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March 1970, High Street, Leatherhead, Surrey, UK - Freddie Bulsara auditioned for Sour Milk Sea band, after seeing a ‘vocalist wanted’ in the ‘Melody Maker, Freddie accompanied by 'roadies' Roger Taylor and John Harris
Rob Tyrell recalls seeing him for the first time: “Freddie auditioned with us in a youth club in crypt of a church in Dorking. We were all blown away. He was very confident. I don’t think it was any great surprise to him when we offered him the job.” Jeremy Gallop agrees: “He had an immense amount of charisma, which is why we chose him. Although, we were actually spoilt for choice that day. Normally at auditions, you’d get four or five guys who were rubbish, but we had two other strong contenders. One was a black guy, who had the voice of God, but he didn’t have the looks of Fred, and the other person was Bridget St. John.
Chris Chesney: “I remember Freddie being really energetic and moving around a lot at the audition, coming up and flashing the mike at me during guitar solos. He was impressive. There was an immediate vibe. He had a great vocal range. He sang falsetto; nobody else had the bottle to do that. He said ‘Do your own songs and I’ll make up my own words’ It was very clever and very good.”
“When Freddie joined,” Chris continues, “We were on a roll. We were in the habit of playing two or three gigs a week and we continued to do so. I think we played down at the Temple in Lower Wardour Street with Freddie, the Oxford gig, and a few others.”
The Oxford gig was in the ballroom at the Randolph Hotel, one of the grandest in the city, “It was like a society-type bash, debs in frocks and all that,” recalls Chris. “I remember our sound wasn’t great.” Jeremy Gallop adds: “Freddie definitely managed to get what people were there in the palm of his hand, just by sheer aggression and his good looks. He was very posy, very camp, and quite vain. I remember him coming to my house and looking in the mirror, poking his long hair. He said ‘I look good today. Don’t you think Rubber?’ I thought, ‘Fuck Off!’ I was only eighteen at the time, and didn’t think it was funny, Now It’s hilarious.”
The only other gig featuring Freddie which the other members of Sour Milk Sea are certain about was a benefit for the homeless charity ‘Shelter’, staged at the Highfield Parish hall in Headington, Oxford, on 20th March 1970 – just weeks before Freddie teamed up with Brian May and Roger Taylor in a new group. “That was probably the last gig we played with him,” remarks Chris Chesney.
Surprisingly enough for such a low-key gig, just like Ibex’s Bolton show, Sour Milk Sea’s appearance at Headington, also made the local paper. This time it was the ‘Oxford Mail’ and incredibly, the paper also included a photograph of the group complete with Freddie – the only known shot to exist of him with Sour Milk Sea. Typically Freddie is the only one looking at the camera.
The article included an interview with the band on account of Chris Chesney’s parents being minor celebrities. It also remarked that vocalist Freddie Bulsara had only arrived ‘a couple of weeks ago’, and quoted form his song ‘Lover’. More importantly, as Chris told the paper at the time: “I don’t feel we are like any other group. Our approach is based on our relationships with one another.”
These relationships held much promise, but were fraught with danger, as Chris soon discovered. “I was staying with ‘Rubber’ at the time.” He recounts. “Then Freddie asked me to stay with him in Barnes. So I did, and we started songwriting together, getting into each other’s heads. His chords were kind of weird. They broke all the rules. F-Sharp minor to F back to A. That was totally new for me. I thought it was all very current and that we could blend our two approaches together.”
Chris continues: “We did two or three of Freddie’s songs. He had some material from the Ibex days, including ‘Lover’, ‘Blag’ and ‘FEWA’ He was good at lyrics and we wrote a couple of numbers, some big, operatic pieces. Operatic in the sense that they broke down into solo guitar parts, then built up again vocally. I can’t for the life of me remember what they were called. He also introduced weird covers like ‘Jailhouse Rock’. We’d never considered playing Elvis, or Little Richard’s ‘Lucille’. Then he had his little rock ‘n’ roll medley, which pushed the band into a showbiz direction, which I liked. He also had a lot of stagecraft going. I had a good relationship with Freddie and he liked the way I moved on stage. We were like Bowie and Ronson, where we related physically to each other on stage”.
No one in Ibex, Wreckage or Sour Milk Sea had suspected that Freddie was gay. Indeed Mike Bersin has pointed out; “Freddie had a girlfriend, Mary Austin at the time”. “Ambiguous sexuality was par for the course then.” Recalls Chris Chesney. “You didn’t question it. Anybody who did was totally unhip.” Chris and Freddie’s friendship was platonic, but close: “He wanted to style me, give me some clothes to wear, and the relationship between us got quite strong. ‘Rubber’ soon realised there was nothing in it for him.”
(➡️ source: http://www.queenpedia.com/index.php?title=Sour_Milk_Sea)
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sataniccapitalist · 4 months
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Someone uploaded one of those viral “help identify this racist jerk” clips featuring a man accosting a street vendor with awful Islamophobic vitriol, and it turned out he was the former US State Department Deputy Director in the Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs.
It sounds made up, but that’s exactly what just happened; Vice has a whole article out about it. The video was uploaded today, and within hours the man was identified as Stuart Seldowitz, who helped direct US diplomacy on Israel-Palestine from 1999 to 2003 and then served on the Obama administration’s National Security Council. 
Seldowitz’s identity was confirmed by his former employer Gotham Government Relations, who released a statement denouncing him and saying they’ve ended all affiliation with him. 
(234) Stuart Seldowitz Part 2: "If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, it wasn't enough" - YouTube
That such a horrible person could climb his way to the highest echelons of the world’s most powerful government — working on Palestinian affairs no less — illustrates an important point about the US empire and what it is. There are no barriers stopping such creatures from rising to the top of that power structure, just the opposite in fact — they get an express lane to the top. That’s why bloodthirsty swamp monsters like John Bolton, Lindsey Graham, Victoria Nuland and Elliott Abrams find themselves so intimately involved with US policymaking.
That’s the true face of the US empire, right there. That’s the empire at its most honest. Not dressed up in affable charm and slick PR work, but sneering and hurling racist invective at immigrants who are just trying to do their jobs in peace. Not performing carefully rehearsed faces of compassion for the Palestinians who are being “tragically” and “unintentionally” killed as “collateral damage” in Israel’s war of “defense” against Hamas, but staring right into the camera and saying “If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what? It wasn’t enough.”
Too many people look at Israel as something separate from the US empire, seeing it as a small nation run by a historically mistreated ethnic group that everyone singles out and picks on unfairly. If you look at Israel separately from the US-centralized global power structure, it feels off to have any forceful animosity toward Israel and its government, because it feels like you’re picking on the little guy.
It’s only when you see clearly that Israel is just an arm of the same empire that’s been murdering people by the millions around the world with nonstop invasions, bombing campaigns, proxy conflicts, starvation sanctions and CIA coups that you understand that, yes, Israel really is exactly as evil as it appears to be, and its behavior in Gaza is exactly what it looks like.
The US empire backs Israel for the same reason it backs most of the world’s dictatorships: because a globe-spanning empire can only be held together by nonstop violence and tyranny. Israel and other US-aligned states in the middle east are like the chair and the whip of a lion tamer — weapons used to violently abuse the populations of a crucial geostrategic region into compliance. It suits the empire perfectly to have a nuclear-armed government which exists in a constant state of war in the middle east governed by officials who speak English with American accents and interests which are reliably in alignment with those of the United States.
Stuart Seldowitz is not an aberration but a perfect manifestation of all this. This is the sort of mind which keeps the empire marching along from administration to administration no matter who Americans elect. This is the sort of mind which keeps the weapons flowing, the blood pouring, the fossil fuels burning, and the terrified screams which power the imperial machine continually erupting into the night sky.
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gorgonitemaiden · 1 year
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The Dark implications of Street sharks
I want to give credit to @birdy-the-artist and @cairocopper for helping me out creatively:) ❤️❤️❤️
I want to elaborate that in all fairness, this was a kid show and the show runners were not going to go in full depth of certain things that happened , but now that we’ve grown I think it would be very interesting to get a deeper look into how becoming a shark man was both physically and psychologically torturous and how it impacted the lives of the Bolton family (including their friends and loved ones )
In their efforts to find their father , the boys lives are left in Dr. Paradigms hands ,becoming his personal lab rats.
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The OG show:
In the show the whole ordeal seemed to only last half a night and day , they’re injected with shark DNA and have a bad reaction. thinking the experiment was a failure , the doctor tells his minions to dispose of their bodies (“just get them out of my sight”) not specifying were and how …so the Bolton brothers are unceremoniously dumped somewhere in plain sight ( not very wise of you Doc..) The next day they wake up with just a bad headache and don’t seem to question what happened , you’d think the first thing they’d do would be to call the police and explain their situation, no…they go to a burger stand and have lunch. WHAT?
Revamp:
The very first thing we’d see is john Boltons perspective, the last thing he remembers was him and his brothers altercation with Dr Paradigm before everything went black . he has a pounding headache and everything looks like either a blur/ flash, he can’t move his body , he’s laying on something cold and he can feel sharp pain in his body . Along side that there are silhouettes of people looking above him and muffled sounds of voices as he falls in and out of consciousness.
The very first thing he’d see clearly is a lightly dim metallic room , before he could get his bearings a horrible feeling paralyzes him , he feels like even the slightest twitch from his muscles will pulsate another jolt of unbearable pain , the man is suffering and unbeknownst to him his entire form is also changing. When it’s over he tries to pick himself up , slowly realizing he’s feeling rather … off , despite the dimness of the room he could tell his hands weren’t his anymore. he finally manages to stand to see his surroundings and faces himself with a wall that was just a mirror.
And What he saw wasn’t him… not anymore, it was some strange mixture of a shark and man He’s frozen , unable to comprehend what he’s looking at but he had to find the courage to move closer and look at himself. No matter how hard he tried, he wasn’t dreaming… this was straight up real.
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The events that follow after this would be Paradigm explaining that their cooperation would be vital for their salvation, holding his siblings ransom …
This bargain will eventually be short lived and lead to John Bolton outwitting Paradigms grunts and making his escape ,his new found strength no longer limited from drugs to keep him docile.
John would manage to track his brothers one by one , Bobby is found first and he seems to be the first one taking things rather well ( or perhaps is still in denial that this is all some dream )
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Clint is followed suit , he’s not very happy and is more than ready to break some heads for this , Though with his older brother’s intervention the worst he could do was knock out a few guards cold.
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Cooper is the last one found and is almost inconsolable , in his cell he sits in the corner shaking and crying despite his brothers coming for him. The situation is dire as they still have guards on their tail , they can’t waste time , but despite all of that , John does his best to comfort his baby brother …
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Eventually he manages to get through to cooper before all four of them escape together , wherever they were it was in the middle of the ocean and off the main land , they’d have to swim back to Fission City were they’d once again have to be faced with more obstacles… persecution, fear , prejudice , no one is there for them , their only saving grace was Bends who despite his fear gave up his own safety for their sake.
After the chaos is over , it’s a quiet drive to someplace safe … but they’ll never be the same again.
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illadvisedselfships · 2 months
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I'm here to cash in one of those gush tickets!! 🎫😌✌️ Here's an overview of notable F/Os past and present! Some of it might not mean anything to you if you don't know the fandom, and that's alright ^^ I never dreamed I'd share any of this, so I'm really grateful that you've made this little safe space here <333 And now that I've started, I can't stop! (Truly sorry I can't put this under a readmore… Large Poast incoming.) Chronologically:
First one I ever had has to be Mrs. Coulter from The Golden Compass/Northern Lights. I chose this book because it had a polar bear on the cover and I came out on the other side with… issues XD I even wrote a self-insert thing where my daemon gets severed from me and she comforts me through it (real healthy subject matter for an 11 year old ᕕ(ᐛ )ᕗ)
Lady Van Tassel from Sleepy Hollow. I traveled to Sleepy Hollow with Ichabod as his assistant or relative? And of course she corrupted me.
Now, this is the one I debated including due to the sheer goofiness 😅😅: Lily Gates from the Urbz: Sims in the City (handheld version). I liked imagining myself in the big city and being her personal assistant.
Claudia Wolf from Silent Hill 3. Ooh in this one I did something bad (unspecified) and found myself in Silent Hill with a guilty conscience. Alone and scared, I wandered through the foggy streets and ended up in the mall, and that's where I first encountered her. She took pity on me and I'll be honest, I don't really remember the rest XD idr if her being a priestess of a terrible cult factored in to this at all 😂
Actual light of my life forever: Julie Langford from Bioshock. My imagination was definitely at its best with her!! I had a really comprehensive storyline going on, starting from when I first traveled to Rapture in the bathysphere as a little girl with my family (not based on real family). Growing up and realizing I felt uncomfortable with boys, meeting Julie at a dinner party and feeling that spark but not really getting what it meant. Maybe I casually meet her another time or two after that. Coincidentally she asks me to be her assistant right as Rapture starts to fall. I see my first Splicer when I'm with her, my family also become Splicers, aaaand before long we're some of the only unspliced people left. We spend all our time together and I make her feel like she's responsible for me, we scrounge around for food and she protects me from Splicers and tenderly wipes the blood off my face and I help her out in her lab when we're not busy trying to survive, and still it feels like it takes the longest time for us to get together for real, but we do eventually. (side note: I am insane.) My daydreams have run their course I think but they were my favorite and the most vivid <333
Cersei from Game of Thrones. In this one, I'm the bastard daughter of Roose Bolton and I get sent to King's Landing for reasons unknown. Probably unrealistic! shrug I comfort her after her walk of shame and although our relationship is mildly antagonistic, she enlists me to help with, uh, the thing she does in season 6 episode 10 that involves wildfire. I am also obsessed with leech treatment in this one XD (in the books, Roose is known as the Leech Lord)(this is where the "leech" comes from on my other blog!) I got a lot of mileage from the Roose-Bolton's-bastard-daughter self insert XD In an alternate timeline, I have a thing for Lady Stoneheart (in extremely crude and basic terms, Catelyn Stark's sentient reanimated corpse), even though our families absolutely despise one another. Don't ask how I made that work, because I don't remember 💀 (A last-minute addition as I was proofreading this ask... I'm fully committing to the crazy.)
Cassandra Kiramman from Arcane. I'm actually not in the canon universe for this one. I had an AU where I was a ballet dancer and she was my instructor, haha. Also: Arcane was my introduction to x reader fic!! (though I'd been reading shipfic long before that.)
✨ Current F/Os!! ✨ Foul that it's taken me this long to get here 😑 Unfortunately, I feel like my imagination has taken a nosedive lately. I don't have storylines for these, more like little snippets of scenes. I'm in the devouring all the writing I can get my hands on stage ♥️
Yuria from Dark Souls 3 and Rennala from Elden Ring. I basically picture myself in the role of the player character ^^
I'm very into Lady Tremaine, and the Nurse from Dead by Daylight atm. With Tremaine there's just something about a buttoned-up repressed domineering woman and being the one to crack that shell just a little 😳 And with the Nurse I love the contrast between the griminess and creepiness and her sweetness. And her mori where she caresses the survivor's face 🥺 (most of the "lore" I get comes from youtube videos and reader inserts 💀)
Finally, one where they're actually in the modern world with me, since I mentioned that in a previous comment ^^ I fell in love with Maria Doyle Kennedy as Mrs. S. in Orphan Black, and during the initial lockdown in 2020, my main daydream scenario was with me becoming a lodger in her house (she's just a random person in this, not an actress). We garden and raise chickens together 🥰
I think I just cashed in all of my tickets 🙈🙈🙈 Now you probably know more about me than you bargained for 😅 This was actually incredibly fun to write. You have a great imagination - it's awesome that you're able to imagine your F/Os in multiple different scenarios and universes!! I can't really do that. Absolutely no pressure to reply right away!! 💜
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I love all this!! You have some great ideas for your F/O's!!!
1. Omg that Mrs Coulter thing is e x c e l l e n t XDD So dark and oddly soft XD Hey- as girlies we made up some pretty awful things when we were little! XD If it wasn't Barbies in the mafia it was something else!
2. I too love Lady Van Tassle- I can understand completely XD And we love some corruption! 😅😅😅 Especially if it is by a pretty lady-
3. Omg I've never heard of Lily Gates! XD She definitely fits your theme though and I support you!
4. I haven't heard of Claudia Wolf either but as soon as I read your descript and looked her up I want OH. I get it XD Priestess?? Culty?? Scary old white haired woman? I am very very intrigued XD
5. HNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG your imagination really was clear on this one!! 💛💛💛💛💛💛💛 This whole storyline is so good, I love your brain XD Also to your 'i am insane' -- my love we all are, its okay XD
6 + 7. Cersei, huh? Absolutely cannot blame you XD And Lady Stoneheart is just s o 💗💗💗💗💗💗??????? I don't even know tis woman but 💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗 We love them decrepit babes.
8. Oh she's so pretty! She seems classy ^^ Thank you for your service ma'am (Introducing you to x reader fanfic XD ).
9+10. These videogame ladies look so lovely!! I cant stop thinking what amazing taste you have XD
11. LADY TREMAINE AND SALLY LADY TREMAINE AND SALLY LADY TREMAINE AND SALLY- I agree so heavily on them both, these are some great F/O's <3<3<3 Imagine Lady Tremaine using that evil eye of hers to make someone back off you or Sally touching you so so gently! <3
12. Ohhhh, thats so so so sweet!! I love this for you ^^
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achillean-archives · 11 months
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"Ironically, Kaye would sometimes lament that he himself was ‘no oil painting’, which explained, he said, why he didn’t have a partner: ‘I wouldn’t want somebody to be with me just because they wanted to be with Gorden Kaye the actor. I do believe in love, but it’s only happened to me three times . . . which is two times too many.’
He was born Gordon Kaye (the spelling ‘Gorden’ came much later) in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, in 1941, the only child of working-class parents who regarded him as their little miracle: his mother was 42 when he was born. His father, Harold, was an engineer, and an air raid warden.
A sensitive boy, he worried that his parents were so much older than other children’s. ‘I was sure that I would come home and find them dead,’ he admitted.
When he was three, he crept downstairs when his parents were having a Christmas party. He watched his mother, Gracie, talking and smoking a cigarette. When she put it down in an ashtray, young Gorden picked it up and took a drag.
Whether red-hot ash flew up from the tip, or he accidentally poked himself with the burning end, he was never sure. All he could remember was throwing himself on the floor, screaming and howling, and an agonising pain in his left eye. Next morning, the pupil was swollen, and he could barely see out of it. He later regained about 20 per cent of his vision in that eye, but for the rest of his life it stared off to the side.
At 16, he took a job as a salesman at a textiles firm, for £4 7s 6d a week. But he wanted to work in showbiz, and volunteered on Huddersfield’s hospital radio, playing rock ’n’ roll.  When The Beatles performed at the town’s cinema in 1963, Gorden interviewed them. His instinctive humour brought out the best in the Fab Four, who showered him with silly jokes.
At 22, Kaye was engaged to be married, but he had known since his teens that he was gay. That was why he had proposed to his girlfriend: ‘I thought that’s how you made the feelings go away.’
But they did not go away and, feeling increasingly lonely, he sought out a pen-friend through the small ads. A sailor called Peter in the New Zealand merchant navy got in touch, and they exchanged long, confessional messages, recorded on cassettes.
When Peter visited Britain, Gorden took him to meet his parents. Afterwards, his mother guessed there was ‘something going on’ and though Gorden denied it at first, he eventually told her the truth.
‘Don’t tell your dad,’ she warned. ‘It’ll kill him.’ He never said anything to his father and, for a long time, thought if his secret was exposed he would have to kill himself.
He threw himself into amateur dramatics. Playwright Alan Ayckbourn, then a BBC radio producer, urged him to turn professional. He applied for a job with a Bolton repertory company: the audition was so successful that the director fell off his chair laughing and had to be helped up. But the company wanted him for character work, and his first role was as an 80-year-old man. 
Bit parts on TV followed, and then he was cast as Elsie Tanner’s nephew, Bernard, in Coronation Street. By now his name was ‘Gorden’, thanks to a spelling error by the actors’ union, Equity. Before he could correct it, he was taken to hospital with kidney stones. 
The registrar misspelled his name, too, so the clipboard at the end of his bed also said ‘Gorden’. ‘I took that as an omen,’ he said. ‘Or possibly an emon.’ Those sorts of mangled vowels were the mainstay of his role as Rene.
At the outset in 1982, the show by Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft was accused of mocking the heroes of the French Resistance. In fact, it was a send-up of BBC television wartime dramas such as Secret Army and Colditz. The show became hugely popular. 
But in 1989, warned that a Sunday tabloid was about to reveal his sexuality, Gorden decided to come out as gay: ‘I was born this way and I’ve never pretended to be anything other than what I am.’
He was terrified of the public response but, when the news broke, he was in panto at the London Palladium, and got a standing ovation.
Other reaction was less kind. One MP, Geoffrey Dickens, demanded the BBC sack him, for impersonating a ladies’ man on prime-time TV. 
‘That was a horrible time,’ Gorden remembered. 
‘It was a bit like the Nuremberg trials. I don’t care what my greengrocer does in bed and I don’t see why the public should have to know what I do. But of all the letters I got from the public, only two of them were nasty.’
Worse was to come. During a storm in January 1990, part of a wooden advertising hoarding was blown through his car windscreen and a piece of wood nearly 11in long was embedded in his skull. 
The injury left scars mental and physical from which he never fully recovered. He returned to record a final season of ’Allo ’Allo!, but rarely worked on TV again after that. The shock of the accident left him nervous and irritable, and clumsier than ever. ‘If I try to open a packet of biscuits,’ he admitted, ‘I spill them. And then I shout at them.’
He involved himself with charity work with the Grand Order of Water Rats, which supported entertainers and their families in hard times, and was proud to be elected Chief Rat in 1999. 
But he took little joy in life, and said he didn’t want to live into old age. Invitations were declined on the excuse that he was expecting to go to a funeral — his own.
But he never regretted a day of his time on ’Allo ’Allo! If his ability to make people laugh was a gift from God, as he believed, then Rene was his greatest stroke of luck — one other actors would kill to have, ‘and might probably put ground glass in my Diet Coke,’ he laughed.
‘I loved playing Rene. ’Allo ’Allo! enabled me to work with some of the finest comic performers in Britain. We did it for ten years . . . and even Hitler only managed six.’ " Source:
"Retired college lecturer Raymond, 86, said Gorden, who grew up in Moldgreen , had become isolated and very lonely - despite being loved by millions of fans.
“He had no brothers or sisters, just a few cousins. He never married and was a lone survivor till the end.
"It was just a case of surviving and he was very lonely. That is all very sad.”
Raymond praised his famous relative as “a brilliant actor, a comic genius, who brought a lot of joy to many people. He is still making people laugh today.”
Kaye was best known for his role as Rene Artois in the 1980s BBC sitcom ‘Allo ‘Allo! which made light of the Nazi occupation of France.
BAFTA nominated, he also appeared in Last of the Summer Wine, Are You Being Served?, Coronation Street and Emmerdale.
Raymond added: “He always appreciated his fans saying ‘They’re my bread and butter’ and he always stopped to sign autographs in the street.”
Gorden, an only child, had described himself as a “shy, gay and overweight boy.”
[...]
Raymond, a father of two, said many of Gorden’s friends from London rarely visited him once he was in a care home.
He said: “Just one or two but not recently, they just seemed to forget about him.
“Me and my wife went up when we could but we’re too old to drive and it’s difficult by train and taxi.”
Raymond told how the teetotal star, who cheated death in a horrific car crash in 1990, “smoked a bit but never touched alcohol.”
He added: “I like to remember sitting and talking to him and what a brilliant actor he was.
“Allo ‘Allo was his best role. He was in 84 episodes which have been shown across the world.
[...]
Raymond fondly recalls being invited to screenings with Sheila: “We were in the audience a lot at one time. He did he make us laugh.
“He may have been forgotten by his acting friends but he’ll never be forgotten by us, his family, and his legions of fans." " Source:
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My brother was being an insufferable little bitch after being home for a full consecutive day after his gf left to her hometown, so my parents, instead of setting him straight and make him behave himself like they would've done with me when I was his age (20 next week), said "if you're going to sulk all the time, go stay with her for a week, we'll come and get you next weekend so we can have some family time™ before your sister leaves again (to go to fucking work because I'm an adult who doesn't get to behave like a bitch to get things to go her way)". So, I'm spending the three days I was promised cool stuff (a water amusement park, visiting my cousin who lives near a beautiful natural park with a river...) in the girl's family's unfinished cottage in the middle of nowhere, ignoring the little shit of my brother to avoid yelling at him for being a spoiled SoB and ruining my 2 weeks of holiday that's supposed to be relaxing to go back to work. So, as a summary, here's how that "amazing family time™" is going (after 7 hours here, admittedly it feels so much longer and I'm considering escaping):
1. I visited my best friend yesterday in her new city (2-hour drive away from my parents) and had to leave to sleep instead of going out like a normal 20-something because we had to leave on time today.
2. I didn't see Spain's winning goal because my mother had me running around the house doing stupid shit like make the bed (with a bedspread I'm not even using).
3. Had to change my CGM in a hurry, and it wasn't until we were on the highway that it gave an error alert that I had to change it (and, of course, I left my emergency back-up back in the house because a CGM works for 14 days usually). Cue panic attack.
4. Had to listen to a playlist we made in 2018 with Adele, Enrique Iglesias, Michael Bolton and the likes for over 3 hours at an insufferable volume. I've heard that playlist so many times that I can sing it to you from memory, and it was louder than my music in my earbuds at maximum volume.
5. Had to suffer extreme cold from the AC for 4 hours because my menopausal mother was hot.
6. Cue the house. Old, typical cottage in the middle of the mountains, everything is half-finished. Very old-style rooms, no nets at the windows to keep the bugs out (and there are a lot). No AC. There's a heatwave, which is supposedly less here up North, but I yet have to experience that, because it feels worse. The WiFi has to be unplugged at night (so, no fighting insomnia with YT or some show). The bathrooms are old, and I've been informed the upper floor's (my parents' and mine) doesn't get water. Everything is loud (the floors creak, the bed and the door squeak...). Her mother is sleeping here as well, so I've been instructions to be on my best behaviour (which should make them realise I'm here 110% against my will).
7. I've been outside for half an hour and have 6 mosquito bites. I've been in my room for 2 hours (pretending to sleep), and I've been kept awake by mosquitoes flying around, and have killed: 3 mosquitoes, 2 moths, 1 spider, 5 or 6 flies. There are 2 spiders I'm not daring to approach. The room is HOT, and I dozed off for 20-ish minutes and woke up drenched in sweat (and 2 new bites). And my glass of water has a dead fly in it.
8. Our plans for tomorrow fell through 3 times, and we still don't have set plans because "we have to call tomorrow to check their availability", I've been informed that we're supposed to stay almost the full day as well.
9. This town is called a town but is just a glorified street. You can't get groceries here.
I'm so tired and so uncomfortable in this stupid bug-ridden and sweltering hot room that I might request the car keys to sleep in there tomorrow. I'm sure the body ache resulting from that is still going to be worth the few hours of actual sleep I might get.
I can't believe that I'm almost 25, I have a full-time job, and I have absolutely no say on my holidays (I've informed my parents that I'm going on a retreat next year, and my mother was eager to join, so I told her that a "get the fuck away from everything and everyone" included not seeing anyone I knew). I saw my two best friends for a grand total of 9 hours, and did the middle-aged thing of going to a nice restaurant. I'm going to see another friend for a couple of hours before he has to go to work (because today didn't work). I'm tired and emotionally exhausted, and I'm 100% sure I'm going back to work in a worse mental state than I left. At least I'll be happy I'm away from this.
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turtle-paced · 2 years
Text
Revisiting Chapters: Epilogue, ADWD
Bit of a longer recap because it’s a long, dense epilogue.
The story so far…
Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Cersei’s been marched through the streets naked and is awaiting trial for treason. Jaime’s AWOL in the Riverlands. Tommen is a child, Tywin is dead, the smallfolk are mobilising on religious lines, an invasion has come out of freaking nowhere, the Tyrell alliance is none too sound right now. This is the hour of Kevan Lannister - just the one hour.
From the East
The chapter starts with news of the fall of Griffin’s Roost brought before the Small Council. It’s a pretty tense place to be at the moment.
Lannister spearmen in crimson cloaks and lion-crested halfhelms stood along the west wall. Tyrell guards in green cloaks faced them from the opposite wall. […] Though neither Queen Cersei nor Queen Margaery was amongst them, their presence could be felt poisoning the air, like ghosts at a feast.
Behind the table where the five members of the king’s small council were seated, the Iron Throne crouched like some great black beast, its barbs and claws and blades half-shrouded in shadow.
It’s some vivid scene-setting. The Iron Throne itself holds court here, a monstrous and threatening thing that takes on a half-life of its own and rules over a divided ‘alliance’. Like maybe chasing the throne might be…bad? 
In any case, Red Ronnet’s come to King’s Landing asking for men to help defeat his uncle JonCon. Mace says that they’ll march in due course, and Ronnet can prove his loyalty then. In the meantime, Ronnet’s to be escorted to chambers and kept under a discreet guard. Which brings up the question of guards more generally. Ronnet came to King’s Landing with twenty men-at-arms who Jaime was trying to foist off on anyone else. Problem is, Tarly and Tyrell don’t want them either. Tarly because they’re disorderly, Tyrell because they’re westermen. Everyone can agree that they’re fit for the Night’s Watch and not much else.
Kevan, though, is starting to come around to Cersei’s perspective on Mace Tyrell in some ways.
The more I give him, the more he wants.
The difference between Kevan’s frustration and Cersei’s is that Kevan knows he can’t pick a fight with the Tyrells right now. They have armies. His own people are, in Kevan’s words, “melting away”. Meanwhile, as Pycelle points out, there are incursions from “adventurers” all along the coast with signs that Connington plans to move on Storm’s End.
So how are they planning to resist the reported incursion? Well…they aren’t, really.
“He cannot take Storm’s End. […] And if he does, what of it? Stannis holds it now. Let the castle pass from one pretender to another, why should that trouble us?”
Possibly because the bulk of Stannis’ forces are in the North, while Connington has armies in the field near LannisTyrell interests and territories, and can more easily use Storm’s End as a base to threaten them than Stannis can at present. I’m not an expert. Mace continues in this vein a little later:
“Once Paxter Redwyne sweeps the ironmen from the seas, my sons will retake the Shields. The snows will do for Stannis, or Bolton will. As for Connington…
[…]
“…as for Connington,” Tyrell repeated, “what victories has he ever won that wee should fear him?”
This is all in contrast to Kevan’s rather more accurate perception of the LannisTyrells having “foes on every side”. As he narrates, he does not share Mace’s confidence that they can just…win. He’s cautious of a Jon Connington older and more seasoned than the rash boy who lost the Battle of the Bells. Especially with the Golden Company and a Targaryen pretender in tow.
Worse, there are other rumours, of another Targaryen, one whose blood can’t be questioned, and incidentally one who actually has a few dragons. Daenerys. Mace dismisses her as mad, but again Kevan’s more cautious.
“With so much smoke drifting west, surely there must be some fire burning in the east.”
Pycelle is also cautious. He’s heard about a queen with dragons. Too many rumours to dismiss. Randyll Tarly scoffs and says Dany’s welcome to Slaver’s Bay, but Kevan reckons she’ll want to come to Westeros sooner or later. He emphasises the need to take care of Jon Connington and Aegon now, before Dany can sail across to join them. Unfortunately, Mace isn’t doing anything until after the trials.
Pycelle floats the idea that maybe the Golden Company could be bribed to leave. It seems pretty optimistic to me, without much appreciation for the Golden Company’s recent history, in which they actually broke a contract to come invade Westeros. That said, it’s more of a plan than Mace’s “so what?”
Conceptual problems aside, there’s also the practical issue that the Crown has no money. Harys Swyft is looking at taking out loans to cover loans, and even - gasp - raising taxes. Kevan, however, believes this is not politically viable. “Half the lords in the realm could not tell taxation from tyranny,” a surprisingly relatable sentiment from Kevan Lannister. Unlike Tywin, he can see a future where he might have to pay Crown debts with Lannister gold. Failing that, and lacking plunder (since searching Dragonstone has turned up a whole lotta nothing), Harys Swyft is going to have to go to Braavos and negotiate with the Iron Bank directly.
Lannister Strength
The other big thing going on here is the aftermath of Cersei’s walk of shame and her upcoming trial for treason. Also Margaery’s. Mace Tyrell, as discussed above, is postponing everything, all care for the kingdom, until his daughter is proven innocent. In yet another sign that the power might be getting to Mace’s head, he asks why Tommen can’t just declare Margaery innocent.
Do that, and the whispers will follow Margaery the rest of her life. “No man doubts your daughter’s innocence, my lord,” Ser Kevan lied, “but His High Holiness insists upon a trial.”
Kevan’s got a better appreciation for the fact that justice must be seen to be done (inasmuch as this is anything remotely approaching justice). He’s also got the diplomacy not to say it, and to pass the buck to the High Sparrow. But he cannot make Mace move.
Kevan informs the others at the meeting that Cersei’s elected to go for trial by combat, with ‘Robert Strong’ as her champion. Mace is pissed. He doesn’t know who Robert Strong is, and the fact that he doesn’t speak or show his face is mighty suspicious. Kevan doesn’t know either, but it’s more of a ‘see no evil’ situation. He’s just hoping that ‘Robert Strong’ is strong enough to do the job. Seeing that Mace doesn’t care, Kevan reminds him of the link to Margaery’s own troubles. Or Mace’s, whichever. If Cersei’s proved guilty, that raises questions about Tommen’s legitimacy. If Tommen’s not legitimate, his claim to the throne is an awful lot shakier. If that’s so, then Margaery’s claim to be a queen is also an awful lot shakier.
That said, Cersei’s clearly annoyed some people here, and Kevan’s got some appeasing to do. He means to return her to Casterly Rock - like a package, not the ruling Lady thereof - and see that she remains there, to do no further “mischief”. Her guards and ladies in waiting have been dismissed and win or lose this trial, she’s not going to have much more contact with her son. It’s a harsh comedown.
More bluntly, and even more personally:
Cersei was soiled goods now, her power at an end. Every baker’s boy and beggar in the city had seen her in her shame and every tart and tanner from Flea Bottom to Pisswater Bend had gazed upon her nakedness, their eager eyes crawling over her breasts and belly and woman’s parts. No queen could expect to rule again after that. In gold and silk and emeralds Cersei had been a queen, the next thing to a goddess; naked, she was only human, an aging woman with stretch marks on her belly and teats that had begun to sag…
This was done to destroy Cersei. Her self-image, her dignity, her power, everything.
Margaery, meanwhile, has opted for a trial by the Faith. Kevan rather cynically wonders why Margaery needs an army around her if she’s innocent. Gee. Kevan closes the meeting with the intention to reconvene in five days, after the matter of Cersei’s trial is settled.
Kevan’s getting worried about his internal position here. Very much. Maester Pycelle and Harys Swyft, known Lannister toadies, each ask Kevan for more guards. Pycelle notes that Mace  “loves [him] not,” while Kevan knows that Pycelle is not the only council member Tyrell would like to replace. Read: Mace Tyrell is not above vanishing the incumbents. Between that, and Mace’s observation that they could totally find a better match for Myrcella, it’s starting to look like the position might be going to Mace’s head a little. There is such a thing as concentrating power too far.
Overall, the council’s looking to be three Lannister-aligned members, three Tyrell-aligned members, with Nymeria Sand soon to come (and unlikely to be pally with any of them). Kevan hasn’t informed Mace what’s going to be happening in that regard. Also chalk up another person thinking wistfully of the good old days when Littlefinger was around to conjure gold from thin air. And on that note, Kevan warns his father-in-law that travelling to Braavos in the near future is very likely. Harys Swyft blames Cersei for his problems, which okay fair, but something still has to be done.
With that sorted out, Kevan goes to deal with his paperwork and prepare for dinner with Cersei and Tommen. The Kingsguard is depleted, down to Trant, Blount, and Robert Strong. This prompts some reflection on how Cersei’s been on a personal level since the end of her ADWD chapters.
His niece had been subdued and submissive since her walk of atonement, thank the gods. The novices who attended her reported that she spent a third of her waking hours with her son, another third in prayer, and the rest in her tub. She was bathing four or five times a day, scrubbing herself with horsehair brushes a strong lye soap, as if she meant to scrub her skin off.
Kevan’s reflection on Cersei as a child “so full of life and mischief” is a sad one. We know from Cersei’s own PoV that her childhood was not so idyllic as Kevan makes it sound, but yes, there was a point where Cersei was a kid, and where her life might have gone a different way. There was a ‘best’ to be nourished in Cersei, once upon a time, happier paths that could have been taken. Kevan’s quite aware of this. Because…
I have no reason to feel guilty, Ser Kevan told himself. Tywin would understand that, surely. It was his daughter who brought shame down upon our name, not I. What I did, I did for the good of House Lannister.
It was not as if his brother had never done the same.
So yes, the walk of shame was Kevan’s idea, ripped right out of Tywin’s own playbook. What Kevan did to Cersei is what Tywin did to his father’s mistress. It seems the woman had the nerve, the sheer nerve, to act like a noblewoman when she was a commoner. (Granted, it was a real bad move for her to wear jewels that once belonged to Lady Lannister.) Surely Tywin would never have dreamed that same fate awaited his own golden daughter, Kevan thinks, as if this was not a direct result of Tywin modelling how to disempower female political figures. If only there was some way to stop Lannisters turning on each other. Chalk the entire thing up as another example of Tywin inadvertently poisoning the Lannisters.
Dinner is a different sort of affair. There’s the Kingsguard present, Kevan noticing that Boros Blount is packing on weight and looking ill with it (no, I don’t think Tommen’s being poisoned - if he were, you’d expect the much smaller Tommen to show symptoms first. I think it’s too much rich food and not enough exercise for a middle-aged man). 
Cersei’s being attended by some of her rotating handmaidens, who aren’t allowed to serve her for more than a week by the High Septon’s decree, in case Cersei corrupts them. They spend all their time with Cersei for that week, with one sleeping in the same bed and reporting back on whether Cersei has company.
But pretty much the first thing of substance Cersei says is a dirty joke. She also asks for Taena Merryweather back, i.e. Someone who left her at the mercy of her enemies. Kevan might think Cersei’s been subdued, and she might well be - given the constant washing, I think Cersei’s ashamed and traumatised - but I do not think she’s been so literally chastened.
In terms of the course of the conversation, Cersei doesn’t ask about Jaime until prompted. She’s more assertive about getting info on Tyrion. Hell, she’s more assertive about getting info on whether Kevan means to bring his wife to court, making cryptic comments about wise women knowing their place. She asks about the Kettleblacks.
So when Kevan reflects mid-meal that:
Ser Kevan could not remember seeing his niece so quiet, so subdued, so demure. All for the good, he supposed. But it made him sad as well. Her fire is quenched, she who used to burn so bright.
Yeah…I don’t think so. I think we’re looking at a woman who’s biding her time and keeping things from Kevan.
A Cold Dark Night
Dinner is interrupted by a message from a boy downstairs. Apparently Pycelle wants to see Kevan now. Right this minute.
Could Storm’s End have fallen? Or might this be word from Bolton in the north?
“It might be news of Jaime,” the queen said.
Which shows you some respective priorities. He hads back out into the cold night, reflecting on the scenery.
As Ser Kevan made his way across the inner ward, the castle seemed an alien place, where every keep and tower had grown icy teeth, and all familiar paths had vanished beneath a white blanket.
This fresh snow isn’t the scene of wonder and cleanliness Sansa experienced in the Vale. This fresh snow is hostile and turns familiar settings treacherous. Kevan ducks inside the rookery where a second young working-class person is waiting, a girl this time. She takes Kevan’s cloak but does not speak, simply pointing him up to the steps.
Strangely, Pycelle’s chambers are cold. Despite the bitter chill, the hearthfire’s gone out, and the room’s lit by moonlight. All the better to see the massive white raven sent to officially announce the start of winter with.
Not that Kevan has much time to appreciate the sight or the import, because that’s when he gets shot. Crossbow to the chest. As Kevan staggers and collapses, he notices Pycelle at the table.
Sleeping, Kevan thought…until he blinked and saw the deep red gash in the old man’s spotted skull and the blood pooled beneath his head, staining the pages of his book.
Who could do such a thing? And to a perfectly innocent book! Oh and Pycelle’s dead too I guess. Kevan’s first thought is Tyrion. But as Kevan calls for his nephew, Varys makes his first appearance since A Storm of Swords as he steps out of the shadows with a crossbow. Time for some monologuing!
“Ser Kevan. Forgive me if you can. I bear you no ill will. This was not done from malice. It was for the realm. For the children.”
[…]
“You do not deserve to die alone on such a cold dark night. There are many like you, good men in service to bad causes…but you were threatening to undo all the queen’s good work, to reconcile Highgarden and Casterly Rock, bind the Faith to your little king, unite the Seven Kingdoms under Tommen’s rule. So…”
This tells us a lot more about Varys than it does about Kevan’s prospects of success, I reckon. We’ve had the entire rest of the epilogue outlining the enormity of the task in front of our good mate Kevan. It is my abiding suspicion that nobody knows how dire the kingdom’s financials are except Littlefinger, who swapped the treasury with a trash pile then set it on fire. Mind you, Varys is quite probably right that Kevan’s the person most capable of achieving any or all of those things.
Varys here reveals that he’s working for a cause. An agenda greater than himself and his own power. For the children. He also hasn’t made the mistake of thinking that everyone opposed to him is irredeemably evil and/or incompetent.
But it’s one thing to know that Varys is working for a cause. What is the cause? What exactly is he dedicated to, here?
Aegon.
“Aegon has been shaped for rule since before he could walk. He has been trained in arms, as befits a knight to be, but that was not the end of his education. He reads and writes, he speaks several tongues, he has studied history and law and poetry. A septa has instructed him in the mysteries of the Faith since he was old enough to understand them. He has lived with fisherfolk, worked with his hands, swum in rivers and mended nets and learned to wash his own clothes at need. He can fish and cook and bind up a wound, he knows what it is like to be hungry, to be hunted, to be afraid. Tommen has been taught that kingship is his right. Aegon knows that kingship is his duty, that a king must put his people first, and live and rule for them.”
That’s a hefty reveal. All this time, Varys has been working for a third party, destabilising several regimes from the inside in ultimate service to Aegon’s cause. But more important than just the reveal of the identity of Varys’ preferred candidate is the why of it.
Varys has nothing to say about Aegon’s right to the throne. On the contrary, he’s critical of a system where even as good-natured a kid as Tommen has been socialised into believing that he’s entitled to a throne. No, what Varys is talking about is a king for the people. A king who understands the perspective of the smallfolk and who believes his position is to work for them. We stan an unproblematic fave -
- wait, did he just set a bunch of kids with knives on Kevan to finish him off?
So yeah, the inherent hypocrisy is apparent by the time Kevan stops bleeding. For the children, Varys says, while using children to kill a man he believes to be good. That much I can see someone reconciling with the-ends-justify-the-means. 
The greater problems require a bit more of a step back. The reader’s seen Aegon more recently than Varys has, and Aegon is not all that and a bag of chips. He’s a kid, good intentions and a temper and a naive streak all mixed up. There is no perfection. In the greater scope of the story, he’s a human being who’s heading up a system that cannot be run fairly by its very nature. Varys has not accounted for the nature of the monarchy.
Nor has he accounted for the nature of stories. For all his virtues and all his flaws, Aegon has only been put through the motions of a heroic narrative - he hasn’t truly experienced the wilds. He’s been raised in a greenhouse, and winter is here.
Chapter Function
With Cersei locked up, we’ve actually been missing a good political PoV in King’s Landing for the first time in the entire series. So Kevan’s catching us up on some things here. A lot of things. It feels like half a book’s worth of political sketching out - the progress of the LannisTyrell alliance, pre-trial shenanigans, the continued implosion of Westeros’ finances.
Then it gets upended with Kevan’s assassination. Varys’ monologue helpfully indicates what to expect from the fallout, when we’re once again limited to Cersei’s somewhat out of the loop and definitely unreliable narration come TWoW. He expects the Lannisters and Tyrells to outright turn on each other, even as various parties find ways to blame Tyrion and the Dornish, severely hindering any attempts to resist Aegon while he secures a foothold on the continent. We can definitely see the shape of it.
There’s also the question of Varys’ Big Reveal. I tend to believe he’s been honest, for Doylist reasons as much as Watsonian. Varys being honest in this moment, if not completely open, seems to me to fit the pacing of the series. We’re due some answers at this point. It’s also just such a great way to advance the discussion of what makes a good monarch (i.e., trick question, there’s nothing - the best that can be done is to try) and what makes a good fantasy hero. Varys has created a claimant who ticks all the boxes, and I reckon we’ll see in TWoW that he could not recreate the spirit.
The weather is also an important point here. Snow is falling on King’s Landing. True winter has arrived.
Miscellany
Mace’s hand-shaped Hand throne is amazingly OTT. As Kevan’s narration notes but does not explore, he produces this throne the very day Kevan appointed him. Either Mace has Westeros’ fastest carpenters and joiners on staff, or he’s had this throne in the works for a while.
Tarly declares that scum such as Gregor Clegane’s old lot belong at the Wall, as part of the Night’s Watch. That’s where he thinks Sam belongs. That’s the level of scum he equates Sam to. Randyll Tarly is awful. News at eleven.
Kevan observes that if Doran Martell joins up with Connington, things could go badly for the LannisTyrells. Also, as the meeting concludes, Kevan notes that Tarly is ‘the real danger’. Gosh, I hope Doran Martell doesn’t join up with Connington and Tarly doesn’t turn on anyone after an observation like that. I also find it pretty interesting that Tarly repeatedly questions whether it’s genuinely Jon Connington, apparently sowing doubt about the seriousness of the threat. Paging Mr Chekov to the props department…
Rhaenys Targaryen’s cat Balerion is mentioned again. Tommen calls him the “bad cat”. Apparently Balerion clawed Joffrey’s hand once so I’m not sure how bad a cat he really is.
Clothing Porn
Cersei wears a dark brown gown buttoned to the throat, with a hooded green mantle. Less spectacularly, Kevan makes sure to wear an old doublet in case Cersei throws wine at his face again.
Food Porn
Beef and barley soup, brace of quail, roast pike, turnips and mushrooms, bread and butter, and cream cakes. Kevan also has a cup of mulled wine.
Next Three Chapters
Sansa VI, ACoK - Sam I, ASoS - Cersei VII, AFFC
101 notes · View notes
istumpysk · 2 years
Text
Operation Stumpy Re-Read
ASOS: Arya V (Chapter 29)
Stoney Sept was the biggest town Arya had seen since King's Landing, and Harwin said her father had won a famous battle here.
"The Mad King's men had been hunting Robert, trying to catch him before he could rejoin your father," he told her as they rode toward the gate. "He was wounded, being tended by some friends, when Lord Connington the Hand took the town with a mighty force and started searching house by house. Before they could find him, though, Lord Eddard and your grandfather came down on the town and stormed the walls. Lord Connington fought back fierce. They battled in the streets and alleys, even on the rooftops, and all the septons rang their bells so the smallfolk would know to lock their doors. Robert came out of hiding to join the fight when the bells began to ring.
This is probably an insignificant historical event. I doubt we'll be given a parallel to this in the future.
Still, it makes you wonder! We know what Lord Connington did, but what would a mad tyrant have done?
"Tywin Lannister himself could have done no more," he had insisted one night to Blackheart, during his first year of exile.
"There is where you're wrong," Myles Toyne had replied. "Lord Tywin would not have bothered with a search. He would have burned that town and every living creature in it. Men and boys, babes at the breast, noble knights and holy septons, pigs and whores, rats and rebels, he would have burned them all. - The Griffin Reborn, ADWD
+.+.+
He [Robert Baratheon] slew six men that day, they say. One was Myles Mooton, a famous knight who'd been Prince Rhaegar's squire.
Again with the squires.
+.+.+
Connington wounded your grandfather Tully sore, though, and killed Ser Denys Arryn, the darling of the Vale.
Others have noticed we've got a bit of a broken timeline here.
Rhaegar leaves the Tower of Joy, and returns to King's Landing after The Battle of the Bells.
Jon and Lysa + Ned and Catelyn marry after The Battle of the Bells.
It's close, but that seems to suggest Jon might be older than Robb. There's zero percent chance Rhaegar left Lyanna without knowing she's pregnant.
+.+.+
But when he saw the day was lost, he flew off as fast as the griffins on his shield. The Battle of the Bells, they called it after. Robert always said your father won it, not him.
Remember when they convinced themselves JON CONNINGTON will burn down King's Landing?
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha.
+.+.+
Think Lannister might be making for the Blackwater? It's the quickest way to King's Landing, the Huntsman swears." The captain did not wait for an answer. "He took his dogs out for a sniff round. If Ser Jaime's hereabouts, they'll find him. I've seen them dogs rip bears apart. Think they'll like the taste of lion blood?"
"A chewed-up corpse's no good to no one," said Lem. "The Huntsman bloody well knows that, too."
"When the westermen came through they raped the Huntsman's wife and sister, put his crops to the torch, ate half his sheep, and killed the other half for spite. Killed six dogs too, and threw the carcasses down his well. A chewed-up corpse would be plenty good enough for him, I'd say. Me as well."
The Huntsman tracks down human prey with his pack of dogs.
So Ramsay Bolton, with a more sympathetic backstory.
(Bear!)
+.+.+
Lem reined up scowling. "What's this, now?"
"Justice," answered a woman at the fountain.
[...]
It was the Mad Huntsman caught these wolves."
Wolves. Arya went cold. Robb's men, and my father's. She felt drawn toward the cages. The bars allowed so little room that prisoners could neither sit nor turn; they stood naked, exposed to sun and wind and rain. The first three cages held dead men. Carrion crows had eaten out their eyes, yet the empty sockets seemed to follow her. The fourth man in the row stirred as she passed. Around his mouth his ragged beard was thick with blood and flies. They exploded when he spoke, buzzing around his head. "Water." The word was a croak. "Please . . . water . . ."
[...]
There was another dead man beyond the old one, a big red-bearded man with a rotting grey bandage covering his left ear and part of his temple. But the worst thing was between his legs, where nothing remained but a crusted brown hole crawling with maggots. Farther down was a fat man. The crow cage was so cruelly narrow it was hard to see how they'd ever gotten him inside. The iron dug painfully into his belly, squeezing bulges out between the bars. Long days baking in the sun had burned him a painful red from head to heel.
[...]
"They put eight people to the sword at Tumbler's Falls," he said. "They wanted the Kingslayer, but he wasn't there so they did some rape and murder."
Oof. There's the problem with vigilante justice.
Does this remind anyone of anything?
+.+.+
"A swallow," the fat one called down. "Ha' mercy, boy, a swallow." The old one slid an arm up to grasp the bars. The motion made his cage swing violently. "Water," gasped the one with the flies in his beard.
She looked at their filthy hair and scraggly beards and reddened eyes, at their dry, cracked, bleeding lips. Wolves, she thought again. Like me. Was this her pack? How could they be Robb's men? She wanted to hit them. She wanted to hurt them. She wanted to cry. They all seemed to be looking at her, the living and the dead alike. The old man had squeezed three fingers out between the bars. "Water," he said, "water."
Arya swung down from her horse. They can't hurt me, they're dying. She took her cup from her bedroll and went to the fountain.
Good girl. She chooses mercy.
Let's wait and see how closely the above matches the description of those 163 Great Masters nailed on posts.
+.+.+
"The Mad Huntsman will hear of this," a man threatened. "He won't like it. No, he won't."
"He'll like this even less, then." Anguy strung his longbow, slid an arrow from his quiver, nocked, drew, loosed. The fat man shuddered as the shaft drove up between his chins, but the cage would not let him fall. Two more arrows ended the other two northmen. The only sound in the market square was the splash of falling water and the buzzing of flies.
Valar morghulis, Arya thought.
Anguy doing his best Jon Snow impression. Arya somehow sensing what valar morghulis means.
+.+.+
"Beds we got," said red-haired Tansy. "There's never been no lack o' beds at the Peach. But you'll all climb in a tub first. Last time you lot stayed under my roof you left your fleas behind." She poked Greenbeard in the chest. "And yours was green, too. You want food?"
A red-haired girl named Tansy. I call that a red herring.
+.+.+
She made good on all her threats. Arya tried to tell them that she'd been bathed twice at Acorn Hall, not a fortnight past, but the red-haired woman was having none of it.
Arya, bathe please.
+.+.+
Two serving wenches carried her up the stairs bodily, arguing about whether she was a girl or a boy. The one called Helly won, so the other had to fetch the hot water and scrub Arya's back with a stiff bristly brush that almost took her skin off. Then they stole all the clothes that Lady Smallwood had given her and dressed her up like one of Sansa's dolls in linen and lace.
But at least when they were done she got to go down and eat.
As she sat in the common room in her stupid girl clothes, Arya remembered what Syrio Forel had told her, the trick of looking and seeing what was there.
We've got sisters being scrubbed, and put in gowns they hate in back-to-back chapters.
<- Sansa III
On the morning her new gown was to be ready, the serving girls filled Sansa's tub with steaming hot water and scrubbed her head to toe until she glowed pink. Cersei's own bedmaid trimmed her nails and brushed and curled her auburn hair so it fell down her back in soft ringlets.
+.+.+
"I bet this is a brothel," she whispered to Gendry.
"You don't even know what a brothel is."
"I do so," she insisted. "It's like an inn, with girls."
He was turning red again. "What are you doing here, then?" he demanded. "A brothel's no fit place for no bloody highborn lady, everybody knows that."
"Just what it appears," Littlefinger said, easing himself onto a window seat. "A brothel. Can you think of a less likely place to find a Catelyn Tully?" He smiled. - Eddard IV, AGOT
+.+.+
When the girl shrugged, her gown slipped off one shoulder. "They say King Robert fucked my mother when he hid here, back before the battle. Not that he didn't have all the other girls too, but Leslyn says he liked my ma the best."
The girl did have hair like the old king's, Arya thought; a great thick mop of it, as black as coal. That doesn't mean anything, though. Gendry has the same kind of hair too. Lots of people have black hair.
"I'm named Bella," the girl told Gendry. "For the battle. I bet I could ring your bell, too. You want to?"
"No," he said gruffly.
George and his sibling incest, lol.
Notice Robert Baratheon was still impregnating sex workers while in the midst of a war over his precious Lyanna? Jesus, dude.
+.+.+
It would have been a good time to sneak away and steal a horse, but Arya couldn't see how that would help her. She could only ride as far as the city gates. That captain would never let me pass, and if he did, Harwin would come after me, or that Huntsman with his dogs.
We all know what this is foreshadowing, so let's move on.
+.+.+
In the corner by the window Lem and Harwin sat talking to red-haired Tansy in low voices. ". . . spent the night in Jaime's cell," she heard the woman say. "Her and this other wench, the one who slew Renly. All three o' them together, and come the morn Lady Catelyn cut him loose for love." She gave a throaty chuckle.
It's not true, Arya thought. She never would. She felt sad and angry and lonely, all at once.
Arya hears gossip that her mother had a threeway with Brienne and Jaime, then freed him because of the love she bears for him.
You'd think that would stop the fandom from believing the next rumour Arya will hear about her father, but nope.
+.+.+
"She's my sister." Gendry put a heavy hand on the old man's shoulder, and squeezed. "Leave her be."
The man turned, spoiling for a quarrel, but when he saw Gendry's size he thought better of it. "Your sister, is she? What kind of brother are you? I'd never bring no sister of mine to the Peach, that I wouldn't." He got up from the bench and moved off muttering, in search of a new friend.
"Brother" Littlefinger brings Catelyn to a brothel.
"Brother" Gendry and Arya find themselves in a brothel.
It makes you wonder if a brother and sister might spend some time in Mole's Town.
+.+.+
"Why did you say that?" Arya hopped to her feet. "You're not my brother."
"That's right," he said angrily. "I'm too bloody lowborn to be kin to m'lady high."
Arya was taken aback by the fury in his voice. "That's not the way I meant it."
"Yes it is." He sat down on the bench, cradling a cup of wine between his hands. "Go away. I want to drink this wine in peace. Then maybe I'll go find that black-haired girl and ring her bell for her."
"But . . ."
"I said, go away. M'lady."
Arya whirled and left him there. A stupid bullheaded bastard boy, that's all he is. He could ring all the bells he wanted, it was nothing to her.
Gendry doing his best pouty Jon Snow. Arya sounding mighty jealous.
It's amusing they believe this is evidence for a future Arya and Jon romance, as opposed to...
...wait for it...
Arya and Gendry.
+.+.+
Arya took off the linen and lace, pulled her tunic over her head, climbed up into the bed, and burrowed under the blankets. "Queen Cersei," she whispered into the pillow. "King Joffrey, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn. Dunsen, Raff, and Polliver. The Tickler, the Hound, and Ser Gregor the Mountain." She liked to mix up the order of the names sometimes. It helped her remember who they were and what they'd done. Maybe some of them are dead, she thought. Maybe they're in iron cages someplace, and the crows are picking out their eyes.
One step forward, two steps back with this one.
We don't want that brand of justice for your enemies. Mercy, Arya.
+.+.+
She was strong and swift and fierce, and her pack was all around her, her brothers and her sisters. They ran down a frightened horse together, tore its throat out, and feasted. And when the moon broke through the clouds, she threw back her head and howled.
But when the day came, she woke to the barking of dogs.
Arya sat up yawning. Gendry was stirring on her left and Lem Lemoncloak snoring loudly to her right, but the baying outside all but drowned him out. There must be half a hundred dogs out there. She crawled from under the blankets and hopped over Lem, Tom, and Jack-Be-Lucky to the window. When she opened the shutters wide, wind and wet and cold all came flooding in together. The day was grey and overcast. Down below, in the square, the dogs were barking, running in circles, growling and howling. There was a pack of them, great black mastiffs and lean wolfhounds and black-and-white sheepdogs and kinds Arya did not know, shaggy brindled beasts with long yellow teeth. Between the inn and the fountain, a dozen riders sat astride their horses, watching the townsmen open the fat man's cage and tug his arm until his swollen corpse spilled out onto the ground. The dogs were at him at once, tearing chunks of flesh off his bones.
Including for potential Ramsay clues that I can't see.
+.+.+
Arya heard one of the riders laugh. "Here's your new castle, you bloody Lannister bastard," he said. "A little snug for the likes o' you, but we'll squeeze you in, never fret." Beside him a prisoner sat sullen, with coils of hempen rope tight around his wrists. Some of the townsmen were throwing dung at him, but he never flinched. "You'll rot in them cages," his captor was shouting. "The crows will be picking out your eyes while we're spending all that good Lannister gold o' yours! And when them crows are done, we'll send what's left o' you to your bloody brother. Though I doubt he'll know you."
George doing a masterful job at concealing who this actually is.
Welcome back, scumbag.
(Bloody brother! Rip Gregor Clegane.)
+.+.+
"Have they caught the Kingslayer?" Gendry wanted to know.
Down in the square, a thrown stone caught the captive on the cheek, turning his head. Not the Kingslayer, Arya thought, when she saw his face. The gods had heard her prayers after all.
How many times do I have to tell you, the Old Gods don't answer prayers. You'll see.
Final thoughts:
It's bizarre Jaime Lannister isn't on Arya's list for killing Jory, Heward, and Wyl. Not to mention badly injuring her father, which she did not take well.
Arya screwed up her face in a scowl. "Jaime Lannister murdered Jory and Heward and Wyl, and the Hound murdered Mycah. Somebody should have beheaded them." - Sansa III, AGOT
George R. R. Martin is either asleep at the wheel, or Jaime can't be on her list for future plot reasons.
-> return to menu <-
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babydxhl · 9 months
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🛡️
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misc action memes | still accepting.
She had flinched at the raised fist, the flash of light glancing off a watchface as if it were a spotlight shined in her eyes. But the blow never came.
Mary Dahl, still in damp street clothes and shivering in the temperature-controlled chill of Arkham's holding bay, opened her eyes as if expecting the attack to still be coming. As if the orderly had been planning some sick joke — delayed gratification.
If you'd asked her even five minutes ago whether Lyle Bolton would ever have stepped in to save her, she would have choked.
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fan-of-mulligan · 10 months
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FOM BLOG: MY UPDATED FOOTBALL STADIUM CHECK LIST - 2022 / 2023
This Stadium List Has Been Updated On 31st May 2023 / At The End Of The 2022 / 2023 Season......
I will start off by naming the grounds I have been too, this could take a while.
Accrington Stanley - The Crown Ground
AFC Fylde - Mill Farm
AFC Wimbledon - Kingsmeadow And New Plough Lane
AFC Bournemouth - Dean Court
Aldershot Town - The EBB Stadium
Ashford United - The Homelands
Barnet - Underhill and The Hive
Barnsley - Oakwell
Barrow - Holker Street
Bearsted - Honey Lane
Billericay Town - New Lodge
Birmingham City - St Andrews
Blackburn Rovers - Ewood Park
Blackpool - Bloomfield Road
Bolton Wanderers - The Macron Stadium
Brackley Town - St James Park
Bradford City - Valley Parade
Brentford -  Griffin Park And The Gtech Community Stadium
Brighton & Hove Albion - The Amex Arena and Withdean Stadium
Bristol City - Ashton Gate
Bristol Rovers - The Memorial Stadium
Bromley - Hayes Lane
Burton Albion - The Pirelli Stadium
Bury - Gigg Lane
Cambridge United - Abbey Stadium
Carlisle United -  Brunton Park
Charlton Athletic - The Valley
Chatham Town - The Sports Ground
Cheltenham Town - Whaddon Road
Chester City - The Exacta Stadium
Chesterfield - The Proact Stadium and Saltergate
Colchester United - Weston Homes Community Stadium
Coventry City - Sixfields and The Ricoh Arena
Crawley Town - Broadfield Stadium
Crewe Alexandra - Gresty Road
Crystal Palace - Selhurst Park
Dagenham & Redbridge - Victoria Road
Dartford - Princes Park
Darlington - The Darlo Arena
Doncaster Rovers - Keepmoat Stadium
Dover Athletic - The Crabble
Ebbsfleet United - Stonebridge Road
Exeter City - St James Park
Faversham Town - Salters Lane
Folkestone Invicta - Cheriton Road
Fleetwood Town - Highbury Stadium
Gillingham - Priestfield Stadium (Of Course)
Gillingham Town - Hardings Lane - Only went to view the stadium, not watch a game there
Grimsby Town - Blundell Park
Hartlepool United -  Victoria Park
Harrogate Town - Wetherby Road
Hereford United - Edgar Street
Herne Bay - Winch's Field
Hollands & Blair - Star Meadow Sports Stadium
Huddersfield Town - Galpharm Stadium
Hythe Town - Reachfields Stadium
Ipswich Town - Portman Road
K Sports FC - K Sports Cobdown
Leeds United - Elland Road
Leyton Orient - Brisbane Road
Lincoln City - Sincil Bank
Luton  Town - Kenilworth Road
Maidstone United - The Gallagher Stadium
Manchester United - Old Trafford ( But this was only a tour of the stadium, not to watch a game)
Mansfield Town - Field Mill
Macclesfield Town - Moss Rose
Margate - Hartsdown Park
Millwall - The Den
Milton Keynes Dons - stadium mk
Morecambe - The Globe Arena and Christie Park
Newport County - Rodney Parade
Northampton Town - Sixfields
Norwich City - Carrow Road
Nottingham Forest - The City Ground
Notts County - Meadow Lane
Oldham Athletic - Boundary Park
Oxford United - The Kassam Stadium
Peterborough United - London Road
Phoenix Sports - The Mayplace Ground
Plymouth Argyle - Home Park
Port Vale - Vale Park
Portsmouth - Fratton Park
Preston North End - Deepdale
Ramsgate - Southwood Stadium
Reading - Madejski Stadium
Rochdale - Spotland
Rotherham United - The New York Stadium, Don Valley and Millmoor
Salford City - Peninsula Stadium
Scunthorpe United - Glanford Park
Sittingbourne - Bourne Park (For The Concord Rangers V Gillingham Game)
Sheffield United - Bramall Lane
Sheffield Wednesday - Hillsborough Stadium
Sheppey United - The Havill Stadium
Shrewsbury Town - Greenhous Meadow
Slough Town - Arbour Park
Southampton - St Mary's Stadium
Southend United - Roots Hall
Stevenage - Broadhall Way
Stockport County - Edgeley Park
Sunderland - Stadium Of Light
Sutton United - Gander Green Lane
Swansea City - Liberty Stadium
Swindon Town - The County Ground
Tonbridge Angels - Longmead Stadium
Torquay United - Plainmoor
Tottenham - White Heart Lane (The Old Stadium)
Tranmere Rovers - Prenton Park
Walsall - The Bescot Stadium
Watford - Vicarage Road
Welling United - Park View Road
Whitstable Town - The Belmont Ground
Wigan Athletic - DW Stadium
Wolverhampton Wanderers - Molineux
Wycombe Wanderers - Adams Park
VCD Athletic - The Oakwood
Yeovil Town - Huish Park
York City - Bootham Crescent
Wembley Stadium - for Gillingham's promotion into League One in 2009 and for Tunbridge Wells defeat in The FA Vase Final in 2013, And I watched Cray Valley at The FA Trophy And FA Vase Finals Day.
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lysenixdragon · 1 year
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Continued from here x
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“And if you grew out your hair, you could be the most beautiful woman on the street of silk,” she teased back.
Myella’s heard worst comments all her life. She grew thick-skinned and had a well-honed wit because of it, similar to her father’s. “Though, it might be a good idea. Two ravens came in today asking about a proposal. Thankfully, your father isn’t too far gone to think it would be a good idea to sell me off to the beastly Boltons or the fools of Falwell.”
@for-the-king-x
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madandi · 1 year
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Another interview for Better
A witty, no-nonsense policewoman faces off against a charismatic but chilling villain in crime-filled Yorkshire. You can see why Better might fill a Happy Valley-sized hole when it starts tonight on BBC1.
That, probably, is where the similarities end because Lou and Col, the central pair in the new series, have a very different relationship from Catherine Cawood and Tommy Lee Royce in Happy Valley. For a start they actually like each other. Lou (Leila Farzad, aka Suzie’s manager in I Hate Suzie) is a high-ranking cop in Leeds, while Col, played by Andrew Buchan — who was the grieving father Mark Latimer in Broadchurch and Matt Hancock in This England — is the dapper Northern Irish head of a drug-dealing network.
Not a typical friendship, then, but they’ve been scratching each other’s backs for 19 years, rising to the top in their respective fields. The five-parter by Jonathan Brackley and Sam Vincent (Humans, Spooks) is moody and stylish with flashes of gallows humour. In the first episode Col invites Lou to his birthday dinner, telling the guests: “I’ve made it to another birthday in a challenging line of work.” Col and Lou sneak off for a fag. “I would not be here today without you,” he tells her. “Same here,” she replies. Their loyalty to each other is about to be challenged.Better is “a character-driven morality piece about redemption”, Buchan says over Zoom from a café near his home in Buckinghamshire. “And two characters who’ve made some very particular choices that slowly start unravelling. They’re both landlocked in a sense but just can’t get out.”It is, he adds, “nothing like Happy Valley”, although he understands why people might wonder.
The night before we speak he was at a screening in Leeds, where the show is set and shot. “One of the questions from the audience was about how people are going to naturally draw comparisons with Happy Valley. But in the future, hopefully, when a million more shows are being made up there, you wouldn’t need to draw comparisons.”Shows such as the one Buchan, 43, has just written, Passenger, which we’ll get to later. He is a proud northerner, having grown up in Bolton and married a fellow Lancastrian, Amy Nuttall, who played Chloe Atkinson in Coronation Street and Ethel the maid in Downton Abbey, with whom he has a child.
He used to excel at what he calls “everymen going through a crisis”, from Mark in Broadchurch, whose son is killed, to a former soldier accused of murder in The Fixer. These days he brings similar nuance to less ordinary — and richer — types: the millionaire scion John Paul Getty Jr in All the Money in the World; Andrew Parker Bowles, husband of Camilla, in The Crown; Felim Bichan, a financial player in Industry. SKY UKHis character in Better is loaded and powerful with an Ulster accent to boot, while the London-born Farzad, whom he describes as “a force”, does a Yorkshire one. Both sound pretty impressive to these poncey southern ears. Col’s accent was inspired by the Belfast-raised actor Jamie Dornan. “I bumped into him in a lift in London and we had this little brief chat,” Buchan says. “It’s such an amazing accent. I was walking along, quietly doing impersonations of Jamie Dornan to myself.
”When Buchan was first offered the role, “I was, like, ‘God no. He’s got to be 68 with a loose tooth and a gold chain. I’m not that guy.’ ” The director told him that they wanted someone a bit more charming. “He’s quite calm and careful and considered. He’s not a psychopath. But when people press his buttons he can go places.” Col’s lavish modernist house, filmed in Harrogate, “was a wee bit ridiculous”, Buchan says. Harrogate’s posh, isn’t it? “To us Boltonians it definitely is.”
He got closer to privilege when reading modern languages at Durham University and studying at Rada, where he was in the same year as Tom Hiddleston and Andrea Riseborough.Buchan also starred in the political drama Party Animals with Riseborough, whose recent Oscar nomination has been criticised after she benefited from celebrity cheerleaders including Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Winslet. “All I know is that she’s a phenomenal actress,” Buchan says. “My initial reaction to her being nominated was ‘about time’.
”Playing Hancock was “interesting”, he says, but he won’t be drawn on a political judgment. This England went quite easy on the former health secretary but Buchan “could only play what was on the page”, although he admits he must have “subliminally” incorporated his impressions of a man he had seen on TV daily during the pandemic.Well, it worked — his performance was eerily persuasive. He won’t say what he thinks of Hancock doing I’m a Celebrity but he raves about Kenneth Branagh’s take on Boris Johnson. “I’ve worked with some witty folk in my time, but Ken’s ad libs are off the scale.”
We talk about The Crown, in which he starred with Josh O’Connor and Emerald Fennell (“whose careers have nosedived obviously since then”, he says wryly), and All the Money in the World, where Christopher Plummer famously replaced Kevin Spacey as John Paul Getty Sr after Spacey was accused of sexual misconduct.Filmed in Rome, it was a taste of movie opulence that Buchan hadn’t had before. He compares it with The Fixer in 2008: “We filmed it in Lewisham, in minus 2C, covered in fake blood, in a vest and it was all quite unpleasant. So, to shoot in Rome!” For the reshoots he was flown back out on a private jet with Plummer, Michelle Williams and Ridley Scott, the director. “I think I was the only one who’d never been on a private jet before.”
Plummer handled the cast and crew with panache, he says, which was hard “when you’ve got 20,000 people in between takes saying, ‘Can you do Edelweiss?’ ” Plummer and Spacey had “very different takes” on the role, the father of Buchan’s character. “Christopher grabbed my hand really tightly and smiled at me with this twinkle in his eye, which was really unnerving. Whereas Kevin was the complete opposite.” More in character? “Yeah, whereas Christopher kind of played against it.”
His big ambition is to do more comedy. When he was playing the 18th-century lawyer William Garrow in Garrow’s Law he had long chats about it with his co-star, Alun Armstrong. “Al said, ‘The problem is that good comedies are as rare as rocking horse shit.’
”Buchan has found a neat way around that problem — writing his own show for ITV. Passenger is a horror comedy set in a small village called Chadder Vale in Lancashire. “We start filming in five days’ time, which is quite frightening,” he says. He won’t be acting in it but he has written all six episodes.“I’m on a bit of a hamster wheel at the minute, churning them out. When you can hear the execs barking at you, ‘We need, we need, we need . . . ’ you think, ‘I’m just going to treat that as white noise.’ ” The series will feature a former Met policewoman called Riya Ajunwa investigating a series of unnatural crimes including the abduction of a local girl. Dark, funny, female cop, set in the north — it’s all the rage, you know.
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byneddiedingo · 2 years
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Sabotage (Alfred Hitchcock, 1936)
Cast:  Sylvia Sidney, Oskar Homolka, Desmond Tester, John Loder, Joyce Barbour, Matthew Bolton, S.J. Warmington, William Dewhurst. Screenplay: Charles Bennett, Ian Hay, Helen Simpson, based on a novel by Joseph Conrad.  Cinematography: Bernard Knowles. Art direction: Oscar Friedrich Werndorff. Film editing: Charles Frend. Music: Herbert Bath, Jack Beaver, Louis Leavy. 
In one of the coldest-hearted scenes ever put on film, a young boy plays with a puppy held by a woman seated next to him on a London bus, and then they are blown to bits by the bomb he has unwittingly been carrying. The scene would be less shocking if we hadn't spent a good part of the movie getting to know Stevie (Desmond Tester), the younger brother of Mrs. Verloc (Sylvia Sidney), whose husband (Oskar Homolka) belongs to a terrorist group. We have seen Stevie carrying his lethal package, which Verloc has commissioned him to leave at a specific location by a certain time, and we have grown fond of him when he is detained by a street hawker selling toothpaste and hair tonic and pauses to watch a parade. As the fatal time grows closer, we feel sure that something will happen to defuse the bomb, as usually happens in movies, so its detonation comes as a reversal of movie convention, one so radical that even Hitchcock will not attempt anything quite like it until he kills off the star of Psycho in mid-film 24 years later. (Even then, he will not do anything so sadistic as add a puppy to the scene.) Sabotage is not one of Hitchcock's more famous movies -- it's often confused with his Saboteur (1942). But it is, I think, one of his most characteristic because of his willingness to violate convention. The film is based on Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent -- a title he couldn't use because it was the title of his other 1936 release, an adaptation of a Somerset Maugham story that starred John Gielgud and Madeleine Carroll. But Sabotage is closer to Kafka than to Conrad, a film that verges on the surreal and dreamlike at times. The Verlocs own a movie theater and their home is separated from it by a passageway behind the screen, so that sometimes the sounds from the movies that are playing enter their daily lives. Stunned by Stevie's death, Mrs. Verloc goes out into the theater, where a Disney short, "Who Killed Cock Robin?" is playing, and suddenly begins laughing at the absurd cartoon action. Much else in the film is similarly askew: The bomb-maker, for example, keeps his explosives in ketchup bottles and condiments jars, and when he goes to get the bomb for Verloc, he finds his granddaughter's doll in the cabinet. (If, indeed, she's his granddaughter -- there's much coy mystery about that.) There's an oddball romance between Mrs. Verloc and Ted (John Loder), the Scotland Yard detective who works undercover at the greengrocers' next to the Verlocs' theater, keeping an eye on Verloc. And the ending is a mare's nest of ambiguities that don't lend themselves to summary. What keeps the movie from descending into incoherence is Hitchcock's sure sense of style and the occasionally expressionistic cinematography of Bernard Knowles. Later, Hitchcock would regret the way he handled Stevie's death, but it remains consistent with the haunting effect of the film as a whole.
gifs from  silverscreendames
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whatdoesshedotothem · 2 years
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Monday 1 July 1839
8 55/..
1 ½
fine but dullish morning F57° at 10 and breakfast till 10 55/.. – A- off in the carriage at 11 20/.. to call on Mrs. Plowes – about ½ hour there and back at 12 ¼ just as I was paying the man from Arnold and Dent (84 strand corner of Cecil street) for my new silver chronometer stop watch £20 – to go 2 or 3 years without cleaning oiling or looking at – gave it him to take back to have a small A.L. put on the back – poor A- terrible I think she is afraid   she says she is of the voyage to Hamburg – then sat down to write and talking a little to A- she off at 1 to Dumergue Dentist in this street (Albemarle street) – I writing to Booth – I out at 2 – drove to Lady Mexboroughs’ 33 Dover street – not at home – then at 14 Bolton street and sat 1/2 hour with Lady Herries and her sister Miss Crompton – very glad to see me – Lady H- talked about supposing me to see all the sights in London – the just born just dead giraffe began about Pliny and there being 14 or something or other in his time – talked about Mrs. Marcet asked if I had been at Babbages parties etc. etc. all Arabic to me – I merely said I was not a bas bleu [went] off as well as I could talking of Yorkshire going to the north of Germany etc. etc. I think I said yes! I did say Copenhagen – vulgar set these Cromptons Miss Hall is 8 Holles street returned for A- about 3 – she changed her dress (had been at Dumergues and had a took taken out) and we were out again at 3 ¼ - to Egleys’ – brought away Bremmners’ Travels in Russia2 8vos. 28/. ready money 26/. to be looked into this evening – inquired for cloak shop Lewis and Allenby Regent street and Macintosh cloaks for gentlemen (thought of M. de Hagemann) next door to the Golden Lion Charing cross – off to the cloak shop – said too much about one .:. to be brought to me this evening – price 8 guineas – too glaring scarlet and lined with green – then to Swann and Edgars’ – like the shop – long while there – upstairs bought pelerines – and should have been better suited with a quieter looking cloak – but too late – then to Jones 201 Strand – to send me 3 of his new invented (not yet brought out) candle-extinguishers – silver 5/. each – to put the candle out at any part of it required – taken with the description this 3 to be sent to my bank at Copenhagen – he knows the courier – the whole will not cost me above a pound carriage and all – said I should like to give them as a quite new thing to the Royal family – drove to Lemanns and got biscuits Threadneedle street – home at 7 ¾ as old Lady Stuart who had waited for me above an hour was getting into her carriage – her teeth broken – I must have
SH:7/ML/E/23/0074
let them fall, or sat upon them – no! certainly not – astonished and pothered – sent Gross at 8 10/.. to see if Mr. Nasmith would be at home in an hour – yes! dinner at 7 ¾ - took Gross and walked to Nasmiths’ corner of Maddox street at 9 ¼ - ½ hour with him – no one could be more civil or proper – he explained how without any fault (but in not packing the teeth in a box) – the accident might have happened – from the heat of the carriage! etc. but it seemed his servant had placed them under his lamp! begged nobody might be blamed – begged him to take £5 which I would call with or send him tomorrow and without saying a word to anybody repair the damage and not charge Lady S- more than the price originally asked – agreed – on my return found Lady S- come for the night, and at tea with A- explained – said all would be right – N- sorry would do the best he could – sat talking till all went to our rooms at 11 ¼ - fine day –
Lady Canning and Lady D. Gordon had left their cards
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outoftowninac · 2 years
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HAVE A HEART
1916-1917
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Have A Heart is a musical in two acts and three scenes by Jerome Kern with a book and lyrics by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse with additional music and lyrics by Schuyler Greene, James Kendis, Charles Bayha and Jerome Kern. It was originally produced by Henry W. Savage and staged by Edward Royce. 
Although it did not play the Princess Theatre, it was one of five musicals known as ‘the Princess Musicals.’  At the opening night of the Bolton / Kern collaboration, Very Good Eddie, Kern introduced Bolton to his former collaborator Wodehouse. By the end of the evening, the three had agreed to work together. Their first full collaboration was Have a Heart.
The musical takes place in (fictional) Blueport, Rhode Island in the present (1917).  Act I: Lingerie Room at Schoonmaker’s Department Store; Act II: Lounge of the Ocean View Hotel.
Estranged couple Ruddy and Peggy Schoonmaker still love each other, but he is involved with predatory Dolly Barbizon and she is being wooed by confidence man Captain Charles Owen, who is passing forged currency. On the eve of their divorce, Ruddy and Peggy run off together and hide out at the Ocean View Hotel in Rhode Island. Dolly, Owen, and others track them down, and through the quick thinking of the elevator boy Henry, the forger is exposed. 
Rehearsals began during the first week in December 1916. 
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Have A Heart premiered in Atlantic City at Nixon’s Apollo Theatre on the Boardwalk on December 28, 1916. It featured 40 beautiful girls - who could sing! 
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On New Year’s Day, the musical was at the Trent Theatre in Trenton NJ, followed by the Reading Academy of Music in PA (attended by Kern and Bolton), and a single night at the Playhouse in Wilmington DE. 
The hit song was the second-act duet “You Said Something” for Ted and Lizzie. Kern himself preferred “And I Am All Alone,” sung by Ruddy and Peggy.  The patter song “Napoleon” was recorded by its originator Billy B. Van.
“He was shorn off short, But was one good sport And I take after Nap!”
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Have a Heart opened on Broadway at the Liberty Theatre (234 West 42nd Street) on January 11, 1917. It played 76 performances. 
About the Venue: The Liberty was built in 1904 to present Rogers Brothers musicals. In 1933, it was made over as a movie theatre and continued this function into the 1980s. In 2000, Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum was built on the site. Although the building's exterior is still standing, the interior is no longer in use as a theatre.
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"’Have a Heart' never will astound anybody by its originality, but it moves with a swing that is not unlikely to carry it to success in a season when lively musical comedy is in demand. Now and then there is a bright line, and the authors have shown considerable skill in distributing the dullness. Just when it begins to be oppressive someone says something about love being the greatest thing in the world and the orchestra leader gets up and conducts a musical number.” ~ NEW YORK TRIBUNE
“A vacuous and melancholy specimen.... I can discover nothing In the affair worthy of mention.” ~ GEORGE JEAN NATHAN
“Bolton has fallen down on hie dialogue as he usually does for he has a faculty for starting out toward a clever line and then making a miserable failure of It by poor construction.” ~ EMORY B. CALVERT
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~ March 11, 1917
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The show played its final performance on March 17, 1917 clocking 76 shows on Broadway. It immediately transferred to Philadelphia’s Forrest Theatre. 
In the two years following its Broadway opening, with a Company A and a Company B touring simultaneously, it played in no fewer than 36 states and five Canadian provinces.
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Have A Heart returned to Atlantic City at The New Nixon Theatre (later known as The Globe Theatre) on the Boardwalk on April 9, 1917. 
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The Victor Light Opera recorded excerpts in 1930. The musical was revived in New York by Musicals Tonight in May 2004.  In 2005, Comic Opera Guild released a complete cast recording. In 2016, it was produced by the Ohio Light Opera. 
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raymondgxun48 · 1 month
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Walkers term Leading league betting preview 7 may 2006
Walker’s Term – Leading League Betting Preview seven Might 2006
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Walker’s Phrase – Leading League Betting Preview 7 May perhaps 2006
Home wins will dominate this weekends success, Tottenham will pip Arsenal to fourth spot and Bolton will Engage in during the Intertoto Cup this summer months for the expenditure of Newcastle writes David Walker.
Arsenal vs Wigan Athletic
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Following Thursdays 3-one get at Manchester City, Arsenal should acquire this match if they have any hope of pipping Tottenham to fourth put. Irrespective of a congested fixture checklist because of their final look inside the Champions League they have gained 7 of their last 10 matches and also have won 13 matches before their own personal supporters this year. The Gunners haven't been crushed at Highbury due to the fact West Hams 3-two victory on one February whilst Wigan have missing 3 out in their very last 4 and have won just three in their very last 9 matches.
Walkers Phrase: Near, but no cigar, Arsenal @ one/four.
Aston Villa vs Sunderland
Matches amongst these two are usually very low scoring affairs. Five Premiership conferences at Villa Park all have created two aims or much less with Villa profitable 1-0 twice, drawing one-one when and two times 0-0. Sunderland are already dreadful all season but have produced two absent victories versus fellow relegated sides West Brom and Middlesbrough And eventually won at your home against Fulham on Thursday. Villa will most certainly acquire but aren't any price for the readily available rate, Particularly with Sunderland buoyed by their new victory. A guess about the unders is a more wise financial investment.
Walkers Phrase: Underneath two.five aims @ 4/five.
Blackburn Rovers vs Manchester City
Blackburn secured sixth place in the league and UEFA Cup football having a gain towards Champions Chelsea on Tuesday but will want to shut the hole on equally Arsenal and Spurs to mark A prosperous year. They wont have a far better chance to end the season on the substantial versus a weak City staff that has shed 9 in their final 11 matches. Victories versus Aston Villa and Sunderland becoming the sole dazzling places inside of a dismal operate of benefits.
Walkers Phrase: More misery for City, property acquire @ 7/ten.
Bolton Wanderers vs Birmingham City
Birmingham are unbeaten on their last two visits to your Reebok but ended up on the tip of the four-two beating back again in 2003. Bolton Have got a solid household record of late, winning 4 of their previous six with defeats coming from Manchester United and Chelsea. Birmingham owner David Sullivan criticised his players commitment this 7 days which can not do Substantially for overall squad morale. Steve Bruces side haven't won in 11 matches about the street considering the fact that beating Sunderland 1-0 on 26 November.
Walkers Word: Property earn @ 8/thirteen.
Everton vs West Bromwich Albion
Everton have won the final two conferences at Goodison Park and may JOLLIBEE777 want revenge to the four-0 hammering they received with the relegated Baggies again in November. Everton ended up on a nasty run then but have improved considerably in the following months and only dropped three in their very last 10 matches. David Moyes facet have gained 6 of their last 10 household matches although not received within their last 3 in front of their house fans. This will be a great way to log off with a co
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