Hayley

Wow, that is a really good one!

Okay, I'll make a note of it! Old literary rivalries are the best Subtle, yet brutal.

I started the last Earthsea book: Tehanu by Ursula le Guin

I did! I saw Judy Garland in the video title and was looking for her amongst the women in the first scene, but of course she wasn’t there. I’ve only actually seen her as Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, so it’s weird and interesting to see her in such a different role!

63 hot dogs!?!? With the buns too?? They must be really nice hot dogs

Such a fun performance and great costumes . Happy 4th July!

I remember liking this one too. I just finished the most recent one and it was brilliant!

Ah! Right, well at least I did something. There were two actual problems. One was that there's an option to limit the number of 'likes' each member can make in a day and (for some reason) they were all set to 0. I think changing that is the reason you can all see the heart now. The other issue is that that you don't have permission to 'react' to other posts. Unfortunately, and this is where I became stuck, I can't actually give you permission because the button for that doesn't appear on our control panel. It's not in the same place as the other permissions, so I've never noticed it before. There should be a little button next to each group for me to select and, though the list is there, the buttons are not. On the other hand, I'm expecting news on the update very soon, so this shouldn't have to wait long . I'll disable the button temporarily so it doesn't confuse anyone.

Okay I've just done one last trial thing but if that doesn't work we might have to hold this thought until after our update because I can't actually use the thing I think we might need right now. I'll get back to you!

Still playing with the settings so if anybody realises their like button has appeared, please let me know

Oops, might have found the problem, the permissions for this function seem to be in a different place, one minute!

Does your screen look like this? There should be a heart on the right (that is the 'like' button) and a new counter underneath your profile picture (your 'reputation'). Excuse the bad drawing, I'm using my laptop mousepad... Edit: you won't be able to see it on your own posts, only on other people's posts.

As I'm sure you will all notice today, we now have a 'like' button! There are a number of options relating to this function and so far I have selected the following: You can 'like', 'thanks' or 'haha' to somebody else's post. All three of the options above award you one 'point' of reputation and you can see your reputation on your profile. There is a Leaderboard (you can see this at the top of your screen under the 'Browse' options) where the most 'liked' content will appear. Other available options (which I've not selected) include highlighting posts with positive reputation and the ability to give neutral or negative reactions to posts. This is a trial and I'd really appreciate your feedback on it. We can and will edit this function to suit the forum. I realise, for example, that while some may find the leaderboard to be a fun way of encouraging more interaction on the forum, there is a possibility that others may find it stressful. On that note, if you have any comments or concerns about the new feature that you don't want to share with everyone, please feel free to send a private message to me. P.S. I've enabled this following some work that's been carried out 'behind the scenes' of the forum - which makes it a lot less likely that we'll experience tech issues with new features!

I still want to read this book but I'm quite glad I had this warning first! This sounds like it would be heart-breaking, although your review makes me feel that it must be brilliantly written! I'm torn about whether I'd like to read it or not!

What an intriguing question! I don't know a great deal about Jazz but I'd bet there is a jazz metal fusion. Maybe it would be quite similar to some prog metal?

I'm glad you all had a nice, relaxing Sunday! I managed to get more reading time in today than I have in ages, so I was very happy with that! I've now finished Amongst Our Weapons, so I'll be posting a review of that shortly (spoiler: it was excellent ). Also ate a lot of Sunday dinner (with roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding!), plus chocolate cake. Now I'm going to put my pyjamas on and pick out my next book!

That would be great Anna, thank you for offering! Although I think you are the most qualified here to write a few words . Even just the name of the website might be intriguing enough for people to try us out though, what do you think?

I don't think there is an English version! I really wanted to learn Spanish at school but the Spanish teacher left, meaning French was our only option. Maybe one day! I'd like to read The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón in Spanish, as it was originally written.

That's really bad! I hope they call back with good news and it's all sorted! Oh no! I'll keep mine crossed too! The perfect balance I hope you enjoyed it! I've been doing a combination of work things: tutoring in the morning (talking about structure in poetry, then analysing Exposure by Wilfred Owen, then essay writing), admin, then writing a conference paper for the end of the week. The conference will be the first group thing I've done in person since the start of the pandemic, so I'm expecting that to be quite weird! I've also been talking to the developer who's going to help us with the forum. I just need to save a load of files as an additional backup and then he's going to go in and try to clear all of our unused bits (it shouldn't have any obvious effect on the forum, it's staying online throughout). I just have a couple more things to organise and a bit more writing I want to do before it's pyjamas and book time (Amongst our Weapons, which I can tell is about to get to a really good bit!).

On the plus side, this is better than consistently dreary, right!? Also sums up our current weather; very changeable.

Having finally gotten around to reading Amongst Our Weapons (just over half way through now), I feel I can safely say that it's living up to expectations!! Also having this thought a lot more in this one:

If anybody is in/ near London over the weekend, the Folio Society has a pop-up 'sample sale' that sounds amazing. Ex-display copies, end of stock copies and production samples from £5! The Folio Pop-up Sample Sale (foliosociety.com)

Oh, that is interesting. Perhaps the stereotyping isn't so intentional then!

The multi-award winning Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell is 99p today on Kindle and so is the first Discworld book (The Colour of Magic) by Terry Pratchett

I love the idea of this and of Miss Buncle as a character! Added to my ‘to read’ list