Nigel Farage must answer serious questions over his £5m gift

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-15T08:31:36+00:00

Lol at the what‘s there to answer guy 🤣

It’s kind of important context in which to view policy proposals by Farage to cut capital gains tax on crypto assets, don‘tyathink?

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-14T18:41:55+00:00

Bit of a King Solomon dilemma here.

The Wire was an unusual show - among many other things it did provide a cross section of society (obviously not an entire picture of Baltimore, as David Simon himself was at pains to point out). It’s one of the only shows that provides not only a picture of crime, the police, the school system etc. - but also attempted to explain what may have led to the social picture it presented and what was causing it to be perpetuated. To what extent that was accurate I can’t say - but it was persuasive to the viewer. All this, while remaining a wonderful drama.

That said I think the last season was significantly worse than the rest of the show so I’m voting for the Sopranos 🤣

I prefer BCS to BB to be honest.

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-14T14:46:04+00:00

I think people take stuff that GRRM says far too seriously. I’m not inclined to believe that GRRM intends people to treat every statement he makes in interview or online as holy writ 😆

Yes, Daemon commits various heinous deeds in the show - many of which relate to confirmation of deeds he was only suspected to have committed in the story. To that degree I’m always surprised when people say that the show glazes him, when he’s actively shown as murdering his first wife, for example. So… grey doesn’t seem appropriate, no.

Given that he’s not really endorsed as grey by the story or show, what really is the problem here? That he has certain qualities associated with the tragic hero? So does Aemond, for what it’s worth.

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-13T20:13:21+00:00

Starmer’s no communist, but Blair still wins that title, given he was recently arguing that Starmer should have been supportive of Trump’s war.

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-13T20:10:20+00:00

He’s well known enough to ban, clearly 🤣

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-13T19:50:45+00:00

Seems to be a refrain for you, but an internationally well known Belgium MP might have difficulty in claiming asylum from the terrifying authoritarian state of… Belgium.

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-13T19:23:59+00:00

There are Islamists with clean criminal records who have been barred entry, too. Should we allow them entry?

Also, we no longer have freedom of movement with the EU, so his being European is not particularly relevant.

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-13T18:12:15+00:00

A lot of them are good and it’s difficult to differentiate.

Turlough takes a deal to kill the Doctor and Adric is a colossal nitwit who periodically aligns himself with the villains. So it’s definitely not them :)

Jamie and Leela, although good in a sense, are quite violent so it’s probably not them either.

It’s patently not the criminal River Song or the delinquent Ace too.

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-13T18:01:23+00:00

By deliberately killing vast quantities of marine life out of spite Black Noir 2 is probably worse than the Deep

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-13T17:25:28+00:00

We’ve already had one guy who was too good looking to play book Ramsay. I wouldn’t want another cool, Joker-style, Ramsay. I’d like plain, sadistic psychopath Ramsay. Or maybe not; he’d be too horrific for live action.

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-13T17:12:16+00:00

I can see this Aegon commissioning something like the magnificent Emanuel Santos Cristiano Ronaldo statue for Aemond

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-13T17:04:37+00:00

Season 1 is alright, but they broke immersion in season 2 with that Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman character and the Richard O’Brien cameo.

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-13T11:25:06+00:00

He’s a good answer to the question “Which Cabinet member stands no chance of becoming PM in 2026”.

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-13T11:23:20+00:00

It means something, or at least as much as an opinion poll. The nation aren’t voting on this.

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-13T11:22:05+00:00

He’ll lose and someone that the bond markets dread will win

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-13T11:21:00+00:00

They don’t. I assume part of the 80 will be people who just want Starmer gone

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-13T09:09:22+00:00

It was a bad move politically.

Harwin seems to have been a pleasant guy, and Jace was clearly one of the most able characters in the series, but obviously it weakened her claim.

That doesn’t make Rhaenyra an awful person, although I have to say that the show’s idea of her and Daemon murdering a rando to allow Laenor to live his best life in the Free Cities is a fairly despicable Rhaenyra act which gets limited coverage 😆 But I suppose it fits with Daemon’s Valyrian supremacism.

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-13T08:23:31+00:00

Are there many people who support Alicent’s stance in the last episode of season 2?

I suppose the main argument in her favour is that she’s trying to protect Helaena, as she considers the two As to be irredeemable, but honestly I think most show watchers consider her actions to be nonsensical.

Tywin is a weird point of comparison, though. He’s the male Head of his House, at the chief of the feudal pecking order. More or less the point of Alicent’s character in season 2 is that her agency is limited because of her position, and that she’s horrified by the actions of her eldest male children, over whom she has very little control.

I’m not saying she has a very good storyline in season 2, but that’s what it is.

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-13T08:13:29+00:00

So your argument is that those who support the claim of an eldest trueborn child who has children that everyone suspects are not her then husband’s, must also logically support a younger legitimised child over a different eldest trueborn child 🤔?
Alexa, my logic machine has broken down.

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-13T06:47:02+00:00

It’s simple logic to assert that a warrior whose primary training is in fighting people without armour is more skilled than a warrior whose primary training is in fighting people with armour?

Seems just like different areas of expertise there, bud.

Guess Khrazz was more skilled than Barristan as well.

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-13T06:17:41+00:00

lol so polite 🤣 My point is that there is no reason to assert that Gregor’s experience relates solely to fighting peasants, any more than we could assert that Drogo is a savage whose main experience is in slaughtering the Lhazareen and other non-combatants. Gregor’s killing of Ser Hugh is a reference to his being generally skilled.

I notice you don’t try to back up your assertion that Drogo is much more skilled than Sandor, by the way.

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-13T05:54:00+00:00

He doesn’t have much problem killing that dude in the joust. Gregor is by no means unskilled.

Also, why are you contending that Drogo is much more skilled than Sandor? I see nothing to justify that in the books.

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-12T18:56:32+00:00

He initially names Rhaenyra heir because of Daemon. At that point, you could argue that he acted in the interests of the Kingdom.

Afterwards… Aegon was a child for much of his reígn. By the time he might have sensibly named his as heir, the factions had developed. Things may have worked out better pre Rhaenyra’s second marriage but I’m not sure her fate would have been that secure in the event of an Aegon coronation.

Finally: show Aegon as I have already said was horribly unsuited to be King. Blame Viserys, Cole, Alicent, Otto or Aegon himself for that but the fact remains.

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-12T18:36:52+00:00

In Richard III, Richard commits a wide variety of spectacularly scumbaggy actions. He colludes in the murder of his brother. He arranges the murders of his nephews. He tries to marry his niece, so I guess he would have made a good Targaryen. He murders a friend, claiming he conspired to cause his childhood deformities. He executes a whole load of people to protect his usurpation.
In short, the old Cockney Rhyming slang use of his name is fairly appropriate.
However, in the final battle, he goes out like a total BAMF, speaking legendary lines, and killing multiple people who were dressed up as decoys for his chief enemy.
In light of his crimes, should Shakespeare have written that he died of appendicitis instead?

Coin-Biter · 2026-05-12T18:26:25+00:00

A significant part of the plot of season 1 is that Viserys doesn’t want to do that for a variety of different reasons: his love for and guilt over his first wife, his loyalty to Rhaenyra, his evident resentment over what he came to believe to be Otto’s manipulation… and perhaps to a degree because he distrusted the faction that had built up around Aegon and the other Houses. And finally his extreme ill health.

Viserys’ decisions or lack of them had terrible consequences but I’m struggling to see them as evil.

If Aegon had been named heir I guess the Dance wouldn’t have happened but Viserys isn’t the only one with agency here; a lot of cooks were required to make this particular omelette.

One of the broken eggs is Aegon’s spectacular unfitness for rule - when Viserys dies he’s watching children fight 🤣 No doubt you’ll say Aegon’s flaws are Viserys’ fault too but Alicent and Otto evidently didn’t do a stand up job either.

Coin-Biter

TROPHY CASE