’s plenty of potential here.

Ah, but so much of this either doesn’t make sense or just fails to engage.