I have been thinking a lot about what exactly it is that is absolutely wrong with the Hobbit movies. Yes, the thin story, the overdone CGI, the contrived love story are not exactly making the movies a classic, and it is no surprise they did not become a second LOTR. All these things do not land too well, true, but they can be overlooked. However, there was always something that felt deeply off with the Hobbit trilogy.
Then I read about Tolkien’s deep dislike of Disney, and the coin dropped. What was so out of place about those movies was the treatment of most of the Dwarves. Sure, there were a few individuals who were treated as actual characters -you kinda needed them , but most of them were just there as comic reliefs. Everything from their looks to their behaviour served nothing else but to bring some very jarringly different slapstick humour to the story.
This was an issue with the original LOTR movies, too – Gimli, Merry and Pippin were drastically changed into characters that served nothing more just to bring some -supposedly- ligh-hearted moments to the movies, but the effect was somewhat muted. Here, in The Hobbit, the dwarves got the full-on Disney dwarf treatment, and considering Tolkien’s views on the dwarfs of Snowhite, I have to say, this was a really, really bad move from Jackson.
But the movie was bad. Really bad. Not as in horrible, unwatchable; it was not that. In fact it looked stunning. Heck, it even got a lot of the events from the books right. It just completely butchered the actual point of the book. And it made me sad inside. So let’s get those tiny violins out, shall we?
I mean small changes adopting a book to a movie format are to be expected. Even major ones are fine if they work -just like Jaws changed considerably from book to movie. I like both, but they are not the same stories. But some changes are so fundamental they are ruining the original work’s message, and there you have an issue. (There are a ton of small changes that were strange, like Paul himself, who does not look remotely like someone who was trained by the deadliest fighters to be able to defend himself, to Liet-Kynes, who became a black woman, even though he was the father of Chani, but whatever. Those are not breaking the movie.)
OK, first I have to admit that Dune, at least the first three books, are some of my most favorite books. The later books are not so much; in fact I could not get past the Heretics of Dune as the philosophical explication was just too much for me. Or maybe I was not smoking weed while reading it; I do not know. I just gave up as could just not invest enough in it to plow on. (And don’t even get me started on the books written by Herbert’s son… those are worst than any fan fiction ChatGPT could come up with.)
However. Dune, the first book (well two books) is not as complex as to require mind altering drugs and a degree in Philosophical Sciences. It does have a lot of complexity which I love, though, and one of it is how Paul is evolving from an aristocratic living weapon destined to rule to someone who is seeking vengeance for his family to finally a deeply caring man who is trying to fight his fate, his “terrible purpose” that is awaiting him, knowing that either the human race stagnates and dies, or there will be a Holy War, a Jihad in his name that causes untold suffering. He eventually cannot find a way out, the Jihad happens, and he chooses to disappear in the desert, coming back as the nameless Prophet. His son, Leto, then has the strength to do what must be done and becomes the God-Emperor giving up his humanity to direct the human race on the Golden Path where it would not need leaders, spice or anything of such nature to survive. And by “guiding” I mean being an absolute and horrendous despot who is aware that what he is doing is morally wrong, however necessary for the ultimate goal -you know, the age old question whether the end justifies the means. (I got as far as him dying, so I have no clue what happens next. I will try to find a summary and explanation somewhere.)
The movie throws all this away. Instead of Paul trying to find his way between the Bene Gesserit machinations, the Fremens’ Messiatic faith, politics between the Spice Guild, the conflict between the Houses and the Emperor, trying to fight his fate to save people, but not to doom humanity, we get a clumsy intra-fremen conflict between the stupid fanatical fundamentalists and the smart young fremen (who are sneering and snarling all the time led by Chani), and Paul who is put into a leadership position by his evil, machinating mother only, and nothing else, and who then goes back his old ways as soon as he can, marrying the Emperor’s daughter. (None of that “history will call us wives” nonsense for Chani, that is for sure.) So in the end Chani leaves on a worm (while snarling, of course, because at this point her face is probably unable to express any other feeling) while Paul takes the fools of a Fremens (sorry, clumsy joke on the “fool of a Took”) to fight his battles in the stars, leading to the Jihad, apparently unconcerned about the billions dying now. So she leaves for good reason, because Paul did betray the Fremen, he did use them to reach his aim, to become Emperor, instead of what happens in the book, where he became a fusion of Fremen and aristocrat deeply caring for the Fremen. In other words, Paul really is a dick here, and with this the movie justifies the quasi-entellectuel reasoning that “Dune is about the dangers of a charismatic leader, and Paul is not a hero, you silly pleb”. Well yeah. If you change the story, then you are right. Even though there is no charisma in Paul in the movies; he gets where he gets because of his mommy, not because his innate ability to lead and inspire. He is certainly not a hero in the books, either, in the sense Aragorn is a hero, but neither he is a villain, and certainly not a Napoleon or a Hitler. (Well, he IS a hero until the end of the second book of Dune, actually, but let’s not get into that.) As for following a Messiah – yes, it is dangerous and will absolutely lead to disaster, as Herbert himself stated, however all his subsequent books justified why it was the only way for humanity to survive, and how exactly Paul was not strong enough to do what Leto did, so I am a tad confused about why people keep pointing at him. One quote vs all the Dune books -hard to decide.
Other, not so minor issues:
It is never explained what the nature of the Kwisatz Haderach is and why the Bene Gesserit breeding program has any galaxy-wide significance -or why it was a problem that Jessica bore a boy for Leto instead of a girl (the original plan for the Bene Gesserit). It is never explained why exactly do the Fremen collect water -what Lies-Kynes’ vision was for Arrakis, and how it intersected with ancient Fremen mythology (and the Bene Gesserit patterns built onto it). Never mentioned how the work is being progressed in the South -and why exactly the Harkonnen don’t know anything about what goes on there (the Fremen are bribing the Guild not to allow observations -they are not complete idiots as they come across in the movie). Talking about Harkonnens, they are depicted as deprived assholes (which they certainly were), but their cunning is left out -the Baron’s plans to reach the Emperor’s throne was made so simplistic and stupid, I could not believe my ears. The significance of spice is left out, or what the connection between the sandworms and the spice is. Also, while yes, Paul can destroy the spice, he is not able to do so because he can just “nuke the spice fields”… That is stupid if you think about it for even a minute. He can do it because he can destroy the sandworms with the “water of death”, and no sandworms means no spice. This is why the Guild is afraid of him, and why they force the Emperor’s hand. They are not telling him why, but they most definitely make it known that Paul indeed can go through with his threat. And while we are at it: for some reason, the Major Houses do not accept Paul as Emperor, even though, as we just established, he has absolute control over spice production, AND they just received proof of how the Emperor helped the House Harkonnen to eradicate the House of Atredies, a fate all of them dreads. This is something that is made clear in the movie that it would lead to the downfall of the Emperor had it been publicly known; each of these two reasons by themselves would be enough to secure him the throne. Oh, and he has a force even more formidable than the unstoppable Sadraukars, which formed the fundamental basis of the Emperor’s power. So make it three reasons. Even the politics is clumsy and makes no sense. (By the way we never got an explanation why the Fremen were so effective against the Sardaukars,
The relationship between Chani and Paul is also horribly handled, starting with the personality of Chani, who is not at all that constantly angry and fuming person that is depicted on screen (yes, yes, “she should smile more”). She does not change, she has no arc… all she has is rage. There is absolutely no reason for her to fall in love with Paul to start with; suddenly they are in love because the movie needs them to be. I suspect they wanted to make her into a “strong female character” like Galadriel is one in RoP; essentially a really badly written man, or rather, the sterotype of one.They probably wanted someone who can stand up to Paul, someone who can challenge him -which she was in the books, incidentally, only she was not doing it by being constantly angry. Instead they just made her into a one dimensional support cartboard cutout, opposing Stilgar’s one-dimensional cartboard cutout fanatics all playing into Paul’s scheming hands.
Not happy at all. And somehow critics missed these crucial changes, which baffles me. The beautiful cinematography and the superficial adoption of the books are enough, apparently. Or maybe other movies, other adaptations are so much worse the critics thought it was enough…
Well, in November I was made redundant due to the incompetence of the senior management at the company I worked for. Long story, really annoying, since they have done things over and over which even I saw were foolish, so to make it short, they suddenly realized they screwed up, there was no money, and so they sent away a lot of people. Yours truly included. (As a tangential: I can be at least as incompetent as they are -please get in touch if you have a senior management position to be filled.)
So, what does one do in a situation like this? Look for jobs. (Or make a business, but since I have no skills or knowledge that can support a business, I consigned my soul to be a permanent employee.) This post is kind of the continuation of the previous one on this matter.
Let’s see the starting point. You have a PhD, which means a lot of “transferrable skills”, a lot of experience in a lot of areas, like academic research, industry, civil service… (you know, the jack of all trades thingy, which is supposedly so valueable when you read the recruitment articles, interviews with leaders and whatnot). All of these articles also reassure you that employers are aware that nobody checks all the boxes, so don’t worry. Oh, you also have a PMP certification, so you kind of think, OK, I have proven myself in many areas that I am effective, adaptable, reliable, and smart, paid for a professionally written CV, there is supposed to be a lack of qualified workers in biotech, so how hard it could be?
Well, start applying and you will see. Both to positions which are a step up, positions that are a step down, and also to positions that are “adjacent” to your experience, where your transferrable skills are useful.
Well, you know all these talks about transferrable skills and whatnot? They are just fiction.
While this kind of talk is great PR, and looks good on LinkedIn, the sad fact is that nobody cares. Especially about the “not having to check all the boxes” part. Heck, I was not even invited for interviews for positions which looked as if they used my CV as a template for the requirements…
None of it matters. What matters is to get through an algorithm or even worse, a HR person, who has no idea about what the role actually is, to get an interview, and even at the interview stage, you will get shafted if you do not have 10 years of experience in that one thing they are looking for for that entry level position. Or you get paid GBP 25K for all your efforts. Not kidding here – a role that required a PhD, years of industry experience and a vast personal network you were supposed to bring to the table. Talking about tables, you would make considerably more just waiting tables…
Honestly I have no clue how it is possible that at a biotech company the guy interviewing me for a project manager job has construction management background, yet they reject me for not having enough biotech project management experience (I have 5 years). Neither did he, by the way, yet he was the line manager of the fortunate soul who did get the job…
The messaging is also very confusing: in a case the person who would be the line manager of the position assured me that I was the number one choice, and the lack of my business background is not an issue; consider myself hired. Two rounds of (successful) interviews later I was rejected for -you guessed it right- lack of business background.
Ghosting is also an interesting thing: recruiters, even companies after three rounds of interview, simply ghost you. And then the lack of care… obviously you are told not to have even a tiny typo in your resume as this immediately disqualifies you, yet at a large life sciences company I found out that a key requirement did not make into the job description for which I applied (when I politedly pointed it out, I was -you guessed right- ghosted), and another company sent me an email that unfortunately “I was not selected for [job title] this time”. I have no idea how well [job title] pays, but please sign me up for it. Sounds intruiging. Much more intruiging than the Business Development Manager, In-Licensing position I actually applied for. But yeah. You spend a large chunk of time applying for a given position, and apparently the same care is not taken from the other side. All of which shows a clear lack of respect towards the applicant.
Anyhow. After all this I can boil down my experience to a few points of advice. What matters is: extreme specialization. None of the whole “be a generalist” talk is true. Not ‘strong work ethic’, or any of that crap. They don’t think they can train up the suitable person who is a great fit otherwise, no matter what they say. Don’t believe them. They lie. Nobody wants a generalist. What they look for is the specific experience in that specific area.
Even more important: personal network. As a stranger, your resume is not going to be picked up from the hundreds of other resumes. You need people who recommend you to the right people. All my friends who get jobs here and there get them through people they know. And in this I am shafted, too, because these friends of mine are not high enough to actually get my application in front of the hiring manager.
So yeah. I am somewhat peeved because ever since grad school I have been fed a lie by recruiters, headhunters and senior managers when they talked about what was and what was not important in your career building. They did that because these points sound good as talking points, and because admitting the truth would make them look like the exactly the person they are: someone who only looks are employees as some sort of disposable resource they can always replenish. So don’t make these mistakes. Work on your personal network, and do try to specialize early.
Let me share one big secret of my life: I seriously dislike the Star Wars sequel trilogies. The writing is horrible, the characters are horrible, and the legacy characters of Leila, Like and Han got seriously shafted. Even Mark Hamill, who ordinarily would not say bad things about anything could not refrain from critiquing the way they handled Luke, and how they missed out on having all of them together again. Not to mention the whole thing was just a jumbled mess without any plans whatsoever, so this is how we got “somehow Palpatine returned“. Effectively negating any and all previous sacrifice by Vader, Luke and everyone else. Just like the whole killing of John Connor kind of made every movie before absolutely unnecessary. And don’t get me start on poor Indy. (Come to think of it, maybe they have something against Ford…)
There is a good reason why most everything coming out of Hollywood sucks (apart from a few gems here and there), but I am reluctant to get into this as this is a highly political, highly emotional topic. Fortunately for me, South Park already had done this.
Even though it sounds quite inflammatory, the episode actually provides quite a balanced view on this issue.
But back to Star Wars and the writers.
So the writing was bad.
Really, really bad.
Undeniably bad. So bad, in fact, that now even those so-called critics, who were fawning over it originally (to keep their access presumably) now are kind of admitting that they sucked.
What I did, out of curiosity, is to tell ChatGPT to draft me a sequel trilogy with everything excluded that was in the actual movies.
And this is the result: I present you Fossilyellifish’s Star Wars sequel saga
Episode VII: The Resurgence of Darkness Decades after the Galactic Civil War, the galaxy enjoys a fragile peace, but that peace is shattered as a resurgent Sith Order, led by the mysterious Darth Vaelus, emerges from the shadows. Han and Leia Solo, along with their children, have become prominent figures in the New Republic. Luke Skywalker, now a wise and reclusive Jedi Master, senses the rising darkness and takes it upon himself to train a new generation of Jedi.
The film follows the struggles of Han and Leia’s children, who find themselves thrust into a conflict they never asked for. Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin Solo must navigate their family’s legacy while confronting the resurgent Sith and their enigmatic leader. “The Resurgence of Darkness” explores themes of legacy, familial bonds, and the enduring struggle between the light and dark sides of the Force.
Episode VIII: Shadows of Fate In “Shadows of Fate,” the conflict intensifies, and our heroes, both old and new, face personal challenges and inner demons. The Sith’s power and influence grow, pushing the galaxy to the brink of despair. Jacen Solo, in particular, is tempted by the dark side, and Luke Skywalker is haunted by the failures of the past.
The film delves into the history of the Jedi Order and the Force itself, uncovering hidden truths that could change the course of the conflict. Han Solo, Leia, and Luke must unite once more, and the next generation of Jedi is put to the test as they confront their own destinies. The characters’ internal struggles are just as important as the external battles, as they confront the darkness within themselves.
Episode IX: The Balance Restored In the epic conclusion of the trilogy, “The Balance Restored,” the final battle between the forces of light and darkness takes place. Jacen Solo, having fully embraced his role as a Jedi, confronts Darth Vaelus in a final duel of destinies. Luke, Han, and Leia play essential roles in the climactic showdown, drawing on their decades of experience.
The film explores the true nature of the Force and its power to bring balance to the galaxy. Old alliances are rekindled, sacrifices are made, and redemption is sought, as the fate of the galaxy hangs in the balance. The trilogy aims to provide closure to the overarching Star Wars saga, showcasing the enduring legacy of the original characters while introducing a new generation to carry the torch forward.
“Star Wars: Legacy of the Force” weaves together new and old characters, paying homage to the iconic figures from the original trilogy while introducing fresh perspectives and challenges. It offers a blend of action, adventure, and deep exploration of the Star Wars universe’s themes and mysteries.
The AI made a better draft of a script than a bunch of highly paid writers in Hollywood.
It is coherent, it has both new and old characters, it has overarching themes to explore, and more importantly, it has a plot… I mean throw a couple of thousand dollars at it, and have some actual writers spend a week with it to fill out the hazy parts, and you have three movies’ worth of material. Heck, maybe if I spent more than the 2 minutes it took me to get ChatGPT to write it, I could polish it up with the help of my new favorite buddy, the AI.
Astonishing. Not only how apt the AI is to write a generic script (which is what frankly most entertainment -books, movies, comics, whatever- gets anyhow), but also how incompetent writers seem to be lately in Hollywood and “mainstream” entertainment. Perhaps they really should go on striking forever, and pick up flipping burgers instead instead of flopping movies.
Is this post going to be about alcohol, drugs or unprotected sex?
No.
It is about much worse. It is about warning to avoid academia. Seriously, kids, it will set you back in life worse than a drug habit or a prison sentence. I have known (and experienced) that a “career” in science sets you back about ten years in every single part of life (financial, personal, anything you can think of), but Nature just came out with an article discussing this specifically. It is a sobering read. And I experienced it first-hand. Still trying to catch up with my life in my mid 40s.
My mother worked with computers since the ’70s, so I grew up around PCs. I remember how I wished we had a Commodore 64 instead of the “crappy” XPs my mother bought home from her workplace to work with.
So when I was not building models, I did play with computer games, like this little gem.
I completely forgot about this until a facebook post reminded me.
PC games have come a long way indeed. Regardless, good fun.
OK, this series is starting to lose me (and others, apparently). I really wanted to like it because frankly, the sequel movies were horribly bad, Kenobi was… well, not sure what it was, Book of Boba Fett was almost as bad as the sequel trilogies (but at least it felt like Star Wars, and thankfully they gave up midway and switched to Mandalorian season 2.5), Andor is good, but not Star Wars-y at all, and, well, there is nothing else going on. In fact, it is getting worse and worse if the Star Wars Celebration 2023 is any indication, where people were discussing the Patriarchy, the costumes, how much they cried and that in Star Wars there are no good and bad characters – everything but the actual show. It will go downhill from here for sure.
In all this The Mandalorian stood out as a somewhat mediocre, but enjoyable show. A bit like a computer-game with side-quests, armor and base upgrades, but still quite good. But the third season… well, it is a dumpster fire.
First, do you see what Mando is holding in his hand? Apart from the blaster, I mean. Yes, that black thing. The Darksaber. The very thing he just casually hands over to Bo-Katan. So why is it on the poster? He hardly used it, he could not even use it properly, he lost it in the first episode (where he needed to be saved by Bo-Katan not once but twice, as if he was some sort of a simpleton) – so what is the point of teasing people about him holding an iconic weapon signifying the leader of all Mandalore? Suggesting that he embarks on the reluctant hero journey, unifying all Mandalorians, and retaking their homeworld?
Why is Grogu back anyway? Wasn’t the whole point of seasons 1 and 2 is that he HAD to get trained as a Jedi so that he did not pose a danger to himself and others with his uncontrolled force abilities? If you have not watched The Book of Boba Fett, Luke Skywalker simply sends him back to Din (more on that later). Not even delivering him in person -just dumping him using his droid. Do the writers even watch their own show? And now he is back, what is his role? He is just there -there is no development of their bond with Din Djarin. He can bounce like some weird, unreal-looking basketball -that is it. Is merchandise so important you are willing to compromise the show? Apparently it is. By the way, how are those toys based on the sequel trilogy sell? Yeah, I thought so. Perhaps you should get the story right first, then sell stuff.
And this leads us to the one and only Mr Luke Skywalker. Din Djarin loves his adopted son, wants him the best, so he has a little beskar chainmail made for him (cute idea but kind of silly) and delivers it to the Jedi Academy under construction (which will be abandoned, apparently, until Rey Skywalker Palpatine does it for him, but that is a different matter). He is then told that he should not interfere with Grogu’s training and should not distract him with showing up, so, because he truly loves him, he accepts it and leaves without meeting him with a heavy heart. As I said: selflessly wants him the best without him interfering. Luke Skywalker, in his infinite wisdom offers him the gift -with a choice: you choose what your adopted father -you know the first person in decades who showed any affection to you, a deeply traumatized survivor of massacres and medical experiments– but then you have to leave the training (the whole point of the first two seasons) and go back to him. I mean what kind of twisted, evil person forces a choice on a kid with PTSD like this? You know what? You deserve to drink blue milk straight from the titties, you jerk.
As for lore inconsistencies – Mando himself is saying that the Darksaber means nothing to his people when he casually hands it over to Bo-Katan, yet in Mando season 2.5 Vizsla, very much his people, whose ancestor made the damned thing, does seem to think it has some sort of value apart from a sentimental one. It is clearly an object of high importance for every single Mandalorian. I mean it is kind of an important detail, and not just a question of how shiny his armor is from season to season. (Not to mention a religious fanatics sect would probably attach more importance to inanimate objects than the more relaxed, pragmatic fractions.)
Then there is IG-11. Nobody thought it through bringing “him” “back”, that is for sure. “Back” as in “bringing back his reanimated corpse”. Nobody else finds this whole idea creepy? There is this guy -who clearly is a sentient being- sacrifice himself for Grogu, earning the respect of Din Djarin, who hates droids, and then they first have his remains displayed as a monument (to himself), and after then completely wipe his residual memory and set him up as an exoskeleton for Grogu… I mean this is dark. It would be dark even in the Warhammer 40K universe. Star Wars has always been a bit weird on the matter of droids who were sentient yet disposable, but this takes this to a whole new level. They could have just put together an exoskeleton from spare parts; they did not need to hollow out the corpse of a droid, who is a hero of the story, for that. (Even in death I serve, my ass.) Storywise they should have left him alone. Even bringing him back fully functional would have been better -but not by much, though. It does lessen the whole sacrifice thing.
And why do we have distracting cameos? Apart from my personal dislike of Jack Black it is really breaking the immersion to see some famous guy and gal in the story. Might as well gotten Weird Al Yankovic in his Hawaiian shirt play some role. It was already annoying in Game of Thrones to stop the story to listen to Ed Sheeran’s not particularly talented performance. I am still cringing from that particular scene, and I am not even responsible for it. If possible I’d rather rewatch “Wrecking Ball” in a pause; just as distracting from the story, but at least visually pleasing.
And what is the storyline here? I get it, you want to build up an overarching story using episodic story telling, but having one episode about two people you do not care about -and lots of side-quests- so was silly. I am not the writer, so I can’t offer alternatives, and more importantly I am not paid for writing this thing, either. Find some better way to weave your story, because this sucks. The whole thing looks like someone sat down after season 2 and said “I have no clue where the story is going, let’s just start shooting and we will see”.
In episode 7 (so far the last episode in the series) Moff Gideon, for some reason, kills all Mandalorians who get on the same side of a locked door with him. That is, everyone but Din Djarin, whom he has captured to be interrogated later. But why? What does he know that needs interrogation, and why not the others? (Yes, I know, he needs to survive because of his plot armor, but it is so clumsy it is beyond pale.) More importantly: Bo-Katan has a freaking lightsaber (you know, the Darksaber) in her hand, and just watches the whole thing instead of, you know, cutting through the door to help the others on the other side. And nobody noticed an entire imperial base on Mandalore? You need to move stuff there, move stuff away from there, you need to have a presence, AND there is that freaking big monster that apparently just allowed them to build it. Why even bring Grogu down there with him to establish a presence? Who writes this thing??
And the most annoying thing of all: the main protagonist of the season became a side-character. This is a Bo-Katan show now, not a Mandalorian show, and do not come with the “well, Mandalorian means a lot of thing” BS the showrunners tried… Everyone expects Din Djarin, since he was “the” Mandalorian for two seasons. Switching him to someone else now means technically you are still making a story about “a” Mandalorian, but not “the” Mandalorian. I am sure Bo-Katan is an interesting character who deserves her own show, but taking over someone else’s TV show is poor manners. You might as well off him, and continue with Bo-Katan. In this, weirdly, there is some pleasing parallel to the fact that apparently Pascal rarely wears the armor himself; the acting is done by stunt doubles and he just voices the character – so we actually see someone else under the mask.
So now I am worried about the Star Wars Jedi: Survivor game… they may as well switch mid-game the main character to some other Jedi who survived (technically still a Jedi and still a survivor), and by the way, the game is now a city builder.
EDIT: watching the last episode, I have to say I was wrong. They really did pull off a nice, satisfying wrapup of the story, and opened up the way to a promising 4th season. So all in all -good job. Once complete the season was not half bad, but the fact that you still had to finish it before being able to appreciate it is sub-optimal. Regardless I was wrong I admit on many points above.
We found a “pedestrian” magpie in the forest close to our place. It dragged a wing behind him, and could not fly. I spent an eventful half hour to catch him (nobody said it could not jump like crazy, and he is pretty good at hiding, too), and took him to a lady close by who works with foundlings.
She said that he was a young adult (hatched this summer), and probably got hit by a car. And nobody will operate on him, because he is not an endangered animal. So now we have a magpie.
He is fairly chill; does not like to be handled, but he is not panicking when we get close. So far he is spending most of his time outside of his cage (it is a borrowed one, and quite small), sitting in a box on the radiator.
Cool. Let’s hope we can tame him; always wanted a magpie.
fossiljellyfish 
