My parents signed up for the Encyclopedia Canadiana, The New Book of Knowledge, and one other set of encyclopedias around 1971, when I was 8. In those pre-internet days I used them to write almost every essay I had to do until grade 12. The only set that got a yearly update volume was New Book of Knowledge, and I'd…

'It's Christmas, Theo! It's the time for miracles, so be of good cheer.'

My son and I watch Die Hard together (I'm his mom). One of our favourite Christmas movies.

Seriously, who is that a portrait of at the top of the article? Jefferson? As a non-American I'm not terribly up on U.S. presidents from back in the day (to be honest, there are a few Canadian prime ministers I wouldn't recognise from their portraits, unless they're on one of our banknotes).

Really? As cunning as a fox who's been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University?

'Twitter hasn’t ironed out all of the details as to just how the streams
will be announced once the conventions kick off, but they will be made
available to even those without Twitter accounts.'

The cat at the end wasn't the one Andrea let out, unless Naz's parents live close to her place on W. 87th.

Unless you're the editor of a small town weekly newspaper like I am, in which case you write the stories, headlines, decks, cutlines, the works. Which is kind of fun, because it allowed me to write a small piece for the police blotter about an escaped llama with the headline 'Damn! A llama ding-dong'.

The cast of the British series is pretty stellar: Maxine Peake, Eddie Marsan, Denis Lawson, Ben Whishaw, Bill Paterson, Juliet Aubrey, Sophie Okonedo, Ruth Negga, Nicholas Farrell, Pete Postlethwaite, Matthew Macfadyen, Lindsay Duncan, and Guy Henry, just to name a few.

Kudos to Terry Dresbach and her team; the show looks extraordinary. And that red dress Claire is wearing - wow. Just - wow.

I don't know; I think MIchael Biehn's Lt. Coffey in The Abyss is a pretty good human villain. Yes, he goes pretty over the top towards the end, but that's likely a result of high pressure nervous syndrome. Until then it's not too hard to see things from his point of view; he's not a sympathetic character, but then…

(all together now) 'Solidarity forever. . . .'

It's only 10.30 p.m. here on the west coast, so on the one hand I don't feel so bad. On the other hand, it's 10.30 on a Saturday night and I'm reading the AV Club (sobs quietly).

If you haven't already seen the Granada TV series from the 1980s starring Jeremy Brett as Holmes, seek it out. I think it's what you're looking for.

Well, I live in rural BC, and while I'm sure we have our share of rednecks there aren't many in the (very) small town I live in. On the other hand, there are a couple of little enclaves in the mountains around here where I expect to hear 'Duelling Banjos' start to play if you stop your car.

I live an hour west of Kamloops, and yeah, it's desert: rattlesnakes, sagebrush, cactus, tumbleweeds. On any given day in summer (like yesterday), my town (Ashcroft) is the hottest spot in Canada (34.3 C or 94 F yesterday, and probably hotter today).

And with a fart.

Props to the actor who played the clerk or maester or whatever he was who greeted Sam. I've never seen anyone so spectacularly unimpressed in my life.

I already miss this show so much it hurts.

I think Bedlam - or Bethlem - was the only psychiatric hospital (in modern terms), or madhouse (to use an older phrase) in London at the time. It's still extant, although in a different location to where it was in 1892.