#and. well. it must be said: if the daily mail & the times published stories about ab’s inherent ugliness

[edwardseymour]

good for her.

[african-international-magazine]

WHITE SAVIOURISM GONE WRONG IN DRC

In recent weeks, the renowned author and academic Siddharth Kara released his latest book, Cobalt Red: How the Congo Powers our Lives. The book sheds light on the labor conditions and living standards in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where cobalt mining is prevalent. Cobalt is a crucial metal in the global energy transition, and the book argues that Western consumers who use products containing Congolese cobalt are complicit in a human rights and environmental catastrophe.

The book has received widespread acclaim in the US and UK, becoming a New York Times bestseller in its first week of release. Publishers Weekly has hailed it as a "tour de force exposé," and Foreign Affairs has called it "a thorough and insightful investigation." Kara was even invited to discuss the book on the Joe Rogan podcast, which has garnered over four million views on YouTube in just one month. The book has also been featured in major news outlets such as CNN, Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Daily Mail.

Commenting on the book's wide readership in the West, journalist Howard French once said, "It allows us, meaning the general public [in the US], to become interested in Africa in ways that respond to some pre-existing notions we have of Africa. That Africa should be a certain kind of way. That Africa should provide an escalating sense of horror in order to get us interested in it."

True to French's opinion, the book has garnered widespread attention in America and Europe, quickly becoming a bestseller and receiving accolades from numerous publications. Kara has even been invited to speak about the book on a popular podcast. However, the book's popularity stems from its ability to tap into pre-existing Western perceptions of Africa. Cobalt Red employs vivid language and imagery to evoke sympathy for the Congolese people.

Unfortunately, the book follows a well-worn narrative of Western writers traveling to Africa to tell stories that paint the continent as a place of suffering and despair. This narrative also perpetuates the idea that the Western world is the only hope for Africa. This is a grossly unfair portrayal of Africa, as the continent is not helpless and does not need saving by the West.

While Cobalt Red has brought much-needed attention to the plight of cobalt miners in the Congo, it is crucial to remember that Africa is not a continent in need of rescue by the West. We must be mindful of falling into the trap of viewing Africa solely through a lens of suffering and despair.

Nothing New, History Repeating Itself

Kara's story follows the same pattern as the conflict minerals playbook from the 2000s, which did not end well. Christoph Vogel's Conflict Minerals Inc. delves into the multiple drivers of violence in the Congo, unlike the simplistic single narratives that Western advocacy on "conflict minerals" relied on. These colonial frames led to policies that perpetuated structural violence, and the crude misrepresentation of conflict in the eastern Congo as being driven by greedy warlords trying to access minerals fed into equally blunt policies that harmed many of the people they sought to support.

However, the reality was that mining was the largest employer in the region after agriculture, and for all the mine sites with links to conflict financing, there were just as many without such links. These mines provided a vital source of income to hundreds of thousands of workers and their households, often at a wage level higher than available alternatives and in a context of widespread local unemployment. Unfortunately, these nuances did not fit into stereotypical Western stories or the simplistic campaign against conflict minerals, which drove down demand for eastern Congolese minerals. The impact of this on people in the region was severe, sustained, and widespread. Meanwhile, the conflict itself continued unabated, making international headlines in recent months with the resurgence of M23.

It is crucial to understand local mining in the Congo as Wainaina's landscape in which people laugh, struggle, and make do in usually mundane circumstances, rather than Kara's "grim wasteland of utter ruin." Otherwise, history will repeat itself, and the impact on people in the region will be severe, sustained, and widespread. Western tech and electric vehicle companies always put their faith in foreign-owned industrial mines or dubious mineral traceability and certification schemes to secure Congolese cobalt, which only soothes their consciences.

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Audrey Roget

Audrey Roget has 10 fics at Gossamer, with some different ones at AO3, fanfiction.net, and her website. You might know her from her very good fics or as part of Musea, a collective that all wrote fic and posted X-Files fic recs. I’ve recced some of my favorites of her stories here before, including Three Times Dana Scully Didn’t Go to San Diego for Christmas and The Shirt. Big thanks to Audrey for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)? A little, yes. Not so much by folks who were around in those days. I sometimes go hunting for beloved stories from the early years, both those I read and loved, and those I never got around to. I am always delighted to hear that later generations of fans have stumbled across my stuff, especially since I haven’t posted anything new in a number of years. It’s fantastic that both years-long fans and new ones are out there continuing to rec fic from all eras, and to maintain archives for fans yet-to-be born. What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it? What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general? It may sound corny, but the main thing I think of, and the thing that has ultimately been most valuable and lasting, has been the friendships. The feeling of having found a tribe – not just of TXF fans, but of other people who could be as enthusiastically engaged as I was (if not more so) with fictional stories and characters – was mind-blowing. Since I was a kid, I had often mulled over the books/movies/TV I loved and speculated internally about what happened off the page or off-screen, or created new stories for characters in my head. But, except for an elementary school phase where I and my two BFFs regularly played Charlie’s Angels, I hadn’t engaged in that kind of gleeful immersion in a fictional world with others until TXF fandom. My involvement in fandom followed pretty quickly from getting hooked on the show, so for me, it’s all one big ball of experiences. Even as my interest in/involvement in fandom has waxed and waned over the years, I’ve been lucky to remain friends with wonderful people who I originally connected with as fellow fans.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)? What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

My initial entrée to the fandom was through fanfiction. I didn’t get interested in the show until mid-season 5. Around the same time, I read an article in a zine called Might (co-founded by Dave Eggers) about this thing called fanfiction that people would write and publish online. At first I thought it was satire or a joke – the fic cited involved Wilma Flintstone and a polished sabre tooth, as I recall – but then realized this was an actual thing. So I figured that a show then at the peak of pop culture must have fanfiction, and I went looking. Early on, I scrolled atxc on a daily basis and downloaded stories. But I didn’t engage in discussions about the show on Usenet, since I only knew how to access it with my Earthlink email client, and I didn’t want to post using my real name.

Later, I set up a pseud address with Yahoo and subscribed to a couple of email fanfic/discussion lists, and stayed subscribed to those for years. There was also a period in there somewhere – of maybe only a year or so, when I think about it – when I’d often nerd out into the wee hours with other fans via IM chat groups. That was around the time the small writers’ collective Musea was founded, and we were active for several years after the show’s initial run. In the early aughts, I followed many authors to LiveJournal and eventually set up my own account and stayed involved in fandom that way, until it mostly dispersed as well. What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show? In a word: Chemistry. I had casually watched a couple of episodes during the first four seasons, but I’m not a huge sci-fi/horror fan at heart, and the story lines didn’t immediately grab me. But I happened to tune into The Red and the Black in 1998, and BOOM. For the first time, the intense layers of emotion and attraction between Mulder and Scully really struck me – and then of course, upon further viewing, I realized it was unmissable, an essential element in the fabric of the show. As a wise woman once said, a switch had been flicked. Mulder and Scully’s magnetism was like nothing I’d ever seen, and though I eventually came to appreciate the storytelling, humor, production values, and other components that made the series so successful, watching those characters interact has always been what kept me coming back. Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files? I was part of a list-serv discussion group for The West Wing for a while, which was a fun melding of character and plot analysis with political discussion. Later, I got into the House, MD fandom, again mostly as a fanfic reader/writer. I was finding that other fandoms, unlike TXF, were more dispersed, the networks of people structured more loosely, if at all. There were fanfic and discussion communities on LiveJournal, and fanfiction.net was the other main hub for posting and reading, but if there was anything centralized like Gossamer, Ephemeral, or the Haven, I never found it. Within all those fan communities, as in TXF, there were partisans for various characters and pairings, and flame wars erupted over plot developments that outraged this faction or that. One main difference was that those other shows had larger, ensemble casts and more varied subplots. So on one hand, there was more opportunity to explore back stories and multiple perspectives. In House MD in particular, there were several entrenched rival shipper camps, which were about equally grounded in canon, rather than TXF’s central ship. I was less into TWW fic, but my impression was that readers were less militant about their pairing preferences than TXF or House fans. Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

I was deeply fascinated by Greg House for several years. (And the love-hate chemistry between him and Lisa Cuddy was a strong draw for me.) House MD came early in a wave of TV shows centered on anti-heroes, and Hugh Laurie brought amazing complexity and thoughtfulness to the character.

Philip and Elizabeth Jennings (The Americans) are a lethal pair of antiheroes. The inherent moral conflict of a sympathetic narrative from their POVs, and the global political conflict they embody was TV catnip for me. The internal struggles at the hearts of those characters were so exquisitely written and performed, they completely fascinate me.

The West Wing felt so much like a show created specifically for me. I’m especially fond of story arcs and scenes that centered on CJ Cregg, Charlie Young, and Josh Lyman. Though I loved Martin Sheen’s human portrayal of Jed Bartlet, the fact that he was the President always made him a little untouchable in my mind. But CJ, Charlie, and Josh were basically hard-working functionaries who were ambitious and idealistic and funny and flawed, and they spoke to me. What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom? Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully? Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I do continue to think about Mulder and Scully and watch episodes somewhat often. I’ll sometimes run a favorite episode as background when I want something comforting on. I read TXF fic pretty regularly, which can inspire me to go back and watch a particular episode or story arc I haven’t thought about in years. Just recently, I started listening to The X-Files Diaries podcast (@XFDPodcast, @admiralty-xfd), and that’s a fun dive into the characters, and how other fans react to and interpret episodes.

Every once in a while, a TV show or movie – and more particularly, the characters – will grab my attention and make me curious about how fanfic writers have interpreted the original material. Random example, I saw Singin’ in the Rain for the first time in a theatre a couple of years ago, and the chemistry of the three leads sent me to AO3 as soon as I got home. I also loved the first season of Mercy Street and found some well-done stories in that fandom. I usually peruse the Yuletide gifts every year and have been amazed by the sheer variety, creativity and cheekiness of the output. There are a bunch of other shows I’ve followed faithfully, and sought out fanfic – Broadchurch, The Killing, Agents of SHIELD, Elementary, The Good Wife. Although I’ve found some well-written stuff in those fandoms, I’ve rarely gotten the same charge from them as reading TXF fic. Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

syntax6 (@syntax6) – Universal Invariants/Laws of Motion. I’d also shout out to syn’s Hunter fics, too – well worth reading even for those who have never seen or particularly loved the show itself.

JET – I re-read Small Lives Awake every year around Thanksgiving time. Other annual holiday re-reads: Revely’s The Dreaming Sea and Jordan’s Through the Fire (both set at Halloween).

Amal Nahurriyeh’s Casey universe – the rare post-col fic that felt hopeful, made extra intriguing by a kick-ass original character. [Lilydale note: the series starts with Machines of Freedom and has lots of additional fics and snippets.]

Prufrock’s Love – Finding Rokovoko was genuinely terrifying and tender.

melforbes (@melforbes) – Seaglass Blue is a recent favorite, lyrical and bittersweet.

These are just a few (apologies to those that didn’t come to mind immediately). Fortunately for readers, there’s an astonishing number of authors who have written in TXF fandom whom you can depend on for a good yarn, insightful character study, and/or ingenious “fixes” where 1013 went awry.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

Probably the two set in my own (former) backyard of Southern California: Enivrez-vous and Ravenous. I’d first read the Baudelaire poem that was the source of the former’s title back in university days, so I was tickled to be able to use a few lines as an epigraph. Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online? It’s not out of the realm possibility. I’d meant for “Three Times Dana Scully Didn’t Go to San Diego for Christmas” to be followed up with “And One Time She Did.” In fact, the idea for that never-finished story was what inspired “Three Times” in the first place. I have a couple of scenes sketched out and – unusually for me – even know exactly how to end it. Every year, November rolls around, and I think I should finish and post it…maybe in 2021?

Where do you get ideas for stories? Sometimes it’s from my environment. “Enivrez-vous” and “Ravenous” describe places that I’m fond of, that made me want to place Mulder and Scully there. “What Not to Wear” has that element too – I set it in Memphis as a tribute to a great trip there with a sister Musean. But WNTW was also inspired by a kink challenge in a years-ago LiveJournal thread, so sometimes ideas come from fandom discussions or even other fanfics. In the House MD fandom, a fic by another writer made me want to continue the story, and the author kindly allowed an authorized sequel. What's the story behind your pen name? I wanted my pseudonym to sound like it could be a real person’s name – or at least, maybe like a romance writer’s pen name – rather than an online handle. I also wanted to use a slightly obscure fictional character, to amuse anyone in the know. I had long had a bit of an obsession with Whit Stillman’s 1990s film trilogy, which started with Metropolitan; the 3rd installment, Last Days of Disco, came out the same year I started down the TXF rabbit hole: 1998. The central heroine of Metropolitan – who is mentioned in or makes a cameo in the other two – is Audrey Rouget, a lover of Austen and, eventually, a book editor. I altered the spelling of the last name as a nod to every writer’s companion, Roget’s Thesaurus. Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions? I have a few close friends – from outside TXF fandom – who know that I’ve written fanfic. I don’t know if they know my pseud; if they do, or if they’ve ready any of the fic, they haven’t said so to me. They are fannish sorts themselves, but not really TXF fans. A smattering of other friends and family members know or could intuit that I’ve been a fangrl on some level for years. My boss, whom I’ve known for about 3 years, recently mentioned off-handedly that she was really obsessed with TXF “back in the day,” and I am DYING to know if she got involved in fandom, but don’t think I’ll ever work up the courage to ask.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now? Most of the X-Files stuff continues to be generously and steadfastly archived by Forte at The Basement Office. The House MD stories and some TXF things are at fanfiction.net; same for AO3. If ever post anything new, it will probably go to TBO and AO3. I really ought to get it all together in one place, one of these days…

(Posted by Lilydale on April 6, 2021)

[jungle321jungle]

Your Words Fill The Space Between Us

The published letters that detail the romance that changed the kingdom.

~~~~

Aka Roman and Janus send each other letters

Taglist: @angels-and-dreams @ollyollyoxinfree @gattonero17 @chumo-cookie @dreaming-always @anxiety-ismy-name @mrbubbajones @janustheliar @why-do-you-care @hogwarts-my-love​

Ao3 - Masterlist

Your Words Fill The Space Between Us

September 18th

J,

I received the gift you sent with your previous letter, and I wanted to ensure I thanked you for it- despite how bold it was. But I suppose that has always been something I liked about you- even if my heart very nearly stopped when Mother asked who the flowers and watch had come from. I was forced to give her the flowers (but I kept the watch for myself) after telling her it came from a businessman I work with (I am blessed that she didn’t ask which of them it was). Though I was disappointed to give up the flowers. I don’t even remember mentioning my favorite flowers and yet you knew anyways. Are you using your power for useless things again? I hope not, you have enough on your plate as it is without worrying about what I like and dislike. But if it truly crosses your mind do know that what I like are your letters and the rare moments we spend together.

But enough about that, more importantly I will be aiding my father this year so I too will get the pleasure of attending the New Year’s Ball. I hope when I arrive you can finally show me the spot you’ve described with the view of the whole city.

R.

~~~~

September 23rd

R,

I am glad my present to you was received well. As to your comment regarding whether or not I was using my power correctly, all I must say is that if it is my power I shall use it as I please. If that happens to be to determine your favorite flowers so be it, my servants are paid accordingly. Also, once I get more power laws change and I get you- so I truly see no downside.

I cannot wait until you get here, I will show you all my favorite spots here to view the scenery and my favorite places in town to shop and eat. We’ll need to think of an excuse for why we spend so much time together though, but we have the time to work out a story.

Speaking of, with this letter I am sending you a book. It’s one I just found by chance and I fell in love with instantly, I’m sure you’ll do the same. Be sure to send me your thoughts when you finish.

J.

~~~~

October 17th

J,

You are utterly horrific. Sending me a book that plays with my emotions like that. I wouldn’t have gotten so invested if I just knew she was going to die like that! Not even from her disease but from an assassin that’s horrible. Just horrible.

I stayed up to finish the last few chapters and now it’s late and I’m crying, but I don’t want the maids to hear. You’re horrible. And to prove it I’m sending you a book.

R.

~~~~

November 2nd

R,

I truly am dastardly aren't I? I laughed a lot at your letter, it was the exact response I was expecting. You never disappoint dearest. As for the book you sent me I unfortunately am yet to open it. I wasn’t planning on sending this letter until completing it, but things have gone bleak in terms of negotiations. I’ve been spending all my time locked in my office taking over my father’s daily work in addition to my own while he tries to calm things with the other delegations. At present I should actually be overlooking some documents, but I feel if I do I will truly lose my mind.

I miss you.

I know that if you were just here sitting beside me I would instantly feel energized.

At least the ball is next month.

J.

~~~~

November 4th

R,

I doubt you have even received my last letter as I write this, but I must tell you to withhold sending other letters. I’m not entirely sure why, but Father is suspicious of something and is having mail checked.

I’ll send word when the coast is clear.

J.

~~~~

December 22nd

R,

My father has found whatever it is he is looking for, so we should be fine now. But that did take longer than I thought. So much has happened in the last few weeks.

Mother’s sudden illness, and sister’s broken engagement, not to mention that the countries on either side of us have declared war and both are begging for us to pick a side. It’s beyond tiring. Father still insists upon holding the ball though, so I’ll see you then. I wonder if this letter will even reach you before you depart for the capital.

I hope I’ll have the time to show you around as I promised.

J.

~~~~

December 27th

J,

I was about to respond to your first letter when the second arrived. You must’ve sent one of your fastest messengers. As for your third and most recent letter I received it just before climbing in the carriage. We are staying in the Barony tonight, which is where I write this letter from. But I will wait to have it sent to you until I reach the capital.

I too hope we can meet up during the festivities, at least for a minute and even better if that minute was spent alone so we can speak freely. But please, remember that you mustn't push yourself too hard.

R.

~~~~

December 31st

R,

There is a small balcony west of the ballroom and past the room where the ladies rest. It’s secluded. We can use our usual signal, I’ll meet you there.

J.

~~~~

January 1st

R,

I cannot describe how amazing it was to simply hug you again. And as I said before it was wonderful to see how your dancing had improved. I’m sorry that our time together was so short, I will send you word as soon as I know when I can slip out of the palace. Maybe, two nights from now I can try? That’s when the commoners set up an array of stalls with games and prizes. Would you like to go?

J.

~~~~

January 2nd

J,

Of course I want to go! We will go and I will beat you at every game! But I don't have any clothes that would help me blend in. Also, how do you intend to disguise yourself?

R.

~~~~

January 3rd

R,

With this letter are clothes for you to wear tonight. I’ll meet you outside the gates by the large willow about an hour after dinner. And as to your question, I will be wearing a blonde wig.

J.

~~~~

January 4th

J,

You cheated. That’s the only way you could have won so many games. I don't care that you said you didn’t, you most certainly did.

R.

~~~~

January 5th

R,

You are free to believe what you like.

For the closing ball tomorrow we can meet at the same spot as the first night. And I have a surprise for you.

J.

~~~~

January 6th

R,

I swear I didn’t know.

I am so sorry. I didn’t know, I saw you crying and run off and I’m sorry that I couldn’t run after you. I’m sorry. Can I come by so we can talk?

J.

~~~~

January 8th

R,

You’re leaving tomorrow right? Please respond so I can see you before you do.

J.

~~~~

January 9th

R,

I understand you’re mad at me, and I won’t even ask you not to be. But I will ask that you at least try understand the position I am in.

And I hope you travel safely home.

J.

~~~~

January 16th

J,

Did you really not know?

R.

~~~~

January 19th

R,

I didn’t. My father sprung it on me, the same way he did to every party guest. He didn’t even tell me which nation he was leading towards in terms of support, much less this.

J.

~~~~

January 22nd

J,

Will you marry her?

R.

~~~~

January 25th

R,

I don’t want her. I want and I love you.

J.

~~~~

January 28th

J,

That’s not what I asked. I asked if you will follow through with the engagement.

R.

~~~~

January 31st

R,

I don’t have a choice. I thought I could spend more time living as the Crown Prince before I could reject the role and leave the crown to my brother. I thought I could do that if my parents ever brought up marriage- but this is more than a marriage. It’s war.

If I don’t marry the Delphine our trade routes are shut off- and since we already cut ties with the empire by my father announcing the engagement. If I reject this for you, I put the whole kingdom at risk. I… I don’t know if I can do that.

J.

~~~~

February 4th

J,

Surely there’s another way! Why can’t she just marry your brother?

R.

~~~~

February 10th

R,

Do you truly think I haven’t looked for one? My hands are tied. The only possible thing I could do to even have you near me is to bring you here as an advisor or the like when the time comes. I can find a way if it’s that.

J.

~~~~

February 14th

J,

No. I will not stand to the side just watch as you dance and hold hands with her for the public’s morale. I would rather die than that.

R.

~~~~

February 19th

R,

Please don’t be so dramatic. I am trying all I can think of in between my hectic schedule. But if you truly don’t like my efforts tell me, do you have any brilliant ideas?

J.

~~~~

February 25th

J,

Don’t mock me, Your Highness. You’re not the one who has had his heart stepped on repeatedly. You’ve been making me promises for years- am I not allowed to be upset when I find out that they’re hollow?

R.

~~~~

March 2nd

R,

You’re unbelievable. Feel free to sulk all you wish, meanwhile I need to continue my regular duties, prepare a wedding, and prepare for war.

J.

~~~~

March 5th

J,

War? I thought our kingdom was just to supply aid.

R.

~~~~

March 8th

R,

I’m getting married to the daughter of a nation who declared war upon the empire. Of course war will come to our borders as well.

J.

~~~~

March 23rd

J,

Father got the invitation to the wedding this morning. I wanted to tear it to shreds. Have you truly thought of nothing yet? Something other than me working for you?

R.

~~~~

March 29th

R,

I’m sorry to say I haven’t. In the months since the ball and start of the war I haven’t gotten anywhere with my Father- and Mother’s decline isn’t helping.

J.

~~~~

April 1st

J,

What? I had heard she was getting better?

R.

~~~~

April 6th

R,

That’s just the rumor I spread to redirect attention. She’s getting worse if anything.

J.

~~~~

April 10th

J,

I am so sorry.

R.

~~~~

August 12th

J,

It’s been a long time since my last letter, I’m not sure how many months. I guess I should follow custom and congratulate you on the wedding even if I am late. You at least looked very nice on your wedding day. You’ve truly perfected that fake smile.

I’m sorry for how I acted when I heard about your engagement. I know you didn’t want this either. And I know it’s late for this, but I’ll come work for you if that’s what it takes. The more I try to pretend that I don’t love you- the harder it gets- and the more it hurts.

R.

~~~~

August 17th

Lord Roman Regis,

Please do not waste my time and deny that you are the author of the letter I just read. I intend to keep this letter brief. I do not wish to know what kind of relationship you have with my husband, but I must request that it ceases. My husband serves as a figure to both nations, and he cannot have anyone dragging him down. Especially not someone of a lower stature.

If you contact him again, there will be consequences.

Crown Princess Delphine Ekans

~~~~

August 22nd

Crown Princess,

Your Highness I apologize for any misunderstandings I may have caused, but please speak to Janus. I’m sure he will explain everything.

Lord Roman Regis

~~~~

August 26th

Lord Roman Regis,

To think a measly count’s son can not only tell me what to do, but he can be bold enough to refer to my husband without a title. I already asked you not to drag my husband down, and by doing so you have disregarded my warning.

Do remember that you have brought this upon yourself Lord Roman.

Crown Princess Delphine Ekans

~~~~

September 5th,

Ro,

You know all those times I told you to just get out there and just love the prince if you actually love him? Well this is not what I meant. I mean like you should speed up that “perfect” plan you two always talked about, not that you should wait so long that he got married. And definitely not so long that his wife outed your “despicable crush on the married crown prince”- however I can say that the papers are currently god tier with gossip. I have been asked for interviews like four times and I love it. Oh and have some faith in me, I didn’t talk to them- for long.

Anyway, lover boy should be able to help you out of this, right?

The better you,

Remus

~~~~

September 10th,

Remus,

Sometimes I hate you, and then when I remember we shared a womb I hate you even more. But even so, I thank you for being the one “calm” person about this. Mother and Father (mainly Mother) have been up in arms about how big of a disgrace I am, and just about every noble in the kingdom is in agreement. It doesn't matter that just about every unmarried woman pines after the Crown Prince even after he got married, because when a man does it- because that Witch known as the Crown Princess publishes my letter- I’m somehow a deviant.

I haven’t left the manor since word got out. And I am just flooded with letters from friends and other nobles, but truthfully I am too scared to read them. Maybe I’ll have a trusted maid read them and pick out the kind ones, but I am not sure.

I have no clue what is going on with Janus at the moment. I am yet to receive anything from him- most likely due to the Crown Princess’ interference. I wish I could know what was happening behind the palace doors... I truly do.

This is why I just wanted to run off to somewhere else, but Janus was confident he could change the laws for us and then we could go live quietly somewhere... I wish things were that simple.

I rather not discuss this anymore truthfully. I'd like to have a normal conversation again. So tell me, do you have any stories to tell of your travels? Reading them would prove far more interesting than anything here.

The best twin,

Roman

~~~~

September 18th,

Remus,

Given I am yet to receive a response from you, so I assume you are on the move once more, but I thought I should send you an update letter before you hear the filtered version from word of mouth.

I am currently being escorted to the palace. I know some will think I am to get some sort of punishment, but Janus sent one of the guards with a verbal message that he is handling this in his own way. I have no choice but to place my trust in him. Mother was still worried about it, Father interestingly seemed to be rooting for me but we didn’t get to talk more about it. But I know I will see Janus soon and that thought comforts me. Even though I know his wife will be close behind.

I’ll keep you updated on what transpires. But I still expect traveling stories. Like honestly, what was the point of you joining the navy if I don't get to read any seafaring adventures? You aren’t fighting in the war so surely there must be pirates or something? Or some stories about sirens and other such creatures? I want to read them all.

And in return you can have me as your wonderful twin.

The twin that matters,

Roman

~~~~

September 21st

Roman,

It almost seems strange to be able to address you by your name in a letter, but I like it all the same. I am very sorry for my silence and for Delphine’s actions. The former was a result of a few things: the first being my traveling to the battle front. I'm sorry I did not tell you prior to leaving, I did not want you to worry, but... I spent some time in battle. I was on my way back when your letter reached the palace and Delphine had taken it before I knew it even existed. Then upon my return I was busy dealing with Mother’s health and my war reports- I had intended to write other excuses here but truthfully I was scared of your reaction. I was scared that you would have just given up on me- on us. I had written and thrown away over 20 letters that I started without finishing before Delphine handed me a paper with a letter I had never seen published on the front page.

We had a long argument, about her not having the right to do such a thing to a “friend” of mine. It took a lot of time to cool things down and convince everyone to allow you to come here. Your father had sent me a letter saying he was worried for your safety, and that was enough to pull them to my side to bring you out of harm's way.

I am sorry I cannot currently go to see you, right now everyone believes I am just trying to clean up a mess that my wife blew way out of proportion and going to you would only start rumors. The knight who will deliver this letter- Virgil- can be trusted. He may huff and roll his eyes, but he does not pry and will not look at the contents of the letters. As he put it, he will only do the bare minimum of his job, and being curious and nosy takes too much energy. So you can send your letters through him. I swear I will figure something out.

In the meantime I hope your quarters are comfortable, let me know if they are not.

Yours,

Janus

~~~~

September 22nd,

Janus,

You are an absolute idiot. You went to war, without telling me? What if something had happened to you? Are you crazy? No of course you are. You’re absolutely insane- and I am so so glad that you are alright.

It has been strange being here in the palace, I don't often leave my room due to the looks servants give as I pass by, but my room is comfortable and Virgil makes good conversation. He certainly doesn’t have the demeanor of most knights which is enjoyable. Reminds me a bit of my twin in a way- but I think both would disagree.

Regardless, I have a request for you even though I know you will disagree. I wish to speak with the Crown Princess. I do not know how much you have told her, so I can keep things sounding one sided if you wish- but I want to speak to her. If you don't give an answer I like, I will simply write to her myself.

Roman

~~~~

September 22nd

Roman,

And you call me crazy. Why would you want to meet with the woman who ruined your life? You wrote in the same letter that even servants are scorning you- I will have Virgil report to me who they are so they can be fired immediately- and yet you wish to speak with her? I will not allow it.

Janus

~~~~

September 24th

Janus,

As you read this the Crown Princess should be receiving her letter as well. I kept it simple, just asking for tea with the promise of an apology. But before I schedule a time to meet with her, I want to know... do you like your wife?

Roman

~~~~

September 25th

Roman,

Delphine showed me the letter and she gave some unkind phrases to go with. I told her not to accept your invitation- but I think she wants to even more now. As to your question, I don’t know what I think of her. I hate what she has done to you, but I do not hate her (entirely) as a person. I admire the fact that she will go to great lengths to help her people, but I certainly do not like her. Or perhaps it’s better to say that I like her in the way one likes a business partner? Appreciating when they get the job done well, and hating when they don't. I am not sure if that answers your question, but I do not know how else to better phrase my thoughts.

Janus

~~~~

September 27th

Janus,

I met the Second Prince yesterday. He came to my room and chided me for not getting enough sunlight and fresh air, before he ordered me to accompany him to the gardens. He seems far too kind to be of royal blood. Oh, while he denies it I definitely say Virgil stealing glances at the Prince. It was quite adorable actually.

I am laughing to myself as I write this and he looks on, it is most amusing. Do tell you brother to visit again.

Roman

~~~~

September 28th

Roman,

Patton is definitely too pure for this palace, if he wasn’t the spitting image of father I would think he was illegitimate. As for him and Virgil... I rather not speculate, no one and I mean no one is good enough for Patton.

In more important news I will be accompanying Delphine to your tea tomorrow. At least for the beginning of it. Seeing you two together with my own eyes is the only way I can be sure someone won't attack the other.

I’ll see you then love.

Janus

~~~~

September 29th

Janus,

Since I am sure you are worried about what I and Crown Princess Delphine spoke of in your absence here is a few notes about what we discussed:

The fact that I have loved you since our academy days

That my feelings won't change no matter what she does

That I don't want anything negative to befall either country

She did not once ask about your thoughts or feelings, they seemed relevant to her

She doesn’t want me near you. She says it will ruin the reputation she is building

I do not know what this means for us, but at the very least I think I understand what you meant about having a business partner relationship.

Roman

~~~~

October 2nd

Roman,

Good to know your talk with her was for mostly nothing. She has more recently gone to my father about some scheme to boost morale and he seems to be on board. So she’s at least distracted for the time being.

In surprising news Mother wishes to meet you. She’s probably the one person who knows everything simply because she sees through every lie I tell. But thankfully she never questions me on the truth. You’ll receive an official invite from her soon.

Janus

~~~~

October 4th

Janus,

Your mother is one of the kindest people on the planet. She kept fretting over if I was okay, and meanwhile she is the one bedridden. And you were certainly right about her knowing the whole story, because it is clear she is rooting for us! She told me she just wants you to be happy, and marrying for love is something she wished you could do. She did also say she wanted to give the Crown Princess a “stern talking to”, and I think that would be hilarious to watch.

Roman

~~~~

October 14th 4th

Logan,

This year has been an absolute shitshow. Have you even heard what’ss going on? Because I haven’t heard a word fom you. But I suppose what else should I expect from the disaprearing count? I just want to marry for love and be done with the fucking war? Is that so bap? Delphine is making this hard, but I know she just wants things to be not war… it’s all so annoying. What should I do lo?

Your only friend,

Jans

~~~~

October 5th

Mother and Father,

I want you to know that despite all that has occurred I am well. I have gotten a chance to speak to the Crown Prince and Princess, and the Queen. Currently the Crown Prince intends to release rumors regarding the Duke’s family (which may or may not involve treason so please pull any assets out quickly) to stop the month long gossip about me. Once that happens, I am not sure if I will be staying here or returning home but I will let you know once I figure it out. Living in the palace certainly isn’t bad after all. The food is to die for. I may try to lengthen my stay just because of it. So don’t worry about me, worry about Remus who just sent me a letter detailing too many things about pirates that would make you cry in shame.

The lesser of two evils,

Roman

~~~~

October 8th

Crown Prince Janus Ekans,

I was quite surprised to get your letter and even more surprised by it’s contents. I have told you multiple times it is not becoming of a prince to send letters written in a drunken stupor.

Yes, I am well aware of the gossip in the capital that you have involved yourself in. But I saw no need to send you a letter of my own thoughts when I am not involved in your marital issues. If you were simply writing to me to rant and rave, then your letter was received. And I would like to say that I do have other friends.

Regardless, please expedite the report enclosed, it is part of our winter preparations.

Count Logan Ackroyd

~~~~

October 9th

Janus,

I went into town with Prince Patton (who gave me permission to call me by his name) and Virgil today. We went in disguise of course, but we got to go to a great many shops and try some good food. I bought you a present while we were out, but with the current circumstances I don’t believe I should send it with this letter. If you ever find the time to drop by my room please come and get it.

As we went about I couldn’t shake two thoughts from my mind, the first being that fall looks so different here in the capital, and the second was that it’s been nearly a year since we promised to do such things together. I still await the day where you show me your favorite spots.  

I hope those times come soon.

Roman

~~~~

October 10th

Roman,

I too hope for the same, and I would love to see what it is you got me, but we have an obstacle at present. A few actually. While the war is finally moving in our favor, I fear that the Duke’s situation is less clear than I thought. In addition to that, Father wants you sent home to the county sooner than later. And if that’s not enough, Delphine wishes to speak with you before you leave- I will do my best to convince her otherwise. I’m not sure when they want your departure to be, I’m currently negotiating and thankfully Patton is on my side.

Janus

~~~~

October 11th

Ro,

So in my quest to find exciting stories for you I may or may have not taken a cutlass to the leg. It nearly got cut clean off! Or well that’s the story I’ll tell at least. Anyway, I’m gonna be home for a while so you should come visit your dearest twin. And as for get well presents there’s nothing better than basically all the sweets in the capital so I’ll take those please and thank you. Oh and buy me some of those racy novels you pretend you don’t read. Mother saw the word “tentacle” then burned mine.

Your horribly wounded and now sickly and pathetic twin,

Remus

~~~~

October 12th

Janus,

I heard from Prince Patton that there will be a party next week. He was asking me if I plan to go with him, and truthfully I’d like to, but I also don't want to undo anything either. What do you think?

Roman

~~~~

October 13th

Roman,

I’m afraid that your attendance will not be a good idea. But, I’ve heard sickness is floating around the palace. It would be truly tragic if I can’t attend. The greatest of tragedies.

Janus

~~~~

October 15th

Dearest Husband,

At least for the sake of appearances, can you pretend like you’re not missing your lover when we’re in public? It’s very nearly sickening.

Your Wife,

Delphine

~~~~

October 15th

Delphine,

I don’t believe I ever said he was my lover. Also if you want a conversation just come here. Thomas is a knight not a messenger.

Janus

~~~~

October 15th

Dearest Husband,

Sir Thomas shall be what I ask him to be. But on topic, if Lord Regis is not your lover then Queen Mother is in perfect health. If you’re going to ignore my and your kingdom’s wishes then at the very least be subtle. Please and thank you.

Oh and I will not be joining you for dinner, your sister asked me to dine with her.

Your Wife,

Delphine

~~~~

October 17th

Janus,

I’m afraid the party must wait (and for shame my meeting with the Crown Princess must wait as well). I have just received word that Remus was injured- not gravely though- so he is currently resting at home. I must return as soon as possible to rescue my parents from his madness. Well after I buy all the things the idiot requested.

Roman

~~~~

October 18th

Janus,

I love the jacket thank you so so so much. I’ll be sure to wear it the next time I see you, which will likely be the New Year’s Ball. I’ll write to you again as soon as I get home.

Roman

~~~~

October 21st

Janus,

I have just arrived and I already wish I had stayed in the palace. Mother is already talking about how lucky I am that despite the “scandal” she found a woman who would be willing to marry me. Maybe I’ll tell her to invite this poor girl over while Remus is here. Hopefully that scares her off.

Roman

~~~~

October 26th

Roman,

What do you think about eloping?

Janus

~~~~

November 1st

Janus,

You are aware of the fact that you’re married right? Also two men marrying isn't exactly legal. Also you know, the war?

Roman

~~~~

November 7th

Roman,

Trust me when I say the war will come to an end soon. And screw the laws and my wife. If I just kidnapped you, what would anyone really do?

Janus

~~~~

November 13th

Janus,

For starters I don’t think announcing kidnapping in a letter is the proper way to kidnap someone. Also I would like to point out that in the past years I always wanted to run away and you said no. Then a few months after I drop it you’re getting engaged.

Roman

~~~~

November 18th

Roman,

Virgil said the same thing. You two spent too much time together while you were here. And I’m a married man now. I’ve grown and I’ve changed. And running away sounds better and better.

Janus

~~~~

November 20th,

Logan,

If I said I wanted to elope with Roman to your domain what would you say?

Janus

~~~~

November 23rd

Janus,

You assigned him to be my guard of course we spent time together. Also I’ve been receiving letters from Prince Patton, he truly is a ray of sunshine. He told me that the Queen is doing better and I am elated to hear that. Please pass my well wishes to her.

Roman

~~~~

November 24th

Crown Prince Janus Ekans,

What would I say if you wanted to elope here? Well, I would remind you that you have responsibilities. While I do wish for your happiness do remember that the country lies on your shoulders as well. However if there was such a way that everything was sorted beforehand, then I would still say no.

Count Logan Ackroyd

~~~~

November 28th

Logan,

That’s unnecessarily rude. I will take your response as a positive one.

Janus

~~~~

December 4th

Dearest Husband,

I am apologizing in advance for what I must do. I did not anticipate such a situation, but the Duke has my hands tied. You know I will always do what I believe I must for the good of our nations, and to stop this war. I beg you to keep these thoughts in mind.

Your Wife,

Delphine

~~~~

December 4th

Lord Roman Regis,

I beg you to keep the crown standing tall despite everything. This is not your opportunity.

Delphine

~~~~

December 10th

Janus,

Is it true what everyone’s saying? That the Crown Princess is going to be charged for treason? Was that why she sent me a strange letter?

Roman

~~~~

December 15th

Roman,

She sent you one too? And yes I’m afraid it’s true… but I don’t think that’s how it started. I was aware of the fact she was working with the duke to supply troops using her knowledge of how both armies could work together, I truthfully think he took advantage of her. But her name is on some of the documents which can be read negatively.

I apologize in advance for my lack of responsiveness and attention to you. For now I need to convince Father not to execute Delphine and others in her position. This is all truly at the worst timing, we were in the midst of discussion to end this whole war.

At the very least I’ll see you come the New Years Ball.

Janus

~~~~

December 29th

Roman,

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long, love but I think I have things sorted. At the ball my Father intends to announce the annulment of my marriage- claiming that Delphine unfairly used me. That’s not true of course, but it’s the best way for us to keep her here as a “hostage” and to withdraw our support in this war and try to reclaim a more neutral stance. At least outwardly, things are always more complicated when you look closer.

But with the war coming to a true end, and the end of my marriage, perhaps it’s time I take ‘crown’ out of my title? Patton would certainly be a better face to be out there right now as we try to maintain the rockiest of peaces. And once he takes over maybe I’ll just have to vanish in plain sight. I know a certain count who would take us in without complaint.

We can speak on it more at the banquet, I’ll meet you in the same spot as last year. We can use the same signals.

Janus

~~~~

January 2nd

Janus,

I have spent the past day thinking over the words you told me. I'll admit when I received your most recent letter, I took your words to be akin to wishful thinking. But now after hearing all the plans you made for us, this sounds like something we can really do. My heart beats faster at the thought.

Running away with the Crown Prince, it sounds like a novel doesn’t it? If we were to leave, when would we go?

Roman

~~~~

January 3rd

Roman,

Ideally I’d like to leave as soon as the snow melts, but diplomacy is known to take it’s time.

Janus

~~~~

January 4th

Janus,

I’m ready when you are. Just give me some notice to pack up my things at home and to write a letter that will make my mother sob when she realizes that she can’t marry me off for a reverse dowry. Yes, I know such a thing doesn’t exist, but I’m not sure she does.

Also I spent today with Prince Patton and Virgil and my stance has not changed.

Roman

~~~~

Roman,

Do me a favor and keep your fucking mouth shut? I don’t need Prince Janus interrogating me anymore.

-V

~~~~

January 8th

Janus,

Virgil left a note on my bed last night saying in not so nice words that I ratted him out to you. I take it I was right! You need to speak with your brother then we can be official cupids.

Also I’m leaving today, so make sure your next letter goes to my home.

Roman

~~~~

January 13th

Roman,

I will do no such thing. No one on this planet is good enough for Patton.

Janus

~~~~

January 28th

Logan,

You have till March to prepare our rooms. No, I won’t be telling you my arrival date.

Janus

~~~~

January 30th

Janus,

I don’t know if I ever told you, but I’ve kept every single letter you’ve sent me. The good, the bad, and the pointless ones. I’ve kept them all in a box in my wardrobe and my maids know not to touch them. I think I’ll take the box with me when we run.

Roman

~~~~

February 2nd

Roman,

The Prince is being weirder than usual and is fretting over little stuff and he keeps mumbling your name. Do me a favor and take him off my hands fast.

Also he got very mad at me when he found out we exchanged letters. It’s not like we’ve been doing this since you left or anything. He’s so jealous it’s stupid. Sometimes I like to imagine what would have happened if you had been the one forced into a political marriage- and then I quickly stop because I realize he would order me to go arrest and or kill someone and I legally can’t say no.

Save me.

-Virgil

~~~~

February 3rd

Roman,

I have a box of your letters as well. Even ones you haven’t written but are about you- so even some of Delphine’s have been included. Our story is certainly different from that of other couples, and our letters reflect that. I’ll bring my letters as well, maybe we can organize them all into a large collection.

That was an incredibly sappy thought, and yet I wish to follow through with it all the same.

Janus

~~~~

February 7th

Roman,

I deeply apologize. I saw the play. I know we promised to watch it together, but Patton begged me to go with those eyes and that expression and I couldn’t say no. I will make it up to you. I’ll sit through an opera in the future maybe? I know you like operas even if I don’t.

In good news I plan to send a carriage for you, it should arrive on the fourth of the coming month. It will bring you here to the capital, we can see a horrid opera and then we can be on our way to our future. So you have a full month to pack.

Janus

~~~~

February 12th

Janus,

I can’t believe you watched it without me. It will take more than an opera to make up for this. You can start thinking now on how to make it up to me.

Roman

~~~~

February 19th

Janus,

As the days grow closer my excitement grows more and more. Even now I’m writing this to you rather than sleeping as it truly sinks in that we’re going to do this. I can’t wait.

Roman

~~~~

February 23rd

Roman,

My feelings are the same as yours. This morning I announced to my family my intentions. I didn’t tell them where we’ll be going of course, just that I will be relinquishing the position of Crown Prince and that I will be traveling. Father was enraged, sister was surprised, but Mother and Patton seemed to understand and once the three of us were alone they assured me that they are happy for me. I have a few more people (boring nobles) to tell, but now that they know there’s no going back. So you’re not allowed to have cold feet.

Janus

~~~~

February 27th

Janus,

Please if anyone was to have cold feet it was you. I’ve been willing to run away with you since the day I first laid eyes on the pretty thing you call a face.

Roman

~~~~

March 4

Janus,

The carriage should be here any minute, and I’m writing this letter that I intend to hand deliver to calm myself. My room is packed into bags, and I’ve already said most of my goodbyes. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I’m sure time will fly when I’m with you. It always does.

Roman

~~~~

Jan,

Truthfully I wish you didn’t have to leave, but I understand it. So I wish you luck in chasing your love, while you’re gone I’ll make some changes around here so you can lead the life you want when you get back.

Be happy, and don’t forget to write.

Patt

~~~~

March 19th

Patton,

I have arrived safely, and both Logan and Roman are doing well. The former was griping about needing to share his estate with us, but all it took was me bringing up a few embarrassing childhood stories for him to loosen up. I don’t know when I’ll be home, but if you’re ever in the mood to frighten Father, tell him that we’ll need a royal wedding upon my return. I finally got to do the proper proposal I’ve had in my head since the New Year’s before last, and it was perfect.

I wish you luck in dealing with the state of affairs, if you need any help send me a letter discreetly and I can offer some aid.

Best wishes,

Janus

P.S. Fire Virgil if you feel like it. You can do better.

~~~~

A Forbidden Romance Years in the Making!

It’s been years since the ex Crown Princess and now hostage of the kingdom Delphine outed then Lord Roman Regis for loving a married man. Afterwards he was shunned by society and took shelter in the palace after his father begged for his shelter. Generously, the former Crown Prince agreed given he was tied to the scandal. But now we know that was never the whole story. Rather the two have been in a secret romance since their school days.

Now, as if his sudden disappearance was nothing, First Prince Janus Ekans has returned with his betrothed Lord Roman Regis, by his side. Previously talks of Crown Prince Patton signing the new law has been floating for a long while, but it seems the pen will finally be put to paper so a royal wedding may commence.

The couple will wed immediately following the signing of the new law legalizing gay marriage. And it will surely be a wedding to remember.

[oswincoleman]

2020 Jenna Coleman’s Year in Review, part 1: Summary

Over the next few days, I will be reviewing the past year in regards to Jenna Coleman. 

At first, I will provide a summary of the year overall, before going into more detail in the coming days.  

As far as I can judge from my perspective, this has been a terrible year for Jenna in numerous ways. A lot of the reasons that made this year so rotten are due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but not all of them are. I’m sorry, but this review will be rather negative. But fear not, even though the last year has not gone well at all for Jenna, 2021 looks like it might be a fantastic year for her. 

She did less acting work in 2020 than she had ever done in at least the last 10 years. She filmed The Serpent for a total of 5 weeks, did a virtual play (with only a few days’ preparation), and recorded some readings. But for almost all of this year, Jenna didn’t do any acting work at all. As far as I can tell, this has been the only year of her entire acting career in which she wasn’t officially announced to have been cast in a new role in film or television, or to continue playing a role she already played, in the next year. 

The only published show or film this year that Jenna made an appearance in, was Death Be Not Proud, (Inside No 9 series 5 episode 2). Her screentime there amounted to about 10 minutes. Only in 2010 and 2011 did she have an even shorter total screentime than she did this year. And in all other years since 2005, her screentime was far more than it was this year. Obviously this is predominantly due to the pandemic, which prevented The Serpent from being aired many months ago. But it is still painful, as the last time Jenna had any major appearance on TV or film, was almost 2 years ago, in Victoria series 3. 

As a consequence of that, Jenna did not get any awards, and was not even nominated for any award this year. This has been the first year since 2016 in which she didn’t at least win one award.

Tabloids, newspapers, and magazines have been exceptionally vicious to her this year. The Sun invented rumours of an alleged breakup with Tom Hughes, without any evidence, and this has since been accepted to be true by far too many people and other media. Over the months, the evidence has piled up to show that they didn’t break up at all. They are still living together, and a close friend said that they didn’t split. In contrast, there is still no evidence at all to support the lies told by The Sun. 

The Daily Mail stalked her very frequently, about 4 times as often as in previous years. They even seemingly sent paparazzi right to her doorstep, to just wait there for her to arrive or leave, as several sets of paparazzi pictures were taken right in front of her and Tom’s house. And then in October, the Daily Mail published incredibly intrusive pictures of her and Tom’s house on their front page, after they put it up for sale. Both Jenna and Tom are both very keen on keeping their private lives private, and have gone to considerable effort to keep it that way. So the publishing of these pictures by the Daily Mail must have been a nightmare come true for them. Eventually, they managed to convince the Daily Mail to delete their article, and no longer had their house up for sale, to avoid their personal pictures from being spread even more widely.

Even supposedly high quality newspapers and magazines asked her incredibly intrusive and disrepectful questions, seemingly caring more about manipulating her to reveal details of her private life, than to ask her about her acting roles. 

2020 has been the year in which Jenna has made by far the fewest Instagram posts ever, since she first joined the platform. Whereas in 2016 she made 181 posts, this year she just made 27. One of the reasons for this, is that she has been more active on Instagram stories. Unfortunately, those have a far smaller reach than Instagram posts, and disappear forever after 24 hours, so simply can’t match Instagram posts. Most of her posts were pictures or videos from other people that had already been shared previously. Only a very small number of those featured pictures or videos that had not already been known to fans of Jenna. 

As a consequence of all of the above, Jenna ended up losing lots of followers this year. She reached 900k followers on Instagram in November 2019, and that number slowly climbed to almost 909k followers by summer 2020. But over the course of the last few months, Jenna’s number of followers dropped down to 899k. 

Also on Twitter, where she remarkably still has an account, even though she hardly ever uses it, she was even less active than in previous years. Throughout this year, the Doctor Who fanbase has participated in several watchalongs of particular episodes, and the writers and actors involved in those episodes often took part as well, sharing insights and stories about how the episode(s) came to be. Jenna was one of only 3 main Doctor Who actors, who didn’t take part in any of the numerous watchalongs of her episodes, even though she has a Twitter account, even though there were more watchalongs of her episodes, than of most other actors’ episodes. 

Obviously, Jenna made next to no public appearances this year; only one in January. But previous to that, Jenna was busy filming The Serpent in Thailand, so the second to last public appearance she attended was in July 2019. So it has been a very long time since Jenna last had semi-regular public appearances.

Due to a lack of new projects, Jenna also had fewer photoshoots, and until December, no radio or TV interview whatsoever. It has been 19 months between her TV and radio interviews for The Serpent, and the last ones she had before that.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel; even though 2020 was a a very bad year for Jenna, 2021 looks to be a great year for her. With promotion for The Serpent underway (too late in my opinion, but still), December has been markedly different to the rest of the year. Jenna has been slightly more active online, appeared in three radio interviews (one of which was recorded), one TV interview, made several interviews for the media in general, and had a photoshoot and interview for The Times. The Serpent will kick off 2021 to a great start, and even though it will only be available in the UK for the first momth(s) of 2021, Netflix will release it worldwide as well.

After the constant drop in the number of followers that Jenna has on Instagram and Twitter since summer 2020, things are finally improving again. Probably due to promotion for The Serpent, Jenna has reached 900k followers again, gaining almost several hundred new followers in the last week. 

And then of course there is Jenna’s secret new big-budget fantasy project for 2021. My best guess for what it could be is Death in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman series on Netflix, but we will have to see. 

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: As a staunch royalist I would be interested to hear your views about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle deciding to quit the British royal family. Did they do the right thing or are they just being selfish and ‘woke’? Does this ‘Megxit’ the British royal family is in crisis and its future looks bleak by this act of betrayal to the Queen?

Short answer:

I have been avoiding answering this question precisely because I became tired of hearing about it around the family dinner table or with friends when I visited England recently or now with French friends here in Paris who can’t fathom what is going on. But too many have asked about this in my blog inbox.

I don’t mean to sound so dismissive but to me it’s just a passing storm in a tea cup rather than some cataclysmic crisis of the British monarchy. Everyone should stop take a deep breath.

After the joint press statement by Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex statement came out on 8 January 2020 it set in motion the usual hilarious pastiche of Cold War Kremlinology by the British press.  So at any one time you had sensationalist and sanctimonious headlines such as the fury of the palace press knew no bounds. How dare they? The Queen humiliated. The palace insulted. And so on and so on.

Every newspaper editor knows there is a yawning gulf between the “public interest” and what interests the public. By any standards, Harry and Meghan have become huge celebrities. They were idolised, their charities blessed, their presence craved. Unfortunately such is human nature, the public invest something of themselves in their heroes. They see in their idols a reflection of their own fantasies and delights, hopes and fears. When they witness celebrities traumatised it can be unsettling, as the death of Princess Diana vividly showed. People cried in the street.

As Harry knew from his mother’s tragic experience, all this is par for the royal course. The British newspapers - or rather those peddling in royal tittle tattle such as the Sun, Mirror, and the Daily Mail - have a habit of erecting pedestals one minute and then the next minute they enjoy destroying the icon in the name of the public interest. Andrew’s former wife, Sarah Ferguson, was appallingly treated. So at times were Princess Anne, and Prince Edward’s wife, Sophie. Press attention should be water off the royal duck’s back. Prince Philip’s advice was reportedly: “Don’t read the bloody papers.”

While Harry was brought up surrounded by the furies of the celebrity media, Meghan’s career was the opposite. In her profession as a known actor (albeit a middling TV actor at that), image is an artifice, daily crafted and laundered by publicists.

This does not work with British royalty, which comes with its own carefully minted image attached. Its rituals are those of mind-numbing deference. It has no accountability. The only mirror it has is the press. The tabloids are the price that must be paid for adulation. They honour no discretion and have no sense of fairness. The press is a memento mori, whispering into the victor’s ear that he – or she – is only mortal. And gosh do they take that role on with sanctimonious glee. 

To be daily compared to the Duchess of Cambridge, from an utterly different social background, must have been intolerable for Meghan: the dress comparisons, the stuffiness of the court, its hyper-caution and obsession with precedence and procedure, added to the impossibility of contact with ordinary people. As a self-made millionaire already perhaps she wanted to be more than a mere civil servant in a tiara. Perhaps it proved too much but who really knows? But then I don’t know what else she expected when she decided to marry into the British royal family.

Similarly one can only speculate how much it was really Prince Harry who wanted to drop out riding on the royal carousel as he has been since birth. Regardless of who he married perhaps this was always the plan. His loathing of the British press and paparazzi is well known - he still blames them for his mother’s tragic death in Paris. It’s well known the paparazzi have tried to catch him out in manufactured scandals as he grew up. He has refreshingly come clean and has talked about how he still goes to therapy over his mother’s death. It’s no wonder he would ever subject a future wife and especially a child to the level of press intrusion that he had endured.

Prince Harry is nobody’s fool. I won’t say a bad word about him because - unlike previous and present royals with the exception of his grandfather, Prince Philip, who did active naval service during the Second World War and his uncle Prince Andrew, who as a naval officer flew Sea King helicopters during the Falklands War - he didn’t play the ceremonial toy soldier. After Eton he worked his arse off to get through Sandhurst and got commissioned with the Blues and Royals regiment. Upon the outbreak of war in Iraq, he was alleged to have said around 2006, “There's no way I'm going to put myself through Sandhurst and then sit on my arse back home while my boys are out fighting for their country.”

As it was the military chiefs got cold feet and pulled him out. But he did see active service with the British forces in Afghanistan with two tours. By all accounts he acquitted himself very well as a Forward Air Controller in Helmand Province and later as a co-pilot and gunner on Apache helicopters. He was widely respected and accepted by rank and file because he was down to earth and never asked for special treatment.  He wasn’t a typical ‘Rupert’ - a squaddie’s nickname given to British army officers who typically came from privileged aristocratic backgrounds but were also ‘nice but dim witted’.

Overall I sympathise that the Sussexes’ predicament was clearly desperate, and it is perhaps to their credit that they have brought it to a head early and not let it drag on. I feel they are sincere in their reasons to ’step back’ from the royal family and frenzied media circus around it. The fact they want to pay their own way and pay back any outstanding sums back to the royal household is perhaps a sign of that sincerity.

Instead some sections of the British press rolled out the tired old trope of the parallels between the Duke of Sussex and his great-great uncle, the Duke of Windsor, are overwhelming. Once again, a dashing, sporting, ex-military prince leaves royal life for the love of an American divorcée. This is exactly the opposite of what Edward and Mrs Wallace Simpson did when they bit the hand that fed them. They took money to support their lavish lifestyle in exile from the Queen and all the while took every opportunity to snark the fledgling young Queen from their own alternative royal court in Paris. Harry no doubt loves his grandmother and his family and would try not sully the Windsor name.

Where I would be critical a little is in their handling of it which appears naive at best and inept at worst. I suspect - since verified - that having a transatlantic split of publicists, and in addition didn’t understand the full import of how this would play out, would inevitably drop the ball. But I would extend a finger of blame to the palace courtiers who were involved in their own games of intrigue with a whispering campaign to selected journalists of the press. Indeed multiple newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph in the UK, reported that the queen was “disappointed” with the surprise announcement, and had asked the Sussexes to hold off on issuing a public statement. When The gossip mongering Sun newspaper published a front-page story that the couple was contemplating a move to Canada, the Sussexes pushed the button on their statement.

I do think the Sussexes  and their advisors were fooling themselves into thinking that they could have their cake and eat it - in other words keep the royal titles but cut back on the public and ceremonial duties. The blunt truth is if you want to stay on the books, you do so by the leave of the firm and its boss i.e. The Queen. The contract is for life. If not, you resign. There is no half in and half out. This seems to have been the gist of the family only summit at Sandringham in January 2020, with media attention worthy of the Treaty of Versailles.

I am frankly surprised how worked up people are about this. Cut out the white noise and the picture is more prosaic.

The first point is that when all is said and done, none of this drama really matters. Politically, constitutionally, it is an irrelevance. Harry, at number six, is not seriously in line to the throne. The British monarchy has long shown itself immune to crisis; indeed I wonder sometimes if it welcomes crises as implying continued importance. The divorce and death of Princess Diana were awfully tragic, as was the very public shaming of Prince Andrew and his questionable friendship with billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. But how Harry leads his life is between himself, his wife and his father, Prince Charles. That is the point of heredity. It is immune to character, as it is to merit.

The second point is we should remember that other European royal families, of the same constitutional status as Britain, have been down sizing for many years now. These royal families balanced privacy and discretion whilst holding down ordinary professions. The King of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander, is still an airline pilot. He occasionally flies KLM jets, safe in the knowledge that few people recognise him. In 2001 Prince Haakon, heir to the Norwegian throne, married a single mother with a drug-fuelled past. Despite some controversy, he survived incognito. 

The King of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustaf, has reigned for 46 inconspicuous years as a nine-to-five job, his family merged into the Swedish bourgeoisie. The Crown Princess, Victoria, works intermittently for the UN. The King of Spain, Felipe VI, may have taken after his philandering father, Juan Carlos, but he became king without fuss on his father’s retirement in 2014. None of these “houses” has an extended state-subsidised royal family. None has grown unstable as a result.

There is no doubt that the exploitation of the British royal family celebrity by palace courtiers as PR handlers has worked. The royal family recognises that truth for itself when HRH King George VI famously quipped, “We are not a family, we are a firm”. The Queen is regularly cited as central to ��UK plc” and to tourism. The British people remain overwhelmingly in favour of retaining monarchy as the focus of their patriotism, even during the wobble over Diana’s death. Republicanism is dead. The last ostentatious republican, the Fife MP Willie Hamilton, left parliament in 1987. If Scotland ever went independent it would almost certainly retain the Queen as head of state.

As for how royalty behaves, a constitutional monarchy should be beyond all controversy. As the great political and constitutional commentator (and founder of the Economist magazine) Walter Bagehot put it, “the monarch should be a dignified rather than efficient element of the constitution”. In other words, the monarchy as personified in its reigning king or queen can represent the whole nation in an emotionally satisfying way - everything else is but pure embellishment.

The Queen must be a glorious anthropomorphism of the nation as a whole. If she has opinions, she keeps them to herself - much to her credit. The contrast is clear with countries where state headship is combined with an elected executive presidency. The state risks being tainted by partisanship: witness the embarrassment many Americans feel at having their national loyalty identified with any president based on divided partisan feelings e.g. from FDR to Obama and Nixon to Trump.

A rare occasion when the monarch might overstep the mark was conjectured by Mike Bartlett in his ingenious play, King Charles III, in 2014. It was based on the present Prince of Wales as king, refusing formally to sign a bill censoring the press (good on him). In the resulting crisis, William and Kate engineer Charles’s abdication, while the tearaway Harry takes up with a republican girlfriend. It was not wholly implausible. When Belgium faced a similar crisis over King Baudouin’s refusal to sign an abortion bill in 1990, he was allowed to abdicate for a day.

How the monarchy conducts itself is not wholly irrelevant. It is part of the collective context in which the nation’s politics are enacted. It represents tradition and upholds precedent. It sets boundaries and dictates a courtesy in the conduct of public affairs - however often that courtesy is infringed. What outsiders forget (especially our American friends) is that the British political system is gloriously resilient, as the past three years of Brexit hell have shown. It can tolerate the odd eccentricity, such as the blatant purchase of parliamentary seats in the House of Lords. But the question is how far such eccentricity can extend. 

The present heir to the throne, Prince Charles, is deft at stepping mildly out of line. His views on architecture, health and the environment are not overtly partisan. But it does not matter as he is no more “powerful” than a newspaper or television commentator. His influence is that of celebrity. I would rather have the heir to throne engage intelligently in public debate than arrogantly indulge in the sordid sexual antics of his younger brother, Andrew.

For all his perceived faults, Prince Charles knows his limits. To expect such controlled nuances in the constitutional mystique of royalty to apply to an ever larger family has always been an accident waiting to happen. More prescient is the fact that the current system will impose the same disciplines and direct the same public exposure on an ever widening array of royal offspring as the years go by. I feel genuine sympathy for the royal children. Most British minors have their faces blanked out on camera, but not royal ones. They are sentenced to be recognised for life.

As a nation then we are extremely fortunate that Prince Harry is no more militant than in defence of the planet, wild animals and injured military veterans - all worthy causes if we are honest to admit it. Full disclosure: as an ex-veteran, I do give charitable donations to Invictus Games Foundation, the multi-sports event put on for wounded, injured or sick armed services personnel and their associated veterans. Prince Harry was instrumental in founding the Invictus Games in 2014 on his own initiative so that we never forget the courage and sacrifice of our military veterans.

What is already clear is that the Sussexes intend forthwith to redraw the lines of engagement with the press. They are opting out of the Royal Rota, the arrangement whereby, for decades, the royals have given access to a pool reporter from the national papers; instead, they will invite coverage from personally selected media outlets and will use their own social-media accounts, especially Instagram, to communicate directly with the public. Having railed against the media’s commodification of his wife, Prince Harry now seems prepared to take its commodification into his own hands: it was reported in January 2020 that he and the Duchess have lately submitted a trademark application for hundreds of items, from clothing to printed items, that may be issued with the couple’s personal brand, Sussex Royal.

This step is unfortunate and unedifying. To my mind, Sussex is a title, not a brand name. It is no more Harry and Meghan’s to exploit than Buckingham Palace is the Queen’s to sell off. Even if they distance themselves from the monarchy by being financially independent (as well as disowning their titles) by pursuing other commercial opportunities it only takes one scandal - e.g. a goods with their brand made from sweat shop labour or some other unforeseen PR disaster - to reflect badly on the Queen and the British monarchy solely because of Harry’s proximity to the throne. Harry may not be a Prince but he is a Windsor.

We are back to Bagehot again. For it was he who argued that the constitution was divided into two branches. The monarchy represents the “dignified” branch. Its job is to symbolise the state through pomp and ceremony. The government -Parliament, the cabinet and the civil service - represents the “efficient” branch. Its job is to run the country by passing laws and providing public services. The dignified branch governs through poetry, and the efficient branch through prose. The monarchy certainly doesn’t govern through commercial exploitation of its brand as an end in itself.

Today, the dignified branch is trying to adapt to an age of populism and until recently it’s been doing a much better job than the efficient branch. But the monarchy must never lower itself to the lowest common denominator to satisfy the base instincts of populism. As Bagehot aptly said, “An element of exaggeration clings to the popular judgment: great vices are made greater, great virtues greater also; interesting incidents are made more interesting, softer legends more soft.”

A family spat of no public importance is obsessing the nation and the world. Everyone should sit down and have a nice relaxing cup of tea.

[anonymoushouseplantfan]

Submitted: Robert Hardman: Harry and Meghan are being peevish and tin-eared... just who IS advising them?

Palace response to the Sussex website statement

Ps: Robert Hardman is a very interesting Palace mouthpiece. He is primarily a historian, and tends to stay away from the gossip, daily propaganda side of things that your standard royal reporter publishes, but when the Palace want a facts based response or clarification made to the public, Robert is the person tasked with doing it. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8035735/ROBERT-HARDMAN-Harry-Meghan-peevish-tin-eared-just-advising-them.html

Like every Sandhurst cadet, the young Prince Harry had the age-old maxim – variously attributed to Erwin Rommel, the Duke of Wellington and the 6th century BC Chinese general Sun Tzu – drummed in to him throughout his military training: time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted.

So how is it that, after all those months of supposedly careful planning, the great ‘Sussex Royal’ adventure now looks more like the retreat from Dunkirk?

And why, given their evident concern about retaining their royal status, have the Duke and Duchess of Sussex shown such disrespect for the person from whom that status descends – the Queen?

For the latest pique-filled statement on the sussexroyal.com website is enough to test the patience of the most sympathetic observers.

Yes, it must be extremely irksome to spend a great deal of time and money creating a new brand for yourself and registering a plethora of trademarks, only to be told that it’s all a non-starter. 

Yes, the Sussexes may well feel there is one set of rules for those still inside the royal compound and another for them.

Yet the couple have only themselves to blame, not that they seem willing to acknowledge that. In the latest online message to their 11.2 million followers, they have posted a number of thinly veiled grumbles about various members of the Royal Family.

However, it is the dismissive tone of their remarks about the Queen’s authority which surprises me most and leaves me wondering just who on earth is advising them.

The thrust of their argument is as follows: We are royal and we can jolly well use the word 'royal’ all over the world if we want to because it is not in the gift of the Queen or the British Government; we have merely chosen not to do so.

Last Tuesday, the Mail’s Rebecca English broke the story that the Palace had told Harry and Meghan their 'Sussex Royal’ brand would have to go because they are no longer part of regular royal operations. Alongside it, I wrote a piece explaining that there was nothing personal about this.

Rather, the monarchy’s own 'brand’ is protected by a series of well-established laws including the Trade Marks Act, the Companies Act and an international agreement dating back more than a century and signed by 177 nations.

I also said the couple should have consulted the official royal website. 'There,’ I wrote, 'they will find exhaustive guidance from the Lord Chamberlain’s Office on how businesses can lay claim to any sort of 'royal’ status.’

Late on Friday, the Sussexes put out a lengthy statement, following Palace confirmation of the Mail’s story. 

It contained a number of peevish assertions but the stand-out gripe was this: 'While there is not any jurisdiction by The Monarchy or Cabinet Office over the use of the word 'Royal’ overseas, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex do not intend to use 'Sussex Royal’ or any iteration of the word 'Royal’ in any territory (either within the UK or otherwise) when the transition occurs Spring 2020.’

What an extraordinary thing to say. Ever since they sprung their royal resignation on the Royal Family and the world, the Sussexes have said they plan to divide their time between the UK and abroad. 

They are not emigrating in perpetuity. So they could hardly raise two fingers to British law and set up some bogus 'royal’ entity internationally while expecting to be taken seriously back home.

Nor is this statement correct anyway. The monarchy in tandem with several 'overseas’ governments – including that in Canada where the couple are actually living – do have a jurisdiction over the word 'royal’. 

That is because the Queen is sovereign of 15 nations other than this one. Any requests for 'royal’ designation in Canada, for example, must be sent to the Governor-General’s Office at – wait for it – 1 Sussex Drive, Ottawa.

The statement also neglects the fact that there is another player in this saga, namely the Secretary of State for Business, currently Alok Sharma, who has jurisdiction over 'royal’ names for 'any type of business’ under the Companies Act of 2006. Similarly, all royal trademarks fall under the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property of 1883.

Yesterday, I consulted a top commercial lawyer at an international law firm with offices in the UK and US. 

Her verdict: 'Signatories to the Paris Convention are required to use reasonable efforts to enforce the trademark legislation of other signatory nation states, giving overseas effect to national protective laws. 

For example, the US signed the convention back in 1887 and Canada in 1923, so the UK could take steps to challenge the use of 'Sussex Royal’ on websites and branding there.’

Setting aside the legalities, it is the confrontational tone which jars. Whoever is behind this combative approach clearly has a tin ear for public sensibilities about the monarchy in the UK. But then the couple are clearly not being advised from the UK. Just look at the phrasing of their statement: 'Per the agreement’ instead of 'As per the agreement’. 

Or ’…when the transition occurs Spring 2020.’ Prince Harry would never write or talk like that. He would say '…when the transition occurs in the Spring of 2020.' 

The couple also complain that 'while there is precedent for other titled members of the Royal Family to seek employment outside of [sic] the institution, for The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, a 12-month review period has been put in place.’

It is not the rogue 'of’ that is likely to upset the Queen but the fact that the '12-month review period’ is anything but a heavy-handed restriction on the Sussexes’ freedom. Rather, it is the monarch’s way of ensuring the doors remain open for the couple to return if things do not go as planned. And right now, they certainly do not.

_______________________________________________________________________

Thanks for sending this in!

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT MADE IN YOUR MIND

This will come as a surprise to a lot of overlap between the two—mean comments are disproportionately likely also to be dumb—but the strategies for dealing with them are different. I use the number of times each token ignoring case, currently occurs in each corpus. David advocated. I've just described is an acquisition by a public company. I went to my mother afterward to ask if this was so. The fashion for the name Gary began when the actor Frank Cooper adopted the name of a tough mill town in Indiana. I think if I look closer I'll be able to find statistical differences between these and my real mail. Possibly. Peter Mayle wrote one called Why Are We Getting a Divorce? Even others that seem quite distant. And what, exactly, is hate speech? Being profitable ensures you'll get at least the average of the acquisition market—in which public companies do behave as pooled-risk company managers, you need a brain that can go anywhere.

Another thing I may try in the future there is a static obstacle worth getting past, spammers are pretty efficient at getting past it. It was astonishing to learn later that they'd both been serial womanizers, and that as I made the filters stricter I got more false positives. And after having spent their whole lives doing things that are arbitrary, and believe things that are true, or at least wished that computer science was a branch of math. That would have saved me in all three cases. That's why movies like The Matrix have such resonance. I've found that you can filter present-day spam acceptably well using nothing more than a Bayesian combination of the useful and the bizarre. They were imitating the great painters of the Renaissance, whose paintings by that time were brown with dirt.

But what happened to Reddit didn't happen out of neglect. To be jaded you have to do a lot of them, which gave us the impression the short story was flourishing. The user doesn't know what it means, but worse still, neither does the developer of the filter is in the individual databases, then merely tuning spams to get through them. Letters, digits, dashes, apostrophes, and dollar signs to be part of tokens, and the site rules discourage dramatic link titles. Here parents' desires conflict. They may be trying to make sales would be a good idea. Halfway through grad school I decided I wanted to stop getting spam. When we launched in February 2007, weekday traffic was around 1600 daily uniques. It would be pretty straightforward to make a list of the fifteen individual probabilities, you calculate the combined probability thus: let prod apply #' mapcar #' lambda x-1 x probs One question that arises in practice is what probability to assign to words that occur in one corpus or the other, and the transformation was miraculous.

A probability can of course be mistaken, but there is little ambiguity about what it means to be biased. Hacker News who actually took the trouble to write two versions, a flame for Reddit and a more subdued version for HN. I want to find general recipes for discovering what you can't say, look at the page. Second, I think. Plus Reddit had different goals from Hacker News. Adults have a certain model of how kids are supposed to behave, and it's different from what they expect of other adults. If a self-consciously cool people who want to distinguish themselves from the common herd. 08221981 supported 0.

Let's start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would have gotten in trouble for a particular idea yet? And pay especially close attention whenever an idea is being suppressed. To launch a taboo, a group has to be powerful enough to enforce a taboo. Just write whatever you want, not to say what you want, and then sit around offering crits of one another's creations under the vague supervision of the teacher. It's hard for us to feel a sense of urgency as adults over something we've literally been trained not to worry about running out of money and b they can spend their time how they want. Here parents' desires conflict. This may well be a better plan than the old one of putting them in their place, but it ended up being cast as a struggle to preserve the souls of Englishmen from the corrupting influence of Rome. Representational art is only now recovering from the approval of both Hitler and Stalin. That's an extreme example, of course, the test you use to measure performance must be a valid one. Sorry about that. 99% of people reading Ulysses are thinking I'm reading Ulysses as they do in the real world: they're small; you get to start from scratch; and the problem is before you can solve it.

It seems to be a single long stream of text for purposes of counting occurrences, I use the 15 most significant. We did. If someone submits a lame article, the other end seems especially far away. 8747 From free 0. To see fashion in your own time, though, my filters do themselves embody a kind of virtual town square. Hacker News is definitely useful. If we could look into the future it would be easier if the forces behind it were as clearly differentiated as a bunch of evil machines, and one sent to me in the belief that I was someone else.

Which means applicants of type x. You meet a lot of work, and the history of science, architecture, and the result is what we can't say, what do you do with it? If you said them all you'd have no time left for your real work. Most people go through life with bits of packing material adhering to their minds and never know it. 30 startups that eminent angels have recently invested in, give them each a million dollars each to move, a lot of kids who grew up in. 07972858 color 0. 75%.

Yes, of course. How can we find these too? If we can understand this mechanism, we may be able to solve the problem with fairly simple algorithms. I scan the entire text, including headers and embedded html and javascript, of each message in each corpus. Representational art is only now recovering from the approval of both Hitler and Stalin. That's why movies like The Matrix have such resonance. The reasons parents don't want their kids having sex are complex. This is too big a problem to solve here, but certainly one reason life sucks at 15 is that kids are trapped in a world designed for 10 year olds. There is a strong correlation between comment quality and length; if you say anything mistaken, fix it immediately; ask friends which sentence you'll regret most; go back and tone down harsh remarks; publish stuff online, because an audience makes you write more, and thus generate more ideas; print out drafts instead of just looking at them on the screen; use simple, germanic words; learn to recognize and discount the effects of moral fashions. One of the most premeditated lies parents tell. Here parents' desires conflict.

[gstqaobc]

ROYAL FEUDS What Ongoing Markle Family Drama Tells Us About Meghan and Harry’s Media Strategy The spotlight has been off of Meghan’s half-siblings for a while. But new headlines about them might illustrate why the Sussexes saw wisdom in taking on the tabloids. BY ERIN VANDERHOOF OCTOBER 30, 2019

Both 2017 and 2018 were very eventful years for the extended Markle family, and the British media was there to document it all. Patriarch Thomas had a heart attack, while Thomas Jr. was arrested for an altercation with his girlfriend. Daughter Samantha went back to using her maiden name after years of going by Grant and started writing a book. All while their younger half sister, Meghan, became one of the most discussed women on the entire planet when she married into the British royal family.

The coverage of Meghan’s family reached a fever pitch around the time she and Prince Harry tied the knot on live television. In particular, Meghan’s half sister, Samantha, had quite the adventure, culminating in a surreal visit to Kensington Palace’s gates. Piers Morgan even took a break from his feud with Ariana Grande to feature Thomas on his show.

It’s 2019 now, and Meghan has continued to be exceptionally busy. She became the patron of charitiesthroughout the U.K., guest-edited an issue of British Vogue, and met Beyoncé. She and husband Prince Harry became parents. All of this has happened without much ado from the rest of the clan. With the notable exception of a leaked letter in the Mail on Sunday in February, the other Markles have largely stayed out of the headlines, even when Meghan and Harry announced a lawsuit against the Mail’s parent company earlier this month over that very letter.

This past week, though, they were the subject of a few different stories that bring back memories of that eventful time. On Saturday, the Daily Mirror, one of the tabloids that Harry is allegedly suing, over reported phone hacking, ran an exclusive centered on Samantha. According to the Polk County Sheriff Department, the Florida resident is under investigation for cyberbullying. “There have been multiple reports of allegations of cyberbullying made,” an officer working on the case said. “Samantha Markle is aware of this allegation.”

On Tuesday, the Daily Mail published an interview with Thomas Jr. by columnist Sebastian Shakespearethat at least attempted to reignite the headlines, if not the underlying drama. Thomas Jr. said he wanted to apologize for publicly bad-mouthing Meghan. “I just want to put things right before it’s too late,” he added, before mentioning that he is still in touch with his father. “I’ve had no business making things worse between him, Meghan, and Harry, and I want us all, but especially them, to be a proper family and reconcile.”First of all: Yes, it is hilarious that Thomas Jr. said “I have been a bad son and a bad brother” to a publication owned by the company his sister is suing. Beyond that, the conversation with Shakespeare illustrates why tabloid coverage of the Markles is in a holding pattern. Though they share DNA, their lifelong connection to the duchess has been tenuous at best. (When the Daily Mailgot a video of Thomas Jr.’s son Thomas Dooley being arrested after bizarre behavior last month, it had to note in a subheading that Meghan “would often serve as his babysitter” when he was young.) The Markles, like most regular people, are not inherently newsworthy. Sure, they had an extraordinary moment when one of them became Britain’s American princess, but otherwise, the rest are still leading ordinary lives. Though Harry and Meghan received blowback for their decision to take on the press, it has managed to reframe the story and leave Meghan’s family out of it. Rather than a feud between Meghan and the Markles, the story is now about the duchess versus the media, the most vicious stories simply using the Markles as pawns. There has been plenty of speculation that the battle will not end well for the couple, and despite changing privacy laws, it’s not clear if they can succeed in court. But it must feel vindicating for the Sussexes to know that the public is increasingly aware of how things have looked from their perspective. For Meghan and Harry, the media was not just documenting struggles within Meghan’s family; it was creating them

[dailyaudiobible]

03/27/2020 DAB Transcript

Deuteronomy 7:1-8:20, Luke 7:36-8:3, Psalms 69:1-18, Proverbs 12:1

Today is the 27th day of March, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I’m Brian it’s great to be here with you today as we as we begin to close down another of our weeks together and move ourselves into the weekend. What a joy to take this journey with you. So, let's get on that journey. We’re moving our way in the Old Testament through the book of Deuteronomy, the final book of the Torah, the final three discourses of Moses to the children of Israel before he leaves them and this new generation that has emerged. Well we’ll see if they make it to the Promise Land. Right now, Moses is saying everything that he feels that can't be left unsaid. So, we’re reading from the New Living Translation. Deuteronomy 7 and 8.

Commentary:

Okay. I mean we could just take that proverb and say, “that's enough.” Put that in your cup and steep it and let it sit all day. “To learn you must love discipline.” Not self-discipline or the discipline that life brings or the discipline of the Lord as a Father. It's stupid to hate correction.” So, yeah, we could stop there, but the book of Deuteronomy is basically telling us the story of our lives today.

Moses is telling the children of Israel their story where they came from who God is what their identity is and where they're going but all we have to do is just look at that story and understand, yeah that's…that’s kind of my story too. So, Moses is telling the people, “it's not anything you did. You're not rock star people. It's not that you were somehow in some way special. The Lord did not set His heart on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other nations. You were the smallest. Rather, it was simply that the Lord loves you and was keeping the oath he had sworn to your ancestors.  And that's why you have this opportunity for a land of promise.” That’s every one of us my friends. So, why do we so often think God owes us? We’ve been behaving really, really well. We’ve watched our tongues. We’ve been kind. He owes us. He doesn't owe us anything. He loves us, which is very different. And then he tells them, when they go into the land, they have got to defeat these pagan nations. They've got to utterly defeat these pagan nations. And we can go like, that’s such violence…and now we’re gonna go into all this war and I don’t like war and I don't like violence and any of this stuff. Why’s He…why is this happening?” As we will see in the Scriptures, the fullness of time has come for these people. They are being judged. They have had every opportunity, and there are things that God will say as we go through this process where He’s like, “they’re doing things that had never…like they’re doing evil had never even occurred to me.” That’s what God is saying. Like, “they're inventing ways of evil that I…I can't even imagine.” And some of those evils were the sacrifice of their children alive in the fire to their gods and the absolute brutality of the tribalism. I mean, it's hard to understand the loss of humanity and the loss of the value of life in ways that have completely degenerated. God will tell us as we continue this journey like, “you think I want people to die? Like, is that what you think? “We…we go through these portions of Scripture and that's what we think but then God comes out of the Bible and says, “is that what you think? You think that's what I want? That's not what I want. I want everyone to return to me.” But some aren't going to. The choice has been made. Judgment has come. Then Moses encourages the people to not be afraid to not be intimidated. Yes, in fact, they will be going into a land where they are vastly outmaneuvered and outgunned and out-peopled but he’s just reminding them, “how has your story ever been different. Like, this is your story. It doesn't matter the circumstances that you're going into. You’re not doing anything. God is going before you. All you have to do is believe that.” Ahh…this is like…this is our story. And then he tells them. “this isn’t gonna happen in one day. Like, this is a process. Little by little I will give this to you because if you took it all out once you would not…you haven't grown enough to grow into this. Like things will go wild. You’re not ready for all of this. It will be a process, little by little.” You see, this is our life. And then he gives them the most dire of the warnings. “When all this is done, when the stress is over and all is settled and you are living in bounty, that is your most dangerous time because it's at that point that you will start maybe thinking, I did this. Look how awesome I am. I navigated all this. I navigated into this prosperity. I did this.” And Moses is just telling them, “no you didn't and don't ever forget that. When you forget that your heart is turning away. Don't forget your story. You came out of the wilderness. You saw God move. He brought you into the desert. You had no food. He fed you. You had no water. He kept you alive. You got here somehow but you didn't do it.” And, so, we kind of leave our reading today and I'll just quote Moses here because he's saying it is clear as possible. “Remember the Lord your God, He is the one who gives you power to be successful in order to fulfill the covenant He confirmed to your ancestors with an oath. But I assure you of this, if you ever forget the Lord your God, and follow other gods worshiping and bowing down to them, you will certainly be destroyed.”

Prayer:

So, Father we take that seriously. We take that to heart, and we bring back to mind right now the proverb, “to learn You must love discipline. It is stupid to hate correction.” Forgive us Father for the ways we’ve…we've taken Your glory and said we did this and all of the story that Moses is telling, so much mimics the pathways of our lives, we find ourselves there and we acknowledge that the most dangerous time isn’t in the battle. The most dangerous time is when blessings are heaped upon us. And unfortunately, we will see exactly how that road goes as we continue the path of the Scripture. But come holy spirit we want to choose the narrow path that leads to life, not the wide one that leads to destruction. So, come and lead us into all truth. How have we been interpreting our journey? What have we claimed the glory for that You did on our behalf? What have we blamed You for that You had nothing to do with? Come Holy Spirit and lead us into all truth we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website, its home base, its where you find out what’s going on around here. There’s usually something or another going on around here.

There is something going on around here right now. As you may have noticed, there’s like an additional program showing up every day along with the Daily Audio Bible in your feed in your app. And, so, you probably already kinda know what's happening. But if you’re just kind of just noticing, we’ve been releasing one chapter per day for the last couple of days and we’ll continue this into you to the end of the book, but the book Sneezing Jesus, which is a book that I wrote a few years ago, but is really appropriate for the times that we are facing and that we are going through and the unrest that we’re seeing and just…yeah all the different fraying that…that is noticeable in our culture as we try to sort this all out. Sneezing Jesus is an exploration of Jesus humanity. It is a portrait of Jesus as told by the Gospels. It is “the” good news, but it is also an exploration of the fact that Jesus was a human being and went through all of the things that we go through and what that would've looked like with the conclusion that…that the gospel, the good news, that Jesus told us go into all the world and spread, spread like a virus from person-to-person from family to family, from community to community racing all over the world as it continues to do today. So, we can get obsessed and freaked out about something that could go around the world and infect us and hurt us or we can take an alternative view that this is an opportunity right now for life to infect the world. And this is a gift. This is a gift from NAV Press who published this book, a gift from the Daily Audio Bible. It’s free to listen to, which is a joy. And, so, the chapter that…well we’ve been releasing one chapter per day. So, the chapter that's releasing today is called “weep” and it's an exploration of our emotions and the way we try to suppress them and the way that we kind of frown on ourselves. Like we lose control if we gotta cry about something or whatever. It feels like we’re just apologizing for…for our emotions and to look at how Jesus handled these things. So, check that out in your…in your Daily Audio Bible feed, in the Daily Audio Bible app, in the web player, wherever you are listening to the Daily Audio Bible. And may you find deep, deep, deep encouragement as we do this chapter a day moving through…through Sneezing Jesus as we’re moving through the times that we’re moving through.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link. It lives on the homepage. I thank you with all of my heart. The Global Campfire doesn't burn if…if we don't throw logs on together. And, so, thank you for your partnership. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Gill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit that Hotline button. It's in the app. It's always there. You can always press. You’re never alone. That's one of the beautiful things that we have always been for each other as a community, that although we may be separated by distance and now we maybe even separated by, you know, different sicknesses and illnesses that are possible, we’re never alone no matter what we’re going. We can come in around the Global Campfire and be together. So, you can hit that Hotline, or you can dial 877-942-4253,

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi, it’s Jennifer from Ohio and I just wanted to express my heartfelt gratitude to the women who called in and prayed for me. Denise, when I heard your prayer and your empathy last week as it relates to my mom and what I’m experiencing right now it just…I mean I was just so overwhelmed. It…it was in a good way…I felt elevated like you ministered to my spirit, it lifted my soul, you just spoke right to my heart and also deeply, deeply appreciative in that moment and I was just thanking God. It was just what I needed for that day. And then a few days later I was listening, I don’t remember what day it was, but I was listening and then I heard Rachel. You know, like and I said God you really do love me. You know, you…you sent these two beautiful women to pray for me in the moment in the space that I needed it…that I needed the most. And I was just so taken aback, and I was so grateful in that moment too to be connected and to be a part of this community. You know, I haven’t been a part of my physical church for over a year now, my previous physical church for over a year now just because of, you know, some things that happened but I have been a faithful listener of the Daily Audio Bible, you know, for several years now. And, so, it was…just to be known in that way, to be heard, it was it was just everything that I needed, and it is everything that I need every day. And, so, I’m just grateful and I’m just thankful and I just appreciate you both. Love you family.

Hello Daily Audio Bible family my name Adai. I’m calling from the United States and I just wanted to call in and respond to Asia Chicago. Asia, I stopped to recording as I was listening because I wanted to make sure that I didn’t forget to respond and…and that other things didn’t take my attention away. I heard your call about how you’re dealing with kind of the…you’re…you’re encountering the spirit of racism and seeing racism in and around you as an Asian American. And girl, I’m black American. My parents are also immigrants from __ Africa and I just want to share that I’ve been through this. This is…your describing exactly how I felt after the last election with watching KKK marches in the state where I lived and things like that. Girl, I understand we are at and to a degree and I’m praying for you. It’s not easy. It’s really scary sometimes when you’ve encountered this, where in a place you felt safe for so long. But so many of us love you for exactly who you are. We love you because of your heritage not in spite of it and the Lord loves you because of your heritage not in spite of it. And this time will pass and I pray in Jesus’ name that our country will be stronger, that our communities will be stronger and that we’ll be able to continue soon to support each other in…in the fight against racism in whatever form it takes girl. So, I’m here for you, I’m praying for you and your call really resonated with me. I also want to shout out all the medical professionals. My sister is a doctor, my mom is a nurse and they are on the front lines of this fight. God I just pray that You’d be with them and all the other medical writers. And I also want to shout out to all the single people who are social distancing and self-isolating alone. God sees you. I know is not easy. For those of you who are with your families I know that’s a challenge but it’s really hard to be single and at home alone. So, I’m praying for all of you like myself. Thank you and have a good one.

Hello DABber family this is Walta the Burning Bush that will not be devoured for the glory of our God and King. If I sound out of breath, Harold this one’s for you. I’m spending this time of isolation trying to get back into running. So anyway, I digress. I think Sharon Kansas called in about her friend Denise. And you said she’s been fighting. Well I just want to give you some good news. And they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength and shall mount up like with wings like eagles. And when you said that she’s been fighting, I just saw her at the point where she needs to stop fighting and…and wait on the Lord and allow her wings to be guided by the winds, by the Holy Spirit. I’m praying for peace over her now. She is indeed a warrior. I can tell. And, so, tell her I said that. I love her, that I said a prayer for her when you said that. Also, a sister called in and I’m so sorry, I was trying to run…I’m so out of shape guys. I was trying to run. And, so, I didn’t get her name, but she is half Caucasian half Chinese and she was talking about just going through dealing with racism and during this time. And sister I am praying for you. You are loved, you’re beautiful, you’re God’s creature and I’m praying for God to give you wisdom to deal with people that do stuff like that and I pray that God will show you how that there is purpose in your pain that you’re dealing with right now. I love you guys. Talk to you later. Love you. Bye.

Daily Audio Bible family I’m __ out of Ohio I just want to request prayers for everyone who is affected by the quarantine from the coronavirus and their living paycheck to paycheck and don’t really have any emergency funds to get food, you know for their family or household children. So, I ask that you guys keep them in mind, those who actually lost their job and who is affected by the current situation that we are actually in. I ask that you pray for them and that God carries them through this. And let’s just keep them in mind. I came across a young gentleman at Walmart and he just had so many questions. He’s young, still in high school. So, I would like to request prayers for him as well – sweet, sweet little boy. I like to lift him up, can’t remember his name. Also, I’m still able to work. I’m blessed. I thank God for that opportunity for work because it is, you know, hard to come by these days. So, I wanted to express my gratitude and I ask that you guys pray for me as well. God knows what I am in need of. And I’m praying for those who are lonely by themselves right now and I ask that God…God be a comforter. I love you guys. You guys stay safe. Brian, thank you always for this wonderful podcast. Everyone stay encouraged. Take care.

Asia from Chicago this is Cheryl also in Illinois but I’m in Elgin. I heard your call on the March 23rd podcast and I am so saddened to hear of what you and your precious family have been experiencing along with others in the Asian community. I just want to pray for you. Father in the name of Jesus I thsnk You right now Lord for Asia from Chicago. She’s such a blessing to this community. I know that I have been very touched by her calls and inspired by the things that she has shared in the past and…and things she’s pray over. So, I lift her up before Your throne of grace right now, she and her family Lord and all those in the community that she has been concerned for and just saddened and angered by seeing the hatefulness of racism propagated by the evil one. So, Lord I pray You would come Holy Spirit. Place a hedge of protection around them Lord and I pray that You….that You would bring people along the way who could show the best of being the light in the world Lord, that could lift her spirits, that she would see situations even in this time of social distancing be it on social media or other outlets Lord God that would lift her spirits. I pray that You would eradicate every bit of fear in Jesus’ name. Yes, Lord just lift her up, strengthen her and I pray that her heart would be encouraged in this time. In Jesus’ name. Take courage my dear sister. My ethnicity may be Caucasian, but I definitely have a global heart and I love You very much. God bless You and Your family. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Hi this is Melody from Canada calling. I wanted to call in and encourage Asia who called in yesterday, March 23rd and who is saying just the discrimination against Chinese people. My husband is from Shanghai and we have a beautiful half Chinese daughter named Elaina. And we are so proud of her heritage. And I just want to pray encouragement for you and for all the Asians that are experiencing discrimination and fear and __. And yeah, I pray for blessing and peace and strength in their identity as per the body of Christ and I pray for an end to this prejudice and discrimination and for people to come together in unity. Bless you Asia. We love you.

[davidcampiti]

A LIFE WITHOUT STAN LEE? -- Part One

This is the first month of my life without Stan Lee alive in it.

I think it’s appropriate to post this essay today, on Stan Lee’s birthday, the first one without him actually here to celebrate it. I couldn’t bring myself to write about Stan the day he died, just shy of 96 years old, and the week and month that followed were no better. Today I can put down some thoughts.

I am a child of Stan Lee. His work with Jack Kirby and John Romita appeared in the first comic book I remember reading – the Marvel-produced America’s Best TV Comics, a 25-cent comicbook that promoted the ABC Saturday morning cartoons.   It's one of the first powerful memories of childhood that have stayed with me for all this time.

Across my formative years, Stan Lee's words encouraged me to learn, to read more of everything -- not just comics. I spent much of my early years in the library and ordering Scholastic books every month through school. I read everything -- fiction, biographies, histories, science books.

Yet I grew up loving the comics that blazed brightly with his public persona and, while my parents toiled at just earning a living and staying alive, I learned much from "The Man." Stan taught me a lot about being a decent human being. It wasn't all, "With great power there must also come...great responsibility," though that was there, as well.

In recent years we corresponded a bit about the morals and messages of his words in his scripts, his Stan's Soapbox, and his many lectures and interviews. I told him we should assemble a book, Everything I Know, I learned From Stan Lee.

He wrote back -- "The paperback you suggested, 'Everything I Know I Learned from Stan Lee,' sounds like it could be funny. Especially if it consists of only one page with only one thing learned -- how to spell 'Excelsior!' Keep the faith, David. You're one of the good guys! Excelsior! Stan"

We discussed it a bit more but, soon after, Stan's eyesight worsened and he stopped answering his own mail; whoever took over had no idea what we'd been talking about. I let the idea drop.

Back when I was 12, I decided my career goal was to work with Stan Lee. Eventually, I achieved that goal but not by submitting stories in my teens and 20s but much later in my life, as an agent and book author. By the time I was 14, he'd gone from editor-in-chief to Publisher -- which meant he'd need more writers, right?

The first time I met Stan Lee and got to take a photo with him, I looked up at him and said, “Smile, and look as much like my Uncle as you can.” He laughed and gave my artist friend Scott Rockwell and me a good half-hour of his time, looking at art and answering questions. That was in 1978 – fully 40 years ago – and I remember it all as if it were yesterday. Stan was a memorable guy who could make you feel like the most important person in the room. I only wish I still had that photo; maybe Scott has it buried somewhere.

Four years later, I sold my first professional comics scripts to Pacific Comics and two years after that was writing a Superman assignment for DC with Kevin Juaire. Instead of ending up at Marvel as I’d hoped – which would’ve required moving to New York and being involved in daily office politics – I became a comics packager, then a publisher, then an agent. That’s how Stan knew me professionally, as a writer and an artist’s agent.

In early 1989, at a Capital City Distribution trade show, my Innovation Publishing was set up promoting the books we would be releasing into comics shops in a few weeks.  Stan was walking by, and I suggested to my assistant Paul Curtis that we should invite Stan to dinner.  He ran over, asked, and Stan said yes!  He not only brought along Carol Kalish and regaled us with two hours of stories about life at Marvel, Stan insisted that Marvel pay for the meal!  Nobody thought to bring a camera, but the memories stayed with us.  As I recall, Steve Sullivan, Paul Curtis and his girlfriend Amy, and I were the happy Innovation team at that dinner.  Kevin VanHook came on the trip but was elsewhere at that time.  He made up for it later at a party by chatting on a couch with Stan and later dancing with Carol.

In the '90s, Stan and I would chat at every opportunity at conventions.

When Marvel released a limited edition hardcover reprint of his 1947 book Secrets of the Comics, I decided to give in to my fannish impulses and use its endpapers as my autograph book.

Stan, of course, was the first to sign it in 1996, and a batch of Silver Age stalwarts followed.

By then we made it a point to get photos together every year across two decades. It was a clear timeline of the both of us getting older.

As the internet blossomed, I helped Stan a little when he first joined AOL. He asked me how AOL Instant Messenger worked, how to turn it on when he wanted to communicate and off when he didn’t want to be bombarded with Messages, and so on. Another time, an article he wanted to read was behind a login/password, and he asked me help get him through that. It tickled me to help Stan “The Man” with such basic web-things.

From the mid-'90s through the early 2000s, Stan would call the Glass House offices about once a month to ask for my perspective on what was going on in the comics biz, since we dealt not only with all the Marvel editors but everyone else as well. Real conversations, not the "'Nuff said, Pilgrim!" stuff. He'd graciously take an extra few minutes to chat with my assistant Graeme, who loved talking to his childhood icon.

Around 1997, Marvel's savvy publisher asked Glass House to create two dozen project proposals for a line of second-tier titles that my company would package. We ended up over-achieving and submitted 28 of them -- one of them for the first-tier Fantastic Four that I understood we had little chance of getting, but I had to try. The art was Joe Bennett's doing a Kirbyesque style.

Stan was kind enough to read over my FF proposal/outline and fine-tune my dialogue for the pages, before I submitted.

Likely worried about how an outside packager controlling so many titles would affect his own position, the editor-in-chief buried all 28 projects until, two years later, he assigned an editor to reject every proposal outright; that editor told me my FF dialogue didn't capture the essence of the characters -- not realizing the words were Stan's.

(Sidebar:  It was so ridiculous, that editor even rejected a proposal that another Marvel editor already saw, bought, and published!)

When Meryl and I got married in 2001, Stan sent us a gift -- a lemon cake and a note saying he wished he could've made it to the wedding. We still have the note; we ate the cake.

In 2006, Stan's POW! Entertainment launched Who Wants to be a Super-Hero? on The Sci-Fi Channel, and my Glass House Graphics contributed all the cover artwork for both seasons of the TV show. We even drew the comicbooks that starred both winners -- Matthew Atherton and Jarrett Crippen, both of whom became our friends.

When my friend, then-GHG artist Will Conrad, worked with him on the Dark Horse Feedback comic book, Stan took the time personally to choose Will out of our roster of artists, and to phone him in Brazil for a long talk before sending him the plot. (And yes, it was a full page-by-page plot.) They spoke several times during Will's month working on the book, each time helpful and upbeat.

The second book, with The Defuser, was more problematic. The network and producers weren't honoring their commitments to the winner, so I reached out to Stan who said, "I don't see any compelling reason to bother doing it, since we weren't renewed for a third season." I replied, "Because you said you would? Because you have the power to do it, and with great power there must also come great responsibility?" He made it happen, and Glass House Graphics's Kajo Baldissimo did the art.

We also drew the box art and insert comic books for multiple DVD animation projects that POW! released, with art by GHG's fabulous Fabio Laguna.

Stan always made time to meet privately with my artists, and my family, for which I was always grateful.

Of course when Comics Buyer’s Guide published a big feature issue for Stan’s 75th Birthday, I contributed an essay and hired the great Marie Severin to do a caricature cover for it and sent Stan a giant print of the art.

Around the time of Stan's 90th birthday celebration, I had Tina Francisco create a new birthday cover for Comics Buyer's Guide, and I penned a long article about him, too.

Of course, we sent to Stan a poster of the color art, and he sent back this card -- as always, written in his own handwriting.

TO BE CONTINUED -- IN PART TWO!

[berniesrevolution]

The first mention of Adolf Hitler in the New York Times was on November 21, 1922, buried on page 21. From the headline, one could almost have thought the article was about a cabaret singer or literary celebrity: “NEW POPULAR IDOL RISES IN BAVARIA.” It was not until the fifth sub-headline that the Times mentioned that Bavaria’s new pop idol, in addition to raising a “gray-shirted army armed with blackjacks and revolvers,” was “anti-Red and anti-Semitic.” In the body of the article, the Times correspondent frankly portrayed Hitler’s militarism, acknowledging the tendency of his group to “beat up protesting Socialists and Communists.” But, it said, there are multiple perspectives on Hitler: “[He] is taken seriously by all classes of Bavarians… he is feared by some, enthusiastically hailed as a prophet and political economic savior by others, and watched with interest by the bulk.” Most of the article was spent documenting Hitler’s gifts as a political organizer, noting that “in addition to his oratorical and organizing abilities, has another positive asset: he is a man of the ‘common people,’” who had won the Iron Cross, which for “a common soldier is distinctive evidence of bravery and daring,” and “he is credibly credited with being actuated by lofty, unselfish patriotism.”  

The Times did not dwell too much on Hitler’s agenda, because “Hitler’s program is of less interest than his person and movement,” commenting that he promotes “half a dozen negative ideas clothed in generalities.” Toward the very end, the NYT did make clear that primary among these negative generalities was a murderous loathing of Jews. But, the correspondent said, this was probably just bluster:

The keynote of his speaking and writing is violent anti-Semitism… so violent are Hitler’s fulminations against Jews that a number of prominent Jewish citizens are said to have sought safe asylum in the Bavarian highlands… But several reliable, well-informed sources confirmed the idea that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was not so genuine or violent as it sounded, and that he was merely using anti-Semitism as a bait to catch followers and keep them aroused, enthusiastic, and in line… A sophisticated political observer credited Hitler with peculiar cleverness for laying emphasis and over-emphasis on anti-Semitism, saying: “You can’t expect the masses to understand or appreciate your finer real aims. You must feed the masses with cruder morsels and ideas like anti-Semitism. It would be politically all wrong to tell them the truth about where you are leading them.”

Reading the New York Times’ coverage of the rise of Adolf Hitler and the progress of the Holocaust is a useful and sobering exercise. If you want to understand how atrocities can be normalized, ignored, and downplayed, and how anyone could “not know” facts that should have been obvious to everyone even at the time, browsing through the NYT archives can help. The Times was not the British Daily Mail (which was openly pro-fascist). It was then, as it is now, a liberal paper, owned by a Jewish family. But, partly because liberal naivete about political reality made it harder to perceive threats that socialists and communists saw all too well, and partly because the Times’ owners didn’t want to be seen as being somehow biased toward Jews, the Times was timid about accurately portraying the Nazi menace.

The failure of the Times to report on the Holocaust itself has been widely documented, and is the subject of an entire book, Buried by the Times. The Times reviewer of that book admitted that the paper “was seriously negligent throughout that period,” burying stories about the killings of Jews in the back pages and never giving them space or significance proportionate to their moral importance. The reviewer, however, also partly defended the paper, pointing out that (1) it was not alone in doing this and (2) it could not have known what was going on, because what happened was unprecedented:

“[Buried by the Times’ worst failing is] its handling of exactly what people knew and understood in the 1930’s and 40’s as the Nazis drove Jews to their deaths. Concentration camps were nothing new; they’d been around throughout history. Death camps — the Nazis’ contribution to modernity — were unheard of, and the extent of the killing could not have been fathomed… How could Sulzberger or any other newspaper executive have comprehended the extent of what was happening in Europe?”

That argument is highly plausible, and is often invoked when people or institutions are rebuked for their failures: it’s easy to say now that you should have known, but at the time… The phrase “Monday Morning Quarterback” and the word “ahistorical” are sometimes used. But this argument is not self-proving. It’s reasonable to think it might have been impossible to know. The question is whether it actually was. One reason to doubt it is that the New York Times actually did report on all of the facts that its reviewer said were impossible to comprehend. It just treated them as insignificant.

For instance, the first time the name “Auschwitz” was mentioned in the paper was on July 3, 1944, in a story entitled “Inquiry Confirms Nazi Death Camps: 1,715,000 Jews Said To Have Been Put To Death By Germans.” The story reported that international organizations had “confirmed reports of the existence in Auschwitz and Birkenau in upper Silesia of two ‘extermination camps’” where “Jews are shipped” to be “eradicated.” Front page news, one would hope? More like “midway down page 3.” The front page headlines that day:

MAYOR WOULD TAX ALL RENTS TO END SUBWAY DEFICITS

Simple Money Order Will Be Issued Soon

OPA RAISES PRICES ON COTTON ITEMS, THIRD OF OUTPUT

And the big story of the day:

ALL RAIL LINES TO MINSK NOW CUT

The Times had reported on the unfolding Holocaust well before 1944. In November of 1942, the paper published a story with the headline “HIMMLER PROGRAM KILLS POLISH JEWS: Slaughter of 250,000 In Plan To Wipe Out Half of Country This Year Is Reported.” Every fact was reported: “Old persons, children, infants, and cripples among the Jewish population of Poland are being shot, killed by various other methods, or forced to undergo hardships that inevitably cause death… Only 40,000 October ration cards had been printed for the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, where the population last march was 433,000….[The Poland plan is] ‘the first step toward complete liquidation.’… Only the young and relatively strong people are left alive as they provide valuable slave labor.’”

This report, in which every horror of the Holocaust was laid out for the world to witness, was so important that it made it to page 10. The front page that day was devoted to: the Battle of Stalingrad (important, admittedly!), “EXTORTION CHARGED BY MAYOR IN ROW OVER STIRRUP PUMPS,” “TWO THANKSGIVINGS FOR PACIFIC TROOPS,” and “PRESIDENT WARNS PRODUCTION CHIEFS TO RECONCILE AIMS.” (Out of 23,000 front-page stories between 1939 and 1945, 11,500 were about World War II itself but only twenty-six were about the Holocaust.) This means that even in 2005, the New York Times was printing fabricated Holocaust history, suggesting that its writers and editors didn’t know about extermination camps, when the obvious truth is that they didn’t care.

(Continue Reading)

[tatetate03-blog]

Murdoch Lawyer Accused BBC Of Phone Hacking Vendetta

Murdoch Lawyer Accused BBC Of Phone Hacking Vendetta

Murdoch shut the paper last July amid a torrent of allegations about alleged ethical and legal lapses by its staff. In two letters, dated March 10 and 11, Pike suggested that the BBC might be pursuing the hacking story for business or political reasons rather than for journalistic motives. In his March 10 letter, Pike noted that the BBC was planning to broadcast Panorama’s investigation at a time when the British government was actively considering Murdoch’s bid for BSkyB’s remaining shares. BSkyB is a principal competitor with the BBC in Britain. Pike said it was “quite apparent” that the program the BBC was preparing was “yet another attempt to undermine New Corp’s bid for Sky” (sic).

In response to a request for comment, the BBC told Reuters: “Panorama investigations always come from a point of public interest and operate within the BBC editorial guidelines and Ofcom’s code. A spokesperson for News International, Murdoch’s principal newspaper publishing company in Britain, said the company had no comment on Pike’s accusation that the BBC had pursued the phone hacking inquiry for ulterior motives. The Guardian also reported that the BBC had referred Farrer & Co to a disciplinary authority for British lawyers because of this aspect of Pike’s letter. The BBC confirmed that it had “written to the Solicitors Regulation Authority. In Britain, solicitors are lawyers who handle most out of court and pre-trial litigation, while barristers are lawyers who handle trials and appeal proceedings in higher courts. Pike did not respond to an e-mail requesting comment. But a representative of Farrer & Co. disputed the Guardian’s interpretation of Pike’s letter and what Pike had said to Parliament. The firm had no further comment on its accusation that the BBC had acted for commercial or political motives.

It is also right to keep a steady eye on what areas the BBC should operate in, and where it should draw back to allow other voices to flourish, whether they be local newspapers, the national press, or independent podcasts. Nevertheless, however tempting it may be in the moment to taunt it as the “Brexit Broadcasting Corporation” (or whatever the current anxiety may be), it is also right to take the long view of the BBC. That must surely mean defending its importance as a bastion of the UK’s democracy, culture and identity. The BBC was formed from a set of enlightened decisions taken during the birth pangs of broadcasting.

If Company Profile & SWOT Analysis considers the conditions of the world we live in now, these decisions look especially prescient. Today, this promise of broadcasting in the public interest means not commodifying your data against your will, or giving you fake news. The threats to democratic discourse presented by the filtering of information via the algorithms of multinational companies have become obvious. We are beginning to digest how politics (in Britain and overseas) may have been influenced by the use of data acquired on Facebook and elsewhere. But the BBC is vulnerable. For 40 or so years in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the television was the hearth around which all Britain gathered.

It was the carrier of a common culture. That is no longer true. UK public-service broadcasting (including from Channel 4 and others) still accounts for 70% of content seen by audiences in Britain, but providers such as Netflix and Amazon are claiming more and more of viewers’ attention. The BBC is also gradually waking up to the fact that 16- to 30-year-olds are rapidly drifting away from it, as a recent speech by Tony Hall acknowledged. This is bonanza time for audiences: never has there been so much high-quality material available to watch, whenever we like. The BBC needs to greet the future with boldness. If the television is no longer the carrier of the public sphere that it once was, then what is? One answer is, of course, the internet. What if BBC engineers were to build a mechanism for structuring and shaping audience’s experiences of the web, in the public interest? That kind of thinking would take imagination, patience and creativity - not just from the BBC, but from the government.

9 of the Anglotopia Print Magazine in 2018. Support great long-form writing about British History, Culture, and travel by subscribing to the Anglotopia Magazine. Every subscription helps keep Anglotopia running and provides us to the opportunity to produce articles like this. You can subscribe here. While no longer alone amongst Britain’s media powerhouses, at one time, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was the only game in town. Since its incorporation in 1922, the corporation has been responsible for informing and entertaining the British public, tasks for which it continues to excel at 95 years later. In September 1923, one of the BBC’s most influential documents began publication with the first issue of the Radio Times.

The periodical provided a schedule of the corporation’s limited programmes, but also served as an educational resource for budding amateur enthusiasts as well as carrying the manufacturers’ advertisements for the newest radio equipment. The RT was also the only place to find the radio schedule, as newspapers viewed it as a competing medium and thus refused to publish it. The BBC’s first major test came during the General Strike in 1926. At the time, the BBC was in renegotiations with the GPO over its license, an issue that was left up to the Crawford Committee. Several of the manufacturers wanted out due to the unprofitable nature of the consortium, while Reith wanted the BBC to become a public service.

Reith wanted the BBC to maintain its monopoly and serve the public interest, feeling its expansion should be funded by the government for the general welfare. Meanwhile, the General Council of the Trades Union Congress was trying to get the British government to stop wage reduction and improve the conditions for the nation’s coal miners. Negotiations between the TUC and the government broke down, and the strike began on 3 May 1926. The strike had an effect of temporarily halting newspaper production, rendering the BBC the only source of regular news. Behind closed doors, Reith was firmly on the side of the government with regards to the strike, even letting the Prime Minister broadcast from his own home.

This helped to keep the government out of the BBC’s business insofar as it did not attempt to use the radio service as its mouthpiece. The BBC then presented some of the most even coverage of the strike, representing the viewpoints of both the workers and the government during the work stoppage. This cemented the BBC’s audience as well as establishing its reputation for fair and balanced reporting. The company came out of 1926 in a strong position, and the Government accepted the Crawford Committee’s recommendation that the BBC have a new status as a non-commercial, Crown-chartered organization in 1927, then becoming the British Broadcasting Corporation. The original 1927 charter established objectives, powers, and obligations of the BBC, entrusting John Reith as its Director-General to execute the document’s provisions.

1928 would see another leap for the BBC as construction began on Broadcasting House. The corporation had operated its radio broadcasts out of Marconi House and buildings in the Strand and Savoy Hill, but Broadcasting House would be its first purpose-built headquarters for radio broadcasting. G. Val Mayer designed it in an Art Deco style for the exterior, while Raymond McGrath designed the interior in a similar vein. Meanwhile, as Broadcasting House was going up, something else revolutionary was being born. Scottish engineer John Logie Baird had been experimenting with television since 1924, beaming the first images across a room and later demonstrated his experiments at Selfridge’s and the Royal Institution. By 1937, technology advanced enough that televisions had 405 lines of resolution.

1937 would also see the BBC’s first outside television broadcast as the corporation filmed the coronation of King George VI. Unfortunately, the outbreak of World War II in 1939 would see a suspension of the television service for the duration of the conflict. In response to the danger presented by the London Blitz, the BBC would move much its radio broadcasting out of London to Bristol and then Bedford. St. Paul’s Church in Bedford actually became the home studio for the daily service until 1945. The BBC Television Service would resume on 7 June 1946 with Jasmine Bligh as the first presenter back on the air.

October 1946 would see the beginning of television programming dedicated solely to children, with shows such as “Muffin the Mule” being broadcast from the corporation’s new television studios at Lime Grove. One of the biggest changes to the BBC to occur post-war was the introduction of the television license. As mentioned earlier, at the advent of the company back in 1922, the General Post Office was responsible for issuing licenses to amateur and professional radio operators. Besides broadcasting, those who wanted to receive radio broadcasts paid a fee of 10 shillings. With the resumption of the BBC Television Service in 1946, the Post Office merged the receiving radio broadcast license with television reception, and the cost for both was a mere £2 (roughly £76 today).

With the advent of color television in the 1960s (more on that later), a surcharge was added to cover the new technology. Television would only grow as a medium with Newsreel beginning in January 1948 and the first televised Olympic Games in the summer. While only 100,000 British homes had televisions by this time, the BBC still broadcast 68.5 hours of live coverage during the games. The next year would see the return of live weather broadcasts that had been pursued tepidly before the war. Things were relatively quiet until ITV came along in 1955 to challenge the BBC’s monopoly on the television airwaves.

The new company was a direct result of the Television Act 1954, which created the Independent Television Authority (later the Independent Broadcast Authority) to regulate the growing medium and license franchises. One major event that took place in 1956 was the establishment of the Radiophonic Workshop. The workshop was established because the BBC wanted to develop its own music and sound effects for the radio and television programmes it produced. The workshop would craft some of the most innovative sounds over the next few decades, including Doctor Who’s famous TARDIS dematerialization sound effect and the programme’s theme tune. The Radiophonic Workshop would not close up shop until 1993 when the corporation determined the department was no longer viable.

In 1958, one of the BBC’s most important children’s programmes would be born when “Blue Peter” premiered on 16 October. Blue Peter would also become one of the first television programmes to move into the famed BBC Television Centre when it opened in 1960. Much like Broadcasting House before it, Television Centre was purpose-built for TV broadcasting. The building was designed by Graham Dawborn, who was initially stumped by having to design a building for the triangular property. The story goes that he went to a local pub where he drew the boundaries of the land on an envelope with a big question mark over it.

This ended up becoming the basis for his design that would permit eight tv studios, offices, production galleries, recording studios, and separate entrances for guests and delivery trucks. Construction on Television Centre actually began in 1950, but government restrictions on the building made the process a lengthy one. The sanctions on building and the licensing of materials stopped the construction until 1953, and in the meantime, the BBC opted to renovate its studios at Lime Grove, Hammersmith, and Shepard’s Bush Empire. Science-Fiction television programming would change forever in 1963. The BBC’s then Head of Drama, Sydney Newman, wanted a new programme that would help teach kids about history by using time travel. 1966 would also see another major innovation for the BBC with the advent of color television.

The corporation announced that it would soon bring color to television screens in 1966, though it would be another year before its first colorized broadcast to the public. The BBC had actually experimented with color transmissions for the first time in 1957 with broadcasts made to both houses of Parliament, but would not bring the technology to the masses for another nine years. Local radio stations such as Radio London also began to appear at the time, spurred on by the existence of pirate radio ships. These maverick stations, such as Radio Caroline, were headquartered on ships anchored in the North Sea and broadcast popular music that wasn’t as widely available on BBC Radio.

As they weren’t government sponsored, they also featured copious amounts of advertising that eventually forced the BBC to permit nationally based advertising services. The 1970s continued to push innovation as the BBC partnered with Open University to bring higher education to the masses through early morning and late-night educational programmes. Even today, Open University and the BBC’s partnership continues to bring new ways of learning to the public through online videos that cover everything from the color spectrum to how cars are built. Many of the BBC’s most endearing television programmes also got their start in the 1970s. Leaving Bradbury V British Broadcasting Corporation (Court Of Appeal) to follow his own path, John Cleese started the show “Fawlty Towers” with his then-wife Connie Booth. Other comedies such as “Are You Being Served?

[cmhoughton]

This interview by Karen (the Site Admin for Diana’s pages on the LitForum and previous CompuServe forum) is split up into two pages.  It’s been ten years since she started her blog, so this interview celebrates that.  However, since the pages took FOREVER to load I will spare everyone the frustration and post them both here.

However, since this is long, I will put it behind a cut:

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of Outlandish Observations, I'm very pleased to bring you my first-ever interview with Diana Gabaldon! Frankly, the idea of interviewing Diana Gabaldon was a little nervewracking for me at first, even though I've known her online since 2007 and we interact almost daily on TheLitForum.com (formerly the Compuserve Books and Writers Community).  I've never interviewed anyone before, and it took me a while to decide what questions to ask. I did my best to come up with questions that are somewhat different from the usual things people always ask her.  I'm just DELIGHTED with her answers, and I hope you'll enjoy them as much as I did! (The photo above is from my first meeting with Diana, at a book-signing in Maryland in 2009.) You've published a number of novellas and shorter pieces in the last few years. What do you see as the advantages of the shorter format, for you as a writer? They're shorter. <g> I.e., I can finish one in much less time than the four to five years it takes for one of the Big Books. Basically, it's a bit of a mental vacation to deal with something that's very interesting, but on a smaller scale--and offers a quicker gratification in completing it. The novellas offer me the opportunity to go explore the byways of minor characters and interesting storylines that lie outside either the temporal or the logistical reach of the Big Books. Do you still write in "pieces" when you're working on a novella or short story, or is it more of a straight-line process? I always write in disconnected pieces, no matter what I’m writing; that’s just how my mind works. (I had one interviewer recently pause for a long moment after I’d answered one of her questions--obviously thumbing down her list--and then say, “I had a lot more questions, but you seem to have answered most of them already, while you were answering the one I asked you.” I apologized <g>, and explained that I inherited my digressive story-telling from my father--he’d begin (usually at the dinner table) with a recollection of someone from his past, and would start telling you a story about them--but every second paragraph or so, something he’d said would start a digression that added social context or personal opinion or associated history or data on location, and then without missing a beat, the story would swerve back onto its main track--until the next digression a minute later.) As I always tell people, “There’s a reason why I write long books; it’s because I like digression.” You've made very effective use of Twitter and Facebook in recent years, and many fans are addicted to your #DailyLines. How has the rise of social media affected the way you interact with your readers and fans? With your busy schedule, where do you find the time? Well, social media has sort of grown up around me. Back in 1985, I first went “online” (a concept that really didn’t exist in the popular consciousness yet) when I got an assignment to write a software review for BYTE magazine, and they sent with the software a disk for a trial membership with CompuServe (aside from government services like DARPA, “online” in the mid-80’s basically consisted of three “information services”: Delphi, Genie and CompuServe), so I could poke into the support forum the software vendors had set up there, and mention it in my review. After writing the review, I had a few hours of free connect time left (in a time when you were charged $30 an hour for using CompuServe—at 300 baud, dial-up), and so I started poking around to see what else was available. I stumbled into the CompuServe Literary Forum. This was not (as people sometimes assume) a writer’s group. It was a group of people who liked books. There were a few writers there, of course, both established and aspiring, but the main focus was simply on books: reading, impact, thinking in response to reading--and it was also just a fertile ground in which enormous, digressive and fascinating conversations could flourish (there was one truly remarkable conversation that became known as “the Great Dildo Thread,” that went on for months…). Anyway, that was where social media (which didn’t exist as a concept yet, though plainly it existed in fact) and I met. The next step was my website, established in 1994 (I think I was the first author to build a website for readers--and my eternal thanks to Rosana Madrid Gatti, who generously did the hard work of making and running the site; I sent her material and she’d post it for me (this was a looong time before WordPress and other blogging software made it possible for anybody to communicate directly with the world online). I did the website mostly in response to reader’s enthusiasm; I got a LOT of mail (regular letters) about the books, from people being complimentary, asking questions, taking issue with various aspects--but all of them wanted to know more: why did Claire do this, where did I find out about botanical medicine, did people really do that…and most particularly--when was the next book coming out. So the website was a means of answering reader questions--both for the readers who had asked those questions, and for the entertainment of other readers who perhaps hadn’t thought of those questions, but would be interested in the answers. The benefit of only having to type an answer once (many people naturally ask the same questions) was obvious--as was the benefit of being able to inform people of pub dates, book-signings, etc. So, knowing the benefits of such a channel, when other channels became available--AOL, for instance--I’d use them, at least briefly, and see whether they seemed helpful. Some were, some weren’t--I never bothered with MySpace, and in fact, it took some time for me to try Facebook (which I still use sparingly; I never go anywhere on Facebook other than my own page, and it’s what they call a “celebrity” page, which means that I don’t take “friend” requests. Nor, I’m afraid, can I read the private messages that people kindly leave me there--at the moment, the page has more than 700,000 members (or whatever you call regular visitors), and if only one percent of them send me messages…that’s 7,000 messages. There’s no way I can even read that many messages, let alone respond to them. Twitter also proved to be very useful; it provides instant access to a lot of people--and more valuable than that, it provides organic replication. If you post something interesting, many, many more people will see it, beyond the people who actually follow you. And it’s very good for making short-term announcements or asking urgent questions, because somewhere in the world, the person who can answer that question is awake and reading Twitter. <g> What's the most challenging, or frustrating, or difficult part of your role as consultant on the TV series? (I understand there are things you can't talk about, but can you comment on this in general?) Well, frustrations are of two types: 1) when a scriptwriter has done something that I think is not consistent with a character’s…er, character, and I can’t get them (“them” meaning not just the scriptwriter, but the production team in general) to change it, and 2) when they’ve shot something absolutely beautiful, in terms of acting, honesty, emotion, etc.--and then cut it out of the finished episode. What's the most fun part? The fun lies in seeing something remarkable evolve from a huge number of component parts, day by day by day. It’s like watching a forest grow in stop-motion time that speeds everything up. Would you be interested in writing another script for the TV show, after BEES is done? Yes, I would. It was a deeply interesting (if occasionally frustrating) experience. Script-writing is a very collaborative process, in which the script writer ultimately does not have complete control over the final product, which may have been rewritten several times by different people. That’s a very different experience from being a solitary god, as novelists are. <g> But it’s a fascinating experience, both in the consultation and writing (and revision and revision and revision…) and in the eventual final result: the filming. Filming is long, tedious, hard work--but very entertaining. As the OUTLANDER TV series approaches its fourth season, we're starting to see many more readers who've found your books as a result of the TV show. Aside from the effect on book sales (which must be considerable <g>), I'm interested to hear what you think about that. Do you find that people who found the TV show first tend to have different expectations, or different reactions to the books? People who’ve read the books first definitely have different reactions to the show <g>, but I don’t think the reverse is really true. I haven’t heard a lot of show-first people express any sense of shock or disapproval as to things happening in the books--they expect to see an expanded version of the story, with a lot more detail and more storylines, and that’s what they get. Many OUTLANDER fans, including myself, have re-read (or re-listened to) your books many, many times. Do you have a favorite author or authors whose books you re-read often, and if so, what is it about those books that makes them stand up well to re-reading? Yes, dozens. Right now, I’m re-reading all of Dorothy L. Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey novels, for probably the twentieth time. (I continue to enjoy them, but to be honest, I’m re-reading them now because I can put them down easily in order to work.) James Lee Burke would be another one, though I haven’t re-read his Dave Robicheaux novels as often as Sayers. And then there are Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels--I’ve read the series maybe three times, but listened to it on audio probably twenty times, at least--the reader, Patrick Tull, is fantastic, and the story always holds my interest while dog-walking or gardening. Like these, all the books I feel are worth re-reading depend on unique and engaging individuals. I like to spend time with these people (and on a lower level, I enjoy seeing just _how_ the author did what they did; knowing as much now as I do about the craft of writing, it’s hard to avoid seeing the techniques in use--a book that can suck me in sufficiently that I _don’t_ notice the engineering is definitely one I can re-read).

Part 2:

I'm not a writer of fiction, but I love it when Diana explains various writing techniques. So I thought it would be interesting to explore this particular one. I was astounded, and very grateful, that Diana replied in such detail! Be sure to click on the links about halfway through this post to read the examples from the text. *** SPOILER WARNING!! *** If you haven't read WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART'S BLOOD (Book 8 of the OUTLANDER series), you may encounter spoilers below. I was listening recently to the section of MOHB that deals with the Battle of Monmouth. It must be quite a challenge to write a complex series of scenes like that, with so many moving parts and different characters involved. Are there specific techniques that you use in writing battle scenes in particular, to give a sense of immediacy or heighten the dramatic tension? Managing a complex situation in fiction comes down essentially to Point of View.  You have to know whose head you’re in, and stay firmly there. Until you change to a different point-of-view character, that is… Who the point-of-view character is determines what kind of detail will be available to you, and guides the shape and flow of those periods of the text that belong to that specific character. For example (as you mention the Battle of Monmouth section of WRITTEN IN MY OWN HEART’S BLOOD), the first thing I considered was whose viewpoint(s) to use in depicting it.  I’d read several accounts of the battle, including a very detailed step-by-step description provided by one of Osprey’s Men-at-War books, so I knew the general character of the battle:  it was a huge military encounter, involving more than 10,000 troops on either side, multiple commanders, and a ragged, rolling terrain that didn’t accommodate the standard eighteenth-century military formations and positioning At All. (No one chose the ground on which to fight; that particular stretch of farmland was just where Washington’s troops caught up with General Clinton’s troops, who were retreating from Philadelphia with a large number of fleeing Loyalists (and their property) under the army’s protection.) It was also a very long battle, fought from slightly before daybreak until well after dark, on one of the hottest days known (temperatures were estimated--ex post facto--at over a hundred degrees during the hottest part of the day). And it was an indecisive battle: neither side “won”--the British withdrew with their dependents and baggage trains and retired toward New York (which is what they’d been doing when the Americans attacked), and the Americans staggered back to their camps to recover, tend the wounded, and bury their dead. The significance of the battle, though, was subtle but Very Important--the Americans didn’t lose. This discomfited the British extremely, and heartened the Americans to an equal degree, enabling Washington to pursue his campaign. OK, so we have a very complex mess to describe. Obviously, no one person could possibly see enough of the battle to have any idea how it was going, let alone what strategy was in use. So I knew from the start that I’d need more than one viewpoint character, and could then switch among them as needed to give their separate takes on what was happening to them, and the reader would get both the necessary information as to what was happening overall, and the sense of chaos and struggle that marked the day. Obviously, Jamie Fraser had to be one of those characters; he’s a central figure of the story, and he’s a trained and very experienced soldier. So I contrived a way for him to be in command of a sizable (though informal) company of militia during the battle. Militia companies were normally fairly small bands of thirty to fifty men, who signed up for short enlistments and returned to their farms or businesses when the enlistment period ran out, and a great many militia companies joined the American army just before this battle--not all of them were documented, and thus it was entirely plausible for the temporarily-appointed General Fraser to be in command of several. So, Jamie would naturally see combat, both personally and as a commander. He’d be in communication with other commanders, and would know the proposed strategy, as well as specific moving goals as the battle was going on. And he’d be interacting with the soldiers under his command and responding to emergencies.  [NB:  Notice, through these examples, the sort of details that each character is conscious of and how they respond to them.] Example #1 (Jamie in the cider orchard) Then, of course, I wanted Claire. Both because she’d never leave Jamie on a battlefield alone again, and because as a surgeon, she’d have a completely different view of the battle. She’d be handling the wounded who came off the field, in a series of medical procedures/emergencies, but would also have a general sense of the battle as a whole, gained from the things the wounded men told her while she was treating them. Example #2 (Claire tending the wounded at Tennent Church) But we can’t overlook the other side of the conflict. What’s going on, on the British side? Well, we have a choice of POV characters on that side:  William, Lord John, and Hal. I used both William and Lord John (Lord John’s thread has been running through the whole book and the punch in the eye Jamie gave him at the beginning is affecting what happens to him throughout the battle and its aftermath). But while Jamie and Claire are carrying out fairly orthodox roles in the battle--a general in command/soldier on the field and a combat medic at a static aid station on the edge of the conflict--William and Lord John aren’t. William’s been relieved of duty and Lord John is essentially trying to stay alive long enough to reach the British lines. Both of them, in storytelling terms, can drop in or pass through just about any situation I need or want. They aren’t compelled to follow orders or fight through a set conflict; we get a revolving set of pictures of the British side of the conflict and its various personalities from them. And finally, there’s Ian Murray, Jamie’s nephew. He’s a scout for the American side, so is not fighting on the ground, but--like William and Lord John--can occur just about anywhere during the battle. And like William and Lord John, he’s fighting a personal battle (whereas Jamie and Claire are fighting the more usual kind of battle involving troops and military movements). So Jamie and Claire are providing a more or less structured view of things, while William, John and Ian are giving us the smaller, vivid glimpses that add both to the overall picture of the situation and to the encompassing sense of chaos. Or at least we hope that’s what happened… And to close this exegesis <g>--note that each character involved in this battle has his or her own arc within the battle: how they enter the battle, what happens to them, what decisions they make and what actions they take--and finally, how (and how altered) they emerge at the end of the fight. -------------------------------------------- Many thanks to Diana Gabaldon for taking the time for this very interesting interview! I really appreciate it.

It’s always interesting to read Diana’s comments on her own process, and I like what a fan of books she is.  

[harryandmeghan0-blog]

How the royal baby will take after Meghan Markle - HELLO! Canada

New Post has been published on https://harryandmeghan.xyz/how-the-royal-baby-will-take-after-meghan-markle-hello-canada/

How the royal baby will take after Meghan Markle - HELLO! Canada

By Meaghan Wray

January 29, 2019

Before Meghan met Prince Harry, she had many hobbies and interests that occupied her time – and she hasn’t given most of them up since becoming the Duchess of Sussex! The couple are getting ready to welcome their first bundle of joy, and we’re willing to bet he or she will have more than a few similarities to mama Meghan – from her yogic practices, her love for furry friends and taste in food… And perhaps a certain watch.

Her engraved watch

Back in 2015 – before she’d even met her future husband, Prince Harry – Meghan revealed to HELLO! Canada that she owns a Cartier Tank Francaise watch with a special back story that she’s ready to pass on to a daughter.

“When I found out Suits had been picked up for our third season – which, at the time, felt like such a milestone – I totally splurged and bought the two-tone version [of the watch],” she said of the timepiece, which starts at CA$5,500. “I had it engraved on the back, ‘ To M.M. From M.M.’ And I plan to give it to my daughter one day. That’s what makes pieces special, the connection you have to them.”

Meghan wore her Cartier watch at a 2013 Charity Day. Photo: © Mike McGregor/Getty Images for Cantor Fitzgerald

Her appreciation for self-care

Taking care of her body and mind is something Meghan holds dear to her heart, and as such she tries her best to live a holistic life. A well-known lover of yoga, she gets her Zen-like nature from mom Doria Ragland, who is a yoga instructor! “I started doing mommy-and-me yoga with her when I was seven,” she told Best Health . “I was very resistant as a kid, but she said, ‘Flower, you will find your practice – just give it time.’ In college, I started doing it more regularly.”

Turns out, Baby Sussex is already doing his or her own mommy-and-me yoga classes – prenatal! Just after announcing their pregnancy while on royal tour in October 2018, Meghan revealed that she’d been getting up at 4:30 a.m. to get some yoga time in !

On top of staying fit with yoga, Meghan frequented conditioning gym Catalyst Health while filming Suits in Toronto, and regularly jogged.

She also focused on caring for her mental health. On her former blog The Tig, she often wrote of the importance of ”me time,” of making travel a priority, decluttering and, of course, being “open to change.” There’s no denying that Baby Sussex is going to be one healthy kid – inside and out.

Meghan shared a photo of her in a yoga pose on her now-defunct Instagram account. Photo: © Instagram/@meghanmarkle

MORE: See what ‘foodie’ Duchess Meghan eats in a day

Her love for food

Before she was linked to Prince Harry and her Instagram account was shuttered, Meghan’s love for food was hard to miss. A fan of green juice, avocado toast, slow-cooked Sunday dinners and banana bread, she really has a palate for any kind of food! One of her favourite meals is a Filipino-style chicken adobo, she told Today. “I am a big fan of Sunday suppers. Whether we’re eating lamb tagine, pot roast or a hearty soup, the idea of gathering for a hearty meal with friends and family on a Sunday makes me feel comforted,” she said.

She’s said in the past to Best Health that she tries to eat vegan during the week, with a little more flexibility on the weekends (perhaps including the chicken dinner she made just before Prince Harry proposed?). Sharing a plate of fries with friends is a must, and a nice glass of wine was never out of the question. Most recently, she invited her makeup artist friend Daniel Martin over for some avocado toast!

Her love for animals

Duchess Meghan may love her dogs even more than she loves her favourite foods. When she hopped across the pond to join her husband in London, she could sadly only take Guy with her, leaving Bogart behind with friends. According to the Daily Mail , the couple added a second dog to their clan to keep Guy company!

But her love for animals doesn’t stop with her own canine companions. When her first four patronages were announced on Jan. 10, it was revealed that one would focus on animal welfare – The Mayhew Animal Home, a charity that makes sure rescued dogs and puppies get placed in a forever home.

Meghan cuddled her rescue dog Bogart in an old Instagram snap. Photo: © Instagram/@meghanmarkle

MORE: Duchess Meghan’s new signature reveals a lot about her life as a royal

An appreciation for the arts

The 37-year-old’s love for the arts runs deeper than her acting career! She attended a production of Hamilton with Prince Harry not once, but twice, and she became a patron of the National Theatre after a secret meeting last year . “The Duchess is a strong believer in using the arts to bring people from different backgrounds and communities together,” said the palace. There’s no doubt that her and Prince Harry’s mutual love for the arts will be passed down to their first child – and perhaps Meghan will even teach him or her a thing or two about calligraphy!

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Source: https://ca.hellomagazine.com/royalty/02019012949614/how-royal-baby-will-take-after-meghan-markle

[greatdrams]

Taking a look at transparency and trust in the historic marketing of Scotch whisky

Peter Mackie and Scotch - maverick, owner of several distilleries - set up the first lab to study the science of whisky. Mackie, also known as “Restless Peter”, was described as “One-third genius, one-third megalomaniac and one-third eccentric” by the author Sir Robert Bruce-Lockhart. He was associated with several distilleries, including Lagavulin, Laphroaig and Craigellachie to name a few. He was known for fighting his corner, and famously took on Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George over a tax on Whisky.

At GreatDrams, I truly believe that as an industry we need to establish a platform of knowledge and understanding of whisky and what true innovation is within the category as this is critical to the continued success of Scotch whisky.

"The unrivalled diversity and quality that Scotch offers to the world is in part due to its being the most regulated and protected spirit in the world and therefore the most transparent," Dr. Nick Morgan stated at the Whisky & Spirits Conference a couple of years ago, and I could not agree more. Rum has weak regulations, Japanese whisky - for all that it is heralded - has weak definition and often what looks like a Japanese whisky is actually Scotch whisky in Japanese dress and what is Small Batch Bourbon? At the very least there should be a drive for clarity as to what American whisky actually is? We are not the first blog to consider this debate. Take a look here for questions about the definition of American Whiskey, or here about what Japanese Whisky actually means.

Originally whisky regulations and rules were developed from food regulation in the early 19th Century as regulations were desperately needed to prevent contamination and tampering through malice. Seriously. The adulteration of whisky was a real issue at the time with publicans and black market sellers using acid and oil to dilute and create fake whisky.

During the “What is Whisky” case of 1908 / 1909, the government seized whisky and accused producers of adulteration of the product as it contained both malt and grain whisky - what we commonly know as a blend today. There was a Parliamentary enquiry, scientists, customs officers and all manner of experts were called to give evidence. Brilliantly, this is now the biggest treasure trove of information about the industry from that early era, it even made the front page of the Daily Mail.

It really started with the publication of an Irish book called “Truths about Whiskey” in 1878. This book was published with the co-operation of some of the biggest names in Irish Whiskey, including Jameson and Power. this was really a debate about stills, but in Scotland, the debate took a different turn and focused on quality and blends

The debate raged and came to a head in 1908. This was when distillers demanded to know the answer to what constituted Whisky in the eyes of the law. What proportions of grain spirit could be used? What stills must be used? How long could it be matured for?

In answer to this, the Royal Commission on Whiskey and Other Potable Spirits was set up by the government. The commission eventually decided that, ““Whisky” is a spirit obtained by distillation from a wash saccharified by the diastase of malt, that “Scotch Whisky” is whisky, as above defined distilled in Scotland.” Those who created blends and those who used controversial stills, such as the patent still, rejoiced at the lack of detail surrounding stills and grain proportions.

Dr. Nick Morgan also said during his talk that at the same time, the Cambus distillery put money into publicity around grain whisky being as great as malt whisky and 'not a headache in a gallon' as illicit malt whisky was often described, in order to counter these claims of a counterfeit product.

The results in 1909 commission was in effect the first definition of Scotch whisky agreeing that Scotch whisky can be made with grain, malt or grain and malt and must not contain enzymes in the maturation process. This legitimised the whisky producers' product in the eyes of the public and the eyes of law.

Then advertising of the product went from quaint advertising to sustained campaigns by blended whisky companies like Johnnie Walker and Dewar’s that were all created to win the trust of the public, noting that this was a relatively new product and had only been in England from around 1880. They were trying to build this consumer trust by leveraging history and heritage. But all their stories at the time were effectively an imagined past. Building a story and the beginnings of heritage stories we know and endure, I mean enjoy, today.

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Lots of the ads centred around London clubs to denote status and leveraging imagery of ancient highlanders in the background to link to vague provenance stories.

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Although the music has been added to this, it is easy to see what the creators were trying to capture. It is quintessentially Scottish and captures the jovial feel of enjoying a dram with friends. For being one of the earliest moving adverts ever created, it is fairly impressive that it still adheres to many of the advertising principles we still see.

Johnnie Walker was the first brand to add age statements to their bottle, according to Dr. Morgan, it “seemed critical at the time to convince and garner trust but probably not much of an eye for the future and now can be called the granddad of the NAS debate”.

In the late 1920's whisky producers moved from talking about the past to educating about the contents of the bottles finally.

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It really was relentless and great examples of early communication strategies going into World War II that build brand reputation, product reputation and perceived transparency as well as growing regulation around the product.

Fast forward to today, and brands are fighting to be more transparent. Bruichladdich and Compass Box are at the fore of the fight, championing the right for brands to give consumers complete information about what’s in their Whiskies. This comes from Compass Box being reprimanded by the Scotch Whisky Association for including too many details on their This is Not a Luxury Whisky and Flaming Heart releases.

The two distilleries have come together to ask for a change in EU law to allow brands to tell consumers everything about what goes into their drams. This is not just for the brands’ sake, but so consumers can fully enjoy the Whisky they are tasting, knowing exactly where it comes from and what’s gone into it.

The post Taking a look at transparency and trust in the historic marketing of Scotch whisky appeared first on GreatDrams.

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