Aw yeah, I also love browsing the internet on meth!
I laughed way too hard at this.
UK is still a member of the Council of Europe and ECHR. It's confusing, but those are distinct from EU, which the UK is not a member of anymore.
Libraries love this one little trick.
Oh that sweet, sweet confirmation bias hit. Nothing like it!
You know, distrohopping is overrated. If your distro works for you now, you don't really need to switch. Other distros may have slight differences, but all in all it usually is just changing some problem for another. Most distros will be fine.
Having said that, I think Debian Unstable ticks your boxes. Most rolling releases will do what you want.
This has not been my experience at all. A few crashes in a year or so of use. Apparently experiences vary.
When I was a kid, my grandfather would record cartoon movies from TV to VHS and when we visited I'd watch those. One of them was an adaptation of Animal Farm. Of course I was way too young to understand any deeper implications of the work, but it did leave a deep impression on me. It is not suitable viewing for young kids.
As an adult I read the book and I really enjoyed it. I join OP in recommending it. It is also not a long book, so it's not a serious time investment if you don't happen to enjoy it.
You can do a really slim install of Debian that should work. For DE I recommend LXQT.
If you're feeling adventurous, Alpine might be slightly lighter. It's a good distro.
Those specs are not going to get you a terribly fast experience, but my laptop runs Debian ok and it's in the same ballpark.
I am not a product for these corporations to sell.
Can't help you there, I buy CDs and lossless copies from Bandcamp and Qobuz. Those work for me.