Jon

Owned by cat.
Sometimes a writer. Some of my stories are here:
https://writingwibble.wordpress.com/

Favourite books:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/54547554-jon?ref=nav_mybooks&shelf=favorites&view=table

Music I listen to a lot:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW3HuEKviVLEjRe37a46-PcuehdRzC7s7

Yorkshire UK

Public Key

npub1sljp5v4f2nthm8zcuet432wsrcc6u9cuv37as6ky6kj8990sldpq23dkh7

NIP-05 Address

sloopjonb1960_at_writing.exchange@mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsg0eq6x254f4man3vwv46c48gpuvdwzuwxglwcdtzdtfrjjhc0kssq68xvk

Author Public Key

npub1sljp5v4f2nthm8zcuet432wsrcc6u9cuv37as6ky6kj8990sldpq23dkh7

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Last Notes

2023-11-30 20:52:26

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@npub10d5…vvxa @npub1cz0…wk5s @npub1n38…2rsr 'Historian of Medieval England'? I'm in :)

2023-11-06 10:35:01

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@npub1cz0…wk5s No, only in the doco (with Michael Wood IIRC). Seeing him live must be something else.

2023-11-06 08:46:14

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I remember seeing that, he was very good.

2023-11-05 22:23:53

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@npub1cz0…wk5s May it make you into a crafty plotweaver, and all your herrings be red!

2023-11-05 22:10:23

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I'm only interested in mysteries if they make me laugh as well. I think it makes them more relatable as well as more entertaining. I could never write one. They need a better plotsmith than I.

2023-11-05 21:36:29

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@npub1cz0…wk5s 😂 So he hasn't been ... done, then?

2023-11-05 20:29:37

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I compiled it with the help of a book called 1001 Songs You Should Listen To Before You Die. Turned up a lot of stuff I should have been listening to all the time. Bloody algorithm keeps playing the same ones over and over, though.

2023-11-04 21:34:03

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@npub1cz0…wk5s @npub10d5…vvxa I did that with my friend Jen and The Hobbit movies. "Fucking hell, a line from the book!"
RoP is coming back, alas. Filming was completed in June. Looks to be just as crap as season 1. I shan't be watching. Blood pressure, you know.

2023-11-04 21:27:58

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@npub1cz0…wk5s @npub10d5…vvxa Yes, in the earlier drafts Eowyn and Aragorn were a thing. Arwen was added quite late. JRRT was thinking of the whole story of his legendarium, not just LOTR, and wanted to re-unite the lines of Luthien (and echo the Beren Luthien story, but with a sadder ending).
Film Denethor was an abominable slob. In the book he wore armour under his shirt to punish himself. Faramir isn't as bad, but in the book he was never tempted by the Ring and if he had been he'd have kept it.

2023-11-04 19:35:13

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@npub1cz0…wk5s @npub10d5…vvxa It's the winged beast that Eowyn chops the head off. The Nazgul then swings his sword at her, but misses as Merry stabs his heel, and finally Eowyn lunges her sword into the space beneath his crown, and the Witch-king is no more.
The film made a horrible mess of this scene, having Eowyn, fearless shieldmaiden seeking only death, scrabbling about on the ground whimpering. No Begone foul dwimmerlaik! for Film!Eowyn. Peter Jackson is a hack.

2023-11-04 13:32:28

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I never saw the point of comic books, either, unless you're about six. People tell me the artwork is great, but I can't see what they mean at all. Comics should be exactly that. Comical.

2023-11-04 13:13:55

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@npub1cz0…wk5s 😁

2023-11-04 12:49:55

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Agreed. Ten years since I was last in a cinema!

2023-11-04 11:27:08

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Jaws, certainly. I vaguely remember reading it. Alien was an original story, I believe.

2023-11-04 09:43:07

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Not very good books can become good movies, often by cutting out all the dross (I concur with The Princess Bride), but adaptations of good books are almost always crap. Talking of crap, I found this topic has many absolutely terrible listicles all over the net.

2023-11-02 18:20:16

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@npub1cz0…wk5s That makes more sense ... I was thinking of Edie's story rather than Lavinia's ...

2023-11-02 17:52:25

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Umm ... rescue?

2023-11-01 21:17:01

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Now that is a good idea. I'd like more Edie stories. Just don't neglect the main event ... I want to know what happens.

2023-10-30 21:51:30

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@npub1cz0…wk5s "I've chosen to be smug and middle class and bore the tits off everyone by telling them how superior I am." Could be almost any article in a broadsheet, really.

2023-10-29 08:29:15

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Possibly because he was a Greek from what is now Turkey ... mind you, Andrew was from Galilee, Patrick was from Cumbria (possibly), and Piran was Irish, so only the Welsh should celebrate, really.

2023-10-28 21:42:57

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I dunno. When I was a kid Halloween wasn't really a thing at all. You maybe painted a picture of a witch in school, that was all. But if retailers can find a way to monetize something, they will. You wait, one day there will be a plague of cuddly dragons for St George's Day.

2023-10-24 20:42:13

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Yes, George must help ... he can bury the bones :)

2023-10-23 20:56:43

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@npub1cz0…wk5s yes, and Edie could sort her problem out ... has to be a hell of a problem to de-bone 4 husbands.

2023-10-23 19:00:24

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Yes.

2023-10-23 13:14:16

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@npub1cz0…wk5s E-mail sent :)

2023-10-22 20:17:11

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I can slip you an e-book if you like. Skip the first one (Over Sea, Under Stone) ... it is set in Cornwall, but you wouldn't like it ... it was written years before the others and it shows.

2023-10-22 18:36:13

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@npub1cz0…wk5s It's the Gates of Annwn.

2023-10-13 19:04:45

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@npub1cz0…wk5s The foreground rocks have come out very well.

2023-10-11 10:47:40

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@npub1cz0…wk5s @npub1gx6…xcqu My grammar school had a 6th form as well, but I got expelled 😋

2023-10-11 09:42:20

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@npub1cz0…wk5s @npub1gx6…xcqu That all sounds very familiar. I hated every minute of school. I did my A-Levels at Oldham College, and that was generally much better. Much smaller classes, for a start!

2023-10-11 07:32:45

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@npub1gx6…xcqu @npub1cz0…wk5s Ah, well, nobody ever said I was a delight to teach ... quite the opposite, usually. And as for maths ... they just assumed because I was deemed to be clever I'd be able to do it. By the time they realised I couldn't, it was too late. I was educated very badly, on the whole.

2023-10-10 19:13:43

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I was one of those kids who got shoved at the back of the class with a book, while the teachers concentrated on the dimmos. Catholic school, 1960s, 45 to a class, something had to give and calligraphy was definitely one.

2023-10-10 15:24:42

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I never learned how to do it, and that was in the 1960s ...

2023-10-06 21:20:58

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Quite a lot of people, I should imagine. It probably wasn't a butler did it, though.

2023-10-06 20:56:03

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I'm no good at plots, but I have found that sometimes the development of the characters generates the plot.
Who wanted our victims dead? Cui bono, as that old windbag Cicero used to say ...

2023-10-06 19:03:46

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Cor. I hope it's useful!

2023-10-04 21:22:08

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Do eet. (E-mail sent).

2023-10-04 18:39:35

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Finally started reading Guesthouse, and liking the opening a lot. I can see at once your writing has improved no end since I last saw any!

2023-10-02 07:46:43

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Send them when ready. Dad's estate was sorted out a long while ago, and anything left sis will be doing. And she will doubtless nag me to do my will (I keep forgetting).

2023-10-01 21:41:51

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Thank you kindly for the offer (nobody else has), but I'm alright really. It's been two years since he's been the man I grew up with. I said goodbye a while ago.
Gwyn up Nupp might be too comic for the character you have in mind, but as typos go it was a good un. I'll be interested to see how the story turns out.

2023-10-01 21:19:33

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Dunno how I managed to reply to myself ... put it down to a bad day. Dad died early this morning, and while it's mostly a release (fuck Alzheimer's) I'm not at my best.
I have exactly the same 'now get out of that' problem ... in real life as well as writing. Is Gwyn up Nupp a typo, or his name in the story? It'a actually quite a good name :)

2023-10-01 10:25:28

The version I had was a very long time ago ... I'm sure it's changed a lot!

2023-10-01 10:07:27

Yes, I would. Although I must say that based on the blurb, I'd want to read Guesthouse first.

2023-09-30 21:06:17

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@npub1k74…dmux The big cats won Africa, and the bears won other places. And I'm glad of the cats, anyway 😺

2023-09-30 21:03:56

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@npub1cz0…wk5s A point Sir Pterry was very keen on. Although I never liked his Elves; they were actively malicious, whereas to me the best stories about fae aren't that they are bad - or good; just at right-angles to our world, with ethics of their own, and not really interested in us at all. Much as I imagine extraterrestrials will be, should we ever meet any.

2023-09-30 20:38:02

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@npub1cz0…wk5s It does tend to be very rambly and confusing, mind. The same people (or people with the same name, it's hard to tell) crop up in very different roles, and the plots are often bizarre. I think the problem is that unlike Greek or Roman myths, which had Homer and Virgil and many others to shape the narratives, and Norse myth which was put in order by Snorri Sturlusson, nobody ever did that for Irish or Welsh myths. Or, Taliesin and his kin were all on the shrooms 😀

2023-09-30 20:00:44

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Since he is mentioned as both King of Annwn and of the Tylwyth Teg *and* one of Arthur's retinue in the same story, there's plenty of room for interpretation! One theory I read made him out to be the Welsh equivalent of Cu Chulainn ... I can't see the resemblance myself, but interesting nonetheless.

2023-09-30 18:24:33

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@npub1k74…dmux Seem to be all long gone, mainly before the advent of modern humans:
https://insideecology.com/2017/09/21/why-are-there-barely-any-bears-in-africa/

2023-09-24 12:30:37

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@npub1cz0…wk5s When an author sells that many, I shouldn't think editors get much say (see J K Terfling, passim).
It is said that nobody ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the public.
And it also said that the author to whom I allluded in the last post is not someone any woman is advised to be alone with. But has very expensive lawyers.

2023-09-19 12:09:11

[Saruman] was himself so far fallen that he believed all others of the Council had each their deep and far-reaching policies for their own enhancement, to which all that they did must in some way refer.
"Concerning Gandalf, Saruman and the Shire" Unfinished Tales, JRR Tolkien.
How many Sarumans there are now.

2023-09-13 21:01:21

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I don't miss emptying the litter tray since I got a catflap :)

2023-09-13 17:48:25

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I see the Grauniad is still on its miserablist puritan kick. Tossers.

2023-09-10 21:35:15

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@npub1cz0…wk5s So long as nobody gives him a pair of ravens and an eight-legged horse ....

2023-09-10 21:16:55

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@npub1cz0…wk5s My father was a John, and so was his father, and I would have been one too, but Mother put her foot down, and Jonathan was the compromise. But it didn't work, because I decided I'd rather be a Jon anyway. But without the H.

2023-09-10 20:15:46

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@npub1cz0…wk5s That's a lot to live up to!
Um ... are Biblical characters fictional, because, if so, yes.

2023-09-07 19:49:46

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I'd rather go to a hill fort than a beach any day!

2023-09-05 18:27:34

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@npub1cz0…wk5s And are you all wired up now?

2023-09-04 20:03:52

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@npub1cz0…wk5s It was fight with shite software day today. Again.
But tonight was drink a glass of Rioja blanco and watch the quiz shows, so it balances.

2023-08-31 20:53:31

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@npub1cz0…wk5s The feed in the 🧵 site is even more full of irrelevance than the feed in the 🐦 site. Maybe there's not enough take-up.

2023-08-31 19:52:40

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I got an invite to Threads, and that looks like rubbish as well. Too many crap apps!

2023-08-31 19:51:10

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@npub1cz0…wk5s It's been quite a fast decline for Dad, and getting to the end now. Horrible disease.

2023-08-31 18:08:01

This afternoon I went on a Family Expotition, with sis, bro and a nibling, to see Father. It was a bit of a wash, as the old man (looking very frail) didn't deign to wake up at all. Personally I thought he was better off asleep. The home he is in now seems very nice and clean, but I hope his stay there will not be long now. Donate to the Alzheimer's Society, friends, and cherish all the moments you still have with those dear to you. They have a use-by date.

2023-08-30 19:16:29

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@npub1cz0…wk5s A mine adit that's eroded out? The plateway rails seem to be there, too. And the maker's plate on the waggon.

2023-08-27 21:47:50

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Is he hell as like.

2023-08-27 21:39:33

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I did see The Watch, for exactly the same reason. It wasn't actually all that bad, in and of itself, but nothing whatever like Discworld.
My fanfic was H2G2 and Discworld. I stopped doing it because I realised it was a dead end, but it was kind of fun to do. I was in my 40's at the time 😂

2023-08-27 21:27:17

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@npub1cz0…wk5s The relevant chapter in the (published) Silmarillion is even called 'Of the Rings of Power' ...
Bears no relation at all to what they cooked up, which was basically just a spoiler for the (equally dreadful) GoT prequel.

2023-08-27 21:21:33

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I've read the whole synopsis now. 3,000 years of history collapsed into about three, and seriously buggered about with. It's just like The Watch. Some of the names are the same. Rag-all else is.

2023-08-27 21:03:01

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Wait, that means Sauron visits Numenor without all the bother of getting defeated by Ar-Pharazon first? ... Huge plothole. The whole thing is just one huge plothole. May Namo Mandos hold all those responsible forever.

2023-08-27 20:49:53

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@npub1cz0…wk5s By all the Valar, it's worse than I thought. I decided not to see it the moment I heard Galadriel jumped off the boat to Valinor to swim back to Middle-Earth, FFS.
OMG. First line of the synopsis on Wiki: After the Dark Lord Morgoth is defeated, the Elf Finrod dies searching for Morgoth's servant Sauron.
That's Finrod Felagund, who died in Sauron's dungeons defending Beren from a werewolf? 125 years before Morgoth's defeat? Feck right off.

2023-08-27 17:07:22

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@npub1cz0…wk5s The little I've seen of it did not impress me. Certainly not enough to pay to watch it. I don't pay for any streaming services - I don't believe they are worth it. In fact I watch very little TV at all now. Books are so much better.

2023-08-26 21:20:38

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I was very sad to see Mary go, but as Ben Willbond remarked, Ted Lasso paid a lot better.
We do get one more series 😀

2023-08-26 20:55:57

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Is there ever a weekend with anything to watch on normal TV? (I binge watched series 2 of US Ghosts on iPlayer - not as good as UK Ghosts, but quite amusing).

2023-08-26 19:47:19

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@npub1cz0…wk5s First job, always.

2023-08-25 19:36:36

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@npub1cz0…wk5s How's the pink wall?

2023-08-22 11:23:59

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Somebody said recently that they listened to audio books whilst decorating. Personally I haven't got the patience for either!

2023-08-21 20:47:33

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Joanna Arman's bio, Warrior Queen, gets good reviews. I haven't read it myself, but I'm putting it on the TBR pile.

2023-08-20 18:00:45

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I didn't walk that far yesterday, but I felt I deserved the cake anyway.

2023-08-19 21:14:25

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I feel fatter just from the picture. Or maybe from the large vanila slice I had at lunch.

2023-08-17 20:10:11

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@npub1cz0…wk5s We're getting an influx on Saturday for the Rushcart Festival, which I had completely forgot ... and now I have to struggle through the throng to go and get my presciption 😧

2023-08-17 17:35:47

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@npub1cz0…wk5s That looks gorgeous ... and not too crowded!

2023-08-10 16:22:23

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Have you tried being immensely rich and getting somebody else to do it for you? Works for [names redacted by lawyers]!

2023-08-09 17:43:15

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@npub15wt…7rek Eala Earendel, engla beorhtast, ofer middangeard to monnum sendeth.

2023-08-05 13:23:18

The MC of the book I just read cusses *all* the time. Now, I don't mind swearies as such, but if your character swears in every other sentence, then you've got nowhere to go when you want to indicate the character is *really* up to high doh. It's called an 'F-bomb' for a reason. Let it off sparingly.
#writing #writerscraft

2023-08-02 19:27:19

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Urk. I'm wrong, though, it was Douglas, not Hotspur, who broke his bollock, and he lived.

2023-08-02 17:06:49

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@npub1cz0…wk5s What a crew! I can't imagine Harold Godwinson getting on with Fionn MacCumhail or Arthur, though. Glyndwr and Harry Hotspur actually were allies, but the latter didn't have a very mysterious death. He was killed at the battle of Shrewsbury - of a burst bollock, according to one account.

2023-08-02 11:18:18

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Owain Glyndwr, for Wales.

2023-08-01 21:05:16

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Not the Ravensthorpe near Dewsbury, one presumes 😂

2023-08-01 17:53:38

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I've got an abundance of work at the moment. It is as they say my busy time of year. Currently I am grateful for the NHS and the amazing new hearing aids they gave me, and also the Bluetooth connector I bought to go with them. Best £150 I ever spent. Been listening to all kinds of music I hadn't been able to hear properly before.

2023-07-29 11:40:32

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Was the idea for book 2 to do with the Second Coming, perhaps? The real problem with S2 is that it just isn't very funny. There was one bit where everyone spoke as if they were in a Jane Austen novel, which was amusing, but otherwise not a lot of laughs.

2023-07-29 10:42:23

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I think teasing all the shippers with a kiss and then not following through is going to seriously annoy them. Especially if there never is a third series. Aziraphale choosing ambition was very out of character. I think GO was a one shot thing, and shouldn't have been revisited. That world isn't interesting enough to carry more stories.

2023-07-29 10:05:45

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@npub1cz0…wk5s The ending has Crowley finally realise he loves Aziraphale, and he says so and gives him a big kiss. But Aziraphale has been offered the job of replacing Gabriel as top angel. And after some dither he takes it, and goes back to heaven leaving Crowley behind. Obvious set up for a 3rd series, but meanwhile leaving all the fans royally pissed off.

2023-07-29 08:50:50

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@npub1cz0…wk5s You can get a week's trial of Prime for 99p - that's what I did. Don't forget to cancel after a week though. The main plot was dreadfully weak and not very funny, and Tennant hams it up all over the place. The flashbacks were slightly better, but still not very good. The only member of the Tennant family who didn't appear was Georgia. And the ending is going to annoy a LOT of people.

2023-07-28 22:03:25

@npub1cz0…wk5s ... you were right about Good Omens 2. It was crap.

2023-07-19 08:42:08

#PennedPossibilities 014:
Your MC's favourite dessert?
Dessert is a rare luxury for Aiella and Dartea. Dar did have some very tasty fruit once, but it turned out they were ... special fruit, that caused Dar to have to be rescued from the sea,. whilst claming to be mermaid and singing bawdy songs at the top of her voice.
After that she prefers milk pudding.

2023-07-19 08:17:55

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@npub1cz0…wk5s @npub1gx6…xcqu ... and in this timeline all we got was King Arthur Scargill, who turned out to be useless.

2023-07-18 20:37:02

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I like your pictures, they've got life and character. And portraiture is an outmoded art anyway 😋

2023-07-18 20:24:09

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@npub1cz0…wk5s And you are very good at it, too (bearing in mind I know rag all about art).

2023-07-16 18:29:16

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Seems it did him no good, either 🙂

2023-07-16 17:44:06

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@npub1cz0…wk5s Too many steroids 😂

2023-07-16 10:37:59

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@npub1cz0…wk5s I've seen them all three times so far. I do hope Mackenzie does more.
I didn't actually discover it until the third series, saw one by accident and was all how come nobody told me this was brilliant?