Current Watching

[WOM]

The first episode of series one?

(the short answer is yes.)

Okay, finished Peaky Blinders S1. Glad we stayed with it.

[Amor de Cosmos]

It's a series that arguably gets better as it goes on, particularly after Tom Hardy shows up.

[Fussbudget]

We finished Dark on Netflix this afternoon. Dead good. Really, really dead good. I spent bits of the first couple of episodes thinking it was just a German-language version of Stranger Things with slightly older kids, but it's not. I wasn't a huge fan of the last two seconds, but not being a big fan of the last two seconds when the series is about nine and a half hours long leaves a fair bit of room for praise.

I've just finished watching this and really enjoyed it despite a few quibbles (mostly with the bagginess and so-so acting of the first couple of episodes before the plot properly kicks into gear.) I had read that it was like a cross between Stranger Things and Twin Peaks, but that strikes me as pretty lazy comparisons as it's not really anything like either of them other than the basic set up (missing kid, small town) which we move past pretty quickly.

The closest thing it reminded me of in terms of tone and atmosphere is French series Les Revenants (though I think Dark is much better), but the plot is most similar to... (don't continue reading until you're at least 3 or 4 episodes in!) [spoiler]...the best timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly Steven Moffat episodes of Doctor Who, in fact it's pretty much an extended version of Blink without the space monsters and wisecracking.

By the way hats off to the casting department, as the likeness between the actors playing the same characters at different ages is absolutely uncanny.[/spoiler]

[Pérou Flaquettes]

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.

Apologies then, I misinterpreted your post.

To me, the premise of any general discussion about colonialism, particularly one that seeks to examine both sides of the coin (in the British Empire: Heroes and Villains programme mould, cf my opening post), should be: whatever the supposed benefits and blessings colonialism brought to the indigenous population(s) (that’s without even going into these benefits having to be weighed against a catalogue of misery and a litany of war crimes), the efficiency usually associated with colonialism and the colonial powers (so we’re not even talking of their primary goals here, i.e to plunder resources, exploit cheap labour etc. – but just the effectiveness side of things) was established first and foremost to oil the wheels of the system and certainly not to benefit those populations as a matter of principle (the "mission civilisatrice" belief was the post hoc rationalisation, not the main driver of changes). All serious and informed debates about the British/French Empire or colonialism in general should today stem and develop from what we can now legitimately consider as fact (thanks in part to an enhanced knowledge on these issues, huge corpus of research and more open access to hitherto unreleased secret files/records/archives).

I think that once you’ve laid down that particular foundation, it then becomes easier to engage with the debate surrounding this highly sensitive issue (or issues I should say, the plural better reflects the diversity of the situation across the board as there was little in common between the British Raj, the Scramble for Africa, French Algeria, the Spanish colonisation of South America etc. other than the fact that they were all the products of various forms of colonialism from the 16th century onwards).

This is my main problem with this otherwise very good episode 4: the above premise is missing. It is obliquely alluded to, it is underlying etc. but it is still fundamentally missing. Hence my comment about how I would have phrased the conclusion differently. Having said this, as I wrote in my OP, I only watched episode 4, maybe said premise was postulated at the start of the series, I don’t know (but judging from how the conclusion – approx. the last 5 minutes – was formulated, I doubt it. It is a bold-ish programme, and it called for a bolder conclusion).

Time has now come to move away from the prevalent "there was bad but good things too" discourse about colonialism. It’s a big progress from a generation or two ago when we were stuck on the "colonialism was universally good" phase. We have to go that bit further now, that’s my only criticism of this episode 4, that it doesn't go far enough and if we are to progress to the next stage (where the goals of colonialism would be candidly presented and foregrounded), then we need the mainstream media to act as the driving force behind this shift in perspective, in facing up to our history

And I say this as the son of Pieds-Noirs or French/European Algerians as I prefer to call them. So, as you can imagine, my opinions on the matter, however carefully expressed/worded/researched etc. are not terribly popular in my family, parents included (who, like many of their peers in Algeria, were of modest means, they and their parents eked a living from a few acres of fruit trees rented from a much wealthier settler, who were a minority but a powerful and influential one).

I love my parents, they’ve grafted hard all their life, I have enormous respect for who they are, what they’ve achieved after being uprooted in their twenties along with their parents and put on a boat with fuck all to this alien land (mainland France) where they endured years of alienation, ostracism (especially from the French left) etc. and I’m not in the business of upsetting the people I love just to get my point across, so I don’t get on my soapbox and gob off about colonialism or French Algeria on the rare occasions we are all together (parents, siblings), especially as they’re old and not in good health, we just tend not to talk about it now, among ourselves maybe (sisters, cousins etc.) but not with parents, aunts/uncles etc. My parents are good caring people who got on extremely well with the Arabs/Muslims in Algeria, they worked alongside them in the fields, they played football together, they spoke Arabic or the local sabir etc. and I’d like to think that deep down my parents understand where I’m coming from on this one. It’s the next generation(s) that needs "targeting", the under 60s, but it’s still a hugely sensitive and emotional issue in France, more so than in the UK, it will take time but I’m hopeful that we’ll get there one day.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Colleague recommended “Dark” but I switched off after 10 mins: dubbing; predictable characters but especially dubbing

[Ginger Yellow]

You can watch it with subtitles, you know. Also, after 10 minutes you've met maybe 1/8 of the main characters.

[Hot Pepsi]

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.

I generally find all fashion advice to be bullshit.

https://yarn.co/yarn-clip/1674fe29-d...krNi142dM.copy

[Pérou Flaquettes]

Back in Time for Tea (BBC2) was brilliant today, absolutely loved it, it covered the 1980-2000 period. The family they've picked for the new series is much better than the other one.

The bit about the miners' strike was great, superbly done, it was so emotional to see the old miner from Easington colliery cry, I've written about football and mining, precisely about that area in County Durham, it struck a chord. It started 34 years ago to the day, 34 fucking years ago, bloody hell.

It was great to see Shaun Ryder from Happy Mondays too, crikey, he's aged, I suppose we all do. I didn't know they started thanks to the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, brilliant.

Hearing the Smiths almost made me cry, fuck I used to absolutely love them, can't listen to the bastards now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09rdv80

[Pérou Flaquettes]

Just finished on BBC4, absolutely brilliant: Byzantium: A Tale of Three Cities, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03lyyrc

What a great city, unfortunately only visited in passing in 1994 for 2 days on my way to Izmir and down south, Antalya then Cappadocia.

[Lang Spoon]

The follow up show on BBC4 now (Unbuilt Britain) will touch on the attempted Comprehensive Development of the entire Glasgow Grid into Pound Shop Corbusier Modernism hi rise car driven madness. Maybe one for the Brutalist thread folks. Only a third built (the half motorway loop and Townhead/Anderston/ Gorbals tenements and street plans destruction especially) thank fuck.

But first the bit on Wren’s equally mostly unrealized London. Not exactly gripping me so far and I’m fairly interested in this type of stuff. Weegies at half eleven I’m guessing.

[Eggchaser]

River Monsters on ITV catch up. The weird horrors Jeremy Wade hauls up from the Stygian depths makes you want to never enter a bath, never mind go for a doggy paddle in a couple of feet of water.

[ad hoc]

My wife and daughter are binge watching Riverdale. I wouldn't mind this but there's only one TV and by christ is it annoying. I realise I don't really enjoy highly stylized cartoonish live action film/TV. I realise that this show is based on a cartoon so I get the logic of that choice, but it's just annoying. I can't (perhaps I'm not supposed to) feel the slightest empathy with any of the characters.

[ursus arctos]

I feel for you.

Do they have any familiarity with the comics (which are awful)?

[ad hoc]

No. Would that help?

[ursus arctos]

I don’t think so.

I completely fail to understand the show’s appeal among some of my friends.

[Amor de Cosmos]

It's filmed down the road from us. The onlookers give you some idea of its audience demographic.

[Heliotrope]

I like it. It's sort of like if Beverly Hills 90210 or Dawson's Creek and Twin Peaks had a baby.

[Lang Spoon]

Why the fuck is Jarvis Cocker a talking head on a programme on musical minimalism? Fuckin BBC4. Cloudy piss disappointing.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

The follow up show on BBC4 now (Unbuilt Britain) will touch on the attempted Comprehensive Development of the entire Glasgow Grid into Pound Shop Corbusier Modernism hi rise car driven madness. Maybe one for the Brutalist thread folks. Only a third built (the half motorway loop and Townhead/Anderston/ Gorbals tenements and street plans destruction especially) thank fuck.

But first the bit on Wren’s equally mostly unrealized London. Not exactly gripping me so far and I’m fairly interested in this type of stuff. Weegies at half eleven I’m guessing.

Thanks for that, will check it out this weekend on the iplayer.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

The follow up show on BBC4 now (Unbuilt Britain) will touch on the attempted Comprehensive Development of the entire Glasgow Grid into Pound Shop Corbusier Modernism hi rise car driven madness. Maybe one for the Brutalist thread folks. Only a third built (the half motorway loop and Townhead/Anderston/ Gorbals tenements and street plans destruction especially) thank fuck.

But first the bit on Wren’s equally mostly unrealized London. Not exactly gripping me so far and I’m fairly interested in this type of stuff. Weegies at half eleven I’m guessing.

Thanks again for flagging up this programme, I’ve just watched it, terrific. Robert Bruce’s vision for Glasgow was massively influenced by Le Corbusier and his Plan Voisin for Paris which I wrote about here, but I hadn’t quite realised the extent to which Corbs’ crackpot radical plans served as a blueprint for so many cities across the world back then, the programme shows that superbly. Thankfully his Plan Voisin was rejected as it was just too insane, and so too were Robert Bruce’s plans to level the Victorian hypercentre of Glasgow, all in the name of modernity and "creative destruction" of course. Thank God for people like Patrick Abercrombie, it’s just a shame that he didn’t quite get his way.

I liked the bit about Robert Owen halfway through the programme: "Appalled by the conditions workers lived in, in 1817 the mill owner and utopian socialist Robert Owen attempted to create agricultural and manufacturing villages. His radical scheme provided workers with good homes, schools and the means to grow their own food. He described his idea as communities of unity and mutual cooperation. But Britain was not ready for such egalitarian ideals and they were never built."

In some ways, it does feel like we could be heading back to these dark times. Workers dragged beneath poverty line by low wages,

Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that 57 per cent of Britons in poverty live in a household where someone is in work, up from 35 per cent in 1995.

[Femme Folle]

Of course I'm watching the new Jessica Jones on Netflix. I have a question, which I will conceal in a spoiler. Feel free to send me a PM if you know the answer.

[spoiler]How did Jessica know about who killed her first boyfriend?[/spoiler]

[Crusoe]

My wife is loving the new Queer Eye show. Caught a bit today and it's the most positive, life-affirming and basically nice show I've seen.

[Lang Spoon]

I wouldn’t be too quick to big up the likes of Abercrombie, their new town/peripheral estate utopias just banilued problem classes away from the douce urban centres of Scotland.

[Lang Spoon]

And weakened Glasgow’s political and economic power by halving it’s population in the name of urban clearance. Only Liverpool/Merseyside experienced something similar post-war.

[Satchmo Distel]

Just started the first series of The Detectorists. Favourite characters so far are Simon and Garfunkel.