williamjm

I hadn't realised that, but it does make sense.

I'm not sure where I expect them to go in a second season, but I'm definitely interested to find out. Speaking of murder mysteries, I just finished watching Sharp Objects. In terms of the acting talent involved and the overall quality of the show I'd say it has some things in common with Big Little Lies, although the murders here are much more bizarre by comparison (together with the small town setting it reminds me a bit of season 1 of True Detective at times). The ending of the last episode was particularly memorable

It does have an excellent cast. The scenes with Kidman and her therapist are incredibly tense. The murder mystery whodunnit aspect of the show worked well enough, but its the character interactions that really make the series work.

That could be slightly weird since the first film was already given that title for its UK release (apparently to avoid confusion with the Patrick Macnee/Diana Rigg Avengers TV series).

I've seen the first couple of episodes so far. I think I'd agree with the previous comment that it is watchable but not great. The Kryptonian setting is probably the most interesting thing about it, since it does mean that it has a different feel to any of the other superhero shows out at the moment. Seg-El is (or will be) Kal-El's grandfather, Ser Barristan is Seg's grandfather. There are some time travel shenanigans that mean there is a closer tie to Superman's story than there might initially appear to be.

I've watched the first three episodes of Sharp Objects. It's been compelling so far, despite the complete lack of any likeable characters. The acting has been very good, especially Amy Adams.

It's definitely a book that delivers exactly what its title promises. I think one reason it may exist is because Gaiman likes doing readings of the myths. I saw him in Dublin earlier in the year and he did a reading of the story of Freya's wedding, and they are stories that are really meant to be read out loud. I'm about halfway through Novik's Spinning Silver. I think it's been very good so far, although I do almost feel like I should be reading it in the middle of winter while its snowing outside.

I think you're right it was their best opportunity, in years to come they'll probably look back on it and wonder how they could possibly have put up Andrea Leadsom as their preferred candidate for such a crucial election.

I think the Brexiteer position at the moment is that they are convinced they can both get and eat cake, but can't agree on what type of cake it should be.

It does feel like they've completely messed up their timing. If they were going to launch a coup they should have done it earlier, at least some of them seem to have belatedly come to the realisation that embarking on a lengthy leadership contest at the exact time the final negotiations are meant to be going on might not be a good look. They can probably depose May next year sometime, but that seems to defeat the purpose of them wanting to decide the Brexit deal themselves (not that they can apparently agree on what they want from a deal).

Congratulations

That's exactly the problem. I think that the three of them are attracted to Rand and that he is attracted to the three of them makes perfect sense. Admittedly, the relationship with Elayne does seem a bit weak since they don't spend much time together and have little chemistry together (Elayne probably has better chemistry with Mat than she does with Rand), but they're both young so I don't find them thinking they're in love with each other to be unbelievable. What I don't feel was ever adequately explained was why they would agree to the arrangement. If it was just Aviendha and Elayne it might work slightly better since sharing husbands (or wives) is part of Aviendha's culture and they're obviously very close to each other (although I'm still don't really see Elayne being happy with the idea), but throwing in Min makes it more unlikely. Min is fiercely independent and very stubborn about not giving in to the roles others expect of her, that's pretty much her defining character trait. Given that, why would she ever accept sharing the man she loves with two other women she doesn't even know all that well? At the same time, why would the others be happy with Min's involvement with Rand? There's also the related issue that we're repeatedly told that Rand can't choose between the women, and maybe that might make sense at first, but over time he's far closer to Min and it seems absurd that his relationship with her wouldn't be more important to him than his infatuation with Elayne. That's a good point, although the warder bond doesn't require them to all be sleeping with him.

Independence would have been easier if both the UK and Scotland were in the EU, otherwise many of the issues currently about the Irish border are also relevant to the Scottish border. Give them some time, someone in Moscow is probably frantically looking up Swiss tourist attractions on Wikipedia.

I think it's probably fair to say most fans of the series have a bit of a love-hate relationship with it, particularly in the second half of the series. When there are plotlines that don't really work in the books and nobody particularly seems to like then I hope they do something different in the adaptation - whether that is omitting the plotline, or rewriting it drastically, or keeping it much the same but implementing it better. Of course, there's always a significant risk that the screenwriter's own ideas are worse that what Jordan came up with, but I don't think changing things in an adaptation is intrinsically bad. I do wonder if Jordan could have partially redeemed the plotline if he had been able to finish it, but when he was writing the story it didn't feel like it made sense in terms of character development so I'm a bit sceptical.

I think you've managed to do the opposite of a Commentator's Curse here, although India probably wish the two of them hadn't waited until the final innings of the series to score an impressive century. When they were still together in the final session it was even starting to look like an unlikely run-chase could be possible, but no matter how well a batsman is playing a ball pitching well outside leg and hitting the top of off stump is going to be hard to defend. I think it's definitely the best Indian bowling attack I've seen in English conditions, they were relentless at times.