England's Lionesses

So, we have an English football team at another major tournament final. They're the underdogs, but still in with a decent chance.

In any event, they must be highly praised for getting this far. Let's hope they can go all the way.

Bernard Cribbins 1928-2022

Brilliant not just in Doctor Who but in everything he was in. He had a hugely extensive career and touched the hearts of millions.

He will be deeply missed.

Rest in Peace.

Alien: Isolation

Just finished this after 23 1/2 hours, albeit on the easiest setting. Truly excellent game and I intend to do some of the DLCs, although I'm not planning to do the main campaign again... because that was hard.

I would highly recommend checking it out. 

Monty Norman 1928-2022

The composer of the James Bond theme has died aged 94. Quite simply put he's responsible for one of the best pieces of music in cinematic history, one that can be hummed by the majority of the people on the planet.

Rest in Peace. 

Exit Boris Johnson

Good riddance. He was at the end of the day a pretty useless politician with a poor relationship with the truth. It was only the excellent vaccination programme that allowed us to deal with Covid at an "average" level in terms of excess deaths and he didn't really have much to do with that.

Let's hope we get a better PM quickly. It's also notable that he is the first Prime Minister since Walpole forced out through personal scandal.

Stranger Things 4 Volume 2 Thoughts

Contains spoilers:

Spoilers begin now.

1. The subtitles in this show are starting to become infamous - lots of "squelches wetly" and "ominous synth music". I'm curious to know what dry squelching sounds like.
2. The final episode was very enjoyable, but about ten minutes too long.
3. Natalia Dyer is an underappreciated talent, capable of a superlative "Oh, s***, I'm going to die" face. She'll have a distinguished career in horror if she wants to go that way. If the Alien franchise ever wants to recast Ripley, she'd be great.
4. Max is a girl brave far beyond her years.
5. Winona Ryder is a message to actors - don't get Botox, because otherwise you can't do the range of facial expressions that she does even in one scene.
6. "A Purple Heart just proves that you were smart enough to think of a plan, stupid enough to try it, and lucky enough to survive."
7. Brenner's death - which I kind of expected - redeemed him a little for all the nasty he's done over the years.
8. Will and Jonathan had very little to do this season.
9. Eddie ended up another one-shot character, which was also expected by most. He did have an awesome death scene, I'll give you that.
10. Tom Wlaschia was great as Dmitri "Enzo" Antonov and I'd like to see him come back in Season 5.
11. Yuri managed to be an utterly odious character - until he was humanised a bit by Enzo discussing his past.
12. Argyle proved to be surprisingly useful.
13. There wasn't exactly a lot of subtlety with the Russia/USSR depiction. This was filmed before the invasion of Ukraine too, which is going to do nothing good in that department - no-one is going to want to really have Russians depicted as goodies for a while.
14. I figured pretty quickly that Max's death wasn't going to stick based on the remaining runtime, but props to the actors involved for a great job convincing much of the audience. Sadie Sink has probably earned herself a second Emmy nomination for 2023 (which Volume 2 is eligible for) and Max's arc will have to play a massive role in Season 5. El can't lose her BFF!
15. Jason getting split in two seemed a fitting punishment for the fact he's partly responsible for Max's death.
16. So, how do we finish this show off in style?