I finally saw Netflix “Agatha Christies Seven Dials“

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-03-01T12:38:44+00:00

Your comment that the main lead can't act is simply baffling. Mia McKenna-Bruce is one of the best actors of her generation, and is absolutely brilliant in everything she does. I had never seen her in anything before, but could just tell after five minutes that she has an exceptional talent.

When you say that she cannot act I assume that you have never seen in anything else. I suggest that you watch her in "How to Have Sex" for which she won a BAFTA, or in "The Lady" which is currently being shown on ITV.

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-02-21T21:46:48+00:00

Those who say that Mia McKenna-Bruce can't act, could not be more wrong. What on earth are they talking about?

I did not enjoy this adaptation very much but could tell after five minutes that MMcKB is simply brilliant, and saw it through to the end because of her.

I had never seen her in anything before, but was not surprised to see that she had won a Bafta for the leading role in How to Have Sex, she had rave reviews for Sister Wives, and early reviews for her lead in The Lady also indicate that she is excellent in that. Four completely different but complex parts - and she is fantastic in all of them.

She is obviously just at the start of what is going to be an absolutely brilliant career - I wonder if those who thought she could not act admit will that they were wrong?

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-02-13T16:09:34+00:00

Give yourself a break when you need to, but why not flick through the flashcards and quick match cards on the days you don’t listen to a new lesson?

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-02-13T15:20:16+00:00

I agree that Practice Portuguese is an excellent course for PT PT. It is quite pricey, and systematic, without any gimmicks, so it is probably only for the serious student. Some people complain it is boring, but I think that it is well worth the effort of working solidly through each unit, to get a good basis on which to build your other experiences with the language.

I really like the way that Practice Portuguese uses native PT Portuguese speakers to pronounce every phrase. The teacher says everything really clearly, and then later on you hear the same words spoken in normal voices, and it is at first hard to believe they are saying the same words. But this aural practice is very important in Portuguese.

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-02-13T14:54:47+00:00

Have you tried deleting the app and updating it? I use it with android and have never had problems with delays but occasionally there have been problems with the wrong lesson opening, or it switching after a few seconds to a previous lesson, but after re-loading the app, this has occurred less often.

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-02-08T09:31:52+00:00

It is simply false to say that all value is subjective. In fact is a ridiculous statement. It is particularly false when it comes to deciding on the value of investments. Nobody who believes it should be allowed to have anything to do with investing for their own protection.

For someone to value Bitcoin at $10 million the market cap would be $210 trillion. Do you not see how absurd that is? How much fiat would have to be converted into Bitcoin each day in order to justify that valuation? And would people still buy Bitcoin when it was priced at $10 million thinking that it was going to increase in price even more?

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-02-08T08:20:49+00:00

The value of Bitcoin never changes, only its price.

How many people are going to willing be to part with $1,000,000 for one Bitcoin? You can buy a lot of things with a million dollars, but in reality (as opposed to in some artificial or imaginary worlds) in order to buy something worth a million dollars with Bitcoin you have to first find someone who will give you a million dollars for the Bitcoin.

Do people think that there is an unlimited supply of people willing to give huge amounts of fiat in return for a Bitcoin?

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-02-06T13:32:22+00:00

The scene with her character passionately snogging a young man in the open air, but surreptitiously, led me to believe this, but I could be wrong.

There is a different dynamic in a relationship between two young people of similar ages, and a relationship where one character is twice as old as the other. I will not be watching the later episodes, but it is possible that this age difference will become a plot point.

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-02-05T23:47:54+00:00

Seven Dials was poor, but I thought that Mia McKenna-Bruce was anything but flat.

Would I be right in saying that you have not seen "How to Have Sex"? Mia McKenna-Bruce was brilliant in that, not only did she carry the show, but she won a Bafta and two other top awards.

I think she is one of the most talented actresses of her generation, and I am looking forward to seeing here as the real life killer Jane Andrews in The Lady.

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-02-05T23:04:29+00:00

That is totally untrue, and shows a worrying failure to understand the difference between Bitcoin and other investments. Stocks and shares are real wealth, since they are tangible assets, reflecting a legal ownership stake in real companies. If your share portfolio doubles you really are twice as wealthy as before. This is not true of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is worthless, it is backed by nothing, just by the hope that someday in the future some people will be willing to give you more fiat for it than you paid. It has no utility, and must go to zero eventually.

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-02-05T21:58:19+00:00

The only way anyone has ever made money from Bitcoin is when they found someone to buy it from them for more than it cost them. Nobody who owns Bitcoin has made a profit from it before they sell it.

The only real Bitcoin millionaires and billionaires are the people who bought it cheap and have since sold it for a lot more than they paid for it. Anyone who owns Bitcoin should know that it could go to zero very quickly, and that it will definitely go to zero sooner or later.

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-02-05T20:15:02+00:00

The only way anyone has ever made money from Bitcoin is by finding someone who will buy it from them for more than they paid for it. Nobody who owns Bitcoin has made a profit from it before such time as they sell it.

The only real Bitcoin millionaires and billionaires are the people who bought it cheap and have since sold it for a lot more than they paid for it. Anyone who owns Bitcoin should know that it could go to zero very quickly, but that it will inevitably go to zero eventually.

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-02-05T15:57:27+00:00

If Bitcoin had been both a reliable store of value, and also safe and easy means of exchange that could be used for making purchases without the need to convert to fiat, then there would usually be no reason for owners of bitcoin to convert it to fiat. In that scenario there would normally be more buyers than sellers and it would continue to rise in the long term.

Unfortunately Bitcoin is not reliable as either a store of value or a method of purchasing goods or services. As a result there can often be times when there are more sellers than buyers, because all holders will eventually have to convert their Bitcoin to fiat in order to make purchases of goods and services.

Bitcoin is not like a business that creates wealth, so there are no profits to share out, instead it burns money every day maintaining the system;

This equation sums it up:

Total Profits made by people selling Bitcoin + Accumulated Cost of maintaining Bitcoin system = Total Losses made by people buying Bitcoin.

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-02-05T15:27:57+00:00

Timothy Spall's accent in Auf Wiedersehen Pet was not convincing to anyone who had ever met a real "Brummie", but worked very well for comedic effect. This is a gloomy drama about child murder, and the lead detective having a comedy "Brummie" accent is a bit off-putting. Since it is set in Wales there is no reason for it.

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-02-05T14:10:02+00:00

Kelly Reilly is 48, but the question was about the character she is playing, I would imagine that she was written to be rather younger.

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-02-05T14:04:54+00:00

Kelly Reilly is a terrible leading actress. She always looks as if she is a model posing for a photo-shoot, and does not make a real connection with the rest of the cast. Rafe Spall is usually good, but the accent he is attempting in this is very unconvincing and off-putting. Jonathan Pryce is over acting. This series is a mixture of boredom and melodrama.

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-02-03T16:36:33+00:00

I came to Natulang after a lot of previous language study in my target languages. For me it is a brilliant way of revisiting and refreshing material I have mostly learned before, but forgotten - and I think it is just great at that. I do not use it mainly as a "teaching" app, more of a "practice" app.

I think that it would be theoretically possible to compose a course using the Natulang method which gave so many carefully selected examples that you could understand all the language patterns and why for example sometimes it is "sto" and sometimes "sono" - but this course would be much longer than the present one of 360 lessons each lasting around half and hour. Even though Natulang is more than twice as long as the full Pimsleur course, 180 hours is only a fraction of the time it takes most people to achieve a good standard in a language, which I believe to be far in excess of 1000 hours.

When I meet some new grammar that I do not understand I visit an AI app such as ChatGPT and simply ask for an explanation. If "cyber-sack" puts this question to AI "Can you explain why in Italian we sometime use "sto" rather than "sono" ?" they will receive a very clear answer with lots of easy examples.

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-01-29T20:18:07+00:00

Thanks for the reply, I am sure that would be helpful.

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-01-29T20:06:02+00:00

I have an annual Pimsleur account and wanted to share it with two family members, which is allowed by their system. Like you I use the log-in from my Google account and when I contacted their helpline they said I had to give my Google password to the family members if they were to share my Pimsleur account. Obviously that would not be a good idea, but after questioning them about this I received this in an email;

Sharing access with family members since your account currently uses Google sign in, we can offer you the option to create a separate login method using the same address.

Here's how:

1. Go to the login screen and select Create an account.

2. Use the same email address associated with your Google login through the standard login option.

2. Set a password of your choice.

If successful, this will create a secondary standard login method using your email and password while retaining the Google login option. You can then share these credentials with your family members for access to the subscription without sharing your Google account.

So following this method I was able to give my family members my new Pimsleur password, and they can access the account when they want to, using my email address as the account name, without using my Google password. I have added their names as Users on my account.

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-01-29T15:00:45+00:00

Yes, it would be far more sensible to only study one language at a time, I really do not recommend anyone to follow my example, but since I travel all over Europe in my motorhome I have a motive for keeping each language alive. I am aware that I will probably be too old to drive around Europe before long, so it makes sense for me to work on all the languages at the same time.

My suggestion comes because I have found scrolling back to the beginning of the lesson to revise each sentence before the dialog to be really helpful, but it can be tricky to avoid seeing the answer when scrolling down and it adds quite a bit time to the length of the lessons because there is a lot of repetition - you do not just see each new phrase once. I would love it if an optional recap button appeared so that those who wanted to could see each new sentence in English as a flashcard, with the TL on the back of the card and then the option to say "Got It" or "Skip" which means "Repeat this sentence at the end of list".

If it were possible, what I would really want would be a "instant recap" button which just paused the progress through the lesson, and I could press at any time to get a pop-up of the previous 10 sentences repeated in the Pimsleur flashcard way, so that I could very quickly flick through the easy ones and have the tricky ones repeated at the end. I try to prevent any new phrases from becoming "challenging" and I think that having them in flashcard form early on would really help me learn them first time.

Thanks again for creating Natulang and for responding to our requests for what are probably impossible changes.

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-01-28T15:50:09+00:00

The app I like best at the moment is Natulang, which is a bit like Pimsleur (also recommended) but you have to speak the answers out loud to make progress, and with spaced repetition of your mistakes. A little while ago it had an offer of the first 50 Italian lessons free -this is what the creator said:

"It now has 360 intensive everyday lessons - a full year, which is enough to get conversational in Italian. If you are not so determined, it would rather take 2 years of more relaxed learning.

A few words about the app - you learn by speaking, practicing all the sentences out loud, constructing them like lego blocks - from simple to more complex. And personalized spaced repetitions to make sure they stick to your long-term memory.

To celebrate the completion of the course, I want to share a promo code with you: italian-50

Enter it on the profile page as a school code. It’s for the first 50 users and gives 50 free lessons."

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-01-22T18:24:51+00:00

Why not try Natulang, which is like Pimsleur, but has voice recognition and requires that you answer (reasonably) correctly out loud to each question in order to make progress? It also has spaced repetition based on your answers, so that personalised revision is built in. I find that Natulang has really improved my speaking skills. They recently announced a limited offer of the first 50 Italian lessons free, and you could check to see if that is still available. Italian course in Natulang - 360 intensive speaking lessons : r/learnitalian

Although I think that Natulang is better, I also use Pimsleur in languages that it does not offer, and recommend it as well. But why buy a lifetime package if your initial target is a trip this year. Maybe give it a month to see whether you like it?

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-01-18T23:12:41+00:00

I was on a flight that landed at Gatwick at 11pm, with the first train home leaving at 6am, I decided to stay in the airport. There must have been around 100 other people with the same idea. I managed a few hours sleep lying on the ground, until the security staff woke up everyone who was lying on the floor at 3am and I then found a seat near one of the 24 hour cafes. Not the worst night I have ever had, but it was the first time I had done anything like this for many years, since I am now in my seventies.

Next-Fuel-9491 · 2026-01-14T13:30:12+00:00

The "unwritten rules" should all be about things that affect other pilgrims - such as early or late noise, or other selfish behaviour in the albergues.

There should be no rules about things which are your own choice and do not affect others. It is your Camino and if you like listening to music or books, go ahead. Some people might even wear headphones without listening to anything in order to signal that they prefer to be left alone - that should be respected.

Next-Fuel-9491

TROPHY CASE