hi lucy

Dr who

For those of you who have not yet watched Dr who, in the words of Melody Riversong, this is 'spoilers, sweetie'.

First of all, congratulations to Henry, and a few a lot of other people, on guessing the plot.

Dr who is certainly well on course to regaining the top spot on my list of epic telly series. It was a Tennant (Oh yes i did) of this spot for a long time a few years ago but in recent years its gone down hill.

In the past, I've felt that Stephen Moffat has let a few to many story lines drag on for a bit too long. For example, the silence, massive hints throughout the last series about the silence along with the crack in the wall which could have led to a great finale, which in fact was on a par with endings such as 'and then i woke up'.

(On a side note the hints Davies gave were much more subtle then zoom in on a crack behind Churchill's desk)

So the silence then turn up in the first two episodes of this series and then seemingly die. I know that they will almost certainly return (the spaceship in James Corden's roof was the same as the Silence's space ship and James is returning) but you could have given hints to the silence in the first few episodes of a series (maybe starting with the flesh), killed them off and then brought them back for a finale.

When you leave a trail hanging for so long people get disillusioned.

Now with the astronaut trail, although its still along way from over, we've been given enough information  to keep us coming back for more. If he manages to end it with a brilliant plot then Moffat will regain my respect.

However, the one thing the series is still lacking is self-contained episodes (that are good) with no link to the main plot. The flesh got close but was brought back too quickly (and so if you had started with the flesh, then killed the silence, then gone pirate (why wasn't the banshee attracted to you Amy was it because you are flesh) then gone to devils run it might have worked better)  .

But you never know killing Hitler might finally give the doctor his top spot back.
But you never know killing Hitler might finally give the doctor his top spot back.(i had to repeat that sentence to make sure i actually wrote it)

I hope to tell you of some of my other favourite series over the next few posts.

Until then:

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Anti-Maths of the day No.1

Statistics-need i say more

maths of the day No. 6

Imaginary numbers

I chose them because they cause mega confusion and yet are much more useful then you could ever imagine. (But then again if you've got as far as imagining root -1maybe you can imagine anything)

Maths (based) challenge of the week No.1

The answer will come at some point next weekend

Why is x used to represent the unknown? (x-rays, planet x etc. are all phrases that were coined at a much later date)

maths of the day No.6

One, two, skip a few, 99, 100

You may have thought that this was one of the greatest things from your childhood, but for some amazonian tribes even this maths is too complex. Their numbers are 1,2 and many. Even the tribe members that have been taught numbers in other languages may be able to count but they still can't do simple addition.

This isn't as weird as it sounds because it turns out that the natural brain doesn't have a very good capacity for western mathematics and actually works in terms of ratios. More fruit on that tree, less sabre tooth tigers behind than in front etc.

Maths of the day No.5

Question 11 i) on the C1 paper.

I thought that the question was harder than one would expect in C1 but accessible once you applied the knowledge that was required.

(The irony is that this post is being written on Tuesday and scheduled for Thursday.)

Good luck in the C2 and FP1 papers tomorrow.

(Or if you have hacked my account the C1 paper tomorrow)