"Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths"

Giggle giggle giggle....

As I've already mentioned, I'm off for a three week European vacation in August.  The middle part involving Italy and the Mediterranean cruise with Felix the Cat is all taken care of, reservations, tickets, bookings et al., and now I'm filling in the English and French parts before and after.

Finding things to do in London is hardly a problem, but I thought it might be interesting to break with my usual sightseeing lineup and do something different.  Initially, I had hoped to see Kevin Spacey's eponymous performance in Richard III for the innovative Bridge Project version of the play currently being done at the Old Vic, but apparently that's been sold out since day one.  Hmmm....what else, what else....

Regardless, last night I booked a London transit pass along with an attractions pass guaranteed to get me into 80 fascinating tourist spots, and then decided to take a break from vacation planning.

So it was a COMPLETE fluke that I found a link to the following on TDW Geek: *

Yes, the Doctor Who Experience, currently in London and now booking until September 4th, conveniently located within about a minute's walk from the Olympia Underground station.

The Doctor Who Experience invites you to step through a crack in time allowing you to join the Doctor on a journey through time and space, encountering some of the best-loved and scariest monsters from the hit international television series. Special scenes filmed with Matt Smith as the Doctor combine with amazing special effects and the chance to enter a recreation of the modern TARDIS.

The exhibition element of the Doctor Who Experience charts the success of the TV show from the first series in 1963 to the most recent episodes starring Matt Smith and Karen Gillan. Displays in the exhibition include items never seen before including original costumes, the Tom Baker TARDIS police box and two authentic TARDIS sets from the eras of David Tennant and Peter Davison. You will also be able to get up close and personal with iconic sets from recent series, including the Pandorica Box and Chair and confront numerous monsters including several generations of the Daleks and Cybermen as well as Silurians, an Ice Warrior and a Zygon.

Giggle giggle giggle...

Okay, fine, it's not bloody Shakespeare, but I have to admit that I may quite possibly end up having more fun at the Doctor Who Experience when I make my way there on August 23rd.  Hmmm....I hope I can get someone to take my picture beside a Dalek...

- Sid
 

P.S. And then I got ALL excited when I realized that HMV London sells Doctor Who DVD collections for a quarter of the price they charge at HMV Vancouver!  Yep, got all excited for about half an hour, then I thought, "No, wait, wrong bloody DVD Region."  Sigh...

*  Yes, I'm a regular visitor to The Daily What: Geek - "Games, Gadgets, Comics, Science and Sci-Fi".  Should this really be a surprise to anyone?

Mort.

Is it possible for someone like me - or like you - to arrange for themselves the death that they want?

Terry Pratchett, Choosing to Die

British fantasy author Terry Pratchett wants to die.

Actually, as Mr. Pratchett often has his characters say, that sentence is wrong in every particular (except the part about being a British fantasy author) but it's quite a useful lie.  Under normal circumstances, Terry Pratchett would have no more desire to die than anyone else, but unfortunately his circumstances are no longer exactly what one might call "normal".

As I've already discussed in a couple of previous posts, the 62-year old Pratchett was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease three years ago, a particularly unpleasant fate for a man so noted for his wit and creativity.  Since then, Pratchett has begun a slow process of deterioration. He has lost the ability to type, but has continued to write and is just finishing the first draft of his next Discworld book, albeit by dictating the content to his assistant.  However, he is aware that this is just the beginning:

I know that the time will come when words will fail me. When I can no longer write my books, I'm not sure that I will want to go on living.

This is not hyperbole.  Pratchett has begun to look into the options for assisted suicide, and has recorded his research in a one-hour documentary entitled Choosing to Die.

I found the documentary a little disturbing. Pratchett focuses on a Swiss organization called Dignitas, that will, for a fee, help someone die, and meets with two people who have chosen to use their service - Peter Smedley, a 71 year old man with motor neuron disease, and Andrew Colgan, a 42 year old man with multiple sclerosis who had already attempted suicide (obviously without succeeding).

The documentary actually follows Peter Smedley through the entire process - yes, the viewer has a front-row seat to his death, as he first swallows a stomach-settler to ensure that the poison will stay down, followed by the poison itself and then a somewhat macabre chocolate treat. (It is Switzerland, after all.) There's a brief horrible moment when he begins to choke and requests water which he is not given, followed by a ghastly rattling noise as his lungs begin to stop working.

Eventually he passes from unconsciousness into death, all under the camera's watchful eye.

And that's where I took a bit of exception to the documentary approach.  Dignitas takes every precaution to ensure that their clients are in full possession of their faculties and completely aware of what they are doing, and there is no pressure applied to follow through on the process.  Peter Smedley is a model of composure and grace throughout, but I have to think that having a camera crew in the room might well stop someone from changing their mind at the last minute - personally, I'd prefer the option of deciding that a few more months of life still had some attraction for me without a zoom lens nearby to record my change of heart.

The documentary ends on a quiet note, with Pratchett looking back to the snow that fell after Peter Smedley's suicide, and pondering his own ending:

I would like to die out in the sunshine...I suppose that sometimes the sun shines in Switzerland.

Death, or more accurately the the anthropomorphic personification of the end of life, is one of the more popular and frequently utilized characters in Pratchett's Discworld books. Death is portrayed as a stern but sympathetic figure, who does not actually end life but who comes to collect the spirit of the departed, and whose calm demeanor is often a relief to the recently departed.  Perhaps this is expressive of Terry Pratchett's philosophy regarding his own death, self-managed or not.

- Sid

Keeping up with the Joneses.

And you, you little shit head... you're staying here.

Ellen Ripley, Aliens

I recently received a somewhat enigmatic text message from someone that I used to work with, suggesting that we should get together for a beer but also requesting that I should call them first to discuss something.  I have to admit that my first thought was Amway™ or some other similar pyramid scheme, but nonetheless I tried to keep an open mind as I dialed their number.

As it turned out, the party in question was planning to spend quite a bit of time travelling around Europe, and was looking for a home for their cat.  There were already a couple of people in line, but since my last cat lasted about 25 years, I seem to have a bit of a reputation as a reliable cat owner.

Sadly, I'm not quite ready to find a replacement for the incomparable Nigel, and since there were other people who were willing and able to step up to the plate in my stead, I didn't feel guilty about turning down the opportunity.

But, full points - if you want to entice a science fiction fan into taking care of a cat, name the cat after the best known feline action character of the last 25 years:  that's right, the cat was named Jones, in honour of the ship's cat on the ill-fated Nostromo in Alien.

However, as is so often the case with roles involving very small children and animals, Jones was actually played by four identical cats.  Yes, if you're a cat, you find three other cats that look the same and split things up so you actually only have to work 25% of the time.

- Sid