Liam Connell

British politics can be explained by the theory of that this is a rare case of three overlapping productions of ‘The Producers.’

And arguably getting to the ground of ambivalence at all represents a real shift from the outright hostility to non-Anglo migrants that characterises so much of the late-19th and early 20thC Australian left.

I think Mass Effect is interesting because the actual romancing is unconvincing and often flat, but once Shepard and the companion are in a relationship there's a lot of good character work and some good silly fun.

Choosing the romance and pursuing it is the most gamified part and the least fun.

it's not precisely what you're talking about, but it feels very old-school 'adjust the direction of the show on the fly'

There's an interesting modern example in 'Halt and Catch Fire,' which has one season of being a decent but dull Mad Men knock off. Then in series 2 it retools, moves the brooding anti-hero to support, makes the two female supports the main leads, and becomes an entirely more interesting beast.

I mean, I love Andor and I think it's very good, but so much of the discussion focuses on the complex and ambitious things it does rather than the simple fact that it's the only recent Star Wars thing that goes 'let's just work with the fundamentals of story structure.'

Tthe old EU did realise that while everything - around - the Star Wars movies was designed to be sold to nerdy twelve year olds, and everything - in - the movies had to be acceptable to twelve year olds, under no circumstances could you let the movies be made only - by and for - twelve year olds.

As a young man, I found myself at a reception at New Zealand House in London. While returning with a round of drinks, I tripped over myself (I wasn't even drunk, just very clumsy) and proceeded to pour half a pint down the back of someone who turned out to be Prime Minister Bill English.

I feel that you have to reluctantly credit Pound as well. God awful human being, defended too long by people who thought genius excused his vileness. But he certainly was an artist.

*not that Socialist Realism was right wing, but that it represents a sort of art in the service of modernist autocracy.

They can't satirise, only sneer. They can't celebrate, they can only strut. There's not even a Riefenstahl or a Socialist Realism because, weirdly, they are too obsessed with aping old propaganda to produce anything in a new language. No Ezra Pound. No Futurism. Just rage and fear and basest lust.

Art can be of any political stripe, but it requires self-examination, and these people cannot face themselves; there's nothing but malignance and insecurity. They cannot defend their own views because they don't understand the temptation of other viewpoints.

It's remarkable because the twentieth century saw great conservative art. But the Trumpists cannot produce an Evelyn Waugh because Waugh mocked his own in-group; they cannot produce a Graham Greene because they can't tolerate an actual struggle of conscience.

Barbara Tuchman has been rightfully superseded, but the opening of ‘The Guns of August’ is still magnificent in capturing how fundamentally alien the world of 1913. 1939 is a different place, but we can understand its rules. 1913 requires a leap of imagination and empathy.

If Harry is Tom Brown, this suggests the possibility that in the future a latter day George Macdonald Fraser can write The Malfoy Papers.

It's been a grim start to the year, I feel that they need to give us another titbit about production so we can have a Stephen Has Potter Thoughts thread.

Even as a kid, I thought Outcast of Redwall's message that if you rescue a baby from the enemy's camp it will inevitably grow up to be a murderous psychopath was... odd.

Young people today no longer read Redwall, proving that the modern generation doesn't love small animals or vegetarianism.

I still can't believe they had the gall to write a mission where you arrive in York an have to stop the Evil Saxons Burning Their Manuscripts.

I think it's striking how the early capitulations of institutions last year went to their head; after law firms and universities knelt, they convinced themselves they could do in ten months what Erdogan and Orban carefully spent decades building to.

It's in on the absurdity without winking, whereas the sequels got po-faced. There's the whole thing with Chesterton's 'Man Who Was Thursday,' where the game is essentially telling you that all this whole story is nonsense, but that's not the same thing as it being without meaning.

Deus Ex's gameplay has been surpassed many times, but one thing that strikes me is that for all the fact that the narrative is very gonzo (The Illuminati! Area 51! Supersoldiers!) it's not merely clever, it's actually intelligent. 1/2

SMAC, Thief 2, Starcraft... Portal's an interesting one in that there's plenty of games with just-as-good or better puzzle gameplay, but I think twenty years of tired jokes have blunted the sheer presentational efficiency. Just enough narrative. Just enough character. Just enough whimsy.

GK Chesterton is the king of such writers.

Oh, what the hell, I'll be the guy who joins at the end.

1. Deus Ex
2. Mass Effect
3. New Vegas
4. BG 3
5. Dishonoured

I really need to try Hades, and it's frankly embarrassing I haven't properly played Pentiment yet. I'm sure Disco Elysium is brilliant, I just keep finding obnoxious fans.

Assuming I wasn’t watching Othello or Shylock (you said aggrieved, not surprised), I’d be disappointed if Hamlet was played as an indecisive ditherer and Claudius as an obvious bad in. The reading that the play is steeped in post reformation angst and uncertainty is much more interesting.

I think the key is that this story seems delighted by Jackson's writing, rather than treating the original piece as either a puzzle to be solved or a windmill to be tilted at.

I was privileged to work at NZ’s Royal Commission into Abuse in Care, and it meant dealing with many, many horrific files. We had training and mandatory therapy. It still messes you up.

Do not traumatise yourself out of a misguided sense of political obligation.

This is a modern Jameson Raid. Its short term success will not change the day that it has revealed the inherent lawlessness of its perpetrators. It is an action of imperial weakness, not strength.

And equally, the people who did believe in equality - and they existed - didn’t use language that’s familiar to modern progressives either.