I have to admit that as a gay, guilt-ridden, C of E teenager I rather envied my Catholic mates. Being able to confess your manifold sins in person to another human being and then get absolution must be marvellous. Although (above) it does look as if the process is more fun for the Priest than for the Penitant.
But for anyone on the fast track to damnation who – like me – is lucky enough to own an iPhone, there’s no longer any need to miss out. Because… there’s an app for that.
For just £1.49 I’ve just downloaded Confession: A Catholic App and am undergoing my own custom examination of conscience. One tick box it just offered me was, puzzlingly: “Do I try not to bring peace into my home life?”
Under the 5th Commandment it wanted to know “Have I mutilated myself through any form of sterilazation?” Washing your hands with antibacterial gel in the bathroom can have more serious consequences than you might think.
But at least Roman Catholic confession is both swifter and much cheaper than a course of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
Though, you won’t be astonished to learn, there’s an app for that as well.
Our household are big fans of the post-2005 Dr Who, but I can still remember watching the first ever episode at a mate’s house in November 1963. It was the day after the Kennedy assasination, so a lot of our friends and their parents missed it. But during the following week there was such a buzz about it that the BBC had to bow to to popular demand, change its Saturday night schedule and re-screen Episode One as the first half of a double length feature. And this time everybody, but everybody, watched it.
William Hartnell was born in 1908 and played The Doctor as elderly and irascible with long swept-back silver hair. I was 13 at the time, and what with the Daleks, the police box and the unprecedented all-electronic theme music, Dr Who completely captured the public imagination.
One of our science teachers devoted a whole lesson to musique concrète and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. At the Arts Theatre pantomime in Cambridge that Christmas a Dalek scuttled across the stage just so that Cyril Fletcher (who was playing the Dame) could crack a weak pun about speaking in “a Cambridgeshire Dalek”.
When Russell T Davies first revived the show seven years ago, the biggest change he made was to cast fit, attractive leading men and – for the first time ever – make Dr Who sexy. Combined with improved plots, modern pacing and camerawork, a proper CGI budget and the occasional bisexual frisson, it’s been a perfect show for all the family ever since.
There’s quite a lot more than a frisson in the above video, made by the cast & crew of the show – plus The Proclaimers – as a swansong for outgoing writer/producer Russell T. and tenth doctor David T. My wife – a regular visitor to the David Tennant webite – happened across it a couple of days ago.
I particularly like the dancing Oud – and Dave & Will from the VFX department flaunting their skills as they sing with tiny, tiny heads.
This was the doorway to some of the wildest and most vivid memories of my younger years. I first glimpsed Jay at a crowded fringe theatre event in Notting Hill and coudn’t take my eyes off him. We were in our early thirties, both a bit raddled and the worse for wear but for me at least he had an electrifying physical attraction. He saw me looking, ambled over and casually, arrogantly, picked me up – taking me first to a Kensington nightclub so that his ex would see he’d scored and be jealous. [More]
