Here’s a bit of fun for a Wednesday morning. I’m a great fan of the late Irish comedian Dave Allan. He is, to me, one of the very greatest of the television funny men. His style was that of a bar room philosopher, sat on a bar stool taking the occasional sip of whisky, cigarette smoking quietly away in an ashtray, while he made his wry observations on the absurdities of human nature and the world. Mixed with this on his series on the Beeb were sketches, some of which were just jokes, such as the tourist who brings down Stonehenge like a string of dominoes simply by leaning on one of the trilithons. Others were a kind of morality play, like the one about a man who spots a tenner trapped under a car wheel. He goes into a cafe to wait until the car moves off and he can grab the money, only to find that everyone else in the cafe was had the same idea. Religion was a frequent target of his humour. He hated the Roman Catholic church in particular because of the brutal discipline at his old Catholic school, a situation which I know has resulted in many Catholics lapsing. He was also no admirer of Ian Paisley at the time, for keeping the murderous sectarian bigotry in Ulster alive from the Protestant side. This was decades before the Good Friday agreement and the warm friendship between Paisley and Gerry Adams, which resulted in the two getting the nickname, the Chuckle Brothers. Some of his jokes and sketches were based around sex, and got very ‘near the knuckle’, as the saying goes. But mostly it was good humoured and simply fun. Allan died a few years ago, but there are a selection of his sketches and monologues on DVD, and, of course, on YouTube. He’s much missed by his legions of fans. The show’s theme was written by Alan Hawkshaw, who also wrote, among other TV themes, that for Grandstand. There are videos of him playing this and his other compositions also on YouTube.
Posts Tagged ‘DVDs’
Faye Hallam Plays Dave Allan Theme at Jazz Club – Nice!
April 27, 2022History Debunked on Diversity Working for Black Representation Against Asians
December 17, 2021I’ve put up a number of videos from Simon Webb’s History Debunked channel on YouTube. Webb’s an author of a string of history books and a Torygraph-reading right-winger. He specialises in tackling the gross historical distortions and myths that are now being promoted as trustworthy Black history. He’s also, you won’t be surprised to read, an opponent of immigration and affirmative action. I think his videos criticising Black history are largely accurate, though as with anything else on the net you should also check it, and your well advised to take some of his other views with more than a little scepticism. But in the video below he seems to make a good point regarding the over-emphasis on promoting Black film and talent at the expense of other ethnic minorities. It’s shown in the forthcoming Beeb adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days.
Webb argues that Blacks are actually overrepresented in the media compared to their numbers as a percentage of the British population. The total BAME population of Britain is 15 per cent, with Blacks accounting for 3 per cent. But if you look on television or film, you find a much larger proportion of Black actors, performers and presenters and relatively fewer Asian faces. It seems that when it comes to ‘diversity’ and the promotion of non-White talent, in practice this means Blacks. This is shown in the way the Beeb has swapped the races of the leading characters in their version of Jules Verne’s classic yarn. Phileas Fogg remains White, but his servant, Passepartout has been made Black. The love interest is a White woman. But in the book she’s Indian, as apparently having two non-White lead characters would be too much.
It’s a very long time since I read the book, and I can’t remember very much about it, though I’ve got the film version on DVD. Assuming that what he says is right, and the leading lady in the book is Indian, I would have thought that made the story diverse enough without messing around with the other characters. Not so, apparently. Webb speculates that this emphasis on Black talent possibly comes from the TV companies’ need to sell to America, where Blacks constitute a much higher proportion of the population at 13 per cent. I think he has a point. A few months ago a Black actor or director appeared in the I calling for more parts for Black actors otherwise they would leave Britain and go to America. And it certainly seems to me that there are more opportunities for Black actors over the pond. It might also come from Blacks being rather more integrated into the western entertainment business. In America, people were listening to Black music, like Scott Joplin’s Rags since before the Jazz age. Over here, I think the pioneers were the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Americans who made a tour of Britain before the Second World War. And White Brits also listened to Caribbean calypsos before the emergence of Rock and Roll and such great performers as Little Richard, James Brown, Motown and so on. Despite the claims of racism in the music industry, which led to the establishment of the MOBOs as a set of separate music awards for Black artists, it really isn’t at all remarkable to see Black singers and musicians in the charts. In fact, I’d say it would be more remarkable if there weren’t any.
The same with drama. There are a number of Black Shakespearian thesps – Josette Simon, who played Dayna in the classic SF series Blake’s 7, had that theatrical background. I think a year or so ago Lenny Henry, who is very active promoted Black talent, appeared on stage as Hamlet. And this is apart from other plays from the classical repertoire, including those from Ancient Greece. There have also been a number of contemporary plays examining the position of Blacks in western society. I also wonder if part of the relative underrepresentation of Asians – and I am very well aware that there are Asian actors and presenters, like Anita Rani, Meera Syal, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Adil Ray – may come from that community’s general preference to choose careers other than the entertainment industry. Or at least, not the western canon. I am aware of the casting of an Asian actor, whose name I’ve forgotten, as the Master in last season’s Dr. Who, and others in Armando Iannucci’s film version of one of Dicken’s classics. But I wonder if the Asian community generally prefers to look to its own cultural traditions, like Bollywood movies and traditional Indian arts and theatre, rather than mainstream film, TV and music. There have been Asian artists and bands in the charts – Apache Indian, Corner Shop and Kula Shaker, and I remember Jaz Mann’s brief hit with Babylon Zoo in the ’90s. But there seems to be far fewer of them than Black performers.
Clearly in a White majority society, there are limited roles for Black and Asian performers, hence the demand for ‘colour blind’ casting, as actors from ethnic minorities are given the roles of White characters. I also wonder if some of the casting of Black performers for reasons of diversity isn’t part of an attempt to create work for them. I heard from academics years ago that there’s actually only work for a 1/4 of the drama students who graduate everywhere. I think if this was not tackled, it would be particularly acute for Black performers. And so to avoid another furore about racism and for the other reasons discussed, the entertainment industry is deliberately casting Black performers in greater proportion than they are as part of the general British population.
This forced diversity is unpopular with White right-wingers like Webb and Belfield, but it is a problem when it serves to discriminate against Asians. And that needs to be tackled, like any other form of racism.
Going Into Hospital Tomorrow for Myeloma Treatment
June 18, 2018This is to let you know that tomorrow I will be going into hospital for about 3 weeks for intensive treatment for myeloma. This is a kind of blood cancer, in which the bone marrow produces toxins called paraproteins. These can cause anaemia, and damage the bones and the kidney, as well as leading to loss of calcium. I was diagnosed with it September-October last year after a routine blood test by the doctor revealed I was slightly anaemic. She referred me to the haematology department of Bristol’s BRI, who commenced treating me.
This is usually done for 6-8 months using a variety of drugs, which are different from those regularly used to treat cancer, and which don’t have some of their side effects, like hair loss. This meant going to the hospital once a week for an injection of the anti-cancer drug, and taking a variety of drugs, including an antiviral, to control the side effects. Most of these were pills, though one of the drugs was an anti-coagulant, which had to be taken twice a day by injection.
After this drug treatment has reduced the paraproteins as far as possible, they then take you into hospital for intensive treatment using the conventional cancer drug. This damages the immune system. In order to get it back up and running, they take stem cells from your own blood, store them, and then give them back to you. This consolidates the effect of the previous cancer treatment, and adds more time to the period of remission before the myeloma returns. I’ve already had my stem cells collected, which took a whole day connected to something similar to a dialysis machine. I’m due to be given the drug, and then the stem cells this week. I’m then due to spend the next several weeks in isolation at the BRI to protect me from disease while my immune system is still weak, and so that they can monitor me and make sure that the stem cells are properly taking hold.
I’ve received excellent care from the staff at Bristol’s various hospitals, not only the BRI, but also the hospitals in Southmead and Whitchurch. You are allowed to bring books and DVDs into hospital, as well as use laptops. I shall be taking a laptop into hospital with me, and hope to continue blogging while I’m there, if I can. If I can’t, for some reason, this is why.
I was in hospital being given a phosphate infusion as part of the anti-myeloma treatment the Sunday last year, when the CAA, the Sunday Times and the other right-wing papers libelled Mike as an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier, which infuriated me at a time when I could well have done without it.
I also understand that a number of other people have also been diagnosed with myeloma after random, routine blood tests. I’d therefore advise people to make sure that they have these done, even though they can appear to be an inconvenience. It could save them from more serious health problems later on.
DVDs on Auschwitz and the Holocaust
June 2, 2018One of the catalogues we get through the post is from a company, Simply Home Entertainment, which sells DVDs and CDs at reduced prices. On page 59 for ‘Military and World War Two’, are a couple of videos, one on Auschwitz and the other on the Holocaust generally.
The first video is simply entitled ‘Auschwitz’.
The blurb for the DVD reads
The BBC’s ‘definitive history of the largest mass murder in history’, using interviews, archive footage, CGI recreations. 4hrs 45 minutes.
It was £19.99, but they’re offering it at £7.99.
The DVD on the Holocaust is called ‘The Unseen Holocaust: Special Extended Edition’.
The blurb for this runs
Historian Jeremy Hicks presents this documentary on the little known Jewish persecution that occurred before the events at Auschwitz and Treblinka. With rare footage of the massacre at Babi Yar. 1hr 28 minutes.
The video was £12.99 but they’re offering it at £9.99.
The company has a website at http://www.simplyhe.com, from which you can order them.
I can’t say I’m interested in getting them, as the whose subject of the Holocaust is too grim and disturbing for me. But it is such solid, established fact that, as an American judge ruled, it’s existence cannot reasonably be denied. However, this is exactly what the Nazis have been trying and are still trying to do, ever since the end of the War. Which is why it is so important to keep the memory of this atrocity alive, as well as all the other genocides that have marred human history.
The Young Turks: Alex Jones Goes into ‘Jiggle Rage’ at Raw Story
March 1, 2016I thought I’d post this up as another piece of light relief. Yes, it’s another article about yet another rant by Alex Jone, the main man behind the conspiracy website Infowars. Jones had Tucker Carlson from Fox News on his show, talking about how the Democrats were now the ‘KKK with minorities’. The liberal news organisation, Raw Story, covered their discussion, mentioning that Jones’ show was ‘internet only’. Jones took this as a slight on his mighty show, and the following foam-flecked rant is the result.
The Turks’ Cenk Uygur, presenting this piece, points out that saying that his show is only on the internet isn’t a slight, as the internet is triumphing everywhere over old broadcasting -radio and television. Nevertheless, Jones starts ranting about how he was on AM/FM radio back in the 1990s, how his viewing figures now are so huge ‘they can’t be aggregated’, the various cities broadcasting his show. he then shouts about how Raw Story are absolutely right, and nobody’s listening to him, he doesn’t exist, he doesn’t produce massively downloaded films and DVDs, including the ‘No.1 downloaded film, Loose Change,‘, which have been seen tens of millions and hundreds of millions of times; that climate change is all true, but you can save yourself by paying Al Gore and then further rants against carbon taxes, gun control, and Obamacare. He also claims that Raw Story is funded by George Soros. Uygur points out that Raw Story are a genuinely left-wing news organisation, and that they, and the Young Turks, certainly are not funded by Soros and his organisations, despite the claims that they are.