Eloise's Thoughts and Fancies

I’m going to return to a more normal review format this week. New Zealand v England Although this game remained close, probably uncomfortably close if you’re a Kiwi, the step up in most areas from the All Blacks was noticeable and it felt as if England were never really at the races. England scored two very nice tries, using the same shtick twice. Once the fullback and one wing were trapped in a ruck on one five metre line and there’s a dubious argument that DMac didn’t cover across for Perofeta fast enough, Telea was a bit narrow; whatever you think, England exploited that very quickly. (You can also argue Telea was properly staying connected to Ioane and DMac would have struggled to get across any faster.) Kudos to England for noticing and exploiting the situation but how often does it crop up? The second time, England kept the ball for enough phases that the defensive line contracted and again they exploited it. I don’t know whether the Kiwis just told their wingers to stay really...

I’ll be honest, normally I wouldn’t have watched Unfrosted . It had vaguely crossed my attention when it first dropped but failed to really register. But when the Discord mob said “shall we have a watch along, this is the movie?” I said yes; I’m not a complete misanthrope. Until we talked about what the film was about, I didn’t realise that I had heard of it, it made that much of an impression! The film is based around a largely true story of the battle between Kellog's and Post to bring Pop-Tarts to the marketplace. What we see is nothing like the true history, instead it’s a lightning fast comedy that very much throws everything at the wall hoping that enough jokes land for you to carry you over the ones that don’t. All of us laughed enough that we have no regrets about watching it. We tended to laugh at the same things so we could have had a better, more focused, film that would have kept us laughing more. That said, for all we’re discord friends and while most of us have never...

Rather than writing a normal match by match review, I’m going to do something new. Because this is the first set of internationals for the Southern Hemisphere sides after the World Cup, while the Northern Hemisphere sides have played the Six Nations, it’s possible to frame this as the new versus the old, or at least the less new. Some of that framing doesn’t hold up to well: Wales are currently constantly new as the changes in the funding models work through and change the personnel, with four debutants in their lineup and a tight five that had fewer caps than just one Australian prop. France took a massively inexperienced side, with eight debutants starting. But the Irish and English had reasonably established sides and all the NH sides had established coaching teams at least. For the SH hemisphere sides there were changes in personnel, with retirements/players going overseas, changes in coaches, changes in tactics and the first time playing together in seven months. Most clear wit...

The headline is a historic Labour victory, with a majority of just under 300, and the lowest number of Tory MPs ever. Given the size of the Tory majority in 2019 this result is unprecedented: normally large majorities are chipped away over time; the predictions back then were that Johnson could be PM into the 2030’s and looking just at the numbers that wasn’t unreasonable. (It’s easy in hindsight to say ‘but looking at his personality, his downfall was inevitable.’) This majority is roughly the same size as Blair's first victory (slightly bigger because the Tory vote collapsed so hard) but that came from a tiny Tory majority rather than a huge one. What is notable is the collapse in the Tory vote. Yes, they lost a monumental 250 seats, and they lost them in all directions, roughly 200 to Labour (Labour also took some from the SNP), 50 to the LibDems, 5 to Reform and 2 to the Greens. They lost over 20 ministers, including four cabinet ministers (both of these are records) but they ...

In every election since I was 18, I’ve voted. General elections, EU elections, referendums, local elections, PCC elections. I don’t remember that I’ve ever had the opportunity to vote in a bye election, but I’d have done that too. At my age it’s expected that I vote but back when I was 18, just like 18 year olds today, it was more unusual. (I think this is something that is often forgotten because the people that are leading the discussions, on both sides, are politics nerds - either politicians or political journalists. While I’m neither of those, I am like them in one way: I’ve always voted, albeit for different reasons, possibly.) My voting history (I don’t remember every vote but I remember it enough to sum it up) is not one of unwaveringly party loyalty. I’m not Labour through and through, rather a term I first heard in 2015, I’m a “never Tory.” I usually vote Labour but I have certainly voted Green (I did in the last council elections for example), Liberal (back in the days befo...

Thanks to Disney buying part of Dr. Who, and it being rebranded as the Whoniverse, we have the third season one… Classic Who, Nu Who and Whoniverse. Much though I loved Jodie and Mandip as Thirteen and Yaz, I was not the biggest fan of Chris Chibnal's writing. When he got it right (in my opinion), he was great but, for me, too many of the scripts didn’t hit the mark. This season has had one show that was a complete miss for me and given it was trying to serve as a new show pilot for Disney while not being a new show to me (I’m old, I remember watching John Pertwee, live on a Saturday night) I’ll cut it a bit of slack. With a bit of time and reflection, less adrenaline and emotion, the finale has some serious issues too. It doesn’t make sense if you stop to think about it. But in the moment I didn’t care. Otherwise, I liked all the episodes, in the moment and afterwards. Some were stronger than others, but they were all at least good in my opinion. This season has three arc-long ...

Way back when, 2016 or 17 I think, in response to a question about my favourite show, I described Orphan Black as the show of my head, and Wynonna Earp as the show of my heart. I’m happy to be able to say that Orphan Black: Echoes is a worthy, and glorious, follow up in the show of my head category but it also scores well as a show of my heart . It’s clever and thought-provoking in the ways the original was, clearly the daughter of Orphan Black but, just as you can usually see similarities between a mother and daughter white seeing them as distinct, different people, Echoes is similar to, not just a clone (sorry) of the original. We’re still in the world of biological sciences, but this is set 40 years into the future. It’s not clear how the world sees the clones now, at least not for a long time but, in fairness how much do you remember about the big news stories of 1984? So we have a different story, one that I found as engaging, and I’m sure it was much less technically demand...