I Heard A Crash From The Lab

Superb!

This.
Well, at least we know that the supply of fatuous preening bellendery isn’t likely to be exhausted any time soon.
And a happy one to you, madam.

On crime and punishment, or the lack thereof.

It’s one way to get your crime statistics down … just ignore the crime.
And hey, it’s only thievery.

On crime and punishment, or the lack thereof.
From the link:

The former senior Metropolitan police officers who run the My Local Bobby service blame cuts in police numbers which meant officers were reluctant to spend time and valuable resource investigating and prosecuting minor offences.

Several British police officers who blogged anonymously in the 1990’s (Coppers Blog and David Copperfield, among others, if I recall correctly) wrote about changes in reporting rules which meant that every arrest required them to spend hours writing reports and filling out forms–thus greatly reducing the amount of time they could be on the street.
More recently we have seen how the UK police are spending more and more time monitoring online speech and visiting peaceful citizens to “warn” them and even arrest them.

The unbearable whiteness of Toy Story 4:

Nor is it just the near-absence of people of color that’s bothersome. It’s the absence of anything approximating life in America as most of us know it…Problems of prejudice, money and unemployment never seem to cross anyone’s mind.

Yeah, exploration of those last problems by animated characters is the reason most people, especially kids, want to go see cartoon movies.
Some people, like our incredibly woke writer, can only be happy when they are miserable.

“Some people, like our incredibly woke writer, can only be happy when they we are miserable.”

Ricky Gervais killing it at the Golden Globes.
I love that Brit comedians can still be irreverent.

It’s one way to get your crime statistics down … just ignore the crime.
Not that this is a new thing. In the late ’90s I had a laptop stolen from my car in Bury St Edmunds: I’d refueled the car at Tesco and was in the kiosk paying. Suffolk Police refused to record this as a crime because I hadn’t locked the car when I went to pay.
A month or so later I saw a front-page story in the local paper concerning the serious problem of theft in Tesco’s car park and petrol station…

2020 is off to a fabulous start, “I’m known as Ken but inside I’ve always felt like Barbie.”.

“Men look at me because they desire me. And women look at me because they want to copy what I’m wearing.
“It’s a totally different type of ­attention. Before, people looked at me because I looked very androgynous and weird for a man.
“Now I hope they are looking because they think I am a beautiful woman.”

No, no, no, yes, and hope in one hand…

“Men look at me because they desire me…”
Heh. Interesting theory.
In entirely unrelated news, I’m sure there must be a word for morbid curiosity tinged with pity and revulsion.

Incidentally, did anyone else watch the BBC’s retelling of Dracula…?
“From the people who created and then ruined ‘Sherlock’…”

Incidentally, did anyone else watch the BBC’s retelling of Dracula…?
I make a habit these days of avoiding most BBC dramas. Particularly those written by Mark Gatiss, Stephen Moffatt, and Sarah Phelps. I’d rather read the books they’re based on.

I’d rather read the books they’re based on.
In this case, I think Stoker’s book is pretty awful as a novel. The structure’s terrible and the whole thing’s pretty tedious, at least to modern sensibilities. Though its themes and imagery have obviously endured quite well.

Woke Doctor Who.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqiBwb8pZQM

…I’m now undecided as to whether I should read it early and get it out of the way, or put it off until later.
If you’re a fan of Horror fiction or movies, it’s worth a read just to get context of how the horror genre developed post Dracula. It’s also fun to pick out the little homages to the original when you’re watching a Dracula movie. If, however, you want to read it as a stand alone Gothic novel, you’ll likely be disappointed.
I would agree with David’s assessment. It just doesn’t stand up to today’s sensibilities. I think Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights are better reads in the Gothic genre, but I would never discourage anyone from reading the classics. Of course, YMMV.

I was quite impressed with the new ‘Dracula’ – yes, they Sherlockised him, but overall, it was a very fun romp.
And, truth be tell, there wasn’t much competition.., unless you’re a fan of game shows. Or have Netflix and Prime, which was mostly what I watched over the Christmas break.

It had moments of inspiration
Well perhaps. Its main failing was the resolutely unappealing actor in the name part. He delivered his lines like a facetious local radio phone-in host. And the standard of the quips that the writers put into his mouth matched the persona. I’ve often been baffled by the casting of Doctor Who – Ecclestone was quite good, but I stopped watching when the grating third-rater Tennant took over. From what little I’ve seen of subsequent episodes, the post-Tennant Doctors are even more tiresome. But this strenuously dreary Dracula was in a class of his own. I gave up after episode one.

In this case, I think Stoker’s book is pretty awful as a novel.
The epistlery is a format that’s hard to do well. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters executes it far better.
It’s also fun to pick out the little homages to the original
Fun fact: the first season of the teen horror TV drama The Vampire Diaries is an adaptation not of Twilight or the Anita Blake novels, but Stoker’s Dracula. Every character maps directly to one in the original novel, as do all the story beats.
I’ve often been baffled by the casting of Doctor Who – Ecclestone was quite good
Eccleston was the only Doctor I’ve ever truly enjoyed watching, and I think it’s because Eccleston’s Doctor is cocky without being smug or twee. This was my problem with the BBC Sherlock – it was so in love with itself for being terribly clever that it forgot to be, you know, actually clever. Most of the amazing solutions to the cases were either trivial or outright wrong. If the writers can’t be arsed to do some basic research I’m not giving them my eyeballs.

Morning, all.
He’s saving the planet, you know.

He’s saving the planet, you know.
Virtue is its own reward, but to receive the approbation of Stella McCartney must be thrilling, intoxicating even.

but I would have liked to understand why some of the people I knew were so enthusiastic about it.
It’s definitely not made for me.
Another episode that comes to mind, and which I’ve mentioned before, featured Matt Smith as the Doctor. He was rushing around a department store with a hapless chubby human guy and his baby – which, inevitably, led to the two men being mistaken for a gay couple. Cue faintly amusing situation and heavy signalling that THIS IS OKAY. THIS IS A GOOD THING. AW, BLESS. Then, just to make sure we, the audience, felt warm towards the idea of a mismatched gay couple with a baby, they did exactly the same joke again, and a third time, minutes later. Even when the social message is one you don’t object to, the writers manage to make you cringe or resent the attempt to manipulate. It’s that smug and ham-fisted.

It never appealed to me but I would have liked to understand why some of the people I knew were so enthusiastic about it.
I confess I haven’t watched it since the 1980’s when, if I recall, the latest Doctor was the one with the long multicolored scarf
Same here. Because I was such a fan of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, specifically the TV version that looked like it was done on the fly and Zaphod Beeblebrox’s second head looked to have been fashioned from a Styrofoam women’s wig holder, back in the early 80’s I was told by many a fan of DW that “knowing you, it’s something you would really enjoy”. Watched one episode and had absolutely no interest in it. Maybe because the good Doctor seemed to be something of a know-it-all without a sense of irony. Or perhaps I missed the irony. Probably why Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie never appealed much to me but spy novels and Rockford Files and Columbo did. And of course HHGttG. Also, just my bigoted pig-ignorant observation, but the people that I know in meat space who are big DW fans tend to the hipster, techy-geek Linux-uber-alles (not that I dislike Linux…but real world) sub-species.

WTP: Just one data point. I was a big fan of rebooted DW during the first couple of doctors (until Capaldi), but never liked the old show (when I was also watching — puzzled but enthralled — Monty Python on PBS). The sets looked too shoddy to be believed, like they were shot in someone’s basement).
I’m too old for the hipster, techy-geek cohort, though my youth I played wargames, moved on to D&D, and alt-comics in the ’80s, and thoroughly enjoyed the one computer programming course I took in college, and went on to making computer games at Avalon Hill.

with each bad episode, we’d turn to each other and ask, “Want to watch another one?” It was like we were locked into a perverse Milgram experiment.
On one occasion, while bored, the Other Half and I flicked through the TV listings, found nothing of promise, then agreed to lower our standards and started on the listing again. It can work, provided you don’t mind watching things ironically. Like some trash about UFOs on the History Channel.

I’ve read Stoker’s Dracula. I recommend doing so only if you follow it with Fred Saberhagen’s Dracula Tape.

Recall Doctor Who from the very original shows, and only Hartnell and Pertwee really made iconic doctors for me. I recall the original Daleks episode being very frightening for a then young person such as I was. Even though we all agreed that they looked just like a decorated upside down rubbish bin with a plumbers plunger attached.
Never bothered with the later series let alone the new start series.
Interesting unknown titbit, the very first episode screened in the UK (23 November 1963 apparently) some 80 seconds later than the advertised time, the delay being attributed to news coverage of the JFK assassination that had occurred the previous day.

“James Cordon, who’s now hosting a talk show”
I believe he took over The Late Late Show on CBS from Craig Ferguson. That show was worth watching when Craig was hosting it.

Ditto Star Trek. Runs and hides,
In all the iterations, over decades, there are maybe a dozen or so good episodes, twenty tops. Not a great batting average. And again, it’s not just bad writing or cheesy effects or whatever. The moral sermonising is often the most perverse and grating aspect, especially in the later iterations. There’s a tiresome, at times demented, moral unrealism.
We’ve touched on this before, of course.
At some length.
Worth revisiting, I think. If only for Dicentra’s reference to Star Trek’s “pernicious ideal.”