If you use Google Maps on your own site and haven’t already changed over to use version 2 of the Google Maps API, now is the time to do it. The v1 API will switched off in early November. There is a guide to upgrading on the API site.

Via Rullsenberg comes Rob’s Tuesday Doctor Who meme:

So here it is: what are you three favourite Doctor Who stories and why? You can have stories from the old series, new series, audio plays, movies, books, comics, stage plays, even fan fic. You don’t have to arrange them in any order (nor put down any other stories if you don’t want). You just need to name your top three.

I thought this would be tough, but it turns out that I can identify a top three – although I’d struggle to order the next 10-15. I feel a little guilty for not including Remembrance of the Daleks, Survival, The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, The Robots of Death, The Stones of Blood, Logopolis, Kinda, The Romans, The War Games, School Reunion, and even The Happiness Patrol (hey, Rob said “favourite” not “best”). But here they are.

1. The Keeper of Traken: Possibly the most middle-of-the-road story going, but it was the first Who video I bought. Anthony Ainley gives one of his two best performances in the series (the other is in Survival) and unconstrained by the bwa-ha-ha-ing of the Master he’s able to portray Consul Tremas as a sympathetic and endearing character. Traken itself is well-realised if a little camp – but what can you expect from an “empire held together by people just being terribly nice to each other.” The less excitable Tom Baker, in his penultimate story, is still an excellent lead and there is some brief foreshadowing of his final story. By no means the best story ever made, I do have a soft spot for it.
2. The Caves of Androzani: This one, however, is the best Doctor ever made. Excellent villains in Morgus (complete with asides to camera) and Sharaz Jek, top direction by Graeme Harper and a classy script from Robert Holmes. Peter Davison acts his socks off surrounded by a strong cast of supporting characters. As has been said on Rob’s blog, it’s as bleak as the series gets: only the female characters survive; even Davison is killed off. Every fantastic serial needs a rubbish monster, which in this case is the Magma Beast, but we just ignore that.
3. The Talons of Weng-Chiang: Let the talons of Weng-Chiang shred your nerves! OK, it’s not quite that scary, but it is extremely good. Tom in Sherlock Holmes get-up investigates a time traveller from the future who’s been kidnapping young women (<cough>prostitutes</cough>) in Victorian London. Another marvellous script from Bob Holmes, a convincing, foggy city, another great supporting cast (John Bennett, Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxendale), a good companion with lots to do. And, as an extra bonus, it’s six episodes long without overstaying its welcome. What more can you want? Apart from a slightly rubbish monster, of course, which in this case is a giant rat.

This is a meme, fanboys, so do join in.

Today’s proverb: “A watched pot never boils.”

Frying tonight. Turkey it was. Only 9 minutes, in theory, so I needed to put the potatoes on first. Boiled the kettle, while heating a little water in the saucepan in preparation for a steaming. Waited, and waited.

And waited.

Eventually I noticed that the red light that indicates when hob is on wasn’t. Turns out the breaker had tripped. Reset it and set about cooking dinner.

Fortunately the turkey was just done and the potatoes suitably cooked when the fuse blew. I didn’t noticed initially until I began to question why the vegetables weren’t coming back to the boil. The fuse box turned out to be hotter than the peas.

There is, I’m afraid, no helpful moral to this beyond not having shonky electrics.

Believe it or not, I was asked at the recent Scottish blogmeet by a fan of the irregular Dewey Decimal updates on this blog if we weren’t overdue for a new post. Well, fans of three digit numbers optionally followed by a decimal point and more digits, you’re in luck today!

There’s plenty of source material from here, here, here, here, here and indeed here, so let’s get started with a bumper selection.

• The Democrats retaking Congress: American Dream – 306.0973
• Most delicious number: Bakeries – 664.752
• What top-up fees don’t help: First-generation college students – 378.1982
• “And then it hurt a bit more, but then it hurt a bit less”: Headache patients’ writings – 808.89207
• New word for your vocabulary: Txalaparta – 786.843
• “My name? J. R. Hartley”: Streamer fly fishing – 799.124
• Most like a Doctor Who book: Father Time (Symbolic character) – 398.33
• Inking about inking: Tattooing in literature – 808.803559
• John Reid’s wet dream: Youth curfews – 364.4
• **Most “I’m Spartacus” number: Chariot racing in literature – 808.803579
• Soap operas, basically: Interpersonal relations on television – 791.456552
• Sportiest number: Strikes and lockouts—Hockey – 331.89281796962
• A big one for Julia Goldsworthy: Moor (Falmouth, England) – 711.55220942378
• “I buy it for the crossword, dear”: Women athletes in literature – 808.803579
• New word for your vocabulary: Klebsormidiales – 579.83
• Number you have to get permission to protest in: Parliament Square (London, England) – 711.550942132
• “Is that an original Diebold?”: Voting-machines in art – 704.94932465
• Kids getting high: Adolescent psychopharmacology – 615.780835
• “Yes, Muffin, I’m sorry too“: Muffin the Mule (Fictitious character) – 791.4572
• Readers of this blog: John Q. Public (Symbolic character) – 306
• Funniest number: Satire, Colombian – 867.00809861
• Most comical number: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Fictitious characters) – 741.5942
• Where the rangers come from: Sloane Square (London, England) – 711.550942134
• Where the rangers come from: Spermatozoa–Physiology – 571.8451
• People who don’t pay enough attention to the Dewey Decimal System (“That means you, McFly*!”): Slackers – 174
• Long number: Caregivers’ writings – 808.899213620425

** Update: It has been pointed out to me by a local Smartacus that I perhaps meant Ben Hur. And perhaps I did. Alas, I seem to have mislaid my collection of Charlton Heston’s back catalogue. 🙂

*Not the band