iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Yeah I found it hard to take the risk of changing up much - I loved using a droid for a few fights and would love to explore that but the stakes felt too high to just "practice" with different combos and that was half the fun. Maybe just a "me" thing.

Whereas the 007 game DOES have something like that which doesn't interest me at all and seems odd for the game. Alas...

Yeah it feels set up for that doesn't it - maybe now the game has been a smash they can get their furloughed staff back now and do something like that? I don't really want to do a full run through again but I'd gladly dip in for a few hours for a non-story mode

Sorry actually final thing - Patrick Gibson is a terrific theatre actor and seeing him give his turn as Bond was thrilling. Always here for good artists getting a big platform

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(Also also - I was like “huh the flirting/romance in this Bond story doesn’t feel creepy for once, who knew they could manage that?” and it’s simply that it’s age-appropriate and everyone is v keen on each other)

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(I also had a lovely moment of realising that X Wing was probably the first proper video game I played by myself when I was 7 or 8 and I loved it. And here I am, 30 years later, still enjoying games in that universe)

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Vinay Patel @vinaypatel.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I soon won’t have time for much non-handheld gaming so I went on a small binge and finished both 007 First Light and Zero Company, both of which were great fun, this is all x

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He’s in fine form! (For a cat who’s about to turn 19)

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Vinay Patel @vinaypatel.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

There is now a small - but not inconceivable - chance that the the last event of the Starmer premiership will be England winning the World Cup

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Vinay Patel @vinaypatel.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Yes and that's true everywhere and for so many things, sadly. The rage comes first, the "cause" come second.

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Vinay Patel @vinaypatel.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Anyway will be doing some thoughts about supporting England in next newsletter but, for now, reposting my blog from 2021 and want to say last night was the most fun I've had watching England in ages and ages. Pure chaos and light. More of that, please... vinayskpatel.wordpress.com/2021/07/09/t...

vinayskpatel.wordpress.com

This Time, More Than Any Other Time

To watch England play football is to worry about England fans. You learn that at a young age here. You might love football. You might have a great deal of affection for England itself. But there ar…

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Vinay Patel @vinaypatel.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Just a reminder that posting "Oh is the sportsball on?" does not make one a profound, sexy individual

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Vinay Patel @vinaypatel.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Tbf, I have met a lot of married couples without much chemistry...

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Ah cheers. Was good times in the main. My only regrets are a script I’d written that I really loved that got nixed by Covid and having to (rightly) lose this very bad gag that nevertheless tickled me from Fugitive

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They could be! Depends on the terms of the tender & expectations around delivery. I suppose what I’m hoping for is that the BBC are open to and happy to work with different models (which they have already been to a degree) but it’s also something equally considered on the production company side too

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Thanks, that’s very kind! Feel grateful to have gotten to tell both those stories and to learn from some brilliant fellow writers while I did

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A few years ago, I was developing a show which had a team on it and I wrote this as part of my manifesto. (The troubled examples mentioned aren’t drawn from my time on Who). I still feel like this main point is a common issue and one that can only ultimately be solved with better structures

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There’s of course more than one producer and they do loads of the heavy lifting but yeah the demands of an anthology show are major. I can’t be prescriptive on the best model because it would depend on the individuals and the money and the output but it feels there must be something less destructive

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I DO like to let the hate flow through me…

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Also sorry to be clear: A job like that will involve some degree of sacrifice. It’s unreasonable to expect otherwise. I just mean I’d love for the baseline to not be “basically impossible”

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Anyway - I hope they get some great people (and that it’s no-one I care for deeply)

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Haha perfect. And weirdly yes one of the things I liked most about Backrooms is that I felt like it could’ve happened where I grew up (for better or worse)

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Totally, although always the question: Can he do it on a cold, rainy night in Stoke?(Cardiff)

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(And I mean leadership up and down the production. The strain on department heads is ginormous)

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I think it makes it feel more daunting though, in the day-to-do of it, it’s more the nature of the show (in my humble opinion)

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It’s a great book but it also makes you go “only a very particular person with a very particular set of circumstances could do this” and I guess I hope - for the good of the show - that it need not be so

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I think it’s a broader issue across all leadership but particularly artistic leadership. Less money, much more expectation and visibility, louder feedback. If you want good people in those jobs and for them to stick around, you need to make the gig more tolerable/sustainable. Passion isn’t enough

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(This, but with regeneration energy or something)

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I am put in mind of the increasing number of co-Artistic Director pitches to theatres. Not always possible. Doesn’t always work. But theatre boards saying they’re open to it does allow a broader set of people to throw their hat in

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My boring take, from other people’s experiences and my own: Doctor Who is a ferociously difficult, near-inhumane show to produce. Brutal for every department, but particularly for one person to hold at the top as it is. If they want the best range of pitches, the production model needs rethinking

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I am half-joking but also...TV's position as setting "canon" feels outmoded culturally and kinda spiritually too? What is authority there beyond the money involved (especially in a fractured cultural landscape) when the core conceit ignites so much passion beyond it? Let a thousand Doctors bloom x

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Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

"There are three deaths for a TV show: the first is when the current series ends. The second is when they announce there isn't another series planned. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when a fan fiction is written for the last time"

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Reposted by Vinay Patel

"Far more embarrassing, surely, is the fact that Reform UK has not replaced its candidate. Multiple newspapers and the campaign group Hope Not Hate have all been able to claim scoops simply be trawling Robert Kenyon’s social media history. This is not a good sign." Latest column, on Makerfield etc

newstatesman.com

One simple fact shows Reform and the Greens are nothing alike

The parties’ responses to candidates’ controversies in Makerfield reveal their true characters

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Vinay Patel @vinaypatel.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

It is a bit silly. Like if you think it would be odd for characters/actors to be smiling at the end of a tragedy, it’s odder for them to be bobbing up and down in front of an applause…

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Vinay Patel @vinaypatel.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

I THINK this is a particular ask from particular directors…

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Reposted by Vinay Patel

Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

between the weather and the bank holiday and the president threatening genocide, I am finding it mighty hard to get back into the swing of work, I must say

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Vinay Patel @vinaypatel.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Girl, are you a trans-lunar injection burn cause you’re escaping my orbit at a speed of approximately 24,500 to 25,000 mph

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Vinay Patel @vinaypatel.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Was haunted by Columbia, I’ll never forget the newspaper front pages with a photo of a charred helmet in a Texan field. But…I also have thought of this at random points in the last twenty years and it is silly and strange and poignant all at once

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Vinay Patel @vinaypatel.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

I’m afraid humans going into space will always be astonishing to me and I feel grateful to be alive and emotionally invested in this era before the inevitable McDonalds on the Moon stage

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Vinay Patel @vinaypatel.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Ah thanks I’m really glad to hear it!