I wonder. Did Evan Davies blush?
On the Today programme (starts at 2.22’38″) this morning (22 August 2011), Davies interviewed a leading member of Britain’s cultural ruling class, a film-maker who, in 1977, scorned the Labour government’s offer of the OBE on grounds of high principle (‘… despicable: patronage, deferring to the monarchy and the name of the British Empire, which is a monument of exploitation and conquest’). His refined sensibility did not render despicable his award of the World Culture Prize in Memory of His Imperial Highness Prince Takamatsu. His Imperial Highness, by the way, was the brother of His Majesty Emperor (sic) Showa (Hirohito) of Japan. Still, the Imperial Japanese air forces did attack the Pearl Harbour naval base of the hated United States, so I suppose the Japanese Empire must have been much less noxious than the British Empire, give or take the odd health and safety oversight.
Can you see who it is, yet? A couple more clues, then.
An aging, Oxford-educated Honorary Doctor of Civil Laws (Oxon.), die-hard Trotskyist and former EU parliamentary candidate in the Respect interest, supporter of Socialist Resistance, activist for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of the State of Israel, campaigning signatory of Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism, defender of Irish Republican terrorism and supporter of the rebel movement in Chechnya aka the Caucasian Emirate.
Ah, you guessed. Here he is, wearing the regulation revolutionary-socialist keffiyeh. Oh, wait – sorry. I can’t find that picture for the moment. Perhaps this one of him in Cannes will do instead:
First, we heard a ‘little taste’ of the sound-track of a Loach film commissioned in 1969 by the (now fake-) charity, Save the Children (STC) whose then bosses objected to Loach’s ‘documentary’and strangled it at birth. The news angle is that the film is to be shown (where else?) at the BFI as part of its Loach hommage-fest, thanks to the Loach apologist admirer who is now CEO of Save The Children. He was invited along to purr affirmingly at Loach’s every Loach-ism but he went above and beyond, enthusiastically asserting his admiration for the grand old man of our great British film industry.
You just went out [to Nairobi] and you saw what you saw and you thought, This is the time… this is the way to expose it all.
Yes. I was shocked at what I saw. … it was about providing a western middle class to run industry and the government on behalf of western interests.
You didn’t know you were going to make an exposé on the failings of STC when you started. It was only when you got out and saw what you saw that you said, you thought this is outrageous and I’m just going to document it as I see it.
Yes.
So, the Evan-blush thing. I merely ask, musing on the BBC’s renowned objectivity and lack of political bias in the afterglow of an eye-popping interview by the economic genius and entrepreneur-wrangler of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire Western Capitalist Dragons’ Den.
- Something like this appears at my own blog
You’ve hit the nail on the head and I’m going to nick your post and use it as an example. We’re having an argument over my way over labels, many of which you use, Prodicus, even in the tags and you are right to use them because they define what the person is and what you are – we know where we are. I just finished replying, at my place [sorry this is so long]:
Now, what you say about him, Prodicus, is spot on and he is being disingenuous trying to pass himself off as something else.
Indeed.
First Rule of Left Club: Acquire total control of language.
Second Rule of Left Club: Assert that there are no rules of language. Note: Promulgate this Rule using Approved (preferably amusing) Persons (example) who, overtly or covertly, support the objectives of Left Club.
Third Rule of Left Club: Anathematize all who deny the legitimate authority of Left Club and/or its agents to control language.
Fourth Rule of Left Club: Restrict the teaching of the young and control of public information to Approved Persons (see above).
Fifth Rule of Left Club: Deny the existence of Left Club by any necessary means, from ridicule to violence.
What a dreadful little man is Ken Loach. Has anyone actually seen Kes? Pure red soap. There are many things for which he cannot be forgiven, and yet he remains a darling of the BBC. There are many things for which they cannot be forgiven in turn, the chief of which is their unstinting trumpeting of the talents of this overwhelmingly mediocre film maker.
Film & TV are unique media in that they offer a ‘group’ experience for the audience and are thus a wide-open goal for propaganda, whether it be BBC comedy or excrescences like ‘Billy Eliot’. And dont’ get me started on Radio 4.
At least Eistenstein could form a shot. And wouldn’t dream of wearing a buttoned down collar with a black tie…