Above, a publicity photo for HBO’s new costume drama series.
Today – the Ides of March – lends itself to reports about premature endings!
The Guardian is running with a disturbing report (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/mar/15/royals-and-celebrities-warned-to-watch-words-as-lip-reading-videos-go-viral) about life in the 21st Century.
Julius Caesar was famously (infamously ?) assassinated 15 March 44 BC (age 55 years) in the Curia de Pompeyo in Rome. The Guardian report is of the means of remote character assassination by a wholly unnatural combination of smartphones, the internet and the dreaded “AI” (artificial intelligence).
Of course the possibility that one’s spoken word meant for a limited invited audience reached a singular uninvited audience of a person at a distance equipped with a good pair of binoculars and an ability to lip read had existed since the invention of binoculars. Now, with the advent of “AI” members of the public equipped with smartphones (most) can access AI lip reading “Apps” to determine what a person they filmed was saying.
Now, many ordinary people may think that since they are not celebrities or Royals, they need not concern themselves with this.
Au contraire, mon ami!
The UK has widespread CCTV. The authorities will be eager to avail themselves of this technology!
George Orwell only had it half right. “Big Brother” is not only watching you. He will now be lip reading you!