Can anyone name any film or TV adaptations which are better than the book they come from? There must be some?
Jason Bourne maybe?
The godfather. Book is good but the film....
They are loads of films people don't realise come from a book...because the book wasn't very good. I think a better question is there a film version of a well known book that is superior to the book.
50 Shades of Grey. But only because the book was spectacularly shite (I mean bafflingly poor, the sort of fiction that would be turned down for publication in Fiesta if that even exists any more), whereas the film was just plain shite.
'I've just been out to lunch and encountered some UK based publishers. They all said any serious publisher will be looking at moving their operations to the EU in light of Brexit.'
Strange that's what my other half & son do and there has been zero talk about it.
What would be the advantage ?
None, they should more concerned that book publishing is doomed. The internet is putting them out of business, quickly.....memo to self find some publishers to short tomorrow.
UK physical book sales 2015 £2.75bn. Digital sales £554m. There's life in the old dog yet.
eBook sales have stalled in growth over the past 2 years. There is no real sign yet that they are going to kill off print books on the way digital music has done to CDs.
I happily buy novels for my Kindle, and easy read non-fiction. But if it is something that I intend to take notes from, or which I think will require considerable flipping backwards and forwards between pages or chapters, or something where I think I shall be writing my own notes in the margins, then nothing beats paper. Kindle is particularly clunky in jumping from page to page, or for searching for something you read 2 chapters earlier.
In fact, anything which I work from, I print up, whether its a web page, an email or an attached document.
Kindles are bad for non-fiction with illustrations or graphs or tables.
Some fiction should not be read on a Kindle.
But I love my kindle especially as it is also available on a smartphone or tablet.
No way. For years if not decades, every government will blame Brexit for anything that goes wrong in any policy sphere.
Far from making UK politicians accountable to themselves, Brexit is, rather, the ultimate get out of jail card.
On the one hand this is clearly true - in 30 years' time, Brexit is going to be "to blame" for a heck of a lot of stuff, to quite varying degrees of accuracy. (As someone else has pointed out, it is likely to snatch the role off the late Mrs T, who in turn grabbed it off "the mess Labour left the country in" after their governments of the 1970s. Perhaps a running theme here is that winners get the blame decades on once the losers have been forgotten.)
On t'other ... whatever the EU has evolved into in 30 years' time, I find it almost inconceivable that the majority of Brits (albeit this term may by then only refer to the English and the Welsh) will be looking jealously across the Channel, the Irish Sea and possibly Hadrian's Wall, wishing fervently to be part of it. In most scenarios my imagination can conjure, even the ones where the EU or USE or whatsoever it becomes is a far wealthier, happier and more stable place than today, I can't see it developing into the kind of club that Brits feel comfortable being part of.
This may well be a miscalculation on my part. One assumption I've made is that Eurofederalism is unlikely to catch on here, but who can know the political tastes two generations hence? The other is that it seems to me a smoothly-running and democratic Europe will require a significant transition towards federalism with central institutions subject to the will of a pan-continental demos, not international diplomacy between merely national leaders. A powerful treasury enacting substantial inter-state transfers, a more substantial role for the European Parliament, a development of the democratic mandate of the President of the Commission... the momentum behind these ideas may be limited right now, but it's hard to see the EU (in particular the single currency) function in the long term without them, and the direction of travel for the past 30 years has been very clear. If that direction of travel continues, it will become less and less enticing for the UK. If instead an unreformed Europe continues to flail from crisis to crisis, that will hardly make it more attractive.
Europe needs a real lingua Franca to work well, to get a shared media and culture (look how the U.S. election is so easily and detailedly followed on here because we have "open access" via the language).
Although I wonder how long that will last. If the Latino block vote is now a thing, perhaps we should be watching Telemundo.
"Hispanic" does not equal "Spanish speaking" in all cases. I think ( doubtless someone will correct me ) about 13% of the U.S. can speak Spanish natively. There is some thought that the proportion of "Hispanics" who speak Spanish is dropping now, but it's hard to say at this point whether it will continue to grow in absolute numbers or eventually go the way of other immigrant languages (such as German) whose use has declined over the generations as people eventually switch to English. Won't be any time soon either way.
Boundary reform: detailed analysis has been done on the contention that using the December 2015 electoral register for the latest periodic boundary review is deliberately unfair to the Opposition, because the additional voters who registered in the run-up to the EU referendum were disproportionately Labour-supporting.
"So to sum up, amid lots of misleading claims and counterclaims, there is a legitimate question about the effect of the date at which registration figures were taken. But a detailed analysis of these figures and the subsequent 2 million increase in registration in the run up to the EU referendum provides the answer. The data does NOT support the suggestion that using the later version of the register would materially alter the distribution of seats. Instead it points to a very even distribution of the 2 million newly-registered voters between Conservative and Labour areas."
So, if the latest register were to be used, it would not materially alter the relative numbers of notional Labour and notional Tory constituencies. If the Opposition wishes to continue to obstruct the equalization of constituency sizes, it becomes increasingly obvious that it is doing so wholly or mostly to preserve an unfair advantage afforded to it by under-sized rotten boroughs. Quelle surprise.
No way. For years if not decades, every government will blame Brexit for anything that goes wrong in any policy sphere.
Far from making UK politicians accountable to themselves, Brexit is, rather, the ultimate get out of jail card.
On the one hand this is clearly true - in 30 years' time, Brexit is going to be "to blame" for a heck of a lot of stuff, to quite varying degrees of accuracy. (As someone else has pointed out, it is likely to snatch the role off the late Mrs T, who in turn grabbed it off "the mess Labour left the country in" after their governments of the 1970s. Perhaps a running theme here is that winners get the blame decades on once the losers have been forgotten.)
On t'other ... whatever the EU has evolved into in 30 years' time, I find it almost inconceivable that the majority of Brits (albeit this term may by then only refer to the English and the Welsh) will be looking jealously across the Channel, the Irish Sea and possibly Hadrian's Wall, wishing fervently to be part of it. In most scenarios my imagination can conjure, even the ones where the EU or USE or whatsoever it becomes is a far wealthier, happier and more stable place than today, I can't see it developing into the kind of club that Brits feel comfortable being part of.
This may well be a miscalculation on my part. One assumption I've made is that Eurofederalism is unlikely to catch on here, but who can know the political tastes two generations hence? The other is that it seems to me a smoothly-running and democratic Europe will require a significant transition towards federalism with central institutions subject to the will of a pan-continental demos, not international diplomacy between merely national leaders. A powerful treasury enacting substantial inter-state transfers, a more substantial role for the European Parliament, a development of the democratic mandate of the President of the Commission... the momentum behind these ideas may be limited right now, but it's hard to see the EU (in particular the single currency) function in the long term without them, and the direction of travel for the past 30 years has been very clear. If that direction of travel continues, it will become less and less enticing for the UK. If instead an unreformed Europe continues to flail from crisis to crisis, that will hardly make it more attractive.
We will of course never know how a two speed EU with the UK as a member would have evolved.
Oh, and if the ride was rough on Matlock to Darley South: I might have helped lay the track.
#Addiction
I didn't know you were with Peak Rail - how long ago did you lay the track?
Started at 16 in 1989, laying concrete sleepers south from Bridge 39 (just south of Darley Dale) to Red House Cutting. Then fast south from there. Many happy memories of riding behind the diesel Janus laying sleepers by hand, repairing bridges. Not of drilling rails by hand : a rail saw and drill are the best investments ever! Nothing replaced a Jim Crow though.
Then returned after uni to help with the push from Darley to Rowsley. Happy memories. Sadly so many people I knew then are now dead: the last of the steam generation are going, and some others long before their time.
Then when my ankle was fixed, I turned to my true love: walking.
Re the insects on the SR71 windscreens: did they scientifically confirm the nuclear test theory or did it remain a best guess? I ask because it seems so unlikely to me.
Atmospheric nuclear tests had almost completely stopped long before the SR71 took flight and had stopped over the USA, where the test flights presumably took place, years before. So how were the bodies of the insects still up there and in such numbers that a random flight paths collected so many as to be noticeable.
Could it possibly be that the upper atmosphere is a bit like the deep ocean? It was once, and not so long ago, the scientific consensus that the deep ocean were devoid of life. We now know that even in the deepest of deeps the place is teeming with life forms, especially around hot water springs. Perhaps we know as much about the upper atmosphere as we did the oceans.
Oh, and if the ride was rough on Matlock to Darley South: I might have helped lay the track.
#Addiction
I didn't know you were with Peak Rail - how long ago did you lay the track?
You think you're bad - I just watched Planet Earth 2 on islands, going "Galapagos penguins...yep....Snares' Island Erect-crested Penguin. Yep, been there, seen them....Chinstrap Penguins...ticked...."!
Re the insects on the SR71 windscreens: did they scientifically confirm the nuclear test theory or did it remain a best guess? I ask because it seems so unlikely to me.
Atmospheric nuclear tests had almost completely stopped long before the SR71 took flight and had stopped over the USA, where the test flights presumably took place, years before. So how were the bodies of the insects still up there and in such numbers that a random flight paths collected so many as to be noticeable.
Could it possibly be that the upper atmosphere is a bit like the deep ocean? It was once, and not so long ago, the scientific consensus that the deep ocean were devoid of life. We now know that even in the deepest of deeps the place is teeming with life forms, especially around hot water springs. Perhaps we know as much about the upper atmosphere as we did the oceans.
In fact it turned out that upper atmosphere insects are simply part of life -
Re the insects on the SR71 windscreens: did they scientifically confirm the nuclear test theory or did it remain a best guess? I ask because it seems so unlikely to me.
Atmospheric nuclear tests had almost completely stopped long before the SR71 took flight and had stopped over the USA, where the test flights presumably took place, years before. So how were the bodies of the insects still up there and in such numbers that a random flight paths collected so many as to be noticeable.
Could it possibly be that the upper atmosphere is a bit like the deep ocean? It was once, and not so long ago, the scientific consensus that the deep ocean were devoid of life. We now know that even in the deepest of deeps the place is teeming with life forms, especially around hot water springs. Perhaps we know as much about the upper atmosphere as we did the oceans.
All good questions.
Looking at Wiki, the A-12 (predecessor of the SR-71) first flew in 1962, which was the very tail-end of atmospheric tests. So it is possible; perhaps. I wish I still had Skunkworks to check. However we know dust can remain at high altitudes for sustained periods after severe volcanic eruptions, and go around the world.
On another point I've read: early high-altitude pilots and astronauts described strange phenomena in the upper atmosphere which they called 'Sprites'. These turned out to be occurring *above* thunderclouds. So yes, there's very little we know about the upper atmosphere.
Re the insects on the SR71 windscreens: did they scientifically confirm the nuclear test theory or did it remain a best guess? I ask because it seems so unlikely to me.
Atmospheric nuclear tests had almost completely stopped long before the SR71 took flight and had stopped over the USA, where the test flights presumably took place, years before. So how were the bodies of the insects still up there and in such numbers that a random flight paths collected so many as to be noticeable.
Could it possibly be that the upper atmosphere is a bit like the deep ocean? It was once, and not so long ago, the scientific consensus that the deep ocean were devoid of life. We now know that even in the deepest of deeps the place is teeming with life forms, especially around hot water springs. Perhaps we know as much about the upper atmosphere as we did the oceans.
In fact it turned out that upper atmosphere insects are simply part of life -
Comments
Some fiction should not be read on a Kindle.
But I love my kindle especially as it is also available on a smartphone or tablet.
I didn't know you were with Peak Rail - how long ago did you lay the track?
On t'other ... whatever the EU has evolved into in 30 years' time, I find it almost inconceivable that the majority of Brits (albeit this term may by then only refer to the English and the Welsh) will be looking jealously across the Channel, the Irish Sea and possibly Hadrian's Wall, wishing fervently to be part of it. In most scenarios my imagination can conjure, even the ones where the EU or USE or whatsoever it becomes is a far wealthier, happier and more stable place than today, I can't see it developing into the kind of club that Brits feel comfortable being part of.
This may well be a miscalculation on my part. One assumption I've made is that Eurofederalism is unlikely to catch on here, but who can know the political tastes two generations hence? The other is that it seems to me a smoothly-running and democratic Europe will require a significant transition towards federalism with central institutions subject to the will of a pan-continental demos, not international diplomacy between merely national leaders. A powerful treasury enacting substantial inter-state transfers, a more substantial role for the European Parliament, a development of the democratic mandate of the President of the Commission... the momentum behind these ideas may be limited right now, but it's hard to see the EU (in particular the single currency) function in the long term without them, and the direction of travel for the past 30 years has been very clear. If that direction of travel continues, it will become less and less enticing for the UK. If instead an unreformed Europe continues to flail from crisis to crisis, that will hardly make it more attractive.
You can read all the details here: http://www.ncpolitics.uk/2016/09/analysis-do-objections-to-the-boundary-review-stack-up.html/2/ but I'll skip straight to the conclusion:
"So to sum up, amid lots of misleading claims and counterclaims, there is a legitimate question about the effect of the date at which registration figures were taken. But a detailed analysis of these figures and the subsequent 2 million increase in registration in the run up to the EU referendum provides the answer. The data does NOT support the suggestion that using the later version of the register would materially alter the distribution of seats. Instead it points to a very even distribution of the 2 million newly-registered voters between Conservative and Labour areas."
So, if the latest register were to be used, it would not materially alter the relative numbers of notional Labour and notional Tory constituencies. If the Opposition wishes to continue to obstruct the equalization of constituency sizes, it becomes increasingly obvious that it is doing so wholly or mostly to preserve an unfair advantage afforded to it by under-sized rotten boroughs. Quelle surprise.
Then returned after uni to help with the push from Darley to Rowsley. Happy memories. Sadly so many people I knew then are now dead: the last of the steam generation are going, and some others long before their time.
Then when my ankle was fixed, I turned to my true love: walking.
Re the insects on the SR71 windscreens: did they scientifically confirm the nuclear test theory or did it remain a best guess? I ask because it seems so unlikely to me.
Atmospheric nuclear tests had almost completely stopped long before the SR71 took flight and had stopped over the USA, where the test flights presumably took place, years before. So how were the bodies of the insects still up there and in such numbers that a random flight paths collected so many as to be noticeable.
Could it possibly be that the upper atmosphere is a bit like the deep ocean? It was once, and not so long ago, the scientific consensus that the deep ocean were devoid of life. We now know that even in the deepest of deeps the place is teeming with life forms, especially around hot water springs. Perhaps we know as much about the upper atmosphere as we did the oceans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballooning_(spider)
The atomic test idea was disproven long ago.
Looking at Wiki, the A-12 (predecessor of the SR-71) first flew in 1962, which was the very tail-end of atmospheric tests. So it is possible; perhaps. I wish I still had Skunkworks to check. However we know dust can remain at high altitudes for sustained periods after severe volcanic eruptions, and go around the world.
On another point I've read: early high-altitude pilots and astronauts described strange phenomena in the upper atmosphere which they called 'Sprites'. These turned out to be occurring *above* thunderclouds. So yes, there's very little we know about the upper atmosphere.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper-atmospheric_lightning
Edit: but the link says only 5K altitude; much less than an airliner and far below a Blackbird's operating height. Hmmmm....