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[Overlord]

You know how we do that thing where you change a word in the title of a movie that's no good to "shite"?  Well Overlord deserves a version of that but with the word "meh" instead.  Overmeh, Mehverlord - something like that I dunno.
During D-Day, an American soldier is shot down behind enemy lines and finds the Krauts are doing devilish experiments upon French villagers to develop a zombie serum that can create immortal soldiers DUN DUN DUN, it isn't terrible per se, more just an aggressive form of banal and it seems pointless to nitpick about anachronism (rap theme tune) or shallow characters (2d Nazzis) in what is essentially a schlock horror movie that I probably didn't enjoy because I watched it sober.  I spotted Fitz from Agents of Shield, but that's as far as recognizable actors go.
Competently put together, but ultimately uninteresting

Nandos political party funded by pro-Israel lobby.  As a big nerd I was aghast at what David Gerrold was doing these days, but thankfully I just need new glasses.

Aren't MEPs elected using proportional representation?  FPTP all but ensures UKIP and the like remain unelectable because votes are funneled to the name brand parties (and latterly Team Nandos), but under proportional representation UKIP would be guaranteed a certain number of MPs.

Facebook certainly has an older/receptive user base, but losing IG would be a blow to Robinson's ability to reach younger recruits.  I suppose he still has Youtube.

This probably isn't relevant but apparently some local gobshites recorded a version of Candle in the Wind called Nandos in the Bin, so I suspect I have managed to let some key element of UK culture pass me by entirely.  I didn't understand the tweet that read "Nandos is the Greggs of the political classes" but I am sure this is a very clever observation.

Corbyn clearly does not do the whole long game thing.  Not that he needs one with MPs whose only selling point was the Labour brand, as evidenced by the fact they're still using it when they are introduced as "ex-Labour MPs", and are still talking about Labour in interviews.
I think I realised the squitters were done when I spotted that Momentum had decided that they weren't worth their time after making a single diss vid last week, and have now settled for just accusing them of being the kind of people who order the lemon and herb chicken off the Nandos menu.  There's no Nandos where I live but I assume this is equivalent to going into a kebab shop and not getting spicy sauce.

The plan was never to present a serious challenger to Corbyn, the plan was to keep him off the ballot so that the only choice was between Blairites chosen by the PLP.  Once the courts ruled Corbyn was to be on the ballot, absolutely nobody expected Smith to win, and it said everything about the party's right wing that it still went through with the whole tedious panto when all it could possibly do was make things worse for them.

Our culture rewards and latterly monetises attention.  It's a mistake to outright dismiss the likes of Akkad when they have a large audience, a successful engagement strategy, and a viable platform - not least because their audience so often spews out spree killers.

[Anita Sarkeesian and the people who hate her]

What's ironic is that the people screaming "personality cult" are just as guilty of it as the people they accuse.  Obsession doesn't necessarily mean being in love with a cult figure, it can just as easily spring from a relationship with someone you hate and it can make you just as delusional and immune to reason as people wearing white robes and banging tambourines.

For example: a lot of leftist Youtubers have just hosted mirrors of Big Joel's video essay "Anita Sarkeesian and the people who hate her", after the original was taken down by Youtube after alt-righters mass-flagged it*.  The video is quite interesting in that it examines two alt-right Youtubers (Thunderfoot and Sargon of Akkad) who usually have at least a passing acquaintance with the notion of showing their work and/or articulating an argument and how they singularly fail to do any of this when faced with the task of debunking the work of someone they clearly despise.  I feel this is a particularly germane example because Sarkeesian's relevance in media circles is arguably on the wane of late, but here her critics are magnifying her with a clumsy attempt at a takedown.


*Entirely coincidentally, this happened after an angry video response to the original vid was posted on Sargon Of Akkad's Youtube channel.

There's a story somewhere about the Sun's "1 In 5 UK Muslims Support ISIS" story, and how Yougov decided to take a pass on doing the polling once they discovered what the story was going to be.  Most people concentrated on the whole "GASP EVEN YOUGOV THOUGHT THIS WAS A BAD IDEA" angle, though in retrospect it's probably more worthy of note that the story's conclusions were in place before the polling that supported it was even commissioned.

A cynic might point out that Candace Owens said exactly the same thing as Red Ken did, yet did not have foaming-at-the-mouth journalists practically battering down the door of the toilet she was in minutes later.

A 6 year old tweet by Derek Hatton is being used to prove that Labour is still anti-semitic.

I can't be arsed looking it up but there's some journalist that's been called an antisemite for tweeting almost word for word what Hatton did - except the journalist had copy & pasted what Rupert Murdoch had tweeted about Muslims, he'd just put the word "jews" where "muslims" had been in Murdoch's tweet, and said "Israel" instead of "Hamas".  To be fair, this is less proof of a double standard in racism and more an example of how Murdoch gets a free pass.

We were always living in interesting times, it's just that now social media won't ever let us forget it.

As for "fake news", the only reason it's gained traction is because the media had to get ahead of it and be seen to denounce it before their record was examined.  Corporate news has always had an agenda, I don't know why anyone is surprised by this - though I'll admit the extent of some of it is sobering, especially when you realise you've become used to it.  Did anyone even bat an eyelid at Channel 4 News getting a little girl to cry on camera because "Jeremy Corbyn is coming to get me"?

Whether or not the IHRA definition was adopted for internal disciplinary matters was entirely up to the elected and independent members of the NEC.  The idea that Corbyn had any say was a canard to sucker the gullible into believing the mess (because no matter how things turned out, the press were going to report it the same way) was somehow attributable to him, when it was, in fact, a matter entirely separate from the party leadership.

[Miracle Mile]

Miracle Mile - so that's where Cloverfield nicked its ending from.  A decent of-its-time thriller about a bloke who answers a wrong number in a phone booth that then ruins his night entirely.  Some good character moments, and the tension builds nicely to the finale.  Not much in the way of setpiece moments, but the meeting with cops at a gas station that goes badly sideways and the traffic jam scene come dang close.

Bird Box - more like ShiteBox.  It's not a good film, but I did enjoy it for its tense moments, which are well done even if the central premise is the kind of stupid that might just break the thing entirely for you.  I would say it's more memorable for its atmosphere and growing sense of dread than I would its ending or characters, though the bit where Bullock's character manipulates the little girl into chucking herself under the bus is a great moment that illustrates how a protagonist can straddle the line between sympathetic and irredeemable.  The bit with the shadows on the video camera made me think of the apocalyptic movies of John Carpenter, but also made the monsters entirely supernatural.  Worth a look.

They've tried various things before - including the 'commie spy' angle, it's just that this one seems to have stuck more than the others.

You feel it more acutely because as a leftist you have concerns about these matters - that's why so many on the left have decided not to bother fighting the accusations and instead concentrate on getting their house in order.  There are antisemites on the left and the left needs to deal with them, but an understandable response is also to affirm that you shan't be called a racist by actual racists.

Anecdotally, I grew up in a place in Northern Ireland where a jewish family was regularly threatened if they tried to take down the Israeli flags that were put on their house by (far right) loyalists.  I admit I might not have been privy to all of the nuance, but it really did seem from the outside like violent white supremacists were not actually that kindly-disposed towards jewish people.