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They shall take up serpents: God, Guns, Abortion and Trump – politicalbetting.com

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  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,644
    kinabalu said:

    What about Barry Gardiner, Alan Sugar and their respective helicopters then? Why (hypothetically) does Gardiner get lambasted whereas Sugar gets a free pass?

    It's their political personas, isn't it. BG, on the Left, isn't meant to enjoy the fruits of capitalist success. "Champagne Socialist" bla bla. AS, on the reactionary right, has no such bar to leap.

    We could do lots of other examples but I sense the point is now made. Different standards, higher for the Left.
    Alan Sugar is an odd example of someone who never attracts criticism or mockery. Hard to quantify, but my bet would be that the amount of criticism and mockery aimed at Alan Sugar comfortably exceeds that of Barry Gardiner, of whom few people have heard. Dave Gorman has essentially made a career out of mocking Alan Sugar.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,504
    Taz said:

    Some houses it’s difficult to insulate. Can cause moisture build up.

    Had to put lap vents in my loft when I insulated it.

    I wouldn’t condemn her for that as it just is not always practical.
    Given that money isn’t a problem for her, she can use the more expensive, exotic insulation tech. This can be much thinner than the regular stuff and can be engineered to deal with all kinds of moisture and movement issues.

    I’ve noted, over the years that many of the innovative things that the ultra rich do in their own homes become common within a decade. I’ve seen this with insulation products, light wells, powered roof hatches, water filtering and reclamation - the early adopters pay the way for the rest of us.

    I’ve seen some London mansions where the house uses nearly no external power and very little water either.
  • TomW said:

    Actually its not. The future seems more likely robust dictatorships combined with a market economy such as china and dubai. Why? People arent rational so democracy eventually implodes under its own contradictions.
    People keep on getting confused about what a country's system is government is for. Mostly it is for providing the least violent way of managing conflict within society.

    Generally speaking, giving people a say by giving them a vote tends to act as a way of defusing people's frustrations and anger more effectively than building a repressive state apparatus to deny the people a say.
  • TomWTomW Posts: 70

    People keep on getting confused about what a country's system is government is for. Mostly it is for providing the least violent way of managing conflict within society.

    Generally speaking, giving people a say by giving them a vote tends to act as a way of defusing people's frustrations and anger more effectively than building a repressive state apparatus to deny the people a say.
    Not working though now is it. Peoples anger and frustration is growing despite just voting in a new govt.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,970
    algarkirk said:

    Thanks. OTOH I should think anyone from a completely alien culture encountering Howell's Collegium Regale sung by a decent English choir (St John's Cambridge and Andrew Nethsingha attached below!) would be similarly awestruck. We get used to it and take it for granted because it is so English, but suppose you had never met this before, especially the Gloria:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ozfTPgXlS0
    I like Howells, but it is too polished and sweet to have the power of that Aramaic liturgy, which really sounds like a beautiful wail of helpless worship from some cave-church in the Jordanian desert, music which is painful in its adoration like John Updike's description of an aroused vagina being "helpless in its own nectar"


  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,970
    Thanks. I'm here all week. Try the fish
  • Apart from the homeless without a photoid.
    I'm against photoids, it's why I started the Campaign for Real Photons
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,347

    And you miss the point again.

    For example, there are numerous examples of people who proclaim “Dog eat Dog Capitalism”. And then get ridiculed for buying government contracts by the yard and renting politicians to do it.

    It is about applying *your own, self proclaimed, standards, to yourself*.
    I don't go around missing points. C'mon.

    What are the "self proclaimed standards" that a progressive is flouting by enjoying an affluent lifestyle?

    What is the term "Champagne Socialist" getting at?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,333
    algarkirk said:

    This may of course be right, but the world changes and may change again.

    Two points. In the 1970 election I attended an Enfield (Southgate) hustings where the audience had a good laugh at the Labour candidate - who was certain to lose - who said that one day the seat would go Labour. I was 'up for Portillo' when it happened, pre boundary changes. It's now dead safe Labour (though boundary changes).

    Take Chichester. With the Tory 35 point lead in 2019 it would be fair to say that any vote but Tory was a mere token gesture. In 2024 the LDs won by a mile with a 30 point swing.

    A change is really possible in a circumstance unique in my lifetime: Where both Tories and Labour could be just deeply unpopular, uncool, and out of fashion. We are not there yet, but to everyone's surprise, Labour are trying their hardest to emulate the Tories on that journey whose destination is a GE with LD v Reform being top of the bill.
    Yes but Labour were second in 1970 and 1992 in Enfield Southgate so it doesn't really change my point.

    The LDs were second in 2019 in Chichester as well.

    As I said earlier unless the LDs can start to appeal beyond middle class voters to working class voters and Reform appeal beyond white working class voters to middle class voters neither will have any hope of replacing Labour or the Tories anytime soon
  • MattWMattW Posts: 25,771
    edited September 2024
    Unworthy therefore removed.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,333

    One of the big surprises in 1997 was Castle Point going Labour, due to a feud between the Conservative candidate and a significant part of the local party.
    He ate humble pie afterwards and the seat has been it's natural Conservative self ever since.
    Again, Labour were second in Castle Point in 1992
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,970
    Now I'm listening to Michelle Shocked's "Come a Long Way"

    Ya gotta mix it up. Shel Shocked is one of the great neglected talents of the 1980s-90s
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,288

    "I just become more mellow and cheerful as I drink (except on here)"

    Funniest PB comment in ages. My italics. :lol:
    I prefer “…You are the most credulous fuckwit..” from the guy now moaning that he was fooled by that master of deception, Keir Starmer.
  • TazTaz Posts: 16,921
    MattW said:

    I would.

    IMO the propensity of ER to be made up of well-off people who try to impose their opinions on the rest of us whilst being hypocrites has sunk their credibility. And remember, I'm a committed activist for lower energy and greener housing.

    If she's lecturing the rest of society whilst being worth 10s of millions, I expect her to have her own house in order (so to speak), or be laughed to scorn.

    If her house is not easy to insulate, I would expect her to have done the difficult job which she can easily fund to have done professionally, or to have moved somewhere that fits her declared philosophy.

    After all, lap vents or similar, or even something more complex, aren't exactly a difficult solution even for DIY.
    Lap,vents are a piece of piss to fit. They cost next to nothing too. You don’t even need them. Just something to do the same job to improve airflow.
  • TomW said:

    Not working though now is it. Peoples anger and frustration is growing despite just voting in a new govt.
    By historical norms, even just in the democratic era, people are not really all that angry.

    Frustrated old people just aren't as much of a threat to public order as frustrated young people.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 6,001
    Leon said:

    Now I'm listening to Michelle Shocked's "Come a Long Way"

    Ya gotta mix it up. Shel Shocked is one of the great neglected talents of the 1980s-90s

    Her song Anchorage has been a favourite of mine since a girl put it on a mixtape for me when I was 16. Don’t know why she put it on as not romantic but glad she did.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,347
    Cookie said:

    Alan Sugar is an odd example of someone who never attracts criticism or mockery. Hard to quantify, but my bet would be that the amount of criticism and mockery aimed at Alan Sugar comfortably exceeds that of Barry Gardiner, of whom few people have heard. Dave Gorman has essentially made a career out of mocking Alan Sugar.
    Ok. Let's not get too literal though. Replace with Simon Cowell if that helps the point. Not on the Left, can buy a helicopter and nobody bats an eyelid. Barry Gardiner does it, all hell breaks out.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,504
    kinabalu said:

    I don't go around missing points. C'mon.

    What are the "self proclaimed standards" that a progressive is flouting by enjoying an affluent lifestyle?

    What is the term "Champagne Socialist" getting at?
    The classic of the genre was the U.K. Communist Party, which was largely funded by rent on property they owned, for many years.

    We have a recent example of a Labour MP who is a semi-slum lord. And campaigned against landlords.
  • DumbosaurusDumbosaurus Posts: 825
    edited September 2024
    algarkirk said:

    This may of course be right, but the world changes and may change again.

    Two points. In the 1970 election I attended an Enfield (Southgate) hustings where the audience had a good laugh at the Labour candidate - who was certain to lose - who said that one day the seat would go Labour. I was 'up for Portillo' when it happened, pre boundary changes. It's now dead safe Labour (though boundary changes).

    Take Chichester. With the Tory 35 point lead in 2019 it would be fair to say that any vote but Tory was a mere token gesture. In 2024 the LDs won by a mile with a 30 point swing.

    A change is really possible in a circumstance unique in my lifetime: Where both Tories and Labour could be just deeply unpopular, uncool, and out of fashion. We are not there yet, but to everyone's surprise, Labour are trying their hardest to emulate the Tories on that journey whose destination is a GE with LD v Reform being top of the bill.
    I have to say that a Reform-LD coalition would probably be the best government of my lifetime. Or if not, certainly the most interesting.

    Reform-Tory (or Reform-Labour) coalition would be a nightmare. As would Tory-Labour. Lib-Labour with latter the minor partners could work. Lib-Tory (either way around) worked very well.
  • TomWTomW Posts: 70

    By historical norms, even just in the democratic era, people are not really all that angry.

    Frustrated old people just aren't as much of a threat to public order as frustrated young people.
    I would think the young are just as frustrated for different reasons though. Obviously though they have the advantage of being young and all the fun that goes with that.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,504
    mercator said:

    I'm against photoids, it's why I started the Campaign for Real Photons
    All quarks should be hand made by artisans.


  • TomWTomW Posts: 70
    kinabalu said:

    I don't go around missing points. C'mon.

    What are the "self proclaimed standards" that a progressive is flouting by enjoying an affluent lifestyle?

    What is the term "Champagne Socialist" getting at?
    Dont you think a new asylum centre in Hampstead would be a good idea. Perhaps near the Heath so you could enjoy the diversity on your walks.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,923
    Dopermean said:

    Michelle Mone's £100m for unusable PPE, actually out of taxpayer funds not from a donor, is 250,000 dead grannies...
    They're guilty of taking some free hospitality, which they've declared but it doesn't look good because they might be influenced. They've not got fingers in the taxpayers' till past their armpit to the tune of 100s of £milliions like the Conservatives
    Only shagged one sheep
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,924
    It is difficult to believe that a person who had their company credit card taken away from them because of misuse, who wrote a book riddled with plagiarism, and who submitted false expense accounts to Parliamentary authorities, is now the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 13,680
    HYUFD said:

    Yes but Labour were second in 1970 and 1992 in Enfield Southgate so it doesn't really change my point.

    The LDs were second in 2019 in Chichester as well.

    As I said earlier unless the LDs can start to appeal beyond middle class voters to working class voters and Reform appeal beyond white working class voters to middle class voters neither will have any hope of replacing Labour or the Tories anytime soon
    I agree. For something to change something has to change. My point is that we are at a moment where a set of changes could occur based on the vulnerability of both Labour and Tory simultaneously. I think their joint fragility is a new thing.

    I don't say it will happen. But it is among the possibles. And both Tories and Labour are helping the process at the moment. Which is inexplicable.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,504
    edited September 2024
    malcolmg said:

    Only shagged one sheep
    Bold of you, to admit that in public.
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,756
    Neck and neck in Brandenburg SPD 1% ahead of AfD according to exit polls
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,333
    TomW said:

    Dont you think a new asylum centre in Hampstead would be a good idea. Perhaps near the Heath so you could enjoy the diversity on your walks.
    Hampstead Town actually has a Conservative councillor still, one of only 3 Tory councillors on Camden council now

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Camden_London_Borough_Council_election
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,347
    edited September 2024

    Expecting them, because of their left wing views, to live a more disciplined austere life.

    It's called practice what you preach and it applies to all parties,
    People on the left do not generally preach that. Some do, and if pungent terms like Champagne Socialist were only applied to them, fine. But such is not the case. It's become a trope used to smear anyone on the Left with the temerity to have succeeded in our capitalist society. Witness Barry Gardiner if he were to buy a helicopter. That's just an example. I realize he hasn't but that's the point. Even if he could afford it he wouldn't dare because of the backlash.
  • kinabalu said:

    I don't go around missing points. C'mon.

    What are the "self proclaimed standards" that a progressive is flouting by enjoying an affluent lifestyle?

    What is the term "Champagne Socialist" getting at?
    Nobody should have champagne until everyone can have champagne

    From each according to his ability to each according to his needs. Nobody needs champagne
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,970
    boulay said:

    Her song Anchorage has been a favourite of mine since a girl put it on a mixtape for me when I was 16. Don’t know why she put it on as not romantic but glad she did.
    Anchorage is one of my favourite songs of all time! Deffo in my top 100, maybe top 50

    "Hey Chelle, we was wild then"

    One of the greatest ever songs about Friendship, and the life and death of Friendship, and the mediocirty of most lives, and the passing of time. Terribly sad... yet also somehow uplifting?

    Yeah, defiinitely not romantic
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,333
    edited September 2024

    I have to say that a Reform-LD coalition would probably be the best government of my lifetime. Or if not, certainly the most interesting.

    Reform-Tory (or Reform-Labour) coalition would be a nightmare. As would Tory-Labour. Lib-Labour with latter the minor partners could work. Lib-Tory (either way around) worked very well.
    Labour-Tory is more likely a government than Reform-LD, the prospect of the former very small, the latter non existent
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,347
    TomW said:

    Dont you think a new asylum centre in Hampstead would be a good idea. Perhaps near the Heath so you could enjoy the diversity on your walks.
    See, you're doing exactly what I'm talking about. This is a cakewalk today, I must say.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 34,274
    HYUFD said:

    Again, Labour were second in Castle Point in 1992
    16.800 behind, and third in the previous two elections. No-one was more surprised than the Labour candidate in 1997, too. Nice lady.
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,756
    kinabalu said:

    People on the left do not generally preach that. Some do, and if pungent terms like Champagne Socialist were only applied to them, fine. But such is not the case. It's become a trope used to smear anyone on the Left with the temerity to have succeeded in our capitalist society. Witness Barry Gardiner if he were to buy a helicopter. That's just an example. I realize he hasn't. But that's the point. Even if he could afford it he wouldn't dare because of the backlash.
    Utter tosh. Most of the moral preaching comes from the Left who somehow think they are morally superior to the rest of us. Labour is a moral crusade or it is nothing - Harold Wislson.
    Labours preachy morality is a hangover from the methodist days. In those days there were people who put principle before personal interest. These days they are few and far between. It just the self-righteous middle class lefties telling everyone else what to do.

  • boulayboulay Posts: 6,001
    Leon said:

    Anchorage is one of my favourite songs of all time! Deffo in my top 100, maybe top 50

    "Hey Chelle, we was wild then"

    One of the greatest ever songs about Friendship, and the life and death of Friendship, and the mediocirty of most lives, and the passing of time. Terribly sad... yet also somehow uplifting?

    Yeah, defiinitely not romantic
    Yes, you’ve nailed it perfectly.
  • kinabalu said:

    People on the left do not generally preach that. Some do, and if pungent terms like Champagne Socialist were only applied to them, fine. But such is not the case. It's become a trope used to smear anyone on the Left with the temerity to have succeeded in our capitalist society. Witness Barry Gardiner if he were to buy a helicopter. That's just an example. I realize he hasn't. But that's the point. Even if he could afford it he wouldn't dare because of the backlash.
    In my view, anyone who can afford to buy a helicopter probably has too much money, regardless of their politics.
    I just don't understand why politicians of all stripes think it's fine to accept freebies, some costing thousands of pounds.
    The phrase "no such thing as a free lunch" should instantly come to mind, especially if you're an MP and definitely if you're a cabinet minister or PM.
    I know it's gone on for ever, but I'd like it to stop. It's not jealousy (in the Fire Service we were lucky to get a tin of biscuits or a tin of sweets off a local supermarket at Christmas between us!) I just don't understand why the MPs can't see how corrupt it looks.
  • stodge said:

    July was a significant vote AGAINST the Conservatives - let's be fair falling from 47% to 26% in England and losing seats like Chichester doesn't speak to a huge vote of support.

    You're correct in saying Labour didn't get the kind of pre-election scrutiny in 2024 that Kinnock for example got in 1992. Even normally pro-Conservative individuals found it impossible to defend what had happened especially since 2019 - there were a few on here who were in the ditch with Sunak at the end and I've some admiration for that.

    Starmer did face criticism after becoming leader - I remember some on here being vociferous when he was pictured taking the knee in apparent support of BLM. The thing was, compared to that minor squall, the Conservatives were getting a daily tornado of vitriol to which they couldn't respond.

    I'm not sure who is running the media management in Government now but they
    aren't doing it well so your 1) is spot on.

    As for 2), I'm less convinced. I don't think very much of what I've heard is anywhere "dodgy" but it's the hypocrisy and the juxtaposition with how the Govenrment is perceived to be treating pensioners which makes the whole thing look bad.
    It’s utterly utterly dodgy

    There is a reason why gifts and corporate entertainment are closely monitored and controlled in the private sector.

    Ministers have the power to make decisions that affect millions. They should not only be incorruptible but they need to be seen to be incorruptible.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,970
    OK HERE’S A PUZZLER FOR A SLIGHTLY BORING SUNDAY

    How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?

    I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once

    Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times

    I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot

    I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good

    Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows

    Why?
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 13,680
    Leon said:

    I like Howells, but it is too polished and sweet to have the power of that Aramaic liturgy, which really sounds like a beautiful wail of helpless worship from some cave-church in the Jordanian desert, music which is painful in its adoration like John Updike's description of an aroused vagina being "helpless in its own nectar"


    Point taken, try the Messe de Tournai or the 'Sederunt Principes' of Perotinus Magnus for etherial but rougher wailing in the western tradition. BTW are you lapsing into what they call an AI hallucination?
  • TomWTomW Posts: 70
    kinabalu said:

    See, you're doing exactly what I'm talking about. This is a cakewalk today, I must say.
    No but you like and are happy with high levels of immigration. So why not do your bit and lobby for an asylum centre near the Heath. Why should it only be the good folks of Barking who suffer the wonders of diversity.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,347

    The classic of the genre was the U.K. Communist Party, which was largely funded by rent on property they owned, for many years.

    We have a recent example of a Labour MP who is a semi-slum lord. And campaigned against landlords.
    Sure. Some genuine hypocrisy on the Left there. Nobody's saying there isn't any. Course there is. But I'm talking about all those wealthy lefties (the vast majority) who simply enjoy an affluent lifestyle and don't tell others how to live. What is "Champagne Socialist" (and the like) getting at when applied (as it so often is) to these people? You tell me.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,644
    kinabalu said:

    Ok. Let's not get too literal though. Replace with Simon Cowell if that helps the point. Not on the Left, can buy a helicopter and nobody bats an eyelid. Barry Gardiner does it, all hell breaks out.
    Well again, I'd say Simon Cowell gets rather more muck thrown at him than Barry Gardiner.
    Hang on, wasn't Barry Gardiner an actual Chinese spy? Surely we have bigger problems with him than helicoptery.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 34,274

    It’s utterly utterly dodgy

    There is a reason why gifts and corporate entertainment are closely monitored and controlled in the private sector.

    Ministers have the power to make decisions that affect millions. They should not only be incorruptible but they need to be seen to be incorruptible.
    Absolutely right.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 54,031
    Leon said:

    Anchorage is one of my favourite songs of all time! Deffo in my top 100, maybe top 50

    "Hey Chelle, we was wild then"

    One of the greatest ever songs about Friendship, and the life and death of Friendship, and the mediocirty of most lives, and the passing of time. Terribly sad... yet also somehow uplifting?

    Yeah, defiinitely not romantic
    Ever see her perform?

    Saw her at WOMAD Bracknell '88. Wonderful.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,970
    edited September 2024
    See, I'm listening to Im Abendrot right now (I just did Anchorage) and it's probably the 94th time I have heard it and I am softly swaying as Kiri Te Kanawa hits the high notes and closing my eyes and thinking "OMG that's lovely", I don't pick up a Dickens novel and read it for the 94th time and think "hahaha that's great characterisation", or "what a turn of phrase", I would vomit if I had to read it 94 times, or even twice, or maybe even once most of Dickens is shite
  • Moved on from "reputedly":

    (((Dan Hodges)))
    @DPJHodges
    ·
    20m
    Sue Gray authorised Lord Alli’s pass, according to senior Labour sources
    Interesting word “authorised”

    Presumably she had to sign off on all Downing Street passes

    But did she also initiate the request?

  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 54,031
    Leon said:

    OK HERE’S A PUZZLER FOR A SLIGHTLY BORING SUNDAY

    How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?

    I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once

    Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times

    I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot

    I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good

    Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows

    Why?

    Brain wiring. Words don't work on repeat so much as images or music (which has a mathematical quality that always delivers a certain "A'ha!")

    Maybe.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 13,680
    Leon said:

    OK HERE’S A PUZZLER FOR A SLIGHTLY BORING SUNDAY

    How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?

    I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once

    Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times

    I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot

    I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good

    Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows

    Why?

    10 Novels to read more than once: Bleak House, Wuthering Heights, Dance to the Music of Time, Dubliners (The Dead is a novella so it counts), The Masters, Phineas Finn, Great Expectations, Sinister Street, Emma, The Power and the Glory.

    Music to listen to less than once: Haydn's Baryton Trios. Almost everything since the death of Shostakovich.

    Otherwise 100% agree.

    Reasons for why you are right: ??is to do with how brains work, different forms engage different bits. Some do repetition more than others.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,644
    Leon said:

    See, I'm listening to Im Abendrot right now (I just did Anchorage) and it's probably the 94th time I have heard it and I am softly swaying as Kiri Te Kanawa hits the high notes and closing my eyes and thinking "OMG that's lovely", I don't pick up a Dickens novel and read it for the 94th time and think "hahaha that's great characterisation", or "what a turn of phrase", I would vomit if I had to read it 94 times, or even twice, or maybe even once most of Dickens is shite

    There's plenty of Pratchett I've read and enjoyed multiple times.
  • Leon said:

    OK HERE’S A PUZZLER FOR A SLIGHTLY BORING SUNDAY

    How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?

    I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once

    Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times

    I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot

    I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good

    Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows

    Why?

    Something to do with stories vs. not-stories?

    We experience plays, books and whatnot in time, one thing after another. Part of the pleasure is not knowing what will happen next, and that's distinctly one-off.

    Whereas the time's arrow thing doesn't apply so much to pictures and music- we can go back and encounter new detail each time.

    And the sort of narratives that do repay re-reading, comedy say, there's pleasure in knowing what's coming up. There's a joke on the next page and it's coming, you can anticipate it and turn over ha ha ha.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 56,022
    Leon said:

    OK HERE’S A PUZZLER FOR A SLIGHTLY BORING SUNDAY

    How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?

    I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once

    Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times

    I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot

    I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good

    Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows

    Why?

    I noticed that as well, different types of art are either something to be experienced once or something to be experienced many times.

    If you go and see a band, you want to hear their hits, the songs you know and have heard many times before. If you go and see the same band next year, you want to hear the same hits. Bands know this, and so often perform their old songs as well as their new album. Bands that just play new stuff get badly reviewed.

    Yet if you go and see a comedian, you usually expect a totally different show from last year, you want to hear their new jokes and not their old jokes.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,970

    Brain wiring. Words don't work on repeat so much as images or music (which has a mathematical quality that always delivers a certain "A'ha!")

    Maybe.
    Possibly

    However, I suspect it is more this: art which delivers a story - novels, drama, movies, TV - can only deliver that once. When you've heard the story - got the crucial info - you are evolved to move on to something which will provide more or different information. You can't waste time hearing the same shit

    But poems, songs, paintings do NOT tell a story. All you have is the aesthetic pleasure, which can be enjoyed again and again

    Notable that Ulysses does NOT (notoriously) tell a story. It is just the aesthetic pleasure of the words and word-play
  • Dopermean said:


    Michelle Mone's £100m for unusable PPE, actually out of taxpayer funds not from a donor, is 250,000 dead grannies...
    They're guilty of taking some free hospitality, which they've declared but it doesn't look good because they might be influenced. They've not got fingers in the taxpayers' till past their armpit to the tune of 100s of £milliions like the Conservatives
    In a marginal defence of the last government, AFAIK, they didn’t benefit *personally* from Mone and others.

    They put in place a fast track during an unprecedented situation. They referred people to that fast track who, it is alleged, turned out to be shysters.

    So they are guilty of weakening normal controls. Forgivable.

    They are guilty of knowing and recommending shysters. That’s poor judgement and worthy of criticism.

    But I don’t think they are guilty of fraud or grifting in these cases
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,970
    OK sorted out that age-old conundrum of the Philosophy of Aesthetics. What next?

    Shall we do the Mind-Body Problem? Can probably solve that before my Uber arrives
  • I've re-read Fleming's Bond novels a few times.

    Enjoy those.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,644

    Brain wiring. Words don't work on repeat so much as images or music (which has a mathematical quality that always delivers a certain "A'ha!")

    Maybe.
    The novel is a very time consuming art form to consume. I could listen to over 100 pop songs in the time it takes me to read one novel.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 54,031

    Something to do with stories vs. not-stories?

    We experience plays, books and whatnot in time, one thing after another. Part of the pleasure is not knowing what will happen next, and that's distinctly one-off.

    Whereas the time's arrow thing doesn't apply so much to pictures and music- we can go back and encounter new detail each time.

    And the sort of narratives that do repay re-reading, comedy say, there's pleasure in knowing what's coming up. There's a joke on the next page and it's coming, you can anticipate it and turn over ha ha ha.
    Wonderful paintings can tell stories. Maybe of your own creation, but they can still be vivid.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,644
    Leon said:

    Possibly

    However, I suspect it is more this: art which delivers a story - novels, drama, movies, TV - can only deliver that once. When you've heard the story - got the crucial info - you are evolved to move on to something which will provide more or different information. You can't waste time hearing the same shit

    But poems, songs, paintings do NOT tell a story. All you have is the aesthetic pleasure, which can be enjoyed again and again

    Notable that Ulysses does NOT (notoriously) tell a story. It is just the aesthetic pleasure of the words and word-play
    What I enjoy most about Pratchett is language and wordplay. That, and his love for the landscape of the Wolds which drips from the pages of the Tiffany Aching books.
    So yes.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,347

    Utter tosh. Most of the moral preaching comes from the Left who somehow think they are morally superior to the rest of us. Labour is a moral crusade or it is nothing - Harold Wislson.
    Labours preachy morality is a hangover from the methodist days. In those days there were people who put principle before personal interest. These days they are few and far between. It just the self-righteous middle class lefties telling everyone else what to do.
    There's tons of preaching from the Right. Traditional values, get on your bike, self-reliance, charity begins at home, abortion is murder, etc etc.

    But that's besides the point - this specific point about money and lifestyle.

    Q: Is a wealthy progressive just by dint of being wealthy more likely to be called a hypocrite/phony than a wealthy reactionary?

    Yes. We see it all the time. Seen it a few times on this very thread. C'mon, you have to concede a point sometimes. It strengthens a person to do that.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,288
    algarkirk said:

    Thanks. OTOH I should think anyone from a completely alien culture encountering Howell's Collegium Regale sung by a decent English choir (St John's Cambridge and Andrew Nethsingha attached below!) would be similarly awestruck. We get used to it and take it for granted because it is so English, but suppose you had never met this before, especially the Gloria:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ozfTPgXlS0
    Though in both cases you’re perhaps overvaluing the power of religion, and undervaluing that of music.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 54,031

    In a marginal defence of the last government, AFAIK, they didn’t benefit *personally* from Mone and others.

    They put in place a fast track during an unprecedented situation. They referred people to that fast track who, it is alleged, turned out to be shysters.

    So they are guilty of weakening normal controls. Forgivable.

    They are guilty of knowing and recommending shysters. That’s poor judgement and worthy of criticism.

    But I don’t think they are guilty of fraud or grifting in these cases
    Don't forget, Labour were insisting the Goverment entered into certain contracts to get PPE.

    They now conveniently forget those contracts would, er, not have delivered PPE.

  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,347
    Cookie said:

    Well again, I'd say Simon Cowell gets rather more muck thrown at him than Barry Gardiner.
    Hang on, wasn't Barry Gardiner an actual Chinese spy? Surely we have bigger problems with him than helicoptery.
    Oh ffs. Ok, not Barry Gardiner then.

    Ronan Keating and Lisa Nandy. Keating buys a helicopter, no drama. Nandy buys one - never hears the end of it.

    Can we move on now with the general point agreed as made?
  • Leon said:

    Possibly

    However, I suspect it is more this: art which delivers a story - novels, drama, movies, TV - can only deliver that once. When you've heard the story - got the crucial info - you are evolved to move on to something which will provide more or different information. You can't waste time hearing the same shit

    But poems, songs, paintings do NOT tell a story. All you have is the aesthetic pleasure, which can be enjoyed again and again

    Notable that Ulysses does NOT (notoriously) tell a story. It is just the aesthetic pleasure of the words and word-play
    I have the fortunate in some ways disability that I can never remember anything about a novel. At all. I have read War and Peace half a dozen times. Starts at a party in St Petersburg (or Moscow?), there's battles, pretty sure she ends up with Pierre. That's it. Which means I can read it again not just for finer points, but to find out what happens.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,970

    Wonderful paintings can tell stories. Maybe of your own creation, but they can still be vivid.
    Not really tho

    No one looks at a painting coz it tells a story. I know they can do this - medieval paintings famously did - but since the early Renaissance we’ve looked at paintings for their beauty and harmony, the aesthetic noom, the vibe and the statement
  • Cookie said:

    The novel is a very time consuming art form to consume. I could listen to over 100 pop songs in the time it takes me to read one novel.
    Indeed.

    I can see people returning to a sonnet over and over again, or lines of a poem, but does anyone read the whole of ‘the Ancient Mariner’ repeatedly or the 3 thousand odd lines of Beowulf ?

    It’s not just time - the effort in reading a novel, is hugely more than listening to a pop song.
    You can also do other tasks simultaneously to listening to music.

    Art can have immediate and visceral effects.
    Hard to think of a novel having the same effect in 30 seconds, to that of seeing Munch’s The Scream or Van Goghs Impressionism.
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,756
    kinabalu said:

    There's tons of preaching from the Right. Traditional values, get on your bike, self-reliance, charity begins at home, abortion is murder, etc etc.

    But that's besides the point - this specific point about money and lifestyle.

    Q: Is a wealthy progressive just by dint of being wealthy more likely to be called a hypocrite/phony than a wealthy reactionary?

    Yes. We see it all the time. Seen it a few times on this very thread. C'mon, you have to concede a point sometimes. It strengthens a person to do that.
    Wealthy Righties justifiably get called out too usually with the label of "that rich git". Your issue seems to be you think the Left should get a hospital pass or youre surprised that people might criticise your idols for their moral outbursts.

    Why wealthy people think their opinions just must be heard is down to their egos not much else.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,970
    I’m honestly trying to think of a single book I’ve read more than once, other than Ulysses

    The Highway Code doesn’t count

    Can’t think of a single one. I’ve reread funny passages. Or beautiful pages. Wodehouse or Ruskin. But whole books? Nope
  • LeonLeon Posts: 58,970
    The infinite repeatability of great music is surely proof that it is the supreme art form, only really matched by the domestic psychological thriller set on, say, an island or a lonely beach with a female protagonist in her mid 30s and at least one spooky child

    After that perhaps great poetry?
  • Democrats have never lead in an NBC News poll this year

    Now Kamala Harris is up 5





    https://x.com/umichvoter/status/1837840491221508202
  • https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2024/sep/22/a-beginners-guide-to-dying-by-simon-boas-review-an-extraordinary-book

    From what I have heard of him this absolutely has to be worth a paltry £8 on kindle
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,779
    theProle said:

    Except that HTB and it's network of churches is now on its way out of the CofE sphere over the "Prayers of Love and Faith" (that's CofE speak for gay marriage in church). As are virtually all the evangelicals - which are the only bit of the CofE that isn't in free fall decline.

    My CofE church is actually voting today* on whether the congregation agrees with the leadership that we should leave. We're a bit unusual, because we're an old congregation that's not a parish church, and own our own building, so we can pretty much tell the Bishop "so long and thanks for all the fish", but that is true of a lot of the new churches planted by outfits like HTB and St Helens Bishopsgate.

    Incidentally, I've no real problem personally with gay people being gay. I think it's sinful, active homosexuals are called to repent like all sexual sinners, but ultimately it's God's job to make them give an account of their lives, at his judgment, not mine.

    My problem with the CofE blessing gay marriages is that this is the leadership blessing something their doctrine teaches is sinful. I'd say the same if they wanted in church blessings for adultery, gluttony, lying or greed. It's just that in our context, homosexuality is a fashionable sin, unlike the others.

    *actually, electronically, over the next two weeks, starting today
    "Officially what you are doing is a sin but really we want you to find your happiness"

    They are being kind and I think good.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 54,031
    Leon said:

    Not really tho

    No one looks at a painting coz it tells a story. I know they can do this - medieval paintings famously did - but since the early Renaissance we’ve looked at paintings for their beauty and harmony, the aesthetic noom, the vibe and the statement
    Defy you not to look at Ford Maddox Brown's "The Last of England" and not create a whole novel around that image.

    Especially when you see the hidden child's hand in hers...
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 54,031

    Democrats have never lead in an NBC News poll this year

    Now Kamala Harris is up 5





    https://x.com/umichvoter/status/1837840491221508202

    Woot!
  • boulayboulay Posts: 6,001
    Leon said:

    I’m honestly trying to think of a single book I’ve read more than once, other than Ulysses

    The Highway Code doesn’t count

    Can’t think of a single one. I’ve reread funny passages. Or beautiful pages. Wodehouse or Ruskin. But whole books? Nope

    I’ve read a few books twice but largely ones that I loved when young/school such as the Italo Calvino books where I’ve read them twenty to thirty years apart for nostalgia but also you react differently as have had many life experiences since the first reading that change how you understand or imagine things.

    My greatest re-reading pleasure was The Count of Monte Christo as my understandings of vengeance, love, pain etc are infinitely greater and so you feel the story more.

    I can watch Shakespeare plays multiple times as they are often interpreted so differently.

    There are some series that I’ve watched a few times such as Narcos as they are a good romp and you notice different things or take a different view of characters each time.

    Music I can listen to the same song sometimes multiple times on repeat if I love it or it’s capturing a mood I’m strongly in at that moment.

  • Leon said:

    Anchorage is one of my favourite songs of all time! Deffo in my top 100, maybe top 50

    "Hey Chelle, we was wild then"

    One of the greatest ever songs about Friendship, and the life and death of Friendship, and the mediocirty of most lives, and the passing of time. Terribly sad... yet also somehow uplifting?

    Yeah, defiinitely not romantic
    Leon said:

    Anchorage is one of my favourite songs of all time! Deffo in my top 100, maybe top 50

    "Hey Chelle, we was wild then"

    One of the greatest ever songs about Friendship, and the life and death of Friendship, and the mediocirty of most lives, and the passing of time. Terribly sad... yet also somehow uplifting?

    Yeah, defiinitely not romantic

    Michelle Shocked is indeed neglected and Anchorage is one of the great songs of the 1980’s.

    She was however, not very successful commercially, probably more popular in UK than USA but went from an icon in the gay community (and lefties) to alienating any fans left by becoming a raging born again homophobe.

    She also isn’t on Spotify or YouTube and while I understand the frustration of artists not making money from either, the ship has sailed a long time ago. If you aren’t on those platforms it’s unlikely any new audience will ever find you.
  • AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 25,756
    Leon said:

    I’m honestly trying to think of a single book I’ve read more than once, other than Ulysses

    The Highway Code doesn’t count

    Can’t think of a single one. I’ve reread funny passages. Or beautiful pages. Wodehouse or Ruskin. But whole books? Nope

    Is it the same with factual books ? I read a lot of history and when Im bored or have nothing else can re read some old favourits - David Chandler The Campaigns of Napoleon or Italy's sorrow by James Holland or anything by John Julius Norwich.
  • A bipartisan collection of 741 former senior national security leaders, comprised of over 230 general and flag officers including 15 retired four-star generals and admirals, endorsed Vice President Harris.

    The group characterized the election as “a choice between serious leadership and vengeful impulsiveness. It is a choice between democracy and authoritarianism.”


    https://x.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1837855083075174714
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 54,031

    Democrats have never lead in an NBC News poll this year

    Now Kamala Harris is up 5





    https://x.com/umichvoter/status/1837840491221508202

    It would have to be a really perverse result for Harris to win the popular vote by 5% but still lose the EC. Massive vote build ups in California and New York and Massachussets maybe?
  • algarkirk said:

    10 Novels to read more than once: Bleak House, Wuthering Heights, Dance to the Music of Time, Dubliners (The Dead is a novella so it counts), The Masters, Phineas Finn, Great Expectations, Sinister Street, Emma, The Power and the Glory.

    Music to listen to less than once: Haydn's Baryton Trios. Almost everything since the death of Shostakovich.

    Otherwise 100% agree.

    Reasons for why you are right: ??is to do with how brains work, different forms engage different bits. Some do repetition more than others.
    A good list.
    Maybe Dickens easy to return to as they were written & published in short form serialised weekly or monthly.

  • TomWTomW Posts: 70
    boulay said:

    I’ve read a few books twice but largely ones that I loved when young/school such as the Italo Calvino books where I’ve read them twenty to thirty years apart for nostalgia but also you react differently as have had many life experiences since the first reading that change how you understand or imagine things.

    My greatest re-reading pleasure was The Count of Monte Christo as my understandings of vengeance, love, pain etc are infinitely greater and so you feel the story more.

    I can watch Shakespeare plays multiple times as they are often interpreted so differently.

    There are some series that I’ve watched a few times such as Narcos as they are a good romp and you notice different things or take a different view of characters each time.

    Music I can listen to the same song sometimes multiple times on repeat if I love it or it’s capturing a mood I’m strongly in at that moment.

    I rewatched breaking bad a 2nd time. Now that was good.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 6,001
    mercator said:

    https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2024/sep/22/a-beginners-guide-to-dying-by-simon-boas-review-an-extraordinary-book

    From what I have heard of him this absolutely has to be worth a paltry £8 on kindle

    His death affected me badly. I feel great guilt in our starting very much from the same place and I devoted my life to the pursuit of money whilst he just did huge good for others. He was such a great chap.

    My last meeting with him was very funny where we got suitably stewed at a bar and reminisced about bad things we had done at school and how he admired my complete disregard for the rules. A funny, intelligent and good hearted man.

    Even his last acts were for other people as the royalties go to palliative care charities in Africa where he had worked for overseas aid organisations.
  • It would have to be a really perverse result for Harris to win the popular vote by 5% but still lose the EC. Massive vote build ups in California and New York and Massachussets maybe?
    I think by 2036 it is possible for the Dems to win the popular vote by ten million votes and lose the electoral college vote.

    The GOP have only won the popular vote once in the last eight elections.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 50,457
    edited September 2024
    TomW said:

    I rewatched breaking bad a 2nd time. Now that was good.
    I often watch films multiple times. The first time to get the gist then after that to savour the detail, nuances, cinematography etc. I watched "Perfect Days" recently on consecutive nights, and will watch it again I am sure. Fiction books I rarely re-read, as the investment in time is too much.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,504
    TomW said:

    No but you like and are happy with high levels of immigration. So why not do your bit and lobby for an asylum centre near the Heath. Why should it only be the good folks of Barking who suffer the wonders of diversity.
    Perhaps you should visit Hampstead. It isn’t all rich white people. Or even rich people. There are quite a few poor bits, if you bother to look. And like most of London, every culture you can think of.

    You really should try it - it’s like visiting the world, in a mile walk.
  • Leon said:

    The infinite repeatability of great music is surely proof that it is the supreme art form, only really matched by the domestic psychological thriller set on, say, an island or a lonely beach with a female protagonist in her mid 30s and at least one spooky child

    After that perhaps great poetry?

    The west has largely lost the art of oral storytelling, so music is probably the oldest art form, followed by painting (caves).

    If it was the supreme art form though, why is most of it so recent (comparatively) ?.

    Talented as she may be, I don’t think Taylor Swift is the Zenith of art.

  • TomW said:

    I rewatched breaking bad a 2nd time. Now that was good.
    I tried to watch Breaking Bad a second time but found it too upsetting knowing what was to come.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,067
    Leon said:

    OK HERE’S A PUZZLER FOR A SLIGHTLY BORING SUNDAY

    How come some art forms can be enjoyed again and again - yet others are consumed once and that’s it?

    I don’t reread novels. The only novel I have ever read twice is Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s the only one good enough to be read more than once

    Yet I will reread favourite poems multiple times

    I don’t rewatch plays. Once and that’s it. Yet I will look at a favourite painting quite a lot

    I seldom rewatch tv or movies. Maybe twice if they’re really good

    Yet a fantastic piece of music is indestructibly repeatable. I can listen to Strauss’ Im Abendrot or Michelle Shocked’s Anchorage again and again and again without loss of joy. The joy maybe grows

    Why?

    Obviously there will be an element of personal preference, but I think Foxy's point about time investment can play a part, as well as volume of new content produced.

    I'm sure there's just as much new music produced as new novels, but the former don't take up as much time, if you go back and relisten you barely notice the time. I'm just guessing but I suspect poetry, at least that which penetrates through to the mass market, is much rarer so harder to come by, people will find it easier to stick with old favourites.

    I rewatch films and tv shows a lot, in fact in the last 5 years I rarely invest time in new tv shows. I have read many books multiple times over, though again in the last 5 years I have done so a lot less, not so much on time as I read very quickly, but because I have been reading new things.

    But interactivity and collectivity may play a part too. Plays, books, films, you just watch, each in their own way. Music you might dance, sing, or hum to, which though level is still more mentally engaging perhaps.

    LIkewise video games (which I have played less of in recent years) you might replay for hundreds of hours, so despite their time commitment their interactivity keeps it fresh.
  • I have inadvertently read a couple of books twice. Just finished one in fact. By about page 30 I realised that I was familiar with the story, and remembered the ending. However, I carried on reading, and their were great swathes that I had no memory of at all - including the central character murdering someone.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,067

    A bipartisan collection of 741 former senior national security leaders, comprised of over 230 general and flag officers including 15 retired four-star generals and admirals, endorsed Vice President Harris.

    The group characterized the election as “a choice between serious leadership and vengeful impulsiveness. It is a choice between democracy and authoritarianism.”


    https://x.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1837855083075174714

    It's true, but it is still 50/50, not sure how much this stuff has an effect. Stuff Trump regularly comes out with now even the GOP used to criticise 8 years ago, but not a peep anymore.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 58,849
    algarkirk said:

    10 Novels to read more than once: Bleak House, Wuthering Heights, Dance to the Music of Time, Dubliners (The Dead is a novella so it counts), The Masters, Phineas Finn, Great Expectations, Sinister Street, Emma, The Power and the Glory.

    Music to listen to less than once: Haydn's Baryton Trios. Almost everything since the death of Shostakovich.

    Otherwise 100% agree.

    Reasons for why you are right: ??is to do with how brains work, different forms engage different bits. Some do repetition more than others.
    Oh come, come, come.

    What about Millions of Women are Waiting to Meet You?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,504

    Something to do with stories vs. not-stories?

    We experience plays, books and whatnot in time, one thing after another. Part of the pleasure is not knowing what will happen next, and that's distinctly one-off.

    Whereas the time's arrow thing doesn't apply so much to pictures and music- we can go back and encounter new detail each time.

    And the sort of narratives that do repay re-reading, comedy say, there's pleasure in knowing what's coming up. There's a joke on the next page and it's coming, you can anticipate it and turn over ha ha ha.
    Artistic depth?

    Some books are full of layers of detail, description, characters and plot. You can get something out of them each time you read them.

    I have a copy of “Seven Men and Two Others” by Max Beerbohm that I have read again and again over the decades. For some of us it will always be 2:10pm, 3rd June 1997, in the British Museum Reading Room….


  • Foxy said:

    I often watch films multiple times. The first time to get the gist then after that to savour the detail, nuances, cinematography etc. I watched "Perfect Days" recently on consecutive nights, and will watch it again I am sure. Fiction books I rarely re-read, as the investment in time is too much.
    Shutter Island is a definite consecutive nights candidate. Watching it again knowing the twist is extraordinary. It's a different film, like that optical illusion of the guy in the gorilla suit among the basketball players.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,067
    Leon said:

    The infinite repeatability of great music is surely proof that it is the supreme art form, only really matched by the domestic psychological thriller set on, say, an island or a lonely beach with a female protagonist in her mid 30s and at least one spooky child

    If only could someone could think of an example of such.

    Google's first result for me is The Housemaid by Freida McFadden, which is what you were probably thinking of.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,504
    boulay said:

    I’ve read a few books twice but largely ones that I loved when young/school such as the Italo Calvino books where I’ve read them twenty to thirty years apart for nostalgia but also you react differently as have had many life experiences since the first reading that change how you understand or imagine things.

    My greatest re-reading pleasure was The Count of Monte Christo as my understandings of vengeance, love, pain etc are infinitely greater and so you feel the story more.

    I can watch Shakespeare plays multiple times as they are often interpreted so differently.

    There are some series that I’ve watched a few times such as Narcos as they are a good romp and you notice different things or take a different view of characters each time.

    Music I can listen to the same song sometimes multiple times on repeat if I love it or it’s capturing a mood I’m strongly in at that moment.

    What about books you can read different ways?

    Money Dick is a thriller about a lunatic quest. A pile of good writing. An exposition on the human condition. And an info dump on 19th Cent knowledge of whales.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,067

    At this point, if your a Labour MP and haven't had £10ks worth of gifts from Lord Alli you have to ask yourself what you have done wrong.

    My main takeaway with things like this and the people who gift Clarence Thomas so many freebies is that I need to get better friends.
  • boulay said:

    His death affected me badly. I feel great guilt in our starting very much from the same place and I devoted my life to the pursuit of money whilst he just did huge good for others. He was such a great chap.

    My last meeting with him was very funny where we got suitably stewed at a bar and reminisced about bad things we had done at school and how he admired my complete disregard for the rules. A funny, intelligent and good hearted man.

    Even his last acts were for other people as the royalties go to palliative care charities in Africa where he had worked for overseas aid organisations.
    Of course you are fellow islanders

    I shall buy to read on my voyage into the Maghreb.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,347
    mercator said:

    Shutter Island is a definite consecutive nights candidate. Watching it again knowing the twist is extraordinary. It's a different film, like that optical illusion of the guy in the gorilla suit among the basketball players.
    Really liked that film.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 6,001

    What about books you can read different ways?

    Money Dick is a thriller about a lunatic quest. A pile of good writing. An exposition on the human condition. And an info dump on 19th Cent knowledge of whales.
    Wasn’t Money Dick, Ron Jeremy’s autobiography?
This discussion has been closed.