Konstantin Kisin delivers a master class…
… in calmly ripping an interviewer a new orifice. Behold and enjoy.
View ArticleHot news
Honestly, I kind of like The Rings of Power. It’s slow, and the evident fact that there must have been an episode of ethnic cleansing in the Shire at some point between the era of TROP and that of The...
View Article--- Article Not Found! ---
*** *** *** RSSing Note: Article is missing! We don't know where we put it!!. *** ***
View ArticleClik here to view.
Let’s make all crimes legal over Christmas
Remember this movie? One night a year, all crime is legal. THE PURGE Survive the night. According to Wikipedia, The Purge posits that ‘In 2014, a political party called the “New Founding Fathers of...
View ArticleAn industry that despises its customers, and I don’t mean Hollywood
I shall miss the Times. My subscription only has a few weeks left to run. I cancelled it because it is no longer permitted to comment under a pseudonym. Will I still see interesting little stories like...
View ArticleThe commoners go off script
MARULLUS: Be gone! Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, Pray to the gods to intermit the plague That needs must light on this ingratitude. FLAVIUS: Go, go, good countrymen, and for this fault...
View ArticleForget the Maxim gun, deploy the adjectives!
“Empires were built on exploitation – and adjectives” claims the Guardian‘s Lucy Mangan. Here is the article in which she does it: “Joanna Lumley’s Spice Trail Adventure review – a deeply problematic...
View ArticleN star star star star, not N star star star star star
Either the Independent‘s “Race Correspondent” (who, to add to the comedy, is called Nadine White) has written a report almost designed to be misunderstood, or she is a satirist of genius. I present to...
View ArticleHow to break world-building in fiction
Here is a rant about how “current day” ideas injected anachronistically into science fiction spoils things a little. He is certainly very animated, but he does not quite hit the nail on the head. I...
View ArticleSamizdata quote of the day – friends don’t let friends PUG
Call of Duty (CoD), a video game series published by Activision, has jumped into the murky waters of AI-powered censorship after revealing a new partnership with AI voice moderation tool Modulate...
View ArticleSamizdata quote of the day – Ouch!
Disney used to touch our hearts, now they touch us inappropriately – “Just a turtle“
View ArticleSamizdata quote of the day – the culture wars, sporting edition
My stance on this is Bill Burr’s. I’ll take it seriously when women fans show up. The men’s game is subsiding the sport with my money. Not that anyone asked my permission. I’ve done more than enough...
View ArticleKeeping you safe from travelling on the Hogwarts Express
“End of the line? Harry Potter train waits for ruling on Hogwarts route”, reports the BBC. Steam journeys on the Harry Potter railway line could grind to a halt if a challenge to safety rules fails....
View ArticleSamizdata quote of the day – from anti-authoritarian to bootlicker
The sad thing is that the character of the Doctor used to represent a distinctively British kind of amateur anti-authoritarianism. He took on the might of the Daleks with the equivalent of a...
View ArticleAny Sympathy for the Devil? A review of ‘The Stones and Brian Jones’ (2023)
Douglas Young asks “Any Sympathy for the Devil?” A review of the documentary The Stones and Brian Jones (2023) With The Stones and Brian Jones, veteran English documentarian Nick Broomfield weaves a...
View ArticleMarvellously melodic but mercurial: a review of Philip Norman’s George...
Douglas Young reviews George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle How swell to at last have a major biography of that most aloof of all rock stars, George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle, by respected pop...
View ArticleSamizdata quote of the day – woke and anti-woke
Too often the culture war is misconceived as a conflict between Left and Right, with “woke” aligned with the former and “anti-woke” with the latter, but “wokeness” carries with it the kind of clout...
View ArticleSamizdata quote of the day – dull UK “satire” edition
“Banksy is a billboard, promoting a product, and a set of ideas, that are as ubiquitous as Coca-Cola and as dangerous as Greggs. We need a new set of discordant voices, able to articulate ideas that...
View ArticleHugone awry
I felt old reading this article by Adam Morgan of Esquire magazine. For a while some thirty years ago, the terms “Worldcon” and “Hugo” were part of my daily life. What happened to them? Inside the...
View Article“My third leg can be flexible and unbending”
This catchy Chinese-language song “People of the Dragon” by Malaysian filmmaker and recording artist Namewee has had 7.5 million views since it was posted two weeks ago. For centuries the Chinese have...
View Article