Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Hamster Book Club - The Stranger by Portia Da Costa (featuring Jon Arnold)

Transcript

Hamster Book Club - The Stranger by Portia Da Costa (featuring Jon Arnold) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:01
  Be still, let our bodies get to know each other.
• 0:06
  But mine does know you. She wanted to shout, but somehow
• 0:09
  all she could do was pant and gasp.
• 0:13
  He was subduing her just by holding her and being inside
• 0:17
  her. His inaction was somehow
• 0:19
  vigorous and all enveloping. He just had to be there.
• 0:24
  He didn't seem to need to move. You're wonderful, you're
• 0:29
  wonderful, he chanted softly, his voice catching as if he too
• 0:34
  was feeling the happy urge to weep.
• 0:37
  Claudia felt his long eyelashes brush her cheek as he kissed her
• 0:41
  jawline, then her ear. And then he did begin to move,
• 0:47
  so slowly, so very slowly, allowing her to feel the whole
• 0:51
  length of him sliding smoothly in and out of her.
• 0:56
  She savoured the strange blend of friction and stickness that
• 1:00
  was his very essence in motion against hers.
• 1:04
  How could a young man exert such control over his own so obvious
• 1:08
  desire? She had expected haste,
• 1:12
  clumsiness, frantic thrusts and fumbling.
• 1:16
  Yet he was so deliberate, so in charge of both himself and of
• 1:20
  her. She realised she was starting to
• 1:23
  come again, her loins melting in the age-old unmistakable
• 1:27
  implosion. Losing mastery of herself, she
• 1:31
  thrashed in his hold, her body filmed with a gorgeous blinding
• 1:35
  violence. Yet he gentled her, stopping her
• 1:38
  shouts with his mouth and bottling the fire inside her to
• 1:42
  increase it and enrich it. But when she had reached a
• 1:46
  plateau, relaxing into a long, dreamy orgasm that seemed warped
• 1:51
  and extended into a condition rather than an event, the
• 1:55
  stranger seemed to step up another gear.
• 1:58
  Flexing his supple body, he began to thrust more
• 2:01
  authoritatively, pounding her with a delicious force and fury.
• 2:07
  His kisses became powerful and devouring.
• 2:10
  Oh God, he shouted, releasing her hands so he could slide both
• 2:15
  of his beneath her to grab her buttocks and plunging into her
• 2:19
  as if he were trying to become her.
• 2:21
  Engulfed in passion, Claudia felt consciousness slide
• 2:25
  sideways and fragment. She was a swirling feather being
• 2:29
  carried on a torrent, a dancer spinning down into Infinity.
• 2:34
  But just as velvet darkness claimed her, she felt the
• 2:37
  sensation of moisture on her face.
• 2:39
  Tears, not hers, but the strangers, warm and salty, the
• 2:46
  happy weeping of a sweet soul and release.
• 2:49
  Oh, Claudia, he cried and came inside her
• 3:11
  hamster book Club. The Doctor Who Novel Review
• 3:15
  Podcast with Joe Ford and John Arnold.
• 3:28
  The Stranger by Portia de Costa. Welcome back to the Hamster Book
• 3:36
  Club. My name is Joe Fort and I'm
• 3:40
  delighted, absolutely thrilled to introduce today Mr. John
• 3:47
  Arnold. Hello, John.
• 3:49
  Hello, I'm positively moist at the end of this.
• 3:54
  Now, John, they've already heard the reading from Ken Moss, so
• 3:58
  they know exactly what they're in for.
• 4:00
  It's beautiful, isn't it? Do you know what he did?
• 4:04
  He went on to the porn stock library and found actual porn
• 4:08
  music to play over that. And that will not be the last
• 4:13
  time we mentioned porn on today's episode.
• 4:16
  Jordan, why don't you tell everybody what first of all, who
• 4:20
  on earth you are? Because we've never had you on
• 4:22
  the book club before. How that's impossible to think
• 4:25
  of, but who the devil is John Arnold?
• 4:28
  Well, I'm on Strangers in Space quite regularly.
• 4:31
  I've written 4 black archives and.
• 4:35
  Is that three more than Matt Barber?
• 4:37
  It's three more than Matt Barber, yes, and with about 100
• 4:43
  more jokes per book. I hear the demons is a little
• 4:48
  dry. Well, if my books make you
• 4:52
  moist, I will always go with that.
• 4:55
  I'm always moist when I'm talking to you, John.
• 4:57
  Obviously beautiful. And what on earth are we?
• 5:02
  I mean, we're just being filthy at the moment.
• 5:04
  So it's just your regular sort of hamster or blunt pen knife
• 5:06
  episode. What are we talking about today?
• 5:09
  Well, I was I was looking at I was going what you know, as as a
• 5:14
  reader of frankly, from the start of the new adventures and
• 5:17
  you know, the targets way back in the day.
• 5:19
  I thought, you know, what could I bring to hat to hamster that
• 5:23
  is kind of erudite, that is clever and it's worthy of a
• 5:26
  season. You know, say that Miss Michael
• 5:28
  Mills here has done so much fine work on it had to be only one
• 5:35
  choice that that late 90s early 2000s classic The Stranger by
• 5:41
  the legendary Porsche de Costa. With 140 erotic novels under her
• 5:48
  belt. Under her belt, in her knickers.
• 5:53
  Now, can I ask, I mean, what prompted you to choose this high
• 5:57
  art novel, this this stunning piece of literature which we
• 6:00
  will talk about today because. It's it's one of the most
• 6:04
  disgust Doctor Who books there in his last face.
• 6:08
  Not under discussed, not disgusting, Yes, hidden.
• 6:13
  In shame. Do you know?
• 6:15
  I heard the battle in a brain wrapper I.
• 6:18
  I, yeah, I took it to work one day and I thought, please don't
• 6:22
  do a bag search today, please. I got married and I did, I, I
• 6:28
  did take it away on a train to London as well.
• 6:30
  And I was reading it on the train thinking, what are people
• 6:33
  thinking of me right now? Oh.
• 6:35
  God, I, I, I used to have a girl.
• 6:36
  I used to go up there with new adventures.
• 6:38
  I was train conduct, used to conduct.
• 6:40
  I had to have conversation with some of them about new
• 6:43
  adventures because it had them in their trolley so.
• 6:48
  Was your missus around when you was reading The Stranger by
• 6:51
  Portia de Costa? This a couple of weeks.
• 6:54
  She she was sat by me a few points, yes.
• 6:59
  While you were reading this book with this naked hunk on the
• 7:02
  front. Well, I, I had it on Kindle.
• 7:05
  So she was going what the hell You did?
• 7:08
  Well, yeah, you don't need your your brain wrappers anymore.
• 7:11
  You can hug your filth in between plastic covers here.
• 7:16
  I'm going to say one thing to you, right, And that is I have
• 7:19
  read some particularly dreary books of late.
• 7:22
  Hamster had a sort of a strong run.
• 7:24
  I, I started off doing alien bodies, you know, things like
• 7:27
  that original scene, you know, really good juicy novels.
• 7:31
  What didn't? Hold on?
• 7:32
  I've read your review of that back in the day.
• 7:35
  Yeah, no, I know. I've changed my opinion.
• 7:37
  I have changed my opinion on alien bodies.
• 7:41
  It's literally one of our favourites now.
• 7:43
  I was such a pretentious cunt back then though, you know?
• 7:47
  I mean, go and read all of those reviews.
• 7:49
  Oh boy oh boy. Yeah, my reviews are not like
• 7:52
  your black archive. Jesus Christ.
• 7:55
  Oh yeah, They're fun though. They're passionate.
• 7:56
  They're engaged. I loved it.
• 7:58
  But I will say that, yeah, and I have read a small run of books I
• 8:03
  won't identify today that have been very dull.
• 8:06
  I've sort of decided the worst sort of Doctor Who books aren't
• 8:09
  the really bad ones and they are the really good ones, obviously.
• 8:12
  It's just the ones that are very myth and generic and boring.
• 8:17
  Oh, they're dreary. Oh God.
• 8:18
  There's a run of new adventures, I think, which is the end of
• 8:22
  night before some way around sort of First Frontier on Till.
• 8:27
  Oh God, for about the next five or six books.
• 8:29
  And it's just relentlessly doomy, dreary over inside.
• 8:34
  Save me from this. And it's the yeah, it's the dull
• 8:38
  ones that I can forgive anything for someone who's trying
• 8:41
  something new. I'm not big on Sky pirates but I
• 8:44
  love that it's actually aiming. For the it's trying, isn't it?
• 8:48
  It's trying. It's very fucking trying that
• 8:51
  book. And but this book I read in the
• 8:55
  middle of all those dreary books and I'll tell you what, I love
• 8:58
  myself. So I mean I was almost pissing
• 9:02
  my pants at points, a bit like the main character I was.
• 9:04
  Going to say not in a great yard I hope.
• 9:07
  Or just pass one. So while you could probably say
• 9:10
  this is an objectively terrible book, and I'm sure we will, I
• 9:16
  did have fun with it. It's.
• 9:17
  An entertainingly terrible book that's or that's as much fun as
• 9:22
  reading a great book at times because you're not sat there,
• 9:26
  You're not just going, Oh my God, I've got to slog through to
• 9:28
  the last page. And you know, if you're picking
• 9:30
  something for a book club, particularly, you don't want to
• 9:32
  read something that's just dull. That's just that you just dread
• 9:36
  coming back to because you're going, I've got to get through
• 9:38
  this before we record. So so I've flew through this.
• 9:43
  I I was literally singing your praises the whole time saying
• 9:45
  what a choice, what a choice a book.
• 9:46
  This was because I genuinely per sort of laughs per page.
• 9:50
  I've not read another Doctor Who book on the book club.
• 9:53
  Good luck quite like this. No, but The thing is, and I
• 9:57
  think we'll get into it, does actually work as kind of a
• 10:01
  Doctor Who story. It does, doesn't it?
• 10:04
  And there's certainly a lot of references.
• 10:06
  And I've got a surprise for you. I have identified Portia de
• 10:11
  Costa. Oh yes.
• 10:13
  Now we both sort of went off on our own various channels, didn't
• 10:15
  we? I went straight to the source.
• 10:17
  I just messaged Lance Parkin and said, are you Portia de Costa?
• 10:22
  Well, the answer will come later in the episode, so people don't
• 10:25
  press stop now. They've missed out on so much
• 10:28
  filth. Come on.
• 10:29
  They they're not going to press that.
• 10:31
  Before we get onto the debauchery and filth, I would
• 10:36
  like to ask you a question, if I may, a little ice cream
• 10:38
  question. And that is what is your
• 10:42
  favorite Doctor Who author and why?
• 10:44
  Like what if you were going to literally I've, I've only got
• 10:47
  one book I can read this month. I want to read the Doctor Who
• 10:50
  book. Oh my God, that's my favorite
• 10:51
  author. I'm going to grab that book.
• 10:53
  Who is it that's going to There are three that come was come,
• 10:56
  right. I always say Paul Mars is such a
• 10:59
  wonderful he's entertained. He gets Doctor Who he you know,
• 11:01
  it's imaginative. He wants to try stuff that's not
• 11:04
  been done before. It's clever.
• 11:06
  It's you know, it's challenging the reader without being an arse
• 11:09
  it you know it. I know he's a big Angela card
• 11:12
  fan. I think he did his dissertation
• 11:14
  on her and and his wonderful fantasy Beno Ronovitch, who's
• 11:19
  quite ruggedly one of the best selling authors around right
• 11:22
  now. The also people will absolutely
• 11:25
  is one of his the greatest of two books of all time.
• 11:28
  Am I wrong when I say that you know, he obviously handed in
• 11:31
  transit during a difficult period of his life.
• 11:34
  I think Peter darn forever took one look at that and went, Ben,
• 11:37
  will you fucking chill out a bit?
• 11:39
  All right, And he went right. You want chill, fine.
• 11:42
  And then he bashed out the also people where the only the only
• 11:45
  truly terrible thing that happens is a robot dies.
• 11:48
  That's it. And the rest of it is the
• 11:50
  fabulous world building. It's a TARDIS crew holiday.
• 11:53
  Basically gorgeous. And the research, the culture of
• 11:57
  it, or I know, and it's probably one of my favorite cover just
• 12:00
  the doctor sitting tea in space. So Mccoy's doctor isn't.
• 12:05
  It perfect, but ultimately it's going to go down to kind of the
• 12:09
  daddy of the of the North Pole Cornell because.
• 12:13
  Go on, because I have a few issues from Cornell.
• 12:15
  So hit me. Tell me why, Tell me why.
• 12:18
  It's because I was there 91, my mum had had some event in a
• 12:24
  bookshop. Oh, can you have a look if you
• 12:25
  know, time won Revelations out yet?
• 12:27
  And it was it was one of these things because the New
• 12:29
  Adventures distribution was quite eccentric.
• 12:31
  So you could get them like a month before they came out.
• 12:34
  You could end up with them like two months later or whatever.
• 12:37
  And so OK, yeah, fine. So came back with Tom
• 12:39
  Revolution. I was meant to be revising for
• 12:43
  mock A levels at a time. So OK, yeah, there it is.
• 12:46
  Bring it back. Put it.
• 12:47
  I'll read a chapter and then get back and, you know, treat myself
• 12:51
  as a reward for it. Did I do any origin that night?
• 12:53
  Did I bolt because that was a new form of Doctor Who.
• 12:59
  It was the stuff that have been in the fan press coming over.
• 13:04
  It was Doctor Who written by and for someone of just about my
• 13:09
  generation contemporary references.
• 13:12
  It's, you know, afraid not afraid to go music.
• 13:15
  It's got all the tricks that the new series had.
• 13:17
  You know, it's ace was like to have a crush where she barely
• 13:21
  liked that on screen, which is why that CD in Fenrick really
• 13:24
  doesn't work for anybody. Let's face it.
• 13:27
  And you just you're just going. I need to read more from this
• 13:30
  guy and love of war comes along. And yeah, I know it's it's it's
• 13:36
  an analogy braids. But that whole thing it's
• 13:40
  thrilling. It's modern Doctor Who.
• 13:43
  No features. It's just a bunch of fun and
• 13:45
  then human nature that that so you saw that title, you heard
• 13:51
  what it was about. You're going.
• 13:52
  I needed to read that from the book.
• 13:54
  That book was announced. So just that influence on me
• 13:57
  when I was, you know, late teens, early 20s.
• 14:01
  It's a time to talk. You can still look up to people
• 14:04
  you know, and Paul will tell you he's a deeply thought human
• 14:06
  being at that point. So he's he's kind of mellow
• 14:09
  since and and he's a better writer these days as you he
• 14:13
  fundamentally agree. But just for that impact that we
• 14:16
  had back in the day, I have to go with Paul.
• 14:19
  I mean, I think it's a sublime choice.
• 14:21
  And like you said, like the granddaddy of the new
• 14:24
  adventures, that was Paul Cornell, right?
• 14:26
  He was the breakout star. And he's gone to have a
• 14:30
  successful career away from Doctor Who as well, hasn't he?
• 14:32
  Right. But several mediums, books, you
• 14:35
  know, there were two original science fiction novels.
• 14:37
  He's comics. He's written such a ton of
• 14:39
  comics for the big companies as well, DC and Marvel.
• 14:43
  Can I ask you to identify one book then for each of those
• 14:47
  authors? Oh, if you had to go and pick
• 14:50
  one off the shelf right now and read, what would it be?
• 14:52
  This. Box is just behind me.
• 14:56
  Paul, Paul was I would go for the Scarlet Empress because.
• 15:01
  It's. Such a again, it's first thing
• 15:04
  you meet Iris wild time. It's that Arabian notes.
• 15:08
  It's not bothered about being science fiction.
• 15:11
  It it's not making literal maybe don't make literal sense at
• 15:14
  times. You know, with the jars.
• 15:16
  I think they they climb down ladders into the planet R.
• 15:21
  But again, it's just what it seems.
• 15:22
  I think the EDA's weren't on a particularly interesting Rd. at
• 15:25
  that point. And you got that again, it to
• 15:28
  that to me was like revelation back in the day.
• 15:30
  It's Oh, this is what you can do with Doctor Who.
• 15:35
  The also people we've already said absolutely are just a sort
• 15:41
  of a laid back book go a tough Doctor Who story.
• 15:44
  You thought you can never tell that, but they could.
• 15:47
  They could he could tell that story that and that you know
• 15:51
  you'd normally dread stuff Asian stuff with pronunciations which
• 15:54
  aren't that's necessary friendly to English tongue because you're
• 15:56
  there's that guy. You get the front to the shows.
• 15:59
  I don't really don't pronounce that right.
• 16:02
  The shows the language, just the the the the gockles up the
• 16:05
  tongue clicks all those no, no, it's absolutely perfect sense on
• 16:11
  that. And for poor Connor, I I would
• 16:16
  take revelations say simply because age of 17, one of those
• 16:21
  pieces of art that just blows your mind.
• 16:25
  Gorgeous. OK.
• 16:30
  You're looking at me. I'm looking at you.
• 16:31
  We're both so polite. I was.
• 16:33
  Going to say and if you want a one off author who I'd recommend
• 16:37
  Naomi Alderman, borrowed time you're the.
• 16:40
  Second person on the book club to recommend that, but maybe
• 16:44
  we'll have to do that. Yeah, absolutely.
• 16:48
  Yeah, obviously it won't be as sophisticated as The Stranger by
• 16:51
  Portia de Costa, but. What is?
• 16:53
  What is? And I really love it when people
• 16:56
  want to come on and talk about the new series adventures,
• 16:59
  because I think there's more worth there than people give
• 17:02
  them credit. People's it's because you, I
• 17:04
  think a lot of it you go back to 2005 and maybe you can say the
• 17:09
  later Ed ES are in the shadow of a big finish because that's kind
• 17:11
  of makes you reductive. But you get those new series
• 17:14
  adventures. They're in the shadow of the TV
• 17:17
  series. They're suddenly relegate from
• 17:19
  the main bit of Doctor where as it was in the two in the 90s and
• 17:23
  it becomes, you know, ATV spin off, but it's better than ATV
• 17:28
  spin off. They've got those authors who
• 17:30
  made their chops coming up during those years.
• 17:33
  You know, you've still got Paul Marzi, you've still got Lance
• 17:36
  Parkin coming in. And just very reliable writers
• 17:40
  like Justin Richards, like Jack Rayner, that just banging them
• 17:43
  out, you know? Oh God and Jack I I love that
• 17:46
  Jack Green has that the best selling doctor book of all time
• 17:50
  to Ename. Gorgeous, isn't it?
• 17:51
  Is that the stone rose? Is it stone rose or it's the
• 17:54
  last stone? Oh, please tell me it's the
• 17:56
  last. I know that one, I hope.
• 17:57
  Do you remember the last page on that?
• 17:59
  Martha's going around the whole universe.
• 18:00
  Oh, with all these collecting. Species and then on the last
• 18:04
  page it's the last extinct species, the last of the Time
• 18:07
  Lords 800 million points if you find one yes you.
• 18:12
  Know such a brilliant idea? Just to put through the lovely.
• 18:16
  Fabulous. Well, I'll tell you what, you've
• 18:18
  named a number of books that I've not covered, so maybe we'll
• 18:21
  have to start making a little list of books to talk about in
• 18:24
  the book club. Where do we talk about menagra
• 18:26
  at some point as. Well, oh, we have talked about
• 18:28
  that, haven't we? In fact, Luke seems Jenkins that
• 18:31
  he came at me the week after and said I really want to do
• 18:33
  menagra. I went oh I'm so sorry.
• 18:35
  And now every time I record with him, he goes to me.
• 18:39
  Where the hell? When are you going to do your
• 18:41
  Milagra episode? Because yeah, you told me a year
• 18:44
  ago that someone else had chosen it.
• 18:46
  If he wants to do a joint episode, I'm happy to go.
• 18:48
  Oh, I shall put it to him. I shall put it to him.
• 18:51
  We'll have a lot of fun. But right now, let's enter the
• 19:10
  pages of Doctor Who erotica. The second steamiest Doctor Who
• 19:16
  book of all time. What's?
• 19:17
  The first. Well, this is Rob Shearman's and
• 19:20
  so Black Orchid organization, which will never go, which won't
• 19:25
  get published, but in little bit we can always go with this.
• 19:28
  The salacious passages of Adric and Lady.
• 19:31
  Lady Cranley. Yeah, what a what a confession
• 19:38
  of all of the sexual awakenings I've ever owned Lady Cranley.
• 19:42
  I that way, I I, yeah. My eyebrow rose at that.
• 19:45
  Shall we say in a true Roger Moore?
• 19:46
  Fashion Did anything rise whilst you were reading The Stranger by
• 19:51
  Portia Tacosta? Now, and I do want to ask you
• 19:53
  this because this book, what is the primary function of this
• 19:57
  book? It's the frankly to get your
• 20:00
  rocks off. Were you inspired at any point
• 20:05
  reading this tone? I think purely by volume rather
• 20:10
  than by it just keeps putting your mind in that gutter,
• 20:15
  doesn't it? My trouble was right is and I we
• 20:21
  need to do a quick caveat and say that this book is not aimed
• 20:25
  at two men. I think this book is written for
• 20:29
  women. The on the cover it is a
• 20:31
  extremely hunky man who is having a torrid romance with
• 20:36
  Claudia. I can't remember her surname
• 20:38
  now. Mar Marwood.
• 20:39
  That's important. We'll come back.
• 20:40
  To oh is it OK Claudia Marwood. And we know this is Canon
• 20:45
  because in Lance Parkins Father Time there is a specific
• 20:50
  reference to the amnesiac Dr. on Earth spending time with a young
• 20:55
  widow called Claudia in the 1970s, as he does in this book.
• 21:00
  Absolutely. Oh, sorry.
• 21:02
  So back to the question then. Yeah, Did it?
• 21:06
  Was it effective for you? I I think it just, it's just the
• 21:11
  number of times it goes back. But The thing is, sex is really
• 21:18
  about as much about emotion as, well, connection with the other
• 21:21
  part. And I don't think that was ever
• 21:24
  there. I couldn't ever get myself into
• 21:26
  that my despite the graph descriptions.
• 21:29
  What's happening downstairs with Claudia?
• 21:32
  A lot. What's going on downstairs?
• 21:34
  Oh, she's got a rainforest staying there.
• 21:36
  Let's face. I mean, I've never known anyone.
• 21:38
  And this is bear in mind, it's me saying this.
• 21:41
  You know I've never known anyone think about and experience so
• 21:44
  much sex in anything I've ever read, watched, or listened to.
• 21:48
  Well, the person ago is she's early 40s.
• 21:51
  I think she's supposed to be in this, Yeah.
• 21:53
  Nice. You know she's still got rocks
• 21:55
  going. But I'm going if you had that
• 21:57
  much sex in that much time, you would not be walking.
• 22:01
  Come on. You know when you start a new
• 22:03
  relationship, right, and you sort of have it off in every
• 22:05
  room and you're at it morning, noon and night?
• 22:08
  Yeah. What happened then?
• 22:10
  I'm only having about 15% of the amount of sex.
• 22:13
  So. Oh God, Nordia is having in this
• 22:15
  book. Was she twice a chapter in this?
• 22:17
  I think. It is easy, easy and it don't
• 22:20
  matter. I mean, we'll get into it, but
• 22:21
  don't matter who comes around and visiting.
• 22:23
  She's soon flicking them off or. You know?
• 22:28
  Oh yeah, I've known you for years.
• 22:29
  But yeah, you'll come on this time.
• 22:31
  You're looking good now. What's that?
• 22:32
  You're the the good doctor. Come around to help out my
• 22:36
  amnesiac friend. Well, whilst you're here, you're
• 22:39
  not. Wearing a bra.
• 22:43
  Yeah, but you are right and I think you said to me in a
• 22:47
  message it's it's about anticipation as well because I
• 22:51
  always think I can't believe I'm going to start psychoanalising
• 22:54
  porn movies. But Jesus Christ, we're both
• 22:57
  men. We've both seen porn, right?
• 23:01
  And anyone listening do not judge us.
• 23:02
  We know you have to about 5 minutes before you press play on
• 23:06
  this episode or possibly after. Actually.
• 23:11
  I think like the best porn, like you said, you have an emotional
• 23:14
  involvement with whatever's going on.
• 23:17
  Yeah, usually if it's something you can relate to as well
• 23:21
  because you're kind of putting yourself in the scene.
• 23:23
  But also like, don't just literally, you don't start a
• 23:27
  porn movie and they're just at it.
• 23:28
  Like, you know, I mean, something happens at the
• 23:30
  starting sense of a scene. Not so in this book.
• 23:34
  It's not straight into, was it Straight into?
• 23:37
  Oh yeah, I'll just have a wander down at the woods by my eyes and
• 23:40
  there's blood there and he's having a wank in the water.
• 23:43
  Yes, and this Byronic man with lustrous long dark hair.
• 23:52
  Although let's face it, you know, if, if he's more authorous
• 23:56
  and you know, we, we do see him come in this she is.
• 24:01
  Is this just here to disprove the theory of loons?
• 24:06
  Very possibly, yeah. Because that's what the.
• 24:09
  Cost is like Mark Platt, I don't know what you're on, but I'm
• 24:13
  having him come in the first chapter.
• 24:15
  I'm not having Lone Barrow. You're not taking the sex out of
• 24:17
  Doctor Who, do you know? How she describes that, she says
• 24:23
  she can still hear his broken cry of triumph as his semen hit
• 24:27
  the water like strands of white silk.
• 24:31
  It's a beautiful image, isn't it?
• 24:34
  It's revolting, yeah, but who is this mysterious stranger with
• 24:40
  all of his clothes off by the Paul?
• 24:42
  Why it's Paul McGowan is the factor.
• 24:46
  Now, what on earth makes you think that, John?
• 24:48
  It. Could it could be that Byronic
• 24:51
  man that that long licorice here the fact that he has amnesia
• 24:58
  amnesia he has. How should I put oh, substantial
• 25:03
  and distinctly perky cock? I'm sure that anyone who's seen
• 25:07
  porn Gan if he's guys Rob Spending will probably be able
• 25:10
  to testify to that. I've seen porn McGann and I
• 25:14
  don't know whether his penis is substantial or distinctly perky.
• 25:17
  Someone needs to ask him at a convention.
• 25:19
  No, no they do not. Whatever you.
• 25:23
  But she describes him as young looking, a longish mop of mid
• 25:26
  curly brown hair, quite beautiful in an eccentric sort
• 25:30
  of way. And I thought the real points
• 25:32
  are to the fact that beyond the amnesia, because obviously this
• 25:35
  is set during the amnesia arc of the ape Dr. Avengers, the
• 25:40
  ineffable strings of Madame Butterfly filled the room.
• 25:43
  And she's like, OK. And then there's sort of the
• 25:48
  word regeneration comes in a couple of times.
• 25:50
  A long Edwardian frock coat in crushed velvet and the remains
• 25:54
  of a cravat are his clothes. Yeah, he comes.
• 25:58
  It's the yeah, it's it's Doctor whatever the ending, which is
• 26:02
  obviously there to avoid the BB CS copyrighted part, but let's
• 26:06
  face it. Boy, are we going to get to the
• 26:10
  ending. Oh.
• 26:11
  Dear God, is it it? Yes, it's appropriate that
• 26:15
  there's a disappointing climax, isn't it really?
• 26:18
  Yes, I've heard the word sort of anticipointment go around lately
• 26:22
  about RTD Two. You know, sort of building
• 26:24
  people up. They're expecting a huge climax
• 26:27
  and then not delivering or being a bit of a damn squib.
• 26:30
  I mean, there's no real time for anticipointment in this because
• 26:33
  like I said, we're at it straight away.
• 26:35
  I'm constantly hammer and Tonks. So how does this great affair
• 26:43
  begin? Well, essentially he, well, she
• 26:47
  sees him out having a wank and then in a thunderstorm and the
• 26:51
  book, the book opens. What?
• 26:53
  There was a storm coming. You, you, you've got it.
• 26:56
  One one step down from it was a dark and stormy night, for
• 26:59
  fuck's sake. Well, you know, all this sort of
• 27:02
  when there was the storm in the house and he was scared and she
• 27:05
  goes to his room to come for him.
• 27:07
  Obviously, he pulls through her door.
• 27:10
  We should, we should say. 1st But I thought that was
• 27:12
  references to the TV movie. You know, when he wakes up in
• 27:14
  the hospital and it was all stormy and he was all afraid.
• 27:16
  I thought I thought it was like directly referencing sort of
• 27:19
  that. I was waiting for him to cry.
• 27:25
  She. She.
• 27:26
  Probably did cry that late at some point.
• 27:28
  She came so. Hard.
• 27:30
  He forgot where he was. Is that what happened?
• 27:34
  I didn't read that bit. Oh, that's tortured.
• 27:37
  Oh, that's Owen, isn't it? Countryside.
• 27:39
  Yeah. Do you ever come so hard you
• 27:41
  thank God Chipna weren't right in this episode?
• 27:46
  Possibly the least sexy line ever on television.
• 27:49
  Until I read this book anyway. So Claudius, like what?
• 27:53
  What was he, a little boy lost? A tramp or a new age traveller?
• 27:57
  Perhaps an escaped convict or a runaway mental patient?
• 28:01
  And she even thinks at one point before they've had it.
• 28:03
  Off she goes, Oh no, I just wrote her first instinct when
• 28:08
  the doctor collapses in her arms in the storm, terrified, is to
• 28:13
  rape him. She literally just starts
• 28:15
  touching him up. Yeah, it's like, yeah, oh, I've
• 28:18
  seen him out there. He's obviously wants it.
• 28:20
  Oh God, it's. Right, right.
• 28:22
  It's not consensual to start off with.
• 28:24
  He's sort of unconscious. It's this is, this is very much
• 28:31
  fancy. This is very much the kind of
• 28:34
  porn they used to show at Channel 5 late at night when it
• 28:37
  first started. Oh.
• 28:39
  Really. I've got not anymore.
• 28:41
  No Post Post Pub 11:00 all the all the sub basic in the sticks
• 28:48
  up and it was terrible. It's obviously the least sexy
• 28:51
  stuff you could ever watch, but it probably got a lot of young
• 28:55
  men and we're in very happy briefly.
• 28:59
  And and so today they end up in together at this point, don't
• 29:02
  they? Yes.
• 29:03
  And she basically has the best sex she's ever had in her life,
• 29:06
  even better than her late husband.
• 29:08
  Yeah, who is apparently quite an adventurous bloke, so she tells
• 29:11
  us. Although from what she gets up
• 29:13
  to, he wasn't that. We go and visit him later, but
• 29:19
  we will get there. I mean, Paul Mcgahn, you know, a
• 29:24
  little description here. He hefted, he hefted himself
• 29:28
  playfully as if offering his manhood to her as choice of J da
• 29:33
  for her approval. He looked like a God, a demon
• 29:37
  lover, transcendental. It's piling the everything on
• 29:43
  the objectives. He was like a demon of God.
• 29:47
  If this is where we're starting, where the Hell's this book
• 29:50
  going? Yeah, it's like, OK, go to holy
• 29:54
  jail already and what, page 5 or whatever it is.
• 29:57
  Did you just say a minute ago he should have said who am I?
• 30:01
  Yeah. Because there was a line where
• 30:03
  he goes. His first question wasn't an
• 30:06
  agonised Who am I? Oh, God, yeah.
• 30:09
  But when, when he was in the middle of it, when you know, as
• 30:12
  as he delivers the vinegar stroke it should have been.
• 30:19
  I'm shocked that didn't happen. So are they having a
• 30:22
  relationship after this? I mean, the next morning she
• 30:24
  wakes up and she thinks he's gone.
• 30:28
  Yeah, it it's kind of a relationship.
• 30:31
  But when I say relationship, it's lust.
• 30:33
  It's just pure lust. It's, it's just two horn dogs at
• 30:37
  this point. They are.
• 30:38
  There's no characterisation or relationship to it at all.
• 30:42
  I I know your way to books is characterisation, isn't it?
• 30:46
  It's. Usually yes.
• 30:49
  And there's not much of that in this book.
• 30:51
  How? Can you say there's no
• 30:53
  characterisation with a description like this?
• 30:55
  She had the aura of somebody who had been well and beautifully
• 30:58
  fucked. She she does have that defining
• 31:03
  characteristic of liking a good shack.
• 31:07
  You know, can say that we don't like a good.
• 31:10
  Shit. Well, we do.
• 31:11
  I don't. I mean, even I like it this much
• 31:13
  though. But they do have a conversation,
• 31:17
  don't they, about his amnesia? Because that's why she pulls in
• 31:20
  Doctor Quine, not Doctor Quinn. Doctor Quine.
• 31:23
  Yeah, Beatrice, isn't it? Yeah, she's a bit of an oddball.
• 31:26
  Oh. Yeah, particularly at the end we
• 31:28
  get when we get to the real stuff.
• 31:30
  You get to the end. At this point you go, she's
• 31:33
  making this shit up, but she goes along.
• 31:36
  Who Portia dacosta or Doctor Quine?
• 31:38
  Oh, Portia Dacosta. Because OK, yeah, this this
• 31:41
  doctor's seems to be up for a bit.
• 31:45
  Oh no, she's more than up for a bit.
• 31:49
  But so she's there to basically examine Paul Mcgowan's doctor,
• 31:53
  isn't she? And to see if he's had any
• 31:54
  knocks on the head or anything like that.
• 31:57
  And apparently gave him a few ideas.
• 32:01
  But, and this is my the bizarre thing about this book and why I
• 32:05
  feel this book is so unrealistic is when people pop round my
• 32:08
  house for a cup of tea or to do some plumbing or whatever, you
• 32:11
  know, we don't just suddenly start talking about the the most
• 32:15
  amazing sexual conquest we ever had in our lives, you say?
• 32:19
  That podcast, right? Well, yeah, I mean you obviously
• 32:22
  you and I do, but you know, we're we've had a relationship
• 32:25
  so of. Course Podcast.
• 32:27
  I mean, listen to this, John, she says.
• 32:31
  Beatrix starts talking about her ex, right?
• 32:33
  And she goes there I was drooling over her, scruffy like
• 32:37
  a scruffy little nymphet. She had the juiciest quim of any
• 32:42
  woman I've ever touched. What the hell is a quim down?
• 32:47
  Below it's It's a standard for down below oh.
• 32:50
  OK, this is a bit like when I sent the message and the
• 32:53
  strangers put a chat. Asking what?
• 32:55
  The labia was. Yes, when you're at sit
• 32:57
  something when they're out and it's, yeah, juicy.
• 33:00
  The lips are engorged, shall we say?
• 33:04
  Ken Moss from from the book club readings messaged me and told me
• 33:08
  that the labia was like, in Doctor Who terms, it's like the
• 33:11
  inner TARDIS doors of the latest hearts.
• 33:14
  That's the one. OK, that's actually an
• 33:17
  explanation I'm going to from now on if I'm ever asked the
• 33:20
  question. And hang on.
• 33:22
  So that makes the. That means the clitoris the
• 33:25
  control rotor. Well, he does bundle it quite a
• 33:28
  bit, doesn't. It.
• 33:29
  Yeah, Yeah, exactly. There you go.
• 33:31
  And the TARDIS makes pleasing noises as Oh no.
• 33:35
  Wheezing groanings. Never be able to watch that blue
• 33:38
  again. Oh dear.
• 33:41
  OK, so So what happens next then?
• 33:45
  This is Warren, a lot of shagging is my basic answer to
• 33:48
  everything. Beatrice gives her idea.
• 33:50
  Is it does? Is it this where her her friend
• 33:53
  who she's knows if she was a child comes along?
• 33:57
  Oh, really? Is this, is this a bit?
• 34:00
  Yeah. She's known as if she was young.
• 34:02
  Who's she's been unhappily married to?
• 34:04
  This guy off This guy we never meet, but who ends up as the
• 34:07
  villain of the piece. Oh, you're talking about the
• 34:09
  neighbour now? Yeah, is it Marilyn O'Connor?
• 34:14
  I don't think I have. I have melody.
• 34:16
  Melody. That's oh, melody, True
• 34:20
  Truebridge, isn't it? This is, this is like Jilly
• 34:23
  Cooper stuff, isn't it? This is just the ridiculous
• 34:26
  names. No one's called this in real.
• 34:28
  Melody comes over one point, right, I think it's a bit later
• 34:32
  in the book and goes, oh, we've had a terrible row applause like
• 34:36
  and she Claudia's like, oh, come in and the second Melody walks
• 34:39
  in, she's like, oh, I've never thought of Melody like this
• 34:42
  before. I'm coming over and I'm telling
• 34:44
  you now, right when a friend comes over traumatized from a
• 34:48
  domestic relationship, the last thing you should be doing is
• 34:52
  trying to stick your fingers inside.
• 34:54
  You know, like that is not a suggested therapy.
• 34:59
  It's. Just oh, actually I have fancied
• 35:05
  you for years though. What?
• 35:10
  And then they're at it as what? I mean, everyone's at it in
• 35:12
  this. Oh yeah, it is.
• 35:14
  Yeah. So yeah, it's it's like a run
• 35:17
  through various sexual peg. It doesn't you you've got
• 35:21
  obviously voyeurism to start with straight shagging and then
• 35:24
  we move through was it yeah, lesbianism and we we end up with
• 35:29
  a taking it from behind do. You know what the biggest, like
• 35:34
  the most shocking or what we're supposed to think is like the
• 35:37
  most shocking moment, it's when she gives him a blowy.
• 35:40
  Like that's that. That is sort of built up to be
• 35:43
  the biggest gift she could possibly have ever given him.
• 35:46
  Now, I'm a gay man, right? So we just go to toilets and
• 35:49
  there's a hole in it. You shove it in there and
• 35:51
  someone sucks it off. Like, I couldn't understand why
• 35:54
  that was such a big deal. I have no idea.
• 35:58
  No, that's pretty standard because he's gone down on her
• 36:01
  already a few times. Come on.
• 36:05
  Mind you, we're in the 90. This is the 90s, right?
• 36:08
  Yeah, because I there's a, there's a because you say it
• 36:12
  went into lesbianism, but it also went into homosexuality as
• 36:14
  well, because Paul, if Paul Bowman is his name, or that's
• 36:20
  the name they've made-up for him.
• 36:21
  He thinks back to a time when he was with his friend on holiday
• 36:26
  or something. And you know what this and I
• 36:28
  know you haven't seen the film because I did ask this is where
• 36:30
  I'm going. OK, took me two seconds to real.
• 36:33
  So it's gone. It's with Neil die slash fake
• 36:35
  because that actually if you look at the description, it's
• 36:38
  Richard E Grant plot of with Neil die is the one you know
• 36:42
  what he sees that Jaguar, the car that they've got.
• 36:44
  He's going. Oh, I remember that they they
• 36:47
  rent A cottage from with Nils, one called Monty, who is a
• 36:54
  raving old queen. Richard Griffith is a tough
• 36:57
  regular queen and they go up to this, this cottage and have
• 37:01
  various misadventures. But although, because it's based
• 37:06
  on Bruce Robinson, the director, he the what he was saying Romeo
• 37:11
  and Juliet, I think it was Zeffirelli made advances to him,
• 37:14
  the director. So it's based the a lot of it is
• 37:17
  based on, you know, a straight man trying to be shagged by a
• 37:21
  gay man and they weren't up for it, but he's faked being a gay
• 37:25
  man to get that, to get that cottage free for the weekend.
• 37:28
  So it's essentially sexualizing with now die in a way you
• 37:31
  couldn't do the original. This is definitely written by
• 37:35
  somebody around the Nas and EDA's and they were always doing
• 37:38
  these pop culture references, weren't they?
• 37:40
  Yeah, this and Marwood. The Sir.
• 37:42
  The Sir. I suspect this is where it comes
• 37:44
  from. Mark is the character Paul
• 37:46
  Mcgahn plays in with Now die. He's the I Oh, so I suspect
• 37:52
  because his first name is never given.
• 37:53
  I think it's supposed to be Peter, but that's never quote.
• 37:57
  I suspect the husband who we never meet was also meant to be
• 38:01
  this kind of Paul McGann character who was, you know, in
• 38:05
  with Neil, who wasn't with Neil Darling.
• 38:07
  So it would fit on the time scale.
• 38:11
  I've never seen it, but that does.
• 38:12
  That does add a little layer to the book.
• 38:14
  Then that's that's all told in flashback.
• 38:17
  And believe me, he's got some very vivid memories in that
• 38:20
  flashback. But The thing is, this is into
• 38:23
  Doctor fucking here. It's it's Richard E Grant, the
• 38:27
  former gang having not not sorry, not quite fucking.
• 38:31
  I hadn't realized at all. You just said that.
• 38:34
  There's bound to be slash McCabe there about the doctors getting
• 38:36
  up. Getting it?
• 38:37
  Oh my God. You go into certain areas of
• 38:40
  Deviant Art. You've got the the Meta crisis
• 38:43
  Doctor and the normal Doctor at it, The Doctor and the Masters
• 38:46
  at it. Amy Pond and Matt Smith, they're
• 38:48
  at it. Way back in the day, my friend
• 38:52
  was telling you about the worst aspect she'd ever found.
• 38:55
  Go on. Right.
• 38:56
  OK, the professionals, which is it's quite a, shall we say,
• 39:03
  latent latent homosexuality under that relationship and
• 39:07
  Danger Mouse. Please.
• 39:10
  I don't know how that works. That's wrong on every single
• 39:16
  possible level. So I I went down a rabbit hole
• 39:20
  one day on uphol website and clicked on like the anime
• 39:24
  section. Yeah, and in there, What's
• 39:28
  what's anime? Paul, let's have a look.
• 39:30
  And I couldn't believe that the first video was Scooby and
• 39:33
  Shaggy. I went, no, I'm out of here.
• 39:36
  There was something. See that?
• 39:39
  Oh, Jesus Christ. OK, so, so, so we tick the box
• 39:42
  of lesbianism. We tick the box of
• 39:43
  homosexuality, voyeurism, as you say, there's dominance as well.
• 39:48
  Because there's a scene where where Claudia literally says get
• 39:51
  on your knees, Paul Bowman, you know, I'm having you now.
• 39:57
  Anything else? Oh, and please.
• 39:59
  OK, so it's not quite nymphoma. Not nymphomania.
• 40:03
  What's it called? Necrophilia.
• 40:05
  But they go and visit. Her husband's grave and she's
• 40:11
  going all the way in the car. Oh, I really need a piss.
• 40:14
  Oh, I really need a wee. And he's going, oh, just hold
• 40:17
  it, it'll be fine. We're nearly at the grave.
• 40:18
  Then they go to the grave. The second they're there,
• 40:21
  they're both horny. And she's like, Oh my God, I
• 40:24
  could be close to you at the same time.
• 40:27
  And then of course, he starts Rogeringerbel.
• 40:28
  You know where this is going the second he's in her and he's up
• 40:31
  against her bladder. It's a bit of water sport.
• 40:35
  This year it's in all over the grave.
• 40:38
  I was like, at that point I could not stop laughing.
• 40:41
  I was like, this is obscene on a level I never read.
• 40:47
  Profane, isn't it? I think it's a good word.
• 40:50
  Yeah, well, look, OK, I don't even know where to go for me
• 40:57
  out. Well, Claudia's got some ideas
• 41:00
  if you want. Go on.
• 41:02
  No, Claudia will always have ideas of where she wants to go.
• 41:06
  Yeah, one place down there. That's it.
• 41:10
  I did notice, I did notice that in the homosexual scene and this
• 41:16
  really stood out to me, that they didn't have penetrated sex
• 41:20
  because he didn't have protection.
• 41:22
  He remembered that and obviously AIDS was rife, you know, in the
• 41:27
  mid 90s. And yet, to show how naive
• 41:31
  people were at the time, he's having unprotected sex with
• 41:33
  Claudia left whilst confessing he's been having sex with men.
• 41:39
  I'm going I don't think she's ever seen any gay porn here.
• 41:43
  I don't think she's done the research on that.
• 41:45
  So she doesn't quite go. How does that work?
• 41:51
  What do you think about Claudia's sort of sex therapy
• 41:54
  with him then? Because there there is a
• 41:56
  sequence in the middle of the book where you know she's going,
• 42:02
  who the fuck are you? Fuck me, fuck me.
• 42:05
  And then he starts going, I don't fucking know, Just as she
• 42:09
  climaxes. Like why didn't Grace Holloway
• 42:14
  try this therapy with the doctor?
• 42:17
  Well, is this is this doc, this red headed Doctor Who Beatrice
• 42:22
  who comes along? Oh please.
• 42:24
  That's not Doctor Grace Holloway, is it?
• 42:26
  It's got to be, hasn't it? Sure.
• 42:27
  Oh. No, no, because I can't imagine
• 42:31
  Grace Holloway having these sex parties.
• 42:33
  The Doctor Quinas. Oh God, don't come to those
• 42:37
  because that's right at the end of the oh.
• 42:41
  That was the one bit I could actually buy into because I have
• 42:43
  been to a sort of toga party that turned a bit kinky back in
• 42:47
  my youth. Which is exactly that's what she
• 42:50
  puts on it. It's like a Roman orgy.
• 42:51
  Yeah, and it but it's it's not that it's the orgy.
• 42:54
  I could see that, but it's about that they keep a respectable
• 42:59
  front. It's it's almost like here we
• 43:01
  go. We'll pull the pull the book off
• 43:03
  the shelf and open the door to the secret dungeon.
• 43:08
  Look, we haven't done that yet. We haven't tink shamed enough in
• 43:12
  this book. Can I ask you a question within
• 43:16
  all of this? You know, lustful endeavours
• 43:20
  that are occurring in this book? Like I wasn't really that turned
• 43:24
  on. I was mostly laughing.
• 43:28
  What would it take? What, what changes would you
• 43:31
  have to make to this book 1 to get you more emotionally
• 43:34
  invested, 2 for you to believe the characters more and three
• 43:39
  for you to, you know, just ones. Maybe want to put your hands
• 43:42
  down your trousers? I would actually say you you
• 43:48
  would need to halve the content of it.
• 43:50
  You would need to, you know, some build up, some anticipation
• 43:54
  rather than going OK. That's because, you know, all I
• 43:57
  was going through was going OK. So that's another pair of
• 44:00
  knickers. They've sold a better 40th pair
• 44:02
  by now because they're all cast aside.
• 44:06
  I'd hate to think the washing she'd have to do afterwards.
• 44:08
  My God. No, it's one of his magic
• 44:10
  tricks. Every time I have sex.
• 44:12
  He pulls a new pair of knickers out of his top pocket.
• 44:14
  Oh, that's the doctrine, Yeah. The puck.
• 44:16
  Yeah, the Dodge. Transcendental Pockets.
• 44:17
  There you go. Oh dear.
• 44:21
  So yeah, you slow that down, you build some anticipation.
• 44:25
  Maybe it's maybe at the start. I think you put always put your
• 44:28
  finger on it as you do. Sorry, let me remove that.
• 44:34
  OK, off you go. You build the character, you get
• 44:38
  to know the character before she just goes all horn hog because.
• 44:42
  You know, what do you learn at the start?
• 44:44
  That she's a widow, that she owns the property.
• 44:47
  That's it I think. Yeah, she's a widow.
• 44:49
  She's sad and lonely and she owns the property.
• 44:52
  That's so she's got, she's got this miraculously lovely set up.
• 44:56
  Idiot. She's got a house in the
• 44:58
  country, a pretty nice house in the country, let's face it, from
• 45:01
  what the descriptions we do get and lives on her own and she's
• 45:05
  vulnerable to a stranger coming and taking.
• 45:10
  The only threat in her life, isn't it?
• 45:12
  Is this fellow Tristan and the neighbour's husband next door?
• 45:16
  They're sort of trying to trick her into some dodgy business
• 45:18
  deals to get all of her money. It's a poor little, yeah, poor
• 45:22
  little head. She can't do spreadsheets.
• 45:24
  The Doctor can do spreadsheets though, yeah.
• 45:27
  He knows his He's forgotten it all, though.
• 45:28
  That's the trouble. Oh.
• 45:29
  I see, but it comes back, all the maths all.
• 45:32
  He remembers how to wank, but he's forgotten how to do Excel.
• 45:35
  He he comes so hard, he remembers how to do excel.
• 45:41
  But this is where it kind of works as a Doctor Who story.
• 45:47
  Oh please, I need to hear this. Wrong Oh no, it's I'll go back
• 45:53
  to have you have you read this is in short in one of the short
• 45:56
  trips it's it's by Rob Shim somebody teach self ballroom
• 45:59
  dancing. It's not using ballroom.
• 46:02
  Oh, it's it's I'm sure it's Colin's doctor and it's a
• 46:07
  dancing as therapy to kind of drag someone out of themselves.
• 46:10
  And it's kind of a sub genre like that where you where the
• 46:13
  doctor meets someone and, you know, leaks them back to
• 46:17
  humanity and the doctor shags Claudia back to humanity here.
• 46:23
  So he rescues her so. It's it's an intriguing, it's
• 46:27
  thought of therapy. It's an unorthodox therapy,
• 46:30
  isn't it? But he knew.
• 46:31
  But he seems to know just what she wants every single time.
• 46:35
  Which is a big cock, apparently. I mean, she says, didn't she?
• 46:39
  It's the most perfect size ever, like two pieces of a jigsaw
• 46:44
  coming together. But she says it was
• 46:46
  uncomfortable at the start. So it's not that perfect, isn't
• 46:49
  it? So it's not perfect then it's
• 46:50
  perfect. It's.
• 46:52
  Certainly bigger than her ex-husband.
• 46:54
  So she does mention that a few times apparently.
• 46:57
  I feel sorry for her ex-husband. He's better in bed than her
• 47:00
  ex-husband. He's bigger, you know, more
• 47:01
  adventurous, prettier. And and he rescues her business
• 47:05
  for her as well. He's an alien from another
• 47:07
  planet, I mean. Or or from Oxford, apparently.
• 47:11
  The envy is real. Well, I'm sure Porsche was quite
• 47:16
  envious of not having Paul McGann there, so someone has to
• 47:19
  there was a very soon. Maybe has to be.
• 47:25
  There was a few points where, and I mean scant points, very
• 47:29
  few points where they do just sit and talk, right.
• 47:34
  And if half the book had been that and the other half of the
• 47:37
  book had been the fucking, I think this would have been less
• 47:42
  of a comedy book and more of a genuine character drama.
• 47:47
  And that would kind of give my weight to the end, which we
• 47:50
  should say for we should are we like to give the ending away.
• 47:53
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's his fiance comes back
• 47:57
  and tells him who he is. That would have given a bit of
• 47:59
  weight to that, but it's so. Stupid because.
• 48:03
  It's kind of like human nature though, isn't it?
• 48:05
  It's the man who never. Was but you not think it's like
• 48:09
  it's like a lag of a Christie murder mystery.
• 48:11
  Someone who's not even been in the book pop turns up and goes,
• 48:14
  oh, I was the murderer all along.
• 48:15
  Sorry, I realise I've not been in the rest of the book.
• 48:18
  Like there's there's no investigation to try and figure
• 48:22
  out who he is. They just have a lot of sex and
• 48:24
  hope it's going to come back to him.
• 48:26
  There's no kind of proper therapy.
• 48:29
  They don't go dig in for facts or anything like that.
• 48:31
  She just turns up and goes, oh, you're my husband.
• 48:34
  It's Melody. Melody bled husband apparently
• 48:38
  gives him her a ring and goes oh, by the way, we've got this
• 48:41
  missing guy down here. Come on.
• 48:44
  And this is guy who never makes an appearance but is the big
• 48:46
  villain the book. It's like what the?
• 48:49
  That's not before Melody's business partner Tristan, who's
• 48:53
  trying to fool Claudia into stealing all of her money, has
• 48:56
  his way with her. Well, no.
• 48:58
  She has her. Way with him?
• 48:59
  With him? Yeah.
• 49:01
  She takes him to a hotel room and goes.
• 49:03
  You're not fooling me, son. Shark, get on your knees.
• 49:07
  And give me all your money. And then, and then Tristan's
• 49:11
  comes to the party later, doesn't he?
• 49:12
  And then everyone's. I see it and point.
• 49:15
  Yeah, Tristan's a sex slave by the end of the book.
• 49:18
  Oh, that. That's the other bit of the
• 49:19
  ending. It's like he dumps his fiance
• 49:23
  for shagging around and she and then he comes back to her on his
• 49:27
  hands and knees, basically going have me back.
• 49:30
  Let me, you know, pledge you for the rest you go.
• 49:33
  Yeah, but you're one of my kind of harem.
• 49:36
  Yeah. She goes, I've gotten used to
• 49:38
  having sex with all these different men now, so you need
• 49:40
  to accept, I mean, good honour, but she if you want to be in my
• 49:45
  life, she says to Paul Mcgahn, then you've got to be one of
• 49:48
  about 50 men I'm fucking, all right.
• 49:52
  It's about Beatrice. She's got, she's used to be
• 49:55
  quite busy boy, you know, with Claudia, because Claudia is
• 49:57
  going to be needed a few medications here at the end of
• 50:00
  it. Claudia is going to be dead by
• 50:02
  the time she's 15, right? But she's got to say.
• 50:06
  She's going to go with a smile on her face like.
• 50:08
  In terms of characterisation here, the reason why I can't
• 50:11
  believe I'm examining this character, the reason why I
• 50:14
  can't believe in Claudia as a person, beyond the fact that
• 50:18
  nobody on this earth, you know, thinks about orgasms as much as
• 50:22
  this, not even the horniest teenager is the fact she's so
• 50:26
  selfish, right? So she admits at one point she
• 50:30
  wants Paul Bowman to hold on to his amnesia because she's scared
• 50:34
  that if he gets his life back that he'll have a wife and
• 50:37
  girlfriend and she wants to be the only female.
• 50:40
  He turns to. And Doctor Beatrix goes, oh,
• 50:44
  yes, of course. I completely understand why you
• 50:46
  think that. You know, maybe we'll hold off
• 50:48
  on this therapy. Which is missing next time of
• 50:50
  course, you selfish cow. And then, and then, as I've
• 50:55
  already said, her neighbour comes over distressed and she
• 50:59
  ends up, you know, going down on her.
• 51:01
  Years. And she thought she's thought of
• 51:03
  as not quite a younger sister or younger sister or something
• 51:07
  along those lines. And then after she's had sex
• 51:09
  with her, she then starts talking to Paul Bowman and
• 51:13
  going, well, wouldn't it be great if you watched me and my
• 51:18
  neighbour having it off together?
• 51:19
  She's recently abused by her husband.
• 51:22
  But you know, we could have some fun.
• 51:23
  And I'm like, you cannot just treat me like this.
• 51:29
  Even in a porn book you can't treat people like this.
• 51:33
  It's incredibly divorced from the real world, isn't it?
• 51:36
  More so than you know, I don't Even so like planet.
• 51:40
  The web planet, for God's sake. Like which is we've.
• 51:43
  Got. Confession time, yeah, Yeah.
• 51:46
  So when I got married, I was also seeing somebody else, which
• 51:53
  my partner knew about. So I don't know what you call
• 51:56
  that situation or? Open relationship.
• 51:59
  It was technically an open relationship, but obviously
• 52:01
  nobody at the wedding knew that, right?
• 52:03
  And I was more, far more in love with this new fella I'd found
• 52:08
  than the guy I was actually marrying.
• 52:11
  And after my honeymoon, I then jetted off to Colombia and had
• 52:17
  three months with him after that.
• 52:18
  And everyone, I mean, I went to do volunteer work and I loved
• 52:21
  the volunteer work, but I was also raving it off with this
• 52:24
  fellow out in Colombia. And like, that's probably the
• 52:27
  selfish I've ever been in my entire life, leaving my husband,
• 52:30
  my recent husband, to go and be with another man.
• 52:33
  And I knew that really upsets him.
• 52:36
  It was a really terrible thing I did.
• 52:38
  And that is only 110th of the terrible things that Claudia
• 52:42
  does in this book. I'm like odd.
• 52:47
  I was hoping to get a confession from you now and you know, come
• 52:50
  on, I. Don't know I've I've only have
• 52:53
  been one at a time because that's the way my head works.
• 52:57
  And I completely get that, and I kind of wish that I had.
• 53:00
  As well. But ending relationships was
• 53:03
  always fucking horrible on that front for me.
• 53:07
  But that, that's so good. There's always an emotion there.
• 53:09
  There's always if you, even if you've just been shagging.
• 53:12
  So if you've just been in less room because we've all been
• 53:14
  there, let's face it, we've all you know, we've all seen that
• 53:17
  pretty girl, pretty guy, whatever and go yes, you know, I
• 53:22
  I was on stalks, turning up, turning on the floor.
• 53:24
  It's like yes, and you've gone back and you've been all dogs
• 53:26
  for, you know, one night, two nights, whatever, and it can be
• 53:30
  great, but it's it's still buggy to end it when when you're like
• 53:33
  that, I think, but it's except the player is going.
• 53:37
  I do end them. I'm having them all.
• 53:39
  I've I've got a ticketing system ace on my door.
• 53:41
  Your Monday, not your Tuesday. Your Wednesday, Your Thursday
• 53:45
  morning madly performance, the. Afternoon.
• 53:49
  Something has blossomed inside her and she's just going to have
• 53:52
  it fulfilled by whoever comes a knocking.
• 53:56
  I've got it. Do you know what I'm not?
• 53:58
  I can't even judge that. I know people in polygamous
• 54:01
  relationships who have it off left, right and centre and have
• 54:04
  a great time with it. But you don't do it with your
• 54:07
  neighbour. It's it's in a tricky situation.
• 54:09
  You don't do it with your Doctor Who's come along to help your
• 54:12
  amnesiac lover like you know. You choose your people
• 54:15
  carefully. It's I can understand her being,
• 54:18
  you know, shag happy if you haven't added since her husband
• 54:21
  died now ever long he's been gone.
• 54:23
  Yeah, maybe, you know, she's lonely.
• 54:25
  She needs to because I, I had God.
• 54:29
  It's a guy who worked the first job, which is like 25 times like
• 54:32
  26 years. No, he said he he, I mean, he
• 54:35
  might give bullshit. I don't know.
• 54:36
  It was he said, you know, his previous job was he was a set
• 54:39
  door to door salesman. He said the number of Chads he
• 54:43
  got from lonely housewives was ridiculous because I.
• 54:46
  Mean that doesn't sound like a star of a porno they're.
• 54:48
  Bored. Yeah, there it is.
• 54:51
  It was like sound like bloody Confessions of a Window cleaner.
• 54:53
  All that shit. All those shit 70s science
• 54:55
  comedies. But like when I oh God, I can't
• 55:00
  believe I'm confessing so much to you.
• 55:01
  I'm so sorry. But when I like when I was in an
• 55:04
  open relationship, so I used to go to the Saunders, right?
• 55:06
  And, and do you know what Gay Saunders are?
• 55:10
  Yes, it's in Newport that Russell T Davis wanted to go to
• 55:14
  but didn't. I think he turned away because
• 55:16
  he was too shy to go in. And I'd go in and, you know,
• 55:19
  have it off for about 5 or 6 people in a day, go and have
• 55:22
  some supper and then go home. And it was a marvellous state.
• 55:25
  But I didn't know those people. They weren't my neighbour, my
• 55:27
  best friend, my doctor. Like it was.
• 55:30
  Oh, hello, nice to meet you. Let's do it.
• 55:32
  Goodbye. It's fun every any that said, I
• 55:36
  could accept it's the the the human bit of it that you could
• 55:40
  that it just goes. It bends reality just into how
• 55:44
  people work. Well, well, John, what about the
• 55:48
  prongs then? Lush and over substantial.
• 55:55
  Distinctly perky. I felt as if it felt as if it
• 56:00
  was written by Pip and Jane Baker at times.
• 56:02
  It was so Florida. Oh God, what's a ZAP?
• 56:05
  Cabbage City? There's one I've got here.
• 56:07
  What does that mean? I I think it's AI think it's
• 56:12
  one. I've just written it day in out
• 56:13
  of context. Oh, gently palpated.
• 56:15
  She finds a lot. Yeah, she's got the thesaurus
• 56:18
  out here, hasn't she? She's got all the different
• 56:20
  words. Out you go.
• 56:23
  You can reuse them occasionally, love you, take care of it.
• 56:26
  But if you're writing a poor novel, you'd want to get people
• 56:32
  into the mood and they don't want to stop to go.
• 56:34
  Oh, hang on. What does that mean?
• 56:36
  You you want just use a simple simple words, but no.
• 56:40
  No, forgive me because you're a straight man and I'm assuming
• 56:43
  there's a few straight men listening, so I sort of know
• 56:45
  this description. It's a dust soup podcast.
• 56:47
  I don't think there's any straight men around in there.
• 56:49
  I. Think we've lost the doctor
• 56:50
  audience now? If I want this, it's just the
• 56:53
  horn balls left. But like, I'm going to read you
• 56:55
  a description now. Oh, hello, Dylan.
• 56:58
  I'm going to throw this out to you as well.
• 57:00
  Dylan, I'm going to read a description now, and I want you
• 57:02
  to tell me if you feel a little twitch in your pants, all right?
• 57:05
  OK. She was wet and swollen and
• 57:09
  ready for a lover. Wet and swollen.
• 57:13
  Swollen is not. No.
• 57:16
  A sexy word? No, you need something like
• 57:19
  moist. Moist is good, almost.
• 57:23
  You're also a gentlish kind of word, but not.
• 57:26
  OK, I'm going to read another one to you, all right?
• 57:29
  Her slippery sex was a flowering blossom, and it lured the
• 57:33
  fingers to explore. She wanted to know what another
• 57:37
  woman's orgasm felt like against her, to experience the minute
• 57:41
  passionate dance of melodies. Lush membranes.
• 57:45
  Lush membranes. Well, that's that's a that I
• 57:49
  think that'll be that was girl, isn't it?
• 57:50
  You know when she's aroused, shall we say.
• 57:54
  Membrane. Sorry, that's not sexy.
• 57:56
  No, no. That that's the problem.
• 58:00
  It's she reaches for these words and she destroys the rhythm of
• 58:05
  it. Just I'm just obviously a
• 58:07
  literary critic on. On pornography, Yeah.
• 58:11
  OK, one more. One more for you here, OK?
• 58:14
  Paul cried out a profanity as he orgasmed.
• 58:17
  His whole pelvis jerked as his tribute spurted into her,
• 58:22
  letting his penis slip from her mouth.
• 58:24
  She hugged his lips, her nostrils filled with the pungent
• 58:28
  yet cleanly fresh scent of young semen.
• 58:32
  I mean, please take the word young out of that sentence.
• 58:38
  Yes, they are. They are young semen because
• 58:40
  they've all been generated in his balls quite recently.
• 58:44
  Oh my God. Young is so misplaced.
• 58:48
  But you know, I was reading those passages and just howling
• 58:52
  with laughter. Yeah, it's, it's a Haydocks.
• 58:57
  Which boy, I'm reading that she's I, my wife did not know
• 59:02
  the existence of a stranger. I had to explain the book to
• 59:05
  her. I will be honest, though, my
• 59:08
  friend from work came over and we had a movie night, right?
• 59:11
  And she saw this on the shelf and she went, she's the
• 59:13
  stranger. And she picked up and she went.
• 59:16
  She read one page and she went, can I borrow this?
• 59:18
  I went, yeah, if you like. I want it back clean, though.
• 59:22
  I didn't get it back for three months.
• 59:24
  I mean, none of the pages have been turned over and I didn't
• 59:27
  have the heart to ask her if she'd enjoyed it or not.
• 59:30
  But three months, I'm assuming she did.
• 59:32
  I've. Got three months of well, The
• 59:35
  thing is I just know guy again in Newport, he was he was, he
• 59:41
  didn't run the second hand bookshop.
• 59:42
  He was the sales guy there. And the thing that keeps second
• 59:46
  hand book shops taking over is mills and boom.
• 59:49
  Oh, I bet, yeah. It's up, you know, So they said,
• 59:52
  the old ladies, middle-aged ladies, they, you know, it's
• 59:56
  almost like a library to them. They buy it, bring it back on,
• 1:00:00
  back on the shop, and it's constant turnover, you know?
• 1:00:03
  I was just in it for Doctor Who books.
• 1:00:05
  That's why, that's why I go second hand shops.
• 1:00:08
  Yeah, that. That's my excuse anyway,
• 1:00:10
  obviously. You've given me a good excuse
• 1:00:11
  actually, to throw a few stats at you about.
• 1:00:14
  Or I mean, it's about romance novels, but it's like romance
• 1:00:17
  slash erotica novels. You know, I feel like a Mills
• 1:00:21
  and Boon that is more of a sort of emotional character drama,
• 1:00:27
  right? I know they lie.
• 1:00:27
  I know they're sort of throw away, but I don't think.
• 1:00:31
  I have read one because my cousin left.
• 1:00:33
  Sure it didn't have explicit sex like this in it though.
• 1:00:37
  Not constant. It did have explicit sex.
• 1:00:39
  I I think it's probably got the 80s.
• 1:00:41
  They needed to be a little more explicit with their with their
• 1:00:45
  what happened? Yeah, there wasn't any Jane
• 1:00:48
  Austen. Like oh, her bodies overflowed,
• 1:00:52
  ETC, all that stuff. Her body's overfilled, you know,
• 1:00:56
  You know, you know. Where you got the Bridgeton
• 1:01:01
  stuff? Like fuck, you're not right
• 1:01:03
  romance. I don't I.
• 1:01:05
  Don't. Well, listen to this, then
• 1:01:08
  you're ready, because we know the circulation of Doctor Who
• 1:01:11
  books that before, which cast too much shade on this.
• 1:01:15
  The circulation of Doctor Who books is probably what, at most
• 1:01:19
  50,000. Yeah.
• 1:01:21
  Well, 200,000 is the biggest ever, isn't it?
• 1:01:23
  Something like that. Yeah, that was, that was those
• 1:01:26
  new series of ventures. The Nas were selling something
• 1:01:29
  around 50,000. I think the Edas by that point
• 1:01:31
  were selling, I don't know, 10,000 or something EDA.
• 1:01:34
  Thanks so much. Four or five things I'd.
• 1:01:36
  Like to ask you sad because there are some great ones but
• 1:01:39
  anyway romance novels. So you ready generate over 1.44
• 1:01:44
  billion in revenue, making romance the highest earning
• 1:01:47
  genre of fiction. Romance reached over 39 million
• 1:01:52
  printed units sold over the last 12 months.
• 1:01:55
  As of May 2023, romance sales grew by 52% compared to the 12
• 1:02:01
  months ending May 2022. And it's been the third
• 1:02:04
  consecutive year with positive growth in romance novel sales in
• 1:02:08
  the printed format. So they're doing well.
• 1:02:13
  I think people want a bit of romantic escapism.
• 1:02:17
  Two of the biggest series this century Twilight that's
• 1:02:22
  supernaturance and 50 Shades of grey, which means you're some of
• 1:02:27
  the biggest stuff is a second hand Buffy spin off essentially
• 1:02:32
  and listen to this right this is itself.
• 1:02:34
  This is the UK alone, All right, so romance print copy sold in
• 1:02:38
  1,000,000. Yeah, yeah, 2018 20 million 2019
• 1:02:43
  18,000,000 So it went down a bit. 2021 Nineteen million 2020
• 1:02:48
  three, 39 million romance books, 52% growth.
• 1:02:55
  I mean, I think we all needed a bit of romance after the
• 1:02:57
  pandemic, didn't we? Oh God, yeah.
• 1:03:00
  Although there was enough babies being made during that period,
• 1:03:02
  I. Was going to say, I, I try to
• 1:03:03
  think what club you got to do during the pandemic?
• 1:03:05
  Oh. Gee, God, no.
• 1:03:09
  Hang on. This is 70 what she'd be?
• 1:03:11
  She'd be in her 80s, no? No, her 90s.
• 1:03:14
  This is this. No, this is 90s, isn't it?
• 1:03:15
  Surely. I thought it was late 80s or
• 1:03:17
  90s, no? I thought this was the 70s
• 1:03:20
  isn't. It might be wrong.
• 1:03:21
  No, I think it's out of the 70s. Oh.
• 1:03:26
  Look, we read this bloody book and we can't even figure out
• 1:03:28
  what fucking decade it's saying. I don't think it's got any
• 1:03:31
  decades. It's just assumptions.
• 1:03:33
  Oh, I tell you what, there was one phrase I did like chronic,
• 1:03:36
  you know, she describes think Paul's some latter day almost
• 1:03:39
  designer Messiah. I quite like that as a kind of
• 1:03:42
  description against doctor, you know, with that suit that hit
• 1:03:46
  that that actually does. There is one good phrase
• 1:03:48
  somewhere in buried in this book.
• 1:03:51
  Yeah, I sort of try to, to look and write down any good phrase,
• 1:03:55
  but mostly I've written down things like this.
• 1:03:57
  Fuck, you, replied. Claudia actually spoke again.
• 1:04:01
  Her sex began to jerk in a hard, spontaneous orgasm.
• 1:04:04
  Oh God, you bastard Paul, fuck you.
• 1:04:07
  And then he goes, Oh no, fuck you, Claudia.
• 1:04:11
  Now, I mean, honest to God, I mean, I don't mind a bit of
• 1:04:15
  chatter during sex, but that's not the sort of thing I normally
• 1:04:17
  say it. Needs to be real dirtier than
• 1:04:19
  that. Surely.
• 1:04:21
  Oh boy, oh boy. OK, so let's let's try and sort
• 1:04:25
  of round this up. So I'm going to ask the usual
• 1:04:27
  questions. OK, Any more sort of thoughts on
• 1:04:31
  this book as a Doctor Who book first of all?
• 1:04:35
  Like I said it it kind of does father with structure of some
• 1:04:40
  Doctor Who stories of the yeah of the ones where he rescues
• 1:04:44
  individuals. So as I say I'm sure there's a
• 1:04:47
  better example than teach yourself both answers.
• 1:04:49
  But he rescues the lost souls or if you want precursors that that
• 1:04:52
  rose thing. So this it does can't kind of
• 1:04:56
  bring in sex talk to before Russell T Davis got it because
• 1:05:02
  it's only just there a little in the New Avengers.
• 1:05:05
  Even though the New Avengers have reputation, you know, they
• 1:05:07
  had to step back when transit have the scene where that that
• 1:05:11
  woman fell off the fell off her bed, triggering her orgasm and
• 1:05:16
  the taste of I said betel nuts or something like that.
• 1:05:22
  It's Kola. Nuts.
• 1:05:24
  Yeah. So I, I, I think the target
• 1:05:27
  audience for it is. Please don't give this to the
• 1:05:29
  target audience. Oh, sorry, do you mean the
• 1:05:32
  actual target audience? Yeah, I, I think it's the the
• 1:05:35
  former Gan Estridge and Brigade as they were online.
• 1:05:38
  I don't know if you ever came across.
• 1:05:39
  Is that an actual theme? They were, I don't know if they
• 1:05:42
  still exist, but when I first came this was kind of a big
• 1:05:44
  thing. They were the because people
• 1:05:47
  found them at the time. Was quite a smallish thing, more
• 1:05:50
  in the States, but the British band name is obviously entirely
• 1:05:53
  male so I'm presuming they This was the launch title for Black
• 1:05:59
  Lace from what I was looking at. They had.
• 1:06:02
  Maybe that's why they came in sort of hard and furious with
• 1:06:06
  all the sex, you know? Yeah, all the sex we're.
• 1:06:10
  Serious about sex and a bit more.
• 1:06:14
  More than anyone could possibly handle so.
• 1:06:18
  It does kind of the the only thing stopping you is that kind
• 1:06:21
  of end, that crap end, that disappointing anticlimax, which
• 1:06:26
  is the only anticorrect in the book I.
• 1:06:27
  Think that actually you could tie that in to the 8th Doctor
• 1:06:31
  amnesia arc because in the 1940s he is in the Turing Test and he
• 1:06:40
  is a professor at university. And he does take it take that
• 1:06:44
  role as I was thinking, OK, so we'd have to sort of shift the
• 1:06:48
  decades a little or just say he's been in that role for a
• 1:06:51
  very long time. Well, that's what Capaldi does,
• 1:06:54
  isn't it? So maybe he wasn't.
• 1:06:55
  He's not going to wage too far so he has to explain it or.
• 1:06:59
  Maybe he hop, he hops from university to university, you
• 1:07:02
  know? Yeah.
• 1:07:02
  College to college up. Yeah.
• 1:07:04
  I'm not sure where the wife comes into it though.
• 1:07:07
  Well, it's fiance, isn't it? It's so he could I got married
• 1:07:10
  by mistake or something, or I got engaged by mistake.
• 1:07:14
  But you know, what's very odd is the fact that like, you know,
• 1:07:16
  the big twist of the book, the the wife turns up and says, you
• 1:07:20
  are my husband and all of this. And then that's all we see of
• 1:07:23
  her. And then it's the last chapter
• 1:07:25
  and he goes, oh, I dumped her. I only want to be with you.
• 1:07:28
  I'm like what? Yeah, I don't want, I don't want
• 1:07:32
  to be with you, as everyone said, because you played around.
• 1:07:36
  Don't mind if you do it though, love.
• 1:07:38
  I'm fine. It's right.
• 1:07:42
  OK, Well then my next question. So we've sort of decided if you
• 1:07:45
  you could beat this into the shape of a Doctor Who book.
• 1:07:47
  It has the shape. I'm not saying it is a Doctor
• 1:07:50
  Who story because you can't do a Doctor Who story like.
• 1:07:52
  I mean, I think the only, the only reason apart from the
• 1:07:56
  obvious markers like the descriptions of Paul Mcgahn, the
• 1:07:59
  amnesia and things like that, is that this book is directly
• 1:08:02
  referenced in a Doctor Who book. It is.
• 1:08:05
  So it's a kind of officially been canonised.
• 1:08:09
  You know, the the only thing I think comes anywhere close to it
• 1:08:12
  on relationship is something like Year of intelligent Tigers.
• 1:08:15
  Oh. He has that sort of gay romance.
• 1:08:17
  It's a gay romance. Yeah, it is a gay romance.
• 1:08:20
  Book it basically. Obviously more chaste.
• 1:08:22
  And Turing Test, you know Well, he's playing Turing in that,
• 1:08:25
  isn't he? He's not, actually.
• 1:08:27
  Interested. But he knows Turing's interested
• 1:08:29
  in him. Oh, what happened?
• 1:08:30
  Mary Minute in Casualties of War.
• 1:08:33
  Do you remember that one? Oh God.
• 1:08:35
  Yes, I'll go back now. Yeah.
• 1:08:37
  I think I've read that since it came out, so yeah.
• 1:08:39
  But this is always kind of unrequited for the most part,
• 1:08:42
  isn't it? Yes.
• 1:08:43
  It's you. You know nothing's going to
• 1:08:44
  happen because the IT has to reset at the end.
• 1:08:48
  You could probably explain the fact that he is as chased as the
• 1:08:51
  years once you know, he, he escapes Earth in escape
• 1:08:54
  velocity, you know, in 2001. It's because he's got it all out
• 1:08:57
  of his system with Claudia. There you go.
• 1:09:01
  He's he's. Yeah.
• 1:09:03
  He got curious. But why is he maybe?
• 1:09:06
  Why is he only second? That's the first time I couldn't
• 1:09:09
  quite figure that out, as I said.
• 1:09:11
  I think it was a car crash wasn't it?
• 1:09:12
  Or something. He only bashed his head.
• 1:09:15
  He bashes his head from the mentally is the be as close as
• 1:09:20
  we get to explanation. OK, so so we we can turn this
• 1:09:26
  into a sort of a Doctor Who, but I'm not sure where we put it in
• 1:09:29
  the amnesia arc, but somewhere in there.
• 1:09:33
  I think it's between sheer and test and Father Tongue.
• 1:09:36
  There, Yeah. So that that's what you need on
• 1:09:38
  your bookshelf. Oh, and is is end game end games
• 1:09:41
  after the Turing test, isn't it? Oh yeah.
• 1:09:44
  Yeah. Where?
• 1:09:44
  He's hanging out with Churchill and all of that.
• 1:09:47
  So I like the idea that, you know, he's doing all this
• 1:09:49
  fucking with Claudia and then he decides to go into politics for
• 1:09:53
  Churchill. Oh, I like that.
• 1:09:55
  He's having a troublesome 100 years, really.
• 1:09:57
  He's having a. Busy 100 years.
• 1:10:01
  Well, then, John, can I ask you to sort of scour your notes,
• 1:10:03
  please, and look for any points we may not have discussed or any
• 1:10:07
  readings that you might want to do?
• 1:10:08
  Oh, and there's you're actually not a dedicated homosexual.
• 1:10:14
  Oh, I beg your pardon? Chapter 10, that will
• 1:10:19
  apparently. Oh, God, it's yeah.
• 1:10:21
  And it's the the ultimate thing for Paul is to take her from
• 1:10:27
  behind. Yeah.
• 1:10:28
  Why is that? I it's apparently, Yeah,
• 1:10:33
  apparently there is a straight man.
• 1:10:35
  Fancy of taking it from behind. Somebody goes.
• 1:10:40
  What is that? Other people, John, Not you.
• 1:10:42
  Other people. I'm fine.
• 1:10:45
  I'll I'll try anything once. Maybe I'll do a poll on the
• 1:10:48
  strangers in space. Yeah.
• 1:10:49
  On the chat and just ask have you ever had sex without taking
• 1:10:54
  it from? Behind.
• 1:10:55
  I mean, I'm going. Why didn't you just shag of
• 1:10:58
  blood then? Or something else?
• 1:10:59
  I'm so naive asking this question, but is that something
• 1:11:02
  that women like? Some do It's.
• 1:11:04
  Something that men like because the male cheese sport is up the.
• 1:11:07
  Arse. Exactly.
• 1:11:09
  This is what I said. Some women like it, some don't.
• 1:11:13
  I think the only content with abated with Henry.
• 1:11:15
  I wasn't in any kind of relationship.
• 1:11:17
  Was she was going? No, she didn't want it.
• 1:11:19
  He was obsessed with that. I know I was never up for it.
• 1:11:23
  Right, Mind you, I I mean, I don't think in in the world of
• 1:11:28
  sort of kinks, I don't think that's even really considered
• 1:11:31
  much of A. Kink.
• 1:11:32
  It's it's I'm going because at this point they're in this big
• 1:11:35
  S&M party which the doctors hold with basically Marquis Desard
• 1:11:39
  equivalent. She's like from out of nowhere.
• 1:11:43
  Yeah, the Doctor has a mansion and she she holds what?
• 1:11:49
  Originally I thought this was going to be a swingers party.
• 1:11:51
  I did say Doctor Beatrice was very eccentric, didn't.
• 1:11:54
  I Yeah. Oh, and this is where you go.
• 1:11:56
  You're making it up as you go along because there's no way
• 1:11:59
  she's got her beers. And she certainly seems to have
• 1:12:02
  an international sexual dungeon in her basement filming as well.
• 1:12:07
  She's got everything there, isn't it?
• 1:12:09
  God, Dear God. I just think the most horrific
• 1:12:12
  line in this entire book was the idea of masturbating for him
• 1:12:17
  Here in the mud and grass with both her dress and body filthy,
• 1:12:21
  was so piquant that she nearly had an instant climax.
• 1:12:25
  And that is on her husband's grave.
• 1:12:27
  I just, yeah, at that point it's going, it's supposed to be that
• 1:12:31
  she's basically completely overwhelmed with lust, isn't it?
• 1:12:34
  It's trying to convey that and just going OK and I'm urine to
• 1:12:39
  meet my mum. No, I mean for goodness sake,
• 1:12:41
  some things are sacrosanct and your husband's grave is one of
• 1:12:45
  them. Claudia, why are you so selfish?
• 1:12:50
  I'm just surprised it wasn't like going out.
• 1:12:52
  He'd have been all right with that excuse it that.
• 1:12:55
  Way I think she does say that, you know, I imagine, you know,
• 1:12:59
  at the end of Star Wars where you get Anakin Skywalk and all
• 1:13:02
  of that as ghosts watching. This.
• 1:13:03
  Oh yeah, of course. Go.
• 1:13:04
  I imagine her Oscar watching that scene playing out on on his
• 1:13:07
  grave and he's just sort of going, Oh my God, with his
• 1:13:09
  hands. So for his always going,
• 1:13:11
  Claudia, what are you doing? If Portia is writing this, he's
• 1:13:14
  got his his spectral cock in hand and he's handed it away,
• 1:13:18
  and as they kind of act, he's over the back.
• 1:13:23
  Oh my God, why didn't she think of that?
• 1:13:26
  See, I could rewrite this for it.
• 1:13:28
  I'll do it. She was there in the library,
• 1:13:31
  and she felt the invisible hands inside her.
• 1:13:34
  Or something like that. Well, anything else?
• 1:13:40
  Do we need much fun? We've discussed the juiciest
• 1:13:44
  quim, haven't we? The yeah, the and then they les
• 1:13:48
  up. Oh God, he had meant to
• 1:13:52
  regenerate her sexually. Oh yes, there you go.
• 1:13:56
  That's a one. Or when he goes, I frighten
• 1:13:59
  myself to death, looking in the mirror, my face, it didn't mean
• 1:14:02
  anything to me. Well, that's just regeneration,
• 1:14:04
  isn't it? I've got I've got the Bath
• 1:14:08
  Saffa. At one point the Beatrice got
• 1:14:11
  the Les. Is that in Bath?
• 1:14:12
  Really cold there you get called something a little more alluring
• 1:14:16
  than that. Well, she she keeps Portia keeps
• 1:14:19
  writing her sex. What does she mean by that?
• 1:14:22
  I think. I think that's just one of those
• 1:14:26
  metaphors for basically her. Her lady.
• 1:14:31
  Her lady parts, that's what. I mean, we can't say for China.
• 1:14:34
  We've said everything else on this, I said, John, if we're not
• 1:14:40
  cancelled after this episode goes out, nothing will finish us
• 1:14:43
  off, all right? Well, yeah, I'll just go this.
• 1:14:48
  One turns out, Yeah, Doctor Bowman, one of the world's
• 1:14:52
  brainiest scholars, a doctor of mathematics and a colleague of
• 1:14:55
  Stephen Hawking. As soon as I heard Stephen
• 1:14:58
  Hawking mentioned, I thought, please, no, let's not go to
• 1:15:00
  Cambridge. You can.
• 1:15:01
  Imagine with Stephen. Hawking, I couldn't handle it.
• 1:15:07
  Again. Oh yeah.
• 1:15:08
  Oh. She felt her loins melt like
• 1:15:10
  honey on a stove. Oh.
• 1:15:13
  I've never put honey on a stove. I have to say I.
• 1:15:16
  Feel my I feel my loins melt every time I get on a Zoom call
• 1:15:19
  with you. Feelings be true.
• 1:15:23
  Well, I'm not sure I've got any more sort of explicit prose to
• 1:15:27
  read out. You know, wet and swollen.
• 1:15:29
  We've covered that. Scrumpy little nymphet.
• 1:15:32
  We've covered that. Oh, there was one here.
• 1:15:36
  Look, he fucked her quickly and powerfully.
• 1:15:38
  You've read my mind, thought Claudia, her vulva beating.
• 1:15:43
  What's a vulva? It's a bit a random clip.
• 1:15:47
  Rest at the top there. Oh, thank you very much.
• 1:15:50
  Thank you for the education, John.
• 1:15:51
  That's. All.
• 1:15:53
  Right, well, OK, why don't you summarize your thoughts on the
• 1:15:57
  Stranger then, before I reveal to you the identity of Portia de
• 1:16:01
  Costa. Oh, it's not a book that I could
• 1:16:06
  in any serious way recommend as literature, But if you want to
• 1:16:12
  scream with laughter for four hours or whatever it takes to,
• 1:16:17
  you know, respect, 200 pages. So, you know, I'll be quickly.
• 1:16:20
  So that's fine, then. I would thoroughly recommend it
• 1:16:23
  for a laugh, but get it on a Kindle.
• 1:16:26
  Get your ebook. Don't go out with it in public.
• 1:16:29
  You know, don't, Don't be as shameless as Joe was here.
• 1:16:33
  I'm not ashamed of anything. I know you don't have any shame,
• 1:16:37
  do you? Think that.
• 1:16:39
  Do you think that obviously like this, this was a pretty poor
• 1:16:43
  erotic novel because it was a bit too explicit and and
• 1:16:47
  described a bit too hoistically in places.
• 1:16:51
  But do you think there's a sort of an erotic novel that could
• 1:16:53
  work for you? There isn't this.
• 1:16:56
  There almost certainly is, but I don't.
• 1:16:58
  I don't really much erotic chipper.
• 1:17:01
  There are literary sexes which work because they're in the
• 1:17:04
  context of novel. I mean, The thing is sex scene
• 1:17:09
  is in in erotic novels. It's like a fun scene in an
• 1:17:12
  action movie. It's they are the point.
• 1:17:15
  They you know, they're things you're writing bits in between
• 1:17:19
  to get to and they will distract it.
• 1:17:22
  They are the point because it's violence or sex people.
• 1:17:26
  That's what they that's what they come to the what the books
• 1:17:30
  that they're whatever for. You have used the word come so
• 1:17:33
  many times in this podcast. I'm not doing that accidentally.
• 1:17:40
  Sorry, please continue. And.
• 1:17:44
  Actually is, you know, that's a good metaphor.
• 1:17:47
  That is a great metaphor, the action movie because I think the
• 1:17:50
  best. I'm not really a big fan of
• 1:17:52
  action movies. I don't like Carl's being
• 1:17:53
  destroyed for no reason, But. But I think a good Marvel movie
• 1:17:59
  has a great plot with good, relatable characters that you
• 1:18:03
  love. Yeah.
• 1:18:05
  And scant action scenes. But when they come, they're
• 1:18:08
  fucking epic. They're out of this world.
• 1:18:10
  And you put those characters that you've allowed us to get
• 1:18:13
  close to in the first half of the movie in situations of dire
• 1:18:17
  peril, which means the action is furious.
• 1:18:20
  And it's so exciting because you just don't want anything to
• 1:18:23
  happen to them. Yeah.
• 1:18:25
  It's you've got into that again, I think you've said this.
• 1:18:27
  So it's the character, you've got into heads of character.
• 1:18:28
  You care. You can't care about this at
• 1:18:32
  all. No, Claudia's the problem I
• 1:18:35
  think. Yes.
• 1:18:36
  I just don't mind her as a human being.
• 1:18:39
  As I mean I wrote at one point, is she just a nymphomaniac or
• 1:18:44
  under some malign sexual influence?
• 1:18:46
  I wondered if the the Chris Chibnall sex gas was affecting
• 1:18:50
  her in this. How about the Master hypnotized
• 1:18:52
  her and was trying to get to shag the Doctor to death?
• 1:18:56
  Oh my God. Now imagine if that had been the
• 1:18:58
  twist at the end. You've been.
• 1:19:01
  It. Oh doctor, you have been naive.
• 1:19:05
  Maybe that that fiance comes right was going to pull her face
• 1:19:08
  and it's missing her. Maybe.
• 1:19:11
  Oh my God, you know what she could say, Doctor?
• 1:19:14
  Your will is weak due to overuse.
• 1:19:19
  Cloud is going nothing weak, but here's.
• 1:19:21
  Oh, hang on. What's that?
• 1:19:22
  That salon. Yeah, it's it was stiff like a
• 1:19:25
  man of irons. Nothing will.
• 1:19:28
  Nothing we can make that will. But I I it's driven away all of
• 1:19:35
  the sex and I realise that is getting rid of 90%.
• 1:19:37
  Of I think we've got 5 words out I.
• 1:19:40
  Think there is the bare bones of a story of an amnesiac man,
• 1:19:45
  which I know is the most cliched idea ever, but amnesia?
• 1:19:48
  Male Saviour. Thing falling into the hands of
• 1:19:52
  this lonely woman and the two of them just having a relationship,
• 1:19:56
  not necessarily a sexual relationship, but an emotional
• 1:19:59
  connection which leads to. Him getting his life back and
• 1:20:05
  I've totally rewrite the last chapter so he actually does
• 1:20:08
  leave her. So we're left feeling something
• 1:20:11
  for her, not not her going. Oh well yeah, you can stay.
• 1:20:15
  But I quite like the Doctor of the Neighbour and everyone else
• 1:20:18
  now. It would be very easy to rewrite
• 1:20:21
  as an actual if you just had character.
• 1:20:23
  Just put a few good lines in just.
• 1:20:27
  Tone Tone down the descriptions a bit.
• 1:20:29
  Oh God. But I mean, that's part of the
• 1:20:32
  she She wants it to be rich and sensual, doesn't she?
• 1:20:34
  Porsche here. And it's not.
• 1:20:37
  It's just. No, it's not.
• 1:20:39
  The trouble is that's the biggest trouble is it's it's a
• 1:20:42
  book full of sex that isn't sexy.
• 1:20:45
  Yeah, it isn't a turn on. It it's it's quantity rather
• 1:20:50
  than quality. And honestly, I'm not a hard man
• 1:20:53
  to turn on. So I've got a lot of trouble
• 1:20:57
  over the years, you know, You know, so this book should have
• 1:21:01
  been custom made for me and looks at the cover, that
• 1:21:03
  beautiful man. And I thought, my God, it's a
• 1:21:05
  good read here. I I can see a bit of McGann in
• 1:21:07
  that cover, you know, the, the long hair and the do you think?
• 1:21:10
  He's one of those models, you know, that sort of does the
• 1:21:12
  rounds. Yeah.
• 1:21:14
  I, I think it's, I think it's one of those, it's also one of
• 1:21:17
  those sort of stock photo things.
• 1:21:19
  Isn't it just the. You don't happen to have his
• 1:21:22
  number, do you? Yeah, actually I'll text over to
• 1:21:28
  you now. OK, so can I now reveal to you
• 1:21:32
  the the sort of would you do a little bit of the Murder She
• 1:21:36
  Wrote theme tune first, please? Oh, bless you.
• 1:21:45
  You don't do this in Strangers in Space, do you?
• 1:21:49
  Wow, they don't trust me. Do I can do.
• 1:21:51
  They want Cumber. They want that too.
• 1:21:53
  They want like Sam. I can do all.
• 1:21:55
  That did you just say come again?
• 1:21:58
  Come again? Yes, I think I'd only at your
• 1:22:02
  voice, so wow. That's really you know Chase was
• 1:22:06
  said the other day, right? I posted a picture online and
• 1:22:08
  they said oh you don't look at all how I imagined I mean would
• 1:22:12
  you be bother and they went well you sound so camp.
• 1:22:15
  I was like how rude is that? Do I not look camp then?
• 1:22:20
  I did. Surely they they say you need to
• 1:22:23
  work on your campus. Yeah, I think so.
• 1:22:25
  Yeah. No that I sound very camp, but I
• 1:22:27
  don't look camp. Not.
• 1:22:29
  Inside so sorry. Anyway, sorry, back to the
• 1:22:31
  investigation. Anyway, so yeah, so Jessica, so
• 1:22:38
  I knew there was something wrong when I first read this book and
• 1:22:42
  I thought to myself, this is part of a Doctor Who.
• 1:22:45
  No, I'll do my voice. This is part, this is clearly
• 1:22:48
  influenced by Doctor Who. So I thought, first of all, I
• 1:22:51
  would e-mail Portia to Costa herself and say, did you want me
• 1:22:57
  to read out the e-mail? Because I, I did look around it,
• 1:23:00
  I went there is a big presence because this if someone has been
• 1:23:04
  using pseudo, it's been a hell of a bit for 25 years.
• 1:23:08
  Yeah, I emailed Portia to costa@gmail.com because the
• 1:23:11
  lovely Lucy McCall, who knew we were doing this episode, sent me
• 1:23:13
  an e-mail and said, you know, she's got an e-mail online and
• 1:23:16
  it says here she she's always delighted to hear from her fans.
• 1:23:20
  So I thought, right, that's my first Ave.
• 1:23:22
  Hello, Portia, I said. Just a note to say that I've
• 1:23:25
  been reading your novel, The Stranger, and it reminds me so
• 1:23:29
  much of the 8th Doctor Who, the velvet coat.
• 1:23:31
  And there is even a chapter called Regeneration.
• 1:23:34
  Is this mysterious stranger supposed to be the Doctor?
• 1:23:37
  Thank you for the books, kind regards.
• 1:23:40
  Joan Ford. To which I had no response.
• 1:23:44
  No. So Portia, I mean, she probably
• 1:23:46
  was thinking about copyright. I'm thinking maybe I was from
• 1:23:49
  the BBC trying to get her to confess.
• 1:23:54
  You're a policeman. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:23:56
  So then then you said to me that, you know, you was going to
• 1:23:58
  try some channels. I'm assuming you was
• 1:24:00
  unsuccessful. I was completely unsuccessful.
• 1:24:03
  I was looking OK. She had a Facebook page.
• 1:24:04
  She has a Twitter profile, She has Instagram, which are like,
• 1:24:08
  yeah, there's family. Some of the try those.
• 1:24:11
  No response. So the strongest rumour then on
• 1:24:15
  the back of that is that Lance Parkin was Portia de Costa in
• 1:24:18
  this. Book was when I had third.
• 1:24:20
  Because Parkin and I know, we know that Craig Hinton wrote for
• 1:24:24
  Black. Legs.
• 1:24:25
  Oh, she certainly. Did, but not under Porsche De
• 1:24:27
  Costa under a completely different name.
• 1:24:29
  It was his middle name. I think so, yeah.
• 1:24:32
  I'd love to read those because his prose is floored at the best
• 1:24:34
  of times. I was gonna he's.
• 1:24:36
  Gonna have fun. I might have to do one of those.
• 1:24:40
  So I emailed Lance Parkin and just saying like, who is Portia
• 1:24:45
  Dacosta? You know, did you write this
• 1:24:47
  book effectively? I said to him, because I've
• 1:24:49
  interviewed him. He came back and he said, oh,
• 1:24:52
  he's wonderful. We the five hour interview.
• 1:24:54
  He's so nice. He said, hi, I used to know her
• 1:24:58
  real name. She's not a Doctor Who author in
• 1:25:01
  disguise. She's written a lot in block
• 1:25:04
  capitals of erotica since you've probably seen it, but you can
• 1:25:08
  contact her here. And then the same place that
• 1:25:13
  Luther McCall sent me. So I'm like, OK, great.
• 1:25:16
  And then I just got a message four days later that says I've
• 1:25:21
  just remembered her real name is Wendy Wootton.
• 1:25:32
  So the writer of The Stranger is Wendy Wootton, not Portia de
• 1:25:37
  Costa, but she's a genuine lady who has written 140 erotic
• 1:25:43
  novels. There was one title that stood
• 1:25:46
  out to me from her Wesley and the Sex Zombies.
• 1:25:50
  Oh, is that a Star Trek one? I'm hoping so, I haven't.
• 1:25:55
  I haven't been to get it yet. I've got to be honest with you,
• 1:25:57
  John Wesley Crusher, aged sort of 11 or 12, was my sexual
• 1:26:01
  awakening. What?
• 1:26:02
  Yeah, that could be quite a reason.
• 1:26:05
  You see, seems bits up clean for you.
• 1:26:07
  I'd say, you know just this. I was 11 not.
• 1:26:09
  Yet. I know I was dragged up in
• 1:26:11
  cruelly, but I was only 11 years.
• 1:26:14
  Old There was nothing I could I could.
• 1:26:17
  See to it was your sexual awakening then.
• 1:26:20
  Oh God, going back. Was it somebody famous?
• 1:26:23
  Probably would have been. Not not like Sarah Green or
• 1:26:26
  something like. That oh, God, no.
• 1:26:27
  Susanna Hoffs. That'd be who it was for the
• 1:26:29
  band. Susanna Suzanna Hoffs, a band.
• 1:26:31
  Oh, there is a gift there I've heard doing They did walk like
• 1:26:36
  an Egyptian manic. Oh my.
• 1:26:38
  God, that's the 10. OK, well.
• 1:26:43
  There's one thing she gives side eye on one of the and it's like,
• 1:26:47
  Oh my God. Oh yeah.
• 1:26:48
  So there you. Go like a better side idea.
• 1:26:51
  I'll keep your bank card. Yeah.
• 1:26:52
  Did you say the Bengals? The Bengals, Yeah.
• 1:26:55
  What close your eyes give me? That's one eternal flame as
• 1:26:58
  well, yeah. Oh, OK, well, I'll check her out
• 1:27:01
  then. Yeah.
• 1:27:02
  Wendy Wootton. So like, I mean, we can't really
• 1:27:05
  do much with that information, but at least we know this was
• 1:27:07
  not written by a Doctor Who author.
• 1:27:09
  I'm wondering because it was in the same offices as well.
• 1:27:14
  It was the Virgin, obviously. And it was the yeah.
• 1:27:16
  And the Virgin writers were still writing from that.
• 1:27:19
  They weren't writing Doctor Who books at that point, because
• 1:27:20
  obviously this is an Eighth Doctor book, but I'm almost
• 1:27:24
  willing to bet they're going right.
• 1:27:25
  Well, this is what's going on in the 8th Doctor book.
• 1:27:27
  So put this in and put that in and.
• 1:27:30
  Oh, was she, was she remember that Paul Mcgahn Eastridge in
• 1:27:33
  the grade that kind of early one?
• 1:27:35
  Or did they give her a brief to go look?
• 1:27:38
  Just basically stick the 8th doctrine here because that's
• 1:27:41
  extra sale. The Doctor Who bands will buy it
• 1:27:43
  too, because they have no. Shame, we're right here.
• 1:27:46
  You've got the Kindle edition, I've got the hard, the hard
• 1:27:48
  copy, and. You said hard rather.
• 1:27:58
  With me and you'll see. In the world, there's no much
• 1:28:04
  imagination in this one, is it? Or letter.
• 1:28:06
  We have, we've confessed, We've read out some interesting
• 1:28:10
  passages, We've explored this. Some interesting passages.
• 1:28:14
  Reversing novel before we go, Before we go, can I ask you
• 1:28:35
  please? Now, I've given you no time to
• 1:28:38
  to prepare for this, so you're going to have to pull something
• 1:28:41
  out of a hat now if you're part of the expression.
• 1:28:45
  Yeah, I've got a baseball cap. Yeah, that'll have to be.
• 1:28:47
  OK, would you please do me the honour of recommending a Doctor
• 1:28:52
  Who book for the book club audience to to read on the back
• 1:28:57
  of this please and a Doctor? Who book in the camping if?
• 1:29:02
  You want it to be one of your black archives?
• 1:29:04
  Yeah, absolutely can be. I'm.
• 1:29:06
  Not that egotistical. Unfortunately.
• 1:29:07
  What about the demons? You could recommend that one.
• 1:29:09
  Yeah, Matt Barber's The Demons. It's quite academic, but it it
• 1:29:12
  needs a few more gags. But it's quite a nice, thorough
• 1:29:15
  exploration of more interesting passages than Porcha Porcha's
• 1:29:22
  got. If not, let's see, you've done
• 1:29:26
  all Paul Mars. It's still all Paul Mars, but
• 1:29:29
  Monagra. Monagra will do it and we will
• 1:29:31
  cover that again soon, which is just.
• 1:29:33
  Explain why though, because I've never read it.
• 1:29:35
  Monagra. I wasn't big on those on the
• 1:29:40
  missing adventures when they started because I I was, yeah,
• 1:29:43
  rad versus trad was a big thing. I was more on the rad side.
• 1:29:48
  It is such an exercise in wheel building.
• 1:29:51
  It's got because I'm my degree is partly in English and this
• 1:29:56
  has this kind of work, this romantic, these romantic poets.
• 1:30:00
  Byron is in it, you know, and it's it's Europe reimagined as
• 1:30:05
  this huge theme park with, you know, with the old authors who
• 1:30:10
  have resurrected from DNA say Byron, Shelley.
• 1:30:16
  And it's funny as hell because the are you.
• 1:30:18
  Sure, this isn't written by Porsche d'costa?
• 1:30:21
  It sounds like the start of one of her books.
• 1:30:22
  It's not, It's not. It is Florida.
• 1:30:24
  It is quite, quite floridaly written, shall we say, but it's
• 1:30:29
  it's got the poets, it's got the monsters, it's got like places
• 1:30:32
  with where vampires are real as well.
• 1:30:35
  The Catholic Church is this kind of big talk and murder esque
• 1:30:40
  inquisition and the doctors are might just kind of have to
• 1:30:46
  survive. It's a romp.
• 1:30:48
  It's such a big camp, but literary romp.
• 1:30:53
  I think Judge Dreadnought was exactly the same kind of thing.
• 1:30:56
  It's brilliant. Isn't is is it Stephen?
• 1:30:59
  Stephen Marley. Stephen, this is only Doctor
• 1:31:02
  Hubuk, isn't it? This.
• 1:31:03
  Is only Doctor Hubuk there is? There was a short story follow
• 1:31:05
  up in one of those charity anthologies from later on.
• 1:31:08
  That always intrigues me though when they they're A1 and out.
• 1:31:11
  Oh, they're a full range. I was how is this guy only one?
• 1:31:15
  And that it is, it's like nothing else in Doctor Who is
• 1:31:19
  the way it's, you know, I've got it's, it's a new experience.
• 1:31:24
  Oh, I can't wait. I absolutely can't wait to to to
• 1:31:27
  get tapped into that you you and I talked about a one and out
• 1:31:31
  author earlier on in the episode when you recommended borrowed
• 1:31:35
  time by. Naomi Oldman.
• 1:31:37
  Would you be willing to come back for a second episode, read
• 1:31:41
  that through and and have another book club episode?
• 1:31:43
  Certainly would. Yeah, that's good.
• 1:31:46
  That one. I remember starting and I, I put
• 1:31:48
  it down for some reason. It wasn't because I was bored.
• 1:31:51
  I remember the opening chapters being great about this fella
• 1:31:54
  cheating time in order to get to a business meeting.
• 1:31:57
  And then I yeah, was I moving or something happened and the book
• 1:32:01
  was put away and I never could pick it up again.
• 1:32:03
  But few people have said to me that is a bloody good anyway.
• 1:32:08
  It's the peak of that range for me and I don't know what has
• 1:32:12
  gone on. She's written The Power since as
• 1:32:14
  well, which is a fantastic novel.
• 1:32:17
  Well, it's best seller, isn't it?
• 1:32:18
  Yeah, it was. It was recommended by Barack
• 1:32:20
  Obama on one of his lists of the year.
• 1:32:22
  She's a Doctor Who author as well.
• 1:32:26
  She's lovely. She's on social media, she's a
• 1:32:27
  totally, thoroughly lovely, smart, intelligent, really
• 1:32:33
  worth, you know, looking at. I suppose so, yeah.
• 1:32:35
  I, I am very much up for that. We can't promise that it's going
• 1:32:38
  to be as amusing as A Stranger by Portia de Costa.
• 1:32:42
  It's it's not quite this funny, no.
• 1:32:43
  I can't imagine in the NS as we're going to have lobbyists
• 1:32:47
  twinging and swollen cults and things.
• 1:32:50
  I don't remember, they've been that much separate, no.
• 1:32:53
  No, but I'm sure it's going to be a glimmery John.
• 1:32:56
  Would you please see me the honour of telling people where
• 1:32:58
  you are online? I'm sure they're going to want
• 1:33:01
  to find you after this episode of Answer.
• 1:33:03
  But I can't promise quite as much filth.
• 1:33:06
  Except. Except when I come back on one
• 1:33:08
  of these with Joe. OK, I'm on Twitter at the under
• 1:33:12
  score Arm Blue Sky at John Arnold on Strangers in Space,
• 1:33:20
  very regularly talking about anything cultural.
• 1:33:23
  Frankly, that takes our fancy, which is a great deal of fun.
• 1:33:27
  Oh, I was on this really good episode of Strictly.
• 1:33:29
  Come home to it and we could bet season 10 that was.
• 1:33:31
  Fun you was you was in fact, we want to get you back as well
• 1:33:35
  after that. And you were recently on a may
• 1:33:38
  or say not in my own trumpet, blowing your trumpet really,
• 1:33:43
  because it was all about you. A great desert planet picks on
• 1:33:46
  strangers in space. So if you want to get to know
• 1:33:49
  John Arnold better, go listen to that episode.
• 1:33:51
  That's the perfect one. It's the only person I've ever
• 1:33:54
  allowed talk to me about football.
• 1:33:56
  It's never happening again. I've put them off for life,
• 1:33:59
  Sean. Thank you so much for daring to
• 1:34:03
  suggest, read and talk about this book.
• 1:34:06
  I'm not sure anybody else would have done that like.
• 1:34:09
  Claudia, it was my pleasure. I'll cut it there
• 1:35:00
  the.