Guardian’s top 50 television dramas of all time…..

I must confess I do like this top 50 or top 100 polls. And recently the Guardian did top 50 television dramas of all time (Yes! Of all time!!!!) Hurrah…

The list in full:

1. The Sopranos
2. Brideshead Revisited
3. Our Friends in the North
4. Mad Men
5. A Very Peculiar Practice
6. Talking Heads
7. The Singing Detective
8. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
9. State of Play
10. Boys From the Blackstuff
11. The West Wing
12. Twin Peaks
13. Queer as Folk
14. The Wire
15. Six Feet Under
16. How Do You Want Me?
17. Smiley’s People
18. House of Cards
19. Prime Suspect
20. Bodies
21. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
22. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
23. Cracker
24. Pennies From Heaven
25. Battlestar Galactica
26. Coronation Street
27. The Jewel in the Crown
28. The Monocled Mutineer
29. Clocking Off
30. Inspector Morse
31. This Life
32. Band of Brothers
33. Hill Street Blues
34. The Prisoner
35. St Elsewhere
36. The L Word
37. The Shield
38. Brookside
39. 24
40. The Twilight Zone
41. Pride and Prejudice
42. Red Riding
43. Oz
44. The Street
45. The X-Files
46. Bleak House
47. The Sweeney
48. EastEnders
49. Shameless
50. Grange Hill

I can’t really criticise the list though I wish Edge of Darkness and A Very British Coup were on there from the 1980s. Brilliant to see The Sopranos at the top spot (Back in 1999 I saw the pilot and never looked back), Brideshead takes me back to the early ’80s and Sunday nights (was televised on a Sunday…wasn’t it?). Oh yes, Our Friends in the North…. moved to London from Bristol on the day of the final episode remember watching Geordie (pre-oo7 Daniel Craig) walking away from his friends to Oasis’s “Don’t Look Back In Anger”… still brings a tear to the eye. Too many to name but Twin Peaks (early 90s iconic and surreal Lynch style brilliance!), Cracker (I liked Robbie Coltrane). Surprised to see A Very Peculiar Practice in there but it too was rather surreal and funny. Buffy….need I say more! I really enjoyed watching St Elsewhere…pre-ER, Chicago Hope and so on. Again surreal and off-the-wall drama. The X-Files… conspiracy theories and the truth being out there somewhere. The day in the life of Jack Bauer ….24. State of Play…excellent. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit…. Charlotte Coleman was wonderful, fantastic novel. Yes, just had finished school forever when The Monocled Mutineer was first shown in ’86. Brookside, and Grange Hill both from the Phil Redmond social realist stable. Red Riding brilliant adaptation of David Peace’s novels. Sweeney and Inspector Morse…. John Thaw (‘Get your trousers on, you’re nicked”…Or something like that). Boys From the Blackstuff …. reminds me so much of the Thatcher years.

That’s just a quick look through the 50 but am sure I have missed some television gems not in that list…..

Then and now….

I meant to write before about the 25th anniversary of the Wapping strike.

Over 5,500 production and clerical workers were sacked overnight on 24 January 1986, when Rupert Murdoch’s News International group moved production of its four national newspapers to a new non-union printing plant at Wapping in London Docklands. The journalists were not sacked, but many took a stand on principle and walked out of their jobs.

The Wapping dispute occurred during a period of unrelenting attacks on UK workers, unions and communities throughout the 1980s. Jobs, conditions and union organising were being undermined in newspapers, along with intensifying concentration of press and media ownership.

The dispute between printers and the might of the Murdoch press lasted for 1 year. When I went to the student demo in December last year I was reminded by Wapping (also when watching the previous student demos). That was probably due to being surrounded by young people who possibly were experiencing the full force of police violence and brutality for the first time. My own first experience of witnessing unrelenting violence and intimidation was during the 1st anniversary of Wapping in Jan 1987. I was just 17 at that time. And what a night it was.

Riot cops smashing anyone and anything up (they destroyed the temporary ambulance where people were being treated further traumatised by this level of police brutality). Listening to the speakers on the platform while people were running from the mounted police and riot cops, it was surreal as many were taking refuge on the stage from the violence. I witnessed friends, comrades and strangers being beaten up. I was lucky… I was saved from some comradel who pushed my head forward and saved me from being whacked by the police. The lies as well peddled by the media, protesters were demonised while the saintly police were just doing their job against these rowdy bunch of troublemakers (and that’s how the right-wing press liked to portray principled activists and trade unionists fighting for their rights).

But back then we didn’t have accessible digital cameras, video cameras or mobiles… or the internet to spread the word and images of police violence like we do now. Thank goodness! And only yesterday police resorted to brutality and violence by arresting a protester for “criminal damage” at the UK Uncut  protest along with CS gas being sprayed into protesters faces!!

Expect to see more repressive and violent measures carried out by the cops….

 

Political policing

Police protecting the interests of corporate capitalism - 29/01/11

I couldn’t get to the UK Uncut protest at Boots in Oxford Street. And am totally appalled and shocked about the reports of unprovoked attacks by the cops. My experience of these protests have been positive, peaceful and vibrant. So why are the cops behaving in this heavy-handed manner, spraying noxious substances in the faces of protesters and when is it “criminal damage” to post a leaflet through the doors of Boots explaining tax avoidance?

The cops are stretching the definition of this specific legislation and I hope the protester challenges it along with suing the police for assault. The police aren’t protecting the public they are undermining liberty and right to peaceful protest. If the police are allowed to get away with stretching legal definitions then the future doesn’t bode well. I would mention the IPCC but we all know just how spineless they are!

Though should we be surprised by the cops actions? Hugh Orde (head of Acpo) gave a rather stark worrying when he remarked:

“Walking into Topshop with an intent to cause damage, [means] you’re actually a burglar,” he said. ” If you walk into Boots and do nothing then you are simply a trespasser and the role of the police is to stand by to prevent a breach of the peace.”

And it now seems we are being confronted with extreme policing. But we should also ask, just who the hell is Acpo? Acpo, a limited company run by police chiefs, is a shadowy organisation with no accountability nor transparency. They watch us. We can’t watch them. This is further evidence that the state is criminalising dissent. Isn’t it being able to speak out against what you believe to be wrong a healthy part of democracy such as peaceful direct action?

Why I hate the “C” word

“Sticks and stones….will break my bones but names will never hurt me”… I never believed in that saying even as a kid. Words have the potential to hurt indeed they can’t physically break us but can emotionally. Recently I have seen the use of the word “cunt” casually used whether on placards, used in chants and in language. When I first got involved in politics during the 1980s I rarely ever heard or saw that word in a personal or political context. It was deemed a no-no word, certainly that was the mood within the feminist movement. Maybe it was due to a stronger and engaged Left influenced by liberation politics. Now I know there have been feminist discourses on reclaiming the word cunt, and women using it as a form of expression. I know the politics around reclaiming oppressive words but it still makes me very uneasy as the question remains for me, do we want to reclaim it?

Many women do use it in various instances, used primarily in put down situations to both men and women. Probably also as a way of reclaiming it in a political sense when confronted in a hostile environment. But there are better ways of confronting hostility. I can understand that but can never use the word whether in a personal or political context as I hate it, I hate how it’s used even by women. I haven’t read Inga Muscio’s “Cunt”. Though I was reading an old post by Jezebel on why cunt is still a big deal, I kinda understood why she uses it but I wasn’t convinced. One comment wrote about the hatred behind the word cunt. Indeed when I first heard the word as a teenager I was on the receiving end of it screamed at me by some male teenager, “You fucking cunt”!. I remember fuel injected bile and loathing hearing this monosyllabic four letter word. It felt kinda like verbal violence.

A word denoting the female genitalia is used to show contempt and hatred. And that makes me feel angry and worried. What did I feel like when I was called a “fucking cunt”? I felt dehumanised, devalued and demeaned. I knew what cunt meant and now I was hearing a word that is used in an oppressive manner meaning a woman’s vagina. An insult that means a woman’s genitalia. Whatever context it is used I still squirm when confronted with its usage, it is bad enough when women use it but a helluva lot worse when men do as it highlights and exposes the power relationships and the oppressive patriarchal and capitalist world we live in.

Back to this issue of “reclaiming” words, while I can understand why people do it, it still makes me uneasy. Sometimes reclaiming words can actually deny the political history and oppression certain words have meant. Words like cunt, for me, should just be chucked into the dustbin of history.

The other thing regarding cunt is the history, was it always used as an insult, a way to disparage and oppress women? It’s had a long history of taboo with it being outlawed. Did it always have the sexist overtones? But I suppose once a word becomes taboo it gains power. Middle English form of the word was cunte or kunte. Did it always have this connection of a hateful thing? When did a taboo become a obscenity? Was cunt just to describe the female genitals? Did the word get its it meaning by ambiguity? Cunt as a medieval connection to prostitution (Gropecunt Lane), used in Middle English proverbs, Chaucer, and so on. But cunt was used by Francis Grosse in 1785 when he described it as, “The chonnos of the Greek, and the cunnus of the Latin dictionaries; a nasty name for a nasty thing”… So when did a woman’s genitals instill so much fear and contempt? Etymologists are no closer to give a definitive explanation for the origin. Lexicographers say the usage of language gives it it’s meaning.

The power of the word, cunt, is magnified by it’s ambiguity? As Germaine Greer observed, cunt “has a genuine power to shock today”. Many feminists like Eve Ensler want to reclaim cunt but many still find it dehumanising being reduced to genitals but not in the positive liberatory sense.

That said, I still don’t want to use the word even as a way of reclaiming or empowering myself. I am not being po-faced and prudish, it’s just cunt has a misogynistic history and I can’t overcome that. Words like “fuck” another monosyllabic taboo/obscene word has different connotations and is not primarily identified with one gender. Sometimes it helps to think before we speak before we write as some words have different meanings and connotations for others that can exclude.

 

Protests around London

Around the anti-cuts protests in London

I missed most of the anti-cuts demo today as I was speaking at the Labour Briefing AGM. It finished at 3:30pm, and I headed off along with Tony and Simon to the Egyptian Embassy (Simon had discovered on Twitter that was where the protest was heading to). We got there (lost Simon somewhere….) and spent around 30 minutes.

I was walking with Tony from Green Park onwards where we spotted the cop helicopter, which we followed.  We found ourselves on Oxford Street following an anti-cuts demo. Stopped outside Top Shop, I thought the cops would kettle instead they stood in lines on the pavement, protecting corporate capitalism.

Protesters now and then outran the cops. I ended up leaving around 6:30pm where lots of chanting and demonstrating was still happening.

NB: See Simon’s account here

Stagnating economy

“I regard these people as the forces of stagnation, when we are trying to get the British economy competitive again, moving forward again.”

Students and trade union activists will be marching today in London and Manchester, unfortunately I won’t be at either due to speaking at Labour Briefing AGM. George Osborne accused the trade unions of being “forces of stagnation”… Rather rich coming from something instigating class war against the working class. Trade unions defend and fight for the collective rights of workers. Of course unions will fight back using every available weapon such as withdrawing labour. It’s also about unity and solidarity something which the ruling class knows nothing about as it’s not part of their ideology attacking the working class is. All this fighting talk from the ConDems  is monstrous as what precisely do they expect in their fantasy world, unions to cower and quietly submit to the cuts along with the doffing of the cap with the words, “It’s ok Mister Osborne, we’re all in it together so we must all suffer”… ??

But we didn’t cause this economic crisis.

What really causes stagnation is not the trade unions it’s boom and bust. Speculative activity causes grief as it crowds out research and development. The evils of this world is the global elites believing they are entitled to get richer and richer while the poor get poorer. Fortunately, people are fighting back collectively shouting NO to corrupt neoliberal governments in Tunisia and Egypt. Revolutions have a tendency to be contagious when successful… “Yes we can”….

Collective global resistance is powerful. Solidarity!

More thoughts on Sheridan

Tommy Sheridan has been sent to prison for 3 years. Three years is steep for this type of non-violent crime but then the courts take a dim view on perjury. But for me the tragedy is how the ego of one man brought down a vibrant and dynamic political party.

As I wrote before when Sheridan was initially found guilty, he didn’t have to take the Murdoch press to court, he could have argued that it was none of the tabloid’s business but he chose to pursue it through the courts. He expected comrades to go along with this charade. Why Sheridan was desperate to uphold the hetero nuclear family man is utterly strange for a socialist especially as it means embracing bourgeois ideas of the family. Why take that reckless chance? And to expect comrades to follow that line. This has inevitably created a poisonous and fractious atmosphere. I always had great admiration for the SSP and the comrades, for its dynamism and activism, central to the party was the support for liberation politics, a fine example to Left politics. But this appalling chapter also exposes vitriol and a nasty veneer of misogyny. I have seen it constantly reiterated over the past couple of years that it was the “feminists’ who brought down Sheridan (Still being argued about those “sectarian feminists… who lure leftie men to their doom.

This case also illustrates an obsession, an obsession the Left has creating heroes usually male ones (etymological origins  from Greek mythology and demigod). This is a stark warning, stop building up these men as self-styled demigods, paragons of virtue, along with constructing the cult of the leader status.  It has also thrown up issues around democracy, accountability and transparency.

Also, what is a common thread through many groups is democratic centralism and as I have written time and time again it’s not healthy. We don’t live in a pre-revolutionary situation, this cultish view of political organisation stymies and destroys democracy. Has any grouping on the revo left ever really grown due to the scriptures of democratic centralism? No!!

Democratic centralism is a dead-end (and I have argued this countless times). It doesn’t build healthy pluralist free-thinking organisations it creates dogmatic degenerating bad for the political soul places where a small group of people are given immense power.  Too much power is given to the leaderships, cult of the leader situations occur along with top-down education.

What depresses me the most about this tragedy is that the SSP (along with hard working and committed comrades who were also shafted by Sheridan) was different and had a healthier understanding of growth, base and debate. But then cult of leader  loomed  with this bizarre expectation of deference and line following. One’s man’s conceit and ego brought down a vibrant organisation by betraying the class and socialist principles.. That’s the tragedy. It never had to happen.

NB: See also The women who refused to lie for Tommy Sheridan

Drinking to escape

Alcohol is known as the demon drink, once consumed it can totally alter who you are. People drink for various reasons, positive or negative, the sweet Bacchus lull of intoxication which leads to the bitter after taste of the hangover and all in between. I can see the appeal. Reading the story of Laura Hall in yesterday’s Guardian who came the poster young woman for Booze Britain ending up with an alcohol asbo. Banned from pubs and clubs in her area and later banning her from drinking anywhere in the country, rather a  bizarre decision. It now seems that Laura Hall has been “dry” for a couple of months. But the state’s way of dealing with her spiralling alcohol issues was to precisely demonise and stigmatise her with an asbo along with a tabloid frenzy spouting the evils of “ladette culture”. Pictures of scantily clad pissed women graced newspapers and magazines along with tales of violence and disorder which our morally responsible press liked to emphasise and sensationalise producing their own moral panic.

It seems that the UK has an underage drinking problem? Is it because of freely available booze, cheap offers, glamorisation of the glitzy boozy life….? Unlike the screaming tabloid press thrashing about with their accusatory and moralistic condemnation there are underlying issues why young people seek solace in booze. Being young is bloody hard, that transition from childhood to teens to adulthood, along with the stresses and strains of working out your identity and mapping your existence in this big bad world. Stress and mental distress, feeling insecure and experiencing oppression in an insecure oppressive  world where with the current austerity cuts will only get worse. Frustration, self-loathing, emotional pain adds to the mix and booze can be a great substitute in dissolving those worries in an instant but the fix and gratification is short-lived and what goes with it. Laura Hall also self-harmed mainly, it seems, as a way of self-punishment combined with this lack of control over your life (self-harm can be a coping mechanism trying to, ironically, seek control over something in your life). Also, not caring about what happens, where you kinda get to a point where you end up in a no one’s land, fear and uncertainty grips you but the anesthetising impact of booze or any other vice can smooth that transition where you just don’t care whether you live or die. And alcohol is legal that means relatively safe, compared to illegal drugs, isn’t it?

Laura Hall jumped off a roof of a four-storey car park while drunk. Yet while in hospital the next day recovering she phoned a mate to ask them if they wanted to go out drinking. That reminded me of when I was 17 getting very drunk and strung out on drugs at some summer camp, I woke up the next morning fully clothed, make-up in a mess and with no memory how I got back into my tent. I was later informed that I had been found by the edge of the campsite late in the evening and it was only by good fortunate that two comrades where walking past finding me face down unconscious, they couldn’t rouse me from my slumber, checked I was breathing and carried me back to my tent. My reaction wasn’t shock or embarrassment just shrugged the shoulders and asked whether people were going to bar that evening. It scares the hell out of me now, imagining myself lying in a field face down, nobody around, unconscious, anything could have happened to me but I just didn’t care. Only a couple of weeks before I had taken an overdose where I had woken up the next day, I kinda felt invincible yet powerless and that I had survived but at the same time was on a road to destruction. I simply didn’t care about myself and consumed by self-loathing, the mantra being ‘nobody cares why should I care’…Before that my relationship with booze was limited and confused, my parents had a kinda temperance attitude yet my two elder brothers developed alcohol problems. So I was brought up in a strict booze free atmosphere (bottle of Cherry Brandy for when guests visited) but surrounded by booze addled siblings.

I discovered that drinking to the extreme could magically lift me out of despair and misery but for me the after affects were a nightmare especially taking high dosages of psychoactive drugs on top (once I woke up fitting and that scared me… the psych hospital staff wagged their finger at me in that gloriously moralistic way not once asking me WHY I had felt the need). And that was my vice… drinking spirits on top of lots of meds, it freed me from straitjacket of distress. But there was a cost.

Sometimes you do get a jolt that wakes you up from the endless self-harming and self-destruction. Laura Hall got help in Portugal (didn’t sound like she got much from the NHS etc. in the UK). Rather than moralising and punishing young people tackle the underlying issues, treat with respect and understanding as well. I walked out of the psych hospital and walked out of the relationship with a violent and abusive boyfriend. I threw my meds down the toilet, my life resumed with a bit more clarity and direction. I still have a confused relationship with booze though I don’t need resort to the extremes to escape.

Life is so sodding hard at that age. Many young people escape into the world of drugs and booze for various reasons and in this current economic climate there is worse to come.

Homage to Horst and Man Ray

Two of my favourite photographers are Horst P. Horst and Man Ray. Both capture the time and experimental mood. Horst with his bold and striking chiaroscuro images while Man Ray expressed more Cubist and abstract influences. Both are stunning and powerful. So in homage I tried to emulate both of them with these self portraits which is a tad hard when you are photographing yourself as you have to be a bit of a contortionist.

I need a muse….