Last night as I was adding my latest post I noticed there was a comment on my Chronicle film review post. This is what it says:
‘You're an idiot... The movie was horrible. Your article is a contrived tribute to your "I think I'm a good writer" wanna be persona. However, looking past the fact that you can't string together letters to form coherent sentences, I still find your article to be a hot heaping mess of, well, mess... Have fun blocking this so others can't see truth... ‘
It was left by someone calling himself John Titor. Obviously John did not enjoy Chronicle and apparently according to John anyone who likes something he doesn’t is an idiot. Well everyone’s entitled to their opinion and it would be a boring world if we all liked the same things. As for the criticism of my writing, well I don’t claim to be a professional writer or a good one. John doesn’t care for the way I write and again that’s his opinion. I’m not complaining. After all anyone who posts anything on the internet is open to criticism. I often add remarks to other people’s posts, although my comments tend to be either to agree or disagree with what has been written and rather less personal.
John got me thinking though about why I blog at all. I can’t even remember why I decided to blog. Must have had a reason at the time and as my earlier posts are generally moaning about the petty inconveniences of life and things that annoy me I guess I began just to have a vent for my own frustrations. Then for ages I didn’t blog at all until I did one post in 2010 about a couple of TV programmes I’d watched. An even longer gap followed and at the end of 2011 I did a film review post and decided to carry on blogging mainly about TV and film because I like TV and film.
This doesn’t really answer the question though of why I, or anyone else for that matter, blogs if you’re just a nobody. I mean I never assumed that anyone outside my friends and family would ever look at my blog. I think, in the end, I write my blog because I enjoy writing about things that interest me.
So thanks John for giving me another subject to write about.
BTW I have left John’s comment up and invited him to say what he didn’t like about Chronicle but I guess as he loathes my writing so much he won’t be viewing my blog again.
Wednesday, 9 May 2012
Tuesday, 8 May 2012
Avengers Assemble
So what made me go and see Avengers Assemble then? Well firstly I really enjoyed Iron Man and like Robert Downey Jr.and then when I read that Joss Whedon, creator of one of my all-time favourite TV series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was the director and wrote the script I was hopeful that the film would be great entertainment. And it is.
I saw it in 3D, a format I still think is over-rated, and in my opinion it didn't add the visual effects, which were very good. Like all good comic-book adaptations the visuals and stunts are excellent. But it's the characters and the brilliant dialogue that raises Avengers Assemble above the majority of such films. Of course it could be said that the film benefits from the familiarity of the main characters. Iron Man (aka Tony Stark played by Robert Downey Jr), Captain America (aka Steve Rogers played by Chris Evans), Thor (played by Chris Hemsworth) and The Incredible Hulk (aka Bruce Banner played for the first time by Mark Ruffalo) have all had previous screen time yet this is not necessarily a good thing. Ensemble pieces do not always work and if the viewer is not familiar with the characters it can be difficult to relate. This is overcome in Avengers Assemble; enough back story is given to make the story line make sense.
The story is basic - The Earth is in danger from Loki (Thor's adopted brother, excellently played by Tom Hiddleston, in the perfect villain blend of sinister and camp) who plans to open a vortex and lead an army to subjugate the human race. Desperate to save the world, especially as he is in part to blame for Loki's being able to pose this danger, Nick Fury of SHIELD (played by Samuel L. Jackson), gathers together a force to take on the threat.
As well as the characters already mentioned there are 2 additional members of the Avengers Initiative; Agent Natasha Romanoff aka The Black Widow (played by Scarlett Johansson), a former assassin with a dark past, and Agent Clint Barton aka Hawkeye (played by Jeremy Renner and is not on screen nearly enough for my liking!). As you would expect from Joss Whedon, Agent Romanoff is more than just eye-candy for the boys - she is smart and kicks ass as good as the next man.
The Avengers big egos as well as alter-egos and this gives for tension in the ranks and snappy dialogue. Get a taste of the dialogue here There are also questions of honesty to overcome. In the end though through the death of another character (no spoilers here) the Avengers come together to fight the good fight. And no doubt line up for a sequel.
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| My Hero |
Tuesday, 24 April 2012
Class War #2
'Social cleansing' housing benefit cap row
And so it goes on.
Already in the school where I work a student has had to leave after her family's private landlord in Westminster told them as the new housing benefit cap wouldn't cover the rent they would have to leave - Westminster Council moved the family to Uxbridge, 17 miles away from the school.
And so it goes on.
Already in the school where I work a student has had to leave after her family's private landlord in Westminster told them as the new housing benefit cap wouldn't cover the rent they would have to leave - Westminster Council moved the family to Uxbridge, 17 miles away from the school.
Tuesday, 3 April 2012
Class War
http://www.islingtontribune.com/news/2012/mar/cost-living-islington-report-says-families-need-least-%C2%A372000-year-rent-two-bedroom-hom
London, like all major cities, is a mix of rich and poor living often side by side - but for how much longer? It would be easy to blame the current government policy on capping Housing Benefit on driving the working classes out of city centres but there is much more to this story than meets the eye.
Class War is a term that seems archaic in the post-Thatcher world of a so-called classless society. Truth is Britain is more divided than ever. These divisions are as class based as at any time in history. But the war is not from the working class against the middle and upper classes but the reverse.
There has been much comment about the demonization of the working class in recent years, especially the 'White British Working Class'. At best this group (of which I would be considered a member) is seen as a forgotten group my mainstream politics and politicians; at worst we are seen as work-shy, benefit living, racists, uneducated, violent and a blight on cities. We are mocked in the media, the butt of endless caricatures, the only group, it seems, that can be without fear of being brought to book by the PC brigade. Do we deserve this? No, we do not. But this is not the issue. Race and ethnicity have little to do with Class War. Delusion is everything.
My mum used to say there are only 2 classes of people - those that have to work for a living, and those who do not. Why do people do the lottery? To be in the position of the latter group that's why. If you have to work for a living you are Working Class. So why do some people define themselves as middle class? How does this group define itself? Seems to me it doesn't. Perhaps once it was defined by being in a profession or by level of education. Not anymore. I'd say the middle class define themselves as not being working class and that's it. And anyone who is not the same as them is working class. Like I say, delusional.
Of course this delusion wouldn't matter if it didn't mean that we have to suffer not only derision, being feared and despised, but now we are being pushed out of our homes and our cities.
Once upon a time successive governments pushed forward policies to build homes for the working class of Britain. Why was this housing needed? I'll tell you why, slums and slum-landlords. 1000s of people lived in overcrowded hovels, with insecure tenancies and the fear that at any time the landlord could kick them out. Slum clearance began between the First & Second World Wars but really took off out of necessity after WW2 because of bombing of British cities meant a housing crisis. Even so it took many years for people to be moved out of the slums and into what was seen as palaces by many, with electricity, heating and indoor plumbing, and families not having to share accommodation and facilities with other families. These council houses and flats offered good accommodation and secure tenancy - but at a price. The rents were often far higher that people were used to paying. I remember my parents telling me of the interview they had with the housing officer when offered their council flat; they were questioned about their ability to pay the rent and reminded that they would lose their tenancy if they got into arrears.
These council houses and flats were more than just good accommodation and secure tenancy though - they were (and are) people's homes. Home is where the heart, is so the saying goes; but it seems that if you don't own your home then you can't possibly have pride in your home or a stake in the area in which you live. Really? If some estates are in a state it's because the councils have let them run down and they have become filled with tenants who have social problems. Let me explain that last point. For many years now to stand any chance of getting tenancy of a council or housing association property you have to be a person in need, which often equals a person with any one of a number social problems such as mental illness, drug or alcohol addiction, release from prison etc. Now I'm not saying that people with these problems should not be entitled to housing but what I am saying is that when these people are given no other support and are just dumped on an estate that estate will begin to decline to the point that only the truly desperate will live there. And many people are desperate for the security of a home.
There is, we are constantly told, a chronic shortage of housing in Britain, especially what is referred to as 'affordable housing'. But who defines what is affordable? How much should we pay for a home, whether it is our own or rented? Property prices are market driven, dependent on supply and demand, and let's not forget, the whims of those who decide that one area is more 'up-and-coming' than another. In cities this means that, just like in the country villages, local people are priced out of any opportunity to buy a property in their area. Private rents are likewise driven by the same, meaning that for example, to rent a property privately in my area will cost as much per week as a council or housing association tenant might pay in a month.
Whose fault is that? Not the council tenants, yet we are going to be the ones that have to pay.
http://www.homesandcommunities.co.uk/ourwork/affordable-rent
Councils will be allowed to charge up to 80% of the cost of private rents to their tenants. Why do we have to pay for the fact that people with more money than sense are willing to pay stupid amounts in rent to live in a 'trendy' area?
The article at the start of this post describes what is happening in housing in my area as 'social cleansing' and that doesn't feel like an exaggeration.
It is war, sisters and brothers, Class War.
London, like all major cities, is a mix of rich and poor living often side by side - but for how much longer? It would be easy to blame the current government policy on capping Housing Benefit on driving the working classes out of city centres but there is much more to this story than meets the eye.
Class War is a term that seems archaic in the post-Thatcher world of a so-called classless society. Truth is Britain is more divided than ever. These divisions are as class based as at any time in history. But the war is not from the working class against the middle and upper classes but the reverse.
There has been much comment about the demonization of the working class in recent years, especially the 'White British Working Class'. At best this group (of which I would be considered a member) is seen as a forgotten group my mainstream politics and politicians; at worst we are seen as work-shy, benefit living, racists, uneducated, violent and a blight on cities. We are mocked in the media, the butt of endless caricatures, the only group, it seems, that can be without fear of being brought to book by the PC brigade. Do we deserve this? No, we do not. But this is not the issue. Race and ethnicity have little to do with Class War. Delusion is everything.
My mum used to say there are only 2 classes of people - those that have to work for a living, and those who do not. Why do people do the lottery? To be in the position of the latter group that's why. If you have to work for a living you are Working Class. So why do some people define themselves as middle class? How does this group define itself? Seems to me it doesn't. Perhaps once it was defined by being in a profession or by level of education. Not anymore. I'd say the middle class define themselves as not being working class and that's it. And anyone who is not the same as them is working class. Like I say, delusional.
Of course this delusion wouldn't matter if it didn't mean that we have to suffer not only derision, being feared and despised, but now we are being pushed out of our homes and our cities.
Once upon a time successive governments pushed forward policies to build homes for the working class of Britain. Why was this housing needed? I'll tell you why, slums and slum-landlords. 1000s of people lived in overcrowded hovels, with insecure tenancies and the fear that at any time the landlord could kick them out. Slum clearance began between the First & Second World Wars but really took off out of necessity after WW2 because of bombing of British cities meant a housing crisis. Even so it took many years for people to be moved out of the slums and into what was seen as palaces by many, with electricity, heating and indoor plumbing, and families not having to share accommodation and facilities with other families. These council houses and flats offered good accommodation and secure tenancy - but at a price. The rents were often far higher that people were used to paying. I remember my parents telling me of the interview they had with the housing officer when offered their council flat; they were questioned about their ability to pay the rent and reminded that they would lose their tenancy if they got into arrears.
These council houses and flats were more than just good accommodation and secure tenancy though - they were (and are) people's homes. Home is where the heart, is so the saying goes; but it seems that if you don't own your home then you can't possibly have pride in your home or a stake in the area in which you live. Really? If some estates are in a state it's because the councils have let them run down and they have become filled with tenants who have social problems. Let me explain that last point. For many years now to stand any chance of getting tenancy of a council or housing association property you have to be a person in need, which often equals a person with any one of a number social problems such as mental illness, drug or alcohol addiction, release from prison etc. Now I'm not saying that people with these problems should not be entitled to housing but what I am saying is that when these people are given no other support and are just dumped on an estate that estate will begin to decline to the point that only the truly desperate will live there. And many people are desperate for the security of a home.
There is, we are constantly told, a chronic shortage of housing in Britain, especially what is referred to as 'affordable housing'. But who defines what is affordable? How much should we pay for a home, whether it is our own or rented? Property prices are market driven, dependent on supply and demand, and let's not forget, the whims of those who decide that one area is more 'up-and-coming' than another. In cities this means that, just like in the country villages, local people are priced out of any opportunity to buy a property in their area. Private rents are likewise driven by the same, meaning that for example, to rent a property privately in my area will cost as much per week as a council or housing association tenant might pay in a month.
Whose fault is that? Not the council tenants, yet we are going to be the ones that have to pay.
http://www.homesandcommunities.co.uk/ourwork/affordable-rent
Councils will be allowed to charge up to 80% of the cost of private rents to their tenants. Why do we have to pay for the fact that people with more money than sense are willing to pay stupid amounts in rent to live in a 'trendy' area?
The article at the start of this post describes what is happening in housing in my area as 'social cleansing' and that doesn't feel like an exaggeration.
It is war, sisters and brothers, Class War.
Monday, 2 April 2012
Monsters – or can a TV series go on too long?
Last week Being Human series 4 ended on BBC3 and Dexter series 6 started on FX and I asked myself can any long running TV series really keep fresh?
Of course there have been and are long running TV series but generally they tend to be soaps or soap like dramas like Coronation Street on ITV or Casualty on BBC1 and these are popular and successful programmes, although not my personal cup of tea anymore I watched them and others like them in the past. Likewise I watched the hugely successful US imports like CSI and House – for a while. But in my opinion they got stale several series back. I don’t bother with them anymore.
The trouble with any successful TV programme is that those that commission and broadcast them want to milk that success for all its worth and care not if the standard falls as long as people keep watching. And of course if a series keeps going long enough it becomes a habit to watch for some people, which is why soaps generally do so well.
I was surprised when a new series of Being Human was commissioned. At the end of series 3 arguably the main character, the vampire Mitchell, was killed off and although the future was uncertain for the remaining characters as well as an introduction to a new threat, the Old Ones, I couldn’t see where the story was going to go next. This however was quickly answered in the opening episodes of series 4, killing off the next major character, the werewolf, George, leaving only one of the original cast, the ghost, Annie, and this was swiftly followed by replacements for the characters, Hal, the vampire and Tom, the werewolf (who had featured in series 3) and the story line of George and Nina’s baby, Eve, who may or may not be the saviour of humankind in the face of the vampire hoards.
This story line, with its prophesy element, reminded me of the excellent Buffy the Vampire Slayer (a programme that ran for 7 series by the way). There was also a bit of Blade going on with the vamps trying to take over the world. But as ever at the heart of Being Human was the struggle of the characters to live in the human world while being outsiders, monsters even. Annie has to become mother to Eve; Tom still has to find his way without his werewolf father McNair and Hal, who is an Old One, who has fight the urge to drink blood and kill by being OCD. Practicalities have to be dealt with while hiding their true nature and fighting off threats from their own kind.
But how long can a series run of one underlying theme?
Dexter is a very different kind of monster and as series 6 begins everyone’s favourite serial killer is also still learning to live in the human world. His issues are similar to the characters in Being Human; he has to hide what he really is, live in a world he is not really a part of but he has to also sate his ‘dark passenger’, that part of him that has to kill.
Of course Dexter has an advantage over Being Human; it’s also a cop-show. There’s a race between Dexter and his colleagues in Miami homicide to catch a killer. And his colleagues give another dimension to the story line in each series outside of Dexter’s world. Even so can we keep going along with Dexter in his seemingly unending task to learn how to live in the world? There has to be an ending sometime before we tire of his world view.
I believe the reason that Being Human and Dexter are successful is because the characters speak to us about our own isolation, our own difficulties sometimes in connecting with those around us, of living in the world where other people can seem unfathomable, different from us. I just hope these programmes end on a high and not dragged out till no one cares about the monsters anymore.
Of course there have been and are long running TV series but generally they tend to be soaps or soap like dramas like Coronation Street on ITV or Casualty on BBC1 and these are popular and successful programmes, although not my personal cup of tea anymore I watched them and others like them in the past. Likewise I watched the hugely successful US imports like CSI and House – for a while. But in my opinion they got stale several series back. I don’t bother with them anymore.
The trouble with any successful TV programme is that those that commission and broadcast them want to milk that success for all its worth and care not if the standard falls as long as people keep watching. And of course if a series keeps going long enough it becomes a habit to watch for some people, which is why soaps generally do so well.
I was surprised when a new series of Being Human was commissioned. At the end of series 3 arguably the main character, the vampire Mitchell, was killed off and although the future was uncertain for the remaining characters as well as an introduction to a new threat, the Old Ones, I couldn’t see where the story was going to go next. This however was quickly answered in the opening episodes of series 4, killing off the next major character, the werewolf, George, leaving only one of the original cast, the ghost, Annie, and this was swiftly followed by replacements for the characters, Hal, the vampire and Tom, the werewolf (who had featured in series 3) and the story line of George and Nina’s baby, Eve, who may or may not be the saviour of humankind in the face of the vampire hoards.
This story line, with its prophesy element, reminded me of the excellent Buffy the Vampire Slayer (a programme that ran for 7 series by the way). There was also a bit of Blade going on with the vamps trying to take over the world. But as ever at the heart of Being Human was the struggle of the characters to live in the human world while being outsiders, monsters even. Annie has to become mother to Eve; Tom still has to find his way without his werewolf father McNair and Hal, who is an Old One, who has fight the urge to drink blood and kill by being OCD. Practicalities have to be dealt with while hiding their true nature and fighting off threats from their own kind.But how long can a series run of one underlying theme?
Dexter is a very different kind of monster and as series 6 begins everyone’s favourite serial killer is also still learning to live in the human world. His issues are similar to the characters in Being Human; he has to hide what he really is, live in a world he is not really a part of but he has to also sate his ‘dark passenger’, that part of him that has to kill.
Of course Dexter has an advantage over Being Human; it’s also a cop-show. There’s a race between Dexter and his colleagues in Miami homicide to catch a killer. And his colleagues give another dimension to the story line in each series outside of Dexter’s world. Even so can we keep going along with Dexter in his seemingly unending task to learn how to live in the world? There has to be an ending sometime before we tire of his world view.I believe the reason that Being Human and Dexter are successful is because the characters speak to us about our own isolation, our own difficulties sometimes in connecting with those around us, of living in the world where other people can seem unfathomable, different from us. I just hope these programmes end on a high and not dragged out till no one cares about the monsters anymore.
Friday, 16 March 2012
Why archaeologists make me annoyed
Anglo-Saxon Christian grave find near Cambridge 'extremely rare'
This item on BBC news website is really annoying. Now I know that when the media reports academic work it often simplifies the findings / theories etc. But if any of the quotes given are in the least bit accurate it is just another example of the way archaeologists make huge assumptions about their finds.
Here they have found a grave of a teenage girl buried with a gold and garnet cross. The cross they assume is a sign of Christianity and therefore presumably the faith of the girl. This maybe not be the case at all.
How can anyone possibly now what this unknown girl believed? Unless the girl is identified and some other proof of her faith is discovered all we really know is she was buried with a cross.
Now as a deceased person has no control over how they are buried and what with, it could be argued that those that buried her were Christian. But again we cannot know that for certain. The cross may have been looted or even found and just a favourite piece of the girl.
Archaeologists need to be more honest and say 'we just don't know what the significance of this find' because they really can only hypothesize.
This item on BBC news website is really annoying. Now I know that when the media reports academic work it often simplifies the findings / theories etc. But if any of the quotes given are in the least bit accurate it is just another example of the way archaeologists make huge assumptions about their finds.
Here they have found a grave of a teenage girl buried with a gold and garnet cross. The cross they assume is a sign of Christianity and therefore presumably the faith of the girl. This maybe not be the case at all.
How can anyone possibly now what this unknown girl believed? Unless the girl is identified and some other proof of her faith is discovered all we really know is she was buried with a cross.
Now as a deceased person has no control over how they are buried and what with, it could be argued that those that buried her were Christian. But again we cannot know that for certain. The cross may have been looted or even found and just a favourite piece of the girl.
Archaeologists need to be more honest and say 'we just don't know what the significance of this find' because they really can only hypothesize.
Sunday, 11 March 2012
The past is another country - is Bradford?
Last week, for want of anything else to watch on TV, I ended up viewing 2 programmes I hadn't planned too. One was the first episode of new BBC2 drama 'White Heat'. In this one of 7 former flat mates has died and as the survivors begin to gather at the London flat they once shared their stories are told in flashback. So far so unoriginal. But that's not the reason I wasn't going to watch. The flashbacks start from 1965 and as the last 20th century historical piece on BBC2 'The Hour' was did not work either as a thriller or a docudrama I was wary. And going by this first episode I was right to be so. The character's are cliched and were introduced against a backdrop of social and political events of the period. This was to be expected; we all must be constantly reminded that the 1960s was a period of GREAT SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CHANGE and don't you forget it! As if no decade has ever been as important. Obliviously nothing of significance ever happened in the 1950s, 70s, 80s etc. One thing this consistent referencing of events in 1965 did do however was reinforce the cliched characters.
There's Jack, whose daddy owns the flat. He thinks he's a revolutionary and can afford to be because daddy is a MP and can and does pay off his debts.
Charlotte, a naive, virginal nice middle-class girl from the suburbs who has to leave home to realise her dad is having an affair and her mummy drinks so much gin because her miserable life as a hausfrau and absent husband. Charlotte reads DH Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', gets the Pill and has sex with Jack, only to find out he's got no emotional feelings for her at all.
Alan is from t'up North. He thinks he's better than those he's left behind but is still deferential to the old order.
Victor is a law student from Jamaica. Home sick and subject to racial prejudice, he fancies Charlotte.
Lily is an art student, already seduced by her tutor and under pressure from her parents to give up art and return to the 'real world'. Alan fancies her
Jay is a medical student and closet gay. But his secret is out to the final flat sharer, Orla, who sees him with another boy at a party.
Orla is the only surprise in this mix. A frumpy catholic girl from Belfast, not attractive and very different from the rest - she's the only reason I'd keep watching as I'd like to see where her story is going.
After seeing 'White Heat' I decided to watch Channel 4s 'Make Bradford British'. What's the connection? Well in 'White Heat' Alan says that Jack choose them all to share the flat as a kind of social experiment. And what else could you call sticking 8 people from different backgrounds into each others lives to see what happens? I didn't see the first of this 2 part docu-reality programme but I had read that it caused some outrage by groups in Bradford who saw it as provocative and made the town sound so divisive. The 8 were chosen from a group of Bradford residents who failed the citizenship test and I gather in the first episode the 8 were all living together. In this second one they were paired off to spend 2 days living in each others homes to see what makes us British.
What followed in it's abbreviated and edited way was a short insight into prejudice and preconceptions that reflect on us all I guess to some extent or another.
Jens, retired policeman and pillar of this almost exclusively white community, was like a throw back to another era. Paired with Desmond, Black British, born here of Caribbean parents, Jens at first cannot see past Desmond's colour and makes continue remarks about it until Desmond takes him to a pub where as a young man he was attacked just for being black. For his part Desmond is impressed by the charitable and community work that Jens does. Both do seem to learn from each other.
Pub landlady Audrey, whose dad was black and mum white, has Sabbiyah as her partner. We don't see much of her at Sabbiyah's but at her pub Sabbiyah is exposed to a truly unpleasant tirade from a white customer that reduces her to tears. Maura is not as understanding as one might have expected her to be but reflects on her own past experiences of racism and comes to realise that she, as she puts it, is racist and uses her colour to argue that she can't be.
Damon, young, white and recently split from his girlfriend and mother of his child is with Rashid, who is welcoming and takes him to his local mosque, where Damon discovers Islam is not about terrorism. Damon is impressed by the way the local community and Rashid's family take care of each other and when Rashid reveals that he has a broken marriage and children the two men realise that they have more in common than they thought.
The last pairing went very wrong. Taxi driver Mohammed and former magistrate Maura are just too different. Maura is appalled at the way Mohammed treats his wife and daughter and he sees her as bossy. Briefly when Maura goes out with him to work she sees how he could view white British society in a less than favourable way. But at Maura's house Mohammed snaps at being asked a question about his daughter bringing home a white boyfriend and walks out not to return.
I wasn't surprised at this. Of all the participants Mohammed looked the most uncomfortable and probably regretted ever getting involved. Sadly though he also confirmed a stereotypical view of an Asian man, marrying off his daughter as a teenager to someone back home and having a house bound wife who doesn't speak English.
So did this social experiment achieve anything? Well it showed to some of the participants their own prejudices and perhaps makes us all reflect on what makes us the same and not different - family and belonging. But the title of the programme was meaningless and I can't help feeling it was just there to provoke. The only thing that can make people feel British is the feeling that they belong.
There's Jack, whose daddy owns the flat. He thinks he's a revolutionary and can afford to be because daddy is a MP and can and does pay off his debts.
Charlotte, a naive, virginal nice middle-class girl from the suburbs who has to leave home to realise her dad is having an affair and her mummy drinks so much gin because her miserable life as a hausfrau and absent husband. Charlotte reads DH Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', gets the Pill and has sex with Jack, only to find out he's got no emotional feelings for her at all.
Alan is from t'up North. He thinks he's better than those he's left behind but is still deferential to the old order.
Victor is a law student from Jamaica. Home sick and subject to racial prejudice, he fancies Charlotte.
Lily is an art student, already seduced by her tutor and under pressure from her parents to give up art and return to the 'real world'. Alan fancies her
Jay is a medical student and closet gay. But his secret is out to the final flat sharer, Orla, who sees him with another boy at a party.
Orla is the only surprise in this mix. A frumpy catholic girl from Belfast, not attractive and very different from the rest - she's the only reason I'd keep watching as I'd like to see where her story is going.
After seeing 'White Heat' I decided to watch Channel 4s 'Make Bradford British'. What's the connection? Well in 'White Heat' Alan says that Jack choose them all to share the flat as a kind of social experiment. And what else could you call sticking 8 people from different backgrounds into each others lives to see what happens? I didn't see the first of this 2 part docu-reality programme but I had read that it caused some outrage by groups in Bradford who saw it as provocative and made the town sound so divisive. The 8 were chosen from a group of Bradford residents who failed the citizenship test and I gather in the first episode the 8 were all living together. In this second one they were paired off to spend 2 days living in each others homes to see what makes us British.
What followed in it's abbreviated and edited way was a short insight into prejudice and preconceptions that reflect on us all I guess to some extent or another.
Jens, retired policeman and pillar of this almost exclusively white community, was like a throw back to another era. Paired with Desmond, Black British, born here of Caribbean parents, Jens at first cannot see past Desmond's colour and makes continue remarks about it until Desmond takes him to a pub where as a young man he was attacked just for being black. For his part Desmond is impressed by the charitable and community work that Jens does. Both do seem to learn from each other.
Pub landlady Audrey, whose dad was black and mum white, has Sabbiyah as her partner. We don't see much of her at Sabbiyah's but at her pub Sabbiyah is exposed to a truly unpleasant tirade from a white customer that reduces her to tears. Maura is not as understanding as one might have expected her to be but reflects on her own past experiences of racism and comes to realise that she, as she puts it, is racist and uses her colour to argue that she can't be.
Damon, young, white and recently split from his girlfriend and mother of his child is with Rashid, who is welcoming and takes him to his local mosque, where Damon discovers Islam is not about terrorism. Damon is impressed by the way the local community and Rashid's family take care of each other and when Rashid reveals that he has a broken marriage and children the two men realise that they have more in common than they thought.
The last pairing went very wrong. Taxi driver Mohammed and former magistrate Maura are just too different. Maura is appalled at the way Mohammed treats his wife and daughter and he sees her as bossy. Briefly when Maura goes out with him to work she sees how he could view white British society in a less than favourable way. But at Maura's house Mohammed snaps at being asked a question about his daughter bringing home a white boyfriend and walks out not to return.
I wasn't surprised at this. Of all the participants Mohammed looked the most uncomfortable and probably regretted ever getting involved. Sadly though he also confirmed a stereotypical view of an Asian man, marrying off his daughter as a teenager to someone back home and having a house bound wife who doesn't speak English.
So did this social experiment achieve anything? Well it showed to some of the participants their own prejudices and perhaps makes us all reflect on what makes us the same and not different - family and belonging. But the title of the programme was meaningless and I can't help feeling it was just there to provoke. The only thing that can make people feel British is the feeling that they belong.
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