Rolta

2 + 2 = (499 + 65) / x

I can't quite tell what's going on, but am I right in thinking there's a strong wind in this thread from some pretty huge sweeping generalisations.

All this talk about English breakfasts is reminding me of this offering here in Madrid from during the pandemic. I actually like this restaurant, but this was an error in judgement. The shocking thing is the addition of cheese and a croissant, yet the Instagram description was "desayuno estilo inglés". English style breakfast. Maybe but not quite.

Literally every single thing you post comes across like this.

Mine: The problem is mainly that you don't really seem to have ever realised that writing is a form of actual communication with other human beings! One day the penny will drop.

The problem is mainly that you don't really seem to have ever realised that writing is a form of actual communication with other human beings!

This is such a misleading statement, and goes quite well with the rest of your post, which does seem to be full of generalisations and ommissions depending on which one suits you in each specific moment. For example, the ommission in the bit I bolded: 'their lottery money' has gone to (according to their figures) 670,000 different projects. 20% of their money goes to the arts. I benefitted from some of that myself back in the day, and I definitely wasn't the Royal Opera. https://www.national-lottery.co.uk/life-changing/where-the-money-goes Look in your local area: https://www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/good-causes

Does it change the meaning at all? It did happen—it was a one off. The second clause definitely seems to be doing the work of a 'but'. We use ellipsis a lot in spoken language. More so than in writing.

I disagree it wouldn't have worked. I'm sure that Zach Snyder couldn't have got it to work though, because, judging by all his interviews, he's a bit of an idiot with really bad taste. It needed a different tone, without the mind-numbing and really offputting soundtrack and much less style over substance. Watchmen was an incredible book, and the film is a mindless and soulless production of it. It needed a proper craftsperson to make it, not a slow-mo greedy moron. I think I'll just have to disagree with you guys. I genuinely think it is utter pap. It made me feel much less positively about the book by association. The TV show was great—apparently the guy who made it stewed over its development for 10 years. This kind of in depth dedication is what's important, not getting the visuals to look spot on while everything else that's great about the book just falls by the wayside.

Watchmen was awful. All pointless style and horrible tone, with a really in your face overuse of songs. I think Snyder is an abomination of a director tbh. Anyone other than him would have done a better adaptation. It might have looked consistent to the graphic novel, but that's just one facet. Everything else imo was terrible.

It was an absurd thing to do. Even more absurd when you realise the one or two episodes in Bob's Fett where the story continued didn't feature Boba Fett. It was 100% as if they shoved an episode of the Mandalorian in Bob's Fett. The next absurd thing about it was Boba Fett...both the character, ripped of everything that made him appealing back in the day, and the show itself, which was beyond shit. It's possibly the worst Star Wars thing. In contrast, I finished Andor last night and it's easily the best Star Wars thing since the OT. If you haven't watched it forget about all the other shows and just watch that I'd say. It feels like an actual TV show, not some shoved out 'content' 'product' nothingness. Back to Mando...I always felt it was a bit average. I said it before but it got really shit as soon as it started shoving in all the characters from other shows, or farcical versions of what they once were...which brings me back to Boba Fett. Gah. I really hate what they did to him.

I'm from Tiverton, and I also have a big soft spot for Ollie for his being from Devon as much as anything. Exeter City were the real local team for me, so it only compounds things further. I also think he's been a great signing and I rate him anyway.

My word this is so true. What a letdown. That game deserves a lovely update... It's so good. I loved it back in the day, but I went abroad and I never finished it. I finished the remaster a week or so ago, so I'm finally done after 20 years, and I genuinely think it's a flawless game. One of my favourites on the Switch. I am still in love with it. The actual remastering is excellent—it looks like a modern Switch game.

This bit made me think you didn't believe the stories (via the HIGNFY transcript, which I understood) and were dismissing everything. Having read it over a few times I seem to have misread it. Apologies for bringing it up. It was meant as an idle comment and not an actual dig. More a 'ho ho' moment. Anyway, I was wrong and it was irrelevant. It was beside my point, so I shouldn't have even tried a 'ho ho' jokey comment. As I say I apologise.

This is what I was referring to. Tbh, ironically I should have added some more context because your comment clearly came before all the horrible stuff came out into the open. Your comment here about echo chambers is great and everything, but my main confusion is why you think this is comparable to Lineker. I completely agree and understand that Bruce was in a difficult position, but I also completely see that a domestic abuse charity isn't going to want an ambassador who both sided a victim and her alleged abuser. Tbh, she didn't even do that, she actively downplayed a husband breaking his wife's nose and then used comments by the husband's mates of all people to add the balance. It doesn't matter if she was obliged to or not. Domestic abuse charities don't need to like that. It's nothing to do with echo chambers and biases. It's just the way it works. Anyway, she still has all her many jobs, as of course she should.

I'm struggling to see what your angle is tbh. For the record also, here is Boris's mum quoted taking to Boris's biographer. “He hit me many times, over many years.” Early on he resented her seeing her friends “and that’s when he first hit me”. Later, she was deposited in the country, without a car. “To adultery and violence, his family could add deserter.” What balance did Bruce add? It seems as if what she said was very selective. It's of course fine to add context, and she might have needed to do it, but you seem to think the charity has no say in the matter. I say this because you made a comment earlier asking why there isn't anyone defending Bruce on Twitter. So is your argument that a domestic abuse charity shouldn't be able to choose it's ambassadors even if one of them trivialises domestic abuse to an audience of millions? Is that what you think is wrong? (A bit unrelated, but I noticed you stuck up for Jimmy Saville back in 2012 or whatever in the first page of his thread, so this is feeling ironic! I just happened to notice it yesterday when people were reposting the old comments. It's not a dig, but it just seems funny now I've read what you put here. I know we're all nice people )

It's completely different as a situation. I think everyone can respect that she was in a difficult situation and that she was obliged to add context. It is awkward as anything though, and even if friends said it was a one off, I believe, Boris's mum said otherwise (either way it's beside the point). There's no furore about this. She's not losing her job, only her position as ambassador for a charity for domestic abuse. It is completely understandable that a domestic abuse charity might watch one of their ambassadors on the flagship politics show in the country downplaying domestic violence and think that it isn't ok for them. In my opinion it was cringeworthy to the max. What she said came across pretty gutless and utterly cowed and deferential, but I do also appreciate she was in a no win situation. At the end of the day, it's another example of freedom...the freedom of the charity not to continue with her, just as is the case often in other examples when the other Tory culture war weapon bs comes about... something culture whatever.

I live in Madrid and I've had some students go on about Gibraltar. I couldn't care less personally, but if you then say, 'What about Ceuta and Melilla, or even the Canary Islands' the one or two people I've had this conversation with do a really weird expression like their brains just short-circuited. True story.

The Tories like people to think that but usually what they accuse of being communism is just well established social democracy. As others have said anything extreme left requires a revolution and it just isn't going to happen. We're skewed so far right in our discourse though, and the threat of communism is a useful bogeyman that the mega wealthy use to argue against any tax responsibility.

He played pretty well when he came on. I'm open minded about Bailey and love Buendia, but I've seen them lose the ball over and over again at times. Bertie loses the ball once and then the people who always hated him can't wait to say he played shit—even though literally everything else he did looked effective (if a little slowly enacted—and one cross he did he definitely should have whipped it in earlier).

Yeah I like that response from Lineker.

Agreed. It is a bit of a tense watch, but as you say by the end it just felt very stupid. It felt pretty stupid early on too.

I loved it. The craftwork is exceptional and original—the visuals, the sound design, the idea, the characters. I felt that if Nope had been made thirty years ago, when the world was more receptive to idiosyncratic genre pieces, there’d have been copycats. It's not a deep film, but it's a very well made one—it is what it is, a sci fi monster movie of high quality. I was thinking about it for ages afterwards—I have uber cinematic dreams sometimes, and I came away with the same feeling (it's more cohesive than a dream though of course).

Slip of the tongue.

Touching someone's shoulder doesn't make them fall over like that. It's bullshit.