Wednesday 9 August 2017

A woman scorned

I was in the mood for Poldark and Diana on Sunday evening so I watched Diana on Channel 4 till 9pm,  then switched over to catch Poldark on BBC 1 and finally caught up with the last part of Diana on Channel 4+1.  A kind of sandwich, courtesy of “+1”.

This could have been confusing as the plots were similar, being primarily about women whose husbands loved another. Eventually both Diana and Demelza emerged with glory as they were fundamentally strong women. It could easily be forgotten that one has sadly died and the other was fictional.


The Diana film got a pasting in the Times. Andrew Billen said it was  pretentious and trashy. 
But isn’t everything these days? It was a little ‘long drawn out’, but entertaining, if mainly for its archive footage of Diana. I don’t imagine it will increase the popularity of the future monarch and his good wife, but that will soon blow over. The best thing about the film was that it didn’t feature (or even mention) Paul Burrell.


Poldark got good reviews in the Times, and according to their stats, it won the ratings war. It’s fundamentally a strip cartoon with more emphasis on the ‘fun’ than the ‘mental’ and it has a couple of real bad baddies, particularly George, who is as blatantly evil than anyone in EastEnders.
As it’s a strip-cartoon it seems churlish to complain when certain fictional characters behave inconsistently, but surely George wouldn’t capitulate so easily, let alone be reduced to a quivering jelly at Elizabeth’s new-found defiance, when he had been so cruel and cold for the last few episodes? And surely Elizabeth wouldn’t swear a porky pie on the actual bible? 

There is to be another series. No doubt the BBC will squeeze it dry, as is their wont. They seem determined to do that with everything that proves a hit. They’ll probably introduce the obligatory quota of BAME and religiously diverse characters, just to finish it off completely.

Meanwhile, they could exploit the revival of Princess Diana themed entertainment by dramatising the latest conspiracy theory concerning mysterious circumstances surrounding her “murder“. This talk, by a far-right group named “Keep Talking” was to have been held tonight (I think) in Holborn, but the event has been stopped by police. 
“The Daily Mail reported that at a recent Keep Taking event had seen Holocaust denier Nick Kollerstrom  booked to speak, but that event was postponed after complaints to the council. 
Mr Kollerstrom was stripped of his research fellowship at University College London (UCL) after writing an article entitled The Auschwitz Gas Chamber Illusion for a known Holocaust denial website in 2007. 
A regular attendee of previous events put on by the group was James Thring who has links to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.  
Another earlier Keep Talking event was addressed by Piers Corbyn, the climate change-denying brother of the Labour Party leader. 
In a statement at the time, Mr Fantom said that the presence of the Labour leader's brother at the meeting was a "set up by the press in order to smear his brother", and that the "distortion and manipulation" was coming from "the Israel lobby”.

Can you picture that Diana-themed tale, fictionalised and dramatised by the BBC in strip-cartoon fashion, hopefully not set in Cornwall,  but with a full complement of baddies and very, very baddies.

6 comments:

  1. "Poldark - It’s fundamentally a strip cartoon with more emphasis.." ...on the strip, best I can assess from the efforts of BBC Press Office and its eager editorial groupies in the MSM studmuffin appreciation departments.

    Once it was even-stephens with Tom's botty, but now it's top torso alllll the way.

    Aiden must feel so used.

    When will there be a female rippling chested wheat scyther? For balance, you understand.

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  2. Funny how things have changed in 50 years. Whereas 50 years ago, you could have TV ads with young bosomy women spreading themselves luxuriantly over a car bonnet or engaging in fell atio with a choc bar...now that is verboten but it's perfectly acceptable (Coke ad) for women to ogle a man. :)

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  3. Sorry to be picky, but I think Demelza's exact words when she swore on the Bible were very carefully chosen. From memory it was something along the lines of "I have never given myself to another man."

    Given that we're supposed to believe her little 'un was a result of the (shock, horror) rape scene with Ross Poldark, it could be argued that she didn't "give herself" to him: rather he "took" her. And, therefore, she was not, strictly speaking, speaking untruthfully on the Holy Book.

    At least I assume that will be her defence when she's up before St Peter at the Pearly Gates.

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    1. Yes, her (Elizabeth’s) carefully chosen words were noted, but she also said “Who else could (the child’s father) have been?” Thus weakening her defence in a future hypothetical trial at the pearly gates. ;-)

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  4. That report in the Jewish News was completely garbled, and dishonestly so. The origin of the idea that Diana was murdered by Mossad was the Jewish News reporter himself. He accusingly put that to me as a question, and when I replied that I had never heard the suggestion before, inside or outside of the group, he printed what he was obviously going to print anyway. We are not in any case a group with a political agenda other than finding out what is behind fake news. We've even had the think tank Demos talking to us about their recommendation that 'conspiracy theory' groups be subject to government 'open infiltration' to present 'alternative information'. You can't get more open-minded than that. The Jewish News report linked to is one of the most outrageously mendacious reports I've seen, and the present-day media, including the BBC, are pretty mendacious nowadays.

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    Replies
    1. Getting a taste of your own medicine. Bitter, ain’t it.

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