Dirty Feed

92.

Published 10th October 2023

As I kid, I never really got on with films. Oh, I watched a few, don’t get me wrong. Who Framed Roger Rabbit was formative for all the obvious reasons. But they were long. I found it very difficult to sit still for 90 minutes, let alone for more than that. A half hour sitcom, brilliant. A film? Sounds a bit tiring.

And over the years, things calcified. I still watched the odd film. I even went to the cinema occasionally. But I was never a “film person”. I was too busy throwing myself into as many half hour sitcoms as I could find. That was my thing. I didn’t need anything else.

The problem: you can very easily end up starting to become a bit of a parody of yourself. At some point, I wasn’t that into film, simply because that’s what I’d told myself for years.

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No.

Published 9th October 2023

Internet

I don’t often bother making fun of Google’s suggested questions in their search results. It’s rather a shooting/fish/barrel scenario. But I’m afraid the below just broke me.

People also ask
What was the last episode of Yes, Prime Minister?
The Middle Class Rip-Off
Yes Minister/Final episode

The above is wrong in three entirely different ways:

The last episode of the original series of Yes, Prime Minister was “The Tangled Web”.
The last episode of the revived series of Yes, Prime Minister in 2013 was “A Tsar Is Born”.
OK, fine, so maybe they’re just getting confused, and they mean the last episode of Yes Minister. That would be… “Party Games”.

Still, maybe I’m being unfair. Google trying to be helpful is usually fine, let’s just check their autofill—

Noel's House Party, autofilling to noel's house party death

You know what, never mind.

The Henderson Report

Published 8th October 2023

TV Comedy

On the 23rd December 1982, BBC2 broadcast the final episode of Series 3 of Yes Minister. Titled “The Middle Class Rip-off”, it’s an amusing satire on arts funding, and the nature of “high” culture and “low” culture.¹

SIR HUMPHREY: The point is, suppose other football clubs got into difficulties. And what about greyhound racing? Should dog tracks be subsidised as well as football clubs, for instance?
BERNARD: Well, why not, if that’s what the people want?
SIR HUMPHREY: Bernard, subsidy is for art. For culture. It is not to be given to what the people want. It is for what the people don’t want but ought to have! If they want something, they’ll pay for it themselves. No, we subsidise education, enlightenment, spiritual uplift. Not the vulgar pastimes of ordinary people.

You can probably guess which side Hacker is on.

HACKER: Why should the rest of the country subsidise the pleasures of the middle class few? Theatre, opera, ballet? Subsidising art in this country is nothing more than a middle class rip-off.
SIR HUMPHREY: Oh, minister! How can you say such a thing? Subsidy is about education. Preserving the pinnacles of our civilisation! Or hadn’t you noticed?
HACKER: Don’t patronise me Humphrey, I believe in education too. I’m a graduate of the London School of Economics, may I remind you.
SIR HUMPHREY: Well, I’m glad to learn that even the LSE is not totally opposed to education.

Very droll, Humphrey. Still, the rights and wrongs of funding for the arts isn’t our big interest today. Instead, I want to look at the Radio Times capsule for the episode. Which features something rather unusual.

Take a look at those names. Eddington, Hawthorne, Fowlds: check. And John Nettleton, John Barron, Patrick O’Connell, and Derek Benfield: check. But what about Joanna Henderson, playing the Curator? She’s not in the episode at all. Nor is she in the end credits. What gives?

To answer that, I have to take you on a little expedition. And to tell the tale properly, we have to go right back to 1979.

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For an alternative – and rather more negative – view of the episode, read Graham McCann’s A Very Courageous Decision: The Inside Story of Yes Minister, a book which comes highly recommended. ↩

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Of Ministers and Mandarins

Published 5th October 2023

TV Comedy

Much as I love Jonathan Lynn’s Comedy Rules: From the Cambridge Footlights to Yes, Prime Minister, it seems that every time you poke it, another inaccuracy falls out. I’ve already talked about a certain set of Evening Standard reviews of Yes Minister. But that’s far from the only problem.

Let me quote that section of the book again.

“No one took much notice of the second episode, but everything changed after the third week. This sudden surge of enthusiasm was the result of a lengthy article by Roy Hattersley in the Spectator. Hattersley was Deputy Leader of the Labour Party at the time and, like Jim Prior in the Tory Party and Jim Hacker in our series, was a centrist politician who could have belonged to either party. Hattersley described everything that the show had shown so far, confirmed that this was exactly what had happened to him when he first became a minister, and asked how on earth did we know?

Hattersley’s article galvanised the political press. Suddenly political correspondents took up the show and editorials started to be written about it. The TV critics, late to the party, jumped on the bandwagon, and after the fourth episode the critic from the Evening Standard told his readers that Yes Minister was an excellent comedy show and he had said so from the start. He hadn’t.”

As well as misrepresenting the Evening Standard reviews, commenters here were quick to notice other errors. David Boothroyd correctly points out that Hattersley only became Deputy Leader in 1983; it was Michael Foot in the role at the time of Yes Minister‘s first series. Worse, even the referenced article by Hattersley is incorrectly attributed: Simon Coward points out that there’s no evidence of such an article in The Spectator around this time.

Luckily, I have very good readers who do all my work for me. A bit more digging from Simon revealed that the article wasn’t in The Spectator at all; it was in The Listener instead. Silly similar syllable sounds. And then your friend – and indeed he’s my friend as well – John Williams kindly bunged me a copy of the whole article.

Titled “Of Ministers and Mandarins”, and published in the 20th March 1980 issue of the magazine, this was clearly written after the third episode of the series was broadcast: “The Economy Drive”, on the 10th March. It represents one of the very first serious pieces of analysis of Yes Minister – perhaps the very first – and so is an important document in our understanding of the initial reaction to the show.

It seems worth, therefore, replicating the article in full. Take it away, Roy Hattersley.

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I Hate Doing Research, Part Five

Published 4th October 2023

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Don’t Tell Me About the Press

Published 1st October 2023

TV Comedy

Jonathan Lynn’s Comedy Rules: From the Cambridge Footlights to Yes, Prime Minister is a slightly odd tome. Part autobiography, part an attempt to nail down the rules of comedy – while admitting that any such attempt is doomed to failure – it does feel like it would occasionally benefit from a little more focus. On the other hand, I found myself nodding along vigorously to pretty much every single page.

For instance, when talking about Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister:

“The series eventually ran from 1980 to 1988 but was not about the eighties. It was devised in the seventies and reflected the media-obsessed politics of the Wilson/Heath/Callaghan years, not the conviction politics of Margaret Thatcher. It was actually much closer to the politics of the years that followed, the years of Major, Blair and Brown. In any case, there is a timelessness about good comedy: the pleasure and excitement of recognition are not rooted in a particular time or place. Humanity remains constant.”

This dual nature of what comedy can be is key: it can be ostensibly linked to a particular time, and yet still leap easily across the years. I always shake my head in dismay when people tell me how easily comedy dates. Comedy is usually about people, and people don’t change either as much or as quickly as many would like to think.

SIR ARNOLD: What about the DHSS? John?
SIR JOHN: Well, I’m happy to say that women are well-represented near the top of the DHSS. After all, we have two of the four Deputy Secretaries currently at Whitehall. Not eligible for Permanent Secretary of course, because they’re Deputy Chief Medical Officers and I am not sure they’re really suitable… no, that’s unfair! Of course, women are 80% of our clerical staff and 99% of the typing grade, so we’re not doing too badly by them, are we?

— Yes Minister, “Equal Opportunities” (1982)

BARBIE: Are any women in charge?
MATTEL CEO: Listen. I know exactly where you’re going with this and I have to say I really resent it. We are a company literally made of women. We had a woman CEO in the 90s. And there was another one at… some other time. So that’s two right there. Women are the freaking foundation of this very long phallic building. We have gender neutral bathrooms up the wazoo. Every single one of these men love women. I’m the son of a mother. I’m the mother of a son. I’m the nephew of a woman aunt. Some of my best friends are Jewish.

— Barbie (2023)

Humanity remains constant indeed. Especially the terrible bits. Which is what an awful lot of comedy is about.

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I Hate Doing Research, Part Four

Published 25th September 2023

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New-Old Films on the BBC

Published 21st September 2023

Film

BBC Two showing the same old films has become a running joke in our house. If you check the page on the BBC website for 1960’s School for Scoundrels, we can find out it’s been shown no less than 14 times since 2013. I don’t care how much you like Terry-Thomas, that’s surely overkill.

Which means that when the BBC does start showing some “new” old films which they haven’t actually broadcast for years¹, they can get somewhat lost in the schedules. So consider the following a public service announcement. The first two have already gone out and are on iPlayer, and the other two are on this weekend:

Funny Face (1957)
Recent BBC TX: 16th Sep 2023 (Schedule) • Previous BBC TX: 4th May 1998 (Genome)
A film that more than one person has cited as a possible inspiration for parts of Barbie, quite aside from the more obvious elements from another film directed by Donen: Singin’ in the Rain.

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Recent BBC TX: 17th Sep 2023 (Schedule) • Previous BBC TX: 17th Mar 1996 (Genome)
One of Judy Garland’s final film performances. A strong film to show on BBC Two before the watershed due to the use of real Holocaust footage, which garnered an equally strong warning from continuity beforehand.

Moulin Rouge (1953)
Next BBC TX: 23rd Sep 2023 (Schedule) • Previous BBC TX: 19th Feb 1978 (Genome)
This one in particular feels very strange that it hasn’t been on the BBC since 1978! It should have been on every bank holiday! (Although Channel 4 had rights for years.)

The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
Next BBC TX: 24th Sep 2023 (Schedule) • Previous BBC TX: 7th Sep 2001 (Genome)
This was remade as In the Good Old Summertime in 1949, which is one of my favourite musicals. Oddly, despite my recent sojourn through Golden Age Hollywood, I have somehow conspired to see none of the above films. So this is an ideal opportunity to rectify this.

Other interesting things are popping up here and there; it’s so widely-seen that I didn’t think it was worth adding to the above list, but BBC Two are also showing the original Psycho for the first time in years this Sunday the 24th. So it’s worth keeping an eye out for other shards of joy/terror in the schedules during the upcoming weeks.

Other channels will have shown them more recently, of course – I’m only talking about the BBC here. ↩

Stand By, Studio

Published 20th September 2023

TV Comedy

Anyone up for yet more production fun with Yes Minister? Of course you are.

Take a look at the below scene from the Series 3 episode “The Challenge”, broadcast on the 18th November 1982. Hacker is in a TV studio for a BBC documentary about civil defence, about to be interviewed by Ludo. Sorry, Ludovic Kennedy.

Spot anything interesting about the above scene? Take a look at the very opening shot. If you look carefully at the top of the interview set, you can see that it’s just a couple of green walls placed in front of one of Yes Minister‘s “real” sets!

Which one? I highly suspect that it’s the dining room set – there is a glimpse of the odious framed wallpaper at the top:

The TV studio

The restaurant

Regardless of any peeping bits of set, it’s a great bit of production design by the wonderfully-named Andrée Welstead Hornby. With a couple of green flats, and judicious use of the side of Studio 6 at TV Centre, you have a completely convincing setup, for very little money indeed. Because TVC was used to make all kinds of programming, it was very easy to simulate all kinds of programming as well.

Sometimes, as with Python, it’s easier and more effective to do your satire from the inside.

This point extends beyond the sets. There’s one more bit of fun to be had with this scene. Let’s take a look at the production paperwork for the episode; buried deep within it is the following:

IN VISION STAFF

BRIAN JONES – Production Manager, Light Entertainment Comedy Tel.
ANDREW MOTT – Camera Operator, Technical Operations

The above two names aren’t actors. These are actual BBC staff, who appear in-vision during the interview sequence. And who must have worked on Yes Minister as the actual Production Manager and a Camera Operator respectively.

Sadly, the only camera-related credit in the end credits is Peter Ware as Senior Cameraman. But if we check the Production Manager credit:

End credits caption: Production Manager, Brian Jones

Much like the wall of TC6, why not use what you have already, for added verisimilitude?

Now come on someone, write a sitcom which involves a BBC Network Director in a bit part. I want my own little moment of glory.

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Why Do We Care About This Bridge So Much?

Published 15th September 2023

Internet / Meta

Recently, one of those kind of blog posts has been doing the rounds. One that gets picked up by seemingly everyone, and even crosses into the mainstream news media. I’m talking about Tyler Vigen, and The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge:

“This pedestrian bridge crosses I-494 just west of the Minneapolis Airport. It connects Bloomington to Richfield. I drive under it often and I wondered: why is it there? It’s not in an area that is particularly walkable, and it doesn’t connect any establishments that obviously need to be connected. So why was it built?”

It’s a great story – long, but well worth reading to the end. In particular, don’t miss the copious footnotes, which contain a lot of the really cool stuff. Put aside half an hour and take a nice, leisurely read.

But it’s also worth pondering exactly why the story is so interesting. Tom Scott in his newsletter called it “exactly the kind of fascinating infrastructure-nerd archive dive that I love”. Which it absolutely is.

And yet it’s also something else. Vigen:

“It is at about this point in the story that whoever is enduring hearing about it from me inevitably asks: “Hold on, why do we care about this bridge so much?” Which, yes, fair question.

Up until this point, it was curiosity. From here on out though, it is stubbornness.

I don’t understand why this question is so difficult to answer. There IS a reason that bridge was built, and by golly I am going to find it! Will it be a bribe from a local business? A conspiracy with the construction company? An ordinance that requires a bridge every 5 miles? A makeshift deer crossing built by the DNR? Someone accidentally copy-pasted a bridge when playing Cities: Skylines of Minnesota?

Whatever it is, I want to know!”

The reason this has captured so many people’s imagination isn’t because everyone is fascinated with BRIDGE FACTS. The reason is a little more primal. This is the sheer joy of ostentatious investigation. Or in other words: research porn. Which is a close relation of that old standby “competence porn”, as defined by TV Tropes:

“Competence porn is a term invented by Leverage writer John Rogers (see here) and used by a lot of critics since. […] It’s the thrill of watching bright, talented people plan, banter, and work together to solve problems. It’s not just “characters being good at a thing,” particularly if that thing is fighting – otherwise, the term would apply to virtually all fiction — but specifically about using cleverness and hard work.”

The thrill of watching people “plan, banter and work together to solve problems” is very much akin to watching somebody poke every single avenue of research, until they find the truth.

I speak from experience. One of the big turning points for Dirty Feed was back in 2020, when I wrote this ridiculous investigation, about a recording of some Gregorian chanting used in The Young Ones. It became something of an epiphany for me when it came to my writing. For the first time, I understood that the story of the research meant as much as – or possibly even more than – the answer at the end. This knowledge has informed all my real investigative writing on here ever since.

And I think this kind of research porn does mean something, beyond the thrill of the chase. I see so much bullshit every day, often from people who should know better. Not just “stuff I disagree with” – I can cope with that – but pure bad faith arguments, deliberately misrepresenting everything. Writing something which attempts to get to the actual truth of something in 2023 can feel like a revolutionary, dangerous act.

Even if that truth is just about an old sitcom. Or an old bridge.

* * *

At the start of this month, I had to delete a post I published here on Dirty Feed. For the first time since I started writing the site back in 2010. The reason was simple: it was badly researched, or at the very least so incompletely researched as to make it fairly worthless. If you really want to read it, the article remains intact in August’s newsletter, but I no longer stand by the piece in its current version.

Now, I’m not really interested in self-immolation for this error. I made a mistake, I got rid, I admitted it rather than hiding it, and I’ll publish a revised version of the piece at some point next year. I did everything I should do. I don’t think any of it materially hurts either me or the site.

But the error annoyed me, and it annoyed me not because the research was incomplete per se – people correct me on things all the time – but because it was ostentatiously incomplete. Or, to put it another way: incompetence porn. If you’re stupid enough to think you’ve cracked an article about a TV show by watching just a couple of minutes of the relevant programme, rather than watching the whole series and appreciating the full context, then that’s your funeral.¹

Onwards and upwards. One bad mistake in 13 years isn’t bad. But it’s a decent reminder: ostentatious investigation is this site’s forte, not leaping to the end because I want an easy update to the site.

Be more Tyler Vigen.

I once made fun of someone who criticised A Bit of Fry & Laurie in an article, based on watching a single episode. As I watched two minutes of a 60 minute episode of something here, this was 30 times worse than that. ↩

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