[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

Well, 'cos I thought it might be illegal - like scanning copies of Tolkien's works into word files & stuff, so even though we have a DVD recorder connected up to our vhs recorder & I could just copy it over, I swear if its not legal I never done it.

Of course, if Bb is correct then I may do it - but if its not legal to do it & I did do it, it was because Bb told me it was ok, & I can't be held responsible & I think Bb should be arrested for corrupting an innocent Tolkien fan & have the book thrown at her.

I definitely did not do it one Sunday afternoon 2 months ago - unless it is legal to have done it, in which case....

Hope that clears things up.

I swear I have never heard davem sound quite so loyerly. He could put Sauce or Mithadan, our two resident (or in one case absent) loyers to shame! The things one learns to imitate here on the Downs.

But don't you be tying yerself to my coattails there. In my country making a personal copy for one's own private use is not illegal. I don't know how many times I have to tell people this. So if it's a book you want thrown at me, well, make it a Tolkien book, please, preferably one not copied by any illicit means in your country. Or if a book is not available, why any form of digital formatting would accomplish said punishment.

So if you came over here and did it, or sent it to me to do, then it clearly would not have been/be illegal, whatever act of consensual activity you may or may not have committed one Sunday afternoon 2 months ago. Not that I'm saying I have the technical gadgetry to accomplish this feat of conservation.

Now, were you to make more than one copy, number even not specified, to share with your fellow Tolkeeners here on the Downs, now that even here would constitute an infringement, which is why I didn't suggest it in the first place, even though you did advise us to get ahold of it. Of course, it would be very tempting, especially after explaining to us how interesting the interview is, to be able to provide us with the means of seeing the interview. Which is not to say make multiple copies. But you could loan out your copy--Lal having made her own personal copy so you have a fall back in case Royal Mail is just not reliable.

I think I'm drifiting here but you probably can intuit where things may or may not have been leaning especially after advising us of how cool DVD recorders are.

Originally Posted by Lal

The Fourth Age was the age of Men. Elves and Dwarves were diminishing, and Men were forbidden from entering The Shire. The Istari had gone. The Orcs were being hunted down. As far as we know, the Oliphaunts were all wiped out. No, I'm sorry to say that the Fourth Age just couldn't cut it in comparison to those Ages which had gone before.

There are a lot of books, films, comedy series and so on where I feel like I would love to see more, but in many cases being saturated with more and more 'product' just results in diminishing quality. If they had made more episodes of Fawlty Towers, Father Ted and The Royle Family then I think each series would have got less and less amusing. You only have to look at soap operas or series such as The Wheel of Time, which all seem interminable with the same plots being revised in the case of soaps (how many times have Ken and Deirdre split up?) to see why more is not necessarily A Good Thing.

Were all the Istari gone? I think Child and Durelin are using Radagast in their new 4th Age RPG.

And I have to say, apropo of British Television generally, or at least the sort that gets imported over here, that the really brilliant thing is that they are produced with an end in sight. This is one reason why, with some exceptions, I find HoMe to be such a, well, saturation point. Which I believe brings to me to one of the rare times--LMP take note--that davem and I agree.