Recent posts

#41

Off the Record / Re: Football (Soccer) Thread

Last post by Norgy - April 19, 2026, 10:44:30 AM

I hate football

11 minutes in overtime. Is there a new Fergie time with Arne Slot? 

#42

Off the Record / Re: [Canada] Canadian Politics...

Last post by crazy canuck - April 19, 2026, 10:43:21 AM

Yeah, any Canadians that didn't see it coming. Need to have that reminder. But I'm hoping that most understand that our relationship with the American Americans has been completely ruptured.

#43

Off the Record / Re: Youtube Recommendations

Last post by frunk - April 19, 2026, 10:32:16 AM

Also, Dan Olson (Folding Ideas) was invited (with other YouTubers) to MrBeast's studios. Not much new, but Dan is great at highlighting the vacuousness of MrBeast's content.

Yeah, Folding Ideas episodes are instant watches and this is no exception.

#44

Off the Record / Re: Football (Soccer) Thread

Last post by Sheilbh - April 19, 2026, 10:25:25 AM

I hate football

#45

Off the Record / Re: Football (Soccer) Thread

Last post by Norgy - April 19, 2026, 10:10:12 AM

So, I suppose Forest are a bit less in peril after a second half that was imperious in stamping Burnley to the ground. The City Ground, to be precise. That club is in the unlucky position of being too good for the Championship and not quite up there in the Premier League. Well done Leeds, too. 

Very happy that Igor Jesus got his first goal at the City Ground in a league match.

#46

Off the Record / Re: TV/Movies Megathread

Last post by The Brain - April 19, 2026, 09:43:15 AM

The Crow (new version). Pennywise is cast as Lisbeth Salander of The Girl With/Who... fame, but finds himself in a new The Crow. I haven't read the source material, so can't compare them that way, but from a movie perspective it is inferior to the old version in every way.

#47

Off the Record / Re: [Canada] Canadian Politics...

Last post by Bauer - April 19, 2026, 09:43:09 AM

Carney addresses nation, cites American relationship as a weakness.  I think he's preparing us for end of CUSMA.

#48

Off the Record / Re: Grand unified books thread

Last post by Syt - April 19, 2026, 09:32:48 AM

Reminds me of the episode of Frasier where they run into J.D. Salinger T.H. Houghton who is a reclusive writer known for only publishing only one book that was absolutely seminal.

They secretly read his new unpublished manuscript. They love it and praise it for lifting the structure and imagery from Dante's Divine Comedy.

Which Houghton didn't do consciously - he sees it as confirmation that he's a hack and a fraud who only had one book in him and goes on to destroy the manuscript, thanking the horrified Crane boys for "saving his reputation."

[at the time, awards chair Roddy Doyle said that the judges had "never read anything quite like it".However, a number of critics and readers have noted similarities between Szalay's book and Kubrick's 1975 film Barry Lyndon, which itself is adapted from William Makepeace Thackeray's 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon.]

#49

Off the Record / Re: Grand unified books thread

Last post by garbon - April 19, 2026, 09:11:42 AM

I see from looking this was bubbling up in past but now in mainstream news.

It doesn't sound like plagiarism but it does feel like eyebrows should be raised both at Szalay and the Booker Prize.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/david-szalay-flesh-barry-lyndon-similarities-b2956474.html

All the glaring similarities between Booker winner Flesh and a Stanley Kubrick film

Booker Prize-winning author David Szalay has found himself at the centre of speculation about authorial inspiration and homage, as readers of his novel Flesh have questioned whether a film by Stanley Kubrick inspired the book almost "beat for beat".

The sixth novel by Canadian-Hungarian writer Szalay, Flesh was released in March 2025. It follows a young working-class man called István, who over the course of his life rises up the ranks from poverty at home in Hungary to sitting among London's elite.

The book, which became a talking point for its sparse prose and 500 repeats of the word "OK", won the 2025 Booker Prize; at the time, awards chair Roddy Doyle said that the judges had "never read anything quite like it".

However, a number of critics and readers have noted similarities between Szalay's book and Kubrick's 1975 film Barry Lyndon, which itself is adapted from William Makepeace Thackeray's 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon.

Barry Lyndon's eponymous lead comes from Ireland, not Hungary, yet the characters follow near identical trajectories: they enlist in the army, marry wealthy women, grieve their sons and clash with their stepsons, and lose everything they have earned later in their lives.

But despite the similarities in the plots, Szalay has not listed Kubrick's film as an inspiration for the story or writing process. This has led to some readers speculating that Szalay is playing an elaborate game and has included Easter eggs referencing Barry Lyndon in his novel.

In Kubrick's film, Barry is shown a painting and comments: "I love the use of the colour blue by the artist." In Flesh, Istvan is taken to the National Gallery and says of a different painting: "I like the use of the colour blue in that one."

The Independent has contacted Szalay's representatives for comment.

What critics said at the time
Flesh received rave reviews upon its release, with few critics at the time noting the similarities between Barry Lyndon and Flesh.

The first reference appears to have been made by Aled Maclean-Jones in June 2025 on the Substack publication The Republic of Letters, where he suggests that Flesh is "quite clearly, a near beat-for-beat mirror – both of the novel and of Kubrick's film adaptation, to such a level I'd almost call it a retelling".

In July, The New Statesman published a cultural reexamination of Barry Lyndon, where writer David Sexton argued that the similarities between Flesh and Kubrick's film was a sign of the story's "continued potency".

"Unnoticed by most reviewers and uncommented upon by Szalay himself, Flesh – which is about the picaresque career of its hero István, from Hungary to London, from poverty to riches and back to poverty again – is nothing less than a thorough revision and updating of Barry Lyndon (Kubrick's movie, not Thackeray's novel)," he wrote.

Sexton doubled down on his argument in The Standard following Szalay's Booker Prize win, where he put forward that Flesh was Barry Lyndon "updated, relocated, re-imagined, but the same".

"There is nothing remotely wrong about it. It's not plagiarism. Indeed, it could be considered a vital tribute to a fantastic film," he wrote.

What Szalay has said
Appearing on Dua Lipa's Service95 Book Club podcast, the author listed Hamlet, Virginia Woolf's Jacob's Room, Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim, Michel Houellebecq's Platform and Katherine Faw's Ultra Luminous as the five books that had influenced Flesh, with no reference to either Kubrick's film or Thackeray's novel.

In an interview with The Observer from November, Szalay said that he had seen Barry Lyndon when he was 20, and said that "the rags-to-riches arc was an influence".

Szalay is explicitly asked about the similarities between the texts in a forthcoming episode of BBC Radio 4's This Cultural Life, where he's asked if Flesh is a "direct reference" to Barry Lyndon.

"No, I wouldn't go that far," Szalay replies, adding that Kubrick's film "wasn't really at the front of my mind, I don't think". When pressed, he says that he could have been "influenced by it in some way", but denies that his book was written in homage to the film.

#50

Off the Record / Re: Youtube Recommendations

Last post by Syt - April 19, 2026, 08:31:24 AM

Talk with Bennett Foddy, designer of QWOP, Getting Over it, Baby Steps and many others.  Not my style of games but fascinating perspective.

Thanks - I'm not much into the style of games, but I like people suffering through them. I enjoyed some videos of people playing Baby Steps ... apparently many of the "cutscene dialogues" were ad libbed.