Danny Franks

Most, if not all, of the show is written by Laurie Nunn and she was definitely drawing on her own experiences, and probably the experiences friends have told her about, for those scenes. For Aimee's, in particular, she used a specific incident that happened to her: https://mashable.com/article/sex-education-aimee-assault-storyline/ As a straight guy, I used to barely think about this sort of thing. Obviously, it's not something I've experienced so being oblivious to it was easy. It's only relatively recently that I've come to realise that a majority of women have personal experiences of harassment and assault, and it's hard to square in my head how proprietorial men are over the bodies of women, even women they don't know.

A Good Man in Africa by William Boyd. Look... I can see what he was going for - a kind of colonial Catch-22 that sends up British attitudes to "the natives" and skewers the sort of superiority and white saviour complexes that they had. But the book was written in 1981, and Boyd's attitudes are barely any better than those he's mocking. There's some problematic stuff in here, without even taking into account the fact that every character is reprehensible and impossible to like. But it is an easy read. I got through half of it in one day. Hopefully Boyd's later books are better.

Yeah, the break up was absurd. They just decided they... had to for some reason. Their relationship was going fine, they were in love but there was this neurotic, obsessive navel-gazing that they might not have anything else in common, so obviously the relationship was doomed. It was silly, and so clearly put in just because the writers wanted to break them up. Season 3 actually killed my interest in the show for a long time too, simply because the writers made Nick a certified idiot just to inject drama into his relationship with Jess. I only went back and watched seasons 4 to 7 last year, and did enjoy them. But I wish they'd given Nick another love interest, rather than Regan. Megan Fox's deadpan reactions to the craziness of the loft were good, and some of the lines they wrote for her were amazing ("I honestly believe you're the result of a man/dog body swap") but she never sold the attraction to Nick that Regan was supposed to have. It's strange, because Schmidt/Cece was actually well written and, despite having more drama than Jess/Nick (arranged marriages, wedding aborted, cheating and discovery) it ran much more smoothly because the writers just let it happen. Same with Winston and Aly, who I really enjoyed in the latter seasons. I feel like we were watching a writing team grow up, with New Girl - they started off being completely incapable of writing good relationships, and relied on guest stars completely changing character from one episode to the next to explain breakups, then they got scared when they were asked to write serious relationships. But finally they got over it and realised it's not quite that frightening, or that difficult.

Things might get even worse for the racist NFL fans, if DC becomes a state. One of the suggestions for its name would be the Commonwealth of Douglass (after Frederick Douglass) and to rename the city of Washington itself. The Douglass Protesters, maybe?

There will be a lot of rich, influential people sweating now that Maxwell is finally under arrest. I'm sure she's spent all this time making sure she has the right types of insurance to protect herself. No mysterious and unobserved jail suicides for her, unless people get really desperate.

Oh no, the money is being threatened! I wonder how long it will take Dan Snyder to swallow his ridiculously misplaced pride now? Welcome to 2020, Washington Swamp Frogs.

To be fair, it seems consistent to Xander's character that this wouldn't give him a moment's pause if it meant he got some action.

Next episode of Xander Harris is a Colossal Dick: him being "done with all that guilt" over cheating on Cordelia, in the episode right after he was caught. Then he gets pissy with Willow because she tells him he can't be casually touching her while she wants to make things up to Oz. Honestly, I never understood what Cordelia saw in him, and still don't. Nothing was ever good enough for him - he could never see Willow because he had the hots for Buffy, then he finally gets a girl who is way too good for him, and cheats on her with Willow. Then, even with Anya, he treats her like she's an idiot he just has to tolerate most of the time. But I always figure he was the voice of Joss in the show. It explains a lot.

I've only seen Pete Davidson in some SNL sketches, and I'm baffled by his popularity. He's not funny. His line deliveries aren't funny, he doesn't do any physical comedy, he doesn't even seem to have good comic timing. And to top it off, he looks skeevy and like he badly needs a wash. Why is he famous? Does he write amazingly funny material that he just can't perform?

That guy has been hit hard in the last few days, along with the Fine Brothers. Some ex-staff members and ex-reactors on their channels have been airing a lot of dirty laundry about racism, sexism, shitty treatment of staff (particularly those of colour), a blackface video Dawson and the Fines did together and now this old series of videos that revolve around a little girl puppet who is hyper-sexualised and the butt of rape and child molestation jokes (while, of course, the Fines were launching their Children React series, featuring kids between the ages of about seven and twelve reacting to videos). I think they're fucked, to be honest. FBE are toast - reactors and subscribers were leaving in droves over the racism stuff, even before these old videos resurfaced.

They were fun... except for when the writers decided they needed Drama! in the relationship. The character archetypes of chaotic, slovenly slacker and super organised go-getter were there from the beginning, but the writers really played heavily on them to sow division in the relationship. Jake Johnson has great chemistry with everyone, though. I really, really liked his four-episode relationship with Lizzy Caplan, and wish she'd stuck around for a lot longer. These two are all the proof anyone should need that good writers shouldn't be scared of putting their couples together. Jake and Amy have had a relationship that progressed wonderfully and realistically, without the need for drama and angst. The writing has subverted all those tropes to great effect and just used them to show the viewers how right Jake and Amy are for one another. I really like Maeve and Otis from Sex Education. I didn't think I would, didn't think I'd ever believe that Maeve would be into Otis, but the actors absolutely sold it, and the writing for them is great, except for the really obvious 'we can't have them get together yet' delaying tactics.

More absolute dickishness from him a couple of episodes later, when they find the curse and Xander says "the way I see it, you want to forget all about Ms. Calendar's murder so you can get your boyfriend back." Accidentally highlighting again his true reasons for hating Angel - "boyfriend". That, right there, should be a friendship ender. Sadly, I'm not too surprised that Joss Whedon thinks this is an acceptable and forgiveable way to act.

So Zach and Donald just released a special episode of their podcast, with Bill Lawrence and Sarah Chalke, to address the issue of blackface in Scrubs. Bill Lawrence said he personally requested the episodes be taken down, but that he'll probably re-edit them to remove those scenes, when he has access to a studio. I'll go with their assessment that, no matter the joke, using bits that reference the systemic racism and oppression behind blackface is just better avoided, regardless of the intentions behind it. Zach said, regarding the scene where he's in blackface at a party, that he wasn't comfortable with it, and wishes he'd talked to Bill and said he didn't want to do it. They also talk about the false double standard of, 'well, Donald was made up to look like a white guy, so that's racist too!' crowd. With that, I like Reni Eddo-Lodge's definition of racism as "prejudice plus power" to explain why it's not the same thing.

Oh well. I was hoping that Cam would sign somewhere and prove everyone wrong by having a good season, even if he is a weird ass a lot of the time. But for the Pats? I hope he ends up falling out with Belichick and ruining their season. I do think a significant factor in a former MVP being available for so long was the borderline racism of NFL execs not wanting "a distraction" in their locker room (something they rarely seem to feel when it's a white player, like proven bully Incognito or party bro who hangs out with pro wrestlers, Gronkowski).

I stopped watching that show because she was so taxing a character. Utterly self-obsessed and constantly aggrieved, bringing most of her problems down on herself. I guess we're supposed to watch because "she's interesting and compelling". No thanks. They had several characters more interesting than her, all of whom ended up sidelined and/or killed off. Here's a character that I've just been reminded I can't stand - Xander Harris in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I'm just watching an old episode, and Giles wants to kill Angelus because of what happened to Jenny. Xander, all self-righteous and gross says it's great and "don't forget, I've hated Angel long before you guys got on board, so I think I deserve some credit for being right." Fuck you, you creep. The only reason he hated Angel was because Angel was with Buffy, and now he's using the tragedy of Angel losing his soul, breaking Buffy's heart and killing someone they care about as an "I told you so" opportunity. Fucking Nice Guy weasel.