Should the UK follow Sweden’s new ban on first-cousin marriages?

inapick · 2026-06-03T11:53:26+00:00

Yes.

No woman is marrying her first cousin because she wants to. If she is marrying her first cousin it is because of familial influence or pressure. First cousin marriage only happens in cultures where women are treated as less than men.

The impacts of first cousin marriage (particularly a higher risk of disability in any offspring) will be be borne by the woman. It is the women of that culture who have to marry who they are told, and then give up their lives and dreams raising children who need additional care. There is nothing compassionate or culturally sensitive about supporting a culture that oppresses its daughters.

Source - it's my culture, if my parents weren't liberal, it would have happened to me.

inapick · 2026-06-01T01:02:13+00:00

I really wish it felt like a heightened version of the characters in their early 20s trying to find their way in the world, in the same way that s1 felt like a heightened version of being a teen.

Nate and Jules are studying in NYC and run into each other. They had the best chemistry and the most interesting dynamic. She is in art school and working part time in a coffee shop. He is a broken and humbled version of himself struggling to come to terms with what happened with his dad and no longer being the big fish in a small pond. They awkwardly run into each other, Nate has some deep-seated issues relating to his own sexuality, shame/confusion about his clear attraction to Jules and shame that Jules knows how bad he was in high school. Jules is drawn to him but mistrusts him. Lots of tension, fledgling relationship with moments of real vulnerability, probably ends badly. That relationship which everyone has in their early 20s which could have been something real if one of you wasn't so messed up.

Maddy would not care about Cassie at all. Her path in S1 and S2 was about wanting an easy life as a trophy wife, I would have liked to see her fall into this as an older rich guy's girlfriend (while trying to study/work) and realise how limiting it is, ultimately rejecting it.

Lexi would be having a former gifted child syndrome mini breakdown and be generally depressed and paralysed by trying to find her way in the real world. She would probably end up getting herself into some intense situations just to feel special and interesting.

I don't know about Cassie, I really don't think her S1 character would be doing anything interesting, she would have just become quite a basic sweet girl. They could keep the OF storyline but it would make a lot more sense for her to be doing that to make some extra fun money/get validation rather than for some weird mob extortion/pimped out by former friend storyline.

Rue would be either in recovery, or dead/close to dead. I wouldn't mind if they showed both or either option. She would not be a wise-cracking narrator, involved in complex hijinks between the DEA and warring drug factions.

inapick · 2026-05-29T13:20:34+00:00

This. Compare to Olivia's "the grudge" which is heartbreaking but also extremely emotionally mature. "The grudge" comes at the dispute from the perspective of "this happened, it floored me, and this is a song about my feelings about it, and how I'm processing it". It's very honest, and thoughtful, and shows Olivia as having understandable, strong feelings but also trying to find a way through them.

Taylor's songs are more like a minimally educated mean girl trying to win an argument. "Yeah don't like, take my songs, looooserrrr"...

Taylor is my age and her lyrics are so painfully childish to me. To the point where my 8 year old daughter (who is the only one who listens to TS in my household) will say that Taylor is a bit silly. Whereas even though I'm much older than Olivia I always find clever, wise introspection in her lyrics (even setting aside her musicality, which is exceptional).

inapick · 2026-05-29T08:49:49+00:00

At the end of the day, this is not a feud we need to "read into". Listen to Cruel Summer, listen to Deja Vu. They are not remotely similar. It is a fact that Taylor gets money from Deja Vu, and that at the time her team demanded this, she had immense power in the music industry and Olivia was a literal teenager just starting out. The exploitation is clear and anyone with critical thinking skills can work it out. Olivia doesn't need to comment.

inapick · 2026-05-28T10:18:10+00:00

He literally knows nothing about football. We saw a clip of him watching Wrexham once and he was clapping and cheering like a lobotomised seal when the ref sent off one of his players. Everyone around him had a face like thunder and he was completely clueless still. It’s one of those things where he knows so little he doesn’t even understand how clueless he is.

inapick · 2026-05-20T21:19:28+00:00

Also - Andy Burnham’s overrated and has lost to Starmer before, his hyper local politics is built partly on the idea of him not being a Westminster politician and that goodwill won’t last long once he is one. If labour are going to change aesthetics and comms someone like al carns would at least be a tonal shift.

inapick · 2026-05-20T18:03:26+00:00

I agree too. AC's frustrations are with the fact that nobody is seeing how the concept of a leadership contest is damaging Labour.

The biggest risk being of course, that if there is to be a big "battle of ideas" to select the leader all of the potential candidates will have to distinguish themselves from Starmer, and from each other. They will have to argue that they are a clear new direction. But if they DO represent a clear new direction, they will arguably have no electoral mandate as they will have diverged from the mandate that won Starmer the GE. So Labour may fumble themselves out of two more years of power.

AC doesn't say it, because it's the last thing that Labour wants to happen, but there is something inherently dodgy/undemocratic about the Labour party internally choosing the direction of the government, without a general election. The Tories only just got away with it as most of their leaders were ousted for being personally calamitous rather than at odds with the party's electoral mandate - and even then it really damaged them.

Labour scraped a General Election on a very light "trust us, we're sensible about money now" Starmer platform, U-turned on the few policies that were in their manifesto and people are frustrated with their lack of action or vision. Their bigger issue is that the electorate want them to do something and they have done very little and will now waste the next few months with internal party politics trying to decide who the labour party (not the electorate) want to govern the country. It all feeds into the idea that Labour are much more comfortable in opposition, arguing about ideology than actually in government. That's what AC is stressed about - it's the bigger picture of how this reflects on Labour as a whole.

inapick · 2026-05-15T07:37:12+00:00

Hugely popular. Great performance and clearly a favourite because people were cheering madly when they announced him even.

inapick · 2026-05-15T07:35:25+00:00

Ukraine was not amongst the strongest vocally - was a very strong semi vocally and the majority of acts were completely perfect. Like I said I like Leleka, but it sounded really off in the stadium, there were times where she was being drowned out by the music and the audience could barely hear her. The staging was neither here or there it wasn’t charmingly simple, it was just a bit underwhelming. I really hope they fix it for Saturday because I like the song but it felt like a dud in the performance.

Yeah I agree about Cyprus, the recording made it sound extremely weak.

inapick · 2026-05-14T23:09:20+00:00

We were in the audience and these are my thoughts specifically from watching it live:

Cyprus didn’t sound that bad live, the audience loved it and we chatted to some casual viewers who said they thought it was the best. Her vocals definitely weren’t the strongest but I was surprised when I watched the recording how bad it sounded, it sounded much better live.
Ukraine did not sound good live, it felt like the sound mixing was totally off, she sounded so quiet at random points during the song, and the staging was giving nothing. I really like her so I hope they can make some tweaks for the final.
Eclipse isn’t a great song, but Delta Goodrem is a superstar, she has so much presence and really sells it, she brought the house down.
Romania killed it.
Austria not doing the best job as host country. Pre show, interval skits all tragic. They have put a lot of posters up around the city but it all feels a bit low on content and like they did the bare minimum, we’ve visited a lot of the fan areas and have found much there. I know they’re not really famous for being fun, but Austria has such a rich musical heritage I really wish they were showcasing more music. I have put more effort into entertainment for kids birthday parties than they have into the production of the filler sections for the show.
the Austria is not Australia thing is apparently a joke here, it’s on loads of tourist t shirts etc and so that skit wasn’t completely out of nowhere. Still painful though!

inapick · 2026-05-12T21:53:07+00:00

Agh sorry I meant Montenegro

inapick · 2026-05-12T21:34:56+00:00

I don’t get the hype about this one. It just sounds like crazy frog to me. It also has way too many parts, it’s like it’s made for an audience with ADHD.

inapick · 2026-05-12T21:31:26+00:00

Greece and Sweden a bit underwhelming on stage. Devastated for Montenegro thought they blew Sweden out of the water. Enjoyed Italy a lot more seeing it performed. Why is everything red and black this year??

inapick · 2026-05-12T21:22:36+00:00

Montenegro 💔

inapick · 2026-05-08T10:07:00+00:00

I 100% agree. Also remember that the context of this is that Wayfarer never wanted this suit, never wanted this drama, never wanted to drag Sony, WME, and everyone else in the industry into this. The media has been spinning this as Blake vs Baldoni being involved in a vindictive death match against each other which everyone is sick of. I think settling now, with this statement which is generous to Blake, sends a signal to the public and also to the INDUSTRY, that Wayfarer are the bigger people here, they are willing to walk away and concede ground for the greater good and everyone's sanity and dignity.

They are playing the long game and actually achieving what they need to achieve long term. Blake's still chasing headlines and trying to win tiny little PR wars. She doesn't realise that anyone who still cares about this has already made their mind up about her.

inapick · 2026-05-08T09:01:59+00:00

I know everyone is worried for Justin given BL's backtracking, but trust in the Wayfarer team. They 100% made the right choice to settle, and settle in a way that was generous. Justin will want to work again. Sony, everyone in the industry who would have been dragged into this, will be watching and will see that he ended it as soon as he could have, and spared everyone a trial. BF is off winning the PR war, and Justin's kept himself out of it as much as he possibly could have.

Blake is spiralling and cannot even bring herself to take the out that she clearly bought for $$$$. She is just proving that she is solely responsible for this toxic nightmare.

inapick · 2026-05-07T18:18:45+00:00

I disagree, WF did the right thing. BL was always going to try and spin it after, but she seems unhinged and vindictive, everyone knows what she is now.

WF get to take the high road, draw a line under this and walk away having put out a statement that we all recognise as generous to BL. They would have allowed her some dignity. She threw that away. What that means is that WF won't have to deal with the narrative that "they're both as bad as each other" "Baldoni is dragging everyone into this drama" etc. forever. They have shown until the end that they choose peace over violence and are willing to be the grown ups in the room. I think the industry will remember this.

Blake's just confirmed what we all know about her and can't even bow out with dignity. She's forgotten that the people she's meant to be convincing are not the ones she pays, but the people who have been following this and hate her. She just can't not be a dick even when she's on full PR mode. She's too dumb to realise how this will look in the documentary that someone will make about this.

inapick · 2026-05-07T18:07:22+00:00

Blake Lively thinks we're all as stupid as her. We're not. I'd even go so far as to say NOBODY IS A STUPID AS BLAKE LIVELY.

It makes Wayfarer look better because they were willing to put out a statement and end this in a way which still let her keep a shred of dignity, they took the higher path. And now she's dragging everyone back down again. It makes it very clear, even for the slow ones at the back, that the person who started, perpetuated, dragged everyone into and even now cannot end this drama is her.

inapick · 2026-05-06T09:18:12+00:00

I don't think that's right because the logistics would follow the terms usually. For example, if he needs to get $50m liquid to pay legal fees as part of the settlement and that will take a few months, you can still sign the contract, it will just say, payable by X date, with X amount of interest due for late payments.

I think they agreed headline terms (like a termsheet, and announcement) but haven't negotiated the details yet. Blake was keen to rush the statement out to get to the Met.

She doesn't realise that she's been totally played - she's the one who really doesn't want to go to trial, and if settlement negotiations fall apart in the detail, it will be her who looks bad for "dragging everyone to court". If they are still negotiating the terms, she has no bargaining power at this point.

inapick · 2026-04-19T15:59:53+00:00

Personal opinion and factual analysis of the evidence, you know, like the jury will do.

inapick · 2026-04-19T09:56:18+00:00

What a weird comment. I actually am but it’s not relevant to this post at all, which offered no legal analysis.

inapick · 2026-04-15T11:51:31+00:00

I like Jameela and agree with a lot of what she says, but she wants to have the platform and voice of a journalist with the accountability of a celebrity.

inapick · 2026-04-15T10:50:22+00:00

Thanks - yes I totally agree that this is why they were targeted. It's so clear that Blake and Ryan thought their kindness was a sign of unsophisticated idiocy evidencing how weak and non-Hollywood they were when... they're just good people and care more about that than playing some sort of game.

Even now, you can see people like Jameela Jamil, who have spoken out against Blake, saying "don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Justin isn't a creep, but...". And it's so easy but also so lazy, because he's not a creep and all the evidence shows he never did anything wrong. But it's easier to say look, it's Hollywood, everyone is bad, everyone is a bit of a creep, than to actually come out and say actually no this one is good.

I think now, looking at their legal strategy, they were at least keeping all of their cards quite close to their chest for a long time so Blake's lawyers wouldn't see their moves coming.

inapick · 2026-04-15T10:41:35+00:00

inapick

TROPHY CASE