Tag: uk

Socialist Training Wheels (Part 2) The Harvest

So this was a long time coming, and now totally irrelevant but I’ve finally been able to get some time together to sort out Part 2 of my promised look into the Local elections. The last time I wrote about politics like this I was slowly nursing an alcoholic beverage and I feel that by the time I was at the end of it, I was probably a bit too far gone to be able to meaningfully convey my feelings about the local elections.

(I probably wasnt that far off this by the end of part 1…)

I feel now however that the time to talk about the elections in an analytical way has somewhat passed me by. Obviously its no secret that Labour (While not overachieving) more than held there own and made overall gains in large swathes of the country. The conservatives made a few gains and the liberal democrats seemingly cleaned up quite nicely in the wake of  the collapse of the UKIP vote. However to read the papers the morning after the polls closed you could be led to believe that the labour party had completely disintegrated overnight. They failed to seize several major targets and as a result the night was a failure for them. Except…it wasn’t really…y’see, those “Major targets” wernt initially set up by Labour, they were set up by the newspapers. They were the ones who were right off the bat publishing that Labour would be able to seize control of local councils that hadn’t been run by the Labour party in decades. When the situation was put to the Labour party they said the equivalent of “Well we’re aiming high!” which is a bit different than saying “We’re going to smash it and we cant wait to bring in big bad Galloway to kick arse and impose renationalisation”

The newspapers whipped up such a frenzy about how well Labour were going to do that realistically they could never have achieved the levels of success that the media was predicting. Equally they played out the idea that the conservatives were going to do terribly, to the point where when they didn’t absolutely burst into flames we were told they’d had a good night!

(A similar set of front pages from 2017’s general elections…notice the flies on the front of the sun clearly illustrating where that rag of a newspaper belongs…)

This has been a recurring problem now for a couple of years at this point. The newspapers make an untrue or unrealistic statement about the labour party, its proven false or it doesn’t pan out in quite the way it should have, and then they seize on that with the force of me trying to get into my precert copy of Halloween 3.

Anti-Semitism has been the flavour of the day recently, with most of the major news outlets, the conservative party and even some of the labour party itself admitting that the party had a problem with anti-Semitic rhetoric. As a member of the Labour party and someone who’s regularly engaged in political debates both with leftwing and rightwing representatives;  I cant honestly say I’ve seen anyone from the party use Anti-Semitic sentiments on any of the social media pages I frequent nor have I seen anything while at Labour party meetings. Im almost certain there are Anti-Semites in the labour party. Statistically its almost inevitable. But at the same time I don’t think theres nearly as many as the mainstream media would have you believe and I think a major issue is that the right and even some members of the right of Labour are purposefully conflating “Anti-Semitism”  with “Anti-Zionism” and the two are completely different.

Now forgive me if im incorrect on this (and im more than happy to be proven wrong here) but I’ve been led to believe that originally there was Palestine, then the UK colonised parts of the middle east, before giving chunks of our colonised land to the Jewish people in what became Israel…and over the last 60-70 years Israeli forces have slowly but surely seized more and more of Palestine and oppressed the Palestinian people. Not that Palestine’s been entirely innocent either, they’ve given as good as they’ve got. However I feel it necessary to reiterate that it was there land originally and that they do have every right to be a bit pissed off at the fact that large chunks of there land have been taken and that the Palestinian people and government have been painted as brutal…in real terms it would be like if you owned your own house and one day you had a visitor who bought a friend over for the night, but the next day your friend had vanished and his friend was now saying that the bathroom is his and that he was eyeing up your kitchen…by the end of the week you had your bed and the skirting boards all the way to the door and your friends random associate is screeching at you for being unreasonable that you dared keep the bed.

(Its been doing the rounds on social media but its a pretty decent illustration to be fair…)

Now for having those opinions I would be considered Anti-Zionist. But to some people that would be enough of an opinion to label me Anti-Semitic. I would disagree with those people and I’d add that there really needs to be a concerted effort to make clear distinctions between the two groups because they’re very different groups.

Obviously though that something that the conservative party and the mainstream media have no interest in facilitating. As long as this Anti-Semitism thing continues to push on it continues to put the labour party on the back foot and it continues to make out that anyone who supports Jeremy Corbyns policies automatically hate Jews. Which is simply not the case. And this is before we get anywhere near the constant stream of racist, misogynistic, homophobic and anti-Semitic bollocks that the conservative party members and even there MP’s have come out with over the last 40 years (Seriously there are too many photos of Conservative MP’s dressed up in full nazi uniforms for my taste)

To conclude I’d like to say that I think we’ve finally entered a period in our political history where we are about to see the death of the current system. Democracy used to be run on base principles. If you lied while in office, if you misled the public or damaged the country, you’d be thrown out of power and shamed out of the position never to be seen again. As of 2018 we have a government who are propped up by a group of radical right wing northern Irish MP’s , stabilised by the media who have finally decided to give up the pretence of looking like they know what they’re doing. They can say the sky is purple and when they’re shown proof its blue they’ll silently walk off, wait till something bigger than there lie crops up and then use that as an opportunity to bury it. There most common current tactic is to simply abstain. If theres a vote or an urgent question or there asked to give a statement in relation to something that they’ve said or done. They’ll either just refuse to acknowledge it or if they do they’ll send an back bencher or an underling to give a generic statement. In doing this they’re effectively saying “We do not accept the legitimacy of what your doing” there have been several votes more recently in parliament that have effectively been rendered meaningless because the entire conservative party has just abstained from turning up and voting. In doing so they can then question the legitimacy of the vote and I don’t want to invoke “Godwins law” here but im angry just thinking about it so fuck it. That’s what the actual Nazis did just before world war 2. When votes or narrative wernt going there way they’d just up and leave and then refuse to acknowledge that a vote happened or implement a bastardised version of the asked policy before the vote could happen effectively making it meaningless because “We’re already putting similar legislation in place” it’s a dick move that erodes trust in the political system and its considerably nastier and thicker than anything that Thatchers government would have considered (And they’re seen as pure evil by most people above the southern border)

(Well its good to get a futurama meme into one of these blogs somehow)

How do we fix this? Well, I don’t know. I like to think that Socialism will win out ultimately but the question becomes a matter of “Will we see this change before or after we’ve been totally and utterly broken beyond repair?” The honest answer is: I don’t know…im not going to lie things arnt quite as awful as they were in 2017 so far. But they’ve only gotten marginally better largely because the EU have decided to just ignore America and the UK in terms of there leaders. I’ll give them this. The EU arnt perfect, but at least they’ve acknowledged that for the foreseeable that they’re on there own and that the US and UK are slowly eating themselves.

Maybe things will work out…maybe they’ll get worse…honestly at this point I’ve gone from having faith in my fellow man to constantly plotting out how I’ll survive the next inevitable downward drive in living standards. I like to think things will get better soon. But till then I guess im still stuck with my socialist training wheels.

by tytdreviews

Socialist Training wheels (Part 1) The Quickening

This one’s going to be a political blog. I kind of feel like I should open with that kind of a statement whenever I talk about politics in general partly because I feel like if I didn’t mention that this was a political posting that people would immediately dive into posts like this, get violently triggered and take it out on both me and my channel. But also because I realise there are some people out there who really don’t care that much for politics and don’t want it to get in the way of a good cult movie.

So consider this a “Trigger” warning. Not because Im going to say anything particularly controversial; But rather because if you don’t want to know my political affiliation, if you don’t care or if you think it would change your opinions of me fundamentally mentioning it now will give you ample time to click away or go and do something different. As it stands it’s a boiling hot Sunday night on the 6th of May, I have a white rum and Dr Pepper on the go as I write this, and I’ve spent the day pretty much getting my house straight as the bank holidays are really the only time I have to do that kind of thing. Last night me and my partner watched “Liquid Sky” and “A nightmare on elm street” the former was very strange and about as erotic as a cold cloth to the gunnels the latter was like stepping back into a well worn pair of shoes. What im trying to say is if you don’t want to faff around with hearing me waffle on about pie charts and various other political bits and pieces I highly recommend you go and check those films out. Let me know either in the comments here or on Facebook or my Youtube channel if you do go and watch them. I’d genuinely love to hear what you thought of them…

(My comments sections after this blog post gets read by anyone who cares)

…Right; So Im assuming if your reading this your invested. Good. So, a bit about myself. I was born in the North of England, my father was disabled (blind in one eye, damaged spinal cord and he’s missing a kneecap) and my mother worked minimum wage jobs up until about 10 years ago when she finally moved into a position she currently works in that pays above minimum wage and is very happy with. I’ve never known true struggling but I realise that my parents have done there absolute damndest to both protect me from that and to build the lives they currently have, and im incredibly grateful that they’ve given me the life they have. In many ways they’re both an inspiration to me. They had no handouts, they had no help and they’ve made themselves a very comfortable existence. They never talked to me about politics and I spent a good chunk of my childhood and early teens blissfully unaware of the political landscape mainly because I had no need to know about any of that stuff.

I find myself in a bit of a political quandary these days. As a citizen of the UK we’ve had a bit of an interesting couple of years politically. I myself first got involved in politics around the fall of Tony Blair. The “Happening” of Gordon Brown and the “Awakening of the Milliband”.  At the time I just kind of described myself as just “Left wing” really. In the vaguest sense I kind of thought “Well; Labour help people, the Conservatives help businesses and the libdems…well they don’t know what they want…BUT THEY WANT IT NOW!”  and that was pretty much how my political views went until about 2014…

(Changes were very much on the way)

In 2014 around the time of Ed Millibands general election run there was a sudden sort of change in politics in the country. Newspapers were chiming on about how Millibands policies were “Radically” Left wing and that he was effectively a “Loony leftie” trying to drag the party towards Socialism. But what the papers were saying and what I saw Ed say were two very different things. I didn’t honestly see all that much difference between Ed Millibands policies and the policies that had been generated during the Blair and Brown years. But for some reason the papers and the media in general were absolutely rabid at trying to tear the man down. That I’d say was my first introduction to the ideas of Socialism, but at that point I had no idea what socialism even was nor did I really have any interest in following it up. At the time I just thought that “Socialism” just meant “Very left wing” or “Not being a total arsehole” and left it at that. Little did I know at the time that Socialism would go on to effectively punctuate the next 4 years and is set to continue to define the UK political undertones for the foreseeable.

The General election didn’t quite go to plan and as a result there was a leadership election and in that leadership election a certain “Jeremy Corbyn” was entered into the running as a Joke candidate by members of the Labour party. In short; they were trying to be cruel. They put his name on the ballot in the same way that School kids would nominate the ugly guy and girl to win Prom king and queen. They never expected him to win and they thought it would be a funny way to give the far left of the Labour party a good kicking for a laugh. Little did they know that they’re “Cruel Joke” would go on to change the political landscape in insurmountable ways.

(10 years ago if you’d told me this man would change british politics as we know it i’d have laughed you out of the building)

Corbyn won. Corbyn won by a majority that was unheard of in modern political times. And this made the center left of the Labour party who put him on the ballot in the first place collectively cack themselves. They were terrified. It had all backfired on them, and what at first was supposed to be a way to remind the far left of there place very quickly became an empowering pandoras box of left wing ideology. Over the following 3 years the center left of the party, enabled by the right wing and the newspapers would do everything short of “Jeremy Corbyn ate my hamster” to try and dethrone the man. But as of writing he’s still firmly in seat and his popularity continues to grow at a previously unheard of rate. They’ve tried to smear him, it’s failed. They’ve tried challenging his leadership by putting up a new candidate with more center ground political values. He beat him increasing his share of the vote (Meaning that he broke the record for the most votes a labour representative has ever received in a leadership contest and then broke that record again with an even larger majority) When a snap general election was called the center left couldn’t contain themselves at looking for opportunities to try and tell people to vote for MP’s and not for Corbyn as leader. Hell even Tony Blair came out of the woodwork to decree that Corbyn would destroy the country if people voted for him…And then Corbyns vision of labour increased the majority of there party in parliament. Quite substantially really. He secured more votes than Tony blair did at the height of his campaigning (Tony Blair in the UK is often seen as the benchmark of how to be a left winger and succeed in politics) and even though he didn’t become prime minister, he gave the conservatives a bloody nose, sent right wing pundits into a tail spin and but the center left on notice.

It was a great feeling. For me; I’d always assumed that the kind of policies that I wanted to see implemented into the country; Proper funding for the NHS, UBI, greater care taken for people with mental health issues, a modernisation of the economy and a greater restriction put on shady business practises and media regulation in terms of promoting false or incorrect news. We’re all just wishful thinking. I never actually thought someone would come along and say  “Yeh mate; we can do that no problem”…And yet with Corbyns vision of labour it all seems quite possible.

(Cornwall under Corbyns version of labour in 2033)

I now feel a bit of confusion really about where I lie politically. Realistically my politics align with what would be considered modern socialism. At the time of writing theres been a tremendous gulf in the political landscape, with the conservatives absorbing a good chunk of UKIP (The party that put out the idea of Brexit in the first place…Far right wing and typically racist) back into there vote share they now have a robust arsenal of people ranging from the quite reasonable and ultimately decent just straddling a line of politics that I disagree with right the way through to racist thugs who pine for a country that never existed. The left wing consist these days of people who actively detest the party in its current form but refuse to move to the conservatives out of pure red blooded hatred of there past misgrieviences. Through to the full blown Communist left wingers who wake up to the USSR national anthem every morning and go to bed to the Internationale every night. Myself? I agree with what Jeremy Corbyns Labour Party has to offer to a point. It’s mainly there stance on Brexit that I disagree with. Im a firm voter of remaining in the European union though I accept that there needed to be a much needed conversation about the direction it was heading in…an opportunity that’s very unlikely to come about now.

But my opinion is that “Well; I agree with 99 things that the Labour party are currently offering, I think I can swallow my pride over the 1 thing I don’t agree with” Brexits a really big thing admittedly, but we currently have so many home grown issues that Im not going to split hairs when I agree with a majority of what the party is putting out there. These opinions and views have been labelled “Active communism” by the modern press and are ridiculed by the right as “A load of students who don’t know any better trying to vote in a communist government”…but the thing is “A load of students” isn’t enough to make the kind of leaps that the current labour party have in the UK. This is a genuinely growing movement and the ideas that I thought were “Wishful thinking” have never actually been closer to coming true before. Both parties, left and right, have lurched to there relative extremes. And for the foreseeable future it would appear that, barring a tremendous incident, The entire countries at a stalemate.

 

(British politics in 2018 in a nutshell)

*Believe it or not; this blog post started with the intention of being about the recent local election though it appears I’ve rambled a bit. I’ve gotten quite carried away. I think im going to make this a “Part 1” if you will. Im going to broach the subject of the local elections in my next blog post all being well. But I thought I’d share my political affiliation with you lot because some people are really interested in that kind of thing. Equally I’ll end this post by saying that as a TLDR on my political affiliation. While Im aligned with modern socialism I don’t feel comfortable calling myself a socialist. Mainly because I kind of feel I haven’t “Earned” that right just yet. I’d feel like I was living a lie to start openly calling myself a socialist because I feel I’d be piggy backing on a current trend. I look at the people who weathered socialism in the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s who sat there silently whilst being mocked and I think “I cant really say Im with these lot. These lot have suffered for there beliefs and I’ve just rocked up at the 11th hour” maybe someday I’ll lose my socialist training wheels. But for now I’m just a “Left winger”…and im happy to talk.

Addendum:

There’s a bit I wanted to put into this blog but I just couldn’t fit in anywhere. It’s a bit of a clarification more than anything else. I don’t care what your political affiliation is. Im not going to attack you for being left wing, right wing or center ground. What I will pick you up on is whether your a nice person in your day to day business and whether your hearts in the right place towards your fellow man. I have friends from the Far right and Far left side of the spectrum and while we may not see eye to eye politically on a number of things I realise that a persons politics does not define them anymore than the car they drive, the partner they marry or there choice of beer in a bar (Unless you drink Heineken in which case fuck you.) As a result I’ve had many interesting conversations with people, sometimes I’ll change there minds, sometimes they’ll change mine. Im a great believer in diversit of opinion and while I’ll admit this blog post is very promotional in its left wing values. The left are far from perfect and the day they make the “Perfect political party” is the day that I eat a car out of sheer surreal bafflement. What Im trying to say is; Believe whatever you want to believe Im not going to judge you whether your Labour or Democrat, republican or conservative. Its whats in your head and your heart that define you. And I realise that’s one of the hippiest things I could say. But I find it very true.

(Yeh theres going to be more of this…hopefully more coherent as well)

(In The next part! I work out my feelings a bit more and hopefully finally get round to talking about what I wanted to talk about in this part!)

 

by tytdreviews

Nekromantik (1987)

I don’t really know what went on in my mind when I considered picking this one up. I was hesitant, I remember that much. But with “Arrow Video” being synonymous with quality to me I felt assured that however “Nekromantik” panned out, there would at least be some assurance that what I was buying would have some level of cult or artistic merit

What I wasn’t expecting was just how near the knuckle “Nekromantik” is at times. Since watching this film I’ve since seen the likes of movies like “Cannibal Holocaust” and this movies sequel “Nekromantik 2” so my expectations are a little better managed. Though this film is still pretty high up there.

Since this video was uploaded one of the things that’s really stuck in my mind when reading other reviews of this movie (as I try to avoid reading other people’s reviews until mines been done as I don’t want to feel like I’m subcociously “lifting” other people’s thoughts) is just how few people pick up on the John waters influences in this film. Seriously when you realise that the director of this film was heavily inspired by the likes of movies like “Pink flamingos” and “Female trouble” then the campy undertones of this production really come out in a wonderful flourish.

Is this an extreme movie? Well; Arrow saw it fit to release this film both as a fully restored and a “nasty” era inspired grindhouse cut…So Id say there are excessive elements to this film. But “Nekromantik” to me is one of those special types of films that has somehow managed to perfectly straddle the lines between “cult shock value horror” “extreme border pornographic content” and “art house sensibilities” and I love this movie for that…

As mentioned, I’ve since watched the sequel to this and it’s alright…in some ways it’s a bit harsher than this film in others it’s a bit sillier but I’ll give my full thoughts on this one another time. Though what I will say is I still prefer the original and if your looking for a new challenging watch; I highly recommend checking this one out.

(The main theme to this film was my ringtone for a while…I thought that anyone who recognised it wasn’t in a position to judge)
by tytdreviews

Cyborg Cop (1993)

From the worst movie I’ve ever seen to frankly one of the most unmemorable films I’ve ever seen. In all honesty I can only recall three things about this movie:

*John Rhys-Davies camping it up to an astounding degree

*A scene featuring a “Terminator” knock off slowly destroying a car and then a person

and David Bradley getting involved in a high speed car chase.

Other than that and some very fleeting memories of an opening combat battle which has a man fully on fire I literally couldnt tell you one thing about this film. In fact arguably had I not reviewed this film I may have forgotten that i’d watched it all together.

…

…

Okay so I’ve just rewatched my review of it to see if it jiggled anything out of my memories. It did nothing…I seem to have enjoyed it more than I remember at the time of writing so I may well be misremembering how I felt. But I can only honestly tell you how I feel about it now. And how I feel about it now is that I dont have a strong opinion about it either way it’s a “Grey zone” movie in my mind. I mentioned in the review that I think it could work well as a B-movie or as part of a double or triple feature. And I actually think this is probably the best way to describe this film. Its by no means an “Essential watch” but if your using it to subsidise another film (Like say “Terminator woman” or “Robocop”) then I think it could work really well…I’ll probably do the sequels to this at some point in the future…If I can remember to…

(You wont believe how hard it was to source a film poster of this movie for this review…I ended up using the VHS cover because it was the only “Medium” sized image I could find”)
by tytdreviews

Bob Godfreys Instant Sex (NSFW)

Occasionally doing this show will turn up things that I either wish I didnt learn or something that will alter my own memories in a fundamental way. Thats what happened here with this Bob Godfrey compilation. As a kid I was a massive fan of “Rhubarb and Custard” I had a few video tapes with episodes on and I have very fond memories of sitting on my parents sofa with a big mug of hot chocolate just loving the weird and wonderful art style. those memories are still very firmly ingrained but now when I think of Childrens animator Bob Godfrey Instead of this happy childhood memory being the forefront of my thoughts on the animator. instead I think of shorts like “Henry 9 to 5” or “Biowoman”…

I know quite a few animators from my childhood who were involved in adult cartoons or animations but Godfrey stands out simply because of how unique his drawing style really was. its lively with squiggly line pretty much electrafying anything he put his pen to. it really brings life to his shorts and this compilation set is no exception. to me its what makes them as memorable as they are.

I dont think i’ll be revisiting this set again any time soon. But in many ways I dont think I’ll need to…the plots and style of these shorts are strong enough that there thoroughly embedded in my psyche from now on…So what I will say is if you have fond memories of “Henry’s cat” or “Rhubarb” from your childhood…be prepared to have that fundamentally altered in ways that are irreversable.

(I should think this goes without saying but yeh…this is pretty NSFW…)
by tytdreviews

Love Camp 7 (1969)

“Love Camp 7” is a bit of a strange one really…while I can see the appeal of some of the later Nazisploitation films; This one being held up by the BBFC as a film “Too shocking to release” even in 2018 is really weird to me…I mean it feature by the nazis (But nothing worse than whats in any other Nazisploitation film) It features Rape (But nothing anywhere near as graphic as “I spit on your grave” or “Irriversable”) and for the most part its actually just quite a dull viewing experience…the only angle I can see being played here is that where as most rape revenge films end with the heroine getting her revenge and killing the evil men. This film kind of ends a bit open. its fair to say the Nazi’s get a decent amount of commupence. But from my memories it doesnt end in a definitive way.

Not that I’d actually try to seek out this film even if it did see an official relase. Its a very boring and vanilla title really…As a piece of history its interesting because it still stands as one of the last remaining relics of the “Nasty” era of british home video…but beyond that? meh…I’d still argue that the worst Nasty I’ve see to date was “Cannibal Holocaust” and thats largely because of the real life animal mutilation thats included throughout.

Non the less I managed to secure an australian copy of this film and while the film may not be worth it This review did give me the opportunity to really talk about the “Video Nasty” era of domestic video and it helped me to better improve my own understanding about these kinds of films and just how baffeling some of there choices were…This also served as my first season Finale (I went for a much shorter 12 episode season run at first; rather than the now more typical 18-19 episode season run.)

(Again; It really must be said. a massive amount of these films were sold due to how they marketed the the film poster alone…I mean…Just look at it!)
by tytdreviews

The Dreaded Opening Gambit

Well I should probably make this both brief and somewhat welcoming. but in all honesty im really quite rubbish at introductions. Its something I’ve just never really gotten the hang of in all honesty. In real life I always either overdo it and come across as some grinning swivel eyed loon who just cant let a good silence do its thing. Or Im the diametric opposite; I come across as a little bit aloof and altogether overly cool and distant. More often than not im the former which usually in turn leads to several very clumsy and awkward interactions.

Y’see I suffer from that inherent awkward Britishness that plagues Richard Curtis films so charmingly. But in real life is just a bit peculiar. If we’re meeting for the first time I guarantee you something wont quite land right. From a premature handshake to getting my muddles worded up. To mishearing someone in a conversation and accidentally derailing it…even just standing/sitting in an awkward way. Its always happened and unless im in the other mindset (In which case people think im being purposefully grumpy with them…which I can assure you really isn’t the case) It always will happen.

(Basically this; Except I dont declare my love to everyone and I look like a shaved bottle of Sunny delight)

But you know what. For the most part im okay with this. After being the victim of multiple instances of things just generally being difficult and embarrassing I’ve learnt to just accept and roll with anything that happens on a day to day basis. If things get weird nowadays I either embrace it and double down purposefully making things worse…often turning an awkward moment into something at least partially resembling a humorous one or at minimum I’ll at least try to roll with it and see where things end up. I really have to be put in a very odd situation these days before even I have to throw my hands up and say “Well! I tried!”

In many ways that’s why I enjoy the ability to talk to people through instant messaging, youtube comments and email. It means I can take my time with things, really read whats being said and craft an answer without getting past my opening point and then spending the rest of the conversation coming across like this:

(Okay so Im maybe a bit more coherent than this in conversation…but not much…)

I always try to be as warm as I can with people. Hell if you’ve taken the time to read this, or watch one of my videos or just comment somewhere saying “Hi!” You’ve pretty much made my day already. It means a lot to me that someone would try to reach out in that capacity. That someone would actually put time aside to watch what I produce and feel like they WANTED to talk to me about film, the world or just something random. and while it may take me a little while to get back I almost definately will…

So welcome!, Im sorry in advanced. and I hope sometime you’ll stop by and say “Hi”sometime…

by tytdreviews