Scribblings from the Mitchy Side

Other stuff first - had a fantabulous time in London Wednesday evening and Thursday. Wednesday I scampered out of work early and got into London in plenty of time to find my hotel and dump my bag. Hotel - not one I'm going back to. For the price, I expected much more than I got, but it was ok, I was only in it for about 8 hours :) (The George Hotel on Gloucester Place for those taking notes). I didn't hang around but headed straight out to Belgo's and got there about 7.15, meaning I was on hand to welcome Melissa, Mike and Byran. Melissa is someone I know from rec.arts.mystery, we met back in 2002 when Bouchercon was held in Austin, Melissa's home town. It is entirely because of Melissa that I experienced the joy that is chicken fried steak at Threadgills and have been whimpering to go back ever since. I'd met Mike briefly that trip but as Melissa was a couple of months pregnant with Bryan at the time, it was the first time I'd met Bryan :) Let me say that right off the bat, I've seen older children behave way, way worse than Bryan after two gruelling days of tourism and frankly, for 99% of the time, he was a joy to be with. Mostly, he was happy to curl up with a book or his iPod, we barely knew he was there.

Rik and Carol arrived a bit later and everyone got along splendidly which was grand - Melissa came over in 2007 and so had met Rik and Carol then so that made it easier. Food was inhaled - I had mussels and Melissa got the lobster; I will post a pic of the carnage, it was pretty spectacular! Beer was consumed and there was much happy yakking before we all waddled off in various directions.

Thursday I met the Coopers at the Tower of London and we gleefully scampered around. Thanks to Melissa's skilled planning, we got the Jewel House long before the seething hordes and so were able to really take our time admiring the Crown Jewels. Still breathtaking, no matter how many times you see 'em. Lot of restoration work being done at the Tower but enough was open to hold our interest. I have to confess, I wasn't feeling terribly well in the morning, I was dehydrated for some reason and felt a bit crap. So I let the Coopers clamber all over the place and on a couple of occasions, I elected to sit outside and slurp water and enjoy seeing the Tower on a truly glorious sunny day. By lunch, I felt lots better.

We finished the Tower earlier than expected, thanks to beating the crowds, so we hopped on an open bus tour and did the Red Route, which took about 2 and a half hours to do and was fantastic. I was THRILLED to discover that nowadays you get lil' headphones (like on a plane) and you plug into a socket next to your seat on the bus and get a recorded commentary. So much easier for hard of hearing meece!! Lots of languages offered too, there were sockets for 8 different nationalities judging from the flags. I actually learned new bits of trivia and it was a very well done narration, nicely mixing in standard history with interesting tidbits about persons and places.

After the tour, the Coopers went back to their hotel and I found a pub to curl up in and slurp a cold drink and have a light snack. I scoffed flatbread with chicken, chorizo and mature cheddar cheese - OM NOM! Then I scampered over to the Ambassador's Theatre (where I saw Idina in 08!) and re-met up with the Coopers to see Stomp. Fantabulous show, absolutely brilliant - if you get the chance to go, do, you won't regret it. Then after the show, it was time to say goodbye *sniffles* No idea when I'll see the Coopers again but it was lovely to spend some time with them and generous too - Thursday was Melissa's birthday! - and I hope they enjoyed themselves as much as I did.

On to the TV Meme!

A show that disappointed you

Hmm. Y'know, the only show that has seriously done that - and I'm sorry to repeat the answer, again, of someone else on my flist - was Torchwood. I was SO looking forward to that, there was bouncing and squee. And I gave up well before the end of the first season and haven't missed it. I hated the characters, wasn't impressed with the cast apart from Barrowman, and loathed the Jack Harkness Barrowman was forced to play. It wasn't a patch on the Harkness of DW and the show was automatically poorer for it. I gave up 15 minutes into the zombies on the moors episode and am so glad I did.

An episode you've watched more than 5 times

See Day 6 entry down there *points*? Pretty much ALL of those episodes are well into double figures. You see, while I do occasionally have this mad urge to rewatch entire seasons of shows - I have marathaned West Wing and Next Gen from S1 to S7 at least once - my favourite way of revisiting shows tends to be to cherry pick episodes to watch again. Consequently there are episodes of shows for which I'm more or less word perfect and episodes that I watch only if I'm determined to watch every.single.episode of a season. And there are episodes I refuse to watch again, ever. *checks meme list* Why is there no category for "Episodes you would not watch again unless there was a gun to your head and even then you'd think twice?" Hmf. One day I will re-watch "Married With Fishsticks" (Xena, Season 5), JUST SO I CAN RANT ABOUT IT HERE! *cough* Sorry, where was I?

Oh yeh, favourite episodes. Well as I say, all those episodes and several others of Next Gen are well into double figures. So are episodes of Voyager, here's a rough list for the curious: The Cloud (Season 1), Basics Pt II, The Chute (one of the best ST eps ever) (Season 3), Scorpion Pt II, The Gift, Day of Honor, The Raven, Scientific Method, Mortal Coil, One (all Season 4, very good season), Extreme Risk, Once Upon A Time, Timeless, Infinite Regress, Counterpoint (possibly my fave Guest Actor ever on ST, Mark Harelik), The Bride of Chaotica! (funniest ep) (Season 5), Barge of the Dead (Season 6). All of those are between 5 and 10 watches each. Less than Next Gen simply because until recently I didn't have the DVDs and watching the tapes that only have 2 eps each on 'em was a pain in the neck. (Watch an ep, change the tape, watch an ep, change the tape etc etc)

Most watched eps of Xena would include the brilliant A Day in the Life, which is similar in tone to Data's Day (See Fave Ep of Fave Show) and probably explains why I love it so. That and it is drop down funny in places :). Other eps are Hooves and Harlots (best title ever :D), A Fistful of Dinars, The Quest (one of those eps that makes you wish Rob Tapert would just direct full time, it's a beautiful piece of work), Been There, Done That, Adventures in the Sin Trade, Pts 1 and 2 and Who's Gurkhan? There would be more but I lost my tapes of the later seasons and still haven't got the DVDs. Hmf, remind me to put some of these on my wishlist :)

West Wing - My most watched eps, hands down, are actually back to back eps in Season 2 - Ellie and Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail. Two Cathedrals and Manchester Pts 1 and 2 are probably right behind them.

There are two SG1 episodes the qualify - Upgrades and Window of Opportunity. Both are heavy on the humour which is why I love them so :) It was The Evil TV Show Pusher Also Known As halcyon_shift showing me Upgrades that got me into SG1 seriously :) Although I fell out with it around S6.

I suspect Leverage, Burn Notice, White Collar and Justified willl eventually end up with episodes that have been watched..and watched :)

All of which is a long winded way of saying "Too many to count" :D