The best TV drama of 2020, without question. Superb in every department. Well done that man
Although, 2020 has on the whole been particularly shit on tv front.
I very much enjoyed “Plot Against America”. I feared it would be cliched tripe, but it was saved by a David Simon script and great acting.
I am 4/5 the way through Steve McQueen’s Little Axe movies.
The latter is an outstanding artistic achievement. The New York Times placed every single one of the five movies on their Best Films of 2020 list.
I forgot I had watched that, and not because it I though it forgettable!
We loved The Queens Gambit, & Normal People too. I also discovered Detectorists and The Crown, so quite an enjoyable tv year
Queen’s Gambit was excellent, but not perfect. (Slightly hackneyed first episode!).
The Crown is mostly high class fluff, but utterly addictive. I actually thought this season the best of them all so far, and the Charles-Diana story very well done.
I saw the first few episodes of the Detectorists and I know it has its fans, but it seems to be a bit of a Last of the Summer Wine rehash to me.
Mrs America is surely worth watching for PB fans. Cate Blanchett is worth the price of admission alone; it’s a wonderful ensemble piece and Tracey Ullman has a great part too.
I May Destroy You feels amazingly fresh and authentic but maybe a bit self-indulgent and too long?
I haven’t seen “The Third Day” with Jude Law, set on Osea, but hear good things. Apparently the serial killer doco “I’ll be Gone in the Dark” was also excellent.
There were new series of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Better Call Saul, and Ozark this year.
The Night Of and When they See Us outstanding this year.
When They See Us was 2019. But I agree it was stunning TV, if a tiny bit polemical.
I have to admit, I turned it on, it felt a bit wokey, and I turned it off after 5 mins.
It's worth persisting. I felt the same at first, but it gets better, and by the end is deeply moving. The revelation of the afterlives of the characters is quite a moment.
And the acting is tremendous, across the board. From kids and teens. 9/10, double plus good.
No news on the Oxford vaccine - weren't the FT and Torygraph promising approval today?
I think it was caveated as ‘possibly as soon as’ today. I’m hoping for tomorrow, but as I pointed out previously, it looks like the plan is to start on the 4th so no issue as long as it is this week. It wouldn’t amaze me to discover there was an mhra meeting today, having given members over the Xmas period to look at data. (Also apologies for stuffing up the quote...)
I've been watching Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy on Britbox. I've been aware it's a classic and seen bits, but never actually watched the series start to finish. Peerless understated performances from the leads. It felt a real window on that world.
I'm now watching a 1960's scifi drama called Timeslip, about some kids that slip back in time to WW2. Special effects are rudimentary to say the very least, even for the era where such things were pretty much 'trick photography', but it's quite fun. Not sure if I'll see it through.
I absolutely adore the scene where Smiley is questioning Heydon in a mumbly kind of way, cleaning his glasses with his tie and then, as he gets to the key question he puts them on and suddenly Heydon is in the sharpest focus. It was a brilliant piece of direction and cinematography that I first saw a long, long time ago and have never forgotten.
But it is glacially slow, to today's audiences' sensibilities.
I liked the pace.
There is subtlety. Every word carries a meaning. And it is probably Alec Guinness's finest piece to camera.
Although... I didn't like Smiley's People the first time round, but the second time it was maybe better than TTSS.
How can they? There Vote Leave/Boris Johnson rhetoric doesn't match the deal.
Reality doesn't prevent a pushback.
Indeed. They need to start blaming the fishermen.
They already are, and claiming that there are so few we can ignore them. Vidse HYUFD's sudden change of mind over the last 2-3 days. Fisherfolk are obvciously now subversive and treasonous rather than stalwart voters, salt of the, err, North Sea, foundation of SCUP triumph.
It's good that you seem genuinely to care for the plight of Scottish (and who knows, perhaps even English and Welsh) fishermen, but I think you should look beyond the SNP attack lines - which let's face it are made from very shaky ground, aned see what's actually been negotiated. The fact that the EU has introduced a compensation fund worth 5 billion euros for EU fishermen indicates to me that there is now very significant scope for growth in the UK (including of course Scottish) fishing fleets.
Shouldn't you be arguing this with the actual fishermen who seem quite vocally unconvinced of the sun dappled seas ahead of them?
Um, No? I'm responding to a point someone has made on a message board with a point of my own. I don't know any Scottish fishermen (I know a retired trawlerman but probably not well enough to bend his ear about Brexit).
As for being vocally unconvinced, I don't blame leaders of industry bodies for campaigning from a 'maximalist' standpoint for their members. I hope they will also support their members who want to expand their operations in future - though I doubt we'll hear soundbites about it on the news.
Funny, the BBC in Scotland, the Fisherman’s Friend, have been pumping out fishy soundbites continuously for years. Not sure why that would change, unless the fishermen unhappy about Brexit narrative is suddenly not to their taste.
What I mean is, we always hear about the shock and horror and disappointment. When actually there are solid gains and slow growth, it won't be news.
No news on the Oxford vaccine - weren't the FT and Torygraph promising approval today?
My theory is that the AZ vaccine will be announced tomorrow then Boris Johnson will announce as part of the tier review due tomorrow we're all moving to tier 42 but we'll have everyone vaccinated by May so don't worry there's light at the end of the tunnel.
The best TV drama of 2020, without question. Superb in every department. Well done that man
Although, 2020 has on the whole been particularly shit on tv front.
I very much enjoyed “Plot Against America”. I feared it would be cliched tripe, but it was saved by a David Simon script and great acting.
I am 4/5 the way through Steve McQueen’s Little Axe movies.
The latter is an outstanding artistic achievement. The New York Times placed every single one of the five movies on their Best Films of 2020 list.
I forgot I had watched that, and not because it I though it forgettable!
We loved The Queens Gambit, & Normal People too. I also discovered Detectorists and The Crown, so quite an enjoyable tv year
Queen’s Gambit was excellent, but not perfect. (Slightly hackneyed first episode!).
The Crown is mostly high class fluff, but utterly addictive. I actually thought this season the best of them all so far, and the Charles-Diana story very well done.
I saw the first few episodes of the Detectorists and I know it has its fans, but it seems to be a bit of a Last of the Summer Wine rehash to me.
Mrs America is surely worth watching for PB fans. Cate Blanchett is worth the price of admission alone; it’s a wonderful ensemble piece and Tracey Ullman has a great part too.
I May Destroy You feels amazingly fresh and authentic but maybe a bit self-indulgent and too long?
I haven’t seen “The Third Day” with Jude Law, set on Osea, but hear good things. Apparently the serial killer doco “I’ll be Gone in the Dark” was also excellent.
There were new series of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Better Call Saul, and Ozark this year.
The Night Of and When they See Us outstanding this year.
When They See Us was 2019. But I agree it was stunning TV, if a tiny bit polemical.
It seemed to be polemical in the way that the depiction in Small Axe of 70/80s racism in London was polemical. Ie pretty close you the truth.
The Trial of the Chicago 7 in a similar vein although a teeny bit stagey (ie perfect speeches).
It was close to the truth from the perspective of the wrongly accused boys, but I was quite uncomfortable with the way it glossed over the actual crime. A real woman WAS really beaten and raped, by a murderous gang, and left for dead in Central Park. Her story was essentially ignored. Hmm.
Still a notably fine piece of TV.
Central Park 5, no?
Also a documentary, by Ken Burns.
And on that note, PBS America is a delight - over lockdown they've replayed the Our World War series, as well as a tonne of Burns' work.
The best TV drama of 2020, without question. Superb in every department. Well done that man
Although, 2020 has on the whole been particularly shit on tv front.
I very much enjoyed “Plot Against America”. I feared it would be cliched tripe, but it was saved by a David Simon script and great acting.
I am 4/5 the way through Steve McQueen’s Little Axe movies.
The latter is an outstanding artistic achievement. The New York Times placed every single one of the five movies on their Best Films of 2020 list.
I forgot I had watched that, and not because it I though it forgettable!
We loved The Queens Gambit, & Normal People too. I also discovered Detectorists and The Crown, so quite an enjoyable tv year
Queen’s Gambit was excellent, but not perfect. (Slightly hackneyed first episode!).
The Crown is mostly high class fluff, but utterly addictive. I actually thought this season the best of them all so far, and the Charles-Diana story very well done.
I saw the first few episodes of the Detectorists and I know it has its fans, but it seems to be a bit of a Last of the Summer Wine rehash to me.
Mrs America is surely worth watching for PB fans. Cate Blanchett is worth the price of admission alone; it’s a wonderful ensemble piece and Tracey Ullman has a great part too.
I May Destroy You feels amazingly fresh and authentic but maybe a bit self-indulgent and too long?
I haven’t seen “The Third Day” with Jude Law, set on Osea, but hear good things. Apparently the serial killer “I’ll be Gone in the Dark” was also excellent.
There were new series of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Better Call Saul, and Ozark this year.
I bring bad news: The Third Day is terrible. Jude Law is not a great actor, but even by his lowish standards, the final episode is cringingly awful.
That’s annoying, because one thing I haven’t seen in a while is a proper thriller. We seem to have forgotten, as a culture, how to make them.
Bodyguard is really rather good. Not genius, but a highly watchable thriller, nonetheless
The Third Day has so many problems it is hard to know where to start. It was a queasy remake of the Wicker Man mixed with Broadchurch, like mixing offal with ice cream.
I love that film, Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner were excellent.
No news on the Oxford vaccine - weren't the FT and Torygraph promising approval today?
I think it was caveated as ‘possibly as soon as’ today. I’m hoping for tomorrow, but as I pointed out previously, it looks like the plan is to start on the 4th so no issue as long as it is this week. It wouldn’t amaze me to discover there was an mhra meeting today, having given members over the Xmas period to look at data. (Also apologies for stuffing up the quote...)
The best TV drama of 2020, without question. Superb in every department. Well done that man
Although, 2020 has on the whole been particularly shit on tv front.
I very much enjoyed “Plot Against America”. I feared it would be cliched tripe, but it was saved by a David Simon script and great acting.
I am 4/5 the way through Steve McQueen’s Little Axe movies.
The latter is an outstanding artistic achievement. The New York Times placed every single one of the five movies on their Best Films of 2020 list.
I forgot I had watched that, and not because it I though it forgettable!
We loved The Queens Gambit, & Normal People too. I also discovered Detectorists and The Crown, so quite an enjoyable tv year
Queen’s Gambit was excellent, but not perfect. (Slightly hackneyed first episode!).
The Crown is mostly high class fluff, but utterly addictive. I actually thought this season the best of them all so far, and the Charles-Diana story very well done.
I saw the first few episodes of the Detectorists and I know it has its fans, but it seems to be a bit of a Last of the Summer Wine rehash to me.
Mrs America is surely worth watching for PB fans. Cate Blanchett is worth the price of admission alone; it’s a wonderful ensemble piece and Tracey Ullman has a great part too.
I May Destroy You feels amazingly fresh and authentic but maybe a bit self-indulgent and too long?
I haven’t seen “The Third Day” with Jude Law, set on Osea, but hear good things. Apparently the serial killer “I’ll be Gone in the Dark” was also excellent.
There were new series of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Better Call Saul, and Ozark this year.
I bring bad news: The Third Day is terrible. Jude Law is not a great actor, but even by his lowish standards, the final episode is cringingly awful.
That’s annoying, because one thing I haven’t seen in a while is a proper thriller. We seem to have forgotten, as a culture, how to make them.
Bodyguard is really rather good. Not genius, but a highly watchable thriller, nonetheless
The Third Day has so many problems it is hard to know where to start. It was a queasy remake of the Wicker Man mixed with Broadchurch, like mixing offal with ice cream.
I love that film, Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner were excellent.
I’m not sure if that’s deadpan humour, but kudos if so.
Jesus. We could actually break the world record, next week?
Your burst of optimism didn't last long.
Yes, my bipolarity just peaked, methinks
Common complaint in these parts,
I've always been bipolar, but I have noticed that many of my friends and relatives are now exhibiting the same symptoms, when they were paragons of equanimity before.
They swing wildly from optimism to despair and back again
Have they turned to drugs and teenage flesh during the periods of optimism?
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
With such matters I feel like it matters what kind of show it is trying to be. If it is just being silly fun, then verisimilitude won't matter. I loved the show Reign, which was utterly absurd in every way shape or form (particularly its first season) and no one's idea of high quality I imagine, as it was just hilarious to have this soap opera style plotting and romantic melodrama, suddenly interrupted by the characters arguing seriously about royal marriage alliances and deadly civil strife between protestants and catholics and the like.
No news on the Oxford vaccine - weren't the FT and Torygraph promising approval today?
My theory is that the AZ vaccine will be announced tomorrow then Boris Johnson will announce as part of the tier review due tomorrow we're all moving to tier 42 but we'll have everyone vaccinated by May so don't worry there's light at the end of the tunnel.
Tier 42?
Covid really has messed up life, the universe and everything.
The best TV drama of 2020, without question. Superb in every department. Well done that man
Although, 2020 has on the whole been particularly shit on tv front.
I very much enjoyed “Plot Against America”. I feared it would be cliched tripe, but it was saved by a David Simon script and great acting.
I am 4/5 the way through Steve McQueen’s Little Axe movies.
The latter is an outstanding artistic achievement. The New York Times placed every single one of the five movies on their Best Films of 2020 list.
I forgot I had watched that, and not because it I though it forgettable!
We loved The Queens Gambit, & Normal People too. I also discovered Detectorists and The Crown, so quite an enjoyable tv year
Queen’s Gambit was excellent, but not perfect. (Slightly hackneyed first episode!).
The Crown is mostly high class fluff, but utterly addictive. I actually thought this season the best of them all so far, and the Charles-Diana story very well done.
I saw the first few episodes of the Detectorists and I know it has its fans, but it seems to be a bit of a Last of the Summer Wine rehash to me.
Mrs America is surely worth watching for PB fans. Cate Blanchett is worth the price of admission alone; it’s a wonderful ensemble piece and Tracey Ullman has a great part too.
I May Destroy You feels amazingly fresh and authentic but maybe a bit self-indulgent and too long?
I haven’t seen “The Third Day” with Jude Law, set on Osea, but hear good things. Apparently the serial killer “I’ll be Gone in the Dark” was also excellent.
There were new series of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Better Call Saul, and Ozark this year.
I bring bad news: The Third Day is terrible. Jude Law is not a great actor, but even by his lowish standards, the final episode is cringingly awful.
That’s annoying, because one thing I haven’t seen in a while is a proper thriller. We seem to have forgotten, as a culture, how to make them.
Bodyguard is really rather good. Not genius, but a highly watchable thriller, nonetheless
The Third Day has so many problems it is hard to know where to start. It was a queasy remake of the Wicker Man mixed with Broadchurch, like mixing offal with ice cream.
I love that film, Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner were excellent.
They were! Perhaps everything called Bodyguard is always commercially successful and critically acclaimed.
I don't normally think of Mr Leonard as being a Yorkshireman. (Certainly not compared to the faction behind his rival in the leadership election some years back). But to use the word 'Puritan' in a Scottish context ...!
I guess the recent Unionist cunning plan that the Union can only be saved by a SLab revival is being shiftily kicked under the carpet.
I must say HYUFD has been very quiet on tactical voting for SLAB of late, as you commented earlier, in comparison to recently.
No news on the Oxford vaccine - weren't the FT and Torygraph promising approval today?
My theory is that the AZ vaccine will be announced tomorrow then Boris Johnson will announce as part of the tier review due tomorrow we're all moving to tier 42 but we'll have everyone vaccinated by May so don't worry there's light at the end of the tunnel.
Tier 42?
Covid really has messed up life, the universe and everything.
Yes, I've had Douglas Adams on my mind today after that German front page.
If you read the article, the headline does not match the content. The fishermen of Brixham are shrugging, not wailing.
"Mike Sharp, the owner of two Brixham beam trawlers, took part in the Fishing for Leave protest on the Thames in London during the EU referendum campaign.
Four years on, he is furious at the EU deal. “I’m hoping the deal gets voted out by parliament. I doubt it. Boris came to Brixham and promised us everything. He’s used fishing as a lever to get whatever he wants. Fishing’s not important to them. I have a fish merchant friend who calls two-faced people kippers. Boris is a kipper.”
And
"Brixham-born Sean Irvine, 61, who has been fishing from the port since the early 1990s, said he was glad, at least, that there had been a deal but he is concerned about the new paperwork that will be needed to send fish to mainland Europe – as much as 80% of Irvine’s catch is exported.
“We’ll be catching the same fish in the same water as the French but we’ll have to produce a mountain of paperwork for it. It seems to me what we have achieved is minuscule when you think of the upsets it has caused in families and communities. All that effort for so little.”
I have not had a pizza since February but I have just added one to our next Waitrose order. No prizes for guessing the topping.
Shit. I had a pizza in Het Uiltje brewery tap in Haarlem in July. It was so good. Hadn't had one in six months. Broke my rule of only eating local food while on holiday.
Time to bring the drawbridge up on the M1 and the A1.
Would it make more sense to move patients to the Nightingale and borrow staff from other areas if possible rather than taking the London variant northwards?
Tier 5 soon...
Nightingales cannot support ICU level care. Fortunately intubated patients are low risk of transmission because of the filters in the system, and quality of PPE available.
Worth noting that such mutual aid has long been part of practice. We took some patients from the NW and Yorkshire earlier in the year in our ICU in Leicester, and get national referrals for ECMO.
My bro is COO for a London Trust and he tells me that the PPE is so good that not a single doctor or nurse involved in Covid treatment in his hospitals has caught the disease on duty since the pandemic began.
Also of the firm view that the Nightingales were a PR driven waste of resource.
Management of a London hospital doesn’t like anything that suggests he couldn’t cope?
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
I think the idea is "This is how society should look, and should always have looked." Despite the fact that the black population in Britain in 1780 was apparently only 0.1%
I do think the hospital & MP concerned could have worked on the communication - "queue up at 3pm for left over vaccine" isn't a message you want getting out.
Doesn't happen. Any "left over doses" go to the NHS staff manning the vaccine dept.
That can only surely happen on the first few days - after a while all those manning the vaccine roll-out will have had theirs.
That is true I suppose. Went to a vaccine centre today. Very few appointments are being missed they said. Five doses per vial. They are doing 350 per day about to go to over 500. It was very slick.
This has been a consistent line of attack on Sturgeon from across the political spectrum for a good while now.
I think there was even a bit of bleating on here about the pubs and restaurants of Edinburgh not being allowed to let rip for the festive period. No names, no pack drill since it’s Christmas.
Quite, even without hindsight it brought a cold sweat to the forehead. Just the very thought. Given how many people come to the city at the drop of a railwayperson's war fan (or whatever they call the thing that replaces the green flag) at Kings Cross.
The best TV drama of 2020, without question. Superb in every department. Well done that man
Although, 2020 has on the whole been particularly shit on tv front.
I very much enjoyed “Plot Against America”. I feared it would be cliched tripe, but it was saved by a David Simon script and great acting.
I am 4/5 the way through Steve McQueen’s Little Axe movies.
The latter is an outstanding artistic achievement. The New York Times placed every single one of the five movies on their Best Films of 2020 list.
I forgot I had watched that, and not because it I though it forgettable!
We loved The Queens Gambit, & Normal People too. I also discovered Detectorists and The Crown, so quite an enjoyable tv year
Queen’s Gambit was excellent, but not perfect. (Slightly hackneyed first episode!).
The Crown is mostly high class fluff, but utterly addictive. I actually thought this season the best of them all so far, and the Charles-Diana story very well done.
I saw the first few episodes of the Detectorists and I know it has its fans, but it seems to be a bit of a Last of the Summer Wine rehash to me.
Mrs America is surely worth watching for PB fans. Cate Blanchett is worth the price of admission alone; it’s a wonderful ensemble piece and Tracey Ullman has a great part too.
I May Destroy You feels amazingly fresh and authentic but maybe a bit self-indulgent and too long?
I haven’t seen “The Third Day” with Jude Law, set on Osea, but hear good things. Apparently the serial killer “I’ll be Gone in the Dark” was also excellent.
There were new series of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Better Call Saul, and Ozark this year.
I bring bad news: The Third Day is terrible. Jude Law is not a great actor, but even by his lowish standards, the final episode is cringingly awful.
That’s annoying, because one thing I haven’t seen in a while is a proper thriller. We seem to have forgotten, as a culture, how to make them.
Bodyguard is really rather good. Not genius, but a highly watchable thriller, nonetheless
The Third Day has so many problems it is hard to know where to start. It was a queasy remake of the Wicker Man mixed with Broadchurch, like mixing offal with ice cream.
Bodyguard was huge fun, but two years ago! Jed Mercurio needs to pull his finger out.
If you know any other thriller-writers, will you tell them get their skates on?
Mercurio was busy writing Line of Duty 6. Which was almost done filming before lockdown. Incidentally have binge watched the entirety. Very enjoyable and tense. Even though I've seen them before. And even if they do stretch credulity to breaking point. Am planning on Bodies next.
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
I must say I found that rather boring, but that was nothing to do with the cast (Dev Patel is a very good actor to name but one) or production values. Having now read the book, I think I just found its tale dull.
Honestly, if it had been a bit more like a typical Ianucci project, for better and worse, it might have been more interesting.
No news on the Oxford vaccine - weren't the FT and Torygraph promising approval today?
My theory is that the AZ vaccine will be announced tomorrow then Boris Johnson will announce as part of the tier review due tomorrow we're all moving to tier 42 but we'll have everyone vaccinated by May so don't worry there's light at the end of the tunnel.
The best TV drama of 2020, without question. Superb in every department. Well done that man
Although, 2020 has on the whole been particularly shit on tv front.
I very much enjoyed “Plot Against America”. I feared it would be cliched tripe, but it was saved by a David Simon script and great acting.
I am 4/5 the way through Steve McQueen’s Little Axe movies.
The latter is an outstanding artistic achievement. The New York Times placed every single one of the five movies on their Best Films of 2020 list.
I forgot I had watched that, and not because it I though it forgettable!
We loved The Queens Gambit, & Normal People too. I also discovered Detectorists and The Crown, so quite an enjoyable tv year
Queen’s Gambit was excellent, but not perfect. (Slightly hackneyed first episode!).
The Crown is mostly high class fluff, but utterly addictive. I actually thought this season the best of them all so far, and the Charles-Diana story very well done.
I saw the first few episodes of the Detectorists and I know it has its fans, but it seems to be a bit of a Last of the Summer Wine rehash to me.
Mrs America is surely worth watching for PB fans. Cate Blanchett is worth the price of admission alone; it’s a wonderful ensemble piece and Tracey Ullman has a great part too.
I May Destroy You feels amazingly fresh and authentic but maybe a bit self-indulgent and too long?
I haven’t seen “The Third Day” with Jude Law, set on Osea, but hear good things. Apparently the serial killer doco “I’ll be Gone in the Dark” was also excellent.
There were new series of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Better Call Saul, and Ozark this year.
The Night Of and When they See Us outstanding this year.
When They See Us was 2019. But I agree it was stunning TV, if a tiny bit polemical.
It seemed to be polemical in the way that the depiction in Small Axe of 70/80s racism in London was polemical. Ie pretty close you the truth.
The Trial of the Chicago 7 in a similar vein although a teeny bit stagey (ie perfect speeches).
It was close to the truth from the perspective of the wrongly accused boys, but I was quite uncomfortable with the way it glossed over the actual crime. A real woman WAS really beaten and raped, by a murderous gang, and left for dead in Central Park. Her story was essentially ignored. Hmm.
Still a notably fine piece of TV.
Speaking of racial polemics, I confess I am enjoying Bridgerton on Netflix, even though it has revealed to me a startling fact, that the population of aristocratic late Georgian London was about 30% black.
Yes absolutely about the victim. But that was a different issue and as we saw the polis made it too easy to connect the two events in the minds of themselves, the jury, and just about everyone else.
No news on the Oxford vaccine - weren't the FT and Torygraph promising approval today?
My theory is that the AZ vaccine will be announced tomorrow then Boris Johnson will announce as part of the tier review due tomorrow we're all moving to tier 42 but we'll have everyone vaccinated by May so don't worry there's light at the end of the tunnel.
Tier 42?
Covid really has messed up life, the universe and everything.
I blame it on the white mice. Or bats. Or something. Perhaps the improbability drive f***ed up.
I do think the hospital & MP concerned could have worked on the communication - "queue up at 3pm for left over vaccine" isn't a message you want getting out.
Doesn't happen. Any "left over doses" go to the NHS staff manning the vaccine dept.
That can only surely happen on the first few days - after a while all those manning the vaccine roll-out will have had theirs.
I am on standby each day for a call from my wife telling me that the hospital where she works is looking for people to use up the leftover thawed vaccine for precisely that reason. Most of those in the hospital who are not on the top priority list have already had the opportunity to use up leftovers.
Again not as per today. There are plenty of NHS staff around to stick needles into.
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
If you read the article, the headline does not match the content. The fishermen of Brixham are shrugging, not wailing.
"Mike Sharp, the owner of two Brixham beam trawlers, took part in the Fishing for Leave protest on the Thames in London during the EU referendum campaign.
Four years on, he is furious at the EU deal. “I’m hoping the deal gets voted out by parliament. I doubt it. Boris came to Brixham and promised us everything. He’s used fishing as a lever to get whatever he wants. Fishing’s not important to them. I have a fish merchant friend who calls two-faced people kippers. Boris is a kipper.”
And
"Brixham-born Sean Irvine, 61, who has been fishing from the port since the early 1990s, said he was glad, at least, that there had been a deal but he is concerned about the new paperwork that will be needed to send fish to mainland Europe – as much as 80% of Irvine’s catch is exported.
“We’ll be catching the same fish in the same water as the French but we’ll have to produce a mountain of paperwork for it. It seems to me what we have achieved is minuscule when you think of the upsets it has caused in families and communities. All that effort for so little.”
I recall I read something which said they are annoyed we are not giving then quota they can immediately sell on. Instead we seem to have effectively sold our national quota for a decent deal on LPF. Which sounds good to me.
The best TV drama of 2020, without question. Superb in every department. Well done that man
Although, 2020 has on the whole been particularly shit on tv front.
I very much enjoyed “Plot Against America”. I feared it would be cliched tripe, but it was saved by a David Simon script and great acting.
I am 4/5 the way through Steve McQueen’s Little Axe movies.
The latter is an outstanding artistic achievement. The New York Times placed every single one of the five movies on their Best Films of 2020 list.
I forgot I had watched that, and not because it I though it forgettable!
We loved The Queens Gambit, & Normal People too. I also discovered Detectorists and The Crown, so quite an enjoyable tv year
Queen’s Gambit was excellent, but not perfect. (Slightly hackneyed first episode!).
The Crown is mostly high class fluff, but utterly addictive. I actually thought this season the best of them all so far, and the Charles-Diana story very well done.
I saw the first few episodes of the Detectorists and I know it has its fans, but it seems to be a bit of a Last of the Summer Wine rehash to me.
Mrs America is surely worth watching for PB fans. Cate Blanchett is worth the price of admission alone; it’s a wonderful ensemble piece and Tracey Ullman has a great part too.
I May Destroy You feels amazingly fresh and authentic but maybe a bit self-indulgent and too long?
I haven’t seen “The Third Day” with Jude Law, set on Osea, but hear good things. Apparently the serial killer “I’ll be Gone in the Dark” was also excellent.
There were new series of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Better Call Saul, and Ozark this year.
I bring bad news: The Third Day is terrible. Jude Law is not a great actor, but even by his lowish standards, the final episode is cringingly awful.
That’s annoying, because one thing I haven’t seen in a while is a proper thriller. We seem to have forgotten, as a culture, how to make them.
Bodyguard is really rather good. Not genius, but a highly watchable thriller, nonetheless
The Third Day has so many problems it is hard to know where to start. It was a queasy remake of the Wicker Man mixed with Broadchurch, like mixing offal with ice cream.
Latest Korean horror on Netflix - Sweet Home - is entertaining. The ten episodes (or at least the first nine) are more interesting than ten seasons of the various bits of the Walking Dead franchise.
And very much on point in lockdown year.
For political nerds, 2019’s Chief of Staff is also fun.
Time to bring the drawbridge up on the M1 and the A1.
Would it make more sense to move patients to the Nightingale and borrow staff from other areas if possible rather than taking the London variant northwards?
Tier 5 soon...
Nightingales cannot support ICU level care. Fortunately intubated patients are low risk of transmission because of the filters in the system, and quality of PPE available.
Worth noting that such mutual aid has long been part of practice. We took some patients from the NW and Yorkshire earlier in the year in our ICU in Leicester, and get national referrals for ECMO.
Obviously I was joking about the drawbridge, but how easy is it to move lots of patients that distance? Presumably you'd have to get Yorkshire ambulances to come and fetch them as all the London ones will be busy.
Would the plan normally be to move the Covid cases or other ones?
I thought the point of the Nightingales was that they would take marginal patients leaving more space for the critical ones in hospital - but if that doesn't work in this situation then perhaps their usefulness is rather less than intended...
They were to take incubated patients with mechanical support. Not much nursing, really monitoring and caring while you wait to see if they make it
The best TV drama of 2020, without question. Superb in every department. Well done that man
Although, 2020 has on the whole been particularly shit on tv front.
I very much enjoyed “Plot Against America”. I feared it would be cliched tripe, but it was saved by a David Simon script and great acting.
I am 4/5 the way through Steve McQueen’s Little Axe movies.
The latter is an outstanding artistic achievement. The New York Times placed every single one of the five movies on their Best Films of 2020 list.
I forgot I had watched that, and not because it I though it forgettable!
We loved The Queens Gambit, & Normal People too. I also discovered Detectorists and The Crown, so quite an enjoyable tv year
Queen’s Gambit was excellent, but not perfect. (Slightly hackneyed first episode!).
The Crown is mostly high class fluff, but utterly addictive. I actually thought this season the best of them all so far, and the Charles-Diana story very well done.
I saw the first few episodes of the Detectorists and I know it has its fans, but it seems to be a bit of a Last of the Summer Wine rehash to me.
Mrs America is surely worth watching for PB fans. Cate Blanchett is worth the price of admission alone; it’s a wonderful ensemble piece and Tracey Ullman has a great part too.
I May Destroy You feels amazingly fresh and authentic but maybe a bit self-indulgent and too long?
I haven’t seen “The Third Day” with Jude Law, set on Osea, but hear good things. Apparently the serial killer “I’ll be Gone in the Dark” was also excellent.
There were new series of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Better Call Saul, and Ozark this year.
I bring bad news: The Third Day is terrible. Jude Law is not a great actor, but even by his lowish standards, the final episode is cringingly awful.
That’s annoying, because one thing I haven’t seen in a while is a proper thriller. We seem to have forgotten, as a culture, how to make them.
Bodyguard is really rather good. Not genius, but a highly watchable thriller, nonetheless
The Third Day has so many problems it is hard to know where to start. It was a queasy remake of the Wicker Man mixed with Broadchurch, like mixing offal with ice cream.
Really enjoying this prediction series - Alastair's effort seems very plausible to me.
I can't agree though that Labour are dangerous and incompetent.
Alastair rightly picks out March, Sept and Dec as the moments when Boris messed up. In March Starmer wasn't saying much (but he was fighting a leadership campaign to be fair).
As soon as he heard the scientific advice for September, he called for action and broke with the govt. And in December he was ahead of the curve and calling for action.
The action he called for in September was proven to be ineffective in Wales though
He's generally taken the position of being a shade stricter than the government, which is great politics.
Mr Meeks did not call for a short circuit break followed by a "fill your boots Wales, party on down" release from lockdown.
The fire break failed, and it did fail,. because it was managed badly. Had the fire break been followed by Johnson's excellent tier system it might have worked.
I disagree - with a 10 day incubation period, 2 weeks isn’t enough. But the ending was badly mishandled.
I have not had a pizza since February but I have just added one to our next Waitrose order. No prizes for guessing the topping.
Useless. Needs to be a delivery service otherwise it's too healthy. They slather them in loveliness (oil?) whereas the supermarket ones are depressingly non oily.
The best TV drama of 2020, without question. Superb in every department. Well done that man
Although, 2020 has on the whole been particularly shit on tv front.
I very much enjoyed “Plot Against America”. I feared it would be cliched tripe, but it was saved by a David Simon script and great acting.
I am 4/5 the way through Steve McQueen’s Little Axe movies.
The latter is an outstanding artistic achievement. The New York Times placed every single one of the five movies on their Best Films of 2020 list.
I forgot I had watched that, and not because it I though it forgettable!
We loved The Queens Gambit, & Normal People too. I also discovered Detectorists and The Crown, so quite an enjoyable tv year
Queen’s Gambit was excellent, but not perfect. (Slightly hackneyed first episode!).
The Crown is mostly high class fluff, but utterly addictive. I actually thought this season the best of them all so far, and the Charles-Diana story very well done.
I saw the first few episodes of the Detectorists and I know it has its fans, but it seems to be a bit of a Last of the Summer Wine rehash to me.
Mrs America is surely worth watching for PB fans. Cate Blanchett is worth the price of admission alone; it’s a wonderful ensemble piece and Tracey Ullman has a great part too.
I May Destroy You feels amazingly fresh and authentic but maybe a bit self-indulgent and too long?
I haven’t seen “The Third Day” with Jude Law, set on Osea, but hear good things. Apparently the serial killer “I’ll be Gone in the Dark” was also excellent.
There were new series of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Better Call Saul, and Ozark this year.
I bring bad news: The Third Day is terrible. Jude Law is not a great actor, but even by his lowish standards, the final episode is cringingly awful.
That’s annoying, because one thing I haven’t seen in a while is a proper thriller. We seem to have forgotten, as a culture, how to make them.
Bodyguard is really rather good. Not genius, but a highly watchable thriller, nonetheless
The Third Day has so many problems it is hard to know where to start. It was a queasy remake of the Wicker Man mixed with Broadchurch, like mixing offal with ice cream.
Hah. Even as I wrote that analogy I thought "I bet someone has actually tried to deliver that mixture".
It still sounds utterly disgusting.
I learnt not to dismiss apparently weird combinations, after being served rabbit in chocolate sauce with pine nuts in a Skye cottage many yerars ago. (A bitter sauce, actually.)
No news on the Oxford vaccine - weren't the FT and Torygraph promising approval today?
My theory is that the AZ vaccine will be announced tomorrow then Boris Johnson will announce as part of the tier review due tomorrow we're all moving to tier 42 but we'll have everyone vaccinated by May so don't worry there's light at the end of the tunnel.
Is Tier 42 a Level 42 tribute act?
It does look like the virus started in The Chinese Way.
Tory MPs finally losing patience with Williamson and the DfE. Their email inboxes must be red hot with complaints from parents - even the Jezza Vine phone in on Radio 2 was struggling to find anyone demanding schools be kept open.
Note that the government has never posted any detail of the numbers of teacher infections and deaths - despite being thus being repeatedly requested by teachers’ representatives.
Which suggests to me the the insistence that “schools are completely safe” is, if not an absolute lie, then one of those statements politicians don’t care if it’s true or not.
My University did for our staff - most we ever got to was 4 positive cases in a week, and that included 2 who had gone on a dirty weekend to Cornwall.
"Dirty weekend to Cornwall" - was this part of HMG's valiant efforts to save the hospitality sector?
I was more curious on whether the 2 had gone together or separately
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
Generally, I find this sort of thing irritating. It distracts from versimilitude, which is what I crave.
I hope this doesn’t make me a screaming racist.
I guess, by the sounds of it though, Bridgerton is not really striving for authenticity, it’s just a visual spectacle. In which case, who cares?
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
They did with The Hollow Crown casting black actors and actresses in roles such as Edward, 2nd Duke of York and Margaret of Anjou.
They thought lets cast good actors and actresses in the role and let people deal with it and they did.
Tory MPs finally losing patience with Williamson and the DfE. Their email inboxes must be red hot with complaints from parents - even the Jezza Vine phone in on Radio 2 was struggling to find anyone demanding schools be kept open.
Note that the government has never posted any detail of the numbers of teacher infections and deaths - despite being thus being repeatedly requested by teachers’ representatives.
Which suggests to me the the insistence that “schools are completely safe” is, if not an absolute lie, then one of those statements politicians don’t care if it’s true or not.
My University did for our staff - most we ever got to was 4 positive cases in a week, and that included 2 who had gone on a dirty weekend to Cornwall.
"Dirty weekend to Cornwall" - was this part of HMG's valiant efforts to save the hospitality sector?
I was more curious on whether the 2 had gone together or separately
Me too, and how they knew it was dirty, as opposed, to, say, an industrial archaeology trip around the old wheals and flashes.
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
Generally, I find this sort of thing irritating. It distracts from versimilitude, which is what I crave.
I hope this doesn’t make me a screaming racist.
I guess, by the sounds of it though, Bridgerton is not really striving for authenticity, it’s just a visual spectacle. In which case, who cares?
Time to bring the drawbridge up on the M1 and the A1.
Would it make more sense to move patients to the Nightingale and borrow staff from other areas if possible rather than taking the London variant northwards?
Tier 5 soon...
Nightingales cannot support ICU level care. Fortunately intubated patients are low risk of transmission because of the filters in the system, and quality of PPE available.
Worth noting that such mutual aid has long been part of practice. We took some patients from the NW and Yorkshire earlier in the year in our ICU in Leicester, and get national referrals for ECMO.
My bro is COO for a London Trust and he tells me that the PPE is so good that not a single doctor or nurse involved in Covid treatment in his hospitals has caught the disease on duty since the pandemic began.
Also of the firm view that the Nightingales were a PR driven waste of resource.
Management of a London hospital doesn’t like anything that suggests he couldn’t cope?
If you think Britain is mismanaging Covid, this Guardian thread reveals that three days after vaccinations began in France, they have, so far, immunized..... 100 people.
That's not a typo. One hundred. 33 people a day. Should have full herd immunity just before the sun turns into a Red Giant, devouring the solar system.
Lets wait and see how Christmas numbers pan out. What we can say is Germany is no longer in the premier League of COVID response countries.
I think we've never really been up there. The Premier League was always Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and - yes - China.
Don't forget Australia and New Zealand.
Correct, that was lazy.
I think you were a bit unfair about Germany. Germany's initial response was very good. Lots of testing, closed the borders, lockdown fairly quickly. Not dissimilar to say Australia.
Then came the summer and it has been a series of missteps, from foreign holidays to diet lockdown.
Perhaps more importantly, maybe much more importantly, we now know British Supercovid has been in Germany since November.
If it is concealed but widespread there that would explain almost everything. Standard lockdowns cannot beat Supercovid.
The report is 'A Case in Hannover' and one in Frankfurt.
What I don't know is whether other countries are doing their PCR testing on the same selection of sequences as the UK. We've had a small stroke of fortune in that one of the three COVID virus strands we test for gives a negative result on PCR. This we can go back and retrospectively map in great detail, even apart from our sequence analysis capabilities, exactly where and when the new variant arose and in what frequency, just from our normal lab testing.
If any country does their own testing against that sequence, they should be able to know exactly the evolution of Supercovid in their country. That it hasn't emerged tells of something, I'm just not sure what.
That the only country doing enough sequencing is the UK
My point was more that any country that 'got lucky', and chose PCR diagnostic markers similar to the ones we chose, does not need to have done much genetic sequencing to trace the history of Cockney COVID in their own country. And, given the duty to report, the fact nobody has come forward with large numbers of cases, plus the lack of other obvious examples of explosive outbreaks under similar grades of lockdown other than SE England (I think Berlin was mooted last time but I think the timeline of outbreak to lockdown was much more typical).
I've yet to see good evidence of a major Cockney COVID outbreak elsewhere, and I feel it should be findable, despite other countries playing catch up on generic sequencing,. I've only seen 'its obvious innit' aspersion casting. In this respect, the spotting of a handful of cases doesn't cut it, just as saying we were in the same boat as Italy in late February wouldn't cut it.
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
I would say that if the race of the character isn't important to the story, then the race of the actor doesn't matter. You cant have white actors playing slaves in the Deep South, or MLK, but conceivably they could play the role of a black character where their race isn't part of the story... I cant think of one though! So in my eyes, having black Edwardian Londoners doesn't really matter, even if there weren't really any, but it would be weird if their skin colour were mentioned as part of the story
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
If it is all just meant to be a bit of fun I don't think it matters, since authenticity of race won't add anything, but if it is meant to be serious and weighty then a really incongrous element might feel strange. Not that films or tv shows need a warning about lack of historical accuracy, but if it is not the point to comment, and it is meant to be serious, I can understand it causing a few head tilts.
That Mary Queen of Scots movie was very serious (though David Tennant was hilarious as John Knox) and had a few non-white actors in roles that seems improbable, and it didn't hurt the film exactly, but given its 'this is a serious historical film, no really' feel that it seemed to be going for, it did make me wonder why it went for that approach, and why not go further if the point was 'we don't care about race when casting this film'.
This is why I prefer fantasy fiction - sure people usually go for a more racist approach nations and races being entirely separate and genuinely distinct even beyond history, if you want a society to be racially diverse or tolerant of race and sexuality and the like, you can, and no one can complain about inaccuracy.
Hopefully Gal Gadot will still get to play Cleopatra in that movie she is trying to make. Mostly because she is Gal Gadot.
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
Generally, I find this sort of thing irritating. It distracts from versimilitude, which is what I crave.
I hope this doesn’t make me a screaming racist.
I guess, by the sounds of it though, Bridgerton is not really striving for authenticity, it’s just a visual spectacle. In which case, who cares?
Who are your favourite Othellos?
Is that supposed to be a gotcha? I’ve never seen Othello on screen, and I think the one time I saw it performed live, Othello was played by a black actor.
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
Generally, I find this sort of thing irritating. It distracts from versimilitude, which is what I crave.
I hope this doesn’t make me a screaming racist.
I guess, by the sounds of it though, Bridgerton is not really striving for authenticity, it’s just a visual spectacle. In which case, who cares?
I'm amused that you've spelled verisimilitude incorrectly.
I enjoyed that new comedy the BBC was showing earlier in the year. You had that guy who used to present HIGNFY giving a satirical monologue focusing on current events and then him and a couple of guests would do some improv based on topics thrown out by folk via video link.
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
You should have seen how angry racists got when black characters turned up in BBC family entertainment Merlin.
Their suspension of disbelief in wizards and dragons was totally shattered by black people being knights.
I do think the hospital & MP concerned could have worked on the communication - "queue up at 3pm for left over vaccine" isn't a message you want getting out.
Doesn't happen. Any "left over doses" go to the NHS staff manning the vaccine dept.
That can only surely happen on the first few days - after a while all those manning the vaccine roll-out will have had theirs.
I am on standby each day for a call from my wife telling me that the hospital where she works is looking for people to use up the leftover thawed vaccine for precisely that reason. Most of those in the hospital who are not on the top priority list have already had the opportunity to use up leftovers.
Again not as per today. There are plenty of NHS staff around to stick needles into.
No news on the Oxford vaccine - weren't the FT and Torygraph promising approval today?
My theory is that the AZ vaccine will be announced tomorrow then Boris Johnson will announce as part of the tier review due tomorrow we're all moving to tier 42 but we'll have everyone vaccinated by May so don't worry there's light at the end of the tunnel.
Is Tier 42 a Level 42 tribute act?
It does look like the virus started in The Chinese Way.
Having Christmas dinner with the folks keeps it Running in the Family
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
They did with The Hollow Crown casting black actors and actresses in roles such as Edward, 2nd Duke of York and Margaret of Anjou.
They thought lets cast good actors and actresses in the role and let people deal with it and they did.
I get that, and I generally approve. But there is a point where it becomes utterly surreal, and maybe morally wrong.
Not least because there WERE some black people in late Georgian London: but they were imported servants, and freed slaves, and the like. they certainly weren't dukes from ancient families.
So, to me, it seems to be belittling and trivialising the difficult lived experience of black people in Britain in the early 19th century.
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
Generally, I find this sort of thing irritating. It distracts from versimilitude, which is what I crave.
I hope this doesn’t make me a screaming racist.
I guess, by the sounds of it though, Bridgerton is not really striving for authenticity, it’s just a visual spectacle. In which case, who cares?
Who are your favourite Othellos?
Is that supposed to be a gotcha? I’ve never seen Othello on screen, and I think the one time I saw it performed live, Othello was played by a black actor.
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
I would say that if the race of the character isn't important to the story, then the race of the actor doesn't matter.
I'd say the same on something like gender. People would (and probably did) disagree, but it never seemed to me that being a man was that central to the character of The Doctor in Doctor Who, nor race. Though as it is a very British show, they'd at least need to have a british accent even though the character is an alien. But what about a character like James Bond? I don't think race matters a jot there, but possibly being a man is a bit more important to the fundamentals of that character.
Certainly in a lot of modern settings it doesn't seem like it would matter much.
Time to bring the drawbridge up on the M1 and the A1.
Would it make more sense to move patients to the Nightingale and borrow staff from other areas if possible rather than taking the London variant northwards?
Tier 5 soon...
Nightingales cannot support ICU level care. Fortunately intubated patients are low risk of transmission because of the filters in the system, and quality of PPE available.
Worth noting that such mutual aid has long been part of practice. We took some patients from the NW and Yorkshire earlier in the year in our ICU in Leicester, and get national referrals for ECMO.
My bro is COO for a London Trust and he tells me that the PPE is so good that not a single doctor or nurse involved in Covid treatment in his hospitals has caught the disease on duty since the pandemic began.
Also of the firm view that the Nightingales were a PR driven waste of resource.
Management of a London hospital doesn’t like anything that suggests he couldn’t cope?
If you think Britain is mismanaging Covid, this Guardian thread reveals that three days after vaccinations began in France, they have, so far, immunized..... 100 people.
That's not a typo. One hundred. 33 people a day. Should have full herd immunity just before the sun turns into a Red Giant, devouring the solar system.
Time to bring the drawbridge up on the M1 and the A1.
Would it make more sense to move patients to the Nightingale and borrow staff from other areas if possible rather than taking the London variant northwards?
Tier 5 soon...
Nightingales cannot support ICU level care. Fortunately intubated patients are low risk of transmission because of the filters in the system, and quality of PPE available.
Worth noting that such mutual aid has long been part of practice. We took some patients from the NW and Yorkshire earlier in the year in our ICU in Leicester, and get national referrals for ECMO.
My bro is COO for a London Trust and he tells me that the PPE is so good that not a single doctor or nurse involved in Covid treatment in his hospitals has caught the disease on duty since the pandemic began.
Also of the firm view that the Nightingales were a PR driven waste of resource.
Management of a London hospital doesn’t like anything that suggests he couldn’t cope?
If you think Britain is mismanaging Covid, this Guardian thread reveals that three days after vaccinations began in France, they have, so far, immunized..... 100 people.
That's not a typo. One hundred. 33 people a day. Should have full herd immunity just before the sun turns into a Red Giant, devouring the solar system.
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
They did with The Hollow Crown casting black actors and actresses in roles such as Edward, 2nd Duke of York and Margaret of Anjou.
They thought lets cast good actors and actresses in the role and let people deal with it and they did.
I get that, and I generally approve. But there is a point where it becomes utterly surreal, and maybe morally wrong.
Not least because there WERE some black people in late Georgian London: but they were imported servants, and freed slaves, and the like. they certainly weren't dukes from ancient families.
So, to me, it seems to be belittling and trivialising the difficult lived experience of black people in Britain in the early 19th century.
Also sailors, but they were also on the margin of London society - literally so also as they would have been concentrated in Docklands. Which reinforces your point.
Though there were a few imported children from West Indian planter/settler families, middle class and up.
The best TV drama of 2020, without question. Superb in every department. Well done that man
Although, 2020 has on the whole been particularly shit on tv front.
I very much enjoyed “Plot Against America”. I feared it would be cliched tripe, but it was saved by a David Simon script and great acting.
I am 4/5 the way through Steve McQueen’s Little Axe movies.
The latter is an outstanding artistic achievement. The New York Times placed every single one of the five movies on their Best Films of 2020 list.
I forgot I had watched that, and not because it I though it forgettable!
We loved The Queens Gambit, & Normal People too. I also discovered Detectorists and The Crown, so quite an enjoyable tv year
Queen’s Gambit was excellent, but not perfect. (Slightly hackneyed first episode!).
The Crown is mostly high class fluff, but utterly addictive. I actually thought this season the best of them all so far, and the Charles-Diana story very well done.
I saw the first few episodes of the Detectorists and I know it has its fans, but it seems to be a bit of a Last of the Summer Wine rehash to me.
Mrs America is surely worth watching for PB fans. Cate Blanchett is worth the price of admission alone; it’s a wonderful ensemble piece and Tracey Ullman has a great part too.
I May Destroy You feels amazingly fresh and authentic but maybe a bit self-indulgent and too long?
I haven’t seen “The Third Day” with Jude Law, set on Osea, but hear good things. Apparently the serial killer “I’ll be Gone in the Dark” was also excellent.
There were new series of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Better Call Saul, and Ozark this year.
I bring bad news: The Third Day is terrible. Jude Law is not a great actor, but even by his lowish standards, the final episode is cringingly awful.
That’s annoying, because one thing I haven’t seen in a while is a proper thriller. We seem to have forgotten, as a culture, how to make them.
Bodyguard is really rather good. Not genius, but a highly watchable thriller, nonetheless
The Third Day has so many problems it is hard to know where to start. It was a queasy remake of the Wicker Man mixed with Broadchurch, like mixing offal with ice cream.
Hah. Even as I wrote that analogy I thought "I bet someone has actually tried to deliver that mixture".
It still sounds utterly disgusting.
I learnt not to dismiss apparently weird combinations, after being served rabbit in chocolate sauce with pine nuts in a Skye cottage many yerars ago. (A bitter sauce, actually.)
Chocolate with meat is a different thing. The Aztecs perfected it. Mole sauce. Can be delish
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
You should have seen how angry racists got when black characters turned up in BBC family entertainment Merlin.
Their suspension of disbelief in wizards and dragons was totally shattered by black people being knights.
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
Generally, I find this sort of thing irritating. It distracts from versimilitude, which is what I crave.
I hope this doesn’t make me a screaming racist.
I guess, by the sounds of it though, Bridgerton is not really striving for authenticity, it’s just a visual spectacle. In which case, who cares?
Who are your favourite Othellos?
Is that supposed to be a gotcha? I’ve never seen Othello on screen, and I think the one time I saw it performed live, Othello was played by a black actor.
Poor you.
As one of them famously said: it's acting.
Anyway off to watch Fargo S2.
Enjoy.
That’s a pretty sanctimonious response to quite an interesting subject.
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
You should have seen how angry racists got when black characters turned up in BBC family entertainment Merlin.
Their suspension of disbelief in wizards and dragons was totally shattered by black people being knights.
Presumably on a 'it's supposed to be historically accurate, except for the specific elements of dragons and wizards' basis, but it's not much of a pretext argument. When you're already in fantasy land, getting fussy over anachronisms is futile, and potentially suspicious if it is just that one element.
As it happens I'm reading a series right now which if they ever did an adaption I think they would need to pay attention to race when casting, as within the story it is quite relevant, yet notably even though all but 1 (relatively minor) character (including the entire cultures where the story takes place) is non-white, the front cover includes a white woman (who cannot be that character due to hair colour).
I have not had a pizza since February but I have just added one to our next Waitrose order. No prizes for guessing the topping.
Useless. Needs to be a delivery service otherwise it's too healthy. They slather them in loveliness (oil?) whereas the supermarket ones are depressingly non oily.
The oil wouldn't necessarily diminish the healthiness. There's some evidence that it slows the absorption of sugar into the bloodstream, meaning a lower insulin spike. The pizza itself is the problem. Same with pasta. So if you're going to eat those things (and why not from time to time) douse away I say.
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
I would say that if the race of the character isn't important to the story, then the race of the actor doesn't matter.
I'd say the same on something like gender. People would (and probably did) disagree, but it never seemed to me that being a man was that central to the character of The Doctor in Doctor Who, nor race. Though as it is a very British show, they'd at least need to have a british accent even though the character is an alien. But what about a character like James Bond? I don't think race matters a jot there, but possibly being a man is a bit more important to the fundamentals of that character.
Certainly in a lot of modern settings it doesn't seem like it would matter much.
I dont really know a lot about James Bond, except that the extreme left at Brighton Uni HATE the character! But cant see how it would make much difference what race he was.
The difference is that a lot of black characters in majority white films are defined by their race, so only black actors can play them, whereas the same isnt true for the white characters, so it doesnt about matter the race of the actor. Ypu cant really limit the job opportunities of non white actors by only allowing them to play 20th or 21st Century characters, or oppressed ones
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
I would say that if the race of the character isn't important to the story, then the race of the actor doesn't matter. You cant have white actors playing slaves in the Deep South, or MLK, but conceivably they could play the role of a black character where their race isn't part of the story... I cant think of one though! So in my eyes, having black Edwardian Londoners doesn't really matter, even if there weren't really any, but it would be weird if their skin colour were mentioned as part of the story
Spot on.
Like you I can't think of a "story involving a black person where their race isn't relevant", I presume that is because we are a white-default country so any story/incident/history we know involving a black person is _beacuse_ it involves a black person interacting with white people in exceptional circumstances.
If we all lived in Nigeria I'm sure we'd be struggling to think of a story involving a white person where their whitness wasn't vitally important to the situation.
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
You should have seen how angry racists got when black characters turned up in BBC family entertainment Merlin.
Their suspension of disbelief in wizards and dragons was totally shattered by black people being knights.
Reminded me of this.
I've often wondered if all the medieval european artists, and people who viewed their work, genuinely thought it the case that Jesus was not just white but very pale, or if they considered it likely he was not but they used people as existed around them as templates.
The best TV drama of 2020, without question. Superb in every department. Well done that man
Although, 2020 has on the whole been particularly shit on tv front.
I very much enjoyed “Plot Against America”. I feared it would be cliched tripe, but it was saved by a David Simon script and great acting.
I am 4/5 the way through Steve McQueen’s Little Axe movies.
The latter is an outstanding artistic achievement. The New York Times placed every single one of the five movies on their Best Films of 2020 list.
I forgot I had watched that, and not because it I though it forgettable!
We loved The Queens Gambit, & Normal People too. I also discovered Detectorists and The Crown, so quite an enjoyable tv year
Queen’s Gambit was excellent, but not perfect. (Slightly hackneyed first episode!).
The Crown is mostly high class fluff, but utterly addictive. I actually thought this season the best of them all so far, and the Charles-Diana story very well done.
I saw the first few episodes of the Detectorists and I know it has its fans, but it seems to be a bit of a Last of the Summer Wine rehash to me.
Mrs America is surely worth watching for PB fans. Cate Blanchett is worth the price of admission alone; it’s a wonderful ensemble piece and Tracey Ullman has a great part too.
I May Destroy You feels amazingly fresh and authentic but maybe a bit self-indulgent and too long?
I haven’t seen “The Third Day” with Jude Law, set on Osea, but hear good things. Apparently the serial killer “I’ll be Gone in the Dark” was also excellent.
There were new series of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Better Call Saul, and Ozark this year.
I bring bad news: The Third Day is terrible. Jude Law is not a great actor, but even by his lowish standards, the final episode is cringingly awful.
That’s annoying, because one thing I haven’t seen in a while is a proper thriller. We seem to have forgotten, as a culture, how to make them.
Bodyguard is really rather good. Not genius, but a highly watchable thriller, nonetheless
The Third Day has so many problems it is hard to know where to start. It was a queasy remake of the Wicker Man mixed with Broadchurch, like mixing offal with ice cream.
Hah. Even as I wrote that analogy I thought "I bet someone has actually tried to deliver that mixture".
It still sounds utterly disgusting.
I learnt not to dismiss apparently weird combinations, after being served rabbit in chocolate sauce with pine nuts in a Skye cottage many yerars ago. (A bitter sauce, actually.)
Chocolate with meat is a different thing. The Aztecs perfected it. Mole sauce. Can be delish
I've had venison with dark chocolate sauce. On Mull. Maybe it's just a weird Scottish isles thing, where they are happy to improvise with stuff when they have run out of ingredients and going for the right thing is a faff.
Although Michael Wignall had no such excuse for his eel with white chocolate. Other than culinary brilliance.
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
You should have seen how angry racists got when black characters turned up in BBC family entertainment Merlin.
Their suspension of disbelief in wizards and dragons was totally shattered by black people being knights.
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
They did with The Hollow Crown casting black actors and actresses in roles such as Edward, 2nd Duke of York and Margaret of Anjou.
They thought lets cast good actors and actresses in the role and let people deal with it and they did.
I get that, and I generally approve. But there is a point where it becomes utterly surreal, and maybe morally wrong.
Not least because there WERE some black people in late Georgian London: but they were imported servants, and freed slaves, and the like. they certainly weren't dukes from ancient families.
So, to me, it seems to be belittling and trivialising the difficult lived experience of black people in Britain in the early 19th century.
Also sailors, but they were also on the margin of London society - literally so also as they would have been concentrated in Docklands. Which reinforces your point.
Though there were a few imported children from West Indian planter/settler families, middle class and up.
There were several gifted musicians too, who played in orchestras.
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
No, and I can’t be arsed. Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
It confuses me because, on the one hand, we are all supposed to be super-aware of race, Black Lives Matter, and all that, and yet here is a series with black Georgian dukes and duchesses and no one mentions their race or colour. So the series is telling us race and colour DON'T matter? So you could have a series about American slavery with whites playing slaves? Or War and Peace set very much in St Petersburg yet entirely cast with Chinese or Inuit actors?
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
If it is all just meant to be a bit of fun I don't think it matters, since authenticity of race won't add anything, but if it is meant to be serious and weighty then a really incongrous element might feel strange. Not that films or tv shows need a warning about lack of historical accuracy, but if it is not the point to comment, and it is meant to be serious, I can understand it causing a few head tilts.
That Mary Queen of Scots movie was very serious (though David Tennant was hilarious as John Knox) and had a few non-white actors in roles that seems improbable, and it didn't hurt the film exactly, but given its 'this is a serious historical film, no really' feel that it seemed to be going for, it did make me wonder why it went for that approach, and why not go further if the point was 'we don't care about race when casting this film'.
This is why I prefer fantasy fiction - sure people usually go for a more racist approach nations and races being entirely separate and genuinely distinct even beyond history, if you want a society to be racially diverse or tolerant of race and sexuality and the like, you can, and no one can complain about inaccuracy.
Hopefully Gal Gadot will still get to play Cleopatra in that movie she is trying to make. Mostly because she is Gal Gadot.
There is no reason besides ignorance and antisemitism for Gal Gadot not to play Cleopatra.
Comments
And the acting is tremendous, across the board. From kids and teens. 9/10, double plus good.
(Also apologies for stuffing up the quote...)
Well that episode - Lover’s Rock - also topped Sight and Sound’s Films of 2020 list.
Wonderful stuff.
I really don't know what to make of the extraordinary multiracial cast. As in: I don't know what it is trying to do or say to us.
Still good fun, tho.
Also a documentary, by Ken Burns.
And on that note, PBS America is a delight - over lockdown they've replayed the Our World War series, as well as a tonne of Burns' work.
(You're forgiven)
(You're forgiven)
(You're forgiven)
https://twitter.com/JenniferMerode/status/1344028032869216263
It is a PB inalienable truth.
There have been times when the Tories have led in the Scottish subsamples, I laughed then, as I laugh now.
Isn’t it just pap in Regency costume? Kind of like Emily in Paris, but in farthingales.
The multiracial David Copperfield film was very good, though.
Covid really has messed up life, the universe and everything.
WHO warns Covid-19 pandemic is 'not necessarily the big one'.
Experts tell end of year media briefing that virus is likely to become endemic and the world will have to learn to live with it.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/29/who-warns-covid-19-pandemic-is-not-necessarily-the-big-one
Mills & Boon version of Jane Austen.
Only vaguely interesting bit was the interiors - mix of sets and some real places in London.
Four years on, he is furious at the EU deal. “I’m hoping the deal gets voted out by parliament. I doubt it. Boris came to Brixham and promised us everything. He’s used fishing as a lever to get whatever he wants. Fishing’s not important to them. I have a fish merchant friend who calls two-faced people kippers. Boris is a kipper.”
And
"Brixham-born Sean Irvine, 61, who has been fishing from the port since the early 1990s, said he was glad, at least, that there had been a deal but he is concerned about the new paperwork that will be needed to send fish to mainland Europe – as much as 80% of Irvine’s catch is exported.
“We’ll be catching the same fish in the same water as the French but we’ll have to produce a mountain of paperwork for it. It seems to me what we have achieved is minuscule when you think of the upsets it has caused in families and communities. All that effort for so little.”
I suppose it's early days...
Incidentally have binge watched the entirety. Very enjoyable and tense. Even though I've seen them before. And even if they do stretch credulity to breaking point.
Am planning on Bodies next.
Honestly, if it had been a bit more like a typical Ianucci project, for better and worse, it might have been more interesting.
It is extra confusing because in many ways the series strives hard to be historically accurate - it has high production values, it carefully recreates 1813 Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (tho I am told the costumery is all over the shop, with bits of Regency mixed with bits of mid-Victorian)
Race is such a fucked-up subject, and no one knows quite how to handle it: perhaps the series is simply telling us THAT.
The ten episodes (or at least the first nine) are more interesting than ten seasons of the various bits of the Walking Dead franchise.
And very much on point in lockdown year.
For political nerds, 2019’s Chief of Staff is also fun.
Ahem, sorry
It still sounds utterly disgusting.
It distracts from versimilitude, which is what I crave.
I hope this doesn’t make me a screaming racist.
I guess, by the sounds of it though, Bridgerton is not really striving for authenticity, it’s just a visual spectacle. In which case, who cares?
They thought lets cast good actors and actresses in the role and let people deal with it and they did.
That's not a typo. One hundred. 33 people a day. Should have full herd immunity just before the sun turns into a Red Giant, devouring the solar system.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/dec/29/coronavirus-live-news-more-countries-alert-suspected-cases-new-uk-covid-variant
I've yet to see good evidence of a major Cockney COVID outbreak elsewhere, and I feel it should be findable, despite other countries playing catch up on generic sequencing,. I've only seen 'its obvious innit' aspersion casting. In this respect, the spotting of a handful of cases doesn't cut it, just as saying we were in the same boat as Italy in late February wouldn't cut it.
That Mary Queen of Scots movie was very serious (though David Tennant was hilarious as John Knox) and had a few non-white actors in roles that seems improbable, and it didn't hurt the film exactly, but given its 'this is a serious historical film, no really' feel that it seemed to be going for, it did make me wonder why it went for that approach, and why not go further if the point was 'we don't care about race when casting this film'.
This is why I prefer fantasy fiction - sure people usually go for a more racist approach nations and races being entirely separate and genuinely distinct even beyond history, if you want a society to be racially diverse or tolerant of race and sexuality and the like, you can, and no one can complain about inaccuracy.
Hopefully Gal Gadot will still get to play Cleopatra in that movie she is trying to make. Mostly because she is Gal Gadot.
I’ve never seen Othello on screen, and I think the one time I saw it performed live, Othello was played by a black actor.
The catch phrases were a bit lame, mind.
Their suspension of disbelief in wizards and dragons was totally shattered by black people being knights.
Not least because there WERE some black people in late Georgian London: but they were imported servants, and freed slaves, and the like. they certainly weren't dukes from ancient families.
So, to me, it seems to be belittling and trivialising the difficult lived experience of black people in Britain in the early 19th century.
As one of them famously said: it's acting.
Anyway off to watch Fargo S2.
Enjoy.
Certainly in a lot of modern settings it doesn't seem like it would matter much.
How are they dealing with the fact that there's 970 in a box that all need using in 3.5 days if they've done 100 in 3 days?
Going to be a busy half a day tomorrow.
And Netherlands, can't even be arsed to start until second week of January.
Though there were a few imported children from West Indian planter/settler families, middle class and up.
As it happens I'm reading a series right now which if they ever did an adaption I think they would need to pay attention to race when casting, as within the story it is quite relevant, yet notably even though all but 1 (relatively minor) character (including the entire cultures where the story takes place) is non-white, the front cover includes a white woman (who cannot be that character due to hair colour).
That's marketing I guess.
Am I the only person to be amused by the name under which Ricki Tarr rampages around SE Asia ?
Thomas.
The difference is that a lot of black characters in majority white films are defined by their race, so only black actors can play them, whereas the same isnt true for the white characters, so it doesnt about matter the race of the actor. Ypu cant really limit the job opportunities of non white actors by only allowing them to play 20th or 21st Century characters, or oppressed ones
Like you I can't think of a "story involving a black person where their race isn't relevant", I presume that is because we are a white-default country so any story/incident/history we know involving a black person is _beacuse_ it involves a black person interacting with white people in exceptional circumstances.
If we all lived in Nigeria I'm sure we'd be struggling to think of a story involving a white person where their whitness wasn't vitally important to the situation.
Although Michael Wignall had no such excuse for his eel with white chocolate. Other than culinary brilliance.