The Isle Evacuates

Very sleepy to-day. I only had four hours sleep, I woke up at 5am and couldn't get back to sleep. I seem to recall a dream of something in the sky exploding into hundreds of giggling Irish college students. Probably this is related to my obnoxious neighbours from Dublin. I've learned that for some reason college aged young people from Ireland and Brazil come to San Diego every summer to party 24/7, they get two room apartments and have twenty people per apartment. Which explains why every time I see the door open someone I've never seen before comes out and it explains why young Irish men and women seem to just roam about the apartment complex all day and night. As hot as it is in here with just me I can only imagine it with twenty people.

This is not Innisfree. This will not make me hate the Irish. I'm pretty sure Yeats would be angry at not being able to sleep, too. I've complained and sometimes they try to be quieter which is the main reason I don't call the cops. They don't seem like they're trying to be rude, they just seem like inconsiderate children. I feel like I'm babysitting.

Anyway. I still think Doctor Who should go to Ireland one day. I only listened to one audio play this past week, the Eighth Doctor 2005 story Terror Firma, the first Eighth Doctor audio to be released after the première of the new television series. In other words, it was the first time Paul McGann played the Doctor knowing he wasn't the latest Doctor anymore. It could be my imagination but I thought I sensed a touch less enthusiasm from all involved, especially when the Doctor asks Davros, "How does one address an Emperor?" as though the Doctor wouldn't know, a particularly odd thing for him to say considering the Fifth Doctor met the Roman Emperor Constantine just two stories earlier.

And yet, Terror Firma isn't bad. Another story where the Doctor and his companions Charley and C'rizz are made to doubt their senses, this kind of story seems to work in audio format rather well. If nothing else, it gives characters more excuses to describe what they're seeing or think they're seeing. The story is pretty effectively creepy and sort of panicky as a lot of it concerns Davros losing his identity to another in his mind and the Doctor sympathising with him while C'rizz is meanwhile struggling not to give in to his murderous instincts. You find yourself caught up in examining the actors' voices for hints of motives.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree
by W.B. Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.