there's a very intense sadness about him and in his silences, there is a bit in one of them where is on a suitably desolate moor and pauses just to emphasize the roar of the wind
this sadness is probably accentuated by having read his wikipedia page beforehand
― Enterprise Lesotho (nakhchivan), Tuesday, 23 December 2014 20:39 (nine years ago) link
The football is just a tag, theres not really any mention of it!
I suppose historically its been an RL town, but I dont know if RL attendances are declining or not. Brighouse leans Huddersfield, not sure at what point west it becomes Burnley. Definitely after Hebden Bridge its Burnley
I had forgotten Speedway even existed
― anvil, Tuesday, 23 December 2014 20:44 (nine years ago) link
I actually installed emergency lights at the Town Hall about a decade ago so I when I see the interior shots I find myself reminiscing about 2nd fixing mineral insulated cable at some awful heights on wobbly tower scaffolds, thinking fuck me I hate this fucking job!
― xelab, Tuesday, 23 December 2014 21:07 (nine years ago) link
The Nairn docs on iPlayer had an expiry time of 99 years when I looked so I guess they are still there.
― koogs, Tuesday, 23 December 2014 22:44 (nine years ago) link
Nairns Across Britain 1-3 are on the iplayer but not football towns
Football Towns huddersfield/halifax is on youtube (obv!), but I havent found preston/bolton or wolverhampton/walsall (though i havent looked that hard as I only even found out about him while searching for Halifax on youtube)
― anvil, Tuesday, 23 December 2014 22:51 (nine years ago) link
If anyone could find a torrent or link to his football towns it would be good. I love the way the football link is so tenuous, to the point it is a penalty shootout between architecture and town planning in the end with barely a mention of the football clubs.
― xelab, Tuesday, 23 December 2014 23:18 (nine years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_uqoHZk4R4
There is an awesome bit here 6 minutes in where he rails against the vulgarity of amateur part time yobbo boozers with genuine disgust "This is animal!".
― xelab, Wednesday, 24 December 2014 08:43 (nine years ago) link
you've seen Nairn's London has been reissued?
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 24 December 2014 12:52 (nine years ago) link
I have ordered the Darly/McKie Words In Place book for a fiver, probably go for Nairn's London next.
― xelab, Wednesday, 24 December 2014 13:02 (nine years ago) link
it's good. like his series it's as much a documentary of a time as anything else, and a frustrating read in some ways. but walking down electric avenue this morning is an example that his words still hold true in many places, and where they do it's because people can live there and efforts have been made to ensure a city is what it should be - a place for everyone.
wonder whether electric avenue will be the same in ten years. (there's lottery money to do it up, and renovate the flats - and I still can't find out whether those renovated flats are intended to be public housing. they certainly need to be.)
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 24 December 2014 13:20 (nine years ago) link
It would seem completely corrupt to use lottery money to renovate private housing but saying that lots of private Victorian terraced houses in my area got free NT work done on them, which was a complete surface restoration and nice new wrought iron fences.
― xelab, Wednesday, 24 December 2014 13:54 (nine years ago) link
On Nairn's funeral, quite a poignant paragraph and reminds of some family funerals I have attended. I am sure I have been to St Georges Tavern before, whilst staying in Pimlico about 20 years ago.
There were few mourners that August day;in his last silent melancholy days (in reality, some years) he had been almost forgotten. But their number included both Nairn's widow Judy and his ex-wife Joan (Liz). The Group then repaired to his favourite haunt, St Georges Tavern, Pimlico. Peter Baistow's photograph showing Nairn wreathed in cigarette smoke with an army of empty beer glasses jostling on the table in front of him, was installed above his customary seat.In the cemetery, Nairn lies beneath a standardised iron tablet, one of many, laid flat on the grass. But the legend on this one is most particular. At the top it reads Hora e Sempre (Now and Forever) and then, below the dates of birth and death, little more than 50 years apart, comes the phrase A Man Without A Mask. The words were chosen by Samuel Palmer to describe William Blake. They could have been written, with equal justice, then and forever about Ian Nairn.
― xelab, Wednesday, 31 December 2014 21:49 (nine years ago) link
Meades making a record w/ Mordant Music!
http://thequietus.com/articles/17394-jonathan-meades-announces-album
― we reward the hake (NickB), Monday, 9 March 2015 16:46 (nine years ago) link
There is actually a random mention of Meades on the last eMMplekz album (You Might Also Like) on the track 'Bedrheum Raver 78', which also namedrops 0PN and seeing David Tibet in the laundrette.
― we reward the hake (NickB), Monday, 9 March 2015 17:26 (nine years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4ZLKd3krJwhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZGy3SQuPek
A rare old B S Johnson bbc rip. I recently watched his short tv film Fat Man On A Beach which I thought was a masterpiece. It is a shame he didn't make more television because he was suited to the medium.
― calzino, Monday, 4 January 2016 14:12 (eight years ago) link
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ch7TreaWEAQFTQ6.jpg
― nakhchivan, Tuesday, 10 May 2016 13:05 (eight years ago) link
Fabulous!
― Larry 'Leg' Smith (Tom D.), Tuesday, 10 May 2016 13:25 (eight years ago) link
hahaha
― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Tuesday, 10 May 2016 22:18 (eight years ago) link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07d7nj9
His film about the architecture of Mussolini is on tonight.
― On a Raqqa tip (ShariVari), Wednesday, 1 June 2016 11:22 (eight years ago) link
wow, can't wait to see this.
― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Wednesday, 1 June 2016 11:23 (eight years ago) link
that's this evening sorted then
― ghosts that don't exist (Neil S), Wednesday, 1 June 2016 11:27 (eight years ago) link
his thoughts on "Mussolini's love of a fancy uniform" should be entertaining
― ghosts that don't exist (Neil S), Wednesday, 1 June 2016 11:32 (eight years ago) link
I didn't even realise Il Duce had left a significant architectural legacy so it will be interesting. I always think of him as the bumbling incompetent of the axis powers without really reading much about him.
― calzino, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 12:56 (eight years ago) link
this was one of his in rome...
http://uk.phaidon.com/resource/fendimussoliniromelead.jpg
― real orgone kid (NickB), Wednesday, 1 June 2016 13:04 (eight years ago) link
intriguing de chirico-esque quality to it
― real orgone kid (NickB), Wednesday, 1 June 2016 13:05 (eight years ago) link
is that outside the city?
― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Wednesday, 1 June 2016 13:06 (eight years ago) link
not outside the city but a bit south of the centre
― real orgone kid (NickB), Wednesday, 1 June 2016 13:09 (eight years ago) link
ah cool, i am visiting rome soon...
― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Wednesday, 1 June 2016 13:10 (eight years ago) link
will leave that derail for elsewhere!
it's the new hq for fendi:
http://cdn.harpersbazaar.com.sg/2015/10/SB1115Fashion_Fendi-TR477_HARPERS_SHOT_1_129_f10.jpg
― real orgone kid (NickB), Wednesday, 1 June 2016 13:11 (eight years ago) link
Yes, it's in EUR. It's the most sinister building i have ever seen though it's difficult to put your finger on exactly why.
― On a Raqqa tip (ShariVari), Wednesday, 1 June 2016 13:11 (eight years ago) link
lol @ fendi. fashists.
― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Wednesday, 1 June 2016 13:16 (eight years ago) link
didn't the Italian Fascist party have several futurist/surrealist artists as members in the 20's?
Albert Speer's dad, after seeing the insanely proportioned models his son had made for Hitler's proposed monumental Reich capitol of the world said "you two have gone mad".
― calzino, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 13:19 (eight years ago) link
yeah marinetti who founded italian futurism was famously fascist, similar thing with wyndham lewis here
― real orgone kid (NickB), Wednesday, 1 June 2016 13:25 (eight years ago) link
Not sure if he built the first motorways in the world or he just took the credit for them (see Boris' Bikes).
― Larry 'Leg' Smith (Tom D.), Wednesday, 1 June 2016 13:42 (eight years ago) link
Wow he managed to build the whole Autostrada network without any Irish labour:p
― calzino, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 13:59 (eight years ago) link
EUR is fascinating - was there a couple of weeks ago. Also staying in Garbatella, a really idiosyncratic 1920s planned garden community. Plenty of these experiements across Europe, representing a form of social and political hope that feels a bit fucking distant these days.
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 20:43 (eight years ago) link
forgot about this. have set recorder for the 3am repeat. i expect there'll be a little man in the corner waving his hands.
― koogs, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 20:57 (eight years ago) link
Mussolini amirite
― real orgone kid (NickB), Wednesday, 1 June 2016 21:20 (eight years ago) link
the link upthread mentions he previously did programs dedicated to Soviet/Nazi architecture, wtf the are they called? i can't find them on torrents nor i-player. Fwiw I thought this was one of the best things he has done.
― calzino, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 22:09 (eight years ago) link
they're called 'Jerry Building' and 'Joe Building', they're both up in full on youtube
― soref, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 22:11 (eight years ago) link
nice one thanks. God I still have i-player on in the background and Marr is burbling about Churchill's Sunday painting, how fucking stagnant in comparison.
― calzino, Wednesday, 1 June 2016 22:14 (eight years ago) link
This was brilliant - he definitely seemed a bit more fired up.
I still can't believe his opening line, to scenes of people gathering to see Mussolini's corpse and sound effects of swirling winds, was "God, Allah, Yahweh, these nightmarish psychopaths attain immortality without ever having lived". Like that's pretty wild for primetime on the Beeb. It made me laugh out loud.
― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Thursday, 2 June 2016 07:18 (seven years ago) link
He has always had those provocations in his films, though he has seemed notably more cantankerous over the last ten or so years and more invested in baiting the left as well as the religious. This was great, though, and one show every three or four years is nowhere near enough.
― On a Raqqa tip (ShariVari), Thursday, 2 June 2016 07:25 (seven years ago) link
He is definitely better suited to the more expansive hour and a half length type program.
― calzino, Thursday, 2 June 2016 07:35 (seven years ago) link
Yeah I guess it's always provocative, I still felt as the opening line that was bolder. There are always things he doesn't flesh out which seem vaguely disagreeable but the sum of the parts and the style is so brilliant. The humour is unique to him.
― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Thursday, 2 June 2016 07:39 (seven years ago) link
only had time to watch half of it. maybe i don't watch the right documentaries, but it was good to watch a bbc arts programme that wasn't an stream of random talking heads. otoh it would have been p funny to get mani's views on what a top lad benito was in the studio.
― real orgone kid (NickB), Thursday, 2 June 2016 07:51 (seven years ago) link
Actually "all for one, one for all, if we all join hands we can build a wall" would be an apt soundtrack to a programme on fascist architecture
Did catch a bit of these new puritans though
― real orgone kid (NickB), Thursday, 2 June 2016 08:02 (seven years ago) link
fascinating as ever but flawed in his analysis of the (anti)politics of fascism IMO, it was much better when he was actually talking about the architecture
― ghosts that don't exist (Neil S), Thursday, 2 June 2016 08:08 (seven years ago) link
the sign language for 'hitler' is just as you'd imagine:
https://www.dropbox.com/sc/yk8342wl9066y34/AAC7y64BexyWCH6IdV27HzpRa
― koogs, Thursday, 2 June 2016 08:33 (seven years ago) link