The Wait of The Whirled:
Sontarans! Perverting the Course of Human History!
I Don't Want to Go.
When The Doctor, When The Doctor Was Me.
When The Doctor Was Me.
It's starting.
I'm regenerating.
No! No! No! No! No! No!
(The Regeneration stops, and The TARDIS has materialised.)
The Wait of The Whirled:
Where have you taken me?
If you're trying to make a point, I'm not listening.
I Don't Want to Change Again.
Never Again!
I Can't Keep on Being Somebody Else.
Wherever it is, I'm staying.
( He runs outside and the Cloister Bell sounds. )
[Snowstorm]
The Wait of The Whirled:
No!
( He plunges his hands into the snow with a sizzle - )
( HE HEALS THE EARTH )
( The Regeneration stops again. )
The Wait of The Whirled:
I Will Not Change.
Old Grandfather:
I Will Not Change.
I Will Not!
No, no, no, no.
The Whole Thing's ridiculous.
The Wait of The Whirled:
Hello? Is someone there?
Old Grandfather:
Who is that?
The Wait of The Whirled:
I'm The Doctor.
(The elderly figure in checked trousers, cape, scarf and astrakhan hat comes into view.)
Old Grandfather :
The Doctor...?
Oh, I don't think so.
No, dear me, no.
Old Grandfather :
You may be a doctor,
but I am The Doctor.
The Original, you might say!
"The Old Man must die * ;
and The Woman Will Discover,
to Her inexpressible joy,
that She has never existed...!
...and so She says :
'Oh, brilliant...!' indeed, matey!
" To Sherlock Holmes she is always The Woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex.
It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer—excellent for drawing the veil from men’s motives and actions.
But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his.
And yet there was but One Woman to him.
I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away from each other. My own complete happiness, and the home-centred interests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention, while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition...
*****
"What a Woman—oh, what a Woman!” cried the King of Bohemia, when we had all three read this epistle.
"Did I not tell you how quick and resolute she was? Would she not have made an admirable queen? Is it not a pity that she was not on my level?”
“From what I have seen of The Lady, she seems, indeed, to be on a very different level to your Majesty,” said Holmes coldly.
[ He ain't kidding... ]
“I am sorry that I have not been able to bring your Majesty’s business to a more successful conclusion.”
“On the contrary, my dear sir,” cried the King; “nothing could be more successful. I know that her word is inviolate. The photograph is now as safe as if it were in the fire.”
“I am glad to hear your Majesty say so. [ Because I failed - She beat me. And She knows that She did. And then didn't rub my nose in it by gloating over having humiliated and emasculated me (and The King) in front of my client and employer - who is The King. And a Fool. ]”
“I am immensely indebted to you. Pray tell me in what way I can reward you. This ring—” He slipped an emerald snake ring from his finger and held it out upon the palm of his hand.
[ What a Tool... ]
“Your Majesty has something which I should value even more highly,” said Holmes.
“You have but to name it.”
“This photograph!”
The King stared at him in amazement.
“Irene’s photograph!” he cried. “Certainly, if you wish it.”
“I thank your Majesty. Then there is no more to be done in the matter. I have the honour to wish you a very good morning.” He bowed, and, turning away without observing the hand which the King had stretched out to him, he set off in my company for his chambers.
And that was how a great scandal threatened to affect the kingdom of Bohemia, and how the best plans of Mr. Sherlock Holmes were beaten by a woman’s wit. He used to make merry over the cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late. And when he speaks of Irene Adler, or when he refers to her photograph, it is always under the honourable title of The Woman.
"Something is added to cricket by the angle of the sun as it stands at four o'clock in early September.
The shadows are longer, there's a suggestion of colder days approaching, of Circular Time, of aspects of our lives dying away and returning.
The other sort of time is called Linear Time -- Life is hard and then one dies.... if that's something one is liable to do.
Cricket, to me, seems to stand for The Former and against The Latter.
It's something that dies but returns and writes mortals into History, in stories and statistics. Perhaps that's why it appeals to me.
I, also, die and return, like a hardy perennial.
However, Linear Time is currently impinging on the Hampshire town of Stockbridge in the form of an end-of-season struggle to avoid relegation from the top-most league of village cricket.
They're raging against the dying of the light, they need wins not draws. They need umpires to take the brightest possible view of those stormy skies overhead.
They need to play in horizontal rain if they have to. I've seen them do just that in the last couple of weeks, but I've joined them so late this year that I may not be much help...."
