Yeah, I was just trying to make a stupid point (which still kind-of stands - her husband was comically shitty and she required zero encouragement to sleep with her ex).

Never got on with those books - read the first few on the recommendation of a friend, and by the end of the second book I was thoroughly bored. Excellent universe, dull writing.

I really didn't like "Transparent", just seemed like a mission to tick every "edgy" modern drama box possible, with a completely unbelievable central family.

So you read that post and thought "yup, that is an entirely serious point and I will respond to it as such", eh?

That sounds more like Ron Howard than any of his other collaborators (like Jack NIcholson, who still clearly loves Corman).

Football!! It's called football! I'll kill you! I'll kill all of you!

If you're campaigning against t-shirts with meaningless pop culture references, then you might want to direct your ire against literally every single show and film made in the last 20 years - the only difference here is that the people who made the film are going to be the people profiting from it.

Oh, and the other thing, the star of the show is a real hairdresser, and got the gig after basically recapping an episode in similar fashion at a party, or while doing the hair of someone at Funny Or Die, or something. That anecdote would have been better if I'd remembered it.

That was Alfie Allen, I think.

This is one of the funniest things on Funny Or Die (not the highest bar in the world) and it's previously had Alfie Allen and Esme Bianco on it too. I can't recommend it enough.

Like @willharrisinva:disqus said down there, it's not just that I don't think she's all that funny (I don't) but I can't even see what other people find funny about her. It's a genuinely puzzler, and I think she's hit the level of popularity where people give her opportunities based on her fame, rather than on her…

You know it's a piece of fiction, right?

There's a heck of a lot of books in the world to be reading ASOIAF twice.

I guess we can only go by what we saw on the screen, which was rape.

I (and possibly TVDW) don't think they've pulled off "incredible feats of storytelling", maybe? It's a very good show but it's got plenty of flaws (Daenerys being dull and entirely unrelated to the rest of the plots, Theon becoming brainwashed remarkably quickly, etc.etc)

World building should really be done with by book 5 of your series, I reckon.

Which isn't what I said, so good. No-one knows, so I shan't speculate any more.

Excellent news - I'm really looking forward to it.

There's a bit of doubt about how much Maquet did - the modern translations of Dumas will talk about him writing private letters to Dumas where he didn't take the tiniest bit of credit. So, I'd put it somewhere between what you write and him just being a proofreader.

I just finished the book yesterday (new translation by Richard Pevear) and it's such an amazingly good adventure story. The films are good but the book is just amazing - you read certain sections and it almost demands to be made into a modern wisecracking action film. The male friendship is also remarkably modern, and…