What happened? I posted something here a few minutes ago and now it has disappeared.  Ah well, try again.

@Whisht

I saw the first four episodes of Taboo before deciding that watching Tom Hardy grunting his way round a fantastical version of Regency London was not all that enthralling, and that any interest I had in finding out what it was all a…[Read more]

@Whisht

I watched the first four episodes of Taboo before realising that watching Tom Hardy grunting his way round a fantastical version of early 19th century London was beginning to get tedious, that my interest in finding out what on earth was going on and how it would all end was not sufficient to overcome my impatience with a plot that…[Read more]

@ichabod

Your mention of Alfred Bester’s ‘Tiger Tiger’ has led me to reread it after an interval of nearly fifty years, and I think your memory may have done some disservice to the novel, not least in conflating two different female characters.

The central character, Gully Foyle, is not portrayed as a hero in any usual sense, although his…[Read more]

@thane15

No trouble at all.  As long as there is anybody here who finds my occasional off-topic outpourings interesting, it is a pleasure.  If it becomes tedious, I hope that people will tell me so 🙂

@pedant  As thane says, LOL, but these days there are so many Hallmark festivals in the calendar; how do we distinguish them one from t’ot…[Read more]

@thane15

An afterthought:   It occurs to me that I was talking about reading chiefly in relation to books, because for me and all  other readers of my generation books were our principal resource. But now, for better and worse, there is the internet, which offers an infinitely more accessible, world-spanning library for anyone who can learn…[Read more]

@thane15

You dangled the bait in front of my nose, so I’ll bite 🙂

I don’t know what or how much your teacher told you about Valentine’s day and I may not be able to add much – if anything, since I’m not particularly knowledgeable on the subject of hagiography.

St Valentine (Valentinus?) is one of those saints of the early church about whom…[Read more]

@janetteB

Despite the fact that I knew even at the time that they were being broadcast in colour, I still tend to think of the Pertwee episodes as being in B&W, because when they were originally broadcast I did not have a colour TV set.

@thane15   Not so much ‘deep’ as perceptive 🙂

@ichabod

Thanks for the tip about ‘Beloved Poison; it sounds just my kind of book and I will look out for it.  I haven’t come across Alan Bradley or the Flavia de Luce series, but having looked them up I think the books sound interesting. My only reservation is that, although the author is Canadians and he had never visited this country when he s…[Read more]

@davidZdep   Welcome to the Forum.

As @Missy suggests, your description exactly fits the third Doctor, played by Jon Pertwee from 1970 to 1974.  He affected a dandified style of dress, with frilled shirt fronts, velvet jackets etc. and, during the earlier part of his run at least, he often wore a silk lined cape.  The vintage yellow car was name…[Read more]

@ichabod

I wasn’t ever, really, what people thought of back then as a regular girl

Nor I, though I could look the part if I tried – small, blonde, etc. etc.  As a kid, if I could be persuaded to take my nose out of whatever book I was reading, I was much more likely to be found tearing round the countryside with the boys, exploring abandoned chal…[Read more]

@ichabod

I wasn’t thinking of principle, though, but in terms of sheer *volume* to sort through, check, and counter-check.

Assuming there is a future, there will almost certainly be an algorithm for that 🙂  The multiplicity of data to be sifted is not the greatest problem, so long as the primary sources are available. After that, as @pedant says,…[Read more]

@thane15

it was sad to hear about them saying: “well all this bad stuff, kinda glad i’m leaving the planet soon.”

There have been time recently when, considering my age and projected life span,  I too have caught myself thinking that, though I try to shake myself out of it. We seem to have so little time to secure the future of humanity and the…[Read more]

@ichabod

Moving the discussion here, so as not to stray too far off topic.  When I first read TLoTR at the age of fourteen I did so at a gallop, concentrating primarily on Frodo’s quest.  I had read The Hobbit when I was younger, and so seized on the first two volumes when I came across them in the school library.  It was immensely frustrating to…[Read more]

@ichabod  @Missy

I like you; you make me feel young 🙂

In reality I don’t feel old most of the time. Arthritis and other recent health problems are just a trick that time has played on me; inside, and very close to the surface, there’s a 25 year old who insists on being heard.

@ichabod

in S8-S9 we do see the Doctor yanked back from what seems to be a default TL setting of no positive emotional involvement by Clara.  So, do all TLs have that capacity but learn to stifle it? Or is it something the Doctor has learned (since the caveman incident) from his human companions?

Presumably many of them do have the latent c…[Read more]

@Missy  @Nerys

Julius Caesar had himself appointed Dictator for life after decades of social unrest and what amounted to intermittent civil war among those of the ruling class, and he was a self-publicist – as those of my generation who had to read and translate his Gallic Wars can testify; he also had a reputation as a womaniser and he was s…[Read more]

@MissRori

May I add my voice to those who have already offered their support. Be assured that we have your back and you are not alone.

I am lucky in that my family and my friends on both sides of the Atlantic pond are more or less in accord with my views on political developments, but I can empathise nevertheless with those such as yourself wh…[Read more]

@pedant

Trump’s background strongly suggests he is the real deal as well (daddy in the KKK)

I don’t dispute that.  Given that background and his default assumptions, fascism is his natural home, but I don’t think that is what drives him.  I doubt if he has the intelligence, and he certainly doesn’t have the focus or attention span to formulate a c…[Read more]

@pedant

Trump looks like a fascist, quacks like a fascist and goosesteps like a fascist and his instincts are certainly populist and authoritarian, but I doubt whether he has a coherent political idea in his head.  All he is concerned about is Trump, his business interests and whatever feeds his narcissistic ego.  It is significant that the cou…[Read more]