Mongrel

Finished season 2 of Taskmaster NZ in a couple of days - what a delight. I agree it's up there with one of the very best seasons of the show. It's also a big improvement on season 1, but I think a lot of that is down to the cast which seemed to gel a lot better. They are also doing some fun things outside the show. I know there's a lot of focus on David, but I thought Guy and Laura were an absolute delight. Guy Montgomery's date was one of my favourite things. It's great when the assistant cracks up in tasks (e.g. Alex with Katherine Parkinson's catapult task), and this was another great example.

This is one of my favourite casts - Mike is all time, and although I was a bit iffy about Sarah Kendall at the start she's really come into her own as the series has progressed and has been a great sport. Charlotte Ritchie has also been incredible fun, and contrary to a lot of people I've enjoyed Jamali to. It's a bit surprising that Lee Mack has actually been the least memorable cast member this series - he's been pretty good, but I expected him to be great. I'm not sure whether the show has just got better at dealing with it, but they also all seem so much more comfortable without a crowd than last season. It's a real shame this cast didn't get the chance to perform in front of a live crowd, but it's still been so much fun and some of the tasks have been great.

I really did not like the acting task. I think it was one of the worst they've done. I'm struggling a bit with this season - I'm not sure whether it's because of coronavirus, the fact I don't really enjoy a couple of the contestants or that a lot of the tasks are falling a bit flat, but I'm not excited to watch these in the way I have been excited to watch other seasons. Which is a shame because it started really strongly. 😕

I haven't watched the most recent episode, but quite enjoyed the first two. I'm not really digging Richard Herring yet, and hopefully the prize tasks start to improve because it felt a bit like there were 3-4 people in each episode thinking along the same lines so it fell a bit flat. Other than that, it's a strong cast and really good fun. I also finished watching Season 6 for the first time. It's not the best season by any means, but I think Tim Vine and Liza Tarbuck added some genuinely fun laugh out loud moments like this: Asim and Alice would have probably been fine on separate seasons, but I think it was too much for both of them to be on the same season.

Haha, good luck singing along with Jamie Foxx in the crowd. What the fuck was that?

holy shit guys

He'd be unleckie to not get a decent move after this tournament imo. It is a bit of a weird case, because he has just moved to a new club in the same division.

Kinda hard to believe that Leckie plays second flight German football.

Haha, oh Australia.

Yay, The Tallest Man. Unfortunately he's coming to Copenhagen tomorrow (I think), but I didn't manage to nab tickets to him because of supreme laziness. He makes pretty regular trips to Australia, so I guess I'll have to catch him there. I'm obviously a big fan, and pretty happy to see him snag a spot on the list.

Saw What Richard Did last night. It was an odd movie - like the tension is oppressive up until Richard "does" what he does, but after that it sort of peters out despite a great scene between the father and son. Even so, Jack Reynor is really wonderful in it, and Lars Mikkelsen was also very good, even if his character was oddly written. It is great to see him start to break into more English cinema. He's been good in everything I've seen him in - particularly The Killing/Forbrydelsen.

Joni

Yzma (Eartha Kitt) was pretty fantastic as the villain from what I remember. It has been years since I've seen the film, but I have it on DVD in German (imaginatively titled "A Kingdom for a Llama").

Haha, I could have even slipped Disclosure in! We had a moment, man!

First time I've voted in this, so my order might change a bit! The Tallest Man on Earth Jens Lekman Iron & Wine Efterklang James Vincent McMorrow Joni Mitchell The National Patty Griffin Roy Orbison Sigur Rós Jake Bugg Final Fantasy/Owen Pallett Kings of Convenience Jonathan Richman Disclosure Glen Hansard Frank Turner James Blake Tame Impala Movits!

Ted

My problem with the last season or two was that this whole show was geared towards the eventual climax of everybody Dexter knew finding out what he really was. That's what I'm pretty sure everyone wanted to see - we got a glimpse of it with Deb (despite it being dealt with in a fucking stupid manner), and, at least for a bit, it was intriguing television. You know, for eight seasons they did their best to make us invest in characters like Masuka, Angel, Quinn and, to a lesser extent, Astor and Cody, and you'd at least hope there's some sort of pay off. How do these people, who have come to know and like Dexter, react when they find out he's a serial killer? But at the end of the day, it was all for nothing - all these characters could easily have been replaced by other people without sideplots, and it wouldn't have detracted from the final arc which was a fucking love story. It's such a shame, because for all its faults, the show was pretty good for the first four or so seasons. I think ultimately the writers robbed us of a satisfactory and actually interesting ending by deciding that Dexter ending up caught or executed was too obvious, so they had to go a different way. Sometimes the obvious ending is the best one, considering they laid the groundwork for it for about five years.

I'm sure there's an obvious reason, but can someone remind me why Walt would want to kill Lydia? Did she set him up with the Nazis in the first place?

In a generation of really talented kid actors, the kid who plays Harrison might just be the worst.

Pictured: Robbie Slater referees a match.

Spurs didnt sell them a football.

It isn't even as good as Zero to Hero!

How old are you, and how old is your son? I got a little bit caught up in my game last night, and played it a lot... Last time, we left with the homosexual King Garðar I of Iceland taking a blow to the skull, and leaving his eight-year old son Sturla has the new King of Iceland. Thankfully, King Sturla the Holy, as he came to be known, led a fruitful and successful life of pillaging frightened coastal towns during his sixty-year reign as King of Iceland. Although he didn't achieve much by way of conquering (I suck at that), he did manage to conquer County Connacht, as part of his failed attempts to meet the mighty Scots head on. He also happily watched on as his second and more talented son plotted the death of his absolute clunker of an heir Toke. His death in 976 paved the way for a tumultuous period in Iceland, as his successor, King Garðar II, was perhaps unfairly dubbed "The Unready". Much like Garðar I, "The Unready" also took a blow to the skull in battle and died at the age of 52 - just eight years into his reign. His only son, Sturla, became King Sturla II, had an uneventful twelve-year reign that ended at the age of 41 following a short illness. Sturla II's death meant it was the third attempt for a Garðar on the Iceland throne, with King Garðar III posing a special problem indeed insofar as he was Slavic for some reason. Nevertheless, he managed to take Ulfhildr, first in line to the Norwegian throne, as his wife, and the two had a son - Gudbrand I - before Ulfhildr died at the age of just 21. That left the game in a very odd position indeed, with my direct heir now also first in line to the Kingdom of Norway. King Björn I, however, managed to father a daughter out of wedlock, who became his new successor, and then trounced poor old Garðar III to take Austisland - his birthright. Björn I was soon succeeded by Halla I, who reigned for just three months before she was killed as part of a plot. At the age of 2. I don't like what this game makes me do. That put me in the interesting position of having sworn fealty to a Norway, whose King happened to be my direct heir, too. In fairness, I got a bit gamey here, and decided to declare war on my own son in the hope I'd die quickly. I did, meaning that against all odds, I'm in control of King Gudbrand I of Norway and Iceland.

....and Garðar went and got himself hit on the head, and is now incapable. Fucking hell. EDIT: And now dead. Disappointing end to a four month reign. All hail eight-year old King Sturla!

Started a game in the Old Gods, playing as Garðar Svavarsson of Austisland - aka the first Scandinavian to live on Iceland. He lived for more than one winter in this universe, though, but achieved very little before he died at the age of 54. In reality, this was just a chance for me to work out the Norse mechanics in this game. There was far more interest in his successor - Uni Svavarsson. Living to the age of 63, Uni conquered Vestisland and proclaimed himself King Uni the Great of Iceland. In a storied life, Uni the Great had three wives - the first of whom he killed - and seven children. He saw his small band of fighters terrorise Ireland and the fractured areas of Jorvik, to amass some wealth for his new Kingdom. Unfortunately, his death meant that his successor, King Garðar I, only inherited Vestisland, while Garðar's younger brother, Rögnvaldr, inherited the west. Rögnvaldr took little time declaring a war on Garðar, naming himself the true King of Iceland. Garðar is actually very talented, and has two sons already. The best part of his life so far was the fact he went off to fight in Greece and came back a homosexual. It makes for an interesting dynamic. Bit of Jón Gnarr about him, only he's actually gay. As an aside, how do you guys normally deal with Gavelkind? Do you try to assassinate your sons, or roll with the inevitable split in your holdings. I still don't really understand how it works.