I was sorry to hear about the Oscar Pistorius situation. I found it both strange and yet somehow expected that if something dark was going to happen it would be with someone so high profile. I just hope it gets sorted out with more justice and less hysteria. Certainly I won’t let it affect my memories of last summer. From a personal point of view, the true highlight of the year was the Olympics and Paralympics. I was lucky enough to go to many of the events and was amazed and overjoyed by the attitude and positivity that pervaded the whole event. This was particularly true behind the scenes. I was lucky enough to serve as a London Ambassador in the Athlete’s Village during the middle of the Olympic Games helping many of the non UK Competitors to find their way around London after they had finished their events. Everyone wants pictures of Big Ben it seems. People were happy and open, from the athletes themselves to the security men, to the cleaners. Everyone seemed to enjoy being part of something where the competition as on the field, and off the field we were brothers and sisters. If the world I normally live in replicated what I felt during those precious few days it would and could be truly wonderful, where all relationships large and small, long term and transient could be epitomized by smiles.

One thing that made me smile last week was the rumour that the Ice warriors were returning to Doctor Who on the BBC. They’ve always been one of my favourite monsters, as like all the best villains you should have some complexity. Your bad guys should be doing what they do for a reason, and the Ice Warriors have enough in their concepts of a shattered home world (Mars) combined with concepts of honour and a societal structure that lifts them above the more one dimensional. They may even be good guys this time out, as there is precedent. I must stop nattering about Who though; it’s part of my life, as while other people seem to have a first memory of school or some other real life thing, mine is the dead Wirrn queen falling onto the hapless Harry Sullivan at the end of the Ark in Space, part 1 (January 25th, 1975). Sad but true. I was almost 4. Probably explains a lot about me

Working on a fiction thread for this blog, probably in bite sized installments. Partly to contrast against my main attempts which are getting increasingly long and rambling and partly just as an exercise. You never know, they might turn out to be entertaining. As I say, at least they’ll be short.