Introducing Danny Pink

The BBC has announced that Samuel Anderson will be joining Doctor Who in Series 8 as the Coal Hill schoolteacher, Danny Pink, a new recurring character. It is not clear yet whether or not he will travel in the Tardis but given that the BBC has made an effort to announce him, it's likely he will have an important role to play in the series.

This news is not entirely unexpected. There have been rumours  going around for a while now that a new male character would be joining the crew. Since the Twelfth Doctor is going to be older then it makes sense to have a younger male lead who can be eye candy for the younger viewers.

I am happy about this. He looks pretty confident in the promo picture and I hope this is true of the character. It would be nice to have someone more self assured than Rory or Mickey were.  As much as I like both of those characters, the show needs to keep trying new thing to stay fresh. A lot of people had assumed that Tom, the teacher who appeared in The Day of the Doctor was going to be the new lead, but he wasn't as he just as gawky as Rory was.

Of course, it's possible that Danny will only be in the show for one series. If he's Clara's new love interest then it may lead Clara away from life on the Tardis . Whatever the case, I'm looking forward to seeing what this character will bring to Series 8.

Rambert 2014

Last week I was able to watch Rambert at the beginning of their tour. It's the second time I've seen them, the first time being 2012, and these performances were just as impressive as the previous ones.

The first performances was a piece called Subterrain. This was a non narrative piece, choreographed by Ashley Page. It was not a bad production, but the dancing started to get very repetitive and I found my interest waned pretty quickly.

The second performance was Castaways, choreographed by Barak Marshall. This was a narrative piece focusing on a group of people, including an emcee, three mean girls and a naive young couple, who are stranded together. Unusually, for a ballet, this piece had the dancers talking in it. They even broke the fourth wall at points, with the mean girls insulting the audience members.  There was a lot of humour in this piece which made it fun to watch. It was definitely more interesting to watch than the first piece.

The third and final performance was Rooster, choreographed by Christopher Bruce. This was another non narrative piece with music by the Rolling Stones to show preening men and also women. The use of pop music in ballet is a common find in Bruce's work. He did the same with a piece called Hurricane. This was fairly good, even if some audience members got a bit carried away clapping to the music.

All in all I would say Castaways was the best, although Rooster came a close second. It is definitely worth looking for if they perform near you.

Vultures: Beauty in the Beast

I finally got round to watching  the Vultures: Beauty in the Beast edition of Natural World on iplayer. I don't normally watch nature programs, but the unusual subject matter intrigued me. Although the program did not persuade me that vultures were beautiful creatures, it did make me realize how necessary they are for our ecosystem.

Vultures are responsible for digesting bacteria from corpses  and removing flesh that would otherwise be occupied by maggots. Without vultures, there would inevitably be an increase in the numbers of wild dogs and jackals, which would be likely to carry rabies into human populated areas. Still, a large number of vultures have been wiped out due to deliberate poisoning by poachers.

It is probably only a matter of time before these birds are killed off. One of the more recent examples being the extinction of the west African Black Rhinoceros, all because some idiots want their horns. We may be living in the 21st century, but some members the human race can still be incredibly stupid.