Jonathan Meades c/d?

That's not a warning that's a recommendation

Quite so. But mostly I was trying to get your attention NV. The Hull episode's pretty good also.

three quick observations:

a) shame on you for making me want to go down to the pier when i can't
b) i think he's very knowingly riffing on Meades especially
c) these look brilliant!

pub montage at the end of the Hull ep is particularly cruel

good shout Tim, never seen a Youtube address so many of my interests in one go :D

Sorry. Agree (to what extent he’s knowingly Nairning it up also, I couldn’t say, could be both, couldn’t be Nairn only I think). Glad you’re enjoying them.

he obv doesn't like Wessies or at least he seems to have a preference for the more picturesque parts of Yorkshire. Mind you I think Nairn was driven to despair in Hudds and probably had an extra ten pints at dinnertime to fortify himself against the ugliness of such a heathen shithole, until Halifax cheered him up!

i am going on such a crawl if there's anywhere left after lockdown ends

no apologies necessary, these lads are a real find

The new Jonathan Meades book is out today from @unbounders. An incredible 900+ pages of his collected essays. I haven't even got past the dedication and I'm already laughing. #pedroandrickycomesagain #jonathanmeades pic.twitter.com/SH7uSD2FG1

— Alex Boyd (@AlexBoyd) March 8, 2021

Nice interview of a book I'd like to get hold of.

https://thequietus.com/articles/29856-jonathan-meades-pedro-and-ricky-come-again-owen-hatherley-interview

Meades v much the right-winger it's ok to like amongst leftist types, eh?

Pretty funny to see Unbound retweet enthusiastic reviews of this book that are all "this man warned us about the woke!"

How are you defining right-wing here? There are a lot of edgelordy comments in this, true.

Actually he comes across as leftier in this interview than I'd previously known him to be - there's a strong love of individualism in his thinking on architecture, thus the love of Belgium, and the complete contempt for any urban planners who thought people's needs and preferences should be taken into account.

Biggest challop in this interview so far is that France takes anti-semitism more seriously than the UK, a totally baffling statement to me both from my experience with the UK and with France.

He's great tho don't get me wrong!

His last couple of documentaries have displayed some pretty clear right-wing sympathies at points, iirc, but he's generally hard to pin down ideologically.

When he did the Yorkshire section of Nairn's Journeys, he, in his own words, "bumped into" the great bluesman Champion Jack Dupree whilst doing a section of the programme in Halifax. The two got on rather well and maintained a close correspondence almost right up to his own death.

very interesting detail from the Ian Nairn wiki!

I think being a restaurant critic at some point almost guarantees you are going to have picked up some tedious edgelord tendencies.

Further to the question of his being right wing: remembered the other day that his programme on France is some truly shameful stuff. Lots of sympathy for the soldiers of the Algerian conflict who went into far right terrorism, entirely unhinged portrait of France (France!) as a self-hating country where political correctness has gone mad.

that... doesn't sound great. Was this a recent show?

No, just popped into my mind the other day for some reason. It was already archived on youtube when I started watching it, probably close to a decade ago. Lemme check, it's from 2012.

Fragments of an Arbitrary Encyclopaedia ?

I watched this recently too and some of his stuff about Algeria struck me as a bit ripe, albeit that if his claims of a massacre of French loyalists are even half-true then sympathy is more understandable

I forget the politically-correct riffing but every time I do watch one of his (generally excellent) programmes there's always a Provocative Bit

(or if it's the Essex one (which I still enjoy), Several Provocative Bits lol)

I think that's the one yeah calz. Made me angry enough to not check out the other eps.

Seem to remember one quip was abt a dude who'd been responsible for a pro-independence terrorist attack in Algeria that killed several women ending up as a women's studies professor, YoU CoUlDn'T mAke It uP!

The other episodes are good tbf. One of them is all about how weirdly American-aspiring France is

I would lay money on him being a covidiot