Danny Franks

So Lamar Jackson continues to thrill, and to win. I thought this game would be a real test, but the Texans just weren't at the races. It's still hard to believe how good this Ravens offense is, after years of them being pedestrian at best. Being able to relax in the third quarter, because they're up by several scores and in the middle of a drive that will eat up huge amounts of clock... it's just so foreign to a Ravens fan. People are so caught up in the MVP discussion - Lamar or Russ - and I just don't care one bit. I want to see the Ravens go to the Super Bowl, and personal accolades are meaningless. I feel confident in saying that Lamar and Russell Wilson probably feel the same.

Man, it must be terrible, to be as not cute as Melissa is, there.

There have been loads of stories since his divorce, of him swanning around the world, hanging out with industrialists and arms dealers and sleeping with much younger women. He's the ultimate example of a wastrel, using his family name and his connections to live a life of luxury and decadence. And he's doing most of it at the expense of the British taxpayer. Americans often wonder why there are so many British people who dislike the monarchy, and people like Andrew Windsor are the reason why. We're all going to be told to accept his explanation now, and stop talking about this.

Oh, that's exactly what he's doing. Along with "I let the side down" by hanging out with a convicted child rapist and, as predicted, "I'm appalled by the allegations". I guess that settles that then, hey?

All so barbaric they made sure to show multiple replays, from several angles, highlighting the most egregious acts and commenting in the same faux outraged tones we heard when Chad Johnson dared to pretend to moon the crowd after scoring a TD. Then all the NFL pundits get their increasingly outraged takes on the record, and we go from 'Myles Garrett needs to be suspended' to 'he should never play in the NFL again!' in the space of about fifteen minutes. Anyway, in case anyone wants to see a game where a team wins twice without even playing, it's that one. Puts a dent in the Steelers' resurgence (which was only just afloat as it was) and guts any new confidence the Browns might have felt after winning the game. All of that is just great for the Ravens, who have to play both these teams again.

I'll be frankly amazed if that's not another attempt to help him brush all this under the carpet. The BBC are truly the TV organisation of the establishment. If it was Channel 4, I'd be more optimistic that it would actually be "no holds barred." Then again, Andrew would never agree to be interviewed on Channel 4. It'll be something like, "I met Mr. Epstein on a handful of occasions, and was brought to parties at his house by a mutual friend/business acquaintance. I was horrified to learn of his illegal activities, and it sickens me that I unknowingly spent time with him."

Hopefully this is just because Amazon really like the dailies they've been seeing, and the scripts they've got, and not just because they're trying to compete with HBO's GoT prequel, and Netflix's The Witcher. I don't know quite how they're going to pace all this, but I'd want the climax of book two to be the end of a second season. It's a real high point for the series, in the early books.

I do suspect that they're doing it simply because they knew it would cause a huge stir, and help them market the movie. As you say, there is no reason whatsoever to use Dean's digitally constructed image, then have another actor record the dialogue. It makes the movie massively more complicated, for no discernible reason. Yes, it's a tragedy that James Dean only made three movies, and people will always wonder what might have been. But the thing is, this isn't it. It's just a macabre simulacrum of an actor who is locked in everyone's memories as the handsome, tragic tale of lost potential. If someone wants to honour Dean and bring his name into modern cinema, then write a biopic. Get a great director and cast someone who can do the man justice. Though even that wouldn't be without controversy, because whatever interpretation the writer had of Dean's sexuality, they'd be criticised. You're thinking too small, here. I want Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe in a sexy crime caper, about three grifting dames who take suckers for all they're worth. Then they can resurrect River Phoenix and stick him in a movie with his brother, Joaquin, and his best friend, Keanu Reeves. It would be so much fun!

They're teens, to be fair. They're always going to be impulsive and emotional, and probably increasingly horny too. And while Nynaeve may be seen as wise and learned, in a tiny little village in the back end of nowhere, there's a huge, complicated world out there that she knows absolutely nothing about. It's a steep learning curve, for all of them, and that was one of the things I enjoyed about the series as I read it. They're constantly experiencing new places, new cultures, learning about history and various academic and political structures. One of the fun things is watching how they deal with all of that. Nynaeve clings on to her Two Rivers identity as hard as she tugs on her braid, while Egwene is a cultural chameleon, very quickly adapting to, and absorbing, new ideas. The three boys also deal with things in distinct ways.

Imagine spending as much money as they must have on this, just to tell Bob Murray to eat shit? Totally worth it. I love the image of HBO's lawyers sitting down to watch that before it aired, just to make sure there was nothing in in that could actually get them in trouble. I also love imagining Murray's reaction to seeing it, and probably being told by his attorneys that it's not worth the effort, just to lose again. Especially when, once he does lose again, John will probably go to even greater lengths to tell him to fuck himself. He's the perfect example of why the worst people in the world are often those at the very top of the social stratosphere. This is an enormously wealthy man, who has spent his life exploiting those who work for him (and harassing them, it turns out), who is incapable of accepting any criticism or reproach, and who thinks he can force people to do what he wants, just because he has the money for it. It was an amusing little note about the reach of this show, that the judge assigned to the case was a guy that John had made fun of, two years previously. I guess that delving into the shitty economics of America will inevitably produce topics that overlap. Coal barons and payday loan grifters, for example, would seem to go hand in hand.

Works for me. Although the media would love a Russell Wilson vs. Lamar Jackson Super Bowl, I'm sure. I'd also like to see Aaron Rodgers get to another Super Bowl, and if not the Ravens, I'd like to see the Packers win to give him a second ring. The Ravens play the 49ers in a couple of weeks, and it will be interesting to see how that game plays out. The 49ers have a scary defensive front, and a lot will ride on how well the Ravens O-line holds up. Lamar has shown that overeager pass-rushers may get embarrassed as he dances around them, but the 49ers will have a lot of guys to throw at him.

This is the crux of all these Me Too issues, and one that Farrow herself should understand. It doesn't matter how great someone is to work with, it doesn't matter how well they treated you. Your experience does not fully encompass that person, and you shouldn't base your presumption of their innocence on the fact that you like them. It's the exact same thing that Woody Allen fans do, when they refuse to contemplate what he did. The cognitive dissonance people are capable of, even when they themselves have experienced abuse second, or even first-hand, is staggering.

I remember a hot fireman asking Abbie out, and her saying no because she was waiting for (and expecting) Carter to ask her out. Then Carter rejected her, because he felt that she was falling back on him as her second choice, after things with Luka didn't work out. This was just after Susan came back, and fell into a weird, quasi-relationship with Carter that went nowhere (because Carter was never allowed to have a normal, healthy relationship for more than five minutes). There was definitely a feeling of 'Abbie is special and tortured, and the world revolves around her', and no small amount of that feeling came from Abbie herself. I stopped watching the show when Carter left, but I understand that Abbie's romantic exploits remained a large focus of the last few seasons. She was an odd amalgamation of Carol and Doug, in her moping and woe-is-me attitude, and her self righteousness. I generally feel like the show did that a lot, when adding new characters - they looked at the archetypes of their original characters, and tried to recreate them in new people. It rarely worked.

I find the idea of it very disturbing. Actors choose their roles, they decide to audition for something or not, and they live by their decisions when it comes to a movie being a success or a failure. A dead actor, reanimated by CGI, cannot make that choice, and I don't think anyone has the right to insert someone into a role that they never agreed to play. Will it impact on Dean's legacy? No, because I imagine most people will discount this, but it's not a decision we should even have to make. A few years ago, when Snoop Dogg used that hologram of Tupac at Coachella, it was eerie and genuinely cool, and sparked the initial conversation about how we use the image and likeness and work of dead people. Then we had Peter Cushing inserted into Rogue One, and the effect was a little off, because computers just can't recreate that vitality of human life. This is the first paragraph of Vice's article on this: Now tell me that doesn't sound dystopian and furthering the commodification of human life. I hope this movie absolutely bombs, but I suspect it won't, because the macabre spectacle will drive the publicity (and I suspect that's a large part of the reason they're doing it at all).

I think there's definitely a tendency for people to side with villains who are played by actors they like. JK Simmons is probably universally loved, whereas Miles Teller is... not. Look at Alan Rickman, who has created some wonderfully evil and unrepentant villains, yet you still get people saying they take his side because the heroes are smug, or whatever. Mostly it's just in fun, but you always get some weirdoes who take things too far, and start to hold up movie and TV villains as aspirational figures (which leads right back, sadly, to the Joker).