Next UK General Election: The great graduate/non-graduate divide – politicalbetting.com
Following on from the latest Ipsos-MORI voting poll we now have the full dataset which highlights what looks like being a big divide in public opinion – the choice of those who are graduates against those who are not.
Yay! Another thread dressing up the age divide to pretend that lefties are smarter
Lefties always think they are smarter and more ethical. Like Spitzer and Cuomo and Schneiderman.
Oh come on, is that the best you can come up with?
What about Anthony Wiener, he was way badder than Spitzer or Cuomo?
You’re not even trying….
Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and the MyPillow Guy Are in Huge Trouble https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/08/rudy-giuliani-mike-lindell-dominion-lawsuit.html On Wednesday, a Trump-appointed judge spanked three Trump boosters for spreading Trump’s lies in a ruling that could cost them hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. District Judge Carl J. Nichols crafted a blistering opinion allowing three defamation lawsuits filed by Dominion Voting Systems against MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and Trump’s lawyers, Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, to move forward to trial.
Nichols’ opinion sets forth the false claims peddled by each of the three defendants, then picks apart the evidence they used to support it. The resulting decision—which suggests that Dominion might satisfy even the high bar set for defamation claims from public figures about political contests—is a beatdown. It was a small wonder on Thursday that Alan Dershowitz, appearing at Lindell’s MyPillow Symposium, denounced the Dominion suit as the “new McCarthyism.” If you are not free to lie brazenly about everything, always, causing untold financial and institutional ruin, what liberty can possibly remain?…
Yay! Another thread dressing up the age divide to pretend that lefties are smarter
You made that assumption, Charles. Mike merely pointed out some possibly inconvenient facts. Which are of undeniable interest to political punters. The numbers for Hartlepool and C&A are striking.
You might alternately conclude that the Lib Dem’s appeal is so esoteric that it requires a degree to understand, I suppose.
Yay! Another thread dressing up the age divide to pretend that lefties are smarter
You made that assumption, Charles. Mike merely pointed out some possibly inconvenient facts. Which are of undeniable interest to political punters. The numbers for Hartlepool and C&A are striking.
You might alternately conclude that the Lib Dem’s appeal is so esoteric that it requires a degree to understand, I suppose.
Some education does help see through the current lot, as well.
The relationship does hold, independent of age, although the age effect compounds it.
It would be interesting to see this broken down by age given the greater number of degrees awarded these days.
There are two "doublings" in numbers of degrees awarded. The steady rise from 1964-1994 with the expansion of the red bricks, up from ~50k to 100k per year. Then the big "overnight" jump is in 1994 when the old Polys have become universities and start awarding degrees - another 100k or so. Since then we've had another near doubling up to ~350k or so.
The 1994 number is convenient for popular age banding. It is fair to say that the number of graduates under 50 is far and away greater than those over 50, because most of those who graduated in 1994 are ~48/49 now.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
Wasn't Orange Is The New Black a bigger premium series for them than House of Cards?
Either way Netflix invested in a few big names not just one. We'll see if Amazon can do the same.
The absurd Johnson/ Cummings ban on the government giving interviews to BBC Newsnight exploded tonight by none other than Chancellor Rishi Sunak. That he used it to strengthen his standing as an exponent of Treasury policy won’t go unnoticed either. The implications are obvious https://twitter.com/williamnhutton/status/1425946743984857093
Yay! Another thread dressing up the age divide to pretend that lefties are smarter
You made that assumption, Charles. Mike merely pointed out some possibly inconvenient facts. Which are of undeniable interest to political punters. The numbers for Hartlepool and C&A are striking.
You might alternately conclude that the Lib Dem’s appeal is so esoteric that it requires a degree to understand, I suppose.
Some education does help see through the current lot, as well.
The relationship does hold, independent of age, although the age effect compounds it.
Indeed. The median age of C&A was higher than Hartlepool. The difference of voting dramatic.
Ultimately it is either going to have to change the Tory party quite a lot to hold onto the Hartlepools, or they won't do so. Brexitism and hosing money at client groups can go a long way.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
It's also a looooong time since the Jackson films, which, though remarkable, are starting to show their age. Plus, it's not a remake, but more stories set at a different time.
But yes, it could easily be a super-expensive flop.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
Wasn't Orange Is The New Black a bigger premium series for them than House of Cards?
Either way Netflix invested in a few big names not just one. We'll see if Amazon can do the same.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
Bezos paid a cool quarter of a billion for the rights to the show in 2017. A big number but only 2% of Amazon’s capex that year. And a drop in the ocean if it marks the first step in the Tv platform becoming a proper rival to Netflix and Disney, which right now it’s not. Netflix market cap is circa quarter of a trillion of course.
They will throw enough money at every aspect of the production to ensure at least the first season is not a “flop”. Once it has its own legs and fan base they’ll build from there.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
It's also a looooong time since the Jackson films, which, though remarkable, are starting to show their age. Plus, it's not a remake, but more stories set at a different time.
But yes, it could easily be a super-expensive flop.
For Fantasy geeks, Amazon are also investing in a Wheel of Time TV show too.
A WoT TV series has supposedly been getting made and been dragging on since before Game of Thrones was aired so my expectations for it right now are pretty low sadly but I hope to be proved wrong.
It would be interesting to see this broken down by age given the greater number of degrees awarded these days.
There are two "doublings" in numbers of degrees awarded. The steady rise from 1964-1994 with the expansion of the red bricks, up from ~50k to 100k per year. Then the big "overnight" jump is in 1994 when the old Polys have become universities and start awarding degrees - another 100k or so. Since then we've had another near doubling up to ~350k or so.
The 1994 number is convenient for popular age banding. It is fair to say that the number of graduates under 50 is far and away greater than those over 50, because most of those who graduated in 1994 are ~48/49 now.
So to @Charles point, this is more or less an exact proxy for the age split.
One could argue the direction of the arrow of cause->effect but we need a other 30 years or so until we will have compelling evidence that University education trumps Age. And that will, almost by definition, be when I've left this mortal coil. (I'm 48.)
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
Wasn't Orange Is The New Black a bigger premium series for them than House of Cards?
Either way Netflix invested in a few big names not just one. We'll see if Amazon can do the same.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
Amazon have also been gambling a serious amount on making computer games. First effort was such a flop it got unreleased before it was fully released. Second effort is doing better.
Where this split is going to be important is University towns, constituencies dominated by the public sector workforce (which tends to have more graduates) and the odd posher bit to give some hope to the Lib Dems. Where it is generally less important is in the red wall marginals that Boris won at the last election and gave him his 80 seat majority.
Personally, I think that Boris will take that trade. And 11% is a hell of a lead for the government to have midterm, having staggered through a pandemic with many still going on about Brexit. The only thing I can remember that was remotely similar was Blair during his first term. And his second election was pretty much a repeat of the first.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
Bezos paid a cool quarter of a billion for the rights to the show in 2017. A big number but only 2% of Amazon’s capex that year. And a drop in the ocean if it marks the first step in the Tv platform becoming a proper rival to Netflix and Disney, which right now it’s not. Netflix market cap is circa quarter of a trillion of course.
They will throw enough money at every aspect of the production to ensure at least the first season is not a “flop”. Once it has its own legs and fan base they’ll build from there.
My issue with Amazon Prime Video is the app for it has always been pretty unwieldly and clunky compared to Netflix and Disney and really seems to push towards selling more shows and videos to you rather than what you've paid for already/what is on Prime.
Watch a movie on Prime and the 'suggested titles' titles afterwards are almost never it seems to me stuff that you have paid for via Prime or individual purchase.
It feels like watching shows in a shopping mall rather than from a service. Netflix doesn't do that.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
Bezos paid a cool quarter of a billion for the rights to the show in 2017. A big number but only 2% of Amazon’s capex that year. And a drop in the ocean if it marks the first step in the Tv platform becoming a proper rival to Netflix and Disney, which right now it’s not. Netflix market cap is circa quarter of a trillion of course.
They will throw enough money at every aspect of the production to ensure at least the first season is not a “flop”. Once it has its own legs and fan base they’ll build from there.
I have never been a fan of the tedious LotR, since plodding through the turgid books as a teenager, but clearly others are. I suspect that the one bit that they will not spend money on will be decent scripts with rounded characterisation.
Another bloated derivative franchise from a corporate giant. Count me out.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
Bezos paid a cool quarter of a billion for the rights to the show in 2017. A big number but only 2% of Amazon’s capex that year. And a drop in the ocean if it marks the first step in the Tv platform becoming a proper rival to Netflix and Disney, which right now it’s not. Netflix market cap is circa quarter of a trillion of course.
They will throw enough money at every aspect of the production to ensure at least the first season is not a “flop”. Once it has its own legs and fan base they’ll build from there.
My issue with Amazon Prime Video is the app for it has always been pretty unwieldly and clunky compared to Netflix and Disney and really seems to push towards selling more shows and videos to you rather than what you've paid for already/what is on Prime.
Watch a movie on Prime and the 'suggested titles' titles afterwards are almost never it seems to me stuff that you have paid for via Prime or individual purchase.
It feels like watching shows in a shopping mall rather than from a service. Netflix doesn't do that.
Yeah that’s exactly right. And I assume it’s because they don’t yet have enough proprietary content and can’t give away too much of other peoples before it burns their cash.
Apple TV+ shows you the opposite decision. They’ve got almost nothing on their app and oh my, isn’t it obvious when you scroll. Should start to slowly change, Foundation and Shantaram being two adaptations of best sellers coming to Apple.
Just shows you what a remarkable achievement it was by Reed Hastings Netflix that he started a studio from scratch that’s still embarrassing two giants.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Given recent history on remakes, reboots, etc, I'm not expecting great things from the LOTR TV show. A shame, as I like The Silmarillion a lot, and the trilogy* is great.
In the UK the key number is not the number infected but the number in hospital That is hovering around 6k, having dropped a bit but currently pretty stable. There are roughly 1250 hospitals in the UK so each hospital has an average of 4.8 patients with Covid. Of course it won't be quite like that as quite a number of these hospitals will be specialist or for geriatrics etc but the burden currently being applied to the NHS is modest and not increasing. Ultimately, that is what matters.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
Bezos paid a cool quarter of a billion for the rights to the show in 2017. A big number but only 2% of Amazon’s capex that year. And a drop in the ocean if it marks the first step in the Tv platform becoming a proper rival to Netflix and Disney, which right now it’s not. Netflix market cap is circa quarter of a trillion of course.
They will throw enough money at every aspect of the production to ensure at least the first season is not a “flop”. Once it has its own legs and fan base they’ll build from there.
I have never been a fan of the tedious LotR, since plodding through the turgid books as a teenager, but clearly others are. I suspect that the one bit that they will not spend money on will be decent scripts with rounded characterisation.
Another bloated derivative franchise from a corporate giant. Count me out.
Indeed. If I ran one of these platforms, I’d throw money at Tarantino to make a 10-part series about whatever he wants. It might appeal to him, as it would be a get out from retiring after his “tenth and final movie”. Band of Brothers / Pacific showed what’s possible when you get proper giants (Spielberg and Hanks) behind a well funded and well written / adapted series.
Nolan seems uninterested in the format which is a shame. But there will be other big names that are. Instead they throw money at people with no experience of the medium, like Obama and Mrs Sussex. Odd.
Given recent history on remakes, reboots, etc, I'm not expecting great things from the LOTR TV show. A shame, as I like The Silmarillion a lot, and the trilogy* is great.
Edited extra bit: *film trilogy, that is.
I dont expect much either for multiple reasons, but I'd say recent history on remakes and reboots is actually pretty decent, and it's not either of those things anyway.
Quite where they got scores of air ambulances from is strange, as the Wiki List for the whole of England and Wales shows a total of about 36-37, and I doubt they pulled all the ones from North Wales, Cumbria and Northumberland down to Plymouth.
Given recent history on remakes, reboots, etc, I'm not expecting great things from the LOTR TV show. A shame, as I like The Silmarillion a lot, and the trilogy* is great.
Edited extra bit: *film trilogy, that is.
There is a lot of untapped Tolkein material in the Silmarillion in particular but also in the material that Christopher Tolkein has made a living churning out, most of which I have not read. I think redoing the LOTR itself or the Hobbit would be an error as they have been done pretty definitively.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
It's also a looooong time since the Jackson films, which, though remarkable, are starting to show their age. Plus, it's not a remake, but more stories set at a different time.
But yes, it could easily be a super-expensive flop.
For Fantasy geeks, Amazon are also investing in a Wheel of Time TV show too.
A WoT TV series has supposedly been getting made and been dragging on since before Game of Thrones was aired so my expectations for it right now are pretty low sadly but I hope to be proved wrong.
I'd rather a WoT series than LOTR backstory which is also creatively constrained. Not many shows would last sufficient seasons to complete it though.
Likely has more female characters too, for equality worriers.
Given recent history on remakes, reboots, etc, I'm not expecting great things from the LOTR TV show. A shame, as I like The Silmarillion a lot, and the trilogy* is great.
Edited extra bit: *film trilogy, that is.
There is a lot of untapped Tolkein material in the Silmarillion in particular but also in the material that Christopher Tolkein has made a living churning out, most of which I have not read. I think redoing the LOTR itself or the Hobbit would be an error as they have been done pretty definitively.
True, but it didn’t stop ITV doing Marple, after the Joan Hickson...
In the UK the key number is not the number infected but the number in hospital That is hovering around 6k, having dropped a bit but currently pretty stable. There are roughly 1250 hospitals in the UK so each hospital has an average of 4.8 patients with Covid. Of course it won't be quite like that as quite a number of these hospitals will be specialist or for geriatrics etc but the burden currently being applied to the NHS is modest and not increasing. Ultimately, that is what matters.
That number of hospitals is quite misleading, including cottage hospitals and private ones. A better indicator is number of beds for acute admissions. There are about 100 000 of these (depending on what is counted as Acute) and 5000 current covid inpatients. In addition another 8000 or so are out of action because of infection control. Details here in this thread from the CEO of NHS Providers:
To give an idea of what this means, in my Trust we have about 100 Covid patients, 20 on ICU/ECMO. This means cancellations of planned surgery because of lack of beds particularly post op. Patients are often being cancelled on the day for this reason.
Quite where they got scores of air ambulances from is strange, as the Wiki List for the whole of England and Wales shows a total of about 36-37, and I doubt they pulled all the ones from North Wales, Cumbria and Northumberland down to Plymouth.
Aha - Plymouth Live says "at least 3", whilst the HeliPilot on Twitter says "four".
The incident started just after 6pm in the Keyham area of Plymouth and at least three air ambulances landed in North Prospect this evening.
Quite where they got scores of air ambulances from is strange, as the Wiki List for the whole of England and Wales shows a total of about 36-37, and I doubt they pulled all the ones from North Wales, Cumbria and Northumberland down to Plymouth.
Aha - Plymouth Live says "at least 3", whilst the HeliPilot on Twitter says "four".
The incident started just after 6pm in the Keyham area of Plymouth and at least three air ambulances landed in North Prospect this evening.
"The public inquiry into Covid must be broad enough to consider the narrowness of the perspectives and experiences involved in making decisions [on lockdown] that have had such an unprecedented effect on the economic and emotional wellbeing of the youngest and worst-off members of the population."
"...we suspect that we are going to be proved right that the cure of lockdown has been much more harmful than the disease of Covid."
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
Bezos paid a cool quarter of a billion for the rights to the show in 2017. A big number but only 2% of Amazon’s capex that year. And a drop in the ocean if it marks the first step in the Tv platform becoming a proper rival to Netflix and Disney, which right now it’s not. Netflix market cap is circa quarter of a trillion of course.
They will throw enough money at every aspect of the production to ensure at least the first season is not a “flop”. Once it has its own legs and fan base they’ll build from there.
I have never been a fan of the tedious LotR, since plodding through the turgid books as a teenager, but clearly others are. I suspect that the one bit that they will not spend money on will be decent scripts with rounded characterisation.
Another bloated derivative franchise from a corporate giant. Count me out.
Not sure how you can call it derivative before we know what the plot is going to be, seems a bit irrational.
But LotR is plodding, certainly. If he were writing today I imagine an editor would have quite a few notes.
Game of Thrones wasnt well known beyond geeks and only had a couple million viewers in its first season, and it then really took off, so I sort of see why Amazon are planning multiple seasons at high cost out of a brand with more name recognition, but as a fantasy fan and fan of LotR I think the inherent interest in Tolkien's backstory collections is not that high, so that first season has to be pretty good to hold onto the curious initial audience. As you imply production values being sky high only get you so far.
@Foxy is absolutely right. If one is going to adapt a book, or book series, firstly work on the writing and characterisation. Too many series focus on CGI and expensive set-piece scenes (a big part of why the last two Seasons of Game of Thrones ended up as such a mess).
"The public inquiry into Covid must be broad enough to consider the narrowness of the perspectives and experiences involved in making decisions [on lockdown] that have had such an unprecedented effect on the economic and emotional wellbeing of the youngest and worst-off members of the population."
"...we suspect that we are going to be proved right that the cure of lockdown has been much more harmful than the disease of Covid."
I read something from her earlier this week that was just astonishing. She says she was ‘quoted out of context’ on the ludicrous IFR she came up with for the U.K., and still believes we reached herd immunity last summer. Maybe just fess up and admit you got it wrong?
Quite where they got scores of air ambulances from is strange, as the Wiki List for the whole of England and Wales shows a total of about 36-37, and I doubt they pulled all the ones from North Wales, Cumbria and Northumberland down to Plymouth.
Aha - Plymouth Live says "at least 3", whilst the HeliPilot on Twitter says "four".
The incident started just after 6pm in the Keyham area of Plymouth and at least three air ambulances landed in North Prospect this evening.
Makes you wonder if the hack or sub knows what ‘scores’ means.
I'm sure it is used not as a precise number sometimes, but even if you don't know how many are supposed to be in a score one would think its clear it would be more than a handful.
Used liberally in fantasy, I think as it seems old timey.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
Bezos paid a cool quarter of a billion for the rights to the show in 2017. A big number but only 2% of Amazon’s capex that year. And a drop in the ocean if it marks the first step in the Tv platform becoming a proper rival to Netflix and Disney, which right now it’s not. Netflix market cap is circa quarter of a trillion of course.
They will throw enough money at every aspect of the production to ensure at least the first season is not a “flop”. Once it has its own legs and fan base they’ll build from there.
I have never been a fan of the tedious LotR, since plodding through the turgid books as a teenager, but clearly others are. I suspect that the one bit that they will not spend money on will be decent scripts with rounded characterisation.
Another bloated derivative franchise from a corporate giant. Count me out.
Not sure how you can call it derivative before we know what the plot is going to be, seems a bit irrational.
But LotR is plodding, certainly. If he were writing today I imagine an editor would have quite a few notes.
Game of Thrones wasnt well known beyond geeks and only had a couple million viewers in its first season, and it then really took off, so I sort of see why Amazon are planning multiple seasons at high cost out of a brand with more name recognition, but as a fantasy fan and fan of LotR I think the inherent interest in Tolkien's backstory collections is not that high, so that first season has to be pretty good to hold onto the curious initial audience. As you imply production values being sky high only get you so far.
There is also the small problem that in Tolkein, as opposed to GOT, there is not a lot of getting your kit off. Indeed the Fellowship of the Ring managed to go a months long quest without even a toilet break.
Where this split is going to be important is University towns, constituencies dominated by the public sector workforce (which tends to have more graduates) and the odd posher bit to give some hope to the Lib Dems. Where it is generally less important is in the red wall marginals that Boris won at the last election and gave him his 80 seat majority.
Personally, I think that Boris will take that trade. And 11% is a hell of a lead for the government to have midterm, having staggered through a pandemic with many still going on about Brexit. The only thing I can remember that was remotely similar was Blair during his first term. And his second election was pretty much a repeat of the first.
Blair is the only PM with better ratings than Boris at this stage, since 1979 anyway
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
Bezos paid a cool quarter of a billion for the rights to the show in 2017. A big number but only 2% of Amazon’s capex that year. And a drop in the ocean if it marks the first step in the Tv platform becoming a proper rival to Netflix and Disney, which right now it’s not. Netflix market cap is circa quarter of a trillion of course.
They will throw enough money at every aspect of the production to ensure at least the first season is not a “flop”. Once it has its own legs and fan base they’ll build from there.
I have never been a fan of the tedious LotR, since plodding through the turgid books as a teenager, but clearly others are. I suspect that the one bit that they will not spend money on will be decent scripts with rounded characterisation.
Another bloated derivative franchise from a corporate giant. Count me out.
Not sure how you can call it derivative before we know what the plot is going to be, seems a bit irrational.
But LotR is plodding, certainly. If he were writing today I imagine an editor would have quite a few notes.
Game of Thrones wasnt well known beyond geeks and only had a couple million viewers in its first season, and it then really took off, so I sort of see why Amazon are planning multiple seasons at high cost out of a brand with more name recognition, but as a fantasy fan and fan of LotR I think the inherent interest in Tolkien's backstory collections is not that high, so that first season has to be pretty good to hold onto the curious initial audience. As you imply production values being sky high only get you so far.
There is also the small problem that in Tolkein, as opposed to GOT, there is not a lot of getting your kit off. Indeed the Fellowship of the Ring managed to go a months long quest without even a toilet break.
Perhaps times were less prudish in the Second Age.
I think its be funny if it was just a high production Legend of Hercules/Xena from the 90s. Legend of the Seeker (based on the Sword of Truth series) was basically a repeat of those and was entertaining.
In the UK the key number is not the number infected but the number in hospital That is hovering around 6k, having dropped a bit but currently pretty stable. There are roughly 1250 hospitals in the UK so each hospital has an average of 4.8 patients with Covid. Of course it won't be quite like that as quite a number of these hospitals will be specialist or for geriatrics etc but the burden currently being applied to the NHS is modest and not increasing. Ultimately, that is what matters.
That number of hospitals is quite misleading, including cottage hospitals and private ones. A better indicator is number of beds for acute admissions. There are about 100 000 of these (depending on what is counted as Acute) and 5000 current covid inpatients. In addition another 8000 or so are out of action because of infection control. Details here in this thread from the CEO of NHS Providers:
To give an idea of what this means, in my Trust we have about 100 Covid patients, 20 on ICU/ECMO. This means cancellations of planned surgery because of lack of beds particularly post op. Patients are often being cancelled on the day for this reason.
And when you refer to the trust will that be spread over several hospitals? It does seem to me that occupancy of 5% of beds with a particular virus should not be causing enormous problems but perhaps that reflects how stretched the system was pre Covid.
Compared to a lot of modern fantasy series, LOTR is a model of terse and well-disciplined writing.
Fair point, to a degree. People think LotR is long, but it really isnt. It does seem longer than it is in fairness.
One recent series I liked which I thought I wouldn't was by Stephen Aryan, as it was a breezy read and seemed like a series in reverse, opening not closing with grand war against a big bad.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
Bezos paid a cool quarter of a billion for the rights to the show in 2017. A big number but only 2% of Amazon’s capex that year. And a drop in the ocean if it marks the first step in the Tv platform becoming a proper rival to Netflix and Disney, which right now it’s not. Netflix market cap is circa quarter of a trillion of course.
They will throw enough money at every aspect of the production to ensure at least the first season is not a “flop”. Once it has its own legs and fan base they’ll build from there.
I have never been a fan of the tedious LotR, since plodding through the turgid books as a teenager, but clearly others are. I suspect that the one bit that they will not spend money on will be decent scripts with rounded characterisation.
Another bloated derivative franchise from a corporate giant. Count me out.
Not sure how you can call it derivative before we know what the plot is going to be, seems a bit irrational.
But LotR is plodding, certainly. If he were writing today I imagine an editor would have quite a few notes.
Game of Thrones wasnt well known beyond geeks and only had a couple million viewers in its first season, and it then really took off, so I sort of see why Amazon are planning multiple seasons at high cost out of a brand with more name recognition, but as a fantasy fan and fan of LotR I think the inherent interest in Tolkien's backstory collections is not that high, so that first season has to be pretty good to hold onto the curious initial audience. As you imply production values being sky high only get you so far.
There is also the small problem that in Tolkein, as opposed to GOT, there is not a lot of getting your kit off. Indeed the Fellowship of the Ring managed to go a months long quest without even a toilet break.
Good morning everyone. Cloudy here, and almost 15degC.
Personally, although I've read LotR, I much prefer the writings of Sir Terry Pratchett. Lot of wry comments which could be directed at society. I couldn't NOT manage the Silmarillon.
I believe there are films, but I'm by no means convinced that making a film of a book is always a good idea.
It would be interesting to see this broken down by age given the greater number of degrees awarded these days.
Are you saying there is more to "Thickos vote Tory and clever people vote Labour"?
I'd say that the mistake there is associating degrees with intelligence, and education with cleverness.
The IQ (or choose your measure) did not suddenly jump by 20 points in 1994, or whatever date you choose.
Education (hopefully) adds certain skills, and perhaps extra perspectives.
There are a lot of highly educated stupid people out there.
I don't know how much of an effect is left to explain once you account for age.
But putting together this poll with the recent poll that showed immigration as the most important issues for Conservative voters (54% vs 14% for Labour), could it be that more non-graduates are more concerned about immigration than graduates, and that is what is making non-graduates more likely to vote Conservative?
It would be interesting to see this broken down by age given the greater number of degrees awarded these days.
Are you saying there is more to "Thickos vote Tory and clever people vote Labour"?
I'd say that the mistake there is associating degrees with intelligence, and education with cleverness.
The IQ (or choose your measure) did not suddenly jump by 20 points in 1994, or whatever date you choose.
Education (hopefully) adds certain skills, and perhaps extra perspectives.
There are a lot of highly educated stupid people out there.
Old lawyer joke.
Exasperated judge, "Well, learned counsel, I have been listening to you all morning and I am none the wiser."
Counsel, "No my Lord, but hopefully better informed."
Ah, the great F E Smith, famous for insulting judges.
Others of his output:
‘Do not lecture me, Mr Smith. Why do you suppose I am on the Bench?’
‘It is not for me, My Lord, to fathom the inscrutable workings of providence.’
And before the Court of Appeal:
‘Do give the court credit for some intelligence.’
‘That was the mistake I made in the court below, My Lord.’
And his cross. "So how high can you raise your arm after the accident?" Grimacing painfully, "This high, sir". "And how high could you raise it before the accident?" "Oh, this high!"
Quite where they got scores of air ambulances from is strange, as the Wiki List for the whole of England and Wales shows a total of about 36-37, and I doubt they pulled all the ones from North Wales, Cumbria and Northumberland down to Plymouth.
Aha - Plymouth Live says "at least 3", whilst the HeliPilot on Twitter says "four".
The incident started just after 6pm in the Keyham area of Plymouth and at least three air ambulances landed in North Prospect this evening.
Quite where they got scores of air ambulances from is strange, as the Wiki List for the whole of England and Wales shows a total of about 36-37, and I doubt they pulled all the ones from North Wales, Cumbria and Northumberland down to Plymouth.
In the UK the key number is not the number infected but the number in hospital That is hovering around 6k, having dropped a bit but currently pretty stable. There are roughly 1250 hospitals in the UK so each hospital has an average of 4.8 patients with Covid. Of course it won't be quite like that as quite a number of these hospitals will be specialist or for geriatrics etc but the burden currently being applied to the NHS is modest and not increasing. Ultimately, that is what matters.
That number of hospitals is quite misleading, including cottage hospitals and private ones. A better indicator is number of beds for acute admissions. There are about 100 000 of these (depending on what is counted as Acute) and 5000 current covid inpatients. In addition another 8000 or so are out of action because of infection control. Details here in this thread from the CEO of NHS Providers:
To give an idea of what this means, in my Trust we have about 100 Covid patients, 20 on ICU/ECMO. This means cancellations of planned surgery because of lack of beds particularly post op. Patients are often being cancelled on the day for this reason.
And when you refer to the trust will that be spread over several hospitals? It does seem to me that occupancy of 5% of beds with a particular virus should not be causing enormous problems but perhaps that reflects how stretched the system was pre Covid.
We have 3 Acute hospitals in our Trust, with one emergency dept, and a number of regional and national specialities. ECMO gets patients from hundreds of miles away, being the original one in the country. ECMO is very much the last resort for Covid, with nearly all the patients under 45, and even then mortality of greater than 50%.
Powerful interview with Durrani here from Kandahar, waiting for a knock on the door:
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Give the women guns.
They couldn't do worse than the Afghan army and get some sympathy from Western countries.
In the UK the key number is not the number infected but the number in hospital That is hovering around 6k, having dropped a bit but currently pretty stable. There are roughly 1250 hospitals in the UK so each hospital has an average of 4.8 patients with Covid. Of course it won't be quite like that as quite a number of these hospitals will be specialist or for geriatrics etc but the burden currently being applied to the NHS is modest and not increasing. Ultimately, that is what matters.
That number of hospitals is quite misleading, including cottage hospitals and private ones. A better indicator is number of beds for acute admissions. There are about 100 000 of these (depending on what is counted as Acute) and 5000 current covid inpatients. In addition another 8000 or so are out of action because of infection control. Details here in this thread from the CEO of NHS Providers:
To give an idea of what this means, in my Trust we have about 100 Covid patients, 20 on ICU/ECMO. This means cancellations of planned surgery because of lack of beds particularly post op. Patients are often being cancelled on the day for this reason.
And when you refer to the trust will that be spread over several hospitals? It does seem to me that occupancy of 5% of beds with a particular virus should not be causing enormous problems but perhaps that reflects how stretched the system was pre Covid.
NHS Lothian has over a dozen hospitals, only 3 of them (I think) have acute beds.
In the UK the key number is not the number infected but the number in hospital That is hovering around 6k, having dropped a bit but currently pretty stable. There are roughly 1250 hospitals in the UK so each hospital has an average of 4.8 patients with Covid. Of course it won't be quite like that as quite a number of these hospitals will be specialist or for geriatrics etc but the burden currently being applied to the NHS is modest and not increasing. Ultimately, that is what matters.
That number of hospitals is quite misleading, including cottage hospitals and private ones. A better indicator is number of beds for acute admissions. There are about 100 000 of these (depending on what is counted as Acute) and 5000 current covid inpatients. In addition another 8000 or so are out of action because of infection control. Details here in this thread from the CEO of NHS Providers:
To give an idea of what this means, in my Trust we have about 100 Covid patients, 20 on ICU/ECMO. This means cancellations of planned surgery because of lack of beds particularly post op. Patients are often being cancelled on the day for this reason.
And when you refer to the trust will that be spread over several hospitals? It does seem to me that occupancy of 5% of beds with a particular virus should not be causing enormous problems but perhaps that reflects how stretched the system was pre Covid.
I'm not sure that I would describe the NHS as being stretched before the pandemic, as it is by intent that it was run as close to capacity as possible in order to maximise efficient use of resources.
Increasing efficiency in normal times will naturally mean that there is less spare capacity to respond when something unusual happens.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
Bezos paid a cool quarter of a billion for the rights to the show in 2017. A big number but only 2% of Amazon’s capex that year. And a drop in the ocean if it marks the first step in the Tv platform becoming a proper rival to Netflix and Disney, which right now it’s not. Netflix market cap is circa quarter of a trillion of course.
They will throw enough money at every aspect of the production to ensure at least the first season is not a “flop”. Once it has its own legs and fan base they’ll build from there.
I have never been a fan of the tedious LotR, since plodding through the turgid books as a teenager, but clearly others are. I suspect that the one bit that they will not spend money on will be decent scripts with rounded characterisation.
Another bloated derivative franchise from a corporate giant. Count me out.
Not sure how you can call it derivative before we know what the plot is going to be, seems a bit irrational.
But LotR is plodding, certainly. If he were writing today I imagine an editor would have quite a few notes.
Game of Thrones wasnt well known beyond geeks and only had a couple million viewers in its first season, and it then really took off, so I sort of see why Amazon are planning multiple seasons at high cost out of a brand with more name recognition, but as a fantasy fan and fan of LotR I think the inherent interest in Tolkien's backstory collections is not that high, so that first season has to be pretty good to hold onto the curious initial audience. As you imply production values being sky high only get you so far.
There is also the small problem that in Tolkein, as opposed to GOT, there is not a lot of getting your kit off. Indeed the Fellowship of the Ring managed to go a months long quest without even a toilet break.
Good morning everyone. Cloudy here, and almost 15degC.
Personally, although I've read LotR, I much prefer the writings of Sir Terry Pratchett. Lot of wry comments which could be directed at society. I couldn't NOT manage the Silmarillon.
I believe there are films, but I'm by no means convinced that making a film of a book is always a good idea.
I think anything can be adapted from one medium to another, but some will require a lot more skill to do so, and may need a lot of adjustments. Being 'true' to the source material is often to cause problems - even if you should be cautious about changing core elements for no reason, you should be prepared to do so.
The latter seems like a political lesson about deviating from your brand and historic supporters too.
More than one in five adults said they experienced a complete breakdown in a relationship at home or at work in the past year, the UK’s largest study of social ties during the pandemic has revealed.
After the award winning Jackson film(s), I am surprised they are taking the not inconsiderable risk of producing a flop.
Bezos has deep pockets, and has seen what a large gamble on a premium series (House of Cards) did for Netflix. The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
Bezos paid a cool quarter of a billion for the rights to the show in 2017. A big number but only 2% of Amazon’s capex that year. And a drop in the ocean if it marks the first step in the Tv platform becoming a proper rival to Netflix and Disney, which right now it’s not. Netflix market cap is circa quarter of a trillion of course.
They will throw enough money at every aspect of the production to ensure at least the first season is not a “flop”. Once it has its own legs and fan base they’ll build from there.
I have never been a fan of the tedious LotR, since plodding through the turgid books as a teenager, but clearly others are. I suspect that the one bit that they will not spend money on will be decent scripts with rounded characterisation.
Another bloated derivative franchise from a corporate giant. Count me out.
Not sure how you can call it derivative before we know what the plot is going to be, seems a bit irrational.
But LotR is plodding, certainly. If he were writing today I imagine an editor would have quite a few notes.
Game of Thrones wasnt well known beyond geeks and only had a couple million viewers in its first season, and it then really took off, so I sort of see why Amazon are planning multiple seasons at high cost out of a brand with more name recognition, but as a fantasy fan and fan of LotR I think the inherent interest in Tolkien's backstory collections is not that high, so that first season has to be pretty good to hold onto the curious initial audience. As you imply production values being sky high only get you so far.
There is also the small problem that in Tolkein, as opposed to GOT, there is not a lot of getting your kit off. Indeed the Fellowship of the Ring managed to go a months long quest without even a toilet break.
Perhaps times were less prudish in the Second Age.
I think its be funny if it was just a high production Legend of Hercules/Xena from the 90s. Legend of the Seeker (based on the Sword of Truth series) was basically a repeat of those and was entertaining.
Oh, undoubtedly. Celeborn and Galadriel were a pair of swingers, when they were younger.
Is it true that the next LOTR is going to be set in a car park in Droitwich? The quest for the golden kebab?
And it would still be better than the film version of The Two Towers.
I enjoyed the films but after the Two Towers getting a member of my family to come with me to the cinema was...challenging. My wife is still prone to mutter something about the battle of Helm's Deep to this day.
More than one in five adults said they experienced a complete breakdown in a relationship at home or at work in the past year, the UK’s largest study of social ties during the pandemic has revealed.
Is it true that the next LOTR is going to be set in a car park in Droitwich? The quest for the golden kebab?
And it would still be better than the film version of The Two Towers.
I enjoyed the films but after the Two Towers getting a member of my family to come with me to the cinema was...challenging. My wife is still prone to mutter something about the battle of Helm's Deep to this day.
I've only seen the first film, but the scene where the 'wolves' leapt out among the audience was 'startling', to put it mildly.
Yay! Another thread dressing up the age divide to pretend that lefties are smarter
You make a good point. We need to see that analysis as well. From my generation very few went to university. However these stats shouldn't be ignored, we just need the age data as well combined with it.
On topic and for the third time - this is exactly the topic of Dave Skelton's book. The rise of the degree-ocracy which looks down on those who have received what is a diminishing amount of vocational training.
Is it true that the next LOTR is going to be set in a car park in Droitwich? The quest for the golden kebab?
And it would still be better than the film version of The Two Towers.
I enjoyed the films but after the Two Towers getting a member of my family to come with me to the cinema was...challenging. My wife is still prone to mutter something about the battle of Helm's Deep to this day.
I've only seen the first film, but the scene where the 'wolves' leapt out among the audience was 'startling', to put it mildly.
I thought that the first one was a bit like HP 1. They were (rightly) incredibly proud of the sets that they had created and anxious to show them off. It got in the way a bit.
Is it true that the next LOTR is going to be set in a car park in Droitwich? The quest for the golden kebab?
And it would still be better than the film version of The Two Towers.
I enjoyed the films but after the Two Towers getting a member of my family to come with me to the cinema was...challenging. My wife is still prone to mutter something about the battle of Helm's Deep to this day.
I've only seen the first film, but the scene where the 'wolves' leapt out among the audience was 'startling', to put it mildly.
I’ve not come across that. Were you in a wargzone?
In the UK the key number is not the number infected but the number in hospital That is hovering around 6k, having dropped a bit but currently pretty stable. There are roughly 1250 hospitals in the UK so each hospital has an average of 4.8 patients with Covid. Of course it won't be quite like that as quite a number of these hospitals will be specialist or for geriatrics etc but the burden currently being applied to the NHS is modest and not increasing. Ultimately, that is what matters.
That number of hospitals is quite misleading, including cottage hospitals and private ones. A better indicator is number of beds for acute admissions. There are about 100 000 of these (depending on what is counted as Acute) and 5000 current covid inpatients. In addition another 8000 or so are out of action because of infection control. Details here in this thread from the CEO of NHS Providers:
To give an idea of what this means, in my Trust we have about 100 Covid patients, 20 on ICU/ECMO. This means cancellations of planned surgery because of lack of beds particularly post op. Patients are often being cancelled on the day for this reason.
And when you refer to the trust will that be spread over several hospitals? It does seem to me that occupancy of 5% of beds with a particular virus should not be causing enormous problems but perhaps that reflects how stretched the system was pre Covid.
NHS Lothian has over a dozen hospitals, only 3 of them (I think) have acute beds.
Yes. I think it's 21 hospitals in NHS Lothian, but there are only three hospitals with acute beds, the Western General and Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh and St John's in Livingston.
I did a very detailed post looking at all the different hospitals in NHS Lothian, a few don't even have any inpatient beds at all, so I'm very disappointed that the silly figure of 1250 hospitals is still being used to divide the number of Covid inpatients.
There aren't going to be any Covid inpatients at a mental health hospital. Or a specialist eye surgery hospital. Or at the vast majority of facilities that are classed as "hospitals". There certainly aren't two hospitals with Covid inpatients in each parliamentary constituency. I think the right number of hospitals to use for this calculation is most likely closer to 200.
Is it true that the next LOTR is going to be set in a car park in Droitwich? The quest for the golden kebab?
And it would still be better than the film version of The Two Towers.
I enjoyed the films but after the Two Towers getting a member of my family to come with me to the cinema was...challenging. My wife is still prone to mutter something about the battle of Helm's Deep to this day.
I've only seen the first film, but the scene where the 'wolves' leapt out among the audience was 'startling', to put it mildly.
I’ve not come across that. Were you in a wargzone?
Yay! Another thread dressing up the age divide to pretend that lefties are smarter
You make a good point. We need to see that analysis as well. From my generation very few went to university. However these stats shouldn't be ignored, we just need the age data as well combined with it.
What does it matter if lefty voters are cleverer? The point of our democracy is that all votes are equal. This isn’t Rhodesia where there was an academic qualification required
Given that Labour were set up to give the less well educated a voice, it’s a bit galling if their supporters now condescend them. Mind you, Labour offered out low paid jobs to anyone in Europe who’d do it cheaper, so maybe they just hate commoners
BBC: "There will be tragedy behind this story, people that came into hospital with one problem, caught Covid and sadly died," one of the researchers, Prof Calum Semple, from the University of Liverpool, said.
Exactly that happened to the one person I know who has died of Covid.
Is it true that the next LOTR is going to be set in a car park in Droitwich? The quest for the golden kebab?
And it would still be better than the film version of The Two Towers.
I enjoyed the films but after the Two Towers getting a member of my family to come with me to the cinema was...challenging. My wife is still prone to mutter something about the battle of Helm's Deep to this day.
I've only seen the first film, but the scene where the 'wolves' leapt out among the audience was 'startling', to put it mildly.
I’ve not come across that. Were you in a wargzone?
Is it true that the next LOTR is going to be set in a car park in Droitwich? The quest for the golden kebab?
And it would still be better than the film version of The Two Towers.
I enjoyed the films but after the Two Towers getting a member of my family to come with me to the cinema was...challenging. My wife is still prone to mutter something about the battle of Helm's Deep to this day.
As a Tolkien virgin (almost fantasy virgin in fact) when I saw the Fellowship of the Ring, I walked out believing it to be the perfect film. I still think the same. When I’m watching some tat on telly I often think, why am I watching this when I could be watching FOTR?
There were diminishing returns to the sequels in some ways but they succeeded in broadening a world that I and millions of others had become hooked on. Let’s see what the telly programme manages to do. Not many people would have given much hope to the Mandalorian either but that had some fabulous moments.
BBC: "There will be tragedy behind this story, people that came into hospital with one problem, caught Covid and sadly died," one of the researchers, Prof Calum Semple, from the University of Liverpool, said.
Exactly that happened to the one person I know who has died of Covid.
Comments
What about Anthony Wiener, he was way badder than Spitzer or Cuomo?
Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and the MyPillow Guy Are in Huge Trouble
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/08/rudy-giuliani-mike-lindell-dominion-lawsuit.html
On Wednesday, a Trump-appointed judge spanked three Trump boosters for spreading Trump’s lies in a ruling that could cost them hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. District Judge Carl J. Nichols crafted a blistering opinion allowing three defamation lawsuits filed by Dominion Voting Systems against MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and Trump’s lawyers, Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, to move forward to trial.
Nichols’ opinion sets forth the false claims peddled by each of the three defendants, then picks apart the evidence they used to support it. The resulting decision—which suggests that Dominion might satisfy even the high bar set for defamation claims from public figures about political contests—is a beatdown. It was a small wonder on Thursday that Alan Dershowitz, appearing at Lindell’s MyPillow Symposium, denounced the Dominion suit as the “new McCarthyism.” If you are not free to lie brazenly about everything, always, causing untold financial and institutional ruin, what liberty can possibly remain?…
But if we’re looking at it rationally, we need to consider whole populations.
So how many Democrats voted for Trump ?
There is, admittedly, the inconvenient counter example of Corbyn.
Perhaps Sturgeon’s Law applies to smarts and ethics, too ?
Mike merely pointed out some possibly inconvenient facts. Which are of undeniable interest to political punters.
The numbers for Hartlepool and C&A are striking.
You might alternately conclude that the Lib Dem’s appeal is so esoteric that it requires a degree to understand, I suppose.
It may have an effect in the margins of the next GE but I doubt it will be any more than that
And in another good news story for the UK has this been posted yet
BBC News - Lord of the Rings: Amazon moves show to UK from New Zealand
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58196473
The relationship does hold, independent of age, although the age effect compounds it.
The 1994 number is convenient for popular age banding. It is fair to say that the number of graduates under 50 is far and away greater than those over 50, because most of those who graduated in 1994 are ~48/49 now.
The competition was, of course, rather different back then.
Either way Netflix invested in a few big names not just one. We'll see if Amazon can do the same.
https://twitter.com/williamnhutton/status/1425946743984857093
Ultimately it is either going to have to change the Tory party quite a lot to hold onto the Hartlepools, or they won't do so. Brexitism and hosing money at client groups can go a long way.
But yes, it could easily be a super-expensive flop.
Everything else followed.
https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2015/feb/27/house-cards-netflix-internet-video-kings
https://variety.com/2018/tv/columns/house-of-cards-season-6-streaming-era-1203017193/
They will throw enough money at every aspect of the production to ensure at least the first season is not a “flop”. Once it has its own legs and fan base they’ll build from there.
A WoT TV series has supposedly been getting made and been dragging on since before Game of Thrones was aired so my expectations for it right now are pretty low sadly but I hope to be proved wrong.
One could argue the direction of the arrow of cause->effect but we need a other 30 years or so until we will have compelling evidence that University education trumps Age. And that will, almost by definition, be when I've left this mortal coil. (I'm 48.)
Netflix used them both as their original Netflix Original series for advertising for years.
My point was they had, and probably needed, more than just a single big title.
https://twitter.com/neilhwilliams/status/1425543574007996417?s=21
https://twitter.com/ashtonpittman/status/1425949682782588931?s=19
Personally, I think that Boris will take that trade. And 11% is a hell of a lead for the government to have midterm, having staggered through a pandemic with many still going on about Brexit. The only thing I can remember that was remotely similar was Blair during his first term. And his second election was pretty much a repeat of the first.
Watch a movie on Prime and the 'suggested titles' titles afterwards are almost never it seems to me stuff that you have paid for via Prime or individual purchase.
It feels like watching shows in a shopping mall rather than from a service. Netflix doesn't do that.
Another bloated derivative franchise from a corporate giant. Count me out.
Apple TV+ shows you the opposite decision. They’ve got almost nothing on their app and oh my, isn’t it obvious when you scroll. Should start to slowly change, Foundation and Shantaram being two adaptations of best sellers coming to Apple.
Just shows you what a remarkable achievement it was by Reed Hastings Netflix that he started a studio from scratch that’s still embarrassing two giants.
“This means losing your houses, your dreams, your goals, your ambition... everything.”
Pashtana Durrani, executive director of an NGO for girls' education speaks to @krishgm from Kandahar in Afghanistan, a city under siege by the Taliban. https://t.co/j6qUPzDkP3
Given recent history on remakes, reboots, etc, I'm not expecting great things from the LOTR TV show. A shame, as I like The Silmarillion a lot, and the trilogy* is great.
Edited extra bit: *film trilogy, that is.
The IQ (or choose your measure) did not suddenly jump by 20 points in 1994, or whatever date you choose.
Education (hopefully) adds certain skills, and perhaps extra perspectives.
There are a lot of highly educated stupid people out there.
Nolan seems uninterested in the format which is a shame. But there will be other big names that are. Instead they throw money at people with no experience of the medium, like Obama and Mrs Sussex. Odd.
A tragedy with whatever happened at Plymouth. Time will show.
The usual lazy sensationalism has already kicked in. From the Indy:
Scores of air ambulances were filmed in the area while two were filmed taking off from a field.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/plymouth-shooting-live-keyham-today-b1901942.html
Quite where they got scores of air ambulances from is strange, as the Wiki List for the whole of England and Wales shows a total of about 36-37, and I doubt they pulled all the ones from North Wales, Cumbria and Northumberland down to Plymouth.
Likely has more female characters too, for equality worriers.
https://twitter.com/ChrisCEOHopson/status/1425418703294935040?s=19
To give an idea of what this means, in my Trust we have about 100 Covid patients, 20 on ICU/ECMO. This means cancellations of planned surgery because of lack of beds particularly post op. Patients are often being cancelled on the day for this reason.
The incident started just after 6pm in the Keyham area of Plymouth and at least three air ambulances landed in North Prospect this evening.
https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/air-ambulances-land-north-prospect-5780498
Exasperated judge, "Well, learned counsel, I have been listening to you all morning and I am none the wiser."
Counsel, "No my Lord, but hopefully better informed."
"...we suspect that we are going to be proved right that the cure of lockdown has been much more harmful than the disease of Covid."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/13/lockdown-based-faith-not-evidence/
Sunetra Gupta trigger warning.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E8pviAcX0AQ3Wvu?format=jpg&name=large
Sir Keir’s are only better than Corbyn, Foot & Hague’s
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E8pviAmXsAADNg2?format=jpg&name=large
But LotR is plodding, certainly. If he were writing today I imagine an editor would have quite a few notes.
Game of Thrones wasnt well known beyond geeks and only had a couple million viewers in its first season, and it then really took off, so I sort of see why Amazon are planning multiple seasons at high cost out of a brand with more name recognition, but as a fantasy fan and fan of LotR I think the inherent interest in Tolkien's backstory collections is not that high, so that first season has to be pretty good to hold onto the curious initial audience. As you imply production values being sky high only get you so far.
Used liberally in fantasy, I think as it seems old timey.
I think its be funny if it was just a high production Legend of Hercules/Xena from the 90s. Legend of the Seeker (based on the Sword of Truth series) was basically a repeat of those and was entertaining.
Others of his output:
‘Do not lecture me, Mr Smith. Why do you suppose I am on the Bench?’
‘It is not for me, My Lord, to fathom the inscrutable workings of providence.’
And before the Court of Appeal:
‘Do give the court credit for some intelligence.’
‘That was the mistake I made in the court below, My Lord.’
One recent series I liked which I thought I wouldn't was by Stephen Aryan, as it was a breezy read and seemed like a series in reverse, opening not closing with grand war against a big bad.
But enough non politics geekery from me.
Personally, although I've read LotR, I much prefer the writings of Sir Terry Pratchett. Lot of wry comments which could be directed at society.
I couldn't NOT manage the Silmarillon.
I believe there are films, but I'm by no means convinced that making a film of a book is always a good idea.
But putting together this poll with the recent poll that showed immigration as the most important issues for Conservative voters (54% vs 14% for Labour), could it be that more non-graduates are more concerned about immigration than graduates, and that is what is making non-graduates more likely to vote Conservative?
"So how high can you raise your arm after the accident?"
Grimacing painfully, "This high, sir".
"And how high could you raise it before the accident?"
"Oh, this high!"
Not sure when it frees up, but the picture icon on the comments system gives you an option to hotlink the url, which usually works.
Placebo masks aren't going to stop Delta circulating among kids.
They couldn't do worse than the Afghan army and get some sympathy from Western countries.
Increasing efficiency in normal times will naturally mean that there is less spare capacity to respond when something unusual happens.
The latter seems like a political lesson about deviating from your brand and historic supporters too.
Vaccinating the adults I'd the obvious solution, but the Trumpist anti-vaxxers are bonkers. Here they are threatening doctors in Tennessee:
https://twitter.com/natalie_allison/status/1425449438202548224?s=19
https://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Snobbery-David-Skelton/dp/1785906577/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+new+snobbery&qid=1628839417&sr=8-1
(not resting until everyone on PB has read it )
I did a very detailed post looking at all the different hospitals in NHS Lothian, a few don't even have any inpatient beds at all, so I'm very disappointed that the silly figure of 1250 hospitals is still being used to divide the number of Covid inpatients.
There aren't going to be any Covid inpatients at a mental health hospital. Or a specialist eye surgery hospital. Or at the vast majority of facilities that are classed as "hospitals". There certainly aren't two hospitals with Covid inpatients in each parliamentary constituency. I think the right number of hospitals to use for this calculation is most likely closer to 200.
Given that Labour were set up to give the less well educated a voice, it’s a bit galling if their supporters now condescend them. Mind you, Labour offered out low paid jobs to anyone in Europe who’d do it cheaper, so maybe they just hate commoners
Exactly that happened to the one person I know who has died of Covid.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58186709
There were diminishing returns to the sequels in some ways but they succeeded in broadening a world that I and millions of others had become hooked on. Let’s see what the telly programme manages to do. Not many people would have given much hope to the Mandalorian either but that had some fabulous moments.
Mask mandates are displacement activity which aren't worth the hassle and punish those who have been vaccinated.