US Presidents Rankings (Part 3)

 

We are now into the top twenty so let's look at a list of people who could have been a contender...

US Presidents Rankings (Part 2)

 Well I figure this list of people who didn't make top twenty is going to be controversial for some, so let's start with a biggie...

US Presidents Ranking (Part 1)

No sooner had I finished my ranking of the UK Prime Ministers (which was only in 2022, but three Prime Ministers ago) than people were suggesting I do the same for the US Presidents. Had they no idea of the research time, or the worry over who should rank higher of Millard Fillmore and John Tyler, or the hours spent looking for a positive of the Buchanan administration. In vain, I might add. List making is a very serious agenda in my book, and after two years, here is a ranking that will probably change tomorrow. I was taken aback by how many US Presidents I thought were a bit awful. As with the Prime Ministers, I have made a list of the achievements under their administration (the buck does stop here after all), and added and deducted points for my opinion on those policies. So, the Civil Rights Act would gain a lot of positive points (+150) whereas attempting genocide would score a vast number of penalty points. All of these points were added together to produce a rough list, before personal bias came in. Obviously, there’s a lot of personal bias. However, I was taken aback by the points differentials. In the UK version, there was 700 points separating top from bottom. Here? Over 2000. It may have been even more if not for the racism penalty clause, which kicks in with every different policy, and badly hurt a few Presidents, but to be fair, that’s their own damn fault. 

The Eccleston Era Pros and Cons

 The pros and cons of the one and only Doctor Who season with the ninth Doctor, Christopher Eccleston.

M.R. James Stories Ranked (2024 edition)

 I do this every year, but haven't posted the results on the blog for a number of years now. The position changes marked below are in line with my rankings from last year, which I posted on Gallifrey Base, and which were the first time I'd included the five extra stories not included in Collected Ghost Stories. I do like the idea, given the publication date of The Experiment, that, no sooner had M.R. James written in that collection that he didn't see himself writing any new tales, than he was immediately writing another. 

Without any further preamble, here are the ghost stories of M.R. James, ranked from least good to best...

Oh and fragments (Mr Humphreys, Game of Bear, etc) aren't counted. It's the 30 stories in Collected plus Experiment, Malice, Vignette, Fenstanton Witch and Speaker Lenthal's Tomb, the latter of which I feel is complete enough to make a judgement. All opinions are of course solely mine, so apologies if I slag off your favourite ghost story...

Election Forecast 2024

 

I said after last time there was no way I'd be doing a seat by seat forecast this time round. Not a chance. No chance in hell. And, of course, here it is. 

I've been aided in the task by, to be blunt, "doing an Iain Dale". In 2015, Iain Dale predicted every seat, with such gems as "Glasgow South West - safe Labour hold". In fact, my 2015 seat by seat was in reaction to his, an attempt to do better than Dale. And, that, I achieved. By which I mean we both sucked, and missed the David Cameron majority. Hell, I called 28 seats for the SNP "a great night for them", and warned the Lib Dems could wind up with as few as 25 seats, a target they haven't seen since!

But now that I am older and frankly more worn out, I see the wisdom in Dale glossing over the safe seats. And with the movement of traffic in the polls, hopefully I am as wrong in my "22k Tory majority, safe hold" projections as he was in trying to predict Glasgow in 2015!

Some seats are more interesting that others. For example, there's a three way marginal seat in Ayr, whereas Walthamstow will continue to produce North Korean like majorities for Stella Creasy! 

Oh and like a complete chicken I am not doing the Northern Irish seats because I lack enough knowledge about the likelihood of each party. Just the 632 seats of England, Wales and Scotland. 

French Traitors S2 Thoughts

LES TRAITRES (SEASON 2)

France, 2023

French Season 2 thoughts and contestant ranking (All Spoilers)

I was asked for my views on some of the Traitors series I've seen, so I'll start with the first non-English series I watched in its entirety. Thanks to the Traitor Archivist! The French second series is hosted by the chap who apparently hosted the first one, Eric Antoine. He takes a bit of adjusting to, as he plays the role of host in full vaudeville OTT manner. The subtitles actually read "Hahahahahahahahahaha" for twenty seconds straight at some points. But once you get used to his melodramatic presentation, he's a lot of fun - certainly better than the NZ host at least. Location is the French countryside so very aesthetic and lots of lovely scenery. The Missions are mostly what we've seen elsewhere. Yes, that damned Church one is back again. The Bank Job mission near the end was fun because it felt so different from other games at the time. Some of the games are given a nastier twist - the buried underground game includes cockroaches in the coffins. And one of the games includes snakes.