As I mentioned above, the “investigation” in this case means that they probably had someone review the show footage to determine whether or not the show or presenters could be interpreted as encouraging or condoning criminal activity. Loose Women is entertainment, but it’s also supposed to be vaguely factual and is…

They could possibly be investigated if their line of inquiry could be interpreted as encouraging or condoning criminal activity. If they’d said things like “Those slutty women deserve what they get! Bitches need to be taken down a peg or two!” for example. Because it’s a daytime show and it’s conceivable that children…

I never got past the third chapter of Wuthering Heights. Too much angst! I used to enjoy Jane Eyre a lot when I was younger, now I find it...problematic. And Jane is SUCH a prig.

Fair enough, I was mostly being snarky! I personally can’t get on with the majority of the Bronte books, but I’m perfectly aware that’s due to my own shortcomings as a reader rather than hers as a writer. They are bother great writers by anyone’s standards, and I find they tend to get underrated where a lot of…

In my experience, you’re either an Austen or a Bronte fan. Bronte fans find Austen devotees insipid, and Austen acolytes don’t get what’s so romantic about dreadful people torturing each other on some grim moors.

That sounds AWESOME. I never really thought the books were that romantic tbh- at least, not past Northanger Abbey. The sense of dread and relief around the romantic matches or lack of them drowns any of that out, I think. It’s why Charlotte is one of my favorite characters- she really demonstrates the reality of…

Right. I mean, people can believe what they want, but if we’re making exceptions to their professional responsibilities because of said beliefs I think they need to hold up to some kind of rationality. They should proceed from some widely held consensus among people of a similar faith, or/or be a reasonable…

But even then, that would be your sin, not hers. Her sin in this equation would be equivalent to, I dunno, NOT stoning an adulterer. That’s a pretty minor sin by any logic except possibly Kim Davis’ logic.

Also, wouldn’t the Christian God be capable of understanding her position and forgiving her? He’s already forgiven her for her multiple marriages/divorces, so it should be a snip for him to forgive her for this. I kind of thought that was the whole point.

I like the Guardian despite it’s middle-class london-centric tone. The comment sections are a mixed bad and vary between really funny (puns. So many puns) and dire (don’t read anything BTL on articles about women or sexism). The BBC has skewed pretty conservative for the last few years, but I still go there for…

I honestly think the only shocking thing she could do now is dye her hair back to her natural color and start wearing chunky knitted sweaters with jeans. She has circled the shock spectrum so thoroughly that she’s now fairly mundane.

My husband couldn’t remember my address during our interview. Mind you, I was so stressed out that I temporarily forgot my last name, so.

This is a good take. I don’t think Catherine comes off well here, but we’re only getting her aunt’s side of the story. For all we know her aunt freely offered to co-sign her niece’s loan, Catherine’s been unable to secure full-time employment (not unheard of WITH a college degree, let alone without one) with which to…

This. I feel like a huge part of being a decent reporter is judging a the mood of the person you’re interviewing and building your questions around them, especially when they’re obviously under pressure from whatever it is that meriting the interview in the first place. You’re not going to get a good response being…

I even took the essay to my supervising professor and asked him how I was supposed to handle it. He just got this look on his face like he was 1000 years old and confirmed that I basically had to give him the A. but no-one said I had to feel good about it.

One of the hardest days of my teaching life was when I had to give a student an A for his creationist essay. The exercise was to write a good essay, not a factual one, and it really was a well-structured piece of brain vomit. He was so happy when he came to collect it and I had to repeatedly shut him down. “I don’t…

Was that the series where the mum basically has a breakdown in their confessional room because every damn thing is so hard and she never gets to go outside or see anyone or listen to the news? I felt so bad for her.

My thoughts exactly. These people are just turbo-hipsters, cherry-picking from a picturesque past and pretending it makes them better than everyone else. All this jabbering about “mindfulness,” ughhhh. And I’m amazed she seems to be completely oblivious to the enormous environmental repercussions of the Victorian era…

“These people don’t have antibiotics!”

This is such a good series! It’s worth noting too that only Ruth spends a full night there, and they’re all very upfront about how much work everything is. I think Ruth has it the worst, because we expect things like raising sheep to be grinding physical labor, but going through all the steps necessary to get a loaf…