An alternate way to get to Dany’s downfall:

How about either the Oil Slick or the Gas Guzzlers, a tribute to the glorious Qatari wealth that made this procession to the title possible.

This is just a US/UK thing isn't it? Albeit a particularly confusing one.

I know that if I had a job writing about TV I would have zero enthusiasm for this. Whether it's good or not, it will be high profile enough to require commentary on, and it's exhausting just thinking about all the dreadful debate that will accompany it.

I don't know if it's good as much as obvious. The two alternative options seem to be Coppola includes a black character but keeps them superfluous to the plot, which presumably would get her even worse press, or she honestly tries to tell the story of a black slave in the Civil War, which would likely be a disaster.

Not with that attitude they won't! Media has always been this way to a degree but I would hope it could be slightly less so if sites had the confidence of a subscriber base beneath them.

Ha! Ads are probably a big part of the problem. They pretty much motivate places to publish stupid provocations. Maybe some kind of micropayment wallet setup is the best solution.

Do it! Do it!

I would much rather see a broadening of the number of viewpoints offered than the current crop of critics trying to tailor their commentary to whatever they think they should say, although clearly those aren't the only two options. I do think it would help if we could re-establish the idea that journalism is valuable…

Right! I think I do vaguely remember that. One of the other great starting points back in the day.

She must surely have been in an Agatha Christie adaptation? That is pretty much a rite of passage.

Yet to see it but the sincerity I've read multiple people speak of in their reviews sounds really refreshing. I didn't grow up with superhero stories so the current seemingly unending flood of them has been a challenge, but of the few comic book characters I knew Superman was my favourite, I think because of how…

Ha! It's quite a conflicting world, I find. I like supporting small breweries because it helps my local area and I think doing that is the way forward for us as a society, but the snobbery you describe is really offputting. Although I am a chocolate stout drinker so….

Those things are being done, I think.

For the US, a reversal of the population increases in places like Phoenix and Houston, as they get even more crazy hot and inhospitable. Coastal cities will presumably have more frequent flooding and people will leave those also, although lots of clever engineering tricks will be employed to keep them liveable, given…

If we build a road, or a house or an airport or something it has a negative effect on the earth, but we accept that because of the benefits the thing brings. I was thinking of climate change in kind of the same way. Perhaps I do have too much faith in human ingenuity, but adapting to extreme weather and sea level…

But do you see much evidence that people are prepared to make the sacrifices to their lifestyles that would follow? My social group would probably describe themselves as accepting of and concerned by climate change, but they fly five or six times a year and assume that they should be able to buy any food they want in…

Ha! That was so navel gazing it probably deserved a dismissive reply.

It's a reasonable deal, I think. There was recently a big kerfuffle about Brewdog selling a stake to a private equity company.

We have already profoundly changed the earth. Looking out of the window it's beyond my capacity to imagine what I would see if humanity had never existed. I do wonder a bit why this particular change is so much worse than the others. If the world was warming naturally would we work just as hard to prevent it?