One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
Leon presents himself to us as a polymath who knows about new trends before the rest of us, so he can't comprehend that he's late to learning about something to the extent that we are all shrugging our shoulders and not sharing his sense of wonder at his new discovery.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
Fiction about crimes isn't against the law, within reason.
Otherwise the Godfather and many other stories would be prohibited.
Many people like reading, or watching, fictional stories that would break the law if they happened in real life. Key word is fiction.
You can be certain many people living day to day are living a more fulfilling honest life valuing things money cannot buy
For some people, their net worth is how they keep score, how they know that they are winning at life. (After all, once you are living well off the interest on the interest, what else can you do but view it as a number in a game?) Dying rich equalling dying disgraced has gone out of fashion.
I suspect it's part of why taxes are so toxic at the top end- it's not about the value of the money, it's about a sense of the government taking a chunk of their life away.
See also: the power of inheritance tax to scare people, when rationally it's the one time we pay taxes without losing.
Interesting perspective. My parents have been quite frugal. Never earned big money, Labour voters, Dad a PE teacher, Mum worked in local govt, but paid off the mortgage and would never dodge taxes, yet they see inheritance tax as the devil, and are trying to symphonic the money to me and the grandkids before the gift get their hands on 40% of it. They don’t see the kids being taxed heavily on inheritance as them not losing
Yet IHT is effectively a wealth tax and people seem to overwhelmingly support it.
Worse now without the IHT exemptions on businesses and agriculture it's a tax on investment for family run businesses. Indeed, there has been an entirely predictable crash in business investment among small businesses.
I think it's highly unlikely to have had a material effect on small business investment. The seven year rule still applies and, in my family at least, the business gets passed on/sold at retirement.
IHT is a silly tax precisely for this reason.
And yet it is showing up in the data exactly as predicted when Labour removed the exemptions. Just from a human nature perspective if you previously were able to funnel cash into your family business and invest it to pass on tax free but now you aren't the behaviour will naturally change.
What the police need is someone to invent (and really I'm assuming they already have because it is so obvious) some sort of AI cctv viewer that can near-instantly do a binary search for the moment the item of interest appears or disappears, rather than tie up police officers for eight hours checking an eight hour recording from start to finish.
I hope that's not how the police would check such a video. You check the video at the start to identify the stolen bicycle and its location. You check the video at the end to verify that it is indeed no longer there at the end of the video you are searching. Then you check halfway through. Then halfway through the half in which you know the theft happened. And so on. It doesn't take many of these halving checks to reduce the search window from 8 hours to less than a minute.
That is what I meant by binary search. However, I doubt the police have announced this change to save the odd couple of minutes here and there. Possibly there are other time sinks, like submitting the right forms in triplicate to get access to the recording in the first place.
I have absolutely no confidence at all that the police would use a binary search. It's obvious to us (with compsci / maths / data engineering type backgrounds where a binary search is a staple of data processing) but how many of the police would have had that background? Even more so when 20 years ago the way CCTV would have been stored was on tape of some sort and so a binary search is genuinely frustrating as you have to manually move the tape back and forth to the correct spot (think trying to do it on a VHS tape - you're probably as good just watching it from the start at 10x speed) - why and how would anyone have thought to change the procedures...
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
Leon presents himself to us as a polymath who knows about new trends before the rest of us, so he can't comprehend that he's late to learning about something to the extent that we are all shrugging our shoulders and not sharing his sense of wonder at his new discovery.
Well, if you guys knew all about this, you should have pitched the idea of writing about it, like I just did, and was immediately commissioned by my astonished editors
It sounds like the police response to the attack on the synagogue was commendably rapid and prevented greater loss of life.
Ooh, has something bad happened. I have been racking off and fining my last batches of home made wine today.
I’m guessing the usual suspects on either side will be more interested in the ethnicity of the attacker rather than the victims.
What sort of wine, grape or fruit? And if grape, what variety?
I’m guessing fruit given you’d have had to harvest grapes absurdly early to be already at the racking stage. Blackberry?
I make wine from a few sources
Cartons of fruit juice from the supermarket. That is how I started. Dried fruit such as raisins, dates, sultanas, apricot. Frozen fruit from the supermarket. Fruit I have grown, or bought from the shops. So Rhubarb, banana, apple, ginger.
It have made some kits as well. The red ones I don’t do as I found they lack depth.
I have a small garden and no chance of an allotment for many years so I used to get fruit from a co worker. Now I retired I have started growing rhubarb and strawberries and have a couple of apple trees.
It’s great fun. I enjoy drinking it but I make far too much. I don’t have many spare wine bottles so will bottle in beer bottles next week.
Then it’s the fun of the annual clean down 😂
I can tell you have the home brew addiction. Quite hard to shake once it sets in.
That problem, of making far too much, is a real headache. I used to make wine from the back garden grapes every year and the batches were too small to avoid spoilage most of the time, but last year I took a small amount from the vineyard to make at home and now have a load of bottles of that I wouldn’t be allowed to sell but will struggle ever to drink through.
Yes, I really enjoy it. The whole process. I used to do it years ago but no rinse cleaning solution is a game changer. I started in lockdown when a work colleague told me about making ginger wine from supermarket root ginger and haven’t looked back.
I’ve also made cider from wild apple trees. There are a few round here even one by where I used to work. My barber has an apple tree and I got a load of apples from him.
Sadly my wife is less tolerant of it so I can only brew in the garage.
YouTube is a great source for info and I have used AI to get recipes as well.
What the police need is someone to invent (and really I'm assuming they already have because it is so obvious) some sort of AI cctv viewer that can near-instantly do a binary search for the moment the item of interest appears or disappears, rather than tie up police officers for eight hours checking an eight hour recording from start to finish.
I hope that's not how the police would check such a video. You check the video at the start to identify the stolen bicycle and its location. You check the video at the end to verify that it is indeed no longer there at the end of the video you are searching. Then you check halfway through. Then halfway through the half in which you know the theft happened. And so on. It doesn't take many of these halving checks to reduce the search window from 8 hours to less than a minute.
That is what I meant by binary search. However, I doubt the police have announced this change to save the odd couple of minutes here and there. Possibly there are other time sinks, like submitting the right forms in triplicate to get access to the recording in the first place.
I have absolutely no confidence at all that the police would use a binary search. It's obvious to us (with compsci / maths / data engineering type backgrounds where a binary search is a staple of data processing) but how many of the police would have had that background? Even more so when 20 years ago the way CCTV would have been stored was on tape of some sort and so a binary search is genuinely frustrating as you have to manually move the tape back and forth to the correct spot (think trying to do it on a VHS tape - you're probably as good just watching it from the start at 10x speed) - why and how would anyone have thought to change the procedures...
TBF they would have to cover the case where the bike is taken away by thr owner, then put back, and only later finally stolen. Too easy for a defence lawyer otherwise.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
I give up
There’s a limited audience for your advocacy of “enjoyable anal rape at gunpoint”, tbh.
I am expressing surprise that young women are buying books about this, not saying I personally thrill to the idea. Never liked "the Bakerloo Line", let alone being forced to take it AT GUNPOINT
Automated object detection and motion of that object from video of common items e.g. bikes is basically a solved problem in computer vision. I could code up such a system in a day or two, no need for Plantair to be paid 20 trillion quid.
One issue of course is that all da yutt just where balacarvas walking around these days. So even if it the computer gives you the time stamp all you will likely see is some eye peeking out from a black hood.
It sounds like the police response to the attack on the synagogue was commendably rapid and prevented greater loss of life.
Ooh, has something bad happened. I have been racking off and fining my last batches of home made wine today.
I’m guessing the usual suspects on either side will be more interested in the ethnicity of the attacker rather than the victims.
What sort of wine, grape or fruit? And if grape, what variety?
I’m guessing fruit given you’d have had to harvest grapes absurdly early to be already at the racking stage. Blackberry?
I make wine from a few sources
Cartons of fruit juice from the supermarket. That is how I started. Dried fruit such as raisins, dates, sultanas, apricot. Frozen fruit from the supermarket. Fruit I have grown, or bought from the shops. So Rhubarb, banana, apple, ginger.
It have made some kits as well. The red ones I don’t do as I found they lack depth.
I have a small garden and no chance of an allotment for many years so I used to get fruit from a co worker. Now I retired I have started growing rhubarb and strawberries and have a couple of apple trees.
It’s great fun. I enjoy drinking it but I make far too much. I don’t have many spare wine bottles so will bottle in beer bottles next week.
Then it’s the fun of the annual clean down 😂
I can tell you have the home brew addiction. Quite hard to shake once it sets in.
That problem, of making far too much, is a real headache. I used to make wine from the back garden grapes every year and the batches were too small to avoid spoilage most of the time, but last year I took a small amount from the vineyard to make at home and now have a load of bottles of that I wouldn’t be allowed to sell but will struggle ever to drink through.
Yes, I really enjoy it. The whole process. I used to do it years ago but no rinse cleaning solution is a game changer. I started in lockdown when a work colleague told me about making ginger wine from supermarket root ginger and haven’t looked back.
I’ve also made cider from wild apple trees. There are a few round here even one by where I used to work. My barber has an apple tree and I got a load of apples from him.
Sadly my wife is less tolerant of it so I can only brew in the garage.
YouTube is a great source for info and I have used AI to get recipes as well.
Don't have a lot of time at the moment but I did at least manage one demijohn of blackberry and elderberry wine. In my opinion this is the closest fruit wine you can get to a decent bottle of red wine. (Those notes of blackberry and elderberry tend to be quite strong, for obvious reasons).
Not come across no rinse cleaning solution! Will look into it.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
I give up
There’s a limited audience for your advocacy of “enjoyable anal rape at gunpoint”, tbh.
I am expressing surprise that young women are buying books about this, not saying I personally thrill to the idea. Never liked "the Bakerloo Line", let alone being forced to take it AT GUNPOINT
Is it any wonder these young women have developed mental illnesses and forced them to claim increasing amounts of PIP.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
Leon presents himself to us as a polymath who knows about new trends before the rest of us, so he can't comprehend that he's late to learning about something to the extent that we are all shrugging our shoulders and not sharing his sense of wonder at his new discovery.
Well, if you guys knew all about this, you should have pitched the idea of writing about it, like I just did, and was immediately commissioned by my astonished editors
Thing is, writing articles is your thing, you are good at it and crucially you have the hot like to your editors. If you can sell them a frankly dull story like this, then well done you.
A better solution to this one might be to start installing secure and well-surveilled cycle parking at stations. But Network Rail are only ever interested in doing the utter, utter minimum that they can get away with, unless someone forces their hand.
It's not difficult.
My usual solution is that if I ever travel, even to the shops, I take an e-brompton that I can take with me essentially everywhere.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
Leon presents himself to us as a polymath who knows about new trends before the rest of us, so he can't comprehend that he's late to learning about something to the extent that we are all shrugging our shoulders and not sharing his sense of wonder at his new discovery.
Well, if you guys knew all about this, you should have pitched the idea of writing about it, like I just did, and was immediately commissioned by my astonished editors
You appear to be labouring under a misapprehension that I am envious of you for writing articles for a periodical publication. I am not.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
Leon presents himself to us as a polymath who knows about new trends before the rest of us, so he can't comprehend that he's late to learning about something to the extent that we are all shrugging our shoulders and not sharing his sense of wonder at his new discovery.
Well, if you guys knew all about this, you should have pitched the idea of writing about it, like I just did, and was immediately commissioned by my astonished editors
We don't have your connections and decades of networking within the publishing industry. But even if I had the capabilities I'm not sure that's a subject I'd want to immerse myself in - too queasy. But best of luck with your project.
You can be certain many people living day to day are living a more fulfilling honest life valuing things money cannot buy
For some people, their net worth is how they keep score, how they know that they are winning at life. (After all, once you are living well off the interest on the interest, what else can you do but view it as a number in a game?) Dying rich equalling dying disgraced has gone out of fashion.
I suspect it's part of why taxes are so toxic at the top end- it's not about the value of the money, it's about a sense of the government taking a chunk of their life away.
See also: the power of inheritance tax to scare people, when rationally it's the one time we pay taxes without losing.
Interesting perspective. My parents have been quite frugal. Never earned big money, Labour voters, Dad a PE teacher, Mum worked in local govt, but paid off the mortgage and would never dodge taxes, yet they see inheritance tax as the devil, and are trying to symphonic the money to me and the grandkids before the gift get their hands on 40% of it. They don’t see the kids being taxed heavily on inheritance as them not losing
Yet IHT is effectively a wealth tax and people seem to overwhelmingly support it.
Worse now without the IHT exemptions on businesses and agriculture it's a tax on investment for family run businesses. Indeed, there has been an entirely predictable crash in business investment among small businesses.
I think it's highly unlikely to have had a material effect on small business investment. The seven year rule still applies and, in my family at least, the business gets passed on/sold at retirement.
IHT is a silly tax precisely for this reason.
And yet it is showing up in the data exactly as predicted when Labour removed the exemptions. Just from a human nature perspective if you previously were able to funnel cash into your family business and invest it to pass on tax free but now you aren't the behaviour will naturally change.
I think that will be down to other factors (gestures broadly). I just can't imagine anyone who is not stupid adjusting their business plan because they can't be bothered swerving the 7 year rule.
In that respect, IHT is a tax on rich idiots and therefore a good thing for the economy, opening up demand for people who can actually plan ahead.
Disgusting, wicked scenes in Heaton Park. So depressing.
Now all Yom Kippur services at Manchester synagogues have been cancelled.
For two years we we've had hatred and threats aimed at Jews here - attacks on Jewish people in the street, people defacing memorials to the hostages (see Brighton), people drawing swastikas on the photos of the Bibas children hostages murdered, a rise in anti-semitism as set out in the recent Mordaunt report and plenty of other repellent incidents which shame, which ought to shame, our country - with damn all done about any of it.
And now we're going to get those who did damn all about it display their crocodile tears. It will be a revolting display. But not as revolting as this attack.
When I started a petition to express solidarity with Jews here after October 7th, I got sneered at by one poster here because it didn't have a lot of signatures on it a couple of days after starting it. Well this is what it said:
"There are 271,327 Jews in Britain (according to the 2021 Census). All have been horrified, hurt and saddened by the 7 October massacres in Israel and the taking of 224 hostages. Many will have affected friends and family. Many of us, of different faiths or none, are equally horrified and saddened. We are particularly saddened by the increase in anti-Jewish prejudice and attacks here in Britain since then: verbal, online, the removal or defacement of posters showing the faces and names of the missing hostages, threats to Jewish schools, synagogues and other buildings, Jewish people feeling afraid to express their identity in public and so on. We wish to express our solidarity and friendship with our fellow Britons, our sympathy with what you are feeling. We want to say to them: you are part of us, you are loved and valued and wanted, this is your home, you are safe here and will be protected. You are not alone."
I meant it then. I mean it now. I am glad to have gone on the anti-semitism march that autumn and only sorry that I did not go on the recent one for health reasons. I am ashamed at what we have allowed to develop in our country.
The Edmund Burke quote about why evil triumphs is well known. But this one should be better known: "Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little."
I only hope that those who have been harmed today will be be OK.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
No, I think it's perhaps you that's not getting it.
For example, I'm very claustrophobic, to the extent that I'm almost unable to walk into the most innocuous cave.
But I throughly enjoyed being terrified by watching the movie Descent.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
Leon presents himself to us as a polymath who knows about new trends before the rest of us, so he can't comprehend that he's late to learning about something to the extent that we are all shrugging our shoulders and not sharing his sense of wonder at his new discovery.
Well, if you guys knew all about this, you should have pitched the idea of writing about it, like I just did, and was immediately commissioned by my astonished editors
You appear to be labouring under a misapprehension that I am envious of you for writing articles for a periodical publication. I am not.
lol, fair
Nonetheless, despite being a late-comer and an idiot, I have managed to turn my late-coming idiocy into £500 for 2 hours work, which is nice
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
I give up
There’s a limited audience for your advocacy of “enjoyable anal rape at gunpoint”, tbh.
I am expressing surprise that young women are buying books about this, not saying I personally thrill to the idea. Never liked "the Bakerloo Line", let alone being forced to take it AT GUNPOINT
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
Leon presents himself to us as a polymath who knows about new trends before the rest of us, so he can't comprehend that he's late to learning about something to the extent that we are all shrugging our shoulders and not sharing his sense of wonder at his new discovery.
Well, if you guys knew all about this, you should have pitched the idea of writing about it, like I just did, and was immediately commissioned by my astonished editors
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
Leon presents himself to us as a polymath who knows about new trends before the rest of us, so he can't comprehend that he's late to learning about something to the extent that we are all shrugging our shoulders and not sharing his sense of wonder at his new discovery.
Well, if you guys knew all about this, you should have pitched the idea of writing about it, like I just did, and was immediately commissioned by my astonished editors
You appear to be labouring under a misapprehension that I am envious of you for writing articles for a periodical publication. I am not.
lol, fair
Nonetheless, despite being a late-comer and an idiot, I have managed to turn my late-coming idiocy into £500 for 2 hours work, which is nice
Now on to the next
Oh, I thought you were actually going to write a novel in that genre. Why not?
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
Leon presents himself to us as a polymath who knows about new trends before the rest of us, so he can't comprehend that he's late to learning about something to the extent that we are all shrugging our shoulders and not sharing his sense of wonder at his new discovery.
Well, if you guys knew all about this, you should have pitched the idea of writing about it, like I just did, and was immediately commissioned by my astonished editors
You appear to be labouring under a misapprehension that I am envious of you for writing articles for a periodical publication. I am not.
I'll cheerfully admit a twinge of envy. The paid travel particularly.
A better solution to this one might be to start installing secure and well-surveilled cycle parking at stations. But Network Rail are only ever interested in doing the utter, utter minimum that they can get away with, unless someone forces their hand.
It's not difficult.
My usual solution is that if I ever travel, even to the shops, I take an e-brompton that I can take with me essentially everywhere.
Given we have now got to a situation where the criminals feel totally comfortable turning up with angle grinders and spending minutes cutting through heavy duty bike locks, I am not sure the issue will be solved by more secure bike parking. How do you stop people getting in there, if they turn up on their bike, can they not go into the compound? If they are waving around angle grinders and knives, who is going to stop them? They aren't stealing these bikes under the cover of darkness in a quiet dark corner of the parking lot, they are absolute brazen.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
Leon presents himself to us as a polymath who knows about new trends before the rest of us, so he can't comprehend that he's late to learning about something to the extent that we are all shrugging our shoulders and not sharing his sense of wonder at his new discovery.
Well, if you guys knew all about this, you should have pitched the idea of writing about it, like I just did, and was immediately commissioned by my astonished editors
You appear to be labouring under a misapprehension that I am envious of you for writing articles for a periodical publication. I am not.
lol, fair
Nonetheless, despite being a late-comer and an idiot, I have managed to turn my late-coming idiocy into £500 for 2 hours work, which is nice
Now on to the next
Its a bit like Modern Art. If I tried to exhibit a pile of bricks in an art gallery I'd get laughed at. To the right artist it becomes a huge fee.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
Leon presents himself to us as a polymath who knows about new trends before the rest of us, so he can't comprehend that he's late to learning about something to the extent that we are all shrugging our shoulders and not sharing his sense of wonder at his new discovery.
Well, if you guys knew all about this, you should have pitched the idea of writing about it, like I just did, and was immediately commissioned by my astonished editors
You appear to be labouring under a misapprehension that I am envious of you for writing articles for a periodical publication. I am not.
@Leon , if you are after ideas for American Curiosities, the fundmentalist Bob Jones University in SC I mentioned last night, and their "no interracial dating amongst student" policy which persisted until I think 2002 - and even after it was cancelled they still required a written notification from parents for eg their white son to date a black girl, is worth a look.
There's a lot of cultural rabbit hole around sexual repression to explore there.
They also have a huge collection of European Medieval Art (Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, Jusepe de Ribera etc), and were known to paint out the genitalia of the naked Christ Child. *
What the police need is someone to invent (and really I'm assuming they already have because it is so obvious) some sort of AI cctv viewer that can near-instantly do a binary search for the moment the item of interest appears or disappears, rather than tie up police officers for eight hours checking an eight hour recording from start to finish.
I hope that's not how the police would check such a video. You check the video at the start to identify the stolen bicycle and its location. You check the video at the end to verify that it is indeed no longer there at the end of the video you are searching. Then you check halfway through. Then halfway through the half in which you know the theft happened. And so on. It doesn't take many of these halving checks to reduce the search window from 8 hours to less than a minute.
That is what I meant by binary search. However, I doubt the police have announced this change to save the odd couple of minutes here and there. Possibly there are other time sinks, like submitting the right forms in triplicate to get access to the recording in the first place.
I have absolutely no confidence at all that the police would use a binary search. It's obvious to us (with compsci / maths / data engineering type backgrounds where a binary search is a staple of data processing) but how many of the police would have had that background? Even more so when 20 years ago the way CCTV would have been stored was on tape of some sort and so a binary search is genuinely frustrating as you have to manually move the tape back and forth to the correct spot (think trying to do it on a VHS tape - you're probably as good just watching it from the start at 10x speed) - why and how would anyone have thought to change the procedures...
They don't need to understand it, they just need an app that shows various frames they answer yes or no to until it get's them 20 seconds of footage where the bike is stolen.
What the police need is someone to invent (and really I'm assuming they already have because it is so obvious) some sort of AI cctv viewer that can near-instantly do a binary search for the moment the item of interest appears or disappears, rather than tie up police officers for eight hours checking an eight hour recording from start to finish.
I hope that's not how the police would check such a video. You check the video at the start to identify the stolen bicycle and its location. You check the video at the end to verify that it is indeed no longer there at the end of the video you are searching. Then you check halfway through. Then halfway through the half in which you know the theft happened. And so on. It doesn't take many of these halving checks to reduce the search window from 8 hours to less than a minute.
That is what I meant by binary search. However, I doubt the police have announced this change to save the odd couple of minutes here and there. Possibly there are other time sinks, like submitting the right forms in triplicate to get access to the recording in the first place.
I have absolutely no confidence at all that the police would use a binary search. It's obvious to us (with compsci / maths / data engineering type backgrounds where a binary search is a staple of data processing) but how many of the police would have had that background? Even more so when 20 years ago the way CCTV would have been stored was on tape of some sort and so a binary search is genuinely frustrating as you have to manually move the tape back and forth to the correct spot (think trying to do it on a VHS tape - you're probably as good just watching it from the start at 10x speed) - why and how would anyone have thought to change the procedures...
They don't need to understand it, they just need an app that shows various frames they answer yes or no to until it get's them 20 seconds of footage where the bike is stolen.
Computer vision is at a level now where I can use foundations model (not ChatGPT, specially trained vision models) and give you this information without even needing any human interaction. Is trivial to do now.
19 Sep - 1 Oct, 2,014 respondents (GB) Changes with 15-19 Aug
Two weeks to collect a sample?
More common with an MRP but JL Partners last one was over a fortnight and Ipsos do it over a week usually Irons out any knee jerk reactions (in theory)
A really strange one from Kemi. She does not even explain what she is referring to precisely, never mind link to any actual evidence. Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch 18h Every day under Labour, an extra 1000 people sign on to out of work sickness benefits.
If you’re too weak to fix that, you have no right to increase taxes on people in work.
Louise Murphy, an economist at the Resolution Foundation, points out that approval rates for both face-to-face and remote assessments are largely unchanged since the pandemic. "What has changed is way more people are claiming Pip - the government's own figures show there are around 1,000 new awards made each day," she says.
About 5/6 according to OBR, but it's still not an out-of-work sickness benefit.
(There's a valid question about whether the claims are justified)
All claims are justified every 3 years or sooner. There is a very large form to fill out. I've completed a few and the questions are quite detailed if somewhat intrusive. A lot are rejected by the DWP (poor staff training) but are paid after a visit to a Tribunal and a long delay.
The payments are lawful and justified under the current legislation. If people want it changed then Parliament has to sit down and change the legislation after consultation, impact assessments, reference to linked legislation etc. No-one wants to touch it and Kemi is just making noise as she will be aware of the issue.
She really is a dud.
One would have thought after the blowback Reeves and Starmer received for attacking disabled related benefits, she would steer clear without copper bottomed advice. Suggesting PIP is an out of work benefit suggests she hasn't bothered with any due diligence.
It was Liz Kendall actually and it was simply slowing the rate of growth not cutting the total spent.
When it was said 35% of people would be worse off that simply means the vast majority don’t need the money.
They’re smart enough to know this is not sustainable.
I’d be interested to see similar graphs for other OECD countries.
As I’ve posted before, the UK seems to have set up a system that feels extremely punitive on the striving middle classes (let’s say income earners 60k - 200k) who essentially keep the whole economy going.
It all encourages a society where building wealth is seen as suspect.
Yes, all anti aspirational. Profit is a dirty word. You only have to look at the commentators who scream about the likes of Tesco making a £3 Billion profit implying they are ripping people off.
Bart posts a bit about the cliff edges we have in our tax system and is quite knowledgable about it. It seems extremely punitive.
Also recall that the Tory/Lib Dems took a lot of lowest income earners out of taxation altogether. Which sounded like a nice idea at the time, but it has meant that the burden of tax must fall ever more heavily on the middle class.
And demand for our binds is falling. Latest auction subscription rates down.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
Leon presents himself to us as a polymath who knows about new trends before the rest of us, so he can't comprehend that he's late to learning about something to the extent that we are all shrugging our shoulders and not sharing his sense of wonder at his new discovery.
Well, if you guys knew all about this, you should have pitched the idea of writing about it, like I just did, and was immediately commissioned by my astonished editors
You appear to be labouring under a misapprehension that I am envious of you for writing articles for a periodical publication. I am not.
lol, fair
Nonetheless, despite being a late-comer and an idiot, I have managed to turn my late-coming idiocy into £500 for 2 hours work, which is nice
Now on to the next
Its a bit like Modern Art. If I tried to exhibit a pile of bricks in an art gallery I'd get laughed at. To the right artist it becomes a huge fee.
I've searched for a Guardian article on the rise of Dark Romance, and found not one. Just a single glancing reference in an article about romance fiction in general
You'd think the Guardian would be interested - sociologically - in a highly controversial publishing genre, exploiting female rape fantasies, which is exploding and generating $400m a year in the USA, and now coming to the UK. But not. Odd
Meanwhile the NYT published this, a few days ago. An intro to the genre for its readers:
"Dark Romance Books Are Having a Moment. Here’s Where to Start.
The best-selling author Brynne Weaver recommends novels that dial up the emotional drama for high-stakes payoffs."
So, far from being a passe blundering idiot who only catches up with trends years late, it looks instead like I am bang on point, and perhaps some of you are "exaggerating" your familiarity with this evolution
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
This is not new, if you go read mainstream 'romance' novels from the 70s and 80s (particularly the mass-market stuff published by Mills and Boon or Harlequin) a good chunk of the writers specialised in stories full of behaviour that's wildly unacceptable by today's social norms and was highly dodgy even then, up to and including stalking, kidnapping and rape. But the arsehole 'hero' is handsome, wealthy and drives a low-slung sports car so the woman falls for him anyway.
The readers of the time lapped it up. I suspect the only thing that's changed is this type of tale being separated out into a specific genre, so the publisher can use a dark, foreboding cover and charge a bit more.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
Leon presents himself to us as a polymath who knows about new trends before the rest of us, so he can't comprehend that he's late to learning about something to the extent that we are all shrugging our shoulders and not sharing his sense of wonder at his new discovery.
Well, if you guys knew all about this, you should have pitched the idea of writing about it, like I just did, and was immediately commissioned by my astonished editors
You appear to be labouring under a misapprehension that I am envious of you for writing articles for a periodical publication. I am not.
lol, fair
Nonetheless, despite being a late-comer and an idiot, I have managed to turn my late-coming idiocy into £500 for 2 hours work, which is nice
Now on to the next
Oh, I thought you were actually going to write a novel in that genre. Why not?
My flint editor is encouraging me. She thinks sex toy flints will all be 3D published soon, so why not try this
A really strange one from Kemi. She does not even explain what she is referring to precisely, never mind link to any actual evidence. Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch 18h Every day under Labour, an extra 1000 people sign on to out of work sickness benefits.
If you’re too weak to fix that, you have no right to increase taxes on people in work.
Louise Murphy, an economist at the Resolution Foundation, points out that approval rates for both face-to-face and remote assessments are largely unchanged since the pandemic. "What has changed is way more people are claiming Pip - the government's own figures show there are around 1,000 new awards made each day," she says.
About 5/6 according to OBR, but it's still not an out-of-work sickness benefit.
(There's a valid question about whether the claims are justified)
All claims are justified every 3 years or sooner. There is a very large form to fill out. I've completed a few and the questions are quite detailed if somewhat intrusive. A lot are rejected by the DWP (poor staff training) but are paid after a visit to a Tribunal and a long delay.
The payments are lawful and justified under the current legislation. If people want it changed then Parliament has to sit down and change the legislation after consultation, impact assessments, reference to linked legislation etc. No-one wants to touch it and Kemi is just making noise as she will be aware of the issue.
She really is a dud.
One would have thought after the blowback Reeves and Starmer received for attacking disabled related benefits, she would steer clear without copper bottomed advice. Suggesting PIP is an out of work benefit suggests she hasn't bothered with any due diligence.
It was Liz Kendall actually and it was simply slowing the rate of growth not cutting the total spent.
When it was said 35% of people would be worse off that simply means the vast majority don’t need the money.
They’re smart enough to know this is not sustainable.
I’d be interested to see similar graphs for other OECD countries.
As I’ve posted before, the UK seems to have set up a system that feels extremely punitive on the striving middle classes (let’s say income earners 60k - 200k) who essentially keep the whole economy going.
It all encourages a society where building wealth is seen as suspect.
Yes, all anti aspirational. Profit is a dirty word. You only have to look at the commentators who scream about the likes of Tesco making a £3 Billion profit implying they are ripping people off.
Bart posts a bit about the cliff edges we have in our tax system and is quite knowledgable about it. It seems extremely punitive.
Also recall that the Tory/Lib Dems took a lot of lowest income earners out of taxation altogether. Which sounded like a nice idea at the time, but it has meant that the burden of tax must fall ever more heavily on the middle class.
There was analysis that came out a while back looking at this claim of "largest tax burden" for x years, and at the low end it isn't true, their tax burden isn't up (inflation though obviously hit hard when have little disposal income to start with). Its the middle that have been whacked really hard.
The trope originator is The Sheikh, written by Edith Hull, in 1919. The heroine is kidnapped by an Arab Sheikh, and raped repeatedly by him. She naturally falls in love with her rapist. He wants her to marry him, but he is …. an Arab.
But, it has a happy ending, for eventually it’s revealed that he is really an Englishman, kidnapped by Arabs, as a baby. So, the marriage can go ahead.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
I spent years reading Star Trek fan fiction. I can assure you it never included a rape of any description. It isn't something that crops up often in science-fiction.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
I spent years reading Star Trek fan fiction. I can assure you it never included a rape of any description. It isn't something that crops up often in science-fiction.
A really strange one from Kemi. She does not even explain what she is referring to precisely, never mind link to any actual evidence. Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch 18h Every day under Labour, an extra 1000 people sign on to out of work sickness benefits.
If you’re too weak to fix that, you have no right to increase taxes on people in work.
Louise Murphy, an economist at the Resolution Foundation, points out that approval rates for both face-to-face and remote assessments are largely unchanged since the pandemic. "What has changed is way more people are claiming Pip - the government's own figures show there are around 1,000 new awards made each day," she says.
About 5/6 according to OBR, but it's still not an out-of-work sickness benefit.
(There's a valid question about whether the claims are justified)
All claims are justified every 3 years or sooner. There is a very large form to fill out. I've completed a few and the questions are quite detailed if somewhat intrusive. A lot are rejected by the DWP (poor staff training) but are paid after a visit to a Tribunal and a long delay.
The payments are lawful and justified under the current legislation. If people want it changed then Parliament has to sit down and change the legislation after consultation, impact assessments, reference to linked legislation etc. No-one wants to touch it and Kemi is just making noise as she will be aware of the issue.
She really is a dud.
One would have thought after the blowback Reeves and Starmer received for attacking disabled related benefits, she would steer clear without copper bottomed advice. Suggesting PIP is an out of work benefit suggests she hasn't bothered with any due diligence.
It was Liz Kendall actually and it was simply slowing the rate of growth not cutting the total spent.
When it was said 35% of people would be worse off that simply means the vast majority don’t need the money.
They’re smart enough to know this is not sustainable.
I’d be interested to see similar graphs for other OECD countries.
As I’ve posted before, the UK seems to have set up a system that feels extremely punitive on the striving middle classes (let’s say income earners 60k - 200k) who essentially keep the whole economy going.
It all encourages a society where building wealth is seen as suspect.
Yes, all anti aspirational. Profit is a dirty word. You only have to look at the commentators who scream about the likes of Tesco making a £3 Billion profit implying they are ripping people off.
Bart posts a bit about the cliff edges we have in our tax system and is quite knowledgable about it. It seems extremely punitive.
Also recall that the Tory/Lib Dems took a lot of lowest income earners out of taxation altogether. Which sounded like a nice idea at the time, but it has meant that the burden of tax must fall ever more heavily on the middle class.
And demand for our binds is falling. Latest auction subscription rates down.
You can be certain many people living day to day are living a more fulfilling honest life valuing things money cannot buy
He gives a lot of it to charity with the Musk Foundation.
Musk does not draw a salary and he sold most of his real estate, in favour of spending most of his time in pre fab housing next to Starbase. He has spoken many times of how he views his unrealised net worth number in terms of our economic system’s model of recognising his superior ability to allocate capital / resources and giving him the tools to continue doing so.
19 Sep - 1 Oct, 2,014 respondents (GB) Changes with 15-19 Aug
Doesn't appear that the likes of Beth Rigby have called it right about Starmer's best ever speech and genius of calling Reform racist....
Doesn't the Gold Standard FON poll suggest the opposite re: Con and Lab?
If the data was collected between the 19/9 and 1/10 wouldn't they have missed the Starmer hate speech for the most part?
Not just this poll, but across the range of polls that have come out and the Reform are racist kicked off last weekend. Interestingly the Times journalists in their podcast believe that wasn't actually the plan for the week to be that explicit about Reform, but Starmer stumbled into saying it on the hoof when he felt under pressure to say something and then everybody had to jump on board and back it. They gave other examples in the past where he has done similar.
It sounds like the police response to the attack on the synagogue was commendably rapid and prevented greater loss of life.
Ooh, has something bad happened. I have been racking off and fining my last batches of home made wine today.
I’m guessing the usual suspects on either side will be more interested in the ethnicity of the attacker rather than the victims.
What sort of wine, grape or fruit? And if grape, what variety?
I’m guessing fruit given you’d have had to harvest grapes absurdly early to be already at the racking stage. Blackberry?
I make wine from a few sources
Cartons of fruit juice from the supermarket. That is how I started. Dried fruit such as raisins, dates, sultanas, apricot. Frozen fruit from the supermarket. Fruit I have grown, or bought from the shops. So Rhubarb, banana, apple, ginger.
It have made some kits as well. The red ones I don’t do as I found they lack depth.
I have a small garden and no chance of an allotment for many years so I used to get fruit from a co worker. Now I retired I have started growing rhubarb and strawberries and have a couple of apple trees.
It’s great fun. I enjoy drinking it but I make far too much. I don’t have many spare wine bottles so will bottle in beer bottles next week.
Then it’s the fun of the annual clean down 😂
I can tell you have the home brew addiction. Quite hard to shake once it sets in.
That problem, of making far too much, is a real headache. I used to make wine from the back garden grapes every year and the batches were too small to avoid spoilage most of the time, but last year I took a small amount from the vineyard to make at home and now have a load of bottles of that I wouldn’t be allowed to sell but will struggle ever to drink through.
Yes, I really enjoy it. The whole process. I used to do it years ago but no rinse cleaning solution is a game changer. I started in lockdown when a work colleague told me about making ginger wine from supermarket root ginger and haven’t looked back.
I’ve also made cider from wild apple trees. There are a few round here even one by where I used to work. My barber has an apple tree and I got a load of apples from him.
Sadly my wife is less tolerant of it so I can only brew in the garage.
YouTube is a great source for info and I have used AI to get recipes as well.
Don't have a lot of time at the moment but I did at least manage one demijohn of blackberry and elderberry wine. In my opinion this is the closest fruit wine you can get to a decent bottle of red wine. (Those notes of blackberry and elderberry tend to be quite strong, for obvious reasons).
Not come across no rinse cleaning solution! Will look into it.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
This is not new, if you go read mainstream 'romance' novels from the 70s and 80s (particularly the mass-market stuff published by Mills and Boon or Harlequin) a good chunk of the writers specialised in stories full of behaviour that's wildly unacceptable by today's social norms and was highly dodgy even then, up to and including stalking, kidnapping and rape. But the arsehole 'hero' is handsome, wealthy and drives a low-slung sports car so the woman falls for him anyway.
The readers of the time lapped it up. I suspect the only thing that's changed is this type of tale being separated out into a specific genre, so the publisher can use a dark, foreboding cover and charge a bit more.
Oh for sure. You could argue that the roots go as far back as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. The dark dangerous "hero", perhaps tamed bythe woman
Also Beauty and the Beast, what is that about if not Dark Romance? She literally tames the male beast
Dark Romance is pretty wild tho, there is one where the "hero" is a leader of the KKK, and yet the book is highly popular
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
I spent years reading Star Trek fan fiction. I can assure you it never included a rape of any description. It isn't something that crops up often in science-fiction.
In the Dr Who story Time meddler there is an implication a character, Alethea Charltons IiRC, suffered such a fate.
19 Sep - 1 Oct, 2,014 respondents (GB) Changes with 15-19 Aug
Doesn't appear that the likes of Beth Rigby have called it right about Starmer's best ever speech and genius of calling Reform racist....
Dan Hodges got it right imo when he said it was Starmer's best speech and he'll be gone as leader within months anyway.
The Times journalists all seemed to believe its not if, its when (even post speech) and that a range of unnamed ministers were after a few beverages open about that is how they felt as well.
You can be certain many people living day to day are living a more fulfilling honest life valuing things money cannot buy
He gives a lot of it to charity with the Musk Foundation.
Musk does not draw a salary and he sold most of his real estate, in favour of spending most of his time in pre fab housing next to Starbase. He has spoken many times of how he views his unrealised net worth number in terms of our economic system’s model of recognising his superior ability to allocate capital / resources and giving him the tools to continue doing so.
I believe that was a fake news story that got out of hand. Its something like yes he bought a prefab pod to try what they were like out of interest, but no he doesn't live in it permanently or even most of the time.
And two more months of suppressed economic activity for UK Plc whilst businesses and individuals suspend investment and spending decisions whilst they await the latest clobber.
In this captivating retelling of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” Aurelia is a disgraced celebrity whose plane crashes in the remote Canadian wilderness, leaving her the sole survivor. Instead of three bears, however, she finds three brutal, reclusive mountain men — and she doesn’t have to choose just one bed. “Crucible” is the first book in Reid’s self-published Men of the Wilds duology, which was recently picked up by Bloom Books and will be getting a mainstream rerelease early next year.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
I spent years reading Star Trek fan fiction. I can assure you it never included a rape of any description. It isn't something that crops up often in science-fiction.
And two more months of suppressed economic activity for UK Plc whilst businesses and individuals suspend investment and spending decisions whilst they await the latest clobber.
This lot are utterly clueless.
Remember Reeves did exactly the same when they came into power, dragged it out, rather than rapid budget to set up the financial regime for the parliament. And then only to reversing cuts to things like the super computer, new hospital construction and road building after 12 months. What was the excuse this time given for having such a late budget?
Its like they hadn't done any homework before getting into power....
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
This is not new, if you go read mainstream 'romance' novels from the 70s and 80s (particularly the mass-market stuff published by Mills and Boon or Harlequin) a good chunk of the writers specialised in stories full of behaviour that's wildly unacceptable by today's social norms and was highly dodgy even then, up to and including stalking, kidnapping and rape. But the arsehole 'hero' is handsome, wealthy and drives a low-slung sports car so the woman falls for him anyway.
The readers of the time lapped it up. I suspect the only thing that's changed is this type of tale being separated out into a specific genre, so the publisher can use a dark, foreboding cover and charge a bit more.
Oh for sure. You could argue that the roots go as far back as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. The dark dangerous "hero", perhaps tamed bythe woman
Also Beauty and the Beast, what is that about if not Dark Romance? She literally tames the male beast
Dark Romance is pretty wild tho, there is one where the "hero" is a leader of the KKK, and yet the book is highly popular
“Dark fiction is having a moment, but it’s nothing new” seems to be a more interesting angle. The gist of any article exploring a trendy phenomenon, particularly if it’s a rather unpleasant one, is either “eek, the world is in a dark place, why are people doing this scary thing” or “actually there’s nothing new under the sun, here’s why this trend has lots of antecents that will surprise you”.
I hope the angle here isn’t going to be some sort of Andrew Tate style call to action.
Isn’t the problem with PIP simply that the costs seem to escalate exponentially?
Are people in the UK becoming increasingly sickly and disabled?
Something is wrong, surely.
An epidemic of laziness disguised as anxiety and depression, is the reality.
The modern version of the ‘bad back’
I've posted on this before but the figures are stark. Of Baths new intake of students (maybe 4000?) over 1000 have already declared a disability.
Yep, 1 in 4 of our mostly 18 year olds is 'disabled'.
Its bullshit, all of it.
(Apart from the one with the wheelchair, obv.)
LOL. I've just remembered that when I started my chemistry degree I was on large doses of valium to suppress a hand tremor. Would that have counted? (And btw, what sort of idiot wants to handle beakers of acid with a hand tremor? Still, it was chemistry or brain surgery.)
You can be certain many people living day to day are living a more fulfilling honest life valuing things money cannot buy
He gives a lot of it to charity with the Musk Foundation.
Musk does not draw a salary and he sold most of his real estate, in favour of spending most of his time in pre fab housing next to Starbase. He has spoken many times of how he views his unrealised net worth number in terms of our economic system’s model of recognising his superior ability to allocate capital / resources and giving him the tools to continue doing so.
Afternoon, P.B.
It's much a similar sort of thinking here to Thiel, who considers himself the intellectual.elite. But Thiiel spends more of his unused wealth on preparing for the breakdown of democracy on earth, buying up land in New Zealand. Musk is more focused on Mars, like his dictatorial namesake in Von Braun's book.
In this captivating retelling of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” Aurelia is a disgraced celebrity whose plane crashes in the remote Canadian wilderness, leaving her the sole survivor. Instead of three bears, however, she finds three brutal, reclusive mountain men — and she doesn’t have to choose just one bed. “Crucible” is the first book in Reid’s self-published Men of the Wilds duology, which was recently picked up by Bloom Books and will be getting a mainstream rerelease early next year.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
Leon presents himself to us as a polymath who knows about new trends before the rest of us, so he can't comprehend that he's late to learning about something to the extent that we are all shrugging our shoulders and not sharing his sense of wonder at his new discovery.
Well, if you guys knew all about this, you should have pitched the idea of writing about it, like I just did, and was immediately commissioned by my astonished editors
You appear to be labouring under a misapprehension that I am envious of you for writing articles for a periodical publication. I am not.
lol, fair
Nonetheless, despite being a late-comer and an idiot, I have managed to turn my late-coming idiocy into £500 for 2 hours work, which is nice
Now on to the next
Oh, I thought you were actually going to write a novel in that genre. Why not?
My flint editor is encouraging me. She thinks sex toy flints will all be 3D published soon, so why not try this
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
Leon presents himself to us as a polymath who knows about new trends before the rest of us, so he can't comprehend that he's late to learning about something to the extent that we are all shrugging our shoulders and not sharing his sense of wonder at his new discovery.
Well, if you guys knew all about this, you should have pitched the idea of writing about it, like I just did, and was immediately commissioned by my astonished editors
You appear to be labouring under a misapprehension that I am envious of you for writing articles for a periodical publication. I am not.
lol, fair
Nonetheless, despite being a late-comer and an idiot, I have managed to turn my late-coming idiocy into £500 for 2 hours work, which is nice
Now on to the next
You are just weird. Maybe none of us did it because, now let me guess, we are not writers. Just think about all the other things you rant about and do nothing about. Well that is mainly because you are not a policeman, or politician, or whatever it may be you need to be to do something about it. You do what you do, which is write. We don't because we aren't writers who earn a crust doing it. But many on here, for instance, do get involved in politics rather than just ranting about it. They do that. They do do something. Often a lot.
And of course it is also because often we don't care, aren't interested, etc on something you have just found out about). It isn't because we don't know something. Some of us usually do (eg mice community experiments, tick medicine on dogs, etc).
I can't remember the number of times you come here with revelations of stuff you have just found out about and then assume none of us know about it. But guess what, a significant subset of us usually do.
You also live in a world where you think we are all envious of your travels and your freebies (or getting £500 for 2 hours work). Some might be, but most aren't. Most of us wouldn't swap our lives for yours. We prefer family and local community and our boring hobbies and usually hate airport terminals (with a passion), that on occasions we have to put up with.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
I spent years reading Star Trek fan fiction. I can assure you it never included a rape of any description. It isn't something that crops up often in science-fiction.
The roots of fanfiction are gay, as it started to become a thing in the 1960’s, when gay and lesbian characters were portrayed as villains or comic relief, in mainstream literature.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
I spent years reading Star Trek fan fiction. I can assure you it never included a rape of any description. It isn't something that crops up often in science-fiction.
In this captivating retelling of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” Aurelia is a disgraced celebrity whose plane crashes in the remote Canadian wilderness, leaving her the sole survivor. Instead of three bears, however, she finds three brutal, reclusive mountain men — and she doesn’t have to choose just one bed. “Crucible” is the first book in Reid’s self-published Men of the Wilds duology, which was recently picked up by Bloom Books and will be getting a mainstream rerelease early next year.
"Teenager shot dead in US 'after being mistaken for a squirrel' Carson Ryan is said to have been accidentally shot in the back of the head while hunting squirrels in Iowa. An investigation is under way."
You can be certain many people living day to day are living a more fulfilling honest life valuing things money cannot buy
He gives a lot of it to charity with the Musk Foundation.
Musk does not draw a salary and he sold most of his real estate, in favour of spending most of his time in pre fab housing next to Starbase. He has spoken many times of how he views his unrealised net worth number in terms of our economic system’s model of recognising his superior ability to allocate capital / resources and giving him the tools to continue doing so.
I believe that was a fake news story that got out of hand. Its something like yes he bought a prefab pod to try what they were like out of interest, but no he doesn't live in it permanently or even most of the time.
He has spoken many times about the sorrow of selling Gene Wilder’s house but how he felt it had to be done, as he got so fed up with the accusations that he was just a rich playboy, when he works 100+ hour weeks. I have seen him speak on video podcasts multiple times from said pre-fab housing.
This is not to say he does not enjoy some of the trappings of wealth, that his family (which is large and fragmented) live in a shoe or that he hitchhikes across the country rather than fly in a private jet.
But it should be very clear to anyone that’s studied Musk that he does not do what he does for the material trappings. He does it because he is drawn to solving very hard problems, particularly those that he thinks will benefit humanity, and ultimately to generate sufficient capital to make humans multi planetary.
Warts and all, he is the most misunderstood figure of our age.
A really strange one from Kemi. She does not even explain what she is referring to precisely, never mind link to any actual evidence. Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch 18h Every day under Labour, an extra 1000 people sign on to out of work sickness benefits.
If you’re too weak to fix that, you have no right to increase taxes on people in work.
Louise Murphy, an economist at the Resolution Foundation, points out that approval rates for both face-to-face and remote assessments are largely unchanged since the pandemic. "What has changed is way more people are claiming Pip - the government's own figures show there are around 1,000 new awards made each day," she says.
About 5/6 according to OBR, but it's still not an out-of-work sickness benefit.
(There's a valid question about whether the claims are justified)
All claims are justified every 3 years or sooner. There is a very large form to fill out. I've completed a few and the questions are quite detailed if somewhat intrusive. A lot are rejected by the DWP (poor staff training) but are paid after a visit to a Tribunal and a long delay.
The payments are lawful and justified under the current legislation. If people want it changed then Parliament has to sit down and change the legislation after consultation, impact assessments, reference to linked legislation etc. No-one wants to touch it and Kemi is just making noise as she will be aware of the issue.
She really is a dud.
One would have thought after the blowback Reeves and Starmer received for attacking disabled related benefits, she would steer clear without copper bottomed advice. Suggesting PIP is an out of work benefit suggests she hasn't bothered with any due diligence.
It was Liz Kendall actually and it was simply slowing the rate of growth not cutting the total spent.
When it was said 35% of people would be worse off that simply means the vast majority don’t need the money.
They’re smart enough to know this is not sustainable.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
Leon presents himself to us as a polymath who knows about new trends before the rest of us, so he can't comprehend that he's late to learning about something to the extent that we are all shrugging our shoulders and not sharing his sense of wonder at his new discovery.
Well, if you guys knew all about this, you should have pitched the idea of writing about it, like I just did, and was immediately commissioned by my astonished editors
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
I spent years reading Star Trek fan fiction. I can assure you it never included a rape of any description. It isn't something that crops up often in science-fiction.
The roots of fanfiction are gay, as it started to become a thing in the 1960’s, when gay and lesbian characters were portrayed as villains or comic relief, in mainstream literature.
I was under the impression that modern Slash was generally viewed to have come out of heterosexual female Star Trek fans who wanted to get off on Kirk and Spock getting it on.
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
Leon presents himself to us as a polymath who knows about new trends before the rest of us, so he can't comprehend that he's late to learning about something to the extent that we are all shrugging our shoulders and not sharing his sense of wonder at his new discovery.
Well, if you guys knew all about this, you should have pitched the idea of writing about it, like I just did, and was immediately commissioned by my astonished editors
You appear to be labouring under a misapprehension that I am envious of you for writing articles for a periodical publication. I am not.
lol, fair
Nonetheless, despite being a late-comer and an idiot, I have managed to turn my late-coming idiocy into £500 for 2 hours work, which is nice
Now on to the next
You are just weird. Maybe none of us did it because, now let me guess, we are not writers. Just think about all the other things you rant about and do nothing about. Well that is mainly because you are not a policeman, or politician, or whatever it may be you need to be to do something about it. You do what you do, which is write. We don't because we aren't writers who earn a crust doing it. But many on here, for instance, do get involved in politics rather than just ranting about it. They do that. They do do something. Often a lot.
And of course it is also because often we don't care, aren't interested, etc on something you have just found out about). It isn't because we don't know something. Some of us usually do (eg mice community experiments, tick medicine on dogs, etc).
I can't remember the number of times you come here with revelations of stuff you have just found out about and then assume none of us know about it. But guess what, a significant subset of us usually do.
You also live in a world where you think we are all envious of your travels and your freebies (or getting £500 for 2 hours work). Some might be, but most aren't. Most of us wouldn't swap our lives for yours. We prefer family and local community and our boring hobbies and usually hate airport terminals (with a passion), that on occasions we have to put up with.
You're still bitter about the whole mice thing
TBH actually I'm a bit bored of my travels now. I've done Austria, Scotland, Sardinia, Naples in quick succession, in one month, and now I am off to America in two days, and.... I really wish I wasn't. I'd quite like to sit back and enjoy my ludicrously gay new flat
However, off I go - and then I stop
Of course after a month of sitting still I'll be desperate to move again. What it is to have a restless spirit
And two more months of suppressed economic activity for UK Plc whilst businesses and individuals suspend investment and spending decisions whilst they await the latest clobber.
This lot are utterly clueless.
Remember Reeves did exactly the same when they came into power, dragged it out, rather than rapid budget to set up the financial regime for the parliament. And then only to reversing cuts to things like the super computer, new hospital construction and road building after 12 months. What was the excuse this time given for having such a late budget?
Its like they hadn't done any homework before getting into power....
These morons don't understand that no decision, or a delayed decision, is also a decision.
"Teenager shot dead in US 'after being mistaken for a squirrel' Carson Ryan is said to have been accidentally shot in the back of the head while hunting squirrels in Iowa. An investigation is under way."
Tesla (TSLA) reported blowout third quarter global deliveries, as the expiration of the $7,500 federal tax credit in the US likely juiced sales.
Tesla said Q3 deliveries came in at 497,099, easily topping Bloomberg consensus estimates of around 439,800 and the 462,890 units delivered a year ago. Tesla said Q3's total was a new quarterly record for the company.
"Teenager shot dead in US 'after being mistaken for a squirrel' Carson Ryan is said to have been accidentally shot in the back of the head while hunting squirrels in Iowa. An investigation is under way."
A measure of the dreadful position the Tories have found themselves. The 20% with Focaldata is their first 20% score with a BPC pollster (therefore discounting Lord Ashcroft) that isn't More In Common since June 11th with Survation
A really strange one from Kemi. She does not even explain what she is referring to precisely, never mind link to any actual evidence. Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch 18h Every day under Labour, an extra 1000 people sign on to out of work sickness benefits.
If you’re too weak to fix that, you have no right to increase taxes on people in work.
Louise Murphy, an economist at the Resolution Foundation, points out that approval rates for both face-to-face and remote assessments are largely unchanged since the pandemic. "What has changed is way more people are claiming Pip - the government's own figures show there are around 1,000 new awards made each day," she says.
About 5/6 according to OBR, but it's still not an out-of-work sickness benefit.
(There's a valid question about whether the claims are justified)
All claims are justified every 3 years or sooner. There is a very large form to fill out. I've completed a few and the questions are quite detailed if somewhat intrusive. A lot are rejected by the DWP (poor staff training) but are paid after a visit to a Tribunal and a long delay.
The payments are lawful and justified under the current legislation. If people want it changed then Parliament has to sit down and change the legislation after consultation, impact assessments, reference to linked legislation etc. No-one wants to touch it and Kemi is just making noise as she will be aware of the issue.
She really is a dud.
One would have thought after the blowback Reeves and Starmer received for attacking disabled related benefits, she would steer clear without copper bottomed advice. Suggesting PIP is an out of work benefit suggests she hasn't bothered with any due diligence.
It was Liz Kendall actually and it was simply slowing the rate of growth not cutting the total spent.
When it was said 35% of people would be worse off that simply means the vast majority don’t need the money.
They’re smart enough to know this is not sustainable.
Tesla (TSLA) reported blowout third quarter global deliveries, as the expiration of the $7,500 federal tax credit in the US likely juiced sales.
Tesla said Q3 deliveries came in at 497,099, easily topping Bloomberg consensus estimates of around 439,800 and the 462,890 units delivered a year ago. Tesla said Q3's total was a new quarterly record for the company.
Tesla stock was up 3% in early trade.
If you couldn't negotaite a crushing discount under their current circumstances...
Tesla (TSLA) reported blowout third quarter global deliveries, as the expiration of the $7,500 federal tax credit in the US likely juiced sales.
Tesla said Q3 deliveries came in at 497,099, easily topping Bloomberg consensus estimates of around 439,800 and the 462,890 units delivered a year ago. Tesla said Q3's total was a new quarterly record for the company.
Tesla stock was up 3% in early trade.
If you couldn't negotaite a crushing discount under their current circumstances...
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
I spent years reading Star Trek fan fiction. I can assure you it never included a rape of any description. It isn't something that crops up often in science-fiction.
The roots of fanfiction are gay, as it started to become a thing in the 1960’s, when gay and lesbian characters were portrayed as villains or comic relief, in mainstream literature.
I was under the impression that modern Slash was generally viewed to have come out of heterosexual female Star Trek fans who wanted to get off on Kirk and Spock getting it on.
I’m told m/m fiction and porn is actually quite popular with women, but it gets 1% of the attention of the opposite.
"Teenager shot dead in US 'after being mistaken for a squirrel' Carson Ryan is said to have been accidentally shot in the back of the head while hunting squirrels in Iowa. An investigation is under way."
One of the most popular new genres in fiction is "Dark Romance". Which is a euphemistic name for "rape fantasy fiction". Yes
Entire novels which are centred around the idea of a villainous "hero" taking, without consent, or with very very blurred consent, the heroine.. Often the "hero" is an actual criminal, often he kidnaps the woman, sometimes there is quite a lot of violence towards the woman
It's being bought by the shedload, in America, Germany, Scandinavia, and increasingly Britain. Who is buying it? Women
Didn't you hear about Gillian Anderson's book, Want?
What rock have you been under?
You Yes, I know that book. It's in the tradition of Nancy Friday and Shere Hite - a non fiction analysis of female sex desires and fantasies
I am talking about fiction. Topping the bestseller lists, which is all about rape, by stalkers, murderers, Mafia bosses. And women are buying it
Here's the weird thing, fiction about serial killers is really popular among the 99.99% of us who are potential victims, rather than serial killers.
This is a weird thing which goes back to the beginning of recorded history, and most likely before that.
You're not really getting this, are you?
These are books about rape of young women, where the young woman is often violently abused - choked, tied up, assaulted at gunpoint, knifed, spat on, you get the idea - and then the woman falls in love with the guy that did this. And he's a serial killer, gangster, psycho. Actual psychos
And the people buying this? Young women
I'm not quite sure what your point is though? Lots of people read thrillers without ever wanting that to happen to them. Lots of people like horror films.
I spent years reading Star Trek fan fiction. I can assure you it never included a rape of any description. It isn't something that crops up often in science-fiction.
The roots of fanfiction are gay, as it started to become a thing in the 1960’s, when gay and lesbian characters were portrayed as villains or comic relief, in mainstream literature.
I was under the impression that modern Slash was generally viewed to have come out of heterosexual female Star Trek fans who wanted to get off on Kirk and Spock getting it on.
I’m told m/m fiction and porn is actually quite popular with women, but it gets 1% of the attention of the opposite.
Comments
Well, if you guys knew all about this, you should have pitched the idea of writing about it, like I just did, and was immediately commissioned by my astonished editors
I’ve also made cider from wild apple trees. There are a few round here even one by where I used to work. My barber has an apple tree and I got a load of apples from him.
Sadly my wife is less tolerant of it so I can only brew in the garage.
YouTube is a great source for info and I have used AI to get recipes as well.
One issue of course is that all da yutt just where balacarvas walking around these days. So even if it the computer gives you the time stamp all you will likely see is some eye peeking out from a black hood.
Not come across no rinse cleaning solution! Will look into it.
It's not difficult.
My usual solution is that if I ever travel, even to the shops, I take an e-brompton that I can take with me essentially everywhere.
In that respect, IHT is a tax on rich idiots and therefore a good thing for the economy, opening up demand for people who can actually plan ahead.
For two years we we've had hatred and threats aimed at Jews here - attacks on Jewish people in the street, people defacing memorials to the hostages (see Brighton), people drawing swastikas on the photos of the Bibas children hostages murdered, a rise in anti-semitism as set out in the recent Mordaunt report and plenty of other repellent incidents which shame, which ought to shame, our country - with damn all done about any of it.
And now we're going to get those who did damn all about it display their crocodile tears. It will be a revolting display. But not as revolting as this attack.
When I started a petition to express solidarity with Jews here after October 7th, I got sneered at by one poster here because it didn't have a lot of signatures on it a couple of days after starting it. Well this is what it said:
"There are 271,327 Jews in Britain (according to the 2021 Census). All have been horrified, hurt and saddened by the 7 October massacres in Israel and the taking of 224 hostages. Many will have affected friends and family.
Many of us, of different faiths or none, are equally horrified and saddened. We are particularly saddened by the increase in anti-Jewish prejudice and attacks here in Britain since then: verbal, online, the removal or defacement of posters showing the faces and names of the missing hostages, threats to Jewish schools, synagogues and other buildings, Jewish people feeling afraid to express their identity in public and so on.
We wish to express our solidarity and friendship with our fellow Britons, our sympathy with what you are feeling. We want to say to them: you are part of us, you are loved and valued and wanted, this is your home, you are safe here and will be protected. You are not alone."
I meant it then. I mean it now. I am glad to have gone on the anti-semitism march that autumn and only sorry that I did not go on the recent one for health reasons. I am ashamed at what we have allowed to develop in our country.
The Edmund Burke quote about why evil triumphs is well known. But this one should be better known: "Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little."
I only hope that those who have been harmed today will be be OK.
For example, I'm very claustrophobic, to the extent that I'm almost unable to walk into the most innocuous cave.
But I throughly enjoyed being terrified by watching the movie Descent.
Nonetheless, despite being a late-comer and an idiot, I have managed to turn my late-coming idiocy into £500 for 2 hours work, which is nice
Now on to the next
The paid travel particularly.
NEW: Westminster voting intention
🟣 RFM: 29% (-)
🔴 LAB: 21% (-3)
🔵 CON: 20% (+2)
🟠 LDM: 14% (-)
🟢 GRN: 10% (+2)
19 Sep - 1 Oct, 2,014 respondents (GB)
Changes with 15-19 Aug
There's a lot of cultural rabbit hole around sexual repression to explore there.
They also have a huge collection of European Medieval Art (Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, Jusepe de Ribera etc), and were known to paint out the genitalia of the naked Christ Child. *
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Jones_University_Museum_&_Gallery
* Attested example: St. Francis Receiving the Christ Child from the Virgin, a large altarpiece by Denys Calvaert.
Recovering From Modesty: A Response to the Alteration of An Old Master At Bob Jones University Museum & Gallery
https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/1826/
Irons out any knee jerk reactions (in theory)
https://x.com/mrmbrown/status/1973675492340563993?s=61
You'd think the Guardian would be interested - sociologically - in a highly controversial publishing genre, exploiting female rape fantasies, which is exploding and generating $400m a year in the USA, and now coming to the UK. But not. Odd
Meanwhile the NYT published this, a few days ago. An intro to the genre for its readers:
"Dark Romance Books Are Having a Moment. Here’s Where to Start.
The best-selling author Brynne Weaver recommends novels that dial up the emotional drama for high-stakes payoffs."
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/books/dark-romance-books-brynne-weaver.html
Also, the Bookseller magazine published this TODAY:
"Publishing is in denial about dark romance"
https://www.thebookseller.com/comment/publishing-is-in-denial-about-dark-romance
So, far from being a passe blundering idiot who only catches up with trends years late, it looks instead like I am bang on point, and perhaps some of you are "exaggerating" your familiarity with this evolution
The readers of the time lapped it up. I suspect the only thing that's changed is this type of tale being separated out into a specific genre, so the publisher can use a dark, foreboding cover and charge a bit more.
https://andrewspreviews.substack.com/p/previewing-the-five-local-by-elections-cd5
If the data was collected between the 19/9 and 1/10 wouldn't they have missed the Starmer hate speech for the most part?
The trope originator is The Sheikh, written by Edith Hull, in 1919. The heroine is kidnapped by an Arab Sheikh, and raped repeatedly by him. She naturally falls in love with her rapist. He wants her to marry him, but he is …. an Arab.
But, it has a happy ending, for eventually it’s revealed that he is really an Englishman, kidnapped by Arabs, as a baby. So, the marriage can go ahead.
It was hugely popular with young women.
Also Beauty and the Beast, what is that about if not Dark Romance? She literally tames the male beast
Dark Romance is pretty wild tho, there is one where the "hero" is a leader of the KKK, and yet the book is highly popular
This lot are utterly clueless.
Crucible
by B.B. Reid
In this captivating retelling of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” Aurelia is a disgraced celebrity whose plane crashes in the remote Canadian wilderness, leaving her the sole survivor. Instead of three bears, however, she finds three brutal, reclusive mountain men — and she doesn’t have to choose just one bed. “Crucible” is the first book in Reid’s self-published Men of the Wilds duology, which was recently picked up by Bloom Books and will be getting a mainstream rerelease early next year.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15155657/Former-Syrian-president-Bashar-Assad-hospitalised-poisoning-assassination-attempt-respected-rights-group-says.html
Its like they hadn't done any homework before getting into power....
I hope the angle here isn’t going to be some sort of Andrew Tate style call to action.
It's much a similar sort of thinking here to Thiel, who considers himself the intellectual.elite. But Thiiel spends more of his unused wealth on preparing for the breakdown of democracy on earth, buying up land in New Zealand. Musk is more focused on Mars, like his dictatorial namesake in Von Braun's book.
And of course it is also because often we don't care, aren't interested, etc on something you have just found out about). It isn't because we don't know something. Some of us usually do (eg mice community experiments, tick medicine on dogs, etc).
I can't remember the number of times you come here with revelations of stuff you have just found out about and then assume none of us know about it. But guess what, a significant subset of us usually do.
You also live in a world where you think we are all envious of your travels and your freebies (or getting £500 for 2 hours work). Some might be, but most aren't. Most of us wouldn't swap our lives for yours. We prefer family and local community and our boring hobbies and usually hate airport terminals (with a passion), that on occasions we have to put up with.
The Buffy slash fiction was quite the eye opener but the best slash fiction involved The Winchester Brothers from Supernatural.
Don't consume 10000 calories of Haribos after tea.
Barnsley lorry driver buys bumper bag of Haribo and ends up in hospital
https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/barnsley-lorry-driver-buys-bumper-32591607#ICID=Android_HuddersfieldExaminerNewsApp_AppShare
It’s a mental health issue according to Sky.
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1973717010216538154?s=61
Very sad.
Carson Ryan is said to have been accidentally shot in the back of the head while hunting squirrels in Iowa. An investigation is under way."
https://news.sky.com/story/teenager-shot-dead-after-being-mistaken-for-a-squirrel-13442641
This is not to say he does not enjoy some of the trappings of wealth, that his family (which is large and fragmented) live in a shoe or that he hitchhikes across the country rather than fly in a private jet.
But it should be very clear to anyone that’s studied Musk that he does not do what he does for the material trappings. He does it because he is drawn to solving very hard problems, particularly those that he thinks will benefit humanity, and ultimately to generate sufficient capital to make humans multi planetary.
Warts and all, he is the most misunderstood figure of our age.
Because the Insititute for Fiscal Studies has a very different number for people of working age: https://ifs.org.uk/sites/default/files/output_url_files/BN249.pdf
They have just 13% of working age households being net recipients of benefits (i.e. recieve more in benefits than they pay in taxes).
A couple of Dulcolax gets the kids dropped off at the pool. Albeit with some initial pain.
TBH actually I'm a bit bored of my travels now. I've done Austria, Scotland, Sardinia, Naples in quick succession, in one month, and now I am off to America in two days, and.... I really wish I wasn't. I'd quite like to sit back and enjoy my ludicrously gay new flat
However, off I go - and then I stop
Of course after a month of sitting still I'll be desperate to move again. What it is to have a restless spirit
Tesla said Q3 deliveries came in at 497,099, easily topping Bloomberg consensus estimates of around 439,800 and the 462,890 units delivered a year ago. Tesla said Q3's total was a new quarterly record for the company.
Tesla stock was up 3% in early trade.
https://x.com/rcolvile/status/1971223225263849585?s=61
Britain will be forced into a cashless society – and Labour stupidity is to blame" (£)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/02/why-britain-will-soon-be-cashless/
Cash is only used by tax dodgers and criminals.
The govt confirmed the ILR change, once legislated, will apply to the Boriswave.