Zombie

actually Shakespeare was a very popular entertainer, earning good income from “ticket sales” to ordinary folk (but also a good businessman, exploiting his talent through theatre ownership and property investment - “managing your business” is definitely a key factor for successful authors) And if writers are popular on GA that’s a definite positive if the creator is looking to move into “ticket sales”

Cory Henry’s version of “Stayin’ Alive”, written 47 years ago for the movie “Saturday Night Fever” by the Bee Gees Factoid - Stayin’ Alive was used in training for healthcare workers to give the correct number of chest compressions per minute while performing CPR

“governing MPs… ‘culture wars’” No, this is not the govt’s ‘culture war’, this is a societal division which the govt has noted. And it should also be noted that the govt invoking the Scotland Act 1998 in order to block the Scotland Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) bill was a constitutional necessity because the Scottish govt was acting ultra vires (later upheld by the Supreme Court) and in the Commons vote all the opposition Labour MPs abstained - except for 11 Labour MPs who voted to support the govt (which indicates that societal division is reflected in Parliament). ”the loopholes in their ban” I haven’t seen the amended draft bill but my understanding is you were correct in your OP about there being one significant “loophole” regarding the freedom for adults to choose if they want to undergo sexuality “conversion therapy”. However, my view is that adults should generally have the right to choose how to live their lives. Also the law is in a mess: the landmark 1993 decision against individuals’ rights to submit to physical pain and minor injury in BDSM sex was only a 3 to 2 majority and has been widely criticised ever since (and conflicts with a later decision upholding this right in ‘heteronormative’ sex); consented cosmetic surgery can be both unnecessary and cause significant physical harm yet remains legal; circumcision for non-medical reasons permanently mutilates male genitals of infants/children who cannot give consent; and so on. You could make similar arguments with personal choice about drinking or against gambling - we know these cause significant harm (drinking alcohol ruins more lives than illegal drugs) and yet the Labour govt in the 2000s actually deregulated gambling prohibition laws knowing full well the extensive financial and mental harm this would cause to thousands of individuals and society - which it has done. ”Evangelical Christian lobby” I haven’t seen voting details on religious lines for the House of Lords (which contains representatives from all major UK religions) or individual Commons MPs with strong religious convictions. The Prime Minister is, of course, a practising Hindu, so it would be interesting to see how he and other religious leaders/MPs in govt + opposition parties vote on religious matters.

good thing @Slytherin doesn’t read these threads

I suspect most MPs accept homosexual attraction is innate, whereas gender is a human construct, which is likely why the govt’s proposed legislation to ban “gay conversion therapy” only deals with sexuality

A.D. Alain Delon - allegedly Surely the prettiest actor in cinema history? He starred as Tom Ripley in Plein Soleil (Purple Noon), René Clément’s 1960 version (many would say the best version - apart from the ending) of Patricia Highsmith’s novel. Rumours of a gay relationship when be was young are consistent with the Greif timescale - plus, being declared “as beautiful as Brigitte Bardot” he’s just gotta be gay hasn’t he?!? Now 87 he apparently has one more project in mind https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/queer-now-1960/

but we’re not predators we’re exterminators

…you can use these

in his defence, the butler posits…

Is Ivor Novello listed for 15 January (born 1893)?

some birds (that can fly) have lurid plumage to attract attention while others (that can’t) attract attention in other ways

Shame companies no longer have stationery cupboards which were like a sweet shop with all those brightly coloured highlighter pens just asking to be peculated…

some people we want to be soporific - like anaesthetists

Some “educated guesses” S. D. Salvador Dali L. B. Leonard Bernstein V. H. Vladimir Horowitz R. McD. Roddy McDowell

..and also to frighten small children

Ah, so it wasn’t Cary Grant? In which case I’m stumped Thornton Wilder’s sister (who sounds like a nice piece of work) might have engaged a whole pack of legal Rottweilers but I don’t think there’s anything they could have done about Greif “naming” TW after his death because it’s a common law rule that dead people can’t sue (their estate can in some cases, but only if the coffin customer had already initiated legal action before making their one-way trip to the Pearly Gates). Reading the Wiki page, it says that 6 years after TW’s death (which would be 1981-2) the writer/tattoo artist/pornographer Samuel Steward (wow, he led an interesting life! ) wrote in his autobiography that he had sex with TW so it seems there was more than just nods+winks (see Personal Life section), and this gay website describes him as a “discreet homosexual, his sexual proclivities were kept far out of the limelight”: http://www.glbtqarchive.com/literature/wilder_t_L.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton_Wilder#Personal_life Also worth reading the Samuel Steward page - ‘Life and career’ section https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Steward#Bibliography Cleveland law firm webpage: https://www.minclaw.com/legal-resource-center/what-is-defamation/can-dead-people-defamed/#:~:text=Likewise%2C the estate of a,been defamed by the statements.

Well, the dead can’t sue so I’m guessing these were all still alive when this book was written (in the 80s?) and I recently watched a doc on Cary Grant and his “best friend” and he died 1986… Interestingly, Amazon’s listing includes this statement from Greif’s nephew: I am the nephew of writer MARTIN GREIF. My uncle, who had a wonderful career and an exciting life, died of Aids near his home in Ireland in November 1996. The book many people will remember Martin for is Gay Book of Days, a personal favorite of his. Often asked to write an updated version, it was something he was giving considerable thought to during the 90s, but unfortunately he never got beyond the planning stages of an assualt on further research. Though a private person who never let on to even his closest family that he had the disease, it has been reasoned that, in death, others could benefit from knowledge of what took him from us...for indeed it has taken many of the people written about in Gay Book of Days. By the way: Gay Book of Days is a hilarious, irreverant and highly entertaining read for anyone.....Cheers, ERIC GREIF

and whodunnit mystery writers deliberately foreshadow red-herrings to keep us guessing

I don’t think people choose to judge others, they just do. It’s probably a survival instinct from the caves, looking over at the big hairy guys in the next door cave to judge if they’re going to be trouble. And we do it automatically all the time (actions, inactions, interactions) from the moment someone walks into the room (looks, face, age, clothes, walk, talk) so the same applies with this topic - people will be judged. We just can’t help it

we know exactly what happened to them - they’re in pride of place in a high security locked display cabinet with a miniature rotating glitterball illumination and a continuous loop mix-tape playing the Osmonds, Bee Gees, and the two Barrys (White+Manilow) on a vintage period cassette deck music centre with lots of knobs +switches +flashing lights that no-one ever understood

and 1970s colour schemes were sooo much cooler (not sure what those two midget guys under his chair are up to… )

just looked ‘em up - they’re described as “pendulous” *schoolboy snigger *

Happily, fans of Henry VIII’s eating ‘style’ don’t need to worry about poisonous pewter

pretty sure America’s lawyers will find an answer…