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Dr Philip Boyes

@philipjboyes.bsky.social
847 followers 162 following 4.1K posts

Archaeologist and linguist working on the Bronze and Iron Age Levant. Research Associate with the VIEWS Project at the University of Cambridge. Formerly with the CREWS Project. Geek.

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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 20h
Spent the week, as work, weather and baby allow, sanding, filling and sanding again my Dalek's balls. No wonder they're always on such a short fuse.
30-odd yellow hemispheres plastered in car body filler, drying on a paint-spattered plastic table.Ten yellow hemispheres arranged in a triangle, mottled with white filler and sanded smooth.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
I'm pretty sure I've said it before, but I've never seen a real object that looks so much like it should be an Elden Ring enemy. I can see its attack patterns and everything.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Actually, both this and the previous one in the series could have done with a good editorial trim. They're very waffly in a way that reads a bit first-drafty. Lots of saying the same thing over and over again. It's a shame, because they're good stories.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
I would imagine this is what editors and proofreaders are for, but apparently not.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Reading a book at the moment whose author has an annoying habit of forgetting character's names and switching them to something similar but not quite the same a few pages later. Which would be bad enough, except it's set in mediaeval Europe and lots of characters have quite similar names anyway.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Mostly just came away feeling bad for Robert.
Shop shelves. On the top shelf, a bread labelled Roberts Thick. Below it, Roberts Mega Thick.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Also, I think between Tegan's outfit and Norna's mullet, there's an argument to be made that Frontios is Peak Eighties for the series. Except Mindwarp exists.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I've always felt quite fond of Bidmead and thought he didn't deserve a lot of the stick he gets. Logopolis and Castrovalva are so distinctive and good. So always go into Frontios wanting to like it and come out kind of sad it's just fine.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
But that's half of Doctor Who! Though that said, that's one of the main issues I had with the Chibnall era. It wasn't even interesting enough to be terrible, a few stories excepted. It just beiged on for years.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
A far cry from when Bidmead got 2 whole stories out of just the single idea of reality being made of maths.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Oh, it's Terminus, isn't it? The TARDIS breaks up and partially merges with corridors. It took me a minute to place the idea but I knew it was echoing something we'd seen before. It really is a weird mash-up of recycled ideas, none of which really have space to breathe.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
The TARDIS intersecting the tunnels feels like something else again, and the corpse-powered tunnelling machine feels more like something the Cybermen would come up with than burrowing insects with gravity powers. Hive mind insects is another idea that could have been the big concept all on its own.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Why? It's so middle-of-the-road I wouldn't have thought there was anything there that could elicit a strong reaction from anyone.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
It does feel like ideas from 3 or 4 unrelated stories mashed together, which I guess thematically appropriate for gravity monsters but not especially coherent. Race memories of cave monsters is very Silurians, but steering a planet round space is Dalek Invasion of Earth.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I was wrong: episodes 3 and 4 of Frontios are better. There are some good lines and Bidmead continues his fascination with strange TARDIS geometries. I think it's fair to say this story made an impression on a young Chris Chibnall at least. Though he clearly felt it should have had Silurians in it.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I only have the bandwidth for one piece of CBeebies related discourse right now and that slot's taken until such time as I can find a definitive answer on whether the woman who presents The Toddler Club was in my class at primary school or not.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I'm not really into the Lego Brickheadz, but these are very well done. rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-279...
rebrickable.com
Trek: Deep Space Nine Figures
Build and display 9 iconic characters from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in BrickHeadz-style with Deep Space Nine Figures. The collection brings together Benjamin Sisko,...
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
'You know what? Fuck it.'
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
They should have got the person with the book to accompany her everywhere so she could have got out a bit more in these episodes.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Inspired shot framing here to try and hide Gillian Anderson's pregnancy in the last episode of the X-Files before she gets conveniently abducted. 'Stick the corpse in front of her!' 'It doesn't quite cover it all...' 'Hold up that book. A bit more. In front of the camera. Got it!'
A shot of the X-Files with Scully doing an autopsy. Someone is holding a book between the camera and her. It's taking up about a quarter of the screen.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Jeffrey Archer died? The woman who lived next door to me until a few weeks ago was his gardener. She's got a small baby so I hope his wife retains her services.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
FINAL_2_Actual_final_make_it_NORMAL_FINAL.mp4
Thumbnail for a Blue Brixx YouTube video entitled 'Animal New Releases Normal Final Cut'
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Specifically, I think it was a jigsaw my friend had rather than the episode itself. www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0bj...
youtube.com
James in a Sticky Situation | Kids Cartoon | Thomas & Friends Cartoons - Official Channel
YouTube video by Thomas & Friends
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Thanks!
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Really looking forward to this! What time is it due to finish? It'd be helpful in planning travel.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Maybe episodes 3 and 4 are better - I haven't rewatched them yet. But I don't remember much about them at all apart from the digging machine, which suggests probably not.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Frontios has some relatively good sets - it feels quite reminiscent of an early DS9 in some ways - but basically nothing happens in episode 1 and not much more in episode 2. It never quite pulls off the atmosphere it's trying to build. Shame Harper couldn't have done it alongside Caves.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
But then, you know, they'd have been better off not trying to do giant woodlice with gravitational powers on a 1980s BBC budget.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
'Tractators' is a silly name for aliens and Bidmead knows it. He's tried to derive it from the Latin 'traho, tractus' - 'to drag', but there's already an agent noun derived from that and it's 'tractor'. Rather than stick in an extra syllable, they'd have been better off just choosing another name.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I'm very much enjoying how the filament printer serves up its finished prints pleasantly warm on a metal tray. A batch of Dalek bumps feels like getting a baking tray of biscuits out of the oven or something. So much more fun than the resin printer and its dripping, fumey slime.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
It's very cute when the toddler crawls up on to my lap with a book for me to read to her. But also very funny when she does the same with a DVD. She just asked me to read her Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, seemingly one of her particular favourites along with The Stone Tape.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Pretty pleased with this as a half-day's work.
The beginnings of the frame for a half-sized Dalek skirt section.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I can do a nice, relaxed 16 Dalek bumps in a day. So, 3 and a bit days to do all 56. It'll take me longer than that to get all the skirt panels cut out. It'd be nice to get the skirt at least done relatively quickly, while the toddler is still the perfect size to sit in it as a mini-Davros.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Got a new 3D printer, and it's already got a big job to do. These are prototypes, but they're good to go now so it can start churning them out in bulk while I work.
3D-printed Dalek bumps.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
She was indeed getting ill. There goes my last day of leave. Yes, I get some more on 1 October, but only 8 and they have to include Christmas. I'm not going to be having many weekends for the rest of the year.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Thanks! Me too. It's nothing radical, but I think it's a nice middle-ground without all the bolts and chunkiness that bugs me about the NSDs.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This one's based on a custom design I put together a few years ago that combines elements from 1960s and New Series Daleks. But I wasn't entirely joking about 2 of them. The as-yet-unstarted other would be an Evil of the Daleks drone.
A render of a red and blue Dalek against a grey studio backdrop.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
'See-saw' has devolved into teeth-bared hissing. I dread to think how the nursery staff will interpret this, given that the progressive laziness has happened entirely over the weekend and there is no way someone who didn't witness it would be able to reconstruct 'see-saw' from the current noise.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Now, if only I had a half-scale operator around here somewhere. OH WAIT!
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
It's not like I don't have enough projects on the go and too little time and space for them, but sometimes the urge is hard to resist. This is half-scale, for the sake of my marriage. But, you know, that means I can make 2 of them...
The unmistakeable outline of a Dalek base plotted out in pencil on plywood.
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Reposted by Dr Philip Boyes
Dr. Nick Posegay @nposegay.northsky.social · 28/09/2026
Rafah, a city which had a pre-war population of 170,000 and once hosted the "humanitarian zone" for over a 1,000,000 Palestinian refugees, no longer exists in a meaningful way. Literally ground to dust.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
40-minute round trip to the library to collect a massive French-language tome in which I needed to find some page numbers for a reference. Had fully expected that to take the rest of today and probably a good chunk of tomorrow. Managed it in about 3 minutes.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
'Literally once never'. Why can't I type words in the right order on Bluesky?!
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Happened to be looking at the Wikipedia entry for Tanis, and this is their suggested pronunciation. Is this a thing? I have literally once never in my life heard anyone pronounce it like this. Even Indiana Jones, who gets pretty much everything else about it wrong, pronounces it 'Tannis'.
Wikipedia header for Tanis, suggesting it is pronounced 'Tay-niss'.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Always reassuring when your toddler wakes up in the morning and shouts 'I made it!'
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Oh, I'm sure! I'm more worried about annoying myself.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
It's been a while since I watched any Man From UNCLE so I have some catching up to do. Glad I did: I didn't know Vincent Price had been in it, and that was a fun episode.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The more they announce who's speaking at this Doctor Who books thing I'm going to in October, the more I'm worried I'm going to get terribly starstruck and hide in a corner, or else just incoherently blurt 'I love your writing' at everyone in a terribly embarrassing way that'll haunt me for years.
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Dr Philip Boyes @philipjboyes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I think Cambridge has moved on from its tweed phase, unfortunately. It was all mullets and moustaches a couple of years ago, but last year's freshers presented encouraging signs that that might have been a brief rather than lasting era.
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Reposted by Dr Philip Boyes
It's Pipes, Mum! Pipes is here! @scriblit.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
*blackadder theme* His head is bigger than a fence He breathes, and everything gets warmer His urge to trample represents A nation's nuclear war trauma Godzilla! Godzilla! The scourge of beast and man! Godzilla! Godzilla! He's flattening Japan!
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