Derfel Cadarn

Was going to put this in the rip thread, but given it also touches on lgbtq+ rights, decided to put it here. Pauk O’Grady aka Lily Savage died

Better than the bland cover the previous book suffered, but not as good as the covers the first two books had

Fox-bagging. Despicable. This is the blood sport the Toriea want made fully legal again

What choice does Ukraine have? Defend itself or surrender. And then find its people flung into meat grinders when Russia attacks another country. In any case, this may be the last ‘big’ war fought over ego and territory (save for Taiwan). When this war ends, people may celebrate it as showing the cost and futility of invading another country, but wars over resources (fresh water, oil, gas, food) are around the corner thanks to clinate change. Lands are about to get too cold, too hot, too under water, too many peope, and too many old people. It won’t be the end of human life, but I suspect life as we know if will end, particularly for weatern countries consuning far too many resources. The very rich will keep their lifestyles, loving in protected conclaves - a winter house and a summer house to escape extreme weather. In 200 years or so a reduced human race will have adapted, but some very hard decades are coming. We’ve had almost 59 years of warnings and done very little, much of it token changes. Colonising Mars, while it would be good, is a dead end as its resources such as food and water will be ultimately non-renewable. And a resource-strapped earth isn’t going to happily waste massive amounts of fuel to send dwindling water to Mars.

Yep. 48 hours for the GoMe or whatever its called deal to fall apart is a long time. Logan might sabotage it intentionally to cut off the ‘kids’ money. I liked the ‘roasting’; what was a missed opportunity was Logan contemptuously telling Tom to roast him, only for Tom to casually reveal he already had, explaining how he tricked Greg into confessing his ‘fumble’ to Logan. And Connor, wanting to blow another 100 mill just to avoid falling below 1%…

A tv detective series, spun off from Inspector Morse. Generally involved posh, pretty young women and arrogant private school-educated young men getting murdered in the vicinity of Oxford University. And utterly ruined for me now.

As I keep saying, boycott away. But it’s hypocritical to then judge other people who don’t boycott while you give money to other people who have done far worse to the certain communities, because their product is something you really want.

His estate released The Fall of Numenor last year, edited from material he wrote. Bought it. Some of that money’s going to Rupert Murdoch. Perhaps some will be invested in his hatemongering news organisations. I did get rid of my Lewis DVDs because I can’t stand to see Lawrence Fox anymore. But if you want to buy them or stream them, then by all means.

Murdoch owns Harper Collins. Rowling’s involvement with the Hogwarts game is limited to allowing the game company to make it in exchange for (I assume) a big sum of money. I suspect she would not be happy at the character creation which allows trans female characters to (I assume) bunk with cis-female characters. Regardless, my point is people should be free to buy or not buy whatever product they want to. People don’t want to buy anything related to Rowling? I respect their decision. People hate Rowling but really really want to fly around an open world Hogwarts, separating the IP creator from the art? I respect their decison. What makes me uncomfortable is denounciations I’ve seen (not on this forum) that people buying the game are betraying the trans community. People giving money hand over foot to organisations doing far worse to the trans community than Rowling ever could. And that’s ignoring other stuff such as giving money to Amazon, or Disney (who as reported on this forum have fought to avoid paying royalties to authors). Its a capitalist society and someone’s getting screwed somewhere down the chain. So boycott who you want, but don’t judge people who don’t.

So you’re resigned to not buying the last two AsoI&F novels (if they’re ever finished) since they’re luxury items and Rupert Murdoch will be publishing them (assuming he lives that long)? Or Robin Hobb or any Tolkien books since they’re also published by Murdoch?

That’s kind of my point. Where the line between being able to separate art from artist is a personal thing. But what I was mainly referring to was people declaring anyone who bought Hogwarts as being no ally of Trans folk is being hypocritical if they buy products made by companies that equally - or moreso - hurt the Trans community. Or indeed any community. Don’t want to buy Hogwarts because of Rowling? That’s your choice. Denouncing anyone who has as an enemy of the Trans community? While giving money to Rupert Murdoch? Amazon? Nestle? That’s hypocrisy imho.

They dont say it… But thats thr sentiment

Ouch. “Sorry, got him confused with the other one.” edit: wasnt actually said but clearly the sentiment

Not 55-45? That would have been more appropriate. Not a huge fan of his, but better than the Handmaiden. Interesting that we have a Hindu UK PM and and Muslim Scottish First Minister, both of Asian origin. The Scottish Labour leader is also Muslim I believe.

Just finished my Malazan re-read (started about 3 years ago, includes the ICE books), and almost finished my Belgariad/Mallorean re-read (a palette cleanser). About to start a re-read of The Silmarillion and first-time read of some of the other books (Fall of Gondolin, Fall of Numenor, Chikdren of Hurin) and a re-read of the Broken Empire series (Prince of Thorns etc inc the Red Queen books). I’ll also soon after be starting a re-read of the Osten Ard books. I’ve got the later series but have been waiting until the last volume comeS out in November before starting. And next year, I plan to re-read The Witcher and Forgotten Realms books. (will also be reading other books in parallel) Also jist finished the 2nd Darkwater book. Good but preferred the first a bit

A lot of booze on the shelf behind him. Also worth noting he says he can do a Zoom meeting at a minute’s notice. I doubt his constituents enjoy that level of access, I hope they try

Here’s the Kwarteng job ‘interview’. He’s in his secretary’s office in parliament(!) as he coukdnt get his own computer to work or something. Surely this is a big no-no! not watched it all yet, but he was bragging about reading geopolitixal stuff

I wonder how many people boycotting Hogwarts buy Harper Collins books (like ASoI&F) which is owned by NewsCorp. Rupert Murdoch and his media empire have done more harm to the trans community than Rowling could ever manage. Or buy games made by companies that make their staff ‘crunch’ to finish the game on time? Or buy anything from Amazon, which treats creators badly (overly generous refund policies for audiobooks etc), and treat their staff appallingly? That’s before we get to our clothes, food and drink, many of which are made by child labour and literal slaves. Same with the conponents in our tech, the lithium in our batteries. So I find it hard to get mad at people for buying a game whose IP creator has views I vehemently disagree with.

Just back from four days in Mallorca (off-peak, almost everything was shut when we arrived). Achieved peak Scottishness by getting sunburn on my arms and neck despite it never exceeding 17deg C. My four year old had redness tonher arms but luckily she and my wife have some eastern European heritage (in-laws are Israeli) among other bits maybe, so their skin is more sun resistent.

He thought he could just Stay Another Day.….

Nothing illegal, but they’re on the verge of accepting large amounts of money for a nebulous job from a company based in a foreign country, with only a vage description of what it does - that in fact doesnt even exist! They’ve clearly done little or no homework on it. Also, they’re supposed to be working for their hard-pressed constituents trying to deal with massively rising costs (in part thanks to Kwarteng), not fucking off to the jungle (Hancock) or working for some random Korean company. They were not being offered 10k a month due to their staggering intellects but simply because they were in the Cabinet, are in the ruling party abd have access to the PM etc. They’re basically being hired to use their influence to help this company which could very well be a front for a foreign government or criminal group, to help them navigate British laws. As it is, its a fictional company but ehat if it wasn’t?

Imho Australian Shiraz wines are great and there’s a lot of good, cheap ones.

Same clip as I posted :p

Matt Hancock thinks he’s worth £10k a day. Undercover work by LedByDonkeys

Zelensky apparently claiming the counter-offensive is on hold due to lack of ammo. A genuine problem or misdirection? https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-latest-putin-teases-that-he-has-high-expectations-for-xi-meeting-12541713?postid=5686319#liveblog-body