The culture vultures among you will know that the wonderfully idiosyncratic Swedish director, Roy Andersson, has just bagged the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival with his new film A Pigeon sat on a branch reflecting on existence. A well-deserved win by all accounts:
If you haven’t had enough of politics, there are some wonderful TV shows which are well worth investigating.
For example, if you really want to know how US politics works, you could do a lot worse that invest in a The West Wing boxset. Drama and human interest brilliantly combined by scripwriter Aaron Sorkin. In a strange case of reality imitating art, the Obama administration actually had an online Big Block of Cheese Day, copying the fictional President Bartlett’s initiative to open the doors of the White House to the public.
Current hit show Veep, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus from Seinfeld offers a far more satirical perspective on the White House.
Talking of satire, the classic British sitcom about politics was Yes Minister (1980 -84) which was followed by Yes Prime Minister (1986-88). Set in Whitehall ,it followed the wheelings and dealings between the hapless Minister of Adminstrative Affairs, Jim Hacker, and devious Whitehall mandarin, Sir Humphrey Appleby. Thatcher was a keen viewer: a dubious testimony to its authenticity.
Armando Ianucci. the genius behind Veep, also wrote the wickedly funny, The Thick of It, a viciously accurate portrait of British political life. With the gloves off. Actor Peter Capaldi became a national anti-hero as Number 10’s psychotic, pitbull-like policy enforcer, Malcolm Tucker.
Sci-fi Anglophiles will know that Capaldi has just taken over the title role in the world’s longest running sci-fi series, BBC’s Dr Who. I feel sorry for those daleks.
Here’s a wonderful spoof trailer which combines the two shows:
The General Election here on Sunday, has meant that valfläsk has been on the menu a lot this week. Literally, that means “election pork”: the rather airy promises that politicians make to get votes. Back in the day, political parties actually used to bribe the electorate with meat.
I can’t think of an equivalent to this expression in British English.
Americans talk about “pork-barrel politics.” That’s the ear-marking of funds to carry out projects which will benefit one particular group in society such as a new bridge or a road. The politician behind such an initiative hopes to be rewarded by the votes of those who have benefitted.
This trend has become so prevalent that certain right-wingers and libertarians have set up a movement to expose the more flagrant examples of government money being used in this way. It’s called (wait for it!): Porkbusters.
UK politicians may not offer election pork but their opponents would argue they are not averse to telling a few porkies.
Porkies? It’s truncated rhyming slang. Porky pies are lies.
