MonkeyTennis?

I There are loads I would recommend (The Institute, Bag of Bones, Mr Mercedes, Billy Summers are all good, relatively recent jumping off points, and all quite different) - however, I would say, try his short story collection You Like it Darker, and turn to 'Danny Coughlin's Bad Dream' which is a novella about a guy who dreams about a crime, and what happens when he tries to report it. I just couldn't put it down.

Digger, with Tom Cruise, is way better than the reviews suggest.

We've been having a bit of a LA noir movie season at my house. Watched Nightcrawler at the weekend, and agree its worth watching but not perfect. The highlight so far has been Collateral - even better then I remembered and it still looks amazing.

Our Man in Havana is good, but it's more a sleazy satire than a proper spy novel. It's the Greene book I like the best. The End of the Affair is clever (it's about an affair, but also about our relationship with God) but perhaps not a huge amount of fun. For a really old school spy novel, Eric Ambler's The Mask of Dimitrios is a banger. The inspiration for Le Carre's stuff, I think.

Some potentially good people on this series but it's really weak again, just like the last series was as well. I'm starting to think this is done now. Tasks are too weird, the patter is tired. A shame.

Well, I think the underlying assumptions here that 1) the public don't want to shift to a zero carbon economy and, 2) doing so is a risk to national security, are both false. I think if you look around people are buying electric cars and getting solar panels fitted in droves because it is so economical. Frankly, I regret that I bought a petrol car last year and that I don't have much roof space, because I see friends selling energy back to the grid and running their cars for pennies. If this is 'net-stupid-zero', bring it on. Then I know a few people who work in this sector and they are largely running local businesses installing solar panels etc. That is clearly good for the economy and employment more generally, but also it totally increases our energy security at a personal and national level. And then I think even the most sceptical people look at the summer just gone, and the fact that it is 25 effing degrees today, in September, and think, maybe we don't need to be burning that oil.

I see, but even the atomic bomb was developed to bomb other nations. It served a function, however terrible, that people could understand. Whats the stated functional objective or purpose of AI? (And, IMO, its pretty nuts that the closest technological comparison that comes to mind is nuclear weapons!!) If its 'to gain power' (which I suspect it may be) that's scary - but power by doing what? Power how?

The things I don't get is, what's the endgame that these AI companies are working towards? What do they think or hope it will do? Most technological developments throughout history were trying to solve a problem or achieve a specific goal (even if they end up serving a completely different purpose). With AI we get some weird pronouncements about how it could cure diseases and solve maths problems, but we also hear lots of stuff about it circumventing cyber security, requiring crazy resources, stealing jobs, designing bioweapons, driving people mad. So what's the vision? Is there a positive future that people are trying to realise by advancing develpment of AI? I find it genuinely strange that this technology is coming into being without any clearly defined or discussed purpose.

I have some disturbing news about the vast continent of Greenland...

If you are not able to see it in 70mm IMAX (and who is, really, in the UK, with so few screens?), I would say that Xplus at Showcase is a strong alternative. The screen is nice and big, but the sound is pretty much the best I have ever encountered. Xplus is certainly as good as digital IMAX (I saw Interstellar in various formats, including at the BFI IMAX, but Xplus worked best). Personally I thought The Odyssey was a total masterpiece.

Eh? He's going to resign from his job, then stand again for the same job? What?

I think it's because 'Labour will raise taxes' was (and has always been) a key Tory attack line, and much of the election was fought over cost-of-living concerns, so promising not to raise income taxes and prioritising growth were both ways that Labour sought to reassure centrist type voters. I think Starmer has been alright (yeah, I know, one for the unpopular opinions thread) but I agree this was a key error: By backing themselves into a corner over income tax, they've ended up increasing taxes on business, which makes the growth they wanted harder to realise. Perhaps Burnham can find a way round it?

I travel into Leicester almost every day on that line. The new Aurora trains EMR have been rolling out have loads of electrical issues and keep breaking down. It's one of them involved, so it could possibly be a fault. Awful.

Oddly enough its such an unedifying shambles that I think Starmer has come out of this looking better than any of the alternatives (Appreciate that may not be the majority view!)

https://youtu.be/f_bKjZeJBBI?si=YIVkX_mCaD_ZKsFO I am looking forward to The Odyssey but I'm not sure about the thick New York/Boston accents everyone seems to have in this new trailer. What's that about?

New York Times reporting that the deal on the table includes an agreement that Iran would charge $2 million per ship passing through the Hormuz strait, which would then fund reconstruction.

If it helps I had exactly the same last summer. They were very good at the hospital and I got the results (benign, thankfully) in a week or two. Its a human and AI process, and was actually very reassuring. Hopefully you will get the same.

Of course. Wherever we end up, the manager is not the issue.

I'm playing Marathon, but I have never played an extraction shooter or Destiny so its totally new to me. I'm enjoying it a lot but I have to say that I'm fairly useless at it. I pity the randoms who get matchmade with me and have to watch me blundering into gunfire over and over again.

If you haven't been to the states for a while, or NYC in particular, my main advice is: adjust your expectation for how much everything is going to cost.

Marty Supreme is an amazing experience, hands down the best film I've seen in years.

Sort of. As a supporter, the PL and FA Cup wins stand as amazing accomplishments, and no-one can take them away from us. They're not tainted. But those moments could have meant that we were on our way to establishing ourselves as a bigger presence in UK football. There was an opportunity to grow the fanbase, improve the stadium, work with bigger and better commercial partners, etc. None of these were guaranteed and in some ways they might be considered distractions, but they matter commercially, they matter for the city, they matter for the future of the club. Frankly, they matter for the pride of the fanbase too. Instead, due to unbelievable mismanagement in my opinion, we have returned to being a small club that had a brief period of good fortune, before retreating back to the lower leagues, BC Game, financial mismanagement, dreadful scouting etc. That doesn't detract from our successes, but its also a shame.

I could not have enjoyed Predator Badlands more. An absolute banger, and a particular treat for anyone who grew up loving Predator and Aliens. Its somehow more badass than the original but funny and heartwarming at the same time, which was totally unexpected. It also has the hardest 12A rating ever - kids, prepare yourself for a lot of beheadings.

Alongside all the other stuff, I just do not understand the vehement hatred of Starmer. He's a fairly uninspiring technocrat who has a habit of picking the wrong battles, and his government are obviously struggling to actually deliver the change they promised, which is disappointing, but I'm struggling to see what he's done that has made the right so angry.

Also, its v annoying that they have let the seating row lettering wear away in various places, hence its constantly 'You're in my seat, 'This is R, you want T,' etc, for the first ten minutes of every game. It would take two days to do over the summer, but nope, nothing. Not a big thing on anyone's radar, obviously, but a sign of disinterest in the basics IMO.