Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

Right, the 16 and 20yos on a sleepover rampage are not having a bubble

Sorry, I was being a bit facetious with the bubble talk. It's definitely needed but I've seen the term thrown around completely out of context. and some people in my family have had other relatives round on and off all the time (including those with symptoms but didn't realise this meant they should test), don't think they're aware of the bubble concept anyway, and continue to moan about how we're in this mess because of everyone else breaking the rules.

Irish film Arracht eschews Brit bashing to tackle famine taboo https://t.co/5JMZAJrzo9

— Rory Carroll (@rorycarroll72) January 9, 2021

It centres on a fisherman in the west of Ireland who battles to survive when disease ravages potato crops in 1845, plunging the country into a cycle of starvation, misery and emigration that halved the population.

Many in Ireland think the British government’s indifference and bungling amounted to genocide.

The makers of Arracht however have sidestepped explicit politics and finger-pointing. The film depicts the land-owning gentry not as villainous agents of British colonialism but as people with deep ties to local communities.

”I always dislike moustache-twirling bad guys in films,” said Tom Sullivan, the writer and director. “The landlords had intimate relationships with Irish people for generations. I leave it to other people to vilify the Brits.”

The film showed the atrocious consequences of authorities who viewed the famine as God’s will or the result of native fecklessness, but it also showed the close bonds between Irish and British people, said the director. “Sometimes we don’t accept our history in an honest way. We’re intrinsically linked to the British and the English. The Brit bashing and the victim thing that is sometimes played out – we need to move beyond that.”

jfc

jesus

fucking

christ

Coming soon, a movie about how English troops cuddled Gandhi

The lighter side of colonial violence

yeah of course not blaming Britain's Imperial Parliament for the famine is taboo, in the way that presenting false versions of history should be fucking taboo unless you are a lying piece of shit invested in cleansing the rep of an evil murderous empire.

also not blaming Hitler for the deaths of millions of European Jews is another taboo subject

Those death camp guards had deep local ties with the people they murdered

well looking at Sullivan's imdb entry shows an undistinguished mediocrity who has done a lot of bad television acting work and directed a few crap movies. Perhaps he needs to be more controversial and start telling it like it is.

You can smell the glowing Irish times review already

Those death camp guards had deep local ties with the people they murdered

There is that Polish holocaust book called Neighbours that does this the right way!

i suspect this is the article more than the film

the director still seems like a prize twat

It’s mostly the article but the director’s statements aren’t great are they

no. and the most egregious thing in the article, and i cant pinpoint if this is coming from the director or writer as the director's comment is more ambigusous, is the suggestion that landlords had strong ties to the land and the irish people. 50% of irish land during the famine was owned by people who had barely or never even set foot in the country!

I would be interested to know what sources he has that challenge the conventional accounts of tenant landlord relations in ireland during the famine, because the director and the writer both seem to have _some_ information

Maybe he just thought the lads claiming the rents from London has Irish sounding names

he's probably read one of Tristram Hunt's book about the Empire maybe?

xp

Boinedan O'Neill

Fuck me my blood pressure must be through the roof after reading that

This guy ssems to know less about Irish history than a Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

My dad came from Londonkerry so as a certified Irish expert I can safely that ain't possible!

The British, a great bunch of lads.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErVZpVjXcAEmFir?format=jpg&name=medium

lol

for context he's complaining and talking about a new holocaust memorial in London and the inherent dangers of lessons from the past, more one for the fascist columnists thread but here you have it:

More likely the focus will be on how Britain did not let in enough Jewish refugees in the 1930s. And since no one likes an unhappy ending, it will stress how we have made up for this in the years since by taking in millions of economic migrants from across the third world — something which we must obviously continue to do.

Oh so a Nazi

Who, Douglas Murray? Horrible man.

I like that it features a pic of Dan Snow looking even smugger and more loathsome than he has ever looked, lol the power of nazi culture wars!

re the Famine:

I think there ought to be a way between 'moustache-twirling villains' and presenting the UK state favourably.

You could present the UK state very unfavourably while avoiding clichés that don't work dramatically. You could even show some individual Britons quite favourably while still being utterly critical of UK state policy.

So the director bloke has set up a false binary which isn't helpful re: thinking about how best to narrate the Famine (or rather Famines) today.

I know this is your thing, but seriously, fuck off.

moustache-twirling villains really has no meaning if administrators of empire don't qualify

why would you need to show britons favourably

"You could even show some individual Britons quite favourably while still being utterly critical of UK state policy."

See what you're saying but most films with a good guy amongst a mess created by the system they are operating under have been mostly bad not good.

I think after the deluge of feature films about the famine that depicted the British in a bad light the time had come had obviously for a more balanced approach.

the Imperial Westminster Government's cold indifference and preference for protecting free market interests rather than saving millions of lives in their colonies is such ripe territory for making a feelgood lib movie about a good guy trying his best to make a difference in a damned rotten system, lol!

Charles Wood, 1st Viscount of Halifax and chancellor of the exchequer, was one of the ultimate Westminster bad guys during the famine according to the In Our Time from the other year.

Better:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/10/covid-pop-culture-notalgia-new-crisis-recycle

The Guardian pick for the comments however is bad not good

Guardian comments are always total dogshit, just old dads moaning that it’s nOt ReAl MuSiC and shit like that. I really enjoyed the piece, forward-looking and even a bit optimistic but very grounded in the harsh reality of the present, and really delightful to read.

also i chose to include myself in the concept of the “bolshie millennial”, lol, but also it made me think about my own consumption during the pandemic and keenness to rely on rereads and favourite artists etc... something something new can’t be born, etc. Very thoughtful piece.

lol one of the senile dad comments: the stones, THE B******, coldplay, bowie ...bring back the 65 special steam train with Jimmy Savile driving it .. good reminder not to read the comments section!

“militantly online and always pranking”

:D

that whole para is so good and on the money

Guardian comments are always total dogshit, just old dads moaning that it’s nOt ReAl MuSiC and shit like that. I really enjoyed the piece, forward-looking and even a bit optimistic but very grounded in the harsh reality of the present, and really delightful to read.

― scampish inquisition (gyac), Sunday, 10 January 2021 16:35 (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

randomly beefing with x factor of all things lol it's 2020 you unfrozen caveman mfer

THEY DON’T PLAY INSTRUMENTS

the thing that resonated with me was the algorhithmic effect of connecting me to a glut of the old. i spent about six months collecting less known 70s female singer songwriters that the spotify algo kept feeding me before i got sick to death of them and YEARNED for something else. the music i've been listening to in the last few months has felt really like just so many new worlds and it took the stultifying dreariness of spotify monotony to push me into new waters. felt a little bit like how exciting it was when broadband first meant i could download things and i could finally hear what like CAN and frankie knuckles and lamonte young sounded like after only having like the couple of "alternative" shows on irish radio for my teens. I remember just being obsessed with ubuweb!

I got a bit sick of spotify pushing me into the culdesac of "these are the six flavours of music you listen to" (not that it's inaccurate, I think I would have spent a big chunk of last year listening to ecm stuff even without the algo feedback loop) and decided to listen to stuff on my computer for a while - the most recent thing on there being a (very good!) funk comp I dled in 2016 compiled by ilxor oor neechy