Messages

Glad to hear things are looking up, a little bit.

And yeah, gluten sensitivity options are so much better these days. I went to school with someone with Celiac disease and she used to have to eat these horrible plain looking things. Much like the vegetarian options, the companies involved have stepped up their game some and some of it actually looks pretty appetising these days.

It was definitely a different take. And yeah, as you say, the Guardians of the Galaxy style approach really did work for them, and I felt it played to the cast's strengths. It had more of a feel of an actual D&D campaign that has gone slightly off the rails but is gradually getting back on course.

New evil dead film is basically a sequel to the Robin Williams jumanji and I love it

I was already gonna watch this, but now I feel I will enjoy it.

I'm also late to the party, but I watched the D&D movie. It was...alright, actually. Not saying it was great cinema because lol no it wasn't, but it was entertaining, light and had a surprising amount of Forgotten Realms lore in it, at least compared to what I was expecting.

I also felt the cast were pretty good. Chris Pine excels at the charming rogue role, that's a given. Michelle Rodriguez...I've not kept up with her career but either she's put on a decent amount of muscle in general or a decent amount for this role, and either way she sells the whole barbarian warrior angle. And while Hugh Grant is no Jeremy Irons, he was at least trying, bless him.

The Paladin fight scene was also pretty impressive, Regé-Jean Page had the classic Paladin stick up his ass, but he then took that stick and used it to beat down a half dozen Thayan assassins. And unless they did some very clever trickery it looks like he did the entire fight scene himself, which he should definitely get some kudos for.

Urgh. Not been in that *precise* situation but I had a similar issue not long ago where I couldn't use my phone for a while and I can entirely sympathise.

Absolutely frustrating as fuck.

Also hello. Nothing to really talk about here. The weather is slightly uncomfortably warm, everything is shit, Labour are intent on crushing all hope not already extinguished by the Tories, and everyone is either mad about confetti being thrown at a wedding or (as is usual) people's genitals. Just another day on Normal Island.

It's even worse than that. Nadine "Boris Johnson has never told a lie in his life" Dorries has been nominated to the House of Lords.

In other Normal Island news I just saw a news segment titled "Police arrest volunteers giving out rape alarms in fear of coronation disruption."

Volunteers who work for the local council, in partnership with the police.

And the police justified it on the basis of having "actionable intelligence", only to be called out by a journalist who was present at the arrests, and so they deleted their tweet.

I don't really care about this but I feel like I ought to throw it out there.

Local council elections in the UK are in and the Tories have taken a pasting.



One thing that I do think is interesting at a first glance here is that Labour is not nearly so clearly the victor as they are crowing about. Yes, they got the largest number of seats... but it's not that far ahead of the Lib Dems and the Greens more than doubled their holding.

My suspicion is that the Lib Dems are benefiting from the hard core of Tory voters who want to express their dissatisfaction but will never vote Labour, and the Greens are benefiting from the hard core of Left voters who will never vote Starmer.

It's always difficult to predict what will happen at the next GE from local council results but I think the Lib Dem gains give particular reason for pause here. Most people don't take local elections seriously because the stakes are perceived as lower (which is ironic as they often have a bigger impact on their lives in material terms than their MP). Lib Dems have a reputation for being good in local government (which... eh) and then rarely being able to translate that into strong parliamentary showings because people just don't take them seriously as a party of potential government (which is good; they don't deserve that).

When people are faced with the choice that 'matters' I think there's every chance they swing back to the Tories. Memories are short and Sunak still has time to craft his pitch. I still ultimately think that a Labour government (possibly a Labour led coalition) is the most likely outcome, but particularly if Starmer continues to fail to inspire and the pitch from both parties is "Things are shit, they're going to get more shit, and that's good actually" people may well decide to just stick with the devil they know.

It doesn't look entirely great for Labour...strong suggestions of a coalition government based on the showing and numbers so far. Completely squandered that 50 point lead they had seven months back, as far as I can tell they spent that entire time telling the left of the party they are swine,to the unions that they won't back them, that they won't help students and they don't especially care about rampant TERFism or refugees and promising YET MORE CRACKDOWNS in order to court the vote of gammons who will always vote for the Tories over them anyway.

So yeah. Demoralising your own base is...an interesting political approach.

But yeah, I agree the Lib Dem vote is likely disaffected Tories who want to punish them where it'll actually hurt.

From a trans perspective, with Duffield etc and the comments he's made on the latest EHRC guidance about changing the meaning of legal gender, it feels as though he's made the calculation that supporting trans people is a red line for more people than throwing trans people under the bus is.

The truth is that most people don't care too much about us either way. But the ones who hate us definitely consider support a dealbreaker, where the ones who support us ... generally care about other things more. "Sure I don't like his trans stuff but we can't let the Tories get in."

Just on a pure realpolitik level he's probably correct about that.

Everything else, with Mandelson back in the tent, really feels like a return to "Who else are they going to vote for?" Signal to business and people who consider themselves sensible moderates that they aren't at any risk of having the status quo challenged and the broader left will fall into line. I don't know if that's actually true any more though. I think there's a good chance people who feel betrayed by Starmer just vote Green instead, splitting the vote and giving the Tories a narrow path to maintain power.

The neoliberal and authoritarian policies being put forward really seem to be the true ideological core of Starmerism and the Labour Right.

Either way, it's looking bleak. Long term I don't see any political project which has an actual answer to the real structural challenges we're facing. The increasing levels of deprivation and suffering can only go on so long before there's some kind of backlash. If Starmer gets in as the 'legitimate alternative' and still fails to address anything (and... I don't think he's capable of addressing anything within the ideological limitations he has adopted) we're going to be heading down a very dangerous road.

Yeah, it doesn't look good from any angle, really.

The only vaguely interesting thing Labour has going for it are its green policies, and I fully believe given who is involved that Labour will immediately capitulate on those key planks in those policies the moment industry leans on them.

So we'll be up shit creek, sans paddle, and the vicious backlash to Starmer (who will inevitably be labelled "woke", or whatever the verbiage updates to, despite everything) will ensure the next gang of Tories are even worse. Given we've already outlawed peaceful protest, as today is so expertly demonstrating, the only areas they can start moving into do not inspire confidence.

I have no immediate plans, but I intend to move back to Australia in the next few years. I'd recommend others look towards Ireland, whose path to citizenship is fairly straightforward for British citizens, and British nationals can freely work and travel there right now without visas.

I don't really care about this but I feel like I ought to throw it out there.

Local council elections in the UK are in and the Tories have taken a pasting.



One thing that I do think is interesting at a first glance here is that Labour is not nearly so clearly the victor as they are crowing about. Yes, they got the largest number of seats... but it's not that far ahead of the Lib Dems and the Greens more than doubled their holding.

My suspicion is that the Lib Dems are benefiting from the hard core of Tory voters who want to express their dissatisfaction but will never vote Labour, and the Greens are benefiting from the hard core of Left voters who will never vote Starmer.

It's always difficult to predict what will happen at the next GE from local council results but I think the Lib Dem gains give particular reason for pause here. Most people don't take local elections seriously because the stakes are perceived as lower (which is ironic as they often have a bigger impact on their lives in material terms than their MP). Lib Dems have a reputation for being good in local government (which... eh) and then rarely being able to translate that into strong parliamentary showings because people just don't take them seriously as a party of potential government (which is good; they don't deserve that).

When people are faced with the choice that 'matters' I think there's every chance they swing back to the Tories. Memories are short and Sunak still has time to craft his pitch. I still ultimately think that a Labour government (possibly a Labour led coalition) is the most likely outcome, but particularly if Starmer continues to fail to inspire and the pitch from both parties is "Things are shit, they're going to get more shit, and that's good actually" people may well decide to just stick with the devil they know.

It doesn't look entirely great for Labour...strong suggestions of a coalition government based on the showing and numbers so far. Completely squandered that 50 point lead they had seven months back, as far as I can tell they spent that entire time telling the left of the party they are swine,to the unions that they won't back them, that they won't help students and they don't especially care about rampant TERFism or refugees and promising YET MORE CRACKDOWNS in order to court the vote of gammons who will always vote for the Tories over them anyway.

So yeah. Demoralising your own base is...an interesting political approach.

But yeah, I agree the Lib Dem vote is likely disaffected Tories who want to punish them where it'll actually hurt.

The thing is, England doesn't really matter too much.

When the general election kicks off it's all about Scotland. It's a foregone conclusion that Labour will win, which is good for the country as Starmer is more Blairite centrist. It's how much they win.

Back in the day, Labour relied heavily on the Scottish vote. The SNP turning Scotland into a one party state hurt them badly. However now there is a chance that the whole "vote for independence and ignore how shit we are at running a nation" bullshit has been exposed and the Scottish folks will go back to voting Labour in order to fuck the tories.

I don't really care about this but I feel like I ought to throw it out there.

Local council elections in the UK are in and the Tories have taken a pasting.



One thing that I do think is interesting at a first glance here is that Labour is not nearly so clearly the victor as they are crowing about. Yes, they got the largest number of seats... but it's not that far ahead of the Lib Dems and the Greens more than doubled their holding.

My suspicion is that the Lib Dems are benefiting from the hard core of Tory voters who want to express their dissatisfaction but will never vote Labour, and the Greens are benefiting from the hard core of Left voters who will never vote Starmer.

It's always difficult to predict what will happen at the next GE from local council results but I think the Lib Dem gains give particular reason for pause here. Most people don't take local elections seriously because the stakes are perceived as lower (which is ironic as they often have a bigger impact on their lives in material terms than their MP). Lib Dems have a reputation for being good in local government (which... eh) and then rarely being able to translate that into strong parliamentary showings because people just don't take them seriously as a party of potential government (which is good; they don't deserve that).

When people are faced with the choice that 'matters' I think there's every chance they swing back to the Tories. Memories are short and Sunak still has time to craft his pitch. I still ultimately think that a Labour government (possibly a Labour led coalition) is the most likely outcome, but particularly if Starmer continues to fail to inspire and the pitch from both parties is "Things are shit, they're going to get more shit, and that's good actually" people may well decide to just stick with the devil they know.

It doesn't look entirely great for Labour...strong suggestions of a coalition government based on the showing and numbers so far. Completely squandered that 50 point lead they had seven months back, as far as I can tell they spent that entire time telling the left of the party they are swine,to the unions that they won't back them, that they won't help students and they don't especially care about rampant TERFism or refugees and promising YET MORE CRACKDOWNS in order to court the vote of gammons who will always vote for the Tories over them anyway.

So yeah. Demoralising your own base is...an interesting political approach.

But yeah, I agree the Lib Dem vote is likely disaffected Tories who want to punish them where it'll actually hurt.

That and how the slightest deviation from a randomly agreed upon canon in a series with some of the loosest claims to sci-fi in any bit of media, is treated as high treason.

Sci-fi aside, I would hesitate to qualify Star Wars even as space opera, since I associate that term with a modicum of realism in politics and military strategy.

Star Wars is space fantasy.

Strong agreement. One of the aforementioned fans tried to argue with me (I don't know why, I wasn't talking about it) about how a certain manouvere in one of the films or TV shows was impossible because [insert tedious pedantry here]. Look, your entire setting has been in a state of technological stasis for over a thousand years, somehow, go away and leave me alone.

Bless them, they tried with Andor (and it was good, don't get me wrong), but the whole setting is silly and camp, just roll with it.

That and how the slightest deviation from a randomly agreed upon canon in a series with some of the loosest claims to sci-fi in any bit of media, is treated as high treason.

And while Trekkies and Who nerds can also get bad, I don't run into them in anywhere near the numbers of Star Wars fans in the wild. They're like the Jehovah's Witnesses of bad fandoms, knocking on doors to give you their terrible takes.

On the other hand,the way Star Wards nerds argue....

Cram is literally the Old Orc. Got tired of challenging people by the road and has now invaded the cities.

Also Skywind had an update video the other day. It's still not gonna be out before 2030, but it is looking good.

I initially started playing ESO because I was bored waiting for TES VI.

And here I am, 6 years later...playing ESO while waiting for TES VI (FWIW the new expansion does look legitimately awesome, and adds some serious depth to Hermaeus Mora. And they got Wes Johnson back in to voice him, which is just top tier)