The format always functioned better as TV than as a game, and the strength of the show will be how it manages that - the Secret Traitor goes some way to try and balance things, but introduces new problems. I wonder if we get more adjustments as this series goes on.

At the risk of vaguely doxxing myself, I recently moved to an area of South East London named the Corbett Estate; Archibald Corbett was one of those high-minded Victorian developer-philanthropists - he ensured livable homes and affordable rail travel for his tenants, on the proviso that nothing...

We don't hear nearly enough about Shakespeare's other sons, Macneth and The Nerchant of Venice.

@andrewgrumbridge.bsky.social - I have left a packet of crisps for you behind the bar with Rosie

You can tell how poor media literacy is now; I keep seeing people argue that the last series of Stranger Things is bad because it didn't confirm their pet fan theories or ships, rather than arguing that it's bad because it's a bloated, overwritten mess the writers lost the thread of years ago.

TV editing is a harsh mistress, but it never ceases to amaze me how early into Traitors people seem to forget how Traitors works. Yes, it's odd that two people knew each other outside of the game. But unless someone can explain exactly *how* that translates to them being traitors, it's meaningless.

At least we don’t live in a world of staggering class disparity in which a tech magnate attempts to quash left-wing sentiment using sexualized artificial intelligence!

A museum piece.

Every year chocolates get smaller and more expensive. Extrapolating backwards, in 1906 a Creme Egg would have been the size of Rochester Cathedral and they would have paid you 12 guineas to eat it.

I'm gonna keep on dancing at the

If you read twitter backwards it's about nazi pedophiles trapping Stephen fry in a lift

It normally takes me a few episodes to get into The Traitors, but I do enjoy guessing which of the dull pricks convinced that they have supernatural powers of deception is going to get voted off immediately.

Okay, might as well get this started. It's January 1, which means, as I'm sure you all know, that there's a whole new bunch of characters who have entered the public domain. This time around, it's characters created in 1930. The following is a list of pulp & pulpy characters now in the p.d. 1/

Starting a new thread in the Public Domain Characters of 1930 sequence of posts. HC Bailey's Joshua Clunk: 12 novels 1930-1950 beginning with GARSTONS. Joshua Clunk is the most crooked and amoral lawyer in England. He is the lawyer that the worst criminals hire, knowing that he will get them off.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO HORSES! IT IS HORSE BIRTHDAY! HORSE!!!!!

"Fuck the big three" would be a much more impactful promo line if anyone had ever actually called Joe, Swerve and Hangman that Otherwise, that promo was a patchwork of clichés, culminating in one of my least favourite things in TV wrestling - wrestlers having to react to a pre-tape on a big screen.

Here's (most of) what I read in 2025.

It felt like the kind of "progressive patriotism" that Labour occasionally bang on about; several cuts above Keir Starmer claiming to always fly the flag at home, but it still didn't land. Probably because it's a load of bollocks not worth engaging with.

BBC 1 looks like a Cody Rhodes WrestleMania entrance.

The fact that the very first VU review ever in print is from a column called “Teen Talk” and the headline is “Blobs and Blurbs” is providing me with the delighted, peaceful feeling I require to walk into 2026 with.

I finally picked up this book - in good nick, and signed by the great man himself - and am thoroughly enjoying it; it's from 1967, so it's fascinating to see which wrestlers are deemed worthy of discussion from way back then, and in what light. Some superb photos too, might do a thread on them.

Oh hai #WrestleSky #WRESTLEQUEENDOM 8 ANNOUNCEMENT Making their EVE debut at WrestleQueendom weekend @indigoatTheO2 , London, #STARDOM's The High Speed Genius - AZM!! Tickets EVEwrestling.com & AXS.com

What was your biggest impact on the Internet?

great news everyone, I went back to the antique store to buy the cookbook and the directions for opening an egg from page 34 are even more unhinged than I could have imagined

I wrote about why people focus on wrestling moves being more dangerous than ever while ignoring all the things that have changed in the industry that have made it safer.

Look at this pic of Roxy Music:

I don't do resolutions, but I try and close out the year by being reflective, then looking to the year to come. So, if you'll indulge me, I will start as I tend to do with some of my favourite media of the year. As usual, I've watched precious few new films this year. Sinners was my favourite.

I saw AAA had uploaded the Wyatt Sicks vs Psycho Circus match to YouTube, & a few seconds into the Wyatts' entrance genuinely had to back out & make sure I wasn't watching a WWE 2K25 sim by mistake, the production was so generically WWE gloss, & that game is my only real context for these Wyatts.

Bumped into a Cheeky Girl walking out of a pub.

Bloke just walked into the pub, bleach blonde mullet & black Fu Manchu 'tache. I turn to my mates & say, "fucking hell, I can't believe we've got an unironic Joe Exotic in here!" Moments later, he walks up to another friend at the bar and hugs him. Excuse me while I leave and never come back.

Don't show this to Bill Regal.

just emailed all my colleagues but instead of attaching the correct file with the pertinent details i seem to have sent all twenty of them this image of robin gibb:

At 56 years old, The Great Sasuke did one of the most insane spots of the year.

That Asterix characters' names both function as puns *and* fit standard naming conventions in every language is an absolute masterwork of translation. That Idéfix retained its meaning *and* gained an additional pun in becoming Dogmatix is just showing off.

🤼Victor Zangiev demonstrates the most perfect belly to belly suplex you'll ever see

During the filming of Dr. Phibes Rises Again, Robert Quarry began singing opera. He turned to Vincent Price and said, "you didn't know I could sing, did you?" To which Vincent replied, "well I knew you couldn't fucking act!"

Imagine Scooby Doo saying "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori". It would be terrible. In fact, I don't think that Scooby Doo should read any war poems out loud. He can respect the fallen in other ways.

What's interesting to me is that there has been a movement among some of the longer standing UK Neo-Nazi groups to embrace Islam, as they find common cause in extremist Islam groups, while Robinson et al require Islamophobia as the entry point to their belief structure. While there is a history of..

There's a lot of weirdness around World's End, but one that only just occurred to me is that it's not a good sign that one PPV after crowning the first National Champion, neither the champion nor the championship even made it on to the card.

I knew a guy, a genius, great musician, one of the funniest people I ever met, and one of the biggest piss artists. He told me that he really wanted to get up on stage at a festival, take a massive run up, & punch himself hard in the balls. Sad that technology robs work from our best & brightest.

My clumsy armchair sociology is that lockdown and the associated networks of conspiracy theories and radicalising groups absolutely fucked what's left of the social contract - when people saw doing the bare minimum to protect others in a pandemic as an attack on their person, then you can hardly...

This book (minus dust cover) was, alongside the prerequisite Beano and Dandy annuals and Guinness Books of Records, my origin story- I read it obsessively in my primary school library, and was the only kid in *decades* to take it out. The school gave me it when I left, and I still own it.

I haven't played Skate Story yet, but "you want to eat the Moon" is as good an inciting incident as any plot in any medium ever.

Per Craig Ferguson: When you're about to say something, ask yourself 1. Does this need to be said 2. Does this need to be said by me 3. Does this need to be said by me right now It's amazing how asking these will get keep you out of trouble (that is, if you actually have sense to begin with)

Can’t get over how much this looks like Sin City

skeletor rigby

This is a really good point that I had not run into before: these "creators" have no further insight into their alleged creation than the average audience member and that is why it cannot be called art (besides all the other obvious reasons).

Oh Hai #WrestleSky Making their EVE debut at #WrestleQueendom 8 on Sunday March 8 at The Indigo at The O2, one half of the AEW World Tag Team Champions, it's HARLEY CAMERON! Tickets available at axs.com/uk/events/12... Watch EVE Live or Anytime on YouTube at youtube.com/prowrestlingeve

i had to drop what i was doing to make this

SCROOGE: you there! what day is today? BOY: today? it's Christmas Day SCROOGE: the spirits did it all in one night! BOY: NINETEEN SEVENTY THREE [Life on Mars plays, a Ford Cortina suddenly crashes into Scrooge's front room] GENE HUNT: OI, DI Scrooge, get in, we've got a nonce in Didsbury to bust