How to repair the world
School: without the government target box-ticking
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How to repair the world
School:
without the government target box-ticking
I've been putting some videos up on YouTube recently.
Here's one I particularly like:
On Saturday 24th April I did a sponsored firewalk to raise money for Save The Children's work in haiti. Read all about it and see the video.
OK not really five. About 5 families, maybe?
"Coffey, Bates, Hill, Renko, La Rue, Washington, Belker ..."
"OK, let's roll! And hey! .... let's be careful out there!"
Hill Street Blues: when it was first on Channel 4 in the '80s it was the one bit of TV I'd go out of my way to catch. Nowadays the hectic hand-held camerawork, cocktail-party soundtrack and multiple story threads are so familar from programmes like ER they're almost a cliche, but at the time it was radically new. (The portrayal of the effects of police life on officers' personal lives was apparently new to American TV too, though in the UK we'd had domestic violence and marriage breakdowns in Z Cars,[1][2][3] back in the '60s.)
Watching it again today I find it as gripping as I did over two decades ago. The writing and acting is brilliant: I feel I really know and care about the characters (whether for them or against them) and there are some terriffic stories. I think the show's use of comedy (often centred around the pompous, gung-ho but gaffe-prone Lt. Howard Hunter) makes Hill St special. It's certainly not played for laughs (and we can only thank our favourite deities that it doesn't have ghastly American canned laughter imposed upon it) but the alternation of almost slapstick farce one moment with shocking drama the next is particularly effective.
However only the first two of Hill St's 7 seasons are available on DVD! Given that just about everything that's ever been on TV is now available on video, from Life on Earth to The Magic Roundabout: Director's Cut, with previously unseen material, how come we don't have the entire Hill St canon (with or without sweepings from the cutting-room floor)? Meantime if you see it coming up on TV again please drop me a line!
A religious leader tells his followers to invade and steal the land of followers of a rival. What will happen to the inhabitants? No problem: they are to be slaughtered, every last man, woman and child. Even their animals. And their city burned and every vestige of them destroyed (apart from silver, gold and other valuables which they keep for the Leader).
Nice guy... (more)