Not sure there's a better critique of David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs than If Books Could Kill doing an hour long episode and spending maybe 40% of it riffing on speed runners because there's so little to discuss.
"You're in Dubai, aren't you scared?"
"Yes, because I know who won't protect us."
You fucked up a perfectly good Clippy is what you did. Look at it, it's got anxiety.
Yeah, but you have to remember an Irish 10 is a French 6
Rumors, because you get to watch your ex perform it.
Unclear, would need to check the paperwork.
You can't move in Hull and Wakefield for people chanting "Javid Shah!" And "Barakat Pahlavi." They talk about nothing else in the Wigan Bazaar Hall, just endless debate about who Reza might nominate for his first cabinet.
Can't believe they're still angry about Suez
God, there's a whiff of the Partridge coming off this
Margot and Jerry from The Good Life
Anyway this is the correct answer
Well that was fun
Thornberry up there with Stella Creasy for "your Mum's friend who is really supportive, but doesn't quite get the nuance."
Every single other weird moment is just a different iteration of that specific moment:
"Have you considered..."
"How dare you."
I honestly blame her parents, I can't stop thinking about blaming her teacher not pushing her for her failure to be a doctor, and not, you know, the D in Maths. It's the inciting Kemi incident, an unwillingness to accept blame or take responsibility for an outcome she had the most control over.
Definitely did not realise 10 minutes before my panel that I'm on the main stage not a breakout area, and it's 300 not 50 people...
I do think, if I were to be perfectly honest, the reason Kemi drives me up the wall but I'm also kind of obsessed is that she is utterly impervious to introspection. Every position she holds is her first impulse on the topic and she will stick to it regardless.
Yesterday's Today
Racism, it does just make your brain not work good.
Make yourself feel slightly better, or at least differently depressed, about bleak global news by reminding yourself that Kemi Badenoch thinks the *only* reason Keir Starmer could possibly have had any concerns about this war is his electoral dependency on British Muslims.
It's just her central lack of seriousness.
Yeah, fundamentally: the UK government largely refusing uses of its resources for offence and focussed on protecting the lives of allies and UK citizens from retaliatory attacks is the only practical position, had the government not done it, she'd be arguing for it.
So, the really revealing part for me was in her Today programme interview where she claims we've learned the lessons if Iraq:
- Be prepared
- Have a plan
- Have an endgame
Then, when it is pointed out that none of these things apply here, waffles for over a minute about arrows and archers.
I was having this conversation with a friend the other day, and fundamentally had any of the administrations she'd been part of been stable she'd have been sacked, historical footnote, great pointless answer, within 2 years. They just never got that far.
What I do find fascinating about the right's current position is that it is vital we get more deeply involved when it is:
A) very unpopular to become further involved.
B) unclear what the plan is for our involvement.
C) clear they know this, but just sort of want to glide past it.
It's all a bit "everything is gender" again
"Labour came into government to do breakfast clubs, not to invade Iran. I came into office to invade Iran."
It's, in a way, indicative of how much better TV has gotten that it doesn't feel remarkable but also foundational to it.
The writing room would include the creators of Once Upon a Time, Agent Carter, The Tick, Arrowverse etc, it is striking what it led to.
Serenity, I do think, works very well.
Firefly being cancelled was probably the best thing that could have happened to it. It gets to live on in what could have been and not the, slightly ropey, product it was.
Marcus Wareing alsl looking increasingly like Obi Wan but it's working
What he did, he did without choice. In the name of peace and sanity.
