Dannyboy-the-Dane

Thanks! I'm still not entirely used to it myself.

Suited up for the New Year's dinner.

If this is going anywhere, we really need to start calling him something other than "Mexican boy".

I applaud the thorough and visually interesting year breakdowns of Goaf and ReZ. I myself am far too lazy to be as thorough, so I shall simply sum up my year in general: Overall it's been a great one. I gained some amazing new friends with whom I've had the greatest of times and to whom I've grown very close, and in general I've just had some amazing times with friends. 2013 also had a lot of great happenings to offer like the N-E Meet, the Doctor Who Anniversary and my very first tabletop RPG campaign. It's also been a great year for me as regards personal development - I feel better than probably ever before, and I can only see it improving. Oh, and I also handed in my BA project, which I keep forgetting is a pretty decent achievement. All in all a pretty amazing year for me. Bring on 2014!

This ... ... and this basically sum up my view. Of course we place value on outer beauty; if we only care about personality, it's just a friendship - it's the attraction that makes it more than that. But, as the headline says, beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder - it's a subjective concept. I think we've all seen people fancying someone we ourselves wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole. It also seems to me personality can "leak through" and affect how someone looks to us; to quote Doctor Who: "... their face just sort of becomes them. Like their personality's written all over it." The reason valuing outer beauty is looked down upon is because it's - for the most part and in theory - an inconsequential part of us; we don't choose our physical characteristics, and they're irrelevant in all regards (disregarding the characteristics that affect our physical capabilities).

I am so unbelievably excited for Capaldi. I have such a great feeling about him, and the bit we've seen of him so far only added to that!

So sorry about your aunt, Martin. (And your cat, Sam.)

Happy year new. Fuck.

If ever it becomes possible to "choose" your own sexuality with the help of science, it only seems right that adults should have the right to choose to do so. We can only hope that acceptance has progressed to the point where a person's hand won't be forced by social stigma. Regarding paedophilia, it seems obvious to me that there's nothing morally wrong about the attraction itself; the problem is of course that there's no morally right way to practice it. I find it highly problematic that, as @flameboy so rightly points out, paedophilia is incredibly stigmatised by society; you never hear a single story depicting paedophiles in a sympathetic light as sufferers of an attraction they obviously didn't choose of their own free accord and would very likely rather be without. As with all problems in society, the answer is not trying to scare people out of doing bad things, it's trying to help them so they don't end up doing bad things in the first place.

Looks epic, Animal! Loving the shine on that suit!

My resolution for the past year was simply to continue improving my self-esteem, and I daresay I have succeeded. For probably the first time in my life I am beginning to genuinely consider myself attractive, which, needless to say, is quite a milestone. Obviously I have yet to completely rid myself of all feelings of low self-worth, and I suspect some amount will always linger, but I have certainly made monumental progress over the past year. As for future resolutions, I think I shall refrain from making any solid ones; I want to strive to improve at all times, and setting up arbitrary goals for arbitrary dates seems a likely recipe for needless anxiety and stress.

I am in love with those colours. Are they as radiant in reality?

I'm unsure what you mean; what doesn't make sense? The chronology goes like this: The War Doctor steals the Moment, intending to destroy Time Lords and Daleks alike and seal the entire Time War in a time lock. Rassilon learns of this and, having grown mad with power, devises a plan involving the Master and a White-Point Star to create a way out of the (non-existent) time lock. This plan is stopped by the Tenth Doctor, and the Time Lords are sent back to the Time War. The Moment shows the War Doctor what he will become, and the Doctors, aided by Clara, devise a plan to save Gallifrey by moving it to another dimension. The plan succeeds and the Daleks end up destroying themselves in the crossfire, but due to the Doctor crossing his own timeline, he is unable to remember the events of the crossover until he has caught up with all three versions, thus believing himself to have committed double genocide until then. The Time Lords know the Doctors saved them, hence them calling out to him to help them return.

The ones in The End Of Time was led by the megalomanial Lord President; also, it happened before the events in The Day Of The Doctor, meaning the Time Lords realised the Doctor(s) eventually saved them from the Time War - that's why they were calling him, trusting him to help them return. I'm thinking that's why Clara's speech had the effect it had: It proved to them he was the Doctor and would get them back eventually, but that then and there they had to help him first.

I realise I misunderstood the first part of the question. It really was Christmas as per tradition for us (we celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve): Most of the day was spent getting ready with food and everything, then we ate duck around 6 followed up by risalamande, a sweet rice pudding dessert in which an almond is traditionally hidden; the finder gets a present, but this year my dad put an almond in each of our servings. We were shocked to the core and all had to lie down for an hour (or maybe that was due to overeating). After that we sang Christmas songs; the tradition is to dance around the Christmas tree, but there's no room for that where our tree is standing, so we just sit, which is probably better anyway conidering our cardio. Then it was time for presents, and I think we hit a record this year with twenty presents for three people. It feels good to have reached the age where giving gifts is more fun than receiving them. The rest of the evening we just relaxed, and we've been doing the same for the past two days, just milling about, enjoying the peace and quiet and doing whatever we feel like. Tomorrow we're going to my uncle's for the traditional family Christmas dinner on my dad's side, the day after we're having dinner with another uncle on my mum's side, and the next two days we're going to Copenhagen to see a play and admire the Christmas lights in Tivoli among other things.

It wasn't exactly a cheap deodorant from the grocery store.

What did I do this year? Well, I handed in my BA project this December, which is probably the most I've accomplished. As for Christmas presents, I got some old books on Greco-Roman stuff (par for the course at this point), an electric toothbrush (dentist's recommendation which will hopefully improve my oral hygiene), a lot of chocolate (oh, the irony) and a DVD of a Danish stand-up comedian. However, the final two things I received were the most impressive: I got a Calvin Klein deodorant from a friend whose Latin studies I'm helping with; I really didn't want anything in return as I both enjoy doing Latin and helping out a friend, but said friend apparently feels bad about receiving the help without doing something in return. I was rather taken aback by how fine the present was. The second present I was impressed by was this - a 4-CD collection of musical interpretations of all the poems in the The Lord Of The Rings book trilogy. It is the final product of more than ten years' work by The Tolkien Ensemble, a Danish ensemble featuring Christopher Lee himself.

That truly sucks, Aneres. Sorry to hear it.

I am fairly certain this is the first time the Daleks have appeared since Clara wiped their databanks. The crack has always been attributed to the TARDIS blowing up; it has been hinted at that the Church of the Silence was behind it, which has now been confirmed. Prisoner Zero just used it to escape, just as the Time Lords were simply trying to use it to return; I assume this is the reason they were able to close it - because they were the only ones keeping it open, the universe before the TARDIS explosion having been rebooted. Why they decided to close it, I do not know; perhaps they realised this was not the time and place to return, instead choosing to put their faith in the Doctor.