A wilding

Just to let you know, that bit about your "ideal self" is nonsense. Your mother is controlling you by throwing a tantrum whenever you try to go against her wants. That is her, not you, and there is nothing you can do to stop her reacting like that. All you can do is chose how you respond to her tantrums (or leave). You did not ask for advice, and I know you have heard it before, but any relationship where there is no open communication and one party has to walk on eggshells all the time so as to not trigger the anger of the other person is an abusive one. Frankly, your posts have given me new understanding of how someone in an abusive relationship has their sense of normal skewed by it and is reduced into constantly doubting themselves.

That would be the police and legal services that have a fair number of sexual offenders in their own ranks, that have been widely accused of often failing to take rape seriously, and that manage to obtain a conviction for about 1 - 3% of rapes reported to them.

The key issue is the ratios. What is the proportion or women who have been raped or otherwise abused to men who have been falsely accused? What is the proportion of women who go in daily fear of rape or other abuse to men going in daily fear of being falsely accused? What is the proportion of women who every day take precautions to avoid rape or other abuse (hint, that is close to 100% of women) to men who every day take precautions against being falsely accused? Personally I consider anyone who says those ratios are not wildly skewed are either ignorant young men or are arguing in bad faith. And this has to colour any discussion of false accusations.

Its an experience, and one that can be had only rarely. I was at Lands End in Cornwall for the 1999 one. Even though it was cloudy it was quite something to have the world go dark. You understand why primitive societies were apocryphally terrified by them.

I seem to remember that in the very early days of D&D (my 2nd edition rulebooks are in the attic and I can't be bothered to get them out) a character had to take time out to level up after they had gained enough experience points. So it only happened at home base between adventures. This was a more "realistic" approach which avoided that problem. Though in those days characters tended to level up more slowly I think.

Me too, if only because of the Burghers of Calais story and the Rodin sculpture commemorating it.

This. I have always been convinced that was how the ending of Dune was originally intended to be read. The later sequels just retconned it so as to carry on the story. Part of the reason why I occasionally do reread Dune, but not the later books.

And the Russians knew all about it.

Well the tabloids have form in waving large amounts of money around to try to get access to private medical records. If someone had managed to get the records and sell them then the tabloids would have had a story. They failed, so now the tabloids get a different story. Win - win for them.

The royals had nothing to do with the video. It was a film of some random couple by a random nutter who sent it to the tabloids. They used it to get a day of headlines about Kate being spotted and then another day of headlines pointing out it was not her after all. But if they do that, they will be forced into a cycle of having to issue a statement every time the tabloids whip up a story out of nothing. Which will only encourage them. I can see their point of view in following the late Queen's approach of ignoring the tabloids whatever they say. It is just getting harder to do in these times of constant mad conspiracy theories fanned by the internet.

There are a couple within strolling distance of our house. You don't really notice them unless you look over the area from high ground, at which point they become obvious.

Been spending a few days mulling over the film and discussing it. It was a really impressive visual and auditory spectacle. Even the ridiculous speed of the worms worked. Some of the changes from the book also worked really well (Paul and Jessica being at odds, Chani as the voice of reason increasingly backing away from Paul). I could accept the junking of most of my favourite subplot of Feyd-Rautha vs the Baron (it might well turn up in an extended version anyway). There was a lot of good stuff. And yet we both walked out of the cinema disappointed. I think it comes down to a general feeling that the last part of the film was weak, especially in plot. The Emperor was not so much weak as a nonentity. Apparently the Reverend Mother Mohiam wanted to wipe out the Atreides all along?! The Sardaukar were suddenly deemphasised (I think the only time they were named was when Paul said to kill the ones in the throne room). Paul's pre-battle planning over a hasty sketch map ("you attack from this side, you attack from that side") was silly, especially as the actual plan was to blast a hole in the shield wall to let the storm in and then shock the defenders by attacking on worms. Plus the use of the nukes needed to be better explained and justified, especially as they did obviously kill some Sardaukar. Paul's sudden threat to destroy the spice by using the nukes felt off, why did he even make it, especially knowing that the Great Houses were going to turn him down? Etc. Final gripe. I really hate villains who randomly kill minions just to show us how evil they are. I might just about have accepted Rabban doing it, since he was portrayed as only borderline competent and with anger management issues, but not all the Harkonnens. The trope was subverted as long ago as The Empire Strikes Back for heaven's sake! But I guess we will probably go and see part 3.

Yes, that is something that may well be pretty rare. As I understand it, there has been quite a lot of discussion as to whether that has anything to do with Earth having life, or whether it is just a co-incidence.

That was a very big assumption on their part. As yet we still have very little idea of the numbers and types of moons in the galaxy. Back then we were only guessing about extrasolar planets, let alone moons.

Well, hope you like it!