I like it when they reference “smeg” News Posted by Jonathan Capps on 12th September 2006, 14:19 Some non-news that might raise a small smile, if you’re very lucky. Whilst recently reading the average Doctor Who New Adventure novel The Dying Days, written by Lance Parkin, I spotted* this during a moment when Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart gives his business card to a couple of geeky fellas: ‘Look at this, Doug! I’ve got the Brig’s email address, I’ve got his home phone number. What’s this? BN45 7ED. I’ve got his smegging postcode!’ Oswald could barely contain his excitement. He was waving the business card like it was a winning lottery ticket. Now, either this is a nice reference to a show the writer is fond of, or it’s just lazy, hacky shorthand for how geeks are supposed to speak when excited about something. Judging from his writing in the rest of the book, I’m going to go for the latter… *Weeeeeell, I say “spotted”, what I really mean is that I was told by Seb Patrick, completely forgot about it and then remembered it again when I read it. Close enough.
So the book’s set post-March 2045 then? :) Postcodes aren’t dated like that. You’re thinking of number plates. It’s actually set in 1997, anyway, and there’s a tonne of awful pop culture references (such as the smeg one) that date the book badly. Not to the mention an utterly hilarious and incomprehensible plot point right at the start involving a prisoner and a helicopter. Still a decent enough book, mind, but it certainly didn’t live up to the hype it gets (from both readers AND the bloody author on the BBC website).
