Derfel Cadarn

Toth, considered getting a dog? They’re excellent for socialising - since getting Penny I’ve found myself talking to neighbours I’d barely said hello to, not to mention fellow dog walkers in the park. And it’s mostly just talking about the dogs, so little need to think of topics

(Not mine, saw it on twitter) LotR after Disney has bought the rights: “Somehow, Sauron has another ring…”

“We’d have won, except for the minor technicality that people didnt vote for us!”

The resignations are good. Had anyone involved in the 2023 debacle carried over to 2024, that year’s Hugos would be tainted, and suspicion would linger over it

The fleet was on the other side of the sea. Galadriel and the others could have gone back home, or built another fleet

Are you suggesting that a decades-long trek across treacherous arctic wasteland in darkness in continued defiance of the gods in order to wage war against another god, was *not* a shining example of wisdom?

Is there any particular reason you’re quoting huge swathes of LotR?

I’vs not got the edits yet for Lucifer & Son (there were a few books in front of it) but I’m hoping it will still be out before Worldcon Glasgow. Diabolic Immunity and The Blood Hour are still on submission to publishers. DInhad a few rejections fairly early on but nothing since, and absolutely nothing yet for TBH. I’m 40k words into my time travel heist Titanic novel, with 28k words edited into a coherent story albeit not a final draft. I’ve had some feedback from a member of my local Nanowrimo group, and sent it to my agent for feedback. I’m aiming for about 90k words, so almost halfway. I’m hoping to have it done by end of summer but we’ll see. Then I’ll work on thr last Sooty Feather novel. Once that’s done, what I’ll do next will depend onof I’ve sold Diabolic Immunity, The Blood Hour or the Titanic novel. If none of them are accepted by a publisher, I’ll probably switch to a different genre.

Time flies! I’ve worked for my employer now for 20 years (excluding 15 months as an agency temp at the start). And if I hadn’t gotten married, bought a house, the flat I bought in 2000 (just before prices rocketed) woukd have been mortgage-free in 18 months.

Congrats! any word when Old Phuul is out?

The question is, could you afford to take out those loans? I need to get old flaking paint stripped from my roughcastign, cracks rendered over, and the whole thing repainted. But as I’m paying off a loan taken out to completely re-do the extension flat roof and ceiling, I can’t yet. Even though it really needs doing and potentially not doing it could lead to more expensive works in the future. To make the analogy more akin to government, maybe I’m hesitant to commit to a new loan because my wife is in charge of finances at the moment and gave all our money to cowboys who fucked uo buikding works, and is taking out loans to have the local cats hunted down and shot. So in 6 months, I may have even more loans to pay off.

Finarfin chilling: Hey! How was middle-earth? Random elf leaving Halls of Mandos: Fucking sucked. Spent centuries in a dungeon being tortured. Finarfin: Sucks to be you. Wasn’t all fun and games here; almost ran of of wine for a minute! Where’s Galadriel? Random elf: In Middle-Earth, her daughter having been tortured into madness and is back here now from the trauma, and she’ll never see her granddaughter again. Finarfin: Cool, cool

I know, having read the books ( and unlike you, can keep the characters straight). My point is, its not a wise choice.

To be fair, making spending/tax cut promises without explaining where the money/savings are coming from is what Truss/Kwarteng tried, and as a resukt rents and mortgages shot up, and measures were needed to save our pensions. Labour promising the earth while not knowing the full state of the economy they will inherit is irresponsible.

Yeah. Leaving paradise to spend years crossing an arctic wasteland in order to fight a bitter fruitless war against a god is not what I’d call wise. Wise would have been calling it a day after the slaughter of the Teleri and theft of the ships, returning home to paradise.

True. He confused Elured and Elurin with Elrond and Elros! And apparently Morgoth is a balrog.

You’re making all sorts of mistakes today!

Weren’t the kids abandoned in the forest never heard from again? Elrond/Elros were adopted by Maglor later, when the sons of Feanor attacked the refugees from Doriath and Gondolin at the mouth of Sirion.

Brianna Ghey’s father not holding baxck https://news.sky.com/story/brianna-gheys-father-demands-apology-from-pm-after-trans-jibe-in-commons-13066231 What a fucking turd Sunak is

GB News is blaming Harry and Meghan for Charles’ cancer…

“Vladimir, why are you so good?!?”

My wife and I moved to East Renfrewshire (where she grew up and her brother and retired parents still live) entirely due to the state schools, which have two of the top three or four state schools in Scotland. This is why house prices are crazy here, but we both hsd flats to sell. My daughter goes to a Catholic primary school despite her heritsge being athiest parents of Protestant and Jewish backgrounds (one of my wife’s grandfathers was a bodyguard of Golda Meir’s). 50% of that school’s pupils are non-catholic, lot of muslim kids. My daughter’s feed-in secondary school is in the top 3 in Scotland. Had we stayed where my flat was, we’d probably have enrolled her in the very well regarded Gaelic school.

*Stares at the bold*

What about the (at least) two public holidays? (Funeral and coronation )

The advantage is probably mostly in the prestige (for top unis) and making contacts with other rich people