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Hamster Book Club - Trading Futures by Lance Parkin (featuring Agent Michael Mills) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:08
  The hydrofoil was something secret, something not of the
• 0:11
  everyday world. Its design embodied A
• 0:14
  contradiction revelled in it. The boat was invisible, with
• 0:20
  camouflage that went far deeper than its paint work.
• 0:23
  The hole was coated in rounded and smooth thermoplastic, so
• 0:27
  radar beams just slid off it. The hydroplanes themselves were
• 0:32
  designed so that the boat barely disturbed the water it was
• 0:35
  slicing through. The motors were electric, all
• 0:39
  but silent, but were muffled anyway.
• 0:43
  On a night like this, you could stand 20 feet from the hydrofoil
• 0:46
  as it passed you, and you couldn't be sure that it had.
• 0:51
  Despite being invisible, it was also evil looking.
• 0:55
  That was the contradiction. It glistened.
• 0:58
  It looked more like an ocean predator, such as a ray or a
• 1:01
  shark, than a piece of military hardware.
• 1:04
  The fact that the gun ports and the missile shoes were hidden
• 1:07
  behind radar shieldren just made it look more sinister.
• 1:11
  Who knew what weapons it had, where they were concealed?
• 1:15
  If you did happen to see it, you'd rather wish you hadn't.
• 1:20
  The incursion began at 2311. They all heard something drop
• 1:25
  onto the deck, then footsteps above them.
• 1:28
  King looked up, puzzled. What is it?
• 1:32
  A wave? The seas flat.
• 1:35
  Go and check. It's nothing.
• 1:37
  Go and check. There was a man standing on the
• 1:42
  deck. He watched King clamor out
• 1:44
  through the Hatch with nothing more than mild curiosity.
• 1:48
  The King raised his gun, aimed a shot at him, but the pistols
• 1:52
  software overrode him. The man was unarmed and tacked
• 1:55
  as a civilian. You couldn't shoot civilians
• 1:58
  without special orders. Could you help me with this?
• 2:01
  The man asked. He was holding a great bundle of
• 2:04
  white material. A parachute.
• 2:06
  King realised. Wait, I hear, The man said,
• 2:10
  pushing the parachute into his arms.
• 2:12
  You can't. The man yank the material up
• 2:15
  until it was a hood over the soldiers head.
• 2:17
  The heads up display in King's helmet was flashing a number of
• 2:20
  warnings now. One advised that the civilian
• 2:22
  had been reclassified as a threat, the second warned him
• 2:25
  not to take another step back. The last told him of an imminent
• 2:29
  physical contact. It came moments before he was
• 2:32
  gently tipped over the rail around along the side of the
• 2:34
  boat, his life jacket automatically inflated on
• 2:38
  contact with the water, restricting his arms and legs,
• 2:41
  swathing him in bulletproof fabric.
• 2:44
  His pistol was floating just out of reach.
• 2:46
  By the time King had pulled himself free of the parachute
• 2:49
  and splashed around to face the boat, it was several 100 yards
• 2:52
  away. There was no sign of the
• 2:54
  civilian, and the Hatch had been shot.
• 2:57
  Cosgrove put his helmet on and it already told him about the
• 3:00
  intruder. The briefcase remained cuffed to
• 3:02
  his wrist. It was an obvious encumbrance,
• 3:05
  so Cosgrove opted for the element of surprise.
• 3:09
  He took his position behind the Hatch, lodged in place, waiting
• 3:12
  until the intruder was on board. The intruder took his time.
• 3:16
  Cosgrove got a good look at him. He was a Caucasian male, about
• 3:20
  40, not moving like he was combat trained, not moving with
• 3:24
  any urgency at all. He had something in his hand, A
• 3:27
  grenade? No, a rubber ball.
• 3:32
  The pilot turned in her chair, covered the intruder with her
• 3:35
  pistol. Hello there, the intruder said.
• 3:38
  Drop that the pilot ordered. The ball slipped from his hand,
• 3:43
  bounced and hit the control panel.
• 3:45
  The roof blew off and the pilot's ejector seat fired.
• 3:48
  The idiot squealed as she flew up and over the boat.
• 3:52
  The boat was already powering down.
• 3:54
  As a security precaution, the auto destruct sequencers engaged
• 3:59
  60 seconds. The voice was synthesized
• 4:02
  disjointed. Cosgrove could override it, but
• 4:05
  he'd need to get to the controls.
• 4:07
  It didn't trouble the intruder, who retrieved the rubber ball
• 4:10
  before stopping at the water cooler that sat opposite the
• 4:13
  Hatch and pouring himself a drink of water.
• 4:17
  His hair flapped in the breeze. There was plenty of time for
• 4:20
  Cosgrove to target him. The crosshairs in the helmet
• 4:23
  display narrowed over the intruders back one through the
• 4:26
  heart. Stay where you are.
• 4:30
  Cosgrove ordered. The intruder did as he was told.
• 4:34
  Are you armed? The helmets display had already
• 4:37
  given him the answer, but he'd like to hear it from the
• 4:40
  intruder himself. I have a glass of water.
• 4:43
  Well, not a glass, plastic. I have a plastic of water.
• 4:49
  Hardly a weapon. Well, no, but it's enough to
• 4:53
  overpower you, if that's all right.
• 4:56
  Cosgrove laughed. Turn around.
• 4:59
  The civilian did as he said. If you're about to overpower me,
• 5:03
  you have 40 seconds, The computer supplied 40 seconds.
• 5:08
  You better hurry. I thought you'd never ask.
• 5:11
  He tipped the water over Cosgrove's shoulder and ducked
• 5:13
  out the way as the life jacket automatically inflated, splaying
• 5:18
  his arms, lodging him in the doorway.
• 5:21
  Who sent you? Cosgrove shouted, trying to
• 5:24
  wriggle through. The intruder looked at him
• 5:26
  thoughtfully, slipping some sort of tool from his pocket.
• 5:30
  Who do you think? How did?
• 5:32
  He asked? As the handcuff fell away from
• 5:34
  the briefcase handle, the control panel started buzzing.
• 5:37
  The intruder stepped over to it, sat down in one of the remaining
• 5:40
  chairs, rested the briefcase in his lap.
• 5:43
  Appalling layout, he said. Nothing's where you need it to
• 5:46
  be. You have to deactivate the self
• 5:49
  destruct. We'll all be killed.
• 5:51
  You'll be safe in that life jacket of yours.
• 5:54
  You won't. You'll be killed.
• 5:55
  The intruder shook his head. He tugged at the control that
• 5:58
  fired his ejector seat and launched into the night sky, and
• 6:03
  he was waving goodbye with a grin on his face as he went.
• 6:09
  There was an explosion out at sea, just a flash of orange
• 6:12
  light. The other diners and the waiters
• 6:15
  hurried over to the window, which was almost certainly
• 6:18
  exactly the wrong thing to do in the circumstances.
• 6:21
  And she remembered when a few IRA bombs had gone off in the
• 6:24
  city, there had been an e-mail circulated about it.
• 6:27
  If a bomb goes off, stay away from the windows.
• 6:31
  Glass shatters. Shattered glass does nasty
• 6:34
  things to your eyes if it gets into them.
• 6:36
  Could it be terrorists? One of the tourists said there
• 6:39
  aren't terrorists. The other one reminded her.
• 6:41
  Not anymore, but this could be some sort of comeback.
• 6:45
  There was an article about neo terrorism last week.
• 6:48
  Fitz looked up from his menu. There was something burning on
• 6:51
  the horizon, a black shape surrounded with flame.
• 6:54
  So how far was that? A mile?
• 6:57
  No more than that. It could be nothing.
• 7:00
  A coincidence? And you suggested?
• 7:03
  Yeah, right. Coincidence.
• 7:05
  Like every single time we land somewhere there's a big
• 7:08
  coincidence. Before you met the Doctor, did
• 7:12
  things ever explode? As a matter of fact.
• 7:16
  Hey, look at that, Fitz was saying.
• 7:18
  She realized with a start that they'd interrupted the soccer
• 7:21
  match on TV to report the explosion.
• 7:24
  An aerial shot, some news channels helicopter already on
• 7:27
  the scene, and she was more interested in the man who'd
• 7:31
  walked in through the door. He was in his 40s, apparently at
• 7:35
  least, and wore a long coat. Doctor, hello there.
• 7:40
  Fitz turned at the sound of the familiar voice.
• 7:43
  He was carrying a briefcase, a small silver one, very
• 7:46
  expensive. His hair was wet.
• 7:49
  You have a fish in your pocket? Fitz observed.
• 7:54
  The Doctor handed it over to him.
• 7:56
  So I do. Have you eaten?
• 8:35
  Michael, what are we going to do?
• 8:37
  You're suspended on a trolley with a laser heading for your
• 8:40
  groin. We're over.
• 8:42
  A pit of piranhas are coming to eat us.
• 8:45
  The satellite is about to get into orbit and destroy the
• 8:48
  entire planet. Hello, Joe, Thanks for having me
• 8:54
  back on. Thank you.
• 8:56
  Thank you very much. Leave me hanging.
• 8:59
  Yes. Yeah, I'll never be an actor.
• 9:01
  Welcome back to the Hamster Book Club, the James Bond Book Club.
• 9:10
  Michael, are you a James Bond fan?
• 9:14
  Yes, I love James Bond. I think Doctor Who and James
• 9:17
  Bond are two of those things that seem to go hand in hand,
• 9:19
  aren't they? At least if you're A at least
• 9:21
  you're a Doctor Who fan of the old school.
• 9:24
  I feel like a lot of people like those same things Don't they
• 9:27
  mean there's a lot of similarities, right?
• 9:29
  First James Bond film 1962 first Doctor Who episode 1963.
• 9:35
  His face has changed many times, but his mission remains the
• 9:38
  same. He's always.
• 9:39
  Got a beautiful woman on his arm.
• 9:41
  Always got a beautiful woman on his arm.
• 9:44
  Always advancing British interests globally.
• 9:46
  Occasionally working for a Secret Service in England.
• 9:52
  Yeah, I find that if you describe things vaguely enough,
• 9:55
  you can really make them sound similar when they're not.
• 9:57
  But I mean, hey, in 2025, right? Both big long running
• 10:01
  franchises. Both find themselves in hiatus,
• 10:04
  on hiatus in the middle of the the interval of the death and
• 10:09
  resurrection show. Michael.
• 10:10
  I'm starting to think that every single franchise is about to be
• 10:13
  on hiatus. Everything's ending at the
• 10:15
  moment. Nothing's beginning.
• 10:18
  Star Trek Strange new worlds that's.
• 10:20
  Two more years, that's it. Yeah, then that'll be come.
• 10:23
  They keep telling us there's going to be another Star Wars
• 10:25
  film. I simply don't believe there
• 10:27
  will be. And there's.
• 10:30
  It'd be helpful, I think, the third example.
• 10:32
  Can I ask you please, is there some sort of wish fulfilment
• 10:35
  there? You know, being a heterosexual
• 10:36
  man, you know this absolutely gorgeous debonair secret agent
• 10:42
  who's having it off with every Pretty Woman around him.
• 10:45
  He's got gadgets and fabulous cars and he's good in a crisis.
• 10:49
  Is that how far from the truth am I there?
• 10:52
  No, that's a very accurate description of me and James Bond
• 10:57
  enjoys reviewing Dr. Boyles this week, did you say James Biden?
• 11:03
  From. You.
• 11:05
  Don't know. Go on.
• 11:11
  Well, I don't think much of the crooked world.
• 11:14
  That's that's my Roger Moore impression.
• 11:16
  I won't be doing too much of that.
• 11:17
  Don't worry everybody. Oh, streaky bacon.
• 11:20
  You're just desserts, you know. Oh no, it's a Colin line.
• 11:24
  Well, yes, no, you're right. You're right.
• 11:25
  There is a lot of a Bond influence on Doctor Who.
• 11:29
  I mean, go and watch The Enemy of the World.
• 11:31
  It's pretty much a James Bond adventure, isn't it?
• 11:33
  With a big. Secret underground base.
• 11:35
  Certainly during the Pertwee years, I think Pertwee modelled
• 11:38
  his doctor a little bit on Bond. Certainly the gadgets and the
• 11:43
  action, you know, and the pretty girl on his arm.
• 11:46
  Beyond that, what do you reckon? I mean, I suppose it's as much
• 11:49
  as anything, it's a sort of shared lineage, isn't it?
• 11:51
  They're both British shows of of the mid 20th century that are
• 11:57
  building on a adventure serial tradition that goes all the way
• 12:02
  back to at least the late 19th century, Right?
• 12:05
  I mean, you look at you read some of the in Fleming books in
• 12:08
  particular, and you can see the influence of people like H Ryder
• 12:12
  Haggard and Sapa and especially Sax Roma, he of Fu Manchu, who
• 12:17
  obviously for, for fairly obvious reasons, we don't read
• 12:19
  this stuff anymore. And even beyond the, the
• 12:22
  terrible stereotypes, the writing isn't that good.
• 12:24
  But he was hugely influential. And and he was one of those
• 12:27
  authors who created the idea of the Super villain in the way
• 12:30
  that we understand it and the, and the elaborate traps and the
• 12:32
  global plots and all the rest of it.
• 12:34
  Not not just him, but he was a very good example and he was one
• 12:37
  who was a big influence on someone at Fleming's age.
• 12:39
  And you can see some of those same things coming through in
• 12:42
  Doctor Who as well. That type of story, that type of
• 12:45
  threat, the way that sort of slightly Manichaean worldview of
• 12:49
  the hero of good against the forces of evil.
• 12:52
  You know, for all the for all the fans of both franchises like
• 12:55
  to say it, they don't really deal in Shades of Grey really in
• 13:00
  any meaningful sense. And they both have some fairly
• 13:05
  obvious ways as well. They both have the Super
• 13:08
  villain. They both even structurally
• 13:10
  sometimes they both have to have the moment where the the baddie
• 13:12
  explains the plot so they can justify how evil they are being
• 13:16
  so that then our good hero can overthrow them.
• 13:19
  And that's not unique to Doctor Who and James Bond, but they are
• 13:22
  two of the longest lasting versions of that story.
• 13:28
  And I think you could probably really torture it a bit and talk
• 13:33
  a bit about the fact that being British products of the 1960s.
• 13:37
  I know the Fleming books go back to the 50s, but for the purposes
• 13:41
  of popular understanding, James Bond really begins in the 60s.
• 13:46
  They're products at a time when a the the country, the nation,
• 13:52
  the culture that had given rise to that type of storytelling was
• 13:57
  losing the predominance of which that had all been based, right.
• 14:00
  The reason that your heroes were all British was because Britain
• 14:03
  was the pre eminent world power and British people had agency
• 14:07
  and they went out and solved problems and what was good for
• 14:09
  Britain was good for the world. And so with Doctor Who,
• 14:13
  obviously he's not as consciously an an avatar of
• 14:18
  Britain in the same way that James Bond or specifically
• 14:21
  England that James Bond is, but he's a product of that culture.
• 14:25
  And the stories that he takes part in are reflective often of
• 14:30
  a nation of that is in a in a sense of influential decline,
• 14:37
  right? It's Doctor Who, mass
• 14:40
  manufacturers, dystopias. And at the same time, you had
• 14:44
  all of these really optimistic American sci-fi, and at the same
• 14:47
  time, James Bond is this hero of of continuity empire in some
• 14:51
  ways. But till maybe the 90s when
• 14:53
  we're a bit embarrassed by all, you know, that's being examined
• 14:56
  a little bit. Well, yeah.
• 14:57
  And as soon as the 80s he's, you know, he's being problematized
• 15:00
  in all sorts of different ways, right.
• 15:02
  And so I think they are both, they are interesting, They're
• 15:05
  not the same, but they are both interesting facets to look onto
• 15:09
  Britain across that time and it's changing view of itself
• 15:13
  through two of its biggest, most famous and enduring heroes.
• 15:17
  I don't think we should exempt either James Bond or Doctor Who
• 15:21
  from unfortunate stereotyping as well.
• 15:23
  Both are guilty of it across the time but also as well Doctor Who
• 15:27
  and James Bond because they are over such a period of time from
• 15:31
  the 60s to the modern day. How it is reinvents itself time
• 15:37
  after time is really interesting.
• 15:39
  And I think like Doctor Who, there's lots of comparisons
• 15:42
  which Bonds better, which EMS better, you know, which era is
• 15:45
  better. But also as well how they
• 15:50
  comment on the. It's almost like a little time
• 15:53
  capsule watching. I watched 2 Bond films for this.
• 15:57
  You sent me some homework. Thank you very much as in a way
• 16:00
  of broadening my horizons beyond just watching, you know, Doctor
• 16:04
  Who DVDs for the rest of my life.
• 16:06
  And certainly one of these, Goldeneye had so much to say
• 16:11
  about what was going on politically at the time.
• 16:14
  You know, they are almost like little time bobbers.
• 16:15
  I think that about some 70s Doctor Who stories as well.
• 16:18
  They're absolutely talking about coal mines closing, you know,
• 16:21
  and ecological disasters and, and exactly what was in the
• 16:24
  ether at the time. Yeah, and as part of that
• 16:28
  enduring nature, both series are massive cultural sponges, right?
• 16:32
  They're both of them not just literally commenting on what's
• 16:35
  going on, but also just in the influences they're drawing on.
• 16:38
  OK, what's popular? How do we do this now?
• 16:40
  How do we fix this format around sometimes in quite, you know,
• 16:44
  huge cases like Moonraker say, oh, Star Wars is huge ever once
• 16:48
  everyone wants effects driven sci-fi now.
• 16:52
  So James Bond's going to space, ladies and gentlemen.
• 16:56
  People without budget, they still can't do it, but I gave it
• 16:58
  a bloody good go. You know that bit where that
• 17:00
  thing's going round and round and round and round around when
• 17:02
  he's preparing for space? That sequence, man, I'll never
• 17:05
  forget it. Yeah, and Doctor Who does the
• 17:08
  same thing, right? You know, Hammer Horror, gothic
• 17:13
  horror, you know, both franchises sometimes a little
• 17:19
  bit slow off the mark if we're being honest about spoofing
• 17:23
  these things or what it is they want to be talking about.
• 17:25
  But that's part of their success.
• 17:27
  And so I think both are serialized storytelling.
• 17:31
  You know, it's only latterly that the James Bond films have
• 17:33
  really developed any sort of ongoing narrative.
• 17:36
  So in some ways that quite old fashioned way of doing cinema of
• 17:40
  here's our hero in the next adventure and we're not
• 17:42
  necessarily going to have a story running through that,
• 17:44
  which is now pretty much done. I think the Knives Out films are
• 17:48
  pretty much the only ones holding onto that tradition now.
• 17:52
  From the perspective of big franchise building as it is
• 17:55
  right now, James Bond is always feels a bit more like TV in the
• 18:00
  modern world of the next adventure that comes along.
• 18:03
  And, you know, possibly because it was born at a time when TV
• 18:07
  hadn't yet quite displaced cinema.
• 18:10
  With that type of storytelling. I must.
• 18:11
  Say TV nowadays is more like cinema than cinema itself.
• 18:15
  That's probably why it feels that way.
• 18:17
  Yeah, absolutely. And it's maybe not a coincidence
• 18:19
  this is me thinking off the top of my head now, but it's not a
• 18:21
  coincidence that in the 1960s, alongside Doctor Who on TV
• 18:25
  certainly are. On ITV you had a lot of shows
• 18:28
  that were directly inspired by James Bond and some of the most
• 18:30
  successful James Bond influenced series of the time We're on TV,
• 18:36
  Danger man. I know The Avengers preceded it,
• 18:38
  but we would be lying if we said The Avengers didn't pay some
• 18:40
  attention to what was going on with James Bond.
• 18:44
  Adam Adam and lives and the Saints and all the rest of them
• 18:47
  and all that through you know Jason King Department X what was
• 18:51
  it S and that sort of. Troubling sexism that's in all
• 18:56
  those TV shows you just mentioned there, you know, Jason
• 18:59
  King and stuff like that. Really sort of terrible sexism.
• 19:03
  I don't have an issue with it in the bonds.
• 19:05
  I think it's because very often the women are quite capable.
• 19:08
  You know, look at all the black men, you know, Diana Rigg,
• 19:11
  they're capable of beating the shit out of people if they want
• 19:13
  to. Yeah.
• 19:14
  Well, I mean, with both, with both of them, they are so huge
• 19:18
  and so, so varied within themselves that it's difficult
• 19:20
  to say it's always fine or it's always OK.
• 19:22
  There are terrible examples within both, sometimes even
• 19:25
  within the same films. You can.
• 19:27
  One of the. Films you made me watch.
• 19:29
  There was a scene where I was like, oh, don't do this.
• 19:31
  And thank God. Roger Moore deflected the
• 19:33
  advances of, what's her name, BB Mimi.
• 19:36
  Yes, the young ice skater in Fioras only.
• 19:39
  And he was like, oh, sorry, I'm too old for this sort of thing.
• 19:43
  I was like. Good on your bonds.
• 19:45
  You're learning, yeah. And that's you know that, but I
• 19:49
  think Steven Moffett actually said this about Doctor Who when
• 19:53
  they were making the curse of fatal death.
• 19:55
  And he said Doctor Who is like James Bond in so far as you're
• 19:58
  on a hiding to nothing to do a spoof because.
• 20:02
  Any joke you can make, it has made the joke about itself
• 20:05
  already. They are both very aware of
• 20:08
  their own perception, their own public perception, and often
• 20:11
  reacting very strongly against that.
• 20:13
  For Your Eyes Only is a great example of that.
• 20:15
  Came off the back of Moonraker, which was the most in the best
• 20:19
  possible way, ludicrous. Full blown James Bond is the
• 20:23
  British tinting and lucrative. It was, at the time, the the
• 20:26
  highest grossing James Bond film to date, but they were aware
• 20:31
  that there was a perception that James Bond was getting too silly
• 20:33
  and that they were going to have to start to bring it back in.
• 20:35
  So Fiora's only opens with a sequence in which they bring
• 20:38
  back Blofeld and have the first proper reference to Tracy Bond.
• 20:42
  Unbelievable. He takes him up in his
• 20:44
  helicopter, he hooks the helicopter into his wheelchair,
• 20:47
  takes him up and then drops him. Down a big out I mean you
• 20:50
  wouldn't be doing that these. Days, would you?
• 20:52
  No, it sets a tone in many ways but that sequence.
• 20:56
  I did laugh. That sequence has no connection
• 20:59
  to the rest of the narrative, but other than as.
• 21:01
  Totally as well. Tonally, but its purpose is to
• 21:05
  be a meta textual commentary of going right.
• 21:07
  Everybody, sorry about the spaceships we're going back
• 21:11
  with. We're picking up where we left
• 21:12
  with George Lazenby, for better or worse.
• 21:15
  But that's what it's there for. In the same way that Doctor Who
• 21:17
  does this all the time. Doctor Who regenerates into a
• 21:20
  woman because it's time, and we know it's over time for that to
• 21:22
  happen, right? It is very aware of itself.
• 21:25
  Doctor Who regeneration to a woman and then puts her in a
• 21:27
  bond. Spoof Well, Spy Fall is an
• 21:31
  interesting example of how not to do Doctor Who and James Bond
• 21:35
  get. Off.
• 21:37
  No, because the problem with Spy Fall is it is so witless about
• 21:41
  its relationship to James Bond. Because nice.
• 21:44
  Doctor. The Doctor.
• 21:46
  Yeah. Come on.
• 21:47
  I love it. Graham's got a laser shoe.
• 21:49
  I'm. Sorry, the old shoe shuffle.
• 21:53
  I'm no, no, I'm sorry. I'm not having it.
• 21:55
  It isn't good enough. Because literally these, these
• 21:59
  same jokes have been made about James Bond at that stage for
• 22:02
  almost 60 years. They were doing gags along the
• 22:06
  lines of laser shoes. And my name's the Doctor.
• 22:09
  The doctor in 1960. Whatever.
• 22:12
  I will say no. I will say about Smifel.
• 22:14
  Yeah, I know. You know the way.
• 22:16
  Maybe I'll give you that, maybe not.
• 22:17
  But they certainly put the money on the screen and make it look
• 22:22
  like a fabulous Bond movie with action set pieces in exploding
• 22:26
  planes, you know, casinos and riding through motorbikes
• 22:30
  shooting each have. Oh fabulous.
• 22:32
  Spy Fall could have been written by someone who had never seen a
• 22:35
  Bond film but was actually no Spy Fall looks exactly like
• 22:40
  Chris Chibnall had never seen a Bond film but had been charged
• 22:43
  to write had been charged. More fun in my life than.
• 22:46
  You had been charged to write a Doctor Who bond spoof and he
• 22:50
  got, oh God, what's in it laser shoes the most.
• 22:54
  Now I tell you, if my family had done a bond spoof Christmas
• 22:58
  special, it wouldn't be far different from what's in most of
• 23:01
  spy fall. And the worst thing, the worst
• 23:03
  thing about Spy Fall go on is the title, because it's saying
• 23:08
  it's like Skyfall but about spies.
• 23:11
  Do you know what was so funny as I did?
• 23:13
  A commentary of Jack Hoyer the other day on The Witch Finders
• 23:16
  and he kept calling it fucking Skyfall.
• 23:19
  Every time he said it, I was like, see, he's got you.
• 23:23
  Well, let's move away from that. Then back to the movies.
• 23:25
  I don't feel we're going to disagree because I love Spyfall
• 23:27
  and you clearly hate it. Well, I mean, there's there's
• 23:31
  things I like about it, but it's not the bond pastiche element.
• 23:34
  Michael, why these movies? Now look, you could have chosen
• 23:37
  from the whole reef of Bond movies and you chose quite a
• 23:42
  dreary Roger Moore movie for me to watch when I know there's
• 23:47
  much more fun ones available, some involving voodoo and all
• 23:49
  sorts, and a fabulous, may I say, Pierce Brosnan, one which
• 23:55
  I'd never seen before in my life.
• 23:56
  Now tell everybody what we watched.
• 23:59
  We watched For Your Eyes Only and Goldeneye, and the reason
• 24:04
  for that is because Joe wanted just two James Bond films that
• 24:08
  would be relevant to the book. We're all here to discuss
• 24:12
  there's. We haven't mentioned it,
• 24:14
  Michael. Yeah, we.
• 24:14
  Haven't mentioned it but Joe they saw the episode title.
• 24:18
  Some of them, bless them, probably remember from the end
• 24:20
  of the Lux episode they can look at their phones right now and
• 24:23
  see the title that is scrolling past them and it is trading
• 24:27
  futures for Lance Parkin from 2002.
• 24:30
  Our Lance Parkin. Our Lance.
• 24:33
  That's right. Friend of the show.
• 24:35
  Yes. Yeah, trading futures from April
• 24:38
  2002. For Bond fans worried about the
• 24:40
  chronology, this was came out between The World Is Not Enough
• 24:44
  and Pierce Brosnan's final Bond film, Die Another Day, which
• 24:48
  came out at the end of 2002. And excitingly for many people
• 24:53
  listening to this, Die Another Day features a blink and you'll
• 24:56
  Miss It appearance from all Darrow of all people.
• 25:01
  That's it. Yeah, I think they largely, I
• 25:04
  think they largely cut his scene.
• 25:05
  He plays a Doctor Who I think gets knocked out by James Bond.
• 25:08
  You know Joseph first Zarov himself turns up in a Bond
• 25:11
  movie, doesn't he? Diamonds are forever.
• 25:13
  So oh, that was a dreadful movie.
• 25:15
  Jesus Christ. Do you remember when Blofield
• 25:17
  was dressed as the woman in the car?
• 25:19
  Like most stroke in the pussy. I thought you would love
• 25:23
  Diamonds are Forever. That stupid woman, the Bond girl
• 25:26
  with that, with the. Machine gun falling off the
• 25:29
  flat. Tiffany Case.
• 25:32
  Yeah, terrible. Oh dear.
• 25:33
  Well, I mean, I will say I did enjoy both movies because both
• 25:37
  had things to recommend, but I think the Roger Moore one it it
• 25:43
  fell between two stalls of the sort of campiness I expect from
• 25:47
  Bonds and the grittiness that I only expect from from Russia is
• 25:52
  Love or Daniel Craig movies later on in the line whereas Die
• 25:57
  Another Day. Goldeneye.
• 25:59
  Oh yeah, sorry, edit edit edit. Whereas Goldeneye absolutely was
• 26:04
  how I was visualising trading futures.
• 26:08
  Yeah, as I was reading it, it was that sort of glossy mid 90s,
• 26:13
  fabulous location work, great model work, dynamic action.
• 26:18
  Yeah, that's exactly what I was saying.
• 26:19
  So I think the latter was a great choice.
• 26:21
  But I do realize, and I won't say why yet I realize it exactly
• 26:25
  why we watched. Oh God, what was the first one
• 26:27
  called? For your eyes only.
• 26:29
  Why we watched for your eyes only, but yeah, I didn't realize
• 26:33
  until the last 10 minutes so. No so bit of context for anyone
• 26:38
  who's not read it. Trading futures comes It's
• 26:43
  during the Doctors amnesia arc that Phil and the more
• 26:47
  importantly, the Sabbath arc, which runs from the Adventures
• 26:51
  of Henrietta St. through to sometime Never I'm.
• 26:54
  Calling it the golden age of original Doctor Who books.
• 26:58
  Sort of from I've got starting at Father Time and I'm ending at
• 27:02
  sort of time 0. 2000 and one 2002.
• 27:06
  Honestly you just look to pick names at random of of Ed as that
• 27:10
  were published in those couple years.
• 27:12
  The crooked world. Father Time.
• 27:14
  Camera Obscurer. The adventurers of Henrietta
• 27:17
  Streets. And macrophobia.
• 27:20
  Camera Obscurer. Bad dogs and Englishman.
• 27:23
  History One O 1 Hope and Trading futures.
• 27:29
  I mean, and we could have mentioned others.
• 27:30
  It's it's a it's a it's a ridiculously strong run there of
• 27:34
  I think there's an element when we spoke to Lance, our Lance,
• 27:37
  our Lance, yeah, our Lance. And he talked about the attempt
• 27:43
  to give Doctor Who, as James Bond has had at different
• 27:46
  points, a reset, taking back to basics that, you know, this is
• 27:49
  the Daniel Craig era of Doctor Who writes there's no Time Lords
• 27:52
  again, he doesn't know his past again, because that's the thing
• 27:56
  we think if it's being new. But I think viewed in abstract,
• 28:00
  it's really attempt to return the Doctor to the character he
• 28:03
  was when we met him in An Unearthly Child, right even down
• 28:06
  to the to the end of Escape Velocity mimicking the end of An
• 28:10
  Unearthly Child A. Chance to ditch all of the
• 28:14
  consolidity that was bogging the series down.
• 28:17
  It's certainly before the burning, you know, they were
• 28:21
  doing all that Time Lords, and a lot of it was really ambitious,
• 28:24
  that sort of Time War art that they did.
• 28:27
  But fact me, it was all mired in continuity and history.
• 28:31
  And this was just a chance to wipe the slate, which you have
• 28:33
  to do with Doctor Who every now and again, and just tell
• 28:36
  original stories. And they leapt on it here,
• 28:38
  didn't they, that there were so many, the variety of those
• 28:41
  stories as well, not just the quality, but the different
• 28:44
  approaches, the different styles, Sometimes in retrospect.
• 28:48
  And I, you know, I think at least some authors who've been
• 28:50
  involved have said this themselves.
• 28:52
  They didn't always hang together as a series as tightly as they
• 28:56
  might, but not for want of imagination.
• 28:59
  And it's, I think perhaps that's why they've really gained a
• 29:03
  reputation in the years since, because people are going back
• 29:05
  and dipping into them like we're doing here and grabbing them
• 29:08
  going, oh, what was the book of the still all about?
• 29:10
  That's a funny looking cover, isn't it?
• 29:12
  And, you know, not having to worry so much about the the
• 29:15
  clarity of Sabbath's ark. And I think I'm learning as well
• 29:19
  is while we're just talking about the full little era, it's
• 29:21
  the new Adventures seem to have found their groove at the same
• 29:24
  time, I think as well, sort of just after the meet, just before
• 29:28
  the end, there's like a run there of new Adventures as well
• 29:31
  that are just fucking gold. So it's almost like you've got
• 29:35
  to learn all the lessons in the 1st 30 books and then you've got
• 29:38
  a sort of a great run to the end.
• 29:41
  And this comes, this comes sort of towards the end of that run.
• 29:44
  If we're ending that sort of golden age with Time 0.
• 29:47
  Although I could go all the way to the Gallifrey Chronicles with
• 29:49
  a few bumps towards the end, but pretty much all the way to the
• 29:54
  end and trading futures then what?
• 29:56
  That's probably about bang in the middle, isn't it?
• 29:58
  Of that of the last run, The last half?
• 30:01
  Yeah. So it began with the, IT began
• 30:03
  with the burning, which I think was August, September 2000.
• 30:08
  Time Zero was, I want to say September 2002.
• 30:11
  And then Gallifrey Chronicles was, well, it was the same month
• 30:14
  Doctor Who came back, wasn't it was March, April 2005.
• 30:18
  So yeah, it is. But it just before, depending
• 30:20
  how you want to split it, especially when you consider
• 30:22
  the, the, the speed of publication slowed down for the
• 30:25
  last year or two. Yeah, it's about.
• 30:28
  It's about halfway through that run.
• 30:31
  We've covered a number of Lance Parkin books before.
• 30:36
  We did Father Type, which was just packed with substance.
• 30:39
  Yeah, packed with details. And we did The Dying Days, which
• 30:43
  was a just an amazing political thriller, but brisk and, and,
• 30:48
  and really pacey. You know, whereas this, I think
• 30:53
  this is the outlier of Lance's books.
• 30:56
  I think this is the one that people say is his weakest and I
• 31:02
  don't agree. Yeah, that is certainly the
• 31:05
  reputation. And Lance Parkin is here, as in
• 31:11
  many places, held in very high esteem by, by Doctor Who book
• 31:15
  fans and and rightly so. We're not going to argue against
• 31:17
  that here. So I think saying Lance Parkins
• 31:20
  weakest book or lightest book is I don't think of criticism.
• 31:23
  I, I do not know anyone who actually has a bad word to say
• 31:26
  about trading futures. It's just that when it's a Lance
• 31:29
  Parkin book, it's a Lance Parkin book.
• 31:31
  It's father time, it's the Infinity doctors, it's the dying
• 31:37
  days, it's the gallivary chronicles.
• 31:38
  It's called fusion. You know, really this, and I'm
• 31:42
  probably forgetting some, but this and just a.
• 31:44
  Multi verse of bloody histories that he's brought out laying out
• 31:49
  the entire history of Doctor Who.
• 31:51
  Just just war. An actual, honest to God's grown
• 31:55
  up attempt at engaging with the realities of Nazism and
• 31:58
  authoritarianism in a Doctor Who book, you know.
• 32:01
  What's he doing differently here then?
• 32:04
  I think it is deliberately a lighter book, and by lighter I
• 32:09
  don't mean that as a criticism at all.
• 32:11
  One of the things is possibly why Lance Parkins books stand
• 32:15
  down. It's probably indicative of his
• 32:18
  very canny engagement with Doctor Who stories is he said in
• 32:23
  a few places. If you want, apart from anything
• 32:25
  else, you're trying to get commissioned and people getting
• 32:28
  pictures, brain editors getting pictures all the time and lost
• 32:30
  them would probably be quite similar.
• 32:32
  So you try and pitch exactly the thing that someone isn't
• 32:37
  pitching at that moment. So I've just.
• 32:39
  Read the Eyeless. All right, I know exactly what
• 32:41
  he's doing pitching. So just war, you know, pitched a
• 32:45
  pure historical, which there weren't not many of those in the
• 32:48
  Virgin New Adventures. I think he said with when we
• 32:52
  interviewed him, he said with Father Time.
• 32:54
  I think it was there that he said, you know, he pitched for
• 32:56
  the 1980s because he didn't think that was the decade anyone
• 32:59
  else would choose from the 20th century.
• 33:02
  And the missing adventures. He pitches a story with the 7th
• 33:05
  Doctor in it. No one else was doing that.
• 33:10
  Well, no, I think, I think he pitched AI think he pitched a
• 33:12
  story with Adric in it, to be honest, which no one else was
• 33:15
  doing at that time. And with trading Futures, you
• 33:19
  know, for all that we have praised this era of Doctor Who
• 33:22
  and, and rightly so, of Doctor Who books, there's a lot of
• 33:26
  heavy dark books in there, right I.
• 33:30
  Want to talk about this very quickly.
• 33:31
  I think there is, but I think it's post Time Zero.
• 33:36
  I think the run from Adventurous is heavy.
• 33:40
  From Mad Dogs to Time 0. There's the right balance of
• 33:44
  light and dark. So I think this is in that
• 33:46
  bunch. But we're about to head into
• 33:48
  that alternative universe arc where there's Mortimer death
• 33:51
  aplenty, despite the lack of Jim Mortimer.
• 33:55
  Well, and 2001, so presumably the time that he was actually
• 33:57
  pitching this, they're quite dark as well, really, if you
• 34:01
  think there's literally a story called grim reality in there.
• 34:04
  That's quite funny. Actually, and dark progeny, you
• 34:07
  know, it's not, it's not a light.
• 34:09
  Reality's byline is the adventures of Doctor Noel.
• 34:14
  But I mean, everyone was being a bit like that around the start
• 34:16
  of tournament, the Millennium, right?
• 34:17
  The lights went off a bit with things and we all got very
• 34:20
  serious. And so I think what he did was
• 34:25
  he pitched a like James Bond spoof, which no one else was
• 34:28
  doing. And you, you need it Doctor Who
• 34:31
  much more than James Bond. James Bond is very varied, but
• 34:34
  it tends it tends to go in waves, it's tone.
• 34:39
  Whereas Doctor Who's variety is kind of intrinsic to the idea.
• 34:44
  You know, you could argue about how much it was deliberate when
• 34:46
  they started off. But if you've got some if, if
• 34:48
  your premise is this man travels around time and space, you'd
• 34:52
  need your stories to be different.
• 34:54
  You need them to have a varied tone of varied settings in order
• 34:57
  to maximise what's going on. Because the the.
• 35:00
  Well, really, the police box is the only thing that's the
• 35:02
  continuing element across the whole thing.
• 35:05
  And so I think it's wonderful. I think we need this lightness
• 35:08
  to Doctor Who. As with James Bond.
• 35:10
  James Bond suffers when it forgets to be witty.
• 35:14
  Yeah. And Doctor?
• 35:16
  Who absolutely does as well, I think.
• 35:18
  Yeah, and there are points. There are points in that run of
• 35:20
  idios, but if you're reading them in order, they are
• 35:24
  individually for the most part, great books.
• 35:26
  But it can become a little bit of a slog at times.
• 35:29
  I remember reading them at as a teenager at the time and sort of
• 35:33
  opening up the next, you know, getting to like way down the
• 35:36
  line at like sleep of reason and going, oh God, it's another
• 35:40
  person having suicidal. Yeah, Jesus.
• 35:43
  Christ. I mean you know, I hate to do
• 35:46
  this sort of thing, but skipping right to the end of the book, IE
• 35:49
  the last line. Like he doesn't even have a code
• 35:52
  or anything, it just ends it on a gag and the book ends.
• 35:56
  Yeah, yeah. And so I don't, it is, I think
• 36:01
  in arguably his lightest book, but I think that's part of its
• 36:03
  joy as well. I think that's what it's trying
• 36:05
  to be. This book will say it upfront
• 36:08
  wants to be fun, and it knows that James Bond and Doctor Who
• 36:13
  have survived for so long because they're bloody good fun.
• 36:16
  But I tell you what as well, reading it this time and we'll
• 36:19
  go into this, I really was impressed by how, whilst not
• 36:25
  doing dense paragraphs like he did in Father Time, yeah, he
• 36:28
  sketched out this time period in a lot of details, in many
• 36:33
  different ways, you know, socially, politically, in just
• 36:36
  in the way that Lance Parkin does with a throwaway line, but
• 36:39
  like Robert Holmes would do, you know, But that just opens up a
• 36:42
  whole new window as to what's happening within this time
• 36:44
  period. I was really impressed by that.
• 36:46
  But also as well, having read this before and knowing what the
• 36:50
  ultimate twist is about this bloody time machine that's in
• 36:53
  here. Yeah, I was so impressed that
• 36:55
  the con was on from the first page.
• 37:00
  Yeah. So there's a lot there.
• 37:02
  And not to get all Rory Stewart, but two things, two things to
• 37:06
  say there. The first thing is let's talk.
• 37:10
  So let's talk about the setting. Is that what it sounds like?
• 37:12
  No, the setting. So the doctor fix an Angie land
• 37:22
  in, let's say, Angie's near future.
• 37:25
  Yes, The point made very early on is that Angie, who is really
• 37:31
  in some ways the central figure of this character, the central
• 37:34
  character, the protagonist of this book, she's the one who
• 37:36
  gets the James Bond role or the closest to it.
• 37:39
  Loves Ryan. I mean he admitted in my
• 37:41
  interview with him that he loved Ryan without the one he did for
• 37:43
  doco reviews, but you can tell. Can't hear you, really.
• 37:47
  Can tell. Going back and revisiting some
• 37:49
  of these books. I recently reread Hope as well
• 37:51
  for a different podcast. Sorry and.
• 37:54
  When she is fine. I read around What can I say?
• 38:00
  I at the time when I read it as a teenage boy, I liked Angie,
• 38:05
  but Fitz was where my loyalties lay because he was funny and he
• 38:09
  smoked. As a kid, I can absolutely see
• 38:11
  why. He went after girls and didn't
• 38:13
  get them type of thing, you know, and he's still a lot of
• 38:15
  fun. I'm.
• 38:16
  Not saying a word. But in this in this, but he's
• 38:19
  Fitz is the Comic Relief and gloriously so.
• 38:23
  But now reading these books again, only really identify with
• 38:26
  Angie because she is a grown up and she's certainly in Lance
• 38:30
  bargains book and in hope a very well realized grown up.
• 38:34
  She's like Tegan if she was less annoying, if she were actually
• 38:38
  had any sort of internal emotional life.
• 38:42
  She doesn't want to be there. She didn't choose to be there,
• 38:48
  but she is there and she has very mixed feelings about
• 38:50
  everything that's going on here, as well as mixed feelings of the
• 38:52
  life she left behind. He's perfectly prepared to admit
• 38:56
  that Angie is the smartest person in the room many times in
• 39:00
  this book. And she's perfectly prepared to
• 39:02
  admit it as well, quite a few times in this book.
• 39:05
  And she's a great foil for the Doctor because I love the way
• 39:07
  that Lance Parkin writes the 8th Doctor, which I'm not sure and
• 39:11
  anyone else ever did it quite in the same way, which is that he
• 39:16
  he doesn't entirely throw away what we see on screen in the TV
• 39:19
  movie, but he he expands all the bits that you don't expect him
• 39:22
  to. So he doesn't do so much of the
• 39:24
  romantic stuff. He does a lot of the, you know,
• 39:29
  open faced romantic figures, seemingly innocent, but with a
• 39:33
  depth of knowledge. There's something always
• 39:35
  slightly alien and slightly otherworldly about his Eighth
• 39:40
  Doctor, which at times puts me in mind of, you know, Matt
• 39:42
  Smith's Doctor when he's written really well, which is I'm a very
• 39:46
  clever guy. I know a lot of things, but
• 39:47
  there's something slightly unworldly about me.
• 39:49
  And unworldly in the sense of, I guess unearthly.
• 39:53
  I don't, I don't, I'm not from here, you know, so.
• 39:57
  And whereas Angie's a brilliant foil in this book, because Angie
• 39:59
  gets it, but the setting, as we were saying, is in her, in her
• 40:04
  future, her liveable future, if Angie had stayed on Earth.
• 40:08
  And just lived a life. She would still be alive now.
• 40:11
  And I think there's a reference early on to people her age are
• 40:15
  now pushing pensionable and well.
• 40:19
  Cleverly, she says every time they land in a new time period,
• 40:22
  she has to keep redefining what advanced technology is.
• 40:26
  So she's sort of keeping track as she goes along, you know?
• 40:28
  Right. OK, so we're before that.
• 40:30
  We're after that. OK, That's where we are.
• 40:32
  She's she's her own. She's doing a Lance.
• 40:35
  Yeah, and there's a brilliant phrase about her having time lag
• 40:39
  really early on, which said it's one thing to land on an alien
• 40:41
  planet or the distant past or a a distant colony world in the
• 40:45
  future, but it's a different thing to land 30 years in the
• 40:50
  future where everything is sort of a consequence and has grown
• 40:54
  out of the world she recognises. But all the shapes are
• 40:56
  different. And you know, I guess it's like
• 40:59
  you've skipped a few series of a of ATV program in terms of what
• 41:02
  it's actually set. The it's deliberately vague
• 41:07
  about the setting itself. Lance in a history says it's
• 41:12
  2016. Bollocks.
• 41:14
  Is it 2016? I think that's an effort to make
• 41:17
  it fit with other Doctor Who stories in his his clever little
• 41:21
  timeline. I think it's really meant to be.
• 41:24
  I think based on the the fact you can have, I think it's
• 41:27
  probably somewhere around the early twenty 30s is where we're
• 41:30
  meant to be. Would that's how it was.
• 41:33
  So you know, kind of where. On here are still coming then.
• 41:36
  The on here's are still coming. Well, then there's lots of
• 41:38
  little clues like it can't be too far in the future because
• 41:43
  and there's a reference to yeah, and people Angie's age, so born
• 41:47
  in the early 70s, a pushing pensionable age.
• 41:51
  So when she left that would have the time of age would have been
• 41:53
  60. So we're thinking about 2032
• 41:57
  thereabouts. The biggie is the news article
• 41:59
  isn't It's not Europe and America poised on the brink of
• 42:02
  war that could alter the course of this century.
• 42:05
  Of this century, yeah. And there's other little things
• 42:08
  as well in classic. As we've said before in this
• 42:11
  podcast, Lance Parkin is a bastard.
• 42:13
  And there's a brilliant joke about early on, Angie and Fitz
• 42:17
  go out and find a newspaper with the exact date on it and they
• 42:20
  show it's the Doctor. And he goes, ah, yes, but the
• 42:21
  reader's never told what the date is and.
• 42:25
  He's trying to follow along because I'm bullshit.
• 42:27
  He's got it completely wrong. Yeah, I mean, like, no, sorry,
• 42:31
  no, you continue. Go on.
• 42:32
  No, so no, but you're right. You touched on it.
• 42:34
  So but it is it's a near future story.
• 42:37
  Sometimes in Doctor Who, when we do near future stories, it
• 42:39
  basically just means we can do a present day story, but they can
• 42:42
  have a little bit of tech that we haven't seen yet.
• 42:44
  This probably for the the closest that's been done to it
• 42:48
  on TV is the enemy of the world. And not just because they're
• 42:51
  both are a bit James Bond, but because they are that unusual
• 42:55
  thing of Doctor Who of being, I guess you could call it sort of
• 42:58
  a future historical. They sort of function like a
• 43:00
  historical. They create a very clear
• 43:02
  historical moment within which things are being set, which
• 43:05
  you'd expect from something like the massacre or the fires of
• 43:08
  Pompeii or Rosa. Well, in Enemy of the World it
• 43:10
  was Vulcate earthquakes going off, wasn't it?
• 43:13
  Natural disasters. Here we have a tidal wave
• 43:16
  destroying Athens and bodies floating through the streets.
• 43:19
  But there's also a political situation and a a fairly
• 43:22
  developed political situation set up.
• 43:24
  So in the enemy of the world, it's the, the, all the, the
• 43:27
  zones and all their different leaders.
• 43:29
  And here we're in a new Cold War between the US on one side and
• 43:36
  the Eurozone or the EZ on the other side.
• 43:40
  And it's fascinating now, reading a book that sets, what,
• 43:46
  five years in the future, but written 23 years ago.
• 43:51
  Blimey. Alan Moore said that when you
• 43:57
  write about the future, you're always writing about the
• 43:59
  present. And I don't think that's ever
• 44:01
  more true than when you're writing about the near future,
• 44:04
  because inevitably you're looking at a world.
• 44:06
  What's the consequence of everything that's going to be
• 44:07
  there? And it is fascinating.
• 44:11
  The euro zone, Michael. Well, it's fascinating how we're
• 44:14
  looking sort of back down the lens from the other angle at
• 44:18
  this whole thing. Now what what I mean, I don't
• 44:21
  think Lance Parkin was making an was, was seriously setting out
• 44:24
  to say, here is what I predict the world of 2030 will look
• 44:29
  like. But you know, he's he's drawing
• 44:31
  out the current. Situations.
• 44:32
  Possibility of what could. Be here's a fun possibility, but
• 44:35
  it shows you the sort of preoccupations and where they
• 44:37
  were now. So this came out in 2002.
• 44:42
  I'd be fascinated to know when it was written because obviously
• 44:47
  September, September 11th had just happened and that was kind
• 44:50
  of the end of the long 20th century in many ways.
• 44:54
  And I'm just set. To some.
• 44:55
  Question there from. The few authors that I've spoken
• 44:58
  to that there was sort of a six months to a year.
• 45:02
  To more. Things.
• 45:04
  So I would imagine just after or maybe just before, but certainly
• 45:08
  during. And, you know, before really,
• 45:12
  the war in Afghanistan had got where it was before the war on
• 45:14
  terrorism had really built up, certainly long before the Iraq
• 45:18
  war ever happened and all of their, you know, consequent
• 45:22
  impacts and the rise of everything else that's happened
• 45:25
  since. So I think there's a degree to
• 45:26
  which it already felt slightly past the moment when it came
• 45:31
  out. Not a criticism of the book, but
• 45:33
  it's just fascinating how much has changed in this first
• 45:35
  quarter of a century. This is very much a product of
• 45:38
  the long 1990s. It's a vision of the future
• 45:42
  where as one character puts there aren't terrorists, not
• 45:44
  anymore, which I don't think if this book had come out in 2000
• 45:47
  and three, 2004, that line would not have been in there.
• 45:51
  It imagines that, you know, it's that post Cold War thing.
• 45:54
  You remember the 90s? The thing I was I was a kid in
• 45:57
  the 90s. And if you were a child in the
• 45:59
  90s learning about history and politics for the first time, it
• 46:03
  was made abundantly clear to you that you had lucked out.
• 46:08
  Everything had been solved and everything was going to be all
• 46:11
  right forever because the Cold War had ended.
• 46:14
  There hadn't been any made. For the first time in a century,
• 46:18
  there was no threat of major world conflict happening at all.
• 46:23
  Everything was kind of globalization meant we were all
• 46:25
  coming closer together. But I mean, I remember the day
• 46:28
  the Good Friday Agreement happened, like, oh, and there
• 46:30
  was a certain element of, well, there's another thing solved.
• 46:32
  You know this is. Fantastic.
• 46:33
  I ain't doing none of that in this book.
• 46:35
  Well, never one keep. Stabbing each other in the
• 46:37
  bloody back. But what there is is, you know,
• 46:41
  he's intelligent enough man to know that what's going to go on
• 46:43
  forever. But he imagines a world in which
• 46:45
  the West remains dominant and until eventually the inevitable
• 46:49
  thing happened, the sort of Western hegemony broke down.
• 46:52
  And so the new Cold War is just between the between Europe and
• 46:56
  America. It's fascinating that there's,
• 46:58
  there's one mention of China in the whole book and that suggests
• 47:02
  that it's been split. There's a reference to the North
• 47:04
  Chinese ambassador. Otherwise it's just not there at
• 47:08
  all. Russia is now this sort of non
• 47:11
  aligned mercenary state, which is a very sort of, you know, it
• 47:15
  seems very born of, you know, the sort of post Soviet
• 47:21
  dissolution, the sort of, you know, gangsterism that was that
• 47:23
  was seen as popularizing Russia at the time.
• 47:25
  Goldeneye reference there and the idea that it would just sort
• 47:28
  of continue along that way, that there wouldn't it didn't predict
• 47:32
  Lance Parkin, didn't predict Putin.
• 47:35
  This one, guess what I'm saying? Ridiculously.
• 47:37
  But none of this, right, none of this future history that he
• 47:42
  creates, none of it gets in the way the story, none of it gets
• 47:45
  in the way of the bon pastiche that he's telling, you know, or
• 47:48
  the humour or the action that he pumps through it.
• 47:52
  But it just adds some substance to it.
• 47:55
  No, and it's good and it's it's it's so lightly sketched out, as
• 47:58
  you say, in just little details. There's not many months.
• 48:00
  I think there's maybe. So the the idea is the US and
• 48:03
  the EZ are on the brink of war throughout the book because
• 48:08
  there's been a there's a power vacuum in North Africa after
• 48:11
  some of the old regimes collapsed and.
• 48:14
  I think a brief glimpse of gleaming tanks on a news
• 48:17
  message, but that's all you see. Yeah, and but I think that's the
• 48:22
  one bit of info dump you get in the whole thing.
• 48:24
  But I mean, the the purpose of this book is not to is not to,
• 48:27
  we're not here to mark his homework because that's not the
• 48:29
  point. I guess what I'm just saying is
• 48:31
  it's so interesting to see what you, what one might have
• 48:34
  imagined, even in fantasy this time now would look like, and
• 48:38
  how much assumptions have changed and how the big things
• 48:41
  that changed weren't the things that were.
• 48:42
  I should say, though, in fairness to Lance Barkin, there
• 48:45
  are elements of this that are remarkably prescient as well.
• 48:50
  So, OK, it may not be the US and the eurozone, but let's face it,
• 48:54
  we are in a period of renewed Cold War between the US and and
• 48:58
  China. This whole idea of a power
• 49:02
  vacuum because the old regimes collapsed in North Africa, well,
• 49:05
  that happens. That, that that all happens.
• 49:08
  And it didn't lead to a new World War, but it was a pretty
• 49:10
  big deal. You might remember he predicts
• 49:12
  drone warfare throughout. Oh boy, does he.
• 49:16
  Wars increasingly being fought with remote controlled robots.
• 49:22
  This all the stuff that becomes really important about the the
• 49:25
  it's almost easy to miss reading it in 2025 how much this was
• 49:29
  looking to the future. The idea of this is a a world
• 49:31
  under constant surveillance just because of the Super abundance
• 49:36
  of data that we all generate the whole time.
• 49:39
  There's the line. The whole world is data now.
• 49:44
  We've got the Russian gangster capitalism which is kind of
• 49:46
  there and, you know, under Putin now as.
• 49:48
  They're keeping it says they're keeping their gangs out of the Z
• 49:52
  at the moment. Yeah, we've got right okay, the
• 49:55
  the UK is still in the the ease at this point, but there is a
• 49:58
  minor subplot about the fact there is rising anti EU
• 50:01
  sentiment within the UK, including big fights.
• 50:04
  Concorde has been retired. There's a bit where Fitz gets
• 50:07
  hold of a little data pads from the aliens and he's basically
• 50:10
  having a conversation like he's talking to ChatGPT.
• 50:13
  There's continued conflict among the former Soviet republics.
• 50:16
  Baskerville. Express He says the Italians are
• 50:19
  too busy fighting each other to get involved with anything else.
• 50:22
  At the moment there's a European shadow government, but we don't
• 50:25
  go into any more detail there. Baskerville so the villain of
• 50:30
  the piece, who will, who will get back to expresses the sort
• 50:32
  of kind of anti establishment views that have been engendered
• 50:36
  by the by the increasingly remote power of this globalised
• 50:40
  of this globalised world. You think, well, we, we we all
• 50:42
  recognise that right now. There's a bit where the bat
• 50:45
  where Jonah Cosgrove, who will also talk about literally says
• 50:48
  he wants to make Britain great again.
• 50:51
  And Joe Joe, they've got iPhones.
• 50:58
  Maybe you could see into the future.
• 51:00
  That's EYE phones, but nevertheless, it was mobile.
• 51:03
  I went buddy. Excuse me, points for effort,
• 51:06
  OK, but just little details as well.
• 51:08
  Ecstasy isn't just legal, it's on restaurant dessert menus now.
• 51:12
  You know, people aren't smoking anymore.
• 51:14
  They're taking nicotine oil capsules.
• 51:16
  He talks about emasculated European cars, Rebel, conform,
• 51:21
  fashion. Just these little details where
• 51:23
  I was like God this is just a fully fleshed out world.
• 51:27
  Yeah, yeah, it. Doesn't really, because I tell
• 51:30
  you what this is. Maybe in Word count this is
• 51:33
  maybe a third shorter than the dying days, but I don't think
• 51:38
  it's scrimps on the detail. No, and all of this we've thrown
• 51:41
  in here is seeded throughout quite quite confidently and you
• 51:47
  know most of it is told through the story.
• 51:49
  There are very few info dumps in this tour.
• 51:51
  I was really impressed by that You, but you, you, you build up
• 51:54
  this picture as well and it requires a lot of confidence.
• 51:57
  I think the reason we've not seen more of these future
• 51:59
  historicals is because they are tricky.
• 52:01
  They do create a lot of work, I think within the sort of
• 52:04
  timelines that we know Thai in fiction is produced.
• 52:07
  They're quite labour intensive. But also there is just the risk
• 52:10
  of, and we've we've read books like this right, where you're
• 52:13
  just being told about a place and the stories may be
• 52:18
  happening. But here, all of this is
• 52:19
  delivered through the action, through the characters we meet
• 52:22
  and the incident. And you're literally like a good
• 52:25
  Bond movie. You're skipping from place to
• 52:27
  place all the time, from set piece to set piece.
• 52:30
  Yeah, I just thought, I thought it was so impressive, like,
• 52:33
  well, I'd step stood back from the book at the end.
• 52:35
  And I went, wow. Like there's a series of books
• 52:39
  to be told in that setting, not just this £250 pot boiler.
• 52:45
  Yeah, absolutely. And in this setting, we have
• 52:50
  this sort of bond. Pashti's story.
• 52:53
  Can we start with Baskerville please?
• 52:54
  Because we do sort of start with Baskerville.
• 52:57
  We do start with Baskerville. We start with Baskerville, who
• 53:01
  is the villain of the piece. And we know that early on he's a
• 53:04
  classic Bond villain, even down to the facts that his name.
• 53:07
  He insists that he's not Mr. Baskerville, he's just
• 53:09
  Baskerville, like Blofeld or Scaramang or Leshifra.
• 53:12
  You know, we know exactly who he's played by.
• 53:15
  It's Ian Richardson alert. It's.
• 53:18
  A. Lance parking book.
• 53:19
  So what was great is as well, The dialogue's really fruity,
• 53:21
  but you just hear Richardson's voice while you're reading it.
• 53:25
  Yeah, yeah, it's glorious. And he is ostensibly spoiler
• 53:28
  alert for this 23 year old book. He's ostensibly a time traveller
• 53:32
  from the future who has arrived back at this key moment in
• 53:35
  Earth's history, has become stranded there and wants to sell
• 53:41
  his time technology to the easy because he thinks it will help
• 53:47
  them avert the coming Cold War. And he has come with three
• 53:52
  prophecies of things to come to prove he's a time traveller.
• 53:56
  Isn't it someone film star's going to get murdered, The tidal
• 54:01
  wave in Athens that's going to murder a lot of people.
• 54:04
  And was it a nuclear bomb going off in?
• 54:08
  No, there's four of them, So yeah, so there's three.
• 54:10
  There's the ones you mentioned, there's all those.
• 54:11
  And there's also a passing reference to a football match.
• 54:14
  Oh, that's right. Yeah.
• 54:15
  Which was easy enough to Rick. Oh, sorry, spoiler.
• 54:17
  Yeah. So it's. 23 years old.
• 54:22
  Get over it. Yeah, but so the point is what I
• 54:25
  really like about this book and why I think we touched on the
• 54:28
  similarities and the differences between James Bond and Doctor
• 54:31
  Who. And we've touched on Spy Fall
• 54:34
  and its attempts at doing a Doctor Who version of James
• 54:37
  Bond. I think what's really clever
• 54:41
  about trading futures is it isn't that episodes of ATV
• 54:48
  series where everyone gets to dress up and be James Bond for a
• 54:51
  bit? There's a Deep Space 9 episode
• 54:54
  like that, isn't there? Oh, it's just gold.
• 54:57
  Carlo Konomonov, KGB. Yeah.
• 55:00
  But you know what I mean? Like every long running
• 55:02
  franchise gets the James Bond episode at some point.
• 55:04
  Oh no, this is a. Bond story with the Doctor in
• 55:07
  it. It's a but, no, but it's not
• 55:09
  just a Bond story. It's a Bond story melded with a
• 55:12
  Doctor Who story. And so it is hybrid.
• 55:16
  A hybrid, yes indeed. And it's really intelligently
• 55:19
  done. So we get bits of both
• 55:23
  narratives into wanting it like you couldn't.
• 55:25
  This isn't just that he's got to go and the doctor gets hired by
• 55:29
  MI 6 to go and track down the rogue businessman you know as.
• 55:34
  Fun as that is. This is a story that couldn't be
• 55:38
  James Bond. It's a prop.
• 55:39
  It's a proper, it's a proper hybrid of the two.
• 55:42
  So we get the bits that James Bond, but we also get the bits
• 55:46
  that Doctor Who. So you would never have a time
• 55:48
  travel story in James Bond, but here the Mcguffin, it's about
• 55:52
  time travel because that brings James Bond, that brings Doctor
• 55:54
  Who into it. We have aliens sort of on the
• 55:58
  sidelines, the on ears on. Board Do we have aliens?
• 56:02
  In their sideline, who have also gotten mucked in and involved
• 56:05
  because this is a because this is a Doctor Who story as much as
• 56:08
  it's James Bond story. Fetch me the pain inducer,
• 56:11
  Michael. But what's so clever about this
• 56:16
  is he doesn't do the thing that Spyfall does of casting the
• 56:19
  Doctor as James Bond. He's not doing a Gilligan's
• 56:22
  Island episode where Gilligan has to be a secret agent.
• 56:25
  He's not doing a My Family episode where Robert Lindsay has
• 56:28
  to be the secret agent. He's not doing Deep Space 9
• 56:30
  where whichever one it's from, Deep Space 9 has to be a secret
• 56:32
  agent. Yeah, sure.
• 56:37
  Because, you know, Doctor Who isn't James Bond.
• 56:40
  And there's a big if If this Doctor Who James Bond crossover
• 56:46
  has a thesis, it's that Doctor Who isn't James Bond.
• 56:49
  And do you know what James Bond would be a baddie in any Doctor
• 56:53
  Who story? Doctor Who is is a trickster.
• 56:57
  Is that why he lands on that boat at the start with a rubber
• 57:00
  ball and a glass of water? And he used to take off with the
• 57:04
  briefcase. Not a gum.
• 57:08
  No, not his fists. A fucking.
• 57:11
  Rubber ball with a glass of water.
• 57:13
  Doesn't kill anybody, but it's a trickster in the, you know, in
• 57:16
  the archetypal sense as well of one whose whose role in the
• 57:20
  story is unclear or effects to be something it's not.
• 57:24
  And I think there's another twitch throughout this story.
• 57:28
  The doctor is sort of exploiting the fact that he doesn't fit a
• 57:32
  Bond narrative and the story kind of distorts by having his
• 57:38
  presence in it. So there's a Hobbit where Angie,
• 57:40
  we said, sort of fills the Bond role.
• 57:42
  It doesn't mean she is James Bond.
• 57:43
  Again, it's not that basic for she's.
• 57:47
  A girl at one point. In her bikini on the deck of the
• 57:50
  boat. No, Yeah, she is.
• 57:53
  Yeah. I mean, in the actual 2025, you
• 57:55
  wouldn't have your heroine spend so much of the story in her
• 57:58
  bikini. But, you know, different time
• 58:03
  instead. But she's the one who is, she's
• 58:05
  the one who is abducted. She's the one who has to
• 58:08
  confront the baddie because the doctor doesn't fit that bit.
• 58:11
  And there's a there's lots of overlapping narratives and
• 58:15
  strands in this book, which again, are much more Doctor Who
• 58:17
  than James Bond. And Doctor kind of keeps being
• 58:21
  kicked out of the main storyline because he doesn't.
• 58:23
  Brilliantly, brilliantly. This man is a traitor and he
• 58:27
  gets thrown out a window. He's literally the doctor is
• 58:30
  literally thrown out of a window at 1:00.
• 58:32
  Point. Fortunately, Malady Chang is
• 58:34
  coming up the wall at the time to eavesdrop on.
• 58:37
  Bascombe Hill, So she catches him.
• 58:39
  Malady Chang, who is the the competent Bond girl for this
• 58:43
  story? You know what, it sort of
• 58:45
  funnels Angie into that role because ultimately, and we don't
• 58:48
  find this out until the end, but she pieces it all together.
• 58:52
  This is all about money. And what does Angie Kapoor know
• 58:55
  about money? Money, yeah, and it is so
• 59:00
  spoiled, alert for the end, the the revelation.
• 59:03
  But if you know it from the start, as you say, it's very
• 59:05
  clever. How much the con?
• 59:06
  Is how how you're manipulated and how the characters are
• 59:09
  manipulated, but you're going through it and she literally
• 59:13
  experiences the time travel of this machine, or so we think.
• 59:17
  And it's so compellingly done that by that point in the book,
• 59:20
  the first time I read it, I was convinced it was a time machine.
• 59:23
  Yeah. And I, that was, I haven't read
• 59:26
  this book in 20 years, but I remembered the twist.
• 59:28
  So the twist is that Baskerville is not from the future at all,
• 59:31
  that he is posing as a time traveller, that his time machine
• 59:35
  is a fake, and that in fact, those who go through time with
• 59:38
  him are being drugged with chemicals that make them very
• 59:42
  susceptible to see what they expect to see and what they're
• 59:45
  directed to see. So we get a couple of wonderful
• 59:48
  sequence sequences, one that you've mentioned where Angie
• 59:50
  goes back to Brussels in 2001 to the setting for Escape Velocity.
• 59:56
  And right at the start of the book, we get one where Jonah
• 59:57
  Cosgrove, we'll come on to him, is taken back to 11th century
• 1:00:02
  Scotland, to the events of Macbeth.
• 1:00:06
  And reading the the, the Scotland bit at the start for
• 1:00:12
  the first time. I remember.
• 1:00:13
  You just think they're back in time.
• 1:00:15
  Yeah. Reading it, when you know the
• 1:00:17
  twist, you realise how clever it is that the whole time, how
• 1:00:20
  hidden in the dialogue is the fact that Baskerville is
• 1:00:23
  directing Cosgrove to see what he expects to see any moment.
• 1:00:27
  It's really cleverly. So compellingly done with Angie
• 1:00:30
  when she literally sees was it Thunderbird one or in the
• 1:00:34
  Thunderbird? Three, yes, because she is a
• 1:00:37
  time traveller, because she has expectations, because she knows
• 1:00:40
  what time travel's like. And also something that
• 1:00:42
  Baskerville doesn't know because he doesn't know she is a so he's
• 1:00:45
  trying to fake time travel with a time traveller is she knows
• 1:00:49
  what she. Realizes that Michael, she goes,
• 1:00:51
  Oh my God, it even had a massive free on it for God's sake.
• 1:00:55
  He doesn't realize that she's going back to somewhere that she
• 1:00:58
  knows what it should look like. And so it all begins to fall
• 1:01:01
  apart. But.
• 1:01:03
  In the coffee, you guys out there, be very careful when
• 1:01:06
  you're drinking coffee, all right?
• 1:01:08
  Because the great line of Why would he leave The Time Machine
• 1:01:11
  but take the coffee machine? And it's, it's great.
• 1:01:18
  But so that's the con. Basketball's doing this because
• 1:01:21
  he wants access to the European financial systems essentially
• 1:01:28
  and he's going to root the whole financial centralised,
• 1:01:33
  digitalised, again very pressing as parking financial system of
• 1:01:39
  the world through his accounts and so he can basically skim off
• 1:01:43
  the every transaction in the world.
• 1:01:46
  Well, through a series of very intelligent conversations as he
• 1:01:50
  goes, why do you clearly have a lot of money?
• 1:01:53
  Why do you need more money? And he literally states he goes
• 1:01:57
  the person that controls the flow of money to the world
• 1:02:00
  controls the world. And that's what he wants.
• 1:02:02
  Absolute control. And it is although in Doctor Who
• 1:02:06
  to the works in Doctor Who terms because the time traveler it
• 1:02:09
  also is a is a really good non stereotypical but very true Bond
• 1:02:16
  villain plots Bond of the Brosnan era.
• 1:02:18
  So one of the reasons suggested you watch Goldeneye is because
• 1:02:22
  trading futures like the Brosnan films are trying to work out
• 1:02:26
  James Bond in the post Cold War era.
• 1:02:29
  Because James Bond your license to kill the last Timothy Dalton
• 1:02:33
  film came out in 1989. And even by then I think people
• 1:02:35
  thought James Bond was getting a bit old fashioned.
• 1:02:39
  Then due to various reasons, James Bond had a bit of a hiatus
• 1:02:43
  and wasn't back until 1995. And a lot of people at the time
• 1:02:47
  sort of assumed that James Bond films had just stopped doing
• 1:02:49
  them. And it sort of made sense
• 1:02:51
  because the Cold War was over. This was a character born of
• 1:02:53
  who'd only ever existed in the Cold War.
• 1:02:55
  The, the, the change in world view that came with the end of
• 1:02:58
  the Cold War is, I think easy to forget.
• 1:03:01
  There's a story, there's a brilliant story about someone
• 1:03:05
  from who's working at MI 6 in the 90s and they turned up to
• 1:03:11
  some meeting in, you know, 9394 whenever it was with people from
• 1:03:15
  across government and someone looked at him and went, are you
• 1:03:17
  still here? Like are we still?
• 1:03:20
  Are we still doing that? There was massive
• 1:03:23
  demilitarization in the 90s of course, and.
• 1:03:26
  Is that real? That's a real story.
• 1:03:29
  That's a real story. It's a book called The Secrets.
• 1:03:31
  The Secret State, I forget who wrote it, are.
• 1:03:35
  You still here? Wow.
• 1:03:39
  You can say that to me at the end of this call, all right?
• 1:03:42
  And so the Brosnan films, Goldeneye in particular, but all
• 1:03:45
  of them are trying to find, you know, OK, who are the villains
• 1:03:47
  now? So Goldeneye is very much just
• 1:03:49
  deliberately about the fact that the Cold War has ended.
• 1:03:51
  It centres that Tomorrow Never Dies, makes it about the media,
• 1:03:55
  The World is Not Enough sort of looks at gangster capitalism and
• 1:03:58
  Die Another Day basically tries to sub in the North Koreans.
• 1:04:03
  But one thing's Goldeneye really does is it it talks about
• 1:04:06
  finance, it talks about money. I mean, they've been there
• 1:04:08
  before anyway. But the Trading Futures has that
• 1:04:12
  similar sort of conclusion of the bronze films, which is well,
• 1:04:15
  power hasn't disappeared. It just operates in different
• 1:04:18
  ways and new and subtle in different ways, and people could
• 1:04:22
  still try to exploit that. I don't think the twist in
• 1:04:27
  trading futures is at any point the motive was money, because I
• 1:04:30
  think that's such an obvious motive, right?
• 1:04:32
  And, and the conclusion drawn that if you have all the money,
• 1:04:35
  then you have control of the world.
• 1:04:37
  The twist is that The Time Machine isn't real.
• 1:04:39
  And the twist is that Baskerville isn't from the
• 1:04:42
  future. You know, those are a big sort
• 1:04:44
  of rug pulls. So one of the things that the
• 1:04:47
  Bond films often do, and Doctor Who does this a lot as well, is
• 1:04:52
  they'll happen across new story shapes that really work, and
• 1:04:55
  then at intervals they will just remake that story again.
• 1:05:02
  The Dalek Protocol from Big Finish, for example, or one of
• 1:05:07
  them within the James Bond film. Which one was that again?
• 1:05:10
  That's death to the Daleks again, but this time?
• 1:05:14
  That was energy of the Daleks or the Excellence.
• 1:05:17
  But this time it's the 4th Doctor in Leela.
• 1:05:21
  Guess what? There was a second beacon.
• 1:05:28
  Somehow the Exelon City survived.
• 1:05:32
  But James Bond does that. And you know you can talk.
• 1:05:35
  You can see how Thunderball sets the template for You Only Live
• 1:05:38
  Twice and The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, but also
• 1:05:41
  Goldfinger and Goldfinger's kind of remade in stories like A View
• 1:05:45
  to a Kill and Quantum of Solace and that archetype.
• 1:05:48
  Is a better? Though Goldfinger.
• 1:05:50
  Oh boy. And that archetype is the is the
• 1:05:54
  is the villain who wants the money.
• 1:05:55
  All of this is an elaborate big robbery.
• 1:05:58
  Goldeneye fits into that in a certain way as well.
• 1:06:00
  All of this also mad little Alec can have his revenge, you know?
• 1:06:05
  Worldwide scale though, you know, with every sort of
• 1:06:10
  political intelligence back alley involved in it.
• 1:06:13
  Yeah, yeah. And so it is true to to the Bond
• 1:06:16
  archetypes as well. Not actually one of the things
• 1:06:18
  that people think about. And indeed, the more obvious one
• 1:06:22
  to go down is probably the the Thunderball route, right.
• 1:06:26
  But it is again, Lance Parkin knows his Bond and it is
• 1:06:29
  brilliant how he creates a Bond villain plot that is sort of
• 1:06:33
  made-up of bits from Doctor Who and it's fantastic.
• 1:06:38
  But being Doctor Who, it's not just doing that.
• 1:06:41
  He also has the Doctor Who elements constantly keep
• 1:06:44
  intruding on the narrative. And the ARC elements as well
• 1:06:47
  from this particular run of books.
• 1:06:49
  Which one should we talk about first?
• 1:06:51
  Do the space. Rhinos let's do them Yes, let's
• 1:06:53
  do the on heres. The on heres which is Joe, Yeah.
• 1:06:59
  Thank you, Michael. Yes, we're not doing the clade
• 1:07:02
  again. Thank you very much.
• 1:07:03
  On ear is Rhino spelt backwards, a Billy unexpected Billy Piper
• 1:07:08
  connection here. So the on ear on ears are sort
• 1:07:13
  of fitzes subplots who are alien bipedal rhinoceroses years
• 1:07:19
  before the Judoon. True fact.
• 1:07:21
  True fact about me. When I first saw those leaked
• 1:07:23
  set photos of the Judoon, I went it's the on ears.
• 1:07:27
  I didn't know when it's those rhinos that were at the door in
• 1:07:31
  the nightclub in Why do you want to play that song so loud?
• 1:07:34
  Yes, they would. We want to.
• 1:07:36
  Michael, because we want to. Because we want to.
• 1:07:40
  Now that unfortunately though, the on here seem to have
• 1:07:44
  mistaken Fitzcriner outfits space.
• 1:07:47
  Dunts as the Doctor. Yes.
• 1:07:51
  So in the rules of there, there is an idea here of like
• 1:07:55
  unintended consequences and I guess chaos theory or complexity
• 1:07:59
  theory. It's a bit Michael Crichton at
• 1:08:00
  times. This book, which is the joke, is
• 1:08:04
  the central, I guess, joke is that it's called trading
• 1:08:06
  futures, that the claim made by Baskerville is that he knows
• 1:08:10
  what the future is going to be and that he can show you the
• 1:08:12
  past. But really the book is all about
• 1:08:15
  the mutability of the future. And there's even a bit where
• 1:08:18
  they're talking about how often they seem to be encountering
• 1:08:21
  people on their travel stand, the Doctor and Fitz and Angie,
• 1:08:23
  who have access to time travel. And Fitz says, yeah, time just
• 1:08:27
  seems to be more malleable now. Which is?
• 1:08:30
  And she's just better. And she goes, you know, like,
• 1:08:33
  you know, when something comes into your life for the first
• 1:08:35
  time and then you start seeing it everywhere.
• 1:08:37
  Well, time machine came into my life.
• 1:08:39
  And now everywhere we go, I swear there's bloody time
• 1:08:41
  machines everywhere. Which there is, right?
• 1:08:43
  We've already done an acrophobia.
• 1:08:45
  We've done an acrophobia, we've done Mad Dogs and Englishmen
• 1:08:48
  done Adventurous of Henrietta St.
• 1:08:49
  And there'll be more coming up. Camera obscure?
• 1:08:53
  Yeah, just around. The camera obscure and you know,
• 1:08:56
  in that classic Lance barking way if there's always the sort
• 1:08:59
  of hidden narratives going on in his book as well.
• 1:09:01
  And the one here is really tying into the Sabbath arc, which is
• 1:09:04
  the post the destruction of Gallifrey.
• 1:09:06
  There's a vacuum like no one is controlling time anymore.
• 1:09:10
  And so you sort of have all of these factions who are emerging
• 1:09:13
  to potentially take the place, usurp the place of the time
• 1:09:17
  it's. Such an exciting idea.
• 1:09:19
  Who takes control of the heavens, you know?
• 1:09:22
  And, and they, they sort of study in so many different ways
• 1:09:26
  in so many different genres across this run of books.
• 1:09:30
  You're right. None of it sort of comes
• 1:09:31
  together except for the Sabbath bit that's running through it.
• 1:09:34
  Like they don't tie together all the different attempts into one
• 1:09:37
  big plan, but it's a great premise.
• 1:09:40
  Yeah, well, I mean in far the time we get those references to
• 1:09:43
  the sorts of future, literal future of the universe, but also
• 1:09:46
  the future of this narrative of the Imperial family who who rule
• 1:09:51
  over the universe and all the factions underneath them.
• 1:09:53
  And I do wonder if the idea was that those factions, the
• 1:09:55
  Clayton, all the rest of them were sort of where all of these
• 1:09:58
  different efforts at time travel we're going to ends up.
• 1:10:02
  And yes, you mentioned Sabbath because he's sort of the
• 1:10:04
  linchpin of all this, because he's the one who's wants to use
• 1:10:07
  it the place of the doctor because the doctor has no
• 1:10:09
  memory. He only has one heart.
• 1:10:10
  Time is missing a champion and someone else is going to step
• 1:10:13
  into the role. And I think they make the point
• 1:10:15
  here, don't they? And in other books that that
• 1:10:17
  Sabbath, I know, I think it was certainly not Lawrence Miles
• 1:10:20
  intent is that Sabbath is the antagonist, but he's not
• 1:10:24
  necessarily a villain. I think that got a bit lost
• 1:10:26
  along the way. You're.
• 1:10:27
  Probably right? Yes.
• 1:10:29
  But there's this early on, Sabbath gets a little cameo this
• 1:10:35
  early on, you get this idea that he is now the person with
• 1:10:37
  agency. He is the one who is setting the
• 1:10:39
  narrative. There's a there's a great
• 1:10:41
  reference to him being able to sail his ship on the Sea of
• 1:10:44
  Tranquility because he's from the 18th century when they
• 1:10:46
  believed it was a sea and so did it.
• 1:10:49
  He is able to kind of, it talks about Doctor Who distorting the
• 1:10:53
  narrative around him. And I think Lance made a
• 1:10:55
  reference to that in his author's notes for the Dying
• 1:10:57
  Days, that he had this idea that the Doctor kind of distorts
• 1:11:00
  reality around his companions. So they're less likely to be hit
• 1:11:03
  when they get shot at, but also they don't need to worry about
• 1:11:05
  things like going to the toilet and washing.
• 1:11:07
  And that idea entices you then read Camera Obscura because that
• 1:11:11
  is the premise of that book of how the Doctor disrupts time.
• 1:11:15
  There's a wonderful like 2 page speech the Sabbath has about how
• 1:11:19
  the all the rules of the. Two of us breakdown whenever the
• 1:11:22
  doctor's around. And it's it's essentially about
• 1:11:25
  their relationship. And yeah, the.
• 1:11:27
  Culmination of that. Yeah, and I've said this before
• 1:11:30
  elsewhere that all you can, you can kind of describe the
• 1:11:32
  Sabbath, argh, in conception as being Doctor Who's version of
• 1:11:35
  Batman Nightfall, which was, you know, when Bruce Wayne can no
• 1:11:38
  longer be Batman, who is Batman. And there is an element to this
• 1:11:41
  of when the Doctor can no longer be Times champion.
• 1:11:45
  Who, who, Who takes that place? But he has his agents, doesn't
• 1:11:49
  he? But he has his agents and here
• 1:11:52
  we have now before we we have Madam JAXA.
• 1:11:56
  That's. Right.
• 1:11:58
  Who is from the 49th century, the 50th century, where they
• 1:12:03
  have time travel and her job is to go back into the past and
• 1:12:08
  collect recordings of all the films and TV programmes that
• 1:12:11
  were lost or wiped. We see you, Lance.
• 1:12:15
  All right. And she's sort of saved by
• 1:12:18
  Sabbath. Gone back to 63 for us and got
• 1:12:20
  Marco Polo. We'd never told where she's
• 1:12:23
  coming back from or what she was collecting, but the idea is that
• 1:12:27
  on she's returning from one of these trips and the time she
• 1:12:30
  missed and landed on the moon before it'd been terraformed.
• 1:12:34
  So she's there, dying in the vacuum.
• 1:12:37
  And who should appear before her but Sabbath?
• 1:12:38
  Who offers to save her if she will enter his employee to help
• 1:12:42
  with his terrible machinations? And then her companion, so the
• 1:12:47
  other time agent who turns up in this story looking for The Time
• 1:12:50
  Machine that Baskerville doesn't have.
• 1:12:52
  So that's the great gag. Lots of people are turning up
• 1:12:55
  wanting The Time Machine and. It doesn't exist.
• 1:12:58
  Everyone converges at the climax, don't they?
• 1:13:00
  Literally everybody and the rhinos.
• 1:13:04
  And going after a thing that doesn't exist.
• 1:13:08
  So it's Madam Jackson's the one time agent and then the other
• 1:13:11
  time agent is a young boy. And you asked me before we came
• 1:13:15
  started recording, Joe, how? Do you want to talk about Roger?
• 1:13:19
  Roger. His name is ROJA.
• 1:13:24
  Is this another grab hang? On no, he, he is described as
• 1:13:30
  being Sabbath's cabin boy because, you know, Sabbath's the
• 1:13:32
  captain of the ship. And I was, I was trying, how do
• 1:13:35
  you pronounce that name? Is that like rocker or is that
• 1:13:37
  Roger? And then I went, oh, hang on a
• 1:13:39
  minute, He's Roger the cabin boy.
• 1:13:41
  And I swore out loud, Roger the cabin boy who famously wasn't in
• 1:13:49
  Captain Pugwash. You must know this story, right?
• 1:13:51
  It's even mentioned, you know, So the whole point with Roger is
• 1:13:55
  the doctor realises his name is Roger the Cabin boy.
• 1:13:57
  So there is a there was an urban myth for many years by people
• 1:14:00
  who only half remembered Captain Pugwash that all of the
• 1:14:04
  characters had had sweary names, That their names were all dubal
• 1:14:09
  entendres. This was a big thing in the 90s.
• 1:14:11
  Before master baits and all of. That master baits and seaman
• 1:14:14
  stains and Roger the cabin boy. And this was before, this was
• 1:14:18
  before, you know, everyone had the instant you go and check.
• 1:14:20
  But I remember being told this in the 90s, like, oh, yes, they
• 1:14:23
  all had naughty names. And people who could only half
• 1:14:25
  remember watching Captain Pokewash in the 60s or 70s went,
• 1:14:28
  Oh, yeah, that's right. But they, they weren't they,
• 1:14:32
  those weren't their names, as is pointed out here.
• 1:14:35
  And it was, it was quite a problematic thing actually,
• 1:14:37
  because the chap who was responsible for Captain Pugwash,
• 1:14:42
  he stopped being invited to talk at schools, to give
• 1:14:47
  presentations to children. I think it cost him a lot of
• 1:14:50
  work because people believed that he had basically been
• 1:14:53
  putting all these foul jokes in when he he hadn't.
• 1:14:57
  That wasn't the name of the characters. the IT was just Mr.
• 1:15:00
  Mate. It was, you know, Barnabas, it
• 1:15:03
  was Tom the cabin boy. There was 1 character called
• 1:15:06
  Willy, but that was about it. You know, it wasn't true at all.
• 1:15:13
  And what's he? Suggesting then that this is
• 1:15:16
  Roger, the cabin boy from another universe or something
• 1:15:18
  that did exist. He makes the point that Sabbath
• 1:15:21
  has recruited someone who doesn't exist because this is
• 1:15:24
  this is Lance parking doing Lawrence Miles and Lawrence
• 1:15:27
  Miles does things like the shift and stuff about people who
• 1:15:29
  aren't real being brought into reality and reshaping reality
• 1:15:33
  and Sabbath in his cameo appearance.
• 1:15:35
  The whole point is he manipulates his he he in the
• 1:15:38
  same way as the Doctor. He distorts reality around him
• 1:15:40
  and he deals with the conceptual and the chaotic and the magic.
• 1:15:43
  The Time Lords are gone so all of all and they brought this
• 1:15:47
  goes all the way back to Christmas on a rational planet.
• 1:15:49
  This is pure Lawrence Miles the idea that the Time Lords
• 1:15:52
  anchored the thread to use the phrase and they didn't only
• 1:15:55
  bring causality and one set of events.
• 1:15:58
  They created rationality and logic.
• 1:16:00
  Now they're gone. The irrational can come in and
• 1:16:03
  Sabbath at this early stage of the arc, it gets lost.
• 1:16:06
  This early stage of the arc is is able to do these things that
• 1:16:09
  don't make sense, and they don't make sense because our view of
• 1:16:14
  the world is the one that the Time Lords created.
• 1:16:16
  And so he recruits someone who doesn't exist, a fictional
• 1:16:19
  notional character. Roger, the cabin boy was never
• 1:16:21
  real. I hope it's true.
• 1:16:24
  And so he's making it. This is all true.
• 1:16:26
  This is the doctor pretty much explains this.
• 1:16:28
  He goes, he's recruited someone who doesn't exist because how
• 1:16:31
  are you ever going to track down someone who doesn't exist?
• 1:16:34
  And that leads that leads Roger to have an absolute existential
• 1:16:37
  crisis where he's the last receiving.
• 1:16:39
  He's just on his knees yelling, I do exist.
• 1:16:41
  I do exist. And then he gets shot through
• 1:16:44
  the head by another of the characters.
• 1:16:46
  We should talk about Cosgrove. Jonah Cosgrove as he introduces
• 1:16:52
  himself towards the Lance is very good.
• 1:16:54
  He holds off on doing that joke until the final act.
• 1:16:59
  What is he says He absolutely it's not.
• 1:17:02
  It's not just that, you know, he's an empire man.
• 1:17:04
  He genuinely believes that Britain is great, you know, and
• 1:17:07
  should be again. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:09
  So Jonah Cosgrove in the James Bond pastiche is, is James Bond.
• 1:17:16
  He's he's the James Bond analogue, specifically the Sean
• 1:17:19
  Connery James Bond also owes a little something to the
• 1:17:24
  character of John Mason, I think from The Rock, which is the
• 1:17:27
  Michael Bay action movie from the 1990s in which Sean Connery
• 1:17:31
  plays a a former MI 6 SAS operative who's been in prison
• 1:17:36
  for decades and is again essentially you.
• 1:17:39
  Want to say typecast? Well, I think it's a joke is
• 1:17:42
  he's meant to be, you know, reprising his role.
• 1:17:45
  But I think it's even implied, if I remember rightly, that John
• 1:17:47
  Mason might be a pseudonym. I think there's an interview
• 1:17:51
  with with That Sparkle where he describes him as the Sean
• 1:17:55
  Connery James Bond. But he never retired.
• 1:17:58
  He just stayed on until he eventually became M and now he's
• 1:18:01
  in his like 80s or 90s, but he's still like mega ripped and fit.
• 1:18:06
  I think he describes him as as drawn by Frank Miller for anyone
• 1:18:10
  who's read any Frank Miller comics.
• 1:18:11
  Well, he may be bond, but it's worth remembering he's still
• 1:18:13
  corrupt and greedy, you know, and comes to a very sticky end
• 1:18:17
  because of it. Well, but this is the point,
• 1:18:19
  though. You mentioned earlier, if you
• 1:18:21
  put James Bond into a James Bond is not a nice man.
• 1:18:26
  That's something that we often forget and the films often
• 1:18:29
  forget. But if you read the original
• 1:18:30
  books especially, he's not a nice guy, he's misogynist.
• 1:18:35
  He's a sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold
• 1:18:37
  War days. To quote Judi Dench from
• 1:18:39
  Goldeneye. And especially if you put him
• 1:18:42
  into Doctor Who, he's someone who was who advances A
• 1:18:45
  nationalistic agenda, who works covertly, who murders people
• 1:18:53
  left, right and centre, and who shags around a fair bit.
• 1:18:57
  And that's a. Witty, repulsed whilst he does
• 1:18:59
  it. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 1:19:02
  Yeah. In fact, he shoots Roger, says I
• 1:19:04
  do exist, I do exist. And then Jonah enters the room,
• 1:19:07
  shoots in the back of her, and said there's no need to brag
• 1:19:09
  about it. That's a great line.
• 1:19:13
  Almost as good as that woman being slingshot from that tree
• 1:19:17
  in Goldeneye. Was it Goldeneye?
• 1:19:18
  Was it the other one? Goldeneye Xenia on the top.
• 1:19:21
  Boy, that was a wonderful moment.
• 1:19:23
  Yeah, you're right, People do reach very horrible sticky ends
• 1:19:27
  around Bond, don't they? Yeah, he's he, he it's the kiss
• 1:19:30
  of death. John Higgs, who we've quoted on
• 1:19:34
  this podcast many a time for his book on Doctor Who, also wrote a
• 1:19:36
  book about James Bond and The Beatles.
• 1:19:40
  And he he aligns James Bond as Thanatos as death that those who
• 1:19:47
  come near him die, that he brings death as they do you
• 1:19:50
  know, Tracy Bond pitch anyone who sleeps the number of Bond
• 1:19:52
  girls will end up dying. He is the bad if you put James
• 1:19:56
  Bond into a Doctor Who. He is the.
• 1:19:57
  Baddie. He's the villain.
• 1:19:59
  Well, she absolutely is in this. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:20:03
  So he is, as we mentioned earlier on that nationalistic
• 1:20:08
  agenda sort of. He wants Britain is ostensibly
• 1:20:12
  part of the Eurozone, but he wants this very specific, the
• 1:20:17
  time traveler very specifically for Britain.
• 1:20:21
  So Jonah Cosgrove, James Bond is advancing A nationalistic agenda
• 1:20:26
  and the points repeatedly made that he works for the EZ, but
• 1:20:28
  he's been in the Secret Service since the 60s.
• 1:20:33
  Also he has a Swiss mother and not a drop and hasn't lived in
• 1:20:36
  Scotland since the 50s. He's James Bond, James Bond and
• 1:20:42
  very he, but he does also have that very patrician,
• 1:20:45
  exceptionalist view of traditional Britain.
• 1:20:49
  He wants the time travel too. As we said, Make Britain Great
• 1:20:52
  Again and God. It sounds like Farage.
• 1:20:56
  Yeah, he does. I think that's one of the most
• 1:20:59
  prescient bits of the whole book is, is this view of, you know,
• 1:21:03
  sort of conservative Britain wanting to finally wanting to
• 1:21:08
  get its revenge on the world and to put Britain back on top of
• 1:21:11
  the pile again. Or may we pray that Farage
• 1:21:14
  doesn't get his hands on time travelling coffee then, all
• 1:21:16
  right. Isn't that, isn't that the line
• 1:21:21
  from The Day of the Doctor about?
• 1:21:22
  Imagine Americans with time travel.
• 1:21:24
  You've seen their films. Terrifying.
• 1:21:29
  And so he he's he's, he's the villain here.
• 1:21:31
  And he is also interestingly talking about the Sabbath ark.
• 1:21:36
  I don't know if you spotted this.
• 1:21:37
  There's a very odd little scene where before he sets off on his
• 1:21:41
  mission, Jonah does a blood ritual where he he cuts himself
• 1:21:49
  and then makes a sigil of power on the on the front of his
• 1:21:54
  mission document. And it's an yeah.
• 1:21:58
  So because I think Lance Parkins is also a fan of Alan Moore, who
• 1:22:03
  we've had more than one reason to mention just now.
• 1:22:06
  And you've also been reading for your Homework From Hell by Alan
• 1:22:09
  Moore and Eddie Campbell Junior. Fucking terrifying.
• 1:22:13
  Great book though, right? And that.
• 1:22:14
  Imagery in that book Jesus Christ.
• 1:22:17
  And he talks about, you know, secret societies and, you know,
• 1:22:22
  Masonic rituals and blood rituals and rituals of power of
• 1:22:25
  the secret shadowy organizations that that run the world.
• 1:22:29
  So that's what he's really tying, that he's not just doing
• 1:22:32
  James Bond. He's doing James Bond within
• 1:22:34
  Doctor Who, where the secret societies can persist and can be
• 1:22:38
  villainous. But also, more importantly, it
• 1:22:39
  ties it back into the ark because he's a member of the
• 1:22:42
  Secrets service. And what was Sabbath a part of
• 1:22:46
  in the 18th century? He was a part of the Secret
• 1:22:48
  Service as well. Sabbath's gone off and done his
• 1:22:50
  own thing. But the society has persisted
• 1:22:53
  and it still wants that power. And the doctor even says at one
• 1:22:57
  point when he first hears about Jonah Cosgrove, and his first
• 1:22:59
  name is Jonah, which is the name of Sabbath's ship.
• 1:23:03
  And he's like, oh Blimey, you know, this is this is spiralling
• 1:23:08
  through time. The same thing's re emerging.
• 1:23:10
  It's so kind of as ever with Lance Parkins books, there's so
• 1:23:12
  much going on underneath the surface.
• 1:23:14
  And I had never caught on to that before now.
• 1:23:17
  But this Jonah Cosgrove is 200 years after Sabbath, still
• 1:23:22
  trying to make the British shadow government the Lords of
• 1:23:27
  Time. And that's so clever.
• 1:23:30
  But yes, he may be swathed, Sophisticated, intelligent,
• 1:23:34
  charismatic, fit. Yeah, he may have many resources
• 1:23:38
  at his fingertips. But when the doctor tosses a
• 1:23:41
  time machine over a Cliff at the end of this book, Jonah Klothko
• 1:23:45
  just jumps over the edge. He goes, well, if I get to it in
• 1:23:47
  time before I hit the rocks, I'll be fine.
• 1:23:51
  What happens, Michael? Well, so of course, because when
• 1:23:54
  we reach the end, when all the characters are converging, of
• 1:23:57
  course the thing we all realise is of course there is now, there
• 1:23:59
  is now a time machine here that is real, which is the one that
• 1:24:02
  Jackson and Roger used, which is a little handheld thing.
• 1:24:05
  And Cosgrove discovered it says well I'll be taking that then,
• 1:24:10
  thank you very much. And the doctor says where's the
• 1:24:12
  effect of catch it and throws it over the side of the Cliff
• 1:24:15
  they're still by. The scene is so great.
• 1:24:17
  He's like. Yes, he's almost there.
• 1:24:19
  He's almost. Got it.
• 1:24:20
  And then Lance does a tear and sticks on us, just in two lines.
• 1:24:24
  He hit the rocks. Fitz looked away.
• 1:24:27
  Yuck. So the climax, the Doctor, Fitz
• 1:24:31
  and Angie have have the time agents time machine and they're
• 1:24:34
  facing off against Jonah Cosgrove.
• 1:24:36
  And the Doctor says to Jonah, here's a choice for you.
• 1:24:40
  You can catch it or you can shoot me.
• 1:24:43
  You won't have time to do both. I beg your pardon?
• 1:24:46
  You can shoot me or you can catch it.
• 1:24:48
  The Doctor tossed The Time Machine over the edge of the
• 1:24:51
  Cliff. Cosgrove leapt after it.
• 1:24:57
  Fitz and Angie join the Doctor at the edge of the Cliff.
• 1:24:59
  He's mad, Fitz said. Oh yes, the Doctor replied.
• 1:25:03
  He can't. Possibly, Angie began.
• 1:25:05
  He can, said the Doctor, untroubled.
• 1:25:07
  Just, and he knew it. The slightest hesitation and he
• 1:25:10
  wouldn't have a chance. But he has a chance.
• 1:25:12
  Fitz asked. Yes, and if he gets to The Time
• 1:25:15
  Machine, he'll get everything he wants.
• 1:25:17
  He'll be able to go back in time and kill his enemies.
• 1:25:18
  He'll be able to bring weapons and intelligence information
• 1:25:20
  from the future. Yes.
• 1:25:22
  Cosgrove had his arms out like a diver.
• 1:25:25
  The window was intense, freezing.
• 1:25:27
  He barely noticed it. The fall was hundreds of feet
• 1:25:29
  onto jagged rocks. There was not one chance he
• 1:25:31
  could survive this unless he caught The Time Machine.
• 1:25:34
  The silver cylinder tumbled down 10 or 15 feet ahead of him.
• 1:25:37
  It looked like a cigar tube. It was that sort of size, that
• 1:25:40
  sort of burnished silver. He was gaining on it.
• 1:25:42
  He was definitely gaining. He had one chance.
• 1:25:45
  All he had to do was grab it, squeeze the controls at the end.
• 1:25:48
  One chance. He reached out, strained until
• 1:25:51
  his arm was almost out of its socket.
• 1:25:52
  His fingertips taps against The Time Machine, just for a moment
• 1:25:55
  as it spun, but he'd felt it. Seconds.
• 1:25:57
  He had seconds to do this. His arm reached further, his
• 1:26:00
  hands brushed against the cylinder.
• 1:26:02
  Cosgrove snatched The Time Machine, grabbed it.
• 1:26:04
  This was his destiny. He squeezed the controls, felt
• 1:26:06
  the machine powering up. He hit the rocks, Don't go.
• 1:26:12
  On do bits. Bits looked away.
• 1:26:18
  Yuck. Oh boy, I was howling with
• 1:26:22
  laughter. And that's just what you call
• 1:26:26
  just desserts, right? But it's brilliant as well
• 1:26:29
  because everything I've been saying about how the Doctor is
• 1:26:33
  distorting the narrative of a James Bond film, right?
• 1:26:36
  In a James Bond film, machines don't run out of charge, which
• 1:26:40
  is the whole point. Cosgrove catches up with The
• 1:26:42
  Time Machine, but as the Doctor has been warning, if they're out
• 1:26:45
  of it, it's running out of charge.
• 1:26:48
  You know James Bond film, You don't defeat James.
• 1:26:50
  Bond with a bowl and a glass of water, Do you?
• 1:26:53
  No, but we reach the reason why I assigned you for your eyes
• 1:26:57
  only in Goldeneye, because that sequence is also a double piss
• 1:27:00
  take of the end of your eyes only in which the Doctor throws
• 1:27:04
  the missile guidance system over the.
• 1:27:07
  Middle East somewhere very high aren't they on a?
• 1:27:10
  Very expensive location, chucks it over the Cliff to stop the
• 1:27:14
  KGB getting their hands on it and as he says you don't have
• 1:27:17
  it, I don't have it. That's they taunt and also
• 1:27:22
  Goldeneye in the much celebrated sequence, which also has a cameo
• 1:27:26
  appearance in The Dying Days. Benny briefly watches it when
• 1:27:29
  James Bond dives off the edge of a Cliff to catch up with a
• 1:27:33
  plunging aeroplane so we can make his escape.
• 1:27:36
  Oh, it's good that. I couldn't believe that.
• 1:27:38
  I'm like, really? And then he sails straight
• 1:27:41
  through. The door.
• 1:27:43
  Come on. Only bond, right?
• 1:27:47
  Because but but but unfortunately James Bond is in a
• 1:27:50
  Doctor Who story and what Doctor Who has that James Bond doesn't
• 1:27:54
  is Bethos. And sneaky wit about him as
• 1:28:00
  well. I mean, if only Lance put in a
• 1:28:03
  scene with an enormous tanks smashing through a load of
• 1:28:06
  streets. It would have been complete.
• 1:28:09
  I suppose we have the robots, don't we?
• 1:28:11
  Like the? Robots, The real war robots.
• 1:28:14
  Yes, in Lance Parkins twenty 30s there are still video game
• 1:28:17
  arcades. I don't know why I was seeing
• 1:28:19
  those robots. Do you remember those robots
• 1:28:21
  from RoboCop with the with the? I thought they weren't described
• 1:28:25
  like that, but I was seeing them like that.
• 1:28:27
  You have 30 seconds to comply. They're.
• 1:28:29
  Terrifying those robots. Machine gunning that person to
• 1:28:33
  death. Yes, yeah, I I like this book.
• 1:28:38
  I think it's a good book. I think it is undoubtedly one of
• 1:28:43
  the lighter of Lance Parkins books, but it's a heck of a lot
• 1:28:46
  of fun structurally, narratively.
• 1:28:48
  It is so clever in what it's doing and how it's putting
• 1:28:52
  things together. And it's written by someone who
• 1:28:55
  understands both Doctor Who and James Bond stories and how they
• 1:28:59
  operate, understands the similarities and the overlaps,
• 1:29:03
  but also understands the differences.
• 1:29:05
  And I think really cleverly works out a way to play those
• 1:29:10
  differences against each other to produce a story where the
• 1:29:13
  expectations of both narratives are kind of confounded at key
• 1:29:18
  moments. I think as well, and this is
• 1:29:22
  really important to me because these are my favorite regulars
• 1:29:27
  from original Doctor Who novels, is he understands all three of
• 1:29:30
  them. Absolutely.
• 1:29:32
  He loves Angie and he puts her centre stage and gives her she's
• 1:29:35
  she's instinctively more intelligent than the Doctor at
• 1:29:38
  times in this book. And I really appreciate that.
• 1:29:42
  But also, you know, he's not keen on Fitz and yet he writes
• 1:29:46
  Fitz so well, you know. Fitz Fitz improvising with a
• 1:29:51
  bunch of, you know, homicidal ro rhinos with smell technology.
• 1:29:56
  It's just that premise alone. I would read just that, you
• 1:30:00
  know, but that's just a. Side note in this book so God.
• 1:30:04
  Yeah, no, I mean, Fitz, we've barely touched on Fitz's whole
• 1:30:07
  side narrative, which is that among the people who've turned
• 1:30:10
  up looking for Baskerville's time machine are, as we
• 1:30:13
  mentioned, the on ears who are alien space rhinos who have been
• 1:30:17
  on a quest to attain time travel for thousands of years now and.
• 1:30:23
  Did you? I think he chose the word on
• 1:30:25
  here, you know, to take the piss out of people like me that
• 1:30:28
  didn't get Clayed in part of the time.
• 1:30:30
  That's deliberate. Surely they can't miss this one.
• 1:30:33
  What about Ferutu in cold fusion?
• 1:30:36
  What was that? Future OH.
• 1:30:38
  Thank you. Sorry, you were saying?
• 1:30:44
  Yes, there's, you know, again, there's a meta textual joke
• 1:30:47
  there that while everyone seems to be tripping over time travel
• 1:30:49
  in all these books, there's also this race of rhinos who've been
• 1:30:52
  looking for it for thousands of years and keep finding bits of
• 1:30:55
  time travel technology but can't actually sort of artifacts of
• 1:31:02
  time travel. And they have knowledge of time
• 1:31:04
  travel, but they can't actually get time travel themselves.
• 1:31:08
  And the truth is they're just a bit useless.
• 1:31:11
  Is the truth it? Did you spot what they were
• 1:31:12
  wearing? When when they turn up to
• 1:31:16
  interrogate Fitz and he's he notes that they're wearing
• 1:31:20
  tattered, tattered robes with high collars and a little one of
• 1:31:24
  them puts a little skull cap on the on his horn.
• 1:31:28
  We are the Lords of Time, all right?
• 1:31:31
  Yeah, well, we will be. I mean, that's very funny, the
• 1:31:33
  idea of having like the the shittiest monsters.
• 1:31:36
  Yes, and. Someone who's really shit at
• 1:31:39
  playing the Doctor in a subplot together.
• 1:31:42
  That's just comedy and a Doctor's reaction when he finds
• 1:31:45
  out that they've mistaken him. The Doctor look deeply offended.
• 1:31:49
  How could they mistake you for me?
• 1:31:51
  Goes. There's a bit, there's a bit.
• 1:31:55
  When they mistake fits for the Doctor they scan him and they
• 1:31:59
  say he has one heart. The Doctor has one heart and
• 1:32:03
  Fitz goes no, he's got 2O. No hang on a minute.
• 1:32:05
  No one. God, you keep your wings up to
• 1:32:07
  date, don't you? Even better in the.
• 1:32:10
  Climax The on here leader goes right up to the TARDIS and goes
• 1:32:14
  oh look at this useless human artifact, get it out of my way.
• 1:32:17
  Find The Time Machine. Yes, when they turn up at the
• 1:32:21
  base where everyone else is is, they're all converging.
• 1:32:23
  He's just, he's just leaning up against the TARDIS for a
• 1:32:26
  breather. Like the joy of the climax.
• 1:32:29
  That's right. It's basically what happens when
• 1:32:30
  you put the CIA, the American president, a super villain and a
• 1:32:34
  race of Time Lord wannabe rhinos in one area with a load of
• 1:32:38
  robots that are going to shoot everybody.
• 1:32:41
  A lot of people fucking die, all right?
• 1:32:43
  I mean, it's just a mad shoot out.
• 1:32:44
  Of the end with it. And the Doctor, Fitz and Angie,
• 1:32:47
  just undercover. They're witty lines to each
• 1:32:50
  other. I mean, doesn't Angie go, my
• 1:32:51
  God, you know? Isn't it interesting?
• 1:32:54
  Technology. And he goes.
• 1:32:55
  Fuck, if it's interesting it's still a bullet.
• 1:32:58
  It's like it's so funny. This.
• 1:33:01
  I was really laughing throughout the climax, despite the fact it
• 1:33:04
  was a massacre. Oh, yeah, I mean it.
• 1:33:10
  It is brilliantly good, isn't it?
• 1:33:14
  I love the line about the president's security would be at
• 1:33:17
  risk. That's why you have a vice
• 1:33:19
  president. Look, if we're doing this all
• 1:33:22
  right, we're jumping through our notes, should we just do our
• 1:33:25
  usual of just shouting out funny things that made us laugh?
• 1:33:28
  Yes. OK, you have a fish in your
• 1:33:31
  pocket, so I have. Have you eaten?
• 1:33:34
  I love that line so much. I liked there are a million ways
• 1:33:39
  of time there are. I liked Angie saying there are a
• 1:33:44
  million ways a time traveller could make money, There are?
• 1:33:47
  The doctor asked. It's capitalism in its purest
• 1:33:52
  form. Create a need and then exploit
• 1:33:54
  it. I was getting a good education,
• 1:33:56
  you know. I've been a greedy rich bastard
• 1:33:58
  in this. Yeah, like, not not funny, but I
• 1:34:04
  love the the this expression of where the Doctor is at mentally
• 1:34:08
  at this point in the whole arc, he says.
• 1:34:10
  Have you ever had a bar of music in your head, one that you can't
• 1:34:13
  place and however hard you try, you can't hum the next bit?
• 1:34:16
  It's frustrating, isn't it? Just imagine what it's like to
• 1:34:19
  have nothing but that, living a life like that.
• 1:34:22
  Well, how's this then, for taking the piss?
• 1:34:24
  The Doctor? What's the power source,
• 1:34:26
  Baskerville? I'll explain later.
• 1:34:28
  The Doctor? I see.
• 1:34:31
  And it only has a range of 2000 years.
• 1:34:33
  Baskerville only. Like.
• 1:34:36
  That was a great line as well. I'm a Russian, Miss Kapoor.
• 1:34:40
  We still haven't got the hang of capitalism.
• 1:34:42
  We have. Well, capitalism in Russia is
• 1:34:45
  exactly what the Soviets used to tell us.
• 1:34:47
  It was gangsters and faceless international financiers
• 1:34:49
  screwing us out of all our money.
• 1:34:52
  Oh this bit literally made me take a breath.
• 1:34:54
  Did they evacuate the city? They had no warning.
• 1:34:57
  No, no, no. You warned them.
• 1:34:59
  I told Jonah Cosgrove it would happen and they all sat back and
• 1:35:03
  waited. Ouch.
• 1:35:06
  Or the pit where doctor says English pop culture malady.
• 1:35:08
  Don't worry about it. Just another bit of misplaced
• 1:35:11
  self aware 70s nostalgia. No place in the 21st century.
• 1:35:14
  That sounds like you. That does.
• 1:35:18
  I think it sounds like Doctor Who.
• 1:35:20
  You'll have to forgive me, I've done most things in my time, but
• 1:35:23
  I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've robbed a bank,
• 1:35:26
  Says the doctor. Oh, here's one.
• 1:35:33
  Look, Jonah, yes, it's an odd name, but well, my first name is
• 1:35:36
  Melody and yours is. The.
• 1:35:41
  Is there anything you don't know about me?
• 1:35:42
  I know where to aim the smart missile.
• 1:35:44
  In my experience, that's all you ever need to know about a
• 1:35:46
  person. Oh, Michael, this this.
• 1:35:49
  Come on. This is the clincher.
• 1:35:51
  The human race have nuclear weapons.
• 1:35:54
  We will not allow them to blow themselves up.
• 1:35:59
  That's the on here laser there. He's got a dim view of humanity.
• 1:36:05
  Angie lent in to the doctor and went on tip toes to whisper in
• 1:36:08
  his ear. That should get you out of the
• 1:36:10
  building. It was around then that
• 1:36:12
  Baskerville had his men throw the doctor out of the window.
• 1:36:16
  But the doctor, the doctor claims that it is a time
• 1:36:19
  machine. Well, if you're going to put me
• 1:36:21
  on trial, you're going to need better evidence than that.
• 1:36:23
  It'll be my word against mine. I also liked Cosgrove gets his
• 1:36:34
  problematic objectified bit of female Bond girl as well in
• 1:36:39
  Professor Penny Lick, who is a an emeritus professor of quantum
• 1:36:45
  physics and is apparently in her 20s and wears both tight shorts
• 1:36:49
  and a white lab coat. Penny Lick, you say, But you're
• 1:36:56
  good at your job. Yes, Angie might have sounded
• 1:36:59
  arrogant, but as far as she was concerned, she was just stating
• 1:37:02
  the facts. I love you, Angie Kapoor.
• 1:37:06
  I've never been to Athens. And you noted you have.
• 1:37:08
  I suppose I would have thought so, Yes, Yes, I remember
• 1:37:12
  attending the Olympics. He hesitated for a moment,
• 1:37:15
  relaxed, let the memory wash over him.
• 1:37:17
  All the athletes were naked. Oh, right, I remember reading
• 1:37:21
  about that in ancient Greece. All the competitors went naked.
• 1:37:23
  The doctor frowned. No, I think this was the future.
• 1:37:26
  Something to do with flagging TV ratings I believe.
• 1:37:30
  Oh, how about this then? They paid to kill other people
• 1:37:35
  only to kill bad people. Oh my God, there were so many
• 1:37:41
  lines. Like that?
• 1:37:42
  Before you met the Doctor, did things ever explode?
• 1:37:45
  That's. Great.
• 1:37:47
  We're in the future. Yes, but here they call it the
• 1:37:51
  Presence. I could go on.
• 1:37:54
  We could go on. I mean, it's a Lance Parkin
• 1:37:55
  book. You could quote half of it,
• 1:37:57
  right? Oh, I do want to point out that.
• 1:38:00
  There's several references to a very niche Lehman, who is the
• 1:38:06
  president in. Oh God, what's the audio called?
• 1:38:09
  Time of the Daleks. Time of the Daleks.
• 1:38:11
  She's the sort of Margaret Thatcher authoritarian one.
• 1:38:13
  It's so, yeah. There's references to Cosgrove
• 1:38:17
  having survived various political crises in Britain,
• 1:38:21
  including the Martian invasion, the four, the Euro wars and the
• 1:38:27
  fall of Lehman and that. And then he also mentions that
• 1:38:30
  one of the good things to come out of her regime was that
• 1:38:32
  everyone learnt Shakespeare at school.
• 1:38:37
  But it's particularly impressive because time of the Daleks I
• 1:38:39
  checked came out the month after this.
• 1:38:41
  Oh. And you know, that's the only
• 1:38:43
  two references ever. Yeah, but I suppose this book
• 1:38:48
  was edited by Justin Richards, who wrote The Time of the
• 1:38:51
  Daleks. But this is the.
• 1:38:52
  This is the right sort of time. Put it in.
• 1:38:54
  Yes. Some.
• 1:38:56
  Peaks in a podcast years later might get it.
• 1:38:59
  Lance Barking being Lance Barking.
• 1:39:00
  Though he does, he does love a funny chapter title.
• 1:39:03
  I liked Chapter 11 bankruptcy and also one of them is called
• 1:39:08
  time flight. I liked the the point of the
• 1:39:12
  future, you know, But, you know, you said in one of our recent
• 1:39:15
  book club episodes, Anji Kapoor, you know, made a mint out of
• 1:39:18
  time travel when she left and she goes to the doctor.
• 1:39:21
  There's a million ways of making money out of time travel.
• 1:39:24
  And he goes there. Oh, yes, and and we said so many
• 1:39:31
  times, haven't we, about how Lars was basically the person
• 1:39:34
  that stitched this range together.
• 1:39:36
  Yeah, even sort of retro retrospectively he did it, but
• 1:39:40
  he still did it right between Father Time and Trading Futures
• 1:39:45
  and the Gallifrey Chronicles. And here he explains, he sets up
• 1:39:49
  that in the Gallifrey Chronicles, which he pays off,
• 1:39:51
  but he explains as well who the time travellers were and he is a
• 1:39:54
  wasp that was never explained. And they're they're the in
• 1:39:58
  Sabbath employee as well. I just think, yeah, he he single
• 1:40:02
  handedly was going well, if no one else is going to do it, I'm
• 1:40:05
  going to turn this range into a cohesive whole or as much as I
• 1:40:08
  can in three books. There's, I mean, he sets up a
• 1:40:11
  couple of things here that don't get paid off until the next time
• 1:40:14
  he comes back in, in the Gallifrey Chronicles, which was,
• 1:40:17
  you know, three years later, which is one of them is about
• 1:40:21
  Angie, the doctor spots that Angie has pocketed a copy of the
• 1:40:25
  Financial Times. It's, you know, because she's a
• 1:40:28
  futures trader in the early 21st century.
• 1:40:30
  So what if I knew who was going to be successful companies in
• 1:40:34
  the 20 thirties, I could make a lot of money.
• 1:40:35
  And that is by the time the Gallifrey Chronicles, that is
• 1:40:38
  how she's making a living back in an autism.
• 1:40:40
  In the Dead Stone Memorial, Trix gets caught taking a load of
• 1:40:44
  stuff back to the TARDIS from the future.
• 1:40:46
  And he's like, what the? Hell, are you up to nothing?
• 1:40:48
  She goes. Just a few mementos.
• 1:40:49
  And then we find out the Gallifrey Chronicles.
• 1:40:52
  They're millionaires because of it.
• 1:40:54
  And the other one is Fitz. Fitz takes a moment here.
• 1:40:58
  It's just a single scene where something has been troubling
• 1:41:00
  Fitz in the TARDIS, and he walks to the furthest rear wall of the
• 1:41:05
  TARDIS because it's much smaller inside at this point, it's it's
• 1:41:07
  only sort of a few rooms and corridors, but he walks to the
• 1:41:11
  wall furthest from the entrance where he can.
• 1:41:14
  He can just hear a scratching on the other side.
• 1:41:16
  And it's, but it's also a brilliant moment because it sets
• 1:41:18
  up this thing you're like, what is scratching on the far wall of
• 1:41:21
  the TARDIS? I remember people talking about
• 1:41:23
  that on Gallerie Base, so that's going to be paid off.
• 1:41:26
  And then sort of years later. People are going, well, what the
• 1:41:28
  hell was that all about? And then eventually he did it.
• 1:41:31
  And eventually he did it in the Gallifrey Chronicles.
• 1:41:32
  I think might be when we interviewed him, he said he sort
• 1:41:34
  of lay that down expecting someone else to pick it up, and
• 1:41:37
  they never did. So he had to resolve it in the
• 1:41:39
  Gallifrey Chronicles, but it's one else.
• 1:41:41
  Great though, Michael. Before we get there, though, the
• 1:41:43
  way it's handled here is so good, because it's not just
• 1:41:46
  them. It's not just a sort of plot.
• 1:41:47
  It's not the sort of, oh, here's a weird thing, you know, sort of
• 1:41:51
  baby's first mystery. It's also a little moment for
• 1:41:55
  Fitz, because it never properly gets resolved until Half Life.
• 1:41:59
  But Lance kicks at it a little bit.
• 1:42:01
  Here is how much does Fitz remember?
• 1:42:04
  Because it's quite inconsistent from book to book.
• 1:42:06
  Weather because. Early in the book, isn't it in
• 1:42:08
  the first couple of chapters? Yeah, because Fitz doesn't.
• 1:42:10
  You know, Fitz gets dropped off in Brussels at the end of the
• 1:42:14
  ancestor cell, skips the 100 years.
• 1:42:16
  We know that he didn't go through the process the Doctor
• 1:42:19
  did that removed his memories. So Fitz should remember
• 1:42:22
  everything, but it's never really addressed.
• 1:42:24
  So here we just get these moments where Fitz is going.
• 1:42:27
  I think I remember it, but I but I'm not sure that, but I'm not
• 1:42:32
  sure that I remember it because how would I remember what I'm
• 1:42:34
  remembering? And this sort of scratching on
• 1:42:35
  the other side of the wall is almost kind of like a metaphor
• 1:42:38
  for fits his brain as well. Would you know what else he
• 1:42:41
  does? I know we've got to wrap this
• 1:42:42
  up. Do you know what else he does as
• 1:42:43
  well? He does wonderful things with
• 1:42:45
  Angie, talking about where she was in her life when she met the
• 1:42:50
  doctor and how her and Dave were just sort of coasting at that
• 1:42:52
  point and the relationship probably would have ended soon.
• 1:42:55
  But when she gets the opportunity to go back in time,
• 1:42:57
  the the only thing she wants to do is to send him a text message
• 1:43:00
  and say, basically, get out of don't go to Belgium where they
• 1:43:05
  are in escape velocity and sort of stop this from all from
• 1:43:09
  happening in the 1st place. Just just lots of lots of great
• 1:43:14
  piercing together of this entire range within this bubbly book.
• 1:43:20
  And sometimes just for a cheap laugh as well.
• 1:43:22
  I love the bit where the the Onias are boasting to fits about
• 1:43:26
  all the things they know about time travel.
• 1:43:28
  And one of the things they said say is they know the names of
• 1:43:31
  the four surviving Time Lords, just doesn't think to ask.
• 1:43:35
  Tell us, for God sakes, will you tell?
• 1:43:38
  Although Andrew realised when we're Galifra Chronicles, they'd
• 1:43:40
  already named about 15. You know, throughout the run.
• 1:43:43
  At this point. No, the four surviving time, we
• 1:43:47
  can say this now. They're the Doctor, the Master,
• 1:43:50
  the Minister of Iris and Iris wild time.
• 1:43:54
  That's right. Thank you say so.
• 1:43:56
  I mean, I thought within, you know, we were talking about
• 1:43:58
  time, time travel and how they were using it in lots of
• 1:44:01
  different imaginative ways. I literally wrote down this is
• 1:44:04
  probably the most time travelling of all the time
• 1:44:06
  travel books because you've got actual time travellers, fake
• 1:44:09
  time machines, aliens that want time machines and Sabbath's time
• 1:44:13
  travelling tinkering squat team. There's so much time travel and
• 1:44:17
  not time travel going on in this.
• 1:44:19
  I mean, you can say the idea is pretty spent at this point.
• 1:44:22
  Wibbly wobbly, timey, whiny. Oh.
• 1:44:25
  Thank you. Yes, but the last mention then
• 1:44:29
  has got to be of the very last gag, which, you know, isn't a
• 1:44:32
  great gag, but it did make me chuckle.
• 1:44:34
  He goes. I mean, a time machine.
• 1:44:36
  Who believed that the Doctor clapped his hands on Fitz and
• 1:44:39
  Angie's bag? OK, you 2, let's get back to the
• 1:44:41
  TARDIS. But that's it.
• 1:44:43
  And I was like, yeah, we don't actually need any more of that,
• 1:44:45
  have we? It's all been sort of crossed
• 1:44:47
  off. All the IS&T's have been dotted
• 1:44:49
  and crossed and yeah. What is the next book?
• 1:44:53
  Is it History One O 1? I think it's history one O 1.
• 1:44:56
  They're on holiday at the start of that, they need it after all
• 1:44:58
  of this bloody shoot up. But of course, Lance Parkin
• 1:45:01
  doesn't need to do the James Bond tag scene because he
• 1:45:06
  already did it in the dying days with the doctor and Benny
• 1:45:11
  sharing a glass of champagne. And here's to us.
• 1:45:14
  I think you're right. I think this is probably the
• 1:45:17
  most fun book in this run, but that doesn't mean it's slight
• 1:45:23
  and that doesn't mean a lot of effort has gone into it right in
• 1:45:26
  this book. It's genuinely laugh out loud
• 1:45:29
  funny in places. It progresses the ark and the
• 1:45:34
  regulars in really interesting ways.
• 1:45:36
  It builds a really interesting world to tell the story in and
• 1:45:39
  as you said, it tells both a. Really great subversive James
• 1:45:43
  Bond story. And just a great Doctor Who
• 1:45:47
  story as well. Oh, ah, Lance.
• 1:45:51
  He's good, isn't he? You should release the final
• 1:45:53
  part of that interview where he talks about this book.
• 1:45:55
  Michael I'm going to do it with this episode, but I'm going to
• 1:45:59
  release all three parts together with the last part as the
• 1:46:02
  special bit at the end. You'll have to earn it,
• 1:46:05
  listeners. That's right.
• 1:46:06
  You have to listen to us first. Well, I mean, do you have
• 1:46:11
  anything else to say or are we well covered?
• 1:46:14
  One last joke. Chapter 12 The Spy Who Shot Me.
• 1:46:22
  It's great, isn't it? Oh, I enjoyed it.
• 1:46:24
  It was, it was a lot of fun. And as we said, both Doctor Who
• 1:46:30
  and James Bond over their long histories have done wonderful
• 1:46:34
  things. They've been many different
• 1:46:37
  things at different times, but they have all they have survived
• 1:46:41
  because they have never forgotten, or not forgotten for
• 1:46:43
  long, that they need to be fun. And I would say that if if this
• 1:46:51
  is the weakest Lance Parkin book, that's a high bar still.
• 1:46:56
  And the fact that this kind of slides unnoticed amongst books
• 1:47:00
  like Camera Obscura and The Crooked World and An Acrophobia
• 1:47:05
  and the Adventurous, New Registry and Mad Dogs and
• 1:47:07
  Englishmen and things like that, I don't think that's a slight on
• 1:47:11
  this book because it's just not doing those things.
• 1:47:13
  It isn't doing huge potent imagery like Anachophobia is not
• 1:47:18
  doing massive art revelations like Camera Obscura, you know,
• 1:47:22
  it isn't a fucking dissertation like The Adventurous on
• 1:47:26
  Henrietta St. It just wants to be a bloody
• 1:47:29
  rollicking good read. And on that level, it's a huge
• 1:47:32
  success. And if this is what you call a
• 1:47:35
  light read with everything that's going on in it, it shows
• 1:47:40
  you quite how much was going on in the Doctor Who 8th Doctor
• 1:47:43
  Adventure range at this time. Absolutely.
• 1:47:45
  Well, look, Michael, I suppose we have to face the inevitable
• 1:47:50
  torture of what's coming next. Now, we may have talked about
• 1:47:55
  many other books to do next, but I think we've got to do it.
• 1:47:58
  You know, like we've been talking about it for a while and
• 1:48:00
  we went off to James Goss and now to Lance Park in.
• 1:48:03
  So we've had a few trees, but I fear the The Reputation of The
• 1:48:11
  Pit by Neil Penswick has finally reached us.
• 1:48:16
  How do you feel about this? I shall try not to gaze long
• 1:48:20
  into the pit. Let's the pit gaze into me.
• 1:48:24
  I just listened to another podcast covering it recently and
• 1:48:28
  it sounds absolutely ghastly. Oh good.
• 1:48:33
  You can't have all the good ones, you know?
• 1:48:35
  All right. I promise we'll do something
• 1:48:37
  good next time. No, no, no.
• 1:48:38
  Come on. Let's do a stinker.
• 1:48:40
  Yes, all right, let's do the pit.
• 1:48:45
  Seems to be James Bond way to out this.
• 1:48:48
  Take me around the world one more time, Joe.
• 1:48:52
  You never ask. You sell the sky with the
• 1:49:14
  whispering grin, package the stars, keep the chaos within.
• 1:49:19
  You promised the dawn, but the deal is blind.
• 1:49:22
  Every chick is a noose. You've signed steal and silk.
• 1:49:27
  Your touch is ice, a silent bit, a loaded dice.
• 1:49:33
  You play with time, like it's yours to bend, But future spite
• 1:49:37
  at the bitter end, training futures harsh with gold, selling
• 1:49:44
  secrets never told in the dark. Your fortune lies the truths,
• 1:49:50
  the flame that never dies. You count the worlds by what
• 1:49:55
  they're worth. The lost, the cradle Earth.
• 1:49:59
  A kiss, a bluff, a nuclear smile.
• 1:50:02
  You're charming death all the while when someone walks where
• 1:50:07
  you fear to tread. No throw, no flag, just words
• 1:50:12
  unsaid. His name's a ghost on your
• 1:50:15
  gilded plan. He holds the line when no one
• 1:50:18
  can. You dream in ledgers.
• 1:50:22
  Future is bought, but time forgets the war you fought.
• 1:50:27
  A shadow falls. He moves unseen between the
• 1:50:30
  stars and the machine. Trading futures on borrowed
• 1:50:36
  time, you bought the world, but Mr. Sign.
• 1:50:40
  Trading futures on borrowed time.
• 1:50:43
  You bought the world. But Mr. Sign.
• 1:51:45
  that's the, that's the ridiculous last, That's the
• 1:51:47
  ridiculous last line from the end of Moonraker.
• 1:51:49
  The Q says I think.
• 1:52:15
  Q says. I think he's attempting re
• 1:52:17
  entry.