#dispatch editor

[grammarfails]

[wandering-wolf23]

[karinyosa]

one action that i haven't seen a ton of people discuss online is writing a letter to the editor (not one specific editor, that's just what they're called). i'm thinking of palestine, but a lot of this can apply to other things. jvp has a letter to the editor guide here if u think you'd find that helpful. it's specific to jvp members from what i remember, so take what applies. individual papers will sometimes have their own sets of guidelines as well so be mindful of those. letters are generally more likely to make it to print when it comes to local papers, but you can also write letters to like. the nyt or wapo. you're just more likely to not get a response. as tools for social change, letters' purpose is to sway public opinion and pressure via institutions of media. i focus on local papers because, like with bds campaigns targeting college campuses, this stuff is going to start on a smaller scale first, but can and does build over time. think of one berkeley branch voting to divest very soon after another did first. this is like that to me.

i recommend seeing what other articles individual papers have about palestine just to get a feel for what might be most impactful for you to write about, or what still needs to be said. for local papers, you might want to tie it to your community in some way (and that might even be a requirement to get in the paper), so you can talk about, for example, how much money comes out of your specific area for israel, using uscpr's funding map. you can talk about protests in your area. if there are arab, palestinian, and/or muslim communities in your area, you talk about them. if there are medical facilities or lots of families in your area, you can talk about them. if there's a big tech presence in your area, you can relate it to that. education, youth, food, policing, etc. there's something. there are probably multiple lines of connection between your local community and palestine. you can also just respond to a published article or lte.

if you are writing a letter to the editor, it will be considered an opinion piece, so you can include opinions or things that may be seen as more subjective. check out other letters to the editor to get a sense for the type of tone/content/etc they are looking for. don't be afraid to break or bend those rules, but it's helpful to be aware of the general vibe of the paper, what's likely to get published, and what needs to be said.

what do you want your community to be talking about? what needs to be brought to their attention? what misconceptions need to be corrected? what issues do you want to put on the table? what do you want to add to the conversation? what's missing? what should be done about it?

if you can't make it to in-person actions, this can all be done online. and if you consider yourself good with words, this may be an area in which you're uniquely effective.

ps: citing other articles or sources is always helpful and is a way to platform other articles/books/texts that u think should be shared, although i don't think that's usually a requirement for ltes. if u can't think of one, ask around.

[kuroshitsuji-wiki]

It's Yana Toboso's birthday! (January 24, 1984)

Yana forgot her birthday this year...

... so there's even more reason to congratulate her and celebrate!

Some trivia:

She chose her penname "Yana Toboso" to indicate what kind of manga she wanted to create: Because there are so many mangas whose central themes are dreams, hope, friendship, and love, she wanted to make a manga whose focus is the opposite. "Yana" derives from "iya" (unpleasant, detestable, disagreeable; here: unpleasant/nasty child), and "toboso" is meant to signify importance: a "toboso" is a cavity in the frame of a door used as part of a pivot hinge; as doors wouldn't work without hinges, hinges are important objects. "Yana Toboso," therefore, is meant to mean "the hated/bad child is in the middle" (憎まれっ子がど真ん中にく る). (Character Guide, page 146)

Yana once stated that Ciel resembles her the most out of her characters. (Character Guide, page 147)

*cough* Obviously.

Exhibit A:

(Downstairs with Kuroshitsuji VII, from Volume 17)

(Chapter 76)

Exhibit B: The iconic Pancake Saga from 2018!

Yana's grandmother encouraged her to become a mangaka, and her mother pushed her to submit her work to a publisher when she was 20. Both have since passed away. (sources: akumadeenglish, The Japan Times)

She is a fan of the band L'Arc-en-Ciel (source). HYDE, the vocalist of that band, wrote the opening for Season 5. Yana was obviously very happy about that!

Yana contemplated making "fluffy spin-offs" to Kuroshitsuji, e.g., "a gourmet manga featuring the canteen of the Shinigami dispatch association HQ, or a manga where the Indian butler cooks curry or the black butler makes sweets, or where the servants make small discoveries." However, she dropped those ideas because her "fluffy concepts" kept becoming ominous after a few chapters. (source)

Kuroshitsuji was not meant to be set in 19th-century England from the beginning. Mr. K and the chief editor eventually suggested England as the setting. Yana, who did not know much about England (and could not find many materials early on; source: Downstairs with Kuroshitsuji II in Volume 2), especially not about 19th-century England, and did not believe the manga would be a hit anyway, then cooked up the wonderfully anachronistic Volume 1. Since then, Yana has become more knowledgeable about Victorian England, got a historical advisor (Rico Murakami) who also, sometimes, translates sources for her (source: Downstairs with Kuroshitsuji Special in Volume 15), has been (re-)learning English, and visited England twice. The manga has, thus, become significantly more historically accurate over the years. Still, as it's a fantasy manga, Yana likes to incorporate anachronistic elements for story purposes (e.g. Grim Reaper tech and possessions, Wolfsschlucht) anyway (or simply because she wants to; e.g. the idol groups, I suppose). Anachronisms have, thus, shifted from accidental to deliberate.

Sebastian's mobile phone will be forever iconic, but it has been retconned for over a decade now.

And The Wild Earl lost more than his head was cancelled when all TVs were thrown out of the continuity with the end of the Indian Butler Arc (TVs are last mentioned in Chapter 23).

May we learn many Victorian things alongside Yana in the next years too!

(Downstairs with Kuroshitsuji II, Volume 2)

And may she have a happy, restful birthday so that she doesn't forget it again^^' (And the best of health^^)

[sixeyesonathiel]

THE HOT PINK DISPATCH

↳ “she writes good. kinda scary though.” — satoru gojo, probably

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— athy, nineteen. se asian, filo. hm undergrad. intp-t 5w4. cat lover. perpetual overthinker. questionable tastes in fanfiction & men. professional procrastinator. thought daughter. yumejoshi.

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— i only write for satoru gojo <3 all my works are fem reader intended. you’ll either get unhinged filth or tooth-rotting fluff—there’s no in-between. expect tooth-rooting fluff, yandere, dark content, and emotionally loaded smut because my brain is just built like that. i take requests and i also write what i love and spiral fast. i try to drop at least 20k+ worth of word count per week (sleep and academic responsibilities? never heard of them). plz don’t hesitate to ask to be moots, i don’t bite <3

i rant. i yap. i overshare. and i love every second of it.

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masterlist | support my writing <3

NAVI. asks, athy's press inquiries. babblings, editor's notes. toru brainrot, gojossip. drabbles, flash reports. unlisted fics, filed reports. fic recs, hot picks off the shelf. my lovies: 🦭 anon, 🌌 anon, ⭐ anon, 🫧 anon, pasupare anon, 💔 anon, 🧝‍♀️ anon, 🦇 anon, 🐙anon, 💠 anon, 🎹 anon

[wokealqaeda]

On 10 June 2025, a mass shooting occurred at the Bundes-Oberstufenrealgymnasium Dreierschützengasse (BORG Dreierschützengasse), a federal upper secondary school in Graz, Austria. Police confirmed that 10 people were killed and 11 others were wounded by the shooter, while the gunman, identified as a 21-year-old former student named Artur A, died by suicide, sending the death toll to 11.

At around 9:55 CEST, gunshots were reported at the Dreierschützengasse high school. Neighbours say that the first shots were fired outside of the school before the gunman entered the building. Inside, he opened fire in at least two classrooms on the second floor. Around 40 gunshots were fired in total.

Police dispatched a total of 300 officers, including regular units, the tactical force Einsatzkommando Cobra, and a helicopter that was deployed as part of the response. The area was cleared within 17 minutes after the arrival of first responders and at 11:20, the situation was reported to be under control. A disaster alert was issued for nearby hospitals.

The suspected shooter was later found dead in a school lavatory, with authorities indicating that he likely shot himself.

A number of casualties were confirmed, though the exact number of wounded was not immediately released. According to the Austrian interior ministry, there were several deaths, and local media such as Kronen Zeitung and ORF reported at least 10 deaths. Graz Mayor Elke Kahr confirmed that the suspect was among the dead. Authorities evacuated the school and secured it later in the morning. The killed people were eight students and one teacher. Interior minister Gerhard Karner said during a press conference that six of the victims were female and three were male.

Media reports on the day of the shooting described at least twelve injured, with "some critically wounded". A total of 30 people were being treated at hospitals around Graz. The nearby Helmut List Halle was repurposed as an emergency triage centre for the injured. Five people were described as being in critical condition, while two, both adults, were in life-threatening condition. Of the latter, an adult woman died in hospital eight hours later.

The Bosnian embassy in Austria reported that two of those killed, a 17-year-old male and a teenage female, as well as an injured female were of Bosnian background, though none held Bosnian citizenship.

The suspected shooter was identified as a 21-year-old Austrian citizen named Artur A. (now Arthur Achleitner) from Graz-Umgebung District, who formerly attended the BORG, but never graduated. Part of the shooting took place in his former classroom.

He legally owned both firearms used in the shooting and had a firearms licence. Since the minimum age to get a firearm licence in Austria is 21, it was confirmed that he had requested it and then received it shortly before the attack. The Glock handgun was purchased a few days prior to the shooting while the shotgun had been in his possession for longer. He had no prior criminal record.

According to Kronen Zeitung, the suspect reportedly described himself as "a victim of bullying". According ORF chief editor Peter Unger, the information initially circulated on social media, which also suggested revenge as a possible motive. This claim was repeated in media immediately after the shooting, but Karner stated that the police investigation was ongoing and that details about the motive were "speculative". A suicide note saying goodbye to his parents was found by police during a search of his residence, but its contents were not immediately released.

[onceuponatown]

Elizabeth Cochran was born on May 5, 1864 in Cochran’s Mills, Pennsylvania. The town was founded by her father, Judge Michael Cochran. Elizabeth had fourteen siblings. Her father had ten children from his first marriage and five children from his second marriage to Elizabeth’s mother, Mary Jane Kennedy.

Michael Cochran’s rise from mill worker to mill owner to judge meant his family lived very comfortably. Unfortunately, he died when Elizabeth was only six years old and his fortune was divided among his many children, leaving Elizabeth’s mother and her children with a small fraction of the wealth they once enjoyed. Elizabeth’s mother soon remarried, but quickly divorced her second husband because of abuse, and relocated the family to Pittsburgh.

Elizabeth knew that she would need to support herself financially. At the age of 15, she enrolled in the State Normal School in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and an added an “e” to her last name to sound more distinguished. Her plan was to graduate and find a position as a teacher. However, after only a year and a half, Elizabeth ran out of money and could no longer afford the tuition. She moved back to Pittsburgh to help her mother run a boarding house.

In 1885, Elizabeth read an article in the Pittsburgh Dispatch that argued a woman’s place was in the home, “to be a helpmate to a man.” She strongly disagreed with this opinion and sent an angry letter to the editor anonymously signed “Lonely Orphan Girl.”

The newspaper’s editor, George A. Madden, was so impressed with the letter that he published a note asking the “Lonely Orphan Girl” to reveal her name. Elizabeth marched into the Dispatch offices and introduced herself. Madden immediately offered her a job as a columnist. Shortly after her first article was published, Elizabeth changed her pseudonym from “Lonely Orphan Girl” to “Nellie Bly,” after a popular song.

Elizabeth positioned herself as an investigative reporter. She went undercover at a factory where she experienced unsafe working conditions, poor wages, and long hours. Her honest reporting about the horrors of workers’ lives attracted negative attention from local factory owners. Elizabeth’s boss did not want to anger Pittsburgh’s elite and quickly reassigned her as a society columnist.

To escape writing about women’s issues on the society page, Elizabeth volunteered to travel to Mexico. She lived there as an international correspondent for the Dispatch for six months. When she returned, she was again assigned to the society page and promptly quit in protest.

Elizabeth hoped the massive newspaper industry of New York City would be more open-minded to a female journalist and left Pittsburgh. Although several newspapers turned down her application because she was a woman, she was eventually given the opportunity to write for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World.

In her first act of “stunt” journalism for the World, Elizabeth pretended to be mentally ill and arranged to be a patient at New York’s insane asylum for the poor, Blackwell’s Island. For ten days Elizabeth experienced the physical and mental abuses suffered by patients.

Elizabeth’s report about Blackwell’s Island earned her a permanent position as an investigative journalist for the World. She published her articles in a book titled 10 Days in A Mad House. In it, she explained that New York City invested more money into care for the mentally ill after her articles were published. She was satisfied to know that her work led to change.

Activist journalists like Elizabeth—commonly known as muckrakers—were an important part of reform movements. Elizabeth’s investigations brought attention to inequalities and often motivated others to take action. She uncovered the abuse of women by male police officers, identified an employment agency that was stealing from immigrants, and exposed corrupt politicians. She also interviewed influential and controversial figures, including Emma Goldman in 1893.

The most famous of Elizabeth’s stunts was her successful seventy-two-day trip around the world in 1889, for which she had two goals. First, she wanted to beat the record set in the popular fictional world tour from Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days. Second, she wanted to prove that women were capable of traveling just as well as—if not better than—men. Elizabeth traveled light, taking only the dress she wore, a cape, and a small traveler’s bag. She challenged the stereotypical assumption that women could not travel without many suitcases, outfit changes, and vanity items. Her world tour made her a celebrity. After her return, she toured the country as a lecturer. Her image was used on everything from playing cards to board games. She recounted her adventures in her final book, Around the World in 72 Days.

In 1895, Elizabeth retired from writing and married Robert Livingston Seaman. Robert was a millionaire who owned the Iron Clad Manufacturing Company and the American Steel Barrel Company. When Robert died in 1904, Elizabeth briefly took over as president of his companies.

In 1911, she returned to journalism as a reporter for the New York Evening Journal. She covered a number of national news stories, including the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913 in Washington, D.C. Elizabeth often referred to suffrage in her articles, arguing that women were as capable as men in all things. During World War I, she traveled to Europe as the first woman to report from the trenches on the front line.

Although Elizabeth never regained the level of stardom she experienced after her trip around the world, she continued to use her writing to shed light on issues of the day. She died of pneumonia on January 27, 1922.

[lethargicluv]

Firefighter Simon Ghost Riley who realizes that the baked sweets and fresh bread aren’t coming from a bakery in town but actually from the girl who inherited her grandmother’s house across the street from the fire station. She stops by twice a week with everything she’s made in the last 2-3 days. Turns out she’s a recipe book editor and she likes to test every recipe in the books she’s asked to edit before she approves them for publishing. If she finds issues with the recipes she sends it back for revision. Imagine testing out a 300 page recipe book. Some weeks she stops by more than 2 times because she’s testing out meal recipes and ends up delivering large batches of lasagna and pasta and meatloaf to the station. Sometimes she messes up a bit and to make corrections to the recipes she has to remake it with some tweaking and so sometimes their meals are a little burnt, maybe a little bit too spicy, or not salty enough. Simon would appreciate it all the same, so do the rest of 141. Sometimes Soap helps her with her groceries when he sees her struggling with the large bags of flour and runs across the street to lend a hand. Gaz always offers to help her carry everything into the dining hall. Price always sees her off. It’s like everyone knows about her except Simon. He doesn’t until he nearly bowls her over running for the truck as the alarms go off and the team’s getting dispatched just as she’s dropping off a very large batch of mostly misshapen but very delicious sugar cookies. (The recipe was good just not good at holding their shape. Might be too much butter, she’ll have to send it back for revision.) They get back hours later to find these wobbly ghost shaped cookies and Soap literally wouldn’t stop laughing and tell him that the cookies looked like him. Even Price poked some fun at Simon. He catches her the next delivery struggling with several containers of roasted chicken and she nearly drops the remain chicken in her hands when she looks at the big man’s face and is met with a skull mask. They get to talking while the boys chow down on tonight’s chicken dinner and Simon thinks he’s been an idiot for holing up in his office all this time when such a lovely lady has been feeding them like this. She thinks Simon’s scary appearance doesn’t match his personality at all. He’s been so soft spoken despite his gruff voice. She makes him a bourbon cake the following week and laughs in amusement as Simon tries to fend off Soap trying to steal a bite.

Part 2

[the-batacombs]

Without the trick arrows...without the faith...without backup...what's left is the Absolute Emerald Archer!

All that aside, didn't the CW kind of do Absolute Green Arrow thirteen years ago?

[vague-humanoid]

DR Congo Protests Throw a Wrench in the Western-Backed War of Pillage

On The Freedom Side LIVE, Thursday, 1/30  at 3pm ET/12pm PT, hosts Rania Khalek and Eugene Puryear are joined by special guests:

Kambale Musavuli from the Center for Research on the Congo joins the show to discuss the rapidly escalating conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo as fighting between the Rwandan backed-M23 rebel group and the Congolese army (FARDC) intensifies in the major city of Goma. Musavuli will discuss the latest updates as well the protests that erupted across the country at US & EU embassies over the West’s complicity in the brutal proxy war for the DR Congo’s vast mineral wealth.

Abubaker Abed, Palestinian journalist and commentator in Gaza, joins the show to discuss Palestinians’ historic return to their devastated homes in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday after over a year of genocidal war. Reporting firsthand, Abed will explain how this historic mass return marks a powerful act of Palestinian resistance and is seen as a significant step toward reclaiming all occupied territories.

Vijay Prashad, Executive Director of the Tricontinental Institute, joins the show to unpack a critical question: As Donald Trump’s return to the White House emboldens far-right movements across the North Atlantic, do these forces actually challenge neoliberalism—or are they merely its latest iteration? Prashad will argue that the far right, despite its populist rhetoric, remains tied to the neoliberal economic and security policies they claim to oppose.

Hala Jaber Leb, award-winning Beirut-based journalist, joins the show to discuss Israel's violation of its ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah. Israel continues to bomb southern Lebanon and refuses to withdraw their forces despite the 60-day ceasefire deadline. Thousands of Lebanese residents have been returning to their homes in the South in defiance of Israel’s occupation.

Doug Henwood, economic journalist and host of the podcast Behind the News, joins the show to discuss how Trump has stacked his administration with crypto entrepreneurs, launched his second cryptocurrency, and pledged to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet.” Henwood will explain the danger of Trump’s actions and the increasing threat of expanded US government involvement in crypto, an industry rife with risks and scams.

Zoe Alexandra, Editor of Peoples Dispatch, joins the show to discuss how Colombian President Gustavo Petro stood up to Trump over the inhumane treatment of Colombian migrants deported from the US. Alexandra will explain the tense diplomatic impasse between Washington and Bogotá and discuss how progressive governments in Latin America are fighting for the respect and dignity of migrants amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.

[londonspirit]

David Jenkins Bluesky Fic (?)

(Is it really a fic when it comes from the creator of the show himself???)

As much as I love having him do this all (especially over such a long time), I need this as a text document (hope you don't mind, Sir @davidjenks [if so, let me know and I take it down])

I also edited it a little for easier reading.

1775. An editor comes into work on Christmas eve to find a manuscript on his desk. The title: A HISTORY OF PYRATES by Charles Johnson. (We have no budget so we’ll say the editor is played by Michael Stuhlbarg).

He thumbs through the draft: a scene where a silly fancy pirate robs a fern from some fishermen. Another where he crosses blades in the moonlight with the legendary Blackbeard. Another where they pine for each other from a great distance.

He thumbs further, grudgingly interested. These two pirates settle down with each other. The start a B and B. Huh. The editor is interested now. He reads the last third of the manuscript in detail.

Open on a beach. Nancy Sinatra’s “You Only Live Twice” plays (the track from the movie, this is important. It has the best intro and for some reason is only sporadically available on Spotify). We use the classic James Bond opening iris to find a now established inn on a beautiful stretch of beach.

White linen flows beautifully as it’s laid out on a table. Laid by co-innkeeper Ed, with great satisfaction. He lays out glassware. Perfect. Flowers. Perfect. He is content in this working meditation. He is precise in his adjustments to create beauty

Over the following: “You only live twice or so it seems. Once for your life and once for your dreams.”

Meanwhile, a cluster of frustrated guests attempt to check in with a flustered Stede. The inn has become quite popular. A well-heeled family has hired it out to host a wedding banquet.

They’re dicks. Very demanding. This is a Christmas event and they want everything to be perfect. Stede’s overwhelmed and put upon at the front desk, Ed’s nowhere to be found. (Song: “You drift through the years and life seems tame.”) The year is 1719, two years after the events of the second season.

The inn has become a bit of a bougie destination. A kitschy remnant of the bygone golden age of piracy run by two eccentrics who were apparently involved somehow.

Stede assures the guest of honor that their stay will be smooth. They’ve rented out the entire inn after all. The guest asks him if the rumors of his pirate days were true. Stede says they’re largely embellished. A marketing hook that has worked to attract attention.

---

First mate Jimenez (Jim to a lucky few) barks orders to the crew. New faces (tbd) in addition to old (Archie, Fang, The Swede, Lucius, Black Pete, Roach). Jim very much resembles Izzy in style with them own unique flair.

We see the ship has been rechristened “Izzy’s Revenge.”

Jim reports to the Captain’s quarters. They are approaching the English fleet, as instructed. “Yeah, well, great, fantastic,” says Captain Frenchie. “Initiate plan A.”

The English fleet looks at the approaching ship. Surely it can’t be pirates. No pirate captain is dumb enough to approach warships. They spy a white flag on the ship. The bridge appears to be on fire. The occupants seem to be merchants in distress.

Once aboard an English ship, Black Pete confirms they were indeed attacked by pirates. A Christmas Day attack no less. Clearly these pirates were godless and had no regard for a holy day. Lucius says they were bringing food and clothing to the poor on behalf of a Dutch merchant.

Tired and building a crib. Goodnight and merry Christmas Eve you beautiful bastards.

To be continued… *

The rest of the English fleet is dispatched to find and destroy the “pirate attackers.” The captain of the English fleet consoles our crew. Prince Richard has mostly cleared the seas of piracy. He’s parlayed the destruction of the Republic of Pirates into becoming Governor of nearby New York.

Jim says they’re huge fans of Prince Ricky. The captain tells them they’re headed to his Christmas festivity in New York City. Frenchie feigns surprise at this. He’d love to meet the Prince Governor. The captain laughs. His Highness doesn’t make a habit of granting average merchants an audience.

Roach holds a knife to the captain’s throat. Perhaps he’ll make an exception for these merchants. Captain Frenchie explains the survivors of the Republic of Pirates Massacre would like to send the Prince a Christmas gift. Pirates haven’t been abolished. “We’ve just become more cautious.”

The English captain laughs. No matter what they do, these pirates are dead. Smoke appears in the horizon. The rest of the English fleet burns in the distance. They’ve been ambushed by the other survivors. Five other pirate crews who’ve been biding their time since Ricky’s attack.

Jim invites the captain and crew to join or die. “You silly puta bitches. We can’t be wiped out. We have too much work to do.” Roach releases a carrier pigeon. The mainland should be alerted, the plan is in motion.

---

Meanwhile at the Inn, Ed regales guests about Stede’s murder of Captain Badminton and Admiral Badminton. He’s rewritten it to enhance Stede’s cunning and ruthlessness. The guests hang on every word. Why did he murder both brothers? Ed supposes he did it for love.

Stede interrupts and calls Ed aside. Can he please help make up some of the rooms? Stede is drowning. They’re at full capacity. Ed bristles at this. He’s really more of a “front of the house guy,,” they’ve talked about this. Stede says that’s not a thing. This is basically a two man operation.

Ed says Stede’s being melodramatic. That’s why they hired Applejack, an amiable drifter who helps with odd chores around the inn (again, as our budget is unlimited, Applejack is played by Kevin Bacon).

A guest asks for an extra room key. Stede calls for Applejack, who runs to the front desk to help the guest. Stede says he wishes he had ten more just like him. Ed mutters “I bet.” Stede asks what that’s supposed to mean? Ed says Stede gets nervous whenever Applejack is around. For some reason.

Stede denies this, but it’s clear he has an affinity for this handsome drifter turned handyman/bellman/bar back/chambermaid.

Stede: “Applejack’s a good man and a solid employee.” Still, even with the help, the inn has become a management feat. It’s been two years since they discovered the place and renovated it, and a little over a year since it opened to customers. Ed and Stede never dreamed it would catch on so quickly.

Ed: “People like that we were pirates mate. It’s one of the main things that draws a crowd.” Ed sees it as his job to tell stories of their buccaneering past even if he stops short of telling everyone he was the legendary Blackbeard.

For Stede’s part, he’d just as soon leave that life behind. He’d quit just as he was making a name for himself, which had been his lifelong dream. Better alive as Ed and Stede than dead as “Gentlebeard” as the couple were starting to be known in pirate lore.

How much time can one spend as a lawless brigand before their ticket gets punched? Their brush with Ned Lowe followed by the untimely death of Izzy Hands soured Stede’s romantic notion of piracy. Less and less in love with death, he was increasingly scared of losing whatever life he and Ed shared.

Ed bristles at the mention of Izzy. He clearly feels Izzy’s death was his fault. And he was always worried that he’d pay for the horrible things he did to one of the only two people on earth who truly loved him unconditionally. Some not small part of him still feels cursed by the loss of Izzy.

Stede tells Ed it’s better if they just let the past be and make this work. He thought the inn was their ultimate reward. They haven’t even gotten to build the bait shop addition yet. Ed: “Bait shop?” Stede: “Yes. Remember?” Ed: Why in the hell would we have a bait shop?” Stede: “You don’t remember?” Ed: “I said something about a bait shop? Must’ve been loaded, mate.”

Stede tells Ed it doesn’t matter. What matters is they have a full inn, an event to plan, and Ed needs to do more than obsess about linens (Ed loves the linen management aspect of innkeeping) and tell tall tales of their criminal past to guests. Ed doesn’t know who any of these people are. What if someone is looking for them? No more “front of house/back of house” bullshit. They both need to do everything to make this place a success. Applejack can only help so much, he’s drunk half the time.

Ed, chastened, says he’ll do what he can. Stede says he better. He’s not changing his life a third time, this place needs to work. He marches off to deal with a wedding cake delivery. The icing is melting in the hot Caribbean sun.

Ed decides to take a smoke break. He puffs his pipe outside, talking to someone off camera. “I don’t know, mate. Thought this was the thing. And I do love aspects of it. Flower arrangement. Linens. We spent a fortune on the linens, but god they’re lovely. But it seems like we’re almost… roommates. Coworkers definitely. We built the place together and that was fun. But the whole customer service aspect. And you know, I don’t think he even loves it? Spends half his time muttering in his sleep about The Revenge.”

Reverse to find Ed is talking to “Izzy.” Or his grave at least. Ed’s cordoned it off with a white picket fence and keeps it well. “I guess you’re right. I have a hard time just being content.” Ed explains that he does want the place to succeed, but he wants to do it with his partner.

He didn’t want the stress of the thing and the daily drudgery to pull them apart. The whole point of the thing is they could do it together without getting murdered. It was the ultimate retirement plan.

“Pff. You didn’t even know what retirement was ya twat.” Izzy’s voice, clear as day. Ed looks up quickly. No one is there.

---

Meanwhile, a pigeon flies through the rain

Over the sea

To land

To a city. New York City. It lands at a humble soup kiosk at what is now probably Doyers Street in southern Manhattan (aka Doyers Street Angle, great dim sum here in the year 2025 btw)

Auntie, serving several customers, spots the note on the bird’s leg before shooing it away. She scoops it up and opens a trap door in the kiosk’s floor.

A ladder goes deep down into the ground. Sounds can be heard. Party sounds. Bar sounds. Gambling sounds.

The colonies have been good to Jackie and Zheng, now business partners in the largest underground gambling den and speakeasy in history

The note is passed through the packed club. Wee John Feeney performs a Christmas number as fabulous his alter ego, Bloody Nellie Blaye

The note finds its way to The Swede. He can’t read but Auntie wouldn’t be hand delivering it if it weren’t important

Jackie opens the note at her table. It reads: “Today.” She passes it to Oluwande who puts it in Zheng’s hands at the roulette wheel.

---

Meanwhile, Governor Prince Ricky prepares his Christmas address to a wealthy audience. He reviews his remarks and wants to make more of a point of eradicating piracy globally. “It really was quite easy. Even China’s “greatest pirate” turned out to be no more than an easy mark.

---

Back on the Revenge. Jim plays with the ring around their kerchief, left to them by Izzy. They look at the ring from time to time. Silver and emerald. The emerald seems to grow brighter when the sea is choppy and the clouds set in.

They spot a simple, worn engraving inside the band of the ring: Teddy

No reference to Teddy among Izzy’s spartan belongings. Frenchie was given his scope and dagger, Roach his boots (though they didn’t fit), but the prize for Jim was kerchief and ring. Sometimes, oftentimes, they’d wear just that for Archie.

“Wonder if that was his father?” Lucius inspects the ring with Jim. “Maybe he was mateyed,” surmises Black Pete. Oh that poor bastard. The Izzy they knew was a lot of things but would have been a handful as a spouse. “Maybe Teddy’s why he became a handful.”

Roach “It’s Ed. Teddy’s another form of Edward. Or sometimes Tedward.” Fang shakes his head: “Captain never went by Ted. He’d rather be called shithead.” Jim catches a look in Fang’s eye: “You knew Izzy longer than any of us.” Fang nods. He knew Izzy longer than Blackbeard. Jim: “Who’s Teddy?” Fang: “I’ll never say. No one’s business but Izzy’s.”

Before they can press further, Captain Frenchie stands at the bridge. “Merry Christmas everyone. Welcome to the harbor of New York. Costumes on, we’ve some shit to wreck.” The Revenge indeed is closing in on New York’s harbor.

---

Stede has a cake emergency on his hands. Buttercream and hot sun don’t mix. At least, not without considerable effort. Applejack fans the wedding cake as Stede tries to remold it into something passing for elegant

Applejack tells Stede he’s doing a good job. Stede is literally sweating it: “Thanks Applejack. We really need this. They booked the entire inn out of nowhere. If this event works there’ll be others.” Applejack: “Do you like this? Running an inn?” Stede: “Of course.” But the moment he says it, he realizes he might not. Applejack: “Ed seems to love it.” Stede: “Really? What tells you that?” Applejack notes how Ed handles the linens, arranges the fine glassware. He’s quite adept at it. Stede: “If inconsistent. Interest isn’t Ed’s problem.” “Maintaining interest. That’s his issue.” Applejack: “And what’s yours?” Stede: “I get myself into jams.”

As Stede and Applejack attempt to right the cake, start Blondie’s Out in the Streets: “Oooooh”

Blackbeard wistfully studies Stede from the bar as he wraps silverware in napkins: “He don’t hang around with the gang no more. He don’t do the wild things that he did before.”

Ed thinks about Stede’s crazy pirate days. Sword fighting, treasure hunting, lighting dudes ablaze. Blondie: “He used to act bad, used to but he quit it. It makes me so sad. ‘Cause I know that he did it for me. And I can see. His heart, his heart is out in the street.”

Stede thinks he catches Ed glancing at him, but Ed appears to be just wrapping silverware. He watches his fingers work delicately: “He don’t comb his hair like he did before. He don’t wear those dirty old black boots no more.”

Stede looks at Ed’s lips, pursed in concentration: “But he’s not the same. There’s something about his kisses.” (Flash to Ed and Stede kissing passionately aboard the Revenge… … then flash to Ed snoring, asleep in the in, while Stede lies awake next to him much like his days with Mary) “I know there’s something missing inside. Something died. His heart. His heart is out in the streets.”

Ed and Stede make eye contact from across the room. Blondie suddenly stops. Ed: “What?” Stede: “What?” Ed: “Nothing. Just finishing place settings.” Stede: “Well hurry up this cake is fucked.” Ed: “Looks like you and Applejack have it in hand.”

Applejack: “Actually, could you get in here for me? I’m kinda making a hash outta this.” Ed thinks about it, then: “Nah mate you’ve got it. This silvers not gonna wrap itself.” Applejack says he’ll take over silverware duty. Ed comes over to help with the cake.

Stede and Ed manage to steady it, buttercream on their fingers. Stede: “Whoop.” Ed: “Thing’s a bleeding liability.” Stede: “Let’s get this thing over with. Maybe no more large functions.” Ed: “At least none with massive fragile desserts. Icing’s not bad though.” Stede: “Might give you the shits.” Stede: “The Carribean’s not known to be kind to cream based thingies.” Ed: “You did alright tho.” Stede smudges icing on Ed’s beard: “Ha.” Ed returns fire: “Don’t escalate this Bonnet.” Stede: “Don’t trifle then.”

They’re interrupted by a throat clearing. The groom’s mother, Hypatia, a wealthy, eccentric old crone glares at them. “If you’ve finished your flirtation?” Stede: “Oh. Yes ma’am. Just making sure this hasn’t spoiled.”

Hypatia looks unenthused. This inn wasn’t her choice for the function but she intends this to go off without a hitch. Stede notices that he hasn’t yet seen the bride or the groom. Hypatia insists they’ll be there. Most of the family has already checked in.

The family and friends have indeed checked in. They are an odd looking bunch. Moneyed, but eccentric moneyed. Some even look a little grizzled. Ed surmises most wealthy people look this way. Stede knows better. But who else is booking a wedding at a small inn in the Caribbean?

Stede says their money was good and they paid in advance for the entire place. So fine. Hypatia insists Ed and Stede be there for the ceremony, which starts in hours. Ed wonders why she wants both of them to be there. Rich people. They want the world he guesses.

Again, Stede is doubtful about their status. Their “uncle” just lit a match on his own stubble.

---

Governor Prince Ricky rehearses his Christmas speech as a crowd forms outside. He’s wearing a festive nose, shiny brass. Ricky’s speech is sober, anti-crime, anti-deviance. He’s become an abolitionist of all manner of social behavior since his attack on the Republic of Pirates

He orders his long suffering valet to fetch him a glass of water before his speech. His throat is scratchy. The valet retrieves a glass from the kitchen. On his way we see that almost all of Ricky’s house staff has been replaced. Roach, Olu, Wee John, even Zheng bide their time disguised as help

Outside the Governor’s mansion, among the crowd, a new small faction arrives. Jim dressed as a priest (their now preferred disguise), Frenchie as an elderly man, Black Pete and Lucius as roast chestnut sellers. Archie as beggar. All are armed and awaiting Ricky’s entrance.

---

Meanwhile at the inn, the guests mingle. Ed scans the room, and mutters to Applejack. “These rich wankers are exhausting. Can’t wait to get this over with.” Applejack nods. Yeah the Inn business must be hard. All of these people with all of these demands. He asks Ed if he misses the sea.

Ed shrugs. Sometimes. His leathers were feeling pretty heavy there for a while. He didn’t mind trading them for the crisp white linen suit he’s wearing now. Applejack: “Blackbeard in a linen suit. Who’d have guessed.” Ed becomes cagey. “Blackbeard? Where’d you get that?”

Applejack: “C’mon, it’s obvious. You have the hair, the same tattoos, it’s obvious.” Ed: “Dunno what you’re on about mate. You flatter me. I never rose above scallawag. Mine was a short career, that’s how I survived.” Applejack: “My mistake. Over active imagination I guess.”

Ed excuses himself to find a flustered Stede. The ceremony is about to start. Ed: “Well that’s good isn’t it?” Stede: “I haven’t seen a groom. Have you? Or a bride.” Ed: “S’bad luck though, seeing the bride isn’t it?” Stede: “I don’t even know who the bride and groom’s parents are. Isn’t that odd?”

The priest speaks up. A sober grey haired man with a glass eye, he’s massive in size. Almost a giant. Clears his throat: “If we might get started?” Stede looks around. Started? How? Ed notices everyone looking at them. Every guest. Their eyes are hard.

Priest: “We are here to witness the union of Stede Bonnet, aka the Gentleman Pirate and his partner in all things, Edward Teach. Aka Black Beard.” Ed (quietly): “Ffffuck” Stede: “Wh-what is um happening?” Every guest presents a weapon, a knife or gun. The Priest: “An admirer sends his regards. And regrets. For missing this special day.”

---

Meanwhile, Governor Prince Ricky finishes his glass of water and readies himself to walk out on stage. He strides out to greet the packed crowd, who cheer their tough on piracy Governor Prince. Jim handles a throwing knife. Frenchie plays with a pistol, at his side.

A long barreled rifle has Governor Prince Ricky in its sights. Spanish Jackie holds it, aiming carefully at Ricky’s forehead.

Ricky welcomes the crowd, and clears his scratchy throat. He takes out cards for his speech, but the first one seems to have been replaced. It simply reads: “Feeling ill?”

Ricky turns white. He looks over to find his valet staring at him from the wings. He flips another to another card: “It won’t be long now.” Ricky grabs his throat. He’s choking.

The crew members of the Revenge exchange confused looks. Jackie, to herself: “The fuck?” Ricky falls to the ground foaming at the mouth and shaking. The crowd panics.

One of the last things Ricky sees as he dies is his valet turning to leave. He flashes on the glass of water he just drank. We see another flash of the Valet poisoning it before handing to to Ricky.

Jim tries to get to the stage. “No no no it was supposed to be us!” Archie pulls them away. “It doesn’t matter who did it does it? The job is done.” Jim: “It matters.” But it’s too late. Authorities are surrounding the body. Even a symbolic strike would be suicide.

---

Ed and Stede are surrounded by fifty armed guests. Ed: “What the fuck is this?” Priest: “Recompense. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” An old woman slashes Stede. Her husband fires at Ed and misses. Stede punches the woman in the face. Ed kicks her husband in the chest, and pulls Stede out of the room.

Breathing heavily, blood running down Stede’s face, a fire poker jammed through the handles of the doors to the communal room. Stede: “Who slashes someone at a wedding?” Ed: “A fucking dead woman. You alright?” Stede: “I mean… no. But yeah.” The doors lurch. They’re coming down.

“You guys are the fucking coolest. Gentlebeard.” Stede and Ed turn to find Applejack. Stede: “What in the hell is happening?!” Applejack: “Are you or are you not Gentlebeard?” Ed/Stede: “Yes fine fuck whatever.” Applejack: “Knew it.” Applejack throws each of them a sword, and draws two pistols.

Applejack fires through the doors at the next big push. Ed: “Mate, are these folks with you or what?” Applejack: “Tell you later. We probably gotta kill the lot of them.” Stede: “What?!” The doors lurch open. Ed, Stede and Applejack do hand to hand combat with some forty remaining guests.

Reprise of you only live twice as Stede, Blackbeard and Applejack lay waste to a room full of hired killers. “You only live twice or so it seems. One life for yourself and one for your dreams.” It’s an ugly fight. Stede and Blackbeard end up slashed and punctured. Applejack as well.

“You drift through the years, and life seems tame. ‘Til one dream appears and love is its name.” Blackbeard grabs a lantern and smashes it, lighting several of their assailants, and the inn, ablaze. “This dream is for you, so pay the price. Make one dream come true, you only live twice.”

Ed and Stede run while Applejack covers them. They crash through the window onto the beach. Several assailants follow but Ed and Stede manage to lose them. “And love is a stranger, who’ll beckon you on. Don’t think of the danger or the stranger is gone.”

Applejack snipes the assailants from the porch with a rifle. Ed and Stede make their way to a nearby cave. They are chewed up, stabbed up, slashed, a bit burnt. But alive. Stede: “Well what in the fucking hell was that?!l” Ed: “Someone has it in for us.”

---

Guards swarm Ricky’s still twitching body. The valet is nowhere to be seen. One of the cards reads: The crew of Stede Bonnet’s Revenge did this.

---

Stede and Ed collect themselves and think of who might wish them dead. Ed: “Long list mate.” Stede: “Not for me. But those who wish me dead must really mean it.” Applejack happens upon the cave: “You guys that was nuts.” He hands over a bloodied envelope. It reads: “Stede Bonnet”

Applejack: “Someone left this on the front desk.” Stede opens it and reads. His eyebrows raise. A husky voice: “Dearest Bonnet. You don’t know my. But I know you. Oh do I know you.”

CUT TO:

A fancy writing desk. Military and naval trophies adorn the walls. An elderly hand writes the letter: “You have taken so very much from me and mine. So now I will take all from you and yours.” We scan the walls and pass a portrait. Captain Nigel Badminton, in better times (aka alive).

We pass a portrait of Admiral Chauncey Badminton. We pass many portraits of the other members of the Badminton family, all played by Rory Kinnear, men, women, and children, old and otherwise.

“We are a proud family Stede Bonnet…” We land on the letter writer. A verrrry elderly Sir Thomas Badminton. He is joined by his wife, Lady Eunice Badminton (both Rory). “And we will ride your kind directly into hell. After take everyone you love.” Eunice: “Advise him we’re taking his lover first.” Sir Thomas: “Yes dear.”

Back at the cave, Stede reads: “By now your crew will be hunted for the murder of a high official.” (In New York City, our crew slinks around trying to avoid detection).

CUT TO

A stained glass window. A familiar voice, it’s Mary Bonnet, arranging flowers in her Barbados home: “We know where your abandoned family lives. Where your children sleep.”

The cave. Stede looks up at Ed, ashen: “Mary. The kids.” Ed: “Guess we’d better get going then.” Stede: “This isn’t your fight. It’s not your family.” Ed: “Your fight is my fight. Your family is my family.”

Applejack: “You guys are the fucking best.” Stede and Ed turn to him. Stede: “Who exactly are you?” Ed: “Seriously mate, what the fuck?” Applejack: “I know I know, I’ll tell you on the way.” Applejack: “You were good to a friend of mine. So I’m gonna be good to you.” Ed: “Who?” Applejack: “You buried him on that beach. Let’s get going.” Stede: “At least tell us your name. It can’t be Applejack.” Applejack: “Theodore. Or Ted. No one’s called me either in ages.” Ed: “Thanks Ted.” Applejack: “All good mate. I’ll be outside.”

As Applejack leaves, Ed and Stede regard each other. Stede: “Can we trust him?” Ed: “Dunno. If not we’ll knife him quick.” Reprise of Out in the Streets: “He grew up on the sidewalk Streetlight shinin' above He grew up with no-one to love He grew up on the sidewalk.”

Wide of Stede and Ed walking off with Applejack: “He grew up running free He grew up and then he met me” The inn burns, bodies litter the beach. We pan to Izzy’s grave. A seagull lands on it. Blackout

---

We hear waves and gulls. And hollow sounding wind.

A different beach. All looks grey and washed out. A gull lands, walks apace. The gull’s tracks in the wet sand seem to morph into something other than webbed flippers. They eventually become imprints of human feet.

A naked man with long white hair walks the beach. It’s Nathaniel Buttons. But his eyes are icy blue now, his hair white as snow. He has no use for clothes.

He comes upon a figure lying in the sand. Two feet. Two legs. A torso, dressed in black.

The figure sits up with a start and a gasp. It’s Izzy Hands.

Buttons: “Dunna try t’talk. Yer in th’ gravy basket ol’ friend. Doggie heaven.” Izzy does try to talk, but it’s a useless rasp. Buttons: “Shh shh shh. We’ve much to discuss, luv.”

+++

Back where we started, many, many years later. The editor looks at the manuscript, pages scattered on the desk. Thoughtfully: “This is some wild shit.”

End of Christmas (Valentine’s?) special episode ?￰ﾟﾏﾴ‍☠️?￰ﾟﾚﾬ

[d-criss-news]

The 78th Tony Awards Didn’t End at Curtain Call—Inside the Best After-Parties

The Third Annual “After After” Hosted by Darren Criss and Julianne Hough

Maybe Maybe Happy Ending had the most to toast, sweeping six Tonys, including Best Musical and Best Actor—thanks in no small part to Darren Criss’s poignant performance as Oliver. Criss and Julianne Hough co-hosted their now-traditional “After After” party at Crane Club. Downstairs in the speakeasy, Glee alums Chris Colfer and Alex Newell celebrated alongside the night’s winners. When I caught Colfer alone, I had to ask the question on every “Gleek’s” mind: how would Kurt Hummel react to Blaine Anderson winning a Tony? “He’d be over the moon,” Colfer smiled. “He’d claim it as his own win—like I am now.” Moments later, Criss and Hough leapt onto the bar for photos with his Tony, before Criss picked up drumsticks and launched into a set of ’90s rock anthems. At 3 a.m., there was no sign of him stopping. “Ask me again in a few hours,” he quipped.

[UHQ] Darren Criss, Julianne Hough and Mia Criss at the 3rd Annual Tony Awards After After Party co-hosted by Darren Criss & Julianne Hough with Johnnie Walker Blue Label at Crane Club on June 08, 2025 in New York, New York. (Photo by Vogue)

[ingek73]

Dispatches documentary reveals shocking state of Duchy of Cornwall properties

ByNick SommerladInvestigations Editor

16:00, 2 Nov 2024

Scores of rental properties owned by Prince William fail to meet the minimum legal energy efficiency standards for landlords, we can reveal.

We found some of his tenants are at risk of fuel poverty, living in hard to heat homes that are riddled with damp and black mould. Our investigation with Channel 4 Dispatches has found that as many as one in seven of William’s inherited Duchy of Cornwall’s residential rental properties have the lowest Energy Performance Certificate ratings of F or G.

It comes as the taxpayer is funding a £369m renovation of Buckingham Palace and Prince William launches his campaign against homelessness and for “everyone having a right to a safe and stable home”. One tenant said: “The slick PR will stick in the throat of many tenants. He should start by bringing the homes he already owns up to modern standards.”

Claire Williams meeting William's father, King Charles

Tenant Claire Williams was evicted last week over rent arrears ( Image: MIKE ALSFORD/MWP)

The Duchy has more than 600 rental properties and over a 15-month investigation we identified nearly 500 of them. We found 50 Duchy properties rated F and 20 rated G, including six properties with the lowest EPC score of one point out of 100.

We spoke to a number of tenants on condition of anonymity who are living in cold, poorly insulated homes, often without central heating and many relying on the most expensive solid fuels for heat. It has been illegal since 2020 for landlords to rent out properties that are rated below an E under the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards regulations without a valid exemption.

Since the new rules, Prince William and the previous Duke of Cornwall King Charles III have between them received £91m in profits from the Duchy. One tenant with no central heating spends hundreds of pounds a month on coal and wood to heat just two rooms in his house.

He told us: “It gets miserably cold especially in the winter, you can see through the roof. I can only heat two rooms in my home using a wood burner and a coal fire, and the landlord told me that my rent was going to be put up considerably if they put in radiators."

Claire's home is filled with damp and mould ( Image: MIKE ALSFORD/MWP)

He claimed: "There is mould appearing on soft furnishings and clothes because the air is so cold and damp. To make my property efficient it needs to be insulated but they won't do that because of the cost. But you don't want to say anything against your landlord for fear of eviction. There could be consequences.”

Another elderly tenant with no central heating and just one fireplace for warmth was under a blanket when we visited his home in early September. A third told us: “The house is freezing. We were told that it is uninhabitable. When the wind blows the curtains start swinging. There’s no heating upstairs at all.

“I asked about double glazing and they said Prince Charles doesn’t like it. Well he doesn’t have to live here.” A fourth said: “The house is cold and it is a struggle but there is nowhere else to live here. They are not good landlords.”

One Duchy tenant who let us take photos of her home is Claire Williams, 53, who was evicted last week over rent arrears – which she disputes. She says she wasn’t told when an energy assessor found her former farmhouse outside Exeter was rated F in 2015. But she says she has struggled with cold and damp since she moved in more than 20 years ago.

Parts of the house which are below the ground level feel wet to the touch and are covered in black mould that Claire says she has never been able to stop growing back. She said: “As much as I tried to cover it up with mould sealer it just comes back.

Some tenants have spoken of their poor living conditions ( Image: MIKE ALSFORD/MWP)

Prince William and King Charles at the Army Aviation Centre in Stockbridge, Hampshire, in May ( Image: Getty Images)

“Any wallpapering or any painting I do, after a couple of months it just peels off. I've complained about it for 21 years. The repaint was done about a week before I moved in so you couldn't see it.”

Claire says the house has become increasingly expensive to heat: “I have to heat the house where all the heat is going out windows. I have to pay an awful lot for oil. It is just so expensive when you know you are paying all this money into a property and it's heating outside.”

She used to pay £430 to fill her 3,000 litre oil tank, but it now costs £600 for just 500 litres that last only three months. "I can never afford to fill my tank," Claire added. She said she only found out about the poor EPC rating when she was asked to leave: “When I got my eviction letter, I phoned Citizens Advice.

“They checked it out on the internet and said 'It's an F, you shouldn't be living there. You shouldn't be paying to live there and it's illegal to let that property out'. I think the Duchy are saying that I've lived here too long. You can live in conditions that are dreadful because I have lived here too long.

“They don't seem to have any consideration for the people that have lived in their houses for a length of time. They try to save money on people's lives to gain money for themselves." After the Duchy began eviction proceedings against Claire, inspectors from Mid-Devon Council visited her home and served the Duchy of Cornwall with a "hazards awareness notice" over the conditions. They found "damp and mould growth" and "excess cold" throughout the property.

The conditions inside another Duchy of Cornwall property

The Duchy of Cornwall would not comment on Claire’s EPC but said it was a “responsible and compassionate Landlord” and only evicts tenants “in rare circumstances where all other alternatives have been exhausted”. A Duchy of Cornwall spokesperson said: “We are a responsible Landlord committed to continuous improvement of its properties. We work closely with our tenants to actively address energy efficiency of properties across our portfolio while minimising the impact on residents.

"The Duchy of Cornwall is a private estate with a commercial imperative which we achieve alongside our commitment to restoring the natural environment and generating positive social impact for our communities. Prince William became Duke of Cornwall in September 2022 and since then has committed to an expansive transformation of the Duchy.

“This includes a significant investment to make the estate net zero by the end of 2032, as well as establishing targeted mental health support for our tenants and working with local partners to help tackle homelessness in Cornwall.” We showed our dossier of evidence to EPC expert Andrew Parkin, director of Elmhurst Energy and chair of the trade body Property Energy Professionals Association, who said: “That does surprise me.

“I would kind of expect to see a very small landlord here as somebody who doesn’t really understand the regulations. Every landlord has a responsibility for the buildings that they own and the tenants that are in those buildings.

“The vast majority of people agree that we have to improve our building stock, not just for the people who live in those buildings, but also for the planet and for reducing our impact on the planet.” He examined a handful of EPCs from the Duchy’s rentals and said about one: “Well, this is the worst performing kind of property. It is more likely to be a cold, draughty, hard to heat property. It certainly will be expensive to heat the property … the rating is is very, very low indeed.

Some of William's tenants are at risk of fuel poverty

About another, he said: “It has also got solid fuel heating and solid fuel room heaters, which is a very inefficient and very expensive way of heating a property. A lot of carbon emitted almost twice the amount on that one was twice the amount of the typical house.

“Because they're using something expensive like wood and electricity, the fuel bills are very, very high indeed. In terms of carbon emissions, this is a very polluting property.” Shown photos of one property, he said: “Wherever you've got large gaps and cracks within the structure of the building, you're going to get draughts … I would expect that property to be pretty cold to live in.”

He added: “With these EPCs that I've seen today, it's quite clear to me that they shouldn't be rented out until they comply with either the minimum energy efficiency standards or they have a valid exemption on the exemptions register.” None of the 70 properties with F and G ratings had exemptions in place but we understand the Duchy considers that the rules do not apply to properties where the same tenant has lived there for many years and the EPC was done “voluntarily”.

Breaches of the MEES regulations can be penalised with fines of up to £5,000 per property. Our investigation with Channel 4’s Dispatches raises serious questions over the environmental record of the Duchy, which is owned by the heir to the throne.

The Duchy of Cornwall website states that the “Dukes of Cornwall have traditionally managed their own estates … Over the last few years, HRH Prince William, the current Prince of Wales, has worked with his father managing the estate and has now taken over full responsibility for the estate leadership.”

King Charles III, who owned the Duchy until September 2022, is a longstanding champion of environmental issues, while Prince William launched the Earthshot Prize in 2020 "to search for and scale the most innovative solutions to the world ’s greatest environmental challenges". Since the new rules came into force on EPC, Charles and William have between them received £91m in profits from the Duchy.

Claire's home in Devon ( Image: MIKE ALSFORD/MWP)

There are a series of “exemptions” from the MEES regulations available to landlords. Our research shows the Duchy has applied just 10 times for exemptions and the most common reason, used four times, was that the work would cost more than £3,500 to complete.

Campaigner Jonathan Bean, a spokesperson for Fuel Poverty Action, said: "It's a disgrace that a billion pound royal estate appears to be acting like a rogue landlord. And getting away with it. King Charles and Prince William have profited from renting out property that fails to meet even basic standards.

“These low standards cause misery by making heating unaffordable, leading to major health risks from cold and mould. F and G rated homes can cost three times more to heat, which is unaffordable for those on lower incomes.

"Renters are scared to complain about grim conditions, for fear of being evicted or subjected to rent increases. People are forced to suffer in silence. This royal mess demonstrates the fundamental power imbalance at the heart of this country’s broken housing system. Tenants may have rights in law, but in reality they are at the mercy of their landlords.

"We hope this investigation will spark the urgent action needed by Government to force the Duchy and other landlords to actually meet basic standards, and end the misery of people stuck in cold, damp and mouldy rental homes." Definitions of fuel poverty vary. One measure is a household that spends more then 10% of its income on heating - another refers to poorer household with an EPC rating below D.

In 2020, the year the rules on not renting properties below an E came into force, the Government found that 4.4% of rental properties were “non-compliant”. The latest from the Office of National Statistics found that just over 1.5% of rental properties are an F or a G but these include those with an exemption in place. In comparison, 14% of the Duchy rentals we found were rated F or G - nearly ten times higher.

Are you living in an inadequate royal property? Email nick.sommerlad@mirror.co.uk.

The King, the Prince & Their Secret Millions: Dispatches’ on Channel 4, 8.10pm and afterwards on channel4.com.

[the-conversation-pod]

Dispatch! (The Ossan's Love Episode)

And we're back!

NiNi and Ben bring our friend @twig-tea to the show to talk about the entire Ossan's Love series. We'll talk about the way this franchise evolves over time, the difficulties of comedy, what it means to love older queer men, and how this show tackles the complexities of family and masculinity.

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00:00 - Welcome 00:01:15 - Introduction and Some Context 00:06:25 - Ossan’s Love History and Summary 00:13:42 - The Characters 00:28:23 - Love or Dead and In The Sky 00:39:00 - Ossan’s Love Returns 00:45:33 - Final Thoughts and Ratings

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

00:01:15 - Introduction and Some Context

Ben

And we're back! 

This week, we are covering all of Ossan's Love, from 2016 through 2024. We have brought on a special guest for this special episode as we're going to talk about the longest-running BL project. We have brought on our friend @twig-tea.

Twig

Hello.

NiNi

Hi, Twig. Welcome to the show.

Twig

Thank you so much for having me.

NiNi

New friend of the pod. Super excited to have you here. Twig is what we delightfully referred to as a ‘fandom old.’ I'm very excited to be having this conversation with two fandom olds in here, Twig and Ben, because, dear listeners, I have not had the time to watch Ossan's Love, so this is gonna be interesting. Ben and Twig are gonna school me.

Twig

We'll do our best.

Ben

This is going to be an interesting episode because we're going to be talking about a project that was somewhat overlooked by fandom, myself included, until the last couple of months. And I'm a little bit salty about it, and so I wanted to bring on somebody who has watched all of this in real time, and I thought that their perspective would be helpful. 

Twig, you are new to our listeners. Why don't you tell them a little bit about yourself in fandom and your history with queer cinema and BL?

Twig

I actually started on the GL side, which is a little bit different than I think a lot of folks in the BL fandom. I started with getting into Sailor Moon and got involved with a group of women who started Yuricon. The first Yuricon was held in Newark, NJ, in 2003 and I was the secretary. 

From there, there just wasn't enough GL content, and so I got into BL, too. I was really into Japanese manga, was part of a few scanlation groups, got oversaturated, stepped away, came back in 2016 to be shocked at the fact that a whole lot of the stuff that I used to watch was now made into live action. 

The YouTube algorithm in late 2016—early 2017—fed me Lovesick and I sort of went, “Hello. What's this?” Then watched Make it Right and was hooked on Thai BL. Tried to backfill as much as I could, so I watched Gray Rainbow, and Diary of Tootsies, and all this stuff that nobody talks about, really, anymore. 

One of the things about fandom at that time was that the way you found stuff was digging and a prayer, and random people making random lists, and it was very hard to tell how good those lists were. And so I managed that by watching everything and making my own opinions. And that is why I watched Ossan’s Love when it aired, or as soon as I could get my hands on it.

NiNi

So we're talking like real, real old school. We're talking about “Oh God, maybe some fansubber might help us out here.”

Twig

Fuckin’, like, Internet relay chat.

NiNi

IRC was my job back in the day.

Twig

Yes!

NiNi

I was talking about other things—not BL, but I was there.

Ben

Twig has sketchy as shit DVDs that were handed to her by a fan that have not great rip but really solid subs.

Twig

Bought in a mall parking lot with Mandarin subtitles that we used to watch with my friends who spoke Mandarin so they could translate for us in real time. It was hard. We used to walk uphill both ways back in the day.

Ben

A lot of folks who have been in this for a long time—we joked that we watched everything because we had to. You have done a better job of keeping track of what you've watched.

Twig

I wish I'd done better. I only really started tracking things in 2020. I did try to backfill the years before that, but I only really captured all of the major series. There was so many shorts, and things like that, I just couldn't do. But my spreadsheet has about 600 things on it, 606 as of today.

Ben

Incredible.

NiNi

I have been watching media overall—like seriously watching media—for…30 years…and I have not watched 606 of anything.

Ben

Nah, I believe her. It adds up. I engage with close to 100 BLs every year for the last 2-3 years.

NiNi

Clearly I'm not in these streets with y'all.

[Twig laughs]

Ben

I'm so glad Twig has showed up because it has given me permission to not watch so much.

NiNi

I bow down to you guys, because there was a point in time where, trying to keep up with week-to-week, I was watching something like eight shows at a time and I literally felt like my head was on fire. So, I don't know how you guys do it.

Ben

Practice. [laughs]

NiNi

We talked about this on the show, how last year I watched 50 things, maybe, for the whole year, and I felt like I was losing my mind. I usually watch like 15.

Ben

50 is good. Like, that's a really healthy number.

Twig

That is. That's pretty solid.

NiNi

As in five-zero? 

Ben

Yeah, no, that's great!

NiNi

A year?! 

Ben

Yeah! And we made a whole fucking show out of it! It’s good!

NiNi

Deep breaths. Okay, let's continue. Let's go on. [laughs]

00:06:25 - Ossan’s Love History and Summary

NiNi

Let's get into Ossan's Love. Ben, do the honors, tell us what is Ossan's Love about?

Ben

Actually, I want to do this one a little bit differently. 

NiNi, you have not engaged with Ossan's Love. The most you have is the fandom vibe on it from the periphery. What is your impression of Ossan's Love prior to all of us posting a lot about the new show?

NiNi

When you say periphery, I think you're being incredibly generous. There was one where they’re flight attendants maybe, or something to do with an airline. I am aware of that. And then there was something with a boss. There was a thing about a shower. There's some dirty jokes that go over my head because they're referential to this show. But in terms of my awareness of Ossan’s Love, it's honestly not much. 

Did I get any of those things correct by the way?

Twig

You totally did.

Ben

You did. I almost shouted “Dispatch” when you mentioned the airport. [Twig and Ben laugh] 

All right. So, I will give what I knew of Ossan's Love prior to earnestly engaging with it: Ossan's Love is a workplace-set drama in which a guy who works in an office is being pursued by a colleague of the same age as him and his boss—who is like 20-plus-odd years older than him. At the time when I didn't watch it, the fandom vibe on it was that it was fairly offensive, particularly around the old guy character. And, when it was hard to find this show, I was like, “Whatever, I'm not going to work that hard for a show that people seem really put off by.” I have had to make sure that I check if I am riding an old fandom opinion from prior to 2019 when it comes to older work, because those opinions are usually not informed by the lens that I use. And so I decided to engage with Ossan's Love properly. 

Before we start describing what the show is specifically, Twig, what do you remember about your experience watching the show in real time and the popular opinions about it?

Twig

So, the first thing is real time had really different meanings back then because we didn't have international distribution. It was sort of when things were fan subbed and when you could find them and knew they existed. So, I actually didn't get to watch the short until years after the original. So my first outing with Ossan’s Love was season one. 

At the time, it felt like if you liked it, you should be quiet about it, because the opinion was so negative that you would be shouted down if you said anything positive about it. So I just sort of stayed in my corner of enjoyment and tried not to think too hard about it.

Ben

That is unfortunately how I remember it being. It was not popular to say positive things about Ossan’s Love at the time. Even the fans of Ossan's Love seemed super ambivalent about the second season, which was an alternative universe.

Twig

Yeah. When Season 2 aired it was an even wider swing. The people who really loved Season 1 seemed to hate Season 2. I actually like Season 2 better than Season 1, so I was even more like, [laughs] “Okay, I guess I don't know what I'm talking about, guys, so I'm just gonna stay over here and let you all have your opinions over there.”

Ben

So our quick timeline: we have Ossan’s Love the TV special in 2016. We have Ossan’s Love the TV show airing during spring of 2018. They released the movie Ossan’s Love: Love or Dead —that went into theaters on August 23rd of 2019—and then a few months later, in November, they released Ossan’s Love: In The Sky. It's my understanding that Ossan’s Love Returns was originally supposed to air in, like, 2020-2021. They've returned to that project this year in 2024.

NiNi

I know they're going to be doing a Thai version of this coming up and they also have the Hong Kong version?

Twig

That's right. Yep. There was a Hong Kong version in I think 2021 or 2022.

NiNi

I love when they take a property and they remake it across cultures over and over again. I'm always intrigued to see how they turn out.

Ben

Have you watched the Hong Kong version, Twig?

Twig

I peeked at it. It's really true to season one in a lot of ways. I haven't actually watched it all the way through because I was like, “If I want to rewatch season one, I'll just rewatch season one.”

Ben

I feel like I have to watch it at some point. 

All right, so let's get into Ossan’s Love properly now: Ossan’s Love is about a 33 year old man named Haruta who is a slob. He is a hot mess of a man. He cannot take care of himself. He lives with his mom, and she does all the housework. She decides to bail on him and go run off with the hot new man she's with. And so he asks his colleague, whose name is Maki, to move in with him to help him out because Maki is very good at house chores. 

He learns accidentally that his boss, whose name is Kurasawa Musashi, has had a crush on him for a long time and also simultaneously learns that Maki has been crushing on him for a long time. Hijinks ensue as the two of them begin aggressively pursuing him, and he is not prepared for this sudden surge in gay activities.

Twig

One thing I add to your description, Ben, is it's a comedy.

Ben

So this is where things get a little bit complicated. Comedy is hard to do correctly, because a big part of comedy is playing with people's preconceptions of how an interaction should go. A lot of folks struggle with Japanese comedy because they're just not aware of the expectations for how an interaction should go, and so the humor is not landing on them, and this can happen even in your own culture. Like, if you showed a teenager today Airplane, many of the jokes in that movie would make no sense to them because they're missing some of the cultural context. Some of that exists with peoples engagement with Ossan's Love, I think.

Twig

I think that's right.

00:13:42 - The Characters 

Ben

The big part about Ossan's Love that impresses me is how the show gets better each time they come back. There are things that are kind of yikes in the short that are tweaked out in the first show. There are things that they retooled Haruta and Kurosawa over in the airport season. And then, in the most recent season, Ossan's Love Returns, they've shifted where the focus of their storytelling is after everything that's going on. So we are seeing the same characters, but they're dealing with much different dynamics. 

So, Ossan's Love Returns was a completely acceptable point for a lot of people to jump on, and I almost just jumped on. But, I like to know how we got here. So I was like, “I must watch all of this first!” [laughs]

NiNi

I was about to say on what point were you ever gonna just jump on without going back into the before times? You, sir, are a historian and a completionist.

Ben

Of course. And so I went back and watched. 

Twig, since you didn't have a lot of people to talk about Ossan's Love with at the time, how about you talk about your impressions of Haruta, Maki, and Kurosawa when you first engaged with it?

Twig

The thing that stuck with me is that, even in 2018, it felt a little more queer than a lot of the other stuff I was watching alongside it at the time. Haruta and Maki, and all of the characters, play into that in different ways. Haruta is an extremely frustrating character. I just wanted to reach through the screen and strangle him through most of season one, and I think that's partially intentional. 

Haruta is set up as the literal straight man. He's there to be what your average straight guy reaction might be when confronted with gayness, and everyone around him literally slaps him and tells him he's being an idiot. Delightful, but it doesn't make the character himself very likable at first. The fact that he grows on you anyway, even while he's being so frustrating, speaks to the other strengths in his character: his kindness, and the way he values his coworkers. And I think the later seasons did a really good job of picking up the things that made Haruta such a great character, and enforcing that in the character writing itself to make him more likable overall. 

I loved Kurosawa from jump. I think he's [laughs] incredible. He lives life on 11, and I think watching an older man step through some of the more standard romance tropes very clumsily but earnestly is incredibly charming. 

Maki is the competent character. He's also a self-actualized gay man. He at no point questions his sexuality at all, has no crisis about it. He knows who he is and what he's attracted to. And that was also really refreshing for BL at the time.

NiNi

Describing the kind of character that Kurosawa is made me think of Ben describing characters like Shin from Minato's Laundromat. When you tend to see these younger characters who are full on gung-ho chasing after the ones that they like, people like that. But they don't like the boss because they don't think their character should be doing that.

Twig

When I was first telling Ben about my opinions about the show, I said one of the things I struggle with is whether Kurosawa is telling the joke or is the joke. I think the more I have watched and rewatched, especially in later seasons, they do a really good job of him being a funny character and we're not laughing at him. He's not the butt of the joke, he's just funny. The people who would be turned off by an old guy hitting on a younger guy no matter what were turned off by that character and the ones who were sympathetic to older men also having romance in their lives were turned off by the idea that it was a comedy.

Ben

The comedy in the way Kurosawa pursues Haruta is about the age gap, not the fact that he's an old man. It's that he's at a different stage of his life. He's not fumbling to figure out stuff, he knows what he wants and his time is limited, so he's pursuing it determinately and also because he's older, he's behaving in line with his generation.

Like, if you don't have friends who are more than 10 years older than you, sometimes you're going to get weirded out by their cultural stuff. Like right now, I'm reaching the age gap with some of the kids I tutor, and I had to deal with all the various iterations on rizz and I don’t like it. 

[Twig and NiNi laugh]

I had an 8 year old call himself The Rizzler the other day and I almost pushed him down.

Twig 

Oh no.

NiNi

Oh my God.

Ben

I understand the concern around Kurosawa. But that is not what I think the show is doing, and even if it accidentally does it, that is not the show’s intent. Haruta is dealing with the sudden shift in his relationships with men who are important to him. Maki was just like his friend and colleague, who he was low-key mooching off of to do housework for him, and he has to deal with the fact that the only reason Maki is willing to put up with him is because Maki likes him. With Kurosawa, a big part of their relationship is the fact that he respects and admires him so much. The relationship between them is very paternal in a lot of ways?

Twig

A mentorship.

Ben

Yeah, he sees Kurosawa as a respected mentor and Kurosawa respects Haruta as well as a valued member of his team. A big part of the show is them sorting out the way that affection complicates some of these relationships, and we as the audience have to struggle with why these men like this man. Haruta is fucking useless in the household. He may be good at his job, but he is horrible at house related stuff. And so the question is why would anyone want him? 

And this is not rhetorical for the show. They really want you to grapple with this. The fact that Haruta is kind of repulsive as a romantic interest is something the show wants you to think about. You have to work to understand why so many people are into Haruta, and I think this gets better overtime.

Twig

They do a really good job with all of the women characters in this show, which was super rare for the time and still worth saying. His best friend Chizu also is terrible at housework, but she's a woman, and so she's struggling with the expectation that she get married and she keeps talking about how she needs to find somebody who does for her what Haruta’s men are willing to do for him. I just love putting those two characters side by side. And the silent question that's asked of the audience. That's like, why is this okay for Haruta, but not for Chizu.

Ben

It's not really subtle. As the show goes on, Maki won't really commit to Haruta because Haruta is ostensibly straight. Maki is hesitant about full committing because it's hard to be gay, like you got a lot to face as a gay person and he doesn't know that Haruta is going to stand up to all that. He's kind of a waffly type of dude. He's kind of a people pleaser who won't really stand up to anyone. This is kind of good for him as a salesperson. It's obvious why all their clients like Haruta. But it makes him kind of unreliable as a partner because you're not certain he's going to hold ground with you when the world is telling you that you shouldn't be together. 

The first season ends on a really cool note, ‘cause Maki and Haruta break up and Haruta just falls apart. And Kurosawa moves in with him for a while to help take care of him. For Kurosawa, it's a romantic thing, but it very much feels like someone’s parent going to take care of their kid. Haruta recognized where he failed with Maki, and he starts trying to help out with house stuff a little bit. But it's not like he suddenly becomes like a great housekeeper. I really liked that choice, that he starts putting in an effort but he's still horrible at it. 

Kurosawa ends up proposing to Haruta. Haruta has a hard time saying no to people, so he accepts. Also, he used a flash mob. It's hard to say no when someone flash mobs you.

NiNi

Pause. Pause for cause.

Twig

Michael Jackson-themed flash mob.

NiNi

Okay, not pausing. Unpausing. Go ahead.

Ben

Kurosawa is always at 11. He is an incredible character and like he and Haruta are going to get married and at the altar, Kurosawa is like. You need to go to him. You don't actually want to be here. And so Haruta runs to Maki and proposes to him at the end of the first season. 

And then there's just an incredible supporting cast in the show. I don't think we have time to talk about all of them properly, but. Haruta’s friend Chizu’s older brother Teppei runs a little bar diner that they often hang out at. He's so funny, always giving them weird gross food combinations to try out. They’re’s Maro, who's a member of their team who did not know Haruta’s given name for the years they worked together, there's Maika, who's kind of a nosy busybody at their work. She's a great source of comedy, ends up with Teppei. There's Takegawa, who's the second at their office in the first season, who is revealed to be Maki’s ex later. And he is intense as hell and becomes a complicating factor in the budding relationship between Haruta and Maki because he challenges Haruta. He's like, why is he putting this much effort into you? You suck! I really love the Takegawa character because he is a hot mess.

Twig

He just is so pained at Maki falling for a straight man. Something that is deeply relatable for anybody in queer spaces. [NiNi laughs] Like we have all been that person. Like, what are you doing to yourself?

Ben

I want to nod to Choko real quick. In the first season, Kurosawa has a wife of 30 years. Her name is Choko. Once his feelings for Haruta become known to Haruta, he decides he's going to pursue them and he tells this to his wife and they get divorced. She is understandably upset about this whole situation. But what's so great about it is, the show allows her to have a journey of figuring out what her life is going to be now that this information is out there. Like, she was hurt and upset at first, but then decides to support Kurosawa because this is her partner of 30 years and she understands him, so she ends up eventually supporting what he's trying to do with Haruta. And she ends up developing her own relationship with Maro. 

It's really cool in this show where there's this whole complicated thing about whether or not these three gay men are going to sort themselves out into various relationship configurations, they're also doing a pretty steep successful age gap romance between like a 30-something year old man and a woman approaching 60.

Twig

I love Choko's arc so much. It's the one thing that stayed with me the most. She is also allowed to be funny. She's silly and immature in the same ways that the male characters are. She's not perfect either. And I think that is super important that she's a complicated character. 

I think it's really important that this show talks about the ways in which homophobia and being in the closet hurts everyone, not just gay people. I think this show does a good job of at least alluding to the fact that the hurt that's caused by people having to live lies makes waves in communities.

NiNi

I like when they put that on older characters, as well. There's so much to unpack when you're talking about a life lived in the closet, emerging from a life lived in the closet later on in life. What you're gonna do with that life and how you're gonna treat it. From what you guys are saying about Kurosawa, it’s like he just decided to take life by the balls once he came out of the closet, and that's always something that I enjoy seeing.

Ben 

I guess, well, on some of the negatives. The humor is choppy in the first season. You do have to recalibrate as you're watching. It is very funny, but in ways that are unexpected. You will end up feeling a sense of revulsion in the show, particularly to season one Haruta. When I started going back to it, I had a difficult time with the first episode because I'm asking myself why would anyone want to fuck this man? [NiNi and Twig laugh] That is a real and valid reaction that you have to work with as you're watching the show. And so parts of it are a little bit difficult to watch in that regard. 

And Kurosawa is a huge character. You have to take time to get to know him and understand him and understand where his behaviors are coming from. And if you're not willing to do that work, the show is super off putting. 

Twig 

It is loud. You do have to allow your comedy ear to calibrate to its shouting. 

Ben 

However, I will say that if you want to see romance in BL about older characters, Ossan’s Love is right there. The entire drama is about 30-somethings and much older dealing with life and love. There is no wistful stuff about “things were easier when we were kids” in this show at all. It is very much grounded in the perspective and dramas that people in their 30s and 40s and 50s are dealing with in life and romance. 

Twig 

I feel like the one other thing that I always feel the need to call out about the first season is Haruta, because of what his character is struggling with, is physically uncomfortable with displays of affection, and particularly with kissing, in the first season. And that can be off putting too, but he makes it clear verbally that he's not actually against physical affection, he's just familiar with it? It is one of the things that the show does better later on.

00:28:23 - Love or Dead and In The Sky

Ben 

Let's talk about the movie! Ossan’s Love: Love or Dead. 

Twig 

[laughs] Every time I think about that title, it makes me laugh, ‘cause it's just so extra. 

NiNi 

I'm sorry, Love or Dead? 

Ben

Mhmm.

Twig 

Oh yeah. 

Ben 

The premise of this movie is at the end of season one, Haruta got an opportunity to go work in Shanghai for about six months, and the guys are going to be facing a separation for a bit. There's drama when Maki goes to pick up Haruta ‘cause he's found in a compromising position, and a big part of this is Maki still dealing with his anxiety around whether or not Haruta can be a partner to him. Maki gets selected to be part of this high-powered real estate team, and there's a bunch of drama that unfolds involving a partnership with a drug peddling organization and then we end on like an action note where they have to rescue Haruta from a burning building. 

Twig 

There are explosions. 

Ben 

Lots of explosions. 

NiNi 

This sounds… delightful. This sounds like exactly my kind of crack. 

Ben 

You should watch it sincerely. 

Twig 

It is delightful. 

Ben 

If you're not certain about Ossan’s Love, legit, watching Ossan’s Love: Love or Dead is not a terrible place to start. It's a two-hour outing that covers the basic ground of the franchise, has some really strong moments, and is super cracked out. 

What's so fun in it is, we talk about the retooling of the characters. In season one, Maki and Kurosawa beef a lot over Haruta and legit get into physical brawls over it. This is a feature of the entire franchise. These men scrap on the regular. There's this great moment when they're trying to rescue Haruta from this building where Kurosawa's role as their mentor comes through and he reads Maki about how he's always holding back in the relationship. That's what I think works for me the most in this franchise, the collective love that everyone has for each other. It's true that Kurosawa is not going to succeed as a romantic rival to Maki in this story, but that doesn't mean that he's not important to everyone and everything going on. And I really, truly love that. 

Twig 

His mentorship relationship with Maki really starts to flourish in the movie, the moment where Maki’s hanging off of a ledge and Kurosawa is helping him physically back onto the ledge so he doesn’t fall into the flames, but also verbally telling him what he needs to do to save his relationship. This movie is not subtle with its metaphors. But it's such a good moment where we realize that Kurosawa plays that role for Maki, too, of a mentor, and that he's willing to do it for the relationship, even at the same time as being a love rival. And it sets up the new season really well. 

Ben 

The movie matters to the timeline of the series. The movie is not just some sort of one off moment that occurs. The events of the movie are built into the characters, and it was the beginning of them retooling how these characters function. 

NiNi 

This sounds like a very experimental type of series, just the way that they do different things each time. While they are refining their central characters and the central storylines, they're also experimenting with style and tone, and a number of other things it feels like? 

Twig 

I think that's really true. One of the things about the movie that's really fun is it's the first instance of sports in the series. We get Justice playing basketball with Haruta and working his feelings out through basketball. 

Ben 

JUSTICE!!! [Twig and Ben laugh]

Twig 

Love and peace! And that becomes a huge part of the AU and also part of Ossan’s Love Returns that I think really adds to the experience. They try things out and then if it works, they pick it up and add and yes, and it, and then they pull out the things that didn't really work. I find that really interesting to watch happen. 

NiNi 

The concept of something being iterative like that in real time, it's not for everybody. 

Ben 

This series went on to do something super experimental where a couple of months after they released a continuation movie promising that these characters would get back together, they released an alternative universe season where only Haruta and Kurosawa were present from the original cast, and now we're at an airport dealing with a completely different set of characters and a slightly different dynamic. 

It also gave Twig and I our favorite bit. 

Twig

[laughs] Dispatch! 👍

Ben

Dispatch! 👍 Oh my God. It is so funny, every single time. 

NiNi 

Every time. 

Ben 

Every episode has at least two dispatch moments. [Twig laughs] It's so fucking funny. 

Twig 

Sometimes it's to end a conversation. Sometimes it's to greet somebody, sometimes it's to shut down a conversation, distract from someone saying something you don’t want them to say. 

Ben 

So in this particular season, Kurosawa is still a leader. He is the captain of a flight crew. Haruta is a new flight attendant who is joining this team. In this case, Kurosawa is not Haruta’s long-term mentor who has been harboring a crush on him. He develops his crush in real time. Haruta moves into company housing and there's a slightly older guy there who's got a crush on Haruta, but he won't say anything about it. And then there's the meanest twink who's ever existed in BL. 

NiNi 

I mean y'all just seem to be giving me multiple reasons to watch this show at this point, so. 

Ben 

So in the second season, there's far more complicated people in the Haruta stuff. There's Kaname who is the older mechanic who lives in the dorms, and he's got this huge crush on Haruta, but he'll never say anything about it. Naruse is causing fucking problems all the time, because every time he has relationship drama and people show up at their airport to fuck with him about it, he just starts kissing Haruta to make people go away. And then people throw drinks in Haruta’s face over it. Because Tanaka Kei is a master of physical comedy. 

Twig 

One of the staples of the series is what I call the Haruta reaction supercut, where they just have multiple cuts of Haruta’s face as it morphs into more and more absurd huh, no, whaaa faces. He does bend his body in ways that's like a cartoon falling over, it's pretty incredible. 

NiNi 

Ben knows that I love physical comedy. 

Twig 

Yoshida Kotaro has incredible physical comedy, too. 

Ben 

Like if you ever want to see an old man try and kill an aging twink [Twig laughs], this is the show for you. 

I get why people who liked the first show bounced off of this, because the rest of the cast is gone. The supporting cast is a really strong part of the Ossan’s Love experience, but I really like the AU season because I think it allowed them to retool Haruta and Kurosawa. And retool the relationship between them to make it more about their mentorship. They're building that relationship in the AU season ‘cause they don't know each other. 

Twig 

The thing that I really like about the AU setup is because Haruta is coming into a new environment, we get to see him build his network of people around him over the course of the season. Showing us what's likable about Haruta because he has to charm all these people around him in order to get friends and build a community, is a really important piece of the puzzle that allowed me to get to like that character a lot more, because he was charming me at the same time. 

Ben 

We get a lot of great moments in the season. Kurosawa has been a pilot for 30 years and he decides to retire and everyone is sad about it. I'm sad about it, Twig is crying about it. 

Twig 

Mmhm. 

Ben 

He ends up inviting the three guys who we've mentioned out to hang out in the park with him. He has this sumo tournament with them where he's basically giving them the last bit of advice he's going to give them and it is, one of the most intensely emotional man moments I have had in this genre. I was losing it and I was crying. I was hollering and screaming, messaging Twig like, “Wake up, I need to talk about this right now, I don't care what you're doing. Get up.” 

Truly, it is one of the best moments in TV about the relationships between men that I have ever experienced, and it is this hyper ridiculous sumo wrestling moment in a gay romance drama in the AU season that is technically not canon, and it was the moment from the series that lingers with me the most. 

Twig 

Even in the moment they're looking at each other like, is this happening? How is this happening? This isn't real. Nobody does this. Nobody calls each other to the side of the river with a note [laughs] to hold a wrestling competition in which we talk about our feelings. 

Ben 

But it works really well. I ended up really loving the way it allowed us to think about these two men and the relationship between them. We get to appreciate how important Kurosawa is to Haruta. 

Twig 

That sumo wrestling moment allows us to see Kurosawa's relationships with all of his subordinates. The way he's so firm and so gentle with Naruse, with like “soft landing,” meanwhile, throws Haruta out of the ring. 

Ben 

The way he talks to all of these men as specific to them, like his role as leader is strongest in the AU season. My primary concern for the Thai adaptation is who is playing Kurosawa, because this character is as important as the romantic leads. 

Twig 

I think it's more important. 

Ben 

I am with Twig. Who is going to match Yoshida Kotaro in Thailand? I need to know. 

Twig 

I'm eagerly awaiting that announcement. 

NiNi 

The answer is going to be Nu Surasak or Kob Songsit.

Ben 

I really hope it's good. 

00:39:00 - Ossan’s Love Returns

Ben

Ossan's Love Returns reunites the original cast after five years. Maki is returning from an extended stint in Singapore, and now he and Haruta are gonna start their cohabitating married life together. Maki is now part of the super team at headquarters, following up on the movie. Haruta is still on the streets with regular folk, ‘cause that's where he wants to be. Kurosawa has retired, I liked that follow up from the AU season. And now he's working as a housekeeper. Maki is working too much and Haruta is still bad at house, and so they hire a housekeeper, who ends up being Kurosawa [Twig laughs] who cannot hold back his feelings for Haruta and it becomes one of the ongoing dramas of the season. 

One of the things I enjoyed in this season is… they explore how to integrate Kurosawa into their lives long term. Haruta is serious about Maki and committed to their romance. Kurosawa is also extremely important to him and he treats him like a father figure. They explicitly have Choko talk to Kurosawa about how a lot of the ways he feels [laugh] about Maki are a lot of the ways a mother-in-law might feel about their daughter-in-law with the way they beef with each other. And when we say they beef with each other, I mean, these two men are legit fighting in their kitchen, like Kurosawa hits Maki in the head repeatedly with a frying pan. Maki legit throws Kurosawa through a door at one point and knocks it off the hinges. These two men, when they scrap with each other, are fighting for real and I love it every time.

NiNi

It's just like you all conspired to come into this recording booth today and just be like, okay, so you say this and I'll say that and between us we're gonna get her to watch this, because she likes this kind of stuff.

Ben

I didn't really have to work that hard. We're just legit talking about what the show was doing. We get a really great season of Maki and Haruta settling into what their life is going to look like. There's some introduced new characters in the season that we all had very complicated feelings about who I think end up fitting fine by the end. Most of the original cast comes back and there's like a really great bit of exploring what all these characters settling into their relationships that they got into in the first season in this one. 

So Haruta and Maki are now living together and figuring out what that is going to look like, who are they gonna be as a couple now that they're not doing long distance ‘cause they've basically been long distance between every outing. Which I think was a clever choice because it means that the characters’ relationship dynamic doesn't really move that much between outings. 

Choko is now living with Maro and Maro’s mom, and Choko is struggling because she's older than Maro's mom. She can't just treat this woman like her mother-in-law. And Maro doesn't know how to help because he's caught between his wife, who's way older than him, and his mom, who's confused and a little bit uncertain about this whole dynamic.

Twig

I also love that that's not the only thing we see Choko having worked through in the time we've been apart from her. She opened an archery range after her divorce, and sort of reinvented herself with this new life that she's actually thriving in.

Ben

They get new neighbors who are a bunch of weirdos.

Twig

[laughs] They're so weird. They're so weird.

Ben

These two are revealed to be members of, like, a public security division that maybe doesn't actually exist. Izumi ends up becoming obsessed with Haruta because he's a doppelganger for his dead lover who was killed in the line of duty, who is very, very different from Haruta. It was fun to see Tanaka Kei play a very different type of character in those flashbacks. I don't know that it entirely landed for me over the course of the season, but by the finale, which was fantastic, I was okay with them.

Twig

A large part of the way they were written is that they were a mystery for a large part of it, too. It's hard to bond with a character that you know nothing about and is intentionally opaque.

Ben

Chizu is trying to make it as a single mom and this reinforces one of the big themes of the season, that family is all the people who are going to show up for you all the time. She relies on Teppei and Maika to help, and she feels guilty about this and they tell her straight up, like, don't feel guilty. We are a family. You should rely on us. 

She had already made Haruta and Maki designated adults who can pick up her kid from the daycare. An important gay right of passage is your friend calling you and telling you I need you to go pick up my kid, and then you show up at said kindergarten to pick up a kid and they look at your ID and they go “oh you're allowed” and the kid runs to you and everybody goes, well, that makes sense. An important gay moment that everyone must experience.

Twig

One of the things that I love about this so much is that it picks up from a throw away line that Chizu says in the movie. She sort of brags that she's going to balance having a kid and her career. One of the things about the series is that it really feels like the people who are writing it love the whole series and are constantly thinking about how to call back in loving ways and how to pick up threads in loving ways. Something that she just sort of confidently stated she was going to do no problem in the movie becomes a whole plot in the following season.

Ben

There's a final arc in the season where Kurosawa has a health scare where we think he's going to die.

Twig

When we were talking about it, Ben, you said that it was an important moment for Maki and Haruta to confront the idea that Kurosawa won't always be around. And I was like, oh, that's why I don't like this part because I don't want to ever think about that. [Twig and Ben laugh]

Ben

The entire finale is this really great examination about the way this whole group of people are a family to each other.

Twig

It's not even just that it's happening, but they're explicit about it. They're having conversations about what is family? What are we to each other? How do we define our relationship? Where do those lines get drawn? And the answer is just sort of, yes.

Ben

There's an explicit line, like, what is Kurosawa to them? And then Maika comes over and hammers it home for the audience and is like, “There's no need to describe it. What matters is you all are going to be part of each other's lives forever.”

00:45:33 - Final Thoughts and Ratings

Ben

I don't think we talked about it as much. So, the first season is pretty light on kissing and intimacy between the male characters. Ossan's Love Returns is not! There's so much married intimacy between Haruta and Maki.

Twig

The casual intimacy in Ossan's Love Returns is constant, and it just feels very lived in? They're just constantly touching each other and having small kisses and teasing each other.

Ben

We got more of that today in the unexpected special spin-offs we're getting. I was like “ohh, I thought we were done. Oh, it's another cute little 20-minute office episode ending on the two of them making out next to the copier.” Love it.

NiNi

This is called Forbidden Gout Temps Nouveau. 

Twig

Mhmm.

NiNi

I have so many questions, but I feel like I should not ask those questions right now.

Ben

My general attitude is you don't need to watch all of Ossan's Love to enjoy parts of Ossan's Love. I think if you are interested in gay domesticity and complex family units, you can just watch Ossan's Love Returns right away.

NiNi

I'm watching it all. Eventually. I don't know when. There's a lot going on in the IRL space right now, but I'm gonna be watching the whole thing.

Twig

I feel like I should say something about the original short. It has a lot of the things that people found the hardest to swallow about season one. A lot of the stuff that they did originally they fixed or did better as they moved through. I would say the short is the thing to skip, of all of it, unless you're really curious about the journey of this franchise.

NiNi

I'm really fascinated by the idea of this as a reserve process of working through and refining the show in kind of a real time. I would like to see the whole thing just for that purpose. I'm a writer, so the way that this feels like multiple drafts, and you getting to actually see the multiple drafts to see why they might have decided to make a particular change in the next draft, or why they would have gone for an overhaul, or what would they have tweaked around the edges. I like the idea of looking at that.

Twig

It is not just the writing that they iterate. We haven't talked a lot about the visual effects that this show uses, but it has its own style. One of my favorites: it uses the bokeh effect, where the lighting in the background is blurred and sometimes takes shapes. It starts from the very beginning. You'll see the lights behind Kurosawa make little hearts while he's confessing to Haruta and Haruta’s has little like stop signs. [Ben laughs] And then they get bigger and bigger with that where Kurosawa’s hearts have little like heartbreak. They have– there’s little, like, zigzags in the hearts behind him when he gets rejected. Sometimes he'll be crying tear lights. That’s just one of the things that they play with in the different versions.

Ben

Naruse having that whole tantrum trying to get someone's attention for help? Then having that super cut of them screaming and then smash cutting to them just sitting at the table. There's like the courtroom audio stinger that dominates the first season that I fucking love [mimics the sound] thing that happens over the course of the whole season. It's so, so dramatic, and I'm like, “Is Judge Mathis gonna walk out? What is happening?”

Twig

Oh, and they do this thing where they hard cut to a visual metaphor like water leaking out of a water bottle or a pot boiling to represent the character’s emotions. There's so many visual moments. It's not just written well and acted well. It's also represented visually really well, and seeing how they experiment with that and how that changes. Like, the weird bobble heads we got in the AU season. I'm still not over those. I'm glad those didn't return.

Ben

It is not a perfect show. This is not a “Everybody was wrong. They should have watched all of this. Grab your pitchfork!” situation. This is not an easy show to love. If you can find your way to loving the show, I think it has been one of the most rewarding watches I've had in the genre since What Did You Eat Yesterday? 

Japanese BL is different from Thai BL. More experimental and weirder things are gonna happen over time if the series has a lot of leg in it, and Ossan's Love is one of those that has so much leg in it. Like the second season just ended, and I'd be okay if we don't see them again, but, I really hope we do.

Twig

Me too.

NiNi

All right, so let's get into ratings. I mean, is this the kind of thing that you rate? Instead of rating, let's rank. If you had to rank the different parts of the Ossan's Love franchise, how would you rank them? In terms of, for you, most enjoyable to probably the least enjoyable?

Ben

Well, the least enjoyable is the original special. It's the most rough and the hardest to swallow. I think the best season is the current one?

Twig

Yeah. I mean, for me, it's basically chronological order, I think. I struggle between the film and the AU ‘cause I like them for different reasons, and I struggled with them for different reasons. But I think Naruse tips it over there so that it stays ahead.

Ben

[Ben and Twig laugh] I love that mean twink!

Twig

He's just so great.

Ben

I don't know that I'd want to…rank them that way. I think each outing adds something to it. It's really a question of, do you like seeing people try to get together for the first time, or do you really like seeing people be together? For me, I'm very partial to Ossan's Love Returns because it's about gay life drama, which is what I’ve wanted for a while. And so I'm really fucking enjoying that.

Twig

Yeah, I love it when people have to figure out, “Now that we're in this relationship, how do we make this work?”

Ben

But I also love the AU season. I think the retooling of Haruta and Kurosawa is actually really helpful. I think taking a break from Maki is actually helpful for appreciating Haruta when you come back to them. I think you end up liking Haruta more by the time you get to Ossan's Love Returns and seeing the potential in him. The love people are trying to pour on to him in the current season is more accessible to me as a viewer because I got to spend time with Haruta growing to love him in the AU season.

Twig

I also just have affection for an entire season that seems to have basically been built off of like a throwaway reference to episode one, when Haruta says he's most attracted to stewardesses. And then, and also, like, maybe a pun because Kurosawa’s character is called bucho which means, like, manager essentially through all of the regular Ossan's Love stories. But in the AU he's kucho because he's a captain. And I think that's very funny.

Ben

In terms of my ratings, I'm looking at on MDL, I gave Ossan's Love and Ossan's Love Returns a 9. But I gave the AU season a 9.5. [Ben and Twig laugh] So, there's your answer.

Twig

There you go.

Ben

Twig, what did you rate the second season? I know ratings aren't always your thing, but did you give the second season a rating?

Twig

I didn't. If I was going to give it a rating. Ossan's Love Returns? Yeah, I’d give it a 9.

Ben

It's a 9 for me in that I think if you're into BL, you should watch the show, but I don't know that it is the most accessible show, so I don't want to give it a 10.

Twig

I think the thing about this show, too, is it's about multiple relationships. It's not just about Maki and Haruta, and I wouldn't even say their relationship dominates the story. So, to rank it against other BL as a romance narrative is quite difficult. It's about family and what that means in a queer context. Part of that is romance, but it's not even the biggest part? The family feels is what gets me about this series.

Ben

That's going to do it for Ossan's Love. We have succeeded at our mission. NiNi has agreed to watch the show. Twig and I got to unpack the entirety of this whole franchise. We have the benefit of knowing it gets better over time now, and so I don't begrudge people bouncing when they did in 2018. I think that in 2024, it is beneficial for people who care about the history of the genre to go back and properly engage with Ossan's Love. I genuinely think it is worth reconsidering your initial opinion. They… grow. Their characters are not static. What has occurred is taken seriously and what worked and didn't work is considered as they move forward.

NiNi

That is going to wrap us up on the Ossan's Love episode. Twig, it was so great having you on, and I hope you come back.

Twig

Thank you so much for having me. It was really fun.

NiNi

With that, we out. Say bye to the people, Twig.

Twig

Dispatch!👍

Ben

Dispatch! 👍

NiNi

At some point I'm going to find out what that means, and then I will be unstoppable. Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace.

[justforbooks]

Do you know your fatberg from your cakeage?

New words, senses, and phrases are added to oxforddictionaries.com once editors have gathered enough independent evidence to be confident they have widespread currency in English, but they do not gain entry into the Oxford English Dictionary unless continued historical use can be shown.

The addition of multiple slang words did not represent a dumbing down of English, but showed creative use of language.

From bants to manspreading

awesomesauce, adj.: (US informal) extremely good; excellent.

bants (also bantz), pl. n.: (Brit. informal) playfully teasing or mocking. remarks exchanged with another person or group; banter.

beer o’clock, n: an appropriate time of day for starting to drink beer.

brain fart, n.: (informal) a temporary mental lapse or failure to reason correctly.

Brexit, n.: a term for the potential or hypothetical departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union.

bruh, n: (US informal) a male friend (often used as a form of address).

cakeage,n.: (informal) a charge made by a restaurant for serving a cake they have not supplied themselves.

cat cafe, n.: a cafe or similar establishment where people pay to interact with cats housed on the premises.

cupcakery, n.: a bakery that specialises in cupcakes.

deradicalisation, n.: the action or process of causing a person with extreme views to adopt more moderate positions on political or social issues.

fatberg, n.: a very large mass of solid waste in a sewerage system, consisting especially of congealed fat and personal hygiene products that have been flushed down toilets.

fat-shame, v.: cause (someone judged to be fat or overweight) to feel humiliated by making mocking or critical comments about their size.

fur baby, n.: a person’s dog, cat, or other furry pet animal.

Grexit, n.: a term for the potential withdrawal of Greece from the eurozone (the economic region formed by those countries in the European Union that use the euro as their national currency).

hangry, adj.: (informal) bad-tempered or irritable as a result of hunger.

manspreading, n.: the practice whereby a man, especially one travelling on public transport, adopts a sitting position with his legs wide apart, in such a way as to encroach on an adjacent seat or seats.

mkay, excl.: (informal, chiefly US) non-standard spelling of OK, representing an informal pronunciation (typically used at the end of a statement to invite agreement, approval, or confirmation).

Mx, n.: a title used before a person’s surname or full name by those who wish to avoid specifying their gender or by those who prefer not to identify themselves as male or female.

pocket dial, v.: inadvertently call (someone) on a mobile phone in one’s pocket, as a result of pressure being accidentally applied to a button or buttons on the phone.

rage-quit, v.: (informal) angrily abandon an activity or pursuit that has become frustrating, especially the playing of a video game.

rando, n.: (informal) a person one does not know, especially one regarded as odd, suspicious, or engaging in socially inappropriate behaviour.

Redditor, n.: a registered user of the website Reddit.

social justice warrior, n.: (informal, derogatory) a person who expresses or promotes socially progressive views.

snackable, adj.: (of online content) designed to be read, viewed, or otherwise engaged with briefly and easily.

spear phishing, n.: the fraudulent practice of sending emails ostensibly from a known or trusted sender in order to induce targeted individuals to reveal confidential information.

swatting, n.: (US informal) the action or practice of making a hoax call to the emergency services in an attempt to bring about the dispatch of a large. number of armed police officers to a particular address.

weak sauce, n.: (US informal) something that is of a poor or disappointing standard or quality.

wine o’clock, n.: an appropriate time of day for starting to drink wine.

There’s always been new slang words. I just think we are more aware of them because of the ways in which we consume and live our lives now. We are bombarded with more and more avenues where those sort of words are used and we just think that there are more of them. I don’t necessarily think that’s the case.

From my point of view, it’s not really about dumbing down, it’s more creative ways that people are using language.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[scotianostra]

August 20th 1872, saw the death of the Scottish " laureate of the nursery", William Miller.

Miller was born in Glasgow in 1810 and spent most of his boyhood in what is now the city’s Parkhead area. His ambition to become a surgeon was ended by serious illness and he was eventually apprenticed as a wood-turner. He became a skilled craftsman, developing a particular talent for cabinet-making. Early in his life he began writing poetry and children’s rhymes, mainly in the Scots language he used in everyday life.

His song Wee Willie Winkie along with other verse by Miller, first appeared in Whistle Binkie: Stories for the Fireside, a compendium of songs, in 1841, it went on to appear in further editions of that and many, many more publications since then. However it was not received well at first, indeed the editor of Whistle-Binkie,David Robertson was not keen on the grumpy figure personifying sleep and it was received with mixed opinions by Robertson’s friends. To settle the dissent, he dispatched the manuscript to R. M. Ballantyne of Edinburgh (who had himself contributed much to the publication and was the writer of over 100 books in his lifetime) who asserted, according to the Perthshire Advertiser that:

“There is not at this moment in the whole range of Scottish songs, anything more exquisite in its kind than that little Warlock of the Nursery, “Wee Willie Winkie.”

Miller suffered from ill health throughout his life and never managed to make a career solely as a poet and continued to work as a cabinet-maker and wood-turner for most of his life, most of the time from his own house, he did however have his fans, Lord Jeffrey, founder of the prestigious Edinburgh Review, being one, another was the Countess of Selkirk, and it was during one of his bouts of illness it became known she helped the erstwhile poet out when reported in The Glasgow Herald in 1846 that…:

“We learn that the Countess of Selkirk has transmitted to Mr David Robertson of this city, by the hands of the Rev.Mr Underwood of Kirkeudbright, the sum of £2, for behoof of William Miller, the author of “Wee Willie Winkie,” &c.; her Ladyship having been impressed with a favourable opinion of the poet from having perused his Nursery Rhymes. Mr Miller is so much improved, that he is now able to pursue his occupation of a wood-turner.”

In November 1871, an ulceration of the leg forced William give up his trade. Despite the increasing frailties of his body, his mind remained as sharp as ever and he continued to write and disseminate poetry, works which appeared in publications such as The Scotsman. Learning of his condition as an invalid, The Greenock Telegraph and Clyde Shipping Gazette on the 1st March 1872 urged its readers to furnish monetary contributions ‘for this deserving old poet:

WILLIAM MILLER THE POET.

“Perhaps the most delicious nursery song that has been written by a modern minstrel for the delectation of the “bairns” in these northern regions is the song of “Wee Willie Winkie.” We are sorry to hear that the writer of it has for a long time past been an invalid, and that he is in poor circumstances. William Miller has a strong claim on the public for some help to smooth his declining years. He is now upwards of sixty, and at his advanced age, afflicted as he is with serious disease of the limbs, there is no prospect of his ever being able again to resume work. By trade he is a wood turner, and he resides in Glasgow, of which city he is a native. One who knows him says that his heart seems still young, his mind still vigorous; but he feels his position irksome and his spirit galled that he cannot now, as formerly, earn by the swear of his brow the bread of independence.”

You have to love the language of the day used in these newspapers!

The following July, Miller stayed at Blantyre for a time, hoping that the town’s airs – the settlement was 8 miles from Glasgow – would reinvigorate him. The trip proved futile and he was soon returned to his son’s house in the city, having suffered a paralysis of the lower limbs. He passed away, destitute, at the age of 62 on the 20th August, 1872.

The poet subsequently received a number of obituary notices in the newspapers lamenting the loss of this Scottish talent. The account below, in The Greenock Telegraph and Clyde Shipping Gazette on the 22nd August, 1872), reports the grim news:

DEATH OF WILLIAM MILLER, THE POET

“The death is announced of William Miller, the nursery poet. He was born in Glasgow in August, 1810. He was early apprenticed to a wood turner, and by diligent application to business made himself one of the best workmen of his craft; and even in his later years there were few who could equal him in the quality of his work. It is, however, as a poet that he is known to fame. In his early youth he published several pieces in the Day and other newspapers; but from the fact that no record of these productions was observed, it is impossible to know when they issued from his pen.

The first thing that brought him into public notice was the publication of the nursery song “Willie Winkie.” The MS. of this song was sent to Mr. Ballantine in Edinburgh, who gave it unqualified praise, as being the very best poem of its kind that he had ever seen. This led to the publication of the poem, and it at once attracted a large amount of attention. This was followed by a number of other pieces of a similar description, all of which were received with great favour, and led to the author’s acquaintance with Lord Jeffrey and other gentlemen of literary tastes.

The best of his nursery songs which have obtained for him the well-earned title of the Laureate of the nursery were all written before he was 36 years of age; but it was not till 1863 that, at the request of several friends, he collected together and published a small volume, entitled “Nursery Songs and other Poems.” It had a wide circulation and has earned for the author a reputation that will never decay.

Miller is buried in Tollcross Cemetery in a plot that does not bear his name a sad state of affairs that led to friends and admirers raising a memorial stone by public subscription and it stands in the Glasgow Necropolis, near the Bridge of Sighs.

In 2009, Glasgow City Council unveiled a tribute to the poet at his former dwelling, 4 Ark Lane in Dennistoun, erecting a bronze plaque on the wall of the Tennent’s Brewery which now sits on the site of William Miller’s house. A blue plaque in the Trongate also serves as a quirky tribute to his most famous creation, declaring that ‘Wee Willie Winkie was spotted here in his nightgown’ in 1841.

It is clear that, even now, William Miller’s pyjama-clad figure still urges children to get into their beds and sleep as a nursery song learnt and replayed the world over

Here is the Scots version of ‘Wee Willie Winkie,’ a rhyme anglicised very soon after its publication:

Wee Willie Winkie runs through the toon,

Up stairs and doon stairs, in his nicht-goon,

Tirling at the window, cryin’ at the lock,

Are the weans in their bed, for it’s now ten o’clock?

Hey, Willie Winkie, are ye coming ben?

The cat’s singing grey thrums to the sleeping hen,

The dog’s spelder’d on the floor, and disna gie a cheep,

But here’s a waukrife laddie that winna fa’ asleep.

Onything but sleep, you rogue, glow’ring like the mune,

Rattling in an airn jug wi’ an airn spoone,

Rumbling, tumbling round about, crawing like a cock,

Skirlin’ like a kenna-what, wauk’ning sleeping fock.

Hey, Willie Winkie – the wean’s in a creel,

Wambling aff a bodie’s knee like a very eel,

Ruggin’ at the cat’s lug, and raveling a’ her thrums-

Hey, Willie Winkie – see, there he comes!’

Wearied is the mither that has a stoorie wean,

A wee stumple stoussie, that canna rin his lane,

That has a battle aye wi’ sleep before he’ll close an ee

But a kiss frae aff his rosy lips gies strength anew to me.