unapologetic pedant

Neat maths question. I'm going $4 Tigers, $3 Seagulls. No refunds.

Slightly off-topic, but I'll give it a whirl. Castings should be colour-blind. That is not the same as clumsy decisions taken to meet a DEI agenda. Which I suspect is what you would like. Or be seen to like. The Haile Selassie quote is a helpful guide, "until the colour of a man's skin is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes". Actors are not required to possess the same eye or hair colour as historical characters they are playing in the theatre. Why should skin colour be any different? Audiences use their imagination. Would be absurd to deny non-white British actors opportunities from large swathes of the English literary canon. Personal superficialities are only relevant if the production is ostensibly more naturalistic. Like when Olivier dyed his hair blonde for the film version of Hamlet.

Rubbish. Everything RTD does is motivated by identity politics.

I genuinely don't understand why oldies care about the current version when it so obviously isn't the programme of old. The one binned in 89 still was. Just remove the aforementioned pantomime elements and bring in new writers. Worth remembering too that set and special effects shortcomings were less distracting with lashings of Radiophonic Workshop weirdness. There are parallels with The Tomorrow People. That went through a ropey comedy phase. Then some integrity was restored. Resulting in several well-executed stories. Followed, after a protracted interval, by a 21st century American remake. Very much doubt ageless Brits taking a curious gander would assume any continuity with the ITV series they saw as children.

Isolation is more significant for West Coast. Most areas in NZ where League was strong have endured economic decline. Huntly another graphic example. Still a strong comp in North Waikato though. By all accounts, WC players had reached a point where they literally had no open-age fixtures. Interesting that Griffin Neame was able to remain at home as a 16/17 year-old, going to NRL camps and playing in rep teams.

You answered your own question. Not the same without low budget thrills and spills. Elderly Doctor Who addicts watching the slick politically-correct reincarnation must feel like Man City fans who remember paying 50p to stand on the Kippax.

Little side note - In a fortnight Greymouth Greyhounds will debut in the Canterbury Premiership. They were successful in a lower grade last year and have signed an agreement to share players with Papanui Tigers. The two clubs effectively swapping places in the divisional structure. Potential extra avenue in the Southern Zone pathways set-up for young West Coasters. A region which traditionally punched well above its weight in NZRL.

Manly took consecutive Warriors home games to Christchurch. Second time round, attendance was well down. Salutary warning against overreach. Local fans are aware that Aussie clubs have their own agenda. Let the Warriors manage the momentum. They know the NZ market better than League Central. They don't try to milk the fans. Still offer great deals for families on matchday. While coining it on the corporate side. NRL have stuffed up, scheduling Warriors v Panthers as the Suncorp Magic round game for the second year in a row. Penrith haven't played in Auckland since 2019, before many of the current star names had broken out. Samoans in Auckland would be especially keen to see Luai and To'o in town for a big club game.

Not previously acquainted with any of these latest three. I'm always interested in the original broadcast timeslot. Which day and whether early or late evening. Gives a sense of the place the programme occupied, what it was trying to accomplish and whom it was aimed at. Re watching old TV series DVDs - Had a brief buying spree around a decade ago. One Amazon recommendation led to another, etc. Eclectic childhood mix of fondly-remembered, half-remembered, dimly-remembered productions. With each purchase, unwittingly found myself settled into a routine of one episode per day at roughly the same time. Of course in most cases the erstwhile order would have been weekly not daily. Nonetheless I felt no appetite for second helpings and certainly not tempted to binge-watch the whole lot. Which begs the question, were these series consciously devised for consumption in small doses with gaps in between? Or did growing up in the analogue era condition our minds to appreciate the value of delayed gratification?

Also on the Gold Coast, Burleigh Bears have a player in their women's team called Caitlyn Ah ####.

Question for TRL AFL fans. There must be one out there. When roughly 80k attend MCG games on consecutive nights, are they all distinct supporters of the competing clubs? Or are some general "Footy" fans, big event-goers, who go both nights, just along for the ride. Comparing with NRL, any chance something similar but smaller could happen if the Bunnies move back to Allianz? Didn't the pre suburban sprawl NSWRL have Match of the Round at the SCG?

Acknowledged or not, the implied identity of the Danger Man agent was an initial hook. Without that link to the real world of espionage, The Prisoner would have been Alice Through the Looking-Glass. How many would have tuned in for a series of freewheeling mystifying allegories? The governing motif was that all manoeuvres were staged with the primarily prosaic purpose of extracting information regarding the resignation of the captive from the secret service. This will be why the final episode provoked such controversy on its original showing. The prospect of a temporal dénouement meant viewers were willing to tolerate a high level of bewilderment en route. When the climax divulged only further bewilderment, rightly or wrongly, the more lucid and literal-minded felt they had been strung along.

You've put the puzzled emoji on a post of mine on the previous page. I can't work out what you're puzzled by.

@Sports Prophet What is the point of emoji graffiti? Can only guess which part you have a problem with.

Afraid I can't make head nor tail of the whole caboodle. First saw repeat episodes some time in the 80s shown last thing at night. A relative told me she had seen the original run. Consternation was the principal takeaway. She'd kept watching till the end though. I also saw an entertaining spoof on The Tube. Jools Holland as the protagonist. Got chased and barged over by the balloon. Fry and Laurie were involved. Some dispute whether the Prisoner and Danger Man were one and the same. That character had a very dull yet oddly piquant name.

Did we ever find out what motivated the big bouncy beach stalker? This balloon had a vendetta. Patrick should have lured it onto a large sharp object. Something like the lightening rod another Patrick was impaled by in The Omen. Gruesome, but effective.

Should be a comfortable win for the home team. Best scenario for women's international RL is France closing the gap on England. Alternative is the French falling back to the pack with Greece, Serbia, Wales, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands. Would mean more competitive games overall, but leave England bereft of genuine NH challenges.

All look likely to be one-sided, with the possible exception of Cardiff v Barrow.

Bring back the Cheshire Cup. Could be your year.

Just wondering how it compared.

I had a R3 spell in the late 90s when I was trying, with limited success, to acquire a taste for Jazz. Included the request programme with the (for an American) disappointingly-named Geoffrey Smith. The reference to the place of drama on a station ostensibly devoted to music brings to mind the carping, usually aired on Feedback, whenever Radio 4 broadcast music documentaries. Complainants were essentially highlighting duplication across the network. The schedules of R1 and R2 were replete with comparable features. In contrast to the plainly infantile but hard-to-suppress sense of deflation when a respected obscurity went mainstream, I felt mildly triumphant when music I'm a fan of got the R4 treatment. John Peel often remarked that records first played on his show always sounded better when he heard them on Daytime R1. The satisfaction is possibly akin to that derived from seeing an unsung hero receive an honour from the State. My favourite R4 music doc was about Judee Sill. In it, Andy Partridge said something along the lines of "Everybody else liked Joni Mitchell and Carole King, but I preferred Judee Sill". Same here.

Have to take your word for that. I've given up looking at the super-duper new TV ratings data. Incoherent, indecipherable, deficient, deceptive. And that's being extremely generous. Reach?

The way the Leagues club is shaping, Shark Park could end up a bit like Wilderspool. Just remind me. What was the equivalent view at your old gaff?

BTW, highly contentious whether aggravate is a synonym of exasperate.

Money Box is ruddy infuriating. The reply to almost every caller is "on the one hand this, on the other hand that".