barrymarshall

Keef Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I have had a couple of very very excessinve > weekends in more ways than one since New Years, so > maybe a Feb detox.... > > Unlikely! Me too - had an even more indulgent Jan than Dec. And Feb is my birthday month, plus a trip up to Glasgow. March anyone?

daft, isn't it? thing is, no-one's actually asked any Muslims if they think it offends. I somehow doubt it does ...

mockney piers Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I was reading a TV review saying that after many > years of standard soap fare, The Bill was really > stretching itself and becoming quality, > challenging TV. > I've not watched it for best part of a decade, but > can this possibly be true?! > > Have the makers been watching the Wire and asking > themselves? Why can't we do politics and issues? > > It's a question, does anyone watch it? does this answer it? See point #2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv_and_radio/story/0,,2245203,00.html PS - Five pages now, SMG >:D<

David Simon speaks for himself: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/tvradio/story/0,,2008531,00.html Unlike, say, the CSI franchise, where unequivocally good and good-looking men and women swan around swish offices, and viewers are accustomed to the crime lab delivering perpetrators neatly at the end of each episode, The Wire offers no such comforts. Here the cops are, for the most part, a bunch of aggressive, workshy drunks who inhabit a filthy basement so appallingly ill-equipped they barely have a computer between them. And the cops are of course pitted against the crooks, but since we spend as much time in the company of the latter as we do the former, our sympathies are forever being tested to breaking point. "That's the problem with most cop shows," explains David Simon. "It's the black hat, white hat thing. I swear if I had to write a police procedural right now, I'd put a gun to my head. On shows where only the arrest matters, where it's about good and evil, punishing crime, the poor and the rich, the suspect exists to exalt the good guys, to make the Sipowiczes [the no-nonsense cop in NYPD Blue] and the Pembletons [the no-nonsense cop in Homicide - Life On The Streets] and the Joe Fridays [the no-nonsense cop in the protoypical Dragnet] that much more moral, that much more righteous, that much more intellectualised. It's to validate their point of view and the point of view of society. So, you end up with same stilted picture of the underclass. Either they're the salt of earth looking for a break, and not at all responsible, or they're dangerous and evil and need to be punished. That's a good precedent for creating an alienated America. Dramatically I have no interest in good versus evil. I am interested in institutions, and how they seek to preserve themselves even as they are crumbling."

Why is The Wire the best TV show? Because, like I said earlier, the characters in it feel real, they're not just mouthpieces for a plot. The show does not trick audiences by hiding facts or having people do things out of character, just to get something going. Think how many shows just involve people saying things in a way that people would never talk in real life, just so they can get the next "clue" or whatever ... And the world that The Wire maps out is unparalleled in television series. Again, how many shows are just a handful of locations or sets and nothing else. In The Wire, Baltimore is a character in itself and we are constantly seeing it from new angles. And not just in a physical sense either: in the show we see people just hanging out, doing ordinary stuff, things that don't add to anything in terms of moving a story along a line to a specific destination, but instead build a rounded and complex picture. Just like real life.

The scene in the bar? Oh yes! Any other show would have had an episode or so dealing with it to get more mileage from the plot, but the great thing about the Wire is that it is happy to leave it to the audience's imagination. Steve Earle was Waylon! I totally missed that ... though TBH I wouldn't recognise hos anyways. He does the theme tune for season five, it says ... Cracking stuff. Speaking of, there are now two soundtrack albums out ... gonna get them and if anyone wants a copy, they'd be welcome.

Haven't watched The Bill in donkey's MP - but if they are learning from a superior show then it's good. I may have to check it out. However, I did hear it is now a depository for the ex-cast of the nation's soaps...

Indeed, SMG - season three did end with a massive crash, but it didn't feel falsely rushed. If anything it was good because there had been a slow build up of everything, and like the towers that were blown up at the beginning of the series, it is quicker for something to fall. It also had, and again trying not to be too spoilerish, some intelligent things to say about the drugs trade. It is ugly, it does destroy lives, but it's here and it's all about how best we deal with it with what we've got, rather than what we wish we had. The parallels with the Iraq war were brilliantly made ("We are police, not soldiers"). I got so angry when the press got on the story about the zones ... but I liked the way the politicians actually did try and grapple with the issue rather than just go all knee-jerk. And a few one-off things: Method Man as Cheese, the road trip chasing the phones, the guy reading porn in the stock room - and loads of other stuff.

I can't wait! One of the show's strengths is that it shifts focus and pace with each series. I didn't think the stevedore storyline, first of all, would have the sufficient drama of the drug-gang, but three episodes in I was dead wrong. In fact, I liked the references to it at the end of series three - the Frank Sobotka posters and McNulty going back to ... Well, don't want to spoil it for anyone else!

Just finished the third series last night in a three episode binge (I'd been pacing myself because I can't wait for the fourth series to come out on the 10th of March). It really is the best television series I have ever seen. There is no other programme, to my knowledge, that is as realistic as this. I can't watch other shows now, they seem like mere pantomime. Cannae wait for the fourth!

The using/abusing the system argument doesn't wash - if it were the case the teenage girls were using the welfare state to get a house, we would naturally expect countries with more generous welfare systems than ours - eg, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, etc. - to have higher instances of teenage pregnancy. Alas the reverse is true. It's down to education and social circumstances, not about climbing the welfare ladder. In fact, if you look at societies with a less of a welfare state system than in Western Europe, you see the incidents of teen pregnancy get higher and higher. The US has a far higher rate than Britain, for example.

I usually hate TV advertising and will change channels when they come on, so I don't remember many. However, , with the lines from Moby Dick, is a classic.

My favourite ads are the ones they used to do (alas no more) for Benson & Hedges and Silk Cut. http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/475000/images/_476117_150benson.jpg http://www.users.totalise.co.uk/~kbroom/handouts/Metaphor%20and%20Metonym_files/image002.gif I was fascinated by the ads when I was a kid ... which I guess is why I took up smoking!

EDOldie Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Class, it's wot you make it, 'Anthony "Tony" Neil > Wedgwood Benn (born 3 April 1925), formerly 2nd > Viscount Stansgate' Exactly. That's why Benn renounced his peerage. (From Wiki) Benn's father had been created Viscount Stansgate in 1942 when Winston Churchill offered to increase the number of Labour Peers; at this time Benn's older brother Michael was intending to enter the priesthood and had no objections to inheriting a peerage. However Michael was later killed on active service in the Second World War, and this left Benn as the heir to a peerage. He made several attempts to remove himself from the line of succession but they were all unsuccessful. In November 1960, Benn's father died and as a result he was prevented from sitting in the House of Commons. Still insisting on his right to abandon his unwelcome peerage, Benn fought to retain his seat in the by-election on 4 May 1961 caused by his succession. Although he was disqualified from taking his seat, the people of Bristol South-East re-elected him. An election court found that the voters were fully aware that Benn was disqualified, and gave the seat to the Conservative runner up in the by-election, Malcolm St Clair, ironically the son of a peer too. Outside Parliament Benn continued his campaign, and eventually the Conservative government accepted the need for a change in the law. The Peerage Act 1963, allowing renunciation of peerages, was given the Royal Assent and became law shortly after 6 p.m. on 31 July 1963. Benn was the first peer to renounce his title, at 6.22 p.m. that day. St. Clair had already given an undertaking that he would respect the wishes of the people of Bristol if Benn became eligible to take his seat again, and therefore took the Manor of Northstead (i.e. resigned his seat) immediately. Benn returned to the Commons after winning a by-election on 20 August.

I just re-discovered the delights of Hot Chip's great 2006 album The Warning. Here's the most famous track: Hot Chip - Over and Over.

citizenED Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I think I'd go more for the two-class system as > preferred by Tony Benn, the ruling class and the > rest of us. Basically forget the working > class/middle class divide; it's a red herring. > What matters is whether you have to work for a > living or not. Completely agree with you there, Citizen (or, more in the spirit of your post, "Citoyen"!). Aux armes camarades!

By way of balance, I got my flat through Acorn back in 2006. Most of the other agents on the Lane were rubbish, apart from them, who found us a lovely place that was precisely what we wanted. They only showed us places that matched our spec, rather than just any old toss they had on their books. Other agents (esp Haart and Winkworth) were dismissive, obviously coz we weren't the yuppie demographic they were after.

Folk me, I'd go along if there were one ...

But Somerfield is already dear! (see above). Besides, I got to the deli for my posh bits. I do my main shop at Sinsbury's (sic).

I ain't got no kids Amanda! Besides, I'm going away in a few weeks, so it's not like I left it till the last minute. I can't think of one sensible reason why an air fare is 2p, while a train fare is over ?100. If you want the super-cheap fares (even then about ?40, still more than the plane) you have to book at least three months in advance, but who on Earth is able to plan that far in advance? I don't even look that far ahead when I go on holiday for heaven's sake! The private train companies trouser hundreds of millions in subsidies each year, while putting rail fares out of the reach of your average traveller. Grrr. Rant over!

Is Somerfield "the new" Iceland? That is, are wer now going to get endless speculation and rumours that Somerfield is to become a Waitrose, just like for years people have been saying that Iceland is to become one of those overpriced M&S "foodhalls"?

I just bought a flight from Ryanair, Stanstead to Glasgow, for 2 pence return. Yup, 2p. (Obviously you add taxes and booking fee and it's more like ?29). I know I have the choice to use the railways, but a comparative check on prices shows that a "saver" return, ie the cheapest ticket availbale now, London to Glasgow Central, is ?102.90. I really hate to have to fly, but it should not be cheaper to go by plane than by train. Madness!

Yup - I think this deal, on balance, is a no-goer. Research from JP Morgan points out that the chain is probably worth less than is being claimed and that sales are overall not so impressive when taken out of a Christmas seasonal context. That and most of their retail locations are "lower quality" than what a Waitrose would want. Waitrose say they're interested, but would only want to pick the choicest locations (obviously ED would be one) but putting together that kind of package would be more difficult than selling the lot en bloc. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c7d63a56-c54b-11dc-811a-0000779fd2ac.html

Interesting - Robert Tchenguiz also owns a substantial number of Sainsbury's shares and was keen to flog off Sainsbury's supermarkets, in a planned move with the Qatar government, but that bid failed. Maybe this one too. Edited to Add: I find Somerfield a complete rip-off. Tons of stuff in there is really expensive, such as loaves of bread (just your standard sliced stuff) at ?1.85, butter at nearly ?2 per tub and my favourite chocolate biscuits (the Tunnock's caramel wafers and teackes) are more expensive than at Sainsbury's, where you get a bigger pack. I avoid it unless I have no other choice.

I am now am a financial journalist covering the Middle East. When I grow up I want to be a real writer.