"Conspiracy"

Following on from this, I need my own Jewish question answered - my maternal grandmother is Jewish, but my maternal grandfather and dad aren't, so does that make me a Jew? My mum says it does but I'm not an expert on Jewish tradition, but I'm sure someone here is.

Apparently it depends who you ask. But by the one practice, you would be, since your mother would be.

When did K.Branagh suddenly get good? He was pretty good as Shackleton but he was TERRIFIC as Heydrich: I flipped over from Morse, thought oh this , the EWannsee thing as it was just starting and nearly flipped back — I am tired from shopping and didn't really fancy a docudrama about the plan to exterminate the jews — but the first bit of Branagh just grabbed me and I stayed to the end. Stanley Tucci (?) also good as Eichmann. Smart writing: in the squabbles between overtly loathesome toadies/bullies and more urbane, intellectual, idealistic types, you sort of side with the latter, thinking they are at least less directly evil blah blah, only to find that all are as caught up as everyone. Including you, if you haven't been incredibly quick and rigorous (of course I "liked" Dr Stockart as he was a fierce legalist and pedant, except oops *shiver* the legalism he was passionately defending was the Nazi rewrite of the legal system).

Also chilling: the afternote, that only a single copy of the transcript had survived, just by chance, in the files of just one of the participants' departments, to be discovered after the war. One stray allied bomb, and history would know nothing of Wannsee...

Based I guess on looks my sistah and I have both had it assumed w/o question, or comment from us, that we *are* Jewish, esp. in New York. Sinker possibly = Singer, tho if so the assimilation was some generations back (mid-19th century), and all stories lost. My grandfather always loudly insisted it was an ancient Anglo-Saxon name, based on zero evidence that I know of. It's a rare name and almost everyone we've ever met with it is a relative, which says "asylum seekers" to me, albeit many decades ago, and carefully elided by someone way back when.

It was disturbing how many of them got away with it as well, though gratifying to see one of them ironically ended up in Sacsenhausen, I think it was. Eichmann also had the kind of end that baddies usually only get in films, which is pleasing.
The joke in the Greenfield family is that my dad's lot aren't Jewish but somehow have the Jewish name, to the extent that my dad was never picked for the school rugby team cos the coach assumed he couldn't play on Saturdays, though he changed his mind (quickly) after a short word with my grandad. I've always wanted to know how the descent thing works, just to know whether or not had I been living on the continent at the wrong time the Nazis would have come for me. I get the feeling if I was there I'd have gone for a 'shower' with the rest.

I watched some of it but got distracted by Late Review and Blue Velvet on Carlton Cinema. Branagh did seem good but I think he's always been a fine actor in the right roles. Just don't let him play Americans.

Orthodox Jews, according to Banks-Smith in Guardian today, not allowed to watch any television on a Friday after sunset. Is that why they put it on when they did?

Me = Jewish with Catholic flavouring from the mater's side, so doubly horrible shit happened to her and her family during the war. But definitely not orthodox - Laura's family were essentially lapsed C of E with pretensions towards paganism. Sort of a Dennis Potter- type "don't like the Church but wouldn't want rid of it as might need it one day" viewpoint.

Film - pretty much what Mr S has said. Also interesting conjunction with Frasier, which I taped and watched afterwards, re. elitism.

My great-grandparents were Jewish, although we only found out after they died. Supposedly this means I'm Jewish (of the Polish ilk) too, which I find quite amusing for some unspecified, probably something to do with Woody Allen, reason. My grandmother = Christian and my mum = atheist, tho, and no converting to old religion. I = ??!?!?! ilikemusicandbeerandfagswhatisthisgodofwhichyouspeak?!?!?

I too hadn't been very excited by the prospect, and tuned in almost by accident while channel-hopping, but was immediately hooked. I thought Branagh and Tucci were awesome. Excellent film.

BTW, policy-making and development in government (small 'g') is still a lot like that meeting (sorry, that sounds glib, but I do have 10 years experience and counting of this).

my norty thought was that branagh based his perf-style on MICHAEL HESELTINE!! but i doubt we could get a "I certainly did" out of him...