#puff piece

"...the British Press Said that..." Puff Piece written by "Forbes" reporter who covers ENTERTAINMENT trends. Conor Murray was tasked to submit a puff piece using a "Forbes" byline: Markle’s ‘With Love, Meghan’ Renewed For Another Season—Despite Low Review Ranking

Meghan Markle and her Spare blame the United Kingdom their disastrous Netflix performance.

Mar 7, 2025 Meghan Markle’s new lifestyle Netflix series, “With Love, Meghan,” will return for a second season despite a dismal response from critics, as the series places in the top 10 of Netflix shows on the streaming platform Friday.

With Love, Meghan," a lifestyle series for Netflix, has been met with a negative critical reception. “With Love, Meghan” premiered Tuesday on Netflix, featuring eight episodes of the Duchess of Sussex inviting guests to her California home, where she cooks and engages with guests in homemaking projects. The series will return for a second season, both Netflix and Markle confirmed in Instagram posts on Friday. The renewal comes as Markle’s show has been roasted by critics, particularly in the United Kingdom, leaving it with just a 28% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and an even worse 18% audience score (though the latter system is notoriously easy to game). “With Love, Meghan” ranks as Netflix’s No. 7 show in the United States on Friday, according to the streaming service’s daily charts.

Chief Critics: Markle’s show has been torched by critics since its debut, especially in England—where Markle remains a divisive figure after she decamped the country with her husband, Prince Harry, stepping away from their royal duties—with British newspapers:

The Guardian (1 of her Meghan Markle's favorite sources)

The Independent both giving the series a one-star rating. The Independent called the series “queasy and exhausting” and like a “millennial blog come to life.”

Variety (since when is Variety British) said Markle appears “unwilling to step outside the role of perpetual A student” and “lacks similar competence” to lifestyle gurus Martha Stewart and Ina Garten.

Key Background: On “With Love, Meghan,” Markle invites guests to her home that include actress-writer Mindy Kaling, her former “Suits” co-star Abigail Spencer and celebrity chefs Roy Choi and Alice Waters. The series is one of many media ventures she and her husband have undertaken since leaving their royal duties in 2020. Harry’s blockbuster memoir, “Spare,” became the fastest-selling nonfiction book ever. The couple signed a deal with Netflix (Megafestingly) reportedly worth $100 million, for which they have produced five shows, including the 2022 “Harry & Meghan” docuseries, which was a ratings hit but prompted a mixed response from critics. Markle also hosted a short-lived podcast for Spotify, “Archetypes,” which lasted for 12 episodes before she parted ways with the streaming platform. Spotify’s head of podcasts Bill Simmons slammed Harry and Markle after her podcast ended, calling them “grifters.” actually he called them "fu-ing GRIFTERS"

Further Reading: Meghan Markle’s ‘With Love, Meghan’ Roasted By Critics—The Royal Couple’s Latest Media Venture Struggle (Forbes)

How did the crab get out of prison? And why did the crab get bad grades?

The answers to these conundrums and other clawsome jokes were among the competitors for the inaugural World’s Funniest Crab Joke competition, held by the Crab Museum in Margate to celebrate International Crab Day.

The winning gag, submitted by an anonymous joker, was: “Why did the crab cross the road? It didn’t. It used the sidewalk.”

An expert panel of judges, including the comedians Harry Hill, Rose Matafeo, Sally Phillips and Phil Wang, as well as children from Ramsgate Arts primary school, scored their favourite jokes before the totals were tallied and a winner crowned.

The only rules of the contest were that the jokes should be kept PG, and that lobsters could be mentioned in the setup of the joke, but not the “pinchline”.

Organisers said that, although most of the 700 submissions did abide by the rules, several jokes “were disqualified for scientific inaccuracy, and rather a lot for lewdness”.

In an unexpected sideways move, the crabs themselves picked the winner from the four jokes ranked highest by the judges, with the help of some tinned fish in bait bags and rolled-up pieces of paper with the jokes written on them.

The twist on the classic road-crossing formula proved triumphant, and was followed in second by another variation on a classic: “Man walks into a restaurant with a crab under his arm and says, ‘Do you make crab cakes?’ Manager answers, ‘Yes, we do.’ ‘Good,’ says the man, ‘because it’s his birthday.’”

Third place was awarded jointly to: “Why didn’t the crab help the chicken cross the road? Because it was eaten by a pelican crossing,” and: “What format do you have to save photos of crab soup on to? Floppy bisque.”

A Crab Museum spokesperson said the organisers hoped the contest might inspire people into environmental activism: “The quality and quantity of jokes this year has been astounding. We’ve been pinching ourselves since the submissions closed! That said, laughing at jokes, much like learning about crabs, can be a powerful tool to help us reassess our relationship with our environment. You’d be surprised how quickly you can go from chuckling at crab gags to letting down SUV tires. Whilst we may not have made this clear to our judges, it is in this spirit that the World’s Funniest Crab Joke competition has been organised.”

double bearded pedal, no fuzz

Seppuku FX - Digital Water

Lo-Fi Random Modulation Delay Chorus

...and hiere comes the chorus of praise:

“ The digital water – in the opinions of many, is the crown jewel of Seppuku pedals and also in the opinions of many is one of the coolest delays ever. It has the nicest cascading watery delay tones of any delay that I have ever found, and I have tried easily over 100 delays, with a preference for musical, unique-sounding delays and experimental delays - this one is truly unique, very musical, super useable. It can do several different watery delay tones that no other pedal on earth can achieve, not even close. Trust, me I've tried to coax pedal after pedal to mimic this tone.   It can make your delay tone sound like a cascading waterfall, the watery sound of a running stream or Brook, bubbles, uneven wave tides, liquidy gitches, reverse watery delay, pitch modulated watery delay, wet lo-if echo, and more pleasant unique aquatic sounds that take you far into into the ocean’s depths... among other strange sounds I can’t really describe. It can make some laser-like sounds too if you happen to be into that. On top of all of that, there is even more in the modulation department. It does a super appealing random modulation that is unlike what any other pedal on the market can do, and is very pleasing to the ears - the random modulation has no regular LFO pattern but an unpredictable, natural sounding organic randomness to it. Completely unique. Raw and natural. Makes your tones sound more like they are coming from a part of nature than an electronic device. It can also do normal sinewave/normal sounding modulation like every single other boring modulated delay for when you want that too, and it does all of the normal settings you could need to replace your analog delay if you so desire. I always have 3-5 delays on my board personally, but I would be personally very comfortable using this alone because it has so many settings. I just don't like to bend over to knob tweak that much, so this one is always set on the random watery modulation mode, and the others stay at their boring delay settings for covers etc. (although this could totally cover those sounds too). Important to note - the random modulation is totally able to be tamed. Can be subtle or extreme. VERY musical. Becasue it's unlike anything people have heard before, it's cool for recording projects. It can also be set to go all out crazy, while still remaining musical and useful with actual music, not just a noisemaker. There were quite a few iterations of this pedal from Seppuku, some had one knob, some had one knob and an LED, some had two knobs and an LED, and some had two knobs and a switch. The one with the two knobs and a switch (like this one) were the most capable and the most sophisticated, controllable, stable, and versatile - they were the final iteration of the pedal with the most controllability. All of the other versions had the watery setting/circuit “always on.”  This one has the ability to use all of the normal delay settings and take the watery tones out of the mix if you want to get normal delay tones, and it even does reverse delay.   Few were built. This version is the only one that allows you to switch the watery delay / random modulation / glitch effects on or off. In the off position, it does a whole array of tones from reverse delay, to delay with normal modulation, to digital, analog, ping pong, pan, tape, and hold. The watery delay / random modulation / glitch effects can be switched on to work with ANY of the delay modes. So you can have reverse watery random modulation delay! (Yes, it is as sweet as it sounds.) Sounds great with all of of the modes, but is particularly interesting with the reverse delay, tape delay, and the modulated delay (vintage Deluxe Memory Man type setting). The knobs allow you to fine-tune the modulation and get just the sound you want across a sweep of knob turning mystery, including those unique aquatic sound effects, as well as some unpredictable things that happen like uneven delays, gitches, white noise and bit reduction. Seppuku stopped making this pedal years ago, and the owner has publicly stated that he won’t make any pedals at all anymore. Even the Seppuku website is now shut down for good, only to become a legend, a remnant of the past. This is right up there in quirky coolness with the the Montreal Assembly 856 For Zellersasn (technically a looper, but has ridiculous delay settings, and another favorite of delay connoisseurs). This also can be used as a straight up chorus or doubling effect with or without the watery tones. The reverse delay has endless interesting musical applications. If you don’t have a reverse delay - you’re in for a treat.   Very inspiring and creativity inducing.”

blinkies handmade by me no ai and no template