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Link to review of "Bank Job" by Liz Truss

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The main aim of this site is to review works of science fiction and fantasy. Today we are posting a link to a review of a book by a former British Prime Minister: a book which, sadly, belongs in the latter category. The tragedy of Liz Truss is not that she was either a bad person or a stupid one: nor was the problem with Liz Truss her analysis of Britain's problems at the time she became PM. There were quite a lot of valid points in that analysis and indeed one of the worst things about her legacy is that she may have discredited some genuinely good ideas. The problem with Liz Truss was her " Damn the torpedoes, full ahead ," or in her own words, " move fast and break things " approach to solving those problems. In one sense it was to her credit that as PM she did exactly what she promised she would do when standing for the position. However, her opponent in the election, (and subsequent successor as Prime Minister,) Rishi Sunak, predicted at the time exactly h...
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Clocks go back tonight

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Remember that British Summer Time in the UK comes to an end tonight and the country goes back to Greenwich Mean Time. Consequently, in the UK and indeed in most of Europe, the clocks go back an hour overnight. So in the UK at 3am, it jumps back to a second 2am. By popular demand we are republishing this a handy guide to putting your clocks back tonight:
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Abba medieval style

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" Gimme, gimme, gimme a knight after midnight " and other examples of how musicians from the middle ages might have performed Abba's music ...
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On the implications of Time Travel

Almost every good work of Time Travel science fiction addresses the issue which is sometimes called the "Grandfather Paradox" and most of them conclude that going back in time and changing the past must be either impossible extremely difficult extremely dangerous or more than one of the above. This goes back a long way. In 1933, American author Nathaniel Schachner published a short story titled " Ancestral Voices " in Astounding Stories. In it, a time traveller goes back 5,000 years, accidentally kills one of his own direct ancestors in a brawl, and immediately fades out of existence. The modern form of the "Grandfather Paradox" was first formulated ten years later by René Barjavel (1943): Barjavel was the first to distil this concept into the exact family dynamic we reference today, presenting a character who travels back to deliberately eliminate his grandfather before his parents are conceived. There are at least four opposing theories about what happen...
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Book Review: "Bikinis Forever" by Michael Dalton

Although " Bikinis Forever " by Michael Dalton does not come into the category of books this site was set up to review, it is very closely related to a large number of books which are, and the manner in which it deals with that relationship is interesting. "Bikinis forever" is the sixth, and the final non-supernatural,"Unconventional Romance" in the "Bikini Days" series. The Amazon series page can be found at:   Bikini Days (6 book series) Kindle Edition "Unconventional Romance" is code for "Haremlit" e.g. the romantic elements involve a man with multiple partners, which seems to be a popular meme among some, mostly but not exclusively male, authors and readers at the moment. Michael Dalton has written a large number of fantasy books, most but not all of which also fall into this category. The books in this series are: 1)  Bikini Days: An Unconventional Romance 2)  Bikini Nights (Bikini Days Book 2) 3)  Bikini Dawn 4)  Bikini ...
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Thrawn on the Jedi Order's attempt to arrest Chancellor Palpatine

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Another "Chris Talks" fan fiction video in which Grand Admiral Thrawn discusses with Captain Pellaeon and Jedi Master Joruus C'baoth the legality, practicality, and strategic disaster of the Jedi Council's attempt to arrest Chancellor Palpatine. This discussion takes place in the "Heir to the Empire" Star Wars Legends timeline, not the Disney canon, but most of the history Thrawn and Pellaeon relate is still part of the Disney canon, and almost everything in the arguments which Thrawn presents can be applied to the series of events in the current official Canon.
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The Immortal memory

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  Today Britain's Royal Navy toasts the immortal memory of Vice Admiral Lord Nelson, possibly the greatest sailing admiral who ever lived. Remembering Nelson and all who fell with him at Trafalgar on 21st October 1805.
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