Malazan Empire: TheRetiredBridgeburner - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

Taken up earbook more recently, and finished a couple:

Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart. Read by the author, it's a very good listen, aside from routinely making your despair/rage in equal measure about the state of UK politics. There are definitely people in Westminster who will never speak to Stewart again, but I never felt it comes over as an attack piece and Stewart is self-deprecating enough about his own mistakes and naivete in his career that it doesn't feel like a blind "everyone is wrong but me" at any point. Thanks for the recommendation, Tiste!

Towers of Midnight. Had a long break from listening to Wheel of Time but finished this one this week. More enjoyable than I remembered, except I still cringe every time Mat ventures any opinion about women. If there's one criticism I could make of Sanderson, he could have toned down the sexist nonsense without losing the characters, but he runs right on with it. Otherwise, he's a vast improvement over the last couple of Robert Jordan books in particular.

An hour or so into Memory of Light now, and I seem to remember actually really enjoying it when I read it on release. We shall see!

Non-earbook I'm about half way through Becky Chambers' A Psalm for the Wild Built. It's very her, and it's lovely. A shame it's only short.

I bought Mr NAB an archery beginner's course for his birthday (we'd talked about giving it a proper go after moving).

We both passed the course on Wednesday evening, so can now join the club and be insured. We have an appointment to go bow shopping tomorrow morning. I'm so excited!

Southgate's statement was exactly what I expected, thoroughly decent and thanking all the people behind the scenes. I might not have understood all his decisions but I always liked him, he seemed a genuinely decent man and he's dealt with an awful lot of nonsense in his tenure beyond the usual online vitriol. Remember when Boris Johnson thought it was a good idea to fight Marcus Rashford and denounce the England team for taking the knee before their matches?

Picked up yesterday on some accusations of sexual assault against Neil Gaiman, one recent and one around 20 years ago. There's also a quote which I can't corroborate doing the rounds that when one of the victims approached his ex-wife Amanda Palmer with her story, Palmer claimed she was the 14th woman to have approached her. The timing of the most recent accusation seems to sit neatly with when the two got divorced also.

For the sake of balance, the original story seems to have come from a heftily right-wing podcast which I hadn't heard of (Tortoise) but who apparently don't have the best record for verifying the things they post, and one of the presenters is Boris Johnson's sister, of all people.

Mezla PigDog, on 09 July 2024 - 09:34 PM, said:

Same. It feels like actual adults in charge, and it's such a treat!

Further to Tiste's comments above, I'm about halfway through Rory Stewart's book. Yes, it will make you very mad about the state of Westminster and the culture therein, but it's also a really good listen and I'm enjoying it.