First Newcastle Socialist Branch Meeting.

Tonight saw the first meeting of comrades living in Newcastle. The meeting was held at mine and Di's house, and saw us start to develop ideas for a programme in the immediate future.
Although early days yet, we might be able to take this branch further and sustain it, as well as making sure we develop our activities in the area.
Exciting times!

Let Them Eat Cheese

There seems to be a common trend among advertisers emerging. That of the use of poetry that uses a simplistic form of rhyming to sell their wares. The most common example of this is the long-running Cathedral City cheese ads narrated by the late, great Pete Poselthwaite. However, more and more companies seem to be joining the trend. I noticed that great bastion of quality food Iceland getting in on the act.

The problem isn't that poetry is used, my beef with the process is that this is how our food is marketed at the working-class. It's as if this is how we, as the great unwashed masses, accept our food presented to us; we find beauty in our food yet also find something ordinary or functional about our use of food.

For example, the Cathedral City ad continually presents us with, as in my previous post, a functional society. The night workers, the early risers, the backbone of the nation - all able to continue thanks to their daily dose of Cathedral City. Phew! Even the direct address "From Runcorn to Ripon" is slightly more indicative than say "From Bury St. Edmunds to Didcot."

This whole presentation of the working-class and the rhythmic poetry of the commentary instantly reminds us of the classic Night Mail (1936: dir. Grierson, J). However, unike that cultural landmark in documentary history, 'the Nation's Favourite' and the current tripe (almost literally) shown to us by Iceland can surely not compare to W.H Auden. "The washing up shows cheesy bake was a winner." It may be, but it doesn't seem to ring as poetic as "none will hear the postman's knock/Without a quickening of the heart/For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?"

Cathedral City and Iceland are two examples of this kind of cultural significance within advertising. Although there have been ads aimed at a specific class many a time before, I would argue that we are likely to see an increase in adverts that, whilst maybe not using a rhythmic, staccato mode of speech in the tradition of Night Mail, do present goods to us more and more faux-poetically. This is known as a 'centrifugal' process - the associations generated around the product work to sustain the desirablity (or in this case the normality) of specific features of personal and social life. That's why mums, and indeed dads, buy the goods that companies convince them their class depends upon.

Walls sausages anyone?

Children. Children. Future. Future.

Watching Cbeebies with my 10-month old son this morning made me realise something. Namely, that there is something fundamental about children's TV, and more specifically, the ideology behind it.

I am not talking about an educational style, cognitive benefits or anything like that, but how much we as a nation and society understand the importance of public services and how ingrained we are that society functions in such a beneficial way. Or, to put it simply, Pierre Bourdieu in his influential Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, stated that aesthetic judgements cannot be divorced from social relations.

It occured to me for example, just how many programmes, old and new, encourage the audience to learn about buses. Not cars, aeroplanes or taxis. The first mode of transport represented to children is a public service. Of course, other modes soon follow, but I don't recall that kids' classic song The Wheels on the Family Saloon going round and round.

Other examples in one morning's viewing include the importance of libraries, public parks and the social benefits of an allotment - those council subsidised spaces that almost seem to belong to a bygone age.

It almost seems like a Reithian concept; a leftish BBC trying to "educate, entertain and inform" the masses, but not necessarily what they want to know. It is interesting that this is so. Children it seems, are exposed to the value of public services and the workings of a society operated by the masses from an early age. Surely a good thing, and one that arguably need to continue whilst they still exist, particularly under the draconian measures taken by the Con-Dem coalition.

But this is not a particularly recent development, rather a continuation of ideology stretching back decades. Of course, years ago it was no surprise that children should learn about buses or factories. After all this was the order of the day. For the majority of the working-class, taking a bus to work, riding a bicycle in the country, or walking to church were activities that were sung about, talked about, or for the purpose of this blog, watched with mother.

A Really Useful Trade Union.

In children's literature too, even the bourgeoisie knew the importance of public services, regulation and jobs associated with the mass of working-class. The Rev. W Awdry, the author of the Thomas the Tank Engine series, (the Church of England in the 1950s itself arguably a symbol of middle-class intelligentsia) included Bertie into his canon; a bus.However, this bus is arguably a negative perception of the working-class. The genteel, steam-age locomotives of the middle-class (even their names are middle-class in comparison with 'Bertie') are challenged by the more common bus and all that he negatively represents; the masses, vulgarity, and the development of roads. Even his colour is red!

Many critics have applied social class to aspects of children's media, usually approaching it from a cultural aspect. All I am attempting to do is highlight the fact that the social usefulness of various institutions are still presented to our children, which can only be a good thing. One such critic, Ellen Seiter in Sold Seperately: Parents and Children in Consumer Culture, suggests that in Marxist cultural critique, any attack on the seemingly one-dimensional 'shallowness' of contemporary children's programming automatically yet paradoxically takes the position of the 'old' bourgeoisie in its attack.

But I digress. In the end, despite David Cameron's disgusting and destructive plans for his fabled and unworkable Big Society, the working-class are still teaching its offspring the value and importance of a workable society, and is doing so through its media; its publicly owned media. And if those children grow up with a knowledge of factories, schools, buses, hospitals and the Post Office and the importance of the strength of the workers in those institutions, the more privatisation and deregulation might, just might, be staved off.

TUSC Rally, Stoke-on-Trent

A Bunch of Keys

Under the Boardwalk.

The first season of Boardwalk Empire just finished airing and it's a strange beast to dissect. There doesn't seem to be anything straightforward about anything in the show, least of all the characters.

First of all, Steve Buscemi's character Enoch Thompson. He is definitely the most well-rounded character in the whole series. Buscemi does carry off some pathos throughout the series as the death of his wife and child plays on him. However, as he is essentially the lynchpin of the show, I would argue his character symbolises the show in microcosm; Enoch can often be seen to be plagued by guilt, and Ithink that this is one of the recurring themes of the series. Guilt and redemption (or lack of).

Let's just look closer at this. The Atlantic City of 1920 portayed here has a number Irish or Irish-descended characters, as well as Italians. And all these ethnicities, in keeping with the heavy sense of Catholicism, tend to mention heaven, hell, sin and forgiveness. 'Nocky' Thompson himself, we are told, will often be overcome with guilt because of his criminal transgressions, but then always overcomes this.

And this does not only effect the principal gangsters. Enoch's live-in lover. Margaret (Kelly Mcdonald) does feel guilt for so readily accepting her new lavish lifestyle. However, again poblems present themself in the execution of themes I feel, as this devout and temperate woman is more hurt by the perception of her made by others, which seems a strange trait to so quickly develop.

This brings me on to the next section, the depiction of women. Now first and foremost this is the 1920s, and as such critics can say "in those days women were inferior" should any sexist or misogynistic behaviour occur. However, it occurs to me that misogyny does rear it's ugly head, bit from a modern perspective, not its early twentieth-century setting. It has been argued before that Scorsese, (here the executive producer) perhaps due to his heritage and upbringing, depicts women as one of only two archetypes; the madonna or the whore. This seems to be the case here. Granted, the character of Margaret (Kelly Mcdonald) appears to be a strong-willed, independent woman who alligns herself with the suffragette movement, but as already mentioned, her apparent ease of which she accepts the lifestyle of a politician's girlfriend can be read as a sign of modern womanhood or the 'whoring' of her scruples. As for the other female characters, we can say that the ignorance and simplicity of certain characters is certainly in keeping with the atmosphere of the 1920's, but there is definitely a modern, masculine perspective in some portrayals that Laura Mulvey would simply salivate over. Lesbian affair? Check. Naked opium-addicted call girls with a penchant for abusive men? Check. One can almost imagine Scorses (and indeed exec-producer Mark Whalberg) standing just off-camera dictating the action like it's 'Nocky and Margaret make A Porno'.

However, in the defence of misogynists everywhere, the men are not so easily defined archetypes themselves. Prohibition agent Van Alden, despite perfectly appearing as the epitomy of chisel-jawed machismo with an unbendable will, is not as clean-cut or simplistic a character as first suggested. And Buscemi is perfect as Enoch, as his pasty white frame here is 20's America in microcosm; his wiry frame and sallow face, like his soul, is wasting away as he chases the acquisition of power. This leaves him more and more hollow.

So, a strange breed filled with enigmas and unclear character traits. Lazy writing or inspired protagonist creation? Either way I would argue it's still a good show and I shall continue to watch, even if, like one of the themes, with a degree of guilt.

It's a Wrap.

Saturday 19th Feb saw me shoot the film with my actors who did a brilliant job. Above are a few pics of the shoot.

Sunday 27th Feb saw me screen the film to a select audience at the Potteries museum in Hanley after editing all week.