timleachwriter.bsky.social
Writer of historical fiction, Associate Professor at University of Warwick.
Website: https://www.tim-leach.co.uk/
Books: https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Tim-Leach/author/B07GRBS3VD.
526 posts
759 followers
646 following
Getting Started
Active Commenter
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Everyone spoke perfect English, and everything was on card/Gpay on phone. Amazing infrastructure (get the Ruter app for the public transport).
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Also, Oslo is absolutely incredible, strong recommend to go if it tempts you at all.
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Doing obligatory tourist shithousery at the Munch museum.
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Yeah, Trump is definitely Bane in this scenario.
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Also, @crosscountryuk.bsky.social , having a 4 coach train at peak rush hour (6.03) on the Birmingham to Edinburgh line may not have been the smartest decision.
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Yeah, Jack being a loveable buffoon on land is one of my favourite parts of the books. You get a glimpse of it with the weevil joke, I suppose.
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Marie Le Conte has written really well about them, I think: www.newstatesman.com/culture/soci...
"I tried using them then I realised that everyone who had, at some point, made me very happy was not someone I would have swiped right on" feels like the killer line to me.
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I wonder if they will implement a 'no bullshit' button you can hit at some point to try and have it be straightforward when it is unable to access something. If the bullshitting is irremovably baked into the model, then it's ultimately completely useless.
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Oh absolutely. It uses the techniques of the con artist (cold reading, misdirection, flattery) and they've clearly designed it with the aim of appealing to human psychological impulse rather than practical functionality in mind.
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It's such a weird and creepy design choice, for it to default to lying with flattery rather than just saying "I can't read that link".
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The trailer for F4 definitely looks very meh. Superman looks like it could go either way, but I've got quite a lot of faith in Gunn when it comes to comic book movies. We shall see!
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Oh NO. I think I'm going to die of secondhand embarrassment after reading that.
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33. Department of Truth, James Tynion et al
Fantastic graphic novel about conspiracy theories taking on a life of their own (rather relevant in our times), with gorgeous art and dark, twisty turney plotting. Strong X-Files/Delta Green vibes.
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32. Mistress of the Art of Death, Ariana Franklin
Cracking medieval mystery, with a great heroine, wonderful sense of place, and a really punchy writing style.
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You, seeing anyone else sliding into a K Hole in the presence of a President:
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Whenever they say that they'd be 'happy for several universities to collapse', they need to have the guts to say exactly which towns and cities they'd be happy to put to the sword, economically speaking.
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Absolutely. I sometimes teach a seminar on commercial fiction, and ask the students to think about why the texts we look at are popular (50 Shades etc). And I tell them that if the answer is "People are stupid", then they're not thinking about it hard enough.
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(This is a compliment, to avoid any doubt. I wish I could bring the Lynch vibes myself...)
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They're giving 'Hitman for hire in a trippy late 90s David Lynch film' to me...
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Aye. The argument for not building a mega casino and high rise hotels in the middle of the Peak District isn't because you make more money from hikers and climbers than you do from gamblers and partygoers, it's because the Peak District is beautiful and has inherent value.
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Definitely, it's why its a last resort. We can see a version of this in France, where the "Anyone but Le Pen" brake keeps getting pulled successfully at the last moment, but it builds in the "system" vs "anti-system" dynamic each time, and gets trickier and trickier to use.
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Oh absolutely, it's more of an emergency brake than a first choice electoral strategy. It's just good to know that it is (probably) there to be pulled if needs be.
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That's really good to hear.
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Aye, same.
My (paranoid) worry is that the polling down at constituency level gets so close that effective tactical voting becomes difficult (i.e. do I vote Labour or Lib Dem in this constituency to keep Reform out?), but Rob Ford suggests that there should be a clear enough tactical choice.
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Aha, interesting (and hopeful!). So the recent national polling volatility doesn't particularly change that (4 parties hovering around 20-25%), and there will still be a relatively clear tactical frontrunner in most constituencies?
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E.g. If there's a constituency that's 20% Labour, 20% Lib Dem, and 25% Reform, if the Lib Dems and Labour voters don't tactically switch in a similar direction, Reform could sneak through.
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I suppose the worry, with the parties tending to be closer to each other in the polling at the moment, is whether or not people will have enough information to vote tactically in their constituency. The potential for a lot of 'friendly fire' seems quite high.
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I'm fond of this old Stewart Lee clip on this. Essentially, if we try to defend the arts and humanities on GDP and economic terms, we're fighting on the terms of our opponents, and will lose. The case to make, as you say, is of inherent value, not economic value.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlo1...
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Interesting! Particularly stood out reading it back to back with Small Things Like These - both very small books, both skilfully written, but Small Things Like These seemed so much stronger to me...
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But yeah, I imagine folks like you and me are probably not in great enough numbers to shape an investment strategy!
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Yes, I knew that I had no reason to miss Twitter when I saw that Stephen Bush, James Ball, and Marie le Conte were posting here consistently and leading the discourse, as the three of them alone probably accounted for about 70% of the Tweets I most enjoyed over at the old place.
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Oh it's so good. Have you read Between Two Fires, by the same author? Absolutely brilliant, strong Dark-Souls-as-a-book vibes to it.
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Ooh nice, thank's for the recommend, she's got a lovely style.
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31. Afterlife With Archie (Volume 1), Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa et al
I'll go bat to defend the Riverdale TV show (it's an absolute delight, managing to be witty, playful, and gloriously trashy all at once), and I'm enjoying getting into the modern iteration of the comics.
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30. The Leper of St Giles, Ellis Peters
Back into the comfort zone of Cadfael, and enjoying it once more. Another fun mystery within a mystery in terms of the structure (a murder and a mysterious travelling leper, which intersect indirectly). There's a great gentleness and wisdom to these books.
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29. Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett
Enjoyed this initially (it's very strong on evoking the precarious nature of life in medieval England, where having a pig stolen can be like having your bank account emptied) but ran out of steam with it about 400 pages in, and put it aside.
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28. St Peter's Fair, Ellis Peters
More Cadfael fun, and there's quite a fun twisty turny conspiracy knocking about in the backdrop of the murder, giving it a bit of a spy thriller feel in places.
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Forgot to update this, and been on a reading slump (going to start properly counting the books, too...)
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More clearly defined boundaries and success states in the boardgame, perhaps? Even with loose best-guess judgements in games, I feel there's often more clarity in the likely benefits and drawbacks and win conditions than with e.g. breakfast choices or life admin.
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"Expected Delivery: But what is the concept of time, except for a doomed linear attempt to understand an ultimately non-linear experience?"
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I WISH I could forget Grayling, you were living the dream for a while there...
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I guess there could be some head in the sand, "We're running at loss and the creditors are calling but Something Will Come Up" sort of stupidity at play. But yeah, it does seem pretty weird.