The Great Moving Right Show II: The Kirsty and Phil Years

i think peep show fits in quite well with programs like balls of steel even the apprentince. it shares space with media figures like gordon ramsey and jeremy clarkson. it echoes the elevation of boris johnson to godhead status. self satisfaction, complacency, meaness all are celebrated with unironic irony. g2 gentrification, the mainstreaming of hipster one up manship becomes playground tactics. everyone wants to be on the side thats winning.

-- acrobat, Wednesday, August 15, 2007 5:25 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

bump

Paul said in an MSN conversation once that G2 and The Culture Show are the two great shapers of modern day culture... I think this fits in here.

everyone wants to be on the side thats winning.

And this is why arts criticism is fucked in 2007, because it's more important to get on board the bandwagon early than it is to say what you actually believe in.

See: Sam Woolaston, Big Al Petridis, every MIA review ever

i saw a recent 'culture show' special on british cinema, which involved lauren laverne and mark kermode visiting various locations of great british films like 'the arsenal stadium mystery', 'a canterbury tale' and 'rita sue and bob too'... oh, sorry, i mean bullshit people have heard of like 'the wicker man'.

anyhoo, laverne and kermode are in 'notting hill', and he says, yo richard curtis, wai 2 haet black people?; and she says, well it's his version of reality and it's "as valid" as anyone else's. and we're kind of led to go with lauren there.

The thing about Notting Hill isn't that Curtis is a racist per se it's that he knows it's very hard to sell any vision of Britain to America that has black people in it. American audiences were happy to wolf down Notting Hill, Four Weddings, Billy Elliot, and The Full Monty, but my guess is they weren't queueing out of the doors to watch, I dunno, Bullet Boy.

qf Rush Hour 3's vision of Paris with no Muslims in it.

So what I'm saying is that perhaps this cultural shift to the right is just us going "Fuck it, let's become the 51st State". Clarkson, Littlejohn, hey hey hey.

i dunno -- a lot of black british actors get work in hollywood and not here, which is a bit suspicious. naomie harris, idris elba, that guy in 'dirty pretty things'...

We _are_ a nation of Crypto-Tory shitbags, but I think we're a nation of Reaganomic crypto-Tory shitbags, rather than a nation of Thatcherite ones.

Also qf: comedian and Anne Robinson straight-man Marcus Brigstocke who does a big "Fuck the Daily Mail guys, amirite?" portion on his stand-up comedy routine, then tells "lol chav lol gypo" gags later on in it.

he does a "character" of a public-school twit with a silly posh name. my dad was listening to radio four and a trailer came on, and MB came on and it was billed as '[silly posh name's] glastonbury report', and then MB made some silly public-school twit comments about glastonbury, and i was like marcus brigstocke is a cock, and dad said, no, that's him doing a character. weird.

Giles Wemmbley-Hogg is his character. He does the "upper class twit" character, and then he does stand-up as himself, and it's basically the same without the references to the Henry regatta.

Someone hit Robin C up to show us love on this thread

Or Alan Strang. Either or will do.

woah i didn't say they were the biggest shapers! not in the sense that i dunno, the daily mail or whatevs is. i need to read the rest of the thread and find a quote.

Not the biggest shapers overall, but the biggest shapers for a certain section of society, right?

'guardian guide people'

Just as a sidenote, John Patterson is my new vote for the worst journalist currently writing in Britain today

Worse than Sam Woollything?

everyone wants to be on the side thats winning.

Freedom of choice, innit? Isn't it about the fear of your losing your audience? That if you don't keep it simple and shallow and glib that people can always buy another newspaper/ watch another TV show - one that's equally simple and shallow and glib because they have exactly the same mindset as you?

Two centuries ago, William Cobbett described the establishment in Britain as "The Thing": utterly convinced of its own rightness and utterly resistant to change. Today's establishment may appear more reasonable, but it is every bit as powerful. Its strength explains much about the virtues and vices of new Labour's time in government. Two centuries ago the centre of gravity of "The Thing" lay in the aristocracy and the leading factions of the main parties. Today, the aristocracy (and monarchy) are at its edge. Its centre of gravity lies in the media and business. It includes swaths of the senior civil service (though most are somewhat to its left), some of parliament, and the "international class" in every profession. It is firmly committed to market capitalism. It is internationalist, more pro-American than pro-European, and divided on questions of social order.

Labour's ability to court "The Thing", to convince it that the new government would not be a threat and might actually do some good, was the precursor to victory. It meant that Labour ruled from the centre in more senses than one, co- opting, flattering and recruiting an extraordinary army of business leaders, artists, writers and consultants to its cause. All of this was made easier because Blair embodied the liberal end of "The Thing". Unlike his predecessors, he didn't have to pretend to care about the views of business leaders and newspaper editors: much of the time, the respect was genuine.

http://www.newstatesman.com/200705070029

Worse than Sam Woollything?

-- Tom D., Friday, 17 August 2007 14:04 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

"Now some of you may think that Sam Woolaston's reviews are bad, but my friend likes them, and when you're drunk and eating a kebab, they're a bit of a guilty pleasure. Am I right guys?"

So... the media shifted to accomodate the Blair world, or the media was already changed due to Thatcher and Blairism helped perpetuate that... what's the conclusion Paul?

This is known today as "perception man agement". The most powerful are not the Max Cliffords but huge corporations such as Hill & Knowlton, which "sold" the slaughter known as the first Gulf war, and the Sawyer Miller Group, which sold hated, pro-Washington regimes in Colombia and Bolivia and whose operatives included Mark Malloch Brown, the new Foreign Office minister, currently being spun as anti-Washington. Hundreds of millions of dollars go to corporations spinning the carnage in Iraq as a sectarian war and covering up the truth: that an atrocious invasion is pinned down by a successful resistance while the oil is looted.

The other major difference today is the ab dication of cultural forces that once provided dissent outside journalism. Their silence has been devastating. "For almost the first time in two centuries," wrote the literary and cultural critic Terry Eagleton, "there is no eminent Brit ish poet, playwright or novelist prepared to question the foundations of the western way of life." The lone, honourable exception is Harold Pinter. Eagleton listed writers and playwrights who once promised dissent and satire and instead became rich celebrities, ending the legacy of Shelley and Blake, Carlyle and Ruskin, Morris and Wilde, Wells and Shaw. He singled out Martin Amis, a writer given tombstones of column inches in which to air his pretensions, along with his attacks on Muslims. The following is from a recent article by Amis:

Tony strolled over [to me] and said, "What have you been up to today?"

"I've been feeling protective of my prime minister, since you ask."

For some reason our acquaintanceship, at least on my part, is becoming mildly but deplorably flirtatious.

What these elite, embedded voices share is their participation in an essentially class war, the long war of the rich against the poor. That they play their part in a broadcasting studio or in the clubbable pages of the review sections and that they think of themselves as liberals or conservatives is neither here nor there. They belong to the same crusade, waging the same battle for their enduring privilege.

http://www.newstatesman.com/200707260028

WARNING JOHN PILGER

Isn't Pilger just talking about a straight-forward move to the right rather than the emergence of the crypto-Tory?

The trouble with this is we're gonna end up conflating a certain axis of ilx's grievances with certain columnists and newpapers with more general generalizations.

The thing is though Dom your faves, Jackass, Vice, Morris etc were harbingers of all this in the yoof mould. The slow loss of empathy. That's what it is... the dehumanization of others. It's Manning gentrified. I'm not quite sure how G2 comes into it. Apart from "the side whats winning" stuff.

I tried it here:

Gentrification, "Coffee Table", the 90s, Broadsheets, False Consensus and "The New Punk Rock"

Inspired by the Worst Mercury Music Prize Winner thread: Have the last 15 or so years seen a shift in the way record companies operated, that whilst folks have yelped about "manufactured" this and "x factor" the industry has in fact become a lot better at exploiting and mainstreaming "underground" music? Someone on that thread posited that everything has "slid to the centre" ie the nme, the broadsheets, tv etc are far more unified in the position they'll take on any act. When did "edginess" become marketable? Is this the final triumph of a certain set of values?

Is the state of pop, in Britain at least, analogous with the politics: Thatcherite divisiveness to Blairite false consensus.

-- acrobat, Tuesday, 19 June 2007 13:56 (1 month ago) Bookmark Link

There does seem to be a LOT more agreement on "what's good" than there used to be - 15 years ago the NME, the Broadsheets, Radio 1 would have been 3 different centres. Radio 1 has had probably the biggest shift in role I think.

-- Groke, Tuesday, 19 June 2007 14:28 (1 month ago) Bookmark Link

The thing is though Dom your faves, Jackass, Vice, Morris etc were harbingers of all this in the yoof mould. The slow loss of empathy. That's what it is... the dehumanization of others. It's Manning gentrified. I'm not quite sure how G2 comes into it. Apart from "the side whats winning" stuff.

-- acrobat, Friday, 17 August 2007 14:21 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

If anything Jackass is the inverse of this, being as it is quite an intelligent reworking of 1920s slapstick comedy stylings (Keystone Cops especially) for a skateboard generation. I mean, there's heart in Jackass, when Bam gets five dicks branded onto his ass he goes and shows it to his mother afterwards, there's a definite familial heart there.

The Thing analysis rings true. i've worked in health quite a bit, and the strangest thing i couldn't get my head around was how quangos -- basically -- worked, how they got set up. at the high levels of The Thing there's no difference between private and public sector, certainly not in ethos, and people hop from one to the other.

what *feels* corrupt is the bidding process by which quangos (or whatever the fuck) are "empowered" (typical word) to do their thing. they know what the bid needs to be because they are part of The Thing already, and can easily skip from being part of the sector that commissions to being in the sector that gets commissioned.

private eye usually carries a story or two along these lines, it's low-level, but i don't even get how one becomes part of it. they aren't particularly posh, they have no interests to speak of, but they are bright, work all the fucking time (all of them are hotdeskers -- though are terrible at using, say, excel), and know everyone. it's not like the old-style civil service.

Dom, maybe, most people I knew where laughing at grown men hurting each other. Revelling in the cruelty, there maybe yr camradie there but watch it with a bunch of "lads". You can't like Dirty Sanchez though. Jackass did have its merits but like Morris it's imitators have kinda made its worse aspects rather more apparant.

What is a "hotdesker"?

Hot desking originates from the definition of being the temporary physical occupation of a work station or surface by a particular employee. This work surface could be an actual desk or just a terminal link. In any event the concept of the hot desk is that the employer furnishes a permanent work surface which is available to any worker as and when needed. There is no personal domain pertaining to a particular worker and physical facilities are employed as and when needed. A collection of such workstations is sometimes called a mobility centre.

Look at The London Lite. It's a crazy balancing act. In the front you have supposedly neutral journalism with an undercurrent of broiling Daily Mail / Evening Standard nastiness then you turn to the back and we're lolling it up with Josie Long and grooving to the hot sounds of MIA and Modest Mouse.

the idea that amis ever offered dissent is idiotic

eagleton has always been part of the gatekeeper class -- pilger is a bit of a peabrain on matters cultural

also CARLYLE wtf?

That's why I gave a WARNING Mark. I was searching for something related to this a while back and you had far stronger words against Pilger than that. I'm not a fan of Pilger but I like the fact he has the ability ot annoy me. This was the line that got to me in that particular piece:

"The other major difference today is the ab dication of cultural forces that once provided dissent outside journalism."

I'm not sure he's "right" though. I think that would link into Dom's continual attacks on The Guardian though.

This isn't the thread I was even thinking about but it seems interesting. Relevant even. does the anti-war left have a cultural bead on what just happened?
Pilger and his ilk will never be on the side that's winning. Can they even imagine being? I met Atilla The Stockbroker once, I said to him he had his songs but they had flipcharts and money. He said he knew and it made him sad. I'm not sure. He performed a poem that lambasted Eminem and one that struck out at women who don't eat enough. I didn't rate them. How does POP fit into this? Does it? Conflating, conflating. When did things get Poptimistic? Is it anti gentrification? Why was Nick Southall so angry at ILX in 2001?

heehee, i have abdicated my cultural forces mellowed with age i guess

i don't actually think the grau and the obs have moved right in the last 20 years -- i think they are pretty much where they always were, i considered them the cultural enemy in the 80s (haha after they FAILED TO GIVE ME WORK yes wot of it?) and i don't think that's changed -- they almost NEVER gave work to the actual valuably daring elements out in the "culturally dissonant" territories

the problem with the "cultural provision of dissent" -- in my not-very-clearly-worked-out opinion -- is that the cultural forces that provided it were seriously damaged by being coerced into conformity with the polytechnic anti-hippy left in the early 80s as IT rode (relatively) high in media terms, and as that left lost momentum (courtesy v.fragile social base, in contrast to its at-the-time rather effective platform), were unable to remuster themselves

Why was Nick Southall so angry at ILX in 2001?

bcz we were INSUFFERABLE CUNTS

"were"

jokes bruv, jokes

i could explore this at length in ref the particularities of the music press and style press as this is the "dissenting media" i know best but i am meant to be filling in referee papers to allow [...] to become an adoptive parent so had better leave it for today :\

So what would you consider as the key cultural examples of the coercion into conformity Mark?

bcz we were INSUFFERABLE CUNTS

"... you must learn to suffer better than that if you want them to weary of punishing you - one day."

torch-handover in effect lo these ___ years bruv!

polytechnic anti-hippy left in the early 80s as IT rode (relatively) high in media terms

I can only think in terms of Pop about this. Gang of Four and Wire as opposed to erm Zounds and Crass?

the citylimits- and redwedge-ification of nme in the mid-80s i guess

i'm not claiming that as "key" for the entire world,m just key for the world i lived in (haha ie the nme)

anyway like i say i have to focus my mind elsewhere a bit for now -- BYEEE!

"the legacy of Shelley and Blake, Carlyle and Ruskin, Morris and Wilde, Wells and Shaw"

this is eagleton ripping off raymond williams, after shitting on him in the '70s.

Oh, and Southall: if you don't like the thread, push off.
But don't be surprised to learn that the vast majority of the decisions that shape the world are predicated on discussions such as this one. Your attitude -- "stop thinking and just do" -- is what makes the world safe for fascism.

-- Nitsuh, Monday, 23 July 2001 01:00 (6 years ago) Bookmark Link

Taking Sides: Objective vs. Subjective

i think nick had just read sokal and bricmont!

ha sokal is bad man! but old ilx did seem to take a lot of critical-theory uncritically but i may only think that cos my ilx life was concurent with a degree in analytic philosophy where sokal is thrown at yr head if you say "i am interested in that french stuff".

the french theory stuff (that eagleton ate up) was part of the first Great Moving Right Show, though it didn't think it was. it's kind of ingrained now, but hells lot of its rhetoric is against things that were part of the old activist political left. i imagine it had its uses but now you get second-generation types like esther leslie saying that walt benjamin was a "political revolutionary" and so on, so they obviously feel the need for a "doing" left but their heroes are all theorists.

but I think we're a nation of Reaganomic crypto-Tory shitbags, rather than a nation of Thatcherite ones.

i must be missing a joke here or something... i don't see much daylight btw reaganism and thatcherism.

there is a difference -- our middle-class pinched puritanism vs yr mental evangelicals -- but i'm not sure what dom means here.

NRQ Richard Rorty wrote good stuff on the abandonment of New Deal / Unionist Left in America for the "Critical Left". I think the joke is that we aren't exactly being activists here y know. Relativism does seem important though cos it doesn't seem to free minds or whatever but make kids more lazily nasty. It's OK to say anything! Outcomes a world of Clarkson not Bill Hicks, Peep Show not Brass Eye! Who'd have guessed?!

"Peep Show" guys (partly) write "The Thick of It"? Or have I got that wrong?

given how wrong eagleton gets most french theory and how his guides to it were the coles notes for most students, it must BY LOGIC be his politics which drove GMRS pt1!

(pt2 = the repressive return of universalist "anti-pomo" imperialism obv) (CONTROVERSIAL)

(i have no intention of defending either of these points)

pragmatism = gettin deep into the weeds of how things actually get done, ie activism
theory is mostly gussied up moralism

there is a difference -- our middle-class pinched puritanism vs yr mental evangelicals -- but i'm not sure what dom means here.

I mean, if said somewhat clumsily, that the people we're talking about here aren't your classic British right-wingers, they're taking their queues from an American style of conservatism.

"Peep Show" guys (partly) write "The Thick of It"? Or have I got that wrong?

-- Tom D., Friday, August 17, 2007 4:35 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

one of them does -- but not exclusively, there are about 4-5 writers.

the "mental evangelicals" weren't such a constitutive force of the american right back then, i don't think of them as a major leg of reaganism anyway, which = deregulatory fervor & unceasing hawkishness wrapped up in a national renewal set of mythemes = basically a def of either thather OR reagan, which is why i don't get what dom was trying to say.

xp see that doesn't clarify things much either dom, esp as american style conservatism is undergoing some serious implosion of late along its usual fault lines. i don't get what you're trying to shorthand here.

"usual" = "already understood"? not being very clear myself, sry

Would you not agree that, to take a random example, Jeremy Clarkson has more in common with the classic American right than the classic British right?

Seems like everybody be hatin' on "Peep Show" these days while biggin' up "TToI" (xxp)

(pt2 = the repressive return of universalist "anti-pomo" imperialism obv) (CONTROVERSIAL)

within the academy part two is "saint paul = lenin" stuff, i think. which may be the same thing.

mark, what is moralism, or how is having "moral" scruples/sensibilities bad? or conversely how can your politics *not* have a moral component?

Peep Show: yeh. hmmm. they're probably not evil or nowt but it's a lot harder to mis-interpret than the thick of it. maybe. do people mis-interpret or is it just playing to the gallery now?

What is the Passantino "classic righ-winger"? Heseltine? Macmillan? Portillo? Boris???

"american conservatism" and "american right" not really (uncomplicatedly) the same thing, dom

ps THE THING:

http://www.celluloiddreams.co.uk/images/thething2.jpg

Would you not agree that, to take a random example, Jeremy Clarkson has more in common with the classic American right than the classic British right?

-- Dom Passantino, Friday, August 17, 2007 4:42 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

yeah but thatcher wasn't part of the classic british right (at least at the top level of The Thing).

I don't know that Thatcher was that different, when was "Selsdon Man"?

What I mean is, she wasn't that different from other Tory right wingers

by "moralism" i guess i mean judging politics/culture in ref.behaviour -- in respect of a chart of good and bad -- rather than in.ref outcomes

(that is very compressed) (e.p.thompson's "against theory" begins an argt against marx's notorious, rigorous anti-moralism which i THINK is a kind of morris-esque "the good is the beautiful or the useful" kind of an argt, transfrred from making chairs to making movements)

(ie the "good" of the outcome was not -- as marx somewhat tended to argue -- "in step with the marhc of history" so much as, "social good, we are humans and we know it when we're in it")

but Thatcher had to be seen to be in some sense classic for her schtick to have played right? then again she was the "grocer's daughter from grantham" which doesn't figure with the sloaney '80s as well as it might. who were Thatcher's biggest fans, the aristos or the people who were allowed to buy their council houses?

xp

karl and will led kind of sheltered lives, maybe...

haha THE THING looks like clarkson

And Ted Heath was actually nicknamed The Grocer, wasn't he? (xxp)

the "grocer's daughter from grantham"

is why she wasn't classic british right (at the top level anyways). obviously the sloanes and yuppies didn't add up to a whole lot of her vote come election day.

selsdon man was c. 1971 and heath was indeed a bit 'ech' so far as tories were concerned. i guess he was the almost-there prototype.

ok that's YOU setting off rightwards henry!

but Thatcher had to be seen to be in some sense classic for her schtick to have played right?

She pushed on the Churchillian Right buttons on the top of the desk, while pushing the Keith Joseph Looney Right ones under it

i think i posted abt this before -- ps i finished filling in the form -- but i once saw some ancient tory grandee on TV saying of heath, "of course, his AWFUL cockney accent!"

!

haha allow me to toss this grenade in here:

Maybe also worth mentioning an irony in the larger issue: 'Chavs' (sorta kinda UK rednecks) are way closer to the Iggy Pop school than the loserist manifestoes would have it. They're confident, unapologetic, fun-loving, substance abusing and a distinctly post-Thatcher phenomenon, arising from the onslaught against the feudal-socialist axis when Britain briefly had a 'neoliberal' (pro-capitalist) government in the 1980s. It was Thatcher who sparked the emergence of the 'barrow-boy' money dealer, shaking up the previously 'toff' controlled financial industry by opening opportunities based on merit. Of course, that was all far too American to last, so the left made sure the guilt-based 'progressive' public school types (epitomized by the BBC and other major media) restored as much of the natural (feudal-socialist) order as possible. Now we're back to the good old days, with the proles expected to know their place and whine about how unfair it all is to their lip-trembling paternalistic masters.
[N1ck L4nd, off his blog] | 07.18.07 - 2:44 am | #

but i once saw some ancient tory grandee on TV saying of heath, "of course, his AWFUL cockney accent!"

LOL. Gorblimey!

Still plenty of barrow boys in the City, believe me, I've met 'em

i think the term "classic conservative" becomes very extremely confused if yr trying to micro-apply it across extended times of highly complex largescale social re-organisation (as viz the UK since let's 1925)

nick land is a total fucking retard

"the natural (feudal-socialist) order" = wtf!

how is judging the good by outcomes more or less right-wing than the opposite?

ept in that book argues that marx *was* a moralist -- as does lucio colletti, a thoroughly kantian marxist... till he stopped being a marxist -- how else to explain what he was doing? i don't think he was notoriously anti-moralist at all.

xpost hell

Who is Nick Land?

Who was dude that was going to be Prime Minister (or at least leader of the Tories in the 70s) before he did this big speech arguing for eugenics? The one who Thatcher took most of her schtick for? Was this guy looked at as a Cameron-esque "moderniser" at the time, or was he just seen as a new Heath?

the anti-moralist thing was tied up in naturalist theories of historical development that got appended to marxism, no? and then got regurgitated as scientific marxism -- natch there was no place for moralism in a scientific marxism.

keith joseph

xpost. very much a moderniser but not a la cameron. more a la... pinochet.

Are you kidding, Keith Joseph would never have been PM, he was a scary weirdo!

And slightly to the right of Pinochet!

That "Tory Tory Tory" documentary seemed to suggest that Joseph as Conservative leader was pretty much a foregone conclusion before he overstepped the mark by basically arguing for the killing of poor people.

i don't think i said judging by outcomes was more OR less rightwing, it depdns on the outcomes you favour presumably -- i think yr bein rightwing if yr arguin that "social good: we are humans and we know it when we're in it" is a coddled delusion

doesn't ept argue marx is like secretly a moralist despite often and loudly denouncing "moralism" -- he doesn't however state what the moral basis is; i *think* ept is making a kind of morris-ist argt abt what that basis must be, if it isn't to be "idealist" (another thing marx wasn't)

he is somewhat rescuing marx from aft-times "scientific marxsism" yes, but also i think rescuing him from the consequences of his own rhetoric in particular tactical debates at the time (it's an age since i read it, and i am reaching for the morrisism based on a book by ept I HAVE NEVER READ)

What did Macmillan say about Keith Joseph? Something like "the only boring Jew I ever met in my life".

This is all very interesting (really), but how are you going to transmit it to all the apolitical, complacent suits-in-the-making, who, after all, will have some degree of control over this country's social future?

I thought the moralism point was RE crit theory as philosophy. the analytics, deludedly probably, want to make philosophy SCIENCE and give TRUTH VALUE. whereas the crit theory dudes do there thing which purports to abandon the author or the metaphysics of presence, basically whip SCIENCE's knicker down, or summat but is often defined by their won moral postion.

xp

http://www.artofbarter.com/gif-bin/FlipchartMan.gif

How about a NEW PUNK ROCK.

it is one long-ass book, and i haven't read it either. i don't think it's a coddled delusion exactly, just that it has to leave so much unsaid -- and already assumes a load of "freedoms from", i think, which must have some moral basis all we humans agree on ('cept we don't... ;_;).

i think marx's moral basis is not a million miles from other socialists/anarchists of the mid-19th c tbh. he was anti-moralist insofar as moralism is a poor basis, or no basis at all, for understanding the historical process.

xpost

Maybe 65daysofstatic can do something about it

author = authority = rightwing
metaphysics of presence = you had to be there dude = culture of celebrity = rightwing

i am a hobbesian lettrist: i foment war between the VERY MEMEBERS OF THE ALPHABET har har

http://www.hobbyistsoftware.com/Initiate-backgrounds/hobbes3.jpg

and now i am off to the pubbe

mark: i agree w/ you re: land, but i'm really curious why you think so

The Facebook groups of someone in my extended network:

Black Plastic ▪ Boris for Mayor ▪ Facebookers in Support of SIR Salman Rushdie ▪ Petition to make Top Gear of The Pops...A weekly program ▪ I know NOTHING about cars, but I still LOVE Top Gear ▪ I HATE people who get offended at Top Gear. ▪ Modelling yourself on Bernard Black is a perfectly valid lifestyle choice ▪ BBC's Ghostwatch was the scariest fucking thing I have ever seen. ▪ FBS girls ▪ Mr. Jones- More than a History Teacher ▪ You know you went to Frances Bardsley when.... ▪ A Cup of Tea Solves Everything ▪ The New London 2012 Logo Is Really Horrid ▪ Get that fucking tomato out of my sandwich! ▪ Rockabaret ▪ May I Light Your Cigarette, Madam? ▪ Ban teaching of Abstinence as part of Sex Education ▪ Luxembourg - Pop Noir ▪ dim sum, sushi, tapas and all small pieces of foods appreciation club ▪ The Dylan Moran is a Drunken Genius Society ▪ Fuck This...I'm Going To Hogwarts ▪ Stay Beautiful Club ▪ Seeing Scarlet ▪ RCPCH EXAMS TYPES ▪ I Love Kittens. ▪ Feeling Gloomy ▪ Ron's Marathon Sweepstakes

lol middle class people

woah wtf RCPCH EXAMS has a facebook group? that's who i used to work for, practically (i was in TRAINING, not EXAMS).

i don't know any of your guys though.

this thread revive seems timely Robert Christgau - Ima'murrican, Gawdammit!

anyway, getting back to listing things: THE FEELING

http://static.sky.com/images/pictures/1575527.jpg

http://static.sky.com/images/pictures/1575439.jpg

http://static.sky.com/images/pictures/1575437.jpg

Can't find an img of the Mirror's front page but they go with:

Too scared to leave our homes
EXCLUSIVE MIRROR POLL SHOCKER 42% frightened of yobs at night 62% think parents are to blame

Should we do a "British ILXors are you scared of yob gang menace?" thread? Could be good.
One of The Feeling is married to Sophie Ellis Bextor, right? Hmmm. Links in with Carmody's Popism is back door right-wing-ism but y know. Stuck that xgau thread in for similar reasons, i am trying to make an analogy between the old ilx / nu ilx shit and the film hot fuzz but i can't make it work. american influx = supermarket, simon pegg = nick southall. maybe. but old ilx wasn't evil so it doesn't really work. at all.

the feeling started out playing covers at ski resorts.

heehee i wz accosted by a drunk polish-american tourist just outside my house in hackney on sat: "hey man, is this like london's answer to the GHETTO?"

i guess my unpersuaded amusement towards carmody's "i'm so bored with the usa" stance is that I KNOW WHERE IT ENDS UP

(am right now trying to write semi-nice stuff abt the temple strummer doc)

quitney didn't you review that in sight and sound?

PS where does I KNOW WHERE IT ENDS UP end up?

cranky old man s on park bench complainin abt YOUNG PPL TODAY

aka everyone shd be checkin INTELLECHNO

haha re henry's -- k-korrekt -- sally against clunker-edits, the VERY FIRST HOME-MOVIE SHOT, where small joe s throws a stone and j.temple dubs in a really crappy SFX of glass breaking!!

if " s " refers to who i think " s " refers to then i would say " s " does like a few young ppls things and has always had an, often hidden, anti young ppl streak. this is about grime isn't it?

if by young ppl you mean simon reynolds then YES i am always fightin w.him the mere whippersnap -- i quite like grime tho i am not like whistleheadedly simple for it

not really sure what yr gettin at (maybe yr not talkin abt me at all)

http://tachyontv.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/ep53_1.jpg

" m s "

http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/1master1.jpg

" s r "

OR IS IT THE OTHER WAY ROUND?

"m s"

http://www.bigrat.co.uk/images/characters/shane.jpg

"s r"

http://www.bigrat.co.uk/images/characters/joe.jpg

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/05_01/FACupFergieJose_468x302.jpg

MS, SR

Ha ha

http://www2.prestel.co.uk/grayling/beano/prodm2.gif

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2005/10/10/next_cover3_oct11,0.jpg

http://www.transdiffusion.org/emc/smallscreen/images/gsr.jpg

only just realised what this thread was

i am all those ppl and things obv

"do not wipe the taste of the day away with the false and foreign taste of mint"

i don't know. i think yes -- though with most of the anger directed at the US. people used to say about watergate that far from making people more engaged or concerned, it made them more cynical, and i think that's happened here a bit.

i suppose i am a bit mean about the academic left -- at the moment they seem concerned with the lack of a utopia in modern politics. there isn't even the very, very limited idealism* of the new labour project that you had in the mid-'90s.

and i guess that's what the other thread is about -- how far this cynicism** carries over into/is fostered by cultural ephemera.

*realize this sounds ridiculous to people who were adults at the time, i suppose it *was* a mostly "please just end this tory government", but still...

**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection

xposts to acrobat

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Wednesday, 22 August 2007 12:32 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

to sorta seriously answer what i take to be yr question, above, acrobat:
one of the reasons i get snarkily agitated by hyper-sectarianism and passive-aggressive outflanking manoevres and general haha splittism on the left is clearly self-hatred: viz *i* am the most consistently perversely topsyturvyist contrarian i know -- my instant kneejerk to ANY agreement reached prior to me enterin the room is to think "well obv THEY'RE wrong, let's start from there" -- and i am disliking ppl behaving the way i suspect i do (or would like to or would tend to)

i *try* and be playful and useful abt this for others -- and i think as an editor i achieved (potential) constructiveness for abt 10 months maybe at w!re -- but i am hyper-aware of my own tendency-ability to filbuster pointlessly yet impatiently on something only i care about (rightly obv, except usually no one gets it but me cz i explain it so compactedly, and anyway it's more intution than understand probbly), so i step away from most political arguments, and only toss stuff into them which (maybe, possibly) someone else will pick up on and turn into an opening-up

this isn't quietism as cynicism, it's slow-and-steady-wins-the-er-oops-race-ism, but what it actually leads to in me -- i've increasingly noticed recently -- is occasional break-outs of extreme spiteful frustration at not any longer knowin how to re-renter the race, esp.when it's full up of ppl (but isn't this always the way) who seem to be misperceiving the world the same way i did when i wz their age

ˆˆˆ
"do not read if you hate me"

i wasn't sure of the question i was asking but that's quite an answer. i'm not sure i can add anything, not now anyway.

anyways. this lunchtime i thought about quitney's post that i re-posted up there. projection. cynicism. peep show. has the program been written about by the (h)academics? (k punk?) cos it seems to be a sort of acting out of the process quitney perceives. you have characters projections writ larger, they are judging everyone else to be as bad as them and THEY ARE RIGHT. everyone is a shit. but it's funny. cos being a shit is funny. there's the same thing in the thick of it but that's ok cos we all KNOW politics is CORRUPT, huh? these programs are like the last bloc party album, they try and chronicle / capture some kind of malaise but end up being a part of it. sort of.

stuff i think i think:

i. ppl who read and/or know a lot often suffer a rather crippling kind of faith-envy: "if only i was still so simple/innocent/young/ignorant that i could once more just BELIEVE" (the companion of this is ppl who read and/or know a lot pretending to themselves their faiths aren't actuallly faiths but common sense or objective science or whatever)
ii. satire IS generally conservative
iii. avant-gardes ARE symptoms not cures, but symptoms is what doctors study!

haha = adorno 101 (and 102 and 103)

Does the fact that Yuppie Wants Buy House and Get Botox! Now! type programs have replaced MDF Will Make Semi Nice and Budget Airline Staff / Crap Drivers Are Funny! as cheap 8 till 9 television entertainment show reflect the prosperous times we are living in? Or not.

Also that Alistair Stewart's Chase Car With Helicopter has been replaced with Street Crime Is Quite Funny To Watch.

reflect the prosperous times we are living in death of society?

It's faintly amusing / worrying that we have managed to trump the Americans in the TRUE CRIME stakes. Their Black Dude Being Chased By 700 Armed Police shows were always were better than our Joyriders Chased Round Council Estate shows but we trumped them with the film drunk people fighting outside Yates on a Saturday night genre of crimesplotation.

Is this just because I've got Booze Britain in my list of "favourite TV" on Facebook?

Nah. I watched one last week and was gripped. All that happened was a man punched a woman in the face but it was so sick and gripping in a way those American ones never are.

only because it was louis jagger.

But, yeh you are the expert I guess on these shows. They are certainly better than Sin Cities or UK Play. God I hate the guy off Sin Cities.

xp

Louis Jagger punched a woman in the face? That's awful.

i'm sure there's a funny side.

She was Muslim, it's OK.

That guy from Sin Cities truly is a Grub Smith for the new milennium

I hope he was able to justify himself.

xp

Ashley Hames
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Interested in contributing to Wikipedia? •Jump to: navigation, search
Ashley Hames (born: 19 November 1970) in Stourport, United Kingdom is a British Presenter and Director with a wide range of credits to his name: he had his first taste of showbiz as the original News Bunny on L!VE TV.

More recently and indeed, certainly more acclaimed, Ashley has fronted three series of Bravo’s highest ever rating show, "Sin Cities", two fifteen part and one ten part series about sex from around the world, and "Man's Work", a series he presents for Bravo TV.

Ashley made his mark at Channel 4 where he directed and presented "Bad Trip", a controversial documentary uncovering his exploits with a Playboy model, a homeless alcoholic and other lethal weapons in Texas, USA. He also filmed and edited a documentary about cocaine for the channel’s launch of 4Later, as well as directing E4’s "Posh Rock", a series about wealthy teenagers in Cornwall.

Ashley is currently filming a new four part travel series for BBC2, to be broadcast in autumn 2007. "Guilt Trip" takes lovers of luxury goods to see the real ecological and human costs of their vices. In each episode, three members of the public, with their own extraordinary obsession with luxury goods, are sent packing on a potentially life-changing journey tracing their object of desire back to its roots. Guilt trippers must first meet hard-line ethical expert Lucy Siegle and a panel of activists, who devise a tailor-made journey – their own personal guilt trip. The panel sends the guilt trippers into a new world – designed to make them see the light. Alongside Ashley, their trip will take them to far-flung corners of the globe where they are shown the dark underside of their luxuries, from the illegal gold mines of Ghana to the grim sweatshops of India. But they also meet people who benefit from their obsession: workers who would otherwise be unemployed and communities that would be obliterated without their Western purchase power. When the guilt trippers return from their two-week journey they must face the panel – and a complex and difficult decision.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Hames";
Categories: 1970 births | Living people | English television presenters

It's the TV show that had to be made.

oh the wikipedia entry has been vandalised :(

This is a good thread, though I understand but little.

eat that, 'calum, fran, and dangerous danan'.

xpost

TS: Calum, Fran and Dangerous Danan v "Paul Danan Dates Some Women For You"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Park_Republican

So can we fairly use the term Peep Show Conservative?

Go on...
What does the "Peep Show Conservative" think about:
* The Iraq War
* Global Warming
* Imigration
* Race
* Mock The Week

I'm an ideas man...

What I mean is: South Park Republican is a useful and accurate shorthand to describe a new breed of right-winger in America. Does PSC work the same in the UK as a term?

You gotta work it out better. I'll answer my own question.

* The Iraq War - Boo hiss! It was a cock up though they may have supported the invasion circa 2003. The failure was clearly the result of Americans being fat / lazy / stupid. They may point out that "it's all about oil" or that it "was illegal".

What does the "Peep Show Conservative" think about:
* The Iraq War - doesn't
* Global Warming - he watched that save the world gig
* Imigration - foreigners make good nannies/footballers
* Race - see above
* Mock The Week - hilarious

* Global Warming - LOL load of old bollocks. If it's like Malaga in Kent I'm all for it! I don't see why I should stop driving / flying / dumping fridges if China / Russia / India / some corporation is chucking x tonnes of C02 into the atmosphere! Anyway everyone else does / has done these things, it's my turn!

I wonder if our strawry friend thinks about house prices much. How old would you say this stereotype is Dom?

As old as the end of the Blair Honeymoon? So coming up to eight/nine years old?

In a Guardian Weekend interview Robert Webb did say his all-time hero was Christopher Hitchens, fwiw.

No, what age is the typical incarnation of the Peep Show Conservative? Between 17 and mid 30s?

From university age to married age, but probably specifically between 21 and 30.

25-40 more likely surely?

So, not overly concerned with house prices yet. They are in a sense apolitical, they'll join a facebook group protesting speed cameras or walking slowly but probably won't vote in an election. Apart from Boris (legund!!!) politics is gay.

DG, this is more about, if it's about anything, the student generation who have grown up with Peep Show and Family Guy as their Spaced and Simpsons.

No, I think there's a certain... youthdom to all of this? The idea that, hey, you can be a right-winger and still kick it with "alternative" culture". Qf this: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=11218380117, an alternative comedy club (with Richard Herring and all your other DIY comedy heroes as regular workers) actually advocating the removal of the right to strike for trade unions. That's beyond right-wing and veering dangerously close into Fascism.

xxp

is overt identification w/right not negotiable? i mean surely plenty of modern conservative characters would quite happily read G2 and watch the mercury music prize etc

...without any big C conservative affiliations

i mean surely plenty of modern conservative characters would quite happily read G2 and watch the mercury music prize etc

I _think_ that's kind of the crux of all this, and probably what man like mark s to turn up and point out "This really isn't a new development". I dunno, maybe me, acrobat, et al are just romanticising the left/right divide of the 60s and 80s.

Actually DG has a point that chime swith yours. Everyone want to be hip these days. No time for Mondeo Pop, we can combine hip young peoples young people stuff with reactionary views, easy. Vice paved the way. The failiure of the Nietzschized Left. We don't mind blacks and gays (they are funny though!) but don't get in out way chavscum!

there's got to be a good number of people who were against the CJB and other Major lolz etc but have kids and pay taxes now thus rightward drift but w/Toryphobia...but this is just nu-labour tho really innit

Calling it Nu-Labour does seem a little like... endorsing it? Or at least apologising for it. Post-Nu-Labour sounds more accurate, if ungainly.

Sort of, but it's anti Nu-Labour. Actually it's anti politics, Boris and J Clarkson are heroes cos they are outside politics, they tell it like it is. This generation barely remember John Major's era. It's a cake and eat it deal or something.

Yeah, Nu-Labour here are still seen as party of Political Correctness Gone Mad.

It's worth remembering that there was a lot of anti-war sentiment from the Countryside Alliance, and other people who thought that Blair was invading Iraq so he could force them all to convert to single parent homosexuality.

i think we've got 3+ separate groups under discussion here

Maybe, but you don't think they can all drink from the same font?

It's all Tory Fucks to me.

No. The thing is they aren't Tory Fucks. Or at least are unlikely to identify as such.

i think it's basically

1) teh kids - won't vote, naive uni rugby team style toryism
2) reluctant 30 somethings - won't vote conservative but have conservative tastes
3) countryside alliance types - overt tories and would vote
4) an offshoot of group 1 who call themselves 'libertarians' which i thought was a US thing but seems to be on the rise here; wouldn't hang with (1), wouldn't vote and certainly wouldn't vote for UK conservatives as the Tories' weak devotion to the welfare state is seen as bad as Stalinism by this lot

1) the police
2) arctic monkeys
3) classical (proper music obv)
4) radiohead

I wonder if the rise of trust funds and kids buying their own houses with their parents money aged 22, 23, 24 (plus the accompanying middle class debt) is the root of all this?

I don't think 1 and 3 come into it that much, they've always existed and probably always will. It is interesting though the juncture at which Country Side Alliance crosses over with upper class hippie culture though. I think 4 is the key, not that many identify as Libertarian but it is happening, they are out there and growing in number y know. I can't stop thinking about Children of Men, it's like the government in that, nominally democratic, "liberal" even but existing mainly to keep the wolf from the door. Your freedom to buy coffee shall not be impeded. I have been reading me some kpunk. Hah ha ha. Google politics.

xp DG's first list.

I have just been invited to this group on facebook: Roll on Recession

I like how the group defines itself for people with "Four credit cards or below", because four credits is a totally normal, responsible approach to handling your money, but five is just crazy madman style.

It must be noted one of the group founders had a £3000 loan during sixth form to buy himself a home entertainment system. He was also responsible for this 2001 classroom exchange:
Him: I think bombing Afghanistan is a brilliant idea.
Idealistic Teacher: So would you bomb Belfast just because there might be terrorist there?
Him: Yes!
It should also be noted that on September 12th 2001 Idealistic Teacher asked a year 8 drama class to act out "burning to death in the World Trade Center". He wasn't kept on long.

Sounds like a bit of a character

Well, Jess, the model is this (bear with me):
Styles that will later dominate the mainstream and contribute to how we perceive a particular decade begin in media enclaves like Pitchfork and Vice. Actually, that's not even true; they begin in the art world. No, that's not true either, they begin in widespread social trends which artists are often the first to pick up on (the mainstream is usually slow to change its representations of the world, even when the world changes and moves on). Once they get into art shows, these new images and styles are legitimated: they begin to be seen as acceptable for wider use. People in advertising, music, publishing etc pick up on them, and soon (if they resonate with wider trends, ie the whole post-PC thing, or the fact that demographic growth in the US is coming from Asians and Hispanics rather than either the black or white populations) they reach the mainstream.

A case in point would be how Corinne Day's photos in the 90s (influenced by Nan Goldin) led to a moral panic over "heroin chic" which spilled out of the fashion world and left a mark on the 90s via "Trainspotting" etc. Heroin use in itself doesn't make "heroin chic" a legitimate style; it needs to be picked up by artists, then percolate through to wider cultural resonance via films, records, magazines, photographs... One consequence of this is that we wake up one morning and find that a particular sensibility is literally paying our bills.

-- Momus (Momus), Saturday, 3 June 2006 15:05 (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Momus this'd all be so much easier if you'd just say "I happen to like Vice," but, as with all your interests, you want to argue for its "importance" or "vitality," for prescience really: but do you honestly think (you can't) that trends didn't cycle prior to Vice? make any reasonable fashion claim today, in ten years or so it'll have cycled in & out and then you can call yrself a prophet if that's the sort of thing that's important to you.
I am rather glad though that Vice was not ahead of the game in making it OK for white people to call blacks "nigger" and "chink," and that the attempted resurrection of the "reclaiming the word!" ("reclaiming" by people who don't have the moral right to say what gets reclaimed when) trope seems to have died a richly-deserved death in the racial sphere anyhow (I wish it were still considered more bogus to call women "bitches" but you can't win 'em all)

Momus OTM however about how sexism doesn't get nearly the rise of of ilx that racism does, but this is my ol' hobby-horse

-- Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Saturday, 3 June 2006 15:06 (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Momus arguing that the social class to which you happen to belong is, in fact, the driving social class: is it any wonder everybody hates artists, who in fact pirate their ideas from the social sphere, not the other way 'round as you'd like to claim?
-- Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Saturday, 3 June 2006 15:08 (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

I started thinking about B3ta the other day, and how they were all "Ha ha, dead racist scum is dead" when Manning carked it, but then they'll still do "Here's a joke for ya: Who should be lynched? Black people!" "deliciously politically incorrect" gags at the end of each newsletter.

young people today with their emo and their facebook and their not being that arsed about voting tory.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,2190985,00.html

That article is 100% proof that the Lib Dems will take power in '09 if Lembit takes charge.

The article has a superficial authoritativeness to it, but lazily recycles a few long-time cliches:

- there's no political characters any more

- there's no one thinking about 'the kids'

- this generation raised on..(fill in according to year)..is the first 'apathetic generation'

- "natural choice for a first time voter"

- the 'new' scepticism of people towards politicians

- "at the next election, this first time voter will have been x ...when... (defining moment)

I have a cynicism of politicials, but at least they seem to have some energy in what they do compared to political journalists.

The defining moment when I lost around 90 per cent of respect for political journalists was the endless recycling of garbage around the Spice Girls being part of the 'Thatcher's Children'.

otm

British newspapers will and should be subject to some form of new external regulation, the outgoing prime minister, Tony Blair, said yesterday in a broadside that attacked the media for behaving like feral beasts and eschewing balance or proportion.

In a sweeping critique of the industry, Mr Blair claimed newspapers, locked into an increasingly bitter sales war in a 24-hour news environment, indulged in "impact journalism" in which truth and balance had become secondary to the desire for stories to boost sales and be taken up by other media outlets.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,2196055,00.html

qed

Better step up my "emigrate within the next 5 years" program.

Better step up my "emigratehijack a plane and crash it into the Channel 4 offices within the next 5 years" program.

Fixed.

Home life: Kirstie went to nine schools before settling at the private school Bedales in Hampshire. She bought her first property aged 19. Her father is Lord Hindlip, the former chairman of Christies, and she is married to millionaire property developer Ben Andersen. She has a son and two stepchildren.

bandelete kirsty allsopp

same school as lily allen /carmody

there's something singularly objectionable about a school called 'bedales'. you may well claim that i'm not really in a position to judge people by their school. in that case, i shall draw attention instead to the 'nine schools' bit, the 'first property aged 19' bit, the peer father bit, the Christies bit, the 'married to millionaire property developer' bit, and (possibly above all) the 'two stepchildren' bit. argh argh argh.

Steve Mannion left the group Boris Johnson is a fucking Tory for Christ's sake.

RIP

http://music.guardian.co.uk/pop/story/0,,2246084,00.html

"Old clothes old ideas and all this resting in the country business"

"Goldfrapp discover hauntology" shocker.

I guess Focus Group will be producing the next Madonna album then. Or more likely Burial.

i did ctrl + f "right-wing" for that article, but nothing came up.

(i'm sure quits meant to update a goldrapp hread on ilm)

it's the article itself, rather than teh frapp's new 'human after all' direction, that i think makes it fit this thread. the discourse they've been put into, kind of thing.

o ok. you mean a kind of carm0dy-st3lfox "grime doesn't fit the rural" controversy vibe?

not really -- carmody lives in the west country, and i'm not really going out to bat for grime/dubstep/whatever. on the contrary jude rogers (author of this) loves teh burial. all that stuff i find really depressing! what i'm on about is sentences like this:

"Up a long country lane, a smiling, affable Will Gregory opens the broad oak doors to Pipers Gate."

and the quote was from an old maclaren/westwood thing, i think -- i guess in ref to 'country life'. i don't think in itself the pastoral vibe is a bad thing -- but there's 200 years of uh issues to deal with there, and this piece runs straight into it without a thought.

"not really -- carmody lives in the west country, and i'm not really going out to bat for grime/dubstep/whatever."

ah you do know the specific thread i'm referring to, right?

no. i have an idea of what you might mean.

the clusterfuck southall-carmody-stelfox-passantino days.

[You know everybodies talkin about the good ol days right?] yeah
[Everybody, the good ol' days, the good ol' days]
The good ol' days, yeah
[Well let's talk about the good ol' days]
Let's talk about them shits now
Word up, baby
[Can it be that it was all so simple then]
KnowhatI'msayin, take you on this lyrical high real quick
1993 exoticness
KnowhatI'msayin, let's get technical
Where's your bone at, get up on that shit aight
Yo!!

it helps to see the thread (is it baleeted?), but all i meant was were you objecting to a tone of "pastoral pop must be made away from the town" by the journo.

no, not that, though that may well be subtext; just a generalized scrumping-for-apples isn't-life-jolly thing that sticks in my life-hating craw.

j/k life's okay rly :D

sweet ;-)

i'd like to have a big house in wiltshire too! lol.

keep posting ;-)

Dreams are there to show you the way
(Better take a look inside)
Close your eyes find out what they're trying to say
(You gotta take a look inside)

Only for a minute
Just to make a start
Imagine what you wanna see

Wake him up the wizard
Sleeping in your heart
Just imagine what you wanna be
Don't you know that...

Dreams come true they do
Dreams come true
From all of us to all of you they do

Don't you know that dreams come true
Love is just a second away
(Better take a look inside)
Make that magic rule, let the miracle stay
(You gotta take a look inside)

Only for a minute
It's not a fantasy
Just imagine what you wanna be

Don't you know that...

Don't you know that dreams come true
Don't you know that dreams come true
Only for a minute
You can make your dreams come true

i think kate bush is a good example of doing the 'rural escape' thing without fucking it up.

isb

what now?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f1/Incredible_String_Band_-_Hangmans.jpg

oic. look like they don't bath much.

Honestly, you can't tell whether they're a man or a woman!

The whole the Observer Food Magazine made me think of this thread to-day.

it's all about passing on things to future generations, holding the planet in trust. All of that sort of language of stewardship, comes very, sort of naturally to a Conservative politician.'

Cammy also says (talking about Arnie S)
'He actually is a very effective politician. One measure of his effectiveness is that he was re-elected, and that's always a good way to measure things! Ha!'

Well, of course, and Blair was re-elected 3 times...or no wait...

Oops. Should be elected 3 times, only re-elected twice.

Is there a correct term for people who are Conservative in all beliefs, but refer to themselves as "liberal" because they know that "liberalism" is good but conservativism is "bad"?

The kind of people who, about three times a week, link to a Daily Mail column on their blog with some sort of "OMG I agree with an article in the Daily Mail! Whatever next!" comment. That sort.

Reminds me of the dude who wrote Life On Mars/Ashes To Ashes in an interview saying "I do hope we haven't created some sort of Daily Mail hero character in Gene Hunt". Sure, right.

The term in question is, I think, "gliberal."

I was thinking of "ILXor".

Well no, that would imply a LOM/ATA response along the lines of "yaBOOSH who cares if Hunt is horrible sexist thug and none of it makes sEnSe it is slasher thatcherkid fan fiction CUBBLEHOOPS kittenz"...

phil just said "on the money"

iirc dom was working for phil. soon he'll be saying "would so run up on that" no doubt.

Does the fact that Yuppie Wants Buy House and Get Botox! Now! type programs have replaced MDF Will Make Semi Nice and Budget Airline Staff / Crap Drivers Are Funny! as cheap 8 till 9 television entertainment show reflect the prosperous times we are living in? Or not.

-- acrobat, Monday, September 17, 2007 3:32 PM (7 months ago) Bookmark Link

I find it ironic that a; I was mentioned on this thread without really knowing it existed (and I'm still not sure what I was an example of), b; that Paul revived it with the post above a week before I moved into my first house.

And c; that I watched Peep Show for the first time last night, but only because it was on after Derren Brown who was on after Grand Designs Live. My friend Dan applied to be on Derren's program where Derren was going to shoot himself. But as soon as Derren's researchers got wind of what Dan does (film academic) they wouldn't let him anywhere near. Emma was outraged that the girl "killed" the kitten and thought it was completely unrealistic and therefore faked. I don't think I would have killed the kitten, but a; I'm not a 19 year old girl from a broken home with a bastard dad, and b; Derren didn't try and make me kill a kitten.

Em adores Phil & Kirsty. We watch them every week when they're on. We love property porn. I prefer Kevin McCloud though. He's called McCloud for a start, which means he sounds like a hero from a Reaganite 80s action film, also his whole thing is about... renewing the family, perhaps, by building these amazing, unusual, sustainable, light family homes. It's always family homes. I believe in family. I think family is good. Two parents, couple of kids. Dog, cat, big kitchen. My instinct when watching any property porn, though, is always "where in this house would I put my stereo?" Em wouldn't buy Kirsty's "picture hanging kit" for £30 though. She gets me to hammer a nail into the wall. Our furniture comes from an almost equal mix of John Lewis, Habitat, and Ikea.

I laughed at Peep Show. I thought it was funny when he jizzed his pants in the stationary cupboard. I had little idea what to expect, except that Wikipedia described it as a "comedy of manners". A "comedy of manners" is surely a very, very middle class thing. I saw the Mitchell & Webb sketch show once, and thought it was shite. They're both Cambridge grads, and Footlights alumni. Mitchell was head or chair or CEO or something of Footlights, actually.

My conclusion is that I'm almost entirely solipsistic.

Not even a week; we got the keys on Friday 22nd.

I meant to say, though, in the little semi-rant about "family = good", that even though I think this, and Em most assuredly thinks this, we've discussed the fact that actually, at the moment, neither of us really wants children because we're too selfish. And that we've both felt a bit guilty for feeling that we don't want children.

TS: "family" vs. EastEnders "fairmly," i.e. "I don't wanna poke my eye out with a gangrene spoon, Roxy, but I gotta do it for the fairmly."

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article4172669.ece

The current rise of the Tories has been accompanied by a growing acceptance of poshos in popular culture, and while the financial gap between the rich and poor might be growing, the cultures are mixing together in previously unimaginable ways.

idiot.

https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/citd/RussianHeritage/10.EMP/SCMEDIA/Wren.Ermak.gif

yuppie wankers

Sophie Heawood morelike "fucking retard", amirite?

'great' article in the times today about 'anonymous' too, only several months late

But James Blunt’s PR people decided to use his Sandhurst background as his USP, rather than hide it.

Or, y'know, having served active service in Kossovo. Same thing though, right?

C4 have their new social / house / see other peoples lives things going, with this show about auditioning a home help. Last night some frighteningly avaricious nouveau riche headhunters who overate and drove a Ferrari (and a huge 4x4) had a very interesting clash with a potential home help who was well-spoken and had lived in Africa as a teacher where she'd had her own house keepers and who couldn't deal with being a housekeeper herself (at least not for them). I'm not sure came out of it looking worse.

The "are you gay?" bit in the first ep of that was amazing.

that sth qfrican pa was plain WEIRD

^what RP said, tht bit was also weird

Private Medicine TV Drama:
http://www.itv.com/Drama/contemporary/HarleyStreet/default.html

Oh, but "While each has their unique approach to their job, all three medics are outsiders in the closed world of high-end private care dominated by white, privately-educated men."

"The arrival on our screens of Harley Street, a drama set in the world of private medicine, seems like some sort of watershed. But what sort? Is it evidence of the growing acceptability of private medicine, that popular faith in publicly funded medicine is no longer a given? Or is it simply that TV has been so saturated with NHS-based medical dramas that private is the only route left?"
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/film-and-tv/tv-radio-reviews/last-nights-tv-harley-street-itv1br-the-unseen-alistair-cooke-bbc4-870726.html

"Toffs used to have to keep quiet about being toffs - dress down and keep their heads down, estuarise their vowel sounds. Now, in these post-Alastair Campbell days, they're braying from the rooftops. Two out of three political parties - plus London - have Hooray Henrys at the helm. Then on telly there's Trinny, Susannah, Ladette to Lady, an Etonian starring in The Wire, Lucinda in The Apprentice ... see what I mean? And now here's Harley Street (ITV1). Ten years ago, you'd never have got a prime-time series commissioned about private medicine. What next? Grange Hill is reborn at Harrow? Prime-time polo on Sky Sports? CrouchEnders?"
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/tv/2008/07/last_nights_tv_harley_street.html

CrouchEnders

old ILX

says ex-sink estate comprehensive school pupil Sam Wollaston (xp)

Toffs used to have to keep quiet about being toffs

This is not my experience.

That's true, actually - they used to be loud, didn't they?

I think there may have been a momentary lapse in loudness around 1997, but it was really only like you had slapped them in the face...they soon got over it.

"personal services required" is excruciating

what was up with the russian PA/south african lady this week???

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/aug/03/britishidentity.davidcameron

When Jilly Cooper is dropping more science than 4/5s of the Labour cabinet, probably time to wave the white flag.

how does the new Hovis ad fit into all this?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/28/jarvis-cocker-tory-government

Cocker continues: "I can't get my head around the fact he's trying to bail out a banking system that obviously doesn't work. Why don't they say, 'Well, sod that, let's do something else?'"

http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badassbuddy_com-slowburner.gif

How is that Moving Right? More like Moving Further Left.

it would be if jarvo had anything at all here to contribute. saying 'the banking system is fucked; therefore let's... not have banks' isn't left-wing. i don't know what it is, really.

But (and I think I'm spending far too much time here trying to work through the workings of Mr Cocker's brain) he's talking about "a" banking system not "the" banking system.

fucksake http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/sep/24/bbc-news-tories-jeremy-hunt

Political equivalent of Fergie questioning the neutrality of an upcoming referee. He's only really looking to pressure the coverage of the next General Election.

tl, dr but as their political editor is an ex-chair of the Young Conservatives I don't know what they've got to complain about.

How can the Tories trust an organisation that allows their only late night political discussion show to be presentedby, errrrrrrr, Andrew Neil and Michael Portillo

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/dec/16/the-return-of-poshness

Can't say I've spotted many young things wearing Barbours tbh.

i guess some of the stigma of conservatism and its trappings got eroded for younger people who can only really remember a labour govt, so they can adopt it as a pseudo-radical pose. which is aiding and abetting conservative oxymorons who are trying to say the party has always had a progressive side. http://brightblue.ning.com/

was slightly taken aback by the right-winginess of a housemate last year who was just out of university and said things like "there's no excuse for not being a success in britain" (then he got made redundant from his job in the city and joined the norwegian army). reminded me of a previous housemate who grew up in soviet slovakia and used to bemoan the laziness of homeless people.

imo actors' names are getting posher

Tuppence Middleton

Ophelia Lovibond

Montserrat Lombard

Isabella Amaryllis Charlotte Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe

Oliver and Olivia top names' list

Never trust a man called Olly.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/nov/22/maggies-nightclub-inspired-by-thatcher

Cheaper to hang around outside and punch the clientele in the balls on the way out.

subject to louis's approval, hope some misguided students burn the fucker down

j/k gchq bros. not actually going to burn down an airport.

big protests tomorrow btw

What, at Maggie's?

o word?

busy in the LIBERRY like a real pro

also REDACTED super-excited

xpost

"It's not a Tory club," he says carefully, but rather a tribute to the 80s – a bit of "childhood nostalgia for the decade of our birth". The reference to Britain's most divisive politician, he says, is tongue-in-cheek. "I know she's divisive, but I do admire her. She's a leader."

it's not about politics, it's about leadership.

While Gilkes would love Thatcher herself to visit sometime – despite conceding "her nightclubbing days are probably over"

where's that strikethrough function...?

Sonic The Hedgehog not rilly a symbol of Thatcher's 80s is he now

also didn't the Graun run a piece on this already this year?

"Adam Ant's down quite a lot," he says

your most namedroppable celeb client is a man only notable in recent years for his public displays of mental illness = let the good times roll

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/26/kate-middleton-conservative-style

i basically like suzanne moore but thought this was kind of like an entry-level version of this thread. then i remembered she was ex-marxism today, or whatever it was called, and was probably consciously drawing on stuart hall in the first place.

secret supper club

it's ya boy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/sep/12/march-of-the-neoliberals

this trend of naming things 'the great british ___' is dreadful

6:30pm The Great British Winter
7:30pm Great British Menu

british people are lower than vermin

You do yourself a dishonor, nilmar. I find british people quite on a par with vermin.

http://i.imgur.com/K6Yz9PU.jpg

looking forward to what the uk political class have to say about this girl allegedly being killed allegedly by a latvian migrant

And litigants (or more importantly litigators) have been reminded that they should look first to the common law to protect their fundamental rights: radical suggestions have been made about the power of judicial review to protect them. Whether this trend is developing as a response to the rising tide of anti - European sentiment among parliamentarians, the press and the public, whether it is putting down a marker for what might happen if the 1998 Act were repealed, whether it is a reflection of distinctive judicial philosophies of the judges who are at the forefront of this development, or whether it is simple irritation that our proud traditions of UK constitutionalism seemed to have been forgotten, I leave it to you and to the academics to decide.

http://supremecourt.uk/docs/speech-140712.pdf

thats the 98 human rights act obv

idk where to post this excerpt from the wikipedia page about the manhattan project

i will post it here since it neatly encapsulates the assymetric nature of the delusory 'special relationship' which is so integral to the current right and its belief that the uk can do without distant/sclerotic/treacherous europe

The opportunity for an equal partnership no longer existed, however, as shown in August 1942 when the British unsuccessfully demanded substantial control over the project while paying none of the costs. By 1943 the roles of the two countries had reversed from late 1941;[51] in January Conant notified the British that they would no longer receive atomic information except in certain areas. While the British were shocked by the abrogation of the Churchill-Roosevelt agreement, head of the Canadian National Research Council C. J. Mackenzie was less surprised, writing "I can't help feeling that the United Kingdom group [over]emphasizes the importance of their contribution as compared with the Americans."[54] As Conant and Bush told the British, the order came "from the top". The British bargaining position had worsened; the American scientists had decided that the United States no longer needed outside help, and they and others on the bomb policy committee wanted to prevent Britain from being able to build a postwar atomic weapon. The committee supported, and Roosevelt agreed to, restricting the flow of information to what Britain could use during the war—especially not bomb design—even if doing so slowed down the American project.

Sort of a metaphor for ILX really

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2014/oct/28/tower-of-london-poppies-ukip-remembrance-day/print

“Total public spending is now projected to fall to 35.2% of GDP by 2019-20, taking it below the previous post-war lows reached in 1957-8 and 1999-2000 to what would probably be its lowest level in 80 years”.

The OBR warned that the scale of the projected spending cuts – which would leave public spending per head of population cut be a third during the 2010-2020 decade – would lead to slower growth from 2016 onwards and require the Bank of England to boost activity at a time when interest rates were at rock-bottom levels and the outlook for UK exports was weak.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/may/28/bbc-defends-reality-show-involving-poor-dubbed-hunger-games

the trend of “poverty porn”

this is amazing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SvRqVvctQk

https://twitter.com/stephenkb/status/746169256727953408