Television programmes [2]

Been reading a lot about this because I find it a fascinating socio-story in a way, like how come there are two diametrically opposing reactions to it depending on age. I read that it is split on generational lines and maybe there is something in it. Older people tending to have more sympathy for the Queen etc etc, and younger people more in tune with dare I say 'woke' issues around race, and identity politics.  I don't think it is age as such but more to do with generations growing up with 'celebrity' culture. Celebrities are very important in youth culture, lots of TV programs are built up round people only being famous for being famous without any obvious merit or talent, TOWIE, Chelsea and Celebrity Love Island, also influencers on Instagram moulding taste. Kardashians treated like royalty or demi-gods.

Harry and Meghan are more celebrities than royals and therefore appeal more to young people, add current obsessions around race and Bobs your Uncle, a ready made generation war to add to the others. Personally I think older people have little stomach for what they see as air-heads who have never worked hard, personally I have little stomach for the way she expresses herself in that self satisfied tone, and little stomach for parasites using tax payers money.

While on the other hand, young people see the couple as refreshing and modern and who exemplify a modern mixed race family, they think that Meghan is being attacked solely on racial grounds because they see racism everywhere. Older people don't tend to see racism everywhere, its not on their list of obsessions and they probably have a more robust attitude to racism. For example, obviously, calling someone the N word is very bad, but extrapolating that every micro-comment is meant as attack on race is absurd. I grew up with the Black and White Minstrel Show and Bernard Mannings, living in a tough environment like that, being sensitive to racial insults was not an option, you just shrugged it off. Black people really did have problems then, and there was zero positive discrimination in the workplace or anywhere else. Now everything boils down to race, colonialism and bad white people and their statues. It boils down to Anne Boleyn having her essence stolen in the name of 'diversity'.

'You seem to have decided that this evidence is not enough and automatically that there is nobody to blame but themselves.'- Lance

{{ Having now endured the entire sad event start to finish I didnt hear a single shred of evidence for any of it given. I heard opinion, their view on events, but not evidence. And the one definitve thing they used- the  how black will the baby be line- they refused to provide the name of who said it. Not only denying them the right of reply to it, but also tarring all the Royals with the same racist brush while everyone tries to guess who the racist is (bet it turns out to be one of Wills and Kates little kids, sounds like a naive kids question- they only said senior royal, not an age refrence, senior refers to how close to the throne and Wills kids are more senior in that regard than Harry is).

I also dont think what they said adds up- there is no way she didnt know what being a Royal entails. There is no way Harry didnt prepare her for what would be expected. There is no way their kid should have been given security and it had nothing to do with colour. Prince Andrews two daughters dont get security protection from the state for example.

On the otherhand they are clearly still using their titles, clearly still trading of being Royals for profit and clearly not staying out the public gaze or spotlight. All the reasons they say is why they have left Royal duties they are doing the exact opposite of, and it doesnt add up. It doesnt for me have the ring of truth. Or anything resembling truth.

Not helped by Oprah not doing her job as ajournalist, no push back on anything they said, no followups on their blanket statements, no explaining the rules and how its tax payers money they want to her US audience. Nothing. She acted like an embarrassing scyophant.}}

Figgy - the "wokeness" is a problem and is often down to a lack of people educating themselves on a subject and instead believing something because someone made a video and the comments section agreed.

The problem is the same for Conservative circles who just watch Fox News or follow Katie Hopkins.

It seems to slowly be pushing in to everything now which is actually why I can understand someone voting for Conservative ideals rather than more traditionally progressive or Liberal parties. It is why I struggle to like Labour with the likes of David Lammie.

Woke culture, in my opinion, is a slippery slope to authoritarianism.

Petty - testimony is evidence. That is why witnesses stand up in court. The problem is we currently have no counter witnesses or hard evidence like emails or letter to balance it out. My point was you cannot write this off because you don't like it but at the same time is shouldn't just be accepted as "THEIR" truth just because they say (like that stupid METOO bullshit).

And you seem to have missed the point of the security for Archie part. When the Queen dies he SHOULD get security. H&M claim that was going to be taken away which goes against the current convention.

The whole problem with playing the race card right now is that everyone is playing it... sometimes for the right reason such as George Floyd, other times for the wrong reasons. It adds fuel to everyone's fire on each side and creates even more vitriol to an already shitty situation.

Nobody looks for workable solutions, only for the next problem to blame on someone else.

yep its a big fat mess at the moment with legitimate concerns being hijacked by the professionally offended lot. Band waggons have been well and truly jumped on. This is hopefully just a phase but  for youngsters who have grown up with being micro-managed on social media for the slightest hint of deviation from the cultural hegemony on Twitter, thinking for themselves is not going to be allowed. I mentioned on the Guardian ( note. leftie newspaper as I am a 'leftie') that I thought Piers Morgan had a point about the hypocrisy, and I was immediately swamped by trolls giving me personal insults like 'deplorable.' It was quite funny, but it shows cancel culture is literally everywhere. You are not allowed free speech or adult debate. sad.

{{ Lance the idea it will be taken away when the Queen dies come solely from Charles saying that he favours a smaller core Royal Family. He was speaking in terms of the Crown the business and instituition, which has to balance public opinion against how much tax they take from their subjects. The exact same reason the Queen pays taxes voluntarily when by law she is exempt from all taxation.
By definition if Charles shrinks the size of what is the core paid for by us Family then as Harry's kid is the one right on the edge (as it stands if Queen dies he moves one step closer to throne which puts him in the paid for bracket he is not in now) so he loses out. Nothing to do with colour in any way, shape or form, especially as Charles spoke of the idea long before Harry had even met Megan let alone married her and had a kid. Unless he was psychicly being racist by predicting Harry would marry a woman of colour and he could cut their kid off by doing so (though to be honest had I not been told by every media outlet she was a woman of colour Id never have guessed it. Tone wise Id have though southern med with a hint of Mexican).

I dont doubt life in the Palace is pure hell, or that there is not much wrong with it, its built out of a thousand odd years of often batshit crazy traditions. Why anyone would want to marry into it is beyond me, its a life of utter total public service, largely thankless and endless till you die. Your whole life from birth is organised for you, the Government sends you all over the globe for conferences, meetings, buinsess dos, you have to host Ambassadors, Heads of State, foreign politicians and assorted digntries, attend public events, concerts and you will be choosen to head up and make speechs and appreances for a dozen or so different charities and causes. Meanwhile you have to be schooled in all the protocols, ettiquittes, tradditons of state and Parliaments of not only the Uk but all the overseas territories and Commonwealth. You will have to go out and meet your public regularly on Royal walkabouts and visists. And you will be expected to spend some years serving in the military as you might be head of it one day. From birth you are in the public spotlight and the press lens and that will never end. There is no circumstances under which such a life for a normal person not born to it could be easy.
Im shocked anyone would think it would be.
Its why since Victoia the Royals have loved Balmoral- its the middle of nowhere, the staff and locals treat them like normal people, and the press aren't allowed near. It must be heaven for them. }}

I think she liked the glamour of being a duchess but the reality was what made her mentally unwell. it was nothing to do with some nasty Daily Mail comments. It was the job, and she fled. Probably understandable, but the ego got in the way and excuses had to be made, and what better than institutional racism. The poor Queen must be devastated.

I think everyone's putting too much focus on the racism thing - from what I picked up it only had a small part to do with the decision to bug out, though it may have been the proverbial straw. Only a small part of the discussion focussed on that, but of course that's what people pounce on.

The issue was they wouldn't be getting full security, but as members of the royal family they couldn't earn money the normal way. So it made sense to leave. Harry was maybe being a bit of cry baby expecting more "support" from his father, but he never made it clear exactly what he meant by that...it could have been anything from purely emotional support to being a royal ATM.

but as members of the royal family they couldn't earn money the normal way.- Halfy

{{Im afraid you are misunderstanding how the royal family functions. The Crown is as much a very successful business as it is anything else. They own huge swathes of land, and make use of it, they get money from all sorts of unexpected places- they own a lot of the coastline of Great Britain for example. They have loads of income from various sources.

The Crown Estate alone does loads of stuff, currently for example they are building offshore windfarms.

But from wiki also - The Crown Estate is one of the largest property managers in the United Kingdom, administering property worth £14.1 billion, with urban properties valued at £9.1 billion.
The estate also controls 792,000 ha (1,960,000 acres) of agricultural land and forest and more than half of the UK's foreshore, and retains various other traditional holdings and rights, including Ascot Racecourse and Windsor Great Park. (Occupied royal palaces, such as Windsor Castle, are not part of the Crown Estate. Naturally occurring gold and silver in the UK, collectively known as "Mines Royal", are managed by the Crown Estate and leased to mining operators).- wiki

The money the Royals get from the taxpayer is 25% of the total income of the Crown estate. That is still a shit load of money.
All their assets taken in plus what they bring in in tourism is £67.5 billion. You can see why even Labour governments down the centuries who have campaigned on abolishing the unelected monarchy somehow always end up keeping them about.

Charles isnt just learning and preparing to be King, he is learning to run the Family Business. There is a good reason the tabloid nickname for the Royal Family is The Firm.}} }}

But how much would Harry be getting from that?

{{ Well here's what his father owns.

Charles is the largest private landowner in England, with an estate of some 135,000 acres, across 23 counties of England. The Duchy estate surprisingly owns The Oval cricket ground and Dartmoor Prison.- Wiki

Prince Charles (the Prince of Wales), has been incumbent Duke of Cornwall since Feb. 6, 1952...When Charles celebrated his 21st birthday in 1969, he became entitled to the full income of the Duchy and continues to be actively involved in the running of the estate. The estate also includes 600 residential lettings and over 700 agricultural tenancies, making Charles a landlord along with a prince. Land owned by The Duchy makes up 13 percent of the overall estate; it doesn't, however, own the whole county of Cornwall.

The Duchy provides the prince with an annual income of $27.5 million, which he uses to support himself, his wife, Camilla, The Duchess of Cornwall and both Prince William and Prince Harry and their families. It's the Duchy that also goes towards funding his charity work, which raises over $131 million.

Recent estimates place the estate and the land and its assets as being worth $1.5 billion. But the Prince himself receives around $28 million annually from the Duchy.'- Fox Business

Harry will inherit his share of all that when Charles goes. And more likely as soon as Charles becomes King it will be passedonto his sons  to run between them. Or would have been had Harry not renounced his family ties.

Again you can see why we keep them about. They take 28 million out the pot, but through charitable causes put 131 million back to the most vunerable and needy in our society, and the govenrment walk off with the 1.4 billion left over. }}

Watched the first 5 episodes of Helstom. What a surprise. Bloody great show.

{{ Might give that a go Chris, Im guessing you say it was a suprise cause the trailer makes it look like a hundred other supernatural/demon shows out there. I assume its bit of a cut above the average however. }}

This could just as well go in the Cuisine thread.  There's a Japanese show that's appeared recently on Netflix called Midnight Diner.  A quiet, dignified chef owns and runs a small diner that's only open after midnight, frequented by the misfits and underground characters of Tokyo.  Under the owner's tolerant eye they mostly get along.  It's a half-hour program (24 minutes), with just enough time for brief stories from the characters to interlock around the warm U-shaped bar.  It's sweet and gently humorous, and at the end  the chef cooks one of the dishes they ate in that episode as one of the characters narrates the technique to the audience .  It's the perfect length for a brief getaway to the fringes of another culture. This little diner tucked away in one of the meandering alleys of Tokyo is a place you want to exist.



It ran for 3 seasons in Japan, then Netflix funded a 4th season which from the trailer doesn't look as magical as the original.  The trailer above is from the original.

https://www.newsweek.com/midnight-diner-tokyo-stories-netflix-best-show-529427

It's worth a look Petty. Don't usually go in for this Buffy kind of stuff, but this grabbed me from the start.

Looks like another good Sc-Fi series.

Interesting that it's on NBC. The cinematography and music feels more like HBO to me. Feels pricy for network TV.

{{ Love Staged- heres the sketch they did for this years Red Nose Day. }}

Falcon and the Winter soldier got off to a slow start, but expect it to get better.

{{ No idea if this is any good or not, just putting it up cause Im gobsmacked that Shatner is not only still acting regularly, but given he just turned 90 he looks at least 30 years younger than that! Whats the secret?! Im starting to look older than he does    }}

He does facelifts the way other people do weightlifts. Just look at his eyes, it's pretty obvious they're pinned back.

{{ Even so, and even though hes got a fair belly on him these days he still moves pretty well for a 90 year old not to mention his mind must be pretty good still with lines to learn and all else acting entails. }}

90?  wowzer! he looks amazing. It cant all be down to facelifts, I think his secret is the fat, most 90 year olds look gaunt and thin, but he looks like an overweight 67 year old. The fat keeps his face chubby, he probably eats well and does some light sport. The main thing is the mind though, if he keeps that moving he should be good to go. I have noticed that scientists and writers live to a good age and most have all their marbles, that's because they use the brain continually.

Another man who seems to defy aging is Derek Hatton. Petty probably remembers him, he is 73 but looks 45 tops. its quite sickening how good he looks. But he does do a lot of sport and eats like Sting, all that vegetarian stuff I think. He has the same fat distribution, he looks chunky and his face is padded out.

So crucial to keep the mind going. My mom unfortunately was from the age when women didn't get a career, and she never had to flex her mind to the point that there's very little she's able to pick up now to keep her going. She's now losing her grasp on things, and it hurts so much to know it could have been prevented if she just had something mentally challenging to keep her going.

sorry to hear that Halfy, I think women of that generation of 50s and 60s housewives went a bit bats due to being stuck in the house all day. There was a documentary I watched where a lot of women were given valium, like my grandmother was, and they were all drugged up by doctors who didn't now how to treat suburban chronic boredom and frustration. They had nothing to fall back on once the kids left home. My mum never worked and was bored rigid and didn't have many interests until she had grandkids from my brother.

halfwise wrote: the age when women didn't get a career, and...never had to flex [their] mind[s].

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