You Can’t Stop The Signal

My jaw has dropped several times today so despite being on the verge of exhaustion, I feel the need to share. It’s been going non-stop since I woke at eight for another nine o’clock lecture. I now have four of them a week which I think is rather unsporting. Nevertheless having attended my fifth lecture this term, and therefore outdoing most people who claimed I wasn’t working last year, I sorted out several jobs before meeting the chaplain and the chapel wardens, whose ranks I have just joined. After a strange initiation ceremony involving a large baked potato and some cheese, we discussed the relevant issues while I pondered which part of me glowed with enough Christianity for the chaplain to have offered me the role in the first place.

I hurried off to another meeting with the Globalist editors, only this time it was person. Over the course of a few hours I met every member of the editorial board for the first time which was very weird, having previously known them only electronically. It was fantastic to actually see them in the flesh of course. Some were as I imagined, some a little different. Having spent virtual weeks together with Steph obsessing over the minutiae of the mag it partly felt like we knew each other inside out all already, though I’m pretty sure we’ve only grazed the surface, but we get on in person as well as we do online. (Almost) more importantly, I got to hold the magazine for the first time. My eyes grew wider than ever as I savoured every drop off ink, painstakingly positioned. I still can’t look at some pages without wincing at the painful effort it required. But it looks gorgeous. I have my copy, signed by all the editors, sitting in my room so I may sneak you a few photos later. As our posters now proclaim, the release is on the 24th. It’ll be well worth the wait. I promise.

The evening was all about Serenity. Foregoing yesterday’s preview because I had to see it with TomTom (who originally introduced me to Firefly), we headed out with Ravi and Angie (who’d watched a little of the series) and Lyds and Jon (who hadn’t). Everyone loved it. TomTom and I adored it. Fans will be grinning so hard when they step out of that theatre with a feeling not evoked in a sci-fi film since the return to the Star Wars universe in The Empire Strikes Back. I finally understand those T-shirts now. The dialogue is as witty and tightly written as anything Whedon’s done, the effects are stunning but complement rather than overpowering the great performances, and those fan moments hit every note perfectly. I promise a review as soon as I stop grinning inanely every time I think back. But it’s not just for Firefly fans, and it’s not just for guys. You truly can’t stop the signal. Serenity now.