The Life and Opinions of Andrew Rilstone

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...

There is nothing wrong with loving Dogtanian and the Three Muskhounds and having not the slightest intention of ever reading Dumas.  You rea...

Some time ago I confessed that I didn't particularly like comic books. What I like is superheroes. I grok that Heartstopper is marvellou...

It is often said that Tolkien never finished the Silmarillion. It would perhaps be truer to say that Tolkien finished the Silmarillion sever...

I've been listening to Bart Ehrman's podcasts about the Bible, provocatively entitled Misquoting Jesus. Prof Ehrman has forgotten mo...

My mother went to the opera all her life: as a young woman she used to queue to get cheap back row tickets at Covent Garden ('the gods...

I must not digress. Digression is the blog-killer. Digression is the general point which brings total excursus. I will ignore my digression....

RINGS OF POWER AFTER PARTY Digression I: Gatekeeping II: Canon III: Canon IV: Fantasy V: Gatekeeping VI: Adaptation VII: World Buidling VIII...

Donald Trump is not in fact a supporter of an Italian political movement between 1919 and 1945. The British and the Americans use the word ...

  So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one more thing to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, al...

why did christianity come to an end in the UK? a: because it became too liberal: church men said 'it's all about ethics and spiritua...

  it's all right he didn't mean a word of it nothing is going to happen people have predicted the end of the world after every elect...

Have you seen that old clip of David Frost interviewing Oswald Mosley? Frost plays a clip of one of Mosley's speeches. There are really ...