Paul O’Brien

@ifdestroyed.bsky.social

403 followers 228 following 644 posts

Writes about comics at housetoastonish.com

Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 10, 2024 at 19:44 UTC

On House to Astonish, annotations for X-Men #1.

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Al Kennedy @alkennedy.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 22:15 UTC

Separately to that! I did 50 episodes of a podcast about the works of Terry Pratchett and the people who read them, called Desert Island Discworld, and it's over at desertislanddiscworld.com, and I'm very proud of it

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Al Kennedy @alkennedy.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 08, 2024 at 22:13 UTC

So yes! I'm not spending my time on Twitter any more! You are all I really have left! So here is my creative output!

House to Astonish! It's the ninth longest running comics podcast in the world, a fact I find motivational and somehow also very funny! housetoastonish.com

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 07, 2024 at 13:05 UTC

On House to Astonish, Daredevil Villain #30: Quothar. (It’s the Tagak the Leopard Lord issue, if that helps.)

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 07, 2024 at 07:38 UTC

I think Batman is an exceptional case because you can re-tool him for an adult audience by dialling up noir/pulp elements that were always there. Superman is a much trickier proposition though it can be played more or less straight for family audiences - Lois & Clark did it.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 18:21 UTC

On House to Astonish, this week’s chart post.

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Alan Allport @alanallport.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 11:52 UTC

My kid was bemused and underwhelmed by Sunak just flatly accepting he’d lost. UK = boooooring

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Steven Seggie @stevenhseggie.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 08:10 UTC

Worth noting that Le Pen’s party got just over 4 million votes in the 2019 legislative election and Reform got just over 4 million in the UK last night. Different countries with different systems but still

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Ian Martin @ianmartin.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 08:14 UTC

I have a sneaking regard for the Star, not least for its use of "fewer"...

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 07:30 UTC

Very good thread this. In many ways this was a typical 2020s European election. When you consider how so many of those are ending, that's a bit worrying.

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Chris Jones @chrisjones1.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 07:33 UTC

Oh God, just realised we're looking at the launch of five, maybe six new light-hearted-yet-forensic ex-MP political podcasts

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 07:21 UTC

It’s also in the context of an election where the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Green and independent wins need to be seen in the same light.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 07:12 UTC

Coming soon to BBC2: Liz & Jacob’s Cosy Trains.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 07:10 UTC

It is certainly difficult to justify an outright majority on 35%. FPTP is only logically defensible in a 2-party or no-party system. But watch everyone flip now that their interests align differently…

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 05:49 UTC

People say Reform have done nothing for Britain, but they just cost Liz Truss her seat.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 05:22 UTC

Seems inevitable the Tories will move even further to the right now. The main lesson they’ll take from this is that their biggest problem was Reform splitting the vote.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 04:36 UTC

True, but the rules can (and probably will) be changed.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 04:22 UTC

Ever since the first referendum, the angle has basically been that “independence is inevitable and it’s just a matter of time”. The inability to get the Yes vote above 50% in the polls for more than brief flickers never shifted that mindset. Maybe this finally will.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 04:21 UTC

At the very best for the SNP, this means that voters were not interested in independence at this election, even though they could have voted for it without jeopardising a Tory defeat. That isn’t a good sign for the independence movement.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 04:12 UTC

Bet the SNP are glad they quietly dropped the “quasi-referendum” angle.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 04:12 UTC

Remarkable amount of emphasis from Keir Starmer on the changedness of the Labour Party. Maybe a party management point as much as anything.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 04:11 UTC

I’m in Europe an hour ahead of the UK, which makes it much easier to wake up in time to see Jacob Rees-Mogg lose his seat and Labour pass the winning post. Highly recommend. (And yes, my postal vote did arrive in plenty of time. I ordered it on the day the vote was called.)

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 04, 2024 at 21:22 UTC

The exit poll has this as a worse result for the Conservatives than 1906, when they got 153 seats. But that was an artefact of FPTP - they still got 43% that year.

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Simon Threadgold @dimwittedly.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 04, 2024 at 18:24 UTC

That moment on election night 1987, when Robin Day discovered he was part of an artificial reality simulation.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 03, 2024 at 15:43 UTC

On House to Astonish, this week’s X-Axis.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jul 01, 2024 at 07:43 UTC

Obvious autotune is out of fashion, yes, at least in mainstream pop.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 30, 2024 at 11:35 UTC

Or for the people who prefer the previous direction, X-Treme Labour.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 30, 2024 at 11:08 UTC

On House to Astonish, Daredevil Villains #29: The Tribune.

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Charlotte Ariel Finn @bycharlottefinn.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 29, 2024 at 19:23 UTC

Periodically, I like to reread my favorite Scottish poem: Batman's Aff His Nut by Robert Florence.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 29, 2024 at 13:22 UTC

On House to Astonish, this week's chart post.

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b-boy bouiebaisse @jbouie.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 28, 2024 at 10:24 UTC

there is no world in which biden drops out and the nominee isn’t kamala harris. and i think it is very interesting that the loudest calls for biden to drop out do not acknowledge this fact.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 27, 2024 at 21:35 UTC

On House to Astonish, this week's X-Axis.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 26, 2024 at 21:27 UTC

On House to Astonish, annotations for X-Men: Heir of Apocalypse #2.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 26, 2024 at 11:49 UTC

Staged had its moments. But pandemic era TV to me mostly means horrors like Have I Got News For You by Zoom, or WWE wrestling doing contractual obligation shows in silent rooms.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 25, 2024 at 19:44 UTC

In plot terms, Marvel did completely ignore the pandemic and just stuck with the stories they had planned. One practical problem was that the entire X-Men line at that point was premised on mutants achieving economic power by developing a cure-all medicine.

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Al Kennedy @alkennedy.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 23, 2024 at 22:26 UTC

House to Astonish Episode 208 is now live! @ifdestroyed.bsky.social and I are talking about Don Perlin and Peter B Gillis, Jeff Lemire's Minor Arcana, shake-ups on Marvel's Star Wars line, the WicDiv Kickstarter and more! Plus reviews of Destro and Self-Help! It's all go! bit.ly/astonish208

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 23, 2024 at 16:02 UTC

Even my 10yo objected that the story implies a second Sutekh on the 14th Doctor's Tardis. ("Ah, well. I imagine the 14th Doctor's Tardis is the duplicate and Sutekh stayed with the original." "No, it's the original. It doesn't have a jukebox.")

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 23, 2024 at 13:54 UTC

On House to Astonish, Daredevil Villains #28: The Thunderbolts.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 22, 2024 at 12:17 UTC

I think that’s fair. I like the vibe of the book a lot. But looking back, remarkably little actually happened.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 22, 2024 at 11:43 UTC

Depends what you mean by wealth taxes. They’re certainly making it fairly obvious that they’ll increase CGT, probably to match income tax, and try to get more from IHT. Inventing a literal wealth tax from scratch would be a major exercise and it doesn’t look like anyone’s started on it.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 21, 2024 at 20:14 UTC

On House to Astonish, this week's chart post.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 20, 2024 at 13:27 UTC

I don't think there was any real doubt that Dorries had not in fact resigned. I can see that you could conceivably have a minority government where the second largest party was not in any meaningful sense in opposition.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 20, 2024 at 12:47 UTC

True, but it's difficult to imagine how "doubt" could exist other than in the case of a tie. (I suppose conceivably there might be doubt about whether a group was a "party", or a party might insist that someone was still a member when they claimed to have quit.)

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 20, 2024 at 11:56 UTC

It’s never come up, but if you have a splintered opposition then it seems to make sense to take account of allied parties in deciding who represents the largest opposition block.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 20, 2024 at 11:53 UTC

It worked up to a point for Ruth Davidson in Scotland. Obviously a harder pitch when you’re the outgoing government.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 19, 2024 at 23:17 UTC

I do genuinely wonder if the main motivation was "if I don't do it, look at the maniacs who will."

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 19, 2024 at 20:27 UTC

It’s a version of what Yes Minister called the politician’s syllogism: Something must be done. This is something. Therefore this must be done.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 19, 2024 at 19:52 UTC

On House to Astonish, this week's X-Axis.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 19, 2024 at 17:28 UTC

Sorry, but no. You can’t do that sort of protest and then cry foul when it’s taken at face value. Just Stop Oil are a liability. All they do is position climate change as a preoccupation of self righteous assholes.

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Paul O’Brien @ifdestroyed.bsky.social
[ View ] Jun 19, 2024 at 16:50 UTC

But I’m sceptical about how accurately models can account for such an unusual election, and the wild range of MRP outcomes for Scotland can’t all be right.

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