Was in the laundrette and said “Unlock!” like the Commons Speaker very loudly when the tumble dryer finished and got some weird looks.
06.03.2026 15:43
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Was in the laundrette and said “Unlock!” like the Commons Speaker very loudly when the tumble dryer finished and got some weird looks.
TBH I'll always defend Heinlein because he was a genuinely good writer (unlike Asimov, his characters actually talk and act like real people) and for the time he was writing he was genuinely progressive on matters like racial equality.
There's a Heinlein novel that was published after his death, which was the original concept for "The Roads Must Roll" that basically consists of a Socratic dialogue about the pros and cons of Social Credit.
An in-universe, un-interrupted, three hour, radio broadcast.
Yes, it’s very, “this is absolutely disgusting where did you find this out so I know how to avoid it?”.
AND INTRODUCING
JOHN HURT
AS
THE WAR QUEER
🐰うさぎさん小学校🏫
真剣に…
何かしてると思ったら
ねり消し作ってる！！！
Final boss of proving whether or not you’re a proper YIMBY.
[COMIC BOOK GUY IN A WHEELBARROW GIF]
Out for a treat. 🥩
I still refuse to accept that he’s called “Markwayne Mullin”. Stupid name. Get rid.
Popped into The Dovetail en route to having a fancy dinner. Just nice to have a little Belgian bar that doesn’t feel plastic.
“Maybe you could say you’re Pnin?”
“Maybe? Yeah. I could do that? Just talk in broken vaguely Slavic-accented English all day?”
Wanted to make the “might become a substitute teacher and immediately get reported for coming in dressed as Humbert Humbert for World Book Day” joke before realising that that is, indeed, how I dress.
The sort of thing that only an Oxford education can give you.
The one thing I'll say in James May's defence is that he does keep taking the piss out of the generic format and at least *tried* some different things on the Japan one he did for Amazon Prime - "this is what I'm supposed to be surprised about even though I've been coming here for years" etc.
I nearly suggested that as an alternative solution. You've got a bit of history, a bit of geography, a bit of culture, a bit of contemporary issues.
It would just be, you know, infinitely more interesting than another skin-deep wander around Florence.
I'm always terrified I'd have the same problem as Stephen Mangan when he got asked to go on it. The researchers came back and just went "um, sorry Steve, there's literally nothing in your family history that is interesting enough to make an hour-long documentary about".
My favourite one of these was when I was at a roadside bar just outside Lausanne and came across a vending machine that just provided inside tires for bicycles. Probably the most Swiss thing I have ever seen.
The annoying thing is you can do these well with a genuine enthusiast for a country who does something a bit different. Jonathan Ross is a proper, unapologetic weeb, hosted "Japanorama" for BBC Choice about twenty years ago and had segments on stuff like Gothic Lolitas and Tetsuo: The Iron Man.
I mainly know Whicker through references to him rather than the programmes itself.
Again, as with Palin, I don't blame him for starting this trend - you can (and sometimes still do) do them well, it's just almost always such a lazy, phoned in format.
I'm very sad that Richard Holmes is no longer with us because he didn't treat the audience as being braindead.
"Men were trained to fire up to fifteen aimed shots a minute, but many could do much better than that. I'm rather out of practice."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NDA...
And with Portillo he does also have the time to just have a random potter on Transpennine rather than the typical approach to this, which is "how can I blag a compartment on the Orient Express and have a two-star Michelin-starred meal in Venice".
"Yes, less Dagenham, more Dagestan. Let's see how Josh, Tim and Lolly got on."
See, I don't mind Palin because he basically popularised it but crucially, always did them scrupulously well (and had the expedition element to it) and his most recent one was to Nigeria - which is certainly more original than any of these.
You'd have thought that doing something based around Simon Winder's books would be tailor made for an eight-part documentary but that would involve treating the audience as anything more than clapping seals who just want long-shot drone footage of a pagoda.
It's remarkable that they literally never go to Germany or anywhere in CEE, isn't it? Nope, just the same five countries (with an occasional BONUS MYSTERY SPIN for a one-off one to Botswana).
This is why Palin is so good, he did this before it was popular and his last one was to Nigeria. The don.
There's a rotation with these soft-focus travel documentaries starring a Beloved National Treasure™️:
1. India (Mumbai to Amritsar only)
2. LOL wacky Japan!!! (do you know they have vending machines for EVERYTHING?!)
3. France but exclusively Provence
4. The Grand Tour bits of Italy
