http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2009/oct/14/sarkozy-brown-i-love-you

Poor old Gordy, at least he's gettin some lovin off somebody...

http://auto.pege.org/2009-genf/opel-ampera-vorne.htm

Saw this being unveiled on TV today - Mandy, Prince of Darkness, was showing it off. Reminds me of something...

This week, I have been mostly rereading Abiezer Coppe. His writing is extraordinary - everything else, bar Blake, is like limp lettuce in comparison*

By coincidence - because you can go for years without hearing any mention of the Ranters, 'Winstanley' is getting a British DVD release this week. http://www.newstatesman.com/film/2009/07/film-winstanley-diggers It's a very low budget account of the Digger settlement on St. George's Hill in 1649 - or, more accurately, George's Hill, because the Diggers didn't hold with saints. It was made by Kevin Brownlow - the man who also painstakingly assembled much of the 'lost' material in Gance's Napoléon, only to have Coppola block it from a DVD or widespread cinema release because he has the copyright on the shorter, horribly Coppola-relative soundtracked version. I've got a U.S. DVD of 'Winstanley', and, whilst it's good it was made, and looks beautiful, it's a wee bit dull (though is improved greatly if taken with wine). I was also a bit pissed off by Winstanley's accent - he sounded like a terribly reasonable 1950's southern schoolteacher, not the Wigan man he was (more like George Formby, then?!)- and the toning down of the religious element. The thing that leaps out at you from even a short reading of the words of the 1640's revolutionaries is their religion, their mysticism and millenarianism: to ignore this (and I'm sorry to make the comparison) is like forgetting to mention that Al Quaida are hardcore Islamicists whose aim is a global caliphate. 'The Devil's Whore', silly as it was, did at least make a stab at it, in the scene where Cromwell and Rainsborough threaten the town (then it got lost amidst the heaving bosoms). I was glad to come across this - http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/oct/17/david-caute-winstanley-comrade-jacob . Religion is something that really gets glossed over by people, Marxist and otherwise: I'm an atheist, so I appreciate the awkwardness they may feel when confronted by it, but too many of them seem to write as though these people thought like 19th or 20thc rational humanists. I think Foreign Policy advisors have the same problem.

Ah, it's on Youtube. All things come to Youtube, in the end. It's like a very long, beautifully shot home movie. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqSqr1mErzw&feature=related

*this is not a dig at vegetarian food, for I, too, am a mostly-vegetarian - more a comment on my veg patch, in which the lettuces have bolted, producing some very pretty cornflower like flowers, but also meaning the leaves have flopped and aint good for nothing no more.

Well, it was pitched as "Entourage with easels", and it was. Am I just hopelessly naive in wanting a bit of historical accuracy in 'historical' dramas? Should I just be grateful that these people get a mention at all, and hope that some of the teenagers and whatnot who tune in to watch this nicely dressed soap about pretty boys screwing then go on to buy an art book and discover that they actually did stuff and had a political agenda beyond the bedding of redheads?

The Guardian article here's a bit poor, but the comments underneath are fun - the rock band analogy fits, and 'the Devil's Whore' comparisons, and the 'Hollyoaks', and the 'how on earth are they going to stretch this out over 6 hours'? I particularly like the riposte at 10.08, yours, Vincent. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/21/groups-culture-society-belonging

And another thing: so far, we've seen a lot of naked ladies, including a completely gratuitous bit when the actresss playing Lizzie Siddall goes behind a screen to get changed and the camera peers over the top of the screen so we can see her tits, even though the artist in this scene isn't showing a carnal interest, and the pose she's posing for is clothed, and she's meant to be shy, so there's no narrative justification whatsoever. Meh. If the drama doesn't balance this out with an equal amount of male bums and cocks I'm complaining.

This is coming up next week. http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/jul/11/desperate-romantics-tv-preview . The BBC are plugging it with the line 'they were the YBAs of their day'. No they fucking weren't. The only thing the PRB had in common with the YBAs is that they both breathed, ate and shat.

And it's got Rafe Spall in it. As the Redgrave dynasty has proved all too painfully, acting talent is not hereditary.

The 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane' lifestyle, the 'Sunset Blvd' death, 'The Loved One' burial!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oymjPBjYLQ&feature=related

A snatch of dialogue heard whilst flipping channels:
"In her entire reign, the queen's never lost a hat."
"To the wind, you mean."
"Yes."
Makes you proud to be British!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/gallery/2007/oct/02/purnell.photos?picture=330867810

Why has the stupid little squit done this? If Labour change leadership now, there'll have to be a snap general election, which the aristos will probably win by default. Better to hold on to Brown, and Brown do a grand gesture - ideally, scrapping our 17thc political system and getting a 21stc one, with Proportional Representation, etc. in the few months he has left between now and May. There is, for the first time in decades, real public appetite for this - problem is, I don't know whether Brown has the appetite for it, too. There also feels like a change in the wind - so many people today - including those who normally vote Tory (well, I presume they do - they read the Daily Mail, which no sane left or centrist would) - were going to the polling stations and voting Green or Lib Dem, etc.. Something is developing, but a snap election would snip it in the bud.

From the way they're behaving, it seems like 'New' Labour would rather lose outright and immediately to the Tories - old style, 20thc politics - than sit back while the electorate rethink their own politics away from the old two-party system. How stupid and selfish of them.

I've just switched on the telly. 'Tis an episode of 'Randall and Hopkirk (deceased)'. A roomfull of 60's dolly-birds in hair pieces and layered fox fur coats. Seems to be an international beauty pageant of some sort. From one comes the line: "the National Archives! They've got everything from Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights!". "Let's go there, then!" . And off they go. Hopkirk (deceased) is suspicious. As, indeed, am I.

The original radio series of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - the books and TV series were good as well. The recent film adaptation was dire - made by someone with no understanding of comedy whatsover. Bizarre.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=AmgbtfptGa0

Context - a couple of months ago the right wing press made a huge hoopla about 'obscenity' in mainstream comedy.

Anyone with access to the BBC's 'Listen Again' facility should go to Radio 4's 'PM' and listen to the robot from some government (?) management group talking about education at approx. 5.22pm. It was a stream of corporatespeak bullshit so pure it should be set in amber and preserved in a museum of early 21stc horrors. In context - pupils and parents at a school have gone on strike because the new Head is not a former teacher, but has been dropped in from corporate management. Only, it seems, they're not 'pupils' or 'schoolchildren' any more - they're 'CUSTOMERS'.

So, is the state education system (or what's left of it) now just another branch of consumer culture? And this under a 'Labour' Government. Makes you proud.

All hail to Terry Pratchett, for Moist's wonderful rant on this kind of shite in 'Going Postal' - not that it made any difference. (Google Going Postal, Moist, synergistically, and you should be able to find it).

Ooh, they're announcing the new Doctor Who at teatime...darn, I should have gone out to place a bet - I was thinking maybe Alan Davies (is that his name? God, I can't even remember his name - the curly haired comedian and chickens rights campaigner, the one off QI and Jonathan Creek...that one) because they did a Jonathan Creek special over xmas and I was wondering if it was to remind us who he was... Hope it isn't David Walliams - unless he plays it in drag. They said 'he' so I'm presuming the glass ceiling is not about to be broken in Time Lord world...gad, they're worse than the C of E!

When they announced David Tennant my first thought was - yay! Davina the barmaid! He's so pretty! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB-M_tYhLGU

I suppose that means it's time for an ugly one...my Mum was incredulous when someone last night said Alan Davies had 'woman appeal', but he's quite sweet - and has Tom Baker's hair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Davies ...hmm...well, all will be revealed later today.

Update...and it was...never heard of the chap, even though I've seen two dramas (the political researchers one and Philip Pullman thing) in which he featured...still, he has an unusual face - sort of a cross between Jamie Oliver and Frankenstein's creature. I presume the name was leaked somewhere, because he suddenly jumped to second favourite with the bookies yesterday- someone at the bbc must have placed a huge bet...

Wandering around in TKMaxx today, I saw these.........http://sparklepony.blogspot.com/2008/03/more-pictures-of-wonderful-new-my.html

My brain hurts.

Well, on my Facebook and Youtube, at least, for the death of Oliver Postgate, one half of Smallfilms (two men in a cowshed in Kent), who made Noggin the Nog, Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine and the Clangers and were just wonderful. I've just been watching the obituary on Ch4 news and now I'm snivelling. Humane genius.

Oh dear, I don't like Bill Bailey anymore. He was on the radio on monday going on about doing some zillionth birthday party performance in 'honour' of the useless foxmurdering wifemurdering arsehole p***** c******. He claimed he had never fancied doing a royal variety performance before, but Robin Williams* asked him to do a comedy duet, so he jumped at it. And then went on to show just how reluctant he had been by telling us how pleased he was his 'highness' had glanced his way and deigned to look amused.

I suppose there's no law saying that stand up comics have to be left-wing or (small r, American readers!) republican, but I used to like Bill Bailey because he came across as intelligent. More intelligent than the sort of forelock-tugging lackey who wants to caper in front of a soon-to-be-monarch like some clapped-out court jester.

And now that he's left 'Never Mind the Buzzcocks', he says he never felt comfortable on that, "sitting next to some indie twat". And he always used to look like he was enjoying it! Ooh, I feel lied to and betrayed!

*Robin Williams. The best argument against cocaine use there is.

Well, the Civil War drama looks good, so far. OK, it's a shame that they had to base it around the fictitious political 'awakening' of a pretty aristo girl, but in the post-Girl with a Pearl Earring, Other Boleyn Girl, M**** A********, media age, I suppose that's the price you have to pay to get a few Leveller pamphlets onscreen at prime time. And am I the only person who thinks she's a rotten actress? She's good at looking soulful, but her dialogue delivery is awful. But hooray for John Simm's Fistful of Dollars-style riding into town (they weren't joking when they said they were doing it Leone style). His hair's receding, though.

Yes, leaving aside the splitting headache (idiot, why did I drink that coffee?)I'm pretty pleased - thanks to the telly programme coming up next week, the papers - what I've seen of them at the neighbours' and read online - are full of articles on the Levellers! ( more TV series related gladness )

A brief observation on today's LJ 'writer's block' suggestion. Where The Wild Things Are. Favourite of middle-class, left-leaning Guardian-reading parents. Why?
Max hits the family's companion animal (pet dog), is sent to his room, then magically travels to a distant land where he subdues the natives (who seem to have hitherto existed in a lush society of equals) and declares himself their king. Then he goes home again and is rewarded with food.
What kind of lesson does that teach a kid?

Another day in the print studio, and my respect for even the crappest 18thc or 19thc jobbing cartoonist is soaring. The press we're using looks like something George Stephenson should be riding around on, and takes about 45 turns of the big wheel, Windy Miller style, to run the bed through. I'm going to be fit - just hoping I don't cut my arm, fingers or toes off - "no sandals in the studio! It happens!". It's also non-toxic: the old techniques for pictorial prints involved rosin - explosive and carcinogenic - and nitric acid. The effort involved to turn out daily newspapers in the pre-mechanised age must have been phenomenal, too, though they used a vertical press: now they're easy to churn out and full of rubbish.

I went to R. Jackson & Sons to get paper afterwards - it was still there, despite all the 'urban regeneration' (i.e., demolition and/or conversion into bars) in that part of town. It's still the same, just remarkable: it's made no concessions to the 21stc, or the 20thc either - it's a victorian art shop run as a victorian art shop by the same family in the same place since - I've just looked it up and I'm surprised but not surprised, if you see what I mean - 1863. They've got electricity, just about, but not great - I got a student discount which is either very chivalrous or due to the general Dickensian gloom - that's gloom in a good way, btw. I hope they never discover neon lights: it'll be like the end of Great Expectations. Weirdly, I know lots of people who work in the area, who drink in the bars in Slater Street, etc., and when I've mentioned Jacksons they say they've never noticed it. But it's been there forever! How can you not have noticed? With the big tall windows and the name above in peeling gold lettering on peeling black? Maybe it's like Brigadoon - it can only be seen by artists - maybe that's how it's managed to survive so long and avoid the evil gaze of developers, and why the shopkeeper can wander off upstairs to get me four sheets of tissue paper and not worry about the place being ransacked...

(And this in a city where - the jokes are true - they will nick anything: someone nicked a box of artichokes out of our car once, so oil paints and conté crayons are probably more tempting than you'd think).