― Feargal Hixxy (DJ Mencap), Monday, 15 January 2007 15:08 (eighteen years ago)
― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Monday, 15 January 2007 15:10 (eighteen years ago)
― acrobat (elwisty), Monday, 15 January 2007 16:04 (eighteen years ago)
it was good, but not 300 times better than 'nathan barley'.
― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Monday, 15 January 2007 16:05 (eighteen years ago)
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 15 January 2007 16:06 (eighteen years ago)
― vita susicivus (blueski), Monday, 15 January 2007 16:06 (eighteen years ago)
xpost
steve otm
― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Monday, 15 January 2007 16:07 (eighteen years ago)
― acrobat (elwisty), Monday, 15 January 2007 16:22 (eighteen years ago)
― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Monday, 15 January 2007 16:23 (eighteen years ago)
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 15 January 2007 16:25 (eighteen years ago)
― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Monday, 15 January 2007 16:31 (eighteen years ago)
― acrobat (elwisty), Monday, 15 January 2007 16:33 (eighteen years ago)
this happened in the show except he thought she turned out not be under-age (at which point NB thinking it now okay to pretend she WAS under-age was actually quite a clever little point about...something or other).
i did hate NB but yes no less than anyone else around him.
― vita susicivus (blueski), Monday, 15 January 2007 16:38 (eighteen years ago)
Actually, scratch that, that's not the idea at all. It's funny caricatures falling into situations and scrambling to return to the status quo whilst simultaneously being trapped; a very old-fashioned sitcom thread. I certainly didn't feel that is was trying to make a big insightful statement about something, at least, nothing larger than "it's better to like something than to dislike something."
― Johnney B English (stigoftdump), Monday, 15 January 2007 16:48 (eighteen years ago)
'THIR-FUCKING-TEEN'.
― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Monday, 15 January 2007 16:50 (eighteen years ago)
In fairness, I guess originally Barley wasn't really a character, just a cipher, and in making him human Morriss and Brooker made him more, er, human. I just don't think that made for great comedy. It wasn't sharp enough to be genuine satire and it wasn't silly enough to be knockabout comedy. It was just 'dark'.
― Ruairi Wirewool (Ruairi Wirewool), Monday, 15 January 2007 16:54 (eighteen years ago)
― acrobat (elwisty), Monday, 15 January 2007 17:02 (eighteen years ago)
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 15 January 2007 17:04 (eighteen years ago)
― acrobat (elwisty), Monday, 15 January 2007 17:06 (eighteen years ago)
― Feargal Hixxy (DJ Mencap), Monday, 15 January 2007 17:08 (eighteen years ago)
― vita susicivus (blueski), Monday, 15 January 2007 17:20 (eighteen years ago)
― acrobat (elwisty), Monday, 15 January 2007 17:40 (eighteen years ago)
― vita susicivus (blueski), Monday, 15 January 2007 17:41 (eighteen years ago)
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 15 January 2007 17:42 (eighteen years ago)
― vita susicivus (blueski), Monday, 15 January 2007 17:47 (eighteen years ago)
― acrobat (elwisty), Monday, 15 January 2007 17:49 (eighteen years ago)
I doubt whether Channel 4 enforced any 'nicening'. You know, maybe Barley always looked like that in Brooker's head, and if you boil the actions in any of the episodes down to the kind of 3-sentence description that you would find in TV Go Home, it wouldn't be that different. But TVGH gave the impression that Barley was a cartoonishly horrible amoral grotesque, and that's not what we got in the TV show. We got 'idiots'. I hoped it would be either venemous or ridiculous and it was neither.
― Ruairi Wirewool (Ruairi Wirewool), Monday, 15 January 2007 18:09 (eighteen years ago)
pt. I
pt. II
― RJG (RJG), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 09:51 (eighteen years ago)
i lolled?
― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 09:54 (eighteen years ago)
― RJG (RJG), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 09:57 (eighteen years ago)
Oh okay, I didn't read the website so I didn't know what was supposed to happen, I only saw (and liked) what did.
― Johnney B English (stigoftdump), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 10:04 (eighteen years ago)
― Frogm@n Henry (Frogm@n Henry), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 10:05 (eighteen years ago)
― RJG (RJG), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 10:07 (eighteen years ago)
― Frogm@n Henry (Frogm@n Henry), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 10:13 (eighteen years ago)
― acrobat (elwisty), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 11:43 (eighteen years ago)
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 11:50 (eighteen years ago)
― acrobat (elwisty), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 12:09 (eighteen years ago)
― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 12:13 (eighteen years ago)
― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 12:14 (eighteen years ago)
'TDT' radio show was 1992. he was doing big things on london radio about then too.
'blue jam' dropped at the arse-end of '97 and was hot into the double-nine.
for me it went bad with 'jam' but then i was a student contrarian at the time, maybe i missed out.
it's just that there was a looong hiatus between the underwhelming 'brass eye '01' and 'nathan barley'.
― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 12:16 (eighteen years ago)
ie 'on the hour' (in b4 sotcaa smackdown).
― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 12:18 (eighteen years ago)
― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 12:19 (eighteen years ago)
on which Morris had only as much if not less input than Lee, Herring, Marber, Baynham etc. [/sotcaa swot]
― vita susicivus (blueski), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 12:21 (eighteen years ago)
― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 12:22 (eighteen years ago)
fig 1the day today = bendsbrass eye = ok computerblue jam = kid ajam = amnesiacBES = hail to the thiefnathan barley / it crowd = the eraser
― acrobat (elwisty), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 12:30 (eighteen years ago)
as a team they really were a 90s Python only with a much more 'subliminal' influence on everything after (they're all known but not really as celebrated as Python gang were after they disbanded). i know the comparisons only stretch so far.
After Python there seemed to be quite a gap between something like that and early 80s 'alternative' 'edgy' stuff (Comic Strip etc.), only a handful of decent well crafted sitcoms in the 70s - which seems stranger and stranger looking back. perhaps we're seeing a similar effect even now with Whitehouse having killed laughtrack sketchom only for it's reanimated corpse to stalk the lands taller than ever before in Little Britain and Tate. Gervais is an anomaly with ridiculous carte blanche but can take 'credit' for pushing 'reality comedy' into mainstream. The conventional sitcoms remains thwarted, no show in that vein unable to command mass appeal of even mid 90s predecessors.
― vita susicivus (blueski), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 12:34 (eighteen years ago)
i think you're gonna have a very different perspective than me tbh, my dad knew about him before i did via radio 4 and he basically made me watch 'the day today', and then there was the radio one music show which was a revelation -- but also not infallible. so yeah the post-jam mystique is a bit lame, but it really is a recent development within his career, and arguably it ended with 'nathan barley' anyway.
― the original hauntology blogging crew (Enrique), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 12:34 (eighteen years ago)
or the Mel C.
― vita susicivus (blueski), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 12:35 (eighteen years ago)
― acrobat (elwisty), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 12:36 (eighteen years ago)
i've watched the first 3 eps of LOL. Bob Mortimer would have me in stitches. switched over to watch a bit of The Martian I'd recorded for another day and Mr Swallow pops right up as a NASA JPL guy, freaked me out a bit!
― kinder, Saturday, 12 April 2025 15:22 (two months ago)