A geologist and archaeologist by training, a nerd by inclination - books, films, fossils, comics, rocks, games, folklore, and, generally, the rum and uncanny… Let’s have it!
Elsewhere:
I am/was likely far too old to be in the target demographic for Pottermania but they never worked for me. They always felt a little… safe, reactionary even as they drew on a long tradition of British boarding school books without really addressing or undermining the genre tropes or even using it as a means to examine that culture. It then wasn’t a surprise to find out the author had some questionable views didn’t seem a great surprise to me.
Also, calling Tennant a “Harry Potter actor”, while true, feels like a calculated insult to a man who has played Doctor Who, The Purple Man, and Crawley.
I’m not sure it’s a “calculated insult” but it did read a but oddly (I assumed initially that it was referring to someone else). I presume the writer or their editor went with that angle because because his having appeared in the Harry Potter movies is relevant to an article and fitted the wider context of JK Rowling falling out with HP cast members. I’m not convinced it was the right approach.
I can’t as Bobby Brewster and the Winkers’ Club is clearly the superior title.
It’s an incredibly complicated issue, even if you look at individual cases (like Caster Semenya) and there’s almost no easy way to define what you mean by a woman. Ultimately it’s down to the individual sporting organisations to decide how to call it based on expert advice and any decision is going to disadvantage some athletes. If they think the decision is wrong, then there should be a way to appeal decisions because it can come down to difficult analysis based on each individual’s life history.
A compelling argument I’ve heard is that the greatest performance enhancing drug is being exposed to testosterone during puberty and that seems to be the base line a lot of the sporting organisations use. However, even then it is difficult to call for individuals and would need expert testimony on each individual case.
you should never use Wikipedia as a source. and definitely not on politics.
I wasn’t. It’s there for further reading.
And the Award for Least Hateful Tory Student group goes to…
However, as Farage has already been spouting pro-Putin rhetoric, he’d probably see it as a great endorsement.
On the plus side, at least it is a lot clearer that voting for Farage is really furthering Putin’s agenda to erode Western democracy (not that we needed the help).
Pity they didn’t do anything when claims emerged of Russia interfering with the Brexit vote.
Yes, even if they never hit these “heights” again, the example of Europe is going to make electoral reform a real uphill fight.
I’m hoping more sensible thinking prevails - with PR, you’d likely have a majority Labour government for most of the time, backed by Greens and Lib Dems. Gordon Brown seems to be driving a lot of the ideas for improving our democracy but his focus seems to currently be the House of Lords, which is an easier one to implement (although likely not in a way that suits me - it’s sortition all the way for me), but I could see him chewing this one over afterwards. Realistically, Labour won’t do anything now but if their support collapses they may need other parties to prop them up after the next election and PR is likely to be the price for it.
It’s a concern of mine too. Next election we may have an incumbent Labour party that has done little to improve people’s lives (potentially despite their best efforts because the economy and national infrastructure is wrecked) and a Tory party wrecked for a generation and Reform could emerge as the protest vote or, worse, Reform merge with the Tories and Farage leads a BNP-lite party to victory. The latter might doom the Conservatives forever but after BoJo and Trump getting elected, and the rise of the right across Europe Farage worming his way to PM is not something we should dismiss too quickly.
I thought it was a month to miss but I enjoyed Acción Mutante and the other two are on my watchlist, so I am in for Love, Death & Apocalypse.
It’s not too difficult to stick to that because here it’d be largely the Mail and a few tabloids, which tend not to be used in the serious news sections here anyway unless it’s a piss-take of the Mail.
Champions and Two Taoist Tales for me. Taoism Drunkard in particular is really out there, I’d have preferred if it had been teamed with Shaolin Drunkard (which must be in the pipeline) but I’m happy with the set.
That’s like shooting fish in a barrel. A harder challenge would be to find someone in Reform who isn’t awful.
Ratings here refers to the viewer numbers not whether some terrible people have been review-bombing Rotten Tomatoes.
Is Sunak really so stupid
Yes.
It’s my favourite era of Old Who - I went to the Doctor Who exhibition and turned a corner to see Morbius! That thing still haunts my dreams.
They are never going to say to vote tactically but resources will be targeted at constituencies where they stand a good chance of winning, which will have a similar effect. I’d respect them more if they said “we aren’t going to win in X, so vote Lib Dem/Green/SNP to really stick the boot in” as it might make all the difference.
The thing about Clacton is polling suggests Labour are in second, with Farage well ahead. So an argument could be made for Labour to step it up a gear there because if Farage messes up (perhaps by continuing to be a Putin stooge) they could sneak between a split Tory/Reform vote and get a cheeky win. Anything to keep Farage out of Parliament as his influence is corrosive. They may be calculating that Farage as an MP might be the nail in the Tory’s coffin for a generation but it may bite them in the arse.
Good call, here is a link.