BFTD

Has been since the credit crunch. The people who put the money up to make films do so on the understanding that they'll make a worthwhile profit, not on whether something entertaining or worthwhile will be made, and they're still gambling on safe bets. People like to say that nobody has any ideas anymore, but it's all about risk aversion. I'd guess we'll see that change fairly soon, considering that more and more of the $300m franchise films have been losing money of late. The theory used to be that it was virtually impossible for a film to lose money past a certain budget, but that's been blown out of the water well and truly. The industry no longer has the huge DVD market to shore up disappointing box office now either, which is why they're all desperate to establish their own subscription services, which is pushing people back towards piracy again... It's not a working model anymore and we'll probably see a trend back to smaller films that do something different, both in public tastes and investment. Or maybe in ten years TikTok will have killed all forms of entertainment longer than 30 seconds.

It'll likely just be Barbie mixed with The Matrix. You can see how it could work. Plus, it's one of the biggest game franchises ever, played by people who don't even play computer games, and owned by a company so rapacious they've fought tooth and nail for their right to market gambling to children. It's amazing it's taken this long; we'd have a Shower with your Dad Simulator film by now if it'd been owned by EA and made billions of dollars. The weirdest might be Blubberella; notoriously awful filmmaker Uwe Boll making several Bloodrayne adaptions, then following them up with a shot-by-shot spoof with the same cast, only replacing the gorgeous, pouting, bustier-clad main character with a fat bird. And they say ze Germans have no sense of humour.

It's quite amusing to see everyone in the world clearly waiting for the mad South African to leave so things can go back to normal. Absolutely nobody outside of broadcasting refers to the site as anything other than Twitter, and nobody refers to posts on it as anything other than "tweets".

Tremendous. More of this sort of thing. Love the daft Death Metal logos. Hope Party Cannon enjoyed sharing a stage with...Spastic Cauldron? Wolf King and No Altars really letting the side down there; no wonder they're at the bottom of the bill.

Both Stenny and Elgin on a bizarre run of draws; neither club with anything to play for. If Clyde can play out a goalless draw, they'll likely be safe. Stranraer would need to put at least three past the champions and they've scored fewer goals than Edinburgh City. It's not looking good.

I think it comes down to, "I really, really, really wish someone would be offended by me like I read about on the internet". Probably more about attention than actual beliefs. Someone needs to come out with a straight-faced range featuring those kinds of try-hard tough guy slogans, only with the kind of art that would cause conniptions, like those Death Metal shirts with rainbows and happy bunnies. Not like being mocked would cause offence or anything.

That looks ridiculously cheap. Quite tempted. I love China's total lack of caring about piracy. I bought my mum a portable DVD player off Amazon 5-10 years ago, and noticed that it came with a dinky game controller. Turned out that it included every single NES game and an emulator on a hardwired ROM chip. Didn't even bother including it on the listing; it was just there, like "well, obviously this electronic device comes with thousands of pirated games from the Eighties, just like our new line of hairdryers".

The Illinois Enema Bandit The Man Who Would Be King

Abject laziness, or a complete lack of confidence in his own ability to find alternative employment? Apparently he was a gynaecologist before becoming an MP. Fill yer boots.

The general impression you get is that, while they may have been a subscriber for 50-odd years, they'd never actually read any issues until the one that caused offence.

Fucking typical that ze Germans appear to have gone from being their worst side in a literal lifetime to beating the French twice within a few months. Might have to settle for a draw from that one, lads.

Interesting that ICT might get relegated with a positive goal difference if they can beat Morton. Well, I find it interesting, at least. League Two ought to be ashamed that they've allowed Clyde to recover. I'm a bit surprised that we look like losing Stranraer, as I've always thought of them as a third tier club, but they've gradually been circling the drain for about five years now. The Lowland League's really developing a scary look for League Two clubs. Edit: just noticed that this looks like being the eighth season in a row that Stranraer have finished in a lower position than the previous one.

I think the answer's generally because they're hoping to have an argument with somebody, like most of the maskless roasters during the pandemic. The original version of that design definitely had an American fleg on it. What's up with these right-wing shirts all having a manifesto printed on? Some of them are longer than a restaurant menu but can be summarised as "VIOLENT BUT FEARTY". Things like this tragic Boomer shit. They all seem to use a load of different fonts too, and you'd think the auld c***s would want them as easy to read as possible at their age.

Cobain would've required the rest of the band to go along with it, like the Beatles, and Courtney Love is hardly a reliable accomplice. Winehouse was such an infamous mess that the press probably knew she'd died before the medics arrived. Lavigne was probably murdered because she was about to tell everyone what she knew about the Moon Landings.

Neither would've made it over the threshold, by God!

A good indicator of someone's value to independence is how many staunch Unionists proclaim "I don't agree with their politics, but I have a lot of time for <x>". It seems to be the equivalent of P&B being delighted by the idea of Liz Truss becoming Prime Minister.

Well, it's not like this is traditional media stuff anyway - it's all social media internet shite. I suppose it depends on whether 1960s Twitter would have been full of people moaning about male actors trying to sound detached and cool; I've never seen any boomers including it in their big bundle of annoyances, but maybe it's just because everything in the past was great. There are plenty of men who still do it too, but it only seems to annoy people when women do it. I've no doubt that social media from the past would've been just as horrific as now, and just as popular. My gran knew all about the supposed Hollywood goings-on of Clara Bow and Fatty Arbuckle from her crofter's house in Perthshire, for example, and she wasn't even a gossipy woman.

I accidentally picked that up after spending some time in the Southwest and, like, I've been secretly hoping someone would kill me for it ever since. I, like, like how the American stereotype of Californians seemed to be more about how they're mentally handicapped and obsessed with traffic.

Labour and the Conservatives would absolutely enter some kind of Holyrood coalition in the name of ending the evil Nationalist threat. I'm surprised anyone thinks otherwise. As little as twenty years ago there may still have been ideological differences, but what would be the big disagreement be that they couldn't resolve? I'm sure Labour would even allow wee DRoss a few measures to discriminate against those pesky travellers. Scottish Labour are still so fizzing about the SNP taking over "their" country region that common sense isn't much of a factor. We'll come back to them on their terms, or not at all. It'll almost certainly never happen because there'll always be the Lib Dems or similar to make up the required numbers, but nowadays if it was necessary to stop an SNP administration, they'd absolutely feel justified in going into government with the Conservatives.

I think I'd put Kylie above Madonna now in terms of career. Twenty-odd years ago it wouldn't even have been a comparison. I was in the States when the tiny Antipodean had her breakthrough there with Can't Get You Out Of My Head, and I was shocked to see/hear her; frankly, I thought she was probably done as a big star in the UK too, as I hadn't heard anything from her since Confide in Me. Madonna was obviously more of a trendsetter, but those days are long gone. They've both got incredible greatest hits catalogues now though, so there's probably not much in it. My Madonna Best Of album would even include popular songs that people seem to have turned against like Hanky Panky, Dear Jessie, and Human Nature, so she's got some amount of songs to choose from. Obviously they both put on a hell of a show.

Yeah, it was a big non-news news story a few years back - the Kardashians were getting the blame at the time but, as you say, it's been around for a while. I think it's the Californian Valley Girl thing. I saw a video a while back about how it used to be the thing men did who were trying to be effortlessly masculine (Connery, as you say, who picked it up from Ian Fleming himself, and it was almost ubiquitous with men who wanted to give the impression of being in charge without having to give a damn). Nobody appears to have given a shit about it then, but it's only when women started doing the same thing that it made people really annoyed by their perceived couldn't-care-less attitude. There's definitely a double standard at play. Frankly, if I was as wealthy as the Kardashians without having to do any kind of actual work, I'd go beyond lazy vocal affectations and just pay someone else to speak on my behalf.

I'm going with an incorrect reply address on the SFA emails, nobody checking the default SFA email address they ended up at, Buckie not wondering why they got no confirmation, and someone at the SFA seething about having been dingyed and pulling the trigger early in a fit of pique. There may also have been a mix-up centring around a picture of the Fallen Madonna with ze Big Boobies.

We need a poll on whether it's the SFA or Buckie who are more likely to have fucked up here. Buckie claiming they've been responding to the SFA and were told the licencing decision wouldn't be taken 'til the 15th, while the SFA say they've heard nothing from them. Nobody would be surprised if somehow both proved to be true. Scottish football, eh?

Buckie daring to beat a weak side heavily on purpose, by God, the very thought! Clearly Brechin had no way of knowing that goal difference might be an issue this season, considering the pair only lost four games between them last term. Next season will be #4 in the Highland League - the parachute payments have finished and, if the Lowland League is anything to go by, this is where the gentle slide down the table begins. Presumably that's what's fuelled this heads gone.