Bob The Badger

I'm sorry to bang on about this as it's my third time mentioning it, but Top Boy is ducking brilliant.

We watched the last episode last night and that one episode was as good, or better, as any episode in Gomorrah.

I was worried that Top Boy wouldn't be as good as Top Boy Summerhouse when Netflix took over the production.

Well, it just got better and better. Whether that was because it got more violent as the characters developed or because the introduction of one of the scariest characters from Liverpool entered the fray, I'm not really sure. And btw, that character looked a lot like Ginny from Gomorrah and I wonder if that was intentional.

The acting was truly outstanding. 

Dialogue can be mumbly and I had to look up a lot of the urban slang as I'm an old fart, but seriously guys, it's like a UK Gomorrah.

So in case you didn't see my early post.

Watch Top Boy Summerhouse series 1 & 2 first and then go onto to Top Boy series 1 and 2 because they were made 10 years later and Netflix didn't want to confuse people do renamed the original Top Boy, Top Boy Summerhouse and then promptly confused every ducker. 

All are on Netflix.

I just gave it 10/10 on IMDb and I almost never do that.

4 hours ago, NottsRam said:

Just started watching Top Boy having finished Gomorrah recently and looking for something that comes close.  I have started with series 1 which is actually series 3 by the sound of it, so i need to watch Summerhouse first, is this correct?

Yes. 

On 25/03/2022 at 15:24, Bob The Badger said:

Went back to watch what were the two original series of Top Boy that are now called Top Boy Summerhouse.

These came out when we were. living in the US so I wasn't familiar with them.

Only 4 seasons in each series from Channel 4, but really good stuff. so far (half way through the 3rd series done by Netflix)

I was concerned that Netflix wouldn't maintain the standard with series 3 and 4 which are confusingly called season 1 and 2 with the Summerhouse part dropped, because they were making (I think) 10 for each series.

I was wrong. They're equally as good, if not better.

I would imagine most of you guys are familiar with the outline, but just in case, it follows the leader of a drug selling gang on the (fictional) Summerhouse estate in East London.

In season one there are two top boys, best mates Dushane and Sully, but it soon starts to get fractured with a power struggle developing as Sully starts to get more violent and do his own thing.

It reminds me a lot of Gomorrah in terms of the gritty realness of it, but without the proliferation of semi-automatics. Not because they're not as violent, they are, but because it's tough for your average thug to get an AK47 and there's a brilliant scene when they're talking the piss out of a local rapper because he's talking about AK47's and they're saying 'we ain't never seen an AK'

Very, very well acted and Sully is a really charismatic screen presence.

There is about an 8 year gap between when they filmed season 2 and 3 (now called 1)  so it's interesting to see some of the older characters come back.

I won't say any more than that because it could spoil the first 8 episodes for anybody who goes back.

I struggled to find a trailer for the first one as it kept bringing back the new stuff, but for those of you who haven't see nit, here you go.

 

I was worried that Netflix would duckit up by making each series 10 episodes rather than 4, but I was so wrong.

The third season (the first on Netflix) has got more violent (way more guns), there has been better character development is the best by some way.

I have no clue why this isn't getting much chatter on here because it's Gerry Daly/10.

Those of you who liked Gomorrah will like this.

15 hours ago, i-Ram said:

Bob, I am into the second series of Spiral, after I think your recommendation. I struggled a bit with Series 1 for a couple of reasons, partly because it being 16 years old it is somewhat dated. However, I am warming to Series 2. Strange old justice system has France, which seems to favour men significantly (particularly in respect of matrimonial matters).

I keep meaning to go back to Spiral and then something else crops up that we start watching.

Have you, or anybody in here, seen The Ipcress File. I. loved the movie and it does ok on IMDb.

4 minutes ago, Ewe Ram said:

Even more if they have tattoos on their legs. They’ll freeze to death as long as you all get a look at those horrible tatts 

Good call. The guy I saw at the beach a week or so ago did have a dragon tat. Never crossed my mind that was the reason.

Men who on a bitterly cold day wear puffer jackets with shorts and flip flops.

No, you're not hard, you're just an idiot.

Went back to watch what were the two original series of Top Boy that are now called Top Boy Summerhouse.

These came out when we were. living in the US so I wasn't familiar with them.

Only 4 seasons in each series from Channel 4, but really good stuff. so far (half way through the 3rd series done by Netflix)

I was concerned that Netflix wouldn't maintain the standard with series 3 and 4 which are confusingly called season 1 and 2 with the Summerhouse part dropped, because they were making (I think) 10 for each series.

I was wrong. They're equally as good, if not better.

I would imagine most of you guys are familiar with the outline, but just in case, it follows the leader of a drug selling gang on the (fictional) Summerhouse estate in East London.

In season one there are two top boys, best mates Dushane and Sully, but it soon starts to get fractured with a power struggle developing as Sully starts to get more violent and do his own thing.

It reminds me a lot of Gomorrah in terms of the gritty realness of it, but without the proliferation of semi-automatics. Not because they're not as violent, they are, but because it's tough for your average thug to get an AK47 and there's a brilliant scene when they're talking the piss out of a local rapper because he's talking about AK47's and they're saying 'we ain't never seen an AK'

Very, very well acted and Sully is a really charismatic screen presence.

There is about an 8 year gap between when they filmed season 2 and 3 (now called 1)  so it's interesting to see some of the older characters come back.

I won't say any more than that because it could spoil the first 8 episodes for anybody who goes back.

I struggled to find a trailer for the first one as it kept bringing back the new stuff, but for those of you who haven't see nit, here you go.

7 hours ago, ramit said:

In case you are being argumentative for the sake of it, i will rephrase.  i need less sleep on a better mattress, this is factual, not up for debate.  i have heard the same from others.

A good mattress can possibly help you get to sleep and stay asleep, so perhaps you were/are in bed longer when you have a crappy mattress because you're awake tossing and turning.

What you're saying is no different to somebody saying I need less sleep when my room is cool, or I need less sleep when I'm not stressed about anything because both of those things make sleep easier.

But they don't change the actual amount you need because that's fixed at birth, they just make it easier to acquire it.

I think we're somewhat at cross purposes.

24 minutes ago, ramit said:

24 minutes ago, ramit said:

i have experienced this before, a worn out bed replaced by a new one, resulting in better rest during the night and thereby needing less sleep. 

Of course, if your mattress is keeping you awake or waking you up, then that's a problem. But the actually amount doesn't change.

1 hour ago, ramit said:

 i don't know what you find so objectionable.  We need certain things, a roof over our heads, clothes on our back, etc.

I have no clue what you're talking about unless your name is Abraham Maslow.  In which case, right on brother. 

On 21/03/2022 at 17:47, ramit said:

The right mattress can cut down your need for sleep by one to two hours per night.

i was getting back and hip aches from our old mattress and so spent quite a bit of money on a new bed, but it is even worse than the old one.  It's a spring mattress, the maker adjusted the springs for me, from harder to softer, yet the problem persists.  Need to do some serious research.

How on earth could a good mattress cut down on your *need* to sleep?

It may make it easier to sleep or help you to fall/stay asleep, but your need isn't impacted by an object.

5 hours ago, Stive Pesley said:

Yes, sorry

 

After careful consideration I have decided to forgive you.

Go in peace.

On 20/03/2022 at 19:32, Stive Pesley said:

The only true purpose of the treaty seems to have been to ensure that the US, UK, France, China and Russia get to have nuclear weapons and no other country is allowed to. Has that kept world peace? Maybe...until now

 

Israel, Pakistan and India all have nukes as does (I think) North Korea.

The big concern with the skirmishes on the Indian/Pakistan border is that it could escalate into a nuclear exchange. 

5 hours ago, i-Ram said:

As is traditional with this forum, and given no one is likely to know the answer to the OP question - although I don’t doubt many will be expert on the subject, or at the very least ITK because of a mate - I am going off topic.

l referenced Jasper Carrot above, and just played his 9 minute monologue on the YouTube. And it took me back, thinking where does my humour come from. Because in truth neither of my parents are very funny. Odd yes, but not funny. And it occurred to me that Carrot must have had some significant input into my development, in truth much more than my Dad. I recall watching Carrot, Max Boyce, Dave Allen, on the TV in what must have been the early 70’s and I realise that their humour, and monologue style of comedy, was a gateway to Frank Skinner, Dylan Moran and Stewart Lee. anyone else want to share thoughts on this rather than blowing-up rotting whale carcass?

Jasper Carrott was the second comic I ever saw live and he was really good.

My first was Mike Yarwood in Blackpool when I was about 12 and I loved it.

And my third was Phil (scaly sea monster is my only impression) Cool in Matlock Bath.

When I think of the comedy I like now to then it is sooooo different I can hardly believe it.

Having said that, Carrott was a real game-changer in many ways.

7 hours ago, Mucker1884 said:

Devastated man stands by crushed car with head in hands!  ?

"Why did I not just stay home?"!

 

?

Sadly, it was the whales head he had in his hands.

The advice when you start doing Wordle is to use all the vowels as quickly as possible. Somebody in here even recommended using adieu as it contains 4.

I think this is a mistake, at least with Quordle.

The human brain sees words without vowels when it cannot see words without consonants.

Since I started by using 5 different words using only 3 different vowels to begin with and ignoring the letters that are correct I've finished every time.

And I've probably played 50 games using the practice feature.

It's probably not the best tactic if you want to finish as quickly as you can, but with Quordle it's easy to go down a blind alley trying to do that and not finish at all.

42 minutes ago, Mucker1884 said:

 

Scroll on by.

9 hours ago, maxjam said:

I generally get about 6 hours at night - bed around 12:30am, up at 6:30am ish.  

I do enjoy a 'Spanish Siesta' after lunch though on the sofa, generally having about 90 mins early afternoon every day.

I have no trouble sleeping, if I'm still awake 2 mins after settling down I'd think I was suffering from insomnia ? 

I also never dream - well not any that I remember, not for years.

You can mitigate the effects of not enough at night by napping in the day. In fact daytime napping (biphasic sleep) is closer to how we were designed to exist from a health standpoint.

The island of Ikaria in Greece maintained siestas when the rest of Greece fazed them out. They now call is the island where people forget to die because the average life expectancy is so much higher.

We all dream in REM sleep, but we only tend to remember them when we have them close to waking up.

This is hysterical, but I cannot figure out of they used way too much or not enough.

I wrote an email for my list today that I thought some of you people may enjoy

-------------

I’ve just read a quite remarkable and scary book called Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker a Professor of Neuroscience at UC Berkeley.

Everybody knows sleep is good for you and not enough can hinder all forms of mental and physical health, but I had no clue how crippling a lack of sleep can be.

Walker doesn’t stray into hearsay and on the occasions where there’s a correlation between poor sleep and poor health rather than causation he goes to great lengths to explain that.

Here are some of the urban myths and scientifically proven facts from the book that may make you sit up and take notice, especially if you have kids and want to safeguard their long-term health.

Myth # 1 - We need less sleep as we get older

Nope, it just seems that way because sleep function declines as we age.

Consequently, we presume struggling to get to sleep, or waking up earlier than we used to means we don’t need it.

We do.

We all need 7 to 8 hours.

Myth # 2 - Some people just don’t need much sleep

Ok, so this is somewhat of a volte-face from the last myth because there are some people who can get away with 6-hours and not see a negative impact on their mental and physical health.

How many?

About the same amount as those who get struck by lightning every year.

Myth # 3 -  Our metabolism slows down in middle age

It doesn’t.

There is no discernible drop off in the rate of metabolism before you get into your 60s’ and even then it's not a certainty.

However, things we normally associate with ageing and a slowing metabolism like weight gain, reduced memory function and higher blood pressure, can be directly attributed to a lack of quality sleep.

Myth # 4 - If I miss a couple of hours I may as well miss the entire night

A lack of sleep impacts us exponentially, not incrementally.

This means that only getting 5 hours of sleep isn’t a bit worse than 6 hours, it’s a lot worse.

And only getting 4 hours a ducking lot worse.

This is why the Guinness Book of World Records removed sleep deprivation records because they can cause long-lasting physical and psychological harm.

It’s also why very few countries (although the US is one) still use sleep deprivation tactics on prisoners.

Myth # 5 - You can catch up on sleep at the weekend.

It’s no good getting up after 6 hours of sleep all week and then bingeing at the weekend.

Your body cannot catch up on lost sleep and the negative effects are cumulative.

Myth # 6 - Sleeping tablets will help you sleep

Since they’re called sleeping tablets, they really should, right?

Alas, sleeping tablets don’t help you sleep.

They just sedate you in the same way as a lot of alcohol does with the same deleterious impact.

Speaking of which....

Myth # 7 - A few glasses of wine will help me sleep

Alcohol offers some benefits in terms of relaxing you for a very short period of time.

But it's all downhill after that.

Alcohol disrupts sleep because your body is working hard beating off what it sees as an invader (alcohol is a poison) at a time when it has more important things to do.

Alcohol raises your core temperature which promotes wakefulness as does the accompanying dehydration and needing to go to the bathroom.

It obliterates REM sleep (this is the reason why we remember so little after heavy drinking as that is when memories are formed) and sedates us rather than helps us sleep.

That's why nobody bounces out of bed after a skinful feeling fresh and rested.

Truth #1 - A lack of sleep can be worse than alcohol for driving

Ten times more people die in accidents attributable to tired drivers than through alcohol and drug-related deaths combined.

Going 16-hours without sleep and then driving is as dangerous as being legally drunk.

But, most accidents aren’t caused by people falling asleep at the wheel in the traditional sense.

They are caused by people being slower to react than normal and making poorer decisions because of fatigue.

Plus, there is something called microsleeps that may only last two seconds or less, are commonplace and indiscernible to the person having them.

A two-second microsleep doesn’t seem like a lot, but at 30 mph it can take you across four lanes of traffic before you snap out of it....or die.

Truth # 2 - Forget losing weight if you’re short on sleep

When you’re body is short of sleep it prefers to burn muscle and preserve fat because it’s dealing with an existential threat.

Also, a shortage of sleep suppresses the production of the hormone leptin, which tells you when you have eaten enough.

And for the trifecta of weight-losing crapiness, the prefrontal cortex (responsible for good decision making) is overridden by the hypothalamus which is insisting on two burgers, fries and a big duck off shake because it’s in survival mode.

Truth # 3 -  Kids shouldn’t be allowed to fall asleep watching TV

You shouldn’t put a child to bed after he or she has fallen asleep, but as they are doing so.

Otherwise, you can reduce their ability to self-nurture causing sleep difficulties later in life.

Truth # 4 -  Kids shouldn’t be made to get up too early

Kids have an advanced circadian rhythm of about 3 hours, meaning that they’re owls, not larks.

Put another way, asking a kid to get up at 7 am for school is like asking an adult to get up and go to work at 4 am every day.

And it’s not just a question of pushing through it, their ability to learn is SEVERELY hampered for the first half of the day.

Experiments by schools in the US showed huge jumps in grade point averages when they pushed the school start day back.

Even so, kids are still made to get up too early because it fits with parents' and bus company schedules and it’s just the way we have always done things.

Truth # 5 - Pulling an all-night to learn is counterproductive

After as little as 15 hours awake the brain's ability to learn falls off a very steep cliff and the ability to absorb information degrades rapidly.

Also, a good night's sleep before learning is wasted if you then have poor sleep the following nights because it takes the brain at least 3 nights of sleep to move that learning into long term memory.

Truth # 6  - Don’t get a flu vaccine if you’ve had a bad night's sleep

Having a flu vaccine (and I presume this is the case with Covid, but the book came out in 2018, so I'm guessing) when you are sleep deprived can reduce its efficacy by as much as 50%.

Insufficient sleep suppresses the immune cell response.

Truth # 7 A warm bath before bedtime really does help you sleep

Not just because it relaxes you, but also because blood rushes to the surface of your body causing your core body temperature to drop (the opposite of the aforementioned alcohol).

Which is exactly what’s needed to sleep well.

This is the reason why if you are too hot in bed at night you may well stick your feet out from under the duvet.

This causes your feet to cool so your body reacts by sending lovely warm blood there and dropping your core temperature.

5 hours ago, curb said:

I never realised that pic in the bottom rh corner is Derby away at Plymouth (I was there as well).

If you're talking about the F A Cup quarter final (and I was there too), then that took place 4 years after that album was released.

Half the fans in the country have claimed it was them, but the only thing certain it was taken in the 70s from an old BBC sound affects record and probably wasn't Derby fans.

But I guess it could have been.

I Know This Much Is True - 9/10

This came out a few months before we moved back from the US so apologies if it has been talked about.

A close look at paranoid schizophrenia is never going to be fun, but this is especially dark.

But the acting is just mind-blowingly good, especially from Mark Ruffalo who plays a pair of twins, one of whom has serious mental illness and Rosie O'Donnell (who I really don't care for as a person) who plays a mental health advocate.

Ruffalo put on 30 lbs to play the mentally ill twin and looks totally different. I have no clue how they filmed the scenes when they were so close together. If you have watched the really good, The Deuce in which James Franco plays brothers, it's nothing like that. In The Deuce it was obvious how they had filmed it and they were never in the same close up shot together.

If you enjoy brilliant acting and a great script as well as seeing really difficult subjects dealt with in a sensitive, informative and skillful manner, then you will love this.

My only very minor quibble with this is that it could probably have been done in 4 or 5 episodes rather than 6. Having said that, I thought the 6th episode was redundant for a time and it turned out to be the best.

I'm surprised we only found this by accident on iPlayer because Ruffalo won an Emmy and Golden Globe for this role and I'd never heard of it until a couple of weeks ago.

We've now moved on to Top Boy from 2011. 3 episodes in and loving that we have 4 seasons to go at it because it's outstanding.

On 17/03/2022 at 14:31, Eddie said:

We've just watched the first 3 episodes of "Pieces Of Her" on Netflix.

Very good so far.

Worst thing I've seen in the last 12 months.

Dreadful script with so many plot flaws that I was almost exploding with indignation.

57 minutes ago, TigerTedd said:

I’m getting the hang of this now:

nerdlegame 59 3/6

⬛⬛⬛???⬛?
??⬛?????
????????

I stopped doing Wordle because it's at least 50% luck to score a quick win.

Quordle on the other hand is 90% skill and strategy because getting lucky on one quadrant won't help you with the others.

1 hour ago, Mucker1884 said:

When done, just click on the "COPY TO CLIPBOARD" tab, then paste into the reply box here, for a neater finish!  ?

I did do that and it threw the formatting out so I copied as an image.

I was being thick regarding the order.

On 16/03/2022 at 17:51, TigerTedd said:

Daily Quordle #51
3️⃣7️⃣
6️⃣5️⃣
quordle.com
⬜?⬜⬜⬜ ?⬜⬜?⬜
⬜??⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
????? ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜??⬜⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜?⬜⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜?⬜⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ?????

??⬜⬜? ?⬜⬜⬜?
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜?? ?⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜??? ?⬜???
⬜⬜??? ?????
????? ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
 

well that made me feel better. 

Is there a way of not going in order when using the website. On her phone Mrs Badger can jump between the puzzles but I always take them in order and cannot see anyway not to do so on the website.

Am I a thicky?