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Post by Maolsheachlann on Apr 8, 2019 9:33:49 GMT
As conservatives, we all despise television, but watch it anyway. I thought it would be good to have a thread on TV.
On Saturday I was watching an interesting show called Pilgrimage: The Road to Rome. It's on BBC 2 from 9 to 10 on Fridays, though I saw it on a Saturday so it must be repeated somewhere. This is how the BBC website describes it: "Eight well known personalities, all with differing beliefs and faiths, put on backpacks and walking boots, and set out to cover the Italian section of the ancient 2,000km Via Francigena, which starts in Canterbury and finishes in Rome."
The celebrities weren't "well known" by me-- I only recognized Les Dennis and our own dear Dana.
What interested me was the respectful attitude towards religion. It seems to me our era is much more interested in discovering faith in some "experiential" way, like doing a pilgrimage, than through reflection or investigation. Dana was the only one who was a practicing member of any religion, as far as I could tell.
The positive attitude towards a tradition was also refreshing.
It reaffirms by belief that eventually people get tired of "progress" and become curious about what they are missing out on in all they have previously spurned.
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Post by cato on Apr 8, 2019 9:58:00 GMT
Dana is also on a ridiculous RTE travel reality TV series at the moment opposite Senator David Norris. Both are refusing to attack each other which surely was the point of having them on the programme. Both ran against his highness Michael Dee of Galway too on his first run for the Aras.
Although he is a right on 100% liberal Norris is a practising Anglican. I once numbed into him at a High Anglican Eucharist ( Mozarts coronation Mass) in St Bartholemew's church Dublin. And yes- there are Irish High church people but they seem to be theologically and ideologically diverse.
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Post by cato on Apr 8, 2019 10:06:34 GMT
I only watch documentaries and films now and BBC news for the live Brexit debates. I dream of combining BBC 2 and 4s documentaries with TG4s to create one decent channel.
BBC does produce the odd decent comedy too. Toby Jones is on this week in a series called "Don't forget the driver". Jones has carved out a niche for himself at playing middle aged white men left behind by mainstream culture. His "Detectorists" is an understated loving classic of nature and hobby enthusiasts.
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Post by Séamus on Apr 9, 2019 11:39:27 GMT
Dana is also on a ridiculous RTE travel reality TV series at the moment opposite Senator David Norris. Both are refusing to attack each other which surely was the point of having them on the programme...etc... Being on celebrity reality tv shows is often a sign of being or becoming a Z-grade star, but we assume(!) in Dana's case, that it's more about finding a window somewhere to shine a ray of values somehow than desperation for relevance. I saw mention yesterday in an American magazine of a Fr. Eamonn McCarthy, footnoted as heading radiomaria in Dublin- I'm not overly one for Christian media (I just like knowing it's there) but, had anyone here ever mentioned or given an opinion about his broadcast? For some reason, or none, a show that aired an RTÉ2 at one stage, quite a long time ago now, came to my mind. 321. It's the only place I ever came across the noun 'McGuffin',I wasn't quite sure what it meant at the time, but now that it's easy to look these things up I find that the word came from Alfred Hitchcock. I didn't find out whether there was actually someone with this name involved in the first McGuffin or not. At any rate- like a red herring- it has to exist without mention if a production is in anyway serious. Which 321 wasn't. I could never get the trash can bit either.
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Post by Séamus on Apr 10, 2019 23:41:54 GMT
A...etc... On Saturday I was watching an interesting show called Pilgrimage: The Road to Rome. It's on BBC 2 from 9 to 10 on Fridays, though I saw it on a Saturday so it must be repeated somewhere. This is how the BBC website describes it: "Eight well known personalities, all with differing beliefs and faiths, put on backpacks and walking boots, and set out to cover the Italian section of the ancient 2,000km Via Francigena, which starts in Canterbury and finishes in Rome." The celebrities weren't "well known" by me-- I only recognized Les Dennis and our own dear Dana. What interested me was the respectful attitude towards religion. It seems to me our era is much more interested in discovering faith in some "experiential" way, like doing a pilgrimage, than through reflection or investigation. Dana was the only one who was a practicing member of any religion, as far as I could tell....etc.... EXPRESS printed a review of PILGRIMAGE which stated that, when they finally meet the Pope and have a Q&A, Francis made a bombshell remark about gay couples which made a 51 year old gay celebrity comedian (Stephen Amos) 'fall on the floor'. Thanks for the warning perhaps?
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Post by cato on Apr 18, 2019 21:28:44 GMT
Kelsey Grammer the main star of US comedy Frasier has outed himself as one of the few Trump.supporters in the entertainment industry. Kelsey a practising Morman is also unapologetically pro life and conservative.
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Post by cato on Aug 12, 2019 19:38:03 GMT
RTE have proposed a new tax on mobile phones and PCs as there is a hole in their revenue. This isn't due for 5 years to dull people's resistance. We have discussed the national broadcaster in other threads (which I can't find) but I propose conservatives should object full stop to a tax which aids lefty moronic and conformist trash.
Privatise the station if anyone would buy it. Anything of cultural value could be supplied by a slimmed down service privately run with a direct subsidy from taxes. I am thinking here of Lyric radio and a revamped TG4. Let the private sector provide the slanted news and the soaps..
This is of course heresy in conformist 2019 Ireland.
Conservatives need to start becoming the awkward squad speaking truth to an increasingly corrupt establishment.
Think of all the protests over water : a vital service that everyone uses but which the left imagine should be free for people to waste as one pleases. The state forces us to pay €160 if you have a telly and will imprison you if you don't have a license. End this petty tyranny.
I hope to start a few other threads on challenging modern totems soon.
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Post by Séamus on Sept 5, 2019 12:16:39 GMT
I noticed today a review for an autobiography of cameraman of Attenborough documentaries,Gavin Thurston,who has certainly reached places that only modern means would make possible (one place he cites is a saline lake 3,000ft underwater that one species of eel alone enters). From reading Sir David's earlier writings,though,I'm equally amazed at Charles Lagus and Geoff Mulligan,the cameramen involved with his 1950s and 60s productions and,indeed,how different it all was back then - one existing BBC channel originally,one of only two available types of camera film brought abroad (meticulously kept dry in tins while camping in some jungle),knowing that the eventual tv audience won't even see the colours of a spectacular plumage because the show will be seen in black-and-white. Conservation was quite different also: taking individual specimens back to live an isolated life in London Zoo. Plane rides from South America to Britain could take a week with several stops,smaller animals were carried on board. Once a particular mammal wasn't faring well without roots,it's major food source,so the team dashed outside the Amsterdam airport,knowing they could dig up a few tulip bulbs. It survived. Before bungee jumping became worldwide(and in any way safe) Mulligan considered taking the jump with camera rolling at Pentecost Island,where the madness originated. I'm only familiar with Blyton's Famous Five through watching a few episodes of the 1970s series when I was small,I'm not sure then if Georgina (George) was the same short-hair-loving tomboy in the original books,but I notice that Farange-recruit, Anne Widdecombe,was happy to address the Royal Mint/Enid Blyton issue: "the (Mint's) committee deemed her racist,sexist and homophobic. Racist? There was a hollywog in Noddy? Sexist? On what possible grounds when the most adventurous of her characters was the girl, George,from the Famous Five? As for homophobic,such issues did not feature in children's books then. You might think that the Royal Mint is run by bright folk but apparently they have joined the fashionable but ludicrous thinking that we should expect people from the past to demonstrate the values of the present....expecting someone who died 50 years ago to have thought as we do now is as stupid as expecting Noddy to take selfies on a mobile." Sure IS queer.
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Post by cato on Sept 9, 2019 12:02:26 GMT
BBC 4 are planning a new documentary on Eugenics and its English roots. Should be worth watching when it airs.
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Post by Séamus on Oct 2, 2019 12:12:39 GMT
I was reading a bit about an early (1950s) BBC show which seemed to be called either Song Hunter of Third Programme,couldn't make out which was the proper title. It's of interest that the Texan folk singer host, Alan Lomax, introduced two Irish musicians of the old stock, as well as waulkin-tweed-maker singers from Gaelic Scotland, during the six 30-minute episodes. Michael O'Gorman was an Irish fiddler who worked in London as a baggage handler by day and could play jigs and reels 'at dazzling speed'. Margaret Barry lived in the West of Ireland and was even more interesting- described as a 'tinker'- I'm not sure what group that designated then- a ballad singer of no fixed address who had to be traced via the Garda(she was often arrested for drunkenness). As someone had left whiskey in her dressing room she ended up forgetting to tune her banjo and put her teeth in. There were some suggestions from (generally wealthy at the time) tv owners that Vera Lynn was preferable. But she was generally considered a success. Her rendition of As She Moved Through the Fair was apparently exceptionally good.
I only discovered the other day that Enid Blyton did indeed address the controversy surrounding gollywogs before she died: "she argued 'golliwogs are merely lovable black toys, not negroes. Teddy Bears are also toys,but if there happens to be a naughty one in my books for younger children this does not mean that I hate bears' " The author of this latest biography,who also wrote the review article,suggests that if there is reason to withhold posthumous honours it probably lies more with the writer's own dysfunction as a wife and mother- she have may never actually read a story to her own daughters...and people didn't generally pretend in those days. No cute Photoshopped images on Facebooks
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Post by cato on Oct 2, 2019 12:21:01 GMT
BBC 4 are planning a new documentary on Eugenics and its English roots. Should be worth watching when it airs. It's on BBC 4 on Thursday Oct 3 rd at 9pm. "Eugenics - Science's greatest scandal" .
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Post by Séamus on Nov 11, 2019 2:00:44 GMT
Vale- the Marlboro Man,Bob Norris(claimed to be the greatest commercial ever)...died @90(but he didn't actually smoke.) (One can certainly learn from tv,I was unaware of the 1966 Aberfan disaster until the terrible episode(not a pun) resurfaced through The Crown)
I don't know whether it entered any other heads that Sofia Loren being a guest of honour at the 30th anniversary of the fall of The Berlin Wall can toss up a few thoughts on El Cid superimposed on Merkel's open borders policies,with memories of the old Iron Curtain and present EU thrown in for good measure. I'm surprised,in today's world, that El Cid hasn't been blanket-banned altogether.
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Post by cato on Nov 27, 2019 18:37:04 GMT
One of the great TV critics of the 1980s Clive James died today. He had a cancer diagnosis ten years ago and used to joke about regularly updating his obituary for the media.
Despite being an atheist he had a generous gratitude for the gifts he had received in life. James wrote many books - poetry , memoirs , literary criticism - I was very impressed by his erudition in his huge tome Cultural Amnesia a book well worth a read.
His TV career showed him at his wry sceptical best commenting on various TV programmes from all over the world for over a decade. He understood the power and influence of tv but didn't take it too seriously either. May he rest in peace.
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Post by Séamus on Nov 30, 2019 8:27:13 GMT
One of the great TV critics of the 1980s Clive James died today....etc... Despite being an atheist he had a generous gratitude for the gifts he had received in life. James wrote many books - poetry , memoirs , literary criticism - I was very impressed by his erudition in his huge tome Cultural Amnesia a book well worth a read....etc... May he rest in peace. One can definately relate to some of the quotations filling the obituaries: "every page (of Dan Brown) you turn demonstrates his complete lack of talent" or that the Sydney Opera House- "looks like portable typewriter made of oyster shells"... Other lines, perhaps not: "even better, if C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien could have strangled each other, so that we could have been saved from the Chronicles of Narnia". Some maybe I've no opinion of, but stating that Thatcher "starting quoting St Francis within minutes of becoming elected mp and scarcely had an hour gone by before she was sounding like Book of Revelation" shows that James was far from ignoring Western society's roots. The coverage that Australian media has given Clive can make one reflect on national identity,both by self and others. Was he more English or Australian? (We could ask it of famous Irishmen also- both Joyce and deValois lived most of their artistic lives abroad but one of the two is obviously identifiable as Irish moreso.) Olivia Newton-John and the BeeGees are always claimed for their Australian links by Australians, despite the latter having only lived in the country a short while and the former,who started off by representing UK in the Eurovision,only scarcely long enough to receive some lifelong twang of accent. It comes to me when comparing these to P.L.Travers who was both born and rared in Australia,something her fellow natives barely mention,and then only in parenthesis, when the Mary Poppins novels become newsworthy. Travers' 'Englishness' comes to light again with the much-advertised autobiography of Julie Andrews who now claims to have done much to offset the tension between Travers and the American Disney/VanDyke camp (who shipped the writer back to England at one stage during the filming) a certain sign of how much more snobbily-British than Aussie the author had become. It was interesting to hear that the wires gave way at least once during the Poppins flying scenes causing Dame Andrews to let out 'a very un-Poppins-like stream of expletives". Sounds like Julie would have been the one that fitted in in Queensland.
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Post by cato on Dec 19, 2019 22:06:00 GMT
The new Tory government is proposing to decriminalise jailing people for the non payment of a TV licence fee.
It is incredible that ordinary people for whatever reason are imprisoned in the UK and Ireland for not paying a tax to fund a one sided propaganda operation that produces third rate entertainment and news inevitably slanted to a progressive liberal world view.
I have argued before we should privatise the whole RTE operation and make it a voluntary subscription package. Pay a private company to produce cultural, educational , Irish language , programmes run as a genuine impartial public broadcasting station. Let the high paid talent go to Virgin Media or whatever lucrative offer they are given in the international market.
The next time you see a politician ask them do you believe in decriminalising TV licence avoidance? It's a crazy law.
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