Heartofice

Starmer just needs to cover his back to show on these issues really, to show that he's not an Anti British Commie like Corbyn. It is a bit of a silly idea by Nike anyway, I guess the outrage is based on the idea that it's totally fine to 'playfully update' the St George's cross, but they probably wouldn't do it with other flags. Would they make the Scottish flag pink? Either way, I don't think it's a big deal.

Yeah I think the Rayner thing is a heap of nothing, but she is probably going to be in the next government and she should have to defend herself against accusations and be seen to be doing so. Seems really daft to think the BBC should just overlook it. On the other hand, the accusation the BBC has ignored the Mone thing is wildly inaccurate, I don’t know what planet Spocky is living on for him to think that.

I must be hallucinating the long interview they did with Mone and Barrowman they did only recently plus a 90 minute investigation into Barrowman? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001vgqn

Jones is nothing more than an attention seeker and a grifter. He doesn’t actually care about Labour winning or losing, it’s whatever gives him the opportunity to get some spotlight.

Really it's not so much about the technology itself, it's how you use it, and whether you understand the limitations. Ant Man 3 is maybe the best example of 'Yeah fuck it, just let Volume sort it out' and not having a clue whether it's the best way to get the effect you want. It feels like The Volume became a bit of a short cut for a lot of people, but only the experts really understood what it was good for and what it wasn't good for.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/40bn-spent-protecting-families-and-businesses-from-energy-costs#:~:text=£39.3 billion was spent,26 billion by March 2028. Yes the French prices didn't increase much but someone is paying for that subsidy, and it's the French taxpayer. They also have nuclear energy, and a valid criticism is that we haven't invested in nuclear enough, focusing too much on renewables which won't solve our energy issues. Lazy answer is to say it's about Private / Public ownership, but it's not really.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68625344 It's fine to blame the Tories for stuff, but leaving out the clear context doesn't seem especially fair.

I struggle to find much he is generally correct about. He isn't just insufferable, he's dishonest.

Yeah I mentally used HotD and Rings of Power as a comparison of how to present landscapes and construct shots in a believable way, and 90% of the HotD came out ahead. I was always very impressed with how much HotD's effects were mostly unnoticeable. Complaints about the lighting are just bizarre (get a better tv set up if you can't see) as it's use of lighting that often helps the effects. In comparison, Rings of Power often looked incredibly artificial. I guess they often constructed huge sets, fair play to them, but they always looked like sets. That is a matter of not blocking things properly, not lighting things properly and trying to get too much on screen. Another comparison is Shogun, which has a few clunky shots, but overall manages to capture a sense of realism and place that RoP never came close to doing.

I don't often agreed with 'The Dunt' but he's probably right here:

The problem there is that the story is bigger than just Paul. His ending is actually much less interesting if you don't go into what happens afterwards.

I think I was probably at an age where I wanted something a bit more, and Batman was surprisingly adult for a kids show, maybe more than it should be. I rewatched it recently since it hit Netflix and its pretty dark. Really, I should have loved X-Men and the MCU nature of it. I grew up watching actually terrible shows like 'Spiderman and his amazing friends' which had Iceman and Firestar in it, and that often had some sort of bizarre crossover which blew my mind at the time. The weird thing about the X-Men show however was I probably saw it when I was early teens. I was reading X-Men at the time, one of the very good Claremont runs, and the comic was pretty adult, often brutal and violent, had some pretty dense and hard to understand themes for someone my age. Turning the cartoon on, I was immediately put off by the garish colours and characters like Jubilee who I didn't recognise and thought were childish and stupid. I wanted a show where Wolverine rips people's guts out, not where some teenage girl shoots little light flashes. Well I have to agree really. At the time it really did feel like it was following the comic structure pretty well and I really loved it. It just feels very dated now. Having said that, I think a lot of cartoons now feel very dated to me, maybe it's my age, but even 10-15 years ago I would download stuff like Justice League and get quite into it. Now, probably superhero fatigue means there is nothing really of interest there.

I'm close.. slightly close.. to having higher expectations around that Alien movie based on that trailer, which was quite good. My guess is, if it's like the Evil Dead movie, it will be pretty competent, pretty unpleasant, better than the last Alien movie we got, but ultimately still not anywhere near the level of the originals. Thats not bad. At this point I can't be arsed to watch something that is a bit above mediocre, but I'm not totally down on it!

I have attempted to watch 20 minutes of this show, but it has a real 'Set and costumes stolen from Star Trek TNG' vibe that I could barely get past. I've seen others say they like it, but I have a real phobia of terrible sci fi costumes in tv shows, it's a serious red flag for me.

Happy to hear it. I have this vague recollection of the 90's where I thought Star Wars was awesome.. from there it's been a series of crushing waves of disappointment.

Be specific, because this was a LONG LONG time ago.. in a galaxy...

There seems to be some sort of Royal protocol that means they just don't engage with public tittle tattle and try and stay above it. They don't want to be running to the papers in the same way that Harry and Meghan try and do. On one hand it's a sensible way to control your image, but at some point when things get out of hand like they are now, surely you need to do something. Then you have stories like this where people are trying to get into Kate's medical records to see what is going on. It's driving a wave of hysteria! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68613057

Well from the reaction on here and elsewhere it seemed it was pretty popular, I personally didn't like all that much due to it giving me stress. And yes, I think Forks brought me back on board with the show, it was much more feel good and inspiring, and Richie is a likeable underdog.

Everyone loved the Christmas episode, but the first half of that I found was giving me a stomach ulcer. The Bear is a good show, but it's just jabbing you with negative emotion so often that it isn't always a fun watch.

This also happened to Sainsbury's on Saturday. Russian espionage almost certainly connected to Kate's disappearance.

I understand the sentiment, the problem really was that interest rates went far too low in the first place and everyone got stupid mortgages they could never afford if interest rates went up to even a half normal level. I don’t blame people for doing that, because it’s almost impossible to buy a house without doing it because of how insane house prices have become ( in part due to interest rates) Traditionally , actually putting some money away into a savings account was considered sensible and a good idea. It really shows how bonkers the economy has become that everyone thought the only good thing to do with your money was invest it in property

It’s funny how quickly The Volume went from being the saviour of modern special effects to something producers have to declare they aren’t using to advertise their shows. Quite the turnaround.

Wait.. Meghan is black???

Yeah the video just raises more questions than it answers, like basically everything else that has happened with WaterKate. Personally when I watch the video I think there are a ton of similarities to Kate and I also think the grainy quality of the video makes less easy to identify whether it's her. Also conscious that we all have an image of the way Kate appears normally, dressed up smartly and prim and proper. That doesn't align to the slightly gangly, gym gear look of the girl in the video.

Well it certainly isn't what I would have liked to have seen in a new Star Wars show, in fact it features almost all the elements I didn't want to see. Starting off with a bunch of Younglings, using CGI backgrounds designed look exactly as bad as the ones in the prequels is probably not the best way to open a trailer.