ChrisIB

Thanks for the replies. A waiting game then, as you say it's what someone is willing to pay.

I tried listing a couple of average dot coms on Afternic.com (a GoDaddy company apparently). The price was fairly cheap, 200 dollars, but zero interest after a couple of weeks. Is this just reflective of the large numbers for sale or is there a better avenue?

Star Wars: Andor The prequel series to Rogue One. It starts slowly but spins up by episode 3. I enjoyed it but perhaps it says something that my two favorite characters were his very likable droid and the flawed Empire officer. 7/10

Archangel BBC mini series from 2005. Daniel Craig plays a history professor in search of some of Stalin's documents. Twisty Russian set thriller that gives the original series of Condor a run for it's money. 8/10

Obi-Wan Kenobi Slow with a morose main character, 'I'm not the man I was 10 years ago'. Better than The Book of Boba Fett, not as good as the Mandalorian. 7/10 The Orville season 3 The Star Trek alternative seems to have more ideas and be better written than say the wincingly bad second season of Picard. 7/10

Halo Generic American-centric militaristic sci-fi. Big budget with nice effects but overall a bit lacklustre. 7/10

Raised by Wolves S2 The story of a group of children raised by two androids, set against the backdrop of a war between religious and atheist cultures (executive producer Ridley Scott). It begins, as with S1, with great visuals but a so so storyline. However with eps 4 and 5 there is a sudden change of pace, with aspects reminiscent of Prometheus.

The Book of Boba Fett Episodes 1-4 were so so, but 5 and 6 were essentially episodes of The Mandalorian, with it's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly vibe. About half of 6 also featured a young Luke, impressive SFX.

A Discovery of Witches S3 Deborah Harkness's story of the forbidden affair between a vampire and a witch returns to contemporary intrigue after a weak second season.

The Witcher S2 Henry Cavill's wry dispatcher of monsters returns but this season is a step down from the first.

Foundation Asimov's seminal series, produced by Apple TV. An odd mix of the dull and the wonderful, I ended up FF about half of each episode. 6/10 Invasion Apple TV 'Earth is visited by an alien species that threatens humanity's existence'. Sam Neill, big budget, what could go wrong? Nothing much seems to happen. 2/10

No Time to Die Cary Joji Fukunaga's direction gives the movie a really fresh and edgy feel. Combined with Daniel Craig's Bond, with a fading machismo harness, makes it one of the best ever.

Many thanks, will check them out

I have a large Sheffield silver plated tray I'm trying to value. The only marking it has are similar to a hallmark, might anyone recognize the symbols?

Dune 2021 The 1984 version is one of my fave pieces of cinema, and also here the book has been divided into two, so some mixed feelings going into the preview. However it nails the scale, the characterization is precise and the graphics are both intriguing and inspiring. Wonderful, 9/10

Just got the preview installed. Quite like it, marginally less annoying than Windows 10. Would like to image it - normally I have used Clonezilla, but it is on an M2 drive and not sure if that will work, can anyone recommend a free alternative?

Thanks for that, it's an MSI B450M Pro with the 3600. It's got the latest BIOS (May 21) so it looks like the UEFI CSM setting. Unfortunately I went for an M2 drive rather than a SATA to reduce cabling, and having installed Windows having left it on the default CSM setting, I now can't flip to UEFI secure boot (it just boots into the BIOS) so looks like a reinstall ..

Tried for the Windows 11 preview but the Windows Update insider page stated it didn't meet the minimum requirements. Slightly odd as the specs are Ryzen 5 3600, 16GB, Radeon RX550 and the Microsoft tpm.msc tool reporting the TPM 2.0 is available. Unfortunately Microsoft's Windows 11 Compatibility tool has been temp withdrawn.

A Channel 4 documentary yesterday, Wuhan ‘lab leak’, featured several eminent scientists and pretty much stated it came out of the Wuhan lab. The gist was when a organism jumps species, in the first month it mutates to become more infectious in that species. Not the case with Covid. It was also stated the lab was doing controversial 'gain of function' work on it. GOF is where, to anticipate future threats, an organism is enhanced. The lab had funding from the US and China for this and was only using level 2 security protocols. https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/wuhan-lab-leak-explosive-channel-4-documentary-provides-compelling-evidence-supporting-covid-origin-theory-1161167

Many thanks, ended up with a Radeon RX550 from a mate. The advice on the TPM was spot on, I had enabled it in the BIOS but that then reported no devices available. After above, when I checked in Device Manager there it was, guess the BIOS may have been referring to the unused board socket.

Thanks for the replies, great. Windows 11 will need Direct X 12 so that will be a factor. Now for the TPM (another thing I assumed)

Building a new PC (Ryzen 2600, non gaming) and made the rookie mistake of thinking that the motherboard VGA meant it had onboard graphics so need a cheap and cheerful video card. There seem a bewildering selection of both new and S/H on Ebay for around 30.00 Any advice welcome!

So Anyway, John Cleese I was curious what produced such a funny man. He comes across not so much as angry but rather frank and compassionate and tells some great stories. His old teacher had gone to Oxford hoping to become a scholar and was thrilled to discover one of his tutors was to be a famous philosopher, R G Collingwood. Hoping to make a good impression, he researched an insightful and original question for their first meeting. Apparently, without pausing, Collingwood told him (without looking round) that if he would go to the bookcase behind him and from the second shelf up, take the sixth book from the left, the one with the red cover, and then turn to page 134, the fourth paragraph would answer his question. It did.

Palm Springs 7/10 Time loop movie about two people at a wedding. Funny and by taking a relationship out of sequential time, it addresses some fundamental relationship questions.

Infinite 6/10 Liked the premise, some individuals on Earth are able to remember their previous lives, split into two warring factions. There is also an impressive budget and Chiwetel Ejiofor as the antagonist, but somehow it fails to engage. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6654210