Chindie

Yeah I thought so. In fairness I did suggest to the recruiter I wasn't that keen at the time. I've called this morning and he doesn't seem to be about, typical.

F1 appears to be on a never ending mission to shoot itself in the foot. The season is a race old and already and had a farcical qualification decision quickly u-turned and now they've decided they don't want to be on terrestrial TV in the UK and instead want to suckle full time on the bastard poisoned teet of Murdoch.

I didn't really think about it at the time as I was caught on the hip a bit and didn't realise quite how awkward it would be to get to the place, and looking into the firm combined with the confirmation email referring to things I don't really do makes it clear this is a waste of time.

A recruiter has at short notice got me an interview with a company I've never heard of, for a role I'm exceptionally unlikely to be able to do to any great degree, or will sacrifice so much salary it's not worth my while doing it, in a place that is a nightmare for me to get to. I feel like a prick, because I did quickly agree to the interview as I walking down the street yesterday, but looking into it its an enormous waste of everyone's time, and my money to get there. Even if they offered me the job, unless they were going to pay me a figure that made it a no brainer (which they won't be doing by any means), I'd turn it down. I'm gonna have to say no thanks on the day of an interview and that makes me look like a clearing in the woods.

Indeed. But I've also read they've done him a bit wrong as well. He makes a number of patently stupid decisions apparently. The character never does that. He may make mistakes because he isn't aware of something, but never does something which would logically fail knowingly. He also apparently breaks his rule numerous times. I think this is a combination of Snyder just not getting the character, like he doesn't get Superman, and also trying to do the Dark Knight Returns style unhinged brutal Batman but messing it up.

I was thinking of you when I said that actually BOF! Anyone who is an average film fan who I've chatted to about this movie, the first thing they say is 'Batman loses right? He can't beat Superman'. It's a fundamental problem with it. They've fought loads of times in the comics and yes, Batman usually wins. He's smarter and he's prepared to go beyond what anyone would expect. He's knocked him out with a kryptonite ring, he famously used a threat on Lois' life to overcome him, etc etc etc. He doesn't play fair, Clark is to straight arrow to see it or holds back a little and Batman punishes him. Importantly though, those fights came after years of establishment in the comics, particularly of Batman being this paranoid ruthless but brilliant thinker. When you've read hundreds of issues where Batman does beat the odds through lateral thinking or knowing the situation more than anyone else, you can see him beating Superman in unexpected and devious ways. The movies have never done that. And now we have a new Batman and in the space of a single film, with nothing set up that Bruce is this brilliant bastard, we're expecting Joe Public to buy Batman can win. They've done the Miller robot suit thing to try to make it believable, but they've missed seemingly from the trailers that Miller used the suit to basically let Bruce stay in the fight, just, while his plan came together (and ultimately his plan is to win by losing, kinda. He does embarrass Clark first though).

It's a loot game. Repetitive and boring is basically what it is. It's one great gameplay element is the Raids but you have to do those online with friends. Beyond that it's not very good.

They'll force it through unless it's a complete bomb. This film will make money, but Warner want it to be doing Avengers money and it probably won't on the back of the bad word of mouth. Moreover, Suicide Squad is basically done, filming is done on the Wonder Woman movie, preproduction on Justice League is done and they are just starting filming... I think they double down and go for it, although I wager they change tact and possibly bin Snyder at the first opportunity. I also bet the push forward the solo Batman movie. But I agree entirely, and have said so myself more than once, that they've messed up by trying to rush the set up for the Justice League movie. Marvel spent 10 hours and 5 movies setting up the Avengers, introducing characters a lot of people are unfamiliar with and making then likable established faces. WB haven't done anything approaching that and instead have just given cameos to the wider Justice League in 1 film that was already overstuffed and contains a central plotline that everyone who hasn't read a comic doesn't understand. To your man on the street Batman can't beat Superman. To a comic geek he can and usually does. And even then they appear to have messed up - I don't like Superman as a character much, but even I know he's basically a boy scout, an embodiment of good and light, even when he's perhaps acting in the wrong. Every scene in this film appears to make him out to be a moody word removed. Even Frank Miller didn't do that!

Yeah it's a mess by all accounts. Even the positive reviews basically say when its good it's fantastic but the rest of it is a grim humourless car crash. I liked Man of Steel overall, which is far from perfect and very divisive, but this looks like they've **** up. Too much baggage, silly plot, no humour or lightness. No wonder Warner Bros a month or so back were rumoured to have been tearing up the plans for the DCEU and sacking Snyder off...

There might be a Captain Britain series in the making. Very early days apparently but I'll be gobsmacked if that happens.

It's likely they've mashed him into Septon Meribald, but yeah it seems like it. The show has combined characters before now and I guess Meribald and the Elder Brother aren't beyond being combined and cutting some corners from the novels.

McShane is apparently playing a wandering priest who found religion having previously been a fearsome warrior. This character, its widely theorised from the books... (Book theory spoilers that may spoil an element of the new series below)

Snyder does images. He knows how to create striking scenes and tableaus, but his films are always hamstrung by something. Watchmen is his best and that's largely because that's a film where all you have to do is copy each frame of the graphic novel and link them together and you'll get something good out of it. And even then you got the impression he didn't write understand the subtleties of Watchmen. It's not a shock that BvS is going to be a bit of mess. It's too long and they're using it as the foundation of a DC Universe, so it's doing a lot of lifting on some really daft crap. Still, my tickets are booked and if it does no more than give me some striking images and some good action I'll call it a success. Don't think Marvel have much to worry about - DC are obsessed with bridging and dark and it doesn't really work with most of their top line characters. Meanwhile Marvel make fun bright movies, even when the subject matter goes darker.

High Rise is a bizarre fever dream of brilliance.

Wahey, do-gooders! Everyone get your Heil bingo cards out, we've got a full house waiting to happen here. You don't need to tell me your experience of refugees. I really don't care. Let me tell you of my experience of 'People' though. Lots and lots of People have really annoying views. A great deal of them are very nice but then some turn out to be racist, or violent, or just generally rude. Some of them have really horrific views, others have mildly dislikeable ones. Some of those horrific views get enacted, so people get hurt. I live in Birmingham. Today I need to go into the city centre. I'll get there being driven by a man who won't be likely won't be a white Christian. If I get the bus he'll probably be wearing a turban knowing my route. When I get there I'll get a coffee and I'll be served by a Muslim girl who by her accent is first or second generation migrant to the UK, and she's very nice. On the way to my destination I'll walk past a bus stop that is always busy with poor people, lots of them Somali, and others mainly Muslim women wearing veils. I walked past this stop 4 or 5 times a day until recently. These people get in my way on the way to work and some of them are rude and don't speak much English. When I got to the office my day would involve working with a second generation migrant, who is a lovely bloke, and a bloke from a posh part of the Midlands who is an irritating prat. I'd email a bunch of people, a client from the Indian subcontinent who runs his own successful business, a lady who also runs an award winning business who is the nicest person I've ever met, an Australian who can be a hateful arse who has some grim views on things, a Muslim man in Bradford who is always incredibly helpful, a Chinese descent woman in London who has bailed me out time after time when I need a favour to win business. At the weekend I order a curry from one of 2 local restaurants. One of the drivers who usually turns up speaks very little English, appears to be 'right off the boat' and is rude and an arsehole. The other is a normal Asian bloke. The off licence by me is run by a Sikh family, who natter away in their own language, and usually chuck your change at you. My point is this. People can be horrible. And that includes refugees and migrants. But it also includes natives. I've had scuffles, drunken usually, before now with people and that's been locals inevitably, I've been threatened in a former job by a local guy. Being from Birmingham, I get to see the good and the bad in a matter of seconds, and people older than me will know the bad even more - white people bombed this city and killed people having an evening out. That didn't mean I decided the Irish were scum to a man.

Anyway... I've watched the usual news channel coverage of this today and it's all as unsavoury as usual. Desperate for pictures of the latest victim, tossing themselves of every time they can say the death toll has gone up, and my personal favourite, rushing to get pictures of a bus full of distressed, injured, shocked people leaving the airport. Rubber necking writ large. There's barely any real information or content. Just voyeurism.

Do you not think comparing people, whether they are women and children or young fit men, to insects and rats and parasites of other types, is wrong? Actually, I know you don't, never mind. All the people coming from Syria are jihadist locusts waiting to suck good Christian Europe dry and infest it with dirty Muslims. I've seen the error of my ways.

A minor point, but drawing an allegory between humans fleeing an horrific conflict and rats is really poor form. I thought we got past the 'swarm' references when toddlers started washing up on beaches.

The mastermind behind Paris had been dead for ages. The guy they were after was the logistics man who at the last minute decided not to blow himself up and went on the run. He didn't go very far though - he holed up in the same borough he was from, which also was connected to many of his accomplices, and it took them 4 months to find him.

Combination of things. Belgium is a small country, large parts of it are quite poor by expected standards, and it has developed ghetto-ised areas as it has historically had a fair amount of migration. That's a melting pot for extremism to grow, poor disenfranchised young men remote from wider society. It also has easy connections to France and Germany, the former of which has its own problems of a similar sort to Belgium (and combines that with its history in North Africa and elements of the Middle East) which don't end at the border, which makes Belgium an easy staging point. Then you add that the Belgian security forces aren't as good as some other nations, and it's a mess. This will get worse before it gets better.

Double figure fatalities at the airport, 2 check in desks targeted and some reports shots fired beforehand. The Metro system is completely shutdown as well now.

Interview lined up with the guys I turned down to go to the other lot last year despite them pushing to get me. Might be awkward. Oh well... Fingers crossed

Khazri has done alright for Sunderland.

Someone needs to take whoever started peddling nation state finances in terms and character you'd associate with personal or household finances and budgeting outside and give them a good shoeing. It's this nonsense that had Osborne able to convince people we'd be the next Greece and we needed to start shitting on the poor lest we collapse to anarchy. If the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is currently bankrupt, most of the planet has been for decades. We've run a surplus a handful of times in the last 50 years - I don't recall reading about any IMF bailiffs knocking Westminster's doors and taking Big Ben in lieu of payment.