I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice. It rarely goes out of tune but today it went off a few times.
I weighed 85.35 kilos before breakfast, which surprised me because I’d expected it to be a lot higher, given the eating I did on Christmas day and the extra beers I drank.
Around midday I took an early bike ride because I wanted to take advantage of Boxing Day and shop for a new pair of boots to replace the Blondos that recently fell apart. As usual when I take a bike ride that early I had to pee along the way. I stopped at Long and McQuade and then continued. My destination was The Hudson Bay Company because it’s listed as a Blondo dealer but first I had to pee again. I went to the washroom at Eaton Centre and for the first time in memory I had to stand in a long line for a Men’s washroom. At the Bay the footwear was on the fifth floor. They didn’t have Blondo but they had something better. The first brand I saw was the one I liked best. It was Pajar, which I’ve never heard of but it’s a Canadian company founded in Montreal in 1963. For the first ten years they were importers but in 1973 they opened their own factory. They were the official footwear provider for the Canadian Alpine Ski team in 1989. I looked at all the other boots and then came back to the Pajar, which were $350 but 20% off. Size 10 was on display but it looked too small even though I didn’t try them on. I asked for size 11. They felt a little roomy but I couldn’t imagine size 10 fitting so I bought size 11, which after tax were $316. The salesperson pointed out to me that they have a neat feature on the bottom. They have flippable spikes for walking on ice that when not in use can be flipped harmlessly inside the tread.
On the way home I stopped at Freshco where I used the washroom again before shopping. I bought four bags of red grapes, bananas, a pack of raspberries, a pack of frozen pub style chicken wings, a pack of Full City dark coffee, and a pack of toilet paper. I did a price match on the grapes with Metro’s price because they were selling them at about half the Freshco price.
I weighed 85.05 kilos at 16:41, which is the lightest I’ve been in the afternoon since December 6. I had a late lunch and a late siesta. I got up at 19:00.
I weighed 85.95 kilos at 19:14. That’s the highest it’s been in the evening since December 13.
I was still working on my review of Deadpool and Wolverine and so I was a day behind on my journal and it looked like it was going to be longer than that.
I had a potato with gravy and a slice of pork tenderloin while watching this year’s Doctor Who Christmas special.
The story begins in Manchester in 1940 during the Blitz. In the Queens Hotel an upper class couple Basil and Hilda discuss the end of all they hold dear when suddenly a door opens and in walks the Doctor with a tray and offers them a ham and cheese toasty and a pumpkin spice latte. They are shocked and the Doctor sees the order isn’t theirs and so he leaves through the same door. Basil tries the door and it’s locked. Hilda reminds him it has always been locked.
The next scene is a room on the Orient Express as it rolls through the Italian Alps in 1962. The occupant is Sylvia Trench, the very first Bond girl from Doctor No. This suggests that the James Bond universe is linked to that of Doctor Who. She is reading a love letter when the Doctor enters with the same tray. He sees it’s not her order and says “Wrong room”. Then at a base camp of Mount Everest in 1953 the Doctor pokes his head into Edmund Hillary’s tent with the same order, sees he’s in the wrong place and says “Never mind”.
The next scene is the Sandringham Hotel in present day London. Joy Almondo rents a room and notices that one of the doors is locked but comments that there is always one locked door in every hotel room. She is just putting her hair dryer into a drawer when the locked door opens and in walks a humanoid lizard with a briefcase cuffed to his wrist. She points the hair dryer at him and he thinks it’s a weapon. He says “The star seed will bloom and the flesh will rise”. Suddenly the Doctor steps in with the same order and this time he knows he’s in the right place.
There is a flashback to previous events that occurred in the future, specifically in London at Christmastime in 4202. The Tardis appears in the lobby of the Time Hotel and the Doctor exits in his bathrobe, carrying a mug to get coffee and a biscuit. He notices a man approach the desk while carrying a briefcase that is cuffed to his wrist. A hotel worker named Trev confronts the Doctor about taking hotel refreshments and asks if he’s a guest. The Doctor says he brought his own room. Trev looks at the Tardis and asks if it’s a toilet. The Doctor asks who takes a coffee to the toilet. The Doctor goes back into the Tardis but then puts his coat on and grabs his sonic screwdriver and exits again to have another look at the man with the briefcase. Trev confronts him again and this time the Doctor flashes his identification with the psychic paper and says he’s Special Agent Clint Rock from the head office. The Doctor learns that instead of rooms the hotel has time portals that access history’s most popular occurrences. He comments “No wonder there was no room at the inn. The Doctor looks at the menu and is about to order a ham and cheese toasty and a pumpkin spice latte when it is immediately served. Trev explains that the kitchen is thirty minutes in the future and so they always have your order ready before you make it. Trev has a radio implanted in his head and so the Doctor has him watch the briefcase guy and let him know when he makes a move. The Doctor goes looking for someone who wants a ham and cheese toasty and a pumpkin spice latte. The briefcase guy goes into the bar and hands the case to the bartender. The cuffs unlock from him and attach to the bartender. Everyone with the case says “The star seed will bloom and the flesh shall rise”. The previous carrier is no longer in a trance and asks what happens next. The bartender tells him he will be dead soon. The bartender then gets Trev to take the briefcase. Then Trev gives the briefcase to the clerk who is the humanoid lizard. Trev disintegrates just as all do who have held the briefcase. Now we are where we left off before the flashback as the Doctor walks into Joy’s room. The clerk wants the Doctor to take the briefcase but he refuses. Joy naively says she’ll take it and then she is taken over as well. After the clerk disintegrates the Doctor opens the briefcase while it is still attached to Joy. Inside is the star seed and a message that if the case is not closed in 20 seconds the current case holder will be disintegrated. The case is closed at the last second but they are asked for a four digit security code or the case holder will be disintegrated in 15 seconds. Neither of them has the code. In the last second the Doctor from the Doctor’s future bursts in with the code and Joy is saved. The Future Doctor grabs Joy and says she’s going with him. He tells present Doctor he has to stay there to complete the loop. Present Doctor angrily tells his future self, “This is why nobody likes you and why everybody leaves you!” He opens the locked door with his sonic screwdriver but behind it is a brick wall. The Doctor can’t get back to the Time Hotel until Christmas 2015. He talks with Anita the Sandringham Hotel manager and asks her for a job. He works at the hotel for a year as a waiter, janitor, and maintenance person. He serves guests’ meals before they order based on his psychic paper. So one woman who’s on a diet gets jelly and biscuits because that’s what she’s thinking of. He fixes the microwave and now it’s bigger on the inside. He and Anita become close friends. Christmas arrives and she catches him trying to leave a gift and sneak away. He tells her how amazing she is and they have a tearful goodbye. He’s now able to go back through the locked door into the Time Hotel. He enters Joy’s room and gives his past self the code, then he takes Joy with him. She is still attached to the case and it is reasserting control. He tells her that he learned everything about her from living in her room for a year. It was the worst, loneliest, saddest hotel room in the world. He asks what kind of trainwreck puts herself in a room like that at Christmas? He wonders if people laugh when she tells them her name? Was her mother having a laugh when she named her? She says her mother died in hospital and she had to visit her via an iPad because of the pandemic. Now she can never be with anyone on Christmas day because she let her down. She begins crying and the Doctor holds her. He then points out to her that her mother just saved her life and shows her that the briefcase is lying on the floor at the other side of the room with the cuffs snapping in the air as it tries to connect with a host. He tells her he had to make her angry to break the spell. She thanks him. The Doctor analyzes the briefcase and finds that it is another Villengard weapon. Villengard is the biggest arms manufacturer in recorded history and it has popped up many times in the last couple of years. The Doctor says for Villengard to grow a star from the star seed they would have to go back 65 million years. Suddenly a T-Rex arrives and swallows the briefcase. They escape back into the Time Hotel but realize that the present is when the star seed will bloom because it has had enough time. The Doctor’s screwdriver is buzzing and Trev appears from it as a holographic projection. He says he is now part of the star. He connected his implant to the briefcase’s communication system over the last several million years. He says the star seed is in room 48 and they have 4.5 minutes before detonation. The case is inside a locked shrine and so the Doctor needs rope. He goes back to Edmund Hillary’s base camp and steals the team’s rope. He runs the rope through Sylvia Trench’s train room and throws it off the back of the Orient Express so the hook catches on the track. The train yanks the door off the shrine in room 48 of the Time Hotel. The case opens and Joy talks with the Star Seed, telling it she wants it to live. The Doctor returns and finds Joy gone and the case empty. He enters the shrine and climbs a stairway to the top of a mountain where Joy stands under the night sky merging with the Star Seed. She says the star is in her and in Trev and all the others that carried it. She assures him that no one will be hurt when the Star Seed blooms. She says they are beyond Villengard and they are not dying but changing. She tells the Doctor that he needs to find a friend and she’ll be watching. Joy begins to ascend, then transforms into a star that flies up and takes its place in the sky. The Doctor looks around and realizes that he is overlooking Bethlehem in the year zero and that Joy is the star of Bethlehem. Anita is looking at the star when someone comes through the locked door to offer her a job at the Time Hotel on the Doctor’s recommendation. In 2020 Joy’s mother sees the star and she knows it’s Joy as she dies and becomes part of the star as well.
Joy was played by Nicola Coughlin, whose film debut was an uncredited role at the age of nine in My Brother’s War. Her first credited film part was in the short film The Phantom Cnut. She studied at the Oxford School of Drama and the Birmingham School of Acting. Her voice television debut was in The Fairytaler. Her live television debut was on an episode of the soap opera The Doctors. Her breakthrough came in 2018 when she starred in the sitcom Derry Girls. In 2020 she became known to the world when she began playing the role of Penelope Featherington on Bridgerton. She starred in Seize Them. She played Diplomat Barbie in the Barbie movie. She co-starred in the sitcom Big Mood.
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