RunawayTrain

[RunawayTrain]

I missed yesterday’s :(

Today’s was annoying, the background was completely not what I thought it was At All.

04/05/2022 

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2/05/2022

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*Shame mode* I don’t mind thinking it could have been them going into the Android shopping channel area in Trojan, but getting the wrong series to start was a poor show.

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1/05/2022

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Knew exactly what it showed from the third guess but couldn’t place it. I get a lot of the Dave era muddled up too but this series is definitely my weakest. I remember moments but can’t place them very well.

VII is slightly easier to deduce at least (mainly ‘do I remember it or not?’!).

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Oh that’s fabulous!

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The designations of the expanoids (Twentica) were very obviously Borg-inspired, but other similarities hadn’t specifically dawned on me such as the mechanical modifications, the red lasers on the helmets (like Borg ocular implants often have), the implied transporting ability (there’s a whoosh just before they appear in the bar), the rapid expansion of their population, their vocal modulators … I had always felt they were a sort of comedy Borg but hadn’t quite stopped to consider why before.

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Aha, well the “every time there’s a huge change in aesthetic or continuity with a new series, it’s a new universe” theory is a whole other can of worms. Personally I’m not a fan. It’s much more satisfying to know that all of the episodes definitely happened to the current cast (certain disfavoured series notwithstanding), and the contradictions are just fodder for engaging fan discussions.

Ugh, same here, otherwise it rather feels like cheating.  I’m not a fan of when sci-fi shows do that sort of bait and switch, usually a dramatic episode with their core characters then reveal actually they were an alternate version – it cheapens any preceding drama, always makes it feel hollow to me.  Alternate versions of characters are interesting to explore but not in the complete absence of the original ones.

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I have never seen Blade Runner, absolutely no clue what it’s about, no idea about Berni Inn and nor do I know who Doug McClure is (but I know Troy McClure).  Quayle was a reference I needed explaining too.  Tbh the Reagan mask I only understood via having seen the Spitting Image puppet shortly after getting into Red Dwarf – obviously I know who Reagan was but until a couple of years ago would not have been able to identify what he looked like. 

I’m sure there are references that have passed me by (Berni Inn apparently is one!, Cinzano Bianco being another until it came up on G&T) and there have been others that I knew or suspected were references but didn’t fully understand.

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I’m aware of Inland Revenue, but I started working full time, in an accounts department at the age of 17 in 2005.  I’ve only ever personally and professionally dealt with HMRC.  It’s actually crazy to think I started just at the time it changed and sort of don’t know anything else other than it did used to be Inland Revenue.  To the point I would have thought HMRC exited longer before I became working aged.

I don’t think the joke wouldn’t land if you didn’t know who Inland Revenue were.  Anyone from outside the UK watching would presumably just have to have a stab at understanding the joke (though American’s have the advantage of having Internal Revenue Service), the same as anyone who grew up only with HMRC.  

It’s just a future, spacey, tax revenue collection office.

No, I agree the joke would still work, just maybe knowing the play on the name of an existing institution gives it a slight bit more depth than simply having plucked a name from nowhere.

I’m 26 and I don’t really know what Inland Revenue is, I could sort of infer that they’re some sort of debt collection agency, though. I didn’t even register the name “Outland Revenue”, just assuming that the joke was he owed the tax man money. In fact I was so young when I first watched it I probably barely registered anything. It was just a series of wacky things happening.

Inland Revenue was ‘the taxman’, now Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.  (Income tax, customs charges, VAT, National Insurance contributions, etc.)

I’m quite surprised by both these responses, actually, and interesting to hear such different perspectives.  I recall seeing the Inland Revenue letterhead as a child (I’m in my early 30s) and it wasn’t until in my 20s that I learned of HMRC, then took slightly longer to make the connection that HMRC had actually replaced IR.

That said, on one hand people still make reference to DSS which I’ve only ever known as DWP from having to sign on in my teens, and then as the complete opposite there are people (usually younger) who have basically never heard of either DWP, HMRC or their predecessors because they’ve never really needed to know.

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This is more of a wondering than an observation, but it’s also not an in-universe unanswered question, so.  It struck me that the ‘Outland Revenue’ joke might land a bit differently with audience members who are too young to remember Inland Revenue.  Probably only a minute percentage, but we do know there are some *very* young audience members (HMRC was formed in 2005).

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Maybe Chris just doesn’t wish anyone a happy 2022, he wants us all to be miserable.

Or perhaps he’s just given up wishing altogether, after the last couple of years.  

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So many historical references to posts or users being nominated for the so-called “hall of fame status”. It’s only natural to wonder “Where is this mythical Ganymede & Titan Hall of Fame? I’ve never seen it!”.
Well I have the answer – it’s the example text in the search bar. It’s an extremely exclusive club.

Ooooooh that’s very cool!

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We’d be asking “Who cares? Neither Peter Davison nor The Brittas Empire have any connection to Red Dwarf, so why should we have a thread asking this question on a Red Dwarf-centred fansite?” 

Depends whether Chris Barrie had still been considered/in the running, and whether any of us had that knowledge.

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It’s not really my area, or any of my business, but it looks like that domain’s been owned since at least 1999 as a placeholder and they’ve just decided to start using it.

It’s looked like that for a couple of years at least (can’t quite remember when I first visited it).  The Wayback Machine shows it was certainly a placeholder until 2016, then the captures in 2018 and 2021 are broken links – but I definitely visited when I first got back into Red Dwarf, before the pandemic.

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@Jason

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One thing is for sure, Jeff Combes couldn’t have existed if it wasn’t for Chris Barrie. 

I’m pretty sure his parents paid their part.

Errr … interesting implications, there!

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I really like Voyager 😔

I do too, normally.  That’s why it was so weird I was struggling with it.  The ones I watched all the way through I really enjoyed, and now at series 4 I’m only skipping a few rather than most, feeling much more at home with it.

I wonder if anyone has ever counted how many different characters Chris has played over the course of the show. I’d bet it’s way more than anyone else, even if you discount all the doubles of Rimmer.

He’s the Jeff Combs of Red Dwarf … or is Jeff Combs the Chris Barrie of Star Trek? 🤔

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@Jason

Oh poop, that was supposed to be a gif and I’d forgotten we have to download and attach – but I can’t find the attachment button *sigh*

Anyway, it was just Holly saying “magnets” in response to Jack and Daniel popping up on the thread.

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*sighs* Ah, Voyager.  It was my first Trek love, yet a recent rewatch attempt ended up boring me so I’ve had to skip ahead to series 3 in an attempt to find episodes I don’t remember so well.  We’ll see how it goes.  Such a weird experience, usually I relish familiarity and I’m not one to easily get bored either.

[/end off-topic.]

Red Dwarf has never bored me, obviously.

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It’s the Remastered version of The End when he runs through Cat and they add that stupid sound effect as though he’s smashed into something. 

Ohhh I missed where you said ‘the very first episode’, oops (either that or misunderstood and thought you meant the first ep of BtE).  Yes that was a right smeg-up in the remastering!

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That’s weird, I’ve just loaded it and everything was pretty instant for me. Our hosts were throttling connections but that should be sorted now…

Ah, no it was me – finally worked out how to clear just my cache (on mobile) and they’ve loaded after refreshing :)

Edit: no, I spoke too soon.  Some have loaded in the 2nd half but most haven’t.  I can long-press on the ‘broken page’ icons to open in a new tab and view, but there are still some blank spaces (the writing in the posts makes it obvious there should be something there).

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To be fair, depending on the version you watch, he does perform a karate move in the very first episode that’s so powerful that it causes objects offscreen to audibly topple over despite the fact that he’s an intangible hologram. So maybe he IS a judo instructor, both bronze and silver belt.  

I don’t recall that scene, but surely in blue means he’s in hard light mode.

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Mahhhhhhhhvellous

Edit: my previous edit appears not have worked either *facepalm*

Anyway, that really didn’t quote at all.  Was in response to Dave’s Brittas meme.

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I got all excited with this page loading properly … but nope, previous page still won’t show at least half of the pics.  Some come up with the ‘broken page’ symbol and others don’t show anything at all, just white space.

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In Only the Good, why did they have to source an extremely long piece of paper to write the name of the antidote on? Why didn’t they just write it on regular paper and make use of the line breaks as an aid to memorisation?

Also, shouldn’t the paper have become extremely short when it crossed over to a ‘mirror’ universe, obeying the universal law of Rimmer’s penis?

In the mirror universe it still had a very long chemical written on it, but the opposite.

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It’s gorgeous!

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You’re clearly not on Imgur then

To the extent that up until now I assumed it was simply an image hosting site.

A handful of forums, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, can’t say I’ve seen any of those in a very long time. Maybe we just move in very different circles.

In fairness I used it only for image hosting for years, until they made it not work on mobile without the app, then when I needed to use it for hosting after that I got somewhat sucked in *shame mode*

I don’t see many actual memes on the other platforms – it likely does indeed depend on one’s social circles.

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Wonderful.

Culture moves so fast these days, doesn’t it? Haven’t seen a single one of those formats in years now.

You’re clearly not on Imgur then – at least half are in regular use there.

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I don’t know about anyone else, but for me mobile Chrome has serious difficulty loading all the Smega-Drive images on this page (and others like it). It adds quite the element of suspense to checking out hot new Red Dwarf memes.

Mine was also having difficulty, I missed many of them on this page in particular, but interestingly they’ve all loaded today.

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“Now, on to Dr Bob Porkman, father of the condom that calls you back…” Listening to the latest DwarfCast I realised I have no idea what this means.

I actually assumed that if the woman ended up pregnant anyway, it would be able to get the guy’s contact info and send them a message (or ring them, ‘calling’). I hadn’t thought beyond that though, to the *how* of it.
But thinking a bit now, if there’s any need to keep it to contact him later, ew.

That would also imply quite a low level of confidence in its efficacy, actually, to go to all the trouble of developing it; either that ir just really really valued the accidental life in making sure the kid would have both parents on the scene to provide even if they’re not together.

I guess keeping in touch after a one-night stand makes more sense, even just for closure? (I don’t know, this is not even remotely my area) rather than never having any contact ever again.

Could it be useful for drunken ONS, so they know who the other was after that night? Problematic though, given that drunkenness is not conducive to consent.

I think I subconsciously assumed it transmits the information to a central database all part of the oberall system, so there’s a record of the partners (facilitating the ‘calling back’), and the condom itself can be thrown away. Anything involving needing to keep it would be utterly ick, unless it does the calling back from in the bin the next day or something.

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I liked it. And honestly knowing there were production problems just felt like, ‘typical Red Dwarf’! (Finding out the extent of them in the documentary, obviously there were far more serious problems than usual, but before that, I mean.)

I will mention that in my mind Lemons is mixed up in series XI, and Officer Rimmer is lumped together with series X – to the point where I actually had to look up the episode list for X, and then saw my mistake.

My battery and brain are both on 2% so no more musings for now.

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as for the Skutters, that’s what makes them funny, at least to me.  All the things that voice technology is wasted on:  the vending machines, the toaster, even the toilet Lister accidentally activates early in S1, and it wasn’t given to the one thing that would actually benefit from it.  It’s the sort of mismanagement we’d recognize in our present persisting into the future in spite of the advance of science, because that’s kinda how humans have always been. The future shown in Red Dwarf isn’t dystopian, just recognizably, plausibly sub-optimal.  It’s one of the things I’ve always really liked about the show (and maybe something a comedy is best poised to depict).

I think it’s great that Hayridge has been such an active part of representing Red Dwarf in panels on the Convention circuit in recent years even in spite of not having been on the show in so long, and have come to miss her take on Holly as much as I had missed Lovett’s original Holly back when she first replaced him.  I suppose I can always keep fingers crossed that in the next Red Dwarf special it will finally be her turn again, if she wants one.

Very good points.

With the fandom events, I tend to forget that Hattie’s not one of the core cast and only remember when I watch a series without her.

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Yeah, it’s a gorgeous looking episode, it’s just a shame that it doesn’t quite hang together right. Knowing about a past plot without the main characters knowing doesn’t really work, especially with any dramatic intrigue ruined by a Kryten best guess. I suppose it aims to be too many things when there’s potentially either a bigger or smaller episode that would work much better.

You’ve hit on my main frustration with the episode. We don’t really see them *discovering* what’s going on. Could have done with an extra 15 mins for that (but at the show’s peak, I’m sure it could easily have been done in time). I wonder how Samsara actually started out, whether anything significant was cut along the way?

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Whilst the “stuck in a lift” episode became Samsara, and the part of Samsara that is likely predominately from that idea (the Cat and Lister scenes with Cat just being dumb for 5 mins) are generally disliked by a lot of people … I hae never taken issue with it, I find the humour funny and if a little unbelievable then so what, and I’d genuinely quite like to see that idea better realised.  i.e. a Marooned but with Lister and Cat.  There’s always a lot of comedy to be mined between those two (you get a glimpse of it in Duct Soup) yet it comes so few and far between.  I’d really like to see 25mins of those two together and how that convo would play out.

Even though I know what’s coming, it all still makes me laugh. I think it’s partly the dialogue which I actually find believable for Cat to be so confidently wrong, partly the delivery (nothing special, just appropriate for the scene, no overacting) and partly the setting. Maybe I’m easily pleased but them being surrounded by skeletons with glow sticks shoved between bones just tickles me. I laugh at the scene every time, it’s probably my favourite part of the episode.

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It has taken 22 years, but perhaps it has finally found its purpose: meme fodder!

Which possibly answers the Inquisitor in quinn_drummer’s post which I can’t seem to quote

Your Red Dwarf Memes for Safe and Courteous Disposal Out the Nearest Airlock

(All the VIII memes here and on the other thread have had me laughing out loud – you guys are great!)

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Per “The Beginning”, the simulant berserker generals in charge of death ships are “cross-bred” to produce particularly violent simulants – cross-bred with what?

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In Lemons, when Lister asks “where are we going to get copper” and Rimmer suggests Britain, the bowl the lemons have just been decanted from is clearly in shot and clearly made of copper.

Haha, oh dear!

It just dawned on me that Cat’s non-recognition of the position of the skeletons on Samsara is probably a reference to him still being a virgin – not just him being naïve, but naïve for that reason.
(I didn’t actually get the joke until the third or fourth time I watched either.)

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I … *takes deep breath* actually enjoy some bits from it. I even laugh at some of the jokes.

However, as I’ve said before, had I been a proper fan at the time* and had to wait a decade for any more Red Dwarf, my feelings towards it would have been quite different. But as things stand, on the whole I tend to view it as a frustrating blip in the timeline (frustrating because of so much wasted potential) and thank goodness we got some good Dwarf from X onwards.

Oh and we got bunk room scenes, which were a bit of comfort after VII. Also the first time I watched it through, I was just relieved to have Rimmer back for VIII.

(*the first time I saw Red Dwarf at all was with a friend on their DVDs between BtE and X, and I remember really enjoying it but we lost contact for a bit and I had no way of watching it myself. I caught some of X-XII over the years, but it still didn’t capture me until I watched the BBC era again all the way through on Netflix.)

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I can’t quite believe this hasn’t been brought up in this thread before, but as it’s on our minds – the lyrics to Tongue Tied.

Whenever I watch the episode, …

The nonsense lyrics are sometimes transcribed oddly. E.g. “It sounded like, “Noo-noony-nee-noo”” on the DVD, but there’s surely a B sound in there.

I do not envy the task of perfecting these captions on The Smega-Drive.

I tend to sing that bit as ‘nee-noong-a-nee-noo’.

I’ve listened to the full song way more than I’ve watched the episode and my hearing has always been pretty naff for deciphering lyrics, but I’ve not had any huge problems with this song. It would be interesting to compare the subtitles between the full video (on the series II extras) and the episode, to see if the full video subs are any better. I don’t recall whether they were helpful or if lip-reading filled in some of the gaps; it’s been a while since initially trying to work out lyrics.

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Oh, I thought it was a combination of both – he needed to calm down but the way he says it also makes me think he’s disgusted with himself, and the liquid oxygen is an exaggeration to emphasise just how much he doesn’t want to be excited by that thought again (because Psirens rather than people).

[RunawayTrain]

In Marooned, Lister educates Rimmer about mayday/m’aider being a French term, a bit condescendingly for someone who doesn’t know what an iguana is. Later in the episode, Rimmer gives the Armée du Nord a French eulogy.

Did they swap the mayday gag between characters at some point? Is that why they mistakenly have Rimmer operating the console?

I actually think it’s in-character, Rimmer knowing a somewhat formal phrase (I want to say pompous, not the phrase per se but his reasons for knowing it) but not a piece of more-relevant trivia, whereas Lister picked the m’aidez/mayday up and retained it because it is sometimes applicable in real life.

That said, one would have thought iguanas would be relevant to his dream of living in Fiji, but it’s also kind of in-character for him to miss relevant bits of info as well. Maybe he was so focused on his idea of a farm that he didn’t really take note of what would actually already be there. (Or perhaps in the future they are extinct, at least in Fiji anyway, and therefore no longer relevant to his Fijian farm dream?)

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I always thought McIntyre’s funeral song was

‘See you later Alligator’ but turns out is was ‘Here we go here we go here we go’

This rings some bell – I think it was one of them on broadcast but they couldn’t get a licence for it for VHS release, so used the other one because they could get the licence for it.

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Those asteroid holes are an excellent spot!

 

In Confidence and Paranoia, Craig Ferguson’s accent during the scene on the exterior of the ship sounds more Scottish to me*, although the last couple of lines before he takes his helmet off are back into American.  Might have to go back and listen through headphones to check.

(*I know he is Scottish :p )

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Red Dwarf Liquid sounds like a concept I wouldn’t mind watching for maybe one or two eps, but it would need an extraordinarily good writer to make it worth 2 series!

 

I had a Red Dwarf dream recently and thought of this thread, but didn’t get round to noting it down and now I can’t remember anything about it at all.  Nothing, not even whether it was about the cast or the characters :(

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I think the clue there could be ‘sustain’ – so they perhaps can temporarily have another, but Rimmer was not going to risk it back in Balance of Power.  The crew didn’t think he was coming back so didn’t give it a second thought, and he’s so distressed and distracted when he does return that he doesn’t get chance to whinge about it endangering him.  Can imagine he likely moaned about it afterwards though, saying they should have waited until the holoship had gone and they were sure he wouldn’t need to come back.

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I haven’t watched the commentaries for a while but one moment I particularly enjoy is Chris Barrie pointing out in … I think one of the series II eps (maybe Queeg, or Kryten) the rivets on the wall that weren’t repainted.  Just an absurd level of detail to notice, yet very relatable for me anyway.

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I don’t tend to have this problem, once I’ve worked out where I’ve seen or heard the actor before.  The only time really is if I’ve been immersed in something and then immediately see an actor from that on another show – happens a lot with Stargate, especially as there are so many episodes and some of the characters cross iterations too, and Star Trek for similar reasons.  Not so much with Red Dwarf though, probably because I spend more time watching the actors as themselves (e.g. convention panels, behind-the-scenes features, etc.) than as the characters.

 

I do enjoy seeing character actors popping up here and there though (which is what I thought this thread would be, from the title).  So off the top of my head, the actor playing alternate!Lister in The Inquisitor also plays Danny-with-a-criminal-record-for-bigamy in The Brittas Empire (I think the ep is ‘Stop Thief’).  David Ross is the pirate doing the birthday party (Snap Happy); Gordon Salkild is the annoyed man waiting to swim with the dolphin (Mr Brittas Falls in Love); and I only very recently realised Lucy Briers appeared in both – as Harrison (Holoship) and one of the visiting staff from the other leisure centre (Two Little Boys).

 

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So this is actually one time they really (unintentionally, in the real world) did right by Kochanski, not torturing her by either being unable to be physical in a relationship, or potentially be pursued by someone she no longer loves for the rest of her life – especially as Lister is the last human alive and is therefore *highly* unlikely to find anyone else to love.

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I’ve heard of this, plenty of times now, but still never *heard* it! Might have to take a look at some of the YouTube links on the thread, now it’s been revived, and maybe I will finally hear it …

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Not sure if this has been asked already, but how do they know the triplicated strawberries (and therefore
any triplicated items) had a limited lifespan? I’ve not watched the deleted scenes for a while so I can’t remember if anything was cut that explained or showed it.

[Author]

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