The Curious World of Frinton-on-Sea

March 29th, 2009 · 5 comments or link to (permalink)

Part 1 embedded, Part 2 here.

Total running time: approx 40 mins

This documentary is an absolute gem, in the tradition of Errol Morris it finds the profound in the utterly banal, without resorting to postmodern sneering. The subject is a sleepy English seaside town, one of those places where uptight, keeping up appearances, Edwardian sensibilities hang by a thread, appropriately enough at the nation’s edge. This is a culture that was satirized in Dad’s army as being obsolete 40 years ago and which Orwell railed against even earlier in Keep the Aspadistra Flying, but it still lives in Frinton on Sea.

This calcified culture that has only recently begun to emerge in America, where middle class people, or to paraphrase Evelyn Waugh, ‘upper lower middle class’ people emulate the veneer of respectability displayed by the public face of the powerful, without enjoying the private debauchery. Its a sick joke that is played by the rich on the modest, the world over, where ordinary people suffer humdrum in exchange for a caricature of dignity.

When people talk about the hypocrisy of suburbia, as if the few people who are secretly sleeping around and snorting coke after church on Sunday are proof of endemic problems, they miss the point. Where I have encountered it, this Janus like culture seems to be the norm in the upper echelons of society, from the Hamptons to Hampshire, whereas in places like Frinton-on-Sea there are many people who actually live the lives that the Victorians pretended to. Its a raw deal.

Here, a BBC team pokes back at the ‘twitching net curtains’ of exburbia, to examine the traumatic impact of the decision to automate the town’s railroad crossing and the resulting local outcry. The result is a small socio-anthropological masterpiece.

5 comments » (report dead embeds in comments) tags: society

The 50 Greatest Documentaries

March 25th, 2009 · 11 comments or link to (permalink)

Based upon a poll of film makers, organized by Channel 4 in the UK, the 50 best documentaries of all time were chosen. Despite the unpromising screenshot image of Jimmy Saville at the beginning, this is great. Of course, I would differ with the selection, but that’s part of the game.

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Total running time: approx 100mins.

11 comments » (report dead embeds in comments) tags: lists

CERN for children – and Chicago Daily Herald Readers

March 21st, 2009 · 3 comments or link to (permalink)

We’ve just been through a period of historic excess and debauchery, based on the financial miscalculation that the world had nearly twice as much wealth as it has now, where celebrities where famous for nothing other than fame itself and where the robbers were running the banks (an altogether more systemic societal risk than lunatics running asylums). Nothing like the here and now, after this monstrous, toxic, asset-zit has exploded, cries out for meaning and purpose.

In this existential vacuum, the Daily Herald, ‘Suburban Chicago’s Information Source ‘, prints a reader’s letter by Patricia Grabowicz which complains about money going to Fermilab to spend on mere particles, with what I would argue is a cheap shot saying the money would be better spent on education.

While showering money on places that served no higher purpose than profit, places like Fermilab, which probe the very essence of our existence on this spec of sand in an intergalactic ocean and carry the meaning and purpose that inspire people to educate themselves in the first place, are surely the very things we need to invest in.

But that is not where Grabowitz is wrong. The single, devastating, reader comment by Larry Jankowski at the end of the letter is worth quoting in its entirety:

The Tevatron is being shut down as soon as CERN super-collider goes on-line. No experiments using it for pure science are in the future budget. But the ancillary services provided by the LINAC, and booster rings, like protons and synchrotron light, for treating cancers and materials manufacturing research, is what the budgeted money is for. The search for Higgs is being moved to the EU and CERN.

Fermilab money to save people from dying of otherwise untreatable cancer is not such a bad thing, and a better use of that money than special education classes for a handful of politicians, and keeps scientists and medical researchers here, rather than brain-draining their talent to the EU.

As Fermilab gets ready to pass off to CERN, it is just possible that it may find the particle that gives mass that CERN was built for, the Higgs Boson. This week the scope of where it may exist was further narrowed and a mysterious particle called Y(4140) was discovered. If Fermilab doesn’t find the Higgs, CERN will certainly either find it, or perhaps more excitingly prove that it doesn’t exist, bringing into question the core of our current understanding of reality.

This all sounds abstract, and unfortunately, real things are not always simple, but the challenge of discovery is as thrilling as and more important than the Apollo missions.

CERN have put together a great website for children, where the playlist at the top comes from. Make this your information source, Daily Herald readers.

3 comments » (report dead embeds in comments) tags: science

Slamming UK Anti-Science

March 19th, 2009 · 1 comment or link to (permalink)

Ben Goldacre rails against modern day fraudsters such as anti-vaccination extremists. What’s strange about anti-vaccination is that despite it being a provably fraudulent meme that is endangering lives, it is taken to be a viable stance and attacking it is seen as controversial. Even this Goldacre clip has a legal disclaimer at the end from the news anchor presenting it.

Current events help put this in perspective, its like saying Bernie Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme and being quoted with the disclaimer that its a matter of personal opinion and not of the news organization.

1 comment » (report dead embeds in comments) tags: memes science

Dinga Dinga Dee – Israeli Arms Dealer’s Bollywood Foray

March 14th, 2009 · 4 comments or link to (permalink)

Weapons dealers’ marketing materials are often a great source of unintentional black comedy, however, there are no words to adequately describe this gem found by the excellent 3 Quarks daily.

Israeli arms company, Rafael, decided to create a Bollywood style promotional video for the Aero India 2009 show in Bangalore. The truly weird result is a lot of singing and dancing around missiles.

4 comments » (report dead embeds in comments) tags: comedy