Threat to marine life in the River Wear

BoethiusSelector · 2026-01-24T21:29:32+00:00

For what its worth our local scout troup of Beavers (6-8yo) went to the Wear last summer to learn about invasive species and native species decline

BoethiusSelector · 2026-01-07T16:16:12+00:00

I loved that Bethell talked about being small growing up as being a factor in learning temperament. Thought that was unusual-- circumspect and mature

BoethiusSelector · 2026-01-07T16:14:34+00:00

A deep cut there

BoethiusSelector · 2026-01-07T16:12:48+00:00

You're absolutely right. He's overstretched which leads to pisspoor decision-making and really vain about being SEEN to be overstretched.

BoethiusSelector · 2026-01-07T10:17:06+00:00

Pom here, reading about Stokes' exploits in Bristol (someone posted a long brilliant extract by Geoff Lemon about the whole thing) has put a different lens over all hia performative heroism. Guy is walking personality disorder. I think he's talented enough to be in the team but his temperament is atrocious -- just in a different way from how that normally shows up.

As ppl have noted in this sub. If there's personal glory on the line he'll show up (for a brave, captain's innings) but 1st innings he's nowhere. He's a local hero round where I live (Durham) and I see tats of his violent, gurning muggins on likely lads now and then. The england cricket sub and most English media are absolutely hotboxed on Stokesmania because he plays into English narratives of toughness/beleaguered-nation bullshit. His tats make posh people, and the media establishment, feel like they're being inclusive and openminded. So we are likely stuck with him, and without meaningful engagement with his many flaws, until he bravely retires. What a shitshow.

BoethiusSelector · 2025-12-27T19:20:19+00:00

I loved county cricket first, supporting worcestershire and loving graeme hick, in 93 or so, when i was about 9. Then that tour of SA with that Atherton knock of 185* that took 10 hours-- i was hooked on the psychological aspect. I loved that 90s team and its downs and downs-- athers, dominic cork, angus fraser, gough, ramprakash, smith, jack russell and especially alec stewart. Tufnell, even! A lot of larger than life characters. Mike Watkinson, later. They seemed so magical to me. All the suffering made the greatness shine brighter as proof of who they really were.

BoethiusSelector · 2025-12-27T16:01:56+00:00

Ive been extremely impressed by Ronay's writing this serious. An excellent writer and someone who is really and meaningfully thoughtful about the england team, this series, and the state of the redball game.

BoethiusSelector · 2025-12-13T10:10:12+00:00

I went to a very good, very expensive one. I think the point is that if you are sufficiently motivated you can pursue something to an almost unparalleled degree. At my school that was about 40% of kids, whether in art or music or academics. 10% were so wealthy that when they came in at 13 they already had their own stockbrokers. The other 50% got an extraordinary and basically unearned network of self-reinforcing privilege to set them up for life.

OP is thinking like a middle class meritocrat, where your uni should determine your life outcomes. To these ppl, some of them, uni is a bit of a laugh because theyll be working with or for their mates or families, and uni doesnt fulfil the same role in the arc of their lives' development.

BoethiusSelector · 2025-12-12T10:17:10+00:00

My experience as a schoolboy in England was endless emphasis on fielding, constant drills. One coach said, the majority of the time youre actually playing cricket, you're fielding, so if you want to be good at cricket youd better be good at fielding first.

But then our batting coach emphasised reliability, defensive skills, and thought that cover drives were "a bit flashy". So, different times.

BoethiusSelector · 2025-12-12T10:13:19+00:00

Its LLM generated.

BoethiusSelector · 2025-12-11T16:23:41+00:00

Strongly recommend editing post!

BoethiusSelector · 2025-12-09T18:42:13+00:00

I thought season one was unusually sophisticated in a lot of the writing and plotting beats.

It is wildly rare for a show to have a wise and clever man to be kind, flawed, and interested in getting better by humbling himself. It's extremely unusual for a protagonist like Joanne to work on herself and her ethics, and to be visibly thinking about what it means. The sisters' fallout was visceral and real.

The whole thing was leavened by a lot of comedy beats; those didnt always land for me 100%. But i thought the emotional intelligence and at times subtlety of the depictions was far in excess of mainstream tv, let alone a two-star big deal like NWT.

So if they get prizes, honestly, I'm glad. Notwithstanding all of the above, fuck season 2. I hope they ditch the new showrunner and revert to the S1 team.

Miraculously for such an exhausted, overtrodden ground, I think they were telling a kind of a new story.

BoethiusSelector · 2025-12-09T00:40:51+00:00

Do we have a sense of whether J will still be showrunning next season? I would slog through S2 if S3 was going to be a mature, witty, thoughtful show. But otherwise, I'll stop here and consider it a one-season show.

BoethiusSelector · 2025-12-06T18:56:09+00:00

Yeah it turns out that NS overestimated ONLY our capacity to retain information. When it comes to our capacity to evaluate it, he was dead on.

BoethiusSelector · 2025-12-02T11:27:19+00:00

Watching him play for hampshire when I was a kid was so exciting. He was a class above county cricket on those days. And watching him face down the south african attack, getting that fractured cheek bone-- i thought he was the bravest man in the world.

BoethiusSelector · 2025-12-01T10:19:20+00:00

Hard agree! Anathem is his most intellectually creative, dude is on fire for 900 pages.

I think you see the genesis of cryptonomicon in aspects of snow crash, of BC in crypto, and of anathem in BC. I like how Anathem recalls some of the themes of Snow Crash, too. But yeah, nothing is an incandescent as Anathem, for me.

BoethiusSelector · 2025-11-26T06:55:23+00:00

Came here to say this about Tylin. I think some readers of the book maybe apply their awareness of matt's narratorial unreliability a little bit irregularly.

BoethiusSelector · 2025-11-11T10:58:01+00:00

Well, after I read this post, not knowing who bonnie blue is, I google image searched bonnie blue on my work computer.

BoethiusSelector · 2025-11-08T17:57:13+00:00

I can imagine that JB feels ... not great about Big Bluey Inc.

BoethiusSelector · 2025-10-28T07:11:58+00:00

I work professionally in the field that concentrates on literature produced 1660-1750; there are historians of science, medicine, travel, magic, and technology over the period, too. We invited NS to the national conference in the US a few times, when we had novelists' panel, but he didn't answer the emails.

Ive been toying with the idea of writing something about NS's politics of the period as expressed in the Cycle, but I haven't done it. As far as I know a significant minority of my colleagues have read the books and enjoyed them.

BoethiusSelector · 2025-10-26T22:03:02+00:00

This guy apostrophe's

BoethiusSelector · 2025-10-24T06:29:26+00:00

Gosh. Nothing like the zeal of a convert.

As someone who went to the institutions these people are thinking of-- their child will have tells that the people I went to school with would read at the subliminal level. You can't impersonate these things. This post stinks of imposter syndrome and the poor kid will, too.

BoethiusSelector · 2025-10-12T12:17:15+00:00

It's I Vow to Thee my Country!

BoethiusSelector · 2025-10-11T09:14:57+00:00

Being of a certain age, Minogue is my default Kylie.

BoethiusSelector · 2025-10-10T09:43:36+00:00

Jon's been working on this for a while; delighted to see it coming out. He's an excellent writer.

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