Of the 19 hijackers who carried out the Sept 11 attacks:

15 were from Saudi Arabia (a powerful/oil-rich country the U.S. works hard to maintain diplomatic relations with)

2 were from the United Arab Emirates (also a powerful/oil-rich country the U.S. works hard to maintain diplomatic relations with)

1 was from Egypt, 1 from Lebanon.

None of the hijackers were from Iraq.

None of the Sept 11 hijackers were Iraqi.

None of the 9/11 hijackers were from Iraq.

Q&A with Paul Driscoll

Paul Driscoll is a writer, editor and publisher based in Leigh, Greater Manchester. He has been a Doctor Who fan ever since his parents took him to see the stage play The Seven Keys to Doomsday. He is the co-founder of Altrix Books, whose publications include his novel The Chronosmith Chronicles: After Vincent and the Doctor Who essay collection Army of Ghosts. Having written two books for Obverse Books’ Black Archive range, in 2020 he joined the editorial team. Paul’s work has also featured in various charity anthologies including You on Target (Watching Books), Whoblique Strategies (Chinbeard), The Unofficial 1987 Doctor Who Annual (Terraqueous Distributors), and The Curse of Fanfic (Obverse Books).

His story, ‘Doctor Crocus and the Pages of Fear’, stars the George Gallaccio Doctor, and it starts like this:

‘“Jack, it’s about to start, lad!”

‘Barney Forrester smiled as, with typical heavy-footedness and nearly tripping over his dressing gown cord in the process, his thirteen-year-old son Jack came bounding down the stairs to join his parents in the living room.

‘“Honestly,” laughed Barney’s wife, Mabel, who was furiously knitting a winter bedspread under a wobbly side lamp in the corner of the spacious room. “I don’t know why you watch that drivel.”’

FL: What attracted you to this project?

PD: The Brain of Morbius is one of my earliest Doctor Who memories. The six-year-old me wanted to know about the adventures of these other Doctors (it never once occurred to me that they could have been the faces of Morbius) and I even looked in the local library for them. I was fascinated by regeneration, having already seen two Doctors – Pertwee, of course, and Trevor Martin in the stage-play The Seven Keys to Doomsday. The chance to not only read, but to also write about one of them fulfils a 44-year-old ambition. I was so disappointed to learn they were never shown on TV.

FL: Each story in the book features a different incarnation of the Doctor. Tell us about yours.

PD: This Doctor is a showman with theatrical panache and a love of paradox and chaos. He styles himself as a magician and likes to make an impression. He is cheerful and optimistic by default. Scratch beneath the surface, though, and you will be left with the distinct impression that this is a man who has witnessed the most awful things. Wilfully unconventional, he thrives in places where censorship and conservatism are the order of the day. For that’s when he can best work his magic.

FL: These Doctors only exist in a couple of photos. How did you approach the characterisation of your incarnation?

PD: It started with a smile. That cheeky smile in the still of George Gallaccio set me on a path to imagining this incarnation as something of a trickster who likes to entertain only to pull the rug from under his unsuspecting victims’ feet. I decided to give him a pseudonym that he would use in a deliberately ironic way. Crocus was a slang Victorian term for a quack healer, a miracle worker suspected of being a con artist. Early on, before I started writing, I also wanted a catchphrase that reflected the fact that he styled himself as a Victorian gentleman (based on the costume Gallaccio was wearing), hence ‘dash my buttons’. That, and his rather unusual companion, helped to give me a voice for the character. Once I had established those basics, I was ready to put him into action.

FL: What's your story about?

PD: London schoolboy Jack Forrester is a comic book collector who strikes up a friendship with a mysterious new kid in town, Varne. When Jack’s father Barney, the local beat officer, arrests his comics supplier, Varne offers an alternative – pristine Penny Dreadfuls straight from the last century. The Doctor, stranded in the North London suburb, soon becomes embroiled in the censorship war and a frantic search for a missing child. But is history repeating itself?

FL: The stories are intended to represent a 'prehistory' of Doctor Who before 1963. How did that affect your approach? 

PD: I wanted to make this the Gallaccio Doctor’s debut adventure, hence I set it around the time in which it might have been broadcast. From the mid-fifties there were a number of prominent campaigns to ban the sale of comics and graphic novels (mostly those imported from the USA). Although barely any prosecutions were made, the Harmful Publications Bill (Children and Young Persons) of 1955 sought to protect young people from any fiction that was believed to glorify violence and encourage criminality. The Doctor would have hated such a move!

I also re-watched a number of classic 1950s-early 60s UK television shows, including Quatermass II and Dixon of Dock Green. The former became a template for a fictional show in my story (you might recognise the words used by the announcer) and the latter is name-checked. Dixon of Dock Green is sometimes unfairly regarded as a poor representation of policing at the time (compared to say Z-Cars), but I’ve played on that tension between myth and reality in my characterisation of the police.

One of the challenges was in trying to show how Doctor Who even then might be ahead of its time, while at the same time making it something that could feasibly have got through the censors. If I was to rewrite it as if first broadcast today, I might, for instance, have reversed the roles of policeman Barney and his stay-at-home long-suffering wife Mabel.  

FL: Who would be your ideal casting for a pre-Hartnell Doctor?

PD: George Cole. The kids would have loved him and he’d have played the Doctor as a rule-breaker with no heirs and graces – a true working-class hero – or Lionel Jeffries for a more eccentric take on the character.

FL: What's your next project? 

PD: I’m currently on the home stretch of The Holy Hotel, my entry into Christopher Stone’s parody series Professor Howe. I’m writing Howe as Miranda Hart in what is effectively my take on The God Complex. Under the Altrix Books imprint, I’m currently editing a sequel to Master Pieces amongst other projects, and for Obverse I’ve just finished my first book as a Black Archive editor and work in progressing on my third contribution to the range – Vincent and the Doctor.

Planned obsolescence

Planned obsolescence, or built-in obsolescence, in industrial design and economics is a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life, so that it becomes obsolete (i.e., unfashionable, or no longer functional) after a certain period of time. The rationale behind this strategy is to generate long-term sales volume by reducing the time between repeat purchases (referred to as "shortening the replacement cycle").

Producers that pursue this strategy believe that the additional sales revenue it creates more than offsets the additional costs of research and development, and offsets the opportunity costs of repurposing an existing product line. In a competitive industry, this is a risky policy, because consumers may decide to buy from competitors instead if they notice the strategy.

Planned obsolescence tends to work best when a producer has at least an oligopoly. Before introducing a planned obsolescence, the producer has to know that the consumer is at least somewhat likely to buy a replacement from them. In these cases of planned obsolescence, there is an information asymmetry between the producer, who knows how long the product was designed to last, and the consumer, who does not. When a market becomes more competitive, product lifespans tend to increase

History and origins of the phrase

The 1923 Chevrolet is cited as one of the earliest examples of annual facelifts in the car industry, because it had a restyled body covering what essentially was nine-year-old technology.

In the United States, automotive design reached a turning point in 1924 when the American national automobile market began reaching saturation. To maintain unit sales, General Motors head Alfred P. Sloan Jr. suggested annual model-year design changes to convince car owners that they needed to buy a new replacement each year, an idea borrowed from the bicycle industry, though the concept is often misattributed to Sloan. Critics called his strategy "planned obsolescence". Sloan preferred the term "dynamic obsolescence".

This strategy had far-reaching effects on the auto business, the field of product design, and eventually the American economy. The smaller players could not maintain the pace and expense of yearly re-styling. Henry Ford did not like the constant stream of model-year changes because he clung to an engineer's notions of simplicity, economies of scale, and design integrity. GM surpassed Ford's sales in 1931 and became the dominant company in the industry thereafter. The frequent design changes also made it necessary to use a body-on-frame rather than the lighter, but less easy to modify, unibody design used by most European automakers.

The origins of phrase planned obsolescence go back at least as far as 1932 with Bernard London's pamphlet Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence. The essence of London's plan would have the government impose a legal obsolescence on consumer articles, to stimulate and perpetuate consumption. However, the phrase was first popularized in 1954 by Brooks Stevens, an American industrial designer. Stevens was due to give a talk at an advertising conference in Minneapolis in 1954. Without giving it much thought, he used the term as the title of his talk. From that point on, "planned obsolescence" became Stevens' catchphrase. By his definition, planned obsolescence was "Instilling in the buyer the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than is necessary."

The phrase was quickly taken up by others, but Stevens' definition was challenged. By the late 1950s, planned obsolescence had become a commonly used term for products designed to break easily or to quickly go out of style. In fact, the concept was so widely recognized that in 1959 Volkswagen mocked it in an advertising campaign. While acknowledging the widespread use of planned obsolescence among automobile manufacturers, Volkswagen pitched itself as an alternative. "We do not believe in planned obsolescence", the ads suggested. "We don't change a car for the sake of change." In the famous Volkswagen advertising campaign by Doyle Dane Bernbach, one advert showed an almost blank page with the strapline "No point in showing the 1962 Volkswagen, it still looks the same".

In 1960, cultural critic Vance Packard published The Waste Makers, promoted as an exposé of "the systematic attempt of business to make us wasteful, debt-ridden, permanently discontented individuals". Packard divided planned obsolescence into two sub categories:

obsolescence of desirability; and

obsolescence of function.

"Obsolescence of desirability", a.k.a. "psychological obsolescence", referred to marketers' attempts to wear out a product in the owner's mind. Packard quoted industrial designer George Nelson, who wrote: "Design... is an attempt to make a contribution through change. When no contribution is made or can be made, the only process available for giving the illusion of change is 'styling!'"

Gem Ascension Tropes (Peridot-specific: C)

Reference:

Primary Peri Post ▼ Primary General Post ▼ Full Article

Cat Smile: Per canon, and often seen in GA.

Catapult Nightmare: The last thing Peridot sees in her dream world at the start of Act III is a Jump Scare of White Diamond’s flickering face before she wakes up in the real world, almost jumping into sitting upright while hyperventilating before she realizes her surroundings have significantly changed, as has her own appearance.

Catchphrase: “Oh my stars!” (plus many variants), and “Wow, thanks!” per canon.

Catchphrase Insult: Per canon, Peridot is still prone to calling anyone and everyone a “clod”. Unique to GA, Peridot will alternatively call people “stupid idiots”.

The Chains of Commanding: One of the big sources of Peridot’s conflict in Act I, especially since she’s prone to making mistakes and making questionable decisions that understandably rub Lapis and Bismuth the wrong way. She gets better by Chapter 6, then gets Left for Dead a couple of chapters later. Peridot starts feeling this again to a lesser agree midway through Act III once she’s reunited with the team, but that’s a bit more understandable considering the week-long torture she endured among the other various atrocities she’s been afflicted with. Steven actually calls Garnet out on this in Chapter 7, berating her for browbeating Peridot into an authoritative role when she shouldn’t be expected to operate as well as she did before.

Character Development: Transitioning from Plucky Comic Relief to Hero Protagonist barely scratches the surface; while Peridot is still largely recognizable as herself despite her many changes, she’s shown to have layers-upon-layers of Hidden Depths. Even her relationship with Lapis was founded by a very heavy guilt complex – the details of which were so traumatic, Peridot forced herself to forget all of those details except for the basic fact that she felt indebted to Lapis. It’s revealed that despite her massive, domineering ego, the one Peridot is trying the hardest to convince that she’s awesome is herself. There are loads of unpleasant details to Peridot’s Homeworld life that she ultimately blocked from her memory in order to cope and better live with herself. Now Peridot can no longer ignore them (and in fact will be frequently reminded of them by the refugees she’s trying to help), but since Steven managed to help Peridot learn to accept that her past misdeeds can’t be undone and to forgive herself (since Peridot definitely understands by now how bad she once was and is desperate to avoid sinking to that level ever again), she’ll be able to weather that storm better and be the proper leader she was meant to be. Peridot was once weighed down so heavily by her guilt and internal self-loathing that she subconsciously deemed herself unworthy of fusing with Steven, which played into why their initial attempts failed. However, now that Steven has liberated Peridot from those chains as of Chapter 8 of Act III, she can at least fuse with Steven now and finally live her life and genuinely love herself as much as she’s grown to love others in canon. Around the same time, Peridot has also been able to make peace with her newly-revealed identity as an Unwitting Test Subject, which consequently makes her a Diamond just as much as she is a Peridot. While still uncomfortable about shifting her form to Chartreuse Diamond unless it’s absolutely necessary, Steven (knowing all too well what this dilemma is like) helped Peridot learn to accept Chartreuse as a part of herself and not just a shameful mark of a traitor. Being the only ascended gem in history and one of the two remaining Diamonds in existence has effectively made Peridot a very special and exclusive gem as she long sought to be, but now she’s learned to be careful what she wishes for from now on – the responsibility that comes from being this special is immense. While Peridot has matured enough to uphold this responsibility (and in fact proved herself to be a worthy authority figure to Garnet; consequently, Peridot now co-leads the Crystal Gems with Garnet from now on), she does lament how much she took for granted the easy, simple days of being insignificant. However, the massive load of work ahead of Peridot allows her to feel consistently at peace with herself, knowing she really is putting the past behind her while bettering herself every day to build a brighter future not only for herself and her friends, but all of gemkind.

Character Tics: Per canon, Peridot is very prone to making odd noises when she tries to speak and is having trouble conveying her message, or if she’s completely flustered and can’t concentrate. She’ll also let these garbled words out as an expletive when she completely loses her temper.

Chekhov’s Gun: Peridot’s Mismatched Eyes. While an interesting detail worth noting in its own right, it was revealed during Act I’s climax where much more important things were happening, such as Peridot having to be Left for Dead after coming so close to making it off Homeworld with her friends. Steven and Garnet notice Peridot’s eyes, but understandably don’t acknowledge them due to the circumstances. 

Fast-forward to Chapter 3 of Act II: in Peridot’s Video Will to Amethyst, she brings up that she found reports of having defective eyes when she emerged, but there was no merit to it as Peridot’s eyesight was fine and her eyes otherwise developed normally. 

Jump to Act II’s final chapter; Garnet speculates Peridot might have emerged as an enhanced gem after Steven shows off a video where Peridot displays some sort of inexplicable power. Amethyst reminds Garnet that Peridot can’t possibly be “enhanced” since she’s an Era 2, and while telling her friends how Peridot regarded herself as a defect no better than Amethyst, the “defective eyes” bit is mentioned. Amethyst is surprised to find she’s the only one Peridot mentioned this to. This inadvertently causes Garnet and Steven to recall witnessing Peridot’s heterochromia – which in turn freaks out many members of the team, as they reveal any gem with heterochromatic eyes who isn’t part of a fusion is the Mark of a Supernatural; specifically, Unwitting Test Subjects. It’s theorized (later confirmed) that Peridot was Hiding in Plain Sight as her visor kept everyone, including Peridot herself, ignorant of what she truly is. This becomes crucial information as they realize White Diamond must know of Peridot’s condition as well (after it was deduced that the Diamonds are behind the operation that creates gems like Peridot) and thus the Crystal Gems need to be on their guard even if they find Peridot, as she might be forcibly turned into a weapon White can use against them.

Act III’s opening chapter wastes little time fully revealing how Peridot ended up this way. White Diamond was responsible, and Peridot herself became a unique experiment to receive White’s diamond dust (heterochromatic gems before her had Blue or Yellow’s diamond dust instead) and a broken splinter of Yellow Diamond from several thousand years ago. Since no more gems could be made on Homeworld after the batch Peridot was made in, White effectively made Peridot a Chosen One; not only to have enhanced natural capabilities, but the ability to form a brand new diamond from her own gemstone and possibly evolve into a Diamond herself (later confirmed). 

So, in the end, Peridot’s Mismatched Eyes marked her as The Chosen One; a one-of-a-kind gem who can be a low-caste worker gem and the almighty Chartreuse Diamond simultaneously while being powered with her own will and desire, making her the most versatile super-powered being in history. In the penultimate chapter, Peridot’s ascended form fuses with Steven’s awakened form to create Iridescent Diamond, the legendary Diamond of Miracles. Keep in mind all of this stemmed from Peridot crashing head-first into a gate and destroying her visor in the process at the end of Act I.

Child Soldier: Downplayed. Peridot’s kind was never meant to fight, but she did spend most of her life armed with weaponry meant for self-defense with clear instructions to kill any potential foe indiscriminately. Additionally, she was inherently far more aggressive than any Peridot should be. Also subverted in that Peridot’s not conventionally a child – being a gem, she’s full-grown the moment she emerges. She’s just very limited in experience and ignorant of the nature of her own world due to existing for a mere 13 years, which is about as close to a “child” a gem can get.

The Chosen One: The randomly chosen one, more accurately. The burden of emerging as a Diamond hybrid could have happened to any of the thousands of gems cooking in their rock the same time as Peridot had. Ironically, she starts out more like The Unchosen One in Act I, before she learned of the truth behind her creation.

Combat Pragmatist: Up to Eleven in this continuity due to her elevated position; most notably during the final chapter of Act I when she assists in several separate battles/confrontations with a plan in mind. Especially prevalent when she suggests finding a weak point to strike pallified Blue Diamond, as well as her tactic for stunning Yellow Diamond badly enough to render her a non-factor for the final battle.

Comes Great Responsibility: Says this verbatim a few times in Act III in reference to the powers she gained post-ascension.

Congruent Memory: Most of Peridot’s regained memories on Homeworld are of this variety.

Constantly Curious: Downplayed and inverted, as she’s not only a Hero Protagonist now, but also The Navigator and Ms. Exposition for modern-day Homeworld, so Peridot’s mostly addressing curiosities rather than being curious herself. That said, Peridot still retains this trait and it will pop up once she is in a position to be the one asking questions when coming across something unfamiliar. More prevalent and played straight in the Post-GA stories.

Cope by Pretending: The unaware form; ever since her canon redemption arc, Peridot subconsciously discarded most of her Homeworld memories. Her rationale was that they were not worth retaining once she accepted Earth as her home and didn’t count on ever seeing Homeworld again. While that was a valid reason, Peridot mainly did this so that she would be able to better herself without having her progress hampered by the guilt and self-loathing that would occur should she reflect back on the many horrible things she did as a Homeworld gem. This coping mechanism worked very well for Peridot, to her credit, but the forced return to Homeworld made it impossible for her to keep up the charade any longer. However, Peridot surprisingly was able to keep some of her most traumatic experiences buried deep within her to the point that she fully forgot about them… until, of course, certain peers of hers were able to forcibly unearth this secret and make Peridot relive a moment that nearly erased her entire identity. While she was initially (and understandably) upset over this, Peridot understood that she can’t truly move forward with her life until she confronts her fears and traumatic experiences in order to accept herself and make peace with her very unpleasant past life.

Cosmic Plaything: Discussed in Peri-dise: The Capitalist Anarchy.

Peridot: “The narrative of my life so far… I get what I want, but only when I don’t want it anymore.”

Cowardly Lion: Per canon, but mostly contained to Act I. While Peridot goes out of her way to downplay this, having No Poker Face means pretty much everyone can see her fear as plain as day. In Act II, Peridot’s Video Wills feature her being much more candid with this trope.

Crazy Prepared: The main reason why Bismuth and Lapis waited for Peridot to reform before doing anything is because they knew she was the only one who could conjure a master plan for the rescue mission. Being the only one to have lived in the modern-day Homeworld allowed Peridot to consider several possibilities and additionally made sure her own teammates fit into her ideas. Most notably, she realizes quickly how useless Lapis will be on a world where water is virtually nonexistent (and it never rains), so Peridot not only has the foresight to bring along water from the ocean right next to them, but inspires Lapis to retrain herself to adapt to being in an environment where she has to more carefully control the water she uses and recycle it whenever possible; basically, to make more with less.

This inspires the Crystal Gems to follow her example when she’s the one in need of rescuing in Act II.

Creepy Monotone: Sometimes slips into this, which is how Peridot used to always speak when she was introduced in canon. Often is Foreshadowing to Peridot teetering on the edge of Sanity Slippage or Heroic Safe Mode. Somewhat of a Red Herring when it first happens in Chapter 3 of Act I, as Peridot’s intent was to channel The Stoic nature Garnet is known for. Played absolutely straight in the following chapter when Peridot initiates her plan to capture Yellow Pearl’s gemstone. Also played straight in any flashback taking place during Peridot’s Homeworld life.

Crush Blush: Is very prone to this, especially early on in Act I when she’s still trying to figure out what she truly sees Steven as. This happens almost every single time someone talks about their relationship while Peridot’s within earshot.

Cry Cute: Save for her Inelegant Blubbering in Chapter 5 of Act I and her Death Wail in Chapter 8 of Act III, most of Peridot’s crying fits (and there are several instances of this across the series) are this.

Cry into Chest: Peridot does this after giving Steven The Glomp when they reunite.

Cursed with Awesome: She turns out to be a one-of-a-kind gem who can become a Diamond powered with will, giving her a very wide range of abilities limited only by her imagination (and provided she’s not totally ignorant of the concept). Too bad Peridot never asked for any of this, since this all came about from being a randomly-chosen Unwitting Test Subject. She kind of had to go through hell to achieve this state she never wanted in the first place, and really has no choice but to make use of her Alter Ego now that aside from Steven and herself, there are no more Diamonds after GA and the refugee gems will need some degree of familiarity to cope with all the change.