williamjm

Maybe someone told him Republican voters wanted to see him go far to the right and he took them a bit too literally?

I think Williams is the significantly better writer out of the two, even if he does have a tendency to be long-winded.

It was a very eventful stage so slightly surreal it all ended up making a 1 second difference to the standings.

I enjoyed the series, but I wouldn't say Sanderson's writing is really anything special. It does get a bit corny at times, particularly when he is trying to be funny - although that's probably more of an issue for the Wax and Wayne books than the original trilogy. I think Children of Time excels at its world-building and how to portray how alien non-human characters could be. On the other hand, the human characters in it are bland. I agree with @dog-days that Guns of the Dawn has more compelling characters and it's much more about the characters than the world-building. For two novels released the same year by the same author they've not really got anything in common.

Cummins seems reluctant to bowl Murphy, I am sure Lyon would have had plenty of overs by now.

This could be a crucial blow with Starc dismissing Stokes and Bairstow in quick succession.

The 2023 Finalists have been announced (after a false start where someone posted a provisional list a few days ago then withdrew it): https://file770.com/2023-hugo-finalists-2/ I've only read Nona the Ninth out of the best novel finalists.

The forecast for tomorrow seems better than today but still some clouds around so likely still something there for the bowlers but not to quite the same extent.

And England will back themselves to chase down 250. We shall see which team's confidence is justified. One thing's for sure, Australia won't relax until they've seen the back of Ben Stokes.

I think when it comes to batting Marsh and Stokes seem to be playing in a different match to everyone else, none of the other batsmen have really looked like sticking around for too long. Looking at tomorrow's forecast there could be some rain interruptions, hopefully not too much.

I read James S.A. Corey's Memory's Legion, the collection of short stories in the Expanse Universe. I had previously only read The Butcher of Anderson Station out of them, and in retrospect I think it would have been good to read some of these while reading the main series because some of them do have important backstory for some of the characters. I thought The Churn, Auberon, The Vital Abyss and Strange Dogs were the best of them, and I think there's a good variety among those stories and they do bring some new perspectives on the setting.

Firearms can be dangerous, when retrieving them he might accidentally shoot himself a couple of dozen times.

They could still have played Woakes, Tongue and Wood together if they dropped Robinson as well.

They seem to have gone in a slightly different direction and brought in Moeen, Woakes and Wood for Pope, Tongue and Anderson. That does strengthen the bowling options but there is one fewer specialist batsmen. It sounds like part of the motivation is that Stokes isn't sure how much he's going to be able to bowl. It does feel a bit harsh on Tongue after he was the pick of the England bowling attack in the last Test, although I think the plan was always for Wood to play at some point. The Spirit of Cricket sounds like it should be something from a cricket equivalent of A Christmas Carol. Perhaps W.G. Grace as the Spirit of Cricket Past and Joe Root as the Spirit of Cricket Present. Not sure who the Spirit of Cricket Future should be, maybe a teenaged T20 player?

I saw it yesterday and I feel the same. It was missing the many things that were annoying about Crystal Skull, and while it still isn't close to Raiders/Last Crusade it did at least feel like an Indiana Jones film. I thought Phoebe Waller-Bridge was good in it, although her characterisation felt inconsistent. Ford can't really do the action scenes now but is good at the rest. I think it's a bit of a shame this isn't the film they made 15 years ago because they wouldn't have to work around Ford would have been fitter and then they wouldn't have made Crystal Skull. I'm sure we're all devastated that...

I did wonder if the Australians might have been starting to think that making Ben Stokes angry was a strategic error, he did seem to be inspired by the situation. It was starting to feel like a 'you guys are history' situation, although he couldn't quite get England over the line. England perhaps regretting the relative weakness of their tale, if they had Moeen or Woakes coming it at 8 rather than Stuart Broad (who to be fair, did bat well with Stokes) then I think their chances of victory would have been a bit higher.

Guns of the Dawn, Children of Time, Dogs of War and City of Last Chances were some that I particularly liked by him. I haven't read The Expert System's Brother. There were things I liked in that book, but I agree it didn't really come together as well as it could have done. It's probably one of his weaker novels, although still reasonably good.

I think for that to work the mutiny would have had to go on for longer. The Ukranians have barely had any time to react to events.

Maybe Lukaschenko managed to persuade Prigozhin that he was about to get nuked if he didn't back down?

England have added Rehan Ahmed to their squad as spinning cover for Moeen. He's certainly a talent with a lot of potential but not exactly a like-for-life replacement for Leach/Moeen. They've still got more opportunities in the qualifying tournament but if they don't make it it is going to be weird having a World Cup without the Windies.

I saw this video clip where James Cameron is scathing about the recklessness of the Titan operators.

The Ashes (in England at least) always seem to deliver epic matches. There were many swings in momentum, for a lot of it England seemed to have the slight upper hand but Australia managed to put in a gritty performance to pull off the win. A lot is likely going to be written about the first day declaration, but while I think it was an odd decision I think what really lost England the match was missing a few chances when they were fielding. Big question for the next Test is whether Moeen will be fully fit to bowl, he was clearly hampered in the second innings even if he still managed to get the key wicket of Travis Head. The problem is that there still isn't really an obvious alternative. I suspect Wood will also come into the team, but that would always have been the plan.

The weather forecast for Birmingham tomorrow does not look particularly promising, it would be disappointing for a Test with so many twists and turns to end up in a draw due to rain. Australia might have to worry about possibly getting some conditions similar to that period on Sunday afternoon with the rain about to come in where the seam bowlers looked unplayable. There would probably nobody better to exploit such conditions than Anderson and Broad. If the weather does turn out fine then I think it is probably advantage Australia. England have done well to get rid of Warner, Labuschagne and Smith but there are still several Australian batsmen there with the ability to make a match-winning innings.

There's going to be yet another by-election with suspended Tory MP David Warburton resigning.

I did enjoy Bairstow hyping him up for the later spell while Khawaja giggled at the crease.