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Quotes

  • Ryszard Kapuscinski
    Nationalism cannot exist in a conflict-free condition; it cannot exist as a thing devoid of grudges and claims. Wherever the nationalism of one group rears its head, immediately, as if from beneath the ground, this group's enemies will spring up.
  • Richard Lindzen (climate scientist, MIT)
    Controlling carbon is a bureaucrat's dream. If you control carbon, you control life.
  • Edward R. Murrow
    Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.
  • Mark Twain
    No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
  • Frederic Bastiat
    And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty.
  • Peter Hain
    People are uniting behind Gordon whether they are Blairites, Brownites or Nothingites like me.
  • AA Gill
    But don’t for a moment imagine that the bicycle-riding, organic-hedgerow-grazing, self-denying, 40-watt miserablists are in fact selfless crusaders for the common good. Never underestimate the sustaining pleasure in a hair shirt. Just look at George Monbiot, and witness a man who couldn’t be happier about the imminent demise of life as we know it. It’s given him purpose, prestige and celebrity: without global warming he’d be a geography teacher.
  • John W. Gardner
    The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.
  • Gary Bushell
    The Green Party will go from green to red faster than a frog in a blender.
  • Tom Paine
    Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.

Posts categorized "Television"

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Why must those people spoil everything?

180pxtardisI missed the Christmas Day "Doctor Who" because I was in New York. I am enough of a Whovian for that to hurt, but I was able to catch the repeat. Sadly, that hurt too. Russell T. Davies claims to be a fan, but he has no compunction about littering the show with political points.

The Doctor (as libertarian an anti-authority figure as ever didn't live) scowled at Davies' predictably odious capitalist characters, one of whom was a cowardly cad intent on self-preservation and the other of whom was prepared to kill every living creature on Earth to settle a boardroom feud. I have encountered all sorts of no goods in my business life, but I can't say this is a representative picture.

On the other hand, all Davies' working class characters (of course) are good honest folk with stout hearts This was sometimes, but I have to say not invariably, the case among those proletarians with whom I grew up. Of course, his black proletarians have even stouter hearts, the particular example in the Christmas show reminding me of Boxer from Animal Farm.

I looked forward to watching the Divine Miss Minogue perform. For the first time in her life, she disappointed me. After showing her devotion to diversity by pity-flirting with an implausibly ugly alien, her character made haste to lay down her life for the Doctor, having fallen in love with him on such short acquaintance as to cast severe doubt on her judgment.

How did the man get such a reputation as a writer from such cardboard portrayals? Might it be because his cardboard portrayals satisfy the requirements of the Leftist Establishment? Might his position as the 15th most powerful man in the UK media be based on a sort of sucking-up? Or is he actually as thick as his thin characterisations and richly-bearded 19th Century politics might suggest?

As the closing titles ran, my wife commented wrily, "Right, peasants, now you know what to think." Precisely.

Davies is the sort of Leftist who rarely fails to mention his comprehensive school when interviewed, giving it its full title so as to avoid any suspicion of having been educated. He wears his working-class background as a badge of honour when, logically, that is just as stupid as a Lord being proud of his Norman ancestry. He is so keen to fit the mould of British Leftism that one wonders if even his constantly-mentioned sexuality is genuine. Perhaps his gay partner is a new kind of beard?

Whatever the truth, the insufferably smug Davies, while he is to be praised for reviving Doctor Who,  has gone on almost completely to spoil it with his rancid agitprop. If I could give him his own Tardis, I would. Provided I could rig it to break down on the edge of a black hole.

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Visiting with the Sopranos

Link: Tour Sopranos Sites in New York City and New Jersey.

Blogger_with_vitoBlogger_at_dinerDsc_2260Blogger_in_booth I don't think I have ever mentioned here how much I have enjoyed the TV series, "The Sopranos." Although it is uncomfortable viewing at times (your blogger is a sensitive soul with no appetite for violence) it is also witty, clever and well-written.

As I am in New York, I took the chance to join a bus tour of Sopranos locations around New Jersey. I was nervous that my companions might all be geeks and obsessives, but actually I may have been one of the worst Sopranos geeks there. It was great fun. To my surprise, a cast member turned up - Joe Gannascoli, who plays "Vito" in the series - and I was photographed with him.

Here I am on the steps of the diner where two aspiring young mobsters attempted to "whack" Christopher Moltisanti (played by Michael Imperioli). And here is the commemorative plaque in the booth at Holsten's in Bloomfield, NJ where the final scene of the series was shot. I was photographed there too, in Tony Soprano's last seat (click photos to enlarge).

I had a fun day and didn't think about Gordon Brown or the death of civil liberties in Britain once.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Richard is winning his fight

Link: The Sun Online - News: 'Richard is winning his fight'.

I am no Sun reader, but this is an article everyone should read. Well done Jeremy, and good luck with your fight.

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