(no subject)

Did anybody catch the programme about CS Lewis on telly this afternoon? Could they reassure me my ears were malfunctioning for the ten minutes I saw and the child version of the Belfast-born Lewis and his family weren't, in fact, all speaking with English accents even as the narration said they were in Belfast and called his mother an Irishwoman? Because I was rather pissed off about that and, y'know, it'd be nice not to be pissed off on Christmas, at least till ten minutes after new Doctor Who tomorrow when round 7,000 of the War of the Rose is scheduled to start.

I have a new copy of Ruby in the Smoke by that guy who wrote all those famous books I haven't read. It has Billie on the cover, all pretty and period-costumed up. Normally I'd be quite confident of getting it read between now and the TV version on the 27th, but with yuletide going live early tomorrow morning and many episodes of the beauteous QI to watch, I'm just not sure. (Speaking of QI, the Book of General Ignorance - which has prompted this watching spree - claims that the first polar bear in captivity belonged to Ptolemy of Egypt. I've been devoting an unfeasible amount of time to thinking about this bear. How did it get to Egypt? Where did he keep it? Why, with the raft of celebrity reality shows, hasn't there been an Ancient Arctic Challenge where Jordan, Richard Madeley and Jimmy Carr try to get a polar bear to Alexandria using only the technology that would have been available in Ptolemy's time, with a public vote as to who gets to be fed to the bear? Because I personally would pay to see that.)