According to Ian Fleming’s Wikipedia page, during his teens Fleming studied at a school run by a Phyllis Bottome, and then had an affair with an (apparently unrelated) woman named Monique de Bottomes.
That explains so much.
Habemus Doctorem
Some speculation via quotation:
THE MASTER: “There is some evil in all of us, Doctor, even you. The Valeyard is an amalgamation of the darker sides of your nature, somewhere between your twelfth and final incarnation. And I may say, you do not improve with age.” – The Ultimate Foe (1986)
THE DOCTOR: “Sorry, wasn’t it obvious? The Dream Lord was me. Psychic pollen. It’s a mind parasite. It feeds on everything dark in you, gives it a voice, turns it against you. I’m nine hundred and seven. It had a lot to go on.” – Amy’s Choice (2010)
THE GREAT INTELLIGENCE: “The Doctor lives his life in darker hues, day upon day, and he will have other names before the end. The Storm, the Beast, the Valeyard.” – The Name of the Doctor (2013)
So might Capaldi be playing the Valeyard? Capaldi doesn’t look enormously like Michael Jayston (he actually reminds me of Craig Ferguson), but he does look more like Jayston than Tennant or Smith do.
I know the big V.’s supposed to be just after 12, not just after 11, but the Hurt Doctor might throw the count off. And indeed the narrative function of the Hurt Doctor might be precisely to advance the count so that Moffat can do the Valeyard storyline before he quits as showrunner ….
Alabama Philosophy Becomes Likable
The Alabama Philosophical Society now has a facebook page.
World, rocked.
Tales of the Mighty Dead
This coming week I’ll be lecturing on “Mises vs. Friedman on Economic Method” (old lecture) and “Neglected Pioneers of Free-Market Thought” (new lecture) at Mises University; then the week after that I’ll be lecturing on “Bastiat and French Liberalism,” “Anarchism in 19th-Century Europe,” and “Anarchism in 19th-Century America” (all new lectures) at IHS’s “Revolutionaries, Reformers, and Radicals: Liberty Emerges” seminar at Bryn Mawr.
Dark Future
So the next X-men movie will be based on the “Days of Future Past” storyline, and the next Avengers movie will be based on the “Age of Ultron” storyline.
Um … aren’t those essentially the same storyline?
Society Offenders Who Might Well Be Underground
I’ll admit this looks interesting: