Month: June 2020

First the Toilet Rolls, Now the Soaps

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in 1980s, Childhood, Family, The C-Word, TV

More shortages. In the words of Neil the Hippy, No More Telly.

Well OK, not quite. But I never thought I’d see the day when the likes of Corrie and EastEnders, those huge unstoppable machines, would be grinding to a halt. It was pretty shocking in 1988 to discover it wasn’t illegal to cancel Crossroads, but that’s nothing compared to 2020, where the unprecedented nature of the pandemic emergency (rather than some bean-counter comparing audience figures and advertising dividends) has almost put paid to the others.

I say ‘almost’ because Coronation Street, through a combination of strict rationing and getting back to work early, claims it will avoid any undignified pause in proceedings. They probably, to be honest, have one eye on the imminent 60th Anniversary in December and want to ensure an unbroken run, thus avoiding embarrassment and a future of annoying, fiddly footnotes. (I felt a bit of a charlatan celebrating Doctor Who’s 50th Anniversary in 2013 for that very reason.*)

But EastEnders (and briefly, The Archers!) has not escaped that fate, and last week its stock of episodes ran out meaning that, after just over 35 years, it has come to an end, at least temporarily. Apparently it concluded with a suitably cliffhanger-y moment, when (spoiler warning) Phil Mitchell lost the ownership of the pub to ex-wife Sharon.

To be honest it was a bit of a surprise to discover that Phil owned the Queen Vic, or that he and Sharon had divorced (or for that matter, that they had been married in the first place) because other than the occasional random channel-flick I’ve not watched it in years. Ironic really, as I was properly obsessed with EastEnders when it first started – and indeed for the ten or eleven years that followed. But they should never have killed off Arthur Fowler (sorry, spoilers) and with him barely cold in the Walford ground, I lapsed.

Nevertheless back in the day, certainly when I was a kid and the two main channels could easily command twelve million of a weekday evening, soaps were a big thing. They were in our house anyway – which during school holidays would sometimes translate to Gran and Grandpa’s house (or, one particularly memorably Summer when the BBC decided to repeat the first season of Dallas on a daily basis, my Aunt’s garage).

Among the soap highlights we watched in this way was Meg’s special guest re-appearance in Venice during half-term 1983; and the tragic exit of Pat Sugden during the Summer holidays three years later. That would have been ten of us altogether, which sounds scandalous at the moment given that not even Auntie Mar’s garage was twenty metres long, but I have to assume was not uncommon back then – there must have been a lot of other households making up the remaining 11,999,990 viewers.

Considering, then, their deeply-imbedded appeal, it’s surprising how quick and easy it was to ‘switch off’. Back in the day I also used to follow Emmerdale (although that was never as good after they dropped the Farm (or indeed, the jumbo jet)) and the aforementioned not-quite-stoppable Coronation Street. I gave up on those too, and never missed them.

But if it’s easy to kick the habit, I discovered recently it’s also dangerously easy to develop it again. My brother stumbled upon repeats of an ancient 1980/81 daytime soap called Together, and feeling the need to share either his enthusiasm or his pain, he tweeted that after only three episodes he had become addicted.*****

The show is low-key, trivial, “Have you paid your Pools money? Will Pete help out in the potting shed?” type nonsense, set entirely within the walls of a community housing block and yet in a plot twist I really should have seen coming, I tuned in to see what all the fuss was about – and became hooked too!

And in an odd way, it’s reminded me of happy times. Bruv and I have been considerably more than 2m apart for the past 3 months (other than a brief visit yesterday – spoilers!) and while we’ve been communicating electronically during that time, there’s been something comforting about knowing we’ve both, in our separate homes, been watching… together.

*             Because it overlooked the fact that it was off air for 16 years**

**           Well, 7 years, from 1989 to 1996, then there was the McGann TV Movie***

***        But immediately followed by another 9, until 2005****

****     You see how annoying and fiddly these footnotes can get?!

*****     For more information (now that it’s finished airing and you’re quite safe from getting addicted) you could do a lot worse than check out none other than brother Martin’s blog on the subject: https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/50508429/posts/476

Human Race

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Confused, Little Bit Of Politics

I do hope I do it all right.

I’m not aware there are any statues of Joyce Grenfell* so hopefully I’m not putting her in danger by using the above quotation.** She was speaking over forty years ago, but that anxiety about saying the wrong thing, of worrying that you might offend, is still with us.

It’s understandable – but it makes it difficult to talk about things like race, where language can be so inflammatory. If, as we seem to be saying, nearly forty years on from the Brixton Riots and more than twenty years after the MacPherson report, there’s still an institutional issue with policing; if progress in equality, in representation and diversity has been more lip service than actual legwork; then no doubt it’s a conversation that’s well overdue. But still, one that won’t be easy.

Luckily of course we’ve been saved from having it! We’ve moved away from talking about flawed institutions and unconscious discrimination, to discussing instead which monuments and street names and classic TV shows we should be ditching. This shift in the national debate is largely the fault of the late Edward Colston, although it’s fair to say that’s not the worst thing that can be said about him.

The reports and the video footage of the removal of Colston’s statue from Bristol City Centre suggests there was no disagreement, no conflict between the people present; and to that extent, even though they must have known they risked criticism for it, the police’s decision not to get involved was probably the right one. A rare example, if you like, that demonstrates the fine distinction between ‘mob rule’ and ‘the will of the people’. To be honest, I don’t think one less statue of a slave trader is likely to trouble anybody – indeed, in the 21st Century I would assume the Colston statue to be equally offensive whether you’re ‘white’ or ‘POC’***.

But… that was last Sunday, by mid-week people were gunning for Baden-Powell. Known primarily as the founder of the Scout Movement, I’m hardly courting controversy by saying he’s not in the same league as yer man Colston (who I’d never even heard of seven days ago, but who I’ve now mentioned four times in as many paragraphs) and the seemingly endless ‘Jeremy Vine Show’ debates over whose statues should be toppling next marked a definite shift from specific, understandable ‘targets’ to a much more scattergun approach.

Suddenly organisations like the BBC are doing that awful thing of saying, “We must do something/Here is something/Therefore we must do that” without taking a breath and thinking it through. No, of course in the scheme of things one episode more or less of Fawlty Towers on the iPlayer doesn’t matter a bit; but by the same token, removing it is unlikely to make much of a difference.

I mean I’m no expert, but I suspect that systemic, institutionalised, subconscious, discrimination is NOT going to be ferreted out and put a stop to, simply by changing the name of a college or cutting off David Walliams’ royalties. And it’s a sorry state of affairs, frankly, when what should have been the start of a proper grown-up conversation has instead moved into the arena of headlines, hyperbole and hysteria.

In a sense, you’d have thought that by now, my generation and certainly my daughter’s generation, would have sorted out this racism business; and yet it turns out that this isn’t the case. Maybe it runs much deeper than simple, blatant maltreatment. I mean, I don’t think I’m racist but in my day-to-day life it’s not something that’s ever tested. Besides which, if we’re talking unconscious bias, how would I even know…?

At least if nothing else, we’re all more aware of it now; and with that awareness comes (hopefully) some degree of thought to our words and actions. Even if we run the risk of causing offence by trying not to. In which vein, if I’ve accidentally offended anybody in the preceding 650+ words, apologies.

Like most of us, I’m just trying to do it all right.

*             Although just down the road from us in Plymouth, there is a statue of her maternal Aunt, Nancy Astor, pioneering female MP but also anti-semite and Nazi sympathiser. So whether you’re a left-wing feminist or a far-right mysogynist you’re going to have conflicted views on whether that should be torn down or not.

**           Joyce Grenfell’s First Flight is not even seven minutes long, and well worth checking out. Obviously it comes with the inevitable “attitudes and language in use at the time” caveat, but if you’re not even slightly moved by the end of it there’s probably something wrong with you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-RZ8xHAKwI

***        People are forever determined to judge the past by the standards of today. Yet I strongly suspect that the currently-approved ‘POC’ is a label that will quickly date, and itself be considered offensive. Because unless I’m missing something it is literally a catch-all phrase for anybody who isn’t white, and I would suggest that splitting down the population into just two groups of ‘white’ and ‘not white’ isn’t inclusive, it’s divisive and insulting.