Doctor Who spin-offs no. 6

Round The Vaughn

Much loved sixties radio show featuring well-spoken straight man Tobias Vaughn and famous characters Cyber-Julian and Cyber-Sandy ('He's fully cybernetic, and I've been converted.' 'Converted.') Music from Scottish singing quartet the Frazer Hines Four.

Doctor Who spin-offs no. 5

Kindagarten

Social experiment where young kids spend a year in a closed environment with wind chimes and lots of Swiss cheese plants, exposed to periodic rants from Simon Rouse.

Doctor Who spin-offs no. 4

Drahvin Miss Daisy

Tender flashbackathon where Jessica Tandy gradually opens up to chauffeur Morgan Freeman, confiding that she is, in truth, Maaga, who escaped from the doomed planet just in time and has been in hiding on Earth ever since. Freeman's sympathy enables her to ultimately come to terms with all the evil deeds she committed back in Galaxy Four.

I've assembled myself a tape of blocking songs. My new neighbours are mostly very quiet, but occasionally they put gangsta rap on, and I'm not sitting listening to that while I'm trying to read.

So a group of songs are required which have enough authority to cover up the noise coming through the wall, but which aren't so noisy as to be irritate me themselves.

Radio Prague - OMD (melodic distortion to help me get the right volume level)
The Shouty Track - Lemon Jelly (the blocking song where all other blocking songs begin. It was with this that I used to signal to my Polish upstairs neighbours that I had had enough thumping on my ceiling for one afternoon)
Aphrodite - Paris and Sharp (nice bit of trance with wonderful tuneful bangy bit at the end)
The Private Psychedelic Reel - Chemical Brothers
Trance Shapes - Robert Miles (the track that first showed me the virtues of trance)
Sploosh! - Ozric Tentacles
Hey Boy, Hey Girl - Chemical Brothers (vocals for a change)
Walking Distance - Buzzcocks (guitarry instrumental)
Waterfall - Atlantic Ocean
To The Shock Of Miss Louise - Thomas Newman (nothing says 'Please stop playing gangsta rap now' like a bit of steam organ)
Late For The Train - Buzzcocks (drum-tastic train imitation to round things off)

First cuckoo of spring this morning.

There are about the same number of astronomical units in a light year as there are inches in a mile. (63,240 against 63,360, a difference of 0.2% .)

So if you made a scale model of the solar system with the Earth one inch from the Sun, Alpha Centauri would be over 4 miles away.

An augury

Got home from town and was just turning into my front path, when a hawk flew down with a smaller bird in its talons, and landed on the lawn. The hawk clawed at its prey for a couple of seconds, but must have been put off by my presence, because the small bird escaped and flew off. The hawk pursued it, but it got away.

This means something good, right?