TV

The Secret Life of Elephants
Part 1 (of 3)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Music

Torchwood: Original Television Soundtrack by Ben Foster & Murray Gold
Track 2, The Chase, is bloody excellent. The rest of it's good, but that's outstanding.

Articles

First today, two RIPs (one of which, if I'm honest, I shamefully forgot yesterday) -- both cultish, though one will undoubtedly get more media coverage than the other:

John Scott Martin (1926-2009) by Paul Hayes
(from Outpost Gallifrey)
"veteran of countless roles in over one hundred episodes of the classic series of Doctor Who... best remembered by fans as the main Dalek operator across the twenty-six years of the classic series, but he also played various other monsters opposite the first seven Doctors, and also had occasional more visible roles, such as the dead miner at the start of The Green Death... In 2004, he appeared as the old man who inherits all of Swansea in the Russell T Davies comedy-drama serial Mine All Mine."
I know this isn't necessarily the place to say it, but Mine All Mine is brilliant and much underrated, and it was lovely to see Martin turn up in it.

R.I.P. Patrick McGoohan by Keith Phipps
(from A.V. Club)
"Actor and writer Patrick McGoohan has died at the age of 80... his fame rests squarely on the cultishly adored series The Prisoner, which ran for 17 episodes in 1967 and 1968. McGoohan, who also wrote a few episodes under a pseudonym, starred in the James Bond-meets-Franz Kafka series as a spy who, after resigning, wakes up in a mysterious village assigned a new name: Number 6."

Moving on...

John Barrowman To Write Torchwood Comic by R. Alan Siler
(from Outpost Gallifrey)
Part of Torchwood Magazine's much-needed revamp? (See here for more of my thoughts on that!)

Samuel L. Jackson: The man who may not be Nick Fury by Keith Phipps
(from A.V. Club)
"Jackson, who famously cameod as Marvel superspy Nick Fury in 2008's Iron Man, may not be reprising the role... "There was a huge kind of negotiation that broke down... Maybe I won't be Nick Fury. Maybe somebody else will be Nick Fury or maybe Nick Fury won't be in it." ... Marvel has stated that it will not comment on active negotiations, so maybe all is not lost."

Also see today's reports on an idiotic judge and the uselessness of our legal system.

the British Injustice System

(Do you see my clever pun there?)

A yob accused of robbing a driving instructor walked free from court - after a judge ruled that the victim was too believable as a witness.

Judge Jamie Tabor praised Denise Dawson as 'honest, utterly decent and brave' when she identified a man as her alleged attacker and gave evidence against him.

But moments later he halted the trial and ordered a not guilty verdict on Liam Perks, 20.

The judge said Mrs Dawson's good character and compelling evidence could sway the jury, even though she had had only a fleeting glimpse of her attacker.

[source]

What a moron! Surely the point of evidence is to sway the jury?

And this is the same judge who...

set free a woman who killed her husband just to stop him seeing his mistress [source]

let off a famous photographer who took indecent photos of a 15-year-old girl [source]

suggested rape victims shouldn't bother pressing charges [source]

let a paedophilic choirmaster go with a lighter sentence because one boy he abused seemed to be enjoying it [source]

let a defendant break his curfew to go to a holiday camp!

I appreciate that most of these articles being from the Daily Mail rather weakens the case against anyone, but it was the top Google result. See the main story covered by The Independent, The Times, The Telegraph, or even The Sun. (I also looked on The Guardian's site for a leftest-of-the-left view, but couldn't find an article on it.)

Judge Jamie Tabor -- the sort of person that makes you wonder why being in contempt of court is a crime.