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...IDEAS.

(cf. New York Magazine's glance at this)

We wrote the ICE media office to learn more: “Do we have a list of these ideas? Are there examples of ideas that ICE has prevented from illegally entering the country? Are there any task forces devoted to preventing these ideas?” We will update if and when we hear back.

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When Apollo 11 successfully landed and the images were released, ‘The Sun’ newspaper in Vancouver changed it’s name to ‘The Moon’ to report it.

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I will miss these lovelies working together

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Happy Mother’s Day!

(My cartoon for this week’s Guardian Review)

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I just finished my re-read of Persuasion and I feel like something shifted in me. Wow. WOW. WOW!!! I really did not appreciate it as the masterpiece it is until now.

I think the first time I was genuinely so sad for Anne I worried she wouldn't get her happy ending (which is funny on reflection because every Austen heroine has her hero). I was pretty much following it until Louisa's accident and the immediate aftermath. But Anne's removal to Bath sort of lost me; I remembered nothing of the Mr Elliot drama and Mrs Smith had been completely wiped from my memory!

So many incredibly entertaining characters but, wow, do I want to punch some of them!!! Sir Walter Elliot rivalled Lady Catherine for ridiculous levels of pompousness, I thoroughly enjoyed him. I found myself relating a lot more to Anne than I did the first time.

And the LETTER!!!!! It makes you FEEL things on a whole other level when you can appreciate the years of anguished yearning and repressed emotions that pushed Wentworth over the edge into writing it. He really had it all planned out with returning for the GLOVES... I was swooning!!

Speaking of Captain Wentworth... absolutely incredible hero from beginning to end... I started falling for him when he pulled the child off Anne, and then my feelings only deepened when so many good accounts of him were heard and then he handed Anne into the carriage after the walk, the vapours! Plus it was so !!!!! when he was jealous at the concert and THE LETTERRRRRR. I was completely smitten by the end, when he showed his kind heart in helping Mrs Smith. I am so happy Anne found such a great match (not at all jealous, no).

I knew that not clicking with Persuasion was very much a me problem. I wasn't in the right headspace and it was so different from anything I'd ever previously read. I did not appreciate its depth or the incredible characters last summer, but it makes it all the sweeter for revisiting it and finally falling in love with it.

Just glad I didn't have to wait eight years!

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Two statements about characters can and should co-exist: Pride and Prejudice edition

Mr Bennet has a close relationship with Elizabeth and provides amusing observations on the folly of human nature BUT he is a terrible husband and father who consistently neglects the women who rely on him for absolutely everything; Elizabeth and Jane turned out so well in spite of him, not because of him.

Mrs Bennet's behaviour is understandable given the era in which she lived and the subsequent pressure she was under to get her daughters married well, which wasn't entirely for vanity reasons given that Longbourn was entailed BUT she was still fundamentally vain, ridiculous and rude; such pressure, even combined with an absent husband, still does not make her behaviour justifiable, nor her a sympathetic character, as she enabled Lydia (whose subsequent elopement with Wickham almost ruined the family) for far too long.

Mr Collins is unfairly portrayed as a middle-aged sycophant in most adaptations, rather than the young clergyman who sucks up to his patroness in pursuit of a more lucrative living that he was BUT he is still a ridiculous character who you are not meant to feel sympathy for when Elizabeth rejects him; he is rude, hypocritical and thinks of himself far too highly considering how vapid he actually is.

Caroline Bingley is often too harshly judged as a 'pick-me,' even though her relentless pursuit of Darcy is understandable given his wealth & status and how important it was for women to make a good marriage BUT she was still rude, vain and treated Jane terribly; plus she was a hypocritical snob, given the manner in which she looked down upon the Bennet family's relations despite the Bingleys' own background in trade.

Elizabeth is incredibly witty, courageous and endearing and instantly likeable which makes Darcy's slight of her at the Meryton assembly all the more of an affront to us as readers BUT, while it explains her dislike of him, she is no means perfect herself; she had far too much misplaced pride in her ability to successfully read others' characters and consequently ignored positive accounts of Darcy in favour of believing the deceitful Wickham, given her prejudice against the former.

Mr Darcy was harshly judged by Elizabeth, even though there are many more sympathetic elements to his character than immediately meet the eye BUT he was not shy or innocent; he was always a haughty rich man who had never been told no, thought far too highly of himself and, ultimately, thoroughly deserved to be rebuked and subsequently made to reform his character.

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Captain America movie posters by Paolo Rivera

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Not to brag or anything but I’m Italian and I live in Rome and today they performed Julius Caesar on the literal ruins of the Curia of Pompey. aka the exact place where Caesar got absolutely wrecked in 44 BCE. on the anniversary of him getting absolutely wrecked 💅

🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪 (that’s 23 knives. historically accurate.)

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just some of the the changes in design for the Penguin Symbol on old Penguin Paperbacks 

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Hugh Grant & Rupert Graves (c.1987) in a publicity shot for the movie Maurice.

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