I'm not sure I agree - how, if the story explicitly labels BB as not-transgender can it be an attack? Also, iirc, the book does go into more detail - there's the phone conversation with the doctor at the gender reassignment clinic, and Lecter gives a pretty good description of what will be wrong with BB's psych test…

Garbage? Not sure I agree, but then it's a while since I read it. I remember liking the Italian section, and the grande guignol at the ranch, and finding the ending both strange and moving.

I watched that the other day too! My wife had never seen it, and was entranced. I then went and bought the soundtrack (which is sadly missing some of the best stuff from the film).

It's handled better in the book iirc. Hannibal tells Starling that the man she is looking for will have been turned down for gender reassignment surgery as he's not really transgender, which is indeed the case.

Well, shit, fuck, bollocks, arse and RIP.

I rewatched AoU the other day for the first time since being rather disappointed by it in the cinema, and I've got to say it improves immensely with a second viewing. It makes much more sense, and the themes are a lot clearer when you know what's coming.

Okay, I'll swap a 'required' for a 'permitted'.

Give him a copy of Levi's "Is This a Man" and ask him to come back to you when he's read it.

Sounds good - will try.

Oddly enough, whilst googling that (I mean, I was fairly sure it was a joke, but…), I found out that Krang is a native dance/music from Thailand (sounds quite blue-grassy).

I love it as a comfort food, baked with a tomato sauce and a cheese topping. It's a flavour-absorber rather than having a distinctive character of its own, beyond heavy starch (which I love).

Insufferability is required. They're doing the opposite of what everyone is telling them to do, and that takes monumental self-regard.

People rejected, understandably, the status quo. They'd largely made the decision to do so independently of the election. Putting Clinton into that environment made about as much sense as dropping a gazelle into a pride of lions and expecting an interesting exchange of ideas.

In terms of getting their shit together eventually, I hope so.

I just got it.

Nah - that's in Venice in the awful Moonraker.

Yeah, that sounds wrong for at least two reasons.

I only got his schtick about 5 mins after posting. Consider me chastised.

Well, quite. However, the centre-left in particular seems to be having a very hard time taking responsibility for its own laziness and fuck-ups.

I'd agree that it was a process of evolution (and theft). Up until Christianity, afaik the only monotheistic religion was Judaism, which was non-proselytizing, and most cultures, operating under either animism or pantheism, seemed open to both the existence of other religions and other gods. Christianity must have…