Halfway through the first week

Sarah has been working properly this week, with me being at home. Matthew is happy- most of the time, he isn’t yet used to his mum leaving for work and not his dad.

My parents are on Skype- eventually. Their desktop needs its microphone switching on and I’m not sure how to do it remotely. But they tried their laptop and bingo- success!

We hear news from the UK through the net, friends and family. The surge in the polls for the Lib Dems is a welcome surprise, although the fact that Nick Clegg when given the media time appears to be better than Brown and Cameron is less so. The response from the Conservatives and their supporters in the media is sadly predictable- name calling and lies.

We are missing ongoing series like Doctor Who and Ashes to Ashes- we had the first episode of Doctor Who, several eps of Only Connect and first two of Ashes to Ashes stored up on iplayer desktop- but we’re running out of that.

Doctor Who was a promising start to the new series. Smith’s Doctor is engaging and likeable- he nailed the character in this episode (which I understand was recorded 4th in the series). There’s a definite effort to make a break from the previous series, which I suppose needs to be made given that it follows the undeniably successful run by Russel T Davies and David Tennant*. The TARDIS is sent away to rebuild itself and there’s a new version of the theme and opening titles which seem to be designed to the brief of “make it different to what they were used to”. There were minor tonal changes, but this was not a radical departure from the successful version of the format developed over the previous five years.

Ashes to Ashes, now where is that going. I am wondering if they’re going to steal the end of the US version of Life on Mars and have 2006 as the past of the true present of Sam and Alex.

* I mean sure you may not like it, but the popularity of the series is palpable, both in public attention and audience figures. You can’t deny that.

We arrived!

1000 km from Steeton- many of our possessions in two cars. I am shocked and amazed that we went all that way with no major upsets.

We are here in Saarbruecken and almost unpacked!