Miss Kevin Spacey? Me too…

I must admit to having developed an unhealthy fascination of late with the final series sorry season (they’re called that now, aren’t they?) of House of Cards.  Sad to say that it makes virtually no sense whatsoever without Kevin Spacey …

… it reminds me of William Hartnell’s final Doctor Who story “The Tenth Planet” where because the lead actor was too ill to appear in most of the story his lines have been crudely re-allocated to his companions.  That just about worked even though we know that really Ben and Polly have either had an IQ transplant or by a complete series of flukes they just happen to be having an unusually bright day … because it’s just one episode in which they have to do all the exposition and because we know the Doctor will wake up (if only to die) … and one can suspend belief for that long ...but … but ... but...

Kevin Spacey having now graduated to real scandals will never again return as Frank Underwood so … the veil never lifts.  It’s like all his lines have been reallocated over the entire truncated series but on a colossal scale.  I’m sure significant re-writes were done but they’re not enough – the feat cannot be achieved…

Too scared to re-cast the character because they fear the audience wouldn’t accept it (I don’t see why not - I accepted Kevin Spacey not being Ian Richardson) the production team have decided to make Robin Wright’s Claire Underwood the lead instead.  I really want to be able say this works or could work … but it just 100 per cent doesn’t…and it bothers me as to why? because I wanted it to...

Perhaps because … they don’t let her lead and everyone constantly refers to Frank Underwood’s absence – including Claire herself.  Why does he have to be dead?  Could he not be missing?  Some programs – Taggart …? Blakes 7? … seem to manage to carry on or even improve without the original lead even though their titular character’s name remains in the title but … House of Cards just can’t pull it off ...for..for ...for...

…for whatever reason Robin Wright just can’t follow Kevin Spacey … just like Timothy Dalton couldn’t follow Roger Moore as 007.  The result is a fantastic achievement in awkwardness…

Indeed, not since David Nobbs wrote “The Legacy of Reginald Perrin” in the 1990s  – a brave attempt to keep all his other characters alive and just write around the fact that Leonard Rossiter/Reginald Perrin had died in 1984 by building a storyline around his will - has the departure of a central character so completely haunted a production.  

 I expect they’d already shot so much they had to try and do something with the remaining footage but it’s like Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space after the death of Bela Lugosi …

It isn’t just Frank Underwood who is missing either – I’m pretty sure that several other regular actors have done a bunk but as their departure is not signposted and I can’t remember who they were and worse it doesn’t seem to matter….  Or perhaps Frank Underwood is just 3 or 4 times bigger than many of the periphery characters.  But whatever…

The plot is all over the place too.  I’ve never been able to follow all the plots in all the series of House of Cards but the stakes and the impending disasters have always been clearly signposted to the audience from the very start.  For example – Series 1 … We know Frank is a psychopath and we know he’s going to end up killing Zoe Barnes at some point and we know Doug Stamper is going to have to cover it up …and we know there will need to be a cover up of the cover up … There’s no real mysteries …the plot is about the how not the why… Yet now in an attempt to make something interesting out of Frank’s “death” it’s turned into a mystery series and we don’t know why things are happening and I am too disinterested to try and figure it out.   

What I want is villainy but what they’re offering is a murder mystery (without a body).

It’s hard enough to accept Claire breaking the fourth wall instead of Frank when we have been inside his head for the past 5 seasons … but it is even harder when Claire doesn’t tell us anything. 

I doubt all the expectation will pay off either because it would have to be Universe shattering by this point to justify the extremely opaque set-up… so Claire constantly talks to us as if letting us into her conspiracy but says nothing.  At the moment the series has gone into a totally absurd storyline whereby Claire Underwood has gone all Queen Victoria and decided to become agoraphobic – of course this is supposed to be a clever Machiavellian scheme by Claire - but it all just becomes slightly boring.  I don’t need to watch someone else not going out the house enough – I can do that home alone…

Added to this Claire Underwood never had as complicated or carefully explained back story as Frank which means she was not as interesting to start with so the writers are trying desperately to make up for this by info-dumping a whole load of biographical backstory on us and it’s too much too quickly … so none of this is Robin Wright’s acting – it’s just they’re trying to make bricks without straw then trying to make bricks that are all straw.

Miss Kevin Spacey?  Me too…

A Chump at Oxford - Reboot

When, I started this blog I had some idea that it would touch on politics occasionally but British politics is now so extreme and polarised that it is hard to make it funny.

Our current Prime Minister and his cabinet with their black and white thinking and Commons majority of 1 seem to be stuck perpetually in a surreal black farce that holds many similarities with Laurel and Hardy’s 1939 comedy film “A Chump at Oxford”.  In this film Laurel and Hardy foil a bank heist by accident when one of them discards a banana skin that trips up the robbers and allows for the feeling of their collars...  When asked by the Bank owner how they would like to be rewarded the idiotic duo reply that they would like “a good education” because the fact they don’t have one is the reason that they “never get no place”. 

Of course the real reason they “never get no place” is they are not very intelligent but…  Just like Boris they are promptly whisked away from America to the hallowed grounds of Oxford University.  After such hilarious mishaps as being tricked by other students into believing the Dean’s quarters are their own and squirting him with soda water … Stan receives an accidental bump on the head from a sash window frame… and this causes him to recall his old lost identity “Lord Paddington”.

Just like Boris Johnson … Stan Laurel underlines his newly raised social status by combing down his fright wig instead of having his hair all over the place and ceases behaving like a buffoon to instantly become an unlovable bully instead – inverting his usual position in the comedy act.  Just like Boris Johnson … also-ran Stanley now suddenly becomes a winner at everything, unbelievably pompous and talks in a more upper crust accent.  He employs his old friend Oliver as his valet and roundly insults him by telling him to hold both his chin and his double chin in. 

Eventually Oliver resolves to leave Stanley in Oxford and return to America alone but matters are quickly resolved when the sash window bumps “Lord Paddington” on the head again and he reverts back to his old identity of Stan Laurel.  Oliver hugs his old long lost friend and the credits roll.

I suspect that a sash window frame is also behind the current peculiar state of affairs by which Boris Johnson has somehow become Prime Minister… if only one would fall on his head again.  We can but hope…

Sex and nudity spice up BBC Jane Austen drama

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession
of a good fortune, must be in want of some soft pornography. 

Guest post about Brexit by Sarah Jones MP

Dear Anthony Miller,

Thanks for getting in touch with me recently about Brexit. I appreciate you sharing your views with me and I can assure you that I will keep them in mind.

There are strongly held views on all sides of the Brexit debate, but I believe that we are all united in an ambition to see our great country thrive. Some people may not agree with the ways I have voted in recent months, but I am grateful that the vast majority of people have expressed their views in good faith.

For over three years now, the Conservatives have failed to deliver a Brexit deal that had support, and the uncertainty is causing real damage: dragging down the economy and putting jobs at risk. Labour respected the result of the referendum and put forward an alternative Brexit plan to protect jobs, rights and growth, but the Conservatives have refused to compromise.

As I said on the BBC recently, it is my personal view that Labour is moving towards campaigning to remain and reform position. Jeremy Corbyn recently announced a shift in Labour’s position towards this – we believe that our new Prime Minister should have the confidence to put their deal, or no-deal, back to the people in a public vote. In those circumstances, Labour would campaign for Remain against either no-deal or a Tory deal that does not protect the economy and jobs.

I will not vote to make my constituents poorer, and I don’t think many people could. It is right to put Brexit back to the people with the option to remain and reform. The realities of Brexit are now understood and the damage to our economy and standing in the world is clear. But that doesn’t mean we can ignore the reasons people voted to leave in the first place. We must continue to push for a fairer economy and increase investment in all parts of the country.

In the past few days, Boris Johnson became Prime Minister and he seems set to lead us towards a disastrous no-deal cliff edge that will damage jobs, living standards and communities across the country – I will oppose this and support a public vote to give people the final say.

As Shadow Housing Minister and Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Knife Crime, I see huge societal problems that are being entirely ignored by Government.  Regardless of Brexit, this government has failed to tackle the burning injustices that Theresa May talked about when she became Prime Minister. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson was elected Prime Minister by less than 0.2% of the population. That is why Labour is committed to a general election so the public can decide – across a range of issues – who they want to be in Downing Street.

Thanks again for contacting me about this and for sharing your views.

Best wishes,

Sarah Jones MP
Member of Parliament for Croydon Central
Shadow Housing Minister

e: sarah.jones.mp@parliament.uk
tw: @LabourSJ
w: www.sarah-jones.org

So here lies Croydon Village Outlet 2013-2019

When I was a child Allders was one of my favourite shops.  You could go there and shop and have tea… as I got older I became a fan of Allders toilets.  Allders had many toilets and one could choose which floor to evacuate one’s bowels on.  I often used to get the escalators to the top floor to see all the TVs and VCRs I couldn’t afford to buy and have a poo.  It was a shop that one could get lost in.  Then it lost its way.  And then it went under.  And then it closed.   

And then there was Croydon Village Outlet.  Croydon Village Outlet moved in when Allders closed and attempted to run a shop in the same space with zero investment whatsoever.  All the original interior décor was set in aspic as it had been at the Allders closure but the shop became like an indoor market.  It boasted all the glamour of a car boot sale only with no items one would actually want to buy.  Well, I'm sure one could find something if one tried hard but it was so depressingly dingy it put one off bothering.  There were stacks DVDs that poundland couldn’t sell and strange concessions and make-up counters that sold ...well pretty much any random thing...but without a secuirty guard in sight one felt almost as though if one did buy legitimately one would be fitted up for theft somehow...

That's right there were seemingly no security guards and it was impossible to tell which till one should pay for anything on.  As to a customer service department - no one was in uniform so who would one approach?  It wasn't even obvious who the staff were ...or even if they existed at all?  Perhaps it was all an elabourate plan on behalf of the government to trick us into believing the high street wasn't on life support...

Parts of the old building no longer in use were crudely partitioned off.  The escalators were out of bounds and one was advised to use stairs.  I used to enjoy the shop for all the wrong reasons.  When you work in retail you wonder if floor plans are a waste of time.  Why there are so many inter-departmental meetings.  Why the people in commercial intelligence and interior design always want to change every display seemingly pointlessly.  Why we’re always changing from plan A to plan B to plan C … then back to plan A again. Croydon Village Outlet was like a parable in what happens if you just don’t do any of that.   

A world where literally nothing changes.  Where it’s neither pile-it-high-sell-it-cheap or sell-it-expensive-but-spend-a-lot-on-marketing.  Just a muddle.  Its inhabitants seemingly weren’t even bothered that the Council had CPOed the building for the Westfield/Hum…itscomingalong project that never seems to happen … and then the locks were changed and they were locked out forever…

So here lies

Croydon Village Outlet 2013-2019

Father Joshua Allder

Mother of necessity

May it rest in apathy