The Power of the Daleks ©BBC

Good distractions from the unfolding political nightmare:

• Watching the animated reconstruction of Patrick Troughton’s first story, The Power of the Daleks, in the cinema. Actually, I also enjoyed just focusing on the audio and trying to hear it in the living room where it was first broadcast and saved 50 years ago. The story itself was silly but menacing nonetheless, with sneaky Daleks ready to lure credulous humans into with extravagant promises of 100% reliable weather forecasts. And then killing almost all of them.

• Introducing James to Four Lions. I do love that film.

• Playing Pandemic with Randi, Chloe, Aaron and Jason. I was sceptical of cooperative games but this really won me over, even though we were unsuccessful in saving the world from destruction. (Damn you, South America!)

• Finally seeing Catherine and AJ again now that the campaign is over, and trying to uplift ourselves with multiple episodes of The Secret Life of 4 Year Olds. (Conclusion: 4 year olds are frighteningly advanced.)

• Laughing a surprising amount at three improv comedy teams with Randi’s colleague Katie at Friday Night Riot at the Bughouse Theatre. (Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised, but for $10 tickets at a tiny theatre on a Friday night I wouldn’t necessarily expect to be laughing out loud rather than smiling indulgently. Legitimately funny.)

• Lunching with Luis while keeping an eye on two football matches (real football!) and pooling our limited knowledge about the political situation in France. It would really be a good idea to keep an eye on France.

• Joining the adorable adventures of Newt Scamander and his TARDIS briefcase by seeing Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them with Todd and Carolyn this afternoon. (Although I do share Todd’s concerns about the continued absence of any proper judicial process in the wizarding world.)

If you’re looking for more productive things to do, I am reliably informed that phoning your representatives (not writing or emailing) is the most effective way to lobby them into investigating Trump’s evident conflict of interests, challenging his frightening and unqualified appointments, and generally causing a fuss. (I haven’t done so yet, partly because none of them are really ‘my’ representatives. But I should.)

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