When I was eight, I was at my uncle's flat with him and his mates. One said that sequels are never as good as the original, and I piped up with 'Warcraft 2 is better than the first!'

There was a long silence, and then an absurdly frosty 'young man, you're the only person here with that opinion.'

And yet the best possible 'Lunch with the FT' piece has not yet eventuated.

The lack of attention is, however, a boon to my Phd thesis which was submitted at the time and didn't need to be frantically rewritten to account for what looks like quite an interesting article.

And as early as the 1880s you have the Colonial Office worried that the Australasian colonies were going to ignore British policy in the Pacific Islands and set off a conflict with France or Germany.

I mean, where do you even start with that statement?

A Presbyterian chaplain once taught an RE class I was in that the four great religions of the world were ‘Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Catholicism.’

I was already leaning atheist, but you better believe that I acted like a miniature Jesuit in that class.

The thing that baffles me is that they don't even slot in characters in ways that serve them. 'We want an Imperial officer people will recognise, let's use Thrawn' without wondering if the character works if he's being outwitted by children and Ragtag Heroes in every appearance.

Same guy got excited by seeing an anti Brit poster of some sort in a bus-shelter outside a bar in North Dublin and came in to tell us we were drinking in a ‘rebel bar!’ He tried to start a rebel singalong in another pub.
I remain astonished he got through a year living in Ireland with all his teeth.

I see you that, and raise you the Bostonian flatmate of mine who did that on a trip to Belfast.

Same friend met us in a bar on the north side. Outside in a bus shelter there was a really cheap looking anti-Brit poster, only time I ever saw one in Dublin. Teddy From Boston comes into the pub and enthusiastically tells the table that ‘guys, this is a rebel bar.’
We never left a place so fast.

When I lived in Dublin, there was a very stark difference between the conversations you’d get when Irish friends might open up about their feelings on the Civil War, Dev, the Troubles… and the American friend who tried to get ‘rebel song’ singalongs going at a local pub.

Skipping most of the battles in Aotearoa NZ since they're really not 'rebellions' no matter what the Crown claimed, I think I have to go with either an Indulgent Republic in 1794 or a United Irish (Protestant-led!) Republic in the same era.

The pirates in Asterix are from an entirely serious series of comics that were reasonably popular in mid century France and are now forgotten

You’ve read Zubok’s ‘Collapse’, I take it? He makes much of the fact that Gorby, a genuine Leninist, resolutely set out to abandon the commanding heights before whenever launching a program.

Where would you out L. Licinius Lucullus? For that matter, what’s your read on Marius and Sulla in terms of generalship?

Doc is quite right. It’s particularly ridiculous because British/Imperial racism has been intertwined with the American variety and vocabulary for centuries.

It’s not just about TV or social media- the Australian public had sadly strong opinions about American race relations in the 19th century!

British politics can be explained by the theory of that this is a rare case of three overlapping productions of ‘The Producers.’

And arguably getting to the ground of ambivalence at all represents a real shift from the outright hostility to non-Anglo migrants that characterises so much of the late-19th and early 20thC Australian left.

I think Mass Effect is interesting because the actual romancing is unconvincing and often flat, but once Shepard and the companion are in a relationship there's a lot of good character work and some good silly fun.

Choosing the romance and pursuing it is the most gamified part and the least fun.

it's not precisely what you're talking about, but it feels very old-school 'adjust the direction of the show on the fly'

There's an interesting modern example in 'Halt and Catch Fire,' which has one season of being a decent but dull Mad Men knock off. Then in series 2 it retools, moves the brooding anti-hero to support, makes the two female supports the main leads, and becomes an entirely more interesting beast.

I mean, I love Andor and I think it's very good, but so much of the discussion focuses on the complex and ambitious things it does rather than the simple fact that it's the only recent Star Wars thing that goes 'let's just work with the fundamentals of story structure.'

Tthe old EU did realise that while everything - around - the Star Wars movies was designed to be sold to nerdy twelve year olds, and everything - in - the movies had to be acceptable to twelve year olds, under no circumstances could you let the movies be made only - by and for - twelve year olds.

As a young man, I found myself at a reception at New Zealand House in London. While returning with a round of drinks, I tripped over myself (I wasn't even drunk, just very clumsy) and proceeded to pour half a pint down the back of someone who turned out to be Prime Minister Bill English.

I feel that you have to reluctantly credit Pound as well. God awful human being, defended too long by people who thought genius excused his vileness. But he certainly was an artist.

*not that Socialist Realism was right wing, but that it represents a sort of art in the service of modernist autocracy.

They can't satirise, only sneer. They can't celebrate, they can only strut. There's not even a Riefenstahl or a Socialist Realism because, weirdly, they are too obsessed with aping old propaganda to produce anything in a new language. No Ezra Pound. No Futurism. Just rage and fear and basest lust.

Art can be of any political stripe, but it requires self-examination, and these people cannot face themselves; there's nothing but malignance and insecurity. They cannot defend their own views because they don't understand the temptation of other viewpoints.

It's remarkable because the twentieth century saw great conservative art. But the Trumpists cannot produce an Evelyn Waugh because Waugh mocked his own in-group; they cannot produce a Graham Greene because they can't tolerate an actual struggle of conscience.

Barbara Tuchman has been rightfully superseded, but the opening of ‘The Guns of August’ is still magnificent in capturing how fundamentally alien the world of 1913. 1939 is a different place, but we can understand its rules. 1913 requires a leap of imagination and empathy.