The Lockdown Diaries (8)
And so, as the novelty wears thin, and we once again daub our doors with lamb’s blood, let us share links and bicker.
I’ll set the ball rolling with a woke prayer, some emotional scenes, and a reminder that size matters.
As some of you may be shopping from home a little more than usual, please bear in mind that any Amazon UK shopping done via this link or the search widget top right, or for Amazon US via this link, results in a small fee for your host at no extra cost to you.
It does help to keep this place here.
For those in need of further diversion, the Reheated series is there to be poked at.
“Gear up for a regeneration”
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/jodie-whittaker-leaving-dr-who-bbc-response-b672999.html
https://twitter.com/BrexitPartridge/status/1345981305738190850
“Gear up for a regeneration”
You do have to wonder if the woke-lings behind the series quite grasp the general effect of their own rather narrow, agenda-driven writing. I mean, if you make leftist identity politics a signature of the show, trumpeting a female Doctor, as if that in itself were a basis for applause and enough to keep people watching, while repeatedly depicting masculinity as something to scorn or correct – and the end results of that agenda are terrible episodes, a disenchanted fanbase, and a rapidly shrivelling audience – then this doesn’t exactly reflect well on the supposed beneficiaries of that agenda.
Lock down the media.
Make every journalist and reporter spend the next nine months in their homes/apartments, and shut off the transmitters/presses so that they can’t keep broadcasting.
When the people parroting the government’s propaganda start being affected by the lockdowns as much as regular people do, we might finally see some movement on the state’s abuse of the people who are supposedly the politicians’ masters.
“Gear up for a regeneration”
You know what would be genuinely interesting? Getting Tom Baker, Peter Davison, or Colin Baker back again. Since they’ve already broken canon with Whittaker, why the hell not have the Doctor regenerate into an older version of his previous self?
“Large boulder the size of a small boulder…”
Hmm. That expression may come in useful. For… er… things. Mind your own business.
Peter Davison, or Colin Baker
Bold choices there.
a woke prayer
It’s even crazier than noted in your link: Representative Cleaver also thinks that Hinduism is a monotheistic religion:
“…We ask it in the name of the monotheistic god, Brahma, and god known by many names by many different faiths. Amen and A-Woman.
It’s even crazier…
I think you misspelled, “plug ignorant, even for a democrat”, as “crazier”.
That right there is a lot of bull…
emotional scenes,
That’s me when my husband puts the toilet roll on THE WRONG WAY.
That’s me when my husband puts the toilet roll on THE WRONG WAY.
The way the inventor intended, anything else is wrong.
That’s me when my husband puts the toilet roll on THE WRONG WAY.
[ Fetches Joan a large brandy. ]
Should steady the nerves, madam.
The way the inventor intended, anything else is wrong.
Thank you.
[ Fetches Joan a large brandy. ]
Thank you too!
That’s me when my husband puts the toilet roll on THE WRONG WAY.
Men can be such beasts.
daub our doors with lamb’s blood
I’ve been making the Secular Passover Rite comparison since nearly the beginning of this.
Signs to be made to the Angel of Vid that one has the correct observances – strike down my neighbor, not me!
Those who shelter within, huddled together and ready to step quickly to whatever prophesy may come next.
Not that that makes me feel really clever, it’s just an obvious allusion that has largely gone begging, and I’d like to see it more popular.
I’ve been making the Secular Passover Rite comparison since nearly the beginning of this.
The Passover scene, while not the most spectacular in the film, is the one I recall being most enthralled by when I saw it as a child.
So now we know how it’s going to play out.
Lockdown for the ‘new variant’. Then the lockdown for the second wave of the ‘new variant’.
Rinse and repeat.
That’s me when my husband puts the toilet roll on THE WRONG WAY.
I suspect that you’ve never owned an indoor cat.
I also suspect that I should stop trying to post a comment by using my phone. >:-(
[ Quietly tidies up duplication shambles in comment above. ]
I suspect that you’ve never owned an indoor cat.
More than one, so did Mr. Wheeler.
People should be forced to watch Wonder Woman 1984 because I had to.
People should be forced to watch Wonder Woman 1984 because I had to.
I gather it’s not exactly the pinnacle of the cinematic arts.
People should be forced to watch Wonder Woman 1984 because I had to.
Not impressed? The Critical Drinker’s review could be pretty much summed up as “a sequel”, which seemed fair enough. I was not enthralled with the first one, which felt waaaaay too long and less of a superhero movie and more of what women who don’t watch superhero movies think a superhero movie is.
People should be forced to watch Wonder Woman 1984 because I had to.
Order of Hillary! award for your sacrifice to The Rodina.
Order of Hillary!
From the inimitable Peoples Cube.
I get acne tits whenever I see IMP ROPER KERNI NG!
Acne tits
Acne tits
Does . . . uh. . . something
Wonder Woman 1984 turns into Spider Man for a while, then Cats. Along the way WW and the spirit of Chris Pine steal a guy’s body and have sex with it. During the big battle scene at the end, touching exposed power station wiring is harmless, but letting the wiring touch the water you’re in kills you. Unless you’re Wonder Woman.
Latest at the Groan is possibly meat for an Agonies post – pun not conceived with malice aforethought, truly:
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/oct/13/ive-always-loved-fried-chicken-but-the-racism-surrounding-it-shamed-me
It’s very odd here in the US how much that stereotype ends up being somehow attributed to racist Southerners, having been coined as a very much Southern-based caricature of blacks by the racialist elements among the Yankee – indeed, much or most of the South would find nothing odd about eating fried chicken at all .
The problem with that Passover scene in the Ten Commandments is that the crescent moon. Passover starts on the evening of the 14th day of Nissan (Exodus 12:6), at which time there would be a full moon.
The problem with that Passover scene in the Ten Commandments is the crescent moon
As a child, I was more engaged by the fact that an Angel Of The Lord could be depicted as a sinister, luminous mist.
Unless you’re Wonder Woman.
As a long time watcher of genre film, what strikes me most about the current state of the field is how obvious it’s become that good writing matters when everything else will fit in even a modest budget. Go back to the 1990s or earlier and people seemed to be willing to accept just about any tripe in F/SF film and TV as long as the cardboard sets wobbled and actors spoke in breathy staccato. Now that 4K HDR SFX can be done with a modest home PC and decent actors no longer fear being stuck in the SF ghetto, it’s as if there’s nothing to distract us from “wait a minute, that made no bloody sense”.
I did find Kirsten Wiig’s character unintentionally revealing, much like the Anette Bening AI in Captain Marvel.
I did find Kirsten Wiig’s character unintentionally revealing, much like the Annette Bening AI in Captain Marvel.
I suppose that’s the inherent problem of using blockbuster films to advertise feminist psychology. I.e., everyone gets to see feminist psychology.
Along the way WW and the spirit of Chris Pine steal a guy’s body and have sex with it.
I… no. I’m not going to ask.
14th day of Nissan
Dat…sun?
*dat-soon*
All you lot over in Blighty – Are you a forward thinking, creative individual looking to achieve abitious outcomes ?
If so, the West Midlands Rozzers have a 74K imperial dollar
sinecurejob for you !“Large boulder the size of a small boulder…”
I’m reminded of an old* Nick Cave song:
Well Jerry Bellows, he hugged his stool
Closed his eyes and shrugged and laughed
And with an ashtray as big as a fucking really big brick
I split his head in half
* holy shit there’s no way Murder Ballads dates to 1996. Still a fun record, though!
If so, the West Midlands Rozzers
Oh Crikey!
*watching James May again…*
I did find Kirsten Wiig’s character unintentionally revealing…
Didn’t see the film but the reviews were fun. I’ve taken a fresh perspective to film- and show-makers in [current year] and, frighteningly, it makes sense. To wit:
If the auteur in question is a lefty male, they are competing on how to make the most subversive message possible while still earning glowing plaudits from the right-on progressive MSM. If the showrunner/filmaker is a lefty female, she is making a disguised “cry for help” message, again while keeping the seals clapping.
The Last Jedi remains the best example, and if viewed through the lens of a sneaky misogynist, actually sort of works (ie women run everything…and everything sucks). Ditto WW84, with the female writer/director (Jenkins) and actress (Wiig) teaming up to tell the world that women really DO need a man or will be consumed by aimless loneliness or petty jealousy. Unfortunately for them the clapping seals sort of noticed, so they don’t win the game.
Try this game the next time you see some agitprop crap or painfully mainstream crap or any other flavor of crap on offer these days.
if viewed through the lens of a sneaky misogynist, actually sort of works
This is by no means confined to film. One of the features of the science fiction video game Mass Effect: Andromeda was that the settlement ships meant to carry humans and alien races to another galaxy when it All Went Wrong A Bit, was that the chief leadership of the lot were nearly all women. In an effort to insert angst between various groups, one is left with female characters purposely at each others’ throats and/or escalating petty hen squabbles, emasculated males who have clearly failed at their purposes *due to said emasculation*, a faction who are arguably the most self-sufficient due to a strain of MGTOW, and all sort of waiting for the player character hero to save things.
Another character, clearly meant to be “quirky”, suffers endlessly in consequence of refusal to grow up.
Granted, the writing overall is simply not very good, and widespread technical problems and gameplay issues bog the game down, but the writing is entertaining in just how much it backfires in this way.
I… no. I’m not going to ask.
Diana makes a wish on a magic wishing item to have Steve Trevor back. The monkey paw aspect of the fulfilment sticks him/his spirit in the body of another man, which body then has sex done to it without that man’s permission. Not quite an idealized Dalai Lama circumstance, as there was, after all, another man preexisting in the body. As remarked, some very unsettling implications, particularly to whatever extent the chap was aware of his body’s actions.
Make every journalist and reporter spend the next nine months in their homes/apartments, and shut off the transmitters/presses so that they can’t keep broadcasting.
I think I’d be just fine with turning the transmitters back on after the jokers miss their 2nd or 3rd paycheckque. I suspect they might start singing from a different hymnal after that.
As remarked, some very unsettling implications
That is, a bit like Ghost in a roundabout way, with some different unsettling implications than proxy lesbianism via Whoopi Goldberg.
Another obvious example is Black Panther, which serves as the biggest mainstream endorsement of ethno-nationalism (and monarchism to boot!) I can possibly imagine.
The game is to subvert the Narrative while getting right-on praise. Remember that guy who got progressive protestors to clap for Hitler quotes? Like that but with gazillion-dollar budgets, and the more blatant the better.
I imagine being surrounded by vapid, despicable idiots who nevertheless keep you in a plush lifestyle would drive me to do something similar.
Another obvious example is Black Panther
Also an extremely on-the-nose review of the dangers of having an absent father, an endorsement of fatherly love and example, and a Mordred-type cautionary tale of the risks of familial ostracization and concealment of wrongs. In fact, nearly exactly the Mordred tale.
Can’t say I expected the MCU to come over all Arthurian, in Black Panther least of all.
Pity you weren’t there at the pitch meeting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_Tm0SxIp6w
Can’t say I expected the MCU to come over all Arthurian, in Black Panther least of all.
Did it escape your notice that Black Panther is just Hamlet without the incest?
If the showrunner/filmaker is a lefty female, she is making a disguised “cry for help” message, again while keeping the seals clapping.
I see you’ve been watching Buffy re-runs.
Also, I have long suspected that Gail Simone is engaged in a decades-long troll job of the entire comics industry.
“Bold choices there.”
Yeah, maybe. But you can’t say it wouldn’t be interesting. Baker actually makes a lot of sense: he’s said himself that one reason his tenure didn’t really work was that he and the writers thought they had five or six years to develop the character, and were cut short.
People should be forced to watch Wonder Woman 1984 because I had to.
I gather it’s not exactly the pinnacle of the cinematic arts.
People watching it on HBO were getting up and walking out of their living rooms.
I see you’ve been watching Buffy re-runs.
I did have Whedon’s smug mug in mind when writing that, yes. My pretending these a-holes are secret subversive geniuses is clearly just coping for the slow death of my favorite media properties, but damn if it doesn’t explain a lot.
West Midland Rozzers
encouraging the integration of initiatives in the force
What WMR need is a lot fewer creative initiatives in their policing.
Yeah, maybe. But you can’t say it wouldn’t be interesting.
I’d lost interest in Doctor Who long before their runs, so I could only guess. As I’ve said before, the idea of the series, its premise, is more engaging than what generally materialises on screen. Also, the age of the character, or the actor, relative to both the companions and the viewer – the intergenerational aspect – seems quite important and has been lost in recent years. Having a young(ish) actor playing the part never quite convinced me. I don’t think the character should be someone the audience could conceivably fancy. Using younger actors also dovetails with the shrinking of the Doctor’s worldview to conform with current political fashion.
I thought Peter Capaldi could’ve made a good Doctor, but the writing during his run was often piss-poor. And the weakness of the writing tends to make the politically correct assumptions, which have grown denser and more self-satisfied, all the more grating. Not least because the lefty smugness often coincides with truly perverse ‘moral’ choices, such that in one Cybermen story, our hero decides to needlessly abandon and doom his companions, the people he’s supposed to care for, while lecturing everyone, including those he’s consigning to mutilation and oblivion, about the imperative to be compassionate.
What that says about the psyche of the leftist writers, albeit inadvertently, I leave to the reader.
In other news, I’ve been watching The Umbrella Academy on Netflix. A slightly whimsical yarn about odd siblings, time travel and attempts to avert the apocalypse. Or rather, the apocalypses. It’s not flawless by any means, but there’s enough in the mix to keep me entertained.
Regarding woke Doctor Who, The Critical Drinker has some thoughts.
There’s ‘when you’re so woke it hurts’ and then there’s this:
https://mobile.twitter.com/isabelzawtun/status/1344418319219236864
I did have Whedon’s smug mug in mind when writing that
Most of Buffy was written by Marti Noxon (cf. “cry for help”). If you rewatch Buffy through the lens of “Buffy is Marti Noxon, and Joss Whedon is whatever vampire she’s ****ing at the time”, the show makes much more sense.
I don’t think the character should be someone the audience could conceivably fancy.
IIRC, that was something the original creators explicitly said about the show: “teenagers should never fancy the Doctor”.
the idea of the series, its premise, is more engaging than what generally materialises on screen
There was a web magazine article I can no longer find that said the same thing about classic SF generally – that it was awful, but we all sort of agreed to forgive it because we were so enamoured of the potential of the Big Idea.
IIRC, that was something the original creators explicitly said about the show: “teenagers should never fancy the Doctor”.
It does seem a non-trivial part of the dynamic. Adding sexual or romantic tension, or the potential for it, seems both out of place and beside the point. And again, in recent iterations, the Doctor has to a large extent been made politically parochial and conformist, and so instead of looking askance at contemporary assumptions, as being very local and of their time, he (or she) very often parrots them enthusiastically. As Steve 2 quipped in an earlier thread,
They’ve taken the alien out of the alien.
and then there’s this
I do sometimes wonder if the world was always stuffed full of fuck-witted ass-clowns and I didn’t notice, or whether Twitter is actually conjuring them forth from the primaeval mud.
I hadn’t watched Doctor Who for some years, but decided to watch one recent episode to see if it was as terrible as everyone says it is (it is).
Jodie Whittaker is insufferable, but I wonder to what extent the ghastliness is her fault. She isn’t without talent. She’s very effective and likeable in, for example, Attack the Block. The problem seems to be more that the writers, having decided that this significant cultural figure should be played by a woman (because diversity), then went on to write her as a smug, finger-wagging grammar school head girl. One could almost feel sorry for Whittaker.
Anyhow, unless they cast Jeremy Clarkson as the next Doctor, I’m not going to waste any more time watching it.
then there’s this
The boy should put himself up for adoption as soon as possible and report his mother for child abuse.
if the world was always stuffed full of fuck-witted ass-clowns
I think it always has been but now the FWACs are far more successful due to support from corrupt media and have the ability to inflict their madness on the rest of us much more easily.
then there’s this
So woke white woman got knocked up by a white man then? What kind of racist is she?
Seems to me she should be birthing babies of color if her beliefs are that strong.
Put your womb where your mouth is, lady!
Put your womb where your mouth is, lady!
Either I need mind bleach or that is an intruiging new variation of oral sex.
“They’ve taken the alien out of the alien.”
I knew the reboot was doomed when that fat Welsh bloke Davies said he wanted to bring out the Doctor’s “humanity”. He actually said that.
I do sometimes wonder if the world was always stuffed full of fuck-witted ass-clowns and I didn’t notice
Please do not take offense, but did you go to college/university? In the last 30-40 years or so.
did you go to college/university? In the last 30-40 years or so.
Yes. Twice!
Oh God. I’m one of the fuck-witted ass-clowns 🙁
If I’m honest, I quite liked Eccleston as the Tenth Doctor. He was clearly enjoying himself, he wasn’t insufferably twee, but he nicely got across that “slightly bemused and seen all this before” air. Which is why the romance subplot with Rose felt so forced. There was no lead up, no chemistry, it just happens because the showrunner said so. The fact that Eccleston was fired because he wouldn’t twee the character up enough for Davies was when I stopped watching.
If I’m honest, I quite liked Eccleston as the Tenth Doctor.
There was a brief period, early on, when I entertained the possibility that they might do something interesting with a seemingly exhausted premise. However, it didn’t last. I found David Tennant mildly aggravating, veering towards panto, and I rapidly lost any kind of interest. After that, every few years, I’d watch a random episode with something like morbid curiosity.
I did quite like the idea of John Hurt as the Doctor, though sadly that was confined to a peripheral gimmick.
I guess I’m the odd man out here, because I liked the Doctor reboots.
Right up until the Capaldi episode where the moon was really an egg for a dragon, and I said, “Nope. Can’t buy that.” So I missed the subsequent horrors.
And I liked the episode where the girl turned into a slab of concrete. It helped that I go gooey over ELO.
As for Eccleston, I thought he had demanded that he do only one series as the doctor, because he didn’t want to be doing Doctor Who conventions for the rest of his life (e.g., “I am Not Spock.”). That’s also why he didn’t want to do any of the subsequent Doctor gang bangs.
Now, he seems to be on his meds and has agreed to do new adventures for the audio market.
Maybe it’s also because I’m an Amurrican, but I enjoyed Tennant’s wild doctor, and assumed it was part of his alienness. That was the charm of the show, that every once in awhile, they’d do something to remind you that, yeah, you may want to shag him, but he’s NOT going to act like you think he should, because he’s not like you.
Nothing in particular:
Missus Slocombe: “Hello, Mister Akbar? I wonder if you wouldn’t mind peeking in my mail slot and telling can you see my pussy?”
Mister Akbar? Mister Akbar? Oh dear!”
Miss Brahms: “What’s happened?”
Missus Slocombe: “I think he’s fainted.”
There’s Jane Elliot … and then there’s this …
If the story is real, the mother might think about having to spend the next decade calling to her son in supermarkets and playgrounds and waiting rooms, and about the effect this might have on her reputation and self-esteem.
Promo for NPR “Finding Your Roots” with Henry Lewis Gates, Jr. –
Gates to Gayle King (CBS Morning Anchor): “According to the tests, you are one-third white.”
King to Gates: “You take that back!”
To quote Onslow from Keeping Up Appearances: “Oh, nice!”
My Ancestry.com profile pegs me as 100% European, from Glasgow and Birmingham to Northern France, Netherlands and Prussia (now Germany) Farm hands, loom tenders, and small merchants mostly. While nothing to particularly crow about, I don’t see anything to be ashamed of, either. Too much privilege, perhaps?
The fact that Eccleston was fired because he wouldn’t twee the character up enough for Davies was when I stopped watching.
I’m learning all sorts of illuminating trivia from Mr Ream in this thread. Eccleston got this American interested in the series (hadn’t watched since childhood) and Tennant hooked the wife. I bailed out when it was clear the MESSAGE was becoming more important than the nominal goal of making me say “hmm, that’s interesting”.
While Tennant and Smith had their fun aspects, Eccleston was an actual Doctor Who – (sort of) grumpy, aloof, not really approachable, but ruthlessly altruistic. Capaldi looked and felt the part but it was too little too late.
I guess its Psych re-runs again, it seems…
Pace President-Select Harris:
What do we want?
“Fweedom!”
What are we getting?
“Pwison!”
I liked Eccleston. He was my second favorite, after Baker. Tennant had one moment where something harder and darker peeked out from behind the goofy bow-tied mask, but it never recurred so I figured it for a fluke.
I’m learning all sorts of illuminating trivia from Mr Ream in this thread
I am an apostate geek in that I’m much more interested in how SF shows get made than the internal lore, which is generally determined by deadlines (the Stargate SG-1 episode Wormhole X-treme! is essentially one 45 minute long “we do not take this anywhere nearly as seriously as you do” screed from the producers to the fans).
Ecceleston’s original excuse was that the grueling schedule of TV production was overwhelming since he was used to film. To those familiar with the industry, this is the “leaving to spend more time with his family” bollocks excuse. He was fired. He kept mum for years, and eventually in an interview indicated that the real reason for his firing was that Davies wanted a more Received Pronunciation, middle-class London twee Doctor and not the working class Oop North mien Eccleston brought to the character. Eccleston wouldn’t budge so they canned him.
I found David Tennant mildly aggravating, veering towards panto
You’re not the only one. It’s a heretical opinion around here. I quite like the other stuff that he’s done so it’s nothing about the actor.
(Another heretical opinion I’ll cop to is that William Shatner is actually quite a good actor. Most people don’t realize that the breathy staccato delivery and exaggerated body acting was direction, not Shatner).
“FWACs”
Band name.
Davies wanted a more Received Pronunciation, middle-class London twee Doctor and not the working class Oop North mien Eccleston brought to the character. Eccleston wouldn’t budge so they canned him.
Well, you learn something new. Don’t know where I got the “one-year only” factoid from.
Speaking of Davies, he published a book about his tenure as a Who writer, and I read it greedily. Full of behind the scenes takes. The one I remember was when the first shows were broadcast, and some of the reviews were pretty harsh, especially those aimed at the music director. It seemed like for the next week he wandered about, picking up tea cups, putting down tea cups, and muttering “am I in the right business?”*
(* No actual fact implied, beyond that he was crushed by the criticism.)
I’d like to think that I would have borne the onslaught better, if I were lucky enough (and talented) to be doing the music for a major TV show, but like many other false correlations,** talent does not equal self-confidence.
** Wealth = happiness and beauty = security among them.
Don’t know where I got the “one-year only” factoid from.
When it happened there was a lot of speculation, precisely because it was so unusual for a Doctor Who actor to only serve a single season. Eccleston eventually settled on the “TV is hard” excuse and stuck to it for years.
Tennant had one moment where something harder and darker peeked out from behind the goofy bow-tied mask
He’s gotten a lot of work as a result of his stint on DW – Jessica Jones and Good Omens, specifically – and in both of those you get to see what a good actor he is when he’s given a bit more depth to play with.
I guess its Psych re-runs again, it seems…
We’ll see how Ghostbusters: Afterlife turns out, but I stand by my opinion that James Roday and Dule Hill could do a Ghostbusters legacy sequel justice. Shawn Spencer is basically a millennial Venkman.
“We’ll see how Ghostbusters: Afterlife turns out,”
The trailer was awesome.
Hi Daniel,
People who think Shatner’s a lousy actor who—talks with—strange—pauses should watch his two Twilight Zone episodes, especially the one where he plays a man recovering from a nervous breakdown who has to contend with a gremlin trying to sabotage the plane he’s on. At one point his wife and the pilot pretend they’ve seen the gremlin too. Shatner does a marvelous job depicting a man who’s first relieved, then realizes he’s being patronized by people who’ve written him off as a nut. The episode. Nightmare At 20,000 Feet, was written by Richard Matheson.
“He kept mum for years, and eventually in an interview indicated that the real reason for his firing was that Davies wanted a more Received Pronunciation, middle-class London twee Doctor and not the working class Oop North mien Eccleston brought to the character. Eccleston wouldn’t budge so they canned him.”
Which is odd, because at the time the impression was that that was why he was hired in the first place; an early foreshadowing of Dr. 13. But it would certainly explain Tennant’s accent. And why, although I was never 100% happy with the relaunch at all, I felt it had more or less burned itself out after one season.
Okay, this sequence made me smile:
…
…
…
So when was the BBC safe?
I gave up listening to Radio 4 some years ago when every single programme became unbearably woke and preachy. But I still enjoy listening to “old” material on Radio4 Extra.
Yesterday I started streaming Conan Doyle’s Strangest Case, first broadcast in 1995. I honestly thought I’d be safe.
In the first 20 minutes having endured a lecture about the inherent racism of inbred British country folk, and a second about the equality of wimmins and the oppression they suffer(ed) under British patriarchy I had to turn it off.
1995!! How far back do I have to fucking go to just be entertained and not scolded?
Conan Doyle’s Strangest Case…
Thanks, I was not aware of that case.
…the inherent racism of inbred British country folk
I looked that up on Wikipedia: the two real life cases both involved wrongly accused/wrongly convicted members of minorities, a half-British, half-Indian lawyer and a German Jew. I have been re-reading the Sherlock Holmes stories and have noticed that a woke critic could carefully select quotes to show that Conan Doyle was a racist and Jew-hater. And he worked very hard on behalf of these two people, showing that such a claim would have been false and reminding us to be careful of how we interpret the fiction we read.
I gather the Russell T Davies ‘Dr Who’ reboot was always going to be about sex. It’s kinda his thing. That was certainly one of the things that lost me in the Dr Who reboot, considering the template – which the original Dr Who team (Terrance Dicks and so on) was the William Hartnell type, a crazy old chap who took his young friends on wOnDrOuS aDvEnTuReS. (It worked!)
I’ve just watched Eddie Izzard on ITV’s Lorraine show moaning on about Trump’s “lies” (giving, of course, no examples). Izzard now wishes to be known as “she”.
You can’t make this shit up.
William Shatner is actually quite a good actor
Too late this year I know, but an excellent Christmas movie emetic is A Christmas Horror Story. Featuring. William. Shatner’s. Acting.
I’ve just watched… ITV’s Lorraine show
A twisted pleasure, if ever there was one.
Where, oh where are the Zarbeee’s of yesteryear.
“So when was the BBC safe?”
I remember thinking as a kid (although obviously not in so many words) that Blue Peter and Newsround were about 50% environmentalist propaganda. It was all acid rain and endangered tigers back then, but they never bloody shut up about them. And both Three Mile Island and Chernobyl meant “nuclear power bad”, with never a mention of the former’s safety measures sparing us a disaster on the scale of the latter, or the communists cutting corners on that score because if anyone spoke up it was hi-ho, hi-ho off to the salt mines.
I think you have to go back to the ’50s or early ’60s, pre-TW3 and Play for Today. Sure, the likes of The Goon Show poked fun at the establishment, but it did so without any real sense of malice. And, more to the point, it was daring for it to do so. There’s nothing daring about today’s po-faced BBC agenda and turgid preachy “comedy”. The Corporation’s basic attitude is exactly the same as it was 95 years ago; all that’s changed is the nature of the Iron Truths which may not be questioned and the Establishment which must be defended. If Lord Reith were alive today, he’d be as woke as the next Common Purpose “graduate”.
“A twisted pleasure, if ever there was one.”
True. I was flipping through the channels, and thought, “Wait… that looks like Eddie Izzard in a bad wig”. And lo, it was.
I was flipping through the channels, and thought, “Wait… that looks like Eddie Izzard in a bad wig”. And lo, it was.
I had a similar experience last week while in bed half-asleep. I’d left Radio Four Extra on and at some point in the early hours became aware of someone reading what sounded like the dreariest autobiography imaginable, ineptly written and quite childish in construction. I thought to myself ‘This is so shit it could almost be Eddie Izzard’. And lo, it was.
I thought to myself ‘This is so shit it could almost be Eddie Izzard’. And lo, it was.
I don’t know much about him.
I don’t know much about him.
He could be quite funny, decades ago, as a stand-up comedian who told bizarre, rambling, largely improvised yarns. But I don’t think his comical schtick could be sustained, and so, in order to maintain public attention, he ramped up the politics and transvestism. And now, it seems, some flavour of transgenderism.
in order to maintain public attention, he ramped up the politics and transvestism
Ouch. Tiresome and harmful.
A Christmas Horror Story.
Santa’s elves turning into killer zombies?
I don’t know much about him.
Be glad. Once you know, you can’t un-know.
He could be quite funny, decades ago…
Cultural archaeology is yet another of your many talents.
Cultural archaeology is yet another of your many talents.
And David does it all without a big hat and a whip.
And David does it all without a big hat and a whip.
Says you.
Says you.
Didn’t you delegate all the leather-related duties to the henchlesbians?