Piper was one of my favourites, and seemed to be better adjusted to the reality of the business than many.

Interesting article on drug abuse from a few years back :

http://musclepumpworld.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/wwe-stars-uses-steroids.html

GRRM's involvement in the show has been dwindling. He didn't even write an episode this season. There have even been some veiled digs at the showrunners on his blog. However, he is ultimately the one to blame. He sold the rights of his magnum opus before he'd finished it.

Strawman. This is the standard recourse for apologists of the TV show. Understandably, they would have to trim some of the fat from the books to fit it to screen, but this isn't the issue. It's the pointless thematic changes they've made to the plot and its characters that are a betrayal of the source material, which frankly deserves so much better than cheap HBO fanfiction.

Again, strawman. Not once have I, or any critics of the show, asked for a literal adaptation.

If you're going to debate with someone at least stick to the points and not pull up complaints I haven't even made. Also, ageing up the characters was more of a practical matter because it would be difficult to film a 15 year-old chick getting railed by a barbarian warlord.

No, it's not valid at all. Comic books have a multiverse wherein there are numerous interpretations of the same characters and storylines. ASOIAF isn't a comic book franchise, it's a series of novels with one overarching plot.

It is quite perplexing that someone tries to take the moral high ground for an entertainment form. Almost as if there's some intellectual snobbery going on, but you'd never be egotistical enough to think your views are the only ones that matter, would you?

When the adaptation subverts the characters and themes of the original work, then yes I'd say it's mighty important.

Of course, as long there's plenty of tits and cheap shock value, little things like character development, narrative logic and consistency matter not.

That's a completely valid analogy... not.

There is not one single film or tv adaptation that could ever totally replicate a book. It is a totally different medium, narrative structures are vastly different, and audiences require different stimuli.

There is nothing wrong with anyone only liking one or the other, but if you're dismissive of a tv series purely because it isn't 100% reflective of the source material, then how do you view Bond films? Or Gone With the Wind? Or... anything?

The tv series of GoT diverges on page 1. How old are Jon and Robb? And Dany? It could never do on screen what's on the page. Sneer all you want, but for many the TV version is the only version. And that is all that matters to those fans.

And the MU analogy is totally valid. It us a different universe with similar characters and plots. But it is impossible to do the 50+ years continuity in a few movies. Or more precisely,even bring a single plot line or issue, on screen in the exact manner and storytelling. It has to be adapted for the screen and things change.

Some fans won't watch the films because it's not 'real', as if their vision of a pure MU is the only valid one. That's effectively what you're saying about GoT. Dislike the programme all you want but it's rather bizarre to criticise primarily based on it not being a book.

Tbf, a lot of things get cut out of books-to-TV adaptations. It's what makes the books so much better everytime.

Personally, I understand the fact that they refuse to cast over 1000 characters for a 10-episode series, 'because muneh'. Plus the CGI budget which they already struggle to juggle.

No greater source than GRRM himself has said that the books and TV show are different tellings of the same story with the same major plot points. That'll do for me.

I've come across my first proper deviation from the books, reading Clash of Kings last night. It isn't Bronn at all that takes Command of the City Watch from Slynt. But it made TV sense.

If both stories make sense and tell the same tale, what does it matter that Santa was raped by Ramsay instead of a non-existent Jeyne (who hardly features at all in the books anyway)?

Santa was raped?!

That's one horrible Christmas image!

Wouldn't hold your breath about Paul Kaye replacing Capaldi as he's guesting in the next series. They'd never cast a guest star a few years later as the lead.

On the books vs series, is the divergence really that important? Then again I am still a bit miffed that the Marvel Cinematic Universe isn't following every detail of 53 years of comic continuity...

Everyone else will have seen it but I am just catching up on Game of Thrones. Nearly up to date.

Just seen Prince Oberan v The Mountain in season 4.

Holy Sh*t that was brutal.

Oberan only had himself to blame, fannying around. Equivalent to sitting back on a 1-0 lead and conceding twice in stoppage time.

We've started doing that. Game of Thrones really takes the wee. Anyone else noticed the adverts seem to be more frequent on it?

Watched it live in the States last week and it's ad free!

Looking forward to the new series of 24. Hopefully the hotels I'm staying at in California will have decent screens as so far they have all been wrong ratio and locked down.

Athough after watching The Big Bang Theory last night with 5 or 6 advert breaks, I am not sure I could cope with 3 minutes of Jack saving the world interpersed with 5 mins of car adverts, repeatedly.

Considering American viewers have the right to bear arms, how do they manage to avoid shootng seven shades of hell out of their screens every day with the ludicrous number of adverts?

Steve Moss, can you explain this ?!

Last week in London, me and two colleagues at a pelican crossing. Traffic lights change to red, little green man appears, we start to cross. Ahead to our left before the otherpavement is a white lorry at the front of a queue of taffic, next to it we can just see the front wheel of a bike close to the pavement. No issues there so far.

However, just as we are at the far side of the lorry, just about to walk in front of the cyclist, guess what happens? If you think the cyclist decides to set off, you'd be wrong. It's another cyclist who whizzes up on the inside of the traffic and the cyclist who has been waiting patiently at the red light, almost sending a colleague flying as he goes through the red light at speed!

We all stop and stare at what happened and the well behaved cyclist shakes his head in disbelief.

Not only a menace to other road users, this idiot was a risk to his own life and perfectly innocent pedestrians. Two steps further across the road, my colleague would have been sent flying (and possibly the other 2 of us) along with the cyclist. All within a couple of yards of the pavement.

Usually shocking odds, mind. 1/10 or some @#/? like that. There's usually a surprise thrown in if you bet on the 'big' events like WrestleMania or SummerSlam. Potential for a bit of money there.

Quite like doing accumulators on WM tbh. It's a fiver and a bit of fun. As mentioned above though, it's very rare that even 5% of an audience know the outcome of matches.

Or 50% of the actual wrestlers if you happened to be in Montreal, November 1997.

I was out with some work colleagues in an Indian in Edinburgh. First of getting text updates from a mate who went, and then following on phone via Twitter.

Only downside of the evening was managing to launch a methi covered piece of naan onto the phone when Rhodes scored the penalty.

Although I enjoyed Prometheus, I didn't as much as I thought I would - and that was even with lower expectations than when the film was first announced.

I couldn't shake the feeling that it was a solid sci-fi idea (admittedly not a massively original one) that had the Alien mythology grafted onto it to make it more marketable. Fairly certain that wasn't the way it was developed?

I wish! No, just had some time to spare on holiday.

Watched both Adjustment Bureau and The King's Speech at the wonderful AMC at Altamonte Springs just outside Orlando this week.

Very different films (obviously) but both great way to spend $6.

Jeffrey Rush was magnificent in TKS.

I've posted this link in the Kean thread, as that game more than anything else, shows that no statistics other than goals for and against mean anything.

Rovers could have 5% possession in a game (and against Crewe it was probably 95%!) for all I care as long as we win.

Still, for how depressing that result was, it is a game that has remained fresh in the memory!

Clapping is retarded and makes the crowd look like a bunch of trained seals. It's a cheap way of covering up a few idiots who might boo and heckle. A solemn, dignified silence is the true way to honour someone's death.

Clapping would be totally inappropriate for memorial of death eg 9/11, but to celebrate the wonderful life and career of a great it does seem the right thing to do. especially if the family were consulted and showed a preference.

Sad, sad day.

Once and always a Rover.

RIP

Mathew Kelly appeared as a serial killer on one of those ITV crime shows that appears on 9pm. I forget which one as there are many of these.

And for the BBC as an archeologist who dug up a lot of Egypt in the 19th century.

Remember reading his real passion wasn't for light entertainment but acting and he'd been constantly employed in the theatre.

I'd like, if I may, to name and shame 67 restaurants and takeaways across Blackburn and Darwen, who were all warned last year to take food hygiene more seriously.

Please avoid the following premises in Blackburn and Darwen - which have all been rated as "bad" for food hygiene.

That story is 12 months old.

Those establishments may well have improved their standards. Very poor form to slag them off again now without having real up tp date facts.

I cant think anything else other than that because he isnt that good or maybe the pro Dunny camp have blue and white tinted glasses far more than me.

I'll begin to worry if Hughes keeps hold of Mokoena and Dunny come the new season then i'll be barking alright.

Again, if you honestly believe that Dunn won 4 MoM awards for any other reason that many different individuals who watched the matches with open minds and assess players on their performances not some silly petty personal vendetta, then I am sorry for you as you've obviously lost your sense of reasoning somewhere. Try looking down the back of the settee.

He only won them because everyone was so so so desperate for the lad, reality was, is, it isnt sustainable and no one more than me from day one has echoed that Dunny simply isnt good enough.

Ehh? If you honestly think people voted for Dunn as some type of sympathy vote you really are quite, quite barking.

It's not just MotD.

Sky's match choice programme after the 50 min highlights of Reading-Spurs had the traditional round up of the other games. Rovers on last and Matt Lorenzo even said "we won't bother showing the goals!"

Only at Huddersfield, where the team was struggling under Peter Jackson, did Taylor struggle a little - but he still contributed a number of assists in a dismally performing side. (At QPR he was only brought in to play one game or so).

Strange how many Huddersfield fans I know thought he was one of the weaker players in a weak team.

If he was any good, he would have at least looked a class above the rest of the Terriers.

Good to see McCarthy finally admitting matters went to his head(no doubt aided by his agents)

But, I cant help but find some of these players comments and attitudes to Rovers disrespectful.Sadly it is true they see us as nothing more than a stepping stone to supposed greater things....is all that matters to these players today being seen to play for the 'BIG' four?

They should look at Bellamy and where he is now before assuming the grass is always greener on the other side,what this club needs and deserves is more 'local heroes'.

Would you rather have a team populated by semi-talented 'local heroes' or genuine class acts who might be a little, shall we say, mercenary? Which is likely to lead to more success and your favourite subject, bigger crowds?

Local heroes are all fine and dandy if they can cut it at the top level, but there's not many who can.

Benni is playing like Yorke did towards the end of Souey's reign.

Dropping deep, looking totally uninterested and offering so little in attack.

Unlike Souey I do have faith that Hughesy will turn this around.