Current Watching

[Hot Pepsi]

Yeah, it was supposedly based on Platonic ideals and invented by Germans.

But by the standards of prep-school hazing of the day, that wasn’t especially bad. I can remember reading in old books about “sports for boys” that cold showers made one stronger. So it wasn’t just hazing for the sake of it. It was just one of those unscientific dumb ideas people had in those days. Until fairly recently, a lot of coaches believed training without water breaks increased endurance. (It does not.)

But for posh kids who were used to having everything done for them, learning how to do manual labor, and work together on service projects would make them less dickish, potentially.

Not sure about the daily runs, but they don’t do the cold showers any more. And it has girls. And they have a big sailboat so everyone can learn seamanship. That would be kinda cool. Still probably pretty dickish.

But Eton seems all about telling students that they’re better than everyone else and deserve to run the country and to step on anyone they have to to get it. Rugby and the Wall game and all that seem to be designed specifically to develop a social Darwinist attitude.

Fucking top hats. Really?

[Amor de Cosmos]

All public/private schools in the UK are irrevocably and terminally fucked. La Signora taught and was a "scholar" (never student or pupil) at one of the oldest proto-hippie all vegetarian schools in England. Boarders had to have a cold bath every morning — and when I say a cold bath, I mean that literally: one bath for boys, one bath for girls. It was, apparently, an "incentive" for children to get up quickly. The slowest got to stew in everyone else's juice, so to speak.

[Lang Spoon]

Yeuch.

[Lang Spoon]

Douglas Henshall is outstanding in 'Shetland.'

Orphans directed by Peter Mullan maybe 20 year back, Henshall is great in that.

[slackster]

Being stuck indoors most of the week due to the Beast From The East, and feeling obliged to tackle the usual mountain of ironing we’d allowed to stack up, I was looking for something to watch that didn’t need my full attention. And found it in Queer Eye on netflix.

A reboot of an old show, with five gay guys in Georgia giving a procession of makeovers to a bunch of blokes stuck in ruts. Ignoring the fashion tips that seemed to consist mostly of rolling your shirt sleeves up above your biceps, I found it all rather lovely and life-affirming watching the subjects emerge from their shells.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

I’ve just watched episode 4/4 of the series "British Empire: Heroes and Villains" (episode was shown a few days ago). Good programme really, will defo try to watch the rest of the series (which doesn’t appear to still be on BBC4, the series was originally broadcast in Jan-Feb 2017 I think and this episode 4 aired this week may have been a one-off, but hopefully it's watchable elsewhere or available on DVD).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...s-and-villains

Less than 100 years ago, the British ruled a quarter of the planet and one in five of the global population. Once, people were proud to call themselves imperialists, but now, to many, that seems like a badge of shame.

In this Timewatch guide, David Olusoga examines not whether the British Empire was a force for good or ill, but rather how it has been portrayed on British television over the last 70 years. Drawing on decades of the documentary series Timewatch, plus many other gems from the BBC archive, David sees how Britain's Caribbean colonies grew rich on slave labour, how chaos gripped India post-independence, and how Africa was plundered for her mineral wealth.

David investigates how film-makers through the years have represented the actions and legacy of Britain's period as the world's ultimate superpower. It used to be said that the sun would never set on the British Empire - now, long after it's gone, the arguments surrounding it are very far from being settled.

[Hot Pepsi]

All public/private schools in the UK are irrevocably and terminally fucked. La Signora taught and was a "scholar" (never student or pupil) at one of the oldest proto-hippie all vegetarian schools in England. Boarders had to have a cold bath every morning — and when I say a cold bath, I mean that literally: one bath for boys, one bath for girls. It was, apparently, an "incentive" for children to get up quickly. The slowest got to stew in everyone else's juice, so to speak.

New ideas and innovation shouldn’t be discouraged in education but some ideas are just dumb. This sort of thing, and worse, afflicts public education as well. The hope is that accountability to a properly elected and competent school board and standards created by actual experts can prevent dumb ideas and abuses from taking root, but it frequently doesn’t work that way.

I don’t know much about the oversight of private schools - in the US or the UK. I never went to a private school and am generally opposed to the whole idea, though in some cases I can see why parents would feel like that is the only reasonable choice.

[Hot Pepsi]

I’ve just watched episode 4/4 of the series "British Empire: Heroes and Villains" (episode was shown a few days ago). Good programme really, will defo try to watch the rest of the series (which doesn’t appear to still be on BBC4, the series was originally broadcast in Jan-Feb 2017 I think and this episode 4 aired this week may have been a one-off, but hopefully it's watchable elsewhere or available on DVD).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...s-and-villains

That’s intriguing.

It’s a difficult counterfactual because it’s very hard to imagine how the world would have turned out differently if Britain (or France or Spain or The Netherlands, etc) hadn’t built an empire, not least of all because there were so many other ambitious chiefs, kings, emperors, and assorted other dickheads who would have come along and done a lot of the same damage.

But that doesn’t make what did happen morally justifiable. Empire is a bad thing in general born out of the worst impulses in humanity and it inevitably causes a lot of misery.

Along the way, it may also spread some good things to peoples who didn’t have them otherwise,* but giving away those technologies, ideas, and bits of cultural, like cricket, would have been better than imposing them or only sharing them when their was a something in it for the empire or it’s profiteers. So that doesn’t justify all the bad stuff empires do.


*https://youtu.be/2ozEZxOsanY

[Patrick Thistle]

I'm late to it, I know, but I'm enjoying Comedians in Cars getting Coffee on Netflix.

[ad hoc]

I can't watch Seinfeld now he's been to How To Kill A Palestinian camp

[Pérou Flaquettes]

That’s intriguing.

It’s a difficult counterfactual because it’s very hard to imagine how the world would have turned out differently if Britain (or France or Spain or The Netherlands, etc) hadn’t built an empire, not least of all because there were so many other ambitious chiefs, kings, emperors, and assorted other dickheads who would have come along and done a lot of the same damage.

But that doesn’t make what did happen morally justifiable. Empire is a bad thing in general born out of the worst impulses in humanity and it inevitably causes a lot of misery.

Along the way, it may also spread some good things to peoples who didn’t have them otherwise,* but giving away those technologies, ideas, and bits of cultural, like cricket, would have been better than imposing them or only sharing them when their was a something in it for the empire or it’s profiteers. So that doesn’t justify all the bad stuff empires do.


*https://youtu.be/2ozEZxOsanY

You're right but I never wrote that the Empire was a good thing or morally justifiable or whatever else, I simply posted a suggestion about 1 episode of a programme which I found well made and interesting, that is it, it doesn't mean that this particular programme is flawless, I'm sure it has its faults (have you watched it?), for starters I would have written a different conclusion.

[Toby Gymshorts]

I can't watch Seinfeld now he's been to How To Kill A Palestinian camp

This.

[Hot Pepsi]

You're right but I never wrote that the Empire was a good thing or morally justifiable or whatever else, I simply posted a suggestion about 1 episode of a programme which I found well made and interesting, that is it, it doesn't mean that this particular programme is flawless, I'm sure it has its faults (have you watched it?), for starters I would have written a different conclusion.

I didn’t say you said it. I was just discussing the idea in general so I could link that bit from Life of Brian.

[Hot Pepsi]

I can't watch Seinfeld now he's been to How To Kill A Palestinian camp

Yeah

[Patrick Thistle]

OK. I'm out of the loop a bit here. Where did Jerry Seinfeld go?

[ad hoc]

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/no...camp-563245312

[Patrick Thistle]

Oh, that's not good. I feel very disappointed.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

In fairness, when did he ever give the impression of being an overflowing wellspring of empathy? That's one of the biggest problems I had with the show. It's hard to laugh at a character based show when you think that one of the characters is a cunt. (George is a comedy gobshite, Kramer is an annoying prick. Elaine's greatest weakness is her choice of friends, but Jerry is an obvious cunt.)

A reboot of an old show, with five gay guys in Georgia giving a procession of makeovers to a bunch of blokes stuck in ruts. Ignoring the fashion tips that seemed to consist mostly of rolling your shirt sleeves up above your biceps, I found it all rather lovely and life-affirming watching the subjects emerge from their shells.

I have visions of Georgi Kinkladze being encouraged to ditch his tracksuit look by a bunch of guys with truly magnificent moustaches, and clothes that make even 4K have a nervous breakdown.

[Gangster Octopus]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Queen by lottery is the way to go. Buy a ticket and you and your family can have a full year with all the perks and privileges the Windsor/Saxe Coburgs have enjoyed for a couple centuries.

To do it properly, you then have to be sacrificed to ensure that the crops grow...

[WOM]

Work in a bit of VR and you've got the makings of a Black Mirror episode there...

[Ginger Yellow]

It's hard to laugh at a character based show when you think that one of the characters is a cunt.

I can think of a lot of shows for which this isn't true.

[My Name Is Ian]

I found it all rather lovely and life-affirming watching the subjects emerge from their shells.

I've been watching Queer Eye recently too, and can confirm that it is exactly this.

[My Name Is Ian]

The other thing I've been watching recently has been Rules of Engagement, a slightly odd drama series from 1989 with Kenneth Cranham, Cathy Tyson and Derek Fowlds set in Portsmouth about a murder enquiry against a backdrop of WWIII starting. It's all on YouTube.

[Amor de Cosmos]

To do it properly, you then have to be sacrificed to ensure that the crops grow...

The contemporary version of that is having your personal life ripped to shreds in the Mail and Sun. Which is a given, of course.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I can think of a lot of shows for which this isn't true.

I've a feeling we're not talking about quite the same thing. I don't mean a dislikable character like Rigsby in rising Damp. I mean a central character that gives you the same cold clammy feelings that Michael Gove does.