#if he’s related to lesley at all she obviously doesn’t like him very much

[oblisker]

stop shipping lesley and roy lesley is way too good for his ass. start shipping roy and shrignold

[queerlennon]

Lesley-Ann Jones Is Untrustworthy

So I’ve seen some people in the fandom reading and citing Lesley-Ann Jones’ biography The Search For John Lennon recently and to be honest it’s concerning to me. Lesley Ann Jones has proved in the past to be an extremely untrustworthy source for info about the people she writes about. I understand that it’s exciting to have a book about John that’s not written by the typical “Lennon biographer” type (aka an ageing straight man) and for said book to also promise to shed light and focus on his bisexuality but, if we’re going to analyse John respectfully and accurately, it’s important to identify sources that are biased and untrustworthy, even if they’re technically within our favour. Especially when it relates to his queerness. And seeing as LAJ doesn’t have the best record when it comes to writing about rockstars’ sexualities in a respectful manner, it’s best to treat her words with caution.

Info about exactly how she’s a bad source is under the cut

Firstly, it's key to talk about LAJ's journalistic background when discussing what sort of writer she is: she's worked for papers such as The Sun, The Daily Mail, and The Mail On Sunday. Essentially, the bulk of her work has been for tabloids and traditionally the writing style for those kinds of publications place an emphasis on sensationalism and gossip. Now obviously that doesn’t discredit her work immediately, authors are usually able to write in more than one style so it doesn’t necessarily mean the tabloid style is going to carry over to her biographies; but it’s good to keep in mind when discussing and analysing the legitimacy of the narratives she creates and the stories she recounts in her work. 

LAJ has received criticism in the past, particularly from the queen fandom of often overexaggerating, or just straight presenting false information in her bios about Freddie Mercury. She is the champion of the claim that Freddie was bisexual and not gay. Her evidence for this is over-exaggerating and (seemingly intentionally) misinterpreting the nature of the relationship between Freddie and his friend, Barbara Valentin. LAJ claimed that the two had a relationship and even lived together:

“Barbara was very open with me about the sexual relationship she had with Freddie.”

(x)

(x)

However, no-one in Freddie’s life has ever corroborated that Freddie and Barbara were anything but friends. As for the claim they lived together, according to Peter Freestone, an extremely close friend of Freddie’s:

In the event, Freddie never actually lived there although Barbara fulfilled a huge role in Freddie’s life at that time... Freddie became very disillusioned when with more and more frequency articles were appearing in the German press’s gossip columns... about the relationship between him and Barbara... After one article claiming to have knowledge of him and Barbara getting married, Freddie... concluded that it could only be Barbara who was providing the information.

(x)

This exaggeration of their relationship and the insistence LAJ has on presenting Freddie as bi because of it has attracted criticism from queen fans for obvious reasons. For one, it’s borderline homophobic to essentially lie about a gay man having a relationship with a woman while downplaying his relationships with men. No, she’s not portraying him as a straight man, however it’s still erasure of the specific struggles Freddie would’ve faced being a gay man in his time, therefore those who want to analyse him would be missing some of the picture when trying to understand him and his life

LAJ’s research methods are also... questionable. This is a post from Crystal Taylor (one of Roger Taylor’s roadies) about her methods for her David Bowie bio which, if to be believed is particularly concerning.

(x)

LAJ is also known to greatly exaggerate her own relationships with her subjects. She often claims to have been friends with the people she writes bios about (coincidently the people she does this with are dead.) Back in the day she would meet with artists while on tour so the idea is convincing enough. However besides her word there’s nothing to suggest that she had close friendships with Freddie or Bowie, two people she claimed to be good friends with. There’s also this comment from Brian May which actually goes against the idea that she was close with Freddie:

(x)

So with all of this in mind, let’s look at the quote from The Search For John Lennon that’s been circulating around Beatles tumblr:

That Bowie worshipped Lennon is no secret. He'd banged on about it often enough. The ex-Beatle had gone to his hedonism. They'd met in Los Angeles, during John's Lost Weekend. I lunched from time to time with David in New York while working there as a music journalist, before he married Iman. He lent me his house in Mustique, to write the first draft of my first biography on Freddie Mercury.

The crazy pair went out to play, according to David, when John was on yet another break from May and far away from Yoko. They genderbender-ed about, John indulging again that 'inner fag' of his. What larks.

They later 'hooked up': 'There was a whore in the middle, and it wasn't either of us,' David smirked. 'At some point in proceedings, she left. I think it was a she. Not that we minded.' By the time they made it back to New York, the ambisextrous pair were 'lifelong friends'.

I’m suspicious of this story for several reasons but first I want to make it clear that none of them have to do with John having sex with men or being bisexual. I’m a very firm believer of John’s bisexuality (my username is literally queerlennon lmao) but once again I think it’s good to examine the legitimacy of sources, even when they favour our position.

Firstly, LAJ’s source for this story is the claim that David told her, which considering I can’t find any info about them being friends besides her word, combined with the fact that she’s lied about having close relationships in the past raises a lot of flags.

But even if we assume LAJ isn’t lying and did know Bowie, the quote is still suspect, particularly the line “John was on yet another break from May and far away from Yoko.” According to May in her book Loving John, her and John had only one break from their relationship (the phrase “yet another break” implies multiple) that lasted a week, and for the entirety of that week, John was with Yoko. (x)

Finally, the language LAJ uses to describe John and David’s sexualities not only puts me on edge but very much makes me question her intention. Phrases like “the genderbender-ed about,” “indulged his ‘inner fag,’” and “ambisextrous,” all come across to me as fetishisation. Bisexuality is already very highly fetishised and sexualised and LAJ is most definitely not concerned with deviating from that representation. That phrasing combined with the way she also discusses Freddie’s sexuality, where she’s alleged highly sexualised claims about him having threesomes:

And quite often that involved other people as well. Other men, other women. There would be a number of them in the bedroom at any given time. In fact they were raided by the police once and the police stormed in and they found more people than they were expecting to find in the bed that morning.

(x)

— leads me to believe that LAJ is an author less concerned with exploring John’s sexuality as apart of his life, something that made him who he was, and more concerned with including details about “bisexual threesomes” as shock value, as a sensational point she can use to to promote her book in press tours and interviews. Like a tabloid writer. And this sort disrespect representation of John’s queerness, imo isn’t that much better than the biographers who dismiss or underplay it. I totally understand that for a lot of us, finding out new info about John’s queer identity is exciting, especially for those of us who are queer and identify with a lot with John for that reason, myself included. But we shouldn’t be giving credence and legitimacy to someone who firstly, isn’t trustworthy and secondly who’s reason for talking about it is gross and exploitative at best and biphobic at worst.

tl;dr, LAJ is an incredibly untrustworthy source of info and in her own over exaggerations, treats discussions of queerness in an extremely problematic and exploitive way so please take anything you read from her with a massive grain of salt.

[weepylucifer]

Let’s Go in the Garden - Ch. 7

Peter has a moment. David is just going to go ahead and assume the game is afoot. Thomas has calmed down a bit, but that’s not going to last.

The West End address Guleed had given me turned out to be a theatre house, and not one of the more impressive ones. Posters up front were advertising a musical that I could vaguely remember watching a movie version of once, many years ago on a slow night.

I squeezed the Jag into one of the few remaining parking spaces next to an array of squad cars from Belgravia. It didn’t seem like a good idea to take Mellenby in with me, but although we were relatively close, I still didn’t have time to drop him off back at the Folly, and my suggestion for him to wait in the car had about zero effect. He simply latched on to me as I entered the building.

We were barely past the ticket console and the first team of forensic suits when we were waylaid by Seawoll in all his glory. I wondered what about this fresh corpse necessitated DCI Seawoll being there, then it occurred to me that this was the first notable Falcon-related case that had cropped up since Lesley had shot Chorley and, for all intents and purposes, vanished. If there was even the slightest possibility of her involvement, that meant all hands on deck.

I gave him a nod, and tried to scope out the mood. “Sir.”

“Grant.” He didn’t go out of his way to give me a smile, but his scowl lessened slightly around the corners. Once upon a time, he would now have started bemoaning the necessity of my presence, but he just said, “We’ve got the body backstage, Sahra said it might be something for you. She got Thomas to come in, might already be around here somewhere.”

“Great.” If Nightingale was at the scene, it seemed like the consequences for Jag theft would be imminent and carried out embarrassingly in public. “I’ll go have a look.”

Seawoll had now spotted Mellenby behind me. “And who’s this?”

“He’s...” Nightingale’s boyfriend. “He’s a Falcon-specialist consultant affiliated with the SAU,” I said, pulling this completely out of my bum.

Seawoll looked at me and raised an eyebrow, communicating without words that he wasn’t buying this for a second. “And where did you dig him up?” he asked.

“Enchanted cave,” Mellenby said, stepping around me and insinuating himself into the conversation. “It’s a bit of a long story.”

Seawoll gave him a level glare. He had almost a whole head on Mellenby. “You know, I told Thomas about a thousand times, I don’t love you lot bringing civilians to my fucking crime scenes.”

Mellenby parried with a grin. “A civilian? No one has called me that in quite a while.” He profferred a hand for a handshake. “David Mellenby, Lieutenant First Grade.” He stared right back into Seawoll’s eyes. Next to the bulk of Seawoll, he looked like a bantam rooster. But his gaze held the weight of a world war.

Veteran, I thought again.

With a sort of grunt, Seawoll caved and shook the offered hand. “DCI Seawoll, Belgravia. You’re one of Nightingale’s, then?”

David nodded. “First and foremost.”

Seawoll rolled his eyes a bit.

“Sir, are we looking at a potential situation here with Lesley?” I asked, thinking it high time this conversation got back on track. There was a body somewhere here for me to look at, and vestigia faded awfully fast.

“Eh.” Seawoll made a vague hand gesture. “We can’t dismiss the possibility at this point. But not every weird-bollocks-related crime in London can be Lesley.”

“But it doesn’t hurt to check?”

“Precisely. Now, Sahra can take you out back.”

Like the ninja she was most likely training to become, Guleed materialized at his elbow. She gave me a grin and a nod, and glanced curiously at David.

“You’re magical,” David told her as soon as Seawoll left us to it.

“Thanks,” Guleed replied. “I have a boyfriend.”

David clapped his hands and smiled beatifically. “Such a coincidence. I have one of those too. Even around here, I’m told.” He grew serious again. He got that look in his eyes that said clipboard and that I was beginning to recognize. “I mean to say, you’re magical but not Folly. Who’s training you?”

Guleed looked from him to me. “Who’s that?”

“Nightingale’s boyfriend,” I said. This was Guleed, after all. And I didn’t miss the split-second of David flinching and then perking up and smiling brightly when he remembered it was okay now to openly be Nightingale’s boyfriend.

Guleed raised an eyebrow. “Is that so.”

“I have been with Thomas for a hundred years,” David proclaimed. And of course he would. Of course he’d count the years he’d spent in a magical coma, with Nightingale believing he was dead.

Guleed’s eyebrows threatened to disappear within her hijab.

“He really has,” I explained. “Holdover from his war... stuff.”

“And is this one also magically not growing older?”

Huh. I hadn’t had time to consider that before. “We’ll have to wait and see, I guess.”

“I definitely plan to research this phenomenon in depth,” David said eagerly. “Thomas and his reverse-aging, that is. The way that’s been neglected is a travesty. There’s been no evidence so far pointing us towards the theory that I myself might also be affected, but who knows? I won’t be able to tell until I discover the cause of this... affliction.”

It would be sad, I supposed, in a karmic way, the two of them getting this second chance, and then one of them starting to age past the other. But the world didn’t run on karma. Perhaps if David indeed found a cause and a way to explain it all... but that had to wait for now.

I nudged David’s side. “Can’t wait to get the clipboard out on your boyfriend, can you?”

He sputtered, blushing a bit, obviously not being used to being so publicly teased, but also delighted by it.

“I don’t appreciate that kind of talk,” said a voice in our backs, “nor the bandying about of the term ‘boyfriend’.”

Nightingale had arrived on stage.

Quite literally on stage, too, and this time he had even lowered himself to putting a proper forensic suit on.

In crass dissonance to his words, he reached past me for David and gave him an almost absentminded kiss on the forehead. “Hello, love.”

Guleed stared. Mellenby lit up like a Christmas tree.

“Thomas!” he breathed.

Nightingale gave him that lopsided Captain-of-the-rugby-team grin (which, I would learn later, was very different from his Captain-in-the-war-effort grin). “Welcome to the 21st century,” he said, patting David on the back. David was glowing. “Oh, don’t cream yourself.”

My jaw joined Guleed’s on the floor.

Nightingale turned to me. “You are in a world of trouble,” he announced. “Both of you.”

“What, and no kiss for me, sir?”

I had no idea where that had come from. I wanted to unsay it about as soon as it left my mouth. More than that, I wanted the ground to swallow me whole.

Nightingale, to his credit, only shook his head a little. David in my periphery looked... amused and entertained, and was maybe mentally putting me back on a list.

“We’ll talk about your absconding with my car at a later point. Right now, it seems high time we took a look at our victim.”

----

The victim had been found in a room we were told housed the theatre’s props, all cluttered shelves and musty cupboards full of... things. There were heaps of prop swords, cases stuffed with plastic jewelry, set furnishings piled up in corners. Forensics had already been through, and left their little stickers and varied evidence of their work everywhere. The victim was a white woman, I put her in her mid- to late fifties. She was a tall, slightly corpulent lady of forbidding hairstyle (it was short, wavy, stiff with spray and completely aubergine), dressed in a sort of flowing black blouse sporting a variety of frills and tassles. The cause of death seemed mundane enough: she had taken a blow to the back of the head with a blunt object.

I got to my knees and bent down to inspect her. The vestigia took a few seconds to hit, and they were flighty, scrambled impressions. I felt the sensation of something... convex, and glass, and nice to hold in your hand, and then a piercing sting of... desire, of greed, a consuming need to own something, so manifest and physical that it felt like an actual stab to my stomach.

I looked up. “Something... round. Made of glass, like a snowglobe? And there’s this... greedy feeling.”

Nightingale and David both nodded.

“Yes,” David said quietly. “I can feel them from here.”

“David’s always been good with vestigia,” Nightingale said. “Better than me.”

“Because I listen harder.” It carried the tone of an oft-repeated inside joke. But Mellenby had paled again and was looking faintly ill, trying to cast his eyes anywhere but at the body.

“Um, sir,” I muttered at Nightingale and discreetly inclined my head in David’s direction.

“Yes. Quite.” Nightingale gave me a nod - thank you for bringing this to my attention - and turned to David. “First corpse since Ettersberg, eh?”

David shuddered. The colour was draining from his face even faster now. “Please, don’t name that place!”

“Avoiding the name won’t help with anything. And you really shouldn’t be in here. Why did they let you in here in the first place? Come, let me escort you out.” Nightingale put a hand on David’s back and gently led him to the door. Looking back at me, he asked, “Will you be alright here?”

“Yep.” I nodded. Beyond the initial vestigia check, there wasn’t much I could do with this corpse, anyhow, and I assumed it would quite swiftly be turned over to the tender mercies of Dr. Walid. I had another look around the room, but there was nothing to spot that would have been missed by your regular forensic tech.

There was no trace of the object that would have been used to deal the blow.

----

Our victim’s name was Deirdre Maxwell, 54 years of age, and she had been in charge of the props department at the theatre at which she was murdered.

At the time of the murder, as was later found once Dr. Walid had determined the exact time of Ms. Maxwell’s death, as it had been late in the evening and long past rehearsal had ended, only five people had been in the house with her.

There was Howard Sheen, the theatre director. Ajinder Singh, the night porter and watchman. Darja Polunowskaja, the cleaning lady, Derrick Johnson, the janitor, and Cora Watley, an actress.

I went over their alibis as soon as we got back to the Folly and Nightingale had stopped sternly lecturing us about the Jag theft. The director had been in his office at the time of the murder, busy with bookkeeping. The actress had been in her dressing room going over her script one last time before going home, she claimed. The cleaning lady and janitor claimed to have been at their jobs in entirely different parts of the building, and the night watchman had spent most of the night in his cubby hole observing the front door. None of these alibis were good.

The front door had been under watch by the night guard and had not been entered by anyone up to the time of Ms. Maxwell’s death. None of the windows or skylights showed signs of forced entry or magical tampering. There were back and maintenance doors, each outfitted with a CCTV camera. Guess who had to sort through all the camera footage? That’s right, me, next to the metric ton of Latin homework Nightingale had seen fit to punish me with for letting David elope with the Jag.

The footage, once I was through with it, showed a great load of nothing. Nobody had entered or exited the theatre all evening until all present within the building at the time had gone home, except, of course, for Ms. Maxwell. Unless someone had gotten in in some way that we couldn’t of yet determine - a slim possibility - that narrowed our list of suspects down to the original five.

“A locked-room mystery,” David called it. He was hovering nearby as I sifted through the camera footage in the tech cave, superficially leafing through a new issue of Nat Geo he had badgered Nightingale into getting on the way home, in reality watching me. “I’m assuming you’re going to interview all five of them?”

“That’s none of your concern,” Nightingale reminded him. “Civilian.” A corner of his mouth quirked up as he said it, but still the message was clear. David had no place in the investigation.

“Don’t be like that, Thomas,” David pouted. “Who doesn’t love a good whodunnit?”

“This is a police matter, it’s not for you to play detective,” Nightingale said. “Besides which, the matter of ‘who done it’,” I could hear the scathingly sarcastic air quotes, “will most likely end up being handled by the colleagues at Belgravia. Our concern will be the whereabouts of the magical object.”

Mundane murderer, magical murder weapon, that was Nightingale’s theory. I for one thought it much too early to judge that, seeing as the murder weapon had inconveniently vanished.

But before that could even be determined, it was up to us to get the lowdown on Ms. Deirdre Maxwell.

----

We went to her flat first thing the next morning. The door was opened by a dejected-looking man in his late twenties or early thirties who turned out to be the victim’s son, and introduced himself as “Hey, I’m Logan.”

He was a white man with short, mousy brown hair, dressed in jeans and a dark-gray fleece jacket over a black t-shirt, probably random clothes he’d just thrown on this morning. He didn’t look like he’d gotten much sleep the previous night. He wasn’t looking to be the type who cried and emoted messily all over the place, I noted, but perhaps that would simply come later, once the immediate shock died down. Right now, he looked... dazed, I suppose. A common reaction in the face of sudden, jarring tragedy.

I was assuming Belgravia had already sent someone over the previous day to help him get over the worst of it, but it couldn’t hurt to play up that role. It wasn’t anything I was stellar at, but unfortunately the last several years had equipped me with some experience in the matter. Didn’t mean any of that ever got any easier.

“How are you holding up?” Nightingale inquired. I hadn’t thought he’d volunteer himself to step up for the role of supportive cop, but I was glad he did.

“Like pure shite,” Logan Maxwell stated soberly. “But thanks for asking, guv.”

“We’re going to have to take a quick look around the flat,” I said.

“Why?” Logan Maxwell wondered. “My mother’s been murdered. Shouldn’t you be out looking for the killer? Surely there’s nothing in here for you to find?”

“This is pure procedure,” Nightingale told him. “We’ll be in and out of here within a minute, I’m sure. And of course a highly capable team of investigative forces is looking into finding our perpetrator as we speak. May we step into the kitchen and just have a short talk about all this?”

Ushering Mr. Maxwell on, almost herding him really, into his mother’s kitchen, Nightingale looked round at me and, with the slightest shift of his eyes, ordered me to search the other rooms. I nodded quietly and got to it.

Apart from the kitchen, there were three more rooms branching off the tiny, cramped hallway. A small bathroom (nothing at all special), Ms. Maxwell’s bedroom, a living room and what I assumed had been Logan Maxwell’s room once, but it became fairly obvious that he didn’t permanently live here any longer. Through the thin walls, I could hear Logan ask, “Do you mind if I just...?” to which Nightingale replied, “Oh, by all means, no, let me join you. I recently started again myself.” A lighter clicked twice, and soon I could smell smoke.

The living room was gaudy, chintz and little horrible knick-knacks everywhere. Not the fussy-old-lady sort, not porcelain dolls, you understand, but dream catchers, silk shawls, supposedly healing crystals and the like. It wasn’t anything I thought I had to worry about. Many people felt the need to spruce up their lives with a touch of magic, but most ended up completely off base. A light affinity for crystals wouldn’t do to explain Ms. Maxwell’s falling victim to a magical crime. Above the small TV, there was a cluttered bookshelf mounted to the wall, filled with romance novels and mediocre fantasy and some books that might have belonged to Logan as a kid.

“What is it that you do, Mr. Maxwell?” Nightingale asked politely one room over.

“I’m in insurance, actually, um, just started,” Logan Maxwell replied. There was a strained chuckle. “May I interest you in life insurance, guv?”

I heard Nightingale make a small, understated noise of genuine amusement. “You shan’t make a good living off of me in that respect.”

It seemed a common enough story. The quirky, hippie single mom and the son who rebelled by turning out as mundane and bougie as humanly possible. Perhaps this one’s grades hadn’t been sufficiently impressive for law school. I moved on to the bedroom.

“I’m not a grief counselor, no,” I heard Nightingale say as I opened drawers and found nothing at all of interest. “Merely someone of great personal experience with loss.”

“Good,” Maxwell replied. “I don’t want to be counselled. At least... not right now. The people from the murder team offered, but... I just need to... sit down and let it really sink in.”

“I understand all too well,” Nightingale said.

I opened up the door to what I assumed led into the second bedroom.

There was a little surprise there for me.

“If I may, Mr. Maxwell. Did your mother perchance do anything... unusual, strange, lately?”

“I told the other coppers, no. Not more unusual than always, I mean... I don’t know. Nothing comes to mind, really.”

I could practically see Nightingale’s immaculate, raised eyebrow. “Is that to say your mother did unusual things regularly?”

“Eh. She has this... had this... this dumb hobby of hers. She always... I mean, it’s just this thing she’d do on the weekends. It’s nothing.”

I examined everything and made my way back into the kitchen. Maxwell was seated at the kitchen table, an overflowing ashtray in front of him. Nightingale, cigarette clenched between his teeth, was making tea.

“Um, sir?”

----

“A fortune teller,” Nightingale surmised.

We were looking at the setup in what had once been the second bedroom. Apparently, once Logan Maxwell had moved out, Deirdre Maxwell had remodeled his childhood bedroom to house her fortune-telling operation. There was a small table covered in a large, purple velvet shawl, and a deck of cards and other paraphernalia on that table. There was a ouija board mounted to a wall, another bookshelf on the opposite wall, this one filled with a different kind of literature. Tarot, spirit healing, seances, palm reading, something called ‘green witchcraft’.

She had apparently recorded herself for the benefit of online customers, seeing as there was a laptop and camera rig positioned in a strategic angle to the purple coffee table.

And something... something was missing. I had never been in this room before, but there was a thought nagging at the back of my mind that something that should be here, that I’d expect to be here, was... missing.

“Yeah,” Logan Maxwell said sheepishly, “that was her thing. The Mysterious Madame Delilah. Load of bollocks.”

“You don’t think there might’ve been something to it?” I asked. I stole a glance at Nightingale, who ever-so-lightly made a so-so hand gesture.

“Nah,” Logan Maxwell said. “She always was on about some nonsense like that. Sure, people paid her for it, but... truth be told, I was embarrassed. The Mysterious Madame Delilah,” he repeated. “I don’t think she ever made any actual magic up in here.”

I ambled through the small room, examining the shelf once more, touching a chunky rose quartz, running my fingertips over the purple cloth that covered the table. And then it struck me: the smooth feeling of something under my hand, like glass, and a stab of desire.

Same vestigia, I mouthed at Nightingale.

Now I saw his raised eyebrow in action.

----

“I never met a fortune teller who wasn’t completely bogus,” he told me later, when we were walking back to the Jag. “Besides which, she had none of the literature on actual magic at her disposal. But if the last several years have taught me anything, it’s that there are... more than enough things I don’t know.”

I shrugged. “People come by magic in all sorts of ways.”

“Perhaps so,” he granted.

He had made a cup of tea for Mr. Maxwell, I thought. He had left his card with the man, “in case there’s ever anything out of the ordinary that occurs to you regarding the circumstances of your mother’s death”. He had smoked with him and apparently gotten chummy enough to be mistaken for a grief counselor. That was new, and it had started happening fairly recently, maybe, I suspected, as recently as David’s return. He seemed different, too. Something in his face, in the way he walked. Imperceptible to someone who didn’t know him well, but he seemed... more present, somehow. More involved with the world around him. Like something was waking up, or thawing out, that had been numb and silent for at least as long as I knew him.

The men’s emotional and psychological needs, Mellenby said within my short-term memory, all fell under Thomas’s purview.

Just then, another thought clicked into place, and I knew what I’d been missing, up in the flat earlier.

“No crystal ball,” I said.

“Pardon?” Nightingale asked.

“There was no crystal ball. What fortune teller doesn’t have a crystal ball? And the object we’re looking for is likely something round, smooth, made of glass. I’m sure you can deal a bit of a blow with a thing like that.”

Nightingale gave me a slight smile. “A thought worth keeping in mind,” he said in that tone of his that really meant well done, and he gave me an appreciative sort of look, and I felt... well, I felt looked at. No one looks at you like Nightingale sometimes.

Just then, his phone rang.

He took it from his pocket and, peering at the screen, I could see it said ‘David’, and just that. If I’d been expecting heart emojis, I was cruelly let down.

“Aww,” I said, “it’s the boyfriend.”

“I told you his status is pending,” Nightingale told me sternly. “He’s not presently my boyfriend.” He accepted the call. “Hello, darling.”

If I’d had a drink just then, I would have spat it.

“Mh,” Nightingale said, in reply to something on David’s side. “Yes. You can tell Molly that I’ll definitely be home for dinner. I can make no such promises regarding Peter. Unless...?”

He gave me a questioning look, but I shook my head. I was going to have dinner at Bev’s. What with there being a new case now, things were bound to get busy for me, and I wanted to spend as much time with Bev as I could.

“Ah,” Nightingale said. “Apparently not. Well, I’ll be seeing you shortly. What? Oh. Yes, yes, I love you too, David, goodbye.”

He hung up and gave me a token annoyed look. There was no real force behind it. “Well, that was David.”

I grinned at him. “Cute,” I said. “Did you two make up?”

Nightingale shook his head. “Not in the slightest. What makes you think that?”

I gestured a bit awkwardly. “Well... just now, you said...”

“It was a statement of fact. I am angry at David - inordinately furious, really, at David - but that doesn’t mean I don’t also love him. My anger and my regard for him can coexist.”

That seemed weird to me, but also... so simple. He wasn’t having a big crisis about that part of things at the very least. Nightingale was frighteningly straightforward sometimes, and ready to accept all manner of things. And then I saw how he was trying very hard not to smile as he pocketed his phone, and how he kept looking around the place as we walked to the parking lot where we’d left the Jag with a kind of wonder, like he was seeing London with new eyes - and liking what he saw. And I thought, yeah, they’ll be alright.

And I felt... weird about that.

Not because I still felt horrified by the gay sex thing.

At least I dearly hoped so.

There was something else...

I didn’t know what.

But just then, for a split-second, I had felt almost... annoyed by David calling, because Nightingale and I had been having a moment here goddamn it, and these moments of the two of us just doing something together without there being immediate combat had grown sparse of late, what with Lesley and Chorley. And I’d thought, oh sure, it’s his boyfriend, in an acidic tone that took me aback. I’d wanted... I don’t know. To have Nightingale to myself, maybe, for a few minutes before I’d get permanently busy with Bev and... well... and all that.

“Oh god, I’m having a child,” I said out loud.

“I’m sure you’ll make a splendid parent,” Nightingale said, almost absentmindedly. His eyes were far away, probably resting on some distant, David-related memory. “Don’t forget to apply for paternal leave.”

Apparently his new emotional approachability only extended so far.

----

By the time we got back to the Folly, Guleed had sent me the initial witness testimonials, but I would have to go talk to them all again anyway to check for magic. I decided to start right there at the theatre.

Rehearsals were already in full swing again when I walked in - I found that morbid but the show must go on, I suppose. I swung by Mr. Johnson in the janitorial office first. He was rather helpful in establishing a timeline for the evening: he made a round of the building before going home at about 8 pm, during which he crossed the night watchman, Mr. Singh. Apart from that, he was either in his office or performing maintenance duties in and around the building as-needed. Ms. Maxwell had died at about seven thirty. And sure, Guleed had already asked about this stuff, and included it in her e-mail to me, but it never hurt to ask again. At least one of the people here was holding something back, and sometimes people maintaining a lie got confused.

The cleaning lady reminded me of Varvara, but that was probably just her Russianness and didn’t necessarily have to mean something. While she had all sorts of delightful opinions on the actors, technicians, director, owner of the theatre and about everyone else working here, none of it was precisely helpful. “The place is going to the dumps,” she opined. “I have been cleaning here for five years and haven’t looked at a pay raise in three.”

I expressed my sympathies and, in a lowered voice, she told me, “I hear next year they’re going to put... the Scottish play on.”

Not quite knowing what to do with that, I nodded and left her to her work.

Mr. Sheen, the director didn’t have much time for me, seeing as he was supervising the rehearsal. When I asked him to confirm the cleaning lady’s account of whether the establishment was struggling financially, he said something to the effect of, “Well, we’ve always muddled through. It’s an uncertain business, with the audience, predicting what will land is always a gamble.” When asked about Ms. Maxwell, he said it was a pity, and that she’d been a dependable employee, and not much more.

He seemed stressed, concerned. The opening night of their musical was soon. Perhaps people weren’t going to patronize an establishment where someone had been murdered, he said, like that was the most important thing here. When I went to interview the actress in her dressing room, she said “I play the character of Janet” before telling me her actual name. These people were weird, and not a type of weird I was privy to.

But let’s tell it in order. I knocked, went into the actress’s dressing room, and found none other than David Mellenby there drinking tea with her. They were seated next to the vanity that held all her stage makeup, drinking from mismatched cups, the actress thumbing through her role book as they talked, as though this was commonplace, as though David was even remotely supposed to be here.

“Hello,” he said when he saw me, his face lighting up in a genuine smile. “This is Constable Grant, he’s very capable at his job,” he introduced me to the actress, all gallantry and outdated manners and breezing blithely past the fact that I had no bloody idea why he was here and it was likely to make my day substantially more complicated.

“And what... on earth... are you doing here?” I asked him.

“I thought it interesting to return here,” David said mildly, sipping green tea from a mug that bore the classic “You Don’t Have To Be Mad To Work Here, But It Helps!” slogan.

I took a deep breath, about ready to tell him that he absolutely should not have come, that he was in no way affiliated with this investigation, and that Nightingale would blow his fuse if he heard, and... I didn’t. I snapped my mouth shut again. Discussing this in front of one of the suspects would make both of us look bad, and that wasn’t something I was prepared to deal with.

So I simply also took a seat on the last free chair. “Alright,” I said.”Great. Now, I’d like to ask a few questions, just quickly.”

“I’ve been asked many questions by many policemen already,” the actress said. She had a quiet, melodic voice. “And they kind of need me at rehearsal.”

“I’ll just be a minute,” I replied. “And then I’m sure we’ll all be out of your hair for now.”

The actress sighed. She was a thin white girl, late twenties I thought, who’d recently dyed her hair blonde, maybe for the role. Combined with her dark clothes, it had the effect of making her look a bit disfavorably pallid and drawn. “I guess go ahead.”

I got out my notebook and a ballpoint pen and tossed them at David. if he was going to hang around, he might as well take notes.

“How long have you been an actress here, Ms...?” There. Nice and general.

“I’m engaged for the year,” she replied. “I play the role of Janet. It’s the female lead.”

“Impressive,” I said, because she really seemed to want me to. “And your name was...?”

“Cora Watley, um, Cora Jane Watley.” She shifted a bit in her seat, clasping her tea cup with both hands. “But I already told PC Guleed, and then DCI Nightingale.”

This gave me pause, because I’d had no idea that Nightingale had been through here, but then David caught my eye and stealthily held up... Nightingale’s warrant card, and wiggled it at me by way of explanantion.

Un-fucking-believable.

“I... okay.” I nodded at David, trying to send him a glare that silently communicated that we’d need to address this later. “As I said, Ms. Watley, just one or two more questions for the records.”

“What kinds of questions?” the actress asked. She seemed nervous, but trying to appear unflappable, but everyone here, down to the cleaning lady, seemed high-strung, what with their opening night coming up and the murder (and, yes, very much in that order of importance). Besides which, being a suspect in a criminal investigation is bound to unnerve most people. But did her nerves look like those of a guilty person, or simply like someone hoping not to get caught in the crossfire?

“For example, how well did you know Ms. Maxwell?” I asked.

The young woman shrugged. “Not too well. We’ve talked in passing. But she seemed... nice. Not the kind of person you’d murder, I’d think.”

“But she was... not well-liked here?” I tried.

“No, I do think she was. I don’t know, I’ve only been here for a year. But what gives you that idea?”

I took another deep breath. It felt strange, and tasted strange too, like there was greasepaint coating my lips and tongue. Weird. Was that just the air in here? It smelled pervasively of stage makeup. “Well, nobody here I’ve talked to seemed very... affected by the murder. Was Ms. Maxwell unpopular, or did she keep to herself...?”

Ms. Watley laughed. “Oh, she did not keep to herself, no. I’m certain people are affected. It just needs time to settle in, and with opening night so close, the place is a madhouse anyway. Even murder becomes just one more thing.”

I exchanged a look with David, who looked quizzically back. He was tugging at his cuffs again, even harder than usual.

“Would you have noticed if Ms. Maxwell had done anything... unusual, lately?”

“Unusual how?” The actress asked. There was that feeling again, that strange taste on my tongue when I breathed. Now it was accompanied by a sensation like scratchy cloth on my skin, and a glare of too-warm light from overhead. Were these vestigia? But then what was emanating them? “She had that weird hobby, I don’t know. Something about occultism, not really my thing at all. Do you mean that?”

I put on a neutral face that I hoped looked just like the one Nightingale always did. Gosh, but that glaring light was getting annoying. “Do I mean that?”

“It’s about the most unusual thing Deirdre had going on, I guess. I mean, I don’t know. Two months ago she said she was going to make a business of it, selling... palm readings or something to people online. No idea how that’s supposed to work.”

“This might be tangentially related. Did she ever... bring that hobby of hers into work in any way?”

Cora Watley crossed her arms. “What do you mean by that?”

What did I mean by that? It probably wasn’t the most intelligent way to find out about Ms. Maxwell’s fortune telling business and if it had led to her murder. But David being here irritated me, and these sensations or vestigia that I couldn’t place irritated me, and... maybe it was time to get out of here.

I said my bit, gestured to David to follow, and left the dressing room. We stood out in the hallway leading from the dressing rooms back out to the stage, facing each other.

“Why did we leave?” David asked.

“Why do you have Nightingale’s warrant card?” I rounded on him.

“I took the liberty of removing it out of his jacket.” He didn’t look the least bit regretful of this. “I’m confident I’ll be able to replace it before he even notices it’s gone.”

“I’m... pretty sure that’s a crime,” I said.

David shrugged his shoulders. “I thank you for your discretion, then.”

“That’s not how the police works these days,” I said. “That’s not how I work. You can’t wave at me and make me go away. I’m not the help.”

David had looked like he was going to be rebellious, but now he visibly deflated. He averted his eyes, picking at his sleeve. “I am dearly sorry,” he admitted.

I sighed, willing my irritation to simmer down. “Just what are you doing?” I asked, more calmly. “Nightingale said you are to stay away from the investigation. He was very clear, and he was right. People don’t play detective and crack the code, normally.”

He lifted his chin, suddenly again defiant. “Thomas is not my Captain anymore. Where does he get off, anyway, thinking I’ll obey his every order?”

Was that what this was? Another way to passive-aggressively carry out their lovers’ spat? I already felt exhausted with this. “Look, the way I see it... Nightingale is coming around. You guys might be okay, why go on pissing him off more?”

Not really wanting to stand around waiting for his answer, I started making my way back out to the stage. David was keeping pace with me. “Ingratiating myself to Thomas is not my entire purpose, you know,” he said. “I am a scientist foremost. I can’t not investigate things. There is a conundrum here, and I must know. Knowledge is not gained by adhering to what others say, or by failing to take risks.”

I was tempted to remind him that this here was a real crime scene, not a Sherlock Holmes story with him in the titular role. What did end up coming out of my mouth was, “I heard that was the exact attitude that led you all to Ettersberg.”

As soon as I’d said it, I knew it might have been a bit too much. As I stepped out on stage where the actors and director had since ended their rehearsal and cleared out, I heard nothing but silence behind me and, then, a long, deep, guttural sigh.

“You’re right,” David said, drawing level with me - he was pressing his hands to his temples. “I’m doing all the same things that I did before. I’m slipping back into the same behaviors. Assuming I know better. How have I not learned from what happened?”

Well, what could I say to that?

“I just get so blinkered sometimes,” David continued. “I don’t know why. And Thomas...”

He sighed once more. “Thomas was always the golden boy with all the natural talent. Coasting by when others struggled. I just want to show him that I also can achieve greatly. That I can stand beside him as his equal, not always one step behind playing catch-up. But Thomas never understood my efforts, my work. My research. And then I found friends at Weimar who were genuinely appreciative of my theories, but they took my work and made... well... of course, I told myself, Thomas couldn’t understand why I felt slighted. Why I felt hurt. But he simply looked at the way things were with clearer eyes. Of course 800 human lives were more important than my hurt.”

I gave him a strained smile. “You know what, it might do a great deal in your favor if you told him what you just told me.”

I took another step onto the stage. This environment was bringing back persistent little wisps of uncomfortable memories of the Punch case. Sure, this stage was a lot smaller and less glamorous than the one at the Royal Opera House. But... still. But surely this wasn’t Punch-related, right? We hadn’t heard of him since the incident with Chorley’s bell. I’d have to ask Les-

No.

No.

What the hell, brain? Really, still? After all this time?

“These... weird vestigia in here,” David said suddenly. “Do you feel them too?”

And I did feel them. For a fleeting moment, I felt in full force the glare of the stage lights, the bead of sweat running into my neck down into the collar of my costume, the theater makeup itchy on my face, the exhilaration coupled with stage fright and before me the murmur of the audience, waiting to be entranced, or disappointed, by me.

I shook my head, and was myself again. “Yeah, it’s like... like an actor, ten seconds before their big scene, or whatever.”

“Hmm.” David tugged at his cuffs again.

“We should get out of here.”

----

“Why did we leave?” David asked again, as we were standing out in the street up front of the theatre again. Why indeed? I had felt... dazed, in there, I’d felt a need to leave the building. I was sure he had felt the same.

“I don’t know. But something was extremely strange about that crime scene.”

“We don’t know what we’re dealing with, so we’re... retreating?”

It had a militaristic air to it, ‘retreating’. He had probably intended that. “Let’s call it regrouping,” I said. “Besides, Nightingale was right. Our concern should be the magical object. Guess I’ll have to find whoever would know about a magical crystal ball around which murders happen.”

That was going to be a needle-in-a-haystack search. The exact kind of busy work everyone wishes they could delegate to someone lower on the chain of command. With the Folly’s command structure being as it was, unfortunately I was the person this type of work was delegated to.

David must have seen my displeasure with the situation, because he said, “You could let me do it.”

Really? Hadn’t we had that conversation about five minutes ago? I told him as such.

“Sure,” he said. “But I don’t have anything else to do. I’m going out of my mind with the amount of nothing I’m contributing. Please.”

So he was determined to keep on learning nothing from his experiences. Not exactly stellar practice. But was that really my problem?

“Look,” I said, “You’ll talk to Nightingale, okay?”

[benzbantz]

Best 100 Songs of the decade!

As a new decade will be upon us shortly (the 20’s) I wanted to share some of my favourite tracks from the last 10 years. I’m a pop and rap guy mostly so that’s what you can mostly expect but hopefully a few surprises along the way. I’ll post 100 songs I really loved (in no particular order) then my top 25 absolute favourites at the end. Ok here we go

~Bad Romance - Lady Gaga

To limit myself to just one GaGa track is cruel and not easy, Edge of Glory and Born this Way are both anthems and technically this came out last moment 2009 ..but didn’t pop until 2010. A classic that makes it to most my playlists.

~Airplanes- B.O.B ft Hayley Williams (A classic no need to say more.)

~Love the Way you Lie - Eminem ft Rihanna

A absolutely brutal tune about a toxic relationship full of of lies and abuse, the powerful video really sells the tone of the song.

~Rescue Me - Skepta

Used to love Grime but gone off it for a while now. I wouldn’t call this an outright grime track but Skepta def brings the gritty uk rap scene on this one.

~Forget you ~ Ceeloo Green

Thou I prefer the Gnarls Barkley music style, this is still a awesome tune. Always fun to tell someone to do one in a sing song melody.

~Written in the Stars- Tinie Tempah ft Eric Turner

Used to love me some TT, this was a real catchy banger with great chorus by Eric Turner.

~Raise your glass - Pink (Not much to say, a pop classic)

~I need a Dr - Eminem, ft Dr Dre and Skylar Grey

This is such a underrated song. You have to really know your Dre and Em history to catch everything being said (which I won’t go into here) Brilliant tune and my fave they both worked on together that decade.

~Animal- Neon Trees

Really catchy little number that I enjoyed from first hearing.

~Look at me now - Chris Brown ft Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes

Busta Rhymes rap, that is all!

~Moves like Jagger - Maroon 5, Christina Aguilera

A great sing a long featuring two artists I’m not mad about really so a surprise like from me.

~ In the heat of the moment - Noah Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

What a tune, completely missed this first time around heard on a tv show recently checked it was this decade and then added it right on the list. Banger.

~Summertime Sadness AND ~Love - Lana Del Ray

2 for 1. When Summertime Sadness came out I was mesmerised by Lana’s voice had never heard anything like it before. Safe to say she is my artist of the decade but haven’t raided this count down with all her music. A couple here and a couple of my absolute faves in my ultimate top 25. Love was very heard to keep out of my top 25.

~Stronger (What doesn’t kill you) - Kelly Clarkson

Come on now, if you haven’t belted this one out the top of your lungs at least once I don’t know what you’ve been doing the last ten years.

~Somebody that I used to know - Goyte ft Kimbra

Went thru moments of really liking this song then it really irritating me (played on radio A LOT), thankfully years later the hype has died so I can appreciate it once more.

Midnight City- M83

This is not really my sort of music at all ,so much so I’m not even sure how to describe it. Has a 80’s feel which I love. Just love the infusion of synths and instrumental. Plus the singer has a very calm melodic voice. Great track.

~T.H.E - Will.I.Am ft Mick Jagger and Jennifer Lopez

Absolutely love this song so catchy very Fergie era BEP sounding, with a great guest solo from Mick Jagger.

~212 - Azealia Banks (not much to add on this, banger!)

~Too Close - Alex Close

If you don’t recognise this song from title you will once you hear it, such a forgotten gem.

~Picking up the Pieces - Paloma Faith

Another unique voice that def makes my top ten newly discovered artists this decade is Paloma Faith, her cover of Mama Cass’s Make your own kind of music also deserves a strong mention. Also not related to the music but Paloma is mad as a box of frogs in real life which I love.

~Bangarang- Skrillex

Yeah you’re not leaving alive from this post without a Skrillex nod I’m afraid, not a big dubstep fan but jumped aboard the band wagon when it was big for five minutes, this songs only thing that made it back with me thou.

~Hall of Fame - The Script ft Will.I.Am

First let’s clear this up I’m not a massive Will.I.Am fan or anything, he was just in EVERYTHING for the first few years of the 10’s. It’s a great song regardless.

~Harder then You think - Public Enemy (What a track, can’t say much more, banger.)

~Locked out of Heaven- Bruno Mars

Bruno Mars had some amazing tracks his debut album Doo Wops and Hooligans featured some brilliant tunes which sadly I just didn’t have space for in this countdown, Grenade, lazy song , Just the way you are, but I’m showing some love to Unorthodox Jukebox here and it’s best track giving Bruno Mars a edgier new vibe.

~Chocolate- 1975

Not my sort of music usually but really enjoyed this laid back rock number,

~Get Lucky - Daft Punk ft Pharrell Williams

Disco is back! Or is was in 2013 when this tune came out, one of the biggest selling singles worldwide in the 2010’s so not much more detail needed on its inclusion.

~Let her Go- Passenger

Nice little number, always liked this one, never really got into there other stuff but had to give this a shout out.

~Can’t hold us - Macklemore ft Ryan Lewis

The Heist is one of my fave albums from the last decade features some great tracks, same love and Thrift Shop get a shout out but this track was my fave, uplifting and full of energy.

~La La La - Naughty Boy feat Sam Smith

This was Sam Smith’s big feature hit before they became the successful solo artist they are now. Great track very different to the music Sam does now.

~Work Bitch - Britney Spears

Don’t roll your eyes! This is a banger, now get to work bitch!

~Rap God - Eminem

For Eminem’s big solo feature on this countdown it was between this, The Ringer or Not afraid. You may of guessed I’m a Eminem fan and have tried to keep his entries down but one does not simply do a music countdown and not include Rap God.

~Of the Night - Bastille

Really like this band they have some great hits, Pompeii is another great song of theirs that I didn’t have space to include. I went for this eerie cover version of the Corona 90’s dance classic as my pick.

~Wrecking Ball - Miley Cyrus (Leave me alone it’s a good song ok 😂)

~Riptide- Vance Joy

A little hidden gem I’d forgotten about until I put this list together.

~Who did that to you? - John Legend

Was going to obviously include All of me in this spot but then I remembered this absolute hit from Django unchained which sneaks in and takes the spot. Both great songs thou.

~Nobody to Love - Sigma (Great little dance track not much to add)

~ When the Party’s Over - Billy Eilish

Yes I’m a 35 year old Billy Eilish fan ok leave me alone lol. Seriously thou this girl is super talented and she’s up there in my fave artists of the decade. There will be more of her in my top 25 but this haunting track deserves a mention.

~Turn down for What - DJ Snake ft Lil Jon

It’s Lil Jon yelling really load of course it’s a banger. Also worth mentioning Ice T did a awesome Rap rock version of this song and it’s amazing!

~Problem- Ariana Grane ft Iggy Azalea

Those saxophone’s thou! Groovy little number no explanation needed.

~Chandelier- Sia

Such a power anthem, I came out as trans in 2014 so this song holds a lot of personal meaning with me but regardless is a great song anyway.

~Thinking Out Load - Ed Sheeran

I’m not the biggest Ed Sheeran fan ,take him or most often leave him ,but did like this sweet ballad. Nothing against his voice it’s his songs that don’t often do it for me but this was great.

~Good Kisser- Usher

Never been huge Usher fan ,liked his earlier stuff, confessions and all that. This was a surprise jazzy bluesy type number thou that I really enjoyed.

~Rude- Magic (A catchy sing along tune)

~Zombie - Jamie T

This guy was one of my fave artists of the 00’s, and thou his newest stuff imo doesn’t compare to his older this was still a tune.

~I - Kendrick Lemar

This is actually best when played after the song ‘U’ , the latter being a self hating song ‘loving you Is complicated’ vs I’s ‘I love myself’ different ends of the spectrum I just included ‘I’as you can enjoy that one on its own but to get the best out of that track I highly recommend listening to U first.

~See you again- Wiz Khalifa ft Charlie Puth

A sad song given it’s a tribute to Paul Walker who died in a car accident. Was overplayed a lot at the time but stands strong several years later.

~Dark Times - The Weeked an Ed Sheeran

What a track, their voices mesh perfectly together in this somber number.

~ Trouble - Iggy Azalea ft Jennifer Hudson (Banger)

~Hotline Bling - Drake

So many Drake songs I could of included, (he will appear again in the top 25) gods plan, headlines, in my feelings, nice for what, all absolutely great tracks but I had to go for my personal fave out of the bunch.

~You don’t own me - Grace ft G-Easy

This may be an odd one to some but I’ve always loved the original by Lesley Gore and this is a amazing cover. Grace has a lovely voice (and there is a non rap version if you’re so inclined) Love a good cover version and this is a awesome cover version.

~Side to Side - Ariana Grande ft Nicki Minaj

Hmm guess I’m a Ariana Grande fan, who knew. A cheeky little number and the first appearance in this countdown of a certain fave rapper of mine.

~Panda - Desiigner (another one where there’s not much I need to add, great tune)

~Dancing on my own - Robyn OR Callum Scott

Take your pick the Robyn original or the Callum Scott cover version, both stand alone great tracks, the original more a melancholy dance track the cover a somber ballad. Both brilliant.

~Alarm - Anne-Marie

A nice little pop tune, really like her voice

~Rockabye- Clean Bandit ft Anne-Marie and Sean Paul

Speaking of Anne-Marie, another great pop track. Super catchy sing along. Sean Paul can be hit or miss for me but works well with this track.

~Human - Rag N Bone Man

This is another one there’s not much I can add this guy’s voice is amazing. Brilliant song particularly love the chains you can hear rattling throughout (reminds me of Johnny Cash’s ‘Ain’t no grave’)

~Black Beatles - Rae Stremmurd ft Gucci Mane

Yep that’s some mumble rap to add to the list (told you my music taste was varied) As a whole I don’t love mumble rap but there’s some stand out tracks including this one.

~Thunder- Imagine Dragons

One of my favourite bands from the last decade, like most there stuff. This song has a great song along chorus. Really catchy track.

~New Rules And IDGAF - Dua Lipa

Honestly couldn’t pick from the two really like them both equally. So you get a double. Catchy pop tracks.

~Sorry not Sorry - Demi Lovato

It was between this or Sober (another great Demi track) but ultimately went with the more upbeat pop number.

~Havana - Camila Cabelllo ft Young Thug (A nice chilled Latino style track.)

~Perfect - Ed Sheeran

A beautiful song by Ed Sheeran,other then ‘sing’ and the previous mentions I’m not really into his stuff but this is lovely track.

~Feel it Still - Portugal the Man

Really catchy song can’t help but tap your toes along to it.

~False Alarm- The Weekend

This was something different from the Weekend, really enjoy this song, Weekend is one of my other fave artists to come out the 2010’s.

~Sanctify — Years and years

Wasn’t keen on there earlier dance stuff but when they found there sound I really enjoyed them.

~This is America- Childish Gambino

Great as this song is you really need to watch the music video as well for the song to have its full impact. Love Childish Gambino could of put several of his songs in this list, excited for future music from this guy.

~Solo - Clean Bandit ft Demi Lovato

A cheeky little pop number you can’t help but sing along to.

~Shotgun - George Ezra

One of those artists I can’t decide if I’m into or not, like one song then not keen on the next, it’s strange, but no denying this is a great song.

~Lucid Dreams - Juice WRLD (RIP)

First off Rest in peace Juice, recently died at 21, very sad. The guy was super talented and was looking forward to his future stuff. Could of picked a few tracks but this was the first song I heard of his so that’s got to be my shout out.

~Only You - Cheat Codes ft Little Mix

Although I don’t mind Little Mix this is there only entry on my list. A nice catchy sing along with a dance beat.

~Lost Without You - Freya Ridings

This almost made it into my top 25, just couldn’t find a space for it. Haunting, melodic song with Freya’s stunning vocals. Don’t play this one after a break up or a death.

~Nothing Breaks like a heart- Mark Ronson ft Miley Cyrus

~Someone you loved - Lewis Capaldi

Think this guys going to be another Ed Sheeran for me, meh most the time with the occasional great song. This one no exception.

~Shut Down - Skepta

With lyrics like ‘Ring ring pussy, it’s shut down’ how can it not be a banger 😂 Not the best song in the world I admit but good fun.

~As we enter- Nas and Damian Marley

Words can’t express how much Iove this track, such a hidden gem. A reggae- rap blend of uplifting brilliance. Great gym playlist track.

~Better Now - Post Malone

Another artist I enjoy on occasion. This is my favourite of Malone’s songs so far.

~Bad at Love - Halsey (another great pop track)

~Bitch Don’t kill my vibe- Kendrick Lamar

Could of picked a number of Kendrick tracks King Kunta, DNA, M.a.a.a.d City, If these walls could talk, just to name a few but I’ll go with the first Kendrick track I heard and loved.

~Heartbeat - Childish Gambino

So gutted I couldn’t find a spot for this banger in my 25 but I had to include it on its own. Unless you’re a CG fan it’s unlikely you’ve heard it. Highly recommended a listen. I can’t even really describe it.

~No role Models- J. Cole

A anthem with a similar feel to Keep your head up by 2pac, a sad song somewhat but with a more upbeat tempo. My personal fave J. Cole song.

~Power - Kanye West

Wow our first Kanye track. I like Kanye ,prefer his older stuff. My dark twisted fantasy was the last album of his I really liked. This was a absolute monster of a tune. Also really liked the song Runaway from the same album. Both have great intros.

~Antidote- Travis Scott

~ No Sleep- Wiz Khalifa

Super catchy song, very anthem sounding.

~Young, Wild and Free - Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa and Bruno Mars

Another catchy tune, powerhouse of a team up.

~Rack City - Tyga

~ Romans Revenge- Nicki Minaj ft Eminem

Absolute banger double up from the king and queen of rap. Also a version she did with Lil Wayne which was very good but the Eminem version wins for me. Also will take the opportunity to give the Lil Wayne and Nicki song ‘knockout’ a shoutout.

~Blazin’- Nicki Minaj ft Kanye west

Another great Nicki Minaj track of the brilliant Pink Friday album. I know some of her more recent stuff hasn’t been great but she came out the gates strong in 2010.

~Pound The Alarm - Nicki Minaj

Last Nicki Minaj track I promise, could of picked this or starships as love them both equally.

~Trap Queen- Fetty Wap

Can’t lie this is something I never thought I’d like but the more I heard it the more I liked it.

~Ultimate- Denzel Curry

Yes the Vine meme song. Banger.

~Bad and Boujee - Migos

Yes more mumble rap, I’m not even sorry

~I’m not racist - Joyner Lucas

Wow maybe the most powerful song on this whole list. Nothing I explain can do it justice you have to give it a listen yourself (with the video)

~Cry Little Sister - Marilyn Manson

Boom, rap to rock just like that. I love Marilyn Manson covers, in the 00’s it was Tainted Love but this time around its this classic from The Lost Boys soundtrack. Creepy song but kinda perfect for Manson.

~Faster- Within Temptation

~End of Time - Beyoncé

Have to include some Beyoncé before this ends it’s the law. This was my favourite of hers.

~ Rumour has it - Adele

Not the biggest Adele fan but she has a few songs I enjoy, set fire to the rain and someone like you also good songs.

~Ugly Boy - Die Anwoord

Yep he’s a Die Antwoord fan 😆 I have no excuses, DA are one of my fave bands. Zef to death.

- Surf - Tommy Cash

Absolutely stupid lyrics but hilarious (need to watch the video also) it’s actually a good song with a awesome beat.

~Bang Bang Bang - Big Bang

To close the top 100 greatest songs of the decade out , some J-pop, I’m not a expert on Jpop I like a couple of artists and a few songs but had to close out with this... bang bang banger!

So here we go top 25 of my absolute faves from the 2010’s. (in no particular order)

~Radioactive- Image Dragons

This song featured in a Assassins creed game trailer (I forget which game) and I searched for it straight away, found it, fell in love, the rest is history. Great beat and vocals.

~Game Over - Tinchy Stryder, Tinie Tempah, Professor Green, Giggs, Devlin, Example, Chip

Wow with that line up it was always going to be a banger. This might be my fave beat ever! Such a tune featuring Rap and grime mvp’s from the UK.

~Gods and Monsters- Lana Del Ray

I know I said in no order but this might be my very favourite song from the last ten years. It’s not even regarded as Lana’s best but I just love everything about it, lyrics, melody and vocals. Perfect song.

~Born to Die - Lana Del Ray

Another melodic masterpiece from Lana Del Ray.

~Bad Girls - M.I.A

Yeah I’m a dude it’s weird this song gets me pumped seriously thou such a catchy song.

~In Paris - Kanye West and Jay -Z

Not much needs to be said, absolute classic.

~Over - Drake

Drake at his best imo, great beat, delivery and lyrics. My fave Drake song.

~Black Skin Head - Kanye West

Powerful song with a amazing beat, powerful lyrics, great gym song to get you pumped.

~Sail - AWOL Nation

You might have guessed by now I like a catchy sing along song with a pumping beat and somber tone. Check.

~Only love can hurt like this - Paloma Faith

Her voice in this is something else. I said it before Paloma Faith is so underrated.

~Bang Bang - Jessie J, Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj

Not to be mistaken for Bang bang bang by big bang featured earlier. Great pop hit.

~Take me to church- Hozier

Powerful song and video.

~Humble- Kendrick Lemar

Banger, not much else I can say.

~Uptown Funk — Bruno Mars

Can’t go wrong with this one, great hit.

~Can’t feel my face- The Weekend

Like most of the stuff this guy brings out, this awesome hit just tops that list.

~Redbone- Childish Gambino

Ok sorry Lana Del Ray but I retract your number one spot for this one. Thought it was Macy Grey or the Delfonics singing when I first heard it then discovered who it was. This has a 70’s soul feel. It’s hard to explain ,if you’ve never heard it give it a listen I’m sure you’ll love it.

~Bad Guy - Billy Eilish

Such a catchy tune, the song that introduced me to her music. Great little dance/pop hit. Fun and a bit freaky. Duh!

~Bury a Friend- Billy Eilish

The way Billy Eilish’s mind works amazes me, how she sees the lyrics, the music and video all as one package. She’s extremely talented and look forward to her taking up most the spots on my 2020’s best of list.

~I miss the misery- Halestorm

Great rock hit, has a very 80’s feel. Lead singer has a amazing voice.

~Sweet but Psycho - Ava Max

Maybe my favourite pure manufactured pop hit of the decade, any female pop star could churn this out and it would do well. Hate to love it.

~Homicide - Logic feat Eminem

If you don’t like rap you won’t get it, if you do, you know where I’m at.

~Stronger then Ever - Raleigh Ritchie

Otherwise known as Grey Worm in Game of Thrones, this guy can hold a tune. Great uplifting track.

~Speedom- Tech N9nne, Eminem

Another great Eminem feature hit. Absolute masterpiece of a record.

~I need - Maverick Sabre

Nice somber melodic song, this guys super talented.

~Cookie Thumper - Die Antwoord

The South African rap rave group strikes again, this one is pretty much a Yolande solo, the beat is insane and thou half of it is in said/sung in Africans it’s still my fave DA song.

~Monster- Kanye West, Jay Z, Nicki Minaj, Rick Ross, Bon Ivor

The title of this track doesn’t lie, beast of a track, arguably Nicki Minaj’s best guest verse ever (‘Where them girls at’ deserves a mention for sure) It’s in all my rap playlists, amazing song.

If you took the time to have a gander at my random countdown then I thank you, I fully expect you not to agree with everything, hopefully something you enjoy musically was mentioned I did my best to spread the genres as much as I enjoyed them. More music and other countdowns to come.

[drunklander]

Drunj!Der Yells About Outlander

Thoughts on Ep. 401

Oh hey, y’all. We’re back for another season of that show we keep watching in hopes it’ll get back to its season one glory Outlander! Since I’m incapable of keeping my Opinions to myself and have no filter after a few drinks, I’m gonna do drunk recaps that no one asked for or wants again this year. Because why not. So buckle up, randos, because under the cut you will find nothing of substance, zero insights and absolutely no analysis!

Before I dive into the stream of consciousness, quasi-incoherent beat-by-beat nonsense, I just want to say that I overall liked this episode. I definitely enjoyed it more from the comfort of my own couch than in the theater with thousands of screaming sycophants at NYCC. It definitely had me singing along to the Federalist Papers part of Non Stop all day though. A series of scenes, tangentially related, introducing the Colonies to the public. Some are obviously just there to just set up the plot of the season or like check a residual box from last season. But some are solid world-building and character moments. And, because it’s Outlander, some are like *side eye*.

But I’m for real excited for the first half of this season! The second half of Drums is a dumpster fire (fucking Rogergate...) and it seems like the show is going to stick pretty close to the book, so I’m going to try my hardest to not let preemptive feelings about that nonsense cloud potential enjoyment of the first bit. Because dammit, I love me some domestic!Frasers. So yeah, happy end of hiatus, y’all!

Ok I don’t want to start off on a downer note, but jfc. I get what they were going for with the 2000 B.C. stone circle stuff, but omg no. I don’t care if certain indigenous peoples really did make stone circles and dance around them as the sun rose. I know they’re trying to show the universality of circles and these time portal thingies or whatever, but by making the parallel with the druids at Craigh na Dun, it’s basically being like “Oh hey! These Native American folks from *checks notes* North America are just like the white folks we’ve been hanging with for the last three seasons!” It came off to me like erasing the unique cultures of the diverse peoples of North America in favor of framing them as a generic group of “natives” who do the white people stone dance. And in a season that’s going to deal heavily with multiple tribes, this really isn’t giving me much confidence in how they’re going to handle the rest of the Native American characters.

I’m really hoping someone else will articulate that better than I did. Because I feel like I’m not communicating well what my actual issue with the sequence was.

Petition to make Jamie wear a hat at all times to hide his horrible bangs.

Gavin Hayes has to be being hanged for literally the dumbest crime ever. But he seems pretty chill about it so...

Ok I never liked book!Bonnet as a character (like obvi he’s a terrible person so I was never going to like him as a person, but I was always annoyed that he was still around rather than appreciating him as a villain), but even from that presumptuous “yeah can I snag some rum too, bruh” in the jail, I’m like solidly on board with show!Bonnet.

Jamie tried to save Hayes, but you see Hayes straight up killed a guy. Sure it was in self-defense, but, y’know, ye olde times and he did kill the dude. Sooo...

I want to feel for Lesley, I really do, but I’ve never actually given a shit or been given a good reason to give a shit about Rupert and Angus 3.0 so, sorry for your loss?

Unpopular opinion alert (should be the standard disclaimer on all of my #hottakes) but I really don’t care for the new theme music. Every time they change it, I find myself wanting the OG season one music back with just the images updated.

The bald eagle for the title card just gives me such mixed feelings that have nothing to do with the show. Like here’s a symbol of my country and it *should* invoke good feelings, but *gestures at the current political climate* every national symbol at the moment feels tainted by the growing white nationalist movement that’s being spurred on by the current administration.

Time for some post hanging brewskis. We are here to mourn Gavin Hayes. Who died only so the new villain could be introduced. Let us bow our heads.

Marsali and Fergus win the prize for least subtle “can we be excused to go bang” ever. Rock on, Fersali.

I fucking LOVE that they changed the tavern scene so everyone sings with them like they know what’s going on rather than how in the book it was like them making fun of the red coats as part of Gavin’s song and then Fergus passed around a hat for coins. But by having everyone in the tavern in on what’s going down and earnestly participating, it establishes that 20+ years after the failed Rising, after the Clearances, after everything the Scots went through at the hands of the English, they were not truly defeated. They may have moved across an ocean, but they are still Scottish and they still practice their traditions and dammit I’m having feelings about those resilient motherfuckers.

The scene with Jamie and Ian is very well done and I’m SO glad they included it because they did in fact include his rape last year, but fuck the show for including that rape in the first place. A very similar version of this scene could have been done without the rape, there’s enough trauma involved in being kidnapped, taken across the ocean, held hostage by a batshit lady and knowing that everyone else she kidnapped ended up dead for one 16 year old kid. With Jamie’s rape we got two episodes of trauma and four of recovery. With Mary, Fergus and Ian, we get three child rapes that could have all been avoided (especially Ian’s, but the plot points that come from Mary’s and Fergus’ could have definitely come about without them actually being raped), and they all just got one brief scene to express their trauma and then everything’s hunky dory again. (We know they’re going to include Bree’s rape, also fuck them very much for that, it’s completely unnecessary, and I’m guessing we’ll spend some time with her on her recovery. But that’s a rant for when we get there...)

For real though, Jamie parroting Claire as he comforts Ian is super sweet, but it makes me skeptically nervous for how he’ll react to Bree’s. Since in the book, it’s...not great.

Stephen Bonnet is so delightfully smarmy. Also, how fucking naive is our main squad now all of a sudden that they don’t realize from the jump what a sociopath he is? C’mon, y’all. Like I know Jamie came close to being hanged or whatever, but literally everything about this dude screams that he’s bad news. He is not subtle in his I’m a straight up unapologetic and charismatic good guy criminal. And like, he’s a friend of Gavin? Come the fuck on, squad. HOW DO YOU NOT SEE THAT HE IS FULL OF SHIT. *gets Det. JJ Bittenbinder on the horn*

For real though, dodgy accent aside, I fucking love Ed Speleers in this role. Why the fuck do they have to include the rape. Can’t he just be a bastard without being a rapist? Why must you make me rage, show. I just want to enjoy a decent villain.

Jamie and Claire are doing their best Jean Ralphio and Mona Lisa Saperstein trying to talk their way through this checkpoint.

“You’ve never parted with the ring from the first?” Yeah, I don’t get it either, Bonnet my dude. I don’t get it either. #FuckFrank

Bonnet talking about circles fascinating him makes me think he’d do well in a group of stoners having what they think are philosophical conversations at 3:00 a.m. “But like guys, have you ever like thought about...the rhombus?”

For real though, him being real with Claire about this drowning stuff makes him an infinitely more interesting villain than Black Jack ever was. Black Jack was kind of a crap villain tbh. He was horrible and did horrible things, yes, but like that was it. He was just horrible. Bonnet’s like oh I’ll charm you, be real with you and then fuck you up in the course of one episode and not give any of it a second thought because I have not a single fuck to give about anyone but me. I’m just out here living my best life, sorry not sorry. *puts on shades, drops mic, walks away*

For real though, his “be wary of thieves and outlaws” line might as well have been “it’s me, I’m talking about me.” And these dorks don’t even pick up on it. GUYS YOU ARE KILLING ME, YOU DIDN’T USED TO BE THIS SHITTY AT JUDGING SOMEONE’S CHARACTER.

I’m guessing this is the official christening-their-new-continent-bang because it’s too cold to do River Sex™ in Scotland. But I’m looking forward to getting the rest of Ch. 16 once they get to the Ridge. (We all saw those strawberries in the promo...)

The book lines still feel shoehorned in rather than organic to the show, but not as much as 95% of A. Malcolm felt. So I guess I need to just accept that the writers are going to keep doing this and I just need to stop expecting them to actually do their jobs and adapt for the adaptation...

For real though, I know Spotify doesn’t exist yet but jfc Jamie and Claire’s secksi time playlist literally just has this one song and guys, there’s a whole world of songs for smushing out there. My man Doug Judy would be glad to broaden your horizons.

Claire’s I just had sex smile as she looks out over the valley made me literalol.

Cool that we get woke!Jamie saying that the American Dream is a nightmare for the Native Americans after Claire’s Americana 101 speech, but this is a woman who lived in wicked racist 1960s Boston. She knows that things aren’t nice and rosy in America in the 18th *or* 20th centuries. Her speech makes me hate S3 a little more for focusing on Frank’s manpain instead of Claire and her and Joe’s time in the hospital, where the show could have explored gender and race in the 20th century to set up a contrast for how things will be this season in the 18th. Claire went through enough shit last time she was in the past, and so far this time, to know that the past isn’t idyllic. She knows enough about US history and 20th century America to know this mythical origin story she’s spouting is nothing but a fairy tale. I get why she might cling to that ideal, this is the first time in her life she might get to settle down and build a home with the person she actually wants to build a home with, but her whitewashing history like this strikes me as a way too naive for her.

The green screen as they stare out at that very much not actually there valley is killinggg me.

Ok for real though, this cut from them in the Uncanny Valley to the room getting ready for dinner is the most jarring of the episode. Like, I’ve come to terms with the fact that this is just a series of independent scenes rather than an actual, cohesive whole, but jfc. Who actually is Lillington, how do you know him? Nope? No info? Not important? Just need to get it out there that you have jewels so the last scene in the episode can happen so the ring can be taken so the rape can occur? Cool. Cool cool cool.

Ok so show!Claire makes me sad with being insecure/self-depreciating about her appearance. Like with saying brown is a dull color when Jamie calls her mo nighean donn the first time and when she asks Joe if she’s sexually attractive and when she dyes her hair before going back through the stones and now with the mutton dressed as lamb thing. (Claire, girl, how are you that up on Colonial fashion that you know what’s “age appropriate” already? Wouldn’t think there was much fashion gossip along the road from Georgia to North Carolina, but whatevs.) I know three of these four things are straight from the book, but in the show it hits me differently. Book!Claire is kind of a bitch when it comes to looks. Her parting words in her letter to Bree were “try not to get fat.” She like judged the crap out of that rando lady in Edinburgh before she went to the print shop just to make sure she didn’t look too old. So when she has these aforementioned moments, they land differently. Now I’m not saying I want show!Claire to be like book!Claire, quite the opposite. I’m glad they cut that other stuff. But now whenever show!Claire has a moment of self-consciousness, all I want to do is be like woman, you are a fucking smokeshow. Fuck the patriarchy for making you feel like you aren’t stunning exactly as you are. #LadyBonerForBeauchamp

Oh Governor Exposition. How nice of you to join our merry band of randos for dinner!

Man, I’d love to be so rich that I can pull a Baron and casually just happen to have 100 pounds on hand to buy a giant ruby at a random dinner party.

John Grey, who was shunted from shit post to shit post, totes is special enough to get Scotland’s Valjean to England’s Javert cleared. I mean, obvi.

Oh hey, Jamie remembers he has a daughter! Showed more emotion in that scene about how America would become her country than in the scene with the photos. Fuck Sam et al. for the disaster of a performance choice in ep. 306, don’t @ me.

OH HAI ROLLO I LOVE YOU YOU ARE SUCH A GOOD DOGGO I WANT TO SNUGGLE YOU WHO’S A GOOD BOY YOU ARE

“I dinna ken. But she’ll be saying it in Scotland, won’t she?” I do love Young Ian a lot. I know that’s in the book. But dammit I love John Bell in this part a crapton.

Casually lol’ing that they crossed the ocean because Ian was taken and now that they have him, they’re just going to send him alone off to sea again.

The first time I saw the episode, when Lesley gave his “my place is at your side” speech I was like crap, we’re going to be stuck with this guy aren’t we. BUT WE’RE NOT! (I am a terrible person.)

Fergus and Marsali are totes going to be the new Jenny and Ian, aren’t they? The characters who just show up once or twice a season when the core squad needs something and that’s it? Because they get tossed aside in the books like that. That makes me super sad (and I hope I’m wrong) because of how they changed show!Fergus and show!Claire’s relationship from the book that we won’t get to see more of them together. Le sigh. I hope they at least let Bree have a scene where she meets Fergus and learns she has a brother. Especially if she’s not going to go to Lallybroch to meet the Murray squad because Jenny isn’t in this season. Part of what I loved about the Lallybroch part in the book was Bree realizing that she wasn’t just gaining a father but a whole extended family. I hope they kind of transfer that over to her meeting Fergus and Young Ian in the place of [insert Murray kids who let’s be honest we really don’t care about here].

Hey remember that time Jamie was wicked opposed to Fergus and Marsali getting married for literally no reason? That was fun. But yay for Germain!

Holy motherfucking green screen, Batman. Please can we get to the woods soon? Or some other location where it’s not this fucking jarring?

Claire America-is-the-land-of-milk-and-honey Fraser suddenly is overly-on-the-nose indignant about slavery. Cool. Cool cool cool. Again, you know what would have been cool? Seeing her with her best and only friend in the 1960s more last season because he was a Black man. If they had let Joe be a fully formed character, navigating racist af Boston as a doctor, rather than just being Claire’s sounding board and martini maker, we could have seen how Claire being exposed to his reality shaped her views on race in America. But nope, that would have taken air time away from Frank’s manpain. (Seriously, my recent re-watch only highlighted just how much they screwed over Claire’s character last season.)

I’ve always loved that Jamie gives Claire the medical box. It’s just such a simple way to demonstrate that he *gets* Claire. (*side-eyes a certain other husband who patently did not*)

Jamie’s bangs are an affront to anyone with hair. Someone please give that man his hat back!

“This ring is all I need.” Aaand that’s when we all knew that Jamie’s ring would be the one stolen.

“Not for a single day.” Uh, *casually points at the episode in season three when she retcons her entire life in Boston to be not as bad as it was because Jamie’s been such an asshat to her*.

Ok. Holy shit this final scene. I love everything about this final scene. Except the song. This show is not subtle. It’s never been subtle. But holy shit, playing the iconic Ray Charles version of America the Beautiful at the end of an episode called America the Beautiful to be like welcome to ‘Murrica, fuckos, is like even less subtle than they usually go. I 1000% LOVE the choice to cut the audio from the end of the fight scene and just have the visuals, it just would have worked much better if they’d scored with with a regular instrumental piece.

Gah, Bonnet is such a smarmy motherfucker! The nose wipe before he coldcocks Jamie is just perf.

Claire’s face in this entire scene, holy fucking shit. *throws all the awards at Balfe*

And then Lesley dies and I’m a terrible person because I’m happy we don’t need to be stuck with him all season. But holy shit Bonnet when he pauses right before he cuts his throat and then kills him, I love show!Bonnet so much more than I ever gave a shit about book!Bonnet.

And honestly, Claire’s face when he’s killed right in front of her. *throws more awards at Balfe*

GUYS I FEEL MORE EMOTION ABOUT CLAIRE TAKING OFF JAMIE’S RING THAN I DID ABOUT CLAIRE LEAVING BREE BEHIND TO GO BACK THROUGH THE STONES HOW IS BALFE SO GOOD AT MAKING ME FEEL FEELINGS

I’m so fucking glad they changed which ring gets taken. There was an interview where they were like “oh we did it because it has to be visually distinct so Bree can get raped!” and I’m like a) fuck you for including that and b) right decision, wrong reason. This is the right reason for the change.

But even as I say that they made the right call in which ring to have stolen, it’s still a fact that they fucking chose to have one stolen at all. The writers and production team decided that Brianna needed to be raped so a ring must be stolen. Because Diana never wrote a character she didn’t want raped and the Outlander producers never read a rape scene they didn’t want to include. Fuck them all very much for that.

Fuck Them Very Much for That, the title of my memoir.

Oh god her face right at the end when she sees that it’s fucking Fred’s ring she’s left with and not Jamie’s fucking murders me.

*THROWS AN ENTIRE TROPHY STORE AT BALFE*

[maple-clef]

Lies Sleeping obligatory flail

Well, that was a helluva ride!

Spoilers in review behind cut, obvs.

There’s a fun reference in Lies Sleeping to Sneakers, which happens to be a film I’m fond of. The scene referred to is where Whistler, a blind man, is coaxing Marty to reconstruct his journey in the boot of a car, using audio cues to trace where his kidnappers took him and culminating in a flamingo “cocktail party” by a reservoir which allows them to locate the baddies’ HQ. You should watch the film, it’s pretty great and a lot of fun. I was actually talking about it with my husband the other day, partly because we went past a load of geese at a bird reserve and they sounded like the flamingos, but also because we both reckon it’s a film that has aged well - if you ignore the specifics of the technology side of things. And thematically, it happens to resonate quite strongly with Lies Sleeping, too.

It’s all about power, and who holds it, and what you would do if you could take it: get some lever, some key which gives you access to the reins of power and lets you rewrite the rules. No more secrets, let it all hang loose... You can see how it resonates today in things like Wikileaks, the breakdown of trust between people and their governments and also the populist surge behind Trump and Brexit. People are angry, and they want to burn it all down - the system isn’t working for many, and that anger is exploited in a cynical way by the usual suspects: Farage, Trump, Boris. Entitled types who spin a speech, whip people into a frenzy. They aim to bring down the whole applecart, and ooh - they’ve got a brand new cider press they’ll sell you for the right price. See also: The Big Short etc.

And that’s kinda what Lies Sleeping is about, on one level. It’s about Brexit Britain - the people who insist the country is broken so that they can further break it and re-mould it in a fashion which pleases them, and those who understand that it’s not perfect, it’s often a bit shit, but let’s try and make it better and anyway it’s not a good idea to sink your own liferaft, who are trying to plug the leaks. Peter, Nightingale et al. (law and order, keeping the Queen’s Peace for the benefit of all) are in the latter camp. Chorley is - as we’ve always suspected, I think - a Boris, Bullingdon club figure. While he hides behind the conceit of wanting to make Britain great again, his “romantic” notions of reviving the greats of Arthurian legend to do this turn out to be a lie: he doesn’t really believe it. He just wants power. To make a legend of himself. Lesley does, I think, believe it - she talks in vague but apparently sincere terms about wanting to make the world a better place, in the vein of so many Brexiters. She even echoes the dissatisfaction that many have with London, the idea that the city bleeds the rest of the country dry. Peter denies this, because he’s a staunch Londoner and how dare she (although I’m not sure he really addresses all her grievances). Although in the end, she mostly wants revenge on Punch. She’s hurting and she wants to hurt him.

In Sneakers, Marty’s old friend Cosmo talks the talk about wanting to change the world too, but ends up wanting mostly to turn a profit on anarchy. But their estrangement and the different ways they both feel the other has moved away from their (originally strong) friendship and partnership kind of reflect Peter and Lesley’s arc, too.

Okay, enough about Sneakers. Although you should totally watch it.

I loved the book - it felt really solidly plotted, and there was lots of meaty stuff I’m sure we’ll all be talking about for a while in terms of the Follyverse: the new info on Molly’s background, and her new companion was a particular favourite thing for me. We also get a hint at Guleed levelling up, the Chinatown arrangement (hers and the Folly’s), quite a bit of additional background on the Folly’s history, the pound shop version of the Folly (in the Paternoster Society), *lots* of cool scenes in the proto-London-verse with the old (and new?) Rivers, another Court, this time upstream and oodles of Rivers stuff.

It was really interesting to see how the Folly had expanded by necessity and been brought more firmly into the fold of the Met, operations becoming much more of a team affair. With all those extra Met staff and with the additional help from Doctor Vaughan and Abigail, and more regular Postmartin involvement, Peter and Nightingale (and Guleed, and Carey) get freed up to go and do their action-filled actioning, which I think was part of why there was so much ground covered in this one, and why the pace never felt like it was laggy. The exposition could be farmed out and kind of drip-fed, rather than Peter having to essentially do all the leg-work (which can make pacing difficult in a first-person pov).

I felt that it was a really satisfying story, and that it did a really good job of bringing together lots of threads and characters and themes that have been initiated in the earlier books, and really weaving them together in a meaty and filling way. Like... a Greggs pasty (I’m hungry okay). It was so thorough that it really felt like an end to the story arc that began back in the first book - obviously the Punch/Lesley story bookends things, but it also feels like a definite punctuation in terms of most of the characters’ arcs. I obviously am not hoping it ends here, and don’t think BA has said anything about wrapping up, but it *could* conclude here and it would feel finished, I think.

But there are plenty of unresolved things, too - Peter’s fatherhood (!), what Lesley does/becomes next, and all the possibilities that come from opening the Folly up, with Guleed and Abigail becoming practitioners in their own right. And Peter hints at further recruitment, to aid in his reorganisation efforts and to ensure the SAU can sustain their workload... Nightingale’s retirement plans (!) and new pupils...

I also am keen to see more from the Rivers and explore their weird dual persona/timey wimey stuff, and the High Fae, and what goes on in America (is there a new Yellowstone, now, and what are they like?) and elsewhere in the former colonies... The idea that they’re taking Peter’s lead and developing a network/outreach of their own beyond their watersheds is a fun touch that could be explored further.

So, plenty of exciting possibilities for future installments. Can’t wait!

Other nice touches - the character development for David Carey, the increasingly sympathetic Alexander Seawoll, the way that Peter and Nightingale are developing into more of a partnership as Peter levels up, the character of Nguyễn, Walid and Vaughan’s double act. Guleed and Peter’s banter.

The bonus story from Abigail’s pov was great - I’d be really keen to read more in her ‘voice’.

I’m sure I’ll have plenty more to say when it’s all sunk in, and when I inevitably re-read it, and read everyone else’s reactions and theories on here :)

The only complaint I have relates to the number of typos and errors I kept finding, which made me a little distraught if I’m honest. Partly because I’m a professional proofer/copy-editor and would have probably done it for free once I start seeing this sort of thing it becomes very hard to relax and enjoy the read, and partly because it was *such* a good book that it deserved to be properly shiny and finished off, and why don’t publishers invest in their products you’d think a flagship series like this would warrant it grumble grumble. Sad times. But only a bit.

[aion-rsa]

Bridgerton: Let’s Talk About Sex Education, Baby

https://ift.tt/3n6QZ6O

This Bridgerton article contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 1, including the ending.

If you think our sex education could be better today (which you should), then Bridgerton‘s depiction of Daphne’s pre-marital lack of knowledge around sex may astound you. In the first season of the delightful romance drama, Daphne has to find out about masturbation from Simon and heads into her wedding night knowing next to nothing about what might happen between two adults in lust, aside from the fact that it has something to do with the act of having children. Later, Simon keeps the details of his “inability” to have children from his new wife much longer than he could have if Daphne had a better understanding of procreation.

Elsewhere on the show, Penelope Featherington and Eloise Bridgerton put their considerable minds to the task of finding out how babies are made so they can avoid getting pregnant before marriage—a valid question and concern for women of any era. Unfortunately, the closest they get to answering it is: women get pregnant because of love, which is not very helpful. (Bet you’re feeling pretty lucky to have Google right about now.) Is this level of ignorance historically accurate? Let’s dive into the real history of sex education in Regency-era England to find out.

The first season of Bridgerton is set in early 19th century London, which falls during the Regency sub-period of the Georgian era. While many think of old-time England as a repressive place, that stereotype comes more from the Victorian era, which followed the Georgian era when Bridgerton is set, and was notoriously repressive when it came to matters of sexuality and “morality.” The Georgian era was (generally) less conservative. As historian Faramerz Dabhoiwala puts it in his book Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution (via The American Conservative), the 18th century urbanization of England (by 1800, more than one million people lived in London) led to “more opportunities for sexual adventure,” and an increase in pre-marital and extramarital sex. By 1800, almost 40% of brides getting married were already pregnant, and about 25% of first-born children were born out of wedlock.

“We know that Regency society is a very bawdy society, generally,” Bridgerton historical consultant Hannah Grieg told the Chicago Tribune. “Extramarital sex is no longer illegal, most adult consensual sex is within the law, there’s a very open culture of prostitution in London. We get celebrity courtesans and mistresses.”

That being said, just because society is free for some, doesn’t mean it is free for all. England circa 1813 had its own share of socially-constructed ignorances and, as with today, one’s access to sexual education varied based on things like gender, class, and location. In Bridgerton, this kind of difference is depicted in instances like Marina knowing much more about sex and pregnancy than Daphne does before marriage. Presumably, that is partially because she has already had an affair and become pregnant before she even comes to London, but it is also because her slightly lower class (and childhood on a family farm) has not meant the same degree of social shielding as Daphne. That said, Marina presumably had little education or knowledge about birth control and, as we see later in the season, does not have the necessary knowledge (or access to resources) to effectively terminate her pregnancy.

“There would have been nothing in the way of formal sex education,” Lesley A. Hall, a historian of gender and sexuality, told the Tribune. “Mothers might have given some premarital counsel to daughters, but although it almost certainly wasn’t actually ‘Close your eyes and think of England’ it may not have been much more illuminating.”

And, as with today, most freedoms in Georgian-era England benefitted the white, heterosexual, rich men first, most, and sometimes to the exclusion of all others. In Bridgerton, we see a stark difference between what is socially acceptable for Anthony vs. what is socially acceptable for Daphne. Anthony carries on a sexual affair with Sienna and, though he doesn’t particularly what his family to find out, it would not ruin him. For Daphne, however, merely being alone with a man who is not family could ruin not only her prospects, but the prospects of her sisters, as we see happens with the unmarried Bridgerton girls when Marina’s pre-marital pregnancy is made public.

Obviously, Bridgerton is not going for total historical accuracy. As with all period pieces, the story is as much if not more so about now than it is about the time in which it is set. Modern viewers are not watching Bridgerton for an education about the past (nor would they, on the whole, get one); they are watching it as a cathartic and escapist romp, which also has incredible social value.

So what does Bridgerton‘s treatment of sex have to say about today? That is up for interpretation, of course. For me, it is an exaggerated depiction of some of the struggles and joys of contemporary womanhood, in particular a denouncement of all of the decisions about our bodies and our futures that are still kept from us. Here (and in some more obvious ways), it is represented as various female characters’ ignorance around sex, a subject that is kept from them not only by the men in their lives but, in some cases, by other women upholding the patriarchal norms. Daphne herself realizes she has been one of these women when her own experiences lead her to see Marina in a new light. She finds empathy for Marina, whom she rightfully views as another fierce survivor of a social labyrinth designed for men—a girl punished for seeking out pleasure, in a way that men are not for doing the same.

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Bridgerton takes on those gender-driven constraints and, over the course of a season, has its many women characters rail against them, not only pointing out their absurdities but finding ways to work within the patriarchal structure to find power in pleasure. No, I am not talking about the controversial scene in which Daphne forces Simon to release inside of her, which has nothing to do with pleasure and everything to do with power. I am talking about Daphne masturbating for the first time, alone in her bed, with nigh a man in sight (though certainly one in her erotic fantasy), for no one’s pleasure but her own. Or on her early honeymoon with Simon, enjoying all of the sex, depicted as just as eager for the rendezvouses as her husband.

“I refer to this season as ‘the education of Daphne Bridgerton,’” creator Chris Van Dusen told the Chicago Tribune. “She starts out as this young innocent debutante who knows very little of love. And she knows nothing of sex. And over the course of the series we watch her transform entirely.”

Knowledge really is related to power and, in Bridgerton, we see much of that accumulation of knowledge takes place in the bedroom, and much of that accumulation of power represented through sexual pleasure. Season 1 is the story of Daphne learning about her own body and its capacity for pleasure regardless of its service to men. After an adolescence of enforced ignorance, Daphne is finally given the knowledge and space to explore her own sexual desire. The fact that it comes through her relationship with Simon is one of the reasons why their romance is so damn sexy—it’s so much about Daphne’s pleasure, even when it isn’t about her happiness.

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Trump’s Bad “60 Minutes” Interview and Worse Economic Policy - PEER NEWS

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Trump’s Bad “60 Minutes” Interview and Worse Economic Policy

President Trump gave scarily bad answers in his “60 Minutes” interview with Lesley Stahl. But it’s what his administration and fellow Republicans are doing with respect to economic policy that’s truly terrifying. (Photo Credit: Michael Vadon/CC BY-SA 4.0)

The way President Donald Trump operates, it’s not like many of the remarks he made during his recent interview with Lesley Stahl for 60 Minutes were particularly surprising or groundbreaking. Many of his comments were riffs on the same songs he has sung before.

Even if they weren’t very earth-shattering or shocking, meanwhile, Trump’s comments were nonetheless disappointing to hear/read as an American who doesn’t share the same set of values. Stahl’s questions ranged across a fairly wide set of topics, but here are some of Trump’s most noteworthy insights:

Trump “doesn’t know” that humans have a role in climate change.

Pres. Trump seemed to walk back one-time comments he made that climate change is a “hoax.” In the same breath, however, he expressed doubt that it’s manmade, and when Stahl pressed him on the overwhelming evidence that it does exist and that we’re contributing to it, he suggested that this climate change could simply reverse somehow and that the scientists advancing the consensus theory have a “very big political agenda.”

That Trump would feign concern for the effects a shift away from fossil fuels might have on American jobs is commendable, at least by his standards. Trying to effectively deny our hand in climate change as part of a political agenda when the scientific consensus is such a strong one, on the other hand, is exactly the kind of thinking we don’t need at this stage in the game when more urgent action was needed yesterday.

Trump suggested there could be “severe punishment” for Saudi Arabia if found they were behind the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but didn’t provide specifics.

Trump admitted it was possible the Saudi government was behind the murder of Khashoggi, and indicated the vehement denial on the part of the Saudis. He then hinted that weapons deals could be at stake, but as he did with concerns about climate change, he pivoted to worrying about jobs at companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin. So, while he acknowledged the possibility of sanctions, Trump doesn’t seem all that committed to endangering business ties with Saudi Arabia because of it. Astonishment of astonishments there.

At this writing, reportedly, the Saudis are preparing to admit Khashoggi died during a botched interrogation. Obviously, the interview was taped prior to these reports. What was worst about this segment, though, was that Trump said the matter was especially troubling because Khashoggi was a journalist, even making an aside about how strange it must be to hear him say that. Yeah, it is, and it comes off as more than a little disingenuous after regularly railing at members of the press and calling them the “enemy of the American people.” Pardon us if we’re not especially enthralled by your promises that you’ll get to the bottom of his disappearance.

Trump claimed that Barack Obama put us on a path to war with North Korea, and qualified his “love” for Kim Jong-un.

Evidently, under President Obama, we were going to war with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, but now—BOOM!—no more war and Kim is talking about nuclearization. You’re welcome, America. Get that Nobel Peace Prize nice and shiny for “the Donald.”

Within Trump’s logic, it’s his trust for Kim that has been such an essential diplomatic asset. This despite the possibility raised by Stahl that North Korea hasn’t gotten rid of any weapons and may actually be building more. Trump, attempting to further distance himself from Obama, intimated there are no plans to ease sanctions, but Stahl persisted on the topic of Trump’s stated “love” for North Korea’s despotic leader. Trump tried to minimize the language he used as a figure of speech, but Stahl belabored North Korea’s horrid human rights record under Kim and his father.

Trump’s admiration for dictators is nothing new, but hearing him downplay talk of gulags and starvation is yet bothersome. More on this to come.

Trump still has no idea how tariffs work, nor does he apparently have high regard for his supposed allies.

President Trump insisted China is close to negotiating on tariffs and other matters of trade. In the meantime, though, President Xi Jinping (another leader with dictatorial aspirations overseeing a country with questionable regard for human rights) and China are content to retaliate with tariffs, and Stahl questioned how long we will be content to try to strong-arm China into negotiation when it’s American consumers who are bearing the brunt of these tariffs. Is the point to use the people of each country as bargaining chips in an escalating trade war?

Trump argued with Stahl for a while about whether or not he called it a trade war, a skirmish, or a battle, but this is semantics (and he totally f**king did call it a trade war, according to Stahl). Alongside likely overstating our trade deficit with China, Trump once more communicated his faulty understanding re tariffs. What’s more, he seemed ambivalent as to the continued integrity of diplomatic relations with Europe as a function of NATO membership, and grew combative with Stahl on the point of levying tariffs on our allies and inviting disunion. As long as Trump and his advisers hold to the narrative that the United States is being taken advantage of by the rest of the world when it comes to defense spending and trade, the average consumer is the one who will be caught in the middle.

Trump believes that Vladimir Putin is “probably” involved in assassinations and poisonings.

But only probably. Continuing the earlier conversation about Pres. Trump and his love of autocrats, the man would not commit to saying that he believed Putin was behind attacks on critics and political opponents, professing that he “relies on” Russia and that it’s their country, so it’s essentially their business. I’d be eager to know what precisely he means when he says he relies on them, and it’s possible his drift is a more innocent one, but when so much seems to hint at Trump being compromised by Russian ties, it’s hard to give him the benefit of the doubt.

This sentiment only grows when considering his hedging on Russian interference in the election and his evasiveness on the Mueller investigation. When prompted by Stahl on meddling in the 2016 presidential election, Trump was quick to rebut by claiming China meddled as well. Even if that were true, however—experts say there is evidence of a pro-Chinese influence campaign at work, but no concrete evidence of Chinese electoral meddling—it’s a deflection. Stahl called him out on this tactic, only to be argued within the spirit of whataboutism.

Additionally, Trump refused to pledge that he won’t shut down the Mueller investigation. In other words, um, yeah, you should still be worried about Mueller’s fate as special counsel. Particularly if the midterms go poorly for the Republican Party.

That whole family separation thing was all Obama’s fault.

When asked what his biggest regret so far has been, the first thing that jumped to Trump’s mind was not terminating the NAFTA deal sooner. Not the whole taking children away from their parents thing, as Stahl interjected. It’s not exactly mind-bending to witness Trump fail to recognize a policy bent on unmitigated cruelty as his worst mistake, but it still stings like salt in the proverbial wound if you fashion yourself a halfway decent human being.

To make matters worse, Trump defended the policy under the premise that people would illegally enter the United States in droves otherwise. Furthermore, he blamed Barack Obama for enforcing a policy that was on the books. To be fair, Obama’s record on immigration is not unassailable, as his administration was responsible for its share of deportations. But separating families is a new twist on trying to enact “border security,” and it ignores the perils immigrants face upon return to their native land, perils we have helped exacerbate. Try as he might to escape it, Donald Trump and his presidency will be inexorably tied to this heartless policy directive.

The country is divided, but that’s the stupid Democrats’ fault.

According to Trump, the country was very polarized under Obama, but now on the strength of the economy, he can see it coming together. You’re welcome, America. Stahl questioned him on this criticism of Obama and the Democrats’ contributions to political rancor when he and his Republican cronies just won on the Kavanaugh confirmation and he proceeded to immediately lambast the Dems. Trump predictably deflected by saying it’s the Democrats who don’t want the country to heal. They started it! They were so mean to Brett Kavanaugh! What a bunch of stupid babies!

In case you had any doubts, Trump doesn’t give two shits about Christine Blasey Ford.

Continuing with theme of Kavanaugh’s confirmation, Lesley Stahl addressed Trump’s mockery of Dr. Ford’s testimony before Congress, asking why he felt he had to make fun of her. Trump says she was treated with great respect. Stahl was, like, really? Trump was, like, anyway, who cares? We won.

That’s right, ladies and germs—the ends justify the means. It’s all about the W. You heard him.

The White House is definitely not in chaos. Definitely not.

The on-air portion of the 60 Minutes interview ended with Stahl asking the president about the media reports of a White House in turmoil. Three guesses as to his reply. If you said “fake news,” you’d be correct. (If you didn’t, what’s wrong with you?) Trump also didn’t seem fazed about the high turnover within his administration. Hey, sometimes it just doesn’t work out! Along these lines, Trump wouldn’t commit to James Mattis as Secretary of Defense, nor would he give a ringing endorsement to Jeff “I’m Only a Racist on Days That End in ‘Y'” Sessions. Not that I have any great love for either of those men, but it’s still messed up when a man like Trump expects unflinching loyalty and yet stands by his appointees only when it’s convenient.

Trump also opined on his feelings of distrust of White House officials, consummate with his assessment of Washington, D.C. as a “vicious, vicious place.” Good news, though, fellow Americans: he now feels very comfortable as POTUS. Many of us might be continuously on edge, but he’s right as rain. Well, at least there’s that.

To some, Lesley Stahl’s 60 Minutes interview with Donald Trump was disappointing in that it didn’t break new ground. Sure, it further revealed that he is ignorant of how basic economic and scientific principles work, that he possesses a predilection for strongmen, that he will blame Barack Obama for pretty much anything, that he holds absolutely no regard for survivors of sexual assault, rape, and sexual violence, and that he has the temperament (and possibly the intellect) of a grade-school child. But we already knew all this. As noted earlier, it’s more salt in the wound for members of the so-called Resistance, but short of potentially alienating our allies with his public comments—which is not to be undersold or encouraged, mind you—but comparatively, his words are sticks and stones.

It’s where Trump’s actions and those of his administration have effect that should truly frighten us, meanwhile. As he so often does, Matt Taibbi provides excellent insight into the area of biggest concern: the U.S. economy. Stahl noted in voiceovers during the interview that Trump loves to talk about America’s economic success. After all, it makes him look good. Never mind that he may have a limited role in that success and that he inherited favorable conditions from his predecessor, but he wouldn’t be the first president to take advantage of others’ successes.

Trump was notably silent, conversely, when the Dow recently fell 1,377 points over two days amid a stock market sell-off. As Taibbi writes, this event is but a prelude to a larger economic disaster, and it stands at the confluence of three irreconcilable problems. The first is the Federal Reserve raising interest rates as a means of trying to rein in the excess of large companies taking advantage of quantitative easing and zero-interest-rate policy.

This might not be such a problem except for the second factor: the Trump/GOP tax cuts. As economic experts warned prior to their passage, the cuts were based on overly enthusiastic projections of economic growth. When the inevitable tax shortfall occurred, we would need to start borrowing more, as is already underway. Higher interest rates on increased borrowing means more of an economic burden.

All of this comes to a head when we consider the third problem: tariffs. To try to make up for the issues raised by higher borrowing rates and a revenue shortfall, the government this week debuted new Treasury bills in the hopes of generating immediate cash. The potential conflict arises when considering China is the primary buyer of U.S. T-bills and holds over a trillion dollars in American debt.

The assumption is that Chinese demand for Treasury notes will remain unchanged despite the tariffs. However, as Matt Taibbi and Lesley Stahl and others are right to wonder, what happens if the trade war’s tariffs hurt the Chinese economy to the point that China no longer can or is willing to subsidize our skyrocketing debt? It’s a purely theoretical question at this point, and a rhetorical one at that, but the fallout from the intersection of these trends could be devastating. Taibbi puts a cap on the gravity of the situation thusly:

As we’ve seen in recent decades, even smart people are fully capable of driving the American economy off a cliff. What happens when the dumbest administration in history gets a turn at the wheel? Maybe last week wasn’t the time to start panicking. But that moment can’t be far.

Ominous, but perhaps not hyperbole. Noting what happened last time when the economy nearly collapsed, when the next disaster strikes, it will undoubtedly be we, the other 99%, that pays most dearly. Especially as Mitch McConnell and his Republican partners would have it, now clearly eying cuts to Medicare and Social Security.

President Trump may enjoy schmoozing with Lesley Stahl and giving bad answers his base will eat up now. In the short to long-term, though, the terrible choices of his administration and his party could prove costly to the American economy, and by association, the global economy. Though he undoubtedly won’t meet with our same burden, he should at least take more of the blame when it does.