Kinda sounds like Russel Brand’s lawyer is a douchebag like Russel Brand.

In light of the guilty verdict on Thursday, Brand’s legal rep Ian Winter KC was reported to have confronted one of the journalists involved in the initial investigation outside Southwark Crown Court, telling her: “I hope you’re pleased with yourself.”

When the reporter responded that she was “pleased justice has been done”, Winter is alleged to have retorted: “Well it wasn’t. You fucked it.”

The journalist fucked it? Not the asshole’s defense lawyer? Sure, Ian.

URGENT: Kidnapping!! ‼️

This is essentially how the Turpin family was discovered in 2018. One of the girls made friends online (on YouTube singing at first, I think) and it led to her eventually escaping and getting to a cop.

That was in Perris, California; north of San Diego.

You’re welcome.

The funny thing is, I am a fan of cyberpunk but I picked the book up because it features a “death sport,” which I tend to like even more. But it didn’t do anything for me on that front, either!

I’m willing to be wrong and it’s actually a great book, but I struggled.

Thanks for the clarification!

This makes me feel a little better… but just a little.

I didn’t finish Market Forces. To me felt like a bunch of crappy tropes barely tied together, but maybe I just didn’t “get it.”

I don’t care about high-performing dickheads in the future who are trying to out-kill each other literally in their BMWs. I don’t want to read about people like that.

I found the characters completely unrelatable and uninteresting to read about. The world doesn’t have a ton of depth, either.

The main character’s wife visits her dad, who is an older guy who forces her to read academic political literature out loud when she’s been fighting with her husband. I’m not sure if he’s supposed to be a sensible character, but he’s certainly not an empathetic one. Or barely a believable one.

Remember, she’s come to him after having a fight with her literal evil murderer husband, and she’s reading to her dad, as an adult. It was several paragraphs of her quoting it too.

“…So long as this is believed by the vast majority of the populace in the developed world, the contradictions identified by Marxism will remain hidden and each individual member of society will be left to resolve for themselves the vaguely felt tensions at an internal level. Any effort to externalize this unease will be disdained by the prevailing political climate as discredited socialist utopianism or simply, as was seen in chapter three, the politics of envy.’ ” She laid down the book. “Yeah, so what?”

Are you for fucking real, Richard K. Morgan? That’s literally all you could muster? Go on, give us nothing.

“That’s your problem, Carla.” Erik had not sat down while she was reading. He stood with his back to the heater and looked down at her as if she were one of his students.

Yeah wow how fun to read. Tell me about their cool BMWs and how how the journalist lady was again, I guess?

To add onto this… there were only six artists on it.

Soundgarden, Paw, Hammerbox, Therapy?, Monster Magnet, and Swervedriver

I can’t believe they’re selling it like a relicensed soundtrack was actually a big deal. EA just didn’t want to do it. So they waited thirty years and are now complaining that it was hard.

It’s not like the more famous licensing struggles with older artists (The Wonder Years was famously hard to reproduce) over the years. They still had some trouble because apparently they had to track down everyone due to their own negligence.

Successfully pulling this off would require connecting with the music label and every band member who controlled a 'side' of the 14 tracks. By the summer of 2026, we had agreements in place with 6 of the 7 bands (including the most prominent band on the list), but after months of searching we still could not find one of the members for a specific band," Vessella explains.

Oh fucking boo hoo.

I’m not sure where they’re getting “7 bands” though because they list 6 themselves (quoted from the article below). Discogs also only lists six.

Soundgarden, Paw, Hammerbox, Monster Magnet, Therapy?, and Swervedriver

This is kinda more embarrassing than if they offered them nothing. Shockingly low.

I got $900 in 2015 from an airline for taking an hour later flight… which actually left before my original flight.

$3,000 sounds legitimately embarrassing for real entertainers crew going all the way to Saudi Arabia. Especially given the history and that the pay is subject to taxes.

My favorite part of WWE is that they spent 30 years trying to convince everyone they were “real” entertainers, and the company itself devalues their people constantly.

Fuck WWE literally forever. Awful people.

Edited because I remembered the specific details

Thinking about this more actually just gets worse. The wrestlers crew are losing 3 days including travel time, at best. That’s a whopping $1,000 a day to go to a place they were TRAPPED IN before.

I’ve literally been paid that before as a contract software developer. I got paid that for an entire year, not as “hazard pay” for maybe being trapped in a hostile country. Holy shit, man.

The WWE are horrifying.

I’ve been corrected that it’s the crew and not the wrestlers themselves, but I’m still a little surprised by how little money that seems to go all the way to Saudi Arabia.

It’s hilarious, he looks so alarmed!

That aspect had never occurred to me. Him being like “where’s the cat gonna land?”

It makes it so funny to think about!

Note that there was no magic to these photographs, they were just chucking cats in the air.

Oh I know. I didn’t say it was fair, just that they ask.

It’s a mall that also has outlet stores (based on the lid outlet), so maybe it was only there temporarily as the comic was being drawn.

You don’t know the economics of the bottle and jar society!