The Life and Opinions of Andrew Rilstone

Watching The Penguin is a deeply unpleasant experience.  That's not a criticism. Presumably, it is supposed to be. The protagonist, Oz C...

At one stage, Tolkien wanted the Lord of the Rings to run to four volumes, rather than the published three. Volume IV would have consisted o...

Oh please don't agree with me! When people agree with me I feel sure I must be wrong!  Is there no-one who actually likes and understand...

  My reviews of Rings of Power Season II, complete without outtakes, extras and lots of digressions is now available as a smart little PDF. ...

Conservatives really like sculpture. They specially like marble carvings of ladies in wedding veils, or with silk sleeves, or with little la...

We keep being warned that the Assisted Dying Bill is a Slippery Slope. Allow physcians to prescribe suicide pills to terminally ill adults w...

The Rings of Power is a talisman and a surrogate for a certain kind of toxic fan schism. I think that you think that I am a gatekeeper; you ...

The Rings of Power plays fast and loose with the imaginary history of Middle-earth. But  historical TV shows and movies play fast and loose ...

Does Tolkien contradict himself?  Very well: he contradicts himself.  He contains multitudes. He never finalised his meta-narrative; at any ...

T hen we are decided. Pointy eared people talking posh and furry footed people living down holes are in the cold light of day, every so slig...

The Rings of Power abandons Tolkien's internal chronology.  The opening credits claims that the series is "adapted from the Lord of...

People who had read Lord of the Rings -- and even people who had read it twice -- were mostly okay with what Peter Jackson did to Fellowship...